"i Am Doing A New Thing"

“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.