The Wonder of Christmas - Week 2

[00:00:01] Well, good morning, Christ Church. It's good to see you today. [00:00:05] I love the ugly sweaters. [00:00:08] I know I'm lame. I just, you know, I couldn't find anything and just go with the flannel, you know. [00:00:16] But it is, it's so good to see you. And man, I can't believe we're in December, but I am excited to be in this Christmas season with you. [00:00:28] Cause this is such a special time of year for so many reasons, but most importantly because what it means and what God has done for us and him sending Jesus Christ in the world. So we're gonna celebrate that all month long and talk about it and think about it. [00:00:45] But just before we do today, would you bow your heads and let's pray together? [00:00:52] Father, we just thank you for this time. Time to look at the scriptures and to understand what Christmas means. [00:01:03] Father, I pray that it would not just be a passing holiday, but we could connect to the power, the truth, the glory of it, and we could be moved to a place of worship in our hearts. [00:01:18] Help us, Lord, to just think about your majesty, your greatness, what this all means for us. And help us to find hope and strength today in it. I pray, Lord, that this season would be special in each of our lives and each of our families. [00:01:36] And I pray you would be glorified in it all. [00:01:39] And I ask this in Jesus good name. Amen. [00:01:44] Well, today we're starting a brand new sermon series called the Wonder of Christmas. [00:01:50] So if you're a guest with us, you're coming in at a great time. Cause we're starting a new sermon series. And my name's Chet. If I haven't met you, I'd love to just shake your hand and meet you. But we're gonna talk about how Christmas is meant to lead us to a place of wonder and worship. And I don't know when the last time you had like a moment of wonder happen in your life, but it doesn't maybe happen all that often. But for me, I was this summer we were at our architect's office in Lakewood and we were talking about the interior design of our new building. [00:02:29] And so they were like talking about wall colors and the floors and all that kind of stuff. And at one point they said that we have this huge wall in what like our Main street area is going to be. [00:02:45] It's gonna be an awesome space and there's this big wall. And they said that, hey, we think we could like make like kind of almost a 3D graphic on it where if you kinda look at it from afar. You'll see, like, real people, real faith, real life, which is our tagline. And it'll kind of, like, have that 3D effect. And so, like, as they were saying that, I was picturing this in my mind, and I just got lost in a moment, and I was like, whoa. [00:03:15] And I think I literally did that. And then everyone in the room started laughing at me, and I didn't even realize what happened. I was like, why are you guys laughing at me? And they're like, well, we just saw that you were completely taken away in this moment. It was a moment of wonder. Cause I was like, this is gonna be so cool and such a neat thing. And I just kind of got caught up in it. And when we think about Christmas, I pray. And my hope as we go through this series is that we could just have a few moments where we think about what God has done for us, and we go, whoa. [00:03:56] And we think about what this means, and it just sort of hits our heart in a very deep and real way. Now, I know for some of us, Christmas is a time of year where, like, it's a lot of joy. We're excited. [00:04:13] We can't wait. And I'm praying that it is awesome for you, and I'm praying that we could connect to God in it. But I know for others of us, this could be a real challenging season. [00:04:26] And maybe it's the first Christmas without someone we love. [00:04:29] Maybe it's the first Christmas where life looks a lot different than we expected. I just want you to know we're praying for you. And we see you, and we're here for that, too, to be with you. But no matter where we're coming from this Christmas season, my prayer is we could have some moments of just authentic wonder at what this all really means. And so today, to help us in that, we're gonna look at Isaiah, chapter nine, and I'm gonna read to you this really incredible text that actually was written 700 years before the first Christmas, but it tells us some incredibly important things about it. So let me read it to you, and then we'll explain. [00:05:17] Says this. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. [00:05:29] You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil for the yoke of his burden, the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you've broken as on the day of Midian, for every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult, every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. And look at these verses. [00:05:55] For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. [00:06:04] And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called. [00:06:09] Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness. From this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. [00:06:33] Now, these verses again, These are written 700 years before the first Christmas. [00:06:39] And they're written in a time of great political turmoil, great difficulty. And Isaiah the prophet is writing these words and ultimately he's telling the people of his generation, he, he's saying, look, the real thing to hope for is what is one day going to come, this son that is gonna be born. And he gives these incredible names which we'll talk about. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He says, ultimately our hope is not in the immediate. It's in what God will do one day in the world. [00:07:21] And if you can find strength in that, it will help you get through today. [00:07:28] And so it's kind of this long range hope that he's offering to them. And I would say that in a very similar way, we look back to Christmas like they looked forward, but it still can have that effect on us. It can still give us the strength and the comfort and the security and the well being that it was meant to give these readers then. And essentially Isaiah shows us this really powerful contrast in these verses. If you notice, he uses this theme of darkness and light. [00:08:03] And that ultimately what would happen in Christmas was the light that comes into the world. And so today I'm just gonna. I just have two points. Today we're almost done with this sermon. [00:08:16] Don't look so happy about that. But we're gonna talk about the darkness and the light. So here's what Isaiah says. Notice he says that we dwell in darkness. The people who've walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwell in the land of deep darkness, the light has shone on them. And what Isaiah is saying is that part of the problem of being a human being is we live in darkness. [00:08:45] And what he means by that is that darkness is both a sense of ignorance and a sense of evil. [00:08:52] That part of our problem is we don't know and live the ways that we should, sometimes out of ignorance and sometimes intentionally. [00:09:00] But either way, it creates this darkness that we dwell in. [00:09:07] And I think it's fair to say when we think about the world, it's easy to say, yeah, there is a lot of darkness in this world. [00:09:15] No one has to work hard to create it. [00:09:18] It's just there. You have to work hard to get it out of this world. Right. [00:09:24] I don't have to work hard to be a jerk. It comes naturally to me. Amen. [00:09:30] I have to work hard to act in ways that honor God and treat people right. [00:09:35] I have to intentionally do that. [00:09:37] Unfortunately, all the bad things in my life, they don't need a lot of intentionality. [00:09:43] They just sort of happen when I'm on autopilot. Any broken people with me here today? Any people that are like Isaiah, we dwell in darkness, too, brother. We get it. And this is what he's saying. He's saying, and that's a problem. [00:09:57] And he says also, it's a problem we can't fix. [00:10:04] It's a problem that the darkness, we can't outdo it by our own light. [00:10:11] The light is not in us. Isaiah says, it's outside of us. You with me? [00:10:17] And it has to come to us. And I think that's a radically different message than sometimes we hear or think about during Christmas. [00:10:27] I love Christmas movies. If you know me, you know that you've heard me talk about that again. National Lamp. If you're wondering, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the best one out there. [00:10:41] But one of my other top favorites is Scrooged. And I think Bill Murray is hilarious. [00:10:48] I feel like not everybody feels that way, but I feel that way. [00:10:53] And I love that movie. And it's the whole Scrooge story. And he's this selfish, egotistical TV executive. He goes through, you know, the whole Scrooge experience. And then at the end, he gives a speech on national TV and basically says, what Christmas is all about is taking the time to treat people better and to be a better person. [00:11:19] And if you can be a better person, then we can change the world. [00:11:25] And he says, that's what the message of Christmas is. But here's what Isaiah says. He says, no, no, no. There's not enough light within you to do that. [00:11:36] You cannot overcome the darkness on your own. We need the light to come from outside of us and to shine into our lives. You with me on this? [00:11:49] And so he's saying, that's what Christmas is. It's the light that we desperately need, that we could never produce on our own. [00:11:57] And it's come to us, and it's come for us. Here's another way to think about this, that someone mentioned me, and I thought it was a good example. But many times I'll be in our living room, and my kids will be down in the basement. And we got, like, a little play area for them, you know, and so you can hear them pretty well. [00:12:18] And I'll be, whatever, sitting up there. And then I'll hear them starting to, like, fight, you know, starting to be nasty with each other. Never takes very long. [00:12:29] And so when that happens, my first strategy is, I'll say, hey, quit it. You know, I'll send my voice down there. [00:12:39] I'll say, stop doing it. You know, share that toy. You know, don't hit your sister. Whatever. You know, I'll send my word down. [00:12:49] And once they hear it, they receive it and obey immediately. [00:12:55] Yeah, right. That's never happened. [00:12:58] But I still try it. Cause I'm like, I don't feel like getting up right now and going down those stairs, you know? [00:13:04] So I'll try. I'll send my word down. But my word never seems to be enough. [00:13:08] But then I send my presence down there. I go down the stairs. I'm like, all right, enough of this. [00:13:16] And that mostly works, but there's a difference between sending your word and sending your presence. [00:13:24] And there are certain problems where only your presence can fix them. You with me? And this is what Isaiah is saying. [00:13:32] Only the presence of the light can fix this. [00:13:38] The darkness. We can't figure it out. We can't even hear what we need to do and do it. We need the presence of the light to come down to us and to do what we can't do for ourselves. You with me? And that's what Christmas is. And every one of us, Church, we can't do this life without God. [00:14:02] We can try. [00:14:04] We can do our best. But, church, what Christmas shows us is we need God. [00:14:12] We need him to step into time, but to step into our own personal history and to lead us and to help us and to redeem us in ways that we just can't do on our own. You with me on this? And Isaiah says, well, here's the good news. The light has come. [00:14:35] And that's what we celebrate. That the light has come. That is shown in the darkness. And Isaiah says that the light brings these three really powerful things. Number one, he talks about it bringing joy. [00:14:49] The light brings this sort of, you know, festal joy into our lives. [00:14:55] And here's what I find in my own life. [00:14:58] That when my heart is most open to Jesus Christ is the times of the most real joy in my life. [00:15:09] When my heart is open to his light shining in me, there is a deep reservoir of joy that comes into my life. [00:15:21] He also says that the light brings freedom from oppression. He uses this language about kind of being oppressed and exploited. And he says, ultimately the light comes and frees us from those things. [00:15:36] And I think about the words of Jesus in Matthew 11, where he looks at his disciples and he looks at us and he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, all who are burdened. And he says, and I will give you rest. [00:15:54] Take my yoke upon me and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. [00:16:01] He says, I've come to bring rest to your life. Freedom. And Isaiah says, yes, that's what the light brings. And lastly, he says that the light. He has this idea of all these battle images kind of being burned up. [00:16:21] So like the warrior's outfit and the boot and the garment, they'll be burned as fuel for fire. [00:16:32] And what he's ultimately saying is that what the light brings is not only joy, not only liberation and freedom, but the light also destroys the weapons that we use against each other. [00:16:48] I thought that was such a cool thing to think about. [00:16:52] You see, I don't know about your life, but I know in my life there can be a real nastiness in my soul towards other people. [00:17:05] There can be a real nastiness that just wants to hold everything against people. [00:17:12] There can be a nastiness in my soul, a darkness in my soul that wants to think poorly of people, that wants to not give the benefit of the doubt, but expect the worst. Again, can I talk to some sinners here today? I mean, we got a bunch of angels here. [00:17:28] I need some broken people. But I see those things very real in my soul, and I struggle with those things. But here's what I also know. [00:17:40] When Christ is at work in my life, he leads me down a different road. [00:17:47] I'm like, you know what? I don't wanna sit and think bad about people. [00:17:53] I don't wanna go down that road. [00:17:56] By the way, Church, what a miserable way to live our lives. Amen. [00:18:00] And Christ says, listen, I've got a better way. And I wanna burn up those things in your soul, in your life. That's part of what I'm here to do, to change what is in you and how you relate to others. And Isaiah Says the light brings that. The light, it destroys the weapons that we use against each other. [00:18:26] Bitterness, hate, unforgiveness, all those things. The light, it burns up in the light. What a beautiful image that is. You see what Isaiah is saying? He's saying, look, the hope for our world is spiritual. [00:18:45] The hope for our world, it's deeper than. Than economies and governments and all these other things, that the real hope for this world can only come from God Himself working in the human heart in a way that only he can. [00:19:04] He says, the light has come to do that. So that's what our hope is in. That was what their Hope was in 700 years, 2700 years now. [00:19:16] And that's what our hope is in today, in 20, 25. And then he says. He says this incredible line in verse six. So he talks about the light coming in the darkness. He talks about what the light is gonna do, and then he tells us who the light is. [00:19:34] And he says, and here's what it looks like to us. A child is born, a son is given. [00:19:45] What is the origins of all of this light in this change? [00:19:51] Well, it's this son who is gonna be born. [00:19:56] It's this child who's going to come into the world. [00:20:00] And I just imagine, like, if you had never. Have never heard these verses before and you were to guess what his, like, build up to this be, you would not think that it was gonna be a son that's born. [00:20:18] You might be expecting something different. [00:20:21] And when we think about Christmas, Christmas shows us something about the work of God, that God often does incredibly powerful things through beginnings that seem very powerless. [00:20:35] You with me? God says, all the darkness in the world, I'm gonna extinguish. [00:20:42] You're like, all right, God, how are you gonna do it? I'm gonna send a baby. [00:20:47] Like, really like. [00:20:50] I mean, I've been around infants a lot in these past couple years, and I don't know. [00:20:59] I'm not gonna go down that road. But that's not what you would expect. Amen, Church. [00:21:06] That's it. That's the plan. [00:21:09] That's what's gonna defeat the darkness. [00:21:13] And God says, yes, it is the baby that is gonna come. Church. Don't underestimate the small beginnings of God's work in your life. [00:21:27] Here's what I believe. If you're a follower of Jesus, many of us are gonna like, we're gonna get to heaven. We're gonna stand before the Lord, and the Lord's gonna just look at us and say, hey, I just want you to know that all these good things in your life, they're from your great grandmother who was praying for you. [00:21:44] They're from your grandma that was praying for you and she was praying and she didn't know. And there wasn't a whole lot of things to go on. It was a small beginning, but that's what I used you with me on this church. See some things in your life, you and I were tempted to look at them and we're tempted to dismiss them as not making a difference. But what Christmas reminds us is that we cannot pass over them too quickly. Sometimes those small moments in your week, or maybe you just go out of your way to connect with your kid and you're like, all right, is this making a difference? [00:22:28] Is this even doing anything? [00:22:30] Do they even care? Here's what Christmas would say. It is making a difference. [00:22:34] Do not despise the day of small beginnings. [00:22:39] Do not despise those acts that they seem so powerless. And at the beginning, I would say God loves to work in our lives that way. [00:22:49] We don't love it. Cause we want God to show up in this big parade and just in these absolutely obvious and out there ways. But God often shows up in ways that are more humble than we're expecting, but yet will lead to more change than we could ever imagine. [00:23:10] And you gotta be willing to go on the journey. And some of you man, you're doing things every day. You're praying, you're trying to love your family, you're trying to connect with God. And some days you're like, is this worth it? Is it making a difference? Am I getting anywhere? I feel like I'm spinning my tires. And just what I want to encourage you is just keep going and trust the wisdom of God. [00:23:36] How's the light, the darkness going to get extinguished? [00:23:40] A new baby that comes into the world, not what we would expect, but absolutely does exactly what Isaiah tells us. And he says, and by the way, here's this child and here's what his name is. I love these wonderful counselor. [00:24:03] He will be a wonderful counselor. [00:24:07] All the wisdom that this world needs is in it. He's not just a good counselor, he is a wonderful counselor. [00:24:16] He knows the needs of your life and your soul in this world. [00:24:22] And he will give it freely and graciously to us. He is the mighty God. [00:24:30] I love this phrase. It's this Hebrew phrase, El Gabor. El means God and gabor means like a heroic warrior. [00:24:39] So not only is he a wonderful counselor, not only is he wise, but he is infinitely strong. Too. [00:24:49] That all the challenges of your life cannot stand to the power of who he is. [00:24:57] And that all the ugliness and weight of this darkness cannot bring down the light of who he is. Because he is a mighty warrior. [00:25:08] He is the everlasting Father. [00:25:12] He's a mighty warrior. He's tough, he's strong. [00:25:16] But he's an everlasting father too. He is tender. [00:25:20] And he cares for you. [00:25:22] He is a father. [00:25:24] Some of us were blessed with great dads. I had a great dad. Have a great dad. [00:25:30] Many of you have, but some of us haven't. [00:25:32] And you know the blessing of it. And you also know the challenge of it when you don't have it. [00:25:39] And here's what Isaiah says. We all have a father that will never leave us, that will never abandon us, that will provide, that will protect, that will valhe's everlasting. [00:26:00] And you never grow up and leave his house. [00:26:05] And he will always pay for lunch. Amen. [00:26:08] Dad, what are you doing after service today? [00:26:13] He is an everlasting Father. And he is prince of peace. [00:26:19] Now, peace in the ancient world is not merely the absence of conflict. [00:26:25] That's only one side of peace. Peace is really about flourishing in the ancient world. And even today, if your country is always in battles, you can never develop as a country. You can never build things because they'll get destroyed. You can never create art in education. [00:26:43] The culture will always be stunted if it is constantly in war. [00:26:49] Just like our lives. If they're constantly in conflict, our lives will always be stunted. We will never grow in deeper ways. And so peace is this idea of not just the ceasing of conflict, but the opportunity to flourish. [00:27:06] The opportunity for the good and the right and the beautiful to grow up in our lives and all around us. [00:27:15] And Isaiah says, oh yes, the light who is coming. He is the prince of peace. [00:27:21] Wherever he is, people flourish. [00:27:24] Wherever his light is shining, lives flourish. Church. In the presence of Jesus Christ, your life and my life flourishes. [00:27:34] The right things grow. [00:27:36] The wrong things don't have a place. [00:27:39] They don't have a space. [00:27:42] He is the Prince of peace. [00:27:46] Isaiah says, this is how you know him. The One who is all these things is the One who is coming and the One who is the light himself. [00:28:00] Now, if you notice all these qualities, if you kind of think about these, they're all a bit paradoxical. [00:28:10] And paradox is this idea that it's something that looks contradictory at the surface, but actually isn't, as you understand it, at a different level. So it appears to Be a contradiction. But it isn't. That's what a paradox is. And these are all paradoxes, because