Expectation sets Experience
As I sat in my chair watching the Iowa State Cyclones close out the football regular season against the Kansas State Wildcats, I couldn’t help but have a pit in my stomach. As the clock counted down to 4 zeroes, the Cyclones losing the final game of the season, I couldn’t help the feelings of disappointment, frustration, and letdown that washed over me. And it wasn’t sadness for me, it was sadness for the players, for the team and the coach, and for the university, and the fans, for what could have been. The cyclones had lost four games against some of the best teams out there by a combined 11 points, and this was just one more. They were on the verge of greatness, on the cusp of a breakthrough. And I sighed about what could have been.
This season, the Iowa State Cyclones had one of the best year’s they’ve ever had, and we are living in the greatest three-year period of success for Iowa State Football in it’s existence. Our sophomore quarterback broke just about every record in our books. We’ve had an unprecedented amount of conference wins, and gone toe-to-toe with the best teams in the league. Iowa state has been competitive in every single game for years now, and had unprecedented amounts of players recognized on all-conference teams and even having high impact in the professional ranks. And we’re a young team! The future is bright.
So, seriously, what’s the deal with the disappointment? There is one thing that changed my fan experience of this year’s season:
expectation
expectation is a strong belief that something will happen
If you dropped a fan from 5 years ago into this season, they would be elated, fulfilled, energized; but many of us feel differently purely because we expected the results to be better than they were. What did happen did not match what we expected to happen.
I believe that the biggest source of frustration in our lives is not from poor circumstances, it’s from unmet expectations.
Let me say that again: I believe that the biggest source of frustration in our lives is not from poor circumstances, it’s from unmet expectations.
Today, we’re going to talk about how our expectations change our experiences.
Our expectations have the power to steer our emotions, affect actions that we take, and mold our hopes and dreams. That’s why it’s so important for us to set our expectations rightly – on the right things, and in things that are true.
We’re going to look at a true, hope-filled expectation that we can cling to on our darkest day, as we take a look at a the great expectation found in Isaiah 9, and in a beautiful Advent hymn: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.
In this sermon, I’m going to show you that the main Scripture text we’re going to look at in Isaiah and this song Come Thou Long Expected Jesus both call us to do one thing, and that thing is:
Expect Jesus!!!
And they tell us that in four ways:
- Watch Israel Expect Jesus the Savior
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Perspective
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Life
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Future
Intro Myself
My name is John Shields, and I am the music ministry director here at Stonebrook Community Church. Preaching this sermon will be something new for me; it’s not new for me to be up here talking about Jesus and the Scriptures and our songs, but usually I do that earlier in the service. But for some reason the pastors asked me to do this a little later in the service, so here I am!
But I’m going to need some help here, so let’s bow together in prayer:
God, if we hear what I have to say, that will be of little use, but guide us by the power of the Holy Spirit as we look together at what You have to say; what you have said in Your Scriptures, that we might know it, understand it, heed it, and live by it. Give our minds clarity and our hearts openness, to be ready to receive correction or encouragement or whatever you have for us today. Amen.
Intro Series
In this time of Advent, we’re going through a series in which we take a beloved Advent/Christmas hymn, and look at what it’s saying and where we find what it’s saying in the Scriptures. This series follows a flow / tells a story of our Need, Expectation, Joy, and Glory of a Savior – and that Savior is, you guessed it, Jesus.
So here we are in week two, digging in to our expectation for our Savior, Jesus. Alright, let’s do this.
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus origins and theme
Let me start by simply reading the hymn Come Thou Long Expected Jesus: (and while we sing 4 verses, I’m going to focus on only the two original verses of the hymn written by Charles Wesley – which are verses 1 and 4 of the version we normally sing)
Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
born to set Thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us;
let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth Thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.Born Thy people to deliver,
born a child, and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by Thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to Thy glorious throne.
The song was written in 1744 as Charles Wesley was meditating on Haggai 2:7 and was burdened by the suffering around him, and longed for peace and for God to make all things right. In fact, we see in Haggai 2:7, looking at the King James Version as Wesley did, where he was inspired for a line in the first verse of the song.
