Christmas According To... Isaiah

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Don Filcek; Isaiah 9:1-7 Christmas According To... Isaiah

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where we are growing in faith, community, and service. This is a three -part series for the
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Christmas season called Christmas According To by Pastor Don Filsek, where he takes some of the lesser -known
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Christmas passages and talks about the greatest gift of all, the incarnate Jesus Christ.
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If you'd like more information about Recast, visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.
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A three -part series running up to Christmas. I'm calling it Christmas According To, dot, dot, dot.
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We're gonna look at Christmas According To, three different accounts of Christmas that are maybe not the places that you would logically or naturally turn, first and foremost.
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Really, the amazing events of the birth of Christ. Would you guys agree with me that the event of the birth of Christ is an amazing thing?
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That is the incarnation, God in flesh. That's a glorious, amazing thing. A little bit mind -blowing when you think about it.
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The creator of the universe coming down as one of us to be among us, to live among us, to, in the end, die for us.
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And so, it's a glorious, amazing thing. And there's, scripture records it, records the event of the birth of Christ from a lot of different perspectives.
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I don't know if you really realize that there's really three that we turn to, really two. And the third, if you're just really, really out there, the first is
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Luke, right? I mean, that's where most of the Christmas pageants come out of, the
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Gospel of Luke, when Quirinius was governor, and on and down. Or you might turn to Matthew, right?
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If you're really out there, and you're really trying to, you know, you're really gonna go radical, then you're gonna turn to John, you know? He pitched his tent among us, he came and he dwelt among us, took on flesh, and dwelt among us, and so you're gonna go there.
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But we're gonna look at Christmas from the perspective, this morning, of Isaiah. So we're gonna turn to Isaiah, and look at Christmas according to Isaiah.
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Then we're gonna see Christmas according to Paul, which we don't see very often. And then next week, we are gonna look at John, but we're gonna look at Christmas according to John, from the
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Book of Revelation, which, it doesn't seem like a very logical place to turn, but I don't know how many of you actually realize that Christmas occurs, there's an account of Christmas, that's kind of like, a little bit mind -blowing.
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There's some pictures, there's dragons in the Christmas story, this is gonna be awesome, okay? But there's actually a dragon in John's account of the birth of Jesus, in the
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Book of Revelation. So, you know, usually you're thinking camels, and donkeys, and stuff like that, we're gonna have dragons in a couple of weeks.
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But that's where we're going, is Christmas according to, and looking at those three, over the next three weeks, and then, can you believe, then it'll be
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Christmas. Like, anybody, just like, it's come up on you, and it's like, especially with Thanksgiving falling so late and stuff, but it's here.
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But a book that was written 750 years before the birth of Jesus, seems like a strange place to turn for a
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Christmas message, would you agree with me on that? This was written, we're gonna be reading together this morning, what we're gonna be studying this morning was written approximately 750 years before Jesus was even born, pretty awesome thing.
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And yet, many of you who know your way around the Bible understand that the prophet Isaiah had some amazing things to say about the coming hope of the people of God, and particularly about the birth of one who was coming, a child to be born, a son to be given, used the word
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Emmanuel, God with us, talked about his suffering in detail, talked about his crucifixion, some just amazing and glorious things that he would suffer for us, and all of that kind of stuff.
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So Isaiah was a little bit, I mean, through God's revelation was dialed in on this one Messiah, and there's a lot that Isaiah had to say about him, we're gonna be looking at one passage of that.
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In particular, a passage where Isaiah promises that a child will be born who is going to become an eternal and ultimate king.
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Says one's gonna be born in the future, he's 750 years before Jesus is born, he says one's gonna be born, he's going to be the eternal and ultimate king, and there will be no end to his rule, his kingdom will be like no other, his character will be like no other, and the peace that he brings will be a peace without end.
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And so I want you to open your Bibles to Isaiah 9, and we're gonna look at the first seven verses, that's page 487, if you take out the
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Bible in the seat back in front of you, turn to page 487, and we're gonna read this together, the words of Isaiah, really the words of God, through the mouthpiece of Isaiah to us this morning.
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And remember that if you don't own a Bible, you can take that one with you, although you can just probably as easily download one to your phone, we want everybody to have a copy of the word of God, and if you don't have a paper copy on your nightstand, take that one with you, a follow along as we read together this awesome, awesome text.
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But there will be no gloom for her who is in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.
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But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the
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Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
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Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy, they rejoiced before you.
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As with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
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For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
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Every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
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For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the
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Lord of hosts will do this. The zeal of the
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Lord of hosts will do this. Let's pray.
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Father, that last verse ignites me. It gives me a fire that you are zealous, that you are enthusiastic, that you are excited about the birth of your son, that you are excited about restoration, you are excited about redemption, that you exhibit zeal over these things and that your zeal is the cause of them.
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And so, Father, I ask that your zeal, your enthusiasm would be the cause of our worship this morning, that we would be fueled by your spirit alive in us, that the things that make you excited would make us excited and that we know you are most excited when you receive glory and honor and rightfully so because you are awesome and worthy of our worship and praise and so,
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Father, fuel our songs this morning with enthusiasm and joy before you.
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Father, we are delighted in the child who is born, the son that was given. We are defined by him and by his rule and by his reign and I pray that that would be more so the case this next week than it was last week and more so this next month than last month and more next year than this year, that we would be a people defined by the rule and reign of your son,
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Jesus Christ, and that by the understanding of your text and by reading it and studying it this morning, that we would be transformed and changed to more glory and more passion for you and more connection with your son,
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Jesus Christ, and it's in his name that I pray, amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us. I hope that brings you closer to the throne of God just kind of in the sense of getting an opportunity to worship him this morning and very grateful for the time that they put in.
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Remember to have your Bibles open in front of you. If you have them open to page 487, that would be helpful to be able to walk through this text together so you can see it in Isaiah chapter nine, verses one through seven.
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We're gonna dive right in here this morning. We've got some ground to cover because we're talking about Isaiah and probably
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I'm guessing a lot of you, if you're honest, you're kind of like, I don't really read out of the prophets very often.
