Isaiah 1:2-9 - Great Rebellion brings Great Suffering

Turn to Isaiah chapter 1.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

Isaiah, you'll be hearing quite a lot over the next year.

That call to turn to the book of Isaiah.

So your Bibles may have been falling open to Matthew, but now hopefully they'll start falling open to Isaiah.

If you're using the Pew Bible this morning, you'll find Isaiah chapter 1 on page 600.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

We're going to be covering verses 2 through 9 of Isaiah chapter 1 this morning.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

Isaiah 1, verses 2 through 9.

Isaiah 1:2–9

This is what Holy Scripture says.

Listen, heavens, and pay attention, earth, for the Lord has spoken.

I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's feeding trough.

But Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

O sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, brood of evildoers, depraved children.

They have abandoned the Lord.

They have despised the Holy One of Israel.

They have turned their backs on him.

Why do you want more beatings?

Why do you keep on rebelling?

The whole head is hurt, and the whole heart is sick.

From the sole of the foot even to the head, no spot is uninjured, wounds, welts, and festering sores not cleansed, bandaged or soothed with oil.

Your land is desolate, your cities burned down, foreigners devour your fields right in front of you, a desolation, like a place demolished by foreigners.

Daughter Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

If the Lord of Armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.

We would resemble Gomorrah.

Lord, we're just seeking your help again because we need you.

The Spirit gives life.

We remind ourselves of that.

So we're asking that the Spirit would give life even through these words of challenge today.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

We see that throughout the pages of scripture.

Cain, the very first son, kills his brother Abel.

When the Lord banishes Cain, he says, This punishment is more than I can bear.

Esau sought a wife among people that didn't know the Lord.

And the Bible tells us in Genesis that the thing brought great grief to his parents.

Eli's sons rebelled.

They didn't listen to their father.

And 1 Samuel chapter 2 tells us that it was the Lord's will to put them to death.

1 Samuel 2 · chapter mention

Saul, the very first king in Israel, rebels against the Lord.

And 1 Samuel 15 tells us that rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft, and the kingdom is ripped away from him.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

Even the very first man and woman, Adam and Eve, they turn away from God, and the very ground that Adam is made from is cursed, and he's going to have to work it with thorns and thistles.

Eve, so who was so wondrously created to be able to bring life from herself, now there's going to be pain in childbearing, she was created and brought from Adam's side.

There's going to be pain in their relationship, and the whole world is plunged into ruin because of their rebellion.

Proverbs 17, 11 warns us: an evil person desires only rebellion.

A cruel messenger will be sent against him.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

As we enter the book of Isaiah, we find rebellious people.

Look at verse 2.

The Lord speaks there and says that he's raised Israel, that nation.

It says they'll be devoured by the sword.

Isaiah chapter 30, verse 1, the prophet there is going to pronounce a woe on rebellious children.

Isaiah 30:1

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

Now I want to give a word of caution before I get into the meat of the message this morning.

Some of you probably already really like the theme of this sermon for someone else.

You're like, great rebellion brings great suffering.

I don't care if it is the first day of children's Bible lesson.

My kids got to hear this.

I'm going to go downstairs, pull them right out, and bring them back up for the sermon.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

Oh boy, doesn't America need to hear that?

I don't even recognize it anymore.

Something's coming.

Don't forget the old children's primer.

In Adam's Fall, we sinned all.

This passage should be reaching down into our hearts to each and every one of us.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

As we work through that theme from the text today, I've got four words that all begin with the letter R.

So if that helps you, if you're taking notes, great.

But the words are relationship, rebellion, ruin, and remnant.

I'll say those again: relationship, rebellion, ruin, and remnant.

So we'll start with that first R word, relationship.

The word relationship helps us understand why the rebellion is so great.

The rebellion is great because of the relationship that's despised.

Look again at verse two.

The Lord speaks, I have raised children and brought them up, but they rebelled against me.

God calls the nation of Israel his children.

It's not the first time he's done that.

Back in Exodus chapter 4, he tells uh he tells Moses to go in and tell Pharaoh, let my people go.

Exodus 4 · chapter mention

Israel is my firstborn son.

In Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 1, Scripture calls Israel sons of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 14:1

Hosea chapter 11, verse 1.

Hosea 11:1

When Israel was a child, I loved him.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

So the nation of Israel in the Old Testament was God's son.

But who was Israel?

Well, well, they were, with all due respect, they were a nobody.

They weren't a great and powerful nation.

God took Abraham from a land of pagan worshipers, and God brought him out, and God made him his own.

So it's not like, you know, when you go to the pet store and you're going to adopt a dog, and there's all these mangy mutts growling at you, and then you see one dog with this shimmering coat and he's wagging his tail, and you're like, that's the one.

Let's that wasn't how it was with Israel.

Deuteronomy 7, verse 6.

Deuteronomy 7:6

You're a holy people belonging to the Lord your God.

The Lord chose you to be his own possession.

He set his heart on you and chose you not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest, but the because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore.

God loved Israel because he loved them.

They were his children.

In Ezekiel 16, there's a picture, it's a graphic picture of an infant abandoned by the side of the road, thrashing around in his own blood, and the Lord comes and cleans him up and takes him home.

That's the picture of what happened with Israel.

So if we think not only that they're children, but who they're children of, they're children of the Almighty God.

It wasn't Egypt or some bigger nation that adopted them.

This is the God of heaven and earth who made everything in it.

He took them as his own.

And it's not even just who their father is, God Almighty, it's how he has cared for them.

Again, verse 2 of Isaiah 1, God says, I have raised children and brought them up.

If Elon Musk went to some uh you know troubled orphanage and adopted a child, paid for a full-time nanny, a private school, left him half of his money in his will, say, well, that's that's pretty generous.

God did so much more than that for Israel.

He didn't just make provision for them, he personally cared for them.

He was their nursing mother, he was their tutor, he's the one who brought them out of Egypt with mighty outstretched arms.

He's the one that parted the sea when they're in the wilderness.

He's the one who sent manna from heaven and brought water from the rock when they came into Jericho.

He's the one who put the walls down.

Over and over again, God is so tenderly caring for Israel.

And yet, and yet, it's a meager people and a mighty God.

The relationship is great, and that's what makes the rebellion so great because they despise that relationship.

And that helps us to understand also part of what made Adam and Eve's original sin so serious.

Sometimes we think, oh, well, they took a bite of the fruit.

I mean, okay, it was wrong, but really all this, it's not just that isolated act.

It's that God had created them perfectly in a perfect environment, perfect inside and out, and they say no and they go their own way.

That brings us to the second, that second R word for today.

Relationship, and then yes, rebellion.

Verse 2 God has raised these children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.

Rebellion is foolish.

Look at verse number three.

There's a comparison here.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's feeding trough, but Israel does not know.

My people do not understand.

You hear the comparison?

Even dumb brute animals are sensible enough to know who's the one who's feeding us, who's the one who's caring for us, will be responsible to them.

But even dumb brute animals are unlike, in this case, Israel.

We've got these expressions today still, you dumb ox.

Or there's another word that's a King James word for Mule.

I won't use the word, but you can use your imagination.

But the point is, how could you be so stupid?

Israel, how could you be so foolish in light of all that's been given to you?

But rebellion is foolish.

Our rebellion is foolish.

Sin clouds our minds.

Ephesians 4 says we have futile thoughts.

We're darkened in our understanding.

We have hard hearts that result in ignorance in us.

God is the wisest and most intelligent being in the universe.

He's also the being who is the most full of goodness.

So it's it's the height of folly for us not to listen to him, for us to think that we somehow know more than God or could act in a way that's better than God, or chart our own course.

Proverbs 26, verse 11.

Proverbs 26:11

As a dog returns to its vomit, so also a fool repeats his foolishness.

It's always wrong to rebel against God.

Now, there's other authority figures, they're not all wise and all good.

It's usually wrong to rebel against parents, government bosses.

It usually brings suffering.

There may be times when they try to put themselves in the place of God, and we have to say, like Peter, we have to obey God rather than man.

But this passage is talking about rebellion against God Himself, and rebellion against God Himself is always wrong.

Full stop.

Romans 1.

We heard from Romans 1 early in the service, but though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude.

Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

Therefore, God delivered them over and the desires of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies were degraded among themselves.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served what has been created instead of the Creator who is praised forever.

So Israel's sin is in some ways aggravated and unique because of the special opportunities they had, and we'll come back to that.

But it's a picture in some ways of the sin of humanity and the rebellion of all humanity.

It's foolish, and rebellions also here persistent.

Verse number five of Isaiah one.

Why do you keep on rebelling?

The NIV there reads, why do you persist in rebellion?

Sadly, this is not Israel who's a well-behaved child and they have an off day and they decide to break curfew once.

That's not what's happening.

They rebel and rebel.

This is not like the kid who they're grouchy one day, they're a 12-year-old, they tell their parents, I hate you, I'm running away.

And then two blocks down the road, this was not a good idea.

I'm gonna go back home.

No sooner had Israel received the Sinai covenant than they'd created a golden calf.

How long had they been in the wilderness when they started saying, We like it better back in Egypt?

They continually adopted the idols of the nations around them.

Moses, in one sense, saw this coming, Deuteronomy 31, 27.

Moses says, I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are.

If you're rebelling against the Lord now, while I'm still alive, how much more will you rebel after I'm dead?

And he's right, it does get worse and worse.

As the centuries wear on, here's Jeremiah 19:5.

Jeremiah 19:5

They've built high places to bail on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings, something I never commanded or mentioned.

I'd never entertained the thought.

They've got a long-standing relationship, but there's a long-standing rebellion.

And here in Isaiah 1, the heavens and the earth are called to witness.

Those are the same witnesses that were back in the covenant in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the covenant at Sinai, those same witnesses were invoked as the nation entered that covenant.

And now those same witnesses are being invoked because they've broken that covenant time and time and time again.

They rebelled against their creator.

Let me pause here and state a truth.

It's not the only truth from this passage, but it is a truth.

Perfect parenting cannot guarantee a good outcome for children.

Perfect parenting cannot guarantee a good outcome for children.

It is true that the Lord often uses the means of faithful parenting to work in the lives of children, but we have to be very careful not to absolutize that principle.

Some of you have one or more children who are not walking with the Lord, and it's a grief to you, and you can be tempted to just blame yourself over and over and over again.

Don't forget that the Lord is God and you're not.

Yes, we could acknowledge our mistakes.

It can be helpful to even share with other parents.

We maybe could have done this or that, but we have to leave our children ultimately in the hands of God.

And there might be other parents here who your children are walking with the Lord.

It could be a temptation for you to look around and say, maybe not out loud, but in your heart, well, of course their children aren't walking with God.

Look at all the things that we did that those parents didn't do.

Are you a better parent than God?

Because it says here that God raised Israel and brought Israel up, but they rebelled.

I dare say God was a perfect parent, far more perfect than any of us.

Young parents, uh, aspiring new couples.

It can be easy for you to also look at other parents and criticize.

Of course, their kids are so discouraged, they're nagging them all the time.

We're gonna be sweet and loving with our children, and they'll respond with sweet and loving obedience.

Course, their kids are bouncing off the wall.

Parents never discipline those kids.

We're gonna discipline consistently, uh patiently, and our kids will see we're doing it for their good.

And I'll I'll include single people here.

We're probably the best at criticizing parents, I admit it.

It's one of our spiritual gifts, uh, if I do say so.

Friends, this passage shouldn't be driving us to guilt or to self-righteousness or to accusation, but to prayerfulness.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Great rebellion brings great suffering, and we need to make no mistake about it.

Israel's rebellion is great, it's personal.

Sin isn't merely a misstep or a mistake, it's the transgression of the law of God, it's rebellion.

Verse 4 brings this out so clearly.

They've abandoned the Lord and turned their backs on him.

Isaiah calls God the Holy One of Israel.

That's a title that's gonna come up repeatedly throughout this book.

God's the holy one of Israel, but they're such unholy and rebellious people.

There's a tension and a collision point there that we're gonna come back to over and over again in this book.

Relationship, rebellion, and yes, that leads to ruin.

Verse five.

The whole heart is sick.

This is a suffering that's both outside and inside.

It's going to affect every part of the nation.

Israel's sin brings consequences.

You reap what you sow.

They had so much, they rebelled so highly, and now the ruin they experience is going to be great, and it's going to be painful.

And we'll see those consequences spilling out in this passage and then throughout the book of Isaiah.

The suffering we experience doesn't always stem from our own personal sin.

But normally, our own personal rebellion does bring about suffering.

And in verse five, God asked them this question.

It sounds like such a rhetorical question.

Why do you want more beatings?

But remember, rebellion is foolish.

And so the ruin that comes, the suffering that comes, is sometimes a lesson that's that's learned, but not really truly learned.

Why do you want more beatings?

An earlier season of life, I was a summer camp counselor.

Some of you know that.

And um, now we we didn't beat the children.

So some of you are like, where's this illustration going?

Okay, no.

But I worked with elementary kids in a summer camp, and there was one boy, I'll call him Tommy, and he had a problem with his anger.

But he was in sixth grade, so he's one of the biggest kids.

So there was never really an issue with the other kids because he was big, they couldn't do much of anything except sometimes give me this like panic look across the ball field that was like, Tommy's about to blow his top.

We need some adult intervention as soon as possible.

But then the next summer, he's no longer in the elementary camp, he's in the junior high and high school camp.

So now he's not one of the biggest kids, he's one of the smallest kids.

I think you know where this illustration is going.

I was with a with a group of people that were on staff for a work thing, and I knew some of the staff in this other high school camp.

I said, How's Tommy doing?

They said, Wow, we had an incident the other day.

Uh we were playing a game, we look up.

There's this other kid on top of Tommy straddling him, just punching him repeatedly in the face.

This is like MMA before there's MMA.

And they said, We go over, run over, pull the kid off, and Tommy's bawling, and we're like, What's going on?

And the other kid said, Well, we're just playing dodgeball.

I threw a ball, hit him for no reason.

He gets upset and comes over and punches me.

So I tackled him, started punching him in the face.

And I said, Well, what?

When his dad came to pick him up later that day and he had to explain the situation to Tommy's dad, what did his dad say?

I said, Yeah, we were worried about that, but thankfully, you know, when we explained the situation, his dad said, Well, I hope you learned a lesson today.

Now, that's that's suffering from your own foolishness on a small scale.

But Israel's rebellion is on a on a great scale.

When we sin against God, we're committing cosmic treason, as R.

C.

Sproull would say.

Isaiah 59, verse 2 Your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen.

Isaiah 59:2

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongues mutter injustice.

No one makes claims justly, they trust in empty and worthless words, they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity.

Here in Isaiah chapter 1, verse 6 says, No spot is uninjured.

Isaiah 1:6

There are wounds and welts and festering sores from head to toe.

Job experienced that kind of suffering because it was God's mysterious will to allow him to experience that degree of suffering.

Israel as a nation experienced that because of their own rebellion that brought this ruin on them.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

But it always leads to suffering in the end.

It might start off feeling like freedom, feeling like pleasure, but then you come at a certain point, and wouldn't it be God's mercy if it came in this life rather than the life to come?

Where you wake up and you're with the hogs and you're looking around saying, Why did I leave my father?

What have I done?

Our sin doesn't only bring ruin and suffering to ourselves, it affects other people.

So here, Israel shares in a collective guilt.

Even though not every single individual Israelite is rebelling to the same exact degree, they share in this collective guilt that's going to be affecting the entire nation.

So verse 7 reminds us that the whole land is desolate.

Multiple cities are burned down.

Assyria's already come in in the north, laid waste to a lot.

And Judah is left, this tribe in Jerusalem, and it's described here poignantly but heartbreakingly as a shack in a cucumber field.

And Babylon's going to be coming for Judah and Jerusalem as well.

Israel's suffering is magnified again because of that special covenant that they had with God.

Their rebellion is all the more exacerbated because of the relationship and privileges they had.

There's a comparison here at one point to Sodom and Gomorrah.

And Sodom and Gomorrah were judged by the Lord righteously.

They didn't have that special covenant that Israel had.

So Israel's had more privilege, and yet their ruin is all the more great.

We don't want to too quickly just equate the nation of Israel and America.

God didn't come down to Mount Vernon and give George Washington two tablets of stone.

He did do that with Israel.

So, yes, Isaiah is going to prophesy against other nations as well.

It's not irrelevant that we care for our country that we're living in and think about how we want our country to honor God.

That's not irrelevant.

But Israel had this special covenant with the Lord, and that's so important because it's going to bring heightened consequences.

Relationship, rebellion, ruin.

But there's another word, and that's the word remnant.

If you ask why great rebellion brings such great suffering, it's great rebellion because of the relationship.

But thankfully, if you ask, is suffering the end of the story?

Is there only ruin for Israel?

You've talked about how we're all made in the image of God.

We all owe God obedience and loyalty.

Is only what's left for us suffering and ruin?

No, there's this word remnant.

Look again at verse number nine.

If the Lord of armies had not left us a few survivors, we would be like Sodom.

There's the example, parallel, we would resemble Gomorrah.

He brought Law and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah.

He didn't leave other survivors.

He let those civilizations become extinct.

He could have done that with Israel, but he doesn't.

He leaves survivors.

Even though, in one sense, they're they're even less deserving of having survivors, he shows off his mercy.

The remnant, this group that's left amidst all the death and destruction, is a testimony to the mercy of God.

Is it a coincidence that there's still Jewish people alive today?

No, it's not a coincidence.

It's a testimony to the mercy of God.

God preserves a remnant in order to show off his mercy.

But there's something else about this remnant.

And to see this, we need to turn over to Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

So please take your Bible and turn to Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

All of this suffering and devastation and destruction and ruin.

But if you come out the other side, that's I can only mean one thing: great mercy.

And in Romans chapter 9, Paul's going to quote from the passage we just have been looking at here in Isaiah chapter 1.

Romans 9 · chapter mention Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

And we want to look at that.

Whenever the Bible quotes itself, we've got to consider that.

I read some commentaries this week.

They were helpful.

They're not inspired.

Paul's inspired in Romans chapter 9.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

So when he quotes the Old Testament, we want to give special care and attention to it.

Best way to interpret scripture is with Scripture.

Romans 9, look at verse 29.

Apostle Paul's writing under inspiration of God.

He says, just as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom.

And we would have been made like Gomorrah.

So he quotes the verse we just read.

Why is Paul doing that?

He's helping us understand more deeply this theology of the remnant.

So in Isaiah 1, Assyria's come in, Babylon's coming in, a lot of people are going to die, there's going to be people taken captive, but God's going to leave survivors.

There's going to be that physical remnant.

But Paul is drawing out an additional purpose here in Romans 9.

He's drawing out the reality that God preserves that physical remnant so that there can be a spiritual believing remnant.

In Romans, Paul has been celebrating the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, how he brings salvation to sinful people.

Chapter 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

But then he raises this question that someone might have.

Seems like they're separated from God.

What about God's promises to Israel?

They're still rebelling against him.

They, by and large, rejected his Messiah.

And Paul says, but wait, don't think the word of God has failed.

That's impossible for the word of God to fail.

You need to understand better the theology of the remnant.

It's always been God's purpose to preserve a believing remnant within the larger nation that rebels.

That's what he's drawing out here for us in this section of scripture.

It was never God's intention to save every single individual Israelite who had ever lived.

But it was his intention throughout all those years to preserve a remnant, not just a remnant of physical survivors, but a remnant of God-fearing worshipers looking forward to the Messiah.

Remember what Elijah said?

Lord, I'm the only one left.

And the Lord said to Elijah, I've left 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal.

Ahab was an Israelite.

He was not a part of the believing remnant, but there were 7,000 who hadn't bowed the knee to Baal.

And Paul says, just at that time, as now, there's an election according to this remnant of grace.

So we have people like our wonderful brother Arnie Epstein, part of the believing remnant.

You could, you could, I don't know if Arnie's here today, but if you see him, at some point say, Thank you, Arnie, for remind us, God's faithful to his word.

He's going to be saving Jewish people throughout the ages.

There's this believing remnant, Paul says, so that God's word is indeed fulfilled.

And yes, the remnant shows off God's mercy, but the remnant reminds us that it's God's purpose to bring about salvation.

We need to keep giving the gospel to our Jewish friends, our neighbors, our companions.

We're thankful that they can be kept alive as people, but we don't want to stop there.

We want to be like Paul, who said, My heart's desire and prayer for them is that they might be saved.

You're listening well.

We're almost at the finish line here, but I want us to see finally how this draws us to Jesus Christ.

So if you've been tracking with us so far, great suffering, a great rebellion brings great suffering, and you might say, okay, if rebellion brings suffering, if indeed rebellion deserves suffering, then I'm not understanding why there are survivors.

I could see why God would judge everyone, but there's some survivors and there's some who are not survivors.

