09122021 The Roayl Birth Mike Kellett

are we done paul said yeah it's good to see everybody go ahead and turn in your bibles to matthew uh chapter 1 verse 18 and we're going to cover a lot of material today so hang with me it's good to see everybody here thank you for being with us this morning uh and i've been drinking a lot of water lately thank you for that some prayers for me uh uh i appreciate it so much i battled a uh a little bout there of uh kidney stone and i got all kinds of advice from people what to drink and not drink and do and not do and somebody said it was as close as a man would come to feeling like what a woman feels when she gives childbirth and i said the difference is a few months later she'll say i'll do that again but i but the man's going to say no i i don't want any more so uh this morning as we get started i'm gonna ask townes taylor to come up and he's gonna read our scripture for us this morning matthew 1 23 the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him emmanuel which means god with us thank you excellent towns great job towns appreciate that so very very much you did a great job by the way i know he's a baseball fan towns i'm a baseball fan appreciate that and uh he's a big astros fan there and loves the game and his dad's a fan we're not going to talk about the other sports team his dad likes because this is a pulpit of mercy those that know him will understand that well um last week al explained who matthew was and why he wrote this royal lineage and this book to a jewish audience talking about the king of kings and every time you see the word in matthew the word kingdom i want you to think of the word rain not what comes from the sky but what rules over somebody a kingdom right king reigns so every time you see the word kingdom think rain seek first his kingdom see and then also what's that mean that's going to be talking about how he reigns over your life you don't have to worry about what you eat or drink or how you drink because you're in the kingdom and the king rules and reigns your life and so you're going to see that over and over again in this deal so he talked about that royal lineage and what led that joseph's lineage actually which actually came from david and how that was royal and what that uh brought into action here is joseph uh who leads his family now matthew writes concerning this birth of this king and here's an interesting thing by the way i think it's really important to know he's writing a jewish audience so what's been their bible all their lives the old testament right and so matthew takes at this time he reaches back into the old testament with one hand pulls it up to say here's what's happening now and with his other hand points to the promise of the book that gives us hope for eternal life those things written before time were written for our learning that we might have hope paul wrote in the book of romans and so matthew does is understanding who his audience is that's why you're going to also see he talks a lot about the fulfillment of old testament prophecies matter of fact even in this section we're going to look at as he points to the old testament he's going to use like matthew 1 23 it's going to be a prophecy a prophecy out of isaiah 7. matthew chapter 2 5 and 6 prophecy out of micah 5. chapter 2 verse 15 hosea 11 chapter 2 verse 17 and 18 jeremiah 31 so he the the writer matthew's brilliant in how he does this because he understands the jewish audience and so now he's piling on the weight things that they consider weighty the old testament to say this is what's happening god planned it but you know they always had a problem understanding this thing about the king and the kingdom and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit so let's look a little bit about joseph normally you hear this text preached at christmas and i appreciate that very very much but we're going to talk about it more than at christmas and yeah i mean if you want to send a gift to my wife feel free to but uh this is not the christmas time okay first let's look at matthew 1 18-25 i just want to read it and we'll talk about in this section joseph and the birth of the king this is how the birth of jesus christ came about his mother mary was pledged or betrothed to be married to joseph but before they came together she was found to be with child through the holy spirit now this betrothal by the way was a legal thing it wasn't just like our engagements that we have it was actually a legal contract that they have and it typically lasted in those families about a year before that she would actually move out of her house and then and then consummate the marriage with her husband and so he may even be called husband during this time but uh the the marriage hadn't totally happened yet but they're betrothed or pledged and because joseph but she uh uh found uh to be with child through the holy spirit that's problematic right off the bat i mean which one of you are going to believe that if you're engaged into your girlfriend and she comes and says hey look i'm pregnant and you know you haven't been together and she says don't worry it's the holy spirit well i'm not sure if i would believe that although it did happen one time but because joseph her husband now look here's what he says was a righteous man think about this some virgins say he's a just man so if he is a jewish righteous man what kind of man is he he's he's a psalm 1 man let me just flip back and read real quick blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sets in the sea the mockers his delight is in the law of the lord and his and on his law he meditates day and night he's like a tree planted by strings of water which yields its fruit in season whose leaf does not wither whether he whatever he does prospers verse 6 of psalm 1. for the lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way the wicked will perish he's this kind of man he's a just a righteous guy he wants to do the right thing his roots go deep down into the old testament the word of god because he's a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace he had in mind to divorce her quietly he cared for the woman he loved this woman and even though the law said he could put her away he didn't want to make a spectacle out of he wanted to take care even cared for her shame while thinking that she had done something shameful hey girls y'all find a guy like this marry him it's a good man but after he had considered this now basically he's already made up his mind to do it he's just trying to okay which way am i going to do this how's this going to take place an angel of the lord appeared to him in a dream now by the way uh three more times in our text today he's gonna get dreams i don't know that he ever had one from the lord before but he's gonna get an angel and a dream three more times so he has an angel comes to me in a dream and says joseph son of david do not be afraid to take mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the holy spirit she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name jesus because he will save his people from their sins he'll save the people from their sins all this took place to fulfill what the lord had said through the prophet here he goes matthew pulls out reaches back and pulls the old testament into it the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him emmanuel which means god with us and when joseph woke up he did what the angel of the lord had commanded him and took mary home as his wife but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him and he gave him the name jesus a righteous man not wanting to put her in the shame and all of a sudden has this angel communicate to him and by the way i love this it tells about his character since his character was a godly character when he listened and had a message from god he took action and obeyed it and i love that about him and he's going to do that several more times in our text this is the kind of guy he is so this consideration of his mind to think about this the consideration of his mind is changed by the communication of his god i hope i can be as open to the message of god and his holy spirit which he's given us right here in this book by the way i hope i can be open to this message of god to change maybe what i've considered in the past to make me where i'm obedient to god shame on us for believing the same old thing the same old way uh forever without ever challenging our own beliefs with the word of god so he got god's communication and he obeyed it even though that really wasn't what he had planned so this angel thing as i mentioned is going to become a habit in his life now his obedience reflected his faith he did what was right but now think about this when he took her he did what was right but what did he know was going to happen what's everybody else thinking he did what was right knowing he would be shamed by those around him and she would be too and he'd have to protect her in that because he knew everybody was going to talk everybody's going to say are you kidding that ain't joseph's or they're going to say yeah that joseph the guy you thought was justin right yeah look what happened she ended up pregnant before they ever got married you think that's an action of a righteous man by the way it's not and in our culture we need to understand it's not we've kind of lost the idea of what's right and wrong sometimes it's not right to sleep together before you're married can i just say that out loud clear make that good and understood righteous people don't do that no it's not right and people who claim to be right with god that's not a righteous thing but what does he do he takes the shame of it as if it had happened to him when it didn't and takes her to be his wife now joseph and his son he gives the name jesus because he'll save his people from their sins let's talk about this for just this isn't the kind of king the jews were looking for remember they're looking for a king that's going to restore the kingdom and they're thinking their nation of israel they're thinking the jewish king they're not thinking we're going to get a king that's going to save us from our sins even though the old testament prophet said that that's not what they were thinking so all of a sudden that that becomes a different message and then jesus is going to fight that battle with them all along in his ministry because they trying to correct their concept of the kingdom of god emmanuel god with us who's the us it's all of us in isaiah 53 he says he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities who's the hour that's mankind that's you that's me why is this important because from the old testament on god was pushing the boundaries out saying that this king that's going to come is not about being king over just the physical jews or the physical israel that existed there it wasn't about that we still got that messed up it's not about him being king over a physical nation called israel he makes it clear by the prophecies he's dying for our iniquities god with us it's all of us it's my sin it's your sin that he died for so when god became flesh an amazing thing that god would choose to become human for us and by the way i remember one time i was studying with a guy in the bible and i was explaining the gospel and i was going through the incarnation and he and i said would you uh would you send your child uh uh to uh to to the earth to die for uh for the sins of someone who had just raped and murdered her would you would you give your son for that guy that did that and the guy said i give my son i was shocked i said what do you mean oh yeah if i was going to get my son back just like i had him before he said that's all god did god said jesus got him back just like it nothing ever happened i said you don't understand the incarnation see there paul says there's only one man that's our mediator the man christ jesus when he rose up out of the ground his body came out of the ground and that man went back to heaven to sit there as our mediator