And as we do, let us pray. Lord, we cry out to you and ask that. That you might care for us, the sheep of your pasture. Lord, we cry out and ask that those who hear whether now or as they hear in the future and listen online or watch. Lord, in the midst of that, you would be at work, and the Spirit would be working and calling all of those whom you've appointed unto salvation through the preaching of your word, and that you would also be at work, maturing us and growing us in grace and making us more like Jesus. We desire to grow in our love for you this evening. So we ask that you would teach us, but let us not just learn facts, but let us learn to love you more. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, if you'll turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter one, we're gonna be looking at verses 18 to 23 this evening. Should be around page 757 if you happen to be using a pew Bible or picked one up on the way in this evening. For those who are newer with us, whether online or in person, in the evening we have more of a topical sermon series that we're moving through, whereas typically in the mornings we're moving through books of the Bible, in the evening we're doing more of a systematic overview of the scriptures. What is it that the scriptures teach? And we're allowing the Heidelberg Catechism to help us in that movement forward so that we can Lord willing, one day, get to the end and be able to see that we have moved through a good systematic understanding and summary of the Scriptures and the things that we need to know. And that's why we've called it the Foundations of the Faith sermon series for the evening. Though we are going to be using the Heidelberg, as I said, as that guide, we are going each Sunday to the Scriptures and allowing God's Word to speak, which is why we're in Matthew chapter 1 this evening, because we're We're looking at the truth of Jesus Christ's virgin conception and his virgin birth. And not only are we looking at the truth that the Bible proclaims, but why that is important in your life. Not just why it's true, but why it matters. So let's turn our attention now to God's word. Listen, as I read Matthew chapter one, verses 18 to 23. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with a child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our Lord stands forever and ever, and we rejoice that God has given it to us. One of the sad things that we see over the last 2,000 years is that Satan has worked in different ways to attempt to undermine and attack the reality of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. to attack the truth that he is the God-man. He's done that in many different ways, in bringing false teachings and false movements, even rising up false world religions, heresies within the church, cults that take the name of Jesus, take the name of Christianity, and run with it, and sadly deny the most important aspects of Christianity. And they do these things, and they're all different and in different ways, but they have a similarity, something that keeps them all together. And that thing that puts them in the same category is that denial that Jesus is the God-man, that Jesus is fully divine and fully human, one person, two natures. It is God the Son who came and took on flesh in the incarnation. One of the two is denied in these movements. Typically, we see a denial of his divinity. But as we'll see this evening, even some have attempted to deny his manhood. But it's typically the divinity that is attacked. And this isn't something that just happened in the past. At one point, it's still going on today. Now this isn't, I'm not going to give you a huge list that covers absolutely every movement. Just to give you an idea though, that today these are folks you could bump into that would in some way claim Jesus did exist, but he is not divine. He is not the God-man. And so you might bump into a Jehovah's Witness and they would tell you that, or a Mormon, which are Church of Latter-day Saints. And they would say, no, no, no, Jesus is not God. The Trinity is not biblical. Of course, Unitarians, just in their name of their movement, makes sense there. Christian scientists, oneness Pentecostals. Liberal Christianity denies the divinity of Christ. Judaism, obviously that makes sense. Islam, though it claims Jesus to be a prophet, a great prophet, he is not divine. And then even in some versions of progressive Christianity, though it's a mixed bag at the moment, but there are some groups within that movement that have already begun to throw away the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man, that he is divine. And so I think we're left with a question we have to ask ourselves, does it matter? Because that is how some have responded, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I mean, to quibble over these things, I mean, we might push back and forth, like we need unity. I mean, would we really quibble over? Yes. Yes, these are things to fight for. This truth has been revealed to us. Yes, it's important that not only is this question asked, but answered, that yes, the truth of who Jesus Christ is is foundational to the faith. I mean, it's important. As maybe one way people refer to this, this is a hill to dial. as some might say. We do not toss around the reality of hypostatic union, who the Lord Jesus Christ is, the God-man. One British pastor commenting on this, and you'll pick up a little bit of perhaps maybe what century he's from as I read, he wrote this. He said, would you have a strong foundation