SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, peace, feel, isaiah, jesus, george, christmas, israel, life, promises, years, moment, messiah, kingdom, celebrate, movie, praying, experience, gower, prince.

SPEAKER

Phil EuBank

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Well, Good Gorning, Menlo Church. Welcome to all of our campuses. It is so good to be with you today. Last weekend, we had such a special weekend where we had live teaching at all of our campuses. I was able to be up with our San Mateo campus, which was incredible. We are beginning to celebrate Christmas and Advent. We're doing it kind of in a unique way. This chair is different on purpose; you'll get that in just a second. It feels like it might fall apart. So if it does, it's planned; it's a feature.

Anyway, I love how timeless this season feels, that the traditions and customs that we celebrate around this idea of Advent, that we know is from at least the 4^th-century, the church has been celebrating the coming of Jesus. It can be shared throughout generations and with the emerging generation at the same time. And day one entertainment and culture are moving so quickly, I think Christmas actually can give us the chance, if we lead it, to slow down, to focus, and consider what God might do in our life because of that.

With that in mind, we are leveraging Christmas films as a part of the Series to help us really tell the greatest story ever. Because sometimes without realizing it, the best stories that we appreciate on a screen reflect the greatest story the world has ever seen. And today, we're going to look at a movie called "It's A Wonderful Life." And for some of you, you're like, I've never heard of it. And some of you, it's your favorite movie. So either way, hopefully, I can kind of catch you up along the way, and maybe you'll watch it this week for the very first time.

But before we get begin, I'm gonna pray for us. And if you've never been here before, or never heard me speak, I pray kneeling. And the reason that I do that is to prepare my heart and prepare ours for what God might want to do over the next few minutes. Maybe you're here because you're like, I don't want to just come at Christmas Eve. So I'm gonna come one other Sunday of the month. Whatever the reason, I would just say let's take just a moment and ask God to make this more than religious ritual, but He would actually be here right now with us.

Would you pray with me?

God, thank you so much. Thank you for the promise that you really are with us. And that what we celebrate from 2,000 years ago, Emmanuel, is God with us then. So God, would you remind us of the power that that can bring today and every day, that this is not just a religious tradition, but there is something you genuinely want to do in and through us today. It's in Jesus name.

Amen.

Now, I didn't grow up watching classic Christmas movies; it just wasn't a big deal in our home. It was only in adulthood that I went back and started playing catch up in some of these movies we think about. And my encouragement to you is if that's your story, go actually watch some of these older movies, take the time to slow down. The stories can feel simpler and from a different time, but I think if we let them, they can really be deeply peaceful. And that is what we're going to talk about today.

As a matter of fact, "It's a Wonderful Life," the movie, it revolves around a kind-hearted man named George Bailey, who had big dreams about a life of exploration, and adventure, getting beyond his small town. But time after time, throughout his life, adversity would strike him or his family, and it would keep him from these future dreams over and over again until the point where it just felt like he didn't have any more time in his life to experience them. When George faces this realization, and one final setback, he can't help but let his disappointment take over. And as you hear all these people pray for George that you've seen throughout the movie, the film pictures a conversation in the stars of what seems to be between God and angels. And God decides to send an angel named Clarence who is like, not the first-round draft pick of God/angel-wise, to go help and set things right to earn his wings.

In the interaction, Clarence asks God, "Is he," meaning George, "sick?" and God responds, "No worse, he's discouraged." I wonder, doesn't that feel maybe like a fitting description for how many of us feel, but I think actually underneath the discouragement we feel is a sense of unsettledness, of restlessness, that we're all trying to figure out how to process and walk with well in this season. A restlessness for when the economy is going to take a dip, or when your health is going to have a problem, or when your spouse or friend is going to bring up that issue you know that they have, but you're not sure how to solve. My goodness, we actually live in a geographic location where there are tectonic plates that cause earthquakes. Talk about unsettled, right? Am I allowed to bring that up? I don't know, I'm new.

Now, I think the pattern that God gives us is that God makes a promise of what Jesus would bring to us and bring to the world. Even more significant, He actually brings peace, eternal peace. Not a temporary peace or a removal of negative circumstances in your life, but permanent and perfect peace beyond what's going on around us, to what's happening within us.

See, for the next few minutes, I want to look at a passage that you've probably heard before if you've been at church around Christmastime. It's what's called a Messianic Prophecy, a promise in the Hebrew Scriptures, written hundreds of years before Jesus' arrival, ministry, and salvation-securing work for us. These promises, by the way, which we have hundreds of in the Hebrew Scriptures, what we often call the Old Testament of our Bibles, they underscore our key principle for today, which is that we find peace when we see our problems through God's promises. We find peace when we see our problems through God's promises.

Now, we all have problems in our life, even if other people don't know them. And when we solely let them rest on our shoulders, what we all discover time and time again - and yet we let it happen over and over again - is that they are much heavier than we can handle by ourselves.

The passage that I want to look at shows us just how powerful God's plan was to bring the Prince of Peace to our world, to your world. That we are never designed to experience this inner peace, this inner tranquility on our own. The appetite that we have, that we all have, it's a universal appetite; it's actually intended to point to its true fulfillment in Jesus.

Throughout the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," we see repeated moments that feel so discouraging for George. Moments when he is just about to experience the life he's always wanted, just about to experience the adventure and exploration in front of him when disaster strikes. Just after George gets married, literally in the cab on the way to his honeymoon with his wife, the depression strikes. And as a result, George who has taken over his father's Building and Loan company; you watch him head back to work quickly. And on the day that everything was falling apart, he uses his own money to keep the business afloat. And at the end of the day, you're sort of watching the minutes tick down to stay in business without totally going broke.

And George says, "Look, we're still in business; we still got two bucks left." Now, you don't know exactly how they're going to make it through the next day. The movie doesn't really solve that for you. But you're rooting for them, right? George accomplishes this, only to realize, by the way, that he has forgotten his new bride. He's headed back, and this amazing plan and the money to do it, all of it is ready until disaster strikes yet again.

Maybe in your life, it feels like you can't catch a break. Maybe in your life, Christmas is just one more reminder of the inner turmoil that you feel and how much pressure you feel to sort of make Christmas look like everything's okay on the outside when it's so not okay on the inside. If people just knew what you were really thinking and going through each day.

See, this season of Advent, it offers us something much bigger than our circumstances and our emotions being made right. It offers something to the world that we could never achieve on our own. The verse that we'll start with comes from a familiar messianic prophecy and is written by an important voice in Israel's history at an important moment in Jewish history. Long before the current controversy and conflict that we see playing out in the news today that we're praying for peace around, Isaiah was a prophet of God. Someone God used to speak to his people, in particular in a divided kingdom. For God's people, Isaiah spoke to the leaders of Jerusalem, warning them of how God would bring judgment if they didn't change and giving them a message of hope about what a messiah would accomplish.

What's unique about Isaiah's ministry as a preacher, as a prophet thousands of years ago, is that God told him beforehand, "Isaiah, this is what you are going to do; you are going to preach, and the words that you say I'm going to use to harden Israel's heart," which is like a preacher, that's not really what you want done, right? That's not what you're rooting for. But that God would use Isaiah's words like the axe to a tree, chopping it down one strike at a time until all that would be left for Israel would be a small righteous stumped of that tree, and that God would use that righteous remnant and from within it, the Messiah would be born.

Now Isaiah, he writes some of the most specific language about the Messiah, and he does it more than 700 years before Jesus' earthly ministry would begin. It's also the one that we have the best manuscript evidence confirming the fact that these words were written before Jesus was ever born, which is incredible. Our passage begins with these words: "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."

Now, a pronouncement like this of royal childbirth would have been a monumental thing in the ancient Near East where it was written. And the readers at the time would have been trying to connect the dots to who Isaiah is talking about from within what line? Where is this going to come about? But the ultimate fulfillment that Isaiah had in mind for this promise would come after all of their lives had ended.

As Isaiah describes the child, he uses something called compound names. So when we read it in the language that it was originally written, Hebrew, it doesn't look like the list the way we read it in English. It's not just four ideas; it's really kind of like two ideas, that each couplet is used together to create one concept. So when we read the first two, "Wonderful Counselor" and "Mighty God," it might be better understood as a Divine Warrior and Planner. The word that we translate as Counselor is actually connected to the Wisdom and Knowledge of Kings. That's what Isaiah was trying to describe about this future Messiah.

The second pairing that we see in the verse from Isaiah is "Everlasting Father" and "Prince of Peace." Together, we might better understand Isaiah's sentiment there as The Sovereign, All- control of Time Rules also over Peace. Now I'm offering you suggestions, not translations; these are just ideas. But I hope what you hear in that is that this is not just a sentimental way of thinking about this, but this is actually descriptive of the real nature of God. It's so easy to let verses like these sort of just become the background track of our understanding, like the music at Christmas-time that we hear in the mall. Remember malls? You go to them; they have stores; you show up, it’s not just on your phone. The Christmas music that plays in the mall where we shop, or maybe for you, it's pure nostalgia. I personally can't read the phrase "Wonderful Counselor" without hearing 1990s Christian artist Amy Grant sing it as a deep cut. If you understand that one, you've been in church for a while; my mom would sing it, my mom had a terrible singing voice. So that voice haunts me; I'm seeing a counselor about it.

