Continue this prayer.
Let it rain.
Amen.
Good morning, Madison.
Yeah, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Jeff Fisher.
I'm the chair of All Site Elders for Madison, and our family uh attends and belongs to the Madison North site, and I have the privilege this morning of preaching the word.
And based on the songs we've sung and the experience we just had with the kids up here, I feel like I don't know if I necessarily need to preach this.
Like we've already pre-applied the sermon, which I just I love and feel that this is such an incredible uh place and opportunity where the spirit is at work.
But I'm gonna do it anyway.
Over the last several weeks, we've been a part of this series, the Holy Spirit series that leads us up to Pentecost.
But because the Spirit doesn't stop working at Pentecost, we're not gonna stop preaching about the Spirit at Pentecost.
So this morning, we're also again going to look at uh a key passage about the promise of the outpoured Holy Spirit and especially the promise of the Spirit for a spirit-soaked community.
Because what God's people, way back when, we're gonna look at Isaiah, way back in the time of Isaiah, we're longing for and looking for before the outpouring of the Spirit tells us a lot about what we, as people who live after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, what we should be longing for and looking for and living for.
So we're gonna read Isaiah 44, just the first five verses, and I invite you to stand for the reading of God's word.
Isaiah 44, beginning in verse 1.
But now listen, Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen.
This is what the Lord says He who made you, who formed you in the womb, he will help you.
Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant, Jeshuran, whom I have chosen, for I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.
I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.
They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.
Some will say, I belong to the Lord, and others will call themselves by the name of Jacob.
Still others will even write on their hand the Lord's and will take the name Israel.
This is the word of the Lord.
So just the last couple of days, uh we we took a trip to Iowa to celebrate my nephew's graduation.
And of course, when you're at something like this, you meet different people, relatives, friends, family connections, and one of the initial conversations is tell me about yourself.
What do you do?
What are your connections?
How are you related to these people?
What's why are you here?
kind of thing.
Those kinds of questions, in my experience, are ones that are repeatedly asked, not just in situations like that, but even within our own hearts.
Questions of identity, purpose, and belonging.
Who am I?
Why am I here?
And who do I fit with?
Who do I belong to?
And kids, middle schoolers especially, I know that there's a lot of literature that's saying these are the core questions for teenagers and adolescents.
The not-so-secret truth is these are the core questions for us grown-ups, too.
That we ask these very questions: Who am I?
Why am I here?
What's my purpose?
And who do I belong to?
Who do I fit with?
And so this passage, I'm gonna make the audacious claim that in these five verses, as we open up this passage, as we look at what Isaiah 44, 1 to 5 has to say, address these exact questions in pretty significant and profound ways.
And all of it revolves around, even structurally in the Hebrew text, all of it revolves around the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
And so as we look at this passage, if you have a Bible open, or if maybe we can throw back the first couple of verses on there, uh, go to verse three, if you can go to verse three.
So, right there in the center, even the way these are versed out, shows that these first couple of verses use this language of Israel and Jacob, and then those things return again in verses four and five.
And in the middle is this language here in verse three.
I will pour out water, I will pour out my spirit on your offspring.
Verses one and two and verses four and five all center around this reality that it is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that shapes and answers these core fundamental questions of identity, purpose, and belonging.
And so I want to look at these three main core fundamental questions.
In verse one, it starts off with, but now listen, because there's a but there, because what is we've just led up to in verse 43 is some dire predictions and warnings that are coming for God's people.
And then God inserts this don't forget this.
Don't forget this core fundamental truth.
Now listen, Jacob my servant, Israel, whom I've chosen, and then he's going to tell you what to listen to, but I'll come back to it in a moment.
He says, Jacob, my servant, Jeshuran, or Yesheron, whom I've chosen.
And I want us to notice just this key component that the prophet Isaiah is doing, and using Jacob, which, if you remember the story back in Genesis, Jacob is the actual guy's name who then wrestles with God and gets renamed wrestles with God, Israel.
