Oaks of Righteousness

Read Isaiah 61

Imagine being the lowest and least regarded person at your job.  Some will say, “Hey!  I don’t have to imagine that.”

Now imagine that you have been promoted to a senior executive.  Lowest guy in the hierarchy to the top dog just like that.  Most people would think, “I could live with that.”

The prophet Isaiah knew that this was what was in store for God’s people.  They would be totally devastated.  The Babylonians would complete that process, but the Egyptians—sometimes an ally—and the Assyrians had been dismantling all of God’s Chosen People for some time. 

The political landscape of the time was complicated.  It was even more complicated as God’s people moved farther away from the righteousness of God and looked more and more like their pagan neighbors.  The more they blended in with the pagan nations that surrounded them, the more they became entwined in trying to solve their problems without God.

It was a vicious cycle.

This land promised to Abraham and his descendants and delivered to them under the leadership of Joshua would be in ruins.  God’s people would be captured and taken into exile if they had not already fled the area before the conquerors arrived.

The days when God gave victory after victory to his people under Joshua’s leadership had given way to people who desired kings and received them, wanted armies and then fielded them, and who accepted gods made in man’s own image and they embraced them.

Think to the end of the book of Joshua.  The land is conquered and settled.  Joshua’s time is about up, but he issues a challenge to the people.

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.  But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.

 “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out.  When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

 “‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land.  When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you.  But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

 “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands.  I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow.  So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!  It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled.  And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

God’s people knew this story and they knew it well.  Even when they were disobedient, they knew their history and what God had done for them.

They had been disobedient for a long time and God was withdrawing his protection from them.  Remember the words of the Lord that came through Joshua.

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.

This was happening.  After all the chances that God’s people had been given to repent and return to the Lord, they remained comfortable in their apostacy.  They would receive what they asked for.  They were witnesses against themselves.

If this was your favorite television series, this would be the season ending episode.  Everything is falling apart.  Come back next season.  Isaiah could have left the people hanging, but he didn’t.

For the Lord had not given up on them.  When they would hit the lowest of lows, God offered them hope and a future.

Isaiah had been given a vision of hope by the Spirit of the Lord.  This hope was more than just a chance to go home to a desolate land.  It was more.

It was good news for the poor.

It was healing for the broken hearted.

It was freedom for captives.

It was salvation for his people.

It was beauty instead of ashes.

It was defeat for enemies of God’s people.

It was comfort for those who mourn.

It was gladness replacing grief.

It was songs of praise instead of sorrow.

It was ruins rebuilt.

It was to rule over foreigners who would work the land and care for the livestock.

God’s people would be laborers no more.

Shame and disgrace will end.

Wealth will abound.

They will be priests of the Lord.

Joy will last forever.

The world will see God’s people and say, “They are blessed!”

Jerusalem—the city in ruins—would be adorned as a bride.

She will be clothed with victory and salvation.

The sovereign Lord will save his people and the nations will praise him.

Now that’s something!  God’s people would know the lowest of lows and then be restored beyond their dreams. 

It’s not like when we send our kids to their rooms because they have acted out.  After a while—long or short—we say, you can come out now and life resumes.

When God says, “You can come out of your room now,” it’s a whole new world.  It is everything made new again.  It is wonderful.  What God has in store for us is full of wonder.

We were never captives in Assyria or Babylon or had to flee oppressors.  We have never seen our homeland devastated.  We were attacked at Pearl Harbor.  We were attacked on 9-11.  But you have to go way back to when the British burned Washington D.C. to get anything close—remotely close—to what God’s Chosen People would know firsthand.

But we know lives that have been given over to poverty, brokenness, captivity, mourning, grief, shame, disgrace, and even some hopelessness.

We have not all been through these things, but most have been through some.  Today, our separation from God’s favor takes the form of addiction, apathy, lives without purpose, self-gratification, and so many other things that pull us away from God.

