Doug McMasters: Alright, let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: We are only two months away from finishing our study of Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: We started in September 2024, and we'll be finishing uh right at the end of February, beginning of March of this year.
Doug McMasters: There are moments in life when you realize that the world isn't as it should be.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes you get a phone call in the middle of a night.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps a message in the day.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes you get a diagnosis you never would have expected.
Doug McMasters: And sometimes relationships break without warning.
Doug McMasters: The world just isn't the way it should be.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes those things come suddenly, and sometimes they come slowly.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes just continues to ache away in your heart, or responsibilities weigh on you that you've never asked to be burdened with.
Doug McMasters: Or sometimes just that sense of joy that you see others possess so freely just seems like an elusive dream, just outside the clutches of your fingers.
Doug McMasters: I just finished a book uh recently uh called When Breath Becomes Air.
Doug McMasters: I certainly recommend that book to you.
Doug McMasters: It's a book by Paul Kullinithi.
Doug McMasters: I hope I said that right.
Doug McMasters: It's a first-person account of a young neurosurgeon who's treating people daily with some of the most devastating diagnoses that this world could ever hear, until one day he himself receives one of those.
Doug McMasters: And he goes from being a physician and a caregiver to being a person in need of care, to a person who's offering hope and insight and understanding to asking the very questions that his patients were asking him.
Doug McMasters: And he writes about his career as he begins to journal about his cancer and the journey that he has.
Doug McMasters: And he said something that really stopped me cold when I was reading the book that he'd realized that his career, his whole life that he'd been building toward, had evaporated in a moment.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what he says.
Doug McMasters: Death, so familiar to me in my work, had suddenly become personal.
Doug McMasters: The future I had imagined, the life I had worked so hard to build, evaporated.
Doug McMasters: That's a pretty dramatic word, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: Evaporated.
Doug McMasters: And here he is talking about everything that his life had been centered on, is gone.
Doug McMasters: We can feel that sometimes, can't we?
Doug McMasters: Plans, expectations, hopes evaporating, certainties evaporating, strength and control evaporating.
Doug McMasters: And underneath it, all you wonder if there's any hope.
Doug McMasters: After all those things are gone, is there, you know, not just some sentimental hope, but that comes in and actually changes things, that rebuilds and grants something beautiful back into the evaporated wasteland?
Doug McMasters: Well, Isaiah 61 steps into that moment.
Doug McMasters: It's a prophecy projecting into the future, projecting to people who haven't even yet gone to exile, but talking about their return from exile, that they're going to come home to something, though, as they look at it, first of all, will be filled with rubble and the need of rebuilding.
Doug McMasters: But there's a hope beyond even the return of exile into a glorious future that rises beyond anything that they might be able to imagine.
Doug McMasters: And here Isaiah is instilling hope into the hearts of the people.
Doug McMasters: It didn't look like it at first.
Doug McMasters: When they did return, the walls were broken, the temple was not there, they needed to rebuild it.
Doug McMasters: And when they did, it was just a shadow of what it used to be, so much so that the older people who knew what it had looked like wept.
Doug McMasters: And often they were filled with discouragement and disappointment, disoriented by all of this, but meant to anchor their heart were these prophecies.
Doug McMasters: Because just coming back from Babylon wasn't the answer and it wasn't the fulfillment.
Doug McMasters: And into all of that disappointment, a voice speaks.
Doug McMasters: And it's not a voice of a prophet that's going to continue to scold them, or a leader who's going to try to rally them, or a politician who is simply going to make some promises that won't be kept.
Doug McMasters: No, there's a voice that's going to speak into their disappointment.
Doug McMasters: And it's a voice anointed by the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: And it's a voice that has something far different for them to hear.
Doug McMasters: It's not instruction or rebuke or advice that he's going to offer.
Doug McMasters: He's going to offer them good news.
Doug McMasters: He's going to announce that God Himself is going to step in and renew them in ways that they can't even imagine or picture.
Doug McMasters: And today we're going to look at that good news.
Doug McMasters: At the start of our series in 2024, I said that Isaiah was the fifth gospel.
Doug McMasters: And the longer we've been going through the book of Isaiah, I think I need to change my statement.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah is the first gospel.
