Last week we began Advent was in December. December is here and it’s ramping up. I don’t know about you, but there is a lot going on in December.
There is a lot, there’s so much going on and it keeps building that a lot of times it’s on the 26th of December, where we can finally, no wait, we got to go to the next family’s Christmas party. When do we get rest during Christmas? When do we get that peace that is promised with the Messiah coming? I mean, we create so many things that make it really, really special that sometimes we may forget why it’s so special. And it’s so amazing that the reason Jesus came was, remember the angel said, peace on earth.
But yet we’re living in a time where there is more anxiety, more stress, more worry, more things going on in our lives than the world has ever seen, especially among younger adults. And it just increases. And you can look at all the scales you want, but it’s more of when we have less Jesus in our lives, we have more anxiety and stress and uncertainty and worry.
I probably shouldn’t say those words because they might just make you start getting anxious just by saying them over and over. Advent, as we talked about last week, means to the arrival. So the season of Advent is to prepare for the arrival of Jesus on Christmas morning.
But it’s also to prepare our hearts for the return of Jesus when he comes a second time to take us home. Now, we’re looking through the prophecies of Isaiah and this sermon series is called Shout Out for the Messiah. And we’re shouting out for the Messiah.
These prophecies were shouted out to people and they had to, thinking of waiting, how would you like to wait 700 years plus from when Isaiah was given all these prophecies to when the Messiah came? You think we have to practice patience. That’s a generation after generation after generation of parents telling their children, priests telling their people, hey, the Messiah is coming. Just hang on, God promised, so it’s gonna happen.
And then, of course, we’ve waited for 2,000 years for Jesus to come again when some of them in the first century were going, where is he? Where is he? He should be here already. What I hope for is that we prepare for Christmas that we’re not only wrapping packages, putting up decorations, cooking meals, we’re also preparing our hearts for Jesus. Will you stand as you are able? Isaiah 11, one through 10.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what he sees or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness, the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together. And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze and their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day, the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for all the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious.
The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God, thanks be to God. You may be seated. Now, you just never know what somebody else’s treasure is gonna be.
We had this issue with all these pieces of wood. Christopher set it up so the Johnson County Tree Removal Company dumped all their, everything they had shaved so we could use that as free mulch. And not, I remember telling you this at the time and it destroyed my allergies.
It was the most horrific thing, but we got it done. But anyway, mixed in with that were all these larger pieces that did not go through the tree cutter. These pieces of stumps and these round pieces of wood.
And we are just looking at those going, what are we gonna do with them? We have nothing to do, they’re gonna take up so much room. And the little pieces that are all chopped up were great for mulch, but these had no place in our landscaping plans, if we had landscaping plans, I don’t. So one of the things we had to do recently was the pillars of the posts of some of our fence rotted and came down.
So we had to get those replaced and I was out there trying to dig three feet down. I was calling Bob going, what do I do with the cement? And he was going, well, don’t call me. And it wrecked my good knee.
And then there was another post that went out and I was just like, we gotta just have this, somebody help us with this because I am no good with a shovel on this. And then they came and they went to do the work and they put the post in a different place because they couldn’t get the concrete out. And I was going, why did I try so hard on that? But that wasn’t the point of the story.
One of the workers told Christopher, he goes, hey, what are you gonna do with those stumps? And he took all those stumps and we had a stump in the front yard that had been sitting there just getting in the way and he dug that out and took that too and I was like, man, we are stump free. But sometimes we look at things like stumps and we think, that’s just getting in the way, that’s worthless. Now, if you look at the history of the people of Israel, they were promised a king and David became the king and then his son Solomon became a king and then it all fell apart.
And then out of hundreds of kings over the generations, there were like two who were pretty good. Isaiah has a prophecy here that all the people have been wondering about and waiting on where he said, there shall be a shoot that comes out from the stump of Jesse. Now, Jesse is David’s father.
So this is saying someone in the lineage of the promised kingdom of David is going to rise and be your king. This messianic king would be different than there are so many layers to what Isaiah is saying here. So the shoot comes up and it seems very unimpressive.
