A Pre-Christmas Sermon - Isaiah 9:1-7

Introduction - Isaiah 9:1-7
Believe it or not another year, is for all intents and purposes over. And these realizations always give you cause to pause and reflect on what was, and then think about what will be.

If your life was like a vineyard, what kind of crop would 2009 have been for you?

And please don't over think this metaphor, I don't want people coming up to me after church saying, "Mine was like a Cheeky little Pinot Noir with a fruity plumb spice aroma and a deep smokey nutmeg aftertaste", I don't understand that sought of thing at all.

All I mean is, Was it a vintage year of extraordinary character, one to savour and cellar for the ages?

Or was it one that wasn't fit to cellar, in fact so bad you start looking for the number of the local vinegar producer, a year not fit to put your label on, one to turn your back on and never mention again? For me 2008 was a little that way.

But for me 2009 was neither of those extremes, it was well, to change metaphors a year that just didn't seem to have enough wind in it's sails. Technically I believe sailors call it the doldrums (it wasn't melancholy or anything like that), it just never felt like it had much momentum.

But then that is what most of life is like isn't it? Some years you do get those years that are shockingly memorable for how bad they are. Other times you get years that you want to last forever for how good they are.
But most of the years are just, well average, a little hardship, a little Joy, and just a whole lot of perseverance.

No matter what sought of year you have had, there is one mark of character you require in response, perseverance. In particular the Christian person needs perseverance, rain, hail shine, good times or even boring times, what we need is perseverance, the question really is how?

How are we to persevere? Which to ask the question in a more personal way, is How are you going to persevere next year, come rain, come hail or shine, how will you persevere next year?

Well before we get to the how of perseverance, we need to think about the why? Why do we need perseverance anyway?

1.0 Life has Darkness (Isa 8:22).

Life has darkness and this is the real experience and consequences of a people who reject God and his rule, as we chose to live lives our own way and ignore the source of all goodness and light in this world, God himself, and as a result we stumble and suffer in the darkness.

In the historical situation that Isaiah found himself writing into, the darkness that had started in part and was about to dawn in full for the people of Israel in the late C8th BC, was For Israel the announcement in advance of judgement for their own evil. These stubborn people were sold by God into slavery to another oppressive overlord nation because they rejected the salvation of their God and so were to endure the penalty of their choice, the judgement for some and the heavy discipline for others at the Lord's Hand.

The people of Israel thought they could deal with both the goodness and the darkness of life on their own terms, and God humiliated them because of their ignorance and arrogance about their own situation.

And that lesson may be true for us today couldn't it?
that God really can act directly in his world to deal with his wayward children, and it is a warning to us about the utter dangerousness of unrepentant sin in our lives. If you don't think God takes it seriously, maybe you should read some more of Isaiah and the history of Israel later on this week.

So historically Israel were directly judged as a result of their sin, and God revealed it to them in advance, and us in retrospect, so that we may learn from the warning, and indeed their example, and we would turn to the Lord to be healed, and not fall under judgment for putting God to the test.

So Firstly, Some of the darkness of life is a direct result of our sin.

Secondly, life also has a darkness that is a general consequence of man's rejection of God, or the fall. Back in Genesis 3, where man rejected God for the first time, right there and then, the World was struck by God and given an expiry date, and as such it groans about its sentence, earthquakes rumble, lightning strikes, fires burn through dry vegetation and medical tests bring bad news.

All of us have experienced at some level this slightly impersonal aspect of the darkness in the world that has come from humanities sin and God's just judgment.

Thirdly though, some of the darkness comes our way as a result of belonging to the light, which is not surprising given what happened to Jesus when he came the first time.

John 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

John 1:10    He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

The world prefers darkness to God's light, and sometimes we will suffer at the hands of the darkness, it maybe physical, it may be social, but the darkness will not always thank you if you bring light into its dark.

So We all know, the direct impact of the darkness upon our lives, either as a direct result of our willful sin against God, or as an indirect consequence of being part of a humanity in broken world in rejection of God, or even for belonging to the light, Life has darkness in it. And the power underlying this darkness, is the fear of death, and not just death but the ultimate and final judgment of God.

Life has a darkness to it, that can stalk us at times.

2.0 God uses the impact of Darkness for Good (Isa 8:11-17)

God himself uses the impact of the darkness, even the apparently random nature of it, in every circumstance. God uses the impact of the darkness to reveal the hearts of humanity through the pressure of real trial in this world - he reveals their hearts unto Judgement - or to salvation - by exposing them to the darkness and then holding out to them the Light of his word in this world that is Christ.

God uses both darkness and light to reveals his creation as judged, or to produce in them a mature salvation.

For Pharoah in the Exodus and the Pharisees in the coming of Christ, the hardship of this world in its darkness caused even the light of God, the light of Christ to grow dark upon their minds and hearts.

God is able to use even the darkness to bring good. We know that God disciplines the children he loves, even Jesus himself completed his obedience as the perfect Son of God and our perfect Saviour, by suffering the terrible cruelty and evil and darkness of his death on the cross.

God is sovereign, and he will bring good even from the darkest situations, but it doesn't mean he will tell us in advance why in detail we need to undergo the each aspect of the testing of the darkness of this world. That is why we need to persevere, sometimes it is only in hindsight we can see what good God has brought from the darkness we have experienced, and in truth sometimes that hindsight may only be visible in eternity.

