What came before… – In His Word 12-16-2024
Before Jesus was born there were a lot of people living in His family line. Nevertheless during that time there was darkness an despair, but it would not go on forever. (Isaiah 9 the Hope in Messiah read the whole chapter).
The people of the world, mainly to our knowledge according
to the Bible, God’s people went through a lot of turmoil and discouragement, before
Christ came. They were given so much and had faith off and on throughout their generations.
A few years back we studied ‘A Walk in
the Word’ Bible studies in a group and what we came to realize is approximately
every 20-40 years the generations would either be for God and obey His commands
or they would forget about Him and do things the way they thought they should.
The later of course would bring in a mess of turmoil, dark times, death and destruction
as they tried to live without relying on God. If you read through from Genesis
to 1 Samuel you will find many times that you are frustrated with the people
for the choices they made. I often wonder how much trouble I put God through in
my lifetime if His own people had done so much to cause Him consternation.
Still God kept His promise to send a Messiah to safe the
people from their sins, and their selves really. Let’s read in Matthew 1 below,
we can see where many people we read about in the Bible are right there in
Jesus’ genealogy.
All those listed above include fourteen generations from
Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen
from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah.
This is how Jesus the
Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But
before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became
pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a
righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break
the engagement quietly. Matthew 1:17-19
If we read on we will come to the story of how the angel
came to Joseph as well and explained what was going to happen. These two people
who would be Jesus’ earthly parents were obedient to the will of God and for
that we should be thankful.
If that was all they did we could rejoice. But they raised
Him up in the way that He should go. Just like we do for our own children.
Sometimes I think Mathew gets missed when e read about the
birth of Jesus, and today I am looking at what happened before He was born; that’s
why I chose to share this portion of the story. Later on in the next week, we
will read about Luke’s version and about it. But let’s see what Matthew says.
As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him
in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take
Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name
him Jesus,[i] for he will save his people from their sins. All of this occurred
to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
When Joseph woke up,
he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did
not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him
Jesus. Matthew 1:20-25
It is interesting that we are shown the obedience of both of
these people in the beginning of their lives and yet then it really isn’t about
them as much as it is about the fact that it was God’s will they followed.
These two were chosen to raise God’s Son. That always amazes me. So many people
get to adopt children and they worry that the child will not be happy, or they
worry they should not tell the child they are adopted. In this topic I like to
mention that adoption is a blessing! We Christians are adopted into the family
of God, just as children get adopted into families that choose them. God chose
us.
But let us who live in the light be clearheaded,
protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the
confidence of our salvation. For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus
Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we
are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. 1
Thessalonians 5:8-10
Because Mary and Joseph were both obedient to what the Angel of the Lord told them, they allowed us to
learn to be the same.
Because God loved us enough to come as man to save us He allows
us to know Him in a way we could not have had Jesus not come as a little baby
who would grow up among us and really be able to understand what we go through.
Because of this we can have our sins, our pains, our
sadness, our frailty, and more taken from us and fix, or healed in His time.
Sometimes His time is a lot longer than we think we should be healed but God
knows the perfect time. Look at all the people who lived before Jesus finally
came to save us!
All the whole world went on before Jesus was born. And now
more than 2000 years after His death and resurrection we find we still struggle
when we do not keep our eyes on Him. We loose faith when we do not trust Him
with all of our hearts and try to figure things out on our own.
Lets decide today to say “Yes Lord, let it be as you have
said” like Mary. Let’s do the unordinary thing like Joseph and just do what God
says.
This week we will be joining Coffee and T’ Advent Countdown (YouTube link on the side) as they wind down the second half of the month and focus on the Word Faith.
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the
evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of
old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe
was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything
that can be seen. Hebrews 11:1-3
The old and the new are all tied up together when we read the
lessons, stories and devotions in His Word .