Let us begin by singing: O what a wonderful, wonderful day
Isaiah chapter 43, verses 14 to 21.
Thus, says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, ‘For your sake I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned into lamentation. I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King’. Thus, says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse and army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise as they are extinguished and quenched like a wick. ‘Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I’m about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, don’t you see it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people who I formed for myself so that they may declare my praise.’
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As we enter into a time of prayer let us listen to or sing along with, Good Good Father
Let us pray
Lord, help me to hear you saying, "I am your hope" over all the other voices. Lord, your word says, you are our hope, so I'm running to you with both hands stretched out and grabbing on to you. Fill me up with hope and give me a tangible reminder today that hope is an unbreakable spiritual lifeline. God, you know those things in my heart that I barely dare to hope for, today I give them to you, I trust them to you, because I know that you can do more than I could ever guess, imagine or request in wildest dreams. God, you are my hope and I trust you. Amen.
Please remember to take time to pray for your family, loved one's and friends. For our country, and the World
Please share with me in the Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
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Let go of the past
The past, your past, is history. It’s been, it’s gone, and nothing can ever buy it back. And whilst, to a great degree, it’s shaped and defined who you are today, it can’t hurt you. It doesn’t have to hurt you … unless of course, you let it. We will be looking at the Book of Isaiah, chapter 43 because that, one chapter happens to be crammed packed full of the transformation that God’s grace brings into the lives of His people. It’s amazing to me how much God’s managed to pack into just one chapter of His Word the Bible, His living Word. And if you and I can just drink that in, the amazing power of God’s grace, then we’re going to experience a transformation in our lives that words simply can’t describe. Now, some of you may be saying, “I’ve believed in God for years and ‘I’ve never experienced any transformation’.
Well, that may be you, that may ring a little true for you and if it does stick with me because we’re going to see what God has to say into your life about His grace transformation for you.
Have you ever wondered what grace is? Grace is when you receive something good but you don’t deserve, it’s the flip side of mercy. Mercy is when you are spared a punishment that you deserve. Grace is when in its place, you receive a blessing that you don’t deserve. Two sides of the one coin – mercy and grace. And one of the greatest acts of grace that God could ever pour out on anybody is a freedom from their past.
Isaiah chapter 43, is a pivotal time in the history of Israel, they were in Babylon of all places, having been captured and exiled as slaves by the Babylonians. Now for them that was an outrageous thing because they knew that they were God’s chosen people. They knew that God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt some centuries before and brought them to the Promised Land, the Land He had promised to Abraham many, many centuries before.
And yet here they were again, not living in freedom in that Promised Land but living in captivity as slaves in another land. Why? Well because they had turned their backs on God. Now God was patient with them but eventually His patience ran out and He allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem, destroy the Temple and take His own people into captivity.
The Israelites were living out the consequences of their own sin. Does that sound vaguely familiar? It does to me. It happens to all of us when we turn our backs on God and go our own way. We all end up living out those consequences and as far as the Israelites could see there was no hope for the future, they were stuck there in slavery of their own making .
But then God decides to speak through the great Prophet Isaiah. He speaks of bringing the power to change things. He speaks of breaking into their dismal reality. He speaks of the fact that He has redeemed them, that they are precious to Him, that they needn’t be afraid, that He’s going to open their eyes to the great reality, the great unseen reality which is Him.
He is bringing transformation, release for the captives, a new life, the very same thing He wants to bring into your life and mine. The very same thing that Jesus came to this earth to bring for us.
But before that transformation, before that release can happen something else needs to happen in the hearts and the minds of His people. Have a listen again to what God says through Isaiah chapter 43, verses 14 to 21.
Thus, says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, ‘For your sake I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned into lamentation. I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King’. Thus, says the Lord who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse and army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise as they are extinguished and quenched like a wick.
‘Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I’m about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, don’t you see it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people who I formed for myself so that they may declare my praise.’ (Isaiah 43: 14-21)
What is it that needs to happen? God needs to shift their focus off their circumstances onto the great and mighty redeemer that He is. And God needs to get them to forget their past and place their hope in Him for the future because if all they can focus on is their past failures and their present predicament then they won’t be ready to receive the freedom that He’s about to bring. And the very same is true for you and me.
There are some people who may be reading today who are gripped by their past. They can’t get over their failures, they can’t get over their hurts, whatever it is their past is holding them back. And the thing about the past is that it’s so powerful it seems that nothing, NOTHING, can set you free.
That’s precisely how it would have seemed to the Israelites. Seventy years in captivity, seventy years of the punishment that by now they knew they so richly deserved and no hope for the future until all of a sudden, without warning the grace of God breaks into their bleak reality and God calls on them to forget their past and replace it with a vision of a bright future – a way in the wilderness, waters and rivers in the desert to give drink and to bless His chosen people, the people whom He formed for Himself to declare His praise.
I believe that God is saying the very same thing to us today, to you and me. Forget the past, He’s wiped your slate clean through Jesus, through the death and the sacrifice of Jesus on that cross for you, the past is irrelevant when you consider the future in the light of the grace transformation that God wants to bring into your life.
Do you hear Him through His Word today? Because the moment anyone believes in Jesus the past becomes completely irrelevant. All those hang ups from the past that hang you up are wiped away. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17 says:
If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. Everything old is passed away. See, everything has become new.
How much of the past has passed away? Everything, all of it, every last little bit is gone the moment you believe in Jesus because in God’s sight and in reality, you have become a completely new creation, you have literally been born again and everything about you has become new, everything.
And God wants us to see that today. That’s why in that verse above He says, “See, everything has become new”. Do you see? Because that’s the great reality that God wants you to see today – the reality of your complete transformation. You, your life, your slate wiped clean and your future, whatever it may hold in God’s plan for you is bright because your God, the same one who sent Jesus for you, is pouring His grace out into your life today through His Word and His Spirit.
Back there in the Old Testament, Israel was punished for their sins but you and I, we have a new contract, a new arrangement with God written in the blood of Jesus who bore the punishment that you and I so richly deserve. Back then, the Israelites didn’t receive mercy but eventually they received grace.
Today you and I, if we believe in Jesus, we receive both mercy and grace, both freedom from punishment that we deserve and the unmerited, undeserved favour and blessing of God through Jesus, through Him alone and nobody else. What a grace transformation, the power of the past over you is broken, your future lies in God’s hands. What a blessing! what a grace transformation!
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Let us join together and sing, The Lord's My Shepherd
The Lord bless thee and keep thee
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee
And be gracious unto thee
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee
And give thee peace.
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