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Prayer Priorities (Colossians 1:1-14) January 8, 2023 | Brandon Cooper TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
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Good morning. Go ahead, grab your Bibles open up to Colossians chapter one new series this morning in Colossians. So this is good new series, New year, new resolutions, takes until about February to realize the same old you, right.
And maybe one of those areas where you’ve noticed this and perhaps even an area where you set some resolutions is in prayer, same old prayer life, it’s so often feels like maybe many of you would count yourself in that camp. I know I often would, where I feel like I’m just not progressing as I would like to in the area of prayer, you find yourself praying the same thing over and over again, feels like your prayers lack power, or quickly your prayer times lack consistency, they get shorter kind of ends up box checking all that kind of stuff. Why? Why is it that that happens? So many of us, it should be the easiest thing in the world for us to run to our father and speak to him openly and boldly. I think it was Tim Keller who’s quipped before that there’s only one person who dares wake the king at three in the morning for a glass of water. And that’s his kid. And that’s where we are with God. So we can go to him at three in the morning and ask for a glass of water as it were should be the easiest thing in the world then for us when we have that privilege. And yet it isn’t. Again, if you’re at all like me, you might feel like sometimes you just don’t know how to pray. You’re crying out with the disciples Teach us to pray, Lord, because we just don’t feel like we know was Carl Laverton, who said, If we know God is our maker, our ruler and our Father, we will want to pray prayers that please Him that reflect his desires that line up with his priorities for our lives. And for the world. I want that. I just don’t always feel like I have it. And maybe you’re the same way. So how do we figure that out? How do we learn to pray prayers that please God? Well, God has not left us wanting. He never does. The Lord is our shepherd, we lack nothing, especially not knowledge about how to please Him. So He shows us how to pray prayers that delight him, where where do we go to find that will into his word, of course. And so that’s what we’re going to do today as we look at Paul’s prayer for the Christians in Colossae. This is a new series though. So we’re going to start with a bit of background first so that you know like what the word Colossi means we’ll start there. So draw out some background information from the intro. And then we’re going to dig deep into his prayer and verses nine to 14. So we start by reading chapter one, verses one to eight. And we’ll do some background here. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and peace to you from God our Father,
we always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and have the love you have for all God’s people, the faith and love that sprang from the hope stored up for you in Heaven, and about what you have already heard, and the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among us since the day you heard it, and truly understood God’s grace. You learned it from a papyrus, our dear fellow servant, who was a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the spirit.
Right, so pause there. So we have this letter from Paul the Apostle, and Timothy quite possibly his scribe in this case, and it’s to the church in Colossae, which is in the Lycus River Valley in modern Turkey, about 80 miles inland from the coast of the Mediterranean there. Now, what’s interesting about Colossi is that it’s the least impressive of all the cities that Paul writes to most of them Rome, for example, pretty big, famous cities. Colossians, just a shadow of its former self, and it’s gotten much bigger, more important towns right by it like Ephesus, and allow to see you might have heard of those. Also interesting is that it’s not a church that he founded, not the only letter like that he did not found the church in Rome, and yet he writes a letter there. But we know from verse seven that it was a pathless, who founded the church planted the church there in Colossae. It was founded during Paul’s evangelism of what was then Asia Minor again, we would think of it as being Turkey today. So Paul was based in Ephesus for a good couple of years, training up workers and sending them out into the field. You can read about this in Acts chapter 19 Verse
10 on the screen. This that is Paul’s teaching in Ephesus and the Hall of Tyrannis went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, their remarkable statement. But it’s especially remarkable because Paul is staying in one place. And it is not as though everyone in Asia mine a flock flock to hear him in Ephesus. No, again, what is he doing in the Hall of Tyrannis? He’s training up workers to send them out. This, by the way, is why our one explore our track is called Tyrannis. That’s the one where we train people for ministry specifically. So Paul is equipping servants of God to carry the message of the Gospel across Asia Minor.
But then why does Paul write this letter to Colossi? That’s the next question. Well, most of Paul’s letters come, not all of them, but most of them come, because there’s an issue. There’s something happening in that church that requires some teaching or correction. And so here in Colossae, we see that there’s heresy creeping in new teachers have either come in or come out of the church and are preaching a perverted a distorted gospel. Now, what exactly is that collusion? heresy? It’s tough to say, Why? Because we only get one side of the phone conversation you ever listened in when somebody’s talking on the phone? And you can tell it’s good stuff? Like, this is dramatic. And you get to like, she said, What? Well, I mean, we knew she thought that and you’re like, Okay, Who’s he talking to? And what’s it about? You’re trying to figure it out, and you get little clues here and there, and you start to reconstruct the scene in your head. That’s kind of what we’ve got here. Although at least we know who he’s talking to. And some of that stuff. What we know about the clash and heresy for sure. Is that a diminished Christ? It made Jesus less than all sufficient and when that’s why the book of Colossians focuses on Christ supremacy. Jesus’s first Jesus is bass. That’s why our subtitle is Christ our life because that really is the focus of this book. We’ll get into this much more next week even. But again, the the heresy is that Jesus is not enough. He’s not sufficient. So you better add to the salvation he won for us by your works. And you’re also going to need some help from some other beings that we’ll talk more about as we go, you’re gonna have to pass through some other intermediaries to really get to God. You can see that serious stuff. Like this is a big deal. This is a dangerous heresy. And so you would almost expect Paul to come in guns blazing kind of like he doesn’t Galatians like we were just gonna skip the Thanksgiving in the prayer. What were you people thinking? That’s not what Paul does here. Paul doesn’t start off strong. He focuses instead on the positive that he sees in the church, not the negative, most likely winning a hearing in the process, especially with a church that he does not know as well, personally. But he’s also just truly thankful to God, because he’s heard of the faith of these people from a path for us. And it’s a faith that manifests itself in love, which faith always should. Did you actually notice by the way, if you’re looking at Verse five, you get the faith and love that sprang from the hope stored up for you in Heaven. What’s interesting, even if this is your very first time in church, you probably have heard faith, hope and love together before, haven’t you? These three remain usually at weddings, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. This is the distinctly Pauline triad, faith, hope and love. But there are the greatest of these is love. Here the focus is on hope. Hope the fact that hope is the soil out of which springs faith and love what is hope. In Paul’s mind, it is the certainty of our salvation. We know that there is an inheritance laid up for us in heaven already already one for us in Christ, it is guaranteed that certainty of salvation is why we then trust in Jesus wholeheartedly. There’s our faith. And the more you trust, the more you love, because that’s what we’re called to do in Christ. That’s just how the gospel works. Once we know what God has done for us in Christ, we are transformed. In fact, that’s how you know the gospel is working. If you’re not growing in faith and love, you’re going to have to ask some questions of yourself. The Gospel always bears fruit increases these words that Paul is using in verse six wherever it is truly heard, truly received. Here’s the way John says it for John chapter three. Now we are children of God. And what we will be has not yet been made known but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like Him for we
shall see Him as He is all who have this hope in Him, purify themselves just as He is pure, we are transformed by the hope we have in Christ, the certainty of our salvation in Jesus. Alright, so it’s in light of this, then that Paul prays for the church, and his prayer is so instructive for us is going to show us God’s priorities for our prayers. I’m going to walk very slowly through these next few verses. In fact, we’re going to look at some questions of our prayers, the What the Why the how, and the who, and I’m gonna take them almost a verse at a time here. So let’s start with the what of our prayers, just verse nine. Let me read it for us. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will, through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.
So the news that Epaphras brings, drives Paul to prayer. For this reason, he says what I just talked about a moment ago, because of this, he engages in fervent and continual prayer, I have not stopped praying for you.
And just right there, I already feel the sting of conviction in this passage. I have stopped praying for things before in my life. And that’s a little concerning. I often go slack in prayer, and yet what we’re praying for, I mean, you look at, look at your kids, for example, until Christ is fully formed in your kids. Could you ever stop praying for them? No. And by the way, Christ will be fully formed in your kids in glory. So you don’t ever stop praying for them? Has Christ’s kingdom come in? Its fullness in its power? No, not yet. Okay, so we should always be praying.
But praying what? So here we get the big ask then what is it exactly that Paul prays continually?
It’s worth pausing there. By the way, before we answer that question to ask for what do you pray always? What are the big asks that you come back to time and time again, because what we pray reveals a great deal about who we are. Because it reveals our truest priorities, like you want to know what you really care about. Look at how you spend your time, and look at how you spend your money. But also look at how you pray, especially in your cloud, not in front of other people in front of other people, you get all pious, I know. But when you’re by yourself in your prayer closet, for what are you praying
was Robert Murray machine is famous for his Bible reading plan, great Scottish preacher of a bygone century said what a man is on his knees before God that he is and nothing more. That’s how you know who you are. Because that’s when you are expressing your deepest desires.
I bring this up, because I would guess that for most of us, the prayer priority that we would see if we were to look at all our prayers, the prayer priority is me, myself and I three really good priorities right there. Maybe the people we love by extension, of course, like I would be happy if my kids are happy. So yes, of course, include them in that also. But so much of our prayer is driven by circumstances and this very narrow sense of what it means to be happy. I mean, perhaps you’re here today, you’re not even really a prayer. If somebody dragged you to churches and like that this is just not really who you are what you believe you still probably pray. I don’t I know very few people who never pray. But when do you pray when circumstances get bad? We saw that this past Sunday, didn’t we? Sunday, Monday, somewhere around there. Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field, and 200 million prayers went up. Again, nothing wrong with that there’s a whole lot of people who weren’t otherwise going to pray that day. And they were praying for circumstances not that a man’s life does not mean anything certainly means a whole lot more than a football game playoff picture, things like that. Sure. But it was just interesting to see that even skeptical people, people who do not actually believe in God, pray when circumstances get hard. And so our prayer priority often if we were to summarize it as God, would you give me the sort of life I’d like to lead.
That’s what a lot of us pray.
Again, maybe that includes some like self improvement stuff. I would like to be a more patient father or something like that. You’re more likely it’s a praying improvement for your spouse and your kids. Sure that one shows up a lot, too. That’s how I’d really like to live my life, you know, but that’s not how Paul prays. Paul does not pray self centered prayers, Paul, praise God centered prayers. So he’s not praying for a change of circumstances but that God would change us in our
or circumstances. And that’s why he asks for what the knowledge of his will, the knowledge of his will that we would know what God would have us do in any given moment. any given situation or circumstance. Not here, hear that word knowledge, I can’t help but think of Proverbs one, verse seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, we’re gonna have any knowledge like this, it’s going to begin with a right understanding of who I am, which is not God, and then who he is, which is God. But even then, the knowledge of his will, what he would have me do in any given moment is not always intuitive.
It’s not always easy to discern. In fact, I suspect we deceive ourselves regularly about how God would have us go.
I can’t tell you how many times as a pastor, I’ve had people in my office saying, I feel at peace, in what is a truly terrible decision. Some that are just like blatantly sinful, where I can go, no, and then you’re it’s says right here, don’t do that. And yet, you’re gonna go on your way. But I feel at peace. That’s what I mean. It’s not intuitive for us, our flesh will often push us in a different direction, in the spirit of God. That’s why we need to pray this. Grace, read it for us earlier. Teach me to do your will, for you, or my God teach me because I don’t necessarily know. And then he even goes on David. He says, May your good spirit lead me on level ground, David knows we need help. Paul knows it to fact, it’s interesting. They both talk about the spirit. He’s Old Testament doesn’t talk about the spirit a lot. And yet here, David is Paul says the same thing. I need a knowledge of his will through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives the counselor who dwells within us, and he’s the one who will go, nope, nope. That way, that way, man that way. Okay. So we need more than just knowledge. We need to discern God’s will, we need to know how to apply that knowledge. What I mean by that is you could memorize every word of this book. And by the way, you would have a much better knowledge of his will, if you were to do that. But we could memorize every word of this book and not know what to do in any given circumstance, necessarily. I’ll give you a really obvious example. There’s a section in Proverbs two verses back to back, the first one says, Do not Answer a fool according to his folly. The very next verse says, Answer a fool according to his folly. It’s not because the Bible contradicts itself. It’s because there’s a time and a place not to Answer a fool according to his folly. That, by the way, is the online comment section. That’s where that happens, right? And then there’s a time and a place to Answer a fool so that you can correct him in that moment.
What do you need, not just knowledge of what the Word says wisdom as to how to apply that knowledge to these specific circumstances. Like I had this this week, I had a text come in, it was the kind of text that when the text came in, like a huge rush of emotions, not all positive ones, by any means, and a whole lot of good ideas for how I’d like to respond right here a
lot of selfishness, right, a lot of stuff. And you know, what kind of situation or maybe there was even some correction that was necessary there. And so I had to stop and think thank goodness, I was in this passage all week long, longer than I did this. And so I prayed, Lord, give me wisdom and understanding spirit, that I might know God’s will for me here. And now before I start typing a reply. So that’s the what? That’s the Ask the request, I need to know what you would have me do in this moment. But what’s the reason for the request? Why does this matter? Let’s keep reading just the first half of verse 10. I told you, we’re going slow today. So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way. So that is the key phrase here. That’s the purpose is Paul saying, here’s why I asked God to give you the knowledge of his will. The wisdom and understanding of the Spirit gives knowledge, wisdom, understanding those are are by the way all very heady words, aren’t they? knowledge, wisdom and understanding are not the goal. They are the means to a much grander and, and what is that end? It’s this that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.
That’s a reason right? Like this is big stuff for sure. Now, live a life worthy of someone else is not how we think as Westerners.
So if you’ve been raised in
In this culture, you’ve been raised with a highly individualistic, you do you sort of mentality. So the idea of living a life worthy of say, your parents or the legacy that you’ve received is for the most part foreign to us would not have been foreign to Paul, or to the people of Colossi were being raised in a shame and honor culture similar to say the East today. So what does this look like Don Carson in his book called spiritual reformation, which is based on the prayers of Paul shares a story of a time he’s a he’s a professor, when a student came to him and it was a Korean student, not a Korean American, but a Korean student.
Who was well on his way to flunking his doctoral work, it had become clear he did not have what it takes to make the grade, he was not going to survive in this program.
But this was a problem, because his parents had sacrificed to get him from Korea to the UK to get him enrolled in this program.
His siblings were telling him you, you cannot come home without a degree. Like that will bring shame to the family.
Again, this is not how most of us think like in our culture, we celebrate people who Buck what society asks of them. This is like a big deal for us. But that’s not Paul’s world. Paul’s world is very much the No, no, you got to live a life worthy of the sacrifice your parents made to send you to this school. Except with this one difference. It’s not that the Westerners have it wrong, and the Easterners have it right, or something like that. Paul, saying it’s something else entirely. We live a life not worthy of our parents, or our culture, our tribe, our clan, we live a life worthy of God.
Which at times means you don’t get to do what you want to do as an individual and at times means you may displease your parents, even. But our purpose is to glorify God. That’s it. That’s our purpose. Taken from the Westminster shorter catechism, our chief end to glorify Him, we were made to magnify the language we use here at Cityview. But you can’t do that if you live a life unworthy of the Lord. And so dishonor him. And I’m talking about that, of course, you just had like 50 Church scandals come to your mind. Most of them pretty recent, even times where people Dishonored Christ, they brought dishonor on the name of Jesus because of how they lived their lives. And that’s not what we want. So instead, we seek to please Him.
The question is, what would delight Jesus here? And now?
If that’s a question that would reorient your life, wouldn’t it?
Any moment you’re about to do something, what would what would delight Jesus?
You’re gonna make different decisions, I can promise you that. Now, here’s the good news. Our relationship to Jesus is not under threat. Because we will often fall short of living that sort of life. And if that meant we fell out of a relationship with Jesus, that would be awful. This is the good news of the gospel, our acceptance does not depend on our performance, thank God.
But still, that doesn’t mean we don’t care what we do. That would be cheap grace, nothing that we’re engaged in here. No, no, we want to please. And it’s much more like a marriage relationship and analogy that God uses for our relationship with him throughout the Bible. I don’t seek to please my wife in the hopes that she’ll stay in the marriage. Because she’s covenanted with me. And I’ve covenanted with her. I seek to please her because will because she complimented with me, right? And so I just want to please her the response of love and gratitude, and that is what drives our relationship with Jesus why we want to please him and bring him glory, but raises the next question, then what would that look like? Exactly? How do we please him in every way, living worthy of him. We’re gonna get four descriptions of the how here, see if you can spot them as I read, I’m gonna finish verse 10. And keep reading through verse 12, bearing fruit and every good work growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious mites that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. And sure you got them for participial phrases. The first one is what bearing fruit and every work.
We are saved by grace alone, not by works, but as the reformers were fond of saying.
Real faith does not remain alone. It is accompanied by work
Oops. They fall is what Paul says in Ephesians. Two by grace, you’ve been saved through faith, this is not from yourselves, it’s a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. And yet we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. They follow from our experience of grace. So were to do the good work that God prepared for us bearing the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, bearing that fruit as we do what God gives us to do. That’s going to look different for different people. Because we have different gifts, different callings, different circumstances, what it looks like for me to bear fruit as a pastor is very different from what it looks like for you to bear fruit as someone who’s heading into a secular job from you know, nine to five or whatever, it so it’s gonna look different from person to person. But the point is, Paul can’t imagine a life that pleases Jesus, without any good works completely foreign to his mind.
So what does this look like to bear fruit? And we’re talking about maturity? Aren’t we? Just simple maturation? So when we take an example that will make sense to us, when we think about somebody maturing, we think about teenagers a lot. What do you want to see in your teenager who is striving to follow Jesus? Well, you know, at a certain point in your life in their life, you’re going to ask them to do the dishes. And they’re gonna roll your eyes.
They’re gonna SAS you. And you have to remind them like six more times, you have to take the phone away, and then the TV away, and then they’re locked in their room for a week or two. And, but what happens by the end, if they’re growing in Jesus, they’re bearing fruit in every way, you’re gonna look up and realize, oh, the dishes are done. I didn’t ask anyone. I didn’t demand any there were no threats laid down. That’s what God wants to see in our lives as well. We just, we’ve changed. It just happens now because we are more like Jesus than when we started. And then what Kyle said last week, and then our prayer for the year. So we started on January 1, we said, okay, by December 31 2023, I just want to look more like Jesus. That’s it. That’s the goal. And that’s what it means to bear fruit in every work. Whatever area that might be probably several areas. I want to speak words of affirmation more often than I do, I want to complain less than I otherwise, do. I want to find a way to serve in the church, that the body of Christ may be built up whatever it is, I want to mature, I want to grow up this year. Second thing.
Second, how have we please come anyways, growing in the knowledge of God. Interestingly, this is what Paul had asked for initially, right? I mean, it was the knowledge of his will. But certainly, there’s some overlap. So we got kind of a chicken and the egg thing here, I think, because one leads to the other builds on the other, the more you know, God, the more you obey Him,
but in the process of obeying Him, you know him more, you know, the goodness of his commands, the wisdom of what he asks of us, you know, his faithfulness, and so you obey him even more. And so it just keeps growing and growing. Let me just give you an example. This is from my Bible reading this week just happen to be in Matthew chapter five, and reading about how a Christians word should be their bond. Yes, should be yes and no should be no, should never have to say I swear I’m telling the truth. Because how could you ever do otherwise? So as you choose to live, truthfully, I now I know the command. And so I’m obeying. I’m choosing to live truthfully, what happens you begin to know Jesus as himself the truth, the embodiment of truth. You know, his faithfulness, because God’s promises are always yes and amen. In Christ, God’s word never changes until you delight in Him, you love and worship him even more, which makes you want to do what? Obey even more. Do you see how that just keeps growing? The more you know him, the more you want to obey Him. The more you obey Him, the more you learn of him, growing in the knowledge of God’s third, being strengthened with all his might, so that you can endure. It’s interesting, Paul, in a number of places, prays that we would experience resurrection power, the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and yet it’s almost always not that we would know this power so that we could do spectacular miracles and split the Red Sea and things like that, but just so that we would live well live as Christians, live as those who please and honor Christ. They praise us a lot. We can see this in Ephesians especially
Why does he keep praying or we would need resurrection power just to live the Christian life is because the Christian life is hard.
And the journey is long.
And you will not make it without the endurance, and stamina that he gives that he produces in you. Now, again, I am so grateful for the promises we have, that Jesus will keep us that our perfect perseverance is not up to us. Thank God John chapter six, Jesus says, Of all those the Father has given Me I will not lose even one. Hebrews chapter seven, he will save us to the uttermost, this is good news.
But there’s a flip side to all these promises. The flip side is okay, but yeah, that’s only true if you if you’re somebody who actually makes it to the end, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, kind of assumes that the saints will persevere doesn’t it feels like that’s part of what’s being taught there.
So what does this look like, though God is teaching us to persevere, he’s teaching us to be stronger to have more stamina, I have little kids in the house. So right now we’re in that stage where it was some of them, you know, going down the stairs, holding the hand, I’m pretty much just pulling them down the stairs, you know, like, there’s no weight on those feet, because they got no balance, and they got no strength and the stairs are like 18 feet high for them.
That will change. Eventually, they will go down the stairs on their own without my help. That’s what we’re hoping and maturity. Well, that’s what God is doing for us, the spirit will never let go of our hand. That’s the one difference. Of course, I think that’s glory is when we start walking the stairs by ourselves. But we should be getting better and better and better at this. Okay. But if that’s the goal, then think how this changes our prayers, when circumstances are difficult.
Because is the prayer at that point? Get me out, or grow me up? Would you use this to strengthen me? And we take the analogy of a personal trainer. So you paid the money to hire a personal trainer? Can you imagine sitting there you’re doing your benchpress or something like that and be like,
you know, Bob,
when I’m doing the bench press, I feel like it hurts. Like my pecs and my triceps like they’re sore afterwards. And like, I feel like I’m straining here, I get sweaty, just gross. Can we do something else? Can you just lift this off of me? And let’s do the massage and the steam and call it a day?
Tell me that’s not how we pray though? Isn’t that exactly how we pray?
God, what do you really want from personal trainer is that somebody who gives you just enough help that you can keep going, you reach that point where like, you know, blood vessels popping in your eyes and stuff. And they’re like, Okay, I’ll give you the one finger on the bar so that you can get all right, one more up. So the next week, you can actually do it. That’s what God should be doing in our lives so that we grow stronger. I had a difficult moments this week. You know, tough stuff came in kind of thing. And my first response was, Lord, would you lift the burden?
Bob, my pecs hurt kind of thing, right? That was my first response. But I was literally writing the sermon at the time. And so I was like, oh, man, all right. We should probably do this differently. So the prayer became No, no, Lord, would you keep the burden? Would you give me as much help as I need so that I can actually finish this exercise and grow stronger in the process. And all that would lead to the fourth howl, which is giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has made and is making us ready for His coming Kingdom.
Again, let’s ask a question before we dig into the text, though, for what do you think God?
Most often, there is nothing wrong with thanking God for it all. I am all for thanking God that the rain held off and you could have sunshine for your picnic. Why? Because
every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. James 117. So if every good and perfect gift is from Him, then of course we should thank him for all of them like I am for promiscuous gratitude towards people and especially towards the Lord. But like prayer, because it is a type of prayer. Of course, gratitude reveals our hearts.
When are you most likely to pause and thank God? Is it when you get the raise? Or is it when you remember that you’ve been raised to new life when you’re healthy
When your holy
so often we give thanks for easy circumstances instead of the eternal glory, that God is storing up for us. But we know what to be thankful for. Because Paul’s already shown us in verses four to six, we should be thankful when we see that we, the people around us are growing in faith in love, when their hope is certain when the gospel is bearing fruit in our lives and across the world. Those are the times when we stop and give thanks. By the way, growing in faith and love and the gospel bearing fruit. Those are the exact same words that Paul uses in verse 10, to have the other house like this is another heavenly spiral that we’ve got going here. We ask Him for what matters most. And then we thank him when he gives it.
But this is another one, it’s it’s worth stopping and checking. When do I think I’d like parents? For what are you most thankful in your kids lives? Is it that they got that D up to the sea? They’re going to move on to the next grade? That’s a good thing. Thank God for that.
Or is it that God is producing the character of Christ in them? Well, that seems more important, doesn’t it?
But that last phrase is so interesting, giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the entire inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light, who was qualified. I mean, this points us to what matters most indeed. Here’s the way Don Carson says it same book that I mentioned earlier, if God had perceived our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian, or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician, if he perceived our greatest need was healthy would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him our profound rebellion, our death, and he sent us a savior. That takes us to the last section, The Who, verses 13 and 14, let me read them for us now. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom, the sun he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
As Paul remembers what the father has done for us in Christ, he bursts forth in praise. So much praise in fact that it actually continues. It’s our whole passage next week is just this hymn of praise to Christ.
So in these verses, Paul lays the only foundation on which we can build this sort of prayer life, Christ, and Him crucified, the gospel that was proclaimed.
by our nature, we belong to the kingdom of darkness. We come into this world as subjects of the kingdom of darkness, we are born in sin, and rebellion. Everyone knows this. You can be a hardened atheist. And you still know this is true. Why? Because no one has ever had to teach their kids to be selfish.
You have to teach them to say thank you. You have to teach them not to take the toy that they want, or the other kid’s hand, yes, you’ll never have to teach them to take the toy out of the kid’s hand. They come in with that innate Lee. That’s all that’s being talked about here. We don’t need to learn to sin because we are born into the kingdom of darkness, which is the kingdom of selfishness.
But that’s not the end of the story. Because we just celebrated Christmas, didn’t we? And that’s a new chapter in the story. When God Himself the second member of the Trinity, enters the kingdom of darkness, to plunder it to rescue and transfer us to the kingdom of light. Like when God plucked Israel out of Egypt,
to the Promised Land, that’s what God does for us in Christ so that we now live in the kingdom of light, the Kingdom where the king is Jesus in whom we have redemption, and the forgiveness of sins. Now, this is important. Paul is not just tacking the Jesus bit onto the end of his sermon here. helpful is that is so that I can tack the Jesus bit onto the end of my sermon here. What he is saying, in 13, and 14 is absolutely essential to prayer.
Partly because we cannot pray apart from the work of Christ, the only reason we can enter into God’s throne room, speak to our father at three in the morning when we need a glass of water is because we come in Christ, and Christ is the beloved son. And so when we come in Him, God looks on us and sees us as His beloved child.
So it’s absolutely essential prayer generally, especially
In light of what the Colossians are struggling with, because they’re being tempted to abandon Jesus to just see him as one among many emanations of God. So being tempted to abandon him for hip, new solutions to their problems, as we’re going to see in the coming weeks won’t get into it all. Now, the question has been tempted to turn to other figures like angels for that wisdom and understanding of the Spirit gives, ironically trying to please God by doing the very things that displease him, which is why Paul’s writing the letter. So Paul redirects attention
to Christ, our life, the only one in whom life is found Christ, the hope of glory, this is redirection that we need
now to, because we are always tempted to turn from Jesus, to trust ourselves, to find hip new solutions to our problems, why try prayer, to some invisible sky fairy when you can try mindfulness? Or check out the latest self help book from the library? Why? Because Jesus is the wisdom of God. That’s why the wisdom of God who secured our salvation, conquered our enemies and gives us all we need. And if he is as important, as we say he is, and as we’ll keep seeing in the rest of this series, that should change our prayers markedly. So. That’s the idea I want to leave you with this morning. It is something we’re getting from the text today. Absolutely. And it’s something that we’re going to see the truthfulness of in increasing measures. We continue throughout this series. Here’s the main idea. Pray, like you believe what you say about Jesus.
Pray like you believe what you say about Jesus. Like if he really is our life, if he is enough, if he is our salvation, the wisdom and power of God, that should change how we pray, and becoming like him, knowing how to please Him is the main priority that should change how we pray, pray, like you believe what you say about Jesus pray, God’s priorities, pray, like Paul,
like you got the What the Why, and the how, right.
Because you know, and love, and are seeking to please, the who
we pray to our Father, not a distant desperate, not a cosmic killjoy. We pray to our Father, a father who loved us in his son and at the cost of his son, he is for us and not against us. He who did not spare His own Son gave him up for us all, how will we not also along with him, graciously give us all things? Well, that’ll change how we pray. And if he won’t, how will he not graciously give us all things within how were we not seek to please Him, then? In our prayers, it’s the only possible response.
There’ll be no more self centered prayers.
No more me myself and I prayers, no more tentative prayers is that we were twisting his arm trying to convince him of something he didn’t want to do no more tit for tat prayers. Lord, if you do this, I promise out, no more excuses.
Not too busy to pray, because I know at what cost. The possibility of prayer was one for me not to ashamed to pray, because in Him we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins, and no more self reliant prayers, because Christ is our life. And we are not our own life. No, let’s pray, like we believe what we say about Jesus to pray God’s priorities. Let’s pray like Paul, let’s pray now.
Father, our prayer is exactly what we just studied.
That today, even in this moment, you would give us a knowledge of your will, through the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,
in order that we may live a life worthy of you worthy of the gospel worthy of the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf, that we might please you in every way.
As we bear fruit, as we grow,
as we are strengthened, to persevere, to do your will. And as we give you thanks for all the many blessings that you have showered upon us in Christ, every spiritual blessing in him, the riches of heaven, open to us.
Lord, would you make that true of us as we continue in this series as we grow in our knowledge of who you are, who Christ is and what he’s done for us, when you grow up?
and how we respond to that knowledge as well to your glory Amen

