Isaiah 40: 9-11 (Dec 11 2016) Mike Armstrong

All right, if you actually want to open your Bibles to a different section, we are going to be in Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

And I think we have some ushers looking to grab the extra sermon notes.

There is a case back there, guys.

If you would grab those and start to distribute, that would be ever so helpful to us as a church.

And so we are jumping uh straight into Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

And you know what?

I'm gonna turn in my Bible to that as well.

Because that is probably, I don't know, helpful.

Isaiah chapter 40, Old Testament.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

Alright.

So apologies.

That's uh that's not always what you like to have happen, but we've, you know, whatever, we're gonna go with it.

Alright, so what we're gonna do here is we're gonna have kind of just a shorter message um to uh uh today.

Um and uh we're gonna dive in and uh trust that the Lord will help us as we uh get the rest of it all figured out.

Uh but you guys are good with this, right?

Does this like rattle us?

Does this throw us off?

No, you guys are good.

We can laugh about this stuff too, right?

Like, you know, let's lighten the mood a little bit.

Okay, I'm good with all of that.

Um right now, what we're gonna do uh this morning is really talk about uh how awesome God is.

Um and that I think relates to what Pastor Paul was just getting at.

You know, it really does.

And so uh that's kind of handy for sure.

Now, if we if we don't have um a real sense of how awesome the Lord is and how great he is, um we will not love him well.

Is that fair to say?

We will not love him well, we will not worship him well, we will uh not care about obedience, we will not follow him.

We will continue uh to think that we are God and we will follow our ways and all of that.

Now, if we are not gripped by the awesomeness of God, listen, listen, we will be gripped by something else.

We will be gripped by something else.

Okay, something something else will take the place of God in our hearts.

Something else will take the place of God in our minds and in our lives, and oftentimes those things are very subtle.

Oftentimes those things are good things.

I love the phrase, good things that have become God things.

Right?

I love that.

That's just so helpful.

And we will worship those things.

We will worship the career, we will worship uh money, we will worship family.

Is family a good thing?

Yes, it is.

Is it to be uh preeminent in our lives?

No, it is not.

We will worship all of these things if we do not have a clear picture of God's uh awesome nature.

And so this morning what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at um what it means to behold God.

Now, behold, okay, it's such a great word.

It means to observe.

It means to observe.

It really means to pay attention to, it means to lock into.

In fact, I think it was just last week.

I was talking about that, right?

Behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age in Matthew 28.

And Jesus is saying, hey, hey, eyes up here.

Listen up.

This is so, so crucial.

Okay, so we're gonna be looking at uh that for sure.

It also has this sense, when you think of behold, it's this sense of awe.

Like, wow, Lord, this is incredible.

I'm gonna marvel at this, take it all in, be wrapped up in it.

Okay, so what are the kinds of things that you behold?

What are the types of things in your life that you have a great awe of?

Is it is it other people?

Is it other people?

Would you consider yourself a people pleaser?

Or the fear of man.

I care too much about that person's opinion.

I care too much about what they think.

When I walk into a room, maybe even a room like this, all I'm thinking about is what other people must be thinking about me.

Is that what you uh behold?

Is it status for you?

I want status, I want a position, I want authority, I want power.

Perhaps for you, what you behold is happiness.

That is God for you.

I just want to be happy at all costs.

I will go after whatever it takes to be happy.

Well, we're gonna look at this passage here that's all about beholding God.

Okay, when I behold God, you know, how does that transform my life?

Well, we're gonna see all of this here uh today.

So Isaiah uh chapter 40.

This is what we're looking at, uh, verses 9 to 11.

Verses 9 to 11, take a peek at this.

It says, It says, Go up, go on up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.

Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news.

Lift it up, fear not.

Say to the cities of Judah, Behold, your God.

Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him.

Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

God, we come before you and pray now as we change gears here and look into a different passage.

We weren't preparing for this, we weren't expecting this, but Lord, we recognize that you are sovereign, you are on the throne.

Lord, we recognize that this is a word that our church needs to hear today.

And so, God, would you speak to us?

