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How Beautiful Are Their Feet!
from sermon series
“Learning from Isaiah”
by
Pastor Dave Strem
Used by
permission
“How beautiful on the
mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who
proclaim peace, who bring glad tidings, who proclaim
salvation, who say to Zion, your God reigns” (Isaiah
52:7). In our day of information overload it’s easy to
think that for us to share our faith, we have to have
all kinds of answers. But God has put us in our
particular corner of the world to bring the simple
message of Isaiah 52:7. The simple message of Isaiah
52:7 is that redemption and forgiveness are available
through Jesus Christ who provides reconciliation and
peace between a holy, sovereign God and sinful humans.
How do you feel when you
grab a hold of God’s command to make disciples, to share
your faith? Does it stir a little bit of anxiety in
your heart? Does insecurity start to overwhelm you?
Let me ask you, has God been good to you? Has God been
good to you? Do you think God will be good to someone
else who calls upon Him? That’s the message people are
looking for. You can try and convince some of evolution
or against evolution and all the intellectual discussion
you want and I have done both. I have gone through
Evidence that Demands a Verdict and similar
apologetic textbooks and I have sat down and talked in
coffee shops and debated on college campuses with
students. And you know what? I do not think it made
much difference. I have found that the decision for or
against Christ is not a matter of intellectual
understanding, but it is a matter of heart submission.
Do you want to believe it? Do you have a heart that
wants to humbly bow and receive what God has to offer?
That is the core of saving faith.
God allows things to come
into our world that distract us, that get our attention
from the busyness of our lives so that we will see that
we have a need, that we do not have all the answers in
life. Christians are put in positions to bring those
answers, to meet spiritual needs, to bring answers to
felt needs. The kind of needs that people often do not
think about until they get stopped in their tracks,
matters of great significance and meaning in their
lives. That is what God intends to do when He calls us
to share our faith. To be genuine, to be relaxed, truly
relate to people in ways that are real. To meet those
real needs. Let me show you. The commission in Isaiah
52:7 begins by expressing the importance of the
message. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet
of those who bring good news.” God has made many
beautiful things but I do not think any of us would
include our feet in the top ten. But to God they are
beautiful when they carry the good news of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. The good news of redemption and
forgiveness to all who believe and accept Christ
finished work at Calvary personally.
The Hebrew word, “nahad,”
does not mean “pretty” or “cute.” It means: befitting,
becoming, perfectly appropriate, used as
designed—“perfectly fitting.” It is what God had in
mind for our feet. The same way grapes were designed to
eat and flowers are meant to bring color and scent to
our world, your feet are designed to go places. And
when they go into the world of men and women with the
message of good news and peace with God, God calls them
beautiful. Your feet make take you faster down the race
track than anyone else, you may have shoes so big that
other people cannot fill them, you may be able to kick
the ball farther than anyone else, but that means
nothing in the eternal frame. But if your feet take you
to someone in need and with God’s help you enable him or
her to walk with God, then your feet are being used for
a purpose that matters for all eternity. Those
feet are beautiful.
Literally, “mountains” mean
hill country. This verse does not say proclaim the
message in the temples and in the sanctuaries, although
these are not wrong or bad places to teach others about
God, but it says that we are to go where people live.
Not warehouse God’s message in buildings, but we are to
take it to the streets. Jesus declared the truth and
reality of God in the temples and synagogues. But do
you remember what happened when He did? It was met with
rebellion and resistance. It did not lead to much
change. But then He took it to the streets, along the
hillsides, along the lakeshore and lives are
transformed. He brought good news to real people in
real struggles. And He did it because lost people
mattered to Him. He wanted to go to those who wanted to
find the answers. He went to where people lived.
One of the challenges I
found in Guatemala when I was there was how hard it was
to walk on those mountains, on those hillsides. The
altitude, the slope, you find yourself after a few
minutes panting for breath. I thought I was in shape.
Let me ask you, at your workplace, in your daily
travels, do you find yourself worn out and just
struggling to survive? Is the daily grind grinding you
so much that you have lost your focus and Christian
testimony? Do you go to work simply to collect a
paycheck, to get through another day so you can do the
important things or the things that God called you to
do? I tell you, God has called you to your work place.
God has planted you there. You have a message and there
are people by the water cooler, in the lunchroom, at the
desk next to you that are hurting and need the message
that you have. Work is not designed by God to be a
simple distraction to your spiritual life, something to
do Monday through Friday until you get back to Sunday.
Work is designed by God as part of your spiritual life,
as that place where you can actually live out Christ’s
love to others that you see daily. If you can catch
God’s passion for people that you work with, your job
will take on eternal significance. The message God
commissions you to bring has three parts. They all
build on one another and they are based on the real
needs that people have and the real answers that God
gives you to bring to those needs. First, bring good
news. God said it twice in Isaiah 52:7, “I bring, I
send you to bring good news.” Good news must be
relevant to the person hearing it. I have found that
when people think about religion they usually think
about condemnation. They usually feel confronted by a
list of do’s and don’ts that is not received as good
news.
Remember the example of
Jesus. In John 8:3-11, the hypocritical Pharisees
brought a woman who was caught committing adultery (What
happened to the man that was with her?) to Jesus in
order to stir up controversy and distract the people
from listening to the message of Jesus. Starting in
verse 6: “They were trying to trap him into saying
something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped
down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept
demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, ‘All
right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned
throw the first stones!’ Then he stooped down again and
wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they
slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest,
until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd
with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to
her, ‘Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them
condemn you?’ ‘No, Lord,’ she said. And Jesus said,
‘Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’” Jesus talked to
the woman caught in adultery in the same way He talked
to Mary Magdalene, the woman at the well, Zaccheus,
Matthew, Peter, and Paul. He did not give them a list
of all the things they have done wrong. He simply said
to her, “Woman, where are those that condemn you? Has
no one condemned you?” She knew what she had done was
wrong. Jesus did not have to belabor the point. He
offered her forgiveness, but also required repentance
from her. “Go and sin no more.” Jesus was not
overlooking her sin. He was not being over-enduring,
over-tolerant of sin. But He was offering her
reconciliation and peace with God.
Seldom do people think of
religion in positive ways. Many times they perceive
giving up Sunday fun—golf and lakes—for sitting around
singing old, boring songs and listening to long
lectures. Jesus’ message, however, centered on getting
equipped and energized to live daily life by God’s truth
and power. Jesus wants people to live each and every
day with a God-consciousness that effects daily
decisions and activities. Rarely will you hear someone
say, “I wish someone would tell me about Jesus.” But
you will hear people say, “I do not know what I am going
to do.” You will hear the lostness, you will see the
lostness in their face. God says, “I have given you
some answers. Will you share them with those in need?”
They are hurting and they want relief. We are not
simply to bring them relief, but the answer that will
change their problems in their future. Give them Jesus,
the Holy Spirit, and a new relationship with God the
Father and their future will never be the same!
God has done the work of
redemption and salvation. We can only admit that we
want it. It is not a list of to do or not to do
things. As Paul tells us, “For as many as receive, who
believe in their hearts, the person and work of Jesus
Christ shall be called sons of God.” When you are
talking with someone in the lunch room, and they say,
“You know, I do not know what I am going to do.” His
wife may be getting ready to leave him, or her child is
going the wrong direction and she just does not know how
to deal with it. Have you found answers in your own
life? Can you say with an honest heart, “Marriage and
children are a challenge and I need God’s help in order
to deal with both in godly, righteous ways. I sure am
thankful for the training my kids have gotten. It takes
up my Sunday mornings, but it is worth every hour I
spend because it is helping me raise a family that cares
about God and other people.” If you have found answers,
you can share them. So many times I see people in the
hospital with this lost look in their eyes. And in
others I meet someone who is dying but radiates a hope
and peace that transcends their pain. The difference
lies in how each views God and what their relationship
with Him is like. One knows that when death occurs a
bright future lies ahead. The other has no assurance of
a bright future and may actually sense doom because of
their unbelief. This person may be open to listen to
someone who really cares about what happens to them,
someone who brings the good news of God’s forgiveness.
That gap that we have in our
hearts only God can fill. We try to fill that endless
void with every imaginable object, but nothing will
ultimately succeed. When we are quiet and reflective we
know that the gap exists. We were created to have
fellowship with God. He wants to be involved with our
daily events. He wants to share our excitement and our
passions in life, to direct them, to help us avoid the
pitfalls and stumbling blocks.
I was surprised when I did a
word study recently. I was studying the word Zion.
When I did the word study and found the meaning of Zion,
I was surprised. We think of Zion as being that holy
mountain, that holy place in Israel where we meet God.
Literally, the word Zion means “parched place.”
When God tells Israelites to go to Zion, He is not just
telling them to go where God dwells, He is telling them
to go to that ‘parched place’ in need of God’s life and
nourishment. Jesus said, “I will bring living waters to
your life. Whoever believes in me, a spring of living
water will well up out of them unto eternal life.” God
says, go to Zion, to that parched place and bring my
life there. Let them know that God is real and that
their God reigns. Let them know that life is available
to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Scriptures
tell us that Jesus came to bring living water to cause
the desert of our hearts to blossom with freshness and
beauty. That out of ‘Zion’ will flow streams of living
water.
Isn’t it beautiful that God
has made it so simple. Let His message of peace, of
restoration, of His personal walk and relationship with
you, to meet the felt needs, the spiritual needs, and
the personal needs of those around you. As God has
blessed you, He calls you to grow beautiful feet and
take it to where it will make a difference. That is
what your life is about. All the other things are going
to fade away. All the other achievements, all the
accumulation, all the knowledge is of little consequence
compared to sharing your faith, to bringing another one
into the kingdom, of representing a gracious and loving
God to those around you. To top of
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