ADVENT Advent Hope Lesson 2 Isaiah 59 120218 1 This Morning

ADVENT Advent Hope Lesson 2 Isaiah 59 120218

1 This morning we are continuing in our Christmas teaching series entitled Advent. Advent is one of the five Christian celebrations on the church calendar all of which are designed to help us to refocus our hearts on Jesus Christ and worship him more deeply. 2 The word advent actually comes from the Latin word “adventus” which simply means arrival. So, Advent focuses on the arrivals of Jesus Christ into this world. I say “arrivals” because there are two; Christ’s first advent or arrival which we celebrate at Christmas and His second arrival or advent aka “the second coming” which is still yet to take place. 3 Advent, then is a season in which we look back in remembrance to Jesus first coming (his incarnation, birth and life). But it is also a season in which we look forward with anticipation to His second coming. 4 And as we look back and look forward there are four Advent themes that emerge … hope, love, joy and peace. a Jesus has come and will come again. And that means we can experience real hope, true love, fulness of joy and unending peace. b Let me phrase that another way in the context of today’s theme, hope. • If Jesus had not come, if he had not been conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit and born into a manger in Bethlehem, we would have no hope. • And if Jesus was not coming again to redeem this broken world, liberate the universe from all evil and make all things new … we would have no true and lasting hope. • Our hope is ultimately found in the Person of Jesus Christ. So, Christmas is the story of hope. 5 Now before we go any further, I think it is very important for us to define hope. Hope is a desire for something to happen or be true and there are three things you need to realize about it.

Hope Defined 1 Hope is central and essential.

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a Generally speaking all the decisions and choices you make in life, all of your responses to the situations and circumstances and relationships in your life are influenced and dependent upon hope. • Our happiest moments are those in which something we have hoped for has been realized or fulfilled or come true. • Our most difficult moments are when hope is deferred or shaken. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Proverbs 13:12 • Our saddest moments are when our hopes have been dashed. b Hope is really at the center of all that we are. We are always hoping, so much so that it is a part of our daily vocabulary. We use the word hope or similar words in our conversations all the time. • We hope for good weather. We hope we don’t gain too many pounds over the holidays. We hope the in-laws don’t stay too many days. • We hope we get a new job. We hope the kids do well in school. We hope a love one recovers from illness. We hope all the time. Hope is central and essential to our lives. 2 Hope has an object and an expectation. a We hope in something as we hope for something. Our hope has an object and an expectation. In other words, we always hope in something for something. Hope has an object and expectation. b And much of the time we put our hope in the wrong objects which leads to disappointment. Our expectation for happiness, meaning, security and fulfillment in life can never come from created things (people, places, things, societal institutions). Ultimately, the only true source of hope is the Lord. Jesus Christ is the object of our hope. 3 Hope is both vertical and horizontal a In the Scriptures, the word is used over 200 times. And when you read them you begin to realize that the word hope in the Bible is used differently than we use the word. b For example, when we hope for a good outcome we are actually wishing for a good outcome. • In other words, maybe the situation will turn out good, but then again maybe it will not. • It’s simply being optimistic about the probabilities. It is a human hope, a horizontal hope.

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c But hope in the Bible is not about probabilities, it is about promises, God’s promises which are based upon God’s character. So, hope in the Bible, Christian hope, is not a wish concerning the future but a confident expectation of what is to come based upon the unwavering promises of God. d Biblical hope is vertical. It is centered on God. Hope is the disposition that the promises God has made to us through his Word will come to pass. • He will take care of you in this life. He will satisfy the desires of your heart as you trust him. • He will comfort you in affliction as you turn to Him. He will meet all your needs in life as you lean into Him. And at the end of life he will receive you into heaven with open arms. • And there you will receive an inheritance that can never fade away. You will receive a resurrected body. You will be made sinless and live forever in God’s presence. You will share in Christ’s glory. • He will return to this earth and remove all evil and make all things new. Perfect justice will reign over all humanity. Everything will be made right. This will happen because God has promised it. • Again, these things are not probabilities, they are ironclad promises.

Fulfilled promises and future promises 1 Now one of the reasons we can have this kind of hope in God’s promises for the future and Christ’s second advent is because of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promises concerning Christ’s first advent. 2 There are 400+ prophecies, appearances, or foreshadowings of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. And all of these promises were made and recorded by the OT prophets centuries before the birth of Christ. Many of them are very specific and many were fulfilled in Christ’s first advent. a Micah 5 – born in Bethlehem. b 2 Sam 7 – descendant of David. c Hosea 11 - called out of Egypt. d Zech 9 - enter Jerusalem triumphantly on a donkey. e Ps 41 - betrayed by a friend eating bread. f Zech 11 - betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. g Number 21 - lifted up on a pole.

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h Ps 22 - mocked and taunted, forsaken, die with pierce hands and feet and have his garments gambled for. i Ps 34 - bones would not be broken in his death (as in the case of all roman crucifixions). j Ps 16 –raised from the dead. 3 So there are 100’s of fulfilled prophecies concerning Christ’s first advent found throughout the Old Testament. But without a doubt the book in the Old Testament with the most prophecies about Jesus Christ’s first and second advent is Isaiah. a Is 7 - born of a virgin from the line of David. b Is 9 - be God Himself c Is 35/61 - perform miracles d Is 40 - proceeded by a forerunner e Is 50 - severely beaten and spat upon f Is 52 - disfigured by suffering g Is 53 - rejected by own people, silent before false accusation, condemned to die a substitutionary death for our sins and buried in a rich man’s tomb. 4 These are the very obvious prophecies about Christ. What I would like to do is take a look at one that is not so obvious because it uniquely reveals something about the nature of Biblical hope.

Background - Isaiah 59 1 The children of Israel had been in captivity in Babylon, and they have come back now to Jerusalem, and it’s a mess. Everything has been destroyed. a There are no city walls to protect them. There is no temple to worship in. There is no leadership. There is no government to enforce laws. b There no justice and violence in the streets. People didn’t have enough to eat. It’s a total societal breakdown. 2 The people are without hope. All the people, institutions, structures, things they hoped in have failed. Horizontal hope, human hope has failed. And into that darkness comes vertical hope, a word of hope from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah.

Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Is 59:1

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1 Apparently, the people were thinking that because they were in this mess that the Lord was not powerful enough to do anything about their plight (his arm was too short) or that he was simply unaware of their circumstances (his ear was dull and therefore He had not heard their complaint). 2 In other words they were blaming God for their current circumstances. Here’s what often happens to us as well. a When life isn’t working, when we’re suffering in some way, when we’re disappointed, when our comfort is interrupted, it’s tempting for us to bring God into our courtroom and question His faithfulness, goodness, wisdom and love. b It’s very tempting to say, “God, where are You? Where is Your faithfulness? Where is Your grace? Where is Your love? I thought You were near to me. I thought You answered my prayers. God, where are You?” c The answer to those questions is that He is always fully present with you (Heb 13:5). Then why am I suffering? Well there are several reasons, not the least of which is that God uses suffering to pry open our hands so that we let go of our false sources of hope. • He is trying to free us and protect us from futility, pain and disappointment because created things can never give us a lasting hope. • And therefore, difficulties in life are not a sign of God’s unfaithfulness and inattention. As Paul Tripp says, they are tools of uncomfortable grace that moves us back to God’s heart and true happiness. e God uses trials in our lives, not because He doesn’t love us, not because He is too weak to help or doesn’t care … but because He loves us too much to allow us to try to find our identity, security, stability and joy in horizontal hopes. f And if we don’t see this we will begin to question God’s love, wisdom, goodness and faithfulness. And when we do that it creates a catch 22 … we don’t run to the only one who can help us. So we run to other things, to objects of temporary hope that can never satisfy your heart. 3 That’s exactly what was happening here. And so, God replies I am neither powerless or unaware. The reason you are in this predicament is …

