"To Him be glory forever": Isaiah

Showing posts with label Isaiah. Show all posts

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Traveling To Happily Ever After

Robin and I still have one child living at home, a daughter who is 10 years-old. Being ten, and having a very active imagination, she delights in creating adventure as she plays. This happens when she plays alone and when she plays with friends. She is at an age where she still will play dress-up games, grabbing a very well-worn princess dress from an old toy chest and letting her imagination run wild. The stereotypical movie princess ends up living happily ever after. Our daughter's adventures don’t seem quite that goal-directed, but she certainly seems to be having a lot of fun along the way.

This morning I preached a funeral, using Isaiah 35:10 as my text. When I happened across that passage earlier in the week I thought it might fit into my Easter sermon. That didn’t happen, but when the funeral came up it turned out to be a very appropriate piece of scripture for the occasion. Isaiah says,

"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."

Think through those words through the lens of Jesus. By faith in what has been accomplished in the death-and-resurrection of Jesus, believers in Him are "the ransomed of the Lord," and so we are traveling on the way, right now, to Zion, the place where the Lord dwells.

And the promise of God is that along the way we will enjoy, we will delight, in His presence, or as Isaiah says, we "shall obtain gladness and joy," on the one hand, while on the other "sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

The adventures of movie princesses are fine, to a point, but Isaiah shows God's people traveling to what is truly happily ever after. A journey that only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus.

This Easter may you know Christ Jesus, as your Savior and your Lord. Amen.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Assurance

Yesterday I preached a funeral, using Isaiah 43:1-3a as the text, which reads:

"But now thus says the Lord, he who created you,

O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.""

As Isaiah brings this word from the Lord the people of Israel are in a bad spot, and a bad spot that is entirely of their own making. They have ignored God and many calls by Him through the prophets, particularly Isaiah, to repent of their sin and return to Him. And in spite of the way they have acted towards God the message that they receive is not "You are about to get what you deserve, so tough luck" but "You are mine. Things will be hard but I will be with you. In all things I am your Savior."

The words Isaiah brings are words of assurance and while the specific context involves bad behavior by God's people the truth of the assurance they provide applies to God's people in any time of hardship or struggle. God, looking down from above, sends a message of His assurance to His people in the midst of their troubles.

The other scripture I used during the funeral was Psalm 23, which says this in verse 4:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

In this verse David speaks to God during a time of hardship, expressing assurance that he trusts God in the darkest of situations. In a sense these two passages express the same thing. They look from one side, through hardship to the other side, and yet say the same thing: God is good and He is with His children in even the worst of times. They are almost mirror images.

Almost, with the difference being in the one speaking. David speaks to God with confidence, but David is human, and even the best of humans have their moments of weakness, when the strongest and best of intentions may waver.

But not so God. There is no weakness in God. There is no good intention with bad follow-through in God. There is no doubting that everything He promises to provide for His children will one day be fulfilled. It may not happen in the way we desire, or according to our timeline, but it most certainly will happen.

Yesterday I tried to use the text from Isaiah to bring a family comfort, assurance and hope as they go through a trying time. But so many Christians are going through their own struggles and so I share this bit from yesterday to bring the same assurance to them. And to you.

The assurance that by faith in Jesus Christ you are His and though things may be hard, He is always with you. This is assurance that comes from God through His word. It is assurance that will never fail. Amen.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Not From, But Through

I want to share something from a funeral sermon I had prepared for this morning. The scripture text was Isaiah 43:1-3a. Today, Thursday, I no longer quite recall why I picked the text last Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning I preached from Mark 6:45-56, and I used the passage from Isaiah in my conclusion. So I guess that it was swirling around a bit in my mind and I thought I could bring something out of it for the funeral.

In verse 2 the prophet Isaiah writes:

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you."

Speaking for God the prophet is direct in saying that trouble will come to God's people. But he is also clear, crystal clear, about the fact that God's people will come through the trouble. Things will come, really bad things, maybe even horrible things, but those things won’t change the facts revealed in verse 1, which is that the people Isaiah speaks to are redeemed by God, they are called by Him by their names, and most importantly, that they are His. And so the trials may test them, may prune them, or may refine them, but they will not destroy them. Just typing this now reminds me of Paul's confident testimony from Romans 8:35-39.

So often we want all things to work out in our lives in the ways that are the easiest for us, or ways that lead to happy endings, or ways that keep troubles of our lives to the level of nuisance and not beyond. But Isaiah teaches us that difficult and painful things really do come to God's people. It isn’t a matter of if hardship will come, but of when and how.

By faith in God, His people are not delivered from all troubles in this life, but they are carried through them.

