Immanuel

That was so good! Thank you, kids, for that reminder of what Christmas is about. It’s about a birth, THE birth of the One who gave His life for us—Jesus Christ.

The message of Hotel Noel is true, isn’t it? Especially if you grew up around church like I did, it’s easy to get to the point where we don’t appreciate how incredible the Christmas story really is. We get so used to the language of church and Christmas and so preoccupied by the empty traditions and materialism of the season that we forget what those important words mean—words like “noel,” or “glorious” or, how about this one—“Immanuel.”

Have you ever wondered about that word, that name, “Immanuel?” Somebody asked me one time, “If the angel told Joseph that His name would be called ‘Immanuel,’ why did they name Him ‘Jesus?’”

Well, “Immanuel,” wasn’t meant to be Jesus’ name. Immanuel is word that literally means, “God with us.” Matthew tells us that in his birth narrative. So, when you hear that word, “Immanuel” this time of year, you ought to think, “God with us.”

God. With. Us.

Which is an incredible thing, when you think about it! It’s incredible that God, who is higher than the heavens, who is more majestic than the mountains, who is mightier than the most powerful army…isn’t it incredible that that same God would have anything to do with us? Isn’t it incredible to think that that God would choose to be WITH us.

He’s God, yet He’s also with us.

Other religions have their “gods,” deities that keep their distance, that rule things from a distance, that watch, that sometimes reward, sometimes punish, but that never get involved. That’s what the world often thinks when it thinks about the one true God. But we know better. As Christians, we know that the One true God “became flesh and dwelt among us.”

God…with…us.

Matthew 1 is where that name appears in the New Testament. Matthew 1:22-23 to be exact. An angel had just appeared to Joseph. Joseph was engaged to Mary but was planning to separate quietly from her, because he was a good guy, but she’d turned up pregnant and, well, Joseph knew he wasn’t the dad.

But this angel appears to Joseph and tells him NOT to be afraid to marry Mary, because the Child that she carried was not conceived in the traditional way, but instead was there through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The angel tells Joseph that the child will be a boy and that they are to NAME him “Jesus,” because “He will save His people from their sins.”

So “Jesus” or “Jeshua” in the original language, will be His name, but again, Matthew 1 tells us...

Matthew 1:22–23 (NASB 2020)

Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled:

“Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

This morning, we’re going to look together very quickly at the Old Testament passage that Matthew references here, this prophecy that was spoken 700 years before Jesus was born. This is the second message in a series that we’re calling A Thrill of Hope, where we’re looking together at several prophecies from the Old Testament book of Isaiah that point 700 years into the future to Christmas. And again, today, we’re going to look at the origin of this word “Immanuel.”

So, go ahead and get that passage in front of you—Isaiah 7:10-14, and let’s dig in here together.

Before we dive in, it’s important that we understand the story behind the promise of Immanuel. And the story begins with a king under pressure. The king’s name was Ahaz, and he was the king of Judah in a very dangerous political season. Two neighboring nations were conspiring to come against Judah and overthrow Ahaz.

And of course, Ahaz was worried. He wasn’t a popular king. He wasn’t a faithful king, so he had no one to depend on but himself, and he knew that he didn’t have the resources to defend his country against this kind of attack.

In verse 3, the Lord sends Isaiah the prophet to Ahaz to encourage him. He finds him just outside the city at the aqueduct brooding.

Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, promises Ahaz that God will take care of him—that he doesn’t need to worry.

“Take care and be calm!” God says. “Don’t be fainthearted because of these two stumps of smoldering logs!” are His actual words. These plans will not pass. God goes so far as to tell Ahaz that in sixty-five years one of the enemy nations, the northern kingdom of Israel, wouldn’t even be a nation anymore.

And that brings us to our passage this morning, Isaiah 7:10-14. Look at it with me:

Isaiah 7:10–14 NASB 2020

Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, “Ask for a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I put the Lord to the test!” Then he said, “Listen now, house of David! Is it too trivial a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel.

(Pray)

Isaiah tells Ahab to ask God for a sign, any sign—anything at all—whatever he needs to see to believe that God will keep His promise.

Ahaz, evil king that he was, dismissed it with, “I don’t want to test the Lord.”

In other words, “I don’t really care if the Lord will give me a sign. I’ve got this thing under control. I can handle it. I don’t need God’s promise.”

Maybe that’s you. It’s hard to relinquish control, isn’t it? Most of us, if we’re honest, tend to be control freaks. We are fiercely independent here in the West. We want to, we NEED to control our lives.

The problem, though, is that we weren’t meant for that kind of control. We weren’t designed to muddle through life in our own strength, to navigate life’s problems on our own.

No! Our lives are meant to be lived in community, in relationship with other people, certainly, but ultimately with God at the very center. God, who will be a friend to us, who promises to take care of us, to provide for us and give us what we need. Because, ultimately, what we need is Him.

The thing is, though, that to know this God, to have this God at the center of everything we do, we have to relinquish control.

Since Ahaz won’t choose a sign for himself, Isaiah tells him in verse 13…

Isaiah 7:13 NASB 2020

Then he said, “Listen now, house of David! Is it too trivial a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?

You’ve alienated everyone else with your sin and stubbornness. Now you run the risk of alienating God.

But here’s the thing about God. God will not give up on you that easily. God will not be dismissed that easily. Brother, sister, hear that. God will not give up on you at your first dismissal of Him. He will will keep after you. He will keep chasing you, He loves you that much.

He tells Ahaz through Isaiah, “If you don’t want to ask for a sign, God will take the initiative and give you a sign Himself.”

Here it is, verse 14:

Isaiah 7:14 NASB 2020

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel.

And, as Matthew tells us, “Immanuel” means “God with us.”

Ahaz need to be reminded that God was with them, that the people of God and the king of God’s people could trust Him in this crisis.

So, through Isaiah, God tells Ahaz that both of these nations, these arrogant nations threatening Judea, both of them will be dust before this child, Immanuel, was old enough to know right from wrong,

And that’s what happened. In the immediate context, there was a virgin—sort of. She was a virgin when the prophecy was given. And in chapter 8, we see the virgin marry a man—Isaiah—and give birth to a child. They name the child, not Immanuel, but Maher-shalal-hash-baz (you won’t find that in a baby book), which means “speedy spoil, hasty plunder.”

And before that child is old enough to cry out for his father, Isaiah says, the capital cities of these two nations, Samaria and Damascus, would be conquered.

And they were, again, evidence of God’s faithfulness to His people.

But that was only a partial fulfilment. Because 700 years later another child was born. An actual virgin was with child, a child who really was “Immanuel, God with us”, and they called his name, “Jesus”.

There’s a fun theological word for this kind of prophecy. File it away, and it may help you on Jeopardy one day, or maybe it’ll just help you understand the Bible better. But the word is “prophetic typology,” and it happens a lot in scripture. It’s when a prophecy is given that’s fulfilled in one way in the short term, but in a much better, much fuller way later on.

That’s what’s going on here. That’s why Matthew could look back 700 years later, and tell the world in Matthew 1, that “all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled.” It was kind of fulfilled back in Isaiah’s day, but the promise was complete with Jesus.

Jesus is God With Us.

So, what does that mean for us today?

Well, very quickly, in our last five minutes here, I want to suggest three things.

First, it means…

God understands you.

He gets it. He understands you. Everything about you.

He understands temptation better than anyone else, because he never gave in to it. He understands fear better than anyone else, because he never yielded to it. He understands suffering better than anyone else because he never succumbed to it. He understands death better than anyone else because he came back from it.

Whatever you can experience on this earth, whatever trial and heartache you face in this dark world, he’s faced it more.

He understands you. Because Jesus came, because he took on human flesh and walked through everything we walk through except more, because he did all those things, you can know that God understands you.

He does. Because he was and is WITH us.

Second, because God is with us…

You can know God.

He’s not just some distant God who set things in motion and now’s just watching it all play out. That’s not our God. No, our God is interested, deeply interested in us. He’s made himself available to us. That’s why He became a man and hung out with us—not so we could have a story to tell, or so we could trade gifts with each other, or so we could do all these things we do this time of year. No, the reason God became a man was so that we could know God!

Isn’t that crazy? God wants us to know Him. He wants to know us. He is actively seeking a relationship with us.

God, the creator and ruler of the universe, wants to have a personal relationship with you and me. That’s Christmas.

That is God with us.

God understands you. You can know God. Third, because God is with us in Jesus…

Jesus is able to save you.

Only somebody who was fully human could pay the penalty for human sin. Only one who is both fully man and fully God can bridge the gap between God and man, reconnecting what had been torn apart by sin. Jesus Christ can save you; his death is enough to pay the penalty for your sin. I don’t know what’s going on in your life right now. I know many of us are excited about Christmas. We’re looking forward to seeing family and friends we haven’t seen in a while. We’re looking forward to our traditions and the joy we see on the faces of those we love.

But maybe you’re feeling something different today. Maybe you’re hurting. There is so much death around the holidays, so much grief, so much heartache. Someone you love isn’t going to be there. Something’s going to be different. And you’re wondering how you’re going to make it through.

Use these next few weeks to connect—or reconnect—with Jesus. The kids laid it all out for us earlier, verse by verse. Salvation is a gift. You can’t earn it; you can only receive it. Won’t you receive the gift of Immanuel—God with Us—today?