Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel

Transcription

1 1 God with Us, Matthew 1:18-25 (December 8, 2013) 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). 24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. PRAY It s the Advent season, as we ve already discussed, and it s the time of year where we celebrate the advent, or the arrival, of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, on earth. Now I want you to know that Jim Davis, one of the other pastors on staff, planned the preaching for the month of December. He picked out the Advent texts in the book of Matthew, so please know that I did not ask him to preach on Jesus genealogy last Sunday. That was his idea I thought I got some dirty looks from a few of you last Sunday as if you were thinking, How could you do that to poor Jim? No, Jim did that to himself and he did an outstanding job. The genealogy of Jesus Christ takes up the first half of Matthew chapter one. This week we move into the second half of chapter one, where we read about the birth of Jesus. Only two of the gospel writers Matthew and Luke include any material in their books about the birth of Christ. So everything we know about the birth of Jesus comes from Matthew and Luke; you won t find that information anywhere else in Scripture. But I m not going to walk through these eight verses and take them one at a time like I usually do. This morning is less of a sermon and more of a devotion, a meditation, on one verse verse 23 (though don t get your hopes up it s not any shorter than a sermon). Verse 23 is a very famous quote from Isaiah s prophecy: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and that shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us). And really I m not even going to look at all of verse 23 I just want to focus on that phrase God with us. That s the title of the sermon, too. Jesus Christ coming to the earth means God with us. What can we learn from that this morning? Four things: first, God with us means that in Jesus God is accessible to us. Second, it means that God identifies with us. Third, it means God sympathizes with us. Fourth, it means that in Jesus God delivers us.

2 2 First, God with us means that in Jesus God is accessible to us. All throughout the Bible, in the Old Testament, when people encountered God, it was a terrifying, traumatic experience. When Job finally met with God, how did God speak to him? Out of the whirlwind out of a tornado. There are few things more terrifying than a tornado. When the people of Israel encountered God in the desert as he led them to the promised land, how did he appear to them? As a cloudy pillar by day, and a smoking furnace in the sky by night. At the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem under Solomon s reign, how did God appear to his people then? As a pulsating glory cloud, so fierce that the priests had to run out of the temple lest they die. And when Moses wanted to meet God and see him face to face, God said, You cannot see my face, for no man can see my face and live. In the Old Testament, it doesn t appear that God was very accessible to people, was he? Tornados and clouds and fire and death that s not accessible. And so it s understandable that over and over again when God meets people in the Old Testament he must calm them down. He s always saying, Fear not you re not going to die. I know I m must appear terrifying to you, but it will be okay. But when Jesus came down to earth as God with us, he came in the most innocent, the most non-threatening form imaginable he came as a baby. And you know when you go and see someone s baby, when you go over to their house maybe for the first time weeks after the baby was born and you go into the nursery to meet the baby, you know what the parents won t do? They won t say, Fear not you re not going to die. I know this baby must be terrifying to you, but it will be okay. Of course not, because it s a baby and a human baby is the most innocent, helpless, harmless thing on the planet. And babies, especially the newborns, are always ready to be picked up and held. They won t fight you. When kids get to be 2 or 3 they have a will of their own, and they might run from you or say, no. But a baby is always ready to be held he s always accessible to you. Friends, God with us in Jesus Christ means that God is accessible to you. God didn t come as some creature who only lives on the top of a high mountain, or at the bottom of the ocean, so that you ve got to go on some quest or pilgrimage to find him. He didn t come as a person of power and influence so that you had to prove yourself worthy of meeting him. He came as a baby born to an unwed, teenage mother. You know what we often call those kinds of babies in our culture? Unwanted as in an unwanted pregnancy. But unwanted babies are about the most accessible people on earth, are they not? Nobody wants them, so if anyone shows any interest in them they can have that baby and take that baby home to live with them.

