Special Message: Isaiah 49:13-18

I have a word for you from Isaiah.

As many of you know, we've been going through the songs of the servant in Isaiah Sunday mornings.

I had another passage picked out, but the Lord directed me to this one.

Isaiah chapter 49, beginning to read in verse 13.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exalt, O earth.

Break forth, O mountains, into singing, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.

But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me.

My Lord has forgotten me.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Your walls are continually before me.

Your builders make haste.

Your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.

Lift up your eyes around and see.

They all gather, they come to you.

As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament, and you shall bind them as a bride does.

This is God's holy word.

I'm going to talk for just a couple minutes about hope.

The hope of the nations.

We've been looking at this evening.

We've been reading about, it's been sung about, and it started a long, long time ago in the garden where we fell an atom.

God so loved this world that he sent a second Adam.

And that's what this story tonight has been about.

A very famous theologian, practical theologian, who worked in the slums of India her whole life, said this being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that there is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

I think she was right.

We were made to be seen.

We were made to be known.

That's the message of tonight.

We can easily forget, in spite of the evidence, Isaiah wrote this passage for the people of Israel in captivity in Babylon.

They went because of their own sin.

They went out of their own rebellion, and yet somehow they kept blaming God.

Somehow they kept blaming God.

And we still do sometimes.

They were exiles in Babylon by their own making.

We can easily forget, in spite of the evidence, what more proof do we need of God's love?

Israel would have been better off exercising her own memory than accusing the Lord of losing his memory.

He had made promises from the beginning, as we've seen tonight.

The promise, the thread of the promise, ran through the whole Old Testament, through the whole New Testament.

We find hope in the promises that God Almighty has made in the giving of his Son Jesus Christ.

We can forget in spite of the evidence.

Secondly, we can easily forget because of the pain.

Pain has a way of making us forget what God has promised.

These people were in pain, many of them, living in a foreign land.

The pain of life can distort reality.

Sin and pain deceive us.

Doesn't it?

As though God is withholding something from us.

Have we not all struggled with that?

In some way, in some time?

What is he withholding from me?

And why is he withholding from me?

Isaiah remembers, reminds the people, our God does not forget.

Our God has given us more than enough reason to hope and to not lose our hope.

Has God forgotten you?

Does it seem that way?

Struggling in a marriage?

Struggling with singleness?

Illness, a stalled-out, unfulfilled career, addictions.

See, this is real life.

These are the things that can rob us of our joy, can rob us of our peace, can rob us of our hope.

This service tonight is to remind us all that God is not forgotten.

Lastly, we can forget for a season, but only for a season.

If God has his hand on you, it will only be for a season that you forget.

It may be a season right now that you feel like he's forgotten you.

If God has his hand on you, it's only for a season.

For the Lord comforts his people, just as Isaiah promised the Israelites, that God would send his servant, and his servant would not only remind us of the promises that God made in the Old Testament, but his servant would prove through the giving of his own life.

Verse 13 of the text I read, shout for joy, for the Lord comforts his people.

Are you looking for comfort this season?

The verbs shout and praise in the book of Isaiah are second only to the Psalms.

Isaiah is full of action verbs.

We have reason to shout in spite of the evidence.

We have reason to praise him in spite of what may be going on in our lives.

God's message to the Israelites in Babylon, you will be delivered.

God's message to us, you will be remembered.

And then God appeals to the strongest human image we know to prove that he has not forgotten us.

His love for us is greater than a mother's love for her baby.

We have a lot of mothers in this congregation.

I've seen a lot of love poured out to these children.

Verse 15.

Can a mother forget her baby?

Mothers?

No.

Of course not.

But then he goes on to say, there are some mothers in this world that might.

There are some mothers that might, not many.

Mothers go to great lengths to care for their babies and their toddlers and their children at great cost.

Can a nursing mother forget her baby?

God says, even these might forget, yet I will never forget you.

This is one of the strongest expressions of God's love for his people in the entire Old Testament.

If you've been cared and loved by your mother, there is yet even a stronger, greater love from your father.

May you know that this Christmas season.

His love for us is greater than a mother's love, but lastly he says his love for us is demonstrated because we are engraved on the palms of his hands.

That word engraved means to cut into, to cut down deeply into something so as to leave a permanent mark.

The names of the twelve tribes in the Old Testament were engraved on stones.

But there's something better.

The names of God's people are engraved on the palms of his hands.

Is this incredible?

For those of us who may be wondering if we're being noticed, if we're being seen, if we're being loved.

Instead of the master's name being engraved on the servant's hands as we would expect, no, the servants' names are engraved on the master's hands.

Again, incredible.

Think of what you do with your palms, the palms of your hands, the most tender part of your hand.

We embrace friends with our palms.

We embrace, we hold, we touch.

But there's other things that we do.

We surrender with our palms.

Palms up.

There's a friendship and there's an intimacy in the most sensitive part of your hand with the one who created you that he's offering you.

He wants to take your hand.

He wants to hold your hand through whatever you're going through.

As I look around, I know a fair bit about what some of you are going through.

I think that's why God gave me this message tonight.

Whatever you're going through, He promises to take your hand as you reach out to Him.

Your name is written on the palm of His hand.

What did Jesus say to Thomas after his resurrection?

Put your finger here in my wounds.

See my hands.

Where are you looking for this?

Where are you looking for this kind of acceptance?

Where are you looking for this kind of hope?

Where are you looking for this kind of love?

Do you think you're going to find it somewhere else?

Look at the hands of Jesus.

One day we will see with our own eyes his pierced hands, because he still carries the wounds of his love for us in his hands.

This is a fact.

One day we will look at his hands.

Pierced.

What?

So that we would not forget that.

He kept his scars.

Those are scars of love for you.

Are you looking for hope?

Have you lost your hope?

Hope is more than an idea.

This kind of hope is found in the person of Jesus.

The one that we've been reading about tonight.

The one who's been sung about.

Right now, as we're gathered in this little sanctuary, this little sanctuary in Alexandria, there's a massive worship service going on in heaven.

One day we're going to hear it.

One day we're going to see his hands.

Can you imagine the choir that's singing now in heaven?

The music that's being made.

The promises that are seen and realized in fullness.

Hope is not foolish if it's in Christ.

Hope is not unfulfilled if it's in Christ.

Tonight is all about pointing to Jesus.

You will find your hope in him, like nowhere else.

He loves you.

And he won't forget you.

He's engraved your name on his hands.

Follower of Christ.

And that's the message of Christmas.

We can live with hope.

No matter what we're facing, we can be people of hope.