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Sermon: Remembering the Lord Date: July 24, 2022, Afternoon Text: Isaiah 26:12–15 Preacher: Conley Owens Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2022/220724-RememberingTheLord.aac
Good
afternoon,
everyone.
Just a couple of announcements.
Once again, our upcoming members, excuse me, our upcoming workday will have a brief
members meeting at the end of it.
That is on August 6th.
You'll be getting the agenda for that shortly.
And secondly, for all those who are involved in Sunday School or soon will be involved in Sunday School, we're going to have a
brief meeting right after this service, so please stick around for that.
Call us to worship today with Isaiah 12, verse 4.
And you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the
peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted, sing praises to the Lord for he has done gloriously.
Let this be made known in all the earth.
Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
Amen.
Please turn in your hymnal to number, excuse me, to number 587, Like a River
Glorious.
You may remain seated as we sing number 587.
His God's perfect
peace,
hearts
are
fully.
Turn in your Bible to Isaiah 26.
We'll begin in verse 12 and we'll continue on to verse 15.
Go ahead and read all of 7 to 15.
When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word.
Isaiah 26, beginning in verse 7.
The path of the righteous is level.
You make level the way of the righteous.
In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you.
Your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
My soul yearns for you in the night.
My spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness, he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
O Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be ashamed.
The fire for your adversaries consume them.
Let fire for your adversaries consume them.
O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done all our works.
O Lord, our God, other lords besides you have rolled over us, but your name alone we
bring to remembrance.
They are dead, they will not live.
They are shades, they will not arise.
To that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
But you have increased the nation, O Lord.
You have increased the nation, you are glorified.
You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
You may be seated.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the guidance it gives.
We thank you for the hope that it gives.
We thank you for its instruction.
We ask that you would give us grace that we might follow that instruction.
And Lord, I pray that you would bring to mind the remembrance of you, that we would remember you all our
days.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, in this section, we've been seeing the Lord uphold his people.
Isaiah has been talking about the Lord's upholding of his people.
And we've been seeing God's sovereignty over man, God's sovereignty to save his
people and the implications that has.
For example, the wicked do not learn from what God does.
They don't learn from his favor because they do not see the sovereignty of the Lord.
However, the righteous do learn from God's favor because they see the sovereignty of the Lord.
And so following that thinking, this passage, this second part of the section here,
speaks specifically of remembering the Lord, that God's people are people who
remember him.
Why do we gather week by week to pray, to sing, to hear God's word?
It's to remember who he is.
We are a forgetful people.
And apart from doing these things, there is no remembrance of God.
And why is it that week after week, we celebrate the Lord's supper?
As Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me.
The Lord is to be remembered.
He is to be remembered because he is a good God, he's a holy God, and he has granted us a great salvation.
And so this remembrance of him is indeed a duty, but it is also a great joy for
us to participate in.
I'd like us to think about this remembrance as we look here, that one, God is worth
being remembered, and two, contenders, other gods, other kings, are not
worth being remembered.
Those two things, God is worth being remembered, others are not worth being remembered.
We begin here in verse 12.
Oh Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our
works.
God has ordained for us peace, peace, particularly in the context of Israel,
this spoke of physical peace, nations, warring against nations, Israel, this small
nation, Judah, this small half of a nation, being attacked by
various enemies, never quite certain of its safety, but God has ordained
peace that they might be secure in the land.
And for us, God has ordained peace for all those who trust in Jesus Christ.
There is a great peace to be had through Jesus Christ.
If you are plagued by anxiety about your week, whatever it may be, you can always go to Jesus
Christ and know that God has ordained peace for us through him.
Now, just sit there and think for a second about what stresses you out.
I, I imagine it's almost every single person here has stresses, serious stresses, through their week
that distract them from Jesus Christ, that give them the anxiety.
How do you deal with those?
You take them to Christ, you take them to him, you take them to him in prayer, you take them to him by
remembering who he is and the reading of his word, and the more you remember who God is, and the more you remember
that he is in control over your situation, the less you are plagued by
anxiety, because he has ordained a perfect peace.
The enemy has been destroyed.
If God has given his own son, how much more will he give us all things?
We can have perfect peace.
Now, moreover, he speaks of ordaining this peace, for you have indeed done for us all
our works.
