Jeremiah 33:14 “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promises I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.’”

To many people, the very idea of religion seems dry and unexciting. Since God isn’t someone we visibly encounter every day, he can seem distant. More and more people are turning to a do-it-yourself spirituality and avoiding the organized religions, denominations, and churches. That kind of spirituality focuses less on the person of God. It is more concerned with developing a sense of right and wrong and becoming a kinder, more loving person.

Perhaps you have found a similar reaction within yourself. Sometimes the Christian faith doesn’t seem inpiring or uplifting. It feels more like a set of theoretical propositions. The preaching, the teaching, even the music, all seem dry and unexciting.

Is it possible we have forgotten? Our God is the God who steps through the door between heaven and earth to become part of our world, part of our lives, part of our times. He does it time and time again. Our Christian faith is about more than detailed standards for human behavior. God is not a divine quality control inspector. He is the God who rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty in the story of our lives.

“The days are coming when I will fulfill the gracious promises I made…” he says. Christmas, and just about every other Christian holiday, doesn’t celebrate an idea. It celebrates an event, a promise kept, a day when God came and did wonderful, gracious things for us. Maybe it happened a long time ago, but we can still live in the excitement that God was here. He was here for us, and he was here doing amazing things to give us his grace.

Nor is he finished keeping such promises to his people. He hasn’t left us, but he still steps through that door between heaven and earth. He comes to us. We know this if we tune our ears to hear his voice in his Word. We experience this when we grasp his promise to be with us in his supper. He promises the days are coming when he will step through that door between heaven and earth one last time, not in obscurity as he did at his birth; not under cover of word, water, or wine; but in glory to lead us through that same door from earth to heaven.

He can seem agonizingly slow in keeping these promises. Jeremiah lived about 600 B.C. At his time these promises “to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah” were already hundreds of years old. The house of Israel barely even existed. Most of its people were taken away to exile a century earlier and never returned. It would be 600 more years before the things Jeremiah promised came to fulfillment.

We don’t do so well when we have to wait long times for things, do we. When our parents told us we couldn’t have anything to eat until supper, when we had to wait our place in line for some event, even 10 or 15 minute delays seemed unbearable to us as children. When someone we love is in surgery and the surgery goes long, we worry and expect the worst. Waiting drains our hope and tests our faith. That isn’t because things tend to take a negative turn when they take a long time. Slow is often better, but we are short on patience.

Abraham and Sarah struggled to wait the decades God took to give them a child. King Saul couldn’t wait a few days for Samuel to come and offer a sacrifice. The children of Israel grumbled when the Lord made them wait for food or water in the wilderness. We get tired of waiting for God to answer our prayers. God’s people had been waiting for the promised Savior to appear since the beginning of time. By Jeremiah’s day many of them had lost interest or found some other religion to follow.

But God has kept this gracious promise. The Savior he promised has come.  Christmas reassures us that God will keep every good promise he has made to us in his own good time.

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called…Prince of Peace.”

We have every reason to respect and love Jesus as our Counselor, Mighty Hero, and Everlasting Father.  In the end, we also bow to him as King. Jesus is royalty. He was the King of Israel as rightful heir and descendant of King David. But more importantly, he is the King of kings. He reigns as King of the universe, the Son and rightful heir of God the Father in heaven.

But this King does not come to bow our heads in terror, or enslave us in servile fear. His name is the Prince of Peace. His peace is not the kind the world so desperately seeks: peace from wars, relief from crime and violence. He didn’t come to make it possible to build a kind of counterfeit heaven on earth. Many times Jesus himself has been the cause of conflict, not just between nations, but even between individual members or our earthly families. He predicted it would be this way.

None of this contradicts the fact that he is the Prince of Peace, however. He came to bring peace in the BIG war, the one between you and me and our God. When we turned against God with our sin, he had no choice but to turn against us with his judgment. When people are at war with God, there is no peace.

But Jesus has turned God’s judgment away. He has made our sin invisible to God by his death in our place. He has given us real peace with him by leading us back to faith. Our consciences can rest. We don’t need to live our lives constantly looking over our shoulders to see if today God is coming to get us. We may not always be safe in an earthly sense, but we have peace.

Our lives may not be free from struggles with other people, free from struggles with temptation, free from struggles to make it through another day, but God’s peace stretches over us in the middle of these struggles. When we have peace with him, our life is whole. God grants us a sense of security, a sense of contentment even when outwardly our lives are a total disaster. This is the peace that comes with faith.

