The Messiah Has Come / Matthew 1:18-25
The Birth of Jesus Christ
Tonight, we look at the incredible account in Matthew’s Gospel that records how the story of redemption entered our world in human flesh.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.
Matthew 1:18-25 (NASB)
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ’Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. ‘She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,’ which translated means, ‘GOD WITH US.’ And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took [Mary] as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.
Our Greatest Need
Over the last few weeks in our gatherings here at The Well, we’ve been walking through this series on the Messiah. If you remember that first week, we talked about the need for a Messiah. It’s all right here. Over these past three weeks, we’ve looked at the need for the Messiah, the promise of the Messiah, and the person of the Messiah.
When you look back at verse 21, the angel tells Joseph, “She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus.” That name means God saves. That’s what the name literally means, giving us a huge clue as to why He came. He says you’re going to name Him Jesus because He will save His people from their sins.
What is Christmas all about? It’s about the fact that He came to save us. We desperately needed to be saved, but not from a political threat, like an invading nation trying to take us over. He didn’t come to save us from an environmental disaster, and He didn’t come to rescue us from economic turmoil or financial distress. He didn’t come to deliver us from anything purely external to us. While we might love for Him to fix all those outside problems, that wasn’t our deepest crisis.
Our biggest need was for God to save us from ourselves—from our own sin. Notice what the text says: He will save His people not from other people’s sins, but from their sins. Whose sin? Ours. He didn’t come because somebody else did something wrong to us; He came because we did something wrong against God.
The Power and Slavery of Sin
Our greatest problem began all the way back in the Garden of Eden. When Adam sinned, that brokenness fell upon every single human being after him. We have all lived in it, we have all been born into it, and we have all personally committed sin. Every single one of us in this room shares that exact same problem.
Sin is thinking, saying, or doing anything contrary to what God desires. It isn’t about the quantity of our sin, how gross we think our sin is, or how long we’ve been practicing it. It is simply sin. Whether we’ve sinned a little or sinned a lot, we are all dead in our transgressions. We are completely and totally depraved.
And that’s not our only problem. The Bible tells us that anyone who sins becomes a slave to sin. We ended up under a new master. We were created to live in direct dependency upon the one true God of the universe—the One who is life, who gives love, who knows all things, and who grants true peace. But sin separated us from Him. Sin took mastery over us. Now naturally dependent on sin, we find ourselves bound to a master that has only one agenda for you and me: to kill us.
Sin does a very effective job at destroying us. For some, it works so subtly that we hardly notice the slow death taking place. For others, the destruction happens rapidly. But everywhere we look, we see the devastating effects of sin in our lives and in the world around us. Because sin is our master and we are its slaves, we are completely powerless on our own. It’s a terrible combination: sin is far too powerful, and you and I are far too weak. Left to ourselves, we are entirely helpless and hopeless.
The Promise Kept: Immanuel
That is precisely why God stepped in and initiated what we could never accomplish on our own. He chose to send His own Son, Jesus—God saves—to rescue us from the singular problem we all face.
God didn’t just decide this at the manger. He didn’t make this promise a week before, or a few years before. He made this promise thousands of years earlier. Right there in the Garden, immediately after that first sin occurred, God began promising that He would one day crush the serpent and deal with our sin. Verse 22 tells us that all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years prior: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.”
God promised it across generations, and Christmas is the celebration that He delivered on His word. Not only is He called Jesus—God saves—He is called Immanuel, which means God with us. Both realities had to be true. Because we could not rescue ourselves from sin, only God possessed the infinite power to shatter the slavery of sin and the infinite resources to pay our debt. Yet, the Savior also had to be fully human in order to stand as a true substitute for humanity.
So God did the miraculous and impossible: He brought together the perfect union of God and man.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (NASB)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (NASB)
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Ransom and the Substitute
God Himself came in human flesh to solve our sin problem. It began in that manger, but its ultimate fulfillment came thirty years later on a hill outside Jerusalem. Jesus came into this world in order to die. He came to be with us so He could be a substitute for us and provide a ransom for our souls.
When Jesus died on that cross, He made the payment to free us from the slavery of sin—a payment only God could make. And as a man—the spotless Lamb of God—He stood in our place as our substitute. When God raised Him from the dead three days later, the resurrection served as ultimate proof that the ransom was accepted and the payment was completely sufficient.
That is what Christmas is truly about. When we place our faith in Jesus and surrender our lives to Him, we cross over from death to life. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are restored to how life was always meant to be in the Garden: living in direct dependency upon our Creator. Jesus made it possible for us to be reconciled, resetting the relationship we were designed to enjoy with God forever.
Tonight, there are really only two kinds of people in this room. There are those who remain slaves to sin, still bearing that burden because you have not yet received Jesus’ substitution, His ransom, and the life He freely offers. If you have never surrendered your life to Him, that may be where you are right now.
Then there are others here tonight—and I suspect this is true for many of us—who are no longer slaves to sin. Not because of anything we did, but because of what God did for us. God came to be with us. He came to save us through His Son, Jesus. Because we have trusted in Him, we have moved from death into life, and out of darkness into His marvelous light.
That is our celebration tonight. We celebrate the Savior. We celebrate God with us. We celebrate the Messiah who has finally come.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray together.
Lord Jesus, God the Father, and Holy Spirit, we thank You. Holy Spirit, we thank You for Your miraculous work in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Son and loving us so deeply that You offered Him as a sacrifice on our behalf.
Jesus, we thank You for stepping into our world and becoming one of us—God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us—so that we would no longer be helpless or hopeless. Our help is in You; our hope is in You. Because of all that You have done, we have everlasting hope, and we celebrate that tonight. We rejoice in the coming of the Messiah to save us. We celebrate the Light who stepped into a dark world and brought light into our hearts when we surrendered our lives to You.
Lord, if there is anyone in this room tonight who has never placed their faith in You—whatever brought them through the doors—I pray that right now they would trust in Jesus. May they surrender their hearts to the only One who can save them from their sins.
It is in the precious name of Your Son, Jesus—God saves—that we pray.
Amen.