Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Opening Illustration: Finding out the Results of the USA/England Game

Last week the USA played Iran in the World Cup in a do or die match to see if they would advance out of the Group stage.

It happened in the middle of a very busy day for me, and so I didn’t get a chance to watch it live.

But I was really excited to try to find a way to watch the whole game later on.

I was avoiding finding out what happened.

Background, I’m a former soccer player, and born in England, and so this has some special meaning to me.

Right before I start to head home, I get a text from my Dad asking if I’ve watched the game.

I said, ‘No, not yet.

But tonight I plan on watching it.’

He responds with, ‘Well I won’t ruin it for you, but you’re gonna love the game.’

The problem with that text, is that it communicated to me that America won the game, because I wouldn’t love the game if America hadn’t won.

So he ruined it, in a way.

As it turns out, knowing how it all ends, still makes the game exciting to watch.

I was able to watch an abbreviated version of the game.

The whole time I knew America won.

Even in the last twenty minutes when Iran was breathing down our necks, I knew America was going to win.

The question I was asking when the game was getting pretty tight at the end was, ‘How does America hold them off.’

The exhiliration was not, ‘Will America hold them off?’ but rather ‘How do they hold them off?’

Personal

As Christians, we also know the end of the story.

History is going somewhere.

It is on a linear trajectory towards an end that God has established.

There is nothing, no power on this planet, that can possibly derail God’s plans.

And so as those watching the events unfold in realtime, the question we are asking is never ‘Will God’s promises prove true?’

We know the end of the story, God wins.

But rather with open wide-eyed curiosity we ask, ‘I can’t wait to see how God’s going to do it?’

And there is something deeply moving to the heart of a Christian to live with that kind of Anticipation.

Context

Today, we begin a three week Advent series in which we prepare our hearts to celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

In the midst of the sentimentality and the shopping of the season, there is the birth of a child on a starry night.

Advent at its heart is about celebrating the birth of the most important child ever born, the birth of Jesus Christ, both for who he is, and what he has accomplished.

Today we are going to look at the significance of the birth of Christ through the theme of Anticipation.

And so we will be in the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah is full of references to a savior, what the Jews in the Old Testament called a Messiah.

A person who would come and set things right.

He would restore God’s order.

It was this messiah that the people of God anticipated, waited for, longed for.

Like the Jews of the Old Testament we live also live with a sort of Anticipation.

On the one hand we live in the days of fulfilment.

Christ has come.

He has established his Kingdom.

His Church is alive and on the move.

On the other hand we recognize that all is not finished.

As Christians we hold this tension of the Already and the Not Yet.

Today we’ll answer three questions around the theme of anticipation.

Who Did They Anticipate?

The first question we can ask, ‘Who did they anticipate?

Isaiah 11:1-5 “1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”

Immediately in verse 1 we are brought into common imagery used by Isaiah.

Prophets tended to have favorite metaphors and illustrations that they returned to regularly.

Isaiah regularly utilized tree imagery.

We are told in verse 1 that there shall come forth shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

This text is clearly messianic, and we know that because it’s talking about a stump from Jesse.

Jesse is David’s father, as in King David from the Old Testament’s, father.

And so this text says that one is coming through the lineage of King David.

Descendent of David on the Throne

This would have been such hopeful language for a very specific reason.

Israel had been given a promise that a descendent of David would always sit on the throne of Israel.

But for Isaiah’s first recipients, it had been some time since a descendent of David would sit on the throne.

This verse would become the basis of the hope of God’s people.

For the next 700 years of Israel’s history, they would cling to this verse, anticipating the day when a shoot from teh stump of Jesse, a descendent of David will rise again to take the throne.

Compare the Shoot to the Destruction of Assyria

Additionally, we must see that this is a verse of comparison.

In the preceding chapter, chapter 10, Isaiah has been prophesying against the nation of Assyria.

Assyria were the enemies of Israel at the time.

At the end of chapter 10 we read that God will in the end, utterly annihilate the Assyrians for their sins.

Referring to Assyria he says,

Isaiah 10:33-34 “33 Behold, the Lord God of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low.

34 He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.”

These verses depict Assyria as a tree that has been utterly lopped down.

It’s over.

Assyria will collapse into oblivion, not a trace will ever resurrect.

God will have his final judgment over that pagan nation.

But with Israel, with the people of God, it will be different.

They too have broken God’s laws.

They too will be like a tree that has been lopped down because God will bring judgment upon them for their sins.

But unlike Assyria, the people of God would have a resurrection of sorts.

From the stump, life would emerge.

A shoot will come from the stump and bear fruit.

1 The Spirit of the Lord (v. 2)

Who would this descendent of Jesse be?

What would he be like?

Verse 2 begins a series of statements about this this branch.

We must be careful here because people often read this verse and see the word spirit and immediately think that it is a reference to the Holy Spirit.

While it might be, that is not necessarily how Isaiah intended to use the word.

The term Spirit in Hebrew is ruach, it means: breath, wind, spirit.

So in verse 2 when we see the Spirit of the Lord, certainly we can speak of the Holy Spirit, and yet there is a sense that the idea being communicated is the breath of God, the Word of God, the heart of God.

The promise in verse 2 is that this branch of David would live out the very breath of God.

2 He Will Lead & Govern Perfectly (v. 2)

Next we see three separate pairs of ideas, ways in which the spirit of God manifests itself in the Branches reign.

This branch will be a true leader.

He will have the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.

This signifies that the branch will be leadership, administrative leadership, governmental leadership.

Perhaps you think of Isaiah 9:6 where we read that the government will be on his shoulders.

Secondly we see he will have the Spirit of counsel and might.

This is language used for war.

He will rule from strength and might.