Well, we're going to be in Isaiah this morning, Isaiah chapter 61. That can be found on page 1,157. 1,157. A few Bibles, Isaiah chapter 61. There's a passage that I was studying at the end of my time in seminary this year. So we'll read here Isaiah chapter 61. They've titled it The Year of the Lord's Favor. It's an appropriate title. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God. to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. Aliens will shepherd your flocks. Foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the Lord. This is Israel. You will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations. And in their riches, you will boast. Instead of their shame, my people receive a double portion. And instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance. And so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness, I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed. I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up, and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. Let's pray together this morning. Our Father and our God, what wonderful message we hear from your word, the message of your salvation for broken people. I pray now, Lord, that your word would go forth, that your name would be honored, and that you would bring forth in us praise and worship and thanksgiving to you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, as I read this, it came to my attention another passage in Scripture in the New Testament, perhaps one of the most well-known passages. We looked at it recently here, Matthew chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Again, one of the most well-known passages, and rightfully so. It's the beautiful words of the gospel that we see in those verses, hope-filled truths. In the Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes, oftentimes it can be tempting for us to think of that as a type of law. In other words, those characteristics that we're told about the kingdom of heaven and people in the kingdom of heaven, we oftentimes think of a jersey that we could put on ourselves if we want to and then earn this reward from God. For example, we might think, as kind of goofy as it sounds, when he says, blessed are those who mourn, maybe I need to have sad thoughts. Or I need to start being more poor in spirit so that I can force God to give the kingdom to me, to receive the kingdom. And of course, we know better than that. This is kind of goofy in that sense. But here, just as it is there with Christ, we can see this is an announcement of a kingdom of God to those who have no home in this world, those who love the Lord, who believe in him, but at the same time, those who are in pain, those who are downcast, Believers that are ignored by society, believers that are locked away, hidden away in nursing homes and other things. Parents that are overwhelmed, that are busy. Teenagers that are overwhelmed as well with responsibilities, peer pressure. People that don't know what to do with all these things. Christ is saying to them, in this life, God's will for you is hardship. But in the next life, God's will is glorious. The reward is greater than you can imagine. The good news is that the world only exalts the powerful, the able, the rich. But God exalts the weak, those who mourn, those who are poor in spirit. And see, in this morning, we see the same promise come to the people of God here in Isaiah 61, a broken people, people with shattered hearts, brokenhearted. God sends one, the messenger. He promises he will send one to bind them up and to point their eyes to the wonderful future that God has in store for them. When not only would they have shattered hearts that are bound up, that are mended in this world where we still suffer against the enemies of Christ, but even to have entirely new and transformed hearts in the future with no flaw or pain or missing pieces. And with those hearts, really at the core and beauty of this passage, they will sing praises to their God. We see that in the last couple of verses. And the whole world will hear them, a people reunited with their king, at peace with him, to dwell with him in his blessing forever. So our theme today really comes from the last couple of verses of Isaiah 61. Trust that one day the world will hear you shout praises to your God. And we'll see this in two points. First, that shattered hearts or broken hearts are bound together. They're mended by God in the first six verses. And second, these bound hearts, these mended hearts in this world, must still look forward to the future. We'll look at that in the second half of this chapter. But firstly, shattered hearts are mended and bound together by God. And we'll begin at verse 1. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me. Because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners. And I just thought it would be helpful that in the original language, the reading of this verse could be something like this. It's very close, obviously, to what we have here. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to, and here's the thing I want to point out, has anointed me to bring good news to those who need it. to bring good news to those who need it. He has sent me to put back together the hearts of those who have been shattered." Now see, right before this verse, throughout Isaiah, what we see is that Israel has been undergoing the judgment of God due to their rebellion. God has decreed to use the nations as an instrument, even wielding them as an axe. That is to say that Babylon conquered them because of the rebellion against him. Here's the image we're really given in Isaiah, that Israel is a great tree, that tree and David, David's kingship. But now God, because of the rebellion, has, as it were, taking out an ax that is Babylon to chop the tree down. And so what we have here, when this good news comes to them, is a stump. Cut down by God, this tree. And even in this chapter, we see elements of the fact that they were cut down, verse 4. It talks about the fact that they will rebuild the ancient ruins, restore the places long devastated. That is to say that Jerusalem had been destroyed. It was stubble, a stump. And so the Lord here at verse 1 is bringing good news to who, right? The brokenhearted. And as we look at these first couple of verses, what does this mean? A people that are poor. A people that are captives, bound in prison, yearning for freedom without anything they could do to attain it. In verse 2, we see that they are mourners, those without comfort, those in verse 3 whose heads are covered with ashes, those who have a faint spirit, a weak spirit, those who had given up, a chopped down tree. And of course, we know this when we look around us about mankind in general. We are like people who once had a glass heart, perfectly formed, but now shattered into a million pieces. And this is why we should pity those in the world, especially. They're trying to put that glass heart back together, but they miss so many, they miss really the core pieces. Even if they were able to put it together, they would never be able to do so. So they say that this heart that's barely there is good enough. We can live on this. We can be happy. But of course, this is where God's law teaches us that it's not good enough, that all of that still, all the answers they give us still lead to eternal death. So man can't live under the law of God, so they create their own laws, and they try to convince themselves that shattered hearts are healthy, those are good enough, we can live on this. But see, there's a problem, and they encountered this problem as well, and that is when they see people's lives that are shattered, so shattered that they can no longer lie to themselves, Think of people that are poor and abused, trapped. When they see them, they're reminded they're shattered. So they have to get rid of these broken ones. They have to hide them. They blame them, kill them, but mostly push them into the darkness. And that's really, we're given that image in John. It's been a while since we've been in John, but Christ talks about the darkness, the darkness where no one is restored, but at least from their perspective, no one can see. That they're broken. We have that phrase, ignorance is bliss. We understand that phrase. But it's a horrible phrase, too. Because ignorance doesn't save us. Well, this is the state of Israel in that sense. They're shattered. They're unable to do anything to help themselves. And this wonderful word comes to them. But it could be the case that this morning, for some of us especially, we may feel the same way. We may feel that we need some relief, some good news. We may feel that things are piling up continually over our heads, feel like we can't keep going on. Maybe you'd even describe yourself as one that's brokenhearted, someone with a shattered heart. And of course, we know the answer is not to be hidden away in the darkness. That brings nothing good to us, but to be restored And that's the beauty of even this first verse. What can restore shattered pottery but the potter himself? So even if the world, your spouse, your family, the church has failed to love you properly, God has not forgotten. And so we see he sends a messenger to a broken people. And this messenger is anointed by God. That is to say, he's empowered by God to do the will of God, to reveal the will of God when they are at their lowest. Perhaps you know this, but in Luke chapter 4, Christ reads this passage in the synagogue, chapter 61 of Isaiah. And he says, this has been fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, this messenger that is pointed to is Christ himself. He was the anointed one. That's what Christ means. Christ means the anointed one. In John chapter 3, we're told that he is anointed by the Holy Spirit without measure. Christ, the very word of God, the one whom by the will of God was perfectly completed and will be at the end of the age into eternity. Christ by whom we see God most clearly pronounced, Christ who came preaching the good news as we read this morning, the kingdom of God. He came not for the healthy, but for the sick, the broken hearted. So you may feel forgotten by the whole world right now, and it may be true, but as I said, God will never forget. And he sent his only son for you to bring him back to himself. And we've been mentioning this this morning, the Beatitudes. But I would like to read them to you quickly. And I would like you to see how what Christ is saying in the Beatitudes is a fulfillment of what we see here in Isaiah 61, almost as if the same words. And he opened his mouth and taught them. Just as we're told here, the messenger will teach them, will prophesy, will proclaim. Christ did this. saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, he says, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. I may be belaboring this, but I want to make it very clear that can't we see that Christ is this messenger of Isaiah 61? He came to bind the brokenhearted, to announce the good news, One thing that stuck out to me when I was studying this passage, there's a word that's used in the Hebrew, and it's hard not to notice it when you're reading it, but the word is to mean in place of. It keeps coming up, in place