Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, this morning we come to you with complete confidence in your character,
! in your sufficiency, in the word that you've given to us, in the indwelling spirit in the
promises that you have given to us that hold us and strengthen us in the moments of challenge
and darkness.
And I, along with this dear people, trust you and call upon your name to make your word
clear, convicting, strengthening, and Christ-exalting.
We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
I'd like you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Isaiah chapter 60.
By way of explanation, a reminder that the purpose of preaching is rooted in the great responsibility
of making the word of God clear.
Doing so through the power of the Spirit of God for the glory of Christ.
And I read that to you not just to kind of give an introductory statement, but to tell
you right up front what I'm here to do.
My desire is to lift up Jesus and do so clearly that you walk out of here with confidence and
abiding trust in His finished work on the cross.
Saturday.
And I have been making numerous trips to Home Depot.
Some of you know that I'm a permanent remodeler.
When I die, I'm going to the place that's finished and somebody else did the work.
And I got to tell you, I like that idea.
But I am checking out.
One young guy says to me, how are you doing?
You know what I said, right?
Any better than I'd be dead.
Guy got this really quizzical look on his face.
He's like, are you saying that, let me see, are you glad you're not dead?
I said, well, yeah, I was okay.
But I said, that's not what I said.
What I said is, any better than I'd be dead.
That just took it further into the dark.
I mean, what do you mean?
I said, well, the truth of the matter is, is when I die, I'm going to heaven and I'm going
to see Jesus.
And today doesn't compare with that time.
And, you know, the reason I could say that with absolute confidence, do you understand
that?
Real confidence is because the God who is my Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus, who is my
Redeemer, keeps every one of His promises.
He makes a promise.
Now, by the way, you have to parse the fact that He doesn't make all the promises to the
same people exactly the right.
But when He makes a promise to me, He keeps it.
His unconditional promises, I rest on.
I rest on.
And I have confidence in.
And that's the reason that Saturday when I was speaking to the young man there, I could
say, any better than I'd be dead.
Because when I die and I leave this place, I am going to see the Lord Jesus face to face
and I will delight myself in His presence beyond my present imagination.
And when we come to Isaiah chapter 60, we're looking at a compressed portion of text that tells us about our promise
keeping God.
I admit that one of the challenges of interpreting the book of Isaiah is dealing with the question of what happens to the nation of Israel
and does God actually keep His promises to Abraham and to the people that He promised the things that we read of so often in the Old Testament.
And so as we step into this passage, I want to kind of bring together, first of all, kind of the overview of the ugly reality of the nation of Israel's difficulties and hardness.
How many of you have ever read through the book of Judges and thought to yourself,
really?
Or just try this.
You've worked your way through the care that God gave to the nation of Israel after He brought them out of the land of Egypt.
Remember how willing they were to obey Him in everything and how enthusiastic they were in following God and just really tender hearts towards God.
Isn't that right?
No.
And you think to yourself, how in the world could God put up with them?
Until you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror and think, I'm really glad.
You know, He was faithful to them.
I can trust Him to be faithful to me.
And Isaiah gives us a reason to have confidence in our promise-keeping God.
Now, I want you to, by way of background, take a look at the point of hope for Israel by turning back just for a moment to Isaiah chapter 59.
You're there in 60.
You don't have to go very far back.
But look at Isaiah 59, verse 20 and 21.
Now, stop and think with me just for a moment.
about what we've learned so far in the book of Isaiah, namely in relationship to His prophetic utterances to the land of Israel, to the nation of Israel.
What kind of people populated that land?
A pretty disobedient, hard-headed group.
Isn't that right?
And He had every reason to deal with them.
And eventually, He dealt with them with unbelievable firmness.
And He sent them off into the land of captivity.
And He was very firm in His discipline with them.
But here are promises made.
A Redeemer will come to Zion and to those in Jacob who turned from transgression.
There is something that's going to happen that is supernatural and something that is not earned or deserved.
God's going to do something.
And when you stop and think about it, when you think about the word Redeemer,
you're recognizing that it suggests to us that there's somebody who's in a mess and needs help.
A Redeemer is someone who rescues.
A Redeemer is someone who delivers.
A Redeemer is someone who comes into the picture when all is lost and there's nothing that you can lean upon.
And then the Redeemer arrives.
