Responding to Immanuel

1
Responding to Immanuel

• John 110-13

2
What is the Christmas story?
3
Immanuel

• For to us a child is born, to us a son is given
  and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
  and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,
  Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,
  (Isaiah 96, ESV).
• Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace
  among those with whom he is pleased, (Luke
  214).

4
Immanuel

• But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far
  off have been brought near by the blood of
  Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has
  made us both one and has broken down in his flesh
  the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the
  law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that
  he might create in himself one new man in place
  of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile
  us both to God in one body through the cross,
  thereby killing the hostility. And he came and
  preached peace to you who were far off and peace
  to those who were near. For through him we both
  have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then
  you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you
  are fellow citizens with the saints and members
  of the household of God, (Ephesians 213-19).

5
Immanuel

• The Baby was God
• In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
  with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
  beginning with God. All things were made through
  him, and without him was not any thing made that
  was made. In him was life, and the life was the
  light of men. The light shines in the darkness,
  and the darkness has not overcome it, (John
  11-5).
• The Baby was God made man.
• And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
  and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only
  Son from the Father, full of grace and truth,
  (John 114).

6
Immanuel is Ignored

• He was in the world, and the world was made
  through him, yet the world did not know him,
  (John 110).
• We must never allow anything to blind us to the
  true significance of what happened at Bethlehem
  so long ago. Nothing can alter the fact that we
  live on a visited planet. J.B. Phillips

7
The Revealer is rejected.

• He came to his own, and his own people did not
  receive him, (John 111).
• No man can come to me unless the Father who sent
  me draws him, (John 644).

8
The Redeemer is received.

• But to all who did receive him, who believed in
  his name, he gave the right to become children of
  God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will
  of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God,
  (John 112-13).
• Receive
• Believe
• Become