Please turn with me in your Bibles to book of Isaiah which is found on few Bibles page number 779 chapter 52. And I shall read first seven verses for us. Isaiah chapter 52. You Bible 779 page number verse one. Awake, awake. Put on your strength. Oh, Zion, put on your beautiful garments. Oh, Jerusalem, the holy city. For there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake yourself from the dust and arise, be seated, O Jerusalem. Lose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus says the Lord, you were sold for nothing and you shall be redeemed without money. for thus says the Lord God my people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there and the Assyrians oppressed them for nothing now therefore what have I here declares the Lord seeing that my people are taken away for nothing their rulers will declares the Lord and continually all the day my name is despised. Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak. Here I am. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. And the text this morning is verse seven. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns. Let us look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we pray that in thy mercy, let thy spirit be granted to both of us, one who speaks and those who would be listening to. So what is spoken may truly be nourished in the hearts. Because it would be heard through thy Holy Spirit. Amen. In 1800s, towards the end of that century and the beginning of 1900s, there was one convert in India. He came from a Sikh religious background. And if you have seen Sikh people, they wear turban. So this man was a turban wearing Christian all his life. His name was Sadhu Sundar Singh. And he at the end of his life, was called and is known as an evangelist of bleeding feet now you think why that name was given to him to make that meaningful name let us understand why he was said that because he when he was in his young age like 20s and something he finished reading his bible and he was ready to take off take up pastoral ministry in one of the Anglican churches. He went there and he found that Anglican church has so many steps and hierarchy. So he decided to return his preaching license back to that consistory quote unquote. And he walked off the church and said, I will preach gospel all over the places as far as I can walk. And he decided to preach gospel in Himalayan mountains and all the way to the land of Tibet. There was a man who came to know the Lord because of his ministry and very excitingly he tells, I did not know what is his name and what was this man and where from he came. But I saw his feet were bleeding when he was knocking at our door. and he shared gospel with me. I did not pay much attention, but I decided to care for his feet. He stayed with us for a few days and was gone and never returned back. The same man later on wrote about him. He said in our villages because of that same person, nobody knew his name. Everybody knew he used to walk in the snow with his broken sandals and his feet were bleeding. And after 10 to 15 years, People came to know that he was Sadhu Sundar Singh. He died in 1929 after visiting United States and Europe and speaking and talking with God's people a lot. He wrote so many good poetries and good tracts that we can use. He said give Christ to people in an Indian cup so they would understand more. There is a lot to say about that. But we will focus this morning on his feet, which were known for bleeding feet for the gospel. That is the beauty of him that he had bleeding feet. Now, boys and girls, when you play soccer or you do a long run and you come home and you have got your medal and your parents look at your feet and they say, oh, it's sore and you cry, it's it's paining. But they are beautiful because you have finished the race. We also know a story of a runner who wasn't first. He did not win any medal, but decided to run the race because he was asked to run the race and finish it. Don't come back halfway. I have heard a very interesting story about such a people. Many stories about such people. And here is a passage today. From book of Isaiah verse 7, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, good tidings, peace, happiness and salvation. Well, there is a challenge in our Christian living. When we think about beautiful things, we start thinking so many things. But I would like boys and girls to note down two things and two different meanings about feet. and beautiful. Now, when you go to the market, you would you find a lot of tailors or shoe carnival and that type of shoe selling companies. And one of the company I came across recently is Regal. They make sleepers. And when you go to the Hebrew word and Regal means feet. And I said, oh, where did you get that name from? The company, I do not know who owns that company, but they named their company Regal. This word Regal means feet, but it also means journey. So boys and girls would like to note down and if somebody says in Hebrew, feet is Regal, and that also means journey, then you have so many things to talk about. What is journey if you do not have feet? That means if you are not able to move from one place to the other place, what would journey mean to you? Even those who are not able to walk and travel, but the criteria to travel is to move from one place to the other place. And if you do not have feet, what is its meaning? It is meaningless to think about journey. Another meaning for feet which is not mentioned in our passage but in elsewhere is about following something. Feet means follow something. Now in Indian culture, this is a very side note but very important to know. If somebody visits your house, forget about who he is, you do not know him but he just decided to knock at the door and walk in. In Indian culture, people will look at their feet and see what type of feet he has. And they bring a jug of water and they would like to help him clean his feet. That's the tradition. And then they talk. Now, we also know an Asian culture. It was a large supper table and our Lord decides to wash the feet of his disciples. So there are so many things you can think about when you think about your feet. Well, how to make them beautiful? There is another way people spend lot of money on that. Just to take care of their feet. But the beauty of your feet is connected to the journey and following some specific direction. And that is the first explanation I would like to bring for feet. Now think about the beautiful word beautiful. Now in the same chapter this word has been used twice. In verse 1, we have connected that word to the clothing, the garment, beautiful garments. And in verse 7, beautiful feet. But for surprisingly, chapter 53 has a different meaning here for that same word. In English, it is said beautiful, but really speaking, this word In 53 too, for he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground, he had no form of majesty that we should look at him. The word majesty translated here in ESV, in King James it says beauty, he had no beauty that somebody can look at him. Now these three words, one beautiful word is used for the garments, the other beautiful word has been used for feet, and the third one in chapter 53 verse 2 is mentioned about he had no beauty. And we know these passages are messianic passages. Isaiah is talking about the Messiah. It is so beautiful to read that he is looking at Messiah as if he is watching what is exactly happening in future. God is revealing to him. He is excited deep in his heart and he is explaining everything before God's people. He says, I see that he has no beauty. I see there is a beautiful garment. I see that there is beautiful feet. There are beautiful feet. But the world has changed all the meanings of beauty, meanings of faith, meanings of gospel and how to follow Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore people doubt. Isaiah is talking about whom is a question for people. Is he talking about Messiah? Okay, then this is all about Lord Jesus Christ. So let me take a back seat. Isaiah is talking about church, then we think nothing about what God has done in his son, and we think on our own, on my own, I can walk, I can have my feet beautiful. So therefore this morning we will see two sides of the same verse. One is beautiful feet of our Lord, which is very important to understand. And then we will go on to see the second point as you have in your outline there. So when you think about beautiful feet of our Lord, then there are some qualifiers given. What is that makes His feet beautiful? And the qualifiers are very strong. It says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him who brings good news. And then the qualification of that beautiful feet is given here. Who publishes peace? Who brings good news? who brings news, good news and happiness and also publishes salvation. Now, if you want to say, OK, let's divide this qualification. Qualification one. These feats are upon the mountain. Oh, we look to the mountain, where does our health come from? On the mountain, he sat and opened his mouth and gave that discourse of beatitude. On the mountains when there was war is over, the ladies and the children in the town, in the valley waiting that somebody walks up and says, war is over, we are the winners. And everybody blows the trumpet. And there is joy and the celebration. And now looking at Zion, Zion is the kingdom of God. Zion is also the city of Jerusalem and the city of King David. Now it is mentioned about Zion in the end part of this verse, but one particular thing about these feet, they are upon the mountain. They are doing work. They are not relaxed back in the living room. They are not somewhere. They are in a relaxed position, but rather they are on the mountain. They are working. The first qualification to make feet beautiful. Let us look at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ and you will see He was always on the mountains and the valleys and walking and talking with people. The work that we are working on and trying to understand for last two thousand and more years, he did it in just three and a half years. Walking from one place to another. Beautiful, sore, bleeding feet. They were on the mountains. The mountains around city of Jerusalem or the mountains around Zion or Zion itself is a place where on the hills. When we talk about this, what comes to our mind when we think about our Lord Jesus Christ? That His feet on the mountain. Don't we see His feet on the mountain? The hill of Calvary. Don't we see those feet were bleeding for you and me. How beautiful those feet are. They are bleeding. They are on the mountain. They are hanged up there. And what are they achieving? The true beauty of God's people. The image of God is restored back. The true righteousness has been granted. The grace is offered. But nothing came free. He said, I will save my people, we read in the chapter, without money. But there is a bigger price paid for us on the mountain, upon