February 22, 2026: Behold Your God! - Matthew 6:9; Isaiah 40

We are in our 4th week on our series on the Lord's Prayer and

I've only preached so far 2 words and you guys are starting

to get very nervous. How long is this actually going

to take Pastor Dan? We will take on a few more words

today as we consider the phrase Our Father in Heaven and

consider what we can learn from these beautiful words and this

prayer our Lord has taught us briefly to review.

Remember that prayer is a conversation with God, and it's

not a monologue, but a dialogue. We're talking to each other.

We also learned that it's difficult.

It's not just difficult, it's impossible.

So if prayer feels hard, that's because it's impossible.

And without the grace and work of God working on our behalf, it

would never happen. Last week we looked at the

address of the Lord's Prayer. We talked about our Father.

A couple weeks ago we talked about it.

Embedded in that word, Father, is a whole theology of adoption.

The only way we can address God as Father is through the Gospel.

The work of Jesus, our elder brother, on our behalf allows us

to be adopted and reconciled with the Father, to have a

relationship with him. But it's not just the Father and

the Son, but it's also the Holy Spirit who is called the Spirit

of adoption, who enables us to pray and call out ABBA Father.

And so we talked about prayer being a family affair, that

Father entails adoption. Last week we talked about the

word our Our Father is plural and possessive and sets us

within the context not only of the Trinitarian God, but in his

family of adopted children, brothers and sisters in Christ,

fellow orphans brought together into a brand new family.

And I showed you this quote. It's one worthy of remembering

for your whole life. It's from Ji Packer.

It goes this way. Adoption is the highest

privilege of the gospel. The traitor is forgiven, brought

in for supper, and given the family name.

To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be

loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.

We need not only a loving Father, but we also need an able

father. And so we move into the next

phrase of the of the prayer, our Father which art in heaven.

Now our minds immediately think of heaven as a place, streets of

gold, crystal, sea, pearly gates, all the metaphors and

scripture. But really the word heavenly not

only refers to the dwelling place of God, but the fact that

our Father is heavenly, that he is totally other.

He alone is uncreated. Everything else is created.

He's in his own complete category.

He is heavenly. He is other.

And so our first point today is to learn a fancy theological

term that's in all the books. He is imminent.

He is imminent. And I'm taking these kind of in

reverse order because I want to talk about the closeness of God,

the nearness of God, the tenderness and the gentleness

and the loving kindness of God carried to us with that very

familial word, Father. But we're also going to need to

note that he is a heavenly Father, that He is omnipotent

and omniscient and has all of these characteristics that we do

not share that make Him able to answer our prayers.

He is imminent. Hard word.

You don't have to remember it. I put several synonyms up there

to help you think about something that's a little easier

to obtain. I think that's probably wise.

He's close, He's near, He's within our hearts.

We even teach the little children He lives within our

hearts. If we are Christians, Ji

Packer's favorite word to talk about the imminence of God is

that He is personal. And again, think about that term

Father. It's a human word.

It's a close term. And was he?

When we open up this amazing chapter in Isaiah that I'm super

thrilled to be preaching from this morning, we can note that

the eminence of of God, the closeness of God is dovetailed

in this chapter with his transcendence, which is the

second thing we're going to talk about his greatness, His

Holiness. And right here, nestled in this

close frame, in one chapter, we get both the deeply personal

God, the caring, tender Father, but also the great, omnipotent,

omniscient God who created, did everything.

And So what I love to do is take you into this, this beautiful

text, and have you experience both.

We've been talking for several weeks more about the imminence

or the closeness or the fatherhood of God.

So I'm not going to spend as much time on this, but I do want

to point out certain verses in chapter 40 that really highlight

his closeness to us. If you have your Bibles with

you, I'd encourage you to turn there.

We'll be in there for most of the chapter, most of the

morning, kind of follow along with me in the text.

Isaiah chapter 40 begins with a very tender introduction and you

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

can hear that closeness, that comforting language.

Isaiah 40 beginning in verse one.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God speak tenderly to

Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her

iniquity is pardoned, that he she has received from the Lord's

hand double for all our sins. Very close, comforting text, but

if you go down scan down to verse 11, you'll see another

very tender image in verse 11. He God 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 the young.

Isn't that beautiful? The God is a shepherd that would

hold each of us as precious lambs, carry them close to his

heart. So not only have we seen that

he's a comforter in the very beginning, we see this gentle

shepherd image in verse 11. But if you continue to the very

end of the passage in chapter 40 ends again with tremendously

comforting, tender language in verses 29 through 31.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He

increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be

weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.