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But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Is 59:2 1 He has not hidden himself from you, your sins have hidden his face (blessing) from you (Numbers 6:23). In other words, your problem is not with Me, it is in you. a In the verses that follow God lays out the specific sins that they were committing that was blocking the face (blessings/favor) of God. b They were guilty of violence, falsehood, injustice, dishonesty, evil deeds and creating turmoil. 2 Now this divine verdict, “the problem is in you,” is both humbling and liberating … and it’s where the gospel begins. a The gospel humbles us by revealing our problem is in us. We are sinners in need of a Savior. The problem is not with God, the problem is in us. b That’s humbling … but it is also liberating because with that admission we now have hope for change because the Lord gives grace to the humble. The prayer is not fix everything outside of me, it’s fix me. It all starts with the admission the problem is in me. 3 And that is a confession that we find very difficult. Consciously or subconsciously we tend to think our problems are due to things outside of us. a It’s my circumstances, my job, this house, this city, this government, this person, my spouse, these Floridian drivers, etc. If it wasn’t for these things outside of me, I wouldn’t be so frustrated, depressed or anxious. b See it’s always outside of me. That’s why you will never see a person at a protest march with a sign that has an arrow pointing down and the phrase, “I’m the problem.” 4 And this subconscious refusal to accept God’s verdict is evident in our terminology. Let me give you three examples, three terms we use. a Bad marriage. No such thing. There is nothing wrong with the institution of marriage but there is something wrong with the two humans in the marriage. • They are both sinners and trend towards self-centeredness. Marriage is a flawed person married to a flawed person in a fallen world but with a faithful God. • So, the problem is not the institution of marriage, it’s a sin in the heart problem.

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b The same could be said for bad neighborhood. Our neighborhood is going bad. Neighborhoods don’t go bad, people do. It’s evil in the human heart that’s the problem. We have to do something about street crime. But streets don’t commit crimes, people do. c Likewise, there is no such thing as bad government. The institution itself is not a problem. The problem is corruption in the heart politician. 5 When you get to the bottom of a bad marriage, bad neighborhood or bad government what you will find is sinful people who have taken God’s wisely created institutions of marriage, community and government … and made a mess out of them. a The problem is in us! God’s diagnostic is right. And we will never have true hope for a better future until we start there. b There is something that lurks inside of us that is dangerous, that highjacks our thoughts, that distorts our desires, that overpowers our words, that manipulates our behavior. c Like the Apostle Paul said, 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:19-20 d And until we admit that we are like the guy who is going to five AA meetings a week but never admits he’s an alcoholic. We all know that he’s never going to get help or have hope to change until he does. 6 The problem is in us and we are powerless to do anything about it. There is where true hope starts. a True hope does not start with optimism, it starts with the reality of hopelessness. I need something outside of me to help me. b And so we start looking to horizontal sources of hope instead of vertical hope. We look to this and that. Here’s how it sounds: “If only I had ____, then my life would be ____.” c And since things don’t provide hope and happiness we often look to people to be the source of our hope and happiness. The problem is that no person can be the source of your happiness. We’re all in the same predicament. d Therefore, we need someone outside of creation, outside of the human race to help us. That’s Christmas. That’s why God supernaturally enters the human race in the womb of Mary and nine months later is born in a manger in Bethlehem. And that’s where true hope begins.

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7 Well eventually the folks Isaiah was prophesying to realize that God’s verdict is right and their confession is found in verses 9-15. 9 So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; (We look) for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. 10 Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. Isaiah 59:9-10 a They are basically saying, we have no hope. We’re at the end of our rope. b And when you get there you can either point your finger at God or make your confession to God. They do the latter. 12 For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: 13 rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God … Is 59:12-13a 8 In the light of this disaster, in the light of all the lostness, in the light of all the rebellion, transgression, sin and iniquity, what God does next is truly amazing.

The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. 16 He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. Isaiah 59:15b-16 1 This is a messianic promise. Whenever you see that phrase the arm of the Lord in the Old Testament it is often a reference to Jesus Christ. One of his names is the “Arm of the Lord.” a The great messianic chapter, Isaiah 53 begins with Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Isaiah 53:1 b And then the rest of the chapter explains who the arm of the Lord is and what he is going to do on our behalf … 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:5-6 c In chapter 12 of his gospel the Apostle Johns confirms this.

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37 Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him. John 12:37-38,41 d John is simply saying here that Isaiah was talking about Jesus when he called him the “Arm of the Lord.” 2 Again this is the Christmas story. God is saying, “Now that you’re at this moment where you utterly have no hope, nowhere to look, I’m going to send you hope, I’m going to send you the Arm of the Lord.” 3 In fact I’m going to send him to you twice. Now that is not immediately clear in this passage unless you know that OT prophets often spoke of Christ’s first advent and second advent in the same prophecy. For example Isaiah 9:6. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given (first advent) and the government will be on his shoulders (second advent). Isaiah 9:6 4 Isaiah says that when he comes the second time … 17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. 18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due. 19 From the west, men will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along. Isaiah 59:17-19 a So Jesus will come in judgement to carry out justice. Every wrong will be judged, the unrepentant will be removed along with all evil and all that will be left to live in the new earth are those who revere his glory. b When we look at our world today the brokenness of humanity is inescapable. Watching the news on TV or scrolling through your social media timeline reveals evil upon evil. • The news of war, terrorism, genocide, injustice, senseless acts of murder, cruelty and immorality bombard us with this reality: Things are not as they should be. • We need a new world. We need things to be made right. But we can’t stop with an assessment of our world we must also realize that there are things in us that are not as they should be.

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c But there is coming a day when all brokenness will be healed because sin will be no more. • No more evil, violence or wars. No more arguing, hostility or fighting. No more suffering, disease or brokenness. • Only perfect harmony. And the government will be on Christ’s shoulders. As the Prince of Peace will reign over us as King forever. The justice of the Lord will accomplish this. d But before he comes in justice to judge and make all creation new he first came in grace to redeem us and make us new. Isaiah says,

“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 59:20 (3 terms) 1 Jacob is a term that is used in the OT to describe the Jewish people. 2 Zion originally referred to the mountain on which Jerusalem and the Jewish temple was built. Eventually, in the New Testament it came to be used to describe the church which is comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. So, a Redeemer will come to both Jew and Gentile. 3 The word “Redeemer” is from the Hebrew word, goel which is also translated kinsman-redeemer or a relative who redeemed another relative. The Goel was a person who had a specifically defined role in a Jewish family in ancient Israel. a If a relative forfeited their family plot of land the Goel was responsible to buy back or redeem the land to keep it in the family (Leviticus 25:25). b If a married male relative died without children the Goel was responsible to marry his childless widow so she could have children in order to buy back or redeem the family name from perishing (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). c If a relative in his family fell into slavery because of indebtedness the Goel was responsible to buy that relative out of slavery … to redeem them from slavery (Leviticus 25:48). 4 When the Bible capitalizes Redeemer, it does so rightly - because our Goel is Jesus Christ. a He is our kinsman because in the incarnation He has added perfect humanity to His deity. Holy God became one of us. • He was born in a manger in order to be our Goel and buy us out of slavery to sin. • He was born in Bethlehem to be our Goel and pay our debt of sin. Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer. ADVENT/ Advent Hope / Lesson 2 / Isaiah 59 10

b Who does this Kinsman Redeemer come to? To those who repent of their sin. The Goel only worked on behalf of those who asked for His redeeming help. c It’s the same with you and Jesus. Everything you need is found in him. All the hope you need is found in him, most importantly the hope for eternal life, the hope of heaven. But you have to ask for it.

Invitation

Benediction May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Rom 15:13

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