Are you disappointed by Jesus?

Isaiah 61:1-11

Are you disappointed by Jesus?

Perhaps you’re here because you’re still trying to work Jesus out.

You’ve heard people talk about him. Maybe watched something online. Maybe a friend has invited you to City. And you’re wanting to find out what the Bible teaches—and what difference it makes when people really try to live it out.

And perhaps, if you’re honest, you’ve found the whole thing a little… disappointing.

Because compare Jesus with the promises of our culture. The self-help gurus who promise happiness, fulfilment and wholeness in 12 steps: a 33-year-old man, rejected by his friends, beaten and nailed to a cross.

It doesn’t sound particularly inspiring.

Or particularly helpful.

Are you disappointed by Jesus?

Perhaps you've been following Jesus for years.

And life hasn't turned out quite as you expected.

You've prayed for that job.

You've cried out to God for relief from depression or anxiety.

You’ve prayed like crazy for release from that temptation.

But nothing seems to change.

Are you disappointed by Jesus?

Well if you are, today’s chapter is what you need to hear.

It’s the final passage in our summer journey through Isaiah.

We haven't covered every chapter.

Instead, we've tried to climb some of the mountain peaks of this wonderful book.

And today, we've reached the summit.

Do you want to know why this passage is so important? Let me tell you.

When Jesus begins his public ministry, you can read about it in Luke 4, he returns to his hometown of Nazareth.

He walks into the synagogue.

He stands up.

Everyone is watching.

Everyone is waiting.

What is this new preacher going to say?

Jesus could choose any passage in the whole Bible.

Any passage.

And he chooses this one.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.”

And then he says:

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In other words:

“Isaiah was talking about me.”

So if we want to understand Jesus, we need to understand Isaiah 61.

And it's a tantalising passage, isn't it?

Because look around at our world.

And look honestly at your own life.

What is wrong?

Poverty.

Heartbreak.

Injustice.

War.

Oppression.

Suffering.

And then listen to what Jesus says he has come to bring.

To the economically broken:

“Good news.”

To the emotionally broken:

“I have come to bind you up.”

To those trapped by fear or circumstances:

“I have come to proclaim freedom.”

Isn't that astonishing?

If you've lost your job:

Jesus has come for you.

If you've fallen on hard times:

Jesus has come for you.

If someone has broken your heart:

Jesus has come for you.

If you keep falling into the same destructive patterns and you're beginning to wonder whether you'll ever change:

Jesus has come for you.

And it gets even better. Take a look at verse 2.

Jesus says he’s come:

“to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour.”

Now that phrase might not mean very much to us.

But a little bit of Old Testament background will help. You see, there’s this principle of Sabbath in the Old Testament.

Six days you work.

The seventh day you stop.

You rest.

You worship.

You remember that you don't ultimately belong to your employer, your mortgage or your workload.

You belong to God.

But Sabbath wasn't just about a day.

There was also a Sabbath year.

Every seventh year, the land was to rest.

Debts were to be cancelled.

But then there was something even bigger.

Not just a Sabbath of days.

Not just a Sabbath of years.

But a Sabbath of Sabbaths.

After seven times seven years a Jubilee.

You can read about it in Leviticus 25.

Picture yourself as an Israelite.

Over the years, your family has fallen on hard times.

You've lost your land.

You've accumulated debt.

You've lost your freedom.

Your children inherit your poverty.

And then Jubilee arrives.

The clock is reset.

The land is restored.

Possessions are returned.

Those trapped in servitude are released.

You get a fresh start.

That’s Jubilee.

But as far as the biblical record tells us, Israel never celebrated the Jubilee.

The reset never came.

The restoration remained incomplete.

And then, centuries later, Jesus walks into a synagogue in Nazareth.

He opens the scroll of Isaiah.

And in effect says:

“The Jubilee has arrived.”

And you think:

Wow.

Finally.

Except…

Look around.

Because here's the problem.

If the Jubilee has already come…

Why is so much still broken?

Why am I still fighting this sin?

Why hasn't God answered that prayer?

Why am I still grieving?

Why is the world still full of poverty and war and injustice?

Why does following Jesus feel so painfully hard?

Are you disappointed by Jesus?

If so, you're not the first. The people who first heard Isaiah's promises wrestled with these questions too. And their struggle was because they had misunderstood three things:

the kind of Saviour Jesus would be,

what He would call his people to do,

and when the Jubilee would finally be complete.

And Isaiah 61 helps correct our thinking on those three things.

1. A surprising saviour – v1-3

So let’s start with the kind of Saviour Jesus is.

Isaiah 61 begins with a voice:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me.”

Stop there.

Who’s speaking?

Well we’re told.

It’s the Lord’s anointed one. In Hebrew, Messiah.

But here’s where it gets surprising.

If you’ve been with us in our series in Isaiah, you’ve already met the Messiah.

In the first part of the Book, chapters 1-37, the Messiah is presented as a warrior king.

Back in Isaiah 11, He comes with authority and power. And Isaiah says:

“He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips slay the wicked.”

But then, as we move through Isaiah, the picture changes.

In chapters 38–55, the Messiah is presented as a suffering servant.

Remember Isaiah 53?

He has “no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.”

He is “led like a lamb to the slaughter.”

So which is he?

Warrior King or suffering servant?

The answer is: both.

But that’s not what people were expecting.

Think about Isaiah’s first hearers. They were heading towards exile. They would lose their land, possessions, freedom, their dignity. They would be conquered and humiliated.

So when they dreamed of restoration, what did they imagine?

Victory.

Israel restored. Enemies defeated.

They wanted the Messiah of Isaiah 11.

And then, centuries later, Jesus walks into the synagogue in Nazareth and reads this very passage.

His first hearers had their own reasons for wanting that kind of Messiah.

Living under Roman occupation. In a country that was morally and spiritually bankrupt.

They longed for freedom. For God to act.

They want a Messiah who would come and sort out all their problems straight away.

And maybe, if we’re honest, we understand that feeling.

I went to see The Odyssey a few weeks ago. It’s divided the staff team—but I thought it was fantastic. It’s immersive, and it’s long.

And there are moments when you’re completely caught up in the story, watching Odysseus battle through one obstacle after another, and you just want him to get home and defeat his enemies.

Sometimes, we feel the same way in the Christian life. Why can’t it be over already?

Why does the struggle seem so long?

Why do I keep battling the same sin?

Why don’t more people believe?

Why am I still lonely?

We want Jesus to arrive like Odysseus—the great warrior who comes home, wins the battles and puts everything right.

But that’s not the sort of Messiah Jesus is.

At least, not yet.

Jesus is the warrior Messiah of Isaiah 11.

But he is also the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

And the cross must come before the crown.

Look at verse 3.

Because this shows us how the restoration—the Jubilee—is actually going to happen.

There are three beautiful couplets:

A crown of beauty instead of ashes.

The oil of joy instead of mourning.

A garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Did you notice the repeated word?

Instead.

It’s the language of replacement.

Of substitution.

You know what ashes are? Ashes are what’s left when something has been completely destroyed. When fire has ripped it apart.

The ashes of destruction will be replaced by the beauty of wholeness.

The mourning of death will be replaced by the oil of new life and joy.

And the dull and meaningless will be replaced by praise.

But how?

How can Jesus make that exchange?

There is only one way.

The Messiah has to become the suffering servant.

He can only crown us with beauty of wholeness because he first entered the destruction of the cross.

He can only pour over us the oil of new life and joy because he himself is mourned as he is laid in the tomb.

He can only clothe us in praise because he is willing to enter into the deepest place of despair.

That is the surprising Saviour.

And why do we need that kind of Saviour?

Because our biggest problem is not our circumstances.

Some of you are suffering in ways I can barely imagine. Those things are real, and Jesus cares about them. But they are not our deepest problem. Our deepest problem is ourselves.

That’s what the end of verse 3 shows us: “They will be called oaks of righteousness.”

That takes us back to the beginning of this section of Isaiah.

Chapter 56 begins:

“Maintain justice, and do what is right.”

That is God’s call on his people.

But chapters 56–60 show us just how badly we fail.

We are not righteous.

We turn our backs on God. We reject his justice. And that rebellion spills out into everything.

That is why our world is full of pain and heartbreak, addiction and exploitation, slavery and violence, grief and loss.

The problem is not simply out there.

It’s in here.

We need more than a change of circumstances.

We need a change of us.

And that is why Jesus came.

He came so that, through his work on the cross, people who are not righteous could be planted as “oaks of righteousness.”

Have you ever tried to chop down an oak tree?

A pine tree—you can probably manage it.

An oak?

That’s another matter.

Oaks are dense. Solid. Deep-rooted. Immovable.

And that is the picture Isaiah gives us of the sort of righteousness Jesus gives His people.

But it’s only possible because Jesus was first chopped down on a tree outside Jerusalem. Taking the punishment we deserve.

That is why Jesus is such a surprising Saviour.

The warrior Messiah will come with the crown—but first, the suffering servant must go to the cross.

2. A surprising calling – v4-9

Secondly, God gives his people a surprising calling.

Look at verse 4.

There’s a change of speaker here. Isaiah turns to speak to God’s people.

And what does he tell them to do?

You might expect:

“Forget the ruined cities. Leave them behind. Come out of the mess. Come somewhere safe. Come straight to heaven.”

But that’s not what he says.

He says:

“They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”

In other words:

“Go back in.”

The Jubilee doesn't mean God takes his people out of the ruined city.

It means he sends his restored people back into it.

And look at what those rebuilt cities will look like.

Verse 5 - they will be full of people from other nations and cultures. Who will work and live and praise God together with the Israelites.

So picture what Isaiah is describing.

Ruined cities rebuilt.

Different nations living together in harmony.

This is not simply urban regeneration.

It is social transformation.

Racial reconciliation.

Economic restoration.

Psychological wholeness.

Spiritual renewal.

God is not interested in simply making the city look nicer.

He is remaking the people who live in it.

And then look at the extraordinary role God gives to those remade people in verse 6:

“And you will be called priests of the Lord.”

All of them.

That would have sounded astonishing.

Under the Old Covenant, the priesthood belonged to one family from one tribe—the family of Aaron.

Their job was to stand between God and his people – representing God to the people, and the people to God.

It was an enormous privilege.

But it was also an enormous responsibility.

Because a priest doesn't simply speak for people.

A priest carries people.

Perhaps the parents among us will understand this best.

Think about what happens when your child suffers.

They're ill—you hurt.

They fall out with a friend—you lie awake thinking about it.

They're struggling at school—you carry the worry.

They get themselves into trouble—somehow you end up sitting in the headteacher's office explaining their misdemeanours!

A priest doesn't stand at a safe distance and say, “Good luck with that.”

A priest enters the mess.

And that is the calling Isaiah gives to God's restored people.

Go into the ruined city. Carry its people.

Do you see how surprising that is?

The coming of the Messiah doesn't mean God's people escape suffering into a life of comfort and leisure.

It means we are sent into suffering.

Into the broken places.

Into the complicated relationships.

Into the workplaces and schools and neighbourhoods where things are messy.

Why?

Because, verse 8, the Lord loves justice.

God is not content to leave the world as it is.

He is committed to rebuilding the ruined city. In his sovereignty, God could do it any way he likes.

But remarkably, he has chosen to do it through his people.

That’s where blessing is found.

And look at verse 9.

God's people will become recognisable.

People will look at them and see something different.

Not people who have retreated from the world.

Not people known primarily for how comfortable they are.

But people who love.

That is our surprising calling.

So let me ask you, if you’re a Christian:

Do you realise this is your calling?

Look, I wonder whether one of the reasons many of us find the Christian life so difficult is because we have misunderstood what it is supposed to be.

Perhaps we thought:

“I trust in Jesus, and now life should get easier.”

But Isaiah gives us a very different picture.

Jesus saves us—and then he sends us.

He doesn't call us to retreat from the world.

He calls us to rebuild it.

So who has God sent you to be a priest to?

Who is there in your life that you are called to carry before God?

A neighbour?

A colleague?

A friend?

Just pause for a moment.

Bring a few names to mind.

And then pray for them.

Ask God to give you courage this week—to notice the opportunities he gives you, to speak about Jesus when the door opens, to love them when life is difficult, and to keep praying when nothing seems to change.

Because they may not respond as you hope.

It may be awkward.

It may be costly.

It may take years.

But it’s how God rebuilds ruined cities.

That is our surprising calling.

3. A surprising timeframe – v10-11

Finally, we come to a surprising timeframe.

Look at verses 10–11.

And notice: the speaker changes again.

Now it is God’s people – Israel - speaking.

And listen to the tone.

There is joy here.

“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.”

Why?

Because of what God has done for them. Verse 10

“For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness.”

They have been clothed with righteousness.

That is the glorious gift of justification.

God looks at us in all our sin and shame—and instead of giving us what we deserve, he gives us the righteousness of Christ.

Our sin is counted as his.

His righteousness is counted as ours.

We came so close this summer, didn’t we?

For a few glorious weeks, it looked like sixty years of hurt might finally be over.

But… not quite.

I wonder whether you’ve ever watched the ceremony when England won the World Cup in 1966.

The final whistle has gone. England have won. Bobby Moore, the captain, is standing at the bottom of the Wembley steps - covered in mud and sweat from the pitch.

And then suddenly he becomes obsessed with his hands. Furiously wiping them. Do you know why?

Because he’s caught sight of Queen Elizabeth – Jules Rimet in her hands wearing immaculate white gloves.

In the presence of the Queen he needs to be washed, cleaned.

That’s what’s going on here. The Israelites have been dirtied by sin – their rebellion against God. But in Jesus, God has washed them and clothed them with his righteousness.

The gift of justification.

But Isaiah doesn't stop there.

Look at verse 11.

And remember the image from verse 3?

“They will be called oaks of righteousness.”

Now an oak is not just strong and immovable.

It's alive.

It grows.

And Isaiah says:

“The Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”

Do you see the picture?

Something is being planted.

And then it begins to grow.

That is the gift of sanctification.

Justification says:

“You are righteous in Christ.”

Sanctification says:

“Now, by the work of the Holy Spirit, become more and more like Christ.”

And that helps us understand something really important about the Christian life:

It takes time.

The oak doesn't appear overnight.

The acorn has to go into the ground and you need to … wait.

Which brings us back to Jesus quoting Isaiah 61 in Luke 4.

Let’s get that passage back up on the screen.

Now look at your Bibles and Isaiah 61.

What does Jesus leave out? Do you see it? Look at where he stops in v. 19:

“[I have been anointed] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour…”

And then he stops.

No mention of the day of vengeance of our God.

Why?

Not because Jesus doesn't believe in judgment.

In fact, Jesus spoke about judgment more than almost anyone else in the Bible.

No.

He leaves it out because he came the first time to start the Jubilee.

To begin the great reset.

But one day, he will come again.

And when he does, the Jubilee will be brought to completion.

The year of favour will give way to the day of judgment.

And that gives us two applications as we close.

First, let me speak to those of you who are not yet Christians.

You are living in the year of the Lord's favour.

Right now.

This is the Jubilee.

I don't know what you've done.

I don't know the story you've told yourself about why you could never really change.

But I do know this:

Jesus can remove the stain.

The cross means that today, right now, you can come to him and receive forgiveness.

Your past does not have to have the final word.

And Jesus can give you a fresh start.

But this offer is time-limited.

The Jubilee is not going to last forever.

One day Jesus will return and he will return to judge.

So don’t delay. Turn to him today. Receive his good news.

Secondly, can I speak to the Christians.

Are you disappointed with Jesus?

Perhaps you thought that becoming a Christian meant that your suffering would disappear.

That the loneliness would vanish.

That the temptation would disappear.

But Jesus never promised that.

In Christ, the stain has been washed away. The enslaving power of sin has been broken.

But there is a now and not yet of the Jubilee.

The victory has begun.

But it has not yet been completed.

So, this side of Christ's return, the Christian life can still be hard. Why?

Because God is growing something in us.

Like an acorn slowly becoming an oak, righteousness is springing up in our lives.

And you know what has to happen for an acorn to become an oak?

The acorn has to go into the ground.

It has to die.

And Jesus says the same pattern applies to his people.

Life comes through death.

Strength comes through weakness.

Victory comes through defeat.

So perhaps the suffering you are experiencing right now is not evidence that God has forgotten you.

Perhaps God is using what you are going through to make you more like Jesus.

The struggle.

The disappointment.

The sadness.

The things you would never have chosen.

God can use them to make you more like Jesus.

Not because he hates you.

But because he loves you.

He is growing an oak.

And one day, when Jesus returns, what he has begun in us will be complete.

And then Isaiah's vision will be fulfilled.

Righteousness will spring up.

Praise will spring up.

And it will happen “before all nations.”

The world will look at what God has done and see that the gospel is not merely true.

It is good.

So don't give up.

God is at work.

The Jubilee has begun.

Let me pray.

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