Good evening. We're going to
open this evening's worship with singing number 334 in the hardback,
334, Be Thou My Vision. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart, Not be all else to me, save that Thou art, Thou
my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, Thy
presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my
true word. I ever with Thee and Thou with
me, Lord. Thou my great Father, I Thy true
Son, Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. Riches I heed not, nor man's
empty praise. Thou mine inheritance, now and
always. only first in my heart. My King of Heaven, my treasure
Thou art. My King of Heaven, my victory
won. May I reach Heaven's joys, O
bright Heaven's sun. Heart of my own heart, whatever
befall, still be my vision, O ruler of all. Our second hymn will be number
126. 126, Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in Thee. Let the water and the blood from
Thy wounded side which flow, be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? These four sin could not atone. Thou must save, and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring. Simply to Thy cross I cling. While I draw this fleeting breath,
when my eyes shall close in death, when I rise to worlds unknown
and behold thee on thy throne, rock of ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Thank you. You may be seated. Let's go to one of my favorites,
is Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two. And we'll begin in verse one. And read down through verse 10. And you hath he quickened, who
are dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace
are ye saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages
to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through
faith. And that, not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, for your great love for your people. Lord, that you are so tender,
so kind, so gracious to unworthy, undeserving sinners such as us,
Lord. And that you should choose to
be merciful to a people. And Lord, that we should discover
that you chose us and set your love upon us and have been merciful
and gracious to us in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank
you for your great love and for your provision of salvation in
your son. Lord, we ask that by your spirit
of grace, you would bring forth praise from our lips. that we
would rejoice in our God and that we would give you all the
glory, especially as we have opportunity before others. And Lord, we think of our brethren.
We think of those who would be with us more often if they could,
those who are sick or caring for those that are sick. We think
of Johnny and Scott. We ask that you would continue
to heal our brother that he could join us more regularly and that
you would give him strength, Lord, in the evening after days
of treatment. But Father, we thank you for
their fellowship and pray that you help us to be able to visit
them and that they would be able to come out more regularly to
be with us. We pray for those that are seeking
to to arrange their schedule in such a way to be here regularly
when we meet. We pray and ask that you would
bless them and work things out that they may be with us. And
Father, we pray that you would put your spirit of peace and
love and joy upon us, that we would be a body that is at peace
with one another, even as we are at peace with our God and
your son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, we thank you for that,
and know that these things are of your hand. Lord, we pray that
you would bless your word tonight, that you would be present among
us, that you would stir up our hearts, Lord, that you would
prepare our hearts, that it be good ground to receive your word,
and that you would bless your word to take root in us, that
you would water it and provide the warmth and the sun to make
it grow, and that it would bear much fruit to you, Lord. We thank
you for your many blessings to us and your son. We thank you
for this building. We thank you for the means that
we have to meet together as a body regularly, even in this very
fine place that you've provided for us. We pray that you give
us wisdom concerning it and guidance as to how we might be able to
make better use of it. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Alright, we're going to be over
in Isaiah 43 and we're going to pick up in verse 22 and make
our way down to verse 28, which is the end of the chapter. So
Isaiah 43, 22 through 28. Now, when we Last year in our study we closed
with verse 21 where the Lord says, this people have I formed
for myself. They shall show forth my praise. And the Lord is the one who instructs
our hearts to praise him. meaning that he gives us understanding. He gives us a knowledge of him
and what he's done for us so that he brings forth the praise
of our lips. He's the one who gives us that
heart and that mindset to praise him with understanding. And in
whom do we praise the Lord? We praise Him in Christ. We give
God thanks for His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, tonight's passage,
I believe, makes it clear why we praise the Lord, why we give
Him thanks, and how it is with understanding that we praise
Him for His grace. This passage will show us what
we are in ourselves, how that we have nothing to boast of before
God, but that he's the provider of our salvation. Okay. So if
