SERIES: Worship 101 Message: Who We Worship

Isaiah 40:12-31

1. in his book The Knowledge of the Holy A. W. Tozer wrote,
What comes into our minds when we think about God is
the most important thing about us. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.

2. for the next 3 weeks I am going to preach about worship. Today, who we worship; next week, why we worship; 2 weeks, how we worship.

3. today I am going to rely upon Isaiah 40 to tell us who we worship!

Israel’s story of exile – 40:27
1. in 586 B.C. the armies of Babylon invaded Israel. They sacked Jerusalem, smashed the city walls, looted & destroyed the temple. Men, women & children were force marched across 600 miles of desert to the strange land of Babylon.

2. they lost their identity, their homes, farms, possessions, businesses & place of worship. They were exiled.

3. 70 years later these words of the prophet Isaiah were given to them. The tide of events had run against them for a long time. These exiles felt forgotten & abandoned by God.

4. inspired by the Holy Spirit, the prophet Isaiah wrote to bring hope & encouragement to the exiles & to correct their wrong thinking about God. These words are just as true & relevant today as they were 2500 years ago!

Our story of exile
1. by exile I mean the sentiment expressed by 40:27, Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God. We have our stories of exile. Those times & places where we feel forgotten & forsaken by God.

2. our exile experiences take many different forms: 9/11; Katrina; a spouse or parent with Alzheimer’s; the loss of a job; a stagnate marriage; divorce; alcohol, drug or a sexual addiction; childhood abuse; depression, anxiety; broken relationships; single parenting; cancer; poor self-esteem

3. in the midst of exile Isaiah calls the people of God to think right thoughts about God. He calls them to become purely vertical in their understanding of the God they worship. This call rings true for us as well. Isaiah’s poetic language communicates the majesty & greatness of the God we worship.

God is greater than creation – 12
1. this verse reveals how God transcends his created world. He knows how much water covers the earth. He knows the distance from one end of outer space to the next. He can hold & carry the earth in his hand. He knows how much the mountains & hills weigh.

God is greater than man’s wisdom – 13-14
1. listen to the words of The Message:
Who could ever have told God what to do
or taught him his business?
What expert would he have gone to for advice,
what school would he attend to learn justice?
What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work?

2. the God we worship has no intellectual peers. He makes Albert Einstein & Stephen Hawking look like fools.

God is greater than the nations of the world – 15-17
1. the nations of the earth are nothing to him. They have no power over him. They are a drop in the bucket, a smudge on the window, dust on the floor.

2. the United States, China, India, North Korea, Iran, Iraq all add up to simply nothing to God.

God is greater than idols – 19-20
1. idolatry. Idols are a joke. The stuff of human minds & hands. Mere pieces of wood. Mere slabs of stone. Matter not Spirit. Impersonal not Personal. Dead not Living.

God is greater than the world – 21-22
1. The Message:
God sits high above the round ball of earth
The people look like mere ants
He stretches out the skies like a canvas
yes, like a tent canvas to live under

2. earth, people, heavens – he surpasses them all. In theology this is called the Transcendence of God. God stands over & above his creation. Creation comes from him but is not him.

God is greater than world rulers – 23-24
1. The Message:
He ignores what all the princes say and do
The rulers of the earth count for nothing
Princes and rulers don’t amount to much
Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted
They shrivel when God blows on them
Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind

2. for Isaiah & his readers the world ruler of note was Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Think of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin.

3. I read these words in TIME magazine this week – this is the world we live in:
Iraq is slipping deeper into the blood-red waters of civil strife. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. Hizballah is crowing in the wake of Israel’s inconclusive attacks. Iran is drawing closer to acquiring nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden & his top depty, Aymen al-Zawahiri, continue to taunt the West with messages of defiance, as jihadist cells from London to Lahore plot fresh attacks. (this is the) grim news five years after 9/11.

4. back to Isaiah 40. Do we suppose that it is really the George Bushs, the Tony Blairs, Osama bin Ladens, Hizballah’s who determine the world’s future? No. God is greater than our world’s great men & women.

God is greater than the stars – 26
1. this universe dwarfs our ability to comprehend its vast reaches. For example:
§ the sun is 110 times larger than the earth. It would take over one million earths to fill the interior of the sun
§ there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy but only 6,000 of them can be seen by the naked eye
§ the star nearest to earth – Promixa Centauri – is 4 light-years away or 25 trillion miles distant
§ Rigel, at the bottom of the star-group called Orion, is one of the brightest stars. It is 18,000 times brighter than the sun. The light from Rigel, speeding toward us at 186,272 mi. per second, takes 500 years to reach the earth. When you look skyward and spot Rigel tonight, the light you see from it started shining 20 years before Columbus set sail for the New World

2. and our God is greater than all of the stars, suns, moons, planets & galaxies he created.

God is God Alone – 18, 25
1. Isaiah rebukes the people’s wrong thoughts about God. He is the incomparable God. No one, nothing, anything can hold a candle to him. Nothing we can ever imagine will successfully stack up against God.

2. Isaiah means to humble us all & bring us to our knees before the majestic & great God we worship.

God is our Hope – 28-31
1. Isaiah’s message pivots at verse 28. For 16 verses he has been poetically highlighting the majesty & greatness of Almighty God from a variety of angles. It’s all been vertical up to here.

2. Isaiah shows how the verticalness of God intersects with the horizontalness of his exiled people in Babylon AND now in Baghdad & Beirut & New York City & the Willamette Valley.

3. God the Almighty, unlike the exiles, doesn’t grow tired or weary or confused. The good news? God Almighty shares his strength & power & understanding with those like us who do.

4. he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. This should stop us in our tracks. Isaiah’s God is a Personal God. He reaches down to us. He touches us at our points of need. He cares for us. 40:11 – He tends his flock like a shepherd, he gathers the lambs in his arms & carries them close to his heart, he gently leads those that have young.

5. the God of Isaiah 40 is our true & only & everlasting hope (31). If we hope in the Lord he will renew (our) strength. We will soar on wings like eagles. We will run & not grow weary. We will walk & not faint.

6. what are your hoping in this morning?
§ your medication for depression & anxiety?
§ that cold beer or glass of wine you look forward to every evening?
§ the promise of your grandchildren?
§ the military & economic might of USA?
§ bagging as much money as you can?
§ trim figure & newest wardrobe from Nordstrom?
§ family, friends?

7. our worship will be insipid & lackadaisical if our one & only hope is not in the Personal, Majestic & Great God of Isaiah 40. Who is also the same God of Isaiah 53.

8. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior, who was born into our world to be God among us. To live & die for us. To rise from the dead for us. And to rescue us from our sin.

9. this is who we worship.