Isaiah 61:7
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Well, good evening, church. It is good to be with you. As Mike said, our passage is to be found in Isaiah chapter 61, verse 7, I think is on page 621 in your pew Bibles, if you would like to turn there. So I am of the 18% of Americans that has the skill set of being able to drive a manual transmission or a stick shift, if you will. I take great pride in that, or at least I took great pride in that as of about two months ago. So here's the story. We're on our way home from a baseball game. Dana's in the van with all the kids in front of me. They pull into the driveway. I'm in my little manual car behind, and we get up in, and I'm parked on a hill, okay? And the side door opens up at the van, and Josiah, his little blonde-haired head sticks out, and he looks at me, and clearly in his eyes, he's saying, Dad, you are old, you are weak-kneed, and I can beat you to the front door of the house. And I looked back and I said, you are young and foolish of heart and I'm going to take you down. So he came rushing out of the van. I came rushing out of my car. We raced to
the door. My hand hits the door and out of the corner of my eye, I see a white object just strolling down the driveway, just heading on out. So instantly I run off the porch to try to get to the road to signal any cars, you know, that might be coming. And there's no cars coming, thank the Lord. It goes down, it goes across the road, it goes down to the neighbor's yard, goes into their woods, hits a log, jumps up, and crashes into a tree. That is the sound of my soul in that moment right there, what you just heard. That was exactly what it was. You should know, by the way, I did beat Josiah to the door. Most expensive foot race of my life. Okay, so silly story, what's the point?
Of all the emotions that conjured up into my heart and soul in that moment, the emotion, interestingly enough, that hit the top was just embarrassment. It was shame. I was like, come on. I've been driving these things for like 22 years, and I totally screwed it up. And yet for all the shame and embarrassment that I felt in that moment, it doesn't hold a candle to the amount of shame and embarrassment that I have felt in my life over my sin. And the verse that we're looking at tonight is a heat-seeking missile directed right at our shame. and what to do with it, and that's what we'll be talking about tonight. So let's read our passage and dive in. This is Isaiah 61, verse 7. This is God speaking.
Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion. Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess a double portion. they shall have everlasting joy. I think the main idea of this text tonight is simply this. Christ's goal, his aim, his end in salvation is to remove all of your shame and to bring you eternal joy. Christ's goal in salvation is to remove all of your shame and to bring you eternal joy.
I'll break that down to two points. The taking away of shame and the giving of eternal joy. Here's my goal tonight. My goal is that your heart would find freedom in Christ from your shame and that your heart would ascend with joy to God. So point number one, the taking of shame. So this text is written by Isaiah about a little over a hundred years before the Babylonian captivity. And the Babylonian captivity, obviously, is when Babylon comes and conquers Israel and takes them into exile.
And it envisions a people who are enslaved and need salvation. And they need this from a mighty figure. So if you look back in verse 1 there, you see the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. So there's some figure in this text who is there to set people free, people who are enslaved. He's here to set them free. And our text is part of what this person is going to do.
So Isaiah is writing this about 100 years before the Babylonian captivity. Now, to explain this text, what I want to do is I want to try to land us on the ground. So let's imagine that you are an Israelite, and it is, say, 550 B.C. It's 30 years after Israel has been conquered. Let's say that you were a little boy or a little girl, and you saw the walls fall. You saw the temple crushed, and you were carried off into exile in chains. And as you're in exile, maybe like 30 years later, somebody opens up the scroll of Isaiah, and they say, instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion.
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot. Now what are you thinking about? What is the shame and dishonor that would be going through your mind? Well if you read the Old Testament and you go into the prophets and you go into the history books you'll basically come down to two shames that the people experienced and for simplicity's sake we'll say it was the shame of what they had done and it was the shame of the things that were done to them. So let's take those to apart the shame over what they had done or over what you had done. So did you notice in the text, look at the text here, that the land is mentioned three times. It's kind of weird, actually. Instead of shame, there'll be a double portion, that's of land. Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot, that's land. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess a double portion. That doesn't like connect in our minds, right? If I were to say to you, hey, I'm going to remove your shame in the place, I'm going to give you a five-acre farm. You might say, well, I'm thankful for both, but I have no idea how they're connected to each other.
Well, for the people who would hear this, these are intimately connected ideas. And in fact, if we know our Bibles well, they have been intimately connected from like page two of the Bible. So in the garden, Adam and Eve live with God. They dwell together in the garden, in the land, if you will. There's no sin, and Adam and Eve are said to be naked and unashamed. There's no shame there. In chapter three, they sin against God. And what's the first thing they do? They clothe themselves because of their shame. And at the end of the chapter, God sends them out of the garden or out of the land. Sin, shame, and land are always connected in scripture. So if you're there in 550 BC, this is your story. You're an Israelite. God has delivered you out of Egypt. He has given you the land. And he says to you, look, if you obey me, if you walk in my ways, it will be joy upon joy upon joy. But if you disobey, you will become the reproach and the taunt of the nations. That's shame. And you will be exiled out. That's land.
Sin, shame, land are always linked in scripture. And so you can start to see what this verse is getting at. It's saying, look, I'm going to give you back the land. But the shame that you would feel in that moment, as you read a verse like this, is that you would realize what all you had lost. I mean, you're an Israelite. You were chosen by God. You were delivered from the power of Egypt. You were sustained in the wilderness, given the law, given a temple where God would dwell, a system of sacrifice to atone for sin, the very word of God delivered from Mount Sinai, a covenant, kings, righteous prophets, the very God of heaven and earth in your very midst, and you threw it away for idolatry. You threw it away because you worshipped other gods. It's an immeasurable amount of shame because of what you had done. But secondly, you would have the shame over what has been done to you. The Bible is not shy. The Old Testament is not shy about describing the horror of what exile was. And just a brief list here. There was chains, there was defilement, there was
cannibalism of their own kin, there was children ripped from nursing mothers, bodily sins committed against them, slavery, nakedness, being approached, and a taunt among the nations. Psalm 137 is a psalm written by the people in exile, and the Babylonians are saying to the people, hey, sing us one of those songs of Zion. Sing us a song of Zion. Come on, sing us a song of Zion. Hey, sing that one about how your king's going to be the eternal king on the throne. How about you sing that one? Sing a song of Zion. It's just mockery and taunting and abuse towards the people in exile. See, two problems, two shames. The shame of what you had done and the shame of all the oppression done to you.
So do you understand the utter tenderness and kindness and goodness of God to say something like this to you in the midst of that? It's as if God is coming to you in the midst of your exile, captors all around, a thousand sleepless nights, remembering with horror all the evils done against your people, against your own person, all the sins that parade themselves before your mind every night, taunting you, that you're stuck there and there's no escape, the chains that keep you there, the prison bars that mock your very soul, the scars on your back from the whips, the horror that tomorrow it will just be the same again and again and again. And into that prison, into that horror, into that Babylon, if you will, this verse pierces through. It's as if God has descended, crush the king of the dark land, destroy their captors, rip the gates off, removes your shackles, picks up your broken scarred body, looks into your face and says, I'm taking you home.
I'm taking you home. And he says it three times. That's why the land's mentioned three times, because you don't believe it. It's like, no, no, like that doesn't make any sense. No, I'm really, I'm taking you home. I'm going to give you a double portion. I'm going to give you even more than you had before. This is the tenderness of this verse for Israel, but this verse is not just about Israel. So get into a little time machine around 550 BC and time warp or however you do time machines and land in Israel around, I don't know, say the year 8030. Drift around Israel a little bit and come to a little town called Nazareth. Can anything good come from Nazareth?
right go into the synagogue on a particular morning and look around the scribes and the pharisees are having their little debates or whatever and in the corner sits a man his name is joshua jesus he's a carpenter in the middle of this this is luke chapter 4 by the way the time machine's not luke chapter 4 but this is the story is from luke chapter 4 jesus gets up he goes up to the front and he opens the scroll of isaiah to isaiah 61 and he reads the spirit of the lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. He rolls up the scroll and sets it back. Okay, what's the commentary of the carpenter boy on that text? Who does he think the Messiah is?
And Jesus says, today in your hearing, this has been fulfilled. Nothing like it was ever spoken like that in Israel ever before, because Jesus just claimed that he is the anointed figure of chapter 61 of the book of Isaiah. He is the one who can set people free, and clearly they were past the Babylonian captivity. He's here for a deeper captivity, a deeper slavery. He's here to free his people from the slavery of sin and from the slavery of shame. That's what Jesus is claiming in Luke chapter 4. But let's ask this question. How does Jesus actually tangibly deal with our shame? How does he do it? How does he remove it? Well, excuse me, the answer, as we all know, is the cross. It's at the cross that he removes our sin and our shame. We often think of the cross as the place where Jesus bears our sin, and hallelujah to that. Amen. But he's doing more
there. Jesus, I guess, I don't know, maybe he could have just came and died in some backwater town or something like that, and that would have been the end of it. I'm not sure, but I can tell you this. Hebrews 12 says that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame. There was something about shame that needed to be dealt with as well at the cross. You see, the cross was intended by Rome to not only be torturous and awful, but it was intended to be the epitome of shame. It was meant to degradate any person on it.
That's why the four gospel authors all tell us that Jesus was stripped naked before he was crucified. It was shameful. It was awful. It was degrading. It was humiliating, and it was public for all to see. And the reason that Jesus endures that shame and then scorns it, conquers it, is that he's looking at you, and he's looking at me, and he's saying, I can deal with your shame. I have been shamed far worse than what you ever will be, and I scorned it. And so whatever shame you have over whatever sin or whatever past you have, I can scorn that too.
I can conquer your shame. He experienced the crushing weight of sin and shame for his people so that he can conquer it. And he looks at you and he says, I can deal with it. And I can bring you all the way home. Look, if you're here tonight and you're an unbeliever, this is our gospel. Our gospel is just what I've been saying the entire time. We are sinners enslaved to our sin. And what follows from that is shame. What follows from that is a realization, an understanding that we do not measure up to God.
And the entire world is in a project of suppressing that truth. We're in a month that suppresses that truth. It just says, look, we can do whatever we want. We can say whatever we want. we can just go about it and you can't tell anybody what to do. There's no shame here. It's just suppression, suppression. But friend, if you're here tonight, like go home and for 10 minutes just think to yourself, wait, when I have a dirty conscience, shouldn't that, shouldn't I do something about that? Should it mean more than just whatever or I should just suppress it? Don't don't do that. Ask the question, is that trying to lead you somewhere? Because you only have two options. One, you can suppress it. Or two, you can go to a Savior who can remove it.
Brother, sister, believer, if you're here tonight and you feel the weight of shame in your life, you feel that, I just want to encourage you. I think what this passage would tell you to do is to be the kind of person that Jesus came for. I mean, we've read it twice now, but to do it again, I mean, he came for the brokenhearted. He came for captives. He came for those who are bound. He came for those who mourn. In other words, he came to people who knew that they couldn't free themselves. And if you are struggling under the weight of shame tonight, the first step to do is to make sure that you're confessing sin and shame to other believers.
That's why you have a church. That's why we're here. We're here to help each other home. We're here to see sins conquered, shame overcome. You can have joy, brother, sister. Bring your sin into the light. Confess it. Or maybe you're here and you're one of the category of sins, great sins committed against you. And you know what Jesus is saying to you on the cross, brother, sister? I know what it is to be shamed. I know what it is to feel that. And I am with you.
And brother, sister, Jesus looks at you and he says, You will have everlasting joy, which brings me to my second point, very briefly, the giving of joy. Do you see that last promise? I mean, can you get your head around it? Can you even begin to imagine what this is? They shall have everlasting joy. I mean, it's not just his promise to bring you out of slavery into a good land or heaven. He's after more than just your circumstances. He's after an entire transformation of your body, your mind, your soul. He's after your happiness for eternity.
Look, if you thought that removing your shame was good, if you thought that getting home was better, wait till you hear that Jesus isn't content and he's not going to rest until you are joyful. It's the idea that you will never have to wake up another morning wondering what is wrong with you and why you did that stupid sinful thing last night. It's the thought that you will never again have to struggle with just opening your mouth to confess sin. It's the wonder that you won't ever again sit in a church service with your heart thumping in your chest that you think, I'm the only one here. It's the thought that you never again will have to wonder if you're a good dad or a good mom or if you obey your parents enough.
It's the unimaginable concept that you will never have tears again. There's no heartbreak. There'll be no sin, but it's better than that. It's not like it's just a long vacation from the ills of this world. And in a thousand years, we've got to get back into the fight. It's unending. It's overwhelming. It's totally satisfying. The temporary years of this life, with all their toil and with all their sin and with all their shame and dishonor, will be over. And by over, this text says, fully and finally done. The threat of them to return is zero. There are no border patrol agents in the new heavens and the new earth. The gates in Revelation are wide open. Why? Because there's no threat. A king is a fool to leave his gates open 24 7 unless there are no threats out there and there are no threats against your soul in the new heavens and the new earth it is just joy in your savior can you imagine it can your mind even begin to wrap around it like the new testament is just grasping at straws you know paul says we see dimly but then face to face or god says look no eye has seen no ear has heard nor
has the heart of man even imagined what God has prepared for those who love him? Brother, sister, let the coming joy, the promise of the coming joy, bolster you to fight sin now. What Mike was talking about this morning, right? Walking with God, sanctification. Let it bolster you now. Let it steel your spine, strengthen your knees, pick up the sword again, strap on the armor, get back into the fight. Do it with some joy. You have an eternity of happiness in God before you. So live faithfully and fully before him now. Let's pray. Father, this text is just a kindness from you because it tells us no matter what pit that we're in tonight, if we are in one, whether we don't know you or whether we do and we're just filled up with the shame of our sin. Father, this text says that there is a road out and his name is Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that every heart would turn to him and have utter joy that he can remove our shame, bring us home, and give us life
eternal. We love him and we pray that you would help us to love him more. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.