Strength for the New Year

Well, hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is René, another one of the pastors here, and we wrap up our Advent series this weekend perched on the edge of a brand new year. And you gotta know that every single person on the planet is hoping that 2021 is a better year than 2020. There's hope. And yet, if you believe the polls, most of us are afraid of it, afraid of this new year. 50% of Americans said that they feel afraid of 2021. 66% of young adults say right now they feel afraid of the future. Numbers have never been that high.

So the big question is, how can I have hope for 2021? I want to give you confidence today. I want to spend some time lessening your anxiety level about the year ahead. But how? Because the key is not just positive thinking. No, because I mean, positive thinking is fine, but it can only get you so far. Sooner or later, you encounter a circumstance or you have a year where positive thinking just isn't enough. You and I have to have a source of hope that goes beyond our own resources.

Well, the most beyond myself source of hope that I know is God. And so the real key to hope in my future is knowing God. And the more I know God, the more hopeful I'm going to feel about what's ahead in 2021. But the question is, how can I know God? I mean, part of the point of God is that really in some real ways, he is absolutely unknowable. So how can I know God or how can I know anything about God? Great question.

Last weekend, we spent some time in Isaiah 40, which was, as we saw, written to people facing an uncertain future. They were afraid of the future. They'd been exiled. Israelites taken captive by Babylonian armies around 600 BC. They were depressed and God taps a prophet Isaiah on the shoulder and says, give them prophecies of their future, of the Messiah. And we looked at Isaiah 40 and the prophecies of the Messiah last weekend.

Well, he goes on in that same chapter and the message today is really part two of the one you heard last weekend because he goes on kind of a preacher's riff about God's power. He says, if you only knew God for who he is, if you only saw God in his power and majesty, you would never be afraid of your future. So again, how can you know God? Well, here's Isaiah's clever technique. He talks about other great things on earth, which we know a little bit about, which are themselves mind-blowing. Then he says, and God is more powerful than even that.

I'll show you what I mean. You're going to love this. Grab your message notes at TLC.org/notes and let's look at five things that Isaiah points out on the second half of Isaiah 40. And you're going to want those notes because they are stuffed full of verses that are going to help you have confidence as you face this new year that's ahead of us.

For strength in an uncertain future, Isaiah says, remember first, God is bigger. God is bigger than anything you are going to face. Isaiah says, go ahead and think of anything big. Think of anything big? Well, God is bigger. That sentence is always true. God is bigger than anything you can imagine. Isaiah says, for example, verse 12, who else has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?

Let's think those phrases through. He says, who else has held the oceans in his hand? I want you for a second to think about the size of just the Pacific Ocean. Did you know that you could scrape off all the land? Think of the Alps. Think of the Himalayas. All of the land and all of the buildings in all of the continents in all of the earth dump that all into the Pacific Ocean. And do you know what you would see peeking above the surface of the water? Nothing. The Pacific is that wide and that deep. You could dump all the land into it and nothing would show above its surface. And that's just one ocean.

The oceans are vast beyond our comprehension. But Isaiah says to God, that's a drop of water in the palm of his hand. God's much bigger than that. And then Isaiah goes even bigger. He ups the ante. He says, who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Now to get an idea of how the heavens measure, I want you to do something wherever you're at. Snap your finger. Just go ahead and snap your finger with me. Snap them again.

Okay, now get this. In the time it took you to snap your fingers, if you were traveling at the speed of light, you could have circled the globe seven times. That's another seven. That's another seven. That's another seven. That is how fast the speed of light is. 186,000 miles a second. Now keep that in mind as I show you this. The American Museum of Natural History has a website where they visualize the known universe. It's the most accurate picture you could possibly get of the measure of the heavens. Every planet, star, galaxy represented to scale.

They start with the mountains of the Himalayas, the biggest land feature on earth. They zoom out to show how in comparison to the rest of the earth, those mountains are like wrinkles on a piece of paper. And then it just keeps zooming out until you see the whole earth. And then you look at all the artificial satellites orbiting the earth all the time, so high that you can't see them. Yet compared to the vastness of space, their flight paths barely skim past the surface of the earth's atmosphere.

