Isaiah 65:17-25 - Rejoicing in God's New Creation

Turn to Isaiah this morning.

Isaiah chapter 65.

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

It's page 661 if you're using the Pew Bible this morning.

As we journey through this book, we're gonna take the last portion of Isaiah 65.

The passage today covers verse 17 down through verse 25.

This is what God's word says.

For I will create new heavens and a new earth.

The past events will not be remembered or come to mind.

Then be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.

For I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.

The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.

In her, a nursing infant will no longer live only a few days, or an old man not live out his days.

Indeed, the one who dies a hundred years old will be mourned as a young man.

And the one who misses a hundred years will be considered cursed.

People will build houses and live in them.

They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They will not build and others live in them.

They will not plant and others eat.

For my people's lives will be like the lifetime of a tree.

My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

They will not labor without success or bear children destined for disaster, for they will be a people blessed by the Lord along with their descendants.

Even before they call, I will answer.

While they are still speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle, but the serpent's food will be dust.

They will not do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain, says the Lord.

We need you always, but particularly we need you through your word.

So help us, please, help me and help all of us to listen to it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you visit Battery Park in Manhattan, you'll find there Castle Clinton, the remnants of an old fort.

And one of the exhibits inside is a rendered display of New York City through the centuries.

So you can see a rendering of Manhattan when there's farmland and a few little settlements.

You can see it with some small businesses and the Brooklyn Bridge and no skyscrapers.

And then you can see it like it is today, a skyline of granite and marble and lights.

What would they say?

It's not all good, but it is a new city.

Now, what if you asked them not just to predict what it would be like, but what they wanted it to be like?

What would their hopes and aspirations be for the future?

What about you?

If I asked you about the future, or when you think about the future, what's the dominant emotion of your heart?

Excitement?

Anxiety?

Fear?

Hope?

I don't mean about Manhattan specifically.

I know some of you like to travel there once in a while, some of you never, and that's fine.

But I just mean your own future, your village, your home, your life.

What would you want it to be?

In our passage this morning, Isaiah paints this picture of an incredible city to come.

But it's not just a city, it's a whole new creation.

Verse 18 and verse 19, if you look there, those verses speak about a Jerusalem to come that God's creating.

But if you go back to verse 17, that's the heading for this whole section.

A new heaven and a new earth.

It's the same exact progression we find in the book of Revelation, chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

There's a new heaven, a new earth that John sees, and then a new Jerusalem.

Our passage has a lot of glory.

We'll come to that.

But there's one command in the passage.

You find that in verse 18.

Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.

That's our big takeaway for today.

God wants us to rejoice in his new creation.

He doesn't want us to simply acknowledge his future plans.

He wants us to rejoice in his new creation.

We're all tempted to think about the future with anxious anticipation instead of joyful expectation.

Sometimes that's because we're maybe looking more on the inside than on the upside.

And I don't mean just wishing something to be, but looking instead of in, looking up to the God who's spoken, to the God who can't break his word, to the God who can be trusted.

The title of the message this morning is Rejoicing in God's New Creation.

Rejoicing in God's New Creation.

As we look at this passage, we're going to consider four reasons to rejoice in God's new creation.

Here's the first reason.

Rejoice in God's new creation because of what it doesn't have.

That's a strange way to begin, but there's a lot of no longers and willnots in the passage.

We'll consider a few of these.

There's no more tears.

Verse number 19, look there.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad of my people.

The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.

Sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly.

You remember Hannah in the temple praying and weeping?

Eli thinks that she's drunk.

That's how moved she is.

Even our Lord experienced this.

When he comes to Lazarus' tomb, and he sees the family and the neighbors, and he takes in the whole scene, and John 11, 35 tells us simply and poignantly, Jesus wept.

So it's not wrong to weep in this life.

In fact, God commands us at times to weep with those who weep.

But we can take up the words of Paul, sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

Because there's coming a day when there's no more tears.

No more unfulfilled lives.

Look at verse 20.

In her, a nursing infant will no longer live only a few days, or an old man not live out his days.

Death is never welcome in this world, but sometimes death seems to intrude itself the most difficult times.

Miscarriages, stillborn birth.

Some of you all have experienced that.

That's one of the most harrowing things parents can go through.

All of this expectation, and it seems like it's just snuffed out in a moment.

In many societies throughout history, infant death has been even more common than it is today.

In the 1600s, about one-third of children never lived to see their fifth birthday.

John Owen is a Puritan known for his precise theology.

What's not as well known about him is that he and his wife had 11 children.

Ten of them died in infancy.

And the daughter that survived grew up, was married, and shortly after her marriage, she died of tuberculosis.

No parent wants to bury their children.

But it happens in this life.

No more unfulfilled lives in the new creation.

It's not only at the beginning, sometimes in the middle of life, things seem to be cut short.

Some of you might remember Gary and Cheryl Glover, wonderful couple who was part of our church some years ago.

I remember getting the call that Gary was at the hospital and had a heart attack.

Remember sitting there with Doug and Royal and Cheryl, his wife, and the doctor comes in and says, We did all we could.

He passed away.

Gary was in his late 50s.

Not a young child, but from a human vantage point, you think he had more decades to give and to love his family and his church.

And that wasn't God's plan.

Wonderfully, Cheryl, his wife, who lives upstate, had such a response of faith and trust when the doctors went on to say he didn't suffer.

She said, Well, he's not suffering now, I can tell you that.

No more tears, no more unfulfilled lives, no more frustrating work.

Look at the beginning of verse 22.

They will not build and others live in them, they will not plant and others eat.

Now look down at the beginning of verse 23.

They will not labor without success or bear children destined for disaster.

Labor, others eat.

Isaiah's not extolling the virtues of selfishness here.

He's echoing the words of Ecclesiastes 2.

I hated all my work that I labored at under the sun because I must leave it to the one who comes after me.

And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool.

Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun.

This too is futile.

So I began to give myself over to despair concerning all my work that I labored at under the sun.

When there is a person whose work was done with wisdom and knowledge and skill, and he must give a portion to a person who has not worked for it.

This is futile and a great wrong.

For what does a person get with all his work and all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?

All his days are filled with grief and his occupation is sorrowful.

Even at night, his mind doesn't rest.

This too is futile.

Not the whole of Ecclesiastes, that's a portion of it.

God designed us as humans for satisfying labor.

You can come back to our image of God series, shameless plug for Sunday nights.

Not tonight, but in the future.

We'll talk more about that.

But we don't really know to what extent our work's gonna last.

We don't know who's gonna carry on our legacy.

We don't even know if our children or our children's children will take the wise road or the foolish road.

That's a burden.

And it's a burden that's entirely lifted in God's new creation.

So there's so much hope here of what God's new creation doesn't have, no more tears, no more unfulfilled lives, no more frustrating work.

The people of Isaiah's day, how could they grab hold of this?

Lost soon to be in Babylon, in exile.

There had to be one coming, a servant who could actually make this possible.

And a servant was coming.

Rejoice in God's new creation.

Here's the second reason because of what it does have.

Not only because of what it doesn't have, because of what it does have.

It has permanent flourishing.

Look at verse 22 in the middle of verse 22.

My people's lives will be like the lifetime of a tree.

My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

Trees always seem to last.

Sure, a storm could uproot it, but normal conditions, trees keep coming back year after year.

They get thicker and thicker.

The oldest tree in the world, they think, is in California, actually.

4,800 years old is what they date it as.

It's called Methuselah.

Let the reader understand, right?

God is saying that his people will be able to experience this kind of flourishing in longevity.

No more volatility, no more withering, just flourishing.

It's like Psalm 1.

How happy is the one who doesn't walk in the advice of the wicked.

His delight is in the Lord's instruction.

He meditates on it day and night.

He's like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth fruit.

There's flourishing coming.

There's a blessed man who abides in the Lord's presence and brings it to pass.

The new creation also has complete harmony.

Look at the end of verse 23.

They will be a people blessed by the Lord along with their descendants.

There's inner personal conflict in this world, even among families.

Children can rebel against parents.

Imagine a place where you only ever always got along perfectly with all of your coworkers.

Can you imagine that?

I saw a few eyes rolled in this life.

Perfect harmony.

Some of you say, wow, I love coming here on Sunday.

It's like a haven of rest.

And I go out in the world, it's just turmoil.

The new creation is not one day of rest and six days of turmoil.

The new creation is rest and joy and harmony.

24-7.

Not just for the redeemed humanity, it's the whole created order.

Look at verse 25.

The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like a cattle.

The safari plains will become a petting zoo.

Think about that.

The safari plains will be a petting zoo.

You'll never have to walk out into your backyard and see a baby rabbit shredded by a hawk.

There won't be tsunamis wrecking lives and beautiful geography.

It's all of creation, the whole of it singing with a complete wholeness.

It's composed by God.

Hallelujah.

There's perfect intimacy in the new creation.

Verse 24.

Even before they call, I will answer.

While they are still speaking, I will hear.

What if there was someone who always anticipated exactly what was in your heart and responded perfectly and immediately before you could ever even ask them?

That just doesn't happen in this life.

Even among some of our best relationships.

Another pastor posted this recently.

Maybe some of you who are couples can relate to this post.

He said, Over coffee this morning, my wife said, Did you hear anything I just said?

I thought to myself, well, that's an odd way to start a conversation.

Think about that.

It'll come to you, alright?

Think about it.

I don't recommend Facebook, I really don't, but sometimes a gem like that comes along and think it's it's worthwhile after all.

God's a God of perfect knowledge.

God already knows immediately and intimately all of our thoughts and heart and prayers.

God's never sleeping, he's never grouchy.

God is not going to be some kind of new and improved version of Himself in the new creation.

But we will be.

And the sin that clouds and constricts our relationship with God will be gone.

The problem is not that God doesn't listen.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

And in the new creation, God will undo the sin from the beginning and remove every barrier so that we can only have unrestrained, perfect communion with Him forever.

That's the intimacy that awaits us in the new creation.

And that brings us to the third reason we should rejoice in God's new creation.

Because of what it doesn't have, because of what it does have.

We should also rejoice in God's new creation because of what it shows us.

What Isaiah is doing in our passage today is not just giving us a Norman Rockwell painting of a great scene that's going to be nice.

He's helping us see how God's story from creation to redemption all the way into eternity fits and progresses perfectly together.

There's a movie called Lion.

I think it's based on a true story.

And in this movie, there's an Indian boy who gets on a train with his brother when he's very young, less than five years old, and he gets lost and stuck on this train and ends up after several days in Calcutta in an orphanage.

He gets adopted by an Australian couple, goes to Australia.

And the movie fast forwards to when he's away for school in Melbourne.

And one night he's at a party with some friends.

And they're talking about where they're from.

He doesn't really like to talk about that.

Just says, I'm from Calcutta, I was adopted.

And then he smells something.

And he goes, he leaves the living area and he goes into the kitchen and he sees gelabies frying up on the stove.

That's some of you are smiling.

That's like an Indian funnel cake.

Although I'm sure it's much more glorious than our Staten Island funnel cakes.

So like a fried dough treat.

He sees it in the frying pan and it calls to his mind a memory of when he was a little boy back in his original home before he got on the train, before with his mother frying those treats.

And he's kind of shaken.

And his friends come in and they see him disturbed.

And it's very moving.

They ask him what's going on.

And he finally says, I'm not from Calcutta.

I'm lost.

That's what Isaiah is doing here.

He's invoking the very beginning of God's story to show what was lost and how God restores and fits it all together.

The Bible begins, we began our service this way this morning.

In the beginning, God created heavens and earth.

Here in verse 17, God speaks again and says he will create new heavens, new earth.

In the middle of the garden, there's this tree of life.

Here in verse 22, Isaiah compares the people to a tree that will endure.

After the fall, in God's mercy, Adam and Eve can still bear children, but their son Cain kills Abel.

Here in verse 23, God says his people will not bear children destined for disaster.

In the beginning, God comes and calls out, Where are you?

They're hiding, their separation and distance.

But here in Isaiah verse 24, God's people call and there's an immediate answer.

There's really only one thing in the Entire passage that we have for today that sounds like it could be even negative at all.

In verse 25, the lion is happily munching on straw by the cattle and the and the lambs.

And then verse 25 says, but the serpent's food will be dust.

Eating dirt doesn't sound too great to me.

The serpent's food, but the serpent's food will be dust.

So it's contrasting the serpent's lot from these other animals.

It's almost as though the snake is still under a curse.

Ah.

Genesis 3.14.

God says the serpent's going to eat dust all the days of his life.

The judgment in the beginning carries on to the end.

That's the appropriate end to the story, that there's actually judgment for those that oppose God, including even the great serpent and snake himself.

That's the right end to the story.

I don't mean to make light of it, but at the end of Jaws, if the shark is like a performer at SeaWorld, that's not the right end to Jaws.

You know, it's it's it's a serious thing when people defy God.

And here's the Lord saying, All will be made right, even the appropriate judgment will come.

There's also, and this is a little harder to see, but just think with me for a moment here.

In the Garden of Eden, it said that a river flowed out from the Garden of Eden.

Rivers don't flow up, they flow down.

Ezekiel 28 speaks of the Garden of Eden on the mountain of God.

So the original garden was on this elevated mountain-like place in some basic way.

And look how Isaiah says in verse 25 the conclusion, they will not do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain.

The garden mountain that brought sin is once again going to become this garden mountain of perfect worship.

And when we come to Revelation, we see a new heavens and a new earth.

We see a new Jerusalem.

We see no more tears.

We see the presence of God perfectly illuminating everything, seeing God and being known by Him.

It's all part of the masterful plan of God who was at work in Eden, who is at work in Isaiah's day with this prophecy, who is at work into the very future of eternity to make all things new.

It's this glorious symphony.

Isn't that amazing?

Look at verse 22.

My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

God's chosen us to be part of this.

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who didn't spare his own son, but freely gave him up for us all, how will he not with him freely give us all things?

Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect?

It's God who justifies.

It's no wonder Paul can say in Romans, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who's been his counselor?

Of him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be glory forever and ever.

That's what he shows us.

Rejoice.

Last reason for us to rejoice in God's new creation.

Because of who it points us to.

Because of who it points us to.

Now, this has been implied as we've been going along here, but I've been giving you a lot of what from the passage.

What it doesn't have, what it does have, what it shows us.

But the deepest glory of the new creation is not a what, it's a who.

The fuel of our joy is not an environment or an object, first and foremost, it's a person.

It's the very person of God.

Verse 18, look at this carefully.

Then be glad and rejoice forever in what I'm creating.

There's our command, there's our takeaway.

For, here's the immediate reason.

For I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight.

If you happen to be reading the English Standard Version or the King James this morning, they add a helpful word for this Hebrew phrase.

They add in the word behold.

Rejoice and be glad.

Why?

Behold.

Take a look at this.

God is creating it.

He's the architect and builder.

That's the reason to rejoice first and foremost.

And he even says here, he's going to create his people to be a delight.

Doesn't that give us hope for those that struggle to rejoice?

We know that we should rejoice evermore.

It's there, but it's hard for us to do that.

For some people, it's especially hard.

God in the future is going to apply to his own who have trusted in the Savior all of his unstoppable creative force to make you perfectly delighted in him forever.

He's going to do it.

Before this passage ever gets to the they wills and the they will nots, there's this series of I will, I will, I will.

It's God's work.

Sometimes you hear people say, we're helping bring in the new Jerusalem.

Yes, we're ambassadors.

Uh yes, we're we're servants.

We bear witness to Christ.

Yes, we have work to do for God.

But here in this passage, God's the one creating it.

We're not like with him with the hammers.

And in Revelation, the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven.

We don't pull it down with a rope and you know set it up.

It's God's doing.

It's all his and he gets the glory.

So if God is going to do it, and he says rejoice, and it's all his work, it's sure to happen, why is it hard for us to rejoice?

Let me ask you a question.

Don't answer it too quickly, but think about this question.

But do you believe that God wants you to be joyful?

Not just that he has commanded you to rejoice, do you believe that he deeply delights in your rejoicing?

When the family's at Disney World and there's a teenage son who's complaining, they're like, I'm too old for this.

Dad, can we can we go somewhere else?

Finally, Dad snaps.

I paid a lot of money for this vacation, and you're gonna have a good time.

He's like, Alright, okay, I'm gonna have a good time.

Yeah, it's this is great.

Is that how you view God?

Like he's just always waiting to snap, and he wants you to be joyful, and then the son and the spirit come along and try to calm him down.

That's not accurate.

Father, son, and spirit are all perfectly united in one essence and one superabounding joy.

And maybe you don't think God really deeply delights in you being joyful because you don't think of God as a joyful God.

Friends, God is more joyful than any of us could ever be or imagine.

Look carefully at the beginning of verse 19.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem.

This isn't Isaiah speaking, this is God speaking.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.

God is leading the rejoicing charge.

God is a God of vengeance and wrath, yes.

But if we think of him only as a dark thundercloud waiting to strike, we aren't thinking of him rightly.

Nehemiah 8.10, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Matthew 25, 21, enter into the joy of your Lord.

Psalm 16, 11, in your presence is abundant joy.

Some of you might not have thought a lot about this theme of a delighting and joyful God.

I'll give you here's two resources you might look at later that'll help you think about this theme in scripture.

One is a little longer book by John Piper called The Pleasures of God.

And then the second is a little shorter book by Michael Reeves called Delighting in the Trinity.

I'll give you one quote from each book.

This is what Piper writes.

God is not constrained by any inner deficiency or unhappiness.

This is what distinguishes us from God.

We have an immense void that craves satisfaction from powers and persons and pleasures outside ourselves.

But God is not like that.

He has been complete and overflowing with satisfaction from all eternity.

And then Michael Reeves writes, In the Triune God is the love behind all love, the life behind all life, the music behind all music, and the joy behind all joy.

When we think about the new creation, the first and greatest topic we should think about is God Himself.

He's the ground and goal of our rejoicing.

If when you think about God's new creation, you first and only think new body, that's gonna be nice.

Pleasant environment, that's gonna be really nice.

And you you don't think at all about delighting in God and experiencing a relationship with Him?

If that's not in your heart at all, you might not be saved.

I say that, and I do say that to scare you, because many deceive themselves, Scripture says.

We don't want anyone to be deceived.

But I say that because is there some opening in your heart to a depth of delight in the all-joyful God that you haven't experienced yet, that you you could experience?

Come to Christ.

He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, acquainted with sorrows for us, for our sins, that we might delight and rejoice in God forever.

And for all of us, God is going to increase our capacity for joy.

We haven't begun to experience the limitations and boundaries of the kind of joy we will have in God, because he himself is the infinite fountain of joy and delight.

Revelation 22 says, His servants will worship him and they will see his face.

What joy that will bring.

Isaiah speaks here to a people long ago, and he says they can rejoice in the present because of what God's gonna do in the future.

Same thing is true for us.

It's a call for us.

We can rejoice even now in the present because of what God's going to do in the future.

Here's a question.

Are we rejoicing now only because of what God's gonna do in the future?

We're just holding on now.

No.

And yes, yes, there's still much that is future.

Revelation 21 and 22 is still future.

We know lions and lambs aren't lying down together.

If you have chickens at your house and you think, I'm gonna bring in the new creation, I'll get a fox and they'll get along great.

Go outside, they'll be cozied up for a nap together, not a good idea.

So we know it's a fallen world, and there's still much that is future.

But it's not all future.

The new creation has dawned with the coming of Christ into the world.

When he came down from heaven and went up on that mountain to offer perfect worship to God, when he came out of the tomb, he was the firstborn, the beginning of God's creation.

That's why Paul can say, as we heard in the scripture reading today, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Hebrews 12.

Hebrews 12 tells us that when we gather as the people in Christ, we've come to Mount Zion, the heavenly assembly, the Jerusalem above, to the spirits of just men made perfect.

There's a real beginning now.

So if you want not perfect, but good foretastes of a new creation, come and gather with his people.

Come for worship, come to his churches.

We enter into joy week after week, Lord's day after Lord's day, we come to rejoice before the throne, knowing that there's an even greater day coming when our Savior says, Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Let's pray.

Oh Lord, this is the longing of our hearts.

We're so impatient in some good ways to say, Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And yet we don't disparage what you've left behind for us.

We don't disparage the very work of Christ that has begun this new thing.

And we see in the transformed lives of those around us an amazing new creation, amazing, if not perfect, harmony, still good and glorious and growing harmony.

Lord, thank you for this promise of intimacy with you.

Lord, please speak to us through your spirit.

We don't want to be orphans.

We want to know and enjoy the love of our Father.

So as we sing together, may we rejoice together that Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe.

Sin left a crimson stain, but you washed it white as snow.

And we can give our thanks and praise to you today.

And we ask you humbly, fill our hearts with joy, joy in you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand.