God's Ways Are Not Our Ways

Anyway, in connection with what Tom was mentioning, and even with our song about God needing to protect us, that's clearly maybe more important than we might ever imagine. I mentioned to you these two members, Jed and Jon, who were in prison there in the Philippines. And even though we are awaiting some kind of decision from a government as to whether or not, you know, they have served enough time or are allowed to be released, they, the two of them, both of them indifferent, one in a woman's, one in a man's prison, they have been suffering a certain amount of, I guess, harassment and perhaps even worse than harassment threats, mostly because of the favor that God has given them. They have kind of responsible positions in caring for others of the inmates there in both of their prisons. And yet, they have discussed, you know, difficulties that they are facing because of the anger and the hatred that others have toward the fact that God has, in a sense, blessed them, not only with some something to do and, you know, actually responsibility, but also the peace. The peace that they have that others don't enjoy, that, you know, they are just unaware of. And so, we certainly do need to be mindful that, well, you know, we'd like God to rescue us. We'd like Him, and many times we don't know how to rescue ourselves. We don't know how to deal with difficulties that we face like that, and I'm sure that's what other recourse do they have. You know, that's where they live, that's where they are, and certainly, you know, like it was mentioned, you know, what we teach and what we preach is not going to be popular forever.

It isn't terribly popular today, but it's going to be, I would say, threatened far more than we have been. And so, we shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't be discouraged by that. We should just realize that that's part of the standing in the gap. That's part of standing in the breach. It doesn't change what God says. It doesn't change what we can teach or what we can and should be preaching.

Well, I didn't get to give here in Fulton a sermon that I have given in Kansas City regarding meditation, and I will perhaps eventually be able to give that here. I don't know. But of course, I was mentioning in that sermon about, you know, if we meditate on God as our creator, if we meditate on His law, and if we meditate on His works, what He has actually done, again, has been mentioned, either with Moses or with Abraham, or in many different times throughout what we read in the Old Testament, you know, we become, when we meditate on that, when we think about that, then we become more aligned with His Word. That's what we want to do. We want to become more and more in line with the Word of God. And I know all of you are students of the Word of God, and you're very familiar with many of the things that are in God's Word that perhaps many others would not be aware of. And so that's very good. But see, that's an intentional plan. An intentional plan by God to prepare us for roles of service in the world to come. You know, He is aligning our heart with His Word. And that's a process. There's a process in many, I guess we could say for all of us, it's a lifelong process. It begins at a given point, and then the rest of our lives. We are to be seeing more and more of the Word of God exemplified in our lives and become a part of our heart.

I want to mention in connection with that, I'm not going to go into any more about that.

In connection with that, another directive that God gave to Israel, you find God encouraging us to focus our thoughts. See, what do we think about?

Well, the last couple of weeks, we had to think about whether or not it's snowing.

Whether or not it's snowing a foot or more. Or last week, whether or not it's going to ice, or whether or not it's going to snow, or whether you can travel around.

And I don't necessarily, I don't like Friday and Saturday storms. I like Monday storms. That's fine. You know, that you just have to do what you can. You know, can you go somewhere? That ultimately ends up all of us have to figure out what we can do.

But Friday storms, Saturday storms are not so good. But God encourages us to focus our thoughts. And I'd like for us to think about that during the sermon today. Here in Isaiah 55, we have a well-known section of verses that I want to cover in this sermon today.

Isaiah 55, starting in verse 6, it says, "...Sick the Lord, while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near." Verse 7, "...Let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous forsake their thoughts.

And let them turn or return to the Lord, that He may have mercy upon them and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." See, here we see the instruction that God is giving through Isaiah about how it is that people need to get in line with God.

It's not a matter of us doing what seems right to us.

It's a matter of simply being in line with what God says, and what He says are His thoughts and His ways.

And then directly in verse 8, He says, "...For my thoughts," the thoughts of God, the thinking of God, the mind of God, are not your thoughts.

"...And your ways are not my ways," says the Eternal.

"...For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts." See, now, I think that's a significant thing to think about. We're told in verse 6 to seek the Lord while He is available, while He can be found.

And yet what He tells us is, well, we need to align our thoughts, align our thinking with His words. And so I want us to consider how we can do that today.

