Joy
Notes
Transcript
Good morning,
Let us open with a word of Prayer.
Pray 3+
As Marc read, this Sunday the theme of advent is Joy and the candle is unique. Where the other 3 candles of the wreath are all purple, today’s candle is pink. Where the other candles have this idea of contemplation, today’s reminds us to celebrate because of the Joy the coming Messiah offers and brings. Our main text today is found in Isaiah 35 if you could begin turning there and we will look at the whole chapter today, but since we are jumping in mid-book we have to look at the context to help us. While you are turning we will look at some of the context.
Isaiah is a prophet after the split of Israel in the north there is the nation of Israel and in the south is the kingdom of Judah. He is a prophet for the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C.. This was near the middle of his ministry.
His name means “Yahweh is salvation” and depending on how one counts prophesies outside of Psalms his writings contain the most prophesies pointing to Jesus. It also contains some of the clearest prophesies such as Isaiah 7:14 “14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” and Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53:4–7 “4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”
He was called to tell the people of God they needed to repent of their sin and if they would God would forgive them. If they would turn from their sin He would not only forgive them and bless them but he would protect them from the nations around them, but he tells them they would not. Because they would not God was going to bring judgement on them because of their rebellion. Interwoven into this coming judgement though are these highlights and God promises restoration. Our passage is one of these.
If you are there please follow along as I read
Isaiah 35:1–7 “1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; 2 it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.”
Isaiah 35:8–10 “8 And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
As we look at this passage I want us to think about a question.
What is our joy built on?
What is our joy built on?
Again this week we are celebrating the Joy that the Lord brings, but what is our joy built on? If you are like me, all too often I am finding “Joy” in things that have been created by God rather than in God. It is like we are living on a roller coaster, where we have these highs and lows. Too often we forget where true joy comes from.
It says Isaiah 35:1–2 “1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; 2 it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” The audience that Isaiah is speaking to would have a significantly better understanding of the desert than many of us. The Jews would recognize the desert as a reflection of the curse. What was originally meant to be full of life and able to grow is now scorched and contains very little life overall, but Isaiah writes that will rejoice and blossom. This desert will be rejoicing with singing and joy. What we see is that creation itself finds its joy in the returning Messiah. We see this idea in a couple of other places as well. In Romans 8:22–23 “22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” We see all of creation groaning for the second coming of the Lord Jesus and to a lesser extent we see it in Luke 19:40 “40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”” When during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus says that if people were not praising Him the very stones would cry out. All of creation is waiting for this day described here and in that day the desert will be given the glory of Lebanon and the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. The places listed here were at the time what were considered the pinnacle of creation. To the Jews, these places had the same sort of sentimentality that many have for this area. People all the time tell me this is God’s country, but the idea is that God has specially blessed this with a nature beauty that is unrivaled when compared to everything around it. That is what this idea is presenting and it is going beyond that and saying the wilderness and desert will receive this same level of beauty when this day comes.
However, towards the end of verse two there is something interesting happening. This desert is blossoming and rejoicing but these people all we are told about them right now is that They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. All of this is going on the desert is singing but they are focused on God. We get so focused on and at times end up worshipping the creation, but we cannot even comprehend creation without looking at it through the lens of a sin cursed world. Yet here these people are in a desert where the curse is no longer a concern and all they focus on is God and his glory and majesty. So I will ask again what is our Joy built on?
As we continue in our text we see several commands.
Isaiah 35:3–4 “3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”” We have to remember it was not long before this that the northern kingdom was taken captive and sent into exile. So the nation of Assyria was a very real threat to Judah. Yet they are told to strengthen one another. So...
When do we look to this Joy?
When do we look to this Joy?
This Joy is for all times we are to be looking to the coming Joy always and we should be encouraging one another and building one another up with this truth. We see a couple truths here that we can be encouraged by, the first being that no matter what is going on in the world around us, no matter the evils happening, one day God will come with vengeance and His recompense. This message comes at a time when there was great threat to the nation and God says look to the future hope. The principle is that we can look to this joy, the future coming of Jesus, at any time, but more importantly when things are going badly. We should be using this truth to encourage one another. There may be people sitting in this room who are feeling the weight of the world on them and they are week or anxious and we are told to come along side them and strengthen them and remind them of this joy, this future coming. This day when the desert will bloom and rejoice and God will settle accounts with mankind for all of their deeds.
