18th December 2023

18th December 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Matthew 1:18-25 (focus v18)


Message Alan Burke 


It’s almost upon us, Christmas Day. Whether you love it or loathe it, it is something that it seems we have been getting ready for since the wains went back to school in September with the boxes of Celebrations and Heroes on the shelves. This year Iceland decided to play down the Christmas cheer and not do an add because of how the reality for many is that this Christmas will be a difficult one so instead of forking out a small fortune on making an advert and having it broadcast they decided to pass on the money saved to its customers but they might have been unique in this. Christmas which many celebrate on the 25th of December is not the actual date of Jesus’ birth but one that replaced a pagan Roman festival and even the the offering of gifts and decorating trees are linked to paganism. In the midst of it all though there is an opportunity to mark the coming of our saviour Jesus Christ and this week I want to focus on three thing from this passage, The Necessity Of The Holy Spirit Involvement v18, The Name Of Jesus, He Will Save His People From Their Sins v19 and The Name Of Immanuel, ‘God with us’ v23. 


Today ‘The Necessity Of The Holy Spirit Involvement v18’. 


I got asked recently why did Jesus need to come as a baby, why didn’t he simply come as a twenty something instead of having to go through all of that, the nappies, puberty, learning how to be a joiner like Jospeh and face all that inconvenience when he could have simply arrived in his late twenties called some disciples to himself and died for the sins of his people. Well it is because of who we are in Adam that it was necessary for since the fall every generation has been sinful. No matter how many generations come and go we are descended from Adam and we are by our very nature sinful. He came in this way, as a baby, not as a teenager, not as a twenty something because Jesus Christ could only atone for mans sin by being a man himself, it was necessary that he would come physically small, helpless, needing care and attention just like any new born child, in the coming of Jesus, conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, who came into the world just as we come into the world, was born, wrapped in swaddling cloths, laid in a manger (Luke 2:7), where there was nakedness of child and mother, he needed fed, he cried and filled nappies or what ever they had then, all because as Hebrews 2 reminds us; 14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil. (Heb 2:14)


The miracle of God is that Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit came into the world by God’s direct involvement just as in the creation of Adam and Eve but he did not take on a sinful nature like us. A miracle of God that Jesus Christ could be born with a true human nature and without sin, as the virgin birth is the means by which God became flesh. It is the vehicle of the incarnation. It shows us that Jesus Christ was a true man. a "real son of a real mother." He didn't simply resemble man, he was man. And yet, he was conceived by God the Holy Spirit. His birth comes directly from God himself. Because of this, he can be fully man and fully God. He can stand in solidarity with sinners, and yet he can be the sinless sin-bearer. Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the virgin Mary, and conceived in the mind of God in eternity past.


Take away the virgin birth, and you take away our once-for-all-time perfect sacrifice. You take away our hope. You take away our atonement for sin. You take away the idea of God being both the judge and the justifier.


Christ took a human nature from Mary, and did it in such a way that Mary’s own sinfulness was not taken with it, this is contrary to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, Mary just like David who confessed; “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me”. (Ps 51:5), she was sinful just like you and I for we were brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me but Jesus was not conceived in the way that we have been conceived, even if we were born with the help of IVF. We have to know and understand that the Lord Jesus through the incarnation was not the appearance of man, not superman, but was in reality a man. Mary was but an instrument of the Holy Spirit to bring God in the flesh. We call this Incarnation. This one word contains the greatest truth and mystery the world has ever known and through him we can have salvation. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q18 Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’ s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. (Rom. 5:12,19, Rom. 5:10–20, Eph. 2:1–3, James 1:14–15, Matt. 15:19)
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