You know what it is to walk in darkness and wonder if God will ever draw near. Israel knew it too—enslaved, exiled, occupied—praying over every generation that a child would come. In Matthew 1 that child is born, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
Generations waited for you, a star in the sky, an answer to our cry. You taught us, healed us, forgave us. We rejected you and gave you a crown of thorns. You took our punishment, our king, crucified. But death wouldn’t have the final word. A king rises, a promise kept, a movement ignited, carried across the four winds. Now your spirit is here and we await your return once more.
Another child born into a nation with assorted history and assorted past. We’ve been through the story the last few weeks, but this nation, they’ve been through a lot. A lot of struggle, a lot of mountaintop victories for sure, but seemingly a lot more lowly moments. It’s a nation that was enslaved for 400 years in Egypt before they were rescued and then found themselves wandering for more decades in the wilderness.
A nation whose people eventually came together as a kingdom, elected kings that just weren’t what they were hoping for. A nation that because of that, then sin entangled their hearts, and this people was swept away into exile, this time not to Egypt but to Babylon. And there in Babylon for decades, they cried out to God again, save us and rescue us, and God, hearing their cry, brought them back to home. But then even in that home, Rome comes in and makes home among them and makes them serve Rome in their own homes even.
It’s a nation that’s got quite the past where their hearts begin to grow cold over time towards Yahweh, their father who had created them and made them a people, and their hearts begin to long for other gods and other places of worship. This child is born into that, born into just the rubble of Israel.
And this nation, they didn’t have much to offer this child, not a lot of wealth to give, but one thing they did have to offer, they gave every child that was born in their nation, and that was words of hope from long ago. They would read these words and pray these words over every generation, words from the prophet Isaiah that would speak of a promise and a hope that was to come. Today may be hard but someday may be better. They would pray these words.
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine. You will enlarge the nation of Israel and its people will rejoice. They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, and like warriors dividing the plunder; for you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. Not today but hopefully someday. They would pray this prayer from Isaiah as well.
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government one day will rest on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. Not today but someday. They would pass on this promise as well to the next generations.
That a virgin would conceive, and she would give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel, which means God with us finally. For centuries, God’s people, they waited for this promise. They passed this promise on to every generation that was born in their country, and their hearts longed for the day that Immanuel would come.
Immanuel, and ransomed captive Israel that mourns in lowly exile here until the Son of God appears. Rejoice, rejoice, Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. Will come Immanuel. That was their prayer. A promise they’d been passing down from generation to generation. And from every generation, Israel had been waiting for Immanuel, God with us, to come and rescue them from Rome. Rescue them from Persia. Rescue them from Babylon. Rescue them from Egypt. And finally just put all that behind them. Generation after generation prayed that.
And then in an insignificant little rural town in their country, another child was born. Another name added to the family tree. Another name added to another generation. But this time, something happened that would change the course of human history forever. This time, the God who spoke the universe into existence, the God who spoke words to Moses, the God who spoke words to David, the God who spoke words to Abraham, the same God that would speak words to prophets would now speak in an entirely new way. Not words through a prophet, not words on tablets of stone, but this time he would speak and his word would take on flesh and dwell among us as a child in Israel.
And just as he promised generations before, a child was born. Emmanuel has come near. With this birth, we enter the New Testament. Our Bibles are interesting books. The New Testament is such an interesting book, and it’s easy to think that they are separate books and they have nothing to do with one another. But what the Old Testament does is different than what the New Testament does. The Old Testament tells us that someone is coming. The New Testament tells us that someone is here.
And so when we get to the book of Matthew, all of a sudden there’s this proclamation that everything that Israel had been through, every hope that Israel had been looking towards, every promise that was made to them, now in the New Testament was getting ready to be fulfilled in a child that was born in a little town. Open up your Bibles to the New Testament, Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. It is finally good to be in the New Testament. After 12 weeks, we get to hear God bringing about his covenant promise.
Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. The story starts in a very dramatic way with a list of names. It’s like watching a movie and they put the credits first. Like for the first five minutes of the movie, it’s just rolling names. Not a great way to start a story, but that’s how the New Testament begins. It starts this way in verse 1. It says, “The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Notice how the New Testament starts. The New Testament starts by introducing the person of Jesus, but instead of looking forward, what does it do? It looks backwards to start off with. I love that it does that. It says, “We’re going to talk about Jesus, but before we get to Jesus, let me remind you where we’ve been. Let me remind you that he is the son of David. He is the son of Abraham.”
Almost as if the author is saying, don’t forget where we’ve come from thus far in this story. And then what happens is you get the credits. In the next few verses, in verses 2 to 16, it’s all the names. It’s Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Tamar, Perez, Hezron, Ram, Aminadab, Nashon, Salomon, Rahab, Boaz, Ruth, Obed, Jesse, David, Bathsheba, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Jeremiah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amos, Josiah, Jeconiah, Sheol, Zerubbabel, Abijah, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliudah, Elishaar, Muthon, Jacob, Joseph, Mary.
And some of those, if you say them with confidence, it sounds like you pronounced them correctly. And we read through that, and most of you, I know exactly what you do, don’t you? You get to Matthew chapter 1, you start the New Testament, you’re like, “I’m gonna love this story.” You open it up, you’re like, “You know what, let’s go to chapter 2. Let’s just skip right ahead to chapter 2.”
But can I tell you this, that this genealogy, don’t skip it. I can understand why you might skip other genealogies, but this one, I think it serves a purpose. It serves a purpose to remind us of where we’ve come from. What it does is it begins to remind us of the last 12 weeks of the story we’ve walked through. And I know that genealogies can be boring, but in this one, when you start reading the New Testament, can I just ask you to do this? Read through the genealogy, but do it slowly. That’s where the power of the genealogy comes from.
When you read through it slowly, you read a name, you pause, and then remember that story. Like the very first one, Abraham. Let’s just pause a moment and remember that story. Play out his story in your mind. The man of faith who was told to leave everything behind and travel to this land of Canaan because God had a promise for him. And in his old age, he was told that he would have descendants, children. And he actually laughed at the idea that he would have children in his old age.
But then what happened? He had a son named Isaac who was born. And Isaac’s got this great story where he has twin sons, and there’s a lot of family issues in his story though. And it’s not a perfect family. There’s a lot of family drama. But one of the sons, Jacob, he comes along and he becomes this deceiver of men. And then he’s exiled from his family and trying to live in the world. It’s great stories to pause and remember these stories.
I mean, you get down, we won’t cover that one. That’s a pretty good one. Perez, that’s a great name. Rahab though, let’s go down to Rahab. Remember Rahab’s story in the Old Testament? When you get to this name, it’s worth pausing and remembering that she was a Gentile prostitute in the city of Jericho who God used to rescue Caleb and Joshua, his men that were looking at the land that God had promised them. And she made a way out for them so that the rest of this was possible.
And she had children, a son named Boaz, who married a widow named Ruth, who was this woman of faith who was not of the Jewish lineage but had this heart for God and Yahweh anyway. We see David, King David. Remember his story? It’s worth pausing and remembering his story. David, the shepherd boy, who was told at a young age that he would become king. Nobody believed it would happen. God made it happen.
Not only did he become king, but he became one of the greatest kings of Israel because he had a heart that was chasing after God to the point where he led the entire nation and their hearts to chase after God as well. Now, he had a sordid past too because he forcibly slept with Bathsheba and took her and killed her husband to make her his wife. And David was punished for that.
But God also kept this promise going and this lineage going where he gave him Solomon, maybe the wealthiest king of Israel, who expanded the walls and expanded the borders of Israel and brought in the wealth and the wisdom from other nations. You go throughout here and you see more kings and you get to Manasseh, who was maybe the most evil king of all of the nation, where he turned his heart away from God and therefore the rest of the nation followed after him.