Haggai 2:7
“And I will shake the nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.” (KJV)
Of course, we see in 1.7 “dear desire of every nation…”
If we look at this verse of Haggai alone, you might be thinking what I thought when first reading it: so, how exactly is this about Jesus?
Well, on it’s own, Haggai 2:6-9 gives an image of God’s house restored. And if we take a wider lens, a wider view of redemptive history, we see the ultimate fulfillment of this passage not just in the rebuilding of the Temple, but in the incarnation of Christ and the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age.
How do I get there? Well, Jesus declared His body was “this temple” in John 2:20-21, and Revelation 21:22,24 speaks of a future day when the entire city of Jerusalem will be filled with the presence of God – where Christ will rule and reign on this earth. So this image in Hag. 2 echoes forward — it foreshadows — a series of events with the first coming of Jesus, and also his second coming. And yes, I said forward to the first coming of Jesus, even though that is backward for us.
We need to keep in mind that Wesley was looking at this passage from multiple vantage points:
- Israel’s view of the coming Messiah (before Jesus came)
- Our view back to the first coming of Jesus
- Our view forward to the second coming of Jesus
Wesley had all 3 of these lenses on when he wrote Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, so we want to have all of those in view to really dig in to that song, and to really dig in to the text we’re studying in Isaiah today.
The Book of Isaiah
You can open your Bibles to our main text today, which will be Isaiah 9. That’s on page ___ of the house Bibles.
When I first was asked about doing the sermon, I thought “sure, I love the Bible and talking about Jesus and learning more about Jesus, which I get to do when working through a passage, so let’s do this.” When the series finally shook out, it turns out the Scripture I’ll be working out is Isaiah. Which sounds great, I love that book. However, this is a book of prophecy. The book of Isaiah is a prophetic text, full of prophecies that have been fulfilled and some that are yet to be fulfilled. The fulfillment often came to Israel, but also to others. It contains foreshadowing, imagery, analogy, typology, specific prophecy, relates to Israel, to the rest of the world, to events past and future, and can often be difficult to untangle. And yet, it’s not a secret labyrinth — a secret code — that somehow just needs to be cracked. It’s a clear, resonant, powerful communication — a Word of God — that He intends for us to understand, to know and to cherish and to follow. And that’s what we’re going to dig into today.
About a Song and Artists and Story
I’ve got to mention: It can actually be difficult to have one text in the Bible serve as the sole source of a song, because typically what a songwriter is trying to do is to take a truth and help draw it out and expand it and take you on a journey through that truth so you get a chance to really experience it, to peek into all its corners, to be washed over by the punch of it, to see the implications and feel reality hit you in the chest, and to understand more deeply a truth.
Often times we think of artists as creators of something new, but they’re actually more of re-creators and curators, helping you see and experience what really is, and that’s why songs have such a profound impact on what we feel and understand and think about, because they have a way of capturing us in a way that many other things do not. And that’s the way that we’re wired. It’s worth noting that God could have revealed truth to us through technical manual, a systematic theology, or a step-by-step handbook. And instead what we have is primarily a storybook — an arc and flow — of joy and sadness and risk and brokenness and rescue and adventure.
And we weren’t just told a story from afar, God is near. He came down and interacted with us in a very real way through Immanuel, God with us, and He will do it again in a different way, and that’s what we look forward to in Advent. But its also why we’re looking back — forward and back. Both are key here.
So let’s look at our passage today. This passage was written by Isaiah, who was a prophet.
What we need to know about Prophets — not pastors or priests, but a different office:
- Israel’s prophets must never teach the people to serve any other god but Yahweh (Deut. 1:1-11)
- God puts His words directly in their mouths (Deut. 18:18)
- God will hold people accountable for listening to God through the prophets – for knowing and obeying the messages from God (Deut. 18:19)
So, the key thing to remember here is that Israel was responsible for knowing and understanding and following Isaiah 9.
