Today is part one of a 3-part series titled:
Without the manger there is no Cross.
We will be heavily in the OT for part 1.
We are going to look at some history today.
• I know, some of you may perk up,
• while others roll their eyes
This message has been on my heart for several months now.
• God truly has been working on the messenger, while the messenger works on the message!
• The challenging part, is taking what is right here (touch my heart) and have it come out of here (motion to my mouth) so that it makes sense to you, as it does to me here (point to my head).
• So here we go!
Controversy:
• We see controversy throughout the bible, and ever since His birth, controversy surrounds Jesus. Webster defines controversy as:
: a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views : DISPUTE
• If we asked 10 people here today, what does Christmas mean to you, we very possibly will get 10 different answers.
• I realize we could have many opposing views regarding Christmas, but hopefully the ideals we have in common ,will be stronger than those things that cause disunity.
The 3 key verses today are:
Isaiah 9:6
Isaiah 7 :14
Micah 5:2
Let’s read Isaiah 9:6 together:
Stand with me as we honor God while reading His word: (read from bible)
We’ll examine the first part of this verse in Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;
Then the rest of the verse: “And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”, we will look @ in the following 2 parts of the series.
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given.
Before we go there, I mentioned history.
I believe everything in the OT points to Jesus. Dare I say everything in all of history points to Jesus.
I’d like us to look at two prophets who were contemporaries in the OT. Meaning their prophetic ministries overlapped each other.
These two prophets were:
Isaiah and Micah.
Quickly look at:
• The timelines
• Locations
• Main message and it’s importance
• Reason for the prophecy
• Some other details about prophets.
We are going to start with some details about prophets.
If you look at all the prophets in the bible, I think you will see this recurring theme:
• Rebellion of the people
• Judgement on the people
• Compassion on the people
• Redemption for the people
The “office” of prophet,
• was instituted in the days of Samuel, who was the last of the judges in the bible.
• Their role was to speak for God, confronting people with God’s commands and promises.
When we examine how God spoke to people it was in different ways:
• Directly (as with Moses)
• Angels (such as with Zechariah and Mary)
• Dreams and visions- that is what we are going to look at today.
So, when we look at Isaiah and Micah, we see some similarities.
• Isaiah was a prophet to Judah from 740-681 BC
• Micah was a prophet to Judah from 742-687 BC
• Isaiah’s main message:
• Although judgement from other nations(through God) was inevitable, the people could still have a special relationship with God.
• Isaiah’s prophecy is actually broken down to two parts:
• 1st part “despair”.
• 2nd part “hope”.
When we think about our own lives, I think most of us can see we had a season of despair, before we had a season of hope.
Isaiah’s message of hope, actually begins during the “despair” part of his prophecy.
Hopefully, this will make sense, at some point, as I tie-in all together with this series.
Micah’s main message was the prediction of the fall of both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
To have a little better understanding of these kingdoms we must realize:
Prior to these prophets coming on the scene, there was a split that occurred in 930 BC (stay with my now), after the death of Solomon, and during the reign of his son Rehoboam (ruh-hO-bum). They revolted as a result of heavy taxes incurred both during Solomon’s reign and his son’s reign.
The tribe of Judah and the majority of the tribe of Benjamin accepted Rehoboam (ruh-hO-bum), and they became known as the Kingdom of Judah with the capital @ Jerusalem.
The other 10 tribes chose Jeroboam (jer-a-bow-um) as their king, and kept the title of Israel, which was the northern kingdom, headquartered in Samaria. Yes that Samaria. More on that another time.
As I said, a brief history lesson.
Although we are not going to get into the actual birth of Jesus today, I’d like us to go back to that word controversy.
As we dig into this 3-part series, I’d like to put aside any aspects of what our cultures recognizes, how we behave, and how we celebrate Christmas. There is even great controversy over the word Christmas. If we get tangled in this mire, then we completely miss the point, and the joy of Jesus’ birth. And THAT is tragic, cuz the devil does a dance every time he distracts us!
I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon:
“We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that is was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is December 25th.
Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give thanks to God for the gift of His dear Son”.
What I’m saying is, let’s not get bogged down about the date or the word, or words, but recognize and celebrate the event, that is; the birth of our Lord and Savior.
Now back to our message!
We took a quick look about the prophets, let’s look at a definition of prophecy; just to prevent the assumption that we all know what prophecy is:
Here’s one definition:
• PROPHECY: An oral, divine message mediated through an individual that is directed at a person or people group and intended to elicit a specific response.
These prophets were getting a divine word from God and sharing it, mostly trying to get them to understand the mess they were in, or as my dad used to say “they were in a world of hurt”.
I’d like us to piece these three verses that I mentioned earlier, together. Starting with:
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given.
• For unto us a Child is born-
• This is telling us that a physical birth is coming.
• It is foretelling the Messiah’s humanity.
• Then we see in:
• Luke 2:11 “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
• Unto us a Son is given-
• Given, begotten, not made, but; being of the very substance, or essence of the Father.
• As written in:
• John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (you might want to hang on to that “everlasting life” part, for part 2 of the series.
• It is amazing how John weaves these two together in another passage.
• Look at John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
• The Word (the given Son) became flesh (born as a Child)
• I just love how those two passages interpret each other.
• Before we move to the other two passages, I’d like to share with you something I read this past week, and it really hit home for me.
I really needed to see this:
• Looking at “unto us”:
• If this Child is born “to you”, then you are born again.
• For this Child is not born to you, unless you are born to this Child.
• I want to say to you “If there is any doubt in your salvation, take hold of this right here”.
• It didn’t hit me because I doubt my salvation, it hit me because it helps me explain salvation to others.
• And then, “unto us a Son is given”.
• This is the gift of Christmas
• This Son is given to us-are we giving it all up to the Son?
• A tough question to hear, but for me, the question is easy to answer, if I answer in truth.
• The answer is: I am being sanctified, to the point where I do give it all up to Him!
Let’s examine a second prophecy verse.
Isaiah 7:10–14 “Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz,(BTW side note: Ahaz was the 12th king of Judah, Micah’s son, Saul’s great-great grandson, who is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew) saying, “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above.” But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!” Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Twice in Isaiah we see prophecy of the coming Messiah.
Let’s look at one more found in Micah:
Micah 5:2 ““But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”” (there’s that word everlasting again)
Jesus is:
• The Child born
• The Son given
• Born in Bethlehem
• of a virgin
These have all happened.
Here’s what’s to come when He returns:
• The government will be upon His shoulder (He will be ruler of all the world)
• Wonderful Counselor
• Mighty God
• Everlasting Father
• Prince of Peace
I say ALL of the above to say this.
Jesus is the gift.
His birth ensured all the following promises for us:
• Favor (also can be translated as grace) Luke 1:26–30
• Blessing (He can to reverse the curse) Luke 1:39-45
• Guidance (by the Holy Spirit) Matthew 1:19-20
• Joy (Luke 2:8-10)
• Redemption (Luke 2:36-38)
• Peace (Luke 2:25-35
And oh yea,
Salvation (Luke 1:66-77)
He did all this for us!
• Let us rejoice
• Let us worship
• Let us be grateful
Unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given!
The purpose of today’s message is to remind us to come to the altar and offer our Thanksgiving to the Savior during this season we call Christmas.
Short testimony, because I want y’all to know where I am coming from as we go through this series.
• I was the first grandchild on both of my parents sides of the family. If fact, I beat my cousin here, only by a matter of hours.
• Some say I was spoiled, but I really don’t think so.
• On my mother’s side of the family, celebrating Christmas became a huge tradition. It was always on the night of Christmas Eve. We gathered, broke bread together, a lot of bread together, everybody got plenty of gifts. We went on hay rides or driving around in the car “looking for Santa Clause”. Miraculously, shortly after we returned, Santa would come knocking on the door. Everyone got a gift from Santa. He would leave, then we would open gifts given to one another. Then we would play games, eat more food, play with our toys and other gifts. It was a big deal!
• All this, and just going over-board on decorating. Crazy over-board.
• As a kid, I understood Christmas was when Jesus was born. We always are thankful and prayerful about Jesus coming to save us.
• As a kid, I loved every minute of it!
• As an adult in my early 30’s, I realized it was getting out of hand.
• In 1992, after we celebrated Christmas, I got all the family together, probably 20 of us, and expressed my thoughts about how we were missing the mark in how we celebrate Christmas! Talk about your lead balloons!!!
• We still have our huge gathering of family at Christmas, and we still exchange gifts, and eat too much. Oddly enough, Santa stopped coming by.
• It is still the most precious time that I get to be blessed by being with my family.
• Last year, in yet another feeble attempt, I shared my heart, of why this time was special for me. It wasn’t really about trying to change anyone’s heart, but pouring out mine.
• This will be hard for most of you to believe, but I didn’t get through it, without crying like a baby!
• I want y’all to know, if I step on your feet this morning, just know that I am aiming for your heart!
• My prayer for you is that you don’t get caught up in the commercialization of Christmas.
• The mental, physical and financial stress is the EXACT opposite of what the birth of Jesus is about.
• Listen to me church, if the mental, physical, and financial stress is the EXACT opposite of what the birth of Jesus is about, then what does that make it?
• Church, we need to disciple each other, and our children and our children’s children, what the birth of Jesus is all about.
• Part 2 next week: Big Shoulders
