The With-Us God (Matthew 1:18-25)

Most Christmases, when it’s time to read the Christmas story, I end up reading the story from Luke. It’s familiar to us, and it has a real beauty to it. I’m not used to reading Matthew’s version, but it’s really too bad. Matthew is written from Joseph’s perspective. It’s short and it’s full of meaning.

Today what I want to do is to look at the Christmas story. Here’s what I want us to see from this passage: Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God who saves us from our sins.

First: Jesus is unexpected.

Can you see the surprise in this passage? Back then, you wouldn’t date and get engaged and get married like we do today. Your parents would find a spouse for you. How would you like that? And then you would enter into a binding agreement before witnesses that you would marry this person. This would be called betrothal, and once you were betrothed you were in between. You weren’t married yet, but the only way you could end the betrothal would be through divorce. And then a year later you would actually get married.

In this passage we read that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. His parents had arranged the marriage. They had already committed to get married, probably a year down the road. And now all of a sudden before they’re married, Joseph discovers that Mary is four months pregnant. He’s surprised, to say the least. He has a choice. He can marry her as planned and ignore the fact that she’s pregnant and that he’s not the father. He can make this a public matter, and Mary will be disgraced and maybe even stoned to death. Or he can deal with the matter quietly and divorce her. He chooses to do the last when an angel appears to him and stops him in his tracks.

Do you see here: Jesus is unexpected. Jesus is not the result of any human initiative. Nobody thought Jesus up. God took the initiative completely to bring about the birth of Jesus Christ to save his people from their sins.

Jesus has been surprising people ever since. He was unexpected, and he continues to show up unexpectedly in people’s lives even today. I love when Jesus shows up unexpectedly, as he has in many of our lives. We weren’t looking for him. He hadn’t even crossed our minds. But then, through the strangest of circumstances, God takes the initiative and shows up in the middle of our lives. It may be that Jesus is unexpectedly showing up in your life even this morning.

So Jesus is unexpected.

Second: Jesus is miraculous.

Read verse 20 with me:

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:20)

This is incredible. This would have been a surprise to anyone back then, just like it is to us today. God the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, not as the biological father, but as the all-powerful God who was able to do the miraculous. Jesus is not like the rest of us who were born in the normal way. Jesus was born miraculously. Jesus is not just unexpected; he is also miraculous.

In his work The Person of Christ, Donald Macleod writes:

The virgin birth is posted on guard at the door of the mystery of Christmas; and none of us must think of hurrying past it. It stands on the threshold of the New Testament, blatantly supernatural, defying our rationalism, informing us that all that follows belongs to the same order as itself and that if we find it offensive there is no point in proceeding further.

Why is it important? David Mathis gives us four reasons:

• It highlights the supernatural nature of Jesus’ birth.
• It shows us that we need a salvation that we can’t bring about ourselves.
• It shows us that God takes the initiative.
• It hints at the fully human and fully divine natures united in Jesus’ one person.

Wayne Grudem writes:

God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary’s womb by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ birth was completely unexpected. It was also miraculous. God took the initiative and did the impossible, just like he takes the initiative and brings about a salvation that we can’t achieve ourselves.

Jesus is unexpected; Jesus is miraculous.

Third: Jesus is God-with-us.

Read verses 22-23:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).

This is absolutely shocking. The angel says that Jesus’ name is Immanuel, which means God-with-us, or the with-us-God. Matt Woodley writes:

It means that Jesus is God with us as he swims in Mary’s amniotic fluid, wiggles in the manger’s straw, feeds the hungry and heals the sick. Jesus is God with us as he takes the bread in his hands and says, “This is my body broken for you.” Jesus is God with us as he hangs from a cross, gasping for breath and shouting, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He descends into our messy world, standing in solidarity with human sufferers, plunging ever deeper into our pain and apparent abandonment.

Back then, Greeks could never have thought about God taking on a body. One Greek philosopher sarcastically asked, “How can one admit (God) should become an embryo, that after his birth he is put in swaddling clothes, that he is soiled with blood and bile and worse things yet?”

Even today, people struggle with this. A Muslim professor says that he can’t comprehend that God would become small, tiny, and weak. Kenneth Cragg, a scholar on Islam, says that although Muslims have a “great tenderness for Jesus” and they find the nativity story “miraculous,” they still see the incarnation as simply an impossible concept.

But we see here that Jesus is God-with-us. Jesus is God coming to us first as a fetus, then as an unplanned pregnancy, then as a baby, and later a twelve-year-old boy, and then later as a teacher, and then as a condemned criminal stripped naked on the cross, and then as the risen and ascended Lord. The writer to the Hebrews says:

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

Matt Proctor puts it this way:

Here's the point … God himself has felt what we feel. In the Incarnation, he chose not to stay "completely Other." He got down at eye-level, and in the Incarnation, God experienced what it's like to be tired and discouraged …. He knows what it's like to hurt and bleed. On the cross, Jesus himself prayed a psalm of lament: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1).

In your pain, you may be tempted to say, "God, you have no idea what I'm going through. You have no idea how bad I'm hurting." But God can respond, "Yes, I do." He can point to your wounds and then to his own and say, "Look: same, same. Me too. I have entered your world, and I know how you feel. I have been there, I am with you now, I care, and I can help." That is what Christmas is all about.

Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God.

Finally: Jesus saves us from our sins.

We learn in verse 21 exactly what Jesus came to do: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” In Jesus we have the solution for our sin problem. Jesus came to live the perfect life that we couldn’t live. And then we went to the cross and bore our sins. And he rose from the dead to give us new life. Jesus is the solution for our sin problem Jesus came to save us from our sins.

You know what it’s like to have someone visit you when you’re not ready. Mike Silva describes when this happened to him:

Most people would be a little embarrassed to have unexpected company when their house was a mess. My family was staying at a hotel in Nigeria, West Africa, one time when I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and found a smiling Nigerian gentleman ready to clean our room.

I was so embarrassed! My family had travel bags, curling irons, and crumpled clothing sprawled across our unmade beds. Wet towels were all over the bathroom floor. I apologized profusely, but the young man replied graciously, "No problem, sir. For this reason I have come, to put your things in order."

The Bible says this is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do for us. To put our lives in order! He doesn't demand that we first straighten up our mess. Instead, He offers to clean up for us.

Jesus came into our world to save us from our sins, to clean up the mess we couldn’t clean ourselves. This is the reason that Jesus came.

Friends, this is what Christmas is all about. Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God who saves us from our sins.

After returning home from a long tour, Bono, the lead singer for U2, returned to Dublin and attended a Christmas Eve service. At some point in that service, Bono grasped the truth at the heart of the Christmas story: in Jesus, God became a human being. With tears streaming down his face, Bono realized,

The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty … and straw, a child, I just thought, "Wow!" Just the poetry … I saw the genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this … Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered … Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.

In Jesus Christ, love found a form. In Jesus Christ, love became something concrete. At Christmas, love was made flesh. Jesus is the unexpected, miraculous with-us God who saves us from our sins. It’s the reason we celebrate Christmas today.

The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1-17)

Of all the ways to start a book, this isn’t one of them. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…” I mean, come on. At the start of a book, you have to grab the reader.

Here’s how you start a book. Here’s the first line from Tolkien’s The Hobbit. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” See? Only ten words, and you’re hooked. Another famous book begins with the author’s daring escape from the brutal prison Devil’s Island. Right away you’re in the middle of the action. You can’t wait to see what happens next.

So why does Matthew begin the Christmas story with a genealogy? I bet that many of you are tempted to skip verses 1 to 17 and go right to verses 18, which says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” But that would be a mistake. The beginning of the Christmas story in Matthew has an important lesson for us. Three of them, actually. Here they are, and then I’ll take you through each one.

• The birth of Jesus is a new beginning.
• The birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises.
• The birth of Jesus includes all of us.

I got all of that from a genealogy? I did. And I hope you’ll see how I did soon as well. So here it goes.

First: The birth of Jesus is a new beginning.

Matthew is a skilled author, and he knows exactly what he’s doing in verse 1 when he begins, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” We’re supposed to read that and think, “This sounds familiar somehow.” In the Greek, the first two words are biblos geneseos which we translate “the book of the genealogy” - but they are also the Greek title for Genesis. Genesis is the Old Testament book that refers to the creation and beginning of all things. So Matthew plants these words here because he wants us to do a double-take.

What does this mean? Matthew wants us to begin reading his book with a sense of déjà vu. He wants to take us all the way back to the beginning and see his book, beginning with the birth of Jesus Christ, as a fresh start and a new beginning.

I went to the mall the other day. Part way through my trip I realized that I had dropped something. What I’d dropped is worth about $100. I began to retrace my steps. I went to mall security and all the stores I’d been in to see if I could find it. But it was gone. I went home feeling good about what I’d bought, but also wishing that I could rewind back to the beginning and be more careful and not lose something that was pretty valuable to me.

Have you ever wished that you could hit the pause button on your life and rewind and go back to the beginning? Have you ever wished you could have a do-over?

Matthew is saying in this verse that this world has two beginnings. The first one took place a long time ago in Genesis 1 when God created the heavens and the earth, and everything was good. But we know how that story ended up. In Genesis 1 and 2, everything is really good. But in Genesis 3, sin enters the world, and then there’s nothing but trouble from Genesis 4 to 11 and beyond.

Do you ever wish that we could pause history and rewind back to Genesis 3 and undo all the damage that sin has brought in the world? There’s good news, Matthew says. That is exactly what the birth of Jesus does. It’s a new beginning. In Matthew 1 the world begins anew. We get to start all over again. We had creation; now in Jesus, we have re-creation. The original creation, which is damaged, flawed, and broken, is now being restored and transformed in the person of Jesus Christ.

That’s the really great news Matthew is telling us. The birth of Jesus is a new beginning. It means that the slate is wiped clean.

And so for all of us who are longing to start again, who are longing for a fresh start, and who are longing for everything in this world to be put right, the birth of Jesus is what makes this possible. I don’t know what has happened in your past, but the birth of Jesus marks a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The birth of Jesus is a new beginning for all of us, and for the whole world.

Second: The birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises.

So picture this. You get an envelope in the mail. You open up that envelope, and you find a single piece of paper printed on really nice paper. It has someone’s name and contact information, followed by headings that say “Employment History,” “Education,” and “References.” What do you have? You’d recognize it as a résumé. It’s what we write when we’re trying to give a potential employer some basic information about ourselves.

Picture someone two thousand years ago getting that same piece of paper. They would probably look at it strangely as they tried to figure out what in the world it’s all about.

That’s really what’s happening as we read the genealogy. Matthew’s readers would have been very familiar with this form, and they would have understood its purpose. They would have been captivated by what Matthew wrote. In the ancient world, genealogies did a couple of things.

First, they grounded you in history. I was in England one time when I came across a monument for where the missionary Augustine of Canterbury met King Ethelbert of Kent in 597. It’s one thing to read about it in the history books; it’s another thing to realize that it happened right here. That’s what Matthew is doing as he gives us the genealogy. He’s saying that the story of Jesus is grounded in history. He’s descended from particular people who really lived. It’s not a made-up story. It really happened in time and space.

But the genealogy also served another purpose. Back then it functioned as a kind of résumé. It would tell you who a person is and where they came from. It established your heritage, your inheritance, your legitimacy, and rights. It would establish your legal claim to certain rights and properties that had been passed down through the generations to you. The closest thing I’ve experienced is when I sat with someone at a seminary breakfast in Boston. I asked the person how long they’d lived in Boston; he replied that King George had granted them the land back in the eighteenth century. It was important for him to be able to trace things back. It established who he was and what he was entitled to.

In this genealogy, Matthew traces Jesus’ bloodline to two specific people. What’s interesting is that promises were made to both of them. What Matthew is doing here is showing that Jesus is the legitimate heir and fulfillment of the promises made to these two particular people, promises that looked like they had been lost forever. Not only does Matthew include them in the genealogy, but he underlines them in verse 1 so that we don’t miss them. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

What does it mean that Jesus was the son of David? David was the greatest king in Israel’s history. God had promised David, “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). God had told David that his descendants would reign forever. That seemed like madness. Israel had no king. Herod was king when Matthew wrote this, and he sure didn’t like the thought of anyone else claiming to be king. You sure didn’t go around bragging about being part of a royal family. But that’s what Matthew does here. He says that Jesus is a son of David. That’s a claim to royalty. Matthew is saying that Jesus is qualified to be the king promised to David, the king whose throne is established forever.

But there’s more. He’s also the son of Abraham. God had promised Abraham:

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

Here, Matthew is saying that Jesus is qualified to be the fulfillment of this promise to Abraham. Jesus is the one who fulfills the promise to be a blessing to the whole world. Matthew is making sure that Jesus’ résumé states clearly who he is qualified to be: the promised king, the one who will bless the whole earth.

Matthew is saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of two thousand years of God’s promises. All the promises of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Paul wrote, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

You thought that this was a boring genealogy? It’s nothing of the sort. It’s already told us that the birth of Jesus is a new beginning, and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. But there’s more.

Third, the birth of Jesus includes all of us.

My grandfather used to talk about being descended from pirates. I have no way to know whether this is true or not, but I kind of hope so. The truth is that all of our family trees have some shady characters. But Matthew goes out of his way to include shady characters in this list.

On one hand, you have kings on this list. That’s pretty cool. Matthew is saying that the story of Jesus includes those who have power and prestige and position.

But Matthew gives us the other side as well. It’s clear in reading this list that Matthew has been selective in terms of the people he includes. He leaves some in, and he leaves some out as well. So it’s striking that he included some people that most would have left out. Most ancient genealogies didn’t include women, unless they were famous great women. But Matthew lists four women who are prominent and anything but great:

• Tamar in verse 3 - In Genesis 38 we read that Tamar acted as a prostitute and tricked her father-in-law into making her pregnant so that she could continue the line of her husband.
• Rahab in verse 5 - She was a prostitute and a foreigner who courageously rescued the Hebrew spies.
• Ruth in verse 5 - She was another foreigner, a Moabite under the Old Testament curse against Moabites found in Deuteronomy 23: “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever” (Deuteronomy 23:3). She was a descendent of the incestuous Lot.
• Uriah’s wife in verse 6 - She was the woman involved in David’s scandalous affair and cover-up.

