Jesus: God With Us

Emmanuel, God with us.

That's an incredible, staggering truth, isn't it? It's not only that our great God enters into time and space. It's not only that God sends His Son into human history. It is that He is now with us. God with us. John writes that the Word became flesh and lived with us. He comes into our neighborhood.

Not a remote God, but a God who is with us. Matthew 1 verse 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.

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 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. She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. And this is what Matthew says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

That is, with the arrival of God's Son to this earth, we celebrate that the great, eternal, awesome God is now with us. That truth dispels our fears. That truth brings peace to anxious hearts. That truth brings comfort to grieving people. That God is now with us. I want you to grasp that. I want you to try and understand it. I know it's difficult to think that our great, eternal God, the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, the great God who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has now come to be with us.

That is, He sends His Son into the world so that we may know God, not just about Him. There's a world of difference between knowing about Emmanuel, knowing about Jesus Christ who is God, and truly knowing Him. I know a lot about President Joseph Biden. I've read about him. I've listened to him. I know a lot of facts about him, but I don't know him.

And I know this is going to shock some of you. He doesn't know me. I mean, I became an American 15 years ago. I pay my taxes. I presume some of it goes to pay him in the White House. And I think if I wrote to him, if I sent an email to him, or I left a voice message at the White House, I think it's very, very unlikely that he would even read my letter, that he would listen to my voice. He's the President.

Millions and millions of Americans. So I know about him, but I don't know him. When God sends His Son into this world, He wants us to know Him. And the only way that we can know God is through Jesus Christ, who is God, who is now with us. You say, how can we know God? We know God as we look at Jesus Christ. And as the angel said to Joseph, He comes to save us.

He comes to die for our sins. How could we know God by ourselves? We're too small. We're too insignificant. If you can't know the President, how could you know God?

There are billions of people in human history. How could you ever, by yourself, approach God? He's too big.

He's too far away. And most important of all, we are too sinful, and God is absolutely holy. He does a tremendous thing, because God so loved so loved the world that He gave His only Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And the Lord Jesus accomplishes the way to God through His death, as He bears our sins, as He's buried, as He rises again. And so that He says that the way to the Father is through Him. He's the way. He's the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father apart from Him. I want you to know Him. To know Him personally. This is what it means to be an authentic follower of Christ. Not just to know about Him. Not even just to read about Him and to think of His teaching and to try to follow His teaching. That's not the way. The way is to know Him personally.

To come, as He Himself said, in humility, in repentance, turning from our sin and crying out to Him to save us, to believe in Him as our Savior, to bow before Him as Lord, He's God. I wonder if you've done that. You know, this year has been a difficult year for so many, hasn't it? With these masks and with lockdowns and with quarantines and vaccines and arguments between those who are vaccinated and those who are not vaccinated and all of the rhetoric between Republicans and Democrats.

People are unemployed. Some people are sad. Some families have been devastated through the death of loved ones through COVID-19.

It's a difficult year. And we just heard in a beautiful song that our Lord Jesus comes, Emmanuel, to bring comfort and joy and salvation. And He does that as we trust Him. Because this is what God wants. He wants us to trust Him. Because without faith, it's impossible to please God.

And in our distress, in our confusion, in our failure and our sin, God wants us to trust His Son and to trust Him whatever we do. You know, I love to see. I love the sea. And I love Charlotte.

The only thing I don't like about Charlotte is it's a bit far from the sea. Most of my life I've lived closer to the sea. And I love the sea.

And I love to watch the sea. And many times as I walk the seashore, I've seen a huge rock. And that rock has stood there for a long, long time. Sometimes the sea around the rock is very calm, very peaceful, very beautiful as the sea quietly laps around the rock. But there are other times when the sea is ferocious and where it hits that rock with a tremendous power. And it seems so destructive. And sometimes the sea seems even cruel as it batters that rock, sometimes with the force of a hurricane. The wonderful thing is that that rock stands fast. It remains.

It doesn't change. Whether the sea is calm or whether it's in a storm. And one of the wonderful descriptions given to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ is that He is the rock. He comes to us whether you are in the quiet waters. I trust many of you are when life is sweet and life is beautiful and you're on the mountaintop and the sea around you is calm.

That's wonderful. But there are other times, aren't they, when we find that we're in the storm. The song that we had Rachel sing and other songs remind us that life sometimes is difficult.

Lifetime seems even cruel and we're battered and battered by the sea and the storms of life. But the promise is this, that whether in the calm or the storm, God is with me. Isaiah says, you will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee because He trusts in you. Trust in the Lord God for He is an everlasting rock. This God who I come to for salvation and cleansing, this God is with me for all of my life and He is immovable. He is the unchanging and the unchangeable rock.

And I can testify and my wife, Goodney, can testify. In the middle of the most difficult year of our life, we can testify that God is with us and that God is faithful and that God never, ever, ever forsakes you. That He will never, ever leave you. And this is what it means to be a Christian. It means to come to God through Jesus Christ, that God is with us and to know Him personally and to receive Him and then to walk with Him and to trust Him and not to fear. Some of you are afraid today, afraid of the future, afraid of death, afraid of illness, afraid of your marriage falling apart, afraid of unemployment, whatever it is. Here is the Word of God to us. Fear not, says Isaiah again. Fear not. You say, John, you don't understand my life. Fear not.

Why? For I am with you. He's Emmanuel. He's God with us. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

I will help you. I will strengthen you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. And that is true. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of you have never done that.

You know about it. You enjoy the music. You think this is a great concert, but you have never, ever personally trusted Christ.

I want to ask you to do that right now. Just to turn from your sin and to trust Jesus Christ. The Bible simply says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And as I pray, some of you are true followers of Christ, but there's fears and there's nagging doubts in your life. We commit all of that to this God who is with you. He's promised. He's faithful. He won't abandon you.

The storms may be very, very fierce. He is the everlasting rock, the God who is with us. And He is with us and He's promised that there's nothing in the whole universe which can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It's wonderful being a Christian, isn't it? I'm going to pray.

I'm going to ask you to bow with me. And if you've never yet received Christ as your Savior, you don't have a personal relationship with Him. Will you turn from your sin? Will you look to the Lord Jesus and ask Him to come and save you? You know you've sinned. You know you've come short of His glory and you need a Savior and there He is dying on the cross. Do you see Him, the Lamb of God, bearing your sin, rising triumphantly in the third day, showing He's greater than the forces of death and darkness?

Trust Him. Receive Him as your Savior now. And for those of you who are followers of Christ, will you reaffirm your faith in Him?

He'll never let you go. He is Emmanuel, God with you, God with me. Eternal God, we thank you that you are the everlasting rock, that you never fail us, you never desert us, you never turn from us. You are an everlasting rock and you keep us in perfect peace as we trust in you as we now do with all of our hearts. Draw close to us, Father. Even now, may many be trusting the Savior. We pray in His name. Amen.