Lord, we pray, we ask, we cry out.

Lord, we ask for your glory to fall in power.

Lord, we pray that your presence would be very much sensed here and felt.

And Lord, that would uh make us uh want you.

Lord, we would want you more and that we would be changed.

Lord, help us, have mercy on us.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So you guys have uh sermon notes, did they get out to you?

You're all good?

Man, those ushers are like stealthy and like ninja-like.

They're so fast I didn't even notice it.

All right, well, here's the first thing.

Okay, God is awesome, so I will behold him.

First thing is I'm compelled to tell of his greatness.

Okay, take a look at verse 9 there again as we work through this.

He says to this, he says, He says, Go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.

Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news.

Lift it up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah, behold your God.

You know, what is this saying?

What's this saying here?

Well, it's saying that the greatness of God will compel us to tell others about him.

Right?

It will compel you to tell other people about him.

Now just notice the words here, the action words of verse 9.

He says, Go.

He says, Lift up your voice, fear not, say to the cities.

Okay, when we truly see God for who he really is, it transforms us.

It transforms our actions.

Specifically, what it's getting at here, the action that is transformed, is that our speech, we we say things, we we talk to other people about who the Lord is and and what he has done.

Okay, I'll put it this way.

Put it this way.

If you are not big on evangelism, okay, which is our fourth pillar, we talked about that just a couple of weeks ago.

If you are gripped by fear and it's you know stopping you from sharing the good news of Jesus Christ bully, listen, it means that you're not really pumped about God.

You're not really pumped about him, you're not excited about him and his greatness.

Okay, does that you kind of sense that, like the spirit convicting you on that here today?

Because, hey, whatever you think is great, you will talk about.

Whatever you think is great, you will talk about.

Okay, it's like Christmas time.

Hey, how convenient that this illustration is in this message right now, because we were heading towards that.

Right?

It's like Christmas time.

You know, people love getting presents.

People love that.

You think about your kids, maybe even yourself.

You just love it, and and maybe that is what you focus on a lot.

And in that whole thing, it kind of causes and develops a lot of excitement, especially in children.

And what do they do with that excitement?

Well, they tell people, right?

They talk about it.

My kids have been talking about it like crazy, and they want to tell their friends about what I got for Christmas, and even adults, they're like posting pics on Instagram about what they got, and and teenagers, everyone's doing this.

We tell about the things that we are uh excited about.

So again, if we are not compelled by the majesty and the greatness and the goodness and the holiness of God about everything that he has done, I mean it shows that to some degree, you know, practically speaking, we don't think that he's all that great.

Now, I don't think anyone, probably here, would like to admit that.

I would never say that.

And that's what you would say.

I would never say that, but that's the way, that's kind of the function of our hearts on kind of a street level, ground level.

That's how our hearts uh function.

We kind of don't think he's that great.

And so I might be thinking, like, well, how do I how do I fix this?

Right?

How do I fix this problem in my life?

Well, the the temptation is to come up with like, you know, greater evangelism strategies.

Like, I'm not I'm not that fired up about telling people about the Lord, so maybe I just need a new model.

You know, and models aren't bad.

We talked through models just a couple of weeks ago and how we can actually share faith, and we need to grow, and that we need to have a good understanding of how to do that.

Um, but sometimes what we do is we come up with evangelism strategies, or we we kind of guilt trip ourselves into into kind of these like weak, half-hearted commitments.

We're like, this week it's gonna be different, Lord, and then like two days later we've forgotten about all of it.

You know, I'm gonna share Jesus now, but our hearts are not gripped.

And really, none of that is the answer.

Strategies, guilt trips, none of it.

Okay, the answer is to ask the Lord to press into him.

Ask him, God, would you give me a greater vision of yourself, Lord?

Would I see you more clearly, Lord?

Would I would I love you more deeply?

God, would you give me this?

Would you lead my heart into this, Lord?

By your grace, by your spirit.

I can't make my heart do this.

I don't have power within myself to change myself.

God, would you do it?

It's submitting ourselves to him and asking for him to change us.

And so we need to pray.

We need to pray, and I would challenge you to do just that.

Commit your life, Lord.

My life needs to be a life of prayer.

Where I am I am crying out to him, not just praying to say that I've prayed, but like really heartfelt, sometimes on our knees, maybe with with with fasting, getting other people as prayer support around us.

Lord, would you would you regenerate?

Would you would you challenge my heart, Lord, and bring new life into it?

Ask the Lord to uh to soften you and to give you a new, fresh excitement about who he is.

Because when that starts to happen, you'll you'll sense that that desire to evangelize, that that desire to talk about Christ, that'll start to bubble up within you and it'll start to spill out.

And you'll be able to share who Christ is and you'll you'll love to do it.

Okay, here's the second thing.

I'll behold God when I'm put in my place by his power and his authority.

You take a look at verse 10 now.

Verse 10 says this Behold, the Lord God comes with might, his arm rules for him.

Okay, so we'll be put in our place by his power and authority when we first do a couple of things here.

A, when we study and we understand the Bible and then subject ourselves to that teaching, and then B, when we experience it ourselves, when we experience his power in our life.

Now, quite frankly, all right, some of us have experienced God's power and his authority in our relationship with him, and some of us have not.

Or maybe we haven't for a long time.

And we've begun to kind of get cold.

And our and our and our worship and our joy in him has just it's gone stale, it's gone flat.

And we haven't, we haven't thought about his power, we haven't thought about his authority.

Now, when I was young, I I didn't really appreciate, or I didn't really experience, I should say, much of that, at least not in not in much of a profound way.

I didn't experience the Lord's power, really, and a major reason for that is because I wasn't pursuing it.

I wasn't pursuing that.

I didn't ask the Lord for it.

I wasn't coming to him and asking for a fresh sense of his power.

And it was later as a young adult that the Lord started to really showcase uh that for me uh in my life uh by rescuing me from the path that I was going down.

He started to show me that uh that the way I was living my life, okay, my grand vision for my life, um, it was awful.

It was awful.

It brought me no joy, it just brought me greater bondage.

It just gave me a hard, a hard heart.

And I had to go through some hard things for the Lord uh to show me that his power and his glory uh is what I need to see.

And I had to go through those hard things before I started to realize that that he and that is what it's all about, not about what I think.

He had to put me in my place.

Okay, he had to give me that like unmistakable sense that whoa, he is, he is way more mighty, he is way more powerful, he is way more uh incredible and forgiving and gracious than I ever thought.

You know, to be honest here, you know, I think that that we all need to be shaken up for us to be able to see his goodness and his power uh clearly.

He needs to shake us out of our slumber.

And for any person, we need to be taken to the mat in humility and brokenness before we begin to get a heart for the Lord.

And so, once again, this is a thing that we must pray for.

We must pray for, we must, we must yearn for that, and we must ask the Lord for that.

God, would you give it to us?

And so I'd encourage you, have the courage, have the courage to allow the Lord to put you in your place.

Would you do that?

Would you have a heart for that as you as you enter into this Christmas season and as you know think about the fact that that God came down to dwell among man?

Would you, would you ask the Lord, would you fill me with a sense of awe in that?

Would you would you help me to see how just incredible that is?

And I wouldn't just, I go, well, it's it's December, so I guess I kind of I kind of have to endure it, or I have to go about it, or I have to see that in malls, and I have to go through this at church.

No, but Lord, that you would that you would help me to want to have that courage to ask for it, that he would show you his power and his authority.

Okay, here we go.

Third thing.

I will behold him when I'm moved by the enormity of his reward.

When I'm moved by the enormity of his reward.

Now take a look at the last part there of verse 10.

He says, Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him.

Hey, what does that mean?

What is he talking about?

Well, that word recompense means reward or payment.

So those those kind of those two lines are kind of saying the same thing there.

And what he's talking about is salvation.

He brings a reward, he brings salvation, he brings payment for the sins of his people.

Now, the cool thing is that is that his reward is really, whose reward is it?

It's ours.

Right?

Right?

