Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 36: The God Who Is with Us and For Us
64 Plays4 years ago
Key Idea: God is not only with us, but He is for us.
Mentioned in this episode:
Connect with Ruth here:
Connect with Pat here:
Please share Rootlike Faith with your friends!
This podcast is produced and edited by Angie Elkins Media, Inc.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Root Like Faith
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi, I'm Patrick Schwank and I am so thankful that you are listening in with me today at Root Like Faith. It is our deepest desire to encourage and equip men and women to be rooted in God's Word, transformed by the love of Jesus, and moved by His mission and the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important.
Christmas Miniseries Theme: God is With Us
00:00:24
Speaker
Well, as I said in our last episode, I just love this time of the year. You know, we kicked off a Christmas miniseries last week, and today we're going to be talking about that theme that God is not only for us, but God is with us. And so I want to encourage you to grab a Bible, a notebook, pour that cup of coffee or glass of eggnog, and let's get started.
Community Growth and Global Gratitude
00:00:51
Speaker
Well, welcome again, friends. As I said last week, you know, we are just so thankful for what God has been doing in season one. You know, we shared a little bit of an update in our previous episode, and we just talked about how when Ruth and I launched, you know, Root Like Faith, we had no idea who would listen or if anybody would listen. And so we just have been so encouraged by all that God has been doing. As I mentioned last time, we have people listening in 67 countries. And so as you listen today, you really are a part of a global community, a global family.
00:01:20
Speaker
People that love Jesus and want to know Him and root their lives in Him, they want to be changed by Him or transformed by Him. And so we're just grateful for each and every one of you that are listening in today and that have been a part of
End of Season One and Future Plans
00:01:31
Speaker
this journey. We're coming to an end here in just a few weeks of season one. We've got a great episode planned for right after Christmas. And then we're going to take a short break through the month of January and come back on February 2nd, 2021. And we're going to kick off season two. We have so many great topics.
00:01:47
Speaker
and some great interviews already in the works. And so we're just really excited about season two. And we just want to continue to really press in on what God is doing. And we're just grateful for those of you that have reached out and shared what God has been teaching you over the last season. And so we're just really excited for season two. And so again, thank you for each of you that are part of our root-like faith family.
Christmas Traditions and Memories
00:02:09
Speaker
You know, as I said last time, this is really a time of the year that I have grown to love. I, you know, I have not always loved the Christmas season. I haven't always loved Christmas music, but just the older I get, the more I appreciate the Christmas season and even the cold and the snow and the Christmas carols, all of those things. I just, I love more and more. I still have not
00:02:29
Speaker
acquired a taste for eggnog. I don't know that I'm ever going to appreciate that, but those of you that like eggnog, God bless you. Drink an extra cup for me. There are just so many things about this Christmas season that we're already enjoying as a family, and I hope you are too. I was thinking about when I was a kid, one of the things that we did as a family is we would always go out
00:02:53
Speaker
And I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And so that's where I was born and raised, lived there until I went off to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. But I was born and raised in Fort Wayne. And one of the things, my dad was a pastor. He and my mom were in local church ministry for, I think, over 25 years.
00:03:13
Speaker
And so we always had typical church activities that we had to be a part of around the Christmas season that my dad was responsible for. But I loved that we always would go out and drive through Fort Wayne and look at all the Christmas lights. And so for those of you that are
00:03:29
Speaker
living maybe in the Fort Wayne area. We used to love driving downtown and they had Santa and his reindeer on one of the buildings. I can't remember what building that is now, but it's downtown, kind of on the north side of Fort Wayne. I love that we would drive through some of the different neighborhoods in Fort Wayne and look at Christmas lights. I remember one year, for whatever reason, I was able to talk my parents into letting me open one present before we went out and did that. We got together as a family and we were going to go drive around Fort Wayne and look at the lights. I was probably
00:03:58
Speaker
I don't know if I was even maybe six, seven, eight years old. Maybe my sisters remember how old I was. I don't know if they remember this story or not. Certainly they do. But anyways, I remember asking my parents if I could just open one present before we went out and drove around Fort Wayne.