See, the memories that we have can be really, really special, but we also have to leverage them to press in and seek God for what is really most true in our lives and in the promises that he makes for us. He might want to show us or challenge our understanding with something even in this year, specifically, within this Advent season.

Well, the story of Christmas, when we think about it in a passage like this, it hasn't changed. It's the same passage that it was last year, same passage or decades ago, but your life circumstances have changed. And every year when we come and celebrate Christmas, every year when we anticipate the arrival of the Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords, every year when we do that it's like the facet of a diamond changing because we are looking at it from a different vantage point.

When the original audience heard this passage, that the term "Prince of Peace," it had this profound and important implication, it meant hope for the end of violence and the end of threats of violence, the end of foreign armies invading and subversive forces conspiring from within. But that was not the full weight of it. That actually wasn't the ultimate picture that Isaiah was trying to give them or you and me. Isaiah was talking about a kingdom without end, a king with no limits, and a peace that was more than a feeling from a prince whose reign would never end.

Sandra Maria Van Opstal, founder of Chasing Justice, describes it this way. She says, "Peace is not a feeling; peace is an objective sense of harmony with God." That is absolutely what we see communicated over and over again in the pages of Scripture. Our world as a whole and humanity specifically lives at odds with God. Because of our brokenness and sin all around us and within us, we are in constant hostility towards the perfect plan and person of God for us individually and for us collectively. And we're all trying to break out of it without help when we don't place our hope in Him. But in God's goodness, this promise represents peaceful, hopeful help from God.

I wonder, in your life, what are the problems that you face today? Maybe they're problems you've deferred to January, maybe they're problems you're just not worrying about until the credit card bill comes. Maybe they're problems for the New Year's resolution, maybe they're problems you'll think about after the parties. But see, the thing is, I wonder in your life, as you think about and process whatever is really under the hood, and maybe it's the things that work that feel so intractable. Maybe you're trying to deal with the implications of the choices that other people have made that you've been left to clean up the mess.

Whatever those things are, I'm not trying to minimize the problems that you face. I'm trying to help you understand that as much as you want God to take care of this, as you think about your problems, remember God's promises that the creator of the universe is offering you hope, eternal hope. That's what Advent is all about. He didn't leave us on our own to figure out how to navigate this. He didn't try to solve this from a distance; He sent His only Son to be the source of your true peace and harmony forever with God, Emmanuel, God with us—the infinite to the infant. That's the promise of Christmas.

See, the hardest part of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" for me was when a 12-year-old George, he doesn't deliver a prescription for his boss, Mr. Gower, because he knows that the prescription has been incorrectly made and it contains poison. With an ear already damaged and bleeding from the abuse, Mr. Gower continues to just slap George over and over again. That is until he realizes that George has actually saved him from the consequences of his choice. And he is just over and over again profusely thanks George.

I don't know about you, but in a scene like that, in a movie like that, it's so easy to identify as a George, the victim in the scene, the person being unnecessarily and unduly abused. But I wonder for a moment if we were honest, if we would actually more relate to Mr. Gower. If in this scene, actually, George would look more like Jesus. And without realizing the good that Jesus has done and is doing in our life, we over and over again with our words, with our life, and with our attitudes, abuse him. We don't realize the good that He has done and has yet to do for us.

In order for us to see Jesus this way, in order for Him to be the Prince of Peace in our life, not just for other people but for you, for us, for our own lives, we have to get off the throne or the director's chair of our lives. We have to surrender control. That's what it means to discover that we find peace when we see our problems through God's promises. It's not our problems that dictate our attitude. It's knowing what God has already done for us.

The second verse in our passage is really important because we still struggle with many of the things that Israel struggled with—their human conditions. The second one that we see talks about how God calls them to see a Messiah who is greater than our greatest hits. And we all have those in our lives. So did Israel.