The value of a Redeemer is not seen when everything is going well and there are no difficulties.
The value of the Redeemer is seen in brokenness and in heartache and in difficulty.
So here, at the cusp of the change between the history of Israel and the promises of God,
we find here that this nation which had drifted away into idolatry
and who had endured the firm judgment of God,
nevertheless is given this promise and this hope that there will be a day
when God will do something spectacular for His people and according to His promise.
So here we have, we know, we know God will not break His promises.
And that's kind of an underlying theme that I want you to hold on to this morning.
And really it's something that when you walk out of here,
if you are here this morning and you are a believer,
one of the things that should be an abiding confidence to you
and an encouragement to your soul is this,
is the one who has redeemed you is going to keep His promises.
He's not going to break them.
I was thinking of illustration of dealing with little kids
and one of the things I have a tendency to do,
putting out my hand and they smack my hand and they smack my hand and they smack.
What do I do eventually?
Pastor Andrew, you've got a good spirit.
I like that.
He's a little bit of a tease.
I can tell that.
He's tamped down because he's going to be a senior pastor in a couple months here.
But, you know, you let him hit it three or four times and then what do you do?
Atticus, you're right.
You pull it away.
Okay.
Ah!
God never does that to us.
Do you understand that?
When He makes a promise, He follows through with it.
He doesn't mess with us ever.
Now, by the way, a little sidebar on that
is that God's promises to His children are that He will get you home.
You like that, don't you?
But a little part of that promise is that He'll get you home
if He has to put the hurt to you to get your attention.
You don't realize that sometimes, but if you're sitting here
and you're a child of God and you drift left of center,
trust me, He'll work to help you.
And so my advice to you, kind of a little note on the side, is don't mess.
Trust His promises and follow His Word.
Walk in obedience and humility and don't mess things up.
And the reason I bring that to you is because Israel had struggled
with obedience and trust, and they brought a lot of heartache
into their lives.
God dropped the hammer on them, and yet here,
He is letting them know that He will redeem them.
It's interesting to notice that this passage, actually,
that I read there in Isaiah chapter 59,
appears elsewhere in the Scriptures.
And so I want you to...we'll be there for a while.
So go ahead and turn to Romans chapter 12.
Romans chapter 12.
By the way, when you find a passage being recited in another place in the Bible,
it's an indication that the previous passage has bearing on the argument
or the case that is being presented in the next passage.
And so we're in Romans chapter...did I say 12?
I meant 11.
Romans chapter 11, verse 26 and 27.
Let me read it to you.
And in this way, all Israel will be saved as it is written.
And what you find next is the very passage out of Isaiah chapter 59.
The deliverer will come from Zion.
He will banish ungodliness from Jacob.
And this will be my covenant with them,
that I will take away their sins.
The larger context of the ministry that Isaiah had prophetically.
Now, it is important for us to recognize that when Paul recited this passage from Isaiah,
he had a reason for doing it.
The book of Romans is a book that lays out God's glory in salvation.
And the starting point of helping us realize God's glory in salvation
is the recognition of the absolute darkness and depravity of our hearts.
Do you realize that?
People don't get saved without coming to grips with the darkness of their soul.
And that's one of the reasons that you have the first three chapters of Romans
argue very clearly for the reality of the hardness and darkness of men's souls
so that they can hear also the message of salvation in Christ.
You work your way through the book of Romans,
and after Romans chapter 8, it begins now with this statement,
there is now therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Isn't that right?
Hey, if you're saved, the case is closed.
It's done.
In the court of heaven, you are redeemed for all eternity,
and you can look forward to the day that you're going to see him face to face.
The argument also follows on, and beginning there in Romans chapter 8, verse 28,
it says what?
All things work together.
How many of you are going through things that you're wondering,
is this good?
Is this good?
Yeah.
It says all things work together for good to those that are called according to his purpose
and those that love God or are loved by him.
So here we have this ongoing argument.
God saves us.
He grants us the blessing of peace with him,
and he will never stop loving us.
Why don't you think about that?
God will never change his mind in relationship to you who have been called by him and loved by him.
That's a pretty neat promise, isn't it?
But when you think about that, the very next thought that you have to ask yourself is,
really?
Paul takes three chapters to prove the unconditional, unchangeable love of God,
and he does so by bringing your attention to the nation of Israel.
What?
You really don't change your mind?
You really continue loving people like them, like me?
Three chapters give us a picture of God's love for the nation of Israel,
and what you find in Romans 9, 10, and 11 is this clear argument
that our confidence in our salvation can rest in the sovereign faithfulness of God to the nation.
Paul takes great pains to show us that though God has dealt with the nation of Israel
and with their rebellious heart incredibly firmly,
nevertheless, he's going to keep his promises and are going to redeem them.
Now, with that in mind,
I want you to next look at a promise that was made to Abraham
that we actually find over in Isaiah being fulfilled,
and in Genesis chapter 12,
I want you to mark the very first promise made in relationship to the nation of Israel.
Now, here, follow me.
Why is it important to track the promises of God?
Why is it?
Because we find ourselves in a regular situation where we wonder,
is God a promise-keeping God?
Is this going to work out well?
Well, every one of us here,
struggling with adversity and hardship and difficulty,
and life is not the way we would like it.
But do we know how the story ends?
I believe we do because of who God is
and because of the promises that he's made.
So in Genesis chapter 12,
I want you to mark the promise that God made to Abraham.
By the way, how did Abraham start out?
Does anybody know?
Hey, listen up.
He was a really neat guy.
He just, he had a heart for God.
He was just all over being spiritual.
Is that the truth?
He was just an ordinary pagan,
and God called him.
And so here, we work our way through the story,
and in Genesis chapter 12, it says,
Now the Lord said to Abraham,
Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house
to the land that I will show you,
and I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you and make your name great
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and him who dishonors you I will curse,
and in you all the families of the earth
shall be blessed.
I want you to recognize here in these promises
that is made to Abraham,
they kind of break down into three different parts
that I want you to recognize.
Number one, God promised a land
to the descendants of Abraham.
This promise is explained more completely
in Genesis chapter 15.
We're not going to look at it in detail,
but recognize that in Genesis chapter 15,
the boundaries of the land
that God said he would give to Abraham
are clearly stipulated.
You can Google it,
and you can check and say,
Hey, what is the land that God promised?
What are the boundaries of that?
And you'll get an idea of it.
Incidentally,
the covenant that God made with Abraham
was not conditional.
It was unconditional.
Let me make a distinction
so you follow along with me here.
A conditional contract or a covenant
is a little bit like the one you make
with your mortgage company.
What's that contract like?
You make a covenant.
Hey, I get to live in this house,
but I have to make monthly payments.
What happens if you stop making monthly payments?
Eventually, they invite you to leave.
And if you don't leave under invitation,
they will help you by moving your stuff out
and setting it on the street
or on the curb.
Got that?
Same thing with a car.
They say,
You can buy that car.
You make X number of dollar monthly payment,
and what happens if you don't make the payment?
I was driving through my neighborhood a little while back,
and I saw this guy working his truck up to the car
that was sitting on the curb.
And I noticed that he was a little nervous about doing it,
and I actually,
being a conversationalist that I am,
I said,
Hey, what are you doing?
He said,
Well, I'm picking up this car.
I said,
Is there something wrong with it?
He says,
No, they just didn't make the payments.
Ah.
That's a conditional covenant.
You keep your part.
I'll keep my part.
An unconditional covenant is one in which
there's no two parties agreeing to everything.
There's one party that says,
I'm going to do this.
Let me give you an illustration of an unconditional covenant.
Here's what I said to my wife.
I'm 48 years ago almost.
Yeah, 48.
I said,
I will love you in sickness and in health
until death do us part.
That's unconditional.
There's no qualifier in it.
I'll love you so long as you love me
and you bring me breakfast in bed and blah, blah, blah.
You know, no.
This is me.
I'm doing it.
And here is God saying to Abraham,
Genesis chapter 12,
I am going to keep my promise to you
and I'm going to give you a land.
Has this promise been met completely?
Not yet.
Number two,
God also promised a nation to Abraham.
Going back there,
verse two,
I will make of you a great nation.
By the way,
Abraham at that point was 75.
Now, I'm not going to get into biology,
but 75 is kind of stretching it
for being a daddy.
And here is God saying to Abraham,
who had been childless for all these years,
many years,
someday you're going to be a great nation.
His answer was,
yeah, right, really?
Where's the start to all of this?
And yet we find that God kept his promise
and made a great nation of Abraham
and his offspring spread all over the world.
Furthermore, God promised that all the nations of the earth
would be blessed through God's blessing to Abraham.
How was that?
How is that?
Well, to help you think it through in broad terms,
you understand that it was through the seed of Abraham
that God brought David
and brought ultimately our Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He came through Abraham's line.
And so here we have,
and I want you to see the picture,
against the backdrop of the ugliness
of the absolute spiritual failure of Israel
God says to his people that he is chastising
and he's disciplining,
I am going to keep my promise.
I remind you,
the promises of God
are cast in particularly neat light
against the backdrop
of some of the hardest moments of our life.
Do you understand that?
I want to say that to you
who are sitting here today
and your life is marked by difficulty
and hardship
and things you didn't choose.
I encourage you to know this.
God's promises are most precious
against the backdrop of the hardship you're in.
And I want to remind you
that if he keeps his promise to the nation of Israel,
he'll keep his promise to you.
So here we are.
God says,
you're going to have a land,
you're going to have children,
and you are going to be a blessing to other people.
And the full range of God's promise to Abraham
is yet to be fulfilled.
But do we believe that God is going to keep his promise?
Absolutely.
And it is because of that
that we kind of step in now
to the broad picture of Isaiah chapter 60,
and I want you to look at the future blessings
to the nation of Israel.
You look there at Isaiah chapter 60,
and we're not going to read all through the passage,
but in Isaiah chapter 60,
beginning there in verse 1 and 2,
it says,
Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
I want you to recognize
as you work your way through that,
look at verse 4,
What is God saying to the nation here?
And this is Isaiah making a promise
to a group of people
that are going to suffer great hardship.
He says,
I want you to understand
that the day is coming
that God is going to fulfill his promises to Abraham,
and he's going to bless you.
How?
He is going to gather
the dispersed people
that he drove out
because of the rebellion of their hearts.
He's going to bring them back together again.
God drove them from the land
because of discipline.
He will regather them
as a people
from every corner of the world.
That has happened only in part,
and it will happen in its entirety,
and in doing so,
people are going to look at this and say,
Wow, this is God doing something
unbelievable,
and he's doing it
according to his promise.
Why could I say
to the man in Home Depot,
My end is going to be better
than the present?
It's because I know
God keeps his promises.
And here we are being reminded,
God says,
Listen,
there will be a regathering
of these dispersed people
wherever they've been sent to.
I'll bring them back.
Secondly,
you look there in verse 9.
It says,
For the coastlands shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the Lord your God
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has made you beautiful.
There will be a rejoicing
in God's care for his people.
Not only is he going to bring them back,
but there are going to be people
that rejoice together
in the reality that he keeps his promises.
What value is it
that God keeps his promises
to other people?
Do you benefit from that?
Yes.
How do you benefit?
Because you have assurance
that if he did it for them,
he will do it for you.
I think about the song
that we probably don't sing
very often anymore.
It is no secret what God can do,
what he's done for others.
He'll do for you.
And God, keeping his promise
to the nation of Israel,
reminds me that he will also
keep his promise to me.
He is going to fulfill his promises.
He is not going to back away
from bringing blessing to me,
despite the hardness of my heart
and the similarity I have
between my life and pattern
and the life of the nation of Israel.
Furthermore, I want you to recognize
in the passage
that the nation will honor God
by delighting in his work
for his people.
Mark what we find there
in Isaiah chapter 60,
looking at verse 19 through 21.
Isaiah chapter 16,
verse 19 through 21.
The sun shall be no more,
your light by day,
nor for brightness
shall the moon give you light,
but the Lord will be
your everlasting light
and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down,
nor your moon withdraw itself,
for the Lord will be
your everlasting light
and your days of mourning
shall be ended.
Your people shall all be righteous.
They shall possess the land forever,
the branch of my planting,
the work of my hands,
that I might be glorified.
And what will the response
of others be
when they see the hand of God
in the life of his people?
They are going to rejoice.
They're going to mark the success
and the certainty of God
who keeps his promises,
and they're going to find pleasure
and satisfaction in it.
I want you to turn
over to Revelation
and see what the future
is going to be
according to the promises
of Scripture.
Go in your Bible
to Revelation chapter 21,
verse 23.
Revelation chapter 21,
verse 23.
There in Isaiah chapter 60,
we have this assurance
that God will keep
his promises to his people.
In Revelation chapter 21,
we find out what that future
is going to be.
And mark what we read there
in verse 23.
And the city has no need
of sun or moon
to shine on it,
for the glory of God
gives its light,
and its lamp is the Lamb.
By its lights
will nations walk,
and the kings of the earth
will bring their glory into it,
and its gates will never be shut
by day,
and there will be no night there.
They will bring into it
the glory and the honor
of the nations.
What's the future
going to be like?
Stop and think with me
just for a moment
of how messy the day is
that we live in.
How unbelievably tense,
marked by turmoil.
Everywhere you turn,
you see good reason
to be reasonably anxiety,
or have a reasonable anxiety,
with the messiness of life.
Our government is not
what you'd like.
Am I right?
The neighborhoods
that you live in
are not as safe
as you'd like.
The job that you have,
it's not as certain
as you'd like.
The health that you enjoy
is not what you hope.
And everywhere we live,
relationships,
a struggle.
Well, guess what?
The day is coming
when we will enjoy
the fulfilled promises of God
in every aspect of our life,
and one of the proofs of that
is what God did
and is doing
for the nation of Israel.
You mark there
of how this story ends
in Revelation,
but I want you to turn
to another passage
to see a better picture
of the promises God made
to the nation of Israel
in particular.
Go over to Jeremiah chapter 31.
Jeremiah chapter 31.
If you're in Isaiah,
just kind of cut forward
a little bit
and go to Isaiah chapter 31
or Jeremiah 31.
Let me remind you of something.
We had communion.
Was it last week, Pastor?
Yes, it was, right?
Yeah.
And if you're looking
at the passage
in 1 Corinthians 11,
Jesus speaks of the new covenant,
right?
This cup is the new covenant
in my blood.
What is the new covenant?
Remember, covenant is a promise.
Basically, there are two kinds
of promises.
There's promises in which you agree
and somebody else agrees,
or there's an unconditional covenant.
I want you to look at Isaiah
or Jeremiah chapter 31
and go to 31 through 34.
Behold, the days are coming,
declares the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah,
not like the covenant
that I made with their fathers
on the day
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out
of the land of Egypt,
my covenant that they broke,
though I was their husband,
declares the Lord.
Now stop for a moment.
God says the new covenant
is going to be different
than that covenant.
That covenant is one
that they failed to keep.
A reminder.
After God gave the Ten Commandments
to the nation of Israel,
if you were to go back
into the book of Exodus,
you would find there
that after Moses read the covenant
and the sacrifice was made,
here's what the nation of Israel said.
All that you have said,
we will do.
How'd that go?
You read through the Pentateuch
and you think,
I can't believe it.
I mean, you stop and think about it.
Every morning when an Israelite got up,
he had food that came from where?
Heaven.
And every morning when he got up,
he saw that there was a pillar of cloud
or there was a cloud over the tabernacle
or there was a pillar of fire by night.
Do you think they had any doubt
who was in charge
and who was leading them?
No.
And yet,
in their stubborn,
dark hearts,
they kept on rebelling
and God kept on caring for them.
So here we are.
Jeremiah,
I'm going to make a different covenant with you.
And in verse 33,
this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days,
declares the Lord.
I will put my law within them
and I will write it on their hearts
and I will be their God
and they will be my people.
Periodically,
I end up in conversation with people
who make professions of faith,
but they really have no evidence of faith.
Do you follow what I'm talking about?
I mean,
it's still moderately popular to say,
yes, I'm a believer,
I'm a believer.
But the truth of the matter is,
there's no evidence.
This passage is indicating
that one of the genuine characteristics
of a person who is a believer
is a connection with the Word of God.
There's an affection,
not always,
but there is,
remember it says,
as newborn babes desiring
the sincere milk of the Word.
One of the things that I get into
when I'm talking to a person
about the authenticity of their faith
is,
question is,
has there ever been a time
when you were actually
genuinely interested in the Word?
You were encouraged by it,
you were strengthened by it,
you were convicted by it,
you were connected to it.
You know,
it's one thing to read a letter
from somebody you don't care.
It's another thing to read a letter
from someone you really love.
Years ago when we had a Christian school here,
I remember walking across the,
between the two buildings
and finding a note folded up real small.
