Speaker 1: Hello everyone.
Speaker 1: This is Pastor Damien.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando.
Speaker 1: At New City we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Speaker 1: For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Please remain standing as you hear the reading from Isaiah 61.
Speaker 1: The Spirit of the Lord, god, is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
Speaker 1: He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
Speaker 1: To proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.
Speaker 1: To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God.
Speaker 1: To comfort all who mourn, to console 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.
Speaker 1: That they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified.
Speaker 1: They shall build up the ancient ruins.
Speaker 1: They shall raise up the former devastations.
Speaker 1: They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Speaker 1: Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers.
Speaker 1: But you shall be called priests of the Lord.
Speaker 1: They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God.
Speaker 1: You shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast.
Speaker 1: You shall eat the wealth of the nations and in their glory you shall boast Instead of your shame.
Speaker 1: There shall be a double portion.
Speaker 1: Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot.
Speaker 1: Therefore, in their land they shall possess a double portion.
Speaker 1: They shall have everlasting joy.
Speaker 1: For I, the Lord, love justice.
Speaker 1: I hate robbery and wrong.
Speaker 1: I will faithfully give them their recompense and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Speaker 1: Their offspring shall be known among the nations and their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
Speaker 1: All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.
Speaker 1: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 1: My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.
Speaker 1: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Speaker 1: For as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord, god, will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Speaker 1: This is God's word.
Speaker 2: Thanks be to God you may be seated.
Speaker 2: Thank you, katie.
Speaker 2: Many of you have the Advent wreaths that Katie and Emily were behind us as a congregation making and having in our homes this year, and if you do have one, you'll notice that this week, the third week of Advent, is a week that is themed by joy.
Speaker 2: That's the word that defines this week of Advent, is joy.
Speaker 2: Now this sermon series is called Seeing Everyone Enjoy the King, or SEEK for short.
Speaker 2: When we give ourselves to seek first and seek weak, it's extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: For the joy of all the peoples, as our sermon text ended with.
Speaker 2: Or the famous passage in Luke 2 when the angels announced I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Speaker 2: What's the big deal about joy?
Speaker 2: Well, in his book A Severe Mercy, sheldon Van Auken, who is a disciple of CS Lewis, says it like this.
Speaker 2: He says that the best argument for Christianity is Christians, particularly when they carry themselves with a form of defiant joy.
Speaker 2: That's the best argument for Christianity.
Speaker 2: But he said the worst, or the best argument against Christianity is also Christians when they're joyless and self-righteous and narrow and smug.
Speaker 2: Christianity dies a thousand deaths.
Speaker 2: You see, joy is a big deal, because if Christianity were a cuisine, its flavor would be joy.
Speaker 2: That'd be the distinctive flavor of who we are as the people of Jesus.
Speaker 2: And so some of you look around and even this time of year you don't have a lot of reasons for joy.
Speaker 2: And you hear me talking about this and you're wondering you know, is this just what psychologists call spiritual bypass, where you use Jesus to avoid your pain?
Speaker 2: Pretend that all is well, joy, rejoice, be glad, but really the realities of the world are not faced with any kind of honesty.
Speaker 2: Is that what we're talking about?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: As we'll see in the text, the Bible is really clear and really honest about the realities of this world.
Speaker 2: So then, where do we find this defiant joy?
Speaker 2: Where does it come from?
Speaker 2: Remember what the angel said I bring you good news of great joy.
Speaker 2: And so I want to look at Isaiah 61 and I want to see this good news.
Speaker 2: First, it's good news for broken people in the first three verses, then it's good news for broken cities in verses four through seven and finally, it's good news for a broken world in verses eight through 11.
Speaker 2: So if you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and get Isaiah 61 out and open in front of you, because we're going to be walking through this text.
Speaker 2: I get that word good news in my points.
Speaker 2: I get that from the text itself.
Speaker 2: If you look with me at Isaiah 61, verse 1, it says this the Spirit of the Lord, god, is upon me because the Lord has anointed me.
Speaker 2: Let me ask this question who is this me that's speaking here?
Speaker 2: Who is this anointed one?
Speaker 2: Well, listen, there's a few.
Speaker 2: There's a handful of rules for good sermons, and one of them is you really want the Old Testament to unfold as it shows how the New Testament fulfills it, and that kind of takes some time.
