Sermon26-4 Is56 Guide

Isaiah 56:1-8 theme verse Isaiah 56:1,2

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this fourth Sunday of the Advent, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. During last three week of the Advent, we looked at the kingdom which Messiah inaugurated is the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy, yet this week, we would like to meditate on the kingdom of Messiah is also the kingdom of love together.

1)    To summarize today’s text of Isaiah 56:1-8 first: In verses 1-2, God the LORD declares that since His salvation is near and His righteousness will be revealed, He urges to uphold justice and practice righteousness. And then He continues to talk that this kind of life involves keeping the Sabbath holy and refraining from evil, and those who live this life will be blessed. Then, in verses 3-5, God says that even those who were previously excluded from the assembly of Israel, I mean, eunuchs and foreigners, can now join in God the LORD and enter His eternal kingdom. And finally, in verses 6-8, to elaborate it further, those who join in the LORD God, serve and love Him, become His servants, keep the Sabbath, and uphold His covenant, will be led to God's holy mountain, where their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted and He will give them joy in the house of prayer of God.

2)    Among today's passage, we would like to reflect more deeply on few key points to learn few lessons with you. First, in verse 2, God instructs His people to observe the Sabbath and refrain from doing evil. Here, observing the Sabbath refers to the first four commandments on the first tablet of the Ten Commandments to love God. This commandment of loving God is composed of acknowledgement of the LORD God as Only One True God, not making idols of Him, in order words, to have a sound and correct knowledge of God, and hallowing His name, and observing the Sabbath, I mean, fearing God or worshipping Him alone. This can be understood as maintaining a right relationship with God. And then refraining from doing evil means acknowledging God as the standard of all good and evil, hating everything that God hates, and loving and doing everything that God declares to be good. In the Old Testament, God’s commandments of doing good and evil were declared in the Ten Commandments. So, the first four commandments on the first tablet concern loving God, in other words, worshipping Him, while the commandments from the fifth to the tenth on the second tablet concern loving our neighbors. Therefore, observing the Sabbath and refraining from doing evil of today's passage, can be understood as living according to the will of God in His Ten Commandments.

3)    Then, we can know that verse 2, "keeping the Sabbath and doing good," is related to verse 1, "maintaining justice and doing righteousness." Here, the word "righteousness" in verse 1, in Hebrew צְדָקָה (tṣeḏā·qāh), refers to moral righteousness which does not have sin, and relational righteous, which mean a right relationship with God and with our neighbors. In this sense, we can know that the standard of righteousness comes only from God, and God demands us to live in accordance with His holiness. So this righteousness is given by God through faith in Christ, and as a result of this righteousness, God then demands us to love our neighbors. And then here, "justice," in Hebrew מִשְׁפָּט, (mishpat), means fairness and uprightness. This is one of God's attributes so that God specifically demands that rulers exercise such fair judgment. Therefore, God wants us to live righteously and justly as the Ten Commandments as two commandments to love God and love our neighbor. And since love for God will be manifested in worshipping God, and love for neighbor means not doing evil to our neighbors, in other words, not harming the dignity of their life, respecting their family, possessions, and honor, and not coveting them, we can know that these kinds of life can be culminated in a life that hates everything that the One who is worshipped dislikes.

But then, this passage does not say that we need to become righteous before we receive salvation from God. The overall structure and message of the Book of Isaiah suggest the opposite. And examining the cause and effect in today's passage, it says that justice and righteousness should be practiced because "God's salvation is near." In other words, obedience should be practiced as a response to salvation; in other words, the reason why we human beings should live righteous lives is precisely because of God's gracious work of salvation.

4)    And thirdly,God speaks in verse 3 about those who were excluded from the assembly of Israel, I mean, "eunuchs" and "foreigners", right after declaring to practice God's justice and righteousness in verses 1-2. In Deuteronomy 23:1-8, it is said that eunuchs who could not have children, illegitimate children born outside of legal marriage, and the foreigners such as Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites who did not help the Israelites when they came out of Egypt and entered the land of Canaan, were not allowed to enter the assembly of Israel. This was not a message of discrimination against the weak or foreigners, but rather a warning against unfruitful lives and a lesson to care for those who are strangers in a foreign land.

