What IF God Was

One Of Us?

Matthew 1:18-25

image: Kent Landerholm

God Gives Us His Words of Eternal Life

Found on page 807 in our guest Bibles.Today’s Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to his face

If you were faced with him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one

question…?

And yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us? Just a slob

like one of us? Just a stranger on the

bus trying to make his way home?

“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven

cannot contain you….”

~ King Solomon, in 1 Kings 8:27

What IF God Was

One Of Us?

Matthew 1:18-25

image: Kent Landerholm

1 …the IDENTITY of Jesus

2 …the MISSION of Jesus

Be on the lookout for clues about…

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took

Matthew 1:18-19

place in this way. When his motherMary had been betrothed to Joseph,before they came together she wasfound to be with child from the HolySpirit. And her husband Joseph,

being a just man and unwilling to

Matthew 1:18-19

put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly….

…the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a

man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he

came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”

~ The Gospel of Luke, 1:26ff

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid,

Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb a son,

and you shall call his name JESUS.

~ The Gospel of Luke, 1:26ff

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the

throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom

there shall be no end….”

~ The Gospel of Luke, 1:26ff

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;

therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the SON OF GOD…. For nothing will be

impossible with God. ”~ The Gospel of Luke, 1:26ff

But as he considered these things,

Matthew 1:20-21

behold, an angel appeared to him ina dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary asyour wife, for that which is conceivedin her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall

Matthew 1:20-21

call his name Jesus, for he willsave his people from their sins….

All this took place to fulfill what the

Matthew 1:22-23

Lord had spoken by the prophet:“Behold, the virgin shall conceiveand bear a son, and they shallcall his name Immanuel”(which means, God with us).

“If we could condense all the truths of

Christmas into only three words, these

would be the words: ‘God with us.’

We tend to focus our attention at Christmas

on the infancy of Christ.

John MacArthur Pastor-Teacher-Author

“The greater truth of the holiday is His

deity. More astonish-ing than a baby in the

manger is the truth that this promised baby is the omni-

potent Creator of the heavens and the

earth!”

John MacArthur Pastor-Teacher-Author

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word

was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory….

~ The Apostle John in The Gospel of John 1:1, 14

in·car·na·tion

“The Incarnation”

the “en-flesh-ment” or

the “embodiment”

“[The incarnation] is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible – far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe.

“The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”~ Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

“Infinite and yet an infant. Eternal and yet born of a woman. Almighty, and yet

nursing at a woman’s breast. Supporting the

universe, and yet needing to be carried in a

mother’s arms. Heir of all things, and yet the

carpenter’s despised son.”

~ Charles Spurgeon 1843-1892

When Joseph woke from sleep, he

Matthew 1:24-25

did as the angel of the Lord com-manded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had givenbirth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

The Good News that God became a human

in the person of Jesus Christ for us and for our salvation

should forever define our lives.

image: Nicolas Raymond

God in Christ suffers with us.

1

image: Christopher Brown

God in Christ suffered for us. 2

“No other religion—whether secularism, Greco-Roman

paganism, Eastern religion, Judaism or Islam—believes

God became breakable or had a body. Eastern religion believes the physical is

illusion. Greco-Romans believe the physical is bad, Judaism and Islam don’t believe God

would do such a thing as live in the flesh….”

~ Pastor Tim Keller, “The Gift of Christmas”

“The gift of Christmas gives you a resource

—a comfort and consolation— for

dealing with suffering, because in it we see God’s willingness to

enter this world of suffering to suffer with us

and for us.”~ Pastor Tim Keller,

“The Gift of Christmas”

“If God had a face, what would it look

like? And would you want to see if seeing meant that you would

have to believe in things like Jesus and the saints and all the

prophets?”

Would you want to see the face of God if seeing

meant that you would have to

believe in Jesus…?

?

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of

darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the

light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

~ The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:6

“ There is no reality more breathtaking

than Jesus Christ. ”

~ John Piper, “The Dangerous Duty of Delight”

Kent Landerholm: http://www.flickr.com/photos/landerholm/6565779779/

Nicolas Raymond: http://www.flickr.com/photos/80497449@N04/10011881004/

Christopher Brown: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7853490@N07/3531948937/

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