Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : January 21, 2007

Theme: Christ Transforms the Christian

Church year occasion: Epiphany 3

Now that Christmas is over and snow is finally on the ground and cold is in the air, we have finally and officially hit the middle of winter. It's a tough time for a teacher. It's on these days in reading class or literature class, that students' minds start to wander, and they start gazing out the window with these glazed looks on their faces. Instead of learning about Nathaniel Hawthorne in the sterile, boring classroom, one student is transported to a different time and place, and he's transformed into a basketball player who makes the winning shot in overtime. Another is an ace pilot flying above and beyond the clouds. A girl is daydreaming about that kiss she'd love to get from that boy she has a huge crush on. Suppose you were that daydreaming student. We've all been there. But just as you're getting to the best part of your daydream and everything is right with the world, instantly you are snapped back to reality by the teacher calling out your name, telling you to begin reading where the last person left off. You panic. You don't know where you are. Suddenly, every eye is fixed on you, including the teacher's. You don't even know what page in the book you're on. You're lost. And you are humiliated.

It's bad enough feeling lost and humiliated as a student -- but do you ever feel that way as a Christian, at times so distracted by this life that your spiritual life gets lost in the shuffle? Sometimes do you feel as if you aren't on the same page as your God when you don't understand where he's leading you? Sometimes do you feel that you are just going through the motions of worshiping and serving him? Then you need to hear the words of Isaiah. He paints a beautiful picture for us that has us daydreaming about all kinds of things -- but they're all real. In fact, God wants you to be more in that spiritual world that Isaiah shows us than in the everyday world of deadlines and chasing after the kids and work and stress. God wants you to be on the same page as he is when he shows how Christ has transformed your heart and your life.

Our first verse says, "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Sometimes we might have a question as to who is speaking something in the Scriptures, and that might make a big difference in how you understand the passage. Old Testament believers understood that this was the Messiah, the Savior, speaking through Isaiah. And they were right. Jesus makes that absolutely clear when he reads these very words from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth and boldly says, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, Jesus said that he himself spoke these words through the prophet Isaiah before he took on our human flesh. When Jesus was baptized, the Bible tells us that he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power as he began his public work of saving sinners. When the Jews of Jesus' home town heard Jesus claim to be the Savior, they drove him out of town and were about to throw him off a cliff to die for such blasphemy. But Jesus walked right through the crowd. He was not meant to die that way. Unfortunately, the Jews were dreaming about a very different Savior -- not a Savior from sin.

But that is precisely what Jesus, God the Son, focuses our attention on 700 years before he was born into this world. He says, "the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." This isn't speaking about those who are physically poor, who don't have much money, but those who are spiritually poor, which is all people by nature because we are all enemies of God, blind in our understanding of spiritual things, and dead in our sins. Instead of making sure our spiritual lives are on the same page as God, we find ourselves daydreaming about this temporary world, thinking that making money and getting a new house or car or our earthly relationships with others are more important than our relationship with our God. But God wants to snap us back to reality. We know we are sinners who have disobeyed the almighty God. God tells us that for such an offense we deserve nothing but to be fuel for the fires of hell. And there is no hope of us getting out of our hopeless situation by being a good person or helping others or serving God, no matter how good or helpful or serving we think we are. We are poor because we have nothing to offer God in exchange for salvation.

But then another portion of Isaiah comes to mind: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." (Isaiah 55:1) We need to be saved from our sins, and God himself offers us the bread and water of life -- the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is summed up for us by the Apostle Paul: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9) Jesus took our sins on himself and paid the full penalty for our sins. He was damned by God, so that we could have what we need to enter heaven: Jesus' own righteousness. What an astounding message of complete forgiveness to poor sinners, you and me! That message of the gospel of Christ has transformed our hearts from being God-haters to God-lovers.

That effect of the gospel is mentioned in a number of different ways by Jesus. There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but Jesus switches the saying around: a word, the gospel, is worth a thousand pictures. "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted." As sinners, our lives and hearts have become broken and miserable because of our sins. But the gospel binds our broken hearts.

Jesus was also sent "to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." Just as the people of Judah were released from Captivity in Babylon, so Christ has set us free from slavery to sin, which had us in its dark, deadly grasp. Imagine being one of the two boys found in the last few weeks -- one had been kidnapped for four years -- but then all of a sudden you were freed! That is true of you because you have heard the gospel and by the Holy Spirit believed it.

Jesus had been sent "to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor." This is a reference to the Year of Jubilee in Israel. Every 50 years God commanded his people that slaves must be freed, all debts cancelled, and ancestral property returned to the proper family. All those things were a picture of the day when God's Son would come and usher in the day of salvation through his life and death and resurrection. And when the day of salvation comes, God's Son would also make it the day of vengeance of our God because he would crush with his power all who opposed him. He did that by remaining on the cross and taking our shame and punishment to set us free. Jesus came "to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion -- 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." All of these images bring to mind those who in despair and mourning because their sins have separated them from their God. But because of Christ, we are now once again brought together with God and given a new life of hope and an eternal inheritance simply by believing the proclamation of the gospel.

The gospel proclaimed by the Anointed One, Jesus, has completely transformed our hearts from having nothing to having everything. But Christ's gospel has done more than just transform our hearts, it has also transformed our lives.

First, it transforms us with regard to what we are. Isaiah says, "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." Instead of being fuel for the fires of hell, we are mighty oak trees signifying strength and endurance. That endurance isn't because of us but because Jesus' righteousness and his love endures forever. We are also now members of God's family through faith. "Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards." Those aliens and foreigners are you and I -- Gentile Christians -- who by God's grace have heard the gospel message and believed. This reminds us of Paul's words in Ephesians 2:12,19: "Before you were brought to faith you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household." Isaiah takes it a step further: "And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God." In the Old Testament, only a special group of men from a special family could be priests. They were the go-betweens between God and his people. In the New Testament, now that the Christ has come and fulfilled his mission as the great High Priest, we are all priests, men and women, young and old, who can come to God directly because Jesus has restored our perfect relationship with God.

So the gospel proclamation of Jesus has completely transformed our lives by changing who we are. Now our sins are gone, so we can approach God just as we are, without one plea but that Jesus shed his blood for me. We are no longer robed in our sinful rags, but in Jesus' righteousness through the gospel. And that gospel of forgiveness also empowers us to live our lives for God, to follow his will.

Do you sometimes feel as if you aren't on the same page as your God, that you are just going through the motions of serving him, maybe don't even feel like much of a Christian? Then listen to the words of Jesus. Jesus has put you on the same page as God. His eyes are fixed on you, not in anger, but in love, because you are the apple of his eye -- holy and precious in his sight. The gospel that he proclaims has transformed our hearts and our lives. Can you think of someone you know who could hear that message from Jesus also? Amen.