12/11/22 Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 “Come to Jesus and Live!”

09 Dec 12/11/22 Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 “Come to Jesus and Live!”

12/11/22    Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11           “Come to Jesus and Live!”

This year as we get ready for Christmas, I would like to extend to you all the joy possible for this season.  I have been talking lately how joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit and that real joy can only come from God.  Therefore, you can only have joy if you have a relationship with Jesus.  You can have happiness of a sort, good times and laughter but you cannot have joy.  And I think that joy can be and is so prevalent this time of the year.  We used to attend Christmas programs before Christmas and they were wonderful. You have really been blessed with some great music teachers in this area.  They bring us joy as they instruct our children in these programs.  Our family got to celebrate 4 birthdays in the last couple of weeks.  There was much joy when we got together.  We also had dinners and conversations over coffee a couple of times.  We have been usually busy the weeks before Christmas and I don’t remember any of these activities being anything but joyful.  I think that it is wonderful to have this time of year when we can celebrate the joy that Jesus brings us as we celebrate His birth.  We are looking at Isaiah again today and hopefully we will be able to focus on the joy of Jesus in this passage which was written hundreds of years before His birth.

I would like us to think a little today as we begin about what would the world be like if we didn’t have Christmas?  What would it be like if Dec. 25 was just another day?  I suppose the first thing we might think about is that there wouldn’t be a time when we could exchange gifts with our families and friends.  We would have no reason to have a Christmas vacation from school.  There would be no reason to put up all the wonderful decorations that we see everywhere.  Personally, I think that things get really drab after we take down all these decorations after Christmas.  We would have no reason to go and enjoy all the wondrous Christmas programs in the area.  And think of all the good food that we wouldn’t have.  These are just a few of the minor consequences of having no Christmas.

If there was no Christmas, then Jesus would never have been born.  This has major consequences.  If Jesus didn’t come to us, then we would have no religion.  Personally, I don’t consider any other religion in the world to be legit because I think that Christianity is the only true religion.  If Jesus doesn’t come, then we have no education system.  All our early universities were founded by Christians.  We would have no hospitals.  Christians began the first care facilities of the world.  There would be no charities as all charity comes from Christ.  Did you know that the United States is the only country in the world who pledges money to disasters like hurricanes and floods and they actually pay their pledge?  Other countries have pledged millions and millions of dollars but they never pay.  Never!  These are non-Christian countries.

The biggest problem we would have if there was no Christmas is that we would have no way to get back in a right way with God.  There would be no joy, love or peace if we didn’t have Jesus.  If there is no Christmas, then we would have never made it out of the dark ages.  We wouldn’t be any better off today than these people were during the time of Jesus.  If you want proof, just look at some of the Muslim countries.  They are backward, poor and very oppressive.  What little they do have they have is because of Christianity.  So the next time someone tells you that Jesus never existed, tell them that everything they have is because of Jesus.  There are just too many people who think wrong about Jesus Christ.  I praise the Lord for all that God has done through Jesus Christ. (Amen!)

If we take a close look at our passage from Isaiah, we find that this is the passage that Jesus read when He was rejected in Nazareth as we read in Luke 4:18.  The first part of this passage is actually Jesus talking to us through Isaiah.  The first people reading or hearing this are captives in a foreign land.  God is trying to comfort these people.  But as we have noticed many times before, God is talking on different levels here.  As He is comforting His people, He is also telling them that He will come to them in the form of Jesus.  And one of the reasons He is coming to them is so that they can have their freedom again.

The trouble was that they had a slightly different idea of just what freedom was.  They were thinking at this time that it would be freedom from their exile.  In the time of Jesus, they thought that this would be freedom from the Romans.  And this is the reason why no one really noticed that the Messiah had arrived.

I think that we are in the same place today.  Half of this country today wants freedom from a so called democracy that is taxing us right out of existence.  We want freedom from all the regulations that everyone has to follow.  It is shameful the amount of money we have to spend to prepare our taxes because the tax laws are so complicated.  We want the freedom to raise our children.  We are so fortunate to live here in North Dakota where we still actually have some of these freedoms still with us.  There are many places in this country where this isn’t true.

But once again, these are not the freedoms that Jesus is talking about.  This may seem hard to believe but Jesus is neither a Republican or Democrat or an independent.  He is God and He is above all of our petty politics.  You see Jesus came to us as a tiny infant, a baby.  He was just like any baby that we have ever seen.  He grew into a lad and then into a man.  Finally He started His ministry of freedom.  This is the freedom that Jesus still offers us today and it is freedom from the consequences of sin.

We live in a broken world.  Everywhere we look we see the effects of sin in our world.  People scoff at Jesus.  They don’t believe that He ever lived.  They think we are crazy because science and reason are the real gods of this world.  I have already pointed out just a few of the things that we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Jesus.  All I can say to these nay-sayers is that their search for peace can be over.  Their longing for a love that they have never known is right here.  They can have joy for the first time in their lives.

I remember the first moments when I came to Christ about 30+ years ago.  I had been kneeling by the bed and when I got up it was like I could stand up straight for the first time in my life.  My shoulders were up right and relaxed.  Jesus had taken all the weight of my life from me.  He had taken all of my problems, worries, and concerns.  I felt so great that I thought I could jump and never come down.  I felt so good that I cannot even begin to describe it.  This is what Jesus does and He does this every day.  If you don’t have Jesus Christ in your heart, then kneel down to Him and confess your sins.  Ask Him to live in your life and make Him your God of all things.  I’m living proof that Jesus works and He works well.  There are many others here today with similar stories.

Jesus wants to give you freedom that you have never had before.  Now what about the backsliders we have here today.  What about those here today who just kind of believe in Jesus?  What about those of you who don’t have a prayer life?  If you are not close to God then this message is for you also.  Jesus wants you to come back.  He wants to talk to you.  He wants to give you everything that He has.  I will guarantee one thing right now.  God has not moved away from you.  It is you who have moved away from God and He wants you to come back.  He wants to bless you and bless you and bless you.  But He can’t.  He can’t because you won’t talk to Him.  You won’t come to Him.  Today, rededicate yourself to Jesus.  Come back to Him.

There are also those here who have a great relationship with Jesus and it shows in all that you do.  I would you like to pray for these people we have just been talking about.  You know that there is nothing more powerful than prayer.  God wants every person here or listening to be a part of Him all the time.

So the first part of this is about Jesus.  As we move to verse 8 we find a little warning where God tells us that He loves justice.  We live in a world today where we think we like justice, but it is a worldly justice.  This isn’t the justice of God.  The justice of God is where He takes care of you and me.  We are to leave all justice to God.  Here is what I mean and we have already talked about this.  If you don’t know God, then you will not know the justice of God.  You will not be blessed.  He doesn’t answer your prayers because you don’t know Him.

If you know Jesus and He seems distant, then you feel abandoned, left out.  One of my favorite sayings of non-believers is that a loving God wouldn’t do this or that.  What these people don’t know is just how right they are.  God wouldn’t do the things He gets blamed for.  We do these terrible things ourselves.  God has never sent one person to hell.  You send yourself!  We cause family breakups.  We cause abuse.  We cause all the troubles of this world and then we have the underlying cause, Satan, telling us that God is doing these things.  God doesn’t do bad things.  Let me repeat that.  God doesn’t do bad things.!  We do the bad things to ourselves and then we refuse to take responsibility for our actions.

I think one of the most sacred parts of our lives are the lives of our children.  I think you would agree with me on this.  Yet, our society seems to celebrate ways that we can hurt our kids.  There are states that support the mutilation of our youngsters.  There are places where they want the state to control everything about our children.  We have been doing some things for so long that we don’t even believe that they are bad any more.  Children are scarred for life all the time by things that our promiscuous society allows.  The list goes on and on.  God has not had any part in any of this sinful behavior.  This is our sinful behavior and we have to live in the consequences of our sin.

This is why I just told you to come to Jesus or come back to Jesus.  Jesus wants you to start reading your Bible and praying.  Jesus wants us to be with Him at all times.  This is the only way to defeat Satan who is killing our society.  I read a book once about so-called progressive Christians.  These church leaders from various denominations think all this sin is great.  I had to put the book down because I knew that these people weren’t even Christian.  How sad is that?  This book is from one of our seminaries.  Be totally aware that this evil creature, Satin, is lurking about in your life.

God’s justice is when God isn’t there.  He is absent from your life and you are on your own.  I lived 40 years without God in my life.  I know what I’m talking about here.  When God is absent in your life, you are having a tough life.  Life with Jesus is so much better than life without Jesus.

We have more proof in the last few verses.  God will clothe us with salvation.  We will have a rich, lavish robe of righteousness.  It will be like our wedding day if you are married.  This wedding day will last for your lifetime.  You become a king or queen in God’s eyes.  Everything around you will begin to grow as you grow in righteousness.  This is the promise of God.  This is the promise that we find everywhere in the Bible.  God wants you to have it all and more.  Jesus wants you to be just like Him.

And once again God loves you so much that He came to us in the form of a little baby.  This was a tiny baby just like the babies that we have seen in our lives, just like the babies you baptized.  Jesus was vulnerable and had to be taken care of just like any other baby.  This is the trust that God had in Mary and Joseph.  This is the trust that God had in all the shepherds, wise men and others who were there.  This is the trust that He has in you here today.

You see, Jesus has never wanted to do anything but give and give and give to you.  He doesn’t like it when you withdraw from Him.  He doesn’t like it when you never know Him.  He loves you beyond anything I can say and He only wants you to love Him in return.  When you do, then you will begin to see why all this is so important.  Please don’t let this world cloud your vision on this.  Come to Jesus today and live!

It is kind of like when the Wright brothers were testing their new invention, the airplane.  They sent a telegraph to their sister, Katherine, to tell her the good news about their flying machine.  It read, “We have actually flown 120 feet.  Will be home for Christmas.”  Katherine rushed to the newspaper office to show them this wonderful message.  The editor glance at it and said, “How nice.  The boys will be home for Christmas.”  He totally missed the point, the big news that these brothers had actually flown!

2700 years ago, the prophet Isaiah wrote about Jesus who would be born 700 years in his future.  He had the message right.  God loves you.  I love this season and I love all that you do.  But let’s keep our eyes on the message and not be like this editor who failed to notice the first flight in human history.  You can be distracted in many ways.  I suggest that you keep your eyes on Jesus and His love for you so that you may have a great Christmas season.  Thank you, Jesus, for coming to us.  As we finish with prayer I would like you to repeat this prayer to yourself as I pray.  Everyone bow your heads.

Dear Lord, I thank you for your presence in my life.  I believe that you, Jesus, are my God and my Savior.  I am missing something in my life and that something is you.  I ask that you forgive me of all my sins for all of my life, past, present and future.  I ask that you anoint me with the Holy Spirit so that I can be complete in you.  I ask that the Holy Spirit dwell in me for all times.  You are a beautiful and wondrous God and I thank you for loving me and not giving up on me.  Thank you, Jesus.  Amen.