A Study of Isaiah Chapter 6 - Brother Jeremiah Shipley

Now I want you to pay attention.

It wasn't anything in Israel.

It wasn't their military style.

It wasn't the type of people they looked up to.

Today we're going to be in Isaiah chapter 6.

You will open your Bibles.

We will begin.

Let us pray.

Father let those whose ears are deaf hear, and those who have

scales may they drop from the eyes.

Father God let your word and your spirit be in this place.

May your name be holy in our mouths.

May we not take you for granted God and may you actually be lifted up in our praise and in our

worship.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

Alright today we're going to be in Isaiah chapter 6.

And you do not have a handout today because your handout is the scriptures.

This is going to be a little different sermon.

It's called an exegetical sermon.

And all that means is that we're going to walk through verse by verse.

And we're going to talk about what the scripture says.

Very simple.

Very easy.

We're going to say what does the word of God have for us today?

So that's your outline right there.

1 through 6.

So let me give you some background here.

Let me give you some background for chapter 6.

At the end of chapter 5 the Lord is declaring a curse, a woe

on the nation of Israel.

If you ever see a woe, you see this a lot if you read the book of Matthew.

Jesus will say woe to you Pharisees and scribes.

That is a curse.

It is a curse.

It's saying may the curse of God be upon you.

That's what that word means.

It's not a light word.

Pastor Jeff, when he jokingly says oy, that's what it is.

Woe, oy.

That's what it is in Hebrew.

That is a curse.

We say it tongue in cheek, but it's not something to take tongue in cheek.

This is, as verse 1 says, in the year that King Uzziah died.

King Uzziah was one of the only good kings in all of Israel.

He wasn't David or Solomon, but he was a top five king.

And he reigned for over 52 years.

Can you imagine having the same president for over 52 years?

But if there was a man who was a good man, a righteous man, who sought the

Lord and upheld justice, it wouldn't be too bad.

To have the same godly, righteous king for over half a century.

When he died, and the people were mourning.

The people were lamenting the death of their king.

And, on top of that, they were all about to get killed.

If you read the end of chapter 5, he says, For their arrows are sharpened, their bows are

strained, the enemy is at your door.

So, Israel is being told, you are about to be attacked.

You are about to die.

That's what's coming.

And then, their good king died.

And in the midst of all of that, the word of the Lord came to Israel.

In the midst of them lamenting, in the midst of the enemy at the door, Isaiah speaks the

word of God.

And this is what he says, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,

high and lifted up.

And the train of his robe filled the temple.

When you see the word LORD, you'll see it in two different ways.

You will see it in all caps, capital L -O -R -D.

And you'll see it where only the L is capitalized.

If you see all caps, that is the Hebrew word YHWH.

That is the name of God.

If you notice, Pastor Josiah, when he reads the opening scripture, if it says all caps LORD, he doesn't say that, he

says YHWH.

Every Sunday morning when he reads, he replaces it with YHWH.

Because that's what it actually says.

It's just the translation thing to help us out.

But when you see it not in all caps, that is Adonai.

That is the sovereign one.

The one who is in control.

The one who holds everything in his hand.

So that is what he's saying.

I saw the LORD, the Adonai, the sovereign one, sitting on a throne.

Now there are many thrones in heaven.

If you read Revelation, we see tons of thrones in heaven.

But only one is high and lifted up.

Only one.

And the train of his robe filled the temple.

Well, today we don't have a lot of trains.

The only time we ever see that today is like at a wedding.

Like the bride's dress.

And they have this train and you see the bridesmaids back carrying it, right?

Because it's so big, right?

That's what the train is.

Well, the LORD's train was so large, so majestic and beautiful, the

entire temple was filled.

It overflowed the throne.

It wrapped around the pillars.

It draped down the stairs.

The entire temple filled with the train of His robe.

And I'm like, okay, well why is that there?

Why does that matter?

What comes to mind is the woman of bleeding.

For over 12 years, Jesus was on His way to go heal a child that was about to die.

And this crowd was all around Him.

And He's walking.

And this woman who had bleeding for over 12 years just wouldn't stop.

