Isaiah 12: Responding to Grace

Turn to Isaiah, chapter 12, isaiah, chapter 12.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

For those who are regularly here with us, your Bibles are probably starting to find a comfortable home in the book of Isaiah.

We've been going through this book together and our text this morning is Isaiah, chapter 12.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

We'll take the entire chapter and I want to begin by reading it for us.

This is God's word.

On that day, you will say I will give thanks to you, lord, although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.

Indeed, god is my salvation.

I will trust him and not be afraid For the Lord.

The Lord himself is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

You will joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation and on that day, you will say give thanks to the Lord, proclaim his name, make his works known among the peoples, declare that his name is exalted.

Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things.

Let this be known throughout the earth.

Cry out and sing citizen of Zion, for the Holy one of Israel is among you in his greatness.

Lord, we're looking to you, asking again favor us with the very spirit that you poured out on Christ.

Pour that out for us today in Jesus' name, amen.

Parents normally try to teach their children to express gratitude.

It's Christmas, your four-year-old gets a gift from Uncle Eddie and you say now go over and tell Uncle Eddie, thank you.

We should respond to grace with gratitude.

It's not just a child's lesson, that's a life lesson, that's a Bible lesson.

We should respond to grace with gratitude.

As you look at the text this morning, there's some repetition.

Verse number one begins on that day, you will say I will give thanks to you, lord.

It's almost a heading for this chapter, for this section.

And then verse number four repeats on that day you will say give thanks to the Lord.

Some of your Bibles might use the word praise for one of those occasions, and thanksgiving is certainly a form of praise, of praise.

But why does Isaiah call us to give thanks to God?

Because of his grace.

This chapter is also filled with the grace of God and we should respond to grace with gratitude.

Why is it so hard for children to say thank you?

The same reason it's hard for us as adults.

We minimize the gift, we think we're deserving of the grace, we run to experience whatever that thing is, and forget the giver.

All those reasons they don't change, though we might improve our politeness, there's still those same heart temptations to respond to grace, but not with overflowing gratitude.

So we're going to consider in this chapter two very simple headings.

God extends grace and we respond with gratitude.

But before we jump into those headings I want to take a little extra time to consider the context of this chapter.

So I pointed out in verse one and verse four there's this repeated idea about giving thanks or praise.

But there's another repeated idea in those verses.

On that day you will say verse 1.

And verse 4,.

On that day you will say, if the overarching theme of this passage is the giving of thanks, then the scene of the passage is on that day.

And it's not the first place you'd find this.

You can look back in chapter 11, other places in Isaiah.

On that day Isaiah is picking up in chapter 12, right where chapter 11 left off.

So I'd like for us to take just pause for 45 minutes and listen to Doug's sermon again from last week, if you could play that.

No, we're not going to do that, but just scan back to chapter 11 and look.

There's a new king who's coming.

He's empowered by God's spirit.

His character stands in contrast with kings of the earth.

He's going to bring hope for all the nations.

He's going to make things like the garden of Eden all over again.

And look at the final verse, specifically verse 16 of chapter 11.

There will be a highway for the remnant of his people who survived from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Isaiah is comparing the people's captivity in Egypt from years and years before and God's rescue out of Egypt, that exodus.

He's comparing it to what's going to happen in his own day when they're taken captive by Assyria and yet God's going to bring them out again.

There's going to be a new Exodus.

So on the immediate horizon, that's what we have A comparison of rescue from Assyria to rescue from Egypt, and chapter 12 is going to extend and elaborate that theme.

What did the people do when they came out of Egypt and God rescued them?

They gave thanks to God, chapter 12,.

What are they going to do when they're rescued from Assyria?

They're going to give thanks to God.

What did they do when they came out of Egypt and crossed over the river?

They burst out in jubilant songs.

What are they going to do when they're rescued from Assyrian captivity?

They're going to sing chapter 12.

What did they find?

As they journeyed through the wilderness out of Egypt, cross the Red Sea and then, shortly after that, exodus 15, 27 tells us.

Then they came to Elam where there were 12 springs and 70 date palms, and they camped there by the water.

