Immanuel: God With Us

Many of you have said that you’ve been by our house and seen our Christmas lights. I really hope you didn’t also see our nativity scene that was in front of our house.

That nativity scene has a rich family history for us. It was my grandparents’ and it goes back many, many years. Unfortunately, its experience at our house this year wasn’t so rich. We pulled Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus out of the garage and set them out front. We cleaned them off and plugged it in - the perfect complement to our icicle lights that I hung from our roof at great personal risk to my safety. We plugged them and excitedly ran back around to the front of our house to see Joseph lit up, but Mary was half-lit and Jesus had no light whatsoever. And He’s supposed to be the Light of the world, so that’s a problem.

We tried to replace the bulbs, but it’s so old we couldn’t find these bulbs. So Mary and Joseph, and Jesus, sat outside for a few days, looking cold and dark and lonely. Finally about a week ago we just decided, “You know what, we tried it this year, it’s not working out. Let’s just pack them away and try to fix them next year.”

The whole idea of the Nativity scene is an interesting one, isn’t it? What words would you use to describe the nativity scene? Maybe cute? Sweet? Meaningful? Intimate? Loving? Godly? Holy? Certainly it is all those things.

But here’s why I ask: we forget that for Mary and Joseph it had been a really, really tough year. To at least some, Mary and Joseph’s situation was scandalous.

Scandalous — that’s probably not a word that you’re accustomed to using to describe the nativity scene or the Christmas story. But here’s the thing: We know from our vantage point that Mary was pregnant by the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit. But to everyone else, there were only so many possibilities: 1) Joseph and Mary had not waited until marriage; or, 2) Mary had been unfaithful and the baby belonged to someone else.

The Bible doesn’t say that, but it’s almost certainly true. Who would have believed their story? Pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Really, Joseph? Maybe their closest family and friends made an effort to believe them, but certainly not everyone. It’s almost certain that Mary and Joseph were the subject of a lot of gossip and slander. After all, Mary is a young woman who was pregnant before she was married. No matter when Mary and Joseph actually got married, she really was pregnant and showing her pregnancy visibly before then.

You think that kind of thing raises eyebrows now. It really raised eyebrows then. Marriage was held in very high regard among the Jews. Sexual expression was reserved only for the marriage relationship — abstinence before marriage, monogamous after marriage - and rightly so. And it appears, to almost everyone else, that Mary and Joseph did not meet these requirements. That’s what I mean when I say that there is apparent scandal when it comes to the Christmas story.

And yet, that’s beauty in that. There is grace in that. The beauty in that is that our Savior did not consider himself above that kind of messiness. No, it’s the reason He came. Jesus came to us in order to enter into our mess with us and redeem us out of our messes. How many of you feel like you’ve made a mess of your life? Jesus has come to you in love - He’s not ashamed of you. That is the meaning of Christmas.

So let’s make an effort this morning to hear this story freshly, with new ears, that we might see Jesus in all His beauty and glory. And may the Lord strengthen our faith and bless the preaching of His word.

Notice with me, first, Joseph’s disappointing discovery.

#1: Joseph’s disappointing discovery

Look with me at verse 18. If we’re following the flow of Matthew’s gospel, we just finished the genealogy. All those names and all those begats are important because they show us that Jesus of Nazareth is the legal descendant of King David, just as the OT scriptures said he would be. That’s the zoomed-out version.

Now in verse 18, Matthew zooms in and slows down and says this: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way...” Matthew leaves behind the vast span of the centuries that the genealogy shows us, and he zooms way in and slows way down, to tell us the story leading up to Jesus’ birth. What were the circumstances leading up to the birth of the Messiah?

Now notice with me the second part of verse 18, and notice that Matthew fixes our attention on a very specific period of time: “When his mother Mary had been betrothed, before they had come together”. Betrothal was a really serious thing in the first century. It’s not like our engagement. Our engagement period is not legally binding. You can back out at any time. But with betrothal, everything was already settled - the bride price had been paid, and the couple were considered legally married, except for one thing. One thing the couple lacked at this point, and they had not consummated their marriage.

So after the betrothal period has begun, but before they have come together sexually, and to live together, Joseph makes a disappointing discovery: Mary is pregnant.

Look with me again at verse 18: Matt 1:18

Matthew 1:18 ESV

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.

Now let’s just imagine for now that verse 18 does not have the last phrase: from the Holy Spirit. It would then read, “Before they came together she was found to be with child...” - period. We’re being given information here that Joseph does not yet have. He does not know why Mary is pregnant, but he can put two and two together. The only possibility, as far as Joseph can see, is that Mary has been unfaithful. Joseph knows that he and Mary have not been sexually active before marriage — which by the way was wrong then and is still wrong today.

“…[I]f Joseph marries her, everybody in that shame and honor society will know that this child not born nine or ten months after they got married; they will know she was already pregnant. That would mean either Joseph and Marry had sex before marriage or she was unfaithful to him, and as a result, they are going to be shamed, socially excluded, and rejected. They are going to be second-class citizens forever.” [Keller, Hidden Christmas, p56]

Church, don’t think that because you’re a Christian everything is going to go according to plan. Mark this verse down: Matt. 10:39

Matthew 10:39 ESV

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Joseph is getting the first lesson in discipleship which is that if Jesus comes into your life, He will disrupt things. He will challenge you. He will convict you. He will call you into situations that are uncertain; He will call you into relationships that are messy. Jesus will do those things, and He will also use those things to sanctify you, to make you more like Himself. And it will all be worth it.

That’s Joseph’s disappointing discovery. Notice with me next, Joseph’s righteous response.

#2: Joseph’s righteous response

Now because Joseph doesn’t know what’s going on just yet, he must have been devastated, broken-hearted, confused, angry.

This past week, I was driving and thinking about this sermon and this text in Matthew and I don’t know why it came to mind, but it did. I started thinking about one Christmas about 20 years or so ago when I was dating this girl from the youth group. We weren’t serious or anything but we were dating.

At least, I thought we were dating. I had gone out to Blockbuster — yes, I am so very old. And as I was sitting at the stoplight, waiting to turn left, I’m yielding to the oncoming traffic, and the cars are moving slow, slow enough to see the people in the cars, and here comes this car, and yep, there is the girl I thought I was dating in the car with another guy.

Now turns out that she thought we were dating each other and other people. And I am very, very happily married to the love of my life. But the point is that I was hurt and embarrassed, and I wrote her a letter that for years I have wished I didn’t send. It was hurtful to her.

I bring it up now because Joseph’s response was very different from mine. Matthew says that Joseph was a just man and didn’t want to bring shame on marry. What does that mean?

Legally, according to the OT law, Joseph could embarrass Mary and her family. Technically, in fact, the OT law called for stoning. You can see this in Deut. 22:23-24

Deuteronomy 22:23–24 ESV

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Now to be clear, most people didn’t seek the full penalty of the law. But Joseph could have sued Mary and her father because she had given her virginity to someone else.

And Joseph is aware of those things that he could do. Did you notice how Matthew describes Joseph? “Joseph was a just man”, Matthew says in verse 19. We normally interpret that to mean compassionate. But that’s not what the word “just” or “righteous” means here. It means what the NIV says: Matt 1:19

Matthew 1:19 NIV

Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Joseph is aware of what the law says. That matters to Joseph, because it is the law of the Lord. Joseph is a just man, a righteous man, faithful to the law.

But there’s something else going on here. Joseph also, as Matthew tells us, does not want to shame Mary.

May God give us more Josephs today. Our culture has only two tools to use when it comes to motivating people, and those two tools are fear and shame. They’re powerful motivators, but ineffective motivators. Shame only makes a person hide; it doesn’t change us.

Joseph does not want to shame Mary, and yet he wants to be faithful to the law. That’s a tension that Joseph wrestles with. So he takes the other course of action open to him, also from the law: he decides to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away quietly.

This is Joseph’s righteous response.

#3: The angel’s reassuring revelation

Joseph’s response was thoughtful and faithful. But that doesn’t mean it was easy. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still heartbroken. He’s processing the fact that his dreams for his family aren’t going to materialize. If you’ll look with me at verse 20, you’ll see this: “But as he considered these things, behold”.

The word “behold”:

Absent in most translations

Means “look” or “see”

Also = God’s perfect timing

See Gen. 22:13 and ruth 2:3-4

That word behold, raise your hand if it’s in your Bible. Raise your hand if it is not in the Bible. If it’s in your translation, you should mark it - underline it. It means “look” or “see” - but it also carries this idea of timing. God’s perfect timing.

We saw it with Abraham. He’s just about to carry out the sacrifice with Isaac, when we’re told:

Genesis 22:13 ESV

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

We saw it with Ruth. She goes out to glean in the field and arrives just as Boaz her future husband and redeemer shows up. So in Ruth 2:3-4

Ruth 2:3–4 ESV

So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.”

Do you see the pattern? Same pattern with Joseph. Just as Joseph was processing the end of his marriage before it had even begun, just as he was considering how he would break this news to Mary, at that moment, at that very moment, Matthew says “behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.” It’s just as Joseph was doing this considering and thinking - at the right time, just in the nick of time, the angel appears with a reassuring revelation.

What is the revelation? Is it a reassuring revelation? It is.

“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. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Let’s walk through that. What did Joseph think, how did he feel and react, do you think, when the angel addressed him as “Joseph, son of David”? I think Joseph’s reaction was probably that he straightened up a bit as he heard it. You know what I mean by that? His shoulders might have come back, pulling him upright; the slouch in his back lessened; his head lifted up. Maybe he stood. “Joseph, Son of David” - that’s a confidence builder, isn’t it?

”Joseph, remember who you are. Remember what family you come from. You’re one of a line of men who trace their origin all the way back to King David. It’s your family the Scriptures are talking about when they foretell that the Messiah will be a royal descendant of King David.”

In other words, “Joseph, son of David, remember who you are. God has a purpose in this. He has raised you up, Joseph, son of David, for this very purpose. You will not send Mary away. You will be her husband. She has not been unfaithful to you. The child in her now - you will not be his biological father, but you will be legal father, and as father I want you to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

That is a reassuring revelation. Reassuring isn’t saying enough, actually. That revelation must have not only reassured Joseph, but encouraged him, motivated him, intensified his love for Mary, kindled his love for this baby, inspired him to provide well for them, called forth his courage and bravery as the head of his household and the protector of his family — all of these things, and more, I think, are in Joseph’s heart as the angel disappears.

#4: The Old Testament’s Prophetic Promise

Now look with me at where Matthew takes us next. Now we zoom out from Matthew 1:18-25 and we look at the big picture of God’s great story of redemption. Matthew writes in verse 22: “All this took place” - and notice this - “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” Notice that Matthew is clearly saying there that when the prophet Isaiah spoke, God spoke through Him. The book of Isaiah is inspired by God, breathed out by Him - His very words. Matthew’s confirming that for us — is that not cool? Turn to the person beside you and say, “do you not think that’s cool?”

As cool as it is, though, that’s not Matthew’s main point. How many of you remember having to learn how to cite your sources in high school or college? Are you glad those days are over? Well, those days served you well because you can understand what Matthew is doing. He wants us to see that Mary being pregnant with the Messiah, Jesus, who will save His people from their sins, that is not something strange and unplanned. God had it in mind from the beginning. Matthew 1:23

Matthew 1:23 ESV

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Matthew takes a verse from Isaiah 7 and he cites that verse here. “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” - and because he quotes from the Greek OT, and since Matthew is writing to Hebrews, he translates it: Immanuel - “which means, God with us”. Isaiah foresaw long ago that the promised One who would come and rescue Israel would be born through a miraculous birth. But not just a miraculous birth. He would be born by a supernatural birth because He Himself is a supernatural being. Not an angel or a spirit; but God Himself.

This is where we pause in reverence and just say, “Wow”. This is what Christmas means. God with us. Everything we’ve done in preparation for the holiday and everything we did yesterday to mark the holiday, all the food and the family and friends and the music and the joy and peace — all of it, all of it, traces itself back to this person, this Immanuel, who is God with us. Christmas is about God coming down to be one of us, to suffer in our place, to purchase our salvation. Christmas is about these three words: God with us.

Immanuel: God With Us

He is God with us

Let’s take a minute or two and consider both sides of that. Jesus is God with us. Let’s emphasize the with us part.

The other night I watched a movie about Winston Churchill and World War II. It was called Darkest Hours. There was a scene in that movie where Churchill leaves 10 Downing Street, he leaves his secure car on the streets of London, and disappears. He does this intentionally. He missed a war cabinet meeting to make this excursion. What did he do? He went down into the underground, or the subway there in London, got on a train, and talked to average Londoners. He wanted to know how they were feeling about the war. Were they afraid? Were they confident? Did they want peace talks with Hitler or did they want to fight?

