2014.11.30 Immanuel - God with Us - Desires to be in Relationship with YOU!

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Good morning! We are going to be talking about Immanuel the entire time through Advent – and what it means to have God with us.
Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
Sometimes Immanuel is with an E and sometimes it is with an I – and that depends on whether it was originally written in Hebrew or Greek.
The point of Immanuel – God being with us – is the theme of the entire Bible – the entire point of the story of creation and the story of redemption. Everything was created that we might be WITH HIM – to be in relationship with Him. God is a relational God – and His desire was to share that relationship with humans. But the first humans – we call it The Fall – broke away from that relationship – and that corrupted the order of creation. When God first created Adam and Eve – they were to partner with God in caring for all of Creation – and instead of caring for it – it is almost like there is a battle between the creation and the humans – tension – a battle going on between the two.
God’s solution to the problem was to come down and be with us. He became Man –
John 1: 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
God makes His presence known – speaking in miraculous ways – throughout the Bible – but what happened at Christmas – is God comes to be with His people on a continual basis –
“dwelt among us” – take up residence – or as The Message Bible says: He moved into the neighborhood.
The word is “to tabernacle” – when Israel traveled through the wilderness – that is where God’s presence was – going with them as they carried the ark and the tabernacle with them. John is saying – that shadow – that picture – has become real. The word was with God – and the word was fully God – and that word was Jesus – becoming fully human that He might be with us.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
Full of grace and truth – Grace is used 4 times.
There are many verses that talk about God being with us. At every crucial juncture in history – I am with you appears – it is the great equalizer, I heard someone say – because you can be deficient in almost every way – but if God is with us – it is all we need. It is enough for any and every circumstance.

Because of Christmas, God is with us always. But we don’t always feel it, do we – we often ask, God, where are You?
But the reality is, as we look at God’s work and people – we either don’t recognize His presence – or we reject His presence. Often – His presence is a fearful thing – something people tended to hide from.
When Moses would meet with God in the tabernacle – they had to build a fence around it – and the people had to stay away – or they would be struck dead! At one point – Moses is glowing after talking to God, and they told Moses to STOP! We don’t want to deal with this anymore! When Moses wanted to see God, God had to stick him in the cleft of a rock – and all Moses could see was His back.
In David’s day, Uzzah reached out his hand to stabilize the ark – and he was struck dead – because it is the very presence of God! Sometimes the presence of God is not as comforting as we would like it to be – and the question is, Why?
Adam and Eve – at one point wanted nothing to do with God.
Genesis 3: 7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard
It appears – it seems – that God was in the garden with Adam and Eve – He had time with them – and there was a relationship – maybe sharing His love, knowledge, goodness – imagine – being with God everyday – and you do the one thing you weren’t supposed to do – and God comes out – and is walking in the garden – and they hid from Him. We tend to do that, don’t we?
They hid from His presence. Guilt and shame caused them to hide. I’m sure before this, they would run to Him – imagine them – when is He coming today? But now the last thing they want is to be in His presence.
Gen. 3:9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
We often ask, Where are You, God, but more often, God is asking, where are you?!
If we are not experiencing God’s presence the way we think we should – we need to ask, where am I – what is happening that I am not experiencing God and His presence the way I would like to be?
10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.
As a result of what they did, there was shame and guilt that caused them to hide from the presence of God.
There are many reasons we do this.
Isaiah 6: 6 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the sovereign master seated on a high, elevated throne. The hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly. 3 They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord who commands armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!” 4 The sound of their voices shook the door frames, and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.”
Isaiah is seeing amazing things around the throne of God – God’s creatures – I have heard it said, His pets, surrounding Him – and it is Holy! Holy! – and Isaiah says, essentially – Oh MY! Look at that! Continually! You know what it is like going to a National Park and seeing the beauty of creation – and it is like, OH MY!
And Isaiah’s response –
5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.”
Sometimes we can’t be in God’s presence without acknowledging our problems inside of us.
Peter – in Luke 5
4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
That is all Peter can say! And in reality – that is where we are sometimes.
But there is good news. Things have changed. It is not the way it used to be – there is no longer a reason to fear, hide, feel rejected, feel shame or guilt – He talks in that passage about the Law coming to make us feel like we have failed, but Jesus comes with grace and we stand blameless before Him. We are not worthy to stand in God’s presence. We will never be worthy – but we are free to stand in His presence because of His grace, simply because God says, I want you in my presence – and I welcome you into relationship with Me.
Going back to Adam and Eve – when God says, Where are you? We can think of Him coming like an angry parent – and we go hiding – and He is like, Where are you kids?! Or we can look at it this way:
When I was in high school – the neighborhood was being built – and there were some woods behind the family behind us – and they had a 4-5 year old child that was missing – and imagine the cries of the parents – where are you? Where are you?!
The girl had gone into her closet and had fallen asleep – so it was a happy story – but I think that is more of God’s attitude – our God is a searching God – for when we go astray.
Let me read – Questions God asks us – “God is always trying to find us – this is the good news of the creation story – when we hide from God, God comes seeking – where are you? The question leads us into the searching heart of God. GOD ALWAYS PURSUES US in love. Nothing can ever extinguish the flame in God’s heart that burns to be in personal relationship with us – even when we mess up and get terribly lost. When God asks us where we are, it is as if God is saying to you and me, “Where are you? I miss you. My heart aches for you. I want to reconnect intimately with you. I grieve over the distance between us. I long for your companionship, and I will search for you until I find you.”
Jesus tells three parables – about lost things – a lost coin – the woman searched all through the house – like when you lose your keys – and you blame your spouse – when did the woman stop searching? When she found it – and not until then!
Then the lost sheep – one sheep leaves and goes astray – the shepherd leaves the 99 and searches until he finds the one and brings the sheep home.
The lost son – a lot like us – but unlike a coin or a sheep – God lets us go when we leave – he allows us to choose – we don’t HAVE to be with Him. Some people will choose to eternally not be with God. Even as Christians, there are times in our lives where we choose to not be with God – but we see with the father – constantly looking for the son to return – and the minute he does – he goes running to embrace – God is just waiting, looking, searching – watching – but with us – He is not going to drag us and say, you are coming with Me! But God waits for us to turn. He won’t come and say, Nope! He waits for the heart to turn. Sometimes we need to turn our hearts. That is what advent is – a time to turn your heart – I give up – I just give up – that is what the prodigal did – I surrender myself to You.
A couple things to do:
IF you find yourself lost – feeling like your relationship with God is not where it needs to be – what we tend to do – is fake it! In our study that we have been going through in small group – our prayers can sometimes be fake – he tells of a friend of his – it would be better coming to ask for forgiveness, knowing we are going to do it again – to pray – God, I sinned yesterday, I know I am going to sin today, and I will sin again tomorrow – please forgive me! That is more real. God sees through our masks – and yes, He wants us to try – but He wants us trying with the real us – who we are.
The first rock song – I had older cousins who were really cool – I was too young when the Beatles came to America – to watch Ed Sullivan – but I tended to live vicariously through my cousins – and Smoky Robinson – Tears of a Clown – Sad things known to men – the worst are the tears of a clown – camouflaged my sadness to deal with my pride – and I think that is how we are with God.
We want to appear to God and to others that all is okay – that everything is well. God seeks an honest heart. In the prodigal story – the brother always appeared to be carefree. The younger had no problem revealing the truth – I am not worthy – take me as a slave – have you ever thought about that –
Simple steps –

First: When you come back to God – come with your struggles and sins – confession.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Second: Come to God expressing your true feelings. God wants to hear your feelings – He wants the emotional you – and the emotional me. Express your hurts and wounds – God can handle them.
Third – ask God – How is it with my soul? How am I doing in relationship with You? The willingness for God to tell us how it is really going.
4th – come to God with your dreams – God wants that part of us too! And then we can come to God – not just saying – I’m lousy – but saying – God, I want YOU! My heart longs to be faithful to You! It really desires to be in relationship with You. That is where we really are. Because Christ lives in us, there is a deep longing – even though we might cover it up – there is a longing to be in a whole, healthy relationship with God – for God to know who we are and for us to know Him.
And one final thought – ask yourself – How can I live in God’s presence – in my life circumstances.
Some of the guys in our group were saying – I have a long car ride to work – and that is an excellent place to live in the presence of God. It doesn’t have to be in a closet – it doesn’t’ have to be all designed perfectly – This is my life. It is only in this life that I will have a relationship with God – it is not when it all changes 4 years from now – it happens in the now. It CAN happen HERE – we can be in God’s presence – but we need to seek – How to – in our situation.