If you turn with me in God's Word to the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah chapter 61. And we're going to read the first nine verses together. Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 through 9. And consider together the year of the Lord's favor. So let's pay careful attention for this is God's own Word. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins. They shall raise up the former devastations. They shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks. Foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers. But you shall be called the priests of the Lord. They shall speak of you as the ministers of our God. You shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast. Instead of your shame, there shall be a double portion. Instead of dishonor, they shall rejoice in their lot. Therefore, in their land, they shall possess a double portion. They shall have everlasting joy. For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong. I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples, all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed. Thus far, the reading of God's Word, may He bless it to us. Well, this is the last service of the last Lord's Day of the old year. And I think Elder Den Boer helped draw our attention to that fact by choosing hymns for our song service that think about our times. This is the time of year when we think about the year that has passed and we think about the year that's coming. A natural time of life for us to think about the times. And I think every time we come to the end of a year and are looking at the year to come, we usually are thinking one of two things. We're either thinking that we hope that this coming year is just like this year. If this year has been a good year, a year of blessing, we hope we have more of the same coming in the next year. of course there's also those who have had a terrible year maybe the worst year of their lives and are thinking I hope next year is nothing like this year it makes us think about the times the times that have been the times that are going to come but of course we want to think of the times as God would have us think of the times when we look at the year to come we can think about what it might be like but maybe you can take yourself back to the beginning of 2015 and ask yourself what you expected of this year and whether your expectations were met or whether things happened to you this year that you couldn't have anticipated. How are we to think about these times? How are we to think about uncertain futures and not knowing what exactly is in store for us? Well, we have to listen to the word of the Lord. For He knows all things. He has planned our paths. And he wants us to know something about the time. Something that Isaiah helpfully points out to us. That this is the year of the Lord's favor, whatever else it is. And how is that the case? Why is that the case? Because God has brought blessing to his people. However the times may change, our God doesn't change. And he declares what the times are for his people. And he proclaims to us this evening that this is the year of the Lord's favor. But that is how we are to think about our time. And we are to think about our time this way because the Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world. It's the year of the Lord's favor because the Lord has come. The Lord has come to bless His people. And Isaiah is thinking about those blessings, the blessings that come to the people of God. And we want to think about those blessings this evening. We want to think about how the Lord has blessed His people. So we want to think about the blessings that God brings to His people through Jesus Christ. And we want to think about those blessings in three ways, as Isaiah describes them to us. We want to think about the blessings proclaimed. We want to think about the blessings provided. And we want to think about the blessings perfected. That's how we want to think about this text this evening. Blessings proclaimed, blessings provided, and blessings perfected. Our text this evening begins with a proclamation. With a proclamation that the Lord has anointed His servant to proclaim good news. There's a message coming. There's a message coming to a particular audience in this text. And who is that audience that the Lord is giving this message of good news to? It's an audience that is afflicted. It's an audience that is in trouble. Verse 1 tells us, who is this servant proclaiming the good news to? To bring good news to the poor. This is the audience that the prophet has in mind, the poor. Sometimes when we think about the poor, we think about those who don't have any money. Understand that the youth group was down in Mexico, and you see the poor. You see what it is to be poor, and it's more than just not having money. It's to be downtrodden. It's to be afflicted. It's to be wretched. That's the audience to which this prophecy comes, those who are afflicted in this world. And the level of the affliction is clear in this prophecy. How are they afflicted? Well, they are afflicted in their inner being. Their hearts are broken. The sense here of shattered, beyond repair. Their hearts are broken. They are in mourning. In mourning because of their sin and the misery it brings. We can't be deceived in this world. Misery always follows sin. The world likes to pretend that that's not the case, but it's always the case that misery follows sin. And these are people who are miserable, who are mourning in their misery. Broken-hearted and mourning. They are afflicted in their inner being. They are afflicted in their outward