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In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp explores the profound significance of the birth of Jesus Christ, who is called Emmanuel, meaning 'God with us.' He emphasizes that Jesus came to fulfill God's promises, rescue humanity from sin, and make God's presence accessible to his people. He encourages listeners to reflect on Christmas's meaning and live in anticipation of Emmanuel's return.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- The birth of Jesus fulfills the promise of Emmanuel.
- Music plays a vital role in worship and connection to God.
- Emmanuel signifies God's presence with us in our lives.
- Jesus came to rescue us from our ultimate exile from God.
- God's promises are fulfilled in the person of Jesus.
- Emmanuel means God is accessible and approachable to us.
- God enters into our mess and struggles with us.
- The significance of Christmas goes beyond material celebrations.
- We live in the already of God's promises and the not yet of their fulfillment.
- Emmanuel reminds us to live in hope and expectation of Christ's return.
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
Aaron Shamp (00:04.546)
Well, just like Eli mentioned, we are going to be, and in case you missed the announcement last week, starting on January 5th, we are going to be joining with First Baptist Church of Milton. We are going to be joining with their congregation at their location over on East Broussard Road in Lafayette. Kind of a little confusion there, but First Baptist Church of Milton is on the south side in Lafayette on East Broussard Road. so starting on January 5th, we will be over there. And so next week, as Eli
said we'll be beginning to move all our things over there. If you're available to help, that'll be awesome. But this morning we do have, we have Matt Doucet with us. He's one of the elders at First Batches Milton. And so we just wanted to introduce him to you guys. And so you can get to know him. And I think next, are you going to come back next week too or? Okay. And then we'll, yeah, so we'll have a couple other guys coming over next week. So we'll get to meet them.
And so, yeah, so Matt, go ahead and come up here and introduce yourself. And you guys feel free, after the service, go and meet Matt and ask him any questions you have. We're really thankful he's here. So thank you.
Hey, good morning. So as Aaron said, I'm Matthew Doucette. I go by Matt, only my wife, my mother, my aunt call me Matthew when I'm in trouble. I'm a lay elder at Milton. I've served there as a deacon as well previously, the director of education and the youth pastor way back in the early 2000s, 03 to 05. So I have left Milton and come back over seasons of my life. It's been a blessing to me. We have a great congregation, a great spirit.
although we're human like anyone else. we've had our hangups and our issues over the year, ups and downs, but the Lord has been faithful and we're in a great season. So for me, when I think about and have been praying about you guys, meeting with your leadership, seeing their heart for you and for God's word and his church.
Aaron Shamp (02:08.461)
I've been drawn to Philippians in chapter four where Paul says the Lord is at hand and that's both nearness in spirit, his presence among us and nearness in his coming. So when I think about this merger or this joining of congregations, I know it may be bittersweet for you and a season is ending. But as Paul says in that passage, rejoice, again I say rejoice through any circumstance or situation, anything that seems to be beyond our control, we know it's within his control.
his sovereignty over his church. So just know that we've been praying for you diligently and we look forward to what God continues to do in your lives. You are his workmanship created for good works and we're happy to join you in that and do that together. So my wife and I, Heather.
and our youngest son, Layton, there. Happy to talk with anyone. If you have any questions or just want to say hi, we'll hang around after the service and get to know you a little more. And we look forward to getting to know you more in the future. Thanks for having us this morning.
Aaron Shamp (03:15.854)
Thank you again, Matt. So that is not Matt Palmer. That's Matt Doucet. Just like over here at Redeemer, we have a surplus of Alex's. Kind of a joke of ours over the years. They have a surplus of Matt's. And so we're going to get the Matt's and the Alex's all together. Find each other. Well, I was going to say, if you walk up to someone you don't know their name, if you say Matt or Alex, you've got a 50-50 chance of getting it right.
So yeah, but look guys, just like I said last week when we discussed the reasons and the discernment behind this process that the leadership, the elders and deacons went through, one of the things that, one of the primary reasons that we believed that once God started to move us in this direction and he put FBC Milton, started to open that door, one of the things that was really confirming for us that this is what God was leading us to
said this last week but that would be their leadership. Matt, Matt Palmer, Greg, Gary, these guys are excellent leaders. have just been, it's been a pleasure to get to know them and so we're really excited about what God is doing and our two churches bringing us together to continue working in building the kingdom.
