Mat 1:18-25; Jesus to You, “Grab Your Hammer. Let’s Build.”

Class Outline:

Wednesday November 8, 2023

 

Immanuel, the name that the many would give to Jesus Christ, means God with us.

 

Book of the King (1-39); Book of the Servant (40-55); Book of the Anointed Conqueror (56-66).

 

Isaiah approaches both Ahaz and Hezekiah by the water supply. The water supply to the city has more significance that we would initially imagine and it becomes a good introduction for today’s lesson Immanuel, God with us.

 

ISA 8:5-6

And again the Lord spoke to me further, saying,

6 "Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah,

And rejoice in Rezin [king of Aram/Syria] and the son of Remaliah [king of Israel];

 

Shiloah is the water supply that is outside the city. It was the stream from the Gihon spring that flowed into Jerusalem. It represented Jerusalem as a city of faith because it was vulnerable.

 

“rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah” = not trust God for your deliverance.

 

So, in judgment, God is going to bring the Assyrians, represented by the mighty Euphrates.

 

ISA 8:7-8

"Now therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant waters of the Euphrates,

Even the king of Assyria and all his glory;

And it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks.

8 "Then it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through,

It will reach even to the neck;

And the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

 

The wonderful imagery is in the rivers. Would Jerusalem feel safer if their water supply was the Euphrates?

 

The plan of the Assyrians will be shattered.

 

ISA 8:9-10

"Be broken, O peoples, and be shattered;

And give ear, all remote places of the earth.

Gird yourselves, yet be shattered;

Gird yourselves, yet be shattered.

10 "Devise a plan but it will be thwarted;

State a proposal, but it will not stand,

For God is with us."

 

Theme: They will call His name Immanuel which means God with us. In our age, God the Father and Son desire to build His house with you.

 

Immanuel comprises the bookends of Matthew’s Gospel.

 

MAT 28:20

“and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

JOH 13:36-37

“Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” 37 Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now?”

 

They would come to know as we do, that He would not only be with them, but in them, COL 1:27.

 

EXO 25:8

“Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.”

 

The rebuilt temple…

 

ZEC 2:10

"Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst," declares the Lord.

 

The promise in the kingdom…

 

EZE 37:26-28

"I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. 27 "My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 28 "And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever."'"

 

We never could have imagined that God with us would become so individual and so personal, while we help and serve one another.

 

JOH 14:18-24

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” [You can learn and obey My word.] 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.”

 

The Father and Son want to build a house (a life) with you now.

 

Every day is a day of building. Did you build that house today, or were you distracted with other projects?

 

Further, He promises the Holy Spirit who will teach all things concerning Him.

 

JOH 14:25-31

“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. 26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.  27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. 28 "You heard that I said to you, 'I go away, and I will come to you.' If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 "Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. 30 "I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me [nor does his world system]; 31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

 

God with us means something more and much more personal than it did in the days of Isaiah, indeed in all ages before ours.

 

God the Father and God the Son want to build a life with you, a church with you, a home with you, a family with you, a career with you, the next adventure with you. They want to build things that you have yet to imagine.

 

Too many Christians today are not building. They’re doing stuff, but much of that stuff is filled with the distractions and entertainments of the world. [I’m not saying that you’re wasting your time if you watch a movie or look at FB, but if you’re looking at FB for too long, shouldn’t you be able to discern that? Would God desire to use a good portion of that time for building?] Every day we should be asking our Father for the tasks of the day and listening alertly to what He would have us do. Jesus finished His upper room sermon with “I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.”