the mountain. When Isaiah talks about Zion in chapter 40 verse 9, he says, get up, go up into the mountains and proclaim. He says, Jerusalem, now you go up and do that. But we are thinking about our Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah was asked, who shall go? Lord Jesus Christ was asked, who are you? There were temptation that the Lord Jesus Christ went through to make bread out of stone. There was a temptation to prove himself powerful. But he denied and rather was on the mountain and working one step at a time, making his feet beautiful for us. Again there is a Nahum chapter 1 verse 15 also talks about the feet on the mountain which are running to bring that good news. Now when you look into the Old Testament and if you concentrate closely you would know that people always were fighting with one of the other reasons. They were fighting so they may win. And there came a time people of God were fighting and they were not winning because God had left them to that defeat. And when those things happen, the expectation of somebody would come on the mountain and proclaim the victory goes so down. People are afraid, they are nervous, they don't want to look at the mountain because they know now somebody who is coming up on the mountain and going to say that we have been defeated. And the news of such a person, we look at his feet and they are not beautiful. They are burdensome. But here is our Lord Jesus Christ upon the mountain, bringing good tidings. And all that qualifies that mentioned here. The first qualification of our Lord Jesus Christ and his feet, as the Isaiah looks at, they were upon the mountain. Everyone could see. Nothing was hidden. We have no hidden gospel. It is a free offer of truthful gospel what the Lord has done for His people. And it is for His people. And it is for His people only. But the offer is on the mountain. Everyone can look at it. Second qualification for this faith is they bring good tidings. As I said, if somebody comes up on the mountain and brings a news that we are defeated, His feet are not beautiful though he is bringing good news perhaps for that time that run from there again before the enemy comes into the valley. But still it is a bad news and still the feet will not be called good news or good or beautiful feet. Now when we look at the second qualifier how God has made his feet beautiful. He brings good tidings. Now again little bit of word play here. Now this word good tidings bringing good tidings, it's a whole one word. In English, it's a phrase, bringing good tidings. But in Hebrew, it's just one word with a lot of qualifiers around it. But that word means Bashir. And when I was looking for explanation of that sentence, bringing good tidings, I thought bringing would be one word. So I kept looking, I found it. We have computers, we have every help that you want. And then I was looking, drinking, good. I found a good word somewhere, but that word was not there. And then tidings. I couldn't find a separate word for all these three. And then go to the Bashir, and it's just one word, which means bring good news. It's a one complete package. That means, dear brothers and sisters, if you have a good news, It should be bringing good news as a whole sentence. You cannot have a good news and sit doing nothing. Now there was a good news given to God the son that he would be dying for his people. that became a good news when he literally humbled himself became nothing and took the cross on him died, buried and resurrected and here we are now that Bashir becomes more meaningful because he did not just heard the great counsel and great plan but that counsel was forwarded into action and here we are we have bringing good tidings So second qualifier to have a beautiful faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that he came into this world. One of the examples I would love to give about the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ and his humility was questioned not by the words but by the forceful actions against him. One of the forceful action was people slapped him and they asked him tell us who did it. Being very powerful, being very strong, being very nature God, he could have answered strongly. Let me tell you who did it and let me tell the result. If those people who do that, what happens to them? But instead, Book of Luke mentions about his humility and here is a word says, if I have not done anything wrong, why do you hate me? It begins, who hit you? Tell us and here is the answer from our Lord Jesus Christ. If I have not done anything wrong, why do you hit me? It takes humility to go there. It takes humility to go there and ask these things. And the Lord Jesus Christ showed with that humility that He was bringing a good news for everyone and He would say, Lord, forgive them. Father, forgive them. For they do not know what they are doing. Oh, what a humility, what a powerful little qualifier that we read here, bringing good news in our Lord Jesus Christ, fulfilled, absolutely fulfilled for every one of us. The third qualifier, I have put those together, is publishing peace and salvation. There are two different publishes, peace and then at the end of that passage, that section of the verses publishes salvation. So let's bunch them together as a third qualifier. The one who has good feet, the beautiful feet, he would publish the peace and salvation. Now the word publish again, little bit of word thing here. It means the wholesome health. He gave the wholesome health. He gave full salvation to God's people. The entire image of God will be in due time manifested in heaven because we will be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ having true righteousness, true holiness. And there would be no question, no possibility of sin in heaven. And in that situation, what the Lord Jesus Christ published his peace, what did he do in doing that? Then I was surprised to see the meaning of the word publishes. Does it mean that he decided to write something and publish in a public, give it to the publication and they publish it and so people can buy and read it? Well, publish means little different here. The word itself means he himself understood fully. The word he publishes peace that means he understood that peace fully within himself. Lord Jesus Christ published means he understood what peace the mankind needs. Further that word says he also obeyed and the word published also means not only he understands fully within his heart but he obeys what he understood. He understood the sinfulness of man. He understood that these people, these are my people, but they have no way back. They will never be able to come back unless I obey. I understand fully what that piece is. That means I must publish that piece. Well, Calvin wrote so many tracts, so many letters, so many commentaries. And I had a privilege to read some of his letters. I wrote five. I read five letters of him. One of the letters that he wrote was for my excitement. He wrote it to those women in the prison for their reform faith. I never thought Calvin could write a letter to women in the prison. who have been persecuted because of their reform standings and the ideas that they were going against the existing body. In that letter he writes to these women. He said thank you for publishing your faith. Means understanding your faith and obeying that and for that reason you are in prison. Well, my dear brothers and sisters, we see our Lord Jesus Christ completely understood our situation. If there is anyone among us who thinks perhaps the Lord does not know my situation. He doesn't know what kind of peace I need. There is a good news for all of us. He understands the whole concept of what is the need of every individual, different languages, different nation, different colors. He understood every concept and dimension of peace and therefore he was able to publish it. I was talking with the presidents of two seminaries and the same question I asked both of them, I met them in two different setups. I said, why do you publish your writings? And I was very happy to know their answer was exactly the same. They said we understood something, we decided to obey something. Now our desire, the desire of our faculty is that let the congregation also learn and follow. Publication means understand fully to obey. That's the real original meaning of that word. Now how did third qualifier fits to our Lord Jesus Christ? His feet are beautiful because he is able to publish peace. Because he is a prince of peace. He is able to go out and implement that peace. And then ask others to do the same thing. Peace was published because he understood what is peace. The second concept here is publishing salvation. That means again understanding that whole salvation first. We think we need to understand salvation. The Bible in book of Isaiah pointing to that Messiah. These words were directly related about the Messiah to come and he said he understood salvation. The holy of holies, the one who has no sin in him understood salvation. So he could fit that salvation in every need of his people so well. that there would be no gap there that somebody could say, what can I do? This salvation does not fit me. Oh, what a beautiful feet these are on that mountain who published salvation. And the fourth thing about our Lord Jesus Christ from this verse I have here, we read that last portion, who says to Zion, your God reigns. They are on the mountain. They bring the good news. They publish peace and salvation. And the whole conclusion of this is, now be confident that the God reigns. Now how it was beautifully portrayed in the last scene of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he was on the cross and he says, why thou hast forsaken me? And we know the answer. We have heard messages on that. But do you see this beauty? Why thou hast forsaken me in built? There is a deep understanding that though I've been forsaken for the sins of the people, my father reigns. Though we may be in trouble, though we may be in problems, my father reigns. He is the king. He is the ruler. When we say somebody reigns, he is the king, he is the ruler, and therefore nothing is out of his control, even the death, and death on the cross of God the Son. Oh, how beautiful are the feet of Him who brings good tidings. Don't we relax? Lord Jesus Christ did so many things for us. Don't we feel to be relaxed now because he has already achieved everything? How that should be converted into my personal life? What that has to do with the church? And then we need to ask a question here. What is church? Church is the body of Christ. The beautiful thing about this passage is the body has feet, not the head. But the feet do not have ears and eyes to see. And put those two things together, my dear brothers and sisters, we are the true body of the true Messiah, the Christ. We are body of Christ. When you indulge your body with adultery, you are indulging the body of Christ, one part of that, getting