It's our reward.

This is something, this is something that we receive.

Okay, it's like this.

You know, all of us are not just heading towards hell, okay, apart from Jesus Christ, but we're actually sprinting towards it.

Okay, we are we are born lost.

We are born broken people with hell as the final destination.

That is what we are hell uh headed towards.

Okay, this verse tells us that God has graciously stepped in and taken care of the penalty uh for us.

It's the price that we owe, it's the payment that we owe for our sins.

He's like, you know what?

I don't want my people to go to hell.

I don't want my people to be separated from me for all eternity because of their sin.

And so I'm gonna send my son Jesus Christ to come in into the world to live a perfect life, to be a sacrifice once and for all for the sin of all mankind.

That if my people would trust in him, if they would believe that everything he did in his perfect life, in his death on the cross, in his resurrection, if they would believe in that, they would be saved.

They would be saved.

Yeah, I love that.

Do you understand that?

Do you recognize the enormity of all of that?

Okay, so much of being able to behold God and see his awesome, uh awesomeness clearly has to do with our desire.

And I think we all probably know this by now that our desire is just so fickle.

Do you feel that?

Do you feel that your desire is fickle?

And there's some days you're like, hey, yeah, I really want to press into him, and other days like the furthest thing from your mind, and and maybe you would have a hard-heartedness towards that, and I don't want to go after the Lord.

Right?

We're so fickle in all of that.

It's here one second and gone the next.

And so you might be noticing a kind of a theme as we're going through this, but what do we do if we need to get beyond this?

We pray.

We pray.

We ask the Lord for it.

We ask the Lord for help.

Lord, steady my heart.

Lord, steady the desire of my heart and my mind, the focus of my life, Lord.

Get it on you, Lord, that I would uh sense the enormity of your reward, Lord, that I would appreciate your salvation, that I would praise you for uh the truth of the gospel, how you have redeemed me and made me new, and you are still transforming me, Lord, and you have an eternity that is set and waiting for me, that I will eventually go and be with you a forever, where there is no more sin and no more brokenness.

Again, ask the Lord, pray, ask him to give you a sense of this.

Okay, last thing.

Last thing.

God is awesome, so I will behold him, and I am drawn in by his love and his kindness.

Okay, check out uh verse 11 here.

Look how that says.

It says, uh, he will tend his flock like a shepherd.

He will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young.

Okay, I love this verse because really, like the whole passage, kind of up to this point, is like, rah, God is awesome, right?

He has power, he is glorious, he is amazing.

Bow down, rule, authority, you know, all of that.

And then you have this like amazing kind of kind of contrast and and compliment.

The whole thing just changes gears.

Look at that verse, and you get just a real sense of his love, right?

And and his kindness.

And you see the kind of the gentle and and gracious heart that our God has towards us, he takes care of us.

He he's a shepherd.

That's what the verse says.

It says he will he will gather us in like lambs.

Does that bring joy to your soul?

Does that bring you comfort?

Does that bring you peace as you think about maybe the chaos of your life right now?

To know that just like a shepherd, God wants to gather his church in, and he wants to shower us with his love.

And yeah, things are going on, and life is crazy, and life might even be downright awful for you right now.

But do you recognize the love of the Lord for you?

Do you see that?

Do you understand that?

Do you love it?

Yeah, I love it because at the end of the day, God's not, he's not this like domineering taskmaster who's just like shh cracking the whip on us, you know, bow down.

It's not this anger thing.

It's it it it's not that he's tender.

He scoops us up like a proud parent.

You know, think about your own kids.

Uh are they perfect?

No.

But you love them.

And you probably tell your kids often, I'm I'm proud of you, that I delight in you, that I think you're great.

That's exactly what God the Father does with us.

That's exactly it.

It's it's kindness that draws us in.

You know, if you fear the Lord in a negative sense, where you're you're you're terrified him and you think of him as that cruel taskmaster, impersonal, you know, God in the sky type uh mentality, um you will not love him.

And so I would challenge you and encourage you, really press in, really press into the love that God has for you.

