This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week three of our Look to
the Book of Isaiah, day one of week three. We're going to focus in on Isaiah
chapter 11 today. Before we do that, I've told you that each week as we start
the week, because Isaiah is such a long book, I want to give us sort of a "where
we are" kind of a picture.

Remember Isaiah, the entire book, is about vision, God's vision for your life.
The book starts with the word "vision. " It's about God's vision for your life,
and we're breaking it up into two simple parts.

First half of Isaiah is about God's vision for change. The second half is about
God's vision for comfort, maybe a different, more powerful kind of comfort than
you're thinking of when you hear that word. We'll get to that soon, but right
now we're talking about change, and as we've gone through these first ten
chapters, we've talked about change meaning that we admit our rebellion, that we
see ourselves as God sees us.

Change includes understanding the six woes we looked at last week of doing life
our way. It includes seeing God as Isaiah did in the temple that day, the glory
of God. It includes saying yes to God.

If you're going to change, you have to say yes to God. It includes knowing how
to look to God when your heart is shaken. It's good at this point, Isaiah
chapter 11, to remind ourselves that Isaiah talks a lot about Jesus.

Amazing, considering that he lived hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
That's why they call him a prophet. He talked about Jesus before he was born.

And the truth is, without Jesus, there is no real change, because the
resurrection is the power for genuine change in our lives. Not just change for
five minutes, or five months, or even five years, but eternal change in our
lives, lifelong change. And chapter 11 of Isaiah is the second of Isaiah's
prophecies about Jesus as the branch.

The one that we can look forward to in terms of how God wants to work in our
lives. In the last prophecy, we saw a messiah who could bring change. Here in
this prophecy, we see a messiah who can bring hope.

And the truth is, there is no change without hope. Without hope, you cannot
change. You cannot change with a spirit of despair.

And there is hope in this chapter. For anyone who needs a breath of life, a
breath of hope, now hope, remember, is not wishing that something were true.
It's not wanting even something to be true.

Hope is expecting something to be true. It's an expectation that's based upon
God's promise. Hope rests on three great promises in this chapter.

Let's just look at them. And as we do this, my prayer is that in each of our
lives, we'll rebuild some hope. And my prayer is that God will use these words
in a way that we can pass along to somebody else today to give them hope.

Three promises that bring hope. Number one, the promise of God's Spirit. Isaiah
11, 1-3 says, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.

From his roots, a branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on
him, the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of
might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord. And he will delight in
the fear of the Lord.

" The Holy Spirit translates hope. From the heart of God to human hearts and
lives, the Holy Spirit translates hope. Now, as we read these verses, you might
remember that the Spirit visibly rested on Jesus in the form of a dove at his
baptism.

It's a picture of the fulfillment of this prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord will
rest on him, will rest on Jesus, on the branch. As we think about the history of
how this happened, I want to bring this down to the individual truth of what it
means for you and I.

I'm saying exactly how the Spirit resting on Jesus gives us hope. And as you
look at what Isaiah writes, as he prophesies, he just gives us the list. It's a
Spirit of wisdom and understanding.

So Jesus sees our needs with a clarity of wisdom, with a compassion of
understanding. He sees your need, whatever you're facing right now. Whatever
point you might even feel hopeless, he sees that with wisdom and with
compassion.

That's the beginning point of hope, knowing that he has the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding. He also has the Spirit of counsel and of might. Jesus has more
than just understanding to offer.

He has the power to work in your life. He offers you more than just a shoulder
to cry on. He offers you a strong arm to lean on.

Counsel and power is talked about here. Counsel is direction to change, and
power is the ability to change. And then it's also a Spirit.

He is also a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Knowledge of God
and fear of God. Real hope is always found in a relationship with God, and
that's what's being talked about here.

The knowledge of God is a relationship with God. The fear of the Lord is a
respect for the Lord, an awe-filled respect for the Lord. It's not being afraid
of God, it's having a deep respect for God, and if you're going to relate to
God, you have to have a respect for who he is.

Now, we've walked through this very quickly. There's much more we could say
about the Spirit, but I just want to say, here's the most amazing part of this.
Jesus tells us in John chapter 14 to 16 that he will cause God's Spirit to rest
on us.

That this Spirit who gives hope not only rested on Jesus in such a way that
Jesus could give us hope, but God puts his Spirit into your life as well. That
Spirit of wisdom, that Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord and all that
we've just looked at, God has put wisdom and understanding, counsel and might,
knowledge and fear of the Lord into you to give you hope. That is the promise of
hope in our lives.

The second promise is the promise of God's judgment. Now, at first you think,
"Judgment, how in the world can that bring hope? " Well, it all depends on which
side of the verdict that you're on.

If the verdict is for you, then the judgment will always bring you hope. Worldly
judgments, they can bring satisfaction, temporary satisfaction at best. Far too
often, worldly judgments, what people think about you, say about you, the
judgment of your circumstances, the judgment of how your life has worked out,
far too often worldly judgments bring frustration and fear.

