Micah McCormick: Turn to Isaiah, chapter 12, isaiah, chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: For those who are regularly here with us, your Bibles are probably starting to find a comfortable home in the book of Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: We've been going through this book together and our text this morning is Isaiah, chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: We'll take the entire chapter and I want to begin by reading it for us.
Micah McCormick: This is God's word.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Indeed, god is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust him and not be afraid For the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord himself is my strength and my song.
Micah McCormick: He has become my salvation.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things.
Micah McCormick: Let this be known throughout the earth.
Micah McCormick: Cry out and sing citizen of Zion, for the Holy one of Israel is among you in his greatness.
Micah McCormick: Lord, we're looking to you, asking again favor us with the very spirit that you poured out on Christ.
Micah McCormick: Pour that out for us today in Jesus' name, amen.
Micah McCormick: Parents normally try to teach their children to express gratitude.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: It's not just a child's lesson, that's a life lesson, that's a Bible lesson.
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: As you look at the text this morning, there's some repetition.
Micah McCormick: Verse number one begins on that day, you will say I will give thanks to you, lord.
Micah McCormick: It's almost a heading for this chapter, for this section.
Micah McCormick: And then verse number four repeats on that day you will say give thanks to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Some of your Bibles might use the word praise for one of those occasions, and thanksgiving is certainly a form of praise, of praise.
Micah McCormick: But why does Isaiah call us to give thanks to God?
Micah McCormick: Because of his grace.
Micah McCormick: This chapter is also filled with the grace of God and we should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Why is it so hard for children to say thank you?
Micah McCormick: The same reason it's hard for us as adults.
Micah McCormick: We minimize the gift, we think we're deserving of the grace, we run to experience whatever that thing is, and forget the giver.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: So we're going to consider in this chapter two very simple headings.
Micah McCormick: God extends grace and we respond with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: But before we jump into those headings I want to take a little extra time to consider the context of this chapter.
Micah McCormick: So I pointed out in verse one and verse four there's this repeated idea about giving thanks or praise.
Micah McCormick: But there's another repeated idea in those verses.
Micah McCormick: On that day you will say verse 1.
Micah McCormick: And verse 4,.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: And it's not the first place you'd find this.
Micah McCormick: You can look back in chapter 11, other places in Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: On that day Isaiah is picking up in chapter 12, right where chapter 11 left off.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: No, we're not going to do that, but just scan back to chapter 11 and look.
Micah McCormick: There's a new king who's coming.
Micah McCormick: He's empowered by God's spirit.
Micah McCormick: His character stands in contrast with kings of the earth.
Micah McCormick: He's going to bring hope for all the nations.
Micah McCormick: He's going to make things like the garden of Eden all over again.
Micah McCormick: And look at the final verse, specifically verse 16 of chapter 11.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah is comparing the people's captivity in Egypt from years and years before and God's rescue out of Egypt, that exodus.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: There's going to be a new Exodus.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: What did the people do when they came out of Egypt and God rescued them?
Micah McCormick: They gave thanks to God, chapter 12,.
Micah McCormick: What are they going to do when they're rescued from Assyria?
Micah McCormick: They're going to give thanks to God.
Micah McCormick: What did they do when they came out of Egypt and crossed over the river?
Micah McCormick: They burst out in jubilant songs.
Micah McCormick: What are they going to do when they're rescued from Assyrian captivity?
Micah McCormick: They're going to sing chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: What did they find?
Micah McCormick: As they journeyed through the wilderness out of Egypt, cross the Red Sea and then, shortly after that, exodus 15, 27 tells us.
Micah McCormick: Then they came to Elam where there were 12 springs and 70 date palms, and they camped there by the water.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: You hear how Isaiah is still picking up that comparison with Egypt.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: But here it's not the springs of Elam, it's the springs of salvation.
Micah McCormick: So perhaps on the way back from Assyria they stopped off at some natural springs for refreshment.
Micah McCormick: That's possible.
Micah McCormick: But Isaiah's main point here is that there's a kind of comparison and an expansion.
Micah McCormick: Those springs of Elam were a tangible picture of God's refreshing provision, his refreshing abundance, and that's going to happen again.
Micah McCormick: So that's it.
Micah McCormick: No, that's not it.
Micah McCormick: That Exodus pattern is going to happen, not just out of Egypt and out of Assyria.