Let’s read it together:
Read Isaiah 9:1-7
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of ldeep darkness,
on them has light shone.
3 You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Judgment on Arrogance and Oppression
So, let’s break this passage down.
In the first section, we get to Watch Israel Expect Jesus the Savior.
Israel is sitting there in anguish (v.1)
Verse 2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”
So, we see connections with Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, verse 1 here. the people dwelling in a deep darkness want to see a long-expected Jesus to come. It’s deep and dark and scary and lonely. It’s from their fears and sins they need to be released. Line 3 – “from our fears and sins release us.”
Now, we see in line 3 a two-fold problem:
Our Sins – which is a spiritual problem (“walking in darkness” imagery for sin)
Our Fears – which is a physical problem (“dwelling in a land of deep darkness” imagery of the consequences of their sin)
So, because they walk in darkness (sin), they reap the consequences which is “dwelling in a land of deep darkness” (fear)
An important thing to note in in this section: what are “the people” actively doing? Walking in darkness, and dwelling in a land of deep darkness.
The other two things are passive, that is, they are initiated from elsewhere. It happened to them, not from them. Not as a result of anything that they did. This light (the light of Jesus, the savior), is shone on them.
So here, we Watch Israel Expect Jesus the Savior.
Next, we Expect Jesus to Change Our Perspective
Let’s look at verse 3 of Isaiah 9:
…read v3…
“you have multiplied (enlarged) the nation” who is the nation? the nation of Israel.
“you have increased its joy” — this is the “joy of every longing heart” that we see in line 8 of our hymn
“they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest”
why does he use language of a harvest?
Well any farmer or someone who knows a farmer knows that harvest time is work time. It’s stay up late time. The stakes are high, and you have to work, work, and work some more until all the work is done. You’re up late and up early.
But when the harvest is done, that’s the time for rest. That’s when we get to “find our rest in Thee” (hymn line 4).
But there’s a specific reason the imagery of joy at the harvest is used; it’s a setup for something in the next verse:
“for the yoke of his burden…. as on the day of Midian.”
When the Jewish readers would have heard about Midian, it would have made their ears perk up, and it would have all made sense. They would have gone, “ohhhhh joy at the harvest…Midian…ahhhhhh”
To relate to this, it would be like if I was talking about eating some delicious BBQ, and eventually said… “just like Hickory Park.” All of the sudden, you are teleported to a seat with delicious mouth-watering meats piled high in your trough right in front of you. Delicious food scattered as far as the eye can see. Endless stream of food coming and going all night. An iced cream menu that is absurdly large, larger than…well, most restaurant menus. And a candy store in the restaurant!!!
So, what’s the deal with Midian? Well, the day of Midian is found in the story of Gideon (that makes it easy to remember — Midian/Gideon — great rhyme, if you’re looking to throw something over some hot beats, that’s a good place to start…need to write a song about that one), seen in Judges 6-7. In it, God achieves an improbable victory over Midian for Israel via Gideon. Midianites had been stealing crops from Israel for 7 long years by occupying their land during the harvest and taking what they wanted. And Israel was powerless to stop them. But God stepped in and told Gideon that he would save them. This is the story where he collected 10,000 men and God said that he needed to trim it down so that no one would think it was on their own strength.
So this “joy of the harvest…as on the day of Midian” is specifically saying that this is a joy brought by God’s rescue of His people.
Israel was brought joy, a new hope, a new mindset, a new perspective, so we can
Expect Jesus to Change Our Perspective
Now is where the passage gets crazy and specific — where we Expect Jesus to Change Our Lives.
… Read Isaiah 9:4-6 …
If you’re wondering about verse 5, that’s using some imagery that’s just telling the readers: you’re not going to need to be at war any more. You’re not under the oppression anymore.
v. 6. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace
This describes what the savior would be like. Titles are a lot like condensed soup: they’re pungent, compact, strong, but sometimes stretching them out a bit is the best way to consume them, to actually understand the ingredients and taste them as they were intended.
Wonderful Counselor
Someone who knows exactly what to do.
