Behold Your God!

Let’s open our Bibles together and turn to the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 40, and our text to study this morning is verses 9 through 11.  Isaiah, chapter 40, verses 9 through 11.

Let’s pray together that the Lord would illumine our minds and shed light upon our hearts as we prepare to read this passage and to study it together.

Father, we do pray for the power of Your Holy Spirit to accompany the preaching of Your Word, both, Father, to give me clarity and boldness and faithfulness as I preach Your Word, but also, Father, that our hearts would be tender and soft, fertile soil on which the Word of God might fall so that we would bear much fruit to the glory of God, and Lord, be comforted by the words that You have here for us this morning.  We pray this in Christ’s name.  Amen.   

Isaiah 40, verses 9 through 11.  Hear now God’s Word. 

“Go on up to a high mountain,

    O Zion, herald of good news;

lift up your voice with strength,

    O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

    lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

    “Behold your God!”

     Behold, the Lord God comes with might,

    and His arm rules for Him;

behold, His reward is with Him,

    and His recompense before Him.

    He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

    He will gather the lambs in His arms;

He will carry them in his bosom,

    and gently lead those that are with young.”

Well, dear people of God, the hardest experience of my life all occurred in one week’s time when I lost my dad and six days later I lost my sister.  So my father had pancreatic cancer, he was 94 years old, had lived a long life, but for a number of months had the cancer and it was progressing.  He was thankfully able to remain in his home until he died but I got a call one morning, I was in my office at church, got a call from a hospice nurse and the nurse said, “I just arrived at your dad’s home and everything is dark inside and the doors are locked.”  I told her where to find a key and she went into his house and my dad had passed away.  Gratefully, again, at home, peacefully.

So it was a number of days after that, my dad died on a Monday.  We gathered the following Sunday at the funeral home for the visitation for my father, and maybe 20 minutes, a half an hour into that visitation, as people were coming and they were visiting with our family, and offering their prayers and their sympathies, my sister, who is just above me in line, collapsed in the funeral home and she died of a brain aneurysm.  She was taken to the hospital.  A number of us left the funeral home.  We went to the hospital to be with her and it was clear that she was not going to live.

We were wondering what are we going to do about my dad’s funeral that is supposed to happen the next day and we went on, gathered as a family for my dad’s funeral, my sister laying there in the hospital, and the next day after that they took her off life support.  She passed away and four or five days after that we gathered for her funeral.

I tell you all of that not just to describe an overwhelming experience of grief and sorrow, but to say that as a family in the middle of all of that we were not without hope and strength and comfort and peace. 

One place where I found hope was in the confession from the Apostles’ Creed in that statement that begins the creed that goes like this:  I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

I especially found comfort from how the Heidelberg Catechism describes that statement, that confession.  The Heidelberg Catechism asks this question:  What do you believe when you say I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.  And here’s the answer, I wrote this question and answer down on a 4×6 card and carried it with me for a long time, but here’s the answer to that question:  The eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by His eternal counsel and providence, is my God and Father because of Christ His Son.

I trust Him so much that I do not doubt that He will provide whatever I need for body and soul and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world, and He is able to do this because He is Almighty God and He desires to do it because He is a faithful Father.

God as the Creator, God as my Father.  Those are the two things that became pillars and anchors for me in that hard time, that God is powerful, God is loving, God is able to uphold me, to provide all that I need for body and soul and to turn everything that happens for my good.  He is able to do it and He wants to do it.  He desires to do it because He is my Father for Jesus’s sake and I am His child.

Friends, when I come to Isaiah 40, verses 9 to 11, that is the message I get, that God is sovereign Lord and God is gentle shepherd, that God is there for us in times of crisis, in times of trouble, in times of blessing, all of that, that God is a God who is able to do what is good for His people, God is a God who desires what is good for His people. 

The simple message of Isaiah to us this morning is wherever you are, whatever you’re experiencing, whatever you’re going through, Isaiah says to us these three simple words:  Behold your God.  See Him, look to Him, behold Him this morning.  

First of all, that is a message of good news, and Isaiah declares to that, points it out to us.  It was a message of good news for Israel.  You have to think about the context that they were reading or hearing these words in.  It was a time of trouble for God’s people.  When you read the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, some people will call those chapters the book of judgment because they’re all about what God is going to do to His people because of their sin.

