Sermon Tone Analysis

Isaiah 11:1-5

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Introduction

Someone told me this week that they are engaged.

They did not hesitate to speak of their fiancé using language that communicated that they were very much in love.

Whether it is a newly engaged couple, a couple that has been married and in love for a long time or even parents speaking of their children, it doesn’t take much for us to speak lovingly about those we love.

Yesterday when we celebrated Christmas we gathered together here to talk about the great gift we have received in the person of Jesus.

If we have grasped the wonder of that gift and if we have received Jesus, then it isn’t very hard to talk about Jesus because we love Him.

That is what I want to do this morning.

Jesus is wonderful and I want to talk about how great He is and by doing so, I hope to stir us to love Him more.

In order to focus our thoughts, we will look at Isaiah 11:1-5.

Read text.

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I.                   The Branch - Isaiah 11:1

I love this picture.

The story behind this picture is that the youth group of the Manitou MB Church planned an Easter Sunrise service.

Some of the group went to the edge of the Pembina Valley, in the area where they now do the Passion Play, found a good place to have a service and found this tree and trimmed all the branches off the tree, cut off the top and tied it across so that it looked like across.

Then on Easter Sunday morning they got up early to thank Jesus that He had died on the cross and had risen from the dead.

I heard about this and being a person who likes trees, I was sorry that they had destroyed a tree, even though it was for a good purpose.

Later that summer we went back to that location and discovered that the tree was not destroyed.

Through the spring and summer, it had sent out shoots and was growing again.

Someone went back and took a picture of the tree because it was such a powerful image of the life that comes from the death of Jesus on the cross.

It symbolizes both His death and resurrection.

It is not unusual for a tree to do this.

I am always amazed at how severely you can prune a tree and it will still grow.

We are always brutal to our rose bushes when in fall we cut them almost all the way down, but each year they grow back and produce beautiful roses.

There is a point, however, when that doesn’t happen anymore.

Particularly if a tree dies and you cut it right to the roots, it won’t grow any more.

I know, because I mow over a whole bunch of stumps in my yard because trees have died and have been cut down and all that is left is the stump.

Please keep that image in mind while I talk about something else for a moment and then come back to this picture.

In II Samuel 7:16 God told David, "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

Solomon was God’s chosen king after David and after that there were a series of kings who were also descendants of David.

But there was a problem.

David was a man after God’s own heart, but as time went on, the kings who ruled Israel were not all men who followed God.

Some were, but many were sinful men who disobeyed God, worshipped idols and encouraged others to worship idols.

God was not Lord for many of them.

Because of this failure to follow God, prophets, like Isaiah, warned them that the nation would be punished for their sin.

Powerful words of judgment were spoken against Israel.

For example, In Isaiah 9:8 & 12 – 14 we read, "The Lord has sent a message against Jacob; it will fall on Israel…Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west have devoured Israel with open mouth.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.

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 reed in a single day…"

            In this warning, God promised that palm tree and reed, (probably referring to king and people), will be cut down.

God’s judgment will fall on the people of Israel and their “tree” will be cut down.

God warned that He would bring judgment against Israel through the Assyrians.

But God also warned that He would judge the Assyrians.

In Isaiah 10:33, 34 God warned, "See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will lop off the boughs 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 ax; Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One."

So in Isaiah 9 & 10 we have images of judgment illustrated by trees being cut down.

That is what happened in history.

The Assyrians destroyed the northern tribes of Israel.

But then the Babylonians destroyed the Assyrians.

As Judah, the southern tribes continued to disobey God, He warned them that He would also judge them.

That also came to pass when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem.

After that for many years there was no king in Israel.

Where was God’s promise to David that he would always have a son on the throne?

It is in this context of destruction that we read Isaiah in 11:1, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit."

Remember that in the chapters just previous to this, Isaiah had predicted the cutting down of the tree of Israel and the cutting down of the tree of Assyria.

Yet here he promises that a shoot would come out of the tree of Jesse, who was David’s father and a branch would come up from his roots.

For so many years, the tree of Israel looked dead.

It was not like the picture of the cross or the rose bushes that look dead in spring but grow again.

It was more like the stump of the tree that has died.

The stump certainly looked dry and cracked and beginning to rot.

For Assyria there was no such promise of restoration, but for Israel there was.

The text promised that a little shoot would appear in the stump, a branch would began to grow from the root of Jesse.

The promise is that someone from David’s family would appear and be king.

Who was that shoot, that branch of Jesse?

Matthew 1 records the genealogy of Jesus and we find that He was a descendant of Jesse.

The apostles recognized that the promise of Isaiah 11:1 was fulfilled in Jesus when we read the history of Israel in Acts 13:22, 23, "After removing Saul, he made David their king.

He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’

From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised."

In Revelation 22:16 Jesus speaks about Himself and says, “I, Jesus…am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

Grogan writes, “The reduction of the Davidic dynasty to a mere stump is a true metaphor for its condition when Christ was born; for, though still in existence, that dynasty had been without royal power for nearly six hundred years.

The reference to Jesse—who was of course never king—rather than to David—who was—may point to the total absence of royal dignity in the house of David when the Messiah would come.”

I love Jesus because He is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel.

After sin entered the world, God promised a way of relief from it effects.

Jesus fulfills all the promises and when we read the Old Testament in light of Jesus it is amazing to see how He fulfills all those promises in great detail.

In the whole history of the world, Jesus is big.

Even though many people don’t accept Him, those who do can see just how great He is in the grand scheme of things.

I love Jesus because He is so big in historical terms and so amazing.

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II.

His Spirit Empowerment - Isaiah 11:2

            Wherever the Spirit of God is stuff happens.

The Hebrew word for the Spirit is “ruach” which means wind.

The Greek word for spirit is “pneuma” which also means wind.

You can’t see the wind, but it is powerful in what it does.

Just consider all the things which happen by the power of wind.

If you have ever tried to carry a piece of plywood on a windy day, you discover very quickly that even though you cannot see the wind, it can move that piece of plywood and rip it out of your hands rather easily.

Wind is unseen, but powerful.

Whenever the Spirit of God moves, stuff happens.

Just like the wind, we can’t see the Spirit of God, but whenever God’s Spirit moves stuff happens.

Genesis 1:2 tells us that creation happened when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

It is with that background of understanding the unseen power of the Spirit that Isaiah tells us something very important about this shoot from Jesse.

We read in Isaiah 11:2, "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord…"

            When Jesus was about to begin his ministry we read in Matthew 3:16, "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.

At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him."

What did the power of the Spirit of God do in Jesus?

Acts 10:38 tells us the story of Jesus from a post-resurrection perspective revealing, "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."

The presence of the Spirit is the presence of God, as this verse tells us and it is because of the presence of God that things happen when the Spirit is present.

Jesus had God present with Him.

The verse tells us about how the Spirit was with Jesus to give him wisdom and understanding, counsel and power, knowledge and the fear of the Lord.