Advent: Jesus, Our Immanuel

But we are in our fourth week of Advent.

Next Sunday is Christmas.

So we are coming right up onto it.

And our text this morning is one of the classic Christmas texts.

And so I'll reread it.

We'll read a little bit, make some sense of it, and really just ponder God's goodness to us.

So Matthew 1, 18 through 21.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

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.

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

Point number one is this.

In Jesus, you really are fully saved.

Really.

You really are.

That's the point.

Not like maybe, but you really are fully saved.

We could say Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

For the past few weeks, the World Cup's been going on.

That soccer.

Don't know if you're aware of that.

The four of us that didn't come to church this morning are watching it at home right now.

I heard there's a final game.

Y'all don't care because you're here, but it is a soccer tournament.

And wasn't that exciting when the US, you know, they advanced and we all pretended like we were soccer fans for like 10 days.

It was an amazing ten days for our country.

Um, what an amazing time for us.

So every four years, the World Cup, let me just fill you in because y'all don't know.

We don't know.

I just learned about this this year.

Every four years there's a World Cup.

It's a big soccer tournament in the world.

The whole, the rest of the world knows about it.

We're just beginning to learn about it.

Every four years it changes locations.

And this year it's been in Qatar.

Now, how they won the bid to host it is sketchy.

Maybe you've seen the Netflix documentary on FIFA.

Just a multitude of sins, really.

So the question is, is why do they why did they want it?

Like, why did Guitar want this?

It's a tiny, wealthy country that's surrounded by bigger, well, more well-known, wealthy countries.

Yet this this country's also known to uh of its mistreatment of groups of people.

Back in January, The Guardian published an article entitled, Could 2022 be sports washing's biggest year?

I'd never heard that term, sports washing.

I'd never heard that.

So here's what I learned.

For decades, this isn't new, but for decades, oppressive, horrible governments all around the world, these countries, they'll use sports as a cleansing agent over their sins.

So commit your atrocities, commit your sins, and then use a sporting event that has so much prestige and celebration that the world will just forget about your sins and remember the memory of the final goal or the big stadium or the big celebration, right?

I mean, it's sports watching as forgiveness and absolution.

I mean, it's a perfect sermon illustration, right?

I mean, that's like teed up for me.

Hitler did it in 1936 when he hosted the Olympics, the Nazis hosted the Olympics in Berlin.

Argentina did it in 1978 with the World Cup.

Russia did it in 2018 with the World Cup.

China did it earlier this year with the Olympics, and now Qatar is doing it.

Absolving themselves of their atrocities and their sins before the world by just spending enough money, creating enough prestige, enough celebration, that the world will forget of their atrocities and remember the celebration.

Now, you are not Hitler or Putin.

Probably, hopefully, most days, right?

I mean, some of you would be like, well, there's I have moments.

You probably do.

But you and I, we certainly are all looking for a washing.

Something.

Someone outside of ourselves to absolve us, to wash us from our mistakes and our failures and our inability just to get it all together perfectly.

And to be and to feel pure and whole and even righteous or whole again.

From that one big mistake that keeps replaying in your mind.

It was years ago.

And you'll just flash back to it.

Or it's the secret addiction or the secret motivation.

Nobody else knows about it except you, or the failure.

You just can't shake.

It kind of sticks to you.

Or maybe you actually read the Bible.

Like you actually read the Bible, you actually tried to live it out.

I mean, that'll mess you up because Jesus asks us some radical things, right?

I mean, Sermon on the Mount is the beginning of his teaching.

He says, radical things, right?

Don't, it's not, do not commit murders.

Don't even have anger in your heart, no lust, no greed.

Pray continually, be generous and kind.

This is holy and good.

This is who we should be.

And because of our inability to hold it, we're eventually crushed by it.

It's actually why Jesus was doing that.

He's saying, I'm the fulfillment of the law for you.

If you live by law, you'll be crushed and exhausted.

You will be condemned by it because it's exposing that we are sinners in need of a washing.

Something from beyond ourselves.

We're learning what we say every single week, and Sam just said it, that we're more broken than we originally thought, but in Christ, we're more loved by God than we ever dare to dream.

That's why Matthew writes in verse 21, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

So the people don't have to save themselves from their sins.

You don't have to save yourself from your sin.

You really are saved.

Jesus was a common name at the time, it had a huge meaning.

Jesus is the Jewish name for the Hebrew name Joshua.

Yeshua.

Yahshua, meaning to save.

So that word save, save is the Greek word sozo, meaning delivered and made whole.

In Jesus, you really are saved, fully delivered from the penalty of sin, not the consequences in this world.

Fully whole with God, your heavenly Father.

And this is done by Jesus for you.

All the forgiveness and all the righteousness you could ever need.

Nothing for you to add, only more for you to rest in and trust in and grow deeper into.

That's God's grace to us.

It's a real washing.

It's not a sports washing, it's a divine washing.

And Jesus has his power because he's not just a great teacher, which he was, he was Savior.

He's our advocate, 1 John says.

Maybe you remember that a few years ago we talked about this word, advocate in 1 John.

An amazing word, 1 John 2, 1 and 2.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Advocate's the word paraclete, meaning to represent in a legal manner.

It's an official binding relationship.

So whatever they achieve, you achieve.

I mean, amazing.

What a Christmas present.

And then you got chosen.

You are chosen for jury duty.

And you're on the jury duty and you're there and you're sitting there and you got chosen, so you're actually in the box, the jury box.

And the accused is there next to the accused is the accused lawyer.

And that lawyer, she will work on behalf of the accused.

No matter how guilty, she will work for the accused.

Because she's the advocate.

Whatever she achieves, the accused achieves.

And our role, as the accused, is to sit quietly and trust while she works for us.

Theologian Charles Hodge makes sense of it like this: the relationship of Christ to his people is that of a legal advocate to a client.

The former personates the latter.

The lawyer stands in the client's place.

It is, while it lasts, the most intimate of relationships.

You may not even have to appear in court.

You are not heard.

You are not regarded.

You are lost.

And your advocate, who for the time being is your representative.

The advocate, not you, is seen.

The advocate, not you, is heard.

The advocate, not you, is regarded.

I mean, that's the sufficiency of Christ as Savior for us.

Verse 22, Matthew 1, 22.

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 Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

So Emmanuel means God with us.

Point number two is this in Jesus you have forever belonging with God.

Secure forever belonging with God.

And you are never alone.

I've been watching the fifth season of The Crown.

Are you caught up?

I know maybe you switched over to Harry Megan.

I know.

I know it's good.

It's tough decisions right now.

Really hard.

So the fifth season of The Crown is uh it follows Princess Diana and her marriage to Charles, which is and the fallout of that, and her sadness, and like pretty much like the whole season's her and her apartment.

It's just the worst thing.

And like every episode, she's sort of like just crumbling into herself.

And then she's like, she's at the hospital volunteering, and she thinks maybe this new doctor will love her, and it's just worse.

That's even worse.

And then there's a scene with her and Charles, and they've had their divorce, and they're talking about the relationship, and it's it's just it's really heartbreaking because basically she's saying to him, you remember the scene if you've seen it, they're at the kitchen table there.

She's saying, like, I just wanted you to love me.

That's all I wanted.

But all I got was rejection.

Which is heartbreaking to watch someone, anybody, any of us, that we might long for belonging and only receive rejection.

It's our greatest fear.

Right?

To be alone at the lunch table.

To not belong anywhere to anyone.

Am I alone?

Where and to whom does my heart actually belong?

If they knew me, would they still love me?

If God knew me, if he really knew me, would he still love me?

Well, the promise we have in Jesus the Savior is that he is Emmanuel.

The word Emmanuel only occurs three times in the Bible.

It's here in Matthew, it's twice in Isaiah, a book of the Old Testament, 800 years before Jesus' birth.

And Isaiah 7.14, the prophet prophesies that Emmanuel will come to a virgin 800 years before.

Isaiah 8.8, the prophet prophesies that the people of God belong to this Emmanuel.

A couple of questions that have hit me this week.

I call them growth and grace questions.

Is first, if we think about Jesus, in Jesus we don't have to save ourselves, and we don't have to make ourselves whole by our own work.

So here's a very wordy question for that.

I was like, this is a really wordy question as I looked at it again this morning.

Just hang with me as I work my way through it.

What peace and growth, what peace and growth might occur as you draw near to Jesus for limitless forgiveness, righteous standing with God, and wholeness of heart?

A good practice is when we just write, you know, peace, growth, and then these different areas.

Like what might happen inside of you if we trust in the full sufficiency of Jesus for this rather than us trying to merit that?

What freedom, what growth, what transformation might happen?

In Emmanuel, that promise we have that God is with us, that we belong, that we always belong, no matter our condition.

