Join us this morning either on the church’s facebook page as we start live-streaming at 10:30am
or click on this link any time after 10:15am to join us on Zoom.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86444276040?pwd=WFpoTVMxWXVkWlowYkRtM0NQNHZhUT09
You can also join us using your phone, detail are given at the end of this article.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God; born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long;
(Frances van Alstyne (1820-1915) Fanny J. Cosby)
Today I want us to look at a portion of scripture which reminds us that without God’s story we wouldn’t have our story. It was written 2,700 years ago, so it uses the language people used back then to describe the universe. Read Isaiah 40: 18-31
Any descriptions of God involve people trying to describe the indescribable. Isaiah expresses this frustration as he reminds us that there is nothing to compare God with. How would you describe a strawberry to someone who has never tasted one? We would perhaps find ourselves saying it’s a bit like a berry but with the consistency of a Kiwi fruit – but then have to clarify that it tastes nothing like a gooseberry! You see how difficult it is to describe something when we don’t have anything to compare something to.
This is the problem Isaiah and other writers in scripture had whenever they try to describe God to us. Isaiah makes it clear that there is nothing we can compare God to, but also recognises that we need some points of reference, and so points us to look at the universe as an indicator of what God is capable of doing.
In chapter 40 Isaiah asks us again and again ‘Do you not know?’ to which we could easily respond with ‘Yes, we do know!’ There is probably nothing in this passage, that we didn’t already know about God, but if you’re like me, you find it hard to keep these facts fresh in your mind because you don’t know anyone else who is omnipotent and omnipresent (all-powerful & everywhere). Both these and the other attributes of God which Isaiah describes are difficult to comprehend.
We live in a world which thinks that it can work out an answer to everything, and can explain how everything works. People have explained how an earthquake happens and how birds are able to fly and are able to give us a theory of everything, sure that someday they or someone else will be able to fully explain them to us.
This attitude makes it easy for us to find ourselves thinking the same way about our understanding of God and conclude that we already know all that there is to know about him. Yet Isaiah chapter 40 reminds us that God is so much more than we understand him to be, more than we allow him to be. Occasionally I mention people who have become famous for their faith in God (Corrie ten boom, Hudson Taylor. Joni Earkeson Tada), but they become famous for their faith in God because they never become complacent with what they know about God and are always looking to see in what new ways God is going to reveal himself to them.
The chapter ends by reminding us of how God cares for each of us (v.31). It tells us to trust (hope) in the Lord and we will receive all the strength we need – we will be like eagles. The eagle is an expert at using the power of storms to its own advantage. When a storm comes along the eagle will seek out the winds that are bringing the storm and allow that wind to lift it above the storm. The storm doesn’t go away instead the eagle uses the wind to lift it higher, and so Isaiah is telling us that the storms of life don’t have to overwhelm us, instead we can trust God to help us to grow stronger during the storms of life by going higher – drawing closer to God and letting him strengthen us and care for us. As we trust (hope) in him, God will surprise us, and we will see that God is so much more than we ever envisioned him being.
Lord, I come to you, let my heart be changed, renewed, flowing from the grace that I found in you.
And, Lord, I've come to know the weaknesses I see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love.
Hold me close, let your love surround me, bring me near,
draw me to your side; and as I wait, I'll rise up like an eagle,
and I will soar with you; Your spirit leads me on in the power of your love
Lord unveil my eyes, let me see you face to face, the knowledge of your love as you live in me.
Lord, renew my mind as your will unfolds in my life, in living every day in the power of your love.
Geoff Bullock © 1992 Word Music Inc.
Using your home phone (land-line or mobile) to join us from 10:15am
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