Clothed in Praise: The Joy of God's People

Scripture Reading (Congregation): Luke 4:14-21

Scripture Reading (Preacher): Isaiah 61:1-3

Introduction

As you read Luke and listened to Isaiah, you probably noticed the similarity.

Isaiah 61:1-2a is what Jesus read in Nazareth

Though also Isaiah 58:6 - Luke is probably giving us a condensed version of what Jesus read and preached in Nazareth.

But our focus this morning will be on Isaiah 61:1-3

And from Isaiah 61, I want to ask you, what is at the core of Christian Joy?

Christ, the Anointed Preacher

Isaiah 61:1 ESV

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

Have you ever thought about what the first two lines of Isaiah 61:1 tell us about God?

Lord GOD:

The phrase here is “Adoni Yahweh”.

Adoni = Lord or Sovereign or Ruler

Yahweh = I AM, the personal name of God

Lord GOD is a good translation, but a more exact translation of the meaning might say something like, Sovereign LORD.

What this reminds us about God is that:

(Yahweh) He has all life/goodness/power in himself/needs nothing from us; but also that he is faithful to us.

(Adoni) He is sovereign ruler over all/he is in control of all things.

(Both Names) He has the power not only to judge and destroy his enemies but also to completely save all who trust in him.

It is this Sovereign LORD who anointed Jesus to preach - what did he anoint him with?

The Holy Spirit!

So how was our salvation accomplished? The Father anointed the Son with the Spirit, and in that power, Jesus accomplished his mission.

This can be seen in Luke’s gospel, where Isaiah 61 is quoted.

The two stories which come right before this are:

Jesus’ baptism by John, where the Spirit descends on him in the form of a dove

Jesus’ temptation, where he is full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and defeats temptation by the Spirit’s power.

This is a beautiful glimpse into the Triune God’s unified work in redeeming us.

Jesus, sent by the Sovereign LORD, empowered by the Spirit of the Sovereign LORD, came to preach good news to the poor.

Who are the Poor?

The word being translated “poor” here does not refer only to a lack of money also but to the state of a person’s heart:

Humbled/meek/downhearted = poor in spirit as a result of affliction, suffering, oppression, or physical poverty.

But also: looking to God in the the midst of their difficulty.

But what kind of affliction does Jesus have in mind here? Who exactly are these poor?

These three verses give two pictures to help us understand...

The brokenhearted (vs. 1) and Those who Mourn (vs. 2, 3):

In context this means:

those who mourned for the nation of Israel:

As it was oppressed by Assyria

As it was destroyed by Babylon

As it was dominated by Persia and Greece

As it was owned and oppressed by the Roman Empire

They were God’s people living in God’s land with God’s law

Yet they were dominated and oppressed by the pagan nations around them - why?

This was due to Israel’s sin.

They were brokenhearted over their own unholiness.

This can be summed up by saying that the poor were those who were brokenhearted toward God because of sin and all of its effects

Luke 6:20b ESV

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Now, we can make the mistake here of thinking that, what happens is, Jesus, the Spirit-anointed preacher comes and proclaims the gospel to us and then we are no longer poor.

We live with one foot in heaven, one on earth. We look forward to the new creation, but we live in the old.

By implication, we have joy but we are still those who mourn:

Outrage vs. Mourning: outrage is easier, mourning is Christian.

So, we mourn because of suffering and death:

Disease

Poverty

Wildfires

Because of evil in the world:

Racism/Anarchy

The slaughter of unborn children

The domination of dictators and drug lords

The billions who wake up every morning and do not give glory to God

Because of personal and the sins of God’s people:

The failure of the American church to believe that the cross of Christ is enough

Our failure, as a community, to live according to God’s law

My own failure to love others and to worship God with all my heart. (The foundation of being poor in spirit.)

Now you’re thinking: I thought this was a sermon about joy. What does mourning have to do with it?

Luke 6:21b ESV

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

The Captives (vs. 1) and Those who are bound (vs.1):

Captives: prisoners by war or oppression

Those who are bound: difficult to translated exactly, a complex metaphor combining the idea of a person in prison who needs the door opened with a person in darkness who needs their eyes opened

In context, as these descriptions were heard by the Israelites in captivity in Babylon:

In their minds were images:

Jerusalem with its walls torn down and its streets filled with corpses...

The temple, where God had met with them, an empty, burned-out ruin...

So they saw themselves as prisoners and captives to the Babylonians and other nations which oppressed God’s people.

This was a correct way to read this passage! But not deep enough:

The prophets were very clear about why Israel was sent into exile: unfaithfulness to God

Isaiah 1:18–20 ESV

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The ultimate cause of their exile and suffering was their own sin.

NOT meaning that every time someone suffers, it was caused by their own sin!

BUT sin is the ultimate imprisonment, the ultimate chain of human slavery, the ultimate darkness - the foundational reason that Israel was not able to truly live as God’s kingdom.

So what does this mean to us?

It is not just Israel, but every human being apart from Christ who fits this description: imprisoned, enslaved, blind.

Yes, this has to do with human suffering and oppression.

But more foundationally, it has to do with human sin.

Imprisonment to selfishness and addictions

Enslavement to pride and self-righteousness

Blindness to the glory and goodness of God

What held the nation of Israel captive, and what holds a person captive today, is complete inability to follow God’s law or love him wholeheartedly.

Thus the poor are those who, brokenhearted over the world’s darkness and their own sin, come to Jesus seeking freedom from sin and the comfort that only he can give.

What is the Good News?

What is this “Good News” which Jesus proclaims to us to comfort us?

Here it is called, “the year of the Lord’s favor”

This does not mean a literal year, but a new era of grace

Did you notice that, in Luke, Jesus stopped reading half way through this verse?

Jesus, in his first coming, did not come to deliver God’s vengeance, but God’s favor!

The day of God’s vengeance against his enemies will be necessary to truly set things right and bring to us a New Creation in which sin and death and suffering are truly banished and our joy is completed.

But the era we live in now is ‘the year of God’s favor,’ in which the offer of salvation goes out to the whole world. At the core of this offer is:

The power of God to forgive sins by the blood of Christ

The power of God to free us from slavery to sin

Eternal life lived in the favor of God and in joy.

The Gift of God’s Favor: Joy

The description of this joy is found in verse 3:

Isaiah 61:3 ESV

to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

We look to the New Creation, but live in the Old: we don’t receive this gift in total now.

But we do receive a great deal of it now!

A beautiful headdress instead of ashes:

Ashes were thrown up upon a person’s head in morning

But the beautiful headdress symbolizes that, even in this life, the joy of belonging to Christ is greater than the sorrows of sin, suffering, and death.

The oil of gladness instead of mourning:

Oil was used, in OT times, to anoint a person’s head to freshen up, or to honor a guest, or even to install someone into the office of priest or king.

Here it is used of Jesus anointing us with joy… probably to make us think about him giving us joy by “anointing” us with his Spirit.

The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.

This is the core of Christian joy.

The words ‘instead of’ here give the sense that the exact opposite of a faint spirit is an attitude of praise to God.

Opposite of our culture’s answer...

Not trying to give a simplistic answer to:

Complex struggle of depression

Real sorrow

But what this is saying:

God gives us everlasting joy as our inheritance

It isn’t relegated to the future but is part of our lives now

The core of our joy is found in worshiping God

How does this gift work?

Jesus comes and preaches God’s favor to us, saying, “receive God’s favor as a free gift, because I have paid for your sins with my blood”

We respond by becoming those who worship and praise God from the heart.

So, Jesus gives us a ‘garment of praise’ by changing our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh which are able to give true praise to God.

But why is praising God the center of our Joy?

God made all creation for the glory of his name. Therefore:

Praising God is exactly what we were originally made to do.

When we praise God, we are stepping away from what is broken about this world and exercising our identity as new creations in Christ

Because we were made to praise him, it is the most satisfying thing that we can do.

God is infinite. Therefore:

The most worthwhile thing that any human being can do is praise him.

To behold him in worship is to behold what is infinite, which fills our little human souls far beyond their capacity to the point of overflowing:

1 Peter 1:8 ESV

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

Therefore, the greatest gift that God can give us is himself.

The Ultimate Purpose

What is said about those of us who have been saved by the blood of Christ, and who have this great gift of joy?

In verse 3 it calls us, “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord”

This is probably an all inclusive statement about the righteousness of true believers:

We are planted by God in the soil of a righteousness which is not our own, but Christ’s righteousness.

In that soil, we grow into those who practice righteousness in imitation of Christ.

What is the purpose of all of this? That the LORD - Yahweh our God - might be glorified!

This phrase, “that he may be glorified” means “that he may display his glory/splendor/beauty”.

So it is not that God was lacking in glory and had to save us in order to get himself a boost

Rather, God delights to display the perfections of his glory:

This is his ultimate motivation in everything that he does. As Jonathan Edwards would say, it is the “end for which God created the world”

Therefore a picture of our eternal joy may be found in Rev. 22:

Revelation 22:3–5 ESV

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.