Landon Coleman
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Merry Christmas: Jesus Is Born (Matthew)
If you have a copy of the Scriptures close by, I would ask you to open to the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1. Chris mentioned earlier there's an outline in the bulletin where you can follow along. We're going to read a few verses from Matthew chapter 1 together. Let me just say a few things up front before we jump in. Chris noted that we're together in one service, somebody's probably in your seat. All Baptist jokes aside, I know that you get used to sitting in a certain spot, and I want you to know that I get used to you sitting in a certain spot. And so when I look around the room and you're not in your seat, it's a little disorienting for me as well. So we'll make it through this morning. We do have kids in the room, there's no nursery this morning or next week. I had lunch with somebody who was new to our church just this last week, somebody with young kids, and he talked about the experience of visiting other churches that were not always welcoming for young children. And we talked about the fact that there are churches in this town, in every town, where you can go where there are no children making noise. And we do not want to be that church. And we're glad that these kids are here, and we know that moms and dads, when there's no nursery, it's hard to wrestle your kiddos. We're glad that you're here. We have a cry room, you're welcome to step out in the foyer, but if your kid makes noise, nobody's going to be bothered by that. This morning, we are going to eat lunch. When we're done with worship this morning, we hope that you'll stay. If you brought food or you didn't bring food, you're welcome, we'll have plenty for everybody. And I have it on good authority that about five minutes before church started, the dessert area looked amazing. So we'll get there soon enough. This morning, we are breaking from the Book of Romans. So those of you who are part of our normal Sunday morning crew, you know that we've been working through the Book of Romans. We've made it all the way through the end of chapter seven. And when we come back in the new year, the first Sunday in January, we're going to pick up with Romans chapter eight, and we're going to press on all the way through Romans 11 by the time we break for the summer. So we'll pick up right where we left off with Romans. This morning, we're going to begin a Christmas sermon series. I know it's not Thanksgiving yet. I know some of you don't have your tree up yet or your lights up, but we're going to start Christmas this morning. And the series is titled Merry Christmas. Jesus is born. And we're going to spend one week in Matthew, one week in Mark, one week in Luke, one week in John, and then we'll spend one week in Philippians, and one week in Hebrews talking about the miracle of the incarnation. And this morning, our passage is Matthew chapter one. We're going to pick up in verse 18, and we're going to read through the end of this first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. So you can follow along in your copy of the Scriptures as I read. This is the word of the Lord. It says, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. And his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. For ever O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Father, we thank you that in the fullness of time you sent your only son to save us from our sins. Jesus, we're thankful that in the fullness of time you humbled yourself by being born as a man, born as a servant, born to die. Holy Spirit, we're thankful that in the fullness of time you created life in Mary's womb, a life that was destined to end in a sacrificial death so that we might have life. Lord, we pray this morning that you would help us today and over the end of this year to know and to see and to believe the truth about Jesus, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to start just to give you a little bit of background information about the book of Matthew, we're only spending one week in this gospel, and so I think it's helpful for you to know a little bit about Matthew the book and what we're reading in Matthew chapter 1. So there are four gospel accounts of Jesus' life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often called the synoptic gospels. That word synoptic literally means together, sin, optic, they see. They see the story of Jesus together. They follow the same basic chronology of events in Jesus' life. At points, they are word for word identical. Somebody has copied somebody in the transmission of these documents, and they generally tell the story of Jesus from the same perspective. Tradition tells us that Mark was the first to write, Mark, we're told from the earliest church fathers got his gospel account, not because he was one of the twelve, he wasn't, he got his gospel account from Peter, who was the leader of the twelve. And then tradition tells us that Matthew and Luke picked up Mark's gospel, used large portions of it, took some parts away, added some of their own emphases, and there we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew is unique in that Matthew is the only gospel that begins with the genealogy. Now when we get to Luke, we'll see that Luke has a genealogy, but that's not where he starts. Matthew begins with this genealogy, and the important thing about the names at the first part of Matthew chapter one is not that you pronounce all of them correctly, but it's