Title: Salvation is found in Christ alone!
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Matthew 1:18-25 (ESV)
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
During the Spanish-American War, Clara Barton was overseeing the work of the Red Cross in Cuba. One day Colonel Theodore Roosevelt came to her wanting to buy food for his sick and wounded Rough Riders. She refused to sell him any. Roosevelt was perplexed. His men needed the help and he was prepared to pay out of his own funds what was required. When he asked someone why he couldn’t buy the supplies he needed, he was told, "Colonel, just ask for it!" A smile broke over Roosevelt's face. Now he understood--the provisions were not for sale. All he had to do was simply ask and they would be given freely.
Our Daily Bread, October 11, 1992.
Our joy tonight, as we celebrate the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ, is not a holiday joy of manmade origin that is merely here today and gone tomorrow but it is a joy in the truly divine gift of the God/man Himself, who at His incarnation, born of a virgin, became man so that through Him the forgiveness of sins and salvation might be freely given.
So the Gospel reading for tonight tells of the dilemma Joseph faced. His betrothed – or the one he was pledged to marry, had been found to be with child. Not through the course of natural events but by the Holy Spirit, Mary was pregnant.
Before a betrothed virgin was formally given in marriage, Mary had made a pledge and promise – a betrothal contract if you will, to marry Joseph to be faithful to him … and to be his wife. There was no cohabitation during this betrothal period but the betrothed virgin would use this time to prepare and put all things in order at her father’s home for the upcoming wedding.
This contract was as binding as a marriage was and Joseph is also called “her husband.” The fact that a “divorce” was required to break the betrothal shows the seriousness of this legally binding contract. To be found guilty of adultery during the betrothal period would have caused Mary to be subject to the punishments that the moral law required.
Now Joseph, even in this tenuous situation …
being a just man and unwilling to put Mary to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
True love looks to the needs of another and Joseph, though he didn’t understand the situation … was still loving … towards Mary in how he thought he might dissolve the contract not causing he shame.
20 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. (Matt. 1:20)
Through this awkward betrothal, God Himself took on flesh and became man to endure the shame and guilt that you deserved, nailing your sins to His cross some 30 years after His blessed birth.
There was no other way because:
Salvation is found in Christ alone!
Shame is a difficult feeing to deal with.
Ill.
There was a teenager who didn’t want to be seen in public with her mother, because her mother’s arms were terribly disfigured. One day when her mother took her shopping and reached out her hand, a clerk looked horrified. Later, crying, the girl told her how embarrassed she was.
Understandably hurt, the mother waited an hour before going to her daughter’s room to tell her, for the first time, what happened.
"When you were a baby, she began; I woke up to a burning house. Your room was an inferno. Flames were everywhere. I could have gotten out the front door, but I decided I’d rather die with you than leave you to die alone. I ran through the fire and wrapped my arms around you. Then I went back through the flames, my arms on fire. When I got outside on the lawn, the pain was agonizing but when I looked at you, all I could do was rejoice that the flames hadn’t touched you."
Stunned, the girl looked at her mother through new eyes. Weeping in shame and gratitude, she kissed her mother’s marred hands and arms.
(Source: Randy Alcorn. From a sermon by Billy Ricks, Suffering, 2/27/2011)
Our loving God and savior Jesus Christ could have left you to the fires of Hell and damnation. It was not His sin for which you and I are condemned but the sins and falleness of this broken and corrupted world. The sin of rebellion is alive and well as seen daily in print, TV and online. Life is directed to self interests rather than to serving others and Christmas has become nothing more than a two month push and economic indicator of the retail wellbeing of our country.
The “Christmas spirit” we are told comes to life as people focus on the joys of giving gifts and celebrating family and friends and the love we share for and with one another. But, true love came down from heaven, in the form of a babe in a manger, born of the Virgin Mary who was called by God to this special task.
“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.21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Christ comes to you and to each and every one of us, dear friends, not by our Christmas spirit but by the working of the Holy Spirit, who calls and gathers all who would believe to the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord through faith in His blessed work.
Salvation is found in Christ alone!
Martin Luther had this to say about the human heart:
“Hearts are polluted with idolatries, vain thoughts about God, lust, and other vices which arise from the fact that they do not have a sound knowledge of God. All of this our fine bath attendants neglect; they are only concerned that their bodies and clothes should be clean. But, O God, cleanse Thou my heart, that I might acknowledge Thy will as it is, good and gracious, lest I be led away to wicked opinions by wild speculations about God.”
Martin Luther – LW Vol. 12 Selected Psalms 1 pg. 378
“Take a look at your own heart, and you will soon find out what has stuck to it and where your treasure is. It is easy to determine whether hearing the Word of God, living according to it, and achieving such a life gives you as much enjoyment and calls forth as much diligence from you as does accumulating and saving money and property.”
–Martin Luther
http://dailychristianquote.com/dcqluther.html
True joy is not found in the things you work to possess, but in that which you receive and which you are freely given that you could never work for or truly deserve.
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
And in this name, Jesus, your salvation is found in Him alone!
True joy, dear friends, is found only in Christ Jesus our Lord! This Christmas, may the joy of the Christ child, this beautiful babe of Bethlehem who came down from heaven to bring you himself, the divine gift of salvation, comfort and peace wrapped in the human flesh of Jesus our baby king.
As Theodore Roosevelt found out when Clara Barton refused to sell him the supplies he needed: He was told, "Colonel, just ask for it!"
Well, the Apostle John said much the same thing in our epistle reading for today:
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:13-15)
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10:9)
Confess it, say it and ask for it for salvation is found in Christ alone!
May the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you now and forever.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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