What can you give him? What is his reward? Good answer. You. His people. His flock, specifically in this passage. That's his recompense. That's his reward. And how does he do it? By double payment.

What do you see? Where in our history do you see the power of God come together with the tenderness of God except for on a Judean hillside two thousand years ago where the very power of God and the tenderness of God come together?

Here's Jesus in the garden the night he was arrested. The soldiers come with the Sanhedrin to take him away. And what does Peter do? He pulls out a sword. He's like, let's go. I'm gonna at least get an ear from one of you guys. Jesus says, put away your sword. The might that I have, the power that I have is not exercised that way. I am going to take up my arms, but they will be spread wide on a cross. That's the kind of power that I will exercise.

Reading Isaiah 40

This is Christ the King's sermons. Christ the King's sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful day in the book of Isaiah chapters 40 through 66. And so it's our custom to read God's word aloud together. This is a little longer passage but you all can do this. So, we're in the RSV version which is the Bible that's in the pews there. This is on page six nineteen. If you want to follow along there or you can read along with the screen upfront. Let's join our voices together and read the chapter from Isaiah 40 together.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A voice says cry and I say, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely, the people its grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up on a high mountain, oh Zion, herald of good tidings. Lift up your voice with strength, oh Jerusalem, herald of good tidings. 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, and behold his recompense and his recompense before him.

He will feed 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.

Who has measured in the water in the halls of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment? And who taught him the path of justice and taught him knowledge, showing him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are counted as the dust on the scales. Behold, he takes up the aisles like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for a fuel nor its beast enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

To whom then will you liken God or what likeness compare with him? The idol? A workman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts it with silver chains. Who whoever chooses for an offering wood that will not rot, he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an image that will not move.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretch out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.

Who's some fences to not and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth when he blows upon them and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me that I should be like him, as is the holy one. Lift up your eyes on high and see. Who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

Why do you say, oh Jacob, and speak, oh Israel? My way is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? — Isaiah 40

Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint. — Isaiah 40

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

We're starting a series that's going to take us through March and April through the season of Lent in this section of the book of Isaiah—Isaiah chapters 40 through 66. This is some of the most beloved scripture in all of the Old Testament. I feel like every Sunday I'm dissecting God's beautiful Word in preaching on this because it's such beautiful language, such powerful language—some of the most beloved language in the Old Testament.

Did you know that Handel's Messiah, which we roll out every Christmas time, is filled with scriptures from the Bible? Most of them come from the book of Isaiah. It was Handel's friend, a man named Charles Jennings, who was a Christian and who gathered together all these passages and gave them to Handel, George Friedrich Handel, and said, "You gotta make something out of this." Handel put it on a shelf for like a year and a half and didn't do anything with it. When he picked it up and read it, he couldn't put it down. He worked furiously without eating much or sleeping much for weeks until he finished his masterpiece, Handel's Messiah.

This has been some of the most favorite passages for many of the New Testament authors. The book of Isaiah is the most quoted book in the New Testament, and this section—this last third of the book—is the most quoted section of any portion of scripture.

Honestly, as a baby Christian, as a brand new Christian, this was the part of the Bible I underlined the most in the Old Testament. And that's not a surprise, because the early church—the beginning movement of Christianity after the resurrection of Jesus—looked to these passages in Isaiah 40 through 66 and found in startling detail the birth, the life, the teachings, the suffering, the death, the resurrection of Jesus.

So it's really appropriate for us to go at this time of year. As we walk this pathway during Lent, as we think about the cross and the resurrection, we're walking the pathway of Isaiah 40 through 66. I'm calling this "Greatest Hits" because it's like the greatest hits of the Old Testament.

Context and Background

I know it's disconcerting. If you ever try to pick up a novel in the middle, it's really confusing. You come in halfway through a movie and you bug everybody around you asking, "What's going on? Who is that? What's happening?"

So quickly, why are we picking up Isaiah halfway through?

Isaiah was a prophet in the northern part of the northern nation of Israel, and he predicted in chapters one through 39 this impending destruction on the Northern Kingdom. Israel had experienced something like a civil war, where there was a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom split. Isaiah was in the North, and he said, "God is going to allow your enemies, the Assyrians, to come and destroy our country because of the way you've walked away from the Lord."

He told the king that, and because of this, it's purported that Isaiah died by being sawn in two by that king.

But the last part of the book envisions a day when God would restore everything. In particular, the Southern Kingdom was taken away into captivity in Babylon—modern Iraq—in the spring, taken away under massive house arrest in the capital city. And it's there that the people opened up the scroll of Isaiah and took profound comfort from these words. We just read a section that begins, "Comfort, comfort." And that's exactly what we're going to dive into today as we look at this.

Probably every generation has felt like it's never been as bad as this in human history. Some of you here this morning are really struggling. And I know the political spectrum of this room is very wide, but some of you are thinking, everything's falling apart, and you need to hear the words from Isaiah. As people throughout history have come to this scroll and said, "Everything's falling apart. Where is God?"—here are the words that are offered to us. A word about God who is in charge of all things, who is in control of everything. Everything is in his hands, and he's good.

Sermon Outline

Here's my sermon outline for this morning. If you take notes, right on the screen behind me, three points:

God's power is our hope.

God's goodness is our salvation.

God's promise is our strength.

So let's start in the middle. Is that okay? Do I have your permission to start in the middle? Thanks.

Glad we got that out of the way. God's power is our hope. Let's start in the middle of the poem. Here, Isaiah is telling us one of the most important things that we need to hear in a time where we may feel like everything's falling apart—personally, nationally—however, God is powerful. God has not stopped being powerful. Nobody's like God.

Notice what he says: all the nations, they're like a drop in the bucket to God. The oceans, all of them can fit cupped in the hollow of his hands. People are like grasshoppers. People last a minute and they're gone in God's timing. No one has wisdom compared to God. No one has power compared to God.

When God created, he did it with no input or help. He imagined every tropical fish. He created the laws of physics. He created all the galaxies—the spiral ones and the elliptical ones and the irregular ones. All of this from the mind of God.

Now, he's speaking into an ancient Near Eastern context where Israel is surrounded by gods who all had pantheons—god of weather, god of fertility, god of the sun, god of the moon—and what he's saying to them is: look, our God didn't create anything by committee. All from him. All of it is from him.

The Babylonians in particular were astrologers, so he begins to speak their language. And in this last part, he directs us toward the skies. He says, everything you see up above you is a display of God's greatness. Of course, Isaiah and the people at the time knew some about this, but they didn't have a Hubble telescope. They didn't have astrophysics. They had no clarity on what we have. The same message comes to us today from God—a display of his glory, his power.

The sun generates enough energy as a fission bomb, like a hydrogen bomb, its own process that just keeps going. Do you know that the outer part of the sun is a relatively cool 10,000 degrees compared with the center of the sun, which is 27 million degrees? The diameter of the sun is 870,000 miles. It's 109 times the diameter of the Earth, and 101 million Earths could fit inside the sun. It's that big. Its luminosity is equal to four million trillion 100-watt light bulbs, and it's just an average star in a little part of the Milky Way Galaxy, about two-thirds of the way from the center.

Our solar system rotates around that galaxy once every—oh, only—million years. And scientists estimate there's somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars in our galaxy, not to mention other galaxies. To count them, if we take the low number of 100 billion, it would take somebody just counting 300 years, not stopping. And we're but one of billions of galaxies in this universe.

This is the God who says, brings them out, calls them by name. He's that great.

I love how Isaiah begins to talk to himself. He's a prophet—one of the major prophets in Israel—but I think he'd be a good therapist because he models to us what we need to do with ourselves. He talks to himself. Did you notice that?

Don't you know? Haven't you heard?

This is what he says. This is what God is like, self. God is this big. God is this powerful. God is this in control. He's arguing with himself. You anxious? Are you fearful? You worried?

See, Isaiah's showing us what to do with our fears this morning: self, don't you know? Haven't you heard?

The Lord, the Lord is the great God, the great King over all gods. His power is our hope.

Man, do we need that? Don't we?

God's Goodness Is Our Salvation

But second, his goodness is our salvation. This is the first part of the passage. Like they say in advertising, that's not all. Yes, God's power is our hope, but his goodness is our salvation. We need to know about God's goodness. We forget about this.

Look at the opener in this passage, the beginning. The word there: comfort, comfort. It sounds like he stutters, and in English, that's nothing, but in Hebrew, they didn't have an italics button on the keyboard. They didn't have bold face. They didn't have any way to emphasize except for doubling and tripling words. So it's like: comfort, comfort. This is the comfort that God gives, and it's not just wishing. When we say, "I hope you're comfortable"—somebody comes to my house, "I hope you sleep well tonight, I hope you're comfortable"—I'm wishing something. But God gives material comfort, tangible comfort. He doesn't just say it like a wish; he gives it.

What is that comfort? Here in verse two, and it's a strange statement: he tells Israel:

Speak tenderly to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquities are pardoned, and she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins.

Double for her sins? You know, I've read this for years and I've always been like, that's kind of weird. Is that good news? God punished her twice. Punished Israel twice. Is there any place to open up here?

Double Payment, Not Double Punishment

Has anybody ever found a place in the Bible where God punishes somebody twice for the same crime? Nobody? See, that's illegal even in America, isn't it? I mean, we have a broken judicial system in so many ways, but even in our country, you can't get arrested, go to court, be found guilty, go to prison, serve your time, get out, and then get arrested again the next day for the same crime. Even in America, we know that's not okay. No double jeopardy. So does the God of the universe punish twice for the same crimes? Maybe that's not right.

Rather, look closely. Listen to what it means. "Tell Israel that she has received double for her sins." What does the word double modify? It's not punishment—it's payment. It's payment. It does not say that Israel received double punishment for her sins, but double payment for her sins.

What does that mean? Isaiah is writing, and remember this: it's July. He didn't know about Christmas like you know about Christmas. He can't imagine what God is going to do, but he is writing in the hope of Israel that God is going to send a great king. This goes back to the beginning of the book of Isaiah. We read these things at Christmas time. Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9—passages about God sending a king, and when the king comes, he's going to make everything right. The king's going to restore things.

In verses 9 through 11, we read about this future king. He says the king is going to flex his arm. Now, that language is used throughout the Bible to talk about a king's power and strength and conquering. But not here. Here the king bares his arm. He's got the bicep showing. And what does the king do? It's bizarre language. He gathers lambs. He carries them close to his heart. This is the king. This is a king that Isaiah is saying is coming, and he's going to care for the weak. He's going to bring justice for those who have been wronged. He's going to make everything right, but not in the way that you think.

"See his reward is with him and his recompense accompanies him." — Isaiah 40:10

He's not talking about the reward for the people who are stuck in bondage and house arrest in Babylon. He's talking about God's own reward. God is going to come and bring his own reward. But we just read about God, didn't we? God owns everything. God owns the stars. Everything. The heavens fit in the hollows of his hands. So what do you get a man who has everything? What do you get a God who has everything? What possible reward can you give a God like this? What can you give him? What is his reward?

You. His people. His flock specifically in this passage. That's his recompense. That's his reward. And how does he do it? By double payment.

Where in our history do you see the power of God come together with the tenderness of God except on a Judean hillside two thousand years ago, where the very power of God and the tenderness of God come together? Here's Jesus. In the garden, the night he was arrested, soldiers come with the Sanhedrin to take him away. What does Peter do? He pulls out a sword. He's like, let's go. I'm going to at least get an ear from one of you guys. And Jesus says, put away your sword. The might that I have, the power that I have, is not exercised that way. I am going to take up my arms, but they will be spread wide on a cross. That's the kind of power that I will exercise.

Jesus pays for our sins. He takes our punishment. But he pays double. This is the wonder of salvation. This is the stuff that most people don't understand about Christianity. This is something that most Christians don't understand about Christianity. So I want to really make sure that you get this one thing from the sermon today. If you get nothing else, God doesn't just pay your debts. He doesn't just pay the minimum to get us out of hell, out of death. He gives us double payment.

An Illustration

So to explain this, I'm going to give you an illustration which will require almost no imagination. Let's say this spring I was recruited by the LA Lakers. I know, not hard to imagine. In college, truth be told, I played for Davidson College, Sigep—my fraternity's team, actually the B team, not the A team, but the B team. I was power forward and I proved that by fouling out of every game. So that's another story for another day.

I get drafted by the Lakers and I'm playing with Luca Doncic and Austin Reeves, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, and of course, I'm replacing Anthony Davis as center because y'all can tell I can jump too. So as I said, use your imagination. You're like, wow, my pastor is playing for the Lakers.

So you start following my progress and you pull out the news the next day and you're like, "Dang. Triple double, Bradford?" And I'm like, "Yeah, triple double, 44 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, two blocks, one steal. What in the world?" And you look at the other stats and you're like, "He just killed it last night. LeBron, no points fouled out in the first ten minutes? Something's wrong here."

And you start looking and you realize, as you're searching through the reporting, there's a mix-up. They have my photo and under my photo it says LeBron James fouled out. But under LeBron's photo, they got my name. Triple double. Crazy night. And you're like, "Wait, of course something's wrong. The reporter switched the names. The reporter messed up the whole reporting. All of my stats were credited to LeBron. All of his were credited to me."

Now, this is exactly what double imputation means. And this is what Christians oftentimes don't understand. All of Jesus's righteousness, all of his credit, all of his scores—you look at the photo and your name is underneath it. This is you. You look at Jesus's stats and you're like, "Should have been a great night. Should have had a triple double, Jesus." And it's like he fouled out in the first ten minutes. You realize my stats were all given to him.

Jesus not only pays our debts but credits us with all of the righteousness of Jesus. All of his triple double is yours, spiritually speaking. This is what our Savior does for us. You're on a winning team no matter what, but make sure you get the details. The details matter when it comes to salvation because all of this is credited to you.