How does Isaiah describe their experience in chapter 12, coming out of Assyria, verse number three look there, you will joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation.

You hear how Isaiah is still picking up that comparison with Egypt.

Just as they came out and experienced salvation and praise and thanksgiving and had these refreshing streams, they're going to come out again, praise, thanksgiving, and there's going to be refreshing springs.

But here it's not the springs of Elam, it's the springs of salvation.

So perhaps on the way back from Assyria they stopped off at some natural springs for refreshment.

That's possible.

But Isaiah's main point here is that there's a kind of comparison and an expansion.

Those springs of Elam were a tangible picture of God's refreshing provision, his refreshing abundance, and that's going to happen again.

So that's it.

No, that's not it.

That Exodus pattern is going to happen, not just out of Egypt and out of Assyria.

It's going to happen again in the future in an even greater way.

An even greater way.

We read John, chapter four, for the scripture reading today, and I want to remind you of a portion of that scripture.

This is Jesus' words in John 4, 14.

Whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never get thirsty again.

In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.

Can't dig that well with your own works, but you can receive it as a gift of God's grace.

So just as Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 12 speak of this new Exodus, both of these chapters envision a day when there's going to be an even greater exodus, and we see that in the coming of Christ.

We also see it at the very end of the story.

Listen to these words from Revelation 21.

Then one seated on the throne said look, I'm making everything new.

He also said right, because these words are faithful and true.

Then he said to me it is done.

I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

There's the end of the story.

So Isaiah 12 is just one piece of this glorious pattern of God's refreshing salvation in his people's lives.

So I want to show you that pattern at the outset, because this sermon is going to be mainly an exposition of Isaiah 12, applying it to our lives.

Spiritually, we're going to think about God's grace and our response of gratitude.

But I don't want you to think that this is merely a kind of like parachute sermon on the idea of gratitude.

In other words, it's not like this week I thought, boy, we've got some grouchy people who should give thanks a bit more often.

We need to got to find a message on gratitude.

So let me just kind of zoom over the landscape of the Bible and oh, it says thanks twice in that chapter.

I'm going to parachute down and I'm going to really let them have it on gratitude, like well, where are you?

Well, I don't know, but there's two words to say gratitude and thanks here.

What's the context?

I don't know, but this is going to really preach well on thanks.

If we were just looking to do parachute sermons on gratitude, I mean we should do that every other week.

I mean we don't need to do that once in a while.

But I want to show you that this is flowing out of what Isaiah is intending to do God's grace in our salvation and his rescue from our captivity to sin is the culmination of that Exodus pattern that Isaiah was pointing to.

So the Bible itself connects our experience of God's grace to Israel's journey out of Egypt and out of Assyria.

And then those patterns of gratitude are God intended patterns for us.

We should respond to grace with gratitude.

Let's consider those two headings.

We'll move through these.

Number one God extends grace.

He extends his grace through forgiveness.

Look at verse number one.

I will say I will give thanks to you, lord.

Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.

God gets angry.

He gets angry with the wicked every day.

He has a right to be angry.

He gets angry with the wicked every day.

He has a right to be angry.

There are many people who think well, god doesn't get angry.

He couldn't.

That would be so ungodlike of him.

You don't get that idea from reading the Bible Exodus 15, 7,.

You unleashed your burning wrath Deuteronomy 29, 26, and 27.

They began to serve other gods, bowing and worship to gods.

They had not known gods that the Lord had not permitted them to worship.

Therefore, the Lord's anger burned against this land and he brought every curse in this book written on it.

Now, when we say that God gets angry, we're not saying he's moody, that he wakes up grouchy or unreasonable.

His anger is the appropriate response to sin in the lives of his creatures.

It's a righteous and calibrated and appropriate response.

But and this is the beauty of our passage God is not only and always angry.

He's not merely and simply angry.

He's also a God of love.

He's a God of forgiveness.

I started reading a fiction book recently and one of the characters describes his father as like that angry God of the Old Testament, in other words, his memories from childhood of his father.

