Emmanuel God With Us | Pastor Chris Searcy | 2.8.26

Emmanuel - God With us

Hebrew- derived from Immanu "with us" and   El "God"

Chief Passages are: Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23

Isaiah 7:14 is written: 730 years before Jesus’ birth.

Isaiah 7:14

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Ahaz: king of Judah hears that:
Rezin: king of Aram/Syria and Pekah: king of Israel are planning to attack Judah (& Jerusalem)

Verses 10–12: God offers a sign; Ahaz “refuses”

Isaiah 7:10-12
10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your[f] God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” 13 And he (Isaiah) said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?

What’s really going on?

• Ahaz doesn’t want a sign because he doesn’t want to be pinned down to trust God.
• He wants to proceed with his preferred plan.

God in his mercy sends one of the the greatest prophecies ever uttered!

Isaiah 7:1414 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

730 ish years later…..

Matthew 1:20-23
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the 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. 21 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.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

It is a fact that Jesus lived!!!!!

The Fact is supported by Historical evidence

Historical evidence: ancient texts and traditions evaluated with standard historical methods.

Historical Methods:
Multiple attestation, Early dating, Independent sources, Contextual fit.

Multiple attestation

Definition: The same core claim appears in multiple sources/tradition-streams.

• Pauline letters: Written within a generation of the events, Paul repeatedly treats Jesus as a real person who was crucified and had known followers/leaders in Jerusalem.
• Gospel of Matthew, Mark, & Luke: Early narrative sources presenting Jesus as a Galilean teacher whose public ministry ends in crucifixion under Roman authority.
• Gospel of John: A different from the Synoptics that still centers on Jesus as a historical figure executed by crucifixion.
  

Non Biblical Sources:

• Flavius Josephus — Antiquities of the Jews (about AD 93–94)
  A 1st-century Jewish historian who mentions Jesus (and separately mentions “James, the brother of Jesus called Christ”), placing him in real Judean history.Tacitus — Annals (about AD 116; passage describes events in AD 64)

• Tacitus (about AD 116)
  Reports that “Christus” was executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius, and connects the movement to Nero’s persecution context. 
• Pliny the Younger — Epistulae (about AD 111–113)
  Describes interrogations of Christians; reports they meet, sing hymns to Christ “as to a god,” and bind themselves to moral commitments (Letter 10.96–10.97). 
• Lucian of Samosata — Passing of Peregrinus (about AD 165)
  Mocks Christians as worshiping a man who was crucified and living by his teachings
• Celsus (late AD 100s) preserved largely through Origen’s Contra Celsum (about AD 248)
  He is a hater!!!!
  He opposes: Jesus’ divinity, His miracles as evidence of his divinity, Virgin birth, The Resurrection.
  
  

Summary of evidence:

• Present in 5,500+ Greek manuscript 25,000+ Manuscripts (including all languages)
• Independent non-Christian writers treat him as real
• Early sources name specific details that are hard to explain if he was invented
  

To deny the existence of Jesus on the basis of a lack of evidence means you must call into question the existence of these historical figures:

Pontius Pilate

Herod Antipas

Tiberius

Socrates

Spartacus

Cleopatra

Most well-known people who lived around the same time as Jesus have far less surviving narrative about them than we have about Jesus

Never Make God’s activity the measure of his existence!!!!

John 14:1-3
1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 

The Historicity of HIM | Pastor Trey Townsley | 2.1.26

HIM: The Historicity of HIM

• The claims of Jesus are grand to say the least. From the claim to hold ultimate authority, to raising Himself from the power of death, to being God incarnate can seem, at a glance, unbelievable to most people.

• One of the most foundational elements of belief on Jesus as the Son of God is the belief in Jesus as a real, historical figure.

• If Jesus is not established as a historical figure, he is fictional.

If fictional:

• He cannot be studied in academic environments (This takes Him out of school)

• Wisdom cannot be ascribed to Him (This changes the source of wisdom)

• Moral law remains subject to the individual (This allows

me to be my own god)

• One cannot follow in His footsteps because He never walked our path (This does the same as before and removes the standard of Hebrews 4:15)

• Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

• His disciples had to know Him as a person before they could know Him as God

• His claim to be God is void

2 major thought processes against the historicity of Jesus

• Jesus never existed
• The Jesus we know of today was mythologized. He was a regular man whose legend grew over time.

Perpetrators say:

• He can’t be real because He resembles so many stories of ancient examples of ‘saviors’ who came before Him. (Osiris, Horus, Mithras, etc.)

