1. "The stories we tell shape our memories, and our memory shapes our identity, and our identity justifies our intended course of action. This is why history is a battleground."

2. "There is no surer way to control a person or a people than by controlling their history. If I control your memory, I control your identity. If I control your identity, then I'm justified in doing to you whatever I want."

3. "Fear is the response of the heart when what we treasure is threatened. We treasure our health, so we fear sickness. We treasure our children, we fear something happening to them. We treasure our vision for the future, so we fear threats to that future."

4. "Light pollution doesn't remove the stars, it just dims their light. They're still there, they're still shining and God is still there and he is not silent. He is speaking."

5. "God doesn't choose us because of something in us, but because of his love for us and to display his power through us."

6. "Your soul was as barren as Sarah's womb, and the Lord said, Let there be light, and there was light and life. He didn't choose you because he needed you."

7. "Friends, when God goes searching for real estate, he's not looking on Sotheby's. He's only looking for fixer-uppers. Deserts and dumps are his specialty. He's the God of the impossible."

8. "Remembering God's past faithfulness is an antidote to fear."

9. "The dragon was pierced, but the Son was crushed. The seas were split, but the servant was slain. The rock was struck, because the Son was cut."

10. "That bitter cup, that foaming cup, love drank it up. He drank it all up. There's not a single drop left for you."

Observation Questions

1. In Isaiah 51:1-2, what specific imagery does God use to describe His people's origin, and who does He tell them to "look to" as examples?

2. According to Isaiah 51:6, what will happen to the heavens and the earth, and how does this contrast with what God says about His salvation and righteousness?

3. In Isaiah 51:12-13, what specific question does God ask His fearful people, and what does He say they have "forgotten"?

4. What three historical events does Isaiah 51:9-10 reference when the people call upon the "arm of the Lord" to awake?

5. In Isaiah 51:17-20, how does the passage describe the effects of drinking "the cup of [God's] wrath" on Jerusalem and her people?

6. According to Isaiah 51:22-23, what does God promise to do with the "cup of staggering" that was in His people's hand, and where does He say He will put it?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does God point His fearful people back to Abraham and Sarah specifically, emphasizing that Abraham "was but one when I called him" (v. 2)? What does this reveal about how God works and why it should comfort His people?

2. How does the connection between fear and forgetting in verse 12-13 ("you fear continually... and have forgotten the Lord your maker") help explain why believers struggle with anxiety even when they know God is powerful?

3. The sermon explained that Babylon used theological narratives to claim their god Marduk had defeated Yahweh. How do verses 9-10, with their references to God cutting "Rahab" and piercing "the dragon," serve as a direct counter-narrative to Babylonian claims?

4. What is the significance of the contrast between man who "dies" and is "made like grass" (v. 12) versus God whose "salvation will be forever" and whose "righteousness will never be dismayed" (v. 6, 8)? How does this contrast address the fear of human oppressors?

5. The passage moves from God's people drinking the cup of wrath (v. 17) to God taking that cup from their hand (v. 22). How does this transition point forward to Christ, and why is this distinction between temporal and eternal judgment important for understanding the gospel?

Application Questions

1. The sermon identified "light pollution" as a metaphor for how modern life dims our awareness of God. What specific "light pollution" in your daily routine—crowded schedules, constant news, digital distractions—most contributes to shrinking your view of God, and what one practical step could you take this week to recalibrate?

2. God told His people to "look to Abraham" and remember their unlikely origins. When you reflect on where you were spiritually before God saved you, how does remembering your own "quarry" (the sin and spiritual deadness from which God rescued you) affect your current fears and your tendency toward either pride or despair?

3. The passage repeatedly commands God's people to "listen" and "give attention" to His words (vv. 1, 4, 7). What does your current engagement with Scripture look like, and how might you need to adjust your habits so that God's voice becomes louder than the voices fueling your fears?

4. Verse 7 says, "Fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings." Is there a specific person, group, or situation where fear of human disapproval or criticism is currently shaping your decisions more than trust in God? What would it look like to respond differently this week?

5. The sermon emphasized the practice of corporate remembrance—recounting together what God has done. Who in your life (a family member, friend, or small group) could you intentionally share your testimony with this week, or ask to share theirs, as a way of strengthening faith and fighting fear together?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 12:1-9 — This passage records God's original call of Abraham, showing how God chose an unlikely man and promised to make him into a great nation, which is the foundation for Isaiah's call to "look to Abraham."

2. Exodus 14:10-31 — This account of God parting the Red Sea and defeating Egypt is the historical event referenced in Isaiah 51:9-10, demonstrating God's power to deliver His people from seemingly impossible situations.

3. Deuteronomy 7:6-11 — Moses explains that God chose Israel not because of their greatness but because of His love, reinforcing the sermon's point that unlikely people are God's calling card.

4. Matthew 26:36-46 — Jesus prays in Gethsemane about "this cup," revealing how Christ willingly drank the cup of God's wrath that Isaiah 51 promised would be taken from His people's hand.

5. Romans 8:31-39 — Paul's declaration that nothing can separate believers from God's love provides the New Testament fulfillment of the comfort God offers in Isaiah 51, showing that those in Christ need not fear any oppressor or circumstance.

Sermon Main Topics

I. History as a Battleground: The Fight for Memory and Identity

II. Look Up at Who God Is (Isaiah 51:12-16)

III. Look Back at What God Has Done (Isaiah 51:1-11)

IV. Look Forward to What God Has Promised (Isaiah 51:17-23)

V. Christ Drank the Cup of Wrath So We Might Drink the Cup of Blessing

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Detailed Sermon Outline

History is a battleground, isn't it? This is the first Sunday of the year in which this nation will celebrate its 250th anniversary. And much of the questions arresting our attention this year are questions about memory and identity and destiny. What is our history? Who are we?

Where are we going? See, the stories we tell shape our memories, and our memory shapes our identity, and our identity justifies our intended course of action. This is why history is a battleground. This holds true for the stories we tell about ourselves. As well as the stories we tell about others.

There is no surer way to control a person or a people than by controlling their history. What's the saying? History is written by the victor. If I control your memory, I control your identity. If I control your identity, then I'm justified in doing to you whatever I want.

What is the truth about America's story? What's the truth about your story? Who will decide it? And what course of action will it justify? In Isaiah's day, God's Old Testament people were engaged in a fight for their very life over questions of memory and identity.

Who they were as a nation was being redefined in front of their eyes, not by their fellow Jews, but by their oppressors, the neighboring nations, and especially the Babylonian Empire, which would conquer and exile Judah in 586 BC. If history is written by the victor, then the Babylonians were masters of composing a narrative to control the identity of the subjugated peoples in order to justify their conquest of them and their status as a superpower. Their main tool wasn't just military might. It was the soft power of the theological narratives undergirding it. The belief was that when a nation conquered another nation, this proved that its gods had conquered their gods.

So in this case, the victory of Babylon over Judah was supposed to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, had conquered Yahweh, had conquered the Lord, the god of Israel. It wasn't enough for Babylon to shackle Judah's hands. They had to rewrite their history as well.

The problem is that Judah had begun to internalize the narrative as their view of God had shrunk. They had given over to fears and their fears had begun to define and control them. Judah's fear is captured in a single verse. In Isaiah 4914. I've mentioned this in the last two sermons.

This is the verse that God is responding to in 4914, 5015, 51152, all the way up to 5213. It's Isaiah 4914. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. I don't know what fears you're facing this morning or facing this new year.

I don't know what fears are trying to control you, but the passage this morning offers you a path out of fear, a path out of fearing man and circumstances and instead fearing the God who controls them. Turn with me in your Bible to Isaiah chapter 51. Isaiah 51, you can find it on page 621 if you're using a pew Bible.

I'll read the whole passage. Isaiah chapter 51, this is the word of the Lord. Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you.

For he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him. For the Lord comforts Zion. He comforts all her waste places. He makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

Give attention to me, my people. Give ear to me, my nation. For a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples. My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arm will judge the peoples. The coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath, for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner, but my salvation will be forever. And my righteousness will never be dismayed. Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law, fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their reviling, for the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of long ago.

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. I, I am he who comforts you.

Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear, Continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy. And where is the wrath of the oppressor? He who is bowed down shall speedily be released. He shall not die and go into the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking. I am the Lord your God who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar.

The Lord of hosts is his name, and I have put my words in your mouth. And covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, you, are my people. Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk to the dregs, the bowl, the cup of staggering. There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne, there is none to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up. These two things have happened to you.

Who will console you? Devastation and destruction, famine and sword, and who will comfort you? Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net. They are full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

Therefore, hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk but not with wine. Thus says the Lord, the Lord, your God, who pleads the cause of his people: 'Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering, the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more; and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors.' those who have said to you, 'Bow down that we may pass over,' and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.

Friends, what do we do when fears loom large? Our text gives us three answers. Three answers for how we can be free from fear's control.

First, look up at who God is. Second, look back. Look back at what God has done. Third, look forward. Look forward to what God has promised.

Look up. Look back, look forward. Because this chapter contains so many overlapping themes, I won't be preaching these verses in order, but rather thematically. But I promise to give you the verses that map onto each point. And we begin right in the middle, right there in verse 12, really 12 to 16.

Also looking at verse 6, this is the heart of the passage where we see Isaiah's first answer. The first way to be free from fear's control is to look up at who God is. That's point one. To his fearful and despairing people, God responds in verses 12 to 16 by telling them to look up at who he is. That's why God says in verse 12, I am he who comforts you.

Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass and have forgotten the Lord your maker. Did you notice the connection between fear and forgetting. You fear all day, why? Because you have forgotten the Lord. Fears grow when we forget who God is.

Judah's fear was that God had forgotten them. That's chapter 49:14. Reality was that they were afraid because they had forgotten God. This is one of about a dozen times in the book of Isaiah where the Lord says to his people, Fear not. It's a major theme, especially in the second half of the book.

Fear is mentioned three times just in our passage alone. Verse seven, Fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. Verse 13, you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor. And here in verse 12, you are afraid of man who dies. Isaiah is making one basic point about fear.

Fear arises because God is forgotten. When God is forgotten, the fears in our lives metastasize out of proportions. Fear is the response of the heart when what When what we treasure is threatened. When what we treasure is threatened, the instinctive response of the heart is to fear. We treasure our health, so we fear sickness.

We treasure our children, we fear something happening to them. We treasure our vision for the future, so we fear threats to that future. And what God is telling his people is look up. Look up to His fearful people. God hands a telescope and says, Look up at the stars.

Who made them? Count them if you can. Look up at the skies. Who created them? Lift your eyes to the heavens and look at the earth beneath.

Verse 6. Or verse 13, you, maker stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth. Count the stars. Who made them? I did.

The point is, is the size differential between the threats to the things they treasure and their God. God is saying, Put things back in proportion. Look at who I am. Look at how strong I am. The point is the contrast between man and God, because when we forget God, people become big because God is small.

What do verses 12 to 16 teach us about man? Well, man can oppress and destroy. That's verse 13. Man can imprison and revile. That's verse 14.

But the basic truth about man is there in verse 12. Man dies. Man dies. Man is mortal. Man is grass.

Perishing, temporary, alive today, gone tomorrow, like a candle snuffed out, the smoke lasts for a moment and then is gone. Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away, and the point is the contrast between man and God. Man is temporary, God is eternal. Man is finite, God is the all powerful Creator. He's saying these enemies who are oppressing you, who are reviling you, who are slandering you, they won't outlast you.

You will outlast them. Verse 8 compares them to a moth-eaten garment. He's saying these great oppressors, seemingly invincible, will be eaten like worms, eating a garment.

Friends, you may have real enemies, real persecutors, people who oppose you because they oppose God and his people. Part of the comfort that God's word holds out to you is that those who have opposed God and his people will be destroyed because God is the all-powerful creator. But we forget this, don't we? We forget it. And so our fears grow because our view of God shrinks.

One contemporary of Theodore Roosevelt recounts visiting him at the White House. And after dinner, Roosevelt takes him up on the roof and they spend some time staring up at the sky. A minute passes, another minute passes, several minutes pass, lost in gazing at the enormity of the sky. When Roosevelt finally speaks up, he says, Let us return. We are small enough now.

You hear what he's saying, right? It's not just our fears that fall back into proportion when we see who God is. It's also our view of ourselves. We fall back into proportion in comparison to the one who made us. But we can't do that today, can we?

Even on a clear night, if you leave your home, look up at the sky, you can see maybe a handful of stars. Scientists say on the average night, even if it's clear, in a city like this, you can maybe count 12 stars. Try it. See how many you can count.

Of the billions of stars in our galaxy, stars that God made, we can see so few of them. Scientists attribute this to light pollution. It's the light from street lamps and cities and buildings. Clouding out our vision and dimming our view of the stars, making most of them invisible to the naked eye. It's an apt illustration for secularism, isn't it?

