Good News for the New Year; Isa 43.18-21
(adapted from James T Draper, Jr.’s sermon by the same title, published in Preaching with Passion, Draper, ed., Broadman and Holman Publishers, Nashville, TN, 2004)
Since the New Year began, we have been seeing the Scripture tell us how to prepare ourselves for a new year. We have been encouraged to 1)get spiritual and 2)to touch others. And, 3)we should examine ourselves, keeping the good and throwing away the bad.
But, what if you are the kind who looks to the future and looks to yourself, and you really don’t see yourself making a change. You’ve tried in the past to correct bad habits and failed. You’ve attempted to get more serious about your spirituality, and came up short. Simply put, you don’t see a bright future. So, what do you do? Do you pretend that you are satisfied with your life when you really aren’t? Do you rationalize that your relationship with Jesus is all it can be? Do you feign contentment whey, truly, you hold yourself in contempt?
Folks listen, when you can’t see how change is possible, when you can’t see a brighter future, when you despair over having to settle, know this: God has good news for the New Year!
God is near to us and he is used to taking the broken and mending it. It is business as usual to take the hardened clay and remold it into something new and better. Whether you realize or not, God is at work in you and your future.
His gracious hand is working even when you are not. God is moving in your life even if your spiritual life is at a stand still. Listen friend, the good news for the New Year is that God loves you so much that his compassion for you supersedes your failed attempts. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten for you that you may have everlasting life. It wasn’t based on your performance or lack of it, but based on the love of God.
If you look back and find a grim past and you look ahead and see no change coming, then God has a word for you, God has for you good news for the New Year:
Isa 43.18-21
18 "Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.
20 The beast of the field will honor Me,
The jackals and the ostriches,
Because I give waters in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert,
To give drink to My people, My chosen.
21 This people I have formed for Myself;
They shall declare My praise.
“This people” that Isaiah was writing to were not as yet a praising people, but were a discouraged people. These were people in exile, taken captive from their homeland to Babylon. Their lives were upset and rearranged, controlled and dominated. But God says to this people, “Consider not the past, but look to the new thing that I am doing.” “You may be able to do nothing to break free into a bright future, but I can!”
You see, God told them that it would have to be Himself who would change things. They were mere captives, without power, without freedom, without control. Don’t you feel like that at times, a captive to sin, without freedom to make good choices, always without the self-control that Christ modeled for his followers?
Paul felt this way when he wrote to the Romans,
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
Paul felt as if he had no power of his own to stop the spiritual/physical war battling between always between his mind and his heart. But through the eyes of faith he called out and asked Jesus to deliver him from his wretched body of death. And with faith, he cried, “25 I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!” It is Jesus and Jesus alone that can free us from the slavery of sin and death.
It has always been God who has delivered humanity from the inertia of sin. And it has always been in the quagmire of not being able to see any human solution to the problem, that faith can make the biggest difference. So if you are in a place where you can’t find the answer, this is the place where you must have faith. This is the perfect time to hear God tell you, “Behold I will do a new thing.” “I will make a way in your wilderness…I will make waters in the dry land.” Without God doing it, and without faith, we have no hope, we will never see a bright future; but, with God at work, there is Good News for the New Year. Philippians 2:13 (NKJV) “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
Corrie Ten Boom said, “Always trust an unknown future to a known God” And that is what we have to do this morning. We have to trust in our known God, the one who knows us inside and out, the one who wants to take us through new experiences beginning now. We must trust our known God precisely because we can’t trust ourselves to make the necessary changes for our unknown future.
How can we have that trust we need this morning? I want to give you three phrases that need to be kept in mind if we are to get good news in this New Year.
