Isaiah 35:1-10 – The Songs of Emmanuel

Welcome to City Church Dublin Sermon Archives.

Join us this week as we continue in the book of Isaiah with our Advent series, The Songs of Emmanuel.

Great.

It is good to be with you this morning as we consider God's word together.

Can I encourage you to have the passage open as we work our way through?

Please do keep that open.

We want to hear God speak through his word.

And today we're continuing, as has been said, our Advent series in Isaiah, the Songs of Emmanuel.

My name's Duncan.

I'm one of the leaders here.

If you do not know me.

And Isaiah in this book is looking at kind of two main themes running through, which is judgment and hope.

And as we come to chapter 35, if you went to the previous chapter, what you would see is a full chapter on ultimate judgment.

That you have these two chapters side by side, judgment and hope.

But this passage today we are looking at is filled with hope and joy for us as Christians.

It is a joy that we get to consider this beautiful passage, this beautiful chapter in God's Word.

So let me pray for us as we begin.

Loving Father, I thank you so much that we get to come here, that we get to just pause for a short amount of time.

That we get to consider you.

So I pray as we come to your word, we ask by your Spirit, would you speak in power and with authority?

We are here and we are in desperate need of beholding you.

So would we be able to behold you today?

Would we see you clearly?

And would we rejoice with joy in our hearts, knowing how good, beautiful, and glorious you are.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I'm someone who enjoys going on a journey.

Uh, I like to travel, um, and I love that kind of feeling you get, that exciting feeling when you're setting out on a journey.

And I also enjoy stories about journeys because I think I just love the whole thing.

That's why I love The Hobbit, I love Lord of the Rings, I love the Chronicles of Narnia, I even love Elf.

What a journey that was.

There is something that draws us into a journey, a story of a journey.

But though I enjoy travel, I love to see new places, experience new things, Becky will tell you that something else brings me a lot of joy.

That idea of home, of going home.

If you were to ask Becky, she would tell you that there is a time when we're kind of getting towards the end of our time of being away, and it dawns on me, we're going home.

And I'm just filled with joy.

I can't explain how joyful I feel.

I mean, yes, can't wait.

I've had a great time, but we are going home.

I have genuine, real joy.

Now, you might not be like me in this, but what I want for us to know, all of us, is that we are all on a journey.

And for Christians, we need to recognize the journey we are on is toward our home, our true home.

And Isaiah 35 is all about this journey.

It is trying to help us, to encourage us, to embolden us.

Because for us as Christians, there can be so much uncertainty around us.

So much to make us wonder, to question what is going to happen.

How much uncertainty we have felt in the past few years.

But there is no uncertainty in what God is doing.

Absolutely none.

So let us see.

Let us marvel at the certainty of our destination, the certainty of our salvation, and the certainty of our direction.

That is what we will see here.

The certainty of our destination.

Look with me again at verse one.

The wilderness in the dry land shall be glad.

The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.

It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.

As we hear these words, we need to kind of place ourselves in the people who would have first heard them from Isaiah.

As he is speaking, as God's people hear this, they would have listened to these words and they would have known the echo of what they were referring to.

That the echo here is of the exodus of God's people from Egypt.

The echo is of their journey from captivity to the promised land.

This poetic language that is throughout this chapter is being used to help us, to begin to kind of in some way get an idea of what is to come.

A picture that is being drawn to capture our imagination.

It is capturing what is known in some way, but really most of it is pointing toward something that is unknown.

This is not just merely helping them remember and reflect upon the Exodus, but rather what God is doing through His Word is pointing us toward a new exodus, a final exodus.

And for these people, as they were about to face another exile within their history, how important it would have been for them to remember these words, to go back and hear these words.

Exile is coming for these people, but God is wanting to bring a word of encouragement that exile is not the end for them.

For us.

There is a new final exodus.

The wilderness and the dry land, the desert completely transformed.

The image of places of death becoming places of abundance, places of life.

Think about our world around us.

You see, it's not hard to kind of get what Isaiah is picking up on.

This imagery is being used in a way to describe the creation itself, our world, that it is broken.

Our world is filled with natural disasters.

Rising sea levels, famines, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, storms, diseases, COVID-19.

Do I need to go on?

Just filled.

And what we need to know and realize, the brokenness of our world is caused by the same brokenness we all feel and experience.

That from Adam and Eve to 2021, the ripple of our sin is felt and experienced in all of creation.

That all death, all destruction, all brokenness in mankind and creation itself is caused by sin, by the rejection of God.

And Isaiah is bringing our attention in part to the brokenness of this creation itself, but with an emphasis and an assurance of what is to come, of the hope we can have.

Did you notice that there is no doubt in what is going to happen?

The wilderness and dry land shall be glad.

The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus.

It shall blossom abundantly.

Shall, shall, shall.

It is not just a hope in the way we use the word hope.

Biblical hope is in what is going to happen.

It is not wishful, it is being hope-filled.

In the knowledge and certainty of what is to come.

Because creation itself is yearning for that day.

The day that is being spoken about in our passage.

It is creation that is rejoicing with joy and singing here.

Not humanity, creation.

God is wanting us through Isaiah to understand but the depths of sin's consequence, but also more importantly, far more importantly, the wonder and the glory of his restoration.

Romans 8 says, the creation waits with eager longing.

That creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption.

This is where creation is going.

Complete transformation.

Corruption will no longer hold creation in bondage.

No more famine, no more earthquakes, no more rising sea levels, no more diseases, no more natural disasters.

But rather, verse 2: the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

This creation that is being described has been transformed to ultimate beauty and splendor by God.

That is what the reference of Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon refer to.

The creation is no longer tainted by sin.

It has truly been set free from the bondage of corruption.

Truly changed to be a place of ultimate beauty.

I've had the privilege of going to different places, traveling a bit, and one of the most beautiful places I think I've ever been is the Alps.

And me and my family, when I was younger, went there during the summer.

And we were staying on uh in a chalet on the side of a mountain, and I would go in the mornings and I would just sit on the balcony.

Now, I'm not a nature guy, I'm not someone like Peter who loves to chat about shrubs and plants.

That's just boring.

We love you, Peter.

Um, but it was absolutely stunning.

It was beautiful that I could just stare and look down the valley, and I was just in awe of what I was seeing.

I could just breathe deeply, that mountain air, and just, oh, there's something so good about it.

Something so wonderful.

And what is even more astonishing, brother and sister in Christ, is that that does not begin to compare what is to come.

What Isaiah is describing here is beyond anything this world has to offer.

You right now can consider the most beautiful, breathtaking place you've ever been.

Wherever it is, it does not matter.

It will not begin to get close to what is to come.

Our destination matters.

And what is tragic is when we lose sight of this, when we don't allow this to just capture us.

Because your heart longs for this.

Your heart longs for this day.

We long for this world.

There's just so many things we do that condole the anticipation of this day.

So many things that distract us from a right perspective.

Something I've realized in my own life is that I think that the immediacy of life can be harmful to me.

This is a season within church history designed to help you to slow down.

Designed to make you hit pause to wait.

And you can say to me, but Duncan, I am so busy.

Duncan, do you know how much work I have to do until the end of the year?

Duncan, do you know how many presents, gifts I need to get?

Do you know all the different things that I need to organize before Christmas?

I think for most of us, we find the idea of slowing down, the idea of hitting pause, of waiting, to be so alien.

Life is so busy, life is go, go, go.

Yet what if that is part of our struggle?

What if that is part of our struggle to truly be able to enjoy and rejoice in what is to come?

Because our lives are filled with immediacy.

We distract ourselves with seeking to fill the void.

You want something, you order it on Amazon and it comes within a few days.

You want to feel valued.

You post on your face social media, your favorite social media, and you monitor the likes.

You want to feel entertained, you can just binge watch through any series pretty much, and you don't even need to wait for the next episode.

Waiting, pausing feels impossible.

Yeah, what I find is actually these things rob us of joy.

They're not bad in themselves, but when we seek to use anything created to take the place of God, it will always fail us.

It is not bringing and giving you joy.

To allow yourself to be so distracted by the things around you is to miss your ultimate destination, and that is devastating, to be distracted away.

Brother, sister, your destination is set, it is sure and secure that there is a day when all God's people will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

So let me ask you, how are you waiting?

How are you allowing yourself to grow in your longings for that day?

What in your life helps you to kind of just get giddy and excited about it?

Eager for it?

Or what in your life is distracting you from where you are going?

Tim Keller says this.

I have discovered that the less we attempt to make this world into a heaven, the more we are able to enjoy it.

You see, for us as Christians, we need to know this is not the world we have been created for.

That we are waiting for our final destination.

We are waiting for our true home.

And while we wait, we should be so careful that our sights are not taken away from where we are headed.

That we can enjoy this life.

We should enjoy this life, enjoy this world, but we enjoy it in light of our Creator.

As Christians, we wait, but as we wait, the day that is approaching shapes us now that every good thing that you enjoy should lead you to seeing your God, lead you to worshiping Him, to celebrate Him.

Oh, this coffee is amazing.

Thank you for taste buds.

Whatever it is, creation now impart is displaying what creation one day will fully, completely display.

The glory of God.

This is where we are headed.

A day in which we will enjoy God's beautiful creation, knowing his unending beauty and glory, his eternal presence with us.

Our world truly transformed.

This is what we find at the end of verse 6.

For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert, the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Where Isaiah goes from this beautiful picture of the new creation is to the certainty of our salvation.

This view of where we are going is glorious, but if you're like me, you should wonder how this is going to be transformed.

How are we going to be able to get there?

I know for many of us we feel so weak at times, we feel so helpless at times, wondering, how will I be able to make it?

You'll get there because of the certainty of your salvation.

Look at verse 3 with me.

Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.

Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance and with the recompense of God, he will come and save you.

I love this passage because it is just so real.

We have just heard about the beauty of what is to come, the perfection of what we will get to enjoy one day.

And instead of telling you, right, you need to earn it, work for it, God speaks in light of who we are.

Because the new creation is not for strong people, it is not for people who have no worries, it is not for people who believe themselves to be just secure.

The acknowledgement here is of our weakness, of our instability, of our anxious hearts.

How we need to be so careful not to fall into the trap of believing we need to earn it.

Into believing that you have to come through those doors on a Sunday and you just have to act as though you have it together.

I have found it to be utterly heartbreaking when churches are places that look like as though they are for the strong, the proud, the sinless, the fearless, people who have it together.

That is not true.

Let me be honest, we all do not have it together.

You can breathe.

None of you do.

I love you.

I don't have it together.

What Isaiah makes clear is God's understanding of our frailty.

Do you understand your weakness, your struggles, your anxieties?

They don't repulse God.

They do not cause him to recoil away from you.

No, in fact, the God of the Bible moves towards people like you, people like me.

That is what he does.

That is what we need to know.

That we need to not hide our need, but accept it to acknowledge it, to bring it before our God.

Be strong, fear not, behold your God.

You see, strength of every Christian is not within.

It is in our God.

It is in beholding Him as the one who invites us.

This is what this season is all about.

What I know to be true is that when you are confronted with weaknesses in your life, when you know your own weaknesses, when you See and feel anxieties within you when you are confronted with your sin.

Your instinct is to be controlled, to be consumed by them.

It is to be inward.

It was to turn in on yourself, to focus on the situation, to focus on yourself, to focus on the problems, to withdraw from those around you.

And that is harmful to you.

But hear these words of Isaiah: lift your head from the struggle.

Lift your head from the pains and the hurts you feel and experience, and behold your God.

Because as the people in Isaiah's day are being called to behold the God who is coming, we are beholding the God who came.

Isaiah was looking forward to the coming Messiah.

He was looking forward to the promised king from the line of David, but we look back.

Back to the baby born in an obscure town.

Back to the baby born to an unknown, unimpressive virgin girl.

Because the pattern of the gospel, the display of our God, our God Himself coming in weakness.

Emmanuel.

Is that not glorious?

You do not need to wonder, could God know me?

Could he understand?

Could he truly see the depth of me?

Yes, he can.

He knows.

He sees.

This time of year we celebrate.

What we remember, what we rejoice in is God who chose to lower himself.

Who chose not to just humble himself by taking on flesh, but humbled himself to be counted as your servant.

Who humbled himself to death, not just any death, but the shameful death of dying on a cross.

One of my favorite Christmas songs says this.

How low was our Redeemer brought to raise us up from our shame.

And now the highest praise of all belongs to Jesus' name.

Brother, sister, do not believe the lie when you are struggling, when you're feeling overwhelmed.

Do not allow yourself to think God is absent, God is distant from you.

Behold the God who would come for you in such an extraordinary way, in order to save you, to restore you.

That though he died, he did not stay dead.

The one we behold is the risen, reigning King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And he says to you, come.

If you are here and you are struggling, you know Jesus as Lord and Savior, you would say that, but you know you are dull toward him.

Can I encourage you?

Hear the words of your Savior.

Come to me, all who labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

After two years or however long it's been, do we not all desperately long for that rest?

To know a rest that is not based upon the situation you are in, but upon the Savior you trust in.

Jesus stands ready, guys.

He is here ready to meet us in our need, longing, calling, inviting.

Because he is the one who brings true lasting restoration to us.

Look at verse 5.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

Jesus' salvation is not making you a better version of you.

His salvation is utterly transformative.

From blind to seeing, from deaf to hearing, from lame to leaping, from mute to singing.

This is who he is and what he does.

That as we gaze at Jesus Christ, we see the one who brought complete transformation to us as his people.

He has done all that is needed.

The one who displayed this in his earthly ministry, this power of transformation.

He gave sight to the blind, John 9.

He healed the deaf and mute, Mark 7.

He called the lame to walk, Mark 2.

And all of this was merely pointing toward his true restoration, the true restoration that he would bring, that one day, that there is a day when every bit of brokenness you experience, both physical and spiritual, will be no more.

Your confidence is not in your effort, it is in your Savior.

And finally, the certainty of our direction.

Look at verse 8.

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness.

The unclean shall not pass over it, it shall belong to those who walk on the way.

Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

Something we need to know is that Jesus Christ's work for us in our salvation was not just to save us, but it is also to sanctify us.

It enables us to live the life we have been called to.

Too often we can think the gospel is only about making us right before God, which it does.

But the gospel is what is helping us become like Him.

It is through and by the gospel we are being changed.

We are becoming who we are: holy.

As we journey toward our destination, the direction for us is God's direction.

He is the one who has made the highway.

He is the one who has called us to the way of holiness.

A commentator on this passage remarks on these verses, and he says this the Lord never reduces his standards to match the weaknesses of his people.

He raises his people to the height of his standards.

Do you see, brother, sister?

Our weakness is not going to be overcome by our willpower, but in the strength of God, through his spirit, we have been raised up.

In the strength of God, through his spirit, we are being made holy.

In the strength of God, through his spirit, we will make it to the end.

We should have so much joy in the God who has done this for us in Christ Jesus.

How freeing this is for us.

Even they, if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

How many times I thought, oh, what an idiot, I've been so foolish.

How stupid could I have been?

But do you see how good God is?

In my foolishness, in my stupidity, He is enough.

You cannot and will not outsin God.

That is not to say we just live how we want.

No, we've been called to a certain way.

But it is in light of our salvation that we are drawn to Him.

Don't you love that?

That this proclamation to walk the way of holiness is after His declaration of God's salvation.

This is something that I continue to try and state and say.

Actions flow from identity, not the other way around.

And God does not call us to work for our identity and salvation in Jesus Christ.

No, God saves us, calls him to himself, calls him to Christ Himself.

And as we behold our Savior, as we are seeing and knowing and loving Him, we are being transformed.

We become an act in light of who we are in Him.

Isaiah is painting this picture for us that there is a highway for God's people.

But you are on this highway, headed toward your home.

Not because you've earned it, but because He has brought you.

Isaiah goes on, verse 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it.

They shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.

See the certainty once again for us as God's people.

That there is no lion, no ravenous beast on this highway.

Nothing that can take us, nothing that can take what has been given to us.

We are protected eternally in Christ Jesus.

This is not speaking of earthly protection.

It's not speaking about a life free from pain or hurt now.

No, God knows that we will have those struggles.

He knows our weaknesses, our instability, our anxiousness.

What he is stating is that his salvation is final.

Hear Jesus proclaim, I give them eternal life.

And they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all.

No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

I and the Father are one.

Brother, sister, my desperate prayer for us all is that we might see him in part rightly and see him who he is.

Your confidence in Jesus Christ, in God Himself, the security you have, knowing life has been given to you.

Knowing the eternal life you have can never be taken from you.

Nothing can take that from you.

Don't believe the lies, don't allow yourself to question his ability to save you.

He calls you his.

You've nothing to fear in Christ.

The day is coming.

The time is approaching.

Brother, sister, the journey will be concluded and we will be home.

The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing.

Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.

They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

This is what awaits.

This is where we are headed.

Allow the joy you have in this season to be orientated around beholding your God.

In all that you do.

Allow yourself in this season to know the glory of where you are headed.

The certainty of it.

Allow yourself in this season to rejoice in wonder of your salvation.

He has done it.

Allow yourself in this season to walk in the path the Lord has called you to.

Because, guys, there is no greater joy for us than what God has given and does for us.