I want to take my title from Isaiah 61 and verse 2 where the prophet Isaiah says concerning the Messiah to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord...the acceptable year. Now throughout our study of Isaiah, beginning in chapter 40, using select texts and chapters up through now, chapter 61, we have seen at times Isaiah speaking with regard to Israel as a servant, the servant God has chosen. We have seen at times that Isaiah is speaking of the Messiah that was to come as the servant. We see the future servant that was coming typified in Cyrus, the Redeemer that would come and use sword and bow to redeem Israel. And we've seen at times Isaiah speak of himself. But here, clearly we know from the New Testament where Jesus Christ reads this text and announces that this text is about Himself. So there's no doubt in our minds but what Isaiah 61 verses 1 through 3 are speaking about, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said when He read these words from the scroll in the synagogue of Nazareth in Luke chapter 4 verse 18, as He sat down and all eyes were fastened upon Him and wondered at the gracious words that He had just spoken, He said to the crowd in the synagogue, this day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. So with that, I can say with no hesitancy that this day, this very day, this Scripture is still being fulfilled in your ears and in the ears of people in the world today. The question then we ask, is this the acceptable year of the Lord for you personally? Is it a day in which your ears have heard, your eyes have seen and your heart has perceived the work, the commission, the call and the prophecy concerning this Messiah? We'll see here that there's a certain kind of person, a certain kind of attitude for which the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and the message that He proclaims is designed to fit. It's tailored for that kind of person. So we ask ourselves this morning, are we those kinds of people? Do we fit the description that Isaiah gives us about the Lord Jesus Christ concerning this announcement of good tidings, good news, the acceptable year of the Lord? First notice in verse 1, His call. and commissioned to be a prophet. Now notice he will preach, he will proclaim which speaking of Jesus as the office of a prophet. He says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me. To anoint just simply means to rub with oil. You've seen that in the Old Testament where a priest or a king and sometimes a prophet like Elisha was anointed with oil literally as a divine symbol of approval, authority, call, and qualified for the office that they were fulfilling. Jesus spoken of for which these prophets, priests and kings are only types and shadows of the coming Messiah because in Hebrews 1...9 and Psalm 45, God speaks about this Messiah and says, because you have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore God, even thy God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. Now, fellows there is not just a male person that you call fellow. A fellow there, even used in our English language today, is a person who is in the same kind of work or position that another fellow is. And so, above his fellows means above the prophets, priests, and kings of the Old Testament that were anointed before Christ, but yet Jesus is referred to as the one anointed above. his fellows, far superior, infinitely above any of the types and the shadows and the kings and priests of prophets that were only typifying the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has anointed Him with the oil of gladness because the Lord Jesus Christ loves righteousness and hates iniquity, like nobody. Now if you love righteousness, what do you love? Or rather, who do you love? If Psalm 11 says, the righteous Lord loves righteousness, then if you love righteousness, you love God supremely. So because Jesus loves God supremely and hates everything in opposition to God, namely iniquity, God's gladness in the oil of joy that He anointed this prophet with is the oil of gladness in God. And so Jesus is the fulfillment of every anointing, every type, every shadow, whether it's Moses as a prophet and priest, whether it's King David as a king, or the many prophets, the good prophets that spoke God's Word, Jesus is the culmination, the fulfillment and the very person in whom this prophecy is spoken. You will remember in the gospel of Luke chapter 3 when He was given the divine approval. for this prophetic office, for the work of the Savior. John would say in John 1 and Luke would say in Luke 3 that the Spirit of God descended upon Him. Luke would say in the bodily form of a dove, symbolizing this anointing. A dove was a clean animal that could be offered, according to Leviticus 5, on behalf of a poor person who couldn't afford a lamb. So this dove was a symbol of purity. because it was a clean animal. It was also a symbol of lowliness and meekness for which the Holy Spirit is the self-effacing person of the Trinity. He's all about Christ. He came to glorify Christ. And the dove, which was offered on behalf of a poor person, is that symbol of poverty, of meekness. Jesus Christ Himself being that meek and lowly Lamb, also anointed with the Spirit, was invested with that character and attitude that He Himself said He was. Come unto Me, all ye that are heavy laden, because I am meek and I am lowly. Now Jesus was not qualified in the sense that He was God on the day of His anointing. He has always been qualified as verily God. He's the Son of God. But as a man, He grew in wisdom and stature with God and men. For thirty years in obscurity, He was in training, as it were. He was growing. He was learning the law. He was asking questions until the time of His anointing, of His appearing where John said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And so the Holy Spirit anointed, confirmed, affirmed, approved, and God Himself on that same day said, This is My beloved Son. In another time He said, this is My beloved Son, hear ye Him. So the question is, as we see this anointing, this call, this divine approval shown in the New Testament, spoken of here in the Old, is that we should hear the Messiah. So let's talk about what the Messiah came to do in reference to preaching or as a prophet, and then talk about the kind of person that would hear the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says it in the same passage, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. The gospel is suited for the meek, which could mean the poor. Now in one sense, it was the materially poor that gathered themselves to Jesus over and over. Even James in 2, 5, you remember, says, hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God made the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to them that love Him? That poor there is just materially poor. And you look in the New Testament gospels, you see it was the poor people, not primarily the rich people, that were gathering unto Jesus Christ. But the meek here is not in reference to a kind of poverty materially, because we do know rich people in the Bible that were trusting in Jesus, but a kind of poverty of spirit, something in the soul, a lowliness, a poverty, a neediness. that is necessary in order to receive the gospel. Proud people don't need the gospel and they don't receive it. Proud people don't hear the gospel. They don't listen to the gospel. And so one of the very characteristics that Jesus points out that was absent in the people He first announced this prophecy to was the spirit of meekness. meekness, because Jesus wasn't the kind of Messiah that just came looking for meek people and said, I'm only going to speak to meek people. He spoke the Word of the Lord to all that would hear Him. And at times they were vivid, most of the time vivid expressions of the rejection of this anointing, rejection of this person and a rejection of God because they would not hear the Messiah. Now take the very account of this prophecy in Luke chapter 4 and verse 18. He speaks it to people that should have been prepared to hear it in the sense that they were waiting for the Messiah. They were musing in their hearts when John the Baptist came on the scene, looking for the Messiah, asking John, was he the person? And on this day that is spoken of in Isaiah 61, Jesus Himself reads the prophecy as we noted in verse 18, and then tells them this day is this Scripture fulfilled. But then in verse 23, he begins to say of Luke 4, Surely you will say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you a truth, many widows in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up, three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. So Jesus announces the prophecy, He gives an account of two people where God showed mercy upon, and the result was not meekness, not submission, which is an expression of meekness, but rage, anger. And they took Him to the brow of a hill because Jerusalem was on a hill, and they were about to throw Him off headlong, and He escaped through the crowd. Now, if you note the prophecy here in verse 18, you will see that it appears that Jesus left off a very major point of the prophecy. Isaiah 61 says it's also a day of vengeance of our God. Now, the very two categories for which this prophecy has come to fulfill is the acceptable day and the day of vengeance, or the acceptable year. That's like forgetting half of your sermon and sitting down and just saying, I missed it. Why did Jesus leave off a major point of this prophecy which revealed a lack of meekness, that the people weren't ready to hear this message, they didn't want this message? I think there are four or five reasons. One is that the day of vengeance was yet future. It was future. It's acceptable. Year of the Lord, but there's a coming, a day of vengeance, a day of wrath. But this was not that day. Jesus said as much in John 3, 17 when He announced to Nicodemus, for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. The mission of Christ is first a salvific mission, not a mission of condemnation, not a mission of vengeance. And oh, how the church needs to understand that. Not a mission of condemning people, but a mission of telling people about this saving mission of Christ. So he left it off on purpose because it was not the day of vengeance, at least not yet. Secondly, it also revealed that God's mercy was extended beyond the borders of Israel to a city of Sarepta of Sidon. and a place called Syria, to name it. Now that was unheard of, that God would graciously and mercifully heal a widow that was not a Jew and a soldier who was not an Israelite. Furthermore, the Zidonians was home of Jezebel, and her father was king of the Sidonians. And Jezebel got great harm on Israel, and that city and nation were the enemies of Israel. And of course, naming the Syrian, it was clear in the Old Testament. The Syrians and the Israelites were mortal enemies, as we would say. So God is showing that His mercy is extending in this day that's acceptable. extending beyond the borders of Israel. But it's also revealing a lack of meekness and loneliness on behalf of the Israelites because to be meek means to embrace the will of God, embrace what He says, first of all, in the gospel, and then embrace what He does. because God is sovereign. A meek person is receiving God's will in both aspects. That is, I want to do what He says, I want to hear what He says in the gospel, and when God tells me what He does, I'm to rest in that. So here God is telling them exactly what He did. I healed a widow woman that was not a Jew. Why? I wanted to. It pleased me. I healed a soldier that killed many Jews. Why? Because it pleased him. So God, through Jesus, announced what he has done, what his will was in the past, and they're furious. That's not meekness. That's not lowliness. That's not poverty of spirit. That's pride. And so Jesus left off a text, the very text that they were looking for. Do you know why? I think of all the words He read, the one they wanted to hear the most was vengeance. Because that's what they wanted. Oh, not on themselves. but on the Romans and on those that were occupying Jerusalem that very day. So the Messiah was to come and take vengeance on their enemies, set up a kingdom, bring them health, wealth, prosperity, and put them in the position of ruling in the new kingdom. And when he did not mention vengeance, which was obviously for the enemies, Oh, you know, that must have just really, really set them up, really made them mad. How do we know? Because they got angry. Not only is He not going to bring vengeance on His enemies, as it appears, He actually has mercy on enemies. And that was the last straw. And so it revealed their lack of meekness and it also revealed... what? That even the Jews are the enemies of God. Isn't that what we need to remember? You may say, well, I've never been an enemy of God. Well, yes, you have. Maybe you are today. See, the Bible declares in Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is at enmity with God and cannot be subject to the law of God. It cannot be. It can't be subject. What does it mean to be the enemy of God? It means you will not yield, you will not submit to the will of God and the law, which says what? Love God. The carnal mind's enmity against God is that it cannot, it will not love God. It cannot. So if a person doesn't love God, he's an enemy of God. It doesn't matter how nice that person is. It doesn't matter how much of a patriot that person is. It doesn't matter how much of a conservative that person is. If he does not love God, he hates Him. Because the carnal mind's enmity is a lack of love for God. That's why he can't submit to the very law that says what? Love God. He can't do it. He's an enemy. What is the expression of the Jews' enmity towards God? They don't love Jesus. They don't embrace the gospel. They don't hear from heaven's pure Son. their Messiah they reject because all they want the Messiah for is to make their life better, get rid of enemies, and fix problems. Now, are you that kind of person? Anybody will take a Messiah that'll just fix a few problems. But do you love the Messiah? See, a meek person is not just submissive to the will of God in the sense of this detached thing that's far and away, but he's submissive to the Son of God. It's Him that he submits to. So the expression that the Jews, which thought they were the in crowd, were actually enemies of God is because they tried to kill the Messiah. And, of course, Paul in Romans 3.10 proved that all are under sin. All are enemies of God. All are under condemnation by nature. And then lastly, and perhaps the most important, is the reason he left out the day of vengeance. Yes, it's future, but in one sense, it came. It came. Because Jesus was the person who took the vengeance of God in order to save us. The vengeance of God is His wrath against all that's against Him. Sin, iniquity, uncleanness. The day of vengeance that is yet future Many people will escape because Jesus became the day of vengeance. He bore the wrath of God. I think that's why He didn't say it yet, because He was going to be for people like this, in this chapter, people like you, the very propitiation, a wrath-absorbing, appeasing, satisfying sacrifice in the nostrils of God because He would vindicate, He would repay what has been damaged what has been belittled in God's holiness, which is His whole name. And that's why gloriously Colossians 121 says, And you who were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled. How did He reconcile? In the body of His flesh through death. in the body of His flesh, He died to reconcile you to God, to bring you to God, which means He bore that vengeance, even those who hated Him. Obviously all sinners, as we just pointed out, even people that said crucify Him on the day of Pentecost were gladly receiving the reconciliation, the news of reconciliation of the Savior that they pierced, they crucified. They were raging against, they were upset with and mad, and now they find themselves what? Reconciled. Why? That He may present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable. Do you understand the sight of God is so pure, so holy, so righteous, that to stand before a holy God without reconciliation, without redemption, without the clothing and the garments of salvation in Isaiah 61, is to be consumed in a moment? But Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God, to remove that vengeance on you, so that you would escape that coming day of vengeance, which is for what kind of person? The meek. Isn't that the message? The gospel is for the meek that receive it, that rest, that embrace, that love it, that rest in this message of the coming prophet, priest, and king. But furthermore, this meekness is not just defined as a submission, a submission we don't see here, but also a kind of humility that Jesus confronts in those that should have known, Matthew 18. The very close followers of Jesus Christ in Matthew 18, Jesus tells them what the kingdom is characterized by, the kind of meekness or humility that's necessary to receive the gospel. Because Jesus came to preach the gospel to the meek, to the poor. And so He Himself makes this point clear in chapter 18, verse 1, where He says, at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto Him and set Him in the midst of them. And He said, Verily I say unto you, except you be converted, you turn and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. What does that mean? Verse 4, Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus answers a question about greatness by taking a child and putting it in front of them as an illustration of the character of the kingdom called humility, lowliness, meekness. Now rest assured, when the disciples asked this question, they all meant, I am the greatest and I want to be the greatest, right? When two siblings come to Mom and Dad and say, Dad, maybe two brothers, Dad, who is the fastest? Dad, who is the strongest? Dad, who can throw it the furthest? Dad, who can shoot the best? Rest assured, they both think it is I, right? The disciples are asking the question not because Peter's going to say, well, I think it's John. No, Peter says, I think it's me. So all of them are striving together, asking the question because they think they are the greatest. That's not meekness. Now here's an encouragement. If you struggle with meekness, you find the men closest to Jesus did also. They did also. Now Jesus' answer is with an illustration of a little child, which is to illustrate humility as a little child. So we have to ask the question, what does it mean to be like a little child? Because if you're not in spirit, if you're not, Jesus said, you don't get into the kingdom. Now he told Nicodemus the same thing in so many words in chapter 3, verse 5 of the Gospel of John. Nicodemus, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That's not two different kingdoms. That's the same one, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, same kingdom. How do you get in? A new birth that prepares you for conversion through means of lowliness, humility, poverty of spirit. Jesus said, Matthew 5, 3, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs...we could turn that to first person...yours is the kingdom of heaven. It's yours. Who? Who? The poor. Not materially there. spiritually poor. So what does it mean to be like a little child? Because I certainly want to be one. This is an occasion where you don't want to grow up here. He doesn't say, unless you become like that big 18-year-old child, big as in growing taller. No, that's another look altogether, see? But as a little child. So let's ask the question. First, a little child is totally dependent. Are you dependent on the gospel? If you are, that's meekness. No, I don't mean, yeah, that day I was baptized. No, right now. Are you still dependent? He didn't say, when you move from little child to, you know, this age and you get to an adult. No, little children always. A little child is always what? Dependent. Dependent, dependent. Their whole existence is dependent on the parents. Is your whole existence dependent on the gospel? It should be. That's not just a past message that you put in your pocket and you take off and kind of run the race yourself. It's a message of fullness. that keeps coming to little children who are part of the Kingdom because they've had a new birth that brought them in the presence of the fullness of Christ and so they become dependent. Now the disciples are struggling with that dependence thing right now. They're a bit proud. But when the Holy Ghost comes and anoints them because of the anointing of this man at the Day of Pentecost, which is a parallel with Jubilee. which is spoken of in Isaiah 61, the acceptable year, is a reference to that 50th year when all the prisoners, all the captives were let go free, they got their property back, and it was sounded with a gospel horn, so to speak. The trumpet sounded, it was the distinctive sound of jubilee, and everybody went free. Pentecost is the 50th day after Passover. Pentecost is in days what jubilee was years. And when the gospel trumpet sounded by these very men, people started submitting. They got real childlike. And they rested in the gospel. Have you rested in it? And are you resting in it? It's a total dependence. But furthermore, it is a helplessness in yourself. Now sometimes for a parent, you don't want that to last too long because it gets really burdensome. I mean, every word out of the little child is, mommy, can you put my clothes on? Mommy, I'm hungry. Mommy, I'm thirsty. Mommy, change my diaper. Mommy, put my shoes on. Mommy, tie my shoes. And you're thinking, when is dad going to get home to do this? Mommy, carry me. And then sometimes they get to be older and they still want dad to carry them. It's like, my back can't do it anymore. And you're thinking, oh, the day when they can tie their shoes. But the gospel means you don't ever, you don't ever tie your shoes spiritually. You stay helpless. You stay that way, spiritually, helpless, like babes, like little children who are helpless. So the gospel is not God helps those that can help themselves spiritually, or God helps part of the way and you help the other part of the way. It is completely God. That's why it requires...that's why Jesus said, you don't get into it without this meekness because you've got to become helpless again and again and again. I ask you, young people, are you helpless like that? Now, I don't mean by that you don't work and you depend on your parents when you get 52 and they still feed you and all that. We're talking about an attitude of the soul that characterizes the kingdom, that is a helplessness before God, says, if I'm saved on that future day, if I appear in His sight, holy, unblameable, and unapprovable, it is Christ alone, it's His fullness. Because of His fullness have we received grace for grace. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And you're complete in Him. You're not halfway in a halfway house. You're complete because He's full and therefore you're helpless before Jesus. Are you helpless? Have you come to the place of helplessness to Him? Now that helplessness means you go to work, you study for school. You work at the house, you do. But it's a spiritual kind of helplessness before God that receives and embraces His help like a child. Next, little child is needy. Now that sounds like the same as helpless, but it's not. It's that time where mom says, you know what, big sister, you go help the little child. And the big sister comes back and says, couldn't do it, mom. Why? He said, he needs you. He needs you to do it. You can do it. No, no, he needs you. Neediness is not just needing somebody to tie your shoe. I need the person. I need the mom here. I don't want sister to tie my shoes. I want mom. So there's a neediness. And right now the disciples really don't need Jesus that much, do they? I mean, they do and they love him, They really just want to use Jesus to get to this greatness where everybody kind of serves them, they subjugate everybody in the kingdom, and they're on top. But when they're changed at Pentecost, what happens? The Holy Spirit brings them low, they get great in their lowliness, and now Jesus shines as the Great One through their lowliness, their helplessness, their dependency, and their neediness. And now through that, they're serving people rather than getting served. Do you see how key that is to a Christian? If you're going to serve one another, you've got to be meek and lowly because you're just going to be mad at everybody because they're not serving you. Don't these people know my needs?" is the kind of attitude we have at times, and that was the attitude of these disciples because they wanted to be great in a way that was not great, rather than be great in a way that was truly great, which is to be low, dependent, needy. It's needing the person of Jesus. It's needing Him. No one else will do. No other man can do. No person, no government. No one will work but Jesus, the lover of my soul. But then a little child has great confidence, probably too much confidence in dad. It's like, well, wait till this tight figures out. I'm just not as strong as he thinks I am. But in Jesus, you can't be overconfident. There's this kind of joyful confidence of a little child to be carried by dad. They just think he could never drop me. He could never. He's just so strong. Jesus says we've got to become like these little children. The very gospel in Isaiah 40 that we saw when the glory of the Lord is revealed and all flesh shall see it together, and then they behold their God in verse 10, what do they see? God coming with a reward, with a work, with a rule. Who is God working, rewarding, and ruling for? the ones that get fed by Him, that get gathered by Him, that get carried by Him, that get led by Him. Because He will feed His flock like a shepherd, He will gather the young, He will carry them in His bosom, and He will gently lead those with young. Meekness then is being fed, gathered, carried, and led. Proud people says, nobody's going to feed me. Maybe another man, but not God. Proud people say, nobody's going to carry me. Nobody's going to gather me." And all men, but in their pride, just lead themselves, or they are led by other men, which is the leading of men and not of God. There is a confidence a little child has in its parents, and Jesus says, this is the confidence, the boldness we have in Christ because He gave Himself for us. Are you confident in Christ or yourself? Paul said, I have no confidence in the flesh. Though there was a cause for that confidence in his old life. He threw away his confidence in himself because he found a confidence in the death of Christ for him and he became like a little child. And Paul was one of those great ones of the kingdom, wasn't he? Along with John the Baptist, along with many people and Christians today who have found this kind of greatness through lowliness, meekness and poverty. Now what is the common factor in every expression of childlikeness that we just mentioned? Is it not asking? Is that not what the child has done in every situation? If he's dependent, he asks. If he's needy, he's asked. If he's helpless, he's asked. If he's confident, he's asking for the dad to do things in which he's placed that confidence in. What is the expression of all the expressions that we can point to legitimately in the Bible, which is probably the most focal expression of your meekness today? Is it not prayer? Does that not express your need So if you want just a quick spiritual test on your meekness this past week, you just go and ask yourself, what was my prayer life? Now, beloved, that doesn't mean you've never been meek or that you're not meek at all. It's just a current spiritual test on your meekness. Because if you didn't ask your dad, what does that mean? Well, you did it. You just got the job done. It's not that asking changes what you did, right? You still got to get the job done. It changes the attitude and the spirit in which you're going out. It changes the attitude from a me first kind of person in my work, and everybody's serving me, to a me last person, like Jesus. Because Jesus is actually serving me. And that's what he said, isn't it? In the context of greatness. For I came not to be served or ministered to, but to minister or serve, and to give my life a ransom for many. This attitude of meekness is purchased for those that will be brought into the kingdom. So the gospel itself is designed for a certain kind of person that Jesus didn't single out, He told the gospel to everybody He came to, but the ones that were low and meek and childlike and converted, they came, they rested, they depended, they needed, they were helpless. And the book of Hebrews tells us that, doesn't it? It says, seeing we have a high priest that has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. How can you possibly do that? With all the rage and the turmoil and the crisis in our current day, just hold fast, hold on. Four, that's a signal that means I'm about to tell you how. For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but within all points tempted as we are." That's the first reason you can hold on because you don't have an Ivy League prophet, you've got a priest, a prophet, a king who has been through every conceivable trial, just like you in all points, yet without sin. So don't say he doesn't know. You say, well, he knows his God. But don't say he doesn't know your pain. Oh, he knows more than you will ever experience, beloved. So much more. How do you hold on? You got this high priest. He's in the heavens, but he passed through suffering. He became perfect, complete as your high priest because he suffered for you. Here's how you hold on to. You hold on with prayer. Let us therefore come boldly, confidently to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find help, or grace rather, to do what? To help in time of need. Who's the gospel for? Helpless people. Where do they find their help? The throne of grace. What more encouragement could you have from a Savior who says, I want you to come to me? I want you to come and ask. I want you to come to me. You hold on by me holding to you, and I'm holding to you through your prayer. And so come confidently like a child would come to his dad and just know he's got the strength and know he's willing, because a good dad is willing to help. You may say, I'm willing, but I don't have the resources. I'm willing, I don't have the cash. I'm willing, I don't have the influence. I'm willing, but I don't have the strength. But Christ is willing, able, ready, powerful, resourceful, grace, mercy, everything for the helpless. So that when you get the help, you get the mercy, you get the grace, you get carried, you get fed, what happens? The power and the sufficiency and the fullness of the Savior gets honored. It gets honored. We don't get honored. We get honor through Him, but He gets the honor. And in verse 3 of our text, that's what God is after, isn't it? That He might be glorified. That's why it's for meek people, that's why He changes the heart and brings meekness because He is after glory and trees of righteousness who rest in, find their strength in, not in themselves but in the very message of this great, great Redeemer. Not only does He come to preach to the meek, He comes to heal the brokenhearted. I mean, before we even talk about that, it just sounds good, doesn't it? Just heal the brokenhearted. It's used in Isaiah 1, 6 like a surgeon who wraps a wound. Or Hosea 6, 1, God has torn, He has smitten, He will heal, He will bind. You see, the surgeon that's going to bind and heal, he must first use what? A scalpel. You see, so many people today want a gospel without a scalpel. You say, well, I'd like a gospel like that. But the scalpel of the surgeon is good. You go to a doctor and say, I got this big growth on my arm here. And if the surgeon thinks, well, you know, I probably should use a scalpel, just cut that thing out. But they don't want that, so I'm just going to give them a kind of good tidings, a good news. We're just going to leave that there, put a topical solution on it, take a little medicine, go on your way. That is not the healing that God comes to give. He comes to heal the brokenhearted who are broken and crushed over sin. A gospel without sin associated with it, meaning a remedy for sin, is a gospel without Christ. So what does an American culture do to pacify the conscience and to try to deal with guilt? They redefine sin, they change laws so that people can go out in public and not feel so bad about their sin. That's what's happening in our culture, just a constant changing, changing, changing because I want approval for what I'm doing so my conscience will quit alarming me that this is wrong. Even the natural conscience is a God-given gift to alarm us to say, something is not right about my behavior here. So what do you do? You got to turn off the alarm, take out the battery, or change the very laws that are producing this pain. So everybody's got to Got to say them instead of he or her, or got to acknowledge a certain lifestyle because people want to feel good. And it doesn't help the problem, it destroys the conscience and just takes them further on the pathway of sin beloved. A broken heart is not in our culture as we say this intense pain of the chest and the stomach over broken relationships. It can be that. But Jesus didn't come first to restore your family relationship. It's a vertical relationship He's after. Then the horizontal is worked out after that. Without this way relationship, this doesn't ever happen. There's no way to deal with it. There's no way to be reconciled. And so a brokenheartedness is a broken over sin and the Messiah came to heal that. Not just by preaching, but by dying. Look at David in Psalm 32 where he's dealing with guilt and brokenness. And the way he deals with that guilt and gets healing is confession. So what do we do with a broken heart that acknowledges that there's something wrong in my life? Confession to God. Acknowledgement brings the healing. Psalm 32, David says in verse 1, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Now there's some parallelisms here. The man whose transgression is forgiven is the man, in verse 2, who the Lord does not impute sin. The man, in verse 1, whose sin is covered is the man, in verse 2, or the woman or the child, whose spirit is no deceit. In other words, when sin is covered, they don't cover up, which is exactly what David did in verse two, when I kept silence. There's a big cover up. How do you deal with guilt and brokenheartedness? Do you listen to the healing message of the world? It says, are you in broken relationships? Can you not deal with your job professionally? Are you downcast and depressed? And all these lists of things and they say, we've got healing for you and it has nothing to do with Jesus. They're either going to patch it with a band-aid, they're going to put the scalp in their pocket, and they're going to give a kind of topical solution that only is peace, peace, which is no peace because they won't dig down to the root of what's happening. So David is in a cover-up. He says, in verse 3 rather, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Ever felt like that? Guilt can produce that. He felt like his bones, his whole internal system was just waxing old, decaying. He felt it. When he would not say something, he felt the pressure and the oppression of guilt because we're going to see that sin was involved here. There's no question what it was, he tells us. And he was roaring, the word can mean like a roaring lion, it's used that way in the Psalms. but it can be a roaring in the pit of your stomach. That's that broken feeling, that feeling like I can't breathe. I'm just sick. I'm just down. I don't know what's happening to me. Why is this happening? Because you kept silent. What was going on? For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. The hand of God was on him in a way that it was producing guilt, but he was keeping silent about his guilt. He wasn't experiencing the healing. because he wasn't using the means to that healing. Now if he had gotten a hold of some counselors today, they would have just covered up, covered up, and said, the growth on your arm is because of your parents, it's because of your children, it's because of the government, it's because of your boss, it's somebody, but it ain't you, it's not you. Because if you say it's you, that produces more guilt, right? You can't tell them it's really them. You've got to blame it on somebody else. But what does that do with guilt? It just pacifies it in the short term for the Christian in particular. So God's hand was heavy upon him and my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Moisture can also be strength. He just had no strength. He didn't want to do anything. He didn't feel like doing anything. He didn't want to sit here. I just feel miserable. Do you feel miserable? Are things really not going well in relationships? Parent to child, child to parent, work, wherever. It just seems like nothing's going right. Could it be that it's something other than everybody else that's causing the problem? Could it be that God has