This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week five of our look
through the book of Isaiah, day one of week five. We're turning the page to
Isaiah 40 today, and as we turn that page we are turning to the second major
section of the book of Isaiah. Each week we've been starting with a look at
where we are in this study of this long book.

The simple truth in the book is it's God's vision for your life. It's God's
vision for change and God's vision for comfort. First 39 chapters you've been
looking at God's vision for change, now we're going to begin to look together at
God's vision for comfort in your life.

In the first half of the book, Isaiah is talking to those in Israel who need to
change because they're facing judgment. They're in Israel, they're facing
judgment, potentially they're going to be put into exile. Well, in this second
half, the judgments already come and they're now living in exile in Babylon and
Isaiah writes prophetically to this group to let them know that God has a plan,
that even while they're in exile, even when it looks like everything's falling
apart, God has some comfort to give them.

Everything begins in this chapter and everything begins in this section with the
word comfort. So when I use that word comfort, what do you picture? Like a
sprawling mansion and servants doing all the things that you hate to do, never a
worry, never a care, you're sipping iced tea by the backyard swimming pool all
day long.

Do I have any chance at all in convincing you that even all of that is not a
guarantee of comfort in this life? There's a principle of temptation that's at
work here. Satan tells us that what we don't have or what we think we can't
quite seem to reach or seems totally out of reach, that's what we really need.

That's what's going to give us the comfort that we need in life. So we always
need a little bit more, a little bigger house, a little more money. If I just
had that, then I would have comfort in my life.

But and you've talked to these people, you know these people, those who attain
this kind of worldly comfort, they find out very quickly that it does not give
them what they wanted because you cannot find in things what we need for our
souls. A house can't give you hope, a bank account can't give you meaning, a
swimming pool can't give you significance. We need something greater.

We need comfort for our souls. And Isaiah 40 is God's word on godly comfort.
Comfort, that word means it fits you and who you are.

You feel at ease. It works well in your life. Jesus talked about this kind of
comfort in Matthew 11.

30 when he said, "For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden that I give you is
light. " So comfort is not doing nothing. There's a yoke to pull, there's a
burden to bear, but Jesus says, "I make it easy.

" One translation of that is it's well-fitting, it's fit to you. I make it
light. We need God's comfort in our lives.

Now when do we need God's comfort as followers of Jesus Christ? We need God's
comfort between the time that we're saved and the time that we're in heaven.
Before we're saved, God's working on our lives to convict us, convict us of our
sins, convict us of our need for him.

Once we get to heaven, we're going to live in perfection. We don't need comfort
in heaven because we have everything perfect. But while we wait on this
imperfect earth once we come to Christ, we need his comfort.

We have to deal with sin in this world and evil in this world and grief and
loss. We need God's comfort. One of the questions, one of the huge questions in
your life as a follower of Christ between the time you're saved and the time you
get to heaven is where will you look for comfort?

Any of us would have to admit we've looked for comfort in the things of this
world. It's only in Christ that we can find genuine comfort. You can find a
brief temporary measure of comfort in some of the things of this world, but they
always let you down in the end.

Now let me be real clear as I talk about this word comfort. God does not want
you to be comfortable, to get comfortable. God wants you to be comforted.

Those are two different things. Comfortable means I'm satisfied with things as
they are. God has a vision for change in your life.

He doesn't want you to be satisfied with things as they are. He doesn't want you
to be comfortable, but he does want you to be comforted. That means my soul
finds its satisfaction in the love of God.

I'm not satisfied with things as they are, but my soul, even when I'm not
satisfied with things as they are, my soul is finding its satisfaction in the
love of God. Not in what I get done, not in the entertainments that I have, not
in the people that say this or that about me. No, my soul finds its satisfaction
in the love of God.

We are not supposed to live the comfortable life. We are supposed to live the
comforted life. And so Isaiah 40 begins to answer the question we're going to
see in the rest of the book of Isaiah.

How can you live in comfort while living as a stranger in a foreign land, living
on this earth where things are not perfect? These words fit Israel as they lived
in exile, as they lived in Babylon, as they lived in Persia. And these words fit
our lives perfectly as Christians today because we live in one sense in exile.

We're not home yet. Heaven is our home. We are not citizens of this planet.

We're citizens of eternity, of heaven. So how do we live in one sense while we
wait? This world, it offers cheap and temporary comfort when it offers comfort
at all.

God offers genuine, eternal comfort for all who will trust in him. And we're
going to look in Isaiah 40 at six aspects of this comfortable life. He's really
outlining a lot of what he's going to talk about the rest of this book, the kind
of life that God wants us to live.

So how does God bring his comfort into our lives? Number one of those six things
that Isaiah tells us in chapter 40 is God comforts our guilt by his grace. God
comforts your guilt by his grace, by paying the price for your sins.

So Isaiah 41 to 2 says this, "Comfort, comfort my people," says your God, "speak
tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been
completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. " You cannot live comforted if you're living with
unresolved guilts. And God answers Israel's need here.

He says, "Your judgment is complete. You're living in exile. You have been
punished for your sins.

Don't think you're going to be punished again for those sins. It's done. You've
received double for all your sins.

It's finished. Your sins have been paid for completely," he tells them. You
don't have to worry again about that guilt, about suffering again for those
sins.

For you and I as followers of Jesus Christ, the promise is even greater.
Judgment is complete. Unless you know that is true, you will live with an
uncomfortable heart.

Maybe God's got to judge my sins some more. The price was paid completely at the
cross of Jesus Christ. Not temporarily, completely.

Not for some of your sins, for all of your sins. Not by your suffering, but by
His suffering. And that gives freedom from the fears that go along with
unresolved guilt in our lives.

Now as we walk through these different ways that God shows His comfort in our
lives, there's going to be a question with each of these. And the question is,
are you trying to comfort yourself, or are you looking to God's comfort? And all
of us who are trying to live the life of faith, follow Jesus Christ, know there
have been way too many times in our lives when we've tried to comfort ourselves
with the things of this world, with the things of ourselves, rather than look
into the comfort that God wants to give us in Jesus Christ.

So with this one, do you try to comfort yourself for your guilt by shaming
yourself? If you make yourself feel bad enough about your guilt, maybe you'll be
comforted. Or by blaming others.

If you can find someone else to pin it on, maybe you'll be comforted. Do you try
to comfort yourself for your guilt? Or do you look to God's comfort by accepting
that He paid the price completely at the cross?

Right now in prayer, let's just accept the gift of His comfort. Jesus Christ, we
turn to you, we remember what you did for us on the cross, and we accept the
truth once again that our sins were paid for completely. Forgive us for trying
to comfort ourselves by making ourselves feel shamed for our sins.

As if somehow that would pay for what we've done. Or blaming somebody else. Now
right now we look to the cross and we accept the gift of your grace.

And we pray that that would remind us that judgment is finished. There is no
judgment. There's no condemnation because you have forgiven us.

Thank you for the power of the cross. In Jesus' name we thank you. Amen.

Well join us tomorrow, we're going to continue to look at what Isaiah has to
teach us about the power of God's comfort in our lives.