Rebuilding Hope

“They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations… I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.” (Isaiah‬ ‭61‬:‭4‬, ‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

We’ve talked over the last several weeks about our need for a hero. Someone who could step into our world and set right all of this wrong that plagues us. We try and try but we are just unable to get there on our own. The first three verses of this chapter, that we looked at last week, were quoted by Jesus at the beginning of His public ministry. He stood before His childhood church, the synagogue at Nazareth, and told them that Gods’ promises were being fulfilled in their presence. As C.S. Lewis once said, “Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

“By a carpenter mankind was made, and only by that Carpenter can mankind be remade.” – Erasmus (16th Century Dutch Theologian)

But God doesn’t just step into our world and hand pick a few people to save and then leave the rest to rot away. No, when He steps in He has a plan to bring all mankind into His work of redemption and under the rule of His kingdom. That’s what the first three verses of this chapter tell us. God has anointed His Redeemer to bring good news, to bind up and to set free; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor but also the day of His vengeance. But as this plan unfolds in the following verses, we learn that God’s plan is not just to redeem us but to involve us in His work. Yes, they will build up the ruined cities, but it goes much further. 

“You shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God…”

As the Carpenter of Nazareth transforms our lives through the power of God’s Spirit, He then turns and hands us a hammer and saw and calls us to come alongside and join in Him in this work. We’re not just called to rebuild the walls of ruined cities, we’re called to be priests of the LORD and ministers of our God as He rebuilds their ruined lives. This speaks to the very heart of Jesus’ ministry and the mission of His people. Lives transformed by His mercy and grace leading others to the foot of the cross and the LORD of mercy and grace.

I need to be a bit direct here, so please forgive my terseness. We Baptists have a theological term for the Biblical principle mentioned above; we call it the Priesthood of the Believer. That means that every believer has a part in God’s mission of taking the gospel to the nations. While some are certainly called to go into distant nations and strange lands, we are all called to take the Good News of Jesus to our family, friends and neighbors. Somehow, we have taken the very plan of God and co-opted it. We’ve created a church culture that relegates this mission to the “professionals” while the rest of us gather for a weekly concert and pep rally. But that was never God’s intention.

We’ve been called to participate in this mission. Ministry is not just for the ministers and ministry staff. Yes, He has called some of us to lead out in these areas. The Apostles and Deacons of the early church were to be examples of ministry and to lead out in these areas. The role of a pastor is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” But all of us are called to the task of ministry, to the role of missionary to our neighbors, and to the proclamation of the gospel. 

“And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.” (Ephesians‬ ‭4‬:‭11‬-‭13‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

While I’m being a bit blunt, just how does God and His grace stack up to the other things in your life that bring you joy? Does God’s grace get you as excited as your favorite team’s basketball or football games? Do you tell others about your Jesus and your church as readily as you tell them about that great new restaurant you found? Does God’s word invade and occupy your thoughts as much as your social media posts? Do you spend as much time praying as you do talking to your best friend? Do we desire God and His glory as much as we desire that new boat, new car, new dress or that promotion? I hope you realize that while I’ve equated God and His glory and worth to all of these earthly things, they’re not really equal. He demands and deserves so much more glory and praise than we give Him. 

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭37‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

Everything around us is intended to point us to the One who is greater than all of it combined. I marvel at the beauty of God’s creation and its diversity, but that should cause me to see and marvel at His beauty and His diversity. I marvel at the regularity of the seasons and how man has built monuments to mark these events – the summer and winter solstices and the spring (vernal) and fall (autumnal) equinoxes. But it is our God who is constant in His love and mercy toward us and is the anchor of our souls. I marvel that the universe is so vast we have yet to see, let alone fathom, its scope. In fact, science has now decided that it is so vast that is must be infinite in both space and time. But the created universe and all of time and eternity fits in the palm of God’s hand.

We just spent a week telling our children during Vacation Bible School that the bigness of God can be seen in the smallest of things. Yet, we often feel our problems are too big for Him to manage or too small for Him to care. Yet, God can handle the big problems and He cares about even the small things in our lives. When we cry out, God hears and responds. Jesus said, “Don’t worry so much about your lives, what you’ll eat, drink or wear. Isn’t life more than that? Doesn’t God care for the birds? They don’t sow or reap but God takes care of them. Trust Him, He’ll take care of you too when you make Him and His kingdom your priority (see Matt. 6).”

That’s precisely what He’s telling us in Isaiah 61. “For I Yahweh love justice; I hate robbery and injustice; I will faithfully reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them.” (Isaiah‬ ‭61‬:‭8‬ ‭HCSB‬‬) God has given us the plan, but we often fail to realize it and execute on it. We love to sit back and complain about the status and condition of our world but we also staunchly refuse to act on the plan. Sounds a bit like Jonah, doesn’t it? He hates the Ninevehites because they are enemies of God and His people. God sends him to Nineveh with a message of hope and judgment and he heads off in the opposite direction, running from God’s plan and calling. One big fish and three days in a gastric “spa” causes Jonah to repent and head to Nineveh. He delivers the message and then sits under a shady vine to watch God’s judgment destroy them all. But their repentance is a bit of a disappointment to him. He wanted to see some fire and brimstone and all he got was a downpour of God’s grace and forgiveness and a sunburn.

God is ready to pour out His covenant blessings upon His people, a double portion. The shame of our disobedience is replaced with a double portion of joy when we walk in obedience to His will and way. Instead of sitting in the shade and complaining about how much God is doing elsewhere, we should rejoice in His mercy upon them and His work among them. We should find ways we can support and bolster the work of His grace in those places, whether that is down the street or on the other side of the world. We must be at work among the homeless and hopeless on Main Street in Shawnee as well as the hurting and hopeless in Liberia and Syria. If you’re unable to go, then help enable those who are going but all of us can minister to our neighbor and those we see each day.

Finally, I need you to see the strength and success God promises for our efforts. The final two verses of Isaiah 61 switch to first person but who is speaking? It seems obvious to me it is the same person who was speaking at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus – the Obedient Servant and Messiah of God. Our salvation and strength come from Him for God has clothed Him in garments of salvation and wrapped Him in a robe of righteousness. But His analogy of the clothing goes one step further, “like a groom wears a turban and a bride adorns herself with her jewels (v. 10).” I hope that analogy sounds familiar for it is one Jesus and Paul both use to describe our connection to Christ. He’s the groom and we, the church – God’s people, are the bride and are forever bound to Him through His unbreakable covenant.

The final verse switches analogies to one I’ve already referenced and one we should be quite familiar with, the fertile, green earth and a producing garden. Just as God demonstrates His love and care for us through the earth’s growth and a garden’s produce, so He will cause us to spring up grow with righteousness and praise. Every farmer and gardener knows that though they may put work into preparing the soil, sowing the seed and tending to the weeds and crop the real growth and results come from God. God is able to take that seed and make it germinate, sprout, grow and produce a rich and abundant harvest. What God is able to do with the seed He is able to do with our lives.

I want to leave you with two principles we need to apply to our lives. First, our lives and our marriages (if you’re married) should be a reflection of God’s salvation and righteousness. Paul tells us that men should love their wives in the same way Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Here’s the problem, as I see it. Most men would not hesitate to give their lives to protect and defend their wives but are we as willing to live for her as we are to die for her? If you evaluate Jesus’ statement about “dying for Him” then you would find that while He certainly meant we must be willing to physically die for His cause, the death most of us struggle with is the death of our own selfishness or ego. Men, are we willing to kill our egos and die to self so that our marriages and family life can reflect the glory of God? Ladies, you’re not left out of this. You must also see to it that your marriage and your family life is focused on God’s glory. Together you must focus on raising children who seek to do the same in their lives.

Lastly, a garden is of little or no value if it is not producing a harvest. It is simply not enough to have plants that are alive, they must be reproducing fruit. While this should be a natural thing with our children, we often focus on the wrong outcome for their lives. In many ways, we’ve adopted the focus of our culture instead of the focus of our God for our children’s lives. We want to see them successful and financially secure but God wants to seem them obedient to His will. Why? Because they are also His seed to be planted for a harvest through another generation of faithful disciples – a life of righteousness and praise that causes more seed to be sown for God’s glory.

In summary, God’s mission for us is to be so impacted by His work of grace in us as to produce a harvest of righteousness and praise. Not to be overwhelmed by the task at hand, but to depend on His strength, His ability to take our feeble gardening efforts and to cause them to grow into fruitfulness. To allow Him to have our marriages in such a way that they are transformed in people’s eyes and reflect God’s glory and mercy. We must die to self so that He can live through us for it is only through His efforts that our world can be rebuilt on a foundation of hope. If you want to see a better world, start by giving yourself completely to God. Be a seed that He can plant and reap a harvest of righteousness and praise.