that you understand that Jesus is the offspring of Abraham, and Jesus is the offspring of David. He's the son of Abraham, and he's the son of David. If you look at Matthew 1-1, the gospel opens with these words, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and that name Christ is not technically a name, it's a title, it's a Greek word that translates the Hebrew word Messiah. And so when you read in the Bible about Jesus the Christ or Jesus the Messiah, what the authors of Scripture are saying to you is that Jesus is the one. He is the one promised and prophesied about in the Old Testament, the one that God promised he would send to save his people from their sins. Jesus is the Christ, he's the Messiah. That promise began in Eden with the Lord promising Adam and Eve that someday someone would come to crush the serpent's head. That promise was passed down to Abraham, and the Lord said to Abraham through your family, all of the families of the earth will receive blessing. That promise was passed down to David, and the Lord promised David that he would never lack a man to sit on the throne, that a king would come from his line who would reign forever. And that promise was continued as we'll see this morning through the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. So Matthew begins with this genealogy. Matthew tells his story from the perspective of Joseph. So when we get to the Gospel of Luke, we'll note that Luke tells the story from Mary's perspective. Matthew tells it from Joseph's perspective. And to be honest with you, what we have in the opening chapters of Matthew were really all that we know about Joseph. He disappears from the timeline, from the story of Jesus' life. Some people speculate that he had passed away during Jesus' growing up years. He's not present at the end of Jesus' life, but he's present here, and he's presented as a righteous man who loves the Lord and wants to honor the Lord. Last, Matthew is the only gospel that mentions the visit of the Magi or the kings, and he's the only gospel author that includes the story of Joseph taking his family to Egypt. And I point this out to you simply to say that when Matthew tells these stories, the point that he's trying to make is that all of these things in the birth of Jesus took place to fulfill Scripture. These promises and these prophecies and these words from the Lord that someday someone would come who would set right all of the wrongs that we know in this world. All of those promises and all of those promises were fulfilled in Jesus. So here's the big idea of our text this morning, very simple. Jesus is a manual, and he was born to save us from our sins. Jesus is a manual, and he was born to save us from our sins. Each week in this series, we want to think about one truth about who Jesus is this morning we're thinking about this idea that he's a manual. And each week in this series, we want to focus in on one thing that Jesus came to do. One thing that he came to accomplish, and the emphasis here in Matthew is that Jesus is a manual, and he came to save us from our sins. So I want to talk to you briefly about names. I want you to think about names in your family, names of friends, of people that you know. I remember when I was a college student, I attended West Texas A&M University in Canyon up in the panhandle. My very last semester, I had one last English class. I should have taken it earlier, but it was just one of those classes that never got scheduled. And so I took this last English class my last semester, and I had one of the most interesting professors I've ever had. On the first day of class, he came into the room, and he called Roll to make sure that everyone was there and accounted for, and everyone who was there was on the roll. And as he went through the roll, he would call your name, and you would raise your hand, and you would say here. And then he would tell you, I think this was off the cuff. Maybe he prepared it, but he's a really smart guy. He just told us off the cuff, the etymology, and the background in the meaning of our name. And he just went right down the list, and he told everyone, you know, your name comes from this language, your name comes from this root, here's what it means. And so he came to me, he said, "Landing Coleman," I said, "Here." He said, "Do you know what your name means?" And I said, "I do." And he said, "Your name means Tall Hill." Tall Hill. And he said, "Where were you born?" And I said, "Right here in Amarillo." And he said, "Why did your parents name you Tall Hill?" And I said, "I think it had very little to do with the geography of the Texas panhandle. And I think it had more to do with the TV show called "Little House on the Prairie," and the lead actor who was Michael Landen, and my mother liked that name. And he said, "Fair enough." Now, here's the thing when it comes to Americans and names. We don't usually pick names based primarily on the meaning of a name. Now you might fact check a name, you might settle on a name and say, "Let's make sure it doesn't mean something that we don't want it to mean." But usually that's not the primary factor for Americans. When Americans pick names, maybe you pick a family name. We've done that and our family, all of our kids have names that connect with our family somewhere. Maybe you pick a Bible name and you go down names from scripture and you use those for your kids. Maybe you pick something unusual. Maybe you try to pick a name that no one else has, or maybe you're one of those people that is cruel to