God With Us 5: Immanuel's Mission

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Matthew 1:18-25, Isaiah 61:1-3, 10-11, Luke 4:16-21

N:

Welcome

Good evening, and thank you for being here tonight and for setting aside a little bit of time to come and fellowship with the church family and to worship the Lord on this night of remembrance and celebration.

Opening

I want to open my message this evening by sharing a Christmas story from my life. At some point back in the 90’s (before we had kids), Melanie and I had a very interesting Christmas. A couple of weeks before Christmas that year, Melanie hurt her knee fairly badly. It swelled up like a cantaloupe and she couldn’t walk on it at all. We attempted to go Christmas shopping with her in a wheelchair, but discovered that the mall is extremely difficult to manage with a wheelchair, and Mel said she didn’t want to go through that again. We hoped that she would be better before Christmas, but as December 24 dawned, she still couldn’t shop, and we hadn’t finished shopping for our families.

It was up to me. If we were going to have gifts to give to our family members the next day, I was going to have to handle it. On my own. At the mall. During the last minute rush of Christmas Eve shoppers. I was a man with a mission. I promised my bride that I would complete the mission, and off I went to battle the crowd.

Oh, I wish you could have seen me. I was on fire. I moved through the crowd like a ninja. I found nearly all the right gifts at all the right stores. I even called an audible and changed up a gift when I couldn’t get the first choice for someone, and I didn’t even have to check with my wife to do it. Late that evening, I emerged from the mall victorious, having completed the mission assigned to me. Our gift-giving to our family for Christmas was saved. I was, in my wife’s eyes at least, a hero.

Now, I admit that I’m being a little silly. Everything I just said was true, just a little dramatic in how I presented it. It was just shopping, so it’s not like it was that important in the overall scheme of things.

We have spent the past four Sundays as a church family reflecting on the name Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Each week, we have jumbled up the words a little bit to reflect on a different aspect of the meaning of Christmas. Tonight, we won’t jumble the words again, and instead, we will consider the mission of Immanuel—a mission infinitely more important than the one I’ve just told you about.

PRAYER

Throughout this series, we have seen the progressive revelation of Messiah through four different prophecies in Isaiah. Tonight, we will finish that series by starting in Isaiah 61, where Immanuel’s mission was foretold:

1) Immanuel’s mission foretold.

About 700 years before the story of Christmas night, Isaiah through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote several passages either from the perspective of or speaking about the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah. Isaiah 53, which we looked at on Sunday, is one of these Servant Songs. Each of the Servant Song refer to the work of the Messiah in bringing salvation both to His people Israel and to the nations. The fifth of these Servant Songs is found in verses 1-3 of Isaiah 61, continuing in verses 10 and 11:

Isaiah 61:1–3 CSB

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.

Isaiah 61:10–11 CSB

10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a groom wears a turban and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth produces its growth, and as a garden enables what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

This passage contains 15 references to various aspects of God’s saving work through Immanuel’s ministry, such as His being called to “bring good news to the poor,” “heal the brokenhearted,” “proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners,” and being clothed in “garments of salvation and…a robe of righteousness.” These aspects were an incredible message of hope for a people who had been told that things would not go well for them in the future because of their sin.

So Isaiah is declaring here that Immanuel—God with us—would come with a mission of announcing and then completing the saving work of God, a work that would cause “righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.” Immanuel would be God with ALL of us and for ALL of us. This mission would commence upon Messiah’s arrival on the scene of history, which we remember and celebrate this night.

2) Immanuel’s mission commenced.

The path leading to that first Christmas, which we heard about from Luke’s Gospel earlier, was far from smooth. The notice of the commencement of the mission of Immanuel was given nine months before to a young girl who wasn’t even married yet, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would carry the promised child. She was engaged to a righteous man, a man who would care enough about her to not send her away, a man with enough faith to believe and act on the message of the angel of God given to him clearly, but in a dream.

Matthew 1:18–25 CSB

18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. 19 So her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly. 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.” 24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her 25 but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus.

On that first Christmas Eve, the unthinkable happened. The infinitely immense and powerful Almighty God came in the tiny, frail, finite package of a little baby: the Ancient of Days became the Infant of Days. Delivered into the hands of a lowly carpenter in the lowest of places—a stable—and wrapped in cloth meant for animals and laid in their feeding trough. Imagine Joseph, knowing what had been told to him about this little baby: that He would save His people from their sins.

See, the name that the angel told Joseph to give to the infant Messiah spoke to the affirmation and the commencement of the mission of Immanuel: Jesus is a form of the name Joshua, which means, “The Lord saves.” Jesus’s birth on that first Christmas was a new way of God relating to His creation. He came as one of us, with a mission to save us—a mission which He would fulfill.

3) Immanuel’s mission fulfilled.

Like the progressive revealing of the characteristics of Messiah that we have seen throughout our “God With Us” series, Jesus’s work would also have a kind of a progressive unveiling as Jesus grew up, started His public ministry, and completed the task of providing a means of salvation for mankind. One aspect of this progressive revealing came in the form of His proclamation that He was the One who would fulfill the message of Isaiah 61—that He was the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, Immanuel:

Luke 4:16–21 CSB

16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. 20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

Jesus opens to the very passage we read in our first point and clearly applies it to Himself and to His ministry. Jesus reflects back to that Servant Song where we saw 15 proclamations of God’s saving work, and says that the One proclaiming them in that synagogue that day was the One about whom they were written centuries before. Think about that for a moment: when Jesus said this, He wasn’t just identifying Himself with the Servant. He was saying that He was making those same declarations! He was preaching good news to the poor by speaking then. Jesus was saying that He would be the one to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and that the time of the Lord’s favor had come in His life.

Like the declaration that the angels made on the night He was born, Jesus brings a message of hope that would be for everyone. His mission as Immanuel to bring salvation to the world was being fulfilled as He lived.

But the fuller mission of Messiah, the providing of the means of salvation, would be fulfilled later. When Jesus went to the cross in our place, the spotless Lamb of God dying for sin-stained humanity, God living with us becoming God dying for us, He proved God’s love for us. He completed the work that He had come to do. He fulfilled His mission, declaring on the cross, “It is finished,” and then He died and was buried. The baby born and placed in a manger grew and died on a cross to purchase us back from death!

If we don’t put that fact together with His birth, we only have half the story! We tend to keep the manger at Christmas, and the cross at Easter. They are inseparable, and they go together. So tonight, we celebrate not just that Jesus came, but that He lived and suffered and died as well, so that we could be with God.

But the cross isn’t the end of the story. He beat death and rose again, and now He sits at the right hand of the throne of God until the time comes for Him to set everything in creation right. Jesus: the baby from the stable, the man from the cross, will return and call those who believe in Him to their true home in heaven. Are you ready for that return? If Jesus came back this very night, would He call you? The salvation that He offers comes only through faith in what He has done to save you… through surrendering your life to His lordship, giving up on going your own way and trying your own path to be saved. If you haven’t surrendered to Jesus, will you give up this Christmas, and follow Him?

Closing

Those of you who are already followers of Jesus: We could certainly add one additional aspect to Immanuel’s foretold, commenced, and fulfilled mission. We could say that Immanuel’s mission continues. Those of us who have already trusted in Christ are called by Him to step into that mission and be a part of what Jesus came to do, to carry the light of world to those who are lost in darkness:

Isaiah 9:2–7 CSB

2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness. 3 You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. The people have rejoiced before you as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. 4 For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian. 5 For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

PRAYER

And now, we will symbolically pass that light using our candles, and see how the world of this room is filled with light as we spread the light together.

Deacons come down.