00:04:15
Speaker
looking at the lights and so my parents said yes and so I opened up this present and I it was not what I was expecting I had asked for a Star Wars figurine you know was a little you know play dolls or whatever I guess dolls not the right word but you know I mean there's some kind of a Star Wars figure
00:04:34
Speaker
and it wasn't the one that I was hoping and I just remember bursting into tears and I cried and I cried and I cried and I from what I remember the sisters can correct me if I'm wrong on this but I remember crying a significant part of that trip around Fort Wayne and until we got home when I was able to begin opening other presents that sort of soothes my misery that I was in and so I just look back and then I was a parent I'm like oh
00:04:58
Speaker
I am so sorry to my parents for that. Anyways, that's one family tradition that I grew up partaking in. We would go out and look at Christmas lights in particular that year. I nearly ruined it with my disappointment over a Star Wars figurine.
00:05:16
Speaker
I don't know about you, but I used to sneak into our parents' closet when I found out that that's where they were hiding the presents. So I've got lots of memories. That's not exactly a tradition, per se, but that was a normal Christmas experience for me. I would wait till they'd been out Christmas shopping, and there were Christmas presents that I legitimately played with in their closet before they wrapped it and then before I opened it on Christmas Eve.
00:05:43
Speaker
So I just felt like I need to admit that right now. I don't know if that's a confession, but it feels like a confession. So just feeling the relief of just letting that out there, letting that be said out there. I don't know if there's anybody else that has done that or that you did that when you were a kid, but that was another sort of Christmas activity that I'm just admitting now as an
The Meaning of Christmas in Scripture
00:06:04
Speaker
adult. So anyways, with all that said,
00:06:06
Speaker
I hope that you are enjoying this Christmas season. And again, it's just me today. Ruth is not with me. And so, as I said last time, that's always a little dangerous. You just never know when you don't have Ruth who is like the second Holy Spirit in my life.
00:06:21
Speaker
And so she's not here to sort of be those guardrails and to point me back in the right direction to keep me focused. So anyways, with that said, I am really excited to be with you today. And I want to just share another passage of scripture as we again ask God to just prepare our hearts and our minds to celebrate the coming of Jesus. As we said last time, we just are celebrating this time of the year when God came to us and He came among us, that He is the Word made flesh, as we looked at in John chapter 1.
00:06:50
Speaker
He's a light in the darkness and he's the god of new beginnings is always offering us a new start of fresh started once life for us. It's a today we're gonna be looking at matthew chapter one again a very familiar passage as we think about this time of the year it's the story of how god is not only for us but he's with us.
00:07:07
Speaker
And we're going to see that in this passage as Jesus has given two names. He's given the name of Jesus, but he's also given the name of Emmanuel. And so I want to encourage you, if you have a Bible, to go ahead and pull that out. I want to read this passage. This is a little bit of a longer passage for us, but I want to read that and just encourage us with a couple truths related to the names that he has given at his birth. In Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 through 25, we read, this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
00:07:35
Speaker
His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be a child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
00:07:50
Speaker
But after he had considered this, an angel Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son. You are to give him the name Jesus. There's that first name. You are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
00:08:11
Speaker
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had been said through the prophet or what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. There's that second name. And then finally verse 24 and 25, when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel Lord had commanded him and he took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus.
00:08:39
Speaker
You know, there's just so much in this passage of Scripture. And again, if you've grown up in church or you've read through the Bible before, you've been to Christmas services, you've likely read this passage before, heard it preached on before. And, you know, as I think about the Jewish people living, you know, at the time of Jesus's coming, I mean, it was just, there was lots of just sort of chaos happening, lots of fear and worry and anxiety, lots of just unique things happening politically.
Challenges During Jesus' Time
00:09:07
Speaker
there was great unrest in rome was a foreign empire was ruling over rome was ruling over the jewish people at that time in the land that got it given to abraham isaac and jacob and that was their promised land and here's this foreign empire ruling over them and so politically there was great unrest and fear economically i mean things were
00:09:28
Speaker
Not much better i mean most of the jewish people in the time of jesus for farmers and they were just barely making enough to scrape by and there was no rising taxation by the romans and so that was just becoming increasingly a burden on the jewish people and so you had justice.
00:09:44
Speaker
this challenging time for the Jewish people politically and economically and even religiously. I mean, there was just great corruption happening in the temple. I mean, you saw moral decay and compromise, and that was not uncommon. And so when you think about the Jewish people at the time or just before the time of Jesus, I mean, there were great challenges politically, economically, and even religiously.
00:10:07
Speaker
And so, as you think about that passage that we just read, I mean, that was the environment, the atmosphere that Jesus comes into, that God comes to us through the person of Jesus. And so, I want to just highlight those two names that He has given at His birth and why they're so important, why I think we just need to come back to them as familiar as they are. No matter how many times we've read this and, you know, no matter how many times we've heard this preached,
00:10:35
Speaker
I wanna just encourage us with these two names that God gives here in Matthew chapter one. Jesus has given two names, that first name Jesus, which literally means Yahweh saves or the Lord saves. And verse 21 says that she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. I think one of the things that's so interesting to me when you think about the Bible, in all of the times that God saves his people,
00:11:05
Speaker
Most often he is saving them from real physical enemies. So think back early on in the biblical narrative. I mean, God saves his people from the Egyptians. I mean, they were a real physical threat. They had enslaved God's people, the Israelites, and they begin to cry out to God, and God comes, and he rescues them, and he saves them, he delivers them.
00:11:28
Speaker
You know, just read the whole book of Exodus, that story of God coming to their defense and saving them from their enemies. You think about the story of the Babylonians and how the Babylonians, you know, in the sixth century, you know, right around 586 BC attack.
00:11:44
Speaker
Jerusalem and destroy the temple and take many of the Jewish people into exile. They take them into the Babylonian Empire and it's there where they stay and they have to be God's people there. And then God begins to regather them and to bring them back from exile. He saves them again. He rescues them. He regathers them from a very real physical enemy. You think about the Romans here at the time
00:12:09
Speaker
of Jesus's birth or even in modern history that the different ways that the God's people have been persecuted or oppressed. I mean, just think about the Holocaust, for example, and all throughout history, both biblical history and just modern history, you see the different ways that the God's people, the Israelites, the Jewish people have been persecuted or oppressed. And what's so significant to me in Matthew chapter one is that when Jesus has given this name, Jesus, the Lord saves,
00:12:38
Speaker
Verse 21 says that he's come to save his people, not from the Romans, but he's come to save them from their sins. So just think about how mind-boggling that must have been for God's people. I mean, all along, they know this story. They know how their God has saved them, and they're waiting for God to come and deliver them from this oppressive foreign government, this oppressive foreign empire.
00:13:02
Speaker
I mean they're expecting god to set them free from their physical enemy and god says no that jesus is gonna come god in christ is gonna come and he's gonna save you not from the romans that they're a threat but the real threat is the threat inside of you it's it's the send that resides inside of you and so jesus
Jesus as Savior and Source of Joy
00:13:20
Speaker
that name means the Lord saves. And so as we think about Christmas, as we think about the coming of God to us and the person of Jesus, He comes first and foremost to set us free from sin. Sin in the Bible is oftentimes described as slavery. I mean, nobody wants to be enslaved. And so you just think for a moment about all of the ways that sin can be alluring or enticing or appealing.
00:13:47
Speaker
And yet the Bible says that sin is like slavery. It's like a cruel slave master that doesn't give us life, doesn't give us joy. Real freedom isn't doing whatever we want to do. Real freedom is about being free to obey God and to love Him and to serve Him. I mean, that's where real freedom is found. It's where real joy is found. I mean, we were created for truth and for goodness and beauty, and sin robs us of those things.
00:14:13
Speaker
sin promises us things that it can't deliver on. And so I just love that first name that He has given, that He is the God who comes to save us. He is Jesus, Yeshua. He is the one who saves us from our sin. He sets us free so that we might experience that abundant life that God created us to experience. Now, the second name that Jesus has given His birth
00:14:35
Speaker
is found in verse 23. And he's given the name Emmanuel. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. And so what we see in this passage of scripture is that God is not only for us, but God is with us. That's what that name means. I mean, in Jesus, he is God for us. He's the Lord who saves, but he is also God with us. He is Emmanuel.
00:15:03
Speaker
You know, I don't know about you, but Christmas is, as I've said before, is always just such a great time of the year. There's always just so many good things going on. It's fun for family and friends to gather. And even though this year it's likely going to feel very different because of COVID, just as Thanksgiving felt a little bit different. But Christmas is always just that time of the year that you just love to be together as family. And it's who you're with that brings so much joy. And it's certainly, you know, there's fun and getting presents and giving presents, but it's really ultimately who you're with.
00:15:33
Speaker
I know that this type of the year can also be really sobering for those of us that maybe have lost a spouse or lost a parent or a grandparent. I just think in particular this year is, I can name three or four families that we know they've lost loved ones from COVID. I can think of three or four friends who've either had a parent or a grandparent pass away.
00:15:55
Speaker
And I think about just our own family. My dad passed away in November of 2010. My mom passed away in November of 2012. And while it's easier now than it was early on, it's still sobering at times to think about those that are not with us during the holiday season, during the Christmas season. And so I don't know about you, just what your circumstances are, what your relationships are like.
00:16:24
Speaker
Maybe this year, that's your story. As you think about gathering for Christmas and as you're preparing for Christmas, there is that joy, there's that excitement, but there's also just a real sadness surrounding maybe folks that aren't with you. I just love this reminder.
00:16:43
Speaker
that when we think about the coming of Jesus, he is the God who saves us, but he also is Immanuel, he is God with us. And there's likely everybody who's listening that there's likely people in your life who maybe you won't be able to be with either because of COVID or maybe loved ones that have passed away. And so I just want to encourage you with that reminder today that no matter who
00:17:04
Speaker
is with you or not with you. The reminder is that in Christ, God is with us, that He came to dwell with us and to save us and to set us free. And He came to give us hope, He came to give us new life, and I just love this promise.
00:17:19
Speaker
that he is with you even today, that by the power of his spirit and he is present with you and for you, he has not abandoned you, he's not forgotten you, he is still at work, whether you can see him or feel him right now, I mean his purposes will prevail and he is present
00:17:38
Speaker
with you. And I just pray that that reminder that He is Jesus, He is Yeshua, but He's also Emmanuel, would just be a great encouragement to you this Christmas season. And you would just find great joy and hope in knowing that God is not only for you, but God is with you. And I think we could all use that reminder this year as we head into the Christmas season, just how different the world is right now because of COVID.
00:18:02
Speaker
And so hopefully that's an encouragement to you. And I hope that today's episode would just continue to point you towards Jesus and to prepare your heart and your mind for this special time of the year where we celebrate the advent, the coming of God among us in Christ. And I just hope that you're already beginning to experience that, that the goodness and the joy and the hope that we have in Jesus, that He came for us, that He's with us, that He came to save us, that He died for us, that He took our place on the cross, that God the Father raised Him,
00:18:32
Speaker
victorious over sin, Satan, and death, and by our faith in Jesus, He gives us new life, He sets us free, and He gives us the hope of everlasting life, that death really has been defeated, that there really is true joy, lasting joy, there really is a living hope that we've been born into because of Jesus.
00:18:50
Speaker
And so I pray that that's an encouragement to you.
Engagement and Subscriptions Call
00:18:52
Speaker
And as always, I would love for you to go to our show notes at RootLikeFaith.com forward slash podcast. And again, if you don't follow us already on Instagram or Facebook, you can follow us on Instagram at Patrick W. Schwank or at Ruth Schwank or get on Facebook. And if we don't say it enough already, we're just so grateful that you are a part of our Root Like Faith family. And so we'd love for you to go subscribe on Apple Podcasts so that you don't miss an episode.