A Thrill of Hope - Part 2 - “The Foundation of Our Hope”

A Thrill of Hope - Part 2 // “The Foundation of our Hope”

Isaiah 9:6 // Mt. Zion Baptist Church #65 // Dr. Quentin Self

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WELCOME // Good morning faith family, and Merry Christmas Eve to you!

Let’s open the Word of God together on this beautiful Christmas Eve morning. Please turn with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 9.

If you were here last week, you know what’s going on. If you were NOT here last week, or maybe you’re just in town for the holidays, we started a mini-series through the first seven verses of Isaiah chapter 9.

Even if you are not a Christian, or this is one of the few times you come to church in the year, you will probably recognize this passage, or at least the last couple of verses in this passage.

Last week, we covered the first five. This week and next week, we’re hitting those last two. And the moment you hear them you will be like, “Oh yeah, I have heard this before,” especially verse 6, which we are covering today.

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But my prayer for you this morning is that this verse hits home like it never has before. You may have heard it every Christmas since you can remember. You may have seen it in your mailbox on a thousand Christmas cards. And at this point, it may still sound beautiful, but if you’re honest, maybe just maybe it has started to sound a little bit like white noise.

You read it at Christmas time, go, “Isn’t that nice?” Then it’s back to the egg nog and pecan pie before it even really starts to sink in.

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And you need to let this verse sink in.

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The late great patron saint of Fried Chicken, Mr. Truett S. Cathy once said,

“How do you know someone needs encouragement?” . . . “If they are breathing!”

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It’s the same way with hope. “How do you know if someone needs a little help feeling hopeful?” . . . “If they are breathing.”

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God gave us this passage in Isaiah chapter 9, to give us a “Thrill of Hope.”

And not the kind of thrill that comes and goes and leaves you in the ditch.

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No, the hope we have as God’s children is an unfading hope that stays with us through every trial and every triumph life can throw our way.

And, yes, I said “triumph,” because it’s not just the trials that burst our bubble and leave us hopeless. It’s even the “triumphs” of life, because if you live long enough, it is easy to become at least a little bit cynical about it all . . . even the good things.

Because, you know, “It’s good now, . . . but just you wait and see what’s around the conrer. After every peak there’s a valley!”

And instead of being hopeful, we become cynical.

Instead of living like we know our future is bright—even if times now are tough!—we live like the future is dark—even if times now are good.

Y’all, that’s no way to live. Nobody wants to live like that.

But for the child of God—for the Christian—cynicism is not just “no way to live” . . . it is, in fact, contrary to the facts of who we are and what we have been given in Christ.

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Because, what Isaiah 9:1-7 teaches us, and what we find all throughout the Bible, is the truth that:

No matter the trial or the triumph, our heritage of unfading hope is as sure as the heart of God. (1a, 7b)

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And that is a promise you can take to the bank.

That is a promise you can sink your teeth into.

There is no time, no season, no circumstance where the promise of unfading hope is not helpful and relevant.

The concept of hope is universal; everybody feels it from time to time. Everybody needs it all the time.

But the concept of unfading hope is completely foreign. Every “Thrill of Hope” we as people can carve our for ourselves or get our hands on, is fading. It is temporary. It will not last. Even if it lasts a longtime or a lifetime, it’s just a matter of time before it runs out.

And if we are honest with ourselves, and can sober ourselves up enough from our smartphones to face reality, that realization will make you cynical.

. . . UNLESS, you know where to find a source of true hope, that never fades away, never runs out, and only gets stronger with time.

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And here’s the good new this Christmas season—if you know about Jesus, you know where to find it.

That’s kind of what this Christmas season is all about—NOT us finding hope for ourselves, but God the Son leaving heaven to find US and fill US with unfading hope.

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In case you missed last week, or are in a Christmas Cookie Coma and just need a little refresher, let me show you real quick where this main point comes from in the text, so you know I’m not making it up.

Isaiah 9:1, 7 (ESV)

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. . . . The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Here are the first and last phrases in the passage we’re looking at.

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Isaiah gives his main point to us like book-ends. You know what book-ends are, right? Those thinks you put on either end of a shelf to keep the books in the middle from falling down and falling off the shelf and breaking your toe.

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Isaiah starts out with some good news:

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

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That is a promise of unfading hope. “No gloom.” Not “a little bit of gloom.” Or, “There will be a sunny day, or a few sunny days, then a lot more dark ones to come.”

