Let me pray for us. We come before you, Heavenly
Father, with your word before us, and we ask that you help us
to see Jesus Christ lifted and glorified.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
pleasing unto you. Amen.
Good morning, everyone. That's a weaker for 11 AM.
What happened? Good morning, everybody.
OK, All right. For those of you who are new, my
name is Sulemani Megadi. I'm one of the pastors here at
the church. This is the fourth Sunday of
Advent. And the call like that we just
said a few moments ago, we prayed, says that we asked God
to stir up his power and with great might to come among us
because we are sorely hindered by our sins.
We want his bountiful grace and mercy to speedily help us and
deliver us. That prayer assumes that we need
help and it asks God to come among us and to deliver us.
But what exactly does that mean necessarily?
What does it mean that we need to be delivered?
What? What are we being delivered from
our sins? Yes, but what does that mean?
And that's what I want to talk about this morning using the
three passages that we read, the Psalm, the passage in Isaiah,
and the gospel. But we're going to spend most of
our time in Isaiah 15-9 found on page 579 in your Bible.
You can follow along if you wish.
Isaiah 59579. Now, I am a fan of space.
It's one of my favorite things that is not in the world.
I love space. I love its vastness, its
mystery, the sheer scale of space.
I love sci-fi and kind of one of those sci-fi nerds.
I love Star Trek and Star Wars. It's amazing.
I love the physics and the math behind what happens in space.
Fascinated by a collapsing star that becomes a singularity and
has such a huge amount of gravitational pull that even
light cannot escape it. That 1.3 million earths by
volume can fit into our sun. And I cannot conceive of that.
I don't know what that means. And our sun is not even the
biggest sun star in the Galaxy. It's kind of pretty average.
I, I, I love space, I really do. And when I think about that,
when I think about space and how huge things are, the moon, the
stars, the heavens, I understand why the psalmist says, O Lord
our governor, how majestic is your name in all the earth,
Because God's creation is glorious.
He has set His Majesty upon above the heavens, and he's done
all these wonderful things. Yet in his infinite wisdom, when
he looks at the vast universe, it's awesomeness.
He turns to us, you and me, and he says, you, you are my
crowning achievement. You are better than all the
stuff that's happening out there.
Wow. He crowns us with glory and
honor. He entrusts dominion of his work
over to us. That's amazing to me.
And if everything had remained perfect as it was intended to
be, no sin, no problems in the world at all, I would be out in
space night right now with my own Starship command,
gallivanting from one Galaxy to the other.
I would be having fun. I still plan to do that in the
new heavens and the new earth. And if you guys can convince my
wife to join me when that happens, that would be great.
But that's not what happened. Things aren't perfect.
Sin and death entered into the world because of our
disobedience. And the majestic work of God has
not been destroyed. There is still goodness and
beauty and truth, but it's been marred, It's been maimed.
And no one but the Lord Himself fully grasps the reach of sin in
our world and the consequences of sin in our world.
But I want to name at least four ways that this beautiful,
perfect world that God created is now marred and broken.
The first one is the creation itself has been subjected to
futility. That's what Paul says in the
book of Romans. Sin and death have bent creation
out of shape such that it no longer functions the way it's
supposed to without resistance. And we feel that resistance at
every turn. I was at a park one time, not in
DC, but I was at a park one time with my wife who were just
walking through. It was a gorgeous day.
And all of a sudden I started coughing and there was like snot
running down my nose. I felt like I was having a
headache. I was like, what in the world is
going on? The trees were trying to kill
me. We had to hightail it out of
them. When we left the park, I was
fine again. Everything was fine.
It was OK. Now, I don't know if that's the
result of sin, but that was definitely uncomfortable.
It felt like a groaning. The ground produces thorn,
thorns, and thistles. Death is woven into how the
natural order operates right now.
Every beast of the earth is naturally afraid of us, so we
are their enemy and creation. Creation groans in ways that we
can't handle. Earthquakes, storms, diseases,
signs that things are not the way that God wants them to be
yet. But sin and death have also
broken every human being from the inside, each of us.
And this is where Isaiah 59 is particularly helpful.
That passage was written in a different setting, but it names
some things that are very familiar to all of us.
In verse 3, the prophet says, For your hands are defiled with
blood and your fingers with iniquity.
Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.
We are unable on our own to live holy and righteous lives because
we've been cut off from the source of holiness and
righteousness himself, God. And so we are slaves.
The sins, impulses and desires, the things that we are supposed
to do, we don't want to do. And we don't do the things that
we're not supposed to do. Oh, that's the that's what we
love to do. And that inner broken nature
shows up in other ways too. So verses 10 and 11 of Isaiah
59. We grope for the wall like the
blind. We grope like those who have no
eyes. We stumble at noon as in the
twilight, among those in full vigor.
We are like dead men. We all growl like bears, We moan
and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there
is none for salvation. But it is far from us.
This is the language of despair, of hopelessness, of
meaninglessness. Yes, sin causes outward
rebellion. Oh, but the things in our hearts
that arise as a result of this fracture in our lives, it breeds
fear and insecurity and numbness and exhaustion of all sorts.
And sin has also soured our relationship with one another,
with other human beings. We were made to love one
another, but we live in distrust, and understandably so,
because we constantly hurt each other.
Sin creeps into every corner of our lives and it incarcerates us
in in these prisons of bitterness and unforgiveness and
wrath and dissensions and jealousy and covetousness and
malice and all sorts of wickedness.
We bite and devour one another, which is precisely what the
enemy of our soul wants. And all of this flows from the
4th and deepest effect of sin. We have been separated from God
Himself. Isaiah 59 verse 2 says verse one
and two say, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it
cannot save, or his ear dull that it cannot hear, but your
iniquities have made a separation between you and your
God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that he
does not hear. We no longer honour God as God.
We do not glorify him or give him thanks.
Instead, we exchange his glory and serve other gods of our own
making. And without God's intervention,
this is the world that we would continue to live in.
A place of endless plans and constant anxiety, of earnest
talk about justice alongside quiet, everyday cruelty.
We try to love our neighbor, yet our hands are still defiled with
iniquity. We speak about truth, yet our
lips learn to twist it. We build systems to uphold
righteousness, then discover how easily it is that we can turn
these systems to serve us instead.
We want to say peace. We want peace, but we don't know
the way of peace. Our education, our influence,
our good intentions, no matter how hard we try, will never heal
the human condition. Every step toward the good bears
the mark of our sin. We are not standing outside the
problem trying to fix it. Humans aren't the solution, we
are the problem. That, my friends, is the state
of the of humanity in the world that we live in.
Isn't that such great news? This is what God wants to save
us from. So Isaiah doesn't leave us
without a solution. In verse 15, the Lord saw it,
and it displeased him that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one
to intercede. Not that no one was praying,
there were people who were doing that, but that nobody was doing
it perfectly in holiness. Nobody was righteous enough,
clean enough, holy enough to deal with sin at its source.
So God does it because He's the only one who can.
He steps in, Isaiah continues. Then his own arm brought him
salvation, and his righteousness upheld him.
He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of
salvation. Yeshua, that's the word there on
his head. He put on garments of vengeance
for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
Them frightened words. God is arming himself for battle
here. So on the one hand, that means
judgement, because justice matters to God.
He will set things right. Righteousness will fool the
earth, and those who refuse to repent will face judgement.
But that's not the whole picture.
God also promises salvation. And so verse 20 he says, and the
Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from
transgression, declares the Lord, there is a Redeemer who is
showing up. Who is this Redeemer?
The book of Isaiah introduces us to someone that he calls the
servant of the Lord. This is somebody that God has
chosen who is obedient, who is faithful, and who brings
salvation through suffering. He bears the iniquities and
transgressions, and of his people, He takes them on himself
and brings them salvation. So Isaiah 59 shows us why the
Servant is needed. Israel's sin problem, our own
sin problem had not been solved. There was king after king after
king, even sons of David who came who could not deal with sin
because they were imperfect. So God declares that there's a
Redeemer coming, and the Redeemer himself speaks in
Isaiah 49. He says, And now the Lord says,
Who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back
to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, For I am
honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my
strength. He says, it is too light a
thing, that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes
of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel.
No, that's not enough. It's too little.
No, I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation
may reach to the end of the earth.
