St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Epiphany 7 – February 20^th and 23^rd, 2003

Isaiah 43:18-25

¹⁸ "Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ 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.
²⁰ 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,
²¹ the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.

²² "Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob,
you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.
²³ You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings,
nor honored me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with grain offerings
nor wearied you with demands for incense.
²⁴ You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,
or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your sins
and wearied me with your offenses.
²⁵ "I, even I, am he who blots out
your transgressions, for my own sake,
and remembers your sins no more.

Dear People of God whose lives have been made free by God’s grace,

There is a unique and very special WELS School in South Milwaukee, WI. It is called Calvary Academy. It is a school for families who want or maybe need to send their children to whose lives are going down the wrong path. In most cases it is a school that is used as a last resort by the parents. In many of the cases the parents don’t know what to do anymore and they are hoping that this option will work. The children don’t always understand why their parents would send them to this boarding school with its many strict guidelines and direct supervision. But I want you to think for a minute why the parents would use this drastic type of action in their children’s lives? How and Why could they do such a thing?

It is because the parents love their children so much that they will do anything to try and lead them to see that they need help and that this "tough love" approach may and in most cases changes their lives completely. It is really heartwarming to read the thoughts of these children when they are graduating. It is nice to see that in most cases they are thanking their parents for being tough on them and for doing something that didn’t really seem all to fun at the time.

As we look at these words from Isaiah we can see that God is our heavenly parent and there are times where God has to do some tough things to change our hearts and our lives so that we will spend eternity with our Father in heaven. Today we want to see how the Lord has promised to bring some new things into our lives. We want to see that God loves us so much that he will do whatever it takes to make sure we spend eternity with him. These words before us from Isaiah will lead us to see the certainty of the forgiveness of sins and salvation because of the power and grace of God. We will use the theme:.

Theme: The Lord Promises His People A New Thing

1. Something greater than he has done before
2. Something totally undeserved
3. Something which only his grace can accomplish

The prophet Isaiah is the one that we are going to use this morning to show the love and mercy of our God. What can you remember about the prophet Isaiah’s ministry? If you are remembering a man who had a pretty tough message to preach, you are in the ballpark. If you remember Isaiah ‘s main message to the sinful tribes of Israel is that they need to repent of their sins or they will be taken off into captivity first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonian then you are getting very close. God wanted the people of Israel and us to see God’s grace in choosing Israel to be his people and delivering them from the Babylonian captivity. The people of Israel did not choose the LORD. He chose them. They did not deserve his favor. It was a free gift of his grace. They were helpless to deliver themselves. But God was going to deliver them by his almighty power in a way more miraculous than the deliverance from the Egyptian bondage.

Isaiah writes in the first verse, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." In the previous chapters 40-42 Isaiah speaks of the glory of the LORD, which would be revealed in the delivering of his people from captivity. That deliverance is guaranteed by his supremacy over all creation (ch. 40). His glory would be revealed when he would raise up Cyrus to free his people from Babylon and restore them to Judah, and Jerusalem as he promised beforehand (ch. 41). But the glory of the Lord would shine even more brightly when he would send his great Servant to bring eternal deliverance to both Jews and Gentiles (ch. 42). Chapter 43 declares that Israel’s deliverance would be by God’s pure grace alone. Isaiah proclaims the words of the LORD directly:

In verses 16 and 17 Isaiah had reminded God’s people of how the LORD had saved them from the Egyptian bondage. He had humbled mighty Egypt with a series often devastating plagues. He had made a dry roadbed for his people through the Red Sea and had caused the walls of water to fall back on proud Pharaoh and his pursuing army. The deliverance from Egypt was remembered and celebrated every year in the Passover festival. In delivering his people the LORD God had done the seemingly impossible. No faithful Jew could ever forget what God had accomplished at the time of the Exodus.

Yet Isaiah was telling the people of Israel to "forget" that great event. What does the prophet wish to say with these words? He wasn’t saying, of course, that they should do away with the celebration of the Passover. He wasn’t saying that they should stop telling their children about God’s mighty power. Rather he was saying that the deliverance God was promising would make the deliverance from Egypt fade by comparison!

Those words must have stirred the hearts of the faithful in Judah. The Exodus from Egypt and the subsequent events at Mt. Sinai marked the beginning of Israel as a nation and people. Moses, their leader at the time of the Exodus was regarded as the greatest prophet God had sent them and was revered as their greatest national leader. It was difficult for them to imagine that God was going to accomplish something so great that they would stop looking at the Exodus as the greatest event in their history. Yet that is exactly what God was telling them through his Prophet Isaiah!

