Isaiah 12:1-6 Sermon

In that day you will say: “I will praise you, O LORD. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. ² Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” ³ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. ⁴ In that day you will say: “Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.⁵ Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. ⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”

Dear Christian friends every winter at the seminary we have an intramural basketball league. Last year was no exception. Many of the Seminary students play in the league including a friend of mine named John. While diving running for a loose ball he heard something snap in his leg. He then went to the hospital and was told that he had torn his Achilles’ tendon. This was a very serious injury and what made matters worse is that he did not have any medical insurance.

John was in a difficult position because he needed the surgery but did not have money to pay for it. But then a doctor whom he had never met, volunteered his time and did the surgery for free. This doctor did a wonderful thing for John. How do you think he reacted? He was very thankful…for the next few weeks my friend was a walking talking billboard for how great this doctor was. Perhaps you have been in a difficult situation in the past, maybe it was sickness or financial trouble or you had so many projects to do that you could never complete them on your own, but then someone comes along and helps you. You’re going to thank them aren’t you? You’re going to go out of you way to speak well of them and tell others what this person has done for you. Depending on how big a problem they helped you with…it can be almost like you put their name up in lights. It doesn’t even matter what anyone else thinks of that person, because they were so kind to you. So you are out speaking of the wonderful thing that that person did.

At least that is the way we start out…given a few days, maybe a few weeks and our willingness to tell others about what this person has done for us slowly dies away. The billboard with their name written on it, slowly comes down out of the sky.

In many ways the way we react to the kindness of other people is the way we react to the kindness of God. When you first hear that message of forgiveness and what God went through to give it to you, you can’t help but be overjoyed, because you know the wonderful thing he did for you he didn’t have to do at all. So we are willing to tell everyone about it. We exalt his name…that means to literally “lift it high”. It doesn’t matter what others may think. Because of the great things God has done for us we take his name and we put it on a billboard in lights.

We start out on the right path. But over time, like our praise for those who help us can start to fade away, so also we can change in the way we talk about the amazing things God has done for us and slowly that billboard gets lower and the lights become not so bright.

Then it can seem like we are living in two separate worlds. One of these worlds is when we are here in church. We are happy to come here, we love hearing God’s message and praising his name. We are even glad to talk to one another about how the Lord is working his will in our lives. But when we walk out of the doors of this place, we enter that other world. A world where we no longer feel comfortable mentioning God. A place where we try to call as little attention as possible to our belief in the True God. Where we might have at one point spoken proudly about God to other people, we now are hesitant to speak of God because we are unsure of whether they’ll want to hear it. That is the first step we take as we slowly start walking away from God. We stop actively spreading his Word.

Next we hear people misusing God’s name and where once it would have bothered us enough to speak with the person about it. Now we just let it slide. We don’t concern ourselves with it because it doesn’t matter that much to us anymore if his name is honored by everyone. We take another step.

Finally we avoid any outward signs that might betray the fact that we’re Christians. We don’t even feel comfortable praying in public. When you go out to McDonald’s or the Frying Pan. And you know you should pray before your meal so what you do is you sit still for a moment, you don’t fold your hands, you don’t bow your head and you only close your eyes for a few seconds. Now it is true that God does not command you to bow your head or fold you hands while praying but the reason you avoid it is because you would never want anyone to know that you were praying to God. We have now walked far from him.

What God has done for us warrants continual unending prays, but we are hesitant to even acknowledge him. If after the surgery got done my friend John didn’t say “thank you” to the doctor didn’t even act like he knew him, how do you think that doctor would have felt? He would have been angry…and he would have good reason to be. Because of the way we have treated God, he is angry with us and he has every right to be because we have not only pulled his billboard down out of the sky so people can no longer see it, but we have also walked away from that billboard so people won’t associate us with it. Therefore God should be angry with us.

In our text God’s anger is described as something that is moving towards us. The picture is we having walked away from God and are now standing on some tracks and we can’t get off. Off in the distance we can see this light coming. It is approaching very quickly. Soon we see that this light is attached to a freight train, one that is steaming towards us.

God’s anger is like that freight train. He has every right to hit us with everything he has and barrel right through us while we are still here on earth and then we receive the full force of it after we die. That is what should happen.

But right before that freight train hits us, when it is only feet away, God makes it switch tracks. Our text tells us that God has turned his anger in another direction. In fact he turned it in the most unlikely direction we could imagine. He turned it, at his Son.

Jesus was born into this world to lift high God name in our place and that is what he did. He didn’t hesitate to speak of God, either his commands or the forgiveness God offers. He did not allow people to dishonor God in his presence. When he saw people using God’s house to sell farm animals, he drove them out. Christ was constantly in prayer and it didn’t matter to him who saw him praying. Jesus actually encouraged others to pray. Christ had raised up a billboard that the whole world could see and he lit it up with spot lights.

Then when the appointed time arrived God did an amazing miracle. He took all the sins of the world, the guilt that you and I have accumulated and he put it on Christ. Then he took the freight train of his anger speed it up as fast as it could go and drove it right into Jesus, with the nails being driven through his hands and feet. He smashed into him like the crown of thorns being beat onto his head. And he rolled over him in the darkness as Christ hung on the cross from noon till 3 experiencing God using his limitless power to cause him unimaginable pain. After all this happened, through the darkness we see Jesus’ body lying dead in the middle of a disaster area. And then everything goes black

The next time we can see is when the light of Easter morning touches this seen, then something amazing becomes visible. Jesus who had been broken by the force of this freight train is now standing up, very much alive. As the sun light of Easter morning illuminates the seen even more we see that this once unstoppable train which was speeding in our direction is now derailed and has been completely destroyed, never to threaten us again. God’s anger is gone because Christ took our place and stood in it’s way. All your sins have been forgiven! Believe it.

Because of the wonderful thing that Christ has done for us, we now receive many benefits through faith in his actions. The first is no more fear. God’s anger is no longer coming at you, because it has already come at Christ in your place. So you longer have to be afraid.

Now the God that was once threatening us with destruction is actually the one strengthening us so that we can live our lives here on earth. He does this through his promises to care for us and watch out for us while we are still in this world.

When we die and leave this world, through faith in Christ we know where we will be going. We will be going to Heaven to be with him because he took our place on those tracks. Therefore while we are still here on earth we study God’s Word so that we can grow closer to him and closer to our heavenly home.

Just think of all those things God has done for us. They are more than any doctor or friend could do. God deservers endless amounts of praise… So we now lift high God’s name and urge others to do the same.

We willingly tell others about what Christ has done for all people. How we receive that forgiveness of sins through faith in his death and resurrection. We invite them to come hear the words of our Lord. There was a woman at my parents church who’s husband was not a believer. Every week she would invite him to come with her to church and every week he would come up with an excuse not to go. Week after week this happened, for 16 years. For 16 years, every week she would faithfully raise that billboard reminding him of how important God was. And for 16 years he walked by ignoring it. But then one Sunday, just like any other she raised the billboard only this time he didn’t make an excuse…he merely said “ok.” Her husband came to church, heard God’s Word and the Holy spirit worked the miracle of faith in his heart. After some taking some classes he became a member and has been a faithful one very since. God uses this billboards we raise!!

Because we know this no matter where we are, we call upon his name. It doesn’t matter if we are in a public place. We are happy to pray to God and we are happy if others see us doing it, because that will serve as a reminder for them and we know God uses these reminders.

Brothers and sisters in Christ when someone does something nice for us here on earth we thank them and speak well of them. How much more when it comes to God our Creator who sent is own son to die for us. Therefore let us lift high his name so that all people know it, honor it and believe in it. Amen