That as civilization advances and light increases, the very signposts that God has appointed to remind us of His power and existence slowly fade from view, like stars disappearing from the night sky. Not all at once in a flash, but silently, almost imperceptibly. And so our crowded lives, our crowded cities, our crowded news cycles all contribute to a dimming of our sense of the divine. But friends, has our increase in light contributed to a decrease in fear.

Are we less fearful? We live in the most prosperous, healthiest, safest era of human history, so why are we so anxious? Verse 12 tells us, you have forgotten the Lord your maker. Is it possible that at least Part of the reason you're so anxious is that our fear of God is too small. Our view of God is too small.

See, light pollution doesn't remove the stars, it just dims their light. They're still there, they're still shining and God is still there and he is not silent. He is speaking. So where do we go to recalibrate our lives, to reduce our fears, to reset our vision, not to see reality less but to see it more? Friends, we go to God's word.

Word. God is speaking to us in his word. Verse 15, I am the Lord your God who stirs up the sea so that his waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name, and I have put my words in your mouth. And he says, listen, listen.

You may not be able to look up at the sky and see the stars, but you can open up God's word and hear him speaking in the Bible. Are you listening? Or has the light pollution of your life so clouded and dimmed your vision that God has grown small? Friends, in our fears we need to remember who God is. He is the all powerful creator, but that's not all, he's also personal.

Look at verse 16. He calls himself our God. He says, you are my people, the same voice that spoke the world into existence looks at you and says, My people, and calls himself your God. This is where fears go to die, remembering who God is and that you belong to him. So friend, when fears take hold, look up.

Look up at who God is. Don't just stare at your problems, stare up at the sky, the one who formed the earth, who stirs the sea, but don't stop there. Isaiah doesn't just tell his people to look up, he tells them to look back. He says, Look back. That's point two.

The second way to be free from fear's control is to look back at what God has done. And just to warn you, this is the longest of our points this morning. Point two, look back at what God has done. Around this time of year, many people take some time to reflect on the past year. Highs, lows, buffaloes, however you do it.

You think about what God has done in your life, what he's taught you. You try to take the things you've learned and apply them to this next year. I'm not naturally an introspective person. I'm more of a man of action, just keep pressing forward. But even I find it helpful to take some time to reflect back and to think back, even if it's hard work.

That's what God is calling his people to do in the first 11 verses of our passage. He tells them, look back, especially to the story of Abraham in verses one to three, and the story of the Exodus in verses nine to 11. To his fearful people, God snatches the telescope and hands them a history textbook and tells them, remember where you've come from. Remember your origin story. And his point in all of this is to stir their faith by reminding them that the same hand that placed the stars is the same hand that is holding their hand all the way.

It's the same hand. That's what God says will reorient his people when they are afraid. Verse 1, Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Verse 2, Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who bore you. God is saying, Remember your roots.

Remember where you've come from. Some people take a lot of pride in their lineage. I had a college classmate who claimed he was the direct descendant patrilineally from President William Howard Taft. He was very proud of that fact, maybe more proud than he should have been. Sometimes lineage serves as a point of pride.

That's not what's going on here. God isn't saying, Look back at Abraham because of how great he was. The point isn't Abraham's greatness, the point is Abraham's smallness. That's what the middle of verse 2 means. For he was but one when I called him.

See, if ever there was an unlikely couple to call and to create into a people, it was Abraham and Sarah, right? Because what was their glaring problem? Their infertility. Abraham was too old. Sarah was barren, yet in Genesis 12, this is the couple that God chooses.

He calls an idol worshiper from east of Babylon and says, I'm going to create of you a nation as numerous as the sand of the shore. God is saying, Look back at your roots. Abraham and Sarah were as infertile as an inanimate rock, yet I struck that rock and I cut off descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. I did it once. You think I can't do it again?

You think exile is gonna be the end? You think coming back too few is gonna be a problem for me? Don't you remember where you were? Don't you remember what I took you from? I didn't choose you because I needed you.

I chose you to show my power and glory through you. You see how the logic is working? It's an argument from the greater to the lesser. Because if God can turn a barren desert into a fruitful field, if God can make a barren couple more numerous than the sand of the shore, then can't we trust our God? Can't we trust him to rescue us from every evil deed and bring us safely into his kingdom?

And glory. The point isn't Abraham and Sarah's attractiveness. The point is their unlikeliness, their unlikeliness as candidates of God's electing love. But friends, unlikely people are God's calling card. And it's always been that way.

You remember what God tells his people in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 7. He says, was not because you were more in number than any other people in the Lord, that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. God doesn't choose us because of something in us, but because of his love for us and to display his power through us. And you know this in your own life. Where were you when God found you.

The Bible tells us, Ephesians chapter two, verse one, you were dead. You were dead in your transgressions and sins. Your soul was as barren as Sarah's womb, and the Lord said, Let there be light, and there was light and life. He didn't choose you because he needed you. We can trace back the cause and effect and the circumstances and the people who were involved in our conversion, and we can go back no further than the inexplicable and sovereign mystery of God's electing love.

Because friends, it's not just the stars. Your story displays God's power, and he tells you, Look back. Remember. He dug Abraham out of a quarry. He cut you from a rock.

There was nothing in you that qualified you for salvation. You had no virtues to commend you, no hope he'd befriend you, only sin to condemn you. But God, but God because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead. Dead as Sarah's womb, God showed mercy on us in Christ. He made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God so that no one may boast. You see how remembering God's work in your life, how looking back at what God has saved you from causes fears to flee. It's an antidote both to boasting and to despair because salvation utterly excludes boasting.

No one is included because of birth or ancestry or family connections. There are no heritage Christians. Verse 1 doesn't say, Look to the diamond from which you were hewn. It says, Look to the rock. Salvation utterly excludes boasting because the power belongs to God alone, but it also excludes despair.

Everyone can look at their life and say, I see no reason for why he should choose me. But no one can look at this God and say, he could never choose me. Look at his power. Look at what he has done. And it's God's power and remembering God's power on display in your salvation that drives fears away.

Friends, when God goes searching for real estate, he's not looking on Sotheby's. He's only looking for fixer-uppers. Deserts and dumps are his specialty. He's the God of the impossible. He makes wilderness like Eden, verse 3.

Her desert like the garden of the Lord. He turns waste places into vineyards, beggars to barons, princes to paupers, slaves to sons. How do you know? He's done it to you. He's done it to me and he can do it again.

The point is the argument from the greater to the lesser. So friend, look back. Remember where you were when God found you. Remember what God has done in your life this past year, this past decade, the sins he saved you from, the trials he's brought you through. If he dug you out of that quarry, can't you trust him to finish the work he began in you?

So look to Abraham, look to Sarah, look back at what God has done. But don't stop there because the same God that called Abraham out of Babylon also rescued Israel out of Egypt. That's what verses 9 to 11 are about. See, God's people hear this call to remember, and they do. They look back.

They remember what God brought them out of, and they respond in verse nine with a heartfelt prayer of petition, asking God to do it again. This is how it works. We hear God's word, our strength is renewed, and we call out to God in bold prayer. If God is saying in verse one, Look back at the rock that you could never cut, God's people are responding in verse nine and saying, God, do it again. Split the sea again.

And so they cry, awake, awake. They're not saying, wake up because God is sleeping. God doesn't sleep. They're asking for God to act. Verse 9, awake, awake.

Put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon, was it not you who dried up the sea and the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? They're saying, God, do it again. Rahab is a poetic name for Egypt, often represented as a mythical sea monster or dragon that God defeated.

But see, in Babylonian mythology, that same serpent is called Tiamat and portrayed as the primeval dragon monster of chaos. According to Babylonian mythology, Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, was supposed to have defeated Tiamat at creation, showing himself to be supreme. Now the Bible never endorses Babylonian mythology, but it does show that the biblical authors are conversant in it and aware of it and often responding to it. And the allusions here are not accidental. Because what were the Babylonians saying when they conquered Judah?

They were saying, Our God beat your God. Marduk beat Yahweh. Yahweh isn't who he says he is. Yahweh isn't all powerful. He can't keep his promises.

He doesn't love you. But what does verse 9 say? Verse 9 says they've got it all wrong. Who cut Rahab in pieces? Who pierced the dragon?

Not Marduk, it was Yahweh. The Lord God did it. And he didn't just claim to do it the way the Babylonians did in their mythology, in some unverifiable shadowy past of creation myth. No, God did it in history. God did it in the sight of all the nations at the exodus.

God bared his righteous right arm and he came down and delivered his people. And verses 9 to 11 document three specific events. Verse 9 says that God defeated Egypt's gods. Verse 10 says that God dried up the Red Sea. And verse 11 says that God brought his people safely into the Promised Land.

