Going Live
Panorama
Please join us for 1st Thursday Connect February 4 at 7:00 p.m. We will cover the third lesson of the study Panorama: a sweeping vista of God’s Word. It is not too late to join! Materials and videos of the first two sessions are on the church website.
We are excited to announce that this month we will meet in person in the sanctuary at New Life Church West Linn! We will follow the same protocol that the church does on Sunday mornings. If you can’t come in person you can join via livestream using the link bit.ly/NewLifeWomenLivestream.
Isaiah 40
For those who are memorizing Isaiah 40, we have worked on verses 1-14 thus far. In February, we will memorize verses 15-17. As we memorize Isaiah 40, I hope you enjoy these excerpts from the commentary Isaiah: God Saves Sinners by Raymond Ortlund as much as I have.
Isaiah 40:12-14
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? (Isaiah 40:12-14 ESV)
Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, with the work of the Creator displayed before us, our hearts sing to God, “How great thou art!” But that view of his glory isn’t enough. We need more than seeing God through our own eyes. Isaiah shows us God through God’s eyes. If we see God through our own eyes, we diminish him without meaning to or even realizing it. But if we see God through God’s eyes, it changes how we see everything else. Isaiah understands that. In this passage he shows us the whole universe through God’s eyes.
In Isaiah 40:1-11, God promises to come to us, to make his glory the unavoidable center of everything in this world. Now, in verses 12-26, God anticipates an objection. It’s this: Making a promise is one thing; keeping it is another. Can God really do this?…
The structure of the passage focuses on the one and only incomparable God, transcending all his rivals…. God is able to keep every promise he has given us because he is the Creator, he is the Lord of history, and he alone is God…. When God created everything, he needed nothing…. God the Creator needs no one else, including you and me.
Isaiah 40:15-17
Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. (Isaiah 40:15-17 ESV)
If you were carrying a bucketful of water across your backyard and jostled it so that a drop sloshed out and rolled down the outside of the bucket and fell kerplunk to the ground, would you go back and refill the bucket? Of course not. One drop doesn’t matter. And so it is with God’s deployment of the nations in his plan for history. He does not despise the nations; he loves them. They are not worthless. But they derive their worth from him alone. Sadly, the nations are blind to God’s glory, pursuing their own self-exaltation and resisting his kingdom. But this isn’t a problem that God has to work around somehow. It doesn’t matter. As God governs this world, he has no problems….
Isaiah moves from the nations in general to one nation in particular. Lebanon was famous for its cedar forests. What if you could cut down all those trees, collect all that timber in one massive pile, and then top it off with the bodies of all of Lebanon’s animals as a burnt offering to God? Would it be enough? Would it be worthy of God? Not at all. How much less, then, our little worship.
We should worship God as well as we can. But let’s remember that to God a fugue by J. S. Bach is like playing “Chopsticks.” Don’t let “the greatness of the God we worship” slip in our thinking into “the greatness of our worship of God.”… There is only one sacrifice worthy of God. It was offered 2,000 years ago on a cross. Everything else is, at best, “Chopsticks.”
Isaiah shifts back again from a particular nation to all the nations. His point is that when God created man, he didn’t dig his own grave. He didn’t create an unforeseen difficulty. All human opposition is, to God, a minus factor in the equation of reality. Why are we impressed with it? When we begin to see God through God’s eyes, we see the promises of God as more real, more weighty, more solid than anything else in all of life. And that’s thrilling.
Details
Let the Women’s Ministry Leadership Team know how we can pray for you by filling out the form at bit.ly/NewLifeWomenSignUp.
If you would like to receive study materials in the mail, fill out this form. You can print your own materials from the church website. If you have already signed up at any time this year for Side-by-Side study materials to be mailed to you, you will continue to receive them through June.
You may view the video recordings of the teaching from Isaiah and the introduction to Matthew here.
We are currently reading the book of Matthew for Side-by-Side Bible Reading. Find materials on the church website.
There are so many ways to use the Side-by-Side Bible Reading studies. You can do it on your own, of course. But it is even better and truly becomes “side-by-side” when done with another woman. Ask someone from church or a neighbor or co-worker. If you would like to meet with someone over Zoom, you are welcome to use the link bit.ly/NewLifeWomen for your meeting. If you would like to meet with a group, one meets Thursday evenings at New Life Church Gladstone. You can do some or all of the lessons provided. You can use all or some of the questions in each lesson—or come up with some of your own. You can prepare ahead of time or just show up and do the study together. No matter how you do it, God’s Word will always be good for you.
We hope you are enjoying the scripture prayer prompts as you pray for five New Life Women. You might also like to use them to pray for yourself, your family, and your friends. The prayer prompts are available on the church website.
Links
Below are links to articles, books, podcasts, and music that might be of interest or help on various topics. Resources are curated but may not always reflect the views of New Life Church. Enjoy!
Shedding Tears Over Sorrows That May Never Come—@Challies, a way to pray through anxiety. “Ultimately, if there is to be comfort, it will not be grounded in the hope that nothing bad will happen to me or to the people I love, but in the perfect God whose perfect character is displayed in his perfect will.”
An Open Letter to a Distressed Sufferer—by Mike Emlet @ccef, another one that pairs well with the sermon series on Lamentations. “One way we lean against despair in the midst of trials is by acknowledging our distress before God rather than have our questions bounce off the echo chamber of our own minds.”
Praising God in the Darkness—@Lovesick Scribe. “It is not lost on me how distant and comfortable we can become in our fellowship with Christ when all is well. We all so desperately want to have smooth sailing and calm seas without ever so much a crest of a wave to rock the boat, but we are not promised such things lest we do away with the sea itself.”
Spiritual Disciplines for Dark Days—by Christopher Ash, since we seem to be on a theme here.
There are no Shortcuts—@The Palest Ink, beautiful writing and encouragement for more of God’s Word.
Looking for Truth in All the Fake News—by Amy Medina @Not Home Yet, a solid and balanced perspective.
The Book of Hebrews—a video study for women by Michael Kruger. Study notes are also available, and a book comes out March 1, in case you want resources to go along with our study in Hebrews coming up March-April.
Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul—commentary by R. Kent Hughes.
Exalting Jesus in Hebrews—commentary by R. Albert Mohler, another R. who goes by his middle name.