Rusty George: It's quiet tonight, isn't it?
Christmas Eve, the frantic rush of the last few weeks finally slows down.
The presents are wrapped, the cookies are baked.
The chaos pauses and in the quiet, maybe you can finally hear it, that whisper.
You've been too busy to notice.
I'm here.
I've always been here.
I'm with you.
2000 years ago, on a night like this, the world changed.
Not with fireworks, not with armies, not with announcements on CNN or Fox
News with a baby's crying and a stable.
And in that moment, God kept a promise he's been making
since the beginning of time.
I will be with you.
Let me take you on a journey through scripture, through
history, through the story of God's relentless pursuit of being with us.
It starts in Genesis.
God creates Adam and Eve, and what does he do?
Genesis three, eight says, God walked with them in the cool
of the day, not above them, not distant from them, but with them.
That was always the plan.
Relationships, presence, closeness, but then sin enters.
And what happens?
Adam and Eve hide, not because God left, but because they pulled away.
And from that moment on the entire Bible is the story of God saying, come back.
I wanna be with you again.
Fast forward to Exodus.
God leads Israel out of slavery, and he doesn't just deliver them and
wave goodbye, but he says, build me a tabernacle and I will dwell among you.
Exodus 25 8 says, then have them make a sanctuary for me
and I will dwell among them.
God wanted to be with his people so badly that he gave detailed blueprints for a
tent, a portable dwelling so he could travel with them through the wilderness.
Now, think about that.
The God of the universe who created galaxies with a word says,
I wanna live in a tent with you.
That's not a distant deity.
That's a God who pursues presence.
Then the prophets start speaking and over and over they promise.
One day God will come and everything will change.
Isaiah seven 14 says, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and
will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us, not God near us, not
God watching us, but God is with us.
For 400 years after the last prophet, Israel heard nothing silence, no word from
God, and they wondered, did he forget?
Is he still there?
Is he still with us?
Then in a small town called Nazareth, an angel appears to a teenage girl
named Mary, and the angel says, you will conceive and give birth to a
son and you are to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the son of the most
high and nine months later.
Stable, a manger, a baby.
Matthew 1 22 and 23 says All this took place to fulfill what the
Lord had said through the prophet.
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him
Emmanuel, which means God with us.
God didn't send a message.
He didn't send a prophet.
He didn't even send an angel.
He sent himself.
That's Christmas.
Here's what blows my mind about the incarnation.
Jesus didn't show up as a king in a palace.
He showed up as a baby in a barn.
Let me paint the picture.
Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem.
The town is packed.
Roman census.
Everyone's back to register, no room anywhere.
Finally, someone takes pity and says, you can sleep with the animals.
So Mary, exhausted in labor, lies down in the dirt, in the smell, in the mess, and
they're surrounded by sheep and donkeys.
Jesus enters the world.
No sterile hospital room, no epidural, no nurses, just a teenage mom, A terrified
stepdad and a baby born in the mud.
Why?
Why would God choose that?
Because that's where we are in the mud, in the mess, in the dirt of broken
relationships, shattered dreams in chaotic lives, and God says, I'll meet you there.
Then the angels appear, and what do they do first?
Where do they go?
Not to Caesar, not Herod, not the priests, but to the shepherds, the lowest of
the low, the forgotten the outsiders.
They wr the sky and say, do not be afraid.
I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Today in the town of David, a Savior's been born to you.
He is the Messiah.
The Lord God didn't come for the elite.
He came for the forgotten, the broken.
The ones who thought they didn't matter.
He came for you.
And then Jesus stays.
He doesn't just show up for the birth scene and leave.
He stays 30 years in Nazareth, working as a carpenter, sweating, getting blisters,
dealing with difficult customers.
Can you imagine?
Hey, Jesus, you messed up this table, this leg iss too short, and Jesus, the son
of God, has to sand it down and fix it.
Why?
Because God wanted to experience all of it.
Not just the mountaintop moments, the ordinary, the mundane,
the frustrating, all of it.
Hebrews four 15 says, we do not have a high priest who's unable to empathize
with our weaknesses, but we have one who's been tempted in every way just as we are.
Yet he did not sin.
Jesus knows what it's like to be tired, hungry, misunderstood, rejected, alone.
He is not a distant God who doesn't get it.
He's Emmanuel God with us in all of it.
So here's the question for us tonight.
What does Emmanuel mean for you?
'cause Christmas isn't just a memory, it's a promise that's still active.
Let me show you three ways.
God is with you right now.
God is with you in your darkness.
Maybe this Christmas is hard.
Maybe you're grieving.
Maybe you are alone.
Maybe you're broke.
Maybe you're just tired.
You're not celebrating, you're surviving.
Listen to me, God is with you there.
Isaiah nine, two says, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
That's the whole point of advent.
That's why we lit candles every week to remind us the darkness
is real, but the light is here.
God is with you in your ordinary.
Maybe your Christmas isn't dramatic and maybe it's just regular.
Same family, same tradition, same leftovers on the 26th.
Then you think, God, where are you in the ordinary?
He's there because most of Jesus' life was ordinary.
Brother Lawrence, a monk from the 16 hundreds, wrote a book called
The Practice of the Presence of God.
His whole philosophy, God is in the dishes, God's in the laundry.
God's in the boring, mundane moments.
You don't have to wait for a God moment.
Every moment is a God moment when you're aware of his presence.
And number three, God is with you in your future.
Maybe you're scared, uncertain.
2025 feels overwhelming.
You don't know how the bills will get paid.
You don't know if the relationship will survive.
You don't know if you can keep going.
Here's what you do know.
God is with you.
Jesus', last words to us were, and surely I'm with you, always
to the very end of the age.
He didn't say, I'll be with you when things are good.
He didn't say, I'll be with you when you are good.
He said, I'll be with you always.
In the heart, in the dark and the unknown.
Emmanuel God with us.
Let me close with this.
John Chapter one verses four and five.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
For five weeks, we've been lighting candles.
Week one was hope.
The prophecy candle, the light is promised.
Week two is peace.
The Bethlehem candle, the light brings shalom.
Week three is joy.
The shepherd's candle, the light brings celebration.
Week four is love the angel's candle.
The light came down.
Week five is Christ the center candle.
The light is here.
Every time a bell rings, well, you know the line, but here's the truth.
Every time you feel alone, remember.
Emmanuel, every time you feel forgotten.
Remember Emmanuel, every time you feel like the darkness is winning.
Remember Emmanuel God with us tonight on Christmas Eve.
We don't just remember a baby born 2000 years ago.
We celebrate that.
The same God who stepped into the mess then is stepping into your mess now.
He's not waiting for you to clean up.
He's not waiting for you to have it all together.
He's here right now in the ordinary, in the darkness, in the struggle,
and he's saying, I am with you.
I've always been with you.
I'll never leave you.
Merry Christmas friends may you know, truly know that you are not alone.
A Manuel has come and he's still here.
Keep it simple and merry Christmas.