Love Worth Preparing For

Today, we light the second candle of our advent wreath. As Southern Baptists, Advent isn’t something that we talk about enough, but it is a time for rich prayer, warm reflection, and purposeful pursuit of nearness with God. This season is a reminder to us of how desperately we need to be close to God. And this year, this opportunity will ring in our ears more loudly than it ever has, if we will let it. I have titled this message series Needing Christmas.

At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of Jesus, our Immanuel, God with us. We need Christmas. We need God to be with us, walking beside us minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. And the more that we realize this need, the greater our understanding of it grows in our lives, the more amazing the celebration of Christmas will become in our lives, not just during through this holiday season, but throughout all of the year.

Two weeks ago, I asked a couple of our ladies to make this Advent wreath for us, and they did a wonderful job. There is one candle for each week of the Advent season, and a fifth candle that is lit on Christmas Eve. And Each candle is a symbol, that we may remember the great gifts that God ushers into the hearts that dwell with Christ. Last week, we lit the hope candle, and we talked about the hope that lights our way in the darkness. You’ll remember that I asked you to consider what it is that you hope in, and I challenged you to put your hope in Christ because in Jesus we find that God moves when we are unable to, Becoming for us who we could never be, so that He could do for us what we were incapable of doing. In Him we always have hope because He is the sufficiency that we lack.

And Today, as we light the second candle, we turn towards another gift of God that is made tangible to us in Jesus: His love. Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 40. And while you are finding your place, let me just give you a little context. in Isaiah 39, we learn that king Hezekiah had been sick and had recovered. And as he recovered, the king of Babylon sent a delegation to Jerusalem to bring Hezekiah a gift. And Hezekiah was pleased by that gift, and for the recognition from this foreign king. And so, he started bragging. He took the Babylonian delegation all through his home, and through the treasury. He showed them all of his armaments. Hezekiah showed the Babylonians everything that the Lord had given to him.

And as they were leaving, Isaiah came in to see the king. And Isaiah asked who they were and what Hezekiah had showed them, and when Hezekiah told him, Isaiah answered him by saying that because of what he had done, that everything that the Lord had given him was going to belong to Babylon. In fact, the best and the brightest among the men of Judah were going to be carried away as well, and instead of serving Hezekiah, they were going to serve the king of Babylon.

Now I don’t know about you, but in that moment, love is not what would have come to my mind. This sounds a whole lot like judgment to me, not love. God just laid out a promise to tear down the kingdom of Judah, and to strip it of all of its wealth. God just gave His people a dark forecast. And that is the context that we have going into chapter 40. We have a situation where things are looking down hill, and a certainty that it will get much worse. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

When you turn on the news, isn’t that what you hear? Things are bad, and they’re getting worse. And as we look at the world around us, and we see the prophecies of God like this one, that came true to the letter, and when we realize that the prophecies of God for what lies ahead of us say that things are going to get a lot worse before we get out of this thing. God’s Word promises tribulation. It is a certainty that it will come. Our day, our hour is not unlike that of Hezekiah. And for us this morning, that’s a good thing. I’m going to show you why. Let’s read together from Isaiah, chapter 40, beginning in verse 1, and as we do so, I would invite anyone that is able to stand with me now in honor of the reading of God’s Word:

Isaiah 40:1–5 NASB95

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.” A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. “Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Let’s go together to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this Advent season. We thank You for this time that we have to prepare our hearts for Your Christmas celebration. We thank You for this season where we can remind each other of our need to be close to You, and the blessings that Your presence brings into our lives. Father, as we enter now into Your Word together, would You use it to change us this morning. Prune our hearts, Lord. Reveal Yourself to us through this passage, and in the light of those things, draw us to that place of repentance before You. Let Your light reveal those places in us that we haven’t given to You, that You might bring us Your healing. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Thank you, you may be seated. As we read just moments ago, it is a certainty that for many in this room verse 3 rang out the loudest. Isaiah 40:3 is quoted by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:3 and in John 1:23, telling us that he was the promised voice in the wilderness. It is a fitting verse for this time of year, and a text that we should turn to at Christmas time, because in it, Isaiah tells us that the man we now know was John the Baptist is going to come, and that he is going to declare the coming of the Lord to be among His people, he would point God’s people to Immanuel, to God with us. We will get to verse 3 this morning.

