Sermon Tone Analysis

The Christmas song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, I’m told, used to make my great grandmother cry.

She would cry because her son, my great uncle Lee, would make the same promise every year.

“Mom and dad, I’ll be home for Christmas this year.”

And every year he would break that same promise.

I can’t listen to that song without thinking of my great grandmother.

It’s a reminder to us that Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year for many of us.

How many of you have said at some point in the last five years, “Christmas is just not the same as it used to be”?

In reality, it’s not just Christmas that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

Things in this world are not as they were meant to be.

God created this world and called it good.

He created human beings in His image and said it was “very good”.

But sin entered into God’s good world; sin has made wreckage of our lives, our relationships — there’s nothing that has not been marred and deformed by sin’s evil presence in God’s good world.

But the way things are now — praise God that we know that that is not always the way things will be.

The world we know now does not even begin to compare to the world that is coming.

And Christmas is about this world that is to come.

Christmas is not just about the coming of the infant Jesus to be born in a manger.

Christmas is not only about the coming of Jesus to die for our sins and rise again.

Christmas is the story of how the infant Jesus who came and died and rose again will one day a new heaven and a new earth, where nothing that ruins life for us now will do so then.

This passage today is a prophecy of exactly that.

And this passage answers four questions for us today:

[SLIDE: FOUR QUESTIONS]

Four questions:

How are things now?

How will things be then?

Who will bring it about?

How can we know He will pull it off?

#1: How Are Things Now?

First question, how are things now?

We know how things are now just be looking outside or turning on the news.

Life in 2022 on planet earth means living in the midst of a receding pandemic; life in 2022 means hearing about mass shootings just days apart, the kind of shootings that used to make a huge story because they were so rare.

Life in 2022 means global unrest.

Life in 2022 means divorce, abuse, Alzheimer’s, cancer.

And we’re tempted to to believe that life today is so much worse than it was then.

But life on this earth has always been harder than it was meant to be.

When Isaiah preached this message, Israel faced incredibly hard times.

Israelites in the time of Isaiah were dealing with believers falling away from the faith; they were dealing with disease and starvation; they were facing global unrest; they were facing imminent threat from the north as the Syrians were joining up with the northern kingdom of Israel and threatening to come south and wreak havoc.

They were outnumbered and without hope, terrified by rumors on this side and that.

No wonder he says all the experienced, in 8:22, was “distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish.”

Some of you know what the distress and darkness are like.

“Hello darkness, my old friend; I’ve come to talk to you again” — for some of you that’s not just a song lyric; it’s your reality.

Some of you know the gloom of anguish that Isaiah is talking about because your own lives have been ripped open.

It could be terminal illness, with you or someone you love; it could be chronic pain, with you or someone you love; it could be clinical depression, it could be prolonged grief, it could be seasons of lack and neglect.

For you it could be the darkness of domestic and sexual abuse.

Whatever it is, darkness brings a feeling of being lost; it makes you feel disoriented; it robs you of your stability; you’re not sure which way is up or down, because you can’t see any points of reference.

For many, as well, Christmas is a season of darkness.

The season of light, for some of us, is darker than any other time of the year.

It’s made darker not only because of the pain you’re already in; it’s made darker by how the rest of the world goes on in its celebration, and you feel left behind.

Friend, you need to know that things will not always be for you the way they are right now.

You need to know that you will not always be in this place.

Wait on the Lord and walk by faith.

[SLIDE: ISAIAH 8:17]

How did Isaiah do this?

He made a commitment.

Isa 8:17

This is how things are now.

It won’t always be this way.

Change is coming.

Light is breaking in.

What will it be like?

#2: How Will Things Be Then?

The first thing we read in chapter 9 is that a change is coming.

On the horizon, is a reversal of fortunes.

Look at this with me in Isa 9:1.

“But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.

In the former time” — that’s how things are now — “he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali” — but here’s what’s coming — “in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations”.

A. Light Where There Was Darkness

Read on with me into verse 2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light // those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shown”.

The world to come will be a world where darkness does not have the last word, where light overcomes the darkness.

The reason for that is that Jesus, our Messiah and Savior, is the Light of the world.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5 ESV).

The apostle John in his revelation said this about the new heaven and the earth that is coming: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day — and there will be no night there” (Rev.

21:22-25 ESV).

That’s coming for everyone who believes on Jesus and will call Him Lord.

But if you know Jesus here and now, you can begin to experience His light in your darkness now.

What would it mean for the light of Christ to illuminate your heart?

Well, in the Bible light means God’s presence with you.

He alone can banish your feelings of loneliness.

In the Bible, light means God’s truth, His word.

His word can overcome the lies you hear in your heart about yourself — that you’re worthless, unlovable, a failure.

God’s truth comes in and He speaks the truth to you — “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”

You have value.

You are loved.

You are significant.

You can do all that He has for you to do.

He is your Father.

He is for you.

Christmas means light in place of darkness.

Not just in the future, at the new heaven and new earth.

But now, in your heart and home.

Jesus brings light.

Things are bleak.

But God wants to help you to see, with the eyes of faith, the light on the horizon.

B. Joy Where There Was Anguish

Christmas means not only light where there was darkness; it means joy where there was anguish.

Why does Christmas mean joy where there was anguish?

Look at verse 3 with me, and count with me how many references you see in this one verse alone to joy, rejoicing, gladness, etc. they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.”

And what’s more, our joy is enjoyed in relationship with God.