Well it's good to be back. Last week, Trisha and I had a conference in Atlanta so we went up to see the grandparents and had a great time there, but every time I go to another church a lot of great churches is not like this is the best church in the world, but I think so. I'm always happy to be home and not so much because I'm preaching. I love the break from preaching, but I just miss being here at university and so it's good to be back here this morning. This morning we are nearing the end of our series of the kingdom of God and this morning we are in Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah chapter 61, if you have your Bible turn to that, if you don't have a Bible there's an outline in your bulletin with a text and they'll be on the screen behind me as well. Three-year-old Mackenzie Moore knows her colors and it's a good thing because last March it saved her sister's life. Three-year-old Mackenzie was playing in another room with her two-year-old sister Taylor and while she was playing back there she came and her mom was doing dishes in the kitchen and dad was doing what dads do which is sleeping on the couch and Mackenzie came up to mom and said mom Taylor's not the color of my red crayon anymore and mom said now Mackenzie she's not supposed to be red like your crayon you know go play. Well a minute later Mackenzie came back said no mom she's the color of this one my blue one mom all of a sudden realized something must seriously be wrong rushes back and finds Taylor it was indeed blue not breathing past out on the floor she had taken a maternity CPR class as she knew how to administer CPR to the baby and revive the baby took the baby to the hospital and the report last report I heard was that the child was doing fine but what is amazing here is that little three-year-old Mackenzie was a hero which he returned to her preschool the next day a teacher had made up a plaque for her that said Mackenzie more hero you know it doesn't take really that much to be a hero it's just a matter of doing the right thing at the right time if you see something that's wrong doing something about it because Mackenzie more knew her colors she could be a hero now all of us have probably had dreams of being a hero when I was a little boy Batman was my hero and so I had permanently fateful or whatever passed into my shirt a towel that served as my tape and I would run around being Batman fighting crime in the household and with my sister there was a lot of crime so and I was a superhero now try to be super man but the flying thing didn't work Batman was a lot easier to do but sooner or later you outgrow that and I'll grow that and later on we had a basketball goal in the backyard and always dreamed of being a hero in the basketball court you know three two one win the championship game you know of course they usually would take three or four takes for the ball to go in so that I could win the championship game but that was a dream but somewhere between being a little boy playing Batman in adulthood you realize that you don't have any supernatural crime fighting abilities your jump shot probably isn't going to get you anywhere and you settle for the fact that really you're not a hero you're just an ordinary person ordinary average Joe that's sort of disappointing as we turned eyes they at chapter 61 we see that God has a vision for us that we would not be ordinary but that we would be extraordinary God has a vision for us that we would be indeed heroes that we would be people who see where something is wrong and we can come in and make a difference that that is so great that the people by Isaiah's day would actually marvel at what we could do and so with that turn with me to Isaiah chapter 61 what is it that God is calling us to do what's the heroic task well God is calling us as Christians to restore a broken world to restore a broken world Isaiah chapter 61 this is the word of God the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and released from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn and provide those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of the spirit of the spirit they will be called oaks of righteousness a planting of the Lord for the display of the splendor they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations this is God's word as we look at this morning we're going to follow the outline in your bullet and the first point is Christ ministry of restoration Christ ministry of restoration he was 30 years old which would be a young man by my standards now anyway 30 years old an unknown man unimportant it seemed in his community but everybody knew him because he lived in a small town in a small town everyone knows everybody he had not done much significant his job was nothing significant he was just a craftsman but this Saturday he went into the synagogue that in of itself was not unusual he was a devout Jews so every Saturday he went into the synagogue but this Saturday was different when he went into the synagogue he was handed the scroll from the book of Isaiah to read and he turned to Isaiah chapter 61 and read the verses that we just read after he had finished reading them as was their custom the preacher sat down while everyone else remained standing and Jesus preached his first sermon beginning with these words today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing Jesus Christ tells us what Isaiah 61 is all about Isaiah 61 is all about Jesus if you want to say who is Jesus what is his ministry what did he come to do Isaiah 61 tells us when Jesus began his earthly ministry at age 30 he began it by reading from the text and saying here's who I am here's what I am about and so as we look at Isaiah 61 it answers for us that question who is Jesus and what is he doing what is the ministry of Jesus Christ and Isaiah 61 tells us he came to preach good news to the poor Isaiah 61 is part of a section of Isaiah the last third of the book primarily talks about a suffering servant a suffering servant who had come and suffer on behalf of the people and the suffering servant also would establish a kingdom and in his kingdom all things will be restored the world that has been devastated by sin will be made right under the kingship of the suffering servant who we know is Jesus and so Jesus says my ministry is to come and restore we sing about it every Christmas one of our favorite Christmas hymns is joy to the world joy to the world one of the lines goes he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curses found he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curses found wherever the curse has damaged wherever the effects of the fall have come upon the world Jesus comes to restore things and that is every aspect of life as you look at the fall in Genesis chapter 3 like we did back in the autumn we read that that that the fall affected everything it affected health it affected community it affected culture it affected nature it affected everything and Jesus came to bring his kingdom which is going to restore everything now at the first time of your Christ we have the beginnings of the kingdom but it's the second time of your Christ we find fulfillment of the kingdom but for those of us who are Christians now we are citizens of the kingdom of God and seeing the kingdom of God come in Jesus Christ so wherever sin is brought in misery Jesus comes to bring joy now look at this passage and as you look at it one of the striking features of this passage is the description of the people to whom Jesus came to serve who did Jesus come for who did Jesus come to minister to as you look at these verses and see the people we see that he came to serve the poor the captive the brokenhearted the prisoners those who mourn those who grieve those who are in despair he said he came to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor which was the year of Jubilee and that was to announce freedom to those who were in financial bondage so Jesus Christ came for those who mourn those who grieve those who are prisoners and those who are poor what do these people all have in common
they're Christians but as he's describing them here poor and people who grieve and people who mourn these are people who are without hope people who are in despair they're living in a world and as they look at their world they're powerless in it they can't do anything about it they're grieving they're mourning they're in despair because their lives have been devastated by the effects of sin the effects of the fall in the world and so they're people who are hopeless people who had no hope really of even having hope and so the people Jesus came to minister to are hopeless people people in despair people who grieve people who realize they have no power now you see why it's hard for us oftentimes as middle class and as as well to do people to identify with Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ did not come to help those who can help themselves that's not in the Bible so people think it's in the Bible God helps those who help themselves it's not there at all and the Bible says God helps those who can't help themselves God helps the helpless and the reason we have difficulty identifying which Jesus Christ is because we don't see ourselves as being helpless as those who are being poor as those who grieve and those who mourn who those who have no power well what do we do if we're not poor if we're not powerless how then do we benefit from the minister of Jesus we have to we have to become like the poor you have to see your poverty and how desperate you really are the fact is we are poor we are helpless we just don't know it we just don't know it this past week on Friday a 62 year old woman in Pennsylvania was walking to the grocery store as she walked to the grocery store she felt that strange man came up to her and it felt like a punch in her side in her bag and she did not know why he did this but it hurt but it didn't hurt so bad to stop her from what she was doing so she went on to the grocery store did her grocery shopping got her groceries carried them back home but she got back home her daughter looked her there and saw there's a knife sticking out of her back the man had not punched her he had stabbed her now what's remarkable is this woman went to the grocery store did her grocery shopping carried her groceries home not realizing there's a knife in her back what's even more remarkable is no one said anything to her and on the surveillance cameras of the grocery store the knife was clearly visible can you believe that here she was she and she was the last report I heard was yesterday she's still in the hospital in fair condition here's a woman who's been stabbed and she thinks she has a little little bruised and yet she is wounded deeply we're a lot like that woman we're walking around and we have this knife of sin hanging out of our back we think it's just a little bruised it's just it's okay I think I'll be alright and with the whole time we don't even know how bad our situation is and so what we do is we come to Christ and we see that really if we were to go on in our own way we would die we would be we are hopeless we just don't know it and so in coming to Christ what we have to see is that we do have the knife in our back that we do need help and it's helping something that we cannot fix ourselves we think we have a minor problem but if we don't get help it will destroy us Christ came to serve those who know they're wounded Christ came to serve those who know they're poor Christ came to serve those who who realized that without him they have no hope if you see your life you're thinking you know all I need is a little push a little nudge I'm doing okay I just need something to kind of get me over the top then you'll never identify what Jesus Christ if you think you know I'm doing pretty good I just need a little religion and then I'll be okay then you'll never benefit from the ministry of Christ Christ came for those who are poor who grieve who know they're helpless he did not come for those who think they're under control and so coming to Christ means that we need to see our condition for what it is it means we need to stop pretending that we're healthy when we're not coming to Christ means the end of all pretending it means doing away with the pretence it means admitting who we are admitting we're poor admitting we're helpless one of the major criticisms level against Christ against Christianity is the church is full of hypocrites the church is full of hypocrites how many of you have heard that said before I've heard it said many times you know the hard thing about that criticism is it's true it's true in a sense that religious people if you're just religious you are by nature a hypocrite because here's what religion is religion is when you come you say you know I'm living a good life I've got my act together and therefore I am accepted by God that is not Christianity the universal religion of the world is that we do good and we offer our good works works the God and because that God owes us the gospel is God does good and offers us goodness to us see the difference one is I do good and because that God owes me that's religion the Christianity and the gospel is completely different Christianity you realize that you're a bankrupt that you're impoverished poverished unless God pours out his grace upon you you are hopeless and so so in that sense then the Christian is not a hypocrite because the Christian to be a Christian means you have to say I don't have my act together I know I'm a sinner I know I'm broke on my own and I know that I cannot make it without God without in fact it's all super critical not to be a Christian if you say I think I've got a good enough record on my own then that's hypocrisy but if you say I cannot make it on my own I I have no value in and of myself I need what God offers me that's not hypocrisy become a Christian become a Christian that means you have to stand up and say hi my name is Mark Bates I'm a sinner and let my own resources I'm doomed I'm dead that's who I am and saying the reason I'm a Christian is not because I'm good but because I know I'm not and so God invites those who are poor and Jesus comes to those who are poor and he's not using this merely metaphorically but that it applies to us those who are poor those who are bankrupt those who are impoverished those who grieve those who mourn those who know that they are without hope so the good news is that Jesus came for desperate people but not to leave them desperate Jesus came for desperate people but not just so that we could save desperate not just identify with us but to change us look how he describes his mission into verse one says he came to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve and Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair if you look at your life and you see the sin and you're mourning in your despairing then Jesus says I have hope where you have despair where you have sadness I bring joy and praise God says I replace your mourning with joy notice what Jesus says he will do for the poor at the end of verse three he says they will be called oaks of righteousness a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor the poor the prisoner the grieving the hopeless Jesus says I will make them an oak of righteousness do you get the image you have these broken people who've been devastated as if a bulldozer just came through their life and flattened them and Jesus says I'm going to take those people who've been flattened by the effects of sin who know that they are are hopeless on their own and I'll plant them and I'll make them like an oak a mighty oak of righteousness I think the gospel is difficult to believe on two parts the first part is hard for us to come to groups with psychologically and that's admitting that we're sinners and we need help that's difficult to believe the second part I think is even more challenging the second part of the gospel is not that your center is but that God has come and through Jesus Christ you're not you're not a center in Christ in Christ now you're also a saint you're also you are an oak of righteousness when God looks at you Christian and you've come to Christ by faith when he looks at you he says there's marked baits oak of righteousness now that's difficult for me to believe and if you don't believe I think that's difficult to believe about me you don't know me and it's the same thing about you it's difficult for you to believe this you believe when God looks at you he says there is a planting for my splendor when God looks at you he says there is something that is beautiful because Christ has made you beautiful see that's difficult to believe only the Holy Spirit can open our eyes to that truth and so we pray and say Lord I see my sin but Christ says I'm righteous or it helped me to see how beautiful I am in Jesus Christ verse 10 of this passage we didn't we did not read it but earlier let me read it now Isaiah 61 says I delight greatly in the Lord my soul rejoices in my God for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with jewels you see the picture imagine you're you've lived on the streets all your life you're dirty you're filthy you're clothed with the rags you smell and you are by most people standards of society are repulsed by you and God says here's what I do is I take you and I bring you into my home and I wash you and I cleanse you up and I take away your rags and instead I give you a robe of righteousness and God doesn't just close us with a clean clothes but with spectacular clothes he says the the garments of a bridegroom which were like the vestments of a priest but the head gear and jewels and all and the jewels of a bride and so you walk down and now instead of being one who's filthy and cover the rags is as if you walk into a room and and you've been to a wedding you've seen when a bride comes into the room no matter what she looked like before when she begins walking down that aisle she's the most beautiful woman in the world and that's what God says you are in Jesus Christ you're beautiful and you're glorious because Christ has made you beautiful and glorious where sin has damaged and destroyed Christ has made you beautiful that's the ministry of Jesus Christ he restores us well secondly we see our ministry our ministry point to our ministry of restoration Jesus doesn't just restore us but he gives us a ministry of restoration look again at verse 4 he says they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations see what Jesus doing he's taken these poor broken people whose lives have been devastated by sin and he makes them oaks of righteousness and now these oaks of righteousness who once were poor devastated people are now the builders of society they take that which has been destroyed and devastated by sin and they repair it they restore it Christ has called us to be those who restore what does it mean to rebuild the cities the ancient ruins what's he talking about to understand that let me give you a little bit of the context of the book of Isaiah Isaiah throughout most of the book is writing a prophecy of gloom and doom he's writing about judgment that's going to come upon the Jews and Judah he says the nation is going to be destroyed and the capital city of Jerusalem is going to be leveled and it happened just as Isaiah foretold and then Isaiah said though that one day God will raise up a ruler named Cyrus who will let the Jews return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem now what's amazing about the prophecy of Cyrus is that Isaiah matches Cyrus by name hundreds of years before Cyrus was even born and yet this is exactly what happened and you can read about it in Ezra in Nehemiah where the Jews returned and they rebuilt the temple and they rebuilt the city they rebuilt the ancient ruins but not all that Isaiah is talking about Isaiah is not only talking about the restoration that happened under Ezra in Nehemiah how do we know that because Jesus says that Isaiah 61 applies to him and so the people who are the rebuilders and the restores are those people who have been restored and rebuilt by Jesus and so the people who are restoring and rebuilding the ancient cities are Christians he says that our calling is once God has restored us we're to be restoring not just other human lives but also culture as well when sin came into the world and we read about it in Genesis chapter 3 it didn't merely affect us spiritually although that was the major and primary impact it affected every aspect of life every aspect of culture every aspect of nature and and God's commission before the fall to Adam was that he would build culture that he would build society that he would subdue the earth and when we come to Christ that commission becomes ours again to be builders to be restores and wherever sin is devastated we are to bring restoration what this means then is that those who have been restored by Christ are to be busy restoring not only broken lives but broken structures wherever sin is destroyed we're to be restoring every aspect of creation and culture is to be brought under the reign of Christ Chuck Colson you may remember him he went to prison for his involvement in Watergate and was converted there in prison he has written a book recently called How Now Should We Live and he summarizes this point this way he says transformed people transform culture transformed with an ed people transform present tense culture that means if you have been transformed by Christ then your ministry is to be transforming culture God has called you not just to live in the spiritual realm with them but every aspect of your life is to be lived with the glory of God and you're not to serve him merely in the spiritual aspects of your life but in everything that you do and that we're to bring the kingdom of God to bear not only on lives of individuals but also on every aspect of culture as well as Christians we're not only saved from something we're saved to something we're saved from our sin but we are saved to the ministry of bringing everything under the worship of Christ in Colossus chapter 1 we read this that Jesus Christ is reconciling all things to himself Jesus' ministry is reconciling all things not just the souls of men and women but all things are to be reconciled to God in Corinthians we read that every thought is to be taken captive to Jesus Christ and that means that every aspect of human culture is to be restored what this means then as that we as Christians cannot separate our lives into that which is sacred and that which is secular here's how oftentimes we live we say okay I'm a Christian which means I'm going to pray and I'm going to worship and there's why I'm going to give my time to God and then over here I have my secular part of my life that is where I work I handle my money I live in my community I go to school or whatever else that's secular Christ's Lordship is in the sacred now what the scripture says is that Christ's Lordship is over everything there is no division between sacred and secular and so everything that we do we're to bring the reign of Christ to it that means our communities we're to look at our communities and say where is the kingdom of God not present where has sin devastated where the ruined cities in our area that need to be restored by the power of the gospel because the the gospel is powerful enough not only to restore any individual but to any aspect of culture as well as they says and that they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations you're saying it's God can use you to make a visible palatable difference in East Orlando that's why as a church we don't simply exist in our community we exist for our community we are to look at the world and say what's in need of restoration where is sin devastated an early American preacher kind of math they're put it this way he says we as