Unwrapping Christmas - Immanuel
Unwrapping Christmas • Sermon • Submitted
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· 11 viewsJesus is God with us; Deity, Nearness, and Unity
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Over the past couple of weeks we have taken a look at the person of Jesus. We opened up our Bibles 2 weeks ago to look at this announcement of the first Advent delivered to Joseph, Mary’s soon to be husband. In doing so, we’ve picked apart the ways that this passage has talked about Jesus.
We’ve looked at His designation - The Messiah, anointed as our perfect prophet, priest, and king. We’ve looked at His mission - to be our Savior, Redeemer, and Friend. Today, we will look at the identity of Jesus as we see in Matthew 1:23, that is Jesus as Immanuel.
Stand with me in honor of God’s Word and Let me read again that verse for us.
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
The text tells us plainly that Immanuel is translated “God with us” and this has great significance for us.
I want you to consider how many people in the world view God. In many minds, God is ‘out there’- He is powerful, yes. He is good, sure. He is big and incomprehensible, and… unknowable. They see God as an abstract idea more than a reality. It’s really difficult to respond to an abstract idea. A God like that does us little good. What we need is a God who we can respond to; a God we can know.
You see, If God is not revealed to us, then we cannot really know Him. Throughout the OT, God reveals Himself in various ways. He spoke to Abraham through angels, He spoke to Moses through a burning bush, He revealed Himself through a pillar of fire and smoke to the Israelites. He spoke through prophets… and through His Holy Spirit giving us the Word of God. Yet the clearest and most important revelation of God is through Jesus who is revealed to us as Immanuel, God with us.
This morning, I want to walk us through this great truth and what it means to us. To be sure, some of this is quite basic… and may be nothing new to you. But at the same time, there are riches to be discovered as we consider what all this signifies.
If you picked up a bulletin, I invite you to follow along in your sermon guide as we unwrap Jesus as Immanuel: What it means and Why it matters.
The first truth I want to uncover is that
Jesus is God
Jesus is God
This is the most obvious observation that derives from this text. The angel pointed Joseph to God’s promise given through His prophet Isaiah (Is 7:14) when he told him that Jesus would be called by the people (they will call him…) “Immanuel which translated means “God with us””?
In other words, Joseph is not going to have to tell people that his baby boy is God in flesh- other people were going to do that. He was simply given a heads up on the significance of this child that was in the womb of his soon-to-be wife.
Now I want you to consider the weight of this news. Everyone likes to hear good things about their children, but to be told that the child you would raise was God in flesh...
BTW, we can look throughout the NT and see that indeed he is called God in flesh. We’ll look at some of this in a moment.
The context supports this claim as well. If you look up a couple verses, the angel clearly tells Joseph that the child in Mary’s womb is “of the Holy Spirit” (20), a fact already revealed by Matthew to us in v.18.
Luke also tells us this in his record of an angel speaking to Mary. Mary was told that
The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God.
“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David;
and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”
When Mary inquired of how this was supposed to happen, she got something similar to what Joseph heard -
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.
There is no way to explain this other than to acknowledge the miraculous power of God. Now, you might be tempted to dismiss this claim and instead think that Jesus is merely a special person. The world would have you think that Jesus is at best only partially-god or something. This is where I’d like to point you to another Gospel writer, John.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Here, John testifies that Jesus is eternal God. He is fully God and fully man.
The theological term for this is “Hypostatic Union”. Some of you picked up that term from last week. If you’ve never heard of that, it’s because it’s rare; it only applies to the person of Jesus and truly it’s a word mostly used in seminaries or theological study.
This fact, that Jesus is God, explains how Jesus was able to command the wind and seas. It explains how He could heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, perform miracles! It explains how He could forgive sins (only God can do that!) and how he could conquer death.
This is, admittedly a tough concept… Indeed, even some of His own disciples were doubtful. Matthew records the resurrected Jesus appearing to the disciples on the Mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16-17). “When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some were doubtful.” (17)
Or we can look at Thomas- he earned a nickname in the church “Doubting Thomas”. How would you like that to be what people remembered about you throughout history?
Thomas, however, when he came face to face with the resurrected Jesus, he fell to his knees, and professed “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)
You and I need to understand that this is a vital piece of our faith. If Jesus is not fully God, then He could not fully satisfy the Law nor could He possibly satisfy the wrath of God that brings you and I the redemption and salvation we need.
