Doug McMasters: Let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah Isaiah chapter 9, isaiah, chapter 9.
Doug McMasters: For those of you that are new here, you can turn to page 600 or so, probably right in that area.
Doug McMasters: You'll get to the front of Isaiah and just flip over a few more pages and you'll find Isaiah, chapter 9.
Doug McMasters: Few more pages and you'll find Isaiah, chapter nine.
Doug McMasters: At Christmas time we come together largely to celebrate, and there's no better way to express that celebration than in the songs we sing.
Doug McMasters: We call them Christmas carols and listen to some of the titles, even one that we sang this morning Joy has Dawned.
Doug McMasters: But titles like Joy to the World Hark the Herald, angels Sing, christians Awake, salute the Happy Mourn, go Tell it on the Mountain.
Doug McMasters: Good Christian Men Rejoice O Come All Ye Faithful, joyful and Triumphant.
Doug McMasters: These titles all speak of celebration befitting this season.
Doug McMasters: Even the word carol brings an understanding of celebration into it, because the word carol comes through the French language, out of the Latin, which means to dance in a circle.
Doug McMasters: So to sing a Christmas carol would have originally meant a song of celebration that included movement and dance.
Doug McMasters: We don't do that so much these days.
Doug McMasters: We don't dance in circles around our carols, but we sing with the same spirit of celebration, and it's not just the music that fits a mood of celebration.
Doug McMasters: Our towns and cities are filled with lights and decor.
Doug McMasters: We drape decorations all over our houses.
Doug McMasters: We have them here.
Doug McMasters: Even our clothing is filled with a depth of richness that we don't typically wear at other times of the year.
Doug McMasters: We'll feast on food in the next coming days that's specially set apart for this time of year.
Doug McMasters: All of this in celebration as we remember the birth of Christ, who's come into this world to deliver humanity.
Doug McMasters: And this morning I want us to look at Isaiah, chapter 9, and to feel the sense of jubilation and celebration that comes in this announcement of the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: It's a prophecy in Isaiah, fulfilled, of course, in the life of Christ, as we read the Gospels.
Doug McMasters: But let's listen to this as we get this picture of the coming Savior.
Doug McMasters: And the first thing I want us to notice here in chapter 9 is the audience of good news.
Doug McMasters: The audience of good news, the audience of good news.
Doug McMasters: At the end of chapter 8, as we were looking at it together last week, we realized that there were people who were not putting their faith in God, who were determined to live their own life of self-will and determination.
Doug McMasters: And the prophet spoke about those people that they would live under a devastating darkness.
Doug McMasters: So just back up a little bit into the very end of chapter 8, and you'll see this in verse 19.
Doug McMasters: When they say to you, inquire of the mediums and the spiritists to chirp and mutter, shouldn't the people inquire of their God?
Doug McMasters: Should they inquire of the dead?
Doug McMasters: On behalf of the living, go to God's instruction, and if they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.
Doug McMasters: So here were these people who were looking for answers outside of God.
Doug McMasters: They were looking to their mystics, to perhaps even their scholars.
Doug McMasters: They were looking to those who purported that they could communicate with the dead or with the spirits for solutions, and they recognized they were in difficult times.
Doug McMasters: That's why they were looking for answers outside of themselves.
Doug McMasters: But as they were looking for these answers, they went to the wrong places.
Doug McMasters: And where did it leave them?
Doug McMasters: It left them in the dark.
Doug McMasters: Verse 21 expresses that They'll wander through the land dejected and hungry.
Doug McMasters: When they're famished, they'll become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.
Doug McMasters: They will look to the earth and only see distress, darkness and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.
Doug McMasters: You can't help but catch all these dark words.
Doug McMasters: It's gloomy, it's thick darkness, it's distress, darkness, its distress.
Doug McMasters: Living a life that rejects God's way and God's word eventually ends up full of emptiness and dissatisfaction, a lack of fulfillment, pangs of longing that turn eventually into anger and even bitterness.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah speaks to these people and he's got something to say to this audience and it's a wonderful, wonderful announcement we'll get into, but notice who he speaks to.
Doug McMasters: Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times, when he humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, but in the future he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land of the east of the Jordan and to the Galilee of the nations.
Doug McMasters: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
Doug McMasters: A light is dawned on those living in the land of darkness, of darkness.
Doug McMasters: Here.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah speaks in chapter 8 about gloom and humiliation, darkness and death.
Doug McMasters: But it's not the end of the story.
Doug McMasters: This isn't the final word to these people that are in this condition.
Doug McMasters: We can rejoice that Isaiah has more to say to us than just judgment, that God speaks to us also about mercy and not solely about this judgment.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah, chapter 9 and verse 1, makes a profound shift away from that judgment toward hope and light.
Doug McMasters: The Word of God has these wonderful movements as it pivots away from the realities of sin and judgment into the remarkable news of God's activity of grace and mercy.
Doug McMasters: Just listen to a couple other ones that pivot so strongly as this one Ephesians 2,.
Doug McMasters: You're dead in trespasses and sins in which you previously walked in the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now at work in the disobedient.
Doug McMasters: And we too previously lived among them, in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts.
Doug McMasters: And we were, by nature, children under wrath, just as others were also were, by nature, children under wrath, just as others were also.
Doug McMasters: Gloom and doom, darkness and despair.
Doug McMasters: Judgment worthy what's the next phrase?
Doug McMasters: But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he has had for us.
Doug McMasters: You can't ask for a stronger movement of contrast than that.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures tell us that God's word isn't just a message of judgment, it's a glorious message of hope.
Doug McMasters: And to people sitting in darkness, to people sitting in gloom, to people who have been looking everywhere but God for an answer to the things that are troubling their lives.
Doug McMasters: God comes and says there'll be a message of hope even for you.
Doug McMasters: Some years ago, when I was a new believer, living up in Plattsburgh, where it's cold up there like it is today here a lot more I was speaking to a lady about her soul and as I was talking she said are you calling me a sinner?
Doug McMasters: And I said to her I said well, it's not me that's saying that you are.
Doug McMasters: It's the Word of God.
Doug McMasters: But if you don't think that you're someone who's disobeyed the Lord, I really don't have much to say to you.
Doug McMasters: But if you will admit that you are, I've got a lot of glorious things that I can share with you.
Doug McMasters: You see, the scriptures tell us that Christ Jesus came into this world.
Doug McMasters: The purpose for Christmas is to save sinners.
Doug McMasters: I mentioned this at Bonu's dinner party a couple nights ago.
Doug McMasters: In 2005, the BBC, on one of their radio programs, had a little competition and it was called the Reduced Nativity Competition and they invited callers to call in and to try as best as they could to give a 30-second summary of the nativity Now?
Doug McMasters: Could you do that with all the moving parts of Herod and the shepherds and you know, the manger scene and the movement of Joseph and Mary and all of that to Bethlehem and the birth of the baby and all these things?
Doug McMasters: 30 seconds, you've got 30 seconds, go Well, the Bible can answer that question in three seconds.
Doug McMasters: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Doug McMasters: That's the nativity right there.
Doug McMasters: Three seconds.
Doug McMasters: And so the audience of the news that we're about to share is not the audience of the worthy, it's not the audience of the righteous, it's not the audience of the perfect, it's the audience of those who have made the gloom and the darkness, because they have been the ones who have done this right.
Doug McMasters: So it's a message for us all, because every single one of us have obviously tried to look for answers to life and the problems that we face by not going to God for them.
Doug McMasters: We thought we've had the ability, we thought our friends have had the answer.
Doug McMasters: We've looked to others around us, we've gone all sorts of places but to the God who created us, and the result of that has just been the same kind of gloom and darkness and hopelessness that's described here in Isaiah's prophecy To us, to us people in the dark, is this message Now let's look at it To the people living in darkness?
Doug McMasters: In verse 2, they've seen a great light.
Doug McMasters: A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.
Doug McMasters: You see, the message that Isaiah is saying is, yes, things are really bad and, yes, we can't save ourselves.
Doug McMasters: Things are that dark, but there's hope.
Doug McMasters: But there's hope, there's a sign of deliverance that's on the horizon, that will dawn and dispel this darkness.
Doug McMasters: It'll be able to penetrate it and it'll be able to eradicate it.
Doug McMasters: Something's coming that will take all of that away.
Doug McMasters: The question is what is it?
Doug McMasters: What is it that will bring this?
Doug McMasters: Well, isaiah answers that question by talking about a child who is to come, and we'll look at that in just a moment.
Doug McMasters: But this question of light coming from the darkness penetrated the hearts of the people that Isaiah first brought this prophecy to, and 700 years later, the question kept moving through generation to generation.
Doug McMasters: What is this hope?
Doug McMasters: What is this light?
Doug McMasters: What is this dawning of dispelling the darkness of life apart from God?
Doug McMasters: Well, we get an answer in the Gospel of Matthew.
Doug McMasters: Matthew, chapter 4, we get this sort of travelogue about Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Jesus, when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew from Galilee, or to Galilee, rather.
Doug McMasters: He left Nazareth.
Doug McMasters: He made his home in Capernaum, by the sea and in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.
Doug McMasters: Boy, all that's starting to sound a little familiar, sounds a bit like what Isaiah talked about here in verse 1.
Doug McMasters: And then Matthew gives us a commentary so that it might be spoken through the, so what has been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea across the Jordan, galilee of the Gentiles.
Doug McMasters: The people who sat in the darkness have seen a great light and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, a light has dawned.
Doug McMasters: What is Matthew saying?
Doug McMasters: He's saying this light that's going to dawn, this light that's going to dispel the darkness.
Doug McMasters: It is the presence of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: That's what it is, and this is the announcement that's being made, an announcement that the light is going to come.
Doug McMasters: And Matthew says the light is here, it's here, and I use that term announcement purposefully.
Doug McMasters: You see, the people sitting in darkness weren't given advice.
Doug McMasters: They weren't given advice on here's how to dig yourself out of the ditch right.
Doug McMasters: Seven ways to make your life more peaceful.
Doug McMasters: Six practices that will give you rest of soul.
Doug McMasters: 17 tips, for it's not that at all.
Doug McMasters: It's not that at all.
Doug McMasters: They're given an announcement that the light has dawned.
Doug McMasters: They're given an announcement that the light has dawned, and this is why in Luke, chapter 2, as we sang together, it says that there were shepherds out in the fields.
Doug McMasters: They were keeping watch at night.
Doug McMasters: Their flocks were there and an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them light, and they were terrified.
Doug McMasters: And the angel said don't be afraid, because I've got some great advice for you.
Doug McMasters: No, don't be afraid, because I proclaim to you the good news that will be great joy for all the people.
Doug McMasters: It's an announcement, an announcement.
Doug McMasters: Today, in the city of David, a Savior is born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And after hearing that, suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts, the angels, praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to people he favors.
Doug McMasters: Praising God and saying glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to people he favors.
Doug McMasters: The light has come and it's an announcement.
Doug McMasters: Often we think Christianity is just advice.
Doug McMasters: It's not just advice on how to make your life just a little bit better.
Doug McMasters: If anybody tries to give you a type of Christianity like that, reject it out of hand.
Doug McMasters: It begins with this announcement, an announcement that God is actively doing something.
Doug McMasters: Imagine these shepherds.
Doug McMasters: If they're sitting there in the hills and they're tending their flocks and there's enemies all around them, the angels come down and say look, let's give you some advice.
Doug McMasters: What you really need are some military advisors who can help you understand how to put in defensive works and all the trenches and the earthworks that you might need.