for your faith and hope? Then keep in constant view your Savior's divinity. He in whose blood you are taught to trust is the Almighty God. All power is His in heaven and earth. None can pluck you out of His hand. If you are a true believer in Jesus, let not your heart be troubled or afraid. Would you have sweet comfort in suffering and trial? then keep in constant view your Savior's humanity. He is the man, Christ Jesus, who lay on the bosom of the Virgin Mary as a little infant and knows the heart of a man. He can be touched with the feeling of your infirmities. He has himself experienced Satan's temptations. He has endured hunger. He has shed tears. He has felt pain. Trust him at all times with all your sorrows. He will not despise you. Pour out all your heart before him in prayer and keep nothing back. He can sympathize with his people. And as we look back to our few verses here, Matthew chapter one, verse 18 through 23, What I want us to see this evening is that Jesus Christ is the God-man who came to save his people from their sins. And two simple things tonight. We're gonna look at the fact that Jesus is God and Jesus came to save his people. Easy to remember. Jesus is God. Jesus is the God-man. Jesus came to save his people. First part of Jesus is the God-man. Jesus is God. I'm so excited I jumped right into it. Jesus is the God-man. But first, let's look at the reality that Jesus is God. It's about 1700 years ago. So early on, early on, there was one of the most animated attacks against the truth of who Jesus is. A priest named Arius started a movement known as Arianism. And in that, he denied the Trinity and denied that Jesus Christ was divine. And in many ways, he got a hearing in many places throughout the known world, sadly. But the church did reject his false teaching, as his teachings were held up against the scriptures, and it became clear. No, no, no, no, no. You were wrong. Jesus is the God-man, and you cannot deny his divinity, which is clear. But it isn't just teachings like that, though we do see the threads of Arianism even today in some of the groups that I mentioned earlier. But there are other false claims that we interact with and deal with right now, and these are ones you might come across, particularly children. These are things you may come across, so it's important for you to know this. You may have someone say, well, you know, the passage we just read is quoting Isaiah 7, 14. And you know, How those, those just excited, over-ambitious, whoever it was that was putting these things together, and we don't, do we really know? That's the way they talk. We certainly know God's word. But they, look at Isaiah 7, 14, which reads, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. And that's what we read of under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit being recounted there in Matthew chapter one. And the argument that's taken is when you go to the Hebrew and you look at that word that underlines virgin, actually that word could mean also just young woman. And so what happened is that this was not a prophecy of the virgin birth of a future Messiah, but it was just more aligning on the fact that a young woman would give birth. But the problem is that when the Septuagint was translated, if you're not familiar with the Septuagint, in the 3rd century BC, so before Christ, the Old Testament, which was at that time known as the Bible, which was in Hebrew, Aramaic, was translated into Greek so that the known world could read it. And when they translated it into Greek, at the time when all the Jewish religious leaders were involved in there and could have made the correction, they used a Greek word that can only mean virgin. So it's interesting that prior to Christ, 300 years before the incarnation, that the Jewish religious leaders had no problem with that word being understood, not as young woman, but as a young virgin. And yet today there's an attempt to claim, oh, we got all these problems. This is what happens oftentimes when the scriptures are attacked or the gospel is attacked or the Trinity is attacked. You just have to take one step back, take a deep breath, open your Bible. And often it doesn't take much reading of the scriptures to find how false and weak these attacks are. But man, they sound really good when you don't know the Bible or you've just heard about the Bible. So that's one thing that's going on, that this isn't a prophecy regarding the virgin birth. And then a second one that we see, that is a little bit more less in the religious themes. Perhaps maybe you would come across it more in some of the critical areas. But it's this claim, it's this claim that, you know, there's always been amongst the ancient world myths There's always been this virgin birth of heroes. It's just kind of been around. I mean, you've seen Star Wars, right? I mean, you've got Anakin's popping up all over the place. But again, it doesn't take much to unravel that and to realize that no, actually, that's not what's all over the place. PCA Pastor, with a quick comment here, helps us. He says, the assumption that there was a prototypical God-man who had certain titles, bid certain miracles, was born of a virgin, saved his people, and then got resurrected is not well-founded. In fact, no such prototypical hero existed before the rise of Christianity. And that's what we see when you chase these down, that when you get to them, they don't actually pair up at all. They don't work out in the way that one would think. And then the ones that seem to be the strongest, strangely, they