Speaker 2: The other one is that you really want to keep your gospel point to the end so that it builds anticipation.
Speaker 2: And then, good news, I'm going to break both of those rules and just jump to Jesus, okay.
Speaker 2: So what that means is this is going to be a bad sermon, but hopefully it's still good preaching.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker 2: So when I say who is this anointed one Talked about in Isaiah 61.1, you have to know this that in Hebrew the word for anointed is Messiah.
Speaker 2: That's where we get that word.
Speaker 2: In Greek it's the word Christ News.
Speaker 2: It's not Jesus's last name, it means anointed one news.
Speaker 2: It's not Jesus's last name, it means anointed one.
Speaker 2: And so when Jesus steps up in Luke 4 into his hometown synagogue actually I've been to that synagogue and I've heard Katie recite this text in that synagogue, right where Jesus probably did it it was amazing.
Speaker 2: But you're in Luke 4 and Jesus gets to choose his mission statement, his role description, his text for his first ever sermon.
Speaker 2: What does he pick?
Speaker 2: What would you pick?
Speaker 2: He chooses Isaiah 61.
Speaker 2: And it says in Luke 4 that he unrolls the scroll and he reads Isaiah 61, the first few verses here.
Speaker 2: Then he rolls it back up and he says this in verse 21.
Speaker 2: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Speaker 2: So this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to take Jesus' word for it.
Speaker 2: Isaiah 61, verses 1 through 7.
Speaker 2: It's Jesus speaking in this text.
Speaker 2: I'm just jumping to him.
Speaker 2: All right, you can find some other really good sermons that are going to slowly, painstakingly, unpack how Jesus is the fulfillment.
Speaker 2: It's just not going to be this one.
Speaker 2: I mistakenly unpack how Jesus is the fulfillment.
Speaker 2: It's just not going to be this one.
Speaker 2: I'm skipping it all the way to him.
Speaker 2: And so when Jesus says the spirit of the Lord, god, is upon me, in verse 1, I want you to slow down and pay attention to those words.
Speaker 2: We have all three persons of the Trinity involved in what's happening in Isaiah 61.
Speaker 2: It takes the entire Godhead coming to bear in Isaiah 61 to get to do the job, if you will.
Speaker 2: All of God does all that God does and you see that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are united in their mission to the world.
Speaker 2: What is that mission?
Speaker 2: Well, verses one through three has seven infinitives, seven times.
Speaker 2: You hear this that Jesus describes what his anointing with the Spirit from the Father.
Speaker 2: What's it for?
Speaker 2: He says to bring good news.
Speaker 2: To bind up, to proclaim liberty, to proclaim favor, to comfort, to grant, to give the whole Trinity backs this sent servant to bring good news.
Speaker 2: What is this good news?
Speaker 2: Well, is anyone in here poor today, whether that is financial, material poverty or spiritual bankruptcy?
Speaker 2: Jesus says the spirit of the lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor.
Speaker 2: Is anyone in here brokenhearted?
Speaker 2: You're wrestling with depression or despair and you just feel like giving up.
Speaker 2: Well, jesus says to you the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bind up the brokenhearted.
Speaker 2: Is anyone captive to sin or shame in here this morning?
Speaker 2: You've tried everything to get out but you're still stuck.
Speaker 2: Well, jesus says the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim liberty to the captives.
Speaker 2: Is anyone caught in the cycle of addiction?
Speaker 2: You're stuck in that prison of an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure.
Speaker 2: Is that you this morning?
Speaker 2: Well, jesus looks at you and he says the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to open the prison to those who are bound.
Speaker 2: Is anyone in here hopeless and you're wondering is 2025 going to be as bad, as difficult, as challenging as 2024?
Speaker 2: Well, jesus says to you this morning the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 2: Is anyone in here this morning stepping into the holidays with a felt absence of someone that you love?
Speaker 2: Well, jesus says the Spirit of Isaiah 61 is in the Bible to tell you that the Father sent his Son with his Spirit to bring good news to broken people.
Speaker 2: Do you qualify?
Speaker 2: Anybody in here need a little good news this morning.
Speaker 2: That's what Jesus came to bring, according to Isaiah 61.
Speaker 2: Now notice this.
Speaker 2: Many scholars in their commentaries will point something out really important here.