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Most of you are familiar that there's a big chunk at the end of the Old Testament, like probably two thirds of it is this big chunk of prophets and how many of you, if you're just being honest, you get a little confused when you're reading in there?
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Like if you read through the Bible in a year, it's kind of like, Malachi what, Amos what, what is going on here?
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And I think it's a period of time that probably a lot of us are a little bit weak on and to be quite honest, it's not preached on very often and so I think that can be part of it.
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I only saw about three hands. So most everybody else, everybody out here is really super engaged with the prophets. That's awesome, that's great.
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So you'll get into this. But let me just set some of the stage then here for where, who is Isaiah?
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Why is this guy, why is he recorded for us in the pages of scripture? What's he doing here?
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Why? Well, to set the stage a little bit, at the time that he prophesied, the nation of Israel was divided in two.
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As a matter of fact, the era of the prophets was a time of a divided nation of God's people.
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Remember that they had been called out from Egypt, they had gone through the desert and they were given the law at Mount Sinai and they were told to honor the
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Lord their God and they were given the 10 commandments and all those other laws that were given to them to structure their society and their culture and then they demanded a king, they received a king.
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God was meant to be their king but they said we want a human leader and so they got a human leader and through the sinfulness of human kings, the nation ends up getting divided.
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To confuse things all the more for us, okay, we call the whole group of God's chosen people Israel, right, the nation, but to confuse things, the north, so they were divided north and south and the northern portion is called
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Israel. So that, I mean, that can kind of confuse you. You think of Israel as the whole ball of wax.
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Well, actually, during this period of time, Israel is just the north and the south is known by one of the 12 tribes names
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Judah. So it's Judah and Israel and that's who, the majority of the prophets, it's helpful in discerning and understanding if you're studying one of the prophets to know who is he prophesying to.
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Is he prophesying to the north? Is he prophesying to the south? Well, Isaiah was like a two -sport pro, okay?
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So he had a bat and he could play baseball and then he could also play football. He prophesied to the north, he was an equal opportunity prophet, prophesied against the north, prophesied against the south, and he was just like,
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I'll take care of this. And in case there's any confusion, I'm guessing that there's a little bit of confusion here just in general, what does a prophet do?
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Like, what is Isaiah's role? So if there's one thing that you understand that a prophet exists to do, he is the mouthpiece of God.
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So that's it, so God wants to communicate something to his people, he uses a prophet and the prophet speaks the words of God.
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So I think often in our mind, we tend to gravitate towards the thing that is most stark about the prophets.
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So how many of you knew that the prophets from time to time told the future? Is that a pretty amazing thing?
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Okay, so that grabs our attention, so a lot of times we think prophecy is telling the future, right? I mean, if you're honest, does that cross your mind?
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Like, okay, I think prophets tell the future. Well, a prophet only tells the future if that's what God wants the prophet to say, so he is a mouthpiece.
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Can a prophet provide encouragement? Yeah, because if that's what God wants to do, if God wants to encourage his people, then the prophet will speak words of encouragement.
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Sometimes the prophet was, and quite often, just because of the nature of the time and era of prophecy, when it was just really the tool of God during this divided kingdom, a lot of times it's calling down condemnation, it's judgment and conviction of sin, right?
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So sometimes we associate that with prophecy, like prophecy is just saying the dire, you know, doom of the
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Lord is over you or something like that. That's not the extent of prophecy. Prophecy is saying what God, it's ultimately being the mouthpiece of God and communicating, and that's what
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Isaiah was in his era. So sometimes it was calling out sin and conviction, and we see that throughout the book of Isaiah.
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Sometimes it looked like word pictures and dramatic acts of showing what God was doing. Some of these prophets acted just crazy weird, okay?
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I mean, we would have said they were off their rocker. Ezekiel takes his beard, apparently he had a pretty decent -sized beard, not like mine,
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I mean a real beard, and he shaved it off, cut it off, and then took a third of it and burned it in the presence of the people.
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Hey, everybody, I'm gonna burn my beard. Burns his beard, buries a third of it, takes a couple of the strands that are left over from the other third, scatters them to the wind, except he takes a couple and sews them into the hem of his garment.
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Weird? So prophets would have been, we would have been like, that's strange, but kind of interesting.
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Like, he would have made the front of the tabloids, okay, during his era, he would have been there. Like, people were following, they just wanted to know what is this cook gonna do next?
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And just all kinds of strange, dramatic things. Other times the message came in the form of cryptic visions.
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You know, I think of Daniel's visions of like, you know, beings with four heads, and one's like a lion, and one's like an eagle, and anybody get lost in that stuff?
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Sometimes you gotta really dig in to really figure out what is he talking about? And you've really gotta get to know the eras and the times and what's going on around him and stuff.
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But God is revealing himself, sometimes in cryptic ways, sometimes just in very direct prophecy. And being the mouthpiece of God was the main function.
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But remember that sometimes, sometimes God did want his people to know the future.
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And in our text this morning, God wanted his people to know the future.
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And so he's going to, from Isaiah's time, from his era, he's gonna tell something that's going to happen 750 years down the road.
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Pretty awesome, right? But if God wants us to know the future, he can't, I wanna point out that the prophets were the servants of God, they spoke for him.
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It's not like you could just go to a prophet and he would tell your future like you had a crystal ball and he just had access and power to tell the future.
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He just had the power to say what God wanted him to say. And he spoke a true prophet, not a false prophet, but a true prophet spoke what
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God desired. And so you couldn't just go to him and say, hey, can you tell me what's gonna happen next week? And tell me the lottery numbers, can you tell me?
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That's not the way prophecy worked. It was God declaring what he wanted to say to his people at the time.
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Well, for the first several chapters, really the first eight chapters of Isaiah, Isaiah basically calls down judgment on Judah in the south,
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Israel in the north, and he openly declares their rebellion. He's basically walking them through their own sins.
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He's saying, I've seen, I've been observing. How many of you know God knows what you're doing? He sees that. And I mean, it's very evident from the prophets that I mean, a lot of times he just says,
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I've seen this, I've seen the way that you're robbing me. I've seen the way, I've seen your injustice against the poor. I've seen you push people down and subjugate them and I'm seeing all of this.
