Immanuel: God With Us

It’s basically just restating the prophecy that was in Isaiah. Then there’s only one other place in Isaiah 8, which talks about it, which we won’t get into. But I thought it was just really interesting for one thing that of all the names of God, God is our Redeemer. He’s the Savior. He’s mentioned many times in Scripture of all those different names. But Emmanuel is almost only named like once.

I mean, of course, there’s that one other passage in Isaiah. But Emmanuel is actually a very unique name in Scripture. We use it quite often around Christmastime especially. But the significance of Emmanuel is I just want to kind of point out that as I was thinking about that a little bit more, I wonder why Emmanuel was only named basically one time. The thought I had was that when it says God with us, it’s taking all the attributes of that we that had previously not been known of God.

All of that is with us. It’s going from the unique of God, all of his attributes, to man, to common man. I just thought that was really interesting that Emmanuel was only used one time there. It was a prophetic name. So it wasn’t even used by his own parents. So if you read the passage in Matthew 1.21, so I’ll just read it here for you. It says, So again, Emmanuel was not the primary name of Jesus.

Probably almost no one called him Emmanuel. It was Jesus. Jesus was a common name. Jesus like Joshua is the same word as many of you know. So Jesus was his common name, but Emmanuel was his prophetic name, his messianic name. Like I said, I just wanted to point out that God is bringing all things. He’s kind of tying all of God’s attributes and everything we know about God and bringing that to us.

That was just a really interesting thought. I’ll start with prayer, but I’ll go through the points if you’re taking notes. I just want to point out a few different ideas tonight about how God with us, that word Emmanuel and what it means to us. Number one is God is with us in his person, the person of Jesus Christ. And then God is with us in his passion.

Passion is another word for suffering. God is with us in his sufferings. And then God is also with us in his person, his passion, and also lastly in his presence. So we’re going to go ahead and pray real quick and then we’ll get into the message. Definitely, Father God, thank you for this time this evening, God. Thank you for your word. Thank you for showing us new things out of your word.

And God, help us to listen. God, help us to just help my words, help how I preach, help it to come across, help it to edify the saints. And Lord, I just thank you for this truth of your word and help us to just let it sink down to our hearts as we come towards the Christmas season. Help us to meditate on this, Lord, and help us to just get a little bit glimpse, a little deeper knowledge of you and what you came to do for us.

And Lord, we just pray that you would help us to remember that. And we thank you for all that you’ve done. We ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, so I mentioned before, God is with us in his passion, in his presence, and also in his person. So I want to start off with in his person first. The Bible says in John 1, you can turn to that passage, John 1, 1 through 3.

John chapter 1 is a very familiar passage. It says, John chapter 1 verse 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. So I’ll just stop there for a minute.

I think we’ve taken it for granted ever since Christianity has been, ever since Christ came, we’ve taken it for granted that Jesus, the God of all creation, came to live with us. And the Jews were looking forward to that as their Messiah. They were looking forward to that. And they knew that, and by faith they took hold of that. But I think we take it for granted that all of God, before the incarnation, everything that was known of God was either from the law or from direct revelation by God to man through the prophets.

So when Christ came, I mean, that was just everything. He embodied everything that God was. And he came to earth and to dwell with us. I want to look at verse 14. It says, and the word, we were just seeing that, the word was made 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.

So again, the glory of God, everything that God was, was made manifest in a one person, Jesus Christ. Why did Jesus have to come to earth to live for 33 and a half years? Why couldn’t he just have suffered the death on the cross and not have had to endure the sinfulness of the world? Bible says that without the shedding of blood, there’s no remission. So we know that Christ had to come as a person to die for our sins.

But why did he have to live 33 years? Why did he have to endure everything on this planet? I want to point out, and I think maybe this is something we don’t think about that much, but it’s true that God came as our Redeemer, as our Savior, to save us from our sins. That was his whole purpose. But I think it’s even a little bit fuller than that.

In John 17, 4, you don’t have to turn there, but it says, I have glorified thee on the earth. This is Jesus speaking. I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And if you keep in mind, John 17 is actually written before he went to the cross. So we know, remember, when Jesus died on the cross, he said, it is finished.

But it says in John 17, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And to be honest with you, I don’t know how exactly to reconcile that because he didn’t quite go to the cross yet. But if you can think about that, Jesus was doing all of the work on earth before he went to the cross. It wasn’t just the cross. It was all the rest of it.

And that’s what I think the significance of God, of Jesus being a person, being God, the significance of him living on this earth for 33 and a half years and what it means to us. And so Jesus Christ was sent by God to fulfill the Father’s will. And it wasn’t just the cross. It was more than that. John 6, 38 through 39 says, for I came down from heaven, Jesus, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again the last day. So we see again another glimpse, another picture of what, part of another element of the will of God, just that he would lose nothing. He wouldn’t lose any of his children. God chose to send his son to reveal everything that was not known of God in times before.

I had already mentioned that. The Bible says in John 1, verse 4, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light. And I’m not sure if in your Bible it should have light capitalized.

So we know that that’s talking about Jesus Christ. It says, he bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. And verse 9 says, that was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. So again, if you remember, the world, the only thing they knew about God, we take it for granted because we have the Bible, the full, complete 66 books.

But before Jesus came, the only light they had was by revelation through the prophets or through the law of Moses. And so when Christ came, he brought all that light, everything else about God, to light, he was the light of the world. He lighteth every man in the world. So all those attributes, the things that we can’t really, the humility of God, before we didn’t really know the humility of God.

The Jews didn’t understand that part, probably. I mean, I don’t really, even David, who knew was a man after God’s own heart, he probably didn’t quite understand all those things that we now know of God through Jesus Christ. He was our creator. So humanity was in darkness despite all the revelation of God to that point. Jesus Christ, by his humanity, came to reveal the humility of God.

The creator entered into and was subject unto his own creation. So the Bible says in Colossians 1, 15 through 17, it says, Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

So again, just a bigger picture, Jesus Christ, he was the word, the word was in the beginning with God. He was our creator, but yet he stepped into his creation to be with us. What a picture of humility. Again, until that point, we hadn’t known that Jesus, that God was willing to do that. The fullest display of the love of God on the cross, this is what Christ came to do.

He was able to come into the world and display his humility, his love on the cross, and to be the example for us in how we are to live a life that follows the will of God in practice, as well as in doctrine. Jesus Christ is the expression of God’s holiness and sanctification that we have as a tangible way for us to view a life that though we are tempted, we do not have to sin and fulfill the lust of the flesh, nor be distracted from fulfilling the will of the Father.

That’s why I read that verse, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. He came not to do his own will, but the Father’s will, and that’s just a testimony of how, following the example of Christ, we have the ability through Christ to fulfill the Father’s will for us. Jesus Christ was the Creator, but he stepped into his creation.

He sacrificed all of his might and his majesty for meekness. He gave up his crown of glory for a cross of shame. He set aside all his rule and authority and took upon him the form of sinful flesh and became humble in that way. He gave up his rule in heaven and on earth and humbly submitted to us earthly authorities. We see his example of him being submissive to his own parents.

In Luke 2, 51, he said, must I be about my Father’s business when his parents came to see him in the temple. But it says afterwards that he went and was subjected unto them. He was humble towards his parents even though he created them. Then also to the laws of the land we see tribute to Caesar and the customs of the temple. God was willing, Jesus Christ was willing to subject himself to those earthly authorities as well.

His mission was not to enjoy his creation from the perspective of a human being, but rather to endure this world, its sin and its unbelief. So again, Jesus stepped into this earth knowing full well he wasn’t coming in for any sort of vacation or any sort of enjoyment. He came solely to fulfill the Father’s will, to die on the cross, but to endure everything there was about humanity.

The God before, it says in trying to remember the reference, but it says that God is so holy that he cannot behold wickedness. But Jesus Christ saw all that on this earth. I guess I want to paint a picture for us tonight and just that we would meditate on the truths of what Emmanuel means to us and what that means that God is with us. So God endured the world and its unbelief.

It says in Luke 9.41, Jesus answering said, Oh, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you? So again, he endured, he was not here to just enjoy the world, but he endured unbelief. That was so hard for, obviously for, not hard, I’m trying to be respectful of, obviously he was the God of all creation, but he was enduring it here on this earth.

He went through toil. Bible says, we don’t know he was a carpenter, but his father was a carpenter. So we assume that Jesus was probably helping his father in the wood shop. He was a carpenter. Jesus went through hunger, his temptation in the wilderness and his frequent fastings. He dealt with pain, obviously the death on the cross and the scourgings, but I’m sure we don’t know this, but he was a man in all points.

Like the Bible says, all points tempted like as we are. It’s very possible that he probably endured, he probably got scratched up playing with his friends. He probably got stepped on a nail or whatever. Those kinds of things. I want to paint a picture that Jesus Christ was so human. He was literally just like us. He went through all of this. I’m pointing all of this out because I wanted to bring something to your attention later on.

He went through loss, not just pain, but loss. His good friend Lazarus died and the Bible says Jesus wept. Some people think that maybe that was because of their unbelief and possibly is, but I think that because Jesus was fully human, he probably was weeping for his friend Lazarus. So it’s just a reminder that when we go through things like loss, Jesus Christ, I don’t think we think about this all the time, but Jesus Christ feels all of that, all of the pain, all of the loss, all the temptation.

Again, I was going to point out his temptation, temptation in the wilderness and in the garden of Gethsemane. He was obviously tempted to fall down and worship the devil. He was tempted to fall up, jump off the cliff basically and to go against the word of God, but he was also tempted to not do the Father’s will in the garden of Gethsemane. He was asking God, he’s like, Lord, if there’s any way that I can not do what you’re asking me to do, can you keep me from this?

So he was tempted even there, but we see this as an example that he was willing to do the Father’s will the whole way. He dealt with infirmities and sicknesses. Matthew 8.17, it says, casting out devils and healing physical maladies. Jesus did this. Matthew 8.17, I’m going to quickly look there. You can turn there if you’d like, but I’ll try to be quick on this. Matthew 8.17, yes, it says that, I’ll start in verse 16, when the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.

That’s just not hyperbole. We don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s so true. Jesus, when he was on this earth, when he was going around healing people, he literally felt all of that sickness. If you’re going through a sickness, if you’re going through pain, he felt all of that. The woman who had an issue of blood, when she came to him and touched the hem of his garment, he told his disciples, he said, I felt virtue go out of me.

That means part of his being was impacted by that pain, or I guess in that sense, he was healing her, but he felt our infirmities. This is why he came. It wasn’t just to die, which is really interesting. It wasn’t just to die on the cross. It was to come into humanity so that we would be able to experience a God who is with us every step of the way, everything that we have in our lives, everything that we deal with.

God himself has felt all of that pain. That’s why I’m pointing out all these different things. Jesus Christ actually felt our sicknesses. He also felt our scorn and shame. Of course, on his death on the cross, of course, that’s the iconic example. But even throughout his whole life, he was born into scorn, actually. I want to read Matthew 2.23. It says, and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.

He shall be called a Nazarene. I won’t belabor this, but I want to quickly point out this. This is an interesting fact. An interesting idea here. Nazarene. It says he shall be called a Nazarene. It says it was spoken by the prophets. Well, I’ve studied it out. There is no reference in the prophets of God where it says he shall be called a Nazarene. So this is not a direct prophecy.

But let me be clear. There’s three ways to interpret this verse. I’m going to show you that I think it’s the last, but it’s up to some biblical interpretation. The first way to look at this, the word Nazarene, this is not the point of my message, but I just want to quickly point this out. So there’s three ways to interpret this verse. Number one, the Hebrew word netzer is where the name Nazareth comes from.

Netzer is the Hebrew word. It means branch or sprout. This could be connected with the prophecy of Jesus being the branch of Jesse. We’ve heard that term. So Nazareth actually meant branch town, basically. Branch town. Jesus was a branch man from branch town, basically. He shall be called a Nazarene. So we could look at it that way. The second way we could look at it would be, Matthew could be referring to another prophet not recorded in scripture since there is no direct link with this term Nazarene anywhere else in the canon.

This is not likely. I do not hold that position. But the last way to interpret this, Nazareth was known in Israel to be a backwater town. It was kind of like referring to Nazareth and Galilee area as the hood. That Nazareth was the hood. It was like straight out of Compton or whatever. Nazareth was not known to be a good area. The people of this town and the surrounding areas of Galilee were not well favored by the rest of the Jews.

We’ve seen that in John 1.45. So this is, I think, why what this term, he shall be called a Nazarene, that’s what it’s referring to, is that he was not well favored. He was born and raised in an area of Israel where he grew up in the hood. Jesus grew up in the hood. That’s basically what I’m trying to say. Everyone knew that Jesus was from Nazareth and Christ himself used this to identify himself to Paul on the road to Damascus.

Christ’s identity was a scorned identity and so the prophecy that Matthew was most likely referring to is the Messianic prophecy in Psalm 22.6. It says, but I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men despised of the people. Again in Isaiah 53.3 talking about the Messiah, the Christ. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we esteemed him not. I think that the last way to interpret that is the right way to interpret that. He should be called a Nazarene. Jesus Christ was not only willing to be born into humanity, but to be born into a despised group of people and raised in and identified with one of the most lowly places in the land where he performed his ministry.

This was actually a key point of the reason why he was born in a place or raised in a place called Nazareth. He was actually part of his ministry. We as Christians are also identified with Christ in this way. In Acts there’s a quick reference to Christians being called a Nazarene. Acts 24.5 says, for we have found this man. This is talking about the Jews taking Paul to counsel to bring him before the court.

It says, for we have found this man a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. They were referring to the Christians, those who were of the way. So Nazarene, that’s again why I’m saying that I think Nazarene is referring to the fact that Jesus was despised because Christians were also despised in the early church.

The term Nasara is still used today by Muslims to refer to Christians. It’s the root word, same way we would say Nazareth basically. I’m pointing that out because I just wanted to kind of give you a deeper idea, a deeper sense of what it was like for Jesus here on this earth and how that relates to us because of course I don’t think any of us are in the hood but we can take our experiences, we can go back in time to any time in our life.

