Immanuel Sermon Audio
Immanuel - Glory
Revelation 4/8 says, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is to come." And that passage is an echo of our passage this morning, Isaiah chapter 6 verse 3 that says, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory." If you have a Bible, find Isaiah chapter 6. There's an outline in the bulletin if you want to follow along there. During the month of September, we're going to take a break from our study of the gospel of Luke. We're going to spend four weeks doing something else. We have traced the life of Jesus through the gospel of Luke up through promises about His birth, John the Baptist, and Jesus both conceived and eventually born. We've traced the story up through Jesus being baptized, we saw the genealogy of Jesus, we saw Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by Satan, and we're just going to take a break right there. When we come back in a month, we'll pick right up where we left off. We'll talk about Jesus beginning His public ministry, but for one month, four weeks during September, we're going to think about our church, and we're going to think about our church mission statement, and we're going to try not just to think about a man-made set of words that we have come up with, but how it ties back into the Bible and what it means for us as a church family, what it means for you in your family, and what it means for us as individuals. I'm going to put up on the screen our church mission statement. It's a playoff of our name, a manual, which means God with us, and so our mission statement is, "God with us for His glory, for the world, for this city, and for you." So we're going to spend four weeks. We're going to talk about what does it mean that God's with us, number one, for His glory, number two, for the world, number three, for this city, and number four, for you. And we're not going to just talk about sort of man-made ideas. We are going to go back to the Bible. We're going to look at two Old Testament passages, and we're going to look at two New Testament passages and try to think about what this means for us at a manual Baptist church in 2014. So Isaiah 6, if you have that in your Bible, we're going to begin just by reading what the prophet says. And many of you are familiar with maybe the first part of Isaiah 6. We're going to read the entire chapter and think about it as a unit. And so you follow along as I read the Word of God from Isaiah 6, beginning in verse 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings. With two He covered His face and with two He covered His feet and with two He flew. And one called to another and said, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, "Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning cold that he had taken with tongues from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt has taken away and your sin is atoned for." And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I, send me." And he said, "Go, say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Get the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy and blind their eyes lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and be healed." Then I said, "How long, O Lord?" And he said, "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terra bent or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felt. The holy seed is its stump." Let's pray. Father, this morning we want to humble ourselves before you, as we have sung about your holiness, and as we have read about your holiness, Father, we want to feel the weight of who you are and all of your glory and all of your majesty pressing down on us. Father, we want to see you for who you are. We want to see ourselves as we truly are, and we simply pray this morning that you would help us as individuals, as families, and as a church family, to think about what does it mean that you, Almighty God, the Lord of hosts, the one who was and is and is to come, that you are with us for your glory. We'd rather give us eyes to see, give us hearts to receive, we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. We're going to get to the outline in the three simple statements that are on that in just a little bit. I didn't put quite as much on the outline for this series, but if you'd like to take notes, you can follow along and do that on the back of the sheet. I want you to start with me in verse 1. Isaiah 6, verse 1, Isaiah starts the whole thing off, this whole experience, and he sets it in a historical context, and he says, this took place in the year that King Uzziah died. This is what I found is the most famous painting of King Uzziah. Nobody really has any idea what he looked like, but that maybe gives you some idea of a possibility, King Uzziah. This is not just an insignificant detail that Isaiah is tagging on to an otherwise significant story. He was trying to set us up for something, and he mentions specifically King Uzziah in the year that he died. King Uzziah was one of the kings of Judah. He became king when he was 16 years old, and he reigned as king of Judah for 52 years. People who live in a country where we change leaders every four or maybe eight years, that's hard for us to think about. 52 years, this man sat on the throne of Judah. And for the most part, when Scripture describes his life, Scripture says he was a good king. If you've ever read the Old Testament and it lists all the kings, there comes a point in that description where it says, and he was a good guy, or he was evil in the sight of the Lord. And for Isaiah, it's thumbs up. For the most part, this was a man who loved the Lord. He was part of King David's line, a descendant of King David, and he is one of the ancestors of Jesus, the Messiah. So he fits right in the middle there between King David and Jesus. He was a military genius. Some of his greatest accomplishments noted in Scripture involved the military of Judah. And so he reorganized all of the military and made new divisions. He rearmed all of the military, gave everybody new weapons, new shields, knew whatever they needed. He even went into Jerusalem on the walls surrounding the city, and he engineered and designed catapults. He talks about this, catapults that set on the wall and hurled large rocks. And what he was thinking is, there's all sorts of invading armies. If somebody comes at us with a huge army, we need some serious defenses. And so he put these giant catapults up on the walls of Jerusalem so that he could hurl rocks at an invading army. He was a good king. He was a wise king. He was a helpful king in making much needed improvements in Jerusalem. But he had one downfall. He was a proud man. And there came a time in Uzziah's life where he began to think a little bit too much of Uzziah and not quite enough of God. Here's how it played out. Uzziah, this good king who loved the Lord, decided, you know, King Uzziah has a nice ring to it, but priest King Uzziah has a better ring to it. I think I would like to be a priest. He wasn't allowed to be a priest. He wasn't part of the tribe of Levi. He was part of the tribe of Judah. He wasn't in the priestly line. He was in the kingly line. And he decided even though God had separated those roles and said, priests, you do this, kings, you do this. Uzziah said, you know what? I think I'd like to do both. And so Uzziah marched bold-faced in his arrogance into the temple and he began to offer incense on the altar, where only the priest was allowed to offer incense. History tells us that during his reign there was a great earthquake. You can read that outside of the Bible. You can also read it inside the Bible. There was a great earthquake during his reign. Here's what tradition says. This is not Bible, so you sort of put this in parentheses. Tradition says that in the moment he offered the incense on the altar in the temple, that earthquake hit, and the wall of the temple split open, and the sun shined directly in on Uzziah as he was offering that incense, and in that instant he was struck with leprosy. That's tradition. Here's what the Bible says. He marched in bold-faced and disobedience to God, doing something he knew he was not supposed to do, taking a role that had not been given to him, offered the incense and the Bible does say nothing about the earthquake, nothing about the split and the wall and the sun, but the Bible does say the Lord struck him with leprosy, and he had it until the day that he died. For the most part he was a good king. He loved the Lord, he led Judah well, but he had an instance in his life where pride got the best of him, and in that moment he understood, and he came to learn in a very real, very personal way that God doesn't trifle with sin. God is holy, holy, holy, and this good king was struck with leprosy, and he struggled with it. He lived with it until the day that he died. It's an odd thing if you think about it. If you have ever read through the Old Testament about some of these kings, there are some rotten individuals. There are some guys who did really, really bad things, hurt people, killed people, took advantage of people, manipulated people, wicked men, and for year after year they prospered on the throne, and they never got struck with leprosy. None of that happened to them. And you read these stories and you wonder, "God, why are you letting this king sit on the throne?" He's so wicked he's leading the people astray, and then you get one good king that looks like he just crosses the line once, and something that you say is it really that big a deal who offers the incense? He was going to worship. But God had said he wasn't the one that was supposed to offer the incense. He'd been clear about that. In Uzziah learned what it means to say God is holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah includes that. Not just as a little historical footnote, but to set you and I up for what's coming. He says, "Listen, here's when this happened in the year that leprosy king, Uzziah, finally kicked the bucket. After 52 years on the throne, this is what happened. Isaiah says that he's in the temple, and he sees the Lord. On a throne, verse 1, high and lifted up, the train of his robe fills the temple. Above him are the seraphim, literally the burning ones, angelic beings who are constantly engulfed in flames, yet never consumed, and they exist to do one thing and one thing only, to stand in the very presence of God and to sing praise to him. And back and forth, they sing this song, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory, holy, holy, holy." The only attribute of God in the Bible raised to this degree. Not one time is God described in the Bible as love, love, love. Never. He is loving, but he's never described like this. Not once in the Bible is he described as just, just, just. He is just, but he's never raised to that degree. This is the supreme attribute of God that governs all of his other attributes. He is holy, holy, holy. You say, "That's a church word. What does that mean?" Holy, God is holy. It's a word that I can't just give you a simple definition for. Let me throw out some words that are included in this idea of holy. He is whole, W-H-O-L-E, he is whole, he is other, he's not like Isaiah, and he's not like the seraphim, he's completely set apart and different, he's majestic, he's sinless, he's righteous. And Isaiah, here's these angels singing, holy, holy, holy, sinless and righteous and perfect and set apart and majestic, holy, holy, holy. Now if you had never read the verse, you have read it and you know how it ends. If you had never read it and you were filling in the second line, what would you say? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is filled with His holiness. That's what you would say, He's holy, holy, holy. Well I guess the whole earth is filled with His holiness and instead the angels sing something that we wouldn't sing, they say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, is the Lord of hosts and the whole earth is filled with His glory, not His holiness." And the angels are telling you and me that those two things are intertwined, that you can't separate them, that holiness is this supreme governing attribute of God and when it goes on display for all the world to see, that is called God's glory. It's holy, holy, holy, and all of creation needs to acknowledge His glory. And so there's these burning angels, Isaiah sees the Lord, His train, the whole thing shaking, their smoke, and the angels are singing out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." I did a search this week on the word glory and I just read through all the verses in the Bible that have the word glory in them. And if you have the kind of software or concordance you can look that up, that would be worth your time. Let me just read you a couple of references and I'm not going to read the passages, I'm just going to sort of summarize what these passages say about God's glory. And I'm going to move quickly through these. Exodus 14, three times God says to Moses, "I will get glory over Pharaoh," three times in one chapter. It's just 40, they build the tabernacle in the glory of God fills it. First Kings 8, the glory of God fills the temple when Solomon completes it. Psalm 19, you know this one, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Psalm 96, we're sent to declare God's glory among the nations. Isaiah 66, a day is coming, he says, "Where all of the peoples, all of the nations will see the glory of God." Ezekiel 1, the prophet falls on his face like he's dead when he encounters the glory of God. Daniel 7, he sees a vision of a Son of Man who comes and he receives all of the glory, all of it. Habakkuk 2, the prophet says, "One day the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. It will be global, it will be universal." Matthew 24, Jesus says, "One day the Son of Man, me, will come back and when I do, it will be in great glory." Luke 2, we talked about this passage a few weeks ago, Jesus is born and the angels come and they sing glory to God in the highest. John 1, the word became flesh and he revealed to us the glory of God. Romans 1, Paul says idolaters make a swap, they exchange the glory of God for a statue that can't talk or speak or hear. Romans 3, we're all sinners and we all fall short of God's glory. Corinthians 10, everything in your life ought to be done to bring glory to God. Ephesians 1, salvation, beginning, middle and all of it is designed by God for the praise of His glory. Hebrews 13, 1 Peter 4, Revelation 1, Jesus Christ deserves all glory forever and ever. Jude 1, Jude tells us that Jesus keeps His people, He holds on to them so that in the end He will receive glory. Revelation 4, Revelation 5, Revelation 7, you can see it throughout the book of Revelation, every creature in heaven under the earth, on the earth, in the sea, in the air, all of them give glory to God. Revelation 21, there's no sun, there's no moon in the new creation because its light is provided by the glory of God. Here's Isaiah in the temple and he gets all of that in one bang, one punch. All of it, he just sees all of it. You can't sum it up in words, you can't write down a definition for it. All of that just smacks him right in the face as he's worshiping in the temple and what does he do? He says, "Woe is me." He pronounces a curse on himself. Literally what he says is, "I'm damned, I'm in trouble because he looks at the king, the Lord of hosts, who is holy, holy, holy, and all of his glory." And then he steps back and he says, "I'm in his presence. I've laid eyes on him. Woe is me," says Isaiah. I hope that you've had that moment in your life. I prayed this week specifically for you, not all of you by name, some of you by name, but for you as a group. And I said, "God, my prayers that every person in this room has had that moment that Isaiah had right there, where you say, 'I'm in big trouble, woe is me, I'm damned, I can't stand before the king, so many nice, good, moral people in our neck of the woods who think they're nice, good, moral people.' And they never had this moment like Isaiah had where they literally begin to come undone. Isaiah feels like he's disintegrating, becoming disintegrated. He's coming apart at the seams. He says, "I am toast. There is no way I can stand in the presence of this God. I'm done, woe is me, and my prayer for you is that you have had that moment, that the light bulb has gone off, and you've seen God for who he is, and you've seen yourself for who you are." And you say, "I don't stand a chance." "I cannot stand in his presence, woe is me." And Isaiah says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, and I'm done." I hope you've had that moment where you stand before God and you say, "I'm not a good person. I'm not a moral person. I'm not a decent person. I am rotten to the core, and there is no way that I can stand before God. I prayed for you that you've had that moment. And then I prayed for you that you have the second light bulb moment that Isaiah has, because the second light bulb moment, once he says, "Woe is me," as he turns around and he realizes that God will do for him what he could never do for himself. And he sees this angel come and he brings this tongue and it's a picture that his sin has been taken away, touches it to his lips. His sin has been taken away, his sin has been atoned for. You understand, that's the point of everything we've talked about so far in the gospel of Luke to jump back to our other sermon series. Luke 19-10, "The Son of Man came to what? Seek and save the lost." He didn't come to give you a 12-step program on how to be a better person. He came to save you from yourself. And Isaiah, the light bulb goes off and he says, "Woe is me, but God will do for me what I could never do for myself. God will take away my sin. God will make atonement for my sin. And I pray that in your life you've had that moment where you say, "There's nothing I can do to stand before God and my sin, but God has done for me what I could never do for myself. The Son of Man came to seek me and save me and he gave his life for mine and my sin has been taken away and my sin has been atoned for." Isaiah experiences that and then he learns a very important lesson. First God saves you and then he sends you. I'm not talking about missionaries to China, I'm talking about every person in this room. First he saves you and then he sends you. Maybe he sends you to China for your life. Maybe he sends you to Kenya for a week and a half. Maybe he sends you to the oil field, to a public school. Maybe he sends you home to your family. Maybe he sends you to the nursery on Sunday mornings. First he saves you and then he sends you. And the Trinity speaks and God says, "Who will I send? Who will go for, not me, for us? Who will I send? Who will go for us?" And Isaiah says, "I'm in. You've saved me. You've done for me what I could never do for myself. I'm in whatever you want me to do." And just put yourself on Isaiah's shoes. He has this vision of this massive God and all his glory and all his splendor, the building shaking and he says, "I'm with this guy. Sign me up." God says, "All right. You're going to go to those folks over there and you're going to preach and they're not going to listen." Excuse me? They need to see you like I've seen you. God says it's not going to happen. You go and you preach, no one will repent. No one. And Isaiah says, "Okay, what are we talking about a week, a month, a year? How long? How long do I do it?" God, and God says, "As Isaiah, you go and you talk to those stiffneck people and you do it until they get hauled out of here in exile." In other words, there's no end to this mission. It ends when you die. You go, you preach my glory, no one will listen and you do it for the rest of your life. That's the story of Isaiah 6, kind of anti-climatic after you see the vision of God and you're so excited and you're trembling with fear and then God says to Isaiah, "You go, you talk to those folks, none of them are going to listen. Don't expect anyone to come down at the invitation at the end of the surface. The altar will be empty, but you go preach and you do it till the day you die." Out he goes. That's the story. Let's apply it to our life. What does it mean that God cares about his glory, that he is with us for his glory? Three lessons all right out of this passage. Number one, God's passion for his glory should humble you. And that's a strong understatement. Only I should say it should break you. It should convict you. It should crush you because that's what happened to Isaiah when he experienced God who is holy, holy, holy, and the earth is filled with his glory, he was broken. First of all, he was broken because he was a creature. You understand that it wasn't just Isaiah in the room, in this vision, who else was there? The seraphim were there. The burning ones, beings who have never committed a sin from the beginning of their existence. Ever, not one, sinless creatures and what do they do as they stand before God? I'm going to cover my face, I'm going to cover my feet. They're humble and they're contrite. They have no sin to bring before God and they're still humble because they are his creatures. So Isaiah is humbled because he's a creature, but he's also humbled because like everyone else around him, he's a sinner. He's humbled on two levels. Can I get on a small soapbox? Just put it right here for a minute. Let me stand on it. This is a problem in a lot of churches. And I pray it's not a problem in this church or it never becomes a problem in this church. There's a problem in a lot of churches that you never experienced what Isaiah experienced. There are so many churches that are really good at entertaining you, keeping your attention plugged in. They don't want to lose you. They got you something going on. They're good at that. There's so many churches that are fun and it's light and they don't want anyone to be uncomfortable. I'll just tell you something, Isaiah was uncomfortable. There's a problem. I'm not saying that every Sunday has to be morbid and depressing and broken and you just have to leave feeling like a worm. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there is a problem if you go to church and you never have an opportunity to experience this. You never have an opportunity to feel the crushing weight of God's glory just mashing you down in its heaviness. Yes church can be fun. Yes it can be exciting. Yes I do my best to keep your attention and not let your daydream and doze off. But all that stuff is secondary. The point and the emphasis and the focus has got to be the glory of God and in your church experience if you are never humbled by that something is missing. What does it mean for a manual Baptist church that God is passionate about His glory? The God who is holy, holy, holy, it means that when we gather together you need to have opportunity to feel that pressing down on you and all of its majesty and its splendor and its holiness and its glory. All of it you need to experience that and when you do humility is the natural outflow. It ought to humble you. Number two. God's passion for His glory should motivate you, should motivate you. In your family life this ought to be your chief motivation. In your professional life that ought to be your chief motivation. In your church experience this should be your chief motivation. Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 10, whatever you do in word or deed if you are eating or drinking let everything that you do be done for the glory of God. Isaiah learned that lesson. I don't name names very often but I'm going to name names this morning because you probably already seen it. How many of you have seen the video on Facebook of Victoria Osteen talking about worship? You seen this video? Here's the gist of the video. We go to church, we worship because it makes us happy. It really has nothing to do with God. That's the video. Those of you who haven't seen it think I'm exaggerating or making a bigger deal of it than it is. That's the video. We go to church, we worship because it makes us happy. It really has nothing to do with glorifying God. That's the video. And there's Joel. Got a big smile on? A million dollar smile? Yeah, yeah. God's passion for His glory should motivate you. The thing that makes me the most angry about that video is that it is so wrong and it is so close to the truth at the same time. It is so close. Here's the reality. God made you for a purpose and that purpose is worship. That purpose is to glorify Him. God's glory and His passion for His glory should motivate everything that you do say or think. God made you for that purpose. Here's the beauty. When you do that there is unspeakable joy that I can't even begin to describe to you. There is happiness that is far beyond anything a full bank account or a clean bill of health will ever bring your way. But if you flip it and you say God's glory is the byproduct and my happiness is the end, you've missed it completely. You have missed it completely. God's passion for His glory should drive you. Why do you come to church at a manual Baptist church? I hope it's not just because your friends are here, although I hope you have some friends here. I hope it's not just because the preacher is good-looking, although he is pretty good-looking. I don't know why you come, but I hope that at the top of your list, and you probably have many reasons, but I hope at the top of your list is a desire to bring glory to God, that it motivates you being here and it motivates everything we do as a church. When we make decisions about personnel, when we talk about budgets, when we talk about programs and ministries, when