ISAIAH 61:1-3 I don't think there has ever been a point in history when people had such a hard time knowing what to believe, what to trust, what to place their hope in as is the case in our world today. And is it any wonder? We live in a world rife with robo-calls, email scams, and internet predators, all of whom pose as something they are not in attempts to take advantage of us. Allegations of fake news tell us we can't trust what our journalists report. Scandals and mudslinging between candidates has eroded confidence in our political leaders. Technologies like photo-shop, CGI and virtual reality have left us unable to trust our own eyes about what's real and what's not. Christianity has not gone unscathed as false teachers preaching false gospels spring up like weeds in a garden. So whether we were tricked by someone intent on fooling us, or whether the things we trusted in simply failed to be worthy of our trust, we've all experienced the disappointment and hurt of having our hopes crushed. In fact, we can count ourselves fortunate if our lives have not been deeply scarred by the experience of trusting in something or someone that failed us. And so, we are left wondering who can we trust? What can we hang our hopes on? Where can we place our confidence? With that being the environment of our day it should come as no surprise that people have those same questions about Jesus. How can we have assurance that trusting Jesus is right? How can we know He is the one-and-only way to salvation? Well, one way is to see how Jesus fulfilled prophesies of the Old Testament. When we see how Jesus perfectly satisfies the prophecies that were given about the promised Messiah we can have assurance that He is truly the Son of God and truly worthy of our hope and trust. So turn with me to Isaiah 61. Isaiah is renowned as the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. Now, most of Isaiah's prophecies focused on the southern kingdom of Judah. And through Isaiah, God chastised His people for their continual turning away from Him in sin and rebellion. And He warned that He was going to use the Babylonians to punish Judah -- and take them into exile. And history records how all of those prophecies came to pass. 1 But of particular interest to Christians are Isaiah's prophecies about the Messiah. And the first three verses of Isaiah 61 record these words spoken by the Messiah to come. Follow along as I read Isaiah 61:1-3. 1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; 2 To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, 3 To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. These words of the Messiah recorded by Isaiah brought a message of hope to the people of Judah that they would not be abandoned by God but would be delivered from their captivity in Babylon. But this prophecy of consolation would not be declared "fulfilled" until hundreds of years after the Jews return from exile when Jesus read this passage in the synagogue of Nazareth. To see that, turn for a moment to Luke 4. In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus read a portion of our text from Isaiah 61 and then revealed the connection of these words to Himself. Follow along as I read Luke 4 starting in verse 16. 16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. 17 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, 18 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, 2 TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, 19 TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.” 20 And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, Jesus was declaring that the words of the Messiah recorded in Isaiah 61 belonged to Him! He was declaring Himself to be the One in Whom all these things were to be fulfilled. Now, just think about that for a moment. Imagine being a Jew in the Synagogue that morning. Although you have heard the words of this prophecy read aloud countless times before, it was only now in Jesus' reading of them that you would have been hearing those words actually coming from the Messiah's own lips! You would have heard the words of the Messiah spoken by the Messiah. Now, if you were paying close attention, you may have noticed one or two details about Jesus' reading of the text in Luke 4 that don't exactly match our text from Isaiah. We will take a closer look at those things as we come to them in our study of Isaiah 61 this morning. But before we start looking into the text itself, we need to remember an important principle for studying biblical prophecy. We need to remember that prophecy often times speaks of the future two-dimensionally, as if everything mentioned will happen at the same time. This is a characteristic known as "Prophetic Foreshortening." You've heard Mark explain this as recently as our study of Revelation. So, let me remind you of the analogy he gave then, because I think it's a really helpful and easy way to understand this principle. So, imagine yourself driving across the plains of the Midwest and as you approach Colorado you see the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Now, from your initial vantage point, the mountains all look to be the same distance away. They are just a solid line of mountain peaks on the horizon. But of course, by the time you get to the first of those mountains you realize that some of those peaks are right in front of you while others are still miles and miles away. From a distance, it appeared you would reach all the mountains at once. But now you can see there is a huge span between the first mountains and the last ones. Well, biblical prophecy can be a lot like that. Prophecies often present various details of the future as if they all pertain to one single point in time. When in actually, the details presented belong to more than one future event and those events may be separated by large intervals of time. 3 As we study our passage in Isaiah 61 this morning we will see how some of the events spoken of there have already been fulfilled during Jesus' first coming while others won't be fulfilled until His return. But because all of this prophesy are the words of the Messiah it all pertains to Jesus. And so, we are going to study this passage today in order to draw encouragement from what this Old Testament passage teaches about the person of Christ. In particular, this passage will provide us with three reasons we can put our hope in Jesus. Whereas everything else in this world will ultimately fail and disappoint us, Isaiah 61 points to THREE REASONS TO PUT OUR HOPE IN JESUS. And the first reason is this... 1. We can put our hope in Jesus BECAUSE OF WHO HE IS. Follow along as I read again the first two lines of verse 1. The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me. Notice, in those opening words of verse 1 we have all three persons of the Trinity represented. We have the Messiah (the Son of God) speaking, the Lord God (that is, God the Father) and the Spirit, whom the Messiah says was upon Him. Now, we know that in His incarnation, though He was fully man, Jesus never stopped being fully God. And so, when we look at Jesus' life and ministry here on earth and we read of the miracles and wonders He performed and the incredible words He spoke, I think it is easy for us to see Jesus as doing all those things in His own power and wisdom as God the Son. And in thinking that way I fear we can tend to minimize the role that the Holy Spirit played in Jesus' first coming. But a careful reading of scripture reveals just how extensively involved in Jesus' life and ministry the Holy Spirit was. Scripture tells us: Jesus was conceived through the work of the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18-20; Lk 1:34-35)... and was anointed to preach by the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:15-21; Lk 4:17-21).