As Paul said in 1 Cor. 15, If Jesus were not God, then there is no resurrection, and if no resurrection, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins.
He is either Lord of ALL or He is not Lord at all.
As we celebrate Christmas, we are not simply celebrating a birthday, but rather the incarnation of God. Jesus is God.
Discuss: Why is it necessary that Jesus be God?
Now that we’ve established this basic point, let us now examine how:
Jesus is With Us
Jesus is With Us
We should first note that God has always been omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. There has never been a place where God is not. David makes this confession in Ps. 139
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Further, we see Jeremiah’s testimony as he records the word of the Lord saying,
“Am I a God who is near,” declares the Lord,
“And not a God far off?
“Can a man hide himself in hiding places
So I do not see him?” declares the Lord.
“Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.
So God has always been with us in that sense. So, what does it mean that Jesus is God with us?
Well, it means that Jesus brought the mighty, wise, and loving nature of God and came to live among man so that we could know and experience God. It means that God came to be with us in order to restore us in relationship through Jesus.
Think about this for a minute: By God putting on flesh, He effectively revealed Himself to us so that we could rightly know and love the true God. After thousands of years of sin separating man from God, God put on humanity and came to us so we could know Him. In doing so, He faced the temptations that you and I face. He faced persecution and suffered both physically and emotionally.
And, having descended from His heavenly throne, He took upon himself the punishment we deserve and established His kingdom where those who trust in Him can once again live in communion with Him.
Because Jesus is God with us, we see the love of God in pursuit of His creation. God is with us means that God is a missionary God who was willing to come to us so that we could know Him and enjoy Him just as was the plan in Eden.
This is also a picture of what is to come. Jesus, being God is our eternal King. John shares this vision in the book of Revelation 21.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
Oh how we ought to long for the day when we live in perfect harmony and unity - indeed in perfect submission and worship to our King Jesus, God with us.
Jesus is God with us in that He put on the weakness of humanity in order to restore us to His Kingdom now and for eternity.
Discuss: How does “Immanuel” help you to see the future in eternity?
Finally Immanuel means that
Jesus is Our Present Help
Jesus is Our Present Help
True, Jesus ascended into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father. But, His word assures us that He is with us through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
You may remember that Jesus told His disciples in
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
The Holy Spirit is the agent by which you and I as believers are unified with Christ. In John 15, Jesus tells us that we are to abide in Him and as we do, we will bear much fruit.
God didn’t set us out to achieve this life on our own! We are not left to figure it out or work it out. No, He promised His present help in this life.
Friends, Jesus is our present help in our time of need- our comfort when we mourn, our peace in the midst of turmoil. He is our refuge and our hiding place; our rock and out stronghold. It is because God is with us that we can cry out to Him as Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and Prince of Peace!
Jesus, as He gave His final command, the command we know as the Great Commission, assures us that we will accomplish this by His authority and through His power. He has been given all authority, and promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:18-20)
The church regularly confesses and celebrates this truth in 2 ways. These are the ordinances:
Baptism symbolizes our confession of unity with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. When a believer is baptized, it is a public announcement that this person has placed Jesus as the Lord of their life, and we therefore proclaim “I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who lives, but Christ in me...” -Gal. 2:20
Communion (Lord’s Supper) - When we take communion, we are confessing our continued unity in Christ, professing His promise through His death and his sacrificial blood. It is our celebration that we are still in Christ and He is our strength and our portion.
You and I get to say confidently, “The Lord is my Helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6)
As we close our time together, Church, this Christmas season, I want to invite you to know Immanuel- God with us.
Perhaps you are burdened this morning- attempting to carry the weight of this world. Maybe you are like so many who have lost hope and are living in depression. Look here- God is with us. Young people, I know that you have faced so many challenges- school, social pressure, conflicts- maybe you feel like nobody sees you or cares. I want you to know that God sees you and He has pursued you. He is our wonderful counselor - You are here because God desires to restore you.
He calls out
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Christmas is more than a holiday. It is God’s personal revelation to man, the visible proof that God loves you. Do you know Immanuel?
Will you stand and pray with me?
Discuss: Describe how Jesus is our present help. In what ways have you experienced this?
2nd Service- Salvation Emma Bailey & Andrew Bailey, New Member - Will Owen