Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Reading of Scripture

This is God’s Word, Amen.

Pray

II.

Introduction

A. Introduction to Theme

The Title of this Message is “New Things I Now Declare.”

It is an appropriate title as we are about to enter into a new year, filled with new things.

This title is lifted from verse 9 which says:

This is a verse that comforts us by reminding us that God holds our future, and knows what will happen before it happens.

Like you, my mind is already thinking ahead to next year, and even years beyond that.

Even this week I felt a familiar stress and burden compelling me to plan for a new year that I do not know.

I wonder — What does the future hold?

How will next year be different than this year?

This is a season for planning, yet the words of James speak louder now than ever:

James teaches us something very important: While our lives as a people of faith are affected by outside events, our lives are not governed by outside events.

Our lives are governed by the Lord’s will.

If we ought to say “If the Lord wills,” then that means God is in charge.

Whether we live or not — it is the Lord’s will.

Whether we do this or that — it is the Lord’s will.

Nothing happens to us, for good or for bad, unless it is the Lord’s will, because nothing happens outside of God’s control.

We expend a lot of energy trying to discern what the Lord’s will is in an attempt to know our future.

God does want us to know His will, but knowing God’s will does not mean that we will know the future.

Only God knows the future.

Knowing God’s will means knowing God and walking with Him into the future.

There is a difference!

We search for unknowns:

What is the Lord’s will for my life?

What is the Lord’s will for my calling?

What is the Lord’s will for my career?

What is the Lord’s will for my local church?

What is the Lord’s will for my country?

What is the Lord’s will for my future?

We treat the Lord’s will as if it is a mark on a treasure map.

The “X” marking the spot.

God’s will is not an unknown: God’s will is known as God is known.

We tend to seek after the Lord’s will more than we seek after the Lord Himself.

But we cannot know the will of the Lord without knowing the Lord of the will.

God’s will is that we know God.

B. Introduction to Text

Isaiah 42 helps us to understand this and correct our misunderstanding of knowing God’s will for the future.

If we want to know God’s will, we must know God.

Isaiah 42 is the first of four songs about Jesus in the Old Testament.

These songs are called “Servant Songs” because they focus upon a people and person known as God’s Servant.

Israel as a people were God’s servant, but Israel failed to serve God faithfully.

So God gave this title to a better servant.

A True Servant who is the Messiah, the Savior, Jesus Christ.

With Jesus’ Advent we celebrate Hope, Peace, Joy and Love — all the things Jesus came into the world to give us.

But we also celebrate His name: “Immanuel”, which means, God with us.

As Jesus comes into the world, He brings to us not only God’s will, but also the means of knowing God’s will, because in Jesus we can know God and have access to Him in prayer, and walk with Him in the Spirit, and have a relationship with Him as a father has with a son.

God does not merely tell what will happen in future.

God directs the future.

God tells the future what to do!

And God is so unlike other voices that speak to future events.

What God says, actually happens.

We can have a confidence in God and a comfort in God by looking back at all the things God did promise in the past, that did come to pass as He said.

And based on this, we can find peace for the future, not in God’s ability to predict future events, but in God’s providence to prepare us for them and to oversee them as they happen and unfold.

In other words: We all want answers for tomorrow, and for next year, and for five years from now!

But God’s Word tells us that we have all the answers that we need for the future in God Himself, in Jesus Christ.

And we can be reminded of this by looking God’s revelation of Himself in the past.

We are taught that we should learn history, because if we don’t it will repeat itself.

As Christians we do that, but we also do something better:

We look at history with eyes of faith to see that in the past God was there.

In this present, God is here.

And in the future, God will be there.

God does not read history and act upon what He reads.

God speaks history, and all space and time act upon what God says!

God is the Creator of all things and the Sustainer of all things, and He will continue to sustain all things in this new year.

So in light of Christ’s Advent, as we look forward to what is to come, as we question the uncertainties and unknowns of something new — a new year — let us look forward not to events and circumstances we cannot control.

Instead, let us look forward with Jesus, setting aside things we do not know, and trusting in the one thing we know for certain — that Jesus will be present with us in this new year.

And God has a plan for us, in Him!

As James 4:7-8 invites us —

III.

Exposition

Isaiah 42 is part of a section of Isaiah where God is speaking words of comfort to His people.

In the introductory verse of the chapter, God comforts His people by telling them that their future is seen by looking at God’s servant.

This message that was given to Israel rings true for us as well.

Our future is seen by looking at God’s servant — Jesus.

And we can take comfort in doing so!

Now this may not satisfy you.

It may sound too easy.

Will Jesus tell me when the pandemic will end?

Will Jesus tell me who will win elections?

Will Jesus tell me when I can see my grandchildren again?

If answers to these questions determine our future, we are asking the wrong questions!

If answers to these questions are important for our future, we will turn on all kinds of different voices that can only theorize and postulate and speculate and guess.

We will buy in to delusions.

And we won’t have comfort or peace for the future.

But we may, at the invitation of the Living God, do as Isaiah 42:1 bids us and behold the servant of the Lord, and in beholding Him we may behold our future.

But why you may wonder, is God to be believed?

How is the voice of God and the instruction of God better than all these other voices and instructions and sources?

The news-anchors, the scientists, the scholars that we elevate and give ear to more than we do the voice of God?

Isaiah 42:5-9 answers that question by telling us how unique God is from all other gods.

Let’s look at Isaiah 42:5-9 together, and as God prepares His people for new things, let us learn 5 principles to help us prepare for a new year:

Isaiah 42:5 ESV

Thus says God, the LORD...

The Hebrew language says it this way: “Thus says the God.”

Not “a god” but “the God.”

And then the name of the God is given in all capital letters — the LORD… representing the name “Yahweh.”

There is no mistaking who He is.