He Will Set Us Free

We're continuing in this series called Promised and Fulfilled.

And here's what we've looked at.

We've looked at God's promises for his people and how Jesus has fulfilled those promises in his life, death, and resurrection.

And this morning we're looking at a text from Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 61.

Isaiah 61 · chapter mention

Now, Isaiah was a prophet in the Old Testament, and the Lord gave Isaiah this vision of a Messiah who would come and he would redeem and restore God's people.

And all of Isaiah in certain ways is a singular vision that the Lord gave to this prophet.

And if we try to like break Isaiah into three kinds of sections, here's what we'll see.

We'll see in chapters 1 through 37, we see the Messiah king.

In chapters 38 through 55, we see the Messiah servant.

And in chapters 56 through 66, we see the Messiah anointed conqueror.

And so here in our passage, we're going to be in Isaiah 61.

So we're in the section of this messianic vision that God has given to the prophet Isaiah that is about this anointed conqueror who would come.

And in Isaiah 61, we see a vision not only about the anointed conqueror who would come, but what he would accomplish in his work.

And at the end of Isaiah 61, we see this picture of new creation, and we see what it's going to culminate in and how it's going to uh be producing uh righteousness throughout all that God has established and brought his people into.

This is the accomplished work of the anointed conqueror, the Messiah who is to come.

In Isaiah 61, verse 11, we see the end of the vision as this for as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Isaiah 61:11

So so here's what Isaiah's help us understand is that what the end of what the anointed conqueror's work looks like is that the righteousness of God fills new creation.

Now, how does it fill new creation?

It fills new creation by the people who are the people of his righteousness.

So we will live out that righteousness, we will fill new creation, and this will be kind of a factor of how we understand and what the new creation is known for.

This reality of God's righteousness filling it.

So new creation flourishes because God's righteousness is filling it, and his righteousness fills that creation through his people, whom he has redeemed by this victory of the anointed conqueror.

Now, this specific prophecy in Isaiah, though it has some uh uh what we would call messianic tones to it or or parts of it, it's eschatological in nature.

Here's what I mean by that.

Eschatology means of the end times or events in regards to the end times.

And so prophecy can kind of take different shapes and forms.

We can have messianic prophecy, prophecy that points to the Messiah who is coming, right?

And we see parts of that in Isaiah, but in chapter 61, we see that this is eschatological, that that actually what God is showing Isaiah is what will take place in the culmination of this new creation, of the end times, and all that flows into verse 11 is what is in regard to the events and circumstances that are in regard to this end time reality, where the righteousness of God fills new creation.

So while the nature of this prophecy, this prophetic vision, paints a portrait of what the new creation will be like, the beginning of it introduces this anointed conqueror and how he will begin to accomplish this new creation work through his word and through his work.

So we've seen this paradigm before, and we're gonna continue to see it in the scriptures that the Messiah comes and he accomplishes all that he has been sent to accomplish through his word and work.

Right?

And at the heart of this word and work, we see that he's going to fulfill in the ultimate reality the year of the Lord's favor.

That's what Isaiah 61, verse 2 says, that he is going to come and fulfill the year of the Lord's favor.

Isaiah 61:2

Now, now, what Isaiah is referring to there in verse 2, the year of the Lord's favor, is from the Old Testament principle and practice of the year of Jubilee.

And so what God had for his people was that every 50 years, Israel would enter into this year of Jubilee.

And what would happen is that the land would enter into a Sabbath rest along with God's people.

But there's a couple other things about this particular year that we see in the Old Testament.

One of those things is that if you were poor and you were uh uh uh under the weight of debt, you could sell off some of your land to be able to pay those debts off.

Now, in the year of Jubilee, that land would be restored back to you.

That would become your land once again, and all that you have sold off or leased to another person would be given back to you.

A third aspect is this that some people found themselves in such poverty and such destitute financially that they would sell themselves into slavery to be able to get out from underneath that weight of debt and poverty that they were under.

So they would sell themselves into slavery, and in the year of Jubilee, they were actually liberated from that slavery and restored back to the rights and fullness of their citizenship.

And so when the prophet Isaiah is talking about this anointed conqueror, is going to come, and he is going to be the ultimate fulfillment of the year of the Lord's favor, he's referring back to this principle and practice of the year of Jubilee, a year of Sabbath rest, the liberation of the oppressed, and the restoration of all things.

