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You'd like to stand with me for the reading of God's word. We're in song or sorry, Isaiah 54 on page 730 in the Bibles in the chairs. Sing, O barren one who did not bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud you who have not been in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your habitation be stretched out. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. Fear not. For you will not be ashamed. Be not confounded. For you will not be disgraced. For you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit. Like a wife of youth when she is cast off says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.  This is like the days of Noah to me, as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth. So I have swore that I will not be angry with you. and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you. And my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you."  This is the word of the Lord. Well, good morning, Faith Church. ah It's good to be with you all. uh I do always enjoy and  privilege the opportunity to  bring God's word to  us, his people. And then there are some sermons that I get really excited about and passages that I get to preach to where there's a little bit of extra something special. And I kind of feel that way about our passage this morning in Isaiah chapter 54. So I'd invite you to turn there. And as you turn there, I want to tell you a little bit of a story. My heart was warmed to hear this story this week. It's a true story of a man named Ed Bambus. He's an 88-year-old Army veteran, lives in Detroit, and his story came to light this week. I found it online because of the circumstances of his life. He had worked until he retired for General Motors. He had worked for General Motors until he retired in 1999. But then in 2012, When General Motors went bankrupt, he lost his pension, lost his health coverage and everything. His wife was very sick at the time, and so they had to sell the house, sell their property, to be able to pay for her medical expenses. And she died about seven years ago, and he found himself with over $250,000 of medical debt. So  his story came to light because he was still, as an 88-year-old, working at Meyer as a  grocery store clerk. Five days a week, eight hours a day, at 88 years old. And so,  the people  of the internet,  there was a GoFundMe started for him, and in four days, people were warmed by his story, were moved to action, and they donated over $1.7 million  to pay off his medical debt and help him fully retire. Which is just like a story that we're all kind of open to this time of year. It's a story that warms my heart.  If you're sitting there and you're not warm, then maybe you're the real Scrooge here. Right? Only a Scrooge could look at that story, hear that story and be like, ah, I don't care about that. No, it's truly inspiring. The way he was faithful to his wife, that he did whatever he had to do, and that now people around him and around the world have helped to  love him in this way. You know, we yearn for stories like this. Why is that? We love stories of love. We love seeing the best in people. We know that there's brokenness  and darkness in this world and we rejoice when we get to see the light breaking through the darkness. In this Advent season, we've been taking time to unpack a few of Isaiah's Old Testament prophecies  that have pointed toward the coming Messiah and how we can celebrate knowing that Jesus, looking back,  was that promised Messiah, that Jesus born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. And in Jesus, we don't just have a good example of someone who did good things and taught memorable stories. In Jesus, we have the light of the world and the love of God come to earth. The story of Christmas that we remember, sing about, and celebrate is the story that in Jesus, we have found hope and peace, joy, and love. And it's that last word there, love. that we're focusing on this week in the passage of Isaiah 54. But if there's one thing I want us all to remember, it's this.  Let the Lord's covenantal love  redefine you. I'll say it again.  Let the Lord's covenantal love redefine you. And we're gonna see that his love does in fact do that for his people. His love redefines. his people in four ways. But before we get there, just a brief couple words about the context of where we are. God,  Yahweh, made a covenant with his people through Abraham, right? Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob. He reaffirmed his covenant to his people  after he delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. He brought them into the promised land and he renewed this covenant with them. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, you can read about all the blessings and the curses that come with this covenant that God made with his people, Israel. And that if they were to follow him, if they were to worship him,  obey his commandments, then he would protect them, he would keep them, he would lead them to prosperity, he would be their God, they would be his people. But, they did not keep their end of the bargain, if they did not listen to the words of the Lord, if they did not obey, if they turned instead to wickedness and idolatry, then there would be  the curses  of the covenant. And if you're familiar at all with Israel's history, we know more or less how that went, right? There were some good years in there, but not very many of them, right? Because through the judges and even through the kings, we saw this cycle of wickedness and rebellion where they did not worship the Lord their God as they were supposed to. There was about 400 years from the death of Solomon, right? Kind of the last, one of the last good kings when then there was the divided kingdom. 400 years from that time, death of Solomon until the exile. when  God's wrath poured out on his people, said, all right, you're gonna be taken away by Babylon. Isaiah's actually written about 100 years before the exile, but in context, what we're looking at is actually for his people  after the exile. So Isaiah chapter 54, kids, you can help me with this, comes after chapter.  53, that's right, and which comes after chapter 52. All right, you guys are awake and paying attention, that's good. So chapter 52 kind of opens this section in Isaiah, of which 54 is a part, where there is this redemption and deliverance that has been promised to the people of God. That's Isaiah 52. In Isaiah 53, we see that the work and redemption, that's coming to his people is not just a restoration of land, it's not just a restoration of wealth, but a restoration of relationship. And that relationship is restored through the work of the suffering servant. Right, that Isaiah 53, commonly a passage we read at Easter time to remind us of what Jesus did on the cross, points us to this work of redemption. And so now here in Isaiah 54, Isaiah turns to address the redeemed ones, those who have been redeemed by that suffering servant. And so that is us, the church, God's people as a whole, not just to Israel, but to all of his people that have been grafted in. And so that's where we're at in Isaiah 54. So  hopefully you have your Bibles open and can follow along with me. If the Lord, if the covenantal love of the Lord redefines us, The first way that it  redefines us is it takes us from being barren to blessed. From barren to blessed, verses one through three. Sing, O barren one, who did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you  who have not been in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent. Let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. In this timeframe, and maybe a little bit less so today,  to be barren, to be without child, to be without a descendant brought shame. We see that in the other situations in the Bible where it describes women who could not have children, whether that was Sarah or Hannah or Rachel or Elizabeth, right? That there was this  shame and hopelessness that  surrounded not being able to have any kids. But now,  Because of the faithfulness of the servant, in chapter 53, which I know we didn't read, but because of that, the children and the descendants of the people of God will be numerous. So, what do you do when you have more people come into town? You make the tent bigger, right? That's what he's talking about in verses two and three, and we know this to be true, right? You guys probably have many, either you're gonna be the one making the house bigger, or you have people coming to your house to make your house— bigger or maybe feel a little bit smaller. But you gotta get out the air mattresses. You gotta unroll the sleeping bags. You gotta set up the card table, unfold the couch, put the space heater out in the shed with the cot for Uncle Jerry or whatever your uncle's name is that is banished to the shed. Right, we know what it means to gather together, to gather everyone. It's like, make it work. We all wanna be together. And so that's what's  being described here for the people of God.  What once was God's people Israel is now being expanded to the world, right? To the Gentiles, to us. And there's echoes  of  this covenant that God made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Looking back at Genesis 28, we hear those echoes. This is  in the situation where Jacob was on the road and he  fell asleep and in a dream he saw this staircase with the angels going up and down. And then it says, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. How is it possible that all the families, every people of the earth can be blessed? It is through the one offspring, Jesus. So how can God's people go from being desolate and barren and cut off to being blessed? It's because of the faithfulness of the servant. And so Isaiah 54 is this song of response. It's a song of praise and joy recognizing the work that God has done through the suffering servant. The covenantal love of the Lord redefines his people. He no longer sees them as barren and he calls them blessed. but it doesn't stop there. In verses four through six, we see that he has redefined us. We are no longer ashamed, but now we are  accepted. No longer ashamed, now accepted. Verse four, fear not, for you will not be ashamed. Be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced. For you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your maker, is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. So during the time of the exile  