PENTECOST
16
Sept.
7-9. 2024
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text:
Isaiah 35:3-7a
“BE STRONG!”
1.
The
Lord has come to save you.
2.
The
Lord will come to save you.
Isaiah
35:3-7 EHV
“Strengthen the weak hands and make the shaky knees steady.
4 Tell those who have a fearful heart: Be
strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your God will come with vengeance. With
God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be
opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unplugged. 6 The
crippled will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.
Waters will flow in the wilderness, and streams in the wasteland. 7 The
burning sand will become a pool, and in the thirsty ground there will be
springs of water.”
Bad news. It comes into everyone’s
lives. Our world is not just tainted by sin. It is ruined. And that means
people, all people, even God’s people, will get bad news. The unexpected death
of a loved one. A bad result on a medical test. Job loss or rejection. The car
accident. Being cut from the team or left off the invitation list. Bad news. It’s
all bad news. When God sent the prophet Isaiah to the people of Judah he
delivered some bad news. Really bad news that would affect a whole nation of
people. The people of Judah as a whole had forsaken God. They were worshipping
idols of the nations that surrounded them. As a consequence God had Isaiah tell
them that they would be conquered by the Babylonians, who lived in the area of
modern day Iraq. Their land and homes would be given to foreigners. They would
be forced to march into exile, a journey of over 700 miles, on foot. Small
children. Pregnant women. Seniors. This was some really bad news. Now for the
people who did not believe in God they likely did not care. But there were
still people faithful to God in Judah. This bad news fell on their ears just
like ours does on our ears. A punch to the stomach. Legs shake. The heart
races. Sleep is hard to come by. They needed some Good News. That’s what they
got!
God had Isaiah tell them. “Strengthen
the weak hands and make the shaky knees steady. 4 Tell
those who have a fearful heart: Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your
God will come with vengeance. With God’s own retribution, he will come and save
you.” “Buck up, little trooper. Don’t cry, it will get better. Hang in
there. This too shall pass.” We have all kinds of nice little phrases that we
use to encourage our children, our friends, ourselves. God’s phrase of
encouragement is “Be strong!” Ours and God’s are meaningless though, if there
is no reason, no power behind those encouragements. The encouragement Isaiah
brought was backed with a reason and with power. God will come and save you.
How could they be sure? I want you to
notice something important about the way God works. Everything is tied to His
Son Jesus. To put it another way, your salvation for life’s many problems is
directly tied to your SALVATION from life’s biggest problem, sin. Did you catch
that? For the Old Testament believers of Isaiah’s time when he talked about God
coming to save them, he immediately followed with, “Then the eyes of the
blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unplugged. 6 The
crippled will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.
Waters will flow in the wilderness, and streams in the wasteland. 7 The
burning sand will become a pool, and in the thirsty ground there will be
springs of water.” God had the people look ahead to a time when blind
people would miraculously see. Deaf people would miraculously hear. People who
were lame and unable to walk would immediately be able to walk and jump. People
previously unable to speak would sing. It would be like a desert land suddenly
having plenty of water blooming and growing and thriving. Do you know of a time
when that happened? When someone opened the eyes of the blind, the ears of the
deaf and the mouths of the mute, when paralyzed people were able to walk? Of
course you do! Jesus did all of that. You heard one example in the Gospel
lesson. There are many more. But Jesus did not make all the mute speak or all
the blind see or all the lame walk. The purpose of those miracles was to
demonstrate that He really was the promised Messiah and to gain opportunities
to talk about why He really came, to be the Savior from sin for all people.
When God came to save the people of
Isaiah’s time from Babylon, that was a little salvation. It was God’s proof
that their bigger SALVATION was coming, the Messiah, the Savior from sin.
Jesus. We are on the other side of the Savior so it works for us in the other
way. The fact that God sent Jesus who lived and died in our place, whose work
accomplished our SALVATION is His proof for the little salvations we need for
the bad news that will inevitably come our way living in a sin ruined world. We
can “Buck up, little trooper. Don’t cry, it will get better. Hang in there.
This too shall pass. And Be strong” because there is power behind it, God’s
power. He has come to save His people
means He will come to save His people. SALVATION is proof of salvation.
That’s the good news God wants you to
take away today. All of us have or are dealing with some bad news. Because we
and our world are ruined by sin we can expect more. All of us k now people who
have received or will receive bad news. What we all need is good news. We have
it. God will come and save you. I don’t know how and I don’t know when. I do
know He will. Jesus is His proof.
Maybe one thing we could all learn to do a
little bit better though is to value our salvations in the right order. In the
Gospel lesson the people were amazed and said Jesus did everything well even
making the deaf hear and the mute speak. In the reading from Acts the people
were filled with wonder and amazement when the apostles used Jesus’ power to
make a lame man walk. Were they just as amazed that Jesus went to the cross for
sinners like them? Were they amazed that Jesus rose from the dead so that the next
time they heard the bad news that a loved one had died they could hold on to
the Good news that those who die in Christ actually live just like He does? I
don’t know. I don’t know if they even knew of their SALVATION. But we do. We
are followers of Christ and followers of Christ know the true purpose of
Christ’s power. It is not the temporary healing of a body that will at some
point die anyway. It is the eternal healing of soul destined for Hell. So be
strong. With whatever you are dealing with, be strong. God has saved you so in
the most important way, He’ll take care of these other ones too. Amen.
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