O Come O Come Emmanuel

Summit Church, it's a joy to be with you.

Being a resident here for four months has been so enriching to my soul. One of the driving convictions I've had is to benefit and bless Summit Church as you have blessed us. And as you commissioned us out in April to Los Angeles, it's just this kind of thing in the back of my mind that I'm like, how can I benefit the Summit family? And I think this video this morning really encouraged me.

If I could impact JD's life in such a way that he would reference Tupac and Biggie at the same time say East Coast rap is dope dog. Summit Church, I think I've done my job. So man, to God be the glory.

I left some form of an imprint on Pastor JD. So man, may Jesus be praised through that somehow. But with that, I've been privileged to work through the reality of O Come Emmanuel. And I wanna read two passages of scripture.

I think the theme of what I wanna work through is the tension that we live in. We live in between the two comings of Emmanuel. There was the first coming, the advent that we're celebrating in this season, but then there's the second coming that we anticipate when our glorious Lord will return for his bride, the church. And so I wanna read two passages of scripture, Isaiah chapter nine, verses six and seven, that kind of really encapsulates the first coming of Emmanuel. But then I wanna read 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 through 18, which then kind of highlights the reality of the second coming of Emmanuel. And so the Word of God says, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. And on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it, with justice and with righteousness. From this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 1 Thessalonians 4 tells us, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So will we always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. So as we open up to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, just the reality of the history of this carol or hymn is deeply encouraging.

First and foremost, it's the oldest one that we're seeing in modern day. Nobody knows who the author was, but it's agreed upon that it was a priest or a monk that penned these very words in the year of AD 800. And this carol encapsulates the glorious incarnation of Christ, and it highlights the mission of why he incarnated, and that was to save sinners from the penalty of their sin. And so as we look at this, I think there's one main thought that I want us to grapple with together, and it's this. Since Emmanuel already came, we can receive and share comfort of knowing we have access to him now while awaiting his promised return. We live in the moment of redemptive history where we are in this interval between the two advents of Christ. And in this interval, our lives are dominated with pressures and tensions. There is death, there is sin, there are broken systemic structures in our society. We feel pain, we feel grief, we feel neglect.

All those things are felt by believers and non-believers. But where we are different is the fact that we know that Emmanuel is God with us, present tense, ongoing. And so as we look at this theme of man, this is a comfort that we have.

We need to share that comfort, not be stingy with it. Because there was a lost world that knows not the affection of Emmanuel, and it is our responsibility to steward the gospel message to such a point that they are intersected with that reality at any given moment of their life. So I think that that main theme is kind of seen in greater respect with three truths that we're gonna look at today. The first is the meaning of Emmanuel. Once we understand the meaning of this term and this phrase, I think that will leverage our hearts to be prepared to unpack the mission of Emmanuel. And when we understand the mission of Emmanuel and his success, I think it will leverage our hearts to now declare the majesty of Emmanuel. So the opening lyrics to this hymn are O come, O come, Emmanuel. It's a direct reference to Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14. The word of God says, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name, Emmanuel.

Now this passage is nestled wonderfully in a context. The context in the immediacy of Isaiah seven is verses 10 through 17, so it's right in the middle. And let me set it up so you can understand the meaningful reality of this specific prophecy. So you have this king by the name of Ahaz. Ahaz, when he first became king, he got whooped on by a couple of nations. He took some defeats early on in his career as king. And now there was an imposing threat of somebody threatening to defeat him and conquer the nation so he feels fearful.

He's fretting the security of his people and his rule. So the Lord raises up Isaiah to speak directly to King Ahaz so that Ahaz will not forsake God and his protection by seeking an unholy alliance with a neighboring nation, a superpower known as Assyria. Because Assyria has approached Ahaz and said, hey, bro, we know you got whooped up on. We wanna help you out.

So for a nominal fee, we can step in and be your protection if you want us to be. So Isaiah is speaking these words from God to Ahaz. And Ahaz is the recipient of these words. And God says, now I want you to believe me to the point that, bro, I'll give you a sign.

All you gotta do is tell me what sign you want to know that I'm still riding with my people. Ahaz says, nah, God, see, man, I can't even do you like that. You're sovereign, you're holy. What you says is yes and amen.

So for me to ask for a sign, how dare I put you to the test? Now it sounds really meek and humble, but the reality of it is it's false humi, excuse me, it's false humility. The reason we know it's false humility is because this brother Ahaz already struck an alliance with Assyria. So a sign from the Lord would actually uncover his own hypocrisy. And then at the same time, it would show that he does not trust God.

