Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon is titled "Waiting for a New Shepherd" and it's on Isaiah 40 verses 1 through 11 in the
2024 Advent series titled "Waiting and Hope at Christ Community."
This is my seventh sermon and as part of the residency program at Christ Community, and I really like the sermon because of two things.
Because I really love a good victory story. I love,
I really do love power on display. And in this passage,
that's what this passage is filled with. How God in the end will be victorious,
will have power over his enemies, but here's a kicker. That same hand that is raised in power
over God's enemies is also lowered in tenderness and gentleness towards God and his people.
This was preached on December 15th, 2024.
Enjoy. Good morning.
My name is Amanda, and today's scripture reading is from the book of Isaiah,
chapter 40 verses 1 through 5. Hear now the word of the Lord.
"Comfort, comfort, my people," says your God.
"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and announce to her that her time of hard service is over. Her iniquity has been pardoned, and she
has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A
voice of one crying out, "Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough
place is a plain. And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
Well, good morning, church. How are we this morning?
Good. Good. I wanted to start off this morning's message with a question, something for you to think about in your mind this morning.
What thoughts and feelings might come up when you think of
royalty, when you think of kings, or when you think of queens?
We are far removed from royalty, like that type. We don't have kings. We don't have queens. We don't have royalty.
We're removed both in space and in time, right? There are kings and queens today in the world,
but there are thousands and thousands of miles away, and
in time, they exist in a different time, right? Kings that we think of, queens that we think of.
Usually we think of things that are far, far past.
When you think of royalty, your brain might imagine images like this, right?
Really
extravagant, like stately looking images,
and these are real things. People did dress like this at a time.
There were a time when kings and queens looked like this, and even today, when kings and queens are inaugurated, they
harken back to these times and dress in these ways to elicit those emotions of
royalty.
So, when we think about royalty, we have a lot of thoughts.
We have thoughts about the past, thoughts about the present, thoughts about fiction, thoughts about reality, and we also have
feelings about royalty. I'm sure these feelings, and I know these feelings, are both positive and negative
feelings that we might have.
Good royalty means
good leadership. It means accountability. It means fair representation, right? If a good leader is good,
they have these qualities, so we might have positive feelings about being led by a good ruler, a good sovereign.
We might have feelings of hope and expectation and comfort.
But also, we tend to have, we can have, negative feelings about leaders.
Negatively, royalty might mean an abuse of power. It's a real fear for us.
It might mean unaccountability, right? A ruler who is accountable to no one is a dangerous
ruler. It might mean unfair
representation, and these things might lead to the negative feelings of tyranny, of fear, of anxiety, of hopelessness, and
despair.
These negative connotations leave us waiting and wanting
for a greater, better king, a better queen, a better leader.
And even the positive ones, when we see the positive qualities in human leaders,
we know that there's something even better that we might be wanting.
We in the West in America, we're familiar with wanting newer and better leaders.
This year was the 60th
presidential election in the United States, and
every time there's this election, there are people who want a better leader.
After this election, there are people who want a better leader. After the next election, there'll be people who want a better leader.
No matter who's in leadership, our hope is that they might be better and that their successors might be better, because we want good
leadership.
Waiting in hope is is not foreign to us.
It's a thing that we do often, and it's a theme that we're continuing on in this morning's message, for this Advent series.
And if you're new, we're going through this series of Advent called "Waiting in Hope, Journeying Through the Book of Isaiah."
And in the book of Isaiah,
there's a lot of imagery and prophecy for a better future for Israel, a better future for God's kingdom, and a better
king. In this week's passage, we're gonna see that great king.
Isaiah 40, verses 1 through 11, shows us a picture of
Jesus, the shepherd king,
who renews and restores
his people.
Jesus is the better king that we long for, that we look for.
He's the king that has all those positive qualities that elicit those positive
emotions and none of the negative. And this shepherd king is a king who offers us comfort.
He doesn't rule with a harsh hand. He offers us comfort.
A king who is far more glorious than any image or painting we've ever seen before. A king who is powerful,
but also in that power, he's a king who is tender.
Chapter 40 is the beginning of a turn in the book of Isaiah.
In the first 39 chapters, God, through Isaiah, proclaims judgment on Israel. If you'll remember,
judgment is being proclaimed on Israel because they are not trusting in their true king, in their God,
for peace. They're trusting instead in earthly kings and in earthly rulers. And it's because of
Israel's pride and arrogance in not trusting God, but turning to other people.
That Isaiah, in the first 39 chapters,
prophesies their punishment.
Have you ever been tempted to trust in people and plans that you can see,
rather than in God, whose plans you might not be able to see?
It's a tendency for us to let our gaze drift away from God into the things that we can see, even though they are not secure.
It's easy for us to do that. And when we feel the weight of these situations,
we want to cling to what is tangible, not what is intangible. We want to cling to what we can see and feel, what we can hear.
And so it makes sense that Israel will turn to other earthly rulers, because they can see and feel and hear their rule.
But, even in those situations, our trust must remain in the God who controls all of those things.
Turning to earthly kings and rulers is what Israel is being judged and punished for.
But now.
Right, those two words, but now, is a turn in the scriptures. But now, God proclaims comfort
over his people.
And Isaiah repeats this twice.
He says, "Comfort, comfort, my people," says your God.
Two weeks ago, I preached on Isaiah 6, and there was a repetition of words there, too.
Right, God told Isaiah, "Tell the people, 'Hear,' and don't hear."
He told them, "See," and "Don't see." And those repetition of words in Isaiah 6
were for Israel's judgment. But the repetition of words here is intended to show Israel, "Kindness."
"Comfort, comfort, my people."
And we see the turn from judgment to restoration and God calling Israel, also, "My people."
Earlier in the book, he called them, "This people," or, "These people."
Well, "This people," he'd go tell "This people," go tell "These people," to see and not see, to hear and not hear.
But now, he's saying,
"Comfort, my people."
"My people," is covenant language.
What God is doing is, is he's keeping his promises that he made to Israel way back in the Exodus,
where he told them that he will take them to be his people, and
he will be their God.
The King of Comfort
comforts us by keeping his covenant and by speaking tenderly to his people.
Whereas the first half of verse 42
says, "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and announce to her that her time of hard service
is over.
Her iniquity is pardoned, and she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
There is no question that God is comforting his people when he says, "Speak tenderly to them."
And "tenderly" might mean, it does mean many things, right?
But in the Old Testament context, and in the context of this passage, what "tenderly" means, what it means to do, is
to move people to take heart and believe, even when they face paralyzing situations.
Israel is paralyzed with fear.
Maybe you and I are paralyzed with fear and anxiety and negative emotions, and when God speaks
tenderly to us, when he spoke tenderly to Israel, he was
unparalyzing them, trying to draw them into a loving relationship.
That's what it means to speak tenderly, to draw people out of fear and into love.
Do you need that type of comfort in your life? Do you need God to speak tenderly to you?
There's many times where I need God to speak tenderly to me.
I'm paralyzed by the fear of my sin, of my situations, of different things going on, and when God speaks tenderly to me,
my heart begins to soften and receive and trust in him.
Do you need a king who comforts and speaks tenderly to you?
God comforts Israel with the reality that their end is not destruction, but it's redemption.
No matter what happens in the future, God's plans for Israel are that they would have life and not death.
Why is this his plans for them? Because he made them a promise.
He made a covenant with them, and he will fulfill that covenant by sending a comforting king.
Second half of verse 2 says, "Her iniquity has been pardoned, and
she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
Israel is being saved from her sins because God is a God who keeps his promises.
Israel's behavior, not Assyria, not their situation, not earthly rulers, is their behavior that has led them into exile and judgment.
This would not happen if they had kept steadfast and trusting God.
So their behavior leads to their exile and judgment.
However, it's the unmerited favor, the grace, the kindness of God, not their efforts,
that is bringing them to restoration and renewal.
Isaiah says, he says that they have received double for all her sins.
Double punishment might seem harsh or even like a mistake, like, "Oops, I gave them a little too much, right?
A little too much Assyria bearing down on them."
But God doesn't make mistakes like that, and receiving double for iniquity is actually a part of the Old Testament covenant.
You would receive double for any sin that you commit.
So God is not repaying them for unjust punishment, but he's showing them that evil, even in that double punishment,
he's showing them grace, favor, and kindness. This is good and comforting news.
That though you've sinned, though you've strayed away from God, though you've received harsh punishment for the bad you've done,
God is a gracious and comforting God who is sending a gracious and comforting King.
Jesus is a comforting King who brings that good news to you, to us.
The gospel. The gospel of God's kingdom. That through Jesus, we receive mercy and grace. Through Jesus,
despite our double punishment, we receive restoration and renewal.