Speaker 2: If you had Isaiah 61 open in your Bible here and Luke 4, where Jesus reads this passage in your Bible here, you would notice this, which is when Jesus gets to Isaiah 61, verse 2, he says to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, but he stops before reading and the day of the vengeance of our God.
Speaker 2: Why did Jesus omit the day of vengeance?
Speaker 2: Is it because the Old Testament God is mean and just looking to ruin somebody's day, but the New Testament God has fluffy fingers and super kind?
Speaker 2: No, of course not, because Jesus himself actually talks a good bit about the day of vengeance and the idea of the year of the Lord's favor is from Leviticus 25.
Speaker 2: It's the Jubilee that we preached on a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2: So why omit that?
Speaker 2: Well, if you've ever been hiking, you might have known this experience of what's called a false summit.
Speaker 2: You're hiking and you can see the mountain and you're summiting that mountain and you only to find when you get to the top that you just summited not the highest peak, not the real summit, but what's called a false summit.
Speaker 2: You didn't really get there.
Speaker 2: Well, when Isaiah is looking into the future as what God has promised his purposes in the world.
Speaker 2: He sees these both the day of vengeance and the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 2: He just sees one summit.
Speaker 2: He doesn't realize that they're separated by a few thousand years.
Speaker 2: So when Jesus comes and he steps on the scene, he knows that in his first coming he's bringing the year of the Lord's favor, and he knows that in his second coming, a couple thousand years later, he is bringing the day of vengeance.
Speaker 2: And so the day of vengeance is still a future reality.
Speaker 2: We're not there yet.
Speaker 2: So where do we live now?
Speaker 2: We live now in what's called the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 2: That's today.
Speaker 2: That's where we are Now.
Speaker 2: It's important to note the day is coming when the steady, unrelenting, unremitting, uncompromising antagonism of God towards evil in all of its forms and manifestations, that day is coming.
Speaker 2: It's called the day of the vengeance of our God.
Speaker 2: It is coming.
Speaker 2: And it's important to know that, because Jesus isn't pretending that that's not a real thing.
Speaker 2: He's just saying I came first not to condemn the world, but so that the world might have life through me.
Speaker 2: And he extends open hands to all people everywhere in what is called the year of the Lord's favor that we live in right now.
Speaker 2: This is significant because what it means is that, as the year of the Lord's favor is contrasted with the day of the Lord, you can see that there's this difference between a long age of grace, a year of the Lord's favor, versus a sharp, decisive, momentary action where God will bring justice and judgment to bear.
Speaker 2: So if you belong to Jesus by faith, your day of vengeance has already come.
Speaker 2: What do I mean by that?
Speaker 2: Well, throughout the Gospel of John, jesus talks about his death on the cross as his hour.
Speaker 2: So now we've got three things We've got the year of the Lord's favor, the day of vengeance and Jesus' hour.
Speaker 2: How do these all work together?
Speaker 2: Well, jesus' hour on the cross is where the year of the Lord's favor is secured for all who trust in him, and the day of vengeance is born by him on our behalf.
Speaker 2: That's how they come together.
Speaker 2: So if you belong to Jesus by faith, your day of vengeance has already come 2,000 years ago on the cross of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: If you do not belong to Jesus, then listen, your day of vengeance is still ahead of you.
Speaker 2: But today is the day of salvation, today is the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 2: Today, the gracious arms of God are open wide to receive all who come to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Who is willing and ready to give freely and lavishly to all who come to him by faith alone.
Speaker 2: What does he have to give?
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse three.
Speaker 2: It says this in verse 3, 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.
Speaker 2: That's what Jesus has come to give.
Speaker 2: What's the result for these broken people?
Speaker 2: Look with me at continuing this verse that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
Speaker 2: You see, god gets glory out of giving you beauty.
Speaker 2: That's what's happening here Exchanging your ashes for beauty.
Speaker 2: God gets glory out of that.
Speaker 2: Saint Irenaeus said it like this who is a disciple of Polycarp, who is a disciple of the Apostle John, who is a disciple of Jesus.
Speaker 2: So this is only a few generations removed from Jesus himself.
Speaker 2: This is what Irenaeus said the glory of God is man fully alive.
Speaker 2: God's purpose in sending his son with his spirit is to make human beings fully alive.
Speaker 2: That actually brings him great glory.
Speaker 2: And so what happens when God's plan for broken people is to plant them as oaks of righteousness, so that people can give glory to God as they come under your shade.