He was actually captured and taken into Babylon. And while there, he was tortured. And in that torture, he repented of his sins before God and God forgave the most wicked king of all of Israel. Go down a little bit further. Let’s see who else we got. We’ve got Josiah. Josiah is the kid king, became king at a really early age. And he led people back to the Word of God whenever he discovered the Scriptures and read them aloud in the congregation.
And what I love about these genealogies is every single one of them has a story. And you look at them, and every name on that list, they have their own story. But God is the main character in every story. That’s why the genealogy matters. We see the individual’s names. We see the lower story. You know what’s happening in every generation? God showed up, God showed up, God showed up, God showed up. God was a part of every single part of every single story.
The genealogy, this one in particular, is a testimony to God’s faithfulness. So don’t skip it. Pause. Remember. Reflect on what God was doing. Because in every generation God was there. In every generation God was making a promise. And in every generation God was keeping that promise. That promise started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. And they were told by God that a child of Eve’s would come someday and defeat the serpent, crush sin and death all together.
And then that promise passes down to the next generation. And the next generation. And the next generation. Until it reaches Abraham. And Abraham is told that a child of his would bless all nations. And that promise is passed to the next generation. And the next generation. And the next generation. Until it reaches David. Where King David is told that he would have a child as well, and this child would reign on his throne forever.
And each generation, each story, each name in this genealogy, it brings us closer to one name. The one name that would reveal what God has been doing all along. From the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, and what he’s going to be doing all the way through eternity. And in Matthew chapter 1 verse 16, we finally get to that one name.
After all we’ve been through in the Old Testament, we finally hear this. Jesus was born who is called the Christ. Jesus was born who is called the Christ. In the middle of all the chaos of Israel, a child falls down from heaven into the rubble. Jesus, who was born, and he’s called the Christ. And finally, after centuries of telling us that someone is coming, that someone has arrived, and God, through him, has come near.
In Jesus, what we see is that God came near by becoming one of us. God all along, his desire, and we’ve been talking about this, his desire is to be near us. He creates this garden so that he can be with Adam and Eve. He creates this tabernacle and temple so that he can be with the Israelites. He gives them this land so he can be with them. And then when all of that disappears, God’s desire and plan is still to be with mankind.
And in Jesus Christ, God comes near by becoming, not a building, not a land, not a temple, he becomes one of us. In Matthew chapter 1, verses 21 to 23, we see how that happens.
It says this, “Mary will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophets: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name, what?” Emmanuel, which means God with us. Emmanuel, God with us.
Now, this word Emmanuel, here, it’s got the I in it, but on occasion it is written with an E. That’s why in our series I put an E, because it fits with Eden to eternity, Emmanuel exile. But it’s the same word, whether it’s an E or an I, Emmanuel, God with us.
It’s the name that’s given to this child that is born in Bethlehem.
Now, the interesting thing about this child is, in this passage, in Matthew chapter 1, this child is actually given three names. What are those three names? Jesus, he will be called the Christ, and he is Emmanuel. Jesus, Christ, Emmanuel. If you’re taking notes, write those three names down real quick, okay? Whether you’re doing it in your app or in your Bible or on a piece of paper. Jesus, Christ, and Emmanuel.
Because in this first chapter, in the introduction of Jesus, we’re told not just that a child has arrived, but we’re told who this child is and what he came to do. And we’re told that through his names.
The name Jesus is actually, what he would have been called in the Hebrew is Yeshua, or Joshua was his name. Joshua, and it simply means what the passage tells us is Jesus, which means he will save his people from their sins. Jesus means the Lord saves.
Now, what does that tell us about Jesus? That the reason God comes near to us is to save us from our sins. That everything that the history of Israel had been through, all of the darkness that they had experienced, is because of sin. And now, Jesus has come to deal with the sin. And in that, what he does, is he pays for our sins, he conquers death, and then he offers forgiveness. Jesus, the Lord saved. He came to forgive.