It's said that she dealt with much suffering from doctors.

In the book of Mark, it says that she spent all of her money.

Every penny she had, she spent paying doctors to try and help her.

And it says it only made it worse.

She found no relief, no healing at all for over 12 years.

But she said to herself, if I could only touch Him, not even

Him, just the flapping of His clothing, if I

could only touch it, I would be healed.

So she's pushing through the crowd.

And the way I imagine it is she probably fell to something, and she just reached out, and she was able to touch the

hem, the very part of His robe, the train of it, and immediately Jesus stopped

and said, who touched me?

Peter's like, Jesus, literally like 40 people around you, like everybody's touching you.

He said, no.

I felt the healing power come from me.

Who was it that touched me?

He turned around, and in front of God and everybody, she said, it was me.

This is who I am.

This is why I have to touch you.

Jesus looks and says, peace be to you.

Your faith healed you.

Now that same peace, the same healing, the same touch of

just simply the robe of God is what fills the entire temple.

The same beautiful intimacy we see there with the woman of bleeding is in

constant and continuous presence in heaven.

You will always have direct access to the healing of God.

You will always have access to be able to touch His healing robe.

You won't have to push through a crowd.

You won't have to strive.

There'll be no waiting in line.

It fills the temple.

And do you know here that it says the temple?

See, understand here, this is hermeneutics, understanding the culture and the context,

this is the temple.

This is where the Jews came to have communion with God.

If they wanted communion with God, they went to the temple.

The holy ground, which by the way, that is why we come here today.

See, the building is not what's holy.

Y 'all hear me?

The building is not what's holy.

The brick and the mortar, if y 'all don't know, this used to be a gym.

I mean, basketball goal was what?

Right there and right there?

Or this way?

It was right there, okay.

This used to be a gym.

The building is not special.

What's special is the time and place.

See, this is holy ground, as the song said.

Why?

Because we have decided that on Sunday morning at 10 .30, this place will be the place of holy

worship and communion.

Right here.

This is holy ground.

This is why we need to be...

This is sacred time.

Often we take this too much for granted.

While we're here joking and playing and doing this, we'll find any excuse in the book to leave and go to the

bathroom or talk to somebody, oh, I have a phone.

We don't understand.

This is holy, sacred time.

That crap can wait.

What is more important than this right here?

It kills me.

Hey, am I going to see you tomorrow?

Oh, well, I'm at my grandma's house.

And?

Sorry, I love grandma too, but this is holy, sacred time.

This is where we come to commune with both God and the people of God.

Now we go back to the Scripture.

The vision took place in the temple.

There is no more holy and sacred space than the heavenly temple before

the throne of God.

That is the most intimate.

You want to know who God is?

You want to sit with Him?

This is the place to be.

There is only like three times in all of Scripture we get to see the throne room, and this is one of them.

So we have the temple, the heavenly temple.

We see the Lord.

We see all of that.

And by the way, Exodus says no one can see God and live.

This is not the Father we see.

John 12, 41 tells us that it was Jesus Christ that Isaiah saw.

This vision, the man on the throne, the man who was lifted up, the man whose

robe is hanging, all of this is about Jesus.

He is not just a man, He is the God -man.

He is the one on the throne.

He is the one lifted up.

Keep that in mind as we go through here.

Verse 2, above Him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings.

With two He covered His face.

With two He would cover His feet.

And with two He would fly with.

Do you realize that almost every single time we see angels in Scripture,

people start worshiping them?

And they have to say, no, no, no, don't do that, get up.

Only worship God.

In Revelation, do you realize that there is an angel that stands in the sun?

There is another angel that says it has one foot in the sea and one foot on land.

These are magnificent, brilliant creatures.

But even they have to cover their eyes in the presence of God.

Even they have to shield themselves from His brightness and His goodness.

He is too magnificent for even them to look at.

Angels are also created beings.

They were not alive forever.

And in Exodus, when Moses sees the burning bush, and he walks up, the

voice of Yahweh calls out and says, stop, take your sandals off for this is holy ground.