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And so he makes a case for the imminent destruction, particularly of Israel, but then also in a backhanded way towards Judah as well.
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He's basically right off the bat of his book. It's gonna be 66 books to the, 66 chapters to Isaiah and in the first eight, he's already declaring judgment on his people,
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Israel and Judah. And he even identifies to Isaiah the means by which
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God is going to judge them. He says, Assyria, this massive power that's building in the north, this other kingdom, is gonna come down and roll through and take you over, okay?
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I mean, like, Canada's coming, okay? They're on the way and they're gonna take you over or whatever. I don't know, that was a bad joke, but you get what
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I mean? I mean, he says, they're on their way. They're gonna come and they are gonna be my instrument, my tool of judgment and even in Isaiah, this is ironic,
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I mean, the mystery of the will of God and his designs and the way that he works, he even calls down judgment on Assyria and he says, once I'm done using
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Assyria as a tool to bring you to your knees, Assyria's not perfect either and they're actually doing some pretty wicked things.
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They're gonna be my tool to bring you down, but then they're gonna go on their way out too. So, he tells him how this is all gonna go down in pretty good detail.
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As a matter of fact, he even goes so far as to say that Assyria will begin in the north and come through this valley into the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the area that is called
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Galilee in the New Testament, maybe a little bit more of a familiar term to you, Zebulun and Naphtali being two of the tribes of Israel, sons of Jacob, tribes named after them and they settled in that northernmost area and he says, that's where it's gonna start.
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It's all gonna begin up there. And so, there's been a lot of doom and gloom in the book of Isaiah when we come to chapter nine.
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We get to chapter nine and I just wanna set that stage for you for you to understand without reading the whole text together, just understanding that it's not all been a rosy picture.
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It's been a lot of judgment and a lot of sin being called out. And the fundamental question is gonna be answered by God through this chapter, through chapter nine and if you were reading through Isaiah, you were in that time and in that era, you'd be asking this question.
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You might not be right now, but I think that it's a question we all ought to ask and that is, how do you give hope or how do you have hope when you know your doom is sure?
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God has declared, Assyria is on the way. They're gonna roll through it and they're gonna take you over and this is not gonna be pretty. It's not gonna be a gentle takeover.
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It's gonna be a hostile takeover. There's gonna be violence. There's gonna be war and he gets in pretty nasty detail about how bad this dominance is gonna happen.
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So how is it possible to have hope in the face of destruction? Now, I joke about Canada.
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I mean, are we really facing destruction as a nation? I mean, probably not, right?
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I mean, how many of you feel fairly secure right now where you live? Do you feel fairly secure physically?
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Some of you don't. Okay, I think most all of us, if we're just being honest, I mean, as far as geopolitical crises and things like that, we're pretty secure in West Michigan right now.
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But do we know where our life is going? Are you mindful of that? The question that I'm asking is, when you know that doom is out there, when you know that your doom is sure, where do you find hope?
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I think that's something that we can all relate to. I mean, as Americans, we don't like to think about it. But I mean, I just wanna point out,
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I mean, if there was no, if that was all glass, you could just turn around and see the gravestones out there. Where is, where are we going?
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I think all of us in this room have some recognition that we all end the same, right? Death is out there.
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Is your doom on the horizon? Yeah, and I mean, even just this week, we were reminded about how short and brief life can be.
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A couple of teenagers passed away in our community in a car accident. And it's just, I mean, it's just these devastating things that happen and you go, how do we have hope as we live in the realm of the shadow of death?
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That's where we live, right? And although I'm not encouraging a morbid, meditating on your death all day long or something like that.
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I mean, is it valuable for us to face that reality that that's out there? And that ought to lead us to that question.
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Where can hope be found when this is on the horizon, when it's out there?
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And it's going to happen. Where is hope? And God is gonna suggest that the answer to how do you find hope in the, how do you find hope in this when we recognize how short and brief life is?
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And the answer comes in the long -term perspective, thinking bigger picture about the overarching plan of God.
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That he has a bigger plan than us. That my hope doesn't come from the 40, 50, 60, however many years he allows me to live on planet
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Earth. This is not the place of my hope. Are you getting what
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I'm saying? There's a bigger thing that God is doing. How many of you are glad that your life is not the sum total of what
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God is doing through you or in you or with you? Are you glad for that, that there's something bigger than that? How many of you are glad as you think about your children, as you think about offspring, or you even think about having children, the notion that the future, you won't be there for them?
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But God will. And you won't, you might not be there for your great -grandchildren, but God is there.
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There is someone who continues on past this life for us. There's someone that we can connect with and tie into his greater overarching plan, and that's gonna be a solution for Israel.
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They are going to, they're going to go to doom. Notice that in verse, in chapter nine, so chapter, you know, eight chapters of kind of talking about the gloom and the doom and all of that.
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Chapter nine, he doesn't take it, he doesn't take it back. It's not like you get to chapter nine, and he's like, just kidding, just kidding about Assyria.
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They're not really gonna roll through us, just trying to scare you a little bit, trying to get you to obey. You get to chapter nine, and Assyria is still on the way.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? It's not like the hope and the overarching plan of God says, okay, now, oh, good,
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I'm not gonna die now. There's no end to this life, or there's no suffering, or there's none, you know,
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I'm just gonna have, you know, just rainbows and butterflies and rose gardens my entire life, because I'm, you know,
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I'm in with Christ, and it's all, we know that that's not reality, right? Chapter nine doesn't say, psych, just kidding, but Assyria is coming, and it does indeed happen historically, just the way that Isaiah prophesied.
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He was the mouthpiece of God, God was speaking through him. Assyria comes through in just a few years, rolls through and devastates the area.
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But Isaiah, here in God's desire to use him as a mouthpiece to speak to his people is providing encouragement even in the face of suffering, even in the midst of judgment.
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By the way, not all judgment is, not all suffering is judgment, but in this case, it is. Would you agree with me on that?
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That that's what's happening here, but I think we can make it synonymous with any type of suffering that we face in this world. There are definitely different levels and different things, and I can't get into all that.