Even now if you’re going through a really tough time or you don’t live in such a nice area, God felt all of that. God felt all the scorn and the shame of all of that. I just wanted to kind of give you a bigger picture of what it meant for Jesus, for God to be a human being. Second if you’re taking notes, we covered how God is with us in His person but I want to cover what it is in His passion.

Again the word passion means sufferings. The verse I want to use is Acts 1 verse 3. It says, To whom also He showed Himself alive, Jesus after His passion means sufferings by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So I want to point out just some key things about His death and how that relates to us.

Jesus died for our sins to reconcile us to God and that we may have peace with God. I want to read a few passages to paint a bigger picture. Ephesians 2, if you can turn there, you can feel free to turn there. Ephesians 2 verses 12 through 17. It says that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off or made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath both made one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make himself of twain one new man. So making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to you which were far off and to them that were nigh.

Also in Hebrews 2, you can turn there also if you’d like, Hebrews 2 verses 7, starting in verse 7, and I’m going to skip around a little bit. But it says, Thou madeest Him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest Him with glory and honor, and didst set Him over the works of thy hands. Verse 9, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. So his passion, his sufferings, what he went through on the cross, I just want to point out that we know theologically, doctrinally, that God through his death has reconciled us to God through the blood of his son on the cross. He brought us in peace with God. That’s what reconciliation means, to make peace with God.

So I want to paint this as a picture. God is with us because he brought us to God through his son. Not only did he reconcile us to God, but he justified us. He declared us righteous. But not only that, but he’s not ashamed to call us brethren. And I’ll get to that here in a minute. But he’s interceding for us, and he’s a faithful high priest.

He’s willing to, able to help us when we’re tempted with our sin. Dying on the cross and becoming that high priest has made all of that possible for us. So God is with us in our reconciliation. Lastly, God is with us in his presence. Although he has ascended back to the Father and is seated on his right hand, Jesus has come to dwell in our hearts from the moment we believed and for all eternity.

There’s never a time that a believer will be estranged from God. There is nothing that can ever separate us from his love because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says that if any man abide in me, I will abide in him. He came to dwell in our hearts. We know that when you’re, the moment you’re saved, God, Jesus Christ moves in, the person of Christ moves in.

We know that the Spirit moves into our hearts as well. But Jesus Christ is ever living, ever abiding with us. And that’s just an amazing thought. Again, I want to point out that he intercedes for us. So he’s not just living with us, but he’s interceding for us. Romans 8, chapter 8, verses 26 through 27. It says, In verse 34, And then in Hebrews 7, 25, it says, It’s just an amazing thought that God is on the right hand of the Father and he’s interceding for us.

Every time we’re praying, every time we’re, and even when we don’t even know how to pray, we’re going to be praying here in a minute. There’s times where I’ve been on my knees praying and I’m like halfway into it and I don’t even remember what I was even praying for or what I needed. But the Spirit knows this, and Jesus Christ by the Father’s side is interceding for us.

And that’s just an amazing thought. Also, we can never be separated from his love. There’s no way for, Jesus died for us. He made reconciliation for us, but there’s no way for us to lose our salvation or to fall out of favor with God and his love for us. Romans 8, verse 35, it says, I’m actually going to turn to that because there’s a little bit more I wanted to talk about there.

It’s 835. And verse 37 says, And because Jesus Christ died for our sins, because he reconciled us to God, there’s absolutely no way that we can lose our salvation. And if we are saved for washing the blood of the Lamb, there’s no way for us to fall out of that love of God. And lastly, he made us priests and kings with him. And another term is fellow heirs.

The Bible says we’re joint heirs with Christ. Ephesians 2, 18 and 19 says, So that’s just amazing. It’s like we’re not only saved, we’re not only justified through Christ, but he chose to be our brethren. He chose to call us brethren.

Hebrews 2, 11 says, And I think this is just one thing that I’d like us to remember. I’m kind of trying to make this a meditation, a devotional for the Christmas season as we’re thinking about what it meant for Christ to come as a baby. He came to be with us in the flesh, to manifest everything there was to know about God. He’s the light of the world.

He came to die for our sins. There’s obviously the Jews who believed were looking forward to him as coming as our Savior. But he came to experience all of humanity, everything that humans would go through. It says that he was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin. And he felt our infirmity. So everything we go through, we can know that God himself dealt with all of that.

But then in his passion, God came to die for our sins. And then in his presence we have that abiding peace, abiding presence of God every single day. And God has, I don’t even understand it, but God has chosen to call us brethren and to make us joint heirs with Christ. And I just want us to think about that this Christmas season, just think about what that means to you and what that means to all of humanity, the fact that Christ Jesus as the Son of God, from glory, he came to dwell with us on the earth for 33 and a half years to experience everything we’ve experienced and then to make us one with the Father.

And that’s really all I have. I’d encourage you to think about that throughout the Christmas season. And thank you very much for listening.