Speaker 2: What happens to a city that becomes a forest planted with oaks of righteousness?
Speaker 2: What happens Well, that becomes a forest planted with oaks of righteousness?
Speaker 2: What happens Well?
Speaker 2: That's point two.
Speaker 2: Good news for broken cities.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse four.
Speaker 2: It says this they shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Speaker 2: Don't miss this.
Speaker 2: Pay close attention to the text here.
Speaker 2: It's so significant.
Speaker 2: While King Jesus is good news for broken people, those broken people become good news for their broken city.
Speaker 2: Do you see that If you look closely?
Speaker 2: I know you came here for English grammar, but I was an English teacher and so I'm going to bring you back to your school days.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 2: What is the antecedent to the pronoun they in verse 4?
Speaker 2: It's the brokenhearted, it's the captives, it's the prisoners, it's the mourners of verses 1 through 3.
Speaker 2: So let me say that differently.
Speaker 2: The gospel takes the broken and makes them whole.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because who better to build up the broken city?
Speaker 2: Who better to raise up the devastation?
Speaker 2: Who better to repair the ruins than those who were themselves broken, devastated and ruined but were repaired by the king.
Speaker 2: You see, many of you do good repair work in our city.
Speaker 2: You know, when we say you are sent at the end of the service, that you really are sent out into the city to do good work and good works, and you really care about Orlando and you're invested in our city.
Speaker 2: And so therefore, therefore, you know the two twin temptations of actually being about good work in your city, and those are triumphalism on one hand, and despair on the other hand, like if you're really about the mission of God in our city, which I hope you are increasingly.
Speaker 2: Triumphalism has you carrying yourself around going.
Speaker 2: I know what's best for this city.
Speaker 2: If only they knew what we knew, if only they had the truth, if only they knew what we knew, If only they had the truth, if only they knew the good news of Jesus.
Speaker 2: But despair, on the other hand, realizes that cities take a long time before they change.
Speaker 2: People take a long time before they change, and so you start feeling like giving up, and so you pendulum swing between triumphalism and despair.
Speaker 2: But only those who have experienced the repair of this king will be humbled out of their triumphalism and despair.
Speaker 2: But only those who have experienced the repair of this king will be humbled out of their triumphalism because they're aware of their own brokenness.
Speaker 2: But they will absolutely see the possibilities of repair because they know how they have been repaired.
Speaker 2: So they'll be set free from despair.
Speaker 2: You see, this is why God uses broken people made whole to repair broken cities.
Speaker 2: This is the good news.
Speaker 2: This is why we are called new city.
Speaker 2: We are a city within this city.
Speaker 2: We are made new to make our city new.
Speaker 2: This is our call.
Speaker 2: This is what Jesus is after.
Speaker 2: This is his mission statement, his role description.
Speaker 2: How does this work?
Speaker 2: How does this actually flesh out?
Speaker 2: Look at verse 6 with me.
Speaker 2: But you shall be called priests of the Lord.
Speaker 2: They shall speak of you.
Speaker 2: They being the outsiders, our neighbors, the nations.
Speaker 2: They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God.
Speaker 2: You have to understand priests had a dual role in the Bible.
Speaker 2: First, they ministered to God on behalf of the people and second, they ministered to the people on behalf of God.
Speaker 2: They were mediators in that sense.
Speaker 2: Now we know that Jesus Christ is the one true and only mediator between God and man.
Speaker 2: That's good news.
Speaker 2: That is the good news, but he has made his people a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood, if you will, and so what that means is that we come together here on Sundays and we minister to God in worship and in prayer, but then we're sent out into our city to minister to people in work and witness.
Speaker 2: This coming in and this going out, what we call gathered to be formed, or called to be formed and then formed to be sent this rhythm is really important to our mission in the city, and so, in the first, you have your face toward God but your back toward the people when you come here, but then you leave here Monday through Saturday, and you have your back toward God and your face toward the people, representing God on behalf of God, as representatives of God in our city, among your neighbors.
Speaker 2: This is the way this is meant to work.
Speaker 2: Now, on April 15th 2019, the world watched in horror as the church in Paris, notre Dame, was engulfed in flames and basically burnt to the ground, and it stood for about 800 years as this iconic emblem of faith and beauty and resilience in the center of a beautiful city until, in just hours, the entire structure was reduced to ashes.
