The Year of the Lord's Favour // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 5

Sometimes, life gets so rough and rocky and we think to ourselves, surely, surely it must get better soon. But some people give up hope completely, and just live their lives in a constant state of despair. When we think about God, whoever that is, it's easy to get a distorted picture. The older we are the more we tend to think of Him as being judgmental, and the younger we are well, younger people, how do they see God? I saw an article published recently that reported younger peoples' views of God, it was based on a survey that had been conducted nationally in Australia with young people, and they commonly see Him as an "online butler". He's nice and loving and friendly and forgiving but with a consumer mentality God's there to fit in to my life when I need him to help me, when I need Him. Hmm. So how do we make sense of God in our lives today? Why did He send Jesus? What was the point? Does Jesus make a difference? Is this whole Christianity thing worth exploring? Is it worth pushing deeper into a relationship with Jesus? This week on the program we're looking at those questions, and today let's explore this whole idea of God's favour, of God's blessing, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but God the Butler???!!! People talk about Jesus but what was He all about, why did He come to earth? Why did He leave the air-conditioned comfort of heaven to be a little baby in a disgusting smelly little manger, to go and live in a grotty place like Nazareth and then to be crucified and misunderstood? I mean why did he do that? Well, He tells us actually, He tells us His reasons in an early speech. One of his earliest public addresses was in his hometown in the synagogue, Nazareth. And he quoted Isaiah Chapter 61 verses 1 and 2. Now we've worked our way through the first four of those reasons this week, looking at in Luke's Gospel Chapter 4 exactly what Jesus said. But today we're going to do something a little bit differently, and to look at the last reason we're going to go back to the original text in Isaiah which was written centuries before Jesus walked the earth. And this was the text that Jesus actually was quoting, this is what Isaiah wrote: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from the darkness for prisoners and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and the day of vengeance of God. To comfort those who mourn and to provide to those who greaves in Zion, to bestow on them," (this is good stuff) "to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of morning, the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair, they'll be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for a display of his splendor, they'll rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. (Isaiah 61:1-4) Now it's interesting, Isaiah here is writing to the nation of Israel after it's been exiled in Babylon for almost 70 years. Israel spent about 400 years as slaves in Egypt. They then went through the exodus for 40 years where they wandered in the desert and finally Joshua led them over the Jordan into the Promised Land, and there they lived. And the promise of God was, "This is the land I've promised your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, this is the Promised Land, and if you obey me, if you live with me as your God you'll be blessed, this is the land of milk and honey and I'll bless your socks off." "But," he said, "if you don't, if you go and worship other Gods, if you do the things, the very few things I tell you not to, I will punish you and you will loose the land." And that's exactly what happened. The Babylonians came into Jerusalem, they destroyed Jerusalem they took the nation into captivity in Babylon and there they'd been for 70 years. And this is the context that Isaiah is speaking into. That's why he's talking about the good news to the poor and binding up the broken-hearted, and freedom for the captives because they were captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, because they were prisoners. And he said: This is the year of the Lord's favour. This is the year you get to go back. So that's what Isaiah was talking about, but Jesus took that and he said it of himself in Nazareth, but he's also saying it to us. Those people were oppressed by the Romans, they were oppressed by the religious leaders, they were poor, they were broken-hearted, they were captives, they were prisoners, but He wasn't dealing with a geo-political situation. Jesus was talking about lives, He was talking about individuals, He was talking about poor, broken hearted captives and prisoners that he was about to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour over. Hmm the favour of God! So what is that favour? Is it God the butler? Well, let's have a look again, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour", and He then goes on to list five things to comfort all who mourn, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of despair, and to rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated, "they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations." God's favour looks like this; comfort for all who mourn, we all need comfort, we all mourn some day's we loose someone, a relationship breaks down, we're just finding it hard, we mourn and grieve. Where do you get that comfort from? Well others can support us but it's not the same. Jesus said: My favour, the favour of God that I'm declaring to you and bringing to you today is comfort for those who mourn, and secondly a crown of beauty instead of ashes. This is how God sees you, with a crown of beauty on, that's how much God loves you, "That's how much I love you, I bring a crown of beauty, you look at the ashes in Jerusalem, you see that the temple was gone, you see that everything that was destroyed." Replace that with a crown of beauty because that is what God thinks of you. The oil of gladness instead of mourning, I mean olive oil is a real fad food these days isn't it? But it was a symbol of God's blessing, people would rub it on their skin like moisturizer today. And this beautiful picture of olive oil, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. You know when we feel oppressed, when we're struggling we sometimes despair, and yet when God touches our lives, when God changes things, when we experience that goodness and that grace we just want to shout His praises. Rather than a sense of despair over our circumstances God wants a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. And the last one, he talks about rebuilding and renewing and restoring. Now that must have seemed hopeless, "these ruined cities have been devastated for generations," writes Isaiah, it's hopeless. But God comes along and says rebuild, renew, restore, out of the ashes will rise something better. Isn't that an interesting cycle, the five things that Isaiah writes and then Jesus goes on to quote that make up the favour of God are: First, comfort; secondly, putting a crown on our head to say "this is what God thinks of you", our reactions – gladness and praise. And finally the process of renewing and rebuilding and restoring. Isn't that beautiful?And Jesus said: That's what I came to do in your life, got it? Not some butler, not some sugar daddy but to deal with the real issues in the real lives of real people. People in his own hometown rejected him, we can do that we can reject him or we can believe him from a distance, and you know something, in practical terms that's the same as rejecting him. Or we can embrace the passion of Jesus for us with an equal passion, with an intent to live in that promise that God wants to comfort me, to crown me, to give me gladness and praise, to renew and rebuild and restore my life and that is the favour of God. This year is the year of God's favour in my life. Will we grab it? Because that's what Jesus came to give us.