Longing for Immanuel

And thankful that on this kind of gloomy day outside here in uh Ohio, that you have come out to worship the Lord and we can be sunny on the inside.

Um I want to especially welcome our first-time visitors.

Um, my name is Tim.

I'm gonna be bringing the word this morning.

Um, Pastor Justin is out this morning, and so we're filling in, and uh um we're excited that we're sort of coming to the close of our Advent um series of messages as we think about longing for different aspects of the work of Jesus.

This morning we're gonna be thinking about longing for Emmanuel, longing for God with us.

As was read a few moments ago in Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 10 through 14, uh, we saw that this classic scripture is a scripture regarding the virgin birth of Jesus.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

And actually, two weeks ago, remember we canceled services last week, so I got the heads up almost two weeks ago, or a week and a half ago, that I'd be filling in for Justin last Sunday.

And so I've had a week and a half to repair a message.

So I actually got to write two sermons for the price of one.

Um the pay is zero, so you know.

Um but initially, whenever I saw this text, I thought this would be a great time to think topically about the virgin birth.

I'd actually never preached a message on the virgin birth, so I got pulled some books off the shelf and started reading up on this and looking at some uh some statistics of uh the percentage of people that believe in the virgin birth and reasons why they don't, and all this kind of thing.

But then as I started digging earlier this week into the text itself, having thought about presenting a topical message, I became so fascinated with the story that's behind this amazing prophetic uh word of the uh prophet Isaiah regarding the virgin birth of Jesus.

And so this sermon is basically rewritten, re-rewritten in order just to deal with the text itself and to let it take us where it will.

And beautifully, it does take us to Jesus Christ.

What is often not appreciated about the virgin birth is that it is at its core a sign.

It was a sign or a proof or a demonstration of God's saving presence with his people.

And according to our passage, as we'll read again in just a moment, it was the sign of a miraculous birth of a son that would be given by God.

And it was meant specifically to inspire God's people to put their trust in God and God alone and in his sovereign presence with them or with us.

And so the virgin birth was to be the sign of Emmanuel.

It would be the sign, the proof that God is with us in truth.

And God's goal for this, as we'll see in our passage, is that we, his people, become a lion-like people, a resilient, fearless, courageous, unwavering people in a terrified and terrifying world.

And so with this in mind, I want to invite you to turn your attention back to Isaiah chapter 7, verses 10 through 14, so that we together can renew our longing for Emmanuel.

Isaiah 7:10–14

Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, ask a sign of the Lord your God, let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.

And he said, Hear then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you also weary my God?

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.

So Isaiah the prophet here is delivering a message to uh from the Lord to a king named Ahaz.

Ahaz was a king in the southern kingdom of Judah.

He ruled the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and he sat upon the throne of David.

We're familiar with King David with he was in the biological lineage of David, and he actually ruled from the same city of David, sitting upon the same throne of David.

But things had gotten ugly for Judah under the reign of Ahaz.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign.

His father, his grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather were all really godly kings.

But this young punk, really, if you want to read the story about him in 2 Chronicles chapter 28, came to power and immediately raised up altars to Baal all through the land, initiated pagan practices, even sacrificed some of his own sons to the gods of the land, like the pagans did, and he closed up the Temple of Solomon so there could be no worship there.

2 Chronicles 28 · chapter mention

Not a great guy.

But due to political tensions between the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom, sort of a civil war thing going on here, Ahaz's kingdom was threatened by a coalition of forces.

Namely, Israel, to the north, uh, formed a coalition with Syria, which is on their northern border, and they joined forces and said, We're going to come against the southern kingdom, and we're going to take and plunder and take the land.

And so it is in this context of the terror of war, actually, that this prophetic word about a virgin birth would come to King Ahaz.

And we don't have time to read the entire passage or the entire encounter, but in brief, God through the prophet Isaiah is going to promise that his enemies would not destroy him and he would be delivered from them.

Which is amazing considering the fact that he was not a godly king.

We would read in Isaiah 7, verses 7 through 9, which is in the context earlier before our passage, God says this to him and makes a promise What your enemies have planned against you, you shall not shall not come to pass.

Isaiah 7:7–9

Within 65 years, they will be shattered from being a people.

If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.

