Well, there is one thing that you can say for sure about hope. That hope is only as good as its object. Hope always has an object; hope is hope in something, and hope always has an expectation; it's hope for something, and that's why hope is often accompanied by haunting questions of the reliability of hope, those creepy moments of doubt that have I banked my life on the right thing? And even for believers, there are those haunting moments when life doesn't make any sense, when what you're experiencing seems vastly different than God's revelation of Himself in His Word, where it's hard to think that what you're going through in life is wise or is good, where there may be moments where it's hard to see God's faithfulness, hard to see His love.
What Would Make You Abandon Hope?
Maybe what I should ask this evening is, "What does it take for you, in some way, to abandon your hope in God?" It's that struggle that this wonderful passage from Isaiah speaks into. Isaiah 40 begins the second great section of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 40 through 55. And it really is a beautiful message of comfort, comfort to people who are facing things that they had no idea that they would ever face. And the comfort of Isaiah 40 is rooted in the majesty and glory of God. I love Isaiah 40; I love its poetry; I love the way that in order to capture the glory of God, the prophet stretches the words of human language as far as they can stretch, and they still don't grab the glory that is God.
You could just you see him running to the edge of words, and words just can't do it. We see God who's spreading His hands around the heavens, who is holding the nations in His hands like dust. God who knows all the planetary bodies by name, lines them up in numbers on these amazing pictures of the glory of God. Yet with all of that, this passage ends with a very honest discussion of questions that I think enter all of our hearts at times. Look at verse 27 there of Isaiah 40: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is discarded by my God'?
There's the question: Does God really see? Does God really know? Does God really care? Does He really? Is He really involved, or could it be that somehow, some way, my life is hidden from Him? He's blind to what I'm going through; He's blind to what I'm feeling; He's blind to what I'm facing; He's blind to my weakness and my fear; He's blind to this financial struggle I'm going through. I don't know what to do. He's blind to the sickness that I'm facing that seems to have robbed me of my vitality.
He's blind to this thing that I'm going through in my marriage, and I don't know how to fix. He's blind to the fact that I struggle with inner discouragement and fear in ways that I thought I never would. He's blind to the fact that I have been forsaken by a friend that I thought would be faithful. Does God see? Does God know? Does God understand? Now, why is that question such a universal question? It is because you will not always be able to make sense out of God's sovereign plan. You will face moments in your life that are confusing.
You don't need to read a great mystery book. There'll be moments where your life is your mystery, and there is a very tempting tendency for us. I think this is a subtle thing that we need to understand to actually attach our hope to our ability to understand, not to the God who should be our hope. And so, our hope actually is in maybe with all of my richness of theology and maybe with all of my biblical literacy; I can make sense of all the moments of my life, and as long as I can make sense out of the moments of my life, I have reason to get up in the morning.
Praise God for the truths of His Word. Praise God for the gorgeous theology of Scripture, but your hope does not rest in your ability to make sense out of life; it rests in God. Hope is not in your ability to figure it out; hope is in the Lord and Him alone. And there will be moments when your understanding will fail you. In those moments is when true Biblical hope is your comfort and your strength. It's a universal, rhetorical question here. Could it be that my way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is discarded by my God?
Now notice, the prophet doesn't actually give an answer to the question. He answers the question with a question. Don't you hate it when people do that? You didn't want to know the question; you wanted an answer. But this question is actually a wonderful, wonderful answer. Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Now, what is the logic of this? Why would, in the face of this haunting question: Does God see?
Does God Know?
Does God know? Does God understand?....could it be that my life somehow is hidden from Him? Why would then the prophet point to creation? Don't you understand this Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth?...because a prophet understands something that is wonderful...that God literally, as an act of creative, sovereign, divine grace, has embedded hope in the surrounding world so that every morning when I get up, if I see the sun, if I see the beautiful lace of the clouds, as I hear the birds, the rustling wind through the trees, I have reason for hope.
Hope is literally, by divine choice, embedded in the surrounding creation. You say, "Paul, I hear what you are saying, but I don't understand how?" Here's how: The Bible declares for us that the existence and the character of God is moment by moment displayed for us in the surrounding creation. Think about this: The creation, first of all, declares God's existence. Clearly this creation and all of its majesty was set in order by a God of awesome glory and awesome power, and that creation is now held together by the Word of His power.
Every day you are confronted with the existence of God. I like to think of it this way, in my simple way of thinking...You can't get up in the morning without bumping into God. You just can't! Secondly, it declares to us God's power. Think of the power of literally speaking the universe into existence. Think of the power that it takes to keep this universe functioning with the kind of order that it functions with. Creation declares to us God's wisdom. Think of all those interdependent relationships and chemistries and physiology of creation that just have to work in the way that they work interdependently for this thing to work.
Think of your body. Think of all the interdependent functions of the body that just have to work all at the same time. I remember when we had our first son, Justin. Justin wasn't really interested in coming into the world, and so, it was a long and terrible labor. At one point, Luella just wanted to get up and go home. I suggested that probably wasn't a good idea. But I'll never forget the weak-kneed moment that I had when this little boy came into the world, and all the systems just turned on. There was no 'on-off' switch on his forehead.
They just turned on, and his body began to operate in the majesty of the wisdom of the Creator. What an amazing thing! Creation points to God's faithfulness, the amazing regularity of the sun and the moon of the seasons that depict for us a God who is faithful. Creation points us to God's love. You don't get the sun only on the days when you deserve it. Praise God for that! The rain falls on the just and the unjust; this God of creation is a God of magnificent love. Think of the sermon that creation preaches every day of God's existence, God's power, God's wisdom, God's faithfulness, God's love.
Are your eyes open to the hope that is embedded in the flowers and the trees and the wind and the sky and the moon and the sun, all fingers pointing to a God who is worthy of your hope? I think that we ought to pray for open eyes. I think that you can live through a week, and all you see is a busy schedule and children to be dealt with and business deals to be done and traffic that you're going to face and meals to be cooked and laundry to be done, and you can be blind to the majestic display of the glory of God.
Hopelessness and Spiritual Blindness
Maybe our hopelessness is attached to our spiritual blindness. And maybe we ought to pray, "Lord, help me not to be distracted; help me to see; help me to be blown away by Your glory. Help me to see Your glory, and in seeing Your glory, say, "Yes, I have reason for hope even though I don't understand." And then if that's not enough, Isaiah says, "0h, by the way, this great Creator God never grows weary or faint; He never gets tired, and His understanding is unsearchable." If He's the Creator, He knows everything about you.
He knows everything about the locations and situations in which you live. He knows everything that you're facing and that you're dealing with. He understands. And then Isaiah turns to these two realities that will be the realities of your existence. Look at 29 and 30: He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. Here's the first reality: You have got to deal with this. You have got to be humble.
Ready for this? Your strength will fail you; your strength will fail you. You have not been hardwired to have self-sufficient, independent, inexhaustible strength, although some of us would like to think that. Your strength has limits. In God's providence, you will face things that take you beyond the boundaries of your ability, beyond the boundaries of your strength. If you are willing to be humbly honest, you know that that's true. Again, some of you are facing that right now in specific situations in your life; your strength will fail you; you are a limited human being.
You do not have an inexhaustible resource of strength. Let me say this to you because I want to be a good pastor. "If, when you cross the border of your strength, you begin to panic, perhaps your hope was not in the Lord after all. Perhaps your hope was in you, in your knowledge, in your ability to figure it out. Because even when I am beyond my strength, the God who is my hope, that everlasting God still exists, still has His power, still has His wisdom, still has His faithfulness, still is a God of love."
That's the first reality. Your strength will fail you. Second reality: It's actually verse 29...In His grace, God delights in empowering His weak people. In His grace, God delights in empowering His weak people. Paul talks about boasting in his weakness; He talks about the fact that God's grace is sufficient; his strength is made perfect in weakness. I am persuaded that weakness does not get in the way of what God calls for us to do. It's our delusions of strength that do. God loves to empower His people; He loves to meet us in those moments with strength that is from Him and Him alone.
He loves to bring us to those moments where we must abandon our trust in ourselves and find our hope in Him. And then, the passage ends with these familiar words that are a practical call to hope: But those who wait for 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. "Wait for the Lord," really is synonymous with putting your hope in the Lord. Put your hope in the Lord. Those who hope in the Lord will have renewed strength; they will fly like eagles; they'll run and not be weary; they'll walk and not faint.
Well, that begs the question: "What does it really look like to put my hope in the Lord, what does it look like where the rubber meets the road in everyday life?" I'm a bit concerned that we use theological, biblical language without a whole lot of clarity about what it means where we live every day. What does it mean when you say to someone, "Well, I'm just hoping in the Lord?" What in the world does that mean? I mean practically, in the way that you live, and practically in the way that you make decisions and respond to your situations of life and to the people in your life?
What Does Hoping in the Lord Look Like?
What does it mean when you say, "I'm just hoping in the Lord?" Could you, tonight, write five pages on: "What a lifestyle looks like if you're hoping in the Lord?" Could you? Three pages? A page? A paragraph? A sentence? You see, we ought to be intolerant of using biblical, theological language that we don't understand where we live every day. Theology is not an end in itself. Theology is a means to an end, and that means is a holy, God-glorifying, transformed life. And so, when this passage says, "Wait on the Lord," you ought to have a deep desire to understand what does that mean?
What does it look like to wait on the Lord, and because I have waited on the Lord, my strength is renewed? What is that? I want to suggest four things that it means to put your hope in the Lord, and I want to connect these for you. I think there are biblical themes of these throughout all of Scripture. First of all, hoping in the Lord means I will carefully obey His commands no matter what. I will carefully obey His commands no matter what; I will not abandon the wisdom of God's commands because life doesn't look like it's working well.
I think that often disobedience is the product of hopelessness. We can't figure out what God is doing, and so what we do is we take life into our own hands rather than doing the things He's called for us to do; we try to fix life our own way. And so rather than being a peacemaker, rather than believing that a soft answer turns away wrath, we get up into somebody's face, and we try to argue them into allegiance to our agenda. And that disobedience is the product of abandoning hope in God. We take life into our own hands, and we're going to do it our way.
And so, part of what it means to hope in God, is I am going to believe in the stunning wisdom of His commands; I'm going to believe that all the ways of the Lord are right and true; I'm going to believe that my God is wise, and I will stay inside of what He's called me to do no matter how disconcerting and difficult the things are that I am facing. I would ask you, "Are you there this evening? What does it take for you to take life back into your own hands and to abandon the clear commands of your Lord?"
Second, it means that I embrace His promises. I really do believe that the God who promised is faithful, and He will deliver to me the things that He has promised. I don't know by what means those promises will be delivered; I don't know in what time they will be delivered. I don't know in what way that they will be delivered, but I believe in the promises of God, and because of that, my life is not one of avoidance and passivism, (I could say it.) and of fear and of timidity, but my life is one of hope and courage; I'm forward moving, not because I think I'm able, not because I understand everything that is going on in my life, but I believe in the promises of God, and I believe that God will not call me to do something without enabling me to do it.
I move forward in faith. Where God has placed you, are you living with the courage of hope? As a parent, are you willing to go into that room and believe that God will be with you in that moment to have that difficult conversation with your child that you've had 1,000 times already? Do you believe that the hope of your marriage is found in the Third Person in your marriage, the Lord? And that He can give you the strength as a flawed person living with a flawed person in a fallen world to build a marriage of unity, understanding, and love?
Do You Believe That?
Do you believe that God can give you the character to face that irascible boss every day in a godly way, representing well the gospel that you are to represent in the workplace? Do you believe that? Do you believe that you can stand in your university, very much philosophically alone in ways, in alien turf, and stand without compromise, with hope and courage because of the promises of God? Are you embracing His promises? Third thing, rely on His power. I love that wonderful doxology at the end of Ephesians 3: "Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly more than you could ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work, (Where?)...within us."
God literally now dwells inside of you in power by His Holy Spirit. That power is with you wherever you go. Do you believe in the gift of the power of God? Do you rely on His power? Fourth thing, fight the war of doubt. Fight the war of doubt. Hope is spiritual warfare because you will not understand at all points, and in those moments when you don't understand, there is an enemy who will whisper in your ear: "Where is your God now? Where is His goodness? Where is His faithfulness? Where is His love?
Where is His power? Where's God now?" And none of us will be free of that temptation. We must be soldiers fighting against the doubt that comes into our mind and our heart, not giving way to questions of God's goodness and love, not bringing God into the court of our judgment, questioning Him, not being willing to have a gap grow between our confessional theology and our functional theology, not having disharmony between the hymns that we sing on a Sunday morning or a Sunday evening and what we actually think about life on a Tuesday afternoon or a Wednesday morning.
Hope in God means this...I will obey His commands. I will embrace His promises. I will rely on His power, and I will fight the war of doubt. This passage, in a very powerful way, preaches the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is it that we can be sure that God will never turn His back on us and walk away? Why can we be sure that, in our weakest moment of failure, God will not abandon us and say, "I had enough?" The answer to that is the cross of Jesus Christ, because on the cross of Jesus Christ, on the cross, Christ was willing to take the rejection of the Father so that we would never have to face that.
And in that horrible moment where the voice of Christ echoes throughout the generations, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"...Christ speaks a reality that believers in Jesus Christ will never have to speak because His rejection is the guarantee of our eternal acceptance forever. What holds your hope this evening? How firm is your hope? How quickly, (Be honest!) do you abandon hope? Maybe you're here this evening, you would say, "Paul, this hope you're talking about, I've never known." Cry out this evening for the rescue, the forgiveness, the peace that only Jesus Christ can give.
The cross is your guarantee that hope in God will never put you to shame. Let's pray: Lord, thank you for the deep wisdom of the words that we've looked at this evening, but we would also thank you that they speak with such descriptive clarity into our own struggle. We don't always understand what You are doing. There are moments when we feel weak and unable, those moments where our spirits seem vulnerable, sometimes panic sets in. Sometimes fear directs our words and our actions more than hope does.
Oh, we pray that You would open our eyes to the glory display that's everywhere around us that is there to remind us that You exist, that You're powerful and wise and faithful and loving, that You understand everything about our lives, and that You delight to give power to the weak. May we have firm, courage-giving, action-motivating hope in You. In Jesus name, Amen.