So today we are continuing and looking at Christmas, is called, historically in the church calendar is called the season of Advent, which means arrival, right? So Jesus's arrival on earth as man in the incarnation. And so today is Christmas Sunday. And so we'll be looking at that one more time today. And so if you have your Bible with you, you can open it up to Matthew chapter one.
We're going to be reading a few verses there. So if you have it with you, go ahead and open it up there. If you don't have your Bible with you, you're having trouble finding it, no worries. We'll have the words on the screens next to me so you can follow along. Once again, we'll be in Matthew chapter one and I'm going to be reading verses one through 18.
Aaron Shamp (05:43.618)
if we're almost there, we'll get ready.
Aaron Shamp (05:49.902)
Great.
And lastly, before we begin, let me just say this too. We're so happy to have the kids with us in service today. It's great, it's a blessing. It allows all of our volunteers not to be back there for our last two Sundays here. And so I just wanna say to all of us who might not have kids that are making noise, we're gonna be gracious, impatient, right? And parents of all the littles, whenever they're making noise, don't get frustrated or embarrassed, okay? All right?
I really mean that. I'll be okay, don't worry about it distracting me. Your neighbors next to you are gonna be gracious and patient, okay? So all you parents with the little ones, we all get it, okay? So don't be embarrassed, don't get frustrated or panicked if they start making noise, all right? God loves the little children. All right, Matthew chapter one and starting at verse 18.
The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way. After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly. But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David.
Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what she has conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel, which is translated, God is with us.
Aaron Shamp (07:45.89)
When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him. He married her, but he did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
So the great reformer, Martin Luther once said that next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. And I tend to agree with him. We love music, right? Music is great because music engages.
the mind and the soul and the mind and the heart together where we sing and we are captured in music. And so I agree with him. It is beautiful and it is a gift from God. And at Christmas time, we have a lot of music, right? We have a lot of music specific to Christmas and our traditional Christmas carols and songs and the hymns that we sing.
Last week, we talked about that idea of singing at Christmas and how it applies not only to singing at Christmas, but also just all true worship. And today I'm kind of picking up on that same thing, but using it as a bridge to consider what comes up here in Matthew chapter one. We got to sing this morning together right before I came up the classic hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And the theme of that hymn, which is the
the waiting and anticipation of the coming Emmanuel is what is brought up here in this passage. This passage is the fulfillment of that waiting. God's showing that he has kept his promise. And so today I want us to think about what it means, Emmanuel, that Emmanuel has come in Jesus, both in what it meant for them as they were waiting for it and what it means for us. And so today I'm gonna look at who is Emmanuel, why did Emmanuel come, and then what does it mean for us?
Aaron Shamp (09:38.832)
So who is he? Why did he come? And what does it mean to us? So first of all, when we look at who is Emmanuel, Emmanuel is a word, a name for God that is brought up three times in scripture. And the first time that we see it is in Isaiah chapter seven. Now to understand the significance of it, we have to back up a little bit before Isaiah chapter seven. In fact, it helps if we go all the way back to the beginning of scripture. In the beginning, whenever God created the world and he formed the garden of Eden in which he
made a home for mankind that he created in Adam and Eve.
He created man and he placed them in this garden that would be more than just a garden. We can think of it as a sanctuary. The sanctuary is the place where God and the people come to meet together, similar to what we see in the Tabernacle later in the Old Testament and in the temple. It was a place where they met and they had relationship and fellowship with one another. And that's what the garden was. Theologically speaking, it was a sanctuary, a temple, we could even say, where God and man lived together.
But they live together in perfect harmony and fellowship. In the scripture it says that Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. But what happens is, sin comes into the picture. you can think of sin as like the pollutant to that garden. Sin is the pollutant to the world that then causes alienation. That means separation, distance between God and man because of our sin. We see this in the story of creation. Whenever sin comes into the picture, man is
is banished from the garden. In other words, banished from the presence of God. However, despite their sin and our fallenness, despite the sin of his people that will come afterwards, God continues to promise his presence to his people. This is a great act of grace. As we said, sin has polluted God's good world. He banishes them from his presence, but he does not abandon them.
