Episode 1277: Journey of Joy

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,277 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Scott Brookens: I'm Scott Brookins from scott brookins.com. I encourage you to find the way to be inspired to start your dream business and find freedom. And one way to do that is to be inspired by this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott.

[00:00:31] Scott Maderer: And all of this too. It says, we are not alone, that God will be with us. This is not a solitary journey, and we will be with the others who are also on this journey. This isn't a find your own way. Instead, we're all together because God has come to bring us. And there is joy in that. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:59] If you [00:01:00] truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:25] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk with you about Isaiah 35 versus one through 10. I talk about how there is joy, even when we don't see it. I also share with you how the journey is the celebration, not the destination. Isaiah Chapter 35 Verses one through 10 says, the wilderness and the dry lands shall be glad.

[00:01:48] The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and [00:02:00] Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord. The majesty of our God. Strengthen the cans and make firm the feeble knee.

[00:02:08] Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong. Do not fear. Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible reference. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the death unstop. Then the LA shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless.

[00:02:28] Sing for joy, for water shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall become a pool in the thirsty ground springs of water. The haunt of jackals shall become a swamp. The grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way.

[00:02:48] The un uncleaned shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people. No traveler, not even fool. She'll go astray. No lions shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it. [00:03:00] They shall not be found there, but the redeems shall walk. The ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing.

[00:03:08] Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow, and zing shall flee away. We're still talking about the book of Isaiah and we're still in this season of advent or waiting kind of before Christmas. And you know, a lot of times right now, during the end of November, the beginning of December, you see all these ads starting actually sometimes starting even before Thanksgiving, about last minute Christmas shopping.

[00:03:39] It doesn't really seem last minute, whenever it's last month and November. It seems like you got tons of time before Christmas. I mean, yes, there's things to plan. There's Christmas services to plan. There's different things to do. There's gifts to buy, decorations to put up, but there's plenty of time. Of course, now when we look up where [00:04:00] the clock is ticking, we're just a few weeks out from Christmas.

[00:04:04] There's still decisions to be made. There's probably still some gifts to purchase. There are still questions to answer, and in this season of Advent, there's still Jesus to be found in nativity scenes that are put up a, a lot of times, especially in certain churches, they don't put the, the baby Jesus out.

[00:04:28] Advent is over. You know, part of what we're doing in Advent is preparing the way we're waiting for Christ. And so this central cast member of the nativity scene, the, the person that is the drama of Christmas is pointed towards, is missing. And I've actually had it happen before where. I was at a church locally and we went to look for the baby Jesus so that we could get ready to put him out for the nativity scene, and he [00:05:00] was missing.

[00:05:01] We literally could not find Jesus in the church. It was kind of a weird experience because, Did, maybe we just put him in the wrong place. We always put it back into the same place every year, but it wasn't there. Did, did we accidentally store him somewhere else? You know what happened? Did, maybe someone took him home for some reason.

[00:05:21] We weren't sure what was going out, and the call went out to find Jesus so that we could put him out for the nativity. And I'll be honest, we actually ended up having to go and find a replacement, Jesus, because we never did find that original one. It it's interesting. We often think that we've put Jesus into our life in a place that maybe we even feel like there's places in our life where Jesus doesn't belong, but Jesus belongs everywhere.

[00:05:53] In a believer's life, it, it was probably a good idea to, maybe we should have been a little [00:06:00] bit more responsible and put Jesus somewhere where we could have kept him close to us all year. We could have pulled him out and said, see, he's here. He's been here all along. He's been within reach, even as we went through times of the desert, even when we went through exile.

[00:06:18] See this, this chapter of Isaiah is kind of a transitional chapter. Isaiah is, is broken up into three chunks or three d. Parts, for lack of a better word, of Isaiah. Within the 66 chapters of the book, there's sort of a first Isaiah. A second Isaiah, and then a third Isaiah. Main message of the first Isaiah is one about warning.

[00:06:47] That's kind of the ones that we've been using the last few weeks, the last few Tuesdays. It, it's this idea of trying to get God's people to see that where you're going now is going to lead to a problem. There's going [00:07:00] to be a disaster that the political relationships that we've created, Their policies, their economics, their politics, the road they're on will lead to destruction and exile.

[00:07:13] And then second Isaiah is actually written during the exile that happens, and it's largely speaks about hope and a promised return. Now it's not a hundred percent one all in one and all, all in the other because there's hope in first Isaiah as. There's also warning in the second book of Isaiah as well, so it's not 100% one and 100% the other.

[00:07:44] Instead, there's this sense in the second book of Isaiah that something's not right. We're not where we're supposed to be, we aren't fitting in there. There's this sense of unease, there's this sense of [00:08:00] vague sort of worry. It it's impersonal. It comes with this message, however, comes along, not with this sort of vague message of, you know, we're uncomfortable here.

[00:08:15] There's this joy included in it too. There's this promise that if we return home, there will be security, there will be applause, there will be joy, there will be lushness, there will be excess. That's the message here in this Isaiah passage that we read today. The the desert will bloom. These bright blossoms will usher us back home.

[00:08:41] Waters in a desert, which is normally a very temporary thing in a desert environment, will break forth and splash up, pour out rise high it. There'll be this beautiful blooming in a place that life is normally not found in such [00:09:00] exuberance. Not only is there a route home being promised, but that route is even declared to be safe and secure, protected from all enemies.

[00:09:11] It's well provisioned. There's water for our thirst. There's food for our hunger, and we simply cannot get lost. It even says even a fool won't get lost on this path. You can picture this beautiful highway through the desert. Our aches and our pains, our brokenness, our sickness will simply disappear. We won't be handicapped.

[00:09:34] Instead, we can dance and sing. And all of this too. It says, we are not alone, that God will be with us. This is not a solitary journey, and we will be with the others who are also on this journey. This isn't a find your own way. Instead, we're all together because God has come to bring us home and there is joy in that.[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] But secondly, that on the way home, on the way home, our heart and our soul will sing because we will be whole with each other as well. We will be together, lifted up, made whole our, our knees will be made strong instead of weak. Our hands will be made firm instead of trembling. We will be ambassadors of God's grace and joy.

[00:10:27] We will be able to speak and witness and say, be strong. Fear not. And we will have everyone also with us, we will have others. I don't hear in this a message of exclusion, but rather a mesh message of inclusion come along with us on this journey cuz God's right there with us. And even on this journey, Jesus is with us as well.

[00:10:53] That's the road that we're on in this Christmas season. That's the direction [00:11:00] that we're going and that's why Joy is found and the celebration is found in the journey that we go on, not just in arriving at the destination. Thanks for listening.

[00:11:18] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired. And like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips [00:12:00] there.

[00:12:01] Until next time, invest your. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.