Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning!

Welcome to the Vineyard.

If this is your first time, my name is Kevin and I’m the pastor here.

Our vision at the Vineyard is simple - we want to embody Jesus to our neighbors.

This happens by growing in three ways, through what we call our pillars.

First, is Presence.

We want everyone to experience the presence of God.

This is what transforms us to love him and others.

God’s presence is where we become fully alive.

We want you to know the Father.

Then, Formation.

God doesn’t just love us; he is forming us to be his people who can carry his life and love to those around us.

Formation is where we learn to embody the Jesus way of life.

We want you to imitate the Son.

Finally, Mission.

Being on mission is how we join God in the work he is doing to bring his reconciliation, justice, and mercy to earth.

This is how he is bringing healing and renewal to the world.

We want you to partner with the Spirit.

Presence.

Formation.

Mission.

Be thinking about your next step.

Where is God calling you to go deeper with him?

Pray...

Intro

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, a Sunday where we are directed toward joy.

I’ve called today’s message Rejoice, Here is Your God.

Although, we have to acknowledge that rejoicing and having joy can be difficult.

Read Isaiah 35:1-10

Have you ever been in a desolate place?

I’m thinking of somewhere like the panhandle of Oklahoma.

NO ONE books a week-long vacation in Guymon or Boise City!

It’s pancake flat with nothing but scrub brush and jackrabbits as far as you can see.

It’s literally a place you can watch tumbleweeds roll across the highway.

Ugly!

There are some desolate places that have a certain beauty, but Isaiah isn’t talking about one of them.

He’s talking about a desolate wilderness that no one wants to travel through.

One that is devoid of the kind of plant and animal life you’d want to see; teeming with all the kinds you don’t - jackals & lions.

This is the bleakness that Isaiah sees around him as invasion threatens the land.

But desolate doesn’t just describe a physical landscape.

It can also describe our life.

Have you ever been in a desolate place spiritually, where God seems distant and problems feel near?

Have you ever experienced a kind of emotional or physical desolation?

Isaiah is also describing an internal landscape, one his readers would identify with, and one we still often identify with today.

Life can feel desolate because:

We face uncertainties about our future which fills us with anxiety and fear.

We face regular disappointments - either by life’s circumstances, or even worse, when those we thought we could rely on let us down.

We don’t get the job we want, our kids don’t make the choices we’d hoped they’d make, we get a report from the doctor that we didn’t want to hear, and the list goes on.

We face our own addictions and bad habits that we don’t feel like we will ever be free of.

If we set our eyes just on our circumstances, we’d often be quickly overcome with hopelessness.

A friend of mine posted a quote on FB this past week that I think sums up our internal landscape - “Expectations are premeditated resentment.”

When I first read it I thought, “Yeah, there is some truth in that statement.”

Especially at this time of year when we pin a lot of expectations on being with family and friends for the holidays - expectations that can be crushed due to conflicting schedules, unexpected illness, and breakdowns in our family relationships.

It seems the point of the quote is that we shouldn’t have expectations and therefore we won’t be left with disappointment and feelings of resentment.

Again, there is a certain kind of truth in that.

But the Lord kept bringing me back to that quote.

Is it really true?

Is it the truest truth?

Is there wisdom there, or does it just disguise a cynical attitude?

I think the lesson we should get from the quote boils down to, not if you should have expectations, but what you put your expectations in.

If your expectations are centered on what people do or on your circumstances, then yes you will be disappointed and filled with resentment.

It’s hard - perhaps impossible - to find joy there.

Isaiah calls us to see beyond people and situations - and even our own desolate landscape.

To set our expectations in who God is and what He is up to.

To rejoice in spite of our circumstances.

In fact, this entire vision centers around the joyful announcement of v. 4: Isaiah 35:4 “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Here is your God.

He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.

He will come and save you.”

Isaiah’s message to his readers - and to us - is to look up.

Look up from our circumstances and disappointments, and look to the One who is coming for you!

He is coming with vengeance against all that has caused harm and pain.

He comes to wage war against those things that are aligned against us - including our own addictions and sin.

He comes to save and deliver us - even from our self.

Renewal

When he comes there will be a complete restoration of the land.

The desolate places will be filled with life.

They will be safe to walk in.

There will be abundance in the earth as God intended.

There will be a renewed creation.

This creation groans under the curse of sin.

But when God comes there will be the undoing of the curse and a full restoration.

But God comes, not just to remake the world, but to remake us.

To strengthen weak hands and feeble knees - to lift up those weighed down by fear and grief.

He comes to open the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, to cause the lame to leap and the mute to sing.

When he comes, will he do this literally or figuratively?

Yes!

And so the only response to Isaiah’s glad announcement - the only right application of the passage - is rejoice!

In fact, in many churches, today is called Gaudete Sunday.

Gaudete is Latin for “rejoice”.

It’s why we light the candle that represents joy on the Advent wreath.

But Gaudete isn’t a suggestion; it is a command.

Not to rejoice because everything in our life is perfect - if we waited for that we’d never rejoice.

But to rejoice because our God is coming and the suffering and trials of this life won’t endure.

Shame, pain, depression, fear, illness, oppression and all the other ills that affect human life don’t get the final say.

This is the good news Isaiah brings, and to rejoice is our act of defiance against the brokenness of the world.

Rejoice because things that were desolate are about to blossom.

Rejoice because that which was barren will again bear fruit.

Rejoice because with God our hopes and dreams don’t die - they get redeemed and renewed and turned into something better than we could have imagined on our own.

God has come

And Isaiah’s joyful vision isn’t only for the future.