Most of you have had the experience at some point in your life where you've experienced maybe a move to a new community, or a move to a new job, or maybe you visited a new church for the first time and you felt a bit uncomfortable. Maybe there was a certain culture that existed that made you feel a little bit on the outskirts or outside of that culture and sometimes a subculture. The easiest illustration would be like a southerner with our accents and ways of speaking to move way up north, maybe on the Canadian-US border. just when you start to talk that this person is not from this area or vice versa. Someone from way up north comes down way to the south and we know immediately just by their words there's something different. Now sometimes we feel a bit like an outcast because of our own personalities and maybe it's self-imposed. Sometimes truly it's purposeful. People make you feel as if you are an outcast. But either way, at times we've all felt a bit like we're on the outside. Well, in Isaiah 56, in our text we read this morning, God is going to speak to such a person, a person that seems to be on the outside, a person that is doubting, a person that feels rejected, a person that doesn't feel as if they're embraced and included in this covenant promise, reading in verse 7 of Isaiah 56, even them, even them, will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people The Lord God, which gathereth the outcast of Israel, saith, Yet will I gather others to Him beside those that are gathered unto Him." My title this morning is Gathering the Outcast. Now these outcasts would include the Israelites because they were cast out of God's holy mountain for which God will do some gathering and bring them back to this holy mountain. The holy mountain, Mount Zion, Jerusalem on the mountain is first spoken of but this of course prefigures another day, another mountain, another temple, another house, which Jesus says He was that temple. He is that temple that was destroyed and rebuilt in three days. And now the temple of the living God, Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 3, is you. You are the house of the living God. You are the holy habitation that the Holy Spirit is building for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit. Temple's gone. This temple abides. And it's this temple that God is alluding to, prefiguring with the physical temple that He would bring them back to as they rebuilt it in Jerusalem. So we need to see both, as we've seen often in these passages of Isaiah. Them would include the outcast of Israel in Babylon, but it would also include the son of the stranger, the foreigner. It would include the eunuch, whom God says, don't speak that way. I'm utterly cut off, I'm separated from God, cast out. Now the son of a stranger, the son of a foreigner would be a proselyte who joined themselves to the Jewish religion and perhaps some of them did so even in Babylon. Maybe not too many, but maybe there were some at Babylon that joined with the Jewish religion. And now, the talk of this deliverer coming, it would be Cyrus, pointing to Christ. And going back to Mount Zion, the holy mountain, where there's the sacrifices and all that's going on in Israel, the son of the stranger would say, well, I'm not truly an Israelite, so I must be cut off. You remember the first covenant, the covenant with the nation of Israel, was totally based on procreation, and that alone. You simply had natural birth, and you're an Israelite, and you embrace the privileges of the covenant. And all the land of Canaan, and coming back to the holy mountain, and here's this son of a stranger that says, I don't even have Israelite parents. I guess that means I'm outcast. I've got to stay in Babylon. I don't get to go. I'm not included. I'm cast off. Even in Deuteronomy 25, it was such an elaborate system that God said, if a woman loses her husband, and the deceased husband has a brother, The brother is to take the wife of the deceased brother and marry her and raise up children in the name of the brother so that his name would not be cut off. Because the covenant was based on natural procreation and that alone. That's all it took to be an Israelite. So the son of the foreigner says, hey, I'm not included. But God says, yes, I will even bring you. And then there's the eunuch. You understand his problem. He cannot procreate. There were some eunuchs taken and made eunuchs from Israel to Babylon, and they dwelt in the king's court. They often used eunuchs kind of as a guard for the harem, for the wives, because it was very safe. Because the eunuch could not procreate, there was no chance of him taking the wives of the king. So they brought them in and they guarded the harem. So the eunuch says, I can't even have Israelite children, even though I am an Israelite, or maybe he's a proselyte. I can't even have sons and daughters. And God says, oh, I'm going to give you something better. far better than sons and daughters, and your name shall not be cut off." What's he pointing to? This idea that I'm not included, I'm cut off from the covenant because I'm the son of a stranger and I am a eunuch, I can't even have children, which is how the covenant continued. Only that temporary covenant of the Old Testament. And then in verse 7, God even opens it up to peoples. Plural, in the New Testament, ethnos is usually translated plural, not singular, most of the time. Which when we look at that with respect to the Great Commission, we should probably be on board with Jesus and think in terms of not just every individual, because it's not saying that every individual that's a non-Jew gets to dwell in the presence of God, but peoples. We need to think that way, if we think like Jesus. In the second cleansing of the temple in Mark chapter 11, when he quotes this verse, he's upset because they made the house of God a den of thieves, but he's more upset, I think, because they set up shop in the court of the Gentiles, which was to be a place of prayer. And he said, is not my house to be a house for the nations? pray. And so they were making it look more like you sacrifice and you do good and you get good from God rather than a place where you call on the name of God. And so he embraces now the Gentiles because we know that the new covenant is not based on blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man or natural procreation at all. but on spiritual birth. That's the only way to become a spiritual Jew. It's the only way to be embraced in the covenant, which includes eunuchs, strangers, Gentiles, Jews, people out of the nations who can only be embraced by spiritual birth. We need to remember that. This is not like the old covenant. Just bare children. It's God's work. It is new birth, Jesus says. It is being begotten again to a lively hope, Peter says. And it is by spiritual birth Paul would teach us in the new covenant of grace. And beloved, we don't want any part of that old covenant. In fact, we'll see something about giving that up here soon. So look, first of all, in verse 8, it is God that gathers. Isn't that glorious? Now when God gathers, you get gathered. When man gathers, well, you don't always get gathered. The Lord God which gathereth the outcast of Israel saith yet will I gather others to Him. Beside those that are gathered unto Him. And I take that to mean Him God and Him Israel. Because they're going back to the holy mountain. Jesus, you remember, alludes to this I think in John 10.16 where He says, other sheep I have, which are not Israelites. I must bring them. They're going to hear my voice. They'll be part of the covenant. And they'll be gathered unto God. In fact, the language we've seen in Isaiah of God bringing, in verse 7, I will bring them, and gathering in verse 8 is the language of God's covenant. So God will gather by covenant. the new covenant of grace. Isaiah 40 verse 10, you remember, this shepherd that would come, he would feed his flock like a shepherd, he would gather the lambs in his arm, and he would carry them in his bosom. He's bringing them back to the holy mountain. That's a prefiguring of the covenant, even the covenant that He would bring them back to Jerusalem, but the greater covenant that God would gather through the shepherd called Jesus Christ. Isaiah 41 verse 16, I will bring them the blind by way they knew not. I'm going to bring them, I'm going to gather them. God is initiating by His grace the outcast that He's driven out because of sin, He now is going to divinely initiate the whole plan. I mean, who is Cyrus? You know, they didn't know who he was. I'm bringing the shepherd. When's this going to happen? It'll be 70 years. And so God throughout Isaiah is saying, He will bring, He will gather, He will guide, He will lead. And then there's Isaiah 43 verse 5. I will gather thy seed from the east and from the west. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back. I will say, bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth. What's that the language of? I will bring, I will gather, I will carry, I will feed, I will do the work of grace in bringing. And then Isaiah 54, I believe it is verse 7, says, with great mercy I will gather you. Mercy and grace. is the basis of God gathering outcasts, whether they be of Israel, or nations, or eunuchs, or strangers, which are represented by people that felt like they were not embraced in this first covenant. Now turn with me to Jeremiah 33, and we see this covenant language in bringing and gathering there, where Jeremiah again is addressing Judah. And the fact that God would gather, He would do it by grace and mercy, He would do good to them, and He's going to highlight what it means for God to gather and His commitment to gather. Now, wouldn't you like to know how committed God is to gather people? Have you ever had doubts? You know, there's something about my life, something about me, some outward distinction that perhaps I'm not included, but there's nothing that motivates God but the grace of God and the will of God to gather. And there was nothing he could look at Israel and say, you know, you people have done pretty good, idolatrous, from Exodus to Babylon, idolatry. And so God acts freely, He acts mercifully, He acts graciously to gather because He made a covenant with the people. And this is alluding now to the greater covenant of grace in verse 37 of Isaiah, or Jeremiah 32 rather. Jeremiah 32 verse 37, Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whether I have driven them in mine anger. Now who drove them out of Jerusalem? God did. Why? He's angry, He's wrathful. Why? Sin, idolatry. Go back to Genesis in the beginning. God drove the man out of the garden. Why? Sin. God was wrathful, drove him out, placed cherubims at the beginning or the entrance of the east of the garden with flaming swords, perhaps as a symbol of God's wrath, his holiness, his purity, and that he could not let man dwell in his presence, dwell in the garden any longer and have access to the tree of life because he has fallen. He's an outcast and he's been cast out. but God had a gracious provision and a plan. Even though He had driven them out, He says, I will gather, verse 37, I will bring them again, verse 37, and I will cause them to dwell safely. Verse 38, they shall be My people, I will be their God. Notice the personal pronoun I. I have driven, but I will gather, I will bring, I will cause, I will be their God. That's not the language of a potential mission. We can just see how many we can gather and see how many we lose and see how many leave. God says, whoever the outcasts are in this covenant, I will bring, I will gather, I will cause, I will be. That's the language of commitment. Aren't you glad to know that your God is committed to the covenant notwithstanding who you are? He's committed. He says, I'm going to do it. Jesus said in John 6 about the 39th verse, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will no wise cast out. When you're embraced in the covenant and you come, you don't get cast out. And no wise means I'll never do it. Not in any wise, not for any reason will I cast you out. So here we have God speaking this way. in Jeremiah 32. Now look at verse 39. So what does this mean, you're going to be our God and we'll be your people, whoever these outcasts are? I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and of their children after them. Now their children after them would include all children that get one heart and one way. Not just natural procreation. Born an Israelite? Okay, no. The children, like the parents, they get one heart, one way, and that fear God forever. This covenant will be for the good of them. Now what is the good in this text? There are three goods we're going to see. The good that God