God and Sinners Reconciled

Introduction

Everyone loves a feel good story - after all, that’s why Hallmark is all the rage this time of the year because every single Hallmark story has the exact same plot. There’s a girl, usually from a big city, who comes back home for Christmas and is stressed out due to a relationship or a job. She runs into a guy in the small town usually in a plaid shirt who is kind and helps her with something. The girl has a crisis and her wealthy boyfriend from the city doesn’t care about her and the audience begins to root against him and for the small town guy… fast forward and usually a dog shows up and after a conflict or two, the woman ends up with the small town guy and everyone “ewes” and “awes” because, we all love a feel good story. We like it whenever there is a moral principle or whenever there is a light of hope that is clear for all to see. We like it whenever there is resolution and reconciliation… not like those stories where there is unresolved conflict because that reminds us too much of reality! Think about how reconciliation happens, though. You usually have 2 people or 2 groups that are opposed because of an idea or a situation that one has wronged the other… through some sort of mediation, the one party forgives the other and they are reconciled to each other and everyone leaves happy because we like these stories!

Consider the End of the Spear - the movie about Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and several other missionaries to Ecuador who tragically were killed by a native tribe of villagers. These 5 men arrived to share the Gospel… but they were ambushed and speared down by native men. The world said that this was a tragedy. These young men had wasted their life. Fast forward a few years and several of the missionary’s family members began to try to establish contact with these villagers. Over time, the tribe began to welcome the outsiders in. One of the sons was even taken for a boat ride to the sandbar where his dad and the other men were killed. The leader of the tribe grabbed a spear and gave it to the young man, telling him to avenge his father. After holding the spear for a moment, he put it down and said, “No one took my father’s life - He gave it.” What had separated these 2 cultures was suddenly in the past. Their pain wasn’t completely gone, but their problem had been reconciled because of the grace offered by Jesus Christ and His Gospel message that changes hearts and lives. We love a good story about reconciliation… and isn’t this what Christmas is all about? The love of God that is revealed clearest in the work of Jesus Christ. The baby in Bethlehem sent to reconcile lost sinners to a holy God. This is what we celebrate at Christmas… but how could it happen? The problem between ourselves and God is our sin. How does Jesus solve that problem? How can He reconcile us to God? This morning as we continue looking at prophecies revealed and fulfilled, let’s turn to one of the most wellknown Old Testament promises about Jesus Christ in Isaiah 9 to see who exactly Jesus is and what exactly Jesus will do.

Isaiah 9:6–7 CSB

6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

God Proves His Love By Sending His Son

This is one of the most wellknown Old Testament passages about Jesus Christ and it’s one that many of us rejoice in every Christmas season, especially with these descriptions of what Jesus would do and who He would be. Isaiah shares that the people who walking in darkness have seen a great light! Think about all the darkness in the world at this point of human history, some 700 years before Christ. Gone are the days of Egyptian glory. The Assyrian’s are the new major world power in Isaiah’s time but they had a plethora of problems that plagued their government. You know why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, don’t you? They were infamous for their torture of other nationalities and religious groups. They left behind a pile of dead bodies behind their bus, to borrow from Mark Driscoll (not in a good way, either). What about other governments and leaders since then? The Greeks had logic and philosophy… but they had their fair share of problems as well when it came to ruling with morality. The Romans? They had technology and ingenuity and a wonderful republic, but they fell apart at the hands of wild barbarians who were bent on dictatorship. The middle ages were marked by moral failures at the hands of immoral leaders. The American Revolution desired to break away from this one person system and have a government established, “of the people, by the people, for the people” but we know that our government system is far from perfect because the people in power and the people of our country are sinful and broken… because we all are sinful and broken. We look around our world and we see every single governmental system in human history representing severe problems and we wonder where we can find genuine hope. Isaiah 9 serves as the basis for our Christian hope as God promises to send a Son and establish the government on His shoulders and that this king will rule on the throne of David forever. This is good news for God’s people, but they didn’t know when it would happen… but as we talked about last week, they had hope that one day these wrongs would be made right.

At Christmas, we celebrate the arrival of Jesus - the fulfillment of this promise. That God gave His Son… whenever we think of love we usually think of a feeling. I love this thing, I love going to this place, I love this person, I love playing this game, why? Because of the way that this thing or person makes us feel. We usually think of love in a feelings way. The Bible isn’t against this, we see in the Bible that love certainly is a feeling. But the Bible also shares with us that love is a fact - God IS Love! God LOVES His children! Our feelings don’t change those facts. God proves His love to us through action. Look with me in Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Before Jesus died for us, we see yet another example of God’s love in the most popular Bible verse in the world, John 3:16

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

This is the essence of Isaiah 9:6-7, God sent His Son. God demonstrates His love by giving of Himself… for US. Jesus came from the throne room to the delivery room, for us. Jesus came from the glory place to the gory place, for us. Jesus came from the place of exaltation to the place of humiliation, for us. He loves us. He died for us. This speaks of the humanity and divinity of Jesus - He would be born as a baby boy in Bethlehem and grow up to do what only God could do - forgive sins. Who is this Jesus? Savior, Shepherd, Son of God, Sacrificial Lamb, Snake Crusher, Suffering Servant, Sustainer, and so much more! Look at what Isaiah says about Jesus:

Wonderful Counselor

Mighty God

Eternal Father

Prince of Peace

Think through these together

Wonderful Counselor: This title indicates that the Messiah will do something with miraculous skill and give wise counsel in doing it. In looking to Jesus’ life, we know that the Jews were wanting a military leader to defeat the Romans. Yet, we see in the Gospel’s that the Messiah would do something even better: He would save them from their sins and give them wisdom for the days ahead.

The second term is Mighty God. The word mighty was used in the ancient world often in reference of mighty rulers and powerful warriors. The Messiah would be a mighty person but He would also be God. This highlights the hypostatic union of Jesus.

The third term is Eternal Father. This is another normal word coupled with a supernatural one. We all know Fathers and this is an everyday word for us, yet none of us are an eternal father. We have a birthdate and a death date. We are a father for a temporary time period. Yet, this Messiah will be an eternal father. A father from eternity past and a father for eternity to come. This only applies to God.

The last term is Prince of Peace. Our world looks for peace. The Roman world of Jesus’ day was one marked by relative peace - the Pax Romana. Yet, true worldly peace never lasts. Jesus’ Kingdom and reign, though, is marked by peace because He is the Prince of Peace. He gives us peace with God through His life, death, and resurrection!

These titles describe what Jesus will do and who He is in His character - yet, verse 7 gives us an even clearer picture into this mystery as Isaiah shares that He will reign and rule His Kingdom with justice and righteousness and His Kingdom will never end. So much could be said about this but we don’t have enough time to uncover all the gems of truth in this text.

Notice how this flows in Isaiah 9.

Isaiah 9 outline:

Light Breaks Through Darkness

God Defeats His Enemies

God’s Son Rules

How is any of this possible? Only through the love of God in reconciling straying, stubborn, sheep to Himself through His Son.

Maybe you’re here and you’re confused as to why exactly God had to send this baby who would rule and reign with justice and righteousness. Maybe you’re here and you acknowledge that this world is broken and there are bad leaders in place… but you might think that you yourself are ok. We have to rightly understand our need before we rejoice in God’s provision of Jesus. Let’s look to Ephesians 2:1-13

Ephesians 2:1–13 CSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. 11 So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. 12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

God sent His Son… why? Let’s see 2 reasons in Ephesians 2.

God Provides His Love to Lost Sinners

The song our choir sang earlier, Behold, shares this truth. “A sin-sick world needed saving… because though we tried and tried, we could not save ourselves.” This isn’t a particularly fun truth, but it is still the truth and we must reckon with it before it reckons with us. Look at the beginning of Ephesians 2 - we were dead in sins, walking in darkness, children under wrath. This isn’t just bad news, this is helpless news! It would be like this, 3 patients have heart disease and they go to their doctor for a checkup. The doctor comes back to each of them with the results of the scans and says this, “I have good news for you… but you won’t understand the good news unless I give you the bad news first. You have a serious complication because you chose to smoke and before you chose to smoke, you lived as a child in a smoking household and all of that smoke has impacted your lungs so severely that you will likely be dead within a year, unless you have a major surgery which, good news, we can do right away.”

The first patient says that this is outrageous news that has ruined his entire day… he immediately leaves the examination room.

The second patient says that this news isn’t accurate and that he is going to go to another doctor to offer another opinion because he doesn’t feel that bad and he knows plenty of people who have smoked longer and more than he has and they haven’t had serious problems or required surgery.

The third patient looks the doctor in the eye and says, “Doctor, I really don’t want to have this surgery… but I’m thankful that you told me the truth. I’m thankful that there is a treatment to my problem, please tell me more about it so that we can treat the issue!”

As sinners, we are not just kind of sick with a little cold. We are critically ill with a terminal diagnosis. Left to ourselves, we have no hope. We have to understand how broken and hopeless we are apart from Christ before we see the beauty and wonder of Christmas and Calvary! God provides His love to lost sinners. Look at verse 4-5, But God - rich in mercy because of His great love that He had for us - made us alive with Christ, you are saved by Grace! This is the best news of all.

