Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. As we consider what God has to say to His people in Isaiah 54, an image of His heart emerges clearly. God brings His people from shame into honor, from emptiness to abundance. He is a God of relationship, redemption, and restoration. Because of Christ, we move from lonely despair into the tender care of our Heavenly Father. Let's listen to this message from the series titled, Behold Your God. The theme today is His kindness.
That is the theme of the 54th chapter of Isaiah. In honor of the Lord and His word, would you please stand with me as we seek His aid to hear and heed His word. Father, it is with great delight that we come to you this morning, that we gather together to fellowship with each other and to commune with you. We thank you that you have made yourself known to us so that we can know you and delight in you.
And Father, I pray that you will guide us by your Spirit through your word this morning. You understand our context, Father. We recognize that in this world, the virtue of kindness is diminished. It seems to, in some places, be disappearing. For we live in a world of people bent on living for themselves.
And often, too often, we are part of that. Father, manifest yourself to us this morning that we may know you for who you are in your kindness. Thank you for your faithfulness and rescue us, Father, from approaching your word perfunctorily but open our hearts and our minds to engage your truth and to see you and to be transformed by that vision. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated. The Lord says in verse 10, my kindness shall not depart from you. He speaks of everlasting kindness. This word that is translated kindness in the new King James is the word chesed, the Hebrew word chesed.
Now, here's the problem with translation. There is no single word in the English language that does that word justice. Probably the best single translation of that word chesed, it's translated faithful love, mercy. Probably the best word that is translated from that in English is the word loving kindness. Loving kindness, the word chesed is a full mix of compassion, the intent of kindness and affection in the context of relationship.
All of that is wrapped up in the meaning of chesed. And that is this word that appears in verse 8 and in verse 10. And what that looks like is explained in verses 1 to 3 and verses 11 through 17 in that expansive language. If you were to compare it to the New Testament, the word chesed or loving kindness is the Old Testament equivalent of the New Testament phrase, God is love. God is love. God is love.
That is championed by the Apostle John in the author of the Gospel of John in the letters of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. God is love. It is his nature, it is his essence. Though he shows wrath and God can become angry and it is a necessary wrath because he is a holy God, his nature, his essence is love. And that is this idea of chesed, loving kindness.
We have then in Isaiah chapter 54, as I mentioned earlier, there's an expansive language, particularly in verses 1 to 3 and then verses 11 to 17. In verses 1 to 3, it's the expansion of family. There's many in the family. It's an enlarging family. This last week, we were just up in Michigan at a family reunion.
We were around aunts and uncles and cousins and having a great time enjoying each other, getting physically exhausted, climbing sand dunes and riding on a nerd tube behind a boat and discovering muscles you forgot you had. But it's a great time to be together and you just enjoy the fellowship. We get together every night for dinner and in a family, as a family expands and there are great big families and there's acceptance, there is joy there. And that is God's blessing. And this is the blessing that he is wanting to lavish upon his people that we see in verses 1 to 3, the idea of an expanding family, true wealth and riches.
And then in verses 11 to 17, the expansive language is that of an environment of goodness, an environment of peace and satisfaction. These are the blessings that God wants to lavish upon his people. And what you have here then is like an explosive relief, if you will, on God's part.
Why do you say that? Because as John Oswald says, all of God's cosmic desire to bless can finally be released. Do you understand that God is burnt on the intention of showing you his kindness and lavishing his goodness upon you? That's his nature.
Do you know what this does? This helps us answer the why of creation. Many people ask that question.
I've even been approached with that question even by some of you in this room this morning. Why would God bother to create everything seeing the condition that everything is in now? Things are not the way they ought to be. And everyone understands that.
No one argues that. Things are not as good as they could be. Things are not as they ought to be. And we understand that.
We see that in the big picture. Why would God bother to do that? Why would God bother to create us when he knew we were going to reject him?
The why of creation is right here. Once again, as John Oswald, all of God's cosmic desire to bless can finally be released. It's like God is is built up and finally he lavishes all of his blessing upon his people.
That's what he wants to do. The reason why that's possible is because chapter 53 is in scripture. The suffering servant who fulfilled in prophecy is the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who bore the guilt of your sin and mine. He absorbed the wrath of God that we deserve so that we don't have to, so that God can lavish upon us all of his goodness and his kindness.
That answers a lot of questions, doesn't it? Maybe that's what David said in Psalm 16 when he said, in your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures evermore. That's what he understood. In God is all the blessing that we deeply long for, all the good that we deeply long for. The creator who is infinite and personal passionately cares about you because you were created for him.
Do you know that this morning? He passionately cares about you, and that you and I would corrupt and destroy ourselves stirs him deeply. We have to remember the context in which this prophecy is given. Isaiah is writing to Judah.
It's about 700 BC. Judah is going to be taken captive by the Babylonians beginning in 605 BC, so we're almost a century away from when that's going to happen. And what God is telling them in this prophecy is even farther beyond that when they are going to be returned to the land that God promised them from captivity, where God is bringing them back to the land that he promised them.
He says, I'm going to bring you back to myself. And the prophet Jeremiah says, be astounded at this, that my people have done two things. Number one, they've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they've hewn out, they've dug out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water.
What is he saying? What does God refer to himself as in that Jeremiah 2 prophecy? The fountain of living waters, the endless resource of refreshment and sustenance and satisfaction. And God says, my people have walked away from me, and they're playing in mud pits, and they think they love it. And God says, you know what, I'm going to let you experience the dryness and the thirst and the warrant of finding your satisfaction in those mud pits.
I'm going to let you experience that for a while, and then you will recognize what you're missing in me. That's the prophecy of Isaiah. And what he's prophesying here is when you come back to me, I am going to lavish all of my goodness upon you, because God is a good God. He's a kind God. He's a God of chesed. And the reason why he is able to do that, the reason why we are able to come back to him, is because chapter 53 is in Isaiah. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.
