Sermon Tone Analysis

Thank you

This week we had an amazing crew come here to paint…Bob puliz said…well we are going to knock out the staff offices…and if we have more paint maybe a little more…Well they ended up doing nearly everything.

It is so great to have this facilities team that just does so much for us.

So I just wanted to recognize and thank

Bop Puliz

Pete Rabbon

Garry Dremmel

Gary Denton

Steve Heib

Sandra & Dusty Puliz

Would you stand for a second so We can properly thank you

See we have a vision here called Multiply 2025 where we want to see this church become a hub for church planting…A multiplying force cor God’s kingdom…So we are renovating ourselves spiritually…We are renovating our whole property and we are setting a goal to plant a new church by 2025…And the goal is to raise 300,000 in the next three years.

See You can not renovate this place for $300K but by doing the work that we can do ourselves we save tens of thousands of dollars.

Intro

Welcome to week 3 of our series…Do you hear what I hear?

These are echoes out of the book of Isaiah...

And I want to remind you of where we started

At the time that Isaiah is writing this, Israel is feeling the pressure from all sides…They have major world powers on their doorstep and they are a nation whose power has been in decline for the last couple of hundred years

And Isaiah is there saying…Hey Israel…your going to go into exile

Horrible suffering is coming your way

So Isaiah has to proclaim the judgment of God on Israel and it is harsh

But he also proclaims this new vision that God that will come to his people and save them....

That one day, God himself will show up and be with humanity again

So the book of Isaiah has these twin themes that sort of run through it all.

But the big theme that we are really exploring this Christmas is that, Isaiah is looking to a day He looked forward to the day when Heaven and earth would meet up in the person of Jesus and God would restore what had been lost

So this morning, I have no clever intros…Just open your bibles to Isaiah 35…

As we flip there…I have read this text hundreds of times…and I just want to say that there is very little that I will say that is as good as the Bible

I mean this portion of Isaiah is so good…It can preach itself…why does it even need me?

What we find here is this classic Hebrew Poetry...

The picture that Isaiah is painting here is a people walking back home from exile…and their environment transforms for them...

What we have to understand about Isaiah 35 is that it is the total inverse or mirror image of Isaiah 34.

We are not going to take the time to read 34 today but if you were to put them next to each other you will see what is a punishment for all of the wicked nations who brought Israel into exile is then a blessing for Israel

It goes from a tough barren wasteland to a fertile and beautiful land that is marked with Joy.

The biggest theme in this poem is a return to Eden.

When Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden what happened?

They went from a garden, where God was present and all of their needs were taken care of

And they were put outside of the garden where their work became hard and the land was barren…Literally a blossoming place to a dessert place

What this text is saying is that when God comes it will be like walking into Eden again

And before we get into this text more deeply I was thinking of what this is like...

I’ve been to Maui a few times and where you land at the airport is kind of this industrial area....The airport is between these two huge mountains and all the tropical paridise of Maui is around these two massive mountains...

But the first time I went there there was a lot of farm land and the dirt is all red…and I just remember getting in the rental car and driving to the hotel thinking…This is maui?

I would have expected it to be a lot more green!

But then in just a few minutes as you get closer to the hotel you go from driving in what feels like a tropical dessert to this lush green tropical paradise…and then when you finally get there your like…Is this heaven?

is God here?

When I read this text this is the picture that comes into my mind

Up until this point in Isaiah there is all of this judgment in the book of Isaiah…and there are a few bright points along the way but this is the first glimpse of what Israel will really look like when God comes in the flesh

And I think that what strikes me the most about this poem is that it is describing the coming of God to Earth and that scene is marked with overwhelming Joy

Joy is found in freedom from captivity

What Isaiah is referring to here is the captives of Babylon and Assyria returning home...

What Isaiah is saying is that hey, there is this great freedom coming...

And I don’t know if you have ever been set free from something, but I will tell you what, there is great joy in being set free...

When Desiree and I got married we both came in with a little bit of credit card debt and a few years in, we had made no progress on that debt until Desiree and I said…We have to make that a priority…and once we were free from debt there was like this huge monkey off our back!

Its like we didn't realize the weight of what we were carrying because we were finally free of it.

Here’s another example, I am a glutton for suffering…Most people try to avoid suffering but I like to get on a bike and push myself…Once a month I pick a day and ride 100 miles…I’ve done this now for 17 consecutive months…and some days its easy…And some days you question everything

But there was this one ride I went on…and it should have been easy because it was a flat route…but there was a wind advisory, and two of my water stops at parks had the water turned off…I ran out of food at mile 80…I was dehydrated…The wind made the ride so much longer and slower…And I just wanted to give up so bad…but I was so close to home…Anyway, I am getting close to home and I finally feel the freedom of being done with the ride…and I show up to my house and one of our board members was there…Margie Epperstein, and she had these freshly made tortillas that she was dropping off…And it was like the dessert experience of that ride transformed right in front of me...

I mean they were just tortillas…and Margie could have had no idea of just how amazing the timing was…But I was dehydrated and calorie deprived…In the cycling world we just call it “Bonking” …>You have no idea how much joy those simple tortillas brought me

But these are silly examples

But if we can feel joy in these little moments of life....How much more joy can you feel when you are forgiven from sin, made right with God and now you have the ability to have a relationship with the living God?

These first two verses describe the joy of those who are returning from exile...

Do you remember when you first laid your life down at Jesus’ feet?

Do you remember the feeling of when you realized that you are no longer defined by the sin you committed or the mistakes that you made?

Do you remember the freedom of realizing that if God is for you then who can be against you?

Do you remember the joy of your salvation?

I know people who have been set free from Pornography addictions and they live a whole new life...

I know people who have been set free from depression and anxiety, and when they describe what Jesus has done for them it is like he took the dessert of their life and transformed it....

That is what this verse is saying

That when God comes it will be like desserts transform into gardens

It will be like the glory of the most beautiful places come into the dessert

And that will being Joy...

And you know what?

God wants you to experience Joy…He wants you to have it…It is central to his character and he wants you to experience all who he is

And God is fundamentally Joyful

See this text says that for that person who is set free it will be like the wilderness blooming…Like purple flowers in the middle of a barren wasteland

Then Isaiah continues the theme of Joy being found in freedom from captivity....

God fights for your joy

I think people look at this verse and say things like…See God is violent…See I knew that God can’t be trusted...

But I want you to see how God fights for his people...

probably what Isaiah had in mind here was the original exodus in Egypt...

Where God’s people are escaping this massive military power of Egypt…thinking…how could we ever escape such a powerful army?

How could we ever find freedom?

And what God does is leads them out of Egypt and uses the red sea to swallow up the army of Egypt…God saved his people and brought them great joy

And what Isaiah is saying is be strong, have faith…don’t fear what he did before he will do again!

But the question is how will God fight for his people again?

Will it be with plagues like he did with Pharaoh?

Will it be with fire from the sky?

I mean we know that eventually the Assyrian empire got too large and fell apart

We know that the Babylonians were taken by the Meeds and the Persians...

But really how would God get his divine retribution?

Sin would have to be punished right?

Much later after Jesus the apostle Paul would make this observation on the cross

So what does divine vengeance look like?

Maybe it is letting the bad guys implode under the weight of their own power

But it seems to me that Jesus was the subject of divine vengance…He satisfied the wrath of God.

He went to battle for your freedom…To give you his joy...

See the cross both forgives our sin but shows Jesus as triumphant over the powers and authorities in this world!

`See the powers and authorities (Rome and the Pharisees) thought they were shutting Jesus up but what they could never realize is that through his death on the cross he would take away the sins of the world.

The cross would become his throne, and that Jesus would sit on this throne for eternity

What they couldn’t understand at the time is what divine retribution looks like, is Jesus actually taking on our sin and making us new.

what they couldn’t understand is that the cross is the door in which thousands of people have walked to find freedom

That because of the cross the enemies of God have been defeated and that we can experience Joy