3 3 That s how our Savior came, friends - because in part he wanted to demonstrate that he s willing to come home with you and live in your heart. God with us means God is accessible. Second, God with us means that God identifies with us. You may have met someone or know someone who left a high-paying, high-powered job in an affluent community to go and live and serve in an inner-city ministry, or go and maybe teach high school in a very isolated, poor, rural area. Have you ever met someone like that? When we meet people who do that we tend to be really impressed and think, Wow, she must really care about those people to leave everything behind and go and live in a housing project in the inner-city or in a trailer on an Indian reservation. And it does it does evidence a real love for others if you re going to identify with them like that. Not just go on a short-term mission trip or drive in from the suburbs each morning, but to actually live with the people you serve. But no one, no one, left the power, the security, the glory of a position to go and identify with the poor like Jesus did. Jesus left everything; he left heaven itself for you. I love the hymn that goes: He left his Father s throne above, so free so infinite his grace; emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam s helpless race. We, the human race, you see, were poor we were the poor. And he was rich on the throne of heaven, as rich as it is possible to be. But he left all that to live as a man on earth. God with us means God identifies with us. And because Jesus Christ left heaven and lived on earth as a man, it doesn t mean that he can identify with you in some general way as if he could say, I know what it s like to be human, but in the specifics Jesus has identified with you. I m tempted some Sundays to go into the nursery and toddler room and preach a sermon to those kids that basically just says this: the God of the universe knew what it was like to wear diapers. He knew what it was like to need to be changed. He knew what it was like to have a blankie, and he knew what it was like to think it was fun to over and over have your dad stack a bunch of blocks and then go knock them down. He s been an adolescent no longer baby, but no yet an adult. And of course he s been an adult, and so he knows what it s like to have to get up and go to work every day and work for a living. He s known what it s like to be hungry and satisfied by a meal, he s known what it s like to laugh and cry. He s known anger. He s known poverty, he s known grief, he s known pain. I m basically a big baby when it comes to pain I broke a tooth a few weeks ago and had to have a temporary crown put on it and every time the Advil wears off and that shooting pain starts back in my jaw I think to myself, Jesus knows about this he s been a man; he knows pain. In fact, I try to imagine what it was like for Jesus to have to go to the dentist in the ancient world (or whatever you called the guys who worked on your teeth

4 4 back then) and go and not have access to Novocain I think about that and my tooth isn t such a big deal anymore. But of course he knows something about physical pain that I pray I ll never have to learn. He knows what it s like to be punched in the face, to be beaten with a cat-of-nine-tails, to have the flesh and muscle and tendon ripped out of his back, to have a crown of thorns pounded into his skull, then to be stretched across some wood, and have nails driven through his wrists and through his feet, and then to be hoisted up to hang by his own body weight and drown in his blood. I can t imagine pain like that, but Jesus knows it. In short, there is nothing you will go through in this life that Jesus Christ in his humanity hasn t experienced. You may think, Well, Jesus never got married, and so he can t know what it s like to be betrayed and abandoned by your spouse. No, he s never been married but he knows what it s like to be betrayed. He knows what it s like to be taken captive by armed guards led by man who kissed him and claimed for years to be his friend. And he knows what it s like to have his disciples men who just hours earlier said, Jesus, we will die for you run away and deny even knowing him. And he certainly knows abandonment, because when he was on the cross, dying for our sin, enduring the wrath of God we deserve for our disobedience, he cried out to his Father, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! The cry of dereliction Jesus knows about abandonment; he can identify with you in yours. You may think, Well, Jesus never lost a child. No, he didn t but remember the promise of Jesus is God with us. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, never lost a child, but you know who did? The Father in heaven the first person. He gave his one and only Son up to death, and he didn t do it for good people the Father did not lose his Son over good people, but only sinners who deserve hell. The promise of Christmas is God with us in any and every situation you can imagine, even in the worst pain, even in the worst suffering, God is with us. He s even with us in death. I ve been there when saints who have walked with Jesus and trusted him for decades face death themselves, and you know what some of them have told me? I can do this because my Jesus has been here before me. They know, they know, that Jesus will be there to meet them at the edge of the river and carry them safely into the Promised Land. I have over the years had people say to me, J.D., you know, I m glad you re married man, glad you have kids, because if you were single I just don t know if I could trust you as my pastor, because you wouldn t be able to identify with me. Now, I don t think that s necessarily a good or biblical way to view things ummarried men can be outstanding pastors, they can do things married men like me can t (if for no other reason, they have a lot more time to care for their sheep) but I understand what they mean. But friends, you must know in Jesus Christ you have a savior that doesn t just atone for your sins; he identifies with your suffering. He knows the struggles of this life God