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Songs of Praise (Isaiah 12) January 1, 2023 | Kyle Bjerga TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Good morning, Happy New Year to you. Go ahead and grab your Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter 12. Find that a page 563 If you’re using when the black pew Bibles in front of you. So the calendar has turned. And for some of us, that is a welcome turn, couldn’t wait to get out of 2022 for all sorts of different reasons. For others, it’s been a joy of the year, it’s been one that you’ve enjoyed reflecting on and thanking God for. For many of us here, though, it probably came and it went or it came. And it’s here without a whole lot of thought, without a whole lot of reflection on things without a whole lot of joy. It’s just another year that has turned for some of us since 2020. We just wrote calendars, because why pay attention to them anyways? Right? Because we never know what’s gonna happen in a year. And so for some, it feels very different today. And for others, it just feels like another day. But the truth is for all of us, 2023 lies before us. We don’t know what to expect. There are a lot of predictions out there, maybe you spent some time last couple weeks looking at these different things. And there’s not a lot of positive things that people are looking forward to. So actually a lot more negative things, things like the economy, and politics, and the environment, and mental health. These are all things that people have predictions for, but they’re not looked at positively, rather than negatively. What are the impact of these things going to be? What’s interesting is even with all that negativity, two thirds of Americans still hope that 2023 is gonna be better than 2022. Why? Well, because we don’t like going into a new year with a negative attitude, right? We want to at least think this is going to be better than last year. But no one knows what’s going to happen. Nobody knows what’s coming in this year. But most of us have lived long enough to know, there’s gonna be some challenges, there’s gonna be some victories, there’s gonna be some good things, there’s gonna be some bad things. So the question for us then is, as Christians, how do we approach 2023? How do we approach this year? And then how as Christians as we go throughout this year, can we face the unknowns? The things that we aren’t sure about quite yet. Or maybe there are things we know are coming. So how do we face those and as we finish up our series, the Jesse tree, we’re going to be in Isaiah chapter 12. And it actually helps us answer these questions with one simple word. praise. Praise. That’s it. That’s the big idea for this morning is to make 2023 a year of praise. Okay, make 2023 a year of praise, have that attitude going into this year, and have that attitude be the thing that carries you each and every day. So Israel and Judah, as we’ve seen throughout this series, have had this kind of sneak peek at what was coming in their future. They didn’t know what was coming in the year ahead or decades ahead. And it wasn’t a pretty picture. If you’ve been with us, we’ve seen sin and rebellious SNESs. And corrupt living has brought God’s righteous judgment on the people. And yet, there’s these glimmers of hope throughout all of these passages that we’ve looked at in the last number of weeks, to see that there is actually hope. But that hope is all coming in very, very dark days. Very dark times for the people. And yet, what does Isaiah do and Isaiah 12, after all of his really bad news, with his glimmers of hope is he praises God, He gives us gives us songs of praise. Because what Isaiah knows is that God is a good God. God is a good king, and he is going to bring a remnant back, these people who are going to be exiled, they’re going to come back and they can have hope in God’s salvation. We have more reason now of celebrating because we have the coming of Jesus Christ. So what we’ve been celebrating this past week, so we should stand up and prays to approach this year. And everything that comes at us with praise will radically change the way we live our lives. So make 2023 a year of praise. So I’m going to read all of Isaiah 12. And then we’re going to come back to it and kind of split it up into a couple of sections. But there is a beautiful praise of God here for his saving work. And then a beautiful call to take our praise to the world, making God known to others. So that’s how we’re going to break the passage down. We’re gonna look at personal praise and public praise. But let’s read all of Isaiah 12 together. In that day you will say, I will praise you Lord, although you are angry with me your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely God Is my son ovation, I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord Himself is my strength and my defense, he has become my salvation. With joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say, give praise the Lord, proclaim His name, make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things. Let this be known to all the world, shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion for great is the Holy One of Israel, among you. So chapter 12, is connected to chapters 10 and 11, by that phrase that we hear over and over again here in that day. So we saw it in chapter 10, verses 20 and 27. We saw it in chapter 11, on Christmas Eve and verses 10 and 11. Get it two more times here. So what does this phrase mean in that day, so in that day means that there is a future day a day still coming. That’s what he’s telling the people, there is a day that is coming, where you will say, The Lord is my salvation. The Lord has done these great things. So he’s saying you will return there will be a remnant. And you will say God is my salvation. In that day. In that day, you will tell others about what he has done. And that day does come because the people do come back from exile. So physically, that day comes and they can physically say God is our salvation like he has taken us from exile back to our home, he has done that so physically, but there is a greater fulfillment of this passage in us. When spiritually we can say God is my salvation, right where he saves us. So let’s look at these first three verses. Because really, we get personal praise here. Can we get personal praise? So what does Isaiah saying to the people here at the beginning, though, is that God was angry with you, that God then saved you. And God sustains and satisfies you. Now that we’ve seen those first three verses, what does that sound like to you? Kind of like our own testimony, right? Your spiritual journey, your faith journey, whatever you call it. When we hear this, we should say, oh, that’s exactly what my story is like. That’s what we hear when people are baptized. Over here. That’s a story that we hear. This is who I was. This is what God has done. And this is what God is doing now. So let’s go. There’s three parts here. So the first in verse one gives us the who we were who I was, I will praise you, Lord, although you are angry with me. Your anger is turned away, do you have comforted me? Why here the bad news again? Why? It’s come up over and over again in this series, because God was angry. God was angry at sin and rebellion. But there’s a key word there. God was angry. You see that God was angry with me. And we know from the New Testaments, we’ve heard, we were by nature deserving of God’s wrath. That’s who we were. What else we lived apart from Christ, we were excluded from citizenship. All of these were true, but not anymore. That’s the beauty of the past tense. This is what you were, this was true of you. So it’s a good reminder, we need this reminder, because we will presume upon God’s grace, because that’s our sinful nature. So we’ll just presume upon God’s grace. So this is part of our story, the fact that God was angry with us, could you imagine someone getting up before a baptism getting in there and telling us their story? And their story was this? Well, I decided to follow Jesus because, well, I figured he’d want me. I’m a pretty good person. I mean, imagine that like that would shake us if we heard that. Or I like some of what the Bible says, and I think I can bring some good to this church. You know, fill in some gaps, here and there. That would shock us. Or someone just gets in and says, I couldn’t it couldn’t hurt to be on God’s side, right?
No, baptism, pictures are death. Because we’re sinners, because God was angry with us, and it had to be paid for. So that death that Jesus died, we get to be brought into that in him, buried with Him and His death and raised the newness of life with him because he conquered the grave. So he went down for our sins. And when he comes up we come up with and not because of anything we did, but but because of what he did for us. God will was angry with us. We were apart from Christ. And hopefully we see that his anger was just and rights that when we give our testimony we say this is who I was. This is what I did deserve. But this is what God did. So his anger fell on Jesus, so that we could get this comfort that we see in verse one, which makes the good news. This next part such good news, what God did look at verse two, surely God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord Himself is my strength and my defense, he has become my salvation. God saves. God is my salvation. Now, there have been hints throughout the Jesse tree series, where we’ve looked at some of these Messianic prophecies about this coming messiah, this coming King, that we like to read at Christmas time, and rightfully so. But oftentimes, we forget kind of what the context is, of all these things. So that’s what we’ve been looking at throughout the series. But here’s some of the hints of salvation that we’ve talked about. Even in the last few weeks, Isaiah seven, The virgin will conceive and give birth to his son, and you will call him, Immanuel. God with us, a hint of God’s salvation coming. Isaiah nine, this child will be born, we’ll call them Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace, of the greatness of His government and peace, there will be no and he will bring on David’s throne. Isaiah 11, looked at a Christmas Eve, a shoot from the stump of Jesse, as you see in represented in the picture. There, a king was coming, who would bring his kingdom, a new kingdom. And all of that, those hints, those glimmers of hope. All of that was pointing to what we just celebrated, in Bethlehem, with Jesus Christ. Eight days after Jesus born, his parents bring him to Jerusalem, to do what they’re supposed to do. And they meet this righteous and devout man named simian, in seeming takes Jesus in his arms. And this is what he says, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servants in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation. That’s, that’s what we praise God for. That’s what can bring us into this new year and sustain us throughout the year, to know that our salvation has come. And part of our story, then is we respond, we respond with trust. That’s what it says, I will trust and not be afraid. Because we know who God is. We know what he has done. What he has saved us from that has brought us great comfort, because we don’t fear him like we once did. Because his anger now has brought comfort instead. So what is faith? That’s, it’s putting your trust in, it’s standing with standing behind God and saying, I am with him. We’re not putting our salvation in ourselves any longer. Because we cannot save ourselves. That’s something only God and God alone can do. So his anger turns from being against us to being a comfort for us. And then it says something interesting here says that he is our strength in our defense, he has become my salvation. What does that mean? It means simply that Jesus is everything. He’s our strength is our defensive salvation. He is everything to us and encompasses all of it. So when we live this Christian life, listen to what Martha Martin Luther says about this verse. Christians are surrounded by countless evils and varieties of death. Many are their enemies and detractors. But God provides wings so that they may fly away. Christ is with them and preserves them and does not destroy them. That’s the God who saves and he deserves our praise. To the third thing that what do I do now? What does my life look like? Now look at verse three. With joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation. We draw water with joy, with joy from the wells of salvation. What a Wells mean? Wells mean life. That’s, that’s what it means it’s water. It’s a source of life. You don’t go on a journey without wells along the way. You need to know so you equip yourself you make sure you have lots of water to start, then you go on your journey, you’re gonna go the way where you know there’s sources of water. Because you know, if you go too long that that could mean your life. So you need to be sustained and satisfied throughout your journey. Now, the amazing thing we see here is these wells of salvation are ones that never run out. And they never run out because they’re wells of salvation. Well, who is our salvation? God, God never runs out. So salvation will never run out. These wells will never run dry. So we come with joy. Come with joy, because we know, because we know that when we get there, there’s something for us. When we show up, there’s always something there for us every single time. One of the things that we talked about at Cityview, is that we want to be gospel, fluent. People want to speak the gospel. And what that means is we want to see every area of our life, we want to bring the gospel message to bear on all areas of our lives. And that’s what it looks like to have these different wells of salvation. There’s one way to salvation that is through Jesus Christ. So these multiple wells are not multiple ways to be saved. That’s not what it’s talking about. It’s about there’s multiple ways that you can tap into get the water, get the life from that salvation, all sorts of ways. Because we realize that the truth of the gospel are deep. They can be viewed from all sorts of angles. And then we think back to our former life, and we think how many times that I try and dig wells, myself, what wells that I keep running, running back to thinking they were going to satisfy and they didn’t, so I had to create new ones. But here, it never runs dry. No matter what when we dig, we will find these wells of salvation. It is a living water, living water. We heard it read this morning, the woman at the well in Samaria. In John chapter four. Jesus shows up and she has all the tools necessary to get water. And so Jesus says, Can you give me a drink, and quickly their conversation turns from the physical water to something much greater the spiritual water that Jesus offers. And that’s what he says he answered Everyone who drinks this water from a well, a physical well will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst, and tea, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. We don’t need to keep looking for new things, new ways, new people, we go to the one person who saved us, because he never runs out. These wells of salvation will never run dry. Everything this woman here in John four is looking for everything we are looking for is found in Jesus Christ. Not only is it where it can be found one time, but it’s that constant sustaining and satisfaction for us. Always, we don’t run to Jesus once. Don’t ever think that we don’t ever just run to him once and then walk away. We run to him every single day. Because we need him every single day. And when we find him, when we go to that, well, it will not be dry. Listen to what John Piper says about these wells says the wells of salvation are the places and the times where you draw nearer to God, and drink from the fountain of living water that he is. So there are as many wells in your life as there are meetings with God. There are many, I hope meetings with God and they can be had in the most horrible places, emergency rooms, the grave sides, the hospital beds in the counseling offices, there are places where God will bubble up for you, if you will pause and drink from him. We go into the wells of salvation. Now there’s a movement we didn’t talk about here from the first couple of verses, verse three, and that will continue through the rest of the chapter. And this is the fact that the you here in verse three is actually a plural, you. So he’s taking this very personal thing now and including the community, the whole body together. So we as the body of Christ as brothers and sisters must be running to the wells of salvation, Together. Together. The point is that this true this if this is a true community of believers, we are a bunch of individuals who are saved to something we’re saved to a family. We’re saved to a community. And we’re all pursuing Jesus together. That’s what makes Sunday such a vital and special time. Because we’re running to the wells together. It’s a reminder that we don’t have to live nor are we ever intended to live the Christian life alone.
That was never the plan. So our testimony, which is really what these first few verses are talking about is very personal. We recognize who we are apart from Christ and our imperfection. You know that even as God’s enemies he said, I’m going to make you mine. And that is the real personal aspect of our faith that God looks at you and me and says son, or daughter, perfect in his sight through the blood of His Son. And yet, we are not called to see It home alone, or with our family, or even with our church and just talk about this together, we’re called to do more. That’s what the second half tells us that there needs to be public praise. So moving from personal to public, look at verses four through six. I’m just gonna read them again for us and then talk through them a little bit. First Four, and that day you will say, Give, praise the Lord, proclaim His name, make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things. Let this be known to all the world, shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel, among you. So public praise. So the first thing we know publicly, what are we doing, we’re telling people who God is. Right? That’s what we need to do. We see that here throughout we see that with the Holy One of Israel. This is God, the Holy One of Israel, his name matters. Earlier it said the Lord, the Lord Himself is my strength and my defense. And it’s very intentionally to put the Lord the Lord Himself, because it’s this, it’s this using his name a couple times to really emphasize that God is the one who brings salvation. And so God’s name really matters. It’s his name we proclaim. We don’t proclaim our church’s name. We don’t proclaim our name, our family name, we proclaim the name of Jesus. And no one else’s. People around us, people in our workplaces, in our schools, they don’t know who God is. Okay, they have an idea of a god. But they don’t know who this God is. Are we telling them? Are we showing them? Are we correcting them? Trying to point them to exactly who he is. Next week in the New City catechism. Our question is, what is God? Can you answer that? What is God? Like? Do we have a definition? Do we have things we can tell someone, this is what he is like, and this is what he is not like. And then is everything we say grounded in God’s word, as he’s revealed Himself to us or in our experience? Hope it’s grounded in his word first, and then the experiences that we share will just confirm what we’ve already seen in this book. Who is God? What does he do? Do people around you at least that they’re rejecting God? Are they rejecting the right? God? That’s the question we need to ask. Because if people end up believing in the God of their own making, if they end up believing in a god, other than the one that we see in the Bible, then they are not saved. Because they’re creating their own gods. We need to make sure people understand who is this guy? What is his name? What is he like? And then the second thing that we see throughout these three verses, is what has he done? What has he done? So first, I’m gonna, we’re gonna start to get very practical, we’re gonna be very, very practical here in a minute. But I’m gonna I’m gonna start here, because I think this is important for us. Because what we what we don’t see here in this text is we’re not talking about defending God, defending the faith, having all the right answers. So what is the public praise that we’re supposed to take to the world? The wonderful things, the glorious things that God has done. Which means that’s your story. That’s your life, if you know Christ, so first, you share your testimony with people, you tell them your story, you tell them of the glorious things that God has done in your life, because nobody can fight you on that. This is what God has done in your life. This is how you see God work. These are the prayers you’ve seen answered, and you share that with them. And then hopefully, your words match your actions. And they’re able to see that you actually do these things, because of what you believe. That’s really what Matthew five is getting at very familiar passage. In the same way. Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Why are they going to glorify Your good deeds? Or why are they going to glorify your Father because of your good deeds because they know it’s backed up? This is backing up what you already said. He said, I follow him. And these are the things that I do. And then people are going to take notice of that. So first, you share your testimony, the glorious and wonderful things that he has done in your life. The second thing is you can share about the glorious things that he has done in other people’s lives in our church. His faithfulness on The mission field, no stories of other believers, something that will connect with somebody you know, and share those stories. Third, you can point them to the gospel to show them what he has done for them. Make sure they know that this God who has done this for you have also made a way for them to be saved, and made sure that that is clear. These are wonderful things, glorious things that the Lord has done, and people need to know about them. And the Lord has tasked us with this look at Romans 10. How then, can they call in the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? That’s us. How beautiful are the feet of those of us who go and publicly praise God, publicly tell people what he has done? And who he is. So how can 2023 be a year of praise? By simply returning to the wells of salvation, over and over again? How can we make sure that we look more like Jesus at the end of 2023, than we do today? I share this with you guys every year at this time. That’s my goal every year, I want to look more like Jesus at the end of one year, or at the beginning. Yes, how’s that? I want to look more like Jesus at the end of 2023 than I do now on day one. That’s my goal every year, it’s a very simple goal. And it’s a very simple way to get there return to the wells of salvation, stop looking at my own efforts, my own ways of getting there and look to Jesus and the wells that will never run dry. So we can we always take time, in this first Sunday to really kind of talk through some different resources and strategies and tips and things for all of you to really help you in your growth in Christ this upcoming year. And so I want to do that. And I want to do that by walking through these couple sections that we’ve looked at through this text. All right, so we’re gonna just kind of follow our outline. So the first thing and if you’re taking notes, excuse me, if you’re taking notes, this would be the time you know, if you’re like to scratch out some ideas, some thoughts, I’ll be kind of rattling off a bunch of different ones, for us. But first, for personal praise for 2023. Okay, dig deep into the wells of salvation. And how do we access these wells? God’s word, right, number one, God’s word. That’s how we access what these wells are, what the salvation is, how deep it goes, and how it applies to our lives. So reading through the Bible, you guys, if you get the policy saw it this past week, Brandon sent it out with a bunch of different reading plans that you can use for reading through the Bible in a year or two years, or however long it’s going to take you. And so that’s definitely an option. So consider doing that. Look at some of those plans. Something else, where you can walk through the Bible, in a year or two years, or at least some intentional time of having a plan for reading through large portions of Scripture. This year, at the very least, take one of the bookmarks, every sermon series, this is the one for Colossians coming up, take a bookmark every time and read it once a week or daily and answering the questions on the back. If you want to dig deep into God’s word, if you want to dig deep into the wells of salvation, then come on Sunday morning, not hearing this text for the first time. But maybe for the second time, the fifth time, the seventh time you’re hearing this text, you’ve got all these questions that you’ve been walking through. And so you are prepared. So what does it look like to dig deep into the wells of salvation? It means not just showing up on Sunday morning and hearing it once. But being in it all week? And then you hear the message and you say, Oh, that makes sense of this. I had that question, or I have more questions. Or oh, that’s what that looks like, in my life.
If you do that, I guarantee you will not walk away on a Sunday morning. Right without some sort of change without some sort of aha moment. Some that you were not expecting as you walked in, because you’ve been digging deep. And so I encourage you to do that. You could also go on our website, on the resources page and find our Listen well document that really just helps you prepare for Sunday morning with how you praying for your heart, how you’re going to receive the words, how you’re going to talk through what you hear in the message, both right after the service, and then in the week to come. So I would encourage you to go download that on the website as well. And then one book I just want to highlight for you because I know one of the one of the things is some of you you’ve read through the Bible many many times. And some of you have shared things like I just feel stuck. It just feels like it’s rote. Like I’m just doing this again. I’m not really getting out of it. It’s very dry. These are All things that I’ve heard before from people. I had somebody just a couple years ago, tell me, I read through the Bible once. So what do I do now? I don’t know what he was looking for. Not a different book. It’s gonna still be the Bible. But it was kind of that point like, well, I did it. So what, like, I kind of know it now. It’s like, well, you’re not digging deep into the wells of salvation at that point. So one of these books that might be helpful for you is called before you open your Bible. It’s nine heart postures for approaching God’s word. Things like coming to God’s word prayerfully, expectantly, obediently, joyfully. So nine different ways that we can come to God’s word. And I encourage you just read through that. And say, like, I want to read my Bible this year, expectedly. Like, I’m gonna pray through God’s promises, expecting he’s going to do something, or I’m going to go to God’s word saying, I want to obey this year. And so every time I come to, there’s something I can do as a result of what I’m reading. So I would highly encourage you to read that before you start a plan this year, if you could find your heart in that place, where you’re just not where you feel like it’s drier, or nothing’s happening. So we access these wells through His Word and through prayer. Couple things with prayer in the polls every week, we have a little section there that’s helping you pray for different ministries, different people in the church, different leaders. So I encourage you to start there, if you’re looking for a list to pray through. The other thing is we gave a book away earlier this year for free, called praying the Bible. So if you have that book, I would recommend reading through that. And just saying, if you need to start somewhere, start there. In the passage of scripture that you’re reading, like you’re taking classes this week, you’re taking classes one, one through 14, and you are going to pray through that portion of Scripture, praying God’s words back to him. Right. So leaning into that, and using that, to pray, I guarantee you if you do that, you will access these wells. And you’ll be able to access them throughout the week, because you know where you’re going, and how you’re going to pray. Finally, for this section, do this in community. Okay, we’re not meant to do this in isolation. Our personal faith brings us into community. So if you want to dig deep, you have to do this with others. So that is with community groups, because we dig into what we study on Sunday mornings in the service together. So you get to hear what other people have been thinking throughout the week, what other people heard and how they’re responding to it, and how they’re letting it change their life. And hearing from other people will also help you sharpen again, what your understanding is, and then maybe challenge you with how you’re responding and how you’re living. Journey groups, we do this with the gospel waltz, what does it mean to repent and believe and obey? And not just do that the first time we come to Jesus, but what do we what does it look like day in and day out? We continue to live this Gospel out. repent, believe and obey. Explore our classes. Starting next week, we will usually have three classes running upstairs, sometimes four, sometimes two, but there always at least be three. And these are the places to go to dig deeper into certain topics, books of the Bible themes that we can’t always get to on a Sunday morning in a sermon. So it’s great time to come and be more equipped with again, how you can take these truths of God’s Word and bring them into your life. And then finally, just read other good books. And I would encourage you this year to find a really good book to study God’s character to know him better. So three all mentioned quickly knowing God by J. I packer, holiness of God by RC Sproul and the knowledge of the holy by AW Tozer. If you get one of those and read that alongside with your Bible, you’re going to see and understand who God is, and your view and vision of who God is, is going to grow this year. And just quick plug our library is up and running. So when you’re getting your Christmas cards, the books are back out there for you to go and take and bring back when you’re done. But all three of those books I believe are in there. So first come first serve, don’t fight over them, but they are there for you. So that’s personal praise. Another way that we dig deep in the wells of salvation is to tell others about Jesus. So public praise for 2023 A couple quick things who was on your oil cost list? Okay, who is that those people that sphere of influence that you have? These are people you know are not Christians. Okay. People you know are not are you are really not sure where they are. And they’re on this list and you are praying for them regularly. You’re talking to other people about them regularly asking them to pray for them as well. And just saying what is my next step, my next opportunity to take this praise public with them? What does that look like this year? I would also get to know other people’s spiritual journeys. Remember, we’re just telling people what God has done in your life. So why don’t you sit down with somebody else and just say, Hey, can you share with me where you’ve been? What you think of God what you think of the church? Why you are here today? and just listen, don’t talk, just listen to them, and get to know their stories. And then ask if you could share yours. Ask if you could share yours, we’re going to have a Christianity explored class after Easter. That’s very intensely for those who want to know and check out what Christianity is all about. So hopefully, you’re gonna bring some people here and they’re gonna get plugged in that class or you come to that class, get a very basic understanding of what Christianity is, and what people need to hear about it. So that you’re better equipped to go out and take that to those in your own costs list. Serve with one of our partner ministries, ici carry network ministries like that, that are outside the church or partner some of our mercy and compassion ministries here in the church like clothes closet, like cap, right? So looking for those opportunities to say I want I want to not just say I believe this, I want actually want to live this out. I want people to see this in my life. So maybe getting plugged into one of those. And then looking at who did you invite to Christmas Eve? So here’s the thing, some people who invited people to Christmas Eve actually came way more did not. Don’t let that be the last time you ask them anything until Easter. Okay, like what what is your handoff? What are you going to do between now and Easter between now and next Christmas, where you’re going to have some sort of follow up with them. So who was that pray for them, pray for that conversation. And then a quick word families in the family ministry newsletter that’s gonna go out this week, I’m gonna be giving you a lot of things in there for your family to look at for this upcoming year for how you can get more plugged in to God’s Word in prayer. And then also with the new city catechism and kind of taking advantage that as a family, so be on the lookout for that this week. So all of what we talked about this morning should sound very familiar to you. I hope it was encouraging. I hope there was nothing really new. I don’t think there probably was. But something that shouldn’t sound familiar is this sounded an awful lot like our mission as a church. What is our mission as a church?
To equip people to magnify Christ, and to serve others, made to magnify, sent to serve me to magnify personal praise, sent to serve public praise. We make much of Jesus in our life, we make much of Jesus with others. And that is our mission as a church. We spend time worshiping God, we know he is what he has done. And he’s called us to go out and take that news and to serve others, as well. So as we approach 2023, with praise, and we continue in 2023, with praise, we know that no matter what comes our way, what comes at us, that God is our salvation. So I want to read from Milton Vincent Psalm, we’ve come back to over and over again. But I just feel these are words that I want you and I think you need to hear this morning, as we head into 2023, not knowing what is ahead of us. But if you are in Jesus Christ, this is true for you. Just listen to these words, for the gospel is the one that great permanent circumstance in which I live and move. And every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves his gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realized that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realized instead that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every aspect of my life, including my severest trials, the good news about my trials that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes, and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ. That is who we are in Christ for this year. So let’s praise Him for that glorious truth. Let’s pray. Lord, we thank You. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you’ve done for us. Are we thank you that we live in this permanent circumstance of being your sons and your daughters. Lord, I pray for this years we don’t know what’s ahead. For any of us, we don’t know what’s ahead for this church. But we do know you are there. We do know this is who we are in Christ. And so there are we praise you now. We praise you with our prayers. We praise you with our voices. We’re gonna praise you around this table, as well. As we remember what you did, to remember the cost to your life for us Jesus we love you and we pray this in Your name amen

