Looking For A Sign
Notes
Transcript
Watch Clip
Have you ever felt like that where you ask God for a sign?
And meanwhile everything around you seems like it is just falling apart.
because today we are starting out in Isaiah 7:1-17 and in this passage we see a person asking God for a sign
But this sign is something that changes everything
And this is actually the start of our sermon series called unto us and its our Advent Sermon series leading into Christmas.
And really throughout the Old Testement once sin entered the world, the people began realizing they needed a savior,
because sin has twisted the beautiful world that God has created, and made it just broken
And so as early as Genesis, you can see references to this Savior coming and so what we will be doing leading up to Christmas, is we will be looking at some of these references (mostly found in Isaiah) and will be diving into them.
Because Advent is season of waiting and longing for Jesus to come and in the Old Testement we see this happening for thousands of years.
And so we are going to be jstarting with Isaiah 7:1-2 and this gives us the background on whats happening. It says this:
1 In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. 2 When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
So just to give the background here the Hebrew people were originally one nation made up of 12 tribes,
however when conflict arose it caused this nation to split into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom
And both of these kingdoms were far from God,
In fact the king we are talking about was known to be aawful where he worshiped other gods, made pour decsions, and at one point he even sacrafices his own son.
And because the people are so far from God, its where they are not just far from God, but they are far from eachother.
And there is division among the tribes
and so what I want us to understand is the picture we are getting in this story is ugly.
because it all culminates in what we just read where we see some of the tribes making alliances where they are planning to attack one of the kingdoms called Judah, where Ahaz was king.
And all this is happening and verse 2 sums up how everything is going, because it says the heart of Ahaz and the people are shaken like the tree in the forest are shaken by the wind.
I mean I don’t know about you but I read that verse and went wow I relate to that.
Because when you look at the world things seem broken, things seem tense.
The world is divided, our country has so much division, people are not chasing God how they should,
And I read this passage in the Old Testement and I go wow I see a little bit of our world there.
And I say a little bit because what the people are experiancing here was much more intense.
But its easy to get to this place where we are shaken,
And It almost feels like this snow globe is where we live and someone just came up to it and began to just shake it over and over again)
And we aare just going what in the world is happening.
And if you do not feel it on a worldwide scale I imagine you feel it in your personal life.
We lie awake at night, we do not eat because of our anxiety, we do not know how to stay a float financially and we feel shaken.
And I know this is a lot, but I want us to see the major hope in this passage because while the world and our lives are shaken, look what happens in the next few verses of this story.
Isaiah 7:3-8 says this:
3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field. 4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “ ‘It will not take place, it will not happen, 8 for the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is only Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
So the world is shaken but do did you catch what God does, because it would have been easy to go king Ahaz is a terrible person, lets let him be flounder.
But he actually sends a prophet named Isaiah to them
And He tells them be careful, be quite, do not fear, do not let your heart faint
Isn’t it interesting that the message God gives Isaiah here is not a doomsday message, but its actually a calming one, where its almost like God is saying “take a breath”
And God actually says these two kingdoms are like smouldering stumps.
The BSV (Brendan Shea Version) would be they look scary!
Because when something is smoking its scary
Some of you know this but I am only 29 (so I do not have a ton of real world experience) but when we got the church oven and I usd it for the first time I did not realize that new ovens smoke a little the first few times
And so I saw the smoke and I thought oh no… we just finished the church remodels and I caught the church on fire.
but it was not a fire it was just a little bit of smoke that stopped 2 minutes later and left a funky smell for the rest of the day.
And I think in life so often we see the smoke, and we let our minds just run with it.
And so often these concerns might be valid, but often times God is saying hold on a second lets look at whats actually happening.
Because at least if you are like me sometimes this might be what the problem is (hold up balloon)
and we see this issue in our life and its a real issue
but then we focus on it so much that we begin to pump air into it
And we go what if this happened, and then this and this
and before we know it our tiny little problem looks so much bigger.
And its still the same thing, but it looks a lot larger.
And I think what we need to see here is that so ofteen the things like this are just a season.
its a smouldering stump.
it looks scary, but in the grand scheme of things, its not as damaging as we think and maybe there is a possibility it will not even happen.
And you proably saw this, but in verse 8 of this passage, God actually tells them that these people attacking them will be gone in 65 years.
And look at the second half of verse 9 because God tells Isaiah to say
Isaiah 7:9 (NIV)
… If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’ ”
So He says in the middle of the shaken world, be calm, but also stand firm.
I mean we should be rooting ourselves in Christ, because its easy to run to God when the crisis happens, or even when things are good,
But standing firm is not just standing firm in good days or bad days, but its standing in God from the best day to the worse day.
I mean think about how when a building is built for everyhting that building will encounter,.
It its in an area wiht huricanes it can withstandhigh winds, the design the buildings to be able to hold snow, It its in an area where there are earthquakes, they probably plan for that.
I mean they plan on the building holding up in the best of weather and the worse.
And really in our walk with God we want to be a people that stand firm when things are going amazing and when they are going terrible.
Because while buildings deaerate over time the amazing thing is when we stand firm, we get more and more rooted where we can weather the storm that comes our way and trust God through it.
And lets look at the last part of this because this gives us the why and it also tells us about this sign that we talked about look at verses 10-17. It says:
10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.” 13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
So Ahaz sees this Chaos and God actually tells Ahaz ask for a sign.
And remember Ahaz is not a great guy, and He goes nah… I don’t want to test you…
And people believe the real reason is Ahaz may have not wanted to actually hear from God.
But God has Isiah tell Ahaz the most amazing sign.
Because He says the Lord himself will come to you aand give you a sign.
And not just that but we see Him actually prophecy hundrends of years later which is Jesus coming as a baby.
And I want us to catch this because this is one of the most amazing signs that God could have done.
Because the world we live in can feel like it has been shaken.
but God tells Ahaz I am coming.
And because of Jesus coming we begin to see Him begin to create beauty out a world that has been shaken, so now instead of our lives just feeling shaken and thats it.
We have a God that takes the shaken pieces and puts them back together in the most beautiful way.
And as we enter the season of Advent, I think it is a time where we look forward to rmemember Jesus coming as a baby, but its also a time where we look forward to the day where Christ will come again.
A day where there He comes to make everything right where there is no more pain, no more sorrow.
And we stop looking at the world and our lives as shaken, but its a world where we live in the presence of God and all the brokeness has been made new.
Will you pray with me?