Jesus judges in such a way to bring hope to your life. Isaiah 11, 3-5, last part
of verse 3, "He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what
he hears with his ears, 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 that's around his waist.

" When you look at the judgment of Jesus that's expressed here, remember this is
the judgment of the branch that's being talked about here in Isaiah chapter 11.
We see that his judgment is absolutely fair, it is perfectly clear, and it is
powerfully personal. It's absolutely fair.

He doesn't judge, in verse 3, by what he sees or hears, by the external. He
judges with righteousness and justice, by the internal. And that gives hope,
because Jesus gives us his righteousness.

You think, how can I have hope if I'm going to be judged by the righteousness of
Jesus? I'm never going to be able to live up to that. At the cross, Jesus
decided to give you his righteousness.

And when I accept that gift, I'm given the righteousness of Christ. So the
righteous judge gives me his righteousness and then judges me righteous. That
brings hope.

His judgment is absolutely fair. His judgment is also perfectly clear. He'll
strike the earth, he will slay the wicked.

There's not going to be gray areas in his judgment. Are earthly judgments?
Because we don't know, we can't see into human hearts.

There are so many gray areas. But when Jesus judges, all will be made known,
crystal clarity in his judgments. We often lose hope, because it looks like evil
is winning.

But that's just because the final judgment has not yet been made clear. In the
end, it's going to be clear, his judgments are going to be right. These verses
also tell us that the judgments of Jesus are powerfully personal.

This is not a judgment of mechanical laws and punishments. This is a judgment of
God's personal choice. You see the phrases here, "with the rod of his mouth he
judges," "with the breath of his lips," "righteousness is his belt,"
"faithfulness is his sash.

" It's all connected to God personally. The hope that you and I have in God's
judgment comes from knowing the Judge. It has to be personal.

Knowing that you can trust the Judge. The truth is, there are many things that I
do not understand about judgment. But I know that I can trust God.

And in the end, that is what gives me hope. I know I can trust God to be the
faithful and fair and righteous Judge. So we have the promise of God's Spirit,
we have the promise of God's judgment.

And then finally, as we talk about the branch, in this branch, in Jesus, there
is the promise of God's peace. God's promises of peace, they are powerfully
pictured here. You've heard these promises in literature.

You've heard them read from the Scripture. In verse six, down through verse
nine, Isaiah says, "The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie
down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a
little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, the young will lie
down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra's den, the young child will put its hand
into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy in all my holy
mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the
waters cover the sea. " There's this picture of the wolf lying down with the
lamb.

The hope here, the peace here, that's expressed, is that God has an entirely
different end to the story than we see now. We see battle, we see violence, we
see people fighting against each other, we see nature fighting against itself.
It will not always be that way.

We look forward to the promise of God's peace. God's going to change everything,
and he says it again and again and again here. The wolf with the lamb, the calf
with the lion, the lion eating straw, again and again he tells us we can look
forward to his peace.

That's why we have hope. And then in verse 10 he says that his resting place
will be glorious. That's why we look forward to his peace.

And that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the people. Remember,
Jesse is the Lion of David, we're talking about the Lion of David, so the root
of Jesse. Jesus not only comes out of the Lion of David, he's also the root of
the Lion of David.

Pretty amazing, because he's God. The root of Jesse will stand as a banner for
the peoples. The nations will rally to him and then listen to this, his resting
place will be glorious.

There's hope. God knows the weariness, the sole weariness that you sometimes
feel, and his resting place will be glorious, his resting place. Our final
resting place, you've heard that phrase, your final resting place, your final
resting place is not the grave, it's not some place underneath the ground, your
final resting place is glorious.

It's with Jesus for all of eternity. That's what we're looking forward to.
That's why we can have hope.

And then he gives us one more picture, verse 16, "There will be a highway from
the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel
when they came up out of Egypt. " There's this highway from the remnant of his
people. Any who turned to him, that's the remnant of his people.

Any of all those who are on this earth who turned to him and trust in him, he
builds a highway into relationship with him. He builds a highway into this hope
that he wants to give into our lives. He will not leave us alone.

He comes to us and he gives us a way to him. And that highway has been built in
some ways through Jesus Christ. I know it's also a narrow way because you have
to choose.

You have to choose to trust him and not trust yourself. But God has made a way.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

And because of that, we can have hope. So let's pray together. Lord, help us not
to get so caught up in the circumstances around us that we lose hope.

Help us to get caught up in your promises, the promise of your Spirit who is
within us. We can have hope. We can trust in you.

The promise of your judgments to come, what we see now is not what will be. And
so your judgments, because they'll be righteous, we will have hope. And the
promise of your peace, your promised peace, all that we long for, we can have
hope.

Help us to live in your hope today, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow
we're going to talk together about God's recipe for joy.