Isaiah 43:8-13 Sermon

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God alone is God and we are made to know He alone acts so that His plan cannot be stopped despite the enemies of it or the failure of His people because He provides what is needed

MIS: Revival in our lives and communities only comes when we regain our created purpose to join God in His mission to make all things new

Introduction: We are going to be in Isaiah 43:8-13 this morning. If you open up your bible to the middle and see Psalms hang a right and you be there pretty quick. As you are turning there what we find is a court room drama unfolding

From January – October in 1995 the United States was captivated by the courtroom drama of the OJ Simpson trial. As the days led up to the October 3rd reading of the verdict my junior high had the trial on in every classroom. Everyone watched. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone was captivated and what made it so powerful was that the world was given a front row seat to the spectacle. The world was invited in as a witness.

Courtroom drama is powerful because it is unique. Truth is proven through the presentation of undeniable fact and irrefutable witness. The OJ trial, The great Judge Judy captivate because of we long for truth. and the court scene was just as powerful and dramatic in the time of Israel and Isaiah.

Why this court room scenario? Israel, Gods chosen people had rebelled against God for centuries. The king and people were warned to repent and again follow God and become obedient to His purpose and will for them. They disobeyed and as a consequence Babylon came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried them off. The unimaginable had happened.

But Gods people still didn’t get it. Instead of repenting they saw Babylon and Babylon’s idols as more powerful than their God, so they didn’t repent and return. They abandoned God more and cozied up as idol worshippers in a new land.

Like any Case the evidence and witnesses will win it or lose it

We are going to look at 4 things about the witnesses and the verdict in the courtroom of this passage.

1. Gods people are made for a purpose

2. Gods people reject His purpose

3. Jesus has done what Gods People fail too

4. Gods purpose cannot be stopped

Lets dive in:

Isaiah 43:8-13 CSB

8 Bring out a people who are blind, yet have eyes, and are deaf, yet have ears. 9 All the nations are gathered together, and the peoples are assembled. Who among them can declare this, and tell us the former things? Let them present their witnesses to vindicate themselves, so that people may hear and say, “It is true.” 10 “You are my witnesses”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. No god was formed before me, and there will be none after me. 11 I—I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no Savior. 12 I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed— and not some foreign god[a] among you. So you are my witnesses”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “and[b] I am God. 13 Also, from today on I am he alone, and none can rescue from my power. I act, and who can reverse it?”

1. Gods people are made for a Purpose v 10-12

10 “You are my witnesses”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. No god was formed before me, and there will be none after me. 11 I—I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no Savior. 12 I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed— and not some foreign god[a] among you. So you are my witnesses”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “and[b] I am God.

a. From the garden in Genesis 1 to the Churches in Revelation 1 Gods people have been set apart to be a witness to the only true God and His activity in the world.

Adam is made in the garden and given his commission and purpose in Genesis 1 to be His witness as he ruled Gods creation in obedience to Gods design. He failed. The same purpose is given to Noah he failed. God said ok individuals are failing let me give this command to an entire Nation. And now the same mission is given to the church. To Be A Witness.

b. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:20 “therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us”. God speaks to the world through his chosen and saved people as his witness and reconciles the world to himself through these witnesses, us, His People. Made, saved, rescued, redeemed, formed through circumstances of his sovereign control to be a light to the dying world that in Him alone is there life and flourishing.

c. One commentator says this of Israel in this passage : “They were created for His Glory, formed and made for His purposes. Israel is to serve God by being a witness to His acts and calling (43:10). In a world filled with those who deny God’s rights and His truth, Israel is called to Witness on His behalf. They have been chosen to see, to know, and to believe, to understand that God is THE source and author of all good and of their destiny (43:10,12). The Church is heir to this calling and this service of witnessing to the world (Matt 28:19-20, Acts 1:8).”[1]

d. Throughout the Bible the election and saving of people by God is described as a “Messenger Ministry”, “Election is for service”

e. Even in the midst of their seemingly devastating circumstances they still had the same purpose. To expand Gods rule and good reign.

f. Watts again says describes their situation : “Strategically positioned in exile, scattered among the nations, God’s servant, Israel is to carry forth God’s mission of bringing justice and spiritual transformation throughout the world”[2]

g. Your life. This church. Was made to be His for His Glory just like Adam in the garden to expand God’s good Kingdom as a light to the world and witness and servant.

h. You’re age race gender mistakes story all are Gods to use for His Glory to a watching world all around you. This church is here to for that same purpose to be a witness.

Like Adam, and Israel sadly we all fall short of this design.

