Our Unfatigable God

Isaiah 40:28-31 “Our Unfatigable God”

Do you remember the most exhausting job that you have ever done? I haven’t worked that many physically-demanding jobs, but the top-two contenders would be hand mixing cement in the blazing equatorial sun in Guyana, or roofing. After I finished seminary, I did a year-long internship at our church in Illinois. I did not make much, so I had to work on the side. One of our church members was a carpenter, and he did roofing in the summer. He kindly (?) had me help on a number of roofs. I know it’s got to be hot so the shingles can stick together, but he always picked the hottest, most humid days to work. It’s amazing what the blazing sun, shingles, and sweat can do to a person. Lots of breaks. Lots of Gatorade. And after you carry a pack of singles up a ladder: “When I was your age, I would carry 2 packs at a time.”

Exhausted would be the word I would use after working a day of roofing. I don’t care what you’ve done in life, you have at some point been tired to the core of your being. Whether it be physically or emotionally, you’ve been there. God doesn’t get that way. He is un-exhaustible. He is unfatigable…indefatigable. He has ceaseless energy. And that God loves to give his children his strength when they reach the end of theirs.

Last week, we looked at Israel’s wrong view of God found in verse 27. They thought God had forgotten them. That he didn’t care. The big question is: God is great. God is powerful. But does he care? Verses 28-31 are a resounding- YES! How, then, do we find strength in our all-powerful God?

1. Transform your theology (28)
The first point last week was this: remember revelation (vs 21). God starts again in verse 28: “have you not know? Have you not heard?” We have got to remember what God has said about himself. This is not new information. This is truth about God that Israel had heard before. God is graciously reminding them about who He is. And that is our task, as long as we are on this earth: to allow God’s Word to continually transform our view of God. Our view of God is tainted by our sin and our inability to grasp an infinite God. As Romans 12 says- be transformed by the renewing of your minds. We need to remember who God is. We need to fight against our tendency to define who God, and let God speak to us about who is. If your view of God is faulty, it will show in how you live your life.

What does God say about himself in these verses?

A. God is the everlasting God
God is beyond time. He always was. He will always be. He is infinite…which means he is beyond the constraints of space and time. Because he is beyond time, he always has enough time to help us. He is ceaselessly working for his children. God will never say: just wait a moment, I don’t have time to help you now. Because God is everlasting, he is always working.

B. God is the Creator of the ends of the earth
God created all things. Everything we see. Everything we don’t see. Made by God. Because God is the Creator, he has the right to work in this world and in our lives.

C. God is unfatigable
Because God is infinite, he has limitless energy. He does not faint. He does not grow weary. He does not have a bedtime. He doesn’t ever cancel being God because he gets sick or tired. Because he is unfatigable, he has the power to help his children.

D. God is unsearchable
God’s understanding is beyond our understanding. Earlier is Isaiah 40, God says: who do I consult when I make decisions? No one! God’s wisdom is unsearchable. Dear friends, don’t Google God! You can literally google “God,” but the internet is generally a poor place to learn about God. (If you want to unsettle someone, Google their name and show them the results. That’s lots of fun to do.) We can’t do a search- “what was God doing today?” or “Why did God do this?” It doesn’t work. What we need to know about God is written in this Book. Because God is unsearchable, he has the wisdom to help his children.

E. God does not change
Behind all these magnificent truths about God is this: He does not change. He is God. He is Everlasting. God is always like this. He has always been this way. He will always be who He is. We’ve got to realize that our view of God often changes depending on how we feel. If you have a hard day, God seems a little less kind than he was yesterday. His love seems tarnished, and his power diminished. God is always the same, no matter what we think, no matter how we feel. Part of transforming our theology, is remind ourselves that no matter what we think or feel, God is the same. His love will never end. His power will never fail. Because God is unchangeable, he will always help his children.

God is the everlasting God. He is ceaselessly working for his children.
God is the Creator of everything. He has the right to work for his children.
God is unfatigable. He has the power to work for his children.
God is unsearchable. He the wisdom to work for his children.
God does not change. He will always work for his children.

Let this truth purge your heart of its lies about God.

How do we find strength in God? Transform your theology.

2. Give up your gumption (29-30)
Some of you have gumption. Stick-to-it-ness. Some call it stubborn. Others call it perseverance. And while have endurance is a very good quality, being stubborn is not. Sometimes you need to know when to give it up. When it comes God giving us strength, we’ve got to realize that he gives strength to those who come to the end of themselves. It says in verse 29, that he gives power to the faint…and to those who have no might.
According to one commentator, the word faint describes “failure under life’s pressures” and weary describes “lack of innate strength.” You’re at the end of your rope. The bottom has dropped out of your life. You’ve got nothing left.

It says here that the youths and young men will fall exhausted. You may look at me at 30 years old and think that I have unlimited energy. I don’t. No matter what age, we all will run out of energy. It just happens faster as you get older. You can get an Olympic athlete or a Navy Seal in here. They will run out of energy. They will fall exhausted.

God always has strength for his people. We, as God’s people, don’t always think we need his strength. Give up your gumption and acknowledge that need to be continually strengthened by God’s power. You are weak. You will faint. God delights to help those who know they need help. Pride says- I’m fine. Humility says- I need you, God.

3. Rest in your Redeemer (31)
A. Our hearts
Zachariah has never been the best sleeper. Even now, he doesn’t sleep well when he has teeth coming in. After the first, second, third, fourth time he wakes up and cries, neither parent wants to get out of bed to tell him to go back to sleep. I’ve heard of some parents who play rock-paper-scissors to see who will get up with the baby. Sometimes, we get absolutely tired of helping of helping our children or others in our lives that are needy. The good news of Isaiah 40, is that God never has it up to HERE with helping us.

Our response to our strong Redeemer, when we have no strength left, is to rest in him. The KJV has “wait” for the Lord. The idea is to hope, to wait with expectation and hope. This is a response of faith in our God.

One pastor puts it this way: “Violent men dash themselves to pieces by their own eagerness, but the vigour of godly men, though it has less display, and often appears to lie buried while they calmly “wait for” God’s assistance, is refreshed and renewed.” -Calvin

Isaiah 30:15 puts it this way:
For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said,
“In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.”

Do you have a calm confidence that God will help you? Are you willing to wait patiently for God to give you power? Is your heart like a Walmart on Black Friday? Or is it like a canoe on a mountain lake?

B. Our Strength
Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. Their strength will be replaced with God’s strength. It is not an ordinary strength. They will soar with wings like eagles. It is not natural for humans to have wings. Nor is it natural to have strength beyond yourself. It is from God. The eagle was considered to be the greatest of birds. We will have the greatest of strength from our God. We will not only be able to do what we need to, but we will do it without being weary: they shall run, and not be weary. They shall walk, and not faint.

God will do what it takes to get us to wait on him. Any weakness you are experiencing right now will be used by God to drive you to Himself. He will knock out the supports from our life so we will discover that He indeed in the only strength that we need. When we wait on him, we will have all the strength we need.

Conclusion: the way of the cross
It has never been “cool” to be weak. Every culture has difference ways strength and weakness is shown. But common to all humans is to want to be strong in ourselves. We want to be self-sufficient…self-sustaining. We’ve got to realize as Christians, we follow the way of the cross. The way of the cross is the way of weakness. The way of the cross is not cool. It is foolish in the eyes of this world.

Paul says this about Jesus in 2 Corinthians 13:4: “For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.” It is the mystery of God becoming man, that the everlasting God became weak. The God who provides food for all his creatures is the God who fasted forty days in the desert and was hungry. The God who holds the oceans in the palm of hand, from exhaustion slept on a stormy sea. The everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth, wept tears of blood as he faced the cross. He faced the ultimate weakness: death. He died the most ignoble death: death on a cross. But through the weakness of the cross came the power of the resurrection.

It should not surprise us, when God calls us to weakness. We are just following the weakness of our Savior. This is what God tells us (I Cor 1:26-29):

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

In light of this, Paul says in the next chapter (I Cor 2:1-5):
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Then, finally, in I Cor 12:9-10, Paul’s famous words about his weakness and God’s grace:

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When we are weak, we follow the way of our Savior, who was crucified in weakness. When we are weak, we are frail vessels ready to be filled with God’s power and grace. When we are weak, we make much of God. Don’t be afraid to be weak. Because when we are weak, we are truly strong.