Doug McMasters: They're going to help you sort of get ready, maybe help give you some target practice.
Doug McMasters: We're going to show you where you can put up all the artillery and you know, as you collect your strength, you're going to need to devise your plans and work out a strategy to protect yourself against this enemy.
Doug McMasters: And you could see the shepherds if they were just wanting to get advice like that, they'd be taking close notes in order to try to figure out how to operate against the enemy that was coming their way.
Doug McMasters: But the angels don't give advice.
Doug McMasters: They give it an announcement, like there would be a messenger who comes casting himself over the hills, running as hard as he can to come to the shepherds and panting and breathing, saying the war is over, the victory is won, the king is conquered, and the joy that erupts from that message is something that vice can never give somebody.
Doug McMasters: It immediately casts them into the sphere of jubilation and triumph.
Doug McMasters: And this is what the angels are doing.
Doug McMasters: They're making a Christmas announcement, not a Christmas advice.
Doug McMasters: They're telling us that into this dark world, the light of God has come.
Doug McMasters: Jesus has come to bring the dawn, the dawn that generations of your forefathers have been seeking and longing for and waiting for the day when that child who is given to us will be able to bring this new life to us.
Doug McMasters: This is the gospel.
Doug McMasters: It's an announcement.
Doug McMasters: It's not a statement of advice.
Doug McMasters: The message the Word of God has to share to us who are in darkness is not how to clean up our life, how to make ourselves a little bit better, how to become worthy for God's presence, how to practice godliness in a way that somehow will make you acceptable to a holy God.
Doug McMasters: It isn't that at all.
Doug McMasters: This is the message that we proclaim that God himself has operated against our enemies and the things that have made us an enemy to God, and he's come to destroy the works of the devil, to free us from the bondage of death and judgment and to grant us a presence with Him that is full of joy and welcome.
Doug McMasters: That's the gospel that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Isaiah is giving us a cast in that direction.
Doug McMasters: Where is this hope going to come from?
Doug McMasters: This audience of darkness?
Doug McMasters: This announcement of great news is going to be enacted by an agent, and here I'm going to show you this.
Doug McMasters: We're going to skip just a couple verses for just a moment, because we'll get back to them for just a moment, because we'll get back to them.
Doug McMasters: But let's look at what happens here, beginning in verse 6.
Doug McMasters: This is the agent who will bring this good news A child will be born for us, a son will be given to us and the government will be upon his shoulders.
Doug McMasters: He will be named Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, eternal Father, prince of Peace.
Doug McMasters: The dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end.
Doug McMasters: 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.
Doug McMasters: Back in Isaiah, chapter 7, we've been put on notice to look for a child who would express the truth that God is with the people.
Doug McMasters: Emmanuel and Isaiah picks up that hope once again here in chapter and talks to us about a child.
Doug McMasters: A child is going to be born who is given notice to us, to us.
Doug McMasters: A child is born.
Doug McMasters: To us.
Doug McMasters: A son is given Now.
Doug McMasters: When my grandson was born, royal, and I kind of took it as a to us.
Doug McMasters: You know, and we're proud grandparents Want to see a picture Right.
Doug McMasters: It as a to us, you know, and we're proud grandparents Want to see a picture Right.
Doug McMasters: But we didn't say when they showed up here, to us a child has been born, this is our grandchild, not your grandchild, but this child that's born is to us.
Doug McMasters: It's not just to the family that this child is born into.
Doug McMasters: This is a child born to us, given to us and for us, and he presents this child as the king who has been waited for.
Doug McMasters: And Luke's narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ tells us that this child is the one that all people have longed for.
Doug McMasters: To us, this child is born, this child who is both human and yet God.
Doug McMasters: He is a child and yet the Son of God, and these attributes that are spoken about him gloriously speak about that.
Doug McMasters: He's the wonderful counselor, he's the mighty God, he's the everlasting Father, he's the Prince of Peace.
Doug McMasters: And just very briefly, let's just walk our way through these names that are given to him.
Doug McMasters: First of all, the word wonderful means literally not of this world.
Doug McMasters: It is a very strange Hebrew word, which means that this is speaking about the realms of heaven and of God.
Doug McMasters: And this one will be that wonderful counselor who will speak about things that are outside of our normal everyday understanding, that is going to speak with a wisdom that comes from God himself, that he's going to tell us things about ourselves and about God and about heaven and about eternity that we can't figure out on our own.
Doug McMasters: He will be the very revelation of God.
Doug McMasters: He will speak the very revelation of God.
Doug McMasters: He will speak the very wisdom of God.
Doug McMasters: This is why, in John, chapter 7, some of the Jewish leaders talked to some others about why didn't they capture Jesus and bring him with them into their presence, and their answer was no one has ever spoken like this man before.
Doug McMasters: They were captured by who Jesus was and what he had to say.
Doug McMasters: He's also called the mighty God.
Doug McMasters: This is a strange name for a child, isn't it Right?
Doug McMasters: I love my little grandson, but I've never said, hey, you big hunk of mighty God.
Doug McMasters: He's pretty weak.
Doug McMasters: He got his first bites a few days ago and his head's bobbing all over the place.
Doug McMasters: My son's like trying to get the spoon somewhere near that bobbing head.
Doug McMasters: Imagine saying to a little child Mighty God, he is the one who exhibits the very might of God, and we'll understand how in just a moment.
Doug McMasters: He's also called the Eternal Father, or the Father of Eternity Exactly, which means he holds eternity in his hands.
Doug McMasters: The destiny of eternity rests in the palm of Jesus the baby.
Doug McMasters: Okay, that's what it's talking about.
Doug McMasters: This is why the Lord Jesus could say that he is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by him.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because he's the Father of eternity.
Doug McMasters: He is the one who controls the destiny of humanity.
Doug McMasters: He's also called the Prince of Peace.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah, chapter 2, tells us that the Messiah who would come would bring God's people together, but he would also bring them together with God's peace, and uses a term which we've all heard, probably shalom, the Hebrew term for peace.
Doug McMasters: But shalom is more than just a cessation of war.
Doug McMasters: It's more than just a quiet bit of meditation near a babbling brook.
Doug McMasters: It's more than just the stillness of an empty house.
Doug McMasters: It's not that.
Doug McMasters: What it means is that there is harmony in every aspect of life, that everything is arranged according to God's purposes, as it was meant to be.
Doug McMasters: Jesus is the prince of that kind of peace To set us all right, to make us back as we were originally designed At harmony with God, in harmony with each other and in harmony with this world.
Doug McMasters: His purposes are to be the one who ushers in that kind of harmony, that kind of compatibility to God's purposes.
Doug McMasters: So not only these attributes, these titles that are granted to this child show us what kind of agent he is, but also direct statements about his rule.
Doug McMasters: As we look at the ascension of Christ mentioned here, it tells us, before we get the names, that the government will be on his shoulders a heavy responsibility.
Doug McMasters: Of course, verse 7 shows how successful he is at that.
Doug McMasters: The dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end.
Doug McMasters: He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and sustain it with justice and with righteousness.
Doug McMasters: This child will bring back this world into alignment with God, and he will do so by his rule, by his reign.
Doug McMasters: Gabriel spoke to Mary and seven centuries later from Isaiah's prophecy, said this Seven centuries later from Isaiah's prophecy said this You'll conceive and give birth to a son and you'll name him Jesus.
Doug McMasters: He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, david.
Doug McMasters: He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will never end.
Doug McMasters: You see, isaiah here is looking forward, and he's looking forward to this one that we celebrate this week.
Doug McMasters: Jesus Christ, he's going to establish that glorious throne and rule and reign, and this is why, within the church here, we call Jesus Lord because he is here.
Doug McMasters: We call Jesus Lord because he is.
Doug McMasters: The characteristics of this rule are glorious.
Doug McMasters: First of all, it's going to be limitless.
Doug McMasters: It's going to expand and expand and expand, and it's going to create the peace that it's designed for.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be a fulfillment of promises made.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be one filled with principles of justice and of righteousness that are going to prevail as pillars of his everlasting kingdom.
Doug McMasters: What a remarkable thing it is.
Doug McMasters: So here we have an announcement made to an audience of people in darkness about a son who is going to come, a child given to us, that is unlike any of us and is going to do things none of us could ever accomplish.
Doug McMasters: The question is how do we know this is going to be so?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah spoke in his prophecy.
Doug McMasters: How does he anchor it into?
Doug McMasters: Well, the imaginations of his mind, the I think God spoke to me thoughts?
Doug McMasters: What is it?
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the word here.
Doug McMasters: It says here, at the very end of verse 7, the zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.
Doug McMasters: Lord of armies will accomplish this.
Doug McMasters: God pulls out the big title about himself the Lord of the armies, the one who's commander of the universe, the one who reigns over all principalities and powers of the air.
Doug McMasters: There's no seat higher than his.
Doug McMasters: What's going to make all of this happen?
Doug McMasters: God will make it happen.
Doug McMasters: The birth of Jesus into this world is an announcement of good news that God is acting out his gloriously gracious purposes to bring light into dark places.
Doug McMasters: Our Christmas hope is dependent upon God and God alone.
Doug McMasters: How wonderful news.
Doug McMasters: That is right.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to be like trying to shoo the darkness away from ourselves.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to be trying to cut through the gloom that we've cast out because of our behavior.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to work and try to achieve.
Doug McMasters: God has come, he's made an announcement and His mighty arm is going to make it happen.
Doug McMasters: He puts Himself on the line for this and says because I am who I am, you will receive this glorious news.
Doug McMasters: The writer of Hebrews put it this way in chapter 6.
Doug McMasters: God has given both his promise and his oath.
Doug McMasters: These two things are unchangeable, because it's impossible for God to lie.
Doug McMasters: Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold on to the hope that lies before us.
Doug McMasters: You see, the things that Isaiah prophesies about are realities to those who look to God, who look to the Savior, who embrace the Son, because God said he would do these things.
Doug McMasters: Now let's back up just for a second.
Doug McMasters: We skipped over a little portion of this.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the audience.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the announcement.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the agent.
Doug McMasters: Now let's look at the aspects of this.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the audience.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the announcement.
Doug McMasters: We've talked about the agent.
Doug McMasters: Now let's look at the aspects of this good news that are resulting Verse 2.
Doug McMasters: Well, we can start in verse 1.
Doug McMasters: In the future, he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan, to the Galilee of the nations, honor.
Doug McMasters: In our society, becoming a Christian is counted as shame, and certainly in the Roman era it was counted as shame, in fact, to talk about a Lord Jesus who was crucified would have been an extremely impossible thing for the average Roman.
Doug McMasters: To accept.
Doug McMasters: That a God-man would be crucified was horrible.
Doug McMasters: And there is even a sort of a graffiti remark of one man who was a Christian and someone who was upset that he'd become a Christian, and it showed a half-man, half-donkey, nailed to a cross, and I don't remember the name of the man who became a Christian, but it said that this man was worshiping his God and had an image of this half-donkey half-man on a cross.
Doug McMasters: That was how shameful this message of the cross seemed to be.
Doug McMasters: But here we see that when God comes into a life, it's not that at all.
Doug McMasters: It's to honor and to cause us to be something different, to be able to live our lives in a way that is in alignment with God, and he brings us into a greater and greater degree of that alignment as we go, as the scriptures say, as we behold his glory we looking into that, we find ourselves transformed into the image even of Christ himself.
Doug McMasters: Things that we once never loved now become the very heartbeat of our soul.
Doug McMasters: The things that we once loved to death now become odious to us and our lives become more in conformity with our Creator.
Doug McMasters: And the day is coming when we will be co-heirs with Christ, recipients of the glorious promises of God, and what that will be?
Doug McMasters: That no one will ever be ashamed.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures say who trusted Christ?
Doug McMasters: There will never be at the end of this, boy, did I believe a lie?
Doug McMasters: There'll never be at the end of this.
Doug McMasters: What a waste of my existence.
Doug McMasters: There'll never be a time in which we acted on behalf of Christ and sacrifice where we said, boy, that hurt more than what I'm getting back.
Doug McMasters: Never, because honor will come to those who believe, not because they're honorable, but because God himself and his mercy has cast honor on us.
Doug McMasters: But there's also joy.
Doug McMasters: There's joy.
Doug McMasters: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
Doug McMasters: A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.
Doug McMasters: You've enlarged the nation and increased its joy.
Doug McMasters: The people have rejoiced before you, as they rejoice at harvest time.
Doug McMasters: And as they rejoice what?
Doug McMasters: When they're dividing the spoils?
Doug McMasters: Both the farmer and the soldier are pointed to as expressions of that kind of joy.
Doug McMasters: When the harvest is full and complete and in the barns and security and safety are there for the coming months in which the earth itself cannot produce any fruit, you have an abundance in store to take and to eat at your pleasure and for your strength.
Doug McMasters: So there's joy at that.
Doug McMasters: Or there's joy when you're there on the battlefield alive still and your enemy has fled and he's left all of the things behind that were once valuable to him, that are there simply for your taking.
Doug McMasters: The joy of a successful battle, the joy of a warrior won, coming in and receiving a benefit, that kind of joy, where do we cast our joy?
Doug McMasters: Toward those images and those pictures?
Doug McMasters: This is Christmas joy, that kind of jubilation.
Doug McMasters: We won, the harvest is in, and deliverance.
Doug McMasters: And here's this, verse 4,.
Doug McMasters: You've shattered the oppressive yoke, the rod on their shoulders, the staff of the oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian.
Doug McMasters: For those of us who don't know our Bible, midian was an enemy of the people of God, you okay?
Doug McMasters: Is everything okay?
Doug McMasters: Okay, all right, you okay, is everything okay?
Doug McMasters: Okay, alright, louisa, is this a medical condition?
Doug McMasters: Okay, all right, all right, folks, let's pray, shall we?
Doug McMasters: Let's pray?
Doug McMasters: Let's pray, father, as one of our steps through this moment.
Doug McMasters: We pray that you would give, lord, your hand to all who are attending, the kind of care and wisdom that comes from you, lord.
Doug McMasters: We pray that the 911 call might be heard and received quickly and timely.
Doug McMasters: We pray your mercy, father.
Doug McMasters: We pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.
Doug McMasters: That came to his aid and he's in the hands of those who can take him to where ready aid is able to help him.
Doug McMasters: It sounds like he's coming back around and yet he still needs to be evaluated.
Doug McMasters: Yeah, so let me just close off a few thoughts here talking about the joy and the honor.
Doug McMasters: The reason is given in this passage because an enemy has been defeated.
Doug McMasters: The Midianites were strong enemies against Israel, so strong that they despaired about over everything.
Doug McMasters: And it was when God called a man named Gideon to reduce his army down to 300 people and not to carry weaponry but to carry lights and simply to cry out the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and it put all the enemies of Midian into a fleeing terror.
Doug McMasters: God intervened in a glorious way.
Doug McMasters: A victory that this child is talking about, that's going to come, is going to give a joy over that kind of victory.
Doug McMasters: That's going to come, is going to give a joy over that kind of victory.
Doug McMasters: You see, each and every one of us have to deal with death and eternity, and it can come in a moment.
Doug McMasters: It could come even when we're in the middle of church service and we don't know when that hour is going to hit us.
Doug McMasters: But how wonderful it would be to know that you can look at your enemy called death and know that it's already defeated, know that the presence of god is not a scary place to go into but home.
Doug McMasters: This is the kind of child that's going to be born, the kind of victory that's going to be won.
Doug McMasters: Now, at christmas time, a lot of people think well, this is just, you know, another one of those stories that I hear all the time, and we love stories.
Doug McMasters: Children are captured by them.
Doug McMasters: We're captured by them even when we're adults.
Doug McMasters: We love to read stories that start with once upon a time.
Doug McMasters: Stories that start with once upon a time Because in the telling of those stories we feel a resonation of things within our hearts that we long to have actually happen.
Doug McMasters: You know, we read about people that come and we want to experience the supernatural and we want to escape death and we want to have a love that's unmitigated.
Doug McMasters: And we want to experience the supernatural and we want to escape death and we want to have a love that's unmitigated, and we want to let our lives flourish and dream and find the fulfillments of our dreams.
Doug McMasters: Why do our hearts long like that?
Doug McMasters: We tell the stories because they connect with those longings within us, but we know they're not real.
Doug McMasters: That's why we start the stories with once upon a time.
Doug McMasters: But they resonate within us because we really think life ought to be different than what we experience.
Doug McMasters: It really ought to be more fulfilling than it is and longer lasting than it is and more full of harmony than it is and richer than it is.
Doug McMasters: Death shouldn't have to be the end.
Doug McMasters: Goodbye shouldn't be the final words we give our loved ones.
Doug McMasters: Evil shouldn't triumph, and we long for a story that will be real.
Doug McMasters: This is that story.
Doug McMasters: This is the real story, and it doesn't start with once upon a time.
Doug McMasters: It starts with, in the city of David, an announcement to real shepherds, in a real field, with real sheep, with real angels, telling them that there's some good news that's dawned into this dark world.
Doug McMasters: This is Christmas.
Doug McMasters: It's a story about someone from a different world who's broken into ours.
Doug McMasters: It's a story about someone who did miraculous things, one who could calm the storm, who could heal people, who could raise the dead.
Doug McMasters: And yet he was captured by his enemies.
Doug McMasters: He was tortured by his enemies and he was put to death by his enemies so that he could tell us that there was another enemy that he was going to defeat, and that was death itself, by the resurrection from the grave.
Doug McMasters: You see, this isn't just another one of mankind's longings put into pen, from pen to paper.
Doug McMasters: This is a story of God's activity to punch a hole into the real life that we live, to tell us that there is an eternity and that God has come to deliver and bring light into our darkness.
Doug McMasters: You see, there really is, as some of the stories tell, evil and we're under the enchantment of that evil, but there's a glorious prince, a prince of peace, who's broken the spell of that enchantment and he's going to become ours and we his.
Doug McMasters: This is Christmas, and for all of us, that is light and hope.
Doug McMasters: And I pray for all of us here today that we will not only just hear this story but accept the truth of this story, because it really does matter.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray together.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you for this time shared together.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for granting us, in the understanding of your word, just how vital the birth of this child is.
Doug McMasters: And, father, we want to pray for this dear man and his beloved family and, lord, as they have gone to places of care.
Doug McMasters: We pray that you would envelop them with a peace and assurance that they're in the right hands and they'll be attended to very carefully.
Doug McMasters: We thank you, father.
Doug McMasters: We ask that you'd mercifully watch over him, bring him back to a fullness of life and health.
Doug McMasters: And, lord, thank you for the caring hands of those in the body who are able to rush to his side and help him to walk through this scary moment with him.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for how you watch over us in all these ways.
Doug McMasters: And, lord, I pray that as we close off this service and as we look forward to the coming days, that our celebration in song and our celebration around a table with family will be filled with sincere joy that you have brought a Savior, for unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given, and we pray this in Christ's name Amen.