The southern kingdom Israel, the Assyrians are going to come and destroy them.  The northern kingdom Judah, they’re thinking to themselves, “Well, we’re going to escape.  Assyria will not conquer us,” and the Lord says, “Well, Assyria may not conquer you, but you’re not going to escape the hand of God, because of your unfaithfulness to Him.  It won’t be Assyria for you, but you, Judah, it’s going to be the Babylonians that come.”

And look at what Isaiah has to say in this 39th chapter.  Turn over a page with me to verses 6 and 7 of chapter 39, where the Lord says:  ““Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon.  Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.  And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.””

That first half of Isaiah ends with a devastating note.  Sad news, bad news, judgment is coming.

Then you turn over to chapter 40.  If chapters 1 to 39 is a book of judgment, then some have said chapters 40 on to the end of the book is a book of comfort, and that’s how it begins.  Doesn’t it?  “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God,” verse 1, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare has ended, her iniquity is pardoned, she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

There’s comfort, God says.  Sins are going to be forgiven.  The full judgment of God is going to come but that’s going to lead to full blessing for God’s people.

There are three voices that are to declare this comfort.  You see in verse 3, a voice cries.  This is a voice declaring the glory of the Lord.  In verse 6 another voice, and this is a voice that declares the enduring and abiding Word of God.  Then you come to our passage in verse 9 and there is a third voice, lift up your voice, verse 9 says, and this is a voice declaring the power and gentleness of the Lord toward His people.

This message in verses 9 through 11 is a message of good news.  You see it in verse 9:  “O Zion, herald of good news…  O Jerusalem, herald of good news.”  There is a message of hope for the people of God coming in light of everything that was said in those first 39 chapters.  Finally the page is turned, there is light, there is hope, there is gospel, there is good news for the people of God.  It is a message that is to be heralded.

Again, it’s said twice:  Zion – herald, O Jerusalem – you herald.  The word “herald” is the same kind of word that is used in the New Testament for preachers, your pastors, your preachers.  We are heralds when we preach.  We are heralding the Good News.  A herald is someone who was sent by the king to announce the message of the king.  It is the King’s message; preachers are not to come up with their own message.  We’re not to be all wise and smart and hey, I’ve got a word for you today.  No, you simply bring the message of the King.  It is His Word.  A herald does not create or make up the message but he simply says what the king has told him to say.

It is a public message, not a private message.  It is a message that is to be heralded, broadcast, spoken, shared, announced.  It is to be told to others. 

You notice here in verse 9 it is Zion and Jerusalem that are to herald this good news, so they have received the good news, Zion and Jerusalem, sort of the same thing, different ways of describing God’s people.  They have received a message of good news and they are to herald the message of good news.  They receive it and they are to declare it, not to keep it to themselves.

How are they to do this?  Well, they’re to go up on a high mountain.  That’s how the verse starts, verse 9.  It’s what’s emphatic here.  It is a message that is to be proclaimed with strength.  Lift up your voice with strength, God says.  So it is to be declared from a place and in a manner where everyone can hear it.  Proclaimed widely, loudly, confidently.  When you don’t have a microphone, you go up to a high place.  Right?  You go up so that the message, the word, the announcement can spread far and wide.

And a high mountain also expresses your confidence in the message because if you’re someone who goes up on a high mountain to declare a message, then you’re not somebody who is hiding your light under a bushel.  Right?  You’re in a public, high, visible place.  You have confidence in what you’re about to announce.

Friends, there’s a word of application here, just a small word of application tucked right in this verse, and that application is simply this, that just like for Israel the Gospel is something to be received and shared, so it is with us.  We are people who received the Gospel and we are to declare the Gospel.  We’re to proclaim the message widely.

We ourselves are, as it were, to go up on a high mountain and declare that Jesus Christ has come and Jesus Christ saves.  We’re to do this with confidence, a holy boldness, not uncertain of the message but to declare the Good News positively, clearly, firmly, vigorously, courageously, militantly.  And friends, the vigor to proclaim the message, it really comes from the nature of the message itself.  In other words, we don’t have to sort of whoop ourselves up to a bunch of strength.  No, the message that we’ve been given to declare, that message itself gives us vigor and strength.

