Hope for the Hopeless

Call to Worship

Congregate, you sheep of the flock of the Great Shepherd. Gather in, you who worship in awe  the One enthroned on high. Come and kneel before the Redeemer, you who long to be healed, saved, restored, and ask God with all your heart. ​Call upon God's name!

Scripture Reading

Isaiah 64:1–9 NIV

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.

Scripture Reader, ______

Sermon

Good Morning, for those of you who may not know who I am, my name is Brandon and I’m glad you are with us this morning. Each week we also have friends who join us online and we’re so glad you’re joining us.

This morning is the first Sunday of Advent, and it’s actually my favorite season in the church. I love Easter, I think the Resurrection is the game-changer for our faith, but there’s something about Advent that I am just always drawn to and I love how Fleming Rutledge describes this season of Advent and I think it sums up my affections for this time, “advent begins where human potential ends.”

I think Advent has more to do with our every day Christian lives than any other season in the church. Advent comes from the Latin term, “adventus,” meaning arrival, but we, as a people, live between two different arrivals — for us, Christ has already been born, He had arrived in Bethlehem, and now we await His arrival in glory.

And there’s something about celebrating the arrival of His birth, that helps us point to the fact that He will come again soon, and that’s certainly what the scripture say about Jesus — and here’s what this does to draw parallels to our every day lives:

It takes the disappointment, the brokenness, suffering, the pain we experience, and it holds all of it in tension — that Jesus is coming, and the promise of His glory makes whatever I am going through, bearable. Advent is the hope-filled reminder, “that it won’t always be like this...”

To remind us of this, we begin with the theme of HOPE in the first week of Advent, and during all of Advent and Christmas Eve, we will be looking at the Book of Isaiah, seeing how God plans to redeem the ends of our human potential, with the arrival of The Glorious Christ.

This morning we’re going to look for hope among the hopeless in Isaiah 64. If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Isaiah 64.

While you’re turning there with us this morning, Isaiah has been called The Messianic Prophet, because so much of Isaiah’s writings and prophecy, points directly to Jesus… and this morning we’ll see how Isaiah 64’s need for hope can be met by Jesus.

Look with me at Isaiah 64:1-3

Isaiah 64:1–3 NIV

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Isaiah 64 is a kind of prayer that we’re getting an inside track on, this is a piece of a lament: lamenting about a lack of God’s presence. There’s this whole notion at work here that God’s should have shown up by now, just like He did before — throughout the history of God’s people.

There’s a larger question looming here — if God isn’t anywhere to be found, does He care for me? Better yet… what does it mean for Him to care for me?

This is why I think Advent is perfect for our every day lives, because we’ve got language for things we’ve all been through.

There are times when we’ve doubted that He is going to show up. Maybe you’re in that place right now.

Don’t you care about my health? My loved ones? My poverty? How my hidden sin could upend my life if anybody found out about it? Don’t you want to do something about this pain, about this suffering, about this injustice? And we all kind of stand back and go, “oh… because I thought you did.”

Verses 1-3 begin and end with a similar idea: everything would be different if you’d just come down and do something.

Nothing, Isaiah points out, would be left unchanged — if you’d tear open the sky’s and reveal who we know you to be. Isaiah says, “we could feel your presence, because the mountains would tremble; they would see the effects of His presence, like the fire that Moses saw in the burning bush; and that their enemies would know that they are no match for God.”

In verse 3, Isaiah remembers when God showed up, and all of creation, and every nation, knew that it stood helpless before the Lord. Isaiah says, “you did awesome things that we did not expect.”

The more I read this, the more I like this… it’s a hunger for revival, for renewal — God coming down, and doing the thing that we do not expect. I love how Old Testament scholar Ray Ortlund says this:

What does God's worked in the past teach us? Not how we can box him in, but how we've got to stay open because He does things we're not looking for. He never acts out of character. He never violates His own word. He is always true to himself, but He is never at a loss for new breakthroughs. Think about it all through the Bible. Israel was cornered at the Red Sea. The Egyptian army was bearing down on them and what happened? The sea opened up. Nobody was expecting that. The whole world was stumbling in darkness. With no way forward. What happened? The Savior of the world was born in a barn. Nobody was expecting that. We were condemned in our inexcusable guilt without a word of defense. What happened? Our judge endured our penalty on the cross. Nobody was expecting that He was dead and buried — all the hopeful expectations He'd created were dead and buried. What happened? He rose from the grave, ascended to the Father, began pouring out His Spirit to make His murderers into His friends. Nobody was expecting that. And He is still full of surprises.”

Isaiah knows this so well. Look at verse 4-5. Isaiah 64:4

Isaiah 64:4-5 (NIV)

Isaiah 64:4–5 NIV

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?

Not in all of history, not by any means of human perception, has Isaiah, or any of us, ever encountered another god quite like this God… and Isaiah has every reason to believe that God could, He can, He will — intervene.

But Isaiah has run into a problem. He says, “this is a God, who acts on behalf of those who wait,” at the end of verse 4, and our best understanding of this is those who hold out that God keeps His promises.

But in verse 5, He says,… “comes to the help of those who do two things:

Gladly do right — or rejoice in their right living before God, or better yet — they count it a joy to surrender to how God wants them to live.

And to “remember His ways,” but this isn’t for memory sake… The English Standard Version says it a little better, God’s help is available to those who “remember you in your ways,” — God isn’t just looking for people who do what they’re told, He’s looking for people who pattern their lives off of Him.

But there’s an issue… and certainly Isaiah’s audience knows it… look at the end of verse 5.

Isaiah 64:5 (NIV)

But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.

How then can we be saved?

The issue is their sin. This is a confession.

They didn’t consider it a joy to become more like God, instead they sinned, and continued to sin, knowing it would break God’s heart.

And this isn’t just any old issue of sin, and we can never make light of sin… this sin is deep, it’s dark, it’s almost as if nothing can be helped.

There’s a dialogue change of sorts that happens here… it goes from, “don’t you care about us, God?” to, “who would help me?”

Look with me at verses 6-7. Isaiah 64:6-7

Isaiah 64:6–7 NIV

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.

The problem isn’t God’s inactivity… that’s never the problem, there’s never been a promise that God has faltered on. One of the major promises in scripture is God’s promise keeping, His pledge of affection for us… He has no intention of breaking His word when He has said so many times before, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” The issue that we find in Isaiah 64 is not God, it’s me.

The picture painted here feels as if it’s one of complete hopelessness… We’ve moved from the hopelessness of a situation, to the hopelessness of our condition.

Here’s the assessment given the condition of the people of God in verses 6 and 7:

We are unclean — we are not fit to be God’s people

We are like filthy rags — we are so defiled, that everything we touch gets screwed up

And there’s a picture of something that’s just so far gone, that there’s no way it’ll ever come back — this is the statement, “shriveled up like a leaf, swept further and further away.”

The reality is serious… there’s no interest in God anymore, we don’t want to call on his name. Isaiah says or “strives to lay hold of you,” it’s like someone waking up, we’ve got a relationship with God and we’re dead asleep all the way through it.

Isaiah further paints the picture for us: “you have given us over to our sins.”

What a picture! It’s an honest one, too!

No desire, no hunger, no life, no holiness — and here’s sin, running it’s course in our life.

But now… Advent begins where human potential ends.

Look with me at verses 8-9. Isaiah 64:8-9

Isaiah 64:8–9 NIV

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.

We need hope for our hopelessness.

The greatest scholar on Isaiah, Alec Motyer said, “On one hand, God is changeless in His requirements; on the other, He is equally changeless in grace and mercy.”

If you’re reading out of the NIV, I want you to draw a line through the word “yet” in verse 8, and I want you to write “But now” in the margin next to it.

This is the change in language that we need. God has not written us off in our circumstance, in our condition. Isn’t He like a Father? Isn’t He like a Potter? Isn’t His mercy able to triumph over the judgment that we deserve?

Can’t children come home? Can’t we be remade?

My condition can change, my circumstance can change — but my status before God will never change. Forever, we are His children. Forever, He intends to craft us with care.

Verse 9 ends with a plea:

Don’t be angry

Don’t remember our sins anymore

See us — not for what we used to be — but for who you made us to be.

Fleming Rutledge calls Advent, “the season of last things.”

Jesus and His birth announce the arrival of the end of the anger of God. He takes all of God’s wrath for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says

2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus and His birth announce God’s forgiveness through Christ, who remembers our sins no more. Hebrews 8:12

Hebrews 8:12 NIV

For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Jesus and His birth announce our standing with Him. Revelation 1:5-6

Revelation 1:5–6 NIV

and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

While it’s not a part of our text this morning, verse 12 in Isaiah 64 ends with these questions: Isaiah 64:12

Isaiah 64:12 NIV

After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

In Christ, God will not restrain Himself. He is every bit the hope we need.

—

As we reflect on Isaiah's plea, we recognize our own voices crying out from hopeless places. Like Israel, we have sinned. Like Israel, we have turned from God’s ways. And yet, Isaiah leaves us with hope - the Potter still molds the Clay. The Father still welcomes the prodigals. Grace remains for all who turn towards the outstretched arms of Jesus.

As Alec Motyer said, “God is changeless in requirement, yet equally changeless in mercy.” The baby in the manger represents mercy triumphing over judgment. Advent is a celebration of God rending the heavens to make a way. Something awesome that no eye has seen, no ear has heard - Immanuel in flesh appearing.

Let your longing meet His sufficiency. Your sin meet His sacrifice. Your doubt meet His faithfulness. He has come and He will come again. Hope is coming.

Communion

Dave Ricketts to Lead Communion

Benediction

Go now, strengthened by the testimony of Christ. Keep alert and wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Continue to do right and remember God in your ways.

And may God enrich you in speech and knowledge of every kind; May Christ Jesus strengthen you to the end; And may the Holy Spirit guide you in faithful living until he comes.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen. (by Nathan Neddleton)