1. God created you and wants you to know that He cares about what’s happening to you.
2. God is walking with you through your trouble and has a plan for you to live victoriously.
3. God is always on the move and He wants to help us keep up with Him.
1. God created you and wants you to know that He cares about what’s happening to you
Take a look at the beginning of the 43rd chapter of Isaiah:
1 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. Isaiah 43:1 (NKJV)
These are reassuring words that God is our maker, our Father, and that he takes ownership in our lives. And the reason we can trust him better today is that God is our creator and He cares.
Isaiah especially uses this rationale in our Scriptures. The verb “to create” is used 49 times in the Old Testament. 20 occurrences are found in Isaiah, chapters 40-65 alone.
Because Isaiah writes prophetically to the Jews in Exile, he speaks words of comfort based upon God’s past benefits and blessings to His people. Isaiah especially wants to show that, since Yahweh is the Creator, He is able to deliver His people from captivity.
You see, your troubles are just another opportunity for God to create solutions. Our text says, “19 Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.
God created all things and He can create a way for you when there is no way.
He calls our minds back to those times when He did just that, He created a way when there was no way. Isaiah 43:16-17 (NKJV)
16 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea And a path through the mighty waters, 17 Who brings forth the chariot and horse, The army and the power (They shall lie down together, they shall not rise; They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick):
He reminds them of the great things he did for their fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, when he rolled back the Red Sea. And he could do it again, if he pleased, for his children stuck in Babylon.
God is not impotent toward your troubles. He didn’t make you with all His creative powers and is now left short to affect the circumstances of your life. No, God is OMNIPOTENT, that is, all-powerful. Genesis 1:1-3 (NKJV)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
And notice that our all-powerful creator says, “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!” These are intimate words from God who cares about what is happening in your life. The Good News for the New Year is that God is our creator and he truly cares about what is happening to you.
Another thing to keep in mind if we are to get the Good News is…
2) God is walking with you through your trouble and has a plan for you to live victoriously
Isaiah 43:2-3 (NKJV)2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. 3 For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior…
Isaiah didn’t say in verse 2, “If you pass through the waters, if you walk through the fire; He said when you pass through the waters, when you walk through the fire. I’ve heard it said that everyone of us is close to a hardship: We’re either just coming out of one, going into one, or going through one right now.
Peter wrote, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, …" (1 Peter 4:12-13, NKJV)
And Paul wrote, "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2 Timothy 3:12, NKJV)
There are watery and fiery boundaries that surround all of us. Look to the right and the left, look in front of you and behind and you are seeing people who are quietly enduring struggles. But God is present in our pain and He has a plan for us to break through our watery and fiery ordeals. Whatever this year holds for us, if we live in the awareness of God’s presence, we will make it. We will succeed. We will be victorious. God will make a way for us.
Jeremiah 29:11 is a great promise to us. God says, “For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” But if we are going to walk with God and live victoriously in the plans that our Lord have for us, there is one thing we need to remember. WE CAN’T GET TRAPPED IN THE PAST.
God tells us in verse 16 and 17 to remember what he has done in the past for his people, but we can’t get trapped in our past.
"“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old." (Isaiah 43:18, NKJV)
He is talking to people for whom everything was in the past. Everything God had done was in the past. Everything God had promised was in the past. God had done some mighty things, but He told the people of Isaiah’s day not to reflect JUST on the past.
The point is obvious for us. We must not go through life looking in the rearview mirror! Many times we look back and try to live in a past time. We just can’t do that. It’s not productive! It’s not real! It is an illusionary world. The past is not what we think it was.
People say, “I would just love to go back to the good old days.” When was that? Was it the depression of the thirties, was it the time of worldwide war, where children in school were having air-raid drills and being taught how to duck under desks Do you want to go back to the sixties with all of the craziness that happened in that time and the assassinations that took place? How about Vietnam, or what about the nuclear war scares. How about the days of casual drug use and the fear of an AIDS epidemic? Where do you want to go back to?
And how about the “good old days” of the church? Huddled around pot-bellied stoves and singing “Just As I Am.” No one appreciated the stories of our faithful fathers more than I, but we have a tendency to immortalize the past. We have a tendency to idealize and eulogize it until it becomes an unrealistic standard that we could never obtain once again because we were never really there in the first place. I want to know if we were really all that more spiritual then than we are now, or were there just more of us then than there are now?
If we’re going to live victoriously, we can’t go through life looking in the rearview mirror. Don’t just look back, even at the good things. If we look back and remember the good things that happened to us in the past, it will keep us from the new things that God is doing now. And if we look just at the bad things that have happened to us in the past, it will create depression and despair. So God reminds us that we must not be trapped in the past.
Listen God is presently walking with us in today’s trouble and his plan is a solution for today alone. Have you really considered that God plan for you is different today than it was back then.
--Perhaps you would be expected to walk the aisle here at the close of a long-winded invitation, IF IT WERE THIRTY YEARS AGO. Perhaps today, instead of walking the aisle, you should turn and walk out ready to find that brother or sister you have a conflict with.
--Instead of giving a testimony, maybe the plan is to give away all that you have.
--Rather than telling me “good sermon, pastor, “you could tell me that you’ve been called to the mission field.
God is not stuck in an old paradigm; He is presently working in you and this world for today’s solutions. God is walking with you through your trouble and has a plan for you to live victoriously today.
That really brings us to our last piece of Good News for the New Year. It is that …
3) God is always on the move and He wants to help us keep up with Him
God says that He will do a new thing and we will be aware of it. We won’t have to read a book about it. We won’t have to abide that the rest of the world is passing us by in the Spirit while we have seen the end of our spiritual revival.
We won’t have to buy a tape and hear someone describe it. We won’t have to attend a seminar or a workshop.
We will know it firsthand. Look at verse 19: 19 Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
God is always on the move and He created us to keep up with him in this adventure. Don’t get trapped in the past. Don’t be despondent about the present. God has a future that is exciting! “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for your welfare, and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).
I’m grateful for all that was excellent in our past. Our great men and women of faith and prayer. Our outreaching focus, our missional hearts. And I am grateful for all that is well in the church today in the present, our caring ministries, our faithful core of believers. But to tell you the truth, if I am hearing God’s voice in his word, he is telling me that the what He is bringing is the best yet!
When the governor of the feast tasted the wine that Jesus turned from water into wine, he said to the host, “You have kept the best wine until now” (John 2:10).
The good news of the new year is that God has saved the best until now. The present and the past may be wonderful and significant. God may have moved in wonderful ways in our lives, but He is going to do a new thing—something real, something fresh, something that makes sense in the now, something adventurous in our lives if we will let Him do it.
And God wants to help us keep up with where He is going. Faith is not static. It’s not just information. It’s not just dull, hypothetical—or even logical—truth. It is an encounter with the God who is on the move.
When we understand that, every day is an adventure. Every day is a great day! “Thank You, God, that You’re in my life, You’re in control, and this is the day You have made. I’ll rejoice and be glad in it because You created us for newness that is springing forth even now.
Conclusion
God is near to us and he is used to taking the broken and mending it. It is business as usual to take the hardened clay and remold it into something new and better. Whether you realize or not, God is at work in you and your future.
His gracious hand is working even when you are not. God is moving in your life even if your spiritual life is at a stand still. Listen friend, the good news for the New Year is that God loves you so much that his compassion for you supersedes your failed attempts and bleak outlook. For God so loved you that he gave his only begotten for you that you may have everlasting life.
Friends, the Good News for the New Year is that Jesus Christ died for you sin. If you will surrender your life to him today, He will, indeed, set you free from this sin that ensnares every facet of your being. Make that declaration of surrender today and now. And may you, according to God’s will understand these three things:
1. God created you and wants you to know that He cares about what’s happening to you.
2. God is walking with you through your trouble and has a plan for you to live victoriously.
3. God is always on the move and He wants to help us keep up with Him.
