Come Thou Long Expected Jesus | God's Heart

Well Isaiah chapter 9, and you can turn there now in your Bibles, is it's a you know very well-read passage.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

It's familiar to us from the Old Testament, and it was written about 700 years before Christ was even born.

I mean, just allow that to sink in a little bit.

And as we're gonna see here this morning, it contains stunning prophecy about not only his birth, but also the purpose of his mission here.

But as we began in just kind of a simple way just last night to flesh that out, none of none of this really makes sense.

Christmas?

Okay?

Doesn't make sense.

It doesn't strike our heart with the intended force of impact if if you and I don't first understand the why.

Right?

Why why did he come?

Why was he born like that and die like he did?

Well, Isaiah chapter 7 and 8 actually give us a glimpse into the why.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

It gives us a window into what was going on in the world and what was going on in among God's people and the state of their hearts and their relationship with God.

See, Isaiah was written at a time where God's people, Israel, was divided, they'd been divided into two kingdoms.

Okay, we've actually got this map up there to kind of give you a visual and help you see this here.

So you see in green there, that's the northern kingdom of Israel.

Okay, the purple part there, that's the southern kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem was.

And and at this time that Isaiah was written, neither kingdom was following God very well, to put it mildly.

Okay, they weren't.

They were in rebellion.

All right, there was intense uh political unrest that was happening uh during their time.

They even found themselves, these two kingdoms, on the brink of civil war with each other.

Okay, chapter 7 tells us that the northern kingdom of Israel actually teamed up with uh with the Syrians.

Uh remember, the Syrians were a pagan nation, and and so they they join an alliance together with them to wage war on the southern kingdom of Judah.

And as you can imagine, as news of this was happening and and got to the ears of those in in Judah, they they hit the panic button.

But God speaks to them through the prophet Isaiah and tells them, listen, don't fear.

And and he promises that he's gonna deliver them, and he's gonna do it by way of the Assyrians.

Okay, not the Syrians, but the Assyrians.

And chapter 8 tells us that.

Now, Judah, when they hear this news, and as this ends up happening, okay, rather than praising God and thanking him for this amazing act of deliverance, instead what they do is they decide to give the glory to the Assyrians, which as you can imagine, provokes the Lord.

It provokes his righteous anger, his righteous judgments again, and and it and it causes him to tell them that Assyria will go from being their liberators, which they're celebrating right now.

They'll go from that.

You think it's gonna be so great.

Well, they're actually gonna go from being your liberators to becoming your heavy-handed oppressors.

Okay, this is not gonna go well for you.

Okay, so let me just kind of sum this all up again.

Okay, God's people, Israel, two kingdoms.

Okay, they're a mess.

An absolute disaster.

The relationship with God was splintering, it was fractured.

There were great difficulties that they were facing, we know, political levels, military levels, this would have happened on a social level as well.

You can imagine the fear of all of this, and just the infighting and the threat of war coming up, and and all of it would have affected daily life.

But hey, in the middle of all of that turmoil and and all of that up and down and all of it, we see here in the text, we see the heart of our God.

Okay, don't miss that.

In grace, and and as a as a loving father disciplines the child that he loves, he promises to them both both judgment for their sin.

Okay, we know that God is a God of justice.

People don't uh typically like that, but if God didn't punish sin, if he didn't deal with sin, he wouldn't be a good God.

Who's to say, you know, that, no, you can't accurately say that, well, God should just let sin go.

No, he can't.

He wouldn't be good if that were the case.

It would make him evil, but he's not, and so he promises them that the judgment is coming.

But at the same time, so is deliverance.

I'm gonna deliver you from this oppression.

Well, at the very same time, as he's promising these things, he, you know, he points even further ahead to kind of this greater or ultimate deliverance at the hand of a Messiah.

Okay, and all the this crazy political and military drama unfolding, take note of what God promises here through Isaiah.

If you want to just kind of flip back to chapter 7 there, take a look at what verse 14 says.

Remember, this is all kinds of crazy stuff is going down here.

And this is what he says.

He says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.

God's saying, yeah, your circumstances are dire right now.

And guess what?

Much of that is brought on uh by yourself.

Okay, but I'm gonna save you from that.

I'm gonna save you from that, though those problems.

I care very much about your current plight and the situation that you're in right now.

But but beyond that, okay, I'm working out a plan to save you from the greatest threat to your well-being, your sin.

So in Isaiah here, we get a snapshot into what God is doing in, again, this current moment in human history, but also this amazing glimpse into his supreme plan to fix the universal problem of sin and rebellion that mankind, you and I, find ourselves ensnared in.

And again, what comes through just so clearly here as we go through this, and we're gonna see it, is the heart of our God towards us.

It's to give you and I, his wayward creation, first of all, here hope.

Hope, gloom and anguish extinguished forever.

That's the first thing.

Now, before we get into chapter 9, trust me, we are getting there.

You can trust me on that, okay?

Take a look here just for a second at chapter 8, verses uh verse 19, and we'll read uh down into the end of the chapter there.

And this gives us a real good sense of where God's people are at, not just you know, physically or circumstantially, but but spiritually.

And again, this reveals really where all people are at apart from God.

God says to Isaiah here in verse 19, he says, And when they, so he's talking about my people, Israel, when they say to you, Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers, necromancers are people who communicate with the dead, when they inquire of these people who chirp and mutter, and he's like, Should not a people inquire of their God?

Seems like a reasonable request.

Right?

Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?

To the teaching and to the testimony, to the words that I have taught you time and time again, my message.

He says, if they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

That's pretty ominous.

Okay, so clearly here they've they've abandoned God.

Right?

They've abandoned his word, his message, his testimony, uh, it says there.

And when in a jam, they would rather turn to demonic practices than to humble themselves and seek him.

Okay, now here's the result of that.

You want to go down that road, you want to walk that path, this is where all of that's gonna take you.

Here's what a life lived apart from God eventually becomes.

That goes for anybody.

Verse 21.

Look at that.

It says, they will pass through the land.

It says, greatly distressed and hungry.

And when they are hungry, they will be enraged.

Maybe you want to write down in the notes, they're hangry.

Okay.

They will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God.

And they'll turn their faces upwards.

They're just looking for a solution wherever.

It says, and and they will look to the earth.

But behold, look at this, distress and and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness.

So again, this describes where Judah and Israel was at because of their insistence to live life how they want to live it.

Right?

We've heard your word, we've heard your testimony, we've we've heard the prophets like Isaiah, but don't care.

Gonna continue to kind of do it our way.

And listen, this always, always leads to not just problematic external life circumstances that that happen to touch our lives, but as you can see here in these verses, just this heavy and inner turmoil that goes on within a person.

Right?

You notice the words there, it says enraged, like get more and more angry inside, and it comes out of us.

It talks about this this contempt towards God.

It's it's it's this distress inside of us and this feeling of darkness and and gloom and and anguish.

And again, he uses the the words there, a thick darkness like envelops them.

I mean, does this not describe people today?

Does this not describe our world?

I mean, you think about like suicide rates, right?

They just they just keep climbing.

Right?

It suggests that people are in darkness.

It's it's substance abuse.

More and more people going after this, hoping that it will numb them, hoping that it will it will help.

But it just gets worse and worse and begins to disintegrate their life.

It's it's the accrual of debt.

Right?

If I just buy more things, if I just have more toys, if I have the bigger house, the latest TV, the whatever it is, then I'll be happy.

And it's like this void, we're just we're just filling it with with worldly things constantly.

And what does it add up to over time?

Misery.

Right?

We we we are so wayward.

And people everywhere are are losing hope by the hour, it seems.

Truly, truly lost apart from God, as the need and the desire for something real just becomes more and more uh apparent, and and there's a desperate yearning for something.

But listen, this is not just the experience of the unbelieving world, very easy for us to look outside and see them, but this absolutely becomes the experience of professing Christians who insist on living in stubborn rebellion against God.

Right?

Remember, this is this is aimed at God's people.

Right?

This thick darkness, this gloom, this anguish, all of it is the people that know God, so to speak.

And the longer that this continues and goes on, the worse it gets.

Maybe you've experienced this in your life.

Maybe you're experiencing it even right now.

Right?

That anguish and that gloom in your soul just grows deeper and darker, and it's becoming more and more overwhelming.

Well, God, mercifully, he's not finished.

Okay, take a look at chapter 9 now, verse 1.

Look at that first word there.

You need to like circle that.

But what an amazing three-letter word that we see in multiple places in the scriptures.

It suggests uh a hinge in the narrative here, a hinge in the story.

Something's about to change.

Hope is coming.

Look what it says.

But, but there will be no gloom for her who is in anguish.

Hey, God is gonna do something here about this epidemic.

He goes on.

It says, In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Nephtali, referring to Israel.

Okay, now notice the grammar here.

It's kind of an interesting couple of sentences here.

Okay, and understand that that Isaiah is it's a prophetic vision.

Okay, God is giving a vision to Isaiah that he is recording.

So in this verse here, as we see it, he's he's speaking about the the the discipline uh God's people are currently under.

Okay, they're they're experiencing this national defeat.

The Syrians are are teaming up with one half of them, and the Assyrians are coming and gonna take over, and you know, it's bad.

And you know, he's he's referring to it as a past event.

You notice that there?

Right?

It says in a former time.

Okay, but but then in the vision, he he looks ahead to the to the future fulfillment of this prophecy.

He says, but but in a latter time, okay, so see the the future part there, he has, it says, made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

You know, listen, don't miss this because this is incredible.

Okay, so he he points to the future fulfillment here, right?

I'm I'm I'm coming, I'm gonna make all things, I'm gonna make all things right here.

It's gonna be great, but but look how he he refers to it as a as a past event.

You see how he uh see how it's written in the in the past tense?

It's a it's a completed task.

Right?

He says, in in the latter time, he has made glorious.

You see how that's all phrased?

Okay, this signifies that God's promise of of the future redemption of Israel and and and mankind through Jesus Christ is as good as done.

That's the promise that we see here in Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

That's how guaranteed the promise of the gospel is.

Wow! Right?

That's amazing.

I mean that that right that's hope.

Right?

You see how the Lord is just infusing them with hope.

It's so dark, it's it's so bleak.

You're running in circles and exhausting yourself.

But don't worry, I'm coming.

I'm gonna I'm gonna fix all of this up.

It's a message that is as jacked up as life can get sometimes.

God's gonna, he says, make glorious, right?

The the way of the sea, the the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations, which is which is prophecy, we know because because we read this on the other side of history, right?

We read this after the cross and the resurrection happened.

We know that that Jesus would come and and and bring hope, the you know, the hope of salvation to the world.

We know that he started his ministry in where?

Galilee, right?

That's what it says here.

And then it spread from from there out to the nations, the word says.

Okay, so through Isaiah, God just breathes hope into this sometimes very dark and very gloomy life.

Listen, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, and maybe you're kind of searching this out or someone invited you here today, understand that putting your ultimate heart level, foundational hope in the things that this world has to offer.

Things like building wealth or or sexual pleasure or following after your heart, wherever it might lead you.

Listen, all of it, all of it ends up being a dead end.

It's gloom, it's it's anguish at some point.

I mean, have you already kind of sensed that this is your experience?

Have you felt what I've just said, like kind of gnawing at the back of your mind and kind of stirring in your heart already?

Have you experienced the disappointment of this life?

You know, where you're you're you're just kind of gradually realizing that that the pursuit of all of these things, the the message of the world, the the values, the system of the world, you know, none of it really satisfies me.

Not really.

I always want more.

Right?

I I get some of it, and you know, it feels pretty good for a bit, but but after a while, I need more.

And so you continue to go after it again and and again.

But what but what ends up happening simultaneously in all of that is if you begin inside to feel you know that much more hollow and and and empty.

Well, Jesus came to to extinguish that heaviness, that emptiness, and bring real hope to your soul.

And it's found in a relationship with him.

It's what you were created for.

It's the only place where true hope is found, the hope that your heart yearns for and wants and is mistakenly looking for in other things.

So my plea to you this morning would be to turn to him.

Turn to him as your savior.

Admit, recognize your sinfulness.

I don't say this.

We in our church who understand this, we don't we don't say this, you know, from our soapbox looking down on you.

We've we've all done it.

You know, we we've understand, wow, I'm broken.

And then in the pursuit of life, I'm going after that.

That's that's broken.

And it's just creating more problems and and the sin that just kind of keeps keeps compiling and compounding.

It's it's all against God.

You need to know that this is true for you as well.

It's true for every single human being.

But God has made a way, and it's through his son, Jesus Christ.

It's why he was born, it's why he went to the cross.

It was to pay the price that you should have paid.

You owe God, you've sinned against him.

And we need to confess that.

Turn from it and invite him to be our Lord.

Forgive me.

Make all things new.

Be my savior.

Now, listen, if you are a Christian here today, and you've gone the way of Israel as we read it here, and you've been fighting against the Lord and in your pride, the message is really the same to you.

Repent and turn back.

You know that.

You know better than what you've been doing.

And begin to root your hope back into Jesus Christ again.

Not into those things that your heart is searching after.

Root it back in him.

That's what he wants for you.

That's his heart for you.

Again, he wants to infuse hope into your soul, into your heart, into your mind, into your life.

He also wants to give us light.

To scatter the darkness and lead us to him.

That's the second thing.

Now, the obvious purpose of light here, I think it's pretty clear, uh, is to illuminate.

Right?

I've got my phone here with me, and I've got the light on.

I find this, it's probably not bright for you, but like if I look at it, I'm like seeing spots.

You know, you ever had to get up in the middle of the night and uh you know just get a glass of water or you know, assist a sick kid or something like that, and kind of like stumbling around in the darkness, right?

And for you, you've probably been like me, and you've had to like kind of scramble and grab your phone and you're stumbling, and you trip over the bed or stub your foot or whatever, and then once you get the light on, voila, you can see.

Right?

Light enables us to see what we couldn't see before.

Again, I think that's a pretty capped and obvious statement to make, but I think we see that truth reflected here in verse 2.

Take a look.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light is shone.

Okay, so so through Christ's birth, which this passage is driving us towards, especially in the later verses, okay, we see God's plan of salvation illuminated.

Right?

That's the desire of God's heart to take people, people like you and I, just kind of stumbling and tripping along through the deep darkness of life and sinful choices, and you know, immersed in the in the in the darkness of our world and and the darkness of our own mistakes and failures and and all of it, and and and shine a light on all of that so that the darkness just scatters.

That's what he's going for.

Excuse me.

Where all of a sudden, you know, we see clearly.

You think through those moments in your life where you're kind of just going about your business, living life your way, and then all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just like opens your eyes and the scales fall off, like now you can see.

And that's what he does, is he shines the light on us, and we realize in those moments that wow, sin is it's abhorrent, right, in the eyes of a holy God.

It offends him, it's it's against him.

But we're uh we're unable to see that or or or recognize that or or care when we're shrouded in darkness.

Right?

And then B, God's light helps us see and realize that sin always, always, eventually hurts us.

Or hurts other people as well, and it just causes pain and and misery.

And then C, I mean, he shines light and scatters the darkness to lead us towards him.

That's what the light accomplishes.

This is this is God's love, right?

This is this is God's heart towards us, towards you and I.

To first illuminate the problem, okay, which is our sin, and then illuminate the solution, which of course is Jesus.

Okay?

Praise God that he does both of those things.

You ever thought about that?

I was kind of thinking about that uh this week.

He could have done nothing.

You could easily make the argument that he probably should have done nothing.

We certainly don't deserve for him to do anything.

But he could have just left us stumbling around in the darkness, suffering, struggling along, blind with no awareness and no way out, completely oblivious until we we die and we face judgment.

Or?

Or he could have merely shone a light on our on our sinfulness and exposed that so that we're now aware of it, but with no solution to the problem.

Can you imagine that?

Aware of what's wrong with us, uh uh aware of our of our sin, but with no redemption, no plan, no, no gospel, there's no there's no birth of Christ, there's no death, there's no resurrection.

If that were the case, there'd be nothing but despair for us.

But guys, that's not our God.

Right?

Do you see that here?

That's not Him.

His heart was to clearly, accurately, lovingly point out our problem.

Right, shine a light on it, but then at the same time provide a solution through Jesus Christ and through light, his light leads us to towards him.

Right?

His birth, which we began to celebrate last night and this morning, and and next Sunday, and of course, this Christmas season, it's it's God's plan taking shape.

Right?

It's God's plan of redemption coming to fruition, which leads us to what?

Joy, right?

God's heart is to give us, you and I, his wayward creation, joy, increasing and and and overflowing with praise.

It's the last thing.

Now take a look at this.

We see it here in verse 3.

He says, You have you have multiplied the nation.

Okay, so the kingdom's divided, right?

And we know that it's beginning to cannibalize itself through dissension and through infighting and all of that.

But God is showing them he's not done with them yet.

He speaks of future fruitfulness and multiplication is basically the word he's using here, right?

You have multiplied the nation.

Keep going.

He says, You have increased its joy.

They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, and they are glad when they divide the spoil.

Okay, the immediate context here is that this is speaking of uh of plentiful crops, right, and even national victory that's ahead for Israel here.

God's assuring them, how awesome is that, in their current rebellion and in their current troubles.

Okay, but again, in a in another and and and more ultimate sense, he's also pointing ahead once again to the joy of a Messiah.

And the joy that he will bring as he saves them from their sin and the separation that that's created between them and God.

Now, on one hand, that our sin has been wiped away, and you know, Jesus Christ has forgiven that and covered that in his blood is is it's like so obviously like a joyful reality for us, right?

I mean, it really is.

You know, oh, like no more, no more hell and no more eternal fire and torment.

I mean, I get paradise in in heaven forever?

Yes, please.

All right, that sounds pretty good.

But hey, what's incredible is how how few Christians actually seem to experience the joy of their salvation.

Think about it.

I mean, how many of us here have experienced uh a void of of joy lately?

Is that your experience?

Can I get that water?

Voice is struggling a bit.

But have you noticed this for yourself?

How's your joy these days?

You know, we sing about it, we talk about it, we read cheesy Hallmark cards about it, we we you know all of it, but this seems to often be like the most miserable time of the year for a lot of people.

And I'm talking about Christians.

Right?

Joy is evaporated.

And maybe for you it's because of the pressures of this time of year.

It's it's the stress of finances around Christmas time, and you're trying to figure out how to make this all work, or you know, it's that, you know, that that awkward pain of you know crazy family drama and tension, or or maybe it's just the busyness of it all.

We've got so many Christmas parties and so many things that we've got to go to that it's it's you know somehow kind of kind of squeezed out my time with the Lord like I'm used to having, and so I'm I feel pretty distant from him, which is you know, kind of ironic considering that the season is supposed to be about him, right?

But maybe for you it it goes back even further than that.

And once you stop and kind of assess all of this and think about it, you maybe for you you really can't think of the last time that you you had like real spirit-filled, like gospel-driven from the heart, joy that that transcends your challenges and your difficulties and and your trials.

Listen, every Christian deals with this at some point, at multiple points, right?

This is kind of the wrestle and the struggle of life.

And it maybe, though, for you, you've gotten to the point with it all that you just kind of become cynical.

And maybe this is leaking out of you in your attitude and in the way you speak with other people, it's usually loved ones first.

But maybe you've gotten to the point where, far from rejoicing and being glad in the birth of Christ and the salvation that he has brought you, you've instead you've doubted his heart.

You've doubted that his heart is to give you anything good at all.

And you, if you're honest and in your thinking, your thought process, you think he's kind of stingy.

When it comes to blessing, it's like when, you know, when is he gonna come through?

I've been praying.

And it's like it's hitting a wall and bouncing back to me.

You know, I thought God was supposed to answer prayer.

I hear other people talking about the Lord's goodness, and I'm not really seeing it.

It's been so long and I feel so dry, and maybe none of this is real.

Maybe you're even at the point where you're like, clearly, God is done with me.

Well, hey, listen, I understand that life is hard.

I know some of your stories.

But can I lovingly and yet at the same time, kind of in a gentle way, forcefully, kind of snap us out of this a little bit.

No more of this God is stingy business.

Where you allow that attitude and that mindset to kind of take over and deplete your joy.

Okay, God is stingy, that's not truth talking, that's Satan talking.

And last I heard, not a great idea to give in to what Satan says and thinks and believes.

The truth is that he's given you and I everything.

And his name is Jesus.

And he continues to give you and I grace every single day.

Now, you and I may not, because we're we're clouded or we're blind or there's sin there or whatever it might be, we may not have the eyes to see his grace in all the little details.

The how and and the when of you know how he gives that grace and all of that is, I mean, that's his call.

That's on his timeline, that's in his sovereignty.

But remember, you've got Jesus Christ.

He is your savior.

The gospel has has saved you.

You've been you've been redeemed.

And the answer for you, if if you're not you know you're just not feeling it today, is to marinate in that.

To soak in it.

In who God is, in his character, his love, his strength, his promises, his goodness.

And of course, out of that, marinate and think through what God has done for you.

Right?

Until that joy comes back.

And it increases and it overflows from your life and in your thoughts and in your hearts and through your actions with praise to Him.

Listen, sometimes we just need the reminder that we're not gonna find joy any other way.

So if you're kind of battling with the Lord right now and you're tempted to go look for joy in other things, take stock of that.

Okay, realize you're never gonna find it in all those other things.

We've talked about that a lot already this morning.

So work it out with the Lord.

Grapple with him, cry out before him, express honestly where you're at with him.

I've said this before and I'll say it again.

He can handle it.

Christmas.

Right?

It's the promise of joy.

Right?

We see it revealed here in Isaiah as we've been looking at it, and we're gonna continue this chapter next week.

And then, of course, the the delivery on that promise we see in the manger.

It's God's heart towards you and I.

I'm gonna pray.

And then we're gonna allow that joy to begin to bubble up and once again pour out of us as we respond in song.

Join me as we pray.

God have mercy on us today.

God, we see here in the text that your heart towards us is to give us hope, to give us light, to give us joy.

Lord, some of us are feeling like, and that's not my experience.

Not at the moment, anyways.

And so, God, I pray that as we look at your promises here this morning, written around 3,000 years ago, Lord, I pray that we would hold fast to them.

I pray that we would see that it is your desire, it is it is your heart to show us nothing but the best, to give us nothing but the best.

Lord, you gave us your Son, you gave us yourself.

And so, God, I pray that the truth of the gospel here today and the reality that we're broken, and and the truth that you've given us these the amazing gift of salvation, Lord, I pray that that would take root.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would press it down into our hearts, Lord.

I pray that that would create and cause joy inside of us that again transcends the difficulty, the pain, the circumstances that we might be facing.

Lord, help us to cling to you.

Lord, and again, I pray that you would create this joy in us.

Lord, this is not something that we can create, this is not something that we can manufacture, Lord.

Joy comes from the Spirit.

And so, God, we just throw ourselves before you, Lord, and plead with you in prayer, God, please, please draw near to us.

Lord, continue to show us your power, continue to show us your grace.

Lord, and I pray that as we see that, our hearts would be softened and that we would desire to give you glory, Lord.

I pray that we would do that now as we sing.

In Christ's name, we pray these things.

Amen.