Doug McMasters: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the second, third, fourth, and fifth.
Doug McMasters: This is the first gospel.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 61 is a beautiful, beautiful demonstration of that.
Doug McMasters: Because the whole story of redemption is bundled up together here and gathered in one place.
Doug McMasters: The ache of the human heart and the promises of God and the person of Christ are all here in one place.
Doug McMasters: And so if you come this morning and you've wondered, is there any hope for me in the middle of my brokenness?
Doug McMasters: Does God have anything for me when everything's evaporated?
Doug McMasters: If you question whether God can restore what others or you have ruined in your life, Isaiah 61 has an answer.
Doug McMasters: And as we look at this passage of scripture, we're going to look at the whole of it, I want to see it in four different movements, four gospel movements.
Doug McMasters: We're going to see, first of all, the good news proclaimed, and then we're going to see the good news embodied, and then we'll see the good news multiplied, and then last of all, the good news celebrated.
Doug McMasters: The good news celebrated.
Doug McMasters: So let's listen to this wonderful passage of scripture with open hearts.
Doug McMasters: First of all, the good news proclaimed.
Doug McMasters: And we'll see this in verses 1 to 3.
Doug McMasters: And when Isaiah begins here in this chapter, he doesn't begin with a command or a warning.
Doug McMasters: He begins with a comforting voice.
Doug McMasters: Listen to it.
Doug McMasters: This is the servant speaking.
Doug McMasters: This is the Spirit-annointed redeemer that's been promised throughout Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: We've looked at the servant songs earlier, but here the voice of the servant breaks in again.
Doug McMasters: And the first thing he does is he proclaims his commission and the contents of his mission.
Doug McMasters: He proclaims that God is sending him to do something, that he has come with the purposes of God in hand.
Doug McMasters: The source is God, and the empowerment comes by the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: And the substance of that is wonderful.
Doug McMasters: Good news, liberty, release, comfort, favor.
Doug McMasters: Just look at the cascade of these kind of words in these next three verses.
Doug McMasters: To bring good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, freedom to the prisoners.
Doug McMasters: Let me drop down just a little bit to the end of two.
Doug McMasters: Comfort for those who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, splendid clothes instead of despair, and they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.
Doug McMasters: That doesn't sound like our nightly news, does it?
Doug McMasters: And he doesn't speak some vague, distant salvation.
Doug McMasters: He speaks personally and with great detail and particularity down to the heart level of restoring grace that's coming from God to people that are broken.
Doug McMasters: And listen to what he does.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't just take away their ashes, he gives them beauty, he doesn't just stop their mourning, he gives them gladness.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't just lift the faint-hearted, he clothes them with praise.
Doug McMasters: There's such a revolutionary change here.
Doug McMasters: Now, to a lot of us, this sounds like simply poetic language.
Doug McMasters: And it is poetic in its form.
Doug McMasters: But for a Jewish person, this would be signaling something very, very real and tangible.
Doug McMasters: This is what we call Jubilee language.
Doug McMasters: You see, the Jubilee was one of the most dramatic and hopeful ideas the whole Old Testament could speak about.
Doug McMasters: Many of us today are very, very unfamiliar with what Jubilee means.
Doug McMasters: In Leviticus chapter 25, God commands Israel to observe a special year that's called the Year of Jubilee.
Doug McMasters: And what happens in that year is quite dramatic.
Doug McMasters: It's a great, a great reset, if you will, of all of society.
Doug McMasters: In the Jubilee year, all that the debts that people had would be canceled.
Doug McMasters: Imagine that.
Doug McMasters: No more credit cards you have to pay off.
Doug McMasters: No more bank mortgages that you have to dish out and pay.
Doug McMasters: All of the land that had been held by others that you had given way in order to secure help in times of need would be returned into your hands.
Doug McMasters: And any Israelite who had given themselves to another because of their neediness and was put into servitude would be released and given back their freedom.
Doug McMasters: Imagine the implications of all of that.
Doug McMasters: This would distinguish Israel among all the nations of the world and in very significant and very tangible ways.
Doug McMasters: Socially they would benefit.
Doug McMasters: Families that had been broken would be reunited.
Doug McMasters: People who were shamed by their poverty would now be released from that tangible display of that shame and would receive back dignity.
