Light Has Dawned | Isaiah 9:1-7
INTRODUCTION
Today, we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. May His peace fill your hearts, His joy strengthen your homes, and His presence lead you through the days ahead.
The birth of Jesus is not an afterthought, it was planned even before the foundation of the world. Jesus is called in the book of Revelation as “the Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world.”
The birth of the seed of the woman was promised right in the creation fall narrative:
Genesis 3:15
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Isaiah the prophet who lived about 700 years before Jesus prophesied the very sign of the birth of Jesus. Open your Bibles to Isaiah 7.
Isaiah was one of Israel’s most prominent prophets. He lived right kind of the middle latter middle of Israel’s Kingdom Period. This was a very dark chapter in Israel’s story. Israel’s rulers for the most part had become corrupt, they allowed injustice, neglect of the poor, and were worshiping other gods. Isaiah warned that if they did not repent, God would allow one of the big bad empires of their day, the Assyrian Empire to ransack different parts of Israel’s land, and this would be a form of judgment on God’s people.
In Isaiah 7, King Ahaz, the King of Judah is faced with a battle between Israel and Syria. God spoke through Isaiah to (7:4) keep calm and not be afraid, don’t lose heart. Stand firm in faith. Isaiah asks Ahaz to ask for a sign, which he refused and the Lord himself gave him a sign.
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. and shall call his name Immanuel.
- Isaiah 7:1-12:6 – No Trust. Judah does not trust God.
- Isaiah 7:14; 9:6 – God’s Promise. Children/seed: Signs of the Promise
- Isaiah 7:1-14 – Ahaz refuses the Challenge/sign
- Isaiah 7:15-8:22 – Judgement
- Isaiah 8:22 – If we refuse God’s revelation there is nothing left for us but darkness, but that is not where God wants to stop.
- Isaiah 9:1-7 – HOPE
Isaiah 9 is a chapter of hope. Isaiah 9 foretells the ministry & the character of the Messiah
Isaiah 9:1
Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
In the past, God humbled the land of Zebulun because of their sin. God allowed this, and it brought doom and floom and distress to God’s people. But is that the end of the story?
Isaiah says, it’s not the end. In the past God allowed these lands to be humble, but it won’t last forever. There’s something coming for this part of the country again. He’s going to honour this region, Galilee of the Nations.
Isaiah 9:2
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
When Assyria swept through the land and death decimated and took people captive, it was like somebody turning the lights off. This pitch black Gloom, Darkness, confusion: Where is God? What is he up to? Has he abandoned us completely?
Isaiah says, “No, no.” You’re working out the consequences of your decisions, he says to the people of Israel, but God is faithful. You can have hope in his promises. The lights are going to turn back on.
This is a beautiful passage of the coming ministry of Jesus: We know where Jesus started his public ministry, in Galilee of the nations.
Matthew 4:13-16
13Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—14to fulfil what was said through the prophet Isaiah:
15“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
16the people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”
The very place where the darkness began to consume the land, that is the place where God would send his light. That is the God we serve. Yes, we may bring darkness upon ourselves by our refusal, but that is not where God intends to leave us. He intends to shine his light upon us.
So, what will it be like when God turns the lights back on again?
Isaiah 9:3
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
So he says, when salvation comes again, when the lights turn on, it’s going to be a day of Joy. It’s going to be like how you planted little seeds in your garden, and you tended and watered and weeded and weighted and then is the Harvest. In the harvest and take in all that you worked and waited for, right? It is a day of joy. joy over what you’ve gained.
What else will it be like? God will defeat the enemy. God will do away with warfare.
Isaiah 9:4-5
4For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, (by Gideon and his army)
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
5Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
Yahweh is going to defeat the enemy like back in the day of Midian. No more war. There will be: Joy, peace, freedom, release.
When God turns the lights back on again, what’s it going to do?
- It is going to be a day of Joy.
- It is going to be a day of Peace, freedom, and release.
- It is going to be a day of victory.
- God is faithful.
- There is hope for God’s people.
What is the reason for this joy? How is this going to happen?
Isaiah 9:6
6For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
(The solution of world’s problems is not going to be solved with wars, fights, quarrels. Who is this going to be? This is going to be a child.)
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
There’s a child king who’s going to be born. Why is the Messiah presented as a child?
We would have expected a war lord but the Messiah is a child; humble, weak. God we need power, we need someone powerful. God says, “I am sending a son, a child.” The weakness of God is stronger than our strength. He has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the strong. He has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It is running all through here. Unto us a child is born…..
What’s he like?
Wonderful counsellor. Counsellor refers to planning politically militarily. He going to be able to accomplish wonders through his wise rule.
He will be called Mighty God (Talks about his divinity and might) , an everlasting father (Jesus is not the Father but Jesus is referred to as the Father of eternity), Prince of Peace, Prince of Shalom.
Isaiah 9:7
7Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
It’s a very powerful promise. This is hope right here. This child brings hope. There’s no reason for optimism in Isaiah’s day, but he holds out just this bold promise of hope, of a king who’s coming to be born.
We know that when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law who is Jesus Christ.
Isaiah doesn’t just say He is God; he calls Him “Mighty God.” The word carries the sense of a mighty warrior, a champion, a man of valour. In other words, Jesus did not simply come to give us nice feelings at Christmas. He came as a Warrior God. This king, this child is the very embodiment of the mighty God’s presence among his people.
Why was Jesus born?
God became man to fight for you. Christmas is actually the opening move in the final, decisive conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
Right back in Genesis 3:15, after sin entered the world, God spoke to the serpent and said: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
That is the first promise of the gospel. God said, in effect, “One day a child will be born, a descendant of the woman, and He will do what Adam failed to do – He will crush the serpent’s head.” From that moment on, the Bible’s story is moving towards this final conflict.
So when Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Promised Seed has arrived. The Warrior (Mighty God) has entered the battlefield. If you read the Gospels, you will notice how spiritual conflict seems to explode wherever Jesus goes. But in every case, He wins. From the temptation in the wilderness, to the casting out of demons, to every confrontation with evil – Jesus always comes out as the victor. Jesus said He has come to “bind the strong man” and plunder his house.
All of that is leading up to the greatest battle of all: the cross. At the cross, it looks as if Satan finally wins. Jesus is betrayed, arrested, mocked, beaten, and crucified. Darkness covers the land. He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” To any human, this looks like total defeat. By His death, Jesus breaks the devil’s grip. At the very moment it looks like He has lost, He is actually winning.
Hebrews 2:14–15
14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
Colossians 2:15
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
1 John 3:8
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
So why was Jesus born?
Christmas is really about the cross. He was born to die, to win the final victory over sin, Satan, and death for us. Remember what Jesus spoke just before His arrest:
John 16:33
33“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
APPLICATION
That is the voice of our Mighty God. He knows that in this world we will face tribulation, pain, discouragement, temptation, and spiritual attack. But He says, “There is Hope. Take heart. I have already overcome. I have fought the battle and I have won. The world cannot ultimately harm you. Satan cannot snatch you from My hand. Your sin cannot condemn you, because I have paid it all.”
This is what it means to call Him Mighty God.
At Christmas we are not just admiring a baby; we are looking at our Warrior King, who came to fight for us, die for us, and rise again for us – and who now says to every struggling believer: “Do not fear. I am your Mighty God. I have overcome.”
Friends, are you trusting today in a God who is mighty by His very name and His ability to make good on all that He’s promised? He has what you need, even for the most difficult of challenges that lay before you. He is the mighty God. I don’t know your circumstances, but God knows you, and our God is the mighty God.
Hope When God Works Differently
If I’m a follower of Jesus, I have hope in God’s promises, but hope also in God’s freedom to do things in a way that I would never expect or predict, or maybe even prefer. So this is part of biblical hope: God’s faithful to his promises, but he carries them out in a way that I would have never anticipated or predicted or expected.
When Jesus comes onto the scene, does Jesus fulfil these promises in a straightforward way liken mentioned in Isaiah? Does Jesus come and just totally trounce on the enemy, the oppressor? Well, it depends. It depends on who the oppressor is and who the enemy is.
Jesus not come and trounce on Rome and kick them out, but he spends all of those three years of his kingdom of God mission battling the enemy as the Mighty God, doesn’t he? See, Jesus comes and he sees a different enemy: A dark, deeper enemy of evil that’s behind not just Rome but all human brokenness and sin. He moves towards that enemy. He shatters the power.
Does Jesus take the government on his shoulders? He takes a Roman execution wood on his shoulders. And in the act of the cross, in a very surprising, unanticipated way, he absorbs the pain and the sin of the world into himself, defeating its power when he rises from the grave.
Who would have thought that that’s how God is being faithful to his promises? Biblical hope is about God being faithful to his promises. We cannot predict how God will bring about his promises, right? We have no idea, and that’s God’s freedom, and that’s part of biblical hope.
So, as people of hope we know that God is going to work out his salvation in our world, how God is going to do that we do not know.
Who would have thought this is how God is fulfilling his promises through Jesus of Nazareth? He’s born to poor parents. He hangs out with fishermen and tax collectors, and he ends up being executed. You know, that sounds like a great plan. But that’s precisely how God is working out his salvation, and that’s the God in which we have our hope.
God gave Israel hope through Jesus. God gives the world hope through Jesus.
What did they do to deserve this? Nothing, nothing. The grace of God does not depend on anything that we humans do. We need to know that. If there is hope for us it is not because somehow we are going to get our house in order. The only hope for us is that God breaks into our darkness with his light. That is the good news.
CONCLUSION
And so let me ask you a question to reflect on: Think about what it means to be people of hope. Think about your own life circumstances.
How many of us are here who need a word of hope, and someone’s turned out the lights and you’re confused, right? You have no idea what’s going on. You can’t see the horizon. That relationship fell apart. Your job fell apart. Your job doesn’t exist anymore and you can’t find another one. Your family, whatever, whatever, somebody’s turned out the lights.
And for those who place their faith in Christ, who’ve committed themselves to his way, God’s promise to you is to work out his salvation in your life. And you can have hope in those promises. But let’s not think we can predict what that ought to look like, you know? You might feel like God’s abandoned you, but could it be that it’s through this season of darkness that is how God is working out his salvation in your story? Could it be the surprising dark way that God brought salvation through the death and suffering of the Messiah?
So how does Isaiah speak a word of hope to you—that God is at work in your story; it just doesn’t look like what we thought it would?
LIFE APPLICATION
1. Receive Jesus as Saviour
Receive Jesus personally today, not merely as a Christmas message, but as your Saviour from sin, Lord of your life, and the only One who can truly reconcile you to God.
2. There is Hope for God’s People
Even if your season feels dark and uncertain, do not lose heart—God’s people are never without hope, because His light will dawn again and His salvation will surely come.
3. God is Faithful to His Promises
Stand on God’s Word with confidence. His promises do not change. God will accomplish what He has spoken.
4. Trust God’s Ways and God’s Timing.
Biblical hope means trusting God to keep His promises, even when we cannot predict His timing or method—because His ways are higher, and His freedom is part of His faithfulness