Isn't that amazing how God doesn't just save you from the effects of your sin,
but he also heals you from the effects of your sin. He doesn't save you from not sending anymore,
but makes you a whole new person. Restoration and renewal. And there is comfort in that.
Are you living in fear and anxiety? Are you living in hopelessness that might be paralyzing to you?
You can find comfort in a shepherd King who keeps his promises.
Or maybe you're paralyzed by the history of your own spiritual exile or sin or spiritual debt.
Those are paralyzing thoughts to dwell in the past, but if you were in Christ, that exile is over.
If you were in Christ, Christ has atoned for your sins, and he's paid your debt.
And so we must come and respond to that tender speech of a comforting King and have abundant life as we were drawn into
that loving relationship.
Jesus is a comforting King.
And this comfort that is offered to us elicits and requires a response.
God is coming.
That's what he says, "Comfort my people." He's coming to comfort his people, and we must prepare for that.
Here's Isaiah 40 verse 3, and I like how the ESV translates this verse.
It says, "A voice cries in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'"
What does it mean to prepare a way for the Lord?
We hear that, and we might think of a lot of things, but earlier in the Old Testament,
God prepared a way for the people of Israel during the exodus out of Egypt.
So that's one way we might think of preparing a way, where God prepared a way for them to be led out of Egypt.
But this is a little bit different.
Isaiah is not saying that the way is to be prepared for God to lead people out of exile
like he did in Exodus.
Because back in the Exodus, God prepared that way. It was God who brought the people out of Egypt, right?
He says, "I did this for you, so you do this with me and for me." So back then, God did that, but in this passage,
Israel is to prepare the way for God.
So rather, this preparation of a way for the Lord is really reminiscent of how ancient people
prepared a way for the return of a victorious king.
It was like a victory/royal procession.
They would go out and make sure that the returning king had a straight path to come back to his people.
Let's read verses 3 through 4 of Isaiah 40. "A voice cries in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up.
Every mountain and hill be made low, and
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain.'"
In the scriptures, in Isaiah, in the Old Testament, wilderness, this is symbolic of desolation of Zion.
"Therefore, amid their doubt and despair, a voice is calling to them for them to be spiritually ready
for the coming of God." In the midst of this despair, a voice
tells them to get ready for God's return, and rather than preparing a path out of exile, they're preparing for the victorious
return of a coming king in all of his glory.
Are you preparing your hearts to be led out of exile, or are you preparing your hearts
for the presence of God to invade your life?
Are you preparing your hearts to receive Christ as he comes and dwells in and with you throughout your life?
And the amazing thing here is that you can, right? This isn't an abstract thing. God's not giving us an impossible task.
You can prepare the way for God to come.
We can be ready for his presence to invade our lives.
In Israel's situation, and in our own situations,
Israel could not fix the problems they were facing. You and I, we cannot fix the problems that we're facing.
We can try, and we often do try very hard to fix our own problems, but you can't do it.
This is why God is coming to them. This is why God comes to us.
Our only hope is that God breaks into human history,
that a king who comforts comes in glory to be present with his people.
And two weeks ago, I talked about the holiness of God and what that means. It requires us to be ready for it.
If we're going to experience the holiness of God,
we have to be prepared for that.
We discussed how the presence of a holy God requires us to be holy, to be clean, to be righteous.
But the weird thing is that you can't be any of those things until you're in God's presence.
Therefore, when the people of Israel hear that God is coming,
and when we hear that God is coming to be present, His people should be prompted to prepare
by being obedient, by being righteous, and by being holy.
Isaiah 40 verse 4 should be up on the screen.
It does not matter what valley you're in. It doesn't matter what mountain you're facing or how uneven or rough the path ahead of you is.
The victorious King is coming without fail.
He's coming without difficulty, and He's coming without delay,
to comfort.
And our response should be to prepare the way
for that coming. Prepare our hearts and minds to be smooth for the coming of our King.
And when the Lord comes, He will come in
glory. Verse 5 says, "And the glory of the Lord will appear in all
humanity together. We'll see it for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Israel had a rich history, a very rich history, and
vivid memories of God dwelling in their midst in previous generations.
This was the temple, the tabernacle, God's glory dwelling with the people of
Israel. And God's dwelling with them was a part of their core identity.
It shaped who they were.
Therefore when the temple was destroyed and God's presence and glory left the people of Israel,
their identity was shaken at its core. This is crucial to them.
And so when they hear verse 40, verse 5 in chapter 40 of Isaiah,
this should, as Andrew Abernethy says, should lift the eyes,
indeed the hearts of his people, by declaring that God's glory will be revealed.
The glorious God will return
for His forsaken city as
King.
God is coming back to Israel.
That glory that was with them, that shaped their identity, that is coming back as
He restores His people. And not only does it lift the eyes of Israel, it lifts the eyes progressively of all flesh.
God's glory is revealed progressively throughout the book of Isaiah.
In chapter 6, only Isaiah, the prophet, could see it. That's the vision that he was in.
Chapter 33, only the people of Israel with the eyes of faith could see God's glory. And in chapter
35, only those whose exile experience transformed them could see the glory of God.
So it was limited. But here, but now, in chapter 40, the prophet tells us that all
humanity will see God's glory.
And friends, all humanity has seen and will see that glory.
All humanity has seen that Jesus is a glorious King.
And therefore, the people of God must, again, prepare their hearts and minds
for the return and the presence of this victorious, glorious King,
who is coming victorious over sin, death, and the devil.
This King who is coming in glory to comfort, He's coming in glory to renew and restore His people from their wilderness desolation.
You and I are to prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of that King this Advent season.
Jesus has come, He has done these things, and we prepare the way by inviting Him into our lives,
by making the path straight for Him to invade our lives with His presence, and do that work internally.
And we look forward to a day where He comes back and finishes this work.
How are you preparing yourself for the coming of this glorious King?
Are you preparing yourself for God's coming, for God's presence?
And I would encourage you to do so by repenting, by turning from your sin, turning away from what is
anti-God and clinging to God for comfort, who tenderly calls.
And He tenderly calls you to bask in the light of His glory,
the warmth of His glory, both in this life and in the next.
But doing this is difficult. It is not an easy task, easier said than done.
Waiting in hope, like this, is difficult, especially when our circumstances are dim and dark.
And those hearing Isaiah's words might have asked, and we even ask,
"Well, this is all great, but how is God going to deliver us from these great, quote-unquote, great powers?"
"Man, my sin runs deep. How is God,
who I've not seen, I've not touched, I've not heard, how is He going to help me out of the depths of my sin?"
And this is the question that's loaded into the voice that's asking, "What should I cry out?"
And this is the response, "Cry out that all humanity is grass and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Indeed, the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God remains forever."
Isaiah gives the doubting here a dose of reality.
Earthly powers, all those things that you turn to to help your situation,
they're about as powerful as wildflowers.
They are no more dependable, nor should they be any more feared than a blade of grass.
The sin that you might be locked in right now is not any more powerful than the grass that you walk over.
God is. And this word "goodness," this is a Hebrew word has said in
Isaiah 40,
verse 6 through 8.
It's translated various ways in English Bibles. Some of your Bibles might say "beauty," some might say "promises," some might say "faithfulness,"
some might say "loveliness," some might say "loyalty," and these are all good translations.
But the point is that leaders may have these qualities. They may have these good, beauty, promises, faithfulness.
They might have these qualities, but they have no salvation in them.
For all the goodness of earthly leaders, there's no salvation in them. For all the faithfulness of earthly leaders,
there's no salvation in them. That is in the words of God alone.
So when you feel that you're stuck in your situation, there's no way out. Don't turn to grass.
Turn to God whose word has salvation in it.
And the same breath that blows over this grass and browns it over and destroys it,
the same breath that blows destruction on the transient goodness of humanity,
also breathes life over withered hopes.
Nations, kings, rulers, leaders, they may appear beautiful. They may make, and they do make, enticing promises that they do or don't keep.
They act faithfully, either in a fake way or a genuine way. They might seem truly lovely, and they might be truly lovely.
They might promise loyalty and keep that promise.
But compared to the goodness, the beauty, the faithfulness, the loveliness, and the loyalty of our God,
all earthly rulers, indeed all humanity, is like grass.
And it's only the Word of the Lord that breathes destruction and also gives salvific life.
God's life-giving words are great news that we should shout from the high places.
Those life-giving words, that breath of life, should be proclaimed. And this is what verse 9 says in Isaiah 40, Zion,
"Herald of good news, go up on a high mountain."
Jerusalem, herald of good news, raise your voice loudly.
Raise it and do not be afraid.
Say to the cities of Judah, "Here is your God."
So what's the message that they should shout?
Look, it's God coming back into our presence, in our midst, in all his glory.
Scholar John Oswald says that God does not save his people with programs sent from afar.
Neither does he save them with theological concepts, and I like this phrasing here, coolly administered from on high.
He comes.
He doesn't save you with mere words, right? He incarnates those words and dwells among his people. God comes.
And this is eternally great news. This is a message for the people of Israel.
For them it was he is coming, but for us it is he has come and he is coming again.
And what does he come to do? He's come to destroy his enemies and give life to his people.
God has come as a shepherd king. He has come in power and in tenderness.
Jesus is a powerful and tender king, the shepherd king.
And Isaiah speaks of this power in verse 10.
He says, "See, the Lord God comes with strength, and his power establishes his rule,
his wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him."
Jesus is a powerful king, and this language, again, is reminiscent of the exodus of Israel out of Egypt.
And I really would like to read this verse in Deuteronomy. That really captures this. It's Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 34.
And here's what God says to Israel.
"Or has a God attempted to go and take a nation as his own out of another nation,
by trials, by signs, by wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm,
by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes."
Elsewhere in Isaiah, the theme of God's power, or maybe your translation says God's arm,
symbolizes the act of God saving his people.
And so when Isaiah says that God is coming, and his power establishes his rule,
he says that God is coming and saving dominion.
He doesn't come to kind of sneak you away from his enemies. He crushes those enemies and saves you out from them.
A very, very powerful illustration of this, of God as shepherd king, and really an illusion of Jesus as
shepherd king, is a life of David.
And there's a story of David in 1 Samuel 17 that paints a vivid picture
of what God does for us.
This is 1 Samuel 17, 34 through the first portion of 36.
"David answered Saul..." Gosh, this passage is so
awesome.
"Your servant has been tending his father's sheep.
Whenever a lion or a bear
came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it.
I struck it down, and I rescued the lamb from its mouth. And if it reared up against me,
I would grab it by its fur, strike it down, and kill it.
Your servant has killed lions and bears."
Friends, Jesus is our shepherd king, the newer and greater David, who comes in saving power.
And when sin, death, and the devil snatch us away from God's fold,
when we wander off from the flock and find ourselves in the mouths of lions and bears,
Jesus comes in power to rescue us from that destruction.
When sin, death, and devil rear their ugly head, our shepherd king kills them.
He doesn't tame them.
He doesn't seek to lessen their effects. He rids them from existence. Death has died in the death of Christ.
Jesus is a powerful king, and the same shepherd who comes in power against all forces that would hurt his flock
is the same shepherd who must have gentle and tender hands to take care of little lambs.
Jesus is a powerful king.
But he's also tender.
Verse 11 says, "He protects his flock like a shepherd.
He gathers the lambs in his arms, and he carries them in the fold of his garment, and
he gently leads those that are nursing.
The same arm that is raised over God's enemy in power is
lowered to God's people in compassion."
This is the king that we are to wait for in hope, a king who comes in power and
in tenderness to rescue and restore his people, and
I invite you to experience the saving power of Jesus who can take you from
sin, death, and the devil, but treat you tenderly.
Are you living in fear of your sin?
Are you living in fear of your circumstances or what you've done or where you find yourself today?
Jesus has victoriously risen over these things.
Come to him for salvation.
Run to that shepherd, but maybe you're afraid of how God might treat you in light of these things.
God, I've lived a terrible life.
Jesus is also a tender king who said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in hearts,
and you will find rest for your souls."
Summarizing this great passage,
again, scholar Andrew Abernethy says that Isaiah 41 through 11
centers upon the hope of God's coming as king. A new chapter in God's plan is about to unfold.
God's glorious,
kingly presence of ages past will manifest itself again in
a universal fashion, and he will save his flock as a mighty and tender
king.
This is Jesus, the shepherd king who renews and restores his people.
He comes to comfort, he comes in glory, he comes in power, and he comes also in tenderness.
And today we celebrate the fact that Jesus, our shepherd, has come, and we look forward to his glorious return.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you that regardless of our circumstances and situations,
you are a God that is forever, and
your words of life are forever.
And King Jesus, we pray that whenever we need comfort, that you would comfort us. Wherever we need to see your glory,
God, that you would lift our eyes up to gaze upon your beauty.
Wherever we need power, that you would come in saving
dominion.
God, when we need your tenderness, that you would show us just how
gentle and lowly you are.
And it's in your name we pray.
Amen.