Finally I’m back! (The blog still shows the original date of this post, back in Oct. 2009, but as I write this, it's actually May 13, 2010!) I left this site, and this specific post, “on hold” for five or six months, during which I was doing... well, a lot of other things. Including teaching courses and overseeing our school’s accreditation process.
The last thing I left here was the introduction to this sermon... without the sermon. Not very nice of me. Sorry! It’s time at last to post this thing, for better or worse. Now, here’s the introduction as I posted it back in the fall:
This sermon was, let’s say, experimental. I quite blatantly took two passages that hardly sounded similar and “forced” them to talk about more or less the same thing. That may seem like a mishandling of scripture, but in my own defense: 1) if you’re at all honest (as I hope I am) you can only “force” scripture to “say” something if in fact it does say it in some way, however between-the-lines or under the (historical-theological) surface that may be, and if the text really doesn't say, by even the remotest stretch of the imagination, anything like what you’re getting at, then all the “forcing” in the world isn’t going to yield results – again, assuming you’re honest; 2) there is a certain, general “safe zone” within which it’s not terribly difficult to posit conceptual intersections between different parts of Scripture, inasmuch as all Scripture pretty much talks about God, man and their relationship (entailing, of course, sin, salvation and sanctification). Granted, there is a spectrum of plausibility. On the one end, it’s quite easy to explicate the spiritual principles which, say, Isaiah 40:1-5 and 2 Corinthians 1:3-8 present virtually in unison. On the other end of the spectrum, it would be quite a clever trick to do a sermon on the “one idea” contained in Philippians 2:19-24 and Numbers 26:52-56 (and if I hear someone do it, I owe them a cake)! I am certainly not into clever tricks for the sake of clever tricks. But the two passages examined in this sermon spoke, for me, sufficiently powerfully about a single reality and a single attitude (faith) that they warranted such “forcing” (I hope you’ll find that the passages themselves don’t object too loudly to my handling). I’d say, then, that the following comparison falls somewhere around the middle of that “spectrum of plausibility”.
Let me just add now that this sermon is probably one of my more... mm, esoteric ones (one might offer the term “spacey”), but I’ll leave that to your judgment. I have radically re-worked it from its original Russian version, more than any other sermon on this blog. It is essentially a “non-Russian” sermon now. And, to tell you the truth, I probably would not venture to deliver it, in its reworked form, in one of our Ukrainian churches. I was tempted to just toss this sermon out, because it was getting perhaps too weird, but for some reason I really wanted to stay in the saddle and let it gallop to wherever it ultimately wanted to go. And I did... and it did.
You judge.
Let’s begin by reading Isaiah 26:1-3 (read).
“In that day....” The prophet says a day is coming, no matter what. No matter what the present reality looks like, that day is approaching. It’s a “future fact”, one of the “facts of life”!
And what will that day be like? It says God’s people will be singing: “We have a strong city....” So why strong? The city is strong because God has made salvation its walls and ramparts. The city’s strength actually consists of God’s salvation!
And that's why the future promises to bring joy: “Open the gates!” It’s a time of openness, when nothing negative remains. It’s a time of welcome. Welcome for whom? “Open the gates... so the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.” Welcome to the righteous nation, the people of faith! Under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, Isaiah foresees a time when God possesses a totally faithful and righteous nation, a people all His own, who love and glorify Him forever. The greatest family reunion ever. This is glory, triumph, everlasting peace.
But then verse 3 suddenly shifts focus and the whole thing gets very personal. You could say we “zoom in”. We’re no longer talking about a nation, not even about a family, but about one person—in fact about each person whose “mind is steadfast”, who trusts in the Lord. Instead of a city or gates or walls or ramparts, the prophet hammers on the personal meaning of what he just said—because, while it’s wonderful to talk about a glorious far-off future, the question must be asked: “But what does it mean to me, right here, right now?”
And so the prophet Isaiah expresses God’s personal promise: God will keep each one whose mind is fixed on Him in perfect peace. Why? “Because he (that’s you and me, the believer) trusts in you (that’s God)”. The cause and effect is totally clear: if you’re trusting, then you’re already not worrying. It’s “ipso facto”: when you’re trusting God, He’s already keeping you in perfect peace. That’s how it works. Trusting Him, we find the peace and confidence we need to face whatever life throws at us.
Trust is essentially the same thing as faith, and our faith is essentially the same thing as the peace of knowing what God has done and will do. And what will God do? He will fulfill His perfect plan.
“Fulfill”—that means “complete”, “carry out”, “finish”, “totally realize”-- you might even say "commit", like the way we say a person has "commited" a crime; God's plan is going to be totally "committed"! And what that all finally looks like, the ultimate and forever-reality, will be 100% what God Himself is absolutely and totally delighted with. (Do you need a lift today? Just think about that...)
Now when we remind ourselves of the time in history when Isaiah pronounced these words to Israel, we see why Israel needed this reminder in advance. Because destruction and exile still lay ahead for Israel. The time was coming when such words would sound like “The Impossible Dream” – a time when the Jewish people were banished from their homeland, prisoners in another country, with their great city and temple left behind lying in ruins. At such a time, words like, “We have a strong city... Open the gates, that the nation may enter” would sound like wild fantasy.
But just like when Jesus said to his disciples, “See, I have told you all these things beforehand”, Isaiah’s prophetic words must have been—should have been—a bedrock of comfort and hope to the nation in exile. With all the confidence of divine inspiration, the prophet audaciously proclaims the impossible-yet-certain future God has sent him to proclaim: “This will happen, Israel. It is going to be. And the only way for you to endure what’s coming is to be certain of it, with total trust and peace in God.” And that's what’s called “faith”: faith in God’s facts.
In a particular and very real way, the future—God's future—is already a fact right now, just as much as past historical events we read about in our schoolbooks. Why? Because the powerful reality of God’s future defines the present. And since the present is clearly a “fact”, then we can't call the future that defines it anything other than a fact, too!
Now, we can’t see it yet, but in fact, what God’s doing now is directly linked to what He will do in the future: the two work together like gears in a machine. One turns only because the other does. And in this case, it’s not just the present turning the future, but vice versa, too.
For example, when Abraham willingly offered up Isaac as a sacrifice, what that event meant already came directly out of the fact that God also gave His Son as a sacrifice and didn't spare him the way He spared Abraham’s son. The lesson, the parallel, but most of all the meaning, were always there—why? Precisely because both events were always there, in the total picture, in God’s absolute knowledge. In that sense, both events were already “now”, fully in play, operating together like two gears engaged in motion.
It’s in just this way that Isaiah offers the Israelites of his time God’s perfect peace in the fact of a strong city whose walls and ramparts are made of God’s salvation. Yes, even though destruction and exile haven’t even come yet. Even though the nation’s return from a future exile isn’t even conceivable yet! And yes, let me add, even though to this very day we can’t say that there has ever been a totally righteous nation, nor have we seen with our own eyes a city made of salvation. This prophecy still hasn’t fully been fulfilled. In spite of all that, the prophet Isaiah audaciously, without apology, says to his people... all those many, many years ago... speaking in the present tense: “We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts; open the gates...!”
This is the present tense of faith. It brings all times – past, present and future – together into one perfect fullness, a totality. This is the faith that knows God’s “big picture” is unfolding right now. This big picture encompasses all the past and all the future. And where, precisely, does it encompass all the past and future? Where else but now? It’s always right now, “at the moment”, where the past and future are unfolding, in the coming-into-being of God’s eternal purpose. Right here in the right-here-and-now the meaning and significance and power of the Red Sea parting and the falling walls of Jericho and the birth of Christ and the Cross and the Resurrection and Pentecost and the Tribulation and the Second Coming and the New Heaven and New Earth are all God’s present, immediate action, the unfolding of His design in the right-here-and-now.
Yes, some of these events are past, some are future, but the only place where any of them are actually dynamically, generatively operative, in immediate, productive power and meaning, happens to be right now. Because there is no other place than right now. “Right now” is the real moment, when the real God really brings the real meaning of all these events continually into being.
That’s what I mean by present tense of faith. If I may offer a couple of illustrations....
I’ve heard (I hope it’s accurate, but I don’t really understand these things!)—I’ve heard that in a hologram (you know, those 3-D images you can see in a little field of light, like a figurine, except there’s nothing solid there)--in a hologram, each part that makes up the image also contains in itself the whole image. Well, there you go, that’s what I’m saying about the “present tense of faith,” about all God’s past and future being here in the right-here-and-now.
Another illustration.... When you’re stopped at a train crossing and you watch the train go by, you see only a few of the train cars at any moment – maybe four or five, maybe a dozen or more if there’s not much around to obstruct your view. But if it’s a re-e-ally long train, there could be a hundred cars attached that you don’t see yet. They’re moving, they’re on their way, they’re actually moving together with the cars in front of you—it’s all one activity, one motion—but you don’t see them yet . And the cars that have already passed out of sight, they too are still moving, still part of this one single event, but you don’t see them anymore. Some cars have already passed, some haven’t come yet, but the who-o-le thing is a-a-all happening right now. The past, present and future of this train are all “in motion”... right now. And if any one of those three weren’t directly in motion right now, then none of them would be.
God’s work is like that, and our future – the future in Christ that God has already settled – is moving, it’s working, it’s speeding on its way, connected to the past and present: it’s all one train and you can’t disconnect the cars! God’s future is guaranteed – you know why? Now get ready, because here comes the strangest statement in this sermon: God’s future is guaranteed because there could be no past in God’s plan unless there were a future. If God weren’t going to do all the things He’s going to do, He wouldn’t have done all the things He has done. If there were no future in God’s plan, there would be no past in God’s plan—the “train” wouldn’t exist to begin with.
So the only way there could be no Second Coming of Christ, no New Heaven and Earth, no Marriage Supper of the Lamb, would be if there had never been an Ascension, or a Resurrection, or a Calvary, or the feeding of the five thousand, the wedding in Cana and water turned into wine, the first Christmas Day and the angel announcing to the young girl Mary that she would be the mother of God’s Son. But there was. So-o-o... there will be. Because the whole train is moving. The gears are engaged and you can’t disconnect them. It’s too late to disconnect them. And where can we see that moving train? The only place we can ever see anything: right now in front of us. We see it through the eyes of “present-tense-faith”.
(No, not a faith that believes only in the present, but a faith to which all of God’s plan is immediately and powerfully present!)
The “perfect peace” that the Scripture speaks of, the peace “that keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”—what is that? I believe that that’s the peace that comes from living inside of a story that is perfect, inside of a “now” that wondrously encloses, enfolds, encases the glory of God’s future, like that hologram where every part contains the whole thing. If God’s future climaxes in glorious triumph and everlasting peace, then that glorious triumph and everlasting peace are the ingredients of our present-tense-faith, right now. Because now is when it’s all moving, on the move, happening: “We have a strong city whose walls are salvation....”
More than seven hundred years after Isaiah proclaimed his prophecies, a different man in a very different set of circumstances wrote to a group of people from a radically different background than Old Testament Israel’s. This was Paul, writing to the Christians in the city of Corinth. And where we now begin reading, Paul is speaking in very different terms than the prophet Isaiah. But I think if we listen closely, with the heart, we’ll find that Paul is ultimately writing about the same thing (read Colossians 1:15).
Here we don’t read about a city which God has built, a city whose walls are salvation. Instead, we read about the One who is God’s firstborn, the very image of the invisible God. And we read further (read verses 16 and 17). We have moved beyond the city and are looking at the whole creation, at everything that exists, physical and spiritual, in all times, from the beginning of the world. And its entire structure depends on Him, the Firstborn of God and Firstborn from the dead, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”. He is the foundation, the beginning and end of everything.
This is the very God to whom Isaiah directed the eyes of Israel, saying, “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock” (26:4). And here in the epistle, Paul directs the Colossians’ eyes – and ours – to the same Lord who is the eternal Rock. And again like Isaiah, Paul directs our attention to a certain city, whose walls are salvation, whose gates open wide to all who believe—only this time the “city” is called a body (read v. 18). The body is the Church, and Jesus Christ himself is Her Beginning.
Catch what that means: Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, is the Church's beginning. Paul is conveying something stunning here, don’t miss it! The picture he’s drawing is this: the Church originates in resurrection. Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead, and the firstborn from the dead is the Church’s beginning– the Greek word is “arkhe”, which is the “start” and “source” for everything else. In modern talk we might say that Jesus is the “go-ahead”... and why is He the “go-ahead” for everything else? Because He is the firstborn from the dead. Only starting with Jesus do you have a life that has dealt with death, once and for all, and says, Alright, let's go, let's begin!
A whole new dimension of life—glorious, unconquerable, resurrected, bursting through the bonds of death—is the Church’s own bursting into being. The Church originates in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
A whole new dimension of life—glorious, unconquerable, resurrected, bursting through the bonds of death—is the Church’s own bursting into being. The Church originates in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Do we have a city whose walls are salvation? And right now? Oh, yes. For we are the Church, whose very Origin is Living Salvation Himself, the Resurrected Son of God Jesus Christ. He was born from the dead first, so that we would be born in Resurrection-life. If we can expect resurrection, it’s only because He is risen; if we have life, it’s only because He lives; if we have the hope of seeing God’s face, it’s only because God’s face has appeared in our world in the face of Jesus, the image of the invisible God. And if we anticipate ultimately being God’s perfect children, it is only because Jesus became the perfect Man. Do you catch what Paul is getting at? In everything the supremacy—the “first-ness”, the “beginning-ness” and “source-ness”—is Christ's.
To “present-tense-faith”, the past that God has committed in Jesus guarantees the future which God is also committing, right now, in Jesus. And Jesus is forever. So we are "forever", in him. Yes, we have a strong city whose walls are salvation....
In the days of Isaiah, when the prophet predicted tribulation and exile but also redemption and return to a city of salvation, it sounded like something fantastic, impossible. And again in the time of the apostles, and in our time, all of this can sound fantastic, like an impossible dream. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ proves it isn't impossible. On the contrary, it’s the Rock and Foundation of our past, present and future; it’s the Gospel on which we stand: the Gospel of salvation by faith in the resurrected Son of God: (read verses 19 and 20).
All things... all things. Beyond the barriers of time and history, beyond the seeming unchangeableness of the past, beyond the mysterious darkness of the future, He reconciles all things through the death of the very One in whom all things have their beginning and source. It sounds fantastic, impossible, but He has done It.
In Isaiah 26:12, the prophet says, “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.”
In Colossians 1:21-22, the apostle says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you, by Christ’s physical body through death”.
He has done it all—and why? “To present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation...”. “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished...”—yes, even a new life out of death, and freedom from accusation —“you have done for us.”
“To present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation (v. 23) if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel....” If. If. “Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock eternal.” (Is. 26:2-4)
“If you continue in your faith”... “for the nation that keeps faith”... “for the one who trusts... “trust forever”... “established and firm, not moved from the hope”....
If we just keep faith, the future promises joy: the joy of Christ, the joy of God; the future promises a day—a day that is coming, no matter what; the future promises open gates and a welcome; the future promises to usher you right into God’s presence, absolutely perfect and delightful to Him; the future promises reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth—including all your pasts, presents and futures, and the healing of all their wounds. To sum it up, the future promises us a future and promises it to us now, if we just keep faith.
God is on the move and He will not be stopped. Because of Jesus, God’s future is your future and your present is God’s growing story—a story of ultimate glory, triumph and everlasting peace. And because that’s what it will be, that’s what it is, right now. Isaiah saw it, Paul saw it; with the eyes of present-tense faith, we see it too: We have a strong city now; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts now, and God will keep in perfect peace, now, whoever continues in faith, established and firm, not moved from the true hope revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