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But the way that the text goes in and out of verb tenses here and the way, if you were just to study the verb tenses in Hebrew and figure out what it is that he's saying, it's as if Isaiah is taken forward into the future beyond events that are still out there for him.
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He's taken forward and he's given a look backwards and a look forward even from that vantage point.
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And so the verbs are, the verbs get a little bit squirrely about him looking back at Zebulun and Naphtali being destroyed who have not been destroyed in his lifetime yet as he's writing these things.
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And the dating, by the way, of Isaiah is fairly accurate. Okay, you can get down to dates of events in the book of Isaiah because he talks about people who we understand from archeology, rock solid kings, that's names and when they reigned and ruled and stuff are recorded in other extra biblical documents.
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And so going back there, we know about when he said these things. So he's taken forward to a time to look backwards and forwards, and he didn't even need a
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DeLorean to do it. Okay, great Scott. God gives him this vision, declares these things to him, and he is able to speak them.
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And so verse one, he speaks of the former time, he's forward now, he's forward out there, and he speaks of the past time when anguish and contempt came upon Zebulun and Naphtali.
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That's gonna happen in a few years from the time he's speaking the words. But there is a coming time in the future yet after the destruction of Israel, after Assyria comes and rolls through, there is a coming time when the gloom will be no more.
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The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be raised up in honor. This area will be known as Galilee of the
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Gentiles or Galilee of the nations. I wanna point out that at no time during the life of Isaiah was this area known by this title.
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And it's pretty well documented. I mean, do you recognize the name Galilee? Do you maybe know somebody who had a significant ministry and some significant upbringing in the area of Galilee?
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And yet here Isaiah 750 years before these events is declaring Galilee, and he's calling it
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Galilee of the Gentiles. Now, who lived in that area during the time of Isaiah? Jews, not
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Gentiles. He's actually saying in the future, there's gonna be a time where this area is primarily ruled by Gentiles.
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He even gets that down. The Romans, of course, are gonna be over that area when this great light that we're gonna see prophesied comes.
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"'A great light is on the way,' says Isaiah. "'And those who have only known deep darkness "'are going to receive great light.'"
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Those under the deep darkness, the gloom and the doom, are going to receive a great light, an awesome encouragement.
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After all the preaching of doom and gloom, how many of you think that the people would be hanging a lot of hope on these? Like, they'd wanna...
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Can you read chapter nine again to us, please, dad? Can you read chapter... Do you know what
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I'm saying? I mean, let's skip over chapters one through eight. Let's get to chapter nine, please.
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We get it, a serious coming, and I think that Isaiah pounds that home hard enough that they get it, but can we just talk about hope here for a moment?
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And how many of you think that at that point in the reading, they might be like, can you tell us more about this great light? Can you tell us more about this hope that's coming?
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There's hope for our people. Even though you're talking about destruction, there's still hope. And I wanna know more about that.
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I think it's reasonable for us to wanna know more about that. According to verse three, the people of God will expand.
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There's gonna be times Isaiah looking forward by the eyes of God, and there will be times of great rejoicing.
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It will be joy likened to a great harvest, a joy that the text likens to the dividing of spoils.
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I think the dividing of spoils, you need to understand, at that era and that time, would be like winning the lottery, okay?
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Because it's unexpected wealth. All of a sudden, you've got it. You weren't expecting it. Let me explain, and I'm not endorsing the lottery.
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I'm not endorsing gambling, by the way. I think that that's a good illustration for it, because how many of you don't expect to win the lottery?
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By the way, you don't expect to win it if you don't play, so I don't ever expect to win. But that's another story altogether. I'm just using it as an illustration.
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Bear with me. But people go off to war during this time. As a matter of fact, there were seasons of war, and it was just pretty commonplace and things like that.
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The men from the village, the men from the city, the men from the town, they take off in the spring, and they're going, suit up, and let's go.
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Or they're attacked, or whatever. But they suit up, they go, and there would be times where they didn't have cell phones, and the women and the children and whichever men were left back to care for them, they don't know whether these guys are ever coming back again.
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And there were times in history where they just didn't come back. And a year goes by, and two years goes by, and I guess they lost the war, right?
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I guess they lost the battle, and nobody shows up. Can you imagine that kind of context? But then there were times when the men would show back up with gold and jewels and silver and all kinds of things to divide.
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And can you imagine what that would be like at that moment when they come back, and they're carrying treasures, and it's divided up, and it's rejoicing, and they won the battle, and everything is awesome.
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And that's the kind of joy that Isaiah is likening this to. Unexpected, all of a sudden, there it is, and it's all there.
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You get it? That kind of joy. Maybe the lottery is not a great illustration,
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I don't know. I ought to just say the spoils of war is a good illustration because that's what Isaiah used as his illustration.
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But the yoke of the burden of oppression, he goes on to say, the yoke of the burden of oppression is gonna cease.
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He sees in his mind's eye through the spirit of God this forward time when there will be no more oppression.
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Anybody, let me go, that sounds good. Anybody excited about a time like that? No more oppression?
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Now, it seems like a great place to point out, point this out, because you're kind of looking, and you're going, okay, I know where this is going down. I know that we're gonna get down to verse six, and there's gonna be a child born and a son given.
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And I'm not quite sure how that all rolls out because it's saying that he's looking forward to a time when oppression is gonna cease.
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And I wanna point out, the prophets weren't given a glimpse into the future. They were given the snapshot of what God wanted them to know for their people, what they needed to know right now.
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And so they weren't given a full chronological timeline, color -coded in Excel, okay, where they could just zoom in on a cell and figure out the dates and the times that everything's gonna happen and all that.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? And so they were given snapshots of this picture of this future that's going to be like this, not necessarily when that was gonna happen, not how it was gonna happen necessarily, or all the ins and outs of that.
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So we know of two advents of Jesus, right? Two comings of Jesus.
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The word advent means a coming. And so the first, he came as a baby born in a manger.
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That's what we're talking about. We're talking about Christmas here. We're talking about his arrival. Is there gonna be another coming?
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In which he comes, how? As a warrior. He comes on a white horse as the king, as the rightful ruler who is going to come into his throne and is going to rule and reign forever and ever and ever.
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Isaiah wasn't given that same, he wasn't giving anything inaccurate. He was just given something that was incomplete.
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You understand what I'm saying? So what he says here is he's looking forward to a time when one is gonna come who's gonna provide healing, get rid of oppression.
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He's going to take on the government and take the government on his shoulder and some of these things that we're gonna see here in a minute. And I think it's important for us to understand that Isaiah didn't understand the full idea of two advents.
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And we'll see that even the followers of Jesus in his lifetime didn't get it. They didn't even get this concept.
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The reason I ask this is, has light come to us? Has light arrived? Yes, it has.
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Has political oppression ceased? No, not yet. Did Jesus come as a great light?
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Yes. Will he come again to remove political oppression? Yes. And verse five highlights that the removal of political oppression will come with the removal of all war.
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Now it's implied in verse five and then it's stated directly later. But the boots that march to war, according to verse five, are gonna be piled high, mounted up together with the garments that have been bloodied in battle and they're all going to be burned.
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Isaiah is symbolically explaining a future when war ceases to exist, when there will be no more war.
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Do we live in an era like that now? Not at all. All wars will cease.
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So in verse five, we know good things are coming, but we do not yet know, according to the text, what form this piece is going to take, what's gonna happen.
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Okay, so if you're just reading this for the first time, you get to this point and you're going, what crazy thing is going to happen on the world scene to account for the ceasing of all war?
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What is gonna happen to bring about this great and glorious light, to turn deep darkness into great light?
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What's gonna do that? And Isaiah says, in verse six, a child is born.
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Oh, okay, good Isaiah, a child is born. Are you serious? That's gonna take care of all the problems?
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A child is born? Okay, great. I hope he's He -Man or something.
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I hope he's super powerful or something because what you're promising here seems a little bit more than a child can accomplish.
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Are you getting what I'm saying? Now, if you're sitting, hearing Isaiah speak these things for the first time, you're going, what child?
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You know, some commentaries, really weak commentaries, will interpret this as Hezekiah, the next physical king over Israel.
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So a lot of what Isaiah has to say is railing against this particular king,
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Ahaz. Ahaz is gonna have a son, Ahaz Wicked, has a son named Hezekiah who makes some really good reforms and changes a few things and stuff.
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And so it's gonna be, you know, what, is he the hope? Is he the promised one?
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Is Hezekiah the one? There's something different going on here,
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I would think. Right? We're gonna see it here in just a moment. A child is gonna be born.
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And the child is gonna be born to humanity. The text is very clear. He will be a human child. Unto us, a child is born.
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Unto us. Well, usually a single person gives birth, right?
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Unto a woman, a child is born, an individual woman. But this child is born to us.
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He is going to have an impact on us. He is about us.
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Not a family, not just one family, not just one, you know, nuclear unit. It's us.
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To us, a child is born. To us, a son is given. He's a human child, but he's more than that.
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He's also a gift that's given to us. The us is significant.
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He's born to us and given to us. He is both human and yet he comes from the divine.
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Given to us by God. And this child will become a government leader.
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Is it any wonder that the disciples' final question as Jesus was standing before them with his feet still on the earth, their final question was, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?
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They had no question that he was the one. They had no question that he was the child that Isaiah promised that was going to be raised up.
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Now, the question to them was, when are you gonna kick the Romans out and start this eternal kingdom that you've promised?
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I mean, they're asking that question, shows their trust in him, but it also shows a misunderstanding of the way that all of this is gonna roll out.
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I don't fault them for not grasping that Jesus would come back in power later to exercise his governance.
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If you're reading Isaiah and that's what you had to go by, you would probably have some misunderstandings too. You'd be expecting him to come in military might.
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And there's gonna be a good reason, I'm gonna explain it to you in just a few minutes, about why there is a difference in the advents.
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Why has God chosen to tarry? Why didn't he give the child in the manger the final rule and reign?
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Why did he not, during his earthly ministry, just roll everything up and usher in his kingdom of peace down in there?
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There's a great reason why. You and I are a part of that reason. We'll get there here in just a moment.
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He's gonna bring a great light. Jesus Christ is indeed currently right now the true and honest king over this world.
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Even though his final rule has not been established on earth as it is in heaven, it will one day be. But the child to be born will carry hope on his shoulders.
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He will bring great light. He will end all wars and break the rod of the oppressors, the text says.
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And he will single -handedly, I love this statement, he will single -handedly carry the government of the world on his shoulder, singular.
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That's one shoulder. He doesn't need both to get under the weight of that. It's not that big of a deal.
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He's gonna carry the weight of the government of the world on one shoulder, okay? He is indeed,
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I mean, Isaiah is promising, a very mighty person indeed. This child is going to grow to be a mighty ruler, a glorious and majestic king, an amazing and glorious one.
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Sound like a pretty big task, the whole government? The whole government of the world on one shoulder. We have a hard time governing ourselves in this country and with our hands in the politics of everyone, we recognize that nobody is equal to that task.
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And the one who actually says, oh, I think I'm equal to the task of ruling the world, well, that would be called antichrist, right?
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That would be like taking the rule that rightfully belongs to the one who rules the world and say, I got this,
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I could take this, might need both shoulders for this one, but I can do this. I don't think any of us go, if they were taking resumes for ruler of the world, would you submit your resume?
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If you would, you have issues, there's a problem there. Some of us kind of on some days are like, that might be nice,
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I mean, candy for everyone and no school. Some of the kids are like, yes,
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I would just take that and run with it. This is no ordinary man, you guys already knew that.
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But the text goes on to in there, from their vantage point needs to explain it. And we need this explanation,
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Recast, we need this desperately. This is not just from Charlie Brown Christmas. This is, these are names and titles that describe the character of the child who was born.
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And these are rich and deep and life transforming. If we see our King through the lens of these titles that are given to him, first, he will be called wonderful counselor.
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Wonderful counselor that speaks of his role as the bringer of wisdom. This child to be born would bring true counsel, accurate counsel, honest counsel, wise counsel, worthy counsel.