This peace is not just something God tries to give us, it is something he has sovereignly ordained,
that he has secured.
In fact, he has done for us all our works.
This follows from what has been said before.
In verse 8, in the paths of your righteousness, O Lord, we wait for you.
In verse 7, the path of the righteous is level.
God makes judgments for the righteous.
He makes a level path for the righteous.
He has accomplished everything that will go before them.
He has plowed the path ahead.
And in verse 6, the foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.
Who are the poor that inherit the earth?
It is the ones who come to Jesus Christ, looking to him for mercy, who recognize that the riches that they have
amount to nothing, recognize that whatever they have, it cannot save them.
They are the ones who come to Christ for mercy.
And so who are the feet, who are the poor whose feet trample over God's
enemies?
It's God accomplishing his victory through his people.
God has ordained all our works for us.
It says this very clearly in Ephesians 2 .10, where it says that
he has prepared works beforehand for us to walk in them.
God has prepared the way for the believer.
You know, it's pretty often that in speaking to someone about their situation, them recognizing
what God has called them to, feeling overwhelmed that they are not capable
of the task at hand.
They make all kinds of excuses and they say, oh, but you know, this won't work out or that won't work
out.
But if God has ordained that path, if God has prepared these works beforehand, then the right answer isn't
just to throw up your hands and say, well, what can you do?
No, the answer is to recognize that God has provided everything you need in order to follow his will.
He has provided everything you need.
He does not hand his children over to temptation that they cannot bear.
This is what it says in 1 Corinthians 10 .13, that there is no temptation that can
overtake you, that God will not, that God will not bear you up against, that God will not
supply you for.
You have, you have everything you need in order to resist every temptation.
You have everything you need to follow every one of God's commands that he has given.
So that is all the more reason to not be anxious.
If God has so richly provided for the flowers of the field, for the birds, how much more
has he provided for his own children?
And so Isaiah says in verse 13, O Lord our God, other lords
beside you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
God is worth being remembered because he has ordained peace.
He is worthy of our remembrance of him.
We should gather week after week.
We should read his word.
We should come to him in prayer.
He is worthy to be remembered because he has ordained this peace.
Other lords have ruled over us.
Other nations have ruled over the people of Israel.
Those nations and their gods along with them.
You know, it's right to come to God and confess this truth.
Others have ruled over us.
We have gone to others for help and they have failed us.
We have gone to ourselves.
We have gone to others that we've had a relationship with that we thought would give us peace and security.
We have gone to political leaders, all sorts of things.
Those things have ruled over us.
We have gone to them for peace and found none.
Confess your sin to the Lord and then acknowledge that you alone we will bring to
remembrance.
You know, this is a prophetic passage.
It talks about in the very beginning of this chapter, in that day.
You know, it speaks of this coming time of peace in reference to Isaiah's day.
And we've spoken about how God has built the city of Zion in his church.
Now, if that is the case and if we are to bring remembrance to him and we bring
remembrance only to him.
And if you think about the people Israel who all throughout their history had served all kinds of different gods,
never followed God.
And it's speaking of bringing remembrance to God alone.
What is that talking about?
It's talking about God reforming his people so that they alone, so that they
worship him alone.
This is talking about what he has accomplished in the church.
This is talking about the prophecy of Jeremiah 31.
This is talking about what Hebrews 8 quotes.
Hebrews 8 verse 10 says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.
After those days declares the Lord, I'll put my laws into their minds.
I'll write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, Know the Lord for they shall
all know me from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.
God has accomplished a salvation for his people.
So that it's not like in the land of Israel where you have all these people part of this covenant.
Some of them having this eternal peace.
Others not having an eternal peace.
Others secretly serving other gods.
The church, this new covenant people is a people who
have this in full.
They shall not teach each one his neighbor saying, Know the Lord.
Why would the people in Israel have to teach each one know the Lord?
Because some of them don't.
But God's new covenant people all know the Lord.
This is, if this isn't clicking with you what I'm saying, consider this.
This is why we're Baptists.
This is why we baptize believers.
Because the new covenant people are not a mixed people where some know the Lord and some don't know the Lord.
The new covenant people, this people Isaiah is prophesying, Jeremiah is prophesying, are people who know the Lord.
Now we may not perfectly discern who those people are.
