God's Work: Learning the Lessons

Aw right Isaiah forty six, forty six, forty seven, and

forty eight, three chapters of Isaiah. I'm going to read

some representative stanzas from these three chapters here in just

a moment, as opposed to reading all three chapters, because

we're also going to have the Lord's Supper in this

worship service. So I'm going to read some representative stanzas.

But before I do, I want you to be just

kind of on the lookout in this passage to this

issue that it is easy to misunderstand what God is doing.

It's easy to misunderstand what God is doing. We all

would come with our own assumptions and presumptions about what

God is doing providentially in the world, and it's easy

to draw the wrong conclusions. Don't remember who told this,

but I'm going to retell it. Imagine a dog at home.

Nobody else is home. He's inside the FedEx driver I

used ups last. In the last service, FedEx guy came

to me and said, we'd like you to use FedEx,

So there you go. Sam. FedEx driver shows up and

as soon as he gets the package to start making

his way up the walkway, the dog is barking. From

the inside of the house. Go away, go away, go away,

And FedEx driver gets to the door, drops the package,

turns around and leaves. And the dog thinks that worked.

He didn't really know what's going on. He's just interpreting

things the way he wants to and we do too,

And Israel was tempted to do the same. But God

was doing all kinds of things, and in Israel found

it easy to be like that dog, seeing all kinds

of things going down and coming to the wrong conclusions

about who God is and what he was doing. Right, Like, so, oh,

Babylon conquered us. Their gods must be greater than our God. Yeah,

you got it wrong. Babelog conquered you because of because

God gave you into their hands. Or oh, now we're

returning to the land, so we must have sufficiently earned

God's favor. Yeah, not the case, misinterpretation. Let me read

the first two stanzas of each chapter eight, and I

think that's gonna help us with what's going on here,

and then I'll then I'll unpack it further. In this

message forty six, verse one, the first two stanzas go

like this bell bows down, Nebo stoops their idols are

on beasts and livestock. These things you carry are born

as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop, they bow down. Together.

They cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.

Listen to me ow, oh house of Jacob, all the

remnants of the House of Israel, who have been born

by me from before your birth, carried from the womb,

even to your old age, I am he, and to

gray hairs. I will carry you. I have made, and

I will bear. I will carry, and I will save.

Consider Chapter forty seven. Come down and sit in the dust,

oh virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without

a throne, Oh daughter of the Chaldeans, for you shall

no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones

and grind flower. Strip off, put off your veil, Strip

off your robe, uncover your legs. Pass through the rivers.

Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen.

I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one.

Our redeemer, the Lord of Hosts is his name is

the Holy One of Israel. Sit in silence, Go into darkness, o,

daughter of the Chaldeans, for you shall no more be

called the mistress of kingdoms. I was angry with my people.

I profaned my heritage. I gave them into your hand,

and you showed them no mercy. On the aged. You

made your yoke exceedingly heavy. You said, I shall be

mistress forever, so that you did not lay these things

to heart or remember their end. Consider Chapter forty eight.

Hear this a house of Jacob, who are called by

the name of Israel, and who came from the waters

of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord

and confess the God of Israel. But not in truth

or right, for they call themselves after the Holy City,

and stay themselves on the God of Israel. The Lord

of Hosts is his name. The former things I declared

of old. They went out from my mouth, and I

announced them. Then suddenly I did them, and they came

to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate. Your

neck is an iron sinew, and your forehead brass. I

declared them to you from of old. Before they came

to pass, I announced them to you, lest you should

say my idol did them. My carved image and my

middle image commanded them. This is the word of the Lord.

I think you can see throughout those representative stanzas in

those three chapters how easy it was and how easy

it is to misinterpret providence. When God is at work

in the world, on the global scale or on the

personal scale, in the catastrophic or in the ordinary providence

that courses throughout our days, it is easy to see

the work that God is doing and come to the

wrong conclusions about who he is and what he's doing.

So how do we make sure to come to the

right ones? How do we make sure to come to

the right conclusions learn the right lessons about God's work?

To look at three principles from these passages for learning

the right lessons about God's work. Here's the first. Here's

the first and most foundational bedrock principle about God's work

that will help us learn the lessons here. It is

God's work controls all things. God's work controls all things.

He says it right there in verse ten, I will

accomplish all my purpose. He uses this hilarious comparison of

the idols of Babylon, Bell and Nebo. God says Bell

bows down, Nebo stoops. What he's describing is as the

Persian Empire would come and invade Babylon. They were taking

the Babylonian gods, and they were like tilting them over horizontally,

strapping them to donkeys so that they could get them

to for safe keeping, because they would have been a

valuable capture. And God's like, hmm, even the gods are

bowing down. Interesting, you can't carry them, or they can't

carry you. You have to carry them. They can't save you.

You have to save them. Interesting, because I am the

one who carries From the beginning, I have been the

one who has carried you. In fact, I told you

very beginning of Deuteronomy, the first chapter of Deuteronomy, he says,

I am the one who carries you. I made you.

I fight for you in the wilderness. You saw how

like a man who carries his son. I have been

that way all along the way I carry you. And

yet so often you look to those things which eventually

if you put your trust in, if you put your

trust in other things to save you, you will have

to save them. Because God is the only one who

controls all things. I will accomplish my purpose. I truly

don't think that we can ever learn the right lessons

about God's work. If we don't realize that God is

completely sovereign. I know that there are those who who

don't understand God's work, who does, who don't like some

aspects of what God has put together, And so in

some senses they want to get God off the hook

by saying, well, maybe God isn't in charge of everything,

maybe God's work doesn't control all things. I'd like to

sort of take it easy on him a little bit.

You're not helping him better to come to the recognition

that you don't understand his wisdom and his ways and

his prerogatives. Yes, we don't. That's actually a much more

logical and biblical conclusion. I don't have the wisdom of God,

but I know he's in control. And not only is

he in control, he has his own purposes and he

has his own prerogatives. Right. It would be easy, for example,

for Israel to misunderstand what God is doing is just well,

Persia just must be that powerful or we must be

that deserving. But that's not what verses eight and nine say.

Verses eight nine God says, remember you transgressors, I am God.

Or verse twelve, listen, you stubborn of heart. I bring righteousness.

I bring justice. So the foundational truth is not about

Israel being deserving. It's I will accomplish my purposes. That's

the foundational truth. The foundational truth is not about Persia

being powerful. Look at verse eleven. He says, this is

like calling a bird of prey. God is like a falconer, right,

I send this bird wherever I want to. Is the

bird powerful? Yes, But he's my tool. All things are

in my hands. I send this bird to do what

I want him to do where I want him to

do it. I will accomplish my purposes. The major lesson

is God's work controls all things. Persia isn't foundationally sovereign.

Israel isn't foundationally deserving. God's work is God's prerogative, just

as it was from the beginning. Here's here's the most

foundational verse of all in the beginning Who in the

beginning God, God does as God sees fit in God's

wisdom in God's world, and God's people don't always understand. Yet,

by my mighty arm I rescue, by my will, I

give you this land. By my command I bring you

to exile. And at the end of the end, at

the end of all the scriptures in Revelation chapter four.

Worthy are you, o, Lord and God, to receive glory

and honor and power, For you created all things, and

by your will they're created. If we're going to learn

any right lessons about God's work, we have to start

with the foundation of things. What does God's word say

about God's sovereignty. That's where we have to start. It

says I will accomplish my purpose. God's work controls all things.

That's the foundation. That's the first principle. Here's the second principle.

All right, if we're going to we're going to learn

the right lessons, if we're going to draw the right conclusions.

We've got God's work in the world. First, we have

to understand his work controls all things. Second, we have

to understand God's work is greater than anything human. God's

work is greater than anything human. Is God's work subject

to human philosophy? Well, versus Stanzas one and two, Like,

starting at verse one, he calls Babylon and says sit

in the dust, which is great. It's a remarkable how

often the word sit it appears throughout this whole chapter

regarding Babylon. Like he's talking to a dog. Sit, sit

in the dust, sit on the ground without a throne.

I'm gonna bring my judgment on you, even though here's

the thing. I gave them into your hand, and he

showed them no mercy. So God is bringing Babylon down

for being merciless, even though he was God's Babylon was

God's instrument to bring discipline to his people. In his

divine sovereignty. He used Babylon to bring discipline to his people.

And when Babylon brought discipline to his people, he punished

them for their mercilessness. And the human philosopher says, how's

that fair? That seems to be a problem. You got

this interaction between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, and I

have a problem with that. And God just doesn't. God

knows how to work out all of the seams of

divine sovereignty and all of the seams between that and

human responsibility. Human philosophy doesn't hold back his work. He's

not tangled up about it. He knows how to use

everything in his world and judge it accordingly. His work

isn't held back by human position. I mean, consider the

next two Stanzas Verses eight through eleven say, I mean

Babylon is like, I'm gonna be untouchable. I am not

gonna sit as a widow. Verse eight. I will never

sit as a widow. I will never know the loss

of children. No one sees me. I'm both invincible and

I'm unaccountable. That is the voice of human pride. I

am invincible and I am unaccountable. It's like the characters

in the movie where you can just see that they're

just an arrogant and prideful character. And at some point

or another they say this, whether somebody's stopping them from

getting on a plane or no, but somebody's not going

to let him, you know, get into a meeting or whatever.

They say, do you know who I am? Yeah, you're

your fertilizer one hundred years from now. You're just another person,

and you consider yourself, in your human pride, invincible and unaccountable.

But God is not held back by any human position.

God's work is greater than anything human. It's not overcome

by human power. Going on through verses twelve and fifteen,

God says this is one of the other places in

this chapter. God says, stand and it's a mock. It's

like it's a taunt. He's been saying, sit this whole time,

Sit Sit, Sit. Okay, what's you stand whyn't you stand

fast in your enchantments? Why don't you use your astrology

to hold me back? Or your political alliances? Why don't

you call out to your partners and your business associates

and see if they can hold back what I'm going

to do. Nothing can hold me back. Your charms won't

help you, Your partnerships won't help you. As in all

human attempts to hold back what God is doing, Pharaoh's

snakes will always be swallowed up. God's work isn't overcome

by human power. It's greater than anything human. So as

we're trying to learn the right lessons about God's work,

all of this should remind us that God's word says

about God's work that there's no way for our reasoning,

or our pride, or our strengths, or our theological contortions

to put ourselves above God's humbling work. If He chooses

to bring us low, we will be brought low. Though

right now we may feel invincible, though right now we

may feel unaccountable, nothing puts us above his hand. On

the other hand. This also means that there is no

one who can come against you, no matter how clever

or how well connected, that will be outside of God's control.

It reminds me of a time when I was working

in a company in Austin and I had made an

enemy in that company, and I myself and a few

other people in my department had made that enemy through integrity,

and we were taking a stand for something that was right.

And the guy didn't make any pretenses about it. He

told me that he was out for my job, and

he was way better connected than I was. He was

way more powerful in the company than I was if

he began his political maneuverings, and he was way better

at politics than I was. This is probably it for me.

I don't have anything I could do. Just hit my knees,

which I did multiple times in my office as I

knew I have an enemy. And here's what God did.

There's always a bigger fish, right just like in there,

just like in this account. Israel is exiled by Babylon,

and God sends a bigger fish. God sends Persia and

his people get released, and God sent a bigger fish

somebody from outside the company altogether, and within months that

guy was gone. He'd been there for years. I had

been there for years, and within months he was gone.

I didn't do anything but wear out my knees a

little bit. And listen, I am not saying that that's

exactly what God is going to do in his matter

of protection for every single one of us, in every

single situation. Like we're talking about learning God's lessons about

God's work, and that is up to God his prerogative right.

But this is absolutely true. There is no one who

can come against you that is outside of God's control.

His protecting work is greater than anyone you might fear.

How are we going to learn the right lessons about

God's work? How are we going to keep from drawing

the wrong conclusions about the way God operates in the

world When we start with the foundation His work controls

all things. And the second principle is this, His work

is greater than anything human. He's not a constrained by

human philosophy. He can't be held back by human position,

he can't be overcome by human power. He's greater than

anything human. But here's the third principle. And I think

this third principle might sound like we're going backwards. But

here it is God's work is regularly misunderstood. God's work

is regularly misunderstood. I just think that's gonna help if

we realize when we're trying to understand it, that it's

easy to misunderstand it, right, kind of helpful to know

the challenge. Like the dog that's barking at the FedEx

ups USPS Amazon driver whoever, we regularly misunderstand what the

hand of God is doing. It's easy for us to misunderstand.

It's like the example, and I'm sure you've heard this one.

I was trying to tell this one to my son

and he stopped me within twenty seconds. That's an old story, Dad, like, well,

that's a good one. It's like when they were they

were trying to determine where they should put the the armor,

the reinforcing armor on bomb on bombers and fighter planes,

and so they were examining the airplanes when they came

back from battle, and they looked at the bullet holes,

Well where are the bullets hitting the plane? And they saw, oh,

well there's bullet holes all over the wings and in

the tail, so that must be where the bullets are

hitting these planes, And of course the moral of the

story is no, that's just where they were hitting. The

planes that made it back, the ones that hit the

bullets that hit engines, those went those planes went down

in the ocean. You're never seeing those. So based on

the fact that you're looking at them the way that

you're looking at them, you're going to misunderstand what's happening.

And that was happening left and right amongst Israel, and

happens left and right amongst us. If we're going to

learn the right lessons about God's work, we have to

let God's word explain God's work. We have to let

God's word explain God's work because we could easily misunderstand,

misunderstand God's benefiting work to mean that he's fooled by

our hypocrisy. We could easily misunderstand God's benefiting work to

mean that he is fooled by our hypocrisy. Here's what

I mean. If you look at verses one and two

of chapter forty eight, saying hear this all right, listen,

o house of Israel. You are called by the name

of Israel, who came from the waters of Judah, who

swear by the name of the Lord who confessed, the

God of Israel. But not in truth or right. There

is such a thing as nominalism, just being familiar with

the things of Christ, being near his people, saying the things,

playing the game. It would be a misunderstanding of God's

benefiting work to come to the conclusion that he's fooled

by nominalism. Growing up in a Christian family will be

a benefit to you. Having a Christian spouse will be

a fit to you. Enjoying a community of Christians will

be a benefit to you. But don't misunderstand God's work

in those benefits as the grace that comes from saving faith.

You're being called to confess with your mouth and believe

in your heart and live with your life. Don't misunderstand

God's benefiting work to mean he's fooled. By just naming

the name, we could easily misunderstand, for instance, God's revealing

work to mean we've been great learners. Look at all

He's given us. He's given us all of this revealed truth.

We must be great learners. We must be just by

teachable sponges. Uh. Actually, Verses three through eight go this way,

because I know that you're obstinate and your neck is

as iron sinew on your forehead brass. I have declared

these things from of old. Right, God hasn't necessarily revealed

what he has because we're always teachable. Sometimes God reveals

what he reveals when he reveals it because of our stubbornness.

That's a grace, and we are being called to softness

of heart. Don't learn the wrong lesson. It would be

easy again, for example, for us to misunderstand God's preserving

work to mean that it's based on something in us.

All right, Verses nine through eleven. You see things like

this for my name's sake, I defer my a. I

refined you, but not as silver. In other words, if

I would have gone all the way to refining you

like silver is refined, there wouldn't be anything left of you.

Sometimes God spares us in his forbearance and his restraint,

in his mercy towards us for his own namesake. Right,

and his preservation of you doesn't necessarily prove your purity

sometimes as a call to purity. Don't misunderstand, don't draw

the wrong conclusion. Consider tewod Peter chapter three. The Lord

isn't slow, but patient, that all would reach repentance, be

diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish.

His preservation may not be the proof of your purity.

It may be the push towards purity. We could easily

misunderstand God's use of instruments in his work to mean

that those instruments are the source of power. We could

easily misunderstand God's use of instruments to mean those instruments

are actually the source of power. But what is he

saying Verses twelve through sixteen? He says things like this,

I even I have spoken and called him talking about Cyrus,

the Persian emperor. He's called him for his purposes. Right,

So as God uses instruments in our lives, uses people,

uses situations, uses institutions, uses our workplace, uses the rebuke

that we receive from someone somewhere else, don't be fooled

into thinking those instruments are the source of power. He

is in control of all things. Look past the scalpel

and see the surgeon. Don't misunderstand last one. We could

easily misunderstand God's joyful, releasing work, his providing work, to

mean that we have rightly paid attention, Like he says

seventeen through twenty two. He says, for instance, go out

from Babylon, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaimant,

and he says, referring to their forefathers, they did not thirst.

He made water flow from the rock. Right, so I

am doing a releasing work. It's joyful. I am doing

a providing work. But verse eighteen, but oh, that you

had paid attention to my commandments, then you would have

peace like a river. It is right. It is right

for us to rejoice in the ways that God releases us,

and right for us to rejoice in the way that

God provides for us. But that doesn't mean he's done

calling you to obedience. In fact, Paul uses this incident

of water from a rock to make this very point

in First Corinthians, chapter ten. And I'm going to have

you flip there. It's sobering one Corinthians, chapter ten. This

is the point that Paul is making. Starting in verse one,

he says this, for I do not want you to

be unaware, brothers, speaking to the church, that our fathers

were all under the cloud, they had the presence of God,

and all passed through the sea. They had the protection

of God, and all were baptized into Moses in the

cloud and the sea. They had the leader from God,

and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank

the same spiritual drink. They had the provision of God,

for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them,

and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them,

God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things took place as examples for us that

we may not desire evil as they did. We are

being called to not presume on being Christ adjacent. They

had the presence of God, the leader from God, the

protection of God, the provision from God. They had so much,

Paul saying, Christ was there with them, amongst them, providing

for them. And we are being called to not presume

on being near his things, Christ adjacent, and yet put

him to the test by partaking not only of some

of what He provides, but also in evil. That's what

it says in verse nine. We must not put Christ

to the test as some of them dead and were destroyed. Instead,

partake in what he provides. Yes, with joy and with

singleness of heart. With singleness of heart, let what He

has provided, and the freedom you do enjoy. Move you

to rejoice and obey, to praise and pay attention. Let

the benefits you've experienced by being near Christ wet your appetite.

To love Him in full, to trust Him in obedience,

to know, oh, the peace like a river that comes

from walking in His ways. Don't remain merely Christ adjacent

and God's work. As you hear God's work has brought

you here hearing this, being given the chance to do

exactly this, trust Him in full, love him in full,

or being given the chance to continue doing exactly that.

And that's how God's word explains God's work right now

in Hebrews chapter three. For if we have come to

share in Christ, if indeed we hold to original confidence

to the end, as it is said today, if you

hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,