Principles Of Reverence
Tom Shrader examines Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6:1-8, emphasizing three key visions: seeing God as He truly is in His holiness and majesty, seeing ourselves as we really are in our sinfulness, and receiving a vision for how God uses transformed lives in service. He stresses that genuine Christian faith requires an encounter with the holy God that leads to humility, confession of sin, experience of God's grace, and readiness to serve.
“We need to see God as He really is, and when I begin to see God for who He really is, I inevitably see myself as who I really am.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Principles (2009)
Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 45 min
Themes: reverence, holiness, humility, service, vision, confession, transformation, legacy, mentor, parent, grandparent, feeling unworthy, new believer, seeking purpose, spiritual mentor, legacy builder
Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-8, Hebrews 1:1, Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12:1-2
Theological Themes: sanctification, holy god, biblical calling, divine encounter, spiritual transformation, isaiah vision, old testament, prophetic calling
Full Transcript
Sermon title: Principles Of Reverence
Part 1 of 7
to have Judy lead me, and then to have Dorothy and Jack play, and that's just really a treat and really something special. It's amazing to me the extent to which Janet goes in programming to make sure that the music component of this is so terrific. I wish she put the same effort into the teaching part of it, but she doesn't. She does a really good job on that part of it.
Why don't you open your Bibles? Again, last night I got off on a tangent, so I think I'm going to go back there and just hang on this for a bit. Why don't you go to the Old Testament, to the book of Isaiah, and to the sixth chapter? I want to spend some time on that, tie together what we've looked at in these six sessions that I've had with you.
Recovering a Lost Legacy
Let me remind you what we're talking about. We're talking about recovering a lost legacy or regaining a legacy, and the idea is that you are passing on a legacy whether you intend to or not. You may have a legacy that is a bad one. You have a legacy that is one that is not even deliberate in your planning, but this is the message that you're giving.
When we talk about legacy, I want to make sure that I remind you that we're talking not just about family, but we're talking about sphere of influence. We're talking about the people that God brings into your life. Maybe it's a church. Maybe it's the market. Maybe it's the barista at the coffee shop. Maybe it's somebody that's at the golf course. Maybe it's somebody at the center where you volunteer. Whoever it might be, it's somebody that looks to you, and you have the opportunity to influence them in a significant way.
What we've said is you can't pass on the things that you don't already own. So we've tried to talk about your faith and stewardship and consequences and just ideas that are really very basic to us but are kind of lost really in our culture and maybe in the generation that dominates the culture now.
It's Never Too Late to Begin
The other point that we made when we started is that it's never too late to learn, and it's never too late to begin this process of passing things on. So it may be, and my assumption is that some of you have blown it, but that's okay. It's never too late for you to get in the game. It's never too late for you to say, "I'm going to be the grandma or the grandpa. I'm going to be the mom or the dad, or I'm going to be the friend that I could have been and maybe even should have been, but I wasn't." It's never too late to start that process.
Let me say it to you again. God is not done with you until you take that final last breath. God has a plan for you. God's going to use you. I understand probably in some ways perhaps in terms of scope that you look back and you go, "My most productive, significant, maybe economic years and maybe even a society values things might have been things that were 10 or 15 or 20 years ago." I don't know that.
I know this. God has things and important things for you to do today and tomorrow and the rest of your life. There is no finish line until you pass on into eternity. There's no time at which you are allowed to check out. I'm all right that you retire working for pay, but you never retire from God's team. You're never a soldier that's no longer on active duty. So you may quit working for pay, but you never quit working. That's really important for you to understand and for us to understand.
Isaiah's Three Visions
We've talked about a whole bunch of things and I don't need to recap them. But maybe at the heart of this and maybe it's a great way to come full circle is to look Isaiah chapter six verses one through eight. There's actually a vision here is actually if you really get it. There's actually three visions that Isaiah has here. It's interesting. There's some controversy about it. And so we can't necessarily speak with absolute certainty. But many believe that Isaiah was already one of the hot prophets in the nation of Israel. That Isaiah was already doing and being about some of the things that we associated with God. But yet there's a missing component in his life. And that is he really hasn't seen the one true God yet.
