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This is week 4 in the series, Advent: When Hope Invaded the World. In this sermon, we look at the theme of love.
Scriptures: Matthew 1:18-25; Genesis 3:7-11
Short Clip
Hey church, good morning. I hope you’re having a great weekend.
Real quick, by a show of hands, who is living dangerously and still has some Christmas shopping to do?
For those of you around those people, be careful to not get in their way after service, they might be on a mission!
Mommy Time & Daddy Time
As Sara and I have been getting ourselves and our kids adjusted to living in our new home and living in Bluffton, we’ve realized that transitions throw routines and balance out of whack.
Over the last month, we’ve made two moves and have had a lot of things occupy our time.
We’ve had packing, moving into our temporary residence in Ossian, unpacking, repacking, and then moving into our new home. And with that, we’ve had a lot of projects to get done.
And along with those projects has come a lot of time being taken up to get those things done.
And at the same time, we’ve got our two girls and two boys along for the ride so it’s been a bit of a dance to make sure we’re giving them the attention and the time they need.
Two Vs Four
Now, the time and attention thing used to be a little bit easier prior to February 24th, 2018. Because before then, we had our two girls to play with and spend time with.
But when our boys were born, our ability to give the same amount of time and attention to all our kids has gotten harder and harder.
Intentionality
So as the year has gone on, and especially as we’ve been in transition mode and now settling in mode, we’ve recently started to become extra intentional about making sure we are giving each of our kids one-on-one mommy time and one-on-one daddy time.
And when I say one-on-one time, that usually means daddy is on the floor and is embodying a horsey or a tickle monster.
There’s just something about the designated, focused, no-interruptions-allowed time with one kid at a time that speaks immense love to them. It communicates how much they are worth to us. It builds trust in their hearts toward us. And it builds our relationship with them in a deep way.
We all desire connection like that
Now, I don’t tell you that so you’ll think you need to be impressed by us. We have a LONG way to go, but I tell you that because it speaks to what we all crave as human beings—we all crave connection like that.
And today, we’re going to be looking at a passage of Scripture that speaks to this and my hope for us is that as we dive into it and consider all the implications of it, that we would see Jesus afresh. That we would see Him in a new way and that our devotion to Him and our love for Him would increase.
Expectations – God can change a life at anytime
I hope that every week you gather with your church family to worship your King and hear His word be shared that you come with an expectation that God may just do something fresh and new.
In fact, I hope you have an expectation that God will change a life today.
God is here. He is in our midst. He is working on hearts. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the grave is moving in our midst and He may decide to do a work in your life, in another person’s life, in my life.
Do you expect that to happen?
Do you expect God to bring light where there is darkness?
Let’s orient our attention toward Him together and ask Him to move in our midst.
Advent: When Hope Invaded the World
If you have a Bible or a way to access Scripture, go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 1.
We’re in our last week of the series, Advent: When Hope Invaded the World. I pray that God has used this series to grow your hope in Him and your anticipation for His coming.
Matthew chapter 1. Let’s dive in.
Matthew 1:18-19
18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. 19 So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man,and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.
Jewish marriage practices
The wording here, when you look at it closely, can be kind of confusing. In verse 18, Joseph is referred to as the man Mary was engaged to. Then in verse 19, Joseph is referred to as her husband.
At first glance, that seems to be a head scratcher, but something we can’t do when we’re reading Scripture is read our culture into it. We need to read with their cultural customs and practices in mind.
So a quick lesson on Jewish marriage practices…
The way this would typically go for a guy and a gal to be married in the first century Jewish context is the groom would approach the father of the prospective bride and ask him for permission to marry his daughter. If the father agreed, the groom would pay him a mohar, which is a financial amount to cover the loss of income the family would incur by having one less family member working in the household.
The groom and bride would exchange vows and would then be considered married.
HOWEVER, they wouldn’t cohabit for a year and they wouldn’t have consummated the marriage. During this time, the groom would be preparing their living quarters, oftentimes connected to his father’s home. Once that year went by, the groom would surprise the bride and they would have a wedding ceremony and celebration. Then they would consummate the marriage.