Example: Lord of the Rings. It’s like in your story where your heroes are in trouble, stuck in a situation that they can’t figure out, and they always ask “I wish ________ were here; he would know exactly what to do.” (Gandalf) You kind of feel like if Gandalf were always with Frodo, he wouldn’t get stuck so much, and the ring would have been destroyed before anything bad could happen. But we don’t always listen to good counsel.
Mighty God – someone who is able to do anything and everything. It’s not worth knowing what to do, if you’re not able to do it. And this savior would be Mighty God – able to do anything.
Everlasting Father
Everlasting Father is not in relation to the Godhead, but in relation to His character – he is fatherly to us. A father is a protector, a caretaker, a provider, a comforter.
Everlasting Father: he’s on top of it, in control, ready to catch you. #dadreflexes
But a key component to this is a permanence. Once you’re in His family, you’re not coming out. You’re in for good.
“There is no unfathering Christ, and there is no unchilding us,” Charles Spurgeon once said. “He is everlastingly a father to those who trust in him.”
Prince of Peace – the reason that there is peace is because someone is always making the right decisions, and no one has to question it, because they are always right, and they always do things the right way. They know exactly how to solve any problem.
Think about all these titles, and the person that they describe. Can you think of anyone like that? Have you interacted with anyone like that?
This is someone otherworldly, higher than any other.
Think about Jesus in the New Testament narratives. He always knew what to say — always had the right answer, no one could stump Him. He always knew what to do, to solve some problem or get out of some predicament – think of calming the storm or feeding the 5,000 or healing thousands or whatever it was.
He was always in the right place at the right time to fulfill every prophecy and accomplish whatever he set out to do. He would often say exactly what was going to happen before it happened (I’m going to die on the cross and rise again, Peter will deny me 3 times, we’ll go here or there and encounter this or that). And he often had to #dadreflex on the disciples, always there to protect them from getting arrested or killed or whatever.
And he was always right about everything. The disciples always looked to him as a source of wisdom, as a counselor. People came from miles and miles just to hear him. No one could best him; no one could call him out on a mistake. He could spar with the best of them.
And think of all the influencers he interacted with: High Priest, Roman Leaders, Samaritans, Pharisees, Poor people, Rich people, the high and low of society and everything in between. He was greater than them all – and they feared him because of that.
No one was like him, and He was the exact fulfillment/representation of these titles. He was the only one that these titles could apply to – there was no one else like him — no one even in the same league.
This was the prophecy that the Jews were required to know, the messiah they would be held accountable by God for looking out for and recognizing. This piece couldn’t have been any clearer, and somehow, so many just missed it. They weren’t looking anymore. They had their own plan…their own system.
It’s like they say “the government shall be upon his shoulder,” but didn’t look any further. They drew their own conclusions before looking at what the text actually said. We cannot afford to read our Bibles like the Pharisees who missed Jesus did. We need to have our eyes open, and see the clarity that is there.
Jesus is the one who can change our lives, and I’m going to press pause on that as we look at the next and final piece:
Expect Jesus to Change Our Future
…read Is. 9:7…
There is a lot that could be said here, but this is where we see that Jesus was “born to reign in us forever, born a child and yet a king.” This is forever, this isn’t just for right now. Christ has secured for us a future of peace where He will sit on the throne as our perfect King, our Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. What a great future!
Expect Jesus to Change Our Lives, putting it together
So how exactly should this change our lives, knowing these things?
Look at Ephesians 5 with me.
Eph 5: 1-2
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice.”
Paul then proceeds to lay out what “walking in love” looks like — things like staying pure, don’t be jealous, be thankful, and so on.
Note that Christ’s love for us and sacrifice for us is the foundation of walking in love. It sets the tone for how we are to do it, and is also the why — the motivation for us to do so.
The next part of the passage intersects with our passage from Isaiah. I want you to notice the connection here. It says in v.8:
“for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
down to v.14:
“Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’”
Now, interestingly, even though Paul writes “it says” – meaning “the Scriptures say,” this is not a direct quote from any one passage of Scripture. Most believe that it is a collection from 3 pieces of Scripture – all from Isaiah
1. Isaiah 60:1 (“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”)
2. Isaiah 26:29 (“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to death.”)
3. and of course, you guessed it — from our passage: Isaiah 9:2 (“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone”)
It’s interesting that when you look at those three source passages alone, they provide a portion of the picture, but when you consider them together, it paints a much clearer and much fuller picture of what the promised Messiah would come to do. Paul is saying in Ephesians: Look! it’s all there in the prophecy in Isaiah! I’m not making this stuff up! I’m not coming up with something new here! Jesus wasn’t some brand new manufactured idea, he’s the one written about 700 years before he was even born.
And what is the response to that incredible truth that Jesus is the messiah who has awoken the dead, has shone on us?
v15: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
So what is the response? It’s an expectation that Jesus will change our lives.
Expect Jesus!!!
Remember, this song and text tell us that in four ways:
- Watch Israel Expect Jesus the Savior
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Perspective
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Lives &
- Expect Jesus to Change Our Futures
another way to say that is:
- Expect Jesus to change what we want to do (our hopes and dreams)
- by filling us with the joy of our salvation (the joy of every longing heart that has been fulfilled)
- we love because He first loved us
2. Expect Jesus to change what we are able to do (in Christ by the power of the Spirit)
3. Expect that Jesus has changed what has been done for us (a secure future of peace and renewal – that all things will be made right)
The way that we can expect Jesus to change our perspectives, change our lives, and change our future is look at what Jesus has done, what He has promised He will do, and remember what He is capable of. Just like we reflect on God’s faithfulness to Israel, we can hold fast to His promises that have not yet been fulfilled.
Wrap-up
Someone who expects Jesus is someone who is humble. It’s someone who understands that God is in control instead of them being in control. Someone who believes that God has the solutions to their problems instead of them solving all their problems on their own. Someone who believes that God has the power to give them everything that they need, and is wise enough to know exactly what they need, and is generous enough to care about and give bountifully to what is good for them, what will satisfy them. God is patient enough to wait for them in their sins and struggles, is gentle and gracious enough to look deep into their fears and failures and still bring comfort and peace when He could bring accusation and anger instead. He is glorious enough to outshine the best and brightest, the fastest and the fiercest. They show their billions of dollars and God shows his billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars each singing one song: that God is the greatest — greater than all our problems, greater than all our fears, greater than all our insecurities, greater than all our ailments, greater than all our sorrows, greater than all our heroes, greater than all our pleasures, greater than all imagination. And yet, we can expect Him to love us, to care for us, to carry us through to the end, to cure us, to bring hope and peace and restoration to this world.
I want you to do something for me: let’s sit for a minute in expectation. Life moves at a million miles an hour, and our minds and hearts are pulled in a thousand different directions by stresses from job, family, entertainment, advertisement. So let’s just sit for a minute and reflect. I know that might feel weird if you don’t do this regularly, but that’s okay. Psalm 1 teaches us that How blessed is the man who meditates on the Law of the Lord, on the Word of the Lord day and night. Ps. 119:148 “I am awake through each watch of the night to meditate on your promise.” Sit for a minute in expectation.
Reflection and solitude is something of a lost art in our generation, and if we don’t watch out, we will have our hearts and our minds and our wills — our expectations — pulled apart in a thousand different directions. Keeping Christ as the center is a daily labor. It is a challenge, and it can be a struggle, but it is also the path to joy and peace in our lives, and it’s exactly the way that God designed it.
Think about this: A daily reliance on Him — a daily need for Him — is a gift, not a curse.
Let me repeat that: A daily reliance on Him — a daily need for Him — is a gift, not a curse.
We get to go to God in prayer. We get to let His Word wash over us as we read it. We get to be built up by the very family of God as we sing together and fellowship together and all the good things we do on Sunday mornings and our other weekly get-togethers.
So, let’s continue to Expect Jesus together.