Virgin Birth of Immanuel
Download MP3Now I want us to open up God's word together. It's the beginning of Advent season, And so we are gonna look at Matthew chapter 1 and John chapter 1. Lauren, can I grab your worship pad? Thanks. John chapter 1 and Matthew chapter 1.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna look at the virgin birth. We're gonna look how God was born and also what it means to be born of God. How God was born and what it means to be born of God. Matthew chapter 1, we'll begin reading in verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.
Joel Brooks:When his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with 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 shall save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
Joel Brooks:Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear his son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. And he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus. John chapter 1 beginning in verse 9. The true light which give gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
Joel Brooks:He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Joel Brooks:And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. If you would pray with me. Our father, I pray that during this time we would hear from you. Like we often say, we want this to be more than just black ink on white pages that we've just read. Through your spirit, we want these words to come alive.
Joel Brooks:We wanna hear you speaking to us, Jesus. We want these things written on our hearts because we do not wanna leave the same people as we came in. So, Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Did you know that if you were to watch pretty much every American western movie, you're gonna notice one characteristic in all of them and that's that help always comes from the outside. I I didn't think that was true. I actually read that in a commentary by Dale Bruner and so I decided to just start looking up a bunch of these different westerns and sure enough, if you go from you know high noon to the good, the bad, the ugly, to shame, to unforgiven, you just start going through them all, they all actually have that common narrative That it's an outsider who has to come in in order to save the people. It's a beautiful picture of the Chris the Christmas story where there's a people, there's a town that's in danger. There's some evil threat that is taking place, people who are under oppression, and an outsider has to come in and essentially decide to live there to pitch his tent there if you will, and to make those people's problems his own.
Joel Brooks:We understand that in the Christmas story, by the word became flesh and dwelt among us, or you could translate translate that the word became flesh and lived in our neighborhood, moved in and lived in our neighborhood. He made our problems His own. And there's something about these these Western movies, these stories that move us, and all the movies and stories that are like them. I think there is something in our DNA, something in the human genome that resonates with that. It's like we have that story written on our hearts, and I think that's why they are so popular with us.
Joel Brooks:They resonate with us so much is because we know deep inside they're actually true, or at least they speak to a greater truth. They speak of the truth of Christmas, in which Jesus was the outsider who came to make things right. And what I want us to do in this advent season as we we turn away from Ephesians and we begin looking at the birth of Jesus is for us to look at his coming. That's what Advent means, to come. And I want us to look at what it means when Christ came to us.
Joel Brooks:How did he come to us? What does it say about Him in the manner that He came to us? What does it say about us in the manner that He came to us? And so we're gonna do that by looking at the virgin birth. The virgin birth is Well it's an essential doctrine to the Christian faith.
Joel Brooks:This is why it's in the Apostle's Creed. I believe, you know, you you believe that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. The virgin birth is how Jesus is both fully God and he is fully man, and he is those things because of the virgin birth. Yet as important as this doctrine is to Christianity, you're gonna find that those outside of the faith just kind of roll their eyes when you mention the virgin birth. Have you ever experienced that?
Joel Brooks:Have When you've been sharing your faith? I mean I have. I mean the first objection, you know, as you're sharing your your faith to somebody and they have kind of a nominal understanding of the Bible, their first object objection is well what about Jonah? Okay, so they always bring up Jonah. Do you really think that a person could be swallowed by a whale?
Joel Brooks:And I said, well, it was a fish. You know, always had to correct them, annoy them, and then it's, and what about the Virgin birth? I mean really? Do you think Jesus was actually born of a virgin? And do I have to believe that in order to become a Christian?
Joel Brooks:The virgin birth seems to be a stumbling block right out of the right out of the gate for anybody who's interested in Christianity. It's almost as if Jesus wanted to make it as difficult as possible from the start for people to believe Him, to believe who He was as the Son of God. And even if you were a a Jew in the 1st century and and you believed in the scriptures and you you believed in Isaiah's words that the virgin shall be with child, well you didn't actually believe that that meant a real virgin birth. I mean, the word in Hebrew for virgin there can also just mean young lady, a a maiden. And so that's just a a young woman who's going to be with child.
Joel Brooks:And of course, his name shall be called Immanuel, which means God with us. Well, that child can just be a symbol. Just a symbol that God really loves us, and that he is in some way with us. And so even the 1st century Jews didn't really believe that a virgin birth was coming. They had already explained that away.
Joel Brooks:It was an obstacle to them. But of course, nobody had a harder time believing in the virgin birth than Joseph. I mean how could he believe something like this? Have you ever tried to picture in your mind Joseph and Mary's conversation? Like like after she initially becomes pregnant and how she wants to talk to Joseph.
Joel Brooks:Just like, hey Joseph, You know, I'm just trying to picture. How do you bring this up? You know, the strangest thing happened to me the other day. You know, or do you try to segue, you know, what about this weather? By the way I mean, there's no segue into something like this.
Joel Brooks:I'm sure she just said, I need to talk to you about something serious, and she took a deep breath and she said, ah, Joseph, yesterday, I was visited by an angel. The angel said I was highly favored from the Lord by the Lord and, said I'm gonna have a baby. Actually, it's gonna be God's child. God himself is going to give me this baby and by the way, I'm pregnant. Can you imagine Joseph's response?
Joel Brooks:I mean, I couldn't imagine how hard that was for Mary to tell Joseph. I mean, but I really I don't care how godly of a man you think you are, you would not believe those words. There's no way you would believe those words. Joseph wasn't buying it, but but he was an honorable man. He got every right to publicly shame Mary at this point, to get rid of her in a very public fashion, and I'm sure there's probably a part of him that wanted to because he would have been deeply hurt by her in this story that she was making up to cover for her infidelity.
Joel Brooks:But he didn't do that. He he was an honorable man and so he decided, well, I will just deal with this situation quietly, and so he divorced her quietly. And that's when an angel came to him in a dream, and the angel essentially confirmed Mary's words and said, hey, you don't need to divorce Mary because she is with child, but this is a child that has come to her through the Holy Spirit, conceived by the Holy Spirit. It's not gonna be your child. You don't even get to name this child.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna give you the name. His name's gonna be Jesus because he's gonna save his people from his sins. And Joseph believed. Now can you imagine how awful it would have been for Joseph at this point to believe in the virgin birth? I mean, picture now the conversation.
Joel Brooks:1st he had the awkward conversation between Mary and Joseph, and now it's Joseph's awkward conversations between him and all of his friends. I mean, I can picture like, you know, his friends running up and say, hey, I is it true? I mean, I heard that Mary's pregnant. It's like, yeah, it's it's true. It's true, but it's okay.
Joel Brooks:She didn't do anything. What do you mean she didn't do that? Well, I mean, she she didn't have sex. She she didn't do anything. She's still a virgin, but she's pregnant.
Joel Brooks:Yeah, I know. I know, but she really didn't do anything. I know this might sound strange. I mean it might sound a little odd, but I actually had a dream last night and the angel told me that everything's fine in my dream. The angel told me that it was the Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary and made her pregnant with the Son of God who's gonna come now through us to save the world.
Joel Brooks:I mean, can you believe it? Can you imagine just the blank stares? And they would have thought Joseph was one of 3 things. Like, Joseph, you either fell and hit your head and and you're crazy, or you're really gullible, I mean, really, really gullible, or you're lying to us. You're trying to deceive us for some reason.
Joel Brooks:Maybe it was your own infidelity or or or maybe you and Mary that you actually you actually already had sex and you're just trying to cover up for it. I I don't know, but there might be some reason you're lying to us, but you're either crazy you're either crazy or or you're really really gullible or you're lying to us. That's That's what Joseph's friends would have thought. And can I tell you that's what everybody has thought from that moment on about Christians? Joseph at the start really as the first Christian here, we identify with him and he's showing us what it's gonna look like when we follow Christ.
Joel Brooks:That people are gonna think either we are crazy, we will just believe or we'll just believe anything. We're completely gullible. You'll believe whatever your parents told you, whatever you learned in Sunday school. You know what? You're just gonna believe that?
Joel Brooks:Or they might think you're deceiving them. You're you're a con artist trying to pull one over on them. I get that all the time as a pastor. Oh, you just say these things because you're after people's money or you just want power. You're nothing but a charlatan.
Joel Brooks:Following Jesus means that our credibility is going to be ruined. It means that our reputation is going to be in shambles. It means that we are going to become outcast in society. That's what the virgin birth meant for Joseph. That's what it still means for us today.
Joel Brooks:No one believed him. From the very start of Jesus's life, those who decided to follow him, they were going to be ridiculed. You might say their entire life is going to be disrupted. I mean, yes, the angel went to Mary and said, Mary, you are highly favored. And that that's good news for her to be highly favored by the Lord.
Joel Brooks:It means salvation, It means new life, but it also means disruption. It means shame. Means persecution, suffering. The moment Jesus comes into your life, the life you once knew is over. It's gone.
Joel Brooks:All the plans that you had for your own life are over the moment Jesus comes in. I'm sure, I'm positive that Joseph and Mary, they longed for the Messiah.
Jeffrey Heine:They longed for him, but
Joel Brooks:I can guarantee you they didn't want the Messiah to come this way. This is how you're gonna come? Now all that was open to debate was their response. Mary didn't have a choice. Gabriel wasn't asking her permission.
Joel Brooks:You will conceive. The holy spirit will come upon you. These things will happen. Now, how are you gonna respond? She would not have chosen the coming of Christ this way, but her response was appropriate.
Joel Brooks:Be it done to me according to Your word. Joseph's response was appropriate in which he listens to the angel and he obeys. He doesn't name the child, because he recognizes it's not his. He gives the name that God told him to name the child, Jesus, which means the Lord saves. So this is how Jesus comes to us, and I would say this is how Jesus always comes to us.
Joel Brooks:He always brings disruption. He always brings a little bit of chaos. With him is always gonna come new life, but also is going to come shame. And you need to see that your spiritual birth and the birth of Jesus are actually remarkably similar. Your spiritual birth and the birth of Jesus are remarkably similar.
Joel Brooks:I would say that they're both virgin births. They're they're both births that come, and they disrupt your life, and they give you new life. So let's look again, once again, at John chapter 1 because I think this is where you see it so clearly. John 1. Once again, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
Joel Brooks:He was in the world and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born none of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. John, here, he tells us how God was born and then also how we are born of God. How God was born and how we are born of God.
Joel Brooks:He uses three phrases to describe how we become born of God or how we become children of God. The first, he says that it was not of blood. It was not of blood. Says who were born not of blood, and some of your translations might say not of human descent, which is which is the meaning of this phrase. Basically, what John is saying is your birth did not have human origins.
Joel Brooks:You are not a Christian because your parents were Christians, and that was just somehow passed down in your DNA, But your birth did not have human origins. Next, he says, nor of the will of the flesh. Some of your bibles might translate that as not of human decision, which is the same thing. The meaning is that your birth did not come because of any desire that you had. We didn't will for this to happen.
Joel Brooks:We didn't will to become born of God. There's even this notion here of sexual desire. Sexual desire leads to having kids, but not so in the case of spiritual birth. Your desire had nothing to do with it. Next, we read, nor of the will of man.
Joel Brooks:Literally, it reads, nor of the will of a husband. Once again, think of a a natural birth. A a husband is required, but not so in the case of spiritual birth. So you put all these together and you know what you realize is that Jesus or John is describing here, really, the birth of Jesus. It's John, a lot of people say he doesn't have a birth narrative.
Joel Brooks:That's just Luke and that's just Matthew, but, no. We see that John actually has a birth narrative. He's describing the birth of Jesus as a virgin birth who was not born of human descent. He was not born of the will of the flesh. He was not born as a result of sexual desire, and he was not born because of the will of a husband.
Joel Brooks:He was born of a virgin. Man didn't seek this man. Had nothing to do with the way Jesus came into this world, and John is saying this. He goes, now your birth, when you're born of God, happened the exact same way, the exact same way. Another way of putting this is that Jesus always comes to us through a virgin birth.
Joel Brooks:You didn't ask for it. You didn't seek for it. You really didn't have anything to do with it. What happened is that when you became born of God, the Holy Spirit came and overshadowed you and changed you, put new life in you. It's how Jesus came to you.
Joel Brooks:We are born again through virgin birth, that's how new life comes. So we were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Now this is what we mean when we use the phrase born again. We're born again Christians. Our first birth, we were born out of the will of man.
Joel Brooks:You know our parents got together. We were born, but our second birth, we were born of God. We were born of God. I've been thinking a lot about that that phrase, just that little phrase, born of God. And I gotta confess, I haven't thought that much about it over the years.
Joel Brooks:I I was kind of assumed I I knew what it meant, but it's actually so much richer when you just sit and you dwell on it. To be born of God is to be reborn. That's you know when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, remember that conversation, and, he says, you must be born again if you want to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And Nicodemus responds, well I mean, how can you do that? How can you enter into my mother's womb again and be born again?
Joel Brooks:It makes no sense. And we kinda laugh at that, you know, oh, silly Nicodemus. But a lot of people here have the exact same thought when they think of born of God. They think what's really being taught here is that God gives us a fresh start. That God wipes away all of our sins, kinda hits reboot, and allows us to start over again.
Joel Brooks:We're essentially reborn as a new person, but that is not what it means to be born again. Let me ask you a question. If you could, if you actually could reenter into a womb and be born again, would anything actually be different about your life? I mean this time is you got to live it all over again. Would it be any different?
Joel Brooks:Would there be less sin? Would you make, you know, a lot better choices? Would you be perfect? Would you follow God completely? What if that were to happen a 1,000 times?
Joel Brooks:You could be born again a 1,000 times. Hit the reboot, start again fresh new, all of your past sins wiped away. We're starting again new. Would any of those times would you be able to fully please the Lord? Would you be perfect?
Joel Brooks:No. You would fall into sin over and over again with with every lifetime you had. You would be just as sinful. That's not what it means to be born again. It's just a fresh start or to start over or just to have your sins wiped away, and now you get to start with a fresh blank slate.
Joel Brooks:That's not what Jesus means when he says you must be born again, and it's not what it means to be born of God. To be born of God means that you are you are reborn, but this time with a different nature.
Jeffrey Heine:You're born with a different
Joel Brooks:nature. Think of it this way, there's many different degrees to what we would call life. You know, we would say a tree is alive. We would say a dog is alive, but in no way could we compare those 2 kind of lives. I mean, a dog's life is a superior form of life to a tree.
Joel Brooks:Just like a human's life is a superior form of life to a dog's. It's a higher form. As you move from a plant life, maybe to an animal life to a human life, you realize that each one of these forms of life is characterized by a wider range of emotions, by a greater awareness of the environment around them, more intelligence. That's what it means to to to move up in in those different forms of life. And to be born of God means that we are not just reborn like we were, but we are reborn with a different nature, A nature that is superior in its understanding of both who it is, and how we are to interact in the environment around us.
Joel Brooks:Essentially, we've been given new senses. We've been given spiritual eyes and we can now see things that previously we could never see. We can now hear God in a way we never could before. We have new emotions. We've been given a heart of worship that can now respond to God.
Joel Brooks:John describes it this way in 1st John 3. He says that when you're born of God, he says, God's seed abides in you. God's seed abides in you. It's what it means to be born of God. It means that we have we have a part of God now coming into us.
Joel Brooks:That's where the parallel between the birth of Jesus and our own spiritual birth is. Just as the spirit of God hovered over Mary, overshadowed her, and the son of God was conceived in her, the spirit of God hovered over us at one point and conceived Jesus in us. Making us not just a new person, but a new type of person, making us a new type of humanity. And when we look back at our old life, when you've been born of God and you look back at your old life, it almost looks like the life of a vegetable. It really does.
Joel Brooks:There is that much of a difference to be born of God and to just be born of man. You've become a new type of person. You have new senses. You are now you feel fully alive and awakened to the realities of who God is. The only way that you can even describe yourself in the past is really I was dead.
Joel Brooks:It's more like life and no life, the difference between a tree and a rock. God has made you a new type of person when you were born of him. So can I ask you, have you have you ever been born of God? Does that does that seem like Christianity to you? Has this happened to you?
Joel Brooks:Has God come and disrupted your life in order to give you new life? Have you ever felt the spirit of God hovering over your heart in order to change you? Now, the appropriate response the appropriate response to a virgin birth is to completely give yourself into it, to completely give up any sense of control that you might have. It's the only way that you'll be saved. I mentioned before that Joseph, he did not even get to name his own child.
Joel Brooks:Did not get to name. That was that was the one thing that the father got to do. And the one thing is when you exercise authority and control over your child, You did that by naming your child. And God says, you will not name this child because he's not yours. Instead, you're gonna submit to this child.
Joel Brooks:You know, one of the things that, we, as a family, we got a dog about 8 years ago, and I didn't wanna have to take care of the dog. I wanted my kids to take care of the dog. So I thought one of the things that needs to happen in order for my kids to take care of the dog is they have to name it. And so we brought a dog and, went to the animal shelter, and we got a dog named Emma. And Emma came in, and I was like, this dog's name is no longer Emma.
Joel Brooks:Kids, what will you name this dog? And it was Caroline who named Emma Daisy. So we have Daisy now who's part of our household and because she named Daisy, she's exercising an authority over Daisy, saying I'm the one who takes care of you. I'm the one who's in control of your life. But you can't do so the way Jesus comes to us.
Joel Brooks:We never have control over him. We never have authority. All we could do is just simply come and submit our lives to him and recognize from the very start when he comes in, the new life we have is due to his authority and not our own. And, yes, he's gonna bring disruption, yes, he's gonna bring chaos, but we recognize that it's his life now to control. Have you done that with Jesus?
Joel Brooks:Have you submitted to him and given him all authority and recognize his lordship over you? Pray with me. Father, there's so much that's here as we look at the glorious story of how you came to us through virgin birth. We thank you that your spirit has come to us as well and has given us a new nature. We're not just born again, we're born of God.
Joel Brooks:We're truly alive. So alive that when we look back at our old lives, our old lives we can only describe it as one of us being dead compared to the life we are now living in light of who you are, Jesus. So thank you, spirit, for the work that you're doing in our lives. And for those who don't know you, I pray in this moment, your spirit would overshadow them, that even now, your spirit would begin drawing them to you, Even now, begin disrupting their lives, bringing in the chaos that's necessary in order for you to be born in them, and in order for them to be reborn. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
