December 4, Second Sunday of Advent

Lesson: Isaiah 42.1-9

INTRODUCTION:

1. There are times when I wish that I were as wise as Solomon who wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NRSVA)

1. For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter (purpose) under heaven.

2. This week we will explore the concept of purpose.

1. The précis of this sermon is found at the top of the order of service and in the newsletter.

2. Why? Too often our why questions act as walls instead of doors. Instead of why we ought to ask what may I learn? What is the purpose?

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

MAIN BODY:

1. I remember the words to a Broadway Show 'Till the Clouds Roll By,  for which Jerome Kern wrote a song: "Why Was I Born?"

Spending these lonesome evenings
With nothing to do
But to live in dreams that I make up
All by myself

Dreaming that you're beside me
I picture the prettiest stories
Only to wake up
All by myself

What is the good of me by myself?

Why was I born, why am I living
What do I get, what am I giving
Why do I want the thing I dare and hope for
What can I hope for
I wish I knew

Why do I try, do draw you near me
Why do I cry, you'll never hear me
I'm a fool too, but what can I do
Why was I born, to love you

1. It's a love song, but it gives expression to the questions that we have either faced or are facing

1. Who am I?

2. Where did I come from?

3. Why am I here?

4. Where am I going?

5. Where is God when you need God?

6. Why do bad things happen to good people?

1. Who is good anyway? Only God is "good!" (Luke 8:19)

2. What is the purpose of it all?

2. What give life meaning and purpose?

1. Do I receive meaning and purpose from God?

2. Does Jesus provide meaning and purpose for life?

3. Does Jesus help us to understand the meanings of Creation - Sin - Fall - Restoration.

3. What is the basic purpose of Christianity?

1. The answer is that it is to be the means of restoring in humankind the image of God.

2. Do you know what your purpose is? What is it that drives you, what motivates you?

1. Don't know how to find the answers

One of the most challenging courses at the University of Denver was a business law class in which the professor gave difficult true & false tests. During one of the more exasperating exams, the professor noticed another student flipping a coin.

The professor approached him. "Son are you guessing on this test?" he asked.

"No sir," replied the student. "I'm just checking my answers."

2. There are people who seem to live their whole lives that way.

1. They have no direction, no purpose, no goals.

2. They live their lives by flipping coin, drifting along aimlessly in life.

3. Don't know which road to take.

1. That is the question of Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ⁽¹⁾

2. She asks the Cheshire Cat which path she ought to take.

Alice: Can you tell me which path I should take?

Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to go!

Alice: I don't really know.

Cheshire Cat: Then, clearly, any path will do!

3. The moral of this exchange is as quoted by Yogi Berra:

"If you're not sure where you're going, you're liable to end up someplace else - and not even know it."

4. Church Survey of people who were asked what is your purpose in life. ⁽²⁾

1. In preparation for a similar sermon, members of a large church went out onto the street and asked that question: "What is your purpose is life?" Here were some of the responses:

One person answered: "I can't say I know the purpose…… I think after I die I'll find out what the purpose of life is."

Another: "My purpose? I think my purpose is…… I don't know."

Some did have a an idea of their purpose in life and their answers indicated their purpose in life centered around themselves:

to have fun

be happy

to have a good time and enjoy my life

to have as much fun as possible in as short a time as possible

2. Now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying life. But if that's your WHOLE purpose in life, there's an emptiness to it.

3. Others had pretty good answers, ones even Christians might give:

to live a moral life

to raise a good family

to raise up kids to have a good future.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

2. Does the lesson for today, Isaiah 42:1-9, help us define and apply the meaning and actions of "purpose"?

1. This is a beautiful and ever expanding passage.

2. The first four verses describe part of the purpose of the coming Messiah.

1. Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

1. He is the chosen one.

2. He is the one in whom the soul of the Father delights

2. I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

1. There is no justice for the Gentiles.

2. There is little or no justice even for the Jews.

3. Now there will be justice for both Jews and Gentiles.

4. Jesus will publish the essence of the Gospel for all humankind.

3. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street

1. He will not seek vain publicity.

2. He will quietly and powerfully go about his business.

3. The spirit of Christ is not a spirit of contention, murmuring, clamor, or litigiousness.

4. a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.

1. We are the bruised reed.

1. A reed is, in Scripture, the emblem of weakness

2. A bruised reed must signify that state of weakness that borders on dissolution and death.

2. We are the dimly burning wick.

1. "Smoking" means "dimly burning," "smouldering," the flame not quite extinct.

2. A wick that given the right circumstances is easily put out.

5. he will faithfully bring forth justice.

6. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

1. By justice, understand the Gospel, and by victory its complete triumph over Jewish opposition, and Gentile impiety.

2. He will continue by these mild and gentle means to work till the "good news" is proclaimed to the whole world, and the universe filled with his glory.

3. He will work until all is complete.

3. The next few verses declare the creative and sustaining power of God.

1. Thus says God, the LORD,

1. who created the heavens and stretched them out,

2. who spread out the earth and what comes from it,

3. who gives breath to the people upon it

4. and spirit to those who walk in it:

5. I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness,

6. I have taken you by the hand and kept you;

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

3. Now we get to the purpose part.

1. I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

2. Jesus is the not only the mediator of the covenant but the covenant itself.

1. He was its center and substance.

1. His word is the basis of covenant.

2. His blood is the blood of the covenant.

3. His death and resurrection are the confirmation of the covenant.

2. He was not only to bring peace but to be "our peace," that we, who were once "strangers from the covenants of promise," might be "made nigh" to God by His precious blood (Eph. 2:12-14; Micah 5:5).

1. Micah 5:2-5, NRSVA

²   But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
        who are one of the little clans of Judah,
    from you shall come forth for me
        one who is to rule in Israel,
    whose origin is from of old,
        from ancient days.
³   Therefore he shall give them up until the time
        when she who is in labor has brought forth;
    then the rest of his kindred shall return
        to the people of Israel.
⁴  And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD,
        in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
    And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
        to the ends of the earth;
⁵   and he shall be the one of peace.

2. Ephesians 2:11-22, NRSVA

¹¹So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision"--a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands--¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

3. Without Christ, we grope and stumble about in darkness.

1. In Christ the most unfortunate and unenlightened have the opportunity of finding the light of life (Luke 2:32; John 1:4-9; Acts 13:47).

1. Luke 2:32 (NRSVA)

³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles
        and for glory to your people Israel."

2. John 1:4-9 (NRSVA)

⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. ⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

3. Acts 13:47 (NRSVA)

⁴⁷For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
        'I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles,
        so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"

4. Have we answered the question "What is the purpose?"

1. Does God demonstrate the purpose of Christmas?

2. Does Jesus fulfill the promise of Christmas in his purpose driven life?

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)

CONCLUSION

1. Does what Jesus teaches provide us with purpose?

2. The purpose is to inaugurate a "new covenant" based on better promises.

1. I used to be an "old covenant" person.

1. God was in charge.

2. If God chose to use force in the Old Testament, then he failed.

3. God could not get the people to get in line and maintain the covenant.

4. They were usually worshiping other gods.

2. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government.

1. So now a new tactic is to be used.

2. We will learn the meaning, the content and the purposes of LOVE!

3. For God so loved the world that he gave.

1. Because he first loved us, we love.

2. This is our purpose.

4. Is it enough?

AMEN?

1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll Chapter VI, Pig and Pepper

2. Essential Equipment: Purpose Contributor: Jeff Strite. Retrieved from:www.sermoncentral.com.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons for 2005-2006)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)   (Back to Shultz Home Page)