The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 4, 1987. The title is, My Friend, and the scripture reference is Isaiah chapter 41, verse 8. 

Would you turn with me in the few Bibles, please, to Isaiah chapter 40. It's on page 619. I want to consider just two words.

I think they're remarkable words. They'd be remarkable if they stood by themselves, but they're even more so when you look at the context in which they come. Two of the most important words ever uttered.

We'll begin in Isaiah 40 with verse 12. Set the context. Isaiah is asking some massive questions.

These are kind of like the rhetorical questions that God addresses to Job in the end of that book. But these are not rhetorical questions. It's not God who's asking them.

Isaiah himself is considering the majesty and the awesomeness and the grandeur of God. God the Creator. And he says, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?

Just think of the seas. They say that six-sevenths of the earth's surface is water. In some places, miles deep.

What an incredible volume of water. You can't even imagine it. Isaiah says, God holds it in the palm of His hand.

Who's measured it? Who has marked off the heavens with a span? Do you have any idea how large they are?

Scientists love to debate whether the universe is infinite or finite. expanding, contracting, expanding so it can contract, or whether we're in one universe out of many universes, whatever in the world that means, where did it all come from? There are some who say everything that is came from a single particle.

Can you imagine it? A single particle exploded into everything that is. What kind of power was behind that big bang?

Who's measured it? Who has enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure? Who has inventoried the dust of the earth?

Who's weighed the mountains in scales? The hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord?

Or as His Counselor has instructed Him? Whom did He consult for His enlightenment? Where did God dream it up?

Where did it come from? He says, behold, verse 15, the nations are like a drop from a bucket. All the nations, add them all up, the hundreds of nations that have come and gone like a drop from a bucket.

Accounted as the dust on the scales. He takes up the islands like fine dust. Think of the islands, Great Britain, Iceland, Greenland, the Aleutians, Polynesia, Micronesia, New Zealand.

Find us. It's so small you can hardly even see it. Little teeny particles.

It adds up to nothing. Verse 16. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel if you were to offer a sacrifice to this God.

A sacrifice worthy of Him. Gather up all the mighty cedars of Lebanon. They're not enough to strike a match.

Round up all the animals in the whole country. It's not enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him.

They're counted by Him as less than nothing, as emptiness. Are you impressed with the nations? The great powers, the great empires that rise and have their moment in the sun.

Isaiah says there's nothing, nothing before Him. To whom then will you liken God? What likeness compare with it?

You can't even imagine. Verse 21, have you not known? Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to naught, makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

Caesar, Hitler, Mussolini, giants, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan, nothing, nothing. We stand in awe of those who seem to have such power. And then we look at them in contrast with God.

They're less than nothing. That's the context. The awesomeness.

The unimaginable awesomeness of God. It's a matter of perspective, isn't it? I mean, I'm very glad that apparently the United States and the Soviet Union have hammered out a treaty of some kind to eliminate a whole class of nuclear weapons.

They're very scary. Very dangerous. I'm glad to see them go.

And then I read Isaiah and it doesn't seem as if God is all that impressed with the firepower of our arsenals. More like a child's pop gun. Nothing.

Well, in the midst of all that, he comes to chapter 41 and the Lord speaks about a particular concern. There's a military threat to the nations. It has to do with Cyrus the Great who is expanding the Persian Empire.

And God's word to Israel is, don't be afraid. I'm behind Cyrus. I'm using him for my own purposes.

And as a matter of fact, you're going to be blessed. But that's not the point. I want to draw your attention to verse 8.

In the midst of all this, verse 8. But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, am my friend. My friend.

The God who has just said that all the nations of the world are less than nothing. The God who has just said it doesn't matter whether you're talking about islands or continents or mountains or rivers or seas whether you're talking about princes or rulers or universes It's nothing. So there was a man named Abraham.

And he was my friend. My friend, says God. Can you feel it?

Extraordinary. Fifty-six generations have come and gone since Abraham lived to the time of Isaiah. 2,300 years.

And God says, I remember Abraham. He was my friend. And because of that, I'm going to take care of you.

You get a little tiny feeling of the inestimable value that God places upon that friendship. Out of all time and history and space, One man was my friend, says God. In fact, he's the only one that is called that in Scripture.

Did you know that? Lots of people are called my servants. Some of them are mighty servants.

A few of them, not many, but a few of them are extraordinarily righteous. Not many. David, he calls a man after my own heart.

That comes close. But there's only one man that God says was my friend. My friend.

I've heard it said the Bible is a book about a man named Abraham. All of history pivots on friendship with God. I want us to think about three things in relationship to that.

The first is, God has been reaching out in every generation for friendship. The problem is not with God. The problem is with those who have spurned His offer.

It's not that Abraham was so extraordinary. God would have extended the same friendship to whomever would have received it. He says in Isaiah 65, I was ready to be sought by those who didn't ask for me.

I was ready to be found by those who didn't seek me. I said, here am I, here am I, to a nation that didn't call on my name. Can you imagine it?

The God of the universe standing there waiting. I'm ready. Nobody called.

I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who say keep to yourself don't come near me I think it can be categorically stated that the thing God desires most in all history in all the world is friendship and I don't know why but that's what he's demonstrated friendship with you, with me. Not primarily our achievements, our gifts, our talents, not even primarily, not primarily our righteousness, though that's important. The thing God cares most about regarding you is you.

Do you believe it? do you believe it he wants you to spend time with him to get to know him to enjoy him Jesus said the father is seeking such to worship him not a matter of getting all dressed up and on our best behavior for a formal state dinner not a matter of being on pins and needles wondering whether we're going to be chosen are you good looking enough? are you smart enough?

are you going to win the Miss Universe pageant? not dragging in all of our accomplishments and publications and hoping against hope will pass the test I want to be your friend secondly what was it? about Abraham?

I said he wasn't all that extraordinary. He had doubts and failures and sins. What was it about Abraham?

You know what the Scripture says? He believed God. He believed God.

And God counted that to him as righteousness. He believed him. God says, Abraham, come.

Follow me. I'm going to lead you to a land of milk and honey. and it says Abraham believed God and left his father and mother in his home and went off after God not knowing where he was going God says I'm going to give you a child an heir the son of promise and through him all the nations of the world are going to be blessed Abraham is a hundred years old Sarah is ninety had trouble believing that finally believed it God honored his promise and gave him Isaac and then he said sacrifice him my only son at age 100 probably 115 by then the child of promise how are you going to bring about innumerable descendants and one in particular through whom the whole world is going to be blessed if I sacrifice my son.

I believe you. I don't understand you. But I believe you.

Either you'll give me another son or you'll raise up Isaac from the dead. You know what Jesus said? Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

You understand that? My day is the day of resurrection. Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

He looked down the corridors of history and he saw that there would be resurrection. And even if I sacrifice Isaac, that's not the end of the story. I believe God.

Maybe that's what friendship is. Believing the Word of God in spite of whatever evidence to the contrary. Abraham believed God.

The third thing is this. Abraham is the only one in the old covenant who is spoken of explicitly as the friend of God that's his claim to fame but here's Jesus' word on the same subject no longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends The God who flung the stars into space and holds them in their places and makes the seasons come and go. Notices when one little bird falls to the ground and counts the grains of sand on the sea and the hairs on your head.

The God of unimaginable power and might and majesty and dominion and authority has become a man and his name is Jesus and he says, you are my friend. Do you see yourself that way? Are you afraid of him?

In awe of him? Is he so far off, so high up that you can't relate to him? Figure of history to read about?

Is he your friend? St. Paul said to the Philippians, I used to be religious beyond anything you've ever seen. I used to be a zealot.

And now the goal of my life is just to know him. how much God longs for that to be the goal of your life and mine just to know him let's bow our heads together thank you dear Lord Jesus for being my friend Amen.