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Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word
as we continue our consideration
of the book of the prophet Isaiah.
We are in this latter section of Isaiah’s work,
this book, chapter 40 through the end of the book.
And today we’re going to consider a brief passage,
Isaiah 40, verses nine through 11.
We’re gonna begin reading in verse six
to remind us of sort of the broader context here,
but let us hear God’s holy word.
We’ll find this in page 712, and you’ll hear a few about this.
Beginning at verse six, reading verse 11.
A voice says, cry.
And I said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows on it.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.
Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem,
herald of good news.
Lift it up, fear not.
Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God.
Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him.
Behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will tend his flock like a shepherd.
He will gather the lambs in his arms.
He will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
May God add his blessing to this reading of his holy word.
Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing.
Proclamation of his word.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you’ve given us
in the scriptures a clear word, for they are your word.
We would pray, Heavenly Father,
that by your illuminating spirit,
that you would help us, Lord,
to understand the significance and importance
of this portion of scripture.
We ask that you would give us open minds and open hearts
to receive the truths contained
in this precious portion of your holy word.
And we ask that you would grant me,
your unworthy servant, the grace to declare it
with clarity and power,
with the assistance and grace of your spirit.
We pray these things for Jesus’ sake and in his name,
and all of God’s people said, amen, amen.
You may be seated.
I hope my sermon today is Zion, Herald of Good News,
and you’ll see in your sermon outline
the three key words that you can be listening for.
I especially encourage the children
to listen for these words,
the words herald, power, and shepherd.
Herald, power, and shepherd.
Well, my dear friends, in Christ, once again,
we find ourselves in this latter section
of the book of the prophet Isaiah,
a section where the overarching themes
include wonderful things,
such as the themes of comfort, salvation,
and, of course, the ultimate eschatological hope
of the Messianic age.
The earlier sections of Isaiah
tended to be dominated by the themes of judgment and wrath,
although they were interspersed
with themes of comfort and salvation as well,
but this latter section of Isaiah
throbs with the hope, the ultimate hope,
that the promised Messiah, Jesus our Lord, would bring.
By the Holy Spirit’s inspiration,
Isaiah the prophet foresees a time
when God would accomplish, in essence,
the second exodus for his people
by rescuing them from their Babylonian exile
and by bringing them back to the promised land.
However, the ultimate and greater exodus,
or deliverance, that God will accomplish for his people
is not going to be merely the return
of the people of Israel
from their national exile in Babylon,
but rather their salvation
from the greatest bondage of all, the bondage of sin.
This salvation will be accomplished
through the work of the promised Messiah,
the suffering and victorious servant of the Lord
that is predicted in this latter section of Isaiah.
This good news of God’s return to shepherd his people,
which will be fulfilled through the promised Messiah,
this good news must not be kept secret.
Instead, it is a glorious message.
Indeed, it is the greatest good news ever.
It is a message that must be heralded loudly
and vigorously by the church
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
the church which is described in this passage
as the true Zion of God, the true Jerusalem,
and it must be proclaimed loud and clear.
Why?
So that all of God’s elect might heed the cry
found in verse nine, the cry,
behold your God.
As we turn our attention to our passage
for today, brothers and sisters,
I would first of all point out here
that the church is presented as a herald of good news.
Let’s consider, first of all,
the church as a herald of good news.
Verse nine says, go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news.
Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem,
herald of good news.
Lift it up, fear not.
Say to the cities of Judah,
behold your God.
Now, what is a herald?
A herald is someone who publicly announces
and proclaims and declares something.
A herald of good news is someone who brings good news
and openly testifies to it.
We’re told in this passage,
we have this image of the Lord through Isaiah
calling the Zion of God, the church,
to go up on a high mountain.
It says, go up to a high mountain.
What was this imagery of a high mountain meant
to evoke in our minds, in our thoughts?
Well, basically, what the Holy Spirit through Isaiah
is saying to the church is don’t hide the gospel.
This reminds me of what our Lord Jesus says
in that famous sermon on the mount
when he preached in Matthew 5, 14 through 16
about not hiding your light under a basket.
In fact, let’s turn there briefly,
Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16.
And while Jesus is not specifically addressing
the matter of the church’s evangelistic
and missionary mandate as such,
he does speak of the fruits of the gospel
in the lives of his disciples.
He says in Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world,
a city set on a hill cannot be hidden,
nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket
but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, he’s speaking to his disciples,
to you and me as his followers,
in the same way, let your light shine before others
so that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
In other words, friends, the gospel and its fruits,
its effects in our lives must not be hidden
from a lost and dying world that desperately needs
to hear the good news.
But instead, it must be prominently displayed,
it must be proclaimed, heralded far and wide.
Now this, of course, Jesus in telling us
not to hide our light under a basket,
this does not mean trying to impress others
with an ostentatious or self-righteous display
of pretended piety, nor does it mean shoving the gospel
down the throats of those who’ve made it very clear
that they are uninterested in the gospel.
Remember, Jesus did say don’t cast your pearls before swine.
Instead, it means letting the gospel of Jesus Christ
so saturate your soul and so influence your daily living
that others may see your good works,
which are the fruits of the gospel,
and therefore may glorify your Father in heaven.
The ideal way that they would glorify our heavenly Father
is through their conversion by the sovereign grace of God.
So getting back to our passage here in Isaiah,
go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news,
but some of you may have different translations
such as the New International Version,
and you may be scratching your heads and thinking,
well, wait a minute, it doesn’t quite read that way
in my Bible version.
In the ESV, the version that I’m using to preach from,
it says, O Zion, herald of good news.
In this translation, Zion itself is the proclamer,
the herald of the good news,
but in versions like the NIV, we read this.
You who bring good news to Zion.
See, in the one translation,
Zion is the proclamer of good news.
In the other translation, Zion is the recipient of good news,
which translation is most likely.
Both translations are technically possible,
but brothers and sisters, from the grammar and context,
I believe it is more likely
that versions like the English Standard Version are correct,
and that here in this passage,
Zion, which is also called Jerusalem,
we’ll talk about the meaning of those terms in a minute,
Zion or Jerusalem in this instance is the herald,
the proclamer of good news, not the recipient of it.
And understanding in view, O Zion, herald of good news,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news.
Here, the terms Zion and Jerusalem
are ultimately being used,
not simply in an old covenant national theocratic sense.
No, friends.
Remember, in this section of Isaiah,
Isaiah is looking forward to the Messianic Age,
and he is speaking of the people of God,
the covenant people as a whole.
Here, the terms Zion and Jerusalem
are ultimately being used to describe
God’s covenant people in the Messianic era.
He’s using old covenant language
to describe new covenant realities of the Messianic Age.
And so this is describing the church of Jesus Christ,
and not just the church in general,
but the church conceived of as a missionary people.
The church in its missionary capacity.
Friends, in its evangelistic and missionary capacity,
Christ’s church is to boldly and to confidently
herald forth the good news of salvation
through the obedient life, the atoning death,
the glorious resurrection and ascension of Christ,
and his intercession for us at the right hand of the Father.
This is the main subject of the church.
This is what we are to proclaim to a lost and dying world.
And notice how the church is to proclaim this.
Lift up your voice, how?
In timid tones, you might wanna consider the gospel,
you know, it might change your life.
Now lift up your voice, what?
With strength, oh Jerusalem.
Lift it up, fear not, don’t be afraid.
Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God.
My friends, the gospel is such good news,
and it is such certain news.
There is so much certainty attached to the gospel.
Jesus, after all, rose from the dead
and demonstrated himself to be the son of the living God
in power by his resurrection from the dead.
He was seen by multiple eyewitnesses.
There is no fact in human history more certain
than the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and thus no fact in human history more certain
than the truthfulness of the gospel message.