In the midst of darkness we draw comfort from the character of God as he has revealed himself in his actions and his word, as we learn from his dealings with his people and often their example to us.

Job
Job 1:20    At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
  “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
Job 1:22    In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

Genesis 50 - Joseph
Gen. 50:18    His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
Gen. 50:19    But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Romans
Rom. 8:28    And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

The Lord Jesus Himself:
Luke 18:31    Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. 33 On the third day he will rise again.”

Who would of thought that the most despicable act in history, would be the crowning glory of God's work in his world.

God uses the impact of the darkness for good.

3.0 God has fixed the problem of darkness - the great light, Hope and Joy of the King of the Kingdom (Isa 9:1-7)

One thing I have noticed about life in the Mountains, is that the stars in the night sky are far more impressive. And that is because you need to have True darkness to shows true light in all its brilliance.

Christ is the true light of all the world, who shone out of, and now into a terrible darkness:
John 8:12    When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

We live in a privileged time, because we get to see the light that is Christ in all his revealed glory, through the testimony of His Holy Spirit and his word. Think of the poor first hearers of Isaiah's message, they were about to be invaded by a ruthless military power, and this promised child that would bring deliverance wouldn't even appear on the scene for another 700 years.

These people of Israel had heard of the great deliverance in the past of God, when he rescued the people of Israel, Abraham's family, under Moses leadership from the oppressive yoke of slavery of Pharaoh in Egypt. But that had been over 700 years earlier. In a way they may have felt a bit gypped, that they were between, God's two great act's of salvation, but then maybe we can relate to that a little ourselves!
We too find ourselves between God's two great acts of salvation, Jesus first and second comings, but we have a great privilege of seeing clearly the brightness of the light that is Christ shining in the darkness.

And in Isaiah 9 it points to how glorious is his light for those under the impact of the darkness of this world. The darkness of the fear of death and its evil agents who persecute God's chosen people.

Jesus is the agent of God's zeal in this world, the one who entered the world the first time as a helpless babe, at a most unexpected time, as one who was ignored by his own creation, and he will return a second time, like we read in Matthew 24 earlier, also unexpectedly like a thief in the night, only this time, no one will be able to ignore the reality of their King when he returns.

Jesus is the King of God's Kingdom, the one descended from King David himself, the one who would break the oppressive yoke of slavery over God's people, not just the slavery of a political and military empire like the Assyrians who were to come upon Israel as Isaiah prophesied, but to break the real yoke of slavery for God's people of Sin, guilt, shame and judgment, the devil and his evil, and to put all things at peace.

Jesus is the prince of peace, the one who will reconcile God with all his creation, the one who will bring shalom - peace- between God and mankind, between mankind and the new creation, and between all humanity.

He will smash the yoke of oppression, for his own people, and instead replace it with his own yoke of leadership, Jesus Said;

Matt. 11:29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus will come to rule his peaceful and just kingdom, are you ready for that day?

God has fixed the problem of darkness - the great light, Hope and Joy of the King of the Kingdom

4.0 Perseverance comes only from focussing upon Jesus and experiencing him the great King, the real source and goal of our hope and Joy

Which if I was to rephrase that statement in terms of an extremely self-centred question - not that any of us would do that - but should we be inclined to do that, the question we would have is, "If such a brilliant light has entered the world, why is it that so often the darkness seems so prominent?"

God leaves the darkness, that even the darkness would do its bidding to serve God and glorify Christ. God uses the darkness that we would be changed that we would see the brightness, and deeply seek after and desire the hope and Joy of Christ. God uses the darkness that we would be mature in Christ, that we would learn the Joy of obedience in being conformed into Christ's likeness.

Romans 5:1-11

Suffering, perseverance, Joy and Hope - they all go together in God's economy for his people in his world. God generously gives us all four of them, that we may truly, madly and deeply drink from the rich well of truth that is Christ the crucified messiah, the good shepherd, mighty God and prince of peace.

Christ is the brilliant light of the world, he is the brilliant light of our life.

Christ came to bring Real and total restoration of the whole world, a time when God will be all in all.

A time of Real and Just rule - which we experience now in the replacement of the heavy yoke of Sin and its guilt, fear of judgment, fear of the apparent fickleness of the world, with Christ's yoke that is easy and light.

Christians can be a little smug about Christmas at times, we mock the world saying, "They've let all these periphery things clutter out the real meaning of Christmas, they've let the clutter block out, darken the light of Christmas, Jesus".

But in truth as Christians are we any better?
I quite often hear Christians bemoan Christmas - and what a hassle it all is, so I suspect we are pretty good at letting clutter block out Jesus and the joy of Christmas ourselves. When you strip back the clutter of Christmas, the focus should be Jesus and the joy and hope he brings into what can be a dark world.

But isn't it just as true that when you strip back the clutter of all of life, the focus of all our life, all 365 days a year should be on Jesus, and the bright light of hope and Joy he brings in the darkness shouldn't it?

Truthfully right now, Christmas or not, is Jesus the centre of your desires for this life, or have you let important things I'm sure, but at best secondary things clutter out your central desire for Jesus?

Have you got distracted by the darkness from the great light that has dawned?

Have you let the Light of the Hope and Joy of Christ dawn on your Christmas this year?

Will you let the Light of Christmas, Jesus and the real hope and the real Joy he brings be the focus of not only your Christmas day - but in fact every day of the year?

Is. 9:2    The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.


Is. 9:6    For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
  And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Is. 9:7    Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
  He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
  The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.