OPEN: (I began the sermon by reading the text and then singing a song I wrote back in Bible College that was inspired by the last two verses of the 40th chapter of Isaiah – See Footnote for the words)
When I was about 8 years old, my dad decided to have a running contest between me and my brother Jack (who was 16 at the time). Dad had me run first and as soon as he said “Go” I ran as fast as my 8 year old legs would carry me. As I crossed the “finish line” dad looked at his pocket watch and said “35 seconds!”
Then Jack was up. Dad said “Go” and Jack ran for all he was worth. In fact, he ran so hard that when he crossed the finish line he was totally out of breath and leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he looked up at dad …and dad said: “39 SECONDS!”
In a disgusted tone of voice, Jack said “I KNEW you were going to do that!!!”
Now, who won the race? Well, I DID!!! But did I win because I was stronger or smarter or more fleet of foot? Of course not! I won because Dad was the one with the stopwatch. I was the winner because dad made me the winner!
Hold that thought in your mind. We’ll get back to that.
Isaiah 40 tells us about another contest going on. “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they 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.” Isaiah 40:30-31
This is a powerful passage of scripture. In fact it is so powerful, that that phrase “Wings Of Eagles” has been used for 2 or 3 Hollywood movies, and at least one worship song… not to mention that song I sang at the beginning of the sermon.
But what is it about this set of verses that captures the imagination? What is that draws so many people to it? Well it captures our imagination because it gives us HOPE. It tells us – we can win this race.
What is interesting is that it starts out telling me a truth about life. A truth that I don't particularly want to hear. It tells me “Life Isn’t Easy.” Even youths become faint. Even young men will grow weary and they’ll get exhausted and they’ll fall down.
Jesus echoed this when He said: “… In this world you will have trouble…” John 16:33
In this world we’re going to have trouble!! It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old or rich or poor - things can get tough. There may come a point in your life where you’ll feel like you just can’t go on. If you live long enough… life will get you down you’ll stumble along the path. You’ll fall down and not feel like getting up again. You’ll get hurt, you’ll get sick, your dreams will be trashed, you might lose your job, your home or your car. Frankly life’s just going to be miserable sometimes. And that’s just the way things are because we live in fallen world - a world damaged by sin and selfishness.
Now, when those times come in our lives some folks will tell us to “snap out of it", to be strong, to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, to grow up and face life. They’ll say “you can handle it.”
And there’s some merit to that. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is taking life seriously and taking responsibility for our own corner of life. But there are times when that just isn’t going to cut it. There will be times when you just CAN’T DO IT anymore!!!
Now, what I find interesting is how God tells us we can fix our problems in life. He starts out talking about how we can grow weary and faint and fall down, and then He says: “… THEY 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.”
When we’re down and hurting, God doesn’t tell us: “snap out of it.” “Grow up.” “Get a life.”
What He tells us “WAIT FOR ME”. Depend upon Me. Lean on Me. Place your hope in Me!!!
Jesus said the same thing: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-30
Peter reminds us: Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7
Notice the focus in each of those passages is on God: come to ME; cast all your anxiety on ME; put your hope in ME.
ILLUS: I read the most interesting story recently. A preacher was telling about a woman who had come to him for counseling. She said her husband had become distant and her children were rebellious. On top of that they were in debt, and now she was having medical problems.
He said, the more she talked the more depressed HE became. He said “I couldn’t tell her what I was thinking. I was thinking: ‘Your case is hopeless. There is no way out.’" But he wanted to help her, so he did what many good counselors will do when they don’t know quite how to deal with people’s problems…he asked a question.
Now why he asked this particular question, I’m not sure. But this was what he asked: “Tell me… how did you become a Christian.” The question surprised her, but as she began to answer it, her appearance changed from sadness… to thoughtfulness… to almost an excitement as she told him her story of how she found Jesus. By the time she was done, (he said) she was speaking as though she had come into my office for the express purpose of telling me how much she loved her Savior.
She felt better, and I felt better. (Marion Clark on Dec 19, 2017 Preaching.com)
Now notice – her situation hadn’t changed. Her husband hadn’t changed, her children were still rebellious, they were still in debt and she was still facing a medical crisis. But something had changed! What? Well... what had changed was her focus!!! She was no longer focused on HER problems… instead she was focused on Jesus and the love He had for her. And THAT gave her hope.
“… THEY 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.”
Now, we face the same problems EVERYONE else faces. Everybody else gets weary. Everybody else becomes exhausted. Everybody else falls down and doesn’t want to get up again… just like us. BUT there’s a difference for us. We have an advantage no one else has. Do you know what that advantage is? Our advantage is this: Our Father holds the stopwatch! He decides who is going to win… and that someone is us. Not because we deserve to win, but because we were wise enough to admit that we needed what Jesus could supply.
There are a lot of Christians that don’t understand that simple principle. They think they’re special to God because they’re smarter, stronger, faster, and more righteous than everybody else out there. They think they DESERVE to be in church because they’re just so much better looking than everybody else. It’s almost like they’ve done God a favor by showing up.
Let me let you in on a secret… you haven’t done God a favor. None of us are better than everybody else, we’re just BETTER OFF than everyone else. We need to realize that there are some pagans out there who just might be far nicer than we are. There may be non-Christians who may be doing righteous things that you and I have never even thought of. It’s a fact of life. There are nice pagans out there.
BUT they’ve got a problem. They don’t have the same Father we have. And so, when they hit the wall, when they stumble and fall down and get discouraged - God isn’t there for them because they never decided to accept what He had to offer. So when life falls apart they don’t have anyone to put them back together again. And they’re never going to win the race, because they don’t have a Father who holds the stopwatch.
Now, that’s where you and I come in. When their lives are falling apart we need to realize that the best advice we can give people is to turn to Jesus. Do you think Jesus meant it when He said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-30
Do you think Jesus meant that? Of course He did!!! Well, if we think He meant that…maybe we should seriously start to talk to our friends and family about coming to Jesus. Because if they don’t come to Jesus they’ll never have rest for their souls. They’ll never get rid of the burdens that trouble them.
ILLUS: I just met a man named Steven who is on fire for Jesus. Well… he wasn’t so on fire to begin with. He used to be an avowed pagan. He hung out with the Hell’s Angels, did drugs and alcohol and a lot of other stuff. He was young and strong and able to deal with life - and God held no attraction for him.
But then, one day while he was painting a house, he fell off a ladder and bumped his chin. He didn’t think anything about until a couple days later when he found it difficult to even walk. He went to the doctor and found that he’d broken his neck and… for a while… he was paralyzed. As he was trapped this way, he happened to pick up a Bible someone had given him and – because he had nothing else to do – decided to read it. He found it was interesting. The more he read, the more intrigued he became. When he was able to walk again (with the help of cane that he still has to use) he started going to church because someone had been inviting him to attend there. The messages convicted him and he got baptized into Christ. And then he started attending Summit Theological Seminary in Peru, Indiana (which is about 15 miles from our community).
He began looking for ways he could serve God, and found that God seemed to be putting him around Hispanic people a bit... and he began to have a passion for sharing his faith with them. "They're just the nicest people" he said. But he didn’t speak much Spanish so he began taking classes and even bought the “Rosetta Stone” program to help him. He now teaches about 20 people in his home in Spanish, and they help him when he stumbles in how to say the phrases right. Over the past year, Steven has baptized 50 people into Christ.
The man doesn’t know the word “Stop”. He was talking to some Hispanics out on the sidewalk in front of the local Catholic Church, and the church there had him arrested! As he was put into cuffs and placed in the back of the squad car he asked the policeman what the charges were. He was told (you can’t make this stuff up) “Stealing parishioners”. Steven just smiled and asked the policeman to look up the word “parishioner”. When the officer did so he found it meant “people”… so the church was accusing Steven of “stealing people”. The policeman released him.
Like I said earlier, Stephen’s been teaching about 20 people in his home and one of those students told him that if they could find a church building to worship in he could get another 20 to come and learn with them. It just so happens that there is a church building in a nearby community that just needs a little work and we may be going over to help them out someday soon.
The point of my story is this: there was a time when Steven wasn’t interested in God. He figured he had all his ducks in a row. But then he fell down. Then life fell apart. And suddenly the only answer to the problems in his life was Jesus. And since that day he’s been a driven man - teaching and preaching and baptizing for all he’s worth.
Now, maybe your personality isn’t as driven as Steven’s is, but you can still do a lot for Christ. And one of the ways you can do that is giving all you’ve got in this contest we’re doing (we’ve divided the congregation into 3 groups and had them compete to see who could get the most people to visit us at worship and Sunday School). I talked to someone out in the fellowship area just before Sunday School and he was complaining that he’d invited all kinds of people to come to church, but none of them had. I told him “Hey, it doesn’t matter whether they show up. What matters is that you’ve invited them. You keep being faithful, and let God worry about getting them in the door.”
There are a lot of people out there who don’t have Jesus. It may seem to you that they “have it all together” but oftentimes people put on a “good front.” Henry David Thoreau once said “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Behind the curtains of their lives, many people are tired and weary and have fallen down wayyyy too many times. You have what Jesus has offered, and they need what Jesus can give. You see... you don’t have to bring in 100s of people… you just need to bring one. One life that you can change.
CLOSE: In Australia there’s a spot known as “the Gap”. It’s the edge of a cliff that has seen 100s of suicides. On average, one person a week commits suicide since the 1800s. According to an article back in 2010 there’s a man named Don Richie who lives just across the street from the Gap and over the past 50 years he’s talked about 160 people out of taking their lives.
Every morning he wakes up and look out the window looking for "anyone standing alone too close to the precipice." If he saw someone who looked like they might be contemplating a jump he would walk over and strike up a conversation. He’d give them a warm smile, ask if they'd like to talk and invite them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.
"I'm offering them an alternative, really," Ritchie says. "I always act in a friendly manner. I smile."
At the time the article was written Richie was an 84 year old man who is battling cancer. Someone asked him if he felt "burdened" by the fact that people would be contemplating jumping to their deaths outside his house.
He said, “No. I think, 'Isn't it wonderful that we live here and we can help people?'"
(http://gawker.com/5563648/meet-the-australian-whos-saved-160-people-from-suicide)
INVITATION
SERMON SERIES: Personal Best Invitational
* Keeping Your Eyes On The Prize 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
* Finishing Pretty 2 Timothy 4:1-8
* Wings Of Eagles Isaiah 40:21-31
Footnote: The words to the song I wrote back in Bible College based (in part) on Isaiah 40.
VERSE 1: “The Grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord lasts forever.
You can lean on the arm of flesh, lean on another, but all that you’ll find is weakness
CHORUS: But those who lean upon the Lord, renew their strength
And they mount up on wings, like eagles
They run and are not weary, walk and do not faint
And they mount up on wings, like eagles
VERSE 2: Christ gathers together all manner of men and makes them to dwell together.
He gathers the wicked men, gathers the meek and makes them to dine together.
(Sing Chorus)
BRIDGE: The wolf and the lamb they lay down in the field.
The leopard and the kid together
The calf and the lion and fatling together… and little child leads them
And in that day, in that day, there is peace.”
