Isaiah 28:15-17

Dear ICB family,

Notice how this single, very long sentence is structured: "Because you have said…; therefore thus says the Lord God…."

So what did Israel say?

As Pastor Neil commented on Sunday, they said they'd taken out an insurance policy against death. They'd cut a deal to escape suffering and defeat. They'd decided to trust that nice-sounding lies could save them.

Because they said all that, therefore, God had something to say in reply. What did God say?

God said he had laid down a new foundation for his people, something (or someone) to be believed. The foundation that God laid is as straight as an arrow and as strong as bedrock. It's not the kind of foundation that will produce so many of the precariously leaning walls that you see all around Bishkek. Righteousness is the plumb line, which is a string with a weight at the end used to see if a wall is actually straight or not. When the wall built upon this foundation is measured against God's righteousness, both the foundation and the wall will be found standing perfectly vertical. All lies will be knocked down, and all other insurance policies will be annulled.

Now what about the "because" and the "therefore"? Remember, the whole sentence is structured, "Because you have said…; therefore thus says the Lord God…." What is the logical connection here between what Israel said and what God said in reply?

A consistent theme across the book of Isaiah is the image of God looking down upon his people and looking for someone, anyone, to guide his people (51:18), to intercede for them (59:16), to declare his truth (48:14), to answer him when he called (50:2), to help and to uphold (63:5), yet in each case, God is left wanting. There is not a soul capable of standing for true righteousness and bringing ultimate salvation to God's people. 

So what does God do? "So my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me" (63:6).

In other words, precisely because no human being can or will save God's people, God rolls up his sleeves and goes about the task of saving them himself.

That is what we have here in Isaiah 28. God's people had begun trusting in everything but God to save them and had become utterly corrupt, so what does God do? He says, "I am the one who has laid a foundation in Zion." In other words, it is because no one else can lay such a foundation that God, in effect, looks down on his people and says, "Well, looks like it's down to me," and he grabs his trowel and gets to work himself.

This is the God we serve. It is because no one else can save that God himself therefore saves us. It is because we are all idolaters and trust in everything else but him that God sent the "precious cornerstone," Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, into the world to be his people's foundation. And what a glorious foundation of justice and righteousness it is, perfectly straight, unimaginably strong! No other foundation can compare.

And who is invited to build their lives upon this sure foundation? "Whoever believes will not be in haste." When you build on any other foundation, you'll spend your life scurrying about and fretting that your house is going to collapse. Not true for those who, by faith, build here. They find rest.

So come. Stop trying to take out your own insurance policies, and admit that precisely because you've already done so God himself must be the one to save you or you're lost. And then allow yourself to be blown away by God's kindness, the kindness that sees all your alliances with Egypt and yet lays a stone in Zion for God's people's foundation anyway. Trust in him, and therein find your rest.

Laura and I are thankful for such a foundation as we prepare to spend the next several months back in the US. We will miss you all, and we are already looking forward to returning.

Grateful that God grabbed his trowel,

Pastor Eric

What does it mean to say that God is a rock? It means that God is dependable, reliable, strong, unchangeable, unmovable. Why, then, would you build your life on or trust in anything else?

Israel turned to trusting in other alliances, either with death or with other nations, instead of trusting in God, as Isaiah makes clear in Isaiah 28.

Christ has become the foundation upon which we as little stones are being built together into a spiritual house for God, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2.

Two ways to respond when the enemy is at the gate: alcohol or military alliances or to the living stone in Zion.

Peter says that there are two ways to respond to Jesus: as a stumbling block or as the foundation upon which you build your life.

Questions for personal reflection and/or group discussion​

1. What does the image of God as your rock conjure in your mind?
2. If you're honest with yourself, where do you naturally turn first in moments in which you need help?
   
3. What does Peter's imagery that all believers are living stones being built into a spiritual house for God imply about how much we need each other?

Isaiah 25:6 ESV

Dear ICB family,

​Sitting down and eating with another person is a universally recognized sign of communion and fellowship. You don't eat with just anyone. You eat with your family and friends. You eat with those whom your close to. And if it happens that you eat with someone that you don't know well, by the time dessert is served, you'll for sure know them better than you did during the appetizer.
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​Now stop and think for a moment: God invites his people to his house for dinner. Why? Isn't it obvious? God desires deep communion with them. What better, more natural place to forge a closer relationship with someone than around a table? So God throws a banquet and offers you a seat.

Can you imagine it? God wants fellowship with you. He's not asking you to stand outside in the cold and watch others enjoying a meal through the window. He's flung the door wide open and is calling you to come and sit down.

Notice John's words in 1 John 1:3: "[T]hat which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." 

