Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Matthew 1:18-25), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• Jesus was not conceived through “normal,” biological means. He had no earthly father—his Father is God. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb. He is fully God and became also fully man. He is the eternal Son of God, and also a new creation. What can you say about the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)? Are you familiar with foundational Christian teachings (creeds) on the Triune nature of God? How important is it to you that God is Triune? Do you know how to learn more about the Trinity if you were interested?

• What can you say about the Incarnation of the Son of God? About the union of two natures (divine and human) in the one Person of Jesus? Are you familiar with foundational Christian teachings (creeds) on the Incarnation? How important is it to you that God became incarnate (“enfleshed”)—and continues to be so—in Jesus? Do you know how to learn more about the Incarnation if you were interested?

• The child in Mary’s womb would be named Jesus (meaning “God Saves”) and Immanuel (meaning “God With Us”). In Jesus, God saves us by being with us. In our sin, we have separated ourselves from him. That is what he saves us from, by being with us, even as one of us. He visited us in humility and vulnerability—he became an embryo entirely dependent on his teenage mother! This shows us what God is truly like; it was not out of character for him to become Jesus, in all his humility and vulnerability. In fact, he has glorified humility by becoming humble. Do you believe that God actually humbled himself, actually became vulnerable in Jesus? Do you see places of humility, vulnerability, and dependence as places to meet Immanuel? Do you believe that God has compassion on the lowly, that he knows the lowly intimately as one who became lowly himself? How does the fact that God became an embryo and a child change the way you relate to embryos and children? How does it change the way you relate to God, since he became human?

• FOR THE CHILDREN: Can you imagine Jesus as a baby inside his mother’s belly? Can you imagine him as a newborn infant? As a toddler? What do you think he was like as a child? How was he probably different from any other child? What do you think it says about God, that he would become a little child like this?