By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 10.45am Service, 2005-05-22

Text: Isaiah 55:10,11; Acts 13:13-17, 38-52

For the past few Sundays our messages have been focused on the subject of Evangelism. Ever since our Lord Jesus Christ gave the commission to His disciples to preach the Gospel and to make disciples of all nations, this has been the main task of the church. 

Today, two thousand years later, we can now look back to see how much of this task has been accomplished since the time that the disciples started to preach the Gospel wherever they went. And we marvel that despite the great odds that have been working against the spread of the Gospel of Salvation, it has gone into many nations of this world, reaching the uttermost parts of the earth. And it has also come to us, all the way here in Singapore, and to each of us here in this sanctuary! Just ponder for a moment the awesome wonder of this fact: That we who are thousands of kilometers removed from where it all began, are saved and enjoying the great privileges of God's grace here in Life Church now! And this is true of virtually every country in the world today: there are people who have received the Gospel and believed in Christ.

This by itself is a great testimony to the tremendous power of the Gospel! The power that has brought salvation from sin way over hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers to the end of the earth and to us here in this hall, must truly be an awesome power! I dread to think of what we would all be now, if the Gospel of Christ did not have that power to convert sinners and to turn them into willing bearers of itself to others. We would still be hopelessly trapped in the darkness of sin, without Christ and without hope. There would be no Christian fellowship, no joy of salvation, no comfort, but selfish strife, sinful pride and ambition, division, and hatred in our midst.

What exactly is that power that has made such a great difference in our lives? It is a power that is found in the Gospel itself and makes it mighty to save sinners. It is a power that the Almighty God has built into His Word making it impactful whenever it is preached or taught to sinners. It is a power that guarantees glorious results from the preaching of the Gospel. This morning we want to focus our attention upon this wonderful power of the Gospel and the results it produces. And our purpose for doing this is to be thoroughly motivated to bring the Gospel more fervently and frequently to those who are still outside God's kingdom.

Through this morning's message we will also realize that souls are saved not by any human ingenuity, not by adopting new market-driven methods of church growth, and not by faith-healing or miracles. The results come only by being faithful in carefully teaching and preaching the Gospel message fully and accurately with the enablement of the Holy Spirit. This is the key to successful evangelism. And the reason why it works, is because the Lord has invested a special quality within His word, that gives it the power to produce the results He desires from it. 

This special quality about God's Word is described by God Himself. The Lord Himself said in Isaiah 55: 11 - 'So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void (empty), but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.'

This amazing power that God says His Word possesses, must now encourage us to keep on using it and disseminating it far and wide. One way for us to fully appreciate the power of the Gospel is to see it in action. We should observe a full demonstration of it. And this is what we will endeavour to do now as we study the exciting account of the first missionary trip made by Paul and Barnabas. Turn your Bibles to Acts 13. The chapter begins with the account of how the mission trip began - it was through revelation that the church at Antioch received from God during a time of worship. The instruction given was that the church was to send Paul and Barnabas as their missionaries. This of course, meant that the church would provide financial and prayer support.

So Paul and Barnabas set sail, and their first stop was at an island called Cyprus. There they had their very first convert - a government official named Sergius Paulus. After this the two missionaries continued on their journey sailing northward till they reached the coast of Asia Minor (present day country of Turkey). They then journeyed inland until they reached a city called Antioch. (This isn't the same Antioch as the Antioch they were at in Acts 13:1. At that time in history there were at least 16 cities in the eastern Mediterranean region having the same name - Antioch. They had been named in honour of a Greek king called Antiochus.)

This city of Antioch which they arrived at now was the most important city in that area, because there was a main east-west highway that went through it, and it had quite a large population consisting of Romans, Greeks, Galatians, Phrygians and even Jews. There must have been a sizeable group of Jews here, since the book of Acts tells us that they had their own synagogue building.

Since they were Jews, Paul and Barnabas went first to the synagogue and joined the Jews in their usual Sabbath day worship service. Paul (being a Pharisee), was invited to speak from the pulpit, and there he took the opportunity to present the gospel, as recorded in vv.16-41. This, by the way was the first of three recorded sermons preached by Paul, and what is given here is probably not the whole sermon, but a summary of it. 

When Paul finished preaching the Gospel, there were two kinds of reactions. Both of them show the results that are produced by the preaching of the Gospel. The First reaction was very favourable: They were invited to preach again, and this time there was a much larger group and there were many conversions. Thus the Gospel was propagated. But the other reaction was not favourable: the Jews who disliked Paul's preaching pulled some strings in the local government and managed to get the two missionaries expelled from Antioch. Thus the Word of God was persecuted.

That is the gist of the story. We can divide it nicely into 3 parts: The Preached Word, the Propagated Word and the Persecuted Word. Now let us see what lessons we can learn from each part. The first part is:

I. The Preached Word

Let us read Acts 13:14 & 15: 'But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Then Paul stood up and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.' 

You know there are times when you and I want to bring the Gospel to a lost world, but we wonder: how do I find the opportunity to tell somebody about Christ? When can I begin? People everywhere are always so busy - too busy to listen to what I want to tell them about Christ. Well, here we see a clue to the answer to this question: Begin with whatever you have. 

As total strangers in a new city, it would not have been easy for Paul and Barnabas to begin any evangelistic efforts. But one point of contact they both had was the fact that they were both Jews, and would find a ready welcome from the local Jewish community. This would become the jumping board for witnessing. Through this initial contact with the Jews, they would eventually gain a hearing which enabled them to get contacts with the Gentiles who came to worship with the Jews, and this would then lead them to have an effective ministry among the Gentiles in the city. This became the regular pattern used by Paul and Barnabas in every city they went during their missionary journey.

The lesson we can learn is this: If the Gospel is to produce any results, we must first gain the opportunity to preach or share it with others. The way to do this is to look for open doors around you - it may be some persons or groups that share something in common with you, or that would welcome you and listen to you. Sometimes in your working life or social life, you may find yourself in a situation where you have a ready audience, for example when you attend a wedding reception and you are sitting with people who are new to you. You will probably converse with them - but what are you going to say? That's a golden opportunity for you to see the impact of Gospel. 

Perhaps some friends invite you out for a meal to give you a treat because it is your birthday, or you had just finished your exams and got good results, or because you got a promotion. They ask you to say a few words. Think carefully about what you are you going to say. That's another golden opportunity to experience the impact of the Gospel. I remember a time about 20 years ago when I had just completed undergoing a course of training in NS, and my platoon had a session at the end where each of us as soldiers were given a few minutes to say our parting words to the rest, as we would be going separate ways. Now most of them would simply say how they enjoyed working together with each other, or talk about their immediate plans. But when my turn came I immediately saw my opportunity to deliver the Gospel and see its impact. 

The point of is this: If we only bother to pray and look for opportunities around us, we are bound to find them. And if we want to see the Gospel making an impact and producing its results, that is what we need to do.

Now the next thing we ask, is when the opportunities come, what are we to say? How do we proceed to introduce God's Word, to bring it into the conversation? Let us go back to our passage in Acts and make some observations. We want to observe the content of Paul's message: in verses 17 - 22 he began with what the Jews already knew (Israel's history). He had not started to preach the Gospel yet. He was just repeating what was commonly known to them. In the same way, when we attempt to share God's Word with others, it is useful to begin by talking about things that are already known by our audience, before proceeding to what they do not know. This is the most basic principle of education - to proceed from what is known to what is not known.

Now look at v.23 - this is where the transition comes 'Of this man's (i.e. King David's) seed hath God according to His promise raised up unto Israel a Saviour Jesus.' This statement is like a bridge that links the history of Israel which Paul's audience knew very well, to the Gospel of Christ, which they did not know at all. In the same way we must find always find something in our conversation or speech that would serve as a bridge, to the Word of God. It may be a statement, or it may be a question. 

There is one more thing that we want to observe in Paul's preaching, and that is his deliberate use of the Scriptures. Look at vv. 33-35 'God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore He saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.'

Within these three verses, Paul quoted from no less than three passages of Scripture, that are related to the resurrection of Christ (using Psalm 2, Isaiah 55:3, Psalm 16:10) Do you know why he did this? Because every verse of scripture is like a nail hammered in to seal up his message with power. It is the Word of God that has its own built-in power to convince, because it penetrates right into the heart as a two-edged sword. When you talk to anyone about Christ, be sure to use verses from the Bible, and then watch what happens. 

One well-known evangelist testified that he saw a great difference: when he delivered a message that had plenty of Bible verses quoted, he saw more responses, than when he preached a beautifully-crafted sermon with only a few Bible verses. You cannot hope to gain anything if you leave out God's Word, and just attempt to use your testimony or a brilliant illustration. It is like cooking a stew and leaving out the meat which is the most important ingredient. Reading out Bible verses or quoting them from memory is most effective, because our audience would then know that the truth we are sharing with them does not come from us, but from God, who had given us a permanent record of it in His Word. The Holy Spirit then takes that truth and uses it to penetrate into the hearts of people.

Let us now proceed on the the second point. 

II. The Propagated Word

We see the first kind of reaction to God's Word in v. 43 -- 'Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.'

The power of the Gospel was now unleashed and it instantly started to produce its results: after the service, a group of Jews and Gentile converts stayed behind and asked Paul and Barnabas to tell them more about the Gospel. They had tasted the goodness of God's Word and found it to be sweet. Now they were keen to have second and third helpings of it because it met the need of their hearts. Paul and Barnabas agreed to help them, and so they returned on the next Saturday to the same place. This time they found the synagogue packed right to the doors with people, and many more were trying to get into the building from outside. Apparently those who had heard them preach the first time must have told many others about what Paul and Barnabas preached to them. Do you see what a great impact the Gospel can have?

Within just one week it had spread from person to person from that small group in the synagogue, until everyone in the city had heard of it. Look at v.44 - 'And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.' Can you see how God's Word when it was delivered, had accomplished the purpose for which it was sent? It had not returned empty. It had brought back a greater crowd to listen to the Gospel!

How exciting this must have been for Paul and Barnabas! Although they faced some opposition, they preached boldly, and they delivered more of God's Word. Look at v.47 - 'For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.' This is a direct quote taken from the book of Isaiah, 42:6.

Once again that Word of God that was sent forth brought back tremendous profits. Look at v.48, and 49 now - 'And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.' 

Do you see what great results the Word of God had produced? It had propagated itself; it was highly infectious, it had increased and spread like fire; it had become a powerful influence within just a short space of time. Is there any kind of word, information or knowledge in this world that has built-in power do something like that? None. And it was changing the lives of men, women and children everywhere. Look at v.52 - 'And the (new) disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.' What a great impact - and it all began just with an opportunity that Paul and Barnabas had to speak in a small synagogue.

Dearly beloved, we who serve the Lord in this present time must believe that the Gospel still has the same potential to produce the same results upon the lives of our friends and family, upon our community, upon society, yes, even upon our whole nation, if we are only bold enough to send it forth whenever there is opportunity. We must firmly believe in the power of God's Word. For only then would we be bold enough to share it, preach it, teach it and disseminate it as widely as we can, by every possible means and method.

But that is not all that God's Word will do. You will notice that our 3rd and final point is:

III. The Persecuted Word

In physics we learn the principle called Newton's 3rd Law, 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.' The same thing applies to the preaching of the Gospel. The wonderful results it produced ellicited a negative reaction from the Jews. According to v.45, this reaction was motivated by envy or jealousy. 

The Jews did not like the idea of the Gentiles receiving benefits directly from God through Jesus Christ. They also did not like the idea of justification without the Law of Moses, which they treasured zealously. These prejudices blinded them from seeing and experiencing the grace of God working through the Gospel that Paul had preached to them. They spoke against the Gospel which he delivered, and they wanted to put a stop to the Gospel by having Paul and Barnabas expelled from the city. 

But all their efforts were in vain. Because nothing they did now could stop the impact of the Gospel. Even though Paul and Barnabas could not continue preaching at Antioch, we can confidently believe that the new believers they left behind continued to preach and propagate the Gospel to their own friends. Their efforts to persecute the Word of God and silence it were futile. In fact it is probable that the more, they tried to stop the Gospel from spreading, the further it spread! 

Let me explain this. Look at v.51 - 'But they (Paul and Barnabas) shook off the dust of their feet against them (when they were expelled) and came unto Iconium.' When we read this we realize that the end result of the expulsion of Paul and Barnabas from Antioch was that the Word of God now spread to the neighbouring city of Iconium! Hypothetically speaking, if Paul and Barnabas had not faced any persecution at Antioch, they might have just continued to stay there comfortably and be contented to preach and teach God's Word there. Then perhaps, the people at Iconium and other cities would never have heard the Gospel and been saved. Do you see how persecution can cause God's Word to propagate rather than perish?

This phenomenon is still true today. Studies have shown that the countries where the Gospel is thriving most today are countries where Christians have faced the greatest persecution for preaching the Word of God. An early church father testified of this when he wrote, 'The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.'

When the communists first took control of China, and all missionaries had to leave the country, everyone was afraid that the Chinese church would be strangled to death by the restrictive anti-Christian iron-handed policies of Communism. But look at China today. Far from being weak and spiritually impoverished, the church there has become very strong, and multiplying at an amazing rate (about 9% annual growth!). Estimates of the number of Christians in China vary between 30 million and 150 million!

Why does the Word of God thrive so strangely under unfavourable conditions? Once again, the only way to explain this is the fact that God Himself has invested in it, has infused it and built into it the power to penetrate hearts and to change the lives of sinners. We all know 2 Cor 5:17 - 'If any man be in Christ he is a new creature (or a new creation).' Do you remember how God created the heavens and the earth? According to Genesis, it was through His Word - 'And God said: let there be ---' and it was so. God's Word brought the whole of creation into existence. In the same way, God's Word is today creating new lives. When sinners hear the Word of God, the Holy Spirit uses that Word to make them alive from spiritual deadness. That word creates faith in Jesus, as Romans 10:17 says, 'faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.' That word gives the sinner a new heart that seeks after God and it brings about a new birth. Isn't it wonderful what God's Word can do?

The only thing that remains now is for us to consider: If we know all of this concerning the Gospel, What then are we doing with it? If we do nothing about it, does this not show that we doubt its power and the results it will produce? Has God not given an unfailing promise in Isaiah 55:11 that His Word will not return unto Him void but will accomplish His purpose and prosper? Are we denying that God has made promised such power in His Word?

If not, I trust that we will then commit ourselves to use fully the Word of God that God has entrusted into our hands to use. How foolish it would be to keep the Gospel all to ourselves. Let us allow the Gospel to once again to produce the results that the Lord has sent it to produce, both in our lives, as well as in the lives of those around us.

By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 10:45am service, 2007-01-07

Text: Isaiah 40:27-31

As the New Year has begun just 7 days ago, many of us have perhaps already started to make some New Year resolutions. The making of resolutions is a very good practice, because they help to keep us focused on things that we should be doing. For example, this year you may want to make a resolution to grow more in your Christian life, to be more fruitful for our Lord Jesus, or to invest more time and effort in the work of His kingdom. Perhaps you may resolve to get yourself trained and involved in evangelism or to study the Scriptures diligently. 

It is good to make spiritual resolutions such as these and to commit yourself to them while the year is still new and fresh. But please bear this in mind: It is another matter altogether to keep every resolution you make. For The question is, 'Will we really be able to keep them up all the way until the year ends?'

We can liken this to running a race. When you begin a race you are bound to feel very much enthused, motivated and spirited. At the moment you take off from the starting blocks you experience the euphoria of having seemingly boundless energy. You think that nothing can stop you as you sprint with all your might towards the finish line. But as you reach the half-way mark of the race the initial euphoria evaporates away. You begin to feel exhausted and weary. This slows down your pace. The race becomes very difficult to run. Now you feel like dropping out of it. Some call this feeling 'burnout.'

This can happen to you in your spiritual life. You begin well to run the race the Lord has called you to run. But after some time you become weary with running, and you begin to experience spiritual burnout. And although you try your utmost best to keep all your spiritual resolutions and commitments you simply do not have the drive or the strength to carry on. You hope against hope that you can somehow keep yourself going. But you can't keep it up for long because it really strains you, both spiritually and emotionally. 

You slow down, and after some time you feel like dropping out altogether from your spiritual pursuit. This brings you into a state of despair and discouragement. Dearly beloved, this experience of burning out can happen to anyone of us. Even the most exemplary ministers and missionaries in God's service have experienced moments of spiritual burnout. It can happen to you and it can happen to me. Perhaps some of us are already beginning to experience some degree of spiritual burnout. What can we do then to avoid it? To find the answer to this question we shall study a passage of Scripture given in Isaiah 40:27-31. 

The background of this passage is Isaiah's prophecy of the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon. This was part of the message of comfort that God gave to them, after the first 39 chapters of Isaiah had declared a message of God's righteous judgment that would come on the Jews for their sins in the form of exile from their homeland. Look at the first 2 verses of chapter 40 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.'

How comforting it must have been to all the Jewish exiles in Babylon when Isaiah�s comforting prophecy was fulfilled in the year 539 BC when King Cyrus of Persia released them from their captivity and that they could now return home. The book of Ezra records that 49,697 Jews returned to their homeland. 

But making this journey home was not easy at all for them. Imagine how difficult it was for families consisting of both young and old to travel a distance of over 1,400 km in 4 months, transporting themselves and all their belongings in their own wagons pulled by animals. And that was not the end of their trials: What was waiting for them at the end of their long arduous journey was not a nice comfortable bed to rest in, but an even bigger task of building towns and houses to dwell in and having to start from scratch to make a living in their own homeland. Although Israel was their homeland it had not been their home for 70 years. This was perhaps one reason why many Jewish families chose to remain in Babylon after the exile - they dreaded all the trials and difficulties that they would have to face in transplanting themselves back into their homeland. In comparison, families who transplant or migrate overseas today have a much easier time than them. We can travel by air within a matter of hours to the country we want to live in. We can purchase a house in a suitable neighbourhood to live in. 

And we can have our belongings transported over there for us by shipping companies. I think we can appreciate how difficult and trying it must have been for the Jews to return to Israel about 25 centuries ago. It is not surprising then that many of them would become very weary and discouraged along the way, and begin to show signs of both physical and spiritual burnout. If no preventive measures are taken, the initial excitement of seeing how God had answered their prayers and had fulfilled His promise to restore them from their captivity would soon give way to frustration, impatience, complaints and despair.

But our wonderful all-knowing God already knew that this would happen long before the Jews returned from captivity. That is why He included this passage of Scripture of Isaiah 40:37-41 in the prophecy about the end of the Babylonian exile, so that when the time came for the Jews to return, they could read it and learn how to make their journey back to rebuild their homeland without experiencing burnout. I believe that this passage must have sustained many among the returning 49,697 Jews until their God-given tasks were accomplished. What is written here in Isaiah 40 can also sustain God's people today as we carry out our own God-given tasks. I would like to derive 3 simple points that we can learn from here. Firstly:

I. Recognise the Cause of Spiritual Burnout

It is caused by having an inadequate perception of God. We will see this as we read v. 27 'Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?' Because the journey from Babylon to Israel was so long there were probably moments of great difficulty and trouble for the returning Jews. And because they had neglected to wait upon the Lord, some of them developed a wrong perception of Him which led them to complain bitterly against Him: 'The Lord does not see our troubles. God does not care at all for our plight.' By these complaints they were bringing God down to their own level, thinking that He is either forgetful or that He had become tired of looking after them.

Now dear friends, have you sometimes complained about God in a way that is similar to these returning Jews? Perhaps there were times when you had entertained utterly discouraging thoughts - thoughts that you have been neglected or even forgotten by God. 

Perhaps you might even have blamed yourself for this. You thought that because of your sins the Lord does not give you any more care and attention. And you imagine that God has now forsaken you. If you do this, you are bringing Him down to your level, and you have a wrong perception of God. 

Do you know that every spiritual problem in life can ultimately be traced back to a single source: A wrong perception of God? For instance, those who do not rightly perceive God's holiness will tend to be careless about keeping themselves from sin. Those who do not rightly perceive God's power will tend to doubt His promises to deliver them. Those who do not rightly perceive God's faithfulness to His covenant promises will tend to do exactly what the returning Jews were doing - complaining that God had forsaken them.

Knowing this can help us now to recognize the ultimate cause of spiritual burnout - it starts from having an inadequate view of God. It begins when we wrongly imagine Him to be something that He is not! It is bad enough that we sometimes commit this error even with regard to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes a person you know does something quite unintentionally but you choose to interpret his actions in the worst possible way. As a result you end up drawing the wrong conclusions about him and also misrepresenting him to others. It is only after you have talked with him and cleared the air with him that you realize that what you had imagined about him was entirely inaccurate, and of course you apologise to him. 

Now, if you do the very same thing to God, the error is much worse. This is because you are not only misrepresenting Him, but you are also damaging the most important relationship in your life, the relationship from which all your spiritual strength and vitality springs. And if you persist in this wrong perception of God you will inevitably suffer from spiritual burnout! For example the wick of an oil lamp is made of combustible material, but it does not get burned as long as it keeps drawing oil from its supply. But if the supply line is cut off the fire has nothing left to burn except the wick itself, and soon you will see the wick turning black. It gets burned out.

What then should you do? From now on, every time you feel discouraged and distressed and you experience some spiritual setback or decline, please do a thorough check on your perception of God. You will probably find the root cause right there - in an inadequate perception of Him. And the way to know if your perception of God is adequate or not is to compare it with what God has revealed of Himself in the Scriptures. This brings us now to the next point for dealing with spiritual burnout:

II. Relate the Correct Perception of God to Your Difficulties

We shall look now at vv.28-29 'Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.' Here you will observe that Isaiah replies to the complaints of the returning Jews by reminding them of things that they had already known about the Lord. 

The 2 questions, 'Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard?' in v.28 imply that they were actually not ignorant of these truths. All the things about God in v.28 were not new to them. They already knew these things because God had already revealed them in His Word. The problem of the Jews was that they had failed to relate what they knew about God to their own difficulties and problems. Instead of doing this, they had used their own difficulties and problems to arrive at perceptions about God that were entirely unsound.

Dear friends, don't we sometimes do this very thing ourselves? Instead of beginning with what we know to be true of God from the Scriptures, we choose to begin with a wrong premise. Here is an example. If we start by saying, 'All suffering is bad' then when God allows us to suffer, we conclude that God must be bad. That is of course not the right conclusion. But if we start off from God's Word by saying, 'God is good' then when God does allow some difficulty into our life, the correct conclusion we would reach is that the difficulty we suffer must somehow be good (cf. Romans 8:28). 

We must therefore learn to relate all that we know about God from the Scriptures to every situation of life we face. For instance, v.28 tells us that God is everlasting - and this implies that He remains the same and will never change. We must then apply or relate this truth to our lives - His dealings with us never change: In the same way that God has shown His love, grace and mercy to His people before, He will consistently demonstrate that same love, grace and mercy to us who are His people today.

V.28 also mentions that He is the Creator of the ends of the earth, and that includes everything in between as well. He is therefore the rightful Owner and Ruler of all the world�s dominions. If you happen to be working in a place dominated by a terrible superior who does whatever he likes to you and no one seems to be able to stop him, you should relate this truth about God to your situation. No matter what oppression any human tyrant may inflict upon you, God who is the Creator of the ends of the earth is still in control above him. Thus he cannot do more to you than what God allows. Knowing this can remove all fear from your heart.

The next thing that we learn about God in v.28 is that He never faints or becomes weary. He continually upholds the whole of Creation by the word of His power. If God were to become weary for even one split second the whole fabric of nature would immediately disintegrate, universal chaos would set in, and all moral order would cease! How can you relate this truth about God to your life? By knowing that God is constantly watching over you and holding you. He never grows tired of keeping you. Not even the tiniest little detail about you escapes His attention. As the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 10:30, even 'the very hairs of your head are all numbered.' 

The next thing we see in v.28 is that there is no searching of His understanding. None can ever measure the depths of God's infinite wisdom! And this is one precious truth that you must relate to every circumstance of life you are in. With your own limited wisdom you may sometimes wonder why God has allowed an unexpected setback to happen to you. You cannot see at all how it can ever work out to your deliverance or for His glory. But knowing that God's ways are unsearchable, you can simply trust that He knows what He is doing, and that one day when you look back you will stand amazed to see what great wisdom there was in His mysterious ways!

The last thing mentioned about God is what He is able to give. V.29 tells us that He gives power to the faint and that He increases the strength of those who have no might. The strength mentioned here is not to be understood as physical strength. God does not transform us into superhuman Samsons that can singlehandedly defeat whole armies of Philistines! The strength that God gives is the willpower to keep doing His will even under the most trying circumstances of life. 

This truth is a constant source of joy and comfort that should help all of us to avoid spiritual burnout. Consider how Paul the apostle testified of this very thing in 2 Corinthians 12:9,10 when he prayed that God would remove his thorn in the flesh. But instead of granting Paul's request, the Lord answered, 'My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.' 

Is there anyone here this morning who is weak in the eyes of men because of your infirmities, because of reproaches, persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake? If this is true of you now thank God for it, for it gives you the unique opportunity to discover how sufficient His grace can be for you! You now have the unique opportunity to experience a strength that is not your own, so that Christ may demonstrate what His power can do in and through your life. If the life of the apostle Paul could become such a demonstration, so can yours. But there is something that you must do constantly in order to possess this strength from God. This brings us to the third and final point of our message. To avoid spiritual burnout you must:

III. Receive Constantly from God's Supply of Strength

This is the message of v.31 'But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.' The phrase 'to wait upon the Lord' must be understood correctly. To wait upon something is to attend to it. Psalm 145:15 tells us 'The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.' The end of 2 Chronicles 13:10 says, 'and the Levites wait upon their business.' In both of these verses the idea is not just that of attending, but of regular, constant attending. 

Waiting upon the Lord therefore means spending time regularly in God's presence. In practical terms, we wait upon the Lord when we commune with Him through His Word and prayer. We should live our lives at all times in God's presence through His Word and prayer. King David who communed with God testified in Psalm 16:11, 'in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' As you maintain such blessed communion with God everyday you will have an ever-flowing supply of the spiritual strength - The strength that you need to persevere and press onward no matter what difficulties and trials you face. 

This, dear friends, is the secret of living your Christian life successfully. And this is also the goal that we want to achieve this year for our Church - that every Lifer will commune with God personally, regularly, constantly and daily. Through doing this, we will then be able to live lives that are fully consecrated to our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why our church theme for this year is 'Toward Prayerful and Consecrated Living for Christ.' I trust that you have read about this theme in the weekly bulletin that you received last week, and that you will make this your goal as well.

I would now like to ask everyone here to make a firm commitment to wait upon the Lord. Please do not say that you don't have the time to do this. You must plan it into your daily schedule, because it is the source of your spiritual strength. If you do not make it a priority, you will not be able to last long in doing whatever God wants you to do for Him. If you are young please do not think that your youthful energy and can carry you through. As v.30 says, 'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.' If you do not wait upon the Lord you will eventually become very tired and frustrated. You may even burn yourself out and drop out of the race entirely!

But if you make the commitment to wait upon the Lord, there are 4 wonderful things that you can look forward to - Firstly, you will renew your strength. As we have seen earlier, this strength is the willpower to persevere in doing God's will even under the most trying and difficult circumstances of life. 

Secondly, you will mount up with wings as eagles. Your spiritual life will take take you upward to heights of glory that you have never known before! There are things of the spiritual realm that God has prepared for those who love Him that no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard and no heart has ever imagined. These are the deep things of God which are revealed to us by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9,10). 

Thirdly, you will run and not be weary. This run refers to the spiritual race that God calls every Christian to run - a race of endurance that can only be completed successfully by looking to Jesus who is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:1,2).

Fourthly, you will walk and not faint. This walk probably refers to the daily conduct and testimony of your life before the world, that will enable you to be a fruitful Christian, leading sinners to find salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ! 

Now that you have seen these 4 wondrous results of waiting upon the Lord, why do you still wait to commit yourself to do it?