Introduction To The Gospel According to Isaiah
Download MP3If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to the book of Isaiah chapter one. This morning, we are continuing our study on the major prophets. We just finished Ezekiel and this morning, we will be looking at Isaiah chapter one. We'll be in Isaiah for the next twenty five weeks or so. For those of you who are somewhat familiar with the prophets, you might be wondering why we didn't start with Isaiah especially since Isaiah lived one hundred and fifty years before Ezekiel.
Joel Brooks:I don't have a great answer for that. The best I could tell you is I didn't want us to start our series with the heavy lifting. Start our series with the longest of the books. Plus I figured to modern readers what's really the difference between something being 2,600 years old and something 2,750 years old. So I thought we would be okay.
Joel Brooks:I am really excited about this study that we are about to to embark on. Although all the prophets are important, Isaiah he's he's not just on the Mount Rushmore of prophets. Isaiah is easily considered the goat. Next to the Psalms, Isaiah is the longest book we have in the Bible. Also, next to the Psalms, it is the most quoted book we have in the New Testament.
Joel Brooks:And yet despite that, for many of us, our familiarity with with Isaiah, it largely begins and ends with Christmas time. It it seems to be, you know, during the advent season that Isaiah, that's when he's he's dusted off and we get to hear about how the virgin shall be with child. Have a a child called Emmanuel, meaning god with us. He will also be called wonderful counselor, almighty god, everlasting father, prince of peace, and of the increase of his government, and of peace, there will be no end. Usually, a child reads this and lights a candle and that's the end of Isaiah.
Joel Brooks:But there is so much more to Isaiah than Christmas prophecies. Isaiah gives us the clearest picture that we have in the Old Testament of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Yes, we do learn that Jesus will be born of a virgin but we also learn that he will be both the son of David and the son of god. That he would live a sinless life, that he would do miracles, that he would heal people, that he would suffer to save us, and that through his death, he would provide atonement for our sins. And we learn about our glorious future in the resurrection.
Joel Brooks:All of this comes to us through Isaiah. In other words, even though Isaiah is in the Old Testament, he proclaims to us the gospel. As a matter of fact, Isaiah is where we get the word gospel from. He is the first in our Bibles to use that word, the good news. And I think that you will find as we go through Isaiah of these next weeks, you'll find some of the most beautiful, hopeful, comforting passages in all of scripture.
Joel Brooks:Just this past week, I was sitting in the hospital room with somebody who's who's a part of our church and they're seriously ill. And I I said, I I don't know if you can hear me right now or not. But if it's okay with you, I'd just like to sit here and just read to you from Isaiah. And so I just sat and I read to her Isaiah 25, which speaks about our glorious future. It speaks about a day when every tear will be wiped away and death will be swallowed up forever.
Joel Brooks:So, I'm excited about the weeks ahead. So so with that as a brief introduction, we'll be introducing Isaiah Moore as we go along. We're going to read the first twenty verses of chapter one because chapter one really serves as an introduction to the entire book. You're gonna get all of the themes of Isaiah packed in just these 20 verses. You're gonna have the themes of sin, judgment, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, and our glorious future all wrapped up in these few words.
Joel Brooks:And then for the next 65 chapters, Isaiah will repeat these things over and over over. Like any preacher, he just hopes maybe one of these times you'll listen. So, with that, Isaiah one verse one. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amaz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, king of Judah. Here, oh heavens and give ear, oh earth, for the lord has spoken.
Joel Brooks:Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand. A sinful nation. A people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.
Joel Brooks:They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the holy one of Israel. They are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?
Joel Brooks:The whole head is sick. The whole heart faint from the sole of the foot even to the head. There is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds. They are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate.
Joel Brooks:Your cities are burned with fire. In your presence, foreigners devour your land. It is desolate as overthrown by foreigners, and the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the lord of hosts had left us a few survivors, we had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom.
Joel Brooks:Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who is required of you this trampling of my courts?
Joel Brooks:Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me.
Joel Brooks:I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves.
Joel Brooks:Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice.
Joel Brooks:Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Joel Brooks:Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Be to God. We pray with me. Father, thank you for your servant Isaiah. Lord, I I pray that even though he he spoke these words over February ago, we would hear them afresh now. Your spirit would bring life to these words, that you would write them on our hearts.
Joel Brooks:I pray that you'd use these words to show us Jesus. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen. Isaiah's ministry spanned just over sixty years. Sixty years of of preaching sermons Some to kings, some to whoever would listen on the streets, some during peace times, some during war.
Joel Brooks:These 66 books we have or 66 chapters we have in this book, they're not one sermon. They're a collection of all of Isaiah's sermons over sixty years of ministry. They're not necessarily in chronological order which can make it a little difficult but they're not random. Isaiah's highly structured and and we see from the very start of this book that he wants us to see all of these sermons really as just one vision. Now thankfully outside of chapter six which we'll look at next week, Isaiah really didn't have those type of visions that Ezekiel had.
Joel Brooks:Which means that we're not gonna have to try to figure out, you know, why there's a flaming chariot with wheels, with eyes on it, or why there's these angelic beings with faces of of an eagle or an ox or things like that. We don't have to worry about that. Isaiah uses the word vision a little differently. The Lord communicated him to him in a vision with words. And he wrote down these words in this collection that we have.
Joel Brooks:But notice that Isaiah does not begin his his book here by saying that the lord gave him visions plural. He says, a vision, singular. So he wants he wants us to see all of what lies ahead before us. All of it is one vision. And what Isaiah means by this is that through this collection, through these sermons, through these words, what God is doing is offering you sight.
Joel Brooks:He's offering you a new way of seeing things, a new perspective on life. Early in my, ministry career, I was doing one of my first weddings. I had already done, maybe, maybe five or six weddings. And I'm I'm doing this wedding with another pastor there who is much older and wiser and probably had done hundreds of weddings. And we're we're both robed up, know, we wear robes.
Joel Brooks:And right before the wedding, knew I had to turn on my mic. And so like I've been doing, I I I pull up my robe all the way up here and I'm trying to find it and where I turn on the mic and I do that and he just kinda he's looking at me. And he goes, you know there's a better way. I was like, what? He goes, your robe most robes, see where that kind of fold is here?
Joel Brooks:Well, most robes usually have a slit there. And I looked and sure enough, there's a little slit right there. Just put your hand right in. Just turn on the mic. I've done over 200 weddings since then and he has saved me more than 200 times of like of like hiking that thing up and trying to find just just that's what Isaiah means when he says he's gonna give us a vision.
Joel Brooks:He's going to give us a new way of of seeing something. He he's basically gonna come to us as he sees us struggling with whatever the heck we're doing. Says, hey, if you're open to it, I can show you a better way. I can show you a new perspective. He'll show us another way to to relate to people.
Joel Brooks:Another way to look at our finances. Another way to worship. Another way to see our longings or our heartaches. He's offering us a new perspective. God's perspective on these things.
Joel Brooks:So that's what he means by vision. But this new way of seeing can be painful at the start because the first thing that we have to see clearly is ourselves. And that's what verse two is about. He begins the sermon in verse two with words that belong in a courtroom setting. Hear, oh heavens and give ear, oh earth for the Lord has spoken.
Joel Brooks:This is the language of a courtroom in which the Lord is calling on two witnesses to hear his accusations. His accusations against his children. I mean, every parent can identify with this. I mean, you're you're like, after all I've done for you, this is how you repay me? This is similar except here the lord is making an official accusation.
Joel Brooks:The people of Israel have rebelled against him. Then he goes on to say that they're dumber than animals. I I mean, the language is a little harsh here. He says, you know an ox knows its owner and a donkey knows its master's crib but Israel doesn't know me. My people don't understand.
Joel Brooks:You guys are dumber than animals. By the way, don't know if you've ever noticed this, but come this Christmas season when all the manger scenes are out, I want you to look around and you will likely see a donkey and an ox at all of them. Even though there are no animals mentioned at all in the Christmas story. We insert a donkey and an ox. This actually dates back to Francis Assisi.
Joel Brooks:He was the first to do this. When he was making his first manger scene, he put an ox and he put a donkey in it because he wanted everyone to know that they know their master. And ever since then, that that's that tradition has been kept alive. The Lord goes on in verse four to call them a sinful nation full of iniquity. But I want you to notice that he first does this with that word, ah.
Joel Brooks:You see that verse four? Ah. That word is a it's a word of a deep lament. Sometimes in your Bibles, it's translated as alas or woe. But outside of the prophets, it is only used in the Bible at funerals or upon hearing news of someone's death.
Joel Brooks:So you need to know that when the Lord sees our iniquities here, sees our sin, his heart is actually breaking over what he sees, over what sin has done to us. It's like, you know, you think a parent and a teenager. Yes, a parent might get angry over their teenager's foolish decisions. But more than the anger, what the parent feels is the pain that those foolish decisions have brought to their child's life. It grieves them.
Joel Brooks:That's where the lord is here. He says, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity. He says the root of it all is that they have forsaken the lord. They have despised the holy one of Israel. They are estranged.
Joel Brooks:Here we see that the problem with this world, it's it's not social media. It's not Hollywood. It's not our political parties. It's not our school systems or the Department of Education. It's not our health care system or big pharma.
Joel Brooks:It's not Wall Street. Those are the things we always like to point to. But here we see the problem is this, we have forsaken the Lord. And when you forsake the source of all life and blessing, what do you expect will happen? Everything begins to fall apart.
Joel Brooks:Now Isaiah, he's gonna go on to even at the end of chapter one to list all these sins of Israel. They've committed violence. They've committed murder, sexual immorality, robbery, injustice, idolatry. They've oppressed the poor. You could go on.
Joel Brooks:But all of this is really a result of this one thing. They've forsaken the Lord. And by choosing him second to anything, that's actually despising him. Now the Lord here, he's he's not pointing out their sin in order to make them feel guilty. That's not what he does.
Joel Brooks:God only points out sin when he has a remedy for it. He's the doctor who's gonna actually tell you the real reason you feel so bad. But then with his diagnosis and him telling you the real reason, he then brings you the medicine to make you feel better. I've heard an older wiser pastor. He he once described it this way.
Joel Brooks:I wish I could remember his name. I would credit him with this but he said, when god convicts us of sin, he is mercifully declaring war on our false on the false peace we have settled for. Let me read that again. When God convicts us of sin, he is mercifully declaring war on the false peace we have settled for. He he declares war on this false peace because it is absolutely wrecking our souls.
Joel Brooks:The lord goes on a few verses later to describe what our sin has done to our bodies. Look at verses five and six. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick.
Joel Brooks:The whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there's no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds. And they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Here the Lord, he says to Israel, he says to us, just look at yourselves. I mean, take a good honest look at yourself.
Joel Brooks:You are completely beaten up from head to toe. Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Once again, is of a of a parent whose heart is breaking. You know, at one point in my life, I had 10 surgeries in ten years. I've got 14 screws in this shoulder.
Joel Brooks:I've got I don't know how many in this one. But, but I was at the doctor a lot. I'd go to the doctor after my latest skiing accident or after my latest bike accident or the latest weight lifting accident, or the latest falling out of a tree accident, or falling through the floor of a barn accident. My favorite accident was the reaching for a cup of coffee accident. So I'd go into the doctor after all of those, and he would just look at me, just shake his head.
Joel Brooks:Then he'd bring out the huge file and just put it down. And he'd say, Joel, when are you gonna learn? When are you gonna stop doing this? The Lord says, you don't have to go through life like this. You don't have to keep going on doing the same thing, doing the same sins and the same sins and keep getting beaten up by them.
Joel Brooks:Keep believing their promises which never come to fruition. He says, there's a better way. Remember, that's what a vision is. It's the lord giving us a new way of seeing things, a new way of seeing our situation, a new way of seeing life. And now many people assume that the medicine we need, the way that we could go towards healing is just to get more religion.
Joel Brooks:We gotta find religion. We gotta start going to church. Gotta start singing some songs. Maybe put a little money in the offering plate. We do those things then we'll find a cure but it is not the cure for sin.
Joel Brooks:It is not the remedy we need. Actually, what the lord tells the Israelites here is the first thing they need to repent of is their worship. You gotta repent the entire way that you're doing worship. Your verses 11 through 15. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the lord.
Joel Brooks:I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well well fed beast. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. You just stop right there. They're making the mistake of thinking god's like all the other gods and he actually needs to be fed. He actually needs what we give him.
Joel Brooks:And the Lord's like, I don't need anything but what I want is your hearts. That's where this is going. Verse 12, when you come to appear before me, who is required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me.
Joel Brooks:I love that. You know that word vain there? Remember our word, heaven from when we went through Ecclesiastes? Puff of smoke. He say, that's what I see when I see your incense.
Joel Brooks:It's like a puff of smoke. Your worship here is gone. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast, soul hates.
Joel Brooks:They become a burden to me. I am I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.
Joel Brooks:Now the people of Israel would have been stunned to hear this. Absolutely stunned. Especially because the Lord had commanded that they do all of those things. They're only doing what the Lord had commanded. But Isaiah I mean, the Lord's language here, it could not be stronger.
Joel Brooks:He says he cannot endure another worship service. That he actually hates, hates it when they celebrate their feast and he's become so weary he cannot endure another one of them. Think of that. The sovereign supreme lord of the universe. The one who scattered the stars into space, who who upholds all things by the word of his power.
Joel Brooks:The one who came to this world, did things like part the Red Sea. The one of unlimited power. He says, there is one thing that wears me out. It's it's your worship. I can't I can't carry it.
Joel Brooks:Yes, I'm a strong god but that is the one thing I can't carry anymore. I can't take you just going through the motions of worship. He goes on to say that, you know, when you lift your hands up and you're singing the latest Chris Tomlin song, you're you're you're praying. I'm not even gonna look. I can't look.
Joel Brooks:Then he tells us why. Says, you want to know why I why I can't even look at your hands? It's because your hands are covered with blood. That's what we're showing. All he sees is blood.
Joel Brooks:He sees our iniquities. Here is their grievous sin. Once again, we'll have more grievous sins later in Isaiah. But here's the grievous sin he points out first and foremost. They think they can love God without loving their neighbor.
Joel Brooks:That's the sin. They think they can serve God without serving their neighbor. They think they can declare God as glorious, while at the same time oppressing his image bearers that were created to reflect his glory. It says, I I can't I can't take it. Verse sixteen, seventeen, he tells them what worship should actually look like.
Joel Brooks:Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good.
Joel Brooks:Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. What do you think a good person looks like?
Joel Brooks:I mean, when you just conjure up in your mind right now, you know, a good that person's a he's a good person. She's a good person. Typically when we describe a good person, we talk about what they don't do. They they don't, you know, they don't drink, they don't do drugs, they don't have sex outside of marriage, They don't post hateful things online. They're not unkind.
Joel Brooks:They're a good person. Really good person. But here the Lord, He doesn't tell us to to be good. He tells us to do good. Gotta do good.
Joel Brooks:And he tells us what doing good looks like. It looks like seeking justice, correcting oppression, Bringing justice to the oppressed. The fatherless and the widow. And when I was preparing this, I had this thought, know, thankfully justice is not a loaded word in our culture. Can't wait to preach on this.