But he’s also called the Christ. Now, Christ is not his last name. I know some people are like, it’s Jesus Christ, like his last name is Christ. Christ isn’t his last name, Christ is his title. I know it’s what it is. Christ essentially means anointed one. And the people who were anointed were kings.
And so Jesus is the Christ, or said another way, Jesus is the king. So the Lord saves, but then Christ means that he is the king. Which means God has looked at him and said, this is your new king. It’s not David anymore. It’s not Manasseh anymore. It’s not Josiah anymore. The king who will reign forever on the throne is this guy, Jesus.
And I’ll tell you what a good king he is. He becomes a better king than David ever could have imagined. He was a man who was after God’s own heart. He is a king who has reigned forever. And if Jesus offers forgiveness, Christ offers a way forward.
Jesus forgives you of your sin, but what do you do next? You submit to the king and follow him so that you might not fall into sin again. You need both, Jesus and Christ.
But then we’re given his third name, Emmanuel. Emmanuel, like the passage says here, just simply means God with us. God with us.
Now, the interesting thing about that is God with us. What’s that tell us about this child who was born in the manger? It’s not just your average, everyday human. It’s not just a good teacher. It’s not just a rabbi. It’s not just a prophet. Who’s in the manger? God. God with us.
Which tells us this, that Jesus is God’s son, but he is also God himself who dwells among us. We’re told that he’s one and the same. God has drawn near in the person of Jesus. Which means this, if Jesus offers forgiveness and Christ offers us a way forward, Emmanuel offers us someone to go with along the journey.
But if you’re gonna go forward and you’re gonna follow him, you need to know that you don’t have to be alone. You’ve got a friend to go with you.
Now, these three names are really important at this point in the story, at this juncture in the story. And I wanna focus these names maybe on your story here for a moment. Because here God is, he drops Jesus in the midst of Israel and he basically gives them an invitation. Do you want to accept this child as Jesus Christ Emmanuel or not? But the invitation’s not just for Israel, it’s for you as well.
And so can I ask you two questions about those names? First question would be this: which of those names is easiest for you to embrace? Maybe if you wrote those names down, look at them real quick and set your eyes on those names.
Which of those names is easiest for you to embrace? Which one is your heart just drawn to? Is it like, man, I just, I love that Jesus has forgiven me of my sins. Or maybe your heart’s drawn to Christ. I just love that I have a leader that I can follow and trust, one that will not let me down. Or maybe your heart’s drawn to Emmanuel. Just the idea that God’s presence is around me and that he’s near, that just does something in me and to me.
Which is easiest for you to embrace?
And then maybe a harder question is this: which name is hardest for you to embrace? Which one is it that you struggle with? You struggle with believing is true about him.
Do you believe that he’s Jesus, the Lord who saves you from your sin? Do you believe that you’re forgiven? Do you believe that this person can forgive you of your sins and deliver you from death? Do you believe he can do that? Or do you struggle with him being Jesus?
What about Christ? Maybe you like that he forgives you of your sin, but really you still just want to be king. You really just want to be your own ruler. You want to make your own decisions. You’re okay with some of the stuff he teaches, but I’m not sure that I can follow these other things that he teaches. Maybe you struggle with him being Christ. You struggle with him being king.
I wonder if maybe some of you might struggle with him being Emmanuel. You can believe that there’s this God that exists somewhere and he forgives us of our sins, and maybe he’s a good king, but there’s a distance between us, and I’m here to do this on my own. And so I gotta read the book on my own. I gotta figure it out on my own. And I gotta walk this life on my own. And you struggle to believe that no, through Jesus, God is not just on a throne, but he’s near, he’s with you, and he’s not just pointing you forward, but now you have a friend to lead you and walk with you on a way forward.
Which of these names is hardest for you to accept? Because here’s the reality: you have to accept all three, because that’s who he is. You don’t get to pick and choose which one he is. He is Jesus, the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.
That’s who he is.