Speaker 2: Well, it reopened about a week ago.
Speaker 2: It reopened because they pulled together a team.
Speaker 2: They hired a team that could, quote, build up the ancient ruins, that could raise up the former devastations, that could repair the ruins of the city, and what took 200 years to build was rebuilt in five and a half years.
Speaker 2: How?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Well, I watched a short little documentary on this.
Speaker 2: And they recruited this team of people who pulled together the best of ancient craftsmanship and the best of modern technology.
Speaker 2: They brought those things together in order to rebuild Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: Listen, this is the way that God plans to rebuild Orlando.
Speaker 2: He plans to rebuild Orlando by joining your modern work with his ancient ways, sending you out into the city as priests.
Speaker 2: And so what it means is that in your nine to five, you really are ministering to the Lord by building up Orlando.
Speaker 2: This is the way Colossians puts it.
Speaker 2: Colossians 3.23 says whatever you do, work heartily.
Speaker 2: As for the Lord, this is that ministry language, the priesthood language, and not for men Another way to say that is your priesthood is not within the walls of this building, but within the daily business of the world.
Speaker 2: That's your priesthood.
Speaker 2: That's what God has called you to do.
Speaker 2: He's called me and the other elders to equip you to do that.
Speaker 2: I'm not a priest any more than you are.
Speaker 2: I'm an equipper of the priests so that you can go out and beautify the city, but it also includes that you gather here for worship and are ministered to by the Lord, that he builds you up into a congregation, into a people set apart for his namesake, just as Christians have been doing for 2,000 years.
Speaker 2: And so priests need both worship and work.
Speaker 2: The Latin phrase is ora et labora prayer and work.
Speaker 2: This is what we need in order to be priests to the Lord in our city.
Speaker 2: This is how God is going to do and bring good news for the broken city.
Speaker 2: But how does he do that?
Speaker 2: How does Jesus turn broken people into good news?
Speaker 2: Well, one of my favorite phrases for the gospel is what's called the great exchange.
Speaker 2: Look with me at the text.
Speaker 2: Notice all the exchanges in this text.
Speaker 2: In fact, if you have a pen or a pencil and you don't mind doing this, underline every time the word instead shows up.
Speaker 2: Look at verse three.
Speaker 2: It says this 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 Instead.
Speaker 2: This is verse seven.
Speaker 2: Now, instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion.
Speaker 2: Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice.
Speaker 2: There's that word, joy again.
Speaker 2: But here's the question what happens to all the ashes, the mourning, the faint spirit, the shame, the dishonor?
Speaker 2: What happens to it all?
Speaker 2: Jesus takes it upon himself.
Speaker 2: Only a few chapters earlier, in Isaiah 53, it says earlier in Isaiah 53, it says surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, not his own, ours.
Speaker 2: This is the great exchange.
Speaker 2: He takes your brokenness and gives you his beauty.
Speaker 2: He takes your ashes and exchanges them for his glory.
Speaker 2: This is the way the gospel works, this great exchange.
Speaker 2: As he does this to us, jesus endures our shame and dishonor on the cross so that he can give you his glory and reputation.
Speaker 2: Hebrews 12 puts it like this Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy there's that word again who, for the joy that was before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the joy that was set before him.
Speaker 2: What was that joy?
Speaker 2: What was the joy set before him?
Speaker 2: Look again at Isaiah 61.7.
Speaker 2: It says this Jesus came to give you his very own joy, jesus, with his Father and the Holy Spirit, have lived in a communion of joy for an eternity past what you could call his everlasting joy.
Speaker 2: Psalm 1611 says In your presence there is fullness of joy.
Speaker 2: Jesus comes from that fullness of joy, that everlasting joy.
Speaker 2: He comes down and he exchanges all that gets in the way, all that hinders your joy, for all the joy that he has to give.
Speaker 2: That's why it's good news for broken people.
Speaker 2: That's why it's good news for a broken city.
Speaker 2: It's also why, in Proverbs 11 10, it says this when the righteous flourish, the city rejoices.
Speaker 2: You see, as Jesus gives his joy to broken people and those broken people go out into their city, they actually bring joy to that city.
Speaker 2: That's Jesus's mission statement.
Speaker 2: This is his role.
Speaker 2: Description this is what he's after in his work in the world.
Speaker 2: This is what Christmas is all about.
