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Well, turn, if you would, to Isaiah chapter nine, verse six and seven. Actually, we're gonna read that whole text. Look at this great Christmas prophecy that, of course, I love to read year-round, but hey, if the culture's gonna give us an excuse to worship Christ a little more, we're gonna take it. So praise the Lord for the gift of Jesus Christ. Well, I want you to place yourself, if you would, in the sandals of the Israelites, ancient Israelites, 700 years before Jesus ever shows up. There is massive tectonic shifts in the political landscape taking place. It's a very, very fearful and nerve-wracking time to live in. Israel has just watched the Northern Kingdom be savagely destroyed by the Assyrians. and just when you think they're going to stick around, suddenly Egypt rears its ugly head, and Egypt becomes the next sort of big power on the Middle Eastern bloc, and just when you think Egypt's going to be in control for a while, then Babylon stands, and Babylon unfurls its military might, and everyone goes running for the hills, and so you have all these massive world powers sort of coming to the fore, and little Israel's like this toy boat being tossed around in the tempest and in the upset oceans of all this political turmoil that's taking place. And in the midst of all this, Isaiah the prophet shows up in Isaiah chapter nine, and verses one through nine, and he delivers this message. Now I know things politically, internationally are intense in our day and age, but imagine them just 10 times worse. And then Isaiah shows up with this message. He says, but there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times, he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with content. Now Zebulun and Naphtali, they were border villages. So when a nation invaded Israel, Zebulun and Naphtali were the first border villages to just be ransacked and destroyed. It was like the worst place in Israel to live. And so it was though God treated them with contempt. But later on, He shall make it glorious by the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, the Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nations. You shall increase their gladness, and they will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest. As men rejoice when they divide the spoil, for you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle of tumult and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning and fuel for fire." God's going to do away with war. He's going to do away with violence once and for all. For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. The government will rest upon his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God, everlasting, eternal Father, Prince of Peace, there will be no end to the increase of His government or peace. On the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So for the comfort of God's people, Isaiah shows up. and says, a child's gonna be given to you, a child's gonna be born, a son's gonna be given, and he's going to accomplish peace. And the first kind of peace is gonna be between God and man, it's gonna be reconciliation between God and man, what he accomplishes on the cross. The second kind of peace is when he sits on the throne of David after his second coming, and he establishes global peace all over the world. But this Christ is going to come, and he is going to be called Mighty God, Eternal Father, And He is going to one day absolutely destroy all rebellion, all faithfulness, all unrighteousness, and upon the rubble of unrighteousness, He is going to establish a fresh and new foundation of only righteousness, as far as the curse is found, as the song says. There will be no more vestige of any sort of unbelief, any sort of rebellion, any sort of idolatry. God is going to establish this from sea to shining sea. This is the Messiah that He is going to give you, Israel. And I would say, if you're a person that craves peace, that would be pretty good news. No matter if you're just in the ancient times, you're experiencing that kind of tumult, or even now, and there's a lack of peace in the home, all you have to do is have a heartbeat to realize that we crave for peace, we crave for stability, and sometimes we experience it temporarily, but this Messiah comes, and God says He's going to establish it once and for all, an amazing peace. Now, tragically, when Isaiah comes and preaches this message, Israel, for the most part, they had a godly remnant, but Israel was a people who did not have saving faith. They were in a state of rebellion. And so they would hear this message, and it would not affect them one bit. But that really didn't matter, because our response to the prophecy, to the message, doesn't dictate whether or not it's going to be fulfilled. And God is absolutely certain that this great prophecy is going to be fulfilled, because He says at the end of this passage, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish it. that is the certainty that God has that this plan will be accomplished because of the zeal of God. And so as I was reading through the birth narratives and through some of these nativity prophecies, I was just looking for, you know, I always like to read it and ask God, just help