And therein lies the mysterious, wondrous truth of Christmas.
The solution God gives to the sin of the world is not a
sequence of reforms or a moral checklist or a spiritual
technique or a list of rules that if we just follow hard
enough, we'll make everything right.
The solution is a person, a Redeemer, a judge, a savior, a
king, Jesus Christ, God from God, light from light, true God
from true God. Amen.
That's the solution to the problem, and it should help us
breathe very easily. It should make us excited that
that's the solution. And I imagine that when the
people of Israel first heard the promise that Isaiah speaks about
in these chapters, they were probably ecstatic with joy, yes,
eagerly awaiting the arrival of this Yeshua.
Maybe it'll be this year, next year, next year.
Decades pass, centuries even up to 750 years past.
God's people lived in expectation, longing for their
Deliverer, their Yeshua, their salvation to come.
Then at last, God moves. The waiting ends, but not in the
way that the people expect. Keep in mind, the language of
Isaiah 59 is that God is putting on armor for battle.
But he doesn't come with the trumpet blast.
He doesn't come with an army, not even with the public display
of power. He comes silently, quietly, in
the background. Joseph, a devout and righteous
man. He's betrothed to a woman named
Mary, and she's found to be with child before they get married.
And he's a righteous man, so he doesn't want to cause her shame.
He's going to divorce her quietly.
And then an Angel of the Lord tells him in the dream, Joseph,
son of David, don't do this. The child that is being
conceived in Mary's womb is of the Holy Spirit and you are
going to name him Jesus because he will save his people from
their sins. Jesus, God saves That is Isaiah
59 in the flesh. The solution to what is broken.
I'm saying it saying it again is Jesus and will always be Jesus.
And that healing reaches every, everywhere.
The sin has done its damage, so Jesus clothed himself with
righteousness and salvation, and throughout his life he lived
under righteousness. At his first coming, His
judgement is aimed specifically at sin itself, evil and death.
Of course, This is why Paul can say that he who knew no sin,
Jesus, was made to become sin so that we might become the
righteousness of God. All that I have spoken about,
the brokenness of the world, the wickedness it's suffering, Jesus
takes upon himself. He bears the punishment for it,
destroys its power, and in its place he offers true light.
And when he does this, he condemns sin in his flesh.
The fracture between God and humanity is healed.
Those who are truly joined to Jesus Christ have become new
creatures. The old has gone, the new has
come. Not only that, the fracture
between us. Jesus tears down those walls of
hostility, walls of fear and resentment and history and tribe
and place, class and race and ideology.
And he makes one people out of what was divided before.
He addresses the inner brokenness that we carry inside,
the despair, the fear, the captivity and wickedness in our
hearts. He provides healing and meaning
that will be fulfilled when he finally comes and wipes every
tear away from our eyes and undos.
Death and even creation is not left out.
Paul says that the natural world groans waiting to be set free
and it's hope is bound up in the redemption of the children of
God. One day I will be able to walk
into a park and the trees won't try to kill me.
That's amazing. Jesus is not a partial fix to
sin and evil. He is God's whole
all-encompassing answer to it. I know that almost every sermon
I've preached in the last few months has used examples from
Nigeria. This is the last time this year.
I promise, my country suffers from corruption at every level.
Is anybody here familiar with the with the, with the phrase
419? You are the blessed few.
OK, there's some of you who get it.
You are the blessed few. 419 is taken from our Criminal Code and
it's now globally recognized as shorthand for scams.
If you ever get an e-mail from a Nigerian Prince, don't read it.
Don't even open it. Things have grown so desperate
that a common saying among the everyday person is it to the
leaders. Look, we don't even mind if you
steal. Oh, please, go ahead and steal
the money. Just give us the natural, basic
things. Give us water, give us food,
give us power. That's all we want.
That's it's so bad that it's like, yeah, go ahead and steal,
but just give us the basic necessities, how far we have
sunk in human dignity. Jobs are scarce.
Food is expensive and often hard to find.
Vast numbers of people live in grinding poverty.
And you. Add to that the terrorism in the
north and you and the banditry and kidnapping in the South and
the original killings throughout the country, it's like leaving
your house is an act of faith. It is.
There are multiple fronts for for for practicing your faith,
unsafe roads, harassment by security forces that are meant
to protect you, and of course there's constant threat of
militant attacks, especially in a time like this during the
Christmas holiday season when sectarian violence is very, very
possible. Healthcare weak and you
constantly hear people spending hours, myself as well talking
about what the solution is. We need better systems,
policies, reforms, all good things.
And we always end with, oh, we wish we had people of integrity
and power. And that's right.
And that's true. But the problem in my country
and also here is that not the solution is not wrapped up in
any human being. There is no one who can bear the
weight of this problem except Jesus.
Only Jesus. This last Sunday of Advent
should remind us that Jesus is not one solution among many, nor
is he just part of the solution. He is the solution.
While policies can restrain evil, they cannot heal the
heart. Systems can organize life, but
they cannot make it. New methods can improve
outcomes, but they cannot save. And even Christian ethics,
truth, justice, compassion, they cannot stand on their own.
The moment you sever virtue from Jesus, it slowly becomes
something else, something more sinful.
We see this again and again. You cannot build a Kingdom out
of good things while rejecting the good king of the Kingdom.
Just not possible. And we should breathe a sigh of
relief that we are not the saviors we were never meant to
be, that only Jesus saves. What does that mean for us?
I think the most important thing for all of us is that it means
we must repent. If you have not surrendered your
loyalty completely to King Jesus, then you're still bound
up in your sins. You're still going to continue
groping for meaning, for salvation, for freedom, for
hope. You're going to grope in areas
that will never satisfy or provided.
And Advent says to you, the Redeemer is coming, so turn from
your sins and receive the light of salvation.
But even if you are a believer, you are surrendered to Jesus.
You've embraced his salvation and fully who he is.
You must continue to repent. In fact, for a believer,
repentance must be a daily habit.
It must be a path of life. We must come to Jesus every day
and say, I have sinned against you.
I have murdered with my anger. I've committed adultery with my
eyes, with my heart. I've not kept my promises to you
or to other people. I've sought vengeance for my
enemies rather than love them and let you handle their
justice. I've not given to the needy.
I've not fasted and prayed as you desire of me.
I've not forgiven others as you have forgiven me.
I have been anxious and worried over everything and not trusted
in your goodness to provide. I've not treated others as I
would have them have them treat me.
I've preached, taught, believed false doctrines, and this is my
house on sin rather than the solid word and work of Christ.
I have not loved you with my whole heart, and I have not
loved my neighbors as myself. Friends, this great salvation
means that we must continually repent, and then we must live
like we have repented. God puts on righteousness and
salvation. Jesus does the same thing.
He puts on righteousness and salvation.
And then Paul calls us to do the same thing in Ephesians chapter
6. The full armor of God, the
righteousness, the salvation, the belt of truth, the shield,
the faith, the sword of the Spirit, the shoes of the gospel
of peace. With prayer, we carry these
things with us. We bring this armor to bear on
every single daily task, whether it's I'm writing an article, I
am writing an e-mail. Is it submitted to the truth and
righteousness of God? As I'm wrestling with this
decision, does it come from faith or something else?
As I'm entering this particularly difficult
conversation with my family or with my friends, am I coming in
with the gospel of peace or am I coming there to dominate?
As I interact with friends and neighbors, do I raise up faith
just so I can refuse anything that breeds lies of suspicion
and contempt? When sin tries to hinder my walk
with Jesus, am I standing firm with the Word of God and saying
no? Am I using the armor daily to
love God and to love my neighbor as myself?
This is where Advent wants us to be.
We began by praying. Stir up your power, O Lord, with
great might come among us. Jesus is the answer to that
prayer. He has come among us, and in him
and through him his power is stirred up within us.
The Lord who holds galaxies together, who set stars in their
courses, and measures the universe without any strain at
all, He does not remain distant. He comes.
He enters into the smallness of our world, the depth of our sin.
He takes on flesh, He bears what we cannot, and he redeems us.
Friends, Jesus saves and only Jesus saves.
Let's pray. You have presented us, Father,
with a great salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ.
May we come before you in full repentance daily to surrender to
Him, to receive from His hand the salvation that He promises,
so that you are glorified, and your salvation is extended
throughout all the earth. In the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.