Sermon 12182011 Advent 4

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight O Lord, our rock and our redeemer!!  AMEN!!

Let us pray!  Heavenly Father, as we hear from our last prophet Isaiah, may Your Words spoken through them, continue to ‘challenge’ and ‘change our hearts’.  For our preparation during this Advent season will not be complete this side of heaven, but in order for us to begin to understand this, Jesus Christ had to come in the manger to set us free.  May the stem of Jesse that sets us free enter our hearts and continue to transform us as we worship Jesus Christ Who came for all of us saints here at Emmanuel.  AMEN.

When preparing this series for Advent, I looked forward to Isaiah, the fourth prophet.  Not because, Isaiah is more important than any of the other prophets, but because, the passage Isaiah spoke rings true for our whole series.  In one of my many books that I have consulted in preparing, the Isaiah 11 passage was summarized like this, ‘An ideal age is a human dream, but a divine accomplishment.”  Hear God’s Word through Isaiah the prophet:

¹ Then a ^(A)shoot will spring from the ^(B)stem of Jesse, And a ^(C)branch from ^(D)his roots will bear fruit. 
² The ^(E)Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of ^(F)wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and ^(G)strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. 
³ And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes ^(H)see, 
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;

Isaiah clearly speaks to us today that the one Who is coming will have wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  Each of these characteristics we see clearly in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  For Isaiah’s message is not muddy, but clear, Jesus Christ is the branch that bears fruit and is the One that is coming to set things right and take on human bodily form and lives the sinless life for each and every one of us.  And by doing this, our baptism into Jesus Christ, life, death and resurrection sets us free.

Now that ‘ideal age’ formerly thought to be a ‘human dream’, is a ‘divine accomplishment’ through Jesus Christ coming in a manger.  The prophets voices have been fulfilled.  For God spoke through the prophecies of Daniel, Micah, Jeremiah and Isaiah and we have heard clearly how each of these men were instruments of God speaking about the coming of Jesus Christ into this world.  Jesus purpose was clear, to save the World.  Like the summary written, ‘it is a human dream’, but God the divine accomplished this in a little manger where Jesus Christ came into the World for all of mankind and especially for us saints here at Emmanuel today.  AMEN.