Having no strategy, credibility, networks, money, or numbers—is our church dead?

All of us want to feel secure and sure about things. So we naturally rest our trust in things we can see.

When it comes to churches, our natural instincts are to trust in …a detailed strategy …credibility borrowed from somewhere else …a network or safety net …money, financial stability, or a solid building and assets …and especially numbers

We attach enormous weight to numbers as sure evidence of fruit, certainty and truth.

But, we do this for our own lives as well. We trust in what we can see:
“I’m a good person—compared to him or her.”
“I attend church, give such and such, am reading so much of the Bible.”
“Look at the success I’m having in these areas of life.”

Or institutions, leadership, insight, past faithfulness… …and countless other visible things.

As human beings, on every level, our instinct is always to trust what we can see.

And Isaiah shows us what God does with this instinct, in three parts:

1) God axes everything your eyes could trust (chs. 1–10)
2) Until only Jesus remains (11:1a)
3) Because He is trustworthy beyond what you can see (11:1b–5)

First, God axes everything your eyes could trust (chs. 1–10)

That has been the whole setup of Isaiah chapters 1-10.

From the desolation of 1:7-8:

⁷ Your land is desolate, your cities burned down; foreigners devour your fields right in front of you— a desolation, like a place demolished by foreigners. ⁸ Daughter Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

And Isaiah explains in 10:5-6 that this is because God had sent Assyria as an agent of his Law—his righteous wrath against sin:

⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger—the staff in their hands is my wrath. ⁶ I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

Under the Old Covenant, God gave His Law to Israel in a special way, so that they are a visible model to us.

Ancient Israel was a visible people, in a visible land, with visible blessings and visible judgments.

Their life became a model—an example—of how God’s Law exposes sin and false trust.

This Old Covenant was replaced by the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood, given to us every Sunday in the Lord’s Supper.

But, in Galatians 3:24 Paul explains that God applied the axe of the Law to Israel for our benefit today:

The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.

And God has a purpose for the Law in our hearts today. Hebrews 12:5-8 tells us this in words that are often misunderstood, which someone asked me to explain literally last week:

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, ⁶ for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. ⁷ Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline — which all receive — then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

The misunderstanding we often hear comes from our own failure to understand how fathers should discipline their children:

We think:
—I have done something wrong.
—So I need to be punished for it.
—And given rewards for obedience.
—Then I’ll learn to do it right in future, through fear and expectation of consequences.

But, this is not godly discipline, and it doesn’t make sense of what Hebrews 5:8-9 says earlier about Jesus:

Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. ⁹ After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,

Jesus never did anything wrong. So when Jesus was disciplined as a Son, it wasn’t punishment for disobedience.

And even though Jesus perfectly obeyed God in everything, he didn’t earn what he asked for in prayer.

When he prayed not to have to face the cross, he knew he would have to endure that suffering anyway, and willingly did so.

No, God does not punish you to improve your life. He didn’t do that with Jesus. He didn’t do that with Israel in Isaiah.

Rather, when God chastises all he is doing is stripping away false trusts so that something new must come from Him alone.

That does not mean every suffering comes with a specific lesson. God assures you no suffering is wasted. But he doesn’t ask you to sort through your stress.

Isaiah explicitly said this to his church back in 3:1-3:

Note this: The Lord God of Armies is about to remove from Jerusalem and from Judah every kind of security: the entire supply of bread and water, ² heroes and warriors, judges and prophets, fortune-tellers and elders, ³ commanders of fifty and dignitaries, counselors, cunning magicians, and necromancers.

God chastises in order to remove, not to improve.

By Isaiah chapter 11, God has used his axe to cut away anything Judah could possibly trust in other than Jesus.

And this is how he is dealing with you and me today, friends. This is how God’s Spirit applies God’s Law to our hearts.

God axes everything your eyes could trust.

God is never punishing you. Natural consequences in life do exist. But, God is never giving you a taste of your own medicine.

So stop fishing through our lives asking:
“Is this suffering because of that sin?”
“If I got better in this area of sin would God stop afflicting me in that area of my life?”

This isn’t how God works.

Rather, all the time God is stripping away false things we can trust in—false trusts we can see.

He’s training us, just like he trained Jesus. In that garden, Gethsemane. Jesus had no support. No supply. His friends abandoned him. His closest companion denied him.

God cut away every possible trust from Jesus’ life, so that he couldn’t do anything but pray through tears: “Father, if you will, take this cup from me”.

In that moment, you can’t point at Jesus and say: “He’s sinned in this area, or he’s not trusted God specifically in that way, and this is why this discipline has come upon him.”

But, nevertheless, God was disciplining Jesus through that suffering: He was training Jesus to trust him alone.

Intense introspection isn’t helpful, but there’s nothing wrong with cooperating with the Spirit, and before moving to the Gospel asking ourselves:

What are the branches God is clearing off our church as a stump? and What is he stripping from you in your Gethsemane?

Here’s what I’ve wrestled with this week. Here’s where I need to go to confession:

Every Saturday I look at the church attendance register, and I get depressed: because I naturally trust in numbers rather than Jesus.

Every Sunday I think of the church finances, and I get tempted to think that if only we had enough money, or resources, or a building, then our church would take off: because I naturally trust in wealth rather than Jesus.

Every month I think of people who don’t like me personally, or who have rejected our clear biblical message and I despair and text message a wise older pastor in WELS: because I naturally trust in popularity and relationships rather than Jesus.

God is stripping me of these false trusts, cutting me down to the stump, because I am his son and he loves me:

Each one of you is also his son. He loves you too. What false trusts does he want to strip from you?
Comparing yourself to other people?
Productivity and success?
Trust in insight and being right about things?
Past faithfulness? Numbers? Money and assets?

Anything that you like the look of.
Anything that sounds strong.
…these things are potential alternatives to Jesus.

And God is removing them Until only Jesus remains (11:1a)

After the set up of chapters 1-10, that’s the point Isaiah makes right at the beginning of our reading, in 11:1:

¹ Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse,

Everything has been stripped away, …until there is just Jesus.

This is why God using his Law is not punishment, but provision: because to trust Jesus plus something is not to trust Jesus at all.

God is applying the Law daily in our lives Until only Jesus remains

And Jesus is everything. Jesus is trustworthy. Jesus has got this.

3) Because Jesus is trustworthy beyond what you can see

Just look at the immediate promise Isaiah carries on with in v. 1:

¹ Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

There’s no strategy. No magic medicine. No formula for Judah’s political renewal, or for church growth or your personal success.

Isaiah gives us Jesus with this simple, but sure and certain promise:

a branch from his roots… will… bear… fruit.

Why? Because of his spiritual power hidden behind his earthly weakness. That’s Isaiah’s point in v. 2:

² The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

a Spirit of wisdom and understanding: Jesus sees everything in your life right now, and he gets it

a Spirit of counsel and strength Jesus knows exactly what to do, and he’s got it

a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD Jesus learned to only trust in what is sure and certain, and in dealing with you he’s going to.

Jesus is TRUSTWORTHY beyond what you can see

And Jesus isn’t swayed by opinions or appearances. Numbers. Wealth. Credentials. Networks. False accusations. Gossip. Slander. Appearances. Status. Position.

None of these things fool him: Jesus is not a moron.

Be absolutely assured of this: Jesus sees straight through all of it. vv. 3-4:

³ His delight will be in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, he will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, ⁴ but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land.

Jesus is trustworthy BEYOND what you can SEE

And as I’ve been saying throughout 2025: God is in a good mood with you, and you see that when you look at Jesus.—be 100% assured that your circumstances and sufferings are not evidence of anything to do with God’s view of you, or of how Jesus feels about you.

This Jesus to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given,

And who sits right now at God’s right hand side, ready to return to take those who trust him any moment.

He is a just and righteous ruler, who exercises authority not through reaction, but through his measured and wisely spoken Word. vv. 4-5:

He will strike the land with a sceptre from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips. ⁵ Righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist.JESUS is trustworthy beyond what you can see

So, having no strategy, credibility, networks, money, or numbers—is our church dead?

Well, 1) God axes everything your eyes could trust

This is how God’s Law is at work in you and me today, this is how it is at work in our church. None of your suffering is wasted. God is stripping away false trust.

And he’s doing that… until (2) only Jesus remains

Any alternative to Jesus is just a distraction from Jesus. Jesus plus another reason to trust. Is just to take away from Jesus.

So, God is training us to trust Jesus alone…

Because (3) Jesus is trustworthy beyond what you can see

He will always bear fruit, wherever His Word is present: in our church, in our lives, in our families. No strategy, network, outside authority, resource, or numbers has this promise of God attached:

a branch from his roots will bear fruit

Jesus cannot be fooled. God will not be mocked.

Jesus sees past all of the false, fake and fleeting alternatives. Jesus sees things as they really are. Jesus sees the truths that are not yet revealed to us.

This Jesus is ruling. And he is doing so by his Word. Exercising power by the sceptre of his mouth, and the command from his lips.

Strategy, credibility, networks, money, or numbers

A dead church is one that trusts any of these things.

Trust the one place where God promises fruit.

Just look at Jesus.