I could understand God is God.

If he wants to give this person a mansion, this person a medium size, that's his business.

But it is he just kind of sweeping the rebellion under the rug to be able to look at rebellious people and say, Well, I'll have mercy on you.

It seems like the rebellion is being minimized.

How can the Holy One of Israel do that?

He's not in any way minimizing rebellion.

He's of purer eyes than to look on wickedness, scripture says.

But how is it that God can say, not only you're part of my earthly family, nation of Israel, but to Jews and to people from every tribe and tongue and nation, he can say, you're part of my eternal spiritual family.

The remnant receives salvation because they are united to Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Israelite Son.

I'll say that again.

The remnant receives salvation because they're joined, they're united to Jesus, who is the faithful Israelite son.

Jesus suffered more than anyone has ever suffered, but not because of his own rebellion.

Our iniquity was laid on him.

Our rebellion was laid on him, that he might take the suffering and judgment on himself.

Jesus, of all the children who have never ever lived, Christ never rebelled.

And God takes the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and credits that to all who are joined to him.

That's where the belief and faith comes in.

We turn from our own way, not to trust in ourselves or just to try harder, but we're clinging hold of the one who is the faithful Israelite son.

That God can look on him and say, This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased.

And all those that are in him, I'm well pleased with them too.

It doesn't matter.

And this is where the hope comes in for all of us.

Whether you're Jew or Gentile or British or Argentinian or wherever else you've come from, if you belong to the faithful Israelite son, you're part of the believing remnant.

You're one of the survivors.

We're all sons of God and we're all sons of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ.

He's the centerpiece, he's the cornerstone where all of this so powerfully and beautifully meets together.

In the book of Isaiah, the remnant and the messiah are intertwined.

I've got to exercise some restraint here.

There's going to be more messages in the book of Isaiah.

But Isaiah's going to speak of the servant of the Lord, servant of the Lord.

And sometimes, think, okay, the servant of the Lord, is that the believing remnant or is that the Messiah?

Well, they're very intertwined.

Give you one more example.

Isaiah pictures this great tree, and he says, it's going to be chopped down.

There's the picture of judgment against the nation of Israel.

But he says, a stump remains.

There's the believing remnant.

God always preserves the believing remnant.

But then Isaiah says, out of the stump, the root of Jesse will grow.

Do you see that?

That's the son of Jesse, David, Jesus Christ himself.

So there's the believing remnant, but the real, the real first root is Jesus Christ.

It speaks of the branch of David springing out of this tree.

So Jesus Christ Himself is the Israelite remnant who is faithful.

And all those that are joined to him are grafted in and receive salvation.

That's the hope that we have for God's mercy.

Yes, we didn't disobey at Sinai, but each one of us have disobeyed each and every day of our lives.

Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Who among us can say that I've done that?

We only have hope through Christ.

And this is so wonderful.

In Christ, we have certain hope.

Not just a maybe hope, not the repeated sacrifices year after year, but the sacrifice once for all finished, the mercy of God that's eternally secure for us because of God's purpose through Jesus Christ.

So today, if you're trusting in Christ, rejoice.

And if you're not trusting in Him, please come speak with me, speak with one of our elders or any of us that would be happy to talk with you more about what it looks like to cast yourself upon the Lord.

We want you to receive this free gift of salvation.

We want you to be to be one of one of the remnant, one of the survivors as you trust in the Lord Himself.

The hope that we have is not just a temporary hope for temporary kinds of successes, but an eternal relationship restored.

Great rebellion brings great suffering.

But that means if we've experienced the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, that mercy is great indeed.

Let's pray.

Oh God, we ask that you would open our eyes more and more to appreciate the magnitude of Jesus Christ and all that he's accomplished.

We thank you that he came born of a virgin and yet born as a son of David, born to walk in the footsteps of Israel, to retrace those steps and yet never sin and never rebel, that he's been received to your right hand, and now we who belong to him can find acceptance, can find peace in our hearts with you, and then peace with one another through Jesus Christ.

Lord, we thank you for these elements we're about to enjoy together because they too remind us of the work of Christ.

We don't in any way ever want to minimize our sin, but we want to magnify the mercy of God in Jesus Christ for rebels like us.

So please, Lord, let us magnify that mercy as we sing, as we go on our way this day.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.