First Baptist Church of El Dorado - Sermons

For Unto Us: From Stump To Savior: Hope In Isaiah 11

• FBC El Dorado

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We explore Isaiah 11 to show how God brings life from places that look finished and how waiting between Christ’s first coming and his return reshapes hope, justice, and daily courage. The promise of a righteous King and a restored creation steadies both sorrow and joy.

• the field of stumps as Judah’s condition and our own
• the shoot from Jesse as the promised King from David’s line
• the Spirit-filled ruler who judges with true wisdom
• justice for the poor and equity for the meek
• the peaceable kingdom and new creation imagery
• why Christian longing endures amid present pain
• encouragement for weary hearts and grateful hearts
• invitation to respond in faith, community, and obedience

Between the manger and the return of the King, we learn how to wait well. If life feels cut down, take heart: God grows life where we only see loss. If you’re on the mountaintop, rejoice—and remember the best is still ahead. We lean into practices that match the future we expect: truth, mercy, neighbor love, and steady courage. Join us as we let Advent reshape our longings, our work, and our worship, trusting the One who began the good work to bring it to completion. If this message encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find hope.




SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Doredo Sermon Podcast. My name is Taylor Gare, and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist, and I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week. And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo. Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? What a morning it's been. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his root shall bear fruit, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth, and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox. The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for this season of Advent as we not only look back at how you've come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, but we also look forward to the day you will return again. We live between two arrivals. Lord, remind us of that this morning and give us encouragement in the midst of that. Lord, speak now by your spirit, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. That word advent, think about that word advent. We uh obviously use it plenty this time of year, and maybe at your home you have an Advent calendar where uh in some way it counts down the 25 days leading up to Christmas, maybe what you have, and and uh a calendar, and it could be a figurine that you put up each day, there could be a story that goes with it. There's even a coffee company out of northwest Arkansas that they'll send you a uh a coffee brew each morning for your Advent. So you just walk through Advent with fresh coffee every day. Uh but we use that term Advent a lot. What does it mean? It just means this arrival. It means an arrival, a coming that we have been waiting for, and that that that waiting has now come to fulfillment. Uh he or it or whatever you're waiting on has arrived, Advent. Now, the question is why do we talk so much about Advent? Because isn't it true that the arrival we were waiting for already happened? I mean, we talked last week in Isaiah chapter 9 that we were waiting on one, and then here's the good news for unto us a child is born. Okay, so the Advent has happened. But in a true sense, there is still an Advent to come. And we live between two Advents. There was the first arrival in the birth of Jesus Christ, but Christ has risen from the grave and now ascended to heaven, and one day Christ will return, and there is another arrival that we are waiting for. Even now we live in this time of waiting, this advent season of waiting, a lifelong season until Christ returns as we await for that. So, if last week Isaiah chapter 9 really focused on the first advent, today, Isaiah chapter 11 will kind of look at the second Advent that we are still waiting on. Now, as we arrive in Isaiah chapter 11, what do the people of God look like? We saw a picture last week of Judah that wasn't very pretty. The people of God were not acting like the people of God. And if you want to know just how dire the situation had become, as Isaiah wants to show us what the people of God looks like, he does it by pointing to a stump. Quite literally, a stump. I've got us a little example here today. If you want a picture as we come to Isaiah 11 of what the people of God look like, look no further than this right here. And guess what? That's not a very impressive picture, is it? And so the idea that Judah, that Israel, that the people of God were once this mighty tree. Now, what Isaiah wants to show us is they have been completely cut down, and this is what remains. And we might say this: why have they been cut down? Uh, did God wake up one day a little grumpy? Was it something like that? No, not at all. God was fully justified, it was entirely their doing. Because the people of God, once again, didn't want to act like the people of God, but wanted to go against their creator and set up for themselves their own kingdom, and therefore they rebelled against the Lord, and they became much like this stump right here that we'll read about this morning. But but not only that, we even see in Isaiah 10 leading up to this, that not only uh are the people of God there, but even, and this could be encouraging news, even the enemies of the people of God, we talked last week about Assyria and others, they too uh will be cut down. And so, as we come to Isaiah 11, what we're really looking at, if you can visualize it, is a massive field that used to be a massive field filled with these large trees, and now it is a field of stumps. Uh the people of God are one of those stumps, the Assyria and others