But you know, that allows me to think of my own life and perhaps your life as well. How many times have you without meaning asked God to show you his will for your life, knowing good and well you won't obey what he wants you to do? See, it's that tension that you and I wrestle with to know that why would God want to show me the glimpse of what he has designed me to do when I've yet to put my blank check of obedience on the table for him to write it?

But so we can't go so in on Ahaz because we've been guilty of those things as well. But what I love about our God is even despite Ahaz's false humility and even besides our frustration and our lack of trusting God, God still gives him a sign, a sign that he benefited from, but we also benefit today. You see, in that day, there was a child named Emmanuel that was born to remind Ahaz and the nation God is with his people.

That's what the name means, Emmanuel, God is with us. But for us, and the wording of that Hebrew prophecy shows that there's also going to be a future fulfillment. We find that fulfillment in Matthew chapter one, verses 21 through 23. And the word of God says this. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord spoke through the prophets. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Now I want to be candid. I'm gonna unveil my heart.

I'm gonna be for real with you. I see two different names in this passage. I'm a little confused. I'm like, is Emmanuel, is it Jesus? God make up your mind, what do I call him?

What is he going to be? Why do we call him Emmanuel? Why is the Carol say, oh come, oh come Emmanuel when you say right here, the brother's name is gonna be Jesus.

So what's the real name of my savior? Well, I think in order to understand that, let's go back to the passage I read in Isaiah chapter nine. Now Isaiah chapter nine, there was this key phrase that you see all throughout the Old and New Testament.

He shall be called. That phrase is a premise that sets up the characteristics that the Messiah would personify. So it's not as if his name was Wonderful Counselor comma, Mighty God comma, Everlasting Father comma, Prince of Peace. And that was his government issued birth certified name.

No, that's not it. It's the characteristics that Emmanuel would personify and showing that he was God with us. That you look at Jeremiah and in Jeremiah chapter 23 and also Jeremiah 33, it says that the Messiah would be the personification of Yahweh's righteousness. So it's not that his name would be Yahweh's Sid Canoe, it's the fact that he would personify the moral perfection of God because he himself is fully God. So when the text says that he is the forthcoming of Emmanuel personify, it means that God now is dwelling with man. And his name is Jesus, the Hebrew Yeshua, which is the masculine form of Yahweh is our salvation. So understanding the meaning of Emmanuel and God being with us allows us to understand the mission of Emmanuel.

Why did Emmanuel come to be with us? And I believe that we will see as the Carol highlights for three specific reasons. One, to ransom the spiritually dead, excuse me, ransom the spiritually exiled. Two, to redeem the spiritually enslaved. And three, to restore the spiritually emaciated.

So the mission of Emmanuel, let's work through these three nuances. One, the Carol says, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. This is a direct reference to Isaiah chapter 35 verse 10. It says, and the ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Now this prophecy was immediately fulfilled. So to understand the context of this passage, we've got to know the history of Israel. Israel made a covenant with God as God made a covenant with Israel.

And they live perpetually in disobedience. And because of their disobedience, God allowed them to be captive and exiled into Babylon so that they would spend 70 years in Babylon. And once the 70 years was up, God released them from exile and allowed them to come back into the promised land.

So they were rejoicing and they were singing that they were coming back to the promised land that God had promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But the reality of it is, is when Emmanuel incarnated in his first coming, though Israel was monotheistic, though Israel was inhabiting the promised land, that they were no longer in physical exile, the truth remains that they were still in spiritual exile, just like human beings today. How are we in spiritual exile?

It's very simple. You see, if God is life and he is the personification of life, and we inject the definition of death, which simply means an absence of life, we have to look at the scriptures that tell us because of the sin of our first father, Adam, because we have inherited a sinful nature, because sin always leads to death, because the scripture in Ephesians chapter two tells us that we are by nature children of wrath who are spiritually dead. We are disconnected and separated, spiritually exiled away from the presence of God. So Emmanuel had to come to ransom the spiritually exiled. How did he ransom the spiritually exiled?

I think Mark 10 45 tells us. It says, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many. That word ransom in the Greek literally means an exchange of currency, someone that is making a payment to buy a slave who is currently in that enslaved position. That slave cannot make the proper payment to get their own freedom, so someone must pay the ransom on the behalf of that slave. But the word for, he came to give his life as a ransom for many. I think it's properly translated instead of.