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.

He is a reviver or a renewer. So we see kind of at the

beginning, in the middle of the and the end of this beautiful

chapter, this intimate, close, imminent God, the comforter, the

Good Shepherd, the reviver. But it's also very interesting

in Isaiah's effort to give comfort to the people and this

Oracle of comfort to the people, that the strategy isn't so much

to camp down into these tender images, but to give 1A lofty and

mighty view of what God is really like, that we may look up

and consider together his transcendence, His Holiness.

What does that word mean? He is transcendent way of

thinking about it is that he is greater than all exceptional,

but we don't mean just like a little bit better than his

creatures. He's in a totally different

category than everything that he has made.

And so you can think about it as greater than all.

Packers favorite word for transcendence is majesty,

majesty. You think about His Highness,

His otherness, his wisdom, his might, his ability, and we're

going to get to a chance to do just a little survey in this

chapter of some of these amazing truths begins not only with this

word of tenderness, but then this heralding somebody

importance. Come in time to do some serious

excavation work and make a road. Verse 3 A voice cries in the

wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the

desert a highway for our God, Get the bulldozers out.

Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain hill made low.

The uneven ground shall become level in the rough places of

plain, And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh

shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has

spoken. I'm paying attention, how about

you? A voice says, cry.

And I said, what shall I cry now?

We're going to get a contrast now to get the glory of the Lord

revealed in all of these beautiful images.

What shall I cry? Here's the message.

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the

field. The grass Withers, the flower

fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.

Surely the people are grass. The grass Withers, the flower

fades. But the word of our Lord will

stand forever. Total permanence.

It's going to continue to go through and ask you if you're

paying attention. Have you seen this?

This is good news. Behold your God.

Do the comparisons. Compare him to the greatest

things you can imagine and see how much greater He is than

those things. Verse 9 Go up on the high

mountain, O Zion, herald of good news, lift up your voice with

strength. O Jerusalem, herald of good

news, lifted up. Fear not, say to the cities of

Judah, behold your God. What an introduction.

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. And then we're going to go into

these amazing comparisons to try to get our small finite brains

to just get a little glimpse of His glory, a little glimpse of

His greatness. Sex invites us.

Do the comparisons, do the math. This should be obvious and it'll

even get kind of sarcastic. It's amazing.

Who is Measure the waters in the hollow of his hand, The waters.

The smart people estimate that there are 352.

Are you ready for this? 352 quintillion gallons.

OK, quintillion fine. How long would it take you to to

count up to 352 quintillion if you just went 1234?

You ready to do the math? It would take you 11 trillion

years to count 1 by 1 all the gallons in the ocean.

And the biblical prophet says Yep, OK, right there of his

hand. It's awesome.

We're marked off the heavens with a span.

You got a little ruler here. Mark off the heavens.

You try to do it. You can't.

Only God knows how big the universe is.

Includes the dust of the earth in a measure.

Yeah, a little measuring cup. All the dust to the earth.

We, the mountains and scales and the hills in a balance.

These things that make us feel small, they are not small to

God. His immensity is beyond

understanding, but it's not just his power and His immensity.

It talks about His knowledge. Doesn't it begin in verse 13?

Now who has measured or counseled the Spirit of the

Lord? Anybody.

Anybody teach God in class. What would that be like?

Now you know, no, it's ridiculous.

Who is counsel, The spirit of the Lord.

What man? Who shows him his counsel?

Whom did he consult and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge

and showed him the way of understanding?

And if you're not sure what the answer is, the answer is no one.

His knowledge is beyond our understanding.

It goes on to talk about the nation's.

All the nations that we worry about, that we read about in the

news or watch on TV, that make us churn with political anxiety.

What about the nation's? Behold, the nations are like a

drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the

scales. Sam Aubrey in preaching this

text says something here that I love and I have to share with

you, Sam Aubrey. You know, humans think that

they're a big deal, he's a big deal, she's a big deal, they're

a big deal. Sam Albrey says all human big

dealness on these scales registers as less than 0.

Goes on to then argue that idolatry therefore is

ridiculously pathetic. Ridiculously pathetic.

Let's continue reading. I'll start in 17.

All the nations are as nothing before him.

They are counted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness.

So we're going to ask the question.

It's a rhetorical question, you know.

Hey guys, OK, if we've just been thinking about this, let's think

about this some more. To whom then will you liken God

to what? Or what likeness?

Compare with Him? Verse 8, Verse 19, An idol.

Great idea. An idol.

