2025-12-21 - Advent 4 - What Child Is This?

[00:00:01] Speaker A: I tell you, that song doesn't get your blood aggravulating. Nothing will. Praise God. Glory to God. This comes from the Bible of Colossians 1:15 20 he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and and for Him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Amen. [00:00:57] Speaker B: Our prayer today is going to be on peace, dear Lord, from the time the angels came to announce your birth to the shepherds to the time you went to the cross, peace has always been your desire for mankind. You created the first people and placed them in a peaceful garden, but sin ruined the relationship you once had with us. Since then, mankind has been your enemy. Today we rejoice knowing that we can once again experience peace because of your work on the cross and our trust in your power to save us. Help us today to deeply experience the peace that only you can offer us. [00:01:46] Speaker C: Lord, in the busyness of this season that we are in, even as the weather can be gloomy and wet and rainy. We are here this morning to take a break, to pause from all of those things and to fix our eyes on you, the one that truly changed our lives, the one who captures our attention and you call us to enjoy your love and the peace and the grace that we can experience from you. We're blessed, Lord, to be able to have your word here before us this morning. And we ask that as we spend time in it that you would help us to lay our burdens before you because they are that you would change our thoughts to be more aligned with your thoughts. You would change our feelings, our emotions to be more aligned with you, and that you would bring us joy as we walk through this passage here, showing again God your faithfulness in our life, your love and your mercy in our life as we walk through this passage, Lord, I just ask as well that you would keep my words in line with what you want to say in this time in Jesus name. Amen. There is, as you see on the outline on the back, the title of the message is Sounds maybe familiar to you or echoes a song that we often sing at Christmas. And we could, could we say it together? What child is this? Right? The song that was written on. We sing often at this season. What you might not know about this song is it was written about 160 years ago by a man named William Dix. He was from England and he grew up just a normal life, his just normal family life and such and doesn't remember much about that. But when he hit the age of 29 years old, he was sick. He got really, really, really sick. He almost died. And young guy, he's working in insurance and things kind of like the best thing in his life is, you know, the big insurance deals that happen. But he gets really sick and he almost dies. And in the midst of that he begins to wonder if he's going to make it. And he does. He gets through it. But it's a long, long road for recovery. And as he's in that road of recovery, he begins to ask a question that probably most people ask if they are in a near death experience. What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What would happen if I wasn't? Is there purpose for me? And as he was asking these questions, perhaps by the hand of God, God led the right people and the right opportunities his way. And he began to find the answers to those questions in the word of God. And over the course of some time, as he took this long road of recovery, he began to see that the purpose, the reason for his life was found in Jesus Christ. That Jesus was the one who gave identity, gave him purpose. And after he recovered and was able to go back to work, he didn't say, you know what, I'm going to live for Jesus now. I'm going to go be a missionary, I'm going to go be a pastor or something like that. He went back to the same insurance job that he had before, but this time he did it with a new purpose. This time he went back to, to the same common mundane job, if you will, of selling insurance. I don't know what that's like, but I would imagine it can be mundane at times. But this time he did it with a purpose. Now he wanted to honor God with what he was going to do and the interactions that he had with people and the difference there that shifted in his life was not the insurance job just because he was now living for Christ there. There was something else that changed. His father enjoyed writing and he remembered that when he was a kid and William also enjoyed writing and he Particularly enjoyed writing in the area of poetry. And as he was kind of thinking through the purpose now that he had in his life, he wrote a poem that was later put to music. This poem he wrote 160 years ago. And the poem was called what Child is this? Because he asked a particular question, the most important question that anybody could ask. And it's this. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? And the most profound answer, and the accurate answer to that question is, he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. Amen. And because he realized that, because he discovered that he wrote this song, posing that question to all of us today, what child is this? Because when you come up with the answer for that, not because of your own efforts, because the spirit of God coming alive in you, enlightening, awakening your soul and seeing the reality of who Jesus is in the midst of God's word, we come to this conclusion that he is Christ the king. And not just is he the King of other people, but he should be our king as well. This William, he now had a purpose for his life. He realized the purpose was found in realizing that Jesus was his king above all else. It doesn't mean that the commonality of his life dramatically changed, if you will, but it means that he gave his life. God gave his life purpose. As we step into this passage, we're going to read through the entire chapter of Matthew 1, and we're going to take this in three main sections. And you see that in your outline. And we're going to come back to the story as we go through this. So keep that story locked away in your mind. We're going to reference back to that as we go through. Now, we're gonna start off in verse one of chapter one, because the very beginning is a good place to start. And as we start off this book, we need to know that Malachi is done. That's the last book of the Old Testament. How many years has there been between Malachi and the New Testament? Anybody know? 400 years. We've talked about this over the last few weeks. Talk about a long time in the waiting room waiting to hear from God. Now we see some. Something significant's going to occur. God says, now the waiting is over. Let's bring about the prophesied, the foretold Messiah, the one who's gonna bring about salvation to the world. So we're gonna start off in chapter one, verse one. Hopefully, again, you have your Bibles. The subject, what you could write on your outline, is this a Savior from sinners. That's gonna be point one on your outline. And if any of you have read through parts of the Bible before, you might have run across genealogies. Have any of you run across genealogies before? Now maybe you don't have to raise your hand for this part. Any of you skip over the genealogies to the other parts. Okay, we're not gonna do that today. We're gonna read through every name. Alright, so get ready. Chapter one, verse one. Through these first 17 verses, what we're gonna see is something incredibly significant. And it's this. The savior of the world. What child is this? Right? The king of kings. The savior of the world came from through a line of a bunch of really, really messy sins. Which by the way is like you and I. But he came as the savior of the world. Now it's been prophesied for a long time that there would be a king that would come, that would sit on the throne forever. Well, as you and I know, our bodies will die. So how do we do this forever thing? Well, Jesus is forever. So let's start off in verse one. Here it says this. Hopefully again you have your Bibles. It's on the screen. We're going to walk through this and I'll comment through it as we go through it. So here we go. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And this is where most of us skip to the next section, but we're not going to do that. This is telling us what we're about to do. The son of David. That's important. We're going to come back to that. Because David was the one that God said, hey, I'm going to promise you a king is coming. He will sit on the throne forever. He's the son of David, the son of Abraham. So let's get into these messy sinners. So verse two, Abraham. By the way, Abraham's a liar. He lied a few times. Any of you lied before. You don't have to raise your hand for that part. Abraham a liar. We see that this is something that both times that we see that he lies. He lies to protect himself at the expense of his wife. Also not a good time to lie. Abraham was the father of Isaac. If you know anything about Isaac. Also messiness. A lot of mistakes that were made there. Isaac the father of Jacob. Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, verse three. And Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Pause. First lady that we see in this line. Oftentimes as you read through lineage, we don't see women showing up. But here we're gonna see four of them. Tamar is the first. She is a Canaanite daughter in law of someone named Judah, Jacob's son. So here we see, okay, so we're gonna have the lineage of Jesus. We probably wanna keep that clean. We wanna keep that like, if you will, a. A pure line, if you will, of Israel. But here we have Tamar, a Canaanite, somebody from a different tribe, an idol worshiping tribe into the line of Jesus. And then we go on and Prez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Abinadab, and Abinadab the father of Nahshon. Keep going with me. And Nahshon the father of Salmon. All right, this is gonna be important in a minute. Salmon, the father of Boaz. Does that name sound familiar? By Rahab. There's our second lady that we see. Rahab was, as most people assume, the prostitute who was at Jericho when all the walls fell down. She was that one person who hid the spies. She was not of the nation of Israel. So we have the second person from outside the nation of Israel, also a woman referenced here, Boaz by Rahab. So they, I'm sorry, Solomon the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth. Does that any sound familiar? There's a whole book of the Bible. There's Ruth, the third lady that we see here. She was a Moabite. She was from an adulterous tribe outside of Israel. The tribe was born out of incest. Messy stuff there. But Jesus continues to say, no, this is important. And Obed, the father of Jesse, that should sound familiar. And Jesse the father of David, the king. There's our first section. By the way, as you might know, David was also an adulterer and a murderer and a liar. So we see sinners already here. At the front end of this, we look into the second section. Now keep going with me. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. By the way, referencing another lady. This is Bathsheba, whose husband was killed by David. And Solomon, who by the way, strayed from the Lord and had many wives of other religions. The father of Rehoboam and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat. And Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. All right, we'll pause there. Uzziah is the same king that we see referencing who has died in Isaiah 6. When Isaiah says, I saw the throne room of heaven open and those angels that say, holy, holy, holy. You remember that part? This is the. It says in the year that Uzziah died. That's this Uzziah that we're talking about. He was a powerful king of Judah. He reigned for 52 years. Fantastic king until the 10 of his reign. And then he began to do things he wasn't supposed to do, taking on some priestly duties. And then he ended up getting leprosy and died. You can read about that in Isaiah 6 and 2 Chronicles 26. In verse 9, we go on. And Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, bad king. And Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, he was a good king. Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, he was a really, really bad king. And Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, he was the eight year old king, or started being king when he was 8 years old. And Josiah the father of Jeconiah, he was also a bad, bad, bad king. And his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. All right, so there's section two. All right, you still with me? So far, no one's sleeping yet. So we have the first section. We see a few women there. We see people brought in from outside the nation of Israel, a lot of people who just had messy paths that. And we have this middle section where we start with David. And then what happens is David has his kingdom and then Solomon and other kingdoms. The kingdoms divide and people continue to stray further and further and further and further from God. And God sends prophets saying, hey, y', all, not that way. But basically, if you don't change your actions, if you don't change your ways, there's gonna be consequences. And the consequence is gonna be this. Another nation is gonna come in and. And they're gonna take you out of Jerusalem, take you out of Israel, and you're gonna go into slavery. And that's the third section that we see here now in verse 12 and following. They were taken into slavery. Story of Daniel, right? Daniel and the lion's den. That's because they're taken into Babylon, because they were disobeying God. That's the same story. So verse 12. And after the deportation to Babylon, that is after they were taken into exile into Babylon, we see some more names. We don't know a whole lot about these people, but we're going to read all their names. Anyway, Jeconiah was the father of Shatiel, and you can fix my pronunciation later. Shatiel the father of Zerubbabel, if you can do it better. And Zerubbabel the father of Abud, and Abu the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zodak. By the way, Zodak the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud. Moms or people who are considering trying to figure out what to name their kids. Here's a good suggestion list. And Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan and Mathin, the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph. Oh, start to pay attention again. And the father of Joseph, the husband of who? Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the what? Christ. All right. We made it through. All right. If every name is put in the Bible for us, there's a reason that they're there. There's a reason that every one of these names are here because they are important to God. They may have had common lives, but they are important to God and they're important to the story here. One of the main thrusts for Matthew's gospel is pointing out this to us. Jesus truly did come from the line of David, and he should be the king. This was a promise that the Israelite people believed there would be a king coming from David. Jesus shows up on the scene and says, I am the king. And there were people that were saying, are you really from the line of David? Should you really be king? Matthew starts off his gospel saying, what? Yes, he truly is from the line of David. He truly should be king. So now Matthew gives us in verse 17, a kind of summary of what he just read us through. And he put some numbers there for us. So all of the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from Babylon, the deportation to Babylon to Christ. How many generations? 14. I think it's on the next slide there. There you go. So as we look through this, some of you really like numbers. Some of you really pay attention to that. You're like, why is this here? Is this just a brief summary? Matthew goes out of his way to say there's 14 generations. 14 generations and what? 14 generations. Before we get into some of the meaning of why this is here and what we can take out of this, I want to just pause for a minute and speak to that possible 14. Why is that there. And this is just something interesting to think about because we don't see an answer in God's word. I'm going to take go like this. All right. This is my view. Some research. David was from previously, from the line we see Abraham to David to Jesus. David was this king that Israel said this was the greatest king that lived. We pay a lot of attention to what happened with David in the early kingdom. Matthew, if you know he is a tax collector. He was a tax collector before Jesus calls him. So in other words, he's really good with spreadsheets on scrolls. And so he's all into numbers and knows all sorts of things about that. And perhaps two things with these numbers that he's trying to draw the Hebrew people's attention to. Firstly, the first month of the Hebrew calendar is called Nisan. And on the 14th day of that month is the day that they celebrate Passover. Now, Passover is a celebration of the freedom they had from where? Egypt. So as they're thinking through perhaps their Passover celebration, Jesus is the salvation of the world, is he not? And so every time they're thinking the 14th, that's important, we remember the 14th because we get to party for a really long time. This is a great day to celebrate the salvation of the Lord. Perhaps this is option maybe number one, perhaps Matthew's trying to draw their attention to he is the Savior. Just like you celebrate salvation on the 14th. We have 14. 14, 14 again, three showing up in the Bible again. So there's a place possibility there something else as we think about David. Second option is in Hebrew, there's no vowels in the Hebrew language. There's just consonants. So David has how many consonants in it says three. All right. And what you may or may not know about Hebrew is to every Hebrew letter, there is a number associated with that Hebrew letter. Okay, the numbers associated with. So the three consonants in David's name is D, V, D. So there's two of them that are the same and one of them that's different, D. The number associated with the letter D in Hebrew is four. The number associated with the V letter is six. So here's some math for us on Sunday morning, four plus six plus four. So here again we see perhaps Matthew saying, hey, pay attention again, just like in the line of Jesus is in the line of David, David's name even is showing us that Jesus truly is the king. He truly is from the line of David. Now those some thoughts there on the side, you could just think about that on a different time. Let's come back to. Why is he telling us this? Why is all of this here for us? The genealogy of Jesus is immeasurably more important than. Than just a list of names. People have died a long time ago. Did you see how messy some of their lives were? This genealogy is a powerful and honestly beautiful testimony of God's grace and his faithfulness to bring about a Savior from a bunch of messy people. God showing us that he can bring beauty from ashes, that he can redeem wreckage. And so for us, even before we go to point two, wherever you are today, no matter how much you may have looked at your life and said, man, look who I was before, look how many things I did wrong, look how many messed up things that I did or errors that I made or bad choices that I made, my past has so much baggage for me. Jesus says this. I love to redeem wreckage. I can bring some amazing things out of wreckage. God chooses to use. Write this down somewhere. God chooses to use imperfect people for his perfect purposes. And that's what we see through this entire list of people's names, this genealogy here. And this is a very real and powerful message for us at Christmas. And Matthew starts us off that way, saying, hey, look, God can do great things through people who have made a lot of mistakes and strayed from Him. Isn't that encouraging to you friends? I look at my, like last week, last month, last year, like, how many things I've done that aren't aligned with what God wants. And he says, I still am going to use you. That is such encouraging work, such encouraging words from God. Let's look at the second point in your outline. You can write this in. What child is this? Yes, he is a savior from sinners. He's also a miraculous child with a mission. A miraculous child with a mission. This is often where we start the story of reading the story of Christmas, maybe when you're gathering with your families, because most of us don't sit down with all our uncles and aunts and cousins and say, hey y', all, let's read all the genealogy of Jesus. We usually skip over to verse 18. So let's look at verse 18 now. A miraculous child with a mission. As we begin, continue to answer the question, what child is this? I'll just read through this. I'll comment, bring some culture from the time that this took place for us today. Just to understand all this now, verse 18. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed. Can you Say that together with me. Betrothed. That's a different word that some of you might say. Engaged. Biblically, when someone is betrothed, it's different than, like, an engagement. For us, when someone's betrothed in the Bible, it means that they're basically married, but they're not yet living together. There's no intimacy between the two of them. But for all intents and purposes, they are married. And so in order for you to break off in a betrothal, you actually have to get a divorce, a legal divorce. And so Mary, for all intents and purposes, was married to Joseph. And in the midst of this betrothal, in order to break this off, there had to be a actual divorce. That'll be important later. So she had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. That is, physically before they came together, she was found to be with child from the what? Who? From the Holy Spirit, that is. She started showing, and they were like, you're not Mary. You're not with Joseph yet. This is a problem. Her family would have found out. Her friends. If she had siblings, her village would have found out. And Joseph, verse 19, being a. We see two characteristics from Joseph that are important for us to pay attention to. Being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame. So he was a just man, and he was a compassionate man. He resolved to, what, divorce her quietly. Now, for us, when two people are engaged, they might realize in the midst of the engagement, I don't think we should do this. And all that has to happen in order to break off that engagement is to say, let's not do this anymore, right? Maybe give the ring back or something, and then they move on and then try to kind of figure out what the next things look like for them. This would have been quite a situation for everybody. Joseph, being a just man and compassionate man, said, I want to divorce her. And not just divorce her, but divorce her quietly. So Joseph legally had the right because it was assumed that she slept with another man. And because of that and because of. Of the significance of being betrothed, that's basically adultery that she committed. And according to the Jewish law, Israelite law, in Deuteronomy, you can read about this 22, verses 22 and 23. I'm sorry, chapter 22. In Deuteronomy, verses 23 and 24, it says that when someone commits adultery, the punishment is stoning. So Joseph could have been as just, for example, just a just person. He had the right to stone Mary. But was he just. Just he was just and compassionate. And not just. Was he compassionate to the level of saying, all right, I won't stone her, but I'm gonna divorce her and that'll be the end of it. I'm gonna let everybody know, stay away from Mary. He said, I'm trying to figure out how can I divorce her. What was the last word in verse 19? Quietly, he loved her. That's what we see here, Joseph. It wasn't just, oh, yeah, I got signed up to marry Mary. But it's, I love this person. I want the best for her. I don't want to ruin her life. Verse 20. But as he considered these things, he's thinking, I love this woman, but because she's already with another man. I don't want to start off our marriage with an adultery like that just doesn't sound like a good place to start. How am I going to do this? He's thinking through all this. And then we have the word. Behold, verse 20. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying this. Joseph, son of. There's an important word there. Son of who? David. Remember that word? We see again, we see the line of David being brought into this understanding of who Jesus is. Son of Joseph, son of David. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife. In other words, do not fear to continue on with this marriage, with this relationship. Why? If you see the Word, then after that, at least in my Bible I'm reading from esv, it says this as your wife. For if you see the words for there in your Bible, circle that or underline that. Because it's always important for us to see. Why is God telling us to do something? God doesn't just tell us to do stuff and not have a reason for it. He loves us. He cares for us. When he tells us to do something, there's a reason for it. So don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For, in other words, here's the reason for that. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. In other words, Mary isn't lying. Mary told you, Joseph, when you guys were talking the other day, that, hey, Joseph, I wasn't with another man. An angel showed up to me and said, I'm gonna get pregnant, and it's gonna be by the Holy Spirit. And then Joseph, you know, being a logical kind of person, says, I don't think it works like that. And so now Joseph in this dream is being told by an angel, Mary's teacher, telling the truth. So don't be afraid to continue on in this relationship with her. And the angel goes on and says something else that only an angel could know, or God who knows the future because they couldn't do blood tests to figure these types of things out. She will bear a son and you shall call his name. What? Jesus. And then we see another three letter word here that I said we were gonna circle. You should circle earlier. We see again, why are we calling his name Jesus? For circle that, underline that. For he will save his people from their sins. We see in the name of Jesus. Jesus mission is literally a part of his name. Do you see that there? Why are we calling him Jesus? Because that's his mission. Now in Hebrew, the word is Yeshua. Very similar word to like Joshua. And the word Joshua or Jesus means maybe you know this. God saves or the Lord is salvation. Isn't that why Jesus came? Because he is our salvation? Jesus coming incarnate, that is God in the flesh. God who has no flesh and is not bound by time or space or matter put on flesh, that of which is bound in time and space and matter. The point of this passage here is to tell us that God alone did a miraculous work by bringing about a divine pregnancy. This kind of pregnancy is unique. It had never happened before and will never happen again. This reality of this divine conception is the foundation for how Jesus could be both perfect and how he could be in the flesh, human who dies for us. If Jesus was the son of a physical father, he would have the sin nature attached to him and would not be a perfect man. This is important for us to pay attention to. And Matthew makes the point very clear over and over through this section, saying clearly, Jesus was born of God. Jesus came about because of the miraculous work of God. Now, what about for us? What do we take from this before we go to point three? It's this. Do you know as Joseph realized that God wants to do holy work through through you? No matter how much you and I have messed up in the past, no matter how new you are to the faith, or how long you've been walking with the Lord, or how young you are chronologically, or how old you are and you feel like your life is basically over, God still wants to do holy work through you. And he says, I'm done doing work through you. When I take you home to be with me, that's when your job's done. Until then, I want to do valuable, important work to now. How does that happen? What does he need from us in order to do that? Just like Joseph and Mary, if you want to read that account in Luke, he needs this humility. He needs this humility. Because humility before the Lord leads to obedience to the Lord. Humility before the Lord leads to obedience to the Lord. What's one of the biggest reasons we struggle with obedience to the Lord? Most likely I would say this because we are not humble before him. We're saying, God, I think my way is better than your way. And when that happens, we see disobedience occurring. But when humility happens before the Lord, it leads to obedience before the Lord. What is God asking you to do that might require your humility? And most likely, whatever that is like it was for Joseph is gonna be kind of scary. And it's gonna take you out of your comfort zone. I imagine for Joseph, this was a scary thing, right? The angel says, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. God often calls us to step outside of our comfort zone. You and I have been called if we are in Christ. If you are a Christian, given a new identity, and it's this ambassador for Christ, that's your new identity. And so what is he asking you to do to represent him to the world? Maybe it's something big, like leaving your hometown and going overseas and engaging the lost with the gospel. Maybe it's something quote unquote, more common like the story that we heard earlier, right? William, who just went back to work. But this time he actually engaged people with the gospel and the message of Christ. This time he used the skills that he had to glorify God, not just himself. Maybe it's loving your spouse in a way that you've never loved them before. Maybe it's letting go of an addiction that has held onto your life. What is God asking you to do as his ambassador? And most likely it'll be scary or it'll be uncomfortable, and most likely both. Let's look at point three on your outline. The last one here, the promise and presence of God. And now I say that I'm gonna let you know that we'll just briefly look at this one in verses 22 through 25. And then there's gonna be five other characteristics that we're gonna see of Jesus after that. So don't close your Bibles and stuff. Cause you have the last point. Stay with me here. Verse 22. And, and all this, Luke goes on. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet Isaiah. And it doesn't say Isaiah. You can go to the next slide there. Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. We looked at this a few weeks ago that took place by the prophet. And here's what verse 23 says. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a what or what? A son. And they shall call his name Immanuel. Here we see again the promise. That is God says, I'm gonna do something. And God is a God who fulfills his promises. God does the things he says he's going to do. So here we see that Jesus. Is the promise of God fulfilled. God said, there is gonna be a savior coming. There's gonna be a Messiah coming. He's coming one day. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. And then Jesus shows up on the scene. And Matthew's telling us the promise of God is fulfilled. Fulfilled in the person of Jesus. And not just that, as the prophet Isaiah says. He's not just the fulfillment of the promise, but he's also the very presence of God. Right, Immanuel, which means God with us, which is a song that we sing at this time, verse 24. Then Joseph, he wakes up from his sleep. And he knows this is not just some strange dream that he had. I mean, any of you have had a strange dream before. He. He knows this is not just a strange dream, and I'm not gonna do anything with it. He knows an angel truly did show up. And so because he knows that he walks, he moves forward with obedience. He did just as the angel of the Lord commanded him. What did he do? He took his wife. But he knew her not. That is, they didn't have sexual relations until after she had given birth to this son, and they gave him the name Jesus. Some key things, again, we see. I said earlier, Matthew wants to make very clear to the reader, Jesus, the conception of Jesus. The person of Jesus was from God, not anybody else. And so even here we see that Joseph and Mary did not come together physically until after Jesus had. After Jesus was born. Now, as we look at these three points, we find the answer to the question of the title of the message, right? What child is this? He's the promise of God fulfilled. He's the presence of God in the. He's a savior that came about from sinners. We see as well that he's a miraculous child and he has a mission. But there's. I just want to. Like. Just five more. Can we just do five more? All right, let's do five more. Don't worry. It'll be a lot shorter than the first three. Let's do five more. From a passage that we heard earlier today. Okay, flipping your Bibles to Colossians Chapter 1, Five More Characteristics of Jesus in a passage that we saw that really shows us again, in a significantly powerful way, who Jesus is. And then after we look at these five, we'll have three application points and then we'll close our time. Colossians chapter one, verses 15 through 20. If you don't have a Bible in front of you that's open to that, it's also on the screen. Here's the first of the characteristics of Jesus is this. He is the Creator. Look at verses 15 and 16 with me. He is. He being Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him that is Jesus, all things were created. You know, Jesus was there at creation. Jesus didn't start right there at Christmas. He was around before that, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. So we have Creator Jesus. We have another characteristic of Jesus in verse 17. He is the sustainer. Write that down somewhere. Creator, he's sustainer. And verse 17 tells us this. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. It is by the power of Jesus that all things are able to stay together. That this world is continuing to spin is by the power of Jesus.3. He is not only the Creator, the Sustainer. Verse 18 tells us this, that he is the King. Look at it says in verse 18, he. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead. That in everything he might be preeminent. Preeminent means above everything else. 4. Verse 19. Jesus is not only creator, sustainer and the King, he's also divine. Look what it says. Verse 19. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Jesus is completely God and completely man. And the fifth one, I said there was five. Jesus is not just the Creator, the sustainer, the King and divine. He's also a peacemaker, which is what this last candle was all about. Verse 20. And through him, Jesus Christ, that is to reconcile to himself all things. That is, as we heard earlier, we were enemies of God. He says, I want to be connected with you again. I want to be in a relationship with you again through Jesus to reconcile to himself all things which, whether on earth or in heaven, by making what peace. Can we say peace together? Peace. By making peace by the blood of his cross, Jesus came as the Creator, the Sustainer, the King and the Divine and the Peacemaker, as we consider that, I want you to just walk with me through these few application points. What are we gonna do with this? Think about those three points that we looked at. The three applications will kind of mirror those three points on your outline already. Firstly, it's this. God will use you. No matter your past or your present until you're in heaven. God wants to use you. He's asking for humility. He's asking for you to say, God, what do you want me to do today? 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says, for if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. So no matter what baggage you might be holding onto, today's the day that you can say, I'm letting go of that because I realize God doesn't need me to take that with me and hold that really tight. He's saying, lay it down. Before the cross, I came so that you could have purpose in your life. Right? That's that story that we heard at the very beginning. You don't have to keep going in what you've been doing. You don't have to let the past define your present or your future. You can start new today, God, just like he did in that first 17 verses, all those really messy people. God says, I can bring beauty out of that. Secondly, we consider the story of Joseph and his obedience. Don't let fear dictate your obedience. If you know God is calling you to do something, do it. Let other voices around you fade away. Mary and Joseph's obedience was hard. I mean, imagine their mom and their dad. Maybe from both sides, their friends are like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? You know what people are gonna think of you if you do it this way. That's crazy. Why would God want you to do that? I mean, I. I've read this, and they say, you know what? God told me very clearly, this is what he wants from me, and I'm gonna be obedient to him. I'm gonna let the voice of God be louder than all the other voices in my life. For you and I, that's a struggle for us, isn't it? Today, identify those voices that you're hearing and maybe even listening to that aren't God's voice, and ask God's voice to be louder in your Life. Lastly, point 3 in this application concept is God is faithful to meet you where you are and stick with you no matter how much you wander. As we saw in the last point, he is Emmanuel. Which means what, friends? God with us. And if you've Never trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you've never said, I am a sinner and God is holy and I can't get to God by myself, but I'm gonna trust in Jesus for my salvation as the only way to get to God. And he promises that he will never leave you or forsake you, entrusting your life to him as it was for William 6, 160 years ago. Entrusting your life to him is the most important decision you will ever make. And as we consider Christmas, I would submit to you this. You cannot. We cannot properly celebrate Christmas. And unless we have taken Jesus out of the cradle and made him our king. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful this morning as we remember even John 3:16. You loved the world and you sent Jesus. We here today get to sit under the power of your love as people changed by your love, changed because of what you have done. We ask this morning that we would listen to you above all else. We would submit to you above all other voices, whatever baggage, whatever things maybe people are thinking through right now, that we're all thinking through. Mistakes that we made. We know that you are faithful and just to forgive us. We come before you and lay our burdens there. Lay our mistakes before you. May our lay our burdens, our prideful decisions before you. You say, I can still use you. And we rejoice in that today. We rejoice in that. Or for anyone here today that don't know you, that have never taken a hold of you as their savior. Lord, I pray that you would show them your love, show them your beauty and show them your power that you can transform anyone into your likeness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.