are more of these stumps, but it is a field that's not a very pretty field, a very humble field of these stumps. And then we come to Isaiah 11, and we just wonder in this moment, when the people of God look a lot like this, could there be good news? And we see verse 1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. So, what Isaiah wants us to see is as you are reading this and you look out over this massive field of stumps, of chopped-down trees, what you begin to notice in this field of death and hopelessness and brokenness, can life come forth from this field? What you begin to notice is you see one, the stump of Jesse, and it seems so strange, but out of this one little stump, this little humble shoot grows forth. That life is coming forth from this one stump, the stump of Jesse. Now, the stump of Jesse, let's talk about that because it's kind of surprising in two ways, that name. It's surprising in two ways. Number one is this surprising from the start, that it's called the stump of Jesse. Again, I don't want us to miss this. This is describing the people of God, God's chosen people that he created, that he has uh given his law to, that he has put his favor upon. We would expect to come and find the the mighty oak tree of Jesse. But instead, like many of the enemies of God, they're called the stump of Jesse. But it's also interesting in that it's called the stump of Jesse. Now, where in the world does that come from? It comes from this in 1 Samuel chapter uh 17. I my mind went blank, but I think that's the number. Don't look it up because you might prove me wrong. In 1 Samuel chapter 17, it's 16, because I know what 17 is. In 1 Samuel 16, the people of God need a new king. And Saul was given to the people of God, but Saul proved not to be a good king. He tried to do things his own way, so Saul is taken off the throne, and God instructs Samuel to go find a new king. Where does God send Samuel? He sends him to a very unexpected place, Bethlehem. He arrives in Bethlehem and goes to a very unexpected house. God sends him to the house of Jesse. Samuel tells Jesse, I need you to bring your sons in. I want to inspect them to see if one of them might be king. Jesse lines up seven of his sons. They all look the part, Eliab, Abinadab, surely the king is among them. And each time God says, This is not the one. And Jesse says, Do you have any other sons? Excuse me. Samuel says that. And Jesse says, There's this one son I have out in the field, but trust me, he's not the king. You don't want anything to do with him. Just leave him out doing his chores. And Samuel says, Well, I'm not leaving until I see him. And so Jesse calls this son to come in. He doesn't look the part, he doesn't look like he could be king, but this young man's name is David. And in that moment, God instructs Samuel to anoint David because this unexpected young man is going to be the king of Israel. And so as we look at the stump of Jesse, what we're really looking at is the people of David that have descended down from David in this line. And that's interesting because we see later on that God makes a covenant with David and reports to David that from his line an eternal king will come. And so as we look now at this unexpected place, the stump of Jesse, we see life coming forth. From what we thought was a place of hopelessness and brokenness and even death, we now see life, and it looks small, and someone else might have looked at the field and said that's quite insignificant, and yet, from this humble place, life is growing forth, and we will see that that shoot really represents the person of Jesus coming to us. And so I just want to stop for a second, if I could. And I just want to encourage someone in the room, and I don't know who it is. It may be one person, it may be five people, I don't know. Maybe a hundred people. But but it may be in your life right now, uh, if you were honest with yourself, and you can be honest with yourself, that that your life feels a lot like this right here. That that maybe you're at a place and you just say, I just feel cut down in this moment. That circumstances far outside of your control have come upon you. Circumstances very much inside your control have come upon you. Maybe it's just a uh sin that you've walked in, but uh maybe has made a mess of things in your life, maybe it's a uh a diagnosis you didn't see coming, maybe it it's it's a uh a fractured relationship you didn't see coming. I don't know what it is, but I just wonder if you come here this morning and during this advent season you just kind of feel like you've just been cut down in your life. I I just want you to know just from the start, before we go further, that that we see our God is just in the business of bringing life out of what seemed hopeless. Do you know that? Just just bringing life out of what we thought or the world thought or or any other thought, what was a hopeless situation. We just serve a God that when we we are tempted to think, surely he's done working in my life, he he's just not done working. And the people of God are about to see this very well because in this cut-down place, life is coming forth. In what seemed like a hopeless situation, God is not done working. And so we see this shoot coming forth from the stump of Jesse, and what will this person look like? This person who's coming forward. We see some characteristics here, starting in verse 2. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear. So coming forth is this one who is going to rule in righteous wisdom. He is going to be a great judge that judges better than you and I judge. I I think about uh judges in our world today. They they they are able to judge by what the eye see and what the ear hears. And that's a good thing, by the way. They're able to maybe uh see the test the evidence before them or hear the testimony that comes before them. But but this one, this coming righteous ruler, can do something even deeper than that. Verse 4 But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, those who have been forgotten, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Isaiah is all about uh speaking up for the one who is oppressed, and in in this society, and in any society, by the way, many are struck down and oppressed. And it says this, and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he shall kill the wicked. Now, that sounds like some really high language, doesn't it? Some elevated language, but the truth is this this one who is coming is the ultimate righteous judge who can cut off the evildoer and elevate the righteous one. Really, he can do this. He can make all things right. In a world where we uh sometimes lack justice and we lack peace, we have a righteous judge on the way. Verse 5 righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins. Righteousness and faithfulness will define this coming one who is the shoot of the stump of Jesse. Not in the sense of as a belt that, you know, he can take the belt off when he wants to, when he doesn't feel like acting in righteousness, he can just take the belt off. No, no. What really this is defining is this is someone who righteousness and faithfulness, it's just true to them in the truest sense. It's just who they are and what they do and how they lead. Now, last week we looked at the evidence and we read chapter 9 and we looked all over scripture to see who this person could be that we were waiting for. This week, we're not gonna do that. Uh we'll just spoil it all together. I'm gonna tell you, it's Jesus. This one we're waiting for, this righteous judge who will rule, is Jesus. But in Isaiah 11, it's interesting. Last week we were looking at the Jesus who would come to be born in the manger at Bethlehem, of course. This week we're looking at Jesus when he returns again to set up his kingdom here on earth, the new heavens and the new earth. How do I know that? The evidence is in Isaiah 65, uh, in verse 25, we see a verse that we're about to see more of, but it says, The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, the dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. Isaiah is describing this uh perfect place, and then he says, This, before that, in verse 17, what's the setting for all this? For behold, I create new heavens and the new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. What he's describing now is the yet to come, when all things are made new. And here's that same language, verse six. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together, and the little child shall lead them. What do we have here? We have these pictures of the yet to come, where both uh predator and prey in the animal kingdom are just fellowshipping with one another. It has this language of a little child shall lead them. So just like your little child takes fluffy on a walk, it seems one day in the new heavens and the new earth uh they will take the leopard on a walk, the lion on the walk. Verse 7 the cow shall uh the cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox. How about this one, making every parent in the room so anxious? The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra. The weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den, the adder, this poisonous snake, the weaned child will just put his hand in the home, the den of this snake. And some of you saying, my son's already doing that. Uh but but in this version, in the new heaven and new earth, he won't get hurt when he does it. That there's something about the new heavens and the new earth that is just this picture of security. That is this picture of all things made right and new, and I can rest safely and securely, and that's what we are waiting on. It's almost this picture all the way back to Genesis 1 of the perfection of paradise in Eden, and yet it is still ahead of us that what we are waiting for is a brand new paradise, a brand new Eden that is even greater than what we ever had in the past, as Christ returns to make all things new. Verse 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. We see this picture of the holy mountain, Mount Zion, when Christ comes down to reign in the new heavens and the new earth, and it says, The knowledge of the Lord will cover the face of the earth. Not just knowledge about the Lord, not just people that know about the Lord, no facts about the Lord, certainly that's part of it, but even deeper, a a knowledge of the Lord, a personal, communal, relational knowledge of the very God that we dwell with, not just now, but for all eternity. And so, as we sit in this Advent season, we think about the waiting for the first coming of Jesus. And praise God he came at Bethlehem. Praise God he was born to Mary and Joseph that night and grew up to become the one who would go to the cross and bear our sins upon himself and go to the grave, but rise from the grave, defeating our sin and death, giving us forgiveness and eternal life if we come unto him. But he also ascended into heaven, and now we await his return. And we long for the day when Christ Jesus will come back, and everything we read here in Isaiah chapter 11 comes true. Everything we read about at the end of Revelation when uh Christ says, I come to make all things new, that all of that would come true and that we would see it. Now, my question is this why do we wait with this kind of longing? Why do we wait in this kind of way? Why are we always looking towards something that is ahead? Because if I know anything about this world and this culture, the the idea is simply to live right here in the now, to seize the day, to seize the moment. And by the way, that's not always a bad thing. I hope every one of you will seize the moment for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope you will live in the here and now for the sake of the kingdom of God. I'm not knocking that in any way. But there is still part of us, isn't there, that longs for what's ahead. That longs for Christ to come and make all things new. And why does that longing exist? I think it's because of this. We long for what is ahead because we we we know Jesus. We've been forgiven of our sins. We know that we are eternally secure in Him. We also know that in the here and now sin still exists, doesn't it? We're longing for the day when that will no longer be the case. We know that in this moment uh cancer still exists. Infertility still exists. Divorce exists, and we know that loss exists, and injustice exists, and our tears still exist and they're here among us. And so we know that even in the midst of the here and now, we are waiting on something more when Christ Jesus will return to put the expiration date on everything that that makes this world so broken. And we are awaiting that day when Christ Jesus makes all things new, because we all know what it is to live in a broken world, and that's what this second advent is all about. We are waiting on the one who will make all things right. All things new. And I just want to say this this morning that if you're here, and and once again I spoke a moment ago about it, but if you're here and and you're just in a very hard season right now, I just want you to know that that the Advent season is very much for you. Do you know that? Culture might not tell you that because I get on my TV and every commercial is is uh is just the most joyful thing I could ever imagine. Everybody seems so happy this time of year. They they tell me this, you say it's supposed to be a December to remember. That's what they tell me. And you're sitting there saying, Taylor, I don't know if I want to remember anything about this December because what I'm walking through seems so painfully difficult. And you watch your Hallmark movies, and it seems like everybody has a happy ending because that's the formula of the movie. And you're sitting there saying, I don't know how this situation in my life is actually gonna end up with a happily ever after. I don't know what's gonna come of all this. And maybe you're just in a season of sorrow or brokenness, or just in a season where you're looking up to the Lord and just asking this question, Lord, what are you up to? Like, Lord, I know you're faithful and I trust you, but I gotta be honest, I'm I'm flying real blind right now, and and God, I don't know where you're leading me. I don't know why this situation has been placed in front of me. I don't have all the answers. You may be saying that right now, and I just want to give you good news that if that's you this morning, that the season of Advent is for you. That this look towards all that is ahead is for you, this reminder of what God can even do with uh seemingly hopeless situations bringing life forth, that's good news for you. Because certainly in the here and now we serve a God who's able to bring life out of broken situations. I know for sure in the days ahead, in the life ahead, in the yet to come, we serve a God who is able to make all wrong right and all things new. I just hope you're encouraged this morning, because even in the heartache of life, this the Advent reminder is for you. I also say this. If you're just in the room this morning and life is so good right now, and things have just been really great lately, and you feel especially blessed, and and you know, you you you you walked out of a storm, but now you're in the calm, you feel like you're on the mountaintop. I just want to say a couple things. Number one, I'm I'm praising God and I'm rejoicing with you. I'm praising God for you. Oh, how blessed we are. Every one of us in the room, how blessed we are. I'm also gonna tell you this as glorious as it is even right now, as great as the mountaintop is right now, I want to tell you some good news. There's a greater mountain to come. That no matter what life is for you, if it's fantastic right now, we serve a God who the good news is continually this the best is still yet to come. That Christ has promised us such a glorious, glorious future that is secured by the resurrection of Christ. And if you're in the hardest season of life, the greatest season of life, wherever you are, the the true story of what our gospel has provided is simply this the best is still to come. And so in this season of Advent, we celebrate the first Advent. Christ has come for us to forgive sins, to rise from the grave, to give us life. And in this season, we await the second Advent, that Christ will come again. And in that day, He will make all things new, and we will dwell with Him for all eternity. We have much to be thankful for, much to rejoice in, much to say that indeed Advent season is a beautiful season because Christ is a beautiful Savior. Will you pray with me now? Lord Jesus, thank you for the truth of your word, for the truth of Advent, for the truth of if we're here in hard situations, if we're here in new situations, new circumstances, if we're here in the valley or on the mountain or anywhere in between, God, we have reason uh to rejoice in you, to rejoice in who you are and what you've done for us. And so I pray that we would do that this morning. And not just this morning, but all Advent season long, that we would just rejoice in the fact that you have come and you will come again. What a glorious truth that is. Lord, if there's anyone in the room that needs to experience you for the first time, enter a relationship with you for the first time, would today be the day? There's anybody that needs to come be a part of this church family, or maybe respond to what you're up to in their life through baptism, or maybe just needs to pray with a pastor, whatever the need may be, Lord. I just pray that they would respond according to your spirit's prompting this morning. I ask this now in Christ's name. Amen. Would you stand? I'm gonna be right down front if you want to respond in any way. I'll be here.