Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of Holy Scripture, our New Testament lesson. A gospel lesson comes from John 1, verse 29. John 1, 29, pay careful attention to the reading of God's Word. The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel. Therefore, I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize the water said to me, Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God." Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples and looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, behold, the Lamb of God. This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Turn now in our Old Testament scriptures to the gospel according to Isaiah, what some have called the fifth gospel. Isaiah 40 verse nine. O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountains. O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand. and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young. Thus ends the reading of God's inspired, inerrant, infallible word. Amen. You may be seated. What is your most valuable resource? What is the most valuable resource you have? Well, the personal knowledge management and productivity guru, Tiago Forte, has argued that the answer to this question has changed over the years. People thought about what was most precious to them in different ways. Wealth in the form of land, many years ago. Wealth in the form of money. Others have argued or considered time to be the most valuable possession that you have, or even information. Land, money, time. And with the digital age, an explosion of information. Now, although he's not a Christian, Tiago Forte has made a compelling case for a new valuable resource in our current age. And he has argued that the most valuable resource that we have is actually not land, money, time, or information, but perspective. Perspective. Vantage point. The point of view. The ability to hear the white noise but only listen to the signal. To view the puzzle and be able to pick out the pattern. To remember the facts but also to understand the interpretation. To notice the tidal wave coming but be able to surf it all the way home. As one philosopher has said, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals. Well, that's what it means to have perspective. Perspective in a world of complexity is like an anchor in the deep that keeps you stable. It's like a north star in the sky by which you can navigate the storms of life. Perspective is at least one of the most valuable resources that we have this side of glory. And that is true, I think, or at least we recognize its truth, particularly during times of trial and affliction. When you're going through something very difficult, that's when perspective is particularly precious. Because when things fall apart, it's so easy to lose your bearings. It's so easy to become confused. When you're afraid, weak and discouraged, you can get lost in the echo chamber of your own thoughts. But if you're lost, even physically lost, what do you do? If you don't know where you are, if you're like Dante, wandering in the dark wood, where do you go? Well, you try to find a high point from which you can get perspective. to regain your bearings. In Congregation of the Lord Jesus, that's what we find in Isaiah 40 as we come to the next passage used in Handel's Messiah. Just as a refresher, the first three texts following the overture come from Isaiah 40. After that, we take a little detour through Haggai 2, Malachi 3, Isaiah 7. And tonight, we come back to Isaiah 40, the very passage that Handel's Messiah opens with. The ninth movement solo or air with a chorus from Isaiah 40 verse 9. And the heart of this text that we just read is a message of good news. proclaimed from an elevated vantage point, a high mountain. This is the ultimate perspective, the ultimate perspective of the gospel, where from a high mountain is shouted and proclaimed this message, behold your God. Behold your God. From this high mountain on a clear day, we can see, as it were, forever. Well, tonight, we're going to look at this gospel message under three headings, the gospel context, the gospel call, and the gospel content. First, the context. Just to give a little bit of broader context, this is a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It's the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, the son of Amos. And in this book, which I've said before is like a fifth gospel, the gospel according to Isaiah, we have the first 39 chapters. essentially of great darkness and impending judgment and doom. Sin and the exile. But in Chapter 40, we reach a turning point where we come to a new emphasis on salvation from sin and hope of restoration beyond the exile. The commentator E.J. Young says this, when one turns from the 39th to the 40th chapter. It is as though he steps out of the darkness of judgment into the light of salvation. The contrast is great, and yet it is evident that 39 is a preparation for 40. In Chapter 39, we witness the deliverance of King Hezekiah from the Assyrian Sennacherib and the angel of the Lord coming and defeating all of Hezekiah's enemies. It's actually a message of great deliverance. And yet, at the end of chapter 39, there's a shadow of Babylon on the horizon, that exile is coming. And so, Young says this, chapters 40 and following serve to answer the dark picture that 39th chapter had created. That's what this chapter is about. It's a great hinge of the book. We're turning to the answer to the problem. In the more immediate context, verses 1 to 11 are a kind of prologue as we begin a new section of the book. It opens with a commission to the prophets to comfort God's people by speaking comfort to Jerusalem. Comfort. Comfort ye my people. Literally, speak upon her heart. It's an assurance of pardon. And then that narrows to one prophet, the prophet who's described as a voice crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. This is a prophecy concerning John the Baptist, the forerunner to Christ. And then if you keep reading, in the coming of the Messiah, the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. In the midst of this, the question arises, what is the content of the cry of John the Baptist? And the answer, if we read beyond verse 5, is the very Word of God. And Isaiah gives us a kind of meditation on the brevity of human life, contrasted with the permanence of God's Word. That's in verses 6 to 8, where we read a phrase that we often use in our services, the grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of our God stands forever. So that's the context. As we come to our verses, in the immediate context, it's this prologue about John the Baptist, the coming of the Messiah, the permanence of God's word. And in the larger book, it's this black backdrop of judgment in the first 39 chapters, and now the beginning of the message of salvation. And that leads into a gospel call in verse 9. We'll read it again. Oh, Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain. Oh, Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up, be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your God. Now, who is issuing this gospel call? Well, we look at the text, it's a pair of terms, Zion, and Jerusalem. And here I believe the Lord is really talking about the church as the custodian of the gospel, the pillar and ground of the truth. The church is being entrusted with a message, Zion and Jerusalem. Now, where does she issue this call? Where does the church proclaim her message? Well, the text says, get you up to a high mountain. high mountain. Of course, mountains loom large in the Bible. You have Mount Eden with Adam, Mount Ararat with Noah, Mount Moriah with Abraham, Mount Sinai with Moses, of course, Mount Zion with David, and so forth. But why a high mountain? Why has the call come from there? Well, I think part of this is that the mountain is a place of perspective. You can see from a high mountain. If you get lost and you're down in the valley, you don't really know where you are. But if you get up into a high place, you can look out and see all the terrain before you. It's a reference point. It's a point of perspective. But more than that, this is a place of projection. That's one reason why our pulpit is raised upon a platform, to elevate the Word of God and from this place to project to God's people. Well, in a much grander way, the mountain is a place of projection. It's a place from which people can hear you. I remember as a boy growing up in rural West Virginia, and there's all sorts of hills and mountains there, and I remember we were up on a high hill. We grew up in a farmhouse. It was built in 1864. It's called the Cornwall Place. We were up on a pretty high place, and I learned later that people who lived way down in the valley, miles away, could hear us playing in our backyard because the sound would just carry all the way across. They couldn't thankfully tell what we were saying to each other, but they heard because it's a place of projection, a high place. Sound carries in a unique way. Think of the song, Go Tell It on the Mountain. over the hills and everywhere, mountains a place of perspective and projection. And really, those two ideas can come together. I love how John Piper describes the role of a preacher. The preacher is called to show other people what he has first seen in the text. So a preacher goes up to a high mountain to get perspective. He goes to God's word and he studies it prayerfully, searching it, meditating upon it, marinating his soul in it, and he sees something that's in the Bible, not in his imagination, not a hobby horse. not an opinion of man, he sees something in the Bible, the inspired word of God, and he says, I want God's people to see what I've seen. And so he goes up to a place of perspective, the mountain, to see what God has for his people, and then he says, I want you all to see what I've seen, not in my head, not on television, but in the Bible. And often what this means is the preacher is trying to give people a vocabulary to articulate what they're seeing in the Bible. Or we could say a preacher is called to give people new eyes by the Spirit to see what's been there all along, but perhaps they've missed. You get up into a high mountain and then you project a message. Now, how do you do this? How does the church issue this gospel call? Well, note the manner of this proclamation. The Bible says, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid. This is a call in an age of timid cowardice, to holy boldness and gospel courage. This is a loud and courageous call. We have people today, in the name of winsomeness, essentially selling the Christian farm, selling out to liberals, selling out to unbelievers. And yet, The Bible calls us to lift up our voice with strength, to lift it up, be not afraid. As Paul says, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? That's a problem we have today. In the pulpits of this country, the trumpets of preaching are giving an uncertain sound on a whole slew of issues. whether it be abortion, or the definition of marriage, or what it means to be a man or a woman, what it means to be just, what justice is, how to define social justice, and a whole array of issues. The pulpits are giving an uncertain sound, and so God's troops don't know how to array themselves for battle. E.J. Young says this, the church is not to pose as a seeker after the truth, unsure of her message. And I tell you, I remember going to a college and then later transferring. But at that college at the time, they were being inundated by what's called emergent church theology. And they were taking postmodern, critical theory, deconstruction when it comes