God With Us
Notes
Transcript
The day has finally come. It is Christmas Eve. Today and tomorrow will begin innumerable celebrations of Christmas. We gather today to celebrate this season and remember the Christ of Christmas. The greatest gift the world has ever received is Christ himself.
Matthew 1:18-25 tells the story of the angel who appears to Joseph in a vision. Mary had received a visit from the angel Gabriel to announce she was going to become pregnant and her son would be the Son of the Most High, one who would be a ruler on the throne of David forever. This was an answer to the promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7. She reported what the angel had told her, and you could imagine people responded with heavy skepticism, especially her fiance, Joseph.
Let’s read together this familiar story:
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
“She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“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.”
And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife,
but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.
The child to be born would not only be the one to take up the throne of his father David, but he would save his people from their sins. It was at this moment Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 as a fulfillment of that prophecy. The child to be born is God and therefore, God is with Israel through the birth of Jesus.
God was with Israel through Christ.
God was with Israel through Christ.
The prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 likely has a dual fulfillment. If we go back and look at the context, The nation of Israel is torn in two. The king of the north created an alliance with the king of a neighboring nation, Aram, and tried to seize Jerusalem. They were unsuccessful. King Ahaz, king of the southern kingdom, was worried. Isaiah is speaking a word of hope to king Ahaz in Isaiah 7. He is prophesying that Jerusalem will not fall before the land of the north and Aram are desolate, meaning they will come to ruin. A sign that this is the case will be verse 14. The virgin will bear a son and call him Immanuel, which means God with us. So there was a child born in the time of Ahaz and Isaiah who symbolically represented the evidence of God’s claim and reminded the people that God was still with them. The kingdom of the south had not been completely abandoned.
The term takes on new meaning in the book of Matthew as the prophecy related to not just a child who would be born in Isaiah’s time, but another child who would be born in the distant future, which is our past. This child is Christ. In this instance, the name Immanuel is not merely symbolic, but literal. Notice Jesus’ name is not actually Immanuel, but he is Immanuel because he is God. God came down to earth in the most real and tangible way. All of a sudden, God had DNA. Mary changed God’s diapers. Joseph taught him carpentry. His disciples ate and drank with God. God was no longer far off. He was close. He was proximate.
God was with Israel in the person of Jesus. But what about now? Jesus is no longer walking the earth. We understand him to be at the right hand of God the Father. So can we say that God is still with us?
God is with us through the Holy Spirit.
God is with us through the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was preparing for the cross and his ultimate departure from the earth. The night before his trial and crucifixion was Passover. Jesus and his disciples are in the upper room observing a traditional Passover meal. He is preparing them for his absence when he says in John 14:16-17,
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
Then later in verse 26,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
Finally, in chapter 16:5-14
“But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’
“But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;
concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me;
and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me;
and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
“He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
So the Holy Spirit comes upon a believer and teaches us all the things Christ has taught. The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He will guide us into all truth.
So God is with us even today through the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have received the Holy Spirit and there is not a day that goes by that God is not with you. That is worth celebrating this Christmas.
God will be with us in eternity.
God will be with us in eternity.
Israel experienced the very real presence of God through Christ in his time on earth. We experience his presence with us today through the Holy Spirit, who has taken up residence in us. He will be with us in eternity when at last our faith will be replaced by sight.
The end of the book gives us the greatest hope. John is writing about what he saw in a vision he received from the Lord concerning the future reality. Revelation 21:1-5 says,
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,
and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
These words are faithful and true. There is a day coming somewhere in the future when God will dwell with man once again forever. Immanuel in its greatest sense will be experienced to its greatest degree when God brings a conclusion to this spiritual conflict and there will no longer be a separation between him and those who love him.
God will be with us in eternity.
God is with us in every high and every low.
God is with us in every high and every low.
We have the presence and power of God in us through the presence of the Holy Spirit. His job is to teach us and guide us into following everything Jesus commanded. He is our comforter in times of trouble. He is our coach who is present in every victory and every failure. We talked about John 14:16 earlier. Let’s look at it again.
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
That last phrase is very important. How long will the Holy Spirit be with those who follow Jesus? Forever. This is a promise. I do not believe that anyone who truly comes to saving faith in Jesus can ever lose their salvation. The Holy Spirit is a seal on the believer until the day of redemption. However, just because one possesses the Holy Spirit does not mean that one may experience the power of the Holy Spirit. Our ability to experience the power of the Holy Spirit is contingent on our obedience to Him. That apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19,
Do not quench the Spirit;
We quench the spirit every time we sin. When we choose our own way instead of God’s way, we extinguish the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, but he does not leave you. Every high. Every low. Every victory. Every blow. God sees it all and wants to share it all with you. No matter what the next couple days look like, whether simple or hard, God is with you to experience it all.
We may have done Advent stuff when I was a kid, but I don’t remember. I bought these Advent blocks in November to help tell the story of Christmas with my daughter. Each day has a story to read and a block to illustrate that part of the story. It walks though the major parts of the Bible leading up to the birth of Jesus. Every story ends with a rhyme. “For such a long time, God seemed far away. Bot now, he has heard what we hoped and we prayed, God is coming to earth…to stay!”
God is with you to stay. This is why we celebrate Christmas. Merry Christmas.