Isaiah 63:7-14 - Remember What He Has Done

Let's take it and go over to Isaiah 63.

Isaiah 63.

A few weeks ago, when I introduced a sermon, I mentioned a hymn writer by the name of William Cooper and mentioned some of the dark moments that he experienced in his life.

And some of us uh have experiences that are far closer to William Cooper's than we might we might realize.

Cooper loved Christ deeply, and he certainly trusted the gospel sincerely, but he went through some seasons that were extremely dark.

He walked through long seasons in which the nearness of God seemed to slip away from him.

His prayers would often feel heavy, his reading of scripture would often feel dry and lifeless, and his confidence, which at times was very steady and bright, would dim and be so dark he would wonder whether or not God truly claimed him as one of his own.

If you've ever wondered any of those kind of things, you're standing in the same place that Cooper did.

Maybe not to the same degree, but certainly in the same place.

And Cooper often, when he would find himself, would look inward and try to understand what was going on inside of him.

And we understand that instinct.

We know that when things are difficult, we often look at our motives, we often examine our failures, we often look at our inability to feel and wonder why I am not more grateful, more joyful, more hopeful, more determined, more obedient?

And we can ask the question just that same as Cooper did is God tired of me?

Has he put me away from himself?

And the more we try to look at ourselves to steady ourselves, the reality is, is the more unsteady we become.

Wonderfully, God put John Newton in Cooper's life.

And John Newton was a seasoned pastor by that time and understood the sorrows of the human heart, and he understood how to bring Cooper into a place of health spiritually.

And he didn't dismiss the hard times that Cooper went through, and he didn't sort of tell Cooper to sort of buck up and be strong and get over it.

He very slowly and very steadily brought Cooper back to the character of God.

And that's what he needed.

And that's what we need as well.

What we need is what Cooper found, that his heart could be steadied in a deliberate remembrance of God's character.

And so, as Newton reminded him of that, reminded him that God was faithful, that God was compassionate, and that God was constant toward his children even when we're weak.

He began to be strengthened very slowly but steadily toward a course of stability.

And Cooper's experience gives voice to some of the things that we go through.

That we can say we love God, but still feel very, very far from him, that we can believe the gospel and yet feel like we're on unsteady ground.

And that we can belong to Christ but still think that our prayers aren't being heard, and our scripture reading isn't soaking in.

And beneath it all is the question that Cooper wrestled with.

And it's a question we can wrestle with.

What kind of God will I be coming back to if I come out of this moment?

Will he be angry with me?

Will he dismiss me forever?

This is the question that Isaiah answers.

Isaiah, as we move through this passage, will answer that question.

Because he is writing to people who themselves were weary, who were guilty, who were uncertain, and who felt very, very small.

People who had seen judgment, people who had, well, should know their own failures, and probably did wonder if God had had enough.

And in this moment, moving out of the dramatic scene that we looked at last week of the divine warrior with the dust of the battlefield still settling, Isaiah moves forward in a more gentle way.

And he doesn't pretend that the vision that's just behind us and behind him was not unsettling because it is, and it was for him too.

But he wants to remember.

Remember God, remember his reliability, remember his character.

And that's where we're invited to be today.

Invited to be in a place of remembering him, so that the next time, or if we are in now, feeling thin and feeling fragile and feeling a lack of courage and spiritual strength, we might know how to address ourselves.

And so when we go through this passage, there are four things I want us to see here.

I want us to remember the steadfast love of God.

I want us to remember, as Isaiah proclaims it, the saving initiative of God.

Thirdly, it might seem oddly in the midst of this, is to remember God's grief over his people's iniquity.

And last of all, to remember that God remembers his children.

And those four points are going to carry us through because what we need in times of difficulty when we feel spiritually thin and weak and unstable, we don't need a technique.

We need a place to stand, a place where holiness and mercy meet together to help us.

A place where our weary hearts can find rest.

So let's have a look at these four points.

First of all, we are to remember God's faithful love.

God's faithful love.

Take a look at verse 7 of Isaiah 63.

I will make known the Lord's faithful love.

Other translations say, recount.

I will recount the Lord's faithful love or steadfast love.

And the Hebrew behind that phrase talks about a deliberate rehearsal of calling something to mind again and again and again and again until it steadies the heart.

In World War II, uh the government in Britain puts uh posters with slogans on them all over London.

And during the bliss, they put them there in order to stabilize these people in difficult moments.

Some of us are familiar with one of those, uh, Keep Calm and Carry On.

And that's probably the only one we know.

The reality is that one was never put on out in public display, in fact, was forgotten until the year 2000, until it's found in a bookstore.

And they realized there was that slogan that had been produced.

But there was another one.

Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us to victory.

Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us to victory.

The people in Britain in World War II were the same people who had gone through World War I and were still coming out of the Great Depression, or finding difficulties.

And so when the nights were lit by fire and the days awoke to rubble, the people remembered and were told to remember again and again who they were and that they could get through these moments.

Isaiah is doing something similar here.

Sort of moving out of the smoke of judgment and the vision of the divine warrior, with all of that still ringing in his ears, he comes here and he says, I'm going to remember.

I'm going to remember God.

And I'm going to remember his faithful love.

And he reaches back into the long history of God's activity with these people and he pulls it forward so he could anchor his and their and our soul.

Notice what he remembers.

Take a look at verse 7.

I will make known the Lord's faithful love and the Lord's praiseworthy acts, because of all the Lord has done for us, even the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, which he did for them.

Now notice the last phrase, based on his compassion and the abundance of his faithful love.

What Isaiah calls them to remember and calls us to remember are not our failures, not our instability, and not all the reasons we have that might cause us to despair, but to remember God.

And to remember that his love is steadfast and that his compassion is full, and he's full of abundant goodness.

What a wonderful focus that is.

And this is where we need to bring ourselves when we're in difficult times.

Not to sort of fixate on our circumstances.

And even before we confess sin, and even before we ask for help, we need to remember who we're talking to and to anchor our heart there.

Because if we start with ourselves, we're just going to stay where we are in despair.

But if we start with God, he's going to move us to a place of stability.

Now remember, Isaiah's not talking to strong people here.

He's talking to weak, frail, uncertain, small, weary, guilty folks.

And he tells them, remember, recount what God has done.

And this pastoral moment is very, very important to us.

Because many of us know what it's like to wake up with a weary heart.

When our days feel uncertain, when our future is confusing, and when our past is really just full of complication.

He tells us here in those moments that the most spiritually stabilizing thing that we can do is to recount God's character, to remind ourselves over and over again of who he is, and to rehearse it until our heart begins to beat with spiritual vitality.

Look at him.

And while we carry burdens that no one else sees or are so difficult it's hard to even talk about.

When we walk through times when God's promises feel distant, and when we are feeling the gnawing weight of guilt that is eating away at not only the edges, but at the heart of our joy, our instincts are to look inward.

But here he tells us don't do that.

Don't look inward, don't replay your failures, don't analyze yourself, don't begin to spiral by looking that direction.

Look at God.

Look at him.

Look to him who has steadfast love that never fails, that has compassion to carry his people, and who has goodness to meet them and us and you again and again and again and again.

Why?

Because that love and that compassion and that goodness is based upon his unchanging character.

It doesn't go away.

And this is the heart of what we're going to be looking at.

This is what the basis is for the rest of this.

Because the God whose character recount is the God, as we'll see, who saves in verses eight and nine, the God who grieves over sin in verse 10, and the God who remembers to remember his people in verses 11 to 14.

So let's take a look at the second point, verses 8 and 9.

And in these two verses, even though verse 7 is sort of coupled with them, Isaiah now builds from the character of God to the actions of God.

And that order really does matter.

Because God's actions flow from that character.

And so Isaiah recounts God's steadfast love, and he wants us to see that this God, who is this way, acts in and out of his faithful love.

Let's read it together.

I'll make known the Lord's faithful love and the Lord's praiseworthy acts, because of all he's done for us, even the many good things he's done for the house of Israel, which he did for them based on his compassion and the abundance of his faithful love.

He said, They are indeed my people, children who will not be disloyal, and he became their Savior.

In all their suffering he suffered, and the angel of his presence saved them.

He redeemed them because of his love and compassion.

He lifted them up and carried them all the days of the past.

Isaiah is opening up the doorway for us for God's activity.

This God who is steadfast in love and rich in compassion and abundant in goodness anchors our heart with his character, but he also anchors us with God's activities.

Remembering how God has moved toward us.

And notice these phrases in these verses, eight and nine, particularly.

Surely they are my people.

Here is a God who is full of compassion, full of faithful love, full of goodness, who is suffering with his suffering children, who remembers that they are his people, who moves toward them as a deliverer, who lifts them up and carries them.

It's wonderful.

And Isaiah is telling us remember this God who steps towards you.

Remember this God who claims you before you ever claimed him.

Remember this God who has bound himself to you in the midst of your affliction and who's going to carry you.

Some of us have seen that footprints poem where it talks about two sets of footprints in the sand.

And we see God walking alongside of us.

And then there's one set of footprints, and we think, well, that's when God's carrying us.

And one guy looked at that and he said, Well, what's that long, straight line that's next to the one footprint?

And he said, That's when God had to drag us forward.

You see, this is not a story of a distant deity.

This is not God waiting for us to clean ourselves up and then acts with kindness toward us.

This is a statement of God moving to us first.

He sees his people in bondage as he did in Egypt, and he says, They're mine.

He hears their groaning and he enters into their suffering.

And he doesn't stand on this on the on the shore and scream to them, hey, make your way here to safety.

He steps out into the deep waters to bring them back in.

Now Isaiah calls us to remember these things.

When we're in failure, when we are like they were, separated from God in exile, when they were dealing with the consequences of their rebellion.

In the middle of those moments, think of God's character and think of his actions.

Don't weigh yourself down with the weight of your own shortcomings.

Yes, as we'll see in a moment, we need to look back on those moments in our past of wandering and coldness and compromise.

But we can't put those at the front of our thoughts.

These things have to be the first things that we think about.

To think about God's initiative to save us, because it isn't dependent on our strength.

It never was and it never will be.

You see, God moved to these people when they couldn't help themselves and when they wouldn't.

Because this God heard the cries of the people in Egypt, and he came down to deliver them, and he bore them on eagle's wings, and he walked with them through the wilderness and all the wandering that they had there.

And Isaiah is saying, remember, this is God who moves to us.

He is the same God today, and he'll move to us in our weakness, just as he did our forefathers.

And it's important for us too, because the same God who moved toward these people is the same God who moves toward us.

Because the God who entered into Israel's affliction in the Exodus is the same God who enters into our affliction in the incarnation.

The same one who carried the people in the wilderness is the is the God who carries our sins on the cross.

And the one who claimed Israel as my people is now taking enemies and turning them into his children.

The pattern of this is all over Scripture.

In Romans chapter 5, when we were without strength, when we were enemies, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

That initiative is God's.

Ephesians 2, when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and walking according to the course of the world, and the prince of the power of the air, children of disobedience is others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, Titus 3, foolish, disobedient, led astray.

But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God appeared, he saved us.

Not according to works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.

So here we're called to remember this that God is not acting in response to our fidelity.

He is a faithful God and merciful.

And he will not abandon us.

That moves us to our next point.

Which, like I said at the outset, seems a little out of place, but it really, really isn't.

Verse 10.

Remember our rebellion and God's grief.

They rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit.

So he became their enemy and fought against them.

When we remember the God and his faithful covenant love moving toward his people with saving initiative, it leads us to remember something we probably don't want to remember.

Something we'd rather forget.

But Isaiah, the pastor prophet here tells us that we need to remember that.

And we need to remember what others have done as well.

And without changing the tone or losing any of the warmth of what he's said already, he now speaks with honesty about where people are.

Isaiah calls to mind God's mercy with deep clarity.

But he also calls us to remember ourselves with honesty.

To remember that this God who carried his people, this God who was full of faithful love, is a God they resisted, and a God they grieved.

And he brings this up at this point so that the people who are hearing it in this generation that he's speaking to might be healed.

That they might recognize themselves in that verse, instead of continuing on as the forefathers did who died in the wilderness, to turn to God and not repeat the bad story.

And we can't appreciate the tender heart of God until we really do appreciate and understand how deeply our sin grieves him.

And notice this phrase here.

It's an interesting one in verse 10.

They grieved his Holy Spirit.

That's an interesting word, isn't it?

Grieve?

It's a relational word.

And this is a very relational word here.

It doesn't say that they angered God and they did.

And it doesn't say they provoked God and they did.

It says they grieved him.

Grieved Him.

When we use the word grieve, we're using the word grieve in the context of relationship and even in the context of love.

A person I don't know might anger me or provoke me, but they don't grieve me.

But if something happens within my family, that can grieve me.

And here God uses the language of relationship to talk about the effect of sin.

And Isaiah wants us to feel the weight of that.

That this God who is faithful in his love, who is full of goodness, who calls these people his people, and who is taking them, saving them, delivering them, redeeming them, carrying them, is the same God they grieved.

And what he wants the generation he's writing to and speaking to and to us is not to take that and to turn it into a period of self-examination, but to use it as the basis from which we see the multicolored grace of God, and to see it more brightly, to see in dark contrast how full God's love actually is.

Because Isaiah here is not scolding or lecturing or weaponizing these words to put a guilt trip upon the people.

He wants them to understand their story as a people.

And he wants them to come to the place that they're at with repentance and movement toward God.

He wants them to embrace God and not to repeat their forefathers' sins.

And so he tells them, look how deeply God has loved you.

Look how faithfully he's carried you.

And look how grieved he is when people ignore him and sin against him and rebel him.

And so too, when we find ourselves in those seasons where our hearts are cold and indifferent, when we are filled with selfishness and self-desire, when pleasure seems more important to us than prayer, we are to remember the effect it has on God, if I can put it that way, in human terms, that we're not to resist this God who carries us, we're not to grieve this God who is there to comfort us, that we're not to push away from the one who has come toward us.

And we might ask ourselves, can we grieve God as New Testament believing people in Jesus?

And the scriptures tell us very clearly, yes, we can.

Yes, we can.

In Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 30, Paul picks up Isaiah's vocabulary.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

And he says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption.

Paul's not inventing a new line there.

And he's applying it to God's people today, not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

And what's interesting about that passage in Ephesians is that Paul is not tying that grieving to idolatry or pagan worship.

He's not even tying it to dramatic acts of rebellion, like Isaiah was referring to back in the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel.

He ties the grieving of the Holy Spirit of God to the sins within the body of Christ that are relational.

Because right in that verse, he says, Let all bitterness and anger and slander and unforgiveness and harsh words never once be named among you.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by which you are sealed for the day of redemption.

That really brings it home to us.

Because those are the things when we get into relational conflicts with one another, our instincts are to justify ourselves.

Well, she always does that.

You know what they're like.

And we end up sort of pushing the blame on somebody else.

But Paul picks up the language here of Isaiah and says, you can't speak and wound God's people without speaking against and wounding God Himself, to use human terms.

What we're doing is we're grieving the Spirit of God who has bought us and who is binding us together.

This is why Isaiah's remembrance here matters so deeply, because it's not just a story of the past.

It's meant to expose the ongoing danger of the heart, of what can happen when we're indifferent to the God who loves us.

And so he wants to bring this into the life of the body of Christ.

This God who was grieved in the wilderness is the same God who can be grieved in the fellowship hall, the same God who can be grieved in the private places of our hearts and minds when we hold on to things.

And like Isaiah, Paul tells us, don't do that.

But he also puts it in the context that this isn't the end of the story.

It's a really interesting phrase.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

That's beautiful.

Paul is reminding us that the spirit that we grieve is the same spirit who grabs us and has sealed us and will carry us into the day of redemption.

That's how constant his love is.

Because his grief is not a grief of rejection, it's a grief in the midst of relationship.

It's the grief of a Father who loves us, of a Savior who gave his life for us, of a spirit who seals us, a God who has promised to restore, heal, and bring us home.

And so he said, remember your rebellion.

Remember how damaging it is and move away from it.

And as you keep God's character and God's good activities before you, may they seem all the more brighter in the realization that none of that is deserved.

Because we have a propensity to be the grieving kind of people that the Israelites were.

And that leads us to the last point.

Because once we see how deeply our sin has grieved this God who loves us, we're ready to remember something else.

That God never lets up being a shepherd to his people.

Because Isaiah doesn't end with rebellion here.

He ends with redemption.

He ends with God who has led his people and carried his people and guided his people through everything.

And our last point is to remember that God remembers his promises and his people.

Take a look at verses 11 to 14.

Then he, that's God, he remembered the days of the past, the days of Moses and his people.

Where is he who brought them out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock?

Question that just wants to accentuate the next point.

Where is he who put his Holy Spirit among his flock?

Where is he?

He's right there.

That's where he is.

Verse 12.

He made his glorious strength available at the right hand of Moses, divided the water before them, to make an eternal name for himself, and led them through the depths like a horse in the wilderness, so that they did not stumble.

Like cattle that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.

You led your people this way to make a glorious name for yourself.

So right here at the very end, Isaiah doesn't wrap it up by saying, Look, just try harder to remember God, okay?

Just try harder to remember.

Now he does tell us to remember.

Remember his character, his hand, remember our sins.

But the last thing he wants to do is to settle our heart in the realization that God remembers his promises and his people.

Because the hope of this passage is not that we have good memories, but that God does.

That he has made an unshakable commitment to us.

Take a look again at verse 11.

He remembered the days of the past, the days of Moses and his people.

Has it ever occurred to you that nothing's ever occurred to God?

Right?

Why are we talking about God remembering something?

It's not that he went, oh yeah, I forgot.

Let me remember.

The remember word is a covenantal word.

It's a word of fidelity and promise.

He is taking those things that are true about his person and his promises, and he's putting them front and center.

And he's moving into relationship with his people in light of these things.

So he's calling to mind all of God's faithful activity to deliver these people from the bondage of Egypt.

And he's saying, I'm going to act toward them on the basis of how I've acted toward them in the past and the promises that I've given them that will guarantee their future.

I'm remembering to keep this centered when I deal with these people.

He's acting on his promises, remembering his covenants, remembering his people, remembering his purposes, and moving them forward in his faithfulness, not theirs.

And this is what the Isaiah wants the people to end with.

The recognition that their hope is not rooted in their ability to remember or their ability to hold on to God, but to put him first in the recognition of his character and his goodness and his faithfulness, his unwavering commitment.

God remembered.

So that he might remember a greater Moses, that he might remember actually giving his spirit to each and every one of his children, that he might carry them through the deep, and that he might bring them not just to the rest of a place on a map, but to an eternal rest.

This remembrance finds its fullest expression in Christ.

Because while we were dead in sins, God remembered his mercy toward us.

When we were still sinners, God remembered his love and sent forth his son for us.

When we were foolish and disobedient, God remembered in his kindness to save us.

When we're weak and frail, we need to remember that God remembers, that he never forgets, that he has sealed us by his spirit, and that he has guaranteed us through the blood of Christ to bring us home.

Because the work that he's begun in us, he will complete.

The promises that he's made to us, he will fulfill.

The purposes that he set before us, he will draw to completion.

And when he started to carry us as his children, he will bring us there to the destined end that he has for us.

And so whenever we find ourselves faltering, failing, weak, full of guilt and introspection, whenever our joy fades and our hearts are frail, and our strength falters, our confidence is not in our our ability to remember God.

Our confidence is the fact that He remembers us.

He's not forgotten how to shepherd us home.

Now Isaiah is telling this.

Remember that God remembers.

Just look to him.

So Isaiah has been leading us through this kind of remembering, not a nostalgic sort of remembrance, but a pastoral one, one that shepherds our hearts toward the place where it can be steady.

He's brought us face to face with God's steadfast love and his saving initiative.

He's brought us into that relational grief that God bears whenever we sin, especially against one another.

And he's brought us to the remembrance of God's reliability as a shepherd.

And all of this brings us to the heart of this passage.

Because he's telling us not to look inside of ourselves for strength, but to look at God and to realize that our hope can rise because he is steady when we're not, that God is faithful when we are not, that he will remember us perfectly.

And so when we get to the end of this, what we see is a section of scripture that we're going to move into next week.

And it be it moves right into prayer.

Because once you see God for all of his compassionate character, when you see God in all of his abundant goodness in his activity, when you see God in his relational bind and bond to us, even grieved in our iniquity.

And when you see God, who is the faithful shepherd, your heart's going to be moved to pour yourself out to him.

And as we'll see next week, it eventually ushers into praise and worship.

This is the pathway of stability.

And Isaiah, the pastor prophet, I called him, is doing this and sharing this with us.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for the hope and strength and comfort and instruction of our soul that this passage gives us.

We thank you that Isaiah has not simply given us information, but he shepherded us to steady our hearts.

He's not simply instructed us, but invited us into your presence.

And he's not simply calling us to remember and to remember better, but helping us understand that you always remember.

So, Lord, I do pray for us.

Lord, we must confess too often we are frail and weak, wandering, weary, wounded and wounding, faltering, failing, and a thousand other words that thesaurus could never contain that are similar in their expression.

But we're so grateful that your love is not based upon that, that you don't love us in response to our goodness.

You love us because you love us.

And so, Lord, anchor our hearts in your character, anchor our hearts in what you've done for us and will do for us.

Anchor our hearts in the fact that you're the faithful shepherd, the chief shepherd of our souls.

And Lord, may it move us to never wish to grieve you, the God who has sealed us unto the day of redemption.

And Father, we ask this in Christ's name.

Amen.