But we won’t go there without first working our way through verses 1 and 2, because the truth of what the first two verses of Isaiah 40 say is deep and rich. The message that God gave to His people here is profound, and I believe it is a message that we need to reflect on this morning. Isaiah just got done telling the king that his land would be conquered. He just told the ruler of God’s people that everything that the king had, everything that his people loved, all that they had worked to accomplish, everything that God had given them was going to be stripped away from them. God just told Hezekiah, you and your people are going to be left naked, and blind, and wretched, and poor. You are going to be completely without. Defenseless, penniless. And they’ll even take away your tomorrow, because your best and your brightest young people will be taken as well.

You know who God is talking about, don’t you? He is talking about Daniel. He is talking about Shadrach, Me-shack, and Abednigo. Mighty men of God who bless Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and not Israel. It’s a scathing message. It’s bad news of the worst kind. That is what Isaiah just told the king. Just a little, light, dinner conversation piece. And as Isaiah finishes giving the king this horrible news, the very next thing that God says to the king is found in verse 1:

Isaiah 40:1 NASB95

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God.

Comfort my people! God says to comfort the people of God. He doesn’t say comfort your people, He says comfort MY people. Comfort My people. Why? Why does God say that? The message that he gave to Hezekiah was bad news, and this judgment was coming down upon Judah because they had abandoned God. They had abandoned obedience to His Law, they had forsaken His worship for the worship of other gods. And the calamity that they deserved was coming down upon them, and yet God says comfort My people. And this brings us to our first point this morning. If you have your listening guide, either from the program, or from the web page this morning, the very first thing that I want you to write down this morning is this:

God loves you!

God loves you. He loves you. He is a just God. He punishes sin, but He is also a loving God. And even though His people had betrayed Him, Even though He had to bring judgment down upon them, even though they no longer loved Him, God loved them. Friend, that is true for us as well.

God loves you. Though you stand guilty of sin before Him, He loves you. Though you deserve death for your sins against Him, He loves you. Though those hearts that have not turned to Him this morning will stand condemned for eternity should you die today, God loves you. He loves you. Psalm 89:1-2 declares

Psalm 89:1–2 NASB95

I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever; To all generations I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth. For I have said, “Lovingkindness will be built up forever; In the heavens You will establish Your faithfulness.”

O, tidings of comfort and joy! God loves you. Could three more powerful words exist in all the world. God loves you. He loves you, not because He has to, but because He wants to. He created you, and He loves you. This Advent, would you fix this truth in your mind. Would you let it reign in your heart? Because the truth is that this changes everything.

See, our natural bent is not to love God. No, our natural bent is towards sin. By nature we are haters of God. By nature, we are His enemies. That is what got Hezekiah into this predicament in the first place. Our sin is what separated us from God in the beginning; it is what separates some of us from Him now, even now when Immanuel has come, when the Spirit of the Living God dwells among those that call on the name of Jesus, even now some choose to live in sin, separated from God, enemies of God. God loves you.

How good is the news to hear that your enemy loves you? That your enemy cares for you. That your enemy longs that you would have comfort. Comfort, O comfort my people? Why? Because God loves His people. God had just handed Hezekiah and Judah a judgment. He told them that war was coming to them, and that they were going to lose, not just the war, but their kingdom with it. That’s what your enemy says to you, isn’t it?

Friend, where your sitting right now, I hope your confused. I say that not because I want you to be confused, but because where we stand right now, this doesn’t make any sense. I’ve told you that God loves you. I’ve shown you in Psalm 89, where God said that He does in His Word. In fact, look at the next couple of verses of that Psalm.

Psalm 89:3–4 NASB95

“I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever And build up your throne to all generations.” Selah.

God told David that He loved Him, that He chose David, and that David’s house, David’s family was going to be on the throne for all generations, forever. So not only, does God love Hezekiah, but Hezekiah, who was of the house of David, was on the throne of David. And now, God says that He is taking all that he has from him. How is that love?

How are these things reconciled? How are the people of God to take comfort? How is that even possible? How is it possible for you and I to take comfort in the moment we are in? How can we look at the world around us and say, God loves us? Friends, this isn’t just a question; it is THE question. It is the question of generations, of broken hearts and broken homes, and broken nations. But look at verse 2 with me, look what the Lord says:

Isaiah 40:2 NASB95

“Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”

The war is ended? The war had yet to begin! The fighting hadn’t even started yet. It would. Babylon was a mighty power amongst the kingdoms of men, and unstoppable force to be reckoned with. What does He mean that the battle is over? We look at what is happening in Washington and we’re scared to death? We see what is happening with the pandemic, and we’re half scared and half sick of it. So, what now? Where does it end? Has it even, really begun. God is speaking comfort to His people, saying the war is over when it hasn’t started.How?

I want you to look at the next part of the verse with me, and realize that the reason that God says the war is over is that He is talking about a different war. Look at what He says.

Isaiah 40:2 NASB95

“Speak kindly to Jerusalem; And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, That her iniquity has been removed, That she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”

What has been removed? her sins! The sins of the people of God have been removed! Jesus, God of the universe, our God with us was coming to make His bride clean and without wrinkle. The war that has been won is not the war of judgment nations face; it is the war of sin that God is waging on our behalf because He loves us. Do you see how it says that the sins of the people were removed? It says that “she has received of the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.”

In other words, the Lord has more than paid for them. Jesus was coming to pay the cost of our sins because He loves you. Friends, this is the next point I would have you remember this morning. God loves you, and because He loves you,

It is the love of God that brings Christ to you

Romans 5:8 is one of my favorite verses of all time because it deals with what is at the heart of the Christmas message. God loves us, who are His enemies. We, who have set ourselves on the road of destruction are loved by God.

Romans 5:8 NASB95

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This was the whole reason that Jesus came. It wasn’t to solve an economic crisis, though He could. It wasn’t to free us from the tyranny of men, though He sits in the throne of David forever. Jesus came to free us from our slavery to sin. While we were His enemies He came and freed us from sin.

It is striking to me that this prophecy comes some 700 years before Jesus was born. And yet, the comfort that is offered to the people in this moment of great stress, in the face of certain destruction is that God will free them from their sins. Friend, there is no greater news than to tell you that God loves you. And there is no greater problem that you face than your sin. Sin has a 100% kill ratio. You might live through a war, you might survive and occupation, but sin will kill you every time. Sin will destroy you every time. This is why Romans 6:23 says to clearly that

Romans 6:23 NASB95

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You cannot speak of the hope and love of God with us without speaking of the cross, without speaking of Christ’s death and resurrection, this child who was born to die that we may live. Jesus came to pay the cost of death that was owed by His enemy for the sins we had committed because He loves us. What love is this? What love would give so selflessly, so sacrificially to those that don’t deserve it? At Christmas, the love of God is no longer a lofty ideal or an emotional crutch as some have called it; no, at Christmas, the love of God is tangible. He is flesh and blood. He is Here among His people. Love became man and dwelt among us. John 3:16 tells us

John 3:16 NASB95

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

It is the love of God that brought Jesus to us, and it is love that dwells among us. It is His love that sent Him to the cross. It is His love that sent the Holy Spirit to dwell among us as He ascended into heaven, so that His presence continues to be with us every day and hour and moment of our lives, that never again to God’s people have to live a solitary moment outside of His presence in their lives.

God loves you. Though kingdoms may fall, and the world may crumble. God loves you, though you may find yourselves in foreign lands, taken where you do not wish to go. God loves you, He loves you so much that He came, Himself, to live and dwell amongst His people. Look at verses 3-5 together:

Isaiah 40:3–5 NASB95

A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. “Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Don’t you think it’s strange? We are just a few verses away from a prophecy predicting the certain destruction of their kingdom in short order. Yet, the directive of the Lord has nothing to do with that. Rather, He tells us that a voice is calling. A prophet is speaking. If you listen you will hear it. And what is he telling the people to do? He tells them to do the impossible:

Clear the wilderness. Make it so that there is no longer any wilderness. No brambles, briars and thorns. No devouring lion, no striking serpent. Clear the wilderness. Oh, and smooth out the desert. Knock down the dunes built by the wind so high that you could ski down them. Make those flat, into a road. Stop the winds that reshape it, smooth out the desert. Oh, and one more thing-flatten the mountains, and the rough and rugged terrain. Make it all flat. Make the whole earth a flat, broad earth.

Just a small thing, right? Not only are we not focused on the enemy to come, but we are to do the impossible. So what is He really saying? What is the prophecy saying we are to hear in the words of John the Baptist? And I think that the key to this, the answer to this lies in verse 5, that when the people of God do what He has asked, we will see the glory of God revealed, and everyone will see it together.

He is saying that because God loves you and because God is coming to dwell among you,

In love we must prepare our hearts to receive Him

Jesus is coming. But if there is wilderness, not everyone will see Him. If there are mountains, not everyone can come. If there are deserts, not everyone will hear the coming of the Lord. God doesn’t tell His people to prepare their city, or to prepare their lands. He tells them to prepare their hearts! Do you not hear the parable of the sower echoed in these verses? The hard ground, the rocky ground, the weeds and the thorns? None of these are the fertile soil. None of these are the heart prepared to receive the King.

This Advent, this Christmas, you must let go of the entanglements that hold you heart in this wilderness of death. Let the things of this earth fall by the way side, as the One who loves Your best comes to you. You must allow the Living Water of His word wash away those deserts of separation that keep you from drawing near to God because you have isolated yourself in a place of death and desolation. Thirst for His word. Let it fill you and shape you. You must tear down the idols and the high places that you have built in your life that are blocking your journey with God.

For at Christmas, our God dwells among us. At Christmas, Immanuel comes to fill every crevice, every fiber of your being, if only there is room for Him in your heart for Him. Is there room for the Savior this morning? We must make room for Him. Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing. When we prepare our hearts to receive Him, we will have our fill. Jesus will fill us. Immanuel will be with us, and the light of His presence will be seen by everyone around because He will shine in us.

You see, our entanglements, our deserts, our mountains, these things are dangerous not only for us, but for others. For not only do they prevent us from being filled with Jesus ourselves, but they also prevent us from sharing Him with others. Not only do the rob us of experiencing the fullness of His love, but they hide it from the view of others as well.

God loves you. It is only by His love that He came to dwell among us, to free us from our sins, that we could remain in His presence forever. This Advent, won’t you cling to the victory of Immanuel. Won’t you choose to dwell with God with us? Don’t get caught in the snares and the trappings of the wars of this life, in the fights we can’t win. But make your heart ready. Receive the God who loves you enough to dwell among us and pay your ransom.

I’m going to pray for us, and then we are going to sing a song together. And this morning, the altar is open this morning, for those hearts that long to prepare for Him. Come this morning, and let Him cut down your wilderness, bring low your mountains, and wash over your desert with the mighty flood of His love. We need Christmas. We need our Immanuel. He is here this morning, for hearts that make room. If He is stirring your heart this morning, won’t you come. If you hear the voice of the one who is calling, won’t you come and make room.

Will you pray with me? Lord, Jesus, thank you for Advent. Thank you for this season of arrival, and for the focus You bring to us through it, on these great gifts we find in You. Thank you for loving us, Lord, for loving us so much that you would wrap your holiness in our flesh and dwell among Your people. We want our hearts to be ready to receive you. Would You come, even now, and prepare our hearts. Would You fill us, by the power of Your love, with the courage that we need to let go of the encumbrances of this world, that we may experience in Jesus the fullness of Your glory this Christmas. Use us, oh God, to bring glory to your name, to shine Your light to everyone around us, that they too may experience the goodness of Your love. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.