Listen for God’s word to you from Matthew 1:18-25…
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Among other things, I believe this passage shows us several ways that God speaks to us...
First, God speaks to us through history. Matthew says, very simply, “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about…” The existence of Jesus of Nazareth in history is recognized by every reputable scholar in the world today. No serious scholar doubts that Jesus existed. And if he existed, then he was born, just like every other human being.
Now, I will grant you, Matthew and Luke identify for us some unique, miraculous aspects of Jesus’ birth. Many scholars do not accept the miraculous as part of history. They rule it out from the get-go if they do not believe in the supernatural. But that is an assumption that scholars bring to the study of the life of Jesus. And it is an unprovable assumption. It may be that no one can prove a miracle. But it is also true that one cannot prove the impossibility of miracles. As C. S. Lewis points out in his book, Miracles, if you believe in the supernatural realm then you cannot rule out the possibility of miracles. There is nothing philosophically untenable about the idea.
So, however one views miracles, there is no question that Jesus is a part of history and that his birth, miraculous or not, was a historical event. Matthew, in a way, is at pains to prove this by beginning his Gospel with the long genealogy of Jesus that precedes our text for today. Matthew wants to show us, in particular, how Jesus connects to Jewish history. Matthew seems to believe, and so do I, that God speaks to us through history.
Of course, the $64,000 question is: “What is God saying to us through history?” Some historians look at history and say that it has no meaning. As some wag once said, “History is just one effing thing after another.” Maybe that is so. But there are other historians who think there is a meaning in history. If we believe in God then we must believe that there is some meaning to history, a purpose that God has, even if we cannot always discern that purpose and that meaning.
A second way that God speaks to us is through the interaction of what I would call our circumstances and our conscience. Now, I realize that our circumstances are nothing more than history as we are living it at any given moment. And conscience I would say is that inner mental faculty that guides us in the knowledge and sense of right and wrong.
Joseph was living in the circumstance, the history, of being pledge in marriage to Mary. In the Jewish world of the first century there were three steps toward marriage. First, there was the engagement. Marriages were arranged in those days by parents. In the case of Joseph and Mary, their parents might have arranged this marriage while Joseph and Mary were still children. This arrangement may have been made without Joseph or Mary ever having met each other. As William Barclay has written, “Marriage was held to be far too serious a step to be left to the dictates of the human heart.”
The second step towards marriage was the betrothal. This was the ratification of the engagement into which the couple had been committed by their parents. At this point, the engagement could be broken if the girl was unwilling, for whatever reason, to go on with it. But once the betrothal period was entered, it was absolutely binding. The betrothal lasted for one year. The couple were known as husband and wife during this time. The only way a betrothal could be broken was by divorce. If one partner had sexual relations outside of this betrothal, it was considered adultery and could be punished by stoning.
Joseph and Mary were in the one-year betrothal period when she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Luke tells us that this was revealed to Mary by an angel. We do not know how Joseph found out. Presumably Mary told him. And Joseph, not understanding about the involvement of the Holy Spirit, naturally would have thought that Mary had been with another man.
What was Joseph to do in this circumstance? The law said that this was adultery. Joseph was, perhaps, conscience-stricken. He certainly did not want to see his beloved Mary executed. So, he determined by the dictates of his conscience to divorce Mary quietly before they even reached the third step of marriage—the wedding ceremony and the marriage proper.
Now, here’s the thing… while I do believe that God guides us through our circumstances and through our conscientious reaction to those circumstances, conscience does not provide a perfect rule to follow. Some of us have overactive consciences. Others have underactive ones. Even someone as good as Joseph could not trust his conscience as the perfect guide. All our consciences need to be trained by some outward, objective, and more perfect rule.
This leads to another way that we see God speaking in this passage. God speaks to us through angels and dreams. We read: “But after Joseph had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream…”
Now, I will grant you, I have never had an angel speak to me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I believe in the reality of angels. I suppose that I believe in angels for a variety of reasons. One reason is because I believe in the reality of the supernatural realm, and so believing, I have found no reason to reject the possibility of angels. Another reason I believe in angels is because the stories of angels fill the Bible, a collection of sacred literature I have been reading for most of my life. A third reason, embedded in the Bible, has to do with Jesus. Having come to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, I accept what he says about angels. And a fourth reason why I believe in angels is because there are just too many stories about them outside of the Bible. One of the first Christian books I ever read outside of the Bible was Billy Graham’s book entitled Angels: God’s Secret Agents. In addition to explaining what angels are about in the Bible, Billy adds some stories of angels from outside of the Bible.
