0:00 Today I would like to talk about this topic, Beauty for Ashes, and I want to really start 0:26 by if you have your Bibles, I'm going to try and do this by reading the Bible on the screen, so if my eyeball is moving because I'm trying to read on the screen. One of the first sermons that Jesus spoke in, you know, the Sermon on the Mount, but there another recorded 0:39 sermon early in Luke 4 was one of the first sermons he spoke in Nazareth, and remember Nazareth was the town that he grew up in, and he, it says in Luke, if you open your Bibles, Luke 4, 14, it says, Jesus returned to Galilee, and the power of the Holy Spirit was on him, 0:58 and the news began to spread all across that district, and he came to Nazareth, and he got into the synagogue, that was the church, if you would, on a Sabbath, let's say a Sunday of this kind. He opened the book, and he started to read from Isaiah. We'll get actually back 1:14 to this passage in Isaiah 61, which is the theme of my message today. He says in Luke 4, verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set those who 1:33 are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, and then he closed the book, and he gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of the synagogue were fixed on him, it says, and then it goes on a little later to say, everybody got really angry at him, and I'm thinking 1:52 to myself, how could all of these people in church get angry at what Jesus just said? He's talking about bringing the gospel to the poor, releasing the captives, recovery of the sight to the blind, setting those who are oppressed free, and a favorable year of the Lord, and I'm thinking to myself, 2:11 if this is kind of what, you know, 2021 is supposed to be a favorable year of the Lord, because we witnessed how tough 2020 is, I want to hear that message, but it's because as he sat down, and people were listening to him, he got back up, and he began to say, quite frankly, you folks in church will likely 2:30 not get this message, because most of them were Pharisees, and they began to then burn in anger, and it says, if you read the rest of Luke 4, they wanted to chase him out of the city, and throw him off a hill, so my question really is, we might meditate on this Isaiah 61 passages, why is it that most Christians 2:53 don't want to hear this message, what I've titled Beauty for Ashes, and it's because people think that the Beauty for Ashes is exchanging a lot of the pain and suffering of their life for joy, that's absolutely what a lot of the Old Testament, in the Old Testament, ashes was often used to 3:14 represent grief, or repentance, in either of those two, you'd see the word ashes, used over and over a number of times, you see that Job, when he had a sickness, put ashes himself, Daniel, when he was praying, used ashes, even Tamar, the daughter of David, when she was unfortunately raped by her own 3:36 brother, she put ashes, so a lot of these situations where you see that in the Bible was a signal of grief, or in some cases, repentance. Let's go to Isaiah 61, and I really want us to meditate on this chapter, so open with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Isaiah 61, and let's read this entire chapter, 3:52 and put it in the context of what I believe the Lord wants us to apply to this notion of beauty for ashes in our life today. Isaiah 61, verse 1, this is exactly what Jesus was reading. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the 4:11 afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, freedom to prisoners, proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, all of what we just read, the day of vengeance of our God, and the comfort to those who mourn, to grant those who mourn in 4:26 Zion, giving them, verse 3, beauty for ashes, the theme of my message today. The oil of gladness, remember that phrase, we're going to come back to this term, oil of gladness, instead of mourning. The mantle of praise, instead of a spirit of fainting. They will be called oaks of righteousness, 4:43 the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. They will rebuild the ancient ruins. They will raise up the former devastations. They will repair the ruined cities. They will be called the priests of the Lord, ministers of our God. They will eat the wealth of nations, riches they will boast of. 5:02 I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and the burnt offerings. I will faithfully give them reconciliation, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and this is the covenant, that their offspring will be known among the nations. Their descendants will be known among all the 5:19 people, and all who see them will recognize that their offspring the Lord has blessed. So you ask yourself and say, Lord, I want all of this blessing in my life. How do I have this permanent oil of gladness? How do I have this permanent duty in exchange for all the ashes? I mean, for a lot of us, 2020 sort of 5:39 feels a little bit like a lot of years of challenges, may have been evil, many, many hard feelings, heartaches that may have sort of felt like ashes. Many of you might be going through ups and downs in your life. There may be forms of depression, all of these things that feel like ashes. And I'm here to tell 5:57 you, brothers and sisters, that the Lord, your God, can absolutely bring you beauty and a permanent oil of gladness. So our life doesn't have to feel like ashes. And that's really what I want to share with you. And how do we understand what is that beauty for ashes? What is that oil of gladness? Let's go 6:17 again to the scriptures. So much of what we need to discover as that permanent beauty for ashes or oil of gladness comes right in the scriptures. Hebrews 1.9 says, you have loved righteousness and hated sin. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. If I were to 6:41 think about that, if I want to have that permanent oil of gladness or that blessing on my life, there's a very simple recipe here. You need to love righteousness and hate sin. Love righteousness and hate sin. And that's 6:56 almost counterintuitive. And that's why when you look at Luke chapter 4, Jesus said, you Pharisees don't get it. And quite frankly, the name of the Syrian, he got it. A lot of these other people who are poor, they're going to get it. Most of you folks in church are not going to get it because you don't understand what 7:15 it means to hate sin and love righteousness. You are pharisaical in the sense that you have an appearance of righteousness. But underneath, in the inside of that cup, is deep-rooted sin that God wants to take out. That's the true ashes. It's the exchange of all of this self-life and all of this sinful life, 7:34 exchanging that for the Christ life. That is the beauty for ashes. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, it is absolutely possible to be filled with that Christ life. And that's what I seek for my life. That's what I seek to make me a Christian. And a Christian is really a 7:50 follower of Christ, right? That has this oil of gladness. In my own personal walk with the Lord, that's the first layer. In the next layer, which is my family, the best husband I can be, the best father I can be, and then in the workplace, I work at VMware, and to be an example of Christ-like 8:10 values. And all of these areas, my personal life, my family life, and my work life. And then, of course, the Lord has used you in a church setting, your brothers and sisters. It might be in a Bible study group. If you have responsibility, the next layer is your church life. In all of these areas, 8:27 brothers and sisters, the calling of the Lord is to exchange our ashes for that beauty, exchange all of this, you know, bad aroma for the oil of gladness. You know, sometimes you go into a bathroom and someone's use it and you say, hey, would someone light a match or light the fragrance 8:44 here? Because there's a stench in that bathroom. And quite frankly, if we want to have a permanent scent around us, there is a possibility that Christ-like life can be inside us. And it doesn't have to be ups and downs and ups and downs. And there's a promise that we can get rid of our ashes 9:02 once and for all. It's not to say that we won't face depression and we won't face, you know, points of time when we are sad. Absolutely. But the oil of gladness gives us an inner happiness, even when there might be aspects of life or death or maybe even death in a family. The oil of gladness could be 9:24 something that surrounds us completely. Now, if you look at one of those, one of those things that form the ashes of this world is very simple. Again, open your Bibles to 1 John 2.16. John makes it so clear here. For all that is in this world really is ashes. And they are three forms, the lust of the 9:45 flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. And to me, that's very simply where, when I look at the scriptures, I say, Lord, I want to take everything that represents the ashes that are going to just burn away in this world. And I want to exchange that for that beauty for you, with you 10:04 forever, that last for eternity. And not just that, I want that promise that's in Isaiah 61, that the blessings would flow into my family and to their children's children. Now, most people, when they think of blessings, they think about money, and about fame, and about fortune, a good education, it's good to 10:23 have those things. But that's not the blessing we want. Imagine that the reality is we could live a long life and have all this stuff. But when we die, all of that stuff becomes ashes. And the permanent blessing is being filled with the Holy Spirit, living a Christ-like life and being a blessing to somebody 10:41 else. So when you get to eternity, there's no regrets in your life. That's the blessing. I want the blessing of God on my life, not for fame and fortune. Those things are not immaterial in the long term. What matters the most is that blessing is like an umbrella. It's like a roof over my house, 10:57 so that all my three children, my wife and my friends and everybody I come in contact with could have that blessing of the Lord that gives them the inner joy. That's the true blessing that I want. Everything else is secondary. If I get it, it's good. If I don't get it, that's also fine. And that's the 11:13 life we need to live, brothers and sisters, where the blessing of God is like that umbrella or that roof that brings us a permanent set of beauty and oil of badness. So let's go back then again to the scriptures and ask ourselves, Lord, how do I rid myself of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the 11:30 eyes, and the boastful pride of life? And to me, it's actually so amazing that when Jesus preached, again, coming back to some of his first sermons, I talked about Luke 4, one of the first times he was seen in Nazareth. And you can go back to Matthew 5, 6, and 7, one of my favorite scriptures. You know 11:45 that when you read the Sermon on the Mount, that entire sermon was just about 20 minutes. How powerful. And you can read that up and down. And many times I just put Matthew 5, 6, and 7 on play while I'm working out. And I just want to listen to that over and over and over again. Memorize the nine 12:02 Beatitudes. Memorize it because