This morning we will be in several passages. We will begin in 1 John 5, verse 20. I'll bring the text up on the screen. Hear the word of the Lord. And we know that the Son of God has come. and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. And all God's people, not all God's people, said amen to that for sure. But may the Lord bless the reading and preaching of His word this morning. May He bless it to our souls. So how, What does it take to become something? You know, what does it take to become an engineer? To become a professional baseball player? A mechanic? A farmer? A homeowner? Well, one must possess the capacity to meet the requirements of the profession in question. One must gain the necessary skills and the requisite knowledge to competently execute the work. One must possess the internal qualities of discipline, of drive, in order to be successful in their labors. But what, you know, how hard it is, how difficult it is, really just, you know, talks, it really depends on what we're speaking about. You know, what does it take to become a Sam's Club member? Well, they would have you believe it takes a lot. You know, you're special, you know? And it's like, no, you just pay the fee and you get the card, right? Doesn't take much. But what does it take to be the mediator? What must one be? What must one become? in order to be the Messiah. Now here, our nearness to the person and work of Jesus may give us a, I don't want to say false, but maybe at times inaccurate understanding about Jesus and His work as the Messiah. We may assume many things about Jesus, some of which are true and some of which may not be true. And the danger here is not merely that we may have some wrong assumptions about Jesus, but that actually all the assumptions we have about Jesus may be true, but maybe we only have a few of them because we have not meditated or thought upon what it means for Jesus to be the mediator. And if we have not done that, if the church, if pastors and preaching have encouraged us to restrict our thinking If you've had pastors say to you as I've had them say to me, go, well, this theology stuff, it's just the average person doesn't care. So we just don't need to talk about it. You know, it needs to be true. It's important, but, but, but we don't need to talk about that. Okay. Um, and if you want to know where I am at on it, we're having two sermons in a row on the two natures of Christ. So, so that tells you where I'm at on that, but. But part of the problem is, I remember when I was in seminary, Leslie and I would go for walks. We were in an apartment complex. One bedroom apartment, you know, 600 square feet. Not a lot of room. So we were like, okay, we're going to go walking around. So we were walking around Lake Mary, Florida. Back then, Ligonier had their offices right across the street from our apartment complex. We'd walk by and wave at R.C. No, just kidding. The windows were tinted. We had no idea where he was. But we waved anyway. Give us a free tabletop. But we would go for walks. I remember particularly when I was going through and I was taking a systematic theology course. And it was about the nature of God and the Trinity. I remember walking with Leslie, talking about this stuff, going, this is blowing my mind. How do we get this to the church? How do we get this to the people? Because it was lighting my soul and my mind on fire. And there's not one iota of me that said, you know what, no, this is just too much for people. It'll make them think. We don't wanna do that. So this morning we're going to think. Because the concern we have is not only for the church, but even more, it is more true for a society that is very quickly losing its memory of its Christian roots. And so we need to think about Jesus. We don't want to be as the married couple who gets married and the husband is just content on the fact that he's married and never thinks about his spouse again. He just goes, oh yeah, no, I'm married. She's over there. What's her name? Well, her name's, you know, Jane. You're like, okay. He's like, what's her eye color? I don't know. So, but we're married. Isn't that great? So, this morning we are going to think about what it means for Jesus, for the Son of God, to become the mediator. And we ask the question, what did God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, what did he have to do to become the mediator? Because he had to do something. He did something. And in short, the scriptures teach us that God the Son became our Emmanuel, that we like to sing about at Christmas. The name that Matthew tells us in his gospel, quoting from Isaiah, means God with us. And so this is the summary of the incarnation. But we have to reckon with the reality here that man did not become God, as some heretical religions argue, but that God became man. But what does that mean? That's the question we're trying to answer this morning. And so the first thing we have to say, which is rather kind of obvious, but we need to say it and meditate upon it, is that God the Son did it. Now He didn't do it by Himself, He didn't do it apart from the will of the Father, He didn't do it apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, but God the Son did it. And that very implication requires us to wrestle with, to accept, to revel in the reality that Jesus is God. Jesus is God because Jesus was not always called Jesus. Jesus was not always in the flesh. In his being, his very essence, he is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. John, the gospel writer and the writer of three letters in the New Testament, is quite insistent on this point. In fact, I'll go back to that passage that we read at the beginning. 1 John 5, verse 20. We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true. Who is that? His Son, Jesus Christ. Who is He? He is the true God. And He is eternal life. He doesn't just give. He is eternal life. This means that Jesus as God, the Son, was pre-existent to all that was made. In fact, our confession, along with the ancient creed of the church, state this truth in absolute terms, that in his deity, Jesus is very and eternal God, and that he is of one substance and equal with the Father. We see this again and again in the gospels where Jesus even declares that before Abraham was, I am. We see it in John's gospel where he declares that the one made flesh in verse 14 is the same word that he described in verse one. What does he say there? In the beginning, quoting from Genesis, working from Genesis, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and just in case you're not clear, the Word was God. The Son who was in the beginning was with God and was God. That means to confess Jesus Christ, to confess Jesus as your Savior, to confess the Jesus of the Scriptures is to confess the Trinity. You cannot confess Jesus Christ as Lord without confessing the Trinity. It is implicit. It's built into it. You cannot escape it. No one can be some kind of Unitarian who confesses Christ. They are confessing a false gospel. One cannot be a member of the LDS church or the Mormon and confess Jesus because they deny the Trinity and they confess a false Christ. Now, we do not have time this morning to delve into the wondrous and glorious doctrine of the Trinity, except to remind ourselves of that which we have confessed with the church since the earliest days, that we do indeed believe God is triune. One God who exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are equal in being, power, and glory. We regard these three persons of the Trinity as one God, we refer to, our confessional doctrine refers to as the Godhead. The relations of the persons of the Trinity are eternal, with the Eternal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Eternal Spirit. The point here is simply this, Jesus is not an angel. He is not a divine creature of a different order. He was from eternity God in His very being, the very eternal Son of God, existing always in glory and love in the Godhead. He is the one through whom creation was made, for He is the Word of God. And we are inspired to wonder to marvel at the reality that God would stoop so low to reach us, that the father would will for his son to take flesh to himself, that Jesus would willingly volunteer himself to it, that the Holy Spirit would empower him to accomplish it. Our salvation, the making of the mediator, is a thoroughly Trinitarian affair. So if anyone should come to you demanding from you to know of what practical help the doctrine of the Trinity provides, you have a ready answer. My dear Christian, your salvation, for your salvation is Trinitarian. And without the doctrine of the Trinity, you would have nothing. And so it is the God the Son who did it, who took flesh to himself. And so now we need to meditate upon that, what exactly he did, that God the Son took our nature. Well, first of all, we know that he did it at the right time. He did it at the right time. The wizard Gandalf told Frodo Baggins when he was charged with being late, and he said, a wizard is neither early nor late. He arrives precisely when he means to. He came, the Lord Jesus came, at exactly the right time. Paul says in the book of Galatians that while we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the fallen world and its existence, that in chapter 4 verse 4, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law. That phrase, fullness of time, reminds us that this was according to the plan of God as prophesied. It was not arbitrary. It was not intentional. He didn't look at the clock and go, oh, we're late. Jesus, quick, go get down there. He sent the Savior when he meant to send the Savior and not a second before or later. Salvation was not merely an idea conceived We note, but it was a plan born into history itself. Our lives are defined for ourselves as humanity. Our lives are defined by a succession of moments progressing forward always. And we often forget that God does not experience time like that. God does not experience time as a succession of moments. God beholds time in its entirety. all at once, something we cannot do, we cannot actually even picture, we can only speak of in abstract terms. Because it's not right to even say that God experiences time, as if to imply there is any kind of boundary that is placed on Him by time at all. But this means then that the Eternal Son took to Himself a temporal nature, that he would experience life in time, and so doing, identify with us creatures who are dominated by time, and what is the big thing that always waits for us at the end of time for us? Death. On this point, we must be very clear, as our catechisms, as our confessions are, very clear that Jesus God the Son took to Himself a true and fully human nature. John 1.14, speaking of that Word that was at the beginning, that was with God and was God, says, that Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The enfleshment of the Son of God was to bring grace and truth in the glory of God. Jesus then, as so many heresies then and now have wanted to believe, did not merely appear to be human. No, he had to, as our confession states, he had to have all the essential properties and common infirmities of being human. He had to be just like us. The mediator, God the Son, had to take to himself a human nature that was limited by time and space. He had to occupy physical space. He had to have a beginning and end to his physical form. He must be subject to suffering, hunger, hardship and death. When he was born, he's two years old. He didn't have the full in his humanity. He didn't have full knowledge. He grew in his understanding. He grew in his knowledge. He had to take to himself a human nature that had the capacity for sorrow, loss, injustice. Not to do it, but to feel it, to experience it. But why, we ask, why must he do this? Because this is the way, this is the requirement of the mediator. He had to be this way. And he had to be, as the author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews chapter two, verses 14 through 17, this is a very important passage. He says, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. He continues, for surely it is not angels he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect. He says later, but without sin. so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people." And this is where we really answer a charge against theology that says, well, theology is not practical. We're talking about the humanity and divinity of Christ, and the average person doesn't care about that. It's not that practical. Notice the principle here. The son of God became in his incarnation the same as the object of his saving work, us. The mediator could not have been an angel because he couldn't have saved humans. He couldn't have been partially human because he couldn't save humans. In fact, one Scottish theologian, as he put it, and he was summarizing a theologian from the fourth century, he says, that which Christ has not assumed, he has not healed. The good shepherd carried the whole sheep, not just the skin of the sheep. He didn't come just appearing to be. He became as the whole thing. He goes on, if Christ did not become truly human, he did not truly save humanity. The scriptures are clear that the Son of God and His humanity was made just as we are with one difference, that He had no sin. If He had sin, then He could not save us because His perfect righteousness and innocence bring us salvation. Now we're gonna delve more into this, the significance of this next week, but for the moment, I just want us to revel in that wondrous truth that we who are subject to death have flesh and blood. And so the Son of God desires to save us according to the gracious will of the Father and the power of the Spirit took to himself flesh and blood. He became like us in every way except sin to help us. And what is that help that he gives according to the author of Hebrews? To satisfy the wrath of God for our sin, that thing called propitiation. to destroy death and destroy the devil and to deliver us from the slavery we have to the fear of death. And what that means, this is again, we're gonna get more and more practical as the sermon goes through, more and more practical. The perfection of Jesus' humanity brings him closer to us, not further away. Brings him closer to us, not further away. You know, in movies they talk about, oh, we gotta have a flawed character because that way I identify with him. That's true when you're telling stories, you gotta have flawed characters and that way you can identify with them. Because if they're flawless, then you're like, I can't identify with that, it's too perfect. But that's oftentimes how we think of Jesus. When we meet someone who is far beyond us in their quality of their skill, their knowledge, or their character, we often assume that person looks down upon us or thinks that we are beneath them. And sometimes in their pride they do. If Jesus, the son of God, is perfection in both his divinity and his humanity, then how much more must he despise lowly and wicked sinners? But the scriptures tell us that the perfection of the humanity of Jesus has precisely the opposite effect. Hebrews chapter four, verse 15 says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. The sinlessness of Christ does not make him hard toward us who are so full of sin we can hardly bear it. He is not hard towards us when we hesitate to lift our eyes to the perfect one, when we can only beat our chests and cry for mercy. His perfections make him sympathetic to our weaknesses. His perfections make him gentle and lowly in heart, that he is always ready to receive penitent sinners coming back torn, worn and bloodied from our way in the world. I mean, you want to get practical about the doctrine of Christ, two natures, humanity and divinity. Do you think Jesus hates you? That he is tired of you with all your faults and your waywardness? That he's exasperated with you because you're here yet again on Sunday morning, sitting in the pew with all your hypocrisy and your guilt and your shame? How dare you? He says, no. I became like you to serve you. I became like you to forgive you. I became like you not to despise you, but to love you, to redeem you, to deliver you from the tyranny of the devil and the flesh and the world. He knows the temptations you face today and this week. He knows how you failed utterly and miserably. He knows because he was pierced and he was wounded and he was crushed for each of them. Where you and I failed to our condemnation, he succeeded in his perfection in a righteousness. for our redemption. It's who He is. It's what the doctrine of Christ's humanity is about. Finally, let's meditate on how He did it. The virgin birth. In the virgin birth, Christ's humanity was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke, in his gospel in chapter 1, records the angel going to Mary and telling her that though she's a virgin, she will conceive and bear a son and give him the name Jesus. This was the sign of the Lord's favor upon her. She, of course, was thoroughly confused as to what in the world was going on. But he's told her, this is God's favor upon you. And through you, the fulfillment of the covenant promises that God has made to bring one from the line of David into the world to bring forth an eternal kingdom. It's