Emmanuel TLOC
The Lyrics of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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What do you call a poor santa claus? Saint Nickel less
This morning on the last Sunday before Christmas I wanted to share the most heart warming message I could think of for this season. This morning I want you to participate with me, and I know some of you grew up thinking you can’t talk in church, but I want you to know sometimes I want you to interact with me; especially if I am asking you a question, by all means answer it. Also, sometimes if you give the affirmation while I’m preaching I will understand you are getting it and I won’t have to keep going on the same spot and I know I can move on, but this morning I want you to participate with me. I want you to say this. God is, God was, God will always be with us.
I say all that because, this morning we are looking at the Hymn O’ Come, O Come Emmanuel, and that is exactly what that name means, Gd with us. So tday we are going to examine the truth of God’s love based on this carol. Let me give you a little history of this hymn it dates back between 8th and 9th century. This came from what was originally called the O antiphonts, they would chant or sing the names of God starting with O, between psalms. So they would sing a Psalm, and then sing:
O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
O Adonai (O Lord/Lord of Might)
O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (O Key of David)
These different Antiphonts were eventually assembled into a song together, and then this hymn was put into its known form in about 1710. IT was in 1851 the Anglican Minister John Mason Neal translated the hymn into English and put it into his publication Medieval Hymns and Sequences.
This morning, this is the history of the song we are going to walk through, and it is O Come, O come Emmanuel.
Play Song.
Today we are going to look at one word really, the word Emmanuel - which means God with us. Just as a note, ever since our very first child, and for those of you that don’t know we have 7 of them, but since the very first one she has wanted to name him, Emmanuel. I used my veto on that one, because I wasn’t really very found of having a Manny. But Emmanuel, God with us, is such an amazing truth and promise for all of us. God with us.
Draw cross
EMMANUEL MEANS—GOD WITH US
So in his Gospel, Matthew is writing to Jewish audience, and the Jews he is writing to are awaiting savior they are waiting just as they were in the days of Jesus for this Messiah to come and right the ship, to make their earthly kingdom right - to make their lives on earth better. Matthew in his Gospel he skips the manger scene because its not the most important thing for him or them.
Can I ask a question, and this is where you can participate, how many of you have ever prayed, “God be with us.” I’m sure there are quite a few of us in this room who have prayed that exact prayer, if I am honest there are times I have prayed the exact same thing, but what does that mean anyway? What is it we are praying for?
We pray things like, “God, be with us as we travel,” “God, be with us so I have the patience not to kill my children today,” “God, be with us because I don't want to go crazy on my boss,” “God, be with me on this final that I really should have spent more time studying.” Sometimes, I think he says I’ll be with you on your finals but it would have went a lot better for you if you had studied.”
Let me read to you this morning from the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.
21 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
This was the announcement that people had been waiting for for centuries; this is the good news of the gospel - this is what sums it all up.
22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
Now, what Matthew is about to do is quote the prophet Isaiah, and this is important, because remember Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, and he knows they knew their Bible and the prophets and he wants to show them how Jesus fits into this whole picture they have in their head of how the entirety of the world is supposed to work. So he is going to quote Isaiah 7:14 that was written about 740 years before the birth of Jesus. God is so good and so mighty he could do and say all of this beforehand because all of eternity is in his hands, and this is what Matthew writes in Matthew 1:23
23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
If this were a movie it would get really dramatic as they said GOD WITH US, this is in the background where you would hear “dun dun dun dun,” God WITH US, because it is the most earth shattering news possible. Listen everyone reading this letter, everyone who had heard the words of the prophet, they all would have known the Torah told us no one could look on God and live. In fact, Moses had to hide his face when God passed by so he wouldn’t be killed. They would all have known how when God dwelled in the temple no one was allowed in to the holy of holies, and the high priest only went in once a year and they tied a rope around his ankle just in case he died in the presence of the Lord they could pull his body out, and suddenly Matthew says, this God, this one no one can look upon, the one who entering into his presence would kill you, He is with us. In fact, Matthew tells us Jesus said even more on the topic.
20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
ALWAYS. He is Always with us.
Let me ask, What sent the shepherds back into the field rejoicing? What caused the wisemen to fall to their knees and worship?
It was just one fact alone, that his name would not be God far away, not some distant, uninvolved Creator. Not “just” watching over you—but God with you! A relational god that stripped him of his glory and became like us and took the form of a baby who was all God and all man. The Word became flesh! This is what caused the shepherds to rejoice and the wisemen to bend their knees.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And all of a sudden Matthew is going to say, God was with you, God is with you, and God will be with you, its like the best news ever. The problem is it is hard for us to believe; I can tell some of you don’t believe it, because you're just kind of sitting there looking at me, and I know what it is, you want to hear another funny joke, but I can only give you one a week, theres a limit. Then, there are those of you in the room who don’t even believe in God so its no wonder that you are looking at me funny. Also there are those groups of Christians who say you don’t feel Him so it can’t be good, you say I don’t have those goosebumps, and the ony time you know God is with you is if you have the Jesus bumps going on. Some of you are looking at me kind of strange because you are in a difficult spot right now; I realize that Christmas is a Great magnifier of your situation it makes the good things really good and the painful times really painful. There are those of you who are facing an empty chair this year and that just wrecks you; maybe its bad health news and you're saying where is God in this, if you are real God, where are you?,
Some of you have that look on you face because you look back on your life and you feel ashamed of the life you have lived and the things you have done and you would say why would God be with me. But before you leave today, I want you to know and be convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt God is/was/ will always be with you!
Say it with me God is, God was, God will be with me
Give you three truths today about Emmanuel, God with us, the first
GOD IS WITH YOU.
He is the God of all comfort and he comforts us in our troubles. Look at what scripture tells us in Luke 1:28 As the angel comes in to speak to Mary.
28 And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
First truth is something she needed to know, that God was with her, and it was important for what she was about to do and the life she was about to live for her to know this truth. She needed the comfort of knowing the Lord was with her and she was not alone in much the same way some of you are hurting today and I want you to know that God is with you in an even more powerful way. The Bible says that Jesus is the Lord of ALL Comfort and he comforts us in our trials. The greek word that is translated comforter is the word parakalao which means called along side, or called to. Jesus as the comforter is called along side to you; he is called to come alongside of you in all of your troubles and that is an amazing truth and a promise for our lives. Yet, many people don’t just believe that, because if more people believed it in their hearts, that he comes alongside us in our troubles, and they didn’t just believe it in their heads it would change the way we did everything. It would change our whole way of life.
When you understand that the all knowing, all powerful, all everything God is with you it changes everything we know, do, and how we feel. When we know this truth, we know when we are:
Alone with us as companion. Sick with us as healer.
Lost with us as guide. Hurt he is with us as hope
Weak with us as strength. Sin with us as savior
Listen, this is one of those moments when you are allowed to talk in church, because this is a lot of amazing truth that is being shared, a lot of amazing promises for us to hold on to. In the middle of the storm, Jesus is with you. You may feel like you are one of the disciples and Jesus is asleep in the boat and you are just trying to stay alive and he doesn’t care, but he is with you in the storm. The truth is it is better to be in a storm with Jesus than anywhere else without him.
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The second truth of Emmanuel this morning is GOD WAS WITH YOU.
Sometimes it’s easier to see him in the rearview than in the present. There are those moments in our lives when we feel like he has completely forgotten about us, but when we look back after its over we can see his hand clearly.
Looking back over the series of events in your life and you may be like Joseph in the old testament, you see, Joseph—had big dreams. He had dreams that his brothers bundles of grain bowed down to his, and then the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him. Listen, these are not things you’d want your brother to tell you, you’d probably want to smack him around a bit if you’re a bunch of dudes to put him in his place a little bit. But these brothers took it a step further, they beat him and threw him in a pit to leave him for dead. They were tired of him being their fathers favorite little angel child. Yet, one brother has compassion on him and says he cant leave him there, and you think awe that is so sweet of him, no, he just agreed instead of letting him die to have him sold into slavery; so compassionate, right? Joseph goes and lives with integrity and lives in the house of Pharaoh where he is falsely accused and thrown into jail, and could have easily said, “ where is God?”
And if you follow the story over the course of his life, what you are going to see is God was working behind the scenes, and he was in the pit, and on the passage that lead him to the palace, and in the prison, and eventually he was second in charge over all of Egypt. It was a very indirect route to get him to the place where he ended up, and we could look at the story before the ending and think, where was God in all of this. But if you read the story look at what it tells us in Genesis 39
21 But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.
Listen, when we look back and see where God was with us it makes us emotional.
I think back to when Jennifer was pregnant with Josiah, she was 27.5 weeks along and she was working grooming dogs, and I was at work at Dairy Queen and her boss comes in and tells me I have to come right now because Jennifer as bleeding everywhere. Can I just tell you my heart dropped, I didn’t know what to think, but I immediately left the store with no one in charge until the next manager got there in a few hours. On the way to the hospital, I called everyone I knew and told them to pray, I was terrified, I was afraid I was going to lose my wife and my son at the same time.
Then there was Charis birth, she was our only child born in the middle of the night, and she was having a little trouble breathing and they put her on some oxygen, and I left her and Jennifer to go be with the other kids. A few hours later Jenn calls me and tells me her lung has collapsed and they are taking her to Nortons CHildrens hospital in Louisville for treatment in the NICU. Man, I was scared. I called people again, probably many of the same people.
Or when Jennifer and I were first married and we had more love than money, and we didn't have the money to pay all the bills but we were faithful and tithing like we knew God had called us to, and I will never forget we were short 164.18 for the month. We didn’t tell anyone, because I was raised you just keep your problems to yourself and you never ask for help with money, but we come home from church and taped to our front door was an envelope with 164.18 in it.
And when we look back we can see God was with us.
And God was with us as Jennifer's parents went to be with Jesus....and God was with me when I shared hope in Christ at their funeral.
and number 3....
GOD WILL BE WITH YOU.
As we are right before Christmas, I want you to think about Mary this little teenage girl. Now, just imagine if she could see the future; looking forward she would see God will be with me when I get pregnant; when I have to tell Joseph; when we have no place to sleep; and God will be with me when we cant find our son and at the age of 12 and we go back to look for him and we find that he is in the temple teaching and going about the father's business; and God will be with me when Jesus turns water to wine; when I watch him falsely accused; when I watch him brutalized on a cross as they drive stakes in his wrists; and as he looks up to heaven and says, “it is finished,” and God be with me when he says into your hands I commit my spirit; and he will be with me when the world goes dark; and when the whole earth shakes; and on the first night when I waited and wondered; and on the second night; and on the third day when the stone was rolled away and it was empty and he was not there; because he is Emmanuel - God with us. He is god who was with us and will be with us no matter what we go through.
Worship Team
And here is what Paul tells us
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate you—nothing! Not your doubts, not your mistakes, not your disappointments, not your failure, not your sin, not what someone else did to you, I want to say that one one more time, because I think there are some of you that need to hear it, there is nothing someone else did to you that can separate you from him, not you sickness, not your broken dreams.
He is, he was, he will be with you.
In Rev 1:8 Jesus says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end, the first the last, “the one who is and was and is to come,” the God who was with you who is with you and will aways be with you even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death you shall fear no evil WHY because our God is with us.
He will Never leave you—never forsake you if you are his, you will never be alone!
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil—He is with me!
He Is, He Was, and he Will be with you.
No question that God is with you. Real question: Are you with God?
David and Goliath. There is no middle; you are on one hill or the other, where are you today?
This morning, I want to give you the opportunity to call upon Jesus as your savior.
Or maybe you are here this morning and you have forgotten, because you are dealing with so much pain and suffering and you need some prayer, I want to be able to pray for you.
But I don’t want to stop there and keep thinking the alter is only a place of hurt and pain, because the alter is also a place of celebration. Maybe you are here this morning and you look back on your life and you see all those places he was with you, and you see what he got you through and you want to come and thank him and worship him at the alter, we want to give you that opportunity as well.
