SPEAKER_00 0:01

Let's pray. Almighty God, you are a good God who reveals yourself to us. Show us this morning from your word what we are to believe, correct our hearts, and teach us to love you with everything that we are. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. May be seated. Well, we've arrived at the last Sunday in Advent. So at this point, we have thought a lot about waiting. Waiting on the coming king who will not only bring justice to the earth, but will also rise like the Son of righteousness to bring salvation to God's people. This coming king will open the eyes of the blind and will make the lame whole again. His coming is marked by the preaching of repentance, and through repentance he will give access to the kingdom of God. So, in light of all of that, how do you feel about waiting? How do you feel about waiting on the king's second coming? Each year, if we are attentive to the call of Advent, our collective minds are pointed to the coming of Jesus, both his first and his second comings. We wait for the Lord Jesus' coming with great hope for that last day, where all things will be made new. But if we're honest, waiting is still heart. In Romans chapter 8, if you'll recall that glorious passage, it mentions that creation is groaning, waiting for the consummation, waiting for the renewing, waiting for the coming together of all the promises of God. It's groaning under the weight of waiting on the coming king. If you think back to the Old Testament, how long did those folks have to wait? The Old Testament sets were quite spaced out. Adam and Eve heard the promise of Genesis 3.15 about 2,000 years before Abraham showed up on the scene. And Abraham received a promise that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven, and that the world would be blessed through him. 430 years later, Moses is born, and he leads the people of, or he leads Abraham's greatly expanded family out of slavery and toward the promised land. After another 400 years, David's kingdom was established. And for a thousand years, the kingdoms of Judah and Israel grew and then shrank following the fortunes of their many kings. During those years of waiting, first in slavery in Egypt, then in the land, the people of Israel were expecting to dwell with God. That's what they wanted. They wanted to go back to where they were going to dwell with God. Were the people of Israel any better at waiting than we are right now? No. In fact, they found waiting so incredibly difficult that they began to look at the idolatry of the nations around them as more immediate sources of power to take care of their needs. Even amid God's mighty acts in the wilderness and in the conquest of the land, the false promises of demon gods felt more attainable and controllable. And so their faithfulness led to all forms of idolatry, and it caused much pain and suffering. However, God did not forsake his promise to be their God and to dwell with them forever. God sent prophets like Isaiah to remind the people of God's faithfulness and his word. The promises, as we have read about this morning, stretch all the way back to the very beginning of creation and the fall into sin. They extend beyond the past into the future, though. Like the people of Israel, God is calling his people now to trust his promises and wait for him. We are not only being called to believe in God, in the God who can make all things, but the one who draws all things to an end so that a new beginning can come. However, this call is to believe in something, this call is not a call to believe in something blindly or to take a leap into the dark. God, in his infinite mercy, extends the light of revelation to us. He shows himself to us through the life of a young woman who is found to be with child before she has even known a man. Her betrothed husband, Joseph, would have divorced her out of shame had not the angel of the Lord come to announce the glorious plan of God. How does the angel tell Joseph that the dawn of heavenly salvation was finally at hand? How did the angel reveal it to Joseph? He told him that Emmanuel had come. Through Emmanuel, the angel brought the declaration of God's promises to Joseph. The declaration that God's promises were going to be fulfilled, are being fulfilled. The angel announced that Jesus would be Emmanuel, God with us. Now we've heard a lot about God with us and Jesus in the incarnation. We have theological textbooks written, many of them, theological textbooks written about the incarnation and the hypostatic union, which is how Jesus can be God and man at the same time. But for our purposes this morning, I want to look a little bit differently, at a little different angle, at this word Emmanuel. He is the incarnate Son of God. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, literally, God in the flesh. Or, to put it another way, he is God with us. This is such a big deal, but I think we take it for granted. We must stir our collective memories about the nature of the Old Testament promises so that we can really appreciate the incarnation's significance. Not merely for the waiting people of the first century, it has bearing for them, but also for us. Because not only is this something that happened in our past, but it's about something about who we are right now. Because in the incarnation, we are made partakers in Christ Jesus as well. And because we are indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit Himself, we are also part of this glorious restoration of all things, where we will dwell with God, and God will dwell with us, and we will be his people forever. In Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 to 25, that's the that was supposed to be the gospel reading if we had followed the lectionary and not done lessons and carols this morning. And so if we look at that reading, you have the typical announcement story of the birth of Christ to Joseph. Joseph, it says, was a just man and unwilling to put Mary to public shame. And so he's pondering how to divorce her quietly so that she doesn't have any shame and so that he doesn't have any shame, and he's visited by an angel in a dream. And that angel tells Joseph that the child that is to be born is Emmanuel, and he will save his people from their sins. These words, this Jesus, he will save his people from his sins, from their sins language, coupled with that word Emmanuel, stir in the heart of Joseph all of the promises of the Old Testament. Well, what promises were there of an Emmanuel who would restore God's people to a place of fellowship with him? What were those promises? And one of the glorious passages from Isaiah that we didn't get a chance to read this morning in Isaiah 7, verse 14, it's the famous one about the virgins shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. And we have the translation of that word Emmanuel, God with us. And that God with us is a new way to express an older promise. There's an older promise behind Emmanuel, God with us. God made one big, overarching promise to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, and to David. The big promise that God made to all the Old Testament saints was simple. You