Episode 264: The Broadest Shoulders You Have Ever Seen | Brian Morgan+

Introduction

Well, good morning. Great to see everyone today. As Tim said, thank you especially for switching your schedule. When Christmas falls on a Sunday, it's always interesting. Do you stay home? Do you come to church? So obviously, you had to kind of switch your normal schedule and we're glad that you're here.

You're gonna see a picture up on the screen. This is a McLaughlin Flamey. They used to go here. Everybody raise your hand if you remember them. Yeah. They've had a radical change in their Christmas schedule. They moved to Cambodia. They are on mission.

And so if you've seen the pictures on Facebook, they're telling their story. And one of the pictures is of a scooter. If you know anything about Cambodia, there are millions and millions and millions of scooters. That is part of the life change for them. How do they get around? They get around on a scooter. Now, if you know anything about scooters, they're real safe. Exactly. No, they're not real safe. If you go on vacation, don't rent a scooter and you're going to crash, right?

So, you're gonna see a couple pictures that I have of life in Cambodia on scooters because they had to change their whole life. They've had to figure out how do we balance on a scooter, how do we carry our life on a scooter. So, the next picture is a good picture of life on a scooter in Cambodia. Now, I wouldn't suggest that Will and Becky do this with their family, but this family in particular says six people on one scooter, on one bike, on one moped is the way to go. Now, that's a little scary.

Part of what they have to figure out in Cambodia is how do I balance everything that I have going in life because you're not driving a big minivan or something like this. Then you've got the next picture. Check this one out. Woah. How do you balance and shoulder all of that on a little tiny scooter? It's actually quite comical, isn't it? How do you do that? It's a great image for us. How much of our life are we trying to balance? How much of our life are we trying to hold on our shoulders to figure out where to go next and what decision to make?

As you look at 2022 and you see the next year ahead, what are you carrying? What are you shouldering as you go into the next year? Is it comical? Some of them are. Some are celebrations. You're looking thinking, man, these great things happened in 2022, and I'm going to celebrate those and kind of carry those into the next year. Or maybe you're looking and you're saying, look, I had some really scary moments in 2022, and I don't want to shoulder and carry those into the new year, but I don't know how to get rid of them. Or maybe you're stuck because some things happened last year that were crushing you.

You know, we had some really difficult losses in our church family, especially in the last six or eight months. And those families are trying to figure out how do I shoulder and carry that? How do I let that go? Or maybe for you, it's the future. I don't know what's up ahead and it is burdening me. It's weighing me down. It's crushing me. Are you strong enough to carry those? Are you wise enough to navigate those? Can you balance that stuff like the last picture we saw, this huge load on the back? Is that gonna be you as you go into the New Year?

Let's pray. Father, thank you this morning for scripture. We pray you would bring it alive for us. We pray you would shoot it like a fiery arrow into our souls. Give us eyes to see. Give us minds and hearts to understand the good news of Jesus as we dive in. In his name, amen.

The Context of the Passage

So if you've got a Bible, open to Isaiah chapter nine. If you don't, you can use your smartphone or whatever else you've got. We know you're playing Angry Birds, but that's alright. You can get it out and pretend like you're not. So it's page five seventy three if you're using a church Bible.

The reason you want to have it open is it's always good just to see the words. What are the actual words that are going on in the scripture? And as you turn over to Isaiah nine, what's going on in this section of Isaiah, very similar to all sections of the prophets, God is speaking a word of correction. God is speaking a word of direction for them because God's people have said, god, we just want to do it our own way. God, I can carry the load. I don't need your help. I figured it out on my own.

Look at the end of verse eight. He first, he talks about that God's people were going to mediums and spiritualists. Bad news for them. They're going to other places for guidance. And then chapter eight, verse 22, they were looking to the earth and all they saw was darkness and gloom. And then chapter nine is this one moment among many moments in Isaiah where there's hope. This picture of God doing a new thing.

And in Isaiah, this new thing takes on lots of different words. One of them is a stone. It'll be a foundation that you can stand on. You can feel like it's trustworthy. There's a light in chapter nine. It'll shine into the darkness. There's a branch. You have a little stump and it looks totally dead. And this little thing will grow up and it'll bring hope. But what about the shoulders? What about the shoulders in this passage?

So as we dive in, you can go to the next slide back there. As we dive in, how do we know that these passages in Isaiah are speaking to Jesus? That's really important before we even dive in to look at the shoulders. Look on the screen. These are all the different places that Matthew, the writer of the gospel of Matthew, says, listen, I want you to know that these words are spoken seven hundred years before Jesus came in Isaiah, but they're pointing to this one who will come.

And Matthew says, the child in the manger is the one who's to come. So look, you can see it over and over. Matthew one, the virgin with child, same in Isaiah seven. Matthew three, the voice in the wilderness, the one coming, you see in Isaiah 40. Then our passage in Matthew four, a light into the darkness. So Matthew is saying, hey, I want you to know what you're hearing now seven hundred years before Jesus comes. Matthew is saying, look, want you to know it's happening right here about the one who was born today. The reason we're here to celebrate this one to come.