your children, and you pick a familiar name, and you invent some ridiculous spelling for that name. And for the rest of their life, no one knows how to pronounce their name, no one knows how to spell it. Maybe you pick something trendy, maybe you pick something famous from a famous athlete or a movie star or whatever. These are the reasons we tend to pick names. Usually we don't pick names based on their meaning. Now it's interesting when you read the Bible, names and the meaning of names is often very, very, very important. I'll just give you a few examples from the scriptures. Abram, who then became Abraham. His name meant originally exalted father and he had no children. And when the Lord began to make promises to him, he told him to change his name to Abraham, which doesn't just mean exalted, noble, dignified father, but it means father of a multitude. And changing his name to father of a multitude was an act of faith, signifying that Abraham believed that the Lord would cause a great multitude to come from his line. Maybe you think about Esau and Jacob, the twin brothers. Esau was born first, he was covered in hair, so they literally named him Harry, Esau. Jacob was born second, he was clinging or clenching his brother's heel. And so they named him clinger on or deceiver or trick store, one who's always trying to get ahead. And both of these names played out in the story of these brothers. Do you remember the story of Nabal and David? It's an obscure story from the Old Testament. Nabal literally means fool, and he was foolish for trying to start a fight with David. And I've read the story of Nabal and David and Abigail and how she fits into the story many times, and I've thought somewhere along the way, someone named this baby, fool. And it played out in his life, it proved true of him. You think about Naomi, you think about Naomi who lost her husband, who had great tragedy in her family, and when she moved back to Israel, she changed her name Tamara, which means bitter. And she said, "Life has been bitter to me," and she wanted that to signify something about her and her experience and who she was. You think about Simon, and Jesus said, "No longer are you going to be called Simon, but you're going to be called Peter, rock, and on this rock I intend to build my church." Bible names often have meaning and significance, and they're chosen for a reason. The same thing is true about God in the Bible. God doesn't just identify himself as God on the pages of Scripture, but he uses a variety of names and titles to teach us who he is. He calls himself Elohim, the one true God, the high God, the creator God. He refers to himself as El Shaddai, the Almighty, the one who can do anything. He calls himself Yahweh Raffa, the Lord who heals, Yahweh Jairah, the Lord who provides, Yahweh Sabahoth, one of my favorite names, the Lord of Hosts, the one who rules and reigns and leads the armies of heaven. All of these names teach you something about who God is, and here's what we find in Matthew chapter 1. Matthew is telling you a story, and there's things about Jesus that you can learn from the story. But woven into that story are names and titles that Matthew wants you to understand. And he wants you to understand these names and these titles so that you know who Jesus is, and you understand why it's important that he was born. And so the question we want to ask this morning is a simple one. What does Matthew want us to know about Jesus? I have three truths for you to see. Number one, Jesus was truly human and truly God. Truly human and truly God. We'll take each of these in turn. Look at Matthew chapter 1. Matthew 1 verse 18 says, "The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Mary was a human woman, and she found herself to be pregnant with a child, with a baby." And this baby was born, we read about that in verse 21. She will bear a son, a son. Verse 23, "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son." Verse 25, "Joseph did not know her until she had given birth to a son." And he called his name Jesus. It's truly human. It's not just God pretending to be a human being. He's not just God dressing up as a human for Halloween, as it were. It's not just God with this external facade of humanity, but Jesus was truly human, yet a human nature. And yet, the scripture says in Matthew 1 and elsewhere that he was also truly God. He was not only human, he was one person, Jesus of Nazareth, with the human nature and the divine nature. We see this in Matthew chapter 1 verse 18, "The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit." This was a miraculous conception of this baby. He wasn't conceived in the normal human means of conception. Look at verse 23. This is a quote from Isaiah 7 that says, "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel." And Matthew knows that you may not be all up on your Hebrew, and so he translates Immanuel for you. But it means God with us, God with us. This is the essence of what we celebrate at Christmas. We celebrate Christmas as Christians. We are not just celebrating the birth of a baby, but we're celebrating the birth of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, truly human and truly God, the God-Man. There are many people today who claim to be Christians, and they are embarrassed by the supernatural elements of what we just read in Matthew 1. They say those sorts of things can't happen. We are enlightened, scientific people. We know better. That sort of stuff is myth, it's superstition, it's silliness, it's old-timey