People bring a lot of different baggage into the Christmas season. Some of you are facing the sadness of losing a family member recently. Some are looking at surgery or just recovering from it. Several are adjusting to becoming parents of a new baby in the past year or 2. I asked a few families like that in our church family to let me interview them – to get some insights into what it’s like to adjust to a new baby right about now.
(play family interview video)
I don’t know if there will be more kids for those families or not. I’m no prophet. But there was a man named Isaiah who was a prophet, and God sent him with a message:
Hard times were coming for Israel; big needs, big challenges to come. They needed a hand. Here comes Isaiah the prophet with a word from the Lord. What will it be God? After all, in the past, there were 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea to get us away from Egypt. There was that time when the wall around the city of Jericho fell down so that Israel could just rush in and take it. There was that time that an angel entered the camp of the Assyrians and killed 185,000 of them. What will it be this time, God?
“To us, a child is born.”
It’s another baby picture, of Jesus, 700 years before He was born. And this time, He’s not a rock, He’s not a snake handler, He’s not a mediator, He’s…a baby. God’s help was going to be…
Small at the Start
I wonder if this was a letdown for the people of Israel when Isaiah delivered it.
It started out good. In fact, Matthew 4 repeats these verses to show how Jesus fulfilled them - Isaiah 9:1-3:
No more gloom…honor… a great light... a light has dawned… enlarged the nation and increased their joy…
Better days were coming. I just doubt they expected a little baby to be the reason for it.
Ask anyone, even little children, and they can tell you that Christmas is about the birth of a baby. God’s message of help, delivered through Isaiah, started with a child.
Jesus was born a little baby. He had to learn to talk, to walk, to eat, to go through all the things that other little babies go through.
Somewhere in the world of wistful non-reality there’s this little baby born with a glowing ring of light over his head. He doesn’t cry. He somehow forms the sign of the cross with his hand, and he injects profound wisdom into every situation, before he’s a month old! And by that time, he’s probably wearing a little white robe with a blue sash across it too! Oh, come on!
Luke records that Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man (end of Lk 2). Let’s believe that, OK? Jesus wasn’t born with instant maturity. He was a little baby Who cried, Who had to learn things just like all of us did, and I’ll bet you that some of that was pretty funny to watch, just like it is for us! He started out small.
When we look at the scene around the manger, we’re looking at how life in Jesus works. It’s small at the start, and not yet what it will be!
Jesus taught that life in His Kingdom is very much like that.
It starts out small. He compared it to a mustard seed, which is very small, but which a farmer planted, and it grew into a tree big enough that birds came and sat in its branches.
He compared it to a little bit of yeast, which a lady took and mixed into a several measures of flour, and it made a whole batch of dough rise.
It starts out small and seems insignificant, but it grows.
So to us, a child is born. He looks small and insignificant, but He’s not yet what He will be.
All around the room this morning are people who are works in progress – some more than others! Just like a seed that grows and is nurtured into a big plant, some people are at different stages than others. What makes the difference is time and whether or not that growth is being nurtured.
Did you see the baby pictures before services today? There are a couple people there whose pictures you may have been able to guess. But that’s it. For the most, you don’t look like you used to when you were a baby. You’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to grow up.
That’s how life in Jesus is. With time, you’re supposed to grow up, and keep growing up.
So, when it comes to you not living like you should, please don’t use the excuse “I was born this way!” You were born drooling on yourself, unable to sit up, wetting your pants, and crying uncontrollably. But you were supposed to outgrow those things. You were supposed to grow up. Yes, you were born that way, and so was everyone else.
Faith is small at the start, like a tiny seed, but it’s supposed to be growing. We’re supposed to nurture and grow that faith. The way that Jesus started out small helps us understand this.
But from there it changes and becomes…
Bigger than Big
Ginormous. Brobdingnagian. How do you say “really big”?
Once in a while, there are places in the Bible where the writer seems to be unable to fully describe some attribute of God or the sights and sounds around His throne.
I see a bit of that in Isaiah here.
Isaiah 9:6-7a 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. 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.
This small start is going to grow into something too big to even describe.
Think about all the language that is “superlative and beyond” when it comes to Jesus and to what God does.
John 1:15-16 (NASB)
John *testified about Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" 16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
Ephesians 1:18-23 (NIV)
18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Ephesians 3:19-21 (NIV)
19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 11:33 (NIV)
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Philippians 4:7 (NIV)
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
While this work of God may be small at the start, like so many things about God, it’s bigger than big by the time it gets going.
