May 24 2026

Frankie / General Adult

Isaiah 40:12-31:The God we cannot afford to miss

1.1 As I begin today’s sermon, I’d like to start by sharing what I saw and realized while in Saskatchewan. For a long time, like most people, I treated God as a problem-solver. I saw Him only as the One who heals my specific wounds and guides me at my specific crossroads. I took my parents’ problems to Him. I brought my plans to Him. I brought the next steps I couldn’t figure out on my own. If He answered, I was grateful; if He remained silent, I was confused. Either way, the focus of my conversation with God was always my situation, my needs, and my solutions.

1.2 Actually, that’s not a bad thing. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. Eleven years ago, I moved to Saskatchewan. As you know, I was from the city. City life had turned me into someone who complained about the weather. When it rained, I complained that my clothes got wet; when it snowed, I complained that driving was dangerous. I complained, tried to adapt, and just went along with it. However, Saskatchewan taught me a different language. Here, I began to hear something else. When I asked farmers, neighbors, and people who had lived their whole lives under this vast sky how they were doing—even when it had snowed or rained heavily—I expected, as always, that their sighs and complaints would be the answer. But their response was different; they said:

“Since we had so much snow this winter, it should be good for the crops this summer.” Or, “I have nothing to complain about, day after day.” It wasn't just a pretense of positivity. It was a genuine reaction and attitude toward life, deeply rooted in positivity.

1.3 I realized that the difference wasn’t in the weather or the environment. The difference lay in their mindset and perspective. They didn’t look at their circumstances and then decide how to feel about God. They were already focused on gratitude, and their circumstances simply fell into line with their attitude toward life.

1.4 This realization brought about a significant change within me. In fact, I had lived my entire life in exactly the opposite way. I would first assess a situation and then decide what God needed from me. This might imply that I viewed God as existing solely in response to my circumstances. In fact, I don’t think I’m the only one who has felt this way.

2.1 There is a particular danger within the church that is rarely addressed. It is not the danger of suffering. In fact, we do talk about suffering. We also pray fervently for those who are in pain. We preach sermons for the valleys, for dark nights, and for seasons of loss. But the danger I want to name this morning is one that is far less visible and far quieter.

2.2 Today’s sermon is not about the comfort God gives us, but about the sense of ease that naturally seeps into our lives. It is a natural sense of ease that comes without much prayer or seeking. When this ease arrives, it simply asks us to stay put. Good health, a stable home, generally good relationships, a church we like. To be honest, it’s a life that doesn’t push us too hard. So now I’d like to ask you a straightforward question: 

Can we truly remain in a state of comfort while at the same time not losing sight of God?

2.3 It’s not about rebelling against God. Nor is it about defiantly ignoring Him. It’s simply about the problem of not seeing Him. This doesn’t change how we understand ourselves, what we trust, or who we think is in control of the world. This is because there’s something I’ve discovered not only within the church but also within myself. In fact, when life becomes manageable, God shrinks to fit our size. He becomes exactly the God we need.

2.4 In this way, God becomes like a personal pastor in our lives. He becomes like a pastor we don’t live with but meet once a week—someone who solemnly acknowledges our pre-established plans and prays for us. He also becomes a God who is nothing more and nothing less than a label we attach to our comfort, assuming that our success is proof that God is pleased with us. And this cycle of life and thought, once established, is nearly impossible to break from within. From our perspective, it actually looks like faith—living a life that acknowledges God.

2.5 What we must note is that Isaiah 40 was written for people who were in a situation and state where nothing was comfortable. They were in exile. The temple had been reduced to ashes, and the city lay in ruins. Everything they had believed God had promised had been shattered on the roads of a foreign land. Into that desolation, God speaks. But there is a point I want to share this morning. The message God speaks to them is precisely the message that must pierce through our comfort. This is because what they lacked is the same as what we lack. It is our true perspective on who God really is. Now, let’s read Isaiah 40:12–17, 28-31 together with these questions in mind.

Isaiah 40:12–17 ESV

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel?
Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

Isaiah 40:28–31 ESV

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; 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.

Who Has Measured the Waters?

1 The Questions That Cornered Them (vv. 12–14)

3.1 In verses 12–14, the prophet begins with a series of questions that no one can answer. These are not gentle, comforting questions. Nor are they an invitation to reflection. In fact, they are questions designed to corner the people of Israel.

3.2 This section, which begins with the Hebrew grammatical form *mî* (meaning “who?”), is not a question seeking an answer. This is because the answer is already implied within the question itself. The only honest answer is this: No one. No one has done this. No one can do it.

 The question Isaiah poses here is remarkable. He does not begin with words of comfort. He does not begin with a promise. In this passage, Isaiah begins by addressing the greatness of God. He is saying this: Before talking about what God will do, first establish who God is! And the way Isaiah establishes this is not through theological argumentation. Isaiah begins his explanation for Israel, which is in pain, through an imaginable image of God.

3.3 The God of Israel measures the sea with the palm of His hand. Not a bucket. Not a vessel. The palm of His hand. The Hebrew word for “palm” refers to the hollow space between the fingers—an informal unit of measurement used by laborers when gathering grain. Isaiah says that the entire sea fits within God’s palm. He also measures the heavens with a span—the distance between His thumb and little finger when spread apart. This means that the vastness of the universe is measured by a single gesture of God’s hand. He also weighs the mountains on a scale. This is not merely poetry with flowery language. God is not being described as powerful in some abstract sense. The greatest things we know are being described as nothing more than God’s smallest units of measurement.

3.4 And the prophet poses a follow-up question: Who advised Him? Who taught Him the way of justice, or imparted knowledge to Him? No. No one taught God anything. No one corrected His work. No one suggested a better way for Him to adopt. This means that He has never needed our input to run the world, nor has He ever asked for it. This is not a threatening statement; it is a liberating one. For a God who does not need our advice is a God who does not rely on our circumstances to know what to do next.

The Nations as Dust on the Scale (vv. 15–17)

4.1 What, then, of the nations? What of Babylon? That empire whose monuments towered over the captives, that empire where gold-plated idols paraded through the streets in all their glory?

Isaiah 40:15–17 ESV

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

Not a river. Not a stream. A single drop in a bucket. Not a heavy stone. So light, like dust on a scale, that it does not even move the needle. “All the nations are as nothing before him; he regards them as less than nothing, as empty.”

4.2 The Hebrew word here is tōhû—the very same word used in Genesis 1:2 to describe the earth as “formless and empty.” Before God spoke and creation began, everything was tōhû. And Isaiah is saying this: Babylon is exactly that (tōhû). Every empire is that. Every great power, every system, every institution that stands as if it will last forever—all of them are that. From the Lord’s perspective, they are in a state prior to creation. They are chaos, tōhû, waiting for the Word that they cannot produce on their own.

The Absurdity of Idols (vv. 18–20)

5.1 Then comes the prophet's withering polemic against idolatry.

Isaiah 40:18–19 ESV

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains.

Isaiah's tone here is almost sardonic. You are going to compare that — something a craftsman casts, something a goldsmith plates, something that needs silver chains so it doesn't fall over — to YHWH?

5.2 The people of ancient times were not foolish. They did not believe that the statue itself was God. The idol was a representation. It was merely a physical anchor for the divine power it pointed to. What they were doing was making God manageable. They were bringing the infinite down to something they could see, touch, carry, and control. And that, if I may say so, is something we still do remarkably well. We no longer cast golden statues. But we are still adept at crafting a God of just the right size—a version of God who does not overwhelm us, who supports our self-preserved ideas, and who demands nothing too uncomfortable. The idols of Isaiah’s time were objects that could not move unless someone carried them. Ask yourself: 

Can the God you truly trust move without your permission?

The God Who Names the Stars (vv. 21–26)

6.1 And then Isaiah makes his final, magnificent move.

Isaiah 40:21 NKJV

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

6.2 The tone of these rhetorical questions shifts as the focus moves from the “Who?” in verses 12–14 to “Did you not know?” It is no longer merely a matter of cornering them. It almost feels like a lament. Did you not know this? Was this not told to you?

Isaiah 40:22–23 ESV

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

6.3 And then the image that brings the whole passage home:

Isaiah 40:26 ESV

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.

6.4 In Babylon, the stars were not mere decorations. They were the grammar of destiny. Astrologers sought to read them. Priests sought to interpret their meaning. The fate of the empire was written within them. The stars were the ultimate power—eternal, untouchable, and immeasurable. Isaiah now says: God, the One who made them, calls them by name. The fact that the One who rules them—not merely interprets them—calls them by name means not that they are above God, but that they are one of the creatures over which God reigns.

6.5 The Creator God brings forth all the stars by name, counting them one by one, without missing a single one, just as a shepherd leads his flock. The powers that the captives thought ruled the universe are the very things God names. They do not determine destiny. Only God determines it.

Responsive Transformation: Seeing That Becomes Living

But Isaiah does not leave the exiles — or us — only with the sight of who God is. He tells us what to do with that sight.

The Turn: What "Waiting" Actually Means (v. 31)

Isaiah 40:31 ESV

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.

7.1 We often read this passage as a promise of emotional restoration. You are weary. So wait on God. Then things will get better. He will restore your energy. But that interpretation fails to capture the true meaning of the Hebrew.

7.2 The word translated as “wait”—qāwâh—is not a passive emotional state. It is a directional alignment. It conveys the meaning of reaching out toward the right direction, binding oneself to that direction, and fixing one’s course toward the right place. It is like the role of a rope pulled taut toward an anchor.

7.3 And the result—“you will gain new strength”—is literally translated as an exchange of strength. It is not a replenishment of existing, deficient, or weakened strength. It does not mean filling it up. It is exchanging my strength for His strength. This is not about feeling more hopeful. It is a cognitive and ontological shift. It is the difference between gazing at the stars and reading them as my destiny, or gazing at the same stars and seeing the One who calls them by name and His flock. It speaks of the same stars, a different perception, and a completely different life and perspective.

The Perceptual Shift: Seeing — Understanding — Responding

7.4 This is where I want to be very direct with you. There is a word that runs through this whole passage: see. "Lift up your eyes on high and see." "Have you not known? Have you not heard?" "To whom will you liken God?" 

7.5 Isaiah is not presenting a theological argument. He is trying to change the way the exiled people of Israel are currently viewing the world. And that is what true faith is. Faith is not merely an intellectual conviction held while viewing the same world in the same way; rather, it is a transformation of what one actually sees. What or who is holding onto me and my life? What does it mean that He is holding onto me? Not my bank account, not my health, not this country? And not a new list of actions. What is it like to live from God’s perspective, and what does that look like?

7.6 At this point, I’d like to be honest with you about what this passage is really saying. If you’re feeling comfortable—and, to be honest, most of us are—the question this passage poses to you isn’t, “Are you satisfied with your life?” The question we have now is this:

When you look at your life, who do you see holding it in their hands? Who do you see leading it?

7.7 If your answer is primarily “me” or “my circumstances,” then your comfort may not be a blessing from God. It may be the very thing that is successfully hiding God from you. It is not that comfort is evil. But comfort does not challenge us. And when nothing challenges us, we stop looking up to where God is. And if we live with our eyes and perspective fixed on something other than where God is, functionally and practically, God becomes a God who is not there.

The Eagle Image: Not a Metaphor for Feeling Better

8.1 When Isaiah speaks of the eagle soaring on its wings, he is not describing an emotional high. Eagles do not flap their wings to ascend. Instead, they sense thermal currents—invisible columns of warm air rising upward—and spread their wings within them. They ascend not through effort, but by aligning themselves with the rising air.

8.2 To look to the Lord is to learn to read the currents of His presence. And to spread yourself out within them. It is not about striving harder. It is not about manufacturing a spiritual experience. It is simply about setting your course toward the One who calls the stars by name. And what follows from that is this: You stop trying to fill your comfort with meaning it cannot hold. You stop feeling the need for your circumstances to be the final word. You stop feeling the need to manage God into your life. Because you have begun to see that your life is in Him. It is not a new action. It is a new way of seeing. And seeing rightly changes everything about us.

Closing: The Question You Cannot Manage Away

I’d like to conclude this sermon with the question I began with today. I believe this is a fitting question to leave you with. 

Can we remain in a state of comfort while still keeping our eyes fixed on God?

9.1 I believe the answer is “yes.” I believe it happens quietly, without any dramatic events, through countless ordinary Sundays and ordinary weeks. We gather for worship and sing praises. We also hear God’s Word. And then we return to our lives, where God is—to be honest—mostly like background music. God is close enough for us to feel secure, yet just far enough away not to disrupt anything. However, the Book of Isaiah was written for people in crisis. Yet the shift in perception it calls for—lifting up our eyes to see the One who is truly there—is not limited to times of crisis. Even Israel, in the midst of suffering, cried out that it was not they who had forsaken God, but that God had forgotten them. They were looking at God, but they were looking in the wrong direction. Whether in times of peace or suffering, our external circumstances alone cannot turn us toward God. What matters is not the pressure of our situation, but the direction of our gaze. It is about looking at God’s presence and turning our eyes to fix them on where God is. It is about changing what we look at and the direction in which we look.

9.2 It is a movement that creates a life of faith, not one that keeps faith confined to a department or mere knowledge. God sits enthroned above the earth. The inhabitants of the earth are like grasshoppers. He spreads out the heavens like a tent. He brings down rulers. He calls the stars by name—not one is missing. And what is important is that He knows your name as well.

9.3 The question is not whether He is alive. The question we must ask is whether we are truly looking to Him—the One who is alive, the One who is everything in this world. Those who wait, who align themselves with Him and exchange their strength for His strength, will rise up. It is not because circumstances have improved. It is because they have begun to see what has always been there: God’s love, His work, and His presence. That is faith. Not a department. A way of seeing.

Questions for the reflection.

1. When you bring something to God in prayer, what are you usually asking for, and what does that pattern reveal about how you functionally see Him?

2. Is there an area of your life where comfort has quietly become the frame through which you read God, rather than the other way around?

3. If "waiting on the Lord" means directional alignment rather than passive hoping — what would it look like, concretely, for you to extend yourself toward Him this week?