Christmas Came Early || 08.27.2022

We are diving into the Old Testament, the first half of the Bible. You’ll get to hear the Christmas story during today’s service, so don’t worry, but I want to focus on a couple of prophets tonight. These prophets give us a sneak peek into what will happen in the Christmas story. Think of when you see a movie trailer for a movie you want to see. The movie parts shown in the trailer get shown, but you get to see them beforehand. Cool, right? Let’s see what sneak peeks we can get before hearing the Christmas story.

Isaiah 9:2 says: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned.” There are these people that we talked about last week called shepherds. They oversee the sheep. We read in their story that they weren’t watching them one night, so it must have been dark if it was night, right? Then in their story, they see this bright light coming down from heaven. It was the angel coming to tell them something. The angel came down in the bright light, or should I say great light. I don’t want to spoil anything. 

Isaiah 9:6 says: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and authority will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” You may think these are odd names for a baby, but these aren’t names. They’re titles. It’s a representation of what this child will do. This child is the same one we hear in the Christmas story. His name? Jesus. Jesus grows up to be an excellent counselor because he offers advice and instructions on how we need to live our life. Jesus comes to us as our Mighty God because he’s a part of God. He’s God’s Son and a part of the trinity. We’ll talk about that later. He comes in as an Eternal Father because he cares and loves like a parent. He’s the Prince of Peace because he doesn’t solve problems with war but instead with peace or calmness. 

These are some cool previews for this Jesus character. We see the setup, and we hear about the child. These verses align with the Christmas story so far, but it may be hard to believe. Let’s see what another prophet previews.

Micah 5:2 says: “As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces, one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you. His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.” One thing about Jesus’ family is that he comes from a LOOOOOOONNNNGGGG line of people. The Gospel of Matthew has 16 verses that talk about Jesus’ family tree. That’s a lot of verses, which means that’s many people. One of those people is named David. This David is the same David that killed Goliath. The same David that was king of Israel. What Micah says here shows that Jesus was going to come and rule over all of Israel but will also come out of the Family of David, which Jesus did. 

Micah 5:4 says: “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. They will dwell securely because he will surely become great throughout the earth.” You may have heard Jesus referred to as a shepherd before. Like a shepherd watches over his sheep and protects them, Jesus does the same thing for us. That’s why Micah says that he will “stand and shepherd his flock.” Jesus is the one who strengthens us with everything He teaches us in the Bible and during his ministry. Jesus is the one who provides comfort we’re hurting, and we end up feeling secure in him. 

The Bible gives us a lot of sneak previews of Jesus before he’s born. There are 330 prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. Three hundred thirty times, we see a sneak peek of who Jesus is, what he’s going to do, and so much more. Talk about preparation. We’ve focused on preparing ourselves all Advent long for the Birth of Christ. We learn that one of the best ways to prepare ourselves is to hear about him in the Old Testament. I talked about only four sneak previews tonight. That means there are 326 reviews for you to go read. I challenge you to read through a book of the Old Testament and see how many times you can see them giving you a sneak preview about Jesus.