As we look at our lives, we might marvel at the great things that God has brought into our physical lives. We can see our money and we can see all our material blessings. We can see a very nice Church and School. We can see our nice families and so on, but like Isaiah said, we need to focus on what is important. Whatever God does to help us physically pales in comparisons to what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary to assure us of our home in heaven.

As we think about the words that Isaiah preached to Israel, we soon realize that they didn’t listen and God used the hostile nation of Babylon as his "tough love" as he sought to lead the people of Israel to see that they needed to change. Imagine the vivid reminders they had of God’s wrath for their evil ways as they spent 50 years in a foreign country away from the physical home and the heart of their spiritual lives at the temple in Jerusalem. But God tells them that they will not remain in Babylon forever. He will lead them through the wilderness that separated Babylon and Israel. He would give them water to drink and sustain them on their journey home, "See, l 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. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and at reams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen."

As we look at our lives we realize that God is speaking to us through is Holy Word just as he used Isaiah to speak to the people of Israel. What is God telling us in his Word? He is telling us that we need to repent for we are sinful. He is telling us that we will be taken captive by Sin, Death and the Devil if we continue in our ways. He is telling us over and over that, "the wages of sin is death." How many times has he announced that our sinfulness has earned us the eternal wrath of our Heavenly Father? Sometimes he uses the things of this world to be his "tough love" to open our hearts to see that we are straying from him, and sometimes it hurts us tremendously, but God’s one purpose is to keep us focused on him.

As we look at the words from Isaiah we realize that the people of Israel didn’t always listen to God, "You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored me with your sacrifices… You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me, or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices. Rut you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your offenses." But before we jump up and criticize the people of Israel for their shallow lives for God, we would do well to look into our own hearts. Have we been lax in our desires to dig further into God’s Word? Have we fallen short in our desires to be in God’s house as often as we know we should? Have we tried to find the easiest way to practice our Christian faith so that it isn’t too much of a burden to my life? Have we neglected God’s gifts of Baptism and The Lord’s Supper or even worse forgot how powerful they really are to our faith? All of a sudden we realize that Isaiah might as well have been talking to us.

All of these things remind us that we never will be able to contribute one thing towards our salvation. Israel was called to be God’s chosen people. They had not done anything to gain God’s favor. God chose them as he called them by the powerful Gospel. They certainly did not choose God. It is by God’s grace alone that we were chosen. There was nothing in the people of Israel to make them worthy or deserving to be called God’s people. They had done nothing to gain God’s favor, but had only burdened him with their sin. They had murmured and complained in Egypt. They had murmured and complained in the wilderness. Even after the events at Sinai they had continued to rebel against the LORD and his chosen leaders. When he delivered the promised land into their hands, they had repaid him by turning to the false gods of the nations around them. The people of Israel deserved God’s eternal punishment, but he was forgiving their sin instead. Just as he has forgiven our sins. Sounds much like us at times, doesn’t it.

That is why the last verse of these words from Isaiah is so important and so perfect, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers yours sins no more." This verse is the focal point of the whole text. God’s grace is displayed in all its wonder and comfort. The LORD says that it’s for his own sake that he forgives the sins and transgressions of his people. God’s love caused him to provide a way of deliverance not only for Israel’s physical captivity, but more importantly for the sins this whole world of sinners. The LORD was blotting out our transgressions . He was forgetting our sins. That doesn’t mean that he was treating our sin as inconsequential or trivial. For Israel’s sins had been many and so have ours. Their guilt had been great, and our guilt has been great. Their sin demanded punishment, punishment which the LORD’S suffering Servant, Jesus Christ, would bear and so do all our sins. God would punish his own Son for Israel’s sins and for the sins of the world. God’s Son offered the perfect obedience that we could not. He took our sins upon himself and died in our place. His righteousness now covers us so that God no longer sees our sins. His blood purifies us from every stain. He has taken all our sin away. God remembers our sins no more.

This is almost impossible to comprehend. If we were to die at this very moment and we were standing before our Heavenly Judge, what would he see? He would not see our long list of sins as they go on and on and on. He would not see our long list of acts of disobedience and disregard for God and his Holy Word. He would only see the perfect life and innocent blood of his one and only Son. He would see perfection, which Jesus won for us on the cross of Calvary. He would say that we have a home in heaven for Jesus’ sake.

A small remnant of people did return from Babylon after they were allowed to leave by King Cyrus. It is only by God’s grace and mercy that he didn’t destroy them for all their sin and rebellion against him and his messengers. As we gather this morning and every day, we can only marvel at the grace of God that he didn’t destroy us for our lives of sins, but that he has freed us and led us back to our eternal Israel of Jesus and his saving death on the cross of Calvary. May God fill our hearts to see this grace and to live lives of joy and thanks for all that God has done to set us free. Amen.