We will continue our study of Isaiah chapter 9. And this afternoon, with God's help, we will focus on the first part of verse 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Boys and girls, you may be familiar with this well-known Christmas song, which unfortunately contains some theology that is not in line with scripture. The title of that song is Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Consider the lyrics. Santa Claus is coming to town. He's making a list and checking it twice. Gonna find out who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you are awake. He knows if you've been good or bad. So be good for goodness sake. Well, This song describes Santa Claus as a giver of gift, a gift giver. However, if you carefully examine this song, you will notice that Santa Claus only brings gifts to people, especially to children who are nice and good. He does not offer a gift. to people who are naughty and bad. And therefore this Christmas song calls people to be good. So be good for goodness sake. In other words, the message of this song is this. If you want to receive a gift from Santa Claus, you need to be good. Thankfully, and thankfully indeed, our Heavenly Father is not like this fabricated Santa Claus. Why? Because according to Isaiah 9, verse 6, God the Father offers His Son, the greatest gift of all, to sinners such as we are. Yes, He offers His gift to naughty and bad people like you and me. If our God were like Santa Claus, no one could receive the gift of His Son. Why? Because the Bible says, no one is good, no, not even one. We are all naughty and bad. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3 verse 23. And yet God the Father gave His only Son to us. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. With God's help, What we're going to do in our remaining time is look at some of the natures of this gift based on our text, which is the first part of Isaiah 9, verse 6. And I will give you four, four observations about this gift. Here's the first one. This gift is human. So the human nature of this gift. Now notice, a child is born. A child is given to us. Not a thing or an animal, but a child. A person. Now, usually the kind of gift that we receive from others is either a thing or sometimes an animal. A toy, maybe boys and girls. You have received a nice toy from your parents on your birthday. Or maybe a pet like a fish or a dog or a cat. So when we receive a gift, it is either a thing or an animal. But the kind of gift that God the Father has given to us is so unique. It is a person. His own son. His own child. Someone has said, this is the love of God, not that He gives us something, but that He gives us someone, a living person, not one or another blessing, but Him in whom all life and blessing, Jesus Himself. As we often sing this Christmas hymn, what child is this? What gift is this? This, this is Christ the King. Haste, haste to bring Him, Lord. And so this gift is human. Now, second observation about this gift. This gift is divine. Not just human, but divine. Divine in nature. Now notice again what Isaiah says. In Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. For unto us a child, emphasizing the human nature of this gift. But it goes on to say, unto us a son. A son. So the first line of our text is broad. A child. But the second line is very specific. A son, not a daughter, but a son. And who is this son? We know the answer very well from the pages of the Scriptures. This is the Son of God. This is God the Son, whose name is Jesus Christ. Now imagine this. God gave us nothing less than His own Son Himself. And we can even say it this way, God gave us God. Because God the Father gave us His Son who is fully God. Fully man. Imagine that. God gave us God as a gift. 1 John 4, verses 9 and 10. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God gave us God. God the Father gave us His own Son. And by the way, God has only one Son. God does not have ten sons. He only has one Son. His only begotten Son. And He gave to us that one Son. For unto us, a child is born. Unto us, a son is given. John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He gave us a gift to humankind, to us sinners, so that whosoever believes in His Son shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And so this gift is one of its kind. It is so unique, so rare, it is priceless because it is divine in nature. No other gift is like this. Now, children, most likely, you will be receiving a gift from your parents on Christmas Day. But that gift is not divine. There's only one divine gift. And that is His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Fully man, fully God. And so imagine again, God gave us no less than God Himself because Jesus is God. Someone said, who can estimate the value of God's gift when He gave to the world His only begotten Son? It is something unspeakable and incomprehensible. Now maybe You wives, you can still remember when your own husbands proposed to you. When he opened that box, or when he showed that ring. Maybe you were in disbelief, shocked, and would not know what to say. Speechless! you could have even described that moment the joy that you had now remember Paul as he was reflecting on this gift on the Lord Jesus Christ and all that Jesus has done for him he could only exclaim thanks be to God for this indescribable gift of His Son. Paul, the great theologian, could not describe it to us. I cannot describe this gift to you. No words can fully explain the beauty and glory of this divine gift, the Lord Jesus Christ. What a gift. What a gift. For unto us a child is born. Human gift. Unto us a son is given. Divine gift. Third observation about this gift. This gift is perfect. Perfect. The perfect nature of this gift. This is the perfect gift because this is the perfect son of God given by the perfect father God gave us just what we needed we needed a savior and so God gave us a savior someone put it this way If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist or an IT. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior. Perfect gift. Sometimes, we receive a gift that is not perfect for us. And that happened to me. Someone gave me a gift. when I was in Michigan, and it was just too big on me. Too big on me. I didn't tell the person, the giver, lest he be offended. What did I do? I donated it to a thrift store. And guess what? You go to Goodwill, why is it that the items are cheap? Well, because they're not really needed. And in that sense, like, someone Received a gift from another person. He didn't like it. He donated it to Goodwill. Or we have our own thrift store. The gift was not perfect. But when God gave us a gift, it was perfect. Jesus is the perfect gift. He is the one that we need. Exactly what we need. And so He gave us His Son. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. Given to us as a gift. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, James says. And comes down from the Father. Notice that. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. From our Heavenly Father. And so our Heavenly Father gifted us with a perfect gift in the person of His own Son, Jesus Christ. Fully human, fully divine. What a magnificent, gloriously perfect gift. Perfect Savior. And so what we have? Perfect salvation. Perfect Redeemer. We have perfect redemption. As one hymn writer says, Oh, perfect redemption! The purchase of blood to every believer. The promise of God. The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives. Perfect redemption. Because He is our perfect Redeemer. He is our perfect Savior. who has given us His perfect obedience, perfect righteousness that we need, so that we can stand before a holy just God. He is the perfect sacrifice, sacrifice for our sin. So perfect that God the Father accepted the sacrifice of His Son. All that Jesus did was perfect. When He was here, He lived a perfect life. We failed to do it. The first Adam failed to do it. He failed to live a perfect life. But the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, He lived a perfect life that you and I could not live. So that if we put our faith in Him, His perfect righteousness will be imputed to us by faith. As if we ourselves had kept God's law perfectly. As if we ourselves had lived a perfect life. As if we had never sinned before. And that's why on the basis of that perfect righteousness, God can pronounce us what? Righteous. In fact, using the language of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21, he says that this perfect child, the perfect Redeemer, He became sin, not a sinner. He became sin in the sense that He bore our sin on the cross of Calvary. So that we might become what? The righteousness of God through Him, through the Lord Jesus Christ. What a perfect gift. And finally, this gift is genuine. Genuine, the genuine nature of this gift. Notice again what Isaiah says, Now boys and girls, if you go to a mall, you might see a gift under a Christmas tree. You might see boxes. I have seen some boxes under a Christmas tree. Now, if you open those boxes, you will find nothing in them. Those boxes are empty. They are only decorations. They are fake gifts. They appear like a gift, but it's a fake one. Good only for decoration. It's not really being given. Who would want an empty box? Now, this gift that we have in our passage is not fake. It's real! It's true! Yes, the world will tell us that Jesus is not real. God says, for unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. Jesus is a true gift. And this gift is not intended for decoration. God is actually giving this gift to us. For unto us. A child is born unto us, a son is given. Now the question is this, how is God offering this gift to us? How is he giving this gift to us? Well, let me suggest two. First of all, God offers this gift, His Son, to us graciously. Graciously. Why? Because notice the word us here. For unto us, a child is born. Unto us, a son is given. Question for you. Who is the us here? Who is the us here? Well, looking at the immediate context, and we studied that this morning, this pronoun, us, refers to the people of Israel, to God's covenant people, who at this time were living in darkness of sin. And that's why I read again, verse 2, look at verse 2. The people that walked in darkness. Now Isaiah is saying, for unto us, to us who live in darkness, who walk in darkness, for unto us who are naughty and bad, God is giving His Son to us sinners. to us rebels, to us idolaters, to us law and covenant breakers, to us sinful beings, to us God's enemies, to us. What a grace, what a gracious gift. I want you to be honest with me. There's probably someone here in this room that you dislike. That you simply don't like. You don't get along well with that person. Have you thought of this? Giving that person a gift on Christmas. Would you actually do that? How about one of your neighbors who simply dislikes you? giving you trouble. Would you buy an expensive item from the store and give that gift to that person? Maybe not. Maybe not. Let's confess. We give gifts to people that we like, that we love. My wife and I will give, most likely, gift to our children because they are our children we love our children your parents will do the same if you don't like me you will not give a gift to me it's simple like that you get the point we choose the recipient of our gift now in this passage God is giving, and by the way, this is in present tense, although it's passive, the voice here, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. You can make it active. God is giving his son to us sinners. We don't deserve His Son. We don't deserve this gift. You know what we deserve by nature? Not His Son, but His sentence, judgment. Not His child, but His condemnation because of our rebellion. Not Jesus, but judgment because of our sin. That's what we deserve. Oh, but God gave us the exact opposite of what we deserve. And that is grace. And that's why if you were to ask me, Pastor Brian, can you please define grace? The word grace, we often use it in our daily Christian language. What is grace? Well, grace is something that we receive from God that we do not deserve. And I go on to say grace is the exact opposite of what we deserve. The Lord has given us the exact opposite of what we deserve. What a gracious gift that is. And this is how our Heavenly Father differs from the fabricated Santa Claus. Our God in Heaven, boys and girls, gives His gift out of the goodness of His heart. Whereas Santa Claus gives His gift based on the goodness of the recipient. And that's why the song goes on like this. Santa Claus is coming to town. He is making a list and checking it twice. Gonna find out who is naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you are awake. He knows when you have been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake. Be good! Then you will receive a gift. Which really, it's not a gift anymore. But you know what's sad? The so-called Santa Claus theology is so prevalent in many churches today. I call it personality theology. What does it mean? There are teachings in many churches today that go like this. Well, if you want God to bless you, if you want God to give you this gift of salvation, then you need to be good. You need to be good. Personality theology. Well, the problem is this. We are by nature bad. No one is good, no not even one. And then we also have this performance theology. Performance theology. Well, if you want God to bless you with this gift, then you must do this and that. You must perform this and that. You must help others. You must go to church twice. You must pray. You must read the Bible. Or else God will not bless you with this gift of His Son. Or else you will not be saved. Salvation by good works. Santa Claus theology. And I'm afraid that although some of you have grown up in a Reformed tradition, somehow you have been affected by this Santa Claus theology. Somehow you're still thinking, well, Maybe one of the reasons why you cannot come to the Lord's table, you're thinking, well, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. Personality theology. Well, I have not yet done this and that. Performance theology. Santo Claus theology. You're not even aware of it. That it has crept into your thinking, into your mind. Get rid of it. We don't believe that. It's unscriptural. Because it's so clear here in our text. For unto us a child is born. Unto us. Unto us sinners, rebels, naughty, bad. For unto us a son is given. He is giving His Son to us. Yes, this may sound too good to be true, but it is true! It is true! Now imagine, one day, someone, you heard of this person standing at the corner, street corner, handing out one million dollars. One million dollars! to all people of Ontario. One million dollars to each. You just come, and he will give you. This person is a trillionaire. He will give you one million dollars. One million dollars. Now, if someone told you about that, guess what? I just received one million dollars from an unknown person, and they said that he's a trillionaire, and he's just giving out money. And he gave me one million dollars. Now, would you right away believe that person? Maybe not. Too good to be true. No, no way, no way, no way. You need to work. You need to work hard to earn that much. And sometimes it's hard for us to understand this. That this God, our Heavenly Father, gave us His own Son. The best gift of all. And that's why some people would like to work for that gift. No, we don't need to work for that gift. It is given so graciously. And I can add this. So how is God offering His Son? Yes, graciously, but also voluntarily. Remember, God took the initiative to give us his son for our salvation. And even in this context, I explained the context this morning. If you were not here this morning, I encourage you to listen to that message. It should be available soon online on our website. Now, the people who were walking in darkness did not ask for this gift. They didn't! They didn't ask for a Savior, for a Redeemer. No! God took the initiative. Even Mary did not ask for a son. God visited Mary. Even Joseph. I did not ask for Jesus. God gave Jesus to me first. We love because He first loved us. Even Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed the Lord, who took the initiative? Who came first? It was not Adam and Eve. It was God. God came asking Adam and Eve, where are you? Where are you? Where are you? As Joseph Hart said, the composer of Kam Yee Sinner's Poor and Needy, he said this in his autobiographical hymn, what an amazing change was here. I looked for hell, he brought me heaven. Hallelujah. I looked for hell, he brought or gave me Heaven, what a grace. Now, in conclusion, what shall we do to God's gift of His Son? I'll suggest four. First, let's receive this gift. Let's receive this gift completely! Completely! Now remember what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1 verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Now remember what Paul says here, this, referring to the Gospel, is a faithful saying and worthy of partial acceptation, no? all acceptation. In other words, as God gives us His Son, this perfect gift, divine, human, graciously, our proper response is to receive this gift wholly, completely. Let's receive the whole gift, not partially, but completely. Now, why is this important? Well, because some of us, they want Jesus, they want this gift. Who wouldn't want this gift? But then, when it comes to the responsibilities that comes with this gift, now we don't want those responsibilities. We want salvation, we want to be saved, but we don't want to commit ourselves to Jesus Christ. It's like a relationship nowadays. It's so common to see a relationship outside marriage. I go to the YMCA, and you meet a lot of people, and they will tell you, so conversation will start, with something like this. How are you doing? Yeah, I want to exercise. I'll say because I have five kids and I want to keep up with them and blah, blah, blah. So you're married? Yeah, I'm married. Are you married? Well, I'm living with my boyfriend. Or I'm living with my girlfriend. You know right away what they mean by that. That means they are together but not married. Why? Because they don't want to have that commitment. They want to enjoy that sexual relationship, but they are unwilling to commit themselves to marriage. Because what happens is, if something goes wrong, well, the solution is what? Divorce, or, well, they're not married, so there's no divorce. Separation. Separation. You see, that's sometimes what we see within a church. They want Jesus. They want salvation. They want forgiveness of sin. They want all the blessings, but they don't want the whole Christ. The responsibilities, all the duties, they don't want His word. The moment Jesus tells them in His word that you must not be doing this, oh no, no, I don't want that. That's a different kind of Christ that I thought about. No, I will not commit to that kind of Christ. Yes, I want the loving Christ, the one who loves me, but I don't want the holy, just, righteous Christ who hates sin. I want the approachable Christ. If I need help, I want the approachable Christ, that I can come to Him anytime, but, oh, I don't want this Christ that tells me what I need to do. No, no, no. No! Paul says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. We need to receive this gift fully, completely. You either receive Him fully or don't receive Him at all. You cannot have a partial Savior, partial gift. Now you might say, well, this gift is too much for me to receive. Maybe you feel shy or hesitant to accept this gift. I have this story, boys and girls, in ancient history. It is said that Caesar, this emperor, once offered a friend a generous gift. Upon receiving the offer, the friend responded, this is too much for me to accept. To this, the emperor replied, but it is not too much for me to give. Similarly, when we reflect on our sinfulness and rebellion, God's gift of pardon through Christ may feel far too great for us to accept. Yet the boundless riches of His mercy make it not too great for Him to give. When God forgives, not a single sin remains unforgiven. Though Christ is indeed the most extraordinary gift humanity could receive, he was not too great a gift for God to give. God is so generous and gracious. And don't we feel that? Someone will give you, and I had that experience. I said, I want you to receive this. And my initial reaction was, oh, no, no. This is too much. No, no. Maybe half of this. No, no, no, this is for you. No, no, this is too much. Well, yeah, too much for me to receive, but not too much for that person to give. Because the Lord has blessed that person. See, God gives us generously. And so our proper response is to receive that gift completely. Second, let's receive this gift by faith. By faith. 1 John 1 verse 12, "...but as many as received Him, to them gave the right to become children of God." We need to receive this gift by faith. Because the truth is, I have been talking to you about this gift, but may I ask you, do you see this gift? Where is this gift? If you are philosophical, you would say to me, Pastor Brian, you've been talking about this gift, but I don't see that gift. Where is that gift? Where is Jesus? Where is that perfect gift? I don't see Him. And we can't, because He ascended to heaven. He is now sitting at the right hand of God Almighty. He will come again someday, then we will be able to see Him. But until then, What we need to do is receive this gift by faith. That even if we don't see it, we need to believe it. God says, if you receive as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the children of God. You receive this gift, you receive His Son, you will be part of the family of God. What a blessing that is! Third, Let's receive this gift with thankfulness, with gratitude. Again, Paul says, 2 Corinthians 9 verse 15, Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift, this inexpressible gift. There is no way for us to really say thank you to God for this gift. We cannot thank God enough. Even if we have 10,000 tongues to say thank you to the Lord, those tongues will fail to thank God enough for this indescribable gift of His Son Jesus Christ. with all our heart, mind, and soul to the best of our ability. Let's thank God for His Son. Let's appreciate this gift. Let's adore Him as we sing, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord, our Savior. Are you thankful to God for His Son? That your life is marked by thankfulness. That you are singing out of gratitude to God for what He has given to you. That even when you give your offerings, you are doing so out of thankfulness for what God has given to you. And finally, let us share this gift with others. Ironically, many peoples around the globe will be celebrating Christmas without Christ. We need to share this gift with others. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. This is probably the best thing that we can do to our unbelieving friends, unbelieving neighbors, unbelieving relatives in this Advent season. To share the Lord Jesus Christ with them. To tell them that there is such a generous, gracious Heavenly Father who is offering His only begotten Son so that whoever receives His Son will not perish but have everlasting life. When was the last time you shared this gift with others. Now going back to my illustration, suppose it was really true that there was a trillionaire giving money, one million dollars. And in fact this trillionaire said, so when, as soon as you received one million dollars from that person, he said to you, if you know anyone who is in great need, Tell them to come to me also. Now, if that was really true, I would right away, if that was a consistory meeting, I'm going to leave that consistory meeting. Go right away to my wife and tell her, love, stop. whatever you're doing right now, go to that place. You will receive $1,000,000. All my children, I will pull them out of the school that day. All my four children, including my youngest child, you all go to that person. This person is giving $1,000,000. I don't want you to miss that, especially if it is time-sensitive, the offer. That fails, that illustration, when it comes to this gift. You cannot put monetary value on this gift, the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, are we actually sharing Him with others? When was the last time you shared Jesus with others? Do you have Jesus? Do you have this gift? Maybe that's what you need to do this afternoon. Receive this gift by faith. The best gift that you can receive from God the Father. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for this child, for your son. Graciously, given to us. For unto us a child is born, and to us a son is given. Lord, we marvel. Why would you even do this to us? We offended you. We disobeyed you. You should have given us judgment. You should have punished us. But Lord, you're so gracious. that You gave us the exact opposite of what we deserved, Your Son. We love You, Lord, and please forgive us for not adoring this gift, not appreciating this gift, and for not sharing this gift with others. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.