11-17-19 Grace-Benson, Vail Sermon

Isaiah 65:17-25 [Welcome Home 4 Saints Triumphant]

Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace—Benson/Vail, AZ

November 17, 2019

17

Watch this! I am about to create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered. They will not come to mind.

18 Instead, rejoice and celebrate forever, because of what I am creating.

Watch this! I am about to create Jerusalem to be a source of gladness, and her people will be a source of joy.

19 I also will be glad because of Jerusalem, and I will rejoice over my people.

The sound of weeping will not be heard in her again, nor will the sound of crying.

20 There will never again be an infant there who lives for only a few days, or an elderly man who does not fill out all his days, for one who dies at a hundred will be considered a young man, and one who fails to attain the age of one hundred will be regarded as cursed.

21 Then they will build houses and live in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

22 They will not build a house and have another person live in it.

They will not plant and have another person eat the crop, for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen ones will enjoy all the work of their hands.

23 They will not labor only to receive nothing, and they will not give birth to children doomed to disaster, for they will be offspring who are blessed by the LORD, and their descendants will be with them.

24 Then even before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and lions will eat straw like cattle, but the serpent will eat dust as its food. They will not harm or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain, says the LORD. You belong to an everlasting family!

Dear Friends in Christ, To understand the words before us, we must think differently than most of us are probably accustomed to. We must understand that these words of God before us today are prophecy—words given by the Holy Spirit to Isaiah the prophet for him to proclaim and to record.

It might make it easier for us if we can picture what Isaiah describes as if we’re looking at one of those big murals you sometimes see painted on city walls. Often those murals express, in a picturesque way, a message that is important to the artist. God is the artist with the important message here. He expresses his truths in more of an impressionistic mural-like fashion, not with exactness of literal realism.

Prophecies and visions given by the Lord to his people were often maybe what we would call artsy. So treat these words of Isaiah like a mural. Step back, take in the images, then conclude what the overall impression and messages are.

When we do that, we find that there are two images here: heaven and the New Testament Church, which is God’s people after Jesus would come and complete his work as the Savior. This includes you and me. We are part of an Everlasting Family— one that exists here already now and will last through eternity in heaven. It is a Joyful Family and we have a Joyful God. A joyful family The Lord encourages his people to rejoice and celebrate. In fact, he speaks of rejoicing and celebrating forever. He even says that his people are a source of joy. They will bring joy to one another and, as if that were not wonderful enough, they bring joy to God! How can this be? How will sinful people with broken lives and from broken homes, where love and joy and peace don’t last, or at the very best are inconsistent because of fighting and jealousy and selfishness and divorce and disease and death—how can these people become a joyful family under God?!

How can it be that people whose own sin and mistakes cause tears and hardships, who experience trauma and terror inflicted on them from ruthless and mean people, who are teased and tormented by Satan daily—how will their eyes never again spill over and their mouths never again utter sobs of hurt and sadness?

How can people who have experienced things taken from them…and who have had their hard work not pay off…and who have had to move from place to place, never feeling like anyplace is home—how can these people become a joyful family, settled down in the peace and tranquility and safety pictured in this mural as houses that are lived in and not lost to others and harvests enjoyed and not taken by someone else?

The answer, of course, is found in Jesus Christ. Isaiah was privileged to prophesy about Jesus’ coming in a number of places, most famously in chapter 7, where he foretells that the Messiah would be born of a virgin, and chapter 53, which offers many details about his suffering and death. All of this Isaiah knew 700 years before Jesus was born to Mary and before he would take our many, many sins upon himself as he was nailed to the cross. Jesus is the one who, with his resurrection brought joy to the world and who brings joy to the hearts of God’s people. He is the One who creates a joyful relationship between sinful people and the perfect God. So when God says that he will create “new heavens and a new earth,” he is not necessarily talking about a new chunk of real estate and sky and plants and animals and stars and planets. Maybe he has that in mind, but here the phrase “new heavens and a new earth” is really a picture in this verbal mural that symbolizes a new situation. It’s a concrete picture that represents a new spiritual condition that is going to exist between God and people one day in heaven. This new relationship that brings rejoicing from God’s people was what Isaiah saw happening because of the Messiah who would come. Isaiah’s people trusted the promise; we know that it is a certainty because Jesus did come.

Christ’s saving work gives us joyful confidence as we carry on in this sinful world, but we may wonder just how that will be to rejoice and celebrate all the time—and forever!

When we are reduced to tears, we may wonder how it can be that there will come a time when that will never happen again. We may wonder how it will be to have God there with us in the most real and obvious way so that it will be impossible for us to ever doubt his existence or his love.

But our heavenly Father promises, The former things will not be remembered. They will not come to mind. “Jerusalem” is what he calls his people. The city of God, the place where God’s people dwell and God dwells with them, that’s the picture—a new, heavenly relationship— the Father and his everlasting family in perfect harmony. God told Isaiah and the people back then that this is what he was working on. That’s what was to come. That’s what Isaiah saw and what the people looked forward to.

We enjoy the assurance that we have this joyful relationship with God now because Jesus came and fulfilled all of Isaiah’s words about him. We will have perfected joy in heaven. We will be the saints triumphant, joining all who have already won the victory of faith and who are awaiting our arrival around the throne of God. Until then, you and I gather with the saints here—our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are an everlasting family even now; we’re just in the earthly stage of our relationship.

A joyful God Remember that as we gather as God’s saints below, we have been washed clean in baptism and in the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been made holy and righteous. So we are the perfect family! Just as earthly parents look at their children as their pride and joy, so God the Father looks at us. The Lord has made us new in Jesus, and so he creates a new and perfect existence for us, a new relationship with him.

It is an amazing thing that the eternal, almighty, holy God, the Creator of all things and the One who will judge every person individually, would find joy in us. But that’s what he says. I also will be glad because of Jerusalem, and I will rejoice over my people.

A picture of Jerusalem is there on Isaiah’s mural. The great city with its grand temple and multiple courtyards, the pleasant smoke of sacrifices rising up from it, the people gathering around as the smiling LORD descends to meet with them—all that is painted there on the wall! It is there to help you see that God is glad because of you, his people. Amazingly, just as your God and Savior brings you joy, you and I—this everlasting family—brings God joy!

You can take further comfort in this—God’s delight in us is not tucked away, held for the future of heaven after the Last Day, like retirement money stashed in an investment account, waiting for the future. No! He has that joy over you and me right now! We are his family right now! He loves us right now!

This is why he blesses us like he pictures in Isaiah—and these are impressions regarding the time of the New Testament Church: no weeping, no crying, images of infants not dying and old men living a long time, animals which are natural enemies getting along—all are picturesque ways of conveying the truth that we have a blessed existence as part of this family of God. So step back from those mural images, drop the fine, non-literal details and take in the big picture.

The message to Isaiah’s crowd was that when the Messiah would come, he would usher in this new and blessed relationship with God. You and I know what this is like because we live in it! We know the Messiah who was to come. We know the peace between God and people that Jesus brought. We are living in that time of blessing, which Isaiah saw off in the future.

What we enjoy now will continue on into eternity because we have a God who feels joy over us. We have an everlasting family to enjoy during this life and the next. Saints Triumphant Sunday celebrates all who have died in faith and have the crown of eternal life. On this Saints Triumphant Sunday, we thank God for family and friends and countless others who have been called to eternal victory—people who are part of our everlasting family.

You and I, who have been forgiven and washed clean of sin by Jesus, look forward to the eternal “Welcome Home” we will receive when we join the rest of our everlasting family where there is literally no sadness, no tears, no sin, no disaster, and no death.

There will only be a perfect and eternal life with our brothers and sisters in Christ and a perfect relationship with our God and Savior. We ask the Holy Spirit to keep us mindful of the blessings we have as part of this holy family of God now and to keep us in the saving faith so that we later enjoy the everlasting blessings of heaven. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.