Believe In God And Be Proud Of Him (4)
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Believe In God And Be Proud Of Him
Believe In God And Be Proud Of Him
Right now we are doing a series on the second half of Isaiah.It is a all about the nation of Israel facing 163 years of very difficult times.We can learn a lot from this section since we all face tough times and as we near the Second Coming of Jesus Christ we are told times will get even more difficult.Meaning, just living life can be very challenging, but before Jesus comes back it will become even more challenging.We will learn what God teaches about how He wants to help us.So what do we do?What we have learned so far is that when we are in these challenging times God wants us to know that He is calling out to us and saying, let me help you through what you are going through.It’s like we don’t have to just call to Him, He is calling because He wants to help us.Of course then we have to know is He able to help us?That was our focus last week.We need to know who is offering us help.And So in Isaiah chapter 40 God tries to give us a picture of how He is bigger, stronger and smarter than anyone or anything we could ever imagine or any difficulty we could face.All that picture is meant to get us to the point that we would respond to God’s offer and say: God I need you and your help.In case you missed last week you can get the recording or just read the picture that God wants you to see in Isaiah 40.Now today we get to see how we relate to the God that is calling out and asking to help us AND even more importantly, why does He want to help us.Last week was learning all about God, this week we have to learn all about us and see how the two fit together.Let me give you a little background that will help us with our study today.Tammy and I love watching reality TV. Things like cooking show competitions, AGT, BGT and shows like the X factor.One thing that we have noticed over the last say 10 years on these shows 1 message keeps coming through.I can win this because I believe in myself and am proud of myself.Have you heard that?It seems to be a major belief that we are being taught today.You must believe in yourself.Now let me say this. There is a big difference between having confidence and believing in yourself.It’s not healthy to have no confidence. A bad self image. Not good.That’s not what is being taught to us today.Today’s message is if you just believe in yourself you can do anything.Person after person keeps saying how they believe in themselves and are proud of themselves.Here’s what we keep noticing. They all say that right before they lose.You see we are not told to believe in ourselves we taught to believe in God, Not to be proud of ourselves but to be proud of God, boast in God.In 2 Timothy 3:1-4 A shift from that thinking is a sign of the last days.Let me read this.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
See this self love and believing in self that is being taught today is actually a sign of the last days and leads to difficult times.It leads to pride, arrogance and abuse. So we need to change this.What we need to do is not believe in self but believe in God.We don’t need to be proud of ourselves we need to be proud of God.That will give you a strength and confidence to face anything.So our take home for today is: Let’s believe in God and be proud of Him.Read
Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.
Who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings underfoot; he makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow.
He pursues them and passes on safely, by paths his feet have not trod.
Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am he.
The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come.
Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.
You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all.
For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff;
you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,
that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.
For many years this has been one of my go to passages when my life seems to be out of control.You ever feel like that? Your world is out of control?For the last few weeks mine has felt like that and this passage has helped me a lot.The reason being is it reminds us of who we are, who God is and what our main purpose in life is all about.If we live for that purpose God has this way of doing everything that is promised in this passage which I think you will like.Let me start by reminding you of our main purpose in life.I always go back to the Westminster Shorter Catechism.What is man’s main purpose? Why are we here?It is to: Glorify God And Enjoy Him Forever! Here is where I honestly see the huge problem today especially in light of 2 Timothy 3.We are being taught to believe that our main purpose in life is:
To enjoy life, glorify yourself and have God help you to get there.
If that is our belief we will get just the opposite especially when difficult times come.Our purpose must be to Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever.When we live to glorify God and enjoy Him it makes all the difference in being fulfilled in this journey called life.This passage that we just read will help us get there.You see this passage is about how this great God that we looked at last week, He controls history.He starts out in verse 1 setting the stage in a courtroom.He is putting Himself on trial against the god’s that the people in their day put their trust in.His point from verse 2-4 is that He controls history.In chapter 44 we will see the extent of it where God names a king named Cyrus over 100 years before he is even born.He says there will be a king that comes from the east that I will use to bring about my judgement on the nations.I will raise him up and will give him victories.There is no one else that can do that.Here is where the issue comes for the Jews that were reading this.During that time, life was going to be a challenge.This is the same message that He tells us concerning the last days.He will raise up leaders that will be used to execute judgement upon the world.And while that is happening life will be a challenge for us.This is where the promises come in for them and for us.His main message is: Fear not, because I am going to help you, I will make you strong and provide for you. That’s His promise to his people.This is hard unless we understand Who God is, Who we are, how the two fit together.That is what we must learn from this section.Because my guess is many are a little fearful right now.Life is a challenge and it keeps looking like it is getting harder.Here God solves it for us.Let me start by saying history always repeats itself.Look at verse
Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
Isn’t this amazing. This is exactly what everyone teaches today.Be strong, believe in yourself. It doesn’t work.That was their way of saying believe in yourself and be proud of yourself.God is saying no you must believe in me and be proud of me.Don’t you be strong but keeps telling them I will make you strong, I will help you, I will provide for you.How do we get to that place.This is where God makes the most dramatic comparison in the Bible between us and Him.In the last chapter God painted this picture for us of Himself.It was let me give you a picture of myself.You know all the waters in the ocean? The fit in the hallow of my hand.You know the universe? I measure it with the span of my hand. You know the mountains? I can put them on a scale and weigh them.You see all the billion trillion stars in the heavens? I know them all by name and keep them going.Pretty impressive.In this chapter He says let me tell you about you.It’s verse 14. Isaiah 41:14 Don’t be offended yet
Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
This is the truth that God wants us to know about ourselves.We are worms.Now don’t think that is an insult. This is given for the purpose of helping us to know what we are like compared to God, what our power is like compared to God.We are like a worm. SHOW THE PICTURE.Here’s the picture. How strong ? Have you ever seen a worm fight?It would be crazy.Imagine a bird coming to attack a worm. What chance does the worm have in a battle against a bird?Imagine how silly it would be for the worm to say, I believe in myself.I’m really proud of myself and so I can go take on these birds.No way, a worm is the most helpless thing there is.No arms to fight, no legs to kick, just flop around to try and hide.FLOP AROUND AND SHOW HOW SILLY. CRAZY ISN’T IT.Here is the point God wants to make to us.You may be a worm but you don’t need to be afraid because I’m with you.Because and this is the list, I will renew your strength, I have chosen you, I will strengthen you, I am your God, I will help you, I will uphold you, I will put your enemies to shame, I will hold you, I am your redeemer, even though you are like a worm I will make you like a hammer that could crush mountains, I will answer you, I will open rivers where there is no water, I will give you water where there is none, even in the desert, I will not forsake you, and just in case you don’t remember I will say it again, I am here to help you and give you strength.Not a bad list is it. That’s what we get when we believe in Him.So Mr and Mrs worm do you want to handle your times of trouble or would you like me to help you?You can believe in yourself or you can believe in me.You can be proud of yourself or you can be proud of me.This is where it gets a little hard for us.In our worm brains, we would prefer to Have this great big mighty God help us avoid all these troubles.Wouldn’t that be great.That’s not the plan.His plan is to help us through them.But Why? It has to do with our purpose in life.As He helps us powerless worms He is glorified.Let me read verse 20. Isaiah 41:20You know why I am going to do everything on this list:
that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.
It’s so that we and the whole world will know, think about and understand that God has done this.Done what?God can take worms and help them face any enemy.That God can take worms that have no arms and make them like a hammer that can crush mountains.He controls the whole world and controls your world for the purpose of showing His people how mighty He is.When we live to show the world how mighty He is that is when He comes to our aid with everything on that list.It’s not about Him coming to help us be happy and to believe in ourselves it’s to help us believe in Him and enjoy Him.Last Wednesday night I was pondering all of this.It’s been a tough couple weeks.I’ve been privileged to have 7 or 8 different battles going at one time.You know what is quite funny, it is so easy to know all about these truths in theory.See them in the Scriptures and say that is amazing.Then God says, let me show you how true this is.Then the God who controls the story or History says, try this so you learn to believe in me, no problem - I can handle thatThen ok, here’s another, yep I got this.But eventually He gives you the one that you now see Ok I really am a worm.I can’t fight this.I just laid on the coach for about 2 hours thinking wow life can really throw a lot of challenges at a person.Many of which you can’t handle.A worm can’t fight a bird. The more you try the more worn out you get.That’s when this chapter hit me. You don’t need to do this alone.Just realize you’re a worm but you got a great God.He isn’t glorified by you fighting your battles on your own.He is glorified by giving you His power and strength to either let Him fight for you or give you the strength to fight them.All I had to say was sounds like a good plan to me.That was enough. Help, refreshing, power and strength were there.So what about you? Do you want to believe in yourself or believe in God? Do you want to be proud of yourself or glorify God?One will give you power and strength the other leaves you pretty worn out.One your are living on purpose - the other for yourself.