to race, gender, and class. And basically, they were telling the church, you need to pose as a seeker after the truth. Not only do you not have everything figured out, but you don't even have the Bible figured out. You don't really know exactly who God is. And the way to win people is to bring your doubts to them and then dialogue. So the world brings her doubts to the world and then dialogues with the world. This passage is absolutely antithetical to that posture. No, E.J. Young says, the church is not to pose as a seeker after the truth, unsure of her message, but to declare in clear, firm, and positive voice that her message is true. She must be vigorously and militantly evangelistic. There's nothing prideful about being firm in your convictions and having a clear message. We should be humbled for our sins. We should be humbled under the mighty hand of God. We should be underneath the scriptures as our ultimate authority. True humility, however, is not cowardly. and constantly wavering on the truth. No, true humility stands underneath God's Word and then declares that message powerfully and clearly because we really believe that God is true and let every man be a liar. Now, as I say this, this call to boldness and courage, That does not mean harshness. And we often struggle. Either we try to be winsome and it comes across as just being weak, or we try to be bold and courageous and it becomes blustery and harsh. But no, this is a boldness marked by great joy. After all, what is being proclaimed with courage, conviction, and boldness? Well, twice it is said of Zion and Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings. God has given us a message that is described as good tidings, good news, gospel. The picture of this passage is that of a herald with a royal proclamation, a declaration of good news from the courts of the king. And we could, in some measure, say that you are called to bring a bringer of sober jollity, of weighty jollification. A message of resounding joy that's not light and fluffy, but dead serious. Dead serious joy. That's what we're called to bring to the world. People often say that I've got good news and I've got bad news, which one do you want first? And some of you are more prone to say, well, give me the good news. I'll wait on the bad news. Other ones are like, no, I wanna bite the bullet, get it over with, give me the bad news first. But the glory of the good news of this passage is that I think sometimes when we hear that phrase, good news and bad news, we sometimes think that they cancel each other out. Give me the bad news, give me the good news, and at the end of the day, whichever one you have first, they basically cancel themselves out. It's a wash. There's a little bit of good news, a little bit of bad news, and if you're French, you'd say that's bof. If you're millennial, you'd say that's meh. It's just sort of a generic kind of wash. But that's not what this passage is saying. Recently I was cleaning up our dining room table, which I don't know what your dining room table's like. We homeschool, we've got a lot of kids, and somehow it accumulates with paper very quickly, and all kinds of paper. And I was going through, and I don't know who wrote this, but I found a piece of paper, I took a picture of it on my phone and sent it to my wife, and the paper said, good news defeats bad news. And I don't know if I've said that or if they heard someone say that, but one of my kids wrote that down, and that'll preach. That's true. Because good news and bad news, they're not equally ultimate. They don't cancel each other out. It's not a wash. It's not meh. Actually, good news defeats bad news. Light dispels the darkness. Laughter overcomes tears, and death is swallowed up in victory as resurrection life conquers it. This is good tidings, good news. It's gospel. And what do we need good news today? In every generation, in every age, we are desperate and in a state of sin and misery to hear good news. But what is that good news? What is this message from a high place, a place of perspective and projection, proclaimed with holy boldness and gospel courage? What is the message entrusted to Zion, to the church? That leads us finally to the gospel content. At least in our English translation, it's rendered by three words. Behold. You are God. Is that how you think about the gospel? A lot of times, I think when Christians think about the gospel, they immediately go to God's gifts and Christ's benefits, and they would say something like, well, justification by faith, that's the gospel. Adoption of sons, that's the gospel. Forgiveness of sins, that's gotta be the gospel. The assurance of God's presence, that's good news. And those are all very good tidings. But here, Isaiah doesn't point us to God's gifts. And he doesn't point us to a moment of escape, relief, or rescue. He's convinced that what we desperately need above everything else is a sight and savor of God himself. Again, as we saw this morning, that vision of the king in his beauty, enthroned in his heavenly throne room. What we need is a vision of divine glory. At a fundamental level, we can say that God is the gospel. God is the gospel. I'll quote E.J. Young again. As you can see, I'm leaning pretty heavily on Young because I love his commentary. And he says this, this is the great theme of the remainder of the prophecy. It is the very center of the gospel. If we have not God, we have nothing. And if we have him, we have all things. God is the gospel congregation of the Lord Jesus. Justification by faith alone is a wonderful truth. But if you want to get to the epicenter of the good news, you have to go to God himself. Not just his gifts, but God himself. Now, I'm tempted to just want to go through the width and the length and the height and the depth of Isaiah 40 because it's just packed with theology that is doxology. But instead, for the sake of time, I'm going to focus on just two verses which immediately follow this gospel call. As I'm calling you not only to bring this message, but to hear this message of behold your God, the text suggests three ways that we behold our God. First, behold your God in his strength. Behold your God in his strength. Look at verse 10. Behold, same word, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him. Here we get echoes of the exodus, your strong hand and your outstretched arm. We're reminded of why we confess, I believe in God the Father almighty. He's the strong one, the omnipotent one, almighty, whose reward, it is said in this passage, is with him and his work is before him. This language comes up again in Isaiah 62, 11. And it could be either the idea of reward as the spoils of war or as wages for work done. But either way, this is a reward that belongs to God. We often think of God himself distributing rewards to his people, which he will do on the day of judgment when he evaluates believers according to what they have done and crowns them with glory and honor. But here, I believe what is being described of this strong, mighty warrior God is that the reward belongs to him. And most likely, it is to be identified with the redeemed themselves. We are the rewards. Christ has purchased us by His blood, and we belong to God. Behold your God in His strength. And I tell you, we need to hear this message today. We need to hear this message. I finished reading a book a while back. I was just talking to Ruling Elder Greg Beb about it this morning. called All That Is In God by James Dolezal, a Reformed Baptist brother. And in that book, he describes the rise of what he calls theistic mutualism, which is a big term. But what it really means is this, he's tapping into a problem in the evangelical church. And it's not unrelated to the earlier problem that I spoke of, of not having a clear note to our trumpet. Evangelicals are trying to make God more relatable, more palatable, more like us. People are trying to get God in touch with human emotions so that they claim He changes, He reacts, He responds, He becomes, and is moved by His creation. And in effect, what many evangelicals, which I prefer to call evangelifishes, are doing, what they're doing is they are trying to domesticate, to defang, to tame our God. And against this corruption, classical Christian theism proclaims unashamedly, unabashedly, the Godness of God. That God is God and we are not. And that's actually wonderful news. God is the creator, we are the creatures, and that means there's hope because there is one who is infinitely mightier than us, who can actually rescue us with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. We proclaim God's absolute transcendence. Behold God in his strength. unchangeable, simple, eternal, unity in Trinity, Trinity in unity. Congregation, your God is not the man upstairs or a projection of your human desires. He is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Pure spirit, there is no accident in Him. Pure act, there is no potential in Him. Unmoved, He moves all things. And this God of classical Christian theism, as the church has confessed Him throughout the ages, is also the God of the Bible, the God of the Exodus, the one with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, who rides upon the clouds, who makes his angels ministers of fire, who slings arrows of lightning through the sky, and rescues his people through the deep. Behold your God in his strength, in his Godness. But second, behold your God in his mercy. Behold your God, not only in his strength, but in his mercy. Look at verse 11. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young. Isn't this remarkable? In the same breath, it reminds me of Isaiah 57 where God is described as high, holy, lifted up, transcendent, and he's present also with him who is contrite and weak. God's transcendence and his eminence, his absolute perfection and his mercy are not at odds with each other, not at all. No, here we learn that the great warrior is also the good shepherd. The Lord is a servant Lord. The king is a shepherd king. This is like Psalm 23, Ezekiel 34, John 10. The same arm by which he rules, he also serves. And there's this beautiful constellation of verbs here, feed, gather, carry, and lead. He will feed, or it could be translated shepherd, his flock. He will gather, it says, the lambs with his arms. It might remind you of our Lord Jesus, who on earth took up in his arms the little children, even the infants. The Greek word brephos, which means nursing infant, in his arms, and he blessed them. He picked them up. He carries the little lambs, and then he gently leads those with young, the mothers. My former pastor, Peter Van Doodeward, I remember when he came to visit us in the hospital after we had Josiah, David, and he read from Isaiah 40. I don't know all the verses, but definitely I remember he read verse 11 as an encouragement to us as we're holding this newborn child that The same Lord who is the God of the Exodus, who is mighty and powerful and awe-inspiring, is also the one who carries the little lambs in his bosom and gently leads those who are with young. Not just leads, but gently leads them. I want to encourage the parents here, many of you who have very young children, who have lots of needs, that your Lord is committed to gently leading you as you carry and care for your young covenant children. It's a great encouragement to us. As one commentator says, he does not drive, but leads. He doesn't drive the sheep, he leads the sheep. Just as a great captain of salvation does not Send his forces into battle where he stays back in his tent. No, he goes out in front. He leads from the front. He leads them into battle. And thus, the commentator says, in its conclusion, the prologue returns the thought of comfort with which it began. Verse 1, comfort, comfort ye my people, saith your God. And here in verse 11, the note of comfort once again. He's going to feed you, he's going to gather you, he's going to carry you, and he's going to gently lead those who are with young. Congregation, behold your God in his mercy, in his tenderness. John Piper likes to say that one of the most remarkable things about Jesus is the fact that you behold unflinching toughness and tenderness at the same time in the same person. And this combination of strength and mercy, love and power plays itself out through the rest of the chapter. If you just scan over the imagery of chapter 40, which we would do well to put to memory if we haven't already, unmeasurable. Your God measures the waters in the hollow of his hands. He measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure. He weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. Untaught, he knows All things. Infinite. He counts the nations as a drop in the bucket. Just like a blueberry in the bucket of Sal in the children's story. Kaplink. That's what the nations are in comparison to God. They are as nothing, indeed as less than nothing. Incomparable. He mocks the idols and their makers. Uncontained, he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. Imperishable. He blows the princes away like chaff, and they wither like stubble. Uncreated. He created all things. Who brings out their host by number, he calls them all by name. He's named and knows the name of every single star in the cosmos. He knows the hairs on your head. He knows every pulse beat in your body. Unresting, he gives rest to those who wait upon him. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Congregation, behold your God, not just a God, not just the God, but behold your God in his strength and in his mercy, his majesty and his meekness as the lion and as the lamb. There is a final exhortation. There is a final exhortation implicit in the prophecy of Isaiah, and that is behold your God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is fully Christian scripture, messianic in intention. I've already mentioned John 10, where Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd. He's the one. Jesus Christ himself who carries, leads, feeds the lambs. But more than that, Isaiah 40 is a messianic passage. The whole context of this call is that it follows the voice of one crying in the wilderness, the voice of John the Baptizer, an Elijah-like forerunner who goes before the Messiah. And when John the Baptist shows up on the scene, when the voice of one crying in the wilderness with camel's hair, and eating locusts and wild honey and a belt of leather, when he shows up baptizing in the Jordan, proclaiming a gospel of repentance, a baptism of repentance, when he shows up, what does he see? What does he see? Well, the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. And then the Lord shows up and he says, behold. Isaiah says, behold your God. And John says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This Jesus goes forth as the God-man, the Word made flesh, and he dwells among us, and we behold his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And he pours himself out in service to his people. He gently leads his apostles, and he takes it in obedience all the way to the cross. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns, in a purple robe, and Pilate said to them, behold the man. Isaiah says, behold your God. Pilate, a pagan civil magistrate says, behold the man. And then Jesus goes to the cross, and on that cross, another pagan, the centurion who stood opposite him, saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, and he said, truly, this man was the son of God. Great indeed is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, and congregation, when Isaiah calls you to behold your God, he doesn't merely call you to behold him enthroned in heaven, but he calls you to behold Jesus Christ on the cross. Because it's at the cross that we behold the strength and the mercy of God in full color. It's at the cross that we behold Jesus and we say, behold your God. At the cross, not in spite of the cross. But through the cross and in the cross, Jesus is revealing the strength, the mercy, the power, and the love of God. And you know the story. You know the history that as the righteous God-man, Jesus could not be held by the pains of death. The third day, he rose again from the dead and was declared to be the Son of God. as if the Father through the Spirit pointed to the empty tomb with a stone rolled away and in that threshold said, behold your God. Behold your God. and having ascended on high. Jesus sits enthroned before the ancient of days and congregation right now at our juncture in redemptive history, I call you to behold him there. The risen lamb, our perfect, spotless righteousness, the great unchangeable, I am the king of glory and of grace. Behold your God. Lift up your hearts and behold him there. The risen lamb. And from there, he shall come to judge the living and the dead, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess, as it were, behold your God. Behold your God in his strength, behold him in his mercy, but above all, behold him in the face of Jesus Christ, his son. Perspective is one of your most valuable resources. Yes, land, money, time, and information are all valuable, but without perspective, how do any of those things avail? And we, in this passage, have the ultimate gospel perspective. We have an anchor in the deep. We have a north star in the sky, and we have a message to tell the world. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills, and everywhere. Behold your God. From this high mountain, on a clear day, we can see forever. Amen. Let us pray.