Sometimes we're haunted by them—sometimes the greatest moment of your life, you think, "Well, I peaked then. That was the peak of my life—me in high school, me in my early career, me just a few years ago—I peaked. Everything else from there is downhill." In the movie, at a crisis point in George Bailey's life, he records back to these kinds of peaks, these Greatest Hits, where he's almost able to escape, almost able to experience the adventure and exploration he was so longing for, just to find out that he couldn't. With these memories weighing him down for the life he could have had, he finds himself hopeless, and that's when God intervenes. That's when God usually intervenes for us too. It's precisely what he did for Israel. He waited until the final moment of their desperation, when the tree had been chopped down to that small righteous stump. But they would have to overcome their greatest hits as well to be able to receive what God had for them.

So Isaiah makes it clear just how powerful this Messiah is. He says, "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 righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this." Remember, we've just had the Messiah described as a Supreme Being, without measure or comprehensible magnitude. And now Isaiah shifts from describing the kind of person the Messiah was to describing the kind of kingdom he would rule over. The idea of a government and peace that only increases and never ends was the complete opposite of what Israel had come to expect in their experience. Throughout their history, you could argue even today, they were always waiting for the other shoe to drop because the other shoe always dropped, even if there was a good generation and things were working out well there’s peace and prosperity. A bad generation was coming - unfaithfulness and judgment are coming. But that wouldn't have been the toughest pill to swallow from Isaiah; his words. What would have been the toughest pill to swallow is that Isaiah shares that this kingdom he's describing from the Messiah who would come, would be on top of and better than the throne of David, and to Israel, that was almost blasphemous.

Now, I wonder for you, do you have a favorite leader or a favorite politician in history? At this point, maybe it feels like pretty far history. Maybe for you, it's a favorite sports team, show, or movie. And anytime the conversation comes up, and someone picks a favorite thing that's different than yours, it feels incomprehensible. It feels almost disloyal to the universe to pick a different one than yours. Maybe for you, it's a little bit like Christmas traditions. And you can think about the first time you celebrated the holiday with friends or with new family. And you discovered that not everyone does it the way that you grew up doing it. And it feels like, “Wow, is that possible?” Feels so strange. It feels so disorienting on some level.

I remember the first time that I celebrated Christmas with Alyssa's family. In my home Christmas was a really big deal. But presents were basically a few moments of chaos while we simultaneously ripped open gifts like wild animals - that was kind of like the way we experienced presents. The entire thing took maybe five minutes, and that's if we were pacing ourselves, like if we were really trying to make it last.

My first time with Alyssa's family, my wife, was like a scene from a different era; where each person was handed a gift individually. And we took turns, and you watch the person take time to open it. And then they thanked the person who gave it to them. And they would maybe even check it out a little bit. And then it would just like keep going like that in this deliberate fashion until what felt like New Year's Eve; like that was it—it was preposterous. But as I processed it, as much as it was different than what I had grown up with, it was better. My way had been very comfortable, but it’s not what our family does today our family takes time, and we experience it one at a time. See, not only is it a way to savor our Savior and the moment that we have together more, I think it's also a way to appreciate the thoughtfulness and generosity of the giver and the season that we're in.

Israel venerated David as a king. He had not been perfect, but his success as the king of Israel represented the glory days that Israel - even generations later - hoped to return to. But God wasn't calling them back to the glory days of nostalgia; by the way, He still isn't. But forward to a glorious future kingdom, of which Jesus was the perfect permanent ruler of, who would offer peace forever. This kingdom would be upheld with justice and righteousness - moral clarity from its leader and true equality for all people within it. Doesn't that sound good? That's a vision we're still longing for today, and one that when fully and finally realized from this prophecy, there will be the reality for all of eternity.

So, that begs the question: when will this promise be fulfilled? And it requires us to look at the nature of biblical prophecy. To the readers at the time, they would have been largely interested in the immediate implications of what Isaiah was saying. And we are prone today, to consider only the ultimate implications for what Isaiah is saying. But, there is a category in the middle. Most biblical prophecies function like a telescope. When we read them, they are flat. But if we were to look at them across a timeline of human history, there is a near fulfillment like what God is going to do from those words in that moment and in that generation. There is a far fulfillment, in this case, the work of Jesus in His earthly ministry. And there is an ultimate fulfillment for all of eternity.

In the case of Isaiah, there was a nearer fulfillment of what God was going to do in the nation of Israel and the nations around it in the coming days and decades. Not only that, the far fulfillment was marked by Jesus introducing the world to the true nature of the kingdom of heaven in His earthly ministry more than 700 years later. And the ultimate fulfillment is when God restores creation to the way it was originally designed to function; with perfect peace and the Prince of Peace forever. It’s not which one of these things Isaiah was talking about; he was talking about all of them.