So God was calling Ahaz, this pagan king, that sort of was the first of his kind in the southern kingdom of Judah, calling him back to faith in the one true God.

You see, Israel had long before already turned quite pagan.

But Judah, this was a new thing to have a pagan king among them.

And here God mercifully gives them a chance to trust and believe and return to the true God.

Even more generously, God challenges this fearful king to ask for a sign, to prove God, to prove that I'm not making things up, Ahaz.

I'm going to show you proof that there is the one true God, and he is with you.

And so in verse 11 we read, the prophet challenges Ahaz to ask a sign of the Lord your God.

Let it be deep as Sheol, that is the grave, the afterlife, or as high as the heaven.

Ask a big sign.

But strangely, Ahaz declines God's offer for a sign, which I think is probably based on how he responds to the prophecy and everything.

It's probably because he'd made up his mind he didn't believe in God, and no sign could convince him.

So then God decides on a sign that would be given to prove his faithfulness.

And in verse 14, our text, he says this the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us.

So this is our main idea.

This is the basic idea of the passage before us that God promised Ahaz the miraculous birth of a boy as a sign of his saving presence with him.

Now, for much of this to take on any great significance for us, we have to kind of put our feet in his shoes.

And just consider how horrifying a situation that Ahaz actually was in.

This wasn't a random prophecy at a random time coming while he was eating grapes and drinking wine or something in his palace.

He was terrified because he was under siege.

2 Chronicles 28, which is the historical background of this prophecy, records that the Lord, because of Ahaz's wickedness, had given this king over to the hand of Israel in Syria.

The reason they were able to be successful against him so far was because God had given them that leeway and permission.

And the passage says, and I quote, they struck him with great force.

What did that involve?

It involved them invading northern Judah and killing 120,000 of his trained soldiers and marching some 200,000 survivors back north to Damascus, the capital of Syria, to be slaves.

Further, Ahaz had gotten news that they were planning to keep going south to Jerusalem.

They were going to lay siege to the city, and they were going to take him and replace him with another king.

Isaiah 7, 6 says this regarding their conspiracy.

They said, Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabil as king in the midst of it.

So it's obvious this young, inexperienced, pagan king was outmatched in his days, and the days of his family were numbered.

So as we try to put ourselves in his shoes, just imagine for a moment you got a credible word that your home, like picture your home, picture your neighborhood, picture your street, your front door, that your home was going to be attacked and plundered, and that you and your family were going to be killed.

And that someone else was going to take up residence there and sleep in your bed and drive your car.

Imagine if you had a really credible source and there weren't really law enforcement around, like you were the law and you didn't have the power to protect yourself.

Imagine how disastrous and horrifying this situation would be.

You can start to feel your blood pressure rise a little.

And this is why we actually read in Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 2 that the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

Sadly, we're told also in 2 Chronicles 28 that instead of turning to God in this time of crisis, the God who had shown himself faithful all the way since Abraham and then Egypt and all the way through the conquering of the idols in the pagan uh idol worshipers of the land of Canaan, the faithful God had the back of Ahaz turned towards him.

And Ahaz rather turned and wrote a letter with a trembling hand to the wicked king of Assyria, asking him to bail him out of his troubles.

He had been given a chance, and he had turned away from God.

In some sense, I think Ahaz is a parable of each of us far too often.

Because how often do we handle our own crises this way?

We may even give a lip service to the Lord, and we we go to church, we read our Bibles, and we uh talk about Jesus with his family, and he's almighty to save, and he's strong, and he's big, and no one's stronger than Jesus, and we teach our kids this.

And then when crisis happens in our lives, our first instinct isn't to turn to the Lord.

In fear, we start racking our brains for all the ways we can fix our situation, even before we even turn to the Lord.

We respond in fear instead of faith so often.

We want to blame our problems on in our responses on maybe the pandemic or on our upbringing or our past or our own personal limitations.

But really, our crises, all they do is reveal what's going on in our hearts already.

What is truly going on in our hearts when we respond in fear to our troubles, is that we have a man-sized view of God and a God-sized view of our fears.

We have a man-sized view, a little small little caricature view of God, and then a God-sized view of our troubles.

I want to quickly show you from our text exactly how this works because this is what was going on in Judah.

And if you think about Isaiah, he was a prophet from Judah.

Jerusalem was likely his hometown.

And so he too would be with the people that were going to be captured, possibly killed, at best, taken as a slave.

And he too was tempted to fear like all of his countrymen, and to think in his heart, you know, trusting God is great and everything, and it sounds good, but when it comes down to it, what we really need is to beg Assyria to come and defeat Israel and Syria.

And so God in Isaiah chapter 8, just maybe one page over in your Bible, in Isaiah chapter 8, verse 11 through 14, God speaks to Isaiah and he warns him to not respond this way.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention Isaiah 8:11–14

The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand upon me and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy.

This is what God said.

Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.

But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.

Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he will be a sanctuary.

On one hand is sanctuary, and on the other hand, for those who trust in him, and on the other hand, he'll be a stone of offense, that is a stumbling stone, a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel who respond in unbelief.

God will be a sanctuary to his people, and he'll be a stumbling stone to those who doubt.

So this stern but loving exhortation from God to Isaiah really it's occupied my mind all week as I've been thinking about this passage.

And it truly is a life-shaping idea, a worldview-altering concept.

And I want us to explore that for just a moment.

So picture this God lovingly but firmly places his hand heavily, Isaiah says, upon him, like a strong father, grabs a son up and puts his arm around him and says, Son, don't be afraid like all the other kids are afraid.

You don't have to be afraid.

I'm going to protect you.

I want to ask you just a real personal question.

Are you pretty much afraid of what everyone else is afraid of?

If everyone's afraid of an economic collapse when they think about retirement, think about working so hard to put just a nest egg somewhere in the bank.

And but then to think that, as has happened numerous times in numerous economies throughout human history, even in the last hundred years, you think that all it takes is hyperinflation and all the money you worked for literally becomes uh pocket change.

In the Weimar Republic, um, it was said that people's life savings dumped in wheelbarrows, they would go to the local market just to buy some bread.

That's what people are afraid of, right?

Well, are you, as a child of God, are you afraid of the same thing that people are afraid of?

Are you anxious of maybe of the virus that's going around, taking your life for the life of a loved one, and you live with this low-grade anxiety about waiting for the next shoe to drop?

What's going to happen now?

Are you afraid of what everyone else is afraid of?

Or maybe you're on the other end of the spectrum and you kind of mock people that are really afraid of the virus, but you in your heart are afraid that the way the government's handling this is gonna usher in a new police state or a leftist sociology, uh socialistic oligarchy, and you're angry and you're afraid.

You see, the fact is the enemy doesn't care what you're afraid of, so long as you're afraid.

He doesn't care if you're right or left or in the center or wherever you are, all he cares is that you're afraid and not trusting God.

Fear works in every direction, no matter your preferences or your politics.

And this, I think, is our story.

Our story is that we have a man-sized view of God and a God-sized view of our fears.

And so we fear what everybody else fears.

Some of us fear being persecuted for our faith.

You hear, you turn on Christian radio and you have a lot of people talking about it, a lot of sermons being preached, and it's probably a good thing because it's probably coming at at some point.

But there's a lot of fear even among Christian circles about that.

And I can see why.

And if you think about it, just in the public arena, if you just simply disagree with the mainstream ideas, sort of the progressive ideas of the new moral revolution, of all things LGBTQ, then you're immediately construed as being a right-wing, narrow-minded, religious fanatic bigot.

You can lose your job over it, you can lose your teaching post over it.

It's it's real, right?

Just for disagreeing.

If you don't agree with the social elites, your opinion really doesn't count at all unless it's counted against you.

That's a legitimate source of fear, but the people of God are called upon to not live in this kind of fear.

Maybe you're afraid of old age, of losing your health, of losing your independence.

Maybe you're feared, uh you're afraid of your kids growing up and growing distant from you, maybe geographically or emotionally.

The kids you've poured your entire life into, you brought them into the world.

You laid them in bed in their little crib every night.

You watched over them, and they're gonna grow up and act all independent and move off.

Are you kidding me?

Makes you mad just thinking about it.

You fear that maybe.

Maybe you fear the future of your dysfunctional marriage, and you're just not sure how you're gonna make it.

In short, we often fear what everyone else fears.

We often fear what those who do not have God as their God fear, and we dread what they dread.

And in each case, I think God's gonna show us in this passage, in each case, something to us is bigger than God.

