The Jewish People

We are beginning a new sermon series today in which we are going to focus on the people and people groups that help us discover how God was at work before Jesus started his ministry. We are calling this sermon series The Supporting Cast. Just like a book or a movie it is the supporting cast around the star, who in this case is Jesus, which allows us to better understand what is taking place.

This week we will be focusing towards the people who had been waiting for a Savior for years and that is the Jewish people. Our scripture comes from Isaiah 64:1-9.

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 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! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 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. 5 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? 6 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. 7 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. 8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever.

Please pray with me…

Happy new year!!! I often have my sermon scriptures come from what is called the Lectionary. The lectionary offers four scriptures to choose from on any given Sunday. The lectionary year begins at the beginning of Advent. There are three years in a full lectionary cycle. Today we begin year B.

This lectionary cycle starts with the Jewish people. This reminds us that Jesus wasn’t just born into this people group with no history. The advent candle that we lit this morning symbolizes hope. The Jewish people had hope that God would someday bring down someone to save them. We believe God did this through the child we will be preparing for the birth of over the next four weeks, Jesus.

There were expectations that the Jewish people received on who the Messiah would be. What no one expected was that the Messiah would end up being born in a manger, in a barn, to a woman who was not married. This was not the expected start for the one who would become their Savior.

This should remind us of the statement that “we should not judge a book by its cover.” Everything leading up to his birth including where he was born would lead us to doubt that this man would be great. After all he was the earthly father was a lowly carpenter and his mother got pregnant outside of marriage.

We can find through out scripture that God does not follow the path that people would expect. We have him often picking the youngest to become the greatest when this would have been against Jewish culture.

We have Jesus choosing his disciples to be fishermen and tax collectors. These would not be the professions that would be chosen to become the students of a Rabbi. We haveto remember that God works in mysterious ways. He may choose to use you for something that those around you would believe you are not qualified to do.

Our God is first and foremost focused on people that are willing to trust him and follow him. This is why it is not always the most qualified or the expected choice who he chooses to use to serve his kingdom.

We also know that the Jewish people were a conquered people who during the time of Jesus were under Roman control. The expectation was that the Messiah would change that. The Messiah would be someone who would conquer their enemies. They were looking for someone who would cause physical harm instead of being a man of compassion.

They were looking for someone who would come down to save only them instead of someone who would end up offering everyone salvation. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Jesus was not the Messiah that they had been told to expect from generation to generation..

Our scripture begins with a cry out from the people. A desperate plea to have their Savior come down to earth and cause their enemies to quake as they await the destruction that they deserved due to their treatment of God’s chosen people.

The Jewish people were unique in the world during that time because they believed in only one God. It was common to worship multiple gods which offered different ways in which they would help or protect the people that were worshipping them.

Christians have this in common with the Jewish people. We also believe in one God. We also believe as the scripture emphasizes that…

“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. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.”

The Jewish people believed that the Messiah was coming only for them because they were the only ones who believed there was only one God, and this God only takes care of those that believe in him.

We have two ways listed in today’s scripture that give us clues as to what the Jewish people believed was needed in order to be someone that would be saved by the Messiah. The first is that they will gladly do right. This is an important point for us as well. Why do we follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior? Do we do it out of duty or do we follow him out of joy?

God wants us to act and react in a way that shows our love for him. But just like in the case of the Jewish people we need to be glad while we are showing our love for him and not choosing to serve him because we are afraid of the consequences if we don’t.

The second way that we can show our obedience to God is through remembering his ways. Within scripture we can discover the ways that God wants us to follow him to serve and worship him.

Those spiritual disciplines or exercises include praying regularly. It is through prayer that we are able to interact with God. We should pray and then listen for God to respond back to us.

We have busy lives but if want to, we should be able to find at least five minutes to spend with God. Five minutes of asking for God to speak and listening to what he may say to us. Ask for him to show you insights into your life and how you can improve your relationship with him and others.

I am not saying that you will hear an audible voice, but I do believe that you will receive a feeling on what God is asking for you to do. God wants us to pray to him and tell him what is going on and asking him to help us and he desires for us to listen for his response.

We need to also spend time daily in scripture. It is through reading or listening to the word of God that we are able to receive additional insights into our relationship with him. The Bible is the word of God, and its answers are timeless.

Reading scriptures help us connect with God and also our Christian brothers and sisters who have come before us. We offer Bible studies on Wednesdays at 2 in-person or through Zoom and Thursdays at 7 on Zoom. Feel free to join, contact me if you have any questions.