The word recompense means to give something to by way of compensation and we see what God means here in Jeremiah 25:14.
14 For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”
The second truth we see here is that this day will come. While studying this passage this week, I came across some debate over who wrote this book and whether or not some of the events were added after they happened. But even if it is not by Isaiah and some of the events got added after they happened, this book still required God for the writing. The oldest copy of the scroll dates between 150 to 100 B.C. and still contains all of the prophesies about Christ and those were fulfilled and because God is faithful and has always kept His Promises I know he will do so again. I know this day will come, I know I can find Joy in the fact that God is faithful and will and did come and He will and did save us.
I say it that way because from here we will see and already but not yet view. Isaiah 35:5-7 read
Isaiah 35:5–7 “5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.”
We see a very interesting promise here in verse 5 through the first part of verse 6, one that many will recognize Jesus having accomplished. Jesus healed the blind, we see examples in John 9 and in Mark 8, Jesus heals a deaf, mute man in Mark 7 and a paralytic in Mark 2, we won’t look at all of these but Jesus is the one who did all of this, He had the better ministry than that of Isaiah. Turn with me to Isaiah 6. In this passage we have Isaiah’s commissioning, so the year King Uzziah died Isaiah had a vision. In this vision he sees the Lord and falls down because he assumes he is a dead man. Isaiah 6:5 “5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!””
Now remember that because it will be important a little later in our passage, but jumping down to verses 9-11 we read:
Isaiah 6:9–11 “9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” 11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,”
This is Isaiah’s ministry, he was to go and share news that would make the people not hear, it would make them blind and their hearts dull because they had rejected God so the Lord was giving them over to their depravity. Just as it says in Romans 1:28 “28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
While Jesus did do these physical healings this has much more to do with their spiritual state. These men and women had their spiritual eyes opened to God, they heard his word. There is some debate over the end of verse 6 to verse 7 in Isaiah 35, given the context there seems to be at least a spiritual aspect, when it says for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reads and rushes. I am willing to accept that this may be talking about creation, but Jesus is the living water who becomes a well springing up to eternal life in those who come to salvation. The people of that time were a spiritual desert, the pharisees had turned the law into a show and it had become about pride. What God had given them to point them to himself had been turned into a tool to keep people in subjugation and under their own authority.
Then Jesus comes and people find life. He opens the way to the Father and those who were like desert wastelands are now full of life and living water. But this does seem to also describe a physical place as well
Which leads us to verses 8-10.
Isaiah 35:8–10 “8 And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
We see this highway here and it has a name the Way of Holiness, and Isaiah has a problem here so does everyone he is preaching to so do we, because it says that the unclean shall not pass over it. Remember what Isaiah said in 6:5, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” It would seem that none are allowed on this highway, but God provides a way. The name of the highway gives us insight into how to access it. We see that the Way of Holiness is in fact Jesus Christ and He says as much John 14:6 when he says
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
It will be only those redeemed who will be found there and they will come to Zion with singing on this highway. They will be safe and cannot get lost. Even those with the simplest faith won’t go astray, there is something interesting that we notice about those on the way. They are singing and everlasting joy is upon their heads. But what I wanted you to really notice is the singing and the joy.
Do we sing of this joy?
Do we sing of this joy?
I will tell you we often plan the last song in hopes that it will get stuck in someone’s head because music sticks with us in a way that a sermon may not. I will challenge you to find music that is theologically sound and play it and sing it. I don’t know how many here recognize this but there is a significant amount of music in the Bible. The Psalms for example is a book of music and while the notation has been lost to us the poetry remains. Music has a way of bringing Joy and focusing our minds on God’s truth that is unique. I know Marc says this frequently but take the music inserts home and sing them, praise God when you are at home or when you are frustrated.
Look up some quality musicians, this is a bit more difficult, but they are out there. If you look up the Psalm Project, this is people putting the psalms to music. Sing of the everlasting Joy that God gives through His Son Jesus.
Let us close in prayer.