Passage: Isaiah 43.18-25

Speaker: Rev. Jason Yuh

Title: That's so 2010s

The 2020 vision for Light Presbyterian Church is based on Isaiah 43.18-21. So this week's sermon will be based on this passage (along with verses 22-25). I will focus on 2 appropriate responses to this passage.

First, our hearts should be excited about what God can and will do in our lives. God tells the people not to dwell on the former things because he is about to do something that is beyond their imagination (43.18-20). As miraculous as God has been in the past, God still has more in store for his people. For the people of Isaiah, they were dwelling on the miracles of the Exodus where God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The people were discouraged because their present circumstances were very difficult as they were exiled by the Persians. One way of looking at this promise of a new thing being fulfilled is when God eventually liberated his people from the Persians. But a better way of looking at this promise being fulfilled is through the death, resurrection, and the return of Jesus Christ. This gives us hope that despite our difficult circumstances and our tendency to dwell on the past in an unhealthy way, God is doing a new thing through Jesus.

Second, our hearts should be humbled because this exciting thing that God has prepared is not because of how good we are, but because of how faithful and loving God is. In fact, the passage continues by highlighting how sinful the people are (vv. 22-25). Once again, we need to be reminded of the definition of sin. It's not that the people were murdering or stealing that made them sinful. It was their tendency to distort, suppress, and/or reject God's involvement and character in their lives. From this standpoint, we are equally sinful. But thankfully, God's promise to do a new thing is not based on how good we are, but simply based on his promise and love: he is doing this for his own glory, so that we can further declare his praise (vv. 21, 25).

To conclude, we will ask God to fill our hearts with hope and anticipation—that regardless of what we're going through, that we will remember God's character and involvement in our lives. We will also ask God to humble us—that we will grow in our repentant mentality and in our desire to seek his glory rather than our own comfort.