Speaker 2: Description this is what he's after in his work in the world.
Speaker 2: This is what Christmas is all about.
Speaker 2: Why did Jesus come?
Speaker 2: Isaiah 61.
Speaker 2: To bring good news to broken people and good news to broken cities, and finally, to bring good news to a broken world.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 8.
Speaker 2: It says this for I, the Lord, love justice.
Speaker 2: I hate robbery and wrong.
Speaker 2: I will faithfully give them their recompense.
Speaker 2: Go down a few verses.
Speaker 2: It says in verse 10, I will greatly rejoice there's that word joy again.
Speaker 2: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 2: My soul shall exalt in my God.
Speaker 2: If you read the scriptures, you'll notice something happens.
Speaker 2: Read the scriptures, you'll notice something happens.
Speaker 2: The Bible often links justice, judgment and joy, and I don't like it.
Speaker 2: In fact there's the famous Christmas hymn, joy to the World.
Speaker 2: Right, we sing that this time of year.
Speaker 2: It's built on Psalm 98.
Speaker 2: This is the way Psalm 98 ends.
Speaker 2: It says this quote let the rivers clap their hands, let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Here's the question.
Speaker 2: Why would the hills and the rivers and the hands?
Speaker 2: Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Here's the question.
Speaker 2: Why would the hills and the rivers, and the trees, and the rocks and the fish?
Speaker 2: Why is everybody freaking out with joy right now?
Speaker 2: Verse 9, for God comes to judge the earth.
Speaker 2: What it's like?
Speaker 2: A record scratch Like?
Speaker 2: That's why Not to bring salvation, not to bring plenty and shalom and abundance, because God comes to judge the earth.
Speaker 2: He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.
Speaker 2: But here's just a little Bible reading tip.
Speaker 2: When you find yourself offended by something in the scriptures, the Bible's not the problem.
Speaker 2: Okay, when you feel friction, just assume I must have some splinters that need to be smoothed a little bit, not the book, okay.
Speaker 2: So I try to lean in here and go okay, why is it that throughout the Bible, god's coming judgment is a source of joy, not just for people but for all of creation?
Speaker 2: Why, what's happening here?
Speaker 2: Well, god's coming judgment is a good thing.
Speaker 2: It's something that is to be celebrated and longed for and yearned for, because we live in a broken world.
Speaker 2: That's where my point is.
Speaker 2: We live in a broken world of injustice, and so the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are put firmly in their place and the poor are given what verse 8 calls their recompense, this is the best news that there can be.
Speaker 2: You see, when we're faced with a world of rebellion, a world of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment.
Speaker 2: There's no other options.
Speaker 2: How can the Lord love justice and allow so much injustice?
Speaker 2: How can the Lord hate robbery and wrong and turn a blind eye to it?
Speaker 2: It's not possible.
Speaker 2: Some of you may be tracking with this story, but on December 4th 2024, the UnitedHealthcare CEO, brian Thompson, was murdered, and the act was heinous in and of itself.
Speaker 2: But what?
Speaker 2: The response of the American people to the act was its own thing.
Speaker 2: It seemed to open the floodgates of deep-seated frustration, resentment, even rage, towards insurance companies, and so Thompson's murder.
Speaker 2: What it really revealed was a broken world, but a broken world that had this broader societal outrage because it's yearning for justice.
Speaker 2: And so, listen, in a secular world like we have what you could call imminent justice, in other words, there's no source of justice that transcends this world.
Speaker 2: In a secular world with imminent justice, you only hope for justice is to take it into your own hands.
Speaker 2: Might makes right.
Speaker 2: No other way but biblical justice, the justice that motivated the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2: In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, biblical justice is that the arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
Speaker 2: There's a hope for transcendence.
Speaker 2: There's a hope that there will come a judge that will bring wrongs and make them right.
Speaker 2: That's the hope of this text and why the Psalms rejoice in the coming judgment of God.
Speaker 2: And so what does it mean for us?
Speaker 2: It means that we can work for justice in just ways rather than in unjust ways, because we continue entrusting ourselves to him who judges justly.
Speaker 2: We know that the day of the vengeance of our Lord is coming, where all wrongs will be righted, and so we can rejoice even when we're wronged.
Speaker 2: This is why it is joy to the world that God will come to judge the world, but if God judges justly, where does he stop?
