Sermon Notes: Isaiah 2:1-5 (Advent 2025)

Isaiah 2: 1-5 - Jon Palmer

Introduction: 

Coming to the end of our Exodus marathon. We will be wrapping it up on the last Sunday of December and Mitch will tie that into the year in review.  I am looking forward to 2026 where we will start the study of Mark.  Exodus has been good. We have seen the gospel and how God wove that into His Exodus story, but there is something extra sweet about studying through one of the gospels in the NT. I just seems a little bit lighter.  Even though we see Jesus and hope intermingled in all the scriptures revealing God’s character and historical narrative, there’s still a heaviness that sits over the old covenant…..and rightfully so, because from Genesis 3 to Malachi we read over and over again the destruction that is caused by sin that entered into a perfect world through one act of disobedience.  We read all of the scriptures because they reveal Him and His intended purposes, His glory, His fame, and His honor. The OT is good, but there’s something about the new covenant that brings another level of love, hope, peace, and invitation.  So….we look forward to spending time in Mark and studying the life of Jesus our Savior….and marveling at how God set His story in place from the very foundation of the world. 

This time of year we pause and take the time to reflect and to set our hearts and our minds on the coming of our Lord Jesus.  We call this the Advent season.  What does Advent mean? What does the word mean?    It means “The arrival or coming of something significant”  There is nothing more significant than the coming of the savior of the world!!   After all that talk of looking forward to the NT, we are going to spend the 1st 3 Sunday’s of advent in Isaiah and then the last Sunday we will be looking at Luke 1.   

I want to share a little personal journey that God has taken me on studying and preparing this morning’s message. I have been writing this for about 4 weeks. Early on the Holy Spirit impressed on my heart where He wanted me to take us this morning. I wrestled back and forth about the message and through about 2 weeks of writers block. Through that wrestling, the Holy Spirit was kind enough to give me assurance and He did that through 2 of His sons and 1 of His daughters. I hope that is encouraging to you in how the Holy Spirit is still working in and through His people. He hears our prayers and is faithful to answer.   

Isaiah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Mixed in and throughout Isaiah’s warning messages of God’s pending righteous judgement is the hope of a King that will come and set it all straight.  Commentary writers pretty much all agree that the prophecies of hope and future vision in Isaiah all point to fulfillment through the virgin birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.    If you tune your eyes, and your ears, and your heart as you read Isaiah, it’s really not that difficult to recognize those descriptive prophecies about Jesus.    Prophecy is a huge indicator of God’s love for us that brings hope and peace along with an invitation to get on board.   We are going to see and talk through those 4 things that are prevalent in today’s scripture…….Isaiah 2: 1-5. 

 o Love  o Hope  o Peace  o Invitation   

Let’s stand and read Isaiah 2: 1-5 together.    **Stand and read Isaiah 2: 1-5 

LOVE and HOPE   Let’s start by looking at verses 2-3.   

2 Now it will come about that  In the last days  The mountain of the house of the LORD  Will be established [a]as the chief of the mountains,  And will be raised above the hills;  And all the nations will stream to it.  3 And many peoples will come and say,   “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the LORD,  To the house of the God of Jacob;  So that He may teach us [b]about His ways,  And that we may walk in His paths.”  For [c]the law will go out from Zion   And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 

God guarantees His Kingship by establishing His sanctuary among His people and describing the setting as the “chief”; the top, the first rank, the best, the highest; the most supreme.   

The mountain imagery is important. The readers in the time of Isaiah understood what being the highest mountain meant. Yahweh was setting Himself apart from other little “g” gods. He is proclaiming that He is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings and there are no other gods like Him. He is taking claim that this is His creation and we (us…me and you) are His people….it says ‘all nations’ will stream to it….not just Israel. (v2) 

What a show of love and what a message of hope! 

He’s not saying that He’s up on a mountain as to be a God who is unreachable or that we have to do work to get to Him….like having to climb up to be with Him or yell to talk with Him or be out of breath from the thin air in order to walk with Him. He’s right here! We get to live on the side of history that has God right here among us….no veil…no special rituals to clean ourselves up….no special buildings….no one to have to be there to intercede for us on our behalf as the priest’s did.    We have full, personal access to the God of the universe….all set in place by design, from the beginning of time, through the work He did in Jesus. All because of His love for us.   This Advent season, we need to meditate on the love that God has for us. Just sit in that for a moment.   Can we even fathom that kind of love….that depth of love?  God loves all the nations. God loves us. God loves you. God loves me. God is love.  I read from the NASB version of the Bible and the word ‘love’ appears 479 times….and that’s just the word itself….not included are the countless stories and verses that prove His love.    As I studied for this sermon, I kept thinking about God’s love and how much I still need to learn more of the depth of His love for me.   

  No surprise that this verse comes to mind…..  John 3:16    For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. 

I would say that every Christian knows this scripture. We see it written everywhere. You see it on billboards, you see it on every social media platform, you even saw it on Tim Tebow's eye black stickers….when he was still playing at least.    We can say it's probably the most memorized verse in the whole Bible and yet we don't fully grasp the love that God is talking about. God’s love is literally written on every page…in every story.    Example….as I was reading context to John 3:16 , I came to John 3:8 and it stopped me in my tracks. I’ve never understood this verse….mostly because I have not taken the time to sit in it. When you run across things that Jesus says that make you scratch your head, take some time to meditate on it. I have found that the most depth is in Jesus’s words that seem to be very aloof to us initially. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that being born again in the Spirit meant God breathing life into dry bones. God bringing us who are dead in our sins to life!! Wow!! (Reference Psalm 135:7; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Ezekiel 37:9)    And He does it through Jesus…..  Jesus goes on to say in John 3:14…that just as Moses lifted the serpent up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him. Nicodemus knew that story. It’s in Numbers 21. What happened when Isreal looked at the rod with the serpent?….they lived!!    This story!! The whole story….how perfect! How crazy is God’s love?! I am consistently blown away!!    In the last couple of years or so, God has shifted my mind and heart in how I read His word. I am reading it with a lens of His love for me and I am seeing new and amazing things. Some of it I feel like I am learning for the first time. God is making my heart catch up with my head. It’s like I am falling in love with God who I thought I knew.    And it made me ask this question…..   What stops us from understanding the depth of His love?  

Love in this world is often defined by a feeling and that feeling often flies away with our circumstances or unfulfilled expectations that we have placed on one another.    Then, either consciously or sub-consciously, we paint that kind of love onto God’s love for us.   God’s love gets tainted by our experiences from living in a broken world…..broken relationships, broken marriages, broken families….or how often is our view of God’s love bent by our earthly fathers? Performance based love was my view of an earthly father’s love and I can feel that about my view of God’s love for me, which has also trickled down into so many relationships in my life. I can only be loved if I do this right or this right. Talk about works based! Lord help me! I have so much to unlearn.   

We desire to be seen, to be known, to be loved by a father unconditionally…that is the way God loves. AND its the way our Father wants us to love.  

He teaches us that love has an order.  Deuteronomy 6:5  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”   Leviticus 19:18  “….You shall love your neighbor as yourself…..” 

Don’t forget…… “We love because He first loved us” - 1 John 4:19    I believe there is a longing in everyone’s heart to be loved and to give love, because it was the way you and I were designed….made in His image.  

Do you believe that God loves you? Do you believe that before you were even born that God knew you? You want to realize how well the Lord knows you, and how often He thinks about you, and how much He loves you?….Read and meditate on Psalm 139. And don’t just give it a time or two of reading it…..read it for 30 days straight. I have been praying this Psalm for a while this year and it has changed my heart.    God knows your whole story. He knows everything there is to know about you. 

God’s love is not hidden. He revealed it to us in the very event that we celebrate this season.  1 John 4: 9-10   “By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only son into the world so that we may 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.” 

Listen…..There's nothing you can do that's going to change God’s love for you. There's nothing you can do that's going to make it less. There's nothing that you can do to make it more. God's love is perfect and infinite. There is nothing that we can do to separate us from the love of God. Absolutely nothing!!   

Paul said it best in Romans 8:38:  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Bringing it back to our scripture this morning……God’s love for us is the very reason, the very basis of Him putting words into Isaiah’s mouth. Not only was God showing His love for Israel in giving them warning after warning of His coming judgement (showing His patience and forbearance); giving them every opportunity to repent…..He was also showing love for all the nations by foretelling of the ultimate love action that He will do through His son Jesus….and in this case some 700+ years prior to the actual event.    How infinitely deep is God’s love for us!! 

 PEACE  4 And He will judge between the nations,  And will mediate for many peoples;  And they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives.  Nation will not lift up a sword against nation,  And never again will they learn war. 

The main point: God’s love and hope shown through Jesus gives us peace today. 

Is the world at peace today? Unfortunately, No. There are still wars happening in many nations. Until all men respond in full submission to the Lord or Jesus returns, we will continue to see strife. True peace can only be found in Jesus…..it can not be found in the world.    In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said Himself that He did not come to bring peace on the earth, but a sword. He came to wage war against the ruler of the earth.   

The peace that we can have today is the peace that only comes when we give our lives to Jesus and allow Him to rule in our hearts. We can only find peace in Jesus and Jesus alone.    Jesus confirms this….  John 16: 33  “These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” 

John 14: 27  “Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful.”   

Hope in Jesus produces peace in our hearts that no matter what is going on in the world or in our lives, we have assurance that Jesus has it all under control and we can rest easy. That is much easier said than done.   

This brought my mind to Psalm 46:10  “Stop striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth.”  This is another verse that has been playing over and over in my mind and heart for quite some time now. I want to say that I believe that, but I tend to keep picking up the things that I lay at His feet. Maybe this speaks to your heart too. What are the things that you keep picking up?    What it comes down to is control. If we keep our weapons, we are in control. If we destroy our weapons, we give Him control. The question is….will we give Him control? He said He will judge the nations and He will mediate for many peoples.    When we give Him control, peace in our hearts is the outcome.    As we focus our minds attention and hearts affection on Jesus this Advent season, He will give us peace that no one outside a relationship with Him will understand.   

Philippians 4:7  “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Trust Him in that.   

INVITATION  Isaiah 2:5   “Come House of Jacob and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” 

Light is an important word as it shows up time and time again throughout all of scripture. Whether literal or metaphorical, God is closely associated with it. In John chapter 1, John uses the word Light when talking about Jesus.   

John 1:4-5   “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not grasp it.”       The word light means brightness, illumination, enlightenment. It’s the guiding element God uses to lead His people and the element that assures His presence. A couple of examples….God's pillar of fire at night displayed God's glory and led the way when the sons of Israel wandered in the wilderness. The golden lamp stand in the Tabernacle was the only light that illuminated the Holy Place.  

It's also aligned with truth.  Jesus said “But the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God.” – John 3:21   

In contrast to light; darkness is associated with death, failure, suffering, folly, and sin.    The Light signifies life, salvation, truth, prosperity, wisdom, and justice.  

The invitation is to walk with God in the light and darkness will never overcome it.   

1 John 1:5-7   This is the message we have heard from Him and announced to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. 

Isaiah invites us to walk with God in His light.  

Conclusion:  

Love, Hope, Peace, and Invitation.  

Love: Take the time to reflect on God’s love for you. Sit in it and ask the Holy Spirit to solidify it in your heart.  Hope: Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. – Romans 5:5  Peace: Stop striving and know that He is God. Rest in the saving grace of Jesus.    Invitation: Choose to walk in the light of God and be quick to invite others to join you.   

Let those be the things that we focus on during this season. 

I want to leave us with this from Philippians 2 to set our minds on what we celebrate this season; the arrival of Jesus and what He came to do: 

Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.   

Prayer