What is that message?  Isaiah gives us two right at the end of verse 9, that simple message I mentioned already in the introduction.  Three simple words, profound message:  Behold your God.

Here’s the good news:  Behold Him.  See Him.  There He is.  Put your trust, your hope, in Him.  He is all that we and all that anyone else needs.

John Calvin put it like this.  He said the sum of our happiness consists solely in the presence of God.  This is the center of the Gospel because if we have not God, we have nothing, and if we have Him, we have everything.

Could it be any more simple than that?  Behold your God because if you have God, you have everything.  That was the word of Isaiah to God’s people and to us – Behold Him.  This is the good news that is to be received and shared.

What kind of God is He?  This is what verses 10 and 11 answer.  One answer in verse 10, another answer in verse 11.  It paints a beautiful picture of our God.  What is He like?  Well, verse 10 tells us that He is the sovereign Lord.  So behold, verse 10 says, the Lord comes with might and His arm rules for Him.  Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him.

This is a God who comes, Isaiah says.  He comes.  God was not about to leave Israel in Babylon.  Yes, the Babylonians were going to come, they were going to be exiled, but God was not about to leave His people there.  He was going to come and God will not leave you in your sin and misery when you cast yourself upon Him and behold Him.  He comes.

It’s what we’re going to celebrate in a month or so from now, as we come to that season of Advent.  We’re going to celebrate that He has come, He has come for us.

It’s what was announced on Palm Sunday when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem.  Matthew says this was all a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah:  Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold your King is coming to you.”  That’s good news.  When God comes, that’s wonderful news.  He comes, Isaiah says.

How does He do that?  Well, He comes with might.  He comes with might and His arm rules for Him.  He is the God who is able.  Like the Apostles’ Creed confession, He is the mighty Maker of heaven and earth.  He is the God who can save and deliver.  Nothing can stand in His way.  Nothing can thwart His purposes to redeem His people, to accomplish our good.  Babylon was not too big of an enemy for God and neither is our sin.  His arm rules for Him.

You know, in the Bible an arm, the arm is the symbol of strength and power.  When you meet a strong man, you look at his arms.  Right?  What are his arms like?  Don’t look at my arms.  The Lord’s arm, describing the Lord’s strength in human terms, of course, the Lord doesn’t have arms, He is a Spirit, but when the Scriptures say here that His arm rules for Him, it’s simply talking about the might of the Lord.  God extends His arm to help His people.

It’s interesting, actually, through the second half of the prophecy of Isaiah, that the arm of the Lord is talked about over and over and over again.  It makes sense.  Doesn’t it?  If this half of the book of Isaiah is the book of comfort, then for Israel, for God’s people, for us to keep hearing about the arm of the Lord is a message of comfort.  Because God’s arm is almost always acting to save, to deliver, to redeem, to rescue.  His arm is the arm of salvation.

Just listen to a couple of different places in the second half of Isaiah describing the arm of God.

Isaiah 52:10.  We read it earlier in the service:  “The Lord has bared His holy arm.”  Put it in our terms, He has rolled up His sleeve.  “He has bared His holy arm before the eyes of the nations and all of the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

Or Isaiah 53:1, that great chapter about the servant of the Lord who was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  How does that chapter start?  “Who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  How’s it going to be revealed in this suffering servant who lays down His life?

One more place, Isaiah 59:10:  “The Lord saw that there was no one to intercede, then His own arm brought Him salvation and His righteousness upheld Him.”

You see, our God is a God who comes with might to save.  That was the grand announcement to Israel; it is the announcement to us this morning.  He comes in might and the rest of verse 10 says He also come with His reward.  His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him.

Friends, this is an image of an army that has gone off to battle or a king who has gone off to battle and when he is victorious in battle, he comes back and he has all of the spoils of war along with him, the things that he has accomplished and won.  His reward, his recompense.  It might be silver, it could be gold, it could be lands.  All these things could be given to a king who has been victorious.

Isaiah wants us to picture God returning from battle with His reward, but His reward is not silver, gold, lands…  The reward of God is a people.  It’s you and I.  He comes with His reward, His recompense is with Him.  Here comes the Lord with the people that He has redeemed and saved and conquered and bought and purchased for His very own.  Here He comes with His stream of people that He has made His own possession.