Doug McMasters: It would stop there being a permanent ruling class and a permanent serving class, because all the wealth would have to be restored back to families.
Doug McMasters: Theologically, they would understand that God controlled the movements of life and business and the land.
Doug McMasters: The land itself would receive rest, reinforcing that the rhythms of life come from God Himself.
Doug McMasters: Legally, it would build into the system of the courts a concept of justice like no other nation ever knew it.
Doug McMasters: And emotionally, it would help people to be filled with humility and hope instead of fear or driven by greed, because it would all be reset.
Doug McMasters: In other words, the Jubilee was God's way of saying that his people would not be permanently crushed by their failures.
Doug McMasters: They would not be permanently held down by their debts.
Doug McMasters: They would not be permanently constricted by their circumstances.
Doug McMasters: He built into their lives and into their society a rhythm of restoration and renewal.
Doug McMasters: Now, with that in mind, listen again to Isaiah 61.
Doug McMasters: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
Doug McMasters: To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Doug McMasters: What Isaiah is telling us is that when the servant arrives, he is going to announce the ultimate Jubilee.
Doug McMasters: Not just another Jubilee, but the ultimate Jubilee.
Doug McMasters: And he's telling us that this Jubilee that's coming is not going to be a date on the every once a 50-year calendar.
Doug McMasters: It's not going to be simply an economic policy.
Doug McMasters: It's going to be an ultimate Jubilee that's not just a calendar event, but a person.
Doug McMasters: But a person.
Doug McMasters: And here the servant of the Lord is saying that he will restore people beyond their economic, beyond their societal, legal, agricultural, and emotional needs.
Doug McMasters: He is going to be the Jubilee when he comes.
Doug McMasters: And so Isaiah is telling the people when you come back from Babylon and you enter into the land, this isn't simply about restoring the old patterns, but to anchor their heart in the hope that something greater is coming.
Doug McMasters: And he said, What's coming is a person that you need to look for.
Doug McMasters: And this person is going to forgive debts that are far deeper than financial ones.
Doug McMasters: That this person is going to set captives free, that is far greater freedom than the chains that might be around their ankles or their wrists.
Doug McMasters: That he's going to restore an inheritance that's far bigger than the piece of land that you might have gotten earlier.
Doug McMasters: Look for someone that's going to do something greater than all this, who's going to undo sin and reverse the curse and bring people really home.
Doug McMasters: Look for this one.
Doug McMasters: And so, at the very outset of his ministry, before all of the other things that we read in the Gospels, in Luke chapter 4, Jesus is in a synagogue and he goes through the scroll and stops right here.
Doug McMasters: And he reads, The Spirit of the Lord is on me.
Doug McMasters: And he reads through this, and he ends with these words to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Doug McMasters: And he sits down.
Doug McMasters: Well, he sat down to teach.
Doug McMasters: That's why he sat down.
Doug McMasters: He didn't sit down because somebody else was going to do something.
Doug McMasters: He sat down so he could teach.
Doug McMasters: And so everybody was glued on.
Doug McMasters: What's he going to say about this passage?
Doug McMasters: And he says to them, Today, as you listen, this scripture has been fulfilled.
Doug McMasters: What does he say?
Doug McMasters: He is saying in no uncertain terms to those who understood the text and the context of this passage, I am that Jubilee that you've been waiting for.
Doug McMasters: I am him.
Doug McMasters: He said, I am the one who has come to bring this lost and longed for restoration.
Doug McMasters: It goes beyond just releasing captives and it goes into recovering sight and lifting the oppressed and returning inheritance.
Doug McMasters: All of those things are converging on him.
Doug McMasters: And so when we read about the life and the ministry of Christ, what do we see him doing?
Doug McMasters: We see him canceling the deepest of debts, sin's unpayable ledger against us.
Doug McMasters: We see him forming us into a new family and bringing us into an eternal home.
Doug McMasters: We see him restoring us into fellowship with God.
Doug McMasters: We see him even saying that he's going to renew the heavens and the earth and make a new creation.
Doug McMasters: And personally, he tells us that there's no brokenness in our life beyond his restoration.
Doug McMasters: There's no bondage that is stronger than his ability to release us.