indulged into something ugly. But when we indulge into walking from one direction to other direction, evangelizing the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, truly going from one place to other place, having beautiful feet. His feet were nailed on the cross, but his body today has feet. Again, they are beautiful. And therefore it is very much connected to us. If we were not of his body, it has nothing to do with us. He did it and we are saved. And that's the end of the story. We have no responsibility. But there is a bad news if people are relaxed. And they say, no, he did everything. I can do nothing. then we are disconnecting the head from the body. And sometimes I think it is good that the body of Christ does not have head on their own. Our head is Lord Jesus Christ. That means whatever we need to listen, it listens through Him. Whatever we see, we see through Him, our Lord Jesus Christ. And whatever we speak, we speak through His mouth. Body speaks from the mouth of Christ. Body listens to something with the ears of Lord Jesus Christ. Body sees something that our Lord Jesus Christ would see. But the feet are given down there to the body. And that's where the responsibility of bringing all these four things I spoke about, being found on the mountains, being the people who would bring good news, publishing peace and saying our God reigns is again our responsibility. And therefore in our second point we would see beautiful feet of his church. Now we are just talking again about the Lord Jesus Christ. Just we have changed the direction from head to the toes. Yes, we are the body of Christ. I am looking at the body of Christ. We are listening to the word of God telling us that we are the body of Christ. Now what is our explanation? Paul when he gives the qualifiers of various things have the belt of righteousness in chapter 6 of book of Ephesians in verse 15 he talks about having shoes on your feet and he says having those shoes on you qualifies you to go ahead and it says shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the good news of the gospel and the gospel of peace If you read that verse carefully and stay back and say when you are a Christian, you have the belt of righteousness, then those all sword and everything is mentioned there. But I'm focusing on verse 15 what Paul says. He says when you have put on shoes, those shoes itself are the sign that now you should be ready to bring the gospel of peace to people. Now that is very much connected. Paul again uses the same verse Isaiah 52 verse 7 in chapter 10 of Romans. How can they hear? Unless somebody is sent. He focuses on the feet of the congregation. Dear congregation, we are his beautiful feet. We must go out and bring these good tidings to the world, to the neighbor, to the family, and even first of all to us. Because if you would like to be on the mountain, yes we need to be on the mountain of suffering. saying yes I decided to not to do certain things because my Lord does not allow me to do those things. There should be a practical application in young people's lives, the older's lives, even in the boys and girls. That because we are in a Christian family, covenant children, we would be found ourselves on the mountain having little bit of suffering for ourselves. When they say When we read about sending somebody into the mission field, there are a lot of talks, there are a lot of things that people do. But one thing, as we saw, being on the mountain and suffering with one another is very important. When you pray for your missionaries, it is very important that you understand them. If you gossip about somebody, it is very important that you understand how much damage you are going to cause to that person. A good Christian who is on the mountain is ready to suffer, evaluate his words, words of prayer, words of gossip, because we all do. And therefore it is very necessary that we find ourselves on the mountain, because we are the feet, that beautiful feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are two things that we can connect. One is about the shoe Paul talks in Ephesians and also in book of Ruth chapter 4 verse 7 says the transfer of authority is done in those times when somebody removes his shoes and gives it to the one who has bought it, his land or anything. Transferring the authority of this particular land because you have bought this from me. I remove my shoes and give it to you. You give the price back to me. Removing shoes. Shoes are connected to your feet. And if you put these two verses together, Ephesians 6.15 and Ruth 4.7, you would see that God on the cross was doing that for us. On his bleeding feet, he was removing that and he was putting on the feet of the church. That is you and me. And he's asking, looking at us, do you understand what peace is? Do you understand what good news is? And if you do, here are the feet and here is a shoe. I transfer the authority to you. Oh, what a privilege. Most of the time we teach people that trust in the Lord. But have you ever thought about a beautiful concept that that head being very nature God, trusted you and me that we will be faithful to bring good news to the world. He's trusting us. Lord, you're trusting me. And that transition is done. And every qualification that was true for our Lord Jesus Christ found on the mountain should be true for us. So again, point one, how can that feet of his church be beautiful? They should be willing to suffer on the mountain of anything. I have so