I am not mad at you.
You probably knew that.
But I find myself having to say that a lot.
I hadn't planned on saying this.
It's because I wrestle with something called BRF syndrome.
I don't know if you know what that is.
You can look it up later.
It has something to do with my resting face.
Also, at times I can get pretty dour and sarcastic.
And that's a fault of mine.
It's a sin, really.
And the core group leaders experienced this a couple months ago.
Somebody asked me after a meeting with the core group leaders,
were you angry or sad or what?
I'm like, no, it was great.
It was fine.
But core group leaders, I apologize to you.
You need more than just that.
You need my encouragement.
I really love you guys and all you do.
But I'm not mad at you either.
Has anybody ever said, I'm not mad at you,
and that came as a big relief?
I think that's true for most of us, right?
Especially when they say, I'm not mad at you anymore.
I remember very distinctly a friend of mine saying that to me.
I was leading rehearsal.
This was about 12 years ago.
And I snapped at him.
And I didn't apologize afterwards.
And then I just let it go.
And it completely crushed him.
And over time, he removed himself from me and contacted with me.
And I gradually noticed it.
But by the time I really realized it, it felt like it was too late.
And I was really embarrassed by it.
And afraid, actually.
And I just hoped the whole thing would resolve itself on its own.
But surprise, it did not.
It remained bad.
And it got worse.
And I finally had to humble myself.
And I went to his house.
And I asked for his forgiveness.
And he explained how he had been hurt.
And he was right and was justified.
But then he said, Dan, I forgive you.
Completely.
It's as if it never happened.
And it made me want to tell others about it, too.
I went and told my wife.
I told my friends.
Like, look at this guy.
He just forgave me for this.
Just like that.
It was amazing.
And now I'm telling you about it.
Now, what if the person mad at you was not your friend, but somebody in a position of power or influence?
An elected official, a judge, the president, the king.
Or how about the creator of the universe?
What if it was God that was mad at you?
This is the position that the nation of Judah finds itself in, in Isaiah chapter 12.
It's the first text that we read tonight.
The nation of Judah is going to learn that God's not angry anymore.
And we're going to see that the removal of that wrath, or as theologians put it, the expiation of that wrath, brings four things.
It brings repentance.
It brings trust.
It brings joy.
And it brings mission.
But you know where we're going, right?
I mean, ultimately, we're not talking about Judah.
We're talking about us.
I'm talking about you.
Some of you have walked into this room tonight not quite sure of what God thinks of you.
Some of you, when you walked into the room, think that God is angry with you.
Or he's displeased.
Or that he has a frown on his face.
Or maybe he was okay when you walked in, but who knows what he'll be like tomorrow, the next time you screw up.
Some of you know how you screw up over and over, and you wonder, really, how can God love a person like me?
Now, how do I know this about you or us?
And it's because half the people that come into my office, half the people that I counsel, wrestle with this specific point.
They're unsure about this point, that God loves them and likes them.
And is completely pleased with them.
This is not a rebuke for them or for you.
This is going to be an invitation to receive the affection that God is already lavishing on you.
Now, some of you feel pretty confident that God likes you, but for some reason that doesn't make much of a difference.
Like, you wonder, where's the joy that I used to experience?
Or the confidence I used to know?
Friends, I'm here to tell you that if you're in Christ, God loves you.
He likes you.
He's crazy about you.
He really wants you to know that.
So let's pray and ask him for help, okay?
God, give us the power, together with all your holy people,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is your love.
For our good and for your glory.
Amen.
So let's take first a look at where we are in the Bible.
We're in the book of Isaiah.
The prophet Isaiah lived and worked in the nation of Judah during the 8th and 7th centuries BC.
He began working during the reign of Ahaz.
Ahaz was a pretty despicable king.
And he led his people into some detestable practices.
He shuttered up the temple.
He set up altars all over the country to worship other gods, pagan gods.
He even performed child sacrifices.
He burned his own sons to pagan gods as an offering.
During his reign, Judah was attacked on all sides.
And instead of going to God for help,
he pledged allegiance to Judah's biggest enemy,
the kingdom of Assyria.
And so God, through the prophet, speaks judgment on Ahaz and the kingdom of Judah.
Now this is chapter 6 through 12 that I'm talking about.
Now, as bad as it is,
because God is compassionate and he's merciful,
God continually promises restoration and hope in the midst of all these judgments.
And if you've been attending church for several years,
you may remember some of those promises.
We hear them during the season of Advent every year.
This promise is centered on a future king,
one who would be called a wonderful counselor,
mighty God,
everlasting father,
prince of peace.
The promises also describe a profound future peace that the king brings,
a peace which you also hear about during Advent,
when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together,
and the little child shall lead them.
Does that sound familiar?
That's Isaiah 11.
So after pronouncements of judgment and deliverance,
judgment and deliverance,
we arrive at chapter 12.
And verse 1 says,
you will say in that day,
and here the word you is singular.
So we often hear and read in the Bible
ourselves being addressed as you.
Usually it's in you plural, right?
God or the writers of Scripture are addressing you as a church.
But here's you singular.
So you are as free to be as individualistic with this verse as you'd like.
You will say on that day,
I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away that you might comfort me.
So where does that anger come from?
Well, it comes in a very different place.
It comes from a very different place
than, say, human anger would come.
See, when Isaiah is writing and speaking,
he's very concerned about the holiness of God.
He uses a title for God,
the Holy One of Israel,
25 times.
In the rest of the whole Old Testament,
you only find that seven times.
And in the beginning of this section,
in chapter 6,
Isaiah describes a vision he had
of God,
a king seated on a throne,
surrounded by
burning angels,
seraphim and cheraphim.
And they're crying out,
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of his glory.
God is so holy
that Isaiah can't even describe him.
All he can describe
is the hem of his robe.
And this is because holiness
means profoundly pure,
profoundly separate,
other.
This holiness
constitutes an awesome threat
to an unworthy,
careless,
rejecting,
and unresponsive people.
How does one
assuage
anger like that?
One doesn't.
It's the choice of God
to forgive
and to comfort.
The rest of the book of Isaiah
fleshes that out.
But this God
goes to great lengths
to deal with sin,
to reclaim the sinner,
to create a righteous people
for himself.
How does he do this?
Well, I think we need
to trace through Scripture
how God
deals with sin.
Okay?
We go to the book of Leviticus,
chapter 17,
and it says,
For the life of a creature
is in the blood.
And God says,
I have given it to you
to make atonement
for yourselves
on the altar.
It is the blood
that makes atonement
for one's life.
The New Testament
agrees with this.
In Hebrews,
chapter 9,
verse 22,
which says,
Indeed,
under the law,
almost everything
is purified with blood.
Without the shedding of blood,
there is no forgiveness
of sins.
So a question
to ask might be,
well,
if that's true,
then how many sacrifices
must be made?
I mean,
must I keep offering sacrifices
for every little sin
that I do?
And that's a great question.
And one of the prophets
actually asks
that question himself.
The prophet Micah,
he asks this,
with what shall I come
before the Lord
and bow myself
before God on high?
Shall I come before him
with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased
with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands
of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn
for my transgression,
the fruit of my body,
for the sin of my soul?
See, already that system
doesn't seem to be
making sense to him.
Right.
Because it's pointing
towards something else.
God goes to great lengths
to solve this dilemma.
He himself became
the perfect sacrifice
once for all
through the death
of his firstborn son,
Jesus Christ.
Hebrews chapter 10 says,
but when Christ had offered
for all time
a single sacrifice for sins,
he sat down
at the right hand of God
for by a single offering,
he has perfected
for all time
those who are being sanctified.
So it's done.
Sin is faced once for all
and then is cast
by the grace of God
into the depths of the sea.
And now we are at one
with Christ.
we are now brought
into union
with God's own son.
We share life with him.
And when God sees us,
he sees his son
on whom since eternity past,
he has lavished love,
affection,
praise,
and intimacy.
And now we get all of that.
Who wouldn't want that?
Who wouldn't want
the love of a father?
The affection of a father?
The praise of a father?
Intimacy with the father?
As Charles Spurgeon said,
God is so boundlessly pleased
with Jesus
that in him,
God is altogether
well pleased with us.
A catechism is a method
of teaching
through question and answer.
And there's one called
the Heidelberg Catechism.
It summarizes everything
we've just talked about
by asking,
how are you right with God?
You know,
I put this in the slides.
It's after all the scripture readings.
Is it up there?
Great.
Let's answer this together.
Church,
how are you right with God?
Only by true faith
in Jesus Christ,
even though my conscience
accuses me
of having grievously sinned
against all God's commandments
and of never having kept
any of them,
and even though
I am still inclined
toward all evil,
nevertheless,
without my deserving it at all,
out of sheer grace,
God grants and credits
to me
the perfect satisfaction,
righteousness,
and holiness of Christ
as if I had never sinned
nor been a sinner,
as if I had been
as perfectly obedient
as Christ was obedient for me.
All I need to do
is to accept this gift of God
with a believing heart.
That's it.
That's all.
Believe.
Friends, believe.
It makes the world of difference.
Believe.
Your Father loves you.
He's so crazy about you.
He wants to pour affection.
Just receive it.
What happens when we accept this gift?
What happens when we are made right with God?
Well, a lot.
But four things that we'll look at tonight.
Four things that we find here
in Isaiah chapter 12.
The first is repentance.
A regular turning away from sin.
And this is very important.
And it's not explicit here in the passage,
but it's strongly implicit.
Because this is how Old Testament prophecies work.
Old Testament prophecies are usually judgment
or they're,
excuse me,
they're judgment or they're blessing.
They're, yes.
Somebody help me out.
Now, most of the time,
there were contingencies on these
judgments or promises.
If God pronounced judgment on a nation
and the nation repents,
he would relent.
If God declared that a nation would prosper,
but the nation became wicked,
he would relent of the good
that he had intended for that nation.
And so this is why,
during the season of Advent,
repentance is emphasized.
We push repentance to a place of honor
at the table
in our worship together.
Waiting for God's deliverance
has always been accompanied by repentance.
Here's the key for us as the church.
If we are in Christ,
we will repent.
Because as Christians,
being in Christ,
it's in our DNA.
He tells us he will give us his Holy Spirit,
that he will write his law on our hearts.
But when we are made right with God,
we will live lives of repentance.
So second,
we learn to trust God alone.
So first is repentance,
second is trust.
Verse two says,
Behold, God is my salvation.
I will trust
and will not be afraid.
For the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he's become my salvation.
Now remember,
when Judah ran into trouble,
Judah sought help not from God,
but from the kingdom of Assyria.
It didn't work out for Judah.
Judah would remain a puppet state
of a greater power
until the end of its existence.
The consequences of trusting anyone
or anything besides God
are always disastrous.
Yet we're always drawn to trust something besides God
for comfort,
for a meaning,
for feeling alive.
For us,
those things tend to be power
or money
or order
or achievement.
For instance,
not long before the film director,
Sidney Pollack,
died,
there was an article written about
his inability to slow down
and enjoy his final years
with his loved ones.
Though he was unwell
and the grueling process of filmmaking
was wearing him down,
he couldn't justify his existence
if he stopped.
He explained,
every time I finish a picture,
I feel like I've done something
I'm supposed to do
in the sense
that I've earned my stay
here on earth
for yet another year.
And then it would start all over again.
Make a film,
work hard,
achieve,
earn another year on earth
until he died.
Now I think a lot of us
can relate to that, right?
Some of us,
we derive our sense of worth
in feeling right about a cause.
And you see that one
all the time nowadays, right?
It's not enough to have
a certain value,
but in a perverse way,
we're comforted from being outraged
when that value is transgressed.
Feeling right makes us feel righteous.
But for those on whom God
has lavished his approval
and affection,
God's approval is enough.
We don't have to feel right.
We don't even have to be right.
We don't have to chase
something else for comfort,
for meaning,
for contentment.
The third thing happens
when we are made right with God
is joy.
Joy is the evidence
of having been reconciled
with our Holy Father.
In verse 3,
Isaiah writes,
with joy you will draw water
from the well's salvation.
Now here he shifts
to the second person plural.
First it was singular,
now it's plural.
There's a joy that happens
when we gather together
as God's reconciled people
and declare the stories
of how God has rescued us
and redeemed us.
And you know this,
especially if you were here
two weeks ago
and saw the baptisms, right?
Who here either wept
or almost wept
when Ali was baptized
two weeks ago, right?
To see the water
pour down from his head,
down his face,
and onto his
very stylish shirt.
Who didn't get the chills
to hear Ali
declared our brother
and to see those babies
marked as God's own children?
There's a joy
that's infectious
when we gather together
to declare the praises
of the one who has saved us.
This is why the writer
of the Hebrews tells us,
let us consider
how to stir up one another
to love and good works,
not neglecting to meet together,
as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another
and all the more
as you see the day drawing near.
So repentance,
trust,
joy,
and fourthly,
that's a word, right?
Fourthly,
fourthly,
mission.
Come as a result
of being made right with God.
Verse four says,
and you will say in that day,
give thanks to the Lord,
call upon his name,
make known his deeds
among the peoples,
proclaim that his name
is exalted,
sing praises to the Lord,
for he has done gloriously.
Let this be made known
in all the earth.
Shout
and sing for joy,
O inhabitant of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel.
experiencing the radical,
extravagant love of Christ
compels to share it
with the world.
We do this all the time,
right,
when we find things beautiful.
A piece of music,
a movie,
a sunset,
a poem,
a vista,
a book,
an insane goal
by Lionel Messi.
We want to praise it
and we want to share that
with others,
right?
We experience this
every week
in our worship.
God gathers us in.
We declare his praises.
He feeds us
with his own word
and his own self.
And then he sends us out.
What do we hear
right before we leave?
Let us,
anybody know?
Let us go forth
into the,
yes,
let us go forth
into the world,
rejoicing in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks, Annika.
How can we declare
God's names
to peoples of the earth?
How can we make
that proclamation global
as Isaiah suggests?
Well,
for some of us
it might mean
going overseas,
right?
But I think
for most of us
it doesn't mean that.
It doesn't mean
we go overseas
and share the gospel
in a different language.
but we can still
support and strengthen
national churches
that are preaching
the gospel.
I think it's
really important now
more than ever.
Personally,
our family has a deep
heart for Europe.
We've long loved Europe
and it used to be
that the church
focused a lot
of its efforts
on the Middle East
and on Asia.
But now people
from those lands
are moving to Europe.
Now they're being forced
to move to Europe.
And the opportunity
to preach the gospel
to them is greater
than it's ever
been before.
So another thing
you can do
and this is what
my family did
and this is
we moved to
Washington, D.C.
You're already here
and you can stay.
You can stay in D.C.
Stay here.
Join a core group.
Love the city
long term.
Work for its prosperity
long term.
The nations are here
in Washington, D.C.
The opportunities here
are boundless.
This is why we came.
This is why we love D.C.
And why we love to be
a part of this church.
So,
let's review.
Because we've been
reconciled with God.
We repent.
We have trust.
We have joy.
We're sent on mission.
There was a sci-fi TV show
back in 2002
called Firefly.
It was canceled
after only 14 episodes
fueling the ire
from those fans
that believed it
to be the best TV show
of all time.
Not necessarily
one of those persons.
Now,
realizing
an opportunity,
this show
was made
into
a motion picture
and
it was called
Serenity
and geeks
everywhere rejoiced.
Now,
some of these
passionate fans
call themselves
brown coats.
I won't bore you
with the details
from the show
explaining why
they call themselves this
but needless to say
they wore brown coats.
the premiere
came
and on opening night
all over the country
the brown coats
came out.
And they didn't just
go to see the movie.
They bought extra tickets.
They would walk
around the mall
in their brown coats
and they would pass out
tickets to strangers.
This was
their enthusiasm
for this film.
How much more?
How so much more?
I'm not trying
to reduce
the story of redemption
to a sci-fi film.
How much more
should we tell others
about what we've received?
Right?
What we've experienced
in Christ.
A story.
A beautiful story.
The story of God
redeeming
and reconciling
the world to himself.
This God
gives us
clothes to wear
the robes of righteousness
that belong
to his own son.
And in Christ
God delights in us
and lavishes us
with love
and calls us
his beloved
sons and daughters.
In the name
of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Father,
what a joy
to know
that you have
forever forgotten
our sins
cast them
forever
deep into the ocean.
You will never
deal with us
according to our sins
or reward us
according to our iniquities.
For on the cross
you dealt with Jesus
according to our sins
and rewarded him
according to our iniquities.
Father,
thank you for such
a lavish salvation.
Rescue us
in those delusional moments
when we forget
your forgetfulness.
When we begin acting
as though Jesus'
sacrifice for our sins
wasn't enough.
When we think
there's something more
we can do
to gain your acceptance
and curry your favor.
When we hear
the accusations
of Satan
more clearly
than your rejoicing
over us
with singing.
So banner over us
in love
because Jesus'
words to us
are it is finished.
So with great peace
and fresh gratitude
we pray in his name.
Amen.