CHFC - Week 1 (Isaiah 11:1-10)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

My name is Pastor Matt. I, as Kristen said, get the

privilege of serving alongside her and Pastor Chris, who is

just here for looks this morning.

It's not going that well. All right, you, you said it, not

me. We have the joy, quite

literally, of answering into this season of Advent.

I said some of the words in in my prayer already.

We've sang a lot of familiar words, hopefully already in

modern, if not traditional Christmas songs this morning.

Familiar words of coming of exile, of deliverance, of of

goodness and hope and joy found in this baby Jesus being born of

a woman, being born fully God, fully man having, having both of

those beings make him up. And really the season of Advent

is the advent of hope of of the journey 30 some years later to

this cross where he would pour out his life for all of mankind,

quite literally born to give us life as as we just sang,

ultimately born to die, but to give life to a world that had no

other answers for their sin problem.

Jesus came to live a perfect life and in his death and

resurrection we have true and eternal hope.

So we are jumping into a series this Advent, the next 4 weeks,

and Christmas Eve in the book of Isaiah.

Some of you might be saying, I know I haven't been in my Bible

as much as I should have, and maybe I'm kind of new to this

Christianity thing, but isn't, isn't the story of Christmas in,

in the gospels? Isn't that like the second-half

of the Bible? And we read about the birth of

Jesus and then that's in Matthew.

And then we finish that one and we start again in Mark and we

read about the birth of Jesus again.

And then, and then in and, and we, and we go through, we go

through the gospels and, and read about the, the coming of

Jesus in there. So why are we in Isaiah?

Because far before the actual telling of the coming of Jesus

in Bethlehem, Isaiah the prophet foretold hundreds of years

beforehand of the coming of the King, of the need of the people

of Israel, ultimately God's people and all who would come to

know Him of their need. The book of Isaiah was written

in a very turbulent time in the people of Israel.

It was written around the 8th century BC, a time when a once

unified Kingdom of Israel there was a northern Kingdom and a

southern Kingdom. They they they divided, though

they were one people. They had then divided and the

the great nation of Assyria had grown so much that they were

taking over lands across the Near East region and the

northern Kingdom of the people of Israel fell to the armies of

Assyria in 722 BC. The southern Kingdom of Judah

was now in a period of trepidation, feeling helpless,

unsure that they could overcome their enemies, this growing

threat that sought to suppress them.

So Isaiah, in the capital city of Judah, Jerusalem, he

prophesied and ministered to the people of Israel, spanning the

rule of several kings. The 1st chapter of Isaiah tells

us that King Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were all

rulers of the nation of Israel. While Isaiah was prophesying to

and leading the people of Israel in the southern Kingdom, he

warned Judah about the consequences of their idolatry

of injustice, injustice and misplaced trust in society, in

national political alliances, rather than in the Lord.

This people that was supposed to be God's people have him first

and him only. The same people that we just

finished talking about in Egypt delivered out of Egypt through

the wilderness. Miracles performed for their

good, for their sake to to ready their hearts to to endear their

hearts to this one true God who would fight for them and who

would be for them. Though hundreds of years have

passed since Egypt, this people had remained the same.

They had still looked for each and every other thing they could

possibly find other than God to put their hope in.

So Isaiah's job He was there warning them of the danger of

putting their trust in idolatry and injustices in in earthly

powers to deliver them. He warned them of coming

judgement. But in his later writings, he

also proclaimed hope. He spoke of this coming

Emmanuel, which they would understand as God with us.

It's Isaiah 714. So this people who again, like

the people in Egypt who were in slavery, who were trapped quite

literally in their sin as subjects to oppression and

darkness, exile and captivity, is once again facing the people

of Israel in Isaiah's time. They are a people not in their

home, not where they were meant to be or where God intended them

to be. By the end of this series, what

we hope becomes very clear to you is that the coming of Jesus

isn't just about this precious little newborn baby born in

extraordinary circumstances to a people sorely in need of hope,

but what that baby brought with him.

He not only left heaven behind, he left his his godliness, his

power, his deity, his home. He quite literally left his home

for his created people that he loved, and he brought that

Kingdom with him. He brought His godliness, His

power, his reign to earth, to shine light, to be hope, to

bring joy and peace, and to show that this great God that we so

often neglect and rebel from and try to replace with each and

everything, Jesus came to remind us that He still loves us above

all things and that He is very, very good.

So let me ask you, what do you think of?

What are some words that come to mind when you think of home?

What is home? What makes home home?

Comfort. That was all comfort over here.

All right? Comfort.

Comfort. Comfort.

OK What else? What makes home?

Home? Loved ones.

Love family. My bed.

My bed. A place of rest.

Yeah. Safety.

Security. How many of you find all those

things more readily? I hope you find those things

more readily at home at the place that you call home rather

than out in the world. It should be why we call that

place home. And I know that's not every home

and that's not everyone's experience of home, but all

those things are what should make up a home in God's design.

So now we enter into the busiest time of the year, these days and

weeks leading up to Christmas, and we're all over the place,

right? Many of us spend long hours at

work trying to wrap up projects or finish things before the end

of the year. We have obligatory office

Christmas parties or or school performances, Christmas

pageants, services at church, extra Christmas services that we

just talked about. We feel so much of this time of

year bouncing around from one thing or the other most of the

time, spending time away from where we long to be in your bed,

at home, in safety with people that we actually like, right?

We spend all this time filling an agenda, replacing things,

often when we'd rather be just dwelling with the people we love

the most in the place that brings us the most peace.

We endure the hustle of the holidays with hearts yearning

for the comforts of home. And it's doing all of this.

We do it out of a sense of obligation of, of tradition, or

we've always done this or we won't let these people down.

When in reality, I think many of us, there's, there's a short,

simple list of a very few things that are really what we long for

this time of year. We replace it with a whole lot

of extra. Our lives very often parallel

the bustle and chaos of that first Christmas story.

It was a time there was a census Mary and Joseph, who again there

was, if you're not familiar with how that went down.

Mary came to Joseph. They were they were betrothed to

be married and she let him know, Hey, kids coming.

Joseph's like, well, I know who's it's not.

Which at the time was. I mean, that that was leper

status as as far as societal. You didn't you didn't have

children out of wedlock ever. You were, you were much

chagrined for that to happen. So he's dealing with all, all of

these things, but he doesn't want to wrong her.

He doesn't want to cast her out. She's telling.

No, really. It was just it just happened.

It just like that. I just expected a kid.

Yeah, OK. And of course, an Angel comes

and explains to Joseph the the plan and lets him know.

I know this is a divine supernatural thing that that

happened and and there's great plans for this boy who's going

to be this coming Emmanuel. He's going to save his people

from their sins. So God gets Mary on board.

God gets Joseph on board. But they are going away from

home. They're going to Joseph's

hometown In the same way, in Isaiah's time, he was

prophesying to a people under the threat of extermination, of

indentured servitude, of captivity, that southern

Kingdom, Judah, already having watched the northern Kingdom

fall. The things that they were

placing their hope in, privilege and protection and safety and

comfort, the things of home, they were under attack.

They were under threat. And honestly, it was all their

fault. They had done it to themselves.

They hadn't put their hope in God.

And that was a picture really of our entire world as a result of

sin, the faithlessness of the northern Kingdom of Israel and

the southern Kingdom of Judah. It would bring about their

respective exiles from God the same way our rebellion, our

replacement of God, brings us into exile from Him.

They refused to believe in the promises of God.

They repeated countless mistakes in which they should have known

better, and they reached a place where judgment rather than hope,

joy, peace, comfort, safety, love, judgement was the thing

reigning and ruling in their lives more than any of those

things that we would like to be a part of home.

So they had this feeling. There was a philosopher called

Heidegger. He called it Umm Halaikite.

I don't know if I said that right, but that's how it looks.

It's a feeling of dislocation, of that nagging feeling of you

don't belong here, I don't fit in, I'm in the wrong place.

Being alienated in your own body, living in a world that

doesn't meet our deepest needs or desires or comforts or

safety. We feel out of sync, We're out

of rhythm, Knowing ultimately that this place, this life full

of problems and sins and pains and struggles, it's not really

what we were made for. I think there's a part of each

and every one of us that understands that.

But we said we spend so much time, we spend so much of this

life looking for things to solve those problems when it's really

found in this baby born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

The perpetual sin that we keep running to despite all the

promises we've made to our spouse, to our friends, to

ourselves, to our God, that this time it'll be different.

I'll get it right this time. I'll be stronger than my sin

this time. There's guilt that we can't

shake from mistakes made in the past, no matter how many times

we're told that we're forgiven. We can carry chronic pain.

We can pour out into people, into family and friends and

hobbies and habits, and we're still left with a sense that

it's ultimately, ultimately not enough.

I think we all have that quiet whisper when faced with

brokenness, that this isn't how it's supposed to be.

