I Make All Things New

Isaiah 42:1-10

Introduction
New things are good when old things get old. I just recently got a new computer in the office because the old one was getting old. In other words, it was beginning to give me problems that were effecting production. The new one is great.
For Christmas I got some new socks, which was a good thing because some of my old socks were getting a little old, by which I mean that they didn’t stay up any more and some of them they had holes in them. It is great to wear a new pair of socks.
Some of us have made New Year’s resolutions because we recognize that some of the ways we live are getting a little old. So perhaps we have decided to use our time more wisely. It will be great to get more done.
What is getting old in your life? Perhaps it is a particular sin, perhaps an illness, the consequences of past sins, a broken relationship or something else? Listen to Isaiah 42:9, “See the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”
God is in the business of making things new. Can we trust Him in this as we begin a new year? Let us examine Isaiah 42:1-10 to find out. We will begin at verse 9 and work our way backwards.
New Things 42:9
In Isaiah 42:9, God makes a promise. Much of Isaiah describes what has gotten old in Israel. The people have rejected God and have followed other gods and made idols for themselves. Isaiah has warned the people that because of their rejection, God will allow foreign armies to overtake them and they will be scattered. But that does not mean that God has forgotten about this people. In this part of Isaiah, we have many promises which assure that God has not forgotten his people and that He will renew them again and restore them to a people who follow the Lord and so experience His blessings. That is the context of this promise.
This is a prophecy of what God intends to do. The text says, “…before they spring into being I announce them to you.” God is speaking here about what He intends to do, but doing new things is not something that God has not done before. It is in the nature of God to do new things. This is an important thought. God is not one who lets things be as they are if they are not as they should be. God is one who renews.
If we look back in Israel’s history we know that this is true. In the book of Job, after all the tragedy which Job experienced, God renewed his soul by giving him more children and by restoring his wealth. That is what God does. When the sins of people were getting so old that God had to destroy them, He did a new thing by bringing Noah through the flood and renewing the earth once again. After Israel had been in Egypt for 400 years, God did a new thing and brought them out by the hand of Moses. So when we read this promise, it tells us something about what God is like. He is one who does “new things” and if this is the promise of God and consistent with the nature of God, then we can also expect that God will do new things in our life where they have become old.
The promise sounds intriguing, but lots of questions remain: What has been promised? Can we count on God? What can we hope for?
Why? 42:8
We have seen that it is in the nature of God to do “new things,” but why does God make the promise to renew? The answer to that question is found in Isaiah 42:8 where He says, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.”
According to this verse God makes things new for two reasons. The first is that God has promised and He will not break His promise because His name is the guarantee of His word. In Exodus 3 God introduced Himself to Moses at the burning bush and told him to lead God’s people out of Egypt. Moses was stunned at this idea and wanted to have confirmation of what God was promising. The way in which God confirmed His word was by saying, in Exodus 3:14,15, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” There is a lot in this verse. The name “Lord” seems to come from the phrase “I AM” which means that God just is. It refers to the eternal existence of God. God bases his confirmation of the promise on His eternal being. The reference to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob confirms the promise on the basis that after over 400 years the promises God made to these men still stands. God is a covenant making God who has always existed and who keeps covenant and on that basis he confirmed his promise to Israel when he spoke to Moses at the burning bush. God hasn’t changed in the intervening years and now when Israel is once again in a terrible place of rebellion God has not changed and will bring new things because He is the eternal God who has made and will keep all the promises He has made. E.J. Young says, “It is God who is speaking, and He will not deny Himself by refusing to do what He has promised.”
God also confirms the promise to bring new things because it is to His glory to do so. How do you feel when someone is able to repair something that you thought was not repairable? When God delivered Israel out of Egypt that was an amazing thing because it is humanly impossible. Only God could do such an amazing thing. When God raised Jesus from the dead, that was an amazing thing because only God could do such a thing. God is glorified when we see what He does and God desires His glory for when God is glorified, then all know how amazing He is and who He really is. When God is glorified, then truth is spoken in the universe.
So we also have hope for new things because God has promised to bring them and because when they come God is glorified.
What New Things? 42:7
So what new things does God promise? To answer that question, we need to go back one more verse to Isaiah 42:7 where we read, “to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” There are three specific pictures here.
First of all it speaks of the eyes of the blind opened. The Bible uses this imagery in a number of places. When Jesus was here, we read a story in John 9 in which Jesus opened the eyes of a man born blind, but in that same chapter he goes on to have a conversation with the Pharisees and the crowd about spiritual blindness. He teaches that there are some who cannot see the truth and others whose eyes had been opened. So we know that God can open the eyes of those who are physically blind and also the eyes of those who are spiritually blind as well as those who are blind about their sin. One such blind person was the apostle Paul who was blind to the truth about who Jesus was. In Acts 26:18, after describing his own experience of seeing the light literally and metaphorically, Paul acknowledged what God told him, “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
The next two pictures speak about freeing captives and releasing prisoners. Psalm 107:10 speaks about those who “sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains.” The Psalm goes on to talk about these as being in bondage because of their sins, but it also speaks about how God “brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains.” The new thing God is able to do is to redeem those who are in prison and those who sit in darkness.
What new things does God do? He opens blind eyes and frees those in bondage and I think we need to understand these promises in the broadest sense. For Israel, their blindness was the inability to see that God was their provider and savior. They were in bondage to wicked ways and about to be imprisoned in war with other nations and God promised to do a new thing. But when we realize that these pictures appear in other places in the Bible and are used both literally and metaphorically, we know that this is more than just about Israel’s story. The blind are those in any kind of darkness and prisoners are those in any kind of bondage. God promises light and freedom.
If your darkness is depression, if the prison you are in is because of sins you have committed, if the bondage you experience is because of the consequences of your sins or the sins of others, if your darkness is grief or loss, God is able to do a new thing in your life. In fact, God promises to do new things. Hanson says, “The in-breaking of the new that breaks the bonds of exile and heals the brokenness of both human community and nature is a central theme in…Isaiah.”
Trouble makes us feel hopeless about the future, but the promise that God makes things new, restores our hope. I have seen God do such things many times. I have seen Him take the things that have been broken on earth as a result of sin, both the sin of the individual and the sin which permeates our world and make something new. I know people who have wandered away from God, whose lives have been broken badly and I have seen how God restored them. I have seen people who have been broken by the hardship of illness become a blessing to others who have a similar illness. I have seen people broken by addictions find release and freedom. God opens blind eyes and bring people out of bondage. And even if some darkness and some bondage remain, God will make all things new when Jesus returns. The promise to renew shows up again in the verse from which I took the title for this message, in Revelation 21:5 God promises, “I am making everything new!”
Yet where do we see this new thing? Will it really come? Now I see only my darkness. Now I feel only the bondage which entraps me. Can I really count on what God will do? How does God do it?
Really? 42:5,6
There are two promises which we find in Isaiah 42:5, 6, which assure us that God is able to make all things new and which tell us how He does it.
Because Of God
In Isaiah 42:5 we read, “This is what God the Lord says – he who created the heavens and…who gives breath to its people…” Earlier we received assurance that God’s promises are certain because He is a covenant keeping God and because of His glory. Now assurance comes that God keeps His promises and makes things new because He is the one who has created all things in the first place. He has already made everything that we see and He has already given life to all things. Every bird and animal, every plant and ocean creature, every human being lives because God has made them. If God has made all these things and sustains them by the word of His power, why would we doubt that He can make all things new?
Through His Servant
It is important that we understand that the focus of this entire passage is on one whom Isaiah calls “my servant.” Isaiah 42:1 mentions “my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him…” Then he speaks further of this servant in Isaiah 42:6 when he says, “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.”
The new thing which God promises to do will come through His Servant. Who is that servant? As we read these passages through the eyes of a follower of Christ, it is pretty clear that this is a reference to Jesus Christ. The wonderful thing about reading these promises in the Old Testament is that we already have a much better idea of what God is talking about. When this was written, it contained a lot of mystery, but now that mystery has been made known to us and the new thing which God does, we know, is done through Jesus.
There is a connection between the promises made in Isaiah 42:7 and those made in Isaiah 61:1-3, which says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
The Isaiah 61 passage has a similar tone and direction as the Isaiah 42 passage and is speaking of the same Servant. Luke quotes Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18-21, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.””
The servant is Jesus and this is an important focus. It reminds us that whatever new thing God brings He brings through Jesus. Therefore, we need to look to God’s Servant for new things. If we are blind, we need to ask Jesus to give us light. If we are in bondage, we need to look to Jesus to free us. Although there are many good helps in this world, light comes from the light of the world and freedom from the one who came to set us free.
How? 42:1-4
Why do we fear to trust Jesus to bring the new thing into our life? As we read the first four verses of this text, we see the wonderful way in which He works to make all things new.