And that is contrary to our faith, it's contrary to reason, it's even contrary to experience, because God has never lost a battle, God has never proven himself unfaithful.

Now, God, our father, and God Isaiah's father doesn't just warn Isaiah, doesn't just put that heavy, fatherly hand on him and say, Hey, no, no, no, don't even start.

You're not gonna be afraid because I'm your God.

But he actually goes ahead and instructs him, like a good daddy does.

He doesn't just warn, doesn't just chasten, doesn't just correct, but he instructs.

He tells Isaiah why and how to not fear.

He says in verse 13 of chapter 8, but the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.

Let him be your fear, let him be your dread.

One of the last times we read in the book of Isaiah the word holy.

It's actually there's one other time, I think, in chapter seven, and then in chapter six.

In chapter six, we read the word holy, and what we have is a scene where the mighty angelic beings called Seraphim in the very throne room of God are hovering over the throne of God, and they are flying, and day and night they are crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And they're covering their eyes to shield themselves from the gaze of God, and they're covering their feet to shield God from their humble feet.

Holy.

And then here we turn in chapter 8 and we see the word holy, and God tells Isaiah, just a couple chapters later, that to fear something is to regard it as holy.

Not holy in the sense of innocent or pure or pious, as we often think about it, but holy in the sense of transcendent.

Holy in the sense of weighty, of massive beyond description, of momentous, of life-altering and life-defining.

And thus, when God exposes the fact that that's what fear is, fear is worship.

Fear is worshiping the wrong thing.

Fear is making something that's not God into a God to be feared, and we forget the real God.

And so he tells Isaiah, to fear man, therefore, or to fear the future, or to be in terror of anything other than the Almighty God is to bow to it, to venerate it, to treat it as awesome in power, to treat it, whether it's the future, whether it's the economy, whether it's politics, whether it's family, whether it's relationships, anything, to treat them as if they have devastating force enough to destroy you.

To treat them like God.

And so God tells Isaiah that the answer to our fears is not just mind over matter or putting in soothing music or something.

The answer to our fears is to restore God to his rightful place in our hearts, to so fear him, to so trust his eternal purposes for us and for our world, to so be confident in his covenant faithfulness to his people, and to be so amazed at the history of his unpredictable deliverances that we can say with the psalmist David, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Emmanuel.

I mean, I thought we brought the kids out to go to a Christmas service, an advent service.

I mean, this sounds more like Braveheart.

I mean, hide the kids.

This is intense stuff.

Well, I'm glad you are wondering that because now we're going to think what this has to do with Jesus.

Have you ever visited the Rocky Mountains?

Or maybe seen Lord of the Rings?

Right?

There was filmed in New Zealand and you see these huge mountainscapes that are just gorgeous, and you see from a distance these tall mountain peaks that are just snow-capped and beautiful.

As I'm told, I'm not a mountaineer, where's Paul Dom?

He should be here.

Anyways, as you're approaching a mountain, you're going to learn that that big, what looks like a single huge mountain there is actually a series of smaller mountains that crescendo into one larger peak.

And this analogy isn't original with me, but I think it's a great way of thinking about biblical prophecy.

When you look at biblical prophecy, most often the prophecy has a smaller peak that is nearer the context it was given in and lesser.

But throughout history, it crescendos in its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

And that is exactly the case, I believe, with Isaiah 7.14.

About this prophecy about a baby born to a virgin, that the Lord himself would give a sign, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and call his name Emmanuel.

We usually look at this prophecy, I mean, you recognize the verse when we came in, and when it popped on the screen, you're like, oh yeah.

The prophecy about the virgin birth of Jesus.

We tend to think about our prophecy separate from its context, separate from all this history, this bad stuff that was going on, and we think about it just by looking at the peak, the crescendo, the crescendo, the crest in Jesus Christ.

But really to see it in its fullest glory and to be faithful to all of Scripture, I think it's important for us to acknowledge the smaller and lesser fulfillment in Isaiah's day.

And so let's think for just a few minutes about its fulfillment in Isaiah's day, and then we'll talk about Jesus.

This child to be born as a sign to Ahaz that God would protect him from his enemies, we find actually happens in the next chapter.

