Comfort and Power to Overcome in Troubled Times

Well, good morning, church. Good morning, main floor. Now I'll show you how to do it. Good morning, balcony. That's in honor of my brother Mark, who's on sabbatical. My name is Paul. I'm one of your pastors this year, like my brother Mark, the other redhead fellow on staff. And if you recall, when Mark went on sabbatical, what did he ask us to do, church? He said, please pray. Because if you recall on his past sabbatical, his son Luke broke his nose. And then on the other sabbatical he was on, his wife Laura fell off a horse and broke her wrist. So I have a report for you today from their, they're all doing great. I hope I didn't just jinx them. In fact, here's a shot of them on a recent houseboat trip with some of the friends of the boys, and they had a great time.

You'll notice though, because some of you are thinking, I can't see Mark's face, he's in the background. So how do we know if he's getting the required R and R he needs to come back strong? Well, you need to know a little thing about their family. They always ask Mark to stand in the back in these photos when they're swimming because Mark prefers a speedo bathing suit. And so, I think we're all thankful for that. Well, hey, again, we're so glad you're here, whether you're joining us obviously right here or in venue or on Facebook Live. And so let me encourage you now with those bulletins you picked up as you came in, to pull out your message notes. And we're continuing in our series, as you see on the screen, this is Small Faith, Big God.

And while you're reaching for those notes, I want to show you some advertisements that I think are pretty funny that tie into this. And all of these ads have a common theme. They all say, hey, you got a problem, you got a need? We've got the remedy. Here's one of my favorites, do you have asthma? Well, take up smoking, of course. It actually says in the fine print, it cures everything, smoking does. Hey, when you do take up smoking, go with the doctor's choice, camel. Now, speaking of smoking, one of my favorites here. Do you need a special gift for that child in your life? Well, why not give them that lighter smoke pack combo? Get them started early, I mean, why not? Hey, and in the fine print, it actually says, especially developed and tested for young children.

Now, let's just notice who the young kid is too. Yeah, that's right, it's me. Look, we were so poor, my father used to take Mark and I off to these places and say, now look, they're gonna make you smoke stuff, eat stuff, and drink stuff, you just do it, we need the money. Now, get in there. No, he didn't. Hey, are you bothered by pesky bugs? Well, no problem, spray everything, including the kids with DDT. It's actually a catchy phrase, no flies on me, thanks to DDT. Do you, no seriously, we all can relate to this next one. Do you need a means to calm down in your stressful workplace? Well, do like we do here, we insist that your boss installs a whiskey dispenser.

I can just imagine this in the church staff lounge. Betty, time for the prayer meeting. Just a moment, Pastor, I'm getting my second round anyway. Do you have a headache? We'll take bare aspirin, of course, or heroin. And finally, do you just not have the time or energy to work out? I mean, who does? Well, stay fit and slim with amphetamine. Look at her eyes, yeah. Okay, the second to last paragraph on this actually reads, this magic powder does more than dispense unwanted fat. It purifies and enriches the blood. It tones up the entire system and makes you feel better in health in every way. It even gives you the energy to carry on working throughout the night.

I'll bet it does. What's next, boss? All right, so why do I show you those ads? Well, they illustrate a big point today for us, and that is this. All of us have problems, crises, we need a solution, we need a remedy. And here's the thing, we have to make choices over what person or things or institutions or substances we're going to place our faith in to meet those needs, to give us the remedy we need. We have to make these choices. I can hardly think of a more critical question, because the thing we put our faith in in this life determines our destiny. I mean, the consequences go with us forever, don't they? So this is a huge question. We have to know where are we gonna put our faith?

You might say, gosh, I came today, I don't know what to trust. I don't know where to place my faith. Well, in this series, Small Faith, Big God, we're gonna look at people in the Bible, circumstances they went through, and how they, though they had little faith, didn't trust in themselves, but they trusted in a big God. And he came through for them. And from their experiences, our goal is to say, we are inspired to go out and step out in faith as well. Because you see, it's not the size of your faith that matters most. It's not the size of your faith that matters most. It's the object of your faith that matters most. Let me repeat that, it's not the size of your faith that matters most, it's the object of your faith.

Now, what do I mean by object of your faith? That sounds like a weird theological term. Very simply, check out this stool. It's gonna be the object of my faith having to do with my trust that it can hold me up. I'm believing in this stool to do the job to hold me up. Therefore, I've made it the object of my faith to hold me up. Now, here's the key too. I can have, let's say I have 100% mountaintop faith in this thing, and I have no doubts, but I sit on a bad stool. So you see, it's not me and my degree of faith that matters, it's is the object reliable. And this applies to anything in your life, your relationships, your responsibilities, your possessions.

If you go about navigating how to put those things into play in your life based on your standards or mine, you're the object of your faith in those things. And they always let us down when it's us. But if we make God the object of our faith in everything in our life, He comes through. So the choice is absolutely critical. Again, our destinies are determined by this. Well, our Bible passage today is an absolute poetic masterpiece in illustrating this truth and teaching us that all other substitutes, all other scary things, fears, if we put our trust in them, they're gonna let us down. So turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 40. In your pew Bibles is on page 511. But before we dive in, I gotta give you some context here.

By the time Isaiah's writing this, the Jews have been back in the promised land now for hundreds of years. And they've experienced the golden age under King David. But just to the generation after him to his grandkids, the country went through civil war. Now they were made up of 12 tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel. The 10 broke away and formed their northern country called Israel. The last two tribes in the south were called Judah. And both Israel and Judah during these years reneged on the agreement they made with God at Mount Sinai. And God did not consider this just run of the mill disobedience. He considered this a breach of covenant. Not just a contract, a holy covenant.

You see, God, he talks about his people in terms of their husband. We sing about how he wants to be extravagant. And that's what he wanted. He promised to bless them with everything they needed and beyond that. But both Israel and Judah reneged on that and walked away. And it broke his heart. He considered it spiritual adultery. Again, this is not just mere breach of contract. This is something that strikes to the heart. You know, it's one thing to break a deal with somebody. It's another thing if you betray or I betray a family member, a spouse, or someone close that's blood. This is the degree of hurt and betrayal we're talking about that God is feeling.

You ever had your heart broken? Anybody had a broken heart? Yeah, I sure did one time. Well, many times, but the time I remember the most. I'm totally in love. I'm in college. I come home to work, to make money, to go back to school. And I get a call about the middle of the summer from a friend. He says, hey Paul, I got some really bad news. I go, what is it? Your girlfriend, she was seduced by her old boyfriend and she's pregnant. I just tis on a slam the phone down. I was half enraged, half angry, half just totally distraught. I was in three halves. You see, I was so worked up. And I just needed somebody in the flesh to talk to you, to hatch this out. So I just walked storm down the hallway right to my parents bedroom. It's about middle of the night. Boom, I open the door. They both, I sit up. Paul, what is it my mom says? And I go, my girlfriend's pregnant. And my dad just goes. My mom, like this. Then I realized that important truth in life, context, context, context.

And so I followed up by saying, but not by me and my mom that joined my father. You ever had your heart broken that bad? Yeah, I think we all have. Well, as crazy as it may sound, God's heart has been broken too. In the same time period of history I was just talking about Jeremiah says this. God is speaking. I gave Faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all of her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear. She also went out and committed adultery. Wow, that is powerful language. So first God describes the heartache with Israel, then Judah. His heart is broken.

Well what did Israel and Judah do that was so bad that God would speak so starkly? First talk. Well, it was this. Remember they came back in the land and God said, "Don't mingle with those people in the land. They are debauched almost beyond saving. And if you get in with them, you're going to take on their practices." Well they did. And this led to not worshiping God, but to worshiping idols. And then it led to practices that were evil and it led to what God hates which was the neglect of the poor, the widow, and the orphan. And then far worse, there was a tipping point I believe where they took on one of the practices where they would take their own children and do terrible things with them.