Doug McMasters: And there's no exile that can keep us away from home.
Doug McMasters: You see, the servant isn't just proclaiming good news.
Doug McMasters: This passage begins with the servant saying that he is the good news.
Doug McMasters: In a day of doubt, John the Baptist in prison, because things aren't working out quite like he expected, calls for his companions to go to Jesus and ask him this question Are you the one?
Doug McMasters: In a moment of doubt and despair, John the Baptist is wavering, and he says, Are you the one, or should we expect somebody else?
Doug McMasters: And what does Jesus reply to him in Luke 7 in verse 22?
Doug McMasters: He says to the messengers, Go and report to John what you've seen and heard.
Doug McMasters: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, and the poor are told the good news.
Doug McMasters: Jesus' reply to John is, John, Isaiah 61 is happening right in front of you.
Doug McMasters: Yes, I'm the one.
Doug McMasters: Now I want you to catch the significance of what he does here.
Doug McMasters: He moves toward the broken, not away from them.
Doug McMasters: This is the opposite of how we act often.
Doug McMasters: We like to gravitate toward people with power and connections and abilities, great personalities.
Doug McMasters: But here he moves with freedom and release and inheritance and liberty to the poor, brokenhearted captives and mourning people.
Doug McMasters: Gone are any statements of hope to the self-sufficient or to the proud or those who think they're free or fine.
Doug McMasters: The Pharisees asked him, What about us?
Doug McMasters: And he said, Do you see or are you blind?
Doug McMasters: And they're like, How dare you call us blind?
Doug McMasters: He said, Well, you'll never see then.
Doug McMasters: This good news, this good news proclaimed tells us that our stories aren't over when they're shattered.
Doug McMasters: Our lives aren't completely crushed.
Doug McMasters: He goes on, though.
Doug McMasters: He goes on to talk about not only this good news proclaimed, but also this good news embodied.
Doug McMasters: And we'll move a little more quickly through the sections here.
Doug McMasters: In verses four to seven, he takes a he shows us how all of this takes a hold in God's people and what the servant creates in them.
Doug McMasters: And verses four to seven are really hope saturated lines.
Doug McMasters: Some of the most dramatic in scripture.
Doug McMasters: Verse 4: They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the former devastations and renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Doug McMasters: Strangers will stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners will be your plowmen and vine dressers, and you'll be called the Lord's priests, and they will speak of you as ministers of our God.
Doug McMasters: You will eat the wealth of the nations, and you will boast in the riches.
Doug McMasters: In the place of your shame, you'll have a double portion.
Doug McMasters: In the place of disgrace, they will rejoice over their share.
Doug McMasters: So they will possess double in their land, and eternal joy will be theirs.
Doug McMasters: What an idealized restoration this is.
Doug McMasters: Talking to us of the deep, deep, deep, transformative nature of this good news.
Doug McMasters: And it doesn't leave people where they are, and it doesn't just simply patch them up to continue on.
Doug McMasters: It recreates them.
Doug McMasters: It gives them more than they could have ever expected.
Doug McMasters: He releases them from pain and puts in them purpose.
Doug McMasters: Now notice the purpose.
Doug McMasters: In honor.
Doug McMasters: Now, this is not about getting a title, it's about a purpose.
Doug McMasters: Priests in the Old Testament stood between God and the people, and they represented God to the people, and they represented the people to God.
Doug McMasters: And here the Lord is saying to these that are broken, that are captives, that are prisoners, that are poor, who are mourning, that are filled with despair, that they're going to be ministers of God, that they're going to be put in such a vital role with such a profound and holy purpose that they'll be known as the representatives of God, the priests of God, the carriers of his presence, agents of his mercy, instruments of his healing, voices of his good news.
Doug McMasters: The New Testament takes up this language.
Doug McMasters: And in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9, Peter writes to the church and he said, You are a royal priesthood.
Doug McMasters: Not just a couple among you who aren't married for the rest of their life and wear clothes that nobody else wears the rest of the week.
Doug McMasters: Every one of you are a royal priesthood.
Doug McMasters: In Revelation chapter 1, talking about the Lord Jesus, he made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.
Doug McMasters: And then in that glorious demonstration of the heavenlies, where all the peoples of the earth are gathered from every tribe and trung and nation, they are gathered around the throne and giving praise to God and to the Lamb who was slain, and they make this proclamation: you made them a kingdom and priests to our God, every redeemed person.
Doug McMasters: How does that work?
Doug McMasters: Well, it works from what God does in us, and then what he means to do in us is meant to flow from us to others.
Doug McMasters: And so we become, like I said, those who are representatives of God and his mercy.
Doug McMasters: We're carriers of his presence, we're speakers of his truth, we're agents of his mercy, we're representatives of his character, we're instruments of his healing.
Doug McMasters: God means for all of this bounty to be spread, to be spread.
Doug McMasters: And so he tells us in Matthew chapter five: blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the merciful, right?
Doug McMasters: Because we are doing things in this world.
Doug McMasters: We're reconcilers.
Doug McMasters: Now, not every relationship might be able to be reconciled, but we're the first ones to reach out, right?
Doug McMasters: We're the ones that offer confession of our wrong, we're the ones that offer forgiveness to them.
Doug McMasters: And whenever we meet somebody captive to sin, we can talk about the bondage that we've been released from, to instill hope in their hearts.
Doug McMasters: Whenever we see someone coming, mourning and broken and drawn out by the pangs of life, we understand that.
Doug McMasters: We can meet them at the door.
Doug McMasters: We can give them a bulletin and a cheerful hello.
Doug McMasters: And we can say, Look, I'll talk to you after the service.
Doug McMasters: Can I pray with you?
Doug McMasters: Notice how this multiplies.
Doug McMasters: This good news proclaimed, this good news embodied becomes a good news multiplied in verses eight and nine.
Doug McMasters: I want to begin, however, by telling us why it does in verse eight, the why of multiplication before we talk about the contents of multiplication.
Doug McMasters: And here in verse eight, the Lord's own voice speaks, not just the servants.
Doug McMasters: I, the Lord, love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
Doug McMasters: I will faithfully give them their recompense.
Doug McMasters: I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Doug McMasters: Why is all of this happening?
Doug McMasters: And why is it spreading around the world?
Doug McMasters: And why is it multiplying?
Doug McMasters: Because the Lord loves justice and the Lord hates oppression, and the Lord acts faithfully.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at the end of verse 8.
Doug McMasters: I will make a permanent covenant with them.
Doug McMasters: Now that's not a new phrase for us in the book of Isaiah, and it's not a new phrase for us in the scriptures.
Doug McMasters: He goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 17.
Doug McMasters: And in Genesis 17, Abraham is told, By God, I will confirm my covenant.
Doug McMasters: It is a permanent covenant to be your God.
Doug McMasters: From the very beginning, God's intentions weren't simply to bless people, but to bind himself to people, to make them his and him theirs, and to enter into a relationship that's meant to endure.
Doug McMasters: And we're going to celebrate here in a few moments the new covenant in which he says, I will be your God and you will be my people.
Doug McMasters: It's inaugurated through the death of Christ.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 55, we read these words when we studied it.
Doug McMasters: These promises are going to be enacted through a son of David.
Doug McMasters: Promises of a kingdom and of a king and of a rule of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: There's one hiccup in all of it, though.
Doug McMasters: And we read it before in Isaiah 24 and verse 5.
Doug McMasters: They have broken the permanent covenant.
Doug McMasters: And this is the tension of the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: God says he's faithful to his promises.
Doug McMasters: The people, however, are not.
Doug McMasters: They break God's promises, they break their own promises, they wander away from what they said they would do.
Doug McMasters: They rebel against the God who says, I will be your God.
Doug McMasters: They fracture the very relationship that was meant to define them.
Doug McMasters: What's going to happen to this permanent covenant?
Doug McMasters: Can it survive with these persistently unfaithful people?
Doug McMasters: Listen to the announcement.
Doug McMasters: There's a reason why God speaks in the first person here so dramatically.
Doug McMasters: I, the Lord, love justice.
Doug McMasters: I hate robbery and injustice.
Doug McMasters: I will faithfully reward my people.
Doug McMasters: I will make a permanent covenant with them.
Doug McMasters: God here doesn't lower his standards and he doesn't cancel the covenant and he doesn't replace his people with a better one.
Doug McMasters: What he says is, I'm going to do this.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to do this.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to repair those things that are shattered.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to restore those things that have been forfeited.
Doug McMasters: I'm going to bind those things that are broken.
Doug McMasters: And he's going to bring a permanent covenant.
Doug McMasters: And that permanent covenant is going to come through the one who lifted his voice and spoke in verse 1.
Doug McMasters: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Doug McMasters: He is the one going to enact God's purposes.
Doug McMasters: And so we see Jesus, the son of David.
Doug McMasters: And we see him, the servant.
Doug McMasters: We see him, as Hebrews says, the mediator of a better covenant.
Doug McMasters: In fact, in Hebrews 13 and verse 20, it's called the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Doug McMasters: Hebrews 9:12, eternal redemption, 9 15, eternal inheritance.
Doug McMasters: Chapter 7 and verse 24, a permanent priesthood.
Doug McMasters: Hebrews 8:6, a covenant established on better promises.
Doug McMasters: All of this in Isaiah 51 is brought to bear in Christ.
Doug McMasters: It's multiplied.
Doug McMasters: Now let's take note of it in verse 9 and see this multiplication.
Doug McMasters: The descendants will be known among the nations and their prosperity among the peoples.
Doug McMasters: And all who see them will recognize that they are a people the Lord has blessed.
Doug McMasters: We are talking about a people that live on a territory that's 35 miles tall and 25 miles deep.
Doug McMasters: Rhode Island would look down on this little country.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: Long Island is bigger than this country.
Doug McMasters: And they're sandwiched in between Egypt and Assyria and Babylon.
Doug McMasters: They wouldn't even have to lick their finger to crush them.
Doug McMasters: But these people will survive.
Doug McMasters: And the nations will say they've been blessed by God.
Doug McMasters: Because God has done this.
Doug McMasters: And this isn't self-promotion or triumphalism.
Doug McMasters: This is the display of God's glory and grace to undeserving people.
Doug McMasters: Now take a look at verse 11.
Doug McMasters: For as the earth produces its growth and as a garden enables what is sown to spring up, so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
Doug McMasters: This is a promise of multiplication.
Doug McMasters: This is not just some servant with some momentary revival and some respite to some people in his day.
Doug McMasters: No, this is a surge of spiritual energy that's going to spread out before all the nations.
Doug McMasters: A garden that grows so luxuriously, it's as if new creation has happened, that Eden has been restored.
Doug McMasters: And we don't have to guess how that happened.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures tell us.
Doug McMasters: And they were wondering what has happened here.
Doug McMasters: And the reverberations of the glad news of God's righteousness began to move into the nations as these people went back home.
Doug McMasters: And their transformation became a public sign that God is intervening, that the work of the servant is continuing, and that ripple moves to a Roman centurion called Cornelius, who's drawn in by the gospel, and an Ethiopian official who carries the good news down to the trade routes in Africa, and the Greeks in Antioch who believe and form the first multi-ethnic church.
Doug McMasters: And what begins with restored Jews who are surprised that Gentiles could believe is now turned into a worldwide movement.
Doug McMasters: And we all look back to those days and we remember the Jewish man Peter and the Jewish man James and the Jewish man John and the Jewish man Stephen and Paul.
Doug McMasters: And we wonder that this gift of righteousness has come to the Jewish people again.
Doug McMasters: And it's declared before all of our nations.
Doug McMasters: And we say, surely these are people who have been blessed by God because He has restored them from their ruin and he's turned them into His servants again.
Doug McMasters: Now, what does this tell us?
Doug McMasters: Again, and I made this point just a moment ago, but again, the grace we receive is not meant to fall into the cul-de-sac of our lives.
Doug McMasters: We are conduits, we are meant to be a highway of God's grace.
Doug McMasters: And when he restores us, he intends for that restoration to ripple out.
Doug McMasters: And when it ripples out, it will have an effect.
Doug McMasters: Because our healing is meant to be there for someone else's hope as well as our own.
Doug McMasters: And our forgiveness is meant to be someone else's invitation to receive forgiveness.
Doug McMasters: And our transformation is meant to be someone else's hope that they too could receive a transformation.
Doug McMasters: Now let's finish with these last words in verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Because, you know, even if we ended at verse 9 and verse 11 and skipped over 10, we would have a wondrous chapter to look at.
Doug McMasters: But Isaiah is not finished because verse 10 tells us something: that the restoration doesn't end just with rebuilding, and the renewal just doesn't end with mission, and grace doesn't end with just transformation.
Doug McMasters: It culminates in doxology and praise.
Doug McMasters: I rejoice greatly in the Lord.
Doug McMasters: I exult in my God.
Doug McMasters: He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness as a groom wears a turban and a bride adorns herself with jewels.
Doug McMasters: This is the only proper response to God's activity through the servant, that of joy and celebration and praise.
Doug McMasters: And when he speaks here, listen to how strong these words are.
Doug McMasters: This is not polite gratitude, not even quiet appreciation.
Doug McMasters: This is not subdued thanks.
Doug McMasters: This is this is a shout.
Doug McMasters: The Church Royal and I dated and got married in was pastored by a guy who was not from Boston.
Doug McMasters: And he expected a congregation that was a little more vociferous than what cold New Englanders would give him.
Doug McMasters: And he said to them one day, he said, You guys don't say amen.
Doug McMasters: You just write it down.
Doug McMasters: And he even made a card once that said amen on it.
Doug McMasters: Do you remember that?
Doug McMasters: And when he was preaching, he was so full of joy in what he was preaching.
Doug McMasters: And the people are just sitting there like.
Doug McMasters: Verse 10, he there, he's clothed us with the garments of salvation and wrapped us in a robe of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't hand us a needle and thread and says, you know, it's time to fix up the ripped clothes that you've got.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't give us a pattern and say, now there's the machine, there's some fabric, go sell your sew yourself a robe.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't give us a list that he tells us to fulfill.
Doug McMasters: He tells us, and we say, that he's clothed us, that he's wrapped us, that he's covered us.
Doug McMasters: And the things that he's covered us with are splendid and wondrous.
Doug McMasters: And they are something we don't deserve.
Doug McMasters: Because it's not self-made or self-improved or self-righteous.
Doug McMasters: It's a gift, this righteousness.
Doug McMasters: These garments come out of the wardrobe of the king himself.
Doug McMasters: And he said, take it on, it fits you perfectly.
Doug McMasters: And he puts us into a sphere that we could understand.
Doug McMasters: Wedding garment, kind of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: Verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Like a groom wearing a turban, and like a bride adorning herself with jewels.
Doug McMasters: Remarkable.
Doug McMasters: Those often will be the most bright and glamorous and glorious and special and expensive clothes that we'll ever wear.
Doug McMasters: The day we get married.
Doug McMasters: Except for the guys who rent their suit for fifty bucks from Yeah, no.
Doug McMasters: But he he grants us these splendid garments to wear.
Doug McMasters: What is it?
Doug McMasters: His righteousness.
Doug McMasters: It's like being dressed up for the most significant day of your life.
Doug McMasters: The day you get married.
Doug McMasters: The day you come into a relationship that's going to be more intimate than you've ever ever had with anybody else.
Doug McMasters: That moment when a bride and groom come together and say, I'm yours.
Doug McMasters: No, I'm yours.
Doug McMasters: We're each other.
Doug McMasters: And God clothes his people with that beautiful beautiful garment and that wondrous promise I am your God and you are my people.
Doug McMasters: When he gives us Christ, he doesn't give us something that's half finished that we need to work on and make better.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't give us something that's barely acceptable, and he's waiting for us to sort of cooperate with it all in order to achieve something.
Doug McMasters: No, he robes us in righteousness.
Doug McMasters: He robes us in the beauty, he adorns us with honor.
Doug McMasters: He overshadows us with joy.
Doug McMasters: Because this righteousness he gives is a fitting righteousness for those that he dearly loves.
Doug McMasters: And so the gospel here, beginning with proclamation, ends with celebration.
Doug McMasters: It begins with ashes, but it turns to beauty.
Doug McMasters: It begins with mourning, but it begins ends with joy.
Doug McMasters: And it begins with brokenness, but it ends with a wedding.
Doug McMasters: A joy that isn't something we have to sort of engender and produce simply because it's expected out of us, or the pastor's waving a card.
Doug McMasters: But rooted in the unchanging character of the love of God toward us, anchored in the finished work of Christ and sustained by the work of the Spirit.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Isaiah speaks about God's people saying, I will greatly rejoice, I will extol in my God.
Doug McMasters: So this chapter, the first gospel, Isaiah, the good news proclaimed, the good news embodied, the good news multiplied now becomes the good news celebrated.
Doug McMasters: And he's inviting us into this story.
Doug McMasters: He's granted this to us so that we'll move toward him who gives us all these things.
Doug McMasters: And so if you're a believer this morning, think about the implications of this.
Doug McMasters: Your identity is secure in God who grants you all of these things.
Doug McMasters: Your past is redeemed, and now shame has been replaced with honor.
Doug McMasters: A couple weeks ago, I spent some time with some of my Air Force buddies I hadn't seen in over 40 years.
Doug McMasters: Some of the stories I wasn't so sure I wanted Royal around to hear.
Doug McMasters: We were together for a few days, and Royal said, Do you guys have anything more to talk about?
Doug McMasters: And I said, Uh, we have a lot to talk about.
Doug McMasters: Some things legal and some things not.
Doug McMasters: And one of their stories was talking about just a whisper away from being caught and thrown into prison because of what we were doing.
Doug McMasters: What does this undeserving sinner have?
Doug McMasters: Should be dishonor, should be shame, should be chains, actually.
Doug McMasters: What has God done?
Doug McMasters: He's turned every one of you who know him into people who are honored, who are the priests of God, who have the joy of God on your lips and in your heart, who's clothed you not with prison garb, but with righteousness.
Doug McMasters: What a beautiful thing this is.
Doug McMasters: And if you're here this morning and you don't know the Savior, the only reason you would be excluded is if you think you have your own beauty and you have your own gladness and you have your own praise and you make your own honor.
Doug McMasters: Go ahead and do that and see how long it lasts.
Doug McMasters: Because it won't.
Doug McMasters: Because life will crush it.
Doug McMasters: Believe me, it will crush it.
Doug McMasters: But if you feel like you're left in the ashes mourning, full of despair, perhaps even shrouded by shame, you don't need to clothe yourself.
Doug McMasters: There's a gift of righteousness.
Doug McMasters: And God clothes the brokenhearted with it.
Doug McMasters: What he calls you to do is not clean yourself up and come to him, but come to him brokenhearted and ask for this one who brings these gifts to be your deliverer, Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we want to come to you with grateful hearts, overwhelmed by the beauty of the good news that we've heard in your word here.
Doug McMasters: We want to thank you for sending the servant, our Lord Jesus, the one who said himself that he came to proclaim good news, to bind up the brokenhearted, to set captives free, and to announce the year of your favor.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you that in Christ what are our ashes can become your beauty, and what becomes our mourning becomes gladness of you.
Doug McMasters: And what has filled us with despair can be turned into praise.
Doug McMasters: We thank you that you don't leave us in our ruins, but that you clothe us not with garments we've sown, but with the righteousness of Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: And Father, we pray for those of us who know you.
Doug McMasters: Help us to live out our lives as restored people, to be like what Isaiah spoke about, rebuilders in the midst of a ruined world, to be intercessors, priests who carry your presence and speak your mercy and reflect your character.
Doug McMasters: And Father, I also want to pray, and we want to pray for those that don't know you, that today would be the day they hear this voice.
Doug McMasters: That they hear the voice of the one who said he's coming, and of the one who claimed that he had come.
Doug McMasters: And Father, we pray that you draw them to Jesus Christ, the one who can forgive them, the one who can restore them, and the one who will clothe them with salvation and righteousness.
Doug McMasters: Father, I pray that they might taste the joy that we know.
Doug McMasters: We pray that they might know the security that we have that we're fully loved.
Doug McMasters: And Father, we pray that you would anchor all of our hearts in this permanent covenant secured by the blood of Christ.
Doug McMasters: This permanent covenant that cannot be broken, that gives us a hope that will never be shaken, and a joy that can never be stolen.
Doug McMasters: And may our lives and our words and our worship declare to the nations the Lord has done this.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in the name of Jesus, our servant and our savior and our king.
Doug McMasters: Amen.