You see, the coming Messiah would inaugurate and he would fulfill the year of Jubilee for his people, where through him they would inherit their, they would inherit their rest, their liberation, and restoration.

Now let's work through this prophetic vision about the coming Messiah, the anointed conqueror, to see it more clearly.

And so what we see in Isaiah 61, 1 through 2 is this that the one coming will bring rest, liberation, and restoration to his people.

The one coming will bring rest, liberation, and restoration to his people.

Now, at the beginning of Isaiah 61, we read, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me.

So so the first thing we see is that this anointed conqueror has the spirit of the Lord upon him.

It's through the power and the dependency of the spirit that the one coming will accomplish all that ushers in the year of Jubilee for God's people.

But but when we look at the reason he has the spirit upon him, it says, Because he, being God the Father, has anointed me.

So why is the Spirit upon this one coming?

Because he's been anointed.

Now, when we look throughout the scriptures, we we see a couple of different meanings and interpretations of anointing, right?

One of the primary ones that we see is anointing in reference to establishing someone into the office of king.

Any king who is going to be brought up and lead God's people would be one who was anointed, right?

They would take oil, smear it across them, they would anoint them, pour it from a ram's horn, all down them, dripping through their beard, right?

And this would be establishing them into the office of king.

Another meaning for the word anointed is that they would actually be given divine gifts, right?

So the anointing of God can actually mean that this person has been gifted divinely by God.

And so what we see in the text, I believe, is the twofold reality of that in the one coming.

Now, why would that be so?

Because the word for anointed here in the prophecy of Isaiah is the word Messiah.

It's the Hebrew word of where we get the word Messiah from.

So what Isaiah is trying to help us understand is that the reason that the Spirit of the Lord God is upon this one coming is because he is going to be the Messiah of Israel.

He is going to be the deliverer of God's people.

He has been anointed.

And so if the one coming is the Messiah of God, anointed to the office of king, well, then it would establish him with the authority to accomplish all that the year of Jubilee was to bring to his people.

Right?

He's seated in the office of king.

He therefore has the authority to see to it that Jubilee comes to his people.

But if this Messiah is also anointed in such a way that he has been given divine gifts, now it would mean that he has also the ability to usher it in.

So we see this twofold reality of the one coming, the Messiah, the anointed one, having both the authority as office of king and the ability in divine gifting to be able to actually fulfill and usher in the jubilee of God's people.

To bring them into their rest, into their liberation, and the restoration that they so desperately need.

And it's because of this anointing that the Spirit of the Lord becomes this inseparable companion to him.

We see this throughout the life and ministry of Jesus, right?

He was uh uh uh given the spirit by baptism or post-baptism.

The spirit descended from heaven like physical form, like a dove, and remained with him.

And we see this inseparable companionship between Jesus the Son and God the Spirit.

And Jesus was dependent upon the Spirit to be able to actually accomplish all that he had been sent to do.

Now, why was this interrelationship of the anointing of the one coming and the spirit being upon him established in the first place?

Right?

What was the intended purpose of this?

Isaiah 61 goes on to help us understand that it was to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me, it says, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

This here is the word and work of the anointed conqueror.

The poor and oppressed will hear the good news of their rich inheritance.

He will wrap up the brokenhearted with the healing of his grace, mercy, and love.

The chain bound captive will be liberated as the Messiah swings open their prison door.

His word will be the announcement of good tidings, and his work will be the healing and liberation of the bruised and bound.

This is the word and work that would usher in the beginning of the end, the inauguration of the new creation reality.

And all of this word and work, right, we see is going to be a signpost to something greater.

As Jesus came filled with the Spirit in his public ministry, word and work being actualized with inside of the people around him, it's always meant to point to something even greater.

And what's that pointing to, right?

It says we have this twofold reality to it.

Isaiah ends this in verse 2 of chapter 61 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God.

This is that two-part reality of the of what the word and work of the one coming, the Messiah, would be pointing to.

The first part would be the fulfillment of the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor, the year of Jubilee.

And the second part will be the fulfillment of the day of judgment, the day of the vengeance of our God.

And we see this, right?

This relationship between Jubilee and judgment.

And these two events would work to the ultimate good of God's people.

Because what does Isaiah help us understand?