In C S Lewis’ The Last Battle, a group of people are escaping into a small stable on the top of a hill. One of them notices how it seems like 2 different worlds, that it’s actually bigger on the inside than outside. Queen Lucy says, “"Yes, in our world, too, a Stable once held something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
How true! And how amazed we should be that a manger was able to contain God in any way at all.
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He started out small, and would become bigger than big. That’s how the Kingdom of God works.
At the end of this section, v7, is the key to the whole thing:
(v7) The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
Only by God
Zeal – what a great word! Zelos – jealousy; fervor; It’s a fire burning inside. A zealot was a person so sold out for his cause that he would go to extreme measures for it. It’s Saul, persecuting the church to the death. It’s Jesus, kicking the money changers out of the temple. That’s the kind of things that happen when someone has zeal. Now, imagine if that Someone Who has zeal is God bringing His Son to earth. What will that accomplish?
It will accomplish things that humans just can’t accomplish on their own.
Part of the joy of being a parent or a grandparent is being able to witness, 1st-hand, the way that little pear-shaped individual goes from being a totally dependent liability to someone with marketable skills. And before that, there’s the wonder of that little life, growing inside of his mother from a unique 2-celled person so small you can’t see him, to a baby who’s ready to be born. Those 9 months inside the womb are a perilous journey. Experience taught us that you don’t begin to breathe a little sigh of relief until that little kid is out and crying. And we do all we can to make it go well, but the bottom line is that babies are a God thing!
If you were having any doubts about God’s ability to take something small and make it big, take another look at a peasant baby, born in an oppressed nation, threatened with death early on, growing up so poor he had no place to lay his head, and becoming the One Who has all authority in Heaven and on earth! What got that done? The zeal of the LORD Almighty!
So this Baby is very much a God-thing! The zeal of the LORD is what accomplished this. It wasn’t Mary and Joseph. It wasn’t a corporate sponsorship. It wasn’t a great campaign manager or agent. It wasn’t a city of Nazareth project. It was the zeal of the Lord. Nothing else would pull this off.
There’s a reason that really matters. It’s the number of people who are convinced that they’re going to navigate life on their own. Their relationship with God becomes a list of things I have to win at, and when I get it right, I somehow get exalted to a position in the Kingdom. That’s a no-win scenario. Too many people look at the Kingdom that way. They think that they have to make themselves good enough before they can become a follower of Jesus. What they fail to recognize is that God’s kingdom here on earth has always started small and grown, but it has also depended on God for its growth all along.
Jesus said,
John 15:5
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
When it’s the zeal of the Lord that’s at work, amazing things can happen.
A virgin bears a child.
Little boys’ lunches are multiplied into a feast for thousands of people.
A group of ordinary, uneducated men implement a world movement that shapes history.
People like you and me are transformed by the power of God at work in our lives rather than just being shoved around by a sea of confusion.
Do you doubt that? Then it’s time to go back to the baby book, and look at the picture with the caption that says,
“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. 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.”
God starts His big changes with little beginnings. Has that been true in your life? Would you like it to be true in your life?
If you’re not a Christ follower today, I want to ask you to do something. Think back through the chain of events that brought you here today. How many small beginnings have there been? How many little things, that added up, brought you here today? How many little seeds were planted?
If you’re waiting for the booming voice from Heaven or looking for the amazing sign that somehow convinces you it’s time to follow Jesus, I want to suggest you’re looking in the wrong places.
Why not look at the way God started His great plan with a tiny baby, in quiet and simple circumstances, a long time ago? Why not consider that God has been pursuing you your whole life, and that this simple message today is one of many reasons you have to take the step of faith and accept Him today? I hope that will be your decision before you leave here today.
(Lord’s Supper Preparation)
Sometimes I think we are too insistent that God gives something big, obvious, and amazing. People once asked Jesus what sign He would give them. His response was that He’d rise from the dead, but before He said that, He also told them that it was wrong of them to crave a sign from Him.
God once taught this lesson to Elijah. God was going to make an appearance to him on a mountain. So, Elijah stepped out from hiding. There was a huge wind that broke the rocks, but God wasn’t in it. There was an earthquake – but God wasn’t in it. Then there was a raging fire, but God wasn’t in it either. Then, there was a gentle whisper, and it was from that simple, small voice that God spoke to Elijah.
God can use whatever means He wants to relate to us. Today, like every week, we’re following the instruction of Jesus by eating 2 very simple things – unleavened bread, and a cup of juice. They aren’t spectacular, but they’re full of meaning to the person who knows and loves Jesus. Doing this doesn’t require a lot of effort, but it’s something important to everyone who believes. We’re also following His instruction by examining ourselves and regarding one another. That’s what the Lord’s Supper is supposed to be. It may seem small, but the Lord has a way of taking small things and making them into something very big, doesn’t He?
