Sermon Recap
Fulfilled: The Prophecies of Christmas
Part 3 of 4 in Hope Is Here
Parte 3 de 4 de la serie Hope Is Here
Read the full transcript · Leer esto en espanol
Brian Hunter · December 21, 2025
“The virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel, which means God is with us.”
Scripture Referenced
Recap
The Sunday before Christmas continued a look at specific Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus’s birth, building on the previous week’s look at Isaiah 9:6, the child on whose shoulders the government would rest. This week centered on Isaiah 7:14: a virgin would conceive and bear a son called Immanuel, God with us. Brian walked through the context of that promise, God offering a sign so far beyond what anyone would think to ask for that it would be unmistakable when it arrived centuries later.
From there, the message turned to Micah 5:2, the prophecy naming Bethlehem specifically as the birthplace of the coming ruler, despite being one of the smallest, most overlooked towns in Judah. Brian used a Jackson Hole comparison to make the size gap land: a tiny town nobody expected, chosen anyway. Taken together, the two prophecies build a case Brian has been making across the season: that Jesus’s birth wasn’t a surprise improvisation but the precise fulfillment of specific promises made hundreds of years in advance, down to how he’d be conceived and where he’d be born.
The room closed in prayer thanking God for the incarnation directly: not people having to earn their way up to God, but God coming down to be with them, the meaning built into the name Immanuel itself.
Touch Points
- Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2 were written centuries before Jesus was born. What does it do for your faith to see prophecy fulfilled with that kind of specific detail?
- Bethlehem was easy to overlook. Where in your own life might God be working through something small or unimpressive?
- The name Immanuel means “God with us.” Where do you most need to be reminded that God has come near rather than staying distant?
- As Christmas arrives this week, what would it look like to sit with the wonder of the incarnation rather than rushing past it?