God Has Truly Kept His Word!

1st Sunday after Christmas, 12/31/17
Isaiah 45:20-25


God Has Truly Kept His Word!
I. His promise of righteousness for us
II. His promise of salvation for all


Unmet expectations. Life is full of them. Allow me to name just a few. Whether you’re considering your parent-child relationship or your husband-wife relationship, no doubt you have dealt with unmet expectations. That person so close to you didn’t do or say what you expected.

You have expectations as a person who is employed and you have expectations about your retirement. If you’re employed, are things the way you expected them to be? If you’re retired, are things close to the way you envisioned them to be all those years when you were employed?

You have expectations with every appointment in your life. Did your doctor appointment go as planned? Better? Worse?

You even had expectations regarding the Christmas you just finished celebrating. Were there any that went unmet? Did the loved ones in your life do as you expected when it came to celebrating Christmas with you? Probably not completely. But does that surprise you? After all, is there any aspect of your life in which your expectations are always met completely?

Well you might be surprised that there is. And it involves the first Christmas. Although most of the Jewish people living at the time Jesus was born might disagree, Jesus came just as God promised and, therefore, just as the people should have expected. As unexpected as it might seem, they should have been expecting a virgin birth. And, if they made the claim that they were intent on watching for the coming of the Messiah, they should have been camped out in or near Bethlehem waiting for his arrival.

But there were precious few who actually realized that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s messianic promises. Simeon and Anna, whom we met in today’s Gospel reading, were the exception, not the rule. But that wasn’t due to any failure on God’s part. The fact that so many of his fellow Jews missed the Messiah’s birth was due to their own misconceptions about who that Messiah would be. That wasn’t on God; it was on them. For God’s part, he had kept his word.

On this morning in which we have another opportunity to take a look at God’s Christmas gift to us, we have the blessed opportunity to praise God for the fact that he truly kept his word when he sent Jesus as the Savior of the world. These words of Isaiah before us this morning tell us exactly what that Savior would do.

We need that reminder, because too often we have our own misconceptions about our Savior. The solution to our misconceptions is the truth that God has truly kept his word. He always does! God has truly kept his word! May the Holy Spirit use this word of God before us this morning to fill us with his Christmas confidence!

Part I.

Do you know what it’s like to be uncertain about a relationship which means a great deal to you? I’m sure you do. Something has happened which has driven a wedge between you and a person you love. To put it bluntly, a sin has been committed which has ruined, at least temporarily, the loving relationship you had. Heartache ensued, a heartache that sapped the life out of you. But repentance occurred. There was a heartfelt admission of guilt and a sincere apology. Forgiveness was extended. But there was still that period of uneasiness. Things aren’t the same as they were—at least not yet. It’s going to take some time for the pain to subside. There needs to be an undetermined amount of positive behavior which reflects that the apology was sincere. And until then, the dance of uncertainty will continue.

We entered this sanctuary this morning, on this final day of 2017, the same way we have countless other times before—as sinful people whose sins of the past week have repeatedly broken our relationship with the holy God. At times we need reminding of that sad reality because, unlike our close loved one here on earth, our God doesn’t give us the stink eye whenever we have terribly blown up our relationship with him.

So, our worship today, as it does every Sunday, reminds us of our sinfulness, the damage our sins have done to our relationship with our God, and our undeniable need for forgiveness. And that’s exactly what our God wants to give us—his unconditional forgiveness. More than anything else, he is all about forgiving sinners and we heard the blessed assurance of that forgiveness earlier this morning.

So now what? If our repaired relationship with our God is anything like our repaired relationships with our loved ones, there still exists this period of uncertainty. How much positive behavior will our God require of us before we know that he feels better about us? What more will we have to do in order to be assured that our sinful past is not only forgiven but forgotten? Are you wondering? Perhaps even doubting? Listen to these words of our God, “And there is no God apart from me. A righteous God and a Savior. In the Lord all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous.” Righteous. That’s not what we prove ourselves to be; that’s what our God makes us. You see, it’s not only true that he removes from us the sin that offends him; it’s also true that he gives us the righteousness or holiness that pleases him, that makes us acceptable to him. Literally, as a repentant Christian you have been transformed. Christmas doesn’t help you be the person God wants you to be; Christmas makes you the person God wants you to be. By faith in Jesus, the Child of Bethlehem, you are a redeemed child of God.

God has truly kept him word—his promise of righteousness for us.

As people who sin daily, we need to receive that assurance from our God every day, but perhaps none more so than today, the final day of 2017. Probably more today than any other time of the year, people will do some reflecting. As the media remind us of the best and worst of 2017, we’ll be prodded into making the same personal assessment. And if we’re honest, brutally honest, we won’t be pleased with the self-analysis. In more ways than we care to admit, 2017 has been just like every other year for us—an unbroken string of days filled with missed opportunities, selfishness, discontent, lousy attitudes about our lot in life, and critical judgments of others, to name just a few. There isn’t a single part of our lives in which we’ve always been the person we wanted to be, let alone who God demands that we be. And so we come to our God again this morning and freely confess it. And what do we hear from our God? Not rejection, but acceptance. Not reluctance but insistence. Not delay, but immediate. We hear again the announcement of the Christmas angels, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Lk. 2:14). In his favor—his grace—God offers us his righteousness. In fact, by faith in Jesus he makes us righteous—completely acceptable to him. Your celebration of Christmas this year declared it once again: God has truly kept his word—his promise of righteousness for us.

Part II.

Have you ever felt marginalized, like you didn’t really matter? You were convinced that another set of people mattered when it came to a particular issue, but you were left out.

God makes it clear through these words of his prophet Isaiah that, when it comes to salvation, no one gets marginalized. No one is left out. He declares, “Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations.” And, as you read on in this section of his word, you realize that his call isn’t limited to his faithful people; he’s even calling out to those who fashion their own gods out of wood and metal. He calls out, “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.”

Without this all-inclusive call of our God, it would be easy to conclude that God’s salvation is only for those who are worthy. Our natural spiritual opinion of ourselves is that we get from God what we deserve. But if that were the case, then we could easily also draw the conclusion at the worst times of our lives that we’ve been marginalized, left out of God’s plan of salvation.

But that conclusion would violate everything our God has declared about himself. He loves the whole world, every sinner in it. He wants every sinner to believe that Jesus is the Savior from sin. And so he sent Jesus at Christmas to die for the sins of all people of time. Christmas declares the truth that God lived up to his promise. And so he closes our text with these words, “But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.” When he uses the term “all the descendants of Israel” here, he means all who trust in Jesus as Savior from sin. They are God’s spiritual Israel. And by faith in Jesus, you are members of that kingdom. He means you!

God has truly kept his word—his promise of salvation for all.

What Christmas comfort that gives us! God’s promise of salvation is for all and, if it’s for all, then it’s for me, it’s for you. No unmet expectations there! What our God promises he delivers. But that Christmas truth is also our call to action. The next time we gather for worship, we’ll do so as Epiphany Christians. Epiphany declares that Jesus is the Savior of all. That’s our call to action. As we ponder the year that will begin in a little more than 12 hours, what will you do in the new year to bring God’s saving truth about Jesus to the world? God has truly kept his word in saving us. God promises to use us to bring his saving word to others. God has truly kept his word. God will truly keep his word. Count on it in this new year! Amen.