Sermon Recap
A Government That Will Never End
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Brian Hunter · December 22, 2024
“Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness.”
Scripture Referenced
Recap
On the Sunday before Christmas, Brian took the church back to the familiar Christmas passage of Isaiah 9, reading past the verses everyone already knows by heart to dig into their fuller prophetic significance. He highlighted the specific detail that this promised light would come out of Galilee, a detail that becomes strikingly relevant later when the religious leaders in John 7 dismiss Jesus’s identity as Messiah on the very grounds that “no prophet ever comes from Galilee”, missing that Isaiah had already pointed exactly there centuries earlier.
Brian then turned to Isaiah’s promise that “of the increase of his government there will be no end,” walking the congregation through what it would actually mean to live under a kingdom whose ruler governs not through the systems we know (democracy, monarchy, or republic) but through perfect fairness, justice, and peace. He described a future in which Jesus’s reign is acknowledged among the nations of the earth, framing the Christmas story not just as a sentimental birth narrative but as the opening act of a kingdom still being established.
The message closed by inviting the church to hold both realities at once this Christmas: the humble manger scene familiar from childhood, and the weight of what that same child would grow up to govern, still unfolding today.
Touch Points
- The religious leaders missed Jesus’s identity by focusing on where he was from rather than the prophecy pointing straight at Galilee. Where might you be missing something God is doing because it doesn’t match your expectations?
- Isaiah promises Jesus’s government will be marked by justice and peace with no end. What would it look like for you to live now as though you’re already under that kind of reign?
- Brian framed Christmas as the opening act of a still-unfolding kingdom, not just a one-time birth story. Does thinking about Christmas this way change how you approach the holiday?
- What’s one place in your life right now where you need to trust that God’s kingdom, though not fully visible yet, is still being established?