Why Call Him Immanuel - Part 1

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Log on to davidjeremiah.org or turningpoint.tv. Because of His love for us, our Creator confined Himself to a lowly human body so that we could know Him. Now that's the real Christmas story. And today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers what it means that God is with us, a concept that inspires the imagination of theologians and lay people alike. From Why the Nativity, here's David to introduce his message, Why Call Him Immanuel.

Well, I have a lot of names for Jesus. He's the Savior. He's Christ. He's the King of Kings.

He's the Lord of Lords. But at Christmastime, we discover in a new and fresh way that He is Immanuel. And how vital that is to us in this crazy season in which we find ourselves surrounded by so many imponderables and so many unprecedented things. To know that He is Immanuel now is so important because, you see, the word Immanuel means God with us. When Jesus Christ came to be born into the human race, He came to be God with us. In His human body, He went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sin.

And He did not discard His humanity when He went back to heaven. He is God with us, Immanuel, always available to us as close as your next breath, your next prayer is this Jesus whose birthday we're celebrating at this time. So today we open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 1 in verse 23 and we ask the question, Why Call Him Immanuel?

Let's begin our discussion. Back in 1996, a pop song by Joan Osborn made the charts asking what difference it would make if God were one of us, quote, just a slob like one of us, a stranger on a bus commuting home. Many people thought the song was sacrilegious, but it expressed the longing that all of us have for a God who can understand the kinds of problems that we face in our humdrum everyday lives. What Joan Osborn didn't know was this, one day God did become one of us. Listen to these words from the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us.

Say that with me, God with us. Many years ago on a snowy Christmas Eve in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I was then the pastor of a church, I was at home on Christmas Eve and everybody else had gone to bed. I was up late and I was listening to the radio in the kitchen and I heard a late presentation of Paul Harvey's poem. I remember hearing Paul Harvey tell this story. I'd never heard it before.

I have since heard it many times and actually recently found it in written form. I will never forget the impact that story had on me that Christmas Eve so many years ago. Perhaps it was the snow on the ground outside of my home and the eeriness of being up late at night on a Christmas Eve when everyone else had gone to bed. But most of all it was the story itself that helped me to understand and appreciate Christmas in a way that I had not ever appreciated it before.

Here is the story as I have recently found it and I think you will understand why it has been such a help to me. One raw winter night, a man heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny shivering sparrows attracted to the warmth inside were beating their wings and their bodies against the glass of the door. Feeling compassion for the helpless creatures, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn for the struggling birds.

He turned on the lights, tossed some hay in a corner, sprinkled a trail of saltine crackers to direct them to the barn. But the sparrows which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house still hid in the darkness of the night, afraid of him. He tried various tactics to get them to a place of safety, circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn, tossing cracker crumbs in the air toward them, retreating to his house to see if they would flutter into the barn on their own.

Nothing worked. He, a huge alien creature, had terrified them. The birds could not understand that he really meant them no harm. In fact, he was trying to help them.

He withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning from a clear blue sky. If only I could become a bird, one of them, just for a moment, then I would enfrighten them so.

I could show them the way to warmth and safety. At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He realized that he had grasped the whole principle of the incarnation. A man becoming a bird is nothing compared to God becoming a man.

The concept of a sovereign being as big as the universe he created, confining himself to a human body, was and is too much for some people to believe. But that, my friends, is the real story of Christmas. That is the heart of the Christmas message, that God has come to be one of us. God becoming a man so that he could reveal himself and his love to lost mankind. It is the very essence of the Gospel, and it is the good news of joy which the angels spoke on that hillside outside of Bethlehem. A Savior is born. God has come to be one of us. I'm convinced that if we are to prepare our hearts for Christmas, we must spend some time contemplating this incredible truth, God becoming man, Emmanuel.

Let's begin by pondering the mystery of it for a moment. Think about the mystery of Emmanuel. John the apostle wrote about it in the Gospel that bears his name. In the very first few verses of his book, in John 1, we have this word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John said, the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, was made flesh and dwelt among us. This is God with us.

This is Emmanuel. In what some people consider to be a hymn of the early church, Paul the apostle wrote about it in a more graphic and perhaps even earthier way. Here's what he wrote in Philippians chapter 2.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. The prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament gave us a glimpse into the future of this truth. When he said that God would one day visit his people, and he said that when that moment came, the Son of God would be given a special name that would forever remind his people of his sacrificial love for them. Isaiah put it this way in his prophecy in the seventh chapter. He said, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. It is that passage that Matthew quotes in his gospel, which we read a few moments ago from the first chapter. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us. Isaiah prophesied it.

John expressed it. Paul wrote about it, and Matthew recorded it. God has come to be one of us, Immanuel. One day Paul was writing to his young friend Timothy, and out of nowhere he burst forth into a moment of praise and wonder in 1 Timothy 3.16. He said, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God manifests in the flesh. Paul was writing to Timothy, and he said, Timothy, I don't understand it. This is unbelievable.

Without controversy, there's no way you could contradict it. This is an incredible truth that God has become one of us. We are so familiar with it because of all of our Christmas cards and all of our traditions that sometimes we go right past it and miss the magnificence of this truth that Almighty God has come down here to be one of us. Look at the person you're sitting next to right now.

Just look at them. God becoming a person just like that person. God becoming a person, not some spiritual personality, but a real physical person like you, like the person you just looked at.

God becoming flesh and blood. Over the years, as I have read about the incarnation and been somewhat of a student of theology, I have found that writer after writer has come to this truth overwhelmed with its importance. Writers that I respected, men you have heard me speak of over the years as I have been your teacher. These men, well-known men, have come to the place where we are today and have written of Emmanuel.

Men like C.S. Lewis, who in his classic mirror Christianity writes, the second person in God, the Son, became human himself, was born into the world as an actual man, a real man of a particular height with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language weighing so many pounds. The eternal being who knows everything and who created the whole universe became not only a man but before that a baby and even before that a fetus inside a woman's body. End of quote.

A.W. Tozer also was overwhelmed by this thought. He said, the coming of Jesus Christ into this world represents a truth more profound than any philosophy. All of the great thinkers of the world together could never have produced anything even remotely approaching the wonder and profundity disclosed in the message of these words, he came. The words are wiser than all learning.

Understood in their high spiritual context, they are more eloquent than all oratory, more lyric and moving than all music. They tell us that all of mankind sitting in the darkness has been visited by the light of the world. Frederick Buechner adds, the claim that Christianity makes for Christmas is that at a particular time and place, God came to be with us himself. When Carinius was governor of Syria in a town called Bethlehem, a child was born who beyond the power of anyone to account for was the high and lofty one made low and helpless. The one who inhabits eternity comes to dwell in time.

The one whom none can look upon and live is delivered in a stable under the soft indifferent gaze of cattle. The father of all mercies puts himself at the mercy of all. And more recently, Philip Yancey has written, in Jesus something new happened. God became one of his own creatures, an event unparalleled, unheard of, unique, in fact, in the fullest sense of the word. The God who fills the universe imploded to become a peasant baby who, like every infant who has ever lived, had to learn to walk and talk and dress himself. In the Incarnation, God's Son deliberately handicapped himself, exchanging omniscience for a brain that learned Aramaic stroke by stroke, omnipresence for two legs and an occasional donkey, omnipotence for arms strong enough to saw wood but too weak for self-defense.

Instead of overseeing a hundred billion galaxies at once, he looked out on a narrow alley in Nazareth, a pile of rocks in the Judean desert and a crowded street in Jerusalem. Finally, here's the way St. Augustine wrote about the Incarnation way back at the beginning of the Christian century. He said, man's maker was made man that he, ruler of the stars, might nurse at his mother's breast, that the bread might hunger, that the fountain might thirst, that the light might sleep, that the way might be tired in its journey, that the truth might be accused of false witnesses, that the teacher might be beaten of whips, that the foundation might be suspended on wood, that strength might grow weak, that the healer might be wounded, and that life might die. I don't know what you think when you hear all these words by men who are much more articulate than I could ever be, but they stretch my mind to the breaking point.

This is a truth without any precedent. There is nothing you can compare it to, that the God of the universe, the Creator of us all, deigned in his wisdom to come down here and for a period of time confine himself to a human body like yours and mine and to walk among us so that he might ultimately go to a cross and be the sacrifice for all of us. Here is the mystery of Immanuel, the Creator in a crib, the Ancient of Days becoming a babe in Bethlehem, the one who thunders in the heavens crying like a baby, the one who made all flesh now himself made flesh, the mighty God now a helpless child.

What a story. What a thought that God has become one of us. In these days that are before us, you will have an opportunity to see a manger scene. Most often we walk by the manger scene and first of all we look for the baby. And if we're with the children, they will usually say, oh, look at that pretty baby. Isn't that a cute baby? Look at the baby Jesus. And certainly that is a part of our celebration, but men and women, when you look at that baby Jesus in the manger of that manger scene, remember that baby Jesus was the Lord God of glory coming down here to be born as one of us. That is the mystery of Immanuel. But what is the meaning of it? How does that affect you?

How does that affect me? Dr. Criswell, who was one of my teachers and mentors, used to write about this and he would preach at Christmas time. If you never heard him preach at any other time of the year, you always wanted to hear him preach at Christmas because he could preach at Christmas time. One time he said, think of the blessing of it all. God is with us. He shares our labors. He knows the dull drab drudgery of life's common tasks, the heavy misery of back-breaking toil.

He shares our trials and our limitations. He was poor with no place to lay his head. He was hungry. He was thirsty, begging water of the Samaritan woman.

He was weary and exhausted and sat for rest on the well. He bore our sorrows and our heartaches. If there was a death in the home, it brought tears to his eyes. When he looked upon the crippled and the leper and the blind and the helpless, his heart was moved to compassion. What Dr. Criswell was saying is that when God became one of us and walked among us, he had all of the same emotions and the same feelings that we have.

That is a part of his gift to us in the Incarnation. Because God is with us, there are three things that are true. First of all, because God is with us, we can endure the difficult circumstances of life. Because God is with us, we can endure the difficult circumstances of life. I want to read with you a scripture.

I want to read it first, the way we would normally read it, and then I want to read it the way I believe it should be read. This is what the scripture says. For he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, so we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me.

Now listen. For he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me. What the Lord has said is so that we can say what God has said about himself and his presence with us. He has said to us, so that you and I may be able to say, I don't have to be afraid.

What can man do to me? I have the Lord with me. The Lord is with me.

Psalm 27 is almost exactly the same way. Psalm 27, 1 says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Throughout the scriptures, this concept is repeated over and over again. Psalm 118, verse 6 says, The Lord is on my side. I will not fear.

What can man do to me? Amen. Amen. How many of those encouraging verses do we find in the scripture?

Friends, you know the challenges of this past year have had a cumulative effect on many of us, leaving us weary and wary, weary from the upsetting news that well filled our screens every night for most of the year, and wary because we don't know what is ahead of us. But the good news is this, God is still in control. And as we turn to the scriptures and study God's faithfulness to his people in the past, we can see that he never leaves his people without hope.

Tomorrow we'll come back to finish our discussion on the subject of Immanuel. And on Thursday and Friday, as we come to the last days before the actual celebration of Christmas, we're going to talk about why call him Savior. He is the Savior of the world. Friends, I hope you are prepared to celebrate the real meaning of Christmas, and that you will gather with whoever you can be with during this season, and remember that Christmas is not about all of the extra things that we've added to the story, but it's about the coming of Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world. He's your Savior, and he's mine. And if you don't know him, what a wonderful opportunity for you to open your heart, to receive him, and accept him as your own personal Savior. Finally, friends, if you haven't discovered our Home for Christmas channel, go to our app, and there you will find a whole station full of Christmas things for you to enjoy in these last few days before we celebrate Christmas.

They're all free, and you can enjoy them, every one of them. We'll see you next time. I'm David Jeremiah. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current series, Why the Nativity, please visit our website where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Now when you do, ask for your copy of David's 365-day devotional for 2021. It's called Strength for Today, and it's filled with biblical truth for the year ahead, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. And to keep your spirits bright through the holiday season, visit the Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv, your free source for Christmas music, videos, messages, and more. The Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv. I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Please join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Why the Nativity. It's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.