And you're right, it's not, this is not the home, the world that

God intends for us. We're going to go right back

before we jump into the words of Isaiah, we're going to go right

back to some words of Moses that are found in Psalm 90.

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had

formed the earth in the world. From everlasting to everlasting,

you are God, They will be my people and I will be their God.

From the beginning of time. Yahweh I AM has been the answer

to all the things that make up home.

So this series in Isaiah is called Coming Home for

Christmas. As we seek to recenter, just as

we talked about a few weeks ago, seeking the Kingdom first, we're

coming home. We're coming back to the start

of how God designed it for our for us to place our priorities.

Those 4 apps that we talked about faith, family, fitness and

finances, it all starts with this Lord, our dwelling place in

all generations. And in the book of Isaiah, we're

going to draw out some ways that it has always been this way.

God as our home. So we're in Isaiah Chapter 11

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

this morning, this prophecy. It's the 1st 10 verses we're

going to read in this chapter. You're welcome to grab a Bible

in front of you under the seats or whip out your app on your

phone. The words will be up on the

screen. Isaiah Chapter 11.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a

branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

Talking about the line of David here, Jesse being king, David's

father foretold that Jesus was would come from that birth line.

Verse 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the

spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of

counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the

Lord. Look at all these things.

These are the things that would make up the Savior, the perfect

Jesus. Wisdom, understanding, counsel,

might, knowledge and fear of the Lord.

All things we should strive after to live in His blueprint,

the way that God ordained it for our lives.

Jesus is our perfect example of all these things, and Isaiah is

infusing this message of hope into the people of Israel.

Verse 3. His delight shall be in the fear

of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his

eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with

righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity.

For the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with

the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall

kill the wicked. If you ever wonder, yeah, but

does God really know what this like?

Does he understand what I'm going through?

He doesn't. He doesn't get this or he

doesn't understand how this happened to me.

Those are all the wrong questions.

We love to contextualize our misfortune.

We love to excuse the things we did wrong or the bad things that

have happened to us. And Jesus isn't coming to the

earth to accommodate any of that.

He's not going to judge by what his eyes see or what his ears

hear with righteousness. His one standard, that's it.

It doesn't shift or sway by the societal rulers or or what's

acceptable nowadays. It's his standard.

It's his truth by which he shall judge.

So strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.

Literally His word, the word of God, and he's so powerful that

with the simple breath of his lips he can wipe the wicked from

the earth. That's hope for a hurting

people, for this exiled, oppressed people of Israel and

Judah. And that's hope for us as a

hurting people today. Take note of how it happens,

though. All this might, all this

splendor that Isaiah is talking about, and yet, and yet Mary and

Joseph were on a road trip headed for Bethlehem for a

census. When it comes time for the baby

to be born, they can't find a house.

They're stuck in a stable. We've got a few new moms in

here, plenty of seasoned moms in here too.

I don't think at the time the baby come, you're like, all

right, Get Me Out of the backyard.

Let's do this. That's what they had to deal

with. Not only that, those actual

conditions, but they were far from home from their earthly

home. They didn't have the support

that they usually would. Their child is not simply chosen

by God to rescue his people, but he is the flesh of the Son of

God himself. That reality, that truth that

Isaiah is speaking to a people in exile spoke volumes that this

perfect Savior, this perfect God would be exiled from his home,

from his home in heaven to come be a perfect sacrifice for or

hurting people. God joins us.

The picture of Jesus coming to earth is God joining us in our

exile, in our homelessness, in the way that we are not meant

for this world. Neither was Jesus, but he came

to make a way to our true home in heaven.

He leaves home and he joins us. He becomes the way himself.

So this Jesus, this birth we anticipate, he arrives, he comes

to earth and he continues to not belong here, right?

He's not joyfully accepted. He's he's exiled and abused and

questioned and schemed against and ultimately plotted against

to be murdered and ultimately murdered.

And this place that doesn't hold any true power over him, that is

not his home, he succumbs to it. He willingly lays his life down

for a people that had spurned him.

But he rises, showing his power over all of it and giving us a

way to experience the lasting effects of his resurrection.

Sin and death didn't stick for him because those things are not

a part of his home. Those are things that aren't

going to be there. And that's why Isaiah goes into

this list in in the 2nd chapter, in the second part of this

chapter here he goes on with the righteousness.

That righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, faithfulness,

the belt of his loins. Those are the things that are

established in him. He is faithfulness, He is

righteousness. Those things can't be

questioned. He is the standard.

And then he goes on to this list in the next 5 verses of things

that don't make sense. The wolf should go with the

lamb. The leopard should lie down with

the young goat, the calf and the lion and the fat and calf

together, and a little child shall lead them.

None of that makes sense to us, right?

Those are enemies. Those are dangerous things to

put together. How many of you going home and

letting your kid walk the lion today doesn't make sense to us

in this broken world. But in God's design, that's

normal. They're supposed to be at peace

with each other. This world of strife and sin and

brokenness feels unnatural because it's not the way it's

supposed to be. And like the people of Israel,

we as a people, as humankind, have screwed it up.

We've brought it to be that way. The cow and the bear shall

graze. Their young shall lie down

together. The lions will each straw like

the ox. The nursing child shall play

over the whole of the cobra. That sounds wildly dangerous.

And the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.

Kids are playing with snakes supposed to be normal and fine

and good. We know that it's not because we

live in a world afflicted with sin.

We live in a world of danger where anything other than home

can be unsafe, is not secure, is not love.

Any of you who've been parents or who are parents or

grandparents can be a scary thing.

Kids growing up and going out into the world think of God the

Father with the task of sending his son away from home to a

world that will hate him, knowing they will ultimately

kill him. That's for sure.

How hard must that have been of for the Father to just want to

keep his son in the safety of home?

That's not a reality that we can really facilitate in this world

though. Just like God had to send Jesus

out into the world to be the light of the world, to be the

hope. Christian parents, Christian

households, your kids are still the way that the world finds out

about the hope of Jesus. God didn't withhold his Son from

being the hope, the light of the world, and neither will we.

We're going to build them up in strength God gave us.

Just like in the beginning of this passage, Jesus is equipped.

He's got righteousness, He's got faithfulness.

He has this armor that Paul later writes about.

And ultimately, just like he went with Moses, didn't matter

how equipped or how strong or how able Moses was.

What matters is God went with him.

Jesus coming down to earth, quite literally, God with us,

Emmanuel goes with us. So in a world that doesn't feel

like home, Christ came to earth to come alongside us to bring

hope to a hopeless world. But now we're stuck in the

already, not yet. For those of you who know Jesus,

either before today or for the first time today are hearing

about it. We live in the tension of

knowing that this world isn't truly our home and having to

strive each and every day to fix our eyes on the object of our

faith in Jesus, who is keeping our place in home, in heaven

with Him, secure. Isn't that what we're really

after? Isn't that truly the longing of

our hearts each and every day, not just for our earthly bed?

And I love that. Isn't that the deepest longing

of our hearts? A home that is secure and is not

shaken? Not just at this time of you're,

not just at Christmas, but at but at all times.

We just want to be home. We want to be in that place

where we are fully known, fully forgiven, and finally at rest.

Isaiah writes it this way. They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the

knowledge of the Lord. As the waters cover the sea in

that day, the root of Jesse Jesus, who shall stand as a

signal for all the peoples of Him, shall the nation's inquire,

and his resting place shall be glorious.

This passage sounds very familiar, that there there shall

be no more tears or mourning or crying or pain.

There will be nothing to fear, nothing to hurt, nothing to be

shameful of. It will be full of the knowledge

of the Lord, and His resting place shall be glorious.

That's the home that our hearts long 4 So I know back to reality

now it's really easy to feel like there's a resting place in

a home in this room for an hour on Sunday mornings.

But can't stay here. We can't stay here.

I'd love to. We're going to go back out into

that world though. We're going to go back out into

that world that doesn't feel like home, especially this time

of year. There's no getting around the

business of the holidays, family, things that we feel like

we have to do. Probably going to spend more

time in the car than you're on the couch.

This month might just happen, but there may be a way to redeem

that time. Maybe the movement that we have

this season can be a reminder of what this time of year is about.

May every time that we ache to just be at home, to just be in

the warmth of our bed, the comfort of our home, may that be

a reminder the place that our Lord is keeping for us in

heaven, the One who left His throne, His home for us.

May every time you're going crazy and wondering how you're

going to make it here, here and here, may that be a reminder of

how this world is not our home. It's not the way it's supposed

to be. And really, may this time of

year be a reminder that our hope, our home, is not far off.

Jesus has come to US. One day soon we'll dwell with

Him fully and forever. This time of year, there's a

phrase that's often brought up that home is where the heart is.

That can mean a lot of things on earth, but as you consider your

heavenly home, where's your heart?

Church, Let's pray. Thanks for listening to ERC

Sundays. To support the work God is doing

an Emmaus Rd. church, visit emmausrdonline.org/giving.