November 30, 2025 // Matthew 1:18-25
APPLICATION: Read & watch/listen to Matthew 1:18-25
Sermon Title: The Angel and Joseph
Sermon Notes:
“Pay Attention” - to the Mystery of the Birth
Divine Conception
Difficult Circumstances
“Pay Attention” - to Moral Character of Joseph
Joseph’s Reputation
His Disbelief
His Decision
Mary’s Reputation
His Disposition
“Pay Attention” - to the Message of the Angel
Calming Joseph’s Heart
Clarifying the details
“Pay Attention” - to the Meaning of the Prophecy
Foretold – by Isaiah
Fulfilled - In Jesus
“Pay Attention” - to the Mandate of Obedience
In marriage
In purity
In name
Life Application:
When my son Simeon was three, he liked to look at the moon. We could be walking through our neighborhood on a partially cloudy night or driving along the highway at the break of dawn, and instead of first noticing the colored Christmas lights on the trees or the cool sports car passing on the left, Simeon would spot the moon. “I see the moon!” he’d belt out from his car seat. “I see the moon,” he’d say, squeezing my hand as we walked.
One night at home his gift for observing the obvious was especially memorable. He turned to the window, and there it was again. “Dad, the moon,” he said softly and with astonishment, as if he had never seen it before. “I know, Simeon,” I replied mildly and with less astonishment. I added playfully, “Do you think you can touch it?” Without hesitation he turned to the window, climbed up the arm of a chair, crossed over onto the windowsill, and reached his right hand up to the sky. He was only 384,403 kilometers shy of it. Discouraged but not dissuaded, he jumped down and ran to the front room, once again finding the moon. “There’s another one,” he yelled. Then he backed up. He ran. He leapt. He reached. This time I swear he almost touched it.
To Simeon the moon’s movements were mysterious, its light lovely, and its texture close enough to touch. Sometimes when we come to passages like Matthew’s condensed Christmas story, we don’t come with that childlike curiosity and wonder—looking at the everyday with awe, perceiving the familiar as fascinating. But we should. We should become like little children, which Jesus said is the only way to get into the kingdom. Here’s how we’ll do it with Matthew 1:18–25. I’ll show you in this text three important yet oftentimes unobserved observations—ones that when seen afresh, I hope will cause you to see the passage afresh. And perhaps for the first time in a long time, what has become ordinary will once again be extraordinary, as extraordinary as the moon in the eyes of an inquisitive boy.[1]
Digging Deeper:
A. The Messiah
The Old Testament contains numerous prophecies and images indicating that both the Davidic and the Abrahamic Covenants will find their final fulfillment in one man—who is also God’s own Son. The sovereign Son of David, who will restore the kingdom, and the sacrificial Son of Abraham, who will redeem the people, is one and the same!
This one man, foreseen in numerous passages throughout the Old Testament, is known in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament as the Messiah, or literally “Anointed One” (e.g., see Dan. 9:25–26). The New Testament was written in Greek. Thus, when the New Testament writers referred to the Anointed One, they did not use the Hebrew term Messiah, but the equivalent Greek term Christ. Both are accurate. Neither term is more or less accurate or more or less spiritual. The Spirit-inspired word of the New Testament is “the Christ.”
B. Prophet, Priest, and King
In Bible times, the great leaders of God’s people normally held one of three offices. Three kinds of people were publicly anointed—prophets, priests, and kings. A prophet was one who represented God and spoke his message to the people. A priest, on the other hand, represented the people and brought sacrifices before God on the people’s behalf. Matthew showed that Jesus, as the Christ or “Anointed One,” fulfilled both the priestly and prophetic roles. However, Matthew placed his greatest emphasis on Jesus’ role as the king.
C. Virgin Birth Significance
Jesus’ miraculous conception, or virgin birth, is significant in Scripture. First, with God as his Father, he did not inherit Adam’s sin nature, as have all other men and women in the world who have two human parents. Thus, he could be the “spotless lamb,” the unblemished sacrifice that would satisfy God’s judgment of sin. Anything less than perfect is not good enough as payment for our sin. Jesus was sinlessly perfect.
Second, because Jesus is God, his becoming a human, his perfect life, and his sacrificial death are actions of God involving himself personally in the solution to our problem. God did not just sit back and shout “I love you!” from the heavens. Nor did he send someone else as a messenger or servant to do the work. God himself became one of us! Only God himself could satisfy his own standards of perfection. Only God could offer himself as a full payment that would satisfy his own righteous demands, fully appeasing his own wrath against our sin. God, the judge, passed the death sentence against us; then God, the Savior, came down to stand in front of us and absorb that sentence himself. This could not have happened if Jesus had been born of a human father.
Third, because Jesus is human, he qualifies as a representative of the human race, a mediator, before God (see Heb. 4:14–5:3; also Rom. 5:12–21). It would have been meaningless for a nonhuman to die for the human race, because he would have had no connection or identity with those for whom he died. In order for Jesus the Christ to die in our place, he had to be one of us. This point of identification is critical to the success of God’s plan. Without a human mother, Jesus could not have carried out God’s plan to redeem (buy back) his own people. Nor could he have done it without a divine Father.
D. Significant Genealogical Insights
While the most important point to be learned from the genealogy of 1:1–17 is that it shows Jesus to be the promised son of David and the promised son of Abraham, there are a few interesting side lights that deserve some attention.
First, in addition to Mary (1:16), four women are mentioned among the long list of men.
Tamar (1:3) was actually Judah’s widowed daughter-in-law. She tricked Judah into sleeping with her to produce offspring to carry on her dead husband’s name (Gen. 38). Without this incident, the line to the promised king would have been broken.
Rahab (1:5) was a Canaanite prostitute who lived in Jericho and harbored Israelite spies before Joshua’s conquest of the city (Josh. 2). Because of her faithfulness to God, he not only spared her family from destruction (Josh. 6:24–25), but he also made her part of the Messiah’s ancestry.
Ruth (1:5) was a foreigner in Israel at a time when Israelites were commanded not to intermarry with other nationalities (see the Book of Ruth). But she demonstrated such strength of character and faithfulness to God that she was privileged to become an ancestor of the Messiah. In fact, she was the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:13–22).
The mention of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (1:6), calls to mind her adulterous relationship with David, leading first to David’s murder of her husband Uriah, but also to the birth of Solomon, an ancestor of the Messiah.
Why are these four unlikely women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy when the normal practice was to mention only the men’s names? At least three of them were Gentiles, considered “unclean” by the standards of God’s Old Testament law. Three of them were involved in illicit sexual relationships. God is sending a clear message that he can and will use anyone he wants to accomplish his purposes. He is willing to forgive the worst of sins and then go on to do amazing things through the faithful life he has restored. God loves to choose the “least likely” tools for his tasks (1 Cor. 1:26–29). How will he use you?
Throughout Matthew’s genealogy, many generations are skipped over in the list. Some of the men listed are not literally the fathers of the men listed after them, but the grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and so on. However, this does not invalidate the genealogy, for the Greek wording for a father-son relationship can also mean an ancestor-descendant relationship, with several generations between the two. Matthew chose to shorten the list of names to those who stood out historically, in order to compile a list of three “fourteens” (1:17). This would be easier for people to remember.
Skeptics of the Bible point out that Matthew’s genealogy is different than Luke’s (Luke 3:23–38). They conclude that one of these Gospel writers has made a mistake. Indeed, while Matthew says that Jesus is descended through David’s son Solomon (Matt. 1:6), Luke says he was descended through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). However, the apparent contradiction disappears when we consider the different purposes of Matthew’s and Luke’s books.
Matthew emphasized Jesus as the king, so his genealogy traced Jesus’ legal lineage of record through Joseph, even though Joseph was really only the adoptive father of Jesus). On the other hand, Luke emphasized Jesus’ physical, human side, so his genealogy traced Jesus’ physical lineage through his physical mother Mary, and ultimately to Adam.[2]
Questions to Consider:
Prayer Time:
[1] Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 39–40.
[2] Stuart K. Weber, Matthew, vol. 1, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 25–27.
Sermon Title: The Angel and Joseph
Sermon Notes:
“Pay Attention” - to the Mystery of the Birth
Divine Conception
Difficult Circumstances
“Pay Attention” - to Moral Character of Joseph
Joseph’s Reputation
His Disbelief
His Decision
Mary’s Reputation
His Disposition
“Pay Attention” - to the Message of the Angel
Calming Joseph’s Heart
Clarifying the details
“Pay Attention” - to the Meaning of the Prophecy
Foretold – by Isaiah
Fulfilled - In Jesus
“Pay Attention” - to the Mandate of Obedience
In marriage
In purity
In name
Life Application:
When my son Simeon was three, he liked to look at the moon. We could be walking through our neighborhood on a partially cloudy night or driving along the highway at the break of dawn, and instead of first noticing the colored Christmas lights on the trees or the cool sports car passing on the left, Simeon would spot the moon. “I see the moon!” he’d belt out from his car seat. “I see the moon,” he’d say, squeezing my hand as we walked.
One night at home his gift for observing the obvious was especially memorable. He turned to the window, and there it was again. “Dad, the moon,” he said softly and with astonishment, as if he had never seen it before. “I know, Simeon,” I replied mildly and with less astonishment. I added playfully, “Do you think you can touch it?” Without hesitation he turned to the window, climbed up the arm of a chair, crossed over onto the windowsill, and reached his right hand up to the sky. He was only 384,403 kilometers shy of it. Discouraged but not dissuaded, he jumped down and ran to the front room, once again finding the moon. “There’s another one,” he yelled. Then he backed up. He ran. He leapt. He reached. This time I swear he almost touched it.
To Simeon the moon’s movements were mysterious, its light lovely, and its texture close enough to touch. Sometimes when we come to passages like Matthew’s condensed Christmas story, we don’t come with that childlike curiosity and wonder—looking at the everyday with awe, perceiving the familiar as fascinating. But we should. We should become like little children, which Jesus said is the only way to get into the kingdom. Here’s how we’ll do it with Matthew 1:18–25. I’ll show you in this text three important yet oftentimes unobserved observations—ones that when seen afresh, I hope will cause you to see the passage afresh. And perhaps for the first time in a long time, what has become ordinary will once again be extraordinary, as extraordinary as the moon in the eyes of an inquisitive boy.[1]
Digging Deeper:
A. The Messiah
The Old Testament contains numerous prophecies and images indicating that both the Davidic and the Abrahamic Covenants will find their final fulfillment in one man—who is also God’s own Son. The sovereign Son of David, who will restore the kingdom, and the sacrificial Son of Abraham, who will redeem the people, is one and the same!
This one man, foreseen in numerous passages throughout the Old Testament, is known in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament as the Messiah, or literally “Anointed One” (e.g., see Dan. 9:25–26). The New Testament was written in Greek. Thus, when the New Testament writers referred to the Anointed One, they did not use the Hebrew term Messiah, but the equivalent Greek term Christ. Both are accurate. Neither term is more or less accurate or more or less spiritual. The Spirit-inspired word of the New Testament is “the Christ.”
B. Prophet, Priest, and King
In Bible times, the great leaders of God’s people normally held one of three offices. Three kinds of people were publicly anointed—prophets, priests, and kings. A prophet was one who represented God and spoke his message to the people. A priest, on the other hand, represented the people and brought sacrifices before God on the people’s behalf. Matthew showed that Jesus, as the Christ or “Anointed One,” fulfilled both the priestly and prophetic roles. However, Matthew placed his greatest emphasis on Jesus’ role as the king.
C. Virgin Birth Significance
Jesus’ miraculous conception, or virgin birth, is significant in Scripture. First, with God as his Father, he did not inherit Adam’s sin nature, as have all other men and women in the world who have two human parents. Thus, he could be the “spotless lamb,” the unblemished sacrifice that would satisfy God’s judgment of sin. Anything less than perfect is not good enough as payment for our sin. Jesus was sinlessly perfect.
Second, because Jesus is God, his becoming a human, his perfect life, and his sacrificial death are actions of God involving himself personally in the solution to our problem. God did not just sit back and shout “I love you!” from the heavens. Nor did he send someone else as a messenger or servant to do the work. God himself became one of us! Only God himself could satisfy his own standards of perfection. Only God could offer himself as a full payment that would satisfy his own righteous demands, fully appeasing his own wrath against our sin. God, the judge, passed the death sentence against us; then God, the Savior, came down to stand in front of us and absorb that sentence himself. This could not have happened if Jesus had been born of a human father.
