Advent 2019: Joy Set Free

Introduction

I’ve always thought that confidence comes from taking yourself to the limit and realizing that your limits are further than you think they are. Ironically enough, it’s also probably why I’m wearing a back brace this morning. So, several years ago, my cousin and I schemed up a plan to traverse the Smoky Mountains from one end to the other with backpacks. At the time, we really didn’t have any true hiking experience, but we just decided we were going to do it so we did. And, of course, we chose the most aggressive route possible at the most difficult time of year possible, January. We started up the mountain, and in the route that we chose we were going to be climbing about 2000 feet in 1.5 miles, that’s essentially climbing the height of Cheaha in a 1.5 miles.

As we began to get higher and higher into the mountains, it began to snow harder and harder. In fact, it began to snow so heavily that it got to where you could take a step and immediately your tracks would be blanketed with fresh snow. And so, I just began to think more and more about the shelter, if I could just get to the shelter, everything would be fine. Longing for the shelter, I kept telling myself “Almost there”, and I’d look up and think that I saw the top of the mountain. Then, I would I climb and get to what I thought was the top only to discover that there was another switchback up another mountain. I would top every rise in the mountain thinking that I was home, and every rise just seemed to lead to another climb up another mountain. And, this is what our Christian journey feels like, isn’t it? It feels like climbing an endless mountain in the snow, and every time you think you’re going to rest, every time you think you’re going to finally summit the travails and hardships you’ve known, you get to the top only to realize there’s yet a new mountain before you to climb. So, the more that you climb, the more that you struggle, the more endure along the trail, the more your mind goes home where there will be rest and warmth and refuge. And, it’s this future, this time of rest and renewal that Isaiah is focusing us this morning in our text.

God’s Word

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After issuing six oracles of judgement in ten chapters, six mountains before Judah that they will suffer through, Isaiah focuses their eyes on the even more distant future to a time in which joy will be fully recovered. They will suffer through the wilderness, but as they suffer, they can remember that they have a homecoming, a time of restoration and joy to look forward to. So, in the middle of the desert, he offers them a drink of water. And, Isaiah’s vision is of Jesus’ mission. That is, what we read in is the very reason that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the very reason that He will come again — that the whole universe would be saturated with joy because of the majesty of God. So, I want us to look at ways that Jesus accomplishes total joy (headline).

Jesus “revives” joy.

v. 1 “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.” First, I want you to see that Jesus “revives” joy. That is, Jesus brings joy back to life where it had been put to death. Jesus resuscitates joy that has fallen dormant and recovers joy that has been buried. Look at the picture that Isaiah is painting. He says that the desert will suddenly spring to life. Where there has been desolation, now there will be flowers in full bloom. Where there has been openness and vastness, now the cedars of Lebanon will tower over the landscape. Where there has been sand, there will be springs of water, and where there has been dryness, there will be refreshment. This wilderness, this land of stumps as we saw last week is going to spring forth with gladness and singing, and it’s going to realize the full majesty that it was always intended to display. In fact, it’s going to display the full majesty that it once displayed. This is a desert becoming a garden, isn’t it? In the midst of the of the now deserted and judged land, God is going to restore her to the paradise and intimacy that was once enjoyed in the Garden of Eden so that life is now abundant. He’s going to revive joy in his creation. As we traverse the mountains in our lives, as we walk through snow, as we struggle and battle and fight, He’s telling us there’s a final home, a joyful paradise waiting for us.

v. 2 “They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.” Verse two really lands on an extraordinary phrase: “They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.” The ‘they’ that it’s talking about are those who in verse eight are walking down the Way of Holiness — his people, true Israel. And, it’s remarkable because it’s a shift in the concept of majesty in the book of Isaiah. Until this point, majesty is only used to describe the fearsomeness, the otherworldliness, the terror of having a King so great, a Sovereign so powerful against you. But, here his majesty is used not to provoke fearfulness in his people but gladness and joy and pleasure. This the difference that Jesus makes. Jesus is the difference between “dreading” the majesty of God and “enjoying” the majesty of God. says that Jesus was to be born as a suffering servant without any majesty, without the majesty that was his right, and He was born without majesty that we might take refuge in the majesty of God which would otherwise crush us. Jesus made the majesty of God accessible to us even though we had spent our whole lives trying to steal that majesty for ourselves. And, it’s this majesty, this enjoyable, accessible majesty that is the reason that the dry land is filled with gladness and the desert with singing. It is filled with God’s majesty, and being filled with God’s majesty it is now filled with joy.

Jesus Came to Spare You from God’s Goodness

APPLICATION: The picture was stunning for Judah as they stared down the barrel of God’s judgement and for us who try to flee any conversation, any verse that says God will judge sinners. But, the point is sweet: God’s judgement will result in “gladness”. It would have been inconceivable to Judah, but the seige that’s coming at the hands of Assyria and the exile that will take place by Babylon will ultimately serve to increase God’s majesty and, with it, the joy of his true people. God doesn’t judge because He’s mean; God judges because He is good. He judges for the harmony and purity and gladness of his people. He judges to wipe away the obstacles to his glory and goodness and majesty. So, it isn’t mean for a king to put down rebellion in his kingdom and to wipe away threats to the well-being of his people. It’s just, and it’s good. This is why Jesus came. Jesus was sent because of God’s “goodness” to save you from God’s “goodness”. Jesus came so that you might be spared from the goodness of God by giving to you his goodness and taking from you your badness. God doesn’t overlook your sin because He’s good. He judges your sin because He’s good, and He provides a way through his Son that your sin might be overcome because He is good. Jesus gives you something of his own majesty that you might enjoy and not fear, access and not flee the majesty of your King. And one Day, the creation will no longer groan. The majesty of God will be more pervasive than the oxygen we breathe, and for the church, for those whose hope is Jesus, the judgement of God will lead to the joy of his people. And so, there’s an invitation from Isaiah in chapter 35. Trust in God, and be glad! Turn your sin over to God, and be certain that judgement will lead to gladness.

Jesus "releases” joy.

v. 4 “He will come and save you.” The next way that we see Jesus accomplish total joy is that Jesus “releases” joy. So, He revives it, and He releases it. Verses three and four let us see inside the minds of the people of God, and it’s amazing because it closely reflects our own minds, doesn’t it? In the very next chapter, the King of Assryia, Sennacherib, will lay seige to Judah destroying all but Jerusalem which is divinely protected. And, verses three and four depict for us the picture of people who are being closed in on from every side. They depict for us the picture of people that are on the verge of being totally overwhelmed, people who have lost their confidence and faith in God. They have trembling hands and weak knees and racing hearts because they are certain of their demise. These verses depict the opposite of joy. They show you lying in bed at night anxious about what you used to do and who you used to be. They show you riding in your car to work, picking at the old scab of bitterness so that you’re filled with anger and having imaginary conversations again. They show you doubting God’s goodness so that you are running for cover to an old ally, a boyfriend, an addiction, pornography so that you might feel a bit better. The people of God are defined by their weakness, not their strength, by their unbelief, not their rock solid faith. So, He says to ‘Be strong; fear not.’ How? How can a people so weak ‘be strong’ and ‘fear not’? By beholding the might and majesty of God! Our only hope at strength is to behold his strength. Our only hope at courage is to behold his majesty and to realize that it is for us. God is coming! He is coming at his own initiative and by his own kindness and for his own glory. But, He is coming, and He will save you! Don’t you see Christ? Jesus is “God” coming to save you. That’s why Mary’s baby mattered so. That’s why the wise men came. That’s why the great star shined in the sky. The promise of God had been kept that He would come to save since we couldn’t fix it. He would come to set us free, and He would release us from our unbelief and our anxiety and our feeble efforts to make ourselves good.

v. 5-6 “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” Then, there’s a picture that is painted for us of this salvation so that we’ll be able to understand the transformation that will take place when God saves his people. It was a picture so that we would be able to recognize when God had come to save us, when the Messiah had arrived. It’s a picture of transformation and of reversal. It’s the transformation of all that has been made and the reversal of the curse from . In , when Adam and Eve decide to go their way rather than God’s way, their children are cursed to know pain and suffering and hardship, and the earth itself is brought to a mere shadow of its Garden glory. Because of the curse of sin, now children are born blind and paralyzed and disabled. Because of the curse, there are natural disasters and famine and drought. Because of the curse, all of us live with our joy is captive to threats to our health and threats to our land and threats to our world. But, God is coming, and God will save us. We came under the curse by our choice, but we will be delivered by God’s choice. And, on that day the curse will be reversed in every way. The blind will see and the deaf will hear and the lame will leap and the mute will sing. The land that produced famine will overflow and the deserts will be lush and green. And, I want you to notice the language that is used specifically. The lame aren’t just walking; they ‘leap like a deer.’ The mute aren’t just talking; they ‘sing for joy.’ The burning sand doesn’t just cool; it becomes ‘a pool’, an oasis of life. Do you see it? Their joy has been set free! They were broken, and now they’re healed. There’s singing where there was silence, joy where there was misery, leaping where there was lameness. And, this gets to the mission of the Messiah. Jesus came to “set” joy “free.” He has come to overcome all suffering and struggle. And so, when the last prophet, John the Baptist, was doubting his mission, Jesus told his disciples, “Go and tell John…the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up.” He said, God has come to save, and He is setting your joy free.