Have you ever seen a little shoot coming out of a stump? And you look at it and you go, oh my gosh, that’s gonna be a 50 foot tree right there. There’s gonna be a lot of leaves. It’s gonna be such a pain.
You kind of look at it and you go, nah, I think I can just pull that thing out of there. And if you wait long enough, then you go, oh, it doesn’t pull out so easily. Let me use the trimmer.
And sometimes it gets too thick for the trimmer. And finally you have to say, give me those loppers. And you cut it off.
But you don’t expect anything great to come out of a stump. And the world and Israel itself felt like they were cut off. The tree of the family of Jesse was cut off.
And there had just been a stump there for hundreds of years waiting around for God to do something. And Isaiah’s saying something amazing is gonna happen with this stump. And it’s also saying that the Messiah, although he is great, will have humble beginnings.
Anybody think of anything that would be a humble beginning for the Messiah? I’ll just say the word barn. Barn. In here, when Isaiah is shouting out for the Messiah, he says this amazing thing about the branch.
The shoot is gonna become a branch, and the branch is gonna grow, and the branch is going to be the most powerful tree one could imagine. And Isaiah goes through in the prophecy of the Messiah, talking about the branches, the spirit that would be within the branch. And the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him.
Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, fear, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. I mean, that tells you a lot about who Jesus is. We have the spirit of wisdom and understanding.
He’s wise. He understands. He not only understands you, but he understands the heart of God.
And with that understanding, he’s able to give wise counsel. Where should we go from here? What shall our people do? And then it says, counsel and might. He doesn’t only say, go do this.
He says, let’s go do this. And I will empower you to do that, because the Messiah has the power to do God’s will through each and every one of us. It’s such an amazing thing.
And the spirit that’s on the branch also has the knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Not just knowledge of the world, but knowledge of God, knowledge of God’s plans, understanding of who God is. And the fear of the Lord is what Jesus practiced all the time.
It means to be in awe, to respect, to honor, to worship. And it leads us to the desire to obey and to please God when we have that fear of the Lord within us. And we trust in that.
Now, one of Holly and me, one of our favorite stories is about this cat, and I am so allergic to cats, but this cat tried everything to adopt us when we were in Valley Center. And it was so much so that it would sneak in in the garage and it would sleep in the garage at night, unbeknownst to us. And then one morning, when I went out in the dark, I apparently opened the door to go into the garage and it came in then.
And when Holly got up, all of a sudden, the cat jumped out of the bed that had been sleeping with her the rest of the morning. It was, that cat wanted our family so bad, but we also had two dogs, and those dogs wanted to have a cat really bad. They loved to bark and they loved to chase that cat.
And one day, they were in the backyard and that cat was getting barked at from two loud dogs on both sides. And they’re going, we dare you to run, we’re gonna catch you, we dare you to run. You’re not gonna get away this time.
And Tiger flipped over on her back with her paws up in the air, and the two dogs stopped barking, looked at each other and said, well, what do we do with this? And suddenly they just laid down beside the cat. Tiger tamed the puppies. Jesus is a Messiah who provides a different kind of kingdom.
When it says the spirit of the Lord was on Jesus and this happened, that he reigns and judges with righteousness, and that righteousness said, whether you’re poor, whether you don’t bribe officials or judges or anybody else, whether you don’t have that means, everybody is judged, not by what people are talking about, not by what they’re seeing with their eyes, but what is truly on the heart. What is inside becomes what the judgment is about to make it as fair and as righteous and as amazing as possible. And then it says these strange things.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the lion and the fatted calf together.
I mean, how can a lion ignore a fatted calf? And then there’s stuff in here that’ll make you a little squeamish, the nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra. How many of you found that to be a comforting play place for your children? And the weaned child shall play over the addered fin. They shall not hurt or destroy all of my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord and the waters that cover the sea.
Now the levels of this that Isaiah is working on, with God’s prophecy, with his shout out for the Messiah, is unreal. I mean, first of all, we think of the Assyrians who were coming in, they were about to conquer the northern kingdom of Israel, and then you have the southern kingdom of Judah sitting around seeing all this around them, seeing countries fall all around them, and they have anxiety about what’s gonna happen. They are, it feels like they are playing over the cobra’s hole, and at any point in time, they’re gonna be wiped out.
You know, it’s not like living in the middle of Kansas where we have a little bit more security. I mean, it’s like being fully exposed and vulnerable to being destroyed by those who are stronger than you. Now not only that, but they had their own leader.
As we read about the kings throughout the history of Israel, they became more and more about themselves and their kingdom. I mean, the people of Israel said, we want a king like all the countries around them, and they ended up getting kings like all the countries around them, and those kings oppressed the people. Those kings accepted bribes.
Those kings did things for anyone, and they could be influenced by money and power and wealth, and they patted the backs of those who would help them, and people were being left out to dry. I mean, Micah hated it so much, the way Israel’s leaders, including in the church, including in their own government set up by God, through Samuel, they even, Micah called them cannibals, because they just fed off the weak and the vulnerable and the hurt, and so imagine these customs that are set up within your country. Where do you find rest? Where do you find peace? I mean, there’s wars, rumors of wars, things going on everywhere, things that are happening to countries that are more powerful than you, and Isaiah starts saying, the leopard shall lie down with the goat.
Now, there’s layers to that, too. Some of it is talking about how all of creation is changed during the Messianic rule. When the Messiah reigns, no, even the smallest, most vulnerable animal doesn’t have to worry about being prey, but he’s also using that to tell Israel, you are so small, and you feel insignificant.
Israel, Judah feel small compared to the world around them and vulnerable, and people without means feel small and vulnerable compared to the people around them and Jesus is saying this, and Isaiah is saying that when the Messiah comes, that he will bring this righteousness, that everyone will be judged in the same way. Everyone will have this kind of peace where there is no snake that is gonna get you, where there is no lion that is gonna destroy you, where there is no bear that’s gonna tear you to pieces, and all those anxieties and fears. Now, we don’t walk out to our car.
Now, I’ve seen videos of people who probably worry about this, but we don’t walk out to our car in the morning for fear of being mauled by a bear. Does anybody have that fear? Not in Kansas, but what do we have fears of? We have fears and anxieties of things that are gonna happen, of things that don’t happen. We have fears and anxieties because we desire to control so much and we cannot hold onto that control our whole lives, so there’s only one who can even fill this one prophecy, let alone all the other prophecies about the Messiah in the Bible, and that’s Jesus, and when Jesus came, He didn’t say, why don’t you serve me? He said, the Son of Man came to serve and not to serve, but He also says, you who are weary, who are weighed down with burdens, who have so much going on, you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, I will give you rest.
I will give you the rest you need. Now, in a biblical sense, rest isn’t just saying, hey, you can finally take a nap without someone ringing the doorbell. Biblical sense, rest means a spiritual state of peace, trust, and refreshment found in God.
That’s the hope we have with our Messiah. That’s the hope that Jesus bring, and the hope that He gives us every day, and the hope we have in the end when Jesus comes again. That hope for that rest that people had been looking for for generations, that rest that isn’t just physical rest, but rest for our spirits, refreshment, strengthening, rest that says, I have no worries, I have no fears, I just trust in God, and I know that God has the power to walk with me through everything I do.
That’s some of the peace that passes all understanding that we get with our Messiah, with Jesus, that He gives us that rest, even as we’re leading up to Christmas. We accept, let’s pray. Gracious God, thank you so much for the love that we have in Jesus Christ.
Thank you for hearing our prayers. Thank you for being our rest. Thank you for being our righteous judge.
And on that note, thank you for grace. Thank you for washing us over, lifting us up, and giving the strength we need every day to trust in you, to obey your words, and to understand who the Messiah is. Thank you for rest, God, in Jesus’ name, amen.