For God's people hard times will come, but God is faithful. May you know the comfort of His presence in each and every storm of your life.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

David Bowie and eternity

David Bowie passed away yesterday and tributes were to be seen all over the internet. I graduated from high school in 1975 so his music was certainly present in my world, although not to the extent of many other musical groups of that era. There are a few of his songs so deeply embedded in my memory that I would recognize them in an instant, but I never bought any of his music, so I wouldn't call myself a fan of his.

Among several of the tributes that I saw this comment grabbed my attention: "Heaven or Hell just got good!" I'm a pastor so those kinds of things seem to "jump out" at me, and this is a comment that contains both truth and untruth, although perhaps not in the way the author understood it. My observations are these:

First, the author believes that there is more "out there," i.e. that there is existence that extends beyond the world we live in and see each day. This is true. The Bible teaches that there is much more than what we see and experience here on earth, and that one day every person who ever lived will know this to be true. There are people today who empathically deny this but the testimony of the Bible is quite clear.

Second, the author believes that there are two options after a person leaves this world, either Heaven or Hell. This is also a biblically-grounded truth. What we might call the final, or eternal, destination of every person on this earth is one of those two places, Heaven or Hell. A person holding to a plurality of religious belief, i.e. "all faiths are basically the same" would disagree, but the Bible's position on only two eternal destinations is, as above, quite clear.

Third is the idea that humanity is what is at the center of Heaven or Hell, represented by the words "…just got good!" This is a complete misunderstanding, at best, of the nature of both Heaven and Hell.[1]

Hell is a place of suffering and wrath. It is the place for the punishment of sin for all who refused to turn, in this life, from themselves and to seek forgiveness from God through the love of Jesus Christ. That God would create a place such as this does not make Him evil. Rather, it maintains His holiness and justice. There is no "good" in this place known as Hell. Should this be David Bowie's destination he is not making everybody's day better through his prodigious musical talent.

Heaven, on the other hand, is a place of complete joy, a joy that is centered at being in the eternal presence of the one who, alone, is Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, and praising Him forever. Should this be Bowie's destination, then he is not a celebrity, bringing to the presence of His Lord a musical performance that, by its absence, made Heaven in some way less beautiful. Rather Bowie's presence in Heaven is more like the picture my wife took of the hoarfrost this morning, making something of rich and near-infinite beauty just a bit richer and more beautiful.

Isaiah 55:6-7 writes,

“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

If you don't know Jesus as Savior and Lord, then, as Isaiah says, seek Him today, as you turn from your ways to His. Receive His pardon, know His compassion, and when the time comes when you pass from this world you will know, most certainly in the assurance of His word, the everlasting joy of Heaven.

[1] Read Revelation 19, 20, 21 and 21 for a biblical overview of both Heaven and Hell.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

"…plans formed of old, faithful and sure."

The first verse of Isaiah 25 says, "O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure."

Those words of Isaiah are a profound statement of trust and faith in God. Isaiah lives during some hard times for the people of God. They are a people surrounded by enemies and it has been Isaiah's job to proclaim God's word of judgment on those enemies.

For the people of God that should be good news. God's enemies have harmed God's people, and God is going to set things right. But, as they say on TV, "Wait, there's more!" And perhaps to the surprise of the Hebrew people, the "more" that Isaiah brings to them isn't good news.

Isaiah also has to make known to God's people that they haven't been blameless. They may be God's people but they haven’t been living according to God's ways, and as a result some bad things are going to be coming their way too. But even that news of judgment is not the end of this part of Isaiah's story.

As Chapter 25 begins Isaiah proclaims his own faith in God. He says that the Lord is his God. He doesn't hold up any idols as the place where he puts his trust. His trust is in the Lord, and the Lord is the one he exalts, the one he worships.

In this verse Isaiah also remembers the things that God has done in the past. He isn’t specific about what those things are. They could be things that God has done for His people, or they could be things that God has done for Isaiah. Whatever it is that God has done, Isaiah calls these things "wonderful." And then comes the part of the verse that really catches my attention, where Isaiah mentions God's "plans formed of old, faithful and sure." Isaiah is looking back here, but he is also pointing us forward.

Isaiah is reminding God's people, both of his time and of ours as well, that God doesn’t make his plans on the fly, adapting them when they don’t seem to be working out. God's plans are "of old," and of old means that that they were in place before the act of creating the world.

And God's plans are "faithful and sure." We don't need to have any doubts about God's plans, particularly the plans He has to hold the people He has claimed as His own. Plans to hold them today and throughout eternity. It is a plan that Isaiah points toward and is shown most clearly in Jesus, who comes as the Savior and Lord of God's people.

May you find peace and hope knowing that God's plans for you, to hold you as His precious child, are faithful and sure in Christ Jesus.