Matthew

INTRODUCTION:

INTRODUCTION:

INTRODUCTION:

INTRODUCTION:

            Growing up in the church, the son of the church’s pastor I remember each Christmas my dad setting up on the church lawn a life-size nativity.  It had everything:  Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus in the manager.  It had sheep, a donkey, and shepherds.  It had wise men and camels, and they were all life size.  They were only two dimensional, life-size pictures mounted on plywood but impressive looking none the less, especially the camels.

INTRODUCTION:

            As we come into this advent season, as we begin to consider again the incarnation of Jesus Christ, I want to spend the next three weeks looking at some of the people that were caught up in the events leading up to and surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ.  For this first week I want to look at Joseph, the forgotten father in the events of the incarnation.

SCRIPTURE:

            Last Sunday we briefly looked at a passage of Scripture in regards to baptism.  This morning I would like to look at it a little more in depth and what it has to say with regards to missions, since that is our focus this morning.  Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28:18-20.  Please follow along as I read these words of Jesus.

     Matthew 28:18-20,

INTRODUCTION:

            Christmas is almost upon us, in just two days the day which we have set aside to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ will arrive.  As I began studying this week for this morning three themes kept jumping out at me that were prophecies in the Old Testament that had to be fulfilled in the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ for Him to be the promised Messiah, the Deliverer that was to come.

INTRODUCTION: