December 2, 2001

Isaiah 11:1-5

How to Receive New Life from an Ancient Stump

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Tim Riter, in Deep Down, writes about a landscaper named George. George's first job as a landscape contractor was to remove a large oak stump from a farmer's field. He also was using dynamite for the first time. With the farmer watching, George tried to hide his nervousness by carefully calculating the size of the stump, the proper amount of dynamite, and where to place it. Finally, he and the farmer moved to the detonator behind his pickup truck. With a silent prayer, George plunged the detonator. The stump gracefully rose through the air and then crashed on the cab of the truck. George gazed in despair at the ruined cab, but the farmer was all admiration. Son, with a little more practice, those stumps will land in the bed of the truck every time!
    2. Context – We tend to be like George and the farmer and see stumps as obstacles to be removed from our paths. But stumps can also be a source of new life, as Isaiah 11:1-5 shows us.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. Isaiah 11:1-5 – A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
    2. While this passage is clearly understood by Biblical scholars as referring to the Messiah, it has a lot to say to us about our relationship with God and how to be a people pleasing to Him.
  1. The Branch
    1. In verse one, a strong metaphor is used to connect the Messiah to the royal line of David. Jesse was David’s father, and a very strong contrast is made between verse one and the following verses. Jesse’s family is not considered to be one of the great families of Bethlehem, just a lowly group of shepherds. His son David, the one chosen by God to be king, was his eighth and youngest son. Out of weakness came both a king after God’s own heart and the King of Kings, the Messiah. If God can use men like Jesse and David for His glory and to accomplish His purposes in spite of their weaknesses, He can use people like us in spite of our weaknesses. It doesn’t matter what our spiritual heritage is, what our background is, how we were raised. We too can be of the lineage of Jesse and be use for God’s greatest glory.
    2. How do I know this? John 15:5 says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." If you have a personal relationship with the Messiah, Jesus Christ, you are a branch that has been grafted into the Vine. You are a part of Him, and He is the source of everything good and righteous in your life. He is the source of spiritual nourishment for you, and because of Him and only because of Him you can bear great spiritual fruit. Yes, in a sense this is basic theology, but we have to start living like it is truth. Jesus did not come to this earth just to let us go on our own way and to stumble around hoping we’d get it right. We are connected to Him. We are dependent on Him for our very lives. It’s about time we started remembering that!
    3. This is one of the most exciting aspects of the prophecies of the coming of Messiah in the Old Testament. Why? If someone tells you that a person of great importance is coming to do something great in your world, you get pretty excited. But if someone tells you that a Person of the greatest importance is coming to enable you to do great things, you get really excited! The Messiah prophesied about in the Bible didn’t merely come to make the nation of Israel great and independent, as many of the Jewish teachers of His time believed. That wasn’t the reason for His coming at all! He came to reconnect us with Himself, the True Vine, the Creator of all the universe. He came to graft us back into Himself, so that we can do great things because of His life flowing through us. That is the beauty of Isaiah’s words here. Messiah has come, and we can be forever changed because of His coming!
    4. Illustration – Max Lucado, in In the Grip of Grace, tells the story of a man who had been a closet slob most of his life. He just couldn't comprehend the logic of neatness. Why make up a bed if you're going to sleep in it again tonight? Why put the lid on the toothpaste tube if you're going to take it off again in the morning? The man admitted to being compulsive about being messy. Then he got married. His wife was patient. She said she didn't mind his habits ... if he didn't mind sleeping on the couch. Since he did mind, he began to change. He said he enrolled in a 12-step program for slobs. A physical therapist helped him rediscover the muscles used for hanging up shirts and placing toilet paper on the holder. His nose was reintroduced to the smell of Pine Sol. By the time his in-laws arrived for a visit, he was a new man. But then came the moment of truth. His wife went out of town for a week. At first he reverted to the old man. He figured he could be a slob for six days and clean on the seventh. But something strange happened. He could no longer relax with dirty dishes in the sink or towels flung around the bathroom or clothes on the floor or sheets piled up like a mountain on the bed. What happened? Simple. He had been exposed to a higher standard of living. That's what Jesus does. Some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves right now are, "Whose standard of living am I settling for? Mine or God’s? Am I allowing Jesus Christ to graft me back onto the vine? Am I bearing fruit because I’ve been grafted back onto the vine?" As you’re thinking about those questions, let’s go on.
  1. Through the Vine Comes the Life of the Spirit
    1. Isaiah used strong contrasts and word pictures to communicate the message that God gave Him. Look at the contrast between the way Messiah is described and the way we are. Messiah is wise and understanding. We tend to be foolish and a bit dense at times. Messiah is a strong counselor and is powerful. We tend to be weak advisors and even weaker in spiritual things. Messiah is full of knowledge and has a very healthy respect for His Father. We tend to think we’re smarter than we are and show little respect for God the Father. Messiah delights in respecting and reverencing the Father, while we delight in our own brilliance. Messiah doesn’t judge by what He sees and hears – He knows our hearts and uses God’s standards of righteousness and justice as His measuring sticks. We judge by what we see and hear, and we use our own hypocritical standards to do it. Messiah wipes out the wicked in the end, while we delight in doing evil. Messiah clothes Himself in righteousness and faithfulness. Our only clothing concerns come down to which clothes we can wear that will match so either we or our wives will be happy. God is sending a strong message that Messiah is nothing like we are, and that’s the best news in the world for us. It means He can help us to be the people we were created to be.
