Fishkill Baptist Church
Sunday June 7, 2026

      • Isaiah 1:18KJV1900

      • Philippians 2:6–11ESV

  • Indescribable
  • How Deep The Father's Love For Us

      • Hebrews 12:1–2ESV

      • Hebrews 10:19–22ESV

  • It Was Finished Upon That Cross
  • Such An Awesome God
  • Doxology
  • Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.)
    Has anyone here ever run a marathon?…
    Well, that’s nothin’ — My brother-in-law runs ultra-marathons!
    Not 26.2 miles. That’s just a walk in the park. One ultra-marathons Josh has run is 100 miles.
    One hundred miles. On foot. Through terrain that would make most of us pull over and reconsider our life choices.
    The preparation is staggering…
    Months of conditioning. Careful nutrition. Mental fortitude built mile by mile.
    He is as prepared as a human being can be when he steps to that starting line.
    And yet — here's what stopped me when I first looked into this — the majority of people who start a 100-mile ultra-marathon do not finish.
    Depending on the race and the conditions, dropout rates commonly run anywhere from 30 to 50 percent. Sometimes higher.
    These are not casual joggers who wandered in off the street. These are trained, committed, experienced distance runners — and the race still breaks them.
    There's actually a name for the moment it happens. Runners call it hitting the wall —
    That point somewhere deep in the race where your body has burned through every reserve, and the legs that carried you that far simply stop cooperating. The mind is still willing. But the fuel is gone.
    Now — most of us in this room will never run 100 miles. But I'd be willing to bet that every single person here knows exactly what it feels like to hit that wall.
    Not in a race. But in life.
    Maybe it's the wall you hit in a marriage that has demanded more than you knew you had to give.
    Maybe it's the wall in a career, In a season of grief, In raising children, In fighting a battle you didn't choose and can't seem to win. Maybe it's the quiet, grinding exhaustion of simply trying to keep up —
    With expectations, With obligations, With the relentless pace of a world that never seems to slow down and ask if you're okay.
    You started strong. You trained as best you could. But somewhere along the way, the fuel ran out.
    So here is the question I want to wrestle with this morning — the question I believe Isaiah 40 was written to answer:

    In a world that wears us down, where do we find the strength to keep moving forward?

    That is what we are going to discover together this morning.
    So, grab your Bibles and please turn with me to Isaiah 40:27-31. If you need to use a pew Bible, you’ll find today’s text on page 713. Once you’re there, please stand with me if you are able and follow along with me as I read...
    Scripture
    Isaiah 40:27–31 ESV
    Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
    This God’s Word!
    Prayer
    Father, may we see Jesus lifted high in Your Word this morning and may the beauty of His character and work revive our souls and give us strength to run in this weary world. We ask this in Christ’s name — AMEN!
    Intro: Formal (give context to passage, setting the scene, big idea)
    Now before we dive in, I want to give you a little bit of context — because Isaiah is one of those books where knowing the backstory makes everything land with so much more weight.
    Isaiah was a prophet in Jerusalem. He ministered during one of the most turbulent stretches in Israel's history — roughly 740 to 700 BC —
    A period when the great superpower of Assyria was swallowing nations whole, and the people of God had every reason to wonder whether God was paying attention.
    The book of Isaiah is 66 chapters long, and if you've ever read through it, you've probably noticed a dramatic shift somewhere around chapter 40.
    The first 39 chapters are largely a message of warning and judgment — God calling his people to account for their unfaithfulness, and their misplaced trust in everything except him. It's heavy reading.
    And then chapter 40 opens like a window thrown wide open on a spring day!
    Verse 1 says:
    Isaiah 40:1 ESV
    Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
    Everything changes. The tone, the mood, the direction. Where the first half of Isaiah looked at a people under judgment, the second half speaks to a people in devastation —
    Specifically, a people who have been or will be carried into exile in Babylon. Everything they built their life around — the land, the city, the temple — is either gone or going. And into that rubble, God speaks tenderly.
    Which brings us to verses 27 through 31 — our text this morning.
    By the time we reach verse 27, we hear the cry that has been building beneath the surface of the whole chapter. Israel says:
    Isaiah 40:27 ESV
    “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?
    In other words — God, do you even see us? Do you even care? Because we have been running a very long time, and we are not sure we have anything left.
    Sound familiar?
    The geography is different. The century is different. But the exhaustion isn’t — that weariness of carrying more than you can bare —
    That is not ancient history. That’s Wednesday morning. That’s some of you sitting in the pews right now.
    So let me bring back the question we asked earlier:

    In a world that wears us down, where do we find the strength to keep moving forward?

    Isaiah 40 has an answer. And here it is — this is what I want you to take home with you this morning:

    The Everlasting God who pardons and restores the weary is the only source of strength that never runs out.

    Not willpower. Not better habits. Not the next achievement or the next season when things finally settle down. But, The everlasting God — and what he has done for us in Jesus Christ!
    We’re going to see this in three movements this morning:
    The World That Wears Us Out.
    The God Who Never Runs Dry.
    The Life That Runs Without Running Out.
    Let's get into it.

    The World That Wears Us Out

    Listen to the words of the people Isaiah was sent to comfort. He quotes them in verse 27:
    Isaiah 40:27 ESV
    Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?
    That is the worn-out cry of a weary people who feel unseen — who have concluded that God isn't watching.
    But the God Isaiah points us to is a God who sees. And that is the very thing this weary people were struggling to believe.
    Because here's the truth: every one of us in this room, Christian or not, is running some version of the same race — trying to prove we're worth something…
    To other people… To God… And even to ourselves… so we can sleep at night.
    And this striving to justify our own existence will wear you down and wear you out. It is the treadmill that this weary world runs on, day after day after day.
    There's a famous film called Chariots of Fire — the story of an athlete named Eric Liddell who ran in the 1924 Olympics.
    In the movie, one of his competitors explained what drove him to run saying:
    "I have ten seconds to justify my whole existence."
    Just ten seconds — in a race — To finally settle the question of whether he matters.
    That's not just an Olympic runner's struggle. Every one of us has a race we keep running to justify our own existence.
    The degrees you chase. The career you build. The promotion you finally land. The reputation you work to protect.
    Each one whispers the same promise: "This will finally be enough. This will finally settle the question of whether you matter."
    But it never pays out. Because, there’s always a "next thing."
    And here's the cruelest part: even if you arrive — even if you reach the very top of whatever you give your life to — the striving doesn't end. It just changes shape.
    You don't get to rest on the summit. Because now you have to defend it. And defending what you've built is its own kind of exhaustion.
    Consider the great gymnast, Simone Biles. She had reached the pinnacle — The greatest gymnast of all time, With more world championship gold medals than anyone in history. She had nothing left to prove.
    And yet at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the weight of it broke through. She stepped back from competition in the middle of the Games, and in the aftermath she described the crushing pressure of being expected to keep performing at a level no human being had ever reached.
    She wasn't just tired from training. She was exhausted from being Simone Biles — From the relentless demand to keep proving what she had already achieved.
    Simone reached the summit. And discovered that the summit had its own kind of exhaustion.
    Friends, this is the sobering view from the top.
    Now — look at verse 28. Before God gives the answer, he asks a question. And it comes almost as a gentle rebuke:
    Isaiah 40:28 ESV
    Have you not known? Have you not heard?
    In other words: you are running on the wrong fuel. And the exhaustion you feel is the proof.
    If the runner from Chariots of Fire and the Simone Biles story were the last word, this would be a discouraging place to stop.
    But they aren't the last word — because the same prophet who heard Israel's weary cry turns around and answers it. And that answer is exactly where we are headed next.