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The King Has Come (Isaiah 11) December 24, 2022 | Brandon Cooper TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Well, good evening. Welcome again. You’re gonna go out and grab your Bibles open up to Isaiah chapter 11 will be in Isaiah chapter 11 this evening. It is Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year I’ve been told many times throughout my life, the lights are on outside the decorations are here inside you hear Carol’s everywhere you go and underneath your feet, the crunch of snow just in time for Christmas, we got lucky, although I could use it being a little bit warmer. I think
you all have your own personal favorite family traditions that I’m sure immediately sprang to mind as I said that those couple of things that you’ve been doing since you were a kid you couldn’t possibly give up doing it truly is a wonderful, wonderful time.
But in some ways, it’s a bit false as well. It’s not as though all of a sudden the world is filled with nothing but joy for four weeks, we just kind of pretend like it is it’s almost like we’re papering over the cracks with shiny foil wrapping paper, your if you were to scan the headlines of any newspaper, or even just your own personal social media feed, you would see that a lot of people every year are having a pretty bad Christmas.
There is so much good in this world that we can celebrate of course, but there is so much brokenness to and that’s why we need Christmas, not the traditions mind you, but the truth of Christmas. What we most need, what we’re truly longing for. The desire that the season expresses, is for someone to come and set things right. All those things that are wrong in this world. If I could put it like this, I think what we want is a king, a good king, a perfect king, a king, who always does what is right, who rules with wisdom and make sure that people are doing what they should be doing are king like that would heal this broken world. Because there’d be no one getting away with anything any more. No abuse behind closed doors, no invasions of other countries, no unkindness in the jewel parking lot the week of Christmas.
That’s what we want. That’s what we want.
Except that’s also exactly the opposite of what we want. And therein lies the great tension of the human heart.
Because we all want to be our own kings at the same time. And wanting to be our own kings wanting to set our own rules wanting to do whatever it is we want to do is what causes all the brokenness in the world. And then we want to kingdom to come and fix all that brokenness out there while leaving me alone to do what I want to do. And so I want you to have those competing desires, which are very much alive in you right now. In your mind, as we talk tonight, I want to be my own king. I want to King to come and set things right. Because the text we’re going to look at is a text promising that King and what he will come to do what he needs to do in us even now this might seem a strange text to you. It is the culmination though of a whole bunch of Christmas text that you’re really familiar with because you’ve heard Handel’s Messiah before. So in Isaiah chapter seven, we hear familiar words like a virgin will conceive and give birth to a child, and he will be called Emmanuel, God with us. And then Isaiah chapter nine, the people walking in darkness, finally get to see a great light. Why because unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given in the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called, you know what Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But all of that finds its climax in our text this evening, speaking of a tree that is going to spring forth from a stump, the true Christmas tree, the Jesse tree, so may start reading as we look at again, this king we long to see the kingdom we long to experience and figure out how we can get there. Let’s start with the king. First of all, chapter 11, verses one to five, Isaiah 11, one to five, A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from his roots, a branch will bear fruit, the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord and He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears, but with right
justness He will judge the needy with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth, He will strike the earth with the route of his mouth with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked, righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
So we know that a tree has been felled.
If you were to read previous chapters, you would know that it was God who cut down this tree as an act of judgment on the nation of Israel was meant to be a wake up call to them, because they were no longer worshipping Him but had turned to foreign gods. But that act of judgment is not the end of the story. Judgment never is God is really just clearing the way for new growth. One of my favorite places to be is The Morton Arboretum. Maybe some of you share that with me. And every now and again, I’ll walk by a place that I know well, except that it’ll look different because they have like clear cut the area, and they’ll be this little sign there that says, Just wait till spring. Wait till you see what’s going to come up out of this. That’s the sign that we have here. It says though God has planted it right in the middle of this felled force, you just wait, just wait to see what’s coming. His purpose is rebirth, restoration. But to get there, he needs to prune away what is dead and diseased the brokenness of this world. So out of this stump springs a shoot, again, the Christmas tree. Now the stump, we’re told is the stump of Jesse who exactly is Jesse, he’s not so famous, but his son certainly is. So you may know David of Goliath fame. This is David’s dad. And so the Jesse tree, it’s a family tree. And that family tree is a line of kings beginning with Jesse’s son, David all the way on. And in fact, God had promised David, you can read this in Second Samuel seven, that his line would go on forever, there would always be a king on David’s throne. But now that tree is chopped down.
What’s happened? Has God’s word failed? Surely not. It never does. And so here we read centuries later, a chute will spring up from that stump. And it’s interesting because this person who’s coming is not just going to be a son of David, which is a familiar phrase in the Bible, that that King in David’s line who was coming, but we don’t need another king in David’s line, because we had a whole bunch of them. And honestly, they weren’t that great. So what we need here is not a son of David, but another son of Jesse, we need a nother David a second, David, the true and better, David. And this was the hope for the Jewish people of this time, what they would have called the Messiah just means the anointed one. This was the hope that a king was coming to set things, right.
But the king they were waiting for was a king that was going to do what they wanted him to do. We always have that right. And so it really was a king with some lowered expectations. All they wanted from this king who was coming the second David was for him to get rid of those pesky Romans who had occupied is really just wanted their kingdom back and nothing more that can be true of us to can’t hit these lowered expectations of a king does we want like, we don’t really want a king what we want is a Santa Claus, someone to bring us whatever it is we ask him for, to bring us what we want, instead of what we really need. So we might ask the Santa Claus, for example, to bring us financial security, instead of bringing us a loosened grip on the things of this world.
But this branch, this shoot springing up from the stump of Jesse, this will be the king we need. And we know that because we read this seven fold description of his wondrous character, the spirit of Lord will rest on Him bit of wisdom, understanding counsel, might knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
There’s only one descendant of Jesse who fits this bill by the way, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. Nazareth by the way, fun fact, if you’re to translate it in English means something like chutes Ville. So it would make sense a good place for the shoot of Jesse to spring up. We know it’s Jesus, the Spirit descends on Him at His baptism. And certainly Jesus speaks with wisdom and understanding. We all know that even those who reject Christianity acknowledge the depth of his teaching. There was a an article in The New York Times today, Nicholas Kristof, who is not a Christian, and yet interviewed a well known pastor and said, I’ve always liked Jesus’s teaching. Of course, everybody likes Jesus’s teaching, because he speaks with wisdom and understanding. I mean, who here would go you know what, I don’t really care for that hole, do unto others as you would have them do unto you what we call the golden rule. We call it the golden rule because it speaks so powerfully to us. We know if everyone did that, well, the world would be a different place.
In fact, our entire culture, entire western culture has been shaped by Christ teaching every facet of our culture springs from Christ. Some of the most popular buzzwords around equality, progress, consent, freedom, what we mean by Justice, even kindness, all comes from Christ what we mean by these words.
So we hold to Christ values because he spoke with wisdom and understanding. But there is that problem again, we understand, there’s a good chance on the way here, you drove by a sign that said, kindness is everything, right? Probably in somebody’s neighbor’s, you know, front yard or something like that.
And yet we don’t live like kindness is everything. We like Jesus’s teaching right up until we don’t like it. He says, Love your enemies. And we go, Hang on now. What exactly do you mean by that?
We have not been uniformly kind, it’s not hard to admit that you have probably not been uniformly kind. Today even. I’m a little bit sick. I got Christmas stress asked me if I snapped at my kids at any point this week, as them in fact, it’ll be a more honest answer, you’ll probably get. We don’t always love like, we know we should. And yet, instead of choosing love and self sacrifice, we choose self centeredness. We believe in equality and human dignity. And yet certainly we have all used people as means to an end. Many, many, many times in our lives, there’s that tension in our heart. Again, we want the king right up until we don’t like we want the king to make the world live according to those values that he taught us that we respect.
We just don’t want to make us live up to those values all the time. But the trouble is, we’re going to get the king we need not the king, we want and he is the king, we need you again, he’s got the wisdom and understanding to lead he always makes the right decisions. He’s got the counsel and might to triumph to make sure that those decisions are carried through he’s got the knowledge and the fear of the Lord, to live. He is holy, there is no blemish of imperfection in him he has never done wrong, how different that is from the paper heroes of our history. We keep tearing down statues. Why? Because there was a tension in the people who lived before us but not in Christ. He judges rightly. He judges rightly judgment by the way, not a bad word. We sometimes hear it it’s a bad word. But it just means he renders a just decision. Every time no wrongdoer escapes, just because they’re wealthy or influential, and yet no innocent is punished just because they lack the resources to defend themselves. That does not sound like our world today. He knows every side of every story. He sees the heart. He weighs our motivations, even stabbed in the back some time where you know, you were innocent, and no one else believes you will the king sees the king judges rightly even for the needy, and the poor, those lacking in influence, or wealth, he judges rightly. You see, in verse five, he rules with righteousness. That’s a commitment to what is right. And he rules with faithfulness, as a steadfastness and carrying out what is right, we would take a king like that, wouldn’t we? Because that’s so different from our lived experience. And that is not how our leaders lead. Is it in an age of me too, or here in Illinois, where every other governor gets tossed in jail.
This is not how we live either. You always know what to do? Probably not. But when you know what to do, do you always do it? Probably not. You never shown any favoritism with somebody who can help you out no excuses for yourself that you wouldn’t grant if somebody did it to you. Or having a king like this on the throne would change this world in ways beyond our reckoning. How exactly let’s keep reading let’s look at the kingdom that he would bring verses six to 10.
The wolf will live with the lamb. The Leopard will lie down with a goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together and the little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear their young will lie down together and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the Cobras den, the young child will put his hand into the Viper’s nest, they will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
So we get this series of startling images to show what this new kingdom will be like. And what’s obvious from the get go is that this kingdom is going to involve a fundamental change of nature. This is definitely not how the
world works. The wolf doesn’t eat the lamb anymore. Instead, they’re roommates now, gonna get the bear and the lion are eating grass instead of eating their new friends. This is straight out of that great theological text. Finding Nemo fish are friends, not food.
Also, and I know this is a bummer for some of you but the vegetarians when in the end, it seems although I think that’s only because kale tastes like filet in glory.
But this is not just for the birds and the beasts. And this is not just meant to be a picture of the the animal kingdom or something like that. This is a picture of the whole, this is comprehensive. It even says everyone will know the Lord. And so everyone will live with this type of peace in their midst. It’s so as though the king didn’t just end the civil war, but ended with it.
All the things that led to the war in the first place like our own civil war, it ended and there was a tremendous southern resentment. And the South is supposed to rise again. I heard for some time after that, but not here. Like now we’re talking about not just an end to the war, but an end to slavery, not just into slavery, but an end to racism and an end to the animosity, the bitterness, the grief that would have come with the war. I mean, let’s contemporize what would this look like today for
enemies to become friends like the wolf and the lamb, we’re talking about? Black and white, living in harmony, every other color every other ethnicity like and Israeli and Palestinian, worshipping together. The rich and the poor Scrooge and Tiny Tim, at the same table. By the way, why the church matters so much because the church is meant to be an outpost of that future kingdom. This should be the place where those animosities have already been broken down in Christ, and we are together. But for that to happen, this king is going to have to put an end to the civil war, not just out there, but in our hearts as well. Because there’s that tension. Again, we don’t always live according to our own values. We don’t measure up we preach kindness and yet practice unkindness.
The reality is, and this is a hard word. I’m sorry about that. But I have to say it, we’re not good people who occasionally do bad things. Because after a while, if you keep doing bad things, you got to go. Maybe I’m just a bad person.
I have not ever how we talk about ourselves, right? Like, it’s just the amount of gossip I just gossip.
You see the difficulty there? Right? We’re just, we’re just bad. And the proof of it is written every day in our lives. We are wolves always looking to devour cuddly little lambs. But what did this King come to do? To bring the knowledge of God to transform our nature so that this doesn’t have to be true of us any longer so that we would delight in the fear of the Lord also, and worship Him rightly, if we call him king? What would the result be? What would that kingdom look like? No more injustice, no more poverty, no more violence, not even the violence of creation, no more division. And this is the world we want. But we’re not there yet.
And we are not there like you and I specifically as individuals are not there yet. We don’t belong in this kingdom. How could we possibly who does for that matter? So how can we possibly get in to it? That’s our last section. By the way. We’ve seen the king we’ve seen the kingdom he’s coming to bring. The only problem is no one deserves to be there. So we’re going to need a way as well. And that is the Kingshighway the rest of the passage it really got the verses wrong. But that’s all right verses 10 to 16, not 11 to 16.
In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples the nations will rally to him and his resting place will be glorious. And that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of His people from a Syria from Lower Egypt from Upper Egypt from cush from Elam, from Babylonia from Hamas and from the islands of the Mediterranean. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel. He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth, ie from his jealousy will vanish and Judas enemies will be destroyed. Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of Felicity out to the West together they will plunder the people to the east. They will subdue Edom and Moab. The ammonites will be subject to them the Lord will dry up the Gulf of the Egyptians see the scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates river he will break it up into seven streams so that anyone can cross over and sandals there will be a highway
The remnant of His people that has left from a Syria as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.
Alright, things get interesting right away. Because the shoot of Jesse has now in verse 10, the root of Jesse.
And that doesn’t make any sense, because he comes from Jesse. And yet Jesse comes from Him.
That paradox only makes sense in light of Jesus was written 700 years before Jesus’s birth. And yet here we have it, no one else could possibly fit this bill, the eternal God who created Jesse becomes a human in Jesse’s line, veiled in flesh, the God had see hail the incarnate deity. I mean, he would have to be this king, both God and human, in order to be the root and shoot of Jesse, this newborn baby is the Ancient of Days, the son of Mary, is the everlasting father. That’s the paradox. But he would have to be both God and human in order to do what he’s come to do. And what is that exactly Isaiah tells us to rally all his people to him. But now it’s not just Israel. This is now a global picture. He’s inviting people from everywhere, like there are a lot of places mentioned here. And you don’t need to know them all. The point is pretty simple. He’s gathering people from every corner of the map, like we’d say it today, he’s pulling them from all seven continents, from Cape Town to Caracas, from Tokyo to Toronto, from Sydney to Stockholm. We’ll throw in a few penguins from Antarctica as well, because they’re cute and cuddly.
These are his people.
These are as people who have been scattered in exile, literally. The people that Isaiah is speaking to here, they’re about to be deported, as first to Syria and then Babylon come in and conquer them and take them away. So they’re actually in exile. But then literally, as well, because we are
separated from God, we’ve been exiled from God by our sin, these the people that God will bring them back home, this king will lead back home to his resting place. The wonderful word by the way that used for resting place, you actually all know it, it shows up in Psalm 23, which you’ve probably heard many times in your life. When it says He leads me beside still waters, that word still is the word resting place. So all that imagery comes to mind as we read this, this is the place where His goodness and love follow us all the days of our lives, and we will dwell in His house forever.
And when those people come together, they will come in peace. The old hostilities are gone, Ephraim and Judah who are in the middle of a civil war at this point, but that’ll change this would be like, again, after the Civil War Two soldiers, a Union and Confederate soldier coming together and going, I am sorry, I shot at you a bull run. It’s okay. Like we’re gonna be friends. Now fist bump, century before that was a thing, but the Kings Kingdom will spread to cover the earth. Now this sounds like conquest, certainly. But of course, we know what Jesus came to do. And he did not come to bring the sword. And so this is a conquest of peace. This is a conquest of people laying their arms down. But they can only come. They can only come into this kingdom, because the root of Jesse has made away and we get this imagery here in verses 15 and 16, especially those that are very similar to God leading his people out of Egypt during the Exodus, you may remember he splits the Red Sea and the people walk across on dry land. He’s going to do that again. But they’re not just coming from Egypt. They’re coming from a Syria as well. So he’s going to split up the Euphrates River into seven little streams and you can just wade across he removes the barrier, in other words, but what is that barrier? Really? Is it a physical barrier? I mean, is it a big river that’s keeping us from God, no way the barrier is spiritual. For us to come home, God must remove the barriers in my heart, and in your heart,
the rebellion
going on inside of us against the one true King, and
pardon for that rebellion, as well.
And we learn as we read about Jesus, that Jesus doesn’t just make the way for us. Jesus is the way John 14 Verse six people come to God come into this kingdom through Jesus, by grace through faith. He is the king and the Kings Highway
And that’s really where we have to land on Christmas. And what we need to hear again, this evening, the problem with Christmas is that we do the same thing every year. And so it becomes a very familiar story. And so we stopped paying attention to it. You know, it’s a Yeah, yeah, the baby, the manger, the stable, Wiseman, shepherds, it’s all great. But we can hear all that and still be in danger of missing the point. If Jesus is the King, we need who’s establishing the kingdom we want?
Well, then that means we don’t get to be kings anymore. of our own tiny little kingdoms, kingdom of one. Like we don’t have the power and the wisdom and the goodness to rule. Not collectively, two centuries of progress. Pretty well proved that a couple of world wars like Have we made progress in medicine and technology. Absolutely. Have we made progress in the human heart? I don’t think so. And you’ve probably seen that in your own life as well. You’ll make some new year’s resolutions here in about a week, and I’ll see you next Christmas and you can tell me how you’re doing on them. There’s, there’s a good chance you’ve been making the same resolutions for a couple decades at this point. Like we know we don’t have what it takes to rule not there’s the world but our own lives, and yet we rebel, still, just what causes all the violence and strife in the world. But it keeps happening every time we hear Jesus is King, the self asserts itself and makes an illegitimate claim to authority. And we might even spiritualize it and say things like, Well, God would want me to be happy. And so we create a religion or God of our own life and just a few tweaks to the Bible, you know, just pop in a few asterisks here or there anything that you don’t like that would be challenging for you love your enemies estrus yet not you, Mary. It’s okay. I know what she said about you. You couldn’t possibly forgive that. That’s how we often approach scripture. And so we make ourselves the final arbiter of our own truth even speak that way, don’t we my truth, your truth. All that means is you get to make the laws in your own kingdom. We start to deceive ourselves, maybe I am wise enough to rule my life.
But if we recognize Christ’s absolute authority,
that this baby is also the eternal God, the root and shoot of Jesse, the only possible response is unconditional allegiance. There’ll be no more line in the sand moments. No more. I’ll follow you this far, but no farther. Like, I believe 97% of the Bible. If there’s one sentence in all the Bible that you say, I’m not going to listen to that then you are still your own king.
So the way AW Tozer said it, he said sin has many manifestations, but its essence is one, a moral being created to worship before the throne of God sits on the throne of his own selfhood. And from that elevated position declares, I am. That is sin in its concentrated essence. And I love this last part yet because it is natural, it appears to be good. That’s our whole culture in a nutshell. Because it’s natural. It must be good. Just do whatever you want. It’s not working out for us guys. Only when we see ourselves for who we are, and Christ for who he is. Well, our hearts be changed. I mean, just consider why did this true king leave his throne of glory to be born in a lowly manger? Why are we even here at Christmas?
Because in a piercing irony, and an matchless love, that King came to save those who claimed his throne for their own.
Most kings wage wars to reclaim their thrones. But Christ waged a war against our rebellion, in order to reclaim us may look back at verse four, I just just blew past this part. It says he will strike the earth with a rod of his mouth, and slay the wicked, not a very happy Christmas sort of message. But it would be very just and right of God to just wipe us out in light of our rebellion. But that’s not what he came to do at first. The first time He came, He came to be struck by the Earth and slain by the wicked.
What a remarkable truth. Why, to make away to pave the King’s Highway so that we can come home to his glorious resting place injustice, he deals with our rebellion, but in grace, He takes the punishment for that rebellion on Himself on the cross, so that we can be forgiven, this baby came to die.
The problem with our culture is that we want the kingdom all those values we’ve been talking about without the king, like we want to culture shaped by the kings values but without his authority in our lives. Clearly that doesn’t work. Because we don’t live up to our own standards. We’re not living out
out those values. So there’s the big question, what do we do then? He’s gotten Scrivener points out, he says Only a person can forgive you. Values can’t, they can only judge you. Like the abstract value of kindness cannot forgive you. It can only tell you, you have not lived up to my standard. And so there we are trapped in guilt and exiled in shame, no hope of redemption, unless
it’s not a value. But a person unless that King makes, even becomes the way that the cost of his own life isn’t that yet King you would want to follow. Like, why not bend the knee to him like the shepherds like the Weizmann you are not fit to be king. I am not fit to be king. I haven’t seen anyone who is except the route and shoot of Jesse. So don’t let another Christmas go by without making a choice, who the who will be king is one or the other.
This Christmas received the greatest gift ever given forgiveness, and redemption. And Christ himself. But don’t just unwrap it and put on the shelf. Let him become the center of your life. Let Christ be king. Because every heart comes with a throne, and it only seats one. So give him his rightful place in your life. That is what Christmas is all about. That is the joy of every longing of heart. We need the right ruler to rule rightly. And to make a way for us to come under His rule. Despite our years of rebellion, we need Jesus, we need the root and shoot of Jesse, the King has come, the king will come again. Why not welcome him. Now, let’s pray.
Father, we confess that we live our lives so often as though we were the king.
We make our own laws.
We preach certain standards.
And yet we fail to live up to them. We don’t even live up to our own standards, nevermind your standards, Lord. And that is a problem. And so we confess that openly, willingly, freely before you.
But more than that, Lord, we confess
that we have no right to rule in our own lives, that we are yours. Because You created us that you made us for yourself. And so we lay ourselves down now we bow before the manger before the cross before the empty tomb before the throne in glory and confess that you are king of kings and Lord of lords.
And you are Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, that you have the right to rule, the power, the wisdom, the goodness to rule and we welcome you in our hearts and in our lives to rule even now.