That being the case, the gospel message
is not to be preached in a wishy-washy,
uncertain manner or in timid tones.
The church’s preachers are not to proclaim the gospel
merely as if it were a simple theory
or a possibility or good advice.
It’s not just good advice, it’s news from God.
I remember a time a while back when it was popular,
probably under the influence of the so-called
seeker-sensitive movement in church growth,
to encourage non-believers, the non-church,
to try God or to try Jesus.
In fact, I remember many years ago watching an interview,
a prominent megachurch pastor was being interviewed
by a secular journalist who was kind of pressing
this pastor on the claims of Christ
to be the only way to God.
How can you say that Jesus is the only way?
And this probably well-intentioned pastor said
to this journalist, you know, just try Jesus.
Give him a try.
It kind of didn’t set right with me.
Try Jesus, try the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
just try him out, sort of like you would try
a new food item or try on a new clothing outfit
and, you know, if you didn’t like it,
you could exchange it or dispose of it.
No, Jesus does not just command people to try him.
The scriptures tell us that God commands
all people everywhere.
No one is accepted.
God commands all people everywhere, you, me, everyone,
to repent and to believe the gospel, the good news.
So the gospel is not to be trotted out
in uncertain or timid tones.
Instead, it is to be heralded forth with bold confidence
in the God who certainly must and certainly does
keep his promises.
And to whom is this gospel to be proclaimed?
Well, obviously it’s to be proclaimed to those
who are outside the covenant community,
to those who are outside the church,
but notice it’s interesting here in verse nine,
Zion and Jerusalem are to lift up their voices
and address whom?
Whom are they to address?
It says, say to the cities of Judah,
behold your God.
The cities of Judah, that’s where God’s covenant people
lived in Old Testament times.
And what does this imply?
You know, there’s this concept out there,
this idea out there seems to me that among
in the Christian world, many seem to think,
well, you know, the gospels, that’s for the lost
so that they can come to faith in Jesus and be saved.
But now that we’ve heard the gospel,
received the gospel, trusted Christ,
now that we’re saved, we don’t need the gospel anymore.
We can kind of move on from the gospel
to more important things or other things
that will lead to Christian maturity.
Well, friends, yes, the good news is to be proclaimed
to the lost, to those outside of the covenant community
who’ve never heard it before.
But the gospel is also to be proclaimed
to God’s people, spoken of here as the cities of Judah.
You see, friends, I don’t know about you,
but I need to hear the gospel frequently
because I often forget it.
I often forget its implications.
I often find myself, that little Pharisee in my heart,
tending back towards the work’s righteousness mindset.
In order for us as believers to experience
gospel comfort proclaimed in this passage,
we need to hear the gospel over and over and over again.
I’m reminded of the line in that wonderful hymn
I love to tell the story.
There’s a line that says, I love to tell the story
for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting
to hear it like the rest.
Yes, the gospel is simple enough in its basic contours
for even a child to understand it.
But the gospel of Jesus Christ, as you plumb its depths
and look at all of its nuances and contours,
is rich and deep.
It’s something that the greatest theological minds
can spend a lifetime studying.
It is so glorious, so rich, so deep.
Believer, you and I will never graduate
or move on from the gospel.
If we do, we’re in trouble.
We Christians need the gospel too.
We need to be reminded time and time again
that we are loved, that Christ died for our sins,
that we are clothed in his righteousness,
that with respect to our position before the Father,
our standing before God, God is no longer angry with us.
Yes, the Father chastens us for our sins
that we might share in his holiness.
We can experience his fatherly displeasure,
but he never abandons us.
He will never leave us nor forsake us.
These are truths that we must build our lives upon
and never graduate from.
We Christians need the gospel too, lest we forget
and fall back into self-trust
and get ourselves back onto a treadmill
of works righteousness.
Yes, the pastor, yes, doesn’t say we should move on
to maturity as Hebrews, the wonderful portion
of the New Testament, the book of Hebrews,
reminds us to press on to move on.
Yes, it’s true.
We must press on in maturity, to maturity
in our understanding of the faith,
but we will never be mature enough in our understanding
for the old, old story of Jesus and his love.
We’ll never be too mature for that old, old story.
If you think you’re too mature,
too spiritually experienced and too grown up in your faith
to not need the gospel,
well, you’re not as mature as you think you are.
The more we grow in our faith,
the more we realize how desperate
we need Jesus and his love.
So let us as the church make it our goal
not only to love the good news,
not only to believe and proclaim
and hear the good news over and over again,
but let us as a church determine
to be the herald of good news
that God in his word calls us to be.
So here the church is a herald of God’s of good news,
the good news of Jesus.
But secondly, we read in this passage
of God’s promised return to reign in redemptive power,
God’s return to reign in redemptive power.
It says at the end of verse nine,
say to the cities of Judah,
behold your God.
And then go on to, let’s go on to verse 10.
Behold, the Lord God comes with might
and his arm rules for him.
Behold, his reward is with him
and his recompense before him.
Behold your God, behold your God.
Wait, how can we behold God?
He’s invisible, right?
God is a spirit, he doesn’t have a body like we do.
He doesn’t, we can’t see him.
Well friends, the scriptures tell us that in Jesus Christ
we behold the ultimate revelation of God
for Jesus is the God man,
the word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.
To use Pauline terminology,
we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And where do we see the face of Christ revealed?
We see the face of Christ revealed
in the scriptures, in the gospel message.
My friends, notice here
that the gospel is radically God-centered, not man-centered.
The Holy Spirit through Isaiah says,
behold your God.
He doesn’t say, behold, what a wonderful experience
the Lord has in store for you.
Behold what blessings the Lord has for you.
Certainly there are so many blessings that flow out to us
from the gospel of Jesus Christ,
but the gospel is ultimately about God and his glory.
It’s not about you, ultimately.
It’s not about me, it’s about Jesus and Jesus alone.
The gospel is radically God-centered.
In fact, the gospel can be summed up in the word,
Emmanuel, which means God with us.
In a nutshell, the gospel is God with us
because the gospel is Jesus Christ.
He is our Emmanuel.
Oh, Christian, behold your God.
Behold Jesus Christ, your incarnate, Lord and Savior.
God in grace has returned to his exiled people.
He in his grace has returned to us
and brought us back to himself
in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, his son, our Savior.
And so it says in verse 10, behold,
that means pay attention, this is important.
Behold, the Lord God comes with might.
The omnipotent strength of God is highlighted here.
He comes with might and his arm rules for him.
The Lord God comes in might to redeem and rescue his people.
And he comes to redeem and rescue us
not merely from national exile, but from sin.
And notice this language about the arm of the Lord.
Now, of course, God does not, in his divine nature,
does not have a literal arm.
God’s arm, however, is frequently used in the scriptures
to represent his almighty power and strength,
both his power and strength to judge
and his power and strength to redeem and heal.
He is powerful to judge.
And as in this case, he is powerful to save.
This language is reminiscent of God’s power
in rescuing Israel from their slavery in Egypt
by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.
This kind of language is frequently used
in referring to God’s power that he displayed
in redeeming Israel from their slavery in Egypt.
For example, if you turn back to Deuteronomy four
and look at verses 32 to 34,
where Moses, the prophet, is preaching
to the children of Israel as they’re preparing to go in
and conquer the promised land, he says this to them
in Deuteronomy chapter four verses 32 to 34, it says this.
For ask now of the days that are past,
which were before you since the day
that God created man on the earth,
and ask from one end of heaven to the other
whether such a great thing as this
has ever happened or was ever heard of.
Did any people ever hear the voice of a God
speaking out of the midst of the fire
as you have heard and still live?
Or has any God ever attempted to go
and take a nation for himself
from the midst of another nation by trials,
by signs, by wonders, and by war?
And then catch this, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm
and by great deeds of terror,
all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt
before your eyes, this is why it’s this kind of language
that point, as Isaiah uses this language of God’s arm,
his strength that leads us to the conclusion
that he’s speaking here of a second or greater Exodus
in our passage for today.
In any case, he has redeemed us
by his mighty outstretched arm,
and especially the outstretched arms of our savior
who stretched out his arms on the cross
to bear our sin and to redeem us by his grace.
And then what’s the effect of that?
It goes on to say, behold, his reward is with him
and his recompense before him.
Recompense brings to mind judgment.
The Lord will judge the enemies of his enemies
and the enemies of his people.
But in what sense is his reward with him?
Does this reward refer to a reward
that God distributes to his people
or is this a reward that God takes to himself,
that God in effect has earned for himself?
Well, friends, I believe the context
would favor this latter view.
In other words, that this is God’s reward.
And what is God’s reward?
God’s reward is his redeemed and rescued people, the elect,
those whom the Messiah would save
through his redemptive work.
As Dr. E.J. Young puts it in his commentary,
he says, it is God himself to whom a recompense is due,
for he has merited it.
A workman has earned his hire
as the fruits or reward of his work,
but God is deserving of his reward
for his great victory against the enemy,
the deliverance of man from his sin and its consequences.
This is his great work.
The hire then is found in the redeemed of the Lord,
the little ones who are mentioned in the following verse.
Although he comes as a strong one,
yet it is as a shepherd that he feeds his sheep.
You know, the scriptures frequently speak
of the father giving a people to his son
and of the son being rewarded
with those for whom he accomplished the saving work
that the father had given him to do.
And so ultimately, the elect are Christ’s reward,
the reward for his redemptive work
in the case of those whom the father has given to him.
Just to give you a sampling of this,
let’s turn to the Gospel of John.
Look at John 6, beginning at verse 37,
John chapter 6, verse 37, we read this.
Jesus says, all that the father gives me will come to me.
Now, let me pause there, notice.
Jesus says, the father has given a people to his son.
And how do those people behave?
Well, they come to the son.
And then he goes on to say,
and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
You wanna come to Jesus, he’s not gonna cast you out,
he’s gonna welcome you.
All that the father gives me will come to me.
And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will,
but the will of him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me
that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,
but raise it up at the last day.
For this is the will of my father
that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him
should have eternal life,
and I will raise him up on the last day.
Or skip ahead to John 17,
that wonderful chapter with our Lord’s high priestly prayer
to the father.
In John 17, verses one through three,
we read the following.
It says, when Jesus had spoken these words,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said,
Father, the hour has come.
Glorify your son that the son may glorify you
since you have given him authority over all flesh
to give eternal life to whom?
To all whom you have given him.
And this is eternal life, that they know you,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
And then skip down to verse six.
Jesus says, I have manifested your name to the people
whom you gave me out of the world.
Yours they were, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
The father has given a people to his son
as a gift and Christ, as Christ’s reward,
the reward for his redemptive work.
If you skip down then to verse nine,
Jesus says, I am praying for them,
those whom the father has given to him.
Notice he says, I’m not praying for the world.
Jesus does not intercede for everyone.
He intercedes for those for whom he died.
I’m not praying for the world,
but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
And then verse 24, if you skip down to verse 24.
Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me
may be with me where I am, to see my glory
that you have given me, because you loved me
before the foundation of the world.
His reward is with him.
And brothers and sisters, we are his reward.
The father by his sovereign grace has given us to his son
and Christ, and we are the reward
of our savior’s redemptive work, praise be to God.
But that brings us to our final consideration
from this passage.
We see in this passage also God revealed
as the divine shepherd of his sheep.
This is the final point in your sermon outline,
God as the divine shepherd of his sheep.
It says in verse 11, he will tend his flock
like a shepherd.
He will gather the lambs in his arms.
He will carry them in his blism
and gently lead those that are with young.
Think about it.
God is presented here as the mighty one
whose mighty arm and outstretched arm,
his art stretched arm, his mighty power
has redeemed his people.
He is a God who has returned to dwell with his people
in redemptive power.
But he’s also a tender shepherd.
The mighty redeemer God is the tender shepherd
of his elect flock.
As one commentator puts it, the glorious Lord comes
to his people as a conquering king,
a generous benefactor, and a gentle shepherd.
And of course, you’re all familiar with the theme
of the Lord as our shepherd, as the shepherd of his people.
That is a frequent theme throughout the scriptures.
It’s a theme, for example, you know this, Psalm 23, right?
And by the way, it’s very tempting for us
to read passages like Psalm 23 in sort of a sentimental way.
But Bible commentators and scholars classify Psalm 23,
I believe, as a royal psalm because in the ancient world,
kings were often described as shepherds.
So this is not presenting, you know, the Lord
as sort of a syrupy, gushy kind of God,
who, a God of sloppy agape or what have you.
This is, the Lord is our shepherd.
Yes, he’s tender, but he’s the king.
The Lord, Yahweh, is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.
Or we think again of how Jesus calls himself
the good shepherd.
Isn’t that interesting?
God in the Old Testament is revealed
to be the shepherd of his people,
but Jesus proclaims himself as the good shepherd.
Clearly, Jesus is claiming divinity for himself,
that he is God.
In John 10, verse 11, Jesus says this,
I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
And then if you skip down to verses 14 through 16
of chapter 10, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me,
just as the father knows me and I know the father.
And I lay down my life for the sheep.
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.
He’s talking there about the Gentiles.
I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice.
So there will be one flock and one shepherd.
No more division between Jew and Gentile,
one body of Christ, Jew and Gentile who believe in Jesus.
And then if you stay in John 10
and skip down to verses 27 to 30,
some of the most comforting verses in all of scripture,
Jesus says this, my sheep hear my voice and I know them.
Not just I know about them, I know them.
Which in biblical terminology, that means I love them.
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life and they will never perish.
And no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My father who has given them to me is greater than all
and no one is able to snatch them out of the father’s hand.
I and the father are one.
Do you hear the voice of Jesus, the good shepherd?
You say, well, I’ve never heard Jesus speak to me audibly.
Ah, but if you’re a believer, you hear the voice of Christ.
Where and how?
We hear the voice of Christ speaking to us in the scriptures
because this is his word.
And we hear it not just as interesting facts,
we hear it as a message of life, a message of life.
A message of hope.
We hear it because we know it applies to us personally.
Dear listener, are you one of Christ’s sheep?
Do you hear his voice?
The voice that tells you,
repent and believe the gospel, the good news.
If you heed that voice to turn to Christ who was crucified
to pay the penalty for sin and raised from the dead
so that all who believe in him might not perish
but have eternal life.
If you heed his voice coming to you in the gospel,
you are one of his sheep.
By the grace of God, trust him and follow him.
And let us brothers and sisters as those who have come
to hear the voice of the good shepherd,
let us as the Zion of God, as the church of Jesus Christ,
be a herald of good news to a lost and dying world.
And all of God’s people said, amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you
that you, oh God, have given us such good news.
May we not keep it to ourselves.
May we as a church shout it abroad, herald it abroad,
proclaim it, announce it.
We pray Lord that you would help us by your grace,
not only to herald the good news,
but also to hear it, receive it,
embrace it over and over again.
Give us the grace to grow in our understanding
of the depths and riches,
the wonderful contours of the gospel.
We pray these things through Christ our Lord
and all of God’s people said, amen.
As we close our time today, let’s rise and we’ll sing.
Number 419, oh Zion haste, your mission high fulfilling.
419.