Ask the Lord as you are praying to him, as you are pressing into him, Lord, give me a sense of your love.

Lord, as I think about the gospel and as I think about this Christmas season, Lord, would I see that the virgin birth, would I see that Jesus as a baby, Lord, is just a big example of your love for me and your rescue plan?

Would you ask him to see that?

Because as your heart is captured by that, you will stand in awe.

And your love for him will grow, and your desire to live for him will just develop and mature and become way more awesome than maybe you even have a vision for now.

So think about this.

How has God been kind to you?

Think about that.

How has the Lord been kind to you?

Do you ever spend some time kind of meditating on that?

Do you ever spend time thinking about that?

I heard a great, a great line today, this week actually, about meditation.

There's a lot of confusion about what that is.

We're not talking about like a new age meditation on something, whatever, some impersonal force.

But when we talk about meditating on God, which the Bible does, it's kind of like chewing gum to get all the flavor out.

That's what meditation on the Lord is.

You want to spend some time probing his depths, not that we're ever gonna get to the end of it, because that is how big, that is how high and deep and wide he is.

But it's it's soaking in that, it's marinating in that, and starting to get a sense of wow Lord, you are amazing.

You are way greater than I ever thought.

Do you think about that and then realize God's kindness to you?

Think about it, even just this past week, maybe your mind has not been there.

Maybe you've maybe you've been complaining.

Maybe you have been more, I don't know, bitter even and frustrated with how your week has gone.

Well, well, shelf that for a second and think about God's kindness to you.

That you have, that you have breath in your lungs, that you have, that you have life, and that you have purpose, and that you have a church family to be a part of.

And as we grow here, God has called us to a mission to make disciples and to make all of what we're talking about here this morning known to the world.

Right?

What a joy, what a calling, what a partnership that we get to do that with the Lord.

Now, I'll be quite frank with you.

In my relationship with the Lord over time, I've really had to wrestle with the kindness of God and his love for me.

You know, I have I have tended to see, especially kind of growing up, I have seen the Lord as that sort of angry sort of taskmaster God.

You know, when I kind of pictured the Lord, when I would think about him, I would see him as the God who was just kind of sitting up there being like, man, not again, Mike.

You know, what a disappointment.

You know, like again you're messing up.

Like I've given you so many chances, and you continue to be brutal, you continue to disappoint and frustrate.

That's how I saw the Lord.

And it took pressing into the gospel and getting a clear sense of what the message actually is: that God loves me, that God is passionate about me so much to the point where he sent his son for me.

Do you realize that that was what he has done for you as well?

His kindness is so clear.

We tend to muddy the picture because we get focused on other things and we allow our pride and our sense of arrogance to kind of rise to the surface, and we focus on that only.

Now, again, if we think of God, if you think of him as the taskmaster, if you think of him as as impersonal, if you think that God is just angry all the time, or the God that only cares about you following a bunch of rules, okay, we're we're really missing it.

And if that's kind of your approach to the Lord, none of that is gonna give you a sense of awe of him.

Because I would say this you're not understanding the God of the Bible.

You do not see him clearly.

And so it's one of the reasons why we want to continually open up God's word.

Right?

We want to we want to be able to see him clearly, and every page of this book shows us who he is, it shows us who we are in light of his glory and grace.

And it helps us to see these kind of faulty views of the Lord start to break down and disappear and it'd be replaced with a biblical understanding of God where our hearts are completely in love with him and surrendered to him.

He's a kind and fatherly God.

What I'm gonna do right now is I'm gonna pray.

I know the worship team uh come on back up here.

I'm gonna pray that the Lord would really grip our hearts this season.

As we are, you know, probably um in various different ways, um, maybe mired in stress of the season, and it's work stuff, and it's the fact that we've got to spend extra money, and maybe we haven't budgeted all of that, and our eyes easily, right, easily get off the Lord in this.

And this whole season is about Him.

So let's pray.

And I would encourage you to join me in that prayer time, in your spirit, in your heart.

Pray that the Lord would grip your heart and our hearts collectively as a church.

Join me as we pray.