SPEAKER_00 0:02

Just before this passage, God's hand was still up raised over an Israel that would not return. Isaiah chapter 9 verses 8 through chapter 10 verse 4. Now the prophet turns to the rod itself, to Assyria, the very nation God was using to strike. God calls Assyria the rod of my anger in verse 5, and sends him against a godless people, verse 6. And here we already meet the God of this passage. He rules the nations, even the empires that do not know him. Not even a pagan superpower moves outside of God's hand. And the great powers that seem to run the world are only tools that God has picked up for a season. Now Assyria had no wishes to serve God. This is not what it intends. His purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations, the Bible records. Verse 7. Now, handed a rod of discipline, it chose annihilation, overstepping the very tasks that it was given. So then the boasting pours out and reaches its peak on verse 13. And Assyria even files the Lord alongside the idols that it has already toppled as though he were the next name on a list. Verse 11. So here is a mirror for us. We take the credit for what God does through us and we push past what was placed in our hands. We treat the living God as one manageable factor among many. And so every quiet I built this for myself is a serious sin repeated in small. And verse fifteen is the hinge that exposes it all. Does the axe raise itself above the person who swings it? An axe has no power except the arm behind it, so God will punish the willful pride of its heart, and the light of Israel will become a fire that burns the proud forest down to a few trees a child could count. Yet that very fire, which is judgment to the proud oppressor is light and warmth to the people of God. And this woe truly came to pass. In time God struck the Assyrian camp in a single night, Isaiah 37 36. And the next reading sings that a remnant will lean again on the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah chapter ten, verses twenty through twenty two. And so here a grace shines brightest, God brings the proud low and lifts the lowly, and he did this most fully in Christ, where Assyria said, By the strength of my hand, the son emptied himself and obeyed all the way to the cross. He did not lift himself up, and therefore God exalted him to the highest place. Philippians two nine. Mary had already sung it. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. Luke chapter one verse fifty two. So the boast of the verse thirteen is answered by one quiet line. The one safe way to be lifted up is to be lifted by God, and that way was opened by the Son who went low for us. So let me ask you a couple of questions. As we listen to a serious boast, where in our life right now do we hear ourselves saying, even softly by the strength of my hand and my wisdom in my life? Um another question, what has God placed in our hands that we have slowly begun to hold it as if it were our own? Another question When we picture God's hand not raised to strike us but to open to receive us, what shifts in and how we want to respond today? And lastly, what is one boast, one strength of my hand that we say that we could hand back to the Lord this week? And what would the first small step look like? Well, that's it. Um let's end with a prayer, shall we? The sovereign God, all the nations rest in your hand, and even the mightiest empire is only a rod of your anger. Forgive us for boasting in our own strength and wisdom as though we had done things by ourselves, what you did through us. We have been the acts at times boasting against the arm. So bring down our self exalting, O Lord, and turn our hearts to boast in you and you alone. We thank you for the Son who went low for us and obeyed even to the cross. As you exalted him to the highest place, lift us to, not by our own hand, but by your grace. In the name of Jesus, who humbled himself and so was lifted up, we pray. Amen.