So in essence per se, Jesus did not come to die for us, he came to die instead of us. I think this was highlighted this weekend in Knoxville, Tennessee. A horrendous act of injustice took place with the murder of 15 year old Zavion Dobson. Zavion was a promising football star, young African-American young man.

He saw some suspects walk up and down his street and he saw three girls about to become victimized through a shooting and he jumped on top of the three girls and as the bullets rang out, they penetrated his body. Zavion was the only one that was shot. Zavion was the only one that died.

Zavion willfully died instead of those girls. Now when you think of that reality, let's pull back and let's look at the sacrifice of Emmanuel. Him who was fully God, he who knew no sin, willfully, obediently according to the plan of redemption set by God the father, volunteered himself to climb onto a cross so that he could die instead of you and I dying. Because even in our death, we could not pay off that sin debt that we owe because he is eternal. The debt that we have and the offense that we have against the holy and righteous God is an eternal debt.

We're finite creatures. A finite being cannot pay an eternal debt yet only that who is eternal can pay off that debt. Praise God, Emmanuel is eternally God.

Because he incarnated in the flesh to climb on the cross to become a sponge so that the father could pour out in totality his wrath that is due for you and I and Jesus absorbed it down to the last drop. He died instead of us to ransom us out of our spiritual state of being exiled. In addition, he came to redeem the spiritually enslaved. The lyric says, oh come thou rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan's tyranny, from the depths of hell thy people save and give them victory over the grave. I think this is really pointing back to Isaiah 11 one where it says there shall come forth a shoot or rod, a branch from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. This messianic prophecy expresses the humility as well as the brokenness of the lineage the Messiah would come from. Humility in the fact that Jesse is mentioned, a root of Jesse, arguably the most famous person in Jesus's lineage post the patriarchs was King David. Jesse is David's dad. So the fact that they would reference Jesse in this shows that the Messiah would come from a very humble state of being. But at the same time, the fact that it shows that he comes from the Davidic line. When he was born at the right time under the law of a woman according to Galatians four, the sociopolitical climate could care less about King David. Rome was in power.

And prior to that, the world powers prior to Rome could care less about David and what he did in this conquered nation's past. So Jesus was coming from a broken and fractured timeline and a broken and shattered lineage. But yet the fruit that he would bear would be greater than that of King David in his prime.

So what's the fruit? Isaiah 11 verses two through nine oversimplified says that his fruit would be justice for the poor and the oppressed. That he would bring ultimate security for his people and finally an act that nobody could replicate the absolute removal of death. You see, Satan's greatest weapon against the human race is the fact that he is holding people in the human race hostage to sin and death. We are enslaved by sin to death. So the reality, if you will, of a person holding someone else hostage against their will is that they are armed with a weapon.

The weapon is keeping the person in check because they have no way to free themselves from the person holding them hostage because of that weapon. The great news about the coming of Emmanuel is that because his mission was successful, we recognize that his resurrection disarmed Satan completely. First Corinthians 15, 54 through 57 says, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where's your victory?

Oh death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is in the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. With the resurrection of Jesus, it proves that God was pleased with the payment that Jesus made for the sins of sinful people who could never pay themselves out of their own spiritual debts.

In addition to this, his resurrection allowed him and him alone to disarm Satan. So now you and I no longer have to be slaves to sin and death. When Christ is our conquering king, we are free from sin and death.

But it doesn't stop there. You see, I think also the benefit of Emmanuel's first coming is for the believers as well. Not just for us to be saved, but through the process of sanctification until we see our Lord and savior face to face in eternity.

That's why I say I think he also came to restore the spiritually emaciated. The lyric says, oh come thou day spring, come and cheer. Our spirits buy thine advent here. Disperse the gloom clouds of night and death's dark shadows put to flight. Day spring is a throwback term.

It's an old school word for what we would call the sunrise. And I think of Luke chapter one verse 78, where Zechariah in his song says, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. Zechariah was a priest. Zechariah heard that his wife who was post bearing child age was pregnant. Zechariah didn't believe it. And because of that, God made Zechariah mute.

He could not hear and he could not speak. Then when their child was born, they were arguing over what are we gonna name the child? He got his tablet, got his pen, wrote down his name is John.

Everybody was befuddled. Bro, why would you name your son John? You don't even got a John in your family.

That'll make no kind of sense. Then the Lord opened up his ears and loosened his tongue. And the first words he said are praise be to God.

Then he articulates this song. And right in the crux of this verse we just read, he is fully verbally recognizing my son is the forerunner of the Messiah. It is through the ministry of my son, the people would be beckoned to look to see that the sunrise is coming through the Messiah. It's the sunrise that chase away the darkness of the clouds and the darkness of night.

We know in the first coming of Christ that he was successful. And we know that life and the sunrise of Jesus Christ overwhelms us to the point that it pushes back the darkness. But let's be real.

Let's be candid. We know in North Carolina, the weather can be a little tricky at times. We know every now and then a storefront will ride through and for three or four days in a row, you do not see the sunshine. It's as if like the sun set, I'm checking out for a three day vacation. I got some PTO. So earth, you kind of govern yourself and I'll be back in a little bit.

I need a break. Now rationally, we're like, come on man, scientifically that's foolishness. That wouldn't hold up anyway. But you know what? After those three or four days of the storm and the sun finally comes back out, my family has a specific saying. Oh, there you are, Mr. Sun. And as we see the sun, we're reminded the sun didn't go anywhere.

The clouds just blocked its visibility. You know what? So often in life, when the storms of life, when loved ones are taken from us, when relationships shatter, when we flunk that semester exam and we got to repeat it and our scholarship is no longer ours, those kinds of situations that we endure and the storms of life come and they roll in, we assume because the visibility of the sun, the God man is not there, that all of a sudden he is no longer Emmanuel. He is not God with me. I know that tension. I know that pain. And I know it as a believer. And I know it as a pastor.

Being a pastor does not make me exempt from the same sufferings that you're enduring as well. These past few weeks have been very taxing on my heart and in my spirit. And I would say that I was literally spiritually emaciated.

I was down to my last bearings, apathetic and I did not care. A close cousin of mine passed away the day after Thanksgiving. And to hear how she passed grieved me to the core of my soul. Not being able to go to her funeral crushed my heart.

But then that same day, hearing people diagnose possibly my son with a disorder just took me far back even deeper. And then when I thought that I was making headway, the news of a dear friend of mine who was close as a brother since childhood, unexpectedly passed away, drove my face into the ground. I was spiritually emaciated.

I was broken. I felt like God was not with me no more. And the reason that I was in that tension and the reason that I was put there is because I took my eyes off of my source of encouragement, the Bible and the body of Christ. It was in that moment that I cried out to the elders at the North Raleigh campus to pray for my wife and I.

It was in that moment that I reached out to the summit elders and said, I just need to process. I need to confess where I am right now. I just don't care about planting a church in LA, my wife has got MS, my son possibly has this, my cousin died this way and my homie from birth. I mean, man, I don't even know if he's in heaven or not. Like I'm broken right now. I can't get up in front of God's people and express the glorious riches of his truth when I myself am obliterated to almost nothing. And it was in that moment that the body and the Bible said, he is still Emmanuel. He is still God with you. And it's in that brokenness that I'm sympathetic towards those who were in seasons of suffering, especially in this season when depression seems to put the stranglehold on you, when suicidal thoughts tempt you in the midnight hour, when you're frustrated that your loved ones are no longer there, when you don't have money to pay for the gifts, when you've been swept away by commercialism and you've forgotten about the real reason for the season being the incarnation, the substitutionary death, the literal resurrection and the anticipating the return of Emmanuel, I know what that's like.

But perhaps this message today is for you to be recalibrated to know he can restore you and he wants to restore you. You see, as I look at this text and I look at all the pronouns from all the passages that talk about the blessings and the benefit of Emmanuel's coming, let me run them back one more again for you. First, we had you, which was in the plural in Isaiah chapter seven. So it's not an individual, it's a community that God is addressing. Then there are these pronouns, they're, they, us and our.

Listen to that. Because what I'm about to say is anti-American Christianity. Christianity is not a faith crafted for the individual. It is a community, a body, a family of people who have collectively said, I can't save myself and I need Jesus to be my sole savior.

I need Jesus to be my sole source of redemption. And when we have professed faith in Christ, we are born again. And God, the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of us and he who has begun a good work in us will be faithful to see it through to its completion.

That we will see our savior face to face. So if Messiah has taken us to be freed in him and out of the confines of slavery, then ladies and gentlemen, the body of Christ, we are God's PR team for the gospel message. Nobody else has stewardship to the gospel outside of the body of Jesus Christ. And with that being said, we have the responsibility that when we hear our family members, when we hear our coworkers, when we hear our neighbors cry out, in the midst of my crisis, Christians, where the heck is your Christ at? Where is God? How come God is not here? Why did he not save my child?

Why did he not save my marriage? We can say God has not abandoned society because he is present in his people. That's our responsibility.

It's a corporate blessing. Salvation in the gospel that Christ proclaimed is a kingdom salvation. It's not an individualistic, pie in the sky after I die faith. It is we have been grafted as a family. We are in the tension between the advents together.

We lean interdependently on each other to model for the world what family really looks like. And once we grapple with that, and we come to that understanding, the world will then see through our lips and our lives, the majesty of Emmanuel put on display. The lyric says, oh, come thou key of David. Come and open wide our heavenly home.

Make safe the way that leads on high and close the path to misery. This is a clear reference to heaven. And what I love about it is that that phrase key of David points us directly back to Isaiah 22, 22. In that passage, it talks about how the Messiah will bear the key of David on his shoulders. Literally what that means is all kingdom authority and administrative responsibility, that weightiness is put on the Messiah because it's his shoulders alone that he can take that deep burden.

That when he declares kingdom business and decrees it, it will be done as he has declared. So as we look at that, and we see that he is the key of David, he is the key that unlocks the door to heaven. But not only is he the key that unlocks the door to heaven, he's the pathway that leads to heaven. And not only is he the pathway that leads to heaven, he's the very door to heaven. See, it's the exclusivity of Jesus Christ alone being the only qualified savior for humanity that can lead the sinful mass into a right relationship with their father who created them. He's the one that said in John 14, two, I go away to prepare a place for you.

He is the one that is building this dwelling place for those who have embraced him. So understanding this view of heaven, I have a question that I wanna ask you rhetorically. Would you still wanna go to heaven if Jesus wasn't there? It sounds like a silly question, but do you think your spouse would wanna go to heaven if Jesus wasn't there? What about your children?

What about your friends, your fiance, your coworkers and your neighbors? It's a serious question because if they don't know Jesus now they're living a life of contentment without Jesus on earth. So what makes us assume that their picture of heaven includes Jesus being there? So that's that tension that I'm talking about. And then when we look at the examination of the world's view of heaven, you know what, it appeals to our flesh.

It does. Being born and raised in the hood, I mean, seriously, in all honesty, one of the persons who influenced my worldview before I was saved was Tupac Shakur. And people would laugh at me when I tell them that. I'm like, you understand, I came from a very socioeconomically depressed environment. I came from a gang-ridden environment.

I was one house away from the crack house. I grew up in the environment that Pac is always talking about. But the reality of Pac is that I felt he was a voice for the voiceless. I couldn't articulate the pain and the frustration that I was sensing, but Tupac voiced it for me. He was a prophet to my generation. And people were like, that's blasphemous. No, that's real. That's where I was. So when Tupac spoke about God, he shaped my theological worldview.

When Tupac talked about heaven, I said, yes, that's where I want to go. Well, there is no systemic oppression. There is no systemic racism. There is no poverty. There is no pain.

There is no drug abuse. It's my family. It's my friends.

It's everyone who I've ever lost. They're there and we're chilling together and we never have to break fellowship again. That's the heaven I wanted. That's the heaven that Tupac proclaimed and it appealed to my flesh. But then I met Jesus. And then I heard from the mouth of Jesus himself, the genuine description of the only heaven that God is building for those who are in his body. And when I began to understand the words of Jesus, I had to learn how to unlearn the words of Tupac.

But you know what? There were many there still to this day that desire that picture of heaven that Pac proclaimed. In fact, if I could quote him in his song, Thug's Mansion, he said, just think of all the people that you knew in the past. They passed on. They in heaven, they finally found peace at last. Picture a place that they exist together. There's gotta be a place better than this in heaven. So before I go to sleep, dear God, what I'm asking, remember this face saved me a place in Thug's Mansion. There ain't no place I'd rather be than chilling with my homies and my family in iced out paradise in the sky.

Ain't no place I'd rather be, ain't no other place that's right for me than a chromed out mansion in the sky, Thug's Mansion. Who wouldn't want that picture of heaven? Who wouldn't want heaven to be filled with a never-ending family reunion?

Everyone that you knew that died is there automatically. Who wouldn't want that? That appeals to my flesh, even in this day. It appeals to me when I hear about the suicides of people that I love, all the dozens of people that I've known that have been murdered in the streets of our nation, all that reality compresses in my heart. And I even told my wife two weeks ago, it's so much easier to trust in Thug's Mansion than it is to the biblical reality of heaven that we see in the scriptures. It appeals to my flesh.

But that's where I have to tell my flesh, you don't run this. That's when I have to take my emotions and my pain and my hurt and my resentment and my questions that are not being resolved in my mind, and I take it to the authoritative word of God, and I say, give me your narrative of heaven, because I need to be recalibrated to truth. The heaven that the world is proclaiming is false advertisement. So Father, what does heaven look like?

And in Revelation 21, three and four, it says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be any mourning nor crying nor pain anymore because the former things have passed away. My brothers and my sisters, listen to me, the greatest glory of heaven is not a family reunion. The greatest glory of heaven is not streets of gold. It's not your own mansion.

It's not a never-ending buffet. The greatest glory of heaven is Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us. And the reality of heaven is this, and it pains me to tears to say it. Not everybody will be there.

Satan and his demons will not inhabit in the presence of God. They will be enduring punishment in the lake of fire throughout all of eternity. Those who reject God's only plan of salvation found exclusively in Jesus Christ alone, they will not be here. That's my loved ones.

That's my homies that I was on a block with. That's people that I've preached to week in and week out, and they said no to Jesus. They will not be in heaven. I know that's not politically correct, but it's biblically accurate. And the only thing I can do is beckon the body of Christ to ride with me in this biblical understanding of heaven and say that we will personify collectively as the summit church to the triangle area. Colossians 1 28 that says, it is him, Jesus, that we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present every one mature in Christ. Jesus is the Emmanuel that the world is hearing about sonically through the carols that are playing as they shop through the aisles of Coles and Walmart and Target. Jesus is the Emmanuel that came to save us from our own spiritual slavery that we could never free ourselves from. Jesus is the Emmanuel that came to restore the spiritually emaciated who are broken and downcast right now. The proper response that we can give to Jesus is by reflecting on the truths of his two comings. The first one that already took place, that he lived a successful mission to redeem the lost.

But the second one that is his glorious return that we anticipate. So the tension that we have in this moment, in this season of life, let's deal with it now. The best way we can deal with it is by coming to the Lord's table as God's people, those who are in the covenant community of God, those who have exchanged their life of sin and their pursuits of trying to save themselves and said, I want Jesus to save me because I trust in his person and his work. It's to us alone who have been regenerated, born again, that can come to the Lord's table. So as our servants come forward with the trays, I wanna read this passage of scripture. In 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 26, it says, for I received from the Lord which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it.

And he said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

And here's the key. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. We are to do this as the covenant people of God, as the church, as the body of Christ. This is our privilege to come to the Lord's table to celebrate the first coming of Emmanuel and his successful mission while we anticipate his second coming. But for the non-believer, for those who don't know Jesus, although you are not welcome at this point to celebrate with us at the Lord's table, I've got good news for you. The good news is today can be the day of salvation for you. That if you have heard the gospel and recognize that you were a sinner incapable of freeing yourself from the bondage of sin, you understand that you're being held hostage by the enemy by death and sin. You can receive freedom today through Jesus, Emmanuel.

The reality of you trusting in what he did for you, you can actually today be a recipient of the bread of heaven who shed his blood to wipe away all of your sins. So in this moment of reflection, I pray that you would cry out and ask Jesus to save you. Let us pray. Father, as we have looked at your word, as we understand the testimony of grace, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would do the supernatural work in the lives of people that I myself cannot do. I pray that you would bring to salvation those who don't know Jesus. I pray that you, Father God, would be the sunrise that pushes away the darkness of death and sinful addictions, the idolatry that they found their identity in, that you would smash every idol, prohibiting them from seeing Jesus clearly. And I pray that they would trust you, Jesus. Father, I also pray for the body of Christ, for my brothers and sisters who like me feel the pain of this life, the missing of loved ones, the brokenness of a failed marriage, perhaps abortions, drug addictions, relapses into alcoholism. Father, I pray that you would comfort us in this moment and that we would reach out to the Bible and to the body. May we cry out to the leaders of Summit Church to pray with us and for us. Father, we trust you and we thank you for being Emmanuel, that you would never leave us nor forsake us and you promise to be with us to the end of the age. Remember, it's in Jesus' matchless name I pray, amen.