5 5 with us means you can go to Jesus with whatever troubles you and know he will understand; God identifies with us. Third, God with us means that God sympathizes with us. 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4: Jesus sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. I love that verse. Friends, after you trust Jesus and by that I mean that you come to believe that Jesus death and his death alone reconciles you to God and makes you His child after you trust Jesus and you promise to follow him you re going to make lots of mistakes. You re still going to sin. You ll going to blow it often. That won t change. And for conscientious Christians it s tempting to think during those times that God is now mad at you. Oh, God probably liked me last week when I was reading my Bible and tithing and going to church being kind to my husband and kids but he s got to be mad at me this week. He s got to be irritated with me, up in heaven, crossing his arms, sighing, thinking, How much longer am I going to have to put up with her? Friends, God with us means that God never thinks that he never thinks that about you. No matter how badly you mess up, he s not irritated with you, his patience with you is never worn out. If you re a parent, you know what it s like to be irritated with your kids, right? Amen? They do these things that just drive you nuts, and you react badly to it, you get mad, and you lash out at them, you yell at them, you threaten them, you spank them when you re angry. And of course afterward you feel so badly about how you acted. But sometimes as a parent you re ready for the annoying behavior of your children. You ve prepared yourself. Because you think, OK, it s late, it s 9PM, and they re going to complain when I tell them to brush their teeth and get in their pajamas but it s okay they re not bad kids they re just tired. Or, you ll think, OK, they been at three birthday parties today and they ve eaten sixteen pounds of sugar so when we get home they re going to be crazy, but it s okay they re just kids, they re excited. And when you get home you don t get irritated because you remember these thing about your kids. This doesn t happen often as a parent but when it does you re really proud of yourself. But friends Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus is like that with us all the time. He s not irritated with us because he s been tempted by sin; he knows how difficult it is for us to live righteously. He is our great high priest. I love Psalm 103:13-14: 13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame [NIV: he knows

6 6 how we are formed]; he remembers that we are dust. Christians, remember: Jesus is not irritated with you. He remembers you are dust; so go to him. With confidence draw near to the throne of grace and ask him for help and mercy and forgiveness as you try and follow him, no matter if you do blow it big-time. Fourth, God with us means that God will deliver us. One thing I didn t notice until after I became a pastor and had more time to look at these kinds of things was that a lot of the songs that we sing at Christmas aren t really about the birth of Jesus Christ. Have you ever noticed that? Joy to the World, for example. The first verse can apply to Christmas: Joy to the world, the Lord is come; Let earth receive her king! Let every heart prepare him room but then you get to the last phrase: And heaven and nature sing! That doesn t sound right, does it? Nature is not singing right now for Jesus, is it? Are the deer singing for Jesus? I don t think so. Verse 2 has more of that: Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns; let me their songs employ; while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy. And then in verse 3: No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found! Now, I have this patch of woods beside my house, and in it are the meanest, nastiest thorns you ve ever seen they will take a hunk out of your arm if they get a hold of you. That hasn t happened yet, either. One more O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The last verse goes like this: O come, Desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind; bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease; fill the whole world with heaven s peace. Obviously Jesus birth hasn t solved that problem, either. All the songs that we sing at Christmas aren t about the first coming of Jesus, the first Advent of Jesus, his birth. In the Bible, as you read the New Testament authors, especially Paul and Peter and John, they never mention the birth of Jesus. It s just never brought up as I said earlier only Matthew and Luke mention it. And while the New Testament authors do of course talk about the cross of Christ and glory in how Jesus died for our sins, that s not what they encourage Christians to look for and focus in on. What do they encourage them to look for? 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 1: But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3:20.