how are you the mighty warrior and the prince of peace? That's paradoxical. You're a warrior, but you're the prince of peace. [00:28:40] How are you the everlasting Father, but yet you're the son that is given? That's paradoxical. You with me on this? [00:28:50] And as Isaiah explains to us, the one who comes in christened, he shows us this paradox. [00:29:00] And it can be easy to look at it and say, well, that all doesn't make sense. But here's what I would say. There is a beauty in the paradox, and there's a beauty that we're meant to see and to enjoy and to worship. [00:29:21] You see, no leader in this world, no human leader, is all these things. [00:29:27] They might have one strength over here, but then they've got another glaring weakness over here. [00:29:32] Years ago, I read a great book by David Gergen called Eyewitness to Power. [00:29:38] And he has been a White House staffer through all kinds of administrations, Democratic and Republican. And he talks about all the different presidential administrations that he served under. And then he kind of just says, okay, here's where they were strong. Here's where they were weak. And it's just a really interesting read. [00:29:58] And basically what he'll always say is like, okay, this guy was really strong on foreign policy. This guy was an incredible intellect. This guy could galvanize people, whatever. But then he would also say, but then they had this glaring weakness. [00:30:13] And that's every human leader. [00:30:15] That's us, right? [00:30:17] And there's shaping it. But this one who is given, the son who is given does not have a glaring weakness. [00:30:26] His strength and his compassion exist. [00:30:31] His love and his justice, all these tensions are fulfilled and resolved in him. [00:30:42] And the more that. [00:30:44] That we can just see who he really is, I think that the more our hearts can get led to wonder. [00:30:53] I was reading a story about this guy named Richard Wilczek, and He was a 2004 Nobel Prize winner. [00:31:04] He's a physicist, and his research is in subatomic particles and how that whole world works. I'm sure kind of an interest that really gets a lot of us excited here. [00:31:19] And I don't really know a whole lot about it, but what I could gather from reading this was, you know, when you think about the world and you think about everything is made up in the material world of atoms. And then if you say, well, what makes up an atom? Remember, like, protons and neutrons and electrons, remember that everybody remember. Seventh grade science class, I'm probably taking you to a bad place right now, but you remember that. And it's a really fascinating world to understand how those subatomic realities work. And this guy kind of did some breakthrough research on it. But one of the most fascinating things that he said was that the very foundational elements of this world are paradoxical. [00:32:14] And he talked about light. [00:32:17] Light is made up of photons, these subatomic particles and photons. When people say, all right, what is a photon? Is it a particle which operates and exists one way, or is it a wave which operates a little bit different way? [00:32:36] They say, well, is it a particle? Yes. [00:32:40] Is it a wave? Yes. [00:32:43] Is it a particle? Yes. Is it a wave? Yet it's both. Well, these are different things, and yet light is made up of both of those things. [00:32:55] And how does that all work? I have no idea. [00:32:58] But I read that's the way it works. [00:33:02] And there is a fundamental reality to life, and I think man, that's so interesting, because our God, who created all of reality, exists in ways that are beyond our comprehension, but yet we can see both at work. [00:33:20] He is the Son that was given and the everlasting Father. [00:33:24] He is the Prince of peace and the mighty war. [00:33:29] He is a wonderful counselor and the mighty God. [00:33:34] He is eternal, and he was present in time. [00:33:40] And all of these exist in the person of Jesus Christ. [00:33:46] And this season, Isaiah is saying, I just want you to look at him. [00:33:52] I want you to see him. I want you to be in wonder of who he is. There's a great quote I read this week by Brother Lawrence, and he said this. The end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become in this life the most perfect worshipers of God we can possibly be as we hope to be through all eternity. [00:34:18] And as we're in the series, that's. That's just my prayer for you. That we would become more perfect worshipers of the God who has come for us, the God that we celebrate, that we could understand him, we could love him, we could adore him, we could worship him. And there's so many great things about Christmas. I love it all. [00:34:40] But the greatest thing is Jesus Christ. [00:34:44] And I don't want us to miss that. [00:34:46] I want us to celebrate that in a deeper way in our hearts. Let's pray, Father. [00:34:53] We thank you, Lord, that you are the light that has come for us. And to us, we thank you, Lord, that you are beyond our comprehension. And yet what you show to us is enough to bring our lives, hope, and strength and peace and change and well being. [00:35:20] I pray, Father, that just this morning we could just slow our lives down for a moment and we could become more perfect worshipers of you. [00:35:32] We could appreciate, we could celebrate, we could be in wonder of who you are. [00:35:39] Bless us, Lord. We love you. We thank you for this incredible gift. We don't take it for granted and we pray you'd be glorified in all this. In the great name of Jesus, amen.