Joel Brooks:I mean, that word justice has become a lightning rod, hasn't it? Even within Christian circles. I have lost friendships just over the last year because of this word, justice. I mean, I could get up here and I am fully convinced. I could preach a sermon word for word that I preached eight to ten years ago on justice.
Joel Brooks:A sermon that back then got universal acceptance and a whole lot of amens. And I bet if I were to read that sermon again, word to word today, it would be accepted completely differently. There would be a a whole different type of response. Because the words haven't changed, but the way we hear them have. The way we hear them has changed a lot over the last decade.
Joel Brooks:What I've come to realize, I I need to be aware when I preach, that when I use the word justice, justice now comes with a hyperlink. Everyone of you when you hear justice, you have a hyperlink to it, and I don't know where that hyperlink goes. For some of you, you know, it's gonna go to, you know, certain articles or certain podcasts or media sources over here. Some of you just wanna go to to these over here. I I have no idea when you hear the word justice, what that is now linked to.
Joel Brooks:But what we need to all be asking is what does the bible say about justice? See, that's the only place we need to go. What does the bible say about justice? Because without a doubt, we are told to seek it, and we are told to bring it to this world, and that our view of justice affects our worship. So what is justice?
Joel Brooks:What is biblical justice? It's it's multifaceted. We I don't have time in this moment to to unpack everything that biblical justice is. But let me just say a few simple statements. Biblical justice is the outworking of loving your neighbor as yourself.
Joel Brooks:Biblical justice is the outworking of loving your neighbor as yourself. It is working to make sure that everyone is treated equally and that everyone receives the dignity that they deserve as a image bearer of God. That's biblical justice. Perhaps it'd be helpful for me to to paint you a picture of something that is unjust, that the the bible would clearly see as unjust. What Isaiah is pointing out things like this is unjust.
Joel Brooks:I want you to picture right now an 11 year old girl living in Fairfield. You know, Alton Hardy, my friend, he's come to preach here a couple times. I want you that's his neighborhood. Every day, it's in the paper. Not for good reasons.
Joel Brooks:So this little 11 year old girl, she lives in Fairfield and despite not being able to read or write, she is still worked away all the way up to sixth grade. When she goes home, she doesn't know if there will be a meal there. She is often hungry. She has never met her father. She has been a victim of violence several times.
Joel Brooks:Now what is the likely outcome of her future? The likely outcome. What is the likely outcome of her future compared to the likely outcome of my daughter's future? I have three daughters. All of them have grown up in a safe, stable, loving home.
Joel Brooks:They all went to private school. There's plenty of blame to to throw around when we think of that girl living in Fairfield under those conditions. I mean, blame is thrown all around. You could blame the parents. You can blame maybe their lack of involvement.
Joel Brooks:You can blame the failing school systems. You can blame the politicians. You can blame the liberals. You can blame the conservatives. But the one person you cannot blame is the girl.
Joel Brooks:You can't blame her. She did nothing to put herself in that position. And the bible calls that unjust. She's a picture of of injustice. And I'm sure that everyone in in in this room, they're likely divided as to what's the best way to help.
Joel Brooks:Some of you think it should be, no, we need to we need to have government programs to help this person. Some of you like, no, helping her is best done outside of any government programs. And you guys, you could debate that till Jesus comes again. That's fine. But but but what I want us all to do right now is just put all of that aside and can we just agree for one single moment that that situation's unjust.
Joel Brooks:It's just unjust. It's what the bible says. It's what God says. And what the bible teaches us is that if we live in an unjust world, and we do not share some of the advantages that we have, that we have received, we don't share that with people like her, we contribute to the injustice. Did you hear that?
Joel Brooks:What the Bible teaches is if I do not share of the advantages that I have received while living in an unjust world with people like her, then I am contributing to the injustice. I am not loving my neighbors myself. And if I had time, could I I I we will probably in the weeks ahead just be able to really unpack how the Lord commanded us all throughout the bible. Hear me church, if we do not help and show grace to those who cannot help themselves, what it actually reveals about us is the reason we can't worship is because we actually don't understand the gospel. That's what it reveals about us.
Joel Brooks:Because the gospel is this. It just said, Jesus saw us in our miserable, sinful state. And out of a heart moved of of deep love and compassion, he sacrificed himself for us that we might have life. And he did this while we were his enemies, not his friends. We did absolutely nothing to deserve our salvation.
Joel Brooks:So we're saved. We just always say, come saved completely by grace, by grace. That's what we mean by that. And the Lord says that if you truly believe that, and if my spirit is truly inside of you, then you too will have my heart towards those who need mercy. Not because of any good in them.
Joel Brooks:They they could be undeserving. They are undeserving. They they don't earn your mercy. They don't earn your love. But that's how I move towards you.
Joel Brooks:Undeserved, sacrificial, mercy and love flow to you and saved you. And if you believe my gospel, my spirits in you that will overflow into others. We love those who can never pay us back. And if you don't know where to start in doing that, like, gosh, it's overwhelming. First, I would just say just turn off the Internet, the news.
Joel Brooks:Don't don't worry about the other side of the world right now. Just ask the spirit this week to open your eyes. Open your eyes to those who need mercy. Because there are hurting needy people everywhere. There are hurting needy people in this very room, people at your work.
Joel Brooks:I'm sure you have some needy people at home group. Some people that are hard to love in your home group. Ask the spirit of god to open up your eyes to give you his heart. That's part of the vision that Isaiah gives us. Remember, he's giving us a new sight.
Joel Brooks:The spirit's gonna open up our eyes to all these opportunities to show the gospel. And his whole reason of doing this is it's a much better, more joyful way to live. Because right now, you're walking around like a bunch of beat up people. And I'm offering you something better. Now after the Lord told people all that they were doing wrong and what they could start doing right, he then gives them this unbelievable promise in verse 18.
Joel Brooks:Come now, let us reason together says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Like though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. And and here we see the Lord is pleading with us to come to our senses and just talk to him. Just talk to me.
Joel Brooks:But the Lord wants is our honesty in worship. For us to just throw off the insanity of us thinking everything's okay and that we're doing just fine because we're not. We've been beating up ourselves, and we've been beating up others. And the Lord wants us to just come to him and just talk about it. Lay those things before me.
Joel Brooks:Be honest. In verse 13, he says, when he said he cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly, I hope you didn't hear this. That he cannot endure your sins when he come to worship because that's not what he is saying there. He's not saying he cannot endure your sins when you come to worship. No.
Joel Brooks:He's saying he cannot endure it when you come here as a sinner yet you act like everything's okay. That's what he can't endure. Jesus has offered not only to endure our sins but to carry away our sins if we will just bring them to him. This is what Isaiah is gonna get to later in Isaiah 53 when he says that Jesus has borne our griefs, borne our sorrows, borne our iniquities. He will bear them if you come into this place and you lay them at his feet.
Joel Brooks:Be honest about them. That's what he's pleading in this moment. Come. Let's be reasonable. This whole chapter of Isaiah is already pointing us forward to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Jesus who's the real one who's beaten up head to toe, not because of his sin but because of ours. Jesus who is the true victim of injustice, and yet through his death makes us just. And it will be through the blood of Jesus that we were actually washed, clean of clean of our sins, made whiter than snow. Isaiah looks forward to the hope now we should be enjoying, the hope in Jesus. So as you come to worship, bring your sins, bring your burdens, confess how I have not loved God and I have not loved my neighbors myself, and then let Jesus wash you, and you will be clean.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Lord, I hope we hear it loud and clear in this first chapter, the invitation to come. To come. Let us draw near to god with a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Lord, that's what we long for in this moment.
Joel Brooks:We come to you and we bring our sins and we ask you to forgive us and to change us. And we pray this in the name of Jesus, our savior. Amen.