And in the same way the angels, they fly and they cover their feet because

the ground they are on is holy.

They are still bound to the same demands of God that we are.

The awe and respect of the holiness of God.

I keep using that word holy.

We haven't even defined it yet.

We're about to.

And one called to another and said, holy, holy,

holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of His glory.

Holiness is the, it's a tricky word to try and define.

So y 'all stay with me here.

Holiness is the otherness.

How different, how unique, how special, set apart.

That's what holiness is.

It is so alien.

So other and unique.

That is so different it becomes holy, sacred.

The other definition we have is moral righteousness, moral

perfection.

Holiness, Pastor Jeff likes to put it this way and I love it.

Holiness is the all -encompassing word for the attributes of God.

So God is love, amen?

God is just, amen?

He is gracious.

He is merciful.

He is omniscient and omnipotent and yeah, yeah, yeah, all the other.

Holiness is all of that put together.

There's no other word for it.

So we pretty much just say holiness is all of it.

It's the only word we have for all of it.

And His glory fills the earth.

You know what His glory is?

His glory is when we get to see an attribute of God.

When the holiness is revealed.

So in other words, when you see the glory of God, you just see a

fragmented section of His holiness.

When Moses came down the mountain, he was praying before God, and

the Lord revealed to him, barely, part of him, and he came down the mountain to the Israelites,

they were so terrified of him, they said, go away, for your face is too

majestic for us to look upon.

The glory of God was shown off.

Moses was like the moon and God was like the sun.

Moses' face was reflecting the glory of God.

And what did the Israelites do?

The same thing you and I do every day.

When confronted with the holiness of God, we say, get away from me.

Step away.

You're too good for me to stand in your presence.

That's why non -believers run from God.

And church, we have to start being more candid.

We have to stop playing kitty gloves with the non -believers.

At some point, you have to confront them on where they're at.

With the few people I know, one in particular, I would go up to them and I would say, you know you're lost,

right?

Yeah, I know.

You know if you die, you're going to hell?

Yeah, I know.

Okay, well, when you're ready to change that, let me know.

That's the reality of it.

They knew where they were at.

They knew exactly where they were at.

They knew who God was, and they refused to repent until they

did.

Amen.

But believers, we do the same thing.

How often do we run from repentance?

We'll have a conversation with God like this.

We'll do something like this.

So, yeah, I know I sinned.

And I know that wasn't good.

But I know that you know.

And I know that you know that I know my sin.

And we both know that we both know.

You know?

So, you know, we're good.

But that's not repentance, y 'all.

See, we use the excuse of God's omniscience as a reason not to repent.

At least I do.

I'm like, well, God already knows my sin, so why do I need to pray to him?

God already knows my sin.

He already knows what I did.

So, you know, what's the point in praying?

The point is submission.

When you pray repentance, you're not informing Him of what happened.

You're not like, hey, God, let me let you in on what's going on here.

So, you know, I know, but, you

know.

You know?

You're not informing God.

You're not informing Him.

When you repent, you're submitting to Him.

And you have to recognize Him.

It's weird.

I will actually, like, I will actually put it off and refuse, and He'll just...

And I'm like, yeah, I should pray.

You know, I'll do it.

I'm at work.

I'll do it later.

Baby's crying, you know.

I can't pray right now, you know.

I'll do it later.

I'm cooking dinner, God.

Give me a minute, all right?

Just hold up.

You just keep pushing off.

You actually have to turn and recognize and face the Lord.

When we say, hit your knees and pray, that's not always a metaphor.

Sometimes you actually have to do that.

Because I have to sometimes force myself to submit to God

and not submit to my own pride.

See, when confronted with the holiness of God, we want to run and hide

and push it away.

Our pride yells and demands that any resemblance

of the holiness of God leave.

Do you realize that when pagans get mad at you, that when lost people get mad at you,

they're not mad at you.

They're mad at what you represent.

My father had to teach me that a long time ago.

Son, they're not mad at you when you correct them.

It's not you they're mad at.

They're mad at the Gospel.

They're mad at the Word of God.

You're just the one bold enough to say something about it.

Don't take it personal.

And I don't learn that.

I don't learn not to take that stuff personal.

I share the Gospel with someone, they get mad.

It's not personal.

It's not personal at all.

You're just in rebellion against God.

Why would I take that personal?

It had nothing to do with me.

It has to do with you and God.

I'm just a messenger.

And they want to be Spartacus kicking me.

Hey, I'm just a messenger, man.

But that's what happens.

That's exactly what happens.

Quit taking that personal.

When you quit taking it so personal, you'll quit being so ashamed.

I'll say that again.

When you quit taking it personally and realize it's business, I'm here about my father's business,

you'll quit being ashamed of the Gospel so much.

Let's get back to it.

They called to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy.

I can't imagine what this heavenly choir sounds like hearkening and bellowing the

holiness of God repeatedly for all eternity.

But let's take a look at that real quick.

There's a few really cool things about this.

Holy, Holy, Holy.

For one, that is a Hebrew literary device called repetition.

When you hear Jesus say, truly, truly, I say unto you.

He's saying, hey, I know I'm Jesus, and I know everything I say is important, but truly, truly.

Like, hey, listen up.

Truly, truly, I say unto you.

He's calling attention.

And there is zero attributes of God that are repeated to the third degree.

It never says...

We have in 1 John, brother Christian read it, God is love, but it doesn't say God is love, love, love.

It never says that.

It never says He's glorious, glorious, glorious, or gracious, gracious, gracious.

Those are the ones we want to talk about.

But the only attribute to the third degree is He is Holy,

Holy, Holy.

His holiness is holy.

His holiness is holiness is holy.

Meaning there is a continuous amount of holiness.

You cannot measure it.

His holiness is continually holy.

You can't measure it.

You can't measure it.

Another thing is that Holy, Holy, Holy represents the Trinity.

The Father is holy.

The Son is holy.

The Spirit is holy.

They are each individually holy as in themselves, and yet together,

as one, they are holy.

The unity of our God, the communion of our God, the love of our

God is holy.

There is no one and nothing like Him.

Move on to verse 4.

Even the foundation shook when the angels spoke.

The angels cry out the holiness of God and everything begins to shake and tremble.

The very walls and actually the frames of the doors, the pillars of the doors

begin to shake and tremble.

And this house was filled with smoke.

There are two different ways you can look at that, the house being filled with smoke.

One is like in the Old Testament, burnt offerings were brought up to the Lord.

And this is a symbol of the ceremonial offerings unto God.

The other thing that you can see this as, and I think it's both, is that Scripture says that God is

an all -consuming fire.

He is an all -consuming fire.

And so the smoke that fills the temple is from the nature and the character of God Himself.

Because He is an all -consuming fire.

Verse 5.

So this is when Isaiah transitions here.

From the angels and the Father and Jesus Christ, now He is

reflecting upon Himself.

And this is key, this is what I referred to earlier, of why

it is we run from God.

Look at what Isaiah says in verse 5.

Woe is me!

Cursed am I!

I'm cursed!

Woe is me!

Why did he say that?

He said that because an unrighteous man just came into the presence of a

righteous God.

An unrighteous man just came into the presence of a righteous God.

And by that, he understood where he was at.

The Greek word for this is anathema.

Anathema.

It means to be cursed.

The more wordy definition I like, it means to be set up

in front of God without any hope of being redeemed.

You're damned to destruction.

If you say woe or anathema.

That's what that means.

When Paul in Galatians chapter 1, when he says, If any of you, if I,

if an angel from heaven were to come down and preach a different gospel than the

one you have been given, may he be anathema.

If any man or even an angel from heaven were to come down and preach a different

gospel, something new, were to preach a different gospel than what's right here,

may he be anathema.

May the curse of God be upon him.

Amen, thus saith the Lord.

So just FYI, when you hear people changing the gospel on TV or

in books, when you hear them manipulate and twist the gospel, it is

not I, but it is God himself who says, May you be anathema.

And church, we have to grow a little bit more of a spine.

We have to quit playing kiddie gloves with the changing of the gospel.