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A Remnant of Hope in Israel (Isaiah 10:5-34) December 18, 2022 | Brandon Cooper TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Good morning church. Good to see you all. Go ahead, grab your Bibles open up to Isaiah chapter 10 will be in Isaiah chapter 10, verses five to 34. This morning as we continue in our series, the Jesse tree, as you’re turning to Isaiah 10. Here’s a question that almost certainly you have either asked yourself, or heard asked by other people probably multiple times. A question is, Where was God? Where was God when? Fill in the blank? In fact, I went to Google and typed in where was God when, and was curious to know what answers would pop up in their suggested search queries? Where was God when my son died? Where was God when I was being abused? Or are very generic one, where was God when I needed him? As a question we asked, not just at the personal level, though, but at the global level as well. Where was God when that earthquake hit that devastated a community? untold numbers killed? Where was God? When the terrorists attack? Where was God when that dictator was hanging protesters in the town square? It’s a fair question. Because God’s Will so rarely seems to be done here on Earth. Some of the promises that we read in this book don’t always seem to be kept. It seems like evil is often winning. It’s a question we expect that Israel and Judah at least the remnant within them might be asking at this point in history where we’ve been the past couple of weeks, because there is wickedness in God’s land. And now there is also a wicked invader, Assyria coming into it. So this is a dark moment. Remember, by the way, or if you haven’t been here last couple of weeks. I’ll try and catch you up a little bit. The tight structure of Isaiah as prophecy here we looked first at Judah, he had a word for the southern kingdom, Isaiah first it was that moment of decision, they chose poorly, and it meant judgment on them. And then there was a turn and there was a message of hope for the remnant. And then we started looking last week at Israel, the northern kingdom, same thing what we saw last week, a terrible decision made. And so judgment. And that’s where we ended. You guys remember last week? Last week was tough, wasn’t it? Anyone walk out of here angry with Kyle. That was just me, I guess. Why KNOCK KNOCK Kyle’s fault at all. He was preaching the text before him. Of course, the text ended his passage ended with God’s hand still raised in anger against Israel’s sin. The very last verse he read, get for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still up raised. Now we know there’s more to that story. Kyle even took us there kind of said, this is where the passage ends. But we got to keep talking. We got to get to Jesus, because God’s hand did come down in anger, but the full force of his fury, his righteous anger at our sin fell not on us, but on Christ, if we have put our hope in Him. So we know there’s a turn. And in our passage this morning, Isaiah actually turns that corner, as well. And so we get this hope for the remnant of Israel in our passage this morning. So here’s where we’re going. What I want you to have in your mind, as we read through this, when you ask, Where is God or even what is God thinking? That you would remember that His ways are above our ways that he is working on a scale, both time and space that is beyond us. But to have that in our minds, we need to look at God’s means and God’s ends or as I’ve got it as our structure this morning, God’s tools, and then God’s purposes. So that’s where we’re headed. Let’s start with God’s tools. Isaiah, chapter 10, verses five to 15. This is a dense passage, we’re gonna have to unpack a lot here. So I’m gonna read it slowly. As we go. I’m actually gonna start with verse five, and then pause and make some comments whoa to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath. So the Assyrians have been causing everybody else Whoa, out there in the ancient Near East, but now they are hearing a message of woe as well. They will be judged even as they’re the instrument of God’s judgment on his people. When it says that they are the rhod of God’s anger, it means that the Assyrians are actually the tangible expression of God’s anger against Israel because they rejected His word because of everything that we heard last week. So then how come there’s judgment coming on them? Couldn’t they just look at God and say, Hey, we’re just doing what you asked us to do? Not going to work, I’m afraid. And so we’re going to see why. And these verses to follow really we get a tale of two sovereigns here. What does the Sovereign Lord think? And what does the king of Assyria think we’re going to contrast as we go? So here’s the first contrast. The contrast is between the Lord’s intent and doing this and then a serious intent. Here’s the Lord’s intent, verse six, I sent him against a godless nation. I dispatch him against the people who anger me to cease loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets, pause there. So God is saying, I sent I dispatch, meaning in one sense, at least this is God’s doing that a Syria has invaded Israel. Where is God? He’s right there. sovereignly reigning over history as it unfold. Now, how can God do this son, this wicked invader there because his intent is holy, and just and righteous and good. He’s punishing wickedness and evil sidenote, by the way, that’s usually what we mean when we ask Where was God? We’re asking, Why didn’t God intervene to stop this evil or wickedness and that is precisely what he’s doing. He has something against a godless nation. It says that’s Israel. This is supposed to be the nation of God and yet they are a godless nation. There’s no double standards with God. He doesn’t overlook the sins of His nation judgment. Peter reminds us begins with the house of God. Now what happens here this whole seizing loot and snatching plunder, that’s exactly what God said He was going to do. Like we shouldn’t look surprised when God judges he’s talked to us about this many times. Do you remember back in chapter eight verse one, God has Isaiah rent a billboard. And he’s supposed to write on it my Harish Lau hush boss. And that was that whole bit about being quick to the plunder, hasty to grab loot. Well, guess what words we just read there with plunder and loot shall all and boss they’re back. Okay, so God’s word has come to pass is a good word because God’s intent is good. It is a righteous judgment. That’s God’s intent, but it’s serious. Not so much. Let’s keep reading verses seven to 11. But this is not what he intends. Assyria the king of Assyria intends This is not what he has in mind. His purpose is to destroy to put an end to many nations are not my commander’s all kings, he says, has not camo fared like Carchemish is not Hemanth like our pod and Samaria, like Damascus, as my hand sees the kingdoms of the idols kingdoms, whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images as I dealt with Samaria and her idols? So this is what Assyria intends. And it’s not what God had intended is serious intent is wicked, it is conquest and genocide. And they’re feeling really confident about their conquest, because, well, even his commanders are kings, he’s so important. He could call Him a king of kings as it were. And then what does this king do? He walks through his invasion route. This is how he’s come into Israel. He’s kind of saying, I conquered that kingdom. I conquered that kingdom, I conquered that kingdom and that King, why wouldn’t I conquer you? As well, this is like a football team boasting on the way to the playoffs. We dispatch the Eagles, we dispatch the bills, we dispatch the Vikings, so you’re gonna be worried about the bears now? Do you know their record not going to happen? Okay, feeling really confident as I go into the that’s what’s happening here. And he’s saying, Look, all those nations had images and idols. So you can pray to your images and idols, your heart’s content, I already took all of those down to Israel’s Judah’s images and idols are not going to stop us. Now that does raise attention. Because the God of Israel and the God of Judah is not like those other gods, because he is real. But they did have images. And they did have idols didn’t. That’s the whole problem.
I mean, he’s looking around going, yep, I recognize that shrine. And that one’s not to yavi. That’s to somebody else entirely. This is the whole reason God sent to Syria in the first place, because they had prostituted themselves to foreign gods who were powerless to save them. And why? Why would you ever do that? Why would you give up the one true God for an image that you’ve carved out of stone or wood? And you know why? Because you do it too. And I do it and it’s to give you the illusion of control? Because what happens in this sort of pagan religion is that you just do what they want so that they will do what you You want, which means you get what you want. Now, we don’t have idols like this today, we don’t carve them out of stone any longer for the most part, but still in what do you trust? Really? Is it wealth, or influence, or health? Those all have names in the Old Testament. I mean, it helps. That’s a scrape. Yes. Well, that’s mammon, you probably heard him if you remember the King James Version old, these are all gods. when trouble comes, where do you turn? I mean, are you thinking this can’t harm me because of my big bank account? And my excellent health insurance? Because I’ve got this promotion at work, which gave me a fancy new title. Or when trouble comes, are you they’re saying, you can take it all. Everything could be stripped from me. And if I have Christ, I still have everything. That’s the first contrast. It’s a difference of intent. The second contrast that we get here is the Lord’s view of Assyria versus a serious view of itself. And what exactly it’s doing. This is a great exercise, by the way, just to contrast what you think about yourself with what the Lord thinks about you. That can be positive or negative, like some of us got, like, self esteem a little too high. Like no wonder the Lord loves me. Have you seen me? I’m outstanding. And we probably need to remember that we are sinful wretches, filthy with sin, needing to be cleanse. We have nothing good in ourselves except for crisis. But there are other of us who have self loathing. We need to remember what God says about awesome vile rhetoric. No, you are beloved son or daughter of God. Well, let’s see what God has to say about a Syria at least here’s a verse 12. As we keep reading, when the Lord had finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the Haughty look in his eyes. So God sees a serious pride that Assyria is worthy of judgment as a result. So once God’s work is done, he says the image there, by the way, is weaving. So this is if you guys do like sewing projects, you know that, that last mover, you snip that last thread, and you’re like it’s done. And that’s what God’s saying, or when I get to snip that last thread, I will punish a serious King for exalting himself to my place. He’s trying to usurp God’s role. So what does God see when he looks at a Syria he sees pride to be punished? What does the king of Assyria see, when he looks at himself, he sees a right to rule. Let’s keep reading verses 13 and 14. For he says, by the strength of my hand, I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations I plundered their treasures like a mighty one, I subdued their kings, as one reaches into a nest. So my hand reaches for the wealth of the nations as people gather abandoned eggs. So I gathered all the countries, not one flapped a wing or opened its mouth to chirp. So here he is exemplifying the very pride that God has just condemned, what does he say, Look at what I’ve done, by my strength, my wisdom, I have brought nations to heal, and have plundered lands upon lands. Now, we would never do anything like this. I know. You’ve never taken credit for your career, I’m sure. Even pastors especially because we’re so godly, we would never do this. No pastor has ever seen a church grow, and say, You know what I should do, I should write a book. Because this church grew by my strength. And if I could pass on my wisdom that other pastors could immediately grow their churches as well. That’s never happened, thank God, or parents, when your kids don’t wander from the face, and what happens in your heart pretty quickly. That’s because I was a good parent. And if other parents would be as wise as I was, when their kids wouldn’t have wandered, either, that’s not what Jesus says about us, though, is it? Jesus says, John 15, verse five apart from me, you can do nothing. And what we do for good we do in the strength that God supplies never by my strength, always by his strength. So why is it so foolish to boast like this? Especially by the way, if you’re boasting like this, and you’re Assyria, which is not Spirit empowered and not growing in God’s wisdom? Well, here it is. Verse 15. Why it’s so foolish? Does the X rays itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if Arad were to wield the person who lifted up her club brand is the one who is not would. Why is it so foolish to boast like this because you’re the clay, not the potter and the clay doesn’t ever say, I made myself into an amazing vase didn’t die, or you’re the saw and God is the carpenter. That’s the language that God uses here. We are just instruments in the Redeemers hands. That’s a helpful reminder for us as we You scan the news headlines every day, isn’t it? Do you know what Vladimir Putin is? was using ping Donald Trump, Joe Biden fill in the blank tools in the hands of All Mighty God, that earthquake, or even your high blood pressure? You just can’t seem to get under control tools in God’s hands. So when you’re asking, Where is God, remember that you can only see the x, not the invisible sovereign who is wielding it. Nor can you see his good purposes, because you have a finite mind. I mean, what is the problem in the problem of evil? We talked about the problem of evil. What we’re saying is, I can’t see any reason why God would allow this. But why would you ever think you would be able to see the reason why God would allow this, you do not have his perspective. We’re overconfident, I think when it comes to evil. So I’m gonna use physics here. It’s not a physics person, I’m gonna lose your for like a minute, but I apologize for that. I think we expect Newton’s laws of motion. The white ball hit the red ball, and so the red ball moved. And so we expect to be able to say, God did this. And this is what came about. So now I know why he did it. Why should we expect that though, this might be a little bit more like quantum physics. This atom smashed into this atom, I think, and I don’t know where either of them are right now, because of the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. And we don’t even sure what’s going on there. We have no rules, we’ve got no understanding. So we’re pretty sure somebody does. And I’m going to drop out of my physics class and become a humanities major next time out. That’s what our approach should be to the problem of evil, we have a limit to our minds, we come to God asking questions like a three year old asking dad how the car goes, and Dad’s going, I can’t explain internal combustion to you. So I don’t know I push this. And it goes like that as much as you’re going to be able to get when it comes to these sorts of questions. We are so much closer to the three year old than we are to Almighty infinite all knowing God. And so in humility, recognizing that we are not God, we trust God. We say I don’t know what. And I don’t know why. But I know who at one point before we press on, by the way, because this raises some questions for us this whole idea that there are tools in God’s hands, yes, but they are not inanimate tools, are they? These tools possess desires and wills, they make choices. And that does complicate our theology a bit. Because we’ve got two statements that exist in tension. God is absolutely sovereign over everything, even sinful human choices. And humans are absolutely responsible for those sinful choices that they make. Why? How does that work? Exactly? Again, give me a little bit beyond us. That’s fine. But we know this, at least is because God has not put a gun to our heads. We do what we want to do. And therefore we are responsible for those choices. You can see this throughout Scripture, by the way, here’s Acts chapter four. This is the early church praying after a bit of persecution. They say this, indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Who’s responsible according to this text? Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, the people of Israel, they conspired together and murdered the Son of God, but they did that according to God’s purposes. In his sovereign rule, what an illustration for us, by the way, because of where it was God, when they crucified His son,
he was watching his plan of redemption unfold. Nothing’s changed. That’s exactly what’s happening even now. Can God bend evil means to good ends? Well, apparently, because he turned the murder of the Christ into the possibility of salvation for all people. So if you remember nothing else from today, and I’m a little worried here, cuz this means I’m peeking really early in the sermon, but if you remember nothing else, remember this quote from John Erickson Tada who has experienced some evil means in her lives, she wrote this, God ordains what he hates to accomplish what he loves. That’s it. That’s what Isaiah chapter 10 is. God ordains what he hates to accomplish what he loves. God uses painful tools. To build beautiful works, it’s like going to the dentist and you hear the drill. Right and your eye twitches and you you know some of you are like freaking out right now you’re like, that’s it. I’m leaving the church turned into my membership. It’s okay though, because they already jabbed the needle into your gums. So now it doesn’t hurt as much when they drill or something like the guy is not a sadist, though. He’s doing it for your good. Like we’ve had some surgeries in our congregation recently. Do you know what they do in surgery? Do you know what the scalpels for? It’s not for massage? Okay, like, where’s the Hippocratic oath as they’re slicing? You open this seems like harm, except of course, it’s to bring about your healing. That’s the purpose. So it is with God. He uses many tools, even wicked ones like Syria to accomplish his good his perfect purposes. So what are those purposes? Let’s keep reading here. So God’s purposes, verses 16 to 34. I’m gonna just I’m gonna do something I don’t normally do. But I’m gonna point out the structure here in advance, you can see as we go, if you’re the kind of person who writes in your Bible, you might want to note these couple of things. We get to their fours, and in the middle of them we get to in that days, so look at verse 16, begins with therefore. And then in verse 20, in that day, numbers 24, therefore, and verse 27, in that day, so that’s our structure. That’s what we’re gonna follow as we go through this chunk here. What is it as a result of what just happened or what Isaiah just said, here’s what’s coming, here’s what God is going to do. And he’s gonna be pointing us toward that future hope for the remnant. So the first thing God is going to do is an act of holiness. The second one is an act of power. Let’s start with that first. Therefore, in this act of holiness, let me read verses 16 to 19. Therefore the Lord the Lord Almighty will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors, under his pomp of fire will be kindled like a blazing flame, the light of Israel will become a fire, their holy one a flame, and a single day it will burn and consume his thorns in his briars, the splendor of its forests and fertile fields that will completely destroy as when a sick person wasted away, the remaining trees of his forest will be so few that a child could write them down. So God acts in holiness, to judge his instrument of judgment. Because they’re responsible for their sin, the pride and violence they have displayed. As a uses two metaphors to describe what’s going to happen here, sickness and fire, sickness, meaning this is gonna be a slow wasting disease that renders the strong, weak, and then the fire that consumes everything before it. In fact, Isaiah goes out of his way to show how comprehensive the destruction will be. It’s the forest and the field, the cultivated lands, as well as the wild ones. The devastation is so complete, then verse 19, that even a child could do a census of the warriors who remain. This is like the end of a really bad garage sale, will you let your five year old total up the amount of money that you got not a good sign, right? That’s what we have here. Interestingly, this is historical fact. By the way, despite being a bold prediction at the time, we’re in, say, 725 BC, over the next century, about a decade from here, Assyria enters this period of slow decline, like it’s getting sick until eventually 612. Babylon wipes it out almost completely. Now, you saw in this section, I hope you notice and we’ll keep seeing as we keep reading, Isaiah has a rich use of the names of God, man, just in these verses I read, we get the Lord the Lord Almighty, the light of Israel, the Holy One of Israel. This is not just rhetorical flourish on Isaias part, this reminder of who God is is necessary to keep kindling hope and to keep answering those hard questions. God, why did you bring a Syria into the land? What were you thinking? That’s a wicked thing to do? No, no, no, no. He’s the Holy One of Israel, he would never do wrong, it would be impossible for him to do. I think this is a good exercise for us. We have an Advent tradition in our family where each day in December leading up to Christmas we have 24 gold ornaments that we hang up kind of one at a time and each one has a name for Jesus on it. Why do we do that? Because it’s important that we know the fullness of who God is. And different titles bring out different pieces of God’s character. Like the God who sees tells us something different about God than the Lord who provides but we need to know both of them. When Jesus says I am the bread of Life that speaks to my soul in a different way than when he says I am the true vine but I need both of those I need to know all of who God is. Well, God acts in holiness here in judging a Syria but also in judging Israel, just while he used to Syria, and in His holiness, then he accomplishes His holy purpose of leaving a repentant remnant his true people behind let’s keep reading verses 20 to 23. This is your in that day. In that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of Jacob will no longer rely on Him who struck them down, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, a remnant will return a remnant of Jacob will return to the mighty God. Your people be like the sand by the sea, Israel, Only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed overwhelming and righteous the Lord the Lord Almighty will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land. God’s tools have accomplished God’s purpose, like Michelangelo’s chisel, drawing David out of the marble, so that they no longer rely on arrow, which is how all this started. Remember, Israel seeing the threat of Assyria forge an alliance with Aram their erstwhile enemy, the one who had struck them down at one point, they trusted air and they trusted their alliances instead of trusting in the Lord. But now instead, even in the face of world superpowers, they will trust the Holy One of Israel, the one who does right because He’s holy, they will trust the light of Israel, The mighty God, The one who is able to accomplish his purposes. So what do we see here, we see that when Providence washes away your house built on sand, you can rejoice. It is a hard joy. It is a severe mercy. But you can rejoice because you are being taught to build on the rock instead in that moment. And that’s what the remnant has learned here. That’s what makes the remnant the remnant. We talked about this before when it says a remnant will return that word return is also the word for repent. And the two are the same thing. They returned because they’ve turned because they’ve repented. And this too is the fulfillment of God’s Word. You remember Isaiah as other son Shourya shoe, a remnant will return. Trade shows up twice in these verses right here. All God’s promises come to pass. But take heart, take heart, all God’s promises come to pass. Advent is a season of waiting for what for God’s word to be fulfilled. And it certainly will be as we’ve seen over and over again, we come to verses 22 and 23.
And the translation gets tricky. So we gotta get into the weeds here for a moment, I’m sorry about that. The word that’s translated here as destruction is a difficult word, it certainly can mean destruction. It also carries with it the sense of a finished work. In fact, if you’re looking at the ESV, one of the two instances of this word is translated as full end, you’re looking in the KJV. It’s translated as consumption, which is kind of an interesting translation because consumption meaning reached its fullness, and at the same time also destroys kind of gets both nuances. So it could mean finished work or full end. And then the word though in verse 22, is possible. But the usual meaning of these two connectors here is but so throw all that together. But what exactly Isaiah is here countering the idea that the remnant will be few in number, which is why he quotes from Genesis 22 The promises to Abraham, your descendants are going to be like the sand of the seashore. That seems like a lot of people not and there’s gonna be a little remnant that returns it doesn’t make sense to quote this here. So here’s what I think Isaiah saying, it’s very difficult Hebrew, though, so could be wrong. But your people will be like the sand of the seashore, or remnant will return because their consumption is decreed the full end is decreed I will finish my work. And that last part is key. God’s might His power is what guarantees that His Word will come to pass. Because look at what we’re reading here. It is so unlikely that a multitude would come when we just see people walking away from God in this story all over the place, so that there is just this tiny little remnant and yet God’s saying no, it’s gonna be a multitude. There will be a multitude of the redeem live, it’s so unlikely because God because God, that’s the only reason the only reason any of us have come. And it’s the reason why there will be a multitude in the end. Would you do me this favor? Would you carry that confidence in God? might not your cleverness, would you carry that confidence in God’s power into your evangelism this Christmas? Like as you grab some bags on the way out, it is so unlikely that anyone would come Saturday night, who doesn’t already love Jesus. But God, but God, only reason you’re here today is because God stirred in your heart to begin this. Next therefore, let’s keep going. We’ll be starting in verse 24. So in light of what was just promised, now we’re gonna see God act in power. Here’s verses 24 to 26. Therefore, this is what the Lord the Lord Almighty says, My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians who beat you with a rod and lift up a club against you as Egypt did. Very soon, my anger against you will end and my wrath will be directed to their destruction, the Lord Almighty will lash them with a whip is when he struck down Midian at the Rock of orb, and he will raise the staff over the waters as he did in Egypt. This is the first command we’ve gotten in our passage so far today. And it’s kind of a strange one, do not be afraid, not strange, that command shows up all the time in Scripture, but strange because of the context. God just said, do not fear the one currently beating you with a club. I love that. I love this book. It’s so funny. Sometimes. It’s reminding us that biblical peace is so different than the world peace. Because it doesn’t depend on circumstances, so that we could have peace, the absence of fear even as we’re being beaten by a club, why? Because our peace depends on our faith, that God will carry out His Word. We know the end of the story, we have hope in the end of the story. It’s right there in verse 26, the Lord will defeat his and our enemies in the end as he’s done before, like when Gideon defeated the Midianites, 300 guys took out there’s a whole invading army, or like the Exodus, and even better example, because Israel didn’t even have 300 Men, then they were just standing at the shore going, I guess we’re going to be mowed down here at this point. But God steps in opens the waters and they are saved. And this side of the empty tomb. By the way, this is even clearer for us. Because God didn’t just defeat our enemies, some superpower, God defeated sin and death, and the devil. We know it, it’s done. That’s why we can fear not even in the midst of the most trying circumstances. You remember last week, again, we already mentioned this this week to his hand was still up raised. But then verse 25, God says, it’s almost time for me to put it down. God’s wrath is never the last word. In his righteous anger, He will discipline his people those whom he loves, which is why a remnant turns and returns without judgment, that discipline that is his strange work. We talked about this at the end of the people God killed series. It’s his strange work. It’s like his second language. He is fluent in the language of grace, His mercy, He displays with his whole heart. This is the strongest reason we do not fear by the way, it’s because God loves us. If we belong to Him by faith, He loves us. Why would we fear when grace abounds, like you might feel anxious at the dentist or the doctor, but you don’t truly fear that dentist or doctor why because you know that they’re for you and not against you. And God is surely for us, and fights our enemies and triumphs over them. In fact, let’s look at his power here. As we finish with the passage verses 27 to 34. In that day, their burden will be lifted from your shoulders there yoke from your neck, the yoke will be broken because you’ve grown so fat. They enter if they pass through mid ground they store supplies that Nick mash they go over the past and say we will camp overnight at Gabe ah from our trembles gubbay of Sol fleas cry out daughter galim listen Leisha pour on a mud minnows and flight the people have been take cover this day they will halt it knob. They will shake their fist at the Mount of daughter Zion at the hill of Jerusalem. See the Lord the Lord Almighty will lop off the bows with great power. The lofty trees will be felled the tall ones will be brought low. He will cut down the forest thickets with an axe Lebanon will fall before the mighty one. The yoke of slavery the burden of captivity is lifted from them and it is broken. How many of you stumbled over this phrase when you read it in your reading this week? Because you have grown so fat. I almost cut this part of the sermon because I knew I was gonna go long. And then I listened to my family read this on Friday at their morning time. And they all giggled and said we have no idea what this means. So here you go, what it says. And it could be translated because you’ve grown so fat for sure literally says because of the oil yield that help you, I can move on now? No. Okay, because of the oil, oil. Certainly, if you’ve got an abundance of oil, it means you’re probably gonna be a little bit pudgy back then because it means you have enough wealth to have this there. So yes, this is a fine translation is translated that way in other parts of the Old Testament as well. But this is Hebrew poetry. And you know what poets like to do, right? They like to make the reader work. So they’re just going to say something like oil, and then you got to sit there and go, Why oil? What does oil make you think of? Especially when you think the Old Testament makes you think of anointing? Doesn’t it? As in the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the anointed one? Is that was being talked about here? Do we have this really elusive oblique reference to the son of David to the coming Messiah? Okay, I don’t know. We’re gonna have to ask Isaiah when they get there kind of thing. But we know that that is true, regardless of what this poem means right here anyway, God loves us in Christ, in the one anointed with oil, and what piece that should give us because the here’s the truth, then about that, unless God stops loving Christ. He can never stop loving us, if we have hidden ourselves in Christ, if we are united to Christ by faith. So even when things look really bad, in the bleak midwinter, like say, when the enemy is at the gates, we still have this confidence. God loves us in Christ, the enemy is at the gates. And we know that because this list of names that we don’t know. And it doesn’t really matter. The point is, they’re drawing close. They’re getting closer and closer to Jerusalem. In fact, close enough we see near the end of the passage that they can shake their fist at Zions Hill. So let me give it to you. In contemporary terms, this is like the Message version. Let’s pretend the goat TAS aren’t here. So I can say this. Okay, that Canada is getting a little feisty. And so some army in Toronto is making their march on Chicago, how would they go? Well, they’d go through Detroit, and then Ann Arbor, and then Battle Creek, and then Michigan City, and then Gary, and then they’re on the Sky Way, shaking their fist at the Sears Tower. That’s what Isaiah just said. But here’s the thing, they may be on the Skyway, but they’re stopping there, because the Lord the Lord Almighty will defeat them. And he will clear cut the forest of these wicked warriors, only stumps left in the land. Although, of course, if there’s a stump left in the land, there’s always the possibility that a chute will spring forth from it.
But I’m going to head myself, that’s Saturday. So you’re gonna want to come back and really get the hope that we’re looking at, for now, when we pull the pieces together, the means and the ends, the tools and the purposes. Here’s the main idea. Here’s what to take away from this morning. God uses many tools to build his perfect kingdom. God uses many tools to build his perfect kingdom. But he is building he is always at work and always working for good, even when it doesn’t seem like it, even when global actors seem to have usurped his place, like a Syria here, and 700 BC. Or here’s another one, because it’s Christmas. This is a bonus illustration, or Caesar Augustus, when he decreed that a census be taken. Now he thought he was really powerful. He could make everyone move, just by ordering a census be taken. Do you know why Augustus ordered that census? Because seven centuries earlier, the prophet Micah had said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, who Augustus was not powerful. Augustus was just a pawn on God’s chessboard. He was just a tool in God’s hand to accomplish God’s purpose to get Joseph of Nazareth, to Bethlehem with his fiancee, Mary. Even when the tool is rusty, or sharp, or inflicts pain, like a dentist, drill, we still have this hope. We have if I’ve read this passage, right, we have the hope of judgment. It’s an ominous time for the door to close. Couldn’t plan that we have the hope of judgment? You heard me right. That’s what I said. We have the hope of judgment because that’s what we’re longing for at Advent. Judgment. And you’re all like, no, that’s not what I’m longing for judgment is not a bad word. Not necessarily, because what does it mean to judge it means to render a just decision, like courts will often hand Around judgments that award damages to an innocent victim. So the hope of judgment is the sure and certain hope that God will set all things right in the end. That’s what it means that he judges justly, God wins. He triumphs over his enemies sin, death, the devil are defeated, and they will be defeated in us to, so that we are truly the remnant of God, a holy remnant. You know what that means? It means addiction doesn’t get the last word means that besetting sin in your life doesn’t get the last word, tears and pain and mourning, they don’t get the last word God’s anger isn’t the last word either the last word is grace. Hope, mercy, love. So here’s what I want for you, as we leave here today, to see, to open your eyes to see what God is building in your life, and what he is building you to be. Because that is a good thing. Even if the tool that he is using is a bad thing. And maybe even a really bad thing. Even still, you can trust him kindled hope, because God uses many tools to build his perfect kingdom. You pray with me now. Lord, we come before you in humility, knowing that we are not God, that we don’t understand everything that we can’t always see what you are doing or even that you are there. We got questions. And yet, Lord, we come before you in humility, because we know that you have the answers. We know who you are, we know that you can be trusted. And so in humility, we count that as enough more than enough, because we know what we need to know. We know that we are loved by you in Christ, and we know what you are doing for us and for this world in the end in Christ and we welcome it in our lives, Lord, would you use whatever tools necessary? And I pray that knowing the weight of those words I just spoke, use whatever tools necessary to build your kingdom in us and to advance your kingdom through us. We pray to the glory of Christ our Lord, Amen.

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A Dark Decision in Israel (Isaiah 9:8-10:4) December 11, 2022 | Kyle Bjerga TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Go and grab your Bibles. turn to Isaiah chapter nine. It’s page 560 in the pew Bible using the black pew Bible in front of you. On July 8 1741, the congregation in Enfield Connecticut, had a preacher come to the pulpit and give an infamous sermon. This is a portion of that sermon. The God that holds you over the pit of hell as much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and as dreadfully provoked His wrath towards you burns like fire. You have offended him infinitely more than every stubborn rebel did his prints. And yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. There’s no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose this morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. Oh center, consider the fearful danger you are in is a great furnace of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose Wrath has provoked and incense as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to cinch it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold up to save yourself. Nothing to keep you off of the flames of wrath, nothing on your own. Nothing that you have ever done. Nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God is the title of that sermon. Not what we usually think about at Advent. Right? Like Merry Christmas. When you hear those words, what happens? Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you indifferent? Those words are serious. They’re tough to hear. They’re tough to read. But the question is, is what Edward says? Is it true? Is it true? Because what Edwards does is he brings the seriousness of our sin and God’s right response to that sin with vivid imagery. We must not shy away from it. There’s an urgency in the message, but it’s also one that must come with tears. It must come with tears. Many have found this teaching of God’s wrath of judgment and hell as a stumbling block to the Christian faith. Maybe you’ve had people ask you questions about it. But if we understand God’s holiness, like his moral perfection, his otherness, then what we see here is this is exactly what God has to do towards sin, and sinners. Wrath is an outworking of God’s holiness and justice against sin, and rebellion. If you’re interested in the subject much more we did a whole series just recently on the holiness and grace of God, earlier this fall called people got killed. We looked at a lot of questions. We’re going to continue that kind of in this passage this morning, but you can go back and listen more because our sin as we saw deserves God’s wrath. AW Tozer helps us understand the what the why and the connection between our sin and God’s Relentless Pursuit against our sin. Listen to what he says. Since God’s first concern for his universe is its moral health. That is its holiness. Whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under his eternal displeasure. To preserve his creation, God must destroy whatever would destroy it. When he arises to put down iniquity and save the world from irreparable moral collapse, he is said to be angry. Every wrathful judgment in the history of the world has been a holy act of preservation. The holiness of God, the wrath of God and the health of creation are inseparably united. God’s wrath is his utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys. He hates iniquity, as a mother hates the disease that would take the life of her child. God hates sin. And what it does to his image bearers, and the rest of his creation, and if he hates it, it means he has to do something with it. And there is good news in this message. We just heard it this morning from Luke chapter two. The angels show up, it’s bringing good news that will cause great joy for all people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born. He did do something. That’s what we celebrate this season. The real bad and hopeless news for us would be if God was indifferent to our sin, that would be a problem. But God is not indifferent to our sin. He is relentless. He does not give up God loves us so much, that he’s relentless against our sin. And that’s the point this morning as you see in your notes, this is our problem as well. God is relentless against sin. We cannot miss this point this morning, it’s gonna be very, very clear. There is a refrain if you’ve already read the passage, and I hope you did to prepare for this morning, you know that Isaiah repeats the same refrain four times in this passage. And that’s where we get the main point this morning. It’s found in verse 12, verse 17, verse 21, and in chapter 10, verse four, and this is what it says, we’re gonna hear it over and over this morning, yet for all this, his anger is not turned away. His hand is still appraised. God’s hand is up raised against humanity. And yet we read in Exodus 34, as as God is telling Moses who he is, this is what God says. He says, The Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness. We come to a pastor’s like today, we think that God that God, God’s anger, it’s hard for us to hear and we want to kind of fight against it. And yet what we see is God is slow to anger and his anger is not like ours. Our anger being petty, inconsistent, unpredictable, know, he gets angry at sin, for a reason. Now, when I say as ministry starts, we have to kind of do a little bit of history here. Amos and Hosea are prophets as well, and they serve kind of before and during at least Hosea during Isaias prophetic ministry as well. So Amos and Hosea had been talking to the Israelites about their sin for decades before Isaiah comes on the scene. God is slow to anger. The same message that Isaiah says this morning is the same message Amos and Jose Jose had been given to the people for decades. He is slow to anger. And then we need to look at our sin is a downward spiral. Okay, it’s a downward spiral. If you think about it, like a debt. If you think of Debt Debt takes you to a place you never thought possible. And it’s this downward spiral because it doesn’t look that bad at the beginning. It’s just a little bit of debt. And then based on our decisions and things we do, we start to have this downward spiral and very quickly, we look up and we say, how did we get here? So we’re gonna look at the text, we’re going to see this to that answer the question, why is God’s hand up raised against us? It’s because our hand is up raised against God first. That’s the only reason because we have our hand against God in our sin, and rebellion. And the only right thing for him to do is to do something about it. And we’ll see that this morning. Let’s look at chapter nine. Starting in verse eight. I’m just gonna be the first couple of verses we need to talk quickly about where we are in the passage. So verse eight, the Lord has sent a message against Jacob, it will fall on Israel, all the people will know it, Efraim and the inhabitants of Samaria. So let’s pause there. Before we continue, we need to know that we’ve transitioned locations now, the last two weeks we talked about Judah this week, and next week, we’re gonna talk about Israel. And so you have the northern kingdom of Israel, okay, up here when the when the nation split after King Solomon, you have the northern kingdom kept the name Israel with Samaria as its capital. Then you had the southern kingdom and they it was called Judah and they kept the capital of Jerusalem. Okay, you have northern and southern kingdoms, they are split. And what we see here is we have this message for Jacob Israel and Efrain and the inhabitants of Samaria. Well, Jacob, Israel, Efraim are all referring to the northern kingdom. Jacob’s name was eventually changed Israel. And Efrain was the most prominent of the tribes in the northern kingdom. So anytime you see that it’s referring to the northern kingdom and Samaria being the capital. So that’s where we are. That’s who we’re talking to. today. I’m going to switch from last week. So the Lord has a message for Israel and we’re gonna see what it is and the first thing we see is our pride merits God’s wrath. So the first thing you’ll see here, notice that our pride merits God’s wrath. Let me pick up back in verse nine. All the people will know it, Efraim and inhabitants of Samaria, who say with pride and arrogance of heart. The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild the trust stone. The fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars but the Lord has strengthened residents foes against them in a spurred their enemies on Arameans from the east and Philistines from the West have devoured Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away. His hand is still appraised. Our pride merits God’s wrath. So Israel has some destruction. Arameans and Philistines from both sides have come in and done some damage to buildings to trees, they have left devastation in their wake. And what are the Israelites do they do not step back in humility knowing that these things were coming based off of Amos and Jose, Jose and what they had already told them And so they stepped back. And what did they say?
We need to get better materials, like the fig trees have fallen over. So we need to use cedars. The bricks have fallen down. So we need to use dress stone. What they’re saying is if we just work hard enough, if we put our minds together, we can make this place great. So no one can overtake it. And it sounds like a good plan, it might resonate with us, because usually when things go wrong in our culture, what do we ask? How can I fix it? How can I fix it? What can I do? There’s got to be something. But of course, we can’t fix it. But in our pride and arrogance, we believe we can it sounds a lot like Genesis 11 The people at Babel, listen to what they say, Come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves. That’s what they’re interested in. Not let’s glorify God with this, let’s make sure when people see this, they think, how great are those people that Israelites are destroyed? And all they can think about is how can we make sure this doesn’t happen? Again, and we see it right here, as they call it out. It’s pride and arrogance of their hearts. And God’s discipline is still coming, his judgment is still coming because they will not change. And Isaiah gives them the exact plan. What’s the Lord going to do? He’s going to raise up residence photos we learned a couple of weeks ago, the residents photos are the Assyrians. The Assyrians are coming in 722. And they will destroy the nation. And they will take the people captive. So God doesn’t see their problem in the same way. God doesn’t see the problem is with their materials, what he sees is a problem of their heart. And that’s where all of our problems start in our hearts in us. It’s not out there. It’s not the people who are coming, it’s our hearts first. So let’s think through that example, even of debt, at first, it’s just a little bit like there’s just one week or one month where I spend a little bit more than I make. They’re just like, Alright, I just gotta, I gotta do better. Next one, I just got to spend a little bit less. And then you think about your life, you’re like, Well, how many times do I try to fix things instead of going to God? And where do we see this? Well, it’s probably inconsistency with being in the Word. As many of you have shared probably in different contexts, you’re not happy with how often you’re in the word and statistics show across the nation. People are not spending time in God’s word daily, and even weekly, so we don’t listen to God. What about prayer? lessness we don’t talk to God. What about disobedience? We don’t obey God. All of those things are pride and arrogance of hearts of thinking I can get through life on my own. Brenda just prayed this morning where we need you to provide. Let’s not go huddle around and try and figure out how we can get more money. Let’s bring it to the Lord. So we enter prideful and arrogant hearts. We continually try to do things on our own, put our minds together, put our money together, put our effort and our energy together, we can do it. But our greatest problem is the fact that God is relentless against sin and there’s nothing we can do to satisfy that. Nothing is done check their pride and arrogance is going to get us in serious trouble. James says in James chapter four, God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Unfortunately, the Israelites are not humble. And that leads us to our next point. Our unrepentant merits God’s wrath will give verses 13 through 17. But the people have not returned to him who struck them, nor have they sought the Lord Almighty. So the Lord will cut off from Israel both head and tail both palm branch and read in a single day. The elders and dignitaries or the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail. Those who guide this people mislead them and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will He pity the fatherless and widows. For every one is ungodly and wicked. Every mouth speaks folly. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away. His hand is still appraised. So the people see the enemy out there. And instead of realizing that the Lord who has sent them even though they were told over and over again, this was coming, and they’re prideful and arrogant hearts. They’re not humble. They don’t see it being the Lord and they don’t turn to him. It’s the first verse that people have not returned to him who struck them. Contrast that now with the book of Jonah. So Jonah is a prophet the Lord calls and remember his kind of story. He doesn’t go there immediately, but eventually ends up in Nineveh. Nineveh is a pagan place not following the God of the Bible, and God says you have a message for them. And this is the message, a message of judgment. And this is what Jonah tells them. 40 more days in Nineveh will be overthrown. And what happens? The whole city repents sackcloth and ashes, they repent, and God does not send disaster. He does not overthrow them. A pagan nation responding to God’s prophet, God’s people ignoring God’s word. You see the contrast there. What’s happened in Israel? One reason they don’t repent. The one reason they don’t turn that we see here in these verses is the people who are supposed to be leading the way in repentance, are leaving them farther away from God. They are not fulfilling their role and the downward spiral continues. It isn’t just personal pride and arrogance of hearts, those hearts have moved into leadership. Is anyone these days surprised that leaders fail? That we have issues with our leaders at all sorts of levels, from the very personal like in a job all the way to the government. prideful and arrogant hearts are in all of us. And then when we get positions of authority and power, what do we think is going to happen? We should not be surprised by that. Now, who are these leaders here we see elders, dignitaries, prophets, but we get this language of we see it from head to tail. So mean, this is all of leadership, from the top to the bottom. And across the whole spectrum. These leaders are failing the people, they’re failing to fulfill their role. Now, the most obvious example of this is the kings of Israel. So in Israel, there were 19 kings from Solomon until the exile. Out of those 19 i This is participation time, I was 19. How many of them are good? Zero. God’s judgment on all of those kings was that they were not good. They were building altars and sacrificing to other gods, they were bringing other gods into the community. And then get this seven out of the 19. kings of Israel were assassinated by the replacement. Fund to be king in those days, right. And then you have what are prophets like we know Elijah, Elijah was a really good prophet. But who was Elijah battling on the Mount, false prophets of Baal, false prophets who had an influence in Israel who were not fulfilling their role in the community, instead, leading the people farther away. And so God will remove the leaders, he will cut them off. Because the leaders are not leading people to the Lord, as they were called to do but they’re leading them farther away from him. Now, what’s interesting here is, as you get towards the end, what we see is this wickedness, and is unrepentant has infiltrated every single status, every single people group in Israel, because what it says here is it’s it’s young men, it’s the fatherless, it’s widows, it’s the younger everybody is ungodly, and wicked. Even those who are usually looked at as vulnerable, and weak and innocent, are known for being wicked. They’re supposed to be pity, but instead, they are joining everybody else, because the leaders have driven them further and further away from the Lord. We’ve seen this before. In Genesis six. The Lord saw how great the wickedness the human race have become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil, all the time. God was relentless in his pursuit against sin, then, because that’s when he sent the flood. But has there been any change in our hearts as people? The pride and arrogance is still there. So what does the Lord want? He wants a repentance. Every trial, everything we go through has an opportunity to repent for us to turn to Him. And it’s really simple. It’s just a turn. That’s what repentance is turning from what we’ve been doing, what we’ve been following the places we’ve gone in order to find the better way, the better person and a follow after him, that’s what he wants. But the people don’t do it. The leaders don’t lead in that and the people don’t follow because they don’t have anybody to show them what repentance looks like. So there isn’t repentance, what happens is our hearts get harder and harder and harder. And we live for ourselves. And when we live as if there isn’t a God, then wickedness takes over. So the downward spiral continues into this next section. We’re moving from the very personal to more of a societal issue. So the third point there’s our wickedness merits God’s wrath. Look at verses 18 through 21.
Surely wickedness burns like a fire. It consumes Briars and thorns it says the forest thickets ablaze Just so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke by the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched and the people will be fuel for the fire. They will not spare one another. On the right they will devour but still be hungry on the left they will eat but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring. Manasa will feed on Efraim and Ephraim and Manasseh to get together they will turn against Judah. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away. His hand is still up raised. prideful and arrogant hearts, bad leaders leads to rampant wickedness. We get the image here of fire. And we know that fire is relentless. Our neighbor’s house a couple of years ago went up in flames and was destroyed and the flames got up under their siding and into their attic. without anybody in the house knowing it we just kept moving. The forest fires that we’ve seen on the news in Australia, California and Colorado over the last few years, we see what are you going to do when the fire starts is relentless. It just keeps going. And that’s what wickedness does the natural consequence consequences of wickedness? When people look up and they say how do we get this bad? We have to go all the way back to our own hearts. This is how we got that bad. Because it’s in us first. And then we see it in the leaders and nobody’s leading the way anymore in the way that we’re supposed to go. And now society is impacted. We wonder what in the world happened? Well, everybody’s doing what they think is right in their own eyes. And we see here that the consequences are also God’s judgment on the people. God is sovereign overall. And so he’s using these consequences to try to wake the people up. See us Loomis. CS Lewis famously said God shouts in our pain. It is a megaphone to rouse a deaf world. That’s what he’s doing. Pay attention. Wake up. He’s calling us to repentance. But if we don’t respond to repentance, then we only add fuel to God’s wrath. That’s what wickedness does. Have you ever seen somebody throw gasoline on a fire? Yes, maybe I have. The first question that goes to your mind is how could it be so dumb? To do that, and we know that people do these types of things. You sit back and you’re like, well, what’s the difference? Between throwing gasoline on that fire and me thinking I can satisfy God’s wrath by doing a bunch of good things or not doing bad things, and somehow that will satisfy His wrath. No, instead we just add fuel to the fire when we do not repent when we do not turn to him. I already mentioned Hosea a couple times in chapters four or five. Jose gives us a list of things that Israel is known for. Okay, remember, this is the backdrop to Isaias ministry. So the people already know that this is true of them. They’ve been told this. The wickedness is so prevalent, this is what they’re known for. No faithfulness, no love and no acknowledgement of God. God’s chosen people, the ones he called. No love, no faithfulness, no acknowledgement of him. Cursing, line murder, bloodshed, following bloodshed, prostitution, Efrain being joined to idols not everyone being joined to God but being joined to idols and leaders, dear leaders dearly loving their shameful ways. We think things have changed. We see here’s Isaiah then says, Even the tribes of Manasa and Efraim are going to fight against each other. Joseph had some sons, right. So Jacob had sons, and then they got on the allotment of land. Well, Joseph, probably the most famous son as far as time spent in Genesis and from Broadway fame. He ends up having to allotments of land given to his family through his sons. So Joseph gets to he gets one from a met Manasseh and Ephraim. And so even these brothers at this point, the wickedness is so bad that they can’t stand each other. And all they do is they fight each other. And the only thing that they fight together for is against Judah, which by the way, is still part of their family. That’s how bad this wickedness has gotten. Doesn’t seem like it’s changed much in our world. So church, this is a warning to us. How are we treating fellow brothers and sisters in Christ because we must look different than the world? If we’re going to proclaim the gospel and fight each other? What are we bringing people into? What are we bringing people into we must show love and unity with one another. If we want to make a difference if we want people to see that the gospel can actually change can change us. So even the rampid wickedness and its consequences, you would think that people would turn but they don’t So God’s hand is still appraised we get to our last section, our injustice merits God’s wrath. Look at chapter 10. verses one through four. Woe to those who make unjust laws to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches, nothing will remain, but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away. His hand is still oppressed, or injustice smears, God’s wrath, prideful and arrogant hearts, leaders who are not leading the way that they’re supposed to rampid wickedness in society, and that finally leads in this downward spiral to laws that are unjust and oppressive. Read the Old Testament, some time and look for God’s heart towards the vulnerable, towards the poor, towards the oppressed, see what he tells Israel to do. And then go read in the prophets, what Israel is actually doing. The very people that God has compassion for they are making laws, not to protect them, but to exploit them. That’s what they’re known for. So you see, it’s moved from the personal all the way to society, and it’s impacting everything, even the laws that are made. It is this constant, downward spiral. And then Isaiah says, When the day of reckoning comes, which in the immediate context is when a Syria attacks, the plan we saw earlier in chapter nine, when that actually happens in Syria comes, where are you going to look? Who are you going to run to? Where are you going to hide your riches? That’s what he’s asking. And then he says in verse four, nothing will remain but to cringe him on the captain’s are falling on the slain, what have you seen is by that time, it will be too late. You will either be taken captive or you will be killed. That’s what you’re deciding if you choose not to repent. So think back to the debt example. You start off with some bad decisions of spending a little bit more than you make. And then you have credit card after credit card, you constantly try and borrow and pay off all these different things to the point where you get so helpless and so hopeless, you have nothing to do, but to throw your hands up and say, I don’t know how I’m going to do this. You finally see it. But maybe by that time, it’s too late. But you don’t know what your options are. We cannot miss the point that God is relentless against our sin. He does not let up in his judgment of these people because they will not learn. And he’s rightfully pouring out His wrath. And, again, everything we do is just fuel for that wrath. If we don’t repent, everything we do merits God’s wrath or text is finished. That’s what we have this morning. It’s a very negative note to end on. To have that refrain again, as we finish in verse four. The passage next week continues with hope. But I do want to pivot here because we are in the Advent season. And based on where we’ve been in Isaiah, and where we are going, there’s still good news to talk about. God is relentless against sin. But he’s also relentless in his pursuit again for us. Those things they shouldn’t go together. Right? Yes, Your Holiness is against sin, you have to punish sin, and yet he continues to pursue us. That’s what Advent is. He pursues you he pursues me. And so I want to pivot here because I want us to leave here this morning, knowing the reality of our sin, but also seeing the goodness and the grace of God. So I want to read from probably the most famous, recognizable, foundational uncomfort giving passage that we have in the Bible, words that I hope bring joy to your heart today. For God so loved the world. that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life for God and not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only son. All of us stand condemned because of our sin. unable to save ourselves when Jesus came in the world. 2000 years ago, he came into a world that was already condemned. A world that cared more about darkness than lights, a world that turned its back on God, a world that God had God’s hand up raised against it. In his relentless and right wrath. But that first time God did not send Jesus into the world for the day of reckoning, but for a day of redemption. That’s what happened. That’s what we celebrate at Advent. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, it says in Ephesians, two, and Jesus came in to save us in that state when he did not have to. And so today, you’re in one of two camps. There’s only two options those who stand condemned in their sin, already, because of our sin, because we do not turn to Jesus or those now, who stand forgiven. Those who stand condemned, God’s hand is up raised, those who are forgiven and saved. God’s hand is no longer appraised against us. That is not true for those who call on the name of Jesus. We experienced His holy love rather than his holy wrath. For God so loved the world, a prideful, arrogant, wicked, ungodly people, that He gave His one and only Son to take away our greatest problem. His wrath against our sin, he didn’t ignore it. He didn’t pretend it didn’t happen. He had to punish it in His holiness. He justly punished it, he just punished it by putting it all on his son. Like someone swimming in debt, we had nowhere to turn, we are hopeless, we were helpless. We didn’t know what to do. Everything just made things worse. And then God came. Emmanuel, God with us. And he died on the cross. Not to me not so we could say bankrupt. Right? Then just clean the slate, no, he said, it is paid. In full the day of redemption, it is over, it’s paid for completely. And regardless of what we get here on this earth, we get the riches of heaven in Christ. That’s what we get through him. So in light of this, I want to close by just addressing the two groups I mentioned already. First of you are here. And whether or not you actually believe this, what I believe we see here in the texts, what we see in John three is that you do stand condemned already. Every man and woman born into this world, this is our natural state. Ephesians two says, like the rest of your by nature deserving of wrath, that is all of us, deserving of God’s wrath. So I want to ask you two questions. There the questions that Isaiah asks, in chapter 10, verse three, one, what will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? The first time Jesus came for redemption, He came to bring the gift of salvation, but he will be coming again. There is a final day of reckoning, where we will be separated based on how we answer one question, Who do you say Jesus is? Which leads to the second question that Isaiah asks, To whom will you run for help? I hope that answer is Jesus. All other answers will fail. God’s hand has rightly raised up against you, as a sinner as it was me as it has been for everyone else. And nothing you can do will put that hand down. Nothing. There is no one you can point to in your life that will save you only the grace of God, you must believe that Jesus came, and he put that hand down for you. i And we as a church, don’t want you to be numbered with the captives and the slain. We want you to experience the eternal life you can have with Jesus, and abundant life now and for ever. So here’s what I hope you do today. Just turn and trust. Are we coming to the table here in a few minutes, turn and trust, repent of your sin and claim Jesus, that it was paid in full and believe in Him. And then for the majority of us here, trust those who know Jesus. Remember, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, deserving of God’s wrath. But God who is rich in mercy and grace saved you through faith? It is his gift, which means Christian, the Lord’s hand is no longer against you. Instead, his hand is there to guide you, to embrace you. Because his hand now is for you. Do you believe that when trials come when God’s discipline comes into life, because it will because we still sin, we look at it differently. Now. Look at Hebrews chapter 12. God disciplines us for our good. That’s us as Christians, God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. The discipline will come in, but it’s for our good. It’s from a loving father. So here’s what I hope for you today that you walk out of here, confident of that truth. But that you also go out today, and you tell the people in your life who need to hear the gospel, this true message. Because it is true what Edward says is hard to hear. But it is true. You need to tell the people that there is good news for them. People are going to hear all sorts of things this season, there is joy, and there’s peace, and there’s hope. And guess what most of them don’t believe it at all. It’s just happy feelings for a month. And then it’s gone. Because there’s no thing to ground those words in in their life. It’s all circumstantial, right, depending on the day, and we get to say there’s love, joy, hope and peace in one man, one person, Jesus Christ, and He is for them. He came for them. After the whole sermon that Edward spent on God’s anger and wrath of God towards centers, this is how he closes, he says, and now you have an extraordinary opportunity. A day were in crisis, flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands in the door, calling and crying, crying with a loud voice, to poor centers, to come in. That’s where God is. He’s relentless against our sin, and He is relentless in pursuing us. So turn, and trust in Him. And this season will take on a whole new meaning. Let’s pray.
Lord, You are our hope, our peace, our joy? Lord, You are good. You are holy. And we stand here today, wanting to see you for who you truly are. And, Lord, I pray for all of us. That we see the true depths of our sin, and our rebellion against you. And we see your grace and Your goodness toward us. And that our vision of you expands and we see that you are much bigger than we think right now. And you will continue to get bigger, because we will see you more and more for who you are. We will see our sin for what it is the thing that causes us that leads us away from you. And I pray for all of us Lord, whether we’ve called on your name or we have not to see that truth of who we are apart from you. And then who we are in Christ. Jesus, we are thankful for this season to remember when you came God with us, and to remember that you are the king, the true King of our hearts of our lives of this world and the entire universe. We love you. We pray this in Jesus name.

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A Remnant of Hope in Judah (Isaiah 8:9-9:7) December 4, 2022 | Brandon Cooper TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Morning, you can go ahead grab your Bibles open up to Isaiah chapter eight will be in chapter eight and nine this morning Isaiah chapter eight. Now as you’re turning there, I want you to imagine for a moment that you are walking through a dark forest in the middle of the night. It’s so dark, you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. It’s a little bit terrifying. The only noise you hear is you and if you do hear a you know, stick crack or something like that, elsewhere, you’re freaking out because you don’t know what is there. So heart is racing, all of that. And maybe the worst part of course, is that you just keep tripping over everything. Because you don’t know what’s in front of you. Every route every rock you keep worrying, you’re gonna walk off a cliff or something. What do you need in that moment? It’s the simplest thing in the world like you would give anything just a flashlight, night vision goggles, something like that. Some of you are parents with young children’s Of course you’re thinking this has nothing to do with the forest. This is just the hallway in the middle of the night when the kids are crying because I don’t want any plastic dinosaurs are on the floor right now. Let’s speak from experience. I bring us all up this little you know, make believe moment because last week we saw that God’s people, Judah, the southern kingdom, Jerusalem as its as its capital, we’re in dark times because of King Ahaz is bad decision. He had in a moment of crisis national crisis chosen to put his trust in a pagan superpower a Syria instead of in the Lord Almighty and that bad decision led to destruction and destruction of his nation ultimately, was a dark day. But is that the end of the story? Of course not. Caitlyn already read it for us. We know that we’re often faithless. But God always remains faithful. He keeps his promises. And one of those promises was Isaias son Shourya shoes, a remnant will return to people will come back. And so that’s what we’re going to see this morning. As we continue in Isaias message, we’re going to see a remnant of hope. Every bit as sweet these words is the first rays of dawn, when you’ve been wandering about in a dark forest all night. How do we live? Even in the dark times? How do we foster hope in the midst of destruction? These are questions we all need answered their questions that we may need answered even right now you may be feeling this because you’re in a season of grief and the holidays don’t ever make that easier. Or you’re going through a trial of some sort might be financial might be medical might be relational, you’re facing temptation of some sort, and you need hope. Isaiah is gonna help us answer two questions. They’re gonna get us answers to these deeper questions that we’re looking at. So our questions, we look at a remnant of Hope, who is the remnant? And what is the hope? Let’s start with the first one who is the remnant? It’s gonna be chapter eight, verses nine to 22. I’m actually going to read this as I go just so we keep the text fresh in our minds as we look at it. So when we read verses nine and 10, to start, raise the war, cry you nations and be shattered. Listen, all your distant lands, prepare for battle and be shattered, prepare for battle and be shattered, devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted, propose your plan, but it will not stand for God is with us. Remember last week, when he has and most of the people of Judah hear that there’s this invasion coming the alliance of Aram and Israel, their hearts shook like trees being blown by the wind, but not these people. This is God’s remnant. This is God’s people. They’re not shaking it all. Instead, they’ve got this holy boldness going like this is the the hutzpah that characterizes God’s people. They look at air and they look at Israel and they say go ahead and invade. Go for it. See what will happen. We know how this story and come on in. It’s the the boldness that Jacob had his dad read for us last week for his baptism of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego Go ahead, toss us in the furnace doesn’t matter to me. It’s the boldness of St. Lawrence a murder in the early centuries of the church. He was being roasted on a spit and as he was there, he said you can turn me over this sides done now. That’s one way to treat your persecutors of course it’s the the the boldness of of Lucy Haven’t Z and Prince Caspian, at least in the film version, there’s a certain moment where the entire chlorin army is coming across the bridge and she’s just standing there all by herself. She’s like seven years old. She’s got a dagger with about a six inch blade and she’s blade and she’s just kind of smiling at them. And you go, where does this courage come from? Like, what would give that sort of boldness we know why because as she’s standing there, all of a sudden, a giant lion appears next to her. You know, that would be Aslan, the Christ figure. And that’s exactly what we see in this passage, divide your strategies can be for to propose your plan, it will not stand for me read it to you in the Hebrew for it. Ie Manu, l. Emmanuel, God with us. That’s why we’ve got this boldness like what’s in the name that was given to this little baby that was born last week, everything’s in this name. It is that holy boldness because the truth behind the name, the reminder that God is with us that the lion is at our side, changes how we respond to the news. changes how we respond to the news doesn’t actually change the news, I think that’s really important for us to remember, like Lawrence, he got roasted, he died, he was murdered, we do not ever have a guarantee of victory in any given battle. What we have is the guarantee of victory for the war. The war is already won. Whatever happens in this or that skirmish, God is with us, no matter the circumstances, he is with us even in death, because of course at that moment, we will be with him in all of eternity. This is the lesson that two missionaries learned they were sent from the United Kingdom to Tierra del Fuego in 1851. As they were making their journey across the Atlantic they were their ship was forced to winter in a in inhospitable Bay, so they were there waiting for a supply vessel to arrive, or else they weren’t going to make it. And that supply vessel never came. And actually everyone on that ship died of combination of cold and starvation. But their journals survive these two missionaries. One of them wrote this poor and weak though we are our abode is a very Bethel, to our souls. in Bethel, meaning house of God, here we are in this ship that is killing us. We are dying of cold and starvation. And this might as well be God’s very out because he is so present to us, Emmanuel, God with us the last journal entry when he says, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to write again, he says, Let all my beloved ones at home rest assured that I was happy and would not have changed situations with any man living. That’s a remarkable statement. If I were dying, of cold and starvation, I think there are a few places I would rather be. I would switch places with a few people No, no, no. Why? Because again, they experience the presence of God, even though circumstances did not go the way they were expecting that cold starvation was a very Bethel to them. That’s what we see in this passage, who is the remnant? It is those emboldened by encouraged by the knowledge of God’s presence, we keep reading them verses 11 to 15. This is what the Lord says to me with a strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people do not call conspiracy, everything, these people call it a conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. He is the one you are to fear. He is the one you are to dread. He will be a holy place for both Israel and Judah. He will be a stone that causes people to stumble on a rock that makes them fall for the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble, they will fall and be broken, they will be snared, and captured. The Lord has a strong, clear word for Isaiah here. This
is like when the parent kneels down in front of his child, you know, I level making eye contact hands on the shoulders as if to say, pay attention. What I’m about to say matters. What is it that he says? This message matters because what Isaiah is drawing out with the Lord is telling Isaiah is that darkness doesn’t just cause fear. Although it does that it causes confusion, too, because you can’t see clearly you don’t really know what’s going on. Well, what happens then you start to rely on rumors. And we all know this. Remember those early days of COVID When rumors just flying, we didn’t we didn’t know and we look back now and you see how naive we were in so many ways, but we didn’t know at the time. And so there was confusion and fear and it’s this vicious spiral because those rumors here it’s it’s the concern about a conspiracy so all the political stuff that’s happening the the rumors create more fear, which leads more rumors which leads to more fear Then when Isaiah points out what the Lord points out through Isaiah is that that fear is misplaced? Because the problem is that they are fearing their circumstances, not the God who is sovereign over those circumstances. The repetition of fear and dread and verses 12 and 13 is kheer key, do not fear what they fear and do not dread it, the Lord Almighty. He’s the one you’re supposed to fear. He’s the one you’re supposed to dread. That’s what distinguishes the remnant, the people of God from the masses, what do they fear? But this raises the question, of course, though, why are we dreading the Lord? Why are we fearing the Lord? What does that mean? So, there we are hiking in our dark forest, already feeling trepidatious because we can’t see anything and there’s noises around us and all of that. And then it gets worse, because you are set upon by robbers, you know, like a band of thugs and brigands, they are armed, and they look nasty, although you can’t see them. So they just sound nasty. And you know, like, this is the end, you’re getting taken care of right here. And then all of a sudden, you know, those movie scenes where you’re in that situation, and then the bad guys just start dropping, you don’t even know where it’s coming from. They’re just like, and pretty soon, they’re all lying unconscious around you. And so that’s what happens. This rescuer comes in all the guys are now lying unconscious on the floor, and then he walks toward you. And he’s always hooded in that scene, right? Like it’s always dark right there and your hearts actually pounding even more, maybe it’s even just stopped pounding at this point. Because you know, if he could do that to those guys, what’s he going to do to me? And then he pulls back the hood, and he puts his hand on your shoulder and he says, Don’t worry, I’m here to help. What changes in you there? Are you less afraid? You sure, maybe, but it’s more that it’s a new fear. The nature of the fear has changed from terror to all. Because if he could do that to these guys, and what could he do to me? In an instant, I could be gone. But I gotta trust that he’s here to help. That’s us with God. I mean, the brigands that are lying unconscious all around you that’s, that’s Aram and Israel, and Assyria. He defeats the enemies. Of course, those are nothing compared to the real enemies that he defeats. He defeats sin and death and darkness itself. And so we’re feeling good, but we got to remember that he is Savior, He is a rescuer. But he is Lord and judge also, verse 13, the Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy. We just did a series on God’s holiness, remember what it was called? People got killed. Like there’s the fear. There’s the the dread, of course, his coming to rescue us, is either the very best news, or the very worst news depending on how you respond to him. In fact, we get that needs two sets of images that are given we read in verse 14, he will be a holy place he will be a sanctuary. In other words, I mean, there’s Bethel, there’s the house of God, where we can live and enjoy his presence or verse 15. He will be a snare. It depends on how you respond to him a sanctuary or a snare or he is the rock Scripture tells us that repeatedly he is the rock, what can you do with a rock you can build your life on a rock, he is a sure foundation. Unless of course, he’s a stumbling stone, you trip over him because you’re scrambling to get over and away because you know what it means if he is God. Now Peter makes clear in First Peter chapter two that this stumbling stone this rock is Jesus himself. He is the living stone, which means this passage, it’s it is the Christmas question. Like this is what we should be asking ourselves this Advent season. He’s here. He’s here he came. How does that make you feel? Joy to the world. The Lord is come God is real. He’s come to rescue us but but God is real. And that’s got implications for our lives. If what we’re celebrating is true, as it most certainly is, then you are not your own. You belong to God. You belong to a God who speaks who has made his claims on your life abundantly clear. But this is good news. This is good news. Even if it is the loss of autonomy is good news because our only hope is found in that proper fear, the fear or all of our rescuer, because otherwise, we are completely subject to our circumstances. Our only hope is If we get dealt a good hand, and if you don’t get that, then there’s nowhere else to go. So who is the remnant? The remnant is those awed by God’s power, and authority, and goodness. And let’s keep reading. last characteristic of the remnant rest of the chapter. Verse 16, is where I’m starting bind up this testimony of warning and seal up the instruction among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who’s hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob I will put my trust in Him. Here am I and the children the Lord has given me we are signs and symbols and Israel from the Lord Almighty Who dwells on Mount Zion. When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter should not have people inquire of their god, why consult the dead on behalf of the living consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn, distressed and hungry they will roam through the land and they’re famished, they will become enraged and looking upward will curse their King and their God, and they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness. So here’s the last characteristic of the remnant we already had hinted at in verse 12. It’s that there are people marked by God’s word. I think God is speaking in verse 16. It doesn’t say God’s instruction, the Hebrew just says the instruction. But the point is that these are God’s disciples. He has claimed his remnant as his own. These are my people, and then he instructs them that he speaks to them. And then verse 17, Isaiah responds to that truth. And it is an expression of personal devotion. I will listen to the word, I will trust God, I’m going to wait on Him. And when we do that God does not hide his face from us. Which is what it says he will do to those who don’t turn to him. Of course, this is the opposite i i did the the blessing of Aaron last week, right? The Lord turn his face toward you, that’s blessing. The opposite is that the Lord turn his face away from you hide his face from you. And that’s the experience that they have here. This is a difference really, in terms of how we wait on God Almighty Isaiah is waiting like a child, you know, at a bus station or something like that, who’s waiting for Dad to come and pick him up? A loving doting father, he may be late because he hit all red lights, but he will be there. That same bus station is the kid who hit his caseworker and ran away and he’s trying to hop a bus to Toledo. That’s a really different waiting, isn’t it? Dad’s not coming. Nobody’s coming in love if anyone’s coming. It’s the cops. And they’re coming because they got some questions about how you hit that person you weren’t supposed to hit. But Isaiah has this restful waiting and in his restful waiting, he and his children serve as signs to the people of Israel and Judah. Why? It’s their names remember when through their names. Last week, my hairstyle house boss and shower Yes, shoes. So these names they are signs themselves remembering what God is going to do that God is real. And God is here. So why not rather turn to Him and receive His instruction? Well, it’s because they turn elsewhere, such folly, but turn it elsewhere. Starting in verse 19. God Almighty that rescuer can help them. But they shown his speech. They stop up their ears and they get on the eighth century BC equivalent of the internet instead. They’re gonna mediums and spiritists. That’s like googling what is the meaning of life?
Or getting on YouTube and typing in who is Jesus? Why are you getting on YouTube to figure out who Jesus is? Why not read the book about him? That make more sense to you? It makes more sense to me, but that’s not what they want to do. By the way. This is a word for self professed christians too. I mean, Isaiah is not speaking to pagans here. He is speaking to people who think they are God’s people. In other words, he’s speaking to us potentially. Where do you go? What do you listen to? I’m always a little bit worried when people tell me the devotionals they’re doing in the morning. And the book has got like, three words of Scripture at the top wrenched out of context, of course, and then three or four paragraphs of just somebody spouting whatever they think, and sometimes not good stuff. Jesus Calling is still one of the best selling Christian devotionals and it’s utter nonsense. Because we don’t want to listen to God’s word, we’d rather consult mediums and spiritists Go back to verse 12. Again, do not call conspiracy, everything that people call is a conspiracy. So that’s when, when, when things are going badly, where do you go to get perspective? When COVID hits or a nation invades another nation or whatever, it may be something personal. Where do you go to get perspective? Do you go on social media? Do you check out cable news? Are you listening to Jordan Peterson and John Oliver, instead of Jesus? Mean? Which one makes the most that’s exactly what I say. Like he’s saying, It’s absurd. You have God. And you’re trying to call up the dead in a seance? What’s wrong with you? That’s the absurdity that he’s drawing out. Why not rather inquire of God? Consult His instruction. Get in the word. This is how you put on your night vision goggles. That’s what we wanted, isn’t it? We’re stumbling around in a dark forest, which often characterizes our lives. We just want to be able to see the dinosaurs on the floor before we step on them. How do you do that? Getting the word. That’s how this is the flashlight. I’m pretty sure one of the Psalms even says that your word is a lamp to my feet. Great. That’s what we were looking for. So this is an easy choice, because you either get God or you get destruction. Tough call. I know, pray about it for a bit. But what happens they choose destruction. And so there they are in exile, starving to death, cursing God, like it’s God’s fault that they flipped in the bird and ran away like the kid at the bus station. And yet, this is what they’re doing. Who is the remnant? Not those people. It’s those who are instructed by God’s word, and living in light of revealed truth. The Remnant has these three distinguishing marks the three that we’ve seen, they’re marked by the presence of God, the fear of God, and the Word of God, the presence of God, the fear of God, and the Word of God. That’s who we’re supposed to be. That should be written on our lives, a calm boldness, a trusting or, and a biblical perspective, no matter what circumstances we’re in, by the way, if we were marked by that the people around us would notice, they would see it, they would know something was different. And they would ask for the reason, we have the hope that we have. But what would happen then is when news breaks as it will, it always does, again, whether that’s a pandemic or an invasion or something personal in your life, your response would be to kneel before him, the Bible open before you to seek His will to seek His face to hear from him, and then you would get up and do His will. Who is the remnant? The Remnant? Are those who choose God’s light? His thinking his living over the world’s darkness, choosing hope over destruction, frankly. So what is that hope? Exactly? That’s the second question we got to answer here. That’s the rest of our passage as well. So what is the hope? Let me read chapter nine, verses one to seven. Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zombieland in the land of Naphtali. But in the future, he will honor Galilee of the nations by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increase their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midians defeat you have shattered the yoke that burdens them the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warriors boot used in battle, and every garment rolled in, blood will be destined for burning will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born. to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace 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. From that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Here’s the turn from darkness to light, there is hope. We don’t have to end with gloom and distress. And there is hope especially for the northern most tribes of Israel. I know you’re Middle Eastern geography is good, but just as a refresher course here if this is Israel, a serious kind of Northeast so when they come into invade, they come right through Naphtali and into Zebulon as they traveled down basically the Jordan River on their way to Spirit this is exactly what they did, by the way. So we are talking about some time after 733 BC when it’s you Yeah begins their invasion of those northern tribes before 722. When they finally wipe out Samaria, Israel, Ephraim, whatever you want to call it in its entirety. But the point is, they get conquered first. So they were the first ones to be humbled, but later on, they will be exalted these tribes this land right by the Sea of Galilee, because there’s gonna be kind of a famous Galilean. Later on in history, you have probably heard of him. In fact, in fact, we met him last week, we were told that a virgin will conceive and bear a child. We said, Then, not immediately, though, there was gonna be this remote fulfillment. So now we are looking ahead to that day when he’s actually going to show up the people stumbling in darkness, need light, night vision goggles, flashlight, that would be great, that helps in the darkness. What do they really want, they really want the morning star to appear. They want dawn to break. And that’s what’s coming. Can you imagine what first light would look like to someone who has been alone and afraid out in the forest in the dark of night, all night long. I mean, it would be every bit as exhilarating as watching a foreign enemy retreat from your land, which is what’s being talked about here. Of course, the language verse for that describes their joy, it’s taken from the Exodus, especially those words like yoke and bar and Rod they get used throughout the Exodus account, when God delivered his people out of Egypt. The point is, as God delivered before he will deliver again, we can be sure of that he is who he has always been. It’s also like the defeat of Midian. Under Gideon, if you remember her, I remember him. That’s when the oppressors were cast out. And the people were set free again. We have trouble with language like this, because we have never been under oppression like this. And so we got to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. mean like imagine a slave in the antebellum south, shackled, beaten, regularly seen loved ones killed, not just hearing about the Emancipation Proclamation, but actually experiencing that freedom when the chains are loose, and you are free to go on your way. That is the joy that Isaiah is describing here. Incredibly, it’s not just that the borders will be reestablished. And that’s one thing I guess. But it’s more than that. God says he’s going to enlarge the nation and increase their joy. I mean, this is almost beyond all recognition. This is a child coming down on Christmas morning, misses the nations of the world on V Day connects over the darkness is gone. At last. Like Only a remnant returns, we’ve got that we’ve heard that. But that is not the end of the story. What’s being described here is what we see in Revelation, where it is not just a remnant, but a multitude of the redeemed, worshipping Lord, the lamb before the throne. So to kindle hope in bleak times, like you want to put night vision goggles on, here’s how you do it, you put that final scene before yourself, because that final scene is eternal and your circumstances are temporary. But here’s the most amazing part, all that joy, all that enlarging of our kingdom, all that happens through the birth of a child. Emanuel is Ray ortlund says God’s answer to everything that has ever terrorized us is a child. What a remarkable thing. Not just any child, but of course, he’s born to be king, but not just any king, we get these four titles. I could certainly do a sermon on each of them.
I won’t. I know you’re looking at the clock already. But these are not words, some of them that are used of people ever. Like there are titles in scripture that we read, And we’re like, that sounds impressive, like Son of God. So if God is used to Kings regularly that could definitely refer to a person. Some of these words cannot refer to a person we’re talking about somebody totally different. Who is he? Well, he is wonderful counselor. Now we think counselor and we think somebody who’s going to talk to you about your feelings. That’s not what is needed here. What’s needed is counsel. We need to be told what to do. This baby provides the wisdom we need which is why we consult him and not social media or cable news. He is also Mighty God word mighty, always used of warriors specifically. In other words, he defeats his and our enemies, which is why we trust Him and not the world’s powers like a Syria Ah, and he is everlasting father. And here the reminder is that this king loves his subjects like a father. I mean, what a reminder that we are not in God’s economy, just subjects of the king. But children have a father who delights in us. And that’s why we turn to him instead of fleeing from him. And then he is the prince of peace. And that word peace in Hebrew, as we talk about often is so much more than the absence of conflict. It is the presence of shalom. He is the one who will re weave the torn fabric of this world who reconciles us to God and to each other. And that’s why we submit to Him. And don’t rebel against them. Why would you rebel against that? Not joking about the peace either, by the way, Look back at verse five, as this kingdom spreads, how to Kingdom spread, conquest, war budget, not this kingdom. This is a conquest of peace over war. It’s a conquest that brings an end to all conflict in the process, which is how we reach that vision of revelation 21, where there’s no more mourning or tears or pain or death. Why because this kingdom of peace has at last done away with violence. Was there ever such a king as this? Surely not. Was there ever such a kingdom as this? Surely not. He will reign on David’s throne, and over God’s kingdom, and he will reign forever with justice and righteousness, the two words that taken together describe Shalom peace, but we’re not there yet. Our way. Jesus even said this baby when he’s born, he grew up and he taught us and he said, The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Like we’re expecting this worldwide sort of thing and it starts so small, but it is increasing and will go on increasing forever. In other words, a verse six is the already verse six has already taken place the baby was born. He is all of these titles. But verse seven is the not yet. This has not come to its fullness yet that comes at the end of time when Jesus comes again, means we’re living in the time between D Day and V Day, the decisive blow has already been struck. That’s what happened when the baby came into the world. But there’s still all these little skirmishes that are happening until the end comes. And that’s why we need this message still today, because we still walk in darkness. And so we still need night vision. There are still dinosaurs on our path. Plastic ones, at least, we still need hope. So what is that hope? Exactly? Our hope is that God’s light will overcome the darkness in the end, and it is a certain hope. And when we talk about hope, sometimes like fingers crossed kind of thing, not biblical hope, biblical hope is certain why? Because the very last sentence of this text, the zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. That’s our confidence. If it were up to us, we would never reach that day. We would never get there never reached the heavenly shore. Never see peace in our time. So thank God it isn’t up to us. It is a his work and not ours. Not only is it his work, but he is zealous to see this work done. We don’t use the word zealous a lot anymore. What do you think of when you think of zeal? I think of William Wilberforce, who single handedly brought an end to the transatlantic slave trade just about single handedly, despite setback, after setback, after setback, politically, with health concerns, everything else you could possibly imagine. But he was zealous to see this horror abolished from the face of the earth. That’s zeal. And that’s what the Lord has when you’re feeling hopeless. Remember that the victory is his. You fall again, I wasn’t going to send like that I was going to do that again. And here is when there’s more brokenness on the news and there will be tomorrow. Never forget, there will come a day because God is passionate for our salvation like a husband flush with love for his new bride. And so he will see it finished. how passionate how much love for us His Bride enough that this child who was God of God is born to die first, and only then to rain. First, John four, nine and 10 Here’s the baby. Here’s what he came to do. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our Ever since He sent His Beloved Son to die, send them directly to the executioner for our sake, that we might be saved Isaias message here in chapter nine, it’s like a postcard from that distant place. And here we are, this side of the cross and the empty tomb, we are standing at the very Vista ourselves, no more postcard Wish You Were Here we can, we can enjoy it. We have seen it for ourselves, how should that encourage us and foster hope in us to have visited this love ourselves. Here’s how John finishes our thoughts. Just a few verses later, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. Alright, so you believe God, you’re born of God. And then what happens? Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. That’s how it encourages us believe, trust be emboldened and encouraged, God has overcome and God will overcome finally and fully in the end, the remnant are those who believe and who choose God’s light over the world’s darkness. And they are the hopeful, who believe God’s light has already and will finally and fully overcome the darkness. You put the two together, you get our main idea for today. This is what you should take away with you as God’s remnant. And I hope you are God’s remnant. But remember that comes by faith in Christ. That’s what John told us, as God’s remnant, live in hope that God’s light will overcome the world darkness. Not just feel hopeful, this should certainly cause you to feel hopeful, too. But that’s not the end of this story. Live hopeful, again, that calm boldness that trusting all that biblical perspective live as a people marked by the presence of God and the fear of God and the Word of God. Without finally close with a word to just two different groups here today, what that looks like practically for us. The first group is if you’re here today with us, and you are skeptical, still questioning Christianity, we asked you this question, because you are going to stumble in the darkness at some point. Where are you going for help and hope and wisdom? Where are you turning? For those things that you need so desperately? Like? What’s your flashlight you will walk in darkness. If nothing else, at some point, you will travel through the valley of the shadow of death. So here’s my encouragement, he has just tried turning on the light. Put it like this, take Christianity out for a test drive, and put the Lord to the test and this way, live as though this were true. And see what happens because it is true. You’re going to have calls to fear many times, but hope is found in fear. Fear that rescuer who came to get you and who left all your enemies unconscious on the ground beside you, even this Christmas season. Every time you drive by house lights on every time you see a Christmas tree or hear A Christmas Carol, would you look at the child differently. Because he is not just a child He is mighty God and he will be a sanctuary or a snare to every one of us. Might as well be a sanctuary. Second, may speak to the believers here. I assume the majority of us our hope is in Christ’s triumph. But don’t forget that his triumph came in defeat.
And so will ours. So often, we will endure dark times. Listen to the words of John the apostle and Revelation 12 Verse 11. They triumphed over him over the enemy, by the blood of the lamb by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. They triumphed by getting killed. Exactly how Jesus triumphed. This is an important message for the American church, which is obsessed with power today the church doesn’t pursue power, the church uses power to serve in love. It’s like money. Like the church isn’t here to fill up its coffers. The church is here to go, Oh, our coffers are full. Who can we help? What can we do with this? And so we should be willing to sacrifice Christianity is not about winning. It is about bringing peace, Shalom into the world. Also, as long as I’m speaking to believers, where are you going for help and hope and wisdom? Because that is not a one time decision. I wish it were right like I decided to follow Jesus so I’m good I got that question right on the test. Now, every time we face new circumstances, we’ve got the choice. Do I go to the media or the mighty God? And parents? Do your kids know where you’re going for help and hope and wisdom? Are you teaching your kids to go to the right place? Do they see you opening the Word of God when you face Crisis? Are you as a family opening the word together? And are you showing them how to do it? So that when your middle schooler comes to you and says, I’m having this trouble you go, let’s, let’s get our Bibles. Let’s see what God has to say about this so that they start to figure out how this works. We got to disciple our children. And Church may speak to us together, collectively, corporately here. If you’re in Journey groups, you probably hit recently in the mission section, that our view of the world is shaped by our community, by our experience, and by facts and evidence and data. And it’s shaped in that order, which is so fascinating, but so true. It is our community first and foremost, that shapes our plausibility structures, what we believe about the world, which means when we’re feeling hopeless, what we need most is a community of people who remind us where we go to get hope. That’s what we need to be for each other, as God’s remnant, live in a hope that God’s light will overcome the world’s darkness because it already has, and it will, in the end, let’s pray together. Father, we are a people walking in darkness so often, maybe even the majority of our days there is so much suffering. In this world. There’s so much sin, even in our own hearts. There’s such great need of a Savior. And so encourage our hearts and embolden us, Lord with the knowledge that the Savior has come and that he has laid our enemies low. Already, that even though the shadows are still here, the light has triumphed. The dawn is coming in unending Dawn, with no more night, no more darkness, no more death, no more defeat no more sin, no more sorrow, no more mourning, no more pain. Would you help us to live in light of that hope and to be bearers of that light? As we live lives marked by your presence and your fear and your word, so that the world might see because of the light we bring, reflecting your glorious light to those around us. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen. Continue on worship.

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A Dark Day in Judah (Isaiah 7:1-8:8) October 16, 2022 | Brandon Cooper TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Okay, you can go ahead grab your Bibles open up to Isaiah chapter seven, we’ll start our new series this morning in Isaiah seven to 12. As you’re turning to Isaiah seven, recently, through a series of unfortunate events, my family incurred an unexpected large expense, just beyond what we were hoping for, especially with the holidays approaching and all the expenses that go with that. So we’re tossed into this conundrum. You know, I’m fretting I’m, I’m worried there’s no way around it. If you’re like me, and you’re in a situation like that, step one is usually to start strategizing. So is there someone we can talk to ask for help, but I need to talk to my parents kind of thing. Is there a way to get a little extra income? How can I solve this problem, of course, finances would not be the only area where we do this, if I were to tap you on the shoulder this week and say, Hey, starting in January, we really want you to teach one of the classes here at church, you would start gathering resources that day, I’m confident of it or larger issues as well. These are not just the small things, if you’ve got a a teenager who’s struggling with mental health issues, which of course is very common these days, you’re gonna get on Google, you’re gonna figure out what can be done to help you’re gonna ask around other friends that you know, who’ve gone through things like this, you’re going to talk to the school social worker, whatever it may be, when things aren’t going well, we start looking around. We start looking around for that kind of help, what can I do? Who can help me? That’s exactly what happens in our passage this morning with disastrous consequences. And that is the reminder for us that there is this problem with our instinctive response, there is a problem with our immediately going, where’s my help? You know, who can who can help here. So bit of context, because we are starting here and Isaiah seven, which is not exactly the middle of the book, by any means, but it’s not the start of the book, either. We did cover Isaiah, one to five back in June, perhaps you remember that. And it set a pretty bleak stage for the book as a whole. This is not a nation that is doing well, spiritually. In fact, it ended chapter five, verse 30. If one looks at the land, there is only darkness and distress, even the sun will be darkened by clouds. Not going well. Then chapter six, verse one opens with King Uzziah, as death he had been on the throne for 52 years. So this was a cataclysmic event in the nation of Judas history similar to what UK just went through. And it was also emblematic of the nation. The monarch didn’t make it will the nation make it? It’s right at that moment when Hosea dies that Isaiah encounters the Holy God of Israel, we looked at that passage, Isaiah six on kickoff. And yet, even though he is unknown, in the presence of the Lord, he experiences grace. And we asked the question, then, can that happen at the national level as well? Is there hope that the nation will go the way of Isaiah? It didn’t seem like it because the end of chapter six ends with destruction and deforestation. So it seems like the land is just getting wiped out here, although we read this, but as the terabytes and oak leaves stumps when they’re cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land. A stump remains, can a chute spring forth from that stump? It’s the larger question of the series as a whole, hence our graphic for this series. But it is a question for Judah and Israel. In the meantime, and that’s we’re going to look at in these next few weeks, is there any hope that they will receive grace, like Isaiah, respond with Humble Confession and then receive their commission from a gracious God? We got a two part message read how many of you by the way you read the prophets during your yearly Bible reading, and they just are confusing. And you’re especially sure that there is no structure whatsoever to these books. These are just random sayings collected mostly about nations you know nothing of in Isaiah at least that is true for some of them by the way, they’re just random collections. I’m sure of it Jeremiah, for example, but with Isaiah It is a very tight structure. So we get this two part message first to Judah, the southern kingdom, Jerusalem as its capital, and then to Israel, the northern kingdom, which split away after Solomon’s death, we could almost give this two part message like it’s kind of like Darkness and light like there’s kind of a negative message and a message of hope so that’s what we’re gonna look at that’s our next four weeks to for Judah to for Israel. We’re gonna look today at the darkness in Judah. We’ll do that in three scenes really danger, decision and destruction. So there’s your context. Let’s dig in, starting with the danger Isaiah chapter seven verses one to nine. When he has son of Jonathan, the son of XyO, was king of Judah king, a resident of Aram and Pecos, son of Himalaya king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, they could not overpower it. Now the house of David was told Aram has allied itself with Ephraim so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken as the trees the forest are shaken by the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah go out you and your son Shourya shoes to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct to the upper pool on the road to the launders field, say to him, Be careful, keep calm, and don’t be afraid do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, because the fierce anger of resonant arrowmen The son of REM Elia Aram Ephraim and REM Elias son have plotted your ruin saying let us invade judo, let us tear it apart and divided among ourselves and make the son of Tabby oh king over it. Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says it will not take place it will not happen. For the head of Aram is Damascus, the head of Damascus is only resident within 65 years, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. The head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of scenarios only memulai as Son, if you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. We got some literary context, we need some historical context now to because I just read a whole list of names that we don’t know anything about. The historical context is that there is disaster on the horizon. There is danger there. Now. Ahaz is Zions grandson’s, we just read. But he is not like Uzziah, who’s a pretty good King Ahaz is a wicked king eventually will even sacrifice his child in the fire to a pagan god. So what he does is detestable in the sight of the Lord. Because of his wickedness. God sends the Arameans and Israelites to attack his nation to attack Judah, it’s meant to be a wake up call to a has, that’s from the divine perspective. You can read about that in Chronicles. But what about from the human perspective? Why do Aram and Israel align themselves against Judah especially because these are longtime enemies really ancestral enemies? Here’s why it’s because of the rising threat of Assyria just shortly going to be the global superpower least in that part of the world. So what they’re trying to do here is form at NATO, the northern Aramean Treaty Organization. The problem is that Judah is unwilling to join them. And so they’re coming in to kind of go well, then we’re gonna make you join us. That’s it. So we read here in verse one that they don’t actually end up succeeding, but then we shoot back in time to when word first reaches the house of David. That’s an unusual use, by the way, we don’t normally get House of David, when we’re just talking about news reaching the king here. So pay attention. We’ll come back to that in a moment. So the alliance is coming for Jerusalem and he has and his people shudder at the thought like trees being blown by the wind. Disaster threatens there’s danger lurking What should he do? Well, he does what we do. He looks around immediately, what can I do to get ready? In fact, the first thing he does is head to the aqueduct. Why? Because Jerusalem up on a hill as it is, is well nigh impregnable. But its water supply was under threat, easy to attack. And so he’s immediately making preparations for the invasion. Again, just like we do, how often we rushed to solve our own problems in our own strength, just like I was doing when this expense hit me, what can I do to get some more money here? So it’s in that moment, when Ahaz is is doing that sort of preparation that God sends His Prophet and his prophets son,
whose name Sharia shoes is a note of promise, because it means the remnant will return. The people are going to come back it is also a note of disaster though, because why is the remnant returning because apparently they’re leaving for a little while and also it’s only a remnant returning now shoe is a rich word to begin with. That means return. It really just means turn in the first place. Actually, if you know anything about Biblical words, you know that to turn is to repent. And so that’s that’s the whole idea, right? Who is it that a remnant will turn back to the Lord a remnant will repent, and as a result a remnant will return to the land. Isaiah is so sure of his word, the word that he’s speaking to Ahaz, that he’s actually willing for the word to be made flesh. And that’s why he’s bringing his son along so that Ahaz Can you hear the message, the remnant will return and also see the message, meet the message, shake the messages a hand, he’s going to be doubly sure that the word Isaiah is speaking is true. What is the message specifically that Isaiah speaks here? Then you’ve seen the memes, you may own the t shirt already here it is the original keep calm and carry on. That’s what Isaiah says, Don’t worry, you don’t need to be afraid why these two guys that you’re so scared of resin and the son of Himalaya, they’re just smoldering stubs of firewood, which says two things about them. Number one, they’re useless once you burn the wood, you can’t really make anything out of it anymore. And number two, they’re weak. You ever tried to snap a log in half? It’s difficult, burn it for a while and then snap it in half not a problem at all. It’s actually interesting. By the way, did you notice that they stopped calling him pica after a while, and they just start calling him the son of Himalaya. That is fascinating. Why? Hang on to that, okay. I’m not gonna tell you. Now, the plans are bad for sure, the plans that they’re making, they want to plunder Judah and install this puppet King, who will of course join their alliances and give them the conscripted troops that they need. So yeah, the plans are bad, but they’re not going to happen. They won’t actually be able to succeed. And so we get this powerful word, especially in verses eight and nine offered in these very balanced phrases kind of interesting. We get, you know, country Capitol King in twice in a row. So it’s a little bit like saying, the head of the USA is DC and the head of DC is Biden. And so that’s the phrase we get here twice in a row. Why say it’s so plainly especially to somebody who already knows what the capital of Israel is. Because in the end, all they’re offering is themselves. They’re just two guys. That’s it. And as we’ve seen smouldering stubs not even impressive, guys. So all they really have is the collective strength and wisdom of resin and the son of Himalaya. And that’s that’s not that impressive. And that’s really what the final line of each half brings out. So head of airman’s mask has had to Damascus has only risen within 65 years, Ephraim, standing in for the northern kingdom of Israel, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people to within 65 years, Israel just won’t be around anymore, because they forsook God, and trusted in Aaron’s strength. Instead, they formed this alliance with him because they forsake God and trust Aram, God forsakes them and hands them over. And sure enough, 64 years later, the Assyrian king s or hudon, moves a group of foreigners into Israel, and has them settle there, so that there’s no hope of Israel becoming a nation again, because now somebody else lives there, a remnant can’t return because the houses are full. This, by the way, is when you get to the Gospels, we have Samaritans, they’re not Israelites anymore, and they no longer belong to the people of God, because they’re this mixed race group coming from the pagan population that the Assyrian king had settled there. But the second second half is especially interesting, because we kind of expect it to be the destruction of Aram and the destruction of Israel. And instead, we get the destruction of Israel in the, in the what, what exactly? Well, it’s the question about Judah. What about Judah, that’s going to come down to faith. In fact, what’s left unsaid is really the loudest part, the head of Judah is Jerusalem, and the head of Jerusalem is the son of David. That, by the way, is why we keep using the phrase son of Himalaya, so that he hasn’t asked himself the question, whose son, am I? He should be a son of David, what is David’s son going to do? Is he going to be like, David, is he going to trust in God’s promises? Is he gonna trust in the powerful word that Isaiah just spoke to him? Or is he going to look around to Aaron into Syria and an aqueduct? This is a moment of decision and how he responds will determine how Breathing, whether he will stand firm, or not stand at all. The Ray ortlund that says about this verse that Isaiah seven nine really makes faith in God, the central, unavoidable question of our lives, will we believe or not? And what exactly does faith mean? I mean, belief on the one hand, that’s the intellectual piece that these statements are true. But it’s so much more than that. Kyle mentioned this to us last week. It’s not just the head. It also involves the heart that that trust because demons believe that God is real, and it’s not helping them out at all. It’s the quote from James Kyle gave us last week, but but there’s that heart behind as well to the trust the loving, willing, joyful submission, and then that manifests in fidelity, obedience to His Word, belief, trust and fidelity together. That’s the question that is asked of us. In this passage, how do we respond? When we hear God’s word, as Ahaz was hearing it then as we are hearing it even right now? Every time we hear God’s word, it becomes for us a moment of decision, which is our second scene let’s keep going. decision when we read verses 10 to 17, again, the Lord spoke to a has asked the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights, but he has said, I will not ask I will not put the Lord to the test. When Isaiah said he here now you house of David, is it not enough to try the patience of human will you try the patience of my God also, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign, The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and call him a manual. You’ll be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right the land of the two kings, you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time on like any since Ephraim broke away from Judah, he will bring the king of Syria. God has spoken to Ahaz he’s promised him that Arum and Israel will not prevail. So as should be feeling pretty good already. Like that’s really good news. But God who is rich in kindness goes a step further even. And he offers a sign to assure Ahaz This is blank check language, by the way, in the highest heavens, in the deepest depth does not matter to me ask for any sign you want. I will do it for you. I would guess, by the way that many of us wish we had this kind of assurance, when it comes to the word of the Lord, that we would hear His word this clearly. And then immediately have God go. What do you need for me? So you’re gonna believe this fully? Let me remind you, we have that. We have that all the time. You want the Word of God spoken clearly to you? Here it is. And by the way, it’s actually even nicer that it’s already in leather bound form. Why? Because it means we don’t need to wonder if it’s coming from a false prophet any longer the canon is established. We know that this is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Do you want some assurance that it’s true? How about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave? Is that a good sign? Good enough sign for you? He walked out of the grave. We’re feeling good now. Right? Okay, nevermind everything else. We could talk about a whole lot of other things like say the fulfillment of all the words in this passage, even. We have everything we need. We have the word of God spoken clearly. And every assurance we could ever require. We’d love it. If we had something like this Ahaz doesn’t care for it. And He sounds just a little too pious, and he’s refusing, doesn’t he? He sounds interestingly, like Jesus, in Matthew chapter four, resisting the temptation of the devil, who is quoting from Deuteronomy, it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. That’s what it sounds like. But Isaiah, its response makes clear that this is a wrong hearted response. Why? What’s happening here is that he has won’t let God in. Because if he does, then he has to let God in. You understand what I’m saying there.
If he takes this sign from the Lord, he is in essence, acknowledging that he is the Lord. And then that means he’s got to let God be God. And he doesn’t want God to be God because He wants to be God. He wants his autonomy, even if it comes at the cost of self reliance, or in this case, a Syrian reliance, he wants to solve his own problems. This might be holding some of you back even now. You like the promises of Scripture. There’s like a lot of good words in here for sure, but unwilling to give up control, even to get this good word, you Take a few examples. Perhaps you’re single and you’re thinking I would love a spouse, I could pray that the Lord would provide a spouse for me. But then I’ve got to accept his terms, like sexual chastity before marriage and faithfulness in marriage or provision, how many of us would love to ask the Lord to provide but you know, he’s going to require generosity of you, then at the same time, so you see, we can be unwilling to give up control. That’s not a good choice, though. That’s not a good choice. Might as well take the promises because God is in control anyway. So that was not really up for debate, actually, as Ahaz learns here, again, we get a word to the house of David verse 13. Here now you house of David, by the way, not living up to David’s standard that the point here when he calls it the house of David is you should know better. You should not go back and read your great granddad stuff, okay? He knew better, you should know better. I love this too. In verse 10, it says, Ask the Lord your God. And then in verse 13, will you try the patience of my God? Isaiah has switched pronouns here, you know what, he’s not your God, you rejected him. Okay, so now we’re talking about my God, he is no longer your God, although he made himself willing to be. The Lord gives a sign regardless, again, Lord is always in control. But now, it’s not a sign of assurance. It is a sign of judgment. How many of you knew by the way that this wonderful Christmas text that we read that warms our hearts every year is a sign of judgment, Emmanuel, coming to us, is a great thing. It’s a terrible thing. It kind of depends on how you feel about Jesus, and that whole willing to let him be king thing. And since he has is unwilling to let God be king, this is a sign of judgment. The virgin will conceive, just feeling supernatural. At this point, the Lord is doing something big. She will give birth, and she’s going to call him Emmanuel, God with us. We certainly shouldn’t skip past that part. Even though it’s familiar to us at this time of year, we need to feel the weight of that name, that God enters the mess we’ve made of his world, in our lives, enters into the suffering and brokenness of this world enters even into our death. To get us, to deliver us, even to dwell with us, is one of my girls read earlier. Part of the sign is that God with us, Emmanuel will be born into poverty. That’s the Kurds and honey stuff, we’ll see that actually in the next section, even in Aram, and Israel will be laid waste before he reaches maturity. But did you notice that that’s also coming for Judah to the very last sentence, and verse 13, he will bring the king of Assyria on Ahaz on that house. So God’s going to bring a Syria as his instrument of judgment, we’re going to come back to that a lot in chapter 10, by the way, and it’s going to devastate the nation. And we’ll talk about the devastation of the nation in just a moment. For now, let’s ask the question that’s probably on a lot of your minds. How exactly is this a sign of anything in particular, what is the fulfillment? This is all a bit confusing, because it seems like the child is about to be born. Like before he reaches a certain age, the land will be laid waste. So we’re kind of going okay, in three to four years, this is all going to happen. And it does all happen in that timeline, by the way. So in order to be a sign, it should happen quickly. But then elsewhere, when we’re reading about this baby that is going to be born, it seems like he’s born in kind of a distant future, we’re gonna see that next week in particular, will help us if we look at the use of the manual in these chapters, even in our passage, we’re going to end with eight today, it’s outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land Immanuel. The phrase, your land, followed by somebody’s name only ever refers to a king. And of course, we’re going to see that a little bit this mighty God, Prince of Peace is going to rule on David’s throne forever and over his kingdom, which will have no end. So who are we talking about here? We’ve got to be talking about a son of David, a king, the Messiah. That helps us understand how exactly this is a sign. We get the point now because of Ahaz is unbelief. David’s kids? The kings of Judah of Israel, David’s kids will from now on sit on a meaningless throne in a conquered land. That’s what’s being said here. Ahaz chooses Assyria over the almighty bad Choice, he grabbed the proverbial tiger by its tail. And sure enough, what you’d expect to happen happens, the tiger turns around and devours him. And so Judah at this point becomes a vassal state, and it will remain a vassal state in perpetuity, there is no king, who’s not a puppet, who’s really on David’s throne until Luke chapter two. If you’re looking for him, by the way, he’ll be wrapped in swaddling cloth and lying in a manger. That’s the next time the true king is truly on David’s throne. The conquerors change, yes, it’s a Syria right up until about Babylon destroys them, and then the Medes and the Persians come and wipe out Babylon. And then Alexander the Great trots on by and that’s the end of the Persians. And then of course, we get to Rome and they tidy everything up for us, the Conqueror is changed with the conquest doesn’t the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of David, will be born into poverty and oppression? All because he has didn’t believe right here in this moment. So why don’t we get this remote fulfillment set as though it’s happening right now? It’s so that we remember where it all started. At the key moment he has fails his test. He did not stand firm in the faith. And so his kingdom won’t stand at all. It is a dark decision on a dark day in Judah. And what about you? Because make no mistake, God wants you to believe every bit as much as he wanted, he has to believe here. Can I say this? And you’re all gonna look at me like I’m crazy. But it’s true. God makes faith easy. He makes faith easy. He really does. He has revealed Himself to us. He did not have to do that. He could have turned his back on us and said he reveals himself it gets a long book, even that we get like, there’s a lot of information about him. And then he keeps his word, so that we know of course I can trust him. We sang it in the opening song, The God who’s never failed. Today’s not the day, tomorrow is not looking good, either. Okay, he’s going to keep his promises. I mean, you ever think about why we have so much fulfilled prophecy in Scripture? I mean, hundreds and hundreds of explicit promises fulfilled. Why? So that we’d go of course, of course, I can trust His Word. Everything that I’ve read for you already happened, and happened exactly as Isaiah predicted. Aram and Israel get wiped out within a few years as Syria is on the scene, global superpower, we’re going to happen to them in chapter 10. Guess what it happened to them. Nevermind some of the stuff that we talked about now. Like this baby’s gonna be born in Bethlehem, and he’s gonna grow up in Nazareth. That’s weird. He’s also going to come from Egypt. Go ahead and work those out in your head. Except they all work out. Right? And then everything that happens in his life, what are the chances that none of his bones would be broken even though he’s been crucified, which was a form of execution that didn’t even exist at this point? Every Prophecy Fulfilled exactly why? Because God wants you to believe, to trust Him, to know that he will keep his word. We might not have kingdoms at stake in our lives but rejecting His Word, and forgetting God’s promises, destroys lives. And that’s where we go next third seen destruction 718 to eight, eight.
And that day, the Lord will whistle for flies and the Nile Delta and Egypt and for beasts in the land of Assyria, they will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices and the rocks, and all the thorn bushes and at all the waterholes. And that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates River, the king of Assyria, to shave your head and private parts and to cut off your beard also. And that day a person will keep alive a young cow and two goats. Because of the abundance of the milk they give. There will be curds to eat. All who remained in the land will eat curds and honey. And that day and every place where there were 1000 Binds worth 1000 Silver shekels there will be only Briars and thorns. hunters will go there with bow and arrow for the land will be covered with Briars and thorns. As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of the Briars and thorns. They will become places where cattle are turned loose and where sheep run. The Lord said to me take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen Mahesh Lau hush boss. So I called in Uriah the priest in Zacharia, son of Jabara Kaya is reliable witnesses for me. And I made love to the prophetess and she conceived and gave birth to his son. And the Lord said to me, name him Harish, hello hush boss prayer before the boy knows how to say my father, my mother, the wealth of Damascus, the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria. The Lord spoke to me again, because the people has rejected the gently flowing waters of shilowa and rejoices over resin and the son of Himalaya. Therefore, the Lord is about to bring against them the mighty floodwaters, the Euphrates, the king of Assyria, with all his pomp will overflow all its channels run over all its banks and sweep on Judas swirling over it, passing through it. reaching up to the neck, it’s outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land, Immanuel. God is sovereign. He whistles and the nations obey. The imagery of flies and bees are appropriate because when the Nile floods, the flies show up, and the Assyrian hills are full of BS, these nations will cover the land like a flood, filling every crevice, they will bring total humiliation upon the people of God. That’s the razor imagery there. If you’re reading in a different translation, it might say from your head to your feet, feet being used as a euphemism for the genitals. But you can see how comprehensive the humiliation is from head to toe, both the private places and the public places because the beard gets shaved if you don’t have a beard. That’s an issue. So I’ve got a series. So a series is going to bring desolation and destruction, there’s going to be enough food for the people as the good news. But that’s only because there are so few people left in the land that whatever they can find grown on a tree will be more than enough, they won’t be able to cultivate the land anymore, because that takes laborers, which is why there’s going to have Kurds and Honey, there’s that poverty piece I mentioned in the last section. So he has thinks he’s wise and turned into a Syria but really, he’s playing the full because you will never find better help than God. And we get a second sign confirming the immediate result, not the remote fulfillment any longer. But the immediate result of Ahaz is unbelief, another child will be born. This is not the child spoken of in chapter seven. For one really key reason. Isaiah, his wife is not a virgin. We already met his older brother, my hair swell house boss, his older brother, share your shoe. So even if you were to fight with me and go you know the word doesn’t have to mean virgin I’ll go in that’s dicey to begin with, but I’ll grant it to you. It still means an unmarried young woman. And Isaiah, his wife doesn’t qualify. So we’re talking about a different child and a different sign. What happens though, he calls witnesses, reliable witnesses, and then he writes this name. Really not so much on a scroll because you’re picturing small like picture butcher paper, that kind of scroll like this is a billboard that’s happening here. Why this is like putting your World Cup pics on social media before the cup kicks off. What happens when you do that? People make fun of you later, because you picked wrong because none of us gets it. All right. And so it eventually gets submitted to the freezing cold takes on Twitter and you are there you know, living an ignorant nominee for the rest of your life. That’s what Isaiah is doing here. He’s putting his prediction out there in bold letters for all to see except of course, he knows that it will come true. He makes love to his wife. She’s called the prophetess. Why because the word comes from her. She bears the word conceives and then you know gives this prophetic name to the child she delivers. Naming meaning quick to the plunder swift to the spoil. That’s what the Assyrians will be for Aram and Israel and ultimately for Judah as well. Similar sign while the boy is still young. Before he can get his earliest words out. This word will be fulfilled Assyria will wipe out the nation’s threatening Ahaz. And the Lord confirms this was another Oracle then starting in verse five, because Israel rejected shilowa, which is the little stream that runs through Jerusalem from the spring outside Jerusalem. This is their water source. So they’re rejecting shilowa that means they’re rejecting Jerusalem, and they are rejecting Jerusalem ahead, David, they did this because they split earlier on they didn’t want to be under David’s line and he longer because they rejected Jerusalem and David and trusted in pagans and pretenders what happens? Well, you reject God’s river, you get another river instead. Except this one is the Euphrates, and you don’t want that one not so good because of the flood. That’s coming. Basically what the Lord is saying here is you choose the world, guess what you’re gonna get the world. How’s that going to work out for you? This is like a young man setting out in his career, who decides despite all the ethical instruction he got growing up in church, he’s going to bend the rules. He doesn’t need to act with integrity all of the time, because if he cheats a little bit, he can knock off some of his competition and get into that higher position earlier on. He can climb the ladder. Should he be surprised when a few years later somebody does the same thing to him. cheats, knocks him down a few rungs. Of course not that’s what’s happened here. And the problem though, is that because he has rejects not David, he’s a big fan of the Davidic line. You He doesn’t reject David, but he rejects David’s God that flood is going to cover Judah, too. So Emanuel will be born in a land flooded with a military occupation of a pagan power. So the when you reap the whirlwind, choose a bloodthirsty power hungry ally, get eaten alive, there is a better way, God with us, the God who wants to dwell with us who’s willing to help us, we can be that remnant that turns and repents and returns as a result. Here’s the main idea. I think. We put together all that we’ve learned this morning. It’s this when trouble comes. when trouble comes, look up before you look around. That’s him. Look up before you look around, you won’t ever be disappointed. And he has never failed. He never will fail. God knocks on he has his door. And he still refuses to look up like asked me any sign and he has goes No thanks. I’m actually Isaiah, can I borrow your cell phone I’m not getting good reception here I need to call a Syria from the aqueduct. He’s is like a perfect illustration of an belief. But we can do better we can look up before we look around. By the way, I said before, not don’t ever look around, there will come a time when we need to act when there’s stuff that we can actually do. But that work we do then comes from a place of rest and guidance, and trust. And we’ll be met with gratitude when the Lord in fact fulfills His Word. So you might you know, everything goes haywire at work. And you just got to pause like you got to go find a closet somewhere, lock yourself and pray for a moment, when trouble comes at work. You might still have to pull an all nighter then afterwards. But it’s gonna be a really different all nighter than it would have been if you hadn’t prayed to begin with. Because this is no longer. You know, I gotta power through my own strength, but I’m gonna power through with the power that God supplies with his very spirit. When I saw this after that, the big expense hit me in the initial complaint. Certainly lots of complaining. I confess that before you all and scheming. Well, I had to wait a long time for locksmith to show up that gives away a lot of the story right there. And as I’m waiting and stewing in my anger and complaining, the Lord’s just going until eventually I let him in and prayed caught myself confessed my sin and asked his help. The result was incredible. I mean, like before I got home, and granted, it was a long way before I got home. All the money we needed was already in from the people who offered to help us in this situation. And then we had two really unexpected things happen. Like this was literally monopoly stuff. I had a bank error in my favor. I like didn’t even know that was a thing that helped us we actually ended up with twice as much money as we needed within the week, it was shocking. Now look,
I don’t want to make it seem that easy. Hear me so clearly here. I am not saying if you pray, money falls from heaven, all your problems go away. That’s not it at all. I’m just talking about trusting his promises. He is an ever present help in times of trouble. He is our rock, our strength, our salvation and our deliver. Sometimes He delivers us from our circumstances. Sometimes He delivers us through our circumstances, that’s up to him. But I want to close by thinking through what this looks like practically, how do we look up? Three things for you. They all start with ours, it’s gonna be really easy to remember, especially as the first one is, remember, remember? How do you look up you remember you remember who God is, and what he has already done and what he has promised to do, because you know that he will keep his word. This begins by the way with the honest admission that we can’t do it. And remembering who God is, we remember who we are and that we are not God that we are not sufficient. But we also this sets us in in that trusting frame of mind then. So we are not God but God is God even when we can’t see it. We know that he is who he has always been Spurgeon said it well, when we can’t trace his hand we must learn to trust his heart. Because his heart is so well known to us. His character is revealed on every page of this text. But we do more than remember just generally who God is we lean into specific promises. What exactly has God promised for me in this moment? We gotta be careful about that because sometimes we’ll believe too much you pray and money falls from heaven, and that will make you overly hopeful and ultimately disappointed your question In God’s character, when really it’s your theology that you should question, you get overly hopeful or more likely for most of us, you just get hopeless. You forget that there is such a thing as a promise of God, and you get hopeless. Look at limitations 321 and 22. This is the pattern fourth, by the way, the book, stop reading. I’m not there yet. The book is called lamentation, how do you think things are going right then? Going? Well? No. And this is the middle of the book. It continues to go poorly for another couple 100 years. And yet the writer dilemma of limitations says this, Now you can look yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Do you see what I’m saying? I remembered something. And now I’ve got hope. Because of Lourdes great love, we are not consumed for his compassions never fail. There’s a promise, His mercies are new every morning, there’s a promise. Great is your faithfulness. We started looking at the promises of God a little bit like when you go out into the night sky, and you come from a bright room, and it’s maybe still you know, Twilight or something like that. And you can see one or two stars, but they’re faint. But as the night grows darker, and there’s an illustration for you, by the way, as the night grows darker and as your eyes adjust, how do we adjust our eyes, with meditation, that’s what that is, their eyes adjust, you begin to see more and more stars twinkling their assurance of God’s promises. What a great season to discuss this, by the way, because what is Advent? It is a time of waiting. Christ has come, Christ will come again. And so we are still lonely. We are still praying come thou long expected Jesus. It is a time of waiting. But it is also a time of rejoicing. In the fulfillment of God’s promises Christ has come Yes, we’d love for him to come again. But he has come all ready. That’s the tension we live with, as Christians promises fulfilled, promises as yet unfulfilled. But there will come a day. We remember who this God is Emmanuel, God with us. And we know better than Isaiah did, why he came not just to be a military King, not to kick the foreign power out of the land no far better. Jesus actually drowned in that flood that came on his land. For our sakes he was killed by the foreign power that He has invited into the land, to show us what the true king is like the cross his throne, the thorns his crown. And Paul assures us that all of God’s promises are yes and amen. In Christ. What does that mean? It means he is the first fruits of every fulfillment. And that is why our trust is unshakable. You have loved ones who have not walked out of the grave yet, but Jesus walked out of the grave. And that’s how we know they will one day too, and we will one day two, we remember. Second thing we do, is we remind, remind who each other. Absolutely. I love that that’s great, you should do that. That’s not what I’m talking about. Here. We remind God of his promises, not that he’s forgotten them. This is kind of just reminding ourselves, what do I mean by this, we pray His promises to what Daniel does. For example, you said through the prophet Jeremiah, you’re in come and get us. So Lord, if I could remind you of that time is up, time to come and get us because what God does, comes and gets them right because he keeps his word always we remind God we don’t always have a specific promise of course. And I think that’s that’s important for us to remember there’s not a specific again, if you pray this prayer, money will fall from heaven that’s not granted to us. We got to know the specific promise How far would to pray in faith as to go as far as the promise goes, which means praying that God would keep His promises even if it means financial ruin succumbing to the disease and the relationship ending, he might still be faithful to His promises and all of those things how because we, we do have promises that he no he will keep, for example, he would use all of that stuff for your good and his glory. That’s a promise. He will sanctify you through and through, He’s faithful and He will do it. That’s a promise. The Lord will neither leave you nor forsake you. No matter what you face. That’s a promise. And there will come a day when there will be no more pain, no more mourning, no more tears, and no more death. That’s a promise. Lord, remember, remember what you said? That’s how we pray. You said you will keep in perfect peace, the one whose mind is stayed on you because he trusted you, Lord, I’m trying to get my mind fixed on you. Where’s the perfect peace, the peace that surpasses understanding. You said through your Prophet James, if any of This lack wisdom, we can just ask and if we believe you will give it graciously. I’m trying to believe, Lord, would you give me wisdom here? Kyle read this one earlier. I didn’t have this in my notes, but he read us prayed through Isaiah 44 us. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, Florida, I am weary, but I’m trying to put my hope in you, will you renew my strength? First Corinthians 1013, God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. There’s some good promises there. Lord, I’m tempted. I know I’m not being tempted beyond what I can bear. I can say no to this sin. And I know you provided a way out would you show it to me? This, by the way, is why the journey group question we have in our meditation questions as you and journey groups is so important. What specific promises will sustain my obedience, we got to find them. We got to like install a treasure chest in the center of our hearts where we just took away the promises of the Lord so that we can come back to them and pray them as we need. We remember we remind lastly we respond. We respond in faithful obedience that the main point of the passage, we hear the word of God, and then that moment of decision comes and we respond to the word we trust. And then we act. Every day, we are in a has shoes. God speaks. You don’t need to hear him out loud. If you wanna hear him out loud. Just read your Bible out loud. There you go, audible voice of the Lord. We hear him speak in his word every day, every day. The question is, how will you respond? Will you obey, especially when disaster threatens when the temptation is to trust in yourself or the powers of this world when trouble comes? Look up, remembering and reminding and responding. Before you look around. Let’s pray. Lord, we worship you as the God who is faithful to keep his word. Every promise has been fulfilled, is yes and amen in Christ and will be fulfilled on the last day. We know this and we believe this Lord, because you have given us ample proof. The whole record of your faithfulness not only recorded in Scripture, but written in the scrapbooks of our lives as well. You have never failed us. And you never will fail us. Lord, would you help us then to stand firm in the faith when trouble threatens? Because we want not to fall. We don’t want to be like Ahaz we want to endure, to persevere and to reach glory, where we will see you and see every promise at last fulfilled. We pray this in Christ’s name,
Amen.

