Sermon: "God Will Not Be Silent"

2nd in the "Set Your Watch" series.
Delivered January 11, 2009 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Isaiah 62:1-12; Ephesians 2:1-10

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"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate, but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so your sons will marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you."

Let's pray: Thank you, God, for this your Word, for the way you reveal yourself to us. Help us now to understand what we need to understand and then to believe and to obey. For we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, before my sermon, I just want to take a moment to reflect a little bit on the end of last year. You know that in the final two months of the year, a phenomenal amount of our budget, you know, needs to come in, and so at the start of November, about $660,000 needed to come in for us to meet the mid- point of our budget. It's the most important point in the year because it's the end of the, you know, fiscal year for most families.

Well, I need to let you know that we not only met budget, but we exceeded it. God provided all that we needed at this checkpoint. That is a phenomenal thing to happen, and I don't want us to miss that. So I want you to know two things that grow out of that in my mind as your pastor. The first thing is not necessarily the most important thing, but it is the first thing I want to communicate, and that is that I recognize that many of you were not in the same financial position this year as you were last year, and yet so many of you still gave sacrificially. I want to let you know how much I appreciate that and how seriously I take that as the pastor. Thank you for your faith and for your obedience to God.

The second thing is probably more important though, and that is how seriously I take it that God has entrusted us with these resources to do ministry. Instead of, you know, saying, "Praise the Lord, man. Let's charge ahead," I'm sobered by the fact that in this kind of financial picture God has given us the budget to work. So I want to let you know how seriously your leadership takes this responsibility to try to be faithful with what has been entrusted to us, and I would like to not only thank God right now, but to ask God to help us be faithful.

So let's pray: God, we just take a moment to give you the praise that you have provided the budget for this church in this very difficult environment. God, thank you for your generosity to us. And I do pray that you will help us be faithful with what you've entrusted, that what we do as a church, what we represent, what we preach, what we say, how we live, will reflect your glory, bring you pleasure, and bring glory to Jesus Christ in this earth. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, it's been quite a year. It's quite a start to 2009. We've got all the international news, Israel and Hamas, Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia, the Congo. What a mess! Think about the economic picture, job loss... joblessness at 7% and rising, businesses failing, stocks and housing prices all in the dumpster. Then there's Baltimore. You gotta' love Baltimore. You know, all that news isn't bad enough. We have to add our local bad news on top of the whole heap.

Here we are, we're only 11 days into the New Year, the mayor is indicted, there is a grand jury accusing other people in leadership, there are 12 murders in the first 11 days of the New Year, and this is all on top of long term problems with violence, drugs, housing, poverty, and education.

This is the world we live in, folks. We can't close our eyes and make it better. This is the world we are called to live in. We are Christians, and we're called to live faithfully to God in this kind of world. Now when I say that, I think of a scene in a movie years back, in the movie "Witness" where an Amish patriarch is speaking to someone who is going to go into the big city, and when he meets with him he says something... I don't remember the exact words, I didn't check the movie again, but this is faithful to what he says. "Beware of the English." What he means by that is everybody who's not Amish, beware of them.

Now should we do as the Amish do? Now they are a faithful people. There is so much that we should respect about that. But is that what we are supposed to do? Is that our calling at Central Presbyterian Church... to build a tight, protected community, a cultural fortress against the really terrible things that are happening around us? In other words, is our calling at Central to try to stay away from these problems?

At the start of every New Year, we usually try to dust off our vision and take a look at what we're called to as a church. Our vision is: Moving people towards Christ where we live, work and play. Now does that mean that we just hope that the person down the hall where we work, that some time, that friend of ours will come and join us in this cultural fortress? Is that what the calling is? Is that why God has allowed us to meet our budget, so that we can build an even tighter cultural fortress?

Well, as you can tell by the way I'm starting this sermon, I don't think so. Our calling from God as a church is more than that. The passage we just read from the book of Isaiah comes to the Jewish nation at a very bad time. The prophet Isaiah began his ministry in the eighth century B.C., and when he starts his ministry, that's the beginning of about a century of war.

Now as a prophet, Isaiah is not a fortune teller; he's not just telling the future. Yes, he does predict some things that are happening in the future, but Isaiah's main responsibility as a prophet is to look at the events that are happening around the nation and to explain to Israel what God is doing through those events, and Isaiah's message was a really harsh one. God was taking their land away from them, and he was doing it because it was their fault.

They had not done what God had called them to do because God had called Israel to represent him in the world, to be a center of his blessings to the world. But instead of reaching out with the truth of God, they built their little fortress and prided themselves on how much better they were than their neighbors. Even worse, they got caught up in the worst things that those nations had to offer. Because Israel began to worship other gods and they were greedy, unjust, and sexually immoral; they lied, they stole, they murdered, and God had had enough of it.

So God is not just making things hard on them for a moment to get their attention. He is taking away their land... the very land that proved to them that God loved them and had called them as a nation. So across Isaiah's lifetime, piece by piece, the land was taken away by the Assyrians. Finally the remnant of the nation is just a little circle around the city of Jerusalem, and all the rest of the land, all the rest of what God had given Israel, in all of that land, the Jews were gone. They had been dispersed throughout the Assyrian empire, and the people that had been moved by force into the land were Gentiles who were worshipping other gods.

Then Isaiah has the responsibility to tell the king in Jerusalem that even the last little bit of the nation, the city of Jerusalem itself, will be conquered and emptied as well. This is the hard news of Isaiah. This is what chapters 1 to 39 of the book of Isaiah are all about. This message left every Jew alive in Isaiah's time with a burning theological question: What had happened to all of God's promises? God had made promises to Abraham, that they would be blessed and be a blessing. God had made promises to David and to Moses. Has it all come to nothing? What's going on? These are the burning questions that are answered in chapters 40 to 66 of the book of Isaiah.

Now, chapters 40 to 66 leap into the future. In these chapters, Isaiah looks beyond the judgment to a time of restoration. This sinful nation that has been cut up and emptied will return. Now since the first events that are talked about in the second half of the book of Isaiah, since the very first events that come to fulfill this, happen about 150 years after the end of Isaiah's ministry, many people feel like it's actually written by other prophets, and it has just been incorporated into the book that we call Isaiah. There are all kinds of arguments on one side or the other. I'm approaching this as if Isaiah himself wrote it, and there are good reasons for that, and I believe that, and I'd be glad to share some of the reasons for that if we ever get a chance to talk.

So what Isaiah is saying is that there's a day coming in the future when Israel will be restored. In the sixth century B.C., that happened in part, but more is going on in this part of the book of Isaiah than just this restoration that happened in the sixth century. The picture Isaiah draws is much bigger than that because it's a picture of what God's redemption of the entire world looks like. The language used in chapters 40 to 66 are history-embracing, world-embracing language.

Isaiah sees far beyond the sixth century. He sees to the ministry of Jesus Christ, In fact there's so much about chapters 40 to 66 that can't be understood until we see Jesus. John the Baptist explained who he was by using the language of Isaiah 40. Jesus explained what his ministry would be like by using the language of Isaiah 61. In Isaiah 53, we have the clearest description of the suffering of Jesus Christ that we find in the Old Testament. Isaiah sees Jesus, and he sees the resurrection, and he sees the Church, and he sees beyond that to the very end of history where God sweeps up everyone who has ever believed in him and who has become part of his people.

When Isaiah saw it, it may have seemed to him to be kind of one event. You know that's a characteristic of prophets, they have a notorious lack of depth perception. In other words, what they see sometimes appears to be one event when it's actually several. Sometimes on a clear day you can look at a mountain range and it looks like one blue line in the distance, and it looks like one mountain range, but as you come closer and closer to it, you realize that it's actually several stacked behind one another, and they're actually miles in between them.

There are events that to Isaiah looked like one event that have actually proved to be things that have now embraced thousands of years and still not complete. We are living inside of chapters 40 to 66 of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah sees the future, God's plan for Israel, and he presents it to encourage Israel that all is not lost. So I'd like to look at these few verses to get some perspective of what God was doing.

It begins with these words, "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent. For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet." This is God speaking, not the prophet Isaiah. God will not remain quiet, because what follows this vision of restoration for the people, is God's own heart. It's not something we're having to twist God's arm about, this is what he intends to do, and he intends to do it so surely, so firmly, that he can't keep quiet about it. Even at this point where the nation itself is being torn down, God is saying, "I cannot be silent about what my plan is for you."

Take a look at what it is. "Jerusalem's righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch." They have glory. They're called by a new name. That new name means that they have a new character, a new start, a new relationship with God. They become a crown of splendor in God's hands. When they look around at the nation as they saw it that moment, they're deserted and desolate. "But that is not where you will be because where I am taking you," God says, "is that my delight is in you. You will be fruitful." This section ends, verse 5, with God rejoicing over his people like a bridegroom rejoices over a bride. This is what is on God's heart, what he cannot be silent about. This is his promised future.

So when Isaiah tells this to the people, they needed to believe this promise. In the midst of their desolation, in order for them to act rightly, to be able to point their course in the right direction, in the midst of all of the difficulty they were going to face, they needed to believe that this was the future. This is a picture of God's heart, to take what is broken and desolate because of sin and to restore it in love. God's heart is to delight in the world that he's created, and to make it fruitful, and we, too, need to believe that.