But returning to our passage for today, we see that angels are mentioned three times in the opening chapters of Matthew’s Gospel (1:20; 2:13,19). In Matthew angels operate, as they do throughout the Bible, as God’s heavenly messengers who appear in dreams and visions. The angel’s message to Joseph is pivotal in guiding him to make the right choices in his circumstances. The angel says…
Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
There are a few things we can learn from the angel’s words. First, Joseph is known by the angel, and therefore, I believe, Joseph is known by God. The angel calls Joseph by name. And the angel knows where Joseph comes from. He is a son of David, which is of course important to Jesus’ role as Messiah.
Secondly, the angel tells Joseph not to be afraid. Almost every time an angel appears in the Bible, that angel tells the human being he is speaking to: “Do not be afraid.” We get the idea that meeting an angel can be an awesome, even fearful, event. And isn’t this a message we often need to hear: “Do not be afraid”? If the Lord is near to us, and he is, then we do not need to be afraid of whatever life may throw at us.
Thirdly, the angel tells Joseph that what is conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit. This is the announcement of what we usually call “The Virgin Birth”. I know many people have difficulty believing in the Virgin Birth. But if we believe in an all-powerful God who created all that exists, why should we think it impossible that this same God could intervene in human history and cause miracles like the Virgin Birth?
Fourth, the angel tells Joseph that the child in Mary’s womb is a son, and he is to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name, Joshua, which means “Yahweh is victorious”. This was very important news, not only for Joseph, but for us. Jesus was born to save, not only his people—the Jews, from their sins, but as the rest of the New Testament makes clear, Jesus was born to save us all from our sins, from all the ways we fall short of God’s original intention for our lives.
We also see in this story that God speaks to us through dreams. John Stott points out: “…five times in the first two chapters of Matthew God makes himself known in this way—and sometimes he still does.”
I would not put any of my dreams on the level of Scripture, but I do believe God sometimes speaks to me through my dreams. I had a dream not too long ago where I was flying with other members of my family over the Rockies, and all we had to support us was a balloon, like the kind of balloon filled with helium that you find in the supermarket. It was ridiculous. But in the dream, I was terribly frightened, especially frightened that I might let go of the delicate ribbon by which I was holding the balloon that was supporting us all. And so, I grabbed the balloon itself with all my might, but still I was frightened.
Now, you may feel free to give me your interpretation of the dream after the service today. But here’s the thing… When I woke up, I was still frightened, and it took me a while to come out of it. And later that same day, I had more than one of what I would call, divine appointments. And these divine appointments were with people who were dealing with extreme anxiety. And because of the dream I had, I could relate to what they were feeling. That is just one example where I felt God was speaking to me through a dream.
Another way we see God speaking to people in this story is through Scripture. I believe this is one of the main ways God speaks to us. Matthew writes… “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).”
John Stott writes…
"Twelve times Matthew uses this particular formula to speak of the Old Testament being fulfilled in the events of the New—an astonishingly high view of the accuracy and inspiration of the Old Testament, and a very clear perception of the unity of revelation down the centuries."
In this case, Matthew sees Isaiah 7:14 as being fulfilled in Jesus. And Matthew’s fulfillment formulas teach us the larger principle that God speaks to us through Scripture. We hear God speaking to many people in the New Testament through Old Testament Scriptures. And in the New Testament we read of God speaking to people through the preaching of the apostles and others, and God speaking through the books of the New Testament to his people. As Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”
I believe it is wise and necessary to judge all the other ways we think God may be speaking to us by the rule of Scripture. How does a message from God we think we have received through our circumstances, through our conscience, through an angel, through a dream, how does it line up with Scripture? If that message we think we have from God agrees with Scripture, OK. But if it doesn’t then we need to reject it.
The final and most important way we see God speaking in this passage is through Immanuel. By applying Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus, Matthew is telling us that Jesus is Immanuel which means “God with us”.
I believe Jesus is the ultimate and final word of God to humanity. As it says in Hebrews 1:1-4…
"Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs."
When I was in seminary I learned about the threefold form of the word of God. There is the word of God in Scripture. There is the word of God in preaching. But then there is the ultimate word of God in Jesus. He is the living word. In so far as all other words (whether in Scripture, in preaching, in a dream, in history, in our conscience, or even from an angel) point to Jesus, they are helpful. But if all these other sources do not point us to Jesus, then I believe we have missed the one word that God most wants us to hear, the word which says: “I am with you now. I will never leave you or forsake you.”
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