Look at Isaiah chapter six verse one: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.' At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."
"'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.' Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.' Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'"
I suggest to you there's three visions here by way of overview. There's the obvious one, Isaiah sees the Lord. And then there's a second vision, did you catch it? Then he sees himself. There's a third vision at the very end and it's where we want to camp a little bit. He then has a vision for his future. He has a vision for how God works in and through and around people's lives.
Seeing God As He Really Is
The big point as we start and we've hammered this to you in five previous sessions. The big point is we need to see God as He really is. C.S. Lewis writes this: "A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word darkness on the walls of his cell." We may deny God and there
Would be those around who would question him. But that doesn't diminish him at all. We know by way of history that in the year that King Uzziah died, it was 739 B.C. Uzziah is a king that reigned for plus or minus 50 years. And he had brought a great deal of peace to the land. His death would have been a source of great concern for the people.
It's in the midst of that that they would have looked to this guy, Isaiah, to give him insight and wisdom to hear from God and what God has to say. God spoke that way. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets and in many portions and in many ways, in the last days has spoken to us in His son, whom He appointed heir of all things through Him. Also, He made the world." God spoke to these people through prophets. And that was Isaiah. Isaiah, at this point in time, had a message. But God said, we're going to give you a new message.
God's Method of Communication
Now, let me make sure this will be the sixth time I've made the point. So it's going to be that it's pretty important. God is not speaking today, I don't believe, through prophets. There may be some who speak a word of the Lord into you. And there's some who have maybe particular insights. But they're not speaking as these prophets did, I don't think, where they say, "Thus says the Lord." God has spoken to us through Christ. And finally, He has spoken to us through this word.
So even if somebody came to me and said, "The Lord told me," I'd be looking into this word to see if it lined up with the word. And if it didn't, I would assume he was wrong. And if it did, I would assume he was repetitive. So in either case, it may be helpful.
Now, I don't want to diminish the fact that somebody might come along and say, "You know, God really communicated as you're speaking, God really touched me. And God really has this word for you." And I've had that happen to me a lot of times where people will come up and say, "God has told me this about you and this for you." And I'm always a little suspicious, though I'm certainly open to it. But I'm nervous about that. But this prophet that we're talking about here, Isaiah, is not one of these modern day prophets. He's a prophet that spoke for God.
Isaiah's Divine Encounter
In 739 B.C., at a time of great national concern and challenge, God reveals Himself to Isaiah again. It might have been—this is speculation—it might have been that it was at this moment that Isaiah really came face to face with the fact that something was missing in his whole relationship with God. It may be that in the midst of this challenge, what he really did need to see and understand was God and who He is.
And obviously that's true of you and me, isn't it? In the midst of life and all the clouds and all the fog and all the concerns. And even in the good times, frankly, we need to know God, who He is, how He works. And we need to understand Him. Well, God moves and it's terrific. He sees the Lord. What a great thought that is.
And he sees Him seated on a throne high, exalted. And the train of His robe is filling the temple. What he sees is King Jesus. Is Jesus our friend? Yes, He absolutely is. And we see Him in such a human way. But my fear is sometimes that He becomes almost like one of the guys. And we fail to understand that He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The Majesty of Christ
He's the one that we've sung about. He's the one that you pick some of those great old hymns. Some of them not so hot. You pick some of those great old hymns. I mean, if Judy doesn't know them, come on, let's go. It's not a very good one. But picking those great old hymns that really tell us about God and who He is and His glory and His might and His majesty and His power. And we need to dwell on that over and over and over again.
He is the God who spoke the world into existence. That's one of my very favorite things. To make this distinction among God and man. You and I manufacture. God created. God stood back and there was a void. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
We can manufacture. So somebody with some particular skills came along and took a raw material and made wheels and made this stand and made these legs and the keys and the wires and all that goes with it. But they didn't create a piano. They manufactured a piano. The very big difference between manufacturing and creating. God created. God doesn't need anyone or anything. He can say, "Let there be light," and there's light. He can begin to form the earth and all of the components with it. He can bring water, moisture and put in place an ecosystem that allows us to survive and survive and survive. He can create man. He can create.
The Sovereign Creator
He is the king. And because He creates and He is the creator, He is the sovereign who's in control. And that's what Isaiah sees. He sees Christ. He sees a preexistent Christ seated in a place of authority.
So that when Paul says in Philippians 2 that Christ emptied Himself and became a man, it's very important. He didn't empty Himself of His deity. He emptied Himself of His glory. He vacated that spot momentarily in all of history to come to this earth, to live, to accomplish for us what no one else or no other entity or no other power could accomplish.
The Necessity of Christ's Sacrifice
I was in a small group one time and we broke up over this question. The question was, was there any other way that God could have saved man? So there were a group of people that said, "Yes, obviously, He's God. He could have simply declared forgiveness. He's God. He could have come in another way. He's God. He could have done something." So that was one group.
There was another group, my group, the correct group, who said no, there was no other way. Isn't that what Jesus prayed the night before He died? Isn't what He said? "Father, if there's a plan B, now's the time to expose it." But when man sinned, a price had to be paid, a price of atonement, a price of satisfaction. That's the wrath of God.
People say, "I don't like that wrath of God. I don't like that Old Testament God." Well, the Old Testament God's the New Testament God. He's still wrathful. He's still angry. He still judges sin. There had to be a sacrifice paid and it had to be a perfect sacrifice so that there was no human who could qualify to pay for that sin sacrifice that needed to be made.
That's why God became flesh and dwelt among us. That's why Jesus came to save His people from their sins. It was absolutely necessary. There was no other way. Jesus emptied Himself, not of His deity, but of His glory of this moment. This Jesus who made the world and everything in it and holds it together to this day. That Jesus emptied Himself and comes to earth.
The Seraphim's Worship
Here's what else Isaiah saw. Did you see the purity here in verse 2? He saw the seraphim, six wings. With two, they covered their faces. It's a picture of humility before God. And with two, they covered their feet. They're serving. They're flying. They're in the presence of this holy God, this unapproachable God, this God whose very existence fills the temple.
And they're calling to one another. It's like a chant. Holy, holy, holy. It's interactive. The whole earth is filled with His glory. My girls were cheerleaders. The school colors were blue and white. So they would have a cheer that they would do where they kind of divide the crowd into two groups. And so they would chant back and forth. Blue, white. Blue, white. Go, fight. Go, fight. It wasn't very creative, but they did it. Well, that's what's going on here.
Holy, holy, holy. Three times it said. If it said once that He's holy, it catches your attention. If it's holy, holy, it really rivets you. But when it says holy, holy, holy, it's making a declarative statement. This is who He is.
Understanding God's Holiness
And this word holy is very difficult to define because it basically means other than. Other than us, whatever we aren't. God is different. He is supreme. He is obviously without sin, but He's independent of anything, unlimited by nothing. He has absolute authority and jurisdiction over His creation. That's who He is.
So do you think it's possible for you or me to begin to legislate to this God? Obviously not. He doesn't need us. He's independent of us. He created you, and as the creator, He has the right to set in place the rules, the regulations, the laws, the principles that will govern us.
At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. It's this picture of the very presence of God Himself. It's this God that permeates His whole creation.
The Limits of Separation
You and I live in a time, and it's really become part of our culture to talk about the separation of church and state. It was Thomas Jefferson, really, about 15 years after the Constitution was written, who used the term a wall of separation. And the whole intention of this was not to keep the church out of the state, but to keep the state out of the church. But to think that somehow you can limit a holy God is absolutely foolish. He does as He pleases. He goes where He wants.
Now, this is really important. We can get tripped up here. Can God do anything? No. God can't do anything. He can't act contrary to His nature, right? He couldn't sin. But there'd be no desire in Him to sin. He is holy. He is completely different than us.
He is a God who created this whole world. He didn't need a kit to tell Him how to do it. He didn't need some sort of schematic to design it. He's the God that's existed forever, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the one who loves you. Jesus loves me. This I know. When that really begins to sink into me all of a sudden, it changes the way that I think and feel and understand.
God's Intimate Involvement
He's a God who's intimately involved. We hear the prophets say, "I knew you. You knew me when I was in my mother's womb. You designed me. You created me. You purposed me. You put me here. You put in my heart and mind a conscience and understanding that there's something bigger than me, that there's something that's out there, and it's you."
And our problem is there's a little book. There's one copy left over in the bookstore. There's a little book by J.B. Phillips called Your God is Too Small. And the idea is to kick our concept of God bigger and bigger and bigger.
The Cathedral Experience
So Susan was in New York City last week, and first time there, and probably her last time there. We're not really big city folk. It's interesting. We live in a place that has millions of people in it, but it doesn't feel like a big city. But part of what you'd see, her favorite part of the trip was St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Well, I have friends that when they go to Europe, and I don't go to Europe. If it takes a passport, not my deal. But I'm not going to go to Europe. But they go into these cathedrals, and they'll come back, and they'll say, "Tom, it's amazing, these cathedrals. They're very inefficient." And I'll say, "What do you mean?" "They're these massive, hugely expensive, awesome structures, but they only seat a few hundred people."
Do you know why they're like that? They were designed so that when you walked into the building, you would be swallowed up into the majesty, the power, the size of God. That's the whole strategy. The whole architecture is to dwarf you, to have you walk in, and as you walk in, your mouth just begins to drop. Not about the architecture itself, but all that does is point us. It's a symbol of the God who created all things. It's for us to walk in and just be engulfed in this and say, "This is bigger, this is beyond anything. I can't even comprehend it." That's what happens when I start to see God as He really is.
Isaiah's Second Vision
That's Isaiah's first vision. Isaiah has a second vision. It's in verse 5, and we talked about it a bit last night. "Woe to me, for I am undone or ruined. I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
When I begin to see God for who He really is, I inevitably see myself as who I really
The Problem with Our Theology
I shared this with you the other night. It's A.W. Tozer. Our problem with our theology is it doesn't ascend high enough. God doesn't get big enough. It doesn't descend low enough. We don't see ourselves as we really are. It's the same conclusion. We see it all through Scripture. We see that moment in Peter's life when all of a sudden he understands, oh, my golly, this is who I am. I'm a sinner. He's the Savior.
Job's Journey to Understanding
In the book of Job, Job starts. It's a wonderful book. It's kind of hard to get through because there's a lot of pain and suffering in there. Here's old Job, and he's moving along, minding his own business. He's just doing his thing, and Satan comes to God and says, "Listen, why wouldn't Job love You? Look at all the stuff You've given him. Let's start to take some of that away. Let's see how he handles it."
So he begins to take it away, and then he takes another thing away, and then pretty soon it's all of his resources. Pretty soon it's his kids. At this point, God has put a little hedge around him and said, "Now you can't just take everything. We'll put some limitations on it." At this point, Satan's taken about everything away but what Job would love to get rid of. And who's that? That's his wife who says, "Why don't you just curse God and die?"
Then he's confronted with his friends. Remember that story? They confront him. Then there's this section. It's really a cool section where Job kind of hits a wall, and he says, "God, I want to ask You something." God said, "No problem. Fine, we'll do that. Can I ask you a couple of questions first, Job? Where do we keep the snow? How does the eagle fly? Where does the rain come from? Who determined the scope of the ocean?" This goes on for chapter after chapter after chapter.
Then God says, "What was it, Job? What did you want, Job?" Job said, "You know what? I'm going to get back to You. I'm going to come back another day." When you get to the end of that book, you know what Job says? "Before I'd heard about You, now I've seen You. And once I see You, everything's in perspective again." That, again, is the beauty of suffering and pain in God's position.
The Power of Remembrance
That very idea that Johnny was singing about, this remember. Remember is a huge word in the Scripture. God's dealing with the nation of Israel over and over and over again. He said, "Remember, remember, remember." You and I, at least at our church, we celebrate communion every week. Well, every time you come to communion, it is all about what? "Do this in remembrance of Me."
Go back to that. Think about the cross. Think about the fact that the cross has this past, present, future component to it. The past: Jesus Christ died for our sin. The present: that He's here with us today. And that one day, we sing about it, when we all get to heaven. Those of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior. I just want to put asterisks in there and try to bring a little doctrine in that. But let's leave it lay as it is for now. Because we aren't all going to get there. Not everyone's going to get there. We want to be really clear on that.
But those of us who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we will one day see Him. That's the promise. That's what Paul says to us when you take communion. Declare this. Proclaim the gospel until I come again. The death, resurrection of Jesus Christ.
A Personal Appeal
Well, all of a sudden, Isaiah has this moment. Now, I understand that you all have been around this thing a long, long, long, long time. And there is assumption that you all have settled this. But let me just make one final appeal to you. It's always possible that there's somebody who's here, who's been around this stuff. But never really seen the risen Christ. Never really seen God as who He is. Never really understood your sin. And never come to this point where Isaiah is, where you say, "Woe to me, for I'm undone."
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
Jesus says it this way at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And He gets to the Beatitudes. He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The word poor means literally bankrupt. Basically, He's saying, blessed are those who are beggars. Not like the beggars we see now. I don't know what Seattle and Portland are like. But you're walking around a lot of these cities, and you see beggars, right? Well, they're going, "You got any spare change, man? You got any spare change? Hey, man." And it's like holding you up.
These are not beggars that He's talking about. Beggars in this context would have been people who cowered in a corner, who were afraid to look up. Who would cry for alms or help. And who were utterly dependent upon the people passing by to meet their needs. That's what He's saying. That's where the spiritual journey for us begins. That's where a relationship with Christ is initiated when we understand this. That's a gift of God that allows you to see your sin.
That's what happens to Isaiah. He says, "Woe to me for I'm undone." And by the way, at this point, there's nothing that he can do about it. He's done. But God moves. The seraphim flies to him with a coal, touches his lips. It's a picture of God's grace.
The Radical Nature of Grace
We were talking about this after one of the sessions. And we were talking about grace. And we were talking about particularly sinister individuals who reportedly on their deathbed have come to Christ. Or somewhere at the end of his life. Jeffrey Dahmer. I don't know if you remember the name Jeffrey Dahmer. This was an evil guy. This was a man that was having sex with boys and then cutting them up and eating them. This was a sinister fellow.
But by many accounts, when he got to prison, he had a true encounter with Jesus Christ. He was baptized. He declared his faith. Is it real? I don't know this. But let me tell you something. God prepares a mansion for you and Jeffrey Dahmer may have a mansion next door. I would knock the doors and windows at night if I was there. Are you sure? I mean that's awesome. That just can't be.
Oh my friend, you don't understand grace.
The Thief on the Cross: A Picture of Grace
It's the thief on the cross. Two guys hang there. I love it. What a picture I think of God's sovereign choice and of grace. Two guys hang there. One guy looks at Jesus and he's just spewing words at Him. The other looks at Him and says, why are you doing that? Clearly there's something different about Him. And then Jesus says to this cat, today you'll be with me in paradise.
Now what did that thief do? Not one thing. He didn't walk an aisle. He, to the best of our knowledge, didn't pray a prayer. He didn't join a church. He didn't do anything. Because we're not saved by anything we do. We're saved by grace. God's grace. Unmerited favor.
Man, if you're His kid today, do you understand that? It's contrary really to our culture, isn't it? Because we want to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We want to do, do, do. Earn, earn, earn. You don't get something for nothing. Grace is all about us getting something for nothing we did. But for everything that Christ did.
Here I Am, Send Me
Now, here's to me where this gets really cool. Then he hears a voice and the voice says, we got a whole bunch of work to do. Who's going to do it? And Isaiah, like a little kid, says, here I am. Send me.
I was walking through some of our, I think they were like five-year-olds in church one day. And I just happened to be there and duck into one room. I saw somebody teaching I knew. And just then they were doing this. They were saying, who wants to pray? Who wants to pray? And every kid in that room was going, I do. I do. I do. And I thought exactly of Isaiah chapter six, verse eight.
Do you see this? You aren't ready for God's service until you've had that encounter with the Holy God.
A Church Full of Christians
That's what religion is. That's why there's a seminar and I've never been to seminary. I've never been to school. But once a year I teach for about an hour, an hour and a half at the seminary on something. I don't even know what it is. I forget what the topic is. I do whatever I want. But I teach something on leadership.
Well, they had a couple of years ago, the gal who runs our women's ministries. And she taught a portion of it. I taught a portion of it. And so our church at the time, I don't know if it'd be the same now, was really renowned in the community for having people who are really involved.
And as she began to share and they would ask questions, the students were just blown away by the percentage of people that were engaged in the church. And they ask her, why do you think so many people serve in your church? Here was her answer. She said, well, here's what Tom always says. Tom always says, we have a lot of people serving in the church because in our church we have a lot of Christians. And you don't have that in every church. See, we got a lot of people wandering around.
The Good Tired vs. Burnout
But you know what? You get pooped after a while, don't you? You're just going after it and you're just tired. Well, listen, if you're somebody who hasn't had this Isaiah 6 encounter and you're just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, you're going to wear out. But if you understand you're on a mission for God and He empowers you for it, you'll get pooped, but it'll be a good poop. You'll get tired, but it'll be a good tired. You'll want to do it again.
We were talking about it the other day. I'm not kind of, I'm a lazy person and I don't have a lot of discipline. So I try to put schedules in my life that demand that I prepare for things or I would not really work or study much. But there's one thing that I do, man, and I don't say this boastfully, I'm a preaching machine. You can wind me up and I'll go.
I used to do seven services on Sunday, seven 45-minute messages. That's a boatload. I'm listening to some guy whine the other day because he's doing two services and burning out. I'm thinking, really, go sell insurance, you know. But I can just go and go and go because I think it's my gifted area where God's prepared me. That's my point. I had an Isaiah 6 encounter and He said we got a job for you. First Corinthians 12. You've got a spiritual gift. And when you do that, you're in that zone and you get tired, but it's a good tired.
A Transformed Life
Now, also, what you see here is a transformed life. Now, here's the point I want to make. If you haven't had an experience like Isaiah 6, if you haven't had a Damascus Road experience like the Apostle Paul, listen closely now, then you haven't been converted at all. Now, it may be and will be circumstantially different, but it will be substantially the same. Your life will be transformed.
You won't be perfect. If somebody wants to just nitpick it and shoot at it, they're going to find sin. If you want to take me apart, you can do it. But something different is going to happen in your life.
A Daughter's Introduction
I found this in a stack of stuff the other day, and it's three paragraphs. My daughter, Haley, when she graduated from the eighth grade, I got a call from the school and they asked me if I would deliver the commencement address. And I said, well, it would be an honor to do that.
So a few days before the event, Haley said, hey, do you know who's going to introduce you? And I said, I don't. And she said, well, I am. I said, oh, my golly. You need some help writing that introduction? She said, no, no, no, no, no. No problem, Dad.
So I'm sitting there with Susan, and Haley's there. And you have to know Haley, like they give this award every year. It really is the most valuable player. It's like the best kid in the class. I can't remember what it's called. They give something for the girls. She won that. They give something overall. But it's like the best person is what it is. And it was Haley. That isn't even a surprise.
So it's time for me to speak. So here's what she wrote. I have a copy of it, her copy. Our guest speaker tonight is a man who is very important to me and has had a great influence on my life. He teaches Bible studies to businessmen and women during the week. He's the pastor of a church called
Living Proof of God's Miraculous Work
I would tell you that if you ever get the opportunity, you want to meet Haley because she's special. But I love that. It makes me cry. But I love it because it's true. It's not true that I'm anything special in and of myself. It's true that I am proof that if you give your life to Christ, He'll do miraculous things in your life. I'm big on this.
I love people who are really screwed up because that was me. And it's not just in the midst of this that what will happen is that God will just forgive you. It's that He'll use you. It's not just that Peter was forgiven. It's that Peter was used.
I have a friend whose father hates Christians. He hates us. And he really hates missionaries. And he defines a missionary as a loser chasing losers. Well, all my friends get mad at that. And I said, I'm not sure why you're offended. It seems to me it's pretty accurate. We're all a bunch of losers.
Embracing Average
It just drives me nuts that we're all trying to think we're all extraordinary. Everybody's trying to be something special. You know, by and large, I just want you to come to grips with this. By definition, the majority of us are average. You got to be average. You can't all be special. You're not all living in Lake Wobegon. We're all average.
There's nothing really intrinsically significant about you. And anything that is significant is because God put it in there. What makes you valuable is the value that God places on you. Everything, everything, everything is relative in terms of value, right?
If you didn't learn anything in the last six months, you'll learn that. You're living in a house. It's the same house it was six months ago. It was worth, if you're in Phoenix, it was worth 300 grand. Now it's worth 100 and a half. Nothing happened other than market demands or value. It's the same thing with you. The only value you have is the value that God places on you.
God's Value of You
What value did He place on you? He loved you so much that He sent His son to die so that you would have eternal life. Losers chasing losers. I'm fine. I don't care.
It's like the guy who would always try to put me down. He'd say, your faith is a crutch. And I remember going home one day, and I happened to be in the dictionary. I look up a lot of words, just like simple words that people use. You know, just plain old words like dearth. I looked up dearth right after it was used, and she used it almost correctly. But I looked up crutch, and I'm paraphrasing, but basically it's a staff with a cross piece that the infirmed use for walking. I thought, that's exactly what my faith is. I'm infirmed. I lean on it for walking. I'm not hung up on this.
Ready to Live
But now, my friend, now you're ready to go. Now you're ready to live. Now you're ready to live that life that we keep talking about. That's the problem that we have so many times. We keep calling people to this big life, but they've never had an Isaiah 6 experience. They've never had a Damascus Road experience. They've never seen God as He really is, therefore themselves as they really are. So now they're trying to do God's work their way.
That's like poor old Moses. Moses is 40. He wants to get all of the nation of Israel out of Egypt, right? He's ready to go. Let's go do this. So he goes. He gets in a confrontation. Kills a guy. He's confronted the next day. Moses then, he drifts away for 40 years.
Then God comes to him and says, all right Moses, time to go. Let's go. And Moses says, I was never eloquent. I was never prepared. I'm Johnny Ray. I stutter, okay? That's me.
God's Way vs. Our Way
Do you get it? Moses was always God's guy. Moses always had the job to get the nation out of Egypt. But he, at age 40, was going to do it his way. And God said, I don't think so. And now, at age 80, he's going to do it God's way. And God said, come on board, man. Let's go. We got some work to do. Isn't that great? And that's what happens in Isaiah's life.
Two Essential Progressions
So let me tie this together for you. Because there's two huge progressions that I've tried to weave through all of what we've looked at. One is this progression. That I need to recognize God for who He really is. And then see myself for who I really am. And come face to face with God's grace in my life. And now live a new life according to the power that He gives me. A power that's on mission. A power that's on purpose. A power that's deliberate. A power that's living this gospel to the world.
As a follower of Christ, there's another progression. And I gave it to you last night. But I didn't declare it. So let me declare it in an order for you. There is in our life this essential characteristic of the Christian faith. Humility. There has to be this spirit of humility. Have the mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That mindset. That thought process.
The Flow of Christian Life
From humility comes submission. See, I'm never going to submit to somebody if I'm in rebellion to them. But once I understand, in this case, God and who He really is, now I will submit to Him. When I submit to them, there is obedience. And what we could actually put that word in there for humility, submission, and obedience is love. As I really see Him and love Him, I submit to Him. There's obedience.
And then in my life, and this is the flow of the normal Christian life, there is suffering. And from that suffering, there's perseverance. From that perseverance, there is maturity. And then we're told, and this is really cool, that God will then exalt us when? At the proper time. So that's Johnny thinking, He's an on-time God. He's always on time. When was Christ born? At the proper time. When did the nation move? At the proper time. When will all things...
The Ultimate Question
As you leave, here would be the overarching thing. Please, please, please, don't take God too lightly. There's a unique man in all of history, his name is Solomon. And God allowed him to have everything you think would make you happy. Everything you think would make you happy.
You pick it. Solomon had it. So he was a builder, he was civic projects, he was a gardener, he was a songwriter. You think it's sex? He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. The original 700 Club. 700 wives and 300 concubines. He had it all, man. He had drugs, sex, and rock and roll. He had everything there was to have.
When he's all done and he's at the end of his life, here's what he says. He says, now, all that's been heard, here's the conclusion. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including everything hidden.
Worship Beyond Buildings
So we understand God and reverence in who He is, and we begin to worship Him. And please, let's break out of this idea that worship is something that's relegated to a building. We do a great disservice when we take one building on campus and name it the worship center.
We worship God wherever we go. That's the whole point of Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Present your bodies, your whole life is an act of worship. And we begin to worship Him everywhere we go.
Affection and Emotion in Faith
This idea of following Him involves your emotion. Jonathan Edwards, I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of Jonathan Edwards. Have you ever seen a picture of Jonathan Edwards? Because there's a classic one, and he's just, you know, he's just this sour guy. And greatest mind, Encyclopedia Britannica says he's the greatest mind that America ever produced.
Edwards wrote a classic book called Affection for God. Love and affections. And here's what he concludes. Is that my love for God must be connected to my affections. That if I really love God, that in my life, there will be moments where I'm swept away.
Replacing Sin with Love for God
Then in our heart, here's what has to happen. Here's what he said. By the way, this is really good. It is that that sin that I love has to be replaced in my life by a love for something else. And it's God.
So if we're with the grandkids, and they're playing with something I don't want them to play with, I'll go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. It's massively ineffective, and it ejects tension into the room. Here's what Susan will do. If they're playing with this thing, and she doesn't want to play with it, she will take away that and give them something else.
That's the premise, is that I need to take away this sin, and I need to replace it with a passion and desire for the righteousness of God. I can't just take it away. It's not just give it up, give it up, give it up. No, no, no. I put off the old. I put on the new. I take it away. I replace it with a passion and understanding for God and who He is, and His love for me and all the things that go with this. And then all of a sudden now, you're ready to live life.
Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the journey set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful man so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Father, we pray that in this journey we would see You, the one true God, as You really are. We'd be prepared for this. Then we'd say, woe to me. Then we would say, here I am. Send me. God, I want us as a group to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the one who died so that we could have eternal life, the one who died so that we could know You. And, God, You'll sustain us. You'll direct us. You'll guide us. Father, we pray these things in Christ's name, amen.