How do we know that?  Well, Isaiah 62 helps us with this.  The passage that we read, our assurance of grace:  “Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes;

behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.”  And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord.”

God’s reward, God’s recompense, is you and I. We are the people that God has won for Himself and made His very own.

Friends, what a great text for the assurance of grace this morning.  What a great comfort this passage gives that God is mighty to save and God has made a people for Himself.

There may be some of you here this morning who are burdened with a weight of sin and guilt.  I mean, all of us come this way, but some of us come heavy because we’ve come out of a week and we know that time after time, in different ways, various ways, we have failed God again and here we come to hear His Word of grace.  God, I need hope; will God forgive?  Can God forgive?  Can God save the loved one that you’ve been praying for day after day, and year after year?

There are others of us who come here this morning and we are discouraged.  You may be doubting because of the trials that you have experienced, that maybe as the hymn says they swept over you like sea billows.  Cancer, troubled marriage, lost job, child that isn’t walking in the ways of the Lord, chronic pain…  We could go on and on and on.  You say to yourself, Lord, how can You use this for my good, for Your glory?  Will You?  And the Lord says, Behold your God.

Remember who He is this morning.  Who are you looking towards?  Who are you seeing?  Who are you trusting in?  Behold your God.  He is the sovereign Lord. 

So often it happens in our life that we may not be able to see how God is at work, but His arm and His hand are not too short to save.  Isaiah is saying to us this morning lift up your eyes to His sovereign strength, to His mighty power, to His ability to save and to hold you in your time of need.  Behold Him.

Then verse 11.  So not only is He our sovereign Lord, but the image shifts and He is also our gentle Shepherd:  He will tend His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs in His arms; He will carry them in His bosom, and he will gently lead those that are with young.

Our God is strong and He is a shepherd.  It is not either/or, it is both and amazing.

His arm is the arm that rules for Him and His arm is also the way in which He carries His lambs.

Friends, Israel not only needed a strong Savior but they needed a shepherd God.  They’re going to go into captivity.  The temple would be toppled, their homes destroyed, the walls of Jerusalem torn down, exiled for 70 years.  And as they were gone, you know that song that was written about their experience there, we’re going to hang up our harps because how can we sing the songs of Zion while in a strange and foreign land.  This is not a place for happy songs as we live far apart from the land the Lord promised to us.

They needed a mighty God, but they also needed a God who would compassionately look on them in love.  In Israel, you may remember that prophets, priests, and kings were all called shepherds; they were shepherds over God’s people, various offices, but all shepherds.

Moses, when he goes to seminary, to train to lead God’s people, where does the Lord take him?  The Lord takes him out in the wilderness to care for His father-in-law’s sheep.  Moses, this is where you’re going to be trained to lead My people.

The same with David.  Right?  David, the shepherd boy.  David, the shepherd of Israel.  Spends time out in the pasture, taking care of sheep.  You want to be a shepherd of people?  Be a shepherd of sheep, as it were, God is saying.

The shepherds, the leaders of Israel, they were supposed to take care of God’s people and they miserably failed.  Almost an entire chapter is devoted to this in Ezekiel 34, how the shepherds of Israel failed to tend the sheep.  They did not look for the lost, they did not bind their wounds, they did not feed the sheep. 

People of God, with all of that in the background for God’s people, Isaiah says you need a shepherd and it is God who will shepherd you.  Your leaders have failed you, but God will not fail you.  God will shepherd you.  God will tend you.

The picture that I get in my mind is this, that God sets His people free from Babylon and here they come back from Babylon to Israel, and they’re wounded and they’re hurting and they’ve been exiled for 70 years, and what is the Lord doing as they make their way back to Israel?  God is carrying them in His arms.  He doesn’t just say “march along,” but God says, “I’ll carry you, I’ll tend you, I’ll hold you, and I’ll bring you home.”  That’s what He does for His people.

Shepherds do all kinds of things.  They know their flocks, they feed their flock, they lead their flock, they protect their flocks, and it’s exactly what the Lord does.  You can see a few descriptions in this verse.  He is the One who tends His flock.  Tend is a broad word, kind of all-encompassing of what the Lord does as our shepherd, but He feeds, He heals, He guides, He leads us to the green pastures of His Word, He refreshes us with springs of water, even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death He is there with us, comforting us with His rod and His staff.  He tends us.