me see it in a fresh way. And so I really latched on to that word zeal. And I began to look at the nativity of Christ through the zeal of God bringing it about and the zeal of God accomplishing it. And I think there's so many ways we can just see, we'll find out what that is, but we can just see what the zeal of God is. And I see the zeal of God in the quiet frailty, in the cooing of baby Jesus. and in the uproarious worship of the angels as they sort of startle and appear to the shepherds and sing praises to him. You see the zeal of God in calling his Messiah in Isaiah chapter 49 his secret weapon, right? He is a secret weapon and yet at the same time the Messiah comes and he clothes himself in the afflictions of humanity. We see the zeal of God in just the elaborate orchestration of the nativity saga. I mean, there's so many things going on. There's so many moving parts. I mean, God's had this thing predestined from before the foundation of the world, and just all the different elements that go into the birth narrative in the opening chapter of Jesus' life reflect the great zeal that God has to bring this all about. And then the zeal and just the theological profundity that blows our mind every year. How does the God of the universe become an embryo? And I love it when the Bible says that Mary just kind of sits back and she ponders all these things in her heart. Yeah, and we've been pondering ever since. It's an absolutely amazing thing and the zeal of God is all over it. So this, the birth of Christ, is one of the great culminating points for the plan of redemption. And I hope you see that it's just not just a fulfilled prophecy, it is glowing with the radiance of God's zeal. There is no being in existence who is more excited and more zealous for the gift of Jesus Christ than our triune God is, passionately zealous. So for the next two weeks, I wanna just look at several expressions of the zeal of God that we can see in the nativity of Christ. I'm hoping the general effect this will have on us that especially if we know Christ, or I guess exclusively if we know Christ, that we'll receive this in faith and it will cause us to be more zealous. Because I don't know about you, but I'm always praying that God will make me more zealous. We need zeal in the Christian life. for consistency, for godliness, for boldness, for discernment. I mean, you sit back and you think of why do you need to be zealous about the things of God, and it's all of the above. We run out of that, and that's when we kind of become lukewarm or sort of legalistic or just going through the motions, and God never just goes through the motions, right? He is a zealous God, so I'm hoping it will have this effect on you. So our foundation text, It's gonna be Isaiah chapter nine, verses six and seven. So looking at that, let's just establish the foundation of this passage. The context here is God's plan to bring about global peace, right? It starts with a cross, starts with his kingdom. Anytime a person repents and comes to faith in Christ, they become a citizen of his kingdom, his kingdom is expanding, and one day, at his second coming, he's going to establish it and it's going to be global. But this particular passage is about how it begins with a birth of a rather frail, weak, little infant, Messiah child. And so, verse 6 opens up, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. Now, already in Isaiah, the theme of a son, a special Savior son that's going to be given to Israel, has already been developing in the book of Isaiah. If you were to turn ahead to Isaiah 7-14, Now, it almost feels like he's changing context here. Wicked King Ahaz has just been given an opportunity by God. He says, ask for a sign, Ahaz. Make it as deep as Sheol and as high as heaven. God wants to give you a sign to strengthen your faith so that you make a right decision, an obedient decision. Ahaz is disobedient. He says, I want your sign, God. God essentially says, well, fine, I'll give the house of David a sign, and here's what the sign will be. Isaiah 714, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold a virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call his name Emmanuel. So here's this first hint in the book of Isaiah, it's more than a hint, this is a very clear prophecy. A Bethula, a young maiden who has never known a man, will give birth to this Messiah, and He will be called Emmanuel. He will be called God with us. Of course, now us, looking back, we understand all the implications of God being with us, but here as this child is going to be given, He will be called Emmanuel, God with us. And then we move one chapter later in chapter 8, and it looks again like the topic has changed. The Bible's prophesying that Assyria is kind of metaphorically like a river, and Assyria is going to overflow its banks and spill into the northern kingdom, destroy them, and then Assyria is going to even spill into Judah, into the southern kingdom. But then the question is asked, whose nation is this? Whose kingdom? Is Assyria invading? Look at verse 8 of chapter 8. Then it, or Assyria, will sweep into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck, and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land. Oh, what? Emmanuel. Wait a second. I thought Emmanuel was a little baby that's going to be born 700 years from now. As it turns out, Emmanuel already exists even before his birth because he's a son of God. And this is already his land. It already belongs to him as the son of God. And then you could skip down to verse 10. God tells Israel's enemies, here He's telling Israel's enemies, look, you might invade Israel, you might even temporarily defeat Israel, but know that your plans will never ultimately defeat My people. Your plans will never ultimately defeat Israel. I will, in the end, rescue them, enemy nations. Here's why, verse 10, devise a plan, God's sort of taunting the enemy nations, devise a plan, but it will not be thwarted. State a proposal and it will not stand for God is with us You know what word that is in the Hebrew? It's Emmanuel In other words, another hint, why won't you ultimately defeat us enemy nations? Because Emmanuel, because God is with us. So already in Isaiah, there is this growing theme of the son of God who would become a babe, who is Emmanuel, who will save his people from their sins, but this is not the first act of salvation by Emmanuel. He's already been defending His people. He's already been saving His people. He's already been delivering His people. But when He becomes a human being, a child, and when He dies on the cross and is raised from the dead, that will simply be the greatest act of redemption ever accomplished by God. And more than that, it is the act of redemption that gives all other acts of salvation their meaning, right? Any other act of redemption that we see in the Old Testament, God saving the neck of Israel is just pointing towards the cross and saying, one day he's going to save you from ultimate judgment. from the ultimate enemy of sin, which is God. God is the enemy of sin, and if we're sinners, we're on the wrong side. So, we need a Messiah to come and not just save us ethnically or save us nationally, but to save us from our sins. And that's the trajectory and the momentum of this whole passage, so that by the time we come to our text in chapter 9, verses 6 and 7, there's already this established theme of a child is going to come. We're already starting to understand the Emmanuel who has been saving, but one day will take a new form in the incarnate Jesus Christ, and he will save his people from their sins. So look at that. Verse 6, a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders. The government will rest on his shoulders. And this is, in Isaiah chapter six, it kind of lumps the first coming and the second coming, but ultimately this child will grow, and he will sit on the throne of David, and the governments of the world will be placed upon his shoulders. He will reign. Now God is reigning now as head of the church. God is an absolutely sovereign authority over all things, but clearly, if we watch the news, the governments of the world do not do the moral will of God, right? They are not at all concerned if they even think about what the will of Christ is. On this day, after the second coming, when he sits on the throne, all the governments of the world, that will be their singular ambition, to do the things that is pleasing to Christ. And we know that because we can look at passages like Micah chapter 4 verses 1 through 3. This is the result of Christ sitting on David's throne, ruling Zion with a rod of iron, is that the nations will beat their weapons into garden tools, and there will be peace established all over the world. But before that can happen, the cross has to happen, the gospel work has to happen. And so, the governments are gonna rest on this Messiah's shoulder, the verse goes on, his name will be called, and look at this list of glorious names. Wonderful counselor. He is the incomparably wise God. Mighty God. There's the deity of Christ for ya. You know, I mean, if you're going to be called mighty God, you're probably God. Eternal Father, speaking to His fatherly nature. He's not God the Father, but He is fatherly. Prince of Peace, the peace that God establishes through the cross, the peace that He's going to establish at the second coming of Christ. And the great thing about this is that it's not going to be a temporary peace, right? It's not going to be like the glory days of David that were so great, but they passed. Or the glory, the golden years of Solomon that were so great, but they passed. This is going to be forever. Look at verse 10. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace. The furthest war-torn, sin-ravaged place in the world will be conquered by the peace of Christ that prevails. the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and Forevermore it's permanent. So shall we ever be with the Lord and then what does he say? the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish it. This is going to, I mean, such a magnificent, massive, global accomplishment by God can only be established by the zeal of God, right? I mean, what human effort could possibly bring this about? This is going to be God's zeal that accomplishes it. So when all the sermons of Isaiah are in, There's a very clear two-fold plan of the Messiah. First, he's going to be born of a virgin, he's going to grow up, he's going to be rejected by men. Those are all the suffering servant