Emmanuel

Intro

If I Could Only Become a Bird

Paul Harvey tells the story about a family on Christmas Eve. This family had a tradition where the Mother and children would go to the Christmas Eve service, and the Father would stay home and read the paper. When the family returns home from church, they would all gather to open up their presents.

The Father was not an evil man, but he just couldn’t believe in the childhood stories anymore of God coming as a baby in a manger. As the family left for church, he opened up the evening paper and began to read by the fireplace.

Suddenly, he heard tapping on the window. It was a bird flying against the glass of his window trying to get out of the snow into the warmth of his home. The man had compassion on the bird, and he went outside, hoping to bring it in.

As he approached the bird, the bird just flew against the window even harder. Pretty soon, the bird flew into the bushes below the window, half frozen, yet too afraid to be caught by this huge man. The more the man tried to reach for the bird, the more the bird flew frantically into the snow and thorns of the bushes.

After a few minutes in the cold and seeing the bird continue to injure itself, the man yelled out in frustration, “Stupid bird, can’t you understand that I’m trying to help?” The man paused and thought, “If only you understood you wouldn’t fly away … if only … if only I could become a bird, and get you to understand.”

Just then, the church bells rang, as they always have on the hour. But when the man heard the bells this time, he fell to his knees and began to cry, saying, “Oh, God, I didn’t understand. Oh, God, I didn’t understand.”

God’s Son came in human form that we might understand from where we have come, for what reason we were separated and how we could be restored to God.

Names of God

I know it is hard for us to fully recognize these things, how can we know who God is, and even more difficult, how can we fathom who God is

This is where we can see how God reveals himself in Scripture is incredibly important, and tells us about the God we serve

So maybe God doesn’t need to send a bird to be pecking at our window for us to grasp who he is, and our need for him!

Some of these names are worth us just mentioning, as they set up the name of God which brings us great joy and comfort at Christmas: Emmanuel

First, there is the personal name of God:

YHWH- I AM WHO I AM or I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE

We can’t put God in a box, he is God, and we are not

While this might seem unfair when we suffer, and life is bad, it reminds us that God is working for our God and his glory, in ways we can hardly fathom!

Then the next name is the God who is El Shaddai:

EL SHADDAI- THE UNSTOPPABLE, ALMIGHTY GOD, WHO IS ALL SUFFICIENT FOR ALL LIFE MIGHT THROW AT US

There is nothing life brings us that is too hard for God to deal with, or too hard for God to redeem

One of my personal favorites, is El Roi

EL ROI- THE GOD WHO SEES YOU AND I, AND DOESN’T LEAVE US ALONE, BUT COMES TO US

This was spoken of by a pregnant woman on the run, abandoned, abused, a gentile and pagan, yet when God comes to her, Hagar names YHWH, the God who sees

This is not simply God seeing your misery, suffering, joy, and laughter, but being with you and meeting you within those things

So today, the name of God we come to is that of Emmanuel, the promised child in Isaiah 7, and fulfilled in Jesus on that first Christmas Day

Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of all the promises and workings God has been doing in Scripture, all of it has been on a collision course to meet in a manger in Bethlehem, and culminated on a bloody cross and empty tomb!

What I want to propose to us today, is that Emmanuel is not just found in Jesus, but the incarnation of Jesus is simply the clearest demonastration of YHWH’s heart,

A heart which has never been of indifference, but of yearning, and longing to have a rectified relationship with humanity

Let us step back and look at the whole of Scripture and consider how the heart of God, is the face of Emmanuel, and how the heart of Emmanuel is shown throughout Scripture!

In The Garden

Well, if you guys have not heard, I have bad news for you, humanity messed up and we brought sin and wickedness into the world

We broke the perfect world God created, and how did God respond to us?

He showed that he was with us!

If you don’t know this story, God created everything in Genesis 1 and 2, and then Adam and Eve go against God’s commands and eat the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree

Once Adam and Eve bring sin into their lives, they know what they have done is unspeakable

They have broken their realtionship with God, and so when Adam hears God walking in the garden, they hide!

Yet who is it that seeks them out, when they have sinned against God?

It is God, wanting to reconcile and help deal with their sin issue

Now, even here, how does God walk in the garden if God is spirit?

The answer is that it seems to be Jesus, before he was born as Jesus

Theologians call this ‘pre-incarnate Christophany’, which is a fancy way of seeing Jesus interact with humanity before Jesus is born on Christmas

The reason I propose this, is that it seems that our God follows a general pattern of interaction

The Father ordains all the is to pass, the Son interacts with the creation to bring that about, and the Spirit empowers to make it happen

We see this even in the Creation, God ordains creation, the Son speaks it into existence, and the Spirit hovers over the earth, using power to create the words into reality

So we see God walking in the garden, seeking out the sinful Adam and Eve, and then listens to their story, and then gives consequences

One of the most misunderstood parts of this story is when the consequences and discipline end

When do you think they end?

They end at Genesis 3:19.

Even in the midst of these consequences given to Adam and Eve, there is hope in 3:15, in which the serpent will be dealt with for his wickedness in the ordeal

Yet, what happens after this dealing with the consequences for Adam and Eve?

God then is the first person that kills an animal so that Adam and Eve might have clothing

An innocent animal is killed for the sin of Adam and Eve, by God himself!

Then in verse 3:22, we see that the reason they are kicked out of the garden is not about punishment, but deep care!

God said that man is fallen, we must have him leave the garden, unless they eat from the tree of life, and live forever in their sin!

Could you imagine, living forever in our current sinful state! Thank God for his great grace!

So do you see the God who is Emmanuel?

The God who comes to us when we have run from him?

The God who seeks our good, even when we have done nothing but seek evil?

The God who gives us clothing by killing an innocent animal, and gives us grace by preventing us from living forever in our fallen state!

I do, but it is not simply in Genesis, it is the whole of Scripture that shows this character of God!

With the Brothers

We only have to turn the page to Genesis 4, to see the next story of where God shows up for his people in Cain and Able

Now in this story we have two brothers, the kids of Adam and Eve, and they come to offer sacrifices to God!

Abel the Shepherd, comes and offers God the firstborn of his flock and the fattened animals, the first and the best

Cain the Farmer comes and when he offers a sacrifice of some of the lands produce, God does not accept it

The reason? It is because Cain did not bring the best and firstfruits to God, but the leftovers after Cain used what he wanted

Cain becomes enraged, at God and his brother for being accepted by God

Yet, before anything happens to Cain, God comes and speaks to Cain, and talks to him

God sees he is enraged with what has happened, and reminds him to do what is right things will go well

The issue is that Cain did not do the right thing, he gave God seconds rather than the firsts, it is not an issue of animals vs fruits

Despite his sinful and apathetic attitude to God in his sacrifice, God comes to him, warns him that sin is seeking to dominate him, but Cain must fight against it!

Cain unfortunately does not do this, and kills his brother, and is exiled, and even here, God prevents people from killing Cain and protects him in his exile!

So do you see how God is with Cain, even when he does an apathetic offering, lets sin run his life, and then murders his brother, God still deals with him!

It shows the heart of Emmanuel

Abraham x11

As we fast forward a few chapters, God starts something different, instead of waiting and wanting all people to come to him, he decides to make a special people for himself and his purposes

That introduces us to Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel!

He is called by God, and given promises of children and land by God, and God protects and prospers him

God meets with Abraham at least 11 times, at varing points, both high and lows

Abraham lied about Sarai being his wife twice, slept with a servant girl to have Ishmael a son who was not part of God’s plan, and is certainly imperfect

Yet, Abraham shows faith seeing that God is with him, and he builds his faith bit by bit, and it culminates in Genesis 18, where again Jesus appears before Abraham to show his promise of children by Sarai

Then God asks Abraham’s thoughts on impending judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham shows incredible care for these nations by trying to bargain their salvation for a handfull of godly people

Abraham experiences God in many profound and different ways than anyone else had, but was not perfect

Yet God was with Abraham when he obeyed, and when he did not fully obey, and God was certainly with him at the height of his faith test in Genesis 22, where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac

What God wanted to really see was if Abraham’s heart had been transformed enough, would Abraham show he worshipped his son, or that he worshipped God who the son came from, and he passed the test!

It is the Angel of the Lord that stops Abraham from killing Isaac, and gives a sacrifice, that Angel of the Lord is again a pre-born Christ!

And the most amazing thing, that mountain where God spared Isaac, would be the same place he would not spare his own son Jesus several centuries later!

A God that is with Abraham, protecting, guiding, nuturing, and helping his faith grow in God, that is a God that shows us Emmanuel

Joseph

The great-great grandson of Abraham, Joseph is sold to Egypt as a slave by his own brothers, and yet we see in Genesis 39,

that God is with Joseph overtly as he is in slavery, as he is wrongly accused and thrown in prison, as he is betrayed by his brothers, and everyone he knows and trusts: God is with him

Decades pass and Joseph becomes the 2nd in command in Egypt and is able to save the people from starving, saving the line of Emmanuel Jesus

God is with Joseph, giving him special giftings and moving through his life to bring him to be the man that he needs to be!

God is with Joseph, and the people of God

He is with them even when they do evil against Joseph, God used it for good as Joseph says in Genesis 50!

Joseph knew God was with him in his suffering, he was not alone, and although he did not know the end, he know the one who controls the end, Emmanuel!

Just because we are on God’s team, and doing the things God wants us to do, doesn’t mean life won’t be difficult, even with God with us!

Moses

After about 200 years, Israel as a nation had become slaves to Egypt, and God came to rescue them!

God appears to Moses, and reveals who he is, his personal name of YHWH in the Burning bush, and that He had seen and not abandoned the people in their suffering

So what follows are the 10 plagues, and the crossing of the Red Sea, all to show that God is actively with his people, guiding them to deliverance

Then they end up at Mount Sinai, where they get much of the Law of Moses, but then it all goes downhill they start worshipping demon gods like the Golden Calf of Baal

Yet, God doesn’t leave them, he is with Moses, and brings his judgement through Moses,

that generation dies for their sin of rejecting God, and Joshua’s generation takes up the mantle of the going to the Promised land

Joshua

Joshua saw that God was with Moses, and he would stay in the tabernacle of God after Moses leaves to spend time with God!

When Joshua crossed into the promised land, he has an amazing an amazing experience with a preincarnate Jesus in Joshua 5.

He meets the commander of God’s army, and he bows down and worships him!

Joshua asks a very important question, are you for us or our enemies?

The Angel of the Lord, aka Jesus, tells him neither!

But bow and worship, this is holy ground, which reminds us of when Moses met God at the burning bush!

God is with us, but let us not forget that God is for himself, and so that doesn’t mean he’s automatically picking our side, if we do evil he will be against us, even though he will still be with us!

Joshua reminds us an important reality, God is with us, because God is working his plan, not ours!

Daniel and His Friends

Many years later after many failings, God is still with his people, still committed to them, despite their lack of committement to him

So God hands them over for disciple by the Babylonians, and Daniel is taken prisoner, and taught in the ways of being a wise man or magi!

(It is most likely Daniel and his friends that planted the seeds of the wise men who visited Jesus from Babylon!)

He decides he will honor God, and so God works for Daniel’s favor with those in power above him from the cheif eunuch to the king himself!

God gives Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom, and Daniel understands visions and dreams

God is with them even though Jerusalem lies in partial ruins, and they are far from the promised land

Daniel and his friends know God is with them, and it emboldens them to live a different way

When the story of the Furnance and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to worship anyone but God, they are thrown into the fire

Listen to these incredible words, of understanding that God is with them, but also God can do what he wants!

Daniel 3:16–17 “16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question. 17 If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king.”

Daniel 3:24–25“24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisers, “Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?” “Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” they replied to the king. 25 He exclaimed, “Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed; and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”” Daniel 3:27 “27 When the satraps, prefects, governors, and the king’s advisers gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men: not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them.”

One of the few times that we see beautiful supernatural deliverance so clearly in Scripture, and Emmanuel so clearly seen

And yes, the other in the fire was in fact Jesus!

The Birth of Jesus

So when we get to the book of Matthew, we have a lot of time, hurt, promises and expectations, in fact, it’s been about 2000 years since Abraham, and the people were waiting

So God appeared to Mary and told her she would bear Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us

This is different that all the other ones, because Jesus would be fully human and fully God, and so he would bring the mission to completion

He came to fulfill the promise God gave to Eve in the Garden, that the snake would be crushed!

So we see Jesus, Immanuel, born to be with us, he suffers with us, he eats and laughs with us, he even weeps with us

Our God is the one who becomes god veiled in human flesh, all to be beaten, broken and killed to finally bring us to him for all time

He comes to fix our biggest needs

Our need to be made right with God, and our need to deal with our wickedness in our own hearts

So Christmas is the day we celebrate our God with us from the First Christmas, forevermore!

Jesus doubled down on this promise in the great commission too, where he reminds us the God who is Emmanuel will never leave us nor forsake us, for he is with us always until the world ends!

The Hope of Christmas, The Hope of Emmanuel

So I want to give you a few take aways:

First if you have not come to accept Jesus as the way for your sin to be dealt with, and you to be restored with God, do that today!

You simply need to come and confess your sins, Jesus already knows them, and then let Jesus run your life, your dreams, your aspirations. When Jesus says jump, we ask, how high Lord!

When you are home:

The incarnation of Jesus should transform your communication and conflict!

When you remember that God is with us, even when we are not with him, and still forgives us, it gives you the foundation for grace and empathy for your spouse, children, parents, and also those here at church!

Take some time to sit down and listen openly about ways you have been hurt by words, actions, or deeds, and seek to understand each other, just as Jesus showed his understanding by meeting us where we were, in human flesh!

This is the way the incarnation of God can help heal us

When you are at work:

When at work, it is easier to get into comparison games, and feel pressure from various sides of life!

When you encounter a difficult coworker or stressful project, focus on how Jesus, being fully God and fully human, walked among us with grace under pressure.

You can model the kindness of God that Jesus brings to us, but it means you also have to get over your own ego to love and serve others! Instead of competition or points of stress, they are people that need to experience Jesus and his incarnation too!

Can you pray for them, and love them with the same love Christ shows you each and every day?

When you are in public, whether that be email, social media, at dinner with friends, etc:

There is a division that seems worse than it’s ever been in our world!

Over politics, societal issues, even things like sports!

It leads us to devalue and dehumanize other people who hold contrary views that we do!

How did Jesus model treating his enemies like Pilot, the Romans, The Pharisees?

Instead of being quick to defend your point, can you be kind and compassionate and seek to understand the other view?

This is how you and I can start to show the power of Christ’s love to the broken world!