Aaron Shamp (11:41.858)
There must be separation and alienation because of sin. However, he continues in a great act of grace.
to promise his presence to his people. He promises his presence to Abraham. He promises it to Moses, whenever he calls Moses to go before Pharaoh to bring his people into freedom. Whenever his people were in the wilderness, he showed them his presence and promised it to them with a pillar of fire and of smoke. His presence was promised to them through the tabernacle system, which led into the temple system. His presence is promised to them over and over and over again. This promise that I will be with you.
But then we come to Isaiah chapter seven.
In Isaiah chapter seven, King Ahaz is ruling over Israel during this time and they are surrounded by powerful enemies that are on their doorstep. These powerful nations, especially the Assyrians, are threatening to come in and wage war and overtake Israel and Ahaz is filled with fear and anxiety over these things. And so the prophet Isaiah comes to him and with the authority of God's words, he tells
that God has promised that he will deliver them, right? That he will be with them, that he is not going to abandon them. And then he says, ask God for a sign if you need. And Ahaz refuses, he says, I'm not going to test the Lord. But the Lord gives a sign anyway. And here's what he says in Isaiah seven, in verse 13. This is God's response. Isaiah said, listen, house of David.
Aaron Shamp (13:17.92)
Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men? Will you also try the present patience of my God? You see, the people still didn't believe and they needed a sign. So in verse 14, he says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. See, the virgin will conceive, have a son and name him Emmanuel.
This is the first time in the Bible that we see this name, Emmanuel, for God, and it marks a subtle but great shift in God's promise to them. As I said, for centuries already, he had been promising to his people, I will be with you, I will be with you, or I am with you as you go. But now this new name that God introduces, which is a name that he says will come from the people, says they will call him Emmanuel.
brings in this shift, the name Emmanuel, as it says in Matthew chapter one, is a name that means God is with us, or sometimes we just abbreviate it to God with us. Notice the shift here, like I said, it's subtle, but it can mean so much for us. The shift from God's promising, I will be with you, to the people saying, God is with us. It is a shift from,
a move from God's being promised to the people to our knowing that his presence is with us. A move from presence promised to presence known.
And when we come to Matthew chapter one, at the birth of Jesus, Matthew tells us that the birth of Jesus is the confirmation, it is the fulfillment of what God had promised them all the way back in the reign of King Ahaz. That Jesus is the Immanuel, the one whom we can say God is with us. It is him, God's promise fulfilled in his birth. And so that's my first point, is that Jesus is the promised Immanuel. He is the true Immanuel.
Aaron Shamp (15:20.248)
Now, what does this mean? It means a lot, and we're gonna draw a few points out over the course of this sermon. But the first thing that I wanna point out here, the meaning of Jesus being Emmanuel. First of all, it means that we can read the New Testament with full confidence that the New Testament views Jesus as God. That's the first thing that we can point out.
The New Testament, whether it is in the gospels, whether it is Paul, whether it is the writings of Peter or John or any others, they don't talk about Jesus as though he was just a great teacher. They don't believe that he was a great prophet. They don't believe that he was just a great leader or that he was a king that was supposed to come to him. They believed that he was, is God.
This is a major theme throughout Matthew's gospel. You see, because if Jesus is the Emmanuel, if he is God with us, he has to be God. He is not a prophet who tells us where to find God, how to know God. He is God with us. What this means is that if Christmas is true, he is the Emmanuel who came.
It means that he is the one true God. And that is a assertion that we all must confront, that we all have to consider.
Maybe some of us in here are still somewhat on the fence of whether or not we will serve Christ as our Lord, as our King. If we will fall down before Him, having Him redeem us from our sin and then live in a life of righteousness and obedience before Him. Maybe you're still on the fence about that. During Christmas time, let me warn you, Christmas is about a lot more than cookies and gifts and Christmas trees. If we get down to the heart of what Christmas is all about, and what all those celebrations ultimately are pointing
Aaron Shamp (17:18.256)
it is this truth that God has come into the world. If Christmas is true, then everything else in the life of Jesus, his teaching, his ministry, his miracles, but then ultimately his death and his resurrection from the grave are true as well. And it challenges us, it confronts us with this question of who do you say he is?
Do you submit that he is God with us, that he is the Lord of the universe, that he is the King over the world, and that my choice is to either fall down before him in worship and laying down my life before him, or will you reject him?
Aaron Shamp (18:06.968)
So why did he come? Well, first of all, we can say that he came because he's the God who keeps his promises.
all throughout Matthew's gospel. Matthew is showing over and over and over again, whether it's in his actual references to the Old Testament, you know, here in 1, 18 through 25 that we just read, he actually quotes directly from Matthew chapter seven. So whether Matthew is giving us direct quotes and references or whether it's just through him inserting themes and showing some things in the life of Jesus, what he is doing here is he is through his references and themes and details that he is
is he is continually pointing back to the Old Testament showing that Jesus is the one that the Hebrew people, that the Jews had been waiting for. Over and over again, this is his emphasis, that he is the fulfillment of Moses. He is the fulfillment of all the prophets and so on. He is the God who keeps his promises. What Matthew is saying to them and what he says to us is that Jesus is the one for which they had been waiting.
He had come to rescue them. In Matthew chapter one, whenever the angel tells Joseph about this son who is coming and his name would be Jesus, he says that he will be named this because he will save his people from their sins. He came to rescue them, but he didn't come to rescue them in the way that a lot of people thought.
A lot of people, whenever they heard the teachings of Jesus and him talking about the kingdom of God coming, they thought that he was establishing a political kingdom. They thought that he was going to bring about liberation for them from their oppression by the Roman Empire.
Aaron Shamp (19:50.798)
You see, because during this time, the nation of Israel had been through centuries of hardship. Going all the way back to the time of Isaiah, in the time of Jeremiah, eventually a nation did come in and ransack Israel, which was the empire of Babylon.
and they took many people from Israel, especially from Jerusalem, and they brought them as exiles to Babylon. And so the Jewish people are experiencing alienation from their home, but remember, because in their mind, to be in the presence of God ultimately meant temple worship, they were not only alienated from their home, but they felt as though they had been alienated from the presence of God.
We see this theme in the exile and God promising to them that he will rescue them from their exile. You move forward now to where we are in Matthew here in the time of Mary and of Joseph and now they're at home. They're living in Israel, in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem. However, here they're still not living within, in the kingdom of God. They're living under the harsh fist of the Roman Empire. And so still they're waiting for freedom.
They're waiting for redemption from this exile that they're still experiencing even though they're at home, still in alienation.
Jesus came to rescue them from their exile, from their alienation, but it would not be, like I said, a political one. It would be to rescue them from the ultimate, the great exile, which is the fracture in our relationship with God because of our sin and our need for that sin to be paid for, to be washed away so that we might truly enter into the presence of God.
Aaron Shamp (21:35.798)
It is this exile that Jesus came to rescue his people from and that he comes to rescue us from. But in order to do this, he had to come to us.
because we could not rescue ourselves from our own exile. We cannot overthrow ourselves from our chains, which are not chains from the Roman Empire, but chains from our own fallenness, our sin, the world, the devil, and things that all work to separate us from God. We cannot throw those chains off of ourself, so Jesus comes to us, so that we can experience just like they did, God with us.
and say it in full confidence. God becomes man at Christmas. And in the incarnation, Jesus brings the presence of God to earth. If you go to John chapter one.
And you read in the beginning of John chapter one, where he talks about Jesus's coming. He says that the word became flesh, right? Talking about God becoming incarnate, taking on flesh. And he talks about how, and then the word became flesh, came and he dwelt among us, is how a lot of translations translate it. But in the Greek, he's using a term that, you if we were to directly translate it to English, would be kind of odd, would make a lot of sense, which is why our translators say he dwelt among us.
we related that word literally, what John said is that the word became flesh and he has tabernacled among us. Kind of odd and clunky in English. But what he's saying here is that the role that the tabernacle played, which was the presence of God with his people, is now in Jesus. He is the presence of God come down to earth. He is God become man. But ultimately he does this.
Aaron Shamp (23:26.24)
so that on the cross, God takes the place of man.
by Jesus experiencing the great exile and his crucifixion. And in his death and resurrection, what he is doing is in his death, he is paying for our sins, his blood purchasing our redemption, his blood washing us away, making our, as the song says, turning our crimson stains white as snow. He does this in his death and accomplishes that, but then reigns in victory over death and sin because of his resurrection. These things hanging on the
cross, dying death, raising from the grave are all possible and they happen because of Christmas, because God became man, because the God who is ultimately invincible and unbreakable, wherever he took on flesh became vulnerable and breakable.