We have to hold this so high

and care for it.

You cannot touch my gospel.

On all of these secondary issues, on all of these things, I don't care.

You can have your presidents and politicians.

You can have all of that.

But do not change the gospel.

That is a line we have to draw.

That is a hill we must die on.

We must.

We cannot keep compromising on the gospel.

We can't keep doing that.

We've been doing that for 40 years and look at where our country's gone.

The gospel is the salvation of people.

Without it, we have nothing.

We must hold the gospel high.

And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost.

The better translation is actually the old one.

I am undone.

I am coming apart at the seams.

I am undone.

Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.

Has anyone ever read that and thought that weird?

Or if this is your first time reading this passage, does that not sound weird?

You come before God and you say, I have unclean lips?

Why would you not say an unclean heart?

Does that not make more sense?

I have an unclean heart.

I have an unclean mind.

I have unclean eyes.

To me, that makes way more sense.

Why does He say a man of unclean lips?

Why does He say that?

He says it for a few reasons.

First of all, look at the book of James.

James tells us that a man who can control his tongue is perfect and complete,

able to control the rest of his body.

Nothing is more wild and nothing is more difficult to control than the tongue.

Amen?

And FYI, that's not just talking about cursing, the temptation to gossip,

the temptation to slander, the temptation to be rude or

unkind.

Don't underestimate how much God cares about hospitality.

Somebody were to walk in those doors, a guest comes in here, it is

righteous and godly for you to greet them.

Hospitality is very serious to God.

How you treat people in your home, men, as the head of the household, you just let your wife take care of all of it?

No.

Hospitality is important.

If somebody walks into your home, you are responsible for them.

You're to take care of them and help them.

I'm a man of unclean lips.

Here's the other reason.

And I hope y 'all get this, because I thought this was so cool.

He is standing before the heavenly choirs.

He is standing before angels singing holy, holy, holy for all eternity.

The lips, the tongue is the best

instrument God ever made to sing His praises.

It is the tool and the mechanism and the instrument God Himself designed

to worship Him.

And it was defiled.

In the presence of the heavenly choir, He was defiled and

unworthy to join in on the heavenly song of holy, holy, holy.

His tongue was too vile and corrupt to sing the praises of God

amongst the heavenly choir.

He said, I'm a man of unclean lips.

I'm unworthy to even sing praises to you, God.

That is how defiled I am.

And I live among a people of unclean lips.

I won't go deep into that, but just keep in mind who the Jews were.

Same thing I just said about Isaiah and us applies to the Jews.

See, the Gentiles, the Assyrians coming to kill the Jews, they had no idea who the name of God

was.

They had no idea who God was.

They couldn't take His name in vain because they didn't know His name.

The Jews, however, knew His name and took His name in vain.

How often do you take the name of the Lord in vain?

What I prayed in the beginning, do you realize when Jesus says, pray like this,

our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.

That's not a statement.

It's a request.

Holy be Your name.

May Your name be holy.

He's telling us to make sure that the name of God is holy.

He's not saying it is holy.

He's telling us you and me to make sure that His

name is holy.

I think that's crazy.

For I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

FYI, the Lord of hosts, I never knew what that meant.

I read that in Scripture my whole life and never knew what it meant until I looked it up.

It means the Lord of heaven's armies.

That's what it means.

It means that He's the General of the armies of God.

I think that is so cool.

I can't even tell you.

That's Jesus.

Jesus is the General of God's armies.

He's the Lord of heaven's armies and the whole assembly.

Woe is me for I am lost.

I am a man undone.

I am ruined for my lips are unclean and I live among a people of unclean lips.

We are children under wrath.

We are damned to destruction.

We are to fear God not solely out of reverence, but out of the understanding

that it is us who are damned to hell.

Do you realize, Pastor Josiah and I were talking about this week, stop saying you're saved from hell.

Stop saying you were saved from your sin.

Your sin is not what's going to kill you.

Satan is not the person that was going to throw you into hell.

God is.

When you are saved, you are saved from the wrath of God, not the wrath of Satan.

You are not saved from hell.

