Isaiah 9:6-7

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

This prophetic scripture declaring the coming  of a new king to rule was written 700-800 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It is one of the many Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. What I want to pay attention to today is the fact that this declaration is of one who is coming to rule, it speaks of His government and His kingdom. That is a large part of why many of the Jewish people missed the coming of Jesus as their Messiah. They were looking for and expecting a warrior, a king who would deliver them from the political bondage and oppression they were experiencing at the hand of the Roman rulers. Jesus came with a message and a mission of spiritual deliverence. He came to free His people, both Jews and Gentiles from the bondage of an even more oppressive ruler, sin and death.

We who have experienced the grace of God through Jesus mission of deliverence and redemption need to remember that He did in fact come to rule. This familiar account in Matthew 2 confirms what the prophet Isaiah spoke of.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ² “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴ Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: