Faith makes you precious to the LORD

 

Sermon for Epiphany 2, January 19, 2025

To all those loved by God…called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Isaiah 62:1-5  For the sake of Zion I will not be silent.  For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth shining brightly, and her salvation burns like a torch.  ²Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings will see your glory.  You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will assign to you.  ³Then you will be a beautiful crown in the Lord’s hand, and a royal diadem in the palm of your God.  ⁴You will never again be called Abandoned, and your land will never again be called Desolation, for you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married, because the Lord delights in you, and your land will be married.  ⁵For just as a young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you, and just as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, your God will rejoice over you. (EHV)

Faith makes you precious to the LORD.

Dear friends in Christ,

            In the days of the Old Testament, the Lord often compared His relationship with Israel to a marriage between husband and wife.  That description assumes a pure relationship in which the wife is faithful to her husband and the husband (in this case God) is both unselfishly loving and a perfect provider for His beloved.  In that scenario, Israel brought nothing to the union.  The picture is of a slave girl rescued from bondage and transformed into a queen of great beauty with all the riches of the kingdom generously given to her by her husband, again God.

In the New Testament, this picture is continued with the Christian Church being the bride of Christ.  Through faith, Christ puts His name on us.  By His life, death, and resurrection, Christ has rescued the Church from her bondage and brought her into His kingdom of glory to reign at His side in the heavenly mansions above.  Considering those two scenes as really one, we see how Faith makes you precious to the LORD.

“For the sake of Zion I will not be silent.  For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth shining brightly, and her salvation burns like a torch.”  In this picture, Isaiah represents all messengers of God’s grace.  In our times, that could be missionaries, pastors, teachers of God’s Word, and parents or friends sharing the Good News of salvation with their children, friends, neighbors, and even enemies or people across the planet we may never meet.  The Lord of heaven and earth has made it clear that His salvation is intended for all people who will believe in His Son, not just a select few; therefore we will not, and dare not, be silent in the proclamation of the Gospel because “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)  Just as St. Paul explained to Timothy, “There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness.  The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8)

Next, the Lord describes His bride—first Israel, but in reality the whole Christian Church of all times.  “Nations will see your righteousness, and all kings will see your glory.  You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will assign to you.”  Looking forward to what His Son, Jesus, would do for the people of Israel and for all the people of the world, for all sinners everywhere of every time in history, God promises righteousness.  This righteousness is the glorious perfect obedience and trust that Jesus lived in our place.  From the moment of conception in Mary’s womb, the Man Jesus remained without any sin and without any rebellion of even the most minor kind. 

Now, it is physically and literally impossible for us who were born under the curse of sin to fully comprehend how completely pure in thought, word, and deed Jesus lived.  We can’t imagine a life without any kind of darkness in it, without any shameful desire or selfish thought, because we are immersed in Adam’s fallen nature since the moment we were conceived in our mother’s wombs.  On the other hand, Jesus could not, and would not, go against anything His Father in heaven had commanded or willed.  I have always marveled at how any other children Mary might have had would have had to face living with a perfectly obedient older Brother.  But Jesus’ holiness counted for those children as well as you and me. 

Having been born into the slavery of sin, with each of us covered in the filth of our guilt, there was nothing appealing in any of us that would make God desire to have us in His family.  However, being pure love, God chose to rescue the whole assembly of Christianity out of this world of bondage.  Just as Israel didn’t deserve rescue from their Egyptian overlords, so there was nothing pleasing about any human that would have made God love us.  Yet, our Creator chose to love.  He speaks that love to us every time the Aaronic blessing is spoken over us at the end of our worship services.  That is equivalent to God repeating His marriage vow to His Bride, the Church, as the Lord explained through Moses, “In this way they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:27)

The Lord brings us into this covenant relationship through faith in His Son.  As the Lord brings us to believe in Jesus through the hearing of His Word and the power of Baptism, He pours out Jesus’ holiness over us, cleansing us and dressing us in the righteousness Jesus lived for all people.  Consequently, when God looks down from heaven, it is the glorious perfection of His Son that He sees in Christian believers.  Thus, Faith makes you precious to the LORD.

Having been delivered from our bondage to sin by faith in Jesus, having been cleansed of all guilt in the washing flood of Baptism, and having been dressed in holy perfection as the Bride of Christ, “Then you will be a beautiful crown in the Lord’s hand, and a royal diadem in the palm of your God.  You will never again be called Abandoned, and your land will never again be called Desolation, for you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Married, because the Lord delights in you, and your land will be married.”  How often in the history of world has the devil whispered in the ears of sinners, “God doesn’t love you; God has ignored and abandoned you; God hates you; He doesn’t appreciate you.”?  These are the most common lies the devil weaves into every temptation and fear. 

We have read how Satan used these same lies against Adam and Eve.  Even Abraham, the great father of faith, fell prey to the devil’s temptation that God was neglecting to keep his promise to give him a son, so Abraham tried to get an illicit son from a substitute slave girl.  You and I fall prey to these lies whenever we feel we can’t trust God, every time we desire something He hasn’t given us, and whenever we fail to submit to our Lord’s instructions.  Yet, the Lord remains faithful to all His promises in His own perfect time.  The Lord God of heaven and earth addresses Satan’s wicked accusations here in Isaiah’s prophecy.  Our Creator has reclaimed our lives out of sin’s bondage and death and rescued us from condemnation and exile from His presence. 

Having committed Himself to our eternal glory, God made us His crown jewels.  With Jesus paying the ransom price for our freedom with His holy life and innocent death, it is the equivalent of God exchanging His beloved Son for our eternal glory.  So that no one and no evil angel can accuse us of sin in God’s heaven, He makes us clean, holy, glorious in His sight.  God counts us as His valuable treasure at the cost of the blood of His own dear Son, when Faith makes you precious to the LORD.

Having been brought into this marriage covenant with God, who can steal us away?  Though the devil may whine and rage, he can’t accuse us before God.  Now, that doesn’t mean we need not be wary of his lies.  The devil is a chained beast growling out many deceptions and deceits.  We dare not play with that conniving serpent nor tease him by drawing close and hoping to escape his claws.  Yet, with Jesus at our side, no man nor evil foe dare intervene to separate us from God’s love.  This side of heaven, we are safe as we walk with the Lord Jesus, trusting Him to protect and care for us.  Then, when we are brought home into His mansions of heaven, we are eternally safe from the devil’s schemes, for the old evil foe is forever banished from God’s presence, condemned to spend eternity in the depths of hell’s fires.

Isaiah wrote, “For just as a young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you, and just as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, your God will rejoice over you.”  Those of you who are married, remember the joyous days of your honeymoon immediately after the wedding.  Remember the times you had with your beloved before any disagreements or differences of opinion marred your time together.  This is but a foretaste of the loving relationship God has established with you.  Because God is holy, pure, and true, He will never neglect you, never mistreat you, and will always guard and protect you.  His joy over your rescue and union with Him is unconditional and never ending.  Jesus declares, “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)

Throughout Epiphany, we celebrate God making Jesus known to the world.  Today, we also celebrate God making us part of His family and His heavenly treasure, for cleansing and purifying us until we shine like jewels in God’s heavenly crown.  We sing with joy and delight that He has chosen us out of all the wretched refuse of mankind to be part of His beloved Bride, the Church.  Thanks be to Jesus for loving us enough to sacrifice all so that we might live in glory at His side in heaven.  Thanks be to Jesus, for Faith makes you precious to the LORD.  Amen.

May the LORD our God be with us, just as he was with our fathers.  May he never leave us or abandon us.  May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways.  Amen.