April 6, 2025 Sermon - “Letting Go to Move Forward: Trusting God's Way" - Isaiah 43:16-21
Today, we’re diving into this powerful passage from Isaiah 43:16-21 because, let’s face it, life can be challenging.
The journey from captivity to freedom is never easy. We all experience seasons where suffering surrounds us, and we carry the weight of painful memories—whether from the wrongs we've done or the wrongs done to us.
It can often feel like we're trudging through a valley of shadows, much like David describes in the 23rd Psalm.
We long for that moment when we start climbing out of the valley, when we can feel the upward shift. But instead, it often seems like the descent only continues, deeper into the darkness.
Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. So, what do we do when we’re stuck in that place? How do we keep moving forward? Let’s explore this together.
Today’s sermon is entitled: “Letting Go to Move Forward: Trusting God's Way", and in our passage today from Isaiah, God asks of you and me to do 4 things when we find ourselves in that valley, or even if we’re just having a difficult day.
It asks us to remember. It asks us to forget. It asks us to open our eyes and see, and then it asks us to make known what we see, to proclaim. Remember, Forget, See, Proclaim. Let’s look more closely at these 4 things.
Remember:
Isaiah 43:16 This is what the LORD says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,17 who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
In the OT the people of God have often lifted up bitter complaints about their current situation. Can you related? Over and over again in the Old Testament the people of God are called by God to instead remember the good things that He has done,
the ways in which He has acted with grace and compassion in the past, the miracles that He has done.
Repeatedly, you find the Old Testament prophets calling God’s chosen people to remember. You also find the writers of the psalms talking about or reminding themselves to remember.
Psalm 77:11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
Psalm 105:5 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,
Psalm 143:5 I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done.
So remembering, recalling is really, really important. But what are remembering?
Are we rehearsing in our minds all the pain and injustice we have been through? Using that memory muscle to review and even relive a little the suffering we’ve been through?
In today’s Scripture passage, Isaiah is writing to the people of Israel, God’s people, who are living in exile in Babylon. They have been for some time.
Their faith and hope was at such a low point during their captivity in Babylon that they constantly needed assurance that things would eventually turn around for them.
Throughout the book of Isaiah these assurances are often repeated over and over again using different word pictures to describe God’s love for them.
So in chapter 43 of his book, Isaiah recalls what may be the single most important event in the history of God’s people in the Old Testament. God makes a promise to deliver them.
Let’s step back a bit. The people had been under the thumb of the Egyptians for around 400 years, oppressed as slaves, living in horrible conditions.
Then God made a promise that is recorded in Exodus: Exodus 3:7-9 …7 The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. 8"So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 9"Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.…
That was an incredible promise. One that wasn’t easy to believe. Those enslaved in Egypt didn’t even have a reference point for what freedom felt like. “Freedom. That word doesn’t mean anything to me. Can you please describe it?”
There was hope behind this promise, for sure, but it may well have hit people as empty, maybe even cruel. “It feels like a terrible tease” Nevertheless, God made this promise to deliver them.
God’s promises are true. And Isaiah wants us to know that, and to remember God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises. So he says as he recounts the history of how God had delivered them: Isaiah 43:16 This is what the LORD says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters,17 who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
God promised to deliver His people. He did!!! It took time. It took longer than anyone wanted it to take. But His promise was in His Word and the fulfillment of the promise is remembered here by Isaiah.
We remember not only the promise, but, as Isaiah does here, the key moment when the promise was fulfilled, against all odds.
How do you feel about the promises of God? When you read in Jeremiah 29 the principle of how God works among His people: Jeremiah 29: 11 “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and will bring you back from captivity”.
That’s a particular promise from God to His people Israel at a particular time in history, but it is also, very importantly, a principle of how God works. It is an expression of His heart.
If you’ve ever heard someone say that this applied only to a narrow slice of time among a particular people, that it’s simply a record of what God did one time and one time only,
that person is misunderstanding that all of Scripture is written for our benefit, and all of Scripture reveals the heart and mind of God...precisely what He is like.
So when when you hear this, when it is brought to memory, do you let in in? Do you allow your plans to be subject to God’s plans.
Do you take encouragement, do you REMEMBER that God is faithful and that all His intentions toward you are for blessing and not harm?
How do you feel about the promises of God? It may be that a good prayer for todays is: “God, help me to be truly open to your promises in Your Word, Your promises that reflect Your heart toward to all followers of Jesus, including me.
Help me to remember them. Help me to believe them.
Let’s pray this together: “Lord God, help me to live in the hope of your promises: Your love, your desire to bring healing, your plans for me and my family and my community, which are plans for good and not evil. In Jesus name. Amen”.
So the first step of being renewed and refreshed spiritually is to remember God’s promises.
Think back in your own life about how God has been good to you, how He has met your needs when you’ve come to Him in faith believing. Contemplate God’s love and faithfulness in your life. You will be encouraged as you remember.
I love to go to sleep at night recounting God’s goodness in the day I just had, thanking Him for all the good that happened, and thanking Him for being with me through all the bad.
I love the ancient Jewish prayer that is highlighted in the Chosen TV Series: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings sleep to my eyes, slumber to my eyelids. May it be Your will, Lord my God and God of my ancestors, that I lie down in peace and that I arise in peace…”
So we’re called to live in remembrance. But we’re also called to forget. What does God want us to forget?
Forget
18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
He wants us to forget the things that ultimately make it hard or impossible to face the future with hope and confidence and strength and a living faith.
While we remember God’s faithfulness and are encouraged, it is quite a different thing when we consider our mistakes of the past. When we dwell on our sins that God has forgiven us, because for we can quite effectively drag ourselves down.
Sometimes we still live with the consequences of our sins, and those consequences themselves can be a daily reminder of our sins. But again, we’re called to remember God and His good work in our lives.
So rather than letting the consequences of our sins remind us of our past failings, we can choose in faith to let them instead be a constant reminder of how God has forgiven us of those things, how He does not hold them against us because we have confessed them and they are all under the blood of Jesus Christ.
Let’s say that together: Rather than letting the consequences of my sins remind us of my past failings, I choose in faith to let them instead be a reminder of how God has forgiven me of those things, how He does not hold them against me because I have confessed them and they are all under the blood of Jesus Christ.
The prophet Micah says: Micah 7:18 “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea”.
God has thrown our sins into the depths of the sea. I hope you believe that because it’s true, no matter if we believe it or not. AND No fishing allowed! He calls us to forget those things.
He calls us to choose to dwell instead on His goodness, and not to dwell on our past.
He wants us to learn from our mistakes. We all have trip hazards.
Trip hazards - the weaknesses we have, the addictions we’re drawn to, the areas of our lives where we’re vulnerable and inclined to enter into sin when we’re feeling weak and our resolve is poor.
Last week Leah Katerberg was speaking here and she referred to our sins that so easily beset us in the most gentle way I’ve ever heard described:
They are rabbits that we allow ourselves to get distracted by.
The way an untrained dog gets distracted when it sees a rabbit and bolts after it...that’s us when we are following Jesus and get sidetracked, diverted by our sin. Sometimes there are more than one rabbit trail.
When you walk down the street and see a trip hazard, lately a broken tree branch from the frozen rain that shut down the city, you exercise special caution.
You don’t walk headlong into a known hazard. Spiritually, we need to take care so that we don’t keep doing things that sabotage God’s good work of healing and redemption in our lives.
That’s part of God’s good plan of freedom for you, to not return to the mire of sin and regret. Amen?
See
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland...”
God is doing a new thing in your life, if you are in Christ. How do I know that? He is forever at work to make this Word true: 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
He is doing a new thing among us. He is doing a new thing at The Yonge Street Mission. And the new thing is not a superficial thing.
It is not a bandaid fix on a deep problem. It’s not a solution that doesn’t understand the deepest level of the problem or challenge that we face. It’s God’s solution, not man’s.
And God wants us to know that He is up to something. He wants us to discern, to observe, to listen, to anticipate, to behold that God is moving.
So…we remember God’s faithful love and actions in the past, we choose to not dwell on where we have dropped the ball, and then we are ready to see the new thing that God is doing. He is making a way in the wilderness.
You know, there’s a difference between being in downtown Toronto, and being in the wilderness.
There’s a difference between being lost in downtown Toronto and being lost in the wilderness. What might that difference be?
Well, downtown, if you h’aint a clue where you are, you can always ask someone who looks less lost than you do.
There’s streets, and landmarks. There’s the CN tower that can be seen from space let alone anywhere with a clear line of sight in this city.
Have you ever been lost in the wilderness? The wilderness is wild. There are few landmarks that stay the same. Particularly in the middle east, where Isaiah was writing, the wilderness is a lot of desert.
There’s a basic lack of things that you need to survive - things like water, food, shelter.
And there’s an abundance of things that you need to not be there in order to survive - things like predators, harsh winds, the sun beating down.
God promises: "I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." When there seems to be no way forward, He creates one. He carves a path through the darkest, driest moments of our lives—through the deepest despair.
He transforms the rough and rugged terrain of our experiences—the valleys, the rough edges—into the very landscape where He makes the impossible possible. The places where we feel lost or broken, He straightens and redeems.
But He doesn’t stop there. He sends streams into the driest, most barren lands—the places that seem beyond hope. And when water flows into dry ground, something incredible happens: life begins to bloom.
Where there was once only desolation, God brings renewal and growth. In what seemed like a wasteland, He makes life flourish. Jesus said: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:37-39)
So the primary way that God works in our lives is through the Holy Spirit. Do you hear that? What He sends us is what we need the most. And it’s never stuff, it’s never things, it’s never just one answer to one problem at a time.
God makes a way in the wilderness and He makes streams in the wasteland by giving us Himself.
In prayer, no matter what we may ask for, what we may think we need, what is ACTUALLY needed is God.
What we need more than the specific answers to prayer that we want, is more of God. More of God’s joy, more awareness on our part of His glory and His love.
The best gift that God gives is always, always Himself.
God sends us His Holy Spirit and fills us afresh with a powerful sense of His love.
The Holy Spirit leads us to repentance as well. He convicts us of our sin, makes us aware of where we have offended God, builds in us a passionate desire to honour God rather than offend Him, and that’s an amazing gift as well.
Sometimes our sin beats down on us worse than the scorching sun. Sometimes the guilt we carry for the things we do or have done is enough to squeeze every last ounce of joy out of us. But God the Holy Spirit leads us to repentance.
He gives us courage to do this. We shouldn’t take that lightly. Many refuse to repent and turn to God. The ability you have to go to God in humble confession is a beautiful and special gift.
Think of it. God loves you SO much that He has made His grace easy to receive, His forgiveness abundant to enjoy. Use it well and often to keep short accounts with God. This is critical. That’s because our role in all of this is not to be super successful evangelists, not to be spiritual giants. Our role is to be faithful.
When we keep short accounts of our sins with God, when we come to Him to say sorry for our sins, He forgives us. He cleans the slate. He purifies our hearts and lives through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Our part is to follow Jesus, to seek to be faithful, and to be faithful means to keep growing in our trust of Jesus, to be increasingly passionately in love with God, and to listen when He says: “Be holy as I am holy”.
He has set that standard for us, as impossible as it feels for us to attain.
But our holiness comes through the blood of Jesus and the grace of God. God doesn’t want us to be distracted by our failures, whether that means being lost in our sin,
or whether it means living with stifling regret for the things we’ve done. We wants you free, dear sister and brother. Amen?
Proclaim
So we remember God’s faithfulness in all His ways. We forget about the former things and make the conscious, daily choice to not dwell on the past.
We live with our eyes open so that we can see what God is doing in us and around us by His Holy Spirit.
You know, our lives will stand for something. We will each be remembered for something. Our passage today finishes with this: 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.
We were formed to proclaim God’s praise. Our ultimate purpose is to, as an old Christian catechism or teaching tool says, “glorify God and enjoy Him forever”. There’s something intensely personal and private about our faith in Jesus.
We can journey closely with Him and know that He is with us every second or every day.
We can walk with Him and talk with Him and experience limitless benefits from knowing Jesus personally. It’s awesome, truly!
But ultimately, there’s a bigger picture. A much bigger picture. That bigger picture is God’s Kingdom, the main topic that Jesus spoke on during His earthly ministry.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if your life was remembered for bringing praise and glory to God?
I’ve done funerals of people from this church and remembering them, even while mourning their loss, was a cause of celebrating the God who saved them. I think of Sister Nada, Sister Agnes Divine, Olga Sawchuck. Many others
Wouldn’t it be superb if people found the courage to draw nearer to God, or to come outright to Jesus Christ as a result of the fact that you are alive?
The fact that you choose to always remember God’s goodness, that you live the life of a person forgiven by God, free of condemnation?
That you see what God is doing and that you enter into it, not withholding yourself from full engagement in God’s purpose of blessing the nations?
May this be true of us. May our lives be a light on a hill, a voice in the desert crying out: “I have found water...the spring of eternal life! I have found bread! Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven sent down to earth!
May we speak it, may we proclaim God’s praises, and so show ourselves for what we are: a people, chosen by God, formed for His glory, a people made alive spiritually through the new birth by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
And some final words, let’s read together:
May we remember - God’s faithfulness and beauty. May we forget and not dwell on the past.
May we see the glorious things that God is doing in our lives and that He intends to do through us.
And may we proclaim the praises of the One who came to deliver us, and to bring us into communion with the living God. Amen.
