Your smartphone probably has a translation app either already installed or freely available. If not, Google can translate most anything for you.
Matthew was quoting a verse from the Hebrew Bible; Isaiah 7:14 to be exact. There we are told “the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” He ‘googles’ “Immanuel” for us so we Gentiles know what it means.
His original audience already knew what it meant. They were Hebrew. Why translate something already known?
You translate for people who do not know the language so they can understand. This promise to Israel, about Immanuel, was not meant only for Israel. It’s translation makes it available to all people everywhere for all time. The baby born to the virgin is God with all of us – the entire human race.
God with us means God became a man. Jesus was born of a woman, having no earthly father. He wasn’t a man who became God, but God who became man.
Jesus was God dwelling in human flesh – God seeing through human eyes, God hearing through human ears, God speaking through human lips, God working through human hands, God walking through human feet, God living through a human heart.
God with us provided a Savior from sin. That’s why Jesus was born of a virgin. He was born without sin. He lived our life, faced our temptations, and living without sin, He bore our sin, carried our sorrows and died our death. He did it all that He might become our Savior from sin.
There is obviously a lot of doctrine that builds upon God with us. Tonight, as a devotional prior to Christmas, I want to look at the practical implications of God with us. What did it mean, and what does it mean, to have God with us?
God with us in the Gospel of Matthew meant lepers could be cleansed.
Matthew 8:2 And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
Matthew 8:3 Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
God with us meant a centurion’s paralyzed servant could be made whole from a distance.
Matthew 8:5 Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him,
Matthew 8:6 saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”
Matthew 8:7 And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
Matthew 8:8 The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.
Matthew 8:9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
God with us brought healing to Peter’s mother-in-law and then to many, many others.
Matthew 8:16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,
God with us meant that the wind and the waves were subject to Jesus.
Matthew 8:23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.
Matthew 8:24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.
Matthew 8:25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
Matthew 8:26 But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
Matthew 8:27 So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
God with us meant two excessively demon possessed men could be exorcised and healed. And all these things occurred in just one chapter!!
The Gospel of John lets you know as it ends that “… there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25).
God with us affected lives in other ways as well. Ways we sometimes don’t think about. Joseph was espoused to Mary who was found to be with child during the period of their engagement. A good man, he meant to end their relationship quietly. Instead he was called upon to marry her and raise the child. He was called upon to bear the reproach and shame of what everyone would believe to be his betrothed’s adultery or his own before marriage.
It’s not an easy thing to bear shame when it is deserved, let alone when it is undeserved.
God with us powerfully affected the cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist. His life became dedicated to announcing the arrival of Immanuel. It forced him into the desert, into living an ascetic life existing on locusts and honey. It brought him into confrontation with the most powerful men and women in his region – confrontation that would lead ultimately to his beheading.
Prior to his beheading John was imprisoned and had his doubts even about Jesus, sending to Him to ask if He really was the One they were expecting.
God with us forever changed the lives of twelve men whom Immanuel called to be His closest followers. They literally gave up everything to follow Him – a man who had nothing in the way of this world’s goods.
One would betray Him but the other eleven remained true. All but one of them died a martyrs death. The one who did not, John, was exiled for following Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew ends by promising God with us after Jesus left the earth. Commissioning His followers, then and now, He said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (28:20).
Does God with us still affect the world as it once did? Are people healed? Do winds and waves obey? Are demons put to flight?
Before we can answer those questions it is best to see how we are being affected.
Joseph was called upon to bear shame for the sake of God with us. So are we.
Hebrews 13:13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
The imagery of going “outside the camp” comes from the Jewish Day of Atonement. The sin offering would be taken outside the camp and burned completely. Jesus, your sin offering, was taken outside of Jerusalem and crucified.
We wear crosses and they are considered beautiful pieces of jewelry. Crucifixion, however, is not glorious. It is shameful – and all the more considering Jesus was guiltless, sinless, God with us.
I cannot bear shame without the aid of the grace of God. The question, though, is, Am I willing to bear shame at all? Or do I shrink back from the Gospel, and from serving, because I do not want to be mistreated or misunderstood?
Paul the apostle could declare, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16).
I’m not suggesting we are ashamed of it. But I do wonder why we keep it so much in the background of our discussions.
Christians try too much to engage nonbelievers in issues by arguments that have little or nothing to do with the Gospel and salvation. We try to prove our position using research or history or some such thing.
We’re right because God says so. That may sound ignorant but it’s profound. If God has clearly spoken then what He said is accurate, correct, the truth – no matter any argument against it.
The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart and only God can discern between the soul and spirit to effect real change. It’s the Gospel folks need – not a logical argument defending biblical values. Affect the heart and you change the behavior.
John the Baptist was called to an unusual life of sacrifice and personal denial. There is no command to celibacy in the New Testament. We are not called upon to always sell all of our goods to meet the needs of others; or to live communally. We’re not even commanded to tithe!
No, we’re not commanded because we are now governed by something far more potent than any command. James called it the law of love. Because Jesus loved and loves me so much, I return His love by loving others – friend and foe – on His behalf.
What does that look like? Well, it might look like something beyond what the law required. For example. We are not commanded to tithe – to give a minimum of 10% of our pre-tax income to The Lord. It’s up to us to give regularly, willingly, cheerfully, and sacrificially.
But if the law required 10% and love takes me further – doesn’t it make sense I’d be giving more than required under the law? At least 11%???
I’m not establishing a new law. It’s a way of thinking about sacrifice that is more genuine but still without condemnation. If I’m not going beyond the law, how much is it really inspired by love?
The eleven apostles were called upon to leave everything to follow Jesus. They were needed to carry-on the work He had begun. After Jesus ascended He sent them, and the other 109 believers gathered in the Upper Room, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Francis Chan has a quote that is worth contemplating. He said, “I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through.”
It’s a good desire, is it not? It’s certainly attainable since Immanuel is God with us until the end of the age.
One final thought. Holidays can amplify feelings of sadness. People can be so alone, so lonely, even in the midst of a crowd. Usually it’s because of some loss – some real loss. Many a death; maybe a desertion. Whatever, it hits hard.
God with us ought to be the remedy since He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. If, however, we blame Him for the loss, we are not likely to be in a place to receive His comfort as God with us.
Theologian Gregory Boyd writes,
To finite beings like ourselves, the world is ambiguous in the best of conditions. When the child we miraculously conceived dies in childbirth, when the cancer we thought had been cured returns, when terrorists kill thousands in a collapsed skyscraper, when we lose all our possessions in a fire, when we fall once again into our destructive addiction or even when we read about God destroying entire people-groups in the Old Testament, it’s easy to let our eyes wander off of Jesus Christ and to begin once again to concoct a god of our own imagining. In the war zone we presently live in, a world that is still under the influence of Satan, “the god of this world,” things often appear as a raging sea of ambiguity. We need something – Someone – we can anchor ourselves to. The anchor God gives us is Jesus Christ. This alone is what we can trust: God is decisively revealed in Jesus Christ. If our picture of God is singularly focused on Christ, as it ought to be, we must see God as fighting evil, not willing it.
God is never to blame. Instead He is with us in our suffering, in our affliction, working all things together for good.