Advent - Isaiah 11:1-16 Study Guide: Hope

Community Group Study Guide — Hope 

Isaiah 11:1-16

Study Information:

Every human has limitations and longings. This often puts us in a place where we need to look to the future with a vision of hope. Yet many in our world today battle hopelessness or if they do have a sense of hope it is a hope in the here and now, specifically with things they can see. Think for a moment about how many people use the word “hope.” One way the word hope is used is to describe wishful or optimistic thinking. Some examples are what we hope is for lunch, how we hope a game will turn out or hope for a job promotion at work. Another way we use the word hope is actually a form of daydreaming or escapism. We hope for a change or for stuff we can see, taste or touch in the here and now. We try to relieve some of the pressure or hardship of the here and now with stuff. This is the kind of escapism that looks to diversions, a new car, a different marriage, or daydreaming about how things could have been different. 

For the Christian hope is more than wishful optimism or escaping uncomfortable parts of our lives. Hope for the Christian is a deep trust in God’s promises. One of the core themes of Advent, the season the church reflects upon the birth of Jesus, is the theme of hope because Christ was and is God’s answer to darkness in this world. In response to sin, evil and darkness God sent forth his Son to draw near to us and to draw near to us as king. 

For Advent we will look at two prophecies from Isaiah that explore how God brings us hope in the darkness. This first prophecy is from Isaiah 11:1-12 describing the Messiah as God’s king to bring his people home. 

Hope from the Unexpected

Isaiah 11:1-5

Almost every promise in the Old Testament of the coming of Jesus was given in a time of darkness and evil. God’s answer to that problem was “I will draw near to you and deliver you.” God through Isaiah imagines a stump of a mighty tree. For all intents and purposes the stump looks lifeless, but as you walk around the stump you catch a glimmer of the unexpected. A shoot from the stump that would lead to new life. Isaiah called it the stump of Jesse, Jesse being the father of King David, because this stump was an images the people of God and the king. It looked like there was no king and the people were cut off, but that was far from the truth. During the time of this prophecy they were putting their trust in earthly kings and money to protect them from the kingdom of Assyria who rampaged across the Ancient Near East even though God told them he’d deliver them if they would just be still and wait (Isaiah 7:4). Instead Ahaz the king of Judah made a political alliance with a surrounding nation and gave money from the temple to Assyria as tribute which just delayed the inevitable. Assyria conquered the Northern kingdom, but God delivered Judah through the repentant faith of the next king Hezekiah. Ultimately Judah would be conquered by Babylon and brought into exile and what was a mighty nation, a beautiful tree, was now a stump. Would there be any hope for the people of God or did God just abandon them?

God’s answer to them and to us in times of darkness: I will send me king. Look for the shoot from the stump. This king would be in the line of king David and we quickly realize that this king is not just a human king, he is God with us. Isaiah 11:2-5 described this king as being filled or marked by the 7 fold Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit resting upon him and then 6 pairs of heavenly rule including: wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. This king would be wise, just and leading from a fear of God and not for the approval of people. This king would also be known for his righteousness and faithfulness. 

These promises have been captured in the Christmas song “O Come O Come Emmanuel” with words like “ransom captive Israel who mourns in lonely exile here,” refrains of wisdom, knowledge and might, and the Rod of Jesse being the shoot from the stump that brings life out of what looks dead. God’s answer to a hopeless situation was I will send my king who rules with righteousness and faithfulness. 

A King who Brings His People Home

Isaiah 11:6-12

It would take a lot of faith to hear these words from Isaiah, as they were given, and to trust that God was not just going to leave his people as a stump. That is what hope is, hope is a confident trust in a future that God would author. Isaiah continued his prophecy with a vision of two things the Messiah would bring — peace and his people home. 

First, Isaiah 11:6-9 is filled with Eden type language, recalling the garden of Eden to our attention, to emphasize the peace that this Messiah brings. In the Messiah’s kingdom the wolf and lamb would lie down together, the Lion would eat grass like the Ox and the child would play with snakes without fear. Isaiah appealed to old hostilities being reconciled, old natures being made new and the curse from Genesis 3:15 being lifted because this king had conquered the enemy. Peace would be restored because of this king. 

Second, God sent his son to bring the lost home. Isaiah 11:10 tells us that the root of Jesse would be a signal for the peoples, not just Israel. This signal is like a light house calling us to safe harbor so we find our rest in God. This passage used exodus language to talk about God delivering his people from exile (Isaiah 11:11). More than that, he would smooth out the roads making a highway from Assyria back home, and he would make a path across the Red Sea and “the River” (the Jordan) which were both waters crucial to the Exodus story as they departed Egypt through the Red Sea and came into the Promised Land across the Jordan. God desires fro the lost to come home and he desires for us to be reconciled to him so he sent his king. God drew near to us so that we could draw near to him. 

The story of Christmas reminds us that God responds to our need for a savior by drawing near to us. John wrote in his gospel that the Word (Christ) became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God the son took on a human nature like ours to bring us hope, reconcile our relationship to God and to bring us home. Being human is hard because we have longings and limitations and the world is still impacted by sin, death and the devil but that all leads us to hope. Christian, you have a confident future because God is at work and we do not have to look only to the here and now or have some sort of naive optimism, we can instead trust in the promise of God. Your life may look like a stump, it may be filled with darkness but there is an all powerful and all loving God who sent his son for you and in that we can hope. 

At your community group:

Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week? 

Discussion Questions:

Read Isaiah 11:1-16

Describe what the background context was for the promise in Isaiah 11:1. How does that describe the image of a “stump” for the people of God?

What are some of the ways Isaiah described this promised king and how he would lead? Look specifically at Isaiah 11:2-6.

Isaiah used Eden language and language of returning from Exile. Hope longs for peace and a place. How does the idea of “coming home” help us understand what God did in the incarnation of Jesus?

When it comes to hope, what are some things you typically put your hope in? What are some ways you can be more future oriented with your hope and look to the promises of God?