The three readings this week tell the full arc of redemption. From rebellion to rescue to perseverance, the historical story of redemption unfolds. Isaiah exposes the depth of Israel’s abandonment, Luke reveals the mercy of God who seeks the lost, and Paul reminds the Thessalonians that this same God sustains His people to the end for His own glory.
A People Who Have Forgotten Their Master (Isaiah 1:10–18)
Isaiah opens with a blunt indictment. The prophet compares Israel to livestock. Creatures that at least know their owner’s voice and depend on their master for care:
“The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know; my people do not understand” (Isaiah 1:3).
It is a devastating image. God’s covenant people have abandoned His revealed law, not even realizing how far they have wandered, a law their forefather David had once cherished and delighted in.
This is not mere moral decay but spiritual amnesia. The very people chosen to bear God’s name now profane it, worshiping outwardly while their hearts remain far from Him. The prophet’s words expose our own condition: by nature we are estranged from God, blind to His goodness, and convinced of our self-sufficiency.
Yet even in this rebuke, grace breaks through:
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Judgment gives way to invitation, the holy God calling the faithless back into the covenant promise.
The God Who Seeks and Saves (Luke 19:1–10)
Centuries later, Isaiah’s warning finds an echo in the story of Zacchaeus. A tax collector, rich and despised, Zacchaeus embodies those who have chosen comfort and compromise and rejected covenant loyalty. In every sense, he has forgotten his Master. Yet Christ walks straight into his city, looks up into the branches of a sycamore tree, and calls him by name:
“Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).
What unfolds is a living parable of the Gospel. God descends to seek the lost. Grace comes first—before repentance, before restitution. Zacchaeus’s promise to give to the poor and restore what he has taken is not the cause of salvation but its fruit. When Jesus declares,
“Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9),
He is not rewarding moral reform but recognizing the evidence of a heart made new.
Like Israel of old, Zacchaeus had forgotten his Master. However, unlike the beasts of burden, he is sought, found, and restored. In that moment, Zacchaeus learns what Isaiah urged long ago to love thy neighbor:
“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17).
Persevering for His Glory (2 Thessalonians 1:1–12)
Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians turns our gaze forward. The church suffers under trial, yet their endurance is a sign of God’s righteous work within them which is His work, not theirs. Their perseverance does not earn salvation; it reveals that salvation has already taken root. God’s people, redeemed by the blood of Christ, now share in His sufferings as they await His glory.
Paul prays:
“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him” (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12).
The emphasis is unmistakable: our faith begins in grace, is sustained by grace, and exists for God’s glory alone.
This is the thread running through all three texts. Israel was chosen from brokenness to bring forth Christ, for God’s glory. Zacchaeus was sought and transformed, for God’s glory. The Thessalonians endure and bear witness, for God’s glory. If it were for our own glory, we would only corrupt the message and empty the cross of its power. Lest we shall boast.
The Story Woven Together
In Isaiah, humanity is exposed as utterly lost. In Luke, divine mercy stoops down to seek and save. In Thessalonians, the redeemed are strengthened to endure for the honor of Christ’s name.
This is the Gospel in miniature: we are faithless, yet He remains faithful. We contribute nothing but exist, dead and in need. And yet, by His unchanging mercy, we are found, cleansed, and kept so that His name, not ours, will be glorified forever.
Jeremy Miller, Church Elder