Sermon:
His reward is with Him Sunday 11th. December, 2005
For
But for one man, the prophet Isaiah, a day in that year was a turning point in his life. For on that day, he was given a vision of the living God.
a
rich, and deep encounter on that day in the
1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord seated
on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe
filled the temple.
2
Above him were seraphs,
each with six wings: With two
wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their
feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy
is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and
thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of
unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and
my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
What a vision of the majesty and power of God………….
and what an acute sense here of the gulf that separates human life, our human life from God…..
The gulf that separates the Creator and the creature, the gulf between His being and all other beings, is a great and vast and yawning gulf. ... wrote A W. Tozer.
And reading Isaiah we catch a glimpse of that gulf – Isaiah’s deep sense of his own guilt, and sinfulness in that vision of the majesty and power of God.
But the message of the prophet Isaiah, is yet more than this, more than a vision of the glory and majesty and power of the living God. The message contained in the book of Isaiah is that the living God of power and majesty and glory has come to His people, has come to us across that gulf. As A.W. Tozer continues –
If you do not engage in deep thinking, it may not seem so amazing, but if you have given yourself to frequent thoughtful consideration, you are astonished at the bridging of the great gulf between God and ourselves.
And that’s exactly the thrilling, inspiring, uplifting message of Isaiah in chapter 40.
In Isaiah 40, the prophet
declares this truth that the everlasting God of glory and power, is One who comes to us,
The God who comes………
That’s the thrust of Isaiah’s message in verses 9 and 10:
9. You who bring good tidings to Zion, says Isaiah, go up on a high
mountain. You who bring good tidings to
your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say
to the towns of
10
See, the Sovereign LORD
comes with power, and his arm
rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his
recompense accompanies him.
What pure comfort, what healing balm, there is here in the healing Word of God. What a healing, restoring message there is here, when we consider, the news, the tidings
the
city of
The watchmen on the walls had seen again and again, the trails of dust kicked up behind urgent messengers on horseback, bringing terrifying news of an army nearing,
Babylonian, or Assyrian, or Syrian, close at hand. These experiences were seared deep into the psyche of its citizens, traumas burnt into the memories of the people.
Of seeing the city surrounded by a huge army, coming,
in conquest, relishing destruction, countless numbers of men, and horses and chariots……….. like locusts one eye-witness described them.
So in the light of that, consider the words of the prophet… and the tidings now brought: these are good tidings ! go up as high as you can, onto the echoing mountainside,
says Isaiah, and declare this…… shout, do not be afraid, but this time the whole burden of your message is Here is your God ! Coming, not in conquest, or destruction,
but in creative power, restoring his people, binding up their wounds, see, says Isaiah, His reward is with Him, riches of new life. We celebrate this, at Advent, the living
God who comes in creative power, restoring us, binding up our wounds, His reward is with Him, riches of new life for the whole earth.
And indeed, to pause for a moment this is a pattern we see again and again throughout history, how God restores His people. The Church devastated, almost wiped out…
and then, in His power, God moves and nations fall, empires crumble away, and the Church of Jesus Christ is restored. Philip Schaff, who wrote many volumes about
the history of the Church in the last century wrote:
History is, and must ever continue to be, next to God's Word, the
richest foundation of wisdom, and the surest guide…….
By that he meant, when we read the history of the Church, we see again and again, the Church devastated, almost wiped out… and then, in His power,
God moves - nations fall, empires crumble away, and the Church of Jesus Christ is restored.
The Lord comes, and comes to His people, comes to us, in saving redeeming power
And yet more than this, the message of Isaiah is this - that He comes, and comes near to us !
You know the great barriers in
and
the desert were great natural barriers for the people of
that:
4
Every valley shall be
raised up, every mountain and hill
made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged
places a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and
all
mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has
spoken."
This is a wonderful picture of how the everlasting God, coming in power, breaks down the barriers that separate us from Him, and levels the ground for us so
that
we may come to Him. Long ago a great preacher once spoke about the mountains in
He wrote:
In
human frame grows languid and enfeebled. There are many Christians like them – who live in the lowlands of unbelief - forever doubting, fearing, - but there are other believers,- he writes - who, by God's grace, have climbed the mountains of full assurance and near communion. Their place is with the eagle in his eyrie….. they are like the strong mountaineer who has breathed the fresh, free air of the Alpine regions, whose………sinews are braced, and whose limbs are vigorous. These are they who do great exploits, being mighty men, men of renown
Yet, I wonder, did that great preacher get it right ? isn’t Isaiah declaring something even more wonderful about God’s grace here ? He proclaims
that
it is not our strength, our climbing of the great summits that
brings us life. On the contrary – isn’t the new strength we
experience ours because the Lord
comes to us, in the low places of life, and restores us ? Didn’t Paul say His power is made perfect in weakness ? And doesn’t the old hymn say:
Just as I am – Your love unknown
has broken every barrier down –
now to be Yours and Yours alone,
O lamb of God I come.
In love He has broken every barrier down………….. and comes near
And He comes, finally, as Isaiah proclaims in that wonderful picture, as a shepherd to His people.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers
the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he
gently leads those that have young.
What a wonderful expression of all that we know of our loving Father’s love, and mercy and grace – What a wonderful thought, that we are carried close to His heart……
He who gently leads us.
Philip Keller* once wrote a
book entitled: A Shepherd Looks at Psalm
Twenty-Three, He tells about his experience as a shepherd in east
out to a another shepherd who didn't take very good care of his sheep: the grass on that side of the fence was eaten down to the ground; the sheep were thin, diseased,
and sometimes attacked by wild animals.
Philip Keller tells how the
sheep from the other side would line up at the fence and stare in the direction
of his green grass and his healthy sheep, They longed to come
to the other side of the fence and belong to him.
It is a wonderful thing to be able to say, to be able to say this: "The Lord is my shepherd." We belong to Him, I belong to Him. The living God, the everlasting Lord, who comes, and comes near…….
In this Advent season...........that’s exactly what we celebrate - the fact that in Jesus of Nazareth, God the living God, the everlasting Lord, who comes, and comes near…….
has come near to us, in
Jesus of Nazareth. has lived among us this same human
life, as a human being like ourselves, being born as a baby of a human mother!
The Eternal Son who dwelt with the Father in
heaven........ has taken on himself, our life, become
a human being, born among us. The living God, has come in this way,
to recreate, restore,
the wrecked and ruined life of human beings…….. restore
our human life. This is what He has done in Jesus. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has come near
that we might have life in His name.
Foretold by the prophet Isaiah, described in
the gospel of Matthew, written in the glorious words of Paul in
Philippians........... the living God, testified to by
the prophet Isaiah has come into human life in fullness in Jesus of Nazareth.
He knows our frailties and limitations and sinfulness, He knows the needs and longings of human life, sympathises with our suffering, and
knows even death itself. But through
Jesus, God has taken up into Himself our human life, with all its joys and
sorrows, and sin and death, and has transformed and recreated life for us. .
That we might have life, and life in all its fullness.
The message of Isaiah, and the message of John’s Gospel is that the living God, the everlasting Lord, who comes, has come near once and for all, and for ever, in Jesus Christ.
And because of that, we can say with the prophet, for we know this for ourselves………..
"Those
who hope in 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."
AMEN
* Leith Anderson, "The Lord Is My Shepherd," Preaching Today, Tape 136.