God Rescues Sinners

Well, let's let's pray together. Father, thank you for teaching us so much already through prayer and through song and through your preaching and scripture this morning. Teach us again tonight. Keep me from error. Give give these people in front of me hearts to understand and ears to hear. the benefit of your glory. Amen. Well, if you would turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 56, and we will be focusing just on verse 8 as you're going there. Let me just give you kind of an intro preface. When I was a sophomore in high school, which was 2002-2003, I started my first year in Latin, and it was extremely overwhelming to me, even though I took Latin instead of Spanish because it was an easier class, but it was still overwhelming in the amount of information that I needed to learn. And as we were about a week before our first finals in that class, There was all this information on the board in front of us and the teacher said, you just have to know the information that I'm writing up here. And so we're scribbling it down and we're trying to make sense of it. And this guy just gets up with a digital camera, 2002 digital camera, takes the picture and sits down and we're like, what was that? Like, that was amazing. And he goes, no, I'll just email it to you. And we're like, what is that? I don't know what you're talking about. And now, when I look back now, if someone were just to get up in a class, take a picture of something, and then say, I'm going to email it to you, our reaction would probably be, well, just tag me in that on Facebook. And so it's interesting how we look back on something so many years back, how revolutionary it was at the time. But as we look back on it now, we'll go, well, yeah, that just makes sense. And I think that's kind of, as I've been meditating on this text, it makes sense to me now because of the ongoing instruction that I've had. But at that time, you know, early on in my life, early on in my Christian walk, especially at the time when it was talk to these people, I'm sure it was revolutionary. So let me just read from the text in Isaiah 56, 8. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declare declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered. This is an incredible text in terms of its goal of evangelism, its goal of comfort. I think the point of this text is simply God has rescued and will rescue sinners from the wrath that you deserve and that I deserve and that all around us deserve. God rescues us still. His glory inside of His tent, we'll call this the church, but if you look at the church at large, it's like this huge tent. It is ongoing in its increasing amount of people. And it was only doing that by God's power and by God's love and by God's commitment to bring glory to himself by himself. So as we look at that, we have to remember that your nationality, your bloodline, your affiliation, who you're a part of in your life in terms of your social group or social class, that does not mean anything outside of the gospel advancing into your life. And that's incredibly encouraging to me, especially in the context that Isaiah has this presented to us. Precluding this passage is the judgment of the servant. that Isaiah talks about in 49 through 55. A part of that was addressed this morning in Isaiah 53. And if you weren't here this morning, I encourage you to download the sermon later on. But think about what God is talking about doing to the servant, the perfect servant in Isaiah 53. Yahweh brings his people to salvation for his own glory and by his own glory. The fact that this glory is so unexpected to the world enlarges that same glory through the wisdom that Yahweh displays. Beyond our passage this evening, so beyond chapter 56, Isaiah prophesies as to how Israel should respond in the immediate future. He summons his people to responsibility by saying that they're quality of life will be improved if they respond in faith to God and God's glory. Now, at the time, this prophecy is addressed to the returned exiles from Babylon in about 520 BC. However, even upon their return from exile, they still suffer from idolatry and hypocrisy and laziness. So just looking at who this is written to, those Jews at the time, we see that their sins are just like our sins. And I think as we see is that the Bible increases upon itself. The same nature of God in saving sinners from their sins is increasing itself upon us, even as Gentiles or non-Jews. So as we look at kind of the doctrine or theology in this passage, we can see the continuance of this, even in the book of Daniel, that the Lord continues to bless those in their exile by honoring those who honor God's name. Even if they continue in exile, for there is something worse than exile that we see in our lives and we see in Daniel's life or we see in Moses's life, that continuing in rebellious rejection of God is the worst way that we can live our lives. Outside of living or instead of living outside of the tent, we'll say, outside of the city walls. Even worse than that is living in absolute rebellion, especially when we know what's going on inside of this tent that God has created to extend his kingdom. The Lord says to his people through Isaiah that those whose souls are satisfied through the Lord himself find absolute blessing, even if they are not native to Israel. Now, this is encouraging to me. Now, I come from a place where everyone is Indian, and so everyone kind of identifies of, okay, I'm a Cherokee, or I'm a Creek, or I'm a Seminole, and it really does create this kind of social order as the history of where we all came from. So while I can't identify exactly with what Israel is going through, I think we all in some way can identify with our created social order and our created social class. And what we need to see is that the gospel penetrates all those classes that we make up as individuals of God. Because the extension of God's work is built on the absolute of God's nature. And as we see of God's nature, nature being holy and good and merciful, the extent of his work comes from that. And it's not just left to people who originate inside of one group or one community, but it's extended to all. And it really does make sense when we think that we're all created not good. And that we all practice being not good. Yet God in his goodness lays in front of us a practice of being merciful. And his gospel is as fair to us in being extended to us as we are being fair to him in rejection. So we're continually rejecting God and he is continually throwing his gospel of mercy and grace in front of us. And so even though there's so much tension between those, they really do parallel. The fairness of God's mercy is as plentiful to us as it is as to the extent of our rejection of his name. Those who reject are still able to repent and turn towards God. For his servant paid the actualized penalty for the wrath that we deserve. And I think this is encouraging the more I think about that. I think it's encouraging in how I look at Christ. I think it's encouraging how I look at God the Father, how I look at the Spirit. And if we were just to break