Take your Bibles with me and turn to Isaiah 9. Isaiah chapter 9 this morning.

I'm going to take a break from the book of Luke for the next four weeks, and preach a series of Christmas massages that I am calling "Themes of Christ's Coming."

Traditionally, when looking forward to Christmas, churches have focused on these four themes: hope, peace, joy and love and tied them to Christ's birth. This is a Christmas tradition that goes back over 1500 years. And so as I was thinking about a Christmas series this year, I thought, why not do that?

So today we are going to talk about the first of these four themes - the theme of hope.

Are you in Isaiah 9. Let's go ahead and read the first 7 verses this morning.

[!bible] Isaiah 9:1-7 - KJV

1. Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.
2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
3. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
5. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Disappointment

I have spent a lot of time in the Old Testament as your pastor. I've preached through most of it, and we've studied much of it in Sunday School.

If there is one word that I think pops out to me when I think of the Old Testament it is the word disappointment.

We'll get to the disappointment that Isaiah is talking about in this passage in a bit. But first I want to just walk you through the history of the Old Testament and discuss just how disappointing it all is.

Genesis - beginning with disappointment

The Old Testament starts in Genesis with the creation of the world and the creation of man. Man is made perfect, he is given a perfect spouse, and he is given a perfect place to live. He has meaningful work to do and a daily walk with God.

But then, three chapters into the book, we see man is a disappointment. Man chooses to sin against God, and mankind is cursed to death and judgment.

But God steps in, God makes coats to cover mankind's nakedness and shame, and mankind starts again in its fallen state.

But that too is a huge disappointment. The very first generation - the very first family - endures the tragedy of fratricide as Cain decides to murder his brother Abel.

Civilization continues after this, the human population grows, and as they grow, they grow more wicked. Mankind becomes a disappointment - so much so that God repents of ever creating them and determines to destroy the world with a flood.

Not even 6 chapters into the history of the world and God is saying - this is such a mess - it must be destroyed. But God has a plan, he chooses a man named Noah - a lone righteous man on earth to restart civilization after the flood.

You know the story, the ark, the animals, the rainbow. But Noah ends in disappointment too. One of the last things we learn about him is that he got drunk and exposed himself. You read that and think "this guy is the one who is going to restart everything."

History goes on and the Bible sort of moves from the big picture of humanity to narrowly focus on one family that God chose to be a blessing to the world - the family of Abraham.

Abraham is called of God to leave his idolatrous city and family and follow God in faith - only thing is he takes 40 years to totally obey, and keeps falling into the same sins - he lies about his wife on two separate occasions - and then, rather than trust in God, Abraham tries to take matters into his own hands and has a child with his wife's servant Hagar named Ishmael.

Eventually, God gives Abraham and Sarah the promised son - Isaac. Abraham is told to offer Isaac and he obeys - and God steps in and gives him a promise that He will provide himself a lamb.

And so Abraham dies - and what does he have to show for his life of faith? Almost nothing.

• God promised him that his descendants would be as numerable as the stars in heaven, and he dies with one son.
• God promised him that he would own the promised land, and yet he dies only owning one cave for his wife to be buried in.

His one son Isaac turns out to be a kind of disappointing figure - not great and not terrible - and he has two children, Jacob and Esau, and God chooses to carry on the promise through Jacob.

And do you want to talk about disappointing characters - Jacob is pretty disappointing. He has dubious character. His faith is shoddy and uncertain. His family life is an epic mess.

He has 12 sons, the heads of the tribes of Israel, there is some promise right there. But listen to the exploits of those sons:

• Almost immediately after returning to the promised land they revenge murder a whole town.
• They hate their brother so much they fake his death and sell him into slavery.
• One of them (who should have been the leader) has a supposed child with a prostitute who turns out to be his daughter in law.
• One of them sleeps with his fathers concubine.

They are a huge mess. And do you know how that great Abrahamic experiment of Genesis ends? It ends with all of Abraham's family living in exile in Egypt. Where they would become slaves for hundreds of years.

What a disappointment.

The one bright spot in the book is Joseph - one of the few characters in the Bible who we don't really learn anything negative about. But how does he go out? He goes out dying in Egypt, asking for his bones to be buried somewhere else. The best of them ends in a box waiting for a deliverance he won't live to see.

So this very first book, the book of Genesis - it ends in a huge disappointment.

Then we enter the next phase of Old Testament history

Exodus to Judges - the disappointing start of Israel

Exodus starts out with a bang. It's one of my favorite books. God saves Moses from destruction. He grows up in the palace of Pharoah, then goes into exile and comes back to lead his people out of the promise hand with mighty miracles from God.

It's literally the stuff of epic movies. God miraculously delivers his people with miracles like the plagues, the parting of the red sea, the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. God feeds them miraculously in the wilderness with manna and leads them to Mt. Sinai, where God gives the law to Moses and sets up the tabernacle and priesthood. Finally, God leads them on from Sinai to the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land God wants to be there forever home.

And the people - those people who God miraculously deliver - they refuse to go in. They murmur and complain against God. So God sentences them to die wandering in the wilderness.

And Moses, the great leader, he ends his story by angrily disobeying God and not being allowed to enter the promised land himself.

So Joshua comes to the scene - and God uses Joshua to give the children of Israel the land of Israel. They drive out the enemies, they defeat fortified cities like Jericho. They slay the giants.

But they don't go all the way, and Joshua ends his life with an ominous warning that was fulfilled. Judges the history of what comes after - is one of the darkest books in the whole Bible.

God's people are idolaters. They fall into all kinds of wickedness. There heroes are temporary and flawed.

• Gideon ends up making an ephod that becomes an idol.
• Samson is a moral disaster.
• Jephthah makes a rash vow and ends up sacrificing his own daughter.

Even the best of them are compromised. The book ends with two horrible stories that involve rape and civil war that are some of the darkest things ever recorded. It is all summed up with the phrase "everyone did that which was right in their own eyes."

It's unbelievably disappointing to go from Moses and the Exodus, from Joshua and Caleb - to the mess in Judges in such a short period of time. God's people were a mess and they were such a disappointment.

And that disappointment carries over into the next phase of the Old Testament - the age of the kings.

The kingdom period - this isn't it either.

We start in 1 Samuel with Israel demanding a king - and God gives them a promising fellow named Saul. This guy really looks the part. He's tall and brave and strong and handsome.

And he was a total mess. He disobeys God and spends most of his later days hunting David. His life ends in defeat, in going to a witch to speak to the dead and in suicide.

Then David comes to the scene and David is great - Israel's greatest king. David and Goliath. David and the Psalms. David and the conquests. David and Bathsheba.

You see, David too is a disappointment. His family was terrible. He ends up running away in exile. Disobeying God and holding a census.

His son Solomon takes over. Glorious Solomon. Wise Solomon. Solomon who built the Temple. Solomon who brought peace. But also Solomon who brought idolatry into the land and setup the country to be split.

After a short period of success the nation of Israel splits. The Northern Kingdom of Israel follows Jeroboam and sets up their own wicked way of worship. They do not have a single good king and after about 150 years they go into exile in Assyria.

That's actually what our text is talking about in verse 1.

[!bible] Isaiah 9:1 - KJV

1. Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

Zebulun and Naphtali were the two most northern tribes in Israel - they were the closest to Assyria and the ones who were most brutally treated.

But Judah, the southern Kingdom, didn't do much better. They had some good kings and some good years. They lasted about twice as long as the northern kingdom - but they were still falling into idolatry over and over again, and they ended up going into exile in Babylon.

God had given some big promises to King David - promises that included that one of his descendants would rule Israel forever.

But the whole nation of Israel thing, the whole kingdom thing - it ended really sad. The kings were a disappointment and the kingdom was a disappointment. It even seemed like God's promises were a disappointment.

And that leads us to the end of the Old Testament, the last phase of Israel's history, and the one that leads us right up to Christ...

Ending in exile -

Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was taken over by Assyria and never really recovered. Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon, and the Babylonians were beat by the Persian empire, who eventually let Israel go home.

That's what books like Ezra and Nehemiah are about. They got to rebuild the temple, but the old men wept because it wasn't anything as great as it had been. They got to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but it was still under foreign control. They had a bit of a revival as a people, but that quickly went into formalism.

But they never got their country back. Even in Jesus' day - some 400 years after the end of the Old Testament - Israel was a conquered people and a shadow of what they once were.

They had all of these promises -

• Promises that they would control the promised land (given to Abraham.)
• Promises that a king would come and rule the world from Jerusalem (given to David and the prophets.)

And yet they had no land, they had no country, they had no king and it seemed like they had no future. The Old Testament ends with Malachi giving a curse, and God was silent for four hundred years.

Do you see how the whole Old Testament was just one big massive disappointment?

Jesus - our Hope

Now you might be thinking "pastor, this is depressing. How does this have anything to do with hope? How does this have anything to do with Christmas?"

Well look back at our text again. Look at verse 2:

[!bible] Isaiah 9:2 - KJV 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

This is a specific promise given to Naphtali and Zebulun. These two tribes at the very north of Israel that were the first to get wiped out by the Assyrians.

Do you know what was right in the middle of that territory? Galilee. Nazareth. Capurnaum.

God was saying - look, I haven't forgotten my promises. You might have seen some darkness - you might have seen some disappointment - but you are going to see the Light.

Look at verses 6-7:

[!bible] Isaiah 9:6-7 - KJV 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

They had a hope, they had a Light that was coming - and his name was Jesus.

Everything in the Bible that looks like the answer is not the answer. Everything in the Bible that looked like it was going to be it ended up being a disappointment, because everything in the Bible was all leading us up to Christ.

The first Adam fell into sin. He led mankind into sin. But Jesus came as the second Adam, who defeated sin and leads us into righteousness.

The Bible makes this plain:

[!bible] Romans 5:19 - KJV 19. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

[!bible] 1 Corinthians 15:22 - KJV 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Adam was a disappointment. Jesus is our hope.

Then we look at Abraham's family. They were a disappointment. All of them. How could God promise to bless the world through this lot?

And we realize that that promise was primarily about Jesus. Galatians tells us how this works:

[!bible] Galatians 3:16 - KJV 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham. Jesus is the seed that would bless the whole world and through Christ the descendants of Abraham - those who have true faith in God - would be innumerable.

The law and the old testament system failed. The people could never keep the law. The priesthood and sacrifices never seemed to be enough. Because they were never supposed to be - they were all pointing to Jesus.

Jesus and Jesus alone fulfilled the impossible standard of the law. He was the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He is the great High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us.

You look at the Old Testament and the leaders failed:

• Moses the prophet wasn't able to enter the promised land.
• The priests were corrupt almost from the beginning.
• The kings were wicked disasters. But Jesus is the true prophet, priest and king. He is a greater prophet than Moses who will truly lead His people into the promised land. He is the only priest we need to stand as an intercessor between man and God. And He is the king of kings who every knee will bow to someday.

Now look at the end of verse 7 in our text again. It's really a key to this whole thing. It says:

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

The Bible isn't about something that man needs to do. It's about something that Jesus did and that God is doing.

I'm not going to end this sermon today with a todo list for you. Because that isn't the point. That's not the point of the whole Bible.

The point isn't that you need to do - the point is that Jesus has done, and you need to believe.

My one word of application today as we think about the hope that came at Christmas, the hope that comes through Christ is this:

• Are you hoping in Jesus? Or is your hope in some lesser thing?

Maybe you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ. You've been trying to be good enough, trying to earn your way, and if you're honest, it's not working. It never does. That's the whole lesson of the Old Testament. But the good news is that Jesus did what you could never do, and he offers it to you freely. You can put your hope in him today.

Maybe you're a believer, but you've been putting your hope in something other than Christ. Your job, your family, your health, your plans. And maybe some of those things have disappointed you lately. They will. They always do eventually. Not because they're bad, but because they were never meant to carry that weight.

Christmas reminds us that hope has a name. And it's not your name, and it's not your circumstances—it's Jesus.

Let's pray.