It’s a really cool scene because here’s this man with incredible power, this man who stopped the westward march of Adolph Hitler. He’s a legend, of course. And without a bit of pretention or vanity, he sits down with these common folk and just listens to them. He makes jokes with them. He asks their names. He wrote down their names and took them with him back to headquarters. You might say he got down and dirty with the ordinary citizens of London. He didn’t have to do that. His job description didn’t require it. Most of his colleagues probably felt like it was a waste of time.

Well, Jesus too left His throne and came to be with us. Without a hint of pretentiousness or showiness or snobbery, Jesus came and identified with us. The apostle Paul puts it like this: Phil 2:6-8

Philippians 2:6–8 ESV

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Church, do you understand how this makes Christianity different from every other major religion? I will say it again: this separates Christianity from every major world religion. People often say, “Well, you know, Christians worship the same God as Jews worship and as Muslims worship.” That’s not true. That misrepresents our faith and theirs.

Christians and Jews and Muslims trace their worship back to the God of Abraham, but from there they take completely different paths. Christianity says that the God of Abraham took on a human body and a human nature and has come to us.

Other religions tell you how to reach God; Christianity says that in Christ God has come here as one of us to reach us. Other religions tell you how you can find God. Christianity alone says that in Christ, God has come to find us.

On the other hand, Jesus is not just God with us - He is God with us.

It’s interesting — every now and then Lifeway does a survey of the theological beliefs of American Christians. Christianity Today released the story about this survey and it’s called, “Most Americans, and Many Christians, Don’t Believe The Son of God Existed Before the Manger.” Here’s some of the things the survey found:

The 2020 State of Theology Survey

9 of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas

7 of 10 believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago

Only 10% say Jesus is not the Son of God

So far so good. But here’s where it went south:

Only 2 of 5 Americans believe that Jesus the Son of God existed before being born in Bethlehem

Now that’s just Americans. Surely Christian Americans have got it right, right? Nope.

Only 63% of American Christians believe that Jesus the Son of God existed before being born in Bethlehem.

That means only 39% of American Christians have a correct, orthodox, biblical view of Jesus. Church, if Jesus did not exist as the Son of God prior to being born in Bethlehem, that means He is not eternal. And if the Son of God is not an eternal being, if He had a beginning, if He was created, the Son of God is less than God. And if He is less than God, He cannot be our Savior; His death on the cross did not purchase our salvation and forgiveness; and His resurrection did not happen. He was just a guy who died a tragic death.

Thankfully, Jesus was and is nothing less than the fully divine Son of God. Just to take one passage from the Bible to show you this. Read this with me, will you?

John 1:1–2 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

Do you see how it’s all linked together? Church, what we believe about who God is, who Jesus is, what Jesus did, is far, far more important than we think it is. It’s a matter of eternal life or eternal death.

That’s the meaning of Christmas: Immanuel, God with us, God with us. That’s the old testament’s prophetic promise. Notice with me, last, Joseph’s faith-filled obedience.

#5: Joseph’s faith-filled obedience

Look with me at verse 24. Joseph has made his disappointing discovery, we have seen his righteous response, we have heard the angel’s reassuring revelation and we have seen the OT’s prophetic promise. Last, we are brought full circle to Joseph’s faith-filled obedience.

Joseph is awakened out of sleep. We can wonder how he is feeling after all this. But that is not the Bible’s concern. The Bible here has only one concern, and that is to underscore Joseph’s obedience. We read in verse 24: “he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.”

Joseph is one of the only men in the whole Bible who is portrayed as unfailingly righteous. Now granted, there’s not much in there about Joseph. But with Abraham and David and Solomon, with Moses and Jacob, with all of those men, they demonstrated great faith, but they all also really stepped in it from time to time. Not Joseph. He wasn’t sinless, but Joseph was a righteous man, and His desire to obey God no matter what was greater than any other desire, even than the desire to be with his new wife. Eventually we know they were together because they had other children. But immediately Joseph springs into action with courage, determination, self-control, and He just simply does what God says. It really is that simple.