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Three Reasons for Thanksgiving (Colossians 3:15-17) November 23, 2022 | Meritt Raup TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Well, good evening. And Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome to Cityview. My name is merit. I serve as the Director of Youth and college ministries here. And so glad you’ve joined us tonight, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, and worship our God together. Let me just start by saying that Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday. By traditional, I mean that there are many traditions surrounding what we do tomorrow. And perhaps one of the most common family traditions happens around the dinner table. You know, after everyone is seated and the food has been passed, typically, someone will say something like, All right, we’re gonna go around the table now. And everyone’s going to share something they’re thankful for. So you hear the typical answers, like family, friends, faith, freedom, good finances, physical health, and all those sorts of things. And this is all great. But have you ever wondered who you are giving thanks to in that moment? I think oftentimes, we can give thanks, just generally speaking, without actually thinking anyone. Well, as believers, I would argue, and the Bible would argue that we ought to give thanks to God. So tomorrow, instead of just asking, What are you thankful for? Take it a step further and say, Who are you thankful to? Well, tonight, I’d like to share with you three reasons for Thanksgiving. Three reasons we ought to be thankful to God. And we’re going to do things a little differently than a normal worship service. Tonight, we’re not going to have one sermon, we’re going to have three. And so we’re not going to be here all night. Don’t worry, they’re not full length, sermons, but rather three reflections on Colossians 315, through 17. So if you have a Bible with you, I’d encourage you to open there, we’re going to consider three reasons that we ought to be thankful as believers, and after each reflection, are going to respond with a song. So each song that we’ve chosen for this evening, is a direct response to what we’ve just heard from God’s Word. So as we sing, I would encourage you to, to really pay attention to that, and really consider how what we’re singing is a response to God’s word. So let’s begin then with a word of prayer as we as we start. Heavenly Father, we’re gonna come to you tonight, I’m gonna say thank you. Say thank you for who you are, for your character, your mercy and your grace, your kindness to us, your patience with us, and so many more things. We thank you for who you are. And we also thank you for all that you’ve done. Every blessing in our life, we can ultimately trace back to you to your gracious hand in our lives. So tonight, would you be honored as we express our gratitude to you, through Your Word, through singing through prayer? May you reveal in our hearts, many more reasons why we ought to be thankful during the season and throughout the year as well. So we give this time over to you. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. Well, we see in our passage in Colossians, three, the first reason we have for Thanksgiving is the peace of Christ, the peace of Christ, would you look with me at Colossians three, verse 15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. since as members of one body, you were called to peace, and be thankful. See, the peace of Christ and Thanksgiving are inseparable. They go hand in hand with each other. These are not to isolated commands that we see in this verse, rather to links in a chain, so to speak, we ought to be thankful because of the peace of Christ. So then, what do we mean by this peace of Christ? Well, we mean, the peace that Christ gives to us, the peace that Christ has in himself, that we get to experience as a result of his death and resurrection. In John 14, Jesus himself says this, he says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Christ has given us His peace, so we ought to be thankful. Now there are several ways that we experienced this peace. First, we think of how we have peace with God. We can have a relationship with God that is not marked by hostility and conflict and rebellion. Through Jesus, our sin has been paid for. And our relationship with God is restored. We are His children, and we have peace with him. And Romans five one describes it like this. It says, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. What incredibly good news. The peace of Christ means we have peace with God. But we also think of the peace that we have with one another. This is why it says in verse 15, since as members of one body, you were called to peace. As believers, we’ve been given a new identity. We are part of this family of faith. Although we come from different backgrounds, we’ve been united in Christ, we are his body. Ephesians two puts it this way. But now, in Christ Jesus, You who were once far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. We experienced the peace of Christ that unifies individuals who otherwise would not have been unified. were united, not based on earthly categories, but by the shared peace that we have with God. This unity is a beautiful thing. We aren’t perfect in this, of course, but by the power of Christ, we can experience it truly. This is the piece that we have with one another. But even more than that, we also think of the peace that we have in our own hearts when we face turmoil. When the world outside is falling apart, Christ gives us peace, and knowing that God is in control, and he will set all things right. He will free the world from sin, once and for all. In the end. When our own world is falling apart, Christ gives us peace beyond comprehension, and passes all of our understanding. Philippians four, six, and seven says, Do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. When we come to God with our anxiousness and Thanksgiving, he gives us peace. This is the peace of Christ, with God with others within our own hearts. So then, what does it look like for this peace to rule in our hearts? We let this peace rule when it is the deciding factor in our lives. This word used here for rule is used elsewhere to describe an umpire deciding a contest. And this umpire never makes a bad call. Let peace guide your decision making. Let peace be your standard. When you feel shame and doubt, Let the peace of Christ remind you of your peace with God. When you’re facing division and conflict with others, Let the peace of Christ remind you that the dividing wall of hostility has been torn down. We are the body of Christ. And when you face turmoil and struggle, and you feel anxious, with the peace of Christ, guard your heart and your mind. So then how does this all fit together? What is the relationship between the peace of Christ and thanksgiving? Well, when you think about the peace that you have with God, when you think about the peace that you have with other believers, when you think about the peace, you experience in your own heart that passes all understanding. When you let this peace be the umpire in your life, compared to the way things could be with hostility, conflict, violence, division, anxiousness. How can you not be thankful to God for that? How can you not be thankful for the peace that we have in all those different ways? The natural response to peace is a heart that is full of Thanksgiving so let’s let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts Let’s be thankful to God so now we’re going to sing about this in response and the song we’re gonna sing there is a fountain speaks of this piece that we have with God and so so as we sing, I would encourage you to reflect on that and give thanks to God as we sing a song so if you’re able please stand as we sing together now. Man You may be seated.
We are considering tonight three reasons for Thanksgiving. And the first of these we saw In verse 15, of Colossians, three the peace of Christ. When we let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we can’t help but be thankful. Well, we see the second reason for Thanksgiving in Colossians 316, the message of Christ. Let’s read together, would you follow along with me? Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly, as you teach and admonish one another, with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude, in your hearts. The message of Christ and Thanksgiving are inseparable. When the message of Christ dwells in us richly, we can’t help but be thankful. This message of Christ means the message about Christ. Or to put it another way, the gospel, the good news of who Jesus is and what he’s done. This good news is meant to dwell among us richly. So then how does this this message of Christ dwell among us richly? Well, this happens when we let the gospel take residence among us to make its home hear. This word dwell makes us think back to the Old Testament where, where God dwells with his people in the tabernacle, as they were wandering in the wilderness, God’s presence was with them. And later on in the temple, when God was in the Holy of Holies, in the ark of the covenant where God’s presence was, he was present with them. In John 114 New Testament says the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Jesus, who is the word dwelt among us. He put on flesh and became a human, he left heaven and made his home here on Earth. As Jesus made his dwelling among us, then we are to let the message of Christ dwell among us today. That means that in whatever we do, the gospel is present. And when, when everything that we do is gospel centered, this is what it means when it says, to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. We we get a glimpse into the worship service of the church during the New Testament. There’s teaching going on, there’s admonishing going on there singing going on. It’s not just one type of song, it’s it’s hymns, and Psalms and songs from the Spirit, all kinds of songs are going on here. And in everything, all these components of their worship, the message of Christ was to dwell. Not just dwell, but dwell richly. When the church gathers together regularly to worship, everything ought to be about the gospel. It ought to permeate through everything we do, must be a permanent resident in our church. You know, one of my favorite desserts is blueberry streusel coffee cake. It’s basically cake with blueberries mixed in, covered in butter and sugar. Very healthy for you. And growing up, my mom would always make it for me, but one time, I decided that I wanted to make the cake this time. So as I was reading the instructions, I read that the next step was to fold in the blueberries into the cake batter. So I did that, except instead of folding the blueberries in, I got out the handheld mixer, and mix the blueberries in. And so, of course, the cake turned purple. It still tasted great, it turned out fine. And I loved it. And now even now, if I make it ever again, I definitely do that, again, just for fun. But you can see how the purple color was now permanently in the cake. There’s nothing I could do to get the color out. It couldn’t just pick out the blueberries right as if they were standing by themselves. There’s no way to separate the cake from the blueberries anymore. So in a similar way, this is what it looks like to let the message of Christ dwell in us richly. When it affects everything that we do, it’s not something you can just pluck out and take away from something and have the rest leftover. The gospel is not just something that we talk about during the sermon. It’s not just what we talk about when we’re sharing the gospel with someone. It’s not just what we start with, and then we graduate on to the more important things. The gospel is the important thing. That’s why whenever we teach, we preach, we read, we sing we pray, we memorize the gospel is always there. We want it to have a permanent home here in everything that we do. Because we know that the Gospel is the power of God. So, if you’re listening tonight, and you aren’t a believer in Jesus, maybe you’re here with family or listening online, then this is the message that we hope dwells in you richly. The message of Jesus Christ, how he came into the world as a baby, which we’ll celebrate in a few weeks here, he lived a perfect life. He died on the cross taking the punishment for our sin. He rose again three days later in victory over sin and death. And He gives eternal life to anyone who comes to Him in faith. That is good news. In a world full of bad news, this is the good news that we need. So if you’ve never considered that before, I hope today that you will, and you can experience the peace of Christ that we just talked about previously. Peace with God, peace with others, and peace within your own heart. So that’s the message of Christ. But how does the message of Christ lead us to Thanksgiving? Well, when we consider the gospel, again, how can we not be thankful to God? There’s a song that I think explains this better than I could do. So let me just read these lyrics to when I think about the Lord, how he saved me, how he raised me, how he filled me with the Holy Ghost, how He healed me to the outermost when I think about the Lord, how he picked me up, turn me around, how he placed my feet on solid ground. It makes me want to shout, Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Lord, you’re worthy of all the glory, and all the honor and all the praise. When we think about the Lord and all that he’s done for us, how can we not be thankful? So, as the verse says, in Verse 16, to sing to God, with gratitude in our hearts for this, so how about we practice that right now? Let’s sing to God with gratitude in our hearts because of the message of Christ, the gospel. So the song we’re going to sing now, so to speak, oh, Lord, so Lord, speak the message of Christ in everything we do. So let’s stand now and let’s sing that together.
Well, so far we’ve seen that when the peace of Christ rules in our hearts, we give thanks to God. When the message of Christ dwells in us richly, we give thanks to God. Now we turn to the third reason we have for Thanksgiving, the glory of Christ. He look with me Colossians three, verse 17. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through Him. When the glory of Christ is the aim of our life, we give thanks to God. We’ve all seen how glorifying God can be done in a superficial or insincere way. Think of the baseball player who gives a little point up to heaven after a homerun after crossing home plate. Think of the movie star accepting an award on TV and they list off all the people they are thankful for family, their parents, the fans, the director, the production company for giving them millions of dollars to be filmed on screen. And then finally, they say that all glory goes to God for all this. Now, I’m not saying that all of these moments are superficial, or insincere. There are certainly some people who really do glorify God in those moments in the spotlight. But this verse is not talking about those types of situations. It’s talking about everything in our lives every day to day activity, we engage with the mundane and the extraordinary. It says, Whatever you do, all of it. Think of anything you could possibly do. And I guarantee it’ll fit under the category of whatever you do. Whether you’re going to the grocery store, talking with a family member, in a meeting at the office, sitting on the sidelines during a soccer game, you name it, the list goes on, whether in word things we say or indeed, the things that we do. The aim of our lives should be for the glory Be of Christ in everything. Now you may be wondering, this verse doesn’t have the phrase glory of Christ. See, the first two were pretty easy, weren’t they? It says, the peace of Christ and the message of Christ right there in the passage. But where is he getting this from? Does this mean that we should always be pointing to heaven whenever we take out the trash really well, or do our daily chores really well? Well, the glory of Christ is what happens when we do everything in the name of Jesus. You know, think of a plumber, or an electrician, who comes to your house to fix something. When it comes to your house, they come in the name of their company, they have a company name tag, a company uniform, they drive a company car, they use the company’s tools, you know, it would be totally different. If you invited the plumber, or the electrician over to your house for dinner. As a friend, see, the plumber or the electrician operates during the day in the name of their company. And when they do a good job, you think more highly of their company. So you might hire them again, the next time something needs fix, you might even leave a good review online. The when they go home for the evening, and they’re off the clock. They’re not speaking or acting in the name of their company anymore. They’re their own person. When we do everything in the name of Jesus, we represent Him. And we point others to him as the source of our lasting satisfaction. And he gets the glory. We put on display the reality that following Jesus is the most important thing in our life. We make much of him. And he is shown to be worthy to be made much of this is what it means to do everything in the name of Jesus. So then, what do the glory of Christ and Thanksgiving have to do with each other? Well, I think John Piper is helpful here when he says, the quote, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. In other words, we glorify God, when we enjoy him. And we experience deep satisfaction in him in every way, to glorify God is not to simply acknowledge Him as God, or to pay lip service to Him in those important moments. But to glorify God is to experience a deep enjoyment of him, and declare that enjoyment and everything we do in the name of Jesus. This is what he wants for us. He wants us to glorify Him, because that means we get to enjoy him, and we’re satisfied in him. It’s the best experience that we could have. So if our satisfaction and enjoyment of God are what brings him the most glory, then Thanksgiving is an inseparable part of our joy. Think of the things that you’re thankful for those things, the the everyone mentions around the dinner table, family, friends, food, how many of those things bring you joy? I would venture to say that all of those things do in some way. Rarely are we thankful for something that doesn’t bring us joy. Even if we are thankful for a difficult time or a struggle that we’ve gone through. Most often. It’s because of the joy that we experienced after that trial, or struggle. So when we want to give thanks to God, is this not an expression of delight in him, and satisfaction in him? I would say that it’s impossible to thank God without experiencing some level of joy and satisfaction in him. So when we seek the glory of Christ, we delight in him, which inevitably leads us to Thanksgiving. If you want to grow in your experience of Thanksgiving, then resolved you find more delight and satisfaction in God. So this Thanksgiving, we have many reasons to be thankful to God, the peace of Christ, the message of Christ, and the glory of Christ. So let’s let this peace rule in our hearts. Let’s let this message dwell in us richly. And let’s let the aim of our lives be the glory of Christ and the enjoyment and satisfaction of him. So now as we end our time looking at the word let’s pray, and thank God for this and then we will continue with sing so Would you bow and pray with me? Heavenly Father, when it comes to you now and we want to say thank you We thank you for the peace that you have given us, with you as our father, with one another, as the family of God, within our own hearts, we thank You for this piece. You also thank you for the message of Christ, that we’ve heard the gospel, the good news of who Jesus is, and all that he’s done for us. We thank You for Your glory, how glorifying you is the best thing that we can do, because it leads to our enjoyment and satisfaction in you. So we ask that You would help us to see these more clearly. To feel them more deeply. And to express them more clearly as we go throughout this Thanksgiving season. But more importantly throughout the whole year, would you continually remind us of who you are, so that we would give thanks to you and give you the glory that you deserve? We asked all this in Jesus name. Amen.