The Son on His Shoulders

But what about the shoulders? Look to our passage. Isaiah nine, verse six and seven. What do we know of this one to come?

For to us a child is born.
For to us a son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder.

What do we know from this? This one to come will be a child. Won't come looking like a bodybuilder, but will come in a manger, meek and mild. It'll be a son, meaning it has a father. This son has a father, and he's coming. Continue on, it'll be a wonderful counselor, this one to come. A mighty God, an everlasting father. He will bring peace to the world.

But what about the shoulders? And the government shall be upon his shoulder. The savior to come will shoulder the world.

What does it mean when it says the government shall be upon his shoulders? Two things.

Number one, the savior to come has all the power over the governments of the world. Do you believe that? Is it hard to believe? Listen to these scriptures:

Acts 17:26 — God determines the precise times and boundaries of all the nations.

When we watch the news, we think, oh, that's not that's not gonna happen. There's no way that God has his hands or is in control of all these things. Looks total chaos. Scripture says, no, not true.

People, rulers, governments, way back in the days of Isaiah, even as they were being taken over by the Assyrians. Scripture says, God is working his hand through history.

Proverbs 16:9 — The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
Proverbs 19:21 — Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Think about Genesis 50, all these terrible things happened to Joseph, some of them with government rulers, some with his brothers, and at the end of Genesis, he says, all these plans that were for evil, God used them for what? God used them for good. God shoulders the powers of the world.

Job 14, Psalm 139 — He determines the days and the months and the boundaries of every person he creates. God knows your days. Are we not glad of that?

Haggai 2:7, God said through the prophet, I will shake the nations and all the treasures of the nations shall fall, and I will use them to fill my temple.

God is gonna shake the nations to use those things for his purposes. And then think about this one in John 19. Right before Jesus goes to get hung up to die, to go to trial, he's before Herod and he says, Herod, the only reason you can do this is because it's been given permission by my father to make this happen. Herod thought he had this authority over Jesus to make it happen, and Jesus says, look, all the governmental powers are on my shoulder. I am the most powerful one.

Walter Brueggemann says it this way: the evil plans of human folks do not defeat God's purposes. Instead, they unwittingly become ways in which God's plan is furthered.

Number two, the bigger picture is this imagery that Isaiah is saying, holding the government on his shoulders, it's a picture of all the power in the world. Listen to some of these scriptures:

Psalm 93 — God is enthroned in power. God's throne is from old. God is mightier than any ocean.
Psalm 50 — For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds in the hills and everything that moves is mine. He even says, if I were hungry, would I tell you?
Romans 11 — All things come from God, exist for God, and they all end up glorifying God.

Then Paul says of Jesus, of the one in the manger:

In Ephesians — At the fullness of time, all things will be united in heaven and on earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

So what Isaiah is saying, he's gonna be a mighty counselor, everlasting father, and all the powers rest on his shoulders.

Application

So for you and me, are your shoulders broad enough to carry the burdens of your life? They're not, but Jesus' are. Are your shoulders strong enough to help you navigate what's up ahead? They're not, but Jesus' are. Are your shoulders big enough to reach back to the mistakes you made last year and to fix those when you don't know how? They're not. But Jesus is.

For to us, a child is born and to us, a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder.

Every Sunday morning, we have an invitation to come forward. Are you going to go into the New Year carrying those burdens on your shoulders, or are you gonna take advantage of the shoulders of Jesus? Say, Lord, I don't have the strength, I don't have the ability, I don't have the knowledge, I don't know where to go. And he says, I've got the broadest shoulders you've ever seen.

Where are you gonna go this year for the sins you need forgiveness, for the mistakes you've made? Jesus says, come, know my broad shoulders.

Conclusion

So this morning, we're gonna take a few moments. We invite you forward. If you wanna come and pray by yourself and lay those burdens down, the things that you do not want to carry into the new year, the things that have become between you and God, come and pray by yourself. We'll have prayer team folks on the straight rails who would love to pray with you.

Every week, I have a conversation with someone almost every week, and they're telling me about the burdens they're carrying. I say, listen, come forward and let the prayer team pray with you. They would love to be with you and give those things over to the broadest shoulders that ever lived. You don't have to carry those into the new year. You don't have to carry the weight of your sin and your mistakes into the new year.

Let's pray.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder.

God, we can't imagine that we don't have to carry it. We can't imagine that we're not supposed to drag those things around every single day as they crush us. And yet your invitation is to say, look, my burden is light. My yoke is easy. Come and give me those things.

I died so you can give them away to me. Lord, we pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would stir in us to give to you the broadest shoulders to ever walk the earth—our problems, our fears, our pains, our very self.

Christ's name. Amen.