And for some of you, maybe you’re asking the question, "Well why doesn't God just bring about that ultimate fulfillment now?" And the Scripture is clear; the reason God has not done that is because He is patient. The reason that we still have time in what church historians refer to as the Grace Age, is because God is patient with you and me. He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to know Him. He's giving you time. We have no more promises than this, but we have one more Advent – one more opportunity on planet earth, that if you don't know Jesus, this is a moment where you can choose to follow Him. If you have friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers, or colleagues that don't know Jesus, this is a moment where there are still cultural artifacts that point to the fact that holidays - holy- days still means something. And that opportunity to talk about what it means in your life is unique over the next few weeks, like it will never be again in the entire calendar. And God is patient that you might leverage it. God used His faithfulness in the past to propel people to trust Him for the future, throughout all of Israel's history, and He’s still doing that today.

God's kingdom of righteousness and justice, in a world that wants us to pick just one of those, is what walking as followers of Jesus calls us to do, even in a culture that doesn't understand it.

So many of us live as though our only hope for this kind of a kingdom is in the future and so, we just kind of put our head down, try to avoid everything, and let the world fall apart. But that's not the call of God on our lives either.

The end of the movie shows George back at home, deeply thankful for the newly realized extraordinary impact that his ordinary life had brought. In his home filled with friends and family helping him solve the most recent crisis, he has found in himself overwhelmed. George had a spirit of generosity and kindness. And while he wasn't sure he would ever conquer the forces that were out to get him and others, that didn't mean he'd stop trying to work for the good of others in his life. He discovered what God wants all of us to discover; that you are blessed to be a blessing. That God wants ordinary people to experience ordinary lives through Him. God doesn't want us to feel bad about what we have or to feel guilty; He wants us to feel responsible. He wants us to feel accountable.

But how will we respond this Christmas? What if this Christmas, God wants you to be the answer to someone else's prayer for peace and provision? We're praying for peace in the Middle East right now. We are praying for peace in the midst of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Praying for peace related to the growing tensions with China, and countries fighting with themselves, by the way, ours is included in that.

We are praying for peace as an end to hostility and it can feel like a pipe dream. But Jesus, more than 700 years after the words we just read, says this during His earthly ministry: "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

That's the Prince of Peace that you were promised. Celebrating the Advent season reminds us that you and I have been given an invitation to experience true peace. The idea of cosmic hostility with the Creator of the universe being addressed. Not only can this help us personally, but with God's help, we can bring that same peace everywhere we go.

We're in a moment and in time politically where I hear lots of Christians wondering when Jesus is going to return, and I believe that He is. And while I don't know when He's going to return, we can know when His kingdom will come because we carry it with us. If you're a follower of Jesus, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God's Spirit actually lives inside of you, whether you knew that or not. And every holiday party, every stressful fourth quarter push, every difficult study session, every neighborhood conversation filled with drama, you have the opportunity to show people what an imperfect person who has been given perfect peace looks like. You carry the kingdom of heaven with you. You bring the peace of God with you.

So, what will you do with this Christmas? How will you model this kind of peace in all the spaces and places that God has put you? What if this Christmas is one where God is calling you to be more vocal about why this time of the year is important to you, or more supportive of those struggling in your life, praying for the kind of peace that would end the hostility they have felt their entire life, and they're not sure why. It might not fix their circumstances, but it may restore their relationship in a way that nothing else can.

Menlo, you bring the Prince of Peace, the kingdom of heaven, the Lord of Lords, and the kingdom without end everywhere you go. In just a minute, we're going to celebrate communion together, and followers of Jesus have been celebrating communion for thousands of years. And as you remember the body broken for you, the blood poured out for you of Jesus, I would just ask you to think about that through the lens of Advent, through the lens of God's promises from Him for you today. That the future has never been more certain. God's love for you has always been just as durable as it is today. Can I pray for you?

God, thank you so much. Thank you for the incredible privilege that we get, to be able to even in a season like this, where this might be the most restful, the most reflective 30 minutes that we get all week. Help us, God, to savor it, to soak it in, to take moments to sing to you, to take moments to hug a friend, to shake your hand, to offer a prayer with someone. Help those moments be fuel to walk out as followers of you, the kind of peace you long for others to experience.

God, even if our lives feel nothing but peaceful, we give you the reign and rule of our lives. Remind us that you are not far off. You are Emmanuel, God with us, the infinite to the infant in our lives today just like 2,000 years ago. Let us, God, walk in greater faithfulness to you today. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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