So the good news to us who still experience exile because of our sin, at times we experience alienation, the good news to us is that we can be brought into the presence of God now. We don't have temples or tabernacles.
We don't offer sacrifices, in terms of literal sacrifices of animals and so on, because all those things are no longer necessary for us in the new covenant. In the new covenant, we don't have a temple or a tabernacle, we have Jesus.
Aaron Shamp (24:53.058)
that we are through him and the Holy Spirit brought into the presence of God. We no longer need sacrifices in the new covenant. We have Jesus who is the sacrificial lamb. We don't need the blood of bulls and lambs. We have the blood of Jesus. We don't need priests anymore. We have Jesus who is our great high priest. So the alienation is possible even for us today to be bridged, to be dealt with, for that great division to be brought back together and reconciled.
possible, available, open to us in Christ. Have you experienced that? Have you been brought into the presence of God? Have your sins been removed? Have you been saved? Once again, if you're on the fence, this is the challenge of Christmas.
Aaron Shamp (25:43.896)
But what does it mean for us? It means a few things. First of all, and this kind of follows from other things I've said, first of all, what it means for us is that God has made himself accessible to us. If you go back and you read through the Old Testament.
God continually promised his presence to his people. No matter how much they sinned, no matter how much they rebelled, no matter how much they would fall away and forget his goodness, there would be consequences and he would bring things into their life that would push them to repentance, but he never abandoned them. He continually promised that he would be with them. But what did that look like? Once again, it looked like he was with them, but there were still a lot of degrees of separation.
Even Moses, whenever he would go and enter into the presence of God, had to wear a veil because he was sinful.
How could he enter into the presence of the Holy God while he was a sinful man? Into the presence of the pure God while he was impure? So he had to have that veil of separation lest he be struck down. And the people as well, experienced this in that they were not, just everyday people like you and me, were not allowed to go into the holy of holies in the temple or in the tabernacle. There were degrees of separation, which is why they had the system of priests and sacrifices and so on that acted as representation
for them to God. We don't need that. We don't have that because God has made himself immediately accessible to us in Jesus Christ. Before, God's presence was always revealed to them either in distance, like I said with the tabernacle system, or in terror with earthquakes and fires, tornadoes, pillars of clouds. Once again, he's with them, but he's unapproachable.
Aaron Shamp (27:40.29)
But in the true Emmanuel, God with us, for the first time God is revealed to us not in terror or in distance, but immediately with us on earth and he comes in the most vulnerable form, the form of a baby. He has made himself approachable to us.
He has made himself accessible to us. So that's the first thing that Emmanuel means for us is God has made himself accessible and approachable to us. Secondly, it means this, God with us, it means that God involves himself in our mess. God involves himself in the mess of our life.
That's one of the beauties of Christmas is that he did not remain on his throne, but that he condescended himself. Jesus, the son of God, condescended himself and came down into our mess. And you know what? He still does the same thing today, He still does the same thing today. You know, parents.
I'm the kind of guy that I have a pretty strong ick factor. I don't like nasty things. I cannot stand stickiness or any kind of griminess on my hands. I would eat pizza with a fork and knife if it wouldn't result in public ridicule.
And so when we had our babies and I started learning how to change diapers into the one that was a big step for me. And it wasn't always easy because parents, know that babies, they make a lot of mess, right? Parents, all of a sudden, you know, there was a point where me and Leila looked at each other and we were like, we've never talked about poop so much, right? But that's what it means to be a parent. Like you talk and you think about poop all the time. You're surrounded by poop. You dream about poop. It's just, it's always there. Your kids have a blowout and you got to go in and change it, right? And so, you know, one time,
Aaron Shamp (29:34.02)
I won't say which one, but one time one of our kids had quite the blowout and I can't remember why, know, Layla couldn't deal with it. She was like, Aaron, can you please just do this? And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna do it. And so I go down there and I accidentally get a tiny, tiny, tiny bit on my finger and I was like hyperventilating and gagging at the same time. And I had to just jump up and run away. She was, sorry, I wasn't gonna say which one. She was still just laying there, you know, waiting to be changed and Layla,
just was laughing hysterically at me because of it, right? But look, even for someone like me and parents, you know this, like in those times, it's nasty, right? It's messy, but no matter how nasty and messy it is, you go and you get in the mess, right? You can't just leave them like that because you love them so much. You go and get down in the mess with them for their sake.
