I still remember
the thrill. I walked into that big
room, with those video cameras rolling around on wheels, cables slung in every
direction. And there before me, stood
the bleachers I had seen on TV, filled with lucky youngsters such as me. Now it was my turn. I was appearing on the Bob Brandy show. If you grew up in Chattanooga, TN in the 70s
or 60s for that matter, nothing was bigger than Bob Brandy, our own TV
cowboy. (His real name was Robert
Brandenburg – I don’t think I need to tell you why he shortened it.)
Each weekday, and
then on Saturdays, Bob would appear with his beautiful wife, Ingrid, and his
horse, Rebel. (There they are). Each week, lucky kids from the TV audience would
sit on Rebel, and try to throw a ball into a barrel. That might not sound exciting now, but when
I was seven, it sounded awesome!
I don’t remember
much about my time on the Bob Brandy show except that it did kinda did feel
awesome. But today when I see what
appears on TV, I don’t feel so awesome.
I see reports of mass shootings or politicians snapping at each other or
the latest horror from ISIS. The ads
urge me to buy things I can’t afford. The
shows highlight people who gain fame by behaving rudely or acting stupidly. It’s not all bad, but I gotta tell you. I kinda miss Bob Brandy. Do you know what I mean? Do you ever get discouraged about what appears
at the center of our culture; about what gets rewarded in the halls of power? Does
it trouble you how often the evil or simply the shallow seizes the world’s
attention? And all of that attention carries power, power that can lead you to distraction,
to lose focus on what ultimately matters.
How do you deal with a world that highlights so often the wrong
things? And how do you make sure you
focus on the right? In these ancient
prophetic words, God shows us the way.
Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.
The world around
us often centers its attention, even its praise on things that are hollow, even
false. How do you deal with that? And how do you not get swayed by that
attention? How do you live a live that
centers on what really matters rather than one that gets distracted by what
doesn’t matter at all?
Here God shows us
the way. God reminds us. The truly great things rarely get noticed.
The significant things rarely appear on TV.
Why? Because God works in ways
so obscure and small, you can hardly see them.
Yet in that obscurity, God is doing things so great, so utterly huge,
they can hardly be believed.
That’s what this
first prophecy points out right at the beginning. It tells us that God’s deliverance is coming
from, of all places, Zebulun and Naphtali.
Zebulun and Naphtali were in the far north of Israel, right on the
border. And by Isaiah’s day, hardly any
Israelites even lived there anymore. That
title Galilee of the Nations means literally Galilee of the Gentiles. Do you get how weird this is? Shouldn’t God’s deliverance happen in
Jerusalem, the center of things, and not out in the boonies, where few
Israelites even lived? Yet Isaiah tells
us. No, God’s deliverance comes from
here.
And not only that,
what will God’s deliverance be? Isaiah
says it will be a child. But then
Isaiah gives us the names of this child.
Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Do you see what Isaiah is doing? He is
giving this child divine names, not just divinish names, but names like Mighty
God. Isaiah is telling us. God isn’t just sending you some great king or
prophet. God is sending himself. The creator of the universe will become a
human being.
The Child that was ere
worlds begun
(…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.
(…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.
The child that played with moon and sun is playing with a
little hay…In no other religion do you find this, a God who becomes an utterly
vulnerable part of his creation like this.
And in case, we still didn’t get it.
In Chapter 11, Isaiah makes it clear again. He tells us in verse 1 that a shoot shall
come from the stump of Jesse. That
makes sense. Jesse is the father of
King David, the greatest King of Israel, and so this baby will come from his
royal line. But then in verse 11, he
tells us this. On that day, the root of
Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples.
Hold on. You’re telling me this
child is the root of Jesse. How can he
come before Jesse, who has been dead for a thousand years? But that’s the stunning reality that Isaiah
is telling us. This child will be both shoot and root, will
be both human and divine. And what will
this child do? Will he conquer Israel’s enemies, make them a
great kingdom again? No, forget
that. This child will transform nature. Wolves and lambs will lie down together. Lions
will eat hay. God’s presence will fill
the world as waters fill the ocean.