7 7 Titus 2:11-13: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ Now in the ESV the editors translate a Greek word there as wait, but I don t think that gets across what Paul s trying to communicate. In the Greek it s an intensive verb. Paul s saying that we should eagerly await, expectantly look for, the return of Jesus Christ, the second coming, the final Advent of Christ, when he will bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease, and fill the whole world with heaven s peace. Christmas, you see, as wonderful as it is, doesn t ultimately by itself solve anything. Yes, Jesus came as a baby and that s great, and that does demonstrate God s love for us, but it doesn t by itself bring peace on earth. The crucifixion and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, as wonderful as those events are, don t ultimately accomplish everything we long for. Instead, Christmas, the first coming of Jesus, is a window through which we see and long for and eagerly await the second coming of Jesus, when he will make everything right. Because only at the return of Jesus, when he stamps out sin and pain and suffering and the devil and death itself once for all only the return of Jesus will satisfy our hearts deepest longings, because then it is promised: he will wipe away every tear. Are you troubled by all the suffering and strife in the world that there s not peace on earth? Are you troubled because you don t think you have enough money, or because you re alone, or because you re sick or being hurt by someone close to you? Are you troubled by your own sinful heart, and you hate the things you think and you hate the things that sometimes come out of your mouth and you wish that in a moment it would all go away? Only the second coming will solve that. Christians, we are to eagerly await and expect the full and complete deliverance that will only come for us when Jesus comes again. Joni Eareckson Tada (who knows a thing or two about awaiting deliverance): On this side of eternity, Christmas is still a promise. Yes, the Savior has come, and with him peace on earth, but the story is not finished. Yes, there is peace in our hearts, but we long for peace in our world. Every Christmas is still a turning of the page until Jesus returns. Every December 25 marks another year that draws us closer to the fulfillment of the ages, that draws us closer to home. When we realize that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longing. each Advent brings us closer to his glorious return to earth. When we see him as he is, King of kings and Lord of lords, that will be Christmas indeed! Friends, we re about to take the Lord s Supper. All Christians, whether members of this church or not, whether baptized in a particular way or not we, the elders of Grace Bible Church, welcome all believers in Jesus Christ welcome to come to the Lord s Table. 1 Corinthians 11:23: 23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed [the night before he went to the cross], took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is

8 8 for you; do this in remembrance of me. [So, the bread that we ll pass out represents Jesus body] 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. [So the cup we pass out symbolizes Jesus blood, and through his blood shed on the cross, Jesus cleanses us from the guilt of our sins, and every time we take this cup, we re called to remember that. But then we read this in verse 26:] 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord s death until he comes. You know one thing we won t do in heaven? We won t take the Lord s Supper! Right now we take it by faith, longing to one day see our Lord, praying for his return. But once he does return we will see him face to face, and we will never use the bread and the cup again, because we will see the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the Lamb of God with our own eyes. So every time we take the Lord s Supper, we don t just remember what Jesus has done, we remember what he will do he pray that it will be the last time we take the Lord s Supper. And we long for the coming of the one day, his final Advent, when he will come and right every wrong, reign in every heart, and make everything sad come untrue. Amen. I ll pray for us, then we ll take the Lord s Supper. Father, we thank you that in Jesus Christ you ve proven that you are Immanuel, God with us. Let us take that truth to heart this morning; let every Christian be comforted today by the incarnation of Jesus, and make those this morning who don t believe in Jesus want to believe when they hear and understand how wonderful this news of Jesus is. Finally, Father, I ask that you would bless the bread and the cup this morning, to be instruments of the grace you have toward sinners, in Jesus name. Amen. The biblical teaching on the nature of the Lord s Supper is as follows: the bread and the cup we ll take this morning are "visible words" (Augustine). In them we see with our eyes the promise of God. In fact, with them we see, smell, touch and taste the word. In the public reading and preaching of Scripture, God addresses our mind and conscience through the hearing. In the Lord s Supper, He uniquely addresses our mind and conscience through the other senses. In, through and to the senses, God's promise is made tangible. Ushers will pass out bread, then come back and pass out the cups, then we ll take. Please just place your cups on the floor when finished. If you re here today and not a Christian, we welcome you. Thank you for coming. But please don t take the Lord s Supper, because the Bible says that if you do and you don t believe the gospel then you are eating and drinking condemnation on yourself, and we want to protect you from that. But what you could do during this time is ask yourself: what is the one thing I am eagerly awaiting in my life? What am I looking for, hoping for, trusting in? And will it even begin to address all the issues in my life the way God with us promises to address them? I think that would be a profitable way

9 9 For believers, I encourage you to take the bread and the cup with confidence that God loves you, he will never let you go, and that you can boldly approach the throne of mercy with any request because in Jesus Christ, God is with us. Amen.