We may not, not every person we baptize is necessarily someone who does truly know
the Lord.
There's no guarantee that us as pastors or us as a people are going to perfectly discern these things.
But given what the Bible says about the new covenant, given that as a people who ceases to serve
other gods, this is why we include into membership those
who have a credible testimony.
This is, this is part of the hope that the Old Testament gives.
If you haven't, if you haven't seen that before, it's something worth considering, especially that prophecy in
Jeremiah 31 that Hebrews 8 is quoting.
That, that all throughout Israel's history, part of the problem is that they're mixed people.
They're people who, while nationally very unified, in terms of their actual
honoring of God versus honoring of idols, you have people who are going after other idols.
And yet God forms for himself a people who now diverse nationally, now diverse ethnically,
but serving one God alone.
There's something else that's worth noting in this passage, and that is there's a subtle clue
into the deity of Christ here.
It says, your name alone we bring to remembrance.
The Bible speaks often of the name of Jesus as being above every other name.
If God's name alone is the one that we are to bring to remembrance, what does that say about the name that is above every name?
What does that say about Jesus Christ?
He is God.
If his name alone we are to bring to remembrance, if God's name alone we are to bring to remembrance, how could Jesus have the name above
every names unless he is himself God?
This is establishing what this new covenant community will look like.
It will not be mixed people anymore.
It will be people who follow after God alone in his name.
And who has that name?
It is Jesus Christ.
We keep our focus on him.
The reason we, uh, the reason we have such a focus on Jesus Christ, and even,
even opposed, as opposed to the father, as opposed to the spirit, why is it that we speak of Jesus
Christ even more than the other persons of the trinity?
Not because Jesus is higher than the other persons of the trinity, but God has revealed himself
through Jesus Christ that we may remember him.
This focus of remembrance is found in him, that we are to remember
him specifically, that he is the image of the invisible God that we might know God
who is invisible.
If you're wondering how you should remember God, know that he is to be remembered through Jesus Christ.
This is one of the problems with many of, uh, modern worship songs.
Not that, uh, yeah, I mean, you see we sing hymns here, not opposed to modern worship
songs, just because they're, uh, yeah, just for modernity's sake.
But a lot of modern worship, not all of it, but a lot of it, has nothing to do with truly
remembering God, because it's not truly founded in remembering Jesus Christ.
It just talks vaguely of God, says something that almost any religion could say about God.
How can you remember God if you're just speaking abstractly of him in a way that any religion can?
The way we are called to remember God is by remembering him through the image of the
invisible God.
We are to remember him through Jesus Christ, and our worship should have a focus on Jesus
Christ.
It should speak concretely of the salvation that we have experienced.
It should have a focus on him.
And just as one other thought on this, I don't know how
many of you follow this sort of thing online, or know who Jordan Peterson is,
but there was a video that was very popular recently, where he was, uh, you know, he's a conservative thinker.
He was, had a video that's called A Message to Churches, and he tells everyone that basically
churches need to, uh, encourage young men to follow after tradition, follow after
the traditions that they, they have in their culture, and this will give them stability, as opposed to, you know, being
unstable in a, in a world that is unstable.
There's a lot of truth to that.
However, what is the problem with having a remembrance of a God
without knowing who that God truly is?
You can't, you can't, uh, you can't just have this religion of Pharisees
where you, uh, through tradition, remember who God is, but don't
know him as Savior.
Why is it the goddess be remembered?
Because he is the one that has saved them.
You know, over and over, it speaks of, uh, remembrance, and his name in the context
of salvation.
Last week, we looked at how God revealed his name to his people in the context of salvation, in the
context of Exodus 3, where he's about to take the people out of the land of Egypt.
You know, apart from a real salvation, there is no real remembrance of God.
People might see a lot of stability in a religion.
They might think that that is a true remembrance of God, is going through the, the, uh, the
various steps and ceremonies, but that is not a true remembrance of God.
A true remembrance of him knows who he is, know who he is through his son, and through that salvation that the son
provides.
Continues on.
They are dead.
They will not live.
There are shades.
They will not arise.
To that end, you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
This is speaking of the other lords that have ruled over them.
This is speaking, uh, primarily of kings, but in association with the gods that are associated
with those kings.
Those kings have ruled over them, but now those kings are dead.