of, in place of. This is in Isaiah 61. In place of sadness, there will be joy. In place of brokenness, there's blessing. In place of captivity, there's freedom. In place of darkness, release. In place of mourning and ashes, oil of gladness. In place of a fading spirit, here it's translated as a spirit of despair, that is a weakening spirit, there's a garment of praise, or as more closely to the original, a garment of strength. In place of a chopped down tree, others would call them oaks of righteousness. And even in verse four, he's going to equip a people, devastated by the nations around them, to repair their city from rubble. In verse 5 and 6, he talks about slaves that are being freed. And even their captors would then serve them so that they could then worship the Lord, to be ministers to him, as God had always intended, even from the garden. Verse 6, the nations are even going to throw feasts for the people of God. This is the good news. This is what it means to have hearts broken that are bound by God, the promise of salvation by the Lord of this future messenger who has come for us already. who came to swap out all of our curses for blessings. But the amazing thing that is still shocking to us every day when we understand it is how did he do this? How did he swap these things for us? But that he swapped them for himself on the cross. So if that list I read that we have here in 61, we can think about it for Christ. In place of his blessing in heaven, he came and took on brokenness. In place of freedom, he had captivity. He was bound to the cross. Instead of release, he had darkness. Think of the darkness, the physical darkness that was pointed to the spiritual darkness of that rejection of God on the cross. The oil of gladness, instead of that, he had mourning and ashes, a man of sorrows. Instead of his strength that he had, he came down and took on the form of a servant, a fading spirit. Instead of an oak of righteousness, he took on the sins of all of us, cursed on a tree. And by his cross and his obedience, he was raised and rewarded. Now he sits on the throne, given the Holy Spirit, and he pours it out on us. He actively dethrones the idols of our heart. That's what it means to have a heart shattered, that God created us to love him, to walk with him, to commune with him forever. And when we walked away from him and we took another idol and we put it in his place, our hearts were shattered forever. And only by God's will to bring our hearts back together, it means to restore us to him. And now in Christ we have that. This idol dethroned. Where once fear ruled or addiction or sorrow, Christ came to dethrone these powers, to bind broken hearts. And yet, it is a difficult time for us. We call it the now and the not yet. It's a theological term. But when we look around and we look at our hearts, it can be difficult sometimes for us to think about it that way. We may feel like Israel still, right here. We may still feel like that. Like I said earlier, that we have shattered hearts, even though they have been bound together by God. And so secondly, we want to see the future element of this promise. that bound hearts must still look forward to the future. So I'll pick it up at verse seven, where it says, instead of their shame, my people receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance, and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. And here it is, a promise of an inheritance. It's a forward looking in time. Once, our future was shame. Now, the future is a double portion. And as I just mentioned, this reward can sound great. And it is obviously great. But what about those today that are barely holding on? Perhaps we feel this way. Perhaps each day feels like a mountain that is difficult to conquer. This is our reality at times. So I think it's important to ask, even with bound hearts or mended hearts, why do we still have pain? Why does God not rescue us now? Why does God not bring that friend that we need today? Why do we still have the pain of loss of our loved ones? Well, there's no easy answer to that, but there is an answer. And it's that God wants us to look forward in faith. Because, verse eight, I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness, we'll sing about his faithfulness in just a minute. In my faithfulness, I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them, an everlasting. And as we just saw in verse seven, they will have everlasting joy. You see in this life, our hearts have been mended, but this is an everlasting relationship with the Lord. And the joy, even the joy that we experience now, which is great, great comfort that we have, it's still little in comparison to the eternal joy we have in heaven. or our bound heart, if you were to take a glass and pick up all the shards and melt them together, there would still be marks there. Well, as it were, in heaven, to have a transformed heart, in fact, all of creation Christ has come to restore to God. And it's important for us, as we look forward to this time, to look at verse two. He talks about what this will look like. He says, he has come to proclaim two things. A year and a day. The year of the Lord's favor and a day of vengeance of our God. I think it's important to look at the duration, if you think about it, a year and a day. A day, in comparison to a year, is like a flash. It's fast. Year, he's talking about an age, a long period of time here. Eternity, we know. And Paul and John, particularly, really bring this out and help us understand what this is gonna look like. And that is to say, heaven, eternity. is the year of the Lord's favor. But before that, it starts with a day of vengeance, a day of God defeating his enemies completely. Yes, this passage in Isaiah 61 is pointing us to Christ. Christ said it, as I said, in Luke 4. But Christ, in turn, as this messenger who is Christ, says, is pointing us to the future, our double portion. Remember, Christ said, I will come back soon. And when he comes back, he'll defeat His enemies, and we'll have no enemies, no sin, no death. And our bound hearts, they are here in this age, will have no temptations, no doubts. Our worship will be perfect, we won't have any distractions. Our walk every day will be uninterrupted with God. Our love received and given by God and for those around us will be overflowing. Just listen to how this is captured in verse nine, this future. Their descendants, right? Their descendants, he's talking about the future, will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are the people, here it is, the Lord has blessed. It's beautiful language. And then we hear this, I delight greatly in the Lord. He's exploding in praise. My soul rejoices in God. Why? And this turn of phrase is really important. The language starts to change here. My soul rejoices because he's caused to rejoice. You're going to see that here. Why does my soul rejoice? For he has clothed me with garments of salvation. In the original language, it's very clearly he's being caused to have this wonderful joy to be able to shout praises to God because he's clothed with garments of salvation. He has arrayed me in robes of righteousness as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest. It's like a peacock with those feathers, this adorning that God has given us. And the bride, as the bride adorns herself with her jewels, this is where it really, this is the climactic part of this verse, that ultimately it's about the Lord causing praise to spring up in his people. Verse 11, for as the soil, listen to this, makes, as the soil makes the sprout come up, and the garden causes seeds to grow, and here it is again. So the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. Because we can't do it ourselves. God causes it to happen. This is the big picture, it's the full picture, and it's beautiful. Because we might wonder about our hearts, we might wonder about the future. His intentions are sure. The language that we're here, that we're given here, Actually, in verse 11, the original language for soil, I think, would be better translated as earth. And here, he's talking about spring, that earth will cause spring to come forward. And I just thought about this. I had a question for you to think about. When it was winter this year, and you were thinking about this upcoming year, maybe you were planning on things in spring, did you ever doubt, even for a second, that spring would come? Of course not. This springtime that is for us, this is the double inheritance that is coming our way, that is awaiting us. And in fact, the first blooms of spring have already opened up because Christ has arose. That's the inauguration of these wonderful blessings for us. Even with all of our technology, can you stop spring? That's my question. Can anyone stop spring or the seasons from coming? I think it's also true that Spring itself is more beautiful because winter is before it. Winter is harsh. Maybe that's what your life feels like right now for all of us. Winter, think of the trees. We know they're not dead, but they kind of look that way. You think even of those Halloween images, you have a kind of a skeleton. That's what trees look like during winter. And then in spring, what do we have but full of blossoms, beautiful. In winter, there's really not many colors. The grass is brown. There's not much sun. But outside of that death and gray comes these wonderful colors exploding, reds, greens, whites. Brothers and sisters, we have already been given new hearts. We're told that in John chapter 3. We know this. I mean, otherwise, how can martyrs sing praises to the Lord as they're being murdered? How can we as Christians experience true and wonderful joy even amidst a world of pain? Because it is a world of pain. Because we can look forward. The spring is here. Christ has arisen. And who can stop it? Nobody. In verse 10, soon we'll be given new clothes, a resurrected body, and we will rejoice openly And proudly, we will be arrayed in the robes of Christ, like a bride and a groom. And the world will see it. But that day is not this day. For this day, our Father's loving care for us is to look ahead to him in faith, to trust his timing, to see those beautiful spring buds that are already open, that he sent his son to die for us, and to never take our eyes off the prize, which is our inheritance, to be with him forever, and finally and fully to receive true and everlasting comfort. As Christ tells us, to inherit the earth, never to be starved from righteousness, but to be satisfied, to receive mercy, and finally to see God. Jesus tells us to rejoice and be glad, for in him, in heaven, our future reward is great. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father and our God, we come before you this morning and we thank you for your word of good news to us. It is something that we always need and we always forget to look to. We pray now that you'd bring forth this praise in our hearts today because you have given us new hearts and that you would strengthen us through this life that we would see you, to grab hold of you, and never to let go. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, as I mentioned, let's sing now of God's great faithfulness, hymn number 408, Great is Thy Faithfulness, hymn number 408.