    The God Who Never Runs Dry

    Look at the rest of verse 28 — because before we look at what he has done, I want you to see who He tells us He is:
    Isaiah 40:28 ESV
    The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
    Did you catch that? Every other source of strength you lean on has a bottom.
    Your energy runs out. Your willpower runs out. The people you depend on run out.
    But God does not faint. God does not grow weary. He is the everlasting God — which means his strength has no bottom.
    And look at what he does with that bottomless strength. Verse 29:
    Isaiah 40:29 ESV
    He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
    Notice who receives it…
    Not the strong. Not the ones who have it all together.
    He gives power to the faint — And to those who have no might.
    The qualification for receiving his strength Is knowing how desperately you need it!
    But that raises a question: How does the everlasting God give us His strength? How does waiting on him actually renew a worn-out soul?
    For that, we need to go back to the opening words of the chapter — and see three things God says he has already done. Listen to verses 1 and 2:
    Isaiah 40:1–2 ESV
    Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
    First, notice what kind of list this is. This is not a to-do list. This is a done list!
    God is the subject of every verb, and weary people are the recipients.
    This is because the strength Isaiah promised comes from depending on what God has done — Not from producing something ourselves.
    And these were not just words for ancient Israel. Because John the Baptist took the very next line of this passageJJJ and applied it to himself in John chapter 1, saying —
    John 1:23 ESV
    “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
    Do you see what that means? The comfort of verse 2 is not ancient history, sealed off from this room.
    The New Testament reaches back to these words and tells us they were always pointing to Jesus. Which means this is a word of hope not just for Israel — but for you, today.
    So let's look at these three gifts one at a time.
    First: your warfare — your hardship — is ended. The weariness of being a slave to your own performance — it's over.
    The striving. The treadmill. The defending of the summit.
    With the LORD, you are not moving toward something worse, or even something uncertain. You are moving toward the end of hardship itself.
    Second: your iniquity is pardoned. For all the ways you've tried to be your own god — and for every attempt to justify yourself apart from him — there is pardon.
    And hear this: you did not earn it. It is received from the LORD's hand. Somebody purchased your pardon, and it wasn't you.
    Third — and here's where it gets almost too good — he gives double.
    But why double? If our sins are already pardoned, isn't that enough? I owe a debt to Martin Lloyd-Jones for helping me see this here.
    Because the double is not extra punishment. It's extra grace. It is not only a debt cleared — It is a righteousness credited.
    Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:21:
    2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV
    For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
    There's the double grace, right in this one verse.
    He made him to be sin — That's our sin reckoned to Christ.
    So that we might become the righteousness of God — That's Christ's righteousness reckoned to us.
    Sin carried away. Righteousness handed over.
    That is what makes the gift double.
    And this isn't some New Testament idea artificially injected into an old prophet. Isaiah himself says this explicitly —
    In his most famous chapter, chapter 53, he prophesied of a the Messiah in verse 11, saying…
    Isaiah 53:11 ESV
    [He shall] make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
    Do you see? — Isaiah saw the double grace long before Paul.
    Now, let me show you why this changes everything.
    Imagine a man on death row who receives a full pardon. That pardon is enough to get him out — but that's it.
    He now walks out into a world that still sees him under a cloud. No one lines up to hire him. No father wants him near his daughter. He is not trusted.
    Because being pardoned is not the same as being welcomed.
    And that — right there — is where so many people live. Even sincere Christians. They believe the gospel got them out of hell, and now they spend their lives trying to prove they deserve a seat at the table.
    But hear me: what that pardoned prisoner could never get from the governor, you receive freely from God!
    Not just release — but a welcome.
    Christ's own record of righteousness, handed to you, so that when God looks at you, He sees not a forgiven ex-con, but an adopted child, brought all the way in.
    And this is how waiting on the LORD renews your strength.
    Because it means you can stop lining up at the starting line to prove your existence is justified — because Jesus Christ has already proven it for you.
    You can stop asking the career, The title, The reputation to tell you that you matter —
    Because God has already said it, in Jesus Christ!
    The weariness of striving is over — not because you finally reached the summit, but because Jesus did, and he credited it to you.
    So you can go and live from rest — instead of striving your whole life for it.
    But here's what I love about Isaiah. He doesn't leave you sitting in that rest. Resting in the LORD is where the strength comes from — but it never makes you passive.
    So, in my final movement, let’s look at what living truly looks like when your strength comes from the LORD.

    The Life that Runs Without Running Out

    Look at verses 30 and 31:
    Isaiah 40:30–31 ESV
    Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
    Verse 30 is the final word on self-sufficiency.
    Even the youngest, strongest, most naturally gifted among us will fall exhausted.
    Youth is not the answer. Talent is not the answer. Sheer determination is not the answer.
    Every human fuel tank hits empty.
    But verse 31 is where the promise lands. Because you've leaned the entire weight of your worth on God who has already done the work for you.
    Now look with me at the kind of life that strength empowers. But notice something unexpected first…
    These verbs don't rise — they descend. Isaiah climbs down to his climax, and he does it on purpose.
    First, you will mount up with wings like eagles. There will be seasons of soaring —
    The mountaintops. The big wins. The moments when faith feels effortless.
    They're real, and they're a gift. But they are rare. Life is not an endless chain of summits.
    So when you soar, don't claw to defend it — His strength in you simply looks like gratitude. Receive it, and give thanks.
    Next, you will run and not be weary. These are the seasons of sustained effort —
    Working hard in your job. Studying hard at school. Raising children. Staying faithful when life is demanding and no one is watching.
    So when you run, find joy in the running itself, and refuse to allow the results to define your worth.
    And finally — you will walk and not faint. Here is the climax, hiding in the humblest verb here.
    Because when you walk — and most of life is walking — His strength shows itself differently.
    Not in soaring. Not in speed. But in this: you keep going.
    The ordinary Tuesday. The unglamorous faithfulness. The slow obedience when nothing feels remarkable.
    Isaiah saves the hardest and most common thing for last — and over that one he makes the boldest promise of all: you will walk, and you will not faint.
    For those of you in a season of walking — and you know who you are —
    for the widows and widowers in this room, for those battling serious health issues, for anyone putting one foot in front of the other through grief or weariness or the weight of years —
    God does not promise to make it feel like soaring. He promises something better: that you will not collapse — your faith will not fail!
    Because the promise still stands: your warfare is ended. The road does not lead into more darkness. It leads to the end of all hardship!
    Some of you saw the title of this sermon and wondered what it meant: How to Run Without Running Out.
    Here is the answer: it's the very same strength that keeps you walking long after your running days are behind you.
    The striving this world celebrates might get you to a summit or two — but only God's strength is good for the valleys.
    You don't run without running out by trying harder. You run without running out because the strength was never yours to produce.
    It is renewed — day by day — as you rest in who the Everlasting God says you are: fully pardoned, and fully welcomed.
    Conclusion/Response (Gospel & Repent/Believe)
    So — church. In just a few minutes you will walk out of this room and back into that weary, exhausting world we talked about. It will hand you:
    A thousand races to run. And a thousand summits to defend.
    It will whisper that the next one — The next promotion, The next achievement, The next bit of approval — will finally be enough.
    Don't — you — believe — it!
    You were not made to spend your life proving your existence is justified. And in Christ, you don't have to —
    Because the verdict is already in. The work is already finished. The welcome is already yours.
    And if you have never laid your striving down — if you've never received this rest for your soul — hear me: it is not too late, and you are not too far gone. You can stop, even today, and simply receive what Christ has already done for you.
    Christ died and rose again to pardon your sin— And to welcome you to the family table! Stop striving and rest in this!
    We began this sermon with my brother-in-law Josh and his 100-mile ultra-marathon…
    I told you that the majority of runners who start that race never finish — Because, as trained, and committed, and as experienced as they are — the race still breaks them.
    And I asked you a question:

    In a world that wears us down, where do we find the strength to keep moving forward?

    Now you know the answer. And here it is one more time:

    The Everlasting God who pardons and restores the weary is the only source of strength that never runs out.

    The runners who don't finish that 100-mile race all have one thing in common —
    they were drawing from a tank that had a bottom. And when it hit empty, the race was over.
    But Isaiah tells us there is an Everlasting God whose strength has no bottom…
    A God who does not faint or grow weary.
    A God who doesn't just pardon your sin but treats you as if you’ve done no wrong.
    And when you lean on him — you draw from a well that never runs dry.
    So — mount up church, on the days he gives you to soar.
    Run, when the road is long and the work is hard.
    And when all you can do is walk — walk, and do not faint.
    Because the LORD is the everlasting God, The Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, And his understanding is unsearchable!
    So, go out into that weary world — and for the rest of your lives…
    Live from rest, and never again for it.
    Prayer
    Father,
    We confess that we have so many races You never asked us to, and we have chased summits that were never meant to sustain us. We have tried to justify our own existence — and it has worn us out.
    But today, Your Word has reminded us that Your strength has no bottom. And that in Jesus Christ, You have not only pardoned our sin but welcomed us all the way in to the family dinner table.
    So may we lay our striving down — right here, right now.
    For those in this room who are soaring — give them grateful hearts and open hands.
    For those who are running — sustain them with joy and free them from the tyranny of results.
    And for those who are walking — Lord, hold them up. Keep their faith from failing. And remind them that the road leads not into more darkness, but to the end of all hardship.
    And for anyone here who has never received this rest — who is still trying to earn what you freely give — would you open their eyes today to see that the work is already finished, and the welcome is their to receive by faith alone!
    Now send us out, Lord in the name of Jesus Christ — to live from rest, and never again for it. — Amen!
    Closing Song: The Solid Rock
    Closing Words
    TRANSITION FROM SONG
    What a hymn!
    The solid rock is not your performance, your résumé, or your ability to keep running.
    The solid rock is what Christ has already done — his blood that pardons, and his righteousness that welcomes you home.
    GOSPEL APPEAL
    And if you realized this morning that you've been building your life on sinking sand — that you've been trying to earn what God freely gives — Let today can be the day that changes.
    You don't have to clean yourself up first. Simply bring your weary soul to Christ with empty hands, and receive what he has already purchased for you.
    If that's you, there will be people available up front here after the service. They would love to talk and pray with you to help you take that first step of faith.
    NEXT STEPS
    And for everyone else — what is your next step of faith?
    Maybe you've been following Jesus but you've never been baptized — We would love to help you take that step.
    Maybe you've been attending here for a while, but you've never made this your church home. Membership is how we say to one another, "I'm not running this race alone — and neither are you."
    Maybe you want to take a step into serving — using the gifts God has given you to strengthen this body.
    Whatever it is — don't leave here today and do nothing with what God has spoken to you through His Word.
    Let us know about the step you’d like to take by tapping your phone to the white tag in the pew and filling out our Next Steps form.
    MISSIONAL CHARGE
    Now — one final word. The world you are walking back into is full of people hitting the wall. And you now carry the answer. So live from rest so freely, so joyfully, that the people around you ask where your strength comes from. And when they do — point them to the Everlasting God who does not faint, and to the Christ who finished the race on their behalf.
    BENEDICTION Jude 24–25
    “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
    Church you are sent — Go in peace!

      • Isaiah 40:27–31ESV

      • Isaiah 40:1ESV

      • Isaiah 40:27ESV

      • Isaiah 40:27ESV

      • Isaiah 40:28ESV

      • Isaiah 40:28ESV

      • Isaiah 40:29ESV

      • Isaiah 40:1–2ESV

      • John 1:23ESV

      • 2 Corinthians 5:21ESV

      • Isaiah 53:11ESV

      • Isaiah 40:30–31ESV

  • The Solid Rock
Fishkill Baptist Church
lori@fishkillbaptist.org
845-896-9386
http://fishkillbaptist.net
15 members