Matt Chandler - Promises Made

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them. We’re going to be in Isaiah chapter 9, where we’ll look at seven verses. But hold that thought, as I want to build towards it. We’ll spend our time there, but for now, just open your Bibles to that passage. Lauren and I were in the car two days ago, and she casually remarked that it doesn’t feel like December. I thought to myself, you know what? She’s right. Maybe it’s because Thanksgiving was late, or perhaps it was the unusually cold temperature in November, like 12 degrees, and in December, it just seems too warm. I agree that as much as we’re trying to center our hearts around Advent and the coming of Jesus Christ, it feels a bit chaotic right now. Maybe it’s just us, but I bet it’s not only us.

So here’s my plan: we’re a week late starting Advent, and what I want to discuss today is the promises of God. Next week, I’ll share what those promises create in us, and lastly, we’ll talk about the fulfillment of those promises as we celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ on Christmas Eve. Now, as we walk through some of the promises of God concerning the Messiah, I want to set up an opportunity for us to be gracious to first-century Jews.

Here’s what I mean by that: you and I have the privilege of living on the other side of the Resurrection and the Ascension. So when we read these Old Testament passages, we might think, «What a group of morons in the first century! How could they not see this? How could they not comprehend that this was the Son of God who would take away the sins of the world?» We’re saying that from the perspective of being on the other side of the Resurrection and Ascension.

I want to create a context for us to be understanding of them. They would not have seen these passages like we do; they needed the Holy Spirit to come and perform the work of illumination to open the Word of God to them so that it made sense. Perhaps this illustration will help: I’m not even giving a spoiler alert for this, since the movie is about 20 years old. There’s a film called The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis. While watching, you think, «Oh my gosh, this kid sees dead people—how crazy is that?» Then you notice certain inconsistencies, like why Bruce Willis and his wife are always fighting or why she is giving him the cold shoulder.

Then there’s the big twist at the end. Spoiler alert: Bruce is dead too! He’s a ghost the whole time. Upon rewatching the movie, you think, «Oh, that’s why her breath is cold! That’s why she’s not talking to him—because he’s not there.» You start to see all these details you missed until you reached the end.

For first-century Jews, they would have felt some of the promises of God, but they would not have been able to piece everything together like we do. They needed the Resurrection and Ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the work of illumination—much like we need today. A better way to think of it is how you might have considered Christianity and the Bible before being saved by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Before you became a Christian, your understanding of God was likely very different. Once the Holy Spirit indwells you, everything radically shifts, including how you approach the Bible and faith. In the same way, the first-century Jews, deeply rooted in the Torah and the Old Testament, would not have been able to assemble these truths as easily as we can today in 2019, post-Ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

So my plan is to lay before you the immensity of the promises of God. This isn’t exhaustive; I could spend weeks discussing just the Old Testament promises of the coming Messiah, but I’ll hit a few high points and then tell you why it matters. So, here’s the first point, and maybe we need to…