That those who mourn would be comforted.

How are they comforted?

They're comforted by the Jubilee and the judgment of God Almighty.

But the Jubilee would come before the judgment.

And these two events would work toward our ultimate good.

Those who would weep in grief will be comforted by the word and work of the anointed conqueror.

His jubilee would bring them rest, liberation, and restoration.

And his judgment will bring them retribution for all that they have suffered.

His very presence will be their comfort for their broken hearts.

This is the promise of the one coming.

The anointed conqueror, Isaiah speaks of.

So stop there for a moment.

Most of this account, Luke isn't communicating anything spectacular, right?

He's like, hey, here's Jesus.

He's in his hometown where he was raised up, as he normally did on the Sabbath day.

He came into the synagogue and he stood up to read from the scroll.

Even standing up to read from the scroll was probably something Jesus had done several times before.

From the age of 12, he was identified among religious leaders as a very gifted teacher.

It would be more than understandable that this is something he's done dozens and dozens of times before.

But something is different this time.

And before we dive into that difference, we have to pause and realize something about this that shapes our understanding of who Jesus is and what he is accomplished for us.

Right?

And it's the fact that he is reading on the Sabbath day.

Now, going to the synagogue on the Sabbath, that wasn't anything special.

But the Sabbath is going to actually be, in some sense, the foundation of our understanding of what Christ has done for us and him reading it on the Sabbath.

It's going to set the tone for that understanding.

The Sabbath was a day of rest for God's people to cease from their labor.

And what they were doing is they were physically communicating their dependency and trust in him.

If we understand what the Sabbath is really for, it's with our whole being.

We communicate deep trust and dependency in God.

God's people were supposed to cease from their work, cease from their labor.

They weren't supposed to be dependent upon themselves on the day of Sabbath.

In their ceasing, in their resting, they're communicating with every aspect of their being, their deep trust and dependency on Him, their hope in Him.

So this day of rest, this Sabbath, would set the stage for the reading that Jesus would give in the synagogue from the prophet Isaiah.

So Jesus stands as the attendant hands him the scroll and he finds the place where it's written.

This is verses 18 through 19.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

So Jesus stands up, he opens the scroll, he reads from Isaiah 61 about the anointed conqueror who was to come.

But after he reads this excerpt from the scroll, Luke records this in verse 20 and 21.

And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

You see, this isn't a normal Sabbath-day synagogue reading.

Jesus has revealed to all there that he is the anointed conqueror and the fulfillment of the year of Jubilee, that all of which Isaiah foretold was about him, and that he had come to fulfill the very promise of God.

As we said before, what we see in the baptism of Jesus is that the Spirit came upon him, that he has been given the Spirit because He is the anointed one of God.

And God the Father declares his favor and blessing upon his son as he comes out from the water.

Audibly, he declares, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.

And from this, what does Jesus do?

Well, he goes and he begins proclaiming the good news of the gospel, the inauguration of the kingdom, the poor in spirit, bankrupt beggars hear the good news of the riches of his grace.

The bruised and bound hear the declaration that they have been set free.

Eyes that have been blind to the truth have been opened to see the very glory of God.

All of this because the anointed conqueror, Jesus, had come just as God promised that he would.

But I want us to notice something within the text.

If we're gonna be good Bible students, right?

If we're gonna study God's word rightly and be faithful in our study of it, we have to see something and realize it.

Jesus doesn't quit.

Quote, he doesn't read all of Isaiah 61, verse 2.

Isaiah 61:2

He stops midway through a single sentence.

Now we have to ask ourselves, why would he do that?

Why would he not complete the very sentence that he's reading, right?

He says, the year of the Lord's favor, but he doesn't talk about the day of vengeance of God.

It's because of this.

I'll submit this to you this morning.

Because his first coming, his first advent was for the fulfillment of the year of Jubilee.

And it would be in his second coming, his second advent, that he would fulfill the day of judgment.

And this all was for the good and hope and comfort of his people.

You see, Jesus inaugurated the Jubilee of God's people in his first coming.

There will be a day when the vengeance of God, the day of judgment, will come and be fulfilled by Christ, the same anointed conqueror that Isaiah spoke of in 61, will fulfill both of these days, yet one is still to come in the second advent of Jesus.

The year of Jubilee was at hand.

And it was a year declared by God to be one of rest, liberation, and restoration for his people.

As we said earlier, in that year the land would not be sown nor reaped.

It would rest from its production as God's people would rest from their toil and labor.

The year would be marked by rest and a deep trust in God's provision.

Jesus communicates this truth for those listening on that day by both his reading on the Sabbath and in his sitting down before he declares that is fulfilled among them.

When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, he sat down.

Jesus is in his Sabbath rest, and by faith we are brought into his rest, where we don't labor and toil in the soil of our own righteousness, but we rest in his.

We take off the yoke of the law that once bound us and oppressed us, and we put on the yoke of the righteousness of Christ, where we are able to sit with him.

So as he sat down and he spoke, declaring, today, in your midst, in your ears, this word is fulfilled.

He's inviting all of those listening to come and sit with him to rest, to not have to toil in the ploughing or sowing of fruit, but to bear the fruit that he gives us because of the righteousness he freely gives to us by faith.

Also in the year of Jubilee, those who have become slaves due to severe poverty would be set free and reinstated to the liberty of their citizenship.

Jesus came to bring good news to the poor and to set at liberty those who had been enslaved.

He would declare the coming of the kingdom, and that through faith in him a person could be freed from their chains and be established as a citizen of heaven.

Jesus came to break the chains of our sin and to liberate us from the slavery that we had placed ourselves in.

You see, one of the realities about those who were enslaved in the year of Jubilee was that they actually enslaved themselves.

They became so poor and bankrupt.

They became so uh uh uh uh oppressed by their debts that they had to sell themselves into slavery to try and get out of it.

Can we stop for a moment and just see the portrait of the gospel that's being painted for us in this very principle?

That we who are so bankrupt in spirit have sold ourselves into the slavery of sin, that we try to come out underneath of the oppression of the debts that we owe to our Maker.

But we find ourselves bound and trapped by the very sin that we thought was going to serve us and satisfy our needs.

You see, that's the point of sin.

Sin presents itself as an opportunity to come out from underneath all that makes you unhappy, all that makes you depressed, all that makes you want inside of your chest, right?

That's what sin stands here and promises to you.

If you just come to me, I'll make sure that you're satisfied.

But the problem with sin is that it is a cruel, deceptive, and wicked master.

And what you thought you were coming to to serve you quickly turns around and demands that you serve it.

The reality of our condition, apart from Christ, is that we freely enslave ourselves to sin.

And we can't get out of it.

We're bound and chained.

But the gospel of Jesus declares He is our liberation.

Just take in that picture for a moment.

People who were so bankrupt and lived under the crushing weight of their debts, they sold themselves into slavery just to try and find some relief.

In the year of Jubilee, they would be freed and established to the full benefit of their citizenship, freed from slavery, freed from their debts.

This is the gospel.

We are freed from our slavery of sin, and we are instated into full citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.

The third aspect of the year of Jubilee is that anyone who had sold off their land would have that land restored back to them.

And so if you were poor, if you had debt or you needed to pay off something, you could sell or lease parts of your land.

And in the year of Jubilee, that year, that land would be restored back to you.

Jesus comes to bring restoration to his people.

Not simply by giving back to them what they had forfeited in their sin, but by giving them something better than they had ever had before.

This is the restorative nature of Jesus.

He doesn't just give you back what you forfeited and lost, he gives you something greater.

Where we, in our sin and rebellion, forfeited a garden.

Christ brings us into the beauty of a glorious city, a new creation, a new land, where we eternally rest in him, where we're never in fear of being bruised or bound again, where we sit and feast at the abundance of his table.

This is the Jubilee of Christ for his people.

You see, in the first advent of Jesus, he came to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, to fulfill the year of Jubilee for his people through his finished work.

He had not come for the day of vengeance of our God.

That would be reserved for his second advent.

A day when the Jubilee of God has been consummated in bringing all of those for whom Jesus died into his redemption.

That's when God's vengeance will come.

That's when his day of judgment will be at hand.

But on that day, all of those who are God's people will be eternally comforted from their mourning, from the mourning that they have experienced because of the effects of sin and his destructive nature throughout all of creation.

Jesus will comfort them.

Now, in this time, in this day, we reside within the jubilation of Jesus, where for us who are in him by faith know and experience the rest, the liberation, and restoration that our anointed conqueror has accomplished for us.

Many of us in this room, though, we find ourselves with a critical problem.

You see, when we hear about the good news being brought to the poor, when we hear about the blind having their eyes opened, when we hear about the one bound being set free, if we're honest with ourselves, we tend to not think of us as the one who is in need of receiving these things.

We tend to picture others around us, the destitute and disadvantaged, those blinded by the lies of culture or mainstream media, or even those one bound by pitiful conditions or tragic entrapments.

If we are honest with ourselves, this sounds like great news for people who actually need it.

You see, we don't see ourselves as poor.

We are rich.

We don't see ourselves as bond.

We have truth and knowledge and insight.

We don't see ourselves as bound, we're free.

And let me tell you this: the day of judgment will be vengeance against those who look at the beauty of the gospel and say, I'm not poor, blind, or bound.

I don't need it.

We have to see ourselves as this, or else the good news fails to be good news to us and for us.

The truth is, we are the people in need of Jubilee.

We are the people in need of Jubilee.

We are the poor, the blind, and the bound.

We are the ones who this very good news of Jubilee is actually for.

Let us work through each part of that reality.

We are poor.

Throughout Jesus' ministry, he came and proclaimed the gospel to the poor, the poor in spirit, those who are bankrupt of soul.

In the opening of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declares, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Look at what Jesus does in his opening line on the Sermon on the Mount, right?

He talks about those who are listening as being poor in spirit.

But there's this assumption that they'll acknowledge that reality about themselves.

And in that acknowledgement, there's something waiting for them on the other side.

It's the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven becomes their inheritance.

It is only for the bankrupt beggar that the riches of his kingdom become something of their own possession.

It is the reality and acknowledgement of our own spiritual poverty that the gospel actually becomes good news to us as we hear that an inheritance awaits us.

You see, we may live in an affluent city, right?

Mason and Westchester is one of the most affluent areas in all Southwest Ohio.

I don't know, it's like Mason and Westchester rated one of the best places to live in the entire nation.

We have means.

You may drive a luxury car.

I don't know if you've looked around our parking lot, but I wouldn't necessarily classify many of them, if any, as beaters, right?

I had a beater, that was my first car.

That thing was uglier than some, just it was bad, right?

I don't want to offend anyone.

Um, but I had a beater, it was horrible.

You look out here, you don't you see luxury vehicles left and right.

Many of you live in homes where you have more bedrooms than you have people living in them.

Many of you make six-figure incomes with benefits abounding, right?

You you you look at yourself and you say, There's no way that I'm poor.

But apart from Jesus, we are destitute.

We are bound in poverty.

We are the beggar.

You see, the word that Isaiah uses for the poor of whom the Messiah would come and bring the good news to is this word tuhos.

And here's what this means: it means that you are covered in darkness, that you shrink back into the shadows, that you cover your face in shame and you put forth this feebling hand that holds the beggar's cup.

Jesus isn't talking about, uh Isaiah's not pointing to, Jesus doesn't come to bring the good news to someone who has a little bit but is able to get by, who kind of is, you know, they can live paycheck to paycheck.

They have some means.

It's hard, but hey, we can make it, right?

That's not who Jesus is talking about.

Jesus is talking about someone so poor and spiritually bankrupt that they cover themselves in the shadow of shame.

And the only thing that they stretch forth is this quivering hand that holds the beggar's cup.

That's what kind of poverty our soul is in apart from Jesus.

We don't have means to get to the next day.

Without the assistance of another, we are completely hopeless and destitute.

That's the person Jesus comes to bring good news to.

A person who knows they're just a beggar covered in the shadow of their own shame.

To that person, Jesus brings the good news of an inheritance of his kingdom.

You see, if we fail to see ourselves as spiritual beggars, honestly, we fail to see the good news for what it is.

Some of us, not only are we poor, or all of us, we are blind.

Apart from Christ, we are blind.

In John 9, Jesus declares this for judgment, I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

I want us to look at this for a moment.

Jesus is saying, I came into the world to judge, and here's the outcome of that judgment, right?

It's mercy to the blind, that their eyes would open, that they'd be able to see.

But but what is it?

It is a judgment of punishment against those who proclaim the ability to be able to see.

He blinds them.

Now think about that.

We live in a culture where the society around us is claiming they can see.

