Christmas 2: Immanuel, God With Us
Stephen Cave · The Word Became Flesh
14 December 2025
https://media.glenabbey.church/talks/christmas-2-immanuel-god-with-us

[0:00] Speaker 1: So, quiz question to get you started.
[0:04] Don't shout out, stick your hand up if you think you know the answer.
[0:08] Okay?
[0:10] What do the following celebrities have in common?
[0:15] We've got up there, we've got David Beckham, Tilda Swanton, James Blunt, and Susannah Reid.
[0:25] See, no hands up just yet?
[0:28] Okay, all right, we've got one hand up here.
[0:30] I think they don't.
[0:32] I'm going to give you a clue, and then you'll either keep your hand up or you'll put it down.
[0:37] What they have in common is the opposite, allegedly, of two other celebrities.
[0:44] Is your hand standing up or going down?
[0:46] Oh, it's gone down.
[0:47] Okay.
[0:48] Anybody's hand going up after that?
[0:53] It's to do with the queen.
[0:57] there you go i do you know what no no hold on hold on a second i know her way too well you you listened to the first service didn't you you did i you've done that before sarah i know you
[1:15] have she is well unfortunately i don't have a prize sorry it's hard to believe it's over three years But we all remember the level of anger that people had when Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were supposedly caught jumping the queue when the queen was lying in state.
[1:38] And the extra admiration for those celebrities who stood in line with the great unwashed, the rest of the public people, used to having pretty much everything done for them, deciding that they should identify with the ordinary people.
[1:54] And people got quite a bit gooey about it, you know.
[1:58] And yet, what they did pales into insignificance when you compare it with our Christmas theme.
[2:07] The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
[2:12] God became a human being and pitched his tent with us.
[2:18] That really is newsworthy.
[2:21] Although to the Jewish people of the day, it maybe shouldn't have come as such a shock.
[2:27] If they'd had any familiarity with their own scriptures in the Old Testament, they should have known that the idea of God being with his people was a deeply rooted notion, even going back to creation.
[2:41] You remember in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve have disobeyed God, that God comes looking for them.
[2:48] He wants to be with them.
[2:50] And there's kind of the sense that that was their normal experience up to then.
[2:54] And then even if you read on through other parts of the Old Testament, you find words that were often spoken by God or on God's behalf that kept reinforcing this idea that God came or wanted to be with his people.
[3:08] Isaiah 41, do not fear for I am with you.
[3:14] Do not be dismayed.
[3:14] I am your God.
[3:15] I will strengthen you and help you.
[3:18] I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
[3:20] Joshua chapter one.
[3:22] As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
[3:28] Be strong and courageous.
[3:30] Do not be afraid.
[3:31] Do not be discouraged.
[3:32] For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
[3:37] Deuteronomy 31.
[3:38] The Lord your God goes with you.
[3:42] He will never leave you nor forsake you.
[3:44] Zephaniah 3.
[3:45] The Lord your God is with you.
[3:49] the mighty warrior who saves.
[3:51] God regularly pointing out that he wants to be with his people.
[3:57] But of course it takes on a whole new meaning with the events of that first Christmas.
[4:03] And our reading today reminds us of it.
[4:05] It's Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 to 25.
[4:08] We're going to watch it now and just listen for God being with us.
[4:16] Speaker 2: This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about.
[4:22] His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph.
[4:28] But before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
[4:40] Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace,
[4:49] Speaker 3: he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
[4:56] Speaker 2: But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
[5:14] She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
[5:25] All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
[5:30] The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us.
[5:41] When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
[5:49] But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.
[6:17] Speaker 1: It's one thing having a notion that God is with you in some kind of spiritual sense, but this is something completely different.
[6:30] God coming to earth in human form and not just any human form as a newborn baby.
[6:38] The most helpless, humble and needy expression of humanity that there can ever be.
[6:46] I wonder do we really stop and try and get our heads around that?
[6:50] And of course actually you can't get your head around it.
[6:53] But some who are good with words have tried to help us grasp the reality.
[6:58] And I love this passage from Max Lucado.
[7:02] He writes this.
[7:03] Stepping away from his throne, he removed his robe of light and wrapped himself in skin, pigmented human skin.
[7:13] The light of the universe entered a dark, wet womb.
[7:17] He whom angels worship nestled himself in the placenta of a peasant, was burst into the cold night, and then slept on cow's hay.
[7:29] Mary didn't know whether to give him milk or give him praise, but she gave him both, since he was as near as she could figure, hungry and holy.
[7:39] Joseph didn't know whether to call him junior or father, but in the end called him Jesus, since that's what the angel had said.
[7:46] And since he didn't have the faintest idea what to name a God he could cradle in his arms.
[7:53] He just can't imagine it.
[7:56] And we've had a baby born into our family recently.
[8:00] He actually came to hear his grandda preach at the first service this morning and didn't last the whole way through, surprisingly enough.
[8:06] But it's all come home to us with sharper God this size helpless needing everything done for him.
[8:18] Like it's wow.
[8:21] And then you get, you know, you think about the wow and then you move from the wow to the why.
[8:28] Why on earth would God put himself at such risk?
[8:34] Well, to help us answer that question, Let's quickly shoot back to the Old Testament and look at the prophecy that's quoted here for us in Matthew chapter 1.
[8:43] And we find it in Isaiah 7.
[8:46] Now Chris asked me to speak on this passage that has Emmanuel in it.
[8:50] And then he proceeded two weeks ago to totally steal my thunder from Isaiah 7.
[8:55] So very briefly, we'll go back over what was happening in that part of the Old Testament.
[9:00] 10 tribes of Israel had long since split from Judah and headquartered in Jerusalem.
[9:07] And Israel had joined together with Aram to attack Judah.
[9:12] Judah was led by King Ahaz, but he was a dreadful king.
[9:15] He didn't follow the Lord at all.
[9:17] And if you read 2 Kings 16, you see that King Rezan of Aram and King Pekah of Israel decided to attack Jerusalem.
[9:26] 120,000 in Judah died in the battle.
[9:30] and it looked for all the world that Jerusalem would fall.
[9:36] But God sends his prophet Isaiah with this message for King Ahaz.
[9:44] Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid.
[9:48] Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, because of the fierce anger of Rezan and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.
[9:57] Aram, Ephraim, and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin saying, let us invade Judah.
[10:02] Let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves and make the son of Tabiel king over it.
[10:07] Yet this is what the sovereign Lord says.
[10:10] It will not take place.
[10:11] It will not happen.
[10:14] And in fact, God went further.
[10:16] Isaiah told Ahaz to ask the Lord for a sign that he would protect them.
[10:21] So what does Ahaz do?
[10:23] Well, in a dreadful display of false spirituality, he says, oh, I could never do that.
[10:28] I couldn't possibly put God to the test.
[10:31] Well, the truth was he didn't believe that God could intervene, but he didn't have the guts just to come straight out and say that.
[10:38] So he dressed it up in some kind of false piety.
[10:43] Then came the response from God through Isaiah.
[10:47] Words that we recognize too often don't take the time to check the context in which they were spoken.
[10:55] Isaiah said, okay, maybe you won't ask, but God's going to give you a sign anyway.
[11:02] And this is the sign the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel.
[11:08] Before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.
[11:15] The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father A time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah.
[11:23] He will bring the king of Assyria.
[11:26] Instead of turning to God for help, you see, Ahaz instead went to the king of Assyria.
[11:31] Not only that, he sent silver and gold from the Lord's temple to the king of Assyria to try and buy his assistance.
[11:40] And when he went to Damascus to visit the king, he was greatly taken with some of the pagan altars that he saw in Damascus.
[11:47] and he sent word back to Jerusalem for similar altars to be built and put inside the temple of the Lord.
[11:54] Complete desecration.
[11:57] Now we don't have time to go into all the details.
[12:00] There's so much we could be looking at.
[12:01] Who was this virgin, for example, that was talked about in Isaiah 7?
[12:06] Because the Hebrew word used can either mean a young woman or a virgin.
[12:09] And there was very much an immediate fulfillment to that prophecy coming, either with a young woman giving birth and maybe unwittingly calling the son Emmanuel, but it's more likely referring to the next chapter, Isaiah chapter 8, where Isaiah's wife gives birth to a son.
[12:25] And God gave him a message that before this child could basically say mom or dad, Aram and Israel would be overrun by the king of Assyria.
[12:34] But not only that, the same Assyria Ahaz had relied on would become a nightmare for him and his people.
[12:43] That was an immediate fulfillment.
[12:45] But we also know that beyond that immediate fulfillment, there was a reference to something even more significant to come in the future.
[12:54] And that's what Matthew's gospel is revealing for us.
[12:58] And whilst we can't unpack all of the story, the lesson is clear.
[13:03] God offers to be with his people.
[13:07] If they are prepared to look to him, even in the worst of trouble, he will be with them.
[13:16] He will fight for them.
[13:18] He can be trusted despite all that they see going on around them.
[13:23] God's heart is only and ever for his people.
[13:29] Read through the Old Testament.
[13:31] Even the times when great warnings of judgment are coming from God to his people.
[13:38] You see his love for them shining through.
[13:42] Just the other week, I happened to be reading in the Old Testament prophet Hosea, and God is lamenting the shocking unfaithfulness of his people.
[13:53] And he's announcing to them warnings of judgment.
[13:56] And yet in the middle of it, Here's what he says.
[14:01] How can I give you up, Ephraim?
[14:05] How can I hand you over, Israel?
[14:07] My heart is changed within me.
[14:10] All my compassion is aroused.
[14:13] I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again, for I am God and not a man, the Holy One among you.
[14:24] You just, you feel God's heart breaking.
[14:26] It's like a parent with a rebellious teenager.
[14:29] that you're angry and frustrated, and yet your heart is breaking with love for them, even when his people treat him so badly, his desire to see them changed, to come to their senses and realize what is good and right and true.
[14:47] And if we come back to Matthew chapter 1, and particularly the large part of the chapter that we often skip over, we see the reality of that love, That determination to come and be with his people, God's commitment to bring about salvation.
[15:04] Our reading was verses 18 to 25.
[15:06] Verses 1 to 17, the huge list of names that I've had most of us skip over when we come to read it.
[15:12] And yet, it's really intriguing.
[15:15] Because it's a genealogy that traces the family line of Jesus right back.
[15:22] And to say it's colorful would be a huge understatement.
[15:28] And once again, we don't have time to unpack everything that's in there.
[15:31] So let me just highlight a few of the lowlights, as it were.
[15:36] Here's a line.
[15:37] Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.
[15:43] Go have a read at that story in Genesis 38.
[15:49] Judah had three sons.
[15:51] The eldest married a lady called Tamar.
[15:54] However, he was really wicked.
[15:57] And in judgment, he died.
[16:00] God struck him down.
[16:02] So in keeping with the customs of the day, the second brother took her as his wife to carry on the family line.
[16:10] Well, through his own evil, he also died, leaving the third son, Shiloh.
[16:15] Well, Judah, having lost two sons, didn't want to lose a third.
[16:20] So he hid Shiloh away, even though he was supposed to, by rights, marry Tamar.
[16:25] This widow, Tamar had the right to bear Judah's eldest son's child, and Shelah is now the eldest son, so that the family line could continue.
[16:36] And Judah hid her away.
[16:37] So Tamar responded to this by dressing as a prostitute, tempting Judah and conceiving a child without Judah knowing who she was.
[16:50] When Judah found out she was pregnant, he threatened to have her executed for, get this, immorality, until she revealed who the father was.
[17:03] And he owned up to having wronged her.
[17:06] And she eventually gave birth to twin sons of Judah, Perez and Zerah, the same Perez who's in the earthly line of Messiah.
[17:18] and then we read someone the father of boaz whose mother was rahab boaz the father of obed whose mother was ruth couple of interesting facts in here rahab was known as let's just say a woman of ill repute in jericho and yet she came to see that god was doing something with these israelite people, and she helped them by sheltering spies.
[17:43] And not long after came Ruth, who wasn't even a Jew originally.
[17:48] She was a Moabite widow who returned to Israel with a grieving mother-in-law Naomi, and yet in their devastation, God was at work, planning the rescue of his people.
[18:02] Then how about this for a line?
[18:05] David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife.
[18:11] See, even the way that is phrased for me is quite chilling.
[18:17] Because it brings up arguably one of the most heinous episodes in all of Scripture.
[18:24] The great King David, author of so many worship songs and psalms, described as a man after God's own heart, finds himself one night wandering on the roof of his palace.
[18:38] And he catches sight of a beautiful woman bathing.
[18:43] Her husband is away at war on David's behalf, where David also should have been.
[18:51] And David requests her company.
[18:54] She ends up pregnant.
[18:57] He has her husband killed in battle.
[19:01] marries her and the child dies not long after birth it's just the most awful story
[19:10] and yet god graciously grants them another child solomon who continues the messianic line we could go on picking out some other characters some of the worst kings in there are mentioned that that judah had ever seen including our friend ahaz but the point is the same
[19:29] despite their repeated failure and even despite what we would even identify as satanic plots to kill off the messianic line God does not desert his people.
[19:44] He comes to their rescue when they're in trouble with mercy, forgiveness and restoration even when they get it so badly wrong.
[19:57] Now, it's important that we acknowledge the reality of evil and the deception of Satan in all of this.
[20:04] It's not the topic of much polite conversation, but it's there right from the start of time.
[20:08] When the serpent deceived Eve and God promised him that he would pay, the woman's seed would eventually crush Satan for good.
[20:18] Well, of course, you'd not expect the prince of darkness to lie down and accept it.
[20:22] He'd do all he could to stop the promised one from being born.
[20:26] But the message of God with us is a message of victory.
[20:33] That all of Satan's schemes will be overturned and defeated.
[20:38] As Joseph said, he meant it for evil.
[20:41] God used it for good.
[20:44] And that plan of God starts to reach its fulfillment with the birth of Jesus.
[20:49] God himself in the flesh come to be with his people.
[20:57] Come to carry out the ultimate rescue to defeat the schemes of Satan once and for all in the greatest act of love that there could ever be.
[21:09] And amazingly, it happens in the most ordinary or common of settings, and it happens at night, and there's no fanfare except to a bunch of shepherds who live in the fields and are really quite forgotten.
[21:26] And God quite literally comes to be with his people.
[21:33] And this morning, we've got to leave so much of that story out because we've got to try and draw this to a close.
[21:39] So I want us to zoom in on just one phrase in the angel's message to Joseph.
[21:47] she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
[22:02] Think back to some of those stories we've just mentioned.
[22:06] Judah and Tamar.
[22:09] David and Bathsheba.
[22:11] Ahaz.
[22:13] That's just for starters.
[22:15] what a meth
[22:19] what human desires and behavior does to us when we succumb to the temptations of sin and you can't run away from it I know sin is not a word that's used often in everyday life
[22:34] but it's a shadow that hangs over all of us it hangs over our world look another shooting overnight in america it hangs over our relationships broken everywhere it hangs over our communities look at our own little country it's a shadow that hangs over our own inner lives
[22:58] all of it corrupted by sin because we choose daily to go our own way instead of surrendering to the will of a good God.
[23:10] We always think we know best.
[23:15] And we compare ourselves to others.
[23:17] And we find people that we think are way worse than we are, so we're okay, but we're not.
[23:23] We still need to confront the fact that we all have our own darkness.
[23:32] If you don't believe me, Just think simply about this.
[23:37] Who ever taught you to tell a lie?
[23:42] Who ever taught you to speak nastily about someone behind their back?
[23:49] Who ever taught you to scream abuse at a referee?
[23:53] I've never done that.
[23:55] Who ever taught you to get angry when you're driving your car?
[23:58] Never done that either.
[24:03] Who ever taught you to deceive?
[24:04] Who ever taught you not to tell the whole truth, to cover your back?
[24:07] Who ever taught you those things?
[24:10] Nobody.
[24:12] Because that darkness is within us, and it's killing us.
[24:20] And yet that same God, whose way we reject, says he wants to come to be with us, to save us, because he's still driven by the same love that brought him to earth as a baby.
[24:40] But we'll only grasp that when we're actually prepared to be honest enough about that three-letter word, sin.
[24:49] As long as we go on trying to pretend we're okay, we'll never see it.
[24:55] As I see it, there are pretty much only two hindrances to receiving God's love.
[25:00] One is that we think we're just too far gone, that we're too bad.
[25:05] Our history rules us out.
[25:08] Well, one look through that genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 should be enough to let us know that God is able to deal with our history, however bad it is.
[25:17] If he was willing to come to save the people of Israel with their history, then your history is not too hot for him to handle.
[25:27] But the other hindrance is maybe more insidious.
[25:32] And it's the belief that we're actually okay.
[25:36] The refusal to take ownership of the reality of sin.
[25:41] And yet when we do, when we're prepared to be honest with ourselves, then we find this amazing message that Jesus came to deal with it.
[25:52] Because although the truth of the gospel makes us confront our sin, It counters that with the message of grace that makes the Christian gospel, in my view, absolutely unique.
[26:02] You see, pretty much every other faith represents some kind of deal with their God, some kind of bargaining.
[26:09] Like, I have to do enough.
[26:13] Or I have to experience enough.
[26:15] Or I have to know enough.
[26:17] It's a kind of negotiation.
[26:18] If I do enough, then it'll be okay.
[26:21] Well, the gospel tells me I don't have to negotiate.
[26:24] which is just as well, because I don't have anything to negotiate with.
[26:31] God does it.
[26:33] Not by dismissing my sin or ignoring my behavior or by lowering his standards.
[26:38] Instead, he does it by coming to be with me and assuming my sin and taking my sentence on himself.
[26:49] And what do I have to do?
[26:51] I have to wonder at it and accept it.
[26:55] and worship.
[26:57] I quoted earlier from Max Decato.
[27:00] I left a few bits out though, and I want to quote them for you now.
[27:05] Can anything make me stop loving you, God asks?
[27:10] Watch me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts.
[27:16] Behold the maker of sight and sound as he sneezes, coughs, and blows his nose.
[27:21] You wonder if I understand how you feel?
[27:24] look into the eyes of the kid in Nazareth.
[27:27] That's God.
[27:28] Walk into school.
[27:30] Ponder the toddler at Mary's table.
[27:32] That's God spilling his milk.
[27:35] You wonder how long my love will last?
[27:39] Find your answer on a splintered cross on a craggy hill.
[27:44] That's me you see up there.
[27:48] Your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding, covered in spit and sin-soaked.
[27:58] That's your sin I'm feeling.
[28:02] That's your death I'm dying.
[28:06] That's your resurrection I'm living.
[28:11] That's how much I love you.
[28:16] The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
[28:23] God became a human being and pitched his tent with us.
[28:31] She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
[28:41] And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.
[28:46] The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
[28:57] And we do.
[28:59] We call him Emmanuel, because our God has come to be with us.
[29:08] Let's pray.
[29:12] Lord God, we just take time to try and grasp something of the wonder of this truth that your love would drive you to come to be with us in the form of a baby with all his needs, all his vulnerability, such humility.
[29:35] such majesty and we thank you that you did it because you love us Father we thank you that your love is greater than all of our needs and I pray Lord for maybe anybody here or listening who thinks they're too bad help them to understand that your love is able to deal with our history
[30:02] for those of us who are tempted to think we're too good, Lord, just shine your light on our darkness and help us to surrender to you.
[30:12] And Lord, for those of us who today are just struggling with the everyday challenges of life, its burdens, its cares, its losses, its frustrations, its perplexity, and everything else, would you comfort us and encourage us and remind us that God comes to be with us in whatever mess we're in.
[30:36] We thank you and we worship you.
[30:38] In Jesus' name, amen.
[30:43] Amen.