Not as we should be, but as we are right now.

So here's the wordy question for that one.

What peace and growth might occur as you trust in Emmanuel?

That you are never alone and God will never leave you.

I mean, if that is true for you in your heart, what peace might you know in your heart?

What growth might you know in your heart, in your life?

What might that mean for your heart, for your soul, for your mind, for your life, your relationships, your work, your money?

What could it possibly mean if it's this true and this good?

The last word for us to ponder this morning is that word that we keep seeing over and over and over in the last couple of years.

Behold, verse 23.

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

Remember, behold is to pause, gaze, not just not just not just get to work for God, but be astonished by God.

Point number three is this, our last point.

Our faith practice is to ongoingly linger longer and treasure more the grace of God.

A few weeks ago over Thanksgiving, my in-laws, this was, I mean, an amazing gift, my in-laws for their 50th anniversary, they didn't want to party.

And so they decided to take the whole family, 20 of us on my wife's side, so the whole 20 of us, for their 50th anniversary, took us to the Dominican Republic, to an all-inclusive resort to celebrate their 50th.

And I continued my long legacy of accepting free trips, and so I went.

Laid by the beach, sipping mojitos, sermon prep, I was sermon prepping, lots of sermon research, I'll tell you that.

Because I mean, whoo, you go to the pool bar at 4 p.m.

The lunch meal is worn off.

Been a good bit of drinking there at the pool bar.

About 4 p.m.

was where the people watching got interesting.

People are dancing that should not dance.

And they're wearing speedos and bikinis, doing the limbo.

I saw things.

I need a I need a sports washing, is what I needed.

The final night there, all 20 of us, we had this amazing dinner out on the pier.

There's a picture of all of us.

The weather was perfect.

I mean, the sun was setting.

The children were the right amount of tired where they'll actually sit and just talk, but they weren't so tired that they're falling apart.

It's just the most amazing little moment there, and we had food and wine and dessert.

And at the end of the meal, at the end of the meal, each of her parents spoke to us, spoke to the group about what matters in life.

Where we can actually find peace, not just like an amazing dinner on a pier, you know, but where you actually can find peace when you're buried in work or buried in children or buried in heartache.

Where can you actually be saved?

And they just talked about Jesus to us and to our children.

How he gives peace.

And how he sustains.

And how he really is enough.

As we learn to trust him.

And they had us.

And what I mean by that is, like, like as a preacher, I know if somebody, like I can tell sometimes I have you, and sometimes they have like half of you, like, but they had us.

Like they had our attention.

They had us.

From age 46, the oldest child, down to age three, the youngest grandbaby.

18 people, they had us.

And when they finished, there was such a sweetness.

Yeah, of gratitude to be in such a beautiful place, right?

I mean, that's that's quite a gift.

But I think more so to hear such good news that transcends even that beautiful place, nobody moved.

None of us got up.

I've been to a lot of family dinners.

Right?

I mean, usually the family dinner ends, and you know what happens.

It's like, you know, you know, somebody's got to get to their bath time, you've got to get the kids hung, you got the little kids, and you gotta get to bed.

It's like, how how quickly can I escape?

Is what's kind of occurring at the end of the end of a family dinner.

Nobody moved.

We all just kept sitting there, lingering and treasuring that moment, beholding.

I mean, finally, the the waiters, they had cleared the dishes and they're just kind of hovering.

You know what I'm talking about?

When you stay at your table too long and the waiters just keep saying, You need anything else?

You know, hit hit, like off you go, off you go.

We want to go home.

Head to the pool bar.

We were just content to linger into treasure.

That's what happens when you experience something that's truly good.

Our calling is not to learn a bunch of information about God and then go work for him.

Both those things are great.

Information about God and serving God on both those things are great.

But it's got to come from a place that our calling is to be astonished by how good Jesus is for us, how sufficient he is.

How we can heal the guilty places and the shameful places and the busy places.

And that we learn, and we're learning how to linger longer, and how to treasure more.

To draw near.

To behold.

God came to save us, to save you, and never leave you.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

And you will call his name Emmanuel.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace to us, that despite our inability to uphold the law, what we should be, in your grace, you came to fulfill the law.

That in Christ we have all the forgiveness we need and all the righteousness we need.

That on the cross we know our sin is put upon you and your righteousness is given to us.

What a gift we have in the Savior.

And that you promise to never leave us.

Help us to linger longer and treasure more.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.