And I want to point out a few ways that we can, and certainly there are many other things that could be said about that, but there's an incredible contrast that God makes in verse 8 and 9 here about how that my thoughts are not just what each of us as humans would just come up with, because we're saturated with the polluted spirit of this world. We are corrupted by the God of this world. And so we have to reject our, maybe our initial inclination and seek, well, what is God's fault? What is His way? In order for that to actually become my way, because that's what I want. And I believe all of us have been doing this for some time, but hopefully we can consider it even more today because, you know, that's a big part of what God is wanting us to do. He's concerned about how we think. He's concerned about what's in our heart, and He is preparing us, as I mentioned, for roles of service in the kingdom of God. He wants us to be aligned with the King, and aligned with the ruler of the universe so that we can properly then serve others as we go forward. The first thing I want to mention in regard to how is it that we can do this? How is it that we can focus our thinking? How do we do it? How do you do it?

Well, many times I think we can say that prayer is involved and reading God's Word is involved.

So all the spiritual tools that we're aware of, fasting and prayer and Bible study and meditation, those spiritual tools, we know about, but we need to be sure to use them. We need to be sure that we are focusing our thinking. But first of all, I want to point out what you read here in my Bible, the next page, in Isaiah 58. The first thing I'll mention is simply that the Sabbath allows time to focus our thoughts. Because clearly the description here shows us that as we keep the Sabbath, as we remember the Sabbath, as we observe the Sabbath, and we sang a song, keep God's Sabbath holy. See, that's what the directive is. Remember the Sabbath day. First of all, you have to remind yourself. You have to be, in a sense, preparing for the Sabbath. You have to desire to keep the Sabbath, and then it says to keep it holy.

Now, God's the one who makes it holy, but He wants us to observe it in a holy way. Observe it in a way. We know, at least in this part of the country, we know when sundown begins.

It's around 5.30 right now in Kansas City. And we know that the Sabbath will run from 5.30 Friday evening, throughout the night, and throughout the next daylight portion of the day until around 5.30 the next evening. But are my thoughts, or your thoughts, different? Are they more focused?

Are they more refined? Are they more godly on the Sabbath than the rest of the time?

Well, we have to think about whether or not that's the case. Sometimes it's a matter of, I've got to get up, I've got to go to church, I've got to get ready, and for me, I've got to get my lunch pack, I've got to have something. It's already got to be in the car. I've got to think about a few things that clearly are just physical things that I want to do. I have to think about, well, what am I going to wear? Otherwise, I'm fumbling through the closet trying to figure out what do I want to wear. Those are things that I think we would say are normal as we prepare to go to church. But what is it? Here in Isaiah 58, you see an instruction about how to properly fast.

How to fast in a way that God will accept. Because apparently, you can fast, and it's just putting in time. That's what it says in Isaiah 58. It says you're fasting, and yet you're demanding your own way, and you're wanting, you know, you're doing it in an improper way. And so then it describes, well, this is the right way to fast. And again, I'm not going into that. I'm just wanting to point out that the first part of this chapter, of course, talks about how to properly approach God in fasting. But what does it say here beginning in verse 13?

You know, it talks about how the Sabbath should be observed.

How is respect of the Sabbath identified? Are we following God's instructions as we observe the Sabbath? Can we benefit more from the guidance that God gives us here in these next few verses? Actually, this is the last part of Isaiah 58.

But here in verse 13, it says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath in the New Revised Standard that I usually am reading to you, it says if you refrain from trampling on the Sabbath, and then it goes ahead and it describes, well, what do we commonly do to disregard the Sabbath? It says from doing your pleasure on my holy day.

Your interest. Pursuing your own interest. Now all of us understand, well, you know, we shouldn't be working on the Sabbath. It's pretty clear how it is that work is to be done for six days and the seventh day is to be different. But see, the description here is going to become more personal. It's going to become more specific to not just what I'm doing, but what am I even thinking?

So if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure or your interest or your maybe ordinary everyday work on my holy day, and you call the Sabbath a delight, you view it in a different way than you do every other day. The other days of the week, God says those six days are days where we are going to pursue our interest.

We are going to pursue our pleasure or our work, per se, whatever work that might be. But it says we need to look at the Sabbath as a time that God has given to man, because that's really what's happened. You know, the Sabbath was created in order to benefit mankind. And if we observe it properly, then we're going to be the ones who benefit.

But I want to point out in this first point here that God desires that we use the time that He gives us to focus our thoughts, to focus our thinking, to focus our mind on the Word of God. So He says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and you call the Sabbath a delight.

See, now how many people maybe just people here around Fulton or in Ashland or in Troy, Missouri or Jeff City, how many people look at the Sabbath as a delight? You know, they look at it as, oh man, that'd be a burden. That's that, you know, that'd be a bummer to have to not do whatever you want to do on Saturday. Certainly around any lake community, they all think Saturday is a day to play. And I think you find that everywhere. But here, you know, we're told, call the Sabbath a delight. Because we view it in light of God's Word as a day that has been designated by God for us to be different, for us to do different, for us not just to go to church, which we do, but for us to observe that day with a different view.

To observe the Sabbath and calling it a delight, the holy honorable and shall honor Him. Now that's what we do as we come to church services, as we get up, get ready, or as we go home after services. You know, we have time to honor God. We have time to draw closer to God, perhaps in prayer or in study of the Bible. But here, He gets more specific at the end of this verse. Verse 13, it says, if you honor Him, not doing your own ways, so then I'd have to figure out, well, what are the things that are my ways, and how do I align them with what God says, not finding your own pleasure, not pursuing your own affairs or your own interest, and not even speaking your own words.

See, pursuing our own affairs deal with not only our activity, but even what we're talking about, what we're thinking about, and of course, ultimately, whatever we're thinking about is connected with what we may talk about whenever we come together, whenever we fellowship with one another. So here in this verse, it says, if we honor Him not going our own way, not serving our own interest, not pursuing our own affairs, not speaking our own words.

See, again, are our thoughts more aligned with God on the Sabbath than any other day of the week? Well, I think they should be. I think that's what it says that we should do. It goes on to say then, you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you right upon the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor, Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

So this first point is just simply that God designates the Sabbath as a day of rest, as a day that is to be holy, that is to be observed in a holy way. But He says how we do that by changing what we do, and by changing even what we are talking about, and by changing what we're thinking about.

We're to turn from pursuing our own interest, calling the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, not going our own ways, not serving our own interests, not pursuing our own words. That involves our thinking.

That involves how it is that we benefit because God says, well, I'll bless you. If you do this, then I will bless you. If you focus on me, and if you focus your thoughts and your actions on the Sabbath in a different way, then that can be. See, sometimes there are other distractions, other distractions that happen that we have to maybe work around. But certainly, and even as you know here in the last couple of weeks when we've had Sabbaths that have been to me longer than usual because I'm not going anywhere. I'm not doing something.

Well, here's a 24-hour period of time I'm supposed to be focused on God's thinking.

Well, but the TV's on and they're talking about some nonsense, and that's, well, maybe I ought to turn it off. Or, you know, I like to have some music on that's calming and peaceful to me. That's not always something that, you know, everybody likes to do, but sometimes that can be induced to a mood to focus our thinking and focus our thoughts on God, on the Creator, on the Sabbath as a benefit to man. And even what it pictures, you know, the Sabbath rest that is to come. The peaceful, thousand-year rule of Jesus Christ on earth. You know, we celebrate that at the Feast of Tabernacles, but we can enjoy that. We can enjoy that every week. Enjoy that as we think about how that God is going to bring about a solution. He's going to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. So the first point I make is simply that, you know, God sets aside the Sabbath for us, and the Sabbath can be used. It can be used and allow time to focus our thoughts to be more in line with God. When He says our thoughts are not His thoughts, that should tell us something. That should tell us that, you know, there's a need in our lives.

The second thing I'll point out is that God wants our thoughts to honor Him.

That's what He wants. And see, this is a bigger transition than we might think, because honoring God requires us seeing the need that we have to honor God.

You know, there are a number of Proverbs that talk about the mind of man. Talk about the way of man. Let me just read several of them here. Proverbs 23, verse 7, is a verse that I'm sure you're aware of.

In the King James, it says, for as He thinks in His heart, so is He. And it's actually describing a human. And a human that can actually lead you astray if he's defective. You know, that is what He is not only just doing. That is what His actions and what His words and really even what His thoughts and what is in His heart causes to come about.

See, Proverbs 21, verse 2 says, every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. See, again, we can't always depend on what I think about it.

If we drop down to Proverbs 14, or back up, I guess, to Proverbs 14, verse 12, there's this way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death.

Now here, He's reinforcing what He said. My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways.

Proverbs 12, verse 15 says, the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who seeks counsel is wise. Now again, there are numerous Proverbs that talk about relying on our own thought, relying on our own way. I think it's more of a proclivity than we probably even imagine.

Proverbs 16, verse 2 says, all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the Spirit. Again, very similar to the first one that I read.

Proverbs 30, verse 12 says, there is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filthiness. See, those all describe how it is that man just naturally is not going to honor God. He's going to go his own way. He's going to do what seems right to him, and there's a need to focus our thoughts on honoring God.

I think this is pointed out maybe even more directly in Proverbs 3.

Proverbs 3, verse 5 and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart.

And don't rely on your own insight. Don't rely on your own understanding.

But in all of your ways, acknowledge Him. See, what does He want our thoughts to do? Well, He wants us to honor Him, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your steps. He will make straight your paths. And this is written, again, throughout the Proverbs, and we've read several of these verses here that point out our need to, unless our thoughts are focused on honoring God, they're going to automatically dishonor God. They're going to be focused on something else.

And God says, I want you to focus on my thoughts. In Romans 8, you see verses that Paul wrote that are descriptive of human nature, and we would often use these verses to describe, well, what kind of a mind does a normal ordinary person have? Well, they have a carnal mind.

They have a fleshly mind. They have a mind that is physical. And yet, whenever we read this, does it emphasize the need for me to try to focus my thoughts on honoring God?

Actually, it makes a contrast that, again, I think we should be very familiar with.

Here in Romans 8, God describes the difference between the ordinary mind of man and the mind of God. He says in verse 5, those who live, according to the flesh, set their mind, okay, that's their thinking. You know, they've set their mind on the things of the flesh.

But in contrast, it says those who live according to the Spirit, they again set their mind on the things of the Spirit. And so the contrast is obvious, and yet, unless people recognize it, unless they realize the significance of that, well, then they won't even believe.

Well, what I'm mostly focused on is going to lead to death, as verse 7 says.

Or verse 6, excuse me, to set the mind on the flesh will simply lead to death.

But to set the mind to align our thinking with God's Word, and particularly here with Romans 8, to set our mind on the Spirit is what? It's completely different.

It's certainly something we want to seek. It is life, existence today, but existence for all eternity and peace.

It makes a contrast between death and life and peace.

In verse 7, for this reason, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile or enmity toward God, and it does not submit to God's law, and indeed it can't. Those who are in the flesh in verse 8, they simply cannot please God. Now again, these are verses that we should have had at least an awareness of many years ago when we were baptized. We should have, I'm sure all of us did have this read to us, and yet I have to say, I don't know that I understood exactly what that really meant.

I agreed that, yeah, that's correct, and that's clearly reading out of the Bible, but do I really comprehend that when my mind is not focused on God, then it's focused away from God?

And whenever you read that, it talks in verse 6 about setting our mind, setting our mind on the Spirit, and that would actually give me life and peace. Because that's what I want. I want eternal life. I want peace. And even as I mentioned about these, brother and sister, they're in the Philippines. If they have peace living in the setting that they live in, then that's a gift from God. That's a blessing from God. And yet it's something that others can see, well, that's different. But they, I'm sure, have a struggle to focus their mind under those circumstances on the things of the Spirit in order to have that life and peace.

So not only does God give us an example of the time, the Sabbath time that we can use to focus our minds on the things of God, but also He tells us our minds have to be directed toward honoring God. And then last of all, you know, the fact is we have to seek the thoughts of God.

We have to seek that. It's got to be something we yearn for. In Matthew 7, it tells us, and it gives the trifecta there of ask and seek and knock. And this, of course, is a part of the Sermon on the Mount. It's a part of what God tells us to do.

And in verse 7 of Matthew 7, it says, ask and it will be given you.

Seek and you will find knock and the door will be open for you.

Now, some could read that and misapply that. Well, that means anybody can come to God.

Well, you know, we know that God has to call and draw us, but then He directly tells us, and Jesus was speaking, words that would be significant to those that God is working with, that they will, as the children of God, they will ask.

They will learn to ask what they need from God. They will seek what God tells us to seek and that they will have an intense desire to enter, that they will be knocking to enter the kingdom of God. See, what is it that we're told to seek?

We're told to seek God's face. We're told to seek God's thoughts, God's ways.

Clearly, we're told to seek God's kingdom. We're told to seek God's mind.

See, if we're not doing that, if we're not seeking that, if we don't see that as a need, well, then we may not be doing it. We may not be seeking what God tells us to seek. Here in Philippians 2, Philippians 2, of course, is an example of Jesus Christ and the humility that He lived with to be willing to be the Savior of the world, to be willing to be the Lamb of God, to be willing to humble Himself.

Verse 6, Philippians 2, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied Himself. Taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness, being found in human form, again He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. See, that description is certainly something to seek.

But see, what does it say in verse 5? It says, seek, let this same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ. See, do we have to seek the mind of God, to seek the mind that Christ had? Whenever we read the Gospels, whenever we read, and we will be over the next couple of months, leading up to the Passover, which is in April this year, so we still have time.

Well, we're going to be reading, I'm sure, many of the accounts of the life of Jesus and ultimately His death. But we want to seek the type of mind that He had where He could interact with His mother, with Joseph. He could interact with His brothers and sisters. He could interact with the community. He would later in His ministry interact with many of the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees of the day. He would interact. And He did that even though He was in complete kind of opposite from them as far as the arrogance and the disobedience that they lived in and didn't know it.

He was clearly yielded to the Word of God. He was aware and He would be always quoting, even when He was facing the devil in the temptations of Matthew and Luke 4. What is He doing? He's quoting the Word of God. He's quoting the Scripture. He's keeping that in mind.

You know, it talks about in Mark 1 about Him going out and praying earlier in the morning when others come and start looking for Him. He was in communion with God, His Father. He understood the need for that. And yet He tells us, and this is the last point about seeking the mind that God wants us to have. Seeking the thoughts. We have to really do that. We have to intention to do that. And I think that that would mean that we should add that to our prayers. That we seek the thoughts and the ways of God. Part of that comes, much of that comes, I would guess you could say, much of that comes from the Word of God. From our study of and familiarity with and rehearsing in our thinking and in our day-to-day living, the Word of God. The more we do that, then the more of the mind of God that we're going to have. But here, actually, whenever it says, verse 5, let this mind be in you, it also connects with the earlier part of the chapter. In chapter 2, verse 1, it says, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete. Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, regard others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but also to the interest of others. That, of course, is describing the mind of Christ. That would be, you know, Christ was looking out for others. He was interested in others. He was willing to point out that the money changers were corrupting the temple.

He was going to point that out. You're making my father's house a den of thieves.

He could point out that the Pharisees were white enseplikers. He said, you don't know it. You don't believe it. You don't comprehend what I'm talking about because you don't even know yourself. You don't know your own heart. You don't know your own thoughts that they have nothing to do with the thoughts of God. Now, they have a form of godliness, but they are not seeking the thoughts that God has. And yet Jesus is described here as having, you know, the type of unity of mind with the Father in humility that would enable Him to not arrogantly go around as the Pharisees did, but to live in humility, to live in peace. Did Jesus have life and peace throughout His physical existence? Well, sure. Even to the point of being cruelly beaten and ultimately murdered by those that He had created. And He was saying, Father, forgive them. They just don't know what they're doing. They are completely off base. They are their thoughts, their actions and their words and their thoughts have nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with the purpose and plan of God for men, except they were willing tools in Satan's hands to take the life of the Son of God. And as you read in Acts, whenever they realize that, some of them, as they talk to Peter, they say, what? How do we reconcile this? How can we change this? Well, He says you have to turn. You have to repent. You have to turn from that. And you have to understand that your mind, your thoughts and your ways are not God's way. So the more we're able to do this, the more we're able to seek God's thoughts and God's ways, the more that we'll be able to fulfill what it says here in Isaiah 55 that we read to begin with.

Again, in Isaiah 55, in verse 8, He says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways. Now, what can be done? Well, in verse 6, it says, Seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He's near.

Let the wicked forsake their own way and the unrighteous their own thoughts, and let them turn to the Lord. Let them return to the Lord that He may have mercy and turn to our God, for He is abundantly desirous of pardon.

Is that the benefit that we have of coming to services on the Sabbath?

Well, it should be. Is that the benefit that we have of familiarity with the Bible and with the Word of God and, you know, the more that we read or the more that we memorize or the more that we see, how is God going to write His law on our heart? You can't do it without continual study of that Word. And so, brethren, I encourage all of us, and I certainly want to do this myself, I want to try to seek the thoughts and the way and the mind that God has.

And the more we refresh ourselves in the Word of God, then clearly, the better and more success we will have in not only using the Sabbath in a proper way, but truly honoring God and clearly seeking His mind and His thoughts.