A New Beginning
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· 153 viewsVerse by verse sermon on motivating the church to move forward and not try to focus or replicate the past.
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Introduction:
We have experienced many setbacks and failures throughout our lives. Sometimes we allow these mistakes, these setbacks and failures to enslave us to the point that we never enjoy the full Christian life that God has given us to enjoy.
We have a dead-end job and we feel stuck thinking, “I went into the wrong career and now there is nothing I can do about it.”
We get married, only to find the marriage is a failure. It may end in divorce, or it may survive as a tragic, unending chain of arguments and fights.
We say something to a friend, and then are ostracized from them for the rest of our lives.
And yet, Christ said in John’s gospel:
John 10:10 “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
And Paul said in 2 Corinthians:
2Co 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
The good news is that God says, “I want to do something new in your life. I want to give you a fresh start, a new beginning.”
This news is a major element of our Christian faith – to start fresh and have a new beginning with God.
It may be customary at the beginning of a new year for us to think of it as a time of new beginnings and a time for new resolutions, but with God any time is a time for a new beginning!
Background on our passage:
Before we read our passage this morning, I want to give a little context first. Since ancient Israel figures so prominently in our Biblical story, it is easy for us to forget that it was never a great power, but a tiny nation perpetually stuck between rising great powers to its north and south.
Israel did have a brief heyday under the monarchies of King David and his son Solomon, but after that it was pretty much downhill.
The kingdom split in two and had a succession of more or less corrupt kings.
Finally, in 587 BC, after a long and horrific siege, the powerful Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem. And they did a very thorough job of extinguishing the national flame of Israel. The three foundations of Israel’s identity at the time were: 1. The monarchy, 2. The Temple, and 3. The land.
So first, the Babylonian conquerors murdered the king’s sons before his eyes, plucked his eyes out and took him captive to Babylon to live out his days. Then they burned the Temple to the ground, along with most of the rest of Jerusalem, and they took ten thousand of the most important surviving citizens in chains back to Babylon, where they stayed in exile for 70 years.
So, post-exilic Israel had all the necessary conditions for an unexpected miracle and a new beginning. Their important things were lost and gone. They had lost their land. They had no monarchy. They had no place to worship. They were in exile, far from home, far from their beloved Zion.
Psalm 137 expresses their lament for their lost life:
1 By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.
2 There we hung up our lyres on the poplar trees,
3 for our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors, for rejoicing: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How can we sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil?
That is the context in which God speaks to (and through) Isaiah in our passage. In Isaiah 43, God not only tells them what He is about to do, but He also reminds the exiles who He is and what He has done for them.
Body:
The Lord also through Isaiah not only told of the coming captivity, but also beyond it to the judgement upon Babylon for what it would do to Judah. He then adds about the new work He will do after and the praises His people will declare as a result. Let’s read the passage:
16 This is what the Lord says— who makes a way in the sea, and a path through raging water,
17 who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty one together (they lie down, they do not rise again; they are extinguished, put out like a wick)—
18 “Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old.
19 Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.
20 Wild animals— jackals and ostriches—will honor me, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.
21 The people I formed for myself will declare my praise.
This morning I want us to work through this passage and see what the Lord is wanting to say to us where we are.
16 This is what the Lord says— who makes a way in the sea, and a path through raging water,
17 who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty one together (they lie down, they do not rise again; they are extinguished, put out like a wick)—
He reminded them what He has done for them. Just as God overwhelmed the Egyptian armies that had enslaved Israel, so He would judge the Babylonians as well.
God takes us to places of dependence, then creates new beginnings and new blessings!
What has the Lord done for you already? What has He brought you through? Take time right now to thank the Lord for what He has brought you through.
18 “Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old.
It is a fascinating—and instructive—switch between Isaiah 43:16–17 and Isaiah 43:18. In Isaiah 43:16–17, Israel is told to look to the past by remembering the great things God did for them at the Red Sea. But in Isaiah 43:18, they are told, Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. This shows us that there is a sense in which we must remember the past, in terms of God’s great work on our behalf. There is also a sense in which we must forsake and forget the past, with all its discouragement and defeat, and move on to what God has for us in the future.
David Guzik, Isaiah, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2000), Is 43:18–21.
1. Our faith is often limited by what we have experienced in the past.
2. Israel was where they were because of a history of failures and disobedience.
3. Yet God says don’t look back at the past.
Sometimes remembering the past gets in the way of the future. For example, though I cherish the memories of my children’s early years, if I dwell too long upon them I forfeit the joy of knowing them in the present. Jim Collins has popularized the proverb that, “the good is the enemy of the great.” What he means in his business application is that our present enjoyment of success does not let us adapt for future success.
Theologically speaking, living in the past leaves God in the past. Isaiah brings up the past, then explodes it because he saw that the exiles had lost hope looking for a past God. Isaiah believes is that the purpose of remembering the past is to point to the future. But while we hope for deliverance in the present, we can’t hope for the same means as in the past.
Are you looking in the past for hope in what God did in the past? We need to leave the past in the past and move on to the present and future! Not only in our personal life but also in this church!
19 Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.
The desert is a lonely place where one can easily lose direction because of heat, fatigue, and disorientation. Even the most experienced desert guides have difficulty finding their way in the desert because of the terrain and the way desert conditions. But God says, "I will make a way for you in the desert and you will know the path I make for you and the path will lead you to fertile ground."
There also is the spiritual desert. A place of loneliness, misdirection, and confusion. Some people spend their lives wandering in the spiritual deserts of despair, disillusionment, and disappointment. Spiritual deserts can be encountered in our spiritual exile from God, where we feel estranged from the Lord and those who love us. We have lost our way. We are desert wanderers who have lost our focus and direction. We cannot find our way back to fertile ground.
Perhaps it is the desert of personal affliction and addiction. The alcoholic finds himself on the fallow ground of loneliness and denial where he cannot bring himself to admit that he is alcoholic. The same is true of the drug addict. He is lost in the vortex of drug abuse and finds his life spiraling out of control into the abyss of self destruction.
There are many people who have afflictions and addictions who have lost their way to God and cannot find their way back into God's presence.
The spiritual deserts are filled today with people who carry the baggage of their past and are wandering aimlessly on the hot sands of hopelessness and despair. The way out they have chosen for themselves is just a mirage. The only way out is by turning to God and away from those realities that keep them in the desert. The only way out is by taking God's hand and allowing God to lead them out. This involves admitting the problem, submitting to God, and committing to making positive personal transformation. God says, "I will make a way for you in the desert so you may find your way out of the desert."
God is also doing a new thing by making streams in the wasteland.
The wasteland is without fresh water. It is the place where dreams waste away. Hope and faith in God waste away.
The great T. S. Eliot immortalized the wasteland with his poem:
Where is there an end of it ... the soundless wailing, the silent withering of autumn flowers ... where is there an end of the drifting wreckage ... the prayer of the bone on the beach ... There is no end....
But God says, "I will make streams in the desert." The dry places will become wet places. The old places will become new places and the crooked places will become straight places. That which has been evaporated of the streams of life shall be replenished and refurbished with the fresh, rushing waters of God's power and grace.
Once God delivered Israel by making a path THROUGH the water, now water will MAKE a path in the desert.
God is not predictable! So don’t expect God to make a way the same He has done before. He can but He can also do things differently!
20 Wild animals— jackals and ostriches—will honor me, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.
The wild animals recognize and honor God for what He is doing, shouldn’t we?! Maybe we are so busy with life that we miss what God is trying to do in the now!
21 The people I formed for myself will declare my praise.
6 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.
Hallelujah!
God is always doing a new thing. We can let go of control. We can let go of the past. And we can embrace what God has in store.
Conclusion:
This morning, do you need to remember the God you serve? He brought the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea! If He can do that for them, imagine what He can and wants to do for you? For this church?!
Are you stuck in the past? Oftentimes we are so focused on what God has done in the past, we miss out on what He is wanting to do here in the present!
It doesn’t matter if you are in a desert right now spiritually because God hasn’t changed and He is wanting to may a way for you right where you are!
When have you praised the Lord for who He is? In spite of your current situation, are you still praising Him?