there's so much potency in just that first sermon of 20 minutes. And I'd encourage you, brothers and sisters, go back to the basics. Sometimes we just have to go back to the basics and ask ourselves, what's in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 that we can apply to our lives to have 12:18 that permanent beauty for ashes, that permanent oil of gladness that nourishes and lifts us up. Let's go back and Jesus taught there past the nine Beatitudes and so on about being a light on a hill and salt of the earth. And he says there that your righteousness needs to exceed the righteousness of 12:40 those same Pharisees that were sitting in Luke chapter 4 listening to Jesus and just got angry because it angered them that Jesus was calling them hypocrites, so to speak. And I have just three takeaways that I have from these. There's many things that you could look at my 5, 6, and 7. 12:58 But I think these are the three things that the Lord has taught me through this that are the ashes that he wants to burn and instead bring to me beauty, or the stench that he wants to take away and instead give me the oil of gladness or the fragrance of gladness. So here, let's look at 13:15 the first one, which I think is a spirit of honesty and humility. I think God respects us when we have a deep sense of, Lord, I just want to jump into your lap and just honestly tell you, like a kid tells a father, this is what's really going on in my life. I need your help. Most often people think, 13:35 oh, I'm going to, you know, I need to fake my way. The most important thing God wants is, Lord, I am struggling here. Or, Lord, I need help here. That honesty is what he wants to say, where ultimately when we have that honest attitude with God, he brings us the Holy Spirit to help us. 13:52 Because he wants to seek that relationship with us in an honest fashion. And that's why he actually says in Matthew 5.33, may your yes be yes, may your no, your no, make sure that you're keeping your vows, because a sense of honesty. And that's why when we have children, you know, disobedience is 14:10 something that we seek to reprimand and correct. But we have a high bar in our home for telling a lie, because the devil is the father of all lies. And all of you parents, I would encourage you to weed out lying and all forms of dishonesty very early in your children's life so that you can build 14:30 a spirit of honesty in yourself and your children. But ultimately, as they grow up, they'll be honest, not just with each other and people in this world. That's important. That's just, you know, integrity that's in short supply today in the world. But being honest with the Lord about where we need 14:45 help. And the other aspect of honesty that goes together with that is humility. And I believe that the Lord gives, as we hear in 1 Peter 5.5, he resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. You've heard me talk many times about this being like the law of gravity. 15:05 Law of gravity, in Newton's terms, you drop something because of gravity, it falls. It's a very similar law that God has. If you are proud, he opposes you. If you humble yourself, he gives you grace. That's almost God's equivalent of Newton's law of gravity. So what do I got to do? 15:23 I've got to keep going down and down and humbling myself. And I think I've humbled myself enough, I've got to humble myself some more. And then what happens is I start to experience that grace. A lot of the things on this earth start to become like ash or like manure, like feces. And I begin 15:38 to see the true glory of God as being the heavenly things. I begin to see everything in me that has that smell of pride and say, Lord, help me humble myself. Help me humble myself in my relationship with my wife. Help me humble myself in my relationship with my brothers and sisters, 15:54 with my children, with my colleagues at work, and everything. It doesn't mean that you don't have a strong opinion or you're just a pushover when it comes to having a strong opinion. But you can do this with grace. You can do it with humility. You can do it with a different heart. And I can tell 16:12 you, brothers and sisters, this is something for me that's a lifelong quest. I don't believe I will ever be humble enough. And whenever I have brothers and influences in my life telling me that I need to humble myself more, I find that to be incredible feedback. Or when I look at situations where the 16:26 Lord brings me a situation that humbles me and brings me to my needs or brings me to have more patience on him, I say, Lord, thank you. You are teaching me a lesson here of what it means to be more and more humble. So remember, brothers and sisters, that is the first lesson that the Lord wants 16:41 to teach us where we start to exchange these ashes for beauty, where we start to exchange our self-life and our selfish life for the Christ-like life. And that's, I think, an important lesson that we can all take away. And quite frankly, this was the problem with the Pharisees sitting in that synagogue in 16:59 Nazareth. They did not want to humble themselves. They saw themselves as superior to the Gentiles. And quite frankly, they had a lot of stuff in the inside of their cup that was dirty. And Jesus was saying, listen, the outside does not matter. What matters is the inside. And often, pride is something no one 17:18 people can ultimately see this. But it starts off as that small seed inside your heart. And it gets worse and worse and worse and worse. And ultimately, people start to see it outside. But all of this pride that you see manifest in people outside starts deep-rootedly inside. And it's important that not just in our own 17:35 lives, but in our families and children, we nip out all forms of dishonesty and pride. The second thing it talks about in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 that I would encourage you to apply, which is also, we talked about the boastful pride of life, is the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. And this is really 17:51 serious because for most of us men, the eyes are the things that cause us to stumble. So much. And Jesus was so honest. I love the brutal honesty of Jesus in Matthew 5, verse 27. And you see, because he says here, listen, in the Old Testament, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. 18:10 But I'm telling you, and this is especially applicable to men, because, you know, he talks about a woman. For everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her. And if your right eye is causing you to sin, better for you to pluck it out than to all be 18:28 going. If your right hand is causing you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to lose one part of your eye. And we all men know what is exactly what he's talking about. The right eye and the right hand. These are always the areas that cause us men to stumble. And he, Jesus here is asking us 18:46 to take this particular part of our life extremely seriously. And today's world with internet pornography and all of the callous life that men and women often interact, it's sad you start to see even Christian leaders falling in this area. And the Lord wants us to take this seriously, men, because 19:05 that's another area where the stench can be exchanged for an aroma. The ashes can be exchanged with beauty. And all of this, the darkness of the world that often can be hidden. People don't see often, you know, the adultery can be open, but lust of the eyes can be hidden. God wants us to take that 19:25 out inside in the hidden parts, that hidden part of the cup. And then the outside, you know, whether it becomes automatically lean rather than focusing the outside. And there's a lot of dirt inside. And then the second, just as important, is lust of flesh. And for you sisters and brothers, 19:43 this could be something. Maybe sisters, you don't struggle with the lust of the eyes in terms of lust in that fashion of what was just said. But all of us struggle with the lust of the flesh, which is what? The lust of money, or the lust of personal pleasure, or the lust of being able to have my 19:55 opinions heard. And Jesus is just as vocal about this in Matthew 6, again, further in the Sermon on the Mount, verse 19 to 21, where he says, listen, don't store up treasure for yourself on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves 20:11 invite store up treasures for yourself in heaven, where neither moth nor dust destroy. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. And I think this is a message really for the Silicon Valley. Because if you look at everything that people pursue in the Silicon Valley, it's often about 20:28 money and comfort. And often, it's a pursuit that's endless. I mean, I find people, the smarter they get, the more money, the rat race, and the, it just continues, and continues, and continues, all the way till they die. And sometimes, unfortunately, when they don't achieve something, it's incredibly 20:43 depressing. You hear these stories of people commit suicide. I said, how is that possible? I mean, you're so wealthy, and you're so depressed at the end of it. You cannot serve two masters. If you choose to serve God and serve man, it's just not possible. You have to pick. It doesn't mean that you can't 21:00 work hard, and God can bless what you do. But where your treasure is, that's where your heart will also be. And it's very important, brothers and sisters, to always ask ourselves, especially those of us living in Silicon Valley, because this is the system here is pulling us in a very, very different 21:17 direction. But instead, Jesus says, listen, take your mind off this, Matthew 6, 31 and 33, and says, listen, you know, and so much of this was relevant the last year. What should we eat? What are we going to drink? How are we going to stay healthy? All the Gentiles, he says, seek all these things, and your 21:35 father knows what you need. Lord, thank you for protecting my health. I am going to return, reciprocate by doing Matthew 6, 33. We all know this verse very well. Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, his righteousness. Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things. And these things, if you look at the 21:54 previous verses, is what you need, not what you want, will be provided to you. And I say, Lord, what I need the most is the blessing of God on my family, not physical and the blessings and material blessings. It's the spiritual blessing, so that my children's character will be permanently 22:11 transformed, that they will be on fire for Jesus at an early age. They'll be disciples of Jesus. I want that for me and my wife and my friends and my family and people I come in contact with. That's the blessing that's so much more important because everything else we can't take to our grave. 22:25 Quite frankly, they're all going to burn away. They are true ashes. And number three, brothers and sisters, that I would share with you, which is so important. Many Christians cover the bases on the first two. They may deal with, you know, they may be humble. They've kind of overcome. They may be 22:42 overcome even the lust of eyes. But I often find in the use of their tongue how often and anger so many Christians are struggling with this. And God wants to give us victory over this area and, you know, overcome, you know, the anger and bitterness that often seeps into people. And to me, again, Matthew 5, 23:04 21, you know, Jesus raises the stakes. He says your righteousness needs to be higher than that of the Pharisees. He says, listen, in the past, you know, the Old Testament says don't murder. But I'm saying you've got a much higher standard, which is, listen, when you call your brother good for nothing, 23:24 you're answerable to the Supreme Court. And if you call your neighbor, your brother or sister, you fool. Okay, that's an F word. And I know a lot of Christians use other bad words that are even worse than that F word, the fool. You are liable to go straight to hell. Wow. And that's, you know, 23:42 there are words that are even worse than that, that people just use in their colloquial language or cuss. And then he takes it to the same level. Listen, if you come to church or if you're sitting at home and you have an angry spirit, it's not even things you've said now, but in your, you've got some 23:58 resentment. And all of us brothers and sisters, I know somebody that we've had something that he says, listen, stop what you're doing right now and go and set this right immediately. Because, you know, if you look, look at the story of that person who was, you know, forgiven and Jesus said, you got to 24:19 forgive 77 times 7. You hear that story in that parable of Jesus forgiving somebody who had, you know, had a large amount that was owed to him, a hundred thousand, 10,000, you know, one dollar. And this person who basically was owed the master a lot, let's say $10,000 turned around and basically went to 24:44 somebody who owed him a little bit and hung him by the, you know, held him by the neck. And, and God came, the master came to him and said, listen, I forgive you a huge bunch, but you weren't willing to forgive the small person, something small. And when we hold a grudge, okay, that's exactly God saying to you, 25:02 listen, I've forgiven you so much more. And in that one place, it's the one place where it's almost the unforgivable sin, because Jesus says, if you do not forgive somebody else, I will not forgive you. It's almost like this daunting passage that look and say, listen, um, Lord, if I go to the grave and I 25:22 haven't forgiven something, I don't know about my eternal destiny. So brothers and sisters in this area of your relationship with others, do not have a grudge, um, pick up the phone and you can't, you know, allow other people to, um, forgive you, but you can forgive them. Uh, you know, 25:40 and over time, sometimes even get forget it, but certainly, uh, we have to release everybody and make sure we have no grudges. Um, and then we release again, a lot of this stuff, every grudge that you have is again, more of the stench and the ashes, um, that the Lord wants to remove from your 25:57 life and give you instead beauty for those ashes or an oil of gladness, uh, or a scent of fragrance of gladness in exchange for all of the stench of the world. So brothers and sisters, that is my, uh, brief message to you this morning. I pray that the Lord is blessing each of you in your walk with 26:16 him. Please find time, um, even during this, this season to be an encouragement to one of the brother or sister. It is so, uh, tough to run this and walk this, this Christian walk alone. Um, we need encouragement and it's hard to do that now when we've all got zoom fatigue and we've got to stay 26:36 shelter in place, but pick up the phone, send somebody an email. Um, be like that. When I shared a couple of, I think, uh, two years ago, I showed you this video of the Brownlee brothers, both those two brothers who one fell aside in the race and the other brother came alongside him to, 26:51 to, um, to, to pick them up and run together the last hundred yards of that marathon. If you don't know the story, go and Google or YouTube, uh, the Brownlee brothers race. And that's what we need to do, brothers and sisters during this time, encourage one another. I hope this message is 27:07 not a, um, you know, something that puts you under any condemnation or any discouragement. We're all in this race together, but it's to challenge us. Uh, there are words of God that sometimes are a comfort and a consolation. And there are other times when we need a challenge. And, and to me, I like often 27:25 the coaches are not just patting me on my back, but sometimes I need a coach that's kicking me in the butt. And, uh, that's sometimes what we all need. And hopefully this was a combination of a comfort and a challenge to all of you. Uh, beauty for ashes is a fantastic concept. I got to tell you, 27:40 uh, I know this person, uh, Zach, one of many of you probably know him. He wrote this book, beauty for ashes. I can take this message to a whole different level. If you want to, uh, get his book, uh, on this, um, um, you can download it, uh, at just Google, uh, Zach Kuhn and beauty for 27:57 ashes. A lot of what I shared, there's a whole new level of where, um, my father, Zach takes that in terms of, uh, the self-life and it had a tremendous impact on my life. And I thought to share some of that with you, uh, as relevant to 2021, so to speak, this was, I think written in the 1970s 28:15 and I pray that the Lord would bless you. The calling for all of our lives, brothers and sisters is that permanent blessing on your individual life, uh, on your marriage and on your family life. And then certainly the places you work, uh, or the places we all worship. And I pray that blessing 28:31 on all of you with that. Let's, let's bow and say a word of prayer.
