Immanuel | Matthew 1:18-25

INTRODUCTION

The most mentioned Name of God throughout the Christmas season is Immanuel, God who is with us! Let’s learn this amazing Name. Turn to the passage below:

Story of Jesus our Immanuel

Matthew 1:18-21 

¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet^[ did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Matthew 1:22-25

²² All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

The disciple Matthew wrote this gospel probably after AD 70 for the Messianic Jews. And he begins with the genealogy.

Genealogy of Jesus

Matthew 1:1

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

In the Greek, it is “Genesis of Jesus.” In your Bible, you will have a footnote that says “an account of the origin.” This is a book of the Genesis of Jesus the Messiah, and what follows, is a genealogy.

Matthew 1:18

¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

 Look at the footnote of the birth of Jesus. The origin of Jesus the Messiah or our Immanuel was like this: Matthew uses the same Greek word for Genesis over here for the origin of Jesus our Immanuel.

Matthew is presenting to us the origin and life of Jesus in His gospel.

Matthew gives us two origins of Jesus Christ

Human Origin – Tracing from Abraham – David – Jesus. (Luke starts from Adam).

Divine Origin – From the Holy Spirit.

 BACKGROUND

Now you have a couple, Mary and Joseph. They are from a town called Nazareth. Since it is a small town, around 500 or fewer people would have stayed during the time of Jesus. In the ancient culture of the 1^st century, it is the parents who make the match for a marriage. This is a small town and everybody knows each other. As the kids reach the age of 10-13 years, the parents have a conversation about the right match, and the match is made. Now Joseph and Mary know this and they have known each other for a long time. At some point, they reach their late teens and their parents come together and negotiate and make a marriage contract. This is very official with witnesses and people from the community. It is way more than engagement in our culture.

Matthew 1:18

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^[: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

In the time Mary was engaged and staying in her father’s house, Mary had the angelic visitation according to Luke and she became pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1:19

Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

BACKGROUND

Now Joseph wanted to divorce her. Now in our culture, if needed people call off engagements without a divorce. For us, actual marriage is the binding contract between a man and a woman. However, it was an engagement for them. That is how serious this family engagement was. After the engagement, the boy would get to work, preparing for the marriage financial security, and a home. Typically a year after the engagement, the marriage would happen and the fiancée would move into the husband’s household.

So, there are years of history for this couple. So we are in this final stage of this relationship just before the wedding. It turns out that she is pregnant. How well would it go with a man? Luke gives the story from Mary’s perspective. Matthew gives his story from Joseph’s perspective.

Joseph’s Decision

At first,  Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant. This is no good news. As a result,  he wants to know ‘who and how.’ So Mary says that the Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. Joseph does not seem to have believed this story. Joseph knows that teenage pregnancy does not go well in that culture and that kind of religious setup. So Joseph is a kind man. He has every legal right to break the engagement. He does not want to do it publicly, so he decides to divorce her quietly. It takes a vision in a dream that convinces Joseph about Mary and to change his stance against divorce. He now realizes that the pregnancy of Mary is true and by the Holy Spirit. Joseph took Mary as his wife but did not consummate the marriage until Jesus was born.

Joseph was a Righteous man

• Commitment In Marriage
• Compassion In Mercy
• Consecration. To marry Mary, Joseph would be embracing shame for the rest of his life. He obeyed a dream.
• Control They exercised self-control until Jesus was born. They put to shame the people of our culture. People now say that we cannot control, and our emotions are weak. Joseph and Mary show us an example of self-control.

The birth of Jesus our Immanuel is real

In the Greek and Roman worlds, there are stories of different gods and goddesses taking human forms having relationships with humans, and birthing their gods. Matthew wants to separate what is going on with Jesus from what is going on in Greek and Roman mythology. This is not a fabricated story. The birth of Jesus is a real story.

If you are trying to present Jesus the Immanuel to the world, you would not want to share a scandalous story. The Bible records it because it is true. No one in their right sense would fabricate a scandalous story of an illegitimate pregnancy and present a big person. This is not fabricated, this is the true account of Jesus’ birth.

The Holy Spirit is the driving force in the birth of Jesus

Who is the divine agent through whom this life is generated in the womb of Mary? Holy Spirit. It is said twice.

Earlier Matthew told twice that the birth of Jesus is a Genesis story. Can you think of another Genesis where the Spirit is the one that is working to create and sustain life if there would otherwise be no life? Turn to the book of Genesis now :

Genesis 1:1-2

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

God takes this chaotic watery wasteland and amid that chaotic lifeless place, who is found there? The Holy Spirit. The personal presence of the Holy Spirit is there in the midst of that darkness and out of that comes the rest of Genesis 1, the garden of life and beauty. Again, we see that God is with us as a Personal God or Immanuel.

