Living an Exchanged Life
Isaiah 40:27-31
Let me begin this morning by getting you involved. I want to ask a question & would then like for serveral to respond verbally: Since becoming a Christain what command, principle or verse have you found most difficult to consistenly live out & obey?
In my church in NC, we are studying through the book of I Peter in our morning services. And we have just completed a difficult section for people to live by everyday. It is that section of I Peter 2 & 3 that deals with submission - not just the actual act of submission but having an attitude of submission. There is a difference & it is a difficult thing to maintain an attitude of submission. But Peter exhorts us in our roles as citizens, as brothers/sisters in Christ, as employees, & as wives & husbands to live in an attitude of submission without regard to whether the person is worthy of that submission or not, for he says (2:13) we are to do it "for the Lord’s sake." And so my church has come to realise how difficult this particular section of Scripture is to consistently live out & obey.
And so whether you are thinking about the commands of I Peter or the things you have mentioned this morning, our response to God’s calling us to live obediently to these truths can be:
-Lord, this is hard
-not only is this hard, is going to be impossible to consistently live by these commands
-in fact, it will require supernatural living to live like this.
Exactly & that’s the point. It will require supernatural living. And so maybe you would respond by saying, "Great, I’m glad you agree with me. Now tell me how to do it because I am just a finite human being." There is a passage that I think gives us the answer on how to live supernaturally.
Funny thing about it, it wasn’t till a couple of years ago that I really understood this passage & yet it is a favorite passage of many Christians. It is 1 of those passages you hear quoted often. It has been put to music. It is cross-stitched & beautifully framed frequently. But as I said it had never really ministered to me until recently when I came to understand 1 particular word that literally opened up the passage for me.
Isaiah 40:27-31
-40:27-28 - It is not uncommon for Christians to read a verse of Scripture or be challenge with a verse of Scripture yet say something to the effect of, "Yes, I agree in principle to what this verse or command says. But...you just don’t comprehend my particular, even unique situation. My situation is different. You just don’t understand." Someone has said, "People tend to make rules for others & exceptions for themselves." Isn’t that the truth. We make exceptions for ourselves because in our mind our situation is unique & you just don’t understand.
40:27-28 - Do you know what Jacob & Israel were basically saying here? If I could paraphrase it for you, "Lord, you don’t understand our situation." Sound familar? See, how they put it - "Our way is hidden from the Lord. Our situation escapes His notice."
But what was Isaiah’s response? Do you not know? Have you not heard?...His understanding (& may I add - His understanding of your situation) is inscrutable. In other words, he is not like a judge or jury who didn’t get all the facts, or had the facts twisted or misrepresentented. No, His understanding of your situation & all the elements of it, is inscrutable. And so He does fully comprehend your situation when he commands you to do whatever.
"Okay," you say, "I’ll acknowledge that point. He does fully comprehend & understand my situation. But you still haven’t answered the question of how I can live a supernatural life?" All right, let’s look at the answer.
You must begin with the starting point that God never commands us to do something that He will not enable us to do. So, if He is commanding us to have an attitude of submission as in I Peter or whatever it is, we can be assured that it IS possible to live that way. And here’s how to do it.
Is.40:31 - one of the famous verses in the Bible. It’s on pictures, posters, calendars, cross-stitch. People have it memorized, yet I believe most christians really don’t grasp what it is saying.
"Yet those who wait" - What does this word "wait" mean as the KJV & NASB translates it? In looking it up I found that there are 19 different words for "wait" in the Hebrew, so what does it mean here?
-to hope strongly, to trust, to wait for implying a firmness & constancy - the definition I think best defines it is "to expect." It carries the idea of expectency. Putting my hope & confidence & trust in Him with an expectency, a certainity, a fixed expectency that He is going to respond, that He is going to move.
Here in Isaiah it is referring to the Israelites who were in captivity in Babylon, with no prospect of deliverance humanly speaking & yet with a fixed expectency that their God, at just the right time in His plan, would deliver them.
I could say, "I’m waiting for the return of Christ." Now I am not saying that I hope it will happen, but I’m not quite sure that it will. No, I’m saying that I am waiting with a sure expectency that this event is going to happen, that I know it is going to happen.
