What wonderful timing yesterday!  We were able to get in all the activities that we had scheduled before the snow really hit hard.  Sunday School, worship, the 2nd annual Chili-Cook-Off, the field trip to Dixie Caverns and the wedding shower for Mike and Lindsay Noto.  Better yet, the weather did not impact our numbers yesterday.  Thank you New Hope for a wonderful day!

Another providential note:  We rolled into our long, steep and merely wet driveway at about 4:15 yesterday.  As soon as the car was safely in the garage, the snow started to stick as the temperature finally fell below 32 degrees for the first time dugin the day.  Oh, my.

But, to the matter at hand.  I said that I wanted to apply the message yesterday in this blog since I didn't anticipate being able to do it on Sunday.  Well, things were just so poisitive and upbeat during the service, that I just couldn't leave the task undone in the pulpit.  I did talk about what the basic points of Christian truth mean in practice.  perhaps I can just re-iterate what I said yesterday.

The points, as you see in the previous blog entry, are, 1) You can't earn salvation; 2) You are a natural sinner; and 3) The Faith is frought with difficulties (many times).

Now, if we leave it there with those three points, then we become the frozen chosen!  Cold, stern Presbyterians who think having fun is a sin!  That being joyful is un-Christian!  It's all about groveling in our sin and unworthiness.

Well, no.  The point of the three points is to free us up to be joyful.  To free us up from the hang-up of maintaining our good standing before God.  To truly rejoice in the mercy and love of God.  To empower us as we serve the Kingdom of God, knowing that we cannot and will not fail.  There are so many great things ahead of us in the plan of God!  This doesn't mean it's going to be easy.  But, it is there for the taking!

I can't wait to unpack the remaining messages in this series! 

Sitting here wondering if we are going to be having church tomorrow as we are under a winter storm warning with up to 7 inches of snow expected by sundown tomorrow night.  We shall see.  As of now -- we are on!

I wanted to drop my three points on the sermon tomorrow.  The text is Isaiah 48:1-11.  That's the focus.  Here are my points:

• GOD’S ACCEPTANCE OF YOU IS NOT BASED ON YOUR ABILITY TO EARN IT.
• WALKING WITH AND SERVING GOD DOES NOT COME NATURAL.
• THE LIFE OF FAITH IS NOT THE PATH YOU WOULD EXPECT OR DESIRE.

I describe these observations as basic Christian truth.  You must grasp these points to really understand the Gospel.  In fact, getting these points makes you appreciate jesus even more.  I started to describe these as Reformed, Presbyterian truths -- but, shux, it's bigger than that!

The context of Isaiah 48 is God finishing up describing how he's going to judge Babylon for all the nasty things they've done.  Taking Judah captive being chief among them!  But, Isaiah now has to remind Judah that it's not because of anything they've done to deserve it.  In fact, he unloads some pretty stiff charges against them -- all so that they will better appreciate and live into what God has called them to do and be.

Now one thing that I will warn you about:  This sermon has no application section!  Once again, I ran out of time.  Just too much to put in one little sermon!  For the application, you will have to check back here on Monday........Or, if we get scrubbed tomorrow, NEXT Monday! 

I will have to say that Sunday did not turn out exactly as I had hoped.  My worst fears as a pastor center around the very real possibility of being too opaque in the pulpit.  As Mark Futato at RTS Orlando used to always say in Comm. Labs:  "Fuzzy in the pulpit; foggy in the pews!"  In my defense, I will say that this stuff in Isaiah is so extremely rich, that it's hard to unpack everything in little preaching portions.  Yes, I know, you most likely think 20 minutes is forever -- but, it's really not!  As a preacher, I agonize over keeping sermon manuscripts under a certain word count.  I just don't have the luxury of going into a lot of detail to set up a passage; consider each verse; and then have some extended time for application.

In our mainline Presbyterian tradition, the expectation is that we will craft a nice little paper with a story or two, a joke, perhaps a meaningful poem, and then a brief mention of the passage under consideration towards the end of the sermon to demonstrate that we really did read it!  The important aspect is that you read every word -- word for word so that you won't go on too long.  Nice, short, sweet.

I digress!

