The Gospel is Good News

Lesson Transcript

Well, I want to say good morning, greetings in the name of Jesus. You can turn to the book of Isaiah. I'm going to continue our study there. Isaiah chapter 61. And I'm going to read I'm going to read the entire chapter. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion and to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified.

And they shall rebuild the old ruins, and they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, strangers, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers, but you shall be named the priests of the Lord. They shall call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory you shall boast.

Instead of your shame, you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their land they shall possess double. Everlasting joy shall be theirs. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery for burnt offerings. I will direct their work in truth, and I will make with them an everlasting covenant. Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people.

All who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the posterity whom the Lord has blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." And then you can turn to Luke chapter 4. And I'm going to read verses 16 to 30. "So he" talking about Jesus "came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read, and he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.

And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.' Then he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.' So all bore witness to him and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, 'Is this not Joseph's son?' He said to them, 'You will surely say this proverb to me, 'Physician, heal yourself.' Whatever we have done in Capernaum, do also here in your country.' Then he said, 'Assuredly I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.

But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up for up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land. But to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Syrian.

So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built that they might throw him down over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, he went his way." Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

This prophecy, it's not often that we have an exact saying, "This is the prophecy fulfilled." But Jesus, without a doubt, when he reads this passage in Isaiah, he says, "Today through me, this prophecy is fulfilled." And one of the things I find interesting is this passage in Isaiah chapter 61. When you read the commentaries on it, of course, they recognize these first few verses as being fulfilled in Jesus, but they pretty much take the rest of the chapter and put it in some kind of future millennial kingdom.

And you know, I think it's interesting here that in Luke, Jesus makes a point. In Luke here, he makes the point. He talks about the widow of Zarephath, and he talks about Naaman. And his point in that is this what I'm talking about is not just for you folks. It's for all people. And he gives two examples of two Gentiles. Naaman, he says there was a lot of lepers in Israel, and Naaman was the only one that was healed. And there's plenty of widows. And we went to this widow in Zarephath and healed her.

And it was because of that that their wrath was kindled, and they rejected that. So as in most prophecies, I believe there's like an immediate fulfillment, and then we see behind that a deeper fulfillment. And so the children of Israel, this message was to them. They were in captivity in Babylon, and certainly some of the parts of this apply. But Jesus made it very clear in Luke there that this prophecy is for us today. Much deeper meaning.

The title of the message this morning is, "The Gospel is Good News." Now that's redundant because gospel means good news. So that's the same as saying, "The good news is good news." But I did that on purpose because I wanted to emphasize that. The gospel is good news. So let's just take a look a little bit. What is this good news? And the first one that Jesus mentions here is he says, "Remember, this has been fulfilled in me today. So through me, it's good news to the poor." Why?

If we follow Jesus, we'll become rich. Is that what he's saying? Jesus said in Luke 6:20, "Blessed are you, poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." You know, last week, Brother Edsel preached about the economics of the kingdom, and he read that passage there in Luke chapter 12 about the rich fool. And there was a phrase that really stood out to me as he read that.

And that phrase is, "A man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of things he possesses." And I was thinking about why is the gospel good news to the poor? You know, as hard as we try not to, that is a measuring stick, especially in our society here in the United States, of success. The abundance. How much do you have? Have you made it? Are you successful? I mean, we even say that. Are you successful? And what do we mean by that? Have you made it in terms of financial?

But Jesus is saying it's good news to the poor because a man's life doesn't consist in the stuff that he accumulates. And he ends that passage by saying, "It's how much you have in the kingdom of heaven. It's the treasure that you've placed up there." And that's why the gospel is good news to the poor. Because if it was in the abundance of things that we possess, most of this world would be in trouble. 85% of the world lives on less than $30 a day. 85%. Two-thirds of the world live on less than $10 a day.

And 10% of the world lives on less than $1.90 a day. And does anyone want to guess what the average per day in America is? $164.55 a day. So is the good news only for us in the United States? No, the good news is it's good news to the poor because a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. But the measuring stick that we use is how much treasure we've put up in heaven. You don't need wealth here to lay up wealth there, treasures in heaven.

And it's good news to the poor because when Christ gets ahold of us, it changes hearts from the inside. People become generous. We see that in Acts. When Christ got ahold of people's lives, what was the first one of the first things that happened was there was this leveling. And Isaiah talks about this leveling of the low being brought up and the high being put down and this leveling off. We see that people sold what they had, and they shared with one another. We have a God.

It's good news to the poor because God promises he makes a promise that he will meet our needs. He makes a promise. "I'll supply your needs. Look at the birds. I take care of them." It's good news to the poor because if Christ gets ahold of our lives, slothfulness is rooted out. So there is a sense in which when Christ gets ahold of us, even in a physical way, we work hard. We have good work ethic. So slothfulness is rooted out. We're not lazy.

It's good news to the poor because when Christ gets ahold of people, people become honest. And we talked this morning about taking advantage of people. When a Christian doesn't do that, that's not part of a Christian's life. The gospel is good news to the poor. And of course, in Matthew chapter 5 on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the poor in spirit. And there's that aspect of it as well. Good news to the poor.

And if we could just imagine ourselves when it's hard for us to do living here in America with all this plenty. But just imagine if you lived in poverty and you have and you look around and you have no way out, and then this message comes along, that it doesn't matter how much stuff I have, but what matters is how much treasure I'm putting in heaven. Think of how that would be such good news. The second thing he talks about is the gospel is good news to the brokenhearted. What's it mean to be brokenhearted?

It means to be overcome by grief and despair. Overcomes in the sense that we can't go on. And do you notice what Jesus has been sent to do? He's been sent to heal broken hearts. He's not He was not sent to ease or dull the pain, which is what a lot of people that find themselves brokenhearted attempt to do. They attempt to dull that. They ease it, try to make it bearable. But Jesus came to heal, to actually heal that broken heart.

There's a phrase that's been coined by a woman named Anna Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton in recent years. And it's called the phrase is, "Diseases of despair or deaths of despair." And it's something that as sociologists and economists, they've noticed a sharp uptake in recent years.

And of course, they point to a low education, family and community relationships that are not the way they be, and they destroy trust, divorce, absent fathers, transitory living arrangements just from here to there, no place to call home, lives without faithful commitments, single-parent homes, low or no church attendance at all. And it has brought about what they term the diseases of despair, which are drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide.

Of course, they don't really dig down in maybe to the root of all that, which is sin itself. But Malachi 4:2 says, "But to you who fear My name, the Son of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings." I'd like to turn to Psalm 147, verses 1 to 6. "Praise the Lord, for it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He counts the stars, the number of the stars. He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked down to the ground." So here we have the picture of Jesus as the great physician. He heals our broken hearts. He binds up our wounds. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 7 to 10. "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you." So is he saying that we're never going to have a broken heart?

Is he saying that we're never going to face things that feel like they're insurmountable and that we're never going to be overcome by grief? He's not saying that, but he says we're going to be crushed, but not in despair, because he's here to heal the broken heart. He preaches good news to the poor. He preaches good news to the brokenhearted. And the third thing he says is, "It's good news to the captive." Literally and spiritually, good news to those who are bound. The class distinctions are broken down in Christ.

Colossians 3:9 to 11. What I'm trying to do is show us how this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus. Colossians 3:9 to 11. "Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. For there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free.

But Christ is all and in all." Here he says that there's in Christ's kingdom, there's no distinction between free and unfree, between no matter what your ethnicity is, where you come from, that wall, that barrier that's been placed uh by by people has uh been been done away with. "It was good news for Anasimus." Turn to Philemon. I'm going to read verses 8 to 21. This is of course, we know the story. Anasimus was a slave, ran away from his owner, Philemon, and meets up with Paul, becomes a Christian.

And Paul is sending Anasimus back to Philemon with this letter. And this is what he says, "Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I'd rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul, the agent, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I appeal to you for my son Anasimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who was once unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back.

You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my change for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.

For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord." So here I'm going to continue reading. "If you would if then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand.

I will repay, not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord, refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say." So here Paul's saying to Anasimus and remember, this is good news to those to those who are captive. He's saying to Philemon, "You treat him as a brother." And we see that over and over again in the New Testament.

So when Christ gets ahold of someone, as I say, that barrier is down. And we look at all humankind with as one as a brotherhood, as one person. And so Paul's instruction to Philemon is, "You treat him as a brother." William Wilberforce was a member of Parliament in England. And when he was during that time, he became a Christian. And it brought about major changes to his lifestyle and priorities. And one of the things that he became very passionate about was his fight against slavery.

And for 20 years, he fought against that. And due in a large part to his influence, the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 was signed because William Wilberforce became a Christian and all of a sudden began to see that distinction that people were making was not according to what Christ would want. It was the Quakers in the United States that really pushed for that equality, the brotherhood of all men. William Calper, we sang some of one of his hymns this morning. He was also very passionate about this subject.

And he says that, "Every reader of Scripture should know that souls have no discriminating you, alike important in their maker's view, that none are free from blemish since the fall, and love divine has paid one price for all." That's the the the attitude of a Christian, the attitude of a true Christian. Unfortunately, when it comes to this subject, many so-called Christians were not following what Jesus... his attitude. We can also be freed from spiritual bondage. The Bible says that we're slaves to sin.

Now I'm just going to go ahead and read Romans chapter 6. I wasn't quite sure where to break in here. So we'll just read the entire chapter. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall he... we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death?

Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the lightness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the lightness of his resurrection, knowing this: that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once and for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust.

And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present your... but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slave?

Slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." What a privilege we have that we can be set free from the slavery of sin, the bondage. We talked about despair. And so often in man's attempt to deal with that despair, they become only more deeply enslaved through addiction and so on. It ends... it oftentimes an attempt to deal with that ends in addiction, enslavement, the drugs, alcohol, pornography.

Statistics say that at least 21 million Americans have at least one addiction. And when I think of an addiction, I think of just being enslaved, just enslaved to someone or something or enslaved to sin. In 2017, 34 million Americans were caught for DUI. That's under the influence of some kind of addictive... either drugs or alcohol. 90% of the people who have had... have an addiction started alcohol or drugs before they were age 18.

And Jesus, it's good news to those who are bound because He has come to free us from the enslavement of sin, from all that bondage, and make us His slaves, slaves for righteousness. And we can look at that and say, "Well, I'm not enslaved to some of these things. But what about our moral purity? What about our enslavement to our desires?" You know, pornography is just a horrible blight in our land. And statistics say there that 40 million people regularly tune in to some kind of unclean, unpure pornographic site.

And alone against these things, we're no match. But that's the good news, is Jesus came to break the bondage, to break that power that Satan had over us. Without Jesus, we have no hope. But through Jesus, He gives us the power to live above that and makes us His slaves and gives us His Spirit and His power. So He's good news to those who are bound. He's good news to the poor. He's good news for the brokenhearted. He's good news to the captive. And He's good news to the blind.

Now this is one of those instances where the Septuagint and our Scripture here in Isaiah differ a little bit. The Septuagint says that He gives sight to the blind. And so I'm going to go with that this morning. Father Harvey mentioned blind Bartimaeus. And sometimes when Jesus' life touched people, it literally meant they received their physical sight. Bartimaeus cried out, "Lord, that I might receive my sight!" And Jesus healed him. In John chapter 6, a man that was blind from birth, Jesus made a clay.

He put it on his eyes. And that man was healed. But I'd like to turn to John chapter 9. Jesus talks along with that as sort of an object about spiritual blindness. And I'm going to begin reading at verse 35. "Jesus heard that they..." So this man was healed. We know the story. They cast him out of the synagogue. The Pharisees did not appreciate at all what happened. And so Jesus went and found this man. And He...

when Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe in Him?" And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him, and it is He who is talking with you." And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him.

And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind." Then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to Him, "Are you... are we blind also?" And Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have had no sin. But now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains." Jesus is good news to the blind. And He can open our spiritual eyes so that we can see.

And this blind man here, he said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" And Jesus said, "Well, you've both seen Him and you're talking to Him." And he said, "I believe." And Jesus said, "Today you can see, truly see who I am." And Jesus came to open our eyes to who He really is and to give us spiritual insight and not so that we don't continue to walk around in blindness. In verse 2 of chapter 61 of Isaiah, it says that He's come to preach or to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

He's come to reinstate Jubilee, that whole idea that God established at the very beginning, where He says that there's this... going to come a time when the slaves are going to be set free, when everything is going to be leveled out and put to right again. And that's what Jesus has come to do, to make a permanent Jubilee. He's come to comfort those who mourn. Back in Isaiah chapter 40, the cry went out, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people." Like, who's going to bring comfort?

And Jesus says here today, "Today this has been fulfilled. I've come to comfort those who mourn." Jesus has come to give beauty for ashes in verse 3, "To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes." What are ashes? Ashes are the remnant of what once was. So we burn a log and all that's left is these few little ashes. It's a remnant of something that once was a reality and now it's gone. How can beauty come out of that? That's God's specialty.

That's Jesus' specialty, to bring beauty out of ashes. Think about Joseph sitting in prison, life full of ashes. I mean, what once was... I mean, imagine sitting there and thinking about once what once was, where he once was, his family, his father. And it's all ashes. And he reaches for it and it's all gone. And yet through that all, in the end, when he meets his brothers, he says, "What? You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Think about Ruth. There she was, married.

She was a Moabitess, an outcast, married to... married into the family of God. And then her husband died and all the people around her. And all that remained of her life was ashes. Something that once was... she can look back and think about something that once was part of her life and now it's nothing but ashes. But she says, "Where you go, I will go," she tells her mother-in-law, "Your people are going to be my people. Your God's going to be my God." And she becomes in the lineage of Christ Himself.

Think about Mary, the mother of our Lord. So there she is with all the plans to be married. And she finds herself with a child. And all that terrific... she knew what that meant, being an outcast and all the things people were going to say to her. And I'm sure to her it felt like ashes. And yet we read her magnificat there after she realizes what's about to happen. Recently I read a... or I listened to an account, and I wasn't aware that this was still going on.

But many of you may know about the conflict that has gone on for years in Northern Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants. And that it's mostly a political thing. The Catholics and the Protestants, depending on who you were, sort of told everyone where your allegiance lies. And for years... this is back in the 70s, 80s, and even into the 90s. There was just this terrific conflict, bombings and blowing up things. And it just... it was just a horrible, horrible place. And they lived in fear.

And one of the ways that they was supposed to be a temporary fix, temporary solution, was they would go into these neighborhoods that were divided sharply between Catholic and Protestant. And they would put up a wall, a barrier. It started out as just a fence. And then they would add to it. And finally there's this huge wall and people living side by sides with these barriers all throughout. And those barriers are still here to this day. Even though the conflict has died down, there's still those barriers.

And if you visit there today, you'll see in the... some of the neighborhoods... well, that's the Catholic side. This is the Protestant side. And it helps to keep the conflict down, vandalism and so on. Back in 2002, the White House Presbyterian Church, after being attacked three times, was burned and burned to the ground by arsons. And something amazing happened. The Catholics and Protestants alike came together.

Five Catholic churches, one of which had been itself burned, raised over 10,000 pounds to help rebuild the church. And they came together and rebuilt it. The size of the church, the congregation, doubled in size. And the interesting thing is many of these people would go to work and they would work in the same place. And they were sort of friends until they went home. But through this whole situation, reconciliation between friends and relationships were formed and remended.

Another example of literally beauty coming out of ashes. There's another aspect that's maybe a little harder for us to understand in our culture. But when people mourned in Eastern cultures, they would... we hear a lot about sackcloth and ashes. So they would rent their garments, put on sackcloth, and they would just cover themselves with ashes. And if you could imagine somebody... you know what ashes do. They're really... they really stain. And so if you had ashes all over your face, how you would...

how would you would appear? "Everyone that saw you knew you were in deep mourning." And He says, He's going to turn that into beauty, clean you up, and give you a crown. And the next verse says, "The oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." How many of us have ever experienced that spirit of heaviness? Just... it feels like there's a weight on our shoulders. And what He wants to do is exchange that for the garment of praise. Someone has called it the divine exchange.

And I like that. "Oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, beauty for ashes." There's another hymn. If you want to turn in your hymn books to 7:19. This is another hymn by William Calper. And I think it summarizes very well this good news that we've been talking about. I'm just going to read it. I thought it might be better if you follow along. "Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in His wings.

When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again a season of clear shining to cheer it after rain. In holy contemplation we sweetly then pursue the theme of God's salvation and find it ever new. Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say, 'Een let the unknown morrow bring with it what it may.' It can bring with it nothing, but He will bear us through. Who gives the lilies clothing will clothe His people too. Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed.

And He who feeds the ravens will give His children bread. Though vine nor fig tree neither, their wanted fruit shall bear. Though all the fields should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there. Yet God, the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice. For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice." Beauty for ashes, that divine exchange that Christ wants to give to us. And He says then that we're going to be trees of righteousness, trees that He planted to bring glory to His name.

"We shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season." We've been talking a lot here about what Christ does for us, this good news, in kind of a personal way. But He changes it here then a little bit later in this chapter. In verse 6, He says, "But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord. They shall call you the servants of our God." That echoes the new song in Revelations 5:9 that says, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals.

For you were slain and hath redeemed us to God by your blood out of every nation, tribe, and tongue, and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God.

And we shall reign in the earth." So not only does He want to do this in our lives personally, but corporately He says, "You're a nation of of of priests, someone that has that connection with with God Himself." In 1 Peter 2:9 and 10, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people but now are the people of God who had not obtained mercy but now

have obtained mercy." We're a royal priesthood and we're His chosen, chosen special people.

And then He ends this chapter by saying, "I've dressed you for a wedding." Verse 10, chapter 61, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." He's clothed us in a wedding garment. And He's preparing us for that great wedding when Jesus comes to claim His bride.

And we know the story about how important it is that we're dressed appropriately. Because Jesus gives a parable where someone was not dressed appropriately and he was cast out. And He wants to give us the robes of righteousness so that we're properly prepared for this great wedding that He has in store for us. The gospel is good news. It's good news to the poor. It's good news to the brokenhearted. It's good news to the captive. It's good news to the blind.

There's this divine exchange that He wants to do: comfort in our distress, beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, praise instead of heaviness. He plants us like a tree by the waters. We can be a royal priesthood. And He clothes us in righteousness and prepares us for that wedding day when all is going to be made right and be consummated. How many of us want to be a part of this salvation? I'd like to go back to Luke chapter 10... I mean, Luke chapter 4.

Jesus read this passage in Isaiah in His hometown, in Nazareth. And He said, "This day the Scripture is fulfilled." Jesus said, "I'm the answer. Look to Me. Today this Scripture is fulfilled. Everything I'm saying here is true. And you'll find it in Me." But their response turned from amazement and... amazement very quickly to hostility. And they rejected Him because they refused to call Him Lord.

I guess the challenge I have for us today is many, I believe all of us, want to experience this great salvation, this good news that we talked about this morning. Are we willing to let Jesus be Lord? What about me? What about you? That's the challenge of the morning. Does anyone have any...