Sunday Service 07/03/2021:
Scripture — Isaiah 40:30-31
Title of message — A New Strength From The Lord
Delivered by: Pastor M. Richardson
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah spoke these words to a people in despair, the Israelites in Babylon. But he speaks a promise that echoes through the ages and is made to all people through Jesus Christ. And the promise is this; if we put our faith and trust in God, we will have the ability to meet the challenges of life and, even rise above them.
My earliest memory of hearing these words from Isaiah goes way back to my teen years. The pastor of my church had just lost his wife. And on his first Sunday back in the pulpit after her death, this was the scripture he preached on. When you grow up hearing a sermon just about every Sunday, it’s hard to remember specific ones, but I’ll never forget that sermon. And the reason I will always remember it is because The Pastor’s grief was real. Yet, he stood before the congregation and said, “I will not faint. I will not grow weary. I will not fall back or give up. I will not lose hope. Because God is with me and I with God, I will soar on wings like an eagle.”
It makes quite a strong impression to know the great pain that someone is experiencing, and then to hear them say, “And yet, because of God, my hope remains.” That is exactly what Isaiah wants us to understand, that when we put our faith in God, when we understand God’s power and our powerlessness, our hope will remain in even the darkest of times.
But we easily forget this. We fall into the patterns of life, work and family. We get caught up in the latest project; we rush from place to place, appointment to appointment. Our life is on track, everything is running smoothly, and we so quickly forget that God loves us and wants the best for us. We forget to praise and thank God for the blessings we receive every day until things get out of control. Then crisis strikes, and it causes us to fall apart because we have forgotten to put God first above everything else.
We then focus on the trials and hardships that we go through and wonder why? We feel the hurt of grief or pain and we question God’s presence. We call to God in words similar to Isaiah’s call in the opening passage, “God Don’t you know? Don’t you see what’s going on here?” We cry out to God over and over again. Why God? Why me? Why now? How could you let this happen? We feel like God has neglected us, abandoned us. We feel we are walking through the darkest valleys and there is no way out or up, we lose all hope; all because we have simply forgotten.
But Isaiah is reminding us that God Almighty, the creator of the universe is still God, the Good Shepherd, who gently calls, gathers, and carries us. He has not changed, and He has not forgotten us.
God never promised that life would be easy. We have never been guaranteed a stress-free life, absent of the grief and despair that so often plagues us. But God did promise that he would never leave us nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5b). And He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promise of God’s enduring presence in our lives every second, every minute of every day of every year; from the lowest of valleys to the highest mountaintops; so that, if we wait on the Lord, we will receive strength for every situation we face in life.
Beloved, I know things are hard these days but let us not forget God. Let’s not get to the point of thinking that we are alone in this crazy thing called life. No matter how bad things may seem, we are never alone. When we surrender our lives and everything into God’s hands, we experience fully the power and grace of God. The God who created the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb, is with us today and every day. God has never left us, and he will never. God has never abandoned us, and he never will. God does not faint and grow weary, and he never will. God has never forgotten us, and he never will. So, let us never forget the source of our strength; our guide, our comforter, the ever-present help in time of need, the one true God, who holds us in the palm of his hands. “He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.” And if we put our hope in the Lord, he will “renew [our] strength, [we] will soar on wings like eagles, [we] will run and not grow weary, [we] will walk and never faint.”