a healing for you through the gospel that is going to heal your brokenheartedness through verse five? I acknowledge my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not covered up, hid. Who is the man that's blessed, whose iniquities are not imputed to them, but imputed to Christ? It's the man, the woman, the child, the boy or girl that confesses and acknowledges, I've sinned against heaven and against thy sight. Or as Psalm 38 says, I was sorrowful for it. God, I'm sorry. I hate it. I am sorry. Healed. Forgiven. Because he confessed his transgressions unto the Lord. And what happened? You forgave the iniquity of my sin. What, just certain sins? No, no. The iniquity of whatever...it doesn't even tell us because confession, acknowledgment, God is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. What does he cleanse with? Does He bring the gospel and He has another cleansing potion He's going to pour out of heaven called something else, like you need to work for it? No, it's the gospel, it's Jesus, it's His blood, it's His purity. He applies the same message. But don't go to another message. It's the gospel, it's the cleansing blood of Christ, and He receives by faith this cleansing through what? Confession, acknowledgement, sorrow. For the sorrow of the world worketh death. But godly sorrow worketh repentance unto," what? Salvation. Godly sorrow. How does David get healing? How will you get healing? Again and again. It's not a one-time brokenness. See, we are still sinners. We still struggle with sin. How are you going to get that healing in your marriage? I usually go to a marriage conference. Okay, fine. But do you confess and acknowledge and repent? I haven't tried that one yet. Well, the guilt, where does the guilt go? I push it down. I try to give it to my wife. I just say, hey, that's your fault. Maybe she tries to give it to you. No, we give it to Christ. We give it to Him and He forgives us. but it comes through acknowledging and confession. It's the only way it comes. So, oh beloved, if you experience this healing, do you keep experiencing it? It's a wonderful thing. Guilt is a terrible thing. It just feels miserable. I know you felt guilty before. No matter where you are with the Lord, you felt it. It just feels painful. And usually, when you're not thinking gospel, centered gospel, oriented forgiveness, you know what you do? You just get mad at the person that pointed it out. You doctors are all, I can't stand you trying to tell me there's a growth in my arm. I'm going somewhere else. Mom and dad, you're just always telling me what's wrong, telling, telling. Maybe they're overboard. Maybe they got it right. These children, they just never get anything right. The children, they're all my problems. See, what do we do with guilt? We just try to shuffle it to somebody else. It doesn't mean that everybody's not guilty. It just means everybody in the family, everybody in the church who's involved and is guilty needs to own it, needs to confess it, needs to come clean, needs to not hide it. Who is the person that the Lord will not impute iniquity and charge them with it, but imputes righteousness? The person who's confessing and acknowledging sin. You just listen. Listen in society, beloved. That's the one thing that's absent. Every time a professional gets on the airwaves or the TV and they're going to discuss a problem, a terrible problem of evil, I don't ever hear the word sin. Be careful with that because we get duped into that way of thinking. It's a problem with Islam. It's a problem with sin. If you cannot and will not identify the problem, then the remedy of the gospel is not going to work because it's not there. It's just a good feeling kind of message that just doesn't have any impact on my guilt. And so we as the church need to understand that the healing for broken-hearted people is with a gospel that first says, we're sinners. You've got to start there because the Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment. So if you're not convinced of sin, you don't believe on Him, Jesus says, because sin and that acknowledgment and confession according to David, according to Isaiah 61, according to Jesus, is the pathway of forgiveness. The guilt's lifted. It doesn't go into space. It doesn't go into the carpet. It goes squarely on the shoulders of a Savior that loved you and gave Himself for you. Why wouldn't you take it there? Are we so insane? Are we so in the dark, saying, I'm going to keep this, I'm so mad, I'm so mad, I don't believe. Trust Him and take it to Him. He wants you to take it to Him. He said, come. That's an invitation. That's a declaration. That's a proclamation of this Messiah. Come to me. He'll take the guilt, He's shouldered it on Calvary. He'll purify you, He'll cleanse you, He'll remove the guilt. And even if the circumstances don't change for which the sin brought about, and it brings it, and they're still there, you can still face them in the strength of the Savior who loved you and gave Himself for you. If you say, I don't know that I'm meek, I struggle with meekness. I wonder if I've ever been humble. Then this is deceptible year of the Lord. Confess Him, acknowledge Him, trust Him and give your guilt to Him because Jesus paid it all. He purchased it, He took it, He can shoulder it, He did it on behalf of His beloved. Let's pray.