what i would have said

so last sunday was winter wicked so we (and about 400 other churches) pulled the plug on sunday morning…for your reading pleasure here is what I would have said…this message was inspired by a small article by lee strobel that i read years ago…

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

God…capital “G” God
With…not over or under
Us…sinner and saint

People take names very seriously, don’t they?

The library has books on what to name…your sailboat, cat, dog and baby.

The greatest challenge for me in the days leading up to birth…THE NAME

Modern books recommend names for your child based on what image you want them to project.

- INTELLECTUAL POWER NAME makes them sound serious and studious…Janet, Natalie, Rachel, Norman, Walter or Charles.

- HANDSOME NICE GUY NAME, try… Adam, Bryant, Eric, Jeremy or Nathaniel

- MACHO NAME, there’s… Bart, Conan, Curt or Gus

- UPWARDLY MOBILE NAMES, like… Hannah, Maggie, Phoebe, Calvin, George and Travis.

Just as names are important to people they are important to God as well…

In Genesis we read about a man named ABRAM.

At one point, God said to him, in effect, “No, no, that name will no longer do for you. Abram means the father of one family, one tribe, one clan. I’m going to rename you AB-RA-HAM, which means the father of a multitude of nations.”

And centuries later God fulfilled that promise on Christmas Day, when Jesus was born through the line of Abraham, and through Jesus, the entire world — a multitude of nations — has been blessed.

Now the name Jesus has an important meaning, too.

First Century baby book, you’d find that it means “GOD SAVES”

But today I want to emphasize two other facets of His name.

What’s In A Name? – - >Matthew 1:18-23 < – -

“…you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21

- Jesus – speaks of His approachability.

“Jesus” was quite common in those days – it was like naming him “Joe”

Lucado – “there would have been six or seven ‘Joe’s’ in his class”

And it was the very ordinariness of the name that suggests His APPROACHABILITY.

Nobody ever was reluctant to approach Jesus for fear of being rejected.

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” — which means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:23

- Immanuel – this speaks of His proximity.

Immanuel was a descriptive name given to Him because He was God with us.

Sistine Chapel – John Madden telestrator – arrow and circle…

As great a miracle as Christmas was — the greatest example of downward mobility in history, where Jesus left the majesty of heaven for a dirty stable — as great as that miracle was, there’s also a continuing miracle of Christmas. And it’s this… Jesus is still Immanuel…He still has proximity and He still has approachability.

His final words…”And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

Three Implications Of God Being “With Us”

1. Every time you stumble, God sees it. So ‘fess up.

Sobering truth – every time we stumble ethically or morally, God knows it.

How often do you and I fool ourselves into thinking that we’re getting away with something in our lives?

We’re like Moses, who wanted to murder an Egyptian soldier, so Exodus 2:12 says “he looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian.”

He looked this way and that, and thought he was getting away with it.

But do you know what? He never looked up.

- We fudge some numbers and we tell a lie and say to ourselves, “Hey, nobody will ever know the difference.”
- Or we break a promise to our spouse and think, “I covered my tracks; she’ll never find out.”
- Or we spread around a little slander, but we think, “Nobody will ever trace it back to me.”
- Or we pocket something that isn’t ours and say, “They’ll never even notice they’re missing.”

Ultimately we don’t get away with anything!

Every time we stumble, even if others don’t catch us, even if we think we’ve pulled it off, even if we’ve carefully covered our tracks, God knows.

Hebrews 4:13 says: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.”

So what should we do?

I think Jesus would offer a two-word prescription: “‘FESS UP.”

Just be honest enough with God to come clean.

The longer we wait to ‘fess up = more strain on our relationship with Him.

Jesus said that when the Spirit of God is present “he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” (John 16:8)

This is the hardest aspect of God’s presence.

The truth is: my desire for God can be pretty selective. Sometimes, I want God not to be around.

The soul that chooses wrong runs from God.

The Scripture writer says that when the face of God will no longer be avoidable, the soul will cry out in agony “to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne.’” (Revelation 6:16).

You know, it may be that out of all the prayers that are ever spoken, the most common one, the most quiet one, the one that we least acknowledge making, is simply this:

Don’t look at me, God.

It was the very first one spoken after Adam and Eve’s sin.

God came to walk in the garden, to be with the man and the woman, and asked: “Where are you?” “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, so I hid …”

Don’t look at me, God.

- A businessman on the road checks into motel room late at night. He knows the kind of movies that are available to him right there in the room. No one will know. His wife won’t find out. His kids won’t see. (He knows the drill and that hotels have a disclaimer, “The name of the movie you watch won’t be on your bill.”) Go ahead. No one will know. But first he has to say a little prayer: “Don’t look at me, God.”

- A mom with an anger problem decides to berate her kids because she’s so frustrated, because she will get a twisted rush of pleasure from inflicting pain— But first she has to say a little prayer: “Don’t look at me, God.”

- An executive who’s going to pad an expense account

- An employee who is going to deliberately make a coworker look bad

- A Christ-follower who makes financial decisions that will keep him from tithing, keep him from being the kind of steward he knows God wants him to be

- A student who looks at somebody else’s paper during an exam

- A longtime church attender who relishes the opportunity to pass judgment on somebody else

- A couple who claims to follow God but refuses to give up sleeping together

- A participant in a bitter divorce who chooses to hang on to resentment and self-righteousness

First you have to say a little prayer.
You don’t say it out loud, of course.
Probably don’t admit it even to yourself.
But it’s the choice your heart makes:
Don’t look at me, God.

Be honest with God: “God—the truth is I don’t want you here right now. I want to do what I want to do. But I’ll stop. I’m willing to surrender. I’d rather let go of my anger/addiction/pride than let go of you.”

Proverbs 28:13: “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

So whenever we stumble, God knows it — that’s sobering. But there’s compassion when we ‘fess up.

2. Every time you struggle, God feels it. So open up.

Jesus isn’t just “God with us” in that He has proximity to us, but He also is with us in the sense of actually having become one of us on Christmas Day.

He’s “God with us” in the sense of being knit together with us by the common experience of walking the earth and living life.

Because Jesus walked the earth, we can feel confident even today that He will have a special sensitivity and empathy with us when we bring Him our struggles and our wounds and our pain.

- Feeling REJECTED? Jesus can relate because He’s been spit upon and mocked.

- Feeling BETRAYED? Jesus can relate because at His biggest time of need, His best friend abandoned Him.

- MOURNING a loss? Jesus can relate because He was moved to tears by the death of His friend Lazarus.

- Tied in knots by ANXIETY? Jesus can relate because He grappled with it before His crucifixion.

- TEMPTED? Jesus can relate. Hebrews 4:15 says: “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Then listen to verse 16: “Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.”

Human Tendency – to bottle it up…pressure builds…explosion occurs…POP CAN

And so what should we do?

I think Jesus would give us a two-word prescription: “OPEN UP.

I think He’d say, “Draw near with confidence, that you may find grace in your time of need. And draw closer to My followers in the church, because they’re the ones I like to use to help heal people’s wounds.”

Friends, every time you struggle, God feels it. And that should be encouraging.

First Peter 5:7 says: “Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”

3. Every time you sacrifice for Him, God honors it. So keep it up.

In other words, whenever it costs you something to follow Jesus, He knows about it and He will pay you back…

- Every time you jeopardize your reputation or your career by standing up for your faith;

- Every time you sacrifice short-term pleasure in order to obey God by resisting the temptation to stray sexually;

- Every time you swallow your pride and forgive an enemy instead of plotting retribution;

- Every time you’re in a hurry but you pause to commit an act of kindness anyway;

- Every time you’d rather indulge yourself but you invest in God’s business instead;

- Every time you’d rather relax on a Saturday but instead you get elbow-deep in the life of a hurting person;

- Every time you’re tired but you take the time to serve others in the name of Christ;

- Every time you could be making big bucks by working overtime but you choose to serve the needy through a ministry of some sort —

- Every time you make those kinds of sacrifices and you think that nobody else notices — GOD NOTICES. And God cares.

And God rewards you not only with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment today, but He promises rewards in eternity as well.

Proverbs 11:18 says, “He who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.”

I think maybe Jesus would give this three-word prescription to the people who serve and give and help people in the trenches of life: “KEEP IT UP.”

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The God who is with us gives us all we need to “live free” this Christmas season.