Emanuel, God with Us

Introduction

Introduce Series

The word “advent” means the arrival of a notable person, thing or event

obviously, when we speak of the advent season of the Christian calendar, we are talking about the birth of Christ

Christmas!

God tells us in the OT that the messiah, God’s anointed one is coming, and in Isaiah he calls him certain names that are very important

Wonderful counselor, prince of peace, eternal father, mighty God

these names are very important and give us an idea of who God is and why we should really celebrate this advent season

Today with will look at a name found in Isaiah 7:14 and quoted in Matthew 1:23

Immanuel, God with us.

Isaiah 7:10–14 CSB

10 Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz: 11 “Ask for a sign from the Lord your God—it can be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not test the Lord.” 13 Isaiah said, “Listen, house of David! Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men? Will you also try the patience of my God? 14 Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.

Matthew 1:20–23 CSB

20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”

PRAY!

God’s Way

We have been trained in our society to have what we want when we want it

you can get things shipped from around the world in just days

with covid, some things are moving slower for us out here, in the cities, a little quicker

my in laws shop online for groceries

they online in the morning and they can get them delivered to their front door that afternoon.

I have noticed that we expect the same kind of service from God

I have prayed this morning, now I expect you to have taken care of this by this afternoon.

In Isaiah, Jerusalem was looking at an attack

This looked overwhelming to King Ahaz

The Assyrians were on the move; Aram and Israel were joining forces against Assyria and decided that they were going to attack Judah

explain the split kingdom

Ahaz was overwhelmed… have you been there?

Ahaz was scared of the circumstances that he saw before him

Ahaz needed help and God sent him a message

Isaiah 7:3–7 CSB

3 The Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out with your son Shear-jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, by the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Don’t be afraid or cowardly because of these two smoldering sticks, the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah. 5 For Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has plotted harm against you. They say, 6 ‘Let’s go up against Judah, terrorize it, and conquer it for ourselves. Then we can install Tabeel’s son as king in it.’ ” 7 This is what the Lord God says: It will not happen; it will not occur.

One of the reasons that I trust scripture so much is its honesty

if this were written by men that simply wanted to prop themselves or their nation up it would have been written completely differently

God tells Ahaz this will not happen

God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign so he will know that God is taking care of it

Ahaz did not want to wait on God and so he did not want to look for a sign

he wanted God to be on board with the plan he had to defeat these two

he wanted a political solution and a treaty with Assyria

I would love to say that God has sent me a message like this, and every time that he does I simply rest in the peace and knowledge that God is in control

that I do not get caught looking and fearing a problem in front of my face

our selfishness makes whatever we are looking at the most important thing in the world

when that is the case… we think that God must act in that moment and the way that we want him to

if he doesn’t, it is because he does not understand

or he simply does not care

God’s way is perfect

Ahaz did not listen or trust God

he went on his own and made found a political solution with Assyria… it did not work out well for them

We do not trust God when we ask him for help, then simply come up with the answer on our own.

God had something much bigger in mind than simply the safety of the people of Judah at that time

the salvation of all who would believe

the language is amusing to me...

you’re scared of these two smoldering sticks

ask for a sign as big as you want

The Lord will give you a sign… A virgin will conceive and give birth, and he will be called Immanuel!

God is Reliable

I am curious what is a reasonable amount of time when waiting on God

I told you that we are an impatient society

I am not any different… I do not stop at 4 way stops!

Judah waited over 700 years until that one night in Bethlehem

Matthew 1:20–23 CSB

20 But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”

Explain what is happening… Mary has conceived and told Joseph about the baby

Joseph, not wanting to put her to shame, decides to divorce her quietly

then an Angel of the Lord comes in a dream

God does not operate in our timing

God will fulfill his promises

we see it in the past with the promise coming of a miracle child

we see it in the price paid on the cross (see Isaiah 53 and the prophesied crucifixion)

God came to be with us… Let that sink in

I recently read online some information about how small of a place this really is…

The Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun, the center of our solar system

a distance that would take 20 years by airplane traveling at 400 MPH one way

Voyager 1 has been in space for nearly 40 years…

it is about 13.1 billion miles away from earth and is still influenced by our sun, that is four times father away than Pluto

there are over 500 solar systems in the milky way galaxy and finding new ones every year

There are over 170 billion galaxies

Lets say these numbers are way off…

maybe there are only 100 solar systems and 1 billion galaxies… these are still huge numbers that shrink the size of our planet in the scheme of things

yet… The God that created it all, and by his power keeps all of it in line perfectly entered into this creation

If he fulfilled his promise to come for his people, and fulfilled hi promise to die for his people, then is there anything that we cannot rely on him for

Philippians 4:6 CSB

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

God's Purpose

Remember the reason for the season

we have a lot of fun slogans like that… I think that we leave it to simple

often found after that quote is Jesus was born

this is true… we do celebrate the coming of God, the birth of Jesus but we fail to truly celebrate it if we do not acknowledge why he came

In Isaiah 7, Ahaz really wanted to be rescued

you can almost see his mind turning, if I allow the Assyrians to rescue me, they will defeat Aman and Israel, and I will be a big deal

God is not promising me a position, title or anything else, he is simply promising me a baby…

God said that he would rescue his people and that is exactly what he did

John 3:17 CSB

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The world has plenty to be condemned for… there are a lot of different ways that Jesus could have come and things that he could have done when he got here

as the creator, the law giver and the perfect judge he has every right to condemn us

yet he came humbly, lived righteously to save an arrogant sinful people

We celebrate Christmas because God came to save us from ourselves

we would all be as Ahaz, coming up with our own ways to solve our problem of sin and ending up in a place called hell for eternity

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

This is the purpose of Christmas, they is why God came to dwell with us, this is why we look forward to the second advent… the return of Christ to get his children and take them to a place that he has prepared for us!

Come quickly Lord Jesus!