Following the Way of Jesus.

God is with us!

“The virgin shall be with chid and give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel which means, “God is with us.”

The repeated celebration of Christmas means that we are so familiar with these words and it is is easy for them to pass over our heads instead of them challenging our hearts.

I felt this strongly on Wednesday as I was doing my readings through Matthew’s Gospel and was contemplating Matthew 2:1-14 in which the word “worship” comes up in relation to the Christ child and I considered that for the wise men, worshipping Jesus was an overflow off their hearts whilst for Herod, he pretended that he wanted to worship Jesus but in reality he had malicious intent to murder him. It led me to examine my heart and then prepare a prayer which I shared on our WhatsApp group: “Lord Jesus, may we worship you today with wholehearted devotion and sincerity. May our lives and actions confess our love of you and devotion to your service. May our Hallelujahs be raised in joyful thanksgiving for all that you have done for us and may we live in companionship with you, as you Lord are with us. Amen.”

You see the reality of Christmas is the astonishing claim that in Jesus, God is with us! That we can live the “WITH GOD” life as we seek to BE WITH JESUS; BECOME LIKE JESUS and DO WHAT JESUS DID!

Our series in Matthew’s Gospel is going to help us towards this end - It’s going to tell us how to live the WITH GOD life and how to BE WITH JESUS; BECOME LIKE JESUS and DO WHAT JESUS DID! And its an astonishing story with an astonishing claim - God is with us!

Let’s look at chapter 1 under 2 headings....

I. GOD is with us.

Matthew’s Gospel opens with a Genealogy!

Genealogies are not the most interesting of reads unless they are yours! I have spent some time on my family tree and it fascinates me even if it bores others. It does interest my family however to varying degrees because it involves them in some way and roots them some place in a line of succession. Genealogies give us our identity and tell us about our history - who we are; where we have come from and who we belong to! That’s important!

Matthew 1 contains Jesus’ genealogy - It contains a list broken down into 3 time periods of 14 generations which probably served an educational purpose of aiding the memory for readers who did not have a personal copy of the gospels. Matthew “did not mention every single ancestor, but traced the generations in systematic, memorable terms. If the reader wanted more detail, it was available through the temple records. But Matthew’s undeniable point was that Jesus of Nazareth is legal heir to the throne of Israel! The king is on the scene.” (Holman’s New Testament Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel).

So Matthew is concerned to establish that Jesus has a legitimate right and claim to Israel’s kingship - the royal line of Davidic succession - and any honest observer who cared to investigate would be able to confirm Jesus’ claim before Pilate: “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world” (John 18:37).

Not only is he linked to the royal line of succession through “David” , Jesus is linked to the everlasting (Gen 15) covenant promises of salvation for the whole workd through his ancestor Abraham, being that “seed...through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed” (Gen 22:18) so that when Matthew 1:1, identifies Jesus as the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. these few words sum up the culmination of the entire Old Testament, and in them are the seeds from which the New Testament plan of salvation will flourish showing that Jesus is the long-promised Messiah who would “save His people from their sins.”

This identification is important for Matthew because as far as most Jewish readers of Matthew’s day were concerned, Jesus was a a backwoods son of a Carpenter from the North in Galilee - not a King from Jerusalem. This was a historical detail of which they were not aware until Matthew revealed it. So far from being boring, these first seventeen verses are crucial to establishing the historical facts about Jesus in terms of his lineage and claims to be King-Messiah.

Now before we leave the genealogy lets note some points of interest:

There are some names here which are virtually unknown to us in terms of the content of their lives but along with that there are some great heroes of Jewish faith - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Boaz, David, Solomon, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, Zerrubabel, - “Look up the names listed here. Recall their stories. And worship the God who authors such creative grace!”(Holman’s New Testament Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel).