Third, because Jesus is human, he qualifies as a representative of the human race, a mediator, before God (see Heb. 4:14–5:3; also Rom. 5:12–21). It would have been meaningless for a nonhuman to die for the human race, because he would have had no connection or identity with those for whom he died. In order for Jesus the Christ to die in our place, he had to be one of us. This point of identification is critical to the success of God’s plan. Without a human mother, Jesus could not have carried out God’s plan to redeem (buy back) his own people. Nor could he have done it without a divine Father.
D. Significant Genealogical Insights
While the most important point to be learned from the genealogy of 1:1–17 is that it shows Jesus to be the promised son of David and the promised son of Abraham, there are a few interesting side lights that deserve some attention.
First, in addition to Mary (1:16), four women are mentioned among the long list of men.
Tamar (1:3) was actually Judah’s widowed daughter-in-law. She tricked Judah into sleeping with her to produce offspring to carry on her dead husband’s name (Gen. 38). Without this incident, the line to the promised king would have been broken.
Rahab (1:5) was a Canaanite prostitute who lived in Jericho and harbored Israelite spies before Joshua’s conquest of the city (Josh. 2). Because of her faithfulness to God, he not only spared her family from destruction (Josh. 6:24–25), but he also made her part of the Messiah’s ancestry.
Ruth (1:5) was a foreigner in Israel at a time when Israelites were commanded not to intermarry with other nationalities (see the Book of Ruth). But she demonstrated such strength of character and faithfulness to God that she was privileged to become an ancestor of the Messiah. In fact, she was the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:13–22).
The mention of Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (1:6), calls to mind her adulterous relationship with David, leading first to David’s murder of her husband Uriah, but also to the birth of Solomon, an ancestor of the Messiah.
Why are these four unlikely women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy when the normal practice was to mention only the men’s names? At least three of them were Gentiles, considered “unclean” by the standards of God’s Old Testament law. Three of them were involved in illicit sexual relationships. God is sending a clear message that he can and will use anyone he wants to accomplish his purposes. He is willing to forgive the worst of sins and then go on to do amazing things through the faithful life he has restored. God loves to choose the “least likely” tools for his tasks (1 Cor. 1:26–29). How will he use you?
Throughout Matthew’s genealogy, many generations are skipped over in the list. Some of the men listed are not literally the fathers of the men listed after them, but the grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and so on. However, this does not invalidate the genealogy, for the Greek wording for a father-son relationship can also mean an ancestor-descendant relationship, with several generations between the two. Matthew chose to shorten the list of names to those who stood out historically, in order to compile a list of three “fourteens” (1:17). This would be easier for people to remember.
Skeptics of the Bible point out that Matthew’s genealogy is different than Luke’s (Luke 3:23–38). They conclude that one of these Gospel writers has made a mistake. Indeed, while Matthew says that Jesus is descended through David’s son Solomon (Matt. 1:6), Luke says he was descended through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). However, the apparent contradiction disappears when we consider the different purposes of Matthew’s and Luke’s books.
Matthew emphasized Jesus as the king, so his genealogy traced Jesus’ legal lineage of record through Joseph, even though Joseph was really only the adoptive father of Jesus). On the other hand, Luke emphasized Jesus’ physical, human side, so his genealogy traced Jesus’ physical lineage through his physical mother Mary, and ultimately to Adam.[2]
Questions to Consider:
- What does it mean that Mary was betrothed to Joseph? Does anyone know what Jewish betrothals were like?
- How might Joseph have found out she was pregnant?
- How might he have felt when he discovered this? How might Mary have felt knowing what Joseph must have been thinking she had done?
- What did Joseph plan to do?
- Why does this passage refer to him as her husband when they were only betrothed?
- Why does Joseph’s plan in verse 19 show that he is a righteous man? What do you think of his plan?
- What does what happens next teach us about God?
- Why might Joseph have “been afraid to take Mary as his wife?” What would people then think about him?
- Why was it necessary for Jesus to be born of a virgin? What does the virgin birth teach us?
- What did Joseph do? What does this tell us about his character? What lessons can we learn from this that we can apply to our lives today?
Prayer Time:
[1] Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, ed. R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 39–40.
[2] Stuart K. Weber, Matthew, vol. 1, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 25–27.