2. Gods People reject His purpose v 8-9

a. Here the courtroom of the world is being assembled. God and his witnesses and the nations and their false gods. To see who truly is God. Who can declare move history and act and make all their plans unfold unstopped?

b. Sadly, God’s people are the blind and deaf witness described to be in no better condition in verse 8 then the nations with their false gods and spiritual blindness in verse 9.

c. Alec Motyer paints an incredible picture of Israel and our failed witness here. “Isaiah acts like a court reporter watching the litigants coming in and recording with astonishment “He has brought out the blind and the deaf as HIS Witnesses…relying on such testimony He is bound to lose the case, for what court accepts the testimony of the blind to what they have seen or the deaf to what they have heard?”[3]

d. They rejected their purpse in 2 ways: rejecting knowledge and rejecting understanding.

e. They rejected the knowledge of the truth of who they were. Who God was. What He is doing

i. He blessed them and saved them. Not so they could be consumers but so that they would be a light of Gods Kingdom to the world.

ii. They were in exile because they took Gods election and salvation as a sign that they were above obedience and special. God existed to serve them in their eyes, so they ran to themselves and the nations for strength when enemies approached.

iii. We too reject reality- Romans 1:18-24 says :

18 For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, 19 since what can be known[a] about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse. 21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

Like Israel we can simply say ‘this is a Christian nation and if we had the right people in office we could have the life we want” we rest on the default that we take for granted.

Our calling and freedom and wealth is not given to us to keep inwardly focused. We are saved set apart to be a light. In real every day ways. Does the place you shop at smile when you walk in bc of the way you are? Does the pharmacist you’ve used for 10 years know you to have something different in an unshakable joy? Do you know your neighbor? Where life has not gone how they hoped and cared to hear their story? Do you tip well at the restaurant you go to every week?

We are Gods covenant people and the same purpose in Gods plan exists for you and me.

f. They also rejected understanding of what God was doing.

i. Paul Tripp is a pastoral hero of mine and counselor. He makes a powerful statement. He says that we do not live based on the facts of our experience. We live based on our interpretation of the facts. THIS IS VITAL AND LIFE CHANGING

ii. TO the observer of their immediate circumstances what would you think? Probably at first the same things they did right?

iii. God had promised them they would dwell in the promised land. That’s gone it looks like. God had promised that He would place a King on Davids throne who would reign forever. Boom that’s gone it seemed. All the promises sure did look like God was too weak and Babylon too powerful.

iv. I will be honest there have been times and seasons in my life where I believed what I thought was true of God and things happened that made me feel like they did in Babylon. Doesn’t God promise safety for His People ? Help? Still waters and a table before my enemies? Yes he does promise and he delivers. I do not have answers to some of the greatest loss and pain in my life but I know He has been there an if I have suffered loss it was to save me from a greater loss later. And he will keep me safe and the greatest safety He provides is that in my death I will be alive with Him forever untouchable to death and pain and fear AMEN. Suffering is not he absence of my God it is the megaphone He uses to remind me I am not Home but I am almost there!!!!

g. Israel interpreted the exile as Gods being weak, passive, a liar, and ultimately not real. He had warned them over and over, but they didn’t listen. Exile was their judgment by God not an act of his powerlessness. Quite the opposite it was actually a global display of His all controlling power.

h. They rejected their purpose. most of the jews never left to return home. They settled in and adopted the Babylonian way of life and comfort and were lost forever.

i. We too refuse to see our life in Gods story and so we too interpret the events of our life as Gods absence, lack of care, or non-existence.

i. Gk Beale says that the greatest way Adam, Noah, Israel, and now the church is disobedient was in seeing the torah, the temple, the big church buildings, programs and all the internals as the mark of their favor with God and they and we stop being missions minded. Israel became proud and introspective and nationalistic

j. “What can be done for a needy world when the people of God are themselves just as needy and appear to have lost the clue to the saving remedies?”[4].

k. Israel cannot set the captives and spiritually blind worshippers of fasle gods free because she herself is blind and in bondage.

3. Jesus has done what we fail to do v 11.

11 I—I am the Lord. Besides me, there is no Savior.

a. The Lord has turned to His witnesses in verse 10 and obviously been met by silence when we should have spoken up.

b. These failed witnesses need a savior. The blind cannot lead the blind and the issue is spiritual deadness because of sin. We like Israel are in Exile in bondage to sin. We need a new exodus.

c. The world who is to be shown the salvation of our Great God needs a new witness to breathe new life into His people and their mission.

d. The question before the court is “Who can deliver?”.

e. Surrounded in captivity of Babylon the people of God were living in a world that sought other gods as saviors. They were surrounded by the worship of these man-made gods and surrounded by rhythms of life of these gods worship. Who can save us from our sin of rebellion and save us from our exile in a foreign land where other gods and man seem so powerful?

God alone Can and God alone does. He steps in where His people fail to be a witness. He provides His own Star Witness. He Provided His Son.

The true and faithful Adam, Israel, and Child.

The true and suffering servant in Isaiah 43.

The True and Faithful Son when tempted in the wilderness.

Most powerfully in this passage of His people’s failure we see the true and faithful witness!!

