“I AM DOING A NEW THING!”
Isaiah 43:18-20
Version Two: Greenmount and O’Leary
Churches of Christ, January 10, 2021
Video Link: https: //youtu.be/o1jSCzat248
INTRODUCTION:
1.) Isaiah is a book with many prophecies for God’s people.
A.) Today let us look at a few verses in chapter 43.
B.) Isaiah 42 portrays Israel as being blind and deaf towards God.
ba.) Isaiah even speaks of the animals and the birds as listening to the voice of God, while the people of God were rejecting him.
bb.) Sandwiched between these two is the challenge of today’s text for the people of God to look back to God and see the great and new work he would do in the people of God.
2.) This was a time when the circumstances and conditions for Israel were not that spectacular.
A.) In fact, the people would soon face captivity and bondage because of their sin and rebellion against God.
3.) It was amid this that God promised things would be better for Israel.
4.) Today, just a week and a half into the New Year. I want us to think be encouraged by these words as we continue into a new year.
A.) God’s first word for us through Isaiah is to:
I) FORGET THE FORMER THINGS!
Is. 43:18
1) Isaiah really emphasized this thought.
A.) Listen to Isaiah: “Do not dwell on the past.”
aa.) I am sure that Isaiah knew the people heard him the first time he had said to forget the former things.
ab.) Yet human nature being what it is, God and Isaiah realized that we like to hang on to the former things, so we are again reminded not to dwell on the past.
2.) The Israelites had to forget the former things.
A.) They had to forget their hearts of faithlessness before God.
aa.) It would have been easy as a nation to continue the downward path they had been on.
ab.) In fact judgment would come because of rejecting God.
B.) Yet before the coming judgment of God, there was still opportunity to turn to Him, and to put him first.
ba.) If the God’s people would do that, He would do some incredible things among them.
3.) We also need to forget the former things.
A.) We need to forget our failures.
aa.) Probably we all can think of shortcomings and failures in our lives last year.
ab.) There may have been failures with our work, our friends, our family, our church, areas in our lives in which we feel we have failed to reach the goals we had set for ourselves last year.
ac.) Satan loves to use our past to discourage and defeat us from God’s plan in this year.
aca.) He will remind us of our sins, weaknesses, and shortcomings, for by so doing our focus is off the working of God in our lives today.
B.) We need to forget our disappointments and our hurts.
ba.) We all have times when disappointments of the past as well as the hurts from ourselves and others can blind us to the working of God today.
bb.) We need to have our focus on Christ.
bb.) I have seen people who years after an event are still holding onto it and carrying resentment over it.
bba.) The only thing that accomplishes is to make life miserable for yourself, and for those around you depriving yourself of God’s blessings for today.
bbc.) It is an attitude of the heart that steals the joy and the life from a person.
C.) We need to also forget our past accomplishments, successes, and victories.
ca.) Certainly the past has lessons and triumphs that are worthy of remembrance and rejoicing.
cb.) Christians, we need to remember that some of the best days when God can work through us may still be now.
cc.) When God met Moses at the burning bush, he introduced himself as “I Am.”
cca.) We give God the freedom to do great things in our lives when we see Him as “I Am”, not “I was” or “I Will Be”.
cd.) God is not satisfied with merely our past glories and successes.
cda.) If God is not content to be satisfied with merely our past, may that be an indication that we should not be satisfied with it either.
cca.) It is easy to become content and happy with our accomplishments of the past.
.01) It is easy to become complacent in our marriages, families, and even in our spiritual journey, resting in the laurels of yesterday, rather than today and tomorrow.
.02) God does not want us to be satisfied with where we are, but to continually aim for the best that we can be.
.03) The Apostle Paul recognized something of this in his own life.
.031) Phil. 3:12-16
4.) There is a reason for Isaiah and Paul to tell us to leave behind these former things.
A.) Some things from our past held us back from where we should have been even in the past.
aa.) As Isaiah was addressing the Israelites this had been the case with them.
ab.) It might also be the case with us.
B.) Other things though wonderful and victorious aspects of our past can take our focus from the present and future goals that we can achieve.
C.) We could learn lessons in this from athletes.
ca.) Swimmers in competitive events use bathing suits made of special fabrics that cling tightly to the body, with less resistance to the water than other fabrics.
caa.) Some swimmers even shave all body hair and rub oil onto their bodies prior to the competition for the same reason.
cab.) We could ask the question; would such actions make that much of a difference?
.01) Sometimes the extra speed it gives you is merely so many hundredths of a second.
.02) That is such a small amount that it hardly seems worth doing.
.021) Yet that five or ten one hundredths of a second might be the difference between first and second place in the competition.
cb.) Again, runners in a marathon style race are not going to race with a heavy suit of insulated coveralls like one might use today to go tend cows in a barn; Neither would they wear hip rubber boots, as you might if you were going to dig some clams.
cba.) The Apostle Paul spoke of this as he pictured in his mind the Christian life as one of these Marathon runners.
.01) Hebrews 12:1b.-2
II) WHAT NEW THING CAN HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE THIS YEAR?
1.) The New Year is a time to evaluate where we have been, and where we want to go.
A.) It is a time to reflect and set goals for the future.
aa.) Some of the most common resolutions this time of year deal with our physical person.
aaa.) Weight loss.
aab.) change of habit (E.g., smoking, etc.)
aac.) Physical exercise
B.) It is a time to reflect and set goals for our family time.
ba.) How do we want to improve your marriage relationship?
bb.) What do we want to differently or more with your parents, or your children?
bc.) How do we better love and serve those who are special in our lives?
C.) It is a time to reflect and set goals for many other areas of our lives as well: Finances, free time, priorities, etc.
D.) Perhaps an area for reflection and setting goals is in spiritual life.
da.) What do I do this year to improve my relationship with God, and by that my relationship with others?
daa.) Perhaps it is just finding some undistracted quiet time alone with God.
2.) We need to remember that our own efforts, goals, and resolutions will only have a limited success.
A.) In and of ourselves we can do great and wonderful things.
aa.) The human mind can accomplish great and wonderful things, and even to make personal changes and improvements in our lives.
B.) The key to success may simply be to take our eyes off self, and to focus it on God
III) WHAT PART WILL GOD PLAY IN OUR PLANS FOR 2021?
1.) Perhaps our plans and Resolutions fail because we did not include God in them or seek His help and guidance.
A.) James, the brother of Jesus gave a warning to people about making big plans on their own without involving God or seeking His will.
aa.) James 4:13-17
aaa.) Many of the older generation here still remember with fondness _________ _________.
.01) One of ________’s favourite sayings was: “If it be the Lord’s will!”
ab.) To be honest, perhaps the easiest thing is to go merely in our own strength, and our own wisdom.
ac.) We seek and include God only when our own plans and efforts have already failed.
aca.) We will ask God to bail us out of the messes we have made in not seeking Him in the first place.
acb.) It is like looking at a road map or reading the instructions.
.01) I am sure it has probably never happened with any of the men in this congregation, but the male species of humanity has had the reputation of choosing to drive half an hour in the wrong direction rather than to either read a road map or listen to your wife’s directions.
.011) He might even drive an additional fifteen minutes beyond that to find a way to convince his wife he knew what he was doing all the time.
.02) Now I know that example is a purely hypothetical situation that would never be a possibility here in this church, but sometimes it is that same frame of mind we use in including God in our plans as well.
2.) God wants to show us a different way for us to be the best we can be in 2021.
A.) We need to see our lives from the perspective of God.
B.) I want us to see this because this is the key to the success in our lives.
ba.) In evaluating our lives at the close and beginning of each new year we ask the wrong question.
bb.) We usually ask the question: “What do I want to change in my life for the new year?
bc.) The question we should be asking ourselves is what does God want to do in my life this year?
bca.) What areas of my life has God been wanting me to change, grow, or improve?
bcb.) It is when we can see our lives through the eyes of God that we will be really in tune with what needs to change.
3.) It is when we seek God’s perspective on our lives and ask for His help that we can ask him to be the one who will bring us to change.
A.) Is. 43:19a.
aa.) It is God himself who made the declaration: “I am doing a new thing.”
ab.) When we are open to the will and working of God, there is no shortage of the power that God has available to do great things in our lives.
B.) Isaiah 43:19b.
ba.) “Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
bb.) When we allow God to work in our lives, He will do greater than we ourselves can perceive.
bba.) Ephesians 3:20-21
bba.) That does not mean that we do nothing, because God is at work.
bbb.) When God is at work, we do not become lazy or irresponsible but recognize that our lives are a partnership with God.
bbc.) It is then that God can and will do great things in our lives and our church this year.
bbd.) In our text, God goes on to say: “I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wastelands.”