But don’t miss this unusual feature of Jesus genealogy which shows God’s regard for those who in Jesus’ time would have been regarded as second or even third class citizens - women! Five women - Tamar; Rahab, Ruth the Moabitess; Bathsheba, her name not mentioned but referred to here as ‘the wife of “Uriah” and Mary. Now these women encapsulate the amazing grace and kindness of God because these woman has”shadows of sin” cast over their character. Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, dressed aas a prostitute and tricked him into having sex with her so she could conceive a child. Rahab who loyally sheltered the Jewish spies in Jericho was a foreign prostitute by trade and Ruth was a foreigner not naturally entitled to belong to covenant people. The “wife of Uriah” was an adulteress and Mary bore the stigma of being pregnant outside of marriage who was regarded as having gotten pregnant outside of marriage. All this to show that Gentiles and Jews are included within God’s plan of salvation through Jesus the “saviour of the World” and demonstrating what is declared right at the end of this gospel that it is to be preached in “all the world”(Matt 28:18-20).

So, let’s move from the genealogy to Jesus himself and note what is said here about him:

a). Jesus is GOD with us:

Matthew’s Gospel is all about Jesus Christ - not just an ordinary man or even an inspired man but “God with us!” Now, that is BIG NEWS and it is GOOD NEWS!. God is with us; sharing our flesh nature; becoming like us and speaking to us to show us the way back to God. Every other religion teaches us that our founder was a great teacher and morality and goodness is enough to get us back to God.

God becomes flesh so that we he could live the life we should have lived and die the death that we should have died that we might become children of God. Matthew captures all of this in three titles he gives to Jesus, calling him “Son of David”; Son of Man and “Son of God”.

The Gospel teaches that God is the originator of historic Christianity and and that our morality and goodness is not enough to save us. You don't just need teaching or a teacher you need to abandon your allegiance and trust to Christ, the Son of David, son of God and Son of Man.

b). Jesus is ‘the MAN Christ Jesus.”(1 Tim 2:5).

God is with us in the person of the “man Christ Jesus”. A man yes, but a God man! Jesus is very different to any other person who has ever lived - this is why His birth is so unique - a “virgin...found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”. An event foretold over 700 years before he was born in Isaiah 7:14. And of course it is a miracle, inexplicable apart from Almighty God!

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is the central fact of Christianity. The whole superstructure of Christian theology is built on it. The essence and the power of the gospel is that God became man and that, by being both wholly God and wholly man, He was able to reconcile men to God. Jesus’ virgin birth, His substitutionary atoning death, resurrection, ascension, and return are all integral aspects of His deity. They stand or fall together. “For since by man came death; by man also the resurrection from the dead.”(1 Cor 15:21).

c). A man called JESUS!

The name Jesus chosen by God for his Son (1:21) was a Greek variant of Joshua which for centuries had been a common name with special meaning. “Yahweh is salvation.” Jewish boys were given this name to reflect the hope of Jewish parents for God’s salvation from national oppression under a succession of world powers.

Jesus, this uniquely born person would not only come among us but would live and die for us, making not only his birth but his death unique - “you shall call Him Jesus for He will save His people from their sins.”

So, in “the man Christ Jesus”, God is “with us”!

God is reaching out to us in Jesus. Building bridges to us.

The Old Testament repeatedly promises that God is present with His people, to secure their destiny in His covenant. The Tabernacle and Temple were intended to be symbols of that divine presence and in Jesus, God dwells among us and as John puts it in John1:14-18 “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace...No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”

Remember also that the tabernacle was a place in which God’s glory shone - Tabernacle is the Hebrew word “mishkān”, which comes from “shākan”, meaning to dwell, rest, or abide. This provides the root for the word “shekinah” referring to the presence of God’s glory. Jesus is the shekinah glory of God. The true Tabernacle of God in whom we can rest and worship Him in truth. God is with us in Jesus in visible flesh and blood incarnation. Little wonder that John could later write of Him in his First Epistle: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—  the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.  And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”(1 John 1:1-4).

In Jesus God is with us!

A skeptic who denied the virgin birth once asked a Christian, “If I told you that child over there was born without a human father, would you believe me?” The believer replied, “Yes, if he lived as Jesus lived.” The greatest outward evidence of Jesus’ supernatural birth and deity is His life.

