Isaiah 65:17-25, "Renewed Joy, Life, and Purpose"
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Christmas, whether you are religious or not, is a time to assess the year that has past, look forward to the new year coming, and be renewed. We all want to take joy in what we do. We all want to live life to the fullest. We all want to know that our labor is not in vain and that our lives have purpose. But because the world is not as it should be, sometimes those need renewal.
God is in the renewal business. Our passage today promises renewed joy, renewed life, and renewed purpose. The message of Christmas is that through Jesus, God has begun to renew us, as He will one day renew the whole world.
At the time Jesus was born, there were a growing anticipation and hope that God would send a Messiah (the Greek word is Christ). This Messiah would do all that men could not do with their money and weapons and legislation. The Messiah’s kingdom would reunite heaven and earth and usher in the kingdom of God. He would bring glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
Much of that hope came from the very prophecy we have been walking through this year in Isaiah. God gave Isaiah a prophecy of a coming Messiah who would suffer for His people to deliver them from sin and death and bring peace with God. But the Messiah would also be a righteous king and judge who would establish justice once and for all.
Today’s passage, at the end of the prophecy, promises a Messianic Age at the end of time, when earth would be reunited with heaven, and truth, justice, mercy, and peace will reign in a whole new creation of the heavens and the earth. While later books of the Bible explain these in more precise detail as two contiguous ages, Isaiah looks forward at these promises and sees them as a seamless whole. When the messianic kingdom comes, many things may look the same, but they will forever be changed.
When we put this together with the gospel reading from the beginning of the service in Luke 2, we hear the good news of great joy of Christmas - that in Jesus, God has already established peace and begun the recreation process for anyone who will trust in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is remaking the world, and He has begun with anyone who would believe in Him. Let’s look at the three promises of renewal in Isaiah 65 and see how Jesus has fulfilled them for those who trust in Him.
The first renewal God promises is joy.
Renewed Joy
Renewed Joy
Isaiah 65:17 (ESV)
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
Isaiah 65:18 (ESV)
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.
What would it be like to live in a new world without any corruption, injustice, regret, shame, guilt, futility, and not even a memory of these things to diminish your joy and gladness forever? God is remaking the world - new heaven and new earth - and a new Jerusalem, the city that unites heaven and earth.
Verse 19 tell us that the LORD God Himself will have joy in this new world. And He will share this joy with us. All the reasons for grief and distress will be removed.
Isaiah 65:19 (ESV)
I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
What would a renewed Portland look like without any grief and distress? No homelessness, no housing crisis, no addictions, no domestic violence, no racial animosity or tribal division, no hate for those who are different.
In the new Jerusalem, it says “her people will be a gladness”. Imagine a city in which you are always glad to see your neighbors. Is there a neighbor on your street you kind of avoid? There will be no employers that take advantage of employees. No employees that rob their employers of time or resources. No one will cut you off in traffic or the lunch line at school. There will be nothing to diminish your joy.
If Jesus is the Messiah, and He has come into our world, has He fulfilled this in any way?
Jesus said,
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
His commandment was to love one another, even our enemies. To pray for those that hurt us. To live in this world and in our city as if we belong to the heavenly kingdom, praying and working toward justice and righteousness being done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus promised that if we keep this commandment, we abide in His love…and this is the fullness of joy - to know I am loved by God.
Imagine being so satisfied in the love of Jesus, who was known as the friend of sinners, we can be glad to see every person we meet as one who bears God’s image, waiting to be remade. While they may cause us grief now because their renewal isn’t complete, we can still have joy now, because our joy comes from our union with Christ.
Renewed Life
Renewed Life
The next promise made in Isaiah 65:20 is renewed life, and it’s long life.
Isaiah 65:20 (ESV)
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.
When the Bible begins the story of human interaction with God, the early saints experienced long lives of hundreds of years. The wording of the promise in these verses is that in the messianic kingdom, we will be renewed to these long, fruitful lives.
With none of the injustices and corruption of our present world, the reasons for shortened lives, murders, and negligent accidents will be so diminished, you can expect a long life.
(For the person who repents and believes in the Messiah, this long life is a blessing. For the person who will not repent, and remains in their sin, this long Messianic age will be experienced as a curse.)
Do we see any way Jesus fulfilled this? We don’t see Christians living abnormally long lives. If anything, because they live in the humility and sacrificial love of Jesus, many of them live very short lives. But what we do see in the gospels is many times when Jesus met a weeping family and restored life of their dead loved one, a twelve year old daughter of Jairus, Lazarus, the son of the widow at Nain. And He teaches people to live in love. And He tells His disciples to do the same thing in His name. And ever since then, Christians have been running hospitals and schools.
The Jesus taught that the miraculous resurrections He performed and the physical healing that gets done in His name is a sign to reassure all those who hear Him that if they will repent of their sin and believe in Him, they will have eternal life. Not just life that goes on forever, but a full life in communion with the Ever-living God.
Are you experiencing the fullness of life? There are so many dealing with fear, self-protection, hopelessness; all the things that keep us from really living. When we root ourselves in the love of Jesus, when we trust Him, we can live fearless lives of generosity and kindness in His name.
There is so much good work to do. Just as Jesus called the apostles to partner with Him in His ministry of healing and spiritual deliverance, God has work for all of us to do. He wants to empower us to work for His kingdom in our own time and place. This gives us renewed purpose.
Renewed Purpose
Renewed Purpose
Isaiah 65:22 (ESV)
They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat;
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.
Isaiah 65:23 (ESV)
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.
How much of your labor in this world is in vain? You get up and make your bed. But you’re just going to have to make it again tomorrow. You cook a meal for you or your family. But we’ll just be hungry again in a few hours. You vacuum the floor every day...
But the blessed of the LORD are given a special partnership with Him that empowers their work.
Isaiah 65:24 (ESV)
Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
When we pray that God will establish our work, He has a way of guiding us into fruitful labor. Which brings us back to Jesus who said,
John 15:7 (ESV)
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
John 15:8 (ESV)
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
John 15:16 (ESV)
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Jesus promises that our faith with Him connects us with God the Father, and when we live in that union, the work He gives us is fruitful, and the fruit will last. And what is that work?
John 15:17 (ESV)
These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
Love for others creates lasting fruit. It isn’t easy. Loving others requires sacrifice and investment and time and energy and grace and forgiveness and acts of kindness. But it always bears eternal fruit. The kind of fruit that can be passed on to the following generations.
Imagine a world of people, transformed by the love of God, caring for every part of creation on this planet, taking such good care of the everything God loves, that every creature has all it needs. The image from Isaiah 65 of the result of this partnership between God and His righteous people is renewed creation.
Isaiah 65:25 (ESV)
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.
God’s people have labored and prayed in such a way that changes the very nature of nature itself. Because they have peace with God, they have sought peace with His creation.
How do we experience the love of God in this transforming way? First, we confess that we have been part of the problem, the corruption, the taking advantage, the injustice. Then we look to the Messiah, who demonstrated the love of God in this way, that He would die for our sins so we can be at peace with God. But He also rose to new life to demonstrate that we are in an age of renewal by God’s grace. The door stands open for you to renew your joy, your life, your purpose as you trust in Jesus Christ.