Please keep your Bibles handy at Isaiah chapter 4 from verse 2 to verse 6. Let me pray for God s help and guidance with this passage.

Transcription

1 Stay Connected (Isaiah 4:2-6) 30 th Nov 14 1 Please keep your Bibles handy at Isaiah chapter 4 from verse 2 to verse 6. You can follow the outline in the bulletin and take notes if you wish. Let me pray for God s help and guidance with this passage. Let s pray Intro Have you noticed the great lengths we go to these days to stay connected with our family and friends? We have so many ways of staying connected. We obviously have the telephone at home. [Powerpoint 1 Stay connected] But now we have mobile phones where we can send text messages to each other. Then there s the internet which allows us to send s, use Facebook, twitter and a thing called Instagram, where we can send each other photos instantly to keep our family and friends up to date with where we are. And there s an internet program called Skype which allows you to sit in front of a computer screen with an attached video camera and talk to someone on the other side of the world who is also sitting in front of a computer screen with an attached video camera and you can talk face to face. And if you have an iphone you can do the same thing as skype with someone else who has an iphone only it s called Facetime! Recently my daughter went to America on holiday and she wanted to keep in touch with me whilst she was away but didn t want to spend heaps of money on Page 1 of 12

2 her phone. So we found a free application for our phones called What s App 2 which we could use to talk to each other for free! As human beings we go to extraordinary lengths to stay connected with each other Imagine if we went to the same lengths to connect to God? Now wouldn t that be a novel idea! (pause) Last week, in Isaiah chapter 3, we left the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Judah where God promised a day when He would punish them because they had failed to stay connected to Him. The people had failed to listen to God s Word and their deeds were against God deeds like worshipping idols instead of worshipping God and failing to take care of the poor and needy in the community and instead grinding the poor and needy into the ground! And God accused them of parading their sin like the city of Sodom. And He promised a day when the people would be punished. Basically the people had brought disaster upon themselves! (pause) But as is often the case with God through His judgment there is a future hope. And we find it in our passage this morning in verse 2 of chapter 4 of Isaiah Page 2 of 12

3 The Work of the Branch of the Lord 3 In verse 2 God through the prophet Isaiah promises a future day when there will be a Branch of the Lord [Powerpoint 2 Branch of the Lord] The term Branch of the Lord is like a nickname like we call an electrician sparkie or a carpenter chippy or woody The Branch is a nickname for a person and the Hebrew for branch has the idea of something sprouting and growing and producing fruit. So whoever this person is they are going to cause a time of fruit bearing in the Land and according to Isaiah this person will be beautiful and glorious [Powerpoint 3 Beautiful and glorious] Who might this Branch of the Lord be? According to Is 11:1-5 the Branch refers to a descendant of Jesse King David s father but it s not king David because he would have been dead by Isaiah s time so it has to be someone in King David s family tree and that s was the prophet Jeremiah says in (Jeremiah 33: 15). In fact that s what all the prophets in the OT are all about. Telling the people to turn away from sin and turn back to God because God is sending His chosen one, the Messiah, to save people from their sin! It s like they are all singing the same song turn back to God there s a Messiah coming! There s a Messiah coming! There s a Messiah coming! Page 3 of 12

4 So Isaiah is saying this beautiful and glorious Branch of God is coming in the 4 future and so there is a hope for the people of Judah even though they will be carried off to exile in Babylon. And this new hope is a time of fruitfulness for the people which will be the pride and glory of the people. [Powerpoint 4 fruit pride and glory] But how is this time of fruitfulness going to happen? Have a look at v4: [Powerpoint 5 spirit of judgment/fire] It s going to happen through a Spirit of judgment and a Spirit of fire. And this time of fruitfulness has some fulfilment for Judah in that after 70 years of exile in Babylon some remaining faithful people are allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. But that s not the complete fulfilment of what Isaiah is on about here. The idea of a Spirit of judgment and a Spirit of fire reminds us of what John the Baptist said when he was preparing the way for Jesus to come He said he was baptizing people with water so they would repent and turn back to God but the person coming after him would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt 3:11). So we can identify this Branch of the Lord as none other than Jesus. And baptism of fire has the idea of judgment of sin and a cleansing of sin So the Branch of the Lord Jesus confronts people about their sin Page 4 of 12

5 And there are 3 results of this judgment by fire: 5 [Powerpoint 6 Holy] Firstly the people will be called holy! The Hebrew for holy means set apart for God alone belonging to God clean from any guilt of crimes, free from the guilt of idolatry and free from anything unclean. In other words reflecting the character of God Secondly the people will have their filth washed away and bloodstains cleansed. [Powerpoint 7 Washed and Cleansed The Hebrew for filth literally means dung or pooh. That s how God sees sin it s like pooh to him. But the Branch of the Lord will wash it all away! And the washing away has the sense of someone washing their hands of a problem when they re innocent. And the blood of Jerusalem will be cleansed has the idea of the accumulated guilt of the people being completely removed. Thirdly the people will experience the presence of God [Powerpoint 8 Created presence of God/canopy] God dwelling with his people The cloud of smoke by day and the flaming fire by night is reminiscent of how God was present with his people during the people of Israel s exodus from Egypt. Page 5 of 12

6 Remember how God went before His people in a cloud by day to guide them 6 And by a flaming fire to lead them during the night. And notice this verse says God will create His presence of Mount Zion. And the Hebrew word for create here is the same word (bara) used when God created the Heavens and Earth at the beginning of time. It s almost like God is recreating things exactly how they should be - with God dwelling with his people not threatening them but blessing them. And notice over this dwelling place with his people is a canopy. If you have ever seen a Jewish wedding. The bride and groom usually have a canopy over them [Powerpoint 9 Wedding canopy] The idea of the canopy is not just to symbolize that the married couple have been joined and become one flesh as God intended But primarily the idea of the canopy is symbolize the presence of God in their lives dwelling with the couple. And that s the picture Isaiah is painting of God living intimately with His people as He always intended. God loves his creatures so much He desires a relationship with them like a wonderful marriage and He desires to live or dwell with His people. That s why Isaiah and the other OT prophets promised that God would deal with the problem of sin himself and He did that once and for all - by sending the Messiah God s Chosen One His Beloved Son Jesus Page 6 of 12

7 7 That s the picture Isaiah paints here a time when God will deal with sin and come and live with His people. God staying connected to His people! (pause) The Work of the Vine We then fast forward 700 or so years from Isaiah s time to the birth of the Messiah Jesus an event we will be remembering in a couple of weeks as we approach Christmas. An event we should remember every day if we re fair dinkum! An event 2014 years ago - when Jesus was born - so God can dwell with His people But that s not the end of the story Because dwelling with His people doesn t deal with people s sin And so Jesus in his time on Earth teaches that He must die for the people s sin. But He also teaches as we read in our NT passage this morning from John 15 that He s not just the Branch of the Lord as Isaiah described Him But He s also The Vine in fact the True Vine [Powerpoint 10 Vine and branches] And Jesus says we are branches connected to Him the Vine. And God the Father is the gardener. And the Father does some serious gardening to us - the branches on the Vine. [Powerpoint 11 Gardener/Cut off/pruning] Page 7 of 12

8 If we as branches don t bear fruit he cuts us off 8 But if we as branches bear fruit he does some decent pruning so that we bear even more fruit [Illustration: And God s pruning is not like the way I pruned the gardenia last winter. Heather nearly had a heart-failure. You have to realize that in England and Ireland in late autumn and winter nothing grows so it s a good time to prune ready for spring. How was I to know that the gardenia was just about to flower so I gave it a good pruning! It still hasn t come back!] God s pruning of us is not like that He knocks off the rough edges and twigs of our lives and prompts us to refocus on Jesus so that we bear more fruit for Him and His kingdom. But Jesus in that same passage from John 15 gives us a stern warning in verse 4 [Powerpoint 12 Remain] We as branches must stay connected to Jesus we can t bear fruit if we are disconnected from Jesus! In fact he goes further in v6 of John 15 and says branches that don t remain attached to Jesus the Vine are dead branches that will be thrown into the fire and burnt! So the question for all of us this morning is how do we ensure that we stay connected to Jesus the True Vine? Jesus gives us the answer in verses 12 and 13 of John 15 [Powerpoint 13 Love] Page 8 of 12

9 Staying connected to Jesus means loving each other as Jesus loved us. 9 And how did Jesus love us? He loved us by laying down His life on that cruel Roman torture device so we could have the forgiveness of sins and so we could stay connected to Him the Vine as one of the fruitful branches rather than being one of the dead branches! Jesus even gave us the Holy Spirit to live inside us to encourage us, and guide us and help us and teach us and rebuke us. So that we can stay connected to Jesus Conclusion So how are we going at staying connected to Jesus He s done all the hard work He s died for us, He s risen for us He s given us the Holy Spirit What effort are we putting into staying connected to Him? Are we putting in the same effort as we do with our family and friends? (pause) Friends, we need to stay connected to Jesus so how are we going to do that? [Powerpoint 14 Heading How to stay connected] Well here s a few things we can do to stay connected: [Powerpoint 14a - Love] 1. Show love to one another like Jesus did not necessarily laying down your life for someone but loving sacrificially loving people by identifying the needs in Page 9 of 12

10 10 their life and supplying them without expecting anything in return. That sort of sacrificial love means thinking of others first rather than ourselves. It will mean perhaps us missing out on something so that the other person gets their needs supplied [Powerpoint 14b - Prayer] 2. Stay connected to Jesus through your prayer life. Just like Facebook and text messages and Skype we can pray anywhere and at any time. There s no set time to pray. Yes we have a formal time of prayer during our service each Sunday and we have a prayer meeting on Friday but that shouldn t be the end of our praying for the week. We give you a list of prayer points each week and you can pray through those every day as well as using the church directory to pray for others. As well as your own personal prayer needs. [Powerpoint 14c The Word] 3. Stay connected to Jesus through His Word the Bible. Friends you can get a Bible on your phone for free. (see me after if you want to know how). I also have spare Bibles in the vestry if you haven t got one at home. You can access a zillion different versions of the Bible on the internet. You can even get talking Bibles if you can t see so well. The more you read God s Word the more connected to Jesus you will be! Page 10 of 12

11 [Powerpoint 14d Growth Group] Stay connected to Jesus through our Growth Groups/Bible Study Groups. Hanging around like-minded Christians who love Jesus and His Word helps us learn from one another and keeps us connected. I can honestly say I learn something from every Bible study group I attend [Powerpoint 14e Worship] 5. Stay connected to Jesus through our Sunday Worship Services. Yes as Christians we have been set free and we don t need to come to church every week. But I would argue you should want to come to church each week to praise God and thank Him for Jesus and to stay connected to Jesus and to stay connected to other Jesus people [Powerpoint 14f Vine Work] 6. Finally and most importantly as branches connected to the vine we can do some really important vine work. All the things I ve mentioned so far mainly keep us connected and help us grow but the main vine work is bearing fruit and that means telling others how they can be connected to Jesus and stay connected. That vine work can include personal evangelism, evangelism in a team, Scripture in schools, Sunday school teaching and so on Friends, Isaiah foretold the coming of the Branch of the Lord. He came 2000 years ago His name is Jesus the True Vine Page 11 of 12

12 12 His mission was to get people into a right relationship with God who in turn wants to live with us in that beautiful marriage relationship where He has His canopy of love over us. A relationship which can last forever and ever if we choose to stay connected to Jesus. Let s pray Page 12 of 12