    2. The key for us becoming like Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Messiah, lies in the first phrase of verse two – The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him. In John 3:5-6, Jesus is responding to Nicodemus’ exclamation that people can’t go back into their mothers’ wombs to be born again. Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we are born of the Spirit of God and have His Spirit living within us. Yes, I know this is basic theology, but it hasn’t made any impact on our lives unless we live it! The same Spirit that rested on Jesus during His time on earth now rests on us! We have the same spiritual capabilities for good that Messiah does, because we have the same Spirit! Let’s get that out of our heads and into our hearts! Jesus came as a baby and lived as one of us in such a way that not only was sinless but also demonstrated the power of God to a watching world. We can do the same. We can not only live lives that are free from sin, but living that way will demonstrate the power of God to a watching world! But what would that look like?
    3. Simple. When life’s problems hit us, instead of responding foolishly or being dense about what to do, the Spirit of God can pour wisdom and understanding of the problem and what to do about it through us in such a way that the people around us are blown away by it. When we are confused about how to advise someone or feel so weak we can’t do anything, the Spirit of God can pour His counsel and power through us in such a way that people around us experience the awesome power of God ministering to them. When our smarts aren’t enough to get us through and we don’t feel like we can worship God in the midst of our circumstances, the Spirit of God can pour the perfect knowledge we need through us and enable us to worship and adore Him even in difficult situations. And that is a powerful witness! When we feel like being critical of people because they don’t meet our standards according to what we see and hear going on, God can change our hearts. He can help us see the deep pain in their hearts and lives and the deep spiritual and emotional poverty they live in and use His filters of His righteousness and His justice to judge them. When the least lovely in the eyes of the world see us love them unconditionally, the power of God has touched their lives. When we love sin, the Spirit of God can help us see it as God sees it, as wickedness that separates us from Him, and learn to hate it. When we are tempted to clothe ourselves with our own righteous and faithful works, the Spirit of God can help us see how much better His righteousness and faithfulness are than our filthy rags. That’s what life by the power of the Holy Spirit is all about. Transformation. Radical transformation.
    4. Illustration – C. S. Lewis once said, It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. Jesus wants us to be radically transformed by the power of the Spirit of God. That’s what He came to enable us to do. All we have to do is be willing to let Him change us, and quit grabbing hold of the old baggage He’s trying to remove from our lives. A commentary on Homiletics Online says this, Have you heard about the Australian aborigine who got a new boomerang, and then spent the rest of his life trying to throw away his old one? Besides conjuring up a humorous picture of this man and his dilemma, the constantly returning boomerang image also speaks to a familiar problem. How many of us have spiritual boomerangs which keep returning, intruding, on our lives? We fail to terminate bad relationships, and so replay patterns of dependence or self-absorption. We return again to harmful habits, hurting ourselves or ones we love. We rely on old reactions in the face of new circumstances, refusing to grow spiritually or emotionally. God is waiting to transform our lives. He is waiting to help us bear fruit. He is waiting to give us the Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, of power, of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. He is waiting for us to take off our old sinful filters and look through His eyes at those around us. He is waiting for us to take of our filthy rags and clothe ourselves with His righteousness and His faithfulness. It’s all up to us. How will we respond?
  1. Conclusion
    1. I realize that I’m speaking to a congregation that has people all over the spectrum. Some folks don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some folks have begun a personal relationship with Jesus, but haven’t allowed it to impact their lives. That applies to brand new believers as well as to some who’ve been Christians for years. And there are some folks who’ve been Christians, who’ve been walking with God, who’ve been doing their best to follow and serve Him, but who still have an area or two in their lives that keeps tripping them up. Guess what? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, came for all of us. For every one in this room. He wants to transform all of our lives and feed us the rich nutrients of His Spirit. The question is, will we allow Him to?
    2. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. If you’ve been hung up, even a little bit, in your walk with Jesus, and just can’t seem to get past it, Jesus is waiting patiently and hopefully for you to open the door to your heart to Him. If you want to get past this hang-up, to leave the boomerang behind, and you want to ask for Jesus help and to commit to allowing Him to work in your life, either raise your hand or come forward as a sign of your commitment to follow through. We’ll pray with you. If you’d like to start a personal relationship with Jesus right now, please come forward and we’ll pray with you. Take action now and allow your life to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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