Born of a Virgin - God With Us

Prophecy: A virgin will conceive and bear a son called Immanuel.

Fulfillment: The miraculous conception and birth of Jesus.

Theme: Christ's birth is supernatural, proving His identity as God with us. Only God Himself can solve the problem of sin.

Theological Proposition/Focus: Christ's birth is supernatural, proving His identity as God with us. Only God Himself can solve the problem of sin.

Christ Focus: Jesus is Immanuel — fully God and fully man — who came down to restore relationship with His people.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: Respond to God's gracious offer of relationship through faith in Christ, who humbled Himself for our salvation.

Introduction

Image: The right person for the job

There are times when you need a particular person for a particular job, and anything short of the right person is exactly the wrong way to go about the matter. The propeller on my airplane is wooden, and wood is very susceptible to changes with temperature and humidity. I am a fairly handy person and willing to try most things, but when Fall rolled around a couple of years ago and it was time to adjust my propeller bolts for the changing temperature, I thought about it and realized I had never done anything like that before. Learning how to tighten propeller bolts on an airplane from YouTube was probably not the right way to do it.

So, I contacted a professional mechanic I know and asked him if I could take 30 minutes of his time when he got off of work, pay him some money, and have him adjust the propeller bolts while I watched and learned. He agreed, and $40 later I knew that my propeller was not going to fall off because of some silly mistake I had made. It was worth it! There are some jobs that you don't just do yourself the first time you do it.

Setting the Stage:

The birth of Jesus didn't happen in isolation. It was the fulfillment of God's ancient promise — a sign first given to King Ahaz during a time of national crisis.

King Ahaz is one of those "flyover kings." He gets an entire chapter in 2 Kings 16, but we often skip past him without much thought. Ahaz became king of Judah at twenty and reigned for sixteen years. Sadly, he did not follow the ways of the Lord like his ancestor David. Instead, he adopted the practices of Israel's kings — even sacrificing his own son and worshiping at the high places.

During his reign, Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel formed an alliance and attacked Jerusalem, but they could not conquer it. This is the context in which we come to Isaiah 7. Rezin and Pekah threatened to replace Ahaz with a puppet ruler, and Ahaz was terrified. Rather than turning to the Lord, he considered seeking help from Tiglath-Pileser III, the powerful king of Assyria.

But God sent the prophet Isaiah to reassure Ahaz. God made it clear that the plans of Aram and Israel would fail and that faith — not fear — was the key to stability. God even invited Ahaz to ask for a sign, any sign, to confirm His promise. But Ahaz refused. Nevertheless, God provided a sign anyway — and that is where we begin with Isaiah 7:14.

Before reading that verse, it's helpful to know how this story ends. Ahaz chose not to trust God. Instead, he appealed to Tiglath-Pileser for help, offering treasures from the temple as payment. Assyria attacked and captured Damascus, killing Rezin. When Ahaz visited Damascus afterward, he saw a pagan altar there and had a copy built in Jerusalem, changing the temple practices to match it. He even removed sacred items from the temple and altered the rituals of worship.

So, with all of that in mind, let's read Isaiah 7:14 and hear God's message of reassurance. Just as God wanted Ahaz to know that He was with him, God wants to remind us today that even in a frightening world, He is with us.

Body

Relationship — God Desires Relationship with Each of Us (Isaiah 7:10-14).

The Context: The impending attack on Jerusalem that never happened.

Judah faced an attack that never came. Through Isaiah, God offered King Ahaz proof of His protection. The outlook must have seemed bleak — fear filled the city, and defeat felt inevitable. But God promised that their enemies' plans would fail. History confirms it: both Rezin and Pekah died within two years of issuing their threats.

God told Ahaz that the attack would not happen, and that he could take comfort in knowing his enemies were mere men while the God of the universe was offering His assurance. In fact, God declared through Isaiah that within sixty-five years the very nation threatening Judah would be shattered and no longer exist (Isaiah 7:8).

Ahaz couldn't see that future. From his perspective, disaster was certain, and appealing to Assyria seemed like the only reasonable option. But God knew the end from the beginning — and He wanted Ahaz to trust Him.

As we wrestle with anxiety in our own lives, we need to remember this: there are many things we cannot control, but we serve a God who can control anything. So we must turn to Him instead of being consumed by fear. That's not easy — but it is true. God is sovereign even over what seems impossible.

The reality is simple: God wants to be part of your life and walk with you through every situation.

The Offer: God invited Ahaz to request a sign of His faithfulness — any sign at all.

God invited Ahaz to request a sign — any sign at all — to confirm His promise. But Ahaz refused in unbelief.

Have you ever had someone who really wanted to be your friend? When I was at the University of Colorado, there was an older professor who appreciated some of the computational mathematics I had done. He asked me to teach him a few things on the computer. What started as a simple tutorial turned into him paying me $20 an hour just to go to lunch and listen to his stories about his international reputation in mathematics. In a sense, I was being paid to be someone's friend!

Now, I don't say that to demean God in any way, but to make this point: God earnestly desires relationship with us. How do we know? Because He sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we might be reconciled to Him. But even here, in Isaiah 7, we see evidence of that longing. God essentially asks Ahaz, "What do I need to do so that you will trust Me?" He even uses a merism — "whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights" — to express that no sign was too great to ask for.

Yet Ahaz refused, saying he would not "test" the Lord. But this wasn't a test; it was a command. God told him to ask for a sign. Ahaz simply didn't want to believe. Perhaps he knew he had been leading Judah into wickedness and wanted nothing to do with God's authority. But here's the truth: we don't get to choose whether or not we are subject to God — we simply are. We can either cooperate with His will or resist it. There is no in-between. And still, in His mercy, God provided a sign anyway.

The proof that God nevertheless provided.

Even though Ahaz refused, God still gave the sign:

"The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."

Here's where it gets fascinating. The Hebrew word translated "virgin" is עַלְמָה (ʿalmâh), meaning "a young woman of marriageable age." That's why your Bible might include a footnote saying "or young woman." The implication is someone who is unmarried and, therefore, assumed to be a virgin.

When we read Matthew's inspired interpretation later, we can be confident that God intended the word to mean virgin in the fullest sense. There's much more that could be said about this verse, but let's stay focused on the main point:

God promised His presence even when His people didn't trust Him. Ahaz had rejected God, but God had not abandoned His people. His presence remained, and His plan continued.

MTR: Choose to be receptive of God's offer of relationship.

If you have never accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, that's the first step in responding to God's offer of relationship. But even beyond that — are you enjoying regular times of prayer? Are you spending time in God's Word?

God is calling. The question is: will you answer?

Immanuel — God condescended to offer relationship to each of us (Matthew 1:18-23).

The events of Isaiah 7 took place more than 700 years before the birth of Jesus. Now, in Matthew 1, we see Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled as God steps into human history in the most profound way imaginable.

The virgin birth evidences Christ's deity.

The virgin birth reveals Christ's deity. There was no human father — the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Matthew is intentional in how he describes this. He tells us that Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but the marriage had not yet been consummated. That detail matters deeply.

To appreciate this, we need to understand a bit about ancient Hebrew marriage customs:

"Marriages were arranged for individuals by parents, and contracts were negotiated. After this was accomplished, the individuals were considered married and were called husband and wife. They did not, however, begin to live together. Instead, the woman continued to live with her parents and the man with his for one year. The waiting period was to demonstrate the faithfulness of the pledge of purity given concerning the bride. If she was found to be with child in this period, she obviously was not pure, but had been involved in an unfaithful sexual relationship. Therefore the marriage could be annulled. If, however, the one-year waiting period demonstrated the purity of the bride, the husband would then go to the house of the bride's parents and in a grand processional march lead his bride back to his home. There they would begin to live together as husband and wife and consummate their marriage physically. Matthew's story should be read with this background."

So when Matthew says that Mary was found to be pregnant "before they came together," he is making it unmistakably clear that Joseph was not the father.

Verses 20-21 address the next logical question: could someone else have been the father? Matthew doesn't appeal to human reasoning but to divine revelation. An angel appears to Joseph, assuring him that Mary has not been unfaithful — the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Joseph is told to take responsibility by naming the child, but that act of naming is an act of faith and obedience, not biological paternity. The message is clear: there was no human father.

The angel's words reveal something even greater — that this child's conception is the work of the Holy Spirit, meaning the child is divine. Someone might argue that the Holy Spirit's involvement alone doesn't prove divinity, but Matthew removes all doubt by quoting Isaiah 7:14:

"The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel — which means, God with us."

That is the linchpin — the key. The child conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of Mary is God with us. The virgin birth is not a side detail; it is essential proof that Jesus is fully God.

But in God's perfect plan, there is more happening.

The physical birth evidences Christ's humanity.

The physical birth reveals Christ's humanity. Born of a woman, entering our world in weakness and need — Jesus was truly human.

In perfect balance, the Son of God is both fully divine and fully human. We can celebrate Christmas because Jesus was physically born. God is omnipresent; that is, He is everywhere all at once, but at the same time, God is Spirit and we are living physical beings. We struggle to relate to God because He is so other than us that we cannot even fathom it. But here is the beauty of Christ. In Christ, the God of the universe took on human form and became like us that He might be with us.

We often struggle to relate to God because He is so far beyond us, so "other." But the beauty of Christ is that the infinite God became like us so that He could be with us.

Think about that for a moment. The God who created the universe became human to be with you. In the last point, we saw that God desires relationship with us. But I don't think we can truly grasp how much He desires it. Consider this: He wants relationship so much that He took on human form to make it possible.

And so the title Immanuel truly matters.

The title reminds us that God desires to have relationship with us.

"Immanuel" — God with us — reminds us that God's heart has always been to dwell among His people, not to remain distant.

Before we move to Philippians, let's pause and reflect on that name. It doesn't just mean that God is with us, but that He wants to be with us. The God of the universe loves you so deeply that He was willing to enter our world, take on our flesh, and experience our pain.

Think about what that means:

• Jesus went through childbirth.
• He submitted Himself to human parents.
• He likely had to be fed, carried, and cleaned as an infant.
• He stubbed His toes, scraped His knees, and experienced hunger and exhaustion.

God asked Ahaz, "What do I have to do for you to trust Me?" And in Jesus, God goes even further — He doesn't just ask, He acts. The name Immanuel becomes a divine question: What more could God do to show you that He wants to be with you?

MTR: Take a second and ask yourself, do I want to be with God as much as He wants to be with me?

Then ask: How can I make God as much a priority as He has made me?

When we say God with us, we're not just repeating a Christmas slogan — we're declaring the heart of the gospel. The Creator of all things didn't stay distant or demand that we climb our way up to Him. Instead, He came down to us. He entered our world, our weakness, and our need so that we could know His love firsthand. Immanuel means that God is not far away; He is present in our fears, near in our suffering, and faithful even when we are not. So as we celebrate Christ's birth, let's remember that every manger scene whispers this truth — God came close so that we could come home.

Humility — God's Son Humbled Himself for Our Redemption (Philippians 2:6-8).

The Christmas story is significant because it is only the beginning. What separates our God from every so-called god is that since we could never climb our way up to Him, He came down to us — and then paid the price Himself to bring us back. That descent, that condescension, that climb down to us is incredible.

Christ set aside his use of his deity.

Philippians 2:6-8 reminds us that Jesus did not cling to His divine privileges, though He was fully God. The word translated "nature" in the NIV comes from the Greek word μορφή (morphē), which refers to one's inner essence or true reality. This means that Jesus is fully and truly God. Yet He chose not to use that divine status to His own advantage. He didn't use His power to avoid the realities of life among us.

When Emily and I were in Africa, we had a guide who took us around and helped us navigate the culture. The first night, we sat down for dinner and noticed that our guide was sitting in a different area, eating by himself. We realized quickly that guides weren't viewed as being of the same status as the Americans they served. So Emily and I invited him to eat with us after that.

But here's the thing — we invited him to join us, and he was allowed to. We didn't go sit with the people in the lesser area. The situation with God is astounding. Christ didn't just invite us to sit with Him in elegance. Instead, He came and sat with us; He became one of us. He entered into our world in all its filth and brokenness, and He didn't use His power to make it easier on Himself. Jesus accepted humanity with all the dirt, pain, and limitations it brings.

Christ took on the humility of humanity.

He embraced the humility of being human — living, serving, and suffering among us. Verse 7 tells us He took the form of a servant. He didn't become human as a king in a palace, but as the poor son of a poor family. Christ chose humility!

Many of you know how picky I am — I take multiple very hot showers a day; I wash my hands more than is probably healthy. I can't imagine living as Jesus did — dusty roads, no showers, no comfort. But He did it. He chose it.

Christ obeyed to the point of death.

Even to the point of death on a cross — the ultimate act of love to restore relationship with us. I'll be honest — I like life. I'm confident Heaven will be wonderful, but I really enjoy my life right now. Death doesn't appeal to me. And a horrific, painful death appeals even less. Yet this is what Jesus endured.

Jesus came and suffered for me — for you. In the ultimate act of humility, Jesus didn't just come as a man, or even as a poor man — He came to die, and to suffer in our place.

Why? Because Jesus died to pay the penalty for sin so that by trusting in Him alone, we might be brought into a restored relationship with God.

Seven hundred years earlier, God asked Ahaz, "What do I need to do to earn your trust?" And today I ask you — what does God need to do to earn yours? He has already come down. He has already given everything. He wants a relationship with you. Will you receive it?

MTR: This Christmas, as you hear the word Immanuel, take a moment to thank Jesus for all He sacrificed to rebuild relationship with you.

When we say Immanuel — God with us, we are remembering that Jesus didn't just visit us; He became one of us. The King of Heaven traded glory for humility, strength for weakness, and comfort for a cross — all so that we could be brought near to God. Every Christmas light, every carol, every manger scene is a reminder that God came close. He didn't wait for us to reach up to Him; He came down to reach for us. So when you hear the name Immanuel, let it stir gratitude in your heart — the God who was rich became poor so that we, through His poverty, might become rich in grace.