Unto Us: The Hope of God’s Presence

Introduction

What do we do when it feels like life is falling apart? What do we do when it feels like everyone and everything is standing against us? When the fear and despair of life seems to overwhelm us?

We all have or will face times in which things feel dark and hopeless. Whether that is financial despair, the loss of a job or loved one, the betrayal of a friend, or the sudden news of a health crisis such as cancer.

What do we do in times when it feels like all hope is lost?

This was the situation that the Southern Kingdom of Judah found herself in around 730 BC.

The Kingdom of Israel was split into two kingdoms after the death of King Solomon, the northern kingdom of Israel with its capital in Samaria and the southern Kingdom of Judah with its capital in Jerusalem.

There was some conflict between the northern kingdom and southern kingdoms.

King Ahaz, King of Judah, is facing the prospect of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, also called Ephraim, joining forces with Syria, to come against him and his kingdom. He has two kingdoms trying to come and conquer him and his people.

What is a king to do in the face of war and conquest? How is he to protect his people?

Read Isaiah 7

Isaiah 7:1–17 (ESV)

In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

And the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying, “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” thus says the Lord God:

“ ‘It shall not stand,

and it shall not come to pass.

For the head of Syria is Damascus,

and the head of Damascus is Rezin.

And within sixty-five years

Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.

And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,

and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.

If you are not firm in faith,

you will not be firm at all.’ ”

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!”

Isaiah comes to King Ahaz with a message of hope.

Things are NOT hopeless.

In fact, Isaiah’s whole book is about how God is in the process of bringing the hope of salvation to sinners. Yes, God disciplines and God judges, but even those acts are part of His saving grace to bring His people out of darkness and into the light of His presence.

The LORD Sees Our Need

First, God Sees and Knows What is Happening

God wants Ahaz to know that God sees and knows the situation he finds himself in.

God is not blind to his troubles.

God is not blind to his enemies.

God is there ready to fight for and protect His people.

God sends Isaiah and his son to go to Ahaz to bring comfort to him and to let him know that things are taken care of.

Ahaz does not need to fear the future and the threat of his enemies because God knows and is already working at bringing the solution.

God Sees and Knows Our Situation

In the same way, God sees and knows the situation that we find ourselves in.

While we often think the holidays should be a time of joy and happiness, often times, they are times of darkness, sadness, and despair because this is when we feel the pain of life even more than at other times.

The loss of a job, the prospect of a health crisis, the breakdown of a relationship, or the loss of a loved one create a pain during this time that is heightened from other times of the year.

And we can be tempted in thinking that God is unaware of what we are going through, unaware of the darkness, the hopelessness, and the despair that threatens our hearts.

But what God wants us to understand is, God knows and sees our situation.

The story of Advent, the story of Christmas begins in darkness, in what seems hopeless. The light of Christmas shines so brightly only because of the darkness and hopelessness that God understands we are facing.

God Sees and Understands Our Greatest Need

But what we need to see here is that while God certainly knows and understands our immediate needs, and He is working in and through our trials for His glory and for the good of those who love Him, nevertheless, our greatest need isn’t necessarily the situations that we see, but rather the situation in our hearts that we do not always see.

Our greatest need, as we have been seeing from the earliest chapters of Scripture, is our need to be saved and redeemed from the curse of sin.

Whatever other enemy we may be facing in life, our greatest enemy is that of our sin.

Just as God sees and knows Ahaz’s need, and just as He sees and knows our immediate needs, He also sees and knows our greatest and eternal needs.

The LORD Has Come to Us

Not only does God see and know our pain, hurt, and darkness, He has actually come to meet with us in the darkness.

Instead of telling us what we ought to do, He actually comes to us to be with us.

God has promised His presence to Ahaz.

Isaiah 7:10–14 (ESV)

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Ahaz, like a toddler who wants to do everything himself, tells God, its alright I got this.

God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign. And Ahaz responds by saying, “I won’t put God to the test.” Sounds great and pious.

But in reality, Ahaz is saying, “I‘ve got my own plans and my own methods to deal with this problem.”

He says, I don’t need help. I’m strong enough and good enough to take care of this.

I’ve got my own means and methods to solve this.

But God says, “You don’t have this. You are not strong enough. But I am.” So instead of trying to keep doing it yourself Ahaz, let me tell you what I’m going to do.

I’m going to give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and she will call him Immanuel, which means “God with us.”

Of course, we know this to be the great Christmas promise we celebrate each year.

But before we get to Christmas, we have to see what this means for Isaiah and Ahaz first.

The virgin here could mean a young unmarried woman. The thought here is that there is a young woman who is about to be married and she will soon conceive and give birth to a son. This son will be the sign of God’s presence with His people, thus his name being “Immanuel.” And before too long, when he begins to know the difference between right and wrong, God will defeat Israel and Syria through the work of Assyria.

God is essentially telling Ahaz, don’t lose hope. I am here with you and I am fighting your battles for you. Do not seek an alliance with Assyria. Yes, I will use Assyria for my purposes and plans, but do not trust and rely on them. Rather know that I am with you.

God has promised His presence to Us.

While there was an immediate fulfillment to this promise for Ahaz’s sake, this promise actually has a greater fulfillment for all of God’s people.

Just as Ahaz needed to know that God has come to be with him, so we need to know that God has come to be with us.

When there is a dark and scary night, the thunder is rolling and the lightning flashes all around, how many times have we as parents been awakened by kids coming into your bed to receive the hope of safety and protection from your presence.

Well, instead of us trying to make our way to God, which we could never do because of our own sinfulness and refusal to submit to Him, God instead left His place to come and meet with us. He is like the parent who left His bed to go to His kids’ bed to offer them His presence they never even sought for.

This promise is the pointing forward to when God the Son would physically enter into human history as He wraps Himself in human flesh and is conceived in the virgin’s womb.

God does not just offer empty platitudes of how He loves us. He has actually demonstrated His love by coming to us and dwelling with His people.

And Christ came to meet our greatest need, the need to have our sin dealt with and paid for. Jesus, the Immanuel “God with Us,” came to be God who died for us and was raised again so that all who believe in Him will have eternal life.

There is no other enemy greater than our sin and death, not even Syria and Ephraim. Or in our day, not even Russia or Iran, or the Democrats or Republicans.

Our greatest enemy is sin and death and Christ came to defeat that enemy so that we can have the HOPE of eternal life!

Because Christ Physically Came, Died, and Rose Again, He Now Sends His Holy Spirit to Be With Us

When Jesus came as a baby that first Christmas night, He was literally Immanuel, “God with us.” He is God in the flesh come to dwell among us.

Jesus lived among us, taught us, healed us, loved us, served us.

He is God who walked among us.

But before He died, He promised something even better.

Yes, He had come to dwell among us, but He would soon send the Holy Spirit to not just live with us, but to live within us.

This Holy Spirit is the Comforter and Counselor.

He reminds us, instructs us, convicts us, and comforts us.

He is the One who gives us the grace and power to do what God has commanded.

And He is the One who comforts us when we are fearful and grieved because of the trials of life.

And He is the One who helps us to persevere to the end because of the Hope that He provides.

Because of the Holy Spirit, we need not fear what trials, temptations and pains this world throws our way.

1 John 4:4 (ESV)

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

This Holy Spirit lives within all those who trust in Jesus because Jesus came to be Immanuel, God with Us.

The LORD is Worthy of Our Trust

We Can Be Tempted to Trust Other Things for Our Hope and Salvation

God knows that Ahaz is tempted to seek help and hope from somewhere else other than the LORD.

Ahaz is talking with Assyria to join forces with in order to overcome the fear and the threat of Israel and Syria.

Ahaz is trying to find his own hope and solution to the problem that he is facing.

He does not believe that God can really overcome his enemies so he has to come up with his own solution. He is turning to form an alliance with the king of Assyria to give him the hope he can only find in the LORD. But the LORD also tells him that Assyria will betray him and that he will only find death and darkness if he will refuse to trust in the LORD.

We, too, can be tempted to find solutions to our own problems.

When we are overcome with fear, we will find ways to alleviate that fear.

Maybe its cheating on our taxes or finding a way of stealing what does not belong to you.

If its despair in your marriage, you might be tempted to try and be the Holy Spifit to your spouse and get them to change yourself, which typically only pushes them away or you might be tempted to find satisfaction from someone else.

But no matter what we place our trust in, all other things will betray us and destroy us. Nothing else is worthy of our trust and devotion.

Only Christ is Worthy of Our Trust and Dependence

God is able to Meet Our Need

Isaiah 7:8–9 (ESV)

For the head of Syria is Damascus,

and the head of Damascus is Rezin.

And within sixty-five years

Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.

And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,

and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.

If you are not firm in faith,

you will not be firm at all.’ ”

God is Able to Meet Ahaz’s Need

What seems like huge trouble for Ahaz, is small potatoes for God.

While Ahaz sees Syria and Israel, God sees two simple and weak men, Rezin and Remaliah.

There is nothing too big, nothing too hard for God to overcome and defeat, no matter how big it looks like to us.

God is Able to Meet Our Need

In the same way, because God sees and understands our needs, He is able to also meet our needs.

He may or may not meet our needs the way we think He should.

But in His infinite wisdom, He is going to meet our needs in the best way possible.

John 16:33 (ESV)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Because Christ has come to be with us, He has already overcome the world through His perfect life, death, and resurrection.

There are still times when we do not understand why we have to face some situations. There are times when we still ask, “Where are you Lord?” But it is during these times when we need to draw near to the LORD, rather than turn away to something else.

Because Christ has overcome our greatest enemy of sin and death, we know He will also overcome all the hard and tragic things in life, even if we do not see an immediate resolve to those situations.

But because of Christ we know that our suffering will only be temporary. jared c Wilson - “the believers suffering has an expiration date Because the gospel doesn’t.” because Christ has come and is victorious we have the hope of having our trials and suffering end one day.

or as C S Lewis put it in his narnia series, “wrong will be right when Asian comes in sight. At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, and when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

Because we know who He is and His goodness, we can take heart when we face our trials and tribulations. We can have hope when the world seems so dark and hopeless because Jesus came to be God with us.