Micah McCormick: It's going to happen again in the future in an even greater way.
Micah McCormick: An even greater way.
Micah McCormick: We read John, chapter four, for the scripture reading today, and I want to remind you of a portion of that scripture.
Micah McCormick: This is Jesus' words in John 4, 14.
Micah McCormick: Whoever drinks from the water that I will give will never get thirsty again.
Micah McCormick: In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.
Micah McCormick: Can't dig that well with your own works, but you can receive it as a gift of God's grace.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: We also see it at the very end of the story.
Micah McCormick: Listen to these words from Revelation 21.
Micah McCormick: Then one seated on the throne said look, I'm making everything new.
Micah McCormick: He also said right, because these words are faithful and true.
Micah McCormick: Then he said to me it is done.
Micah McCormick: I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
Micah McCormick: I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.
Micah McCormick: There's the end of the story.
Micah McCormick: So Isaiah 12 is just one piece of this glorious pattern of God's refreshing salvation in his people's lives.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Spiritually, we're going to think about God's grace and our response of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: But I don't want you to think that this is merely a kind of like parachute sermon on the idea of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: We need to got to find a message on gratitude.
Micah McCormick: So let me just kind of zoom over the landscape of the Bible and oh, it says thanks twice in that chapter.
Micah McCormick: I'm going to parachute down and I'm going to really let them have it on gratitude, like well, where are you?
Micah McCormick: Well, I don't know, but there's two words to say gratitude and thanks here.
Micah McCormick: What's the context?
Micah McCormick: I don't know, but this is going to really preach well on thanks.
Micah McCormick: If we were just looking to do parachute sermons on gratitude, I mean we should do that every other week.
Micah McCormick: I mean we don't need to do that once in a while.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: So the Bible itself connects our experience of God's grace to Israel's journey out of Egypt and out of Assyria.
Micah McCormick: And then those patterns of gratitude are God intended patterns for us.
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Let's consider those two headings.
Micah McCormick: We'll move through these.
Micah McCormick: Number one God extends grace.
Micah McCormick: He extends his grace through forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number one.
Micah McCormick: I will say I will give thanks to you, lord.
Micah McCormick: Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.
Micah McCormick: God gets angry.
Micah McCormick: He gets angry with the wicked every day.
Micah McCormick: He has a right to be angry.
Micah McCormick: He gets angry with the wicked every day.
Micah McCormick: He has a right to be angry.
Micah McCormick: There are many people who think well, god doesn't get angry.
Micah McCormick: He couldn't.
Micah McCormick: That would be so ungodlike of him.
Micah McCormick: You don't get that idea from reading the Bible Exodus 15, 7,.
Micah McCormick: You unleashed your burning wrath Deuteronomy 29, 26, and 27.
Micah McCormick: They began to serve other gods, bowing and worship to gods.
Micah McCormick: They had not known gods that the Lord had not permitted them to worship.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, the Lord's anger burned against this land and he brought every curse in this book written on it.
Micah McCormick: Now, when we say that God gets angry, we're not saying he's moody, that he wakes up grouchy or unreasonable.
Micah McCormick: His anger is the appropriate response to sin in the lives of his creatures.
Micah McCormick: It's a righteous and calibrated and appropriate response.
Micah McCormick: But and this is the beauty of our passage God is not only and always angry.
Micah McCormick: He's not merely and simply angry.
Micah McCormick: He's also a God of love.
Micah McCormick: He's a God of forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: In this book.
Micah McCormick: His father seemed to be always angry, but that's actually not what's true about God.
Micah McCormick: The New Testament portrays his anger as well.
Micah McCormick: So, yes, he's a God who expresses anger, but he's not only and always ready to hurt someone.
Micah McCormick: Verse 1 tells us that God's anger is turned away and he brings comfort.
Micah McCormick: Turned away and he brings comfort that's just as much a part of his glorious character.
Micah McCormick: Now I'm saying that God has a right to be angry because of sinful rebellion.
Micah McCormick: So if God's going to leave aside anger and instead bring comfort, it can only be for one reason forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: It can only be for one reason forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: It's not because of a wild shift in his mood, it's he chooses to forgive rebels like us, and that's undeserved.
Micah McCormick: That's a gift of his grace.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: It's a gracious gift, amazing grace.
Micah McCormick: How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
Micah McCormick: God extends grace through forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: He also extends grace through rescue.
Micah McCormick: Verse number two indeed, god is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust in him and not be afraid for the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord himself is my strength and my song.
Micah McCormick: He has become my salvation.
Micah McCormick: Knowing that God's wrath is removed from us and that he forgives us is enough reason to be overflowing with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: But there's more than that.
Micah McCormick: Consider Israel.
Micah McCormick: They're in captivity, going to be in captivity Assyria, then later Babylon.
Micah McCormick: The reason they're taken to captivity is because of God's judgment.
Micah McCormick: He allows foreign nations to do that because of their sin.
Micah McCormick: It's deserved.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: That would be amazing, that would be wonderful.
Micah McCormick: But they're still in Assyria, they're still in Babylon, they're still going to be in bondage.
Micah McCormick: God does more than forgive us.
Micah McCormick: He rescues us from bondage to sin.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: What amazing grace.
Micah McCormick: Nobody could get Israel out of Egypt, but mighty God in his grace.
Micah McCormick: Nobody could get them out of Assyria, but mighty God in his grace.
Micah McCormick: Friends, no one can get you and I out of our sin, not our parents, not our pastor, not we ourselves.
Micah McCormick: It takes the almighty grace of God to rescue us ourselves.
Micah McCormick: It takes the almighty grace of God to rescue us.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: To him be glory forever and ever.
Micah McCormick: Amen.
Micah McCormick: There's the fuller, complete picture of how he has done this, how he has shown favor to rebels.
Micah McCormick: He's done it through Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: He's done it through his atoning sacrifice.
Micah McCormick: The son of God became a human being.
Micah McCormick: He took on human flesh while remaining God.
Micah McCormick: He lived a life that was so perfect.
Micah McCormick: God was never angry at his son for anything his son personally had done.
Micah McCormick: It was a life of complete and pure righteousness.
Micah McCormick: And now God credits all those who trust in Christ alone.
Micah McCormick: He gives them the righteousness of his son, that perfect record.
Micah McCormick: Yes, jesus experienced the wrath of God, but not for himself.
Micah McCormick: He experienced that in the place of people like you and me, that we could be rescued, that we could find forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: So if you don't know God's grace in your soul this morning, run to Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: That's the place to go.
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: So let's look at the second heading.
Micah McCormick: Responding with gratitude what does gratitude look like?
Micah McCormick: I'm going to bring out four features of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: First, gratitude recognizes God's character.
Micah McCormick: We've already touched on this.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Do you recognize where you stand in relation to God's holiness and his greatness?
Micah McCormick: It's almost like to contrast the child who's so focused on the toys and the gift.
Micah McCormick: They forgot about the parent that gave them that gift.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: This is a great gift of grace and it deserves great gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Gratitude not only recognizes God's character.
Micah McCormick: Second feature is gratitude rests in God's character.
Micah McCormick: Now, that's similar, but I'm pushing it a little bit farther.
Micah McCormick: Verse number two, chapter 12, verse two of Isaiah Indeed, god is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust him and not be afraid, for the Lord himself is my strength and my song.
Micah McCormick: He has become my salvation.
Micah McCormick: It's one thing to acknowledge with our lips God's character, his grace.
Micah McCormick: It's another thing to lay hold of that with our hearts and rest in it and trust in it.
Micah McCormick: The best kind of gratitude comes from a heart of trust, a heart that's resting in the Lord.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Thank you so much.
Micah McCormick: 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?
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Verse two gives us a clue about that kind of heart trust.
Micah McCormick: Verse two speaks of this trust.
Micah McCormick: That is an evidence of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: It says I will trust in him and not be afraid.
Micah McCormick: The more that fear crowds into your life, the more difficult it will be for you to truly live before God with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: I'm not saying fear is always wrong.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: I'm not saying those things, but I am saying what the text says God is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust in him and not be afraid.
Micah McCormick: That's the normal, should be the normal expression of thankfulness.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: And I know I should trust in God, but you know this thing and this thing and this thing you know.
Micah McCormick: Please pray about those things.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: If I can say that Elizabeth Elliot says fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.
Micah McCormick: And if you're in that trust struggle, acknowledge that, ask for help in that.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Pray for me and go to the Lord with that.
Micah McCormick: Think of that man in the gospels.
Micah McCormick: Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
Micah McCormick: God is so gracious.
Micah McCormick: He loves to run to a prayer like that.
Micah McCormick: He loves to run to those who are hurting and weak and acknowledging in every way their weakness before him.
Micah McCormick: See if the Lord might not yet fill your heart with a resting gratitude that trusts in him.
Micah McCormick: Third thing that gratitude does.
Micah McCormick: Gratitude multiplies among God's people.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: I could stand to take one of those at different points in my life when I feel frustrated.
Micah McCormick: There's a really fascinating pronoun shift in this passage.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Verse one on that day you will say I will give thanks to you, lord, although you were angry with me.
Micah McCormick: Your anger is turned away.
Micah McCormick: You have comforted me.
Micah McCormick: God is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust.
Micah McCormick: Do you hear those personal pronouns?
Micah McCormick: But then verses three to five actually shift to plural pronouns.
Micah McCormick: In verse three, the you is a plural you.
Micah McCormick: You all will joyfully draw water.
Micah McCormick: You all will say the verbs are second person, imperative, plural verbs.
Micah McCormick: You all should give thanks.
Micah McCormick: You all should make known his works.
Micah McCormick: You all should sing the personal moves to the corporate.
Micah McCormick: Is isaiah 12?
Micah McCormick: Is this isaiah's testimony of thanksgiving or is it the remnant's testimony of thanksgiving?
Micah McCormick: Yes, the answer is yes.
Micah McCormick: The personal blends with the corporate.
Micah McCormick: It's not just about me giving thanks, it's about we giving thanks.
Micah McCormick: Derek Kidner says there cannot be a transformed community without saved individuals.
Micah McCormick: Nor can there be saved individual who is not incorporated into the community.
Micah McCormick: These things work together.
Micah McCormick: Matthew Henry says it, perhaps a little more memorably.
Micah McCormick: Matthew Henry says in that day every particular believer shall sing a song of praise for his own interest in that salvation.
Micah McCormick: Thanksgiving work shall be closet work.
Micah McCormick: Many in concert shall join in praising God for the common benefit arising from this salvation.
Micah McCormick: Thanksgiving work shall be congregation work and the praises of God shall be publicly sung in the congregations of the upright.
Micah McCormick: So our gratitude should be closet work.
Micah McCormick: Yes, on our own we should acknowledge God.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for saving me, thank you for the gift of grace in all kinds of ways.
Micah McCormick: But our Thanksgiving work shouldn't just be closet work.
Micah McCormick: It shouldn't only be private.
Micah McCormick: It should be congregation work where together we come and celebrate.
Micah McCormick: Look what the Lord has done among us.
Micah McCormick: Look what the Lord has done for all of us.
Micah McCormick: Can't we give thanks to him?
Micah McCormick: Yes, we can.
Micah McCormick: When God extends grace, it's so spectacular.
Micah McCormick: It's not enough for just one person to say thank you.
Micah McCormick: It's too great, it's too glorious.
Micah McCormick: It needs multitudes of people to express how beautiful and glorious it is.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: God has given us grace, and God loves to work collectively among his people.
Micah McCormick: And that leads to something else it's the last feature of this gratitude.
Micah McCormick: So we should respond to God's grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Gratitude must be proclaimed among the nations verses four and five.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Let this be known throughout the earth.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: We want that Thanksgiving message to resound out of here into the very corners and ends of the earth.
Micah McCormick: There should be a collective urgency among all of us who know the Lord to have that Thanksgiving spread.
Micah McCormick: We get to be a channel of God's grace.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: We're channels of God's grace and it's nothing in us.
Micah McCormick: You have to love John Calvin.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: You have to love the honesty there.
Micah McCormick: It's not us, but it's this wonderful message that we have, this wonderful message that we have.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: I believe that.
Micah McCormick: Thank you, lord, but don't take that armchair analogy too far.
Micah McCormick: From the vantage point of our own fears and our own works.
Micah McCormick: We rest from all of those things.
Micah McCormick: Rest from those works.
Micah McCormick: Jesus says.
Micah McCormick: Come to you that labor heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: From that vantage point, we have to have this urgency that the Thanksgiving has to spread.
Micah McCormick: It has to go out of here.
Micah McCormick: Sing to the Lord, verse 5 says, for he has done glorious things.
Micah McCormick: Let this be known throughout the earth.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: The same ends of the earth language we find right in this very passage from Isaiah.
Micah McCormick: So sometimes people will say God's brought the nations to our doorstep here in New York City, and that's true.
Micah McCormick: Let's take advantage of those opportunities.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: That's not enough.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Let that be our collective passion.
Micah McCormick: Don't let that be just a Killebrew burden or just a Cooney burden.
Micah McCormick: Let it be a New Hyde Park Baptist Church burden, because that's the heart that God has for the nation.
Micah McCormick: So we should share in the same heart and burden and passion that the Lord has.
Micah McCormick: Missions is not just a Paul thing, it's an Isaiah thing, it's a Bible thing, it's a Christian thing.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: All kinds of people get to, in a greater way, retrace the steps of Israel out of Egypt.
Micah McCormick: God has given us forgiveness and rescued us from the exile and slavery of sin, and the world needs to know.
Micah McCormick: We're grateful and we want you to hear that message and receive that message.
Micah McCormick: I've mentioned this book before.
Micah McCormick: I'll mention it again.
Micah McCormick: Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper, fantastic book on missions.
Micah McCormick: He says if you love the glory of God, you cannot be indifferent to missions.
Micah McCormick: Let me just change that for our sermon today.
Micah McCormick: If you truly have gratitude in your heart to God for his grace, you cannot be indifferent to missions.
Micah McCormick: Isn't that what Isaiah is telling us here?
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of places.
Micah McCormick: We should respond to grace with gratitude.
Micah McCormick: As we draw to a close, let me show you one more beautiful thing from our passage.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 12, 2 offers this personal confession God is my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust him and not be afraid for the Lord.
Micah McCormick: The Lord himself is my strength and my song.
Micah McCormick: He has become my salvation.
Micah McCormick: I will trust him.
Micah McCormick: Turn over to Hebrews, chapter two.
Micah McCormick: So we've been in Isaiah 12.
Micah McCormick: Turn to the book of Hebrews that's New Testament, all the way towards the end.
Micah McCormick: If you hit Revelation, you've gone too far.
Micah McCormick: All the way towards the end.
Micah McCormick: If you hit revelation, you've gone too far.
Micah McCormick: The author of Hebrews puts those very words on the lips of Jesus.
Micah McCormick: The author of Hebrews takes our passage and draws out from that passage a quote that he then puts on the lips of Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Hebrews, chapter two, verse 13.
Micah McCormick: Again, I will trust in him.
Micah McCormick: Some of your Bibles might have those words in quotation marks or in bold print.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: And then we have this I will trust in him quote, which is likely from Isaiah 12.
Micah McCormick: And then there's a final quote from Isaiah chapter eight.
Micah McCormick: Notice how the context here in Hebrews 2 resonates with Isaiah chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: Hebrews 2.15 speaks of Jesus rescuing his people from slavery.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: Hebrews brings out freedom from captivity to sin.
Micah McCormick: And then in Hebrews 2, verse 12, jesus offers a personal song of proclamation and praise.
Micah McCormick: I will sing in the congregation.
Micah McCormick: What has Isaiah been calling us to do?
Micah McCormick: Sing in response to the Lord.
Micah McCormick: And then, right as we get to the heart of these quotes, we get this simple and powerful expression from Christ.
Micah McCormick: I will trust in him.
Micah McCormick: Isaiah 12 is Isaiah's song of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: It's the remnant song of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: It's our Savior's song of gratitude.
Micah McCormick: Christ is leading the way.
Micah McCormick: Our Savior is out in front of us.
Micah McCormick: He is singing before us in this gratitude.
Micah McCormick: He sent out his word and his spirit that the nations might come to know and hear and rejoice.
Micah McCormick: When we express gratitude like this, we're just following the footsteps of our Savior.
Micah McCormick: That's what our Lord calls us to do.
Micah McCormick: Let's do that this week together.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray Lord, thank you, thank you.
Micah McCormick: Help us to say thank you, not tritely, not hypocritically, but from hearts that have earnestly experienced the grace of God.
Micah McCormick: Come down to men, they will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for that salvation.
Micah McCormick: Thank you, oh Lord, for the refreshment that we find in forgiveness.
Micah McCormick: Thank you for the Holy Spirit, those springs of living water stirring in us.
Micah McCormick: We want to keep drinking from him.
Micah McCormick: 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.
Micah McCormick: 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.