Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION:

If you could spend a lifetime, understanding one word, what would it be?(Economics,

Politics, Love, Men, Women, Parenting,) Wouldn’t you just love to delve the depths of some of those words?

That’s what I want us to do this morning with a Christmas word.

The word is Emmanuel which means God with us.

They say familiarity breeds contempt.

And most of us are familiar with this word: Emmanuel.

We’re familiar with the concept.

And that familiarity might tempt us to let this word address us in a familiar way.

But I want you to try and examine it with fresh eyes and ears this evening.

What difference would it make if you really deeply understood the reality of God with us?

What implications would that have on your life?

How might it transform your life and relationships?

Let’s read the passage.

Matthew 1:18-25

Matthew 1:18–25 (CSB)

18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.

19 So her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.

20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 See, the virgin will become pregnant

and give birth to a son,

and they will name him Immanuel,

which is translated “God is with us.”

24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him.

He married her 25 but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son.

And he named him Jesus.

This is such a wonderful and classic Christmas text but I want us to focus specifically on verse 23 which is a quotation of Isaiah 7:14

Isaiah 7:14 (CSB)

14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

Emmanuel: God with us.

What does it mean?

How should it change us?

To answer, let’s meditate deeply on each word of the definition.

GOD.

God WITH.

God with US.

JESUS IS FULLY GOD:

First, Jesus is God.

Not God-like (in some mythic sense).

Not godly (in some moral sense).

Not a lesser created God from the Roman pantheon (or like Hindu’s believe).

No. Jesus is true and only creator God.

The eternal God.

Uncreated, uncaused, creator and sustainer of the universe - second member of the Trinity, God the Son, Jesus is God.

The Scripture says this explicitly and implicitly over and over again.

There are four explicit passages of the divinity of Jesus in the NT.

John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word (the logos).

And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Colossians 1:15 “Jesus is the image (icon) of the invisible God.”

Heb 1:3 “Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint (character) of his nature.”

Phil 2:5-6 “existing in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped...”

There are also implicit references to the deity of Jesus throughout the NT.

Jesus forgives people of sin.

"No one can forgive sins but God alone!”

(Luke 5:21) Implication?

Jesus was God.

Jesus accepts worship.

(Mat 14:33) Angels don’t accept worship but Jesus did?

Why?

He was worthy of worship because he was God.

This wasn’t just his self-understanding.

His disciples also believed Jesus was God.

And 1st century believing Jews would’ve been the LEAST LIKELY group of people to say God could become incarnate in human flesh.

(Hindus maybe but not Jews!)

And yet, the NT is full of examples of his disciples preaching the divinity of Jesus, worshipping Jesus, and dying horrible and painful deaths because they would not abandon their belief in the deity of Jesus.

How do you explain?

It wasn’t just his disciples.

It was members of his own family.

(mother, brother)

You might be able to fool some people that you’re God.

(worship of Elvis) But the handful of people you cannot fool are the ones who live with you, see you warts and all.

They know the REAL YOU.

And the family of Jesus didn’t see a hypocritical man with a God-complex.

They saw transcendent personal greatness and glory that matched his personal claims.

And they worshiped him.

All the evidence that we have points to the fact that he is who he said he was, he is who his disciples believed him to be, he is who even his family knew him to be, He is God.

God the son.

JESUS IS GOD WITH

But not only is Jesus God.

He is Emmanuel which means he is God WITH.

Jesus is also truly human.

Truly God.

But also truly flesh.

Fully human.

Even the word, incarnation, illustrates this fleshly nature of Christmas.

It’s where we get our word “carnivore” which means “meat.”

Jesus was human.

God in bod.

John 1:14 (CSB)

14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

What does the Bible mean by that statement?

“Became flesh?”

Addition not Subtraction

Well it’s not that Jesus subtracted anything from his divinity.

He retained his full deity.

He just added humanity.

It was an act of addition not subtraction.