Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2006 : February 19, 2006

Theme: Grow Weary Because Of God's Grace

Church year occasion: Epiphany 7

Are you a weary Christian? In a sense, I hope you are. Usually when we think of growing weary, it's a bad thing. But there is good kind of weariness -- the weariness you have after having accomplished something. Take shoveling snow, for instance. We finally had a chance to do a little shoveling this past week, so if you forgot how exhausting it can be, I'm sure you remember again. But I just talked to a man who loves to shovel snow. Why? Who in their right mind would love to shovel snow? Well, he's a counselor. He seldom has closure in his work -- there's always more counseling to do, often with the same clients. So he loves shoveling snow because he can look at the work he's done and realize that he's done! He gets weary and tired, but it's a joy because he sees the fruit of his labor right there -- a cleaned off driveway and sidewalk. He's happy to be weary.

A Christian can have that kind of weariness, too. A Christian finds great joy in serving God and a Christian joyfully grows weary for God because of the grace that God has showered on him.

This morning the Holy Spirit through Isaiah invites us to Grow Weary Because of God's Grace because that grace is revealed in what he has done, and also revealed in what he doesn't do.

God starts out by saying something that might make us look twice at what he's saying. "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." Usually God would tell his Old Testament people to remember everything he had done for them. In fact, one particular event in Israel's history was brought up just before this verse (Isaiah 43:16-17). See if you can figure out what important event in Israelite history it's talking about: "This is what the LORD says -- he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick." When did God make a way through a sea so that horses and chariots, even a whole enemy army was destroyed? The deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Every Jew knew about their miraculous deliverance from Egypt. It would be taught to every Jewish boy and girl, as much as Christian boys and girls today are taught that Jesus died on the cross. But now God says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." Why would he say that? The answer is in the next verse. "See, I am doing a new thing!" Now God was doing something that would make the parting of the Red Sea and ten plagues of Egypt and destroying an entire enemy army pale in comparison. What was God doing now that would make all that past power and glory pale in comparison? Look at verses 19-21.

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. 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.

This gives us a hint as to what the "new thing" is that God is going to do. Let's try to figure it out. Instead of making dry ground appear through a sea of water, God would make a way of water appear through dry ground. He pictures a desert. A dry, parched, arid land that could only hope for a few inches of rain a year -- in that place God would make streams of water flow and a way through that impassable land. God was actually giving Isaiah a glimpse of the future. He was placing him in the middle of the Babylonian Captivity after the mighty Babylonians had desolated Israel and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and taken captive any Israelite they wanted. But even then, God was with his people. Just as he had delivered them from Egypt, he would deliver them from Babylon. Jeremiah says the same thing:

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,' but they will say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers." (Jeremiah 16:14-15)

So the "new thing" God was going to do for the Israelites was another rescue from another enemy nation. From what nation from "the land of the north," as Jeremiah says, would God have to deliver his people? The Babylonians, who lived across the desert in modern-day Iraq.

But more importantly, God was starting a new page of the world's history. He was getting everything ready for the greatest deliverance the world had ever seen. What was that other "new thing," what other deliverance, was God was preparing for? Not a deliverance from earthly powers, but a deliverance from sin itself and the strangle-hold that death and Satan had on sinful human beings. The desert creatures are pictured marveling at the grace of God in delivering his people from Babylon. But mankind would marvel even more knowing that they were delivered from sin and death through the Savior that would come.

What has God done for his New Testament people? We have all the same things that Israel had. We can look at God's power and grace in deliverance from Egypt and Babylon and sustaining them throughout their troubled history. But we have even more. We can look also at our own lives and see all the abundant blessings God has showered on us in this country and this particular time in the world's history as we are reaping the benefits of being citizens of the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world. But more importantly, we can look on the "new thing" God has done for us. Through Isaiah and the rest of the prophets he promised to send the Savior, and finally he fulfilled that long-awaited promise in his Son, Jesus Christ. Through Jesus we have full and free forgiveness through his perfect life and innocent death. His resurrection proves it. We have a living Savior. Because he lives, we also will live eternally. Did we do anything to earn it? No. Never could. It is all by God's grace that we are redeemed and forgiven children of God. So God wants us to "proclaim [his] praise." That mercy that God gives us new every morning as we see our sins and rejoice that God has forgiven them completely through Christ. We would want to serve him all our days, not counting the cost, being happy to grow weary in service to our Savior God.

That should be the end of the story. A happy story with a happy ending. But it isn't. Just look at Israel. Look at how they misused and abused God's grace. "Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.... I have not...wearied you with demands for incense.... But you have...wearied me with your offenses." We know Israel's history all too well. Even though God delivered them from Egypt, they grumbled in the wilderness, they grumbled at this, they grumbled at that. Even though God delivered them from Babylon, by the time Jesus came, they weren't ready for him as the defining figure in human history whom they needed to believe in for eternal life. They were too busy trying to earn God's forgiveness by what they did or hoping that the Messiah would get the Romans off their backs. How shallow! How ungrateful! How pitiful! God demands weren't wearisome -- he was the one who called them to faith; he was the one who saved them time after time; he was the one who took it upon himself to save them. Then he simply wanted them to be faithful to him after he had shown faithfulness time and time again to them. But in spite of God's amazing grace, Israel didn't weary themselves for God. Instead they wearied God with their sins. God didn't burden them with demands, but Israel burdened God with their sins.

Look at some of Israel's sins mentioned here:

v 22a -- not called upon me
v 22b –- not wearied yourselves for me
v 23a -- not brought…offerings, nor honored with…sacrifices
v 24a -- not bought any fragrant calamus for me
v 24b -- or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices

For such rebelliousness and ingratitude, God should have just said, "Enough! I've had it! I'm finished showering my grace on you. Just try to get to find forgiveness and heaven by yourself!" But what did God do instead? Despite his people's ungrateful hearts, God said, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." God's grace. How amazing!

Look at us, the New Testament Israel. We have so many blessings we can't even begin to count them. We can think of parallels today in which we have sinned against God. We haven't prayed to him in good and bad times as we should. Instead of joyfully being weary in his service we complain that we do so much for him while others don't. We haven't brought him the best of our offerings, but often the leftovers. And yet what do we often do? Grow weary of God's grace. How sad. How tragic! We, of all people have something to live for because we have a crucified and risen Savior. We have eternal life given to us on a platter, and how often we abuse that grace. For such response to his grace, God ought to throw us straight into hell and throw away the key for eternity. What do we get for such ingratitude and taking God's grace for granted? Heaven. Eternal life. Salvation. Did we earn it? Not a chance! We find out in the last verse: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." How amazing that God still forgives our sins every day! Just like shoveling snow, God clears off the driveway of our sins, and we just throwing snow back on the cleared off spot. But God clears it off again and again and again. The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. As the Psalmist says,

He does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:10-12)

You are forgiven of your every fault. You are a new creation. Now praise God with your freedom. Don't grow weary of God's grace. Instead, grow weary because of God's grace in your life. Both for what he has done for you, and for what he doesn't do. Amen.