and for many years before, Israel was living as an ashamed people. Not just because God had removed his presence from them, but because of their idolatry and their iniquity. And so the picture that Isaiah paints here is this picture of a loving husband who by his own grace,  mercy, initiation is taking his unfaithful wife, back into relationship. And this is not described as a divorce. God is not a new husband, but the same husband who,  when the wife was unfaithful and left, he has invited back into relationship. And so he says to be not ashamed. know, be not, it's not just this like internal shame, but even the external way that shame might be cast upon you. Be not abashed. Be not dismayed, be not humiliated. That is the plan for his people, that they will be accepted, no longer be ashamed. And Israel here is described as a widow in this picture, right? Not because God died, know, God actually died or abandoned them completely, but it's the reproach that they had of their former life to be  abandoned because they had forsaken their God. What is clear is that the sins of the nation from its youth, right, even from  the golden calf, which had brought it into this state of widowhood, those sins of that nation would be forgotten and the shame of that former time would be removed. And then in verse five, we see that there are six  names or descriptors of our God, Yahweh. If you're someone who highlights or underlines in your Bible, Make note of verse five. This is the key to the whole passage because  it is through what we see in verse five, we know how this can be done. It is because God, Yahweh, is your maker, your husband, the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel, your redeemer, and the God of the whole earth. This is not six different gods. No, this is one God who fits all these descriptions and what he has done for us.  Israel possesses a husband and a Redeemer even though Israel has apparently forgotten that fact Israel must now remember that he is all-powerful and able to carry out what he has promised And so what we see in verse 5 is the undeniable fact of who has done this It is the Lord. He is the initiator. There shouldn't be any doubt about who has done this And then also here in verse Six,  it ends with this phrase, says your God, which is very common in prophecy. We see it four times in this passage alone. And just a reminder, this is not just kind of like a throw away phrase. It's not just like punctuation, like, oh yeah, by the way, that's  what God says, or this is what the Lord says.  No,  is the word of the Lord that is sure and secure. It can be trusted. This is not. Isaiah's own thoughts that he's just happening to write down. No, this is coming from the Lord himself. This is what  the Lord God Yahweh is saying to his people. So Israel as the bride of Yahweh was unfaithful and rebellious just like us. They were idolatrous and served other gods and served themselves. They brought shame upon them individually  and as a people. Yet God as the faithful husband and redeemer did not leave them in their lowly, shameful estate. They're no longer cast off, now they are called. They're no longer ashamed, they are now accepted. And so how is it? How can this be? It is because the covenantal  love of the Lord redefines who they are, redefines their identity. So it's taken them from barren to blessed. It's taken them from ashamed  to accepted. And it's also taken them, taken us, his people, from forgotten to forgiven. Verses seven and eight. For a brief moment, I deserted you. But with great compassion, I will gather you. An overflowing anger for a moment, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love. I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer. God's love, which had been interrupted, will be interrupted no more. God did forsake with cause the nation Israel, but he did not forsake his people as a whole. He had not abandoned his purpose in bringing salvation to the earth. Now, we might read or hear these verses and feel slightly uncomfortable about these descriptions of our God. Yahweh. that this doesn't feel like something  that is true to God, that he would forsake his people, that he would let his anger burn against them. But remember,  God does nothing wrong. He is righteous in his anger that burned against his people for how they had forsaken him.  And this is likely, these verses are referring to  our perception to Israel's perception of the Lord. Not to say that perception means it's not true. But perception in that is what we see from our perspective, that we do not perceive God's presence and protection when we look around and feel rejected or forgotten or abandoned by God. Because of the sins of the people, God withdrew his presence. But God reminds us it was for a short time, like the blink of an eye. Even though that for the people of God who were in exile for 70 years, certainly did not feel that way, right? Did not feel like a moment. Did not feel like a moment when God was  noticeably silent  for 400 years between the testaments before the angel came to Mary. But in the grand scheme of history, from God's perspective, it is but a moment. God will still regather the nation. He will regather his people with his great mercy. We can't talk about the character of God and his patience without referencing and looking back to how the Lord describes himself. The most referenced Old Testament scripture throughout all the Old Testament self and the Bible is the way that the Lord chose to describe himself to Moses and his people. When he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, he passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, Yahweh, Yahweh. A God merciful and gracious,  slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. This is how  God, the God of the universe, your maker, your creator, describes himself. This is who he is. He is not like us. You know how we as human beings are broken and in our sin we  lose our patience, we burst out in anger and then sin in our anger. God does not do that. He is not like us in that way. God is not a hot-headed deity that loses his cool when someone makes a mistake. He is long-suffering. He is patient. Think about how many years and  all the wickedness that was done in Israel in disobedience. From the golden calf to all the complaining in the desert to the kings and others who did not do as they were supposed to. They did not uphold their end of their bargain and they  went after other gods and other idols. But then again, think about the disobedience in your own life. You know, I think about the disobedience in my life. God is merciful and gracious. He is abounding in steadfast love. He cannot wait to show us His mercy. And that's how He chooses to describe Himself. He is abounding in that steadfast love and faithfulness.  God's anger and his indignation burned against his people, but for a moment, right? But for a moment. But the everlasting love and faithfulness and mercy of the Lord is what lasts forever. Forever. Only the Lord and his covenant to love has the power to redefine his people that we have been redefined from barren to blessed from ashamed now we're accepted We once thought we were forgotten now we are forgiven and last We were a people that were once  full of uncertainty and now we are a people who is unshakable Verses 9 and 10 we see this  This is like the days of Noah to me. As I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you. My covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you. So Isaiah gives  special assurances of the oath that God has given us,  using both history and nature to show us this. So first, a lesson from history. It's Noah and the flood. And the point here is this, just as God had sworn to Noah, and is recorded in Genesis,  that he would never again flood the earth. So also he has sworn that he would never be angry or rebuke his people in the same way. He will never again do what he has done. Neither of the events mentioned can ever be repeated and it's secured  by this divine  oath. God cannot go back on his word. He is faithful to keep it. And now this is not a promise that those of his people or the church like will never  again suffer affliction, right? It's not a promise for happiness for the rest of your days. It doesn't promise that we will never again do anything that displeases the Lord, but a promise that the period of God's wrath and indignation that he poured out on his people when they were sent off into exile, that will never come again to his people. It will never come again in the same way that it once did. So that's the lesson from history. Look to Noah. I've kept my word. I'm making that same oath again, that I will never be angry in the same way. And then there's the lesson from nature, as we look to the mountains and the hills. The stability  and immutability of God's promise of grace is now shown by saying, think of the thing that seems to last the most, right? Look to the hills and the mountains. In the eyes of men, nothing could be seen as more permanent. Sooner would the mountains move and slip away than God's mercy should depart. Think about that  for a moment, right?  Everything you see around you right now, everything in this room, everything in the  visible  universe will prove to be  less enduring than the love of the Lord.  Everything you see in this created universe is less enduring than the love of the Lord. And so,  with this lesson from history and a lesson from nature, he reminds us that this is a covenant that brings peace to mankind. This term for covenant of peace is one that we find throughout Isaiah. We see it throughout the uh Christmas narratives, you might wanna say, or the birth narratives, right? That we are reminded that God has come in human form through Jesus to bring peace. The very nature of the covenant that God has made and upheld with his people is one that brings his mercy and peace that overwhelms our lives. So when we look at this passage, we look at this song of praise about what God's love has done for his people, it reminds us that  the love of the Lord is deliberate, the love of the Lord is devoted, the love of the Lord is dependable, the love of the Lord is definitive. We have been redefined by the love of the Lord. And if that's true, right, if it's true that we are no longer barren, we are no longer ashamed or forgotten or full of uncertainty, that we instead are blessed, we are accepted, we are forgiven, and we are unshakable, what are we gonna do about it? What are we gonna do if that love of the Lord has truly redefined us, a few questions for us to ponder. First, do you recognize your hopelessness, your hopeless estate without the redefining love of the Lord? Do you see yourself without Jesus as barren, ashamed, forgotten,  and full of uncertainty? That's what we all were, right? We're reminded of this from Paul in the letter to the Ephesians. Remember that you, including us, you were at that time separated from Christ,  alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That's what we were without Jesus. And when we contemplate our hopelessness without Jesus, It drives us to contemplate on the hopefulness we have with Jesus. Second, who or what do you let define you? There's a lot of voices in the world that could tell us who you are. Tell me who I am. Do you let the world, your job, your position, your hobbies, your family, your money, your retirement, your calling define you? Or do you let your maker, your creator, your redeemer, the Lord of hosts, the God of the whole earth be the one who gets to define you, to say that you are loved and accepted and forgiven? What changes need to take place in your life so that you are more tuned in to the voice of your creator and your redeemer and less driven by the voices and influences of the world around you? And maybe you're sitting here thinking like, hmm, okay, yeah, I am letting myself be more defined. I'm more affected by the voices of the world around you. And maybe I haven't been tuning into the voice of the Lord as much as I should. What are you gonna do about it? Right? If you feel this nudge, to put something into practice, into the rhythms of your life, so that you're listening more to the voice of the Lord of hosts, write it down, make note of it, tell someone about it. Don't let the enemy snatch away in this moment what the Holy Spirit has placed on your heart to do. And then last, last question for us to ponder. Do the steadfast promises and love of the Lord lead you into a place, into a spirit of peace and rest? If the love and mercy of the Lord is secure, then truly what do we have to worry about? Yes,  we will still experience sorrow and pain and affliction. We will experience those things in this life, right? Jesus told his disciples, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. And those pains, those sorrows, those afflictions will be but a moment.  When we look at our life in eternity, when we think about the fellowship and worship we will have with our God. It's gonna be but a moment in time. And so we as the people of God should profoundly be a people of peace. A non-anxious,  unhurried presence in the lives of those around us. Think back to that story of Ed I shared at the beginning.  It's a story that resonates, it's a story that warms our heart. I'm just gonna ask that question again. Why do we like hearing those stories? Well, it's because we have a longing  for the wrongs to be made right. We have a longing for the darkness to become light. And it's only  through  the covenantal, or  covenantal, faithful, unwavering love of the Lord. And this song of praise that we just studied here in Isaiah 54, it's full of joy and what God's love has done for us. And I think we might be tempted to look at the pain and sorrow of our life or the lives of those around us  and we let that, the pain and sorrow, take up everything we look at. We see the brokenness of the world. It's there. Don't get me wrong, there is pain and suffering in this world. There is pain and suffering in each of our lives. But maybe we let that take up the whole view. We let that take up the whole frame of what we see and what we focus on when in reality we should take a step back and see that there's more in our lives as the people of God than just the pain and sorrow of sin in this world. But that there is the love of the Lord that redefines us. So during Advent we celebrate. We celebrate that. that the Lord's covenantal love has redefined our future  and our present because the Son of God, the suffering servant, took on human form in our lowly estate to redeem and restore us. You  are no longer rejected. Do you believe that? You are no longer a rebellious people, but you are a restored and renewed people. Believe the good news. This is the good news. Let's believe it. Let's pray. Almighty God, the creator of the universe, our maker,  the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel, our redeemer. Father, we know that you are the one who has done this. You are the one who has  made the wrong things  right. You are the one who has made the darkness light. And it's through the work of your son, Jesus. And we celebrate that Jesus humbled himself, took it upon himself to take on  human form, to live the perfect life that we could never live, to become the suffering servant faithfully to the end so that we can be restored in relationship to you. So Father, may we believe this good news about us as your people, and may we let your love be the thing  that defines us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for engaging with our community by checking out this podcast.  If you would like more information about our Church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindeed.com.