This is why the big word for God toward you is comfort. The last word is not sin. The last word is not even redemption. It's comfort, and it's material comfort. It's like, "I'm comforting you because you are this—in with me. You are this good." He overrides all our stupidity, all our mistakes, all of it. Do we sin? Yes. Do we suffer for it? Yes. Sometimes we get the consequences, but never is that punishment from God. Never. The face of God toward you is always one of joy because of what his Son has done. And that is yours.

God's power is our hope. God's goodness is our salvation. Lastly, God's promise is our strength. It's the last part of the passage. The last part of this poem is incredible. Listen to these words.

They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. In weariness and trials, God gives strength to his people. Those who trust in him will soar like eagles. We will run without growing weary.

The focus of this section is really not hope. It's really about waiting. The waiting is the hardest part, like Tom Petty said. Just like Isaiah's words come to the people in house arrest in Babylon who are like, "How are we ever going to get out of here? How is this ever going to happen?" God says he's going to restore things, but it feels like we're stuck.

Do you feel stuck this morning? Do you feel hopeless? The waiting is the hardest part. I know every Sunday in this church, people walk through those doors with incredible pain—invisible pain. Some of you are walking with burdens that you're like, "I am being crushed by this," and God is behind it. And like the people of Israel, like, "How can it be that God allows these things in the life of his kids? If this is how you treat your kids, God, really? How do you treat your enemies?" It's hard.

But listen to these words—these words of invitation to wait upon the Lord and his promises. This is what keeps us going in the waiting.

Don't you know? Haven't you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. His understanding, nobody can fathom. He gives strength to the weary, the tired, and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary. Young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.

Mr. Rogers and the Wicked Witch

By way of conclusion, I want to tell you a story about Mr. Rogers. I grew up in the Mr. Rogers PBS generation. Some of you did too. Some of you are like, "I don't know what you're talking about." Mr. Rogers ran a kid show on PBS for years and years. He was a brilliant educator and also a pastor, and he wanted to minister to the young generation of Americans through the screen.

He noticed over time that there was one particular bad guy that all the kids were afraid of, and it was the wicked witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz.

Fred Rogers invites Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West, to come by the set of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. When she arrives, she's actually a really sweet little old lady on the show. They start talking about how so many people are afraid of the wicked witch, and they discuss what acting is—playing a part.

Fred reaches over and pulls a trunk toward him. He's got the costume, the hat, and the cloak. She begins to put on the cloak, and he says, "It helps me to see you in this. Let's put this on." He pulls out the hat and hands it to her. "It helps me to see that you're just a real lady who got dressed up to play a part." They talk about how the wicked witch would talk, and he has her do the voice. He says, "That's kind of fun, isn't it, to be able to do the voice?"

What's Fred doing? It's brilliant. He is defanging the scariest villain that there is for generations of young people in this country. There are adults who are still afraid of her.

Applying the Lesson

How can we apply this? What does it have to do with what we're reading this morning? There are things in your life that are frightening you. There are areas of loss and tragedy and suffering, and it's scary. You might think, "Yeah, maybe God uses that, but the problem is that it seems like God's behind it. Seems like God is crushing me. What kind of God is this?"

But you don't have to live in fear when you experience pain and suffering. Maybe you're going through things right now that really do hurt you or have deeply scarred you and affected you. Maybe you're walking through something right now that feels like the valley of the shadow. And God seems like the wicked witch to you.

Here's what we have because of Jesus: we can see who God is behind the costume, behind the disguise of the events of what's going on in your life right now. The circumstances have a way of clouding our vision, disguising the God who is real and what he's really like. We can't see him. We're like, "Surely God means this for evil." But what is God like? We can look at Jesus. He's strong. He's good. He's up to good. He's the one worth waiting for.

This world is a scary place. One of the hard things is people always ask me as a pastor, "Why? Why doesn't God just deliver me from bad circumstances when I become his child?" But in Jesus, this is what we know because of his death and resurrection: we're invited to look behind the costume, behind the disguise of the circumstances in your life and say, "This is who our God is, and he's this good. He's worth trusting."

Don't you know? Haven't you heard? Behold your God. — Isaiah 40

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that this is what you're like. We don't really believe it. Help us, Father. Thank you for the counselor, Isaiah. Help us to counsel ourselves and one another, remind each other of what's true. Thank you that because of Jesus, we can look behind the dark clouds, look behind the scary circumstances, look behind things that feel chaotic and broken all around us. Thank you, Lord, that you are on the throne. All things are in your hands. You're not asleep, and you love your people. In Jesus' name, amen.

Stand and sing together.