The Good King of Christmas

Well, here we are, the week of Christmas, the day that we’ve been waiting for, preparing for. You are prepared, aren’t you?

Some of you just felt a knot in your stomach, didn’t you? Something happens with adulthood, doesn’t it? Something happens with Christmas. When we were kids, the day couldn’t get here fast enough. I mean, we would count down the days with anticipation, excitement, enthusiasm. Now, with the weight of responsibility, the pressure not to disappoint the kids, the family, our friends—whoever…we still count down the days, but instead of anticipation and excitement, it’s dread, anxiety, angst.

To the point that, if you find yourself there, you wonder, “What’s the point?”

What I want to do this morning is remind you of the point. And I’ll just tell you. It’s probably not what your kids are excited about. And it’s probably not what got you excited about Christmas when you were little.

The point is not exchanging gifts. Even though we have nothing against that. On the contrary, we are very much FOR generous giving. It’s just not the point.

And neither is the little elf that sneaks around your house in the night. Or the big guy in red that sneaks INTO your house at night on Christmas Eve. As fun as that is, it’s not the point of Christmas either.

So, what is it? What is the real point of Christmas, the thing that IS worth excitedly anticipating and celebrating?

Simply put, the point of Christmas is that a King is born. Matthew reminds us of this in his Christmas narrative, Matthew 2:1-2:

Matthew 2:1–2 NASB 2020

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

“Where is He who has been born KING?” Matthew tells us that the Magi, the Wise Men, as they are called, these foreign intellectuals, diplomats from the East,, they followed a star to Jerusalem to find the King.

But, ironically, no one in Jerusalem knew about this King, because no one in Jerusalem in that day expected Him. They were busy going about life, making the most of life under an oppressive Roman government with a joke of an earthly king.

And they were SO busy just going through the empty motions of survival that WHEN a King was born—when THE King was born—they missed it.

I don’t want you to miss it this week. I don’t want you to be so wrapped up in the superficial traditions of Christmas that you miss the Goodness of it.

Because it’s not just that a King was born on Christmas. Jesus is not just any King. Jesus is the Good King.

If you have the bible with you this morning, I want to invite you to turn with me to that passage that we read together earlier, Isaiah 11, verses 1 through 10. What we’re going to do today is just make our way through this passage, and as we do that, I hope you’ll ask God to remind you, or maybe show you for the first time the true Goodness of Christmas.

In fact, let’s do that now.

(Pray)

Before we dive into the text here, it’s important that we understand where we are in the Word of God.

Isaiah, of course, is a book in the Old Testament, and it’s written about a prophet named—you guessed it—Isaiah.

Isaiah was good man, a faithful prophet, who lived during a very UNfaithful time in the history of God’s people. Their king, a guy named Ahaz, worshipped false God. He even sacrificed—murdered his own son, sacrificing him to one of the ancient pagan religions of the day. Just a terrible guy.

And in this passage, Isaiah is encouraging the people. Judgement is coming. God will judge their wickedness, their evil practices of injustice. God will not let them continue on in their willful rebellion.

But judgement will not be the end of the story. This people would not endure an evil king forever. One day, there would be born a man of promise, a Messiah, a Good King.

We see it right here in verse 1. Look at it with me. Isaiah 11:1-2:

Isaiah 11:1–2 NASB 2020

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

“A shoot will shoot off the stem of Jesse.” In case you don’t know, Jesse was the father of King David, Israel’s greatest king up to that point. David was a good king overall. The Lord once called him “a man after God’s own heart.” David was a good king, a great king, but he wasn’t a perfect king.

He had the whole thing with Bathsheba, getting her pregnant and arranging for her husband to be killed in battle. And then his son, Jesse’s grandson, Solomon, was a great king, an extraordinarily powerful king, a very wise king, but Solomon brought idolatry into the kingdom, ultimately dividing the kingdom and leading them away from their God.

And from that point forward, it just got worse and worse and worse, generation after generation of some decent kings, many terrible kings, but in the end no real Good Kings.

And that brings us to the first thing Isaiah wants us to recognize about this Good King. Again, generation after generation of okay and terrible kings, but Isaiah wants his people to see Him when He comes. And the first thing he wants them (and us) to recognize is…

The Good King’s Spirit:

Again, terrible kings…until 2000 years ago when wise men showed up at Herod’s door looking for the King of the Jews.

Jesus was a descendent of David on His mom’s side and His earthly father’s side. He had a legitimate claim to the throne as a Son of David. That’s why Herod tried to have Him killed.

But it wasn’t just His heritage. When Jesus was baptized, inaugurating His ministry, all the gospels tell us that “the Spirit of the Lord (the Holy Spirit) literally rested on Him. Like, it was visible, made visible so it could be witnessed as a fulfillment of this prophecy.

And here’s the thing. For those of us who accept Jesus, who receive the salvation that Jesus offers, that same Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Counsel, Strength, Knowledge, Fear of the Lord—that same Spirit rests on us!

He is the Good King! Jesus is the long-awaited Good King, and He is here! The power of His Spirit is present with us today!

Jesus, the Good King, has come, and we know He has come, we can testify that He has come, because wehave experienced the power of His Spirit. Let’s keep reading. Pick up in verse 3:

Isaiah 11:3–4 NASB 2020

And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make decisions by what His ears hear; But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the humble of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

So, again, we want to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of all these prophecies, prophecies written 700 years before Jesus was born.

Isaiah says that, as the Good King, the Messiah will not judge by His own personal agenda. Can you imagine a leader, a ruler, a politician like that today? Someone who actually makes decisions according to what is right rather than what’s politically expedient?