But whether you were exiled to live as a servant among the pagans or in a self-imposed exile of drugs or disconnection; God never gave up on you.  God may stand back for a time, but he never gives up on you.

God may let you deal with the natural consequences of addiction, foolishness, wickedness, or just insisting on your own way, but he has never stopped loving you.

And when it is time to come home, it’s a big deal.  It is a very big deal.  It is gladness over grief.  It is healing for the broken hearted.  It is praise over sorrow.  It is freedom for the captives.

We have never been held captive in Babylon, but we have been held captive by our foolishness, laziness, apathy, and even ignorance.  But when our eyes were opened to the truth, we knew victory and salvation.

There was one part of a verse that I didn’t say anything about.  Isaiah prophesies:

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor.

You can have bad news and good news and then more bad news again.

You can be captive then free then captive again.

You can have ashes then beauty and then ashes again.

You can have grief then gladness then grief again.

You can have poverty and wealth and poverty again.

But the Lord speaking through Isaiah wanted his people to know that their restoration would last.  Some of this restoration began in the 6^th Century B.C. when the captives began returning from Babylon.  Some comes in the age ahead.

The imagery of Isaiah is of an Oak tree planted by the Lord. 

I bought my Burns Flat house after coming back from Iraq in 1992.  The price of the house and the new car that I had bought were about the same.  My thought was that the house needed a lot of work and that would be more expense.  I didn’t know that the car would too.  I haven’t bought a Ford since, though both of my kids have some.

Enough Ford bashing…

The house that I bought only had one tree.  It was perhaps the ugliest tree that I had seen and it was too close to the foundation.  So, one summer Christopher and I came to Burns Flat from California for about a week.  I planted a few trees around the house.  One of them was an Oak.

It was just over six feet tall when I planted it.  When I checked on it a couple years later, it seemed that it hadn’t grown much.  When we moved into the house in 1999, it still did not seem like it had grown much, but it’s roots were getting deeper and deeper.

Finally, over the past few years, it looks more like the oak trees that I remembered as a child.  Little did I know that the trees that I enjoyed climbing and that shaded parts of the yard when I was young had been around a very long time.

My grandchildren’s children may get to make a tree house in my oak tree.  It takes a while for an oak to become massive, but once it has grown for a few decades, there a few trees like it.  It will be there for many generations.

Isaiah used imagery that the people could understand.  This oak of righteousness would bring glory and honor and splendor to the Lord.

The Lord was doing a mighty thing.  He was taking people who could never be righteous on their own accord and making them right with him.

This would be a lasting thing.  This would be an everlasting righteousness.  This would be more than a trip home from Babylon.  This was an invitation to receive the best gift ever—God with us.

We celebrate Christmas—the Babe in a manger—knowing that it is not a stand-alone story.  Emanuel was there at the beginning and will be with us for all eternity.

We know that God lets people endure the consequences of their decisions, but he never gives up on them.  His desire is for none to perish.

We know that restoration goes beyond what our hearts can conceive.

We know that God came into the world as a baby, not because we as humankind were finally getting our act together, but because we could not.

We know that when our human heart knows only hopelessness, God will give us hope.

We know that no matter how broken our lives become, God heals all wounds.

We know that no matter how much the world seems to be closing in on us, God is the ultimate liberator.

This Christianity that we know, this discipleship that we know, this following Jesus that we tried so hard to get right comes with an eternal reward.

Not something temporary and transient as the world offers.

Not something that corrodes or can be stolen.

Not something that is here today and gone tomorrow.

We, like the mighty oak that thrives for centuries, will be God’s righteousness for ever and ever.  This profession of faith that we have made is no small thing.

Our proclamation that Jesus is Lord are not passing words.

This assurance in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is not a momentary emotion.

God has claimed us from sin and from death and has made us through the blood of Christ Jesus to be his righteousness for ever and ever.

That’s no small deal.

