Sermons on Isaiah
“I Am With You”: God’s Unwavering Presence
I think most of us probably engage in some sort of reflection as we end one year and start another. There’s the inevitable “I can’t believe another year has passed” thought, as well as the sometimes fretful or perhaps hopeful anticipation of flipping the calendar to another year. This year I’ll lose the weight and keep it off. This year I’ll start an exercise program that I’ll stick to. This year I’ll get my finances in order. This year I’ll…
The Root of Jesse
Throughout the month of December, I plan to focus each Sunday on some aspect of the Person of Jesus. To some extent we always do that, of course, but each week this month I’m focusing more intentionally on some aspect of his character or role. This text is clearly Messianic. Throughout the Old Testament there’s this note of anticipation as Israel waits for God to do what he’d promised that he would do. They looked forward to the time when…
A Light Has Dawned
Writing 700 years before Christ, Isaiah spoke of people who “walked in darkness”–certainly true of his own day, as even God’s people sought “mediums and necromancers” instead of God (mentioned in the verses at the end of chapter 8 just prior to our text). And it was also true of the early days of the Roman Empire to which Isaiah pointed, when the Israelites also lived in dark times–those who were clustered in Judea as well as those scattered throughout…
“In That Day” – Waiting on God
Most of us don’t like waiting, and yet one characteristic of the walk of faith is its emphasis on living in the present on the basis of what one anticipates in the future . . . on what one is waiting for. All of the Old Testament patriarchs, as Hebrews 11 tells us, believed that certain things would come true, even though they never got to experience them. They believed that God would give them the land of Canaan, though they…
Pierced for our Transgressions
When considered within the scope of both testaments of Scripture, it clearly refers to Christ–something we would know even if we didn’t have Philip’s conversation with the Ethiopian Eunuch, a man who was confused by his reading of Isaiah 53. Luke tells us that Philip began with our text and “told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). Perhaps the most obvious way this text reaches us is by teaching us again about Christ’s substitutionary death. Notice how many…