And then Israel becomes the name, not just of that guy, but of all of his descendants and the entire people group that are going to be referred to as God's chosen people, Israel.
And then, of course, that ends up being the name of the land, and it ends up being the name of the northern kingdom.
And today it's the name of a nation that adds layers of confusion to what we mean when we use the word Israel.
Our point here, and what the prophet Isaiah is doing, is already indicating there is this name change from Jacob, the deceiver or the supplanter, to Israel, the one who wrestles or struggles with God.
And that struggle is going to be perpetual.
And Isaiah warned the people and prophesied to the people that there's going to be more struggle coming.
But don't forget this, there's another name that I have for you.
Interesting.
At least it's interesting to me.
What is this?
Some of you, if you're looking in your Bibles, you might see that there's a footnote there that says the upright one.
And that's a possible way to understand what the Hebrew could be indicating here.
It's actually a title, and in the second century BC, so before Jesus' time, as the Greek translators were working on the Hebrew text, they actually translated it beloved.
Zesheron means the beloved ones.
So this movement from Jacob, supplantor-deceiver, to Israel, struggles with God, to Zesheron, beloved ones.
Because Isaiah is saying, now listen, don't forget this.
And that word listen is Shemah.
Oh, I hear a few of them, mmm.
Because some of you are familiar with the Shema.
Deuteronomy 6.
Hear, O Israel.
That's the here is that same word listen, Shema.
Shema Israel.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength.
Isaiah is making a twist on this, a play on this with this word Jezharon and this movement here.
Hear, O Israel, Shemmah Ishrael, Shema Jacob, Shema Ishrael, Shemat Zesharon, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who's made everything, the man, the one who has formed you.
He loves you with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.
That is your identity.
That's what the prophet Isaiah is doing with this move here of saying, You are my beloved, my chosen, my servant.
He's paralleling all of these things and developing this identity of who we actually are.
And then he says, Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
The most common command in all of Scripture, hundreds of times throughout Scripture, and especially here in this section of Isaiah 40 to 66, some of what we heard already from 43.
But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel.
Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you.
You are called by my name.
You are mine.
God is saying, I have claimed you.
I have redeemed you.
You, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I've chosen.
I said, You are my servant.
I have chosen you and not rejected.
So do not fear, for I am with you.
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you.
I will help you.
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
This is in chapter 43, the now 44 is reminding of us of this same thing that time and time again the Lord says, Do not be afraid.
Now that's not because there's nothing to be afraid of.
In fact, all of 40 to 66, he's telling you exactly what to be afraid of.
Babylon is going to come and destroy you, people.
But don't be afraid.
What?
Because he's saying, even in the difficult times, even in the hard times, even in the fearful times, you do not need to be afraid because God loves you and is with you, and you are his.
Yes, there is going to be consequences, and for the people in Isaiah's day, there is going to be punishment because of their unfaithfulness.
But Isaiah's word here is God will not walk away from his promises because of his faithfulness.
Our unfaithfulness does not override his faithfulness.
And so he's saying, You don't need to be afraid because you are mine, I love you.
That is who you are.
That is your identity.
And both the reason and the evidence that this is true is the Holy Spirit.
And that promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
So however we might answer these questions about identity and purpose, people take a personality assessment test, the Enneagram, and DNA testing to see who they're connected to.
There's all kinds of ways, internal narratives that we've embraced from other people imposing on us.
There's all kinds of things that are telling us the answers to these questions.
And God is saying, it is actually the work of the Holy Spirit in us that gives us these answers.
Your identity is a beloved child of God because the Spirit has been poured out in you.
And then he takes us to the purpose.
Another great example here, if you can throw up uh verse three again of Hebrew poetry, you see this parallel here.
I will pour out water, I will pour out my spirit on thirsty land, on your offspring, streams, my blessing on the dry ground, on your descendants.
This is classic Hebrew poetry where they're helping interpret each other.
And what I want to see from this is that this promise that one day there will be a people who the spirit will be poured out on like water points us to what we celebrated last week with Pentecost.
That day when the Spirit will be was poured out like water on his people, on his descendants or offspring, as Isaiah used this language here.
That Pentecost after Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, the future offspring or the descendants near the temple after that roller coaster of the Passover, where they're huddled together, this time not out of fear, like they were between the cross and the resurrection, but out of anticipation of what God was going to do with his people.
And we hear on Acts 2, in Acts 2, when Peter starts connecting these dots, when the tongues of fire come down and people start speaking in tongues, speaking in ways that the listeners there could under each of them from their own place could hear them in their own language.
And Peter says something that quotes from Joel 2 that sounds very much like this passage in Isaiah.
Your sons and daughters, that's for a whole other time, will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, even on my servants.
That's Isaiah language.
Both men and women, I will pour out my spirit on those days, and they will prophesy.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Peter is connecting these dots and saying, God raised Jesus from the dead.
And this promise is from Isaiah is getting fulfilled on that day.
And here's the beautiful thing: it wasn't just for that generation, but every generation after that, we are people who have received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
And so we are the people who are called to fulfill this purpose there.
So what is this purpose?
I want to point to a couple groupings of words from Isaiah.
So note there that it says, My blessing on your offspring or on your descendants.
The I and the my here is God.
And so God has a kind of blessing that he gives.
Not hashtag blessed.
I'm glad a few people know what I'm talking about.
And when it says your offspring or your descendants, this takes us back to Abraham and the promise to Abraham that his descendants and his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
And in that promise, God gave his own kind of blessing, and he said to Abraham, You and your descendants will be blessed to be a blessing.
So when it says my blessing from God's own voice, it's saying there's a certain kind of blessing, a kind of blessing that is not just for you to huddle and keep to your own little selves.
God's blessing on his offspring is blessing that flows to others and flows out to others' people.
And so I want us to see this especially, more specifically, in the next point, in the next uh verse here.
So if you can turn it to what's going to happen when the spirit gets poured out on these descendants, they spring up or sprout up.
It's the same language from Genesis 2 of what happens with the first plants and bushes that are ever created.
They sprout up, new life, supernatural new life that did not previously exist.
They sprout up like poplar trees.
Huh.
I was gonna have the kids like shout back poplar to me.
Maybe they'll do it uh spontaneously.
But what are poplar trees and what do they have to do?
And some of your translations will have willows.
Poplar trees or willow trees, what are they in ancient Near East to the people in Isaiah's day, 600 to 800 BC?
This word, poplar trees, is only used four times in the entire Bible.
And two of them are directly connected to this kind of prophecy or proclamation about Babylon.
Because poplar trees or willow trees are trees that grow by by streams of water, trees by flowing streams.
In Babylon, those streams were human-engineered, constructed streams that channeled water to make beautiful-looking trees grow.
But if you know anything about the story of Babylon and its relation to God's people, Babylon was a place of desolation, destruction, defeat, exile, discouragement.
Places where God's people would question their identity and their purpose and where they fit, where they belong.
And the clearest example is this is Psalm 137.
So Psalm 137 is the other place where this word gets used.
By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept when we remembered Zion, that name for Jerusalem.
There on the poplar trees we hung our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs.
Our tormentors demanded songs of joy.
They said, Sing us one of those songs of Zion.
In mockery, in taunting, in oppression, in suppression, in power, in empire telling you, dance for us.
And so here in Isaiah, this is what's intriguing to me.
I didn't find anyone else that commented on this, so take it for what it's worth.
Here in Isaiah, Isaiah, of all the trees that get used in the Old Testament, especially Old Testament poetry, cedar, oaks, tamarisk, fig trees, olive trees, all kinds of trees that you use, usually for symbolic purpose, Isaiah picks poplar trees by channels of water, or what the NIV translates, flowing streams.
And throughout the book of Isaiah, the key theme is a reversal of what you expect, especially related to power.
The Israel, my servant, we see is the suffering servant, that there is an ultimate servant who the New Testament authors say, Whoa, this is a lot like Jesus, who instead of claiming power and taking on the powers of oppression and suppression and defeat and exile and imprisonment and all of that, says, I'm going to take that on myself and suffer for the people.
Why?
Because you're my beloved, because you're the ones I love, and that's what I will do for you.
And so instead of, in place of the empire-enforced, human-constructed engineering of directing water to make externally appearing life that actually causes separation, dehumanization, and oppression, Isaiah is saying the spirit-soaked community cultivates poplars of justice, of life, of flourishing, that takes God's own, my blessing, and extends it to other people.
And here's the shock, even to those who are oppressing you.
That's the promise of the gospel.
Don't believe me, I'm gonna let Jesus speak for himself.
Because in Luke 4, when Jesus goes to Nazareth to the synagogue and he's invited to preach, he is handed the Isaiah scroll, and he unrolls it to what we now refer to as Isaiah 61, and he reads these words, and they'll sound a lot like we heard in Isaiah 44.
The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
And he stopped there and he sat down and he said, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
Proclaiming that he himself is the Spirit anointed Messiah who has come to do these very things.
Jesus directly connects that the outpoured Spirit on him as the true and ultimate servant, the anointed one, means that the hope-for future that Isaiah is prophesying about, that hope-for future water is now present in him as the fulfillment of that promise that he is then going to extend to those who follow him and who follow him in his way, that he has started the Jubilee.
Again, in an unexpected, surprising way.
But when Jesus then pours out that same Holy Spirit on his people at Pentecost, these poplars sprouting up, and waters that are streaming forth, the waters of the spirits not only feed the poplars, but continue the channel, the stream to feed more poplars.
And then we get, as we move into the last verse, verse five here, this sense of belonging and this sense of growth.
And it creates a community of belonging where we answer this question where do I fit?
Where do we belong?
And verses one and two, it's God Himself saying to the people, Jacob, Israel, Jeshren.
Now in verse five, it's the people embracing and receiving that label.
Verses one and two, God saying it to us.
Verse five, we're saying, we'll take that name.
We'll take that on.
And here in verse five, this is one of the most significant results of the spirit poured out that we embrace and express that identity, not just cognitively, but it even uses this imagery of like physically, tangibly, which we're going to do here in a few moments.
Physically and tangibly, saying, I belong and am marked by Jesus, the Spirit giver.
And so this is again a poetic way for Isaiah to express one idea here.
It's not as if these are like four different options.
He's expressing one idea using parallelism.
I belong to the Lord, and because I belong to the Lord, I belong to the Lord's people.
And the Hebrew there is not just some and others, but it's this one will say that, and that one will say this, and this one will say that, and that one will say this.
Maybe this doesn't work, but kind of like when Oprah is like, and one for you, and one for you, and one for you, the spirit for you, the spirit for you, and people are saying, I'll take the Lord, I'll take the Lord, I'll take the Lord.
That's what Isaiah is doing here.
And he's saying what we just witnessed with these kids and the passage that they quoted, the 1 Corinthians 12, you are all members of one body because you are all connected to Jesus.
You're all connected to one Lord.
In fact, in Romans 8, Paul the Apostle Paul directly connects this.
The spirit you received does not make you slave so that you live in fear again.
Do not be afraid.
Rather, the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship, identity, who you are, so that we cry out, Abba Father.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirits that we are God's.
Not little G-O-D-S, G-O-D apostrophe S.
We are the Lord's.
We belong to the Lord.
That we are the ones who take on this identity and say, words, something along this line, I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
And many of you know that I'm quoting from the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer number one.
All right, I'm discerning.
I'm always invited to preach right around the time of Synod.
Some of you know what I'm talking about.
Some of you are like, I've never heard of this word synod.
But this name, taking on the name, is a significant piece of where do we fit?
Who do we belong to?
Where do we belong?
And we heard time and time again, if not all of you, 90 plus percent of you, I belong to Madison.
Madison is where I fit.
Madison is my people.
Yes, and amen.
And we are so happy that that's how people are responding.
I want us to see from this passage, and I don't think anyone would disagree with me, first and foremost, twice in this verse five, we belong ultimately and first to the Lord.
We belong to the Lord.
And then secondly, he uses this is really fascinating to me.
He uses the terms Jacob and Israel, which I mentioned earlier, Israel actually becomes the name of the northern kingdom.
Isaiah is in the southern kingdom.
Isaiah and his people refer to themselves as Judah.
They're actually some often contrasted with Israel.
But Israel is the more ancient and older term for God's people and the broader term, and in the prophets is often this promise that the two divided kingdoms get brought back together.
And then if we take this back to Abraham and the blessed to be a blessing, it's not just a blessing within Israel, but it's a blessing for all nations.
And so when we take on this ancient name, which we can perhaps make the analogy here, this is really talking about the big sea church.
Primarily, we belong to the Lord.
Secondarily, we belong to the big sea church.
Whoever belongs to Jesus, whatever their denominational label, whatever their background, whatever their tradition, we actually belong to all of them.
Even if and when we disagree on theological and ecclesiastical matters.
I'm glad I'm getting some amens.
And I think this is a prime example of this, that the people and the prophet of Judah being willing to call himself by the name Israel Jacob is saying we belong to a much bigger and broader group than just our southern kingdom and maybe those around Zion.
That is a work, a huge important work of the Holy Spirit.
This is not just about individuals, though it is.
Blessed to be a blessing and to overturn and reverse the work of Assyria and Babylon and Persia and Rome that says that power is all what matters.
And we have human-engineered conduits of water to make it appear like we have life rather than supernaturally embraced waters of the Holy Spirit that give us life that flows out from us into our community, into our communities to bless other people and ultimately to bless all nations.
And this again, I can point to the words of Jesus Himself: go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So what got launched that Pentecost Sunday so long ago is the Spirit's answer to our fundamental questions of identity, purpose, and belonging.
You are beloved and chosen.
The Spirit testifies to that truth in our hearts.
And as beloved and chosen, we extend God's very own blessing to others in the ways of Jesus, not the earthly powers.
And this is not an isolated, disconnected, individualistic reality, but together, as a place of community that shares this spirit-soaked identity and purpose, we gladly and willingly take on that name.
This is called communion for two purposes.
We commune with Jesus and we commune with our community in fellowship.
And so as we take communion, we invite, we will invite that all who are baptized and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will be invited to this table.
This table is where Jesus spiritually nourishes us and feeds us by his Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost.
We are not just reminded that he died for our sins and rose again, but we are actually connected to Jesus Himself.
The Spirit makes us one with Jesus and one with each other.
And so we look back at what Jesus has done for us and we look ahead to what Jesus has promised to us when he will come in his fullness to restore all things at that great banquet, the wedding feast of the Lamb, when the body of Christ will all be one.
And we look up to our ascended and spirit pouring out, Lord, who feeds us by the Holy Spirit.
So let us pray.
Lift our hearts to you, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, our Lord.
Let us give thanks to you, Lord our God, as we've been offering praise and reflecting on the way you love us and have given yourself for us.
With joy we praise you, for you created all things, heaven and earth.
You made us in your image.
You made promises to us and have kept your covenant with us.
You have been faithful even when we have been unfaithful.
And we give you thanks, Jesus our Lord, the exalted King of the universe, who has poured out our your spirits and equips us and leads us into all truth.
And so we join our voices together with all the saints throughout all time as we worship you and proclaim the glory of your name.
We pray this in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.