Remember that it’s not all about you.  It’s all about God, but he did this very special thing for you, for us, forever.  Remember that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it but that through him we might be saved.

God has done a mighty thing.  He has made us right with him for all eternity and doing this mighty thing for us is to his splendor, and honor, and glory.

Amen.

A Wake Up Call and a Special Diet

Read Mark 1:1-8

Things are concluding—a culmination.  I am not talking the end of the age, though that is part of it.  All of history is coming to a point where the creation will be reconciled to God and able to fully live as he designed us to live. 

Everyone will kneel—I believe as an involuntary response to the truth.  Paul supports this by attaching the words that it will be to the glory of God when he espouses this action on our part.

I believe that the truth will not only set us free, but once we are free, we will kneel before Jesus.  In light of the truth, how could we do anything else.

What truth?  That Jesus is Lord.

Lord or king or master or other similar such words are not popular these days, especially in a culture dominated by the satisfaction and gratification of the self.  In an all about me world, nobody wants to hear about the King of kings or Lord of lords.

The truth tells us that is exactly who Jesus is.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords and Master and Prophet and Priest and Teacher—one with an easy yoke from whom we may learn, and he is Friend.

But this culmination is not here yet.  This complete reconciliation was accomplished on the cross but not fully realized throughout the universe, yet.  Some things must happen before everything comes together perfectly.

We know enough of our history with God to know that he has been at work in us.  This is not just general maintenance, but craftsmanship.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  He is crafting us into the exact people he wants us to be.  The creation is being shaped into the exact domain that God wants us to live in forever.

We look at Adam and Eve getting the boot from the Garden of Eden, and wonder, could it get any worse?  Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the first murder.  Things got so bad in humanity’s early history that God sent a flood and started over with a remnant.

That cleaned up everything and made everyone one right with God for the rest of time.  Well, not really.  People got this all about me thing going early.  Actually, it might have been all about us.  In any case, humankind decided to build a tower to heaven instead of going out to subdue and exercise stewardship of the planet entrusted to them.

Had there been no Tower of Babel and confusion of human language, I would have never been required to take German in college; and surely would not have had to take it twice.

Liberation and captivity, commandments an sin, restoration and desolation have all had their turn in this craftsmanship.  God has taken our human weakness, much like a marred pot, and remade his people into what he wants us to be.

But, we have not fully realized everything in store for us.  Some things must come first.  Jesus, who was there at the creation and through whom all things were made would wait for a forerunner before entering this world as a babe in a manger.

Someone would precede him to prepare the way.  This forerunner would not direct road repairs or bridge construction or a beautification project along the royal route as would be done for an earthly king.  He would not make sure all the graffiti was painted over so as not to offend the sovereign.

This forerunner that we know as John would prepare a route for his King and yours into our hearts.  His message was one of repentance.  He told people that they must repent for their sins to be forgiven.  He told people that One was coming so much greater than he was that he was not even worthy to tie his shoes.

And John was a little different.  It was not your run of the mill religious guy.  Think about the age into which John came.

The religious leaders—the Scribes and Pharisees—wore fine clothes.  They were adorned with phylacteries.  They ate at the finest tables.  They loved the finer things in life and were never far from them.

They knew the law.  They knew what sacrifice was required for what offense.  They would have never stood for words such as the previous call is under further review.  The were the sole custodian of the yellow penalty flags.

John did not wear fine clothing.  In fact, when I think about what John wore, my skin itches 2000 years later. I don’t think there has ever been a more distinct fashioned statement than camel hair.  John never had to worry that if he went to a social event, somebody would show up in the same outfit.

He didn’t wear a phylactery on his forehead.  He wore a leather belt around his waist.

John did not eat the finest food as the Pharisees did.  He ate locusts and wild honey.  I like wild honey and I have eaten a few dozen grasshoppers in my day; but all things considered, I would rather do the Atkins or South Beach diet. 

John was anything but someone who fit the religious model of the day; yet, people came from all over to see him.  People came from all over to hear him.  People came from all around and were baptized by him.

But John said, I’m not the big deal here.  I am just getting you ready for the One that everyone has been waiting on to arrive.  Well, he is on his way.

People somehow knew that John had something to say to them that they needed to hear.  He was not about penalties and payments as the Pharisees were.  He was not about putting on a good show.  He did not seek the best seat in the house.

His ministry took place in the wilderness near the Jordan river.  He wore clothing that nobody would want to wear and was on a special diet; yet people came to him.

Was it his clothing or his diet? They were surely unique. 

There is an engraved sculpture of Will Rogers in Granite, Oklahoma.  I go through Granite about a dozen times each year.  I stop in and look at the sculpture about once a decade. 

There is the Stafford Space museum near Weatherford, Oklahoma.  I have been to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum at least 20 times but have never been to the space museum that is just half an hour away and that I drive by at least 40 times a year.

Both are unique, but I am not compelled to go just a little bit out of my way to see them.

John was a long way off the beaten path and people flocked to him.  Was it his clothing?  Probably not.  Was it his special diet?  I don’t think so.

Something was happening and somehow the people knew it.  Something big was about to happen on this world stage and John was the opening act.  Jesus had come into the world and now was the time for his ministry to begin. 

He would be God with us.

He would be the Anointed One.

He would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.

He would be Teacher, Messiah, Healer, Prophet, and the only one ever to live a sinless life; yet he would become sin for us.

He would bear the sin of the world upon a cross and with a few words, It is finished, seal the deal forever.

Paul wrote:  But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

The time had come to that point.  John announced the coming of that time in his call for repentance and in the baptism that followed.  It was time for God to take away the sin of the world.

John baptized with water but the One for whom he prepared the way would leave us with the Holy Spirit when his work was done.

But somehow, people knew to come to John.  People came out of their world of religious regulation and began a course that would lead to liberation.

John fulfilled a role in the greatest story ever told.  His role would lessen once Jesus entered fully into his earthly ministry, but John’s role was essential.  He was the wakeup call to a generation full of God’s laws and void of the Spirit that should have come with them.

He was a voice that cried in the wilderness.  That wilderness was a geographical reference for sure, but he also called out in the wilderness that was the human heart.  John cried out to a world full of regulation but void of spirit.

John was the messenger that went ahead of the Messiah.  John was singing the verse in Joy to the World that goes, let every heart prepare him room.

John was an essential part of this story of reconciliation.  We like the part about the babe in a manger, but a few months earlier, there was a babe born to an old couple that were thought not to be able to have kids.  John was to prepare the way.

We have heard this part of the story many times.  Mark begins his gospel with it.  The other synoptics take a couple chapters to get there, but John was essential to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.

Let’s turn the clock forward to 2018.  The New Year is upon us.  We will celebrate the birth of our Savior and begin a new year.  We will look forward to the coming of our Lord as the King of kings and Lord of lords.  We know that time is closer than it was in 2017.

But what are we doing to prepare the way for this coming of our Lord?

John came in a time when the religious world was riddled with regulation.  We live in a time when the body of Christ is drugged and disconnected.  

Some are faithful and hold fast to discipleship but so many need a wakeup call.

So many are content to merely exist and are not living for Christ.

So many have taken to the sidelines of discipleship.

So many offer advisory opinions and are void of service.

So many want transactions instead of transformations.

So many want to blend into the world so they don’t have to be identified with Christ.

So many want to love the world and everything in it.

So many are conformed to the patterns of the world and don’t want the discomfort of changing.

Who can do anything about this?  Who?

Listen to the prophet Malachi as the faithful few converse among themselves as God listens.

You have said, ‘It's useless to serve God. What's the use of doing what he says or of trying to show the Lord Almighty that we are sorry for what we have done?  As we see it, proud people are the ones who are happy. Evil people not only prosper, but they test God's patience with their evil deeds and get away with it.’”