Speaker 2: In other words, will he only judge the systemic evils that modern social justice wants?
Speaker 2: Will he only come to judge corporate greed and human trafficking, exploitation, oppression things that God hates?
Speaker 2: Are these the only things that he'll come to judge, though, or will he judge personal evils and pet sins, things like greed, envy, lust, bitterness, pride, self-righteousness?
Speaker 2: Will he judge those things too?
Speaker 2: If so, what does that mean for us?
Speaker 2: Like, if God cannot be neutral towards evil and Jesus says if you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.
Speaker 2: Jesus called everybody evil in that moment.
Speaker 2: Okay, not me, it's the guy.
Speaker 2: What does that mean for us?
Speaker 2: What does it mean that God has a holy hostility towards all evil, in every form?
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: That he refuses to come to terms with evil or simply condone it.
Speaker 2: It's not possible for him because of his character.
Speaker 2: That is his just judgment.
Speaker 2: That is what we're rejoicing in and looking forward to.
Speaker 2: That is the hope for a broken world.
Speaker 2: But how can a broken world withstand the judgment of a judge who loves justice?
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 10 again.
Speaker 2: It says this I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 2: My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.
Speaker 2: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.
Speaker 2: That's important.
Speaker 2: That's important as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Speaker 2: For as the earth brings forth its sprouts and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord, god, will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Speaker 2: Somebody say double imputation, amazing, well done, okay, not a word you use very often.
Speaker 2: I know that, but it's an important theological word and this is why Verse 10 talks about a robe of righteousness.
Speaker 2: The theological term for this is what's called imputed righteousness.
Speaker 2: It's a righteousness that's not your own.
Speaker 2: It's what happens when the in Luke 15, when the young son comes back from the far country and he comes to his father and he's expecting rebuke.
Speaker 2: And what does he get?
Speaker 2: A robe thrown over his shoulders.
Speaker 2: Utter acceptance by grace.
Speaker 2: Nothing merited, nothing worthy in that young son.
Speaker 2: He just came home, that's it.
Speaker 2: And the father embraces him, kisses him, puts a ring on his finger and a robe of righteousness over his shoulders.
Speaker 2: That's called imputed righteousness in the Bible, not in the Bible, in theology.
Speaker 2: Why does this matter?
Speaker 2: Because the only hope that the world, a broken world, has to survive the judgment of God is if Jesus takes our wrongs and gives us his rights, is if Jesus takes our just judgment in our place, on our behalf, instead of us, and gives us his righteous acceptance.
Speaker 2: This is called imputed righteousness and it's good news for a broken world.
Speaker 2: But it's not the only thing the text says.
Speaker 2: The text also doesn't just talk about imputed righteousness, but what's called imparted righteousness.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 11.
Speaker 2: It says this the Lord, god, will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Speaker 2: Somebody say imparted righteousness.
Speaker 2: Amazing, you're so good at this, y'all, okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, not only are we declared righteous because of Jesus, but we actually slowly, progressively, become righteous by Jesus.
Speaker 2: This is really important.
Speaker 2: How does this happen.
Speaker 2: If you just run through this phrase in verse one the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and you run that phrase through the New Testament, you see this Jesus shares his spirit with his people.
Speaker 2: In Luke 3.22, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus that's the language upon him like a dove.
Speaker 2: In Luke 4.18, jesus quotes Isaiah 61.
Speaker 2: He says the spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Speaker 2: In Acts 1.8, it says this you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon me.
Speaker 2: In Acts 1.8, it says this you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
Speaker 2: So this Spirit of the Lord is not just upon Jesus, it's upon Jesus' people too, and it says that we will become his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.
Speaker 2: In other words, it's good news for a broken world, not just Orlando, but the world.
Speaker 2: You see, god has taken a broken people and he's made them whole, and then he's put his spirit not only upon them but within them, and he sent them out into a broken city in order to work with, from and for joy to the world.
Speaker 2: So as you go around our city, you get to share in the angel choruses and say I bring to you good news of great joy for all the people.
Speaker 2: Let's pray, spirit of the living God, come upon us even now.
Speaker 2: First draw our eyes to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Good news for broken people and then send us out of here to be a people that bring and are good news for a broken city.
Speaker 2: And let your church be those who do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because we know we have good news for a broken world.
Speaker 2: Help us to be that for your sake, lord Jesus.
Speaker 2: Amen.