Sermon – “Good Tidings of Great Joy!”
Scripture: Isa 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released, and prisoners will be freed. 2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies. 3 To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities destroyed long ago. They will revive them, though they have been deserted for many generations. 5 Foreigners will be your servants. They will feed your flocks and plow your fields and tend your vineyards. 6 You will be called priests of the Lord, ministers of our God. You will feed on the treasures of the nations and boast in their riches. 7 Instead of shame and dishonor, you will enjoy a double share of honor. You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours. 8 “For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrongdoing. I will faithfully reward my people for their suffering and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be recognized and honored among the nations. Everyone will realize that they are a people the Lord has blessed.” 10 I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom dressed for his wedding or a bride with her jewels. 11 The Sovereign Lord will show his justice to the nations of the world. Everyone will praise him! His righteousness will be like a garden in early spring, with plants springing up everywhere.”
Introduction: After the return of Christ, all those who are a part of God’s kingdom will rejoice. They will be clothed with salvation, belong to God’s redeemed and living in harmony by God’s standard. It must have been simply marvelous for Isaiah to see what God had planned for Judah and Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah had declared in general the troubles of God’s disobedience people, but now proclaims their deliverances which extends to the church that God would build. This chapter refers to the coming of Christ and the calling of the Gentiles into God’s family. Isaiah probably saw this text as pertaining to Judah and Jerusalem, the release of the captive Jews, and their return to their cities and lands; but Christ himself used this text in more spiritual and evangelical application. Luke 4:17-21, Jesus uses this text to describe his personal ministry, His general mission and effectiveness of his gospel message. The Spirit of the Lord rested on him, to anoint, consecrate, and qualify him, as the son of man, for the work to which he was appointed. By virtue of this voluntary obedience and sacrifice as our faithful High Priest, he was authorized to preach the glad tidings of forgiveness and free salvation to the meek, the afflicted, the poor in spirit, the penitent, who knew their guilt, danger, and misery. Although the Gospel message is for all, yet it is only good news to those who recognize and acknowledge their sinful condition. Jesus Christ was commissioned to bind up their wounds and heal the broken-hearted; to proclaim liberty to those held captives by the world, the flesh, and the devil. Just as God freed Judah and Jerusalem from the power of Babylon, Jesus’ message and the power of the holy spirit would free men for Satan and sin, free them from the bondage of their lusts, evil habits, and strong temptations.
1. It is the Year of Jubilee – Jubilee meant hope and healing for the land. It meant forgiveness, restoration, and release. For every true believer, the good news is an announcement of the year of jubilee, the acceptable year of the Lord’s favor, the time of his special grace, when God would pardon sins, remit debts, restore forfeited inheritances, receive offenders to full flavor, and grant all requests and petitions. How refreshing this message must have been to people in bondage for seventy years, exiled under foreign oppression. Yet Isaiah comes with good news in a language they all understood. Isaiah’s commission was to comfort all who mourned, give them the oil of gladness for their spirit of heaviness. They would experience the joy of acceptance and the beauty of holiness; to exchange their mourning and dejection. Isaiah’ promise to Judah and Jerusalem and Jesus’ promise to the Church was that The Holy Spirit would console them, and then clothe them with a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness!
2. It is a Season of Joy! God is going to give you a reason to smile, laugh and rejoice. Knowing Judah and Jerusalem were familiar with mourner’s garment, garments of widowhood, weddings, and other garments expressing their current condition. Joy was a distant memory. In Babylon, they put away their festive garments because they had no occasion to wear them. Isaiah prophesies Joy in their future. You are going to be like a person getting ready for a celebration. Then Isaiah offers another illustration, that of a flourishing, well cared for garden. Judah and Jerusalem were the husbandry of God! God himself planted them, watered them, and cause them to grow vigorously, as trees of righteousness, in the courts of the Lord, being the planting of his hand to bear fruit for his glory. All these things literally came to pass as Judah and Jerusalem were released from captivity and restored to their homeland. Yet, Jesus used this text to introduce his call, ministry, and mission in the world. He came to build God’s spiritual family, the church. Christ gave similar encouragement to the humble and broken-hearted publicans and sinners during his personal ministry. Jesus recognized the proud Sadducees and Pharisees who thought they could save themselves by their good works rejected His message. They missed the genuine nature and tendency of the gospel. They rejected Jesus and his message because they never saw themselves as poor and needy. Yet it is only the poor in spirit that can see the kingdom of God. Yet Jesus bring Good tidings of great Joy! I trust during the season of Joy, that you have received the gift that keeps on giving!
3. It is a Time of Restoration - Zerubbabel, Joshua, Nehemiah, and others, rebuilt Jerusalem and the cities of Judah after the captivity; and some think that this passage predicts the return of the converted Jews to their own land, and settling again in it: but this text extends further. The text is a figurative description of the happy effects produced by the preaching of the gospel that is received, believed, and applied. It is nothing short of complete restoration. As I watched a antique auction of restored cars, I could hardly believe the selling prices. For some reason, a completely restored automobile sold for 20 times more than vehicle cost when it was new. The restoration increased the value! Isaiah prophesied a time of restoration. It happened just as God promised.
When our Lord Jesus Christ entered on his earthly ministry, those blind guides, the Scribes and Pharisees had replace God’s commands with their traditions” and interpretations. The Sadducees principles had increased the burdens on the people instead of freeing them. Jesus began a ministry of complete restoration. The apostles and evangelists of the Church, having been humbled, comforted, and sanctified by our Lord’s ministry, were employed to build up what was decayed and gone to ruins. With the blessing of God on their labors, many tens of thousands among the Jews became humble disciples of Christ, and spiritual worshippers of God.
The miracle of miracles is that God would use Gentiles, outcasts, and foreigners in His new church to proclaim His good news. After the conversion of the Gentiles, the church would grow. The number of believers would increase. God’s Zion was built up, and her desolated cities rose from their ruins. The strangers and aliens were brought into the church and would become apostles, evangelists, and leaders who would assist the church with “their temporal things” and outward services. They were ordained as elders over the churches planted by the apostles and first evangelists. These Gentile converts would feed the flock of God and become God’s ploughmen and vinedressers. They would be pastors over the sheep of Christ, and laborers in his vineyard.
I know that some peculiar distinctions were reserved to the Jewish converts. All the apostles, and many writers of the New Testament, were of the Jews. But pastors and ministers from among the Gentiles would be ordained to that same office by the apostles and Jewish evangelists and were for a long time under their immediate supervision and were sanctioned by them. The text said, “Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God.” Isaiah probably did not know the priests of Aaron’s line would be set aside, and they succeeded by a new office and authority under the Christian dispensation. God introduced the priesthood of all believers! Now, all true Christian believers are more honored, and admitted nearer to God, than the priests and Levites among the Jews of the first order.
You see, the riches of the Gentiles were brought into the church, and the middle wall and partitions have been removed. All believers are accepted in the beloved and share all the benefits and spiritual gifts provided by Christ. We can join is with the Jews on the same grounds of triumph and exultation in the worship of Jehovah and in receiving from His hand and submitting to His authority.
Theses verses speak to the success of the Gospel in the world. Isaiah promised that Instead of contempt which the worshippers of God had experienced from their neighbors, they would receive a double portion of honor and respect from the Gentile converts to Christianity. Believers and preachers of the Jewish nation would be peculiarly regarded, even in those lands where they had formerly met with injury and humiliation; and this joyful change would endure to the end, and forever.
4. It Is a Day of Exaltation – God will clothed His church with righteousness and holiness for all the world to see. God will exalt us. As the Lord loveth judgment, and hates robbery and injustice, God will expose hypocrisy in the professors of religion, and reveals their inner desire for ill-gotten gains trying to hide behind consecrated worship. God had determined to reject hypocrites both in the Jewish nation and Gentile followers. God’s exalted church will be replenish with believers from among the Gentiles. He will direct the works of his people and ministers in truth and uprightness, and make a new covenant with them, which should endure to the end; and their believing posterity, from age to age, should be known and acknowledged among the nations as a holy people, happy in the favor, and sanctified by the grace of God.
‘God blessed Job after his afflictions when he gave him double to what he had before. The first-born had the double share in his father’s estate; so the Jews, when converted to Christianity, shall recover their birth-right, and be esteemed the first-born or elder brethren in the church.’—Lowth
The apostles and Jewish converts to Christianity has been given this birthright, the Holy Spirit, the holy scriptures which were written mostly by Israelites, and in every age those teaching have been received by Christians of all other nations as the oracles of God. This gives them double honor.
Verses 10-11, The church answers these gracious assurances of Isaiah. God’s church, built upon a rock, greatly and inwardly rejoiced in the Lord her God now, and anticipated the glorious times of exaltation which has been predicted. God himself has arrayed the church with his salvation and righteousness, covered her with beauty and precious ornaments. God has espoused to himself; and has gone away to make preparation. As the bridegroom deck himself with ornaments, and the bride to adorn herself with the jewels, when all is ready, Christ will return. And the Church expresses the fullest assurance, that as the earth, or even as the well-cultivated garden, yields an increase of the seed sown in it; so surely would the Lord cause righteousness for his people, and praise and glory for himself, to spring forth before all the nations of the earth.—The word rendered “ornaments,” is supposed to mean a crown like those worn by the priests. Indeed the whole alludes to the “garments, for glory and beauty,” worn by the high priest, and the white-linen worn by all the priests. The word rendered decketh himself, properly signifies a priest’s adorning himself with the ornaments proper for his office; and this language is peculiarly applicable to the case of Christians, who, adorned with the robe of righteousness conferred on their great High Priest, are through him made kings and priests to our God. The year of Jubilee which means a season of joy, a time of restoration and a day of Exaltation. What will you do with the good news?
