Isaiah 43:18-21
Romans 4:16-25
The Scripture passage we just read from the book of Isaiah chapter 43:18-21 has a very unique historical and theological background. The Prophet Isaiah prophesized those words while the people of God, the Kingdom of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, had been under the Babylonian Exile around 586 B.C. And because of the Exile, the people of God lost their homes, their land, their families, their Temple, their freedom, and their dignity. In fact, they lost any and every hope for a good future.
In the midst of all of that, in the midst of such chaos we might say, while feeling they are nothing, God comes through His Prophet Isaiah with a message of hope to the exiled people… a promise that God is doing a new thing! God is turning things upside down. God is surprising them with a promise that he is making a new thing! I pray that you will be surprised by God’s message to you this morning! Our God is the God of surprises! He surprises us al the time! Let God surprise you this morning! A message of hope to the captives not in Babylon, but her and now; to the exiled in our homeland to the captives in the 21st century!
Today is Pentecost Sunday! Over two thousand years ago, the Risen Lord Jesus Christ surprised his people – the Church – filling them with the Holy Spirit and empowering them to witness to the Jews and gentiles. Over two thousand years ago, the Risen Lord poured out his spirit on all his people; sons and daughters of the Most High prophesied; young men saw visions; old men dreamed dreams. Even the servants, both men and women, he poured out his spirit on them and they prophesied.
Let me highlight three things from the Isaiah passage, three foundations, three principles we might say, in order to see THE NEW happening in our midst and our lives. Three things to see a genuine renewal, a real transformation taking place in our lives and congregation.
First: Forget the Former Things… Do Not Dwell in the Past
In verse 18, the word of God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” Forgetting the past is not an easy thing. How can we forget the past? The past has formed our experiences, our values, and our characters. How do the people of God forget the past? Has not God Himself kept reminding them to remember the past: to remember His covenant, to remember the Exodus from Egypt, to remember and keep the Sabbath, to remember the laws and commandments He has given them?
The point here is that: God is bigger and greater than our past. God is bigger than our former experiences! God is bigger and greater than the ways He has done things in the past. God is beyond our comprehension. We cannot limit God! We cannot put the Almighty God in the box of the past. We cannot imprison God in the limitations of the past! The ways God has done things in the past are not the only ways God can or might do things in the present and in the future. I like Mary’s example in Luke 1 when the angel Gabriel comes to her saying, “You will give birth to a son and the son will be the Son of the Most High; He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” Then Mary asked the angel, “How this will be?” In verse 38, Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant.” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
Second: Our God is the God of the New Things
Our God is the God of surprises! He is the God of the new things! In Isaiah 43:19, the Bible says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” In many places in the Bible, God is being pictured as the God of the new things: He is the God of the New Covenant, the God of the new mercies, the God of the New Wine, the god of the New Song, the God of the New Creation, the God of the New Spirit, and the God of the New Heavens and New Earth. Certainly, our God is the God of the new things! Verse 19 begins with the Hebrew word that means “Behold, listen up, pay attention, slow down.” There is always fear of the new! New means something different that needs adjustment and we, as human beings, resist the change. We do not want to fail.
Third: God Brings Newness Through His Chosen
In the Exile, the people of God were looking for something new! And God indeed was about to make a new thing. God was planning a NEW WAY to get them back to their home land from the captivity. God was working to restore them back. God was planning to bring wholeness to the broken, freedom for the prisoners, and to release the oppressed. The most amazing thing was the way to such restoration and freedom! It was a totally different way than the Exodus from Egypt. God is going to save them from captivity and slavery through a different way! Moses, the leader of the Exodus, was not longer there, but God was preparing another leader, unexpected leader, a new leader. A leader who even was NOT from the people of God, and yet was God’s chosen, Cyrus the Great… the Persian King.
In 538 B.C., God used Cyrus the Great to allow the Israelites to go back to their home land and also allow them to rebuild their Temple. We read about that exodus in details in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Prophet Isaiah in 45:1 calls Cyrus “God’s anointed”… “This is what the LORD says to his armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut.” God does miracles through His Chosen… His anointed ones. Believe me: God can make a difference in the whole world through the dedicated mission of the Church. He changes the world. He transforms societies.
The closing verses of our text from Isaiah 43 talk about the result of believing in a God who does new things… “The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not, as though they were.” Romans 4:17. In verses 20 and 21 we read, “The wild animals honor me, 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.” Let us hope and believe the new things God is able to make in our midst as a Church and our lives as individuals. Do you pray today to be an agent to the new?
Here is a prayer that I came across this past week “May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, in your neighborhood, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done, but in Jesus Christ you’ll have all the strength necessary. And may God bless you that you remember we are all called to continue God’s redemptive work of love and healing in God’s place, in and through God’s Name, in God’s Spirit, continually creating and breathing new life and grace into everything and everyone we touch. Amen.” In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen!