Coming Home to God

Well, I wonder if any of you woke up your children this

morning. Maybe give me a nod or even

raise your hand. Did you wake up your children

with the words rise and shine, that anybody sing?

Arise and shine and give God your glory?

Usually these are accompanied by a throwing off of the sheets,

throwing open the curtains, the turning on the light, letting

the light shine that song. Rise and shine and give God your

glory. I learned this week came from

the 1800s. It was an African American

spiritual and it was recorded for the first time in 1825.

It's the first time it was written down in a song that was

called We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder.

And the final stanza read rise, shine, give God glory.

Rise, shine, give God glory. Rise, shine, give God glory,

rise, shine, give God glory. Not children of the Lord, but

soldiers of the Cross. It means wake up is what the

song is calling you to do. Wake up spiritually is how they

meant it. And think about heavenly things

and quit thinking about all the earthly things that are so

natural to us and shine, which means allow the Spirit to

visibly transform you and so manifest God's nature and power

to the world. Rise and shine.

And then the song reminds you you're a soldier of the cross.

Think back to Isaiah 59 as we go into chapter 60.

This was the theme. Jesus is portrayed as a soldier,

as a warrior, and he puts on the breastplate of righteousness and

he puts on the helmet of salvation.

And even as we've gone through Isaiah everything post Isaiah

53, Jesus Christ was the servant and now servant singular turns

into servants, plural. We are the servants.

And if our, the Christ, our captain like we just sang, if he

put on the breastplate of righteousness, he says now you

are soldiers of the cross, you put on breastplates of

righteousness. Ephesians 6 Paul says, fasten

the belt of truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness,

put on readiness as shoes, take the shield of faith, take the

helmet of salvation, take the sword of the Spirit, which is

the word of God. This is like Jesus.

It says he wrapped himself like like zeal with a cloak.

He put on a cloak of zeal. Zeal just being, meaning having

a lot of energy, ready to do something good and exciting,

being excited about it and hearing that eagerness is

required of us. You just put on readiness like

shoes every morning, whether you're preaching the gospel or

demonstrating God's character through serving vulnerable

people, rise, shine, give God glory, you soldiers of the

cross. And that's that phrase came to

be used by 1850 of in the Army, where rise and shine meant

literally rise out of your bed and shine your gun and your

boots and get ready for inspection.

And at that same time it was transforming from an African

American spiritual into a children's camp song where they

would sing at camp Jesus died that you might have it soldiers

of the. Cross we will rise and shine and

give God the glory, glory, soldiers of the cross.

And then it comes to us in our own day, our own expression.

We just sang the Getty song. O church, arise and put your

armor on. Hear the call of Christ the

Captain. And they added the.

Chorus, arise. Shine for your light has come.

Arise. Shine for the risen sun.

Lift your eyes. We are his radiant bride.

Arise, O Church, arise. So.

Many contexts children at camp, enslaved African Americans,

military men preparing for war, a corporate worship song for

local churches, and you singing your own children out of bed.

What do all these contexts have in common?

They all quote Isaiah 60 verse one.

If you'll turn there. It's all a reference to Isaiah

60. And I hope my prayer is that

every time you you hear the words rise and shine, every time

you speak them, every time you sing that earworm to your kids,

you will think of Isaiah 60 because those two words arise

and shine are the 1st 2 words of Isaiah 60 verse one.

And they are the application of the entire chapter, all 22

verses. If you can remember those two

words, they sum up the requirement of understanding the

passage in its context. 2 words repeat after me, Kumi and the

second or E rise and shine, rise and shine.

Why? Because your light has come and

the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Let's read Isaiah 60 together. The prophet begins this way.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord

has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover

the earth, and thick darkness the peoples.

But the Lord will arise upon you, His glory will be seen upon

you, and nation shall come to your light, and kings to the

brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around,

and see they all gather together.

They come to you. Your sons shall come from afar,

and your daughter shall be carried on the hip.

Then you shall see and be radiant.

Your heart shall thrill or tremble and exalt, because the

abundance of the sea shall be turned to you.

