Immanuel God with us to….Sermon for Advent 4 and Children’s Program
December 22nd, 2007 Posted in Sermons+ In Nomine Jesu +
The Rev. Evan Gaertner
Advent 4
December 22/23, 2007
Isaiah 7:10-17
Immanuel
God with us
How should meet God who has come to be with us?
Has he come to be for us or to judge us?
It is difficult to imagine God on our own. I believe that when people create their own image of God it is often not a very fulfilling God. The gods people create are often either angry, absent, or lovey-dovey.
Immanuel. God is with us.
There are many people in America confess faith in God. But the specifics of this faith become more difficult for me to figure out. What do people believe?
The First Commandment that was given to Moses on Mount Sinai is. “You shall have no other gods before me.”
The Lord God has told us that he alone is to be our Lord. He alone is to be our God. He alone is to be the one we trust in.
God desires that we trust in him, but how often might our own sense of confidence get in the way of God’s word and his offer to give us signs and wonders of his trustworthiness?
No I can handle this.
No I can’t talk to her she might not like me.
No I can’t handle thinking about my brother suffering of cancer.
Everything is falling apart, doesn’t any one else notice.
I have these moments of failure where I do not trust in God to be at work in my life and instead think of all the reasons why he would not be present in my life.
We can use all sorts of pious and religious sounding language. But in our own lives we hide our own lack of trust in God.
God wants you to ask him to be a part of your life. He knows you can’t handle everything. He knows that she might not like you when you talk to her, but trust that we are made in his image and not the image she might have of you. He knows the suffering of a brother from cancer is debilitating, but in that suffering his grace will be sufficient for you. God knows you.
He knows you and so when we refuse to hear what God really has to say, when we refuse to see what God is showing us, when we refuse to ask him to be a part of our lives, we are choosing evil. Trying to live your life apart from the having God as your Lord and Savior is to choose evil. Rather than living inside God’s Word, we try to be our own masters, conquerors. Instead of seeing the signs that God has made known for us, we look for our victories.
Whether or now we ask God for the signs and wonders that reveal his trustworthiness, Isaiah tells us that the Lord himself will give you a sign.
The prophet Isaiah has told us, “The virgin will give birth to a child and he shall be called Immanuel.”
God is with us. God’s bold sign, whether we are ready to see it is the ultimate sign of his trustworthiness of his desire to be our savior.
The time of God’s judgment against sin is passing and arriving is God’s mercy and that God is with us in a new way to save his people from their sins.
How long do you need to wait to find that God has arrived in mercy? As long as it takes for Jesus to arrive into your life and into our world.
In Mary and this little child we find God at work to rescue us. Though we may deserve his judgment. Though we may deserve every sign that says our lives our lost and should be abandoned. He has sent us a sign of his love. The powerful, the amazing, the creative, the wonder, and the all in all, has become flesh.
You are not connected to Jesus because you might know the right religious words of faith. You are not a part of the kingdom because you have put your time in the seat.
God has given us the bold and amazing sign of his love in the sending of his son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit you trust in this God to be your Lord and Savior.
Ask God to be a part of your life and live with the boldness that the signs of his love follow you wherever you go. Ask him to reveal his love in your life. Live with the sign of the cross upon your heart so that you will be so bold to know how to refuse evil and choose the good.
Stand on this faith, that your God has redeemed you from your sin by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Live with the confidence that your God has revealed himself to be your savior.
Immanuel. God is with us to rescue us from our sins and deliver us from our enemies.
Soli Deo Gloria
