Jesus Is God with Us
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18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). 24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The last few weeks we’ve essentially been taking a microscope and taking a deep deep look at Jesus. We started at looking at Jesus’ ministry to us as our true and better priest. Then we focused on Jesus’ proclamation to us as our true and better prophet. Last week we rejoiced over the fact that Jesus is our true and better king who conquered our sin, death, and satan.
Today, we our wrapping up advent with the amazing, and truly astonishing reality that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.
We’ve been looking at Jesus under a microscope because the most important question every person has to answer is “who is Jesus?” This is the question of all questions.
With this in mind,
I’m going to be focusing on what we learn from verses 21-23 today.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
This is Matthew introducing Jesus to us: Jesus’ name means “God saves” while the name Immanuel means “God with us”.
Remember, names where important during Bible times. They were given in hopes of signifying the purpose and identity of the person the name belonged to.
The ESV Study Bible unpacks this for us, in regard to Jesus Christ:
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 1
The name “Jesus” specifies what he does (“God saves”), while the messianic title “Immanuel” (v. 23) specifies who he is (“God with us”).
There are Two very important realities for us in this:
We needed to be saved from sin
God needed to be the one to save us
So, what I hope to focus on today is how we got to this point. “How did we get to the point where Jesus, God with us, had to come to save us from our sin?”
Main Idea
We created a big problem and God came to fix it!
We used to have a good relationship with God
This is because God created us to know him and enjoy him and his creation.
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Even though Adam had responsibilities, he lived a pretty good life with God being blessed by God abundantly. They were on good terms and met and talked freely to one another. In fact, God loved Adam so much that he gave Adam a wife, Eve.
Adam and Eve were free to live with God and enjoy his beautiful world that he created for them.
It’s important to note that everything Adam needed for life was a gift directly from God.
his body
his breath
becoming a living being
a place to live
food to eat
God was the source of everything Adam needed to survive.
Just like Adam, everything we have now is a gift from God that we need to survive. We experience his love for us in this fact.
While this is all true, it didn’t stay that way. Something terrible happened.
We ruined our relationship with God
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Because God wanted to protect humans, God gave our great great great great great grandfather, Adam, a command that was clear as day: “You can eat this, but you can’t eat that. In fact, if you do eat that, there will be terrible consequences.”
The consequence was death.
Remember: God gave Adam Life. God was his source of life. Adam’s consequence for not listening to God was God taking away his source of life: Himself. This would make Adam spiritually dead.
The act of disobeying God is called sin
Sin
The purposeful disobedience of a creature to the known will of God.
Unlike moral evil it is a fundamentally theological conception.
So if Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they would be guilty of sin.
That is exactly what happened.
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
If Adam and Eve had trusted God and not the devil, they would not have sinned against God. This one act of unbelief that resulted in sin broke humanity’s relationship with God.
This act led to us becoming God’s enemies.
Our sin made it impossible for us to fix our relationship with God
Now, in the history of existence, God made himself known by speaking through prophets. One of them, Moses, was used by God to give us priests and the Law. Which were both understood to help people with the problem that they couldn’t get to God.
The thinking was, if I keep the law, then I can be justified and get back into relationship with God.
The Apostle Paul tells us that is is actually impossible.
16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
So why did God give the law?
God, in His kindness, gave us the law to show us that we could never live up to his goodness.
Our biggest problem is that we cannot, in our own power, be good enough to stand in God’s presence without him having to punish us for our sin.
Do you consider yourself a good person?
Summarize:
no other God’s before me,
don’t worship things you created instead of me,
don’t take on God’s name in vain,
keep the sabbath,
honor your mom and dad,
don’t murder,
don’t commit adultery,
don’t steal,
don’t lie,
don’t covet.
So, if we could never get to God ourselves, what are we to do!? This is the big problem plaguing all people. “God is our source of life yet we are completely incapable of getting to him on our own”
Jesus came to fix our relationship with God
This brings us back to the text we started with...
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
Jesus was born into this world because he is the one who can save us from our sin.
Remember what we established at the beginning.
