Reflecting On The Promises Of God

I'll just share a few promises from the Bible in Isaiah chapter 45 and 46. To those who are of anxious heart, it's always good to reflect on the promises of God. Promises of God are sure and faithful and true. When we get our eyes off of Jesus and we fix our eyes on our problems and the waves, we become very anxious. And we don't want to do that. We want to fix our eyes on Jesus and not let the waves that beat against the boat cause us to waver in unbelief. We need to trust the Lord at all times. We are not yet perfected where we need to be, but God is working all things together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. We need to believe that. David and Jonathan both shared about who Jesus is, but the root of it all is we need to have faith in the Son of God, who came to save us. There's a wonderful verse that Jonathan read about God reconciled us to Himself through the blood of the cross, through Jesus Christ. And that's a wonderful promise that we've been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. And that's been revealed to each and every one of us. We had a revelation of our sin, and then we had a revelation of what Jesus did for us on that cross. And it's because of that that we have love for Him, and we care for Him, and we're so grateful. So we need to remind ourselves of what Jesus has done for us. He's reconciled us back to God. And then it says that He has also given us the precious promise of the Holy Spirit, and it's a free gift. It's not of works. You don't receive the Spirit by works. You receive it by faith, and you trust that the Lord will help you in each circumstance, that the Helper will be given you so that you may be able to endure in the evil time. You may be able to endure in the evil day. In the days of anxiety and fears and worries, you can call on the name of Jesus, and He will save you. And that's a wonderful promise, too, that says anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And we can call on Jesus' name, and He can give us strength to endure each day and every situation that He brings us into. I remember when I first got born again, the trials that I would have would be very little, but to me were very great. But to maybe a believer who's been walking with the Lord for a number of years, you would say, well, that is a trial, but, you know, many years down the road, the trials get more difficult. And that's something that the Lord does in our life so that He refines us and sanctifies us. The promise in Romans 8 says that He works all things together for good to those who love God, so that we may become conformed to the image of Jesus. And so as much as I like to argue against the trials and fight against them, they are actually for my good. And the only reason that you can believe that is to have faith that God's Word is true, and He does work all things together for good, even your humbling circumstances, even when you fail. Sometimes the failure in your life is very good for you because it shows you that you have need of a Savior. And then without His strength, you can do nothing. There's a wonderful promise that Jesus said many times is that the word that I speak is not my own, it's the Father's. Or the things that I do are not my own works, but my Father's works. And He even says this, I can do nothing of myself. And you know what? To those who are in a place where they can do nothing, praise God. That's a very good place. There's nothing that you can do except pour out your hands to the Lord and say, Lord, my times are in your hands. I'm trusting you. I'm asking you to do a miracle for me. Sometimes the Lord's answer to you, another promise, is He says no to your request. He says no to your deliverances. He says no to your prayers, because maybe your prayer is for selfish reasons. Maybe your prayer is for something that's outside of God's will. So a wonderful promise and for your protection and safety is that He says no to you. And we need to willingly accept that, even though it may be a bitter circumstance. God sometimes deals with this. In the book of Revelation chapter 10, as well as in Ezekiel, God made the prophet eat the book. He made them physically eat the book. And it says in their mouth it tasted sweet as honey. Very good taste. It tasted great. Like graham crackers or, you know, a wafer stick. Something that's very tasty to you. But in your belly it became very bitter. It became very bitter. And we want God's word to be worked out in our members. And He's going to take us through bitter times and circumstances. And what will that produce in our life? It will produce compassion. It will produce brokenness. It will produce a willing spirit and a yielded spirit to the workings of God. So we can't be upset when God brings blessing as well as calamity. And that was the verse I wanted to read in Isaiah 45. It says this. Verse 5. It says this. I am the Lord and there is no other. I am the Lord and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. He is the King of heaven and earth. I will gird you though you have not known me. I will clothe you even though you have not known who I am. That's an amazing promise of God's mercy. He saved us not by our own works where we were at and He clothed us. He picked us up out of the miry pit. While we were writhing and squirming on the ground, He saved us and He clothed us. It says this. And though you have not known that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other. The one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. He causes well-being and He creates calamity. He does both. There is no one like our God. Our God is the ruler of heaven and earth. I am the Lord who does all these things. That's amazing. This is the God who I serve and that's the God who I hope you serve. And so when calamity comes in your life, allow it to yield work in your life. Allow it to do something so that you call on His name. Look at verse 8. It says, drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness. Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, and righteousness spring up with it. Let the salvation that is working in your life bear fruit. To bear fruit, it's painful. To be pruned, to be pruned is very difficult, but it has to happen. It has to happen. I watch Randy go out and prune his bushes sometimes and I thought he took the whole bush away. I thought, where did it go? I pruned it to the root. I don't know if he did it, but it was a good thing because next year it was growing new fresh branches. The branches were cut back so far. And I thought, why? Because we need more juice flowing to the side of their life that bears more fruit. And you know where we bear fruit? It's when you're abiding in the vine, and you're abiding in the Holy Spirit. Every other thing in our life that we're reaching out to, all the other pursuits, all the other things, even good things, even reading and listening to sermons, even those things sometimes can run you dry. It can. You need to look to Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you, to teach you, to guide you. I know this for a fact because it does. I do good things. I coach basketball three days a week, sometimes on the weekends. I have to do it. I signed up for it. I gave it. I have another pursuit. I have my business. I run after my