Or maybe you're a rich person and so you can have a fancy

idol. An idol a Craftsman cassette and

a Goldsmith overlays it with gold and Casper silver chains.

Fancy idol. Hear how sarcastic this is?

I love the way Richard read that dripping.

Or you can't afford the fancy idol.

Fine, you're poor, you can get the cheap one.

Verse 20 He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood that will not rot. Upgrade seeks out a skillful

Craftsman to what? Set up an idol that will not

move? Awesome.

Your idol so powerful that the best that it can do is not fall

over when you set it up? Really.

You're going to worship that. You're going to worship that.

I think it just wobbled a little.

It might fall over. You're going to get that

rhetorical question again, like, are you paying attention?

Verse 21, Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told to you from Sunday school from the

beginning? Have you not understood from the

foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the

circle of the earth, and his inhabitants are like

grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

spreads them like a tent to dwell in, and brings Princess to

nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

All these rulers, all these politicians that we're so

worried about, he brings them to nothing.

Caesar Schmiezer, Dingus who? Alexander the Lane.

He died when he was 32 years old.

Didn't even make it to his 40th birthday.

Pathetic Hitler, huh? Mussolini, Meh.

Putin the puny, Trump the temporary.

In a few 100 years they're all just going to be names on flash

cards with dates that children won't be able to remember or

understand and will think that you're mean for teaching them.

They are walking shadows or players full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing. Behold your God.

Behold all the things that you're worried about that you're

concerned about. When you when you change the

frame and think about His omnipotence and His wisdom, now

you can begin to live your life in the assurance that comes from

knowing that you not only have a loving father, but an able God.

Behold your God, verse 24. Surely these Princess, they're,

they're planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken

root in the earth, when he blows on them and they wither, and The

Tempest carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me that I should be like him?

There's that question again, says the Holy One.

Now we get to take a gander at the stars.

We looked at the ocean. Now let's look up and see the

stars. Lift up your eyes on high and

see who created these stars. He who brings out their host by

number. Let's stop right there.

Just think about the number of the stars.

Ever tried to count the stars? Good luck.

Ask those people with a fancy telescope to count the stars and

they'll just give you guesstimates. 1 guesstimate 1

septillion stars. Septillion, friends.

That's one with 24 zeros behind it.

The closest star besides our sun, the closest * if you tried

to go there and of the fastest vehicle I've ever travelled in

is a jet airliner, passenger plane.

Let's just say for this. I know this is impossible

science people, but let's say you could try to go on a journey

to the closest star and the fastest thing you're used to

which is a jet airliner. How long would it take you to

get to the closest star that not our sun 5,000,000 years closest

star and there's septillion stars.

This is not bigger than God. Look at the next line in the in

the beautiful passage in front of you.

He brings out their host by number, calling them all by

name. It's actually a beautiful

juxtaposition of his immensity to handle Septillion, but the

intimacy to know them by name because we get worried we're

going to get lost in all this immensity.

How can he care about you? How can he care about me?

He knows them by name. Even the hairs on your head are

numbered. Wow, the stars.

Did you know that? Our sun is 1.3 million times

bigger than our Earth and it's still a small star.

The biggest star that we knew about and that we know about, if

it was in our solar system, would go all the way out to the

surface of Jupiter. And if you want to go that

around that in a, in a jet plane, that would take you 700

years. He knows them all by name.

He knows about your problems and your worries and your fears and

he's got it. He's got it.

Finally, you'll talk about just getting tired.

Aren't you glad that you don't pray to a God that you need to,

like, watch his schedule because you might catch him napping?

Oh, he's my father. Is he like my my dad who snoozes

in the evenings and his lady and his lazy boy after a long day at

work? No, he does not sleep or

slumber. He doesn't even get tired.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Is the echoing question. The Lord is the everlasting God,

the creator of the heavens, of the of the ends of the earth.

There it is in verse 28. He does not faint or grow weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

And that's why you can draw comfort from him because He's

the one that can give you strength and raise you up when

you feel so tired and unable and weak.

But then we need to think then about how this majesty of God is

not just limited to God the Father, it's also in God the

Son. What the Father is the Son is

the God, man who secured our redemption by living a perfect

life, giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins, raising

from the dead. And now he intercedes for us at

the right hand of the Father. The gospel message tells us to

look not only at the Father, but to look at the Son.

And I want you to see how even in his titles, in His name, you

have Heavenly Father, intimacy and transcendence, but now you

have Lord Jesus, the closeness of a personal name.

The elder brother Jesus is Lord Jesus, the King of creation, the

one by whom everything is made, the Lord Jesus.

