SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: December 8, 2012
Date Preached: December 9, 2012
Church: Oak Park BC (AM)
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Series: Approaching the Manger
Title: Declaring Messiah!
Text: Isaiah 9:2-7 [NLT]
Introduction:
Have you seen the latest commercials from Samsung about their newest phone? Samsung pokes fun at the iPhone users and the iPhone itself. For those of you who have not seen the commercial... They show a long line of people outside of a store, waiting for what they believe will be the ‘next big thing’…they never talk about or mention the iPhone but it is Samsungs biggest rival...
In the line we see all the people on their phones and they are talking with each other about how wonderful the next big thing is going to be…
One talks about how the headphone jack is going to be located at another place on the phone…and you see people waiting with great anticipation for the phone they just HAVE to have!
Then there are some OTHER people who don’t have iPhones… they begin to do things with their phone that looks interesting and cool… and it catches the attention of the iPhone users!
They say things like ‘what is that?’ or ‘what were you doing there?’ And then the tag line for the commercial is that ‘the next big thing’ is already here and it is their phone… and NOT the iPhone!
They ridicule the iPhone and their users making it look as if they are waiting on something that is never going to get there… waiting on a product that will never be as good as their phone!
The prophet Isaiah declared thousands of years ago about the ‘next big thing’ and the coming Messiah, and the Jews believed that the ‘Messiah’ was the next big thing, but when Jesus was born in Bethlehem they simply could NOT see Jesus as ‘the big thing’
You see the iPhone users in this commercial represent those who have a taste of who Messiah is supposed to be… and they are anxiously awaiting Messiah to come!
When Jesus comes… they simply cannot grasp that the ‘next big thing’ is here! Jesus IS Messiah and he has come!
The prophet Isaiah tells us in 9:2-7 [NLT]
4For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. 5The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire. 6For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!
This morning I want us to take a look at what Isaiah had to say about Messiah and see how he declared the coming of Jesus in his prophecy about Messiah!
MESSIAH WILL BREAK THE YOKE OF SIN – v4
4For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian.
The Jews taught this to generations of their people, but the teaching was focused on a MAN who was going to deliver Israel out from underneath the yoke of oppression… a physical deliverance as a nation!
But Isaiah’s words are about the burden and yoke of sin in this broken world. Messiah will be the one to deliver this world from the bondage of sin is what Isaiah’s message is about, not how a man will deliver his country out of slavery…
Jesus came to earth for ONE purpose… we find Him telling us what that purpose is in Luke 19:10 when He says, “10 For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
Jesus came to save us from the sin of this world… a sin we are trapped in and cannot escape on our own!
The oppressor in this verse is Satan and his stronghold on this physical world… Jesus came and broke his stronghold on this world! Jesus brought redemption and deliverance for those in this world of sin and separation from God!
Jesus the Messiah came and broke down the stronghold of the oppressor… Satan! And in turn offered another destination… another outcome to their life! No longer bound for destruction, but now with the hope of eternal redemption because the power of sin has been broken!
But not only did Jesus come to deliver us from the bondage of sin… Jesus came… MESSIAH came to make things as they should be…
MESSIAH WILL RESTORE THINGS TO THE CREATED ORDER – v5
5The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire.
The Jews taught & believed that Messiah would be a man who would come and restore Israel to its former glory and that the world would be subject to Israel’s rule… but MESSIAH is so much more that a man who will restore ONE nation!
Messiah will come and the created order will be restored! In v5 Isaiah uses a phrase that speaks to the blood-soaked battlefield of today’s world, but that ONE DAY Messiah would come and the war will cease and the battlefield will be cleared off and cleaned up… it will be restored to its original order!
We know that Messiah came in Jesus… and we know that Jesus promised to come again and Scripture tells us that He will restore this world… make it NEW again!
Messiah will come and clean up and redeem this world and ultimately restore the world to its created order! This is what Isaiah is saying here…
But as wonderful as those 1st 2 verses are, Isaiah then begins to describe Messiah and what he is being sent for and who He will become…
MESSIAH WILL REIGN FOREVER – v6-7
6For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!
In v6 we find Isaiah doing his best to describe how wonderful MESSIAH would be… I believe MUCH of what the Jews were teaching in Jesus’ day were based on the writings of Isaiah and what he said here in this passage:
MESSIAH is going to be a wonderful counselor…
The Jewish teaching was that the MESSIAH was to be an earthly ruler dispensing wise counsel to HIS kingdom. However, Isaiah’s prophecy here is directed toward a godly wisdom and that ‘godly’ wisdom is going to come from a child…
For a child is born to us…
A son is given to us… both are directed to a child MESSIAH which would fly in the face of Jewish teaching.
MESSIAH would come in the form of a newborn baby boy, born in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem!
This would be no ordinary young son, but His destiny in this world was of a singular purpose… to redeem humanity!
Isaiah tells us that, ‘…the Gov’t will rest on His shoulders…’ This was NOT a reference to the full and total restoration of Israel as a nation-state. What this really means is that this baby boy would be the One to establish a spiritual kingdom [govt] that would rest solely on His shoulders!
But this man on who the world’s governments will rest… is a man who is called a wonderful counselor… one who is able to find us in our deepest and darkest point of need and counsels us in a wonderful manner.
Then the prophet Isaiah begins to reveal the dichotomous nature of the coming MESSIAH… He says that this MESSIAH would be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father and the PRINCE of peace! Isaiah is revealing here how MESSIAH will be both God and man!
Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity and the presence of Jesus in your life will reveal to you that Jesus is God, that Jesus is the Father… and that Jesus will be the prince of heaven!
Wonderful counselor, Everlasting Father, [and] the prince of peace… one who can bring peace when none can seem to find peace in any area of their lives!
His ‘government’ will rule and when He sets up rule, no one shall dare to oppose Him. His peace is eternal and he is going to rule with a great fairness and judgment…
Messiah will be a man from the line of David and Jesus fits this bill in a great way!
Isaiah declares God wrapped in flesh and born to redeem humanity from the sin that so stains this world… a sin we cannot escape on our own but NOW MESSIAH has come and we have a redeemer in Christ Jesus!
You know those people standing in that line… in that commercial were waiting on something that the commercial says will NEVER get here… but that their phone was the next big thing and it was already here and already being used by many…
Well this is like us today… there are many standing and milling around waiting on the next big thing to come spiritually… they think that what they have can be improved to the point where they can redeem themselves!
But the issue with that is that we cannot redeem ourselves but we must be redeemed by Christ! For us as believers we have experienced the next big thing in Christ Jesus!
We no longer have to wait in a line that leads us to nowhere, but we can have ‘the next big thing’ right here, right now! Jesus has come… MESSIAH has come and the door of opportunity is here for us today!
EVANGELISTIC INVITATION
