Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : January 25, 2004
Jesus Worked Your Salvation
Epiphany 3
If you've ever seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, you probably can remember the song that the seven dwarves would always sing when they were on their way to work. They sang, "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go!" It was kind of a snappy tune that almost made you want to get up and go to work with the seven dwarves because it would be so much fun to go to work. Of course, for the most part, the movie failed to show how difficult their work actually was. They were miners. They would have to haul their big picks and shovels and head off to a mine in the mountains where they would have to dig all day long. When we think of work, I doubt that we get up every morning and jump out of bed and say, "Ah, another day of back-breaking, deadline-beating, unappreciated work! What could be better!?" Our work isn't all that fun all the time. Whether you sit behind a desk or break your back doing physical labor, your work days can be pretty hard at times, and certainly not as fun as the seven dwarves would have you believe.
But before we sit down and start our own pity party for how difficult our work and our life is in general, this morning we will be looking at someone else's work. We'll look at our Savior's work and what that work of redemption means for you and me. Jesus Worked Your Salvation. Isaiah tells us two main parts of the job description of our Savior -- he proclaimed your freedom and he gave you your freedom.
The first half of our first verse tells us whose work this will be: "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." The word "anointed" points out whose work this would be. "The Anointed One" is what Jews referred to as the "Messiah." This Anointed One that Isaiah pointed to would have a certain characteristic so that we would be able to recognize him: the Spirit of God would be on him, and we could tell that because he would be anointed with the Holy Spirit. This very prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled 700 years later. John the Baptist had been baptizing people and telling them to repent of their sins and turn and follow the one who would come after him. One day a man named Jesus of Nazareth came to be baptized by John. The Holy Spirit came down from heaven and the Father testified from heaven that this was his own Son. On that day, this prophecy from Isaiah was fulfilled -- Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit, as he began his public work of redemption.
One of the main facets of Jesus' work as the Anointed One would be to preach, to "preach good news to the poor." In God's eyes, everyone was poor, spiritually speaking. They were spiritually bankrupt. They lived their lives in selfish thinking, and those selfish thoughts led to selfish actions and words. A few people, a small remnant of people that God had kept faithful to himself, understood that they were spiritually bankrupt. They knew that they could offer God nothing for all the times they had shown themselves to be poor. They couldn't offer God one penny's worth of gratitude or praise for all his blessings. They could offer him nothing because they had nothing, only a life filled with selfishness and sinful pride and greed and lust and hurt and inflicting pain on others. But the really sad thing is that only a few people realized this. Most of the people then at Jesus' time as well as now don't even realize how desperate and fatal their situation is. They assume they can go about their lives as they are and then receive heaven as a wage for what they've earned with their good life. But Paul paints us a very different picture. He says that "All have sinned and fall short of God's glory," the rich life of perfection that he expects of us. He also says what our rebellion, our sin against God in our everyday careless and thoughtless and selfish way of living, has earned for us -- "the wages of sin is death." With everyone on earth of all time spiritually poor, spiritually bankrupt, it's good to see what the Anointed One, Jesus of Nazareth, would do. He would "preach good news to the poor."
The first example of this in Luke's gospel account of Jesus' life occurred when Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit and began his ministry in his home town of Nazareth. Luke says, "On the Sabbath day [Jesus] went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' " Does that portion of Isaiah sound familiar? It's the text we are reading from this morning. Jesus then said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus was the promised Messiah, the Anointed One. He proclaimed the good news of your freedom from sin. In doing so, he proclaimed the year of the Lord's favor.
In the Old Testament, God gave the children of Israel a year of Jubilee every 50 years. In that year, every slave would be released from slavery. Every indentured servant would be freed from his master. Every poor person who had lost their land in the last 50 years would be able to take that land back. What a beautiful way to look forward to what Jesus would do for us. We were slaves not to an earthly master, but to a spiritual master: Satan and our sins. We could have no hope in getting out of that slavery by ourselves. Each and every day you and I could only go through our lives as if we were in a dark and dismal dungeon, with no hope. The only thing that would be ours when our lives on this sinful earth were done would be an eternity in hell because of our sins. But Jesus would usher in the Year of the Lord's favor. It is the year of Jubilee for all people. Jesus would set us free from our slavery to Satan and sin and death. Jesus would usher in that Year of Jubilee with his work. He would live perfectly for you, just as the perfect lamb without blemish or defect in the Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to. He would commit no sin. Then he would die on a cross for you and me. It seemed like the darkest day of history on Good Friday when Jesus died. But that day is called Good Friday because that day would seal Satan's fate and throw open our prison doors. We know that it's true because Jesus rose from the dead. Our Year of the Lord's favor is right now. Now is our year of Jubilee because of our Savior's work as he was anointed to proclaim our freedom.
Jesus didn't just proclaim our freedom; he also gave it to us as the second part of his work as the Anointed One. Isaiah said that the Anointed One would come to "bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." What beautiful pictures Isaiah paints! Because of the Anointed One and his work of redemption, we would no longer be in ashes as we sorrowed over our sins as it was customary for Old Testament believers to sit in a pile of ashes when they mourned over their sinfulness before God. Instead, we would be wearing a crown of beauty on our heads showing that Christ has redeemed us. Christ's resurrection showed that he conquered our sins and has given us life, so we will reign in glory with Jesus forever. Instead of having the oil of mourning being poured over us because we are mourning over our sins, God has poured the oil of gladness over us to show that we have been set apart by Jesus' work as if we had never committed a sin in our lives. Instead of walking around in this life as if a spirit of despair were with us everywhere we went, we have a garment of praise wrapped around us as we proclaim the wonders of him who has called us out of darkness and into his wonderful light. The work of the Anointed One would include proclaiming that he had come to save us from bondage, but also giving us everything that he proclaimed by bringing us to faith.
Because of the work of our Savior, Isaiah describes us as "oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." Usually when you plant trees, some of them die off from insects or disease or lack of nourishment, and only some survive. But in this grove of trees, we are all strong oaks, and we live because of what God has done for us, and we will live forever for the same reason. When you plant a tree and water it faithfully and trim it and prune it and see that it will grow up right, that tree itself is a testimony to the love you put into it. God is the one who has planted you in faith in your Savior, and he continually cares for you through his word. That kind of tree is described in the first Psalm: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers."
Grow where you are planted as one who knows what the Jesus has done for you in his work of saving sinners. He has saved you. As you grow in his grace, then, show off what God has done for you as you live your life in thankfulness for God releasing you from prison and as you tell others that God has released them too through Jesus' work.