many mountains of worries. Try to tackle with it. Don't expect only the solutions and answers. Yes, and all peace. Don't expect from the Lord that all blessing. Why don't we also take lot of pain for his sake? Yes, we should be on the mountain. Second thing, the good things should be understood first. He understood his calling. We must understand our calling because we are his feet. Third thing, we should also publish and I gave the meaning of publishing these. Do you understand that peace within? So you will be able to obey and then bring that to the people. When we think about all this, we should not forget that this is the work, though his feet would be doing, but our God reigns. And that is a very beautiful conclusion of this verse 7. Who says to Zion, to God's people, to the city of God, to the city where God is king, your God reigns and that should be constant understanding of our heart we shouldn't forget that even for a second that though we are doing ministry though we have so much of Christian responsibility but our God reigns and it is his power so application if you would like to bring to your heart it is found in Luke 17 chapter 7 the worker comes home and he says I am unworthy servant. What was told to me, I just did it. Our attitude when we serve the Lord, when we do moral choices, when we are not sinning, our attitude towards not look at me now how righteous I am, look at me how evangelistic I am, but rather my Lord reigns and chapter 17 of Luke verse 7 says, I would tell to myself, I am unworthy servant. What was told to me, I just did it. And don't see that you are a greater person and you are doing something great. So second application I would like to bring it from Calvin. When Calvin looks at this passage, you know, Calvin was always worried for Roman Catholic Church and how they are going against. So in his writing you sense it that he is so bugged up and he's so burdened with this wrong teaching that people are learning something wrong sincerely. It is as if like this they are drinking poison sincerely. So Calvin gives a second application from this passage and he focuses Not on anything else, but the word mentioned here is publishing peace and publishing salvation. He says, the first priority of the church is to understand completely that salvation and the peace for your own life. So the second application is, my dear brothers and sisters, we must apply and understand what we're talking about. Third application is very simple. If you would like your feet to be beautiful, when you speak with the people, let those words be merciful words. And the meditation of your heart be pleasing unto God. That means in a simple word, take no privilege when it comes to you to gossip. Don't do it. So your feet will be beautiful. When people will look at you, you're coming, they would long to spend time with you. Because they know now this particular Christian person, a young person or the older person or whatever, is coming with the good words, I know my heart would be soothed. I would have a medicine for me. Your feet will be beautiful. And in missions we tell ourselves as well, we know so many problems of people and we shut our mouth but rather speak only those words which are peace and healing to the heart and the last application for read the word and understand that our mind gets full of the reading of the word That creates our understanding and that smoothness and the beauty of the understanding of the word of God is able to give us the words that we need to speak. Because the entire sharing of gospel is not based on printed material. It is not based on the movie that is shown on the screen. It is not based on any media, no electronic media. Gospel does not need internet. Gospel does not need iPhones. Gospel does not need any best electronic device that you think it's a great Skype or Facebook or whatever it is. Gospel does not need all these things. Gospel needs the words which are spoken by human beings and especially the human beings who are called his children. the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. So learn to accumulate all the word by reading his word. So your words would be full of gospel and good news. And therefore I'm wondering how the Lord knew there would be technology. The Lord knew everything would be faster. The Lord knew it is possible to mass evangelize by doing a mass communication through electronic media. And still he just looks at that whole future of 2050 perhaps. And he decides to be born in 0 AD. Where there was no shoes, proper shoes. Where there was no communication, no flight, no internet, nothing. Walking on the mountains with the bleeding feet. Knowing I do not need 2050 technology. Because I have these 12 people. You are my disciples. He is looking at you and me, dear brothers and sisters. He is trusting in us. He is trusting in our mouth that we would bring his word. He doesn't need technology. He needs our mouth that we will speak. Oh, what a beautiful trust that the Lord has put in his people and made his feet beautiful. May the Lord add his beauty to your feet. As you speak for his good news. Amen. Loving and gracious heavenly father. We bring our hearts. In thy presence and we pray make our feet beautiful. So we may understand peace and salvation. And the very word salvation in Hebrew is your name. Yeshua, Jesus. Salvation Himself. And make our feet beautiful as we go forward as a congregation together. Amen. Shall we sing together stanzas one and two of hymn number 286.