Rejoice in the New Creation to Come Isaiah 65:17-25 w Steven Sage December 13, 2015 w 3 rd Week of Advent 2015 w Faith Church Introduction On this third Sunday of Advent, we focus on the theme of Joy. Joy is something we re all searching for. In fact, the theme of our family Christmas carnival tonight is Searching for Joy. It s telling that joy is something we say we need to search for. That implies it s not always found. Too often it s elusive. All kinds of things are obstacles to experiencing joy in life. In a contentious election cycle, we re nervous about political candidates. When we have children, we re rightfully overjoyed. We have all kinds of hopes and dreams for them. I remember all the ideals Carissa and I talked about when we were planning our family: things like how family devotions would go and the kind of encouraging, honoring environment we would foster in our home. But God has a way of popping our bubbles of self- righteous idealism, doesn t he? This meme gets it right, doesn t it? That s not a bad thing perhaps it s a necessary part of our own spiritual growth, because it shows us our ongoing need for Jesus. But it can be discouraging. Moms, ever feel like you start out the day like Mary Poppins, only to end it as Cruella Deville? We re searching for joy in the chaotic mess that is often family. Many of us are concerned about our kids: heartaches and disappointments and wishing better for them. There is a group that meets here on Wednesday night to pray for their adult children who are not walking with Christ. When you ve invested years and years of your life in your kids to try to lay a foundation of faith and good choices, it s disheartening when they seem to be walking away from or contrary to all of that. Of course, we don t yet know the full story of their lives, and God constantly uses the dark times in our lives to eventually write joy and health into our stories, but it s hard for a parent to experience joy in dark valleys. Or think about work. Rather than always being a source of fulfillment and satisfaction, work can be a drudgery. Sometimes it feels like a necessary evil: just a way to pay the bills. With rising CEO salaries, it s easy to think that someone else is benefiting from the sweat of our labor. Or with corporate downsizing, more and more is expected from fewer and fewer resources. 1
And although most of us in this room have never experienced anything like this, hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been displaced from multiple countries around the world experience uncertainty and lack security and struggle in desperate need. It has been all- too- common an experience in the history of the world. We all struggle in different ways with life in this fallen world. All of us are searching for joy. Our passage today is aware of all of these struggles. But rather than encouraging us to simply put our heads in the sand and think positive thoughts, it points forward to a day when none of these things will be our experience anymore. This passage offers the world hope. And on the basis of that hope, it calls us to rejoice. Now. Even as we continue life in this fallen world because of the future that awaits us. It begins: 17 For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. Isaiah was writing to people who would be exiles people who would experience grief and disappointment, who would be displaced, and see the futility of all their work, unable to enjoy anything they had labored so hard to build. But one day all of that would change. God is promising here to remake the world. The language alludes back to Genesis 1:1, when God initially created the heavens and earth out of nothing by the power of his word. Before sin entered the world and corrupted everything, all of it was good. After mankind was created, it was all very good. But then everything in the creation was cursed because of Adam s and Eve s rebellion. But God s ultimate plan, which this passage speaks of, is a re- creation that renews and restores and even improves and advances forward everything from what it was like in the beginning. How does this passage get fulfilled? When does it get fulfilled? The fulfillment of prophecy has often been described as looking at a mountain range. The vantage point of the OT prophet was like looking at the mountain range head- on, from ground level. All you can see is the peak in front of you. You can t see all the peaks behind it. The New Testament shows us that what the prophet saw as a single event is usually not a single mountain, but a series of mountains. The prophecy may have an initial fulfillment, but this is often only a partial fulfillment. More is still come, just like there are more mountains to cross than the initial one you see. The language we use for this is already and not yet. The restoration from exile that Isaiah 65 points to began when God brought Israel out of Babylon. But rather than fulfilling this passage, that was more like getting into the foothills before the real mountain range of fulfillment actually begins. 2
The first true mountain of fulfillment we come to was when God himself left his glory in heaven and was born as a humble baby to a poor peasant girl. That s why we read that on the night that Jesus was born angels appeared to shepherds and said: 10 Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11) Jesus earthly ministry inaugurated the new heavens and new earth. When he healed the sick and cured diseases and forgave sins, he was undoing the effects of the Fall in the world. Through faith in him, we are new creations, seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We can rejoice always, and give thanks in all circumstances, because we have already tasted the salvation to come. But it s only the first peak. The prophecies continue to find fulfillment every time a person places their faith in Christ and becomes a new creation every time God causes us to grow in our faith to be more like Christ every time the Spirit produces the fruit of joy in our lives. These are like other mountain passes and peaks in the range. But there is one final significant mountain behind them all. And that is Jesus second coming when everything described in these prophecies and all of God s promises will be fully and completely and finally fulfilled in all their glory. God will fully transform all things, renewing them so that there will be no cause for pain or mourning or anything else that we dread so much. When Isaiah 65:17 says that the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, it s not referring to forgetting about all the good things in life. It s indicating that the glory that awaits us will so overshadow all the troubles and sorrows of this life that it will be as if we never experienced them. All the ways in which sin has defaced this world will be wiped away so that their painful effects don t even come to mind. Advent is a season that reminds us of this inherent tension. We are encouraged to put ourselves in the shoes of Israel in the Old Testament that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears. Our reality, as the New Testament people of God, is that the Son of God has appeared. But God, in his patience and kindness, delayed bringing the final state to make room for grace so that sinners could come to him by faith and be forgiven and reconciled. But one day Jesus will come again. But because he has begun the fulfillment now, and sealed his promise of more to come by raising Jesus from the dead and giving us the Holy Spirit as a down- payment on the rest, we have every reason to be glad and rejoice forever. We can celebrate, now, the salvation that has begun and is yet to come. I want to spend the rest of our time reflecting on five reasons this passage gives us for why we can rejoice in God s new creation, even now. The first is because 3
1. We will be totally happy (vv 18-19). The two back- to- back words for joy in verse 18 be glad and rejoice forever serves to emphasize a guarantee of total joy. It s like Isaiah is underlining and bolding these words to stress every possible joyful feeling. Not only are we to be totally happy in the new creation that God makes, but God himself is overjoyed with it and us in it. Verse 19 describes how God will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in his people. This is one of the loveliest thoughts in the whole book of Isaiah. After chapters and chapters of warnings of judgment to come due to Israel s unfaithfulness to God, this verse shows God taking delight in his people. His people had so often been a source of grief even disgust and anger to God, but now they will bring him nothing but joy. Parents, think of the joy you will have in the delight of your kids in a few weeks when they open presents on Christmas. Despite how you may have been frustrated or even angry with them in the days leading up to Christmas (for whatever reasons), when things are right, you rejoice and are glad in the delight they show in your gifts to them and enjoyment you have of one another. Think of the time you have been happiest in your kids and their well- being. That s a dim reflection of the joy that God takes in you in you re a Christian. Why will God take joy in us? What accounts for the change in the book of Isaiah? Two things: From Genesis 3 onward, God has been working toward the day when his marred creation would be fully restored and his sin- sick children would be healed and forgiven and reconciled with him. He will rejoice, because his compassionate heart will no longer be grieved by the things that harm us: It says, No more shall be heard the sound of weeping and the cry of distress, because all pain, and all the things that cause that pain, will be gone forever. The text tells us to be glad and rejoice present tense to celebrate now the new creation God is making. And as we ve seen, that new creation has already begun with Jesus first Advent. But even more awaits us at his second Advent to come. So we can rejoice now, because we will be totally happy. We can also rejoice now, because 2. We will be totally secure (v 20-22). Beginning in verse 20, Isaiah gives us pictures of a blessed life in terms that were understandable to the people of his day. Realize, this is highly symbolic poetry. Earlier in 25:6-7, he predicted that death would be swallowed up forever, and we have an even fuller revelation of eternal life from the New Testament than they had in their day. His point in each of these concrete illustrations that follow is simply that those things that cause sorrow will not exist in the new heavens and earth. Look first at verse 20: 4
No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. The point is that, unlike a world where infant mortality exists and life is sometimes snuffed out before it can even begin, everyone will have a meaningful and blessed life. No one will ever weep over the untimely death of a loved one. When it says that the young man shall die a hundred years old, it s giving us a poetic understatement to emphasize the fact that if it were possible for someone to die in heaven and it s not they would be considered young if they lived a hundred years, because, of course, we ll all live forever. Similarly, even if a wicked, unredeemed person somehow escaped the Final Judgment and kept hidden from God for a 100 years which, of course, is impossible the curse would still search him out and destroy him. Together these metaphors emphasize that death will have no more power and sin will have no more presence in the new creation. We ll be secure, protected from them both. Verses 21-22 give us two positive statements with their negative counterparts: 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses used this exact language to express God s blessing if they were faithful to the covenant, but the consequence for breaking the covenant was that God would allow them to be defeated and plundered by their enemies. We see this illustrated throughout the book of Judges, and it reached its fullest expression in the exile when God completely removed them from the land and allowed other people to possess their homes. Isaiah is using the language from Deuteronomy describing God s blessing, instead of curse, in order to emphasize that it will not be possible to experience God s judgment in the new creation. We can rejoice in the new creation to come, because we will be totally secure. The main point of verses 21-23 is that 3. We will be totally fulfilled (vv 22-23). By saying that we live in the houses we build and eat the fruit from our vineyards, God is saying that we will enjoy the fruits of our labor. Instead of tears of frustration and futility, there will be smiles of fulfillment and satisfaction. That s why verse 22 ends by saying: 22 for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. Do you ever feel like you start more projects than you can finish? 5
