Christmas: Immanual "God with Us"
Notes
Transcript
What do I believe God wants us to know? God is with us and keeps His promise and set up a new kingdom
Why? We want to know where God is and if He keeps His promises and to know His kingdom wins
What do I believe God wants us to do? To trust Him, give our allegiance to Him, to follow Him
Why? It gives us hope and security and peace and love
ME/WE
One of the games I loved playing with my kids and I loved playing with my dad is a game called “hide and seek.”
- ANYBODY ELSE LIKE OR LOVE THIS GAME
- It is a game where a person hides and the other people playing the game try to find the person hiding.
- Often this game would start with my sons hiding and me seeking to find them....I would count to 30 and say ready or not here I come!
- Then when I find them they say to me now dad you go hid and we find you....They start off with such excitement of trying to find me their dad…then after a minutes of not finding me…what happens?
DAD are you here?? (starting to get a little anxiousness in their voice)
DAD make a noise? (you are defeating the purpose of the game)
DO it again
Then they find me and rejoice not just in finding for the game but finding me
- They are reminded that there dad is still with them because for a brief moment, not logical, but emotional moment they though maybe dad wasn’t there anymore....One of the places they get love, security, comfort, provision, and other things.
TENSION
In a similar yet differnet way is this not the question we ask of God at times?
I know you don’t play “hide and seek”
We can relate to what the Psalmist says in Ps 121:1
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
The word is EZER
This is the question that is asked 2000 years ago at the birth of Jesus Christ (Christ means messiah)
God where are you?
THE NATION OF ISRAEL IS ON THE VERGE OF BEING WIPED OUT
NO PROPHET FOR 400 YEARS
They had to be thinking about What about the prophecy
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
What about the crushing of the Satan’s head?
We feel crushed!
Promise of Gen 12:1-3
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Through Abramham line the whole world will be blessed
And the nation of Israel did live into this promise a little bit
They saw it come to pass a little bit, no fully or perfectly
I am going to cover some of it
They become a great nation under Moses
David becomes a great king
Solomon become a great king but then everything changes in 1 King 11
THEY HAVE WATCHED FOR THE LAST 1000 YEARS SINCE KING SOLOMON WALKED AWAY FROM GOD THAT THERE NATION WAS COLLASPING
300 years after Solomon ASSYRIAS came and conquered the Northern kingdom
This is not how it is suppose to go!
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
What!?! God…time out! What are you going to do?
God do you not realize that we were just conquered in the north?
God is saying I am going to do something so great in you that you are going to be a light the nations. Something so great everyone will look to you.
o We cannot even light up our own nation. We cannot even save ourselves let alone the world. We are on the verge of extinction!
Then it gets worse
150 years of chaos go by and the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar tear down parts of the wall, tear down Jerusalem, Solomon’s temple was destroyed, the wisest and brightest Israelites were carted off to Babylon to be slaves for them, no military, economy is in shambles Babylon simply takes over.
- Right in the midst of this chaos God sends another prophet Malachi
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
To which they were thinking no its not. You’re name is being mocked among other nations.
- Your name is a joke to them.
- To other nations they were thinking their God cannot take care of their own nation let alone others.
o Let’s stop with the empty promises.
o The truth is we are never going to be a great nation.
o We are never going to be a blessing.
§ Maybe Zeus will be great
· Maybe Alexander the Great but not our God
THEN THE PERISANS CAME and not the Romans came and Pompey (desecrated the temple) and Herod the Great…Ruled with an iron fist
ISRAEL THAT WENT FROM THIS GREAT NATION IS ON THE VERGE OF BEING DONE like all other nations.
- like the Assyrians, Bablyions, and Perisons
GOD WE NEED A KING WE NEED THE MESSIAH
WHAT HAPPEN TO THE PROMISE GIVEN TO THE ABRAHAM? THAT WAS GIVEN 2000 YEARS BEFORE THE before Jesus that through Abrahams family that would be blessing to the world
What about the prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Maliachi?
God we are losing hope, lost hope
What does God do? When things seem the bleekest?
God shows up, He always does, He is faithful
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
When the fullness of time had take place
when the prophetic words had been
God sent forth His son to adopt people into the family of God
Not only to come adopt us
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Not only that He came to set up the kingdom of God
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Jesus comes to northern Israel where it is full of
When the fullness of time had come
GOD sent forth His Son to be with us IMMANUAL GOD WITH us and to adopt us into the family
The story of Christmas is
- God comes to be with us
God comes to saves us
God keeps His promises
God kingdom
