Sermon for New Year’s Eve, 2021
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Amen.
Isaiah 63:7-18 7I will tell about the Lord’s mercies, about the praises of the Lord, about all that the Lord has done for us, about his great goodness to the house of Israel, which he performed for them according to his abundant compassion, and according to his great mercy. 8He said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely,” so he became their Savior. 9In all their anguish he felt anguish, and the Angel of his Presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he himself redeemed them, and he took them up and carried them all the days of old. 10But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit, so he turned against them and became an enemy. He himself fought against them. 11Yet he remembered the days of old, the days of Moses and his people. Where is the one who brought them up from the sea, with the shepherds of his flock? Where is the one who set his Holy Spirit in their midst, 12who sent his majestic arm to the right hand of Moses, who divided waters before them to make an everlasting name for himself, 13who let them walk through the depths? Like a horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble. 14Like cattle that descend into a valley, they were given rest by the Lord’s Spirit. This is how you led your people to make a majestic name for yourself. 15Gaze down from the heavens and see, from your holy and beautiful dwelling place. Where are your zeal and your might? The feelings of your heart and your compassion are withheld from me. 16But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, though Israel does not acknowledge us. You, the Lord, are our Father. Our Redeemer from everlasting is your name. 17Why do you cause us to wander from your ways, Lord? Why do you harden our heart so that we do not fear you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your heritage. 18For a short time your holy people possessed the land. Now our adversaries have trampled your sanctuary. (EHV)
The Father loves and leads His children.
Dear fellow redeemed,
As we reach the end of a year, it is common for most people to look in two directions: looking back to evaluate the past year and looking to the future with positive expectations or dread. Our sermon text does much the same. The speaker looks to the past recounting God’s works among His people, and he looks to the future praying for the Lord’s return to help. The lesson for us to remember is that The Father loves and leads His children.
There is some debate among scholars whether Isaiah is the speaker here or if he is writing the prayer of another. Regardless, the speaker recounts in glowing terms how the Lord had intervened on behalf of Israel in the past. The people of Israel knew their history. They knew God had rescued them out of their bondage in Egypt. The Lord had been exceedingly generous in His care for His chosen people. When the Israelites were stuck in slavery in Egypt, they had no idea how they might escape their plight. Yet, God intervened through Moses, then through the plagues, and ultimately, the Angel of death convinced Pharoah to let God’s people go.
After all the miracles those freed slaves had witnessed, one would expect they would gladly follow the God who had saved them. The speaker tells of how God trusted (we might say expected) Israel to follow Him with their whole hearts. However, notice what happened: soon after that mass of newly freed people experienced a little hardship or stress in the wilderness, they turned away from the Lord. Time and again the Israelites grieved God with their rebellions.
It really is an example of the history of the human race. From the beginning, God had every right to expect us to follow Him without question. Still, our perverse, sinful nature always seems to get in our way. We start to wander like sheep grazing across the wilderness without a thought to listen for the Shepherd’s voice. Perhaps, it is even worse than that.
The speaker admits: “Like cattle that descend into a valley, they were given rest by the Lord’s Spirit. This is how you led your people to make a majestic name for yourself.” For the glory of His name, God had blessed Israel with everything they could ever need. He protected them from harm and danger, fed and clothed them, and promised them a bright future. Still, they rewarded God with rebellion and whenever any difficulty came their way, they accused God of lacking care.
The truth is, though, God never abandoned His people. Rather, they often abandoned Him. In doing so, however, those people were in fact fighting against the God who loved them. In their rebellion, they even had the audacity to accuse God of fighting against them, as the speaker does here. He questions why God isn’t responding with His mercy and kindness as He did to their ancestors in the past. It is a warning for us that if we should abandon the Lord, we should not be surprised to miss out on His blessing.
We need to remember that in all things, The Father loves and leads His children. As we evaluate the past year, remember that through good times and struggles, God is working for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28) And, “The Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and he corrects every son he accepts.” (Hebrews 12:6) As we look to the future, it is good and right for us to hold to the spirit intended as the hymn writer, H.F. Lyte wrote,
Thou on my head in early youth didst smile, And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee. On to the close, O Lord, abide with me!
In our text, the speaker seems to complain that God is still ignoring His people. At the same time, we get a hint of repentance, for he acknowledges that there is no other Savior. He says, “You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, though Israel does not acknowledge us. You, the Lord, are our Father. Our Redeemer from everlasting is your name.” That is what we need to remember. No matter what the future holds for us here on earth, we have a sure and certain hope that God has reconciled us with Himself, and He is actively working to lead us home to heaven. In good times and trouble, we simply must remember that God does not abandon His people ever. When we feel like we are being ignored, the greater chance is that we have begun to wander away from Him.
Now, it is certain that there will always be trouble in this world. There may be very good times too. But our world is always a mixed bag, and the curse of sin means that this world will always have trouble, danger, even death. Enemies of God, and the devil who leads them, will also prowl around seeking to destroy believers in the One who gave His life on a cross to redeem us all. They will offer temptations and accusations continually. Yet, God is with us, and He will help us as long as we stay with Him by faith. You see, The Father loves and leads His children.
Toward the end of our text, the speaker is again accusing God of causing His people to wander. He accuses God of hardening their hearts against Him. In reality, it is by continually turning against God that hearts start to harden against the Lord. Those who wander tend to keep wandering as their senseless thinking leads to God giving them over to degradation. (Romans 1:21-24)
Certainly, we pray for the Lord’s intervention, but rather than accuse God of hardening hearts against Him, far better that we trust Him with our heart, soul, and mind as He has commanded, no matter what wilderness condition He might lead us through, because the God who created you and knit you together in your mother’s womb, never takes His eyes off you. Several times the Bible reminds us that God has promised, “I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) God knows your coming and going. There is no place we are hidden from His loving gaze. No place to hide from His wrath, either, except in the arms of Jesus.
How do we know God loves and cares for us? We look to the manger where God’s own dear Son entered the world to live for us and die for our sins. We look ultimately to the cross, where the Son of God and Man shed His innocent blood to pay for the sins of the world. We look to the font where God promises us His love through adoption as the Spirit joins us together with Jesus’ death and resurrection to bring us into eternal life. We come to the Lord’s Table where our Redeemer shares with us His very body and blood that bought us the forgiveness of all our sins.
Dear friends, who knows what the new year will bring. Prognosticators have been making their predictions for as long as anyone can remember, and they are almost always wrong. Some forecast incredible wealth and success, and others foretell horrible troubles and disasters. Yet, seldom do those human forecasts hold any merit.
On the contrary, look to the promises of God, for every forecast He ever made has come true in the person of Jesus. Every prophecy was fulfilled by God’s Son. Every law was also kept on your behalf, and every one of your sins was paid for so that God could declare you innocent, so that He could welcome you into His assembly of believers who will be called into eternal joy at the appropriate time in God’s plan. Looking forward to the New Year, hold on to this: The Father loves and leads His children. Trusting that truth, you will never go wrong. Amen.
Now may the God of hope fill you with complete joy and peace as you continue to believe, so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.