CHRIST CHURCH
February 8, 2009
Isaiah 40:21-31

What a magnificent passage of Scripture is that reading from Isaiah chapter 40! It thrills me to read it and then it encourages me! Isaiah, having brought a message of comfort and hope to God's people in exile at the start of the chapter, now goes on to examine, first the majesty of their and our Creator God, and then to say- "Yes, look how tenderly this majestic God deals with us"

If you have your Bible open, you will see that from verses 21 to 26, Isaiah deals with God's greatness. A classic of its time, a book by New Testament translator J B Philips bore the title "Your God is too small". How we like to reduce God to terms and to a size that we feel comfortable with. We often don't like the idea of an omnipotent  Creator God.
Yet if we reduce God to our own understanding, we are not dealing with the God of the Bible. And if we make God fit our thoughts, we shall go wrong everywhere in our dealings with him, and ultimately in our ability to deal with the issues of life. In Isaiah chapter 55 and verse 9, God tells us, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts". Get real with me!

Even so, he has to remind his exiled people, "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" I understand that these two words are both in the imperfect tense. Has this understanding NOT been given to you?. So- to make sure, God reminds them of his greatness, his majesty. As I read these words of verses 21 to 26, the words came to me of a popular hymn:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,
consider all the works thy hand hath made.
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings me soul, my Saviour God, to thee
How great thou art!
In verse 26, God does just this. He tells them to look to the starry host. "Because of his great power, not one of them is missing" There is little more awe-inspiring than to look at the starry host. Because of our background street-lighting, we rarely see the stars properly. I recall once standing in the Sinai Desert after dark. The starry host was truly breath-taking.

Let's first this morning think of the greatness, the majesty of our God. Another hymn has the refrain "Our God reigns". A God reduced to pocket-size could never reign. And alongside and underneath all this is the fact that God is Creator. It's not considered 'cool' to say that today. The Bible starts with "In the beginning God". Everything that is comes from him. The stars are there not because of a "Big Bang" billions of years ago. Genesis 1:16 says it very simply: "He also made the stars"

We need to keep all that in mind as we move on to look at verses 27 to 31.
Verse 28 reminds us that God is Creator, and is great as is says, "The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no-ne can fathom". In contrast we do grow weary- even youths! Even young men stumble and fall- that's verse 29. How does this great God whose ways are above ours deal with frail mortals? The answer - and what an answer is in verse 31. It gives us great encouragement. Read verse 31 until you know it back to front.
"those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint"
Ever felt tired. Ever felt you'd had enough, and couldn't take any more? Join the human race! "The whole creation groans in as in the pains of childbirth" (Romans 8:21). As a mere male I can only imagine how wearying are the pains of labour! But, we are promised, God will renew our strength. A great God is big enough to do this and compassionate enough. God gives us new strength and not just human strength. God doesn't just dispense cosmic vitamin pills! And the strength is for our whole being. Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians that God would "strengthen [them] through his Spirit in [their] inner being" (3:16)

Let's notice one other thing. The promise is to those who "wait upon the Lord". The word carries the sense of 'patience' and 'trust'. In a word, the promise is addressed to believers. J A Motyer in his commentary of Isaiah says of this verse.

"The natural person is not like God but the believer is, as the unwearying, unfainting strength of the divine enters him he finds inner resources that do not fail before life's demand"

So let me conclude with a repetition of verse 31:

"those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint"