Isaiah 41:10: Look Up, God's Hand Upholds Your Life

Introduction

"Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness." Nobuo Tanaka preaches on this verse, Isaiah 41:10, at Yonezawa Kojo Church in Japan, during the service for Respect for the Aged Day (Keirō no hi), a Japanese national holiday dedicated to the elderly.

The Bible knows nothing of a "Respect for the Aged Day," he admits. But this day concerns you, whatever your age: you too are going to grow old. It is a chance to prepare your future while you still can, and to take care of one another, starting with the family. Even under the same roof, parents and children sometimes stop talking to each other. Yet beyond blood ties, there is the family of God, gathered under the heavenly Father who created all people.

His message comes down to one conviction: the foundation of your life does not come from below, it comes from above. Three verbs in the verse unfold it: uphold, strengthen, help.

Message Outline

1. What Music Is Your Life Playing?

• The preacher tells of a book someone recommended to him: an interview with a world-famous Japanese organist, laden with awards, who had no religious background at all.
• He went to Europe to study the organ and felt ill at ease: everywhere he played was a place of worship, and he knew nothing about Christianity.
• While playing Bach, he understood that the composer had not put his own feelings into music, but was celebrating the greatness of God. The day he received, with his whole being, that there is Someone who upholds, strengthens and helps his life, his music changed, and so did the smiles of those who listened.
• You may not be an organist, but you are playing the music of your life. Are you turning it into notes of complaint and sadness? Or, because trials exist, do you look up so that they may be turned into blessing?

2. Elders Upheld by God

• During this service, an elderly woman of the church gave her testimony, and it was her son who led the meeting. The pastor sees in this a picture of the family of God.
• He recalls an elderly man of the church, known all over town because he sold bento lunches at the train station. One member remembers him walking in the snow, pushing his bicycle, bringing soaked mandarin oranges for the brothers and sisters: a small offering, like the widow’s mite.
• Others came from the outskirts of Yonezawa on foot, an hour or two through snow blowing sideways, on Sundays and on Wednesdays for the prayer meeting.
• We say, "It’s snowing, I’m staying home." Then: "It’s raining, I’m staying." And one day: "It’s a beautiful day, I’m staying."
• When you look at these elders in the faith, you see lives upheld by God, strengthened in the Lord and helped by him.

3. Uphold: The Foundation Comes From Above

• The Hebrew word translated "uphold" (tamak) points to the foundation of life. At a time when people talk about living to a hundred or a hundred and twenty, everyone is trying to build a solid base: health, finances, relationships.
• When we talk about a foundation, we look down. What is below matters, of course. But the foundation of your life comes from above.
• The tower of Babel went up from the bottom to the top. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Human strength goes from the bottom up; God’s work goes from the top down.
• A life built from the bottom up is easy to understand: you just stack, work and hold on. But it always ends up collapsing somewhere.
• Before Christ, people tried to obtain life through effort and the law. In Jesus Christ something else begins: eternal life is love, and to love is to treat your life as precious.

4. The Hanging Pillar of the Pagodas

• Japan is a land of earthquakes. Yet its five-story pagodas have never collapsed over the centuries.
• Their secret is the central pillar, the shinbashira, the "heart pillar." It does not rest on the foundation: it hangs from the top.
• When the building leans to one side, the pillar swings to the other and absorbs much of the shock. A pillar fixed to the ground would break. The Tokyo Skytree, 634 meters tall, uses the same principle.
• Your life too: say goodbye to an existence of rubble piled up from the bottom. "What will become of me in retirement? What if I get cancer?" You don’t need to torment yourself. Lift your eyes to the word of the God who gave you life and who says: I uphold you, I strengthen you, I help you.
• This elderly man of the church once went through the illness of his daughter, who had come back to live with him. The pastor has not forgotten his face. He did not look at his feet, but at God’s promise alone, and the situation turned for the better.
• If you are five foot three, then looking down, your limit is five foot three. When you look at the sky, it is the eternal world.

5. Strengthen: There Is Not Just One Right Answer

• Strengthening is the fruit. It is convenient to blame your upbringing or other people: "I grew up like that, that’s why I am the way I am." The One who strengthens you turns those circumstances into the path of a full life.
• In the past, people looked for "the right answer." The preacher recalls that during an emergency warning, some people who headed for the evacuation center, which seemed the right thing to do, were swept away by the water on the way.
• The right answer is different for each person. To the right, to the left, forward, backward? Upward: toward the personal message God gives you in your situation.
• We tell ourselves: "If I had money, if I were healed, I would be strong." That happens. But God makes you strong even when you are sick, even when you are poor, in any situation.
• The script of your life is unique, and you are not the one writing it: God has already written it. He produces the best fruit, and his peace surpasses everything you could wish for.

6. Seeing Your Life From Above

• Nobuo Tanaka quotes the book by Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air, which stayed at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for a very long time. Son of a Protestant Christian father and a Hindu mother, Paul became a brilliant doctor. While he was only in his thirties, he was found to have cancer that had already spread throughout his body.
• He had dreamed of being a writer and was far from faith, and he asked himself: why, God? The preacher sums up the turning point: man is not the one who questions life, it is life, from above, that questions him. Life does not go from the bottom up, but from the top down.
• In the past, weather forecasting was done from the summit of Mount Fuji, and it was often wrong. Today, satellites look at the earth from above and the forecasts come true. Your life too goes wrong when you look at it from your own angle alone.
• Kalanithi writes that no one sees the whole picture: the doctor sees one part, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl fisher a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable technician a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth.
• Seen as a whole, even the part you would like to throw away is a treasure. Pray like this: "Lord, I only see a part. How do you see my situation?"
• Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. When you understand that a moment of your life is part of eternity, the pain may remain, but something stronger than it takes its place. A problem is only a problem if you look at nothing but it.
• All things work together for good. Nothing is to be rejected, as long as it is received with thanksgiving. Complaints are born of a view from below: your experience, your interest.

7. Help: A Relationship, and a Direction

• Upholding is the root; helping is the trunk; strengthening is the fruit. To be helped is to live a rich relationship with God. Being helped does not mean you do nothing, or that God and you are equals. It is like a parent and child who are in harmony, like that mother and son who served together in the service.
• You are the captain of your boat, but the owner is him. The decisive question: toward whom are you turned?
• Someone asks him to pray about a complicated situation. His answer: "What should we pray for?" At the foot of the mountain, there are all kinds of ways of doing things (the how). Higher up, the what. At the summit, at the center of the circle: the why.
• Do you live to eat, or do you eat to live? "Doing what I want in order to be happy" is the door to worries. Seek what delights God most: that is why he gives you wisdom and method. That is what being helped means.
• In the Gospels, look at how Jesus acted. With age, the outer person, strength and health decline, loved ones pass away. As a child, he did not understand what a stair railing was for. But even if the outer person is wasting away, the inner person is renewed day by day, because you are looking up.

8. The Thank You That Comes Before the Answer

• The Christian poet Jūkichi Yagi, who died at twenty-nine, wrote: "Into this brightness, set a simple koto: unable to bear the beauty of autumn, the koto will quietly begin to sound." That simple koto, says the pastor, is you.
• Being a Christian is moving from the horizontal to the vertical: when you place yourself in the glory of God, the koto begins to sing without anyone having touched it.
• A woman of the church came to the service for five years bent over with pain. One day, she arrived standing straight. Her secret: "Praying while thanking in advance." Instead of repeating "it hurts," she said: "Thank you, hallelujah, I am healed, thank you."
• Don’t imitate her mechanically, the preacher warns: the right answer is different for each person. But in trial, your "thank you, hallelujah, amen" takes on a color that nothing else can give.
• Someone who has met Jesus Christ cannot always explain it: "I looked up, and that’s it." No need for makeup or fine clothes. Everything becomes a habit: this week, make it a habit to walk with your eyes lifted. Those around you, your son, your family, will turn toward where you are looking.

Key Takeaways

• In Isaiah 41:10, God promises to uphold you, strengthen you and help you, at every age.
• A life built from the bottom up ends up collapsing; a life hanging from God, like the central pillar of the pagodas, stands through the tremors.
• You only see a part of the picture. Seen from above, even the part you would like to throw away becomes a treasure.
• To be helped is to live in relationship with God and to ask first why you live, before looking for how to do it.
• Thanksgiving in advance changes your outlook in trial, and those around you turn toward where you are looking.

Personal Application

1. What music is your life playing right now: notes of complaint, or a trial you are handing over to God so that he turns it into blessing?
2. What are you resting your future on: your health, your savings, your relationships, or God’s promise that upholds you?
3. Take a difficult situation and pray: "Lord, how do you see it?"
4. Before asking how to get out of it, ask yourself why you live and what would delight God in this situation.
5. This week, replace one daily complaint with a thank you spoken in advance.

Verses Cited

• Isaiah 41:10
• Mark 12:41-44
• Genesis 11:1-9
• Matthew 27:51
• Philippians 4:7
• Hebrews 11:1
• Romans 8:28
• 1 Timothy 4:4
• 2 Corinthians 4:16

Frequently Asked Questions

What does God promise in Isaiah 41:10?

God says: "Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you." He promises three things: he strengthens you, he helps you and he upholds you with his right hand. For Nobuo Tanaka, upholding is the root, helping is the trunk (a living relationship between God and you) and strengthening is the fruit.

What does "the foundation of life comes from above" mean?

A life built from the bottom up, through effort, always ends up collapsing somewhere. The preacher uses the image of the central pillar of Japan’s five-story pagodas, hanging from the top: it absorbs the shocks of earthquakes. Your life stands when your support is in God.

How can you look up when you are suffering?

Nobuo Tanaka invites you to ask God how he sees your situation, since you only see a part of it. He cites a woman of the church, bent over with pain for a long time, who began to thank God in advance. The pain may remain, but gratitude becomes stronger than it.