So in this list you have great people, but you also have people with a past. You have men, women, adulterers, prostitutes, heroes, and Gentiles. Jesus is Savior of them all. Right from the start, Matthew is telling us that Jesus is immersed in the gritty and seamy side of fallen humanity. No matter who you are, people like you are already part of Jesus’ story. Right from the start, God chooses the most sinful, broken, and unlikely people - people like you and me.

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther preached a sermon and said:

Christ is the kind of person who is not ashamed of sinners—in fact, he even puts them in his family tree! Now if the Lord does that here, so ought we to despise no one … but put ourselves right in the middle of the fight for sinners and help them.

That’s great news. Christ is the kind of person who is not ashamed of sinners.

The genealogy tell us that the birth of Jesus is a new beginning and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. It also tells us that Jesus is not ashamed of sinners.

Friends, don’t let this genealogy fool you. Don’t think it’s the boring prelude to the exciting stuff that’s going to come later. This is story-telling at its best. Right from the beginning, Matthew wants us to understand that the birth of Jesus marks a new beginning. The birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. The birth of Jesus is good news for all kinds of people, people like you and people like me.

Two responses this morning. First, be amazed. It’s amazing to think that God would give us a fresh start, that he would begin to undo all that’s wrong in the world. It’s amazing that he would choose to do this by sending his Son as a baby to be born in Bethlehem. It’s amazing that he would choose to fulfill all the promises he’s made through Jesus. And it’s amazing that he would choose to include messed-up people in all of this. Yet that’s what he’s chosen to do. Worship him this morning. Marvel again that God would choose to do something this amazing.

Second, join the story. I hope you’ve put your faith in Christ. I pray that you’ve had that fresh start through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I really pray that you’ve seen all of God’s promises reach their fulfillment in Christ. And I pray that you’ll realize that this story includes you, no matter how unlikely a person you may be.

In his commentary on this passage, Matt Woodley writes:

One day in a hole in the Milky Way called planet Earth, among an odd group of people, Jesus the Messiah came to his people. It’s a true story that reads like fiction. What adventures, dangers and delights will Jesus encounter? And if we follow him, what adventures shall befall us? Where will this Gospel of mercy lead us? Hold on, we’re in for the tale — and the adventure — of our life.

In Whom Do You Trust? (Isaiah 7-9)

If you were to ask me what qualities I appreciate in others, near the top of the list I would have to put one that always impresses me: self-reliance. I love stories of people who dig down deep and persist against the odds and prevail. I'm a sucker for movies like this, and I'm impressed if you're a person who's dependable and self-reliant.

That's why I love the story of the English Victorian poet William Ernest Henley. He fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone at the age of 12. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 25. In 1875, he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. You've heard this poem:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

I love stories like this. Who doesn't like to have that kind of self-reliance and determination to make it on their own terms? The problem is, according to the Bible, that self-reliance could destroy you. And surprisingly it takes a baby born on Christmas morning to teach us that it's fatal to rely on ourselves. Our only hope is to rely on, of all things, a baby sent by God.

Relying On Ourselves

Let me back up a little. This evening I want to give you an overview of a message from God given to someone who was facing this very issue.

The date is 735 B.C. King Ahaz has just begun his reign in Judah. He's young and faced with the threats of Syria and Northern Israel. The question is: how is he going to respond to these threats? Will he trust in God for deliverance, or will he put his faith in other nations?

Listen to what happened. Isaiah 7:2 says:

Now the house of David was told, "Aram has allied itself with Ephraim"; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.

When Ahaz - the house of David - heard about the alliance of Aram and Ephraim (Syria and the northern kingdom), he panicked. He didn't have to. In fact, in verse 4 God says:

Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood--because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.

But that didn't stop Ahaz. He did panic. Tragically, Ahaz chose to put his trust in Assyria, his worst enemy. Essentially he lay aside trust in God and compromised his nation's unique identity. Instead of being distinct and becoming a blessing to the nations, Judah loses its identity and becomes enslaved.

In chapters 7, 8, and 9, God, through the prophet Isaiah, keeps coming after Ahaz: Will you trust in God, or will you put your trust in something else? And hear this: Isaiah says that if we trust in God we will be saved. But whatever we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us. Let me say that again: whatever we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us.

You get to the end of chapter 8, and it's a pretty dark picture. People are consulting mediums and spiritists instead of God. They end up distressed and hungry, cursing king and God. "Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness" (Isaiah 8:22).