didn't even appear until like hundreds and hundreds of years after Christ's death and resurrection. So once again, we're looking more at a, perhaps it's a flipping upside down that a lot of these movements and what some consider the ancient world were actually copying what they had heard about Christianity. And it does seem strange, just to throw this last part out there, if that was true, it would be very strange that the church, which began amongst the Jews in the original, those who were going out and teaching and proclaiming the gospel were Jewish, that they would then be grabbing from pagan sources to convince their Jewish brethren their Messiah had come. That would be a very strange way, if you understand the Jewish mind, that they would go about trying to prove that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. But those are a few things we look at today that could tie in there. But God's word tells the truth. Look back to Matthew chapter one. What is it we read in verse 18 there? Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. Before they came together, so she is a virgin, she was found to be with child, and this child was from the Holy Spirit. So there's a virgin conception. on how Christ came to be in Mary's womb. And then we go down to verse 23. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. And that prophetic pointing to the reality that the Jewish people were looking forward to a Messiah and that Messiah would be the God man. So we see again, the virgin is conceiving bearing a son to the incarnation. You see both aspects there of the God-man being born. Now, our Heidelberg Catechism that we're using has some helpful summaries here of the scriptures. And question 35, it asks, what does it mean that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary? They pull together lots of different aspects of scripture. They come to this answer that the eternal son of God who is and remains true and eternal God took to himself through the working of the Holy Spirit from the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary a truly human nature so that he might become David's true descendant like his brothers in every way except for sin. And that makes sense because the The gospel is clear that the whole problem after the fall, the separation between God and man, is the fact that God is holy and sinless, and after the fall, once sin enters, we have, as humans, we have sinful natures, and then we continue to sin. And sin separates us from our holy God, and that sin has, something has to be done to deal with that sin. And that's not a concept that's just in Christianity. Even look today. You know, we've been talking about some of the movements in our country and we see how there's a large percentage of what we've looked at as the nuns. And I think a large percentage of the nuns actually aren't nuns. We just missed it. What they've done is they've taken identity politics, if you have paid any attention to that, and they've held on to it. It's almost like an incomplete Christianity that's been twisted. And they've adopted it in a religious sense, and yet it's in the political sphere. So no one thinks, oh, that's religious. Oh, that's political. But when you look at the fact that identity politics, there's there's a notice of the same problem. Sin is the problem. Sin is the problem. Now, in the scriptures, we see it in the Old Testament. Sin was dealt with through the atonement, through the work there, the rituals, the cultic actions in the temple, looking forward to the perfect coming Lamb of God, the Messiah, who would come and atone for the sins of his people. And you remember part of that aspect was the scapegoat, the sin being placed on the goat and being dealt with and their temporary covering of sin. Well, today we have that same thing. We see that same thing. Sin is identified and there is folks who are looked at upon as the scapegoat. The only problem is, is that in that movement, that religious movement, there is no forgiveness. Which is one of the scariest parts about it. It's an incomplete false Christianity. It's a recognition of the reality of sin and a reality that something has to be done and someone or some group must be the scapegoat. And yet there is no forgiveness. But in the gospel, we see that that's not dealt with us, that that's taken care of because we see that there's the reality that that sin must be paid for. Scripture tells us sin must be paid for by death. That's the penalty, and yet Christ comes and says, I will die for your sins. God the Son says, Father, put their debt on my account. I'll pay it. I'll pay the unpayable debt. So that when Christ came and took on flesh, he then, think about the God-man aspect here, being God and his divinity was sinless. and then became the only being as the God man who could die and pay for the sin debt that his people carried, could come and deal with the problem. Jesus was born sinless. That's the aspect of his divinity. That's why there's the virgin conception and the virgin birth. He did not inherit sin from his father. We all inherit sin at conception from our father, but Christ did not. And yet he could live under his own law and keep it for us. He could live in his created world and deal with all of the things around him in this fallen world that we have to deal with. And then he could go to the cross and die. And his blood could be spilt so that the sins of his people could be placed on him. And then his righteousness could be placed on his people. That's what the substitutionary atonement is that we