“God Does Care What Happens to You”

Isaiah 40:21-31

A lady in the first church I served had a wonderful way of telling folks to quit whining and feeling sorry for themselves. She would say, “O get off your pity pot!” At last October’s Wee Kirk Conference one of the Planning Team members had this printed on the front of her tee shirt, “Here’s a bridge; get over it!”

At the risk of being overly simplistic, that’s pretty much what Isaiah was telling those captive Israelites in Babylon. Said Isaiah to them, “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’?” Or as Eugene Peterson translates it, “God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me.”

Those Israelites had some legitimate complaints. They were exiles in a place where they could no longer sing the songs of Zion. Their nation had been crushed. Their capital city was in ruins. The Temple of Solomon was destroyed. They felt defeated, distressed, and depressed. They grieved the loss of home and national identity.

Going home was a pipe dream, or so they believed. The gods of Babylon had shown themselves to be more powerful than Yaweh, or so it seemed. If God was out there somewhere, he sure seemed to be making himself scarce. The deliverance this guy named Isaiah was proclaiming seemed to be a joke, and a cruel one at that. The glories of their past were gone. Their future outlook was bleak. They had given up on God and themselves. Life was an ongoing pity party.

To which Isaiah essentially said, “Nonsense!” His words to them were very similar to the words God had spoken to Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurements – surely you know!” Or the words of verse four in today’s reading from Psalm 147, “He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.”

God, through Isaiah, point blank told them to lift up their eyes and look at that great host of stars in the heavens, the stars God had placed there and then named. Not one of those stars was missing. Why? Because the Lord God was and is great in strength and mighty in power. The Lord is eternal. By his will and through his Word Creation existed. “Have you not known? Have you not heard?”

It was time for the pity party to end. It was time for those folks to leave the past behind. It was time to get over it. Get over the ridiculous notion that God was limited in his power and authority. Get over the idea that God no longer watched over them, that he no longer cared what happened to them. Theirs was still a God to whom even the mightiest of leaders and kings were of no more significance than grasshoppers. Theirs was still a God “who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” Theirs was still a God before whom the rulers of earth were but poorly set plants that would wither, die, and then be blown away like so much dusty stubble.

This was the God who had delivered them from Egypt. This was the God who had brought them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. This was the God who was going to once again break into human history, defeat those who oppressed his people, and then take those people home.

Furthermore, if they would simply trust him to be who he was, they would be lifted out of their depression and despair. From the unlimited depths of his own strength and power, the God, who never grew weary, would give them the strength they needed to follow him back home.

Then follow some of the most powerful words in all of Scripture: “… those who wait for [put their trust in] the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

God is not dead, nor is he powerless. God has not surrendered his sovereignty. He is still Lord and Creator over all that is. Trust him, really trust him, with every aspect of your life and you will find the strength, hope, and courage and move forward.

That won’t make everything just hunky-dory. Life won’t be a continuous funfest. Christians aren’t immune to the troubles that afflict humanity. As sinful people living in a sinful world we’re going to be bruised and battered by life. There will be times of disappointment, depression, and despair. We will know grief and loss. We will be laid low by illness and injury. We will be treated unjustly, even betrayed. We’re going to have our times of exile in the land of spiritual darkness. Eventually we’re going to do what all people do; we’re going to die.

But for those of us in Christ, those of us who wait for the Lord, there will be no permanent exile. Never will we have to say that God has lost track of us or that he doesn’t care about us. Hear again these promises from God’s Word: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength… if [we] take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there [the Lord’s] hand will lead [us]… neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Our way will never be hidden from the Lord. Our right will never be disregarded by God.

I do not make a habit of drawing sermon illustrations from the lives of people for whom I am the pastor. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. As I read, studied, and prayed over today’s reading from Isaiah, as I considered the plight of Israel in Babylon, as I thought about that pity party they were having, and as the meaning of God’s Word proclaimed through Isaiah became clearer, I couldn’t help but contrast the attitude of those long ago Babylonian exiles to that of our own Ian Shantz.

If anybody has ever earned the right to a pity party, it’s Ian. Battling cancer, enduring days of physically devastating chemotherapy, limited in his ability to practice the vocation he loves, being exiled to a hospital room away from his friends, loved ones, and church family, not even being able to walk through the church parking lot with his beloved leaf blower, Ian has somehow maintained not only his steadfast faith, but also his sense of humor. He is able to go through the hell he is enduring and laugh.

He doesn’t feel abandoned by God. He knows, believes, and proclaims that God cares about him. He has put his ultimate trust in his Lord Jesus, and though his body is weakened, his spiritual strength has not flagged. Even lying in a hospital bed he has mounted up on the wings of God’s love. As one of the commentators on Isaiah wrote, his hope is as strong as the One in whom he has placed it.

What an incredible witness that is: to his family, to his colleagues, those who work in his office, to his patients, to the young adults in his Sunday school class, to those who are treating him. What an incredible witness that is to every one of us. In the face of such steadfast faith we should all be lifted up – and humbled.

Whenever I find myself dealing with that kind of faith in others, I start to doubt my own faith. I begin questioning myself: “Could I do that? Can anyone do that? Can any of us ever really be such a super Christian?” Then it dawns on me. There are no super Christians. There are only Christians: weak and fallible men and women who face suffering with all the same fears, doubts, and angers common to the human race. What separates us from non-believers is our willingness to place our ultimate trust in Jesus, to wait for, to trust in, the Lord, and thus renew our strength.

We are weak. God is not. We are fallible. God is not. Our endurance is limited. God’s is not. We fall. God lifts us up. As long as we are in Christ we can tap that great well of strength that is God’s. We may not always run and not get weary, but when our endurance flags, we are able to faithfully plod on through whatever it is that would put us on our pity pots, finding strength and hope for the journey in the One whose love will not let us go.

“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not get weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Thus says the Lord. Amen.