Then the people who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard what they said. In his presence, there was written down in a book a record of those who feared the Lord and respected him.  “They will be my people,” says the Lord Almighty. “On the day when I act, they will be my very own. I will be merciful to them as parents are merciful to the children who serve them.  Once again my people will see the difference between what happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the person who serves me and the one who does not.”

Who can do anything about the casual Christian or the half-drugged disciple?  God can, but we who fear the Lord and faithfully serve him must give a wakeup call.

Someone—we—must be preparing the way for Christ to come again.  We are his commissioned and yet most of those who should be ambassadors for Christ and letters from Christ have nestled themselves back into the comfort zone of the world.

How can we reach the lost if the body of Christ is doped up and out of the discipleship game?

Like it or not, we must be more like John the Baptist.  I am not buying a camel hair sports jacket for 2018 or changing the Wednesday night meal to locusts and honey, but I challenge us to be a voice in this modern wilderness and go on a special diet.

John was not calling out to the pagans of his age.  His voice went out to God’s people.  John had to wake up his own people.  The Anointed One was on his way.

We must give a wakeup call to those who have professed Jesus as Lord and Savior; yet, have been narcotized by the numbness of the world.

And we need a special diet.

Some of you know that some people were upset with me over some Facebook posts about the church not being the vending machine.  This has been a consistent message of mine for over 4 years, but this year it got some people angry and they defended the vending machine.

I won’t go into the business of the transactional church versus the transformational church right now, but I want to share something that was overwhelming as I read some of the comments.

People are not reading their Bibles.  They get a little on Sunday morning a couple times a month or a year or a decade.

They get the verse of the day.

They get a whole lot of unholy horsehockey that someone has posted as biblical.

People are not reading their Bibles!

We who are faithful must go on a special diet.  We must hunger for and consume the word of God as never before.  The word of God must be tastier to us than the most succulent ribeye steak.  It must be more delicious than bacon.  That’s a hard sell in some parts, but we must have a special diet.

It is the word of God.  We need to proclaim to those Christians who are stumbling around in the wilderness of this world what God’s words says.

I don’t think that we all need to be biblical scholars.  We don’t lock ourselves in ivory towers with our nose in the Bible but never putting anything we learn into practice.

  I think that we all need to rightly divide the word of God.  To me that’s a tradesman.  He or she can navigate life with the word of God as well as the mechanic replaces the transmission, or the doctor removes the appendix.

The mechanic does not have to be able to design next year’s car of the year, but he better be able to diagnose and repair more than a burned-out headlight or worn out windshield wipers.

We must know enough to live a holy life in response to the love of God that was poured out in the blood of Jesus on the cross. 

Must we all be able to illustrate the four most recognizable metaphors of the atonement?  Likely not!  Understanding that the blood of Jesus atoned for our sins is probably sufficient for most of us.

We need to read our Bibles more, not so we can strain out gnats of biblical minutia, but so that we don’t swallow any camels, which today would be the transactional nature of the church.  Today that would be the feeling that it’s just fine to sit out this discipleship stuff.  Today, that would be remaining conformed to the pattern of the world.

Jesus is coming.  I don’t have the date but the Bible says soon.  And the Christ professing world has gone to sleep or is drugged by the narcotizing effects of this post-modern world.

Be today’s voice in the wilderness.  Be the wakeup call to the deadheaded disciples who are just sitting out their salvation.

Be the voice that awakens the body of Christ.  We live in a time so like that of the prophet Malachi.  Few were faithful, but God remembers those who were.

This morning I call out to the faithful.  Wake up the sleepers.  Sober up the disciples drugged on the patterns of this world.  Be a voice in this modern wilderness that calls people home.

And...  Stick to your diet.  

It is a diet that equips you wake the saints and seek the lost.

It is a diet that enables you to rightly divide the world of God.

It is a diet that judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

It is a diet—a special diet—that fill us when we do the work of the One who sent us into the world. 

It is a diet that is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

It is a diet that is God-breathed.

It is a diet useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

It is a diet that proceeds from the mouth of God—better than bread alone.

It is a diet that equips us for every good work.

Let’s be the voice of our time that cries out to turn away from the world and back to God.

Let’s stick to our diet.

Amen.

Filthy Rags or We Are Your People

Read Isaiah 64:1-9

How many think that the end of the age can’t be far off now?  We are obviously closer to that point than we were yesterday, but who thinks it’s getting really close now?

I’m going to upset a few people.  I don’t believe you.  Why?

How many have increased their evangelistic efforts by 2 or 3 or 20 times what they were?  If you know that there is not much time left, what better thing to do with our time than reach out to those that are perishing.

There should be a lot of dissonance between thinking, “It can’t be long now,” and not increasing our evangelistic efforts.  Our minds should never be at peace harboring those oppositional thoughts.

The Hebrew people wanted God to come down to the earth and do mighty acts and put the pagans in their place.  They knew well the history of what God had done to free them from slavery in Egypt.

Actually, they didn’t just want God to come to earth and do mighty acts once again; they wanted him to rip through the heavens and make a grand entry.

There is no other God like him.  He acts on behalf of those who wait for him.  Understand, that this is a God who is sovereign, mighty, holy, and who has created everything that we know; yet, he is and has always been a God of compassion.

He is always there for those who seek him and wait upon him.  He is always there for those who know no other gods.

Oh, if he would but rip open the heavens and put the world right, right now.

But, then, there is that sin thing.  There is that rebelliousness that we can’t seem to shake.  There is that constant missing the mark that seems to define us more than anything else.

We are but filthy rags.  I don’t know anything that can motivate you any more for Christmas that the thought of being filthy rags.  “We’re filthy rags, we’re filthy rags, how filthy are our rags.”

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live as God’s Chosen People in the age before Christ came?  What everyone knew about the one true God came through you.  It would be like living in a glass house. 

So the question would be, would we remain faithful to God and stick out like a sore thumb in the world; or, would we do our best to blend in with the world?  Maybe nobody will notice that we are different.

The choice of God’s chosen people in Isaiah’s time was that they tried to blend in.  The one true God was ignored while the ways of the world prevailed.

OBTW—God was really angry about this.  The favor that his people had enjoyed was being withdrawn, at least for a time.  Ungodly nations would have their way with not just Jerusalem but all of God’s Chosen People.

It was as if God turned his face away from his people.  They had enjoyed the world so much that God let them know the ways of the world.  Those ways are seldom merciful and compassionate.

God was still at work in this people.  They had not been abandoned.  Testimonies were very evident in the captivity of this age, but the nation of Israel and Judah—the full compliment of God’s Chosen were taken from or driven from the land that God had preserved for them.  That land was now desolate.

Some of God’s people had seen this coming.  Perhaps they had believed their prophets.  They had the savvy to know that their leaders were not listening to God’s prophets and they fled the land before the invaders came.

Isaiah cries out for his people.  We are wasting away.  We shrivel up like a dead leaf.  We have angered you.  You have turned you face away from us.  We are all unclean.  We are like filthy rags and deserve everything that you are sending our way.

We don’t even have the courage to come to you in prayer anymore.  How can we be saved?

But, yet, there is this one thing that we have going for us.  You are our Father.  For everything that we turned into a mess, you are still our Father.

You are the Potter.  We are the clay. 

It is interesting that Jeremiah would go down this same path—use the same metaphor—in his prophecy of this same age.

You are the Potter.  We are the clay. 

We are a mess.  We are a total mess.  Filthy rags is the best representation of who we are.  Other metaphors might have been more accurate and condemning, but we will go with filthy rags.

What can we do?

