On Eagles' Wings

On Eagles' Wings

A Sermon On:

PREPARED BY

KEN GEHRELS

PASTOR

CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH

NEPEAN, ONTARIO

Have you ever been tired?
I mean really tired, where it felt like you wouldn't be able to lift a finger even if your life depended on it?
Perhaps you spent the day working outdoors around the house.
Perhaps you had to prepare for an important test or exam or interview, and your head ached like it would explode.
Perhaps you had been under a lot of pressure at work or school, and the strain seemed to drain all the energy through the bottom of your socks.

Now imagine being tired for days and perhaps weeks.
THAT'S feeling weary.

Feeling weary:

when your emotions bottom out, and laughter is forced
when the events of the day seem to be surrounded in a damp heavy fog and lead weights seem tied to your feet
when you forget what its like to wake up with anticipation and bounce out of bed ready for the day ahead.

Weariness - it can happen physically, it can happen emotionally and it can happen spiritually.
And it is about those sorts of times that our text speaks.

Feeling weary: When you have to sit on the school bus again, knowing that when you get to school you will be picked on.... again, or left alone and out of the crowd.... again.

Feeling weary: aking up each morning to a marriage filled with tension and resentment and a spouse from whom you feel utterly detached.

Feeling weary: dragging your body around the house, knowing that every next movement will bring yet more pain.

Feeling weary: feeling tempted to do what you KNOW is displeasing to God, and in the long run hurtful to your life;
feeling tempted again and again and again. Crushed by the guilt of having given in again and again. Tired because you are sure that God is furious or at least totally fed up with you by now.

Feeling weary: wondering just what all today's busyness is about, anyway? Why bother? Where has it all really gotten you anyway? Where does small little you fit in this big, big, universe?

Human weariness - it's to tired people that Isaiah 40 speaks.

You know, there are two things that stick out time and again as I read, and reread chapter 40 of Isaiah.

The first is the immensity of life and our world:
grass, flowers, gigantic mountains, hills, infinite skies, stars, miles of sand, billions of people - they're all mentioned there.

The second thing is that even though life is great and our world is immense, the God who created it all is far greater and far more immense.

Who sits enthroned above the circle of the earth;
Who stretches out the heavens like a canopy;
Who created all the stars and constellations;
Who brings them out one by one, calling each by name;
Who weighs the islands as if they are fine dust;
Who measure the waters in the hollows of his hand.

Great big life, and an even Greater God.

And to we limited people, who often have to find out the hard way that we DON'T have the ability to conquer the world, and that we AREN'T emotional titans able to withstand anything and everything thrown at us,
to us come the words of Isaiah 40:
"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength;
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not be faint."

The Lord, the everlasting God
The creator of the ends of the earth
Promises to give strength to the weary
and increased power to the weak.

"Great big God - I NEED that strength!"

"Lord, the world is big and I'm not. The future is long, and I'm short-sighted.
Time is immense, and I am but a drop in the ocean of time.
Great wisdom is needed, and I am very limited."

"Heavenly Creator, even the little bit of life that I have lived, the short segment of history in which I have participated, is not the world's most marvellous sight. I've blown it, time and again. I've tried to run the store on my own, and I'm close to going bankrupt."

I need help.
I need your help.
I NEED YOUR STRENGTH!

If you resonate with prayer words like that then hear the words of Jesus:
"Come to me, all you who are wary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Mt 11.28-30)

Words spoken by God the Son, who came to live in our weary and tired world, who experienced the tension, hunger, loneliness, pain and frustration and temptation that drive us into the ground today.

Words spoken by God the Son who came to face the anger and frustration and punishment of God that properly should have been doled out to me and you for the times we've blown it in life.
who came to care a road through life to an eternity of vigour and strength and joy and peace in the close and wonderful presence of God Himself for all who will answer His call:
Come to me!

Hope in me and find renewed strength.
Come rest and I will raise you up on my wings.
Let me carry you while I run for you.
Let me hold your hand as together we walk.

We are offered God's very special strength today:
The strength inside that comes from the very real awareness that we don't face the task of life alone; That we are never forgotten or ignored!

That instead we have a very special friend - Jesus - who watches us at all times, care for us at all times, and who is open to having us come and speak to Him at all times.

It is the strength that gives courage to get back up again after disastrous defeat to temptation of one sort or another.

It is the strength that remembers that Jesus forgave me! Jesus was punished, I will not be! God rejected Jesus - and therefore accepts me! I don't need all this guilt or worry about what God thinks.
I am His.
He loves me.
He forgives me!
FOREVER!

It is the inner strength that says: If God pays that much attention to me, and considers me important enough to send Jesus to die for me then I'm a somebody. I'm worthwhile. I'm special!

That strength can give me something to hang on to and somewhere to turn when it seems that all the kids at school don't give a rip about me anymore.

It is the strength to carry on through the humdrum, mundane sameness of living;/ to keep up with duties that have become burdensome because they seem so small -
Knowing that we are using our talents and gifts to care for God's world and to bloom where He has planted us and to be a small part of His overall plan;
knowing that as we do, He watches us and cares for us, and takes pleasure in our serving Him
and treasures us!

It is this strength that allowed one person to write":
"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken.
We are perplexed because we don't know why things happen as they do but we don't give up and quit.
We are hunted down, but God never abandons us.
We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.
Though our bodies are dying, our inner strength in the Lord is growing each day.
These troubles and sufferings of ours are, after all, quite small and won't last very long.
Yet this short time of distress will result in God's richest blessing upon us forever and ever!" (2 Corinthians 4.8-10,16,17)

These aren't words written by someone oblivious to reality, fitted with a permanent pair of rose-coloured glasses.
And they are not the words of some hardened rock who laughed when everyone else cried,
who felt no pain.

The author speaks from a life of hardship:
wrestling with a physical handicap,
rejected by his professional peers,
several stints in prison due to religious persecution
and a schedule of speaking engagements, debates and confrontations that would drive most of us over the edge.

The eagle wing strength of the Lord is a strength to face those things in life openly, and to deal with them;
a strength that refuses to let life be destroyed because of them.

It is a divine strength, above all, that gets us through in the knowledge that one day these things, too, will pass away and the eternal and perfect order of the New Heaven and Earth will come into place.

The God-given strength Paul and Isaiah speak of is very real.
Many of you know that - for you have experienced it in your own way; receiving the inner strength to be able to face the particular struggles of your life.

Yes - the strength of God is very real!!

The sad part is that so many people don't allow themselves the privilege of cultivating a channel to this source of divine peace while things are going well.
They -
we?
- become so busy with the distractions of everyday living and little tyrannies or pleasures that slowly but surely contact with God is lost.
And then, when we need Him the most, we discover that we are so distant. Oh, not because He has left us. It is that we have wrapped ourselves in so many different layers of busyness, that we shield ourselves, blind ourselves, and deafen ourselves to an awareness of His presence.
We distance ourselves from Him.

"Those who hope in the Lord...."
Another translation puts it: "those who wait upon the Lord.... shall renew their strength..."

Taking time each day to pray.
Taking quality AND quantity time each week to worship.
Taking time to meditate on scripture, to read good christian literature.
Do we?
Do we teach our children of this?

Question - how and when do you enjoy the presence of the Lord in your life?
How and when do YOU wait on Him?

When the difficulties strike, will the channel be dredged and clear? Or will it have grown over with the weeds of life and be hard to navigate?

"Those who wait upon the Lord..."

One more thing -
and then I'm going to leave you for a month -
There are times in the lives of believers when no matter how hard we try to stay in touch, or how well prepared we are, God seems totally distant and His strength totally out of reach.

Mabe that is you right now.
Maybe you've been through that experience.
Maybe you know someone like that.

In times like that, to repeat what I said this morning as we talked about gentleness
- in times like that those who are whole are called to be the channels of God';s grace to that person's life;
The wings of healing and hope and strength.

That's a central part of being church.

Isaiah speaks of God lifting believers up on eagles wings.
Those wings are found in the fellowship of saints in the Church.

Being eagles wings for each other -
regardless of why or how the person ended up in a broken heap on the floor -
- being there!

With prayers, visits, listening ear, holding a hand, mowing the lawn, washing the car, cooking a meal, caring for children, driving to the doctor.

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
In sometimes mysterious, and sometimes not so mysterious ways they will be able to get back up and continue running. They will be dusted off in order to walk again. They will help each other up in the name and power of the Lord.

And together, side by side, hand in hand, they will face the future, waiting for the day when Jesus will gather us up into His powerful eagle arms for the last time and wing us to the top of God's eternal mountain, where the complete intensity of this promise in Isaiah will be fulfilled and where there will be no more weariness or tiredness, or sorrow or crying or pain. For then the old way of things will have passed away.
Then, indeed, we will run and not grow weary.
We will walk and not be faint.

Come, Lord Jesus, and bring that day!!