Tim Sensing, DMIN, PHD - Director of Academic Services, Professor of Ministry, ACU Graduate School of Theology

Below are sermon notes from that Gospel Meeting, the first of five that I will post. First, “What is the Gospel of God (Isaiah 40:1-11)?”

A research project conducted in Italy asked residents in one city to share their life stories. As the stories were collected and analyzed, it became apparent that many residents were silent about one particular week in the town’s history. There were gaps in their story…
• And the GAPS in our lives not only baffle us; they discourage, bewilder, and demoralize us in so many ways.
• It’s life in the Gaps, the silences and slippages in our stories that tear up our days. Painful memories that deaden our capacity to live. So, we are restless, holding on to old habits, old customs, old memories, and old photographs.

Sometimes in the Bible, there are chronological gaps between two verses. Years can go by, and the biblical record does not describe what happened between those two verses. One such gap exists between Isa 39 & Isa 40. What happened in the gap? We need not speculate here. If you remember Isa 39 (retell). And we know what happened in the gaps:

• Destruction of Jerusalem, Destruction of the Temple, Deportation of the citizens. They lost the pillars of their faith foundation: Temple, Land, and King.
• Jeremiah and Lamentations both occur between Isa 39 and 40.

• E.g., Lamentations begins: “no resting place” (1:3), “no pasture” (1:6), “no one to help” (1:7), “none to comfort” (1:9, 16, 17, 21; 2:13), “no rest” (2:18).

• Lamentations ends: 5:20, 22 –a question Israel does not know the answer, a question about being “forgotten” and “abandoned” by God.

• Loss, suffering, & dismay. And the people of Israel conclude, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?” (Isa 40:27)

What about life after the gap? 40:1-11: With devastation surrounding us on every side, God offers us a new world based on memory and guaranteed by promise. God comes. Not to fight or to destroy, but to comfort and protect. Suffering reverses into well-being and health. The valleys will be raised and the mountains lowered so that Israel’s return to Jerusalem will be smooth, like an Interstate Highway. … And God’s glory will be revealed.

And a new word appears here that has not been recorded in the pages of Scripture before. Did you hear it? In the midst of the gaps, during exile, when life is nothing but despair, God calls for a new word. And that word is “Gospel.” And the Gospel of God calls all to hear to see God anew. This is who God is and this is what God is doing.
• Behold Your God—He comes to make a path for your return.
• Behold Your God —His Word stands forever.
• Behold Your God —Who comes with good news of power.
• Behold Your God —Who embraces you as a Shepherd, feeding you and leading you to green pastures and still waters.
• 40:9 Good News (first time used in scripture). God is about to do a new thing →52:7. The change in verdict, “God reigns,” is a change in narratives, and is a change in their reality.

Behold Your God—40:28-31: Your God Created the Heavens; Your God does not grow tired; Your God in his strength gives strength to others. God has the power to rewrite your story, to re-imagine the gaps in your life.
➢ I received a phone call from a woman with 3 little boys. Alcoholic and other destructive addictive behaviors. A husband who fueled her addictions to cover his own immorality and who eventually left her. She called—she had not heard from her husband in 12 years. What had her life been like in the gap?
➢ I received a package from a woman who had lost two sons. Car accident/drowning. What had her life been like in the gap?
➢ I do not know the gaps in your life, but I know that God is…

1. God is a God of resurrection. God raised Judah from exile. He made a highway in the desert, leveling all ruts, smoothing all mountains, straightening all the curves. Imagine with me God’s triumphal procession home on this newly paved interstate—God’s victorious parade marching home after he has defeated the gods of Babylon. The remnant returned to the land, to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple.
2. The God who raised Jesus from the dead, who raises sinners from the waters of baptism, can also raise churches from the depths of despair; resurrect families where parents and children have been divided; resurrect marriages where divorce seemed the only option; give new life where only death reigned.
3. I don’t know where death reigns in your life right now. I do not know about the gaps, the silences, the places in your soul that are all but dead. But when your experience denies hope and discounts the future, God ACTS. God creates something new. God’s promise surprises us. God’s promises seem unbelievable. We may not be able to see it, handle it, or smell it—but promise fills us with the hope of tomorrow/a new day breaking in around us. When Isaiah asks you to hear the gospel, Isaiah proclaims, “BEHOLD YOUR GOD! For God is a God of resurrection.”