stories. Look, Jesus was just a really nice guy. He was a good teacher, and he was born, and he lived, and he taught us how to get along with each other. If we would just listen to him, we would all get along so much better. And that's all that he was. He was a great teacher. He wants us to get along. They take all the supernatural elements out of this story. I would just submit to you that we need more than someone to come teach us how to get along. Some of you are about to take the children in this room on a road trip this week. And those kids are going to be in the back seat of the car. And at some point, you're going to turn around and say something aggressive. I don't know what you're going to say, I maybe shouldn't quote you this morning with the kids here in the room, they'll hear it in a few days, but you're going to say to those kids, "Hey, knock it off, get along, quit doing that, stop." And it's not going to make one bit of difference. Maybe for a little while, but it's not going to change anything in their heart. Listen, if Jesus only came to tell us how to be nice to each other, he left our deepest problems untouched. The truth is that this story is supernatural. It is miraculous. The mystery of the incarnation is perhaps the great miracle in all of Scripture. How is it that God can become man, truly man, without ceasing to be God, truly human and truly divine? It's the miracle, it's the mystery of the incarnation, and it is essential for your salvation. Because in the fullness of time when Jesus Christ hung on a cross, he had to be truly God to bear the full weight of the punishment that our sin deserved. No mere human could bear that weight. And he had to be truly human, we'll see on the very last Sunday of this series, he had to be truly human to take our place and to be our substitute. Matthew tells us unashamedly, Jesus was truly human and truly God. Secondly, Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy. He was the fulfillment of many prophecies. But the prophecy at view in Matthew chapter 1 is a prophecy from Isaiah chapter 7, Isaiah 7. If your Bible is open, you might just flip to Isaiah 7, and we're going to read a few verses in just a moment, Isaiah 7. This story in Isaiah 7 took place about the year 720 B.C. You understand, that's a long time before Jesus was born, an awful long time before Jesus was born. The two main people involved in Matthew 7 are a king named Ahaz, who was a wicked king, and a prophet named Isaiah, who wrote the book that we're reading. And there was an army marching towards Judah and towards the northern kingdom of Israel, and this army was the Assyrian army, and this army would eventually conquer the northern kingdom of Judah. And wrapped up in this story in Isaiah 7, there's a promise of judgment. God is determined to send the northern kingdom of exile, the capital of Samaria into exile. God has made that determination, there's a promise that judgment is coming. There's also a promise about a baby to be born. In the end of Isaiah 7, the birth of this baby is intended to signify that judgment is coming. What was that baby's name? You might just jump and say it was Jesus, but in the immediate context, this was the baby's name. This is the longest name in the Bible, Mahar Shalal Hashbas. If you have a kid on the way, you might just jot this down and you want an unusual name and a Bible name, you can check two boxes at the same time. Mahar Shalal Hashbas, a long Hebrew name. What does it mean? What's the meaning of it? It means quick to the spoils. Quick to the spoils. And what the Lord was saying through Isaiah is that this Assyrian army is going to come and they are going to conquer the northern kingdom. They will flatten them and devastate them and they will haul off the spoil of war. And the sign that this will happen is that a young woman, an Alma in Hebrew, will conceive and bear a child. And that young woman in Isaiah 7 was Isaiah's wife. She had a baby and it was a sign of the prophecy that came through Isaiah. But then if you keep reading, if you keep reading past Isaiah 7 to Isaiah 8 to Isaiah 9, the prophet is still talking about this baby. And it becomes clear that his baby, Isaiah's son, was not the final full fulfillment of this prophecy. What Isaiah says in Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace." And not talking about Maharshelal Hashbas. He was the immediate fulfillment of the prophecy in real time. But like most biblical prophecies, there was an ultimate fulfillment still to come and it was the birth of none other than Jesus of Nazareth, this child who would carry the weight one day of the government on his shoulders, who would be known as the wonderful counselor of the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the prince of peace. Matthew is connecting these dots, and he quotes Isaiah 7, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name a manual." To help you see that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy. He's truly human and truly God. He's the fulfillment of prophecy. Number three, He's born to save us from our sins. He's born to save us from our sins. Jesus was not born simply to tell us how to be nice to each other. Now you know what? While He was here, He did that. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but that wasn't the primary reason that He came. He did not come just so that we would have a nice holiday at the end of our calendar year, and He wasn't born simply so that we would have a reason to exchange gifts and drink eggnog, the primary reason that Jesus was born, that God became man, and dwelt among us was that He might save us from our sins. Look at Matthew chapter 1 verse 21, "She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. A manual will be a title, God with us, but his name will be Jesus, a Hebrew name that means Yahweh saves." Yahweh saves. He heals, Yahweh the Lord of hosts, Yahweh who provides, Yahweh who saves. You will call his name Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins. Verse 24, "Joseph woke from sleep. He did exactly as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife. He knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus." Many of you know that the book of Isaiah is actually bracketed by two of the greatest prophecies in all of the Old Testament. If your Bible is open, would you just turn to Isaiah 52 and 53? I'm not going to put these verses on the screen. I'd love for you to read them out of your copy of the Scriptures if you're able. Isaiah begins with this great vision of the Lord in chapter 6 and a prophecy about the birth of a baby in chapter 7 and 8 and 9. By the time you work your way almost to the end of Isaiah, Isaiah 52 and 53, we read a prophecy, the greatest, clearest, longest Old Testament prophecy about the crucifixion of Jesus and all of the Old Testament. I just like to read 12 of these verses with you. I'll begin in Isaiah 53 1, "Who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before it shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked, with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied, by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. Jesus is the offspring of the woman. He's a manual God with us. He's the fulfillment of Isaiah 7 and 9, and he's the fulfillment of the suffering servant chapter in Isaiah 53, the one who suffered and died for our sins. Holy Man, truly God, the fulfillment of prophecy, the one who came to save us from our sins. This morning we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. When Christians take the Lord's Supper together, we're really doing two things. Number one, we are remembering. Built into the instructions that Jesus gave his disciples was the idea of remembering. We do this in remembrance of Jesus. We remember our sin, and we remember that Jesus was born and that he lived and that he died for the forgiveness of our sins. Not only do we remember, we also give thanks. That's why we always take the Lord's Supper together on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, because the Lord's Supper originally in early church history was called the Eucharist, from a Greek verb Eucharisto, to give thanks. When we gather around the Lord's table, not one of us is coming to the Lord's table saying, "Jesus, look how good I've been over the last week or 24 hours or month, but we're coming as sinners, people who have fallen short, people who have gone astray, people who are laden down with iniquity, and we are coming to give thanks that Jesus died to save us." The Lord's Supper called the Eucharist, it means Thanksgiving. What are we giving thanks for? Number one, in the Lord's Supper, we give thanks to God for wanting to be with His people. You understand that Jesus is a manual, God with us, so that in the end, we can be with God. We see that in the book of Revelation, that His people will be with Him forever. They will be His people, He will be their God. The Lord wants to be with His people. Secondly, in the Lord's Supper, we give thanks to God for keeping His promises. Look, we've just talked about two this morning, Isaiah 7, 8, 9, and Isaiah 52 and 53, but there are many, many more promises, many more prophecies, and the Lord has been faithful to keep His Word. He promised to send to Savior, and He did it. And when we take the Lord's Supper, we're mindful that God, for many, many years, promised to send to Savior, and He did it, and we're thankful. Number three, in the Lord's Supper, not to be redundant, but we give thanks to God for saving us from our sins. But to ourselves, Isaiah said, "We have all gone astray, like sheep." Isaiah says, "We've turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." We thank Jesus for saving us from our sins. This morning, we're going to remember the death of Jesus. We're going to give thanks for the death of Jesus. If you are a believer, a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, someone who is repented of your sin and put your faith in the Lord Jesus, and if you've been obedient to the Lord's command to be baptized upon a profession of faith, then we invite you to celebrate the Lord's Supper with us this morning. I'm going to ask our men to come forward, our elders and our deacons. I'm going to ask our band to come, and I'm going to ask you to join me as we pray. Father, this morning, we thank You that You loved us while we were still sinners. We thank You for keeping Your promise to send to Savior. Jesus, this morning, we're thankful that You humbled Yourself, and You were born as a man, as a baby. You lived a life as a servant. You humbled Yourself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Spirit, this morning, we're thankful for the miracle of the incarnation. Father, we thank You for sending Your Spirit to give us life when we were dead and our sins gone astray like lost sheep. Lord, we pray that You would be honored this morning as we remember the death of the Lord Jesus, and as we give thanks for the salvation that He secured. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.