Church of the Holy City

The Lord Comforts His People

The Lord Comforts His People
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
February 20, 2011

Isaiah 49:8-16 Matthew 6:24-34 Psalms 130, 131

One of the verses from this morning’s Psalms is, “Like a weaned child I am content.” Contentment with the Lord’s guidance and providence is also the message we heard from Matthew 6. With beautiful nature imagery, Matthew tells us not to worry. God knows what we need and will provide. We hear this teaching also in our Isaiah reading for this morning, “For the LORD comforts his people.”
The Isaiah reading has a number of beautiful images about how God will restore the land and His people. We hear about feeding beside the roads, pasture on barren hills, mountains being leveled into roads, no more hunger or thirst. We are told that the Lord will never forget us. Isaiah asks, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast?” The Prophet uses hyperbole. He says that even if a mother can forget her baby–which we know can never happen–God will never forget His people.
But this isn’t the whole story. In this morning’s Psalms, we hear a different voice. We hear the voice of waiting. The Psalmist is waiting for God’s redemption:
I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love (Psalm 130: 5-7).
When I hear these words, I hear a man who is waiting for the promises we heard in Isaiah and in Matthew. The Psalmist says, “I wait for the LORD.” Then for emphasis, he repeats an appeal to God, “I wait for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” When I hear these words, I hear a voice saying, “Where is that restored land in which I will no longer hunger or thirst?” I hear a voice saying, “I am seeking God’s kingdom, why are not all those other worldly things being given to me?” Isaiah and Matthew promise that God will take care of us, and so does the Psalm. Psalm 130 says, “Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love.”
So we have two messages from this morning’s readings. We are told to put our hope in God and not worry. But we are also told that this may mean waiting for the good things we are promised.
I think that we can all relate to the Psalmist. In this difficult economy, we may all feel want and privation. We may only just barely make ends meet–or maybe not even that. While the Psalmist seems to keep up his hope as he waits on God, I suspect that we may sometimes fall into despair. We may ask, “How can Jesus tell us not to worry?” “How can Jesus tell us that our heavenly Father will take care of us?”
There are a few comments I can say about this. One comment is about how God gives us the Kingdom. The other is about how we can live while we are waiting.
First of all we need to listen to the words of Isaiah. The passage we heard begins with these words, “In the time of my favor I will answer you.” I read this line to mean that God will hear our prayers and attend to our needs in His time, not our time. We have a tendency to want things right now. We want things to come to us in the moment we ask for them. But Isaiah tells us that the things we want come to us in the time of God’s favor. Good things come to us when it is good for us to have them. Just reflect on some of those celebrities we hear about. Money and fame come to them–sometimes at a young age. What more could we want than money and fame? Yet we see lives ruined by this money and fame granted too early in life. We hear about celebrity rehab and drug abuse. We hear about child custody battles with the courts. And it doesn’t have to be all that early in life. Look at Charlie Sheen. In his mature years his life is still consumed with drug abuse and prostitutes. He has been in and out of rehab countless times and just doesn’t seem to get it. He stars in a comedy show, and the irony is that his own life is a comedy. A comedy or a tragedy. Living a simple life with a modest income may not be all that bad after all.
This brings us to the Matthew passage. Jesus tells us not to worry. He says that the birds are fed by God, and that we are more important than birds. God will take care of us. He tells us not to worry about clothing, the lilies of the field are clothed in more beautiful garb than was King Solomon himself. One thing I take from that passage is how Jesus is talking about worrying about the future. “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?” Then as a summary, Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow:
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Eckhart Tolle has gotten a lot of millage out of living in the present. But we see from Matthew that Jesus spoke these words way before Tolle. Tolle just reminds us of Jesus’ eternal truths.
I worry a lot, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. But when I think about it, most of my worrying is about the future. It’s about something I want that I don’t have yet, or something I have that I’m afraid of losing. Will I have enough money to get through the week and buy all the needs and treats I want? How much money is left in my checking account and how much will I be spending? These questions rise up in my mind especially when I have free time to sit and think. This often means sit and worry. This worry is about what I don’t have and what I want. And notice that this worry is all about the future.
Then there are those times when I worry about losing something good I have. Let me give you one extreme example of this. Since I came to Edmonton, I’ve been trying to learn how to ski. I’ve never skied before in my life. Carol loves to ski and got me out on the ski hill. I took a lesson and learned how to do the snow plow. But even though I could snow plow my way down the ski hill, it wasn’t really fun for me. I was terrified. It’s so easy to lose control that it felt more like work for me. So skiing for me was a combination of work and fear. I didn’t really see the fun in it. But I did believe that it could be fun. I would talk with ski enthusiasts and they all assured me that the time of fear would go away eventually and I would find fun in it. Well, I’m happy to say that that did happen for me. I had a breakthrough! It just happened last time I went out skiing. I took another lesson and moved beyond the snow plow. I learned how to stand, how to hold my arms, and how to keep up enough speed to make turns correctly. Make no mistake, when I began this lesson I was terrified. But the fear went away and I got that control the instructor was trying to teach me. As soon as the lesson was over, I forgot to apply half or what he told me. But I remembered what he said, and I knew what I was supposed to do. After a few runs down the hill, I started having a ball. I was actually having fun skiing. In fact it was a riot! I went to visit Carol after I finished for the day all excited to tell her about how much fun I found skiing–finally! But later that night, would you believe what my mind did to me? I started worrying. You just wouldn’t believe what I worried about. I worried that I would forget how to do what I was doing, and that I would lose that feeling of fun next time I went skiing. I actually worried that I wouldn’t have fun next time I went skiing. Now this is pretty ridiculous. But I think it illustrates an important point. This was a fear of losing something I had. And notice in this case too, I was worrying about the future.
I do believe that God will provide. Jesus is telling us that our lives will be more content if we just keep our minds on today. The future is in God’s hands, not our hands. Our task is to do the best we can in the present. Then we need to let go of consequences. The consequences of our actions are in God’s hands. And when we want control over consequences, we are going to end up worrying and making ourselves miserable. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Let’s not burden our minds with worrying about what is coming down the road.
Finally, all these remarks can be tied together with a line from Isaiah. In Isaiah, the Lord tells us, “He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them to springs of water.” If we want to be content with our lives, we need to let God guide us. If we try to make things happen the way we think they should go, we will become frustrated and worrisome. When we worry about the future; when we want things to come out the way we want them to come out; when we are afraid to lose something we think we should have; we are not open to God’s guidance. We are taking the world into our own hands. And I assure you, our hands are not big enough to hold the world in them. Trust that God is leading us to springs of water is the key to contentment. This we heard in the Psalm today. “In his word I put my hope.” When the future looks grim, we need all the more to hope that God will provide. When we worry about the future, we need to remember that the future is in God’s hands. We will only find true contentment when we rest in God’s guidance. God will guide us to springs of water. But God will guide us in the time of His favor. When we are in periods of difficulty, we need to repeat the words of the Psalmist: “I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”