"The Guarantee of Christmas" December 23 2018 AM

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9. In the book of Emmanuel, in Isaiah chapter 7 through 12, time and again we are told of an individual. He is God with us.

He is the light of the world. He is from the root of Jesse. In Isaiah 9, especially in verse 6, he is given many names. A sea of theology rests in four titles that we'll be looking at this morning. I'm going to be reading for us in Isaiah 9 verses 1 through 7.

Would you please stand with me and do reverence to Jesus Christ, who is King of kings, who is revealed in this passage. But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation. You shall increase their gladness. They will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning, fuel for the fire.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness.

From then on and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Pray for us.

Father, we come before you this morning and we rejoice that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We give you praise.

You do not leave us in darkness, but you give us a great light. You have given us your son. Help us to know what that means today. Help us to know what you mean when you say that you have given us your son.

May your truth be the treasure that enthralls us this Christmas. We pray for these graces, looking only to Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well pleased.

Amen.

We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. Lyndon Baines Johnson. I have a secret plan to end the war. Richard Nixon.

We did not, repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we. Ronald Reagan. You know this one. Read my lips. No new taxes. George H .W. Bush. The era of big government is over.

Bill Clinton. And who can forget the banner behind George W. Bush? Mission accomplished. And who can forget Obama's red line? If chemical weapons ever used in Syria. That's a small sampling of presidential promises, and I think it cautions all of us of believing that a man, no matter how powerful that man may be, will be able to follow through on his promises.

Some of us may be so jaded that we would agree with Ross Perot when he said to Al Gore that if the truth ever walked up and shook his hand, that he wouldn't even know it. But we all know Al Gore is Latin for big whopper.

You've got to wonder what a politician's promise is worth. You really do. And honestly, the promises depend entirely on their quality, the quality of their character. It depends entirely on their effectiveness, their ability to wield power, to get done what they said they would get done.

We've read a lot of promises in Isaiah 9. Amazing promises, promises of deliverance, promises of salvation from extermination, from exile. Promises that joy will be the watchword of the people of God.

The joy of multiplication, the joy of worship.

And it all hangs.

It all hangs on the promise of God. But his guarantee is a whole lot better than a politician's guarantee. The guarantee of Christmas rests on the identity of the child, the eternity of the son, and the intensity of the Lord.

We said last week, we'll say it again this week, Christ's regime change. And make no mistake, that's what Christmas is about. Christ's regime change guarantees the joy of salvation. We're going to talk about the guarantee today.

The guarantee of Christmas joy, the guarantee of salvation, the guarantee rests entirely upon the supreme character and salvation power of Jesus Christ. I want us to take a look at the identity of the child this morning here in verse 6.

Verse 6 begins this way, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. This is usually as far as the Christmas card goes. They may even say, oh, this is Isaiah 9, colon, 6a. Or maybe they'll just say Isaiah 9, 6.

Or they just say Isaiah. It's somewhere in Isaiah. But they don't go any farther. Here in the middle of language about enemies being burned and government being established is two phrases that sound so magical.

Here's a baby. It's not magical, it's regime change. The violence of verse 5, which assures the deliverance expressed in verse 4, is all predicated on a child being born to us and a son being given to us and the government resting upon his shoulders.

So who is this child? Who is this son that will achieve deliverance, that will achieve salvation? Who is this child? We have four royal titles. As Americans, we don't care very much about royal titles.

We don't especially like royal titles that drone on and on and on. The emperor of this and the lord of that and the duke of this thing over here. We don't really care about that. We have been trained for a long time to look down on royalty and to detest the long droning on of the royal titles.

Also, we just shake our heads and it's a laughable matter when inane machismo titles are given to professional wrestlers. Like, oh yeah, right. We don't hold with titles. It doesn't communicate very well with us.

But we should take the titles of Christ very seriously. The joy of being able to worship in the presence of God, the joy of the multiplication of God's people about those who are going to heaven, it all rests on the identity of this child and who is he?

Who is he?

It says, first of all, he's a wonderful counselor. It just says wonderful counselor. His name will be called wonderful counselor. This is not, you know, a four and a half star review on Google. Oh, he's a wonderful counselor.

Yeah, it's great. Good location. They really listen to you, gives you all sorts of resources, makes you feel better about yourself before you leave. No, that's not what we're talking about. The word wonderful in the Old Testament has the idea of miraculous, supernatural, some sort of impressive, powerful act of God.

It's Pele in the Hebrew. To put it into context, the word is used when God confronts Abraham and Sarah's unbelief, their lingering unbelief about God giving them a child in their old age. And God asks the classic question, is anything too difficult?

There's the Hebrew word. Is anything too wonderful? Is anything too miraculous for God to achieve? The answer is no. He is wonderful. Jesus Christ is the most wonderful of all of God's wonders. To put it into context another way, when God promised to deliver Israel up out of Egypt, he promised to send wonders.

We call them plagues, the ten plagues. They're actually the wonders, the ten wonders that God inflicts upon Egypt and its land in order to deliver his people. When Samson's parents encountered the angel of the Lord after he promised that they would have a son, they wanted to know who he was.

And he said, why do you ask my name? For it is wonderful. It is full of power. It is full of strength. It is miraculous. Job 42. Job's been having a difficult time. Nobody has known the fall from luxury, the fall from stability, the fall from peace into chaos that Job knew.

All his friends said, it's because you did something wrong, Job. He says, no, I didn't do anything wrong. God got it wrong somehow, and they've been complaining and arguing about it for most of the book.

And then God finally confronts Job and says, who do you think you are, Job? Where were you when I designed the whole universe, Job? Where were you when I put the boundaries for the sea, when I put the boundaries for the earth?

Where were you, Job, when I made the mighty creatures you can't even fathom? And Job gets the idea. In Job 42 verses 1 through 6, Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. This is the word that we have here, wonderful counselor.

It's not wonderful and isn't this a wonderful time we're having? Not the trite use of the word, but a heavy, miracle-filled, supernatural word. He is wonderful. He's the most wonderful of God's wonders because he is the God-man.

He is fully God and fully man, two natures in one person. What miracle is greater than the miracle of the incarnation? He is wonderful counselor. Counselor. We think of counselor, we think of someone who would come alongside of us and help us figure out why we're so confused, why we're so upset.

They didn't really have counselors like that per se in this time. They had other kinds of counselors. Counselors like Joseph and Daniel and Mordecai. They were the wise men. They were at the right hand of the emperors of the earth.

And they were there because of their wisdom. Pharaoh praised Joseph's wisdom. The kings of Babylon and Persia praised Daniel's wisdom. Ahasuerus praised Mordecai's wisdom. And so these men were counselors.

They were put at the right hand of the most powerful men on the planet. And they relied upon them to help them understand what is going on in the world today. Why is this nation coming against us? And what's going to happen next year?

And what should we do with these different dreams that we're having? And what does it all mean? And they would lean upon counselors like Joseph and Daniel and Mordecai and Christ. The child, the son, this infant is called Wonderful Counselor.

Wonderful Counselor. Why is he the counselor? Paul writes to the Colossians in Colossians 2 through 3. He wants them to understand and have a true knowledge of God's mystery that is Christ himself. Now listen to verse 3.

In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now that qualifies him to be the Wonderful Counselor. When he understands everything there is to understand about everything, he gets to be counselor.

He gets to explain and interpret world events. He gets to tell us what it all means and what it all will mean. He is the crux of meaning. And Christ is the heart of humanity. And yes, he is at the right hand as the Wonderful Counselor.

This is who the child is. This is who the son is. This is a royal title. This is about regime change. The next name of the child, of the son, is Mighty God. Mighty God. We've been reading about Emmanuel, God with us.

We've been reading about the one who is coming who will be a light to those in darkness. We read about a child, a newborn child. We read about a son. These are very human terms, very physical terms. And now we find out that he is God.

And not just God, but Mighty God. Mighty is the Hebrew word gibor. It's used 159 times in the Old Testament, and four of them are non-violent. Genesis 6 -4, the Nephilim are called Mighty. Genesis 10 -8, Nimrod, the first warrior conqueror, is called Mighty.

The warriors whom Deborah and Barak slaughtered, the Canaanites, they were called Mighty. And when David stood next to the decapitated form of Goliath and held up his severed head for all the battlefield to see, the Philistines fled because their gibor, their champion, was slaughtered.

And this term gibor, Mighty, is used of Christ, the Child, the Son. He is Mighty God. He is Mighty God, He is Mighty Man, He is Emmanuel. We find out, lo and behold, that the Child, the Son, who was given to us, is a warrior.

A warrior.

Of course, we were already told that. In Exodus 15 -3, Moses says, the Lord is a warrior. King James says, the Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. That's good news for the people of God who, as we just read about, are under the yoke and the burden, the staff and the rod of the oppressors.

That's good news for those who are being threatened in forever extermination and exile and being cut off from God. It's a good thing that there's someone who's willing to fight for us. It's good news because there's a conflict.

There is a war.

There is a battle going on. We were told about it from the very beginning in Genesis 3. We were told there's going to be conflict, there's going to be a war. And guess what? There's a warrior who's going to crush the head of the serpent.

So gibor would make a really great chant. I know all of you have a red dragon right next to your nativity scene ready to eat the infant Jesus. I know you have that. And when, on Christmas Day, you knock it on the floor and you tell your kids to stomp on its head, shout gibor, gibor, gibor.

Mighty God. He is a warrior. Any confusion about that is cleared up in Revelation 19 and 11. I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. And he who sat on it is called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and wages war.

This is Christ. This is the child who was born to us. This is the son who was given to us. He is mighty God. And he is eternal father. Eternal father. Now that gets a little confusing when you read that the son will be given to us and he's a father.

But there is no confusion here in terms of the trinity. Father is a royal title. Many kings and royalty have been called a father to their people. It is a royal title of paternal benevolence. And he is eternal father.

Joseph was actually called a father to Pharaoh because of his influence on Pharaoh. And in Isaiah chapter 22, there is a man by the name of Eliakim who was put in charge of the royal household of Judah.

He was a steward but he had so much influence on Hezekiah and others that he was considered a father to royalty in Israel. The only thing about Joseph is that he was forgotten and his influence disappeared.

And the passage in Isaiah 22 that speaks of Eliakim says that all of the vessels in a metaphorical sense, all of the vessels of his family and of the stewardship of the household of the kings of Judah were laid upon him.

And he was a peg that was well driven into the wall until one day the peg broke and everything shattered. Looking forward to the exile of Judah. You see the thing is there was these men called father.

They were fathers in their own right and their own time. But they were not eternal. Joseph was forgotten and Eliakim couldn't cut it. But Christ is called eternal father. A forever father. A forever reigning king.

Now I know this rankles the modern feminized conscience. But in the scriptures when there is a title of royalty and leadership, Christ is not called eternal mother. He's called eternal father. And one of the reasons why God is called father in addition to all the wonders of the grace of adoption is the fact that he is in charge.

The Bible is of course in every generation just an awful book. Offending sensibilities of everybody everywhere for all time. Don't let anybody tell you that all things are different now. No this has always been offensive.

Always.

And while we're recognizing that please if you have any pictures of Jesus Christ as a metro sexual shampoo hair model. Throw it out. That's not what he looked like. Isaiah said that he was of a form and of an appearance that nobody would have been attracted to him.

He was a carpenter. He had large rough hands that are covered in scars from all of his work. And he was not attractive. And he's our savior. An eternal father. He's a dominating leader that will not pass away.

This is the son who was given to us. The child who was born to us. He's a wonderful counselor. He's a mighty God. He's eternal father. And he is Prince of Peace. Prince of Peace. Tsar of Shalom. The word for Prince in the Hebrew is Tsar.

That's where we get the word Tsar actually. The one in charge. In fact this term stands in the middle of the Hebrew word for government. So quite literally he puts the governor in government. He puts the prince in principality.

He puts the king in kingdom. He is the ruler of peace. Of Shalom. Very often we will equate Shalom or peace with tranquility. It's peaceful night. It's quiet.

It's calm.

There's nothing going on. Or we'll say it's tranquil in terms of no conflict. There's no battle going on. So it's peaceful. But in fact the term Shalom not only includes tranquility but prosperity in all the best sense.

That when all is going well in the world, when everything is set in its right relationship to everything else, that's the idea of Shalom. And Jesus Christ, the child who was born to us, the son who was given to us, comes as the Prince of Peace.

What is this peace? It is ultimately the reconciliation between a holy God and his sinful creatures, mankind who has rebelled against him and brought such chaos and darkness and disaster into this world.

Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. The government is set upon his shoulders to reconcile holy God with sinful men. And he does that by his death upon the cross as the perfect Lamb of God dying on the cross for our sins so that by our faith in him we would be united to his perfection, knowing his forgiveness, and by his resurrection be brought to new life in being reconciled to God.

You see the progression in the names. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ comes and he conquers and he leads and he reigns forever. Now what's the application this morning?

We think about the child who was born to us and the son that was given to us. What was the response? Angels broke through midnight's veil with heaven's brightness praising God. Shepherds raced through Bethlehem clamoring to see Messiah, their Savior.

Wise men embark on their journey laden with gifts fit for the King of Kings. These are the responses to the child born to us and the son who was given to us. And in essence their responses are exactly what Psalm 2 prescribes.

Psalm 2 beginning in verse 10. After displaying the Son of God as established and reigning, the government upon his shoulders on Mount Zion, what's the response? Verse 10. Now therefore, O kings, show discernment.

Take warning, O judges of the earth. Here are the applications. Worship the Lord with reverence. The way to read that is serve the Lord in fear. And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son that he not become angry and you perish in the way.

For his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Show some discernment this Christmas. Take warning. Serve the Lord in fear. Serve him. He's the counselor. He's the mighty God.

He's the one who reigns the eternal Father. He's the one who brings peace. Serve the Lord in fear. Worship him with reverence. Know whom you are worshiping. Yes, he was born as an infant child. Yes, life is precious.

And he was born as all of this royalty. Don't reduce the person of Christ to his infancy. When you consider his infancy, consider the wonder of his whole person. Rejoice with trembling as the shepherds did.

Do homage to the Son as the Magi did. Show some discernment. This is who we worship. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Eternal Father. Prince of peace. Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word.

I pray that these titles would resonate in our minds. That we would consider them well this season. About who we're worshiping. Who we are celebrating. I pray, Lord, that you would give us many opportunities to sing the true praises of Christ this Christmas season.

Thank you for these things. Pray these things in Christ's name.