Be Encouraged!

We have to listen up and Look this morning.
Righteousness is something to pursue with all of our being. Why? When we follow righteousness we will seek for the LORD, for He alone is righteous. The word “follow” is translated “pursue, chase, persecute, and follow” in our Bible. When we follow righteousness and seek the Lord we can be encouraged.
The passage reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33: But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. This was in contrast to seeking after the things of this world that tend to do nothing but cause us to worry.
You can tell what you are seeking by how much you are worrying.
This passage reminds me of Paul’s words to Timothy: “But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.”
The pursuit of righteousness is foundational to a life that is godly, faith-filled, loving, patient, meek, and that has laid hold of eternal life.
God tells those who follow after His righteousness and seek after Him, they can be encouraged. This passage is addressed to Israel in their return to a city that was in ruins. God tells His people entering their “ground zero” to be encouraged.
God again reminds His people that He will comfort them (v.3,12). He addresses this section to those that follow after righteousness and seek the LORD.
Righteousness is conformity to God’s law. Why should you be encouraged if you follow after righteousness? Because His righteousness is near, will never be abolished, we can know it, and it is forever. Don’t be discouraged in following after God and in seeking the Lord. Sometimes we become discouraged when we do not conform to God’s law the way we know we should. Don’t be discouraged that you spiritually fall down and do not measure up to God’s perfect righteousness. Keep seeking the Lord and following after His righteousness.
What a blessed occupation to be one who follows after righteousness and seeks the LORD. Do not be discouraged from vigorously pursuing God and His righteousness. Do not be discouraged from seeking to live life in conformity to Christ and His righteous standards.
Discouragement results in a lack of courage. Discouragement is a sense of defeat that engulfs you and results in a lack of courage.
Comfort means to speak words from the heart that reach the heart in order to build someone up with hope and peace. God comforts His people by not forsaking or forgetting us.
God is telling His people in Babylonian captivity, Don’t be discouraged in seeking after God. He tells them to HEARKEN TO ME three times (v.1,4,7). This section actually continues through Isaiah 52 where the Word of God has three “Awake, Awake” (v.9,17; 52:1).
I want to give you three words of encouragement as you live to follow and seek Him.
Look at God’s ABILITY, Is.51:1-3
The first few verses tell us of God’s Mighty POWER (ability).
Yes, the Lord in STRENGTH will rebuild Jerusalem, (1-3). The Lord will rebuild the city from a place of rubble to a place of rejoicing; he will take away the sorrow and give a song. He will remove the ashes of death and give them the beauty of life.
In these verses we listen up and LOOK BACK!
LOOK to the rock whence you are hewn…LOOK to Abraham and unto Sarah that bare you…
Look CAREFULLY. Look is to PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. Give CAREFUL REGARD to how God called Abraham and how God brought about the nation of Israel from the barren womb of Sarah.
Look BACKWARD. This is a look of remembrance at the mercy of God. Backward looks can help us face the future confidently. A look into the past to see the faithfulness of God and the ABILITY of God to do great things in the past allows us to draw on God’s power in the present to know that He is still God in the present who has great power. When you look back, be careful what you look at. We do not look back like Lot’s wife, but we look back to see the power of God.
God is powerful and Has mighty ability. We look back to see:
God is ABLE TO CALL people out of sin and idolatry.
He is a great Quarry Master and He fashioned Israel from the rock of Idolatry in Ur of the Chaldees. He called Abraham out of that rock and Abraham followed the Lord not even knowing where he went.
God is ABLE TO FULFILL HIS PROMISES.
God promised Abraham descendants as vast as the as the stars in the sky. God told Abraham to LOOK UP:
Gen.15:5,6: Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
God is ABLE TO PROVIDE A LAMB!
God then he brought Isaac out of the barren womb of Sarah. He took a 99 year old rock and the empty womb of a 90 year old woman to birth a nation that will bless the entire earth. The birth of Isaac was nothing short of a miracle. Abraham was ONE, ALONE, ALL BY HIMSELF when God called him, and God made a nation from him. God blessed and increased Abraham when he was all alone; God will bless and increase the nation when they returned from their captivity.
The word INCREASE means to enlarge, make great, or multiply.
God will bless and increase us in New York City! Look what God can do! What mighty power is His; He can make many from a barren womb. Against impossible odds, God fulfills His promises.
Israel would no doubt face discouragement in returning from captivity. When they returned to Jerusalem, and the walls were burned with fire, and the temple no longer existed, discouragement would be a natural emotion. Jerusalem in Nehemiah 1 was a ground zero. If God could call Abraham out of idolatry when he was all alone, then God can turn the ruins of Jerusalem into a Garden of Eden, a place of joy and gladness. God could turn their “Ground Zero” into a place of Garden of Eden, a place of gladness, joy, and melodious music.
Waste places speak of those areas that were once fruitful but now are fruitless. Some questions:
Was your life once more fruitful than it is now?
Were you once more full of joy, love, and peace than now? Is your home a waste place?
Is love and forgiveness lacking in your life and home?
Has your spiritual life dried up and become stale?
Is the freshness gone from your walk with the Lord?
God can encourage you and make your waste places like Eden. Eden speaks of peace, order, of God walking with us in the cool of the day. Eden speaks of righteousness, peace, and joy of the Holy Ghost. Eden speaks of a place that is faithful and fruitful in responsibility and also a place that has fulfillment in relationships.
Sometimes, what happened on September 11 happens to our personal lives. We come under attack and we crumble. Our life becomes a ground zero. God is able to turn Ground Zero into a Garden of gladness!
God is able to take our sorrows and turn them into songs of praise and thanksgiving.
God is able to take your desert of loneliness and turn into a garden of joy.
Look at ETERNITY, v.4-6
God tells us here to LISTEN and LOOK UP.
God’s Matchless SALVATION is for all eternity and His SALVATION will outlast the earth, v.4-6. This is why those who seek for righteousness and find the LORD and His gift of eternal life do not have to worry. We are seeking that which is eternal.
God now says to LOOK UP to the heavens. The sun, moon and stars seem fixed in their place. It seems there is no danger of them moving anytime soon. The earth, likewise, apparently seems fixed and firm. No matter what things SEEM, the heaven will dissolve and the earth will decay. They are temporal. Here is the fact that we all intuitively know: we are going to die and everything temporal will perish. We know that when we buy a new car it will end up in a junkyard one day. We know that the clothes we buy will get old. We know that new shoes will get holes in the bottom, sooner than we want, too. We know that the homes we live in will one day fall to the ground and become dust. We know that loved ones die, and we will, too. “They that dwell therein shall die.” Nevertheless, when someone dear to us dies, or when earthly things do crumble and fade away, we still ask, WHY DID THAT HAPPEN? Well, the fact is we KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN, we just did not know when. We know that everything material falls apart, but since we do not know when a particular building will collapse, we are surprised when it does. Yet we know that material things do not last.
Look at the heaven, and they will vanish away like smoke. The earth, and everything upon this earth, will one day crumble and crash. God tells us clearly that the present system of things will not last forever. The heavens will dissolve. The earth will crumble. These things do not, will not, and cannot last forever.
2 Peter 3:10, But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for the hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless, we according to his promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
What will last forever? His Word, His righteousness, and His salvation:
God has given us His law for a light in which we can rest.
God has given us His arm for a place of hope.
His righteousness and His salvation has gone forth and will be forever. They will never dissolve.
Look at VICTORY!
God here challenges us to LISTEN UP and LOOK WITHIN. What is in your heart: fear or faith? When the Word of God is in our heart we do not fear!
God speaks to those who have the eternal law and the eternal life in their hearts. He tells them to not fear those who reproach and revile them. The victory is ours. We do not have to fear mortal men. All men are nothing but flesh.
Isaiah 40:6-8, And the voice said, cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is as grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
Isaiah 51:12, I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass?
We do not have to live in fear of mortal man. They may be terrible as a terrorist, but we do not have to fear. They may think they are indestructible, but they are deceived.
God gives us the victory over earthly trials and mortal men.
Psalm 98:1, O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.
1 John 5:4,5: For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
1 Cor.15:57: But thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The enemy speaks so that we stand in awe of their words and then we are broken into pieces.
Do not fear their SCORNFUL WORDS. Of men who will fade away as a leaf. Mortal men perish like the grass! Do not stand in awe of the taunting words of men who will fade away and be eaten like a moth eats a garment or the worm eats wool. Stand in awe of God and His Word instead.
Do not fear their HURTFUL WORDS.
The word “afraid” means to be broken in pieces.
Yes, man speaks words to put us into fear. Let us not be alarmed. The words of man can break us in pieces and bring about a great sense of discouragement. The words of men can hurt us and damage our desire to do the will of God. Remember that the MOTH will eat them up like wool. A moth, a frail and weak, a moth in Scripture is used as something that brings corruption. A worm will eat them and destroy them. Their power is a sham, and their greatness is a delusion. God will destroy them as easily as we kill a worm or a moth.
Matthew 6:19, Where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal…
God’s JUDGMENT will defeat the enemies, v.7,8
God’s gives VICTORY over fear. Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
Yes, do not be afraid of what man can do unto us. Man has dealt us a huge shock. Will we fear men rather than God? Will we fear terrorists rather than the Triune God who will defeat them all.
Do not fear terrorists and anthrax! Do not live in fear!
Look at God’s ABILITY! Listen up and look back.
Look at ETERNITY! Listen up and look up.