No, the promise is ultimate and timeless . . . “There will be NO GLOOM.”

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Which sounds too good to be true? Doesn’t it?

You betcha. And it would have especially sounded too good to be true for the original people the Lord was speaking to through Isaiah—those people “who were in anguish.”

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Their story had already been a bunch of “ups and downs.”

You know the story of the people of Israel. Trial after Triumph after Trial after Triumph. Victory, defeat. Obedience, disobedience. Over and over and over again.

That’s where we get the “trial” and “triumph” part of the main point.

And the latest news they’d just gotten from Isaiah was not too peachy of a picture.

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Basically, he said, “Your kinfolk to the North are going to get conquered. You won’t, but you will be oppressed by their conquerers for a century or so, . . . THEN you will get conquered by the people who come along and conquer them.”

They’re going to have a triumph. They will be delivered from an imminent attack, which is reason to be hopeful. But it is NOT an unfading hope. It has an expiration date. Which makes you wonder:

If hope is fading, is it really hope at all?

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But, these are the people—the people who were, and who would yet again be in anguish—to whom God is talking, and to whom God made the promise:

For them, “there will be NO gloom.”

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How can this be?

Isaiah explains the details of it, in the in between verses, but that last part, that last phrase in verse seven, is like an unbreakable seal on the promise. It is like the Ace up the sleeve. It is the absolute guarantee that this will come to pass;

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“The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”

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This promise of unfading hope . . . is as sure as the heart of God.

The God of “angel armies” . . . which is basically what “hosts” mean, that’s the one who crafted this plan and that’s the one who is seeing it to completion. Which means it is as good as done.

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No matter the trial or the triumph, our heritage of unfading hope is as sure as the heart of God.

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And when we get to verse 6, Isaiah gives us a little more detail on that promise.

So let’s read and find out.

Before we read, you know the drill . . . let’s take a moment just to be still, and get our listening ears turned on. Then I will pray and we will read Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6.

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STILLNESS

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PRAYER

Father, as we are about to read your Word, we surrender to your authority in your Word.

Work now to do in our lives what you have inspired this verse to do—fill us with the hope that is only found in Jesus.

We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

In the book of Isaiah, chapter 9 verse 6, the Word of God says:

Isaiah 9:6 (ESV)

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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And all God’s people said, “Merry Christmas.” I don’t know if there is a more iconically “Christmas” passage of Scripture. I mean, you have the Christmas story in the gospel of Luke, but I wouldn’t say it is any more Christmas than this one.

“To us a child is born! To us a son is given!” . . . Can you not smell the evergreen and hot cocoa when you hear those words?

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But before it was a Christmas passage for us today, it was probably a bit of a confusing passage for the people in Isaiah’s day.

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The five verses before this, that we studied last week, would have been right up in their face—people, names, places, concepts they could understand. It told about the deliverance that they would experience from the Assyrians and Babylonians. But, as amazing as it was and as amazing as it sounds, it is still a momentary triumph.

It still does not explain how that promise of “NO gloom,” of unfading hope, can come to be.

And as Isaiah moves on to verse 6, he is saying, “That momentary deliverance I described in verses 1 through 5, its main purpose was to serve as “A Foretaste” of the Unfading hope that God will give his people in the long run.

But though just a foretaste, and though just momentary, the hope described there that you experienced in that temporary triumph—was, nevertheless, real. It is not a hope that gives way to cynicism, because of what I’m about to show you in verse 6.”

And here in verse 6, what Isaiah describes is “The Foundation of Hope.”

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Why could the people of Israel endure the trials and triumphs, and everything in between without giving way to cynicism?

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given . . .”

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The foundation of their hope, in their context, long centuries before the birth of the Messiah, was anchored in the identity of the Messiah.

So, this morning, in light of verse 6, we can expand our main point like this:

No matter the trial or the triumph, our heritage of unfading hope is as sure as the heart of God, because of who Jesus is.

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Who Jesus is. Who the Messiah who would be born. That is what Isaiah is telling us in verse 6.

He will come as a child, as a baby. The government will rest upon his shoulder. He will be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

That is the foundation of their hope.

The “Thrill of Hope” they felt with every triumph. And the “Thrill of Hope” they held on to with every trial, was more than wishful thinking because it rested upon an unshakable foundation—the identity of a Messiah who would one day come.

And so, with every trial and triumph and everything in between, we know that when a “Thrill of Hope” shoots through our hearts, it’s not just the sugar cookies talking. It’s not just the sentimentality of the season stirring us up, just to let us down hard when the Christmas lights go out.

No, the thrill of hope we have as God’s children is as sure as the heart of God, because the Messiah has come, and his name is Jesus.

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We know a whole lot more about the Messiah than Isaiah did back in his day. I mean, we have four whole books in the Bible all about his life, and 23 other books in the New Testament unpacking what it all means.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to still look back and a thing or two or twenty from way God foretold the person and work of Jesus through this prophet named Isaiah.

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First off, Isaiah tells us, that:

The foundation of our hope is the One who came as a child like no other, to reign like no other. (6a)

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, . . .”

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We see this in the very first part of verse 6. You will have to forgive the verse designations here. 6 a, 6 b, 6c, and so on. I tried to get as much of the alphabet in as I could. I like to tell you on the slide and in the handout where the point comes from, so you know I’m not making it up. That’s just a little bit harder when you’re preaching from one verse, but you get the idea.

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The foundation of our hope, is the one who came as a child like no other.

Isaiah starts out, “For to us a child is born.”

The point is clear—the anchor of all our hope is going to come into the world as a new born baby. Which is surprising and shocking, and a little bit NOT what we might expect.

So, the people who first read this might have thought, “Well, we didn’t really want to wait on a baby to grow up, but—at least when he does grow up, he’ll be awesome and strong. I mean, everybody starts out as a baby. Even the Rock Dwayne Johnson started out as a baby. He was not born with biceps bigger than my head. Nor was Shaquille O’Neal born the 7 foot whatever giant he is.

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But the next thing Isaiah says, makes it clear—yes, the Messiah will come as a child, but not just any child. This child will be like no other.

That is the sense of what Isaiah is getting at with the next part— “to us a son is given.”

Which, would have made less sense to the people first reading it. They would have understood where babies come from. The first phrase— “To us a child is born”—lines up perfectly with that reality of how things work.

This second phrase— “to us a son is given” — does not line up so well.

“Son” carries the idea of authority. A King’s lineage and inheritance and right to rule is passed down through a son.

And this “son” is not just born to us, no, he is “given.”

And that is where the first readers’ wheels would have started turning. A child can either be born to you, biologically. OR given to you, via adoption, or someone entrusting their child to you . . . but not both.

Except, Isaiah is saying THIS child who is going to save us, well, he is BOTH born AND given.

Which is exactly how it played out with Jesus. He was born biologically from the womb of Mary. But Mary was a virgin—he was given supernaturally, directly from God via God the Holy Spirit. And he is the ONLY child to have ever come into the world that way.

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The foundation of our hope is the One who came as a child like no other. . .

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. . . and this child like no other came with a rather specific objective in mind.

. . . this child like no other came . . . to reign like no other.

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Jesus came to establish God’s Kingdom in the world. The opening line of his ministry was, “Repent, for . . . the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

When he taught us to pray in the sermon on the mount, at the heart of that “Lord’s Prayer” is “Let your Kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

But it is a false idea to think that heaven and earth are like two polar opposites, contrary to one another. As if our goal in life is to escape this world and go float on a cloud in “heaven.” That’s not the Bible’s picture of heaven at all. God’s plan for the world is to bring heaven and earth together. To tear down the present division and disparity between the two, and unite them in harmony, just as they were made to be.

God’s Kingdom, no longer invisible to us, but undeniably real. His good creation, restored and redeemed from the curse of sin, and His glory filling the earth like water the seas. . . . The whole earth, as it were, raised from the dead, free from decay and destruction—just like the glorified body of Jesus when he ruse from the dead, the very kind of bodies we are promised to inherit when Christ returns.

Jesus came to REIGN.

Jesus is the King of all creation, as Colossians says, things visible and invisible.

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And reign he will.

That is what Isaiah means by saying “the government shall be upon his shoulder.”

The Hebrew word for “government” is not so much the systems and structures and big machine bureaucracy we typically think of when we hear the word “government.” It is a simpler, purer term, more along the lines of “dominion” or “authority.”

It is simply saying, “he will reign.”

“All authority, in heaven and on earth, will have been given to him.” Sounds familiar, right?

All authority will rest upon his shoulder. And he will not strain or falter or flutter under its weight.

Absolute power will not corrupt him absolutely, or even infinitesimally. It will not corrupt him in the slightest. He will reign perfectly. Which is the essence of what sets him apart as the one who reigns “like no other.”

There has never been a perfect ruler. Nor has there ever been a truly absolute ruler. Nor has there ever been a ruler who’s exercise of authority has outlived them.

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The names that follow, in the rest of the verse are Isaiah’s way of summing up why Jesus will be able to reign like no other.

Simply put, he will reign like no other, because of who he is.

And he is . . . “Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

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As Wonderful Counselor, He reigns with wisdom unfathomable. (6b)

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The idea of “wonderful” is awe-inspiring.

The idea of “counselor” is one who gives counsel. One who makes decisions.

The idea of that title is that the wisdom of his decisions and plans and methods of operating his perfect government will leave us breathless.

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Y’all, we’re about to head into an election year. We are going to hear non-stop news feeds and tv commercials full of promises and plans, and a lot of them are going to be half part lie half part non-sense. Somewhere in there might be a good idea, but usually, the way things work, really good ideas in the government die someone between the lobbyists and the lawyers.

And the reality of non-sensical, unwise decisions from people who are supposed to represent “We the People” gets really frustrating, doesn’t it.

Two things to take away from this verse:

Number 1, don’t get hopeless in the face of helpless politicians. We have a ruler coming who is going to reign forever whose “wisdom is unfathomable.”

Number 2, don’t get frustrated if you won’t get involved. Vote. Pray for our politicians. Support bible-believing, born again people going into politics. If you’re geared that way and don’t know why you enjoy wearing business suits and power ties, maybe just maybe God is calling YOU to step into the political arena and represent his “will being done on earth as it is in heaven,” in the meantime while we await the return of Jesus bringing heaven to earth once and for all.

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Second . . .

As Mighty God, He reigns with strength unmatched. (6c)

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This one right here is mind-blowing, and would have been especially mind-blowing to those first readers.

Isaiah already said this guy would come as a baby, who would be born, to a woman . . . and now, Isaiah is calling him “Mighty God.”

They didn’t have a word for it. We call it, the “Doctrine of the Incarnation.” God taking on human flesh. God becoming man. And it is precisely what we celebrate at Christmas time.

Mighty God, the creator of all things, coming down to earth small enough to fit in a cradle . . . except he didn’t have a cradle; he had to be laid in a feeding trough. But God didn’t give Isaiah that detail.

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And the fact that he is God, means that he is MIGHTY.

Which mean that when he reigns, he reigns like no other because his strength is unmatched.

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And that means you can live with UNFADING HOPE, right now, and for the rest of your life. Because no matter the bad days you’re living in, no matter the bad days you’ve got coming your way, no matter the enemies stacked up against you, Jesus is stronger.

The foundation of your hope is not your strength to tackle whatever comes up against you, but Jesus’ strength.

And that’s good news. Because I have days I feel unstoppable, and I have days where all I want to do is sit on the couch, eating cookies and cream ice cream and watching re-runs of Boy Meets World. My strength is an unreliable foundation.

But Jesus’ strength is an undeniable, unshakable foundation.

Why? Because he is Mighty God.

He is fully man, he was the child that was born. But he is also God. He is the God-man.

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Third title,

As Everlasting Father, He reigns with compassion unceasing. (6d)

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It would be easy here to get into the weeds of discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus is God the Son, not God the Father, . . . but he is One with the Father, and there is only one God.

You can see how that might just tie our brains up in a knot.

Though we hear “Father” and think, “God the Father, first member of the Trinity,” that is NOT the first thing that would have come to Isaiah’s readers’ minds.

Kings in the Ancient Near East had the habit of referring to themselves as the peoples’ “father.” It was a self-proclaimed deal. The people weren’t volunteering for that. It was imposed upon them.

And, for most, if not all of those Ancient Kings, the title did not match their behavior. They were anything BUT fatherly.

But here, Isaiah is taking that bad experience, and replacing it with a good one.

He is saying, the Messiah to come, this child like no other, born to reign like no other—because he is the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace,” his “fathering” of us as a ruler will like nothing we have ever seen before.

It will match up to the title “father” in all the best ways.

A father is supposed to be a picture of compassion. . . the one who provides and sets the thermostat for the home on a good trajectory. He has standards and expectations and bears responsibility, but—the ideal father does all that without compromising (even for a second) his compassion for his children. No matter how tired or worn out he is, he is always compassionate towards those for whom he is responsible.

But every human father has limits and flaws and—despite how hard he tries—will run out of compassion from time to time.