Look at Revelation 1:4-5 “John: To the seven churches in Asia. Grace and peace to you from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

Again, in Revelation 3:14 Jesus is the “amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation”.

He has done for us what we failed to do and what is more took our place under Gods wrath for our rejection of him all so that we may be reborn into our original purpose.

“unique in his being, he is also unique in action (No Savior). Only He can enter into the circumstances of his people (Exodus 3:8) and save them out of all their afflictions.”[5]

As with any good courtroom drama finale the Lord and Only God acts as Judge Jury and Prosecutor addressing the watching world. Who alone can act in history but Him. He is not made or formed or controlled by anyone or anything. Who among the fake gods and false witnesses has done what he has declared and delivered on? Who is like Him or has set a course of action and seen it through for generations? The resounding answer is no one.

4. God purpose cannot be stopped v12-13

12 I alone declared, saved, and proclaimed— and not some foreign god[a] among you. So you are my witnesses”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “and[b] I am God. 13 Also, from today on I am he alone, and none can rescue from my power. I act, and who can reverse it?”

a. Not in history past (12) - Imagery and language in these texts are saturated with the Exodus events. No God could do what Israel’s God had done in saving his people and keeping His covenant promises to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. The seemingly mighty and all-powerful gods of Egypt, even the self-appointed god pharaoh were nothing when the only true God acted on for His glory and the good of His people.

b. Not in the present or future (13)

Motyer again says :“As creator and Lord of History He pledges himself to keep His promises…because what the people of God need to know is that whatever may eventuate in a threatening world, the Lord is the mover the welfare of His people is the object”[6].

i. Remember those promises the people in Exile surely interpreted their experience as being unkept? Let me show you God was not only keeping His Promises but moving all of history and the greatest world powers the world had ever seen like pieces on a chess board.

ii. Small tribal alliances made up the world prior to Assyria and Babylonian and Persian dominance. Now with the global landscape changing to empires the scene was being set for the fulfillment of God promise to Abraham to bless the nations and David’s throne to rule in justice over the earth.

iii. God was moving human history to the point in time where His plan for His son to full fill all the promises He has made this is why we can read and know as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 “For every one of God’s promises is YES in Him. Therefore, through Him we also say AMEN to the glory of God” (CSB).

iv. David’s heir is on the throne forever. His name is Jesus. He is there right now. In new skin and bones. Sitting on that very throne. God is unstoppable.

v. And this is critical to get this morning. This was not, is not, and will not be accomplished in the absence of suffering but through it. Jesus was abandoned sent outside the city and impaled naked on a tree to bear our guilt and sin of rejecting our purpose. His mission speads through the suffering of His people as they deny themselves take up their cross and follow the suffering servant. This plan of God is accomplished through suffering.

c. I see myself with the people of Israel more than anywhere else in the bible right here.

Conclusion:

To the non-believer or the skeptic I pray that this can begin to help move you in a direction of seeing this faith in this Jesus as desirable for answering the deepest longings of your heart and reasonable as the truth of how things are and why they aren’t what they are supposed to be.

We all have a longing for flourishing. The book if Isaiah is the clearest picture in the bible that the flourishing you were made to long for is found only in return to the one true God who made you and His purpose for your life.

Maybe you have valid pain and past experiences that truly look like God is not good. I know that feeling so well. I would love to hear your story and listen and share how the good news of this Jesus doesn’t answer everything but gives sure hope that one day I will see it all.

To the Christian and the body of believers that make up this church I pray you regain your purpose repent for not living it and return in trust to the sovereign loving unstoppable mission of God in this neighborhood.

It will only come through return to your created purpose as a Christian and as a church. Revival is when you are going out not when you simply get some new looks and a young pastor and people come to your programs. Do you think that you need power and prominence to be effective? If you are powerless and weak then that is exactly how he wants you to be so in that in Your Weakness He may Be SEEN AS ALL POWERFUL

We have been reborn in Christ and given reclaimed identities as His witness because of His resurrection. The first born of the new creation. Now we as G.K. Beale says “declare war on the status quo of the brokenness of this world”[7].

[1] Word Biblical Themes: Isaiah, John D. W. Watts, (Grand Rapids; Zondervan, 1989), 82. [2] New Studies in Biblical Theology 40: The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom a Thematic-Theological Approach, Andrew Abernathy, (Downers Grove; InterVarsity, 2016), 141. [3] Ibid, 334. [4] The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary, J. Alec Motyer, (Downers Grove; InterVarsity Press, 1993), 327. [5] Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Isaiah, J. Alec Motyer, (Downers Grove; Intervarsity Press, 1999), 304-305. [6] The Prophecy of Isaiah, Motyer, 326. [7] God Dwells Among Us: Expanding Eden to the Ends of the Earth, G.K. Beale and Mitchell Kim, (Downers Grove; InterVarsity Press, 2014), 141.

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