God With Us

To help us understand this we must go straight to the source, a written first hand account by a previous tax collector who was changed by God and called out by God away from a life of cheating people out of their money to living a life of generosity and a life for God

This person is Matthew and this is his account of the announcement of Christmas....

Truth

Matthew 1:18–25 NLT

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ ” When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.

Jesus is the long awaited Messiah

This has been predicted and prophesied about for the past thousand of years, that God would send a savior, one who would free God’s people, and people would know when this has happened because

1. He would fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament

Verse 22 - Matthew loves this word Fulfilled, he uses it at least 12 times to show that Jesus has fulfilled the OT prophecies

a. Born of a Virgin (Isaiah 7)

b. An Angel appears and announces His arrival

God with us

Why is this a big deal?

The long awaited Messiah that was prophesied about for thousands of years is here

Moses asking to SEE God

- God reveals only His backside

- Moses’ face was glowing for days

- Moses got to see The actual God, not see Him through His working or through people, but actual God or a part of Him

Moses wishes He had what we have now!

- God as a human

The best of all is, God is with us!

John Wesley

Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Then Jesus takes it a step further

- He makes statements like, it is better that I go

You will do greater things then I will

God In Us

Ephesians 1:13 ESV

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

Jesus made a way for God to live with us at all times

Because of Jesus and through the Holy Spirit we have access to God

This sets everything else up and lays the foundation for all else

Creator vs the created (Gifts vs the gift maker)

Sometimes we want gifts, such as peace, joy, justice, mercy

that is like wanting gifts for Christmas, whhich is great and is what God wants to give us

- but what God did was even bigger than this, He gave us Himself

- the gift maker

Which would you rather have? The gift or the gift maker!

- the gift maker can make all the gifts and as many of the gifts that He would like

We have access to the source of all we need

Jesus is the source and bridge to all the we need.

We need love? Joy? Peace?

Jesus is the bridge to allow us to walk by the Spirit

That is why Paul made such a big deal out of Walk by the Spirit and not our own desires

Close and Salvation Call

We can have this through Jesus, but we must believe in Him, believe He is God, that He died for you, and rose again.

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