He is the one that came from heaven.

John 313 through 15 says this. No one has ascended into heaven

except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so

must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him

may have eternal life. The Heavenly Father sent the Son

from heaven to rescue a people, to bring them to heaven.

And this is all framed at the beginning of our prayer.

Our Father, which art in heaven goes on.

In the Bible we talked about this beautiful phrase and

Isaiah, behold your God. And I love how the New Testament

uses Isaiah 40 as John the Baptist, the voice crying out in

the wilderness. As John the Baptist says, not

behold your God when he sees Jesus approaching, but behold

the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Beautiful, behold the Lamb. He makes U.S. citizens of

heaven. But now we're not only talking

about the heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus, but we have to

talk about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that animates, that

comforts, that's intimate, that's close, that's like breath

and wind and hand and is even praying for us.

He is exactly God. Everything the Father is,

everything the Son is, so is the Holy Spirit.

He is holy and he's not to be trifled with.

Friends, as the story in the book of Acts teaches us as

Ananias and Sapphira, blasphemy by lying to the Holy Spirit and

die for it. So you have again that

commingling of of in imminence and transcendence, closeness and

majesty. And that is why we sing as we

think about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy, holy, holy

Lord, God Almighty, thrice holy God, this he who is saving us,

should we believe in his name? We may have eternal life.

So what are our applications? What are our applications?

Well, first, if you're not a Christian, there's no day.

You hear me say this over and over again.

There's no day like today to put yourself in the care of a

heavenly Father. By the work of the Lord Jesus,

by the grace and the kindness of His Holy Spirit, believe in His

name and you can become a citizen of heaven.

That can be your hope. That can be your story.

And no matter what suffering or hardships you go through, your

future is secured as part of the family.

It also as an application. We can think about how and I

hope you've already feel felt it in your heart as we've been

going through this text. Just a a welling up in your

heart to worship that he's not only the close and tender one,

but he's the one who made all of this immensity that makes us

feel so small. Can we worship his name?

Our church services are designed to try to hold this almost

paradoxical thing intention together, that we can come in

and kind of celebrate the freedom of our assurance, but we

also have a reverence and an awe for being in the hands of a holy

God. So Pastor Matt, as he invokes,

he uses language to remind us that God is holy, that he is

able. We approach him with reverence

and confession of our sin and knowledge that we are not the

king on the throne. We are the subjects, those who

have been created. And as he set the tone for that,

you can build on this tender intimacy in the assurance that

is ours in the gospel. Likewise, Pastor Brighton, as he

curates the songs and picks them out.

We'd be lopsided if we were all over in this sort of dirgy

solemnness with no celebration. Or we'd be lopsided if we were

all celebrating all the time and we never had any sense of the

majesty and the glory and the power of God.

So we want to try to hit this sweet spot with of awe with

reverence, humility with boldness.

Not only are we worshipping hopefully in this dual frame,

we're praying in this dual frame.

So when we come into addressing God and beginning our request,

we remind ourselves that He is our Father, adopted by grace, by

his Son, by the Spirit, that we are praying as a corporate body

as well with brothers and sisters in Christ.

But we're not praying to somebody who can't, we're

praying to someone who can. So we pour out our supplications

and we ask God for for healing and for grace for him to undo

the injustice of the world. We ask for peace, we ask for his

provision. And you're going to see the the

Lord's Prayer shift now into the petitions.

Now that we know who we're talking to and how we're rightly

related and in the right posture and attitude to be able to have

a conversation. Now we can talk about our

requests. Requests for forgiveness, even

impossible forgiveness. Requests for daily provision,

requests for the expansion of the church, expansion of the

Kingdom of God on earth. Requests for Him to come quickly

and make everything right, but ultimately to a submission.

Your will, not mine, because you know better than I do.

And hopefully the comfort that Isaiah is talking about can wash

over us. The tenderness of being in close

to his chest we can feel, and the notion that He can renew our

strength when we just can't take one more step.

We'll be there. He is able.

My friends, this is the one to whom we pray.

So to sum up and to conclude, we pray to a heavenly Father, which

means that He's not only willing to answer us as our Father, but

he's able to answer us because of His Majesty.

And we've been concluding by having us all say the Lord's

Prayer together. If you don't know it, that's OK.

If you listen week after week, you may begin to remember.

And we get to the part when we all say something else.

We're just going to say trespasses because that's the

way my grandma taught me. So let's pray the Lord's Prayer

together with these things in mind.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy

Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our

trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, For thine

is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.