Now let's increase our speed to light speed. If you were traveling at light speed after one second, you'd see the orbital path of the moon. And then if you traveled at light speed for one whole hour, you would barely get past Jupiter. You'd be able to see the orbits of the other planets. It would take you one whole day to be able to look back and see our solar system. And then you'd begin to see how the sun shone in comparison to the other stars.

And then traveling at light speed further and further. If you did nothing but spend your entire life in a spaceship traveling at light speed in a hundred thousand years, you'd reach the end of the Milky Way. In a hundred million years, you'd get to the end of the galaxies we have mapped so far and the black areas of the parts of the universe that we have yet to map. And if you kept on going, if you were immortal, you would get to what scientists call the end of our cosmic horizon in space, which includes light so mysterious, they call it light from the Big Bang. They don't even know where it really came from.

That is how massive the heavens are. Now look at that. What does that look like to you? To me, that looks kind of like a marble. And Isaiah is saying that's about what the measure of the universe is like to God. It's a marble that he holds in the palm of his hand. Because this verse says the measure of the heavens, God could measure that off with his fingers. Now, of course, God doesn't have hands and he doesn't have fingers like you and me, but Isaiah is just saying, think of anything you can imagine that's big. God is bigger.

So think of the anxiety you face right now. Think of any fear you have. Think of all the world's problems. Think of COVID. Think of your own grief and frustrations. God is bigger and he always will be. No matter what you could possibly imagine or face, that description is always true so he can help you no matter what you face in the year that's new. Now look at the rest of verse 12. Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?

Okay, let's talk about that. The Bible says that he picks up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand. So what is the weight of the earth? Well, I looked it up. Technically in space, of course, the weight of the earth is zero. Those of you who said that are right because in space everything is weightless. But if you want to know, listen carefully, how much everything on earth weighs on earth in earth gravity and people with a lot of time on their hands apparently came up with this one. You get this many kilograms. This is amazing. Six septillion kilograms. That's a six with 24 zeros after this.

Now many Americans who are watching this are probably saying, well, this is incomprehensible to me because it's metric. Okay, I went to a calculator online, changed it into pounds. It is the equivalent of over 13 septillion, 227 sextillion, 735 quintillion, 800 quadrillion pounds. Of course, I'm thinking I lost about 10 pounds this year so this is going to be a little bit off. But generally speaking, there's the answer. And Isaiah says, "To God that weighs as much as a grain of sand." God is bigger.

And then Isaiah says, "Not only is God bigger, God is greater, greater, more majestic." What he means is this. Think of the greatest person you have ever met. Have you ever had a brush with greatness? Have you ever met a famous person? If you have, maybe in the comments section, write down who that famous person was. Me? Probably. For me, personally, the greatest thing was I met the president of Switzerland, which is the country where I was born as a citizen. I was born in the States but was born as a citizen of Switzerland because my parents were Swiss.

And one summer I actually had dinner personally with the president of the country. And from there it goes downhill pretty fast for me. I also met John Tesh, the president of Switzerland. John Tesh, that's a pretty steep drop. And then after that, it's like Mark Spurlock. So it's not even worth mentioning. Isaiah's saying, "That's all cool, whoever you've met, but God is greater." Verse 15, look at this. He's saying, "Get all the kings, put them all together, all the nations of the world are but a drop in the bucket." There are nothing more than dust on the scales.

What he's saying is those ancient nations of the world of Isaiah's day, they had some amazing greatness and splendor. Think of Egypt, think of Babylon, think of Greece. He's saying, "Add together all the power and all the splendor in all of the societies, in all of the countries, all the empires, all the military might, governmental power, business power, all put together." Isaiah says, "All that glory drop in the bucket compared to God's majesty." Are you starting to get a sense of scale here?

And it just keeps getting more mind-blowing because next Isaiah says, "Not only is God bigger and greater, here's something that was new, something that no other ancient people believed was true of their gods." He says, "God is never tiring. He's never tiring. The other gods of the ancient world and their mythologies could actually get tired. They had to sleep. They could actually die. Why? Because they were basically just giant versions of us. And we get tired, so the gods in the ancient mythologies also got tired.

Americans, as a society right now, we're people running on empty. Most of us are just wiped out all the time, not God. Verse 28, Isaiah says, "Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. God never feels drained or confused ever, not for one second. He doesn't ever have one of those senior moments. He doesn't ever have one of those low blood sugar moments. God never sweats. God never strains. God never forgets. He has unlimited energy. His reservoir is never tapped. His battery is never drained. He can create a universe and say, "Okay, what's next?" Wow.

Now check this out. Look at these first points. Remember, God is bigger, greater, never tiring. Some of you look at this list so far and go, "So how's this supposed to make me feel any better?" That's amazing, but that actually maybe makes you feel kind of scared of God. Maybe this bigger, greater, never tiring God is never tired of being mad at me, right? Or maybe he just doesn't care about me at all. He's apathetic. He's distant from me.

Well, you know, it's interesting. Isaiah would say, "Yeah, God at first made me feel scared too." Back in Isaiah 6, he sees God in all of his power and he says, "I'm dead because I'm a very sinful man." But Isaiah goes on here to say, "I've learned that there are two more things even more amazing about God." And that's this, God is strength supplying. When you feel like, "Man, I'm tapped out. I'm so tired." Here's the good news. Isaiah says, "He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired and young men will fall in exhaustion, but those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint."

But the key is those who trust in the Lord, those who trust in the Lord are the ones who find new strength. Why is it so important? Well, if this God described here is like your bodyguard is walking by your side, this powerful being, then you and I, we have nothing to fear. But the key is to place your trust in him that he can help me get through whatever it is I'm going through. In fact, he's already there. He's already on the other side of what I'm going through because God exists outside of time. Isn't that mind-blowing?

So God is bigger, greater, never tiring, strength supplying, but it gets even better because he's the bigger, greater, never tiring, strength supplying savior. Here's the best part. I'm going to skip ahead a few chapters in Isaiah because after Isaiah sees all this evidence of the greatness and the majesty of God, God gives Isaiah a peek into the future. And Isaiah, check this out. Isaiah sees that God will one day send a Messiah. God himself is going to use his power to come and live among us. God with us, Emmanuel, as we remembered at Christmas.

And he grew up in order to sacrifice himself on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. Isaiah is saying that's the most mind-blowing example of God's power of all. Now in Santa Cruz, sometimes it's difficult to explain this. I have found that often people here in Santa Cruz understand it better if you talk about it in terms of karma in the popular West Coast sense of, yeah, bad karma has got to be paid for racking up my bad karma. Well, this is how much God loves us. He paid off all our bad karma. You know, he paid our debt.

Watch this. Isaiah says all of us like sheep have strayed away. We've left God's paths to follow our own, yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. I want you to try to get your head around this. Think of the sin that you feel guilty about. Yeah, that one that maybe nobody else knows about. Now think of all the other sins in your life. Now try to imagine them as a pile of oozing tar like substance that's overflowing this stage. Now multiply that by all the people who have ever lived from Abraham to Moses to Isaiah to Homer to Plato to Socrates all the way through to Hitler and Stalin and you and me and the 6 billion other people alive with us right now.

Now take up all their sin and pile them all up. All the lies, all the crimes, all the secrets every single person who has ever lived has added to this pile of oozing tar except one. One person, Jesus Christ, died on a cross to soak up all that sin and to forgive all the guilt associated with it and to set us free. Now that's power. That's glory. That's a marvel. All of your sin, he is more powerful than even that. He is able to give you a fresh start even over that. You really want a display of God's power. That's it. And he did it because he loves you so much you could never even begin to fathom it.

You know it's no wonder that when we see God in heaven it says we're going to fall before him and sing things like this. You are so worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power for you. Not only created all things and they exist because you created whatever you pleased but also you're worthy because your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You are worthy.

And what I want us to do right now is just kind of like hit pause on this sermon and just stay in a moment of awe and wonder of God for a moment. Let's worship him like that. You know one of our favorite worship moments from this past year was when Trent got many of you watching now to be part of a virtual Twin Lakes Church choir and sing this. Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deep in? We do. Do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through? We do. Do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do.