Those kings are not worthy of honor.
It is God who's worthy of honor.
God is worthy of remembrance.
Other kings are not worthy of remembrance.
They're dead.
There's nothing to them.
You know, anything you have put your trust in that is not Jesus Christ, if it has not failed you now, yet, it
will.
And you will be, you will be ashamed that you had put your trust in that thing.
It is only trusting in Jesus Christ that leads to anything.
I, you know, I was thinking recently a lot about, uh, Roman Catholicism, because I've been
talking to a friend about Roman Catholicism, and just consider what the applications here from this verse
are in light of the practices of Rome.
They are shades.
You have visited them with destruction, wiped out all remembrance of them.
Now, this is speaking of other lords, but what does that have to say, this contrast between death and the living
God?
What does that have to say about prayer to dead saints?
Why would someone bring to remembrance the dead in such a way that contends with the
Lord?
We should pray alone to God.
He is the only one that can help us.
The dead cannot help us.
In fact, and it still blows my mind that this goes unnoticed.
Deuteronomy 18 speaks of necromancy, speaks of any attempt to
communicate with the dead as being an abomination to the Lord.
It is an abomination.
It's not just, oh, that's foolish.
They can't hear you.
There's, look at the things that scripture calls an abomination.
They're pretty high -handed, horrendous things.
Prayer to saints is not some cute little folly.
It is instead, it is a high -handed offense against God.
It is a witchcraft.
You know, I thought about trying to come up with some illustration where I tell you about
someone who had been part of some war somewhere and had lost
the war.
And I ask you if you know who he is.
And then you say, no, because, you know, you didn't because you forget who the loser is.
You know, you only remember the winner and God is the winner.
But then I realized, well, I can't think of one because I don't, they don't get recorded.
You know, the losers, the absolute losers, the ones who are not worth
any kind of remembrance, they don't contribute anything.
They're not even recorded in a book for me to go find them to give you that illustration of.
There's no use following anything else because on that last day, only God will be remembered.
There's no, there's no use remembering anything else.
There's no use giving honor to anything else, trusting in anything else because only God and Jesus
Christ who save.
You have increased the nation.
You are glorified.
And so Isaiah here closes with the
same thing that he had began with.
Speaking of God's peace for the nation.
Speaking of the fact that God has prospered the nation and grown it.
You know, that's what, that's what peace represents.
It doesn't just represent a lack of war, but it also represents a time of prosperity.
When there's no peace, the people are able to develop.
They are able to grow.
They are able to expand.
And so God increases the nation.
This speaks of general prosperity, speaks of an increase
in God's people themselves and the number of the people.
Now, how was this ever fulfilled?
Did the nation of Israel ever expand in size?
This is fulfilled through the Gentiles coming into the kingdom of God.
This is a prophecy of the gospel.
In saying that God has enlarged the borders of the land, has he not enlarged the borders of the land?
Where can you draw boundaries around the kingdom of God?
At this point, it's not a particular land.
It's not a particular country.
It is everywhere where people gather in his name.
And that has expanded all over the globe, and it continues to expand.
This is something that God has accomplished in a mighty, mighty measure.
And that is something so worth remembering, so worth celebrating.
You know, if someone gave you free land, don't you think you'd be very,
very happy with that?
And you'd, you know, occasionally thank them for this.
God has given us more than, you know, one of these million dollar plots in this neighborhood.
He has given us something of so much more value.
This ever -increasing kingdom, this family that is growing and growing,
it is a wonderful, rich treasure.
Turn your eyes to Jesus Christ.
See him as the one who grants all these things, the one who is to be remembered.
Forget everything else that you place your trust in.
Forget everything else that you think is going to take care of your anxiety.
And turn to him.
Remember him.
It is only he who's provided all these things, and as he has provided all these things, he is worth being remembered.
And as you remember him more and more, you will find this peace more and more, as you realize
that nothing else is a true contender.
Nothing else offers peace.
Nothing else is worth remembering.
Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ.
We thank you for the wonderful salvation that you've provided in him.
We thank you that you have grown the boundaries of your kingdom beyond a single nation to cover the
nations of the world, and that we are included in this.
As you have given us a great salvation, we pray that you would give us a great joy, that we would
remember you frequently, appreciating you, and loving every moment of this remembrance.