We were dead… but God made us alive

We were children under wrath… but God poured out His wrath upon His Son

We were captive to the powers of this world… but Jesus defeated those foes and gives us victory

This isn’t what people expected… but it’s what we all needed! This isn’t all great news… it’s hopeless news at first. But without that reality, we’d fail to see the love of God on display at Christmas in sending a Savior to seek and save lost sinners.

Just as Isaiah 9 tells us that God’s light breaks through darkness, how He will defeat His enemies, and how His Son will Rule and reign, consider what Ephesians 2 tells us. We were walking in darkness as children under wrath… But God! Light breaks through darkness. God defeats our enemy of sin and death because of HIS great love. God’s Son Rules and purchased our salvation. God provides love to lost sinners and this is great news for who? Me and you - who either in our past were lost sinners or today are still lost sinners. We don’t receive this salvation because we deserve it - it’s simply because of God’s great mercy and love that He gives to us. This isn’t a conditional love in the sense of God promising to love us if we do our part perfectly and always check the right boxes… no, then it would be merited by us. This is an unmerited, amazing, adoptive, love from our Father given to people who could never earn or deserve it. God simply chose to give His Son and to give His love to a lost and dying world and to save all who would repent and believe in Christ as Lord and Savior. Have you done that? If you have, then we have a word for that and the word is “Saved” - you have been saved from the penalty of your sin, you are being saved from the power of sin, and one day you will be saved from the presence of sin. Not because of how awesome you are… but because of WHO your God is and WHAT your God has done.

God Promises to Love His People Eternally

Not only does God’s love impact people in this life, but the love of God reaches down to impact humans for all eternity. Once you are saved, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and you are secured in the hands of a God who doesn’t know how to drop His children. This means that once the love reaches you and gives you a new heart, you have a promise from God that you will be with Him forever. Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us that it isn’t our works that save, it is Jesus’ work on the cross. We confess our sin, we trust in Jesus’ work, we follow Him as Lord, and we are saved. As those who are saved, look at verse 10, what are you supposed to do? To work - not to save yourself, but to demonstrate the love and grace and holiness of your Savior. Christian, there is work for you to do today… not to earn God’s grace, but to do in gratitude for His glory and His saving of your soul. We can think of grace like this: God’s Rewards At Christ’s Expense. What did it take for you and me to be saved? It took Jesus coming to this earth… living a perfect life… dying in our place on the cross… raising from the grave… ascending back to heaven to prepare a place for His followers. This is costly! God’s love is costly - because of His love for us He gave His Son. Because of Jesus’ love for His Father and His followers, He gave His life. 1 John 4:10

1 John 4:10 ESV

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What does that word, propitiation, mean? It means to forgive sins by satisfying the judgment of the party that was wronged. God sent His Son into this world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. Jared Wilson shares it like this, “If this truly was God’s plan from eternity past, and if God’s love was confirmed and expressed climactically in the satisfaction realized by the cross of Christ… this means that God’s not mad at you. No more hoops, no more hurdles. You don’t have to measure up to earn His favor. He is eternally pleased with you not because of your sacrifices, but because of Christ.” We have an eternal hope because of what Jesus has done.

Because of the cradle, you can trust in God’s promises in the Old Testament to remember His people living in darkness as light entered this world. Because of the cross, you can trust in God’s promise to redeem and rescue and regenerate sinners into saints and to save us for all eternity from the stain of sin. We once had no hope… we were outside the covenant. We were broken. We were walking in darkness as children under wrath.. But God has brought us near. Immanuel, God with us.

Just as in Isaiah 9, we see this same flow in Ephesians 2

We were in darkness and under wrath… but light broke through

Light Breaks Through Darkness

We were God’s enemies… but God saved us

God Defeats His Enemies

We were without hope… but in Christ we have living hope

God’s Son Rules

What have you done with this Jesus? His grace still saves. His love still changes lives. During Christmas, we see the love of God on display in sending Jesus… we need His love to impact our lives in many ways, let’s conclude with 3 ways

God’s Love Must Awaken My Heart

First, if you are here and you don’t know this Jesus, you must understand that you need His love to awaken your dead heart. Our world says to follow our heart, but that advice has led more people to devastation and destroyed more relationships than any piece of advice in human history. Our heart is fallen and defective. We need Jesus to give us a new heart. As we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate the truth that the love of God still changes hearts.

God’s Love Must Change My Attitude

Every Christian must have an attitude of gratitude as we reflect on God sending His Son into this world to seek and save us from our sins

God’s Love Must Compel My Actions

Every Christian is called to glorify God in all that we do. This means that we must be ambassadors for God’s Kingdom and share His love with a hopeless world. We were once far off and separated from God… but He sent His Son to reconcile us. We are saved to serve and to tell of His Gospel message that alone can save sinners and provide love, hope, and joy to a crazy world. As you go throughout the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, pray that God would compel you to do His work that He has prepared ahead of time for you to do.