Fourth Sunday of Advent

On Wednesday, news started coming in that first one, and then later two more cases of locally acquired Covid-19. At this point, I felt the general mood was one of cautious optimism. On Thursday however, news started filtering in that this had ballooned out to 17 cases, almost entirely on the northern beaches of Sydney.

It felt like a kick in the guts as I suspect everyone started pondering: what is this going to mean?

Is it the start of a new wave? Does it mean tougher restrictions? What about all of our Christmas plans? What does this mean for our travel plans?

You see, in Australia, we have been lulled into a false sense of security. A security that is about our own clever ability to do things. Unfortunately, while God has gifted his human race with great intelligence - that intelligence, along with the will of the people to follow through on the advice, is rather limited.

We think we can do it on out own. But we can’t.

Now this idea can be very disconcerting for many. But for us, it shouldn’t.

And that is because we know that God is there and he loves us and cares for us.

It is actually a great relief as a Christian to be able to put aside the notion that we can save ourselves from anything, and to know that it is God that will redeem us.

We are in a the period of Advent now. As I’ve said over the last few weeks, Advent is about the coming of Jesus. It is a period when we prepare for Jesus.

We’ve looked briefly at what that means with regards to his second coming. What it means with regards to preparing our own hearts. And last week we looked at the joy that we get from knowing that Jesus is here.

Well today, I want to dig just a little further into thinking about what it means for God to be with us.

You see, one of the prophecies made of Jesus gave him the name Immanuel, which translates to “God with Us”.

This of course becomes something that we take great comfort from. That through Jesus, we have God with Us. Jesus truly is our Immanuel.

Now that’s a lovely sentiment, but I don’t want to just stand here and give you nice sentiments. You’ve got Facebook memes for that.

Rather my intention this morning is to explore what it means. What does it mean for God to be with us?

King David

Well, to do that, I’m going to make use of a Psalm. It’s quite a long Psalm but I’m going to focus on just a small part of it.

So if you’ve got your bibles, open up to Psalm 89.

Ethan the Ezrahite

The superscription tells us that it is “a maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite”, which is actually the only Psalm with this superscription.

So who is this Ethan? Well, he was someone during the time of King David who was known for being very wise. His wisdom was to such an extent that when the Bible describes King Solomon’s wisdom (which is just a generation later), Ethan the Ezrahite was used as a point of comparison.

That being said, this Psalm isn’t necessarily from Ethan himself. It’s perhaps more likely that it was written by someone who is essentially from the school of Ethan.

God’s Love

Well, whoever he is, his wisdom is certainly evident, and he starts this Psalm in a great way. He declares:

“I will sing of the Lord’s great love for ever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations”.

With this great opening to a Psalm, we get a few key ideas that will be unpacked throughout the remainder of the Psalm.

Firstly, there is an over riding theme of God’s great love (which for those of you who are familiar with the Hebrew word - we’re talking about God’s Hesed - a term that is used to describe the depth of God’s love to humanity).

So it is this deep love that is going to be explored.

For ever

But there are two other words in this opening verse which will become prominent themes.

Firstly the word: forever.

This Psalm is going to emphasize the ongoing nature of God’s love. It never ever ends. And it’s for this reason that we can actually take this Psalm and apply it to ourselves today. Because the same love God showed back in this time, is the same love God shows today.

Faithfulness

But the other word (which is actually related), is the word: Faithfulness.

Actually, this word faithfulness is closely related back to that Hebrew word Hesed (the steadfast love). You see, one of the greatest things about God, is that he does what he says he will. He is faithful.

And this Psalm is going to be testament to that faithfulness.

Context

But after giving us these ideas in the first verse, the next few verses bring our minds to a particularly historical context - and if you’ve been following the sermons I’ve been preaching over the last few months, it will actually be a context that you should already be familiar with.

You see, verses 3 and 4 have quotes which are very very similar to the quotes we read back in 2 Samuel 7.

Now it was about 2 months ago that I spoke about it, so you might have forgotten, but this is the passage where King David decides he wants to build a temple for the Lord.

What happens is that David is with the prophet Nathan and while reflecting on the new found peace that they have, David says to the prophet how he thinks it would be a good idea to build a temple.

Nathan then replies: “Whatever you have in mind go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you”.

I want you to pick up on those words: “the Lord is with you”.

You see, that night, we’re told that the word of the Lord comes to Nathan and says that David isn’t the one to build the temple.

Now if you actually look at the response God gives, its essentially saying, you don’t need to build the temple, because I’m already with you.

I find it interesting because Nathan’s first reaction is, yes, build the temple because God’s with you. But God say, no, don’t build the temple, because I’m with you.

The fact that Psalm 89 then picks up the crucial bit of God’s response, that is, that a covenant has been made that will see David’s throne firmly established, brings us to a reflection on how the Lord’s love is with us.

Verses 5 to 18

Now I’m going to spend most of my time this morning in verse 19 to 29, but as I skip down, let me just make a few quick highlights.

Now remember that his theme is the way in which God’s great love faithfully and eternally lasts.

So first of all, in verses 5 to 8, he looks to the skies - there you will find God’s faithful love as he displays he grandeur in design.

Then in verse 9 to 13, his attention turns to God’s created works on Earth. The surging sea that God has the power to still. Both the north and south (in other words, everywhere), all sing for joy.

In verses 14 to 18, his attention turns to God’s people who have known God’s great love.

And so in all these verses (that is, from 5 to 18) we see the Psalmist saying, whether in the heavens or on earth or in God’s people, we see God’s faithful love being poured out over the whole world.

God with Us

But then as we come to verse 19, which is where I’m going to slow down and start focusing more on the passage, we see the focus shift from these big general categories, to the specific example of King David.