The same creation story of Genesis

It seems that Matthew is trying to say something very similar at the beginning of his Genesis story of Jesus. This is about creation like in Genesis 1. And about the generation of life where there once was no life. Furthermore, it is a marking of the life of Jesus the Immanuel as utterly unique and without precedent. There is something unique thing happening by the power of the Holy Spirit. We call this the virgin birth. This is a new generation of human life by God without the union of human beings. This tells us that God has the power to regenerate our broken lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The virgin birth is the action of the creation of a fertilized egg in the womb of an unmarried teenager who knew no man.

Matthew 1:20-21

²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

This tells us who Jesus our Immanuel is and therefore who we are.

So Mary is going to birth to this unique son whose life has been generated within her. It is all about the meaning of His Name and what He is going to do.

Matthew 1:21

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins.

JESUS

Here is the meaning of His Name – YAHWEH saves

What is Jesus going to do?

What is Jesus going to do? Save his people.

We thought YAHWEH was going to save His people, but now Jesus means YAHWEH saves and He is going to save his people.

The meaning of His name speaks of His destiny but also His identity.

This is point #1, what Matthew wants us to recognize about the Name of Jesus.

Who is Jesus going to save?

Who is Jesus going to save? His people.

Who is His people? See the genealogy. His people are the family of Abraham, of Israel.

What does Matthew say Jesus will save His people from? Their sins. Now, what about the rest of us?

Right here the meaning of the Name of Jesus and what He is going to do talks all about the whole storyline of the OT.

The story that shows the role of Immanuel

• The OT scripture begins with the story of all humanity in the garden.
• Humans are made in the Divine Image of God.
• They are made to reflect the Divine Image in this world.
• They are called to trust God’s definition of good and evil.
• They are to rule the world.
• How did they do in trusting God for good and evil? Did they pass or fail in the garden?
• They failed in the purpose of God.

God chose one family

So, God called into being one particular family. The family of Abraham becomes the people of Israel. This is God’s response to the failure of humanity. As a result, Humanity has failed, so God is calling a new family, one particular family. God rescues them out of slavery in Egypt He becomes their saving king. He gives them the Torah, the written instruction for their time and place about what it would like for them to renew their humanity, to become a people of justice, generosity, and a light to the nation.

Israel’s moral failure is the reason for the arrival of Immanuel

So how did Israel do this with the plan? They failed. Hence, God calls one particular line out of the family of Israel, a line of kings that comes from the line of David. These kings are supposed to guide Israel to obey God, live a life of justice, and be a light to the nations. But all the kings including King David failed.

All of that ends in having the people of Israel in Exile in Assyria and Babylon.

Then a handful of people returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple and things again got worse.

The Old Testament is the first part of the redemption story by Immanuel

That is the story of the OT, the Hebrew scriptures. It is an unfinished story.

• OT is part one of the redemptive story.
• Part two is found in the New Testament.

The Hebrew scripture is a story looking for an ending. What Matthew is doing is that he is presenting Jesus as the one who is coming to solve the problem of Israel’s sin, His people. But the bigger picture of the story is that this was God’s plan to solve the problem of the whole of humanity and the word that Matthew uses is the word, “sin.” Jesus is not only the Saviour and Immanuel to the Israelites but also the Saviour and Immanuel to the whole world!

So Jesus is primarily going to save His people, Israel first and foremost so that what He does for Israel can be done for all humanity and it is all about dealing with sin.

Sin is a failure, a moral failure

Sin is a simple fact that we failed 

Firstly, we had a goal as human beings to reflect the Divine Image of God and we have failed because the first man failed. So Jesus our Immanuel comes to rescue His people from their failure and the huge mess that has landed them in. He has come to rescue Israel and so ultimately from the failure of all the people.

Jesus is more than a moral preacher

This is Jesus, the Immanuel God. Jesus will have a lot of moral teachings, doing good, healing, and deliverance. But the heart of who He is is not a moral program to become a better you or have a better tomorrow. Jesus is coming to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. He is here to save us from our failure. If that is what Jesus is here to do, we also get to know something about ourselves as we deal with Jesus, that you and I have as individuals failed. That is not the best news to hear.

Good works cannot save us

So, some of you may think that I am not a bad person, I am a good person and I do good. We think that others are messy but we are fine. But the Bible says that all the evil in the world is due to something fundamentally wrong with every human being. That is what the diagnosis that the Bible makes. The Bible diagnoses that we are fundamentally away from God, broken, messed up, and not able to be good and we need rescuing. We need that rescue as an individual which will transform families, communities, countries, and the world at large.

We need Jesus our Immanuel

The story of Jesus our Immanuel  is asking us to recognize that, “I need dire help and I am in with the rest of humanity in such a dire situation that rescue and solution to the human problem can only come from outside of ourselves.”