The stuff we are talking about in Isaiah forms the basis of all that we cherish in the New Testament.  The Gospel is really all there in Isaiah.  Let me try to do here what I do not think I did very well on Sunday:

Isaiah 1-39 covers the period of Isaiah's ministry.  His dealings with kings.  His preaching to the people that they were heading for disaster -- exile.  Assyria would be the rod that God would use.  The southern kingdom of Judah watched as their northern brothers and sisters went off under judgment -- but they didn't take the message to heart!  The little exchange between Hezekiah and Isaiah in Isa. 39 is the icing on the cake!

In chapters 40-66, Isaiah sees down the corridor of time as God unpacks the future.

Isaiah 40 -- Now, nearly 200 years later and in the context of Babylonian exile for the southern kingdom of Judah (for all the bone-headedness in chapters 1-39), Isaiah's word is that God knows of their circumstances. He WILL remember his promise to his people (you know, the word of God will stand forever stuff).  Salvation will come.

Isaiah 42 -- Israel was supposed to be God's servant.  To be the light.  To show the way.  They didn't.  Soooo...God would provide another servant who would fulfill all righteousness.  ...Sometime in the future.

Isaiah 44-45 -- Just so Israel would know that God means business, Isaiah foretells them about the delieverance that they will experience by the hand of the pagan king, Cyrus of the Persians.  (I do believe this is a real honest-to-goodness prophecy from the only Isaiah, as I made clear with red meat on Sunday!)  This will be a down payment on the even greater salvation that will be known through the coming servant of the Lord.

Isaiah 46-48 -- Babylon is judged, really judged.  Spanked.  God's people reminded that God is God and he delivers!

Isaiah 49-66 -- The servant of the Lord further unpacked.  The New heavens and the New Earth will follow.

Cool how this stuff unloads!

I will be blogging on this Sunday's message as I narrow down the scope.  Pray for me.

(The picture, by the way, is of the Sun breaking through the fog!)

For those of you who check out this blog, you're in for something different here!  As I just put the finishing touches on Sunday's sermon, I realized that I had too much material for Sunday!  And so, for the first time ever, I am placing the introductory section of the sermon right here on this blog.  Read this and you'll be a leg up for Sunday!

The Gospel According to Isaiah - The Meaning of Easter: The Down Payment (Part #4 of 10)  Isa. 44:23-45:8

Let’s review just a little bit.

In the beginning (of this series), we learned that in order to get to the good news of the Gospel, we must deal with some bad news about our situation.

The good news is this:  God is a gracious God to his people.  He chose Israel from all the people in the world.  He called them to a special mission that would in turn bring grace and peace to the rest of the world.  He called Israel to be his ambassadors to the world and to make his ways known.  He wanted Israel to be the mediators of a better way; in other words, to model holiness and by so doing would to show them the world the way of life.

The bad news is that they failed in this mission.  They rebelled against the call.  They went after other gods, copying the culture around them.  They became indistinguishable from the nations they were supposed to redeem.

However, the good news part two following close on the heels of the bad news is that God would still be true to his promise to bless the nations through his people.  Nothing can thwart these plans:  Neither the disobedience of his own people nor the unbelief of foreign nations can stop God from accomplishing his design for the world.

Several weeks ago, we saw the plan introduced in Isaiah 40.  Comfort, comfort my people, says your God….In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isa 40:1, 3 NIV).  Last week we saw the plan begin to unfold in the first servant song in Isaiah 42:  “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice [righteousness; my ways; my light] to the nations.” (42:1 NIV).

THIS my friends was a calling card for Jesus Christ.  We know this is true because Jesus claims them for himself and other New Testament writers come back to this section of Isaiah over and over as confirmation of Jesus as the embodiment and fulfillment of the Servant of the Lord prophecies.

Of course, you must remember as well that even in the glory of Jesus being the fulfillment of those prophecies, the end of the servant song from Isa. 42 calls for a holy patience in this news.  The servant himself, we are told, will not grow faint or discouraged or stop until he has accomplished his mission; nevertheless, we must still wait for it, maintaining a fervent, persistent hope for the consummation of all things.  Our calling until then is to be patient in faith, working out in our own local neighborhood/expression of the Kingdom where God has planted us.

You are now up to date, whether or not you have been here through three sermons!  Now we come to [Sunday]!

