God With Us!

In this season when so many have family and friends, there are many who struggle. We live in an age of connection, yet so many feel profoundly alone. We can video chat with someone across the globe, yet struggle with loneliness in our own homes. We're surrounded by people, yet feel isolated in our struggles.

Into this universal human experience of isolation and fear, God speaks a name that changes everything: Immanuel- God with us.

This isn't just a nice theological concept or a beautiful Christmas card sentiment. This name, first spoken 700 years before Jesus' birth, reveals the heart of God's entire rescue plan for humanity. It's the answer to our deepest need.

Isaiah 7:14 ESV

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

To understand the power of this promise, we need to understand the crisis King Ahaz faced. Judah was surrounded by enemies. Two neighboring kings were marching against Jerusalem with their armies. Ahaz was terrified - the Bible says "his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind" (Isaiah 7:2).

When we're facing our own storms - health crises, financial collapse, broken relationships, uncertain futures - we understand that fear. We know what it means to feel the ground shaking beneath us.

Into Ahaz's panic, God sends Isaiah with a message: "Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid" (7:4). Then God does something remarkable - He offers Ahaz any sign he wants, as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. God is essentially saying, "Ask for anything to prove I'm with you."

But Ahaz, in false piety or perhaps stubborn unbelief, refuses. So God gives a sign anyway - not just for Ahaz, but for all of us, for all time: a virgin will conceive, bear a son, and name him Immanuel.

Immanuel

Names in Hebrew culture weren't just labels - they revealed character and purpose. When God gives this child the name Immanuel, He's making a declaration about His nature and His plan.

"God with us" - not God far away, not God occasionally dropping by, not God watching from a distance. WITH us. Present. Near. Involved.

Think about what this means:

First, it means God chooses proximity over distance. He doesn't stay in heaven, shouting instructions. He comes near. The infinite enters the finite. The Creator becomes creature. This is astonishing - the God who needs nothing chooses to be with those who need everything.

Second, it means God shares our experience. When Jesus - the fulfillment of this Immanuel prophecy - came to earth, He didn't just visit. He felt what we feel. Hebrews tells us He was "tempted in every way, just as we are" (4:15). He knew hunger, exhaustion, betrayal, grief, physical pain, and even death. God with us means God understands us.

Third, it means we're never alone in our battles. This promise came in a context of war and fear. The name itself is a fortress. When enemies surround us - whether physical, spiritual, emotional, or circumstantial - we don't face them alone. Immanuel. God is with us.

Matthew makes this explicit when he quotes Isaiah 7:14 at Jesus' birth, and then Jesus' final words in Matthew's Gospel echo this same truth: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (28:20). From birth announcement to final promise - God with us, always.

The Name Fulfilled

Seven centuries after Isaiah spoke these words, they found their ultimate fulfillment in an unexpected way. Not in a palace, but in a stable. Not announced to kings, but to shepherds. A virgin named Mary did conceive, and the baby who grew in her womb was not just a prophet or a good teacher, but God Himself taking on human flesh.

John captures this mystery beautifully: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). The Greek literally says He "tabernacled" among us - He pitched His tent with ours. This is Immanuel in action.

Every miracle Jesus performed was a demonstration of Immanuel. When He healed the sick, God was with the suffering. When He ate with sinners, God was with the outcast. When He wept at Lazarus' tomb, God was with the grieving. When He hung on the cross, God was with humanity in our darkest moment - bearing our sin, experiencing our death, conquering our greatest enemy.

And the resurrection? That was God declaring that His "with us" promise is stronger than death itself. Nothing - not sin, not death, not hell - can separate us from God's presence now.

Through Jesus, the promise of Immanuel becomes not just a fact but a relationship. We don't just have a God who is generally "with humanity" - through faith in Christ, we have a God who is specifically, personally, intimately with each of us.

Living in the Reality of Immanuel

So how does this ancient name and this fulfilled promise change our lives today? Let me offer four practical ways to live in the reality that God is with us:

1. Bring God Into Your Fear, not Just Your Faith

We often think we need to have it all together before we approach God. But the context of Isaiah 7 is fear and crisis. God gave the Immanuel promise to people who were terrified and overwhelmed.

Whatever you're afraid of right now - bring it to God. Don't wait until you feel strong enough or faith-filled enough. The promise of Immanuel means God is present in your weakness, not absent from it. Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted." Not distant from them, not disappointed in them - close to them.

Practical step: This week, when anxiety hits - whether it's at 2am or in the middle of a difficult conversation - pause and say out loud, "Immanuel. God, You are with me right here, right now." Let that truth anchor you before you do anything else.

2. Practice the Presence of God in Ordinary Moments

Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century monk, wrote about "practicing the presence of God" while washing dishes in the monastery kitchen. He understood that Immanuel doesn't just mean God is with us in crisis - He's with us in the mundane. He transformed his kitchen duties, seeing them as an act of worship and conversation with God, finding peace and holiness not in elaborate rituals but in doing ordinary work with pure love for God, making the kitchen as sacred as the chapel.

When you're stuck in traffic, He's there. When you're doing laundry, He's there. When you're having that difficult conversation with your teenager or sitting in another Zoom meeting, He's there. We don't need to manufacture His presence - we need to become aware of it.

Practical step: Set a few random alarms on your phone this week. When they go off, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, pause and acknowledge: "God, You are here with me in this moment." Over time, this trains us to live in constant awareness of His presence.

3. Let His Presence Shape how you View Your Circumstances

When Ahaz looked at his circumstances, all he saw were enemies. He looked at the problem and forgot the promise. But God's message through Isaiah was essentially: "The reality of My presence is greater than the reality of your circumstances."

This doesn't mean we deny real problems or practice toxic positivity. It means we learn to see our circumstances through the lens of God's presence rather than seeing God through the lens of our circumstances.

Paul understood this. In Philippians, from prison, he wrote about the "peace of God that transcends all understanding" (4:7). How? Because he knew that chains couldn't separate him from Christ's presence. His circumstances were real, but God's presence was more real.

Practical step: When you're facing a difficult situation this week, write it down. Then write above it: "Immanuel - God is with me in this." Let that truth reframe how you approach the problem.

4. Become an Immanuel Presence to Others

Here's something profound: as followers of Jesus, we carry the presence of God. Paul says we are "the body of Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:27). When the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we become vehicles of God's presence in the world.

This means that sometimes, we are the answer to someone else's desperate prayer for God to show up. When we sit with someone in their grief, we bring Immanuel. When we help a neighbor in need, we embody Immanuel. When we choose presence over platitudes with someone who's suffering, we manifest what the name means.

Practical step: Ask God this week, "Who needs to experience Your presence through me?" Then be intentional about showing up - really showing up, not just with solutions, but with presence - for that person.

God With Us!

Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, God spoke a name that would change everything: Immanuel. God with us.

It's the promise that meets us in our fear, the truth that sustains us in our trials, the reality that redeems our loneliness, and the hope that outlasts death itself.

You may feel overwhelmed today. You may be facing circumstances that feel crushing. You may wonder where God is in your pain. But the promise of Immanuel stands: God has not left you. God will not leave you. In Jesus Christ, God has bound Himself to you permanently.

No crisis is too big, no moment too small, no sin too great, no situation too hopeless for this truth: Immanuel. God is with us.

The question is not whether God is present. Through Christ, that's settled. The question is: will we live like we believe it?