Lift Up Your Eyes on High and See

2021/02/13 // Celebration Message // Isaiah 40:25-31

(English Transcript)

Isaiah 40:25-31

25 To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

27 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”? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 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.

Good evening again, everyone. Welcome to the Small Church Family Celebration

We are already approaching the middle of February of 2021, a year that has dawned with no end in sight to the Corona disaster.

The pandemic has brought various impacts to each of us, how are you doing?

For those of you who work in the corporate world, chances are that you have been struggling to cope with the changes and challenges brought about by Covid, in addition to the constant pressure to deliver results that was already there.

There are always complex relationships and ties between you and your bosses, colleagues, or subordinates. The eyes and voices of the people around you are always a concern.

For some people, working from home may have caused them to lose something that has always driven them, and now that it’s gone, they may be living in a state of emptiness.

Children and students are probably feeling stressed as many of the events they were looking forward to are cancelled and they cannot play freely with their friends. Even this week, I saw in the news that 30% of the Japanese high school students are in a medium level or more serious type of depression right now, likely due to Corona.

The job-hunting college students are facing a harsh reality, such as fewer new graduates being hired and the recession in the industry in which they hope to find a job.

Also in the past few days, the future of the Tokyo Olympics has also become increasingly perilous.

We are living in a stifling time that is oppressive and the future seem uncertain.

In times like this, we naturally tend to feel anxiety in our hearts.

We say “I wonder what will happen to my life and my family.”

We are surrounded by all kinds of changes and stimuli from the outside, and we also react to them from the inside.

And those reactions that are made in our hearts are often deep and complex and it is hard to be articulated in words.

Some people may be able to analyze themselves well, saying that they are feeling this way or that way because such and such are happening to them.

while others, such as myself, may not be able to observe themselves in such clarity, and you “just feel heavy” or “just feel light” and so on.

But either case, if you let these feelings be, your mind will become more and more inward-looking, and your eyes will look more and more down…

As we, as a church, can’t enjoy seeing either other in person, maybe you might find yourself being weak spiritually… either discouraged or doubtful or maybe apathetic.

So many things are happening in our lives.

Where is God in all of this?

Does he see the complexity of the situation and the state of mind and heart that we are living in?

Does he understand?

If He sees and understands, why doesn't He help me?

Sometimes we may feel frustrated or disappointed with God because we don't feel His help.

There may even be times where you feel tempted to second guess the very existence of God.

Let’s look at tonight’s verse from Isaiah.

This is God’s message through the prophet Isaiah, to His people, Israel, who at that time were living in exile in the distant foreign land of Babylon.

For those of you who are not familiar with the word "exile," let me explain.

It's also called the Babylonian captivity.

The New Babylonian Empire was a major world power that flourished from the 7th to 6th century BC, around the capital city Babylon, which was in modern southern Iraq.

The king of this Empire, Nebuchadnezzar II invaded the Kingdom of Judah in the south of Israel.

He took most of the surviving Jews as prisoners or war to Babylon and other parts of Babylonia, and forced them to live there.

The Jews had been led by God to Canaan, the Promised Land, and were allowed to live there for a while. But as they continued to live in stubborn unbelief and disobedience to God, they were pulled out of their homeland, just as God had repeatedly warned them, and now had become captives in Babylonia.

I wonder what would have been the feelings and thoughts of the Israelites, who were now living as captives.

Maybe something like:

“The Creator of all the heavens and the earth was supposed to be our God.

Now we are suffering in this pagan land.

We are discouraged under the dominion of an ungodly world culture all around us.

We cannot see hope; bitterness is filling our hearts.”

And they, too, spoke of their dissatisfaction and disappointment with God.

verse 27

“My way is hidden from the LORD,

and my right is disregarded by my God”

There were these disillusioned voices within their hearts:

“The Lord isn’t seeing the troubling and complex reality that we are being forced to go through!

He doesn't understand.

The Lord was supposed to protect us.

He was supposed to protect me.

He was supposed to provide for my needs.

But, …we are being ignored.

These people back then had the same struggle of faith, the same struggle that we can go through today, though we dare not say it in word.

And how did God respond to them?

The Lord meets us tonight also, through the words he spoke to them.

In today's passage, I think God is saying two things to us.

The first is this:

"Lift up your eyes and look at me.”

The second is, "Wait upon me.

Let's look at these things one by one.

From the latter half of verse 25 to verse 26.

“says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?”

God told His people, who were probably drooping and tired with disappointment, “Lift up your eyes.”

Don't look down, or look inward.

"Lift up your eyes.

And see.

See what and who?

See who created these.

When they lifted their heavy eyes, they see a starry sky.

Please imagine with me.

Thousands of shining stars in the dark night sky of Babylonia.

“Look closely.

I have made them all.

I am the one who created the beauty, the order, all of this out of nothing.

I created it all out of nothing and put it in the sky.

Keep your eyes open, keep looking.

I have something to tell you with these.

I have something to teach your soul.

I am God.

I am God.”

When we know in the depths of our soul that God is God,

When we see this God with the eyes of our heart, when we meet this God, it’s then our hearts are wondrously satisfied.

The anxiety and frustration in our hearts melt away.

The darkness of disappointment is replaced by light.

The answer that we’d been asking for from God was not the kind of “right and logical answer” that made sense to our human minds.

Rather, it was to meet Him or met by Him, my Maker and the Maker of the world.

And God's Word continued.

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

Today, astronomers estimate that in the Milky Way Galaxy, where our earth is located, there are about 400 billion stars.

A star is one that burns and glows by itself.

The sun is a star.

The earth is a planet that orbits around the sun.

But counting only the number of stars, they say that there are 400 billion in our Milky Way Galaxy.

Furthermore, scholars have predicted that there are 125 billion galaxies in the entire universe.

So we do a simple calculation, we can multiply 400 billion by 125 billion, equals a total of 10 billion trillion stars in the universe, or 10 to the 22nd power.

That’s just too many for us to understand.

For ordinary people like us, the number is too big to make any sense at all.

But God is different.

The latter half of verse 26:

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of his might

and because he is strong in power,

not one is missing.

The stars are literally innumerable, spread out in this vast universe.

God counted them and called them out.

He said, "Let there be stars!”

He easily created them out of nothing.

Having been the One to create all of these, of course, he also knows the names of each and every one of them.

Not a single one of them has escaped his knowledge.

That kind of power and knowledge is simply too much for us to understand.

The dimensions are so different, we just feel numb about it.

But, if you feel that such an infinitely big God can never understand the complex struggles of such a small me…I’m sorry to say but you are wrong about that.

Nothing escapes the knowledge of God.

God knows you, too.

He understands you.

He understands you, actually much more than you understand yourself.

That's the point here.

Why would God take the pain to quote the words of His dissatisfied and disillusioned people in his inspired book of prophecy,

“My way is hidden from the LORD,

and my right is disregarded by my God”?

It must be none other than this obvious fact that, exactly the opposite is the case with a God of infinite knowledge!

The truth is:

My path is not hidden from Him, He sees it.

God, who made everything in the universe and knows and preserves every single one of them, also made us.

He knows all the details and intricacies of our lives, our troubles and battles. He sees us.

My complaints, my needs, my cries have not been forgotten by God.

He remembers them.

He speaks to His tired people,

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”?

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

We are creatures who need to be told, "Look up.”

Look up to Him.

We have various pressures and worries in our day to day life.

Our hearts can easily grow heavy, weighed down by all kinds of stuggles.

But God calls us, “Lift up your eyes on high, and look-at-me.”

In Isaiah 45, God calls out to us in this way.

“Turn to me and be saved,

all the ends of the earth!

For I am God, and there is no other.

You may not feel like looking up.

you may not feel like looking up to God.

you may just want to look down, and just look inward.

You may think that's where you want to stay.

But when you finally turn your eyes to this God,

That's where the new power is.

There is salvation.

"Lift up your eyes on high and look at me.”

The second thing that God is calling us in today's passage is,

"Wait upon me.”

Reading from verse 28 again.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

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;

And the last verse, verse 31:

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.

I'd like to take a moment to think with us about what it might mean to "wait for the Lord".

Needless to say, we don’t like to wait.

We’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do, now!

There is a need, now.

There are things being lost, now.

Opportunity, my time, my money, future possibilities, deadlines.

I need it now.

God, don't you see it, don't you understand it,

don't you care?

What does it mean to wait on the Lord?

Waiting on the Lord doesn't mean don't do the work in front of you.

But there are things that you cannot solve on your own.

There are times where no matter how hard you work at it, you can’t see the exit.

In fact, life is full of such things.

Finding a job.

Relationship problems at work.

Entrance exams.

Finding a life mate.

Seeing a loved one come to believe in Jesus.

There are so many more.

Waiting on the Lord means to prayerfully wait for the Lord to provide the solution, show us the way, in His time and in His way, as you do what you can, firmly trusting that He is your only hope.

Neither does it deny the fact that some things can be lost while waiting. Opportunities or your time or your money or your health might pass while you wait.

But those who wait upon the Lord will say,

“the Lord is still faithful. He knows my real needs.

He knows the plans He has for me.

I may not know it, and I may not see it,

but in the end, the Lord will use everything to do His good will.

I put my hope in the Lord, and I believe in Him.”

“But I can't do that!” you might say.

“I'm a pragmatic and practical person.

and I can't just keep waiting for God whom I can’t even see, to help me with my problem that is right in front of me and I don't even know when it will be answered.”

So how can we live with such faith in God?

I would like to share two things with you.

The first is, that we get to know this God.

verse 28 says,

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

Here I would like to focus on the name of our God, "LORD.”

The Hebrew word Yahvah, which is rendered as “the LORD” in capital letters, or in the Japanese Bible as “Shu 主” in bold,

means "to be”, similar to, “to exist.”

We may not be able to see him with our naked eyes, but he is there.

He just is.

You may say, "Of course he is there, especially when we are talking about him in a church!”

But this point is very important.

We are all made by this Lord.

We are all made in His image.

We are created to know Him and to walk with Him.

So, without having anyone tell us, deep down in your soul we already know intuitively that the God is there

However, we live in a world where we are surrounded by voices that doubt and deny the existence of the one true God and the fact that we are made by Him.

In Japan, we are also surrounded by voices that claim that all kinds of things can be called kami or god.

But the Creator of all, the only real God, is there.

Forgetting that He is there for us, is actually the root problem of all the hopelessnesses we can have.

In our head, we know and say that God is there.

But we must always be sure of that fact and reality in our very soul.

In order to be able to wait on the Lord, this is actually the biggest thing we have to overcome.

If we can do this, then it will flow naturally that this God is eternal, has infinite power and knowledge, and loves us and there really isn’t anything that should worry us.

I dare to ask you all.

Do you believe that the Lord is there?

…Yes, He is…

Let's confess that now in our hearts.

Lord. I believe that you are here.

I believe in you.

How can I live by faith that waits on the Lord?

The second thing is this.

It is to realize and acknowledge your limitations.

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

If you still believe in your own strength, you will have a hard time waiting on the Lord.

You can think, “I don't have to wait for the Lord, I can just do it myself now and it’ll be done, I can make it all by myself!”

That's what you think.

But the fact is...

Your strength is actually not that great, sorry to disappoint you!

It doesn't last very long, and it's not something you can rely on.

No matter how much we pride ourselves on our strength, we get tired.

We break.

When I was young, in high school and college, I was in the track team and I did some many crazy things.

I was confident and daredevil.

But eventually, I realized the limits of my abilities.

When you see yourself at the bottom of the valley of life, thinking, "I can't do this anymore.

That's actually your chance.

This is your chance to trust in the Lord finally, and have the blessing of waiting on Him, relying on His strength.

But you may say, "It's so unrealistic to wait and believe in an invisible God, I can't do it.

I have so many things to do every day.

It's hard to live a life of waiting for God.

I understand.

But I want you to listen to the Lord's words that invite you once again.

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.

If you say that you’re going to try to make it relying on your own strength, I'm sorry to say, but you will be exhausted and fall one day.

In the end, you will be disappointed with the limits of your own strength.

But for those who wait for the Lord, He will always give them new strength.

Yes, He will give us new strength that we cannot create.

When you say “I’m tired, I’ve had it and I can’t do it any more,” you’ll experience a fresh strength flowing into you from above.

Like an eagle soar with its wings spreading

And even when the eagle has lost the strength to flap his wings

the wind that the Lord sends from below will push you up.

When the strength of your arm to row your boat is gone,

The Lord will send the wind in the sails to carry you forward.

That has happened many times in my life.

In times where I hit a wall, I can't see the way, I'm disappointed, I can't do it anymore, and pour my raw heart before God,

He always meets me saying,

"Trust in me.

I have a plan for you, and I love you.

Trust in me.”

His reassuring, comforting, encouraging voice strengthens me and renews my soul.

What happens when we wait for something else instead of the Lord?

What about politics, what about the economy?

Or passing exams, finding someone to marry, becoming famous, or having a happy family?

Or to be able to manage those difficult people in your company.

The list can go on.

There's nothing wrong with those things in themselves.

But if we live our lives with these things as our ultimate hope, if we live our lives believing in our hearts that if only I had this, if only I could do that, then my life would be fine, I would be happy…

Then these things have become your false hopes, false gods, or idols, as Bible puts it.

When you live your life looking for any of them first, and not God, you will eventually be exhausted and trapped by them.

And you will end up with disappointment and hurt.

In the U.S., many people turned to certain political leaders for their ultimate hope instead of waiting on the Lord, and that caused a lot of confusion and division that is still in need of healing.

The economy also rises and falls from time to time, so we cannot really rely on it.

The truth is, success in exams, getting a job at a good company, getting married, having a happy family, good health, etc., are all things that we cannot really rely on.

In fact, these things are never strong enough of a stronghold for you to place your ultimate hope in.

In verse 25, God said,

To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

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.

Lift your eyes up, and look at the Lord.

Let us be people who live by His strength, as we wait and trust on Him.