The Comfort of God

This evening, we come to one of my favourite passages in all of Scripture. It forms the basis for one of my favourite pieces of music, Handel’s Messiah. Last year in the lead up to Christmas, Jolene and I had the privilege to go and watch it being performed in Auckland. I’ve heard these words, “Comfort, Comfort my people” countless times, but there is nothing like hearing it ring as the first word in that beautiful piece of music, glorifying our Messiah.

This evening as we look at this passage, I want to show the satisfaction and rest that is yours in the comfort of God. We will do this by looking at the passage under 3 headings, The Promise, The Fulfillment, and The Satisfaction.   

Promise 1-2

When we were kids, we had this amazing box set of Puffin Classics Roald Dahl audiobooks on cd. They came in this cool little case that had all the iconic illustrations on it. If you ever read or currently have James and the Giant Peach or the BFG from the early 2000s, you’ll know the exact ones I’m talking about. It was 10 books across 27 CDs. So, mid-way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the CD would just stop and there’d be a mad scramble as we ejected the old CD and put the new one in so the story could continue. But had we not known that the next CD had the rest of the book on it, I imagine our enjoyment of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would have quickly dropped. Where’s the ending? What happens to Augustus Gloop or Veruca Salt? What happens to Charlie?

The same could be said here about the book of Isaiah, chapter 40 is like CD number 2 in the audiobook. I imagine that had Isaiah finished at chapter 39, it probably wouldn’t have half the influence it has today.

It says: read end of 39

But thankfully that isn’t the case!

Chapter 39 finishes with the pronouncement of judgement on Israel which their king couldn’t care less about. But immediately after, chapter 40 opens with God’s word of comfort to His people.

Read 40:1-2

This change from judgement to comfort is deeply Gospel focused because at His core, God is a God of comfort and mercy.

This pattern is one that Israel is and should be familiar with (though we can laugh at them for not recognising God’s consistency here, we too fall for the same ploy).

When Israel was at the foot of Mount Sinai, with God up on the mountain and having just received the law by which to frame their lives after that same God had saved them, what did they IMMEDIATELY go and do?

Read Ex 32:1-4

But here, upon Moses’ intercession on behalf of the people, God did not destroy Israel as He could have.

Why? Because God is a God of comfort, mercy and grace.

It is who He is. This is why we speak of God’s two words to us. Law and Gospel. The Law comes and it finds us lacking and condemns us, but immediately after God speaks to us in the Gospel of Grace. He desires to save all His people. So, He says to Israel here in Isaiah those words, “Comfort, comfort my people.”

Who does He say this to?

1.     “My people.”

- This is God’s name for all who He covenants to love and save. They describe Israel whom God saved out from under the hand of Egypt and brought through the saving waters of the Red Sea to the Promised Land.

- It also describes us now. God says of you, “My People” because He has saved you out from under the hand of sin, He has brought you through the waters of Christ’s baptism and into new life.

Pause

2.     He also describes this people as “Jerusalem” in vs 2.

-       This is all the elect of God through all time.

-       It is also God’s City, His dwelling place. This City is characterised by the right response of repentance and belief in God’s promises declared to us in Christ.

Read Rev 21:9-10, 22-23

What does the Prophet say to this People? To Us?

1.     “That her warfare is ended.”

-       Israel’s warfare with the lands around them because of their ongoing sin will soon be complete when the curse of chapter 39 comes about.

-       He also says to us that our warfare is ended. The curse is being undone. Job says to us in chapter 7, that all our days are of struggle, like that of a hired hand.

-       And we know this to be true, don’t we? We will all get up tomorrow morning and begin working or going to school. None of it is easy. People are hard to deal with, animals die and get sick, math just seems to be a jumbled swirl of numbers, it feels like we just vacuumed yesterday and already it needs to be done again.

Endless toil and struggle. Even our bodies struggle against us. We get sick, we have friends and family whose bodies just seem to be giving out on them. Each day is a new battle with sin. Anytime we feel like we start getting ahead and conquering besetting sin, it rears its ugly head again. Life is a constant cycle of struggle against our bodies, our desires, the earth.

Pause

In the same way that these words came to Israel before Her exile effecting hope in the people of God, the same is also for us today! Jesus declares now, “It. Is. Finished.” The curse has begun to be undone, Jesus has instituted the beginning of the New Creation.

We still struggle now; the same realities will face us tomorrow. But today’s declaration gives us hope as we go on because the war is won, the struggle has ended though we continue with battles.

He also says:

2.     Her Iniquity is Pardoned.

-       To be pardoned is for everything to be satisfied. Like as Israel offered up sacrificial animals (they couldn’t possibly be enough!!), but it satisfied God who pardons the sinner.

-       So too is the promise for you! Your sin has been pardoned. Your iniquity has been paid. Your struggle has ended because God has reconciled Himself to His people.

-       This is comfortable for us to hear: “be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven.”

Pause

Why Does He say this to us?

“She has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

-       God doesn’t respond to the sins of His people with the scales of justice. He doesn’t stand and balance out our sin on one side and His goodness on the other.

-       But He responds with the scales of grace. Like trying to balance out a car with feathers, God’s grace far outweighs any of our sin.

-       When God reveals Himself to Moses on Sinai, He fills the content of His name saying,

Read Ex 34:6-8

-       Where does God’s scales tip? Towards showing grace which He will do for all eternity.

Pause

Israel knew what their sin brought. I don’t imagine the judgements of Chapter 39 would have come as a surprise, no matter how sad it may make them. We too feel sad when we reap the consequences of our sin. They knew that the idol worship they always kept so close at hand required punishment.

We also know what our sin deserves.

-       We may look at Israel and laugh at their foolish idols of bronze and gold.

-       But we too have our idols. We place our affections on things that are not God. We desire to be the rulers of our lives. We want to know for ourselves good and evil. We want to be God, and we don’t want God to be God.

We take pride in having representations of God we can see. We make markers of righteousness that we build on our own that we can achieve. And we kid ourselves into thinking that these represent the God of the Heavens.

pause

But what is God’s response in grace to you?

You are to receive double blessing for all your sins. Not only are your sins paid for, and the scales balanced, but God has given to you all the benefits of Sonship through Christ. Forgiveness, righteousness, mercy and grace are all yours. He has made it such that you can come boldly to His throne of grace saying, “Father.” This is far more than double.

God promises to you this day that all this is yours. From the Lord’s hand you have received even His own Son who gave Himself for you that you may have life.

Pause

This is the great comfort of God’s Promise.

Fulfillment Vs 3-5

All these promises find their fulfillment in Christ.

Read vs 3-5.

A few weeks back I took a trip up north on my motorbike. It was an amazing trip; we took state highway 1 all the way up and finished at Russell. Generally, the road going up was fine, and then we left Whangarei. All of a sudden, every corner was bumping, and the roads seemed to dip and bounce like they do out Eastern Waikato. And it occurred to me in preparation of this sermon that it didn’t seem like the Far North was preparing to receive a visit from King Charles.

You could have hardly said of those roads that they were Preparing the way for the King.

The Prophet says to Israel though, to prepare for the coming day of salvation.

Read 3b-4.

He is calling already, before they were in exile, to prepare because the day of salvation was near. All obstacles are to be removed.

Pause

So, we are instructed also.

 There’s a beautiful altar piece by a guy named Grünewald painted for the monastery of St Anthony in Issenheim in France. It’s an incredible piece of artwork depicting John the Baptist pointing to the crucified Christ.

John the Baptist saw the day of the salvation and we find on his lips these very words before us now for their ultimate fulfillment is in Christ.

One commentator says that John the Baptist came to remind us of the posture to receive the mercy of God in Christ.

Read Luke 3:8

John sounds the alarm as it were, prepare for Christ’s mercy.

1.     He says, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” which was the fruit of Abraham.

The Pharisees claimed they need not repent, because what sin did they have? Abraham was their father. But when confronted with the coming of the Lord they saw no problem in themselves.

They did not hear the words of the prophets like Isaiah who spoke of a righteousness beyond what they could achieve.

Abraham knew this righteousness; it was believing God and His promises. This is True righteousness.

The fruit of the pharisees on the other hand is self-righteousness. It is pride that like the mountains are to be made low. It is unbelief and twisting of God’s word that is to be made like the straight road.

Pause

John stands and points at the crucified Christ, not that we would be miserable, but that we would look, marvel, and see the grace and mercy of God in Christ. We are also called to action that we would see fulfillment of God’s comfort in Christ.

Pause

But what odd ways the King comes to us in.

-      We see no earthly glory, just the shame. We don’t see any royal robes, but God’s mercy comes in the torn and divided tunic of our Lord.

This is to show all flesh the glory of our Lord.

-      Just as all the nations marvelled at the work of God to bring Israel back, so too God’s glory is revealed in God’s saving hand through the cross of Christ.

-      Some mock, like the thief on the cross, surely this can’t be God, He can’t even save Himself.

-      Our idea of glory is rise up, to conquer, to become gods. But God’s glory is the way of humility. To come down, to humbled, to become human. Christ took on Himself the weakness of human flesh, was made low, suffered and died in order that He would be raised up to take us with Him.

-      God’s glory is revealed in His saving of sinners.

Pause

-      God is glorified in us when our lives are patterned after Christ. By becoming low as He was, by coming in the humility of repentance that God might lift you up. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, make straight a highway for your God. Bear the fruit of faith. Believe the promises of God. Today is the day of salvation.

-      God’s promise of comfort is fulfilled in Christ who is yours.

pause

Satisfaction Vs 6-8

And so, we have satisfaction because “The Mouth of Lord has Spoken.”

Read vs 6-8

We can be satisfied in the comfort of God because His speaking is His doing.

In light of this we are to do 2 things: Reject and Rest.

1.    Reject

-      We are to reject fear or confidence in the work of man because as the prophet says, “all flesh is like grass.”

-      The Babylonians who sought to extinguish the Jews from the face of the earth are like grass before the Spirit of God.

-      The Romans who sought to destroy the church are like the fading flower.

-      There is no need to fear the might of man which comes against God’s people, they will wither and fade before our God.

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-      We ought also to reject confidence in the works on man.

-      We see our beauty in our creativeness, we see the world as though it is ours to conquer, and it is easy to place that where God ought to be.

-      We like Israel turning the bronze serpent in an idol, turn what are good gifts from our God into idols. Our nature is such that we try and find peace and rest in created things, and not the creator Himself.

It is like going to a museum and only examining a singular brush stroke or the little boat or house in the far background of the picture, admiring its impressive detail and beauty. But imagine telling someone you saw the most magnificent picture and they asked, “what was it of?”

And you couldn’t say because you never stepped back to see the whole thing.And yet, that brush stroke, that tree, that cloud, that eye, that face, they are all parts of a whole. It is the whole which is to be taken in. The parts are good in that they point to the whole.

-      Our nature is such that we would rather trust a politician than God. Rather trust our own ingenuity to save ourselves that the promises of God to make all things new in Christ.

-      But all these human works are ultimately from God’s Divine hand. Psalm 104:24-26, both the ship on the sea and the leviathan under the sea are God’s works.

-      In our sin, we would rather glory and rest in those things, than in the One who created them.

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Why do we focus so much on that which passes? Why are our hearts so taken to see an end where it is just a part

⁃           All flesh is like the flowering grass. It comes and goes. All that is fleshly is so. Here today, gone tomorrow. Sex, money, happiness, food, knowledge, peace, when they are all viewed as the end, will only end in death. Like observing the single brush stroke of a painting, we run after our hearts desire and consider that to be Good.

⁃           And yet, it is this running which is sin. What was the sin of Babel? A chasing after what brought them glory. This is our sin; we exchange the creator for the created as St. Paul tells us.

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2.    Rest

-      And so, the Isaiah calls us to rest. What stands when all else crumbles? “The Word of our God will stand forever.”

-      These all come from the hand of the One who is yet uncreated. Who makes that grass which passes away. It is to Him that we must turn, it is He who is the source of all Joy, in whose face we should delight to rest.

-      And yet, we do not. Why does your heart desire what are only parts of the whole?

-      All flesh is like grass. It fades and dies. Even the greatest of our creations will decay, rot and pass away. The remnants of the earths greatest civilisations are now rubble that we take photos in. Great columns reduced to hip-high rocks.

-      But the One who is uncreated, took upon Himself creation. The one who is eternal became bound Himself to time. The One who holds all life in the palm of His hand died.

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-      Why? In order that He may take us, all our sin, all our misery, our chasing after our own desires and claim us as His own. Now we are not parts, running after brush strokes on a painting, but have been made whole and redeemed and shown whole the painting. In Christ, the eternal Word we see the Father of All.

As the Apostle Peter says, this word is the word of your salvation. It alone stands. It alone is worthy of comfort, trust, rest and satisfaction. Come, drink deeply of the water of the Gospel and you will not thirst again. You will be satisfied. Come and rest in truths of the Promise that your God delights to show mercy in Christ the Son.