Introduction to the Christmas Series on the Virgin Birth

Matthew 1:18

18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

This week I will introduce you to the series we will be doing at Christmas.  We are taking a break from Galatians and will resume next year.  This Christmas season I will be speaking on the virgin birth.

Every Christian should know about the virgin birth.  It is one of the fundamental doctrines of the church.  The word “doctrine” means teaching. 

Many Christians do not like doctrine.  If they heard of a Sunday school class that was to deal with the leading doctrines of the Bible, they would not attend.  If they heard of a class on “How to have a perfect marriage” they might attend.  Doctrine sound boring and uninteresting.

Why is this so?

First, many do not like doctrine because pastors’ have done a poor job in presenting Bible doctrine. I may be guilty of this myself.  In spite of our best efforts, people loose interest in kenosis, supralapsarianism and the eternal debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. 

Second, and this follows from the first, most discussion of doctrine ends up creating controversy, debate and division.  In the last century I lived through the debates on fundamentalism and liberalism, the Holy Spirit and the charisma, women in ministry, liberation theology and others. 

Many people ask, “If God has spoken, why are there so many differing views?”  They are overwhelmed and do not want to do the hard work to sort this out for themselves, nor do they trust anyone else to sort it out for them, so they lose interest in doctrine.

Thirdly, added to that is the improper teaching of theology in many of our seminaries and Bible schools.  It’s not that they don’t cover the subject well, they do.  But many cover it academically, not spiritually.  There is a divide between theology and real life.  They know about the omnipresence, the omnipotence and the immutability of God.  They have difficulty conveying how these doctrines help us deal with a wicked and sinful world.  With all the textbook reading, the writing of papers, the research into the finer points, the need to find out what other scholars have said, the life can be sucked out of theology.

Fourth, pride can come in on those who know theology. Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, “Knowledge puffs up, love builds up.”  Some people are good at telling others what they know.  They struggle with applying it to their own lives or living out the truth they expound.  Knowledge can build pride.  Many marriage conflicts center around pride.  One person says, “I’ve done this for the past ten years.  I know what I am talking about.”  They may be right.  Their pride is rising to the surface.

The result of all of this is terrible.  Christians don’t know what the Bible says about God, about sin, about the spiritual battle.  They are ill equipped to discern whether or not someone is speaking the truth.  They accept teaching from people who may not give it straight from the Bible, who unintentionally distort the Bible message.

When the message is distorted, the implications can be difficult.  There is a game you can play.  Write out a four-letter word.  Change one letter at a time and make a new word each time.  Someone did it on the internet and started with the word “king.”  By the time they reached the end of the changes they had the word “cram.”  That was by changing just one letter over a thousand times! 

How many people have misheard someone and been in trouble? Your wife asked you to pick up baking soda, not baking powder, at the store.  Who knew there was a difference?

Political people do this all the time.  On the internet there was a video of President Obama storming out of a meeting and kicking open a door.  Some people put it up and said that Obama was so angry at a meeting he kicked the door open on the way out.  Come to find out that the people who posted the video lied.  Jay Leno had one of his video people splice together two videos for a comedy routine he does after I go to sleep.  Some people put out that the video depicted a true scene.  That false information gave the wrong message.  The video was clear, but the context of the video, the fact that Jay Leno made it for a comedy routine, was conveniently left out.  I am not speaking up for or against the president.  But we all need to be aware that messages can get distorted and lead us down a wrong path.

Doctrine is important.  We need to know what the Bible says.  But we need to understand it in such a way that it touches our life, our walk with God, our understanding of the world in which we live.

We will talk about the virgin birth.  This is a doctrine.  The core teaching of the virgin birth was that Jesus did not have a human Father.  His mother never engaged in sexual relationships with another man before she was married.  Yet, she was pregnant.  18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

This was a miracle.  Do you believe in miracles?  Many people do not.  They say, “this is impossible.”  It is impossible unless you believe in miracles.  We used to sing a song in my youth that went, “God can do anything, anything, anything.  God can do anything but fail.”  One mark of most liberal scholars is that they believe that any miracle is either misunderstood or not true.  A man who was demon possessed was healed of the possession.  The liberal scholar would say that the person had a mental illness and the compassion of Jesus made them get in touch with reality and come out of their down state of mind.  The disciples did not understand modern medicine so they held to the superstitions of the day.  The virgin birth, for example, either never happened or was a cover-up for immorality.  Why do they say that?  Because they believe that miracles can’t happen. 

The Bible is full of miracles.  God created the world out of nothing.  That was a miracle.  He spared Noah from the worst storm in history.  That was a miracle.  He parted the Red Sea, he caused the earth to stand still.  Jesus healed people sick from birth, raised the dead, and rose himself from the dead.  Take the miracles out of the Bible and you have no Bible. 

For you to believe the virgin birth, you will need to believe in a God that is bigger than you, who is smarter than you, who is more powerful than any person you have ever known.  God is a God of miracles.

We will look at this doctrine and then look at its implications and how those implications affect our lives.  This will be my outline for the next three weeks.  Point 1: the virgin birth.  Point 2: the implications.  Point 3: How the implications of the virgin birth affect our lives.

Pray for me.  Pray that God will help me give you the best of both worlds.  Pray that you will understand the virgin birth and that you will see and feel the full weight of the implications in your own life.