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He will be and is now the true and faithful guide in all things. His counsel will be wonderful because he is wonderful.
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He is known as the wonderful counselor. His advice is worth seeking. His model is worth following.
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His teaching is worth learning. His counsel is worth honoring.
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To base your life on the counsel of this one historical figure is the definition of true hope.
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That is hope. That he is the wonderful counselor.
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We go on because, so if Isaiah was just saying this and we just ended with that title, we might just go, okay, this is gonna be a great guy.
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This guy's gonna be awesome. He's gonna be really wise. Maybe even as wise as Solomon.
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Maybe even more wise. Like Solomon was the most wise man prior to this guy, but he's coming and he's gonna be more wise than him.
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So maybe like you could think that Isaiah is just buttering up this ruler, okay?
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He's just saying kind things about him because in the end he knows he's gonna have to serve under him and eventually this is gonna go well for him if he's, hey, aren't you the prophet who said really kind things about me around my birth?
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That would be really awesome. That was really cool of you and would you be my prophet for me? Or something like that.
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Well, Isaiah gives this child a crazy radical title that will not be applied to any other. This child is called mighty
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God. Israel was not in the habit of calling their kings by divine titles and this child is called the mighty
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God. He is the almighty one. He's not just another king sent from God, but he himself, he will be himself,
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Emmanuel, God with us. As Isaiah himself says, all sovereign power is in this king's control.
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It's no wonder that under his rule, all oppression will cease. It's no wonder that great light is the definition of his arrival.
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It's no wonder that his rule will be eternal and this eternal aspect is conveyed in his next title.
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He is called everlasting father. This is not to confuse the Trinity as if the father took on flesh and came down among us.
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We know that it was the son, father, son, and Holy Spirit. We even see the father still in heaven as the son stands in the waters of baptism, the
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Holy Spirit coming down from the father and the father's voice saying this is my son in whom I am well pleased.
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We see Trinity very clearly. It is not saying that the father took on flesh, the son took on flesh.
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So it's important for us to understand that. All of these titles focus on the role of ruling and father was often one of the titles that was used for king.
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It's often used that way in Hebrew poetry. He is the, another way of stating this is he is the eternal leader.
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The reign and rule of this one will have no end. And we have term limits in our government because we recognize that having eternal reign or lifelong reign can get dicey.
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Anybody glad we have term limits in America? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. But so this guy, this king is gonna reign forever and ever.
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And if we were thinking about this only in human terms, that seems maybe less than ideal, right? Like, well, what about term limits?
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What about, because I mean, our mind, how many of you would just be honest and admit that if I were given complete authority, it might corrupt me a little bit?
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You think a little bit? Okay, and without end? My whole life, I get to be king?
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Watch out. Okay, I'm sure I could get into that role pretty easily. So what is the nature?
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It would be kind of valuable to know the nature of this guy's reign if he's gonna reign forever, right? If this child who's gonna be born is gonna rule forever, what's that reign gonna be like?
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The next title defines that for us. He is known as the Prince of Peace.
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It highlights the nature of his reign. What will his reign be like? Peace. He's the one who will bring about shalom.
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I like the word shalom better than I like the word peace because the word peace, we have a skewed view of it.
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It's important for us to understand shalom or the word peace in a Hebrew way as we read through the
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Old Testament. We often settle for a very bland and gray, lifeless definition of peace.
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To most of us, we think of peace as the lack of war or the lack of conflict, right?
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If we're honest, that's pretty much where our definition goes with peace is, well, there's no conflict there.
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But the Hebrew concept of shalom is so much more than this. The concept of shalom is a bringing something to the table.
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It's not the absence of war, not the absence of conflict, but the presence of blessing, the presence of love and correctly ordered things, things functioning the way that they are intended to function, that is peace.
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You're getting what I'm saying? So where we think of it as the absence of something, the Hebrew mind says, no, this is the abundance.
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Peace, shalom is the restoration of things to the way that they were meant to be.
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The true presence of peace is bound up in this one. In other words, let me just kind of think this through.
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Our common definition of peace as Americans, think about it in your marriage. It means that you didn't yell at each other today, right?
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Well, you have a peaceful marriage? Yeah, we didn't yell at all today. So yeah, let's call it pretty peaceful.
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The concept of shalom is a deep commitment to one another, seeking to bless each other today, to bring joy to the other today.
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You hear how that's different? How many of you sign up for that definition of peace in your marriage? Like that sounds better.
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Like just the absence of war, that's a good start. It's a good start, but that's not what we're shooting for.
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I hope you're not settling in your relationships with those around you for the absence of conflict.
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That's pretty lazy, to be honest. Are you settling for the absence of conflict or are you pushing forward to peace, to shalom, to a rightly, correctly ordered where you are to love others and be willing to receive love back?
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He is the Prince of Peace. The resume of this child king looks pretty impressive. Would you agree with me? Pretty awesome resume.
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He's gonna be the wonderful counselor who guides humanity. He is the mighty God in flesh, powerful and able to accomplish the promises he makes.
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Mighty God. He is the everlasting father who will never lose his throne once it has been established.
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Never loses. Nobody's gonna overthrow him. There's not gonna be any coup that can take the throne from Jesus.
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And he will bring the world back to its proper order as the Prince of Peace without conflict, yes, but also instead replacing any conflict with blessings and joy.
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And burning up the boots that marched to war, burning up the garments stained with blood. And the increase of his peace, the increase of his government will have no end.
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Increasing, growing, expanding. In other words, the expansion of the kingdom of God is now set on a trajectory of victory, an increase that will continue to grow.
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His kingdom will continue to expand. And I would suggest to you, is now continuing to expand.
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It is growing. His kingdom continues to march forward. The era that we live in, the timeframe that we live in is one of amazing joy and hope because the kingdom of God is in a phase of significant expansion.
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It is growing day by day. Bigger today than it was yesterday, bigger tomorrow than it is today.
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In its scope, in its reach, in its global impact.
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This kingdom established by God through Jesus Christ is continuing to grow. Now, this is not a guarantee that we here at Recast Church will continue to grow, but it is a promise that the kingdom of God of which this church is just a small sliver will be victorious.
