One God. One Love. Three Names.

God Refused to Give Up

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A

Sunday, December 21

Texts:  

Isaiah 7:10–16 — The sign of Immanuel  

Romans 1:1–7 — Paul’s greeting to the church at Rome  

Matthew 1:18–25 — A God near at hand

The Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love of God be with all God’s beloved in worship today.

As we come to the end of Advent and prepare to enter the Christmas season on Wednesday, the word before us is Love. And not just any love—the Love that reveals who God is. Scripture says, “God is love,” and today that Love comes to us with three names found across our readings from Isaiah, Romans, and Matthew.

Each name carries a story of God’s faithfulness, and each name tells us something true about the God to whom we belong.

Immanuel (Isaiah) means God with us — and so, Love with us.

Jesus (Matthew) means God saves — and so, Love saves.

Messiah (Romans) means God’s anointed — and so, Love anointed for us.

One God. One Love. Three names.

And this Love doesn’t just have a name.

This Love has a face and a heartbeat.

In Matthew, this Love is held in Mary’s arms.

In Isaiah, this Love is promised.

In Romans, this Love is proclaimed.

Together, these three readings tell one long story of how God keeps a promise, fulfills a promise, and entrusts that promise to ordinary people who respond to God’s hope, peace, joy, and love.

This long story begins in an unexpected place—

with a frightened king.

In the 8th century BCE, God’s people were divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel and Aram formed a military alliance to resist the rising power of Assyria. They wanted Judah to join them. But Judah’s king—Ahaz, from the line of David—refused. So Israel and Aram tried to remove him.

In those days, politics ignored shared faith and ethnicity. Survival drove alliances.

This is the world Isaiah steps into in Isaiah 7–8.

Ahaz was a king with a throne and power.

But he was terrified.

Enemies were closing in.

The future felt unstable.

And in his fear, Ahaz turned to Assyria for protection.

Yet God sent Isaiah to him with a different word:

“Do not fear. Stand firm in faith.”

God even offered Ahaz a sign—a reassurance he did not ask for:

“The Lord himself will give you a sign…

A child shall be born, and he shall be called Immanuel—God with us.”

Ahaz refused the sign.

But God did not withdraw the promise.

Because the promise never depended on Ahaz’s faithfulness.

It depended on God’s faithfulness.

And then… the story waits.

Fast forward eight hundred years.

No throne.

No king.

Just a man named Joseph.

A quiet carpenter.

Engaged to Mary.

Planning an ordinary life.

Until everything unravels.

Mary is pregnant.

Joseph knows the child is not his.

He has every reason to protect his reputation.

He could walk away quietly.

And then God speaks again—this time in a dream:

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid.”

That title, son of David, matters.

It echoes the promise Ahaz refused.

Because of God’s faithfulness,

the line of David is still alive,

the covenant still intact.

But now the promise rests not on a king,

but on a man willing to trust God with his reputation, his future, and his plans.

Joseph wakes up and acts.

He takes Mary as his wife.

He names the child Jesus.

And by naming him, Joseph places Jesus fully in the line of David.

Joseph never speaks a recorded word in Scripture.

His whole testimony is obedience.

This is how Immanuel enters the world.

And this Immanuel is named Jesus—God saves.

After about fifty years, this long story of God’s promise continues.

Now we meet Paul—an apostle, a former persecutor of Christ’s followers—writing to a church in Rome, people he has never met.

He opens his letter not with small talk, but with testimony:

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ… set apart for the gospel of God.”

Paul says this gospel of God:

was promised beforehand in Isaiah’s prophecy

comes from David’s line because of Joseph’s obedience

is now proclaimed to all nations—the widening of God’s family

God’s promise has moved:

From a frightened king, Ahaz

To a faithful carpenter, Joseph

To a commissioned apostle, Paul

And now—to the Church.

When Isaiah addresses Ahaz as “O house of David,”

when the angel calls Joseph “son of David,”

when Paul writes, “To all God’s beloved… who are called to be saints,”

these are not sentimental greetings.

They are compressed confessions of God’s faithfulness.

They carry the weight of covenant history.

They remind the hearer who they are because of who God is.

And when we call the church

the people of God,

the beloved of God,

siblings in Christ,

we are not using polite or churchy language.

We are naming a truth that holds us.

These words proclaim:

We are not alone but accompanied —because of Immanuel.

We are not abandoned but saved —because of Jesus.

We are not forgotten but claimed — because of Messiah.

We are not self‑made but anointed in baptism—

anointed not for fear, but for hope, peace, joy, and love.

Advent asks us a gentle but honest question:

Where are we in this story?

Some of us feel like Ahaz—

afraid, pressured, tempted to trust whatever feels strongest.

Some of us feel like Joseph—

asked to say yes without knowing how it will turn out.

Some of us feel like Paul—

called to carry Love into places not yet ready to receive it.

And Advent says this:

God is still faithful.

God is still with us.

God still keeps promises—

through ordinary people like you and me who trust Him.

The Good News:

Jesus was not born because humanity finally got it right.

Jesus was born because God refused to give up.

And this Advent, that same God is still with us—

in our waiting,

in our uncertainty,

and in our small, faithful ways.

So we wait—

not alone,

but trusting the One who keeps the promise.

One God. One Love. Three Names.

Amen.