going to happen. The coming of the Savior, then, is not something, it's not anything that was wrought by men. It was not planned by a committee. It was not executed by any kind of cunning that we possess. The coming of the mediator, the making of the mediator is nothing short of the power of God at work. And the virgin birth matters to our salvation. Truly, it does matter that Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Spirit, as the angel says in answering Mary, says the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God. Because there is no need for some kind of gross carnal explanation, as some heretical groups have attempted to imply, any kind of physical intercourse to produce a child here. rather is a divine miracle by the power of the Spirit according to the promise of God at work in the Virgin Mary. The actual point here is that the mediator who was born of Mary miraculously was of her substance. She was truly human or he was truly human. I'm a big, Teddy Roosevelt is a weird guy, still one of my favorite presidents, but he's a weird dude, but very, very interesting guy. He is a guy that's very inspirational and motivating, but interesting is, I mean, when was the last time a president lost sight in one eye because he was doing too many boxing matches at the White House? When was the last time we had a present that went and charted the Amazon? Like the river. It's been a while. One of my favorite stories is when he went out to his own property and chased down a couple of boat thieves in the middle of the winter in the Midwest and caught them, tied them up and captured them. It's been a while since we've seen that kind of guy, but he was actually very sickly as a child. and his father bought him some weights and bought him stuff and he said, you must conquer your body. And he said, I will. And so he did. He did all kinds of exercises and to increase his airflow. And he said, I will conquer the weakness of my body. And he, and truly he was, he did so. It's a very interesting point about Teddy Roosevelt, but the virgin birth is not an interesting point about Jesus's life. It's not an interesting fact toy to tell friends at parties. We must take to heart that the virgin birth is not simply a theological oddity of the Christian faith. It is the practical means by which the impossible was accomplished by the power of God. The eternal son of God took to himself a thoroughly human nature to save us. The one who was very God became very human. And so we must, to conclude here, we must embrace the mystery of the virgin birth. We do not hold this truth and confess it as though there were no mystery to it. There's always mysteries when it comes to miracles. The virgin birth is not something we can confirm under a microscope. How can the divinity and humanity be joined together? The old question that the early church wrestled with, and we even wrestle with today as soon as we start thinking about it, is how can the finite contain the infinite? Now we'll talk about that next week and the meaning of the hypostatic union of the two natures. But to many religions, we must understand that this very concept of God in the flesh is heresy. It is offensive, contemptible. and certain religions worthy of death. But for the Christian, it is salvation and eternal life. Without it, we have no mediator. Without it, we have no savior. We have no salvation without the virgin birth. Indeed, we may never be able to explain the metaphysics behind the virgin birth, but it does indeed inform our worship and our praise for God. We hold that this was a unique, miraculous, and wondrous event. It was something done in fulfillment of prophecy. It was done in order to bring forth the mediator who was very God and very man. How these natures and the mediator relate to each other again, we're going to talk about that next week. But here we are directed to God, to the Triune God who wondrously unites the divine with the human, who brings heaven to earth, who enfleshes his word that he may deliver us forever in glory. Jesus is not a great man. Jesus is not the best man who ever lived. He is rather the eternal Son of God who became the mediator by taking to Himself a true human nature, becoming like us, that He may deliver us. He did so through the miracle of the virgin birth. And so this morning, let us rejoice and wonder and praise the One who became like us, not to condemn us, but to save us, who saves us still. Let us praise the Father who sent Him. The Holy Spirit who communicates his very being and presence to us in our souls today, this moment. And let us give thanks for the Son of God, the Word made flesh, our Emmanuel. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you that we have a wondrous Savior in Jesus Christ, the one who is very God and very man, who came forth into the world through the virgin birth. We pray, Lord, that you would bless these truths to our souls, that we would be struck in wonder, Father, where we have drawn back because of our sin. May we be emboldened to go to the throne of grace, not because of ourselves, because we have such a mediator who draws us in, who calls in the weak and the weary and the heavy laden, that we may find rest and peace for our souls. Father, we pray that you would draw us in. That You would call us, Father, not only in Your love, but that You would renew that call of holiness. That royal dignity that has been given to Your people as children of the King. As members of a holy priesthood. And Father, may we, even though we sense our unworthiness, may we look to the worthiness of Christ. And may we come. May we be renewed. May we repent. May we be restored and may we rejoice evermore in the grace and goodness of our mediator, Jesus Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.