Trinity 16 (Is 12)

Andrew Costa

Trinitytide • Sermon • Submitted 8 months ago • Presented 8 months ago

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Those who experince God's Grace will declare God's Grace to others.

Notes

Transcript

Intro. I remember hearing the Gospel first rang true to me. It was explained slowly and plainly and I thought…Man everyone needs to know this, to hear this.

Those who experience God's Grace will declare God's Grace to others.

Let us look at our OT reading for the day.

We are in the book of Isaiah.

Split kingdom, Assyrian Crisis. We are in chapter 12…let me get you some headings from Chapter 9-10-11.

Judgment on Arrogant Assyria, The Remnant of Israel Will Return, The Righteous Reign of the Branch The Lord Is My Strength and My Song

So in light of that remnant return under and the arrival of the righteous branch of Jesse the text breaks into song.

Verse 1: There is a realization of God’s grace. The singer is aware that God was justly angry with them for their turning away and yet God withheld Anger and gave comfort.

Many people are uncomfortable with a God of Anger. The common thinking is that God is gratuitously angry over nothing looking to spank his people over minor things. First off Anger is universally felt by all humans and is a part of God’s image stamped on us. We get angry at injustice. We see crimes against the innocent we often feel anger that there needs to be a sense of Justice. Or give our own kids rules on how to exist in our household, and they often break the rules or even lie about it. For some parents the response is righteous anger.

God has made all people for himself and yet people live for their own purposes. They reject God and how he has ordered the universe. God’s response is righteous anger.

Yet instead of showing a forever anger to his people. God responds by withholding his anger and comforting his people. The root of Jesse that comes to save the people of Israel in the previous chapters in Jesus. Jesus son of David.

Remember that David is the son of Jesse, and Jesus is of the line of David. Isaiah is predicting the arrival of Jesus Christ who will show comfort and mercy instead of Anger. Isaiah is predicting the cross.

Verse 2. So the speaker calls God his salvation. and there for instead of fear of condemnation trust in God, God will be strength, and God will bring joy. All this because God has become salvation. Remember that Salvation is the opposite of condemnation. Where God could be condemnation, he has that capability. He is instead salvation.

Verse 3: ow an explanation to others it foes from 1st person to 2nd person.

You will Draw water from the well of salvation

And when you draw water from that well there will be an evangelical response, that is a response of needing to tell others.

You say…give thanks, call upon his name, make his deeds known, proclaim him

Interesting how each one of these things has a presence in our liturgy..

Give thanks... ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Call upon his name: Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.

Make his deeds known: Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all who truly turn to him. So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. St. John 3:16

Proclaim him: Glory be… the declarative evangelical response to the salvation of God.

Verse 5 restates much of verse 4 but I want to remind us that to Sing God’s praise is an act of worship. The worship of God was our purpose in being created all along. Isaiah is reminding us now that God has turned away his anger and given us grace, let us lean into our purpose for existing a worship him.

We all worship something. The questions is what will be the object of our worship, will it be the God that created us or some created thing that can never give back what we truly desire. You can worship health…eat right, exercise. but it will not make you immortal. You might stay prettier longer, but gravity comes for us all at some point and when gravity is through with us then comes the grave. You can worship having a great family. But we all know that family can bring heart ache as easily as any-other part of the human experience. You can worship leasure. But eventually even that becomes its own slaver with its own disappointment. Leasure never lives up to the brochures.

Only God can give you the eternal life you are looking for, only he can give you a forever existence and only he is infinite enough to hold your attention through out it.

[5] “Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. (ESV

Verse 6: Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,

Last think to note is that the command is to the inhabitants of Zion, the Mt. in Jerusalem where the Temple was and God would meet his people. What is special here is that Jesus is a new temple, a new Zion that is not geographically exclusive. He can be accessed in all places, not just by Israelites but by all people. The Gospel now touches every people group. And heaven at the end of all things will be a new Heavens, New Earth and New Jerusalem where God will be present with all the people there. Isaiah has given the people something wonderful to look forward to. And we get to live as this new reality begins to play out. So we tell others.

Those who experience God's Grace will declare God's Grace to others.

So we just walked through a prophetic utterance of the Prophet Isaiah, around 600 years before Jesus Christ. On the other hand the utterance is about the arrival of Jesus Christ.

So if we turn to our Gospel reading for today, we can stop and ask if we see in it the fulfillment of Isaiahs message. We have in the Gospel Lesson, a dead son. Death is the out come of sin, Adam and Even sin and we inherit that. Therefore we experience death as this young man does. Bit instead of leaving him in that state, Jesus reaches out and comforts the widow and reverses the death by giving the young man life.

Isaiah is prophesying that the arrival of the root of Jesse will mean that God will turn from his anger and instead show grace. Look Jesus the son of David son of Jesse will take death on to his own shoulders and can there for share the grace of reversing death. How does our Gospel reading end.

And there came a fear on all, and they glorified God, saying, That a great Prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about.

Isaiah 12:4 [4] And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. (ESV)

and they glorified God, saying, That a great Prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about.

Friends, God in Christ has forgiven our sin, taken our punishment, and reversed death…how can we not declare this to the ends of the earth. How can we stay silent, how can we not fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah.

If you can hear my voice today, and are not sure you have responded to God that you have yet to know the transforming power of Jesus, let me just remind you as I remind all of us. The Gospel is that Christ has died on the cross to take the punishment that is ours so we can have the blessing that is his. If you want to begin today living for him in this reality please stop one of us after church and ask us about it. We would love to walk with you in taking next steps. And for the rest of us. Let us never cease to look for new friends to whom we can declare the good news of Christ.