We possess true peace flowing beneath the rushing adrenalin, the sweating anxiety, the streaming tears, and the overwhelming grief of our messed up existence here. It’s the gift Jesus brings us because he is our Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called… Everlasting Father….”

We’re not used to hearing the name “Father” applied to Jesus. Scripture teaches us to know him as the “Son of the Father.” In other places the Bible refers to Jesus as our brother. “Father” sounds foreign to our ears when we are speaking of the second person of the Trinity. Isaiah isn’t confusing the Father and the Son in this description. They remain distinct, and their relationship unchanged. Rather, he is illustrating important features of the way Jesus relates to you and me.

A few moments consideration will reveal what a fitting name Father is for him in relation to us. A father gives life to his children. Children trace their origin back to their parents. Jesus has given us spiritual life. He made it possible for us by giving his life for our sins. Then he made it happen to us by sending us his word and his Holy Spirit. We would have no spiritual existence if he were not our spiritual Father.

He also sustains our spiritual life just like a Father provides for the needs of his family. It is Jesus himself who continues to meet us in his word. He continues to breathe life into us there as he confronts our sin and promises us his grace. He feeds the family with his own body and blood at the Lord’s Supper. The forgiveness it pronounces provides just the nourishment our faith needs. He hasn’t left us here as orphans. He takes care of our spiritual needs.

In our day fatherhood has gotten a bad name. Many fathers abandon their responsibilities. They fail to nurture and provide for their families. Human fathers may forget (or just don’t care) that there is more to fatherhood than begetting children.

But Jesus will never be a “dead beat dad.” He is the Everlasting Father, and his loving nurture and care for us will never end.

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called…Mighty God…”

Do you know what Isaiah is really saying about Jesus when he calls him our MIGHTY God? He is saying that Jesus is our hero!

The prophet does not mean that Jesus is merely someone for whom we have a great deal of respect, like our favorite celebrity, president, or sports star. This kind of hero was a mighty man and deliverer such as Samson, whom God used as a one-man army; or David, who killed the giant Goliath. From time to time God gave his Old Testament people such “mighty men,” warrior heroes. They did the work of many soldiers. They inspired entire armies to fight to victory. The Lord used them to protect his chosen people from their enemies. That is what Isaiah means when he calls the coming Christ “Mighty.”

If Jesus is such a mighty warrior for us, such a hero, that suggests something about us, too. We would not need him to be so mighty, if we were not so weak. That isn’t something we like to admit. We prefer to picture ourselves as strong, independent, self-sufficient types. We may teach our children to sing Jesus Loves Me This I Know, and the humble self-description it confesses: “Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.” That doesn’t mean we like to think of ourselves that way.

However, that confession is just as true of us as it is of our children. Spiritually, we are all little ones. We are weak-willed when it comes to temptation. We give in to it often and easily.

Our love for God is weak. We have trouble maintaining our zeal and excitement for his work. It is not uncommon to feel as though the Lord, his word, and his work are getting in the way of what we really love: taking care of ourselves and indulging our personal pleasures.

Truth be told, left alone against the devil and his tricks, we are little more than his playthings. When he tires of playing with us, he may devour us whole, like the cat who finished playing with the mouse he caught and now is ready for dinner.

What we need is a hero, a mighty warrior, a great champion who will fight our battles and win. That is exactly what Jesus came to be. That is what he did. With his perfect life, he resisted temptation. He took Satan’s best shot and he didn’t even flinch. When he gave up his life in death, it wasn’t a defeat. His death crushed the enemy, set us free from sin and death, and destroyed the devil’s power. With Jesus on our side, they don’t push us around anymore.

Do you know what is even more encouraging? Our Hero is not just a mighty man. He is the Mighty God. Psalm 146 warns us, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save…Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” That is exactly the help and hope God gives in the child and son of Isaiah’s prophecy. He is the Mighty God, and that makes us confident he is the Hero who can help and deliver us.

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor…”

When Jesus speaks to us, his words are “wonderful.” By “wonderful” the prophet means more than “very good,” or “great,” or even “nice.” He means that Jesus and his words are actually “full of wonder.” When Jesus speaks to us, his words fill us with amazement. We can hardly believe what he is saying–our eyes open wide, our jaws hit the floor–so astounding are the things he has to say.

Think of how people reacted to him during his earthly ministry. The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught like one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the law. Jesus’ enemies were amazed at his words when he escaped the traps they had set for him. His own disciples were amazed when he told them how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven, or when he showed them that he knew more about catching fish than they did.

Are we amazed by Jesus’ words? Even much of the Christian church seems set on softening God’s law, toning down his perfectly holy standards so that we can justify ourselves. We want to consider ourselves “good people.” Are we amazed when Jesus reveals to us that even the most secret and momentary lusts or resentments are damning sin? On the other hand, does it fill us with wonder–just knock our socks off–when he has a promise of God’s love, a word of forgiveness, an assurance of God’s continuing grace for wicked rascals like me and you, as he did for the prostitutes, the cheats, and the thieves, after he has led us to repentance?

This is what it means that Jesus is our “Wonderful Counselor:” his words are so unique, so perfectly true, so deeply caring and gracious that they simply overwhelm us with the wonder of what they tell us.

And note that the prophet does not call Jesus our teacher, our preacher, or our prophet here (though he certainly is all these things). Isaiah specifically identifies him as our Counselor. A Counselor is someone whom we have come to trust, someone in whom we know we can confide. A Counselor is someone who has taken a personal and individual interest in us, and his words are meant to apply to our unique and individual situation.

So it is with Jesus. He assures us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” While his words have something to say to everyone, he wants us to be sure he intends every one of his words to be believed, treasured, and followed just by you. Our Savior has no ordinary name. He is our Wonderful Counselor. Perhaps we will want to hear what he has to say.

Romans 13:12b-14 “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

When we get dressed, one thing has to come off before another goes on. Paul first describes the kind of life Christians shed as they strive to live a life of faith. Generally, it involves the “deeds of darkness.” Even our world recognizes certain behavior as so shameful it doesn’t belong in public. Crime takes place under the cover of night. So do many sexual sins.

But Paul is not addressing these words to the world around us. He is addressing them to Christians. He encourages us to behave decently. He knows that we are tempted, like anyone else, to indulge in the sins he lists. He starts with orgies and drunkenness. God does not forbid all use of alcoholic beverages. But Christians who understand this may be tempted to overlook drunkenness, or redefine what it means to be drunk. That leads to abusing Christian liberty. God calls us to wake up, to repent of such behavior as sin, to be prepared for Jesus’ return.

Next Paul warns of sexual immorality and debauchery (the word “orgies” in the previous pair actually comes from a Greek word suggesting abuse of alcohol more than misuse of sex). Many professing Christians no longer accept that sexual activity is limited to heterosexual marriage. Many more have become calloused to watching simulated sex on TV or in movies.  Does the screen somehow make it acceptable? Would we approve if the next door neighbors invited us over to watch?

To these sins the apostle adds dissensions and jealousy. Perhaps those seem like less serious offenses? We can become so accustomed to hurt, angry, or resentful feelings that we may begin to think of these as a normal and ordinary part of life. We don’t expect to be able to get along with everyone. We dismiss our own resentments as the natural result of incompatibilities.

But does that mean this is how it should be? Isn’t this still evidence of sin within us? And doesn’t all sin need to be dealt with in the same way–repentance, confession, and forgiveness? These “deeds of darkness” need to come off, too, if we want to be ready when Christ returns.

In their place, Paul urges us to wear the “armor of light.” This isn’t frilly or fancy clothing. We aren’t dressing up for an elegant party. We are at war. This is not the time to get comfortable. We need the armor our God provides.

Nothing can better protect us than to be wrapped in Christ himself. “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” How do we clothe ourselves with Jesus Christ? We are putting him on every time we put our faith in his gracious promises. He applies them to us in word or sacrament. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes the Galatians. “For all of you who have been baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.”

And when I am clothed in him, then it is God who works in me both to will and to act according to his good pleasure. Then I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

God’s promises produce true faith. Faith will produce a true Christian life. Clothed like this, we are dressed and ready when our Lord Jesus returns.

Romans 13:11-12 “And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

You and I are living at an exciting time, if we would only wake up to realize it. Paul is bending over our sleepy souls and shaking our shoulders. Our salvation is near. To understand what Paul means by this, we need to understand that the Bible uses the term salvation in more than one way.

The apostle is not suggesting there was something incomplete about the saving work Jesus did when he came the first time. There is no secret stash of sins somewhere yet to be paid. There are no atoning sacrifices for us to perform. The words of John 3 still stand, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…” In the life and death of Jesus Christ, our salvation–our rescue from sin and death and hell– has been accomplished. By faith we already hold the deed to our own piece of heavenly real estate.

But it’s no secret that death still pursues us. Every flaw in our health, every pain in our bodies, reminds us that it is just a matter of time. Our lives aren’t models of heavenly perfection. A rich stew of sin simmers and boils just under the surface. We are still waiting for final deliverance from the world in which we now live.

This salvation is coming closer every day. What a night and day difference its arrival will make! Paul reminds us, “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” Now we live in the night. Sin darkens our vision. So many things we consider real, and important, are passing dreams and fantasies. The institutions we rely on, the enemies with whom we battle, this created world which seems so solid and permanent–all of it will suddenly disappear when Jesus’ coming brings the dawn of a new day.

That day will make everything good and clear. Every trouble will end. God’s ways will be vindicated. Our Christian faith will prove itself the one thing we have of lasting value. The hard days of carrying our heavy burdens will be over. The everlasting holidays will begin. You and I have never experienced a bigger day in our lives.

Since the sky is already reddening in the east, now is the time to wake up and prepare. Paul encourages us to understand the present time. The signs of Jesus’ return are all visible for us to see. Upheaval plagues current events. The gospel is spreading far and near. Paul himself witnessed so much fulfillment of the signs Jesus gave that he believed his return was imminent almost 2000 years ago.

This is why “the hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” We wouldn’t need the encouragement if many Christians weren’t spiritually drowsy. Take his warning to heart! Many believers resemble a person nodding off, barely awake, head bobbing as eyes flutter open and closed. Satan sings his spiritual lullaby to soothe us into the sleep of unbelief. He might croon the tune of earthly cares, desires, goals, pleasures, or worries. They all draw our attention from our spiritual needs. Faith begins to slip. The eternal sleep of unbelief follows.

The stress, distraction, and materialism which so surround Christmas can have the same sleepy effect on the soul. “Be careful,” Jesus warned, “or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.”

Jesus’ return is an occasion that demands we be properly prepared. It’s time to wake up!

Philippians 4:11-12 “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.” 

Few of us have experienced the highs and lows of life to the degree Paul did. He lived in the luxury of Lydia’s home while in Philippi, because she was a wealthy seller of purple, but he experienced the poverty of a prison cell in that same town. He was deeply loved by those who believed the good news, but deeply hated by both Jews and Gentiles who felt threatened by his “new” religion. As an unbeliever, he approved the stoning of Stephen. Later, he experienced stoning himself, for the same cause. But this time his bruised and bloodied body survived the ordeal. God used him as an instrument to bring healing to others, but he himself had to live with his “thorn in the flesh.”

Through it all, Paul could be content. Through all the changes, one thing in Paul’s life remained the same. Every day this former murderer and hater of the world’s Savior got up to live under Jesus’ gracious love. Every day his sins were fully forgiven. Jesus gave his life for him, too. No matter what else they took away from Paul, he still owned heaven and eternal life. Even when he died, he had everything to look forward to. His God never changed.

Such contentment is our challenge at Thanksgiving. Sometimes our lives more or less mirror the troubles Paul faced. To us they may even seem worse. Our rebellious flesh feels like blaming God instead of loving and trusting him. But often our sins of discontent are more subtle than that.

When life is going reasonably well, we may experience a quieter discontent. It comes from comparing what we have with others. Though I have more than I need, my carpet isn’t quite as new and stylish as theirs. My house isn’t quite as roomy. My job doesn’t pay as much or doesn’t offer as many opportunities. My phone has less features, my vehicle is less reliable, my appliances look dated.

When we get the brand-new vehicle, the latest phone, the 4K television that takes up an entire wall, the satisfaction lasts only a little while. Soon the spell wears off. This last thing, too, was a false hope for any kind of genuine fulfillment. Lasting contentment is never found in things.

That’s not to say we should be ungrateful for the many luxuries God has given us. This week we celebrate Thanksgiving after all. But we, too, need to be reminded that the secret to being content can only be found where the apostle Paul found it. Only Jesus truly fills the emptiness. As Paul said in the previous chapter, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.”