The ESV Study Bible Chapter 1
The name “Jesus” specifies what he does (“God saves”), while the messianic title “Immanuel” (v. 23) specifies who he is (“God with us”).
So Jesus is God taking on human form in order to save us from our sin!
Sin kept us from getting to God, so God came to us and took our sin from us
Gospel Transformation Bible: English Standard Version Study Notes for Matthew
When Jesus came, he could be described as the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 because he was God, and so when he was among his people, God was with them (Matt. 8:23–27). God dwelling with his people was the climactic and greatest blessing in the Old Testament (Ex. 29:46; Lev. 26:11–12), but a blessing hindered by their rebellion against him. In Jesus, God has provided for salvation from sin and has healed the broken relationship between himself and his people, making it possible for God, in Jesus, to be “with” his disciples “always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20)
That touches mostly on the fact of what Jesus came to do, but, let’s think a little bit more deeply about the amazing reality that Jesus is God taking on human form.
The son born to Mary was a fully human baby who was also fully eternal God
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
New word for you all:
Hypostatic Union - This describes the incredible reality that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church Hypostatic Union
Hypostatic Union. The union of the Divine and human natures in the One Person (‘Hypostasis’) of Jesus Christ.
Think of how God is really really big… Now consider how big a hippo is… It would be impossible to fit a big hippo into a mini cooper... Think about this… Our big big God fit himself into tiny human flesh, which is almost as impossible to think about… But it’s true. Hypostatic Union. A big big God fitting into small human flesh. He’s fully God, but he’s also fully human. The illustration falls short because if you put a hippo into a mini cooper, the hippo doesn’t actually become the mini cooper. But Jesus, when he came as a human baby was still fully human while staying fully God.
Listen to how Charles Westley put this for us:
Logos Hymnal Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
Christ by highest heav’n adored,
Christ the everlasting Lord:
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th’incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the newborn King.’
Even though the reunification of God and humanity is what Jesus came to do, it is also, more importantly, who he is!
Jesus was, and is, the ultimate reunification of God and Humanity.
Because we were completely unable to fix our relationship with God, it had to be God who would fix it!
I told you that the...
Main Idea
We created a big problem and God came to fix it!
How did Jesus, God with us, fix our problem? How did Jesus, God with us, save us from our sin?
Because Jesus is fully man he can act as a true representative for mankind
Because Jesus is fully God he can live his life without the problem of sin
Jesus had the power to live up to the standards that God set forth in His Law
While Jesus was with us on this planet as one of us he traded places with us by taking our sin to His cross.
Applications
Children OPTION 1: You are constantly going to be bombarded with people, commercials, tv shows, and movies that tell you that you don’t need God and you don’t need to trust Him or His bible. Don’t believe them! The reason this world is such a mess is because people keep believing this lie. over and over and over again. Kids, don’t believe anyone who tells you that God and His word aren’t trustworthy. And know for certain that God loves you and he wants you to know him.
Children OPTION 2: Kids, the best thing you can realize while you are a kid is that JESUS LOVES YOU! One of the main reasons Jesus came to this earth to fix our big big problem is because he loves us! Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.
Parents: It is your responsibility to prepare your children for the enemies lies. You can’t take your completely out of the world or even fix the indwelling sin that they have. But you can spend time with them talking about God and His Bible. You can read the Bible with them. You can pray for them and with them. You, as a parent, can have confidence in God’s Word and God’s work in Jesus. Be intentional in how you speak to your kids and how you model the love of Christ to them.
Those Struggling with Sin Addictions: Many of us in this room have secret sins we don’t tell anyone about. We keep them secret because we are ashamed of them. And we keep doing them because they lie to us and tell us they will satisfy us. If you are here today struggling with some type of addiction that keeps you a slave to it because it has convinced you that you need it to be happy or whole. Listen to me: The wholeness and satisfaction you are longing for is a direct result of sin’s presence in your life. Sin interrupts fellowship with God. Fellowship with God is what makes us whole and satisfied. We were created for this. Believers can be duped by sin. Confess it to God and another christian you trust. Go to God with it.