The solution for human beings is not just being good to people or generosity, we need those things as a disciple of Jesus. But it does not get to the heart of the problem. Just doing good is not enough, being kind is not enough.

Jesus our Immanuel is the hope to the broken world

So what Matthew is trying to offer to us is that he is saying, “Read the Hebrew scriptures. They are one of the most profound analyses of the broken human condition.” Matthew is putting Jesus of Nazareth as the one in whom the only hope or solution or rescue and salvation is found to take us out of the mess that mankind has got ourselves into. Jesus is the only person with whom we can find the solution.

That is exactly the meaning of the virgin birth. It is a solution to God becoming human, a solution from outside of ourselves, being with humans and doing things that we are incapable of doing but it is a solution for the human problem because Jesus is also human. It is the divine and the human come together to save and rescue.

Who is going to save? YAHWEH or Jesus which means YAHWEH saves? The answer is that YAHWEH saves through Jesus.

Jesus receives the second name as Immanuel 

The first name: Jesus –  YAHWEH saves.

This is the second name: Immanuel – God with us.

 God Is Not Going To Leave Humanity In Its Failure, God Is Coming Down To Be With Us To Rescue Us.

Matthew 1:22-23

²²All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

He is quoting first from Isaiah 7. Isaiah 7 is a story about King Ahaz from the line of David. He is surrounded by two nations Aram and Ephraim. Isaiah makes this promise that a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

What is the name of this Son? – Immanuel

Immanuel means God with us. “El” is God, “immanu” means with us.

Hence, God with us means that this God who is revealed in Jesus is not going to leave humanity because of its failure. Moreover, He is going to come into the world and identify with the brokenness of the world go to the cross and die for us on the cross, and then rise again on the third day.

And then, God of the Bible is not an abstract or some distant being, but he is Jesus who has come to be with His people to save His people from human failure.

You may say that you do not believe in God because God cannot be seen. But I tell you, “I believe in God because I believe in Jesus.” He is a real person, a real human, but God. Jesus was an actual historical person who lived in 1^st century Palestine, we have the testimony of the eyewitness and historical accounts of Jesus. I believe in Jesus, therefore I believe in God.

I believe in Jesus and this is the God who is with us. God is with us and this God has come into our world to identify with the sinful, broken, hopeless, failed humanity. To deliver us and to bring hope to us. That is what it means for God to be with us. God sees us just as we are and he is committed to be with us.

How do I know that God is committed to be with me and to save me from this situation? I look at the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 28:1-20

¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, (the story begins with his people and it gets huge, to all nations) baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Who is God? – He is our Immanuel 

This is not the Jesus of history alone, this is Jesus our contemporary who is with us. Matthew is telling us that Jesus is alive and he is present right now.

Further, that is what Matthew documents for us in his Gospel. Read and you will get to know this Saviour who is with us and will save us from our failure of sin.

These stories about Jesus let us know more about Jesus and we get to know more about our condition. When we gather together or we worship together, Jesus promises to be present with us to remind us of what he did for us. So that He can make us into the new creation lifestyle and purpose.

The point is as we get to know Jesus we get to know about our condition as well.

ILLUSTRATION 

We have two children, Sam and Grace. Both, Glory and I have been living with them for so many years now. We have got to know them growing up. Sam is more silent or pensive and Grace is more outgoing and flamboyant. The beauty is this, as we get to know them, we get to know about ourselves as well.

To Know Him

Lastly, Matthew has written this book for the disciples of Jesus. When you and I get to know Him or we grow in awareness of Jesus as well as the presence of Jesus, we get to grow in the knowledge of ourselves. Who Jesus is, helps us learn about ourselves as much as we learn about Jesus.

• The Birth Of Jesus Is Real.
• The Holy Spirit Is The Driving Agent In The Birth Of Jesus.
• Humanity Has Failed. We are in Sin.
• God Is Not Going To Leave Humanity In Its Failure, God Is Coming Down To Be With Us To Rescue Us.

What does it mean for Jesus to deliver us from our failures and their consequences? He came to be with us through Jesus. Ultimately, He saves us when we accept Him.  And that is what you and I need to do, to talk to Jesus as we come to the bread and the wine today.

Lastly, advent is the time when we remember the coming of God into our world, to be with us, to identify with us, and to save us from the penalty of sin.

For more related sermons:

Virgin Birth Conceived | Christmas Sermon| Matthew 1; 18 – 25

The Call of Christmas 1| Christmas Sermon | Luke 1: 41 – 43

Righteous Joseph| Christmas Sermon| Matthew 1: 18 – 25

A Faithful Man – Jospeh | Christmas Sermon | Matthew 1: 18 – 25| 

Live Right | Matthew 1: 18 – 20