Sermon Tone Analysis

*God’s Waiting Room*

(Isaiah 40:12-31)

 

Comedian Howie Mandel, who now hosts the show “Deal or no Deal” no doubt honed his skills while working at one of his first jobs – operating a ride at an amusement park.  “Make sure the orange safety harness over your left shoulder is securely fastened,” he would warn riders.

“We’re going upside down in five seconds.”

“This announcement would invariably be met with abject panic.

“There was,” he later explained, “no orange safety harness.”

Oh boy – we don’t like it when there is no safety harness, do we?

We don’t like it when there is nothing to catch us, nothing to hang on to, when there are no answers.

We don’t like it.

One Saturday morning Patty and I were doing some chores around the house and getting ready to watch the Nebraska~/Oklahoma football game.

It is not unusual for us to have some kind of sports event on television and sometimes it’s more or less in the background – but with Nebraska and Oklahoma – we were preparing to watch.

In fact, I was getting ready to call my dad who lived in Victorville – about 70 miles distance from us to make sure he knew the game was on.

I knew he would be interested.

83 years of age, he was in perfect health, strong as an ox having worked all his life on the farm and in construction.

He was vital and loved his life and his family.

But just before I made that call, our phone rang.

It was my mom – calling with the news that would change all of our lives.

Dad had gone out to get the paper, but on his way back, she had watched through the window as he slowly collapsed onto the pavement outside the kitchen.

Paramedics had been called and were about to transport him to the hospital.

Of course, we immediately got into the car and drove to the Victorville hospital as fast as we could.

By the time we arrived, Mom was sitting with a neighbor in the waiting room.

They had no word yet on Dad’s condition, but it was clearly serious.

He had never really regained consciousness prior to transport.

After Mom filled us in on all she knew and we prepared to pray, I asked her how she wanted us to pray.

She replied, as I thought she would, “Dad would not want to live with impaired functions.

We should pray that he will recover, or that the Lord will take him home.”

So that’s what we did, though at the same time submitting to whatever the Lord might choose.

What the Lord chose was to take us, and particularly Mom, to His waiting room.

God’s waiting room – the place where there are no “yes or no” answers, but only “wait.”

The place where at first it seems dark and dreary, where God seems far away and doubt creeps in.

The place where there is no safety harness and where faith seems inadequate.

And worst of all – a place where there is */no timetable.

/*God’s waiting room -- where none of would choose to go.

And when we see it coming our response is, “Oh, no, Lord.

Not that.

I don’t want to go there.

It’s scary there.

It’s dark and cold there.

And you might leave me there longer than I can endure.”

Some of you are in God’s waiting room this morning.

Some of you have been there a long time and you’re not sure you can hold out.

Your whole heart is crying out – */Where is God? / *And that’s exactly the question we want to address for the next couple of weeks.

*/ /*

Now, I want to tell you a bit more about my mom in God’s waiting room – but you’re going to have to – yes, that’s right – *WAIT!  * Because first I want us to see this whole thing from God’s perspective.

Our key verse is found in Isaiah 40:31.

Look at it with me:  but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.*

(ESV).

*This verse is telling us that God /always/ has a purpose for having us in the waiting room and that purpose is our renewed strength.

But see that little phrase, “those who wait”?

It literally reads, “the waiters.”

These promises are for the waiters upon the Lord.

You see, it’s possible to be in God’s waiting room and not be a waiter.

It’s possible to be in God’s waiting room and be /anxious, bitter, angry, fearful, cold/.

Then you will not be renewed.

You will not run without weariness and you will surely faint.

But this passage of Scripture was written for our comfort.

It turns out that God is BIGGER than any problem, any issue, any person or any circumstance that we will ever face.

And though we may be in the waiting room, God wants to turn on the lights, warm up the temperature, hold out hope and make it a place of refreshment.

He just needs our cooperation to bring that about.

Now the context for this passage is this.

Isaiah was a prophet of God living from around 739 B.C. until possibly as late as 681.

He came from a good family, had easy access to the king, wrote in an impeccable style with a message urging repentance from idol worship and meaningless ritual.

But he knew his message would not be followed and he prophesied the coming Babylonian captivity.

The children of Israel were about to enter God’s waiting room, in their case to purge them from sin, and it would not be pleasant.

But in the midst of that prophecy, Isaiah was instructed to offer hope.

That is what the passage we want to study for the next couple of weeks is all about.

Why and how should the people take hope and what is it that can offer hope to us as “waiters” upon the Lord?

The answer is God – God!  God is bigger than any possible problem we can confront.

Let me illustrate.

John Elway used to step up behind the center.

A short hut! - hut-hut!

And the ball is snapped.

Immediately there was a violent blend of orange and blue with silver and black as the Raiders defense pushed the Bronco offensive line back and back.

Some of the offensive line would hold their positions while others forced the defense out past the sides of the offensive play.

As the mayhem formed a circle around him, Elway stood firm in the pocket - his comfort zone.

He had confidence in the greatness of his linemen.

Now, Elway’s protection was not always perfect; ours is.

* *

God’s answer to the question of timing is a /crescendo/ of affirmations about Himself that when applied can turn on the lights and bring peace in the midst of hopelessness.

Let’s look at those affirmations in detail.

!

I.       God is Bigger Than All Creation (vv.

12)

 

In verses 12-14, the prophet offers a series of 5 hypothetical questions aimed at focusing attention away from the immediacy of the problem and onto the ultimate sufficiency of God.

The first is found in verse 12 and emphasizes that our God is bigger than all creation.

Look at it with me:  Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

Who has done all this?

Clearly Isaiah was saying, only God can do this.

Man is making progress, but he cannot hope to manage creation as described here.

To man the oceans are a mighty force.

To God, they are like the bit of water that you might hold in the palm of your hand.

The distances of the heavens challenge our imagination.

Hang on to your seats for a moment folks and let’s consider for a moment.

We all know that light travels at 186,000 miles per second – that’s nearly 8 times around the circumference of the earth.

I can remember as a young man when I first found out that light even had a speed, I used to take a flashlight outside, point it at the sky, turn it on and then off, trying to see the light disappear into the heavens.

Never could quite track it!

Now I know why.

Okay – eight time around the earth in one second.

For light to get from the sun to the earth takes about 8 minutes.

Now, let’s go a step further.

At a speed of 186,000 miles per second, light travels 186,000 times 60 seconds per minute times 60 minutes per hour time 24 hours per day times 365 days per year -- almost 6 trillion miles in one year.

I can’t give you any reference point for that.

It’s starting to get beyond my ability to comprehend, but we are told that at that speed it takes about 4.4 years for light to get from the next closest visible star, Alpha Centauri to earth.

4.4 years, folks!