We know from Jeremiah that the Potter can remake the marred pot in any way that he desires.

We know from King David, when he had made a mess of things with Bathsheba and Uriah and just neglecting his leadership duties, that only God could make him right.  Remember his words from Psalm 51:  Lord, create in me a clean heart.

David asked God to create in him a pure heart.  He said that he had messed things up so badly that he could not fix his own mess.  Only God could make him as he once was.  Only God could give him a pure heart.

Isaiah cries out to God.

·       Hold back your anger

·       Don’t hold our sins against us forever

·       We are but clay in your hands

Isaiah confessed that “all were unclean;” yet he asked God to remember that we are your people.  Consider this ninth verse once more.

Lord, do not be terribly angry

or remember our iniquity forever.

Please look—all of us are Your people!

Sometimes the only thing that we seem to have going for us is that we are his people.  When everything that we do seems to rebel against God, God is still faithful.  Isaiah’s plea was to a God whose love was greater than his anger.

Let’s leave the glass house of God’s Chosen People from centuries ago and come to the glass house of the disciple of Jesus Christ.  You won’t need to image this part.  You live there.

You may or may not be aware of this on a daily basis, but you live in a glass house.  People are watching.  You are unique. 

When Rick and I went to Africa and got out of the metro areas to western Kenya and eastern Uganda, it was not uncommon for people to point at us and say, “white people.”  They were not being disrespectful.  We were unique.  We were something that you didn’t just see every day.

One father pointed us out to what we figured was his son.  Perhaps, he had never seen white people before.  Perhaps, the father had told his son about white people, but his son was skeptical until then, when he saw two of them—of us.

We who follow Jesus are unique as well.  We are different from the world.  We are God’s people.  I ask the same question now that I asked when I prompted you to put yourself in the time and place of God’s Chosen People.

So the question is, will we remain faithful to God and stick out like a sore thumb in the world; or, will we do our best to blend in with the world?  Maybe nobody will notice that we are different.

It is the difference of just existing or being people who have a mission. 

Just existing or on a mission?

God’s Chosen People had become a mess—an absolute mess.  They were as filthy rags.  They were deserving of God’s wrath full strength, but they had one thing in their favor.  They were God’s people.

Later, the Hebrews would abuse this standing as an excuse to do whatever they wanted.  They would proclaim that they were sons of Abraham and that living a holy life was not as important as some thought.  That’s the world that Jesus came into as a babe in a manger.

Today, so many in this world are a mess—as filthy rags.  Some have professed Christ but apparently that profession seemed to be lip service as their lives remain unchanged.  But a profession of faith is a profession of faith and in that moment, the man or woman became one of God’s people.

We who are growing in grace understand the power of confession.  We understand the assurance of pardon for those who faithfully confess.  We know that no matter how filthy we may have become, God can and will create in us a clean heart.

Why would he do that?  We are his people.

His anger burns against our sin but not against us.  He knows that we are broken without him.  He knows that only he can make us the people he wants us to be.  He longs for us to embrace his way over that of the world.

So do we just throw up our arms and say, “OK God, You are doing the driving.  I hope that you don’t make any mistakes for me today?”

No.  We say, “You are the Potter.  I am the clay.  I embrace that relationship.”

You have loved me long before I learned to love you.

You spilled your blood for me long before I knew the extent of my sin.

Your grace exceeds anything that I can imagine.

I am going to mess up again.  I might even hit the filthy rags mark.

But I know that I am yours.

I will seek you and petition you to create in me a clean heart each and every time that I transgress.

I don’t want to sin, but I am so, so human and flawed.

I will believe your promise—your assurance of my forgiveness.

I am yours.

I thank you that your anger that burned against my sin was satisfied on a cross on a hill called Golgotha.

I am yours.

I will confess to you every day for I want nothing unclean to make its home in my life.

Clean me daily, Lord.  I am yours.+

Amen.