The wealth of nations shall come to you.

A multitude of camels shall cover you.

The young camels of Midian and Apha and those from Sheba shall

come. They shall bring gold and

frankincense and shall bring good news, the praises of the

Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be

gathered to you. The Rams of Nabias shall

minister to you. They shall come up with

acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful

house. Who are these that fly like a

cloud and like doves to their windows?

For the coastline shall hope for me the ships of Tarshish.

First to bring your children from afar, their silver and gold

with them. For the name of the Lord your

God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has made You

Beautiful. Foreigners shall build up your

walls, and their king shall minister to you.

For in my wrath I struck you, but in My favor I have had mercy

on you. Your gate shall be opened

continually, night and day. They shall not be shut, that

people may bring to you the wealth of the nations with their

kings LED in procession. For the nation and Kingdom that

will not serve you shall perish. Those nations shall be utterly

laid waste. The glory of Lebanon shall come

to you, the Cypress, the plain, and the pine to beautify the

place of the My sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet

glorious. The sons of those who afflicted

you shall come bending low to you, and all who despise you

shall bow at your feet. You shall call.

They shall call you the city of the Lord, the Zion, and the Holy

One of Israel. Whereas you have been forsaken

and hated with no one passing through.

I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age.

You shall suck the milk of nations.

You shall nurse at the breast of kings.

You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your

Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

Instead of bronze, I will bring gold.

Instead of iron, I will bring silver.

Instead of wood, bronze, Instead of stones, iron.

I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters

righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard

in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders.

You shall call your walls salvation.

In your gates praise. The sun shall no more be your

light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light,

but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God

will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down,

or your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your

everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

Your people shall all be righteous.

They shall possess the land forever.

The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might

be glorified. The least one shall become a

clan, when the smallest one a mighty nation.

I am the Lord, and it's time I will hasten it.

Remember chapter 59 last week at the tone of the message was not

particularly joyful. It's said that this world is

darkness, emblematic of sin and ignorance.

And we realize that the world is darkness because we made it that

way. Thinking of Isaiah who

continually points the finger, saying woe is this world for

their greediness, for their lack of worship of God, for their

material gain and their desire for these things.

And then he says, and you know what?

He points the finger at himself, and he says, woe is me, for I

too am darkness. And you contrast that to chapter

60 where he says there will be light like that of the rising

sun. And with this light, all of the

light of this chapter comes several themes.

God's radiant presence is 1. The gathering of the nations is

another, this pilgrimage of all the elect from every nation

coming into Jerusalem, the rebuilding and the exaltation of

Zion, God's fortress and everlasting light and peace.

And extremely important to know and to understand for this

message in this passage is that this whole poem, this whole

chapter is directed at a city. It's a poem about a city.

It's addressed to Zion, the future heavenly city of God.

And so you're reading poetry about a city.

All these phrases arise and shine is addressed at Jerusalem.

And nation shall come to your light as talking about

Jerusalem. I will make you a majestic.

I will make you majestic forever.

A joy from age to age is about a city.

And you, maybe you could ask like I did, what application is

there for me about a chapter of the Bible given to a city,

written for a city? And the answer is a lot because

of what happens there, because of the hope that comes from what

God is going to do in that place.

And we learn that it's going to be our city.

It's going to be your city as well as his city.

And we learn in in verse 13, because it's our home and

because it's God's home, it's where he will dwell forever with

his people. That verse 13 says he desires to

beautify the place of his feet. And then the application begins

to pour in when we realize that when God addresses the city,

he's not just addressing the city.

It by extension comes to the people who live in that city,

which is me and you. And so all of a sudden Zion's

glory becomes our glory and Zion's rising is the people's

rising and it's restoration is our restoration.

And the the call to rise and shine becomes our call to rise

and shine. And so the passage is describing

several things, I think. First, it's looking what did the

author have in mind? What is Isaiah thinking?

I think he was thinking in the immediate future of saying you

are in this ruined city, come back from exile, and Jerusalem

will have a certain glory again, and the second temple is going

to be built there. God will never dwell in that

second temple, but there will be some measure of glory in this

rebuilt temple. So there's the immediate future.

I think he's looking to the near future where when Christ comes,

it's all about light and the resplendent light.

Think about Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, where he

kind of tears back the veil, and here is this glory.

You get little foretaste and glimpses of what that future

Kingdom is going to be like, and you get to see that when He

comes. It talks in this passage in

Isaiah 60 about how they will bring kingly gifts and

submission to him, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And when the light of the world came into the world, what

happened? The Magi came from the east,

bringing gold and frankincense and myrrh, kingly gifts.

He's he's, it's this partial fulfillment.

But what he really has in mind is the future heavens, the

future earth, when the glory of Jesus Christ will unite all

people. That's what the chapter's about.

We're looking all the way into the future.

Yes, there's partial fulfillment.

Yes, it's coming in part. But he's looking to that day

when this city will be glorified.

It will be made beautiful because you are beautiful and

most importantly because he is. And the word that's used four

times over and over, the keyword of the passage is glory.

And I want to stop for a minute to see as you go through the

word is used in in several senses.

First, it says in verse one, the glory of the Lord has risen upon

you. And this is the same sense of

the the word glory in verse 2. It's saying you will get to see

in the flesh the goodness, the greatness, the attributes, the

perfection of God. It will be beheld by His church.

You will see the King and all his beauty as Isaiah says.

Verse 2 says the same thing. The Lord will.

Arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you, and the

attractiveness of His goodness and His greatness is like a

light. We're like moths.

Kings are like moths that can't help but be drawn to him.

Look ahead to verse 19 with me. This is a different word in the

original, but we also translate it.

Glory. This is no longer will you have

the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon

give you light, but you will have the Lord for an everlasting

light in your God, for your glory.

And this is another usage of the word glory.

It means the the literally the shining of God.

And we say that from what best we can tell, it's his, His

perfection, his perfect goodness, and his perfect mercy

and holiness shines out. It's the Shekinah glory of God,

and it's visible. This is why in Isaiah 6 the

angels had 6 wings, two had to cover their feet because God was

so holy. And with two they flew.

And it says with two they had to shield their eyes from the

resplendent glory of God. And this is what the angels at

Christ's birth, when the, the light of the world came into the

world, the angels says that they came and it says the glory of

the Lord shone round about them. And the people were afraid

because of this. This is the glory because of

this shining Moses when he went on the on the mountain and he

would commune with God and he would talk to God, what happened

to him? He would come back and he was,

he was, he would radiate just from the reflection of the glory

of God. It was so much that the people

couldn't even look directly at him and he had to put a covering

on his face to address the people.

That's what we're talking about. God says you're not going to

need a sun anymore. You wouldn't be able to see it

for the resplendent glory of God.

You don't need a moon anymore because the God of glory is

going to fill the universe with his light.

That's what this passage teaches.

He's our glory, literally our light.

Look at verse 13. One more use the glory, he says

of Lebanon shall come to you. And this is where the majority

of the space is devoted. He's making beautiful the place

of his feet and the glory of Lebanon is literally the glory

of created things. This is their rich natural

resources. This is all the things of

Lebanon that have given them station in the world and it's

made them famous and it's given them a place.

It's literally their trees, and it gives them prestige and honor

and wealth. He says in verse 13, the glory

of Lebanon will come to you. It gives them that three kinds

of wood. And then he tells you why this

is perhaps the most important verse for understanding this is

to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I shall make the

place of my feet glorious. So he says I'm glorious.

We know that on that day when Jesus comes and we're with him,

we will be glorified. We will be glorious.

But most importantly, he says that he is glorious.

And so we have to have a setting that's appropriate for this, for

all of this glory. And we say that Thrones don't

rest in the mud. We don't design Thrones to to

sit in the mud. We designed Thrones to sit on

marble. And we don't put kings and

drafty rent houses with leaking roofs.

It's not how it works. You're always making a home

worthy of his station, worthy of his rule, worthy of his reign,

worthy of our glory, and we say an infinitely more importantly,

worthy of his glory. Verse 13 says the place of his.

Feet will be. Glorious.

But if you look to verse 21, you see why It's ultimately because

He is glorious. Because He is glorious, the

place that He rests, His feet will be.

Verse 21, your people shall all be righteous.

They shall possess the land forever, the branch of my

planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.

So there's the ultimate meaning. We're talking about the city,

we're talking about the house, but it has to be glorious

because God himself is. So I, I want you to to divide

the text in your own minds into two sections.

Verses 1 to 18 is the glory of the place of God's feet.

You can emphasize verse 13, the glory of the place of God's

feet. And then these last four verses

19 to 22 emphasize the glory of God himself.

And you can emphasize verse 21. It's for the glory of God.

The first verses 1 to 18 all work together to ask the

question, to answer the question, how will Jesus make

the place of his feet glorious? What does that look like

practically? And the several things, The

first one is that his glory is going to shine even more

powerfully because the context that it exists in.

That's why there's sin in this world, because one day the King

of glory is going to come and set all things right and we're

going to know how powerful and merciful he really is.

And Isaiah 59, it showed the tremendous sinfulness of the

world, and it forced us to turn our fingers in it ourself and

say, and I'm sinful. Depart from me, Lord, for I'm a

sinful man. And it describes this sinful

sinfulness as darkness. It does it in verse 2.

That was the emblem of Isaiah 59.

In chapter 60, verse 2, it says, for behold, darkness shall cover

the earth and thick darkness, the people darkness and

Scripture, just like light is an emblem.

It doesn't mean literal darkness.

It's spiritual darkness that comes with all of these other

things with it ignorance and sin and sorrow.

And it's the the context that we live in right now.

This world is a dark place. Our world is called the Valley

of the Shadow of Death and the preacher of the 19th century,

very famous preacher Alexander McLaren said Darkness inhabits

the land over which, like a pall, PALL.

Death casts its shadow and a pall, if you don't know, is the

cloth that goes over a coffin, which is why you have

pallbearers at funerals. And so it says that like the

like that cloth cast a shadow over a coffin.

So death and darkness cast its shadow over you in this world.

And that is the context of Isaiah, of the rest of Isaiah

60. He's saying it is in that

darkness that the light of Jesus Christ shines.

An illustration for me on Thursday.

We were going to an event in Chandler and I was driving into

the storm and there was the storm clouds.

You know, everywhere you've seen illustrations like this, you've

seen this yourself. But in the midst of all those

storm clouds, there was 1 little patch where there were no

clouds. And so all of the glory that was

from above was kind of concentrated in this, this kind

of pillar going from heaven to earth.

And as I was looking at it and and thinking how impressive that

light was, a lightning bolt struck from the clouds down to

the ground. And I thought that is.

The illustration of Isaiah 60, he's saying there will be in the

midst of all this darkness. You can't help but look at the

light and it will show in power. It will show the power and the

light and the majesty of God. And, and that's what this is

saying. In thick darkness the Lord will

arise upon you, His glory will be seen upon you.

Verse 3 The nation shall come to your light, and kings to the

brightness of your rising. So he will make the place of his

feet beautiful by contrast. That was the first and the

second. The place of His feet will be

beautiful, because verse 4 says that the elect from every tribe,

tongue, and nation will be gathered on that day to Zion.

Zion being the fortress that's representative of all of His

holy mountain, Jerusalem, His promised land.

Verse 4, your sons and your daughters shall come.

Chapter 59 said that who? Who are the sons and daughters

of God? Verse 59 or chapter 59 said

anybody who turns from their sin and puts their faith in Jesus

Christ becomes a child of God and a daughter of Zion.

One of our favorite passages as a church, I hear you all say it

all the time, is. Psalm 87, where God says that He

registers as He records the people.

We were not native, we were adoptive into God's family.

We were adopted in, we were sojourners and given this land.

And so Psalm 87 says God records in the Lamb's book of life in

the heavenly register of Jerusalem, though you were not

born there. He says this one was born here,

He was born here, she was born here.