As a shepherd He gathers, verse 11 says.  He draws His sheep together into the safety of His arms, into the safety of the sheep pen, and then He becomes the gate for the sheep so that we are secure and safe in His arms and in His care.  He carries us.

Reminds me of Deuteronomy 33:27 when Israel was coming out of the wilderness and at the door of the Promised Land, you know that’s the context for the book of Deuteronomy, and the Lord says as you’re coming out of this place with hunger and thirst and death for 40 years, that’s where you’ve lived, that’s been your life, the Lord says don’t forget that the eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.  I carry you.

He carried them through those 40 years in the wilderness.  Holding them, lifting them up.  It’s what He does as a shepherd.  Then He gently leads.

I love here how Isaiah reminds us that the Lord does all of this for His sheep while at the same time singling out for us those who are hurting and broken and weak and vulnerable because he reminds us here that it is the lambs that He carries in His arms.  It is the lambs, the young, the needy.  He carries them in His arms.  He holds them in the fold of His garment and He carries them in His bosom. 

Some translations put it like this:  He carries them close to His heart.

What does God do for those who are young and needy and hurting?  He picks them up.  That may be you this morning.  What does He do?  He gathers you together and He holds you right here.  That’s the kind of God He is.

Then with those who are young, He gently leads them.  Those that have just given birth, again, those who are recovering, those with needs, He gently leads them along.

Thinking this morning about a mom that I heard about in the last week or so whose baby has some medical complications.  Not sure what’s going to happen to that baby, and thinking, O God, what a God You are, that You take this believing mom, literally one with young, carrying her, gently leading her, there for her.

Some of you this morning again may need to be carried.  You’re weak, struggling with the cares of life, maybe young in life, maybe young in faith, confused by life, confused by the promises of God.  God has arms that will not let you go.  He is gentle and lowly.

Isaiah’s word to a broken people, to a people who saw on their horizon destruction and captivity, separation from their land and from their God, and this prophecy is one of hope.  Isaiah’s saying to us this morning, would you hope in God alone?  Would you behold your God?  I don’t know where each of you is at, but where you are, would you behold your God this morning?  God who is sovereign Lord for you, God who is gentle shepherd for you, all in one.  You need both.  Don’t you?  We need a God who is able.  We need a God who loves us, compassionately and tenderly.

Friends, He’s given us all of that in His Son.  Think about Jesus, our sovereign Lord.  Maybe a passage that we’re going to be hearing in a month from now when we enter the Advent season, “to us a child is born, to us a Son is given and the government will be on His shoulder, and His name will be called wonderful counselor,” and what’s the next one?  “Mighty God.”  Here is our God who comes in might.  It is the Lord Jesus Christ, our mighty God, who in His ministry displayed His power over disease and death, His death and resurrection disarming the rulers and authorities and putting them to open shame.

There’s nothing that can stop the triumph of His grace in your life.  Do you behold Him this morning?

Then our gentle shepherd, who says, “I’m the good shepherd who lays down My life for the sheep.  I know My sheep and My sheep know Me.  I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one can snatch them out of My hand.” 

Friends, in those days of sorrow in our family and my life, losing two loved ones in bam, bam order, the Lord said to me, “Behold Me because I’m enough for you.  Behold Me, your Creator, God, sovereign Lord.  Behold Me, the gentle shepherd, your Father, who will pick you up and hold you and carry you along.”

People of God, this is the God you need, too.  This is the God we worship.  This is the God we adore.  What a God and Savior we have.      

Let’s pray together.  Father in heaven, this simple command, Lord, we want to heed as we lift our eyes and we lift our hearts up to You this morning, to behold You and Your power, and Your glory, and Your love.  Thank you for being this God for us in Christ Jesus.  Father, if Your people are hurting and struggling this morning, if we are burdened down and weighed down, if we’re discouraged, if we are struggling in our faith, then we pray that we have eyes to see You, to be strengthened and encouraged.  Thank you for being our God.  We pray this in Christ’s name.  Amen.