He will even judge the poor, but He’ll do it with righteousness. the poor don’t get a pass just because they’re poor. The humble don’t get a pass just because they’re humble, but whatever judgement they receive, it will be right, simply because of the goodness of this King.

When Isaiah says that He’ll strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and that He’ll “slay the wicked” with His breath, he’s not saying that the Messiah will need A MINT in a bad way. He’s saying that, through His words, He will convict and change hearts.

He won’t need an army to advance His Kingdom. The Good King brings justice simply through His Word.

And that brings us to something else we need to understand about Jesus, the Good King of Christmas, if we want to capture the point of Christmas, and that’s…

The Good King’s justice:

Jesus the Good King is just. He is the definition of justice, the definition of righteousness, and He leads His people—convicts us and changes us—not only through the power of His Spirit, but also through His Word.

We all want justice. The human heart has an innate longing for justice. We see anything we perceive to UNjust, and that’s our default response. We want to make it right. Where we run into issues is when our ideas about justice conflict. We disagree on the way to go about correcting injustice or whether a situation is unjust at all.

That’s why we need a Good King.

We need a Good King whose Word is absolute, who is not swayed by His own brokenness or the opinions of other broken people, a Good King, who, in His goodness, will correct our misunderstandings and settle our disagreements.

And that’s what Jesus has done. Not only did He model justice for His people by healing the sick, condemning corrupt religious leaders, by caring for marginalized and vulnerable people, but He BECAME justice for us by giving Himself on cross!

He is the Good King who justified US, who forgave us by taking on the judgement we deserve.

The Good King of Christmas is just.

Pick up in verse 5:

Isaiah 11:5–8 NASB 2020

Also righteousness will be the belt around His hips, And faithfulness the belt around His waist. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together; And a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.

That’s a picture, isn’t it? Righteousness and faithfulness will be at the very center of who the Messiah is, the belt around His hips, his waist. And that righteousness and goodness will spread like wildfire in dry summer heat throughout all creation. Isaiah is taking us back to the way things were in the Garden of Eden. Old enemies will be reconciled. Mankind will resume his rule in a way that’s so natural and instinctual children will do it.

And then in verse 8…the curse is undone.

Remember the curse, the consequences of sin laid out in Genesis 3? The Lord tells the serpent…

Genesis 3:15 NASB 2020

And I will make enemies Of you and the woman, And of your offspring and her Descendant; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

Isaiah predicts that when the Good King comes, that curse will be broken…to the degree that an infant plays by the snake pit and a young child pets the viper.

And that brings us to yet another aspect of the point of Christmas, the celebration of the Good King. We’ve considered His Spirit, His justice, and now, third, let’s look at…

The Good King’s work:

Because don’t you see? That’s what Jesus has done! That’s what He is still doing today, and one Day—this picture of goodness and peace, the renewal of creation—one glorious Day, Jesus will complete it!

But you don’t have to wait until then. You can experience the reversal of the curse of sin today. I’m not saying you should feel inclined to leave your baby crawling in the backyard with a copperhead. That’s not Isaiah’s point either.

But you can be free from sin. Your sin, your brokenness, your pride, your self-righteousness—all of it—can be forgiven, simply by asking Jesus to save you.

THAT is the Good King’s work. That’s what He did when He rose from the dead. He reversed the curse! And He wants to reverse the curse in you today.

Check out these last 2 verses, verses 9 and 10:

Isaiah 11:9–10 NASB 2020

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea. Then on that day The nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal flag for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.

I love that verse. I might be my favorite in all of Scripture. “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

You can’t imagine how unlikely that seemed in Isaiah’s day. Remember, when Isaiah wrote this, hardly anybody worshipped the One True God. There was one nation that followed Him—literally ONE tiny nation in the whole world. And even they didn’t do it well. Right at this moment there was a corrupt king and a people very prone to idolatry. So the idea that knowledge of this God, worship of this God would one day cover the earth—all the continents of the earth, all the nations of the earth—the idea that this would happen had to seem INCREDIBLY far fetched to the faithful people of Isaiah’s day.

Yet, look around and see what God is doing in the world today. Yeah, we’ve still got a ways to go. There are still many people groups in the world today without a gospel witness, but it’s happening. What Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 is happening!

Matthew 24:14 NASB 2020

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

The gospel is being preached all over the world and it’s only a matter of time until ALL the nations, ALL the people groups of the world have an opportunity to be saved.

And that brings us one final reason to be encouraged and celebrate this Christmas. We celebrate the Good King’s Spirit, His justice, His work of salvation, reversing the curse, and we celebrate…

The Good King’s hope for the nations:

Jesus is the hope for EVERY tribe, EVERY tongue, EVERY nation of the world. That’s why we do missions. It’s why we take mission trips. It’s why we love refugees and other internationals right here in our community. It’s because Jesus is the hope for the nations.

And that includes you. Don’t you see? When the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah to write these words, that vision of the nations “resorting to the root of Jesse,” that vision of them coming to the Messiah as He stands as a signal flag. That “signal flag” is the cross! Undoubtedly with this passage in mind, Jesus said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to my self.”

And, friends, that “all people” includes you. Isaiah’s vision of those nations coming to the Messiah…unless you’re a Jew from around 750 BC…that includes you.

And here you are, today, with another opportunity to receive Him.

Wouldn’t that be awesome on this Sunday before Christmas to know what the Wise Men knew, that a King has been born? But unlike the Wise Men, to know it directly? The Good King Jesus was born—for you. But He won’t force His Kingship on you. You have to receive it.

Won’t you receive the goodness of Jesus today?