Comfort in Every Season: Isaiah

WELCOME

Pastor Jack Langfeldt:

Good morning. I’m Jack Langfeldt. I’m the pastor of Care and Counseling here at St. Mark, and it is so good to see you on this wintery Sunday morning. As you can see on the screen, we’re starting a new sermon series, Comfort and Joy. It’s going to be a series of six messages. Three, the first three, focusing on comfort from the Lord. The next three, the final three, focusing on the joy and blessings we receive from him and celebrate this time of year. Today we’re going to get to know Isaiah a little bit better and what he said that Chuck just read. Isaiah’s a prophet in Judah in Judea, and probably in the late eighth century BC seventh century BC up until six 80 BC and he actually worked for over 60 years. And we may know some other things about him that we can pick up from scripture.

By inference, he may have had some connections to the temple in Jerusalem. He may have been trained as either a priest or Levite. He may have had some influence in the royal court of Judea, or at least he had the opportunity to address those. He is a very high profile prophet and for centuries, pastors, teachers, scholars recognize his writing of the book of Isaiah to be a wonderful Old Testament description of the gospel of the good news. And it’s there. There’s a lot of prophecies there, but there’s also a lot of good news. So that’s who we’re going to dwell on this morning. And one of the things that draws me to Christmas on occasion most years is the music. And when I saw I had Isaiah to cover, one of the songs that came to mind is a carol God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Thank you all. Probably could sing at least one verse of it from memory, but what is interesting is the refrain. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. Comfort and joy. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. We are pretty familiar with the joy part.

We strain a little bit trying to figure out what comfort means. Tings means good news. The bringing of news, the news brings joy. Well, that makes sense, but how does news bring comfort? If you watch the daily news nowadays it doesn’t. There’s very little that is comforting. But in God’s word, in God’s eyes, there is comfort that is coming and will be a blessing to us and to all people. The text from Isaiah 40 has three words in the first two verses that tell us a little bit about comfort. It says comfort. Comfort my people says Your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her. Notice Isaiah’s commissioning commissioned to the people that will hear this prophecy, that will know it is that they are to first comfort God’s people speak tenderly to them, to Jerusalem, which stands for God’s people and then proclaim to them. It’s three ways of speaking, three different ways of touching human people with language. And each of those means something slightly different. So comfort because it’s doubled up there to a certain extent, it’s for emphasis. But the other thing that can be done with it that it could be understood by it is that comfort. Comfort may refer to comfort and keep comforting.

If you have ever been around an infant, it’s easy to comfort them when they start crying. You just have to figure out the need. But sometimes when you put them down, the child will cry again with no obvious need. So you comfort them again. So it’s comfort and keep on comforting. We’re very used to that dealing with children. God says we should be dealing with one another in that way. And then because comfort originates with God, we know that he speaks to us through his words. And when he’s talking about comforting, who’s going to share that comfort? He does through his word, but more often than not, he does it through us, through his people. And we have a tendency to speak, but to speak words of comfort and understanding is very important. Then to speak tenderly is to speak to the heart. And as I was looking at that phrase through the week, I was thinking, William Shakespeare sounds quite Shakespearean, something somebody might have advised Romeo to do, and that’s what it is, is to speak to the heart of the individual.

It’s what men do with women as they’re courting them, is the good old phrase. Parents do it with their children as we help them to grow, we do it with friends, but is this tenderness to the person’s heart? That is so important here and then we’re to proclaim. Well, to proclaim sounds easy. That’s where somebody gets up and speaks loudly and clearly and especially in this day of microphones. But to proclaim something also means to make it clear and God wants us to proclaim something and notice only the first half of verse two up there because it says proclaim to her, the her again, God’s people, the people of Judea. But in the New Testament, the church, the body of believers is often referred to as her as the bride of Christ. And so we’re seeing this already in the Old Testament in Isaiah. So as we do that, we need to figure out what we’re supposed to proclaim. And in beginning of the second half of verse two, we get this unique look. It says, proclaim that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

We sometimes struggle with phrases like hard service being completed. Try to think what that could be. A lot of times we look at it and say, oh, that’s our sins, our feelings, and we’re going to be judged on that. But hard service can also mean working for the Lord. And it’s in there to a certain extent, the difficulties and trials, the bondage to sin and death, which is part of that heart service that’s all over because God has achieved his will, has achieved our release through the life, death and resurrection of his son, and that our sins have been paid for that she received. And again, the she referring to believers, the body of believers received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. All of those have taken place, but when Isaiah wrote that they hadn’t, he was looking to the future. When they were fulfilled, as they’ve been fulfilled and continue to be fulfilled, they are taking place. So now we have to look forward with Isaiah and we have to look forward to the people of God who have always found comfort and joy in looking forward to his promises for us.

So what is he thinking about for us? He’s thinking about his love and forgiveness. He’s thinking about us as his children. He sees us as valuable, priceless to him, and he sees that because he sees us through Christ Jesus. When God looks at us, he knows the price that was paid. He knows that we are special. How do we live out that specialty, that special why he is special life that we’ve received and how do we live that through as God’s children? Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s difficult. Sometimes we get into a situation that we’re very uncomfortable with.

Sometimes we know the words, the actions that need to take place, and we don’t do them because we’re fearful. We think we’re not going to say the right words, that we’re not going to provide the information that’s necessary. Dealing with as a counselor, dealing with people. There are a lot of times when I don’t have to say anything, my presence speaks loudly. You will find that that’s true. Also, many of us experience it with our children, but many times with friends, with neighbors, with extended family even, we experience this comfort that comes from being with one another and we have that opportunity as God’s children. Now, what happens if you’re not one of God’s children?

That’s a different problem, isn’t it? God’s desire is that all men become his children. All men come into his kingdom. How do people get in? Do they have to pay a price? Do they have to live a perfect life by the commandments? They get in by God’s grace and to know about his grace, they need to be spoken to. People that are not part of God’s family generally are not people who will go and look something up in the Bible. That’s kind of their beaten track, but they will listen. They will hear what their friends say. They will hear God’s love spoken clearly by those who care for them. Doesn’t mean they’re going to turn everything in their life over to God right away for the first time they hear the good news. It can take years literally, but at some point, our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts and minds to God’s grace. God’s love, God’s forgiveness.

It takes a long time sometimes. Sometimes it’s not even seen until they’re on their deathbed bed, but God will work in them. Now, I’ve talked a lot about comfort this morning, but where does the comfort come from? Who brings comfort? You know that you know the answer. Comfort comes through Christ Jesus. That’s something we’ve learned over the years, and it is a comfort that can bless us, guide us, be with us through everything that goes on in our lives. He is comforting when you get married. He’s a comforting presence with children. And as you have children, he’s a comforting presence in illness or job loss or relocation.

He brings us comfort in all areas of our life. He shares his love, brings his love to us so that we may be comforted, that we may feel his love and compassion and that we may also share that with others. The comfort of Christ comes when we aren’t sure where we are. The comfort of Christ comes as we move through the seasons of life, through the seasons of a year even because there are ups and downs, there are challenges to be faced, and Christ is there with us each day in each way, and we understand that we don’t always fully live by it, but we do understand the last bit of that reading that Chuck had versus three to five of Isaiah is a prophetic picture that Isaiah draws as God speaks to him, and it begins with a voice of one calling the messenger’s voice prophetically looking forward to John the Baptizer, prophetically also looking ahead to his children, his children by grace, and it continues in the wilderness.

Prepare the wave for the Lord. Well, that’s our mission. That’s our task, is to be part of those among those preparing the way for the Lord, because we know he’s going to return. We know he’s going to come back on the last day to judge everyone from all time. But how do you prepare the way for the Lord? Well, Isaiah gives us an example that actually was how things were done in his day and age. He says, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. No squiggles and turns, S curves or left hand turns on red. No, right hand turns on red. None of that in the desert. It’s to be a straight highway. And that concept of a desert highway would be very meaningful to the people Isaiah’s writing to because they lived in Judea along several of those highways, several of those pathways that made for economic traffic, caravans to move and people to move and armies to move.

And then he continues. Every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill made low. Well, the way you raise a valley up is by taking dirt, gravel, whatever from the mountains and put it in. It’s a backfilling. Why do you want that? Why is that desirous something to be desired? Something to be aimed at? It’s because it makes the path easier to follow the road, easier to travel in the empire, the Roman Empire at the time of Christ. One of the things that made it powerful and economically rich was the roadways that were constructed. There are Roman roadways that are still used today because they were built that well. I don’t think we can say that in Michigan, but what we can say is this is a task that’s to be accomplished. The voice of one calling is the voice of a messenger.

A messenger sent to get the people who hear his message involved in preparing the way for the Lord. And the final part of that preparation is to make the rough ground level, to smooth it out, to make it as comfortable for travel as possible, and the rugged places are to be made plain. The rugged places are to be there for the people to see, but they’re no longer rugged. Why does Isaiah include this? Well, it’s actually something that was done during his day and age. It was done in preparation for a king or victorious general to come into a community. You wanted everything smooth and perfect and ready. I don’t know if any of you have been in a community getting ready for a presidential visit, but there’s a whole lot of stuff that gets done behind the scenes before the President comes. And some of it is getting the roadways ready. Some of it is getting things where people can see, where people can hear.

It is the same message that Isaiah has and is some message that should comfort us. It should help us to realize the power, the love, the gift that God has given us in His son, our savior Christ Jesus.

PRAYER

Let us join our hearts and minds in prayer. Lord God, heavenly Father, you have comforted us. You have spoken to us through the prophets and the apostles in your word. You have called us to be your children, and all too often we fail to hear the call. We fail to heed the call. We ask that you open us by your word, by your love, by the comfort that you have brought to us to be delivers of your love, your grace, your word to those around us and in all things. Oh Lord, we ask that we may be open in eyes and mind and heart to see how we may bring your comfort to others.