In this book.

His father seemed to be always angry, but that's actually not what's true about God.

The New Testament portrays his anger as well.

So, yes, he's a God who expresses anger, but he's not only and always ready to hurt someone.

Verse 1 tells us that God's anger is turned away and he brings comfort.

Turned away and he brings comfort that's just as much a part of his glorious character.

Now I'm saying that God has a right to be angry because of sinful rebellion.

So if God's going to leave aside anger and instead bring comfort, it can only be for one reason forgiveness.

It can only be for one reason forgiveness.

It's not because of a wild shift in his mood, it's he chooses to forgive rebels like us, and that's undeserved.

That's a gift of his grace.

There's the big idea again that if he's gonna turn away from anger and bring comfort, it's not deserved, it's undeserved.

It's a gracious gift, amazing grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

God extends grace through forgiveness.

He also extends grace through rescue.

Verse number two indeed, god is my salvation.

I will trust in him and not be afraid for the Lord.

The Lord himself is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

Knowing that God's wrath is removed from us and that he forgives us is enough reason to be overflowing with gratitude.

But there's more than that.

Consider Israel.

They're in captivity, going to be in captivity Assyria, then later Babylon.

The reason they're taken to captivity is because of God's judgment.

He allows foreign nations to do that because of their sin.

It's deserved.

Imagine if God comes to Israel, in Assyria or then later in Babylon, and says I'm angry with you, but I no longer hold anything personally against you, I forgive you.

That would be amazing, that would be wonderful.

But they're still in Assyria, they're still in Babylon, they're still going to be in bondage.

God does more than forgive us.

He rescues us from bondage to sin.

So, brothers and sisters, let's not only think of God's grace in terms of his forgiveness yes, it is that but it is more than just his not looking at our sin.

It's his rescue from, as it's been said, rescued from the penalty of sin, rescued from the power of sin, and one day he will yet rescue us from the very presence of sin.

What amazing grace.

Nobody could get Israel out of Egypt, but mighty God in his grace.

Nobody could get them out of Assyria, but mighty God in his grace.

Friends, no one can get you and I out of our sin, not our parents, not our pastor, not we ourselves.

It takes the almighty grace of God to rescue us ourselves.

It takes the almighty grace of God to rescue us.

Galatians 1, 3, and 4, grace to you and peace from God, the Father and Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

To him be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

There's the fuller, complete picture of how he has done this, how he has shown favor to rebels.

He's done it through Jesus Christ.

He's done it through his atoning sacrifice.

The son of God became a human being.

He took on human flesh while remaining God.

He lived a life that was so perfect.

God was never angry at his son for anything his son personally had done.

It was a life of complete and pure righteousness.

And now God credits all those who trust in Christ alone.

He gives them the righteousness of his son, that perfect record.

Yes, jesus experienced the wrath of God, but not for himself.

He experienced that in the place of people like you and me, that we could be rescued, that we could find forgiveness.

So if you don't know God's grace in your soul this morning, run to Jesus Christ.

That's the place to go.

We should respond to grace with gratitude.

So let's look at the second heading.

Responding with gratitude what does gratitude look like?

I'm going to bring out four features of gratitude.

First, gratitude recognizes God's character.

We've already touched on this.

The more we really understand God is the Holy One of Israel and go ahead and look there at verse number six cry out and sing, citizen of Zion, for the Holy One of Israel is among you in his greatness, when we stand in awe of the greatness and holiness of God, of his devotion to himself and his own glory, his perfect commitment in all of his covenant keeping you say wow.

And it's in light of that holiness and greatness that the forgiveness which is also part of his character, the comfort that comes and overwhelms all of that judgment, those things together, rightly acknowledged, start to awaken in us the breadth and reality of the kind of gratitude that we should be offering, the magnitude of the gratitude, if I can say it that way.

Do you recognize where you stand in relation to God's holiness and his greatness?

It's almost like to contrast the child who's so focused on the toys and the gift.

They forgot about the parent that gave them that gift.

There's something understandable, yet also so wrong, about that image of a child who doesn't say thanks but just goes about playing with the toys.

This is a great gift of grace and it deserves great gratitude.

Gratitude not only recognizes God's character.

Second feature is gratitude rests in God's character.

Now, that's similar, but I'm pushing it a little bit farther.

Verse number two, chapter 12, verse two of Isaiah Indeed, god is my salvation.

I will trust him and not be afraid, for the Lord himself is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

It's one thing to acknowledge with our lips God's character, his grace.

It's another thing to lay hold of that with our hearts and rest in it and trust in it.

The best kind of gratitude comes from a heart of trust, a heart that's resting in the Lord.

You know, we should be like that child who gets the gift and runs over and says this is the most wonderful and best Christmas gift ever.

Thank you so much.

And because the Mahogany is comfortable sitting in the lap of their parents or their grandparents, because they trust and know the heart of the giver, can you, can we find time?

It's all the hurry of our lives to sit down in the armchair of God's grace and say thank you and just rest there, free of of sinful anxiety, free of worry.

Verse two gives us a clue about that kind of heart trust.

Verse two speaks of this trust.

That is an evidence of gratitude.

It says I will trust in him and not be afraid.

The more that fear crowds into your life, the more difficult it will be for you to truly live before God with gratitude.

I'm going to say that again the more fear crowds into your life, the more difficult it will be for you to truly live before God with gratitude and praise.

I'm not saying fear is always wrong.

If you hear glass shatter in the middle of the night and you think an intruder's in your house, your heart's going to race.

If you're a father and you get diagnosed with stage four cancer, you're going to wonder what's going to happen to my family.

I'm also not saying if you ever express any doubt about God's salvation or you are not sure if his anger has turned from you, that that means you're not a Christian.

I'm not saying those things, but I am saying what the text says God is my salvation.

I will trust in him and not be afraid.

That's the normal, should be the normal expression of thankfulness.

I think we've all known people who say I'm trusting in God, but and then they spend minutes talking about this thing that's happening, that's bad in their life and this thing that's bad in their life.

And I know I should trust in God, but you know this thing and this thing and this thing you know.

Please pray about those things.

Yes, let's absolutely pray for those difficult circumstances, but pray for their hearts, because sometimes the expressed profession of trust in God doesn't seem to match the focus of their minds.

If I can say that Elizabeth Elliot says fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.

And if you're in that trust struggle, acknowledge that, ask for help in that.

To say, here are the circumstances I'm struggling to trust in God and because I'm struggling to trust in God, I'm struggling to experience gratitude.

Pray for me and go to the Lord with that.

Think of that man in the gospels.

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

God is so gracious.

He loves to run to a prayer like that.

He loves to run to those who are hurting and weak and acknowledging in every way their weakness before him.

See if the Lord might not yet fill your heart with a resting gratitude that trusts in him.

Third thing that gratitude does.

Gratitude multiplies among God's people.

You need to spend a lot of time with thankful, praising Christians because their gratitude will spur your gratitude and hopefully your gratitude will spur their gratitude, and then you can have a gratitude party, and that's even better than a personal gratitude retreat, although some of you could stand to take one of those too.

I could stand to take one of those at different points in my life when I feel frustrated.

There's a really fascinating pronoun shift in this passage.

You do not see it quite as well in our English translations, but you see it in verses one and two where there are personal pronouns.

Verse one on that day you will say I will give thanks to you, lord, although you were angry with me.

Your anger is turned away.

You have comforted me.

God is my salvation.

I will trust.

Do you hear those personal pronouns?

But then verses three to five actually shift to plural pronouns.

In verse three, the you is a plural you.

You all will joyfully draw water.

You all will say the verbs are second person, imperative, plural verbs.

You all should give thanks.

You all should make known his works.

You all should sing the personal moves to the corporate.

Is isaiah 12?

Is this isaiah's testimony of thanksgiving or is it the remnant's testimony of thanksgiving?

Yes, the answer is yes.

The personal blends with the corporate.

It's not just about me giving thanks, it's about we giving thanks.

Derek Kidner says there cannot be a transformed community without saved individuals.

Nor can there be saved individual who is not incorporated into the community.

These things work together.

Matthew Henry says it, perhaps a little more memorably.

Matthew Henry says in that day every particular believer shall sing a song of praise for his own interest in that salvation.

Thanksgiving work shall be closet work.

Many in concert shall join in praising God for the common benefit arising from this salvation.

Thanksgiving work shall be congregation work and the praises of God shall be publicly sung in the congregations of the upright.

So our gratitude should be closet work.

Yes, on our own we should acknowledge God.

Thank you for saving me, thank you for the gift of grace in all kinds of ways.

But our Thanksgiving work shouldn't just be closet work.

It shouldn't only be private.

It should be congregation work where together we come and celebrate.

Look what the Lord has done among us.

Look what the Lord has done for all of us.

Can't we give thanks to him?

Yes, we can.

When God extends grace, it's so spectacular.

It's not enough for just one person to say thank you.

It's too great, it's too glorious.

It needs multitudes of people to express how beautiful and glorious it is.

And so, just as God has sent grace to you individually, if you're trusted in Christ, that grace of salvation, forgiveness, rescue from sin, yes, you individually, but then together.

God has given us grace, and God loves to work collectively among his people.

And that leads to something else it's the last feature of this gratitude.

So we should respond to God's grace with gratitude.

Gratitude must be proclaimed among the nations verses four and five.

On that day you will say give thanks to the lord, proclaim his name, make his works known among the peoples, declare that his name is exalted, sing to the Lord for he has done glorious things.

Let this be known throughout the earth.

We, as his people, gather together on the Lord's day in our different locations around the world and we offer our collective thanks to God.

We want that Thanksgiving message to resound out of here into the very corners and ends of the earth.

There should be a collective urgency among all of us who know the Lord to have that Thanksgiving spread.

We get to be a channel of God's grace.

We get to be a channel of God's grace.

Our gratitude could cause someone that doesn't really know it in their hearts to want to seek it and experience it and explore it.

We're channels of God's grace and it's nothing in us.

You have to love John Calvin.

Commenting on this passage, he says we ought also to consider the honor which he bestows upon us, that is, god, when he condescends to make use of our services for extolling and spreading the glory of his name, though we are altogether useless and of no value.

You have to love the honesty there.

It's not us, but it's this wonderful message that we have, this wonderful message that we have.

I mentioned earlier that a gratitude that's from the heart should be a trusting gratitude that sits down in the armchair of God's grace and says your anger's turned away.

I believe that.

Thank you, lord, but don't take that armchair analogy too far.

From the vantage point of our own fears and our own works.

We rest from all of those things.

Rest from those works.

Jesus says.

Come to you that labor heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

So from that vantage point, but from the vantage point of what the nations need to know and hear, we can't be armchair Christians.

From that vantage point, we have to have this urgency that the Thanksgiving has to spread.

It has to go out of here.

Sing to the Lord, verse 5 says, for he has done glorious things.

Let this be known throughout the earth.

We should want this geographical expansion in the same way that Jesus instructed his own disciples when he ascended to heaven be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea, samaria, to the very ends of the earth.

The same ends of the earth language we find right in this very passage from Isaiah.

So sometimes people will say God's brought the nations to our doorstep here in New York City, and that's true.

Let's take advantage of those opportunities.

And then people like the Killebrews, people like the Jones family who are trying to work with Punjabi people in Queens, we want to support them, we want to be behind them, but let's not say, well, we sent the Killebrews and the Joneses, we support them as they are going to the nations who are here.

Let me sit back in my armchair and just focus on my stocks and let that be my heart's you know, contentment and delight.

That's not enough.

There should be an impulse alongside of that to send out people like the Cooney family, like the Driscoll family, who are going out from here to the very geographical ends of the earth to see churches established that can overflow with gratitude to God.

Let that be our collective passion.

Don't let that be just a Killebrew burden or just a Cooney burden.

Let it be a New Hyde Park Baptist Church burden, because that's the heart that God has for the nation.

So we should share in the same heart and burden and passion that the Lord has.