Therefore, when Isaiah says "wait", he is referring to a sure expectency. So the next question is - what is this sure expectency in? It is in fact that the Lord will renew (KJV, NIV) our strength, that we will gain (NASB) new strength.
I personally don’t like either 1 of those translations, because it conveys a wrong image of what the word truly means.
Renew - to change, to pass from 1 state to another. 1 commentary says that "renew their strength" is literally "changed strength" as 1 might change into fresh clothes or exchange an old thing for a new.
And that’s the word that I think best describes this word "renew" or "gain" & conveys what Isaiah truly means here - the word "exchange." So it would read, "They shall exchange strength."
And so, what would be the next logical question? Whose strength is exchanged for whose? Answer - my strength is exchanged for His strength. It’s not talking about increasing my strength (that’s why I don’t like the word "gain"), building my strength back up (that’s why I don’t like the word "renew"), for even if I am at full capacity, I’m still weak. And I still can’t live supernaturally. I can’t do it in my own strength. But what Isaiah is talking about is exchanging my strength for His strength. And as 1 man brought out, the usage of the verb means the changing for the better. I am exchanging something worse for something better. I am exchanging my weak, finite, limited, exhaustable strength for His strong, infinite, unlimited, inexhaustable strength. I think that is exchanging something worse for the better, don’t you? If you ladies are like the ladies in my church, you are always looking for a good deal, where are you going to find a better one than that?
And so we could translate the verse up to this point like this, "yet those who with sure expectency look to the Lord, will have their stength exchanged for His strength."
You see the same kind of thought in James where he says, "if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously & without reproach & it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without any doubting." So he is saying come to the Lord & ask for wisdom with a sure expectency that He is going to give you that wisdom & implied in that is His wisdom in exchanged for yours. He is not adding to or increasing your wisdom but gives you a different kind of wisdom, His wisdom. But are to ask with a sure expectency that he is going to give you this widsom & to do it without doubting. Don’t say, "I sure hope the Lord will give me the wisdom I need. I don’t know if He will but it’s worth a try." No, James says. Ask with a sure expectency, with an assured confidence that God will give you His wisdom in exchanged for yours.
And so Isaiah states, as we look to the Lord with a sure expectancy, our strength will be exchanged for God’s strength. Now the next logical question is: what will happen when His stength is exchanged for my strength? What will be the results of having my strength exchanged for His strength? We will be able to...40:31b...
What does he mean here in these 3 pictures or metaphors that he presents?
Some preachers make a big distinction of each of the 3 metaphors & with each 1 representing a different point in their message. But I think you lose something if you separate them to much & think to much about them individually. I believe you need to think about them as a group because what I simply see here is this.
You have 3 metaphors. 1 metaphor speaks of overcoming a natural impossibility - that of flying. The other 2 metaphors speak of overcoming 2 natural weaknesses, that of running & not getting tired & of walking & not becoming weary. Those are impossible things.
I cannot fly. I wish I could. I use to fantasize about that as a kid, still do sometimes - to be able to soar upon the winds way up in the sky like the eagle & to have that view. There is definitely pilot blood within me somewhere. I would love to do para-a-sailing, etc. We cannot fly.
And it is impossible no matter how good of shape you are in to run continuously & not get tired. In my church I have a man who runs in the 5K & 10K races & even marathons sometimes. I like to tease Terry sometimes by telling him that he & I are equal when it comes to running - we’re equal because we both run & get tired. He is just able to run a little farther before he gets tired than I can. But we will both get tired eventually. And even if we just walked, there would be some point where we couldn’t go any further because of weariness. Peter Jenkins in his Walk Across America didn’t just walk nonstop. He had to stop & rest because he got tired, even from walking.
So what Isaiah is saying is that you will be able to overcome the natural, the impossible & to live, if you would, supernaturally (isn’t that the word we were looking for), in a way that you could not live before, in a way that would have been impossible for you before, but you will be able to now, in the strength that God provides, in the strength that He exchanges for your strength. Now is that exciting or what?
There are all sorts of impossible situations that we face. Whether it is loving other people or accepting each other, whether it is not getting angry or frustrated over a situation or a person or a our children; whether it is in dying to myself in some way; or having an attitude of submission or giving up my rights. We face many impossible situations, impossible in terms of living by God’s way.
And as we come face to face with these impossible situations we know what God says, what He commands us to do, we know how we are suppose to respond. Yet there are times when we say, "But God, I can’t do it. I’ve tried but it’s impossible. I can’t handle anymore. I can’t live the way You want me to. I can’t respond the way You want me to in this situation. I can’t do it. It’s impossible." And that’s when He says to us, "I know you can’t (remember 40:28), but when you exchange my strength for your strength, you can." As A.W. Tozer said it, "we have switched from our little human battery to the infinite power of God."
Ludwig Nommensen, a pioneer missionary to the Batak people of Indonesia, spent two years living with them and studying their traditions. At the end of that time, the chief asked him if the Christian faith differed from Batak traditions. The chief said, "We, too, have laws that say we must not steal, nor take our neighbor’s wife, nor bear false witness."
The missionary answered, "But my Master gives the power to keep His laws."
The chief was startled. "Can you teach my people that?"
Nommensen said, "God can give them that power if they ask for it and listen to His word." So for six months Nommensen taught the Batak about the power of God. At the end of that time the chief said, "Stay, your law is better than ours. Ours tells us what we ought to do. Your God says, ’Come, I will walk with you and give you strength to do the good thing.’"
So, here is the answer to how we can live the message of 1 Peter or whatever biblical command you are facing - it is by having our strength exchanged for His strength thus enabling us to live in a supernatural way. But it starts with us coming & believing with a sure expectancy that He will do what He has promised. It requires that sure expectancy & that step of obedience, but as we do, the Lord is faithful.
You want to know something else? This word "exchange" that opened up this verse for me, could be used to describe the entire Christian life for it is in fact a call to live an exchanged life. Do you realize that? A large part of our christian experience consists of exchanging something worse for something better.
At the foundation of the christian life lies the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ, which in essence is a transfer of guilt from the sinner to the Savior. 2 Cor 5:21 (NASB) "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Christ by His death on the cross made it possible for the sinner to exchange his sin for Christ’s righteousness.
And that is only the beginning. Almost everything thereafter is an exchange of something worse for something better. Next after the exchange of sin for righteousness is that of wrath for acceptance. No longer are we under the wrath of God but are accepted in the beloved. Rom 8:1 (NASB) "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Wrath has been exchanged for acceptance.
There is the exchange of death for life. Christ died for dead men that they might rise to be living men. Paul put it this way - Eph. 2:1,4,5 - "And you were dead in your trespasses & sins...but God...made us alive." Gal 2:20 (NASB) "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
Tozer - "This is mysterious but not incredible. It is 1 more example of how the ways of God & the ways of man diverge. Man is a born cobber. When he wants a thing to be better he goes to work to improve it. He improves cattle by careful breeding; car & planes by streamlining; health by diet, vitamins & surgery; plants by grafting; people by education. But God will have none of this cobbling. He makes a man better by making him a new man; He imparts a higher order of life & sets to work to destroy the old."
What Tozer is saying is that He exchanges His life for our old sinful one.
There is an exchange of our mortality for His immortality.
We have an exchange of grace for weakness - 2 Cor 12:9 (NASB) And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Cor 12:10 (NASB) Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." There is an exchange - weakness for supernatural grace.
There is an exchange of fear & anxiety for a peace that surpasses all comprehension (Phil.4:6-7).
I wish we had time for you to give me some more examples. But stop & consider it. The Christian life could be summed up by stating it is living an exchanged life.
Living an exchanged life - that is what He has called us do. And that is how we can carry out whatever command He gives us, no matter how unique we think our situation is. Yes folks, we can live supernaturally.
One more point - God is eager to make this exchange. It is not like going to an exhanged/refund counter in a store the day after Christmas & getting some grumpy, discourteous clerk who makes you feel like you should apologize for making then earn their paycheck. No, the Lord is eager to exchange His life for yours. Bless His Holy Name!!!
Personal expanded paraphrase - "Yet those who with a sure expectency look to the Lord will have their strength exchanged for His strength and will be able to live supernaturally in the impossible situations they face and live supernaturally in contrast to their natural weaknesses and fleshy responses."
I guess I need to apologize to you this morning, for if you have grasped what I have said, then I have destroyed any & every excuse for not being able to obey Lord in whatever situation you face. But I trust you are not upset but instead, greatly encouraged & even a little bit excited about the truth that you can literally live a supernatural life.
