Gospels

When God sent his Son into the world, he did not make it easy for the parents or the child. He stripped the Anointed One of every royal privilege. Already tagged as an illegitimate child, Jesus breathed his first breaths of air in a musty stable. Jesus learned obedience through suffering…all the way to the cross.

Maybe something has changed your plans this Christmas. A job that didn’t go the way you expected. An illness that showed up uninvited. A relocation. A separation. A broken relationship. The loss of a loved one. Sometimes things seem to happen so randomly. But for the believer, God is always in control. Hold on! He is using today to prepare you for tomorrow. He will never waste your time.

The sovereign God used Augustus to move His chosen couple from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As the Proverb says, “In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him” (Proverbs 21:1).  

We all need a Savior to save us from the sins that separate us from God. That’s the eternal salvation that Jesus came to give us! Once our eternal salvation is in place, we can trust Him for the other issues. But we must start with first things first.

The Promise was not a politician who came to change the laws of the land. The Promise was not a philosopher who came to teach morality. The Promise did not come as a military leader ready to take troops into battle. The Promise did not appear as a religious leader paving a way for man to work his way to God. The Promise “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

Jesus was born to unmarried parents and carried that stigma with Him for the rest of His life. Jesus was stripped of all royal privileges, all the way to the cross. Nate Saint, who gave his life for Christ as a missionary, said it this way: “If we could only grasp the significance of the Incarnation, the word sacrifice would disappear from our vocabulary.”

The virgin birth, however hard to explain, is something we need to know. Every aspect of our faith and hope for eternal life hinges on this truth. If Jesus were simply a product of a man and a woman, His life and death mean nothing more than yours or mine.

There are some surprising people included in Jesus’ genealogy. Yesterday we considered several observations about Matthew’s list (Matthew 1:1-17). Today we will consider four women in Jesus’ lineage.

Matthew’s genealogy answered the important question that a Jew would ask of the person who claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus is a royal descendant from King David and has the rightful lineage of the Eternal King.