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But as “Everlasting Father,” the compassion of the Messiah King will never run out. No matter how many times we fail him or turn our backs on him or trip up and stumble or do that thing again that he’s told us not to do a thousand times over.

And, unlike those oppressive kings who had the audacity to call themselves “father” who used their subjects as footstools for their own advancement, the compassion of the Christ would lead him to lay down his very life for those he came to rule.

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Fourth and finally,

Isaiah says that Jesus will be called “Prince of Peace,” and . . .

As Prince of Peace, He reigns with an agenda unblemished. (6e)

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The word for “Peace” is a very popular word in the Hebrew language and in the whole biblical picture of what God is up to in the world.

It is the word “Shalom.”

The word can be used in the simplest of ways for “peace” in our hearts and peaceful situations.

Or, it can be used in the grandest, most magnificient of ways as a description of what things will be like when God wraps it all up and ties a bow on all of his work in human history.

It is perfection. It is unending harmony. It is the idea of the cosmos at rest, everything as it should be, not one drop of anxiety or worry or fear or heartache or frustration. Just life as it was designed to be. It is that sensation of pure satisfaction you get, when it is a 72 degree springtime evening, and you’ve had a good day of satisfying work, and the house is all tidied, and all your loved ones are accounted for and well and happy, and your belly is full, but not too full, and . . . you do not want that moment to end.

Shalom.

Isaiah calls Jesus the “prince” of Shalom.

The “ruler” or “leader” of Shalom . . . The word translated ‘prince’ is not so much the idea of the King’s Son as much as one who exercises authority.

The idea of “prince” here is one who carries out the agenda for the Kingdom.

And Isaiah is telling us here, that what is on God’s agenda for all creation and everything in it . . . is Peace.

God’s motive, in all his doings, in all his work, in all his providential orchestration of everything in human history is to establish His PEACE throughout the cosmos and in the hearts of those who are His children.

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The question before you this morning is this:

Are you His child?

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The heritage of God’s children is one of unfading hope.

But it is for God’s children . . . if you still stand outside of the family of God, no matter how hard you try, the only hope you can get your hands on will be a short-term, fleeting kind of hope.

And that is because, unfading hope is only found . . . by believing in that “Child like no other” who was born to “reign like no other” . . .

Jesus Christ.

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Turn from your sins today. Trust in him, and find unfading hope for the very first time.

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We are taking communion this morning.

Bread that signifies Jesus’ broken body.

A cup that signifies His shed blood.

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It is easy to take the “Silent Night” of the Christmas season, and all the warmth of the Nativity story and forget the “Dark Night” that Christ Child was destined for.

He came to reign like no other . . .

. . . he can do that because he IS like no other.

Just as those special names tell us.

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But his reign like no other, at the very heart and pinnacle of it all, is the fact of his death.

He reigns like no other because his path to the throne came through a cross.

Isaiah said, the “ZEAL of the Lord will do this.” You want to know how zealous God’s heart is for his children? How zealously he wants to fill us with an unfading hope… look at the cross.

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You know, I doubt the night of his birth was all that silent. I mean, there were moments when he was asleep. But he was a baby. Baby’s get hungry and they get loud.

Nevertheless. . . Though he came in to the world on a Silent Night, his reason for coming was so that 33 some odd years later, he would be betrayed by a close friend under the cover of night, so the Father’s will could be done—though he had no sins of his own, he would die for the sins of God’s children.

But then . . . he would rise again, proving the sins were paid in full.

And if you respond to that good news this morning, a kind of HOPE that only comes from a risen-from-the-dead savior will fill your heart.

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DEACONS . . . MUSICIANS

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As we take communion, 1 Corinthians 11 tells us that we “Proclaim [Jesus’] death until he comes.”

He came the first time, as a child like no other.

He came to reign like no other.

He is reigning, though we cannot fully see it right now.

But there is coming a day when he will reign, and ALL will see it.

So we, proclaim his death until he comes . . .

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COMMUNION INSTRUCTIONS

Take this time to examine yourself.

How hopeful are you? Maybe you’re trying to draw hope from the wrong place.

Christian, use this time to re-center your hope on Christ.

Non-Christian, this bread and cup are not for you . . . at least not yet.

You need to use this time to give your life to Christ. Pray to him. Talk to him, right there in your seat. Tell him you are a sinner, that you are hopeless to save yourself without him. And trust him.

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Deacons will dismiss you row by row to come forward. If you can’t make it forward, raise your hand and one of them will serve you.