aims for is the good of fear. Is God doing you good? The end for which God aims at your good, and I mean the end, the period, the wall, the stopping point, the dead end, is that you fear Me, saith the Lord. We need to shift our thinking on that, beloved. Is that what you would say is the good of a Christian? If you could say with Habakkuk chapter 3, if the flock fails, if there's no calves in the stall, if the olive plants fail in the trees and there's no produce, would you still say, if I know God and fear Him, then that's good, that's wonderful, because that's what God is after. That's what He's after. So Jeremiah 24.7 says when he gives one heart, it is one heart so that they would know God. So to fear God and to know Him in Jeremiah is a synonymous thing. What does it mean to know Him and fear Him in such a way that it's for our good? Fear does not sound good, and there's a certain kind of fear that's not good. But this fear is good because God says, I'm going to give them one heart so that they will fear Me, and I'll be their God, they'll be My people when they fear Me, saith the Lord. Well, in Jeremiah, contextually, chapter 2, verse 19, The Lord says to these people, therefore, your own backslidings will correct you, your own wickedness will reprove you, for it is an evil and a bitter thing, saith the Lord, that you have forsaken Me and that My fear is not in you. That's Jeremiah 2.19. So, it's evil and it's bitter that you've forsaken Me, and what that means, you don't fear Me. And in the context of Jeremiah chapter 2, what it means to forsake God, and that's evil, is you've forsaken Him as the fountain of living waters. Contextually, that's exactly what it means. Jeremiah 2.13. My people have committed two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. And you started digging broken wells. That's what you want to drink from. According to Jeremiah, when you do that, you don't fear God. And you don't know Him. Because if you did, you wouldn't live that way. When I say live, I mean that's a perpetual kind of living. That's what Israelites did all the time. So when God says, I'm going to put my fear in them, He means they're going to know me to be a fountain that never runs dry. And they'll find something better than broken dreams and disappointments. because they're going to find me. So the good that God aims for in gathering outcasts and bringing outcasts is that they would fear Him, see Him, know Him as a fountain. So I must ask you, beloved, do you know Jesus that way? Do you know Him as fountain to the soul? Do you know Him as water? Do you know Him like the deer pants for the water brooks? Do you know Him like the physician or the patient that needs the physician? Do you know Him that way? Then you fear God. See, it's not just a quaking, it's a high view of God, a high regard for God that sees Him as this fountain. Now, listen to Isaiah 29 verse 13. For thus saith the Lord, this is what the Lord said, For thus saith the Lord, This people draweth nigh to Me with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips, but they have removed their heart far from me. And my fear is taught by the precepts of men." Now notice the connection. When men teach the fear of God, that's all that's being taught. That means they don't fear Him. And when they don't fear Him, according to Isaiah 29, verse 13, it means the mouth is moving, the lips are saying things about God, but where's the heart? The heart is far removed from God. It's not with Him. He's not the fountain. I'm over here digging wells. I'm drinking something else. That's not to fear God. So when God gives one heart and one way to fear Him, what does He do? He brings the heart close to Him in Christ, right? He brings the heart close to Him in Christ. So that's the first good. Now put your eyes on Jeremiah 32 verse 40. Here's the second good. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. But I will put My fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me. And there's the second good. Now would you identify that? You say, well, the first good's the fear. The second good has got to be something a little more concrete. I mean, what about my comforts here? The second good is, God commits then to so moving toward you providentially that He will not turn away from you to do you good, so you will never totally or finally depart from Him. Forever. That's the perseverance of the saints. Why can that not happen? Not because you cannot turn. Not because you don't fall. Not because you cannot stray. Because He said, I will not turn away from coming to you, going after you, and restoring that fear for me to know me as a fountain. You won't depart. Jesus makes that clear. My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. Present tense. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. To be plucked out of the hand of Christ means to depart totally forever. This covenant says that can't happen. You can depart, you can fall, you can move away, but God says, I'm so committed to gather you, that if you stray from Me, I will come and regather. Do you ever feel like God just forgot you and has given up on you? You say, there's so much pain, there's so much difficulty, there's so many challenges, but look, the text says, He will not turn away from you to do you good, so He's doing you good in the affliction. because He preserves His people by the testing and the trials He subjects them to. 1 Peter 1.5, 1 Peter 1.7, You are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, so that the trial of your faith Wait a minute, I thought you said God was protecting me. That's not the word. I'm protecting him. I'm just going to guard them. How does he guard you? The testing of your faith. Don't conclude that God is against you because you're having affliction. Tell yourself, oh, God's just doing me good because he promised me. Now you may want to say that under your breath at first, because if somebody hears you in the neighborhood, they're going to think you're crazy. Say, why all this affliction and all this pain and all this trouble? I don't know all the ins and outs, but I do know this, God is not turning for me to do me good. And so He's showing me more about Him as a fountain, an infinite supply. So I trust Him. Is that the good you're after? Is that the good of your God? That's what God says He's after. Everything else is just kind of Here's gracious. Here's just an add-on. That's not the main event. Here it is. This is the good God is after. And so He's going to keep that fear there. There are many things opposing your fear of God. There are many things coming at you in the world. There's the demons and devils and sin and the flesh. And God says, here's my commitment to you eunuchs, you strangers, you peoples that are embracing my covenant. I'm coming. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days. Not just, you know, when I was 10 and now I'm 50. Every day of my life, God is not turning from me to do me good. And if you trust that, embrace it, you won't draw conclusions and speak like the eunuch, which we do speak sometimes, and like the stranger and say, I am utterly, completely cast off and God has forgotten me. Put your eyes on the covenant. What did He say? No, He's not. I trust Him, I love Him, and He's not forgotten me. He's just, as one man put it, Shuffling the deck. Have you ever seen how some people shuffle the deck? I had to learn that. They just kind of... That's what God is doing. But it's not haphazard. It's not willy-nilly. He's after your good. So when you embrace that good, you'll stay with Him in the covenant. And you'll rely upon Him. Here's the third good. He doesn't stop there. This is verse... 41, yea, as if to say, it gets better. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good. He's passionate about this good he's after. And I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. Now, how good would you feel today if I announced to you that, beloved, God's kind of half-hearted in His commitment to you. You know, sometimes He's just not so sure how He feels about it. Or what if His commitment to Him was like mine for Him? Commitment to me is like mine for Him. I would really get afraid, would you not? His whole heart, His whole soul is passionately committed to your good. And the good again throughout these texts is they will fear me. They will know me. They will not depart from me. The good is the me of God. Are you after that good? That's what God is after. And He's so completely, totally committed. And so He says to the eunuch and the stranger, don't speak like that. I will give you a name that shall never be cut off. Although you are not an Israelite by blood, to be embraced in the covenant means you're an Israelite by grace, and by the blood of Jesus Christ, and by spiritual birth. God rejoices over them because the good He's doing is over Him. And we see God completely, totally given over to God again and again. God rejoicing over them, His passion over them is His passion to let Himself be known by them and therefore His joy over you is in rejoicing in you knowing Him. And it's always all about God. And would you want it any other way? What, be about me? Be about man? That's the way we are at times. But God is committed to you because He's committed to Him. And if He's not committed to Him, guess what? He cannot be committed to you. So He gathers Israel by covenant and He says, I'm going to gather you. And He won't cast you out. So don't speak that way, eunuch. And don't speak that way, son of the stranger. And don't speak that way, Gentiles who are embraced in His covenant. The second thing we see is that not only that the Lord will gather, He gathers the outcast to glorify. His gathering. We know in the Bible that says His grace and His mercy. To the praise and the glory of His grace. He is aiming to glorify outcasts because the outcasts He is aiming at will glorify Him. So He gathers them for that reason. Look at Psalm 147. Psalm 147 verse 1. God is going to tell us there. He gathers the outcasts of Israel. In Isaiah 56, it embraces others beyond that. He tells us Himself. He wants us to know that. Psalm 147, verse 1. Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, for it is pleasant and praise is comely. It's right. It's beautiful. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem. How? He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. Now who builds a city purely on outcasts? Who builds an administration who's a president on people like me? I mean, I would tell a president when to choose me as his running. You don't need to do that. I don't have a clue. I mean, I could tell you the Bible, you know. I don't know how to run things. I don't know. You don't need to make me part of any cabinet. I'll just stay right here in Huntsville because I can't do it. No, He builds up His cabinet with superior, outstanding, graduates of the greatest universities. Or we're all going, what's He doing getting that person? But your God builds up Jerusalem with outcasts. Because Psalm 102 remembers, when He builds up Jerusalem, He's going to glorify His name. So He's going to get glory out of outcasts. That ought to make you joyful, if you're indeed an outcast. So, He gathers the outcasts, and who are these outcasts? He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. The eunuch and the stranger, they're going to come back, but they're going to be broken hearted because they're going to know about their idolatry. And they're going to be sorrowful, wounded because they know God is going to work just in the right way that the fruition of the consequence of their idolatry, even in love, He gave them this consequence for their good. He's going to teach them the cause of the seven years and they're going to be broken They're going to be crushed, they're going to be sorrowful over their sin. But notice, He heals the broken in heart. He binds up the wounded. Jesus Himself, His own ministry from Isaiah 61 is that He anointed God, anointed Him, the Spirit, to preach the gospel to the meek, the poor. to bind up the broken hearted. Do we qualify for the gospel? Oh, so many people in our culture today, they think to qualify means you're outstanding, you're morally upright, fine, but that's not what qualifies you. Grace qualifies you. And then grace builds up Zion, the church of God, with outcasts, with people that are broken, in need, poor, impoverished, and In verse 6, the meek. The Lord lifted up the meek, He casted the wicked down to the ground. So, the broken and the contrite and the sorrowful, they then become meek. They are humble people. Humble. Now, notice the contrast. of this humility and meekness in verse 6 with the greatness of God, beginning in verse 4. He that is God, He telleth the number of the stars. It means He counts them like a bank teller, counting money. He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek. His knowledge is infinite knowledge of what He created, knowledge of the stars. He knows them all, the billions and billions. It's infinite. The knowledge and understanding of God makes all the books on the planet, in every universe, in every library, look like the books I used to read in kindergarten. See, spot, run. I mean that's what it makes it look like, just nothing. Now how does God get glory out of broken, wounded, meek people? Have you ever been in a class, maybe in the university or at school or maybe at work, and you just knew somebody at work, somebody in the classroom who was head and shoulders, had a grasp of the subject better than anybody. They just understood it. Nobody understood calculus like that person. And what did you do? You first asked, could you help me? I don't get this stuff, please help me. Then you listened eagerly. Oh yeah, work that again. You listen. Then you do it. You go into the classroom to take, this is what he said, do it. Then you go back and say, thank you, thank you. I just described a meek person. That's what they do. See, even human to human, that mass student that has all the understanding is kind of getting glorified by the asking, the listening, the needing, the doing, and the thanksgiving. How much more is God's understanding infinite? It has no end to it. Are you one of the outcasts? Are you one of the meek? Do you ask? My house should be called a house of prayer. Do you listen to God? That's what He says. Do you then do what He says? Then do you go back for everything you do by grace and say, thank you, thank you God. That's meekness. And that's how God is glorified. Now look at the opposite. The wicked He cast down. Where are they? Oh, they're up here. I don't need to ask God. What do you mean? I don't need to ask God for forgiveness. Really? Haven't done anything? I mean, a few things here and there. I don't need to ask God for forgiveness. One man once said, he was a very popular man. What do I need to ask forgiveness for? Wicked, proud. I don't need to listen to God. Do it my own way. What do I thank God for? I'm charting my own course. I made a few pitfalls, but I'll look to another man, look to another person. So God is far from the proud and the wicked. They're not part of the covenant. They're outcasts, but they don't know it. But God gets glory out of gathering the outcasts. Oh, how blessed is that news to our ears. Do you feel to be an outcast? Do you feel to be bankrupt, broken, needing help? Then God says, come to the one who gathers, and be gathered, and be meek, and listen to His great power, His glory, His supremacy, and His infinite, infinite understanding. But then next, we see in our text that He gathers them by covenant. He gathers them in order to glorify that mercy. The very bringing and the gathering is what He is glorifying. It's called to the praise of the glory of His grace in Ephesians 1. But now He gathers the outcasts, which are those that are being gathered. And what I mean by that is we look at the characteristics of the outcasts, they are actually the ones that are gathering unto Him. And this is the way He says it. The Lord which gathers the outcasts of Israel saith yet will I gather others to Him beside those that are gathered unto Him. That means they love to be gathered, so they go. You ever tried to be gathered for something, you know, and you didn't want to go? Years ago, it's all kaput now, I installed a bell in the back of my house because the kids could, I think they hear the door open, this was a long time ago, I know they don't like me talking about this, a long time ago, they were little, and, you know, we've got these trees out there, they could hide back there, or they couldn't hear me call, Dad, we didn't hear you, so I'm just, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk, plunk. clanging on that bell, want them to gather, want them to come. So there's always a time when we don't want to be gathered, we're having fun, something's going on. But see, these outcasts love to come. You know you're an outcast because you gladly, joyfully, in the house of prayer, gather to God. Now look at these three characteristics of the outcast, and we'll find them in the first five or six verses. Let me begin in verse 1. We'll see these three characteristics that God points to that shows us about these outcasts. Because the one He gathers, when they're gathered, they are these kinds of people. Verse 1. Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice, for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and I take that to mean to do justice, do judgment, or righteousness. That's the happy man. And the Son of Man that layeth hold on it. And then he says, that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, who thinks himself cut off, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch say, I'm just a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and lay hold on my covenant. Now if God brings them by his covenant, that means what? You need to lay hold of the covenant. Those are the outcasts that get gathered. Have you been gathered? Have you laid hold and taken grasp of God's covenant? Now, he says it a bit differently in verse 3, what it means to lay hold on the covenant. Neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord. You joined yourself to the Lord. You're not an outcast that's gathered until you unite. Sometimes this word is used as a husband to a wife. United. That's a covenant. Marriage. Are you joined to the Lord? Now some people say they're gathered, but there's no joining, there's no keeping, there's no doing. Now notice that the keeping of justice, judgment, Sabbath, and keeping your hand from doing any evil is a result of laying hold of the covenant or joining yourself to Jesus Christ. The order is critical. It's critical. Let's talk for a moment about you as an outcast joining yourself to the Lord. We know in the New Testament that the righteousness to be revealed in verse 1 and the salvation that is to come was Jesus Christ. He's the coming Messiah. Paul says in Romans 1, 16 and 17 that he's not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, the Gentile, the eunuch, the stranger represented there. Because therein, in the Gospel, the salvation that's near now that has come, in Romans 1, it's already passed, He's resurrected. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed. That's what verse 1 says. It's revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the justified shall live by faith. What does it mean to join yourself to the Lord? It first means to join by faith, by trusting, by relying, by treasuring Jesus. Because when God gathers the outcast, they join themselves willingly by spiritual birth, and by the gospel, they joined themselves to the power of God because they've seen God's righteousness revealed in Christ, they've seen that salvation that is to come, and even the Old Testament outcasts that trusted were looking to that salvation and looking to that Messiah and looking for that righteousness that they saw far off Hebrews chapter 11. They were looking at it because Abraham saw his day and rejoiced in it and was glad. He saw a righteousness that was not His own. So when we look at the Gospel and we join ourselves by the Gospel to Christ and we're united to Him, we know we're the outcasts that are being gathered. We're the outcasts. Because what we see in God's righteousness revealed is His holiness and His high regard for His name. We see His love and His high regard for loving sinners. Because it was all settled in the cross of Jesus Christ. And then to join yourself to that is the power then to do what? Keep justice, keep judgment, keep the Sabbath, which in the Old Testament was an expression for the first table, it just means worship. Not a call for the Sabbath law in the New Testament. It represents the first table. Where's the second table? Keep your hand from doing evil. Love your neighbor. Don't take your neighbor's wife. Don't steal from your neighbor. Don't do evil. Keep the Sabbath. Worship God. Love your neighbor. Lover of God. Lover of neighbor. That's the expression. Jesus says that's still intact. Love God. Love your neighbor. How? How can you possibly do that? Join yourself to Christ. Who is the love of God? And by joining, resting by grace in the Gospel, you see God's love for righteousness, you see God's love for sinners, you see God's wrath poured out in Christ in your stead. If that doesn't cause a man to join Christ, nothing else will. Nothing a church could do. Nothing could happen to make that happen other than the spiritual birth that then reveals Christ Jesus the Lord. Listen to Paul. Paul had to let go of something to lay hold of Christ. See, to lay hold of the covenant means you've got to let go of the first covenant. Somebody here may be hanging on still to the first covenant. Paul spoke this way in Philippians 3.9 when he says that he wanted to win or gain Christ, being found in Him, not having or holding to mine own righteousness which is by the law. You've got to let go of that first covenant and your own righteousness. And when Paul met Jesus on the road to Mass, he said, I let it go. But he had to keep counting all things. He had to suffer the loss of all things. He had to keep seeing his righteousness, which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God, which is by faith, to be found in Jesus. So he had to keep looking, knowing, fearing Jesus in such a way that it just helped him let go of that first covenant. Because he was all about the first covenant. He loved the first covenant because he loved himself. His righteousness, his zeal, his pedigree, his Hebrew of the Hebrews, Pharisee of the Pharisees, as touching the law, blameless, as concerning zeal, persecuting the church, all those things were his game. And beloved, that's the key. How do you know you're still holding on to the first covenant? If your game is your performance. Oh, I love when people note my performance at work, in the marriage, at home, as a son or a daughter, as a parent, in the community. I just love the gain of being made much of because people think I'm so right. So right. Let it go. But there's another side of it. You see, when somebody stepped in the way of Paul's gain, he was very, very angry. You know, it's a sign of holding on to your own righteousness. Unrighteous anger. You have made my performance look so bad, honey. I'm not talking to you for about six months. You said that in front of my friends or whatever it is that we men can get so bent out of shape. And then anger can be also just being downcast. I give up, you know. I try to do this right, and this right, and this right, and this right, it's all falling apart. I'm just quitting. That's a sign that you're holding on to your own righteousness. I know I've told the story before about a man, he was a preacher, is a preacher, years ago I heard a message by him. Author, written a few books, I was aware of him. Hearing this message, he said one time he got a call from a A well-known Christian magazine wanted to have an interview with him concerning his marriage. Time was getting close. He called me up and said, hey, I can't do the article. He said, my wife and I, we're just not doing good at all. I just feel like a hypocrite. It just shocked me out of my mind. I thought, wow! How did he admit that? He just had to let go of his own righteousness, his own pride. in the gain of Christ. Now, I'm not suggesting that we need to have a kind of transparency just to open everything up. We know we're sinners and we're struggling with sin, but he just was on, I can't be in your magazine. He could have lied and said, well, you know, I've got so much going on right now and the marriage is going so good, I just don't have time. I said, no, it's just not. And he got help and they recovered. And so, Paul said, not having my own righteousness, I'm not holding my own righteousness, which is by the law, which means he needs to keep seeing the gain of Christ, and the gain of the covenant keeping mercy and grace of God, and he can keep letting go, because we all struggle with that. Pride is so deceptive, it just got to keep letting it go. How? Accounting all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, why did he want to be found in Him, having the righteousness which is of God by faith, that he may know Christ? There's our covenant. He wanted to know Him more. How do we let go of that first covenant again and again and again? By knowing the supremacy and the glory of Jesus and the gain of His love. And so Paul keeps giving up what he cannot keep so that he may have what he cannot lose, as the famous missionary once said. And so it is with us, beloved. Join yourselves to Christ. Say, I have. Well, do it again by faith. And again and again and again, coming to Him, trusting Him, and you just affirm that God has gathered you because you just keep gathering by His grace. Secondly, not only to join yourself to the Lord, but then, a little more complicated, to choose the things that please Him. Verse 4, For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me, and that take hold of My covenant. What does it mean to be gathered to God? What does it mean to join yourself to God? It means now you start choosing what pleases God. Now, if you've ever tried to do that on the human level, you know just how difficult that is, right, husband and wife or siblings? We just have different things we like. Sometimes kind of butting heads and, you know, we husbands think we've really gotten to the place of, you know, this place of really high standing when we say, well, I'm going to let you choose the restaurant. Just choose what pleases you. We think, well, that ought to be easy. And usually, that doesn't mean we're so pleased with her choice. It either means, you know, nowadays the menu is so wide that there's probably something on that menu that will please me. It's not that I like the food she likes, you know. And suppose she picks one of those foreign restaurants with those words you can't even pronounce, a Mediterranean kind of dish or a Greek salad or something. Perhaps, you know, the menu is vast enough that you can look down and right in the corner and say, oh, kid's plate. I'll take the hamburger. Oh, I choose what she chooses. No, I want the hamburger. She gets the Mediterranean stuff or vice versa, whatever your palate is. But on this menu, there is one item that's in every item. And if you don't like this, you never choose what pleases God. It's in the appetizer, it's in the main dish, it's in the side item, it's in the salad, it's in the drinks, it's in the dessert, it's everywhere. And you can't look and say, no MSG, I'm looking for that, or no peanut oil kind of thing used in the cooking. This ingredient is in every single item on the menu, and if you don't like it, you don't choose that which pleases God. And the menu item is found in verse 6. Also the sons of the stranger that joined themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord. Are you an outcast? Do you love Jesus' name? Oh, yeah. I go to church all the time. That's not what I ask. Do you love Jesus' name? Have you joined yourself? Do you join yourself to Him? Do you choose anything that pleases Him, or is it all about your choices? Now, beloved, we're still sinners, and this is a growth process. And when we don't choose the things that please God, and we repent of that, and turn back to the covenant, we find the Savior has chosen everything right for us, and that's the gospel. Go back to Him and confess. Say, Lord, help me to choose those things that please You. I want to apply this to the eunuch to see exactly what God is saying here. Jesus speaks to the issue of eunuchs in Matthew chapter 19, if you want to turn there. What would make my choice so pleasing to God? That He would look upon it with favor. Matthew chapter 19. Now here the Cajun with the Pharisees are tempting him, trying to catch him in something with regard to marriage. And so he says in verse 4 of Matthew 19, he's answering the question, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Because that's what they did. Every cause, any cause, divorce. And of course they wanted to keep that. And so Jesus answered in verse 4, Have you not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Did you know that marriage, a cleaving to your wife, a cleaving to your husband, is a picture of joining yourself to the Lord? Isaiah 56. And that relationship of Jesus to His bride. We should take that covenant very, very seriously, because they didn't. Verse 7, they say unto him, well, you know that Moses did command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away. Yeah, we got it now, boys. That's what they're thinking. Man, they want to do this. Imagine that. We want to be able to put our wives away. That's what we want. He said, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so, and beloved, now it is not so. It is not so. except for this so. And I say unto you in verse 9, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, breaking of covenant, and shall marry another, commit adultery, and whosoever marries that person put away, you commit adultery. What do you do if you've done that? You repent, and you confess it to God, and you get on board with His way of marriage, and not the way of the Pharisees. Now even His disciples, a mixture of those that are true and those that are not here in verse 10, were a bit confused and had taken on this distortion. They said, if the case of the man be so with his wife, hey, let's not even get married. If we can't put away our wives for just about anything, she can't cook good or whatever, I'm not going to marry. For which I would say, please don't marry then, just don't get married. If you don't have a right view of marriage, wait, stop, do not pass go, do not do it. Now Jesus takes this occasion to talk about eunuchs and their choices and pleasing God. Verse 11, He said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. In other words, to be single. He's going to talk about singleness. That's what a eunuch is. To be single, to be a eunuch is not for everyone to receive. So he's not saying, okay, don't get married. He said, marriage is of God, but there are some that can receive it. And then he says this in verse 12, because there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, he that is able, he has the power to receive it, then let him receive it. What's Jesus saying? Three kinds of eunuchs. Three kinds of choices. The first eunuch is made a eunuch from birth, which means either the parents chose it or providence chose it. I don't know which one. The second eunuch was made a eunuch by the choice of someone else. A man that made them a eunuch, like the Israelite eunuchs that came to Babylon. They were made eunuchs, God prophesied. Some of you are going to be eunuchs in the king's palace in Babylon. Men made them eunuchs. But the third one is