that ascension guarantees us we have one of our own on the throne so he is a man so something happened i don't understand it all but something changed when he became flesh he changed something about him for eternity the sacrifice didn't just take place at the cross it took place at the incarnation a change happened just stick that one in your box and think about it okay god from the beginning meant jesus to be the king and savior of all men not just physical israel and in his ministry he keeps running up against this but now let's look in chapter two after jesus was born in bethlehem and judea during the time of king herod uh is this he's a beaut by the way if you ever read in history about him uh magi from the east came to jerusalem and asked where is the one who's been born king of the jews we saw his star in the east and we've come to worship him okay now we're not going to read the entire text but you know typically the story right now i know it messes up our christmas stuff because we've seen things we've seen things like we three they're not kings they're not kings nowhere in the bible to say they're kings well if so what nations are the kings we can't find it in history anywhere the magi are wise men in fact sometimes it refers to wise men and priests and how many of them are there by the way now i've already got you scared in a lot of answering i get it you know uh three we don't know we we usually say three because of the gifts that were given right but look uh like one writer said uh if one of your little figurines on the shelf if one of your wise men fall off and break don't feel like you got to rush down to the store and replace him to get the story right okay two still plural it's all right but the magi they come and they're seeking this child and they st and and and the star leads them and they go through uh and have a little meeting with king herod and now he does not want the king of kings born anywhere because he's king and he's feeling pretty threatened by the stuff that's happening but these three guys they come and and and by the time they visit jesus by the way if you'll notice here uh let's see uh in verse 10 uh when they saw the star they were overjoyed and on coming to the what house he's not in he's not in the manger he's not out where the cows are he's not in the barn a matter of fact by the way he's almost you're probably a year old by this time i know that messes up your nativity scene but you know they saw the child and his mother mary and they bowed down and worshiped him then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and incense and a myrrh i love this they come they've traveled they understand who he is and so when they come they come with a blessing for the king they acknowledge he's king they bow down they worship and then they give their money now if i was a good tele-evangelist i would right now tell you that you need to bow down worship jesus and give give us your money you know i mean uh i i i remember hearing this story about three of these preachers trying to decide about the contribution and the money one of them said well i draw a real small circle around my feet now when i get all the collection from the church i throw it up in the air and whatever lands outside uh is mine and whatever lands inside the circle's gods and the other preacher said i kind of do it just the opposite i draw a huge circle and i throw all the contribution up in the air and whatever lands in the circle is mine and whatever lands outside the circle is god's the third guy says you know what i i do mine a little different i draw a circle i stand in it i take all the money the church is given i throw it up into the air whatever god wants he keeps and whatever comes down is mine and that's why they don't let me and alan count the money now sometimes we see this offering and we forget something about it guess what's just fixing to happen joseph doesn't realize it yet how much he's going to need this financial support because look what happens then in verse 13. when they had gone when the the when the wise guys leave an angel of the lord appeared to joseph here we go an angel again and a dream get up he said take this child and his mother and escape to egypt stay there until i tell you for herod is going to search for the child to kill him so he got up took the child and his mother during the night and left for egypt where he stayed until the death of herod and so was fulfilled here's the prayers matthew used in the old testament again so fulfilled what the prophet had said through the prophet out of egypt i've called my son and when you're fixing to go on a trip like that you need a little financial support and guess what he had from the guys that came then when herod realized that he had been outwitted because these wise guys fooled him they didn't go back his way he was furious and he gave the order now this is a this is a brutal brutal king he gave an order to kill all the boys in bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old or under in accordance with the time he had learned from the magi then what was said through the prophet jeremiah here's matthew again reaching back into the old testament pulling in you need your whole bible by the way a voice is heard in rama weeping and great mourning rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more herod comes about killing all those baby boys and by the way if you don't think he's concerned about keeping himself as king not only did he kill them he killed his own family members that threatened the throne he killed his own son that he thought might threaten the throne one of the historian writers macrobias wrote this concerning this time in history when caesar augustus heard that herod king of the jews had ordered boys in syria under the age of two to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed he said i would rather be i would rather be herod's pig than herod's son he knew how brutal this man was imagine the terrorism that grabbed the hearts of those families imagine a man pulling a baby pulling a one-year-old out of the arms of its mother to slay and take the life i couldn't help but think as i was reading this and thinking about this weekend with 9 11. jesus was born in a context of terrorism matter of fact it took place as an effort to stop the plan of god and evil men still commit terrorist acts as we saw 20 years ago in our own nation don't ever forget that comes from evil men amen who terrorize always cause the death of the innocent and it still happens today imagine that terrorism the innocent suffered by evil men used by satan to destroy lives and to disrupt the plan of god al is out of town today and now is speaking at an event near shanksville pennsylvania honoring united flight 93 and its passengers and crew i'm proud how has that opportunity was texting me last night about it we do a memorial as our brother mentioned earlier every sunday honoring the blood of an innocent man that was shed for our lives so that our sins could be forgiven and we might have hope well in matthew chapter 2 verse 19 through the rest of this chapter joseph runs into two more angels it says in verse 19 after herod died an angel of the lord appeared in a dream to joseph in egypt and said get up take the child and his mother and go to the land of israel for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead that'd be good news to me as a parent right so he got up took the child and his mother and he went to the land of israel but when he heard that archleos was reigning in judah in place of his father herod he was afraid to go there having being warned in a dream here we go again he withdrew to the district of galilee and he went and lived in a town called nazareth so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets he will be called a nazarene and once again matthew reaches back and takes the words at least spoken words of the prophets actually that's not written in any of the prophets specifically but they said more than what they wrote down right so here's this journey this royal escape this family where joseph becomes the rescuer of the one who would rescue the world thought about that joseph protects the one that would eventually die to save you from your sins i am thankful for joseph i am thankful for his righteousness i am thankful for his listening to the word of god and i am thankful for his immediate obedience when he knew what god wanted him to do that's the kind of guy i want to be like right there we need some joseph's and amongst us what a man be like joseph this child born of the holy spirit said to be the son of god god with us and then god of tells joseph joseph this gift i'm going to put in your hands to take care of this beautiful woman that's had this child she's going to be your you're going to take care of protecting can you imagine i was thinking about i was thinking about joseph at the end of this chapter i was thinking do you think there were some not he was like you know i i don't know if i want to go to sleep again i mean i don't know i mean how many angels can you stand in your life coming to you right or maybe it was the opposite maybe every time there was a hard time he said honey i gotta go to bed we gotta i gotta find out what to do yeah by the way that's that's that's why i go to bed so early susan and sleep in the chair and everything else i'm looking for answers what a great guy but not by accident see the unwritten stuff is all the things that made joseph just and righteous to become the man that god had planned to be to become that man god wanted him to be for this moment in history that affected every person in this room and within the sound of my voice across our podcasts and our other assemblies this man joseph affected our lives god's plan god uses mere human beings he used an ordinary man to accomplish extraordinary things for the kingdom of god and i believe god's still in the business of using ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things for the kingdom of god and you're the ordinary celebrate it and be used by god amen yeah so be it joseph the jews just couldn't quite swallow that idea that god was with us or that god was near because remember in their history you could not even approach the base of the mountain and if you did you got struck dead you couldn't come to god they understood the distance between holiness and unholiness they understood that they couldn't run so now all of a sudden when the king is born jesus is raised up and he's out teaching people he's with them god with us because he'll save them from their sins he's trying to help correct their idea here and all of a sudden he tells a story that says let me tell you how god really is let me tell you about a father that when his broken son's life is a mess and starts to come home that father is looking and waiting and runs to embrace him to say i love you and you're forgiven god came near what an amazing thought for the jewish mind to go from the fear of dying to touch the edge of the mountain of god to the point where gods open up his arms and embraces me and forgives me of my sin that he didn't come to rescue me from the romans he came to rescue me from my own sinfulness and my own brokenness and that's why he came for us too to rescue us from our sinfulness and our own brokenness and just like the father of the prodigal son runs to embrace his boy and forgive him he'll run to embrace you today too will you turn down the embracement of god don't do it put your faith in the death burial and resurrection of jesus be baptized into christ for the remission of your sins and be a part of a kingdom that's greater than anything physically the world's ever imagined because the king of kings is now your savior and lord embrace that god embrace that son and become a child of his if you ever need would you come while together we stand that we sing

Channel: Whites Ferry Road Church

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Length: 33min 19sec (1999 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021