The Ministry of Comfort

But it is a wonderful moment for us to reflect on and to hear from God's word how He wants us to receive the great gift that He has given us of full time ministry and what we are to do with that gift of full time ministry at Open House. I wanna begin doing that by looking with you at a passage that I preached ten years ago on the day of my ordination. We heard that Pastor Harold Wilbur Olser Obi led that ordination service and said a few words, then he gave me a chance to say a few things as well. And on that day, I reflected on a passage from Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 40, which was instrumental in my self understanding of the call that I had received in order to be a minister of God's word. Some of you won't know the story of how I entered ministry and it's probably far too long to be explained just today this morning.

But suffice it to say, my story is marked by some very definitive points where I sensed God gripping me and altering the course of my life in bringing me into ministry. Being of Dutch descent, people have pointed out that I can be somehow and somewhat single-minded. Thankfully, God knows that about me and therefore across my life, He's distinctly flicked various switches in my life that has steered me to this path of ministry. Like a train on a railway track, God had to take me from going down one path and He had to click me onto another set of tracks. And one of those switches that was flicked for me occurred in a class, my final year of bible college in 2007.

It was a course, a class on studying the book of Isaiah. I had entered bible college not so much thinking that I wanted to pursue pastoral ministry. My original intent was to know the bible, to know the gospel so I could explain it hopefully persuasively or intelligently to my friends who weren't saved, many of them. I wanted to know more so I could explain things better. Now, one particular day in that class, I felt a tug at my heart to consider the ministry of pastoral care, the ministry of the word seriously.

To be fair, that final year was naturally a year of reflection, of processing what it meant for me to be at the end of this degree. But an answer for me personally came in a profound way that day when we came to the book of Isaiah chapter 40. And this is what we read that morning. Isaiah chapter 40 verses one through to verse eight. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A voice says cry and I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

It was these words, fifteen years ago, that tugged at my heart in a profound way. I knew the words very well as I'm sure many of us who have been Christians for a while are familiar with them. But the command God gave to Isaiah to comfort, comfort my people clung to me that day. Now what is it that God was really saying to Isaiah and through Isaiah to the people of Israel? Well, Isaiah chapter 40 marks a significant shift in the prophecy that he has brought to Israel again and again.

Christian scholars and critics even agree that chapter 40 breaks away from the previous 39 chapters in a very remarkable way. Something new is being said here. For much of the previous chapters, God has pronounced plenty of judgment on the people. Israel had broken their faith with God, but now this message that Isaiah is to bring the people is one of hope. Comfort my people, says God.

Now there's a bit of ambiguity in that opening verse there, in the opening phrase comfort, comfort my people. You can interpret it to be God saying directly to His people, comfort, comfort, peace, peace, my people. Or you can understand that God is saying, say to the people, Isaiah, comfort, comfort. Go to them with that message, Isaiah, and tell them, I say to them comfort, comfort. Now, that's debated by brainy people, but really, as Christians, understanding how the word of God works, the two can overlap very easily.

God saying to His people comfort, comfort directly, but through the words of Isaiah. Either way, God wants His people to be comforted. Speak tenderly, God says, to Jerusalem, the spiritual capital of Israel. Literally, the Hebrew phraseology there is to speak to the heart of Jerusalem. Speak to the deepest part of my people and tell them, I want them to receive comfort.

Tell Jerusalem that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been pardoned. Well, for 39 chapters, God has shown that Israel will not listen to their prophets. God shows that He knows that His people will be punished for their wilful rejection of Him. The curse of the covenant would be enacted and that is that if you abandon me, I will abandon you. God's saying to Israel, I am taking away the privilege that I gave you above all the nations of a promised land, of My presence with you. As a sign of your breaking covenant with me, I will show you the extent of my own heartbreak.

And for 39 chapters, God has been saying that to His people. And then we come to Isaiah 40. God says that He will send comfort to His people. And the essence of this comforting message is that Israel's sins have been paid for. The comfort isn't so much that they will have the land back.

The comfort isn't so much even that they will be restored all the good things that they had before. No. The comfort is that her sins have been doubly paid for, that her hard service in exile has been completed. Israel has been punished, but it is time for her to be reconciled to God. The prophecy continues and says that a prophetic voice will cry out from the desert, prepare the way for the Lord.

Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. The image there is one of an army that is on a warpath. And in ancient near eastern armies, as they went across the continent or the countries they conquered, they would literally level the ground so that they could pass quickly, efficiently towards the places that they were to capture. It's a military expression here of God calling His people to prepare a highway for who? For God on His warpath.

It is not for us to prepare a highway so that we may reach God. It is a highway completed so that God may come to Israel. Israel are the workers who will prepare this highway and God is the general riding at the front of His army. And we are told that this general is going to be victorious and there is no doubt about it. He is coming with power and glory. Verse five says, and the glory of the Lord on that day shall be revealed and all flesh, that is all humanity, will see it together.

In this act of rescue, God's glory will be revealed, in other words, to the whole world, not just to Israel. The glory is summed up in how God has saved His people miraculously, powerfully. He has come to them. No one will miss it. The rescue of His people will be marked by unmistakable glory.

Power, majesty, abundant awe accompanies the salvation of the Lord. It is in this message of hope that God is ultimately promising Israel that He will be reunited with them. That despite the severe punishment that has been foretold in 39 chapters, a time is coming when they will no longer live with the punishment of their sin, but that they will have peace with God again. And then finally, in verses six to eight, those verses compares God's glory with the glory of mankind. Those verses say that all flesh, all mankind are like grass and their glory is like the flowers of the field, verse six.

Verse eight, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. In Israel's eyes, a terrifying might and power that they would experience at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians who were coming. As part of God's punishment, they were coming. And they would look at that terrifying might and their power, they would see their ruthlessness and their effectiveness, and Israel would be conquered by foes that had power that seemed limitless. But here, Isaiah reminds them that the glory of man will come to an end like grass, like flowers in the field, they will dry up.

But God's glory through His salvation will last forever. His word, which means here His promise, is eternal. What God says will happen, will happen. He will not relent. He will not grow weary.

In order to sort of sum up what God is saying here, He's saying, hang in there. Hang in there because God is coming to fetch you. Now it's a wonderful message for Isaiah to proclaim to desperate people. The same message the bible will tell us in the New Testament was preached hundreds of years later by the man John the Baptist, where he preached about the kingdom of God that was coming. And in all the gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all of them identify that the voice in the desert crying, prepare the way of the Lord, is John.

He is the voice literally calling from the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord and make straight His paths for Him. And then Jesus came and He said to His people. John said to His people when Jesus came, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And so friends, the glory of God, the bible is telling us there, is manifestly witnessed in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. John doesn't understand it fully in his time, neither did the disciples of Jesus. In Jesus, God is coming to fetch His people. He's coming to bring His people back to Himself.

In his book, The Pursuing God, Joshua Ryan Butler highlights one of the common mistakes people can make when we talk about God's holiness and our sin. Isaiah 40 shows a God who comes running towards His people, and Ryan Butler writes, when we hear people say, God can't stand the presence of sin, I imagine, he says, God is a sixties housewife, shrieking up and pulling up a checkered skirt and clambering it atop a kitchen table when sin enters like a spider. God can't stand sin as a statement is usually followed by the advice, so you better stay away from sin or he will stay away from you. I get the logic, he says. God is holy, sin is ugly, and the holiness of God must be protected from the horror of sin.

But can our sin taint God? When sin steps into the room, does God bolt for the door? Is God afraid to get dirty? Here's the good news. God's not afraid of our germs, not scared for His safety, nor is He willing to back away from the mess that we have made.

He is not the one running, we are. He is not the one running, we are. The gospel proclaims, he writes, our core problem is not that God can't stand to be in the presence of sin. It's in fact the opposite. Sin can't stand to be in the presence of God. It was a glorious sunny Queensland afternoon in 2007 when I heard these words echo in my heart. KJ, there is a message of comfort that needs to go to my people.

They need to know that their God has come for them. You are to speak to their hearts, to tell them that their hard service is over, that their sin has been doubly paid and it has been paid by the one and only Jesus Christ. This is the magnificent ministry that God has graciously given me. And it is the same ministry that you, as a church, you as my spiritual family have invited me to take up again among you. I wanna thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support of the ministry of God's comforting word.

Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for waiting patiently as I grew in this ministry these past ten years. You've been patient with my mistakes and you've been excited about our achievements. All throughout, I've always known a deep love for me from this church.

First, as a bachelor among you and now, perhaps, especially as a husband and a father. It's been wonderful to be here these past ten years and to reflect last week on all the lives we were able to touch, all the people that God has sent across our path to minister to. It has been so good to reflect on the growth of our church from essentially a house church to now a financially independent congregation, able to afford full time ministry with great elders, with great ministry leaders and a beautiful facility. God has been very good to us, and we can humbly thank Him for it. So the message that God entrusted me as a pastor is the same message God was giving to Isaiah, and that is the message I look forward to sharing with you again and again, week after week, to old Christians who need encouragement, to newcomers who haven't heard it said in quite that same way, or to non-Christians who have never heard it said.

Comfort, comfort says your God. Speak to their heart and tell them that their hard service is over, that their sin has been paid fully. God is the God who comes to fetch His people. He pursues us and He isn't afraid of our sinfulness even though He must and will deal with it intentionally. Secondly, we are instructed to prepare the highway of our hearts for the Lord's salvation. We are commanded to make straight the paths so that that good news may arrive in our lives.

And then thirdly, we expectantly keep an eye out for the immense and amazing rescue of God for His elect. We have seen it, we will see it and in the future when Christ returns, we will see it most fully, the glory of God for the rescue of His people. Today, it is my privilege to be called by God through you to be a minister, to be a minister of that message. May God bless you, His church, to be the custodians of that news. Comfort, comfort my people.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this milestone in the history of our church. We thank you, Lord, that you've been faithful to us. Lord, that you have sanctified us. Lord, that over these years, you have grown us in an urgency for the ministry of the gospel.

Lord, I thank you that you have caused men and women of God to lay aside significant parts of their own personal wealth, their income, to commit it to this church and to the ministry that is done here. Lord, that is a sacrifice I believe you are truly pleased with. And then we pray that you will continue to build us up, strengthening each member within the body to act as a servant to proclaim and to hold out the hope which we have found in Jesus Christ. Lord, give us eyes to see, enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we will know the hope of the glory found in Jesus Christ, that we will hold it out for anyone to see that they may come and be comforted with us. Bless Open House Church.

Bless this ministry, we ask in Jesus name. Amen.