Sermon Brief: Prepare to Meet the Savior

Christmas Sermon Series: God’s Christmas Messages to You, Part 3
Based on Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph is an interesting Bible character for the simple reason that he plays a very significant role in the life of Jesus, but then he passes off the scene and is not mentioned beyond Jesus’ boyhood (Luke 2). Tradition has it that Joseph died before Jesus began His earthly ministry.

Joseph was a very good man as can be seen from the story at hand. He had more than likely been brought up learning the traditions of Israel and the belief in a coming Messiah. He had heard the prophecies before.

A lot of you today are very much like Joseph. You’ve heard about religion all your life but you have yet to personally meet the Savior. What God said to Joseph, He is saying to you as well.

GOD’S MESSAGE ABOUT THE SAVIOR…

1. God is at work in your life.

I don’t believe for a second that Joseph and Mary became the earthly parents of Jesus by accident. They were chosen for this task. We are not given insight into exactly why God chose them but we know that God had selected them and had so arranged the timing of their lives (and of the world for that matter) that Jesus would come at the perfect time and to the perfect place.

God has been at work in your life as well. He knew you before you were ever thought about by your parents. He so arranged things today that you could be here in this place, hearing the gospel with an opportunity to meet the Savior.

God is always at work in, around, and through us. We can either sleep through His activity or respond to what He is doing. I hope you’ll want to be involved with what God is doing today.

2. God is providing you a Savior.

Joseph learned two vital truths about Jesus that day that each of us must learn as well…

A. Jesus is the incarnate God.

“of the Holy Ghost… God with us.”

Jesus is both fully God and fully man. He possessed all of the qualities of a human being physically, emotionally, and intellectually yet was above the possibility of sin, having been born to a virgin and not having received an earthly father’s sin nature. He knows how to be human.

He also possessed every attribute of God from His omnipotence to His omniscience. How did He limit Himself to a time and place and from knowing everything? He never ceased to possess these qualities, but temporarily limited His ability to access them. He never ceases to be God.

See Philippians 2:5-11

B. Jesus is the heaven-sent Savior.

1. Jesus came with a mission.

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” –Luke 19:10

Jesus came to glorify God by completing the work that God had given Him to do. What was that work? An earthly ministry of preaching salvation, ending in the death that would accomplish salvation. Jesus was all about the redemption of mankind.

2. Jesus has given us a great commission.

“As the Father hath sent me, even so sent I you.” –John 20:21

Not only has Jesus come to seek and to save lost mankind, He has also commissioned all of His people to go and tell others of His saving power.

3. God is inviting you to respond to His gift.

Joseph had a choice in the matter. God had given him clear instructions to go ahead and marry Mary, but Joseph had to decide to obey. Imagine all that Joseph would have missed had he said “no.” What happens if you say “no?” God has given you this opportunity and has ordered your life to bring you to a moment of decision about Christ, but what if you say “no?”

“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” –Revelation 20:14-15

But Jesus came to offer you eternal life if you’ll only respond with “yes.”

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” –John 10:10