And God does the same thing with us. He gets in the mess. He's not afraid of it. His love compels him to come down and enter into our mess because he loves you so greatly.
Friends, I just wanna emphasize this one more time. No matter what you think about your life right now, no matter what you think about your history, your family history, your sins that you have committed in the past or that you are still fighting right now, no matter how much of a dysfunctional and chaotic and messy life you think that you have, it does not hold God back from entering in.
This is what we are told at Christmas whenever Jesus, the word of God, takes on flesh and comes among us. The great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this. He said, and that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments.
Aaron Shamp (31:38.988)
and performs his wonders where one could least expect them. God is near to lowliness. He loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak, and the broken.
Aaron Shamp (31:54.378)
So, Emmanuel means that he has made himself accessible to us. It means that he enters into our mess. Lastly, what it means is that he has come and he will come again. Emmanuel reminds us that God who promised that he would be with us and that we might know and be able to confess in response to him that yes, he is with us.
That is a promise that we experience now, but it's a promise that we're already getting to look forward to. So, Immanuel means that we weigh with expectation, because we still experience the kind of exile as long as we live on this earth. Through Jesus Christ, if you have given your life to him, you are fully saved. But how do we reconcile that with still living in this fallen world, still fighting indwelling sin within us, still waging war against the devil and the world?
The promise has been fulfilled and we are experiencing the confirmation of it. But to experience the full consummation and fulfillment of all the promises that it means, we're still waiting for that. I've said this many times over the years, so we're living in the already of God's promises, but also the not yet. we are filled with assurance and certitude.
about what we wait for because God has already proven himself faithful in the first coming of Jesus. Therefore, because he has proven himself faithful, we have absolute confidence as we wait for his next coming. So whenever we sing, O come, O come, Emmanuel, we sing it both in remembrance and expectation. Henry Nowan said this, he said, people who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait.
They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun in us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something, it is always a movement from something to something more. And that's where we are.
Aaron Shamp (34:04.77)
We are in the period of waiting from the something, which is Christ having already come in the incarnation and accomplishing the inauguration of his kingdom. And the something more that we are waiting for is the final consummation of his kingdom.
The something more that we are waiting for is His second return and the new heavens and the new earth, the new city that we will live in where we are experiencing something that has not been known since the Garden of Eden. But in this case, it won't be a garden with two people. It'll be a new heavens, new earth, a new city where all of God's people, people from every tribe, tongue and nation falling down before the throne and worship before Him. That is what we wait for. Therefore, we sing, come.
in both remembrance and in hope. Paul wrote this in 1st Thessalonians four. He said, so, he's speaking forward to that day, he says, so we will always be with the Lord.
Isn't that good? Remember that on those hard days. Remember that when the world has beat you down. Remember that whenever you experience the opposition and pressures of our secular culture. Remember that whenever you're filled with your own doubts. Remember that whenever, right after you have fallen into that sin once again. Remember this promise. It stands true in spite of all those things. Paul says, so we will always be with the Lord.
Therefore, encourage one another with these words. Let that be what we do at this Christmas. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are the God with us, that you have come in a form of absolute vulnerability.
Aaron Shamp (35:50.678)
accessibility, approachability, so that you might be ultimately broken on the cross. And what this means for us, that you are the God who steps into our mess, that we can just look at this with incredible awe and wonder and excitement and praise to you.
where we consider how no other religion, no other preacher, no other philosopher in the history of the world has dared to dream of such a kind of God that even in His absolute holiness can step into our mess. So Lord, at this Christmas, we just fill us with awe in your wisdom and the incredible extents that you are willing to go to because of your grace and your love.
Lord, we praise you for all of these truths this morning and let this Christmas season be marked by what Paul told us to do, encouraging one another with these words, that Emmanuel has come and he will come again. So we pray this in the name of Emmanuel, Jesus Christ, amen. Let us stand together now.