Do you see how incredibly big this is? Yet
how will it happen? It will happen in
the most out of the way place you can imagine.
It will occur in the smallest way possible with the birth of a child,
something that happens countless times every day. Yet that’s how God works. No, let me correct that. That’s how God did work.
Let’s do a little thought experiment for a moment. Imagine if I came to y’all one day, and said “Hey,
I really want my son to be successful. I want your feedback on my plan of
success.” You might ask, “What do you
mean by success?” And let’s say I said,
“Well, 2000 years from now, virtually everyone on earth will know his
name. 25% of the world’s population
will center their life around him, and his birthday will be the biggest holiday
on the planet. His teaching will be the
most influential in human history, and be the foundation of two or three major
civilizations.” Now, you might reply, “Wow.
That is ambitious. What’s your plan?” Well, he’ll need to be poor, and never travel
any further than a few days by foot from his home. He won’t go to any prestigious schools,
certainly not college. He’ll do manual
labor for most of his life. And he won’t
associate with anyone who has any real power, political or religious. And when he is coming close to his peak
years of productivity, say early 30s, he’ll be arrested and executed in
disgrace.” Do you see how God
works? God came to earth as a child, and
the child of an unwed mother at that. But
in that child and in his obscure life, God changes everything.
Do you want to work where God is working? Forget what gets the news and the fame. Go to the places and people that few pay
attention to. There you’ll find God at
work.
God reminded me of that again when I learned about John Barfield. About 90 years ago, John
Barfield was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
But he almost didn’t live past his second birthday. He caught a fever, and nothing was bringing
it down. Then two white women in long
white dresses walked into his family’s house.
They handed Barfield’s father a note with an address and told him to
find the house and to hurry. Then they
disappeared. His father ran all the way
to the white side of town. He found the
man, a doctor, who rushed to his son’s bedside and stayed there all night. John recovered. And what of those two women? No-one had ever seen them before that night,
and no-one saw them afterwards ever. They
came to the only conclusion they could.
God had intervened directly to spare that child’s life.
What happened to John Barfield? He never graduated from high school. He got a job as a janitor at the University of
Michigan. But then he started his own
cleaning company. And from there, he
started 11 companies and provided jobs for tens of thousands of African
Americans looking for a way out of poverty.
His firm Bartech Group now has hundreds of millions in revenue. PBS has done a documentary on his life. And his memoir is raising funds to immunize
children from polio in the poorest places on the planet. Amazing huh? But that’s how God works, in the places that
no one notices, and in those places, doing things bigger than anyone could ever
imagine.
That’s why on Friday, we’re hosting a tour of our partner
school, Hollywood Central. At Hollywood
Central, over half of the children, get free or reduced lunch or
breakfast. A good number live in hotels
off Federal Highway. Yet God is working
in those kids. That’s not the question.
The question is are you going to make time to come and see that work, to
even be part of it? This Christmas, part
of our offering will go to care for our HIV orphans in Haiti. Those who have seen that work know the
powerful things God is doing there. That’s
not the question. The question is how
many of your dollars will go to what the advertisers tell you is important and
how many to what God does?
Sisters and brothers, you can’t get distracted by the
glittering and the glamorous. That is
never where God is doing his greatest work.
Just look at this meal. It’s not
much to look at really. A small piece of
bread. A little touch of juice. Yet here God will do more in you than in any
other meal you will ever have. In this simple meal, Jesus will fill you with the
beautiful, wondrous, powerful love of God.
And don’t worry about what you
need to bring. All you need is to bring
yourself. God will do the rest. God will work even in the smallest, most
obscure places in your heart, and in those places bring to birth things more
wondrous and more beautiful than you could ever imagine. Just as he did in that manger in Bethlehem so
will he do there.
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