Isaiah 43:18-25: “I AM DOING A NEW THING”
We like new things, don’t we? There’s always something new, something different, something better, than what we have right now. A new phone. A new computer. New clothes. There’s always new technology, new styles.
Right now, one of the best places to find new things is the Chicago Auto Show. There you will see all kinds of new styles, new technologies on display. For example, there is the Dodge Ram SRT-10. This truck has a 505 horsepower, 8.3 liter, V-10 engine. And yet, it has the look of a sports car, the Dodge Viper, with a wing attached to the pickup bed. It contains a 508 watt stereo system. Lots of new technology, new things in that truck.
Or how about the Studebaker XUV? An XUV, as you know, is a step up from an SUV. The Extreme Utility Vehicle – the XUV - resembles a Hummer, but it’s supposed to run more smoothly, get better gas mileage. And it’s supposed to have all kinds of new bells and whistles.
Lots of new things! New technologies! New styles! This morning, in the book of Isaiah, God says, “I am doing a new thing!” What is this new thing that God is doing? How can anything related to Christianity be a new thing? I thought Christianity was an old thing – a religion that has been around for almost 2000 years – something from the past, something becoming more and more obsolete. What does God mean, when he says, “I am doing a new thing”? And what does this have to do with Jesus Christ, the focus of our worship service this morning? May God bless you as you focus on his holy Word, as you consider this wonderful new thing that God is doing for you.
In verse 18, God says, “Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past.” Do you know the setting of these words? These words were originally meant to be words of comfort for people in captivity. God’s chosen people were going to be overrun by a foreign nation called Babylon. The Jews would be taken far away from their homeland. There they would reminisce about the “old days:” “Remember when God rescued us from Egypt? Remember when God parted the Red Sea and defeated all the nations that stood in our way? He did all that for us. Those were the days!”
But God says, “Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” God was telling the people, that while he did some amazing things for them in the past, they haven’t seen anything yet. He was going to rescue them again: “I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wasteland.” God’s people were trapped in country that was surrounded by one of the most barren, most deadly deserts in the world. Even if they escaped from their captors, they would never make it through the desert. But God was going to do the impossible – he was going to set up a highway for them to walk on. He was going to provide water for them as they journeyed back to the promised land: “The wild animals honor me, and the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert 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.” Even the wild animals would notice all the good things God was doing for his people. Not only would those animals praise God, but the people of Israel would praise God too, for all the amazing new things God was planning to do for his people.
This is the “new thing” that God eventually did do for the Jews during that time in history. They were eventually released from captivity. They eventually survived that difficult trip through the desert, and returned to their homeland. What does this have to do with Christ? Can you see Christ in these words I have read to you this morning? God says, “I am making a way in the desert.” Jesus says, “I am The Way, the truth, and the life.” God says, “I am making streams in the wasteland.” Jesus says, “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.”
Just as God was doing a new thing for Israel, rescuing them, so also right now, God is doing a new thing for you right now – he’s rescuing you, rescuing you from this world, which is passing away. “Do you not perceive it?” God asks you this morning.
There are so many religions today, and they are obsolete, they don’t work, they don’t get you to heaven. “I will try to be good and earn my way to heaven” – a very common approach to religion today. But it doesn’t work, because you can never be good enough. “I will trust in myself. I will try hard and be everything God wants me to be and earn his favor!” But it doesn’t work, because God wants you to be perfect! That sort of religion is obsolete, it’s a dead end. Deep down you know it, and God knows it too. And that’s why God says to you this morning: “I am doing a new thing!” God is creating a new way for you to get to heaven, a new way for you to be right with God, a new way for you to have the sure hope of eternal life. And that new way is Jesus Christ.
He is our highway in the desert. He is our oasis, our stream in the wasteland. Jesus is the new thing that God is doing for us. A brand new religion, not focused on you trying to earn your way to heaven. A brand new religion, where Jesus Christ does everything for you.
It’s a religion based on the undeserved love of God, and we call that grace. The people of Israel didn’t deserve the things God was doing for them: “Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.” The people of Israel weren’t praying to God. They weren’t worshiping him with their lives. They weren’t offering to God any kind of sacrifices, as the next verses describe. The only thing they were giving to God was their sins: “But you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses.” These people did not deserve to have God rescue them, to take them through the desert to the promised land. These people were paying no attention to God, sinning away and thinking that everything was OK.
And so it is with us. God gives to us this new way to heaven, all through Jesus Christ. It is a gift of grace that we don’t deserve. And then we look at our lives, and we realize that we are not much different from the people of Israel. How little we pray to God about the things going on in our lives! And we are always looking for reasons not to worship God with other Christians on Sundays. Only when we have absolutely nothing else to do, will we pray to God, and honor him and worship him as our Creator and Savior. “You have not called upon me,” God says to us, “You have not wearied yourselves for me.”
Instead, we pile onto God our sins. We worship money. We allow ourselves to be tainted by the immorality of the world. We talk about people behind their backs. We fail to love the people that God has placed into our lives. The list could go on and on and on. God says to us: “You have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses.” God is weighed down by all the mistakes, all the sins we commit in our lives.
You would think that God would punish us. But instead God tells us this morning that he is “doing a new thing.” Instead of sending us to hell, he gives us eternal life. Instead of letting Israel rot away in captivity, he leads them back to the promised land. Why is God doing this new thing? It doesn’t seem to make sense, until you see that last verse of our text: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers our sins no more.” God was going to do all these things for Israel, for HIS OWN SAKE. Because he is such a gracious God, he would forgive them, and bring them to the promised land.
Do you see that picture of forgiveness here – to “blot out your transgressions.” This past week something new happened on the East Coast – the biggest snow storm they had ever seen. They’ve had snowstorms before, but this snowstorm was a new thing – in Maryland, in Virginia – never before had so much snow fallen in a 24 hour period of time. Someone who lived was interviewed, and said that he actually liked the snow. “It covers everything up,” he said. “All the dirty streets and sidewalks, all the brown grass, all the dirty cars – they all disappear. The snow makes everything beautiful.”
Isn’t that what God does with your sin? He covers it up! All that dirt in your life, all that sin – God blots it out – it’s covered – not by snow, but by something different, by a new thing. And that new thing is the blood of Jesus Christ. When Jesus shed his blood on the cross, he was covering your sins, blotting out your transgressions. Because of Jesus, your life is beautiful in the eyes of God – your sins are forgiven.
Someday, when you stand before God on Judgment Day, you won’t have to worry that God will remind you of your sins. God won’t say to you, “Remember when you did this? Remember when you said that?” Because of Christ, God, as it says right here, “remembers our sins no more.”
To take away your guilt – that’s the new thing that God is doing for you. To take away your doubt you are going to heaven when you die. To give you confidence that every day, things are OK between you and your God – these are the new things that Christ is doing for you right now.
Do you see yourself in our Gospel lesson for this morning? You are that paralyzed man, lowered through the ceiling. And Jesus looks at you, and says, “Son (or daughter) your sins are forgiven.” That’s a new thing. You are the one to whom Jesus will say on Judgment Day: “Get up, take your mat, and go home.” On that last day, Jesus will lift you out of the grave, and you will go home, And then you will walk forever with Christ in the life to come.
This is a new thing. Yes, these teachings have been around for a long long time, but they never get old. They are new every day – never obsolete, always the cutting edge of “spiritual technology.”
The cars at the Chicago Auto Show you see today will be obsolete tomorrow. Technology never stays new – it always gets old. But when you hear God say, “Your sins are forgiven” – when you realize that Christ will someday raise you from the dead – when you believe that all this is a gift from God that you don’t have to earn – that is a new thing that will never get old. Amen.