And so this is what this passage is saying.

Isaiah 2 painted the picture of the church flowing like a stream

uphill to Jerusalem and it was beautiful because it uses the

word river or stream as a verb. And he says we're literally

flowing. Zion is a city on a hill,

Everything is up. And so the the imagery is 10,000

* 10,000 Saints of God making this final pilgrimage.

So many people that if you were on a helicopter looking down, it

would look like a stream of water flowing uphill into God's

city. That's it is the greatest

pilgrimage that will ever be seen.

It is. Nothing prevents you from coming

to God's mountain. It says there's no barriers.

Some it's going to are going to come from far away it says,

meaning that distance is not a barrier between you and God's

city. It says that some are going to

be carried on the hip. I don't know if that means that

there will be the infirm, but if even if there are they, they

will not be hindered. If you have children, they will

not be hindered. They will all come.

Verse 5 says you will see it for yourself.

Then you shall see and be radiant and your heart shall

thrill and exalt thrill being the literal word for tremble,

right? You're you're the BPM of your

heart is going to raise up and you don't have to worry about

it. Bill Putman when your heart

spikes and you get excited because Jesus will be there and

he's the healer. We get to be there as he is no

sin, no infirmity, trembling so exciting.

And 3rd, the place will be beautiful.

And here's the the thrust of the passage because it will be

physically stunning. That's what all these verses are

are about to tell us. The place will be physically

beautiful. It will be comprised of the

wealth of nations. The wealth of all the nations,

the sea and the land are going to be stored there.

It's going to be built of the most exotic resources that this

world has to offer. Jesus himself will be there.

It's comprised of the best of all creation.

Look to verse 5. It says it's going to include

the abundance of the sea. The wealth of the sea will be

contained in the city because the abundance of the sea shall

be turned to you. The wealth of nations shall come

to you. He's going to open up the sea.

And then verse 6, I think this sounds more like a curse than a

blessing. It says a multitude of camels

will cover you. But it means.

That in in the sense of camels are classic pack animals and

God's saying they're going to be weighed down with luxury

articles from as far away as India and East Africa.

And they're all going to be coming.

The abundance of foreign nations from Midian and IFA and Sheba,

they're going to bring gold and and frankincense and myrrh and

livestock with praise on their lips.

It's no coincidence that when the kings came or when the Magi

came with kingly gifts to Jesus, this is what they brought.

It was the goods of Isaiah 60. And it's no coincidence for us

either that the there you are Keith Hess.

I should have known you were here for him earlier.

When they bring the wealth of nations, you are part of that.

Even now, as you open up your treasury, part of your wealth

flows into Jerusalem, and it has to be this way.

And it's just a reminder that one day God's going to make

claim that all of it is His. And we give that foretaste now

because it all belongs to Him. Verse 7, The flocks of Kadar and

the Rams of Nabayaf are going to be there.

This is pastoral wealth, animal wealth.

And something else is happening here, not just sheeps and Rams,

but Kedar and the buy off were Ishmael's sons.

These were the Arab tribes in scripture, which has impact for

us as we send missionaries to Morocco.

God has already said that all nations would be blessed through

him to Abraham. All nations are going to be

blessed through you. And that doesn't just mean the

global W Europe and America. This means this passage is

teaching Muslim nations as well. Saudi Arabia, it says, they're

going to bring praises to God, and Iran and Oman and Morocco

bringing tribute, it says, and worshipping God.

Verses 8-9 Who are these that fly like a cloud and like

they're doves to their windows? The coastline shall hope for me,

the ships of Tarshish first to bring your children from afar,

their silver and gold with them. For the name of the Lord your

God and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has made You

Beautiful again. He is beautiful.

He Makes You Beautiful. He's making his city beautiful.

And those that fly like a cloud is the image.

If you're standing on the coastline and you look out on

the horizon and there's merchant ships as far as you can see and

their, their sails are all raised because they're bringing

tribute from the nations. That's what these clouds are.

They're coming like a cloud. This is Tarshish, she says.

They're bringing not only the wealth of nations across the

sea, but so important worshippers with them.

This is the gathering not only of all the people, but of all

the wealth. He says these ships of Tarshish,

which were the greatest ships in the ancient world, are bringing

not only the wealth of the nations, but worshippers to

Jerusalem as they in gather to their eternal home.

Isaiah 23 three said that Tarshish was the merchant of the

nations and it brought all of the wealth of the Nile.

Wherever it went, the largest ships of the ancient world, they

bring gold and silver. It says the reason for the name

of the Lord, for the Holy One. All of this wealth, all of these

worshippers are for him. And continuing again, how will

he make the place of his feet glorious?

It goes on and on. Verse 10, foreigners and kings,

we're going to build up the walls.

Verse 11, the gates are open continually to receive wealth.

You couple this with verses 8 and 9.

It says the ports are going to be open.

And you go on, it says, and so will the gates be open to

continually bring all of the wealth to God.

Verse 12, there's going to be no enemies, there's going to be no

threats. It's always going to be day.

It's safe, it's secure to all those who don't have a safe and

secure home now, one day you will and the heavenly Father

will love you and protect you. Verse 13.

The glory of Lebanon will be there.

All three types of trees are mentioned and they're bringing

in the best to make his House Beautiful, to beautify the city.

Verse 16, you will suck the milk of nations.

All the unique resources from all over the world will come.

This is bringing back the imagery of Isaiah 4923 when he

said kings will be your foster fathers, princesses will be your

nursing mothers. And verses 17 to 18, so

important, so beautiful. He says Zion is going to be

transformed socially. Your overseers will be peace.

Your taskmasters will be righteousness.

Violence shall no more be heard in your land.

It says that Zion is going to be transformed spiritually.

Your walls will be called salvation, your gates will be

named praise. And then finally Zion will be

transformed physically, he says, and that place is going to be

more glorious and more beautiful than you could have ever asked

or imagined. He says it this way, instead of

bronze, I will bring gold, instead of iron, I will bring

silver, instead of wood, bronze and instead of stones, iron.

And you can think of Solomon. He's bringing up all these

building materials that represented Solomon and, and his

glory and all of the, the glorious temple and all of the,

the peace and prosperity that came while he was the king.

He says, imagine all of that. And now imagine a a greater

glory, thinking again of the the radiant glory that was coming

under the under those dark clouds on a stormy sky.

And now imagine something more glorious than that.

That glory is coming from somewhere.

And that's what he's saying. It will be a greater glory that

will be the dwelling place of God and men.

The place of his feet will be beautiful.

And then he moves to the second aspect of the text in verses 19

to 22, moving to the glory of God himself.

And he says that his light begins by saying his light is

going to replace the sun and the moon.

Verse 19 The sun shall no more be your light by day, nor for

brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be

your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself,

for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days

of mourning shall be ended. This is what Revelation 21 and

22 quoted. It quotes Isaiah 60 when it

says, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it.

This is how the Bible ends. For the glory of God gives it

light. Its lamp is the Lamb of God.

By its light the nations will walk, and the kings of earth

will bring their glory into it. It says its gates will never be

shut by day, and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the

nation's. Isaiah 60 tells us what that

means. Nothing unclean will ever enter

it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only

those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

These are describing the same event, the same day, the same

mountain, the same people, the same glory, your future glory.

And he moves on in verse 21 to describe you.

This is where he directly addresses you and he says you

will be righteous, you will possess the land forever.

And you just get this little tiny sliver because you as well

as all the wealth of the world kind of gets enveloped up into

wrapped up into this glory of God, the glorification of him.

And he calls you here the work of his hands.

Paul picks up on this in his New Testament metaphor where he says

you are his workmanship or maybe your transition.

You are his masterpiece. You're created new in Christ for

good works which God prepared beforehand that you should walk

in them. You're eternally the work of

God's hands. You are that now.

You're eternally the branch of his planting.

And then Isaiah tells you why you get this little glimmer, and

it gets pulled up into the light of God as he says that he might

be glorified. And then verse 21, the people

shall all be righteous, they shall possess the land forever,

that he might be glorified. So it's important to know that

the end and goal of all things is the glory of God.

I think Augustine said it best for his own sake.

Therefore he made all things and all things serve his glory.

And then the whole chapter ends with this promise from the Lord.

He says, I am the Lord, I will hasten it.

Beautiful passage. And I like to stop by way of

application sometimes and ask the question, what would the

Bible be missing if a gust of wind were to blow Isaiah 60 out

of our Bible? And I asked that because it did

that for me with Malachi. My preaching Bible still has no

Malachi in it because the wind blew it away.

I need to get a new one. What would be missing if you

tore out Isaiah 60 and it was gone forever?

You would miss, I think, the significance of the riches and

the sufficiency of your home in the new creation.

We'd miss this idea that our city will be the most wealthy,

prosperous, beautiful city that has ever existed in the world.

Wealth is going to flow. We're going to lack for nothing

forever. The greatest king will make it

prosperous. I think we'd miss, secondly, the

the beauty of the future city. This whole chapter is just

trying to give you the impression of, of what a

beautiful place it's going to be.

And we need to hear this as American Southern Baptists.

Where there's three transcendentals and we only like

to talk about two of them because one makes us

uncomfortable. We, we, we behold truth, we love

truth, we love goodness, we like to talk about goodness, beauty.

Why would we spend any time on beauty?

Why are we going to plant a flower garden at our church and

we could spend that time evangelizing?

Why are we going to make our House Beautiful when we could be

using that money to, to evangelize and to, to reach the

lost? And I think we see and hear that

participating in beauty is part of how we image God.

God is the God of beauty. He's beautiful.

He makes his, the place of his feet beautiful.

I'm not saying be wasteful, but I'm saying there is a place for

us to beautify our homes and our church.

It's worthy of our time and our investment.

We get unique insight into this. I think third, we'd be missing

deeply theological statements about God dwelling eminently

with us. He's trying to to put this on

you that this is your home and this is his home.

It is our. Home.

We will be there with the King of Glory.

Illustrating this in my mind is George Mueller.

Everybody knows him and his prayers and how many thousands

and thousands of orphans he cared for.

But maybe less known is that when he created those Ashley

Down orphanages, he, he didn't just create the orphanages.

And then he lived over here and he brought him food and, you

know, he built his home into their home.

Because he said he loved them and he wanted to be with them

where they were. And so God says here, that's

what he does with us. He doesn't create a nice place

for us to live and he stays in heaven.

We're here together. He loves us.

We'd be missing forth the the teaching about the global

prominence of Zion that nations and kings are going to come

here. 5th We're going to miss the Arise Shine mandate.

Which is one of the most famous calls in the Bible to embody

hope and light in the world. Those two verbs are the

application and he's not just talking to the city he's saying

this is for you. You're called to put on the

armor of God and embody hope and light and last we'd missed the

amazing bridge between the future salvation of Israel and

the nations. It reminds us powerfully that

this, this place that God is building is going to be built of

exotic resources from all over the world and exotic worshippers

from all over the world, especially, he says, emphasizing

here the Muslim nations. And that's something that we

need to remember. It gives us hope when our

evangelistic efforts are not going like we'd like them to.

We're all going to be gathered into one place for worship, for

enjoyment, even the Muslims. And so lastly, I want to say in

the final Mission Impossible movie.

If you've seen it, Luther has a quote and it reads this way.

In his final speech, he says any hope for a better future comes

from willing that future into being a future reflecting the

measure of good within ourselves.

He says like it or not, we're masters of our own fate.

Nothing is written. I hope that makes you cringe.

This gets This movie gets a 10 out of 10 for explosions and

anxiety. It gets a 0 out of 10 for

theology. Our passage picks this apart.

Considering Isaiah 59. I want you to see that any hope

for a better future does not come from within us.

Any hope for a better future, Isaiah is trying to teach you,

comes from an external righteousness apart from us,

there's no good within ourselves.

Our future, this passage teaches, is certain.

It's already been revealed history and your future has

already been told. Somebody else willed it into

being. We don't will the future into

being. Jesus Christ willed the future

into being, which is why 12 times in the gospels Jesus says

it is written, it's already been written, the future is secure.

And in our passage he says the future has already been written.

There will be a new heaven, there will be a new earth, and

the glory of the Lord will be the light and He will be our

righteousness. And Isaiah has been painting a

picture and we we have to see it all in context.

Now as we see the last passage that's been mentioned, this,

this place where we're going to worship in chapter 2, he

emphasizes this is going to be a place of education.

Theological education and worship are going to happen

here. It shall come to pass in the

latter days that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be

established as the highest of the mountains.

It shall be lifted up above all the hills.

Nations shall flow to it, and the people will say, come, let

us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that He may teach us His

ways so that we may walk in his paths, Isaiah emphasizes in

chapter 4. It's going to be a place of

physical and spiritual protection.

There'll be a booth for shade by day from the heat and for

refuge. And a shelter.

From the storm and the rain, it will protect us.

And Isaiah 25, talking about the same mountain, he says there's

going to be a feast there when we take the Lord's Supper

together, as we will. Crystal needed a Senate next

week. Every time we take that Lord's

Supper, we're thinking about that day and that mountain, He

says On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make a feast for

all peoples of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of full

of marrow, of aged wine, well refined.

And he will swallow up on that mountain, the covering that's

cast over all the peoples that says he will swallow up death

forever. He will wipe.

Every tear from every face in the reproach of the people he

will take away from the earth. For the Lord has spoken, and we

will say, this is our God. We have waited.

For him that he might save us. For the hand of the Lord will

rest on this mountain. Isaiah 26 says that it will be a

day for singing, and you can read that to see the song that

we'll sing. Open the gates that the

righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.

Isaiah 35 says it will be a place of healing.

Finally, the eyes of the blind will be open, and the ears of

the deaf unstopped, and then the lame man shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute will sing, and the ransom to the Lord

shall return and come to Zion with singing.

Everlasting joy shall be on their heads.

They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing

shall flee away. And if you want to wrap all that

together, he says Zion is a place of worship.

It's a place of education, a place of protection, of

feasting, of singing, of healing, and of joy.

So why does Isaiah 60 matter? It teaches you why you're

homesick all the time. Because you're not home yet.

Your healing hasn't come yet, which is why your bones ache.

Your joy is not complete, which is why you get depressed and

sorrowful. And your faith is your passport

to a country that you don't live in yet.

And your faith is a passport to a place that you've never been.

And all this matters because one day you're going to live in

Zion, and that day is not today, which is why Jeremiah says put

down roots here. And have children and plant

gardens and seek the welfare of your city.

But there's a coming future beautiful city.

And it's your city. The one that God is preparing

for you in the name of your eternal city is called Zion.

And what are you to do as you wait for that city?

You are to remember you are a soldier of the cross, and you

are to rise and shine and give God your glory.

And let's pray for that. And we'll sing these words back

to the Lord after God. You were, you were the soldier

of the cross. And all of this is, is, is

available to us because of the work and the sacrifice of your

Son. If there's anybody in the room

who does not know Jesus and his righteousness, His moral purity,

His perfection, and that righteousness has not been given

to them as a gift through the Holy Spirit who unites us to

God, whose name is the gift. I pray they would have the

boldness, the conviction to put their faith in Jesus today and

so have this passport to this eternal home.

God be with us. Give us patience as we wait when

this world is full of of trials. It's called the the valley of

the shadow of death and a place that's filled with, with

persecution and depression and darkness.

Lord, sin and infirmity, give us patience and give us zeal like a

cloak. Give us readiness like shoes, so

we can do all the good works that you've given us to do as

workmen, as your masterpiece. Until this day, Lord, we look

forward to it with joy. And we ask all this in the name

of Jesus, Amen. Thanks for listening.

To learn more about Heritage Church or if you'd like to

respond to this sermon, visit our website at

www.heritageshawnee.org.