And I’ll tell you, you need him to be Jesus. You need him to be Jesus because you cannot save yourself from your sins. And I know you’re sitting in these moments in your life where you just feel incredibly guilty and shameful for the things that you’ve done. You know what you need? Not to hide. What you need is Jesus to step into the rubble and to forgive you, to take away the guilt, to remove the shame. You need Jesus.
Do you need Christ? I think you admit that you need Christ as well. Because what got you into the trouble in the first place is that you were the king of your life to begin with. Or you let someone else be the king of the life. You let the cultural teachings be the king of your life. You let passed down habits from generation to generation be the king of your life. You let your own pride and your own strength make the decisions for your life.
You need Christ because you need more than forgiveness, you need a leader. You need a king. You need a boss who you can trust, who you can follow, a leader who has got the heart that is chasing after God.
And I think you need Emmanuel as well. You need God with us because you weren’t created to be lonely. I know many of you, you’re surrounded by so many people. You throw on the smile and yet there’s still something inside of you that’s like, man, I just still feel alone.
In fact, you’re not looking forward to the holiday season because of all the hustle and bustle and there’s still this loneliness that you experience. Maybe it’s because you’ve been rejected by somebody around you. Maybe it’s because you’ve lost somebody this year and you’re sensing that you’re gonna be alone in the midst of it all.
You need Emmanuel. You need a God who is with us, because that longing within you to be known and loved, God wired you for that so that you could receive him. God came near by becoming one of us. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Emmanuel.
Two reasons that Jesus came, two reasons that God came in this season is number one is that you need him, and number two is that he wants you. If you’re wondering what the reason for the season is, I think it’s more complex than, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Well, what’s the reason for Jesus? The reason for Jesus is you need him and God wants you. You need Jesus and Jesus wants you. You need the Christ and the Christ wants you. You need Emmanuel and Emmanuel wants to be with you.
Jesus, when he drops into Israel through Mary miraculously, he begins to do what everyone else failed to do. Jesus, he came to do what Adam and Eve and Abraham and David and the judges and the kings failed to do. He came to rescue you from sin and death so that you could be with your loving father now and forevermore.
That’s why he came, not just to forgive you of your sins—though he does and will do that—but the reason he does that is so that he can be with you today, right now in whatever mess you’re in, and then from this day forward into all of eternity.
Emmanuel has come. He came to do what Adam and Eve failed to do. He came to do what the law could never accomplish. He came to do what Israel’s judges and kings were powerless to restore. Jesus came to do what no one else could do: rescue you from sin and death so that you can be with your loving father forever.
Now, his birth, it was just the beginning. That’s just the revelation of him here. This child, turns out he wasn’t just another name on a long line in genealogy. This child would grow up in relative obscurity in the town of Nazareth. No spotlight, nobody knowing what he’s doing. He would live an ordinary life in a small little town in Israel. And then around the age of 30, he would step into the public eye and turn the entire world upside down.
That’s where we’re going next week. Church, would you stand with me? And let’s pray.
Father, we recognize that you are near to us. And if we can’t feel it, we do proclaim it as truth knowing that you are near. God, my prayer is that you give us an awareness of your presence with us. And then give us an awareness of how we feel about your presence near us.
God, if your presence brings us guilt and shame, I pray that you show us to lean into Jesus, to have the forgiveness of our sins accomplished, to be washed clean, to be forgiven of the past so that we can move forward into the future.
But Father, in order to move forward into the future, we need a new king. And so teach us to follow Jesus. Teach us to follow his Holy Spirit. I pray that the flesh that’s within us that desires to follow our own ways be replaced with the spirit in his heart that is chasing after you.
God, give us Jesus’s heart. And then God, in the valleys, in the mountaintops, and in between, I pray that you be near us. Emmanuel, God with us, your word that becomes flesh.
God, thank you for Jesus, who is called the Christ. Emmanuel. It’s in his name we pray. Everybody say it with me. Amen.
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