Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Group Intro

- Goal

We are to eagerly hunger for spiritual nutrition in greater degrees - Spiritually mature

Regardless of your background or where you are in your relationship with Jesus, you are called to grow

- What we do

Scripture

Prayer

Community

Review

Book So Far

The mystery of glorification and suffering of the servant

The servant’s life of suffering

The purpose of suffering -

Substitutionary atonement

Resolves the tension of the OT - God is Just and the Justifier

The servant’s death of suffering - No complaint, willing

Mystery revealed

This was God’s plan - Not just an angry old man

Sin was taken, but righteousness is also given

Leads to this restored people

Out of His unique, ultimate suffering, Christ is uniquely, ultimately glorified

Lesson Intro

With a wondrous truth like this, what is left to be said?

We have seen the core of the gospel, why Jesus came, how to be made right with God.

Is that not enough?

In some ways it is hard to imagine what more needs to be said after ch.55 concludes.

Why did Isaiah add anything more?

What more could be added to the promises of return to the land and the forgiveness of sin by the pure grace of God? ... Something about the theology of chs.

1-55 is not complete.

- Oswalt

Last Lesson

Particularly in the reformed tradition, it is easy to focus exclusively on justification in the chain of salvation.

But that is one link.

Questions brought up and addressed in 56-66

How should we now live?

In what way and by what power?

Who receives this grace?

Will it extend past the traditional recipients?

How will it reach them?

Will this grace mean it is ok to be apathetic?

In historical terms, what was the purpose of the exile and return?

We saw that people who would typically be kept away from the temple worship (Eunuchs & foreigners) be welcomed with extravagant blessing

The great temptation of the return will be to rest in the glories of unconditional election and strong hope.

But to do that would be to miss the point of election and to frustrate the hope.

Oswalt

There is ultimately a tension in the book that needs to be resolved

7-39 - Live a righteous life because sin brings destruction

Not all, but those who are characterized as keeping the Sabbath

40-55 - You will receive grace that depends on nothing

Wrong answers to this problem

We see how justification, God’s work on the cross, impacts our lives as believers (sanctification)

Can I be elect and then live however I want?

Am I back to square one?

Lesson Intro

Are those who have been delivered from their sins by the grace of God simply doomed to profane God's name again?

Oswalt

To bring back the starting question of

, How will this sinful, broken Israel be that holy Israel fulfilling God's mission?

Characteristics of a waiting people (Motyer) in 56-66

Positive characteristics -

This is the year of the Lord's favor - the year of Jubilee

Good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, comfort all who mourn - bad situations will be made good

Called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified - we will stand like 300yr old live oaks as a testimony to God

Strangers shall tend your flocks, but you shall be called the priests of the Lord - We will have our needs met and we will focus on God and doing his work, fulfilling our purpose

Negative characteristics -

Thoughts

Your hand are defiled with blood, your lips have spoken lies

Human inability for holiness is contrasted with God’s ability to glorify them

There is a final glory in the future in

, 62

, & 65

The mixed life of God’s people now

The Christian life has more tensions, more gray areas, seeming contradictions

This comes from living between the already and not yet

To be more precise, it is not so much gray as it is black and white mixed together

Truth mixed with error

WCF 25.5 The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error: and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.

Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth, to worship God according to His will.

Not endorsing or accepting error, but acknowledging its presence

Intro Question

It is not just churches, but denominations, our grasp of theology, our lives and relationships

Comes from two sources

Some is false teachers

Wolves in sheep’s clothing -

Nearly every NT book addresses false teachers

Some is immaturity and the nature of living in between Calvary and Zion

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Do you feel this tension inside you?

Do you see this tension in the church?

So what are we called to do as wait for heaven in the middle of this tension?

What will God do?

We would indeed be blind not to observe that 56:1 reflects precisely where the church stands today: looking back to the once-for-all redemption at Calvary (52:13–53:12) and awaiting a final divine act which will rescue the church from sin, failure and opposition and deal finally with any and every counterforce.

Motyer

Read ,

The Climax of History

Isaiah has been working through three streams of thought since out last passage of 56

The worldwide extension of God’s people