In justice
Lately we have heard again that there is conflict in the Middle East. Hamas is firing rockets into Israeli territory. In response Israel has begun air strikes into Gaza and is threatening a ground offensive. The conflict is old and difficult to sort out. When we were there last year and heard the stories from both sides of the conflict, we were baffled as to how a just peace could come about. But this is not baffling to Jesus. He knows this conflict and every other conflict, even the one between you and your neighbor and knows how to bring about a just peace. The new thing that Jesus is doing and will do is to bring justice. Can we trust Him for this?
In gentleness
The pictures provided in verses 2,3 are wonderful pictures of grace and gentleness. It says that “he will not shout or cry out.” That is a description which fits well with exactly what happened when Jesus was arrested. He did not defend himself. He accepted the cross as the way in which to win. It was His strategy. That certainly is a new thing and speaks of sacrifice instead of bullying.
This verse also says that, a “bruised reed He will not break.” What comes to my mind is a plant which has been partly broken. It is bruised on the stalk and about to fall over. If we would find such a plant in a flower arrangement, we would yank it out and throw it away, but that is not how Jesus works. He is gentle with those who are broken. He continues to woo them and comfort them and guide them.
It also says that “a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” We know what a smoldering wick is like. It is almost out, having just a little heat, but is mostly smoke which stinks. To us it looks like something that should be snuffed out, but the grace of Jesus, the new thing that God is doing through His Messiah is that where there is a slight glimmer of hope, a smoldering wick, which has not gone out, He does not snuff it out, but continues to extend grace and offer His peace and forgiveness.
We are sometimes so impatient with people. We wonder if they will ever turn their lives around or if they will ever behave the way they should. We get tired of waiting and we give up hope. But Jesus does not. This is a new thing that He is gentle and gracious and does not give up on people. What a blessing for each of us. It calls us to also treat others in the same way.
In faithfulness
The third way of the servant is that he acts with faithfulness, as we read in verse 3. Even though we see so much more than the people of Isaiah’s day saw, we still often wonder when things will begin to happen and we lose hope that God is really at work. The promise of His faithfulness assures us that He will accomplish His purpose and He will bring about the new thing He has promised.
Verse four continues the theme of faithfulness. When it says, “he will not falter or be discouraged,” we are encouraged that God continues to do what He has promised. In all that God has promised, there is a process. The first part of the process was the coming of Jesus to die and rise again. Jesus did not falter or become discouraged. The lowest we saw Jesus was when He was in the garden of Gethsemane. There he cried out, “If it is possible let this cup pass from me,” but we also hear Him say, “Not my will, but yours.” He did not falter; He went through the most awful experience to accomplish this part of the work of God’s new thing. The next part of the process was when God sent His Spirit to accompany His church. That is where we need to look now for the new thing. What is the Spirit of God doing today? The last part of the process is the second coming of Christ. If Christ did not falter through the most difficult stage of the new thing God is doing, then we can be assured that He will not falter in the current or future stages. We can be confident in the faithfulness of Jesus to bring about all the new things which God will bring about, both now and in the future.
For all
The great blessing with which the method of the servant concludes is in vs. 4, “In his law the islands of the earth will put their hope.” This refers to the universal extent of what God is doing. This theme of the gospel for all people is also found in verse 1 where it says, “He will bring justice to the nations” and also in verse 6 where it says that He will be “a light for the Gentiles.”
Written as this was to Jews whose focus was their own nation, this is good news to the entire world. God’s intention has not been to save only the Jewish people, but to redeem all those in the world who will come to Him. God’s new thing is for all.
Conclusion
It is a good thing to know that God is in the renewal business. What does such a hope mean for us as we enter a new year?
First of all, it means that we can have an expectation of God at work. If God has promised new things and has already begun to bring them about, then we can hope in Him to continue to do new things, even in our lives. Wherever things are getting old, we can expect that God will bring something new. With this promise, we have every reason not to lose hope, but to live with a constant expectation of what God will do.
Secondly, we need to look to Jesus. Whatever new thing God does, He has promised to do through Jesus. If we are looking for forgiveness, for a new way of living, for strength to overcome, for justice, for encouragement, it is found in Jesus. Instead of looking to all the other ways of finding hope, we are encouraged to look to Jesus.
If we live in expectation and if we look to Jesus, then we can also watch as we wait to see what God will do. How is God already at work? How will He bring a new thing into our blindness and brokenness? Let us watch and see what He will do! The brokenness with which we may live now is never the end of the story, especially in light of His promises and the presence of Jesus.
Because of this new thing, we are invited in Isaiah 42:10 to “Sing to the Lord a new song.” May the hope we have been given move us to enter the New Year with a song of praise on our lips.