And it was during that year, the betrothal, the time when they were kind of married but not married that the Gabriel visited Mary and gave her the news that she was going to become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit and that she was going to give birth to the Son of God.
So the fact that Mary is pregnant before the marriage was consummated was a big no-no. They weren’t supposed to be that close yet.
Joseph’s struggle
So you can imagine the struggle Joseph was having with the discovery that Mary was pregnant. You can imagine the questions that were swirling around in his mind.
And we can see what his plan was. After he considered the situation, after he gave it a lot of thought, he decided that the best course of action was to secretly end their engagement/marriage.
Matthew 1:20-21
20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Joseph’s world — flipped upside-down
So Joseph has his whole world seemingly being flipped upside-down. The girl he thought he was going to marry? That wasn’t going to be.
And he lays his head down to get some rest and that’s when his world is flipped upside-down again and he is visited by an angel in his dream.
Joseph’s fears
Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid…
What do you think Joseph was afraid of?
Ridicule? Maybe he was afraid of being looked at as a man lacking integrity and devotion to God. Maybe he was afraid of being questioned everywhere he went with Mary as she was clearly pregnant while they were still waiting to be officially married.
Was he afraid of the thought of betrayal? Maybe he was afraid of the possibility that Mary was unfaithful to him and this baby’s father was some other man’s.
Did he think she was flat-out lying to him? Maybe. But the thing is, he doesn’t seem to want to end this relationship with any kind of show. He didn’t want to get back at her for what he thought she might have done, it seems.
Or did he think she was going crazy? I mean, how many times do we hear someone claiming that the baby they are carrying is the Son of God? When she told him that she was visited by an angel and that angel told her that the Holy Spirit was going to do a mighty work and she was going to become pregnant, what did he think?
Unfortunately, we don’t know. But you can imagine that for him to make the decision to break things off with Mary, he probably didn’t buy her story.
But the angel encourages him
But then the angel shows up and clarifies what is going on in his life.
The angel affirms what Mary likely told him and even gives him some more details about what this baby was going to do.
Name Him Jesus—He is going to save His people from their sins
His name is Jesus and He is going to save His people from their sins.
Jesus’ arrival, an indictment on us
The reality is, Jesus’ arrival is an indictment on us. His coming is a declaration that we are sinners. His coming is a siren telling us that we are in a mess that is beyond our ability to repair.
Jesus’ arrival, a revelation about God
But while Jesus’ arrival is an indictment on us, it’s also a revelation about God—He wants to save us. He doesn’t want us to continue being people who have no hope. He doesn’t want us to continue down the sin-stained path that we’ve been on.
He loves us so much that He set up the ultimate rescue mission. He put on flesh and dwelt among us.
But Matthew goes on. There’s more to this.
Matthew 1:22-23
22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 See, the virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will name him Immanuel,
which is translated “God is with us.”
What is happening is something men and women of God have longed to see happen for centuries. And now, God is making it happen.
Jesus is that son. And that son, a title of his is Immanuel—God with us.
Why we need God with us
And we need God with us. We need Immanuel.
And we used to have it. But we ruined it.
Genesis 3:7-11
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Do you see what happened when sin entered in the world?
Adam and Eve were exposed. Not just physically, but they were exposed as sinners. And what did they do?
They hid.
Their sin drove them to feel shame and that drove them to hide.
And ever since then, sin has driven us to the shadows.
He was hiding—Needed shoes and clothes
Back in November as I was getting things wrapped up at the church I served at before coming to FCC, I was coming back to the office around lunch time when I saw a guy walking through the grass, around one of the buildings, and making a b-line for me.
He appeared to be homeless and quickly told me that he was. He asked for help getting shoes and clothes.
And that began an afternoon I wasn’t expecting.
That happens a lot in ministry.
So I invite him into my car and he warns me of his smell. I told him don’t worry about it. Let’s get you some clothes.
For the next couple hours, we drove to a few different places, getting him some clothes, some boots, some socks, and some food.
I asked him questions, trying to understand his situation. He told me that he was a few days clean from Crystal Meth and that he came out of the woods because he didn’t want to give up on life.
He has kids.
But he also has an addiction that has lasted since he was a young adult.
He told me that he has tried to go to rehab and that some of them wouldn’t take him.
He asked to be dropped off at his grandmother’s home and I agreed to do that for him.
For him, his addiction had driven him to isolation. Over and over and over again, he would be living in the woods. His sin had driven him to the shadows of society.
Now, I may not be addicted to Crystal Meth, but the reality is, there is something we all have an addiction to.
And that is called sin.
And sin always drives us to hiding. It has ever since sin entered Eden.
And that’s why we need God with us
And that is exactly why we need God with us. That is why we need Immanuel. Why we need Jesus.
We need the God who will stoop down on our level and be with us because it is only by His power and His grace that we have any hope of being released from the stronghold of sin.
We need the God who, out of love, relentlessly pursues us and offers us mercy and life.
But real quick, let’s see what Joseph did in response to his angel-infused dream.
Matthew 1:24-25
24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her 25 but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.
What a sign of faithfulness and obedience!
God clearly knew what he was doing when he chose Mary and Joseph to bring the Son of God into the world as a helpless newborn baby. A baby that would need to be held, hugged, fed, and protected.
These Two Points—Salvation from Sins & God With Us
The two points we see in this passage are the foundation of the gospel message.
We are enemies of God, sinners against a holy God, rebellious creations of the Almighty Creator.
But while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We are people who crave connection. We are hardwired to crave a connection that no relationship on this earth will satisfy. We are hardwired to crave a connection that is supernatural.
We are hardwired to crave the love of God, the presence of God.
And the Good News Is That
Yes, we are weak, but we are loved by the God of all strength.
Yes, we are broken, but we are pursued by the God who knows how to rebuild us.
Yes, we are sinful, but He is named Jesus and He is going to save His people from their sins.
Yes, we are often in hiding, but we are loved by Immanuel, God with us.
What I Believe We Can See in Joseph’s Dream is That
Jesus’ arrival is both an indictment on humanity and a setup for the acquittal of humanity.
Jesus came to save sinners. You and I. He came to be with us. He came to rescue us and to adopt us into the family of God.
He came to give us eternal life. He came to call us to surrender in complete allegiance to Him.
Surrender or Re-Surrender
So maybe this is a defining moment for some of us today.
Maybe you’ve been drifting from the anchor of your faith.
Maybe you’ve attended church for a long time, but have never surrendered your life to Christ.
Maybe you’re like I was as a teenager, someone who didn’t grow up in church and all this is new to you.
No matter where you find yourself today, the call is the same — Christ calls us to surrender to Him.
And if you’re there. If you have done that, then let today be a moment of holy remembrance and thank Him for what He has done in your life. Look back to who you were before God changed your life. And thank Him for His faithfulness.
When I GOT This
When I finally got this, when I finally realized that I’m not a good person and that I’m a wretched sinner who needs a Savior… When my life confronted me with my insufficiencies, it was then that I met the all-sufficient Savior.
It was then that I experienced freedom. It was then that I could be brought out of darkness and out of hiding, and be brought into the light.
God Stooped Low—One-on-One
The best day of my life was when it clicked that God cared enough to get on my level and be WITH me.
To walk through the pain of this life with me.
To walk through the difficult decisions of life with me.
To walk with Sara and me as we strive to love each other and to parent our kids in a way that honors God.
To hear me as I talk to Him.
To comfort me when I’m overwhelmed.
My friend, God so loves you that He stopped what He was doing, and got on our level.
He is like the mom or the dad having one-on-one time with their kids. But He is able to not just do that in moments with us, but for all time.
He is God with us. Always.
Meet Immanuel, Jesus
If God is pulling at your heart, don’t ignore that.
I’m going to be up front here and if you would like to talk about what it looks like to surrender your life to Jesus, I’d love to talk to you about that.
If He is calling, don’t ignore it.