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PODCAST The Demoniac (Matthew 8:18-34) November 20, 2022 | KyleBjerga TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Good morning.Go ahead and grab your bibles turn to Matthew chapter eight, will be in verses 18 through 34. Today, if you don't have a Bible, there's a black one probably in front of you in the pew rack there, you can grab that and find the passage on page 789. If you don't have a Bible, you can keep that one as a gift from us. A few years back, we were heading home from vacation, and Jackie had just let me know that we were about $100 under budget for that trip, which was great. And then we started talking and whenever I get distracted, in a conversation, when I'm driving, I don't pay attention to driving anymore. And so I went right past the cop, a little bit faster on the highway than it should have been going on the far left lane. And so all of a sudden, immediate fear sets in, like you slam on the brakes, like that's going to do something, right? You already passed him, then then you just look in the rearview mirror, you can't take your eyes off the rearview mirror, because you're waiting for those red and blue lights to start following you. And sure enough, he did. And let's just say we were over budget by the end of that trip. So now we just plan for that when we go away. But the thing is the police officer in that moment, His power and His authority over me was a problem for me. Now think of another situation, let's say I'm shopping and I get attacked by someone who's trying to take my wallet, if a cop doesn't come around the corner at that point, and I lock eyes with him, and he locks eyes, then with the attacker, what's going to happen is the attacker is going to flee. And I'm going to run to the police officer. So the thing is, is the power and authority of the police officer remains unchanged. So what changes is my situation, my encounter with him? Why am I there? What is his power and authority for so his authority can be a problem for me or it can be a solution to my problem? Depends on the situation. But either way, there's fear in these situations, right? There's there's some sort of fear when we come face to face with power, and authority. Because for most of us, we have people in our life where we see power, and it's not a good thing. And we fear them and what they can do with that power. And others and allies, we see them we wield that for good. Now we just saying about Jesus, and there's no other name. No other name right? He is infinitely powerful. And he has the authority, the ultimate authority. And if you read your Bibles, you understand that when God shows up when Jesus shows up, and fear comes with his power and his authority every single time. The question is, will the power and authority be a problem for you? Or will it be a solution for you? So this morning, we need to ask the question, How will I respond? When I come in, when I encounter the power and authority of Jesus? So think about that. In your life with the power and authority Jews when it has come into your life? How have you responded? What has that encounter been? Like? The chances are there has been fear. And we're gonna see that fear this morning in every single scene we look at. And we're going to see that in response to Jesus power and authority. So we're going to start reading in verse 18, through verses verse 22, says when Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake, then a teacher, the law came to him and said, Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go. Jesus replied, foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. And other disciples said to Him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him,

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The Centurion (Matthew 8:5-17)

November 13, 2022 | Brandon Cooper

TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Good morning. Go ahead grab your Bibles open up to Matthew chapter eight. Matthew chapter eight as we continue in our series encounters with Jesus. As you're turning, there was a question we often ask who's in charge here? The question we ask at key moments, moments of decision sometimes who's in charge who who has to make his decision or more likely moments of accountability? Who didn't make the right decision so that we're in the mess that we're in? Now? Who's in charge here? It's a question most of us ask regularly. And even at the cosmic level, maybe not just who is in charge, but who should be in charge? That's the question we were asked on Tuesday, at least, who should be in charge, but way more important than just politics? It's often a deeper question. We say who's in charge here? We're asking, Why is this happening? How come nobody's dealing with this issue? So it's a question we might ask as refugee walks into a refugee camp with her children, wondering if she'll ever see her husband? Again, it's a question we asked as a child begins treatment for leukemia. Or even in a simpler moment, and it's a question we would ask when we get ghosted after a first date that we thought went pretty well. And maybe we weren't going to be alone anymore. Might I suggest that we would all like to know that someone is in charge. Wherever you are, in your faith journey, we would like to know that somebody is in charge, we long for an authority somewhere, even if it's just so that we know where to direct our complaints. Whoever's running this thing, I don't know, if you're doing a great job or not, because even if we didn't always agree, at least it would make some sense of things we might see that within Christianity even for example, as we experience suffering, we may go I wish this weren't how it shook out and all of that, but at least I know what God us suffering to arouse a deaf world to sanctify us. And so it's got some purpose at least, we want to know that someone is in charge. More than that, I think we really want to know that the someone who is in charge is good. That would help us out a ton. As we saw last week, Merritt took us through Jesus's encounter with the leper, we want to know is God willing, and is God able, since the passage that Kyle read for us earlier this morning, even one thing God has spoken to things I have heard, power belongs to you, God, he is able and with you, Lord, is unfailing love, he's good. He's willing, if we can be sure of that, that God is willing and able that he is strong and loving. Well, that would bring us some peace, wouldn't it? We'd be the kinds of people like Jesus who could fall asleep in the back of a boat in the middle of a storm, a story I think we get to next week. In fact, don't you want to be the kind of person who can sleep during storms, like metaphysical storms. That's what we would have here. So here's the simple truth we're going to see this morning. And your main idea, someone is in charge, Jesus is King. That's what this passage is going to show us. And there are three implications to his rule that we're going to see. So how we're going to hit this by the way, we're gonna have the encounter with the Cinterion, first of all, and then Jesus draws a lesson from it. That'll kind of be our scene too. And then Matthew does some summary work after that, work through a couple of other little moments in Jesus's ministry. We'll talk about that kind of our scene three, and then I'm going to wrap up with just some of why it matters that we know and believe this in the depths of who we are. But let's start with Jesus's encounter with Cinterion, verses five to 10.

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Achan (Joshua 7)

October 16, 2022 | Brandon Cooper

TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord who meditates on his law day and night. With that in mind, let's meditate on His Word together. Go ahead and grab your Bibles and open up to Joshua chapter seven. That's where we'll be this morning. As we continue in our series, people God killed now, as you're turning to Joshua seven, I have a very special surprise for you. I made you all brownies this morning, because I just love you so much. There is a surprise ingredient in them, however, just the tiniest bit of arsenic. That's what you get for critiquing the length of my sermons. All right. So if you were to compare, I mean, the ratio of arsenic to rich, delicious, creamy chocolate is so low, though it's almost as nothing. So I'm hoping you will still come and partake. What's the point of this, I did not make you brownies, some of you are gonna be crushed. I'm sorry. She just said that up front. This was an illustration. The point is that it doesn't take much of a bad thing to ruin a good thing. Right, just a little bit of poison is enough for you to go I'm gonna pass on dessert. It might be a teenager's one lie that destroys trust between him and his parents for years, or colleagues one outburst that destroys that sense of teamwork that you've been building for the last year or so. Want to keep this in mind as we go. Remember what God is doing here? Because we were in Joshua six last week. So we're just following right on the heels of where we were. We talked about the fact that God was establishing this New Covenant community by bringing his people into the promised land, they were going to be like this kingdom of heaven on earth, this first outpost of a heaven on earth. But what happens when we bring just a little bit of poison into that new, perfect community that he is trying to create? What should God do? When that's brought in? That's what we're gonna look at this morning. So our story today again, immediately after this wondrous miracle of Jericho, the display of God's power and goodness, right they're evident to all and yet immediately followed up by this it's actually it's interesting it's really similar to what happens and acts as God establishes his church and right after that, we've got this story with Ananias and Sapphira bringing the poison of sin into the community I mentioned that because we're we're gonna hit on them a few points as we go it's just so interesting right after God does something amazing. It seems like his people are quick to mess it up. So we're gonna look at this story how they mess it up. We're looking at it in three acts. This is basically a good crime drama here if you like that sort of things. We get crime investigation and punishment as we go act one, the crime Joshua chapter seven, let me read verses one to nine for us. But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things akin son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of zero of the tribe of Judah took some of them. So the Lord's anger burned against Israel. Now, Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is nearby, even to the east of Bethel and told them go up and spy out the region. So the men went up and spied out i. When they returned to Joshua, they said not all the army will have to go up against I said, two or 3000 men to take it and do not weary the whole army for only a few people live there. So about 3000 went up, but they were routed by the men of Ai who killed about 36 of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes.

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Jericho

October 9, 2022 | Brandon Cooper

TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

0:04 go ahead, grab your Bibles open up to Joshua chapter six. I'm going to talk through a story this morning that you probably all know even if this is your first time in church, you probably have at least a little bit of familiarity with it. But as you're turning there, on February 24 of this year, Russian forces invaded Ukraine. And the world was appalled. Norrell was appalled in particular, as the days went by. And the weeks went by with the indiscriminate shelling of cities, so that non combatants were killed as well as soldiers. And that even seemed to be intentional at several points where hospitals were being hit, or shelter areas where it said quite clearly there are kids in this building, and they're like, super, we're going to aim at that one. So it was not just soldiers, but women and children who are being slaughtered. And of course, as the months have gone by, we've known they're being tortured and raped as well. And so the world has been almost uniform in our condemnation of Russia's invasion. This church is not a political entity. We do not take a political stance on almost anything. And yet we've got Ukraine's colors out front on one of our trees. We didn't put them there somebody else did. I don't know who but even still, you're kind of like, no, that's cool. I think we're pretty much on Ukraine side here. That's That's how uniform our condemnation was. Because what did you have you have an invading army, attacking an innocent nation and slaughtering innocent people for the purpose of conquest. And we're appalled. Now read Joshua, and tell me what's different.

3:34 And you can see why people got questions. As they look at the story of Jasmine. In fact, I had somebody asked me this question, a mature Christian, back in February happened to be in Joshua for her URI Bible reading and said, like I'm reading the news, and I'm reading Joshua, and how are we okay with us? That's a great question. So this isn't an added complication to the series. We look at people God killed beggar cheating this week, of course, because God didn't kill them. We've got you know, Israel's the one attacking here. So we've been looking at the question, why is it okay for God to kill people like Rosa and the Diab and Abby who or Saddam? And honestly, I'm not saying it's easy to swallow. But the easy the answer itself is easy. God owes us nothing. Every breath we breathe is a gift from him. He could decide at any moment. Your time is up and he has that privilege. He's the God of the universe, but that's God, who is transcendently other who's not just holy, but holy, holy, holy. The harder question is what makes it okay for Israel? Which is a ragtag bunch of sinners to do it. Right? That's the harder question. It is the Holy War question and a lot of us are uncomfortable with holy war because how many times have armies used the name of whatever God To justify their barbaric acts is that what's happening here we have an invading army attacking an innocent nation for the purpose of conquest. And we should condemn it. But as we'll see, almost every word in that sentence is wrong. And that's what we're going to try and unpack as we dig in and crack some characters about Holy War as we go. So just a little different approach. I'm gonna read the whole passage for us up front. And since the story is pretty well known, I'm not going to go through verse by verse instead, we're going to look at the main players involved here, and especially a lot of background information, both historically and biblically to begin to answer some of these questions. So let me read all of Joshua chapter six for us. Now, the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the...

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Silence & Solitude

December 26, 2021 | Kyle Bjerga

TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Okay, you can go ahead grab your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five, by a show of hands, who has felt like since Thanksgiving till yesterday, you were just busy. Okay, a lot going on, right? We live in this constant state of busyness in the last month or so there just seems to be always something going on. And it's just one of those times of the year when that happens. We know there's other times as well. And we know that also, because there's less of you here. So Christmas was yesterday. It's a lot to get up on the day after and come to church. So I guarantee there's more people watching online today, because we're just tired. It's been very busy, and many others are traveling, being with family and friends for the holidays. And if we're honest, this is kind of our natural state anyways, we're just busy people. How many times do you hear that when you ask them the question, how was your weekend or how's your day going? It's just, it's busy. It's chaotic, I'm tired. I have no idea where my kids are right now. So they did a study back in 2019, that found and this is 2019, pre pandemic, and 2019. They found that people said they have 26 minutes of free time, a week, 26 minutes of free time a week, I don't know what their definition was a free time and all that. But we're busy people know the pandemic came are like, wow, we have all this time in the world. We're gonna change some things. And now things are slowly getting back to normal, we see we're just busy again, we just schedule more and more things. So I don't know, if you're like me, I've looked at my schedule before. And I said, Well, I've got a lot going on, anybody been there. And he said, Me, I should change some things. And then we don't. Because the next week just looks just as busy. And just as busy the next week, this is becoming a big deal in our country in our society with youth, college and younger, back in 2019. Again, pre pandemic, they did a study that found the anxiety and depression among youth is just continuing to rise. And what has happened in the last couple years has only amplified those numbers. So much. So the Surgeon General just published published a protecting Youth Mental Health Advisory that was now saying this is a public health issue, a crisis. There's too much of this going on. And they point in that study mainly to social media and technology is the reasons. And a lot of that also has to do with time being too busy. I had a middle schooler two years ago, say something timeout, an event coming up says I have to check my schedule. I never had a schedule in middle school. And so like those types of things, like that's just kind of built into our culture, we have to check and make sure we don't have something else going on. across the generations though this mental health crisis having to do with anxiety and depression is going in the wrong direction. And I believe the church has something to say about it. Because I believe God has something to say about it in his word, because he wants us to rest. He really does. He wants us to rest. And so that's what this brief series is all about. Press pause choosing, you can see that the subtitle there is not on the screen, but it's choosing rest in a restless world. And I intentionally chose those words, because we can't find it. We have to choose rest. It's a choose rest in this day and age. So here's the definition, we're going to look use for press pause both this week. And next. This is what pressing pause is it's making intentional time in your day to pursue God and to hear from him. Okay, pursue God and hear from him. So let me illustrate it for you this way,

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Silence & Solitude

December 26, 2021 | Kyle Bjerga

TRANSCRIPT______________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Okay, you can go ahead grab your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five, by a show of hands, who has felt like since Thanksgiving till yesterday, you were just busy. Okay, a lot going on, right? We live in this constant state of busyness in the last month or so there just seems to be always something going on. And it's just one of those times of the year when that happens. We know there's other times as well. And we know that also, because there's less of you here. So Christmas was yesterday. It's a lot to get up on the day after and come to church. So I guarantee there's more people watching online today, because we're just tired. It's been very busy, and many others are traveling, being with family and friends for the holidays. And if we're honest, this is kind of our natural state anyways, we're just busy people. How many times do you hear that when you ask them the question, how was your weekend or how's your day going? It's just, it's busy. It's chaotic, I'm tired. I have no idea where my kids are right now. So they did a study back in 2019, that found and this is 2019, pre pandemic, and 2019. They found that people said they have 26 minutes of free time, a week, 26 minutes of free time a week, I don't know what their definition was a free time and all that. But we're busy people know the pandemic came are like, wow, we have all this time in the world. We're gonna change some things. And now things are slowly getting back to normal, we see we're just busy again, we just schedule more and more things. So I don't know, if you're like me, I've looked at my schedule before. And I said, Well, I've got a lot going on, anybody been there. And he said, Me, I should change some things. And then we don't. Because the next week just looks just as busy. And just as busy the next week, this is becoming a big deal in our country in our society with youth, college and younger, back in 2019. Again, pre pandemic, they did a study that found the anxiety and depression among youth is just continuing to rise. And what has happened in the last couple years has only amplified those numbers. So much. So the Surgeon General just published published a protecting Youth Mental Health Advisory that was now saying this is a public health issue, a crisis. There's too much of this going on. And they point in that study mainly to social media and technology is the reasons. And a lot of that also has to do with time being too busy. I had a middle schooler two years ago, say something timeout, an event coming up says I have to check my schedule. I never had a schedule in middle school. And so like those types of things, like that's just kind of built into our culture, we have to check and make sure we don't have something else going on. across the generations though this mental health crisis having to do with anxiety and depression is going in the wrong direction. And I believe the church has something to say about it. Because I believe God has something to say about it in his word, because he wants us to rest. He really does. He wants us to rest. And so that's what this brief series is all about. Press pause choosing, you can see that the subtitle there is not on the screen, but it's choosing rest in a restless world. And I intentionally chose those words, because we can't find it. We have to choose rest. It's a choose rest in this day and age. So here's the definition, we're going to look use for press pause both this week. And next. This is what pressing pause is it's making intentional time in your day to pursue God and to hear from him. Okay, pursue God and hear from him. So let me illustrate it for you this way,

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Silence & Solitude

December 26, 2021 | Kyle Bjerga

TRANSCRIPT____________________________________________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Okay, you can go ahead grab your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five, by a show of hands, who has felt like since Thanksgiving till yesterday, you were just busy. Okay, a lot going on, right? We live in this constant state of busyness in the last month or so there just seems to be always something going on. And it's just one of those times of the year when that happens. We know there's other times as well. And we know that also, because there's less of you here. So Christmas was yesterday. It's a lot to get up on the day after and come to church. So I guarantee there's more people watching online today, because we're just tired. It's been very busy, and many others are traveling, being with family and friends for the holidays. And if we're honest, this is kind of our natural state anyways, we're just busy people. How many times do you hear that when you ask them the question, how was your weekend or how's your day going? It's just, it's busy. It's chaotic, I'm tired. I have no idea where my kids are right now. So they did a study back in 2019, that found and this is 2019, pre pandemic, and 2019. They found that people said they have 26 minutes of free time, a week, 26 minutes of free time a week, I don't know what their definition was a free time and all that. But we're busy people know the pandemic came are like, wow, we have all this time in the world. We're gonna change some things. And now things are slowly getting back to normal, we see we're just busy again, we just schedule more and more things. So I don't know, if you're like me, I've looked at my schedule before. And I said, Well, I've got a lot going on, anybody been there. And he said, Me, I should change some things. And then we don't. Because the next week just looks just as busy. And just as busy the next week, this is becoming a big deal in our country in our society with youth, college and younger, back in 2019. Again, pre pandemic, they did a study that found the anxiety and depression among youth is just continuing to rise. And what has happened in the last couple years has only amplified those numbers. So much. So the Surgeon General just published published a protecting Youth Mental Health Advisory that was now saying this is a public health issue, a crisis. There's too much of this going on. And they point in that study mainly to social media and technology is the reasons. And a lot of that also has to do with time being too busy. I had a middle schooler two years ago, say something timeout, an event coming up says I have to check my schedule. I never had a schedule in middle school. And so like those types of things, like that's just kind of built into our culture, we have to check and make sure we don't have something else going on. across the generations though this mental health crisis having to do with anxiety and depression is going in the wrong direction. And I believe the church has something to say about it. Because I believe God has something to say about it in his word, because he wants us to rest. He really does. He wants us to rest. And so that's what this brief series is all about. Press pause choosing, you can see that the subtitle there is not on the screen, but it's choosing rest in a restless world. And I intentionally chose those words, because we can't find it. We have to choose rest. It's a choose rest in this day and age. So here's the definition, we're going to look use for press pause both this week. And next. This is what pressing pause is it's making intentional time in your day to pursue God and to hear from him. Okay, pursue God and hear from him.

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Silence & Solitude

December 26, 2021 | Kyle Bjerga

TRANSCRIPT____________________________________________________________________________+The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Okay, you can go ahead grab your Bibles, turn to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five, by a show of hands, who has felt like since Thanksgiving till yesterday, you were just busy. Okay, a lot going on, right? We live in this constant state of busyness in the last month or so there just seems to be always something going on. And it's just one of those times of the year when that happens. We know there's other times as well. And we know that also, because there's less of you here. So Christmas was yesterday. It's a lot to get up on the day after and come to church. So I guarantee there's more people watching online today, because we're just tired. It's been very busy, and many others are traveling, being with family and friends for the holidays. And if we're honest, this is kind of our natural state anyways, we're just busy people. How many times do you hear that when you ask them the question, how was your weekend or how's your day going? It's just, it's busy. It's chaotic, I'm tired. I have no idea where my kids are right now. So they did a study back in 2019, that found and this is 2019, pre pandemic, and 2019. They found that people said they have 26 minutes of free time, a week, 26 minutes of free time a week, I don't know what their definition was a free time and all that. But we're busy people know the pandemic came are like, wow, we have all this time in the world. We're gonna change some things. And now things are slowly getting back to normal, we see we're just busy again, we just schedule more and more things. So I don't know, if you're like me, I've looked at my schedule before. And I said, Well, I've got a lot going on, anybody been there. And he said, Me, I should change some things. And then we don't. Because the next week just looks just as busy. And just as busy the next week, this is becoming a big deal in our country in our society with youth, college and younger, back in 2019. Again, pre pandemic, they did a study that found the anxiety and depression among youth is just continuing to rise. And what has happened in the last couple years has only amplified those numbers. So much. So the Surgeon General just published published a protecting Youth Mental Health Advisory that was now saying this is a public health issue, a crisis. There's too much of this going on. And they point in that study mainly to social media and technology is the reasons. And a lot of that also has to do with time being too busy. I had a middle schooler two years ago, say something timeout, an event coming up says I have to check my schedule. I never had a schedule in middle school. And so like those types of things, like that's just kind of built into our culture, we have to check and make sure we don't have something else going on. across the generations though this mental health crisis having to do with anxiety and depression is going in the wrong direction. And I believe the church has something to say about it. Because I believe God has something to say about it in his word, because he wants us to rest. He really does. He wants us to rest. And so that's what this brief series is all about. Press pause choosing, you can see that the subtitle there is not on the screen, but it's choosing rest in a restless world. And I intentionally chose those words, because we can't find it. We have to choose rest. It's a choose rest in this day and age. So here's the definition, we're going to look use for press pause both this week. And next. This is what pressing pause is it's making intentional time in your day to pursue God and to hear from him. Okay, pursue God and hear from him.

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I added a couple things, and episode artwork. PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? I will insert a read more code here. So this part is now on the part after "read more". It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm. PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.  PODCAST So this is my first box and How much room with Google give me? Will it give me many lines? It  is 8/26/22 at 12:59pm.

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TRANSCRIPT Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam odio arcu, accumsan eget est in, sodales eleifend mauris. Quisque finibus, enim nec viverra auctor, augue ligula facilisis arcu, sit amet rutrum nulla justo at felis. Aliquam varius dui metus, id tincidunt nisi pellentesque auctor. Phasellus iaculis tellus massa, non hendrerit felis molestie eu. Duis vel elit congue, Will it give me many lines? I will insert a read more code here. So this part is now on the part after "read more". pulvinar mi eu, interdum purus. In molestie sagittis justo. Nam non lacinia nibh, quis convallis neque. Aliquam erat volutpat. Ut diam justo, ultricies non suscipit eu, aliquet et lorem. Praesent venenatis dapibus justo, quis hendrerit leo vulputate non. Morbi vel imperdiet felis. Nam sagittis tortor ac justo imperdiet, id venenatis quam dictum. Donec at viverra purus, vitae pharetra risus. Maecenas condimentum feugiat turpis, ac vestibulum mi imperdiet vel. Nullam non mauris imperdiet, sollicitudin ligula non, facilisis augue. Donec tincidunt elit risus, nec tristique orci condimentum at. Vestibulum blandit ligula sit amet velit vestibulum, id posuere urna imperdiet. Cras eu pretium ipsum, vitae vulputate dui. Proin pharetra, velit sit amet mattis aliquam, erat augue volutpat leo, eget dignissim massa enim vel ligula. Curabitur molestie mauris tellus,

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TRANSCRIPT Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam odio arcu, accumsan eget est in, sodales eleifend mauris. Quisque finibus, enim nec viverra auctor, augue ligula facilisis arcu, sit amet rutrum nulla justo at felis. Aliquam varius dui metus, id tincidunt nisi pellentesque auctor. Phasellus iaculis tellus massa, non hendrerit felis molestie eu. Duis vel elit congue, pulvinar mi eu, interdum purus. In molestie sagittis justo. Nam non lacinia nibh, quis convallis neque. Aliquam erat volutpat. Ut diam justo, ultricies non suscipit eu, aliquet et lorem. Praesent venenatis dapibus justo, quis hendrerit leo vulputate non. Morbi vel imperdiet felis. Nam sagittis tortor ac justo imperdiet, id venenatis quam dictum. Donec at viverra purus, vitae pharetra risus. Maecenas condimentum feugiat turpis, ac vestibulum mi imperdiet vel. Nullam non mauris imperdiet, sollicitudin ligula non, facilisis augue. Donec tincidunt elit risus, nec tristique orci condimentum at. Vestibulum blandit ligula sit amet velit vestibulum, id posuere urna imperdiet. Cras eu pretium ipsum, vitae vulputate dui. Proin pharetra, velit sit amet mattis aliquam, erat augue volutpat leo, eget dignissim massa enim vel ligula. Curabitur molestie mauris tellus, ac fringilla nisl varius quis. Nam ac eleifend nisl. Integer placerat turpis in efficitur scelerisque. Suspendisse ornare odio at auctor sollicitudin. Praesent maximus, ligula ac gravida vehicula, augue turpis pharetra lacus, vel consequat tortor nulla sed nibh. Nulla varius, massa eget blandit venenatis, elit nibh convallis arcu, vel tempor turpis nisi placerat dui. Integer tempor ligula a erat pulvinar, ut finibus quam gravida. Ut nisi diam, pulvinar eget neque ut, aliquet suscipit eros. Fusce sit amet placerat nisi. Nunc convallis leo quam. Sed aliquet, dolor et semper efficitur, neque eros fringilla dui, id vehicula odio arcu vitae elit. Nunc scelerisque, urna scelerisque imperdiet congue, nunc lectus tincidunt tortor, vitae pellentesque purus sem at neque. Duis vel massa libero. Nulla finibus aliquam massa, ac venenatis ligula finibus quis. Mauris velit felis, finibus id bibendum tincidunt, dapibus sed ipsum. Mauris faucibus massa eu quam bibendum, vel tristique diam suscipit. Fusce id risus ipsum. Nulla tempor dui mi, a imperdiet turpis venenatis quis. Sed laoreet ultricies turpis, eget varius risus varius condimentum. Nunc vulputate felis id ultricies ullamcorper. Morbi vel posuere dolor, in hendrerit ex. Aenean vestibulum sollicitudin interdum. Maecenas placerat dapibus fringilla. Quisque nec pretium velit. Nunc vitae ligula a mauris aliquet tempus nec non orci. Curabitur facilisis facilisis porttitor. Donec ex ipsum, fermentum interdum justo nec, bibendum maximus mi.

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