Do you see what God is saying through Isaiah? Self-reliance, and reliance on others, is deadly. It will lead you to put your trust in the very thing that will kill you. It's like taking medicine that actually turns out to be poison. Self-reliance - making it on our own terms - is deadly, Isaiah is telling us, and it will destroy us.

Listen to me this evening. You're not Ahaz, but tonight we all face the same question: In whom do you trust? I've found it easy to put my trust in the opinion and help of others, or in certain relationships we have - our spouses, our kids, our networks. I know some who feel secure when their bank account reaches a certain level. Others - and it's clear this isn't me - are putting trust in maintaining our looks. It's a losing battle against time. Others of us are putting our trust in our resume. Isaiah is asking us to confront this question, and he's warning us: whatever we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us.

Relying on a Baby

If this is true, how do we come to trust in God? Twice in these chapters, Isaiah gives us a surprising alternative to trusting in anyone but God. But it's not what you'd expect. In chapter 7, Isaiah challenges Ahaz and Judah to put God to the test to prove that he's reliable, that he will destroy the two kings that are threatening him. Ahaz refuses, probably because his mind is made up. But despite his refusal, God offers him a sign:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

What is Isaiah saying here? The failure of the earthly king to rely on God means that God will send a baby born to a young woman of marriageable age. Before that son is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the opposing kings will be destroyed, but they will be replaced by an even worse invader: Assyria.

Who is this child? There are lots of options. One of the best options is the son that Isaiah had in the very next chapter (Isaiah 8:3). Isaiah names the child "sign-child" which is a pretty good hint that this is a fulfillment of the prophecy! This child being born is a sign that we can trust in God instead of relying on ourselves.

But that's not the only time that the birth of a son comes up. In chapter 9, Isaiah once talks about a baby being born. Isaiah describes the birth of a wonderful child:

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace

there will be no end.

He will reign on David's throne

and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

with justice and righteousness

from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the LORD Almighty

will accomplish this.
(Isaiah 9:6-7)

God says we can trust him because of a baby born to a young woman, and now God says he can trust him because of a child who will take the world stage, who will be the king to end all kings. He will be "God with us" not only to deal with the Syrians, but he will be a King who delivers us from all threats, and who begins an endless rule of justice, righteousness, and peace. God himself will accomplish this. We don't need to do it ourselves or rely on ourselves; God will do this for us.

Who is this baby? It turns out, actually, to be the same baby as the one Isaiah talks about in chapter 7. You see, chapter 7 probably does refer to Isaiah's son, but it also turns out to refer to an even greater Son who was born. In Matthew 1:22-23 we read:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").

Jesus is the son who is a sign to us that we don't have to rely on ourselves or to prop ourselves up with things that will destroy us. We can rely on God because his power is enough. And just so we're sure, he sends us the sign of a baby born to a young woman of marriageable age. His name is Jesus.

And the child of Isaiah 9? In Luke 1:32-33 the angel says to Mary:

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.

Jesus is that child who is born who will deliver us. He's the one who is sent by God and will save us, since we can't save or rely on ourselves.

Isn't it strange that in contrast to armies and kings, Ahaz is asked to look at a baby? Maybe not. Because we're asked to do the same thing. Christmas is all about the message that it's fatal to rely upon ourselves. Our only hope is to rely on, of all things, a baby sent by God.

Let's pray.

We admire self-reliance. But the Bible teaches us that self-reliance is deadly. It will destroy us. Ahaz relied on kings and armies. We rely on our own strength, our money, our accomplishments, our relationships. whatever we trust in place of God will eventually turn on us and destroy us.

God sent us a sign so that we would know we don't have to rely on ourselves. That sign is Jesus. He is the King who is like no other, and his reign will never end.

Father, may we see Jesus tonight. May we rely not on ourselves but on him. May we put our hope not on human strength or power but in God-in-the-flesh, in the King who came to live and die and be raised again so that we could be saved. It's that King we worship at Christmas, the King who now sits on the throne. In his name we pray. Amen.

At the End of Hope (Micah 5)

One of the best books I've read this year is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. It's the true story of Louie Zamperini, a rebel child who became an Olympic runner, and who later became a prisoner in one of Japan's most brutal POW camps.

Near the end of the book, Louie has survived the war. He's married and he has a young daughter. But his life is a mess. Every night he's haunted by dreams that he can't escape. He wakes up one night from a dream and finds that he's choking his wife. He's emotionally broken and an alcoholic. "He was drinking heavily, slipping in and out of flashbacks, screaming and clawing through nightmares, lashing out in fury at random moments." Eventually his life became completely unbearable. His wife, after doing all that she could to persist, left him. Louie had survived a war, but he couldn't survive the aftermath. He's completely broken.

The reason I bring that up is because I know a lot of people who have the same story. The details are different, but the stories are the same. Having survived and suffered much, they get to the end of their resources and find there is no hope. We're not talking temporary setback here. We're talking a complete and utter collapse of one's life; the complete loss of hope; complete and utter despair.

Complete Collapse of Hope

The passage we read this morning begins with this very situation. Micah 5:1 says this:

Marshal your troops now, city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel's ruler
on the cheek with a rod.

Let me set the scene for you. Israel had gone from being a great nation to the edge of ruin. As Micah prophesies, the heyday of King Uzziah's reign is over. Assyria has become a new world power. The old world of relative security is over, and a new world of uncertainty is here, and Assyria is a major threat. The people were relatively wealthy and comfortable, but it all looked like it could come to a sudden end.

So what's the message? You can endure bad news with a little bit of hope. It doesn't even take much hope. God has shown himself more than equal to the challenges that Israel has faced. No matter how bad things may seem, there's always hope when God comes through.

But that's not the message of Micah. Micah actually says that God is against his people. Micah brings a series of oracles against Jerusalem. And leading up to chapter 5 Micah makes it very clear that war is coming to Jerusalem. Nations will approach in battle. They will lay siege to Jerusalem, and according to verse 1, the Assyrians will defeat Israel's leader with contempt. Not only will they defeat him, but they'll strike his cheek with a rod. Being struck with a rod on the cheek was a sign of great humiliation. The news is not good.

This is not the news that they wanted to hear. What makes it worse is that other prophets - false ones - were bringing messages of hope. Micah is saying, in contrast, that the kingdom of Israel is going to be destroyed. They were going to be ruined. Jerusalem was about to face a siege of terror, death, and destruction. It was not good news for Jerusalem.

Sitting here some 2,500 years later, it's hard to get very worked up about the collapse of Jerusalem. But the collapse of Jerusalem is indicative a problem we do face: coming to the place in which everything is lost. For the people of Jerusalem it meant that their identity and security was going to be lost. Everything they knew was going to be taken away. More than that, their aspirations would never be met. Their hopes as a people, as God's people, were lost as they realized that, in a sense, God had turned against them.

For us, it won't be exactly the same. But some of you have reached the point of losing your identity and security and your aspirations. For some of you the story of Louie Zamperini won't be unfamiliar to you. Again, the details of your story are different, but you know what it's like to reach the end of hope.

Some of you are there this morning. You can relate to the story of Louie Zamperini. You've already reached the end. Some of you have experienced the end of a marriage, the end of a career, the end of health, the end of hope. That's exactly the situation that Micah is describing.

What do you do when you come to the end of hope?

Hope At the End of Hope

It's in that contest that we read these famous words in verses 2-4:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,

though you are small among the clans of Judah,

out of you will come for me

one who will be ruler over Israel,

whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.
Therefore Israel will be abandoned

until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,

and the rest of his brothers return

to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock

in the strength of the LORD,

in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.

And they will live securely, for then his greatness

will reach to the ends of the earth.

One of the most significant words in this passage is the one at the beginning of verse 2: "But." What this means is that the hopeless situation is not the end of the story. We're about to see a reversal from a hopeless situation to hope.

And the hope is a person. Most of us are cynical about new leaders. If you've been around long enough, the new guy seems just like the old guy. We've seen changes in government enough to know that it's hard to pin our hopes on someone new.

But Micah says that this king will be like no other. Micah tells us three things about this king: where he comes from; what his heritage is; and what he's going to do.

First: where he comes from. Micah says that this king will come from Bethlehem Ephrathah, "small along the clans of Judah." Of all the clans of the tribe of Judah, the Ephrathite clan around Bethlehem would hardly supply a respectable army unit at times of tribal levy. It was one of the smallest families. Bethlehem was one of the most unlikely places. It was so small, it hardly made the maps. It's the most unlikely place. Yet it's also the place where King David was born. Micah is saying that this king comes from the most inauspicious place, and yet has the most auspicious origins. He's the king from nowhere, and yet the greatest king in Israel's history was also from the same nowhere.

But then we also learn about his heritage. We already have a hint with him being born in Bethlehem. But then you also have a puzzling phrase: "whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." What does that mean?

There are two schools of thought. One is that it's a reference to his ancient origins. It could be a reference to this coming king's connection to an ancient royal lineage that's traced all the way back to King David.

But other people see it differently. They see this as a sign that this coming ruler existed from ancient times, that he existed before he existed in a sense. He didn't just come into existence when he was born; he existed long before his life on this earth began. In other words, he is more than a mere human.

Which is it? From an ancient royal lineage, or preexistent? Yes. We're going to see in a minute that this promised king is from David's line, and yet he is more. He existed before he was born, before this world was made. He is the once and future king.

We've seen where he's from, and we've seen his heritage. Micah also tells us what he'll do. He'll rule over Israel, verse 2 says. He'll reunify the divided kingdom, verse 3 says. At that time Israel was divided into the northern and southern kingdom. Not only will he unify them, he will shepherd them, and they will live securely. And, we read in verse 4, his greatness will reach the ends of the earth. He rid Israel of its enemies, and purge Israel of its idolatry. He is a king like no other.

In other words, at the end of hope, when there is no hope, God will send an unlikely king. And not only will this king save Israel, he'll ultimately be the Savior of the entire world.

Who is this king? In Matthew 2 we read that Magi came from the east in search of a king who had been born king of the Jews. They assembled all the biblical scholars to try to figure out where such a king would be born. The biblical scholars said:

"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
(Matthew 2:5-6)

Do you know what Matthew is saying as he recounts the search of the Magi and the testimony of the biblical scholars? Jesus is that king.

He is from Bethlehem. God in his sovereignty used a census so that Mary and Joseph, who lived 110 kilometers away on foot, would fulfill the prophecy.

He was from David's line. Do you ever wonder what all the genealogies are about? If you read the genealogy in Matthew 1, you'll see that Matthew traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to David. Jesus is born of Bethlehem, where David was born, and he comes from the royal lineage of David.

Not only that, but he is the king who existed and ruled before he was born. His origins were of old, from ancient days. All throughout the Bible, we're told about Jesus who existed before the world began. When God identified himself to Moses, he said that his name was "I AM." In John 8:58, Jesus told religious leaders, "Before Abraham was born, I am!" In his high priestly prayer in John 17, he prayed, "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5). The Gospel of John begins:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)

And he is the King of Kings. He is seated today at the right hand of God. In Revelation 11:15 the angels proclaim:

The kingdom of the world has become

the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,

and he will reign for ever and ever.

What do we do with such a King? Years ago in England, Charles Simeon said we should do two things as we read Micah 5. First, adore him for his condescension and love. Adore him for coming to earth and humbling himself to become one of us, God in the flesh. But secondly:

Let us submit to his government-- Do we look for salvation through our adorable Emmanuel? Let us not forget that he came to be "a Prince as well as a Savior," a "Ruler" as well as an Instructor. Let us willingly receive him in this character, and cheerfully dedicate ourselves to his service. Let us be his subjects, not in name, but in truth; not by an external profession only, but an internal surrender of our souls to him: let us do this, not by constraint, but willingly; not partially, but wholly, and without reserve. This is our first duty; this is our truest happiness; this is the way in which he expects us to requite him for all his condescension and love; and it is the only way wherein we can manifest our sense of the obligations he has conferred upon us.

When there's no hope, God sends an unlikely King as Savior of the world.

Remember that Louie Zamperini was hopeless. He was suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress. He had slid into alcoholism. He had pretty much lost his family.

But one day his wife was in town. She was staying until she could arrange a divorce. They heard about this new evangelist called Billy Graham. Graham was virtually unknown in those days. Graham preached, and Louie got mad. The next day his wife tried to get him to go hear Graham again. Louie refused, but his wife wore him down. As he was bolting out of that meeting, something happened. God got ahold of him. In a circus tent in downtown Los Angeles, Louie came to know this King, and it changed him forever. The flashbacks stopped. He threw out all his liquor and girlie magazines. The next morning he woke feeling cleansed.

Resting in the shade and the stillness, Louie felt a profound peace. When he thought of his history, what resonated with him was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man...In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.

Softly, he wept. (Unbroken)

At the end of hope, Micah tells us, God sends an unlikely King as Savior of the world, and to be your Savior too.

Where God Lives (John 1:14, Colossians 2:12)

Every year it seems that a fire takes place right around Christmas that pushes a family out of their home. Just today a news article from Massachusetts reads, "6 hurt, 42 homeless, after Holyoke apartment fire." The article says that the fire was started by an electric space heater in a third-floor apartment. We shudder to think about the idea of families being left homeless, especially this time of year.

This evening I'd like to think about this theme of homelessness for just a few minutes, but not the way you'd think. I'm not going to talk about the homeless in Toronto, although that is an important thing to think about. I'm not going to talk about Joseph and Mary being sent to a manger, outside of their normal homes - although that does give us a picture of this theme in a way. Tonight I'd like to talk about the homelessness of God; what Christmas does about this; and what this means for us today.

So let's look for just a few minutes at the big problem: the homelessness of God.

You may never have thought of God being homeless before, but it's actually a big theme in the Bible. Some say that it is the major theme. So let me explain the problem as simply as I can.

The problem is not that God has never had a home here on earth. The problem is that God does, in some sense, dwell among his people on earth, but things keep getting wrecked. I know it's funny to even think of God living or dwelling on earth, but that's exactly what the Bible says that God does. God is meant to live among his people in relationship, blessing them, communing with them.

You see this first in Genesis. God creates the world; he pronounces it good. He creates man and woman, and then he dwells with them in the garden. He sees Adam's needs and meets them; he walked and talked with them in the cool of the day. The garden was supposed to be a home for God, and Adam and Eve were commissioned as his representatives to push back the borders of this garden until the whole earth became the dwelling place of God, and that everyone could enjoy God's presence worldwide.

You know what happened. Adam sinned, and all of humanity and all of the earth become contaminated with sin. This made the earth an unsuitable dwelling place for God, which is why you have all kinds of verses saying that God's glory can never fully dwell on earth.

But you do have, in limited ways, God moving back to earth. God called Israel, and he commanded them to build him a Temple. The Temple became the dwelling place of God. The psalmist wrote of the Temple in Psalm 68, saying that it is "the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever" (Psalm 68:16). You have pictures of God's presence showing up in the Old Testament. You may have even heard one of the terms for this: the Shekhinah, which means the dwelling presence of God, especially in the Temple of Jerusalem.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34-35)

But even this wasn't an adequate dwelling place for God. If you go to Jerusalem today, you'll discover that there is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore. in 586 BC, the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. It was later rebuilt, but God no longer lived there. One of the saddest passages of the Old Testament is Ezekiel 10, which describes the withdrawal of God's presence from the Temple in Jerusalem. Slowly, reluctantly, God departs from his Temple and from his people.

Think about this. This means that earth becomes, literally, a God-forsaken place.

I was trying to think of the best way to capture what this would be like, and I thought of a picture of the Michigan Theater in Detroit. It's a beautiful structure built on the site where Henry Ford built his first automobile. Look at it now. It's got traces of its former glory, but it's not like it's supposed to be. It's a symbol of what was supposed to be, but what now lies in ruins.

So the homelessness of God is a big problem. This world has become nothing compared to the way it's supposed to be.

But then Christmas comes into the picture.

Greek literature has stories about the plight of humanity. The gods looked and saw that something needed to be done. But in Greek thought, the gods were removed, like spectators, looking at the problem the way an audience does in an amphitheater or a stadium. The gods look on and wonder what they can do to help, but they're spectators, looking on from the outside.

But Christmas, according to Scripture, is about something entirely different. It's about God moving back into this God-forsaken world, taking up residence once again.

John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." The word dwelling literally means tabernacled. The Word - the fullest expression and communication of God - has pitched his tabernacle and chosen to live among us, but this time not as a building. You can enter a building and walk around a building and touch a building, but you can't talk to a building. This time God has chosen not to dwell among his people within a building; he's chosen to dwell in a more personal way, as God in the flesh, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.

In Colossians 1 and 2, Paul says something absolutely startling. Paul says that Jesus is the creator and sustainer of the entire cosmos. He holds everything together. There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. If you left today and travelled to the edge of the visible universe at the speed of light, it would take you 46.5 billion years. You can't picture how vast this universe is. And Paul says that Jesus holds it all together.

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16-17)

As someone has said, he keeps cosmos from becoming chaos. Paul goes on to say that "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him." And then Paul goes on to say something that will blow you away: "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives [dwell] in bodily form." (Colossians 2:9)

Do you see what Paul is saying? The One who created this universe, and who holds it together every single day, the One who is God in very essence and very God, took on a human body and became a single cell implanted in the womb of a teenage girl. The fullness of God took on a human body and moved back into the earth.

Do you see how this relates to the theme of God's homelessness? In Jesus, God has moved back into this God-forsaken world. He has not left it abandoned. Instead, he has come in his very flesh so that God himself is present with us in history. Christmas is about the hope we have that God has once again chose to dwell with his people. This world is not God-forsaken after all.

There's more to the story, by the way. Revelation promises that one day God will make his permanent home with us once again.

But let's conclude as we think about what this means for us this Christmas.

First, let's realize what we have in Jesus. The baby born in a manger at Christmas is not a cute baby. He's the Lord of the Universe. We're tempted to look to other things all the time, thinking that we need more than Jesus. When we realize who Jesus is, that changes everything. When you see Jesus, you have seen God. You don't need anything or anyone else. Paul writes: "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority" (Colossians 2:9-10). Where do you want to go for anything else? Where else would you turn?

Second, let's stand amazed at how determined he is to make his dwelling place among us. In Jesus we see God's relentless pursuit of his people. He is determined to be present among us to bless. In Jesus he has given himself to us wholly. He has not stood back as a bystander. He has come to earth to establish his presence among us.

This should lead us to amazement and to worship. Downhere sings:

Lowly and small, the weakest of all
Unlikeliness hero, wrapped in his mothers shawl
Just a child
Is this who we've waited for?

Cause how many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

So come, let us adore Him, the God who is not homeless, the God who has chosen to literally move in amongst us, the creator and sustainer of the world who lay in a manger - the One who was born to die so we could live.