Your Life Is Looking Up!

16th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/13/15
Isaiah 35:4-7a


Your Life Is Looking Up!
I. Look forward to your Lord’s return.
II. Look back to your deliverance.


Are you a pessimist, a realist or an optimist? That depends, doesn’t it? It often depends on the kind of day you’re having. If you have some nagging health issue and your day seems to be a series of disappointments, and your mindset is that nothing seems to get any better in your life, you tend to be pessimistic and with good reason. Or perhaps you try to take a broader view of things, to look out beyond your life into our world and what you see doesn’t fill you with much hope. You’re convinced we’re headed in the wrong direction. The problems that our nation and the rest of the nations of the world are facing seem to be getting worse with no solutions in sight. You’re pessimistic.

On the other hand, when your day is bright and sunny, when your efforts that day have met with success, when your relationships with your loved ones bring you happiness, when you’re secure about where your life is headed, then your filled with optimism and rightly so.

And right in the middle of both extremes is a realistic approach. You don’t let the failures and problems of life crush you and you don’t let the successes and blessings of life unrealistically exalt you. You take an even approach. You’ll deal with the good and the bad, the happiness and sadness. You’ll take it all in stride one day at a time.

I suppose you have found yourself in every one of three approaches to life. Perhaps in one of them more than the other two. So, which one is it for you?

Martin Luther once said, “The Christian is an optimist.” Luther made that claim even though the Church on earth in his day was enduring some major attacks from within and without. There were days when the Church appeared to be on life support, and yet the Christian is an optimist.

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah in essence made the same claim in the words of our text this morning. He speaks the almighty word of God when he states, “Be strong, do not fear.” There were dark days ahead for God’s people but the Christian is an optimist. That includes you. That means your life is looking up. Your life is looking up. Let’s examine why our God makes that claim in the words before us this morning.

Part I.

There are far too many things to be concerned about in our modern world and that’s putting it mildly. The Civil Rights act was signed into law more than 50 years ago, but prejudice still rears its ugly head nearly every day. Poverty and inadequate health care are chronic problems even in a country that has so much wealth. Worse yet, it appears we’ve lost our moral compass.

Things aren’t any better in other countries. Too many economies are on the verge of collapse. There are pockets of war on nearly every continent. Property is destroyed and even women and children are casualties. Christians are mercilessly persecuted and even murdered. We’re concerned to say the least. Dismayed is more accurate.

So is the Lord. Nothing escapes his ever-present, all-knowing vision. He even knows perfectly the heart of every sinful human being. He’s got to be concerned.

But it’s always been that way, ever since the fall into sin. It certainly was true for his Old Testament people around 700 BC, the time in which Isaiah lived. To get an idea just how bad things were in the days of Isaiah, read through the previous 7 chapters. In one chapter after another, the Lord announces his judgment not only on the nations and world powers around his people, but on his very people themselves. He spares no one. His patience had come to an end. He had sent his prophets even to heathen nations, but the results were a dismal failure. But no one could say that the Lord didn’t try. No one could say that the Lord hadn’t warned them. God made it clear that his divine hammer was coming.

And in a century and half all his prophetic judgments became historical reality. Egypt was a mere shadow of its former power. Assyria had literally been wiped from the face of the earth. Babylon had been replaced by Persia. But worst of all, the northern 10 tribes of Israel were gone, never to be found again and the two southern tribes were in exile. But for those people in exile, there was rescue.

Judgment and rescue. That’s what the Lord was referring to when he had Isaiah write, “Your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” His judgment on the nations would also save his people.

In a far greater way we New Testament Christians are looking for our God to come as well. That’s not a hopeful wish; that’s an absolute certainty. Jesus has promised to return to this earth. And it’s on that day, and not until then, that the evil in our world will cease, that the Church will be forever rid of those what hate and oppress her, that those who mocked the Lord Jesus Christ will be forever reminded how wrong they were about him. Vengeance. Retribution.

But also salvation. No more death, mourning, crying or pain. No more war, disasters, disease or accidents. Just peace. Just bliss. Just happiness. Just glory.

Your life is looking up. Look ahead to your Lord’s return.

We do look ahead. Every day of our lives. But too often it’s not for our Lord’s return. We look ahead for all the wrong things. The optimist in us thinks things have to get better; they can’t get much worse. Maybe if we elect the right candidates to office things will turn around. Don’t count on it. In the Revelation of St. John the Lord foretold that world governments will join the Antichrist to oppose the Church on earth in an attempt to bring it down completely. We’re going to suffer. It’s going to get harder, not easier. As the end draws near, things in our world will get progressively worse, not progressively better. Famines, floods, earthquakes, poverty, disease, death. But your life is looking up and I’m not joking. Every one of these dismal prospects for our future drives us to look ahead to the next great day in your salvation history—the day of your Lord’s return. What a day that will be when Jesus says to you, “Come, inherit the kingdom I have prepared for you. It’s all yours by faith in me as your Savior.” That’s not a wish. That’s not a pipedream. That’s a spiritual reality even though it’s still in the future because your Savior who died and rose for you said so. Jesus has it all in the bag. It’s a done deal. Try as they might, the enemies of the church will never succeed. They lose. Jesus wins. And you win with him. Your life is looking up!

Part II.

In a number of aspects of your life, your future is largely dependent on what you do right now. That’s true about your health. It’s also the case with your retirement income. You can make up for lost time right now, but if you wait, it becomes all the more difficult. Finally, it becomes too late to do anything at all.

The world is full of people who are under the impression that their eternal future is dependent on what they do right now. But they couldn’t be more wrong.

As members of the kingdom of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, you know and believe the truth about your eternal future. There is nothing you can do to secure it. In fact, there’s nothing that needs to be done to secure it because it’s all been done already by Jesus Christ. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said on the cross, “It is finished.” His work of redemption at that time was complete. His resurrection three days later confirmed that he had completed every detail of God’s plan of salvation.

Listen to Isaiah describe that work of redemption. “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.” Isaiah looks 700 years into the future and sees the messianic age. We heard Mark describe two details of it in this morning’s gospel. Jesus gives hearing to a deaf man and enables him to speak clearly, just as Isaiah foretold. That was just one of the countless miracles Jesus did, each backing up his claim to be the Son of God and the promised Savior from sin.

In doing so, Jesus won life for us—real life, life with God. Isaiah pictures that life as a posh oasis in the midst of a desert. Next to nothing grows in a desert, but where there is a dependable source of water, there is life. You possess that life right now. Your God made you alive spiritually when he brought you to faith in Jesus. For many of us that occurred at our baptisms through water and God’s word. And as that faith grows through word and sacrament, it produces the fruits God is looking for—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Your God has changed you completely and it has everything to do with what Jesus has done for you.

Your life is looking up. It is when you look back to your deliverance—your Savior’s work of redemption.

It never ceases to amaze me what some people will pay to have a fortune teller or palm reader make some misty guess about their future. Your God and your God alone sees the future with absolute clarity. But he doesn’t reveal the details to us. Instead, he lays out before us the big picture—eternity with him based not on what we do, but on what Jesus did. What Jesus did in the past—his holy life lived for us, his innocent death died for us—is our rock-solid confidence for the future. When you look at your life from here to eternity, it’s all good. In fact, it can’t get any better. It’s perfect.

Away with pessimism! Your life is looking up! Forever! Amen.