Did you catch that? John says that the Word of life that he saw and heard and touched is what he's proclaiming so that his readers can have fellowship with the disciples and with the one with whom they have fellowship, which is none other than the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
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​​If God threw a banquet, of course people like John and Peter and Mary would have a seat. Of course they have fellowship with the Father and with his Son. But do you see what John does at the beginning of his first epistle? He says that he's sharing this good news with his readers so that they can enter into the very same fellowship—in other words, so that they, too, can have a seat at the table. The fellowship that they enjoy with God is the fellowship you're invited into. 

And John makes it clear how it is we can get our seat: "[T]he blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7), and, "[I]f anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). 

So come. The blood of Jesus has made a way. Jesus himself stands as your advocate before the Father. The table's been prepared. Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Ruth, David, Jeremiah, Mary, Peter, James, John, and Paul—they all have their seats, of course. But John insists there's still room. So come. The Spirit and the bride are calling (Rev. 22:17).

Amazed to have a seat at God's table,

Pastor Eric

The invitation to the feast in Isaiah 25 is for all people, including Roman centurions and including you.

The cross is framed by four meals: Mary's anointing Jesus' feet, the last supper, a meal in Emmaus after the resurrection, and a fish barbeque on a Galilean beach.

All these meals are looking forward to the marriage feast of the lamb in Rev. 19. You are invited. 

Questions for personal reflection and/or group discussion

1. What are all the parallels you notice between Isaiah 25 and Revelation 20-22?
2. On the day of the feast, Isaiah 25:9 says that people will say, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation" (ESV). What do you think will have enabled God's people to wait for the salvation of the Lord?
3. Pastor Neil made the observation that every time someone sits down to eat with Jesus, something gets broken. You're invited to the feast, but would you be willing to have something broken in order to have that opportunity?

Isaiah 14:13 ESV

Dear ICB family,
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A person's will is his or her desire, wish, disposition, passion, choice, determination, or inclination. It's what a person wants. It's what a person has resolved to do. It's what a person is inclined to choose. 

It's the direction a person has decided to go. It's the decision a person has made. It's the path down which a person has determined to walk.

The problem with humanity—one that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden—is that we are obsessed with our own wills. We love our wills. We prize our wills. We think that what we have decided is the best idea that has ever been in the history of good ideas.
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​This is precisely where Adam and Eve went wrong. God had told them what his will was. Adam and Eve thought they had a better idea. 

And what is the root of such a thought? It is pure, unmitigated pride. We think we know better. We think we can decide better. We think our value system is superior to God's. We think our desires define what is good and should be universally adopted. We think that what we are naturally disposed to is—due only to the fact that we want it—right. 

In Isaiah 14 we are met with a stunning portrait of such pride: "I will ascend to heaven…. I will set my throne on high…. I will sit on the mount of assembly…. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds…. I will make myself like the Most High."

In this passage, in no uncertain terms, a lowly created being is asserting his will. He is declaring that what he has decided will come to pass, and he is declaring that he himself is capable of making that happen. He is kicking God off his throne and sitting down in his place as the one true sovereign over the future. 

In that sense, then, the "I will" statements in Isaiah 14 are not all that different from James 4:13: "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit."

Yet again we find finite creatures talking as if they could command their own destinies. Yet again mere created beings are taking God's place by claiming authority over what does not pertain to them. And pride is the root problem in both instances.
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​What remedy does God's word hold out to such pride? Isaiah reminds the devil and all those who follow in his steps that he will one day be brought down, humiliated, and sentenced to death (14:15–21).

James reminds his readers that "you do you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil" (3:14–16).

Do you love your will, or do you love God's will? How I long to be able to pray "Father, your will be done" and mean it! How I long to truly desire his will no matter what that is, no matter how hard his will might prove to be, no matter how much it conflicts with my own natural desires!

​How I long to be given a new will and God-given desires and Spirit-wrought wishes and holy dispositions and sanctified passions and heavenly inclinations! Oh that I could say with Jesus, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (John 4:34).

And may that be true of you, too.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Eric

Evil is real in the world, and it was the pride of Satan that first introduced this evil into God's creation.

However, Jesus has conquered the evil one, and one day every knee will bow before him. So get up!

Questions for personal reflection and/or group discussion

1. How would you respond to the person who says that there is no such things as good and evil in the world?
   
2. What do you do when Satan whispers to you that God has abandoned you and left you to your own devices?
3. What specific, concrete promises has God made to you in his word that inspire you to "get up"?

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

Dear ICB family,
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Every once in a while a pair of biblical texts are held up side by side, and in the space of a moment their peculiar juxtaposition causes words you've read a hundred times to jump off the page and surge with new meaning. That happened for me this past Sunday when Pastor Neil read John 17:24 in the context of Hebrews 12:2.

Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross." It was the Father's promise of eternal joy that sustained Jesus in the very darkest hours of his life and of human history. 

Then Pastor Neil, asking the question, "What exactly was Jesus looking forward to?", read John 17:24. There Jesus prays, "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world."

Part of the Son's joy was the knowledge that one day his blood-bought people would be able to see his glory with unveiled faces, as it truly is, in all its splendor, and that thought was so overwhelmingly powerful in his mind that it was enough to convince him to march up Calvary's hill with his face set like flint, willingly stretch out his arms, and die the most horrible death ever conceived by any civilization in the history of mankind. 

And here's the question that pierced me through: Does the thought that one day I will get to see Jesus in all his glory fill me with anywhere near the kind of joy that it afforded Jesus? Does what I find joyful match what Jesus found so joyful that it carried him through the crucifixion? Would such joy sustain me in the face of unbearable loss, unimaginable sacrifice, even death? 

It is meant to. 

I can bow my head in obedience to whatever my Lord may ask of me, just like Jesus bowed his head in obedience to what his Father had asked of him, because of the unshakable confidence that there is "joy unspeakable and full of glory" on the other side (as the old hymn I used to sing at church as a little boy has it; see 1 Peter 1:8).

Do whatever you must to rivet your mind on that truth and hold onto it with all your might. There are a thousand lesser joys that surround you moment by moment in this life. Most of them are good things in and of themselves. But they won't sustain you when you're getting your back whipped, a ring of thorns pressed into your forehead, and your hands driven through with nails. They won't hold out much hope when you get that most dreaded phone call or the oncology report or news on par with the kind that Job received that day in Uz.
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​You're going to need something that brings you even more joy than sunsets, a child's laughter, or your spouse's touch in moments like those. And when Jesus looked around at what he could set his gaze on, he chose to look into the future and, based on the promises of God, set his sights on the reality that one day his people would get to see him in all his glory. With that hope burning within him, he allowed every last ounce of his dignity to be stripped away and every last human comfort to be denied him. The joy of that hope got him through. 

And it's meant to get you through. All the way to the very end in fact. Such a joy is big enough. It's already been tested and has proven its worth. And it's offered to you. If only you would be able to count the hope of one day looking on the risen and glorified Christ with your own eyes as more joyful and longed for than any other joy you could ever imagine.

Grace, peace, and joy to you,

Pastor Eric

In these passages both the grief of God and the joy of heaven are revealed.

Here God weeps for Moab even as he smites her. God is grieved by human sin, and his anger is in opposition to such sin. 

But that grief will not last forever. One day it will give way to the joy of heaven. It is in hope of that joy that Jesus endured the cross.

Questions for personal reflection and/or group discussion

1. Are you able to say that you weep for Moab's modern-day counterparts? 
   
2. Are you able to conceive of a God who smites yet weeps while he does so? If not, how are are this week's passages meant to shape how you view the God we serve?
   
3. What joy is big enough to get you through even your darkest day? What was Jesus' joy that allowed him to endure the cross, and are you clinging to his joy as your own?
   

Isaiah 12:1 NIV

Dear ICB family,

On Sunday Pastor Neil said that the anger of God is not a demonstration of his malice but rather a feature of his love.

That is not how the world around us defines love. The world says if you love someone, you will let that person do whatever he or she wants. Likewise, the world says that love and anger cannot coexist since love would never make a person feel bad.

Yet anyone who has truly loved someone knows that that is categorically untrue on both counts. The father who loves his daughter will not let her eat jelly beans for supper even though she wants to, and the woman who has a dear friend who is about to make a decision that will ruin her life knows exactly what it means both to love a person deeply and be extremely angry with her at the same time.
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​In fact, exactly as Pastor Neil said, love is the motivation up and out of which God's anger grows. Only the father who didn't truly love his daughter would not feel upset at the babysitter who let the daughter eat jelly beans for supper. Only the woman who didn't truly really love her friend would react with a shrug at a decision that would bring disaster upon her.

The Bible paints love as a deep desire for the good of another person accompanied by any and all self-sacrifice needed to achieve that good. What happens when obstacles arise to a beloved one's good? Love produces anger. What happens when what a person wants and what is actually good for that person stand in conflict? Love roots for the person's good. And what happens when achieving another person's good means I must take a hit? Love subjects itself to the hit. Behold the angry, good-seeking, hit-taking love of God. 

And when the obstacles that once stood in the way of the beloved's good are removed, anger is turned away (Isaiah 12:1) while love keeps right on flowing. So it is with God. When God achieves the forgiveness of his people's sins and thereby achieves their good, his love for them no longer requires his anger. His love that produced his anger, however, never ceases.

You're invited to know this love. And, following God's own example, you're invited to take whatever hits might be required so that others might come to know this love too.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Eric