In the beginning of Matthew there is an intriguing reference back to Isaiah 7:14 that says Jesus will be called Immanuel even though, as far as we know, no one ever called him Immanuel. Maybe it was like a middle name. We have it, but no one uses it.

I don’t actually think anyone thought Jesus had the name Immanuel, but they did come to think Jesus was the very fulfilment of the phrase, ‘God with us’ which is what Immanuel means. The thread of the close presence of God runs throughout Scripture showing us God’s desire to have a people to be with Him.  

At the beginning of the story of people and God He walks and talks with Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. There is connection, peace and security – literally living the good life. But once sin enters the picture connection, peace and security all become harder to find. Now there are reasons to be afraid: enemies, rivalry, thorns, thistles, pain and death. This is our world. 

Yet God continued to look for people to walk with. Enoch, Noah until one day he found Abraham. And the story begins to really take shape at this point. In Genesis 15 for the first time God makes a covenant (a contract if you will) and God’s first words are:

“Fear not Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

What is your shield? 

Then throughout a long and incredible history God repeats and reaffirms this same promise to Abrahams’ descendants.

When God meets with Moses in the burning bush, Moses really does not want to be God’s ambassador to Egypt. He comes up with a lot of excuses and ends up saying, “Please send someone else.” But after his very first attempt to wriggle out of it, God says to him, “But I will be with you…” and this leads to an incredible exchange where God promises Moses, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” 

Where do you turn for peace of heart and rest for your soul in a world full of trouble?  

Yet, we can sometimes look at our circumstances and wonder how this really can be true? 

When we come to the story of Gideon, the people of Israel are in a bad place. They are not obeying God and for SEVEN YEARS they have been attacked by the Midianites, leaving them hungry, fearful, and in retreat. A prophet comes and reminds them, “I delivered you (past tense) and so you don’t need to be afraid (present tense), but you’re not obeying my voice.”

And God sends an angel to the younger son of a weak family in a weak clan. They have no strength to speak of, by their own admission. And Gideon when he hears the angel say, “The Lord is with you.” Gideon replies, “Please my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers told us…?”

And we can wonder that too, “If God was with me then surely I wouldn’t be in a dark place, hiding and afraid.”  We want to know “If God is true how can this have happened?’

“If God was with me then surely I wouldn’t be in a dark place, hiding and afraid.”

If you are feeling this, know you’re not the first nor will you be the last. Gideon asks it of God thousands of years ago and yet, still today, we can still make the same sorts of assumptions that Gideon made. 

“If God really loved me then nothing bad would happen to me. If God really loved me then everything should be great. I shouldn’t have to suffer. I don’t deserve to suffer. What good is a God who cannot help me the way I want to be helped?” 

But there’s a risk here of creating a contradiction. We want God to love us unconditionally but we only love Him after He has made my life better. If we’re being honest then sometimes we don’t really want God, we want what we think God can do for us. That makes our love conditional.

Now never mind that Gideon is talking to an angel of the Lord, you know it’s kind of an odd question to ask an angel right? And the angel is like “Dude, if God didn’t care – would I be here?”

But it doesn’t have to be an angel, sometimes we don’t hear the voice of the Lord when we read it right off the page or when someone else speaks the truth right to us. We’re like the rich man asking Abraham for signs because then we’d listen. 

But God is interested in the heart of His people. And the message to Gideon and people like him, who are in the midst of oppression and suffering is, “I’m here. Don’t be afraid. Let’s deal with your enemies together.” 

We think suffering shows God’s absence. 

God says your suffering is the opportunity to trust in His presence. 

God does not run from suffering but enters into it.

And this brings us to Jesus Immanuel.

One of the key pictures God gives of the relationship He has with His people is of a marriage. Jesus is the bridegroom who has come for His bride. 

The Puritans have often considered a miserable lot because they were famously anti-Christmas; they thought it all a lot of unbiblical popery. But there’s more to them than meets the eye. Listen to this from Thomas Goodwin:

It is as if he had said, The truth is, I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet till I have you where I am, that so we may never part again. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set upon you; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it.

Gibson, David. The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host (p. 88). Crossway. Kindle Edition.  

This was one writer’s attempt to capture the fierce love with which God has for His people and ultimately God wrote himself into the story in the person of Jesus. He sent His own son because He so loved the world.

In a marriage, what matters most is faithful love. That’s the marriage contract. Or in the Bible’s words the covenant. Let us love one another faithfully, me to you and you to me.

In my marriage vows I promised ‘for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.’ Not just in riches and in health. What kind of love would that be? A very selfish sort, an unsacrificial sort. A very conditional sort.

The wealthiest people in the world have literally everything they could ever want but when they do not love one another then the marriage never lasts. Now we might prefer richer to poorer, and we certainly prefer health over sickness but the promise is to love no matter what. And that is what makes the difference. Not my external circumstances but the internal love which sustains me. 

It is not, therefore that God doesn’t care about our circumstances but they are our starting point, not His.    

What matters most to God is that we love Him for who He is and that we let Him love us where we are. And that love in both directions changes us.

And everything about Jesus points us to the love of God. Everything.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

New Revised Standard Version, 1 Jn 4:7–12.

God revealed His love by sending His Son. And His Son revealed the depth of His love by becoming the sacrifice we could offer back to God to atone for our sins. Where will I find a pure spotless lamb that I can bring before God so he will look on the lamb and declare me set free by the blood of the sacrifice? God says “I’ll provide it”. 

Then, if we do trust ourselves to Christ, how do we live as ones not physically with Him? By His Spirit.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

New Revised Standard Version, 1 Jn 4:13.

The Holy Spirit is the guarantee. The presence of Jesus is by His Spirit until we see Him face to face. So ask and you will receive. Jesus says, when he speaks of giving gifts, if you know how to give good gifts, then how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

But note also the word abiding. This draws us back to Jesus’ words who told us “Abide in me, and I in you.” Can you see the intimacy, the closeness, the inseparability of this? How can a person be separated from their own breath? 

Only by death and Jesus overcame even that.

And what is one of the main purposes of the Spirit? To remind us all that Jesus has said so ‘our hearts won’t be troubled and we won’t be afraid’.

“The Lord is my shepherd, what more do I need?”

I may want more, I want a lot of things. I want to wake up younger, smarter, fitter and richer. Sadly for me I am, more often than not, waking up the opposite. 

Listen, God said to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson: “Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

In Christ and the presence of His Holy Spirit he brings this promise true. For you. Wherever you go His Spirit is with you. Always and forever. And He will not leave you until He has fulfilled His promise to bring you safely into the presence of Jesus Christ. 

God came to us in our wilderness, God found us in our darkness, God delivered us from evil, God forgave us of our sins, God is restoring us and healing us. God will remain with us and abide with us if we abide with Him. All through His Son, Jesus Christ, Immanuel.

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This text was taken from a sermon preached to Grace Church Stockholm, at Christmas 2025. If you’d like to listen to it the here you go.