Missions is not just a Paul thing, it's an Isaiah thing, it's a Bible thing, it's a Christian thing.

Last week, in chapter 11, verse 10, the root of Jesse is going to be a banner for all nations and we see it repeated here in chapter 12.

All kinds of people get to, in a greater way, retrace the steps of Israel out of Egypt.

God has given us forgiveness and rescued us from the exile and slavery of sin, and the world needs to know.

We're grateful and we want you to hear that message and receive that message.

I've mentioned this book before.

I'll mention it again.

Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper, fantastic book on missions.

He says if you love the glory of God, you cannot be indifferent to missions.

Let me just change that for our sermon today.

If you truly have gratitude in your heart to God for his grace, you cannot be indifferent to missions.

Isn't that what Isaiah is telling us here?

We should respond to grace in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of places.

We should respond to grace with gratitude.

As we draw to a close, let me show you one more beautiful thing from our passage.

Isaiah 12, 2 offers this personal confession God is my salvation.

I will trust him and not be afraid for the Lord.

The Lord himself is my strength and my song.

He has become my salvation.

I will trust him.

I will trust him.

Turn over to Hebrews, chapter two.

So we've been in Isaiah 12.

Turn to the book of Hebrews that's New Testament, all the way towards the end.

If you hit Revelation, you've gone too far.

All the way towards the end.

If you hit revelation, you've gone too far.

The author of Hebrews puts those very words on the lips of Jesus.

The author of Hebrews takes our passage and draws out from that passage a quote that he then puts on the lips of Jesus.

Hebrews, chapter two, verse 13.

Again, I will trust in him.

Some of your Bibles might have those words in quotation marks or in bold print.

The translators are trying to give a little clue that this seems to be a quotation from the Old Testament, and if you look in the notes or the margin there, you'll probably see a cross-reference to Isaiah 12, our passage for today.

Now, here in Hebrews 2, beginning in verse 11, jesus is the one who's speaking, and the first quote of Jesus speaking comes from Psalm 22.

And then we have this I will trust in him quote, which is likely from Isaiah 12.

And then there's a final quote from Isaiah chapter eight.

Notice how the context here in Hebrews 2 resonates with Isaiah chapter 12.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

Hebrews 2.15 speaks of Jesus rescuing his people from slavery.

Isaiah has been moving from people's slavery in Egypt to present captivity in Assyria and then into the future and release from captivity to sin.

Hebrews brings out freedom from captivity to sin.

And then in Hebrews 2, verse 12, jesus offers a personal song of proclamation and praise.

Hebrews 2:12

I will sing in the congregation.

I will sing in the congregation.

What has Isaiah been calling us to do?

Sing in response to the Lord.

And then, right as we get to the heart of these quotes, we get this simple and powerful expression from Christ.

I will trust in him.

Isaiah 12 is Isaiah's song of gratitude.

It's the remnant song of gratitude.

It's our Savior's song of gratitude.

Christ is leading the way.

Our Savior is out in front of us.

He is singing before us in this gratitude.

He sent out his word and his spirit that the nations might come to know and hear and rejoice.

When we express gratitude like this, we're just following the footsteps of our Savior.

That's what our Lord calls us to do.

Let's do that this week together.

Let's pray Lord, thank you, thank you.

Help us to say thank you, not tritely, not hypocritically, but from hearts that have earnestly experienced the grace of God.

Come down to men, they will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

Thank you for that salvation.

Thank you, oh Lord, for the refreshment that we find in forgiveness.

Thank you for the Holy Spirit, those springs of living water stirring in us.

We want to keep drinking from him.

We want to find ourselves never tired of saving grace, never tired of rescue from this present evil age, never tired of even looking not only back to your grace, but forward to the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ, forward to the new creation where river flows, to the city of God where we're able to drink and drink and drink and never be thirsty again.

Oh Lord, we express our gratitude today and we pray that, by the self-same power of the spirit who inspired Isaiah to write these things, that you would give us a trusting, resting, expanding, joyful gratitude this Lord's day, in Jesus name, amen.