Christians are to look at the world and say what good can I do what good can I do where has sin destroyed that the gospel can bring in life and if you look at our world you see so many places where God is calling us as Christians to be involved it means that we are to seek to bring the Lordship of Christ not only to spiritual but to everything think of for example throw a rock that direction and if you have a really good arm you'll hit University High School's property maybe a drive of the golf ball might be a little bit better but that right direction just a stone's throw from here University High School it's University High School's spiritual place well not exactly it has 4,000 students at University High School 4,000 students and that is a huge high school but at that high school I don't know if you know at that high school there are 500 freshmen who've been identified as students who are at risk students who probably won't make it if they keep going this direction and so what they're realizing is is that these are students some cases who come from broken homes some who come from difficult backgrounds many many many different factors and what these institutions are realizing schools are realizing if we don't do something now we're gonna have problems for many many many years to come these are these are lives of living in ruins many because of things that happen in generations and the tendency for us is to say boy I wouldn't want my kid to go there I wouldn't want to be involved in that and that's your choice that's not a problem with that at all where you educate your children is between you and the Lord but as a church we should say where can we fix that which is broken how can we be a part of restoring and one of the things that we know is they're inviting people to be mentors of students you can be a mentor through a high school student be involved in their lives and many of you are doing this already and it's and it's a spiritual ministry you're restoring that which is broken another area is the poor or Christ calls us to minister to the poor and you say look at how our culture has devastated the lives of people and how their own sin has devastated where sin has brought damage we can come in and bring restoration and that's why we're we're involved in things such as that true life choice in Ovedo needs volunteers to help show price love to women who have unwanted pregnancies here where sin is devastated we bring restoration but it's not just in those activities it's also when you work God has given you a calling you call your job somehow you call it a vocation vocation literally means calling if you have a calling that means there's a caller and God is the caller and if God has called you he hasn't just called you in a spiritual sense he's called you to himself and then includes every aspect of you which means you're to go to work in the morning and say not only how can I make the most money at this job but how can I glorify God best this job what sphere of influence has God given me here to bring his ministry of restoration this past week when I was in Atlanta I had opportunities spend a little bit of time with Scott Puckett's father and Scott's dad's an artist and owns an advertising agency and he was telling me some stories which Scott has never told me about his dad there's a pretty remarkable things as he's a Christian businessman taking how can I glorify God in my business and several things they've done for example they they at one time were doing a campaign about about giving relief to the Vietnamese vote people who were coming over to the United States many of you will remember that and they were so touched by what was going on the Puckett's invited when the Vietnamese men who come live in their home another situation was they they created some advertisements just free on their own initiative in Atlanta because the pro-life movement was receiving such a negative image they created some advertisements that helped people who even disagreed with the pro-life movement to understand what people were all about in attempting to save the unborn and he did this of his own initiative what was he doing you're saying where's sin devastating and how can I make a difference it's like little Mackenzie you look at the world and you say you know this is supposed to be read but it looks like it's blue something's wrong what can I do about it where why has God stationed me where I am God is positioned you in a place where you can be a hero because God has put you in a particular neighborhood a particular community a particular school a particular job a particular place where you can have influence and the question is that you're to be asking is why am I here what does it mean to serve Christ as king what does it mean to bring his lordship to this area you can have it make a difference God has not saved you just for you God has saved you for the world and God has given you a mission and you may look at your life you think I'm not usable I know I can't preach I can't teach I can't sing I can't do this God has equipped you to serve in the world and he can use you to do amazing things they will rebuild the ancient ruins God can use you in your weakness to restore things that others will only marvel at let's pray our Lord Jesus Christ we come this morning and we marvel at you we look and we see our lives that have been broken and devastated by sin and by faith we realize that what once was ugly now is beautiful or we thank you we thank you and we pray that you would help us to believe that truth even more deeply where our faith is weak strengthen it and Lord we thank you that you have not called us simply to be passive but you've allowed us to be a part of what you're doing and as your kingdom spreads to the world and so Lord we pray give us the ministry of restoration show us where we can have an impact and as we leap here today may we leave for this thought of how can I best glorify you and all that I do we pray this in Christ name