Behold Your God

APPLICATION: And, there’s a sweet invitation here offered to God’s people, offered to Judah, offered to you. On the difficult days of God’s providence, on the difficult days of walking through this cursed world, on the days in which you can feel the curse closing in on you from every side, raise your shaky hands and bend your trembling knees, and behold your God. Your God is the One who will turn the desert to a Garden, a famine to a feast, and sand into water. Behold your God for He is the one that will put a song in the mouth of the mute and dancing in the feet of the lame and gladness in the land of judgement. Bring your worries, bring your anxieties, bring your struggles into the presence of the majesty, and they will not survive there. Oh, it’s a sermon that you can preach to your own discouragement! “Don’t you know who my God is? My God will turn this desert into a garden!”

Jesus “ransoms” joy.

v. 8 “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness” The final way we see Jesus accomplish total joy is that Jesus “ransoms” joy. The picture that Isaiah paints for us is a barren desert that is transformed into a lush garden. You can imagine the great trees from Lebanon towering over head. Beneath their canopy are flowers as far as you can see in every color, as though God hand-painted the whole garden. Where there used to be towering sand dunes, now there is a pool of the clearest water you’ve ever seen, and a stream flowing from it that flows the full length of the garden. And, right beside that stream that flows up the mountain of the Lord, a path is cut out in the midst of the flowers. Before there was no path to God, before there was no way through the Garden because it was a place of holiness and you were a slave to sin, not just unholy but perpetually, infinitely unholy. But, a path has been made where there was no path. A Way has been made when there was no way. You see, though you were a slave, your freedom has been bought. Though you were excluded from the Garden, your entry has been paid. Your ransom has been paid! You have been redeemed!

They greatest moment in the history of Israel was when God had ransomed them out of Egypt during the Exodus. That’s where their minds went every time they thought of the goodness of God. It was in the Exodus that God made slaves his children. It was in the Exodus when He divided the Red Sea to obtain their freedom. It was in the Exodus that He promised that He would be their God and they his people. It was in the Exodus when He provided food from heaven and water from a rock. It was in Exodus when Israel was marched toward through the wilderness toward the Promised Land. They were the redeemed people of God, and if God was for them, who could stand against them? But, in the Exodus, freedom didn’t last long. They were unfaithful and in an entire generation were unable to enter the Promised Land. After God crushed the walls of Jericho, they were unfaithful again and suffered defeat at the base of tiny Ai. After living in utter prosperity, now they were following their kings after false gods and soon would be exiled from the very land of Promise to live as servants to Babylon. But, a greater Moses was coming to lead them on a greater Exodus out of slavery forever into the Promised Land where they would know ‘everlasting joy’, everlasting freedom. ‘Gladness and joy’ will overcome them in the very same way that their enemies once had. ‘Sorrow and sighing shall flee away’ knowing that they have been utterly and totally destroyed. They would be ransomed men living in a ransomed land forever.

Live Free or Die

APPLICATION: You see, you were an enemy combatant imprisoned in the court of the great King, preparing to stand before the tribunal of his own justice. You had been living in his kingdom as though you were the king. You had sought your own glory and your own kingdom and your own followers. And, you were preparing for the sentence of treason. But, the very King himself announced at your trial, “I have purchased his freedom. I have paid for his life. I have will endure the consequences of his treason against me so that He might live free!” Oh, freedom is where joy is found, and freedom is only found in Christ. Will you live free or die? Will you come to Christ to walk the Way of Holiness, or will you keep going your own way and die? Will you have your ransomed paid, or will you keep trying to fight your way out only to discover that your battle is futile? Will you keep settling for what you can have for a little while, or will you set your eyes on everlasting joy? Will you live free or die?