The Mighty Shepherd

Isaiah 40:9-11 “The Mighty Shepherd”

Tonight, we will be looking at verses 9-11. My two points are:
1. God is the good news
2. God is the great shepherd

1. God is the good news

A. The good news comes with power
When we were in Guyana, the churches we worked with would often hold outdoor crusades. We would load trucks with a big platform, speakers, amplifiers, lights, generators, and lots of cords. We would set up on a back street and hold evening services for several days. At times, my friends and I would hope on our bicycles and see how far the sound would travel. If I remember correctly, we could often hear the preaching a good mile away. The whole neighborhood could hear the message.

That’s kind of what God says here: go up on a high mountain: let everyone know the good news. “Lift up your voice with strength.” Let it be heard loud and clear. The good news comes with power. Let’s step back and look at the context. In verse 1, the prophet is commanded to speak comfort to Jerusalem. In vs 3, he is told to cry in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord. In vs 6, the prophet is commanded to cry: “all people are like grass.” The text reaches a peak here, with the gospel being shouted from the mountain tops. Courageously, without fear.

Except, it is not the prophet is not the one proclaiming the good news. It is Jerusalem shouting the good news to all the cities of Judah. From God’s chosen city would ring the good news to all of God’s people. We begin to get clues in the rest of Isaiah that the good news would not just be shouted to the cities of Judah, but from Jerusalem, the gospel of Jesus Christ would spread around the world.

Isaiah 49:6 It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” The good news must go out with power. It will go out with courage. It will go out to the ends of the earth. According to the promise of Jesus it will:

Acts 1:8- But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

B. The good news is God
Have you ever been to one of those birthday parties when the party is everything except a celebration of the person’s birthday? Maybe you’ve been at a kid’s birthday, where that one kid thinks THEY should be the center of attention. Maybe you were that kid.
Or a one-year-old’s party where the kid is inside playing, and everyone else is outside partying. They kind of forget why they are there.

Humans have always stole the show from God. We’ve tended to forget Him and focus on ourselves. Specifically, we think the gospel is about us. Especially in the more recent decade, the gospel has been marketed as a message about self-fulfillment for me. We’ve forgotten that the gospel is a celebration about God, not a celebration about humanity.

Isaiah 52:7- How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

The gospel according to Isaiah 40, according to the Bible is: behold your God. The gospel has always been about God. Thousands years have passed since Isaiah, and humanity still twists the gospel to focus it on us: behold me! To the people in exile, God says: look at me. I’m your salvation, I’m your comfort, I’m your God.

The gospel is: behold your God. As we travel into the NT, we find that the gospel gets more specific: “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The gospel is “behold Jesus Christ.” The gospel is a declaration of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. A message about humans provides no hope and no comfort. As Isaiah 40:6 says: all flesh is grass. No hope there! A message about God brings hope and comfort to despised and weary sinners.

The gospel is not focused on humans, or even on human actions. The gospel is not humans trying to improve themselves. A message that you can improve yourself it BAD NEWS because you will fail. The gospel is not: try harder. The gospel is not the strength of your faith of the sincerity of your repentance. It is the action of God. Behold your God. Behold, the Lord God comes with might. Isaiah 40 and the rest of the Bible proclaim a God who works on behalf of his people. It is his action that saves us. God is the gospel.

2. God is the Great shepherd (10-11)
Maybe you expected me to say that God is the good shepherd. Here, he is the mighty shepherd.

A. God is the great Savior and Judge
Vs 10 shows the might and power of God. He comes with might. He rules with strength. He comes with a reward. This should be very exciting or very terrifying. Often in the Bible, God comes in salvation and judgment. He will reward the righteous with salvation. He will reward the unrighteous with judgment.

When you are getting beat up by a bully on the playground, the teacher showing up will be good news for you. But it will be bad news for the bully. God is very dangerous for the wicked and very safe for his people.

B. God is the tender shepherd
When we think of shepherd, sometimes we imagine a gentleman with a white beard who sits around all day holding fluffy lambs. That’s not the biblical picture. Shepherds must be strong. You need a mighty shepherd to protect the sheep.

Look at how David describes his experience as a shepherd to King Saul. He is convincing Saul that he can take out Goliath.

I Samuel 17:33-37- And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”

In Genesis, Jacob describes what his life was like as a shepherd:

Genesis 31:40- There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

You need a muscular man armed to the teeth to be a shepherd. The Rambo shepherd. It is not without reason that verse 10 and 11 are put together. Because our Lord is a mighty God, he is a tender shepherd.
-He gathers the lambs in his arms
-He carries them in his bosom. This describes wrapping the lambs in his outer garment, carrying them like parents who wear their babies
-Gently leads those with young. The ewes and newborn lambs need special care. This word for “gently lead” is also used in Psalm 23. It describes not only leading, but providing for every need along the way.

Our God is very tender with his people. He pays close attention to those who are weak and struggling. He not only a strong leader and protector, but a wise provider. The one who measured the oceans in the hollow of his hands, guides his sheep by the still waters. The one who put stars into place with his fingertips picks up the struggling lamb. The one who will rule with a rod of iron comforts with his people with his staff and rod.

There is a reason that Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd and one with the Father in the same breath. The Lord Yahweh is the Great Shepherd of Isaiah 40. Jesus is claiming to be just this shepherd in John 10. “I am the good shepherd.”

Jesus says: 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

This combination of mighty God and gentle shepherd is too much for my brain to handle. This tension between the absolute power of Christ and his absolute tenderness, caught the attention of Jonathan Edwards. He was a New England pastor in the middle of the 1700’s. You may be aware of his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. My favorite is his sermon called the Excellency of Jesus Christ. In it he compares Jesus as the Lion and the Lamb.

I wanted to explore this incredible combination of the might and tenderness of Jesus for his people. Words fail me. I couldn’t do better than this. If you can handle the almost 300-year old English, I encourage you to read the whole thing.

“And here is not only infinite strength and infinite worthiness, but infinite condescension, and love and mercy, as great as power and dignity. If you are a poor, distressed sinner, whose heart is ready to sink for fear that God never will have mercy on you, you need not be afraid to go to Christ, for fear that he is either unable or unwilling to help you.

Here is a strong foundation, and an inexhaustible treasure, to answer the necessities of your poor soul, and here is infinite grace and gentleness to invite and embolden a poor, unworthy, fearful soul to come to it. If Christ accepts of you, you need not fear but that you will be safe, for he is a strong Lion for your defense. And if you come, you need not fear but that you shall be accepted; for he is like a Lamb to all that come to him, and receives them with infinite grace and tenderness.

It is true he has awful majesty, he is the great God, and infinitely high above you; but there is this to encourage and embolden the poor sinner, that Christ is man as well as God; he is a creature, as well as the Creator, and he is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth. This may well make the poor unworthy creature bold in coming to him. You need not hesitate one moment; but may run to him, and cast yourself upon him. You will certainly be graciously and meekly received by him. Though he is a lion, he will only be a lion to your enemies, but he will be a lamb to you.

It could not have been conceived, had it not been so in the person of Christ, that there could have been so much in any Savior, that is inviting and tending to encourage sinners to trust in him. Whatever your circumstances are, you need not be afraid to come to such a Savior as this. Be you never so wicked a creature, here is worthiness enough; be you never so poor, and mean, and ignorant a creature, there is no danger of being despised, for though he be so much greater than you, he is also immensely more humble than you.

Any one of you that is a father or mother, will not despise one of your own children that comes to you in distress: much less danger is there of Christ’s despising you, if you in your heart come to him.”