Bible Recap Week 30

This week on the Bible Recap Podcast, Pastor Eric dives into the powerful message of Isaiah 40, where God's words of comfort begin to break through after seasons of judgment. We’re reminded that true comfort is found in the incredible truth that our sin has been paid for. God has made peace with us; not because we earned it, but because of His overwhelming grace and mercy.

Pastor Eric also explores the enduring nature of God's Word. While everything in this world fades, the Word of God stands forever. His promises never expire because He is the unchanging God; faithful yesterday, today, and forever.

Join us as we reflect on the hope, comfort, and confidence we can find in a God whose grace is limitless and whose promises never fail.

Transcript

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Hey everyone, and welcome to the Water's Edge Bible Recap Podcast. This is Pastor Eric, and I'm really glad you're listening. This podcast is one of the tools that we're using this year as we read through the Bible together. It's a chance for us to think about last week's reading. What's standing out to you, what's confusing, what might God be saying to us along the way? One of the things that we are focused on in the reading is what does the reading say about God? We call it chance. How is it helping you trust you? I believe relationships move at the speed of trust. So the more you build your relationship with your family, the more you get and the more you help you is it more than the speed of interesting tools that you're using, you're gonna be working with this. So see this time as a workout, a workout that builds muscle so you can live like Jesus. Love like Jesus. I I love spending time in the Word with you like this. So let's get started. Before I get started today, I want to take a couple of minutes and or a couple of moments and just thank Pastors Julie and Kayla for uh taking the podcast last week and and a couple weeks before that. It gave me some time to rest, and I appreciate it. And I especially appreciated last week when Kayla and Julie had this conversation uh about the reading, and I hope to be able to do that again. Today, as I was looking at the readings that we're gonna look at, I just had to stay with Isaiah chapter 40. It's one of my favorite passages in our reading this week. And uh just right from the start, this is a podcast that you might want to share with someone that's that is really needing comfort, or someone that's having a difficult time, or somebody that's struggling with some tough issues, somebody that's wondering, do they matter? Does God hear me? For me, Isaiah chapter 40 is one of the chapters that um should really be an encouragement to uh individuals, especially if they can break it down and understand what Isaiah is saying. Often when people want to be comforted, um, they they really sort of think of, oh, I need an easier life. But the greatest comfort that we will ever experience in life is the ability to see God more clearly. We don't need a bigger life, we don't need, you know, this easy life, but that doesn't exist, right? We need a bigger understanding of who God is and what he thinks about you. And in this chapter, Isaiah never minimizes the suffering of Jerusalem, or in our case, the suffering that we would go through, but he magnifies the intimacy and the size of God. And I love, I love that. He begins in chapter 40 talking with this familiar sound or verse that says, Comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. What this first portion tells me is that comfort begins because our sin has been dealt with. Now, for Isaiah's audience, that would look ahead to the cross. But for those of us who live on this side of the cross, it looks back to the cross. Many Christians struggle to believe that God isn't still angry with them because of their sin or because of the things that they've done in their past. Maybe their stuff is just more than God could forgive. Maybe there are things that they still struggle with and they think, oh, God must not, he probably has a real low thought towards me or thinking towards me. But Isaiah is saying the opposite. He says, comfort begins because God has made peace with his people. Not because we deserve it, but because he is so gracious. Then we move into verses six through eight, and um we we read this sort of, and when I first read this, um, I was like, wow, this is just, this is really just gut honest. A voice says, cry out. And I said, Well, what shall I cry? What shall I cry? All people are just like grass. Um, does that make you feel good? Isaiah isn't being pessimistic, but he's he's saying in this in this idea that grass fades away. Uh people, life is fragile, people fade, government fade, empires fade, health fades. Tell me about that. Beauty fades, tell me about that. Um, careers can fade. We we all know those things. But Isaiah is saying, you know what will never fade, that will never disappear, that will never go go wandering. The word of God endures forever. God's promises never expire because God never changes. So much of what I and or we have built our life on, the things that we cherish most are the very things that keep us up worrying at night. They're temporary things. But Isaiah gently reminds us everything you're clinging to will eventually disappear, except God. Let me say that again. Everything we cling to will eventually disappear, except God. This is one of the highest views of God in all of Scripture in this next section. If you ever forget how big God is, go to Isaiah chapter 40 and look at verse 12 through 26. He starts off with these repeated questions. Who has measured? Who has directed? Who has instructed? Who has compared? Who is like God? And the answer is obvious. No one. Isaiah stacks this image upon image upon image, and the answer is no one's like God. God measures the ocean in his hand, he measures the heavens with it with his span of his arms, he weighs mountains, he calls every star by name. Kings to God are like are like dust. Nations are like a drop in the bucket. There is no one like our God. We often emphasize God's love like that or God's grace. But Isaiah in this chapter is emphasizing that nothing will ever compare to who God is. Nothing. Yet this is where Isaiah becomes this breathtaking statement. He says, the God who measures galaxies also, verse 11, he tenderly gathers his flock like a shepherd. Friend, this is stunning to me. The one who holds the universe is the same one that holds little lambs. The one who has this infinite majesty also has infinite tenderness. The word has never, the world has never known such a God. No person has ever walked this earth like God until Jesus. As I'm writing and speaking, even now, this is just this overwhelming sense of just awe in my heart for how big God is. Then as we move into verse 27, this is probably the emotional center of the chapter. Israel says, Why would anyone think that God doesn't see them? I'm sorry, Isaiah. Isaiah says, Why would anyone think that God doesn't see them? Why would anyone think that God doesn't care? Why would anyone think that God would forget about you? That he doesn't hear the cry of his people, that he doesn't hear our prayers, that God doesn't see our pain. Isaiah says, no, he does. Your circumstance has distorted the vision of God. Our circumstance doesn't allow us to see how big God is because we're looking at the circumstance and not the size of God. There's an old song, um, it's incited, uh, Does Jesus Care? And the verse says, Oh yes, he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched by our grief. Then finally, we look at the final section. Um, this is probably one of the most well-known sections of the chapter, verses 28 through 31. And uh, it's one of the most misunderstood passages, by the way, because of this. Um as a matter of fact, NIV changes the word so we can understand a little bit better. But for years, it was those who wait upon the Lord. Um, NIV changes um, uh I think that's true. Yes. Verse 31, uh, NIV says, those who hope in the Lord. They don't use the word wait, and I I I've learned it as wait, and so I struggle with that because I like, oh, it's they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. But the NIV changed it because in this waiting, some people will look at that and say, I'm just I'm not gonna do anything, I'm just waiting on the Lord. I'm just gonna sit here and wait on the Lord. Nothing's changing, but I'll just keep waiting. No, it this idea, the Hebrew word carries this idea of there's a hope and an expectancy. I'm I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Uh, it's the trusting, it's it's a looking for something with confidence. It's when I when I talked last Sunday about um the groom waiting to come to go and get his bride, there's this expectancy. It's not time yet, but just just in a minute, I can go get my bride. It isn't the waiting, it's not a passive resignation, it's this, it's a it's just this beautiful expectancy of of those who are waiting on the Lord. And then he says, we'll mount up with wings like eagles, and we all love that. The eagle illustration is so beautiful. The eagles, if you've ever seen an eagle, it doesn't flap its wings, right? They find this invisible current and they just it just carries them. Um, this year, Lisa and I, and where we live in shorewood, they we have several hawks in our in our neighborhood. As a matter of fact, our neighbors in their back tree, they have this huge nest, and um these hawks have had babies, and so we have like five or six of them um just flying all over the neighborhood. We have not had any problems with chipmunks, by the way, this year. Um, but I I noticed that I very seldom see these hawks flapping their wings. I just see them glide effortless, effortlessly. Um it's fascinating. Faith, faith is learning to glide like a hawk or like an eagle in the strength of the current of the spirit. Now, now uh also look at that same thing. We also have some uh uh some we have Lisa and I love birds watching them, and uh we have um that birds that are coming, hummingbirds, I couldn't think of hummingbirds. And have you, I mean, hummingbirds, bless our hearts, no matter how I mean, they are so little and they're so fast, and and uh it's just amazing how thin they are. Well, of course they're thin. I mean, all that movement uh and how swift they are. I sometimes think I'm more like the the hummingbird, not in the sense of I'm thin and fast, but how I how I face life, you know, just just that constant movement and and oh, it's all under my control. And I need to live in the current of the spirit like the hawk, where where I'm just soaring and trusting in God? Anybody anybody listening feel exhausted? Anybody tired of trying harder? Anybody tired of working harder or praying harder or holding everything together or spinning all the plates? Isaiah would ask us today, what if God never intended you, intended for you to carry all those things in your life alone? Waiting, waiting on God, hoping in God is not weak. Hoping in God is not is not a weakness in your life. Waiting on God is not a weakness. Having total surrender is not a weakness. Trusting in God is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength and patience and a surrendered life. Before I wrap this up, I just I just want to kind of walk through this whole thing again, real quickly. Notice the movement, the rhythm of Isaiah 40. It's beautiful. He starts off by saying, I want you to be comforted. And I know it seems like our life, our body, our situations, it's just it's just like grass. It just grows and withers away. But God's word stands forever. And people fail, and leaders fail, and health fails, and money fails, and our 401ks fail. Our own strength fails. But then Isaiah says, But if you wait on the Lord, even you will mount up with wings like eagles. Not because we become stronger, not because my body is not gonna be old, it's because God's strength becomes ours. Maybe today you're tired, maybe you've prayed the same prayer for months and you're wore out, and maybe you're wondering if God has forgotten you. Isaiah 40 gently lifts up our chin and it says, No, look, look higher. The God who measures the ocean in the hollow of his hands also gathers the lambs in his arm. The God who calls every star by name also knows your name and he knows your suffering. And if God has enough power to sustain the galaxies, he has enough grace to sustain you today. You know, the whole idea of the little book that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, Your God is too small, taught me years and years ago that I don't need an easier life. I need a bigger vision of God. Because when my view of God expands, my fears decrease. When my understanding of God grows, my circumstances seem smaller. When I focus on how much God loves me, my attention to what other people think matters less. So, my friend, no matter what you're going through, rest in the God whose infinite majesty, infinite glory, infinite power is matched only by his tender care and how much he loves you. Thanks so much for listening to the Water's Edge Bible Recap. I look forward every week to walking in the Word with you. You can find more information about Water's Edge Church at www.watersedge.faith. And you can listen to our weekly message on any platform under the Water's Edge website or by downloading the Water's Edge app.