talk about often is so important. We think about these foundations of the faith and things we can't give up because you give them up and the gospel is gone. And then all we are is a social club that gets together and we're Maybe even in a scarier way, we could tend towards the other direction, like we see in this rising religious movement, where there's an identity that there's a problem. Sin is identified, but there is no solution. Forgiveness is not available. But that's a lie, because the gospel tells us the Lord Jesus Christ has made this possible. So Jesus is God. Jesus is a man. 1900 years ago, Ignatius of Antioch, he was a disciple of the Apostle John. He taught and wrote much against docetism. That's another word for you if you're not familiar. Docetism is a movement. So we've talked about Arianism. Arianism denied the divinity of Christ, but docetism denied his humanity. And for us, that might be hard to think about. But in that mindset, In the Greco-Roman world, the idea that God would want to take on flesh, that was insanity. So they had to deal with that. And that's docetism comes, this false teaching that denies the scriptures. And what we see here, it's a heresy that Jesus was not a man. But that's wrong because Jesus had to be a man to be able to live under his own law and die on the cross. And so it was a denial that and in that it denies the gospel. There is no salvation when you hold to docetism because we see in the scriptures it's clear. Now we already saw or we or excuse me if you read through the scriptures it is clear. I mean without a shadow of a doubt the Bible is claiming that Jesus is divine. I mean it's everywhere. You can't get past it. He receives worship. He does miracles, he gives scripture, he speaks, he forgives sin, he does things that no prophet does. It's very clear, the Bible's very clear who he is. Even the demons are trying to proclaim that truth and he silences them. But the Bible's also very clear that he was a man, thus Jesus the God-man. And so we look in the scriptures and we look around and we see that he got weary in John chapter 4. He got tired, he got worn out. You know that feeling. You're just like, oh, I don't know if I can make it anymore. I don't have anything left in the tank. He got tired and worn out and weary. In Mark 11, we see he got hungry. It blows my mind. He got hungry and he didn't get hangry. And we know he didn't sin. For some of us, that's not as big a deal. But for some of the other of us, you know, that's a challenge. It's a temptation. So we see he got weary, we see he got hungry, and then we see in John 11 that he wept and he cried. And then of course, Luke 23, looking at other places in the gospels, and we know that he felt pain and he died on the cross. So the Bible's clear, Jesus is God, Jesus is man. But looking at Jesus as man, we also see one of the beautiful aspects about Jesus' humanity is that because he took on flesh in the incarnation, he was able to sympathize with his people. He's not just our Creator from a distance, but having taken on flesh, He can truly sympathize because He was hungry and He was weary and He felt pain and He wept. Hebrews 2.18 talks about that. talks about Christ for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. And there's other places in Hebrews that talks about him being a sympathetic high priest. That's why when you're tempted with anything, first response is to cry out to Christ and to flee to him. For Christ is the one that overcame temptations and Christ knows exactly what it's like to be surrounded by temptations. When you're sad and you're grieving, when you're weeping, That is the time to cry out to Christ, for he knows what that feeling is. He shed over the loss, the death of his friend, knowing, knowing that in a few moments he will raise his friend from the dead. And yet he still wept over the impact of sin that his friend had died and all that went with that. He wept over Jerusalem and his people and their betrayal. He will comfort you. For he knows what these things are. When you're lonely and isolated, is there anyone that ever felt isolation, betrayal, knew what it was to truly be alone than Jesus? I don't think so. Yet when we feel those things, we can cry out to him and know that he will comfort us. When you're tired, when you're hurting, when you're feeling the pressures of this world, the trials and challenges, you can cry out to Christ. And you can cry out with confidence, not only that his grace is sufficient for you, but that he knows and he's sympathetic and understands what you're going through. Not only is your creator and your savior, but is the God-man having lived through these things. Jesus is the God-man. And just for a few moments now, we're gonna look at Jesus came to save his people. We will not spend as much time there as we did getting to this point. God the Son with God the Father and God the Spirit planned salvation. So there's an aspect that some people have come to this strange conclusion that almost as we get to the New Testament it's like God is calling audibles and just reacting and trying to figure out like what do I do? All these crazy people, I don't know, but that's not what's going on at all. The incarnation wasn't a reaction. What came after Christ's death on the cross? Wasn't God caught off guard and not knowing what to do? God is sovereign. He is in control of all these things. His movement through redemptive history is exactly as he wants it. I read in Ephesians, it's hard to say something like this, but I think Ephesians chapter one is up there on Mount Rushmore chapters for me. I love this chapter. You start in verse three and we read of this and we get a clear picture that God is not the one who is reacting to man's actions. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ. as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, things on earth. And in Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, and we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. I mean, that's a passage. There's so much depth there. And we see so much of the realities of our sermon this evening and the passage we're looking at being worked out there. We read of the father choosing a people before the foundations of the world. We read of the son willingly agreeing to redeem those people that the father is giving to him and the spirit coming in and agreeing to come and bring life and then to indwell and to work in those people in the church. And then to think that that reality is there, and to accomplish those things, God has to be God. Gotta be in control, to make everything happen exactly as He desires. Now granted, that's mind-blowing, it's very hard for us to fully comprehend, it's a wonderful opportunity to sit back and just worship. God, yes, you are God, and we praise your name, you're awesome. You've revealed these things, you've shown it to us, it makes sense, and we praise you. We see that covenantal theme moving throughout scriptures. I'll talk about redemptive history. There's that covenantal theme that ties everything together where God says, I'm your God, you are my people, and I will dwell amongst you forever. And as you're reading through the Bible, you pick it up over and over and over again, that covenantal theme repeated and repeated and repeated. And it's a wondrous, beautiful promise that God is keeping. And we look at our last Heidelberg Catechism, question 36, and it hits a little bit about why this matters. It says, how does the holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you? He is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness, he removes from God's sight my sin, mine since I was conceived. God this unwillingly took on flesh to save his people because it was absolutely necessary. I did not serve in the military, but I have friends that did. And one of the things that they had always said to me over and over and over again is, one of the aspects of the American military that makes it so powerful is that we are in a time in the American military in which it is a volunteer force, meaning no one's been dragged in there. No one's been shoved into these positions. It's people who have chosen to be there, volunteer. And they've all told me over and over again, that's the ones you want to be with. In fact, for any of the young folks who are thinking, you young men particularly who want to go into the military, one advice that a friend of mine who's in the Special Forces said, if you're going to join, go be with the best. Because the whole point of the military is to defend this country. And if we go to war, you don't want to be at war with the folks who haven't had as much training. And yes, you might go into more dangerous situations if you go into special forces and the different branches. But you'll be surrounded by folks who are highly trained, highly dedicated, and want to be there. I leave that on the table. I was never in the military. I don't know. But it makes sense to me. And scripturally we see this, this idea that Christ was abused by his father, that the son was forced into this and all this nonsense. God, the son willingly came, the incarnation took on flesh and died for his people. The father said, here is your bride. And Christ said, I will die for her. I will redeem her. And then the spirit said, and I will be the one who will bring life and do all these things. Jesus is the one who willingly came and humiliated himself by taking on flesh, humiliated himself by living amongst this fallen world, amongst fallen sinners who sinned against him, humiliated himself by having temptations all around him. And he did it all because of his love for his people, dear saints, his love for you. Quite frankly, in some ways, I think it's almost hard to comprehend and even wrap your mind around it. And that's fine. Because God's love is so much greater than any love that we understand. But one of the nice things, one of the exciting things is we're going to get to spend all eternity learning more and more and more and more about the depths of God's love. Jesus is the God man. Jesus came to save his people. Jesus Christ is the God man who came to save his people from their sins. That's the truth that we've looked at this evening as we continue to lay this foundations of the faith moving our way through. So let's pray. Lord, we thank you for what you have revealed to us. We thank you for the fact that you loved us before we loved you. And we thank you. We thank you, Jesus, that you came and took on flesh. You lived life we couldn't live, kept your own law for us, died for us, that the price that needed and had to be and must be paid for our sin that we could never pay that you paid it for us. So Lord, help us as we understand and learn of these great truths, not just to put them away as facts in our minds, but to drive us to worship and awe and to believe it and to love you more because of it. And let us be those who literally the gospel just oozes out of our pores. We can't go anywhere without telling others. about our Savior. Oh Lord, we love you. Grow our love and faith. In Jesus name we pray, amen.