those down, if we were just to think about how should I look at Christ in light of what he says, that his glory will be extended to all in the earth. We look at Christ and we see that his love means more to the Father than what we see in the mirror. If you I mean, we've all looked in the mirror and the only thing that we see in the mirror is ourselves. But the love that the Father has or the love that Christ has for the Father is the exact opposite of the mirror. I remember when I was in Kansas City growing up, I don't remember what the name of it was, but it was like this. this ongoing fountain of fun inside of Kansas City, and there are all these oblong mirrors and misshapes and everything. The mirror that I remember the most is that you could line up in front of all these mirrors that were in front of each other. So if you were standing in front of one mirror, you would only see yourself. But then if you were to go around that mirror, you could still see just yourself. And then if you went around the mirror again, you could just see yourself. But at the finalized point, beyond the last mirror, If you were to look back through all the mirrors that you would just try to look through, you could see through all the mirrors. And we need to realize that God in his mercy sees through all those and sees his son instead of what we deserve on the cross. If we were just to look at the father in this, we see his mercy in saving people who rebel against him. This should overwhelm us to the point of worshiping God continually, that we may be divided in region or we may be divided in practice, but we are unified in the fact that God loves us despite what we rebel and do against him. It continually overwhelms me that despite all of my good efforts, God still loves me. Very encouraging, especially in like continuing to go on. If we were to just look at the spirit, we see that the spirit is very powerful to continually convict people who are wrong and that the spirit is strong enough because God's love is loving enough. Now, this should impact how we look at people around us. I think if we were to look at the New Testament, we were to see that our neighbors are not basically people that we live by or people that we work with, but who God puts in front of us on a daily basis. So if you live by nobody yet, you're around people all day. Those are your neighbors. If you're just walking by someone, that's that's your neighbor. I mean, that's what we see in the the testimonies of the gospel. And I think one of the beauties and the joy and the uniqueness of Christianity is, as Christians, we're just hungry beggars telling other hungry beggars where the food is. It's a joy to be a Christian because I know that I can talk about real hope to other people. And that the hope that I talk about is not just put in front of barriers that say, well, you're just a Gentile, so this doesn't really happen for you. I was running along UVA the other day, and that's not to say to impress you because I only live like half a mile from UVA, but I was running along and this girl came up behind me and she was about to pass me, which means I'm going to start running faster because the last thing I'm going to do is let someone beat me, especially if she's of the other gender. So she starts running up beside me and I'm like huffing it at this point. And we'd only gone like 20 feet at this mass pace. And I just had to like stop and she kind of stopped too. And she was like, are you from here? And I'm like, yeah, I live right down the road. And she had a Russian accent. And I said, yeah, I live here and I work down at the church down the road. And, you know, who are you? And I probably started asking like 20 questions and freaked her out or whatever, because she she just wanted to run. But I was like, you know, do you go to church anywhere around here? Are you from here? And she goes, no, no, no. I'm I'm Russian. I'm Eastern Orthodox. And it's like, OK, well, I mean, that makes sense geographically. But, you know, are you do you believe in Jesus? No, no, no, no. I'm Russian. And you kind of go, it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. Jesus is for you, too. Like he died so that you can to repent, not based on where you're from. Now, I didn't say it that clever. I mean, I think about it ongoing. I should have said that to her. But we have hope in talking to other people about the gospel because the gospel is good enough for everyone because nobody is good enough for the gospel. Yet God in his love gives it in front of everyone. This should teach us a lot about ourselves as I'm thinking about this meditatively, left my own. Left to find my own Savior, I am empty in my attempts. But knowing that Christ was sent by the Father to save me, and that through the awakening of the Spirit, I can rejoice in knowing that I'm not wandering around aimlessly in the world. I can try to set up idols to satisfy myself. And I think we all need to look at neighbors around us as they are sinful people just setting up idols. It's the best they know how to do. And we need to pray that the spirit will ignite in their soul so that they can recognize who the father is. I mean, if we're if we're just beggars passing around information about where the food is, we need to realize that our love for other people is the fact that they're just like us and that they need the gospel as much as we do. So I hope as a church we can have hope that God can love even someone wretched as us. And that we too were once outside of the camp. The amazing song, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost. You get the image of him wandering around at sea. Now I'm found. The idea that God knows me. I was blind, but now I see. We're not just wandering around hopelessly, but because of what Jesus did for you and I on the cross, you are no longer a Jew or a Gentile, but you're a son and daughter of God. This should be a spiritual and emotional encouragement as we look to spread the gospel and enjoy it. I think the idea of wanting to learn the gospel more that Keith talked about this morning is a is a great instruction to my own heart. Do I want to want to learn it more? Well, I do because I know of what it actually did for my life. And that presses me to want to know it more. It presses me to want to tell other people more. It should drive our evangelism. So if we were to look at just this passage, Isaiah 56a, the Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will gather yet others to Him besides those already gathered. We know that God has done it. And we know that God is doing it now. And our hope, if you are a Christian, our hope is that He will continue to do it to those whom we love. Let that be your driving force in evangelism. You love other people because Christ loved you. And you want those people to love Christ the same. Let's pray. Father, thank you for saving us. And thank you for not Thank you for allowing us despite what we do. Thank you for not being eternally judgmental towards us, but thank you for seeing your son in spite of what we do. Give us the courage to tell other people. Give us the desire to long for you more. Amen.