And what I want to do, is explore first how God is showing his faithful love to David, and as I look at each point made by the Psalmist, consider how we too can experience God’s faithful love too.

God chooses us

So, I’m going to highlight five different things that we can learn about what it means for God to be with us.

The first point comes from verses 19 and 20.

In these verses, the Psalmist reflects on how God chose David and if you don’t know the story its a great one.

Read 1 Samuel 16 for the full story, but very briefly, its the story of God going to a family, and surprising everyone by choosing the youngest son who they hadn’t even been bothered to invite.

The big point we learn from this is that God doesn’t choose the person who is the biggest or strongest or any other attribute that we might normally uphold.

Rather God looks at the heart. He chooses those that will accept him.

And so while verse 19 and 20 of this Psalm are about choosing David, we’re also reminded that God chooses you.

He didn’t choose you because you were the best or that you were superior to others. He chose you because he loved you.

Now here’s the most amazing part. When God lowered himself and came to earth as a baby, while he came for all people, God knew about you at that time. He came down, choosing you to be one that he will save.

So the first idea I want to highlight: when we talk about Immanuel (“God with us”), we’re talking about a God that personally chose you to be one of his people.

God strengthens us

Back in Psalm 89, as we get to verse 21, we read: “My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him”.

If you know the story of King David, then you will know his great exploits, starting of course with his famous victory of Goliath (1 Sam 17). In this account, David’s brothers are off at war while David minds the sheep. David then comes along, completely inexperienced from battle but sees the threat posed by an opposing giant.

David get the opportunity to face this imposing opponent, but what is completely apparent as you read the full account is that from a worldly perspective, David goes in completely unprepared, under resourced, and under dressed. In fact the story has become synonymous with a lopsided battle.

The clear point of the story is that David’s strength has nothing to do with anything. It is all about God. And of course we know the ending, God brings about a great victory as David fells the giant with a little smooth stone.

And we know that the same God that strengthened young David, and in fact strengthened David throughout his entire life, also strengthens us.

It truly is the most amazing thing.

I feel like I can recall many times when I have felt so completely out of my depth, and yet by simply handing it over to God, he pulls things together.

In fact, just being a pastor at all is something I never thought I could do - and the reality is, I can’t do it on my own. I’ll say it from the pulpit: I am completely inadequate for this job.

Thankfully however, it’s not about my adequacy. It’s about God who is with me and strengthening me.

When we talk about God being with us, we’re talking about a God who gives us the strength to do whatever it is that God puts before us to do.

God protects us

In verses 23 and 24, the Psalmist then starts talking about the enemies being defeated before David.

This was something that constantly happened during David’s time. Now it is worth pointing out that for almost the entire time of David’s life, he had enemies of some description around him. So we’re not seeing that there will be no enemies. Rather we’re seeing that the enemies never get the better of David. David is always able to withstand any attack, and ultimately each enemy falls away.

Now it is very important when we consider this from our perspective, that we should not equate enemies with just people we don’t like.

You know, we all have those people in our lives that just grate us up the wrong way. Maybe you constantly argue with them or you’re always getting offended by them. These people might be annoying, but they are not your enemies.

I think as we apply this to us today, we should think of it in terms of the attack we see on God, God’s people and God’s way.

We are actually seeing more and more of this today, although I would suggest it’s not coming from all of society, but from certain subsections of society.

We see strong attacks on scripture in schools. We see strong attacks on God’s design for human relationships.

At times, we can get very concerned by all of this. Is Christianity going to be completely obliterated from our society?

Well, can I suggest that through an understanding of Immanuel (God with us), we can have confidence that Christianity will not fall. But rather God will protect us from all attacks.

This doesn’t mean things won’t be hard. At times they certainly will be hard. But God will always protect us and his ways.

God makes us co-heirs

In verses 24 to 27, the Psalmist then gets more specific with David and comes back to the specific covenant that God makes with David.

It culminates in verse 27 which says: “And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the king of the earth”.

Now what we are actually seeing here, is the projection of the line of David that will eventually take us to Jesus.

These verses draw out for us this special way God starts by choosing David, and then through a special relationship, point us to Jesus who will totally fulfill all that God intends to do.

David then has a very special place in all of this scheme.

But while there is a specific point about David in all of this, there is actually a more general application about God being with us that we can draw about ourselves.

And that is, that God makes us co-heirs with Christ.

Let me just take you to Romans 8:17 “Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”

You see, things are really getting special here. Not only does Immanuel mean that God will choose, strengthen and protect us, but God with Us means that we now have a special place in what he has planned. We are heirs of the promise.

God eternally blesses us

Finally, in verses 28 and 29 of the Psalm, I want to come back to one of the words I mentioned from verse 1. That is: forever.

You see, as the Psalmist talks about the love shown to David by God, he knows that this love will be for ever and that it will never fail.

This should be such an encouragement to us, because it means that nothing can happen that will stop God from loving us.

It means that Immanuel is not something for a particular point in time.

Immanuel is God with us, in the past, in the present and in the future.

It means that we will be blessed at all times. Of course there will be bad things that happen, but nothing can take away from the fact that we can have the blessing of God with us, in the good times and in the bad times.

Conclusion

I started by talking about this fresh covid cluster that has appeared close to us.

From a worldly perspective, this is worrying. But because we know that God has come to be with us, we don’t need to worry.

Maybe restriction will be tightened. And if this happened, it will be frustrating. But it will not be the end of us. We will keep going, with a God that has chosen us. With a God that strengthens and protects us. And a God that has a special place chosen for us as his co-heirs, who will eternally dwell with God for ever and ever.

As we draw close to Christmas, be reminded that God chose to be with us because of his deep love for us.