We have Upper Room devotionals at the top of the steps. We have the Weekday devotionals on Facebook live at 9 am or you can catch them later if not live.

Another option would be an app for your phone. There are several apps that can help guide you through reading scripture. The You Version app is probably the most used. It does not matter how you spend time in scripture, but it is important that you let God speak to you through his word.

The Jewish people during the time of Isaiah did not expect that Jesus was going to be able to save them from the power of sin. They believed they would always have a barrier between them and God because of sin.

They were unaware of the concept of being saved by faith through grace. We call this justifying grace. It is through our recognition as God the Father as our creator and Jesus as his Son who died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven that we are saved.

That of course does not mean that we should not choose to live a life in which we choose to not do what is right in the eyes of God or remember the ways of the Lord. But it does mean that we are able to ask for forgiveness and then try to do better the next time.

God forgives and forgets but that does not mean that we should rely on his forgiveness. We should choose to serve him for the sacrifice that he made for us.

The laws given to us by God are not for us to follow for God’s benefit. The laws are set by God for our benefit. Paul offers us an explanation of what we are to do in Romans 6 when he said that you are to

“Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

We shouldalways continue to become closer to God each and every day. We do thisthrough the grace offered to us by God. This is called sanctifying grace. It is the type of grace that brings us into a holier relationship with God.

We are further reminded of God’s grace through verse 6 of our scripture where it states that “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.”

The Jewish people would have struggled understanding what Isaiah meant by this statement. There was nothing worse in their culture than being considered unclean. When you were unclean you were no longer able to be an active part of the community. You were ostracized by everyone because if they would come into contact with you, they would become unclean.

Jesus showed his compassion and caring nature by being willing to touch those that were considered unclean such as those with leprosy. Jesus through his healing of those that were unclean was able to allow them to rejoin the Jewish community. They were able to go to synagogue. They were able to offer sacrifices. They were able to fulfill the requirements of being Jewish.

Isaiah is saying that fulfilling those requirements is not good enough. They can complete all of the “righteous acts” they wanted but they were still like “filthy rags.” Isaiah is pointing out what many of us still miss. We can only be saved by the saving grace offered to us by Jesus.

Grace itself is defined as an unwarranted gift given to us by God. We cannot fully reciprocate the gift of grace given to us by God. What we can do is to try to serve God with all of our heart, and all of our mind, and all of our strength and by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

There is a reason why Jesus called these the two greatest commandments. Loving God and loving others are what Jesus showed us as the most important attributes of any person. It is through living like Jesus that we show God our love for him.

Isaiah seemedto have been close to losing all hope that God would return. He seems to believe that this prayer is a final attempt to get God to respond. In our first scripture reading this morning from Psalm 80 we can see that the Psalmist was also missing the God that had showed up during the Exodus.

In verse 1 he says, “hear us God.” In verse three he says, “restore us God.” And then in verse seven he again says, “restore us God so that we may be saved.” The Psalmist had the same fear but also had hope that God would save them.

Today’s scripture ends with Isaiah focusing on two things. He says “you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever.”

Both the psalmist and Isaiah have a hope that we should also have. God loves us enough that he would not abandon us and that he will come. They had hope in the fact that he was created by God therefore God will want to save his creation.

They can remember the many times that God had already saved the Israelites from destruction. They can recognize when God used Joseph to save them from starvation. How God parted the sea so that they would not have to return to captivity.

How God fed them bread from heaven to make sure they did not starve during their time in the wilderness. God had protected the Israelites for many years. This allowed the Psalmist and Isaiah to have hope that God would do it again.

Isaiah had hope in the promise made by God that a Savior would come and save them from destruction. He trusted that God would provide as he had in the past but he was just unsure of his timing since God had been so quiet. Therefore, he chooses to connect with God in prayer and asks God to please come and do not remember their sins forever.

There were around 400 years between Old and New Testament. We have the hope of those that came before us to remind us that God is with us and desires to help us. The scriptures show us that God will not abandon us.

We that believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior should have hope today. We are able to have a connection with God stronger than Isaiah. We have God within us to help guide us into following the ways of God.

We also should have hope in the future, a time in which there will be no more wars and no more tears shed. A time when Jesus returns to bring peace into this broken world. Let us live our lives with the hope of God within us.

Please pray with me…