It doesn't matter if you're on the left or if you're on the right, or if it's even good to divide society in such a manner.

But for the context we find ourselves in, both sides are declaring they have truth.

They can see.

They're not the blind one.

The other party, the other group, the other worldview is the blind one.

And what Jesus is saying in John 9 is anyone who declares that they can see apart from the truth of God's word and the power of the Spirit, He has come to shut up their eyes and to blind them eternally.

Too many of us are getting swept up into podcasts and news outlets and all these things on either side of the party.

And we're listening to them declare that they have truth.

And here's what we're doing: we are stumbling around in the darkness of our own deception.

Culture has become the blind, leading the blind.

Toward what?

Their own ruin.

Because they're putting all of their trust in themselves.

And Jesus says, No, I'll blind your eyes.

And those who cannot see, to them will I open their eyes that they might receive the light of the revelation of God's truth.

Many of us claim to have the light, to have insight into truth and understanding of life.

But in our own pursuit of truth and knowledge, we will never see the light.

For only God can open our eyes.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, and Lord loves the righteous.

We are the blind of this world apart from Jesus.

And only by him can we be made to see.

What are we demonstrating when we practice sin?

When we practice as a part of our life, we're demonstrating that we've enslaved ourselves to it.

And like I said before, we've done this of our own will.

We thought, we thought, right, that going to Egypt was going to give us the prosperity and satisfaction that our souls long for.

And we found ourselves in the heat of the desert sun making bricks, right?

That's what sin does to us.

We think that we're gonna go in and we're gonna find all that our souls and hearts long for, but yet soon after we find ourselves enslaved and imprisoned.

Only Jesus can liberate us from the slavery of sin that we are entrapped by.

You see, church, we are the poor, we are the blind, we are the bound.

We are the ones who desperately need the good news of Jubilee.

Those who fail to understand themselves in this reality will never see the gospel of Jesus as good news for them.

This is the society that we live in.

Anyone around you who rejects the gospel ultimately is a person who is so rooted in their own pride that they would declare themselves as rich, enlightened, and free.

And so the good news isn't good news.

Why would it be?

It is only to those who are able to look in the mirror and honestly and sincerely acknowledge their miserable state will the good news ever be truly good.

To them, the gospel becomes the very good news of Jubilee.

And so our hope is in Jesus.

Because Jesus accomplished rest, liberation, and restoration for us.

We see this in his finished work.

As Jesus declared after he sat down from reading in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, he has fulfilled the year of Jubilee for his people.

He has accomplished the Sabbath rest that our souls need because Jesus labored in perfect righteousness.

He calls all of those who are weary and heavy laden underneath the law to come and rest in his righteousness accomplished for us.

In his substitutionary death, Jesus took our sinfulness upon himself that we might receive his righteousness by faith.

And so now in Christ we can rest.

As we said earlier, we can come out from underneath the yoke of the law, and we can put upon ourselves the yoke of Christ's righteousness.

We are no longer beaten down, bruised and broken, heavy laden by the weight of trying to earn our own righteousness.

No, in Christ we come out from underneath of that and we rest because he has already accomplished all of it for us.

But he has also liberated our souls from the bondage of sin and death.

Through our participation with sin, we've enslaved ourselves to it.

We were bound by the chains of sin and entrapped by the pangs of death.

But Jesus trampled sin and death underfoot.

And he crushed the head of the enemy in his death and glorious resurrection.

When Christ rose from the grave, he defeated sin and death for all who would be his.

And so in Christ, we are liberated from sin and death.

We are free.

We are brought into his eternal life.

Not only has he truly given us rest, not only has he liberated us, but church, our hope is that he will restore all that has been taken from his people.

Jesus has resurrected and ascended to the right hand of the Father.

From there he will come again to restore all things finally and eternally.

Again, the garden that was forfeited, that we lost because of our sin and rebellion, will be a city established forever for his people, where God Himself will be with them as their God.

You see, the restorative nature and reality of Jesus, as we said earlier, is not that people will just get back what they had lost, but that they will receive a home which is infinitely greater.

And we long for that.

We long for that second advent of Jesus, where he restores all things to his people.

Because Jesus accomplishes our Jubilee.

A Jubilee that will never end, where all who are his by faith will eternally rest in him, be liberated from sin and death, and have all things restored for his glory and their good.