altogether a different kind of choice. Because we know the first two choices are forced choices. But the third one, the eunuch chooses to make himself. Now, I don't take that to mean he had surgery, beloved. No more than I take Jesus to say, if you're right, I offend you, pluck it out and cast it far from you. He doesn't mean go get your eye gouged out. He's talking about something spiritual. Here, a eunuch that makes himself a eunuch decides and chooses to be a eunuch. Why? From the ability and the power of seeing the Kingdom of God's sake greater, better, than marriage. Now, remember, Jesus says this is a gift, it's given, so He's not saying, all you people who want to be married, don't get married. Those that have the power to receive it are those that see the power of the Kingdom of Heaven as something more superior than being married, and they're able, they have the power to refrain themselves, single people. Even if you get married, here is your power. along with saying no, along with not putting yourself in situations that you could fall, no is not going to be enough. You need to see the kingdom of heaven's sake is greater than falling to intimacy which is sin against God. Now you need to be able to do that even if you're going to get married and you have the gift to be married and you don't have the gift of being single. Jesus speaks of this kingdom of heaven's sake in Matthew 13 where He says, The kingdom of heaven, this kingdom is like unto a man that finds a treasure in a field and he, for joy over it, hides the treasure, buys the field by selling everything he has. Now, what is the motivation? What's motivating his choice to buy the field? Well, it's a treasure and he sells everything he has But he does it because of the joy thereof. All that he has, everything, does not equate to the value of the joy of the treasure. That's what the eunuch does. That's what the single person needs to do. That's what the married person needs to do. That is the only choice that pleases God. When it's motivated by God. I recognize there are any number of choices that we make now that don't please God. But sanctification means now we want to choose that which pleases God. We want to grow in a way that pleases God. We want Him to be pleased with our choices, which means our choices must be rooted in the love of God, the love of the kingdom, the love of the name of God, and the love of God's glory in Jesus, or He is not, cannot be pleased by it. Because God is pleased with God. And when our choices are man-centered, and we need to repent and turn. And beloved, we know we make choices that don't please God, but the call here is to move in that direction, grow and ask God. And then finally, lastly, briefly, calling upon the name of the Lord, because He will make them joyful in His house of prayer. Their offerings and sacrifices shall be acceptable. because his house should be called a house of prayer. So the outcasts now are calling on the name of the Lord. Why does that make the sacrifice and offering acceptable now? Over and over God says, put away your sacrifice, your burnt offerings, I don't want it, I don't require it, I don't like it, it's not acceptable. David in Psalm 51 16, you delight not in sacrifice, you desire not burnt offerings, or I would give it, I don't want it, I'm not after it, but yet God says do it. So when he was saying, I don't want it now, he says, now it will be acceptable. And I think the reason is this. Prayer. When you're calling on the name of the Lord when you sacrifice, you're acknowledging the provision of God to do the sacrifice. Because you're calling on His name. The Israelites, on the other hand, thought that the sacrifice was in order to meet God's needs. So God says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God, rather than the burnt offerings. I delight in mercy. And so God means that the sacrifice and offering is a representation of my merciful provision in Christ. You think the sacrifice and offering is your way to complete my needs, to give me some of your righteousness for which I hate. And so Jesus said to the Pharisees, go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Go learn what it means, they that are holy, not a physician, but they that are sick. Go learn what it means, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So the Pharisees were doing their sacrifices to God thinking they could meet God's needs. Here's our righteousness, here's our works, for which He hated. God says, you don't get it. What I delight in is my merciful provision in Jesus and providing all that you need. So your sacrifices are acceptable, in connection with prayer because you're calling on me and then sacrificing. You're needing me and then you're working. You're trusting me by prayer. That's what prayer is. Lord, help! I need you! And I'll go sacrifice. He likes it! He's accepting it because it's a sacrifice of faith and prayer in Jesus, not the sacrifice of my own strength. By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. You give money? Give thanks to God. He gave you the money. You do good works? Give thanks to God. It's grace that's applied. You help your neighbor? Give thanks to God. Sounds like I'm thanking God all the time. Exactly. Now your sacrifices are acceptable because you're accepting my merciful provision in Christ and my grace that supplies and all the sacrifices are for my glory. And you're no longer trying to meet my need because friend, he has none. He just has none. And so when you meet the God that has no need, you must be the needy one. You must be the reception. You must be the receiver. You must take the cup of salvation, drink it, and say, Lord, could you fill it up again? I'd like to do this sacrifice. Okay, as long as you're sacrificing, it's a thanksgiving, it's a resting, it's a trusting. Because, beloved, all the fitness He requires, all that He requires is to fill your need of Him. Are you an outcast? You joined yourself to Jesus. You laid hold of the covenant. Are you continuing to let go of that old covenant that we struggle with? Do you love the name of God? Is He greater than sons and daughters? Is His name greater than all sons and daughters and all marriage and all peoples? I know I don't always live that way, but I believe it's true. I embrace it. Jesus is the treasure. Well, let's join ourselves again to Him today. Let's pray.