And 2 Kings 21:16 gives us the gist of what they had stooped to. Judah's ruler King Manasseh committed deeds so evil that it's not inappropriate to discuss this in terms of a holocaust. And here's the verse. He Manasseh sacrificed his own son in the fire. I don't even need to go on. The verse ends with, "He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord." I mean how sick and deranged do you have to be to kill a child? How much even more sick and twisted do you have to be to willingly burn your own child before a false God alive? This is what they got to. And God is saying, "Enough." Now let me just give you a parenthesis here.

The next time someone, and be nice about this, the next time someone comes to you and says, "You know, I love your Jesus. He's in the peace and love and all that compassion." But God the Father, he's kind of wrathful and judgmental, isn't he? I'm not really into him or that Old Testament book. Realize that this is what we're talking about that makes God angry. And get this, the one big prophecy Jesus made where he said, "Look people, you've got to turn around or there's going to be judgment." From the time he gave the prophecy, and they ignored it, to the exacting of the judgment was 40 years. In the Old Testament, you'll never find one that short. God typically gives people even doing these things hundreds of years to turn, hundreds of years. Jesus is borderline impulsive compared to God the Father in making the judgment come to pass.

This is what we're talking about here. I mean, imagine the national guilt we'd feel if we'd waited longer to intervene in World War II, which lasted five years and 364 days. What if we hadn't intervened for 10 years, 15, the guilt we'd feel? We're talking hundreds of years here, but God finally says enough. He finally says, "Quit killing my babies, Meneseth. You will burn them in the fire no more." And in his typical pattern, God raises up another country's army, they come in, they stop the butchering and the horrors. Many people die and he hauls the people away into discipline and they call it exile. And then they come back when they've turned. And it happened to the Northern Kingdom in 722. Assyria came in and swept them away.

And now there's a new prophet on the scene. And can you imagine in the South when this new hotshot prophet named Isaiah starts saying, "Hello, Judah. Do you remember decades ago, your brothers and sisters in Israel, they got hauled away because of the evils they did? You're doing the same thing." I mean, if you lived there, you'd be like, "Oh my gosh, no. Are we going to be hauled away like them?" And Isaiah's message is as clear as it is catastrophic. He's saying, "You must turn because it's going to come in like 100 years still." They have that much time. But they don't turn eventually. And eventually Nebuchadnezzar's armies from Babylon come in in 586 BC and sweep them away.

And yet, just when you think it's all doom and gloom, a message of hope. Yes, Isaiah's prophecy is awful for them, but he's going to offer them some real remedies from the Lord in the midst of their struggles when the storm clouds are coming. And men and women, those same remedies are applicable to us today. They're so relevant because just like in Judah's case, you may have come today and maybe you've done evil things and you live with a burden of guilt. Well, like Judah, God has a message that's going to turn things around for you. He has it for all of us. And critically, these remedies God's about to offer them and ways to go about doing things, they all come from making him, not manmade things, the object of our faith.

So first, in your notes, when God is the object of my faith, I live in the comfort and peace of being forgiven. When God is the object of my faith, I live in the comfort and peace of being forgiven. Now, we've just heard about the terrible sins that Judah was guilty of. And get this, in a book of 66 chapters, Isaiah's book, after 39, God presents in all the 39 chapters almost like a courtroom, he's making his case against the nations and Judah, she's guilty too. But after 39 chapters, chapter 40 finally begins with this, finally. He says, "Comfort, oh comfort my people," says your God, "speak kindly to Jerusalem and call out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."