business. That's amazing. I do all that. I have other things that I have to take care of as well, too. We had to move our house the last three months. You know, there was lots of things that were going on. And you know what? I was running dry. But you know what? There's only one place that you will find your source of strength where you do not run dry, and that's with Jesus. And we need to call on him. It doesn't mean that you don't have to do those things, but you need to remember that the source of your strength is Jesus. When you pursue all these different things, it will run you dry. The pursuit of getting ahead in our North American society, it will run you dry. It will not satisfy you. Trust me, the Lord will even keep it that you get to even enjoy it. You can't. You won't be able to, especially if you're a Christian, because the only enjoyment you're going to get is with the Lord. Let righteousness and salvation spring up with it. I am the Lord who have created it. Verse 9, Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker. Woe to the one. Woe to him who quarrels with him. I quarreled with the Lord. I said, Lord. I put my hand over my mouth. I said, Lord, I'm going to stop talking. I won't do that. I'm sorry, Lord. I repent. Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker, an earthenware vessel among the vessels of the earth. Will the clay say to the potter, What are you doing? Or the thing you are making say he has no hands? Woe to him who says to his father, What are you begetting? Or to a woman, to what are you giving birth? Those who argue with their mom and dad, Woe to them. What are you doing? To the mom, why are you doing this? To the Lord, what are you doing, Lord? What are you doing with your hands? Why are you making me like this? Why is my life so difficult? Why are you bringing me through this circumstance? I mean, if we were going through continual blessing, my friends, we would be like, Lord, I serve you. Yes, Lord. I love you because you are so good to me. I'm praising you at all times. Because it's awesome. But when he brings calamity, we start to argue with him and say, Lord, this isn't the plan that I had. But this is the one who does it. He is the one who creates light. He is the one who creates darkness. And he is the one who can bring something out of nothing. He is the one who has to do something in your life. He has to bring you to zero so that he can start to bring fruit, so he can start to bring righteousness, so you can start to bear fruit unto God. It says this, that through the law and my own effort, I died to my law to become righteous, so that I might be raised with Christ and live by the Spirit and fulfill the will of God in my life. That is literally what it is. It's a testimony of that. I died to strive and to be making my own righteousness, so that I would learn to be led by the Spirit of God and have a righteousness which comes from faith. He has to crucify that in your life. All the good deeds, the Bible reading, all the things that you do, everything, it has to become nothing and meaningless in your sight so that the one who becomes meaningful is Jesus. This is something that he does. He creates light, but he brings darkness sometimes when we are striving in the flesh. In Isaiah, it says right here, I'll read it in 58. You don't have to turn there. I don't know where the exact verse is, praise God, but it says this, that to the man who has no light, don't kindle yourself a fire. Don't try to generate a fire to stir up something within you. To the man who has no light, if you don't see the Lord, don't try and just do something to build your own fire to try to create some sort of passion in your life. No, it says this, that you need to rest and trust in the Lord in that time. You need to trust in the Lord in those times because the natural tendency of us spiritually, especially here, is we naturally, we don't see the working of God in our life, so we start to try to generate it. And when we start to generate it, it doesn't produce sometimes the righteousness of Christ. It produces the righteousness of the law. And when you have a righteousness of the law, just like every other religion, you look down on every other religion. You look down on every other person. This is what happens. You do, because you have a righteousness. And if somebody challenges your righteousness, you get angry. You get angry. You get very upset. And that's the fruit that you have, your own righteousness. No, my righteousness comes by faith in Christ. And we have to remember that we don't want to start to do what everybody else does, when we stir it up by our mighty works. No, we have to trust in the Lord when you have no light. You have to trust in the Lord when you're walking in darkness because the Lord has allowed it. If you want to grow spiritually, the Lord will bring you through dark seasons and difficult times so that you might trust in Him. And I'll finish in Psalm 139. Actually, I want to go back to Isaiah 45 one more time. I missed a verse there. 46. To those who are actually of anxious heart, Isaiah 46, it says this. There's some wonderful promises in Isaiah 45 verse 15. It says, Truly you are a God who hides himself. You are a God who hides himself. Isn't it amazing that the Lord hides himself? John shared from Acts 17 that the Lord has fixed times and places for everyone that they might seek for God, even though He is not far from us, and that they might go for Him, and that He is declaring that one day Jesus is going to judge the world in righteousness and that men should repent. Men should repent. And it says here, but this is verse 15. Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel's Savior. They will be put to shame and humiliated, all who put their trust in other gods. You know, God hides Himself sometimes from us, but we have to trust Him in those situations. Look at what it says in Isaiah 46. Listen to me, O house of Jacob and all the remnants of the house of Israel. This is verse 4. You who have been born from me by birth and have been carried from the womb, even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you. This is a wonderful promise. Hebrews 13, it says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. You know, guys, that is a promise in the Bible, that He will never leave us nor forsake us. And even if you're going through a dark time, even in your graying years, you can be advancing in years, nearing death's door, nearing death's door, and your time of life is coming near the end. You know who you can put your trust in? Jesus. You need to call on His name. You need to ask Him who is mighty to save, because the Lord, He bore them from birth, He carried from the womb, and even to their old age and their graying years, He will bear it, and I have done it, and I will carry you, and I will bear you, and I will deliver you. That's amazing that the Lord will carry you, bear you, and deliver you. Bear you and deliver you. He will carry you. You know what, guys, we need the Lord's help, and we need to reflect on His promises, because His promises are great, and we serve a mighty God, and the only way those promises will be effective in your life is if you trust and believe in His name. We call on the name of Jesus. We serve a living God. He is able to help us. He is mighty to save. Amen.