you remember in our last study here in Isaiah 43 in verse 19,
he had spoken of a new thing. He said, behold, I will do a
new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall
ye not know it? Yes, we shall. We shall know. We're gonna know as we, what
he says later on in verse 25, we'll come there tonight, knowing
that our God blotted out my transgressions for his own sake. Not because
I've done something, but for his own sake, he's blotted out
my transgressions. So this passage is a reflection
of what we are in our flesh. and yet it reveals the grace
and the glory of our God in kindness, doing for us what we cannot do
for ourselves. All right, so I've titled this,
Grace Toward Unworthy Sinners. Grace Toward Unworthy Sinners. Now, some have wisely noted in
reading the scriptures, those who are aware of the grace that
God saves His people with, how He saves us in grace, and those
who recognize that, that God is a God of grace and saves His
people by grace, they've pointed out that every time the Lord
exhibits or shows grace, it follows Him tracing or outlining or pointing
out the sin that they've committed. How that they're unworthy of
this grace that then follows. It's always seen, grace always
comes to unworthy sinners. It's almost a repetition to say
unworthy sinners because that's what grace is. It's unmerited,
it's unwarranted, it's unworthy upon whom it's bestowed. They
haven't done anything to earn it. And so with Adam and Eve,
before the Lord went and slew the animals and took their skins
and clothed the nakedness of Adam and Eve, He had first outlined,
He first told them in exact terms the sin, the transgression that
they had committed against Him there in the garden. Noah, before Noah was brought
into the ark and sealed in safety by God in that ark, he had outlined,
he declared the wickedness, the evil of man before he showed
that great grace to Noah, saying that every imagination of the
thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. And then he
showed grace to Noah and to his family. All right, and so now
we come to Jacob and Israel in our text, and the Lord lays out
his case against them. And he says in verse 22, but
thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary
of me, O Israel. So in reading this, it seems
that the Lord has an expectation of His people, that they would
be a people who call upon the Lord, who call upon His name. You know, when we read Genesis,
some of the most tender moments that we see with Jacob is in
his prayer to the Lord and how he wrestled with the Lord in
prayer and how the Lord revealed himself to Jacob there in prayer,
but his children they seemed rather content to do without
calling upon the name of the Lord. And so they grew cold and
indifferent to the Lord, to his worship and to come before him
with a heart of joy and thanksgiving and a willingness to praise him. He had said, thou has been weary
of me, O Israel. All right, it became worship
of God became weary something, something they just fit in, they
just shoehorned it in just to get it done, but it was a nuisance,
and it was a trial, and a difficult thing for them to want to do.
And the thought of calling upon the Lord, well, they rarely thought
of the Lord in their time of need, and they thought of what
they could do to take care of themselves, right? Unless we
should think, we Gentiles, should think more highly of ourselves
than the Jews. The psalmist writes in Psalm
14 2 that the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children
of men, all children, all men, all women, of all races, of every
tongue and tribe and nation, and he looked down upon the children
of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek
God. And the answer is no. No, no
one seeks after God. No one calls after God or calls
upon him and no one is faithful in seeking the Lord. And, and
I know, I know you brethren and, and I know none of us here would
be defensive and say, no, not me. I'm, I'm good in my ways,
but we're more apt to put our head down and, you know, feel
the heat of the blush of shame come upon us and and hope that
no one sees that we're ashamed. Because we know that we too don't
call upon the Lord as He deserves. And we've all felt that squirm
in us like, oh man, I gotta go to services tonight. We've all
been there, we've all done that and we've all felt that in ourselves. And so, you know, we're more
apt to walk about with great confidence. For people that don't
call upon the Lord as we ought, we go about with a tremendous
amount of confidence in this world and thinking very highly
of ourselves. But our Lord has been very kind
to us, very gracious, very, very gentle, very tender. And he never
says to his people, seek ye me in vain. God never says, seek
ye my face in vain. my two grandsons and my o I'm
going out of the bedr and I'm going into the ki food and I'm
traveling th room. He often, it's rare without him
noticing me p Pick up, he puts his hands up
and he asks me to pick him up, to lift him up. And if I'm moving
through with purpose, I have a tendency to say no, not right
now. But as soon as I come back a
few seconds to a few minutes later, he's right there, pick
up, pick me up. And he's asking me again. Once
in a while, a second time I might be able to turn him away, but
the third time he gets me every time I find myself bending over
and picking him up and just holding him and loving him and telling
him I love him and kissing him and I'm thankful for that. And that's our Lord. He says, seek me. We're not going
to wear him out by asking him and calling upon Him and seeking
Him, right? And He's not gonna pass us by
for long. He loves us. He loves you and
He has His purpose in what He does, but He hears you and He
will pick you up and draw you near to Himself and hold you
tight and hug you and tell you, I love you. You'll know that
He loves you and hears you. This calling upon the Lord, these
are our sacrifices. These are the offerings. The
calves of our lips are what we sacrifice to the Lord. We don't have sheep and doves
and oxen. and little lambs, we don't take
them or purchase them or raise them and slay them at the temple
on an altar to the Lord, right? We don't do that, but we do praise
him, right? We do call upon him. That is
a sacrifice. That's what we do, right? We realize and recognize, not
unto me, Lord, is the glory, but unto thy name. you're worthy
of glory and praise. And that's what we see here in
verses 23 and 24. Verse 23 says, thou hast not
brought me, this is the Lord speaking to us, thou hast not
brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither
hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices. We don't do that
at all. That's not what we're asked to
do at all. But I believe we can relate to that in the sense of,
are we calling upon the Lord? Are we wearied with coming in
before the Lord and worshiping Him? And the Lord continues there
in verse 23. He says, I've not caused thee
to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. You think about what our Lord
has done for us in this day of grace in Christ, knowing our
Savior, knowing what He has accomplished for us, and think about it. Are
we laboring under the law, the yoke of the law of Moses? Are
you wearing that heavy yoke, that burden of trying to get
yourself righteous or to maintain a righteousness according to
the law of Moses? No. Many of us have attempted
it in religion. Many of us have labored to some
degree under the law and found it to be a heavy burden, one
that we could not bear. And it made known our sin to
us. And so the Lord doesn't call
us to labor under the law, especially as we see outlined there where
they were expected to go and worship the Lord in the place
of His choosing there in Jerusalem. to bring the finest of their
small animals, their lambs, and to sacrifice one to the Lord. But instead, our Savior says
to us in Matthew 11, 28, come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you,
not the yoke of the law of Moses, but the yoke of Christ. Learn
of me, he says, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light." All right, like the Lord is saying here in verse
23, you've not done these things, and I've not asked you, but you
don't even call upon me, and you're wearied with coming to
me, he says to this people. And so in grace, our Lord has
put off the yoke of the law and he's put on the yoke of the robe
of his righteousness. Something we didn't spin or raise
or work up to get that robe of righteousness. He's provided
it fully in grace of himself. And so we've been delivered from
that prison. We've been delivered from that
sorrow and that difficulty. Did the sinners and the publicans
come before God in the days of the Sadducees and Pharisees?
No, they were afraid, they couldn't come. But when Christ came, they
rejoiced in the Lord, because His yoke is easy and His burden
is light, and He received them. willing and gracious to them
though they were sinners he was gracious to them in the day that
he came all right and then verse 24 he says thou has brought me
no sweet cane with money neither hast thou filled me with the
fat of thy sacrifices And we'll see as we go a little further
that what he's saying there is, I know these things are expensive.
These things are not highly available that are prescribed in the law.
And I've not put that burden on you, he's saying. You haven't
done these things. I've not asked you to empty out
your savings. to provide these things in sacrifice
to me. He said, I've passed over that. I've let that go. These things
that were like that sweet cane, which would have been expensive
or hard to come by there. And so, in that light, what have
we seen with this people in this passage? Who are these people?
How could we summarize what we've just seen here? They're prayerless,
right? They don't pray to the Lord.
They don't seek Him. They grow tired of Him rather
easily. They grow weary of worshiping
Him. They fail to bring the sacrifices
and the offerings which He said to bring to Him. They use any
excuse not to come before him. They complain that those are
expensive things and those are hard things to get and they just
find any excuse to complain and bemoan their circumstances. And then on top of that, the
Lord says at the end of verse 24, like this is you, but he
says, but you have made me to serve with thy sins. Thou has
wearied me with thine iniquities. All right, the attitude of this
people being, well, you're God, you can handle it. You're asking
me to sacrifice for my kingdom, to give up my opportunity of
riches and time to do what I need to do. You're asking me to make
that sacrifice and you want me to come and give that up for
you. That's how these people are. They're saying, you should just
be glad I make any attempt or pretense of worship to come before
you. You should be happy with that.
And so that's how the attitude of this people are. You know,
we can identify with that. You know, sadly, we know that
that's what we feel in our flesh, and we know that. We've had those
thoughts, and we've felt that way more often than we would
like to admit or have anyone hear or believe to be so of us. But what's so stunning is that
with this being the kind of people, listen to what the Lord says
in verse 25. He says, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. So notice that here, how the
Lord is gracious to them in spite of what we just read the lord
is gracious to this people after declaring their sin to them after
outlining what they've done in offense to god and and how they're
just weary with them and they don't come before him and they
they're not happy to do anything for for the lord And he then
shows himself to be gracious, very gracious to unworthy sinners. And that's what he's showing
us here. We're unworthy, undeserving sinners
of grace and so he's not waiting for them this says he's not waiting
for us to get ourselves righteous all right fix up your act clean
up your act and then I'll be gracious to you no he says here's
what you are and here's who I am I'm the righteous one I'm the
one who blots out your transgression and I will not remember your
sins all right and so he's he's gracious to us in spite of us
and that's because he himself has provided everything necessary
for his people in his son Jesus Christ so that he can be gracious
and is gracious and is long-suffering toward his people and so seeing
that, seeing what he does And having said that, the Lord, He
reveals that to us and shows us these things because He doesn't
leave us in darkness and He doesn't leave His people in indifference. And in indifference, all right? He doesn't leave us there. He
brings us out of that darkness and indifference. He brings us
to know what He's done, that we would praise Him and give
Him thanks for His grace and His long suffering. and His work
of life and power in us by the Spirit, so that He gives us His
Holy Spirit to know these things, so that when we come before Him,
we come before Him with knowledge, and we come before Him with understanding,
and we praise Him as He makes known to us and brings again
to our remembrance what He has done for us. And so we see in
Romans 3, 24 and 25, we're told that we, speaking of us, that
we are justified, justified, justified freely. And we've seen
how that, when we're speaking of justification, it's God declaring
us righteous. and that declaration that you're
righteous my people he's saying to you it's done freely by his
grace how through the redemption through the blood purchase that
is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth a propitiation a propitiation
that is he's the reason why God forgives us He's the reason why
the Lord forgives His people, blotting out their sins and remembering
them no more. And it's done through faith in
His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins. And remission means that because
of what Christ has done, we that are His go free from the punishment
that we deserved. That's what that remission is.
We obtain forgiveness and deliverance from the punishment of sin because
God laid the stripes of our punishment upon His own Son. And doing that for His people
in mercy. And so, that's what our God has
done for us. And that's how He can be gracious
to us. And so, He says to you, forget
those things that are behind. Forget those sins that are past.
Yes, you're a sinner. Yes, you're unworthy of my grace. But don't look at those things
and beat yourself up over those things. There's nothing you can
do about those things. He's already taken care of it.
He's provided everything for you in His Son. Jesus Christ,
look to him, behold the servant of God, the one in whom he delights,
and he wants us to delight in him. He declares these things
to us that we would find our delight and praise and glory
in his son Jesus Christ, just as he delights in him. That's
why he's making this known to us, so that we see, oh, it's
not because I'm so wonderful, It's because he's so wonderful
and gracious. And he says there again in verse
25, I am he that blotted out thy transgressions for mine own
sake and will not remember thy sins. And so in power he creates
his people. In this grace, this work that
Christ has done, he saves his people in Christ for what he
has done, his righteousness and his grace toward us And so we're
going to know him, right? We are the people that he has
formed for himself. And he says, they shall show
forth my praise. Right? And so that's why when
we stand before other sinners, we're not there telling them
what they need to be doing to get themselves right. You know,
that they could be in a savable position. We're declaring to
them what God has done for us. We're not trying to force anybody
to do something we've done because we didn't do anything. We're
declaring what God has done and knowing that it's in grace that
God saves his people. All right, so just as we continue
this, what he's doing here is he's showing us our humble beginnings,
right? When he found us so that we may
know that he is gracious, even to me, the chief of sinners.
I mean, that's what he's doing here. So look at verse 26. This verse reminds me of Job
speaking with the Lord. And the Lord says, put me in
remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare thou that thou mayest
be justified. If you've got something to say,
let me know it. If you're so righteous, tell
it to me. He's bringing us to see, wait
a minute, I don't have anything to boast in. I don't have any
justification or any righteousness of myself. And so the Lord is
showing us what we are through all the trials and the life difficulties
that we go through. He's showing us that we are weak
in ourselves and that we have a great need of him because we're
rebels, right? And then he shows us how we're
born of corrupt seed. Verse 27, thy first father hath
sinned and thy teachers have transgressed against me. Now,
if that means the first father is Adam, well, we know what we
are. Now that when Adam fell, we fell in Adam and we come,
we're born of his corrupt seed. So we all come forth sinners,
right? In Adam, all die. 1 Corinthians
15, 22, Lee and Adam all die. But it also might be a reference
to Abraham, in whom the Jews had a tremendous amount of confidence
that we're sons of Abraham, we're children of Abraham, and so we're
