Philemon: refresh my heart

The letter to Philemon is one of only two truly personal letters in the New Testament, although there are of course several that are individually addressed (Timothy, Titus, 2John, 3John, Philemon). In his introduction to the letter, Eugene Petersen says:

Every movement we make in response to God has a ripple effect, touching family, neighbours, friends, community.
Philemon and Onesimus... Had no idea that believing in Jesus would involve them in radical social change.

There are three main players in this little drama and a big supporting cast.

Paul, the apostle who although now a prisoner was once the itinerant preacher under who’s ministry the others found faith in Christ.

Philemon, probably a fairly wealthy business man of his time. Known for his faith and his ability to bring joy, encouragement and refreshing to others. A church leader perhaps in Colossae.

Onesimus his name means useful, but he’d proved to be far from that in his past. He was a runaway slave, formerly of little use to anyone but of great use to both Paul and Philemon because of his transformed life through faith in Christ. It’s possible that Onesimus is not only a runaway but a thief to boot.

Also involved but not mentioned here is Tychicus who has travelled with Onesimus to deliver the letters to the Colossian and Laodicean churches as well as this personal letter to Philemon (Col. :7-9)

The focus of the letter is the need for both Onesimus and Philemon to “do the right thing”, that is the thing that most honours God. For Onesimus it is to return to the master he had formerly wronged, for Philemon it is to take Onesimus back, but not as a slave and not subjecting him to the punishment the law and society might have expected. It’s a fascinating insight into household life and the impact Christianity had on it. But the things that caught my attention, and the thing I want us to think about most is how Paul speaks of Philemon:

Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people. V7

The “heart” is the deepest emotional place. It’s the place from which the compassion of Jesus springs.

We're all aware of things that drain our hearts and we know that there are other things that refresh our hearts. If we imagine that we have a "heart tank" that gives us the reserves for ministry and missions, we need to make sure it's regularly topped up. If our resources are low, our ability to minister will be low. We know that God can make up the difference, but that's about when we run out of resources not about when our resources are depleted. It's a different thing altogether.

What refreshes Paul’s heart?

1. Stories of faith among God’s people.

In almost all of Paul’s letter you will find something about which he gives thanks with regard to his readers. In Rome it is their faith that is reported all over the world; Corinth-all their spiritual gifts, Ephesus it’s their love for others as it is in the letter to the Colossians.

2. Expressions of love

Jesus remains largely unquoted in the the New Testament outside of the gospels. Only one time do we hear anyone make any mention of what he said and that is Paul in Acts 20 when he’s about to leave Ephesus. There are other times when people remember what Jesus said, but this is the only direct quote and it’s interesting because it’s not something we find in the gospels.
But clearly Paul understood one core aspect of the teaching of Jesus with great clarity. His call to love one another. And Paul is clearly refreshed when he hears about love in action amongst the people of God.

3. Generosity

Paul’s appeal for Onesimus and his obvious desire to have him around to help, is not pushed on the basis of authority and apostleship. Rather Paul wants Philemon to choose to be generous. Remember that formerly Onesimus belonged to Philemon as his slave. He owned him and as such he had the right to sell him, recover losses by exacting punishments etc, etc. But Paul knows that Philemon is a generous-hearted man (he even asks about the guest room), and wants him to express that generosity.

4. Forgiveness

There’s no attempt in this letter to cover up what Onesimus might be guilty of having done. There’s no attempt to suggest that this is not relevant to the current situation. A debt remains. Sin always has consequences. The death of Jesus doesn’t remove the consequences of sin, it removes the penalty for sin. But, again as Jesus would have said, if we’ve experienced forgiveness how can we withhold that forgiveness from each other?

Paul is not asking Philemon to forget the debt owed to him, in fact Paul offers to cover that himself (although I’m guessing he’s hoping for another act of generosity by Philemon at this point!). But he is asking him to forgive Onesimus for what he has done.

5. Obedience

Finally Paul’s heart is refreshed by obedience. Not to his words but to the full expression of a fully devoted life to the pattern of Jesus. In verse 21, Paul is confident of Philemon’s obedience. In other words he is confident that Philemon, above everything else, wants to follower Jesus wholeheartedly.

Carol Service 2008

One of our readings this evening was all about a rather strange set of visitors who called in to see a group of livestock herders during the night shift. These were ordinary folk doing an ordinary job on an ordinary night. Nothing spectacular or special about their surroundings, nothing odd about the weather, nothing strange about the passing hours. But then something quite remarkable happened. Suddenly our late shift shepherd’s night was disturbed. An angel appeared, made an announcement and then was joined by a choir of angels who began to sing. It’s enough to wake a sleeping sheep!

You can tell it wasn’t normal practice for this kind of thing to happen to this group of shepherds because although they were used to the sights and sounds of the night–the sound of an approaching wolf maybe, the hoot of an owl, the rustle of leaves, the moving shadows, the wax and wane of the moon light–this one caught them by surprise. The Bible simply says that they were terrified. I suspect that this was something of an understatement.

So shaken were these poor shepherds that the first thing the angel says to them is “Don’t be afraid!”. Easy for an angel who has just appeared from nowhere to say, not so easy for a group of boot-quaking shepherds to do.

But then comes the announcement:

I bring you good news of great joy to all the people. Today, in the city of David a Saviour has been born to you. He is Christ, the Lord.

And then more angels appear and join in singing: Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.

Three things for Christmas

#1 It’s a Celebration

Christmas is an opportunity for each of us to set aside all the pressures of our daily lives and focus on God. The amazing thing is that God loves us so much that he became one of us in order to communicate with us. He became a human being so that he could reveal the full extent of his love for us.

Of all the ways he could have entered the world–descending on a royal throne surrounded by angels maybe; arriving in a whirlwind riding a majestic horse perhaps; walking down some magnificent stairway possibly–he entered the world the same way we all enter. Born as baby.
I wonder if the reason he did that was simply because the one thing he didn’t want us to be was to be afraid of him.

#2 It’s an opportunity for salvation

Salvation is not a word you hear very much these days. Although you might often hear someone say, “Thank you, you saved my life,” when what they actually mean is, “thank you for the change, now I won’t get a parking ticket.” But when the Bible talks about salvation, it is talking about the chance to rebuild a broken relationship with God. A relationship shattered by rebellion but rebuilt through the coming of Jesus.

Put simply, salvation is forgiveness for the past, the power to manage the present and a secure hope for the future.

But be careful, this is a gift and the thing about a gift is that you need to accept it.

#3 It’s an opportunity for reconciliation

I knew a pair of twin brothers. They had their rivalries, their ups and downs together, but once they they fell out big time. They refused to talk to each other, they cut themselves off from family connections. They avoided each other at all costs. Do you know what they fell out over? Rabbits. Yes, rabbits. They both bred them and took them to shows. And somehow, don’t ask me how, they managed to fall out over them. I don’t know if they ever spoke to each other again, but when the angels sang on that hillside they sang about peace on earth.

The Bible says that through Jesus Christ you can make peace with God, and if you do that then you will receive peace from God. When you’re at peace with God and you’re experiencing peace from God it becomes easier to make peace with other people.

Conclusion

Tonight we’ve talked about the coming of Jesus, we’ve read about the events and we’ve reflected on those event. But here’s the challenge: When Christmas is all over will Jesus go back in the box with all the other Christmas decorations? Will the nativity get forgotten until next year’s Christmas plans are being made? Or will you let it make a difference all year round. Will you accept God’s good news of great joy that a Saviour has been born to you, and that you can know forgiveness and hope and reconciliation with God and with others.

This is God’s precious Christmas gift to you, will you accept it?

Hope Realised

Because we know the end from the beginning we forget how, as the story unfolds, everything must have appeared as out of the ordinary at the very least. Angels popping up all over the place making major announcements looks quite commonplace to us as we read the story, but it was far from that. In Luke 1 Gabriel appears to Zechariah, six months later he turns up at Mary’s house. Sometime in the course of the next 9 months an unspecified angel appears to Joseph in a dream. So vivid and real is this experience that Joseph changes his plans for a quiet divorce and accepts Mary as his wife and the unborn child as his own.