we think about mission trips, when we think about Wednesday night activities, everything that we do ought to be driven by this. God's passion for His glory, it ought to motivate our church. One last idea is this. God's passion for His glory should sustain you, and this is where the Osteins miss it completely. God's passion for His glory and His holiness and His majesty and all of it sustains you. If your primary motivation in being here or being anywhere is your happiness, what happens when it's not fun anymore? Best case scenario, you go somewhere else. Likely scenario, you stay home. What happens if your primary motivation for following Jesus is that He fills your bank account or gives you a good report from the doctor, and then one of these days your money runs out and your health goes with it. What happens? What are you banking on? What bank are you making withdrawals from? Is it the bank of your own happiness, your own satisfaction, your own earthly desires, or is it the bank of God's glory? My prayer is that in a manual Baptist church we're banking at the right place, and that the withdrawals we make are from the never-ending supply of God's passion for His own glory, that it motivates us, that it drives us, that it sustains us, and that when it becomes not very easy or not very fun to follow Jesus, we do it anyway because it wasn't about us in the first place. It was about God and about God's glory. My prayer and my hope is that first, last, and in the middle of the manual, it's about God's glory. It is not about me, and it most certainly is not about you. Listen, there's four sermons in this series. You and I come last. That's not a coincidence. We're going to talk about Odessa. It comes third, it's not a coincidence. We're going to talk about the world and the needs all around this world that are very real and very pressing and very urgent. It comes second, and that's not a coincidence. First and foremost, first in the middle, in the end, is God's passion for His glory, and that's what sustains you. You think about our church right now. I don't know about you, but I can tell you I'm excited to be here. I hope that you're excited to be here. I look around at some of the things that are happening. I look at the stage full of parents with young people committing to raise them in a godly way. I look at the six people who got baptized last week, the new member class. Look at all these things. I say, man, this is exciting. This is fun. I'm glad to be a part of this. Guess what? If you and I are in it for the fun, the fun is going to run out. The excitement can come and it can go. You know that, and I know that. What are you going to do when it goes? Are you going to go with it, or are you going to plug away? Are you going to be like Isaiah who said, okay, you want me to go preach, and no one will respond, and you want me to do it for the rest of my life? God says, Isaiah, that's exactly what I want you to do, and if you do that, you will bring me more glory than you could ever bring chasing fun, or happiness, or some worldly idea of pleasure. You follow me, and my passion for my glory, my holiness, holiness, holiness will sustain you through all of it. That's my prayer for our church. That's my prayer for you. I want to pray for you and for our church now, so you bow, and let's pray together. Don't forgive us for our tendency to make everything about ourselves and our preferences and our wants and our likes and our dislikes. Father, we are drowning at times in a sea of pettiness. Lord, do we want to fix our eyes on you? Father, we want to be crushed by the weight of your glory. Father, I pray for the people in this room, and I know that some of them have never had the moment that Isaiah had, where they just felt totally hopeless and helpless and worthless in your sight. Father, as I have prayed this week, bring them to that point today. Father, there's others who are here who have probably come to that point in their life, where they do feel hopeless and helpless and worthless, but maybe they've never had the second aha moment, the second light bulb, where they see that you can do for us, you are willing to do for us, you have done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Father, if there are those here this morning who need to run to the cross, we pray that they would run with haste and with urgency. Father, for those of us who love you and try to follow you, help us to admit today that there's a lot of King Uzziah in us and there's a lot of Isaiah in us. And even though we may be headed in the right direction and the summary of our life may be positive and godly, Father, we have pride, we have fear, we have sins that trip us up and hang us up. And Father, we want to lay all of those things aside, we want to be so consumed with the passion for your holiness and your glory that everything else just fades into the background. Father, we're going to sing a song that we've already sung this morning. We want to sing it with passion, we want to sing it from our hearts. Father, we are singing not for us, but for you. And we pray and we sing in the name of Jesus our King, Amen.