The love we know in Christ’s forgiveness, the perfect righteousness he gives to us as a gift–these bring us heaven. These make us somebody. These satisfy our heart’s hunger and give us peace.

And when we have Jesus, then we can also be confident that “he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Thankful Christians have every reason to be content this Thanksgiving. In Jesus Christ they know that God gives them all they need in every situation.

(This Thanksgiving Day Message is being posted to coincide with the holiday instead of Friday, when the week’s third post usually appears. It is also available on video at: https://youtu.be/VTQLnOHgkvA)

Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Children often try to find ways around doing what their parents ask of them. Children of the Heavenly Father are no exception. As far back as Moses the Lord had commanded in Leviticus 19:18, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

For as long as the commandment had been around, people had been trying to find their way out of it. Some of the rabbis made a subtle shift in emphasis to change the meaning. Instead of love your neighbor (the emphasis God had always intended), they made it love your neighbor. Then they started to raise questions about who exactly qualified as a neighbor. Before long, people concluded that it was acceptable to do what comes naturally: hate your enemy.

Does that seem shocking to you, that people would twist God’s word so? At Thanksgiving most people will gather with family or friends. In more than a few of those gatherings this year, people will be absent because of some grudge. Some present will avoid each other because the relationships are strained. We often hear that the political positions that have so divided our nation lead family members to cut each other out of their lives. If it is not members of our own family we resent, perhaps it is the politicians, the activists, the media pundits, the rally-goers, that make us upset. Maybe we would never say so out loud, but deep down inside we would like to shift the emphasis from “love” to “neighbor,” and then ask, “Just who IS my neighbor?”

Jesus makes the answer to that question clear. “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What did God mean by “Love your neighbor?” He meant love everybody, even those people whom you might consider enemies. He is referring to people who hound us and harass us. They go out of their way to make our lives miserable.

Love them. That means more than conjuring up some saccharine sweet emotions for them. Go out of your way to do something kind. When they say something nasty behind your back, at the least bite your tongue. Find something kind to say about them.

And when you have done your kindnesses, don’t be surprised if they don’t turn around and smother you in hugs and kisses. When Jesus fed the five thousand, didn’t most of that crowd reject him as their Savior (John 6:66)? When Jesus healed the ear of the high priest’s servant Malchus, didn’t he still help the others arrest Jesus? Remember, they are your enemies.

Perhaps you are wondering just how all of this is connected to Thanksgiving Day. That becomes clearer as Jesus points to our Father’s example. “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Jesus calls us “sons of your Father in heaven,” and that is what we are. But we weren’t always his children. We still don’t deserve to be called his own. Our lack of love for our enemies is rebellion against God. We act like his enemies. We should be disinherited. We should be thrown out of the family.

That’s not what God does. He still calls us sons (in Bible terms, that applies to women as well as to men). His love for us led him to respond to our rebellion by sacrificing his own Son for our sins. He does this not with a grudge. It comes from the sincerest desire that his love would work a miracle in our hearts, and turn us from fear to faith in him as our kind and loving Father.

We are sons and daughters of our Father in heaven, not because we were born that way, or deserve such a distinction, but because our Father graciously adopted us into his family. Since we know that God so loves us, can our hearts be unmoved by such grace? Won’t we want to imitate him, “who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous”?

His pattern for us to follow is certainly evident in that he so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. But day by day he continues to set a pattern for us to follow in the love he extends to all people. He provides for their needs whether they are evil or good, whether righteous or unrighteous.

In my own neighborhood, on my own street, I know of a family who certainly won’t be visiting church Thanksgiving Day. Their views on certain moral issues might make you bristle. Without wishing to sound self-righteous, I would have to say that they are anything but godly.

And yet they will gather for a feast with their family, and I would venture to guess that the table which the Lord has set before them is as fine or finer than that which he has placed before me.

Why would he do such a thing? Only because he is our loving and merciful Father in heaven. Only so that he might extend their time of grace, so that their hearts might yet be touched by the gospel, so that if that time should come, they will have all the more reason to thank and praise him for being their kind Father, and making them his dear children.

Someone, somewhere, has said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” We don’t thank God to flatter him. We sincerely appreciate his goodness. There may be no sincerer way in which we can do that than by imitating his love– the pattern which our heavenly Father has set. Then we will be living like our Father’s thankful children.