Now,
being a person who grew up in boarding school,
there was a lot of a perverse curiosity in me,
so I opened it up.
Oh,
it was drippy.
It was,
it was as sappy a note
as I've read in some time.
Of course,
I haven't read many of those
for a long time,
but,
but I remember reading it
and so,
I had the nerve
to take it to the young man
and say,
hey,
this probably belongs to you
because your name's on it.
when I read the letter,
it didn't mean a thing to me.
He turned all colors of red,
you know,
it was like,
but it meant a lot to him.
So,
coming back,
here's God.
Look at the passage.
He says,
here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to put my law within you
and I'm going to write it on your hearts.
Are there any of you here
that have ever memorized Bible verses
and they didn't mean a thing to you?
You were just doing it
because you wanted to play games
in Awana
or,
you know,
you got a prize in VBS
or something like that,
but,
but then,
then,
there have been those moments
where,
where adversity and hardship
has just brought you
brokenhearted to God
and the word has touched
and encouraged your heart
and lifted you up
and it's found a place
and it's been revival
and encouragement,
right?
God says,
hey,
this is what I'm going to do
and here he is
talking to a people
who he gave him the word
and it just didn't connect
and he says,
here's what I'm going to do.
You don't need to worry about,
I'm going to drive that business home.
I'm going to get the word in your life,
okay?
And verse 34,
and no longer shall each one
teach his neighbor
and each his brother
saying,
know the Lord
for they'll know me.
from the least of them
to the greatest
and then mark the last part
for I will forgive
their iniquity
and I will remember
their sins
no more.
I have been reading
through the scriptures
and
I'm in the Psalms
right now
and one of the things
that I've been
kind of struck by
is
the psalmist
talking about
the sins of youth,
okay?
Forgive the sins
of my youth.
Don't remember
my sins
from my youth
and
boy,
I don't know
how many of you
kind of think back
and some of you
are fairly young
are still in that youth part
and are kind of
stacking up the crowd
or the tally
but some of you
are older
and you can remember
oh,
that wasn't smart.
That was wicked.
I mean,
yeah.
Here is God
saying to his people,
look at that passage again,
I will forgive
their iniquity
and I will remember
their sin
no more.
one of the
undeniable pleasures,
pleasure that I have
in talking to people
about the Lord Jesus
is I can look them
in the eye
and I can tell them this,
I know
the one
who can forgive
all of your sins
and take away
the shame
and guilt
of the darkness
of your heart.
You ever laid awake
at night
feeling bad
about something?
A lie you told?
Something you stole?
A gross dishonesty?
Manipulating someone else
and taking something
from them?
Immorality?
And the burden
of that darkness
just eats away
at your heart
at night
and there really
seems to be
no recovery.
You know what it says
in the Bible?
I will forgive
all your sins.
I will take away
that burden
and that sin.
And here we are
understanding
that God
made promises
to the nation
of Israel
and God
is going
to keep them.
Now his
unconditional covenant
to Abraham
and to the nation
of Israel
gives us
confidence
in his
unconditional
covenant
with us.
We are a people
that do believe
in salvation
being something
that when we are
saved
we don't have to
sit in constant
anxiety
about whether or not
we're going to
make it home.
I bump into people
periodically
and you know
hey
if you were to
die tonight
and God
were to ask you
why he should
let you into
heaven
what would you
say?
Well I don't
know.
I'm trying
the best I can.
Have you ever
heard that answer?
I'm trying
the best I can.
Well I am
thankful
that my
getting home
does not
have anything
to do
with me
trying the
best I can.
My confidence
rests
in the finished
work of Christ
not in mine.
And Jeremiah
reminds me
of that
work of God.
Let me bring
you to the
last part
that I want
you to see.
Go back
to Isaiah
chapter 60
and see the
blessing to
the nations.
Do other
people get
blessed
when Israel
is blessed?
Well
God told
Abraham that
that's the way
it would work.
work.
Incidentally
as a
corollary
to that
over in
2 Corinthians
and we're
just kind
of a
sidebar
here for
a moment
but in
2 Corinthians
chapter 1
verse 4
it tells
me
that the
blessings
I've
received
in part
are to
play out
into the
lives
of other
people.
Isn't
that right?
And so
we look
at
Isaiah
chapter 60
and look
at verse
2 and
3.
The latter
part of
2 it
says
but the
Lord will
arise upon
you and
his glory
will be
seen upon
you and
nations will
come to
your light
and kings
to the
brightness
of your
rising.
Think
back with
me again
to the
promise that
God made
to Abraham
through you
all the
nations of
the earth
will be
blessed.
I'm going
to make
you a
great nation
and I'm
going to
bless you
and I'm
going to
make your
name
great
and all
the families
of the
earth will
be blessed
through you.
Now
do you see
the similarity?
God made
a promise
to Abraham
that all
the nations
of the
earth would
be blessed
through his
offspring
and that
promise has
had partial
fulfillment
in the coming
of our
Christ who
died and
rose again
to be the
savior of
all who
trust in
him by
faith.
But there
still is a
portion of
the promises
that are yet
to be realized
and that is
in the eternal
reign of
Christ over
all the
earth.
I listen
to our
songs and I
think about
the things we
sing about
Jesus being
king.
The day is
coming that
he will reign
over all the
earth and he
will reign for
all eternity.
I am
thankful that
I see less
on Facebook
today about
politics.
I'm not sure
it's just
because I've
excluded people
that are
obsessive about
it.
But you know
I can only
take so
much.
It does
make me
kind of
think forward
I am
looking forward
to the day
that Jesus
is in
charge.
And that's
going to be
wonderful.
And so you
look here in
the reality
of the fact
and you
realize that
the promise
that God
made to
Abraham has
had partial
fulfillment in
the coming of
our Savior.
But the
promise of
blessing will
be completed
in the
eternal reign
of Christ.
Are you
looking forward
to that?
Are you
longing for
his coming?
Are you
anticipating it?
How many of
you know what
Maranatha
means?
It does
not.
It's not
pronounced
Marantha.
In the
old days
when we
had a
school I
used to
just die
when they
would go
on the
radio and
they'd go
on the
TV and
say Marantha
Christian
school.
But anyway
I stopped
trying to
correct people.
Hey it's
good.
Works for
you.
How do
you spell
it?
Do you
know what
it means?
Our
Lord's
coming.
It is to
be something
that
characterizes
the heart
of the
believer.
I'm
looking forward
to it.
Why?
Because for
one I'm
going to
see him.
For two I'm
going to be
like him.
And third I
am going to
enjoy his
perfect reign
over all
all the
kingdoms of
the earth and
over all of
creation for
all of
eternity.
That's the
way I'd
like every
person's
story to
end.
Do you
understand
that point?
But the
truth of
the matter
is all
of eternity
will be
spent in
one of
two
conditions.
Those who
have come
in humility
and brokenness
confessing their
sins and
believing in
the finished
work of
Christ will
spend eternity
with him.
That's good.
If you were to
go back to the
book of
Revelation and
you don't need
to go there
this morning you
will find that
there is another
part to it.
Those who
refuse the
offer of
salvation through
the finished
work of
Christ will
spend all of
eternity in
hell suffering
forever for
their rebellious
and hardened
hearts.
And when's
the time to
come to grips
with that?
Now,
now,
and so I
would appeal
to you if you
are here this
morning and
don't know the
Lord Jesus
Christ as your
Savior,
don't walk out
of here saying
well there will
be another day
because you
don't know
that.
The fact of
the matter is
is Christ
Jesus came
into the
world to
save sinners
and if you
are here and
you sense the
burden of your
heart and you
realize that the
darkness of your
soul is not
something that
you can solve,
I would plead
with you,
trust in the
Lord Jesus
Christ in whom
alone is
salvation.
Let's close
in prayer.
Father God,
I'm thankful
that you keep
promises.
You have
promised to
bless.
You have
promised also
to judge.
and this
morning you
offer the
gift of
salvation to
all who will
believe in the
Lord Jesus
Christ and
that work of
belief is a
work of your
grace.
And I would
plead with you
this morning that
you would touch
the lives of
those that are
here that do
not know Christ
that they would
be drawn to the
cross.
That believers
who are under
the burden and
heartache and
challenge of life
would rest in
confidence that
you who have
done everything
for our salvation
will bring them
through the
heartache and
the challenge of
this day.
You will not
fail them.
Help us to
walk out of
here victorious
because of
Christ.
And to display
that joy and
that victory to
an unbelieving
world with
quietness and
with gentleness.
We ask this in
Jesus' name.
Amen.