Here is the sermon text for this Sunday.  As I told you last Sunday, the topic of Isaiah's Servant is a well-debated, much-traveled topic.  However, this Sunday's text is in the same category.  Point being, if Isaiah of Jerusalem -- an eighth century BC prophet -- wrote all of the book that bears his name, then how can he name the name of an historical figure--Cyrus the Persian -- that came on the scene nearly two hundred years after his own demise?  Why, Isaiah would have had to, gulp, here I'm going to say it...he would have had to have been able to foresee the future! (Playing the theme from the Twilight Zone in my head now.)  That doesn't happen in real life!  Then again, guys don't walk on water or successfully command a storm to subside or turn water into wine or rise from the dead either!  Go figure.

(This, by the way, is not one of the "Servant Songs."  We will get to the second song the following week.)

Anyway, here it is.  The title is probably going to be, "The Downpayment."

Isa. 44:24-45:8 (NIV)

"This is what the LORD says-- your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself, ²⁵who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, ²⁶who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,' of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be rebuilt,' and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,' ²⁷who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,' ²⁸who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."'

45:1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: ²I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.  ³I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. ⁴For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.

⁵I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, ⁶so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. ⁷I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. ⁸"You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the LORD, have created it.

That was a line I heard from a pastor friend:  "Hey, I've got this really great illustration..if only I could find a sermon text to go with it now!"

Hopefully that doesn't happen a whole lot in our pulpits!  But, when I was thinking through the flow of yesterday's message, this illustration just kept coming to the surface.  And, my response was, I really want to use it -- but, it is just too close to crossing the line that I have determined that I will never cross.

Alas, as the sermon got closer to completion, I realized that I was already past my self-determined sermon length boundary.  (I bet you didn't know I had one of those things, did you?!)  There just wasn't enough time to do the illustration.  In fact, I really didn't make any attempt to labor long on application.  I just stated them, and left the rest to you:  1) You are now a part of the Servant's Mission, becuase you have been adopted into the people of God and THE Servant of the Lord has paved the way; and 2) Patience now.  Shine where you are.  Love, forgive, and put more feet to the "love your neighbor as yourself" thing.  Do what you are gifted and called to do, whatever that vocation might be.  No matter what your calling, you are part of the Mission, as long as you are mindful of who you are supposed to be before the Lord.

Now, having said that, I present what I didn't say yesterday, by way of illustration.

When I was a student at Liberty University back in 1984, I remember the presidential election of that year.  Ronald Reagan won a landslide victory over Walter Mondale.  I'm not sure if the hapless candidate won his own home state of Minnesota.  Perhaps he did -- but nothing else.  Anyway.  I remember the atmosphere on campus that election night.  Giddy!  There were shouts of joy coming from the two TV rooms on campus.  The president's re-election signaled a time of renewal.  Revival!  No more abortion.  No more crooked government.  No more immorality in America.  Our Messiah had come!

How silly is that?  But, that's the way we were back in 1984 on a conservative, Baptist campus where we had the largest College Republicans chapter in the the country and Young Democrats numbered two people on campus.  I think they may have been in the federal witness protection program -- if, that is, they really did exist.  The dominant mindset on campus was that moral change could really come through political action.  We could get it done with the right amount of political muscle.

I couldn't help but see the same "religious" thing playing out when Barack Obama was elected in 2008.  The scene in that Chicago park on election night was eerily reminiscent to me.  The roles were reversed.  Now the Democrats were laying claim to the same silly expectations for their man as did Liberty students for Reagan back in 1984!

I told you -- the illustration was too dang close to the line!  Of course, I would have prefaced the whole thing with, "Now you Republicans here, don't get mad at me; and you Democrats, don't get too giddy."  And then, before talking about election 2008, I would have reversed the advice.  But I chose wisely to leave that stuff on the cutting room floor.

But, it does illustrate what I wanted to say in application.  Cal Thomas was recently interviewed by Table Talk magazine, and they asked him about religion and politics.  They asked him if he had any regrets about working with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority in the 80's.  He said this (Priceless):  “…followers of Jesus, whose kingdom is not of this world, should not think that having the “right” person in office will somehow restore righteousness to a fallen and sin-infested world.  How can a fallen leader repair a fallen society?  He (or she) can’t.  Only God can do that through changed lives.  And lives can be changed only by the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it has always been so.”

Bingo!  This was my point about the Servant of the Lord finishing the Mission!  That was my point about where we are called to go as part of that Mission today.  Be patient!  Be hopeful.  Be encouraged.  Do what you are called to do.  Don't put the "messiahship" label on any one person or institution.  It belongs to the Lord, and the Lord alone!

Okay, I want to look backward and forward today.  Here's the backwards part.  Hopefully, we were able to connect on a vital point Sunday.  Forget active and passive obedience for a moment!  God's people were called to be the light of the world.  To be a kingdom of priests.  They didn't do that!  As we saw on Sunday, they had to be coaxed and wooed into the reality of their privileged call.  God, through Isaiah, tells them, "That's it -- you're out of here, 'cause you just don't get it!  Go into exile!"  That's the forst 39 chapters of Isaiah, by the way.

However, in the very next prophetic breath, God says beginning in Isaiah 40, I'm not going to give up on you.  I will bring you back, and it will be even better than it was before.  The job I gave you will get done.  I'll personally make sure that happens.  (My word never returns void!  Ever.)  And then, to vividly illustrate what he is going to do, God beigns speaking poetically about a special "Servant of the Lord" who will make it happen.  Uh, this is code language for Jesus, friends.

Here's the forward looking part:  In these servant song poems that we will be looking at (see previous blog entry), beginning with the first one in Isaiah 42:1-4 this upcoming Sunday, we will see what the obedient, faithful Israelite should look like.  In other words, what God's people SHOULD have been doing all along.  This is really cool stuff, these poems.  Jesus came to be Israel the right way, without the murmuring; the backbiting, the whoring after other gods and ways.  Minus the wilderness disobedience and on the positive side of the equation -- desiring the law like a honeycomb.  That was Jesus in our place.  That was Jesus for us.

I do want you to understand that even though Jesus has fulfilled the mission given to God's people, that doesn't mean that we are at the place where we can pack it up and go home.  Now, we have been invited into the job, riding on the coat-tails of the Servant of the Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The mission is the same -- and the results are STILL guaranteed, so to speak.  So when you read New Testament ethical exhortations, you may read them as an Israelite read Deuteronomy.  They are your light instructions!

We will keep hammering away at these little tidbits as we progress!  Here below is the text for this Sunday's sermon.  Please do drink it in, thinking as you go, how do I fit into this picture?  How can I reflect this light?

Isaiah 42:1-4  ¹ "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.  ² He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  ³ A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.  In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; ⁴ he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope." ^(NIV)

I am so happy to have this blog to be able to unload stuff that would most likely go over like a lead baloon in the pulpit!

Tomorrow, I will be asking the question:  Why did Jesus have to come?  In answering the question, I introduce a concept that many will likely have never heard of -- or maybe never will care to hear again!

Most of the time, we think of Jesus coming solely in terms of his passive obedience: He came to die for our sins on the cross.  In dying, he passively let his life be given up for us, though he could have called down the whole heavenly host and spanked the Roman soldiers who treated him with contempt.

However, the often overlooked aspect of Christ's obedience is the active part.  Active in keeping God's plans for his chosen people:  Being the faithful servant who embodied God's ways for the world.  Part of Isaiah's purpose in his prophecies is to make Israel understand that they were called to this very mission to be God's light to the world.  The world was supposed to know God by the way that they carried themselves.  (Heavy stuff!)  They were to be God's special servants.  But since they had failed so miserably at the task, God would have to send his own servant to do what they would not (or could not) do.  He would send his one and only Son to show the way.

This message tomorrow will introduce the concept of the servant songs in Isaiah.  Isaiah has four of these majestic poems that describe what Jesus will accomplish (Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12).  Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophecies.  Jesus is THE Servant of the Lord.  Again, these were the things that Israel was called to do -- but didn't.

Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City had a interesting way of describing the active and passive obedience of Chirst in a quick, clever way:  "Jesus lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died!"

I want to draw to your attention as well to the way one of our confessional documents puts it.  Highlights added, of course.

The Book of Confessions:  The Confession of 1967 (9.08)

In Jesus of Nazareth, true humanity was realized once for all. Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, lived among his own people and shared their needs, temptations, joys, and sorrows.  [active:] He expressed the love of God in word and deed and became a brother to all kinds of sinful men.  But his complete obedience led him into conflict with his people.  His life and teaching judged their goodness, religious aspirations, and national hopes. Many rejected him and demanded his death.  [passive:] In giving himself freely for them, he took upon himself the judgment under which all men stand convicted.  God raised him from the dead, vindicating him as Messiah and Lord.  The victim of sin became victor, and won the victory over sin and death for all men.