And God's people are looking back in faith and remembering what God has done. Friends, remembering God's past faithfulness is an antidote to fear. Wasn't it wonderful to spend last Sunday night together recounting what God has done in this church, even just in the last year? We remembered the brothers and sisters that the Lord has safely brought home to himself. We recounted how God has answered prayers, for paths in evangelism, how he's reconciled relationships and knit hearts together.

Brothers and sisters, have you taken time to remember in your own life what God has done for you this past year? Spend time together recounting the wonderful works of God, the sin he saved you from, the trials he's brought you through, And if you feel like you're too enveloped in suffering right now to share your own story, ask someone else to share theirs. Be strengthened by their faith and see your own fears flee as you see what God has done in their life. Friends, look to Abraham. Look to Sarah.

One of the sweetest parts of writing the history of this local congregation was just this, the opportunity to look back and remember. To remember where we came from, to remember what God has brought us through. Because you look at a church like this and you think about the pastors that have been trained up and sent out. You think about the churches that have been planted. You think about the souls that have been won for Christ and the people who have grown and profited as a result of this church.

But then you need to look back. You need to look back to where it came from. Friends, it came from an unlikely couple named Abraham and Celestia Faris, a young couple in their twenties with no theological education, no credentials, no name recognition, simply praying in their home for God to start a church. Isn't that just like God? Isn't that just like God to show his power at work in using the weak things of this world to shame the wise?

Friend, you think that God can't do it again? You think that God can't do it in your life, in your marriage, in your family, in your friend, in your church? Friends, look to Abraham. Look to Sarah. Look to the exodus.

Remember the rock from which you were hewn. Remember who it was who pierced the dragon, who split the seas. Look back at what God has done and watch your fears flee as your faith is strengthened. But don't stop there. The point of looking back is for your faith to be strengthened, to look ahead in faith at what God has promised.

And that's point three. To be free from fear's control, look forward to what God has promised. Look forward to what God has promised.

We see this especially in verses 17 to 23. In verse 17, we see the second of three wake up calls in chapters 51 and 52. This time it's the prophet Isaiah addressing God's people and telling them to wake up because unlike God, God's people are the ones who need to wake up. God's people are the ones who are asleep. Because as verse 17 says, they've drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath.

Throughout the Bible, the theme of God's wrath is often depicted as a cup, a cup which the nations will drink as God's judgment. But here we read that this cup, this cup of judgment, this cup of wrath has been placed in the hands of God's own people. And Isaiah is clear, this is coming to them from God's hand. Verse 17, It is from the hand of the Lord. Or verse 20, the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

And the effects are terrifying. In verse 17 they're described as staggering. This isn't the stumbling of a drunkard. This is the tremoring of someone bearing unspeakable afflictions. Verse 18 pictures Judah as a blind woman without a guide.

Verse 19 describes the fourfold punishment of devastation, destruction, famine, and sword. Verse 20 depicts God's people as a wild animal trapped in a net and unable to escape. Friends, this is not a cup that you want to drink. What is God's wrath? God's wrath is his righteous judgment of evil.

Here, Judah's impending exile is described as God's just judgment against their sins. Isaiah is describing in vivid detail the covenantal consequences of Judah's centuries of sin and idolatry as fulfillment of God's warning in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. It's important here to distinguish between the temporal and eternal judgment of God. What was promised in Deuteronomy and Leviticus was temporal blessings, meaning in this life, for obedience and temporal punishments for disobedience, meaning in this life, on this side of eternity. And what Isaiah is describing here and what Judah experienced in exile in Babylon was the temporal consequences of their sin.

In that sense, Verse 17 of chapter 51 can say that they have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of God's wrath. Literally, they've drained the cup. And the promise is in verse 21 to 23 that there is a day coming when God will say enough. God is promising in verse 22 to turn from punishing his people to pleading the cause of his people. He says, Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering, the bowl of wrath, you shall drink no more.

He takes it out of the hands of his people and he places it into the hands of their tormentors. Verse 23, into the hand of the nations. He's saying there's a day coming when your enemies, the nations who have been acting as my agents of judgment, will become my objects of judgment. God is saying, Exile isn't the end. The punishment will not last forever.

And when the cup is empty, I will give you relief. The question is how and when. Because as terrible as these descriptions of judgment are, and they are terrible, staggering, destruction, death, These temporal punishments are just a shadow of the eternal judgment of God against sin. See, Judah could go into exile. They could bear the discipline they deserved.

They could drink the temporal cup of God's judgment. They couldn't take away God's eternal judgment for sin. Each sinner would still face God's judgment in eternity. Friends, the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. This is the fear that should really animate us.

Not fear of something that could happen to us today or tomorrow or next year, but fear of facing the judgment of God for our sins for all eternity. Not for a moment or a day or a year or a decade or a century, but forever. You realize that when verses 5 and 7 describe God's righteousness as lasting forever, that's also true of God's judgment of sin. It will last forever.

Isaiah is not describing tremoring simply for a time or a season, but forever. Not a cup that is quickly emptied, but an unending and everlasting cup of the wrath of God. Our sins demand a punishment that lasts as long as the one that we have sinned against.

Exile doesn't fix that. Our resolutions to change in the new year Don't fix that. So how can this be? Who will drink the eternal cup of God's wrath that we have all deserved? As verse 19 says, who will comfort you?

Isaiah 51 doesn't tell us. It leaves us in the tension Attention that has been building ever since the first servant song in Isaiah 42. Attention that is not resolved until Isaiah 52 verse 13, and we hear the words, Behold my servant. All along, God has been slowly revealing one who would come and bear the punishment that his people deserve, not the temporal one. The eternal judgment of God against sin.

Because you come to verse 21 in our passage, you come to that word therefore, which is really the load-bearing verse in this passage. And the tension has been building. The punishment that God's people deserve is clear, and when you come to that word therefore, you think, what? What will the conclusion be? What will the sentence from the judge be?

B, because when Isaiah's audience first heard these words, I don't think they were expecting a happy ending. They were the people that God had called, who God had rescued. They were the ones who had sinned against God again and again and again. So, what is the sentence? What is the therefore going to say?

And you come to verse 21 and here's what God doesn't say. God doesn't say, you,'re getting what you deserve.

I'm done. It's over. We're through. I've had enough. He doesn't say that.

Instead, He says, Give me the cup. I'll drink it. I'll drink it for you. I'll plead your case. Verse 21, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering.

It's the same hand that gave the cup in verse 17 that takes the cup in verse 22. And it's only in Christ that we begin to see the awful cost at which this great salvation was secured. In the garden of Gethsemane, the Son of God prayed, My Father, If it is possible, let this cup be taken from me.

He was talking about the cup of God's wrath. He was saying, if there's any other way.

Friends, there was another way. The way for the Son to not drink the cup was for it to be drunk. By you and for me.

And he said, if that's the only other way, I will take it. I will drink the cup. Friends, those are the only two options.

The only option you have is for the son to take that cup in your place or for you to drink that cup for all eternity. If you reject Jesus, this is the cup that you will drink. But if you are in Christ, he says, I've taken it. I drank it all up. I drank it for you.

Friends, that bitter cup, that foaming cup, love drank it up. He drank it all up. There's not a single drop left for you. But at such a cost. The dragon was pierced, but the sun was crushed.

The seas were split, but the servant was slain. The rock was struck, because the sun was cut. And friends, that same hand, that hand that bears your name, took the cup out of your hand. And that same nail-pierced hand hands you Another cup, not a cup of wrath, but a cup of blessing. And he says, Take and drink.

Not the cup of wrath. I drank that one. The cup of joy, the cup of gladness, the cup of the new covenant bought with my blood.

Friends, we're about to take the Lord's Supper. This is a meal in which we look up and wonder. We look back and remember, and we look forward together.

Because one day soon, the one who took that cup out of your hand will take your hand, and he will tell you to look up. You won't see the stars. You'll see his face. He'll tell you to look back and you'll see the whole way that he has led you. The whole way he led you.

And there will be nothing more to look forward to than an eternity of joy in God's presence. And he will personally hand you the cup of the marriage supper of the Lamb. That he has been waiting for you to drink until that day. Friends, history may be a battleground, but Jesus is victorious. He has determined your identity, he has fixed your identity and destiny, and he says fear not, because when before the throne, we stand in him complete.

Jesus died my soul to save our lips, shall still repeat. Friends, he drank it all. He paid it all. So fear not. Let's pray.

Lord God, we praise you and stand in awe at the staggering salvation that you have accomplished through your Son. We praise you that you have not destined us for the wrath that we deserve, but for salvation and that through your Son. So we thank you and praise you. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.