Blog Archives
The Passionate Commitment: A Christmas Eve sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7
The Passionate Commitment
Isaiah 9:2,6-7
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ teach you that God has committed everything He is to loving you!
Zealous, Devoted, Passionate Commitment
He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace!
What an amazing description of Jesus, our promised Savior. Those four titles have made up so many Christmas Eve sermons, so many Advent sermon series have been based on those 4 titles, those four descriptions of the ministry that Jesus would have to His people.
Descriptions of how He would minister to us.
But that is not the thing to focus on this night.
This night, two words from the next verse are the point that we, and the world need to not just hear, but need to understand. Hear the end of that verse,
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s armies will make this happen.
The two words I want us to focus on are “passionate commitment.”
Most translations use zeal, some use devotion, some use determination, one even uses jealous love, but looking at the word, passionate commitment seems to bring across the message better than any other.
Tonight, we need to realize His passionate commitment, and we are the object of that passionate commitment.
The roles are needed – but the commitment more needed
The four roles are important, we need to understand how Jesus fulfills each of those roles. We’ve looked at that before, and there is a lot of value in knowing what God promised to do, but that is not enough.
Here is why–we live in a world full of broken promises.
How many times have you been disappointed in life? Maybe it was a boss with a promise that he or she couldn’t follow through on. Maybe it was a teacher who didn’t fulfill their role. Maybe it was your parents, and the expectation of what you would get for Christmas.
It could have been you, in the role of boss, teacher or parent, who had to break a promise.
We just live in a world where it becomes difficult to depend on others because of such broken and shattered histories,
The word commitment is life a 20 dollar bill—we found out it doesn’t have the value we once thought it did. We get cynical, either about promises made to us, or the ability we have to live in a relationship that is based on them. For certainly, over time, we will cannot keep our end of the bargain.
It really doesn’t help us when we are gifts are give to us by someone “making a list and checking it twice!”
We may not think God would do it, but it is a part of how our minds think – that we have to be good enough to deserve our gifts, our presents, and the help we so desperately need.
This doesn’t have to happen… it has!
God, through the words He entrusted to Isaiah, put everything behind this promise.
The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s armies will make this happen.
Of all the things God could invest his passion in, His care for you and every human is primary. Each person is critical, that is why He is so patient with us, despite our brokenness. He puts everything He is into fulfilling that promise,
And He has.
That’s the advantage that is beyond compare for us. We don’t see Isaiah’s words as a future promise, we see this commitment fulfilled in Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death , resurrection and ascension, and know He is interceding for us with the Father, and has sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us.
This promise ha been kept, the passionate commitment seen here in the manger, and even more on the cross. And someday, believers will look to the sky, to see Christ returning for us, and then to the throne, where they will see God in all His glory, welcome all believers home.
And until then, think through these promises, and realize the glorious love of God which drives the passion that made it happen. AMEN!
Christmas Eve: Relationships: Isaiah 9
Relationships
Isaiah 9:6-7
† I.H.S. †
May you realize the long awaited promise of God’s active presence in our lives, came true for all on a night like this… as Jesus the Messiah was born.
Four Letters.
Four simple letters, written by a prophet 700 years before the event he saw. The promise of God nearly two millennia before that.
Four letters, divided into two words, that matter more than we can imagine.
“to us.”
This child that we celebrate, this man who is God whom we glorify, was born to us.
To us…..
And everything changes, as the relationship that God wants to have with us, is revealed. That which they couldn’t understand in Isaiah’s day, and couldn’t understand on the night when Mary gave birth, made clear. God came to us. To have a relationship with us, to relate to us in a number of ways Isaiah tells US.
Like Kay is my wife, the church’s office manager, the mother of my son, so too does God relate TO US in a number of incredible ways….. and as we celebrate Jesus coming to us, as we ponder what this all means, it is worth looking at who Isaiah says this Jesus, this God is saves relates… to us
Wonderful Counselor, the one who comforts and directs, who consoles and guides, whose wisdom we depend upon. This is the God, who came to us. It is the first way Isaiah tells us that He will relate… to us.
He does this because we need direction, we need comfort, we need God here, to be our shepherd. Because we too often lose our way morally, We need Him when life results in despair and mourning. So a child was born to us.
That baby, who was laid in a feeding trough, this child born of parents who would soon leave their country because of persecution and move. He is one we truly need, A God, the God, not made of wood or fashioned from stone. A God, who is mighty, and uses that might, that ability, that power, for us. For that is how He would relate to us. Not just minimally from a distance but interacting with us here.
Too often we make false gods, ones who would promise to do what we want, what we think we want. We don’t want these gods to love us; rather we only want them to give us what we think we need. This God, though, who came as a child to us…is not like that. He is a mighty God, who loves and knows what we truly need. He relates to us as the God, who is always able to be Whom we need,
The next way is is my favorite of the ways in which God relates to us humans, to his people. As our eternal dad, as the loving Father, we run to when we are hurt when we’ve broken our neighbor’s window, or their hearts when we’ve done the things that leave us needing His strong embrace.
And this Father is eternal, and he will be our Father eternally. Think about that. God just isn’t a god of this day or that, a fad. He will be your God always.
There is a lot in this idea that this child relates to us as our Father, our everlasting Father. Theologians make a big deal of it. But when you need Him, His embrace is there…for you.
The last way God relates to us, through this child given to us, is so needed today. With all of the stress, all of the fears, with all the brokenness we have to witness, such is the nature of the God who comes to us. He is the Prince of Peace!
We so often picture the serenity of the manger scene, which I am not quite sure would be that peaceful. A woman gave birth, a husband tired and weary, the shepherds, still in awe of the million angels announcing the glory of Christ being born… into that scene comes the prince of peace… and we always picture that scene as serene, peaceful, because we know His character.
The child who would be, no who is, the prince of peace….our Prince of peace.
This child in the manger calms our fears, our anxieties, our lives…our world. Because of him, we have this peace… peace beyond understanding. For that is why He came… to us.
And the prince of peace….to us is given
The prince of peace who has come… to us.
AMEN!