We need to believe that this is where God is heading in order for us to point in the right direction, in order for us to have hope as we see things that otherwise seem hopeless. This is God's heart. It's not what we have to force him to do. It's what he intends to do and nothing will ultimately stop him.

So this verse applies to us as individuals. I think some of us are going into 2009 feeling that we are deserted, broken, and desolate. Some of it might be our own fault. What this Word tells us is that there is grace from God to heal, to pursue wholeness, and that it might not all come in this life. There might be some things that don't fully come together until Jesus Christ comes again, but what we need to understand right now, even in our brokenness, is that we can taste some of it now, and what God's intention for us no matter how broken we feel is that the day will come that we will be absolutely beyond any doubt aware of the fact that his delight is in us, and our glory and our righteousness will be secure. This is our hope.

So the question is... can you believe that? As you look at who you are and the brokenness you struggle with, can you believe that this is what God intends for you? That's where it begins. This word is also for us as a church. This promised future applies to us as a church. God wants to make us effective and fruitful and righteous, to be a community through whom he can show his delight and his power.

I must admit that sometimes that's a personal struggle for me, because I know who I am, and it's not when I look at you or at the history of this church that I have second guesses about what God wants to do. It is when I look at me I say, "God, you're taking an awfully big chance." But what I need to take heart in, and what we together need to hold onto, is that God intends, God longs, to show his delight to us and to make us fruitful, to make us part of what he's doing in the world.

So I am trusting right now that God will make Central more fruitful than any time before in its life, fruitful in the things that matter to him. Not because we are better, but because God is powerful. We need to believe that. He longs to bless us and bless through us.

But here's the hard one, folks. This promise, this promised future, applies to Baltimore as well. Here's a city that could be called Deserted and Desolate... full of violence, drug abuse, corruption, wounded by broken families, and immorality, struggling with education, AIDS, poverty, homelessness, and it's so easy to begin to think that God really can't do anything about it.

Come on, let's be honest. What's your prayer like for Baltimore? You know, a lot of times, you know, I have a certain amount of faith for something, then I look at a really difficult problem and start hedging my bets. It's so easy to think that God really can't deal with these bigger issues. So we're going to just have to live with it. Come to some kind of uneasy truce with the mess of the situation.

Maybe we'll learn to avoid it, to develop a lifestyle that can kind of avoid all the messier parts of the life of the city. At our worst moments maybe we will be thanking God that we're not like those messed up people. God's power, God's promised future, deserves more than that from us. We are called to believe in God's promised future even when those promises apply to a place like Baltimore. We need to pray for it. We need to tell people about it. We need to demonstrate it. We need to invite other people to be a part of it.

Since about 2006, I've been getting together to pray every month with pastors and church leaders from all over the region. These are leaders who believe that God wants to do a special work of transformation in Baltimore, that God is not content to have it continue the way it is, deserted and desolate, that God actually wants to show his delight and his love to the city, and that he's powerful enough to do it... to transform it. That's a huge thing to struggle with in prayer.

I believe that Central Presbyterian Church is called to be part of whatever God wants to do in that city. So we can't hole up in some kind of religious fortress to stay safe. That's not our calling. We will not be able to be faithful as a church without going outside of these walls and serving the city. That's who we are. That's who we've been, and more than ever, I believe that's who we're called to be.

When I first moved to Baltimore there were "believe" signs all over town. Believe. Believe, Hon. Never told us what to believe. As I looked at them long enough I started to realize that the mayor was probably asking us to believe that the city could get better, solve its problems in being a great place to live. Well I'm asking us to believe, too.

Believe that God wants to take what is deserted and desolate, broken and bleeding, and make it his delight, to believe in God's promised future. This promise is for you, to restore you, and to make you whole. Believe that. This promise is for us to make us fruitful for God as a church no matter what our weaknesses are, no matter how many imperfections we can point to, God wants to make us fruitful in new and deeper ways. Believe that.

This promise is for them, for Baltimore, because we can't hold back the blessing. We're the Church, and the Church is called to be a channel of this blessing to the rest of the world. Our world begins with Baltimore; we cannot ignore it. We cannot treat it as second rate. We can't hold back the blessings, so let's start by believing. Believe that God is big enough to bless even Baltimore.

Now over the next few weeks, we're going to be coming back to Isaiah 62. We're going to look at other things that grow out of this as we face our future. Next week we won't be in it because Paul Borden is going to be preaching, and he'll be in the New Testament. But all of it, all of the direction we're talking about for the next month begins with this. What does God intend to do? That determines everything about reality, everything about the future. It begins with us believing what he says. Let's believe God for his promised future.

Let's pray: God you know that we can't do this for you because we're part of the problem that you have to solve. But we believe that you intend incredible good to creation, and that even now the beauty of your kingdom can be made known. So Lord, work in us, then work through us, and show your delight to the world that you love. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2009, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org