430: Christmas Eve Homily: Isaiah not Zechariah!! | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

I was going to say good morning, but actually that's muscle memory. Good evening, everybody. And I hope you did not pig out like I did. We had an awesome first service with about 790 people, and we had glow sticks because they’re little kids and we thought, that’ll make it safe. But some little urchin in the back decided it was a great idea to hit a homeschool grandfather in the back of the head with a glow stick. So that didn’t turn out quite as well as we hoped.

Christmas 1982. I’ve been a Christian about seven months. Had just gone off to seminary because that’s where you learn the Bible, right? And I was asked by my parish priest, my home pastor, to give the sermon on Christmas morning and I felt honored. What I didn’t realize, what I do know now, is that the guy who gets Christmas morning is the lowest man on the totem pole. Like nobody wants to preach Christmas morning after being up in the wee hours of the night. And so, I hadn’t taken my preaching class. I didn’t know the Bible well. I didn’t know theology well. And so, I just kind of threw something together. And it was the world’s worst Christmas service ever, ever. No kidding.

Can we put a slide up there? Not that one. That one. So I don’t remember what I said. It was terrible. I was so anxious. I was sweating blood. It was really, really awful. And all I remember about this sermon is that I dogged Santa Claus, the Grinch, and Ebenezer Scrooge in one sermon.

And at the end, these country people I grew up with said, are you in seminary? And then some of them said, bless your heart, son, bless your heart. And I slunk out of it, slunk away out of the service. It was awful.

So hopefully, forty-one years later, I’m not going to freak out. I’m not going to beat up on Santa Claus. Though I will tell you—do you mind if I chase a rabbit just for a second? I just discovered AI and it’s amazing. You can do all kinds of things with it. And my daughter Annie, hi Annie, who’s in the back, said, dad, all I want for Christmas is no more AI photographs. And so I’ve been playing with this stuff. Anyway, I created that. Isn’t that cool? You can do that too. Santa getting knocked out by Jesus.

The Structure of the Sermon: Prophecy, Promise, Response

Tonight, we got three things. Three things. Three things. First one is this, a prophecy is given—like a foretelling of what’s going to happen—and it was about 530 years before Jesus was born. There’s a prophecy given. Number two, there’s a promise kept—prophecy that, about five hundred some years later, there’s a promise that is kept by the Lord. And then finally, there’s a response to God’s grace.

So if you want to know what the preacher said: a prophecy, a promise, and a response. Amen. Okay. See you later.

Now, let’s flesh it out a little bit.

The Prophecy Given

For the prophecy given, we go to a guy named Zechariah. You might not even know where to find that in the Bible. Even pastors struggle to find that chapter in the Bible. But I want to go to Zechariah 9, and I want to just read it quickly, and I want you to hear for yourself: what is the prophecy that God gave through Zechariah?

I don’t know Zechariah. I picture him as like a little five-five-six guy who had no clue what he was talking about. But God the Holy Spirit spoke through him, speaking about the one who was to come—the Messiah, Jesus.

So listen to what he said almost six centuries before Jesus was born:

The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.
The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.
Those who dwell in the land of deep darkness, on them has a light shone.

Now, walking in darkness—maybe you’re like me—any of you guys have to get up in the middle of the night to answer the call? Everybody over 50, which is most of y’all here. Okay. Like, you wake up usually somewhere between 1:30 and 3:30 in the morning, and we don’t have night lights because we don’t have kids in our house anymore. It’s dark. I like my room dark.

And so, then there’s this thing when you wake up—like, where am I? You know, am I in a hotel? Oh, I’m in my house. Okay, that’s cool. Now I’ve got to get to the bathroom, and I literally go like this, trying to find my way to the bathroom so I don’t run into a wall. Anybody relate to that? Yeah.

So, that kind of darkness is funny unless you bend your toe back. But this is not the kind of darkness Zechariah was talking about. He’s talking about spiritual darkness. Spiritual darkness.

I’d like to say I’m a stranger to that, but I’m not. It’d be easy to tell you, “Hey, before I was a Christian, I did all these terrible things,” and I would, and I did. And then, once I met Jesus, it all was peaches and cream. It was great. I walked with Jesus. And the reality is, everybody sitting here knows what it is to walk in darkness. Some of you are walking in darkness without a Savior, and some of you are walking in darkness like I do, from time to time—daily. Walk in darkness, even though you know Jesus.

And—and that’s the human problem. That’s the problem every religion tries to answer: what do we do with our sinfulness, our brokenness? It says, “The people who are walking in spiritual darkness—they can’t find their way—they’re lost.” And it’s not funny like a man trying to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Do you know what it is to be lost spiritually? And you try this and you try that, and it just doesn’t work. And then great despair comes because you can’t fix it. You can’t help yourself. And so, the Lord knows this—and he, so that the Jews at the time of Zechariah, they’re coming back from Babylon, Iraq. They’re coming back after seven years, seventy years as slaves, captives, and he’s saying, “Hey, you guys are walking in spiritual darkness.” And it’s not funny, and you can’t help yourselves. And so, I’m going to take care of it.

It says, ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.’ Now, at first we think that might be like the North Star. Is that the bright one, Tim? Remind me from your sermon. What’s the bright star? Because you mean Jupiter? Is that what we were talking about at the end of the day? Jupiter. I thought it was a planet. Maybe it’s a star. Who knows? Google it. Okay. But the point is, he says, the people who are walking in spiritual darkness—which is oppressive. Darkness looks like this.

Galatians says it’s sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. People are walking in darkness, but they’ve seen a great light. In other words, God is going to do something, but the light is not like that thing looking me in the eye. The light is actually the Light of the world—it's a person, God in the flesh, Emmanuel, Jesus. He is the great light.

So, the prophecy is—they’re walking in spiritual darkness—they’ve seen a great light, but God is going to do something. The light is not just a bright star. The light is the person of Jesus Christ.

It goes on in verse 3: it says, Zechariah says, ‘You’ve multiplied the nation, you’ve increased their joy, and they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, and they’re glad when they divide the spoil.’ I don’t know if you’ve been in a place of spiritual brokenness and darkness, but when you get freed from that—when you get extricated from that—there is a joy that’s better than winning a lottery ticket. There’s a joy to freedom that you can’t tell somebody until they experience it themselves.

And so, he says, ‘People walking in darkness—they’ve seen a great light.’ But God is going to increase their joy. And he says in verse 4, ‘The yoke of their burden and the rod of the oppressor, God is going to break.’ Some of you are under burdens right now, and I can’t begin to know the burdens you carry. I can’t begin to know. But I know this—the Lord—this month, we’ve buried two people from our church family who took their own lives. And that’s a big one and a terrible one. But there are all kinds of brokenness. What are you dealing with?

And God says, I’m going to meet you. I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to send a Messiah, and I’m going to increase your joy. I’m going to break the yoke of the burden and the rod of the oppressor. And then, in verse 6, it tells us how he’s going to do it.

For to us a child is born.
Why love kids—at least for two hours, I love them. We have a bunch of grandkids, they’re all going to be at our house tomorrow—and you know, one or two hours, it’s amazing. Nothing makes your heart happier than a little one—unless you have them for four days. And then, it gets more challenging. But the Lord’s answer, his solution, is not to make you more religious and not to have you be pious. His solution actually has very little to do with you at all. His solution is to send his Son. It says this, a child is born, a son—not just a son, it’s the Son. His beloved, his only Son. He was going to send him as a sacrifice for our sins—the righteous for the unrighteous. And it says, “And the government will be on his shoulder,” and his name shall be called:

Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.

Well, that could sound to you like a Hallmark card, it could. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we all go home and forget it. Except, you need a wonderful counselor. I need a wonderful counselor. Because, left to my own devices, I’m always going to choose the wrong thing. I need wisdom; I need God’s wisdom. I need his counsel. And I don’t just need religion, because religion really doesn’t do anything but usually put people in bondage. What we need is the Lord himself—our Creator, the one who made you.

It says he’s a wonderful counselor. He’s a mighty God—not just a prophet, not just a nice guy, he’s God himself. He’s an everlasting Father. And I don’t know about you, but many of us will say, “Hey, I didn’t grow up with a great father situation.” Join the crowd. Many of us didn’t. Some of you did—praise God for that. But don’t throw out the whole image or the reality of fatherhood because maybe you didn’t have the best father.

What I want to tell you is, there is a Father who is perfect, and he would love to be your Father. And it says he’s the Prince of Peace. I don’t know about you, but most of the time, I just run, run, run, run, run. A couple of years ago, I was praying—wasn’t really pious prayer—I was just minding my own business. And the Lord said, you know all that stuff you’ve been doing your whole life? And you think you’re doing it to be funny or to be the life of the party? Really? That’s not why you’re doing it. The reason you’re doing it is because you have an underlying deep anxiety.

And I’m like, Lord, you’re talking to the wrong person. I’m great. I am fine. I’m not anxious. And he goes, yes, you are. And he began to peel back the layers and show me that anxiety has driven so much of my accomplishments, my misbehavior, my way of interacting with people, the way I talk over them, the way I don’t listen to them, etcetera, etcetera.

And God says he’s going to bring a Messiah— a child, a Son, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. So, that’s a prophecy.

The Promise is Kept

Now, we go to the promise. Go look at Luke 2. It’s the Christmas story. So, now, 530 years later—God keeps his promise. He’s a promise keeper. And I’m just going to read the scripture and let it speak for itself:

In that region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

See, I think one of the reasons people don’t come to the Lord is they’re afraid. I know my own dad. The Lord told me this, clear as a bell. The reason he resisted the Lord until his last two weeks of life is because he was so afraid of the Lord knowing about all his brokenness. And all the Lord wanted to do was put his arms around him. That’s all he wanted to do.

Suddenly, there was an angel and a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God, saying:

Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among those whom he has pleased.

And when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” Do you catch that? See, Christianity is not about us finding the Lord. There used to be a bumper sticker: I found Him. No, you didn’t. No, you didn’t. He finds us. He always finds us.

We’re like a bunch of blind pigs rooting around for nuts. We blind pigs who can’t smell, rooting around for nuts. The Lord reveals himself to his people. That’s the good news. He does for us what we can never do. We could never find him. We could never discover him. We would always reject him. And yet, the Lord says that he made Him known.

When the angels went away, they said, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing the Lord has made known to us.” Verse 16: they went with haste. They were excited. They wanted to see the Messiah. They went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw the baby Jesus, the Messiah—they made it known.

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that a lot of people—even those who wear collars and fancy robes—they could tell you the Greek, the Hebrew, the theology, and the church history, but what they never do is make Jesus known. It’s odd, man. I remember when I became a Christian, I thought, what’s wrong with pastors? Why don’t they let people know about Jesus? I’ve been sitting in a church for twenty years, and I didn’t know about Jesus. Oh, I might note a few facts, but I didn’t know Him.

Nobody ever connected the dots. I’m a sinner, I need a Savior. I’m drowning. God, help me, save me. And God, I didn’t have to ask twice. He came, He rescued—He’s God with us, Emmanuel. And I noticed that the shepherds sure weren’t afraid. We’re the most polite people in the world. We don’t tell anybody about Jesus because we might offend them. Shepherds weren’t afraid of that. It says they saw Him and made Him known.

Application

And so, it was a prophecy, there’s a promise, and there’s a response to God’s grace. Here’s where we land. What’s your present reality? What’s your present reality? Are you walking in darkness? Are you stumbling in darkness? Are you lost in darkness? It’s an honest question.

Friends, I’ve been there—as a non-believer and as a Christian. Are you walking in darkness? Have you lost your way? Are you sad? The Bible says, “In laughter, there can be incredible sorrow.” God wants to bring you joy. Are you sad? Are you burdened? Do you bear burdens that no human should have to bear? The Father says, I’d love— I’d love to bear that burden for you. Just like prophesied by Zechariah, he’d like to bear that burden. He’d like to break the rod of the oppressor in your life.

Are you lonely? In America, we’re the most connected country in the world—and yet, we’re the most lonely country. A lot of times, people with myriads of friends are incredibly lonely. They don’t tell people, but they’re dying in their loneliness.

Does that describe you? Are you tired of being your own god? It’s a burden. It’s fun for a while, but it’s a burden. Are you tired of being your own god? Are you beaten down? Do you need a Savior? Someone to rescue you? You feel like you’re drowning in the darkness, and the waves are coming over your head. And you’re trying, and you’re trying, but you’re still drowning.

Do you need a Savior? Do you need a rescuer? Then you are invited to become a follower of the Lord Jesus. You don’t have to be religious. You don’t have to clean yourself up—because only God can clean people up.

What do you think? If you stop drinking and chewing tobacco, go, okay, you can come in now. The Lord wants you. He wants you as his child. He wants to have a relationship. It’s not simply about getting into heaven; it’s about getting into relationship with the God who created you.

And yet, we settle for so much less. Are you tired? Are you lonely? Are you sad? Are you beaten up? Do you want to experience the joy of knowing your Creator?

I promise you this. This is where we end. If you ask the Lord to be your Lord, you won’t have to ask Him twice. If you call upon His name and say, “Lord, I’m a wreck. I need You. And I don’t know how to do this, but if You’ll show me, I will follow You and serve You all my life.” Because everything else is misery. I need You.

I promise you, if that’s your heart, if that’s your prayer, He will answer. He’ll never be too busy to answer your prayer. A great light has shone. God has come to be with us—Emmanuel. The good news is here.

I pray you grab hold of it like a drowning man in the Chesapeake Bay.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.