Sermon Tone Analysis

Longing to see the Kingdom

Hungering to Know and Be Known

2022-09-04

Scripture Reading: Psalm 136

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Introduction

Psalm 136 is an amazing Psalm.

The repeated refrain, “His love endures forever.”,

reinforces again and again that God is truly a God of love.

It begins by talking about how great God is.

He’s the only God who does great wonders, the first of which is his creation of the earth and the universe.

The Psalmist then goes on to describe the wonders God did when he brought the nation of Israel up out of Egypt, through the desert and into the promised land.

All of these wonders are recounted in the first six books of the Bible, Genesis through Joshua.

Can you imagine seeing the wonders that God did?

Certainly, no human being saw the creation of the universe.

Only angelic beings could have seen that.

The creation of everything physical out of nothing.

Most astrophysicists believe that all that currently exists, the earth, moon, planets, sun, stars, galaxies and everything in between all came to exist in what they call the Big Bang.

As a kid I used to mock that idea.

I shouldn’t have.

They’re simply saying what Genesis 1 tells us.

God spoke and it came to be.

It must have been amazing!

Can you imagine seeing the plagues of Egypt as they unfolded?

Most of us appreciate the power of a big thunderstorm.

That was nothing compared to the wonders God did in Egypt.

All freshwater turning to Blood, Frogs literally everywhere, then Lice or gnats, then flies, then the death of most of the livestock, then boils on the people, this was followed by Hail, then all the vegetation being eaten by Locusts, the ominous three days of darkness and finally, when nothing else had changed Pharaoh’s mind, the death of all the firstborn, including Pharaoh’s son.

The devastation would have been almost total.

Then when the Israelites left, the Egyptians freely gave them whatever they asked for, gold, silver and precious stones.

The gods of Egypt were shown to be impotent, and Egypt was devastated and plundered.

To top it off, when the army followed the Israelites into the sea, they drowned.

Can you imagine seeing all these wonders with your own eyes?

Never mind the pillar of fire or cloud, manna falling out of the sky, and God speaking like thunder from Mount Sinai after they crossed the Red Sea.

That generation of people saw all of these wonders in less than a year’s time.

I think it’s cool that I’ve seen a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse and a comet in my lifetime.

That’s nothing compared to what they saw.

When I was a kid, reading western books I had an impossible dream, to be able to travel back in time so that I could see the prairies like they once were, a sea of grass and immense herds of buffalo.

Have you ever wished to see wonders like these?

Things that now seem impossible?

Have you ever wished to see God do amazing things?

Things that would cause people to bow down in worship.

That would draw people to our Holy God, that would cause people to repent and turn back to the God who rescued them?

Rescue Your People Again Lord

The plagues in Egypt were done by God for one over-riding purpose, to rescue the children of Israel from slavery, to give them hope and a future where they could be free and love God with their whole hearts.

Yes, God’s glory was revealed, yes, his power was displayed, and all the gods of Egypt were shown to be nonexistent, figments of the imagination, but these were side benefits, the main point was to rescue his people and out of the chaos, create a nation of God followers.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to see this happen again?

Our western world has by and large abandoned God, just as the nations of Israel and Judah did in Isaiah’s day.

In that day and age, only a few people still worshipped the true God and gave him their complete allegiance.

The rest abandoned him for idols or worshipped Yahweh (God’s Hebrew name for himself) plus idols.

Isaiah saw this apostasy and yearned for God to ‘do it again’.

Turn with me to Isaiah 64.

(read Isaiah 64:1-12) (blank) Do you catch Isaiah’s longing?

He longs for God to come down like he did on Mount Sinai and make himself known.

He longs for God to do the kinds of wonders that he did in Egypt, that would make it plain that he was all powerful and Lord.

He longs for God to come and once again redeem his people.

He longed for the people of Israel to once again turn back to God and avoid the destruction that would surely come their way if they didn’t.

This was the longing of all the prophets of God.

Elijah often felt completely alone.

God reassured him that he wasn’t, that there were still 7000 who had not bowed their knees to Baal.

He wasn’t alone.

But think of it.

Ten whole tribes of Israel and only 7000 who had remained true to Yahweh.

That’s it.

Everyone else had given in to Baal worship.

They had abandoned God and pursued Satan’s path.

I long for what Isaiah longed for.

I look around in Canada and think of all the people who once worshipped Jesus as Lord and no longer do.

I think of grandmothers and grandfathers whose children and grandchildren have abandoned God and gone their own path.

I have cousins and nephews in that category.

How many people in Canada have a Christian heritage but have walked away from faith?

Then I also think of new Canadians from other lands who’ve never heard the good news of Jesus.

I long for them to know him.

To have the real, full life that God promises those who follow him.

They don’t know, they have no sure hope of life after death.

I long to see people come to faith through the ministry of our church.

To have our church filled with people who have discovered for the first time that they are loved by God, that Jesus is the Saviour who died for them.

God Came Down

Isaiah’s longing for God to come down did happen.

Just over 2000 years ago a baby was born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary.

The angel Gabriel called him Immanuel, God with us.

He came to rescue not only the Jewish people but all the people of the world.

After his temptation in the wilderness and he returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit of God and he went home to Nazareth.

When he was invited to read the scripture in the synagogue, he read from Isaiah 61:1, 2 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

(blank) This was Jesus’ mission.

To rescue all people from the oppression of sin and being enslaved by it.

To rescue all people from spiritual blindness and spiritual poverty.

Jesus came to heal and make whole.

Both physically and spiritually.

He came so we would have life.

And it happened.

Remember what happened in the gospels?

How thousands of people flocked to Jesus.

Everywhere Jesus went he proclaimed the kingdom of God.

The deaf could hear, the blind could see, the lame walked, and he cast out demons.

He became their shepherd.

They knew he loved and cared for them.

They couldn’t get enough of him.

They longed to be in his presence, to experience the wholeness that flowed out of him.

And the crazy thing is that people from all slices of society were drawn to him.

Joseph of Arimathea of the Jewish ruling Council and Nicodemus one of the Pharisees were his followers.