will be my people, I will be your God, and we will dwell together forever. In Leviticus chapter 26, verse 12, it says it like this And I, God is speaking to the people of Israel, I will walk among you, and you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. In the exile, God sends a message through the prophet Ezekiel to encourage the people. And he says in Ezekiel chapter 37, verse 27, My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, why is dwelling with God such a big deal? In Genesis chapter 2, Adam and Eve live in harmony with one another and in perfect fellowship with God. And in Genesis chapter 3, if you noticed, God was coming down in the cool of the day to walk in the garden and to do what? To fellowship with Adam and Eve, to be near to them, to dwell with them is the image. But in Genesis chapter 3, they fell into sin, and as a result, their fellowship with God is broken. The results of their fall into sin were manifold. There's so many we could go on for a long time. But one of the most obvious consequences of their fall into sin was that they were forced to leave the Garden of Eden. They could no longer dwell with God. So it makes sense that the remedy for sin would also include the restoration of God and man dwelling together again. Look again at the angel's announcement in Matthew chapter 1. Jesus is to do what? To be Emmanuel, God with us. Literally, in Jesus Christ, in the man Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God is incarnate in flesh, human, in human flesh, and literally, in himself, he is God with man. Perfectly dwelling together in total harmony. There is no division between. So we're going to get into heresies if I keep going with trying to describe how all of that would work. And there are a lot of church councils that would help us inform the language, and I'm being a little bit imprecise. The reality is that in Jesus Christ dwells at perfect harmony. Without mixture of the two natures, but present together in perfect, I'm going to struggle with this. Anyway, God in his fullness and man in his fullness dwelling together with no cause for separation, no sin causing a rift and a struggle. And yet God, or and yet Jesus, the man, his personality, his humanity is not consumed or destroyed by the divinity. God, in all of his omnipresence and omnipotence and omniscience, all of the omnis, where he has all knowledge and all the power, and he's everywhere all at once. All of those all things that God is in his very nature, they don't destroy the humanity of Jesus. Literally, in Jesus Christ, we see God dwelling with man. And that means that anyone in Jesus Christ can say with joy and with confidence that they are partaking in the very nature of God. That is enormous. That has such a weight that we really can't even begin to hold on to it. But it also means that literally in Jesus Christ, all the world can be blessed in Abraham. How can we all be descendants of Abraham? If we're in Jesus Christ, who is the seed of Abraham, we can all be blessed in Abraham. All the promises are coming together. The line between Jew and Gentile is broken down in the man Jesus Christ. We have now entered into the fulfillment of God with us. You see, it started off as something outside of us in Jesus Christ, God dwelling with man perfectly in perfect unity. But now that fulfillment of God with man has moved from only in Jesus into us. In Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, it talks about the Holy Spirit as a deposit of the promise of salvation. Now, where does the Holy Spirit reside? In us. God Himself resides in our hearts, in us. Well, that sounds very similar to the incarnation, doesn't it? In Colossians chapter 1, verse 18, it says that Jesus is the head of the body, the church. Well, we are members of that church. We are members of Christ's body. We in our own bodies share in the reality of Emmanuel, God with us. We share in Emmanuel. God dwells with us, just like he dwells in Jesus. Now, it's imperfect right now, and we ache and we yearn for the final fulfillment of all of that, but you can see how we are not only observers in the redemption and restoration of all things, we are partakers in the work of God as members of Christ's body. We are partakers of the work of Jesus Christ in the world to bring the kingdom of God near. Through faith in Jesus, we live lives full of good works, trusting in his finished work on the cross, our cross. The cross. Excuse me. Our trust is not some vague ascent or some vague notion of ideas that, oh yeah, we believe that, but an assurance that we are secure and held up by the power of Jesus Christ. As people who have received the Holy Spirit, we have a deposit of the restoration of all things and a guide to heaven's peaceful shores. We await for the coming of our blessed hope, our Lord Jesus Christ. When he comes again, all things will be made new. Therefore, though we long for that glorious day, we wait as those with biblical hope, not with fingers crossed, dreaming, but hope is a hope that is based on the promises made by God who has been faithful to his people for 6,000 years. Lastly, with our eyes firmly fixed on our blessed hope, our Lord Jesus Christ, we put on as God's chosen people the love that we have received in Christ. The love of God is chiefly on display on the cross of our Lord. On the cross, Jesus showed us that he did not count his own life against the cost of loving his Father and loving us. You need only to look at John chapter 3 and Philippians chapter 2 to see how God felt about our redemption. Again, when we ruminate on the love of God, we are pulled into that love through our head. Not our head, but through our head, Jesus Christ. Like him, our first love is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And like Jesus, again, like Jesus, we are called to love those created in God's image. With Christ as our head and the Holy Spirit guiding us, we show the world the recreating power of God's love and bring the kingdom of God close to sinners by sharing with them the good news of Jesus Christ. By faith, through faith, and by Jesus' faith, through faith in Jesus, with our hearts bolstered by the blessed hope of salvation through Jesus Christ, and in light of the love given to us in Jesus, let us bring the reality of Emmanuel near to those around us. Now, this has a lot to do with Jesus. I don't know if you noticed. It has so much to do with him, in fact, that even though our individual identity is not consumed or subsumed into Jesus, our goal and our and our prize and our desire and our passion really is summed up in one word. Jesus. And as you enter, as you continue through Advent and on into Christmas and into the new year, I I urge you, I prompt you, I call you to fix your eyes by faith, hope, and love on Jesus Christ and on him alone. Let's pray. Almighty God, who in your great mercy sent your Son to us to open wide the gates of paradise so that we could dwell with you forever. Grant us the patience to wait on his coming and the confidence in your promises to hold forth hope to a lost and dying world through the one who brought God's presence back to us, our Emmanuel Jesus Christ. Amen.