Dr. Richard Cutter was my Greek professor at Baylor. One day, during class, he was lecturing along, and I was having a hard time keeping up. I glanced over at the notes of the student sitting next to me, hoping to get from him something that I had missed. That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not okay when your taking a test. That’s cheating. But when you’re just taking notes, it’s okay to look, isn’t it? But here’s the thing. At just that point in the lecture, Dr. Cutter asked a question. I could tell it was a question, but my mind was on my classmate’s notes. And I didn’t exactly get the question. I was busted. I put my pen on my desk, looked at the professor, and said, “Dr. Cutter, I’m so sorry. I was trying to catch up on something I missed in your lecture, and I didn’t hear the question. Would you mind repeating it? Dr. Cutter looked a bit surprised, and then he said to me, “No, Ike. I don’t mind repeating the question. Not at all. But I wasn’t asking you.”
You know what I learned that day? I learned that, sometimes, we think one thing’s the case, when it really isn’t. We’re mistaken about what’s happening. We think it’s one thing, and it’s another. And that’s what I see going on in our text this morning.
I see three mistakes we make when it comes to our understanding of God. One is that we think God is against us. But the truth is: He is not. In fact, he is moving heaven and earth to bring us to himself. That’s what God means here in Isaiah when he says, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.” God wants a smooth path between him and us.
It reminds me of Isaiah 40, where God commands that a highway be built for his people who have been in exile, so that they can come home. Remember those words? The choir sings them for us every December: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain” (Isa. 40:3b-4).
That’s what you do when you build a highway, right? That’s what God does for us. He speaks of it with fewer words here in Isaiah 57 – he says simply, “Remove every obstruction from my people’s way” – but he’s telling us the same thing. “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from you.” My apologies to Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, and Motown! But that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what God is saying to you today. Whatever’s between you and him, it’s coming down. He’s determined to show you his grace. If you think he’s against you, you’re mistaken.
Here’s another mistake we make: We think we’ve got to make things right with God before we can be right with God. But that’s not true. It’s God who makes things right. And, really, that’s the way it has to be. It’s something only he can do. You and I can’t do it. God says right here in verse 16, “I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry.” Does he have a right to be angry? Fact is, he does. And he tells us why. We didn’t read past verse 16 a moment ago when we read this passage. But let me show you what God says in verse 17. He says, “Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry.” That’s how the NRSV puts it. Another translation puts it this way. It says, “Because of the iniquity of…unjust gain I was angry” (ESV).
What’s God saying here? He’s saying that what makes him angry is that, in our covetousness – in our passion for gain, that is, in our fever-pitched obsession with getting and having, no matter what – we have been seeking our satisfaction in the creation rather than in the Creator, in things rather than in him. And isn’t that what sin is? Isn’t it anything we think, say, or do that is based in our assumption that God isn’t enough? There’s always something more to be found apart from him, something better. And, truthfully, when we do that, when we turn away from God for comfort or gratification or happiness or whatever, you know what we’re doing? We’re scorning his love.
So he has a right to be angry, doesn’t he? And he exercises that right. He gets angry about sin. But listen! He doesn’t take out his anger on you. He takes it out on his Son. The wrong has been committed, and it must be made right. But you and I can’t make it right. Only he can. And the way he does it is through the cross, where Jesus absorbs all the anger of God for our sin.
The point of the gospel isn’t that you and I clean up our act and then come to God. No, we come dirty. We come soiled. He’s the one who cleans us up. We can’t make things right; only he can. And he does. He does it through our Savior, Jesus Christ.
There’s a third mistake we make when it comes to God. We think we have to be good enough to gain God’s favor. We think that, if we try hard enough, put in the effort, and turn in a pretty good record, then God will give us the benefit of the doubt and give us a break. But that’s not how it is. We don’t have to be good for God to claim us; we just have to be broken. Listen to what he says here in verse 16: “For thus says the high and lofty one, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place.” That we get, don’t we? A God who is exalted, who dwells above us in unapproachable splendor. He himself says, “Am I a God nearby…, and not a God far off?” (Jer. 23:23). But does he stay far off? No. Here in Isaiah he says that he inhabits eternity, yes. He dwells in the high and holy place, but that’s not all. He “also [dwells] with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
God, you see, doesn’t make his dwelling with people who are good enough. He makes his dwelling with people who are humble and who, in their humility, are repentant. Paul makes this clear in Romans, chapter 5, where he says, “While we were still weak, …Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6). And Paul goes on to say that while someone may die for a good person – it’s rare but it has happened – “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (v. 8).
God is exalted, and I am not. God is holy, and I am not. God has good cause to be angry with me, but, because of his grace, he is not. He looks upon us – he looks upon all of us – with pity. “I will not always accuse,” he says, “nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made” (Isa. 57:16). It’s our spirits that he’s talking about; it’s our souls. In one of the Psalms were are told, “He knows how we are made; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:14). Therefore, “as a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him” (v. 13).
To fear him means to be contrite and humble before him. Some of us may, in our pride, deny our need of God’s favor. We are persuaded of our own righteousness. Jesus’ story of the “two men [who] went up to the temple to pray” comes to mind (Luke 18:9-14). One was a Pharisee, the other a social outcast. The former thanked God that he was not like other people: “thieves, rogues, adulterers.” He even compared himself favorably with the outcast who was there but “standing far off.” This other man “would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’” Jesus announced that it was this man – not the other – who went home justified, that is, right in the eyes of God. And our Lord concluded the story with these words: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” (v. 14). We ought to consider Jesus’ story and its meaning for us.
There may be some of us, however, who regard ourselves not merely as unworthy but as worthless. What we need is to take to heart verses 18 and 19 here in Isaiah: “I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort…. Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the LORD; and I will heal them.” It is God’s intention to bring repentant sinners to wholeness. We may be confident before him. Three times in the Bible we read, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5, citing Prov. 3:34; cf. Jas. 4:6).
I want to invite you to do something this coming week. I want to invite you to set aside some time to examine your heart. And I want you to answer this question: Do I find within myself the humility that God calls for here? Am I, in the words of Isaiah 57, “contrite…in spirit” (v. 14).
Now, when you have spent some time in self-examination, I want you to ask God for something. I want you to ask him to give you a heart that finds his mercy and grace your most valued treasure. Ask him to help you see that your standing with him is not grounded in your perfection but in his intention to heal you and give you peace through Christ.
If you will do this, you know what will happen? Three things: First, you will see God differently. You will be in awe of his grandeur, and you will be grateful for his kindness. Second, you will see yourself differently. You will not see yourself as worthy of God’s favor, but neither will you see yourself as excluded from it. In his grace, he grants you access to him – builds a highway from your heart to his! And, finally, you will see others differently. You will be less likely to exalt yourself above others, because you will know that, despite appearances and the accident of circumstance, you and they are the same in God’s eyes.
If you will do this, it will begin to show. It will show up in the way you talk to God. Prayer will become more authentic, and the reason for that is: you will have a chastened spirit. And prayer will be at once sweeter to you and more honest. You will experience heart-felt sorrow for sin and gratitude for mercy. Prayer will not be simply a religious exercise; it will be an encounter with the living God.
It will show up in the way you talk to other people. The edge in your voice will diminish as you have a proper assessment of yourself in relation to others. There will be less criticism and less gossip. You will remember that you a “brand plucked from the fire” yourself (Zech. 3:2), and you will look upon the flaws of others with more understanding.
Psalm 84 says, “Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion” (v. 5). God is moving heaven and earth to show you his love. He is building a highway with no obstructions. Give it easement to run through your heart.