circumstances. They are captives. Personally captive in the sense that they are bound up. corporately captive in the sense that they've been taken prisoner. They're prisoners of war. It sort of contemplates every level of captivity. In their inner being, in their outward state, they're afflicted. What kind of affliction is Isaiah describing here? It's the affliction of the exile. In the latter part of Isaiah's prophecy, it's part of what he does, is to predict and bring the word of the Lord to say, this people will go into exile for their sins. it won't just be a sort of emotional brokenheartedness or an emotional captivity it'll be a literal captivity this is the affliction of exiles broken in their spirit captive in their outward circumstances in a difficult and hopeless situation and when God gave his people that picture of exile it was meant to show a greater reality as well of the misery that comes with being alienated from God in the world. It harkens back to that first exile when Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden. That's part of the function the exile serves in the Old Testament to remind God's people and to remind all mankind that we are exiles from the Lord, that we are afflicted in this world. But the prophet doesn't bring this word to leave us there. And just to say, you're afflicted. Life's hard. Get a helmet. No, there's a message sent to those who are in affliction. There's a message sent to those who are in exile. And what is that message? Good news. A good news of blessing that's coming to those who are in affliction. Good news of an anointed one who is coming to proclaim good news in the world. So as bad as the affliction is, the good news is great. There is an anointed one coming. One who has been anointed in power. He comes in the spirit of the Lord God. That Lord that manifested himself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and made those great covenant promises. That Lord that you've been hearing about as you go through Exodus, who did those mighty works in Egypt, who brought His people out with a powerful arm, that God has sent an anointed one to His people, anointed by His Spirit. The Spirit of that Almighty God is on this anointed one. That notion of anointing is so important in Scripture. Because the anointed one is one who comes with a mark of his authority. That's how the oil functioned in the Old Testament. Kings were anointed. It was a sign that they were the king. Priests were anointed. It was signs that they had been set apart to be priests. It was a mark of their authority. But it was also a mark of their ability. That they knew that God was saying something in that anointing. That God was saying, I am with the king. I am with the priest. They don't just have authority, they have ability because I am going to give them power. And this one who is coming is anointed in the Spirit of the Lord to proclaim good news to those who are afflicted. To speak a word of peace to those who need to hear it. To proclaim that God is going to bless those who are broken. And not just to proclaim the blessing, but to provide the blessing that he proclaims. And that makes him another kind of anointed one. There's a sense in which every prophet and every apostle and every minister could have said, I'm anointed by God to proclaim good news to the afflicted. Isaiah could have said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the afflicted. The Apostle Peter could have said that. Timothy could have said that. It's true of Reverend Gordon. That the Spirit of the Lord is upon him to proclaim good news to the afflicted. But there's something different about this anointed one in that he not only proclaims the good news, but he makes it happen. He proclaims the blessing of God, and then he provides the blessing to his people. That's something that only God can do. And if all we had was Isaiah 61, we would know Isaiah must be talking about the Lord. Because only the Lord can bring good news and provide what he proclaims. Of course, God doesn't just give us Isaiah 61. He wants us to be sure that we understand who this servant is. And so fast forward in your minds to Luke chapter 4 where Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath in Nazareth. He tells the attendant to bring him the Scripture and the Scripture he's brought is Isaiah 61. And you remember that powerful scene of Jesus reading Isaiah 61 verses 1 and 2 and stopping after he says to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolls that scroll up and he hands it back to the attendant and he sits down to teach and we're told that the eyes of the whole building are on him. What is he going to say about Isaiah 61? Do you remember what he says? Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. It's the beginning of his public ministry in the Gospel of Luke. He says, I am the one Isaiah promised. I am the one Isaiah prophesied about, the servant of the Lord who is anointed both to proclaim the good news and to provide the blessing to his people. It's something no other minister of God's could have done. Faithful ministers of God can proclaim the good news. They can tell you what Jesus has done. They can tell you that Jesus has died for your sins, that if you put your faith in him, you will be saved. He will raise you up on the last day. We can proclaim the law and tell you that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you need to flee to Him and be reconciled to God because we will be judged according to the law. And once someone believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can exhort them to live a life that's pleasing to Him, to pursue holiness, to put off the old and put on the new. But we can't do any of that for you. We can't make it happen. All the ministers of God, through all the history of His Word, all they could do is stand and say, Here is life, here is death, choose life. Why would you die? Christ is different in that He can come and say, live and make you live. That He can say, be reconciled to God, and He can reconcile you to God. He can say, believe, and He can give you faith. He can say, be holy, and He can give you His righteousness. That's what makes Him different than any other gospel minister that came before or that has come since. He doesn't just proclaim blessing, he provides it. He makes his people whole. And what are the blessings that he provides? Isaiah is helpful for that as well. What are the blessings provided by this anointed one, the Lord Jesus Christ? What is the blessing that he provides to his people? Well, the first blessing is he fixes what's broken. Very simply, the afflicted and the broken need fixing. And he comes to fix what's broken. The brokenhearted, he comes to bind up. The mourning, he comes to comfort. He fixes what's broken in our inner beings. He comes to fix what's broken in our outward state. To set captives free. To liberate prisoners of war. everything that's wrong with the afflicted he comes to fix it's wonderful good news that that's the blessing the Lord Jesus Christ provides he says be fixed and then he fixes us one of the great blessings of the anointed one who comes into the world the blessing is he fixes what's broken and then he fills what's fixed with glory he doesn't just restore us to the former state we don't just go back to square one back to Eden it's better than that it's greater than that it's a complete reversal of the afflicted circumstances that comes across powerfully in verse 3 as we have all of those instead of all of the afflicted are one way and instead of that they will be made something else and it's this beautiful list of things that the Lord does the blessing that he provides he gives a crown instead of ashes a beautiful headdress instead of ashes what did people do in the Old Testament when they were in mourning they would sit down in the dust they would clothe themselves with sackcloth they would take ashes and sprinkle them all over their head as a symbol of their mourning as a symbol of their degradation and what is the promise the anointed one comes and he turns their ashes into a crown it's not ashes that are on their head anymore it's a crown that's on their head Isaiah displays some of his artistry in the Hebrew because you can change ashes to a crown by switching two consonants in Hebrew just by the change of two letters you go from ashes to a crown we could almost say it's that easy for God to change the circumstances of the afflicted to make those ashes a crown that shines on the head of the afflicted. A crown instead of ashes. The oil of gladness instead of mourning. Instead of those ashes running down the head showing the person is in mourning, there's the oil of gladness that is running down their head. A sign that they are ready to go to the feast. There's this beautiful picture of someone whose circumstances are being changed. They have a garment of praise instead of a faint spirit. Faint is a word that Isaiah has used before to describe the dimly burning wick that's about to go out. It's the same word used here to describe the spirit of the afflicted. This idea of those who are so afflicted that it seems like life is about to go out. And what does the Lord do to those who are faint in spirit? He clothes them in a garment of praise. Surrounds their faintness with something to enliven them, something to inspire them, something to blow the fire back into their lives to praise God. It's the antidote to a faint spirit to praise God, to be filled with His praise, to be enlivened and enlightened by the Spirit of God. And what is the result of those who have been thus so radically changed by the work of the Anointed One? They become mighty oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord. Could there be a greater contrast than those who are in mourning, in faintness, about to pine away their lives in mourning to the point of being utterly broken and then to be taken by God and crowned and anointed and clothed and planted? And think of Psalm 92, verse 13. That promise that God will plant you in the house of His Father so that you will flourish in the courts of our God forever. This radical change that takes place in the afflicted. And why does all of this happen? Does it happen because we do it for ourselves? Can we turn this list of things into an action plan? Is God coming to us tonight and saying, you have to figure out a way to turn your ashes into a crown? I think there's a series of books here. There wouldn't be a very faithful series of books, but you could do ashes into a crown. Mourning into the oil of gladness. Ten steps for doing it. Is that God's purpose in writing these things? God's saying you have to figure out how to turn your life around? No, the blessing of the Word as it comes to us is the anointed one does it all. He crowns you. He anoints you. He clothes you. He plants you so that you are a mighty oak of righteousness. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for His people. He's bound us up. He's taken away our cause for mourning. He has restored us. All of those images come and other places in the Scripture. That the Lord crowns His people with His crown. That He anoints His people with that same Spirit with which He is anointed. That He clothes His people in His robes of righteousness. And that they have His inheritance in the house of the Lord where they will dwell forever. That's what He provides. That's what the anointed one has provided through his life. And why? Why would he do that for us? For his own glory. Remember, Isaiah is writing to exiles, exiles who go off into the exile and who are a people that when people see the destruction of Jerusalem, they walk by, and what do they do? They hiss and they wag their heads and they say, what did this people do to make God treat them this way? What did they do to make God destroy them so utterly? That shame and that disgrace that comes on the people of God. Why does God restore them so utterly? Because He wants the world to know He's a God that doesn't forget His promises. He's a God who disciplines His people, but He never leaves them or forsakes them. And although the promise that came to them on Sinai was, you choose death instead of life the land will vomit you out the way it vomited everyone else out and you'll be scattered to the ends of the earth but the promise is wherever you are scattered i'll go find you i will bring you back i will restore you so the world knows you are not a people that end in disgrace you're a people on whom i've set my love so we see what the lord does and the blessings He provides, and we see why He does it, for His own glory. The next question we want to ask is, when? When does He do these things? When does He work this wonderful work of blessing? Well, again, we have to pay attention to the words of Jesus, don't we? Always a good plan to pay attention to the words of Jesus. But what did He say after He read these words in Luke 4? when do these blessings come today he says today this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing today the blessings are not just proclaimed they are provided the lord jesus in his life in his ministry has done all of these things for his people he's fundamentally changed us by his life by his death by his resurrection. He has dealt with the cause of our brokenheartedness and our mourning in his cross. And he has anointed us with his glory in his resurrection. He has bound up the brokenhearted. He has comforted those who mourn. He has set the captives free. All of these things have been provided by our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, then we want to say, Well, why doesn't it feel that way? Right? I mean, if we're honest, it doesn't feel like all of these blessings have been provided. Sometimes we want to say, today, Jesus, don't you mean tomorrow? Maybe you mean someday soon, but it can't be today because my heart's still broken and I still feel like I'm in mourning over my sin and the misery sin has brought to the world. and I still feel like I am captive to my sins. You say I'm free, I don't feel free. You say I'm whole, I don't feel whole. You say I'm comforted, I don't feel comforted. How do we make sense of that? Well, part of the answer is to realize that the blessings that Christ proclaims and has provided are not yet perfected. It's so hard for us to believe in unseen things and to fix our hearts and our minds and our trust on things we can't see. And we trick ourselves into thinking that the things we see are the most real. The things I see are really real. The things I can't see, they're not real somehow. And that's why we need the Anointed One to proclaim the blessing to us, to provide it to us and explain to us that our minds have things wrong. It's not the things we see that are the most real. It's the things that are unseen that are the most real. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 4, doesn't he? Outwardly, how do we feel? I'm wasting away. I'm wasting away. That's what I see. But what's happening inwardly? We're being renewed day after day by the Spirit of God. That's why the Gospel has to come and to proclaim to us the good news, to remind us that the things we see are temporary. They're not ultimately the realest thing, if I can talk that way. They're not the most real. It's the things that we don't see that last forever. And what the Scripture comes and does to us, it says to us, let me give you a picture of what's really real. Let me give you a picture of what eternity is like. What it will be like when the kingdom of grace becomes the kingdom of glory. When the king returns, what will the world look like? And we get a small hint of that in the rest of our passage. There's too much glory here for me to go into it in detail, even if I had the time, which I don't. But there's some wonderful things that Isaiah says to a people who are in exile and who are anticipating coming out of exile. He uses all pictures that exiles would understand. What it means to come back. But they're all pictures that are greater than Canaan can offer. They have to be speaking about something greater. What is it going to look like when the Lord returns and the kingdom of grace becomes the kingdom of glory? The first thing Isaiah says in verse 4 is that there will be a repossession and a restoration. The ruins will be built up. And it's our first clue that he's talking about more than Jerusalem because Jerusalem at that time had been destroyed for 70 years. They were not ancient ruins. The same word Isaiah uses there is used elsewhere in Scripture for everlasting. Twice in our passage, an everlasting covenant, everlasting joy, everlasting ruins. The ruins of many generations. It's not simply the ruin of Jerusalem. It's the ruin of this world. The world that's been ruined since the fall of man. That's the ancient ruin that the king will rebuild. It'll be repossession and restoration. That's what the kingdom of glory will be like. It'll be a kingdom of perfect fellowship. It comes across in verses 5 and 6. We have that wonderful picture of the strangers and the foreigners working in the land and God's people serving as priests of God before Him and serving our God together. We can make the mistake of thinking this is a picture of domination and subjugation. God's people exalted and the strangers and foreigners left to work the land. But it's not a picture of domination, it's a picture of cooperation. Those who are laboring in the field labor for the benefits of the others and those who labor in the temple labor for the benefits of the others. They're each laboring for the other. It's a picture of perfect fellowship. All in service to one another and in service to our God. It's also a picture of endless celebration. That shame and disgrace is replaced with glory and honor. With a double portion. all those people who walked by and shook their heads and kissed about what God had done to his people, now they are honored. There's a double portion of honor. There's a double portion of land. The inheritance is doubled. That too is another clue for us, right? That it can't simply be exiles returning to the promised land. There's not enough promised land on earth for everyone to get a double portion. You run out of land. We're talking about a greater kind of inheritance. Not an earthly promised land, a heavenly promised land where there will be everlasting joy. You can't experience that in this life either, can you? Everlasting joy uninterrupted. That has to be talking about the kingdom of glory, something greater. A kingdom in which there is complete righteousness. Because the Lord loves justice and hates robbery and wrong. He pays all the wrongdoers. As Psalm 10 says, he scours the earth, dealing with all the wickedness until he finds none. With those who are left, he builds them up by an everlasting covenant. They will never fall into wickedness again and never fall out of righteous fellowship with him. It's a picture of complete righteousness. And the last thing we see in verse 9 is maybe the greatest thing of all for exiles to hear. That when they are restored, it will be a time of unmistakable blessedness. It's that wonderful picture that Isaiah finishes this section with, talking about their offspring shall be known among the nations and their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed. It will be unmistakable who the blessed people are. What is he saying? What is unseen will become seen. Those of us gathered here who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are the most blessed people on the face of the earth because we are called by the name of the King. We are heirs to the promises. We are heirs to heaven itself. We are co-heirs with Christ, the King of all the earth. Do you think that's how people in the world think of you? That you are the most blessed people on the face of the earth. Sons and daughters of the King. When the King returns, the world will see that. The world will see what is true. You will see what is true. That heaven loves you. And that heaven and earth have been moved by its maker to save you. And to bring you into fellowship with the King of glory. and at that time it will be unmistakable who the blessed of the earth are because what is now unseen will then be seen. This will all happen when the Lord returns in glory to perfect these blessings. Makes sense, right, that the kingdom of glory can't exist without its king? He must be present for all of these things to happen? And what is the great, encouraging promise from our King? A promise to end with, a promise to go into the next year with. What is the promise? He is coming soon. The night is far gone, and the day of perfected blessing is at hand. Salvation is nearer to you now than when you first believed. And the Spirit says, dear children, you are living in the last hour. it's dark before the dawn but the son of righteousness is about to rise with healing in his wings it may not seem like we enjoy these blessings now but we do the Lord has secured them for us and so the church will continue to proclaim these blessings so we are reminded that the Lord has provided these blessings to us in his beloved son and that it's coming soon to perfect those blessings. So I have a New Year's resolution for you. Pray the prayer of God's people in every generation often and every day, remembering that he's coming soon and saying with all generations of the church, even so, amen. Come, Lord Jesus. It would be the best thing that you can do to proclaim to yourself the year of the Lord's favor. Amen. Let us pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the encouragement it offers us to recognize that as an afflicted people, as exiles, we need to hear the good news. We thank you that you have sent your anointed one, even your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to proclaim that news to us and even more, to provide the blessing he proclaims. When we are tempted to think that today is not the day of salvation, that we have not yet attained to the promises, remind us by your Spirit of the blessings that will be perfected when our Lord returns. And might we be exiles who feed on hope, who look to the heavens and say, it's not long now. He's coming soon, even as he promised. Fill our hearts and minds with those promises. Fill our hearts and minds with the blessings that will be perfected when the kingdom of glory comes. And may we persevere, praising your name and glorifying you for that great salvation. Hear us, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who has secured it all. Amen.