The supernatural birth of Jesus is the only way to account for the life that He lived. “I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him.” (Napoleon Bonaparte. 1769-1821)

2. God is WITH US!

It’s one thing to know that God has punctuated time and entered into the human realm, it is another thing entirely to say this God is WITH US!

That is to say that He cares about us and chooses to be our companion.

In Matthew 11:19, it is reported that the Pharisees and Scribes complained of Jesus because he “the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’’

Jesus is with us because He is a “friend of sinners” and that is good news because we are all sinners by nature and practice.

This is GOOD NEWS! This great God, with all His majesty, infinitely greater than the universe has made Himself available to us on the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. He makes Himself available to us and grants us a relationship with Him.

When you read the OT pretty much all of the time God turns up in His Shekinah glory, it is terrifying - “woe to me for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”(Isa 6:5) - but this is different. GOD is with us in the vulnerable person of Jesus. God is with us, identifying with our humanity and our frailty to live and die for us and redeem us back to God.

God is with us so that we might be with God for now and for eternity

What will this WITH GOD life mean for us today?

Matthew’s Gospel captures this “WITH US” with God life by telling us about the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, the rule and reign of God which operates invisibly in our world but that we really can belong to as citizens by faith. And he tells us about it in some detail as we will see for example in His parables which begin with “the Kingdom of Heaven is like...” - Matt 12:28; 19:24; 21:31, 43.

He tells us that we belong to outposts of the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN in local communities in a thing called CHURCH that we can belong to as family of God - see Matt 16:18; Matt 18:17.

He tells us how to maintain a relationship with this God through prayer and obedience - Matt 6:9-18.

He tells us of the teaching that provides the manifesto and rationale behind our relationships, as Jesus our teacher, teaches us how to live the WITH GOD life in a way that pleases him.

He tells us that we should “go into the world and preach the gospel” baptising disciples into the family of God,

He tells us that Jesus will be with us “always, even to the end of the world”(Matt 28:20).

But in closing, I need to ask this very important question that all of need to individually answer - Who is the “US”?

It is not EVERYONE! Matthew’s gospel will tell us sadly of people who rejected God’s good news of salvation in Jesus - From Herod who murdered the little children in Bethlehem because he wanted to murder the Christ child King; to the people of Nazareth who dismissed him as an illegitimate son of Mary - Matt 13:54-58; to the Rich Young Ruler who loved riches more than he loved his own soul; to the Scribes and the Pharisees who despised him and conspired to murder him on the cross demanding that Pilate take him away and “crucify Him...Let his blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:11-16). Not EVERYONE! God respects peoples choices and will not force Himself on you.

The US is anyone who will REPENT (Matt 4:17) and BELIEVE the GOOD NEWS of Salvation through Jesus Christ who came “to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28).

Various words are used on the Bible to describe the US . Matthew likes the words, “Apostles”(Matt 10:2-4) who are called to be closest to Jesus and to represent him whilst he was on earth as they were sent to “proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy.”(Matt 10:6-8). These are different from the more generic term “disciples” which describes any follower of Jesus, literally learners or apprentices of Jesus.

But the rest of the NT has other words, “brothers” (Acts 18:27); “children of God”(Joh 1:12); “Nazarenes”(Acts 24:5); “Saints”(Eph 1:1;Rev 17:6); “friends”(Joh 15:15;Acts 24:5); the “Elect”(Col 3:12); “Christians “ (see Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28, 1 Peter 4:16) and my favourite “followers of the way”(Acts 24:14).

The US are those who here His invitation to “COME FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN”(Matt 4:19). The US are followers of the way of Jesus!

Christians are “followers of the way” of Jesus - our SERIES title and our SERIOUS title that we must take SERIOUSLY!

God is with us in the person of Jesus and we are with God; living the with God life as we learn from Jesus; walk with Jesus and do what Jesus does.

The Psalmist says: “I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”(Psa 16:8) - That is what it means to live the WITH GOD LIFE!

To have Jesus always before you. This is our mission as individuals and a Church - to BE WITH JESUS; BECOME LIKE JESUS and DO WHAT JESUS DID!