passages you can read, Isaiah 49, 52, 53. He's going to be rejected by the very people that he created, the very people that he loves, and he's going to grow, and he's going to die on a cross, and he's going to be buried Then he's going to be raised from the dead and that is going to qualify him for phase two of the redemptive plan So that he can return and establish this global peace that he wants to bring in on the wreckage of judging Unrighteousness, that's the great two-fold plan of God I want you to turn to another passage before we we got to lay a good foundation here to really appreciate the zeal in the nativity story, so I want you to go to Isaiah chapter 59 and This is outside of Isaiah chapter 9. This is probably the clearest laying out of God's future plan. God the Father, He will use the Messiah to accomplish this. And in this text, as the plan of God's redemption is laid out, smack in the middle of the text you see once again the zeal of God that's going to bring it about. So look at this, Isaiah 59, 16. And he, God, saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede." So this is kind of like, there's none righteous, no not one. God is astonished in a way, there's not one man who's righteous enough to stand in the gap, to intercede for sinners. Then, what's he gonna do? Then his own arm brought salvation to him. So God says, fine, I'll take care of it, I'll accomplish redemption, and his own arm solves the problem. Now you could go back to, or head to Isaiah 53 and see that the Messiah is called the arm of the Lord, remember that? Isaiah 53-1, to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? So God is going to, as it were, take matters into His own hands to save His people from their sins, and He's going to save by His own arm. His own arm brought salvation, the verse goes on, and His righteousness upheld Him. That is His righteous servant. It's His Messiah. And look at verse 17, He suits Him for war. He put on righteousness like a breastplate. and a helmet of salvation on his head, and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped him with zeal, with zeal as a mantle. This is before Jesus comes into the world, it's like the father takes his son, like Saul did to David, and just arms him to the teeth, right? And the last thing he puts on, he wraps him with a mantle of God's zeal. Verse 18, according to their deeds, so he will repay wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies, to the coastlands he will make recompense. So they will fear the name of the Lord from the West and his glory from the rising of the sun, for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives. I love that. Here comes the Messiah like a rushing stream being driven, compelled by the wind of God. A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them. Okay, here's the new covenant. There's an old one, here comes the new covenant the Messiah's gonna bring in. Says the Lord, my spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever. So in this text, this is pretty cool, God lays out the future plan. I'll send my son into the world, I'll wrap him with the mantle of my zeal, I'll arm him to the teeth, I'll send him into Israel, he'll accomplish redemption, he'll die and be raised from the dead, 50 days after his resurrection, the church is born, the new covenant is here, the new covenant envelops the second coming and envelops the millennial kingdom and envelops the throne of David. I mean, this is everything we hope for, right? This is everything we're praying for, the coming of Christ, the establishment of His kingdom, the eradication of sin and suffering. This is everything we're waiting for, and it's the zeal of God, wrapped in His mantle of zeal, that's going to bring it about, that's going to accomplish it. So let's talk about zeal. Let's just define zeal real briefly. What is zeal? Well zeal is passion, right? A very simple definition. It's passion or it's ardor. The Hebrew word is kanah, and you see this word in Deuteronomy 424, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire. It actually means blazing red or blazing hot. That's what the Hebrew word kanah means. So this, Deuteronomy 424, the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God, and that's our Hebrew word kanah. So sometimes it can mean zealous, And sometimes it can be translated jealous because it's all part of the same thing. So this is a God who is zealous, a God who is passionate. And we think of jealousy, if we commit jealousy, most of the time, not always, but most of the time, it's sinful. Because there's an element of envy in it, right? But God is perfectly jealous. He has a perfect jealousy about him. A good way to illustrate it, if a newly engaged young man, you know, promised himself to his fiance, And then later on, he saw another man sort of trying to inappropriately solicit affection from her. If he's a good fiance, he's going to be jealous. Not in sort of the insecure kind of mean-spirited, envious way, but it's kind of proof that he loves her, right? He's not okay with someone else trying to steal her affections. And so jealousy really involves two things. Jealousy involves love, or our main word, zealous, zeal. Jealousy involves love, but it also involves an anger against the threat to