And we could pray, Lord give us more Josephs. But it would be better for us to pray, Lord, make me like Joseph. We could say the world needs more men like Joseph, but the truth is that the more pressing need is for us to be made more like Joseph in his obedience. When God speaks, we forget that it is our duty to act. God may not speak to you through a dream; we are not told to expect this for ourselves. We have something Joseph did not even have, in fact two things - we have the word of God, the Bible before us, to show us God’s will, and we have the Spirit of God within us to enable us to do God’s will. \

There is an author who wrote a book called The Gospel According to Job. In that book he writes that he had struggled for years with persistent clinical depression. He writes that during one of his darkest periods, he took a walk on the beach and as he walked, he found a note crumpled up on the beach. It said, “Dear Valentine, you’re okay with me.” For some reason he took the note home and showed his wife (Mike, by the way, is this author’s name). She took it out of his hand, wrote on the note “To Mike/ Love, God”, and handed it back to him. He writes this:

“Isn’t it funny how a person can be a Christian and not really know the gospel? Isn’t it strange how Christ can live inside us without our really enjoying Him? But perhaps it is not so strange. After all, we have only had this gospel for two thoursand years. That is not a very long time for a fallen race to assimilate the incredible reality of inexhaustible mercy and eternal life. The gospel, it turns out, is not only good news – it is much better news than any of us has yet imagined.” [Mike Mason, Gospel According to Job, p. xiv]

I close with this story because of this simple truth: Obedience is hard. Do you know what we do that just makes it harder? What makes it harder is that we’re going about it the wrong way. We go about it thinking that God is disappointed with us over past and present failure. The gospel tells us, “Hey, if you’ll commit yourself to Christ and trust that His sacrifice was enough to take away your sin, you will enter into a relationship with God in which His approval of you is not conditioned on your performance. That’s the gospel message. And what makes obedience harder is simply this: we forget the gospel.

We think the gospel is a message only for the lost to get saved. What need do I have of the gospel now that I’m a Christian? You have great need of the gospel as a Christian!

Church, mark this down: you and I cannot live the Christian life thinking that God is disappointed with us. Too many of you labor under this constant sense that where you stand with God moment by moment is dependent on how you live moment by moment. If you’re thinking that you have to be good enough for God, one of two things will happen to you: 1) you will become discouraged and insecure, because you can’t be perfect; or 2) you will become prideful and no one around you will ever be good enough for you, because you think you’ve done well.

Let me tell you something , friends: if you are trusting in Jesus as your Savior, God is okay with you! He approves of you! I’m not saying God winks at sin; he doesn’t. In Christ, though, all my sins and yours have been already paid for and washed away at the cross. And if we’re trusting in Him, then it’s like the relationship most of us have with our children: We don’t always approve of everything they do. But we always love them, and we always like them; they always have our approval.

“The real question is not whether God loves us, but whether He approves of us, whether we are pleasing to Him. One thing is certain: If we are not pleasing to God, He will never be pleasing to us.” [Ibid.]

And if God is not pleasing to us, we will never obey Him or serve Him. The truth is that He not only loves you; He likes you. Not because you’re a great moral person — none of us are — but because you’re forever attached to His beloved Son, in whom He is pleased. In Jesus, we too are pleasing to God. And you and I will never be able to even come close to the faithful obedience of Job unless we know that and believe that.

So if you want to grow in obedience, then spend this time right now praying, “God, show me your goodness. Show me that you really do love me. Lord, I want to be obedient, but I so easily fall into sin. Convince me of your love; in no other way will I ever become more obedient.

Now for those of you here this morning who have not trusted in Christ, if you do not belong to Him, then nothing I’ve said just now is true for you. Your sins separate you from a holy God. My sins once separated me from God. Our sins will separate us from God for all eternity if nothing changes. God cannot be associated with our sin. “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? and who shall stand in his holy place?”, asked the psalmist in Psalm 24. His answer, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”

But there is good news. There is a man who has clean hands and a pure heart and his name is Jesus. He is holy enough to enter God’s presence, and He has entered His presence now on your behalf. His shed blood paid the price for your sins. Friend, will you not trust in Him today, before you leave here? Find me or the deacon of the week; our contact info is in the bulletin. Let us help you settle this today. What a blessing it would be for the new year to mark your new birth, your fresh start. Come today as the Lord leads you.

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