The Promised Son
Notes from Ky Martin's sermon on Sunday, November 30, 2025.
Sermon text: Matthew 1:18-25
Promises Fulfilled
There is a difference in a promise and prediction. A prediction says, “This thing is going to happen”. A promise says, “I care enough about you to ensure that you are provided for in such and such way.” Both are good. But a prediction is, we might say procedural or professional. Where a promise is personal.
Before Jesus took on flesh, and dwelt among us, God gave His people a litany of not just predictions, but promises. That He himself would come and rescue them from the problems that were too big for them to solve on their own.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be considering those promises.
Advent means the arrival or coming of something important or awaited.
Anticipation. Son, King, Savior, Light. Christmas Eve service.
Promises are prompted by problems
Provide something good
Remove something that is negative
“I see the need, the want, the curse, the suffering… It will not always be so.”
Isaiah said, “For unto us a child us born. Unto us, a son is given.”
In order to understand this promise, we need to start with understanding the problem that prompted it.
The Problem of Man
Genesis 1 tells the story of God speaking all things into existence.
1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Three things: Image, dominion, responsibility.
Gen 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam = Mankind
Authority over Eve
One way this plays out…
Eve created after the command
God comes to Adam first
We speak of the problem of evil or pain… The problem is man himself. He has fallen short. The evil was done by him or let loose under his watch. Mankind was broken.
Gospel in the air.
The ground is cursed. Thorns grow. The fabric of creation order was torn.
The magnitude of man’s sin is also the measure of his need of salvation. -Sinclair Ferguson
At the Fall, man’s natural gifts were corrupted through sin, while his supernatural gifts were entirely lost. -St. Augustine
The Promised Son of Man
Genesis 3:15 (ESV) 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Protoevangelium: Prototype — first form.
Notice that the savior is a son. A son of eve. Son of mankind.
So we are told, right from the beginning, that our hope is that a Son would rescue us from the power of sin and death, redeeming us from God’s curse.
Not a beast. New creature. Not a trinket, a relic, a special object or place or act of God seen only in the heavens, but by a man. One of us. He would undo the curse.
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
“Since man sinned, it was necessary that the penalty should be borne by man." - Louis Berkhof
“For The Word [Jesus], realizing that in no other way would the corruption of human beings be undone except…by dying, yet being immortal and the Son of the Father…was not able to die, for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death. - Athanasius
The Promised Son of God
No son of man was fit to solve the problem man created. You got yourself in.
“How did you get down?” Same way you got up.
Our situation is that we have fallen. Can’t climb or fly back to where we were.
Can’t put the genie back in the bottle
Putting an air mattress back in the box it came in.
No man could solve the problem, and yet a man had to solve it.
Enter Jesus. Son of man, and also the Son of God.
This is poetry on the highest level, that The Son of Man who fulfilled this promise was also the second person of The Trinity, the Son of God.
He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human. - Athanasian Creed
“For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.” - John Stott
Application:
Remember the Promise
Choose devotion over distraction
A season of devotion
Resources
Booklet
Music
Discipleship Questions:
Sermon text: Matthew 1:18-25
Promises Fulfilled
There is a difference in a promise and prediction. A prediction says, “This thing is going to happen”. A promise says, “I care enough about you to ensure that you are provided for in such and such way.” Both are good. But a prediction is, we might say procedural or professional. Where a promise is personal.
Before Jesus took on flesh, and dwelt among us, God gave His people a litany of not just predictions, but promises. That He himself would come and rescue them from the problems that were too big for them to solve on their own.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll be considering those promises.
Advent means the arrival or coming of something important or awaited.
Anticipation. Son, King, Savior, Light. Christmas Eve service.
Promises are prompted by problems
Provide something good
Remove something that is negative
“I see the need, the want, the curse, the suffering… It will not always be so.”
Isaiah said, “For unto us a child us born. Unto us, a son is given.”
In order to understand this promise, we need to start with understanding the problem that prompted it.
The Problem of Man
Genesis 1 tells the story of God speaking all things into existence.
1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Three things: Image, dominion, responsibility.
Gen 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam = Mankind
Authority over Eve
One way this plays out…
Eve created after the command
God comes to Adam first
We speak of the problem of evil or pain… The problem is man himself. He has fallen short. The evil was done by him or let loose under his watch. Mankind was broken.
Gospel in the air.
The ground is cursed. Thorns grow. The fabric of creation order was torn.
The magnitude of man’s sin is also the measure of his need of salvation. -Sinclair Ferguson
At the Fall, man’s natural gifts were corrupted through sin, while his supernatural gifts were entirely lost. -St. Augustine
The Promised Son of Man
Genesis 3:15 (ESV) 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Protoevangelium: Prototype — first form.
Notice that the savior is a son. A son of eve. Son of mankind.
So we are told, right from the beginning, that our hope is that a Son would rescue us from the power of sin and death, redeeming us from God’s curse.
Not a beast. New creature. Not a trinket, a relic, a special object or place or act of God seen only in the heavens, but by a man. One of us. He would undo the curse.
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
“Since man sinned, it was necessary that the penalty should be borne by man." - Louis Berkhof
“For The Word [Jesus], realizing that in no other way would the corruption of human beings be undone except…by dying, yet being immortal and the Son of the Father…was not able to die, for this reason he takes to himself a body capable of death. - Athanasius
The Promised Son of God
No son of man was fit to solve the problem man created. You got yourself in.
“How did you get down?” Same way you got up.
Our situation is that we have fallen. Can’t climb or fly back to where we were.
Can’t put the genie back in the bottle
Putting an air mattress back in the box it came in.
No man could solve the problem, and yet a man had to solve it.
Enter Jesus. Son of man, and also the Son of God.
This is poetry on the highest level, that The Son of Man who fulfilled this promise was also the second person of The Trinity, the Son of God.
He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human. - Athanasian Creed
“For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.” - John Stott
Application:
Remember the Promise
Choose devotion over distraction
A season of devotion
Resources
Booklet
Music
Discipleship Questions:
- Promises are prompted by problems… What was the problem that prompted God’s promised Son?
- Read Genesis 2:17. Why is this passage called the “proto-evangelium”?
- Why was it necessary for a son of man to come?
- Why was it necessary for Jesus to be the Son of God and Son of Man?
- How will you devote yourself to rejoicing in the promised Son this advent season?
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