Carissa and I bought our first house in Orlando. Like many first houses, it was a fixer- upper, and we quickly learned that demolition is a lot quicker and easier than reconstruction! The tile in the bathroom needs to come out, and this drywall needs to be fixed. And before you can turn around, we re living in a construction zone for a year! Or, even more to the point, when you re ready to sell the house, you put all kinds of work into it to get it ready to show. We ve put in new landscaping and stair railings and painted and all kinds of projects not so we could enjoy them, but so that the next owner could! In the new creation we will have the time to do something right and then the opportunity to enjoy it to the full. There is no darker cloud over a parent s life than to see tragedy come to your children. That will never be the case in the new creation. Everyone there will be blessed by the Lord. Again, Advent reminds us that those who have faith in Christ experience this already but not yet. We know that nothing is vain in God. We may still weep over failed hopes or lost children, but we know our future, and we know that God himself has entered our pain by sending his Son to be born as one of us. Psalm 56:8 says that God has: You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. (Psalm 56:8) When you re so stressed at night that you toss and turn and can t get a good night s sleep, God knows. He cares. He collects every tear that falls down your cheeks and put it in a jar to treasure and remember. And Romans 8:28 reminds us that he uses even our sufferings for our good. For a Christian, your pain is never meaningless; it s never merely tragic. God promises that he is using it to accomplish a good purpose. That is true now. And when the new creation has fully come, he will wipe every tear from our eyes, and we will never cry tears of sadness again. The 4 th reason we can rejoice now in the new creation is that 4. We will be one with God (v 24). 24 Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. In the new creation we will have perfect communication with God. In this life a hundred things interrupt or confuse our prayer. Does your mind ever wander when you re trying to pray? Do you ever wonder what it is you should be praying for in the first place? Perhaps in hindsight it was clear that you asked for things that were not according to his will, perhaps they were short- sighted or selfish or they simply didn t foresee what God was really trying to accomplish in your life. 6
Sometimes our sin gets in the way. We are either reluctant to go to God, because we re unwilling to turn from a sin in our lives, or perhaps God doesn t answer, because he doesn t want to reinforce our rebellion. Who knows why in every case, but our prayers are often hindered and there is some distance in our experience of God. When God s kingdom comes in all its fullness all of that will be gone forever. We will not even begin to make our request to God, and he will have already begun to answer. There will be such a unity such an identification between us and God that while we are still speaking, what we are saying immediately leads him to action. 5. We will experience shalom (v 25). Look at this glorious picture of peace and harmony in verse 25: 25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD. This is a picture of Eden restored. Of shalom a universal flourishing and harmony and peace. The wolf and lion and snake represent all that is dangerous about life in this world. They represent the conflict with have with nature itself, and they re common metaphors for Israel s human enemies that seek to devour them. But in God s kingdom, all of that will be changed. The church, between Jesus first and second Advents, is to embody this harmony in our unity with one another. Jesus prayed on the night of his arrest before his crucifixion: 21 [I pray] that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one (John 17:21-22) And the Apostle Paul reminded us in Ephesians 4 to: 1 walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:1-6) In what ways can you give expression to the unity and harmony God intends for his world in the way you relate to others in the church or the rest of your life? Is there someone you need to forgive? Someone with whom you need to make peace? What will you do about it? When will you do it? The passage closes by alluding to Genesis 3:14 when God cursed the serpent for its role in tempting Adam and Eve to sin against God. During Jesus first Advent, he bound Satan the 7
strongman and began plundering his house and he struck the fatal blow to Satan through his work on the cross. At his second Advent the whole story will come full- circle. The curse from Genesis 3 will be completely overcome, and God s purposes for his original creation in Genesis 1-2 will be finally fulfilled. We will know the shalom that God created us to experience for the rest of eternity. Conclusion My favorite Christmas carol is Joy to the World. It s a great song in many respects, but the reason it s my favorite is because of the verses that says: No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. It s talking about the curse of the Fall being broken. One day all our sin will be gone. And consequently, every sorrow will be rooted out. The corruption on the creation itself will be removed. The reason: in his redemption, Jesus: comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found. That is what Isaiah is describing in chapter 65. Because the new creation that great day of salvation has already begun in Jesus first Advent, and because it will be completely fulfilled when he comes a second time, we can be glad and rejoice starting now, in this life and forevermore. Let s respond to this great gospel promise by singing Joy to the World! 8