I don’t know about you, but Christmas really is one of the most wonderful times of the year for me. I grew up in a family that made a big deal out of Christmas and through the years Alisha and I have enjoyed making Christmas special for our kids as well.
We enjoy putting up the decorations, finding the perfect Christmas tree… yes, we are REAL TREE people. I know some of you are fake tree people, we still love you.
We love the Christmas music and I know some of you don’t want to hear Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, but you can’t start playing those songs too early at our house! We love Christmas cookies, making and buying presents for the people we love, and… we absolutely love Christmas movies!
Just about every Christmas movie at some point will try to answer the question, “What is Christmas all about?”
Seeing is Believing
In 2004 the movie, The Polar Express, was released staring Tom Hanks. It was on a Christmas Eve night in the 1950’s when a passenger train stops at the house of a boy in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This boy has questions about Christmas and more specifically, about Santa Claus. He climbs aboard the Polar Express hoping to find answers to his questions. He asks the conductor if he knows if Santa is real. To which the conductor responds…
There’s a sense in which that’s what Christmas is really all about. It is about believing deeply in things we cannot see.
We call it the magic of Christmas. How else can we explain how reindeer fly, how Santa makes it around the entire world delivering presents to every child, how All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey is on everywhere you go?
It’s Christmas magic. That’s the only way to explain it.
Believing in the Middle of Uncertainty
But we know the magic of Christmas has nothing to do with magic at all, it has everything to do with a MIRACLE.
We know that the most real thing in the world is something, or Someone, we can’t see. But we choose to believe.
Or at least we try to believe. We want to believe. Some of us just want to want to believe.
But let’s be honest, just like the boy in Grand Rapids on that Christmas Eve in Polar Express, it is hard sometimes to believe in things we cannot see.
It’s hard when you’re in the middle of uncertain times, when you’re feeling the stressors of life to believe in something or Someone you cannot see.
It’s hard to pray to God when you’re feeling the pressures of life and you’re not sure if He’s hearing your prayers.
It’s hard to believe when you’re in the middle of a battle with your spouse, or your kids, or your work, or with your friends, or you’re battling a sickness, or your battling just to make ends meet, or you’re facing some other kind of battle and your trying to believe but you’re beginning to lose hope.
The problem we all face from time to time is the same problem people just like you and me have been facing for thousands of years, how do we believe, how do we find faith, in a God who we cannot see?
An Evil King in Uncertain Times
This is precisely the problem a king by the name of Ahaz was facing some 2,700 years ago.
You may wonder, I thought we were starting a Christmas series, why are we talking about a king named Ahaz?
Believe it or not, king Ahaz is a part of the Christmas story. In fact, if you look in Matthew 1.9, he’s a part of the lineage of Jesus! But king Ahaz was not a good king, not at all. He was one of the most evil kings who ever lived in Judah. Just listen to this description of king Ahaz in 2 Kings 16.2-4:
2 Kings 16.2-4, NLT
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. He did not do what was pleasing in the sight of the LORD his God, as his ancestor David had done. Instead, he followed the example of the kings of Israel, even sacrificing his own son in the fire. In this way, he followed the detestable practices of the pagan nations the LORD had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the pagan shrines and on the hills and under every green tree.
The reason, at least one reason, Ahaz was an evil king was because he could not believe in the goodness of a God he could not see. So he turned to the worship of idols, gods he could seee, and he worshiped them.
Even to the point of replacing the altar of God in front of the Temple of God with a pagan altar. He set up places of worship to pagan gods all around the land of Judah. Even to the point of sacrificing his own son in the fire as an offering to the god Molech! There was bad, then there was Ahaz bad.
This is one of these moments in scripture where we have multiple accounts, multiple angles, of the story. And when you turn from 2 Kings to the book of Isaiah you find something incredibly interesting. Isaiah is a prophet during the days of king Ahaz, and God sends Isaiah to Ahaz at a critical moment in his life.
You had no idea this was a part of the Christmas story, did you!?
Turn the page to Isaiah 7 and we pick up another angle of the story that began in 2 Kings 16.
Isaiah 7.1-2:
When Ahaz, son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, set out to attack Jerusalem. However, they were unable to carry out their plan.
The news had come to the royal court of Judah: “Syria is allied with Israel against us!” So the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear, like trees shaking in a storm.
King Ahaz is in an impossible situation. The future is uncertain. And he is afraid. Not just afraid, he’s trembling in fear and so is everyone else in Judah!
At this point in history Israel is divided. You have Judah in the south and Israel to the north. King Pekah of Israel has made an alliance with the king of Syria and they are about to attack Jerusalem. Their first attack didn’t work out, but Ahaz knew they would come again and that his army would not be able to fend off their attacks for much longer.
This is one of those moments in life where Ahaz has a decision to make. Have you ever had one of these moments? It’s that moment where you have to decide:
“Will I put my trust in God?”
OR…
“Will I turn to something or someone else for help?”
Unfailing Love in Uncertain Times
Remember, up to this point in his life Ahaz has made wrong turn after wrong turn. He is an evil king who did not do what was pleasing in the sight of the LORD. Yet, even though Ahaz had done so much evil, made so many terrible decisions, hurt so many people, God still extended Ahaz grace.
Listen to what happens next…
Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Take your son Shear-jashub and go out to meet King Ahaz. You will find him at the end of the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is washed. Tell him to stop worrying. Tell him he doesn’t need to fear the fierce anger of those two burned-out embers, King Rezin of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah. Yes, the kings of Syria and Israel are plotting against him, saying, ‘We will attack Judah and capture it for ourselves. Then we will install the son of Tabeel as Judah’s king.’ But this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“This invasion will never happen;
it will never take place;
for Syria is no stronger than its capital, Damascus,
and Damascus is no stronger than its king, Rezin.
As for Israel, within sixty-five years
it will be crushed and completely destroyed.
Israel is no stronger than its capital, Samaria,
and Samaria is no stronger than its king, Pekah son of Remaliah.
Unless your faith is firm,
I cannot make you stand firm.”
Maybe you thought you were too far gone for God to love you. Maybe you thought you’ve made too many mistakes, too many bad decisions for God to help you. Maybe you thought God could never forgive you for what you’ve done.
If that’s you, I want you to take in this moment. Ahaz is by far one of the most evil kings who ever lived. Yet God, in his incredible grace and mercy, sends His prophet Isaiah to tell him… “Do not worry, do not be afraid, I will protect you, I will deliver you, I will help you.”
If you’re here this morning and you’re not sure if God could still love you after all you’ve done can I just remind you, there is nothing you could ever do that would make God love you less. God’s love for you is unfailing. His love never fails.
God sends Isaiah to tell Ahaz, I will help you, I will be with you, I will save you. But listen to what else God says…
Unless your faith is firm,
I cannot make you stand firm.”
In other words, it’s time to put your faith in God and God alone. The one true God of Israel. And your faith in Me has to be FIRM. No more wavering. No more worshiping idols. None of that. IF your faith is FIRM I can and I will SAVE you. But God says… “I cannot make you stand firm.”
It’s your call, your decision, you have to choose to believe!
“Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are things we can’t see.” – Polar Express
A Sign, A Prophecy, and A Promise
Ahaz is having a hard time believing the word of the LORD through Isaiah, so God tells him to ask for a sign.
How many times have you wanted God to give you a sign, to help you in your faith, to help you believe when you could not see? God actually offers Ahaz a sign, but Ahaz rejects it!
Then Isaiah tells Ahaz…
All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.
What is the sign God will give to Ahaz?
A child will be born to a virgin and his name… His name has meaning, his name carries weight, his name will be a sign – a billboard on the highway for all to see – His name will be Immanuel which means, God With Us!
Ahaz, you don’t have to be afraid in this moment, you don’t have to worry, you’ve chosen the wrong way over and over again throughout your life, but in God’s grace you have another chance, a second chance, a chance to make a different choice. Choose to believe.
And to help you believe in a God you cannot see, God is going to give you a sign you can see. The SIGN will be a SON, and this son will be called Immanuel, God With Us.
You may wonder, isn’t this the birth announcement for Jesus?
But Ahaz didn’t know about Jesus. Was this a prophecy that would be fulfilled in this moment in this situation OR 700 years later when Jesus is born? And the answer is YES!
This prophecy points to a present AND a future hope!
Present Hope
In this present moment, God is promising that a woman who is presently a virgin, meaning she has not had children yet, would have a son the same way all women have children, and this son would be a sign of hope for Ahaz in the middle of this uncertain time. And that by the time this boy would reach the age where he would know right from wrong these 2 kings and these two nations that Ahaz is so afraid of would be destroyed and Ahaz as well as the people of Judah would be delivered from their enemies, saved by God’s mighty power. So Ahaz, BELIEVE IN what you CANNOT SEE. Trust in the PROPHECY and the PROMISE of God.
Sometimes the most real things in the world are things you can’t see.
Future Hope
And, for the future, God is promising that one day a woman who will be a virgin will have a son. And this isn’t Christmas magic, this is something miraculous. This virgin would conceive a child through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1.18). This child would be a sign of hope for all people, every where, in every time. But most certainly in the middle of uncertain times. And before this child one day every king would kneel and worship, in fact one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. He is the One who will deliver us from all of our enemies. He is the one who will come and SAVE us if we will believe in the One we cannot see. If we will trust in the prophecy and the promise of God.
Sometimes the most real things in the world are things you can’t see.
Will You Believe?
So I guess the question is, Can you believe in the One you cannot see?
In the closing seen of the movie, the boy who got to take the trip of a lifetime aboard the Polar Express found on Christmas morning that he had a gift from Santa under the tree.
Inside the box was a bell. And when he would shake the bell, he could hear it ring. His parents could not.
They thought the bell was broken. The bell wasn’t broken, they just didn’t believe. You see, in order to hear the bell you had to believe in Santa.
The boy believed. He had seen Santa with his own eyes. He had been to the North Pole. He had experienced what life is like when you believe in Santa and he would never be the same again.
He had discovered that what the conductor had said was really true:
“Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are things we can’t see.”
– The Polar Express
The problem with many of us is that we’ve grown up and we can no longer hear the bell ring.
We’ve grown up and we’ve been jaded by the world.
We’ve grown up and we’ve realized, there are enemies coming against us, wars raging all around us, and the road ahead is not only uncertain, not only unknown, it is terrifying. We are worried and afraid.
Like king Ahaz, we have much to be afraid of. Like Ahaz, we need a sign, we need a prophecy, and we ned a promise.
The Good News we have to share today is that we have a sign because we have God’s Son.
Isaiah’s prophecy pointed to a present but also to a future hope. A virgin by the name of Mary conceived a child by the power of the Holy Spirit and Matthew writes…
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”
Matthew 1.23
You may or may not believe in Santa when you hear the bell ring, but when you hear the words of this prophecy it’s my prayer that you will believe. Because this prophecy points to this promise, in the coming of Jesus God has declared that..
God IS with us forever!
The God who IS with us
This is the promise we believe in this Christmas. It’s not that God WAS with us, or that God WILL BE with us one day.
God’s promise is Immanuel, Jesus wrapped in human flesh, majesty in a manger, God with us in our past, God with us in our present, and God with us in our future. God with us forever.
This is what we believe because this is who God is! He is with us now!
Sometimes the most real things in the world are things you can’t see.
And today I want to remind you of what is real. God is with you today. God is with us today. Whatever you’re going through, whatever you’re in the middle of, in the midst of your uncertainty and doubt, may I remind you to believe that this is true. God is with you. Forever. So turn to Him.
Turn to him in your pain. Turn to him with your problems. Turn to him in your uncertainty. And trust him to deliver you, to save you, to help you, to show you the way forward. Turn to Him and trust Him.
In fact, if I could give you just one thing to do this week as we enter this Christmas season, could I ask you every day, once a day, between now and next Sunday, just pray this simple prayer: God I believe that you are God and you are with me, yesterday, today, and forever.
Pray that prayer, declare your hope in Him, and trust him to work in your life.
As we enter this Christmas season, we enter a season of hope, a season of waiting expectantly, a season of believing.
May we have the courage to believe that the most real things in the world are things we can’t see.
And may our faith in God guide us through our own seasons of uncertainty as we hope in Him.
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