Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Walking through London and Edinburgh looking at the statues.

looking back over the last year, Illustration - Monuments.

(Climbing Ben Nevis)

My Dilemma

What you are going to see in this passage is that God seems to simultaneously evoke the language of the past only to then tell his people to forget it.

Big Idea and Why you should Listen?

My Dilemma

What you are going to see in this passage is that God seems to simultaneously evoke the language of the past, to stir up faith only then to then tell his people to forget the past because he is doing a new thing.

Why you should Listen?

Tonight as we approach a new year, I would like us to consider as a church family What God has done, what God is doing, and to encourage us to be expectant about what God is going to do in 2018 and beyond.

But more importantly to consider both as individuals and as a church family the scriptural revelation of how we are to relate to Gods past activity in a way that pleases God, for our growth and His Glory.

Exposition

As we look at this text in Isaiah 43 remember”

What you are going to see in this passage is that God seems to simultaneously evoke the language of the past only to then tell his people to forget it.

The forgetting that Paul emphasises It is the sort of dwelling on the past that hinders our present effort and our future progress.

These would include persistent bitterness about past wrongs (real or supposed).

Despair over past sins whereby believers doubt if they will ever be forgiven giving rise to defeatism and backward-looking disputation

Context

Despairing Exiles (They remembered the Glory days)

They remembered the Glory days.

Faceless Exiles - (Identity Crisis)

Comparison with the contemporary church in the post post modern culture.

Three Points

Three Points

1) Remembering God's faithfulness (evoking the language of the Exodus)

Isa 43:16-17

What is happening here is that God is evoking the language of the Exodus - God is being identified here with mighty acts of the past and is about to do something new a new exodus is about to occur.

In the OT the Israelites where encouraged to consider the past, not so much as it related to them and their failures but in how it related to God and His faithfulness to them.

There are a few example of this given in the Bible and particularly in the Psalms.

God has done great things and it is marvellous in our eyes.

God himself instructed the Israelites to erect a memorial to the past upon entering the promised land.

If done correctly It is a good and godly thing to remember the past, the glorious things that God does.

But there is an inappropriate way to remember the past as well, some people are not content to remember the past but are intent to remain in it and that is not how the God of the Bible desires his people to live nor how they are to be characterised.

The Stones before entering the Promised land.

The Various Psalms and recantations of Gods Actions in History.

The Various Psalms and recantations of Gods Actions in History.

If done correctly It is a good thing to remember the past, the glorious things that God does.

But there is an inappropriate way to remember the past as well, some people are not content to remember the past but are intent to remain in it and that is not how the God of the Bible desires his people to live nor how they are to be characterised.

If done correctly It is a good thing to remember the past, the glorious things that God does.

But there is an inappropriate way to remember the past as well, some people are not content to remember the past but are intent to remain in it and that is not how the God of the Bible desires his people to live nor how they are to be characterised.

When you look back on this last year remember the awesome things that God has done and give him thanks and tell of his great deeds.

As a corporate body when you look back over this last year and previous years remember what the Lord has done and give him thanks.

If done correctly it is a good and godly thing to remember the past, the glorious things that God done.

However, there is an inappropriate way to remember the past as-well.

Some people are not content to remember the past but are intent to remain in it and that is not how the God of the Bible desires his people to live nor how they are to be characterised.

2) Remembering Gods activity in the past is meant to point alert and awaken us to his activity in the present.

(The fact that in our midst he is always doing a new thing, working for our good and for his Glory.)

This is why he says now forget the Past.

18 “Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

19 See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), .

Eviden

Living in the past is something the people of god have always struggled and contended with and the reason that is is a problem is that it spiritually blinds them to see what God is doing in their present midst and where he is leading them in the future.

“Now it springs up do you not perceive it?”

Remembering and lamenting can be good,

Yet too much lamenting by exiles runs the risk of self-indulgence to the point where they become preoccupied with self.

Indeed the author of Isaiah

10

40-55 has to work hard to instil trust in the God of Israel as the creator of all and encourages his exiled audience sing to the Lord a New Song of Joy ().

Lot’s wife.

(looking backward not forwards) The blessing was away from what she knew

Longing for Egypt.

God lead them into a wilderness in order to bring them into a promised land.

(Romanticising the Past) Structures, Routine, Familiarity, But now hey were in a wilderness.

The blessing was away from what they new

The construction of a new temple - They wept The future blessing God promised would be beyond compare.

Living in the past is something the people of god have always struggled and contended with

The Structures of Egypt

The reconstruction of the temple - Gods heart.

The exile was a truly traumatic event for the Jewish people and this is evidenced in the many laments scattered throughout scripture, Yet too much lamenting by exiles runs the risk of self-indulgence to the point where they become preoccupied with self.

Indeed the author of Isaiah has to work hard to instil trust in the God of Israel as the creator of all, and encourages his exiled audience sing to the Lord a New Song of Joy ().

They were so caught up in the past that they forgot their calling to be missionaries in the foreign land, to seek the welfare of the city.

The contemporary application for us as a church family is obvious, as we move into this new year we if we are to grow we must acknowledge God is with us here and now and and is doing a new thing just as he has been in with us in the past.

Yet too much lamenting by exiles runs the risk of self-indulgence to the point where they become preoccupied with self.

Indeed the author of Isaiah

16 Frost, Exiles, 14.

17 Beach, ‘The Church In Exile,’ 9 18 Beach, ‘The Church in Exile,’ 7

10

40-55 has to work hard to instil trust in the God of Israel as the creator of all and encourages his exiled audience sing to the Lord a New Song of Joy () They forgot their calling to be missionaries in the foreign land, to seek the welfare of the city, so caught up in the past.

The contemporary application for us as a church family is obvious, as we move into this new year we if we are to grow we must acknoweldge

The contemporary application for us as a church family is obvious, as we move into this new year we if we are to grow we must acknowledge God is with us here and now and and is doing a new thing just as he has been in with us in the past.

Now its not just church communities that can be prevented from growing because they are living in the past.

The scriptures also have something to say at the individual level also, Consider what Paul has to say in

The scriptures also have something to say to something to say about this at the individual level also, When it comes to our obsessions with the past they can not only prevent us from growing into christian maturity.

Consider what Paul has to say in

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), .

Paul had achievements and failings.

Needless to say we are not to imagine Paul forgetting God’s past mercies—for he has, indeed, been dwelling most pointedly upon them since verse 7. Nor would he forget the valuable lessons of the past—these too have been his recent theme (verses 2–6).

What, then, is this forgetting of the past which he urges with such emphasis?

It is the sort of dwelling on the past that hinders our present effort and our future progress.

We do well gently to remind ourselves that a bereavement can sometimes make Christians live in the past; similarly we easily harbour a persistent bitterness about past wrongs (real or supposed).

There are few things that have such power to lock us into the past.

Again, there is despair over past sins which, in its severest form, can make believers doubt if they will ever be forgiven or which, in less tragic forms, gives rise to defeatism and backward-looking.

There are many similar things that make us like the man in Zechariah 2:1–4 who wanted to measure the ruins of Jerusalem, allowing bygone glories and past failures to decide the dimensions of the future.

By contrast the progressing Christian must cultivate a concentrated forward look to where the goal lies.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

some reasons to move on from the past

to the point that rather than celebrating and worshipping the living god they begin to worship the gifts that God gave.