Sermon Tone Analysis

Our Faithful God sustains and energizes us through our faith in the Gospel.

What is it that keeps you going day after day, year after year?

What keeps you afloat you when life seems overwhelming and when it is difficult to move on?

Tim Michalek

I’ve been associate at Red brick 4.5 years

International Community School in Thailand

Isaiah 40

No matter where you are in life, you are facing difficulty.

Whether a parent facing the challenges of raising your children, a teenager trying to fit in, or a senior saint battling physical struggles.

We all wouldn’t mind if our kids were just a little more obedient, we had a few more good friends, and our joints weren’t creaking every time we stood up.

Sometime we just feel exhausted with life and want to give up.

We feel like we have nothing left to give…

I hope you will be encouraged with the words from Isaiah 40:30-31

God is speaking to his people and promises:

Now out of context these words may give you a nice warm feeling.

You may even hang the up in your home.

Wait for the Lord and you’ll have boundless energy…as you floating with eagles wings on the wind and sprinting mile after mile without growing tired.

But I think if we put these words in context, they become even more encouraging to us believers.

We observe that those who have their strength renewed do something

v31 - they wait for the Lord.

But WHAT are they waiting for?

Waiting for the Lord to do what?

We have to go back to ch 38 about the king Hezekiah,

King Hezekiah was a king of Judah, the lower portion of the nation of Israel.

Hebrew history records him as a king who followed God.

In ch 38, Hezekiah gets very sick and Isaiah comes and telling him to set his things in order, for he will die.

Hezekiah begs God to spare his life with bitter weeping, and God does it, promising 15 more years.

Read Isaiah 39

Think about how horrible this news is for the nation of Israel.

God’s chosen people--

God has always protected them.

He had just defeated the mighty army of assyria who had king hezekiah trapped in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage, and now God promises that thier own children, and their wealth, and in essence, the glory of Israel will be packed up and shipped away to Babylon.

And their great leader seems sick of fighting.

Tired of begging God for help.

“the word of the Lord is good.”

Hezekiah says

This reaction is in stark contrast to his reaction to Assyria surrounding his capital, or the news he was going to die…The king of Israel has failed his people.

Even the great kings of Israel cannot deliver Israel.

If you were an Israelite, what would you need, immediately after receiving this horrible news?

Read 40:1-2

God promises comfort.

Your leaders will fail you, but take comfort, after you have been punished for your sin, you will receive comfort from the Lord.

The Lord will deliver you.

But he doesn’t stop at promising deliverance...

He’s about to give one of the biggest promises of the Old Testament, right here.

right at the beginning of ch 40.

Not only will God restore his people from Babylonian exile, but he will also save his people from their spiritual exile.

Their spiritual separation from him.

He’s going to say, God will come to dwell with you,

v3-5a

The KING is coming, the LORD, and he will be unstoppable.

Not even the earth itself, mountains and valleys will be nothing when he comes.

And when he comes, all flesh shall SEE the glory of the Lord

Wait, a minute, Moses saw the back of Yahweh, but no one has seen the full glory of the Lord.

But he clearly says, everyone will not only see, but experience this together.

this is not in the sense of watching it from a distance like on a TV show, but this carries the idea that be involved in a relationship with Yahweh.

Sharing in this glory.

God promises the fullness of his personal presence to his people.

And if you find this promise too unbelievable.

Too unfathomable: That an almighty holy Creator would fellowship with his rebellious creation.

Look at the end of v5

v5b

God has spoken

God has made an incredible promise, to restore a glorious relationship with his people.

Is this for real?

Will God really fix this earth so that his glory (like the rays of the sun) will shine in it?

Remember the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

But what good is that?

How good is someone’s word?

If a guest walked in today and promised to buy everyone in here a new car, how excited would you get.

I bet most of us would be very skeptical, right?

A promise is only as good as the character and power of the person who promised it.

If the person is a notorious liar, and they make that promise, you wouldn’t believe them for a second.

So how good is God’s word.

When he says something, should we have confidence that he will do it??

Look at what God is like:

v6-8

How long?

v12

he is massive in might

13-14 who is God’s teacher?

He is infinitely intelligent and wise

15

17

18

19 to an idol?

HA! someone creates an idol, sometimes with shoddy work

21-22

25->28

astronomers believe the stellar population to be over 70 billion trillion

every one by name.

Every nation, just dust on the scale to God.

THIS is the GOD that promised to dwell with his people.

And if his promise is as good as his character and power, we can be confident that God is glorious enough to fulfill his promise.

This God is not like the grass!

He doesn’t wither or dry up in the heat of the day.

This God endures forever

This God doesn’t have to worry about unexpected circumstances or being overwhelmed, or getting tired, because he ordains it all.

God is infinitely powerful - there is nothing he cannot do and no being that can stand up to him

God is personal - he is not a clock maker who set this world spinning and went on vacation, it his by his power that all things exist.

He sustains the world and is involved in the lives of humans.

God is purposeful - he isn’t fickle or random, he is all knowing and knows exactly how to accomplish his purposes.

This make the promise even more spectacular.

Not only are we now confident that a God this glorious is able to fulfill his promise, think about what he’s promised, to live with his people forever.

God, the ruler of heaven and earth, the creator of everyone and everything, he wants to live with us??