XMAS Eve 2019

Christmas Eve Service

The Greatest Gift

Intro: We have been talking about the gifts that God gives us. We can exchange our hopelessness of this world with the Hope that God offers us, especially with the fulfilling of His word. We exchange our unhappiness or our stress with the Joy we find in God. Last week we talked about the spiritual rest we find in Jesus that is so much more than just physically taking a break or a nap. It is

All of these Advent themes are really just extensions or the by-products of God’s attributes. The Hope and peace we have comes from God’s truthfulness and faithfulness. The Joy and peace are derived from the grace and love that God is and also our peace comes from knowing that God is sovereign over His creation.

But God being who He is, is the reason we are excited about Christmas. It is not that someone was selected to become the messiah to fulfill a prophecy,like we see in many movies or read in a lot of books. Instead, Jesus is God among us or God with us.

Read Verses

Main Point: God gave us the greatest gift he could give us in Himself.

We are going to be focusing on Verse 23 which is a quote from .

What is in a name?

Matthew quotes and one thing we ten focus on is the virgin will become pregnant, which is confirmed in Matthew and Lukes accounts of how Mary becomes pregnant. This fulfills the prophecy but there is something more important about the baby being born and the name.

The prophet saw that will name the baby Immanuel and he gives the non-Hebrew readers a little help by translating the name “God is with us”

I think we have talked about this before, but in the Old Testament names meant something. Native Americans had a similar naming method, where the names were more of a description of the person than just a name. Crazy Horse’s actual Lakota Sioux name means “His horse is crazy.”

But Matthew is making a point that the prophecy is fulfilled and that God had come to be among us. But not only does Matthew help the Non-Hebrew speakers out,but he is making a point that this child is the Messiah and that he is God.

Since later prophecy in Isaiah describes this same child as “Mighty God”(In ), however, the name seems to communicate more than that God is with David’s descendants. It seems to suggest that God is present with his people in the person of this child.

In explains the similar idea of Who Jesus is when he says “And the Word became flesh, and [k]dwelt among us, and we saw His glory,”

The importance and significance of the name Immanuel are reinforced by the final words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (). and 28:20 serve to bracket the entire gospel. The promise that “God [is] with us” at the beginning of the gospel is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus’ assurance “I am with you” at the end of the gospel. The connection between the two texts suggests that Matthew intends to identify Jesus who is “with you” with God who is “with us.”

Jesus uses the I am statement to connect himself with God.

The promise “I am with you” is reminiscent of many other Old Testament texts that assure God’s people of his presence (; ; ; , ; ; ; ; ; ; ).

“God with Us” is Not New

In the Bible we see God is with His people.

He is with Adam and Eve in the Garden.

In when God is talking to Abraham.

The Lord appeared to him the same night and said,

“I am the God of your father Abraham;

Do not fear, for I am with you.

I will bless you, and multiply your [a]descendants,

For the sake of My servant Abraham.”

Moses is sent to Pharaoh but Moses has reservations

10 Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”

In God is reassuring the people of Israel

9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,

And called from its remotest parts

And said to you, ‘You are My servant,

I have chosen you and not rejected you.

10 ‘Do not fear, for I am with you;

Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,

Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

God was with them and now With the arrival of Jesus, God the Son, he is now with the people. He is one of the people.

Athanasius who is one of the Apostolic Fathers said, How could Jesus have given himself if he had not worn flesh? He offered his flesh and gave himself for us, in order that undergoing death in it, “He might bring to nothing the one who held the power of death, that is, the devil.” For this reason we continually give thanks in the name of Jesus Christ. We do not bring to nothing the grace which came to us through him. For the coming of the Savior in the flesh has been the ransom and salvation of all creation. Letter to Adelphus 60.6.

Ambrose, another church father, said He was a baby and a child, so that you may be a perfect human. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, so that you may be freed from the snares of death. He was in a manger, so that you may be in the altar. He was on earth that you may be in the stars. He had no other place in the inn, so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. He, being rich, became poor for your sakes, that through his poverty you might be rich. Therefore his poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord’s weakness is our virtue. He chose to lack for himself, that he may abound for all. The sobs of that appalling infancy cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins. Therefore, Lord Jesus, I owe more to your sufferings because I was redeemed than I do to works for which I was created.… You see that he is in swaddling clothes. You do not see that he is in heaven. You hear the cries of an infant, but you do not hear the lowing of an ox recognizing its Master, for the ox knows his Owner and the donkey his Master’s crib.

Conclusion:

The gifts we receive tomorrow will last for a certain amount of time, but they will not last forever.

However, the gift of God lives forever. He is everlasting. The forgiveness of sin is also something that lasts. It is not temporary.It is not a condition that you can meet. Your forgiveness and freedom from sin is made possible through the grace of God and the blood of Jesus. His riches are transferred to you. He gives you the amount you can handle and use.

God is with us. For a time he lived on this earth, but if you are a Christian, hen he is with you in the form of the Holy Spirit and he is with you. The Kingdom is at hand.

This is indeed the good news that God has come and made things right in His creation.