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The big C church is overcoming. It is growing amazingly, gloriously, and God has said it will.
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The reign and rule of Jesus has more territory today than it had yesterday. His peace will be more all -encompassing with each passing day.
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Now you go, Don, are you telling me that we are ushering in a golden age? Are we moving towards, and how many of you just kind of go, wait a minute,
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Don, how does that fit with the headlines? Anybody think that? Okay, thanks,
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Zach. Zach was thinking it, no one else. Yeah, I mean, what about the headlines?
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I mean, are things getting better? Or are they getting worse? And I mean, I think you can ask people at work that.
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Ask your coworkers, ask people out at the coffee shop. Is the world getting better or is it getting worse? Or what do you think about all the stuff that's going on around us?
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I mean, if you think about it from technology, is it getting better? Seems like it. I mean, are we getting better at medical technology and all that kind of stuff?
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Does it seem like things are more comfortable and for everyone on the planet? To some degree, yes.
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And so how can I say that the spirit of God is expanding, that it's guaranteed to be bigger tomorrow than it is today, and then that calls into question, what does the kingdom of God look like even right now, today?
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You know, what about Syria? What about North Korea? Some crazy stuff going on.
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What about Iran, you know, where we sign saying, basically, we're gonna turn our blind eye and you're gonna develop nuclear weapons.
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I mean, does anybody think they're not gonna develop a nuclear bomb? I mean, for real? That's what they're gonna do and that's what they've set their mind on.
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China, China retaking, claiming sovereign airspace over an area of the Pacific, saying don't fly commercial airliners through there, we'll shoot them down.
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For real? That's kind of weird stuff. Anybody follow that story the last couple of weeks? It's bizarre, some strange stuff going on.
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Jesus is very clear, though, that his kingdom would be established in power, but not yet. He has a different plan, he has a different thing that he's doing with his kingdom right now.
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This is key. And I want you to, you can turn over there or you can just listen in. I'm gonna read it to you, Acts chapter one, verses six through nine.
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I'm gonna read it. This is gonna tell us about the final conversation that Jesus had on this planet about his kingdom, about power, about authority, about setting up a kingdom where there's gonna be peace and all this stuff.
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So I mentioned it just briefly earlier that this is the context of his 12 disciples gathered around him up on a hill,
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Mount of Olives, just outside of the east gate of Jerusalem. And they're gathered there and they're talking with him.
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He's already raised from the dead. They're speaking with the resurrected Jesus. They watched him crucified and now they're having this conversation.
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And they say this. By this point, they are believing. They are believing, they are trusting him.
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You're the Messiah, you are the one, no questions asked. Thomas has already had a chance to put his hand in the scars and see the side where the spear was.
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God left those there for, I don't know, maybe just for evidence or for glory. So when they had come together, gathered together, they asked him, doesn't say who.
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Maybe the disciples didn't want to identify who had the big mouth. But they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
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What they're asking is, can we buy some swords? Can we buy some swords? Can we get this on?
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Can we go take down Rome now? Because we know who you are. And is this the time when you step into your authority and you become
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King Jesus over the world? And they believed he could do it. Do you hear that in the question?
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Is this the time when you restore your kingdom, yours, because you're the
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King? They knew it. He said to them, none your business.
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Well, not quite. He didn't quite say it like that, but he said, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons that the
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Father has fixed by his own authority. It's not for you to know.
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It's okay to ask the question, but I'm not going to tell you. There is a time coming when
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I'm going to enter into my kingdom, when I'm going to be established on the throne of the earth. He's about to go to heaven and sit on a real throne and truly reign and rule, but not here completely yet.
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You getting what I'm saying? But, verse eight, still in Acts one, but you will receive power.
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Oh, think you got the disciples' attention with that? You're going to receive power.
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Oh yes, Jesus, tell me more. Tell me more about this power that we're talking about. You will receive power when the
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Holy Spirit has come upon you. What is the purpose of that power? What is the purpose of the
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Holy Spirit? Why is he going to come on us with power? Go on, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
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Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
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Why has Jesus not yet just rolled it all up under his authority, defeated his foes, and started his kingdom here?
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Because he wants you and me to be his witnesses. Because he wants more in his kingdom.
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He wants us to bring in more. He wants us to grow this kingdom.
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The very promise that he's talking about, about expansion and growing, he says, I want you to be my witnesses. I'm going to give you the power to do it.
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This era between these advents is about growth in the kingdom for his honor and for his glory.
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Why are we here? Why are we not in heaven right now? Why has he not restored this kingdom? Because he wants us to be his witnesses.
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Witnessing is not something a Christian does. It is something we are. We are witnesses.
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And I mean, I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on anyone here. I'm just saying, do you see your identity in this?
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A witness of the Lord Jesus Christ in his glory to this world. Jesus makes it clear that his kingdom is coming in power one day, but until that day, his kingdom is defined by what's going on between his people, his spirit, and the world.
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That is his kingdom now. It's not in political authority. It is not in rules and reigns of kings and presidents and governments and all of that.
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One day, the whole government of the world will rest on his shoulder, okay?
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But his primary kingdom is not currently involved in that politic, but it's on the spiritual front.
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The kingdom continues to expand in shalom and peace and the sovereign rule of Jesus each and every day in the hearts of his people and in the world as we share it with others.
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That is the way that I can say definitively that tomorrow the kingdom of God will be better than it is today.
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It will be bigger than it is today because it's in people's hearts. Is the world improving? No, as a matter of fact,
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I would make a case for the worst that the world gets, the better the kingdom of God does. The kingdom of God expands in the midst of persecution.
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The kingdom of God expands in the hearts of people as they go through suffering and difficulty. You get what
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I'm saying? So this is not a promise, the kingdom, that everything's gonna go well in your life.
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This is a promise that the kingdom is expanding in the hearts and lives of his people and in the world through us.
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You get it? Is that making sense to everybody? Isaiah identifies that the cause of this amazing birth, and this is the last part of the exposition here, and I think one of the most glorious parts.
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He identifies that the cause of this amazing birth, the cause of this eternal reign, the cause of this restoration to shalom, the cause of the restoration of righteousness and justice is the zeal of the
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Lord, his enthusiasm, the exuberance of God Almighty.
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Ask yourself, does your God ever get excited? Does your God ever get zealous, downright like excited about something?
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The God of scripture does. He gets downright involved, engaged, connected, and zealous.
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And this zeal has revealed his passion for restoring, for restoration through the sending of his son.
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You know what gets the father super excited? The son. And his zeal has brought about our restoration and our redemption, his enthusiasm.
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Do you think of God having enthusiasm for his people? Having zeal? His zeal has produced us as a people through his son,
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Jesus Christ. So what we've encountered is a pretty amazing text. Isaiah wrote about the birth of the
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Messiah, 750 years before the birth of the Messiah, pretty amazing. He identified him as a king, as having a significant impact in Galilee, as breaking the rule of oppression and establishing an eternal kingdom that's gonna increase in its scope forever and ever.
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Christmas is found in some pretty far off places in the text of scripture. My goal in this series is not merely to give us a tour of obscure Christmas passages, but it is to apply what we find there.
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Not just to allow Christmas to kind of fly by us with just some thoughts of holding hands around a little baby in a manger and call that good.
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But what does God want from us? Jesus certainly didn't remain a baby.
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And I think sometimes we get into this little baby Jesus worship around this time that just misses the point.
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Is it valuable to understand that he came as a baby? Does that tell us something about his character, his humility, those kinds of things?
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Absolutely. But I don't worship a baby. I don't worship the baby Jesus. I worship the king of the universe, the one who sits on the throne, the one who has been given all power and authority, the one who's coming back to set up his kingdom forever and ever and ever.
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Not just a baby, but God in flesh. There are four questions that I want you to ask and we're gonna fly through these because our time is just about up here.
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Four questions that I think all tie into the notion of what are we gonna do with this king? What would we do with him?
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And the first question is, is he your wonderful counselor? Have you accepted him as your wonderful counselor?
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Where do you turn for direction in life? Who is your go -to when you get stuck? And you will get stuck if you're not stuck now.
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It's the holiday season, so you're probably already stuck, I'm guessing. But Jesus is not the wonderful counselor in some ethereal, theoretical way.
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Like, well, yeah, he'd be a good counselor. He'd be a good counselor if he could counsel us. He is to be our model.
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He is to be our guide. He is our go -to resource for direction in this life. Let me encourage you that when you come up against roadblocks in your life, that do not allow
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Jesus to be plan B or C or D or somewhere down on that list. Take your problems to him and take them to him first.
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Listen to his word, listen to his teaching, study his life, follow his example, follow his counsel.
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Is Jesus your wonderful counselor? Second, do you recognize Jesus as mighty God? Certainly scripture is clear that Jesus is
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God in flesh, and that's a central tenet to the Christian faith. If you're struggling with that,
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I want you to come and see me. I don't believe that Jesus is God in flesh strictly because I was raised in a church that believed that.
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I don't believe that because my parents told me that, or I don't believe that just because a professor told me.
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As a matter of fact, I went through a significant crisis in my own personal walk with God where when I was in college studying up in Grand Rapids where I actually went through a crisis of going,
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I'm not sure if he's really God. Maybe these people just afterwards kind of said, you know, well, he was a good guy, but let's conspire together.
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So I did some personal study, and that might be of assistance to some of you. If you're here and you're struggling with that,
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I would love to sit down and talk with you about the things that came, that brought me to the conclusion myself through my own study that he is indeed
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God in flesh. Not just because somebody else told me that, but through my own study and through my own wrestling with God, I am rock solid in my faith that he is indeed the son of God by the things that I studied, the things that I saw in scripture.
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And so I would love to walk you through that. But I think for most of us, the real challenge comes in the word mighty, not just that Jesus was
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God, but is he mighty? Are you trusting Jesus to be able to do what he has promised? He is the mighty
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God, he is powerful beyond measure, and he promises to bring this whole thing back to shalom. The third thing, do you take comfort in the eternal nature of his reign?
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Tragedy strikes in real and horrible ways, just like it did this past week in our community. Israel was on the cusp of significant judgment and tragedy.
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We all know that there will be tragedy and hardships in our lives. And so I take great comfort knowing that Jesus is on his throne.
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He's ruling and reigning. He's working all these things out to an amazing, glorious, just, righteous, and joyful ending.
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That is the hope that there's this overarching plan and we get to be a part of it through Christ. And lastly, are you a worrier?
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The Prince of Peace is working all things towards shalom. He is the Prince of Peace, and even the
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Apostle Paul stated directly that Jesus Christ himself is our peace. If we are following him as our wonderful counselor, we will find that we stand on the side of properly ordering the world around us.
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We are to be instruments of his peace and order to those that we come in contact with. How have we allowed this promised king to rule and reign in our lives?
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That's a fundamental question that all of these are driven by. Are you allowing him to rule and reign? Have you accepted him as your king?
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If you've said he is king, then the final question is how are you letting him reign? Are you letting him have his way in your life?
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As we come to Christmas this season, let's not let the little baby in the manger cloud out the reality that he grew into the rightful king over an eternal kingdom, and that kingdom is planted like seeds in our hearts that are there to be shared with others.
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So we're gonna take communion together this morning, communion to remember the sacrifice that has brought us into this eternal kingdom.
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And if you've asked Jesus to save you, then I'd ask that you also join with us in this remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ this morning.
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There is a king, and he's currently on the throne, but he is coming back to rule and reign forever and ever and ever.
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And I look forward to that day. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for King Jesus.
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I'm grateful for the way that you provided him to us just at the right time.
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That great light has dawned in the deep darkness. And Father, that same thing is replicated in life after life of people who are living in darkness and come to this great light, and his name is
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Jesus Christ. And he is the child that was provided for us that is now the king, the rightful ruler.
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And Father, I pray that we would place our lives under his counsel, that we would recognize his might and his power and authority.
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Father, that we would look forward to his peace and that we would recognize that his reign is forever and ever.
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I ask that as we come to communion, you would move in our hearts with full gratitude and thankfulness for the sacrifice of Jesus for us.