Why Jesus Was Born, Part 1

Well, as far as the sermon today, I plan to go over a section of this sermon. I actually had put this together thinking I would cover... I've got three pages of notes. I ended up covering this morning one and a third. And so, I assume that this is going to be a two-part sermon. Depends on how it goes this afternoon. Of course, I know we've got more time here than I do up in Fulton. But I hope that you would find this helpful because all of us know the time of year that we're in. And of course, as we get into the time, actually starting seeing Christmas items even before Thanksgiving. And certainly right after Thanksgiving, you see a great deal of advertising. And of course, most everything is overtaken by the Christmas holiday here at the end of the year. And I think having a right perspective.

I know for the most part, all of you have been celebrating the Holy Days of God, celebrating the Passover and the other Holy Days of God for some time. And perhaps you've not been celebrating Christmas for decades because that's simply not something that we see in the Bible that we are to do. But certainly we don't want to overlook the significance or the importance of Jesus being sent to the earth. We don't want to overlook that at all.

And so I wanted to go through some things today that I hope would be helpful. I start off with the fact that Christians in the New Testament, when we study the New Testament, we read through the entirety of the Gospels, most of the writings of Paul and Peter and James and John. What you read in the New Testament does not show anywhere a celebration of the birth of Jesus as an annual occurrence. Now this is a statement that I would make, but it's a statement that I'm simply reading from a commentary that says, this just is not what you see. When you read the pages of the New Testament, you don't feel or see a Christmas celebration or a birth of Christ celebration. And actually what we find is that the actual day of Jesus' birth is not revealed at all. You don't have any indication. And I know we have certainly in the past preached many sermons about how the December 25th clearly couldn't be that date, which it couldn't. There's no way that that would even...but it doesn't tell us when that is either. And I think there's a reason for that because think about the fact that what we see in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this is an account, the recorded account, the inspired Word of God regarding the life of Jesus. And you see Him in the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke primarily being introduced, being born. And you see a little bit of information about Him there. You see Him as a boy, almost nothing, a paragraph about Jesus' youth. You don't see anything about His upper teen years or about His 20 to 30 years. And then you see Him entering into a ministry. And for three and a half years, He is teaching His disciples and then He dies. That's the account.

That's what we are shown. And of course, during the time that He was teaching His disciples, which was over, of course, He was calling them. They were being drawn to Him by the Spirit. They were especially selected to do the job that they were going to be commissioned to do. But throughout all of that teaching and training, the parables, the interaction, the rides in the boat, the tumult that He and the disciples shared, you don't see Him anywhere saying anything to them about celebrating His birth. It's just not something that He did. Not something that He requested and asked. But what we do see is that He did ask His disciples to commemorate His death. Most of us are familiar with 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23 through 26. We read what Paul wrote about how He was telling the Church under the inspiration of God in the direction of Christ that, I want you to celebrate the bread and the wine which symbolized my death, symbolized my giving of my body and my blood for you. I want you to do that as a commemoration. I want you to do that as a memorial. And of course, all of us, we know that has great significance to us. And we observe that on the Passover or at the Passover time every spring. But of course, that is a completely different situation than regarding His birth. Now, Christianity today, and I use that term as what we would normally think of as Catholicism and many different individuals involved in Protestant organizations, Christianity today promotes an image. It promotes an image of the time of Jesus' birth. And actually, I hope that in what I cover this week and next week or two weeks from now, what I cover will show you that that's a false image. And I don't know how many of you have recently seen a nativity scene. You know, this is a common thing in our world. You know, we see different church organizations having nativity scenes put together. And I really had not seen one of those recently. Here in the last, as I recall, the last year or two. And yet I was thinking about this. And as I was leaving the library yesterday, I saw this is at a Nazarene college that I go to, which is about a mile from the house. And they had a little nativity scene there on their shelf. And of course, they have it kind of prominently displayed right now. And yet, whenever, you know, the usual configuration of this is the center of it, of course, is a baby that's in a manger or in some kind of a crib. And then Mary and Joseph standing there, maybe looking at the nativity, and then several angels around. And possibly, I'm trying to remember exactly all of the things that they had there. They had several shepherds, or at least looked like it should have been a shepherd. And then it had at least one of what you thought probably is a wise man, a magi, and then a sheep or two, and a donkey, and maybe a cow. But, I mean, they've got it all together as if, you know, this correctly represents what happened when Jesus was sent to the earth. Now, I state it that way because that's a part of what I want to have us be mindful of. Because it wasn't simply just a birth. It was a very special birth, yes. But it didn't occur in that scenario. That picture, that image, is not a right image. Because we can see, and we will read in Matthew and in Luke, the accounts that show that certainly the shepherds and the wise men were not there at the same time.

And the angels probably weren't there at least for an extended period of time, although you do see examples of angels interacting throughout the entirety. That's really something that I think is amazing regarding all the miracles that God performed mostly in using angels to send as messengers to this person or to that person to Mary, to Joseph, to the shepherds, to the magi, actually to Joseph over and over and over again. Mostly we think of Mary being inspired. And yet, what I'll cover, perhaps not today, but next time, will show how much God performed miracles when He sent Jesus to the earth. How important that was. That happened, as we know, 2,000 years ago. And that was two-thirds of the way into what we know to be human history. From the time of Adam to the time of Jesus was about 4,000 years, and then since then we've gone through about another 2,000 years. And of course, as we look around our world today, we know it's in trouble. It's in trouble. We've got a larger population than we've ever had. We have greater and greater conflict. We have more and more disturbances, particularly around the Middle East, which is also described in the Bible as a focal point of conflict and difficulty that people will have at the end of the age. And yet, what I want to point out is, a typical nativity seen as a mixture of all the passages in Luke and in Matthew kind of all jumbled together. And yet, in fact, I don't think that it really represents the type of wonder, the type of grandeur, the type of glory that we really want to have for the fact that God did choose to send Jesus to the earth 2,000 years ago.

So what I want to point out is just that Jesus' birth, His name, His role, clearly has great significance. But many people miss the meaning. Many people come out of a past, and I know I certainly did, and grew up in what you could describe as a Christian church. And I was involved as a young person in different Christmas celebrations and pageants. And I think I was the angel one time, which that certainly wasn't right. And I think I was also the donkey another time. That was a little more down my line. And perhaps some of you were involved in some of that in the past as well. And again, I would think for many of us, we have not celebrated Christmas per se for decades. And yet, we never want to forget how fabulous of an activity it was when Jesus was sent from the Father. That was remarkable. See, we're praying for Him to come again. We're praying for Him to come the second time. And yet, His first intervention was for us. It had a specific reason. It had a reason not only for us, but for mankind.

And it had a great significance within the plan that God is working out. And so, I'd like for us to start in John 17. And John 17 is a prayer that Jesus prayed. And of course, you know, John is a unique writer. And I feel a very individual that, as God, perhaps He was extremely gifted. Perhaps that would be a way of describing it, because you see John relating to Jesus in a way that none of the other writers really relate to Him. What He's describing, what He is pointing out, the significance of things, the meaning. You know, we find, you know, John 13 through 17 isn't in any of the other Gospels. It isn't even covered.

But it is covered here, of course, for our benefit. And we see in chapter 15 and 16 and 17, Jesus interacting with His disciples right before He was going to be taken and put to death. And chapter 17 particularly is a prayer. And it says in verse 1, after Jesus had spoken these words, He looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify Your Son. The Son glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You. Since You have given authority, You have given to Him authority over all people, all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. See, even that statement is very significant and ties in with what Mr. Brandon was mentioning. You know, we are drawn to Jesus Christ. We are drawn to the One who can forgive us of our sins. We are drawn to the only One who can forgive us of our sins and who is actually our Savior. We are drawn to Him, and as Jesus mentioned in this prayer, that the Father had given Him authority to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given to Jesus. Those that He had drawn to Jesus. And He says this is eternal life in verse 3. I think verse 3 is worth noting. I think it's worth noting.

It's worth highlighting because it says this is eternal life. That you would know, or that they would know you, the only true God, and that they would know Jesus Christ whom you have sent. See, this was the role. Jesus was living on earth when He made these statements, and He was talking to His Father, but He was including this, or John included this, for our benefit. Because it later talks about those who would believe on His name down through the ages. But see, knowing, truly knowing God the Father, and truly knowing Jesus Christ, is what each and every one of us want. You know, that gives us stability. It gives us encouragement. It gives us hope. It gives us eternal life. And that's what He says in this verse. 17 verse 3. This is eternal life that you may know, or they may know you, the only true God, and then Jesus whom you have sent. Actually, there are many concepts that are, I think, contained in the type of close relationship that is spoken here. You know, what John was talking about when he recorded this, what Jesus meant when He said this.

Many concepts are involved. It actually is, if we are to know God the Father, and know Jesus whom He sent to the earth, what's that implying? Well, it's implying an understanding of the Godhead. An understanding of the plan. An understanding of how it is that God has chosen to even put human beings on earth. And an understanding of why He did that, and of course how He is going to help us be a success. Now, we start out, again, as Mr.

Brannon mentioned, we start out not very mighty, not very noble, not very wise. Now, we don't want to stay that way. We'd like to wise up some. We'd like to be recognizing that we're actually become something. We become the sons of God. We become the children of God because of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. It's not because of us. We may desire that, but it's because of God's Spirit dwelling in us, that we then are the sons of God. So this statement about knowing God and knowing Jesus actually implies far more as far as understanding the family. The family of God, the family that God is working on today, the family that He is going to continue to expand as we go further into the future, as the kingdom of God is set up. So there is really hope, certainly for all of us and for all of mankind.

And yet we want to understand just how it is the family of God is composed. We also want to know, what is it we want to know? Well, we want to know God and Jesus, whom He sent.

We want to know the type of power that is in the name that God has given to Jesus. We see some descriptions that we, I think, are commonly familiar with. We see descriptions of Jesus. We see Him as Jesus. We see Him as our Lord. We see Him as our Master. We see Him as the Christ or the anointed One. But we should also see Him as our Redeemer, and maybe more than anything, in connection with the name of Jesus, we should see Him as our Savior. Because that is what the term Jesus even implies. God, our Savior. So we want to know that, and we don't want to overlook that. I know that as most of us came out of maybe some type of church education in the past, we probably moved away a little bit from just even attaching ourselves to the name Jesus. But there's no reason to shy away from that, because that name is the only name through which we're going to be saved. And that name is what we believe in, who we believe in and are thankful for. And of course, we want to know the miracles that God performed in surrounding Jesus being sent to the earth. See, if we correctly understand what it says in Luke and in Matthew, and have a right chronology, because those two chapters, or a couple of chapters in both of those books, they give us a sequence. But it's not as easy as you might think to be able to see. And I want to be able to go over that. I don't think I'm going to go over that today, but I'm going to tell you that's what I hope to be able to go over. And I'll point out at the end of our service today just why I think that's important, because as we know what it was God was doing when He sent Jesus to the earth. Now, clearly He sent Him for us. He sent Him for us. He sent Him to be the Lamb of God. He sent Him to be the suffering servant. He sent Him to be a sacrifice for my sins and for yours. But each of us have to internalize that as He sent Him or He came to the earth for me. And I am indebted completely, totally, 100% to Him. And yet God sent Him to the earth in a remarkable way. It's fascinating to be able to read through a few chapters here in Matthew and in Luke, and just see how it is that the chronology of those events linked together and how they are completely different than what you find in the traditional concept of a nativity. It really is different because not all of those folks were there at the same time. So, I want to start off, and we might turn to Matthew 1, because this is the first section that I wanted to focus on today. But the first thing that I'd like to point out is we come to know God, and as we come to know Jesus Christ more intimately. We want to take a look at what information is provided.

See, what did God say or feel would be needed in order to explain His family, in order to explain the relationship between the Father and then this Son who He was sending to the earth. Well, you start reading here in Matthew 1, verse 1, an account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Now, if you look at the Bible, it's a lot of fun to read through all these names and try to figure out how to pronounce them, and yet I'm not going to do that today. You can do that at home. Maybe Elise can pronounce all of them. She's good at Bible names. She and Dan had to study a number of them the other day to get all of us tagged at our social the other night. But, see, many of these folks are probably familiar to us, and you can go back and you can study those as far as information and individuals in the Old Testament. But it's very clear. It starts off in verse 2 with Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac of Jacob and Jacob of Judah. And so it starts on down through the line. It gets in the middle of verse 6, it gets to King David, who was the son of Jesse, and David was the father of Solomon. And then you go on down toward the end of verse 15, 16, I guess, Jacob the father of Joseph. And so he's come down from, in this case, starting in verse 2 with Abraham, to David, and comes down then to Jacob the father of Joseph, who was the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who was called to the Messiah. Now, and then he describes even more so in verse 17, the different generations and kind of the connections of those generations. Now, why would he do that? What's the significance of that? Does that have anything with Jesus being sent to the earth? Well, it does. And you also find over in Luke chapter 3, actually this is a genealogical line of Joseph, who, of course, was Mary's husband, but he was not the father of Jesus. God was the father of Jesus. But this genealogical line was following Joseph, and it shows that Joseph was directly connected to these specific people. And in Luke chapter 2, I think it is. If I get over there, maybe it's chapter 3. Well, where did Luke go? Okay, Luke. Yeah, chapter 3. Verse 23, Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his work, and he was the son, as was thought of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son of Matat, and the son of Levi. Here it starts another genealogical record, which is actually the genealogy of Mary. All Bible commentaries point this out, that this is of Mary. And, of course, you find that when you read through this list that you also get to, let's see, which verse is this? Verse 32, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, or verse 31, excuse me. Now, this was the son of David, the son of Jesse, and Obed. So it goes through again the line of David. And then finally, you know, we find in verse 34, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. And it doesn't stop here at Abraham. It goes on back to the very beginning, where it goes in verse 37 to Methuselah, to Enoch, to Jared, to Mahalel, to Canaan, to Enos, to Seth, and finally to Adam, the son of God. This genealogy doesn't just go to David and Abraham, but to Adam.

So it goes clearly back to the very beginning of man being on earth. It goes back to the time of the Garden of Eden. It goes back for us 6,000 years ago, but at the time when Jesus was being sent to the earth, it was spanning a period of 4,000 years. Again, what's significant?

What is God revealing whenever He shows the things that need to be known about Jesus by starting off by a bunch of genealogy? I want to read a little bit of information to you out of our ministerial journal had a report on this some time ago, actually. But I think it's interesting because it points out the importance, the significance of why God put the genealogical record in here. Why it was that it shows that Mary and Joseph were both descendants of David, and how it was that that was significant as He was sending Jesus to the earth. It says genealogies might not seem very important today, but they certainly were in the time of Jesus. And here's why. The Bible knowledge commentary explains, and so this is quoting from this commentary, it says, if Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of these two great covenants, the old and the new covenant, is He related to the rightful line as a question that people could have? And it says this is the first question the Jews would have asked as Matthew traced Jesus' lineage in detail. And Matthew gave Jesus' lineage through his legal father, Joseph. So even though he was the Son of God, and he was begotten of the Holy Spirit, Joseph was the husband of Mary. He was through this line. It goes on in Matthew's genealogy. It answers the important question a Jew would rightfully ask about anyone who claimed to be the King of the Jews. Is He a descendant of David through the rightful line of succession? And of course, Matthew answers this by very clearly, yes He is. This is very simple for us to see. Another commentary, through the Bible commentary, says genealogies were very important to the nation, Israel, and through them it could be established whether a person had a legitimate claim to a particular line.

And evidently, these genealogies were kept by the government, were accessible to the public, and certainly the Jews of Jesus' time could look some of this information up. And yet what we find is that Jesus was in a very unique position. Both His mother, clearly Mary, was a descendant of David, and Joseph, who may have looked upon as at least a legal father, was a descendant of David. It goes on to say He was born in the line of David and in the line of Abraham.

And this is what Matthew is putting before us. He is the fulfillment, Jesus is, of everything that had been mentioned in the Old Testament. Everything that had been predicted. And there are numerous prophecies in the Old Testament that talk about Jesus being sent to the earth. Specific things here and there. Micah 5 verse 2 is a primary one that you would focus on if you wondered, well, where was He to be born? Well, He was to be born in Bethlehem.

He was to be born in the city of David. Now, that was predicted long ago. But as this goes on, so the enemies of Jesus could never challenge Him in regard to His genealogy. They challenged Him about almost everything. They criticized Him for taking too much upon Himself. They criticized Him for what He said. They criticized Him for what He did. They called Him illegitimate. They had all kinds of horrible things that they could say. They never could say, you couldn't possibly be the King. You couldn't be the King of the Jews. You're not of the Davidic line. This was common knowledge.

And this is part of what God provides us and gives us as we start reading about Jesus being sent to the earth. So both Mary and Joseph were direct descendants of David. And Matthew traced the genealogy back to Abraham, and Luke traced it back to Adam. And so, in wrapping this information up from these commentaries, the Haley Bible Handbook says these genealogies contain a family line through which a promise was transmitted for 4,000 years.

A fact that is unprecedented in history. So this goes all the way back, as we saw in Mary's genealogy, to Adam. It goes all the way back to the time as we read in Genesis 3 verse 15 where Jesus was predicted.

Jesus was prophesied to come. And of course, He was going to overcome Satan's negative influence in this world. And yet, what we find with these genealogies, and I think this is really fascinating because you see what God has placed in there. He's placed that for a reason. Because He's showing us that over the expanse of human history from the time of Jesus back to the time of Adam, I have been working through individuals that would lead up to me sending my Son in a legitimate and specific way and through a specific line to fulfill all of the prophecies that I give in the Old Testament.

And of course, as I mentioned earlier, our knowing the family of God, knowing the Father and the Son and the unison that they have together in working with mankind, working with men, see as God created Adam out of the dust of the ground and as He created Eve, He gave them the Spirit in man. He gave them an ability to be human. And yet He very greatly loves the fact that humanity has been created, and yet He has a great purpose that He's going to bring about in their lives.

And clearly Jesus is a major part of that. But what I'm focusing on in these genealogies is that it covers or expands these four thousand years back to when God shaped Adam and Eve on earth. And I think whenever we see these genealogies in Matthew and in Luke, we should also, if we were going to look at in the Gospels, well, what more information is recorded for our benefit that we could put together in knowing more about the family of God?

Well, we can look directly to John. You know, John doesn't have a genealogical list like these other Gospels do, but what do we find in the very first chapter of the book of John? What do we find in that very first chapter of the book of John? And that is going to be, you know, it's about Jesus Christ. It's about the individual that God would send, about His Son that He would send to the earth. And yet, the way we see Him described in John 1, verse 1, is that in the beginning was the Word.

Now, this Word is the one who is later identified as Jesus Christ. This Word, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. See, here we see revealed information about the God family, the Godhead, the Father and the Son, or at that time the Word, who worked together in unison, who designed a plan to work with human beings, and to work with humans, who created the hope that we have, and who carried that out.

They have been carrying that out to us as we look at it in human history the past 6,000 years.

And yet it says the Word, in verse 2, was in the beginning with God, and all things came into being through Him. Without Him not any one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and that life was the light of all the world. See, this is talking about the One who would come as the Son of God being sent from the Father.

And down in verse 10 it says, He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him. And so you see some connection about a pre-existence of Jesus, an understanding of the family of God that existed prior to Him sending Jesus. And we look forward to being a part of the family of God, an expanded family in the future, but when we look in the past, God the Father and the Word are the ones we see revealed in the pages of the Word of God. And so in verse 10, He was in the world, the world came into being through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and His own people wouldn't accept Him. So when we read the life of Jesus, we read the Gospels, we see the Jews resisted Him, they rejected Him, they defied Him, they were jealous of Him, they didn't want to have anything to do with Him. He came into His own, and they would not accept Him, but John says to all who receive Him, how important is it to know Him? How important is to receive Him and to be drawn to Him, to those who receive Him, who believe in His name, that He gave power to become the children of God. This is a record of a pre-existence of Jesus, and then being sent to the earth, and yet not being accepted, except by those who would truly believe Him, and those individuals can become the children of God. And in verse 14 it says, the Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a Father's only Son, who is full of grace, and who is full of grace, and who is full of grace, and truth. Here you find a revelation about Jesus' existence prior to ever being sent to the earth in the form of a human servant, because that's what He did. He came as a little baby, as we clearly can see. He was born of Mary, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. But see, what can we know about Jesus, and about the family of God, even prior to Him sending that? And what is He revealing in these genealogies that trace back to Adam? Well, He's showing more about what we need to know, or what we can know, about our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. So I think it's important, as we read those genealogies in the very first chapters of Matthew, and the third chapter of Luke, and we tie that together with what John reveals about this individual, about who He is, about what He is coming to do, what He is helping us envision, because envisioning the kingdom of God and envisioning the family of God is truly what He wants us to do.

Another thing I want to mention is in Matthew 1. If we go back there again. Matthew 1, as I mentioned, we not only want to know about the Godhead and the God family, but we certainly want to know what are we to gain from the names that are given to Jesus. How powerful is the name of Jesus Christ? Well, here in chapter 1, verse 18, you see an account here.

And again, see this account ties together with the account in Luke, and actually in Luke you've got information that talks about Mary having been addressed by Gabriel, telling her what's going to happen, telling her that you're going to have a child. And of course this was in fulfillment of what we read in Isaiah 7, verse 14, where it says a virgin is going to give birth to a son, and that they're going to call him Emmanuel. Here in this section in Matthew, it says in verse 18, the birth of Jesus, the Messiah took place in this way. When His mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. See, God clearly was intervening in this event, and of course He had told Mary about this. He had done that through an angelic intervention from the Archangel Gabriel. But it says in verse 19, her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, he planned to dismiss her quietly. Finding himself in a situation that certainly looked questionable, Mary alone would be the one who would know if that was even remotely possible, and Joseph having to think, well, I don't know how that could be possible, I don't know how my engaged wife, or my wife, my betrothed wife, I guess is the terminology, they were in a period before their marriage, but they were engaged, they were given to each other as their family custom was at the time. And Joseph was thinking about, what am I going to do? This is just beyond explanation, because Mary tells me there is no other man, and of course there wasn't.

But it says in verse 20, just when he resolved to do something, he figured I'm going to start doing something. Here you see God intervening again. God involving a miracle of sending an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit, and she is going to bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus.

Here we see actually this name, but you also see another name here in the next few verses, because there are going to be a couple of different connections that God will make with this little boy that he was sending to the earth. He was intervening. They had talked about this, they discussed this, they knew how they would provide redemption to the world, and then this was being carried out at a specific time, in a specific way.

But the angel told Joseph that you should take Mary as your wife, and the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear him, and you are to name him Jesus. Of course, why was he named Jesus? Well, it says, for he will save his people from their sins. And here we see that the angel told Joseph that he was from the Holy Spirit. That's kind of an explanation of what the word or name Jesus implies. It means God, our Savior. And again, I don't think we ever want to back away from a deep appreciation for Jesus having been sent to be our Savior, to be our personal Savior.

And of course, ultimately, that sacrifice will be extended to the entirety of humanity, who will believe in what he has to offer. But here you find Jesus, which does imply saving our God as our Savior, and it actually describes, in a sense, kind of the work that Jesus would do. What did he do when he came to the earth? What did he do throughout his lifetime, and then through the shedding of his blood, the breaking of his body?

Well, what he did was provide a way whereby we could be saved. Provide a way whereby we could be forgiven, and then provide a way where he would lead us into the kingdom of God, into the Promised Land. And actually, there's a connection here between Jesus, which means, I guess in some ways, I don't know very many people, maybe you know some, who have the name Jesus.

I think in Latin culture you have Jesus, quite a common name. And actually, at this time, this was not an uncommon name. It was a name that was pretty well known among the area where Mary and Joseph were. So that wasn't that unusual. But what it implied was that he would be the Savior. He would be the one who would save his people from their sins and so you find that and it's interesting to see the connection because it's essentially the same word that you find later in Hebrews when talking about Joshua.

And as we go back to the Old Testament, you see Joshua, that name again being very similar to the name that was given to Jesus. And Joshua was an individual who, of course, was a successor to Moses and what did he do? Well, he rescued or saved or brought the people out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. And yet in a far more glorious way, we see Jesus providing salvation, giving salvation to those that the Father would draw to him. But as we go on, of course, it describes his function and his office, his work, and clearly he is not only our salvation and our Savior, he's the one who is mercifully working with us and comforting us as our high priest today.

This is again in Hebrews that we won't take time to cover, but he offers comfort to us in our suffering. But as we go on here in verse 22, it says, all this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. And so here he's going to quote from, and Matthew is writing this to a Jewish world, so they were familiar with what Isaiah contained. But it says in Isaiah 7.14, essentially what we read here, Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

They shall name him Emmanuel. So not only, you know, he was named Jesus, but there was a connection to him, this son who would be born of a virgin, and he would be named, or there would be a connection upon him that is Emmanuel. And it goes ahead to say, which means God is with us. So the names that we see directly tied in with Jesus as he was sent from the Father was Jesus and Emmanuel. And as Jesus described his work and his function as our Savior, you see Emmanuel describing his nature, describing the fact that Jesus is God, that he is the one who is representing God.

And he came and he lived his life as an example, and he says that he reveals the Father. He reveals their relationship. He reveals their closeness.

He reveals their love. And of course, that's what he wants for all of us. He wants us to identify with that close intimate family union. And that's why we're here. And we're here to help. Unity and harmony and a closeness is critical. We've experienced enough of a lack of that at times over the years. But clearly, we need to be united. Clearly, we need to be united as Jesus and his Father are united. And he was being sent to fulfill this role, God is with us. And when Joseph awoke, he did as the angel commanded him.

He took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had born a son.

And then he named him Jesus. I mean, the description that is here is, in a sense, kind of a summary because we see some elaboration on this over in the book of Luke. But see, the names that are connected to Jesus, I think, are extremely important. And again, we should never minimize the significance of who it is we worship. All of us, as we pray, we pray in Jesus' name.

We pray using his name, or we should. And we certainly never want to shy away from that name. And he has other descriptions. And Emmanuel clearly is one of them, meaning God is with us. And yet, I think it's important for us to keep this in mind, even as we study what we read here in Matthew 2 and in Luke 1 and 2 about his birth. This is all kind of pre-information before we even get into a study of the chronology that we can piece together between Matthew and Luke of what happened in the first days, the first months, the first years of Jesus' life. And some of that is not clearly defined, but I intend to be able to go through with you what I think is the chronology that really makes sense.

And I do this because there's a verse here in Luke chapter 3 that I have often puzzled over, because I can see here in Luke chapter 2, or excuse me, chapter 2. We were in chapter 3 earlier. But in chapter 2 of Luke, you see some very specific descriptions about Jesus and his life. It shows him being born. It shows information regarding the shepherds being drawn by God to acknowledge who he was. And of course, that was thrilling. That was exciting for them to do. And yet after Jesus had been born in verse 21, he was born in Bethlehem, as we, I'm sure, are aware. And yet in verse 21, eight days later, where was he? He was in the temple. He was in the temple and it says after eight days passed, it was time to circumcise the child and he was called Jesus and the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. See, this was, his name was given by design.

He was to be the Savior. He would offer salvation to the people. And yet, you know, at point out, or I guess it was at the time, that the male child was circumcised, that they kind of officially gave them their name. Maybe they needed a week to figure that out. Sometimes that is the case. You don't always have a name already ready, but in this case, Joseph did. He knew what he was to name him, even as Zacharias knew what he was supposed to name John the Baptist. But you see, eight days after Jesus was born, he was here in the temple. And then again, thirty-three days later, or thirty-one to thirty-two days later, when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses in verse 22, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. And so, as they were properly to do, you know, we know, well, eight days later and when we know at forty days, which was what the law would require, Mary and Joseph would be bringing Jesus to the temple, you know, to a sense, offer him to the Lord as a connection to the Lord, but also to give a sacrifice, as they were requested to do. And of course, while they were there in the temple, you know, God sends more miracles. He sends Simeon in, who said, I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting to die. Because God said, I'm not going to die until I see the Savior, until I see the one who will be sent from the Father. And then following Simeon, talking to them and giving them some more information. I'm not going to go over all this right now. I'll have more time next time, maybe, to go on over some of this information.

After this, Anna comes out in verse 36. And it says she was of a great age, and she had been a widow for a long time, and yet she worshipped God and was fasting and praying there in the temple night and day. And at that moment, she came and began in verse 38 to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel. And so, you know, she clearly was also inspired by God to know who this is.

How important is this young child who is being brought to the temple to be presented before the Lord? And then it says in verse 39, when they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their town of Nazareth. And it says in verse 40, the child grew and became strong and filled with wisdom, and the favor of the Lord was upon him. And in verse 41, it starts talking about going to the festival in Jerusalem when he was 12. Now, that doesn't give you a lot of information about Jesus' very young years.

But the question that I'd always wondered about in verse 39, it says when they got done at the temple, you know, they headed toward Nazareth. Now, if that were actually what occurred, it seems to me that this is describing kind of a summary of what they ultimately did. Because where would the information that we're going to read in Matthew about having to flee to Egypt, about, prior to that, the Magi coming to worship him, and then going to Egypt, and there for a while, and awaiting the death of Herod the Great, who was out to kill him. And of course, the huge slaughter that occurred over a period of trying to kill the young babies two years and under. Now, this was not an immediate thing. This covered quite a bit of time. And then finally, Joseph, who told us, fine to go back. And so he goes back, and of course, where does he go? Well, he goes to Nazareth. So I'm sure this is a summary statement right here, because ultimately, after they had done this, you know, they were yet to run into numerous other problems. There was great joy. Great joy at the birth of Jesus, but there was great anguish. Great anguish as well, clearly by those who, you know, were agitated by Satan to try to stop him at that point. But I'll go over this. I think verse 39 and 40, you know, have a good amount of, actually, even through verse 39, I think there's a pretty big break there, you know, that we will go over and study a little more next time. But I hope that, you know, in covering some of this, that you can see how, again, how significant it is that we appreciate the tremendous revelation that God provides us about His divine family, about the manner of that family, the nature of that family, about how Jesus, having been the Word, was sent to this world at a specific time, in a specific way, fulfilling all prophecy. And so all of that had to be miraculous. And yet, you know, we'll read about other miracles as we look at this next time. But again, I know, you know, that it's exciting to me to read about, you know, these things and be able to see just how it is that God worked this out. And yet, you know, if we're going to truly know Jesus Christ, then we're going to need to know about what happened before and what happened at that time, even though it's something where, of course, we no longer celebrate a Christmas celebration, per se, and we clearly want to know what happened.

And we want to know all the miracles that God performed. And I think we can easily tie this together, especially when we think about the name of Jesus. When you look in John 3, John 3 specifically points out just how the name of Jesus is so significant and so important.

It says in John 3, verse 17, following the verse in verse 16 that I know all of you are familiar with. And God so loved the world that He gave His Son, that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but have an everlasting life. But in verse 17 it says, Indeed, God did not send the Son of the world to condemn the world. Now, He was not sent for that purpose, but He was sent in order that the world might be saved through Him.

He was sent as our Savior. And so I always want to remember that as I think of Jesus, as I think of Him as my Savior, as I think of Him as my Redeemer and Lord, as the Messiah, as the Anointed One. I mean, there are many names as Immanuel because that's what He was as He entered the world. Even as a physical form that He took, He was God with us. But it says in verse 17 that the world might be saved through Him and those who believe in Him are not condemned and those who do not believe are condemned because they do not believe in the name of the only Son of God. So it's highly important, highly significant, and often we focus on His death, which He tells us to do. But I think it's miraculous to see what God worked out in even sending Him because He sent Him in a particular way and in a particular time and under a set of circumstances that were all miraculous. And we've only covered some of them, but we'll get through some of the others here next time.