Now, double here is hyperbole. We're not sure if it's double in the intensity of the punishment or double in the sense of the grace they're giving. I'm not sure, but either way, the good news for them is, at this point, God's providential plan is to forgive Judah, to undo the divorce papers, and to remove her burden of guilt. Now, what about you? You come with a burden of guilt today? If God could forgive Judah, can't he forgive you or me? Don't leave today without doing business with God, either in the pew or up here afterwards with us and the Stephen ministers. Yes, sometimes forgiveness is as simple as, "God forgive me!" And other times, it's a process of restitution. We're here to help you in that. We go through it ourselves. Don't, don't leave without taking care of that.

You know, a few things are as moving as when someone pays the debt for somebody else. They're guilty and they're forgiven. So, I want you to watch this video here in a moment and know how the guilty party is actually forgiven. His sin debt is taken care of by another. Check it out. Here's Steve Hartman on the road. Seventy-eight-year-old Tana Herndon of Bethany, Oklahoma was vulnerable in every way. Her husband of 60 years had died just two weeks earlier. Her eyes so clouded with grief, she never saw it coming. You know, I really didn't know anything was going wrong until I was halfway in the car. An elderly woman visits her husband's grave only to be mugged. The mugger got away with her purse and $700, but not for long.

Police caught him and the news put his mugshot on TV. So first time you see that picture, do you recognize who that guy is? Yeah, in detail. You had no doubt? Yeah. That was your dad. Fifteen-year-old Christian Lunsford says his parents divorced when he was two and his dad has been mostly absent ever since. Last time he heard from him was a few weeks ago. His dad gave him $250 for a band trip Christian really wants to go on. But that's been the extent of his parenting recently. In fact, over the years, Christian says his dad has been in and out of jail more than half a dozen times. There's times that you just feel really low, like, is that going to be me? Am I going to end up like that?

This apple wants nothing to do with the tree, which is why after Christian heard about his dad's latest crime, he reached out to the victim and asked to meet her in this church parking lot. You think, what's going on here? He says he just had to tell her. Sorry about what happened. It needed to be done. She needed an apology from somebody. If I didn't apologize, who would? I thought that was so, so precious. Any fifteen-year-old boy who has that much conscience is extraordinary. And Christian was just getting started. He gave me $250 for my band trip, but I'm not sure if it was yours or however he got it, but I'd feel bad if I didn't give it to you. Never mind that it wasn't his crime. He paid the debt.

I accept this. I accepted the money back, and it was mine to do with what I wanted. Which brings us to the best part of this story. I want you to take your band trip. He gave it all back to him for his band trip. It was a joy to do that. Thank you. Yes. In the end, no money changed hands in that church parking lot, but they each got something tremendously valuable from the other. I feel more like my life still has a purpose. You're not who your parents are. Even if they do raise you, you can become whoever you want to be. No victims here. Steve Hartman on the road in Oklahoma City. Wow. Yeah. What a guy. And there's some good theology there.

Someone who didn't pay back the debt, got it paid for them by another. Who knows how the father's ... What his heart was at that point. I mean, he seemed to be good enough to give his son the money. Maybe he sought the widow out. I don't know, but that's not the point. His whole position was not adequate to make amends. Someone else did it for him. That's what Jesus does for you and me. So men and women, the point isn't, "Is my faith adequate?" No, it's not, and it never will be. The point is, his is. That's why we make him the object of our faith. He's adequate to pay your and my sin debt. As Corey Ten Boom put it, "God takes our sins, past, present, future. He tosses them all into the sea and he puts up a big sun. He says, "No, fishing allowed." That's what he does, and that's why he's our object of faith. So Judah was forgiven. You can be too. Don't leave without doing that business.

Well, along with God being the object of my faith for that reason, when he's also the object of my faith, I am freed from the slavery of people pleasing. How so? Look at verses six to eight in the text. It says, "All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." People wither and fade. I mean, just look around. I mean, from five years ago, we're all withering and fading even more, aren't we? All right, I'll just speak about myself. You guys look great.

I love to look at some of the celebrity then and now pictures to illustrate this. Check this out. Here's Rocky at one time in his prime. I mean, this guy was cut. Look at him, but not so much anymore, really. I mean, yeah. Or how about Mr. Cool Jack Nicholson? He's not really that wrinkly here. He's just kind of crazy looking. I don't know what happened to him, but... Or how about this young rock star? I wonder if you recognize him. And cosmetic help cannot keep now the older Steven Tyler from succumbing to nature's course. You might say, "Yeah, Paul, but what about people like Will Smith and Brad Pitt and Daniel Radcliffe, the guy who did Harry Potter? They just seem to get better looking with age." I mean, and the Harry Potter guy, he even went on to become our worship pastor. I mean, this guy's really accomplished. This is amazing.

They're going to fade too. I mean, they're just going to be like the fab four of Star Wars. It'll be not even the force can prevent wrinkling, okay? Everybody's going to go that way. So the grass and people wither, the flower fades, even our youthful vigor fades. So question, which one are you and I focusing more on? Are we focusing more on temporal looks and beauty and succumbing to people's pressures to look a certain way? And are we putting pressure on others to look a certain way? Things that are just going to fade and wither quicker than we expect? Or are we focusing on the word of God that stands forever that builds an inner beauty that never fades because it's eternal?

I can imagine if the latest celebrity pop star walked in right now. I'm sure the young people would recognize him or her and it'd probably cause a stir in the audience. But imagine if Mother Teresa were still alive and she came walking down this aisle right now. I have no doubt that by the time she got to the front row, you would be standing with me and giving her a standing ovation. Why? Because she has made God the object of her faith and the word of God that stands forever that doesn't fade has built into her a beauty of eternal lasting power and substance. I mean at the end of the day, isn't this our choice? We're all going to grow old and wrinkly, God willing. So here's our choice.

We can grow old and wrinkly and have an inner beauty that never fades because it's built on the word and God is the object of our faith or we can grow old and wrinkly and be empty. That's our choice people. That's our choice. So forgiven, freedom from people pleasing. Finally, when God is the object of my faith, I am empowered to overcome and serve Jesus. When God is the object of my faith, I'm empowered to overcome and serve Jesus. Look at the text again, picking up at verse 15. It says, "Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, he lifts up the islands like fine dust. The nations are nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing and meaningless." It doesn't mean he doesn't care about that. Remember, he sent his son to die for the whole world.

But what he's saying is this, "To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare him to?" In other words, nobody and no thing. It's silly to try. Now way before Judah's going to face Babylon, 100 years earlier, they have another nation at the doorstep. The same one that hauled away the north is now approaching on the capital city of Jerusalem. And I'll never forget my history professor, ancient history professor, describing the tactics of the ruthless Assyrians. When they conquered you, they would strip you naked, put a giant fish hook right through your cheek, and haul you away in chains to be slaves in their empire. And if that was your case, you were the lucky one.

Because the ones left behind were made into spectacles. They would put shafts on the ground, and they would impale people over them, not through the vital organs, but in a way that they would linger and last as long as possible for all to see the suffering. And if that wasn't enough, they would dig these giant Vs in the earth, and they would put you in there. And then when you breathed out, your chest cavity would depress, and you would sink a little lower. And then when you tried to take another breath, you couldn't, because you were now against the walls of the V. And with each exhale, lower, until finally you were suffocated and crushed. Those were the Assyrians, and they are at the walls of Jerusalem. It makes you, yeah.

There at the walls. Can you imagine living inside the walls of Jerusalem with an army now surrounding the city? At the time, the king was Hezekiah, and two parties came to him in response. They said, Hezekiah, let's just placate them. We'll be their vassals. We'll do whatever they say. We don't want to go through those tortures. The other party said, no, no, let's call on Egypt. Maybe they'll, we'll pay them to fight for us, or we'll all just try to flee, but it's probably too late for that. And then Isaiah steps up. He says, don't you remember? I'm the prophet for this hour. And my name Isaiah means the Lord saves. Hezekiah, get on your knees.

And Hezekiah spent the most heartfelt, deep night of prayer, I'm sure, in his life, and he begged God to save them. And watch what the Bible records God did in response to that prayer. Second Kings 19:35 and 36 say, "An angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when the men arose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed." You know, though differing on some details, even Assyrian history corroborates the halting of this advance. This is Sennacherib's prism, and it tells the Assyrian version, which chronicled the advances and the successes militarily, and all of a sudden, it mentions a withdrawal. And you give God the credit, but it mentions it. God was bigger than the situation.

You know, during World War II, I mentioned her earlier, Corrie Ten Boom, her family hid Jews and those favorable to the resistance in their home. They made a false wall in Corrie's bedroom. It's called the hiding place. You can still visit it to this day. And it was very successful for several months. But then an informant betrayed the family and turned them in. The whole family was thrown into the concentration camp, and Corrie's father was 84, and he didn't last long because of his age and the horrors of the camp. But Corrie and Betsy were able to stay together until late in 1944. Betsy also succumbed to the rigors of the camp. But before she died, she said something to Corrie that people still quote to this day. She said, "Corrie, there is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still. There is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still." And then she said, "Corrie, people are going to remember us and our testimony because we were here."

Now, it was God's timing to take Betsy home, but not Corrie. A few days later, Corrie was released from the camp due to a clerical error. This is not the Banana Republic. This is Nazi Germany known for organization. But God's hand was bigger than all of that, and Corrie was released. And she went on, and people did listen to that testimony. Many came to Christ. Many other Christians were encouraged. And still to this day, she went to 60 countries over 33 years. And her story is still being told because the object of her faith was bigger than her troubled times. And she was actually able not to just survive, but to thrive and serve Jesus in that camp. She made God the object of her faith.

In fact, she said, "You know, if you focus on the world, you're just going to get distressed. If you look within, you're going to get depressed. But if you look to God, you'll be at rest." Men and women, the nations sound scary, but they're not compared to God. Look at what the next verse says. "25, to whom will you then liken to me that I would be his equal?" Says the Holy One. "Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the one who leads them forth by their number. He calls them all by name because of his greatness of his might and the strength of his power. Not one of them is missing." Men and women, eternal life doesn't begin when you die. It begins when you become a Christian. And that then opens you up to eternity.

Our lives here are like one speck of sand compared to all the sand dunes of all the world. But like Corey, when you realize this, you have an eternal perspective. You realize that the one who has no equal is standing by you. The one who counts the stars counts you. Jesus didn't die for the stars. He died for you. And Jesus didn't become a star. Think about this. The only thing under heaven that God became incarnate and became not a star, not any creature, you a human. Does that not say you're special? That Jesus says, "I'm big enough, make me your object. I've got you in my hands." So we're forgiven. It can be free from people pleasing. We can even overcome and serve Jesus in troubled times.

So finally, Isaiah concludes his chapter with these famous words. "28, do you not know, have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable." Meaning we don't always understand him, but he knows what he's doing. "He gives strength to the weary, and to him or her who lacks might, he increases power. Though youth stroked weary and tired and vigorous, young men stumbled badly. Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength." Wait doesn't mean sit around and do this. It means to trust God expectantly. Then you can say, "They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary."

So I don't know what your situation is. Maybe you're burdened with guilt today. Or maybe you feel like the times of our lives scare me. I don't know what to do. Or you're a slave to people pleasing. Whatever your story, all of that, Assyria, Babylon, Hitler, Kim Jong-un, they are a drop in the bucket compared to God. He's here. He's eager to dispense comfort, as he says, for those who will come to him. Don't look to substitutes. Don't look to false remedies. Don't look to the world. Look to the only one who is the only object of our faith big enough to put it all together. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father and God over all the universe, please help us to embrace the truth that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by you letting us have our way in the end or by looking to substitute remedies in place of you, but by you making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience, until we are able to honestly pray what Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "Thy will be done." And Lord, when we pray like that, we will have made you the object of our faith. us all to do that. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.