that love. So if a fiance sees another person inappropriately trying to steal the affections of his woman, there's going to be, first of all, evidence. If he is jealous, there's evidence that he has a zealous love for her, And then secondly, there's going to be a little bit of anger, right? A little bit of wrath, a little bit of running to the defense of her who is the object of his great affection. And this is what we see in the zeal of God. It is a zealous love for the object of his love. It is a zeal for the object of his love. Now John Gill, writes a commentary, and his commentary on Isaiah chapter 9, 6, and 7, he starts to talk about, okay, according to this context, according to the gospel, what is at the heart of God's zealous love? And John Gill says, look, there's three things. You're not going to understand the gospel without this. There's three things. First of all, It's the glory of God. What he does, he does first and foremost for his own great name, for his own glory. So the glory of God is at the epicenter of the zeal of God, which is good, because God is glorious and he's worthy of all magnification, he's worthy of all honor, he's worthy of all glory. So we want him to have as his chief ambition his own glory, because that's how glorious he is. Secondly, the object of His zeal is His Son. You see that as He gives His Son to us, there is this wonderful affection, especially in John chapter 17, that you see the Father has for His Son. He is zealous for His Son. And then thirdly, the object of God's zeal is His elect, right? His bride that the Father, before the foundation of the world, chose to give as a love gift to His Son. So it's the glory of God, it's the Son of God, it's His bride, all three are at the core of God's zealous love. But it also, where does the wrath come in? It also means that if any of these three are affronted or assaulted or attacked, God steps into war mode, right? If His glory is assaulted, if a person lives for any other purpose other than for the glory of God, they are in danger of the wrath of God because His wrath zealously guards His glory. Well, what about his son? What if his son is assaulted, his son is affronted? What if someone looks at the cross and says, no, thanks, that's not for me. I don't find that beautiful. I don't need Christ. How do you think the father feels about that? His only begotten son that he gave as a sacrifice for sin to just be casually dismissed. There's wrath on the other side for that. What about those who would assault his church, assault his bride, chiefly the devil, who's called the accuser of the brethren? God's wrath is stored up against him. We read a lot about that in the book of Revelation. And so what you see in the great zeal of God is at the core of it are the things, the people that God loves, but also his wrath to defend these things rightly that he loves. So really when Jesus is born, when he's a baby in the manger, we're seeing the zeal of God personified in an infant. who is both called the greatest expression of love that God has ever given, and also His secret weapon of war. I mean, how can two such seemingly opposite things coexist in one Christ child? Because that Christ child is the apple of His eye. It's what He's zealous for. It's the greatest expression of love. It also means that He is going to anoint this Son, exalt this Son to His right hand, and He's going to give all judgment back over to Him. It is Jesus Himself who personally said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Fear Him, and He's talking about Himself, who can cast both soul and body into hell. Because I'm a Savior that will save, but I'm also the judge of the world. All judgment has been handed over to me. And both those meet together in the zeal of God. So with that as a foundation, That means you can come back next week and understand what I'm going to say next week. But we can also look briefly at these two. I just want to show you two expressions of God's zeal in the nativity scene. So you can go back to Luke chapter 118 that we read for are all around the area that we read for our scripture reading. So, Roman numeral one, God's zeal through the angels. I want to look at God's zeal reflected in the angels. It's an indirect zeal. We're going to look at angels' zeal, but it's just a spillover of God's zeal. And I want to look at three sub points three different ways that the angels were zealous, okay? So in Luke chapter one, I have that familiar story, the old priest Zacharias is chosen by lot to go into the temple. It was such a rare privilege, perhaps priests only did this once in their lifetime. He goes into the temple, he offers up incense, which is symbolic of God hearing and receiving our prayer. An old man, Zacharias, goes in there, and as he's in there offering up the incense, Suddenly Gabriel appears. Yes, the same Gabriel in the book that appeared to Daniel and terrified him with these apocalyptic visions, the same mighty Gabriel shows up and says, Elizabeth, your elderly barren wife is going to have a child and he's going to fulfill Isaiah 40. He's going to be the forerunner of the Messiah. I mean, Talk about a lot of good news at one time. Oh, my wife's gonna have a child? Wait a second, my child's gonna be the forerunner of the Messiah? Wait a second, the Messiah's coming? I mean, just compounding good news. This is exciting, and we are told that Zacharias was a godly man, but all godly men and women struggle with faith, and so his moment to shine comes, but he does not shine very well. Look at 118, Luke 118. Zacharias said to the angel, how will I know this for certain? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. So instead of reveling at the mystery, as Mary did when Gabriel appeared, he doubts. I mean, here's Gabriel. Christ is about to be born. Very anticlimactic, you know. Are you sure? That's kind of hard to believe. In verse 19, the angel answered and said, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. I mean, you can hear the righteous impatience and anger of Gabriel here. Excuse me, you know who I am? I am Gabriel who stands in the presence. You know where I got this message from? You're gonna feel the air sucked out of the room as Gabriel kindles his wrath in verse 20. Behold you will be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their proper time. I mean, this angel, as I think all angels must be, was totally dumbfounded at Zacharias' lack of faith. And he actually punishes Zacharias. He makes him mute. And we see, I think, in verse 62, they have to use sign language, which also means he's deaf, because you only use signs for deaf. So he punishes Zacharias for his unbelief. This is an overflow of the defensiveness. If you want to call this zeal anything, call it Defensive angelic zeal. He's defensive of the glory of God. Because this angel is not just committed to delivering a message, this angel wants the recipient of the message to believe the message. He's not just saying, my job here is done, Zacharias, whatever. But he is passionate that it be believed. And that's not his own passion, this is just an overflow of God's passion that his people believe this great prophetic message. A second angelic zeal, overflow of God's zeal, is a theological zeal. So God's zeal is seen, I think particularly, in the theological conciseness and clarity of the messenger angels. We see that in Luke 1 verse 30. The angel appears to Mary, and what I want you to notice here is how amazingly concise their message is. It says, The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and you'll bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, I mean, he's just nailing all the points of the major covenants. You could trace the words of the angels sort of hopscotching along the line of the great covenants of the Old Testament. Verse 33, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will have no end. And then he says to Joseph in Matthew chapter 121, she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. So if his angels aren't just showing up saying, hey, Jesus is here and he loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. you know, or all this other sentimental ambiguity. Jesus is here and he wants you to be the best version of you. And all the other things that are just obscuring the gospel today from pulpits and from people that call themselves Christians, they're just saying goodish things that ultimately confuse the concise heart of the gospel, which is Jesus has come, he will save his people from their sins because we have a big sin problem according to God. And he's going to sit on the throne of David and he's going to establish an everlasting kingdom. It's like in a few verses, this angel just with a drawstring brings together the great sort of epic climactic points of all the covenants, brings them up in one message and delivers that to Joseph and Mary. which tells me that these angels were zealous about the message they were delivering. It wasn't half-hearted. It's God's zeal. And I think the third angelic zeal that's reflected here is a protective zeal. They further demonstrate God's zeal for his son by appearing to Joseph in a dream and telling him to go to Egypt to escape the bloodlust of Herod. And then when the coast is clear, the angels once again appear and tell them to go back to the homeland. So they just don't leave after Jesus is born. It's like these angels just kind of stick around. I mean, in Isaiah chapter 9, 7, when it tells us that the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish that, do you know what that word hosts means? It means armies. This is the zeal of God who is the God of his armies. Who are his armies? His armies are angels. This is celestial soldiers who are sort of hovering over this holy family, zealously making sure that they are kept safe, that they are preserved for the exact point for which God has brought Christ into the world. They're a zealous group of angels. And secondly, and lastly, the major second point is God's zeal is seen in gathering worshipers. Now, if you look at the birth narratives, the last thing this is is just a birth. I mean, the birth is, I shouldn't say that, the birth is absolutely amazing. But it's not only a birth event. It's a series of worship services. Because worship, how we live, and then when we come together and describe worth to God, Worship is supposed to be the pinnacle expression of our enthusiasm and our love and our devotion to God. So God has sovereignly orchestrated that this whole birth saga, this whole opening chapter of Jesus' life, would be strung together by a series of worship services. And so there's three different kinds of worshipers that God brings together. Look at Luke chapter 2. The first group that he brings together is angelic. These celestial, they're not only soldiers and warriors, they're pretty good singers, and they're pretty good worshipers. Luke chapter 2 and verse 8, in the same region there were shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. I would have loved to seen the look on these shepherds' face. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy." Evangelion, that's the Greek word for gospel. I'm here to tell you the gospel, good news of great joy, which will be for all people for today in the city of David, there is born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you'll find this baby wrapped, oddly enough, in cloths. lying in a cattle trough, a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased. It only takes one angel to deliver a message, right? And the one angel shows up, but it's like once he delivers his gospel message, all the other angels that have been, you know, invisible to this point, it's like they can't even help themselves, and suddenly they just explode into visage, and they light up the night, and they start to, whatever it is, sing or shout the praises of God, and you almost feel the very halls of heaven thunder and tremble with the weight of their worship. And that is at the command and order of God. What does that communicate to these shepherds? This is a God worth getting excited about. This is a God who is zealous to gather worshippers and to be worshipped. So those are celestial worshippers, and then the second group is the lowly worshippers, and these are the shepherds, the second group of worshippers that God gathers. Now I call these lowly worshipers because in the days of Christ, shepherds were associated with the low class. They were actually associated with criminality. I don't want to accuse these shepherds of being thieves, but a lot of times shepherds were just known for being a part of the people who had a very high recidivism rate, you know, their criminal past haunts them, and that's just sort of the reputation they had. They were people of humble means, And essentially, they weren't the first people that a person would think in their fleshly mind that God would assemble to be these worshipers of Christ. But of course, if we know Christ and we know His ways through the Scripture, this isn't a surprise to us, right? Because God has always loved to use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. He's always loved to take what seems to be insignificant and unimportant and promote them in His kingdom to a position of greatness. And tell them, you are not insignificant in my eyes, you are beloved in my eyes. And isn't that even the nature of Jesus' ministry? Didn't he love to channel his ministry toward the poor and the outcasts and the forgotten? And so this is just kind of the heart of God. We kind of appreciate this. It makes sense that he would gather to himself humble worshipers like the shepherds. It is the zeal of God that wants to be worshiped by these humble men. And then the third and last group that we'll look at is the wise men. Now, once again, this is the opposite side of the pendulum. These are not humble shepherds. These are part of the kingly class. And I think it's pretty amazing that we are told in the Bible that one day all the kings of the earth will worship God at his second coming. And so God kind of sees to it to throw in a few kingly figures at his birth, at his first coming. I think it's just sort of this giant hint that this is just a foretaste of this massive worship service that's gonna take place in the future where all people of power are going to bow before God. Wise men were the most important counselors to kings of the East. That's why they were considered a part of the kingly class. These wise men were probably from Babylon. You could trace it all the way to the book of Daniel. Daniel was a part of the government of Babylon, and certainly after he received his messianic visions, he would have told the other Babylonian governing officials about the great Messiah that's going to come, which why in the world where these royal, elite people travel to a rogue, beleaguered nation in captivity, in bondage, and think that they could actually learn anything from them unless they knew something about their Messiah. That He's not so much reflective of the defeat of a nation, but there's a kind of kingship to Him that is bigger than this weak people. And so God moves upon these kingly men, to be worshipers. Look at Matthew chapter 2. Well, actually, I'll just read this to you if you're not there. Matthew 2, 9-11. Here's the wise men. And after hearing the king, that is King Herod, they went their way, and the star which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over the place where Christ was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell on the ground and worshiped him. That's why they're coming, not to just see a sight, to worship. And then opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I mean, the zeal of God saw to it that we just receive a taste of King's worship, King's allegiance, that will one day happen in full at the second coming of Christ. And if we had time, we could look at some other worshipers. We know Anna was a widow who was bereaved at a very young age, and she devoted her whole life to worship in the temple. And God wants Anna, this elderly, widowed woman, to be amongst some of the initial people to worship Christ. If that doesn't tell you something about the kindness of God's zeal, I mean, what does it say about God, the kind of people he's collecting to himself, an elderly forgotten woman who's been widowed and there she is worshiping God. There's Simeon, another elderly man that God said would not taste death until he saw the Christ, and Simeon comes and he becomes a worshiper. We learn so much for just the shape and the heart of God's zeal by the people that he brings to himself. I want to close by asking you a question. Who is zealous for you in your life? Maybe your story is a sad story. Maybe your parents were never really zealous for you to succeed, never really sacrificed, never really had that basic parental love and compassion. And you haven't really had friends that have sacrificed and you could say are really zealous for you and for your good. Or maybe you're on the other side of that and you say, well, you know, I've always had parents that have been zealous for me. I've had friends and I have a spouse and I have a great support system. And whatever sort of story you put yourself in, what we can equally say is there is nothing to be compared, nothing that can be compared to the zealous love of God for His people. I hope you see that. I think if there's one way that we could illustrate that, the Bible illustrates that, we could not begin to put into words the agony of Abraham. right, as Abraham raised his knife, getting ready to sacrifice his son Isaac at the command of God. I mean, imagine, I mean, he's obeying God in faith, but imagine the agony that Abram must be in, but God stops him. Now try to put into words the agony that God the Father finds Himself in as His knife of wrath is raised over His Son who is dying on a cross and nobody stops the Father. The Father doesn't stop the Father. And he plunges that knife of wrath, that judgment, into the heart of his son because of the sins that I have committed that have been laid upon Christ. And you step back and you look at that and you say, what would compel God to do that to a son that he loves ferociously, that he loves infinitely? What could drive a father to make that degree of sacrifice And the only thing that the Bible responds to is a zealous love that we could never get our minds around. A zealous love for His glory, a zealous love for His Son, because in doing that He's accomplishing a bride, and a zealous love for His bride, a zealous love for His people. And so I can tell you something based on Scripture that you will never find a love more zealous, a love more fierce than the kind of redemptive love by which God loves His people. So how do you experience that? If you don't know Christ, first and foremost, it's not only believing the truthfulness about what God says in his scripture about our sin problem and the Lord being the only right sacrifice to save us from our sins, but it comes when we come to the end of ourself, right? Because Satan is going to fill our mind with a million excuses why we don't need that Christ. I'm good on my own, me and God have an understanding, how can you really know, and all these sort of excuses. And here God stands as Savior, ready to deliver, ready to save, but not forever, right? Not after the return of Christ, when He dons the dark robe of His judgment seat, and he stops saving and enters into judgment. So now's the time in his mercy where he puts the gospel out. Now's the time where he declares that all who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. And to know that we're gonna spend eternity somewhere forever, and to take the question lightly, what will you do with Christ, is the highest foolishness anyone could ever commit. What will you do with Christ? Because that is going to determine eternity after you die. Heavenly Father, we praise you for revealing your zeal to us. We thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ. Lord, I found as I sang those wonderful worship songs this morning, Within me, a pang of pain for those who might be here this morning and enjoying the holidays, but not really able to say that you, Jesus, are at the heart of their worship. and are the central point of their affections. Lord, I pray that you, by the grace of your Holy Spirit, would pour out upon them, open their eyes, as you called Lazarus from the grave, God, and may they see what hopefully they see in the Christians that are around them. This is far from just a holiday, or as Brian said in his prayer, far from the celebration of a day. This is incredibly personal to us. Your Son, given for us. May they know this truly, experientially, and be able to be called sons or daughters of God. In Jesus's name, amen.
The Zeal of God in the Birth of Christ
Série Christmas
Identifiant du sermon | 1217171159372 |
Durée | 46:08 |
Date | |
Catégorie | Dimanche - matin |
Texte biblique | Esaïe 9:6-7 |
Langue | anglais |
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