Is all creation running? Is a new creation coming? Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst? Isn't good the way you remind ourselves again? Is anyone worthy? Is anyone home? Is anyone able to break the sea and open the scroll? The lion or Judah who conquered the grave? He is David's root and the Lamb who died to ransom a slave. Is he worthy? Is he worthy of a blessing and honor and glory? Is he worthy of it? Yes.

And does the Father truly love us? He does. Does the Spirit move among us? He does. And does Jesus' Son and Son hold forever those He loves? He does. Does our God intend to dwell again with us? He does. Is anyone worthy? Is anyone home? Is anyone able to break the sea and open the scroll? The lion or Judah who conquered the grave? He is David's root and the Lamb who died to ransom a slave.

From every people and tribe, every nation and town, He has made us a kingdom, a priest to God to reign with His Son. Is he worthy? Is he worthy of a blessing and honor and glory? Is he worthy? Is he worthy? Is he worthy of it? He is Jesus. Is he worthy? Is he worthy? He is Jesus. He is worthy. He is worthy. He is. Amen. Amen.

And so we've looked in awe at how powerful God is. And as we face this new year, the question really becomes, okay, that's great that God's that powerful, but how can I experience God's power in my daily life? How do you and I plug into God's power? Well, really, there's three simple ways that the Bible talks about.

First, you notice it. You notice the display of God's power all around you. The Bible says God's glory is on tour in the skies. God craft on exhibit across the horizon. That's Psalm 19:1 in the message. So notice it this year in 2021 in the storms and in the waves and the clouds and the sunsets and the babies and the wildlife all around you. Change the channel in your brain from self-focused or news headline focused anxiety to what I call the God channel.

Now, all of us need to learn how to change the channel in our brain to the God channel. And this is why starting next weekend, new series for the new year based on best-selling author, Max Lucado's book, Anxious for Nothing. This is a message series all about helping you to change the channel in your brain to the God channel, to the peace channel. All the details are at TLC.org/calm. You can pick up your book here at church or we can deliver it to your place. And you can sign up for a small group. And there's also more info about all this on page two of your notes. Again, you can download those at TLC.org/notes.

But let's start 2021 intentionally by learning how to consistently change the channel from our anxious channel in our brains to God's peace. I really hope you can join us in this. So to receive strength from God's power, you notice it. And then number two, you ask for it. Just ask God for help. You know, our daughter Elizabeth's favorite prayer when she was about two or three years old was, "Help me, Jesus. Amen. Good prayer. Nothing wrong with it. The only thing wrong with that prayer is that when we grow up, we forget to pray like that. So ask for help."

How do you do that? Well, you can say something like this Bible verse from Psalm 40:16. The Lord is great, right? We've just seen evidence of that. But as for me, I'm poor and needy. May the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer. You know, when I look ahead into the day and I see a test in front of me, a trial in front of me, a task in front of me, a temptation in front of me, that looks very difficult. I don't think I can handle it. When I remember to pray this prayer and say, "God, help. Just help." You know, he really does.

So maybe for the very first time, you start with a prayer of salvation and say, "Jesus, help me. Save me." And then you keep on praying this prayer every single day, "Help me." You ask for his power in your life. You notice it. And then finally, you act in it. In other words, you go, you step forward into 2021, believing that the God that Isaiah described here in these verses is for you, is with you. The Bible says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of what? Power and love and self-discipline."

So let's determine to walk into 2021 with self-discipline and love, but also not in a spirit of fear, but of power. Why not power of ourselves in and of our own strength, but a sense that the powerful God that we've seen here in scripture is with us and is for us, you can act with confidence in that. Even if it sometimes feels like you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and who hasn't felt like that at times? You can truly fear no evil, because you know that this powerful God that Isaiah has just described is with you every step of the way, and he will never, ever, ever, ever let go of you.

And here's the final of our five favorite worship songs of 2020, and it's all about that. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, your perfect love is casting out fear. Even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms