Sunday, February 27, 2011

EPIPHANY 8
February 27/28
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Isaiah 49:13-18

“GOD GIVES US SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT!”
1. His Compassion.
2. His faithfulness.

Isaiah 49:13-18 (NIV) “Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. 14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! 16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. 17 Your sons hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. 18 Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.”

People need something to cheer about. A Super Bowl victory. An upset in the NCAA tournament, as long as it’s not against your team. Baby’s first steps or first words. A free throw that is made. When your country wins a war. All these things and many more cause people to cheer and that’s good! It’s good to have something to cheer about.
In the word of God before us today God gives us something to cheer about, but it’s different than other things. It’s not the defeat of an enemy and it’s not something that is one and done. It’s the characteristics of our God, His compassion and faithfulness. A little look at the context of God’s declaration through Isaiah will help us to apply God’s Word to us today.
You know the history of the Old Testament people of Israel. You know how God always took care of them. You know how quick they were to forget what God had done for them in the past. You know how easily they adopted the sexual sinning of the people around them. You know how easy it was for them to have other gods and how easy it was for their worship to become a going through the motions. You know too that while all the people of Israel were not truly believers in the Savior God, God always preserved a remnant of believers in that nation. Often they found themselves caught up in the sins of their nation and shamefully repented. Sometimes they found themselves caught up in consequences for the whole nation for sins they were not themselves guilty of.
Here was one of those cases. God has Isaiah address believers who would be in exile in Babylon, the consequence for Israel’s idolatry. Imagine how those believers felt. They would have to struggle with feelings of unfairness when they got caught up in the consequences of others’ sins. They would have to work through realizing that they weren’t sinless people either. That any punishment they got was deserved. Sorrow. Self loathing. Despair. Hurt. Hopelessness. They needed something to cheer about.
God gave it to them. “Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.” Here was something to cheer about. The Lord comforts His people. He has compassion on them. God know what His people were going through. He did not rejoice in their hurt and their heartache. He saw their affliction and would come to their aid.
This is His promise for you too. It’s something for you to cheer about. It’s not always easy living in a world ruined by sin. There are those things we have to deal with simply because the world is messed up. Loved ones get sick. Cancer is no respecter of persons afflicting old and young, believer and unbeliever. People we love die. We miss them. That hurts. Other people sin against us and that hurts. Reputations get ruined. Feelings get hurt. Rifts form in families, friendships, churches. Then too we have to admit that whatever hurt we get, whatever bad things happens, in reality we deserve far worse for we too sin against our God and any earthly affliction we have dealt with is far better than the eternity of Hell we deserve. But God gives you something to cheer about. Shout for joy, He says. Rejoice! He says. God has compassion on you. Whatever hardship, hurt or affliction you are going through, God knows and God cares. At just the right time He will come and relieve you.
When? That’s always the question with people who by nature have a problem with patience! When. Old Testament Israel felt that way too. “But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” When God’s people were off in Babylon they would feel like God had forgotten them. This was not true. God gave them something to cheer about. His faithfulness.
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! 16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” Two pictures God uses to help His people understand the depth of His faithfulness. The first one is mother love. The love that mothers have for their children. Of all the types of love that we can see on earth that is probably the tightest. Mothers are wired to be committed to their children. That’s where the Mama Bear picture comes in. It’s a natural instinct to protect their children from everything. So God uses that faithful love to proclaim His. He asks, “ Can a mother forget her child and have no compassion?” The answer is rarely. Every once in a while we will hear of the baby left in the toilet or the garbage. That is so horrifying to us to hear. God acknowledges that the best of human love and faithfulness is flawed, but not His. “Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” Another picture. We are always on His mind. “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” In some cultures a way to honor a person or their memory is by tattooing their name on a person’s body. In those cultures it proclaims, “I will never forget you.” God uses that similar picture. I can’t forget my people. You are in the palm of my hand. He sees the city personified and its walls are always before Him.
The result is something to cheer about. God’s faithfulness meant that the exiles in Babylon could count on rescue at the right time. They would be brought back to their own country at the right time. They would have something to cheer about. “Your sons hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. 18 Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.” Enemies would be gone. Their loved ones restored.
God’s faithfulness is also something for us to cheer about. While the immediate fulfillment meant that Israel would be brought back to their Promised Land, the prophetic fulfillment went further. God’s faithfulness meant that God would keep His promise to send a Savior no matter what. And He did. Jesus came. He lived. He died. He rose. For me. For you. So God’s faithfulness means that we will be rescued and taken to the Promised Land too. For some of us that happens when the Lord comes at the day of our death which we should probably better call the first day of our new life that is real life. For others that may be when Jesus returns at the end of the world. Those things will happen. God is faithful.
He’s also faithful with our earthly problems and afflictions. Whatever you are going through God has not forgotten you. He can’t. He has not forsaken you. He won’t. He is simply waiting for the time to be right and you need to understand that God only allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent with His power. There is a purpose and a good reason whether you see it or not. That’s something to cheer about.
And keep cheering about every day. It was very interesting to me to see how quickly the cheering for the Packer’s Super Bowl victory died down. For many people it is so far in the rearview mirror but really it was only 3 weeks ago. Two weeks after that victory the Super Bowl shirts were already being sold at 75% off! That’s something to cheer about. Let’s not do that with God’s compassion and faithfulness. Let’s keep it right before us as we are always before Him so every day we wake up it’s with a smile on our face for we have something to cheer about.

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