In Isaiah chapter 8, we read a fulfillment, albeit a partial fulfillment of our prophecy.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 8 tells us that Isaiah the prophet, who had just given this message to King Ahaz, went home, and he and his wife conceived a child.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

And it was Isaiah's child, son, that was going to be the sign.

It was going to be the sign to the king.

It's interesting that Isaiah calls her the prophetess.

He went home to the prophetess and they conceived a child.

That's a pretty cool phrase.

Not probably because she actually prophesied, but because she was the wife of a prophet.

Some of you guys, when you start thinking about that, yeah.

Call home to the prophetess.

I'm going to start calling Brandy the prophetess.

Anyways, it says that the child that would be born was a sort of time clock.

You see, he says, Ahaz, a child's going to be born, and that child's going to be assigned to you that God's with you and going to deliver you.

He goes home, conceives a child, and then he says this in the prophecy in chapter 7, verse 16 before the boy who's going to be born knows how to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

In other words, this child is like a time clock.

From the time he's born, you start counting days because he's old, before he's old enough to even understand what's going on and to make these moral choices, all your enemies are going to be vanquished.

Your fears will be resolved because God is with you.

So this child would be the sign.

This deliverance would be that soon.

But if you read chapter 8, you realize there's a couple little problems.

Because Isaiah's new baby first was not named explicitly Emmanuel.

Even though chapter 8 does uh address Emmanuel, and you could say he's talking to his son.

But his name, embrace yourselves, his name was Machershelah Hashbaz.

Whoa, that's the second longest name in all of Scripture.

Machershelah Hashbaz.

And his name is pretty epic, it means this he hastens to the plunder.

Man, if I have a son, that's going to be up on the list there.

He hastens to the plunder.

Once again, it's showing that this child, who's a sign of God's presence and his uh delivering power over the enemies of Ahaz, that God is hastening to the plunder on his behalf.

So it's kind of a problem, right?

That he's not called Emmanuel because that's what the prophecy said.

He's gonna be called Emmanuel.

But secondly, um, it's it's of note that Isaiah's son wasn't his first son.

So, in no way you can construe it, that was it actually a technical virgin birth, because Isaiah in chapter 7 had already talked about his first son.

And so Isaiah's young wife was not a virgin when she had this baby.

So is this partial fulfillment of the prophecy a problem?

It's actually not.

Remember when I was a junior in college, a very, very long time ago, um, I did a study abroad in the University of Guadalajara in Mexico for just a summer.

And I remember having a lengthy conversation with one of the professors there, and it turns out that he was a former Catholic, but it turned agnostic.

And when he was talking about reasons why he didn't believe uh in Christianity anymore, he talked about the virgin birth claim.

And I reached through my book bag and I grabbed out my Spanish Bible that I'd bought just before I went, and I uh opened it up to Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

And I couldn't wait to show him ink on page that here's a prophecy 700 years before Jesus was born that said the Messiah was gonna be virgin born, and to see what he's gonna do about that.

To my surprise, this particular version of the Spanish Bible didn't say La Virgin, it said La Joven, the young lady.

And he's looking at it, and I'm like, he's like, What's your point?

And I'm like, no point, just uh thought I would show you that.

Um and then we start talking about the local sports teams.

No, um, so but the fact is this Hebrew word actually is a little bit ambiguous.

And depending on context, the word alma in Hebrew can speak of an unmarried technical virgin, or it can speak of a young wife, a young childbearing age woman.

So in the case of Isaiah's wife, it would be that latter interpretation, right?

That latter uh uh semantic range of meaning there, that Isaiah's young wife would bear a child.

But then when we turn to the New Testament, we see that unthinkably, the other uh the other part of that range of the semantic range of the word actually comes true in Jesus when a technical, true, absolute virgin who never known a man has a baby, and he is Messiah through the Holy Spirit.

And so this actually brings us quickly to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, where we can finally gaze upon the peak, the majestic peak of its fulfillment of Isaiah 7.14.

And in Luke chapter 1, we find the angel of God appearing to the virgin Mary.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

She was betrothed to Joseph.

They were not yet married, but they were sort of engaged.

There's a little more, a little more uh commitment there in Jewish betrothal.

But they she was a virgin.

And Luke chapter 1 and verse 31 and following says this.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

The angel comes to her and says, Behold, you will conceive in your womb, not you guys, plural, but you, singular, will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, which means Savior or Deliverer, and he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

The Most High was God.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever in his kingdom, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

And Mary was just completely taken back and said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin?

Obviously to her, like she got the message.

It wasn't talking about one day when you get married, you're gonna have a son.

It was obvious from the message that this is gonna happen real soon.

And she says, How can this be since I am a virgin?

The angel answered her and said, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

The comedian and theologian Jim Gaffigan imagines that conversation between the pregnant Mary and Joseph when she musters up the courage to tell Joseph that she was pregnant, and his response is, Jesus Christ, Mary.

And she says, Oh, you already know.

So we keep in mind that encounter, like comic relief.

So we keep in that in mind that that encounter between Mary and the angel, we find out that Joseph, having heard that his fiancee was now pregnant, and like any you know, rational guy is thinking, oh my gosh, she's been she's been cheating on me.

An angel comes to Joseph personally and says, No, Joseph, not at all.

You and your and your betrothed to be wife are in the path of history.

You guys have been chosen to bring Messiah into the world.

And we read this in Matthew chapter 1, verse 20.

Matthew 1:20

Joseph, son of David.

There again, the angel is tying all this together.

Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Savior, deliverer, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

And then the the angel knew his Bible too, and the angel says, All this took place.

This is Matthew's commentary, to fulfill what the Lord had spoken to the prophet, behold, the virgins shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.

So when you first read Isaiah 7.14, based on just the Hebrew word there for virgin, you would naturally say, Well, it's got Christians who otherwise are good folks, how can they believe in the virgin birth?

I mean, good grief.

This is so antiquated.

But if you think about the Christian worldview, if you can believe in Genesis 1.1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

How hard is it just to create a child in Mary's womb?

If you can believe Genesis 1.1, you can believe the virgin birth.

Or maybe how about Genesis 1.2, where it describes the earth and it says this the earth was without form and it was void or empty, and darkness was over the face of the deep, that is the waters, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

A beautiful mirror reflection of what the Holy, what uh the angel tells us in Luke chapter 1 about the Holy Spirit's activity over Mary.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

He's gonna overshadow you.

This is an act of creation, the spirit brooding like a chicken over the eggs, brooding over her like he did the waters so long ago, bringing into existence this human nature of Jesus through the virgin.

And in case you didn't catch that, that is a wonderful mirror reflection of Genesis 1.2 in the new creation in Christ.

But if you can believe Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1-2, and if you can believe Genesis 3.15, you can believe the virgin birth because Genesis 3.15 says this.

It says, this is the very first prophetic pronouncement about a deliverer that would save us from the curse and would crush our arch enemy, Satan.

And it calls this deliverer the offspring of the woman.

Isn't it crazy that um in Adam we all became sinners?

In Adam, says Romans chapter 5, and in other places, it says that we have our sin and we're born into sin and we're born under condemnation through Adam, but then the deliverer comes to the woman.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Why would he say the woman?

Adam was the head of the human race.

Why the woman?

Because of a virgin birth.

In fact, I can't think of any other way, I'm sure God has his ways, but I can't think of any other way for God to bring into the world a God man than to leave the guy out of it, to leave that first man Adam out of the picture and bring into the world the new man, Adam, the seed of the woman.

Only the virgin birth facilitates this mysterious and wonderful reality of God with us.

This hope-giving reality of God, deity, and humanity.

And so this is our gospel conviction this morning, brothers and sisters.

Our gospel conviction is that Christ's virgin birth was the miraculous sign that God is with us to seek and save those who trust in him.

We can clearly see that the prophecy in Isaiah was about the sign, right?

The sign of a one-of-a-kind birth of Christ to a real-life virgin through the creative power of the Holy Spirit.

But think about this birth as a sign, not just that, oh yeah, Jesus was human and divine.

Yeah, Jesus is that perfect mediator suited to be, to the go-between between us and God, and think theologically about it.

But think about the sign of the virgin birth as a sign that God is with you if you believe in Jesus.

The sign that God is with us, the sign that there's a new king in town, that the long-foretold conqueror has arrived, that the promised seed or offspring of the woman has been born, born to live a perfect and righteous life, born to suffer the fullness of God's wrath against our sins, born to rise from the grave so that those who trust in him are reconciled to God and enjoy God's endless presence.

Like the sign of Isaiah's son, remember that that nearer and lesser peak in the mountain crest?

Like that earlier partial fulfillment of this prophecy, the birth of Jesus Christ, and his name, Joshua, Savior, deliverer, it likewise signifies the swift plundering of God's enemies.

As Jesus Christ's birth invades our fallen world and initiates a process of plundering the powers of darkness of the souls of men.

You know, if you're here this morning and you actually love Jesus and you believe in Jesus and you hope in him, and Christmas is not just another time to get new socks, but you actually celebrate the birth of Jesus and redemption that's in him, and all the things he's promised in the future are going to come to pass because of this precious one, you are spoils of war, a war that Christ is waging and winning on our behalf.

It's a miracle when someone gets saved.

Because Jesus is in the business of saving.

Finally, I just want us to ask the question how should we then live in light of these truths?

Our gospel vision this morning is this.

When we live courageously by trusting God to deliver us from all our fears, others will ask us a reason for our hope.

And we will point them to Emmanuel.

I want to just make this one main gospel application.

So you remember, as we said a moment ago, that in Isaiah chapter 8, God instructed Isaiah to not fear what the people fear, to not dread what they dread, but let the Lord of hosts, let him be honored as holy, and let him be your fear, and him be your dread.

Isaiah 8 · chapter mention

Well, this is the very same passage that in the New Testament, 1 Peter chapter 3, the Apostle Peter quotes when he writes to encourage fearful Christians.

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

And so I'm going to leave this with you this morning to encourage you not to fear what everyone else is fearing.

1 Peter chapter 3, verse 13 says this.

1 Peter 3:13

And he quotes Isaiah Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.

And then he adds this always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

Notice how Peter attaches the idea of living with no fear of harm.

Can you imagine that?

I mean, what would that be like?

No fear, except of God.

He's the fear that quells all other fears.

He attaches this idea of living with no fear of harm to evangelism, to spreading the kingdom of God, to plundering the powers of darkness of the souls of men, to bringing in the harvest of souls.

Why does he do this?

Well, because when you live like this, even partially, you're gonna find that it's gonna attract a lot of attention.

When you live like a lion-like, fearless, resilient, undaunted, unwavering Christian in a terrified and terrifying world, it is shockingly countercultural.

And it will draw attention, some of it, most of it unwanted.

Some people will look at you and they'll mock what they perceive to be you being naive.

Wow, they're just probably not watching the news.

If they only knew how bad things really were, they wouldn't be smiling like that.

They wouldn't be happy or joyful.

Some people will actually um call you fake because they simply can't comprehend not living in constant fear from this fear to that fear, from this temporary fix to that temporary fix.

But then some, Peter says, will ask you why.

And then probably not gonna be like, excuse me, I'm Christian.

Um I noticed that you are fearless, and so I want to ask you a reason for your hope.

They're not gonna do that for them.

They're gonna probably just in conversation dig around a little bit and try to figure out what's going on, where you're coming from.

And maybe you're gonna probably often miss the opportunity because you're not realizing that's what they're doing.

They're wondering in their hearts, what is making this person tick?

And so they're gonna kind of roundabout, see if they poke you, what's gonna come out.

And too often when they poke us, we complain along with them because it builds rapport, right?

You complain about the boss around the water cooler, you complain about the weather, you complain about coronavirus, you complain about politics, you complain about everything along with everyone else because you fear everything, everyone else.

And people look at you and say, ah, they're just like us.

And Peter says, No, you guys are to honor Christ as holy, and it'll transform the way you see the world.

And there'll be some people that want to know why.

And you can point them to Emmanuel.

You can tell them that God has guaranteed your future by sending Jesus.

You ever heard of Jesus?

Yeah, Jesus the Messiah.

I believe that God actually sent him into history, and he has made it all all right for all those who trust in him.

That nothing is bigger or weightier or mightier than him, and in the end, he's gonna win, and I believe him.

And I truly believe I'm gonna be on the right side of history because he is writing history right now.

As the hymn writer said, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust anything else.

The sweetest frame, but holy trust in Jesus' name.

The fact is, the sign was given.

The virgin did conceive.

The son was born, and his name is Emmanuel.

Let's pray.