God With Us Part 2

INTRO

Well, good morning guys, I hope you had a wonderful night of sleep. I am excited to be back here with you this morning to continue our series about God being with us.

If you remember last night we talked about how God created us in His image and that He didn't create us and leave us but rather created us to be with Him and worship Him. We discovered thought that mankind desired more than just being with God, they wanted His stuff.

God is just and holy and then judged the serpent and the man and woman but what we learned is that imminent doom and destruction weren't carried out. In fact, God was going to do something amazing even though they had sinned and broken His law. We learned that even despite ourselves that God is so good and gracious to us that He still wants to be with us.

THE PROMISE

We saw that God was going to use the seed of the woman to bring about redemption to the whole world. Let's read that promise again

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

So this is what is called the PROTOEUGELION or the first gospel presentation. God is literally saying by this that I am going to fix the mess caused by mankind by being with mankind in such an awesome way. That even though the man and the woman sinned there is going to be someone who comes that will crush the head of the serpent and evil and turn this world right-side up again.

THE PROMISED REALIZED

Now that we have rehashed what this promise is, let's get to the moment when the promise is realized and to who the promise has come.

So our main portion of text is going to come from Luke 2. I do have some supporting texts that I need to read to set up our story though.

Matthew 1:18–23 (ESV)

The Birth of Jesus Christ

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us).

So in this text, we are seeing God send a messenger to Joseph to tell him that his future wife is about to give birth and the baby she is about to give birth to is no ordinary child. Now as a parent we all think our kids are gonna be something great. And in our eyes, they are always great, but to the rest of the world, they are just another human being on this planet. In this case, though this child truly is something better than the average baby. This baby is going God, this baby is going to be the continuation of God dwelling among us. The angel then reminds Joe of this promise and quotes from Is 7:14. Joe would have known this passage well. As a good Jewish man this would not have caught him off guard. In fact, I wonder how excited he becomes at this news.

John 1:14 (ESV)

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now let us get to one more passage before we get into the main text. In this passage John uses the phrase dwelt among us, in the greek text this phrase means to pitch a tent. Now here's the thing about that, that means he is setting a temporary residence among something or someone. John is literally saying God is renting a house in the neighborhood. This is just another example of the promise being realized more and more.

So having these thoughts in your mind about God making the promise come to pass let's set our scene here in Luke 2.

Luke 2:8–20 (ESV)

The Shepherds and the Angels

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

This story is incredible to me because these average dudes are just doing what they were supposed to do, and they get the message that the promise is going to be fulfilled in their lifetime.

But how would they know? I mean the things we know about shepherds is that they were most likely drunks and untrustworthy people. I mean if they just ran into the village and told everyone, we saw an angel and they said the messiah is born, they might be dismissed as being crazy.

Let’s give a little context to what I mean here. Shepherds were not highly thought of people. In fact most shepherds were not allowed to give testimony in court because they had a reputation as thieves and drunkards. The fact that this news would be delivered to them is astounding really. That they would be the first people to see this Messiah, God with us. Is crazy and listen this only further proves the fact that God is not an abandonder that He has always remained with His people. That He has always made a way to be amongst His creation and will continue to do do. Because guys listen to me on this, none of deserve the presence of God. We deserve Him to destroy us and to wipe us off the face of this planet.

But, here's where we know they knew what they were talking about.

The language the angels use

They call it good news. - This is a throwback to Genesis 3:15 which we just read this morning. That there is good news for us despite our sin. That the one who was coming to crush the head of the serpent has finally arrived and this is the best possible news that could ever be received.

They name the place in which this baby is to be born in the town of Bethlehem. This is where the promised Messiah is said to be from. Micah 5:22 says that “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” So, this promised Messiah has been predicted and shown to have come from Bethlehem. We also see that this baby was in a manager. Not in a nice crib or bed, but in a garage with animals and their baby is in a feeding hole. This would speak to the rejection that the Messiah was said to have had throughout the Scriptures.

We also see that this Baby is called a Savior, that this baby is coming to save the world of their sins.

We see that angels begin to call out to each and proclaim peace on earth, that this peace is between God and man. Because remember in Genesis 3:15 God said I am putting enmity between you. There is going to be conflict, now I am here to resolve this conflict.

So then what did we learn the promise was? It was God himself!!! That God would send himself in the human flesh to be like one of us to dwell among us. We also know that Jesus would do more than just hang out and heal people, instead we find out that God would die for us. That the way in which he was going to crush the head of the serpent is by dying and absorbing the anger of God. Then rising again and defeating death FOREVER and EVER.