Matthew 1:18-25
Please turn in your copy of God’s
word to the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter one verses 18
through 25 will be our passage for today. Here you’ll find the
account of the birth of Jesus Christ, the visitation of the
angel. This is the story of Joseph. And we want to think today on
Christmas characters. I want to think about the angels
and their ministry in general in the life of the history of
God’s people, but also in particular in the Christmas story. There’ll
be a few other passages we’ll make mention of, but this will
be our jumping off point. So Matthew chapter one at verse
18, before we read, let’s pray together. Lord, we come to you
now. We come from a weary world, busy
schedules, noisy, many voices calling for our attention. So
give us a few moments of quiet that we might hear your voice.
We might learn of your ways, your work in the world, and we
might marvel at the goodness of God and the Lord Jesus Christ
and in his coming. Hear us and help us as we make
our prayer in the name of Christ, amen. Hear the word of God from
Matthew 1, beginning at verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ
took place in this way. 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, 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 will save his people from their sins. All this took place
to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold,
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call
his name Emmanuel. which means God with us. When
Joseph woke from the sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord
commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her
not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name
Jesus. Amen. This is the word of the
living God for us. Several years back, I went to
a, uh, little conference for preachers and the evening preacher
got up. He stood in the pulpit and he
said to all of us, I’ve been assigned to talk to you about
angels. And he says, I don’t know a whole lot about angels,
but I know more than you do. That was his introduction. Rather
clever. The same is probably true here.
I don’t know too much about angels, but possibly I know more than
you do. The question for us though is
what is our source of knowledge? Is it popular Christian art? If so, uh-oh, because angels
are chubby cherubs, right? They look like our darling babies
once they have fattened up a little bit. You know, the fat thighs,
the fat cheeks attach angels’ wings. And there you have what
many people for centuries have determined to be what angels
must look like. Well, that doesn’t help us too
much. Then you go to pop culture. Pop culture, you know, angels
are children in a pageant. You know, they’re children with
just wings stuck on them. You know, in some little piece
of wire cutter with a halo, wire pipe cleaning, whatever, a little
halo. Or worse, you could go to Hallmark,
and you could peruse the Isle of Cards, or maybe even the art
section, and there you might get a concept of what is an angel,
but we’d be better off going to the scriptures. And I think
as you saw from Judges chapter 13, angels seem to be in all
kinds of places, tucked away into all sorts of places in the
Bible. And we see many times in the
Bible encounters with angels. These experiences are terrifying. Now, you know the drill today.
Everybody in America wants to have some epic experience and
they wanna tell you about it. And now they’re armed with Facebook.
And so they can do it quite easily. And so you’ll see these stories
around, I once met an angel. And my question is this, how
terrified were you? That seems to be the mark of
the scripture, isn’t it? When someone encounters one of
these holy ones from heaven, they were undone. They probably
had to change their clothing They probably were forever changed
because that experience so terrified them and so revealed to them
who they are, a creature, and who God is. He is mighty and
he is great. Angels appear all over the scriptures. You go back to the story of Adam
and Eve, and they’re breaking God’s one law that he gave them,
at least the explicit one we know of, don’t eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil in the day you eat of it,
you will die. And so in the garden, when God
excommunicated them from his presence, he put a chair of him,
an angel with a flaming sword, at the entrance. I used to think
that was a horrible, mean thing of God. But then you read on
in the scriptures, God did not want them to take hold of the
tree of life and eat and live eternally in sin. No, he wanted
to give them a opportunity for mercy and grace in Christ. And
we will one day eat from that tree of life and live forever
in heaven, but not in sin will live and righteousness because
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You fast forward a little
bit through the scriptures and the angels pop up again in the
18th or so chapter of Genesis. Not only does God use the angels
to protect the garden and the tree of life, he uses them to
judge the wicked. The people of old during Abraham’s
day had gotten so rotten in their hearts. not only in their self-worship,
but their unrighteous living. And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
and the surrounding regions had become so corrupt and so wicked
that their deeds had risen up to the heavens and God came down
in the form of angels to see what was taking place. They met
with Abram. They announced to him the birth
of Isaac in the year to come, but the angels went on to Sodom
and Gomorrah to deal out the justice of God because the wickedness
could no longer be tolerated in his sight. And then you zip
along in scriptures and you get Balaam and his donkey. He’s on
the way to curse the people of God. And an angel of the Lord
appears to the donkey. That donkey sees this vision,
this angel, and prevents Balaam from making his way to make the
curse. on the people. And then there’s
chapter 13 of Judges. It sounds like a common theme
along the Christmas story, doesn’t it? A barren woman, an aging
couple, no child, but then God is ready to step in. And so who
does he send to make the great announcement? that Samson will
be born or that John the Baptist will be born or that Jesus Emmanuel,
the Christ would be born. He sends angels to make these
special announcements. And then we get on into the old
covenant a little more. And there’s the arc of the covenant
with the cherubim flanking the seat or the throne of almighty
God. And that helps us see the picture
that we often maybe have come to our minds as we think of angels
living in the heavenly places surrounding the throne room of
God in heaven. We read descriptions of this
where around the throne are angels in circles. And then maybe like
choirs we might think of in our modern day, there’s the angels
surrounding the entirety of the throne and presence of God. and
they day and night sing out and cry out, holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God almighty. But at certain times and in special
seasons where God is on the move, we might say turning points in
history, particularly the 400 years of silence, since God has
revealed anything new to his people, Israel, We have the message
and the ministry of angels. We’ve looked in the last couple
of weeks at Zechariah and Elizabeth. We looked at Mary and Joseph.
And now today we wanna see how those angels ministered to them
in special ways, special realities. There was Zechariah at the altar
offering incense. His turn had come up as a priest
in the temple. And the angel appears to him
there at the altar and says to the old man, Zechariah, your
wife will be with child. Your wife will bear a son. Your
son will be the forerunner for the Messiah. He will open the
way, the hearts of the people for the coming of King Jesus.
And then the angels go to a little house in Nazareth where there’s
a young gal betrothed to Joseph. She’s with child, she’s conceived
by the Holy Spirit. And she’s given the announcement
from Gabriel, fear not. God has become pleased with you
and you will bear this little one, you will bear this great
one. These angels have a special task. They come from the throne of
God, from the presence of God, but I think it’s also important
to note, they come from the heart of God. Only God would enter
real space and time. He would enter real human history
to save a people from their sins. And so from the throne of God
come the angels of God. From the heart of God comes the
message of the angels. Fear not, God is with you. Good
tidings. And on we see through the scriptures
of the angels’ ministry. They come to the shepherds. who
are out in their fields, tending their flocks by the night. One
angel comes and says, fear not, I bring you good tidings of great
joy. For unto you this day is born
in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And then
suddenly around this one angel, we have the whole bright array
of the heavenly host. And they come and they bear witness
to the glory of God and the salvation of men. through the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. So what do we think of these
angels? Their title simply means messengers. And we see in places in scripture
where angels come and give these great messages of hope and salvation,
but we see sometimes where the whole host of angels come and
do mighty and great works. I think of that passage in 2
Kings where Elijah And the people of God are surrounded by the
Assyrians, that Assyrian army, massive and mean, but nasty and
scary. And the people of God were in
great fear. And Elijah prayed, oh Lord, open the eyes of my
servant. And God did so. And the array
of hosts in the surrounding mountains, and they were able to say, there
are more of us than there are of them. You know, angels have
fallen on hard times lately. Well, they’ve appeared in our
popular culture art, they’ve appeared in art over the centuries,
and well, in our minds, they’re these chubby little cherubs.
I was trying to think of a good comparison. We’ve sort of made
them a mall cop, right? Sitting back in an office, you
know, maybe asleep, watching a few screens. No service weapon. when in fact they’re SWAT team,
right? They’re the Delta Force. They’re
the biggest and the baddest of God’s created beings. And in some cases, I think we’ve
sadly become, well, worshipers of angels. We think that, well,
we think upon death, we become angels. That’s popular in our
culture and that’s not the case. And so it’s good for us to be
reminded of what God says to us in his word about them. We
see a little of what they do coming at the turning points
of history and making announcements. But we remember David’s musings
in Psalm 8. Oh Lord, oh Lord, how majestic
is your name in all the earth. And David, who is feeling small,
he’s out in the dark looking up at the nighttime sky, He says,
what is man that you were mindful of him, the son of man, that
you would look upon him? You’ve made us a little bit lower
than the heavenly angels, the heavenly beings. Yet you have
endowed us with dignity. See, only humans are made in
God’s image. Only humans bear the image of
God and have the soul that will last forever. God has done a
mighty and great thing in us. and he’s done it through Jesus
Christ. But I wanna fast forward and remind you of the first couple
of chapters of Hebrews. The first couple of chapters
of Hebrews use the word better. Jesus is better than Moses. Jesus
is better than the high priest of the line of Aaron. Jesus is
better than Melchizedek, that strange person who shows up in
Genesis. But there’s also one important
better than that we ought to remember Jesus is better than
angels. So before we revere them too
much, we should give them their due. They’re God’s majestic creatures
that do his bidding. We ought to remember that these
angels in the Christmas story come to serve as those who will
announce the one who is greater than they are. Remember, Peter
says of salvation, he says something of salvation in first Peter,
that even the angels long to look into. And so you can imagine
with great curiosity and great interest in the Christmas story,
that the angels who know Jesus as a better than them, has come
into the world to save sinners. In fact, the book of Hebrews
will tell us the reason Jesus is better than the angels is
because he is the son of God and he has received that title
from his father. And so they come and they worship
and they adore him as well. Let’s go to God in prayer. Our
father, we thank you that you and your word show us how great
and mighty you are, how great and mighty even are your messengers.
Lord, we’re quick, we’re tempted to worship that which is created
and to overlook and even overshadow the eternal one. And we bless
your great name in this hour for your son, the only son, the
eternally begotten son, who is coming to this world at the announcement
of angels to save sinners like ourselves. Lord, you are great
and you are mighty, and we revere you and honor you as that now.
We pray that your word would teach us and show us what we
ought to believe about you and your ways so that we can serve
you for your own glory. Hear us and help us now, we pray
in the name of Christ, amen.