children of God. But the Lord saying, when I called
Abraham, he's a pagan idolater. He's a wicked man who didn't
know me. He was in darkness. He's a sinner,
an unworthy sinner, but I was gracious to him. Turn over to
Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16. We'll see this, why this first
father may be Abraham. Ezekiel 16, verse three. The
Lord says, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth
and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an
Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. That's Abraham and Sarah. They were an Amorite and a Hittite. pagan idolaters. There's nothing
special about them. All right, now look at verse
eight. The Lord says, now, when I passed by thee and looked upon
thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. And I spread my
skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto
thee and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God,
and thou becamest mine. And so, what we understand is
that our God chose us in the covenant of grace. Before the
foundation of the world, our God made a covenant between the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And He entered into that
covenant with us, having done nothing, having fulfilled no
part of it. But He did the whole thing for
us in grace. And so, then in the course of
time, in the purpose of mind of God the Son came taking upon
him flesh and he laid down his life for unworthy sinners those
in Jerusalem those in Judea and Israel and the Gentiles who sat
in darkness verse 9 saying then washed I thee with water yea
I truly washed away thy blood from thee and I anointed thee
with oil so that we understand that this is Christ who saved
us by his own death and and delivered us with the washing of His blood. And He anointed us with the oil
of His Holy Spirit that now dwells in us, giving us life, regenerating
us from the dead, that we might know the things that our God
has freely done for us apart from our works. All right, and
so now, He's delivered us from the wrath of God, which is to
come upon the inhabitants of the earth. And now with that
understanding, he says, verse 28, back in Isaiah 43, 28, therefore,
all right, and put in there, therefore, because I have loved
thee, because I, because I love thee, I've profaned the princes
of the sanctuary and have given Jacob to the curse and Israel
to reproaches. In other words, he humbles his
people. He brings them low in their self. He'll chasten his people to make
us to see that we're nothing, we need the Lord, we need his
grace, we need his gospel, we need his son, right? And he'll
bring upon his people, even those who seem to serve mightily in
the Lord and in the church, even the apostle Paul, who laid down
his life for the Lord, he wrote to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians
1, Verse 9 and 10, he said, we had the sentence of death in
ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God,
which raises the dead. He did that for the Apostle Paul,
right? Brought him to see the weakness
in himself and taught him, don't trust in yourself. Don't trust
in your wisdom of words and your ability to get things done and
smooth things over with people. You're going to come to the end
of yourself that you should know that I'm and that I'm the one
who saves my people. And Paul continued saying, who
delivered us from so great a death and doth deliver and whom we
trust that he will yet deliver us. That's what he brings us
to see and confess that I was delivered by the Lord and I'm
always delivered by the Lord and I trust that he's going to
deliver me and keep me and everything he brings upon me is for my good
and he's teaching me through it and it's to serve him and
to serve the brethren in the kingdom, all right? So when that
work is accomplished in us by His grace. in Christ, and we
have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we know, we worship Him
knowing, as you said in verse 25, I, even I, am He that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. And having that knowledge, we're
made a people that praise Him. That's how He formed us, to praise
Him. So, I pray the Lord to bless that word to your hearts, and
let that be a comfort to you. so that we rejoice in Him and
that we're encouraged to come before Him, to be a people who
call upon Him. And that when we feel weird,
that we're weary within that, we cry out to the Lord and say,
Lord, help me. Help me to love you and to be glad to come and
worship you with my brethren. So I pray the Lord bless that.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for your word grace and
comfort to unworthy sinners. Because Lord, when we're honest,
we know that we are the unworthy sinner, undeserving of your grace,
undeserving of your tenderness and kindness to us. We thank
you for Christ. It's for his sake that we are
saved and for his sake that we have hope in God, that we shall
be received by you. that you shall return to redeem
your people and to bring us to be with you in that final day.
Lord, we trust you and know that you are right and true and gracious
and holy and kind beyond our understanding. But Lord, we thank
you for your gospel and how you make these things known to us.
Lord, indeed, it may be your will that we that we recognize
and see how that you are the God who creates, forms, redeems,
and calls your people, and that you would create lips of praise
from us, that we would be people who rejoice in you, who call
upon you, and who are not wearied in service to you. It's in the
name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray this.
Amen. Our closing hymn will be number
290, 290, Be Still My Soul. Be still, my soul, the Lord is
on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief
or pain. Leave to thy God to order and
provide. In every change, he faithful
will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best,
thy heavenly friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful
end. Be still, my soul, ? Thy God
doth undertake ? ? To guide the future ? ? As He has the past
? ? I hope thy confidence ? ? Let nothing shake ? ? All thou misdeeds
? Be still, my soul, The hour is hastening on When
we shall be forever with the Lord When disappointment, grief,
and fear are gone Sorrow for God of spurious joys restored. Be still, my soul, when change
and tears are past. All safe and blessed we shall
meet at last.