Outside Bethlehem an angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds along with a choir to announce the birth of Jesus.

Sometime during Mary and Joseph’s stay in Bethlehem a group of wise men turn up guided not by an angel but by a star this time. Somehow in a dream they are warned about Herod’s false intentions, which may or may not have been an angel, we’re not told. Joseph then gets another angelic visit to go to Egypt and when Herod dies, you guessed it, an angel of the Lord tells him it’s time to go back to Nazareth. The next time angels would appear to human beings is when they announce the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

The point is that kings saw angels, prophets saw angels, heroes like Daniel saw angels, but carpenters and shepherds?

The Angelic Message

Good news of great joy to all people

The extraordinary thing is that God chooses to send a message of history changing importance via the angel to ordinary people. And these ordinary shepherds did not go onto become celebrities, to host their own chat shows or star in reality TV. They didn’t judge the strictly come shepherding competitions, or bequeath their staffs to the Bethlehem museum of sacred artefacts. We don’t even know their names, something that is also true of the wise men who would visit Jesus.

Numbers don’t matter.

Responding to God’s revelation is what matters most.

How do you respond to good news?

You can usually tell when someone has received good news. Take the presenter on Radio 5 this morning, Phil Williams. He’s an Aston Villa supporter and yesterday they beat Wets Ham to go third in the Premiership. Now that might not be very important or significant to you, but to him it certainly put a spring in his step and he was bright and clearly very happy this morning.

Responding to the Message

When the shepherds got the good news message from the angel they decided to do a number of things.

First they decided to go and see for themselves: Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing…

They made a personal journey of discovery. You may hear the good news via someone else, but you must experience it for yourself.

Second they couldn’t contain the message: When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.

I doubt that they had had much theological education or philosophical tutoring. They simply shared what they knew. I’d guess that if someone had asked them, “How can this happen?” there response would most likely have been, “We don’t know. We just know that God sent us a messenger and what the messenger told us turned out to be true.”

Thirdly they could not contain their worship: The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

God does not lie or cheat or deceive us. He does not tell shepherds on a hillside something that isn’t true and he doesn’t do that to us either. You can trust him. When he says a Saviour has been born, he means a Saviour has been born. And if this is true, everything else he has to say is also true.

Shepherding the good news

How can we be more like the shepherds when it comes to how we handle to good news of Jesus Christ?

First we can share the simple truth of what we’ve heard and experienced for ourselves. People may not believe you, people may thing you’re a little crazy, but if you’ve experienced the good news, you know it’s true.

Second, we can let it show. The shepherds teach us that one way we can let it show is through our heartfelt worship. They returned praising and glorifying God, we can too. This praise was rooted in the truth of what they had seen and heard, what they had witnessed first hand. It came out of their personal experience. You and I not only have our personal experience of God’s truthfulness but we have a written record of it through centuries of Biblical and later church history.

Letting it show through our worship is only part of our story. From Luke’s account we have no further information about how this encounter with God and his purposes affected these shepherds. We don’t know what happened to them.

What we do know is that we are changed by our encounter with Jesus. Paul says that when we become Christians we die to old ways of living and begin to live a new life.

I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God…

Conclusion

If you’re still waiting for an angel to pop in to see you and tell you what’s happening and what to do, you might just have to wait a while. It might look common place in the nativity story, but it’s not as common as you might think.

God has entrusted his message of good news to a different group of messengers.

In the days of Jesus’ birth, God sent an angel to a group of shepherds who in turn became the first messengers to other people. And now It’s our turn. You and I are God’s messengers to the world. To our communities, to our neighbours and colleagues and friends and families.
The local church has become the carriers of the message that is the hope of the world and you and I are the local church.

Hope Revealed

Today was our All-Age Nativity. The following short talk continued our theme of Hope.

The story you have just seen presented is all we expect it to be. We had angles making announcements, shepherds watching flocks, wise men travelling long distances and a baby being born. We had governors whose names we dread having to try and pronounce, a bad king and a stable.

We sang all the right songs and had we the time would have sung some more. We might even have sung about all our hopes and dreams being met in him tonight.

But are they?

Does a Play-station 3 count, or a new bike? How does the headache of trying to sit the whole family around your dining table fit with the birth of Jesus? Or what about paying the credit card bill in January?

And there are the hopes and dreams for a peaceful Christmas, for the end to injustice and poverty, solutions to the world’s biggest problems and answers to the bigger questions like how come the BBC didn’t see the problems with having only three couples left in the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing?

What are the hopes and dreams that are met in Jesus Christ?

First there are the hopes and dreams of God’s great promises. You need to remember that in Israel the voice of God spoken through the prophets had not been heard for almost 400 years. Almost 800 years before Jesus was born, one of the prophets had spoken about the coming of one who would reconnect us with the God who loves us. He said a child would be born, that God would keep his promise, and now he has.

Second, there are the hopes of a new start. With the arrival of Jesus everything is about to change. As Jesus reaches 30 he begins preaching and teaching and changing lives. For three years he travels around Palestine touching lives, making the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the dead live. He shows people that even though they had grown up thinking that God had forgotten them, that he couldn’t possibly love them, that it simply wasn’t true. He inspired hope and faith in many.

Thirdly, there’s the hope that this can be true for us today. After three short years the authorities finally decided to do away with Jesus. You might be tempted to think that this meant the end of all he had done. But you’d be wrong. 

After three days he came back to life, returned to the people he’d spent his time with and told them, “I still love you, now go and share this message, these opportunities for change with everyone you meet.

2000 years later lives are still changing, people are still discovering that no matter how little they might love themselves, God still loves them more than they can imagine.

You can discover that too. We have, I have.

The baby at the heart of our story offers you more hope than you can imagine. He offers you something far better, more precious than the latest toy or high-tech gadget. He offers you the unconditional love of God and the unlimited power of God to transform your life.

Now that’s a hope worth having.

Hope Expected

Today is the second Sunday in Advent and we’re considering the expectation of hope. By the time we get to the New Testament we become increasingly aware that the expectations surrounding the arrival of God’s promised Messiah were tied up in political expectations of removal of the Roman rulers and restoration of Israel as a great nation.

But before we judge the first century people for failing to see beyond their situation, let’s remember that God had brought about political change in the past. For example, when Hezekiah was king, God rescued the people from the advancing army of Sennacharib.
So it’s not unreasonable to see God’s promises in the context of present circumstances.
Let’s continue what we started last week by putting our reading into its historical context.

A short history of Israel

In 587BC Jerusalem finally fell to the Babylonians and the people were taken into exile far from their homeland. Amongst these captives was a young man called Daniel and his three friends. Most of know the story of Daniel in the Lion’s den, a story about God’s faithfulness to Daniel who had been faithful to God. For 70 years Daniel lived out his life as a servant to a foreign king in a foreign land. While others might have been tempted to think that God had deserted the people, Daniel, Ezekiel (the prophet of the time) and Ezra, among many, knew differently.
As the story of Daniel comes to a close the Babylonian empire falls to a new empire ruled by kings from Persia.

The OT book of Ezra begins with this new empire and the story of the new king’s favourable view of Jerusalem. But this is not the king’s idea, this is an idea planted in him by God himself.
God was, as Ezra points out, fulfilling his word spoken through Jeremiah as he ‘moved the heart of Cyrus’ the new king to declare it was time to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Setting off with gifts from the people and the items that had previously been removed from the Temple, Zerubbabel lead the first group of exiles back to Jerusalem.

You might have expected them to have enjoyed great success, but life isn’t like that and it would be a long process of rebuilding the Temple, then the city walls and their relationship with God. They faced opposition in Jerusalem that caused them to stop building the Temple for 15-20 years. When Nehemiah returned some years later, he too faced local opposition as he rebuilt the walls of the old city. And between the Temple project and the walls being built they faced possible annihilation at the hands of Haman in the story of Esther, the ultimate trophy wife who turns out to be God’s chosen spokesperson to act to save the people. Fancy that, a woman saving all the men, as John Ortberg once pointed out!

While the history gets a little complex as we try and match Biblical names of Persian kings to their kingdoms, it’s clear that the returning exiles didn’t have everything go their way. As one king supported them, another denied them support. How hard it must have been to keep faith with God’s promises when there seemed to be no let up in the pressure. Just like the people, described by Isaiah, who walked in darkness in the north of the country, these people would have had a tough time seeing the hope in the midst if their situation.

Zechariah’s role

Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai, speaking to the people during the time of rebuilding the Temple after the return from exile in Babylon.  God uses Zechariah to encourage the people to keep going with the rebuilding despite the opposition they face and sadness they feel over past glories and past failures. Zechariah does so by painting the bigger picture of God’s eternal purposes through a series of visions and prophetic narrative. The picture he paints is of real life, with real ups and real downs. It’s about pressure and faithfulness, of failure and restoration. But ultimately it’s the story of God’s triumph and God’s purposes.

Three key points along the way

#1 Recommitment

Chap.1 Tell the people this: this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Return to me,” declares the Lord Almighty, ”and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

#2 Restoration

Chap.8 “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem”

#3 Resolution

Chap.14 A day of destruction and a day of glory: “The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.”

The coming King

This then is God’s framework into which he introduces the coming king. It’s a framework of prophetic hope and present experience of return and persecution. And into this context of God speaks these amazing words of hope and restoration in chapter 9. A king will come on the colt of a donkey rather than a horse. A symbol for some of peace rather than power. And the peace this king will proclaim will be peace to the nations plural, not peace to the nation of Israel alone.
A covenant of hope

All of this comes about, not because of what the people do, not even because of what the promised king will do, but because of what God has already done. He has made a covenant with the people. A covenant that goes right back to Abraham and is renewed and developed through Moses and and the monarchy God established. All of this points forward as prophecy does towards a future event. The king of which Zechariah speaks is none other than Jesus himself, who rides triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt.

Prisoners of Hope

Who are the prisoners of hope?

In Zechariah’s prophecy they are the ones who benefit from God’s blessing (I will restore twice as much to you); they are the ones who will rise up against ‘Greece’ a symbol of those who seek to oppress them; and they are the ones who will become warriors instead of a frightened weary group of folk who can’t even complete a building project out of fear of their neighbours. In other words, for a prisoner of hope, how it looks is not how it is going to be. Everything can change because God is bigger than any circumstance or situation, everything will change change because God is working out his plan.

What imprisons you?

Fear: fear of lack, fear of failure, fear of someone?
Greed: you cannot serve two masters.
Sin: Put simply doing those things that separate you from God. Hebrews 12 talks about the sin that so easily entangles. Easy to get into, difficult to break free from.
But in Christ God has done everything necessary to set you free. He has done everything necessary so that you don’t have to do anything except believe.

Getting free

The good news is that Jesus came to set prisoners free. And, as John's gospel points out, if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.

How free do you want to be?

Just like the people to whom Zechariah spoke you do not have to be defined by your current circumstances. You can become a prisoner of hope, a captive of God’s kingdom, rather than a prisoner of your present worries and concerns. The Bible says the process of finding freedom is very simple. 

First of all you need to recognise that you need the freedom.

Second that true freedom can only be found through Jesus Christ. He is, as Paul points out, the only true mediator between God and humanity.

Third you need to confess your sin and turn away from it all. Sin separates us from God, it’s all those things we do that we know deep down inside are not the things God would have us do.
Sin is our rebellion against God.

Fourthly you need to trust God to do what he has promised. If you believe then you will have the life he promises.

This is not a get out of jail free card, but a live life to the fullest card. This is not about doing the minimum you need to do in order to secure a place in heaven when you die, but a choice to live your life totally in the hands of God rather than your own. A choice to become all that God intended you to be or settle for being manipulated into that which the world wants you to be.
A choice about real freedom with God or imprisonment with the world.

Your choice, so choose well.

Hope Foretold

You don’t have to have been around the church for many Christmases to know the importance and significance of Isaiah 9. Unto us a son is born… and his name shall be called… As Isaiah looks to the future we recognise the past as the prophetic word is fulfilled through the birth of Jesus. But although that is the natural place for us to finish, let’s begin with Israel and the situation at the time that Isaiah spoke these all-important words.

For 120 years Judah, the land of the two tribes who had remained loyal to the house of David, had been ruled by God-honouring, faithful kings. The last of these was king Uzziah who was succeeded by his son Ahaz.

Ahaz was not a God-honouring king.

Ahaz did not do what was pleasing in the sight of the Lord… 2Ki.16:2

Aram (modern-day Syria) and Israel (the northern kingdom) attacked and besieged Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah, but failed to conquer it. Ahaz made an alliance with the king of Assyria. In the end, rather than helping Ahaz, the king of Assyria attacked him and defeated him, so Ahaz and Judah became subject to Assyria. Ahaz had used the treasures in the Temple to pay for Assyria’s help and then, when Ahaz became vassal to Assyria he closed the Temple completely. It is somewhat ironic that a future king of Assyria would help restore the Temple.

2Chron. 28 tells us that Ahaz was under even more pressure from Philistine and Edomite raiding parties on the western and eastern borders. So the kingdom was under pressure from three sides.

The tribal territory of Zebulun and Naphtali was in the far north of the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom. This would become the area of Galilee in New Testament times. It would also have been the first part of the kingdom to fall into enemy hands.

It’s against this background of the king’s refusal to trust God and the impending invasion from Assyria and the pressure from Israel, Philistine and Edomite raids that Isaiah speaks about God’s plan and purpose in chapter 9. This is the darkness, the gloom that cast its shadow over the land. Ahaz was looking everywhere else other than to God for deliverance.

Into these dark days, God speaks light. He speaks words of deliverance and hope.  Not only this, but the land to be honoured is the land that has rejected God’s appointed king in the past. Remember that after Solomon’s death, the kingdom divided. It is this land, not Jerusalem, not Judah, that will bring forth God’s Son.

God’s promise

• Light from darkness
  
• Joy from despair
  
• Freedom from burdens
  
• Peace from battle
  

Light from Darkness

To paraphrase Jesus: People who are in the light don’t need light, but people in darkness are the ones most in need of light. Without light we are destined to stumble around in darkness.

Jesus offers us: 

• Light to guide. Your word is a light to my feet, a lamp to my path
  
• Light to expose. People love darkness… come into the light
  
• Light to bring life. In him was life and that life was the light of men.
  

The Message: light to live by

NLT: The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.

Joy from despair

The Psalmist says: You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…

James tells us to: Consider it an opportunity for great joy when “troubles” come our way. What he’s not saying is, “Be happy when things are going badly” as if joy is defined as some form of positive thinking. Joy in this context is connected with a growing faith. Far from being superficial, joy is discovered in the process of a deepening and maturing faith faith in God. Joy comes form being able to say with David, “Even though I walk through the valley if the shadow death, I will not be afraid because you are with me” It’s recognising that light shines in darkness and darkness cannot overcome it.

Freedom from burdens

The days of Midian is a reference to Gideon. A time when the people were suffering the darkness of oppression in the land. In the story, we’re introduced to Gideon as he threshes wheat in a winepress to hide what he is doing from the Midianite marauders. Judges 6 tells us:
The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves and strongholds. They left Israel with no food, reducing the nation to starvation. And God rescued them. Just as he’d done so before when he rescued them from Egypt and would do again and again as Israel stumbled their way into disobedience like a repeating refrain through history.

Their heavy burdens may have come through their sin, but they were always lifted by the grace of God as he acted in love towards them.

Fast forward into the New Testament and Jesus promises an easy yolk. A light burden. Come to me all you who are weary... and receive rest. My yolk in easy and my burden is light

Peace from battle

Where once the people suffered from invasion and war, God promises peace. The one who was coming would in deed be the Prince of Peace. In the last book of the Bible John sees a vision of a great city. A city lit by the glory of God, a place of joy, lifted burdens and peace. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.

These are God’s promise, and he intends to keep them through the gift of a Son.

The One to come

Isaiah paints the picture of an eternal kingdom ruled by God himself. Not only ruled by him but established and accomplished by him.

Conclusion

People who walk in darkness matter to God. Good or bad, they matter to God. His promise is to all of them. It’s a promise of hope and possibility because God is a God of hope and grace.