God WITH Us

Most of our bad theology could be fixed by recognizing that God has always looked like Jesus, even if they didn't know it yet. The rest could be fixed by realizing that Jesus modeled what it looked like for a person to be filled with the eternal Christ, and then invited us to do likewise.

Easier said than done.

This past weekend I preached on what it means for God to be with us. Matthew's Gospel begins with the promise that God is now with us in a profound way. 

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23).

Matthew's Gospel also ends with Jesus returning to this idea.

“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20). 

We tend to assume that God being with us meant that Jesus physically showed up on the scene. That's great for the first-century crowd, but not as encouraging for us. But what if they weren't talking about the physical person of Jesus?

In the message I unpack what I think is happening and the shocking things Jesus says in John 14. Here's a great quote that gets to the heart of it:

“It's like Jesus showed us how to build a house by going first, building his, and giving us the blueprint. But then, instead of following the blueprint and building our own house, we just marveled at the house Jesus built and worshiped it while freezing in the cold.” Heather Hamilton