Immanuel: God With Us. First John 4:1-3 and 7-9

Good morning. Well, in case you were wondering, you said, why are we looking at 1 John? Actually, there's two verses in there that really struck me about, and let me just show you what, we're going to talk about God with us, Emmanuel. So, but there's two verses in what was read talk about Emmanuel coming, Jesus has come in the flesh from God, that's verse 2 in 1 John 4, and then that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. So you know in thinking about this message I looked at Dr. Chaffer and I draw a lot from him in doing this message.

But I'd like to start off with kind of a question or just kind of think for a bit here. What are the most important events that happened in history? And you know it's sort of who do you ask that question to? You can ask it of people in the world and you can ask it of scripture. You can look at scripture and say what are the most important events that God has given us in scripture?

I'd like to, and I'll have to kind of pair that with what man thinks about important events. So, as I said, there are two views presented. One is from man's understanding, and the other is from God's viewpoint from the Old and New Testament. So from man's viewpoint, I use the totally accurate World Wide Web as my source. You always get good information there, right? Well, you get information. Okay.

So I found one website that said, and it had the 100 most important events in the universe. So I picked the top, I just did the first five. The first one was the Big Bang. The second one was the formation of the planets. This sort of seems from an evolutionary perspective.

The next one is, I wasn't even sure what it even was. The late heavy bombardment, that's actually where the, if I understand the asteroids at some time four billion years ago, this is a hypothesis, crashed into the earth and caused all kinds of, I guess, good stuff, according to them. Then there's something called this Eon, Archie, I'm not sure I can pronounce it, and that was when the methane gas was in the atmosphere, no oxygen, and then, behold, we got some oxygen. And the great oxygenation, and I'm making fun of this not knowing much about it, and I apologize if somebody thinks that, you know, maybe there's some good thoughts here.

And then finally they get down to the evolution of the primates. That's one website. Another website had the top 100 or so events in human history. They didn't talk about the origin of man. They said humans domesticate plants and animals. The first cities emerged in Mesopotamia. The first wheeled vehicles. the first writing system appears, the ancient Egyptian build the great pyramids, and then amazingly enough, number 16, we got Buddha in there and we have Confucius in there in between those, but the Lord Jesus shows up in 16. So the world does, there are people, you know, life of Christ and the birth of Christianity, Okay, so now let's look at this from Schaeffer here, and this is what he lists as the seven major events from Scripture. And he starts off with one I didn't really think much about, the creation of the angelic host.

Second, the creation of material things, including man. Third, which will be our topic today, the incarnation. Fourth, the death of Christ. Fifth, the resurrection of Christ. Sixth, the second advent of Christ. And seventh, the creation of the new heavens and new earth.

So you see a totally different view from Scripture. Scripture is focused on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So many will say, that's kind of a narrow view, Roger. That's a very narrow view. You're just looking at one man and I'm not sure I really agree with that. But anyway, Scripture is consistent. Old and New Testament, the person of the Lord Jesus is a person in view.

His becoming a man and his death, resurrection, and second coming, and then the new heavens and the new earth. So that's what I'm going to talk about, the marvels of the incarnation. And this is a quote from Dr. Chafer. The incarnation is whereby a member of the Godhead, and that's a word that's used in Scripture a lot for the Trinity or the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, entered permanently into the human family and became part of it. And then he goes on, Scripture, are ever concerned to set forth in noble terms the Eternal One, God the Son, who became incarnate.

So that's what Scripture's about. That's what it's about. And you may say, boy, there's an awful lot of history in there, but the person of Christ is what's in focus. So some important points. The first point is that when the Lord Jesus spoke, He came and He presented God's wisdom. He talked about who God was, who His Father was. But that wasn't His primary reason for coming.

He then came, another possibility, He came to show God's power. He healed people. He healed every person that came to Him. He resurrected Lazarus and brought to life others. But His power wasn't the main focus. He rather came to manifest the love of God. And it wasn't like, you know, people look at the life of Christ and they say, well, you know, He was a great teacher and He was so compassionate and He healed people. What a marvelous man. What an example to mankind. But that isn't why He came. He came for one event. One singular event.

And that's actually described in Romans 5.8.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So he came, Courtney talked about that beautifully this morning in the announcements, Christ came to shed his blood on our behalf. So that was why Christ came, that's why God is with us. But let's look at kind of the details behind that.

So scriptures present, one I'm going to present here are different people in scripture that, or different passages in scripture that show us about the incarnation. So Isaiah predicted about Emmanuel coming. He also predicted about the birth of the God-man. The angel Gabriel visited Mary in Luke's gospel.

We're going to look at that. We're going to look at John's gospel, the word became flesh. We're going to look at Paul's description of Christ's nature and form. And then lastly we're going to look at Paul describing the creative power of Christ. So we're going to look at those six passages and what we're going to see, what's interesting in those passages you're going to see the Lord Jesus presented as the deity for who He is as a member of the Godhead. And we're also going to see His humanity presented in many of those passages. And that's going to be the theme today. We're going to see Christ and His deity and Christ and His humanity. Okay, so the first one, Isaiah's prediction.

In Isaiah 7.14, it says, Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. So the Old Testament, the prophets in the Old Testament, in the past, they gave a prophecy about what was to come, and that's the case of Isaiah here. They prophesied about a God-man who would come via human birth, and his name would be God is with us. And I like what Schaeffer had to say. He said, you can really think about God is now one of us. He has become one of us. But there's some qualifications we need to make, and we'll see that along the way. But he has become one of us.

Then another prediction of Isaiah, in Isaiah 9, very familiar one. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. So looking at this, we see a two-fold, and I actually hadn't realized, and I started studying this, I hadn't realized that right in that first phrase is a two-fold person is talked about. A child will be born into the human race. But read carefully, the second part, but a son, the son of God will be given. So we're gonna see this, this is where we're gonna see many of these places where he's fully God and fully man.

The child is born, he will sit on David's throne, rightly so. He will be of his lineage from a human perspective. The son that is given will bear the title of deity, which are following, wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. So that's Isaiah's description from the Old Testament. So let's move to the New Testament.

Very familiar passage. the angel Gabriel visits Mary. Actually, one of the best passages that talks, kind of makes us marvel about the, how God, how did God do this? How did God have a man have have deity come in and become a man how did he do that and in Luke chapter 130 to 35 it says and the angel said to her do not be afraid Mary for you have found favor with God and behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of his father David." Mary said to the angel, "'How can this be, since I am a virgin?' The angel answered and said to her, "'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" Just an incredible passage.

So a couple, some observations here. It was conception of God and mankind in Mary. And notice from the passage it says, but the child shall be called the holy child. And I really like what Schaeffer has here. I think this really, to my mind, is an excellent observation. Christ was virgin born asserts that he received no fallen nature from his father. and no fallen nature was permitted to reach him through his mother. And that's a marvel. How that, you know, how that happened is, you know.

And I was also going to point out, I looked at the word conception. I was kind of, so I looked at, and it's only four occurrences in scripture, that word. I don't have the Greek word before me. But anyway, it occurs twice of Mary and her miraculous conception and twice of her relative Elizabeth. So that term conception is used of this miraculous God-man and is also used of an ordinary conception of John the Baptist from her sister Elizabeth. So I thought that was interesting. Four times it's used in scripture.

The Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. So here we have the marvel of the incarnation, fully God and fully man. Okay, let's go on to John's Gospel. Another tremendous passage. It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Then we skip to verse 14. There's some cool verses in between. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So let's just kind of dig in here, just some really The word was in the beginning. Thinking about that, I say this passage many times and I've kind of gone back and forth. When is in the beginning talking about? Is that talking about in the beginning as described in Genesis 1.1? That's a possibility. But I think it goes even farther back. I think that's an eternity past. And the word here is this word logos.

It refers to the use of the pre-incarnate Christ, Christ with the Father, Son, Holy Spirit in eternity past. The pre-incarnate Christ and it's the idea of the, we have the written word and then we have the living word, which is the Lord Jesus. And so it says several things about the Lord Jesus, the word.

He was with God, so he was separate from God. And He was God. So this affirms His deity. He was God but separate from God. So then we kind of have my little dividing line. So this is Christ's deity. This talks about who He was as part of the Godhead.

But now we switch. The Word became flesh. And that word became, it's this cool Greek word, ginome or ginomi. It's the idea to come into a new state of being, something he never was before. He became flesh. He came into a new state of being. the word and he dwelt among us and then if you skip down I didn't have it on the above there but in verse 18 it says he has explained him that the Lord Jesus has explained him it's the idea he has revealed him and brought him out where he can be seen so Remember Christ also said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Christ is a visible representation of God. God is invisible, but Christ is a visible person that we get to see, that wonderful person of our Savior. Okay. So now, Paul's gonna describe our Savior too.

He says in Philippians, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. So once again, we're gonna see this idea, we're gonna see some statements about his deity and about his humanity in here. So he existed in the form of God. And that's the Greek word morphe, and it's the idea, it's the full attributes which make God, God. So that word form, he existed in the form of God. He's fully God then. and it says he's equal with God.

That's kind of wrapped up and maybe it's kind of flipped around because it says he did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. Christ didn't display that. He hid that. He didn't have to display that. For his purpose as a man, he didn't need to display that. but he is equal with God. He emptied himself, and this is the part where he held back, he emptied himself, or he stripped himself, the Amplified says, he stripped himself of all privilege and rightful dignity, but not in deity and power.

And this is one of the incredible things we're gonna see. He's able to, how does a little baby, hold the whole world together at the same time. I mean, we can't handle that, that's beyond our ability. And now, interesting, same word as before, he existed in the form of God, now he has, he took the form of man, the same exact word in the original. The things that make man a man, he took the form of, he was the form of God, and he took the form of man. Just really amazing. He appeared on Earth in the likeness of men, but he was obedient to the point of death on the cross. Just incredible. Okay, we have another passage from Paul.

So he's going to describe his created power, Colossians 1.15-17. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth. visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions 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."

Do you think he's at the center of what's happening here? How many ways, boy, just amazing. Okay, so let's, observations here. He is the image, and that's the word icon. He is the image of the invisible God. And the idea is here, he's a visible representation of the invisible.

He has priority, and I was, you know, you kind of struggle sometimes when you see the firstborn, people say, well, that's talking about His incarnation. It's really not. It's talking about His, who has priority and sovereignty over all creation. He's first in rank, not thinking about a birth here or incarnation.

By Him, all things in the heavens and earth were created, including visible, invisible dominions and authorities. He existed before all things. In Him, all things hold together. They cohere and are held together. I was thinking that's what scientists, we split the atom. The forces that hold the atom seem to be what's being talked about here, but we're not actually sure of that. So He holds all things together. Is He the atomic force? I don't know.

But it certainly sounds awful like that. It's certainly of that ilk, certainly. So now, at this point, I looked through those passages, and I really gained a lot of understanding. But then, there's kind of another way you can look at this. You want to look at God and man. And you can contrast that by looking at verses and kind of putting a statement together. And Dr. Chafer did that. I really liked that. And I actually created one. But then I realized I created one he already had. So see if you can spot it here. I have two charts of contrast here and one's going to come up twice and see if you can spot it. Okay, here we go. Okay, and actually here's a statement about this list of contrast.

It may be seen that the Lord Jesus sometimes functions his earthly life within the sphere of that which is perfectly human and sometimes within the sphere of that which is perfectly divine. So first contrast, he was weary, yet he called the weak to himself, himself to rest, for rest. He was hungry, yet he was the bread of life. He was thirsty, yet he was the water of life. He wept at the tomb, yet he called the dead to rise. He died, yet he is eternal life.

Just think about that. I mean, what he's done is he's taken a, he's gone and found a verse that talked about when he was weary, and then he's, he's paired that with a place where he, you know, the weary and, you know, he wanted to give us rest. So he took verses. I don't have the, I didn't go through the task of finding the verse for each of these, but you can pretty easily. Okay, more contrast. He prayed, yet he answered prayer.

He was God's ideal man, a man's ideal God. I have to kind of say that carefully. He was God's ideal man because he was without sin. He was a perfect man, right? Without sin. From man's perspective, he's God's ideal God because he came to save man. He came in the flesh. He was tempted, yet he as God could not be tempted. He could turn stones into bread to feed his human hunger, but he never did this.

He was deeply moved in spirit and wept at Lazarus' tomb, but then later he cried out, Lazarus, come forth. And if you hadn't guessed, that's the one that I, I thought I found a new one, but then I realized it was in his list already. It was back there, let's just go back, I'll show you. It's number, second from the bottom, he wept at the tomb. I said, oh, that was Lazarus' tomb he was talking about there. So anyway, I outsmarted myself here. I thought I'm adding a new one, and it was one he already had.

So anyway, good exercise. Actually, you could create a bigger list. It's really cool. Okay, so now, we have some final thoughts. As Alan pointed out, I have lots of final thoughts today. My first set of final thoughts are this. We're gonna talk more about Christ's humanity.

The humanity of Christ is seen in his death and resurrection. For God to provide payment for sin, he had to have a sacrifice. He had to have a human sacrifice. It was a human body that suffered death on the cross. It was the same body glorified which came forth from the tomb in resurrection glory. The humanity of Christ is seen in that he ascended to heaven. A human body, they saw a human body go up in the clouds, maybe they saw as he rose up into the air and vanished.

He now, in his human glorified body, ministers to us for his own. When he comes again, this same Jesus is coming as he went in the same body, though glorified, in which he became incarnate. So the point here is now, with that in view, He was fully God and fully man. He's the only one that's able to provide our salvation.

And that's kind of wrapped up in this verse in Acts 4.12. And there is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

So the question comes up, but sadly people today, they'll have the following objections or comments, whatever you want to call them. So some will say, there's no God. There are many ways to get to God. You just can't be so narrow-minded. How can you say that Jesus is the only way to God? Some will say, I must give back to my fellow man to gain favor with God.

Some say, I'm a good upstanding person. I do believe there's a God. I certainly do believe there's a God. I'm doing the best I can do. God will certainly have to accept me. And you know, that's where a few, about 40 some years, I don't know, Mike and I have similar time periods. About 40 some years ago, I had that view. I said, I'm doing the best I can. But I didn't realize I was a sinner. and thank the Lord that He showed me that and I trusted in Christ as my Savior. So I'm on this list, the last one right there. Okay, so let's review man's condition.

So this is kind of Salvation 101, Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

All mankind has sinned, literally to miss the mark, that's what that word means, to miss the mark of God's righteousness. I like the illustration of Brother Howe, he had a bullseye. We miss the bullseye, we miss the mark, God's righteousness. Also they've fallen short, to fall short of something is not to reach it. God's glory is his very essence. He is holy, righteous, and just. All men are under sin. They're held down and subject to its power and control. So the question is, what sin will prevent a person from going to heaven?

So if you, we could have two, I could have a chart here, right? I could have two observations. We could have the world's view. I hadn't tried it. Go on the World Wide Web. I should try that. What sin will prevent me from going to heaven? I would say I might get some good, I might get the right answer more times than I think, but, so, we could take a poll, we could take a, but I think, you know, if you spent any time in scripture, hopefully you've come to this conclusion. There's only, only the sin of unbelief will separate a person from Christ. He's not looking for your good deeds or your, or he's not counting your bad actions. The best you can be as a human is not what he's looking for. Or the worst you can be as a human is not what he's looking for.

He's looking for your trusting him as your Savior, your belief. So what must a person believe about Christ for God to accept him and to receive the gift of eternal life? So I have a few charts that follow here that talk about what we need to believe and it kind of boils down to the fact that we need to believe on the person and work of the Lord Jesus to secure salvation.

So let's talk, let's think about the person of Christ and the best place, one of the most wonderful places is in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. So God's love has been extended to everyone.

He took the action first. He didn't wait for man. And that's one of the reasons why it's futile. If you think that you can do something in your life to please God for salvation, you're on the wrong path. He had to act first. We were so hopeless and helpless that we could not take any action to help ourselves. He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins.

And then I repeated a verse I had, and there's salvation and no one else, we can't look to any other person, and it's exclusive, and we have all our eggs in one basket. Totally on the Lord Jesus. So that everyone who believes or exercises faith or trust, that word belief, faith, and trust are all the same original word, pistis, in the original. Faith, trust, and belief are all the same word in Christ. will not perish but have eternal life.

So Christ's work. Often it's talked about His dying on the cross is talked about as a work. You may not like that phrase but it's talked about that way. So this is Christ's work provided for mankind. And it's beautifully talked about in what's called the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, 3-5, For I delivered to you of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and He appeared to men. That's kind of the fourth aspect.

Christ died for our sins or on behalf of our sins as our substitute. Christ was buried. He had a physical body that died, and he was physically buried. And you only bury a dead man. And Christ was raised. God raised him up, since it was impossible for him to be held in his power.

Knowing the fact that the person of Christ, that he's truly God, and he died on your behalf, man's response is kind of pointed out here in Acts 16.30.

This is where Paul and Silas were in jail. And it says, after they brought them out, Paul and Silas, that was the jailer, he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And just to be complete, each member of the household had to believe, too.

They didn't get a free ride. So, okay. Well, hopefully that was helpful in seeing our wonderful Savior, that He's fully God and fully man. and that he desires that we know him and not to think that we somehow can gain his favor by doing good works or by some sin that we have committed that we are carrying or harboring in our hearts, feeling that God can never forgive him. He took the action.

He desires that we trust in him. So let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this time of the year when we remember your birth, your incarnation. We thank you for the marvel that it is of God becoming man for the purpose of procuring salvation for his creation. We thank you for that. We ask it in his name.