Then, the reason why God speak that those who join in the LORD among eunuchs and foreigners will be blessed is not because the Jews who returned from Babylonian captivity, I mean, God’s remnant, failed to live according to God's will, I mean, a righteous and just life so that God is giving this commandments to the foreigners, intending to fulfill His will through them.  I mean, when Abraham, the ancestor of the Israelites, was called from Ur of the Chaldeans, as God promised him that if he obeyed God's word, leaving his homeland and his father's house, and went to the land God would show him, God would make him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, and make him a blessing, so that through him God will bless all the families of the earth, Israel was called to be an instrument of blessings of God for all the families of the earth. Therefore, this passage means that when the Messiah comes, God's grace will flow to all nations, that is, to those who have not yet been included in the assembly of Israel. For this purpose, God chose Israel and gave them all the blessings, not to prevent all the nations of the world from entering His holy mountain, but to bring them in. In that purpose God set Israel apart from the world to prevent them from being contaminated by the world and thus losing the ability to draw the world to God's blessings. However, Israel mistakenly believed that this separation was to keep God and His blessings for themselves alone so that they lost everything, and even why Jesus rebuked them for this in Matthew 21:13.

5)    By the way, today’s text says that these foreigners are characterized by three behaviors, I mean: First, they "joined themselves to the LORD" (verse 3) and in verse 6, this union is characterized by three infinitives: "serving the LORD," "loving His name," and "becoming His servants." Secondly, they demonstrate the sincerity of their relationship with God by observing the Sabbath, reminding themselves that all their time is given by God. And finally, they are described as those who strive to keep the "covenant" that the Jews ultimately failed to keep.

And to these people, it is said that God offers the following benefits: First, God will "lead" them to His holy mountain (2:3, 11:9, 25:6, 57:13, 65:11, 65:25, 66:20). Secondly, they would have the privilege of having their sins atoned through their burnt offerings and sacrifices, and of approaching God directly through prayer. This was something that Solomon had long envisioned, as he prayed in 1 Kings 8:41-43, “Even the foreigner who is not of your people Israel, but comes from a distant land because of your name—for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple that I have built bears your Name.” And also this was the prophecy that Malachi said in Malachi 1:11, “For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of hosts. And finally, God promises that He will give them joy.

6)    And also, God said God will lead them in the house of prayer for all nations. Here the word "prayer" which is the Hebrew word תְּפִלָּה (tep̄il·lāh), can mean 1) intercessory prayer, or 2) supplication, or also 3) in a broader sense, ”hymn" or "sacred song." Therefore, this passage can be understood that a "house of prayer” can mean a "house of praise and worship." In that sense, this passage means that God leads the Foreigners who love Him, serve Him, and are united with Him, into His temple so that they can experience joy through worshipping Him.

7)    And, today’s text clearly states the duty of both Israelites and foreigners, in other words, of all the humanity, in short, to do righteousness. Therefore, to restore the righteousness we lost after the sin in Eden, we must be justified first through faith in Christ Jesus by grace, being clothed with God's righteousness to enter God's kingdom. And then within that kingdom, we have to live righteous lives. In other words, this righteousness must be manifested in all aspects of our lives and relationships. This means revering and worshipping God above all else, and then living in mutual submission with all people, based on reverence for God. I mean, we have to live righteous life in our relationships between spouses, between parents and children, and in our social interactions between superiors and subordinates. In short, we have to live the life of love. As such, love is the principle of governance and life in God's kingdom; therefore, God's kingdom can be described as a kingdom of love where we have to show love for God and for our neighbors. So after righteousness is established through love, peace inevitably follows, and where there is peace, there will be joy. Therefore, righteousness, peace, and joy can be seen as the blessings of God's kingdom of love.

8)    That’s why, after God redeemed the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt and led them to the land of Canaan, He gave them the Ten Commandments—the law of love, encompassing love for God and love for one's neighbor so that they might live holy lives before God, being filled with love. Similarly, that’s why, before His ascension, Jesus, in John 13:35, gave His disciples the commandment to "love one another," saying, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples." Therefore, on this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we await Christmas this coming Thursday, I hope that we, who have received God's gracious calling and become His people, will live the life of love, as we enjoy righteousness, peace, and joy in His Kingdom.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that the kingdom which our Lord, Jesus Christ inaugurated is the kingdom of love through which righteousness is fulfilled, and we can enjoy peace and joy. So, after reflecting our life and meditating on whether we live the life of love, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also, it is said that this life of love comes from the life of worshiping God. So after reviewing our life and checking whether we live the life of love by the power of love of God, hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.