• Prior to his election, he had been a boat captain. He was related to a U.S. Senator, Attorney General, ambassador to Great Britain, and the mayor of Boston.
• He was elected to Congress in ’47 and was the vice-presidential runner-up in ’56.
• He was elected President in ’60.
• He was in his thirties when he was president; his wife was a socially prominent twenty-four year old girl at the time of their marriage. She spoke French fluently.
• While living in the White House, his wife suffered the loss of a child. His family consisted of three children.
• As president, he was deeply involved in civil rights for African Americans.
• He was assassinated and shot in the back of the head, on the Friday before a major holiday, while seated beside his wife (she was not injured).
• On the day of his assassination, a staffer told him not to go to the event where he was murdered.

• Following the assassination, there were insistent claims that the fatal shot must have come from a different direction.

• His assassin was born in ’39, and was a southerner who held extremist views.

• This assassin was murdered before he could be brought to trial; he was killed by a shooter who used a Colt revolver and fired only one, fatal shot.
• After the assassination, he was eventually succeeded by a vice-president who was a southern democrat (and former senator) named Johnson.
• Do the similarities of Abraham Lincoln mean John F. Kennedy did not exist? Of course not.

• The bible is biased, circular, unreliable as a biographical source and there is no evidence of Jesus outside of it.

Rebuttal

• Apostle Paul (c. 5-67 A.D.) Formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, he was a Jewish Pharisee who, by his own admission, wreaked havoc on the church and attempted to dismantle it
• Galatians 1:13   For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
• Flavius Josephus (37-101 A.D.) was a Jewish historian who lived during the lifetime of eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry. He was not a believer of Jesus’ teachings.
• “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” – Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3

• Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56-120 A.D.) was a Roman politician and historian who was not sympathetic followers of Jesus. He called their belief a ‘superstition’ and ‘evil’.
• “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre [sic] and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.” – The Annals, Book 15
• Circular reasoning: “I believe the bible is the word of

God because it says it is”

• Evidential-based reasoning: “I believe the bible is the word of God because it contains over 2000 prophecies that have already been fulfilled, with over 300 of them related to Jesus as Messiah.”
• We must also remember that the bible was not written as one document, but many that were brought together in one binding

• A.D.= Anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi “In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ”

• Our entire system of chronology (Kronos) is based on the birth of one man
• Isn’t it ironic that a man who never existed split time in half

• Luke 1:1-4 Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us,  2  just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us,  3  it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus,  4  that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.
• The New Testament has a wealth of ancient manuscript evidence compared to other classical works, with over 5,800 Greek manuscripts and over 24,000 in all languages, far exceeding the hundreds or few copies for works by Homer, Plato, or Tacitus. NT fragments date as early as AD 125–130, providing a much shorter time gap between composition and the earliest copy than most, which typically range from 500 to 1,000+ years

***Credit to Kevin Simington of smartfaith.net***

***Credit to J. Warner Wallace of coldcasechristianity.com***

HIM | Pastor Chris Searcy | 1.25.26

Galatians 1:6-10

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

CHRIST……. AND!!!!

(The whole chapter)

John 6

John 6:26–27 (ESV)

26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because

you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”

John 12:42–43 (ESV)

42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the

Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue;

43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from

God.

Acts 8:18–23 (ESV)

18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’

hands, he offered them money,

19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may

receive the Holy Spirit.”

20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you

could obtain the gift of God with money!

21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.

22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible,

the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.

23 For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

Luke 14:25–33 (ESV)

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost,

whether he has enough to complete it?

29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it

begin to mock him,

30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my

disciple.

The God Who Establishes | Pastor Chris Searcy | 1.11.26

Proverbs 16:1-3

1The plans of the heart belong to man,

but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.

2All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,

but the LORD weighs the spirit.a

3Commit your work to the LORD,

and your plans will be established.

Abraham and Sarah

Moses 

Called to deliver, 

Then forced into the wilderness, 

Then empowered

David 

Anointed

Hunted

Then crowned

Esther

Positioned Queen, 

Facing death plot

Becomes deliverer 

Nehemiah 

Burden for Jerusalem, 

Opposition, threats ,mockery

Then rebuilding

Joseph 

Sold into slavery

Famine happens

Joseph is salvation to his family.

Temptation tries to redefine you

Delay tries to drain your faith

Opposition tries to force you to quit

Fear tries to intimidate

Shame tries to make you hide

Genesis 50:20 (ESV)

20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Psalm 103:2

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

Isaiah 40:28-31 | Bishop Kyle Searcy | 1.4.26

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
³¹ But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.