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Christmas: God’s Solution to Fear and Bitterness

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Isaiah 9:6-7

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Introduction

How does the political and social conditions of Isaiah’s day reflect possible fears that we could have for our own nation at present?

What are two ditches of temptation that we can fall into related to our concerns for the future or distress for the past and present?

Fear of the Future?

What role does prophecy play in establishing God’s sovereignty over the future? Isaiah 41:21-24

What are some of the major prophetic promises made by God concerning this promised Son? Genesis 3, 12, and 16,  Deuteronomy 18, 2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 7 and 9, Daniel 2.

Bitterness for the past?

What are the character qualities of the promised Son?  Isaiah 9:6

What does it mean to be the Prince of Peace?  What is the extent of His rule/kingdom?  Isaiah 9:7

Conclusion?

Have you made peace with God or are you standing in the way of His zeal?

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Because He Comes

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Introduction

We don’t celebrate Advent as re-enactors. We do not pretend that Christ has not come. We celebrate Advent as believers. We believe that Christ has come and therefore all of the promises of God have come true and are coming true. Because Emmanuel has come, we take this time each year to remember and celebrate what is true all the time: we serve the God who has come, continues to come, and who will come again to judge the world. So while we are not in the same position as the Old Testament saints who needed to prepare the way of the Lord for the first time, we still do indeed prepare Him room. We are all practicing to meet Jesus every day because He comes. We are getting the world ready for Jesus, and we are getting ready for Him.

The Text

“Comfort ye, Comfort, ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isa. 40:1-11).

Deep Comfort

A Christian prepares for Christ by practicing deep comfort (Is. 40:1). How does anyone prepare to meet God? Meeting the God of the universe will be like nothing we have ever experienced. It will utterly undo us; every secret will be laid bare (Lk. 12:2-3). There will be no excuses, no explanations – there will be nothing to say. All will be exhaustively clear (1 Cor. 3:13). And yet the glorious thing is that sinners who have hidden themselves in Christ will find themselves laid absolutely bare and will look down and see the righteousness of Christ covering them in glory. And it will be the deepest comfort you have ever known. But Christians long for that day to come because they have begun to taste that comfort now. Christians still await the final, perfect comfort, but they wait in hope because they have experienced true comfort now. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). The warfare of fighting for our own righteousness, meaning, success, and joy has ended. Our iniquity has been pardoned. We have received double from the Lord’s hand for all our sins (Is. 40:2).

Remove Every Obstacle

This was the cry of John the Baptist, but it still represents well how Christians should prepare for the Lord every day. We want straight highways to God everywhere every day. We want everything in our life to be a sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13:15). We want everything to be an altar of worship. So every valley in our life needs to be filled in, every mountain and hill bulldozed, the rough and crooked places need to be straightened and steamrolled. So do an inventory: where are your valleys, your mountains, your rough and crooked places? Is it work? Entertainment? Your thought life? Your extended family? Your fears? What do you need to do? What changes do you need to make? Jesus said that if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better to go to Heaven with one eye than to go to Hell with both eyes, better to go to Heaven with one hand than to go to Hell with two hands (Mt. 5:29-30). Remove every obstacle to faithfulness and obedience. The flip side of this is the clear implication that God is coming for all of us. All flesh shall see the glory of the Lord, and that is either the most wonderful news or the most terrible news. Either the glory of the Lord will find us faithfully pressing toward Him or else it will find us unprepared. All flesh shall see Him, and this can also be encouragement for you to do the right thing even if no else is.

Get Your Priorities Straight

You prepare this world for Christ by prioritizing rightly. What really matters? The voice cries that flesh is grass and it withers like flowers and grass. This life is momentary, short, like a breath. God created material stuff. Material stuff is good. But it’s all practice for the permanent things: either heavenly or hellish. Fading things aren’t worthless, but it’s silly to pretend that fading things are permanent. When you get a tree and decorate it, when you wrap presents, when you hang lights and wrap presents, you’re practicing for something permanent. What are you practicing for? You’re either practicing joy and generosity and patience and wisdom – things that last forever or you’re practicing selfishness, greed, pride, vainglory – worthless shadows. God’s Kingdom is forever. Human souls are forever. God’s Word is forever.

Lift Up Your Voice

How do you get ready for the Lord coming? Tell other people. Do you have good news? Do you have a mountain? Get up there and yell (Is. 40:9). Do you have good news? Then say it out loud. Don’t be afraid. God has come. YourGod has come (Is. 40:9-10). The God who made the heavens and earth, the God who created you and knows you and loves you. He is King and He knows what He is doing. His work is before Him (Is. 40:10). He is a faithful shepherd (Is. 40:11). He will gather all who are His in His arms. He will carry them. He will gently lead them. Are there hungry people in your life? Are there hurting people in your life? Are there lost people in your life? Don’t they need the good news of the Good Shepherd? Don’t you have that good news? Where is your mountain? Get up there and yell. Do not be afraid.

Conclusion: He Surely Comes

We sing in our metrical version of Psalm 98, “Because He comes, He surely comes, the judge of earth to be, with justice He will judge the world, all men with equity.” And this really is the good news of Advent. Because He comes, He surely comes. Because Christ has come, He will never leave us or forsake us. He meets us day by day in His Word. He meets us in the fellowship of the saints. He meets us every Lord’s Day in worship. So prepare Him room. He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found. We’re getting everything ready because He comes.

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Chalcedon Christmas

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Introduction

King Ahaz was enough of a good guy to at least have the prophet Isaiah tryingto encourage him. Ahaz had refused to join in with an anti-Assyrian alliance, and Syria (also called Aram) and Ephraim (also called Israel) attacked Judah for not joining with them. They failed in that attack, but succeeded gloriously in rattling Ahaz badly. Isaiah invites Ahaz to ask for a sign from God, but Ahaz (rebelliously) declines to do so. And so Isaiah offers the sign—a sign with two layers.

The Text

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Summary of the Text

We are not told this explicitly, but the first Immanuel might well be a son to Isaiah. In this section of the book, the prophet has had two other sons with names full of meaning (Is. 7:3; 8:1). And the word for virginhere is interesting. The Hebrew word almahmeans young woman orvirgin, and so the sign for Ahaz was not one of a remarkable birth. The sign was that before a child could be conceived, borne, and grow to a rudimentary knowledge of right and wrong, the kings that he was so worried about would be long gone. But then centuries after this, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek (starting in the 3rdcentury B.C.), the Greek word the rabbis chose to render the word almahwas parthenos. Parthenosmeans virgin, only virgin, and nothing but virgin. So the first Immanuel was born of an almah, and the second Immanuel was born of a parthenos.

“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin [parthenos] shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Matt. 1:22–23).

But the real sleeper in this passage in found in that word Immanuel. When you read this verse on a Christmas card, or hear it read at a Christmas program, the effect is profoundly comforting. God with us. But if your experience is anything like that of the early church, at some point you will have to say, “Hey . . . wait a minute.”

From the Very Start

Jesus is the single most arrestingfigure in all of human history. And for His followers in the first century, the authority of His person translated immediately and naturally into responding to Him as God.

This in itself was really unusual, because Jesus was born in the tribe of Judah, in the nation of Israel, a people that had had pagan forms of idolatry painstakingly beatenout of them over the course of multiple centuries. From the incident of the Golden Calf down to the exile into Babylon, the people had repeatedly fallen prey to gross idolatry. But after the exile, the Jews were fanatical about not allowing images in their midst—all their idols were now down in their hearts. In other words, if a manwere to come to be treated as God, this is the last place on earth where you might expect something like that to happen.

“Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God” (Matt. 14:33) “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). “Inthe beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1–3). “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16–17).

So from the very beginning, Christ has been worshiped by Christians as the Creator God (Rom. 1:4). That was the raw material.

The Nicea “Wait a Minute”

But it did raise some questions. And it did provoke some heretics, who denied it all and wanted to be accepted by the Church anyway. All these things took centuries to unfold, but by 325 A.D. it all came to a point. The question came to this: homoousiaand homoiousia—was Christ the samesubstance with God the Father, or of a similarsubstance with Him? This was actually a monumental question. The wiseacre historian who belittled it as a huge ruckus over the letter iotais just showing us how much he knows—that’s like saying the debate over atheism and theism is a debate over the letter a.

Nicea settled the question definitively. Christ isGod. He is not “like” God.

The Chalcedon “Wait a Minute”

It took another century (451 A.D.), but there was another “wait a minute.” If Christ is God, then . . . the question naturally arises . . . is He really manthen? And, if so, what is the relationship between His Deity and His humanity? And those are the questions addressed by the creed we recited this morning.

The Definition of Chalcedon affirmed, in unambiguous terms, that in the “hypostatic union” we find one person, the Lord Jesus, who has two natures that were united without confusing them, mingling them, or mashing them together. That which is predicated of one nature can be faithfully predicated of the person, and that which is predicated of the other nature can be predicated of the person, but that which is predicated of one nature cannot be predicated of the other nature.

So let me make it concrete. Jesus is God. Jesus was 5’11” (say). Can we say that Deity is 5’11”? Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of Jesus. Is Mary the mother of God? No. She was the mother of the one who isGod.

Implications

There are numerous implications, but one writer thinks (correctly, in my view) that this decision at Chalcedon was one of the most pivotal events in all church history. “Chalcedon handed statism its major defeat in man’s history.” In a world of undifferentiated being, the state can swell up to any size it wants. But not anymore.

To use the categories of the theologian Peter Jones, there are two basic approaches to reality—oneismand twoism. In oneism, all things are part of the same great chain of being. In twoism, there is an infinite divide between Creator and creation. There is one (and only one) intersection between the two, and that intersection is our Lord Jesus Christ. But note, even at that intersection, the nature of humanity and divinity must never be muddled. In fact, coming to Christ is the only way to prevent them from being muddled.

Because of what happened in the first Christmas, and because of how it was defined and defended at Chalcedon, it is possible for mankind to be saved and glorifiedwithout being deified. The Incarnation brings us together with God, but with a hard stopbuilt into the system.

The point of union and the point of distinction are forever and always the same, our Lord Jesus Christ.

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To Whom Will You Liken God?

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The Text

Isaiah 40:12-31

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?

With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.

And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.

All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.

He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.

Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

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The God Who Stoops

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Introduction

The message of the gospel is one that not only brings us forgiveness of sin, but also one that upends all our categories. God unmakes our tawdry pasts, and replaces them with a fresh start, a new birth, a clean slate. But He also intends to unmake our officious assumptions about what all those things must mean.

The Text

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8–9).

Summary of the Text

Through His prophet Isaiah, God tells the Israelites that He does not think the same way that they do. His ways are not their ways, according to the Lord’s declaration here (v. 8). The reason for this is that God’s ways are higher than ours, and are higher in the way that the heavens are higher than the earth. The same thing goes for His thoughts (v. 8). God’s ways and thoughts are higher.

But this means that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts about what constitutes higher things. God, in other words, can be highly irreverent. Through the Incarnation, God has declared that He at any rate was not going to stand upon His dignity. We believe that for God to be higher means that He could not possibly dwell with the lowly. But this is far from the case. The Incarnation—even when we think we have gotten used to it—is profoundly unsettling.

A Different Calculus

What men think is wealthy and respectable is Mammon worship in the sight of God.

“And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

What men think is reverent and humble is thought by God to be arrogant and insolent nonsense.

“Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things? Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:49–51).

What men call obedience is actually stiff-necked rebellion in the sight of God.

“And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites” (1 Sam. 15:20).

A God of Reversals

So with all that in mind, consider this great juxtaposition from Isaiah:

“For thus saith the high and lofty One That inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Is. 57:15).

Where does God live? He inhabits eternity. He dwells in the high and holy place. So far, this accords with our sense of propriety. But this high and holy one, this eternal one, also dwells with the contrite and lowly spirit. What is He doing there? He is reviving the hearts of those who are contrite. God stoops in order to pick us up. How far did He stoop?

In a Lowly Manger

And how does this apply to our understanding of Christmas? Take these thoughts from Martin Luther:

“If Christ had arrived with trumpets and lain in a cradle of gold, his birth would have been a splendid affair. But it would not be a comfort to me. He was rather to lie in the lap of a poor maiden and be thought of little significance in the eyes of the world. Now I can come to him. Now he reveals himself to the miserable in order not to give any impression that he arrives with great power, splendor, wisdom, and aristocratic manners.”

The Lord Jesus was born into our poverty so that He might liberate us from our poverty. And by poverty I mean poverty of all kinds—spiritual, financial, emotional, and intellectual. The Lord Jesus was no Little Lord Fauntleroy. He was not, as the French saying goes, like a “little Jesus in velvet pants.” Joseph and Mary sacrificed turtle doves at his dedication, which was the sacrifice that the Mosaic law set apart for the poor. What does this mean? He means that He is the Savior. Let us use a word that might hit us harder (because we have turned Savior into one of our “religion words”). He is our Shield and Buckler. He is our Deliverer. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ, I tell you.

So It Begins With a Child

When the first Adam was created, he was shaped out of the dust of the ground, and he was a fully formed man, but without the breath of life. When God breathed into him, he had sudden existence, and though he was just five minutes old, he looked like a thirty-year-old man (say).

But the Lord Jesus stooped all the way down to a single cell. The eternal Son of God, according to His Deity, was conjoined with a cell that had roughly the thickness of a hair. He was of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God through His resurrection (Rom. 1:3-4). He was not only as small as we are, but He also became small in comparison to us.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice From henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:6–7).

The Zeal of the Lord for Salvation

What has been accomplished for us has been accomplished by the zeal of the Lord of hosts. He is the one who has performed it, and He began by stooping low. As C.S. Lewis put it so wonderfully.

“He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.”

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