Intown Community Church Sermons
Longing for Home
Well, good morning. We're looking together over the summer at what has sometimes been called the fifth gospel. There are four gospels in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But the book that's quoted more often from the Old Testament than any other through those gospels is the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, the fifth gospel. Isaiah talks a lot about exile. Exile, what does that mean? Exile is the opposite of home. Home is being where I belong. Home is the sense that the life I'm experiencing is the life I was actually made for. Home is this sense of peace and rest and joy. Exile is the opposite of all that. Exile is being uprooted. Everything is unstable. The pace of life, everything is changing. Nothing is familiar. I don't belong here. Nothing is quite how it should be. Historically, exile is a key event in the story of the Bible. God warned his people. You can find it at the end of the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy that if they departed from him to walk according to their own ways and forgot him, that he would uproot them from the land where he had planted them. The people still turned away. And so, in 722 BC, the empire of Assyria conquered the northern tribes of Israel and took them into exile. 136 years later, 586 BC, the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin were conquered by this time the Babylonian Empire. And they were taken into exile. But in the story of God's interaction with humanity, there's a tension. This story includes exile, but it ultimately moves toward home. The story of Scripture includes judgment, but it moves toward restoration. It includes suffering, but moves toward glory. And to find out in the life of Christ, it's a story that includes crucifixion, but moves toward the resurrection. In Isaiah 10 and 11, we feel that tension. We're going to read from that today. Isaiah is saying to us that exile will come, but he's raising a question, how will God bring us home? How will he deal with cruel tyrants like Assyria? Who will rule over us in our true home? And what will life in that home be like? Luke mentioned earlier that Jesus is in our midst. Jesus is coming to be with us now through his Word to teach us the answers to those questions. Jim's going to come and re-force. This morning's Scripture reading is from the prophet Isaiah, the last part of chapter 10, and the beginning of chapter 11. "Behold, the Lord God of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power. The great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the majestic one. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, 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. And 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. And he shall strike the earth with a rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. "Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 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." This is the word of the Lord. My wife likes to say this often, stories can sneak truth past the watchful dragons in our hearts. Dragons that lie there sort of breathing out objections to why what is good and true and right can't really be for us. I think she's quoting a guy named C.S. Lewis. You might have heard of him, but I believe it because she says it. One of these dragons is named despair. There's a dragon that watches your heart and tells you that if the world is full of bad news, then good news can't really be true. That dragon that sleeps at the entry way to your heart and says that if your life tells you you are in exile, then it's hard to believe that you could ever really go home. God knows this. He knows that we live in a world that's constantly telling us that good news can't be true. He knows that these watchful dragons keep us from believing what is true about him and what he has done to bring us home. And so, as C.S. Lewis argued, God uses stories to sneak truth past those dragons. And he uses poetry and songs to sneak the truth past the dragons. That's why the Psalms exist. They are poems and songs. And he uses word pictures and metaphors and symbols to sneak good news past the dragon of despair. Today I want us to look at some of those pictures. They're concentrated here in the words of the prophet Isaiah. We start with this picture of mighty trees cut down. Jim read for us, verses 33 and 34 of Isaiah chapter 10. The Lord God of hosts will lop the bowels with terrifying power. The great in height will be hewn down, chopped down with an axe. He will cut down the thickest of the forest with an axe and an Lebanon will fall by the hand of the majestic God. Why Lebanon? Well, this is a picture of what's known as a cedar of Lebanon, the tallest tree in the Middle East. Now if you were to put it alongside a sequoia out in California, it would not be that tall. But what's impressive about these trees is not just that they do get very tall. Their trunks get big and you can see their canopy spreads out. So they were famed in the ancient world for how many animals and birds could find shelter under just one cedar of Lebanon. And so there's several comparisons in the Bible. One mighty nation being like a cedar of Lebanon under which all other nations have to take refuge. So God is here saying that Assyria, this boastful, proud and cruel empire, if you want to know some of the boasts that Assyria was famed for. There earlier in Isaiah chapter 10, what does the king of Assyria say? He has a boastful look in his eyes. He says, "By the strength of my hand I have done it. By my wisdom I have conquered the world. I remove the boundaries of peoples and plunder their treasures like a bull. I will bring down those who sit on thrones." And it goes on to say, you know, I'm kind of like this mighty beast that moves through the world finding these little puny nations that are like eggs in a nest and I just take the eggs and I eat them and I destroy them and I do whatever I want with them because I am mighty Assyria. And here is God saying, "He will cut down the boastful and the proud and the wicked and the cruel and the tyrant. Living in exile is living in fear that human wickedness will go unchecked. Living in a world where you feel like I'm not quite at home is living in fear that human arrogance will run rampant and nobody will call it to account. Living in exile is having this fear that violence creates its own law, that people who want to get away with wickedness and injustice are so strong that nobody can stop them." The promise of Scripture is that we're longing for a home in which justice is done and the weak are protected. And here is God saying, "Don't lose hope while you're waiting for home. I will call wickedness to account. I will restrain violence. I will one day cut down the mighty cedars of Lebanon, the boastful and the proud and the wicked will not run rampant without accountability. I am the majestic one who will swing the axe." In Luke chapter 3 verse 9, Luke's gospel in the New Testament, John the Baptist comes to prepare the way for Jesus. And one of the things that John says is, "Look, the axe is already laid at the root of the tree. The day when God is going to hold human wickedness to account is coming in Jesus. Don't lose hope while you're waiting for home. A champion of justice will come." What will he be like? We need another picture for that. So we go from the image of this mighty tree that's going to be cut down to the image of a stump. Isaiah chapter 11, "There will come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." What is all of this about? Well, we've gone from mighty tree to stump. This sense of living and exile of, "I am not at home. I want a home different than the one I live in." It includes this fear that after justice is done and after justice cuts down human wickedness, no one will survive. And there will be nobody left to bring us home. There won't be a bridge between wickedness and peace. There won't be a bridge between crucifixion and resurrection. There won't be a bridge between sorrow and joy, suffering and glory. There will be nobody left once justice is done. Every tree is cut down to the ground and here's God saying, "From the stump of Jesse." Yeah, the tree will be cut down. But a shoot will come out of that stump. What's the stump of Jesse? Why Jesse? Where does that name come from? Well, you might know his more famous son, King David, the first noble king of Israel. And one of the best kings Israel ever had. King David was the son of Jesse. Jesse was a peasant who lived in a small backwater town called Bethlehem. Jesse had lots of sons who might have been candidates to become the king of Israel. David was the youngest, smallest, maybe the least likely of them. Here's Isaiah reminding us of a peasant whose son David became the king. And in Israel, kings were anointed. Now, the Hebrew word for anointed is Messiah, anointed one. Isaiah is telling us that a Messiah, an anointed ruler, a champion of justice, will come, as David did, from a peasant humble beginning. And he will demonstrate unlimited wisdom and power. Now, we shift out of word picture mode for a moment and just get straight forward description of what this champion of justice, this Messiah, this new king is going to be like. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him. A spirit of wisdom and understanding. A spirit of counsel and might. A spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will delight to walk the paths of love that God has laid down for us. He won't judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness, he will judge the poor. You hear what this is saying? Every other human being is susceptible to making mistakes, but God is going to raise up a ruler from very humble beginnings whose heart will be so pure that it can't be deceived by appearances. He won't judge by what his eyes see. He won't be swayed by the appearance of things. And he won't judge by what his ears hear. He'll know when people are lying. He'll know when something is a rumor. He'll know when somebody's claim sounds too good to be true and it is. He'll have a supernatural insight into reality. This mighty ruler will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and just the breath of his lips will be powerful enough to destroy the wicked. What kind of mighty ruler is this? We are longing for a home that is characterized by life-giving wisdom and power. Each of us longs for a home where the pattern is set for everyone by the mightiest king and that pattern is this, power is never divorced from true wisdom. And power is never divorced from the desire to give life rather than destroy it. And so he comes as a champion of the, well the text promises, the poor. He comes as a champion of the meek and the humble. He comes to put the axe at the root of the tree and to cut down the lofty and the proud and the arrogant. This is a description of Jesus. This is a description of the ruler that God would sin 700 years after Isaiah wrote these words. And here is God telling his people 700 years before Christ came, don't lose hope while you're waiting for home. You will be taken into exile. Some of you by Assyria, some of you by Babylon, don't lose hope. A champion is coming who will bring you to your true home. Now for us today, the news is even better. He has come once and he will come again. What will our home be like when he returns? We need another picture. And Isaiah gave it to us and a man named Edward Hicks painted it in a series of paintings known as the Peaceable Kingdom paintings. Edward Hicks was born in the 1700s, died in the 1800s, an American artist and minister. He loved this imagery so much. He painted it 62 different times. There are 62 paintings in this series called the Peaceable Kingdom. And sometimes as in this version of it, if you can see in the frame around, the wording based on Isaiah is around the painting. When man is led and moved by sovereign grace, his grim carnivorous nature then shall cease. Not one savage beast be seen to frown. A little child shall lead them on in love. He is trying to capture visually the imagery that Isaiah gives us. When Isaiah says, the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf and the lion, the fattened calf together and a little child shall lead them. And here is the little child with his hand around the lion's head. Here is the goat lying down beside the leopard. Now if I were painting a leopard, it would look even worse than this but maybe that is not the most leopard looking leopard you have ever seen. Here is another version of that same image. A little child shall lead them. Here is the lion. Here is the leopard. Now the leopard has some spots starting to look more leopard like in this version painted a little bit later. There is a bear curled up right here sleeping, napping. Here is a goat. Here is a little lamb. Here is some other children over here waiting to make friends with the lions and the leopards. And right down here, very hard to see Isaiah chapter 11 verses 6 through 9. Here is a man wrestling with this imagery from scripture with a word picture that God gave us to tell us what it will be like when we get home. What deep longing in this man's heart was this imagery appealing to that he painted it 62 different times. You may not be asking that question right now. You might be asking a different question. Your question might be how in the world could anyone take this seriously? Didn't you read in there that the lion shall eat straw like the ox? Yes, that is the end of verse 7 and that babies will play with snakes. Does that sound like good parenting to us? Bye kids. Have fun. Remember where to find the cobras? They are right over there. It sounds kind of ridiculous. It is hard to take it seriously which is exactly why these images are here because they are so startlingly difficult to comprehend. How in the world could I ever be at home in a place where if I am a shepherd and the ability of my family to eat during the winter it depends on my ability to raise lambs, to shear wool, to make clothing, to keep everyone warm? How in the world could I be comfortable in a place where lions and wolves and bears sleep alongside lambs and goats? You are talking about a world in which the economy has just been turned upside down. I can't understand a world like that. If I have a niece or a nephew, how am I supposed to think about sending them out to play in the cobras hole? The first few years of my life were spent in Dawsonville, Georgia. We lived on the top of a really tall hill, walked down about a quarter mile driveway to wait for the bus every morning and I had a friend who waited with me. It was a copperhead. And I came home and told my parents about this. I got a friend, a pet snake. He waits with me for the bus every morning. My parents thought, you know, he's five. He's six. He's making this up. He doesn't really have a pet snake. I kept telling the stories one day my mom's like, "Oh buddy, maybe you should go down with him and wait for the bus and check this out." But that he comes to wait. He sees my pet snake in the ditch, takes out his pistol. Because it really was a copperhead and I suppose it really was dangerous. Can you imagine a world where my mom hears that I'm waiting for the bus with a copperhead and says, "It's okay. It would have to be a world in which fear and danger and death didn't exist anymore." A world in which shepherds send their lambs out to sleep beside the wolf is a world in which loss doesn't exist anymore. God is using this kind of word picture to tell us Jesus is going to bring us to a home that we cannot even begin to imagine. These are not claims about animal behavior and animal anatomy. Remember, Jesus isn't really a tree that grows out of a stump. He's not really a plant. These are not descriptions of animal reality in the future. This is the promise that you were made for a home that you don't live in yet. We take the Bible so seriously that we don't want to confuse metaphor for straightforward historical description nor vice versa. When scripture gives a straightforward historical description of the resurrection of Jesus, we don't want to treat that like a metaphor. We want to treat these word pictures like they're straightforward descriptions of the future. But we do want to say that when Jesus died and rose again, he began the process of renewing this world and making this world. Not some heavenly world where we don't have bodies, not some heavenly world where everyone has a cloud to call their own forever, this world, the world that Jesus came into. He has begun the process of making it a home where human beings will one day no longer have to fear death or danger or loss or sorrow. One day the exile will end. The new heavens and the new earth will be a home of peace and joy, of fullness and healing. And God says, then they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. Jerusalem, God's holy mouth. In the New Testament, Jerusalem comes down from heaven and fills the whole planet. This world will be a home of peace and healing. Why? Because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Don't lose hope while you're waiting for home. Jesus has come once and he will come again and he will finish what he has begun. And the new heavens and the new earth will be a place where you can't even imagine pain. You won't have anything to fear. There will be no more sorrow. You will never again lose someone or something you love. What do we do while we're waiting? If we're not going to lose hope while we wait for Jesus to return and bring us home. What do we do while we wait? A few ideas. Here's the first one. Cut down some big trees, root out arrogance from your life. Start with your own heart. It's tempting to say we need God to come and bring justice to all those arrogant people out there. Let's begin with ourselves and ask Jesus to root arrogance out of our hearts. Bring peace and healing wherever you can. I can't make cobras stop being venomous. I can't bring healing in that way. But there are opportunities every one of us have every day to bring peace and healing. Somehow to someone, to some situation, can you have the opportunity to do that? I would even say if you're not a believer in Jesus, do that. He will accept your work toward healing and peace even if you don't yet trust him. But as you do that, hope the Holy Spirit would awaken in you a desire to go deeper. Bring peace and healing where you can. But ultimately, every one of us is going to have to trust Jesus to bring peace and healing where we can't. There are places we would like to work toward peace and reconciliation that we may not have the power to heal. There are levels and depths of healing, of the brokenness of this world that any healing that happens before the return of Jesus will be partial and incomplete. Only he can bring us home. Without arrogance, foster peace and healing where we can, but ultimately trusting Jesus to bring peace and healing where you and I can't. The dragons are still sleeping outside the door of your heart. But I hope the Holy Spirit has used some pictures, pictures of home, glimpses of what it would be like for Jesus to bring us home, to sneak the good news of who he is, past those dragons so that you can trust him more deeply today than you ever have. [BLANK_AUDIO]