More To Jesus
Sermon Notes
Intro
It’s great to see you this morning! Today does start the advent season. You can officially put up your Christmas decorations now. I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving holiday, and that you were able to take some time to rest and reflect on the many things you have to be thankful for. Today we are bridging two teaching series here at City Awakening. We just wrapped up our generosity series last Sunday and next week we officially we jump into the Christmas season with a teaching series we are calling Unwrapped. It’s about discovering the heart inside the Savior. We talk a lot about Jesus being the gift of Christmas, but we really want to take a deeper look inside of the heart of Jesus, not just stop at the surface level.
Have you ever been given a gift that you really didn’t fully appreciate at first? Or maybe you’ve given someone a gift like that? They liked it, but they really didn’t understand how good of a gift it was. There’s a scene in the sitcom The Office like that. In an office gift exchange, Jim gives Pam a tea pot for Christmas, and she likes the teapot, but she doesn’t open it to realize there are items inside the teapot that show her how Jim actually feels about her. When the exchange turns into a game of dirty Santa, Dwight gets the teapot because he wants to use it to clean out his sinuses. Eventually Pam gets it back, only because Jim convinces her that he got that the teapot as a special gift just for her. Only then does she open it to discover the personal items inside. Everybody just thought it was a teapot, which was useful, but there was so much more to that gift once it was fully unwrapped.
That’s really what we want to do this Christmas season, is to unwrap Jesus. To connect this back to our generosity series, we can’t really begin to give until we understand what we’ve been given, and there’s so much more to Jesus than we often realize. But today I’m not going to jump into the heart of Jesus. I want to back up a few hundred years to the promise of this gift. We’re going to look at a familiar Christmas passage from Isaiah 9 and really try and set the stage for just how incredible a gift we’ve been given in Jesus.
If you have your Bibles, turn to Isaiah 8. Isaiah was a prophet in ancient Israel. God spoke through him to reveal both his judgment and promised salvation. We need to understand the setting. This is a time in history, in the 8th century B.C., when Israel had already been divided into two kingdoms, the northern and southern kingdoms. Judah, which is in the southern kingdom and housed the temple, was being threatened by opposing countries. The northern kingdom of Israel, which teamed up with Syria, was pressing in from the North, and Assyria was bringing pressure from the East. King Ahaz is king of the southern kingdom at the time and he actually sought help from the king of Assyria on the east for protection from Israel and Syria to the north. He basically began paying them for their protection. The problem is this only furthered Judah’s spiritual corruption because they were forming an alliance with a pagan nation. When King Hezekiah took over the Southern kingdom in 715 B.C., he really wanted get things back on the right track, so he stopped sending payment to Assyria. King Sennacheribad did not like that and so he began taking over parts of the Southern Kingdom. Now eventually through Isaiah’s counsel, Hezekiah was able to break all ties to Assyria. He refused to surrender to their army and eventually God turned the Assyrians back to their own land.
So this was a dark and scary time for the Jewish people. Their homes and country were being threatened on all sides. They felt helpless. It was especially bad for those living in and around Galilee. It’s important to understand that the city of Galilee was situated right at the top of the southern kingdom, and it ended up being one of the first places taken over by the Assyrians during their invasion. You’ll see why that’s important a little later. Look with me at Isaiah 8:21-22.
8:21 They will wander through the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged, and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22 They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.
This is describing the response of the people during this time. They are in great need and they are angry at their king and at God because they think both have failed them. If you read earlier in Ch. 8 you see that the majority of people have given up on God and have leaned into the pagan culture and corruption. They are consulting necromancers and trying to talk to the dead to get help. God tells Isaiah to leave them alone, but to gather up the faithful remnant that remains. It is a dark time, and this really sets the stage for what comes in Isaiah 9.
Look at Ch. 9. This is what Isaiah tells those who are still willing to listen:
1Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations.
2
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness.
3
You have enlarged the nation
and increased its joy.
The people have rejoiced before you
as they rejoice at harvest time
and as they rejoice when dividing spoils.
4
For you have shattered their oppressive yoke
and the rod on their shoulders,
the staff of their oppressor,
just as you did on the day of Midian.
5
For every trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
This is a beautiful contrast to the previous chapter. Isaiah is describing a time of relief when the yoke of their oppressor is broken, the darkness is met with light, the dejected and hungry are now rejoicing and dividing the spoils of war. You can see how this would have been a huge deal to the Israelites living in Judah and even specifically Galilee, which he mentions in vs. 3. They were desperate and waiting for help. They wanted someone to come in and drive out these other nations and restore peace in their land. They needed a warrior, a great king, someone to both protect them and guide them into the future. And Isaiah says that it’s coming.
These faithful followers would remember the promise of God that began long ago through Abraham. That God would make Israel into a great nation and multiply them. And there were prophecies of a coming Messiah, an anointed one, a redeemer, all the way back in Genesis. There are at least 6 direct Messianic prophecies in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, that all Jewish people would have been very familiar with. For comparison, just imagine some of the most oppressed people in the world today (Afghanistan, Syria, or Somalia) waiting for the fulfillment of a promise from thousands of years ago that someone would come to rescue them and bring peace to their land. I want you to get a feel for just how significant both the promise and the waiting really was. It’s not something most of us can really grasp on a physical level. I don’t know what it’s like to live in that kind of tension.
Now when we get to verse 6 Isaiah begins to give more insight into what this great light and source of hope is. Where will it come from?
6
For a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
You have to be sympathetic with the people here. A child will be born. How is that supposed to help!? They need a king, a warrior, not a baby. This has to raise all kinds of questions for the Israelites. A verse that we know and love and immediately makes most of us think of Christmas lights and egg nog, would make the people in Isaiah’s day ask how in the world this was possible. But there’s so much here that we have the privilege of looking back on. We can see just how incredible this prophecy really was. When we unpack this verse we can see that God truly hand delivered a gift that was perfectly curated, not just for the Israelites at that time, but also for you and for me. He didn’t just go on the Amazon trending list and find something that had good reviews. He gave us a gift that fulfills God’s promise, meets our needs, and exceeds our expectations. Let’s look closer at these verses and first see how God gave us a gift that fulfills His promise.
When we first read Isaiah 9:6, the beginning phrase seems redundant, “For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us.” But if we look closer, this is actually saying two different things. A child will be born is inline with the Genesis 3:15 prophecy where God said to the serpent that,
“I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
God’s plan was always that the Messiah would be born of a woman, a human. We’ll see down in verse 7 that he was to be a descendant of King David, which he was. But the second part of that sentence says that a son will be given. The son is not referring to the woman’s son, but to God’s very own son. John 1 tells us that the Word, meaning Jesus, was with God in the beginning before creation. If God’s Son existed since the beginning of time, then he cannot be born, but must be given, handed over, as a gift. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when John the Baptist baptized Jesus God spoke from heaven saying, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well-pleased.” God is actually quoting from Psalm 2, acknowledging the fulfillment of that Messianic prophecy that Jesus was divine, he was God’s own son.
Verse 1 shows us both the human and divine nature of the Messiah. The prophecies of old pointed to someone who was born of a woman, but sent from God. Jesus fulfilled this promise. Jesus is both fully man and fully God. This is why the doctrine of the virgin Mary is so important to our faith. Mary being a virgin ensures that while Jesus was born of a woman, he was sent by God. And this dual nature of Christ is essential to his ability to fulfill his purpose as Savior. He had to be God in the flesh.
Of course, the concept of the dual nature of Jesus and even the Holy Trinity is truly beyond our comprehension. It raises so many questions that we will never be able to answer. But Charles Spurgeon, the preaching giant of the 19th Century, said it’s a mystery that we should not attempt to fathom. He said,
It would be like a gnat trying to drink the ocean, as a finite creature trying to comprehend the Eternal God. A God whom we could fully understand would be no God. If we could grasp Him then He could not be infinite: if we could understand Him, then He would not be divine. Jesus Christ then, is not born to us, but given to us.
What we can do is step back and marvel at over 400 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled over the course of his time on earth. One of those had to do with where he would come from. And Jesus was born in Bethlehem but after their escape from the country Mary and Joseph and the young Jesus returned to live, where? in Galilee…exactly as Isaiah had prophesied. We can thank God that he kept his promise of sending a Savior. God fulfilled his promise, and this means we can trust that he will continue to keep his promises in future; meaning that Jesus will return, and those who belong to God will spend eternity with him in heaven.
This really begs the questions that if the child has been born for us, and the son has been given to us, what have we done with the Son? Have you rejected him and turned down the divine gift? Have you poked around at him, unsure of whether he meets any of your wants or needs? Or maybe you’ve accepted the gift, you like the idea of what Jesus offers, but you’ve essentially stuck him in the corner of your life for now….saving him for when you really need him. Isaiah said that “the government [would] be on his shoulders.” Jesus didn’t come in and wipe out the kings of the earth, but he did prove that his power and authority extends over all rulers, of both earthly and spiritual realms. Through his resurrection he proved that is the King of all creation, but have you allowed him to be the king of your life? Is the government of your life on his shoulders. Jesus can’t rule your life if you try to keep him stored away like your Christmas decorations. God didn’t just give us a fire insurance policy. He gave us a gift that meets all of our needs.
The second half of 9:6 lists 4 names of the Messiah. This is like an unusual birth announcement. Instead of simply telling the name of the baby, it gives a list of his future accomplishments. Can you imagine getting a birth announcement from your friend that says their baby will carry a PhD from Harvard, he will be a Medal of Honor recipient, serve two terms as President of the U.S., and win the Nobel Peace Prize. That would be ridiculous. But that’s exactly what God does here. He says this Messiah will be called,
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
We’re going to take just a minute and look at the significance of each one of these.
1. He will be called Wonderful Counselor
The Israelites would have recognized that they needed someone with great wisdom to lead them. They knew they needed someone to counsel them as a nation. But there’s more here than that. The word for wonderful literally means full of wonder, marvelous, amazing, or even miraculous. It’s a word used only for the best of the best. And when it comes to the Messiah he would truly do marvelous and miraculous things. There is no person or thing that can compare to his wonderfulness. And the more we see and examine him the more amazed we become. He surpasses everything in the past, present, and future.
And he is certainly a counselor…on at least three different levels.
First, there is an eternal role of counselor with God. The Bible speaks of a divine assembly and prophets and angels who stand in the council of God. As part of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is not inferior or superior to God the Father or God the Spirit. But the three exist in equal roles to plan and carry out the work of God.
Secondly, Jesus is a counselor to us in that he reveals the things of God. He explained the secret mysteries and makes things clear that we otherwise would never understand. Colossians 2:3 says, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” That’s exactly why we must continue to pursue Jesus. We can’t possibly get bored with him. There is infinitely more to unwrap and discover.
Third, he is a counselor to us in the more traditional sense of the term that we think of today. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” Jesus is always there to listen and offer guidance. Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor we can always turn to.
The second name given to the Messiah in Isaiah 9 is Mighty God.
The word used for mighty was most often used in reference to warriors. The Israelites would have heard this and thought of a great soldier. Again this is exactly what they needed. They needed someone to come in and fight back the enemy. They needed a victory. But this would be just any soldier, it would be a divine soldier, an elohim, a god.
So again, God is pointing out the divine nature of the Messiah but combining it with this warrior-like quality, which is exactly who Jesus is. He didn’t defeat the physical enemy the way the Jews anticipated, but he did defeat the even greater enemy. And the Book of Revelation tells us that he will return to completely overthrow Satan and cast him into the lake of fire. He is the warrior god that the Israelites needed and that we needed. And, these first two names of Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God, show us that through Jesus God met all of our needs.
The next two names given to the Messiah in Isaiah 9, I believe, take his role beyond what the Israelites were looking for. The next two names show that God gave a gift that exceeds our expectations.
The text says he will be called Everlasting Father.
The Israelites thought of Abraham as their patriarchal father since God promised him in Genesis 15 that his descendants would become a great nation and outnumber the stars. He was the father of the Jewish nation, and they held him in very high esteem because of that. I don’t think they would have been looking for another person to come in as father and usurp the role of Abraham. So this name might have been a bit confusing for them. This name can be confusing for us too. We don’t usually refer to Jesus as father. We refer to God the Father as father. At first, this may even seem contradictory to the Trinitarian roles that we know. But it’s not.
Jesus did and does fulfill the fatherly role in several ways.
Jesus is the father of Christianity. In the same way that Galileo is the father of astronomy, Hippocrates is the father of modern medicine, and Chuck Berry the father of rock and roll, Jesus is the father, the originator of Christianity. From the very beginning of his ministry he invited his disciples to come and follow him. He wanted to them to learn from him and to live as he lived. Before the term Christianity was used, it was referred to as The Way, meaning the way of Jesus. So Jesus is the one we look too as our example in how to live in obedience to God.
The apostle Paul also gives us insight into Jesus’ role as father when he discusses the first and second Adam in Romans 5. In verse 17 he says, “If by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” In other words, all sin originated with Adam and was then passed down to us. In the same way, eternal life originates in Jesus and is passed down to everyone who receives his grace. So Jesus is the father of life.
Finally, Jesus exercises the role of father in the way he acts towards his followers. He says in John 14:11, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.” Jesus acts in a way that shows his oneness with the Father as well as reveals the nature of the Father. He demonstrates compassion, kindness, grace, mercy, patience, sympathy, and more. Pastor David Sunday say, “Everything you’ve ever dreamed a father could be—everything you’ve ever wanted from your relationship with your earthly father—Jesus is and will be for you.”
So Abraham may have been the Father of Jews and the one they looked back on as the great hero of their faith, but Jesus came to fulfill the role in an even greater way. And he would not just be a historical figure of the past, he is the one we look to for all eternity. Jesus is the Everlasting Father. He will remain in that role for all time. Nothing will be able to separate us from his love or change the way he acts towards us.
The last name given to the Messiah in this Isaiah 9 passage is Prince of Peace.
This is the something the Israelites would have been excited about. They had not experienced a whole lot of peace, although that was largely due to the their continual pattern of sin. As the people turned to worship the gods and idols of the surrounding nations, God would in turn allow those nations to come in oppress the Israelites. Part of the consequences of their sin was a life absent of peace. But look at verse 7 with me:
7
The dominion will be vast,
and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it
with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.
Notice the certainty of that verse…the prosperity will never end, he will sustain the kingdom, his justice will last forever, and he will accomplish this. Not maybe; he will. How can a promise like this be made? Sin would continue to exist in the world, at least in the immediate future, even after the Messiah came. Even today, 2000 years later, there really doesn’t seem to be much peace in the world. This promised kingdom of peace was not an immediate end or escape from war, pain, and suffering. The Prince of Peace came to first address the turmoil of our hearts. This is the opposite of what the Israelites were expecting. They were looking for physical peace, but Jesus inaugurated spiritual peace. They thought their enslavement to earthly rulers was the problem, but it was really their enslavement to the law and sin. Jesus went beyond their expectations in this. He said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” By taking on all of our sin and the punishment for it, Jesus was able to make peace between us and God which was much more important than ending temporary suffering. In fact, Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
Jesus is the Prince of Peace whose future Kingdom of peace gives us peace today because we know how the story end. And just like with all of these other names and qualities of the Messiah, Wonderful Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace is not a far-off, distant God who reigns and works from another realm. He is Emmanuel, God with us. This great prophecy from Isaiah 9 was fulfilled with a divine King who came as a humble servant, who sought out the sick, sinful, and broken, and who ultimately offered himself as a human sacrifice. That’s something the Israelites never expected.
So this is the big idea for today. It’s an invitation to unwrap the gift that fulfills God’s promise, meets your needs, and exceeds your expectations. There is so much more to Jesus than his work on the cross. That’s not to downplay the significance of his death and resurrection. It means everything to us. But if that is all you know of Jesus then you are missing out on so much. You may know about the work of Jesus, but do you know the person of Jesus? God, in his infinite wisdom, knew that we didn’t just need a savior that could solve our sin problem. He knew that we needed a savior that could walk with us every step of the way in the aftermath our sin, that could be our friend, our counselor, our advocate, our empathizer, our comforter, and peace-giver. So this Christmas season, it’s time to pull Jesus out of the corner of your life and discover who this Messiah truly is. Unwrap this incredible gift from a loving God that has made himself available to you today.