You're saved from the hand of God.

As Jonathan Edward puts it, we are hanging by a spider web with the

scissors of God almost holding it and cutting us off for us to drop into hell.

But it is the grace and mercy of God that it doesn't happen right now.

That is the grace and mercy of God.

And the whole time He calls us to repentance, He calls us to come

to Him.

And Revelation, when it speaks of Jesus coming back on the white horse, His

clothes dipped in blood, He has a two -edged sword, He has the tattoo that says, King of kings and Lord of

lords, and all of heaven's armies are coming with Him.

If it wasn't for the grace of God, that man would be coming for your blood.

He'd be coming for my blood.

This holy, righteous God coming with all of His armies, clothes dipped in blood, is

coming for you and me.

If it was not for the grace and mercy of God.

See, the reason I wanted to preach on holiness today was because without understanding

the holiness of God, you don't understand the grace of God.

You can't understand how good He is to you if you don't understand how sinful

you are.

See, your little sin is not a little sin.

Your little sin is a disgusting, puke, commencing, horrible

deed before the righteous God.

That's who we are.

By nature, Ephesians 2, children of wrath.

See, God is the judge.

Jesus is the judge.

And a good judge sentences people.

Amen?

If there was before us a rapist, pedophile,

murderer, Jeffrey Dahmer, okay?

And a judge were to walk in here and declare him innocent, we would be

in uproar because that is an unrighteous judge.

You did not uphold the law.

That's what a judge does.

They uphold the law.

They are to condemn what is righteous and uphold what is good.

If you don't do that, you're not a good judge.

God is the judge.

And His job, by who He is, is to condemn sin.

All sin deserves destruction and hell.

Your sin and mine.

All of it.

The man on the horse coming with the sword to kill is for sin.

It is the good judge who damns people because that is upholding justice.

But on the other side, we have the grace of God.

See, there's this word called atonement.

Atonement is the blood payment for your sin.

Do you understand why the atonement is so beautiful?

Because God can now be both judge and justifier.

He can judge people wicked and justify them in the same breath as pure and holy

because of the blood Jesus spilled.

See, all of this is so important.

All of it is so important.

If you read the Word of God and say, well, that's boring.

Or that's hard, I can't do that.

First of all, don't think it's easy for us up here.

Don't for a second think, oh, it's easy for them to read the Word of God.

It's hard for me though.

I just can't understand it.

Do you know how many hours I put into this thing?

What, you think this came easy?

Absolutely not!

Reading the Word of God is hard.

It takes work.

But at what cost is understanding the goodness of God not worth it?

At what point is understanding His grace too much?

How much work is too much for you to give up?

We must raise the standard for ourself.

We must raise what is the minimum.

We do the minimum and we pat ourselves on the back thinking we did good.

We will read Scripture, what, three, four times and say, hey, I did a good job this week.

I read Scripture three, four times.

Do you see how low our bar is?

Do you see how low it is?

And it could be good, man, I got into the Word, man.

That bar is so incredibly low.

Scripture says to meditate on the Word day and night.

Day and night.

We set the bar way too low for ourselves.

We have to raise the standard.

We have to call sinners to repentance.

And we have to turn and come to God.

Brother Andrew, I'm almost done.

If you want to go ahead and come up.

The Word for today is urgency.

The holiness of God demands urgency.

We cannot just sit in our lives, sit in our apathy and just, oh, we're cool.

No, you're not cool.

You're not.

The holiness of God judges us damned.

Us being damned means we need grace.

Grace calls for your repentance.

You can't just chill and not repent.

And now let's talk about sanctification for a second.

I was so convicted this week.

There was a pastor I was listening to and he was talking about how the Puritans

thought it's so important to read and to pray and, check this one out men,

to worship with your family.

That if they found out you weren't doing that, they would rebuke you.

And if they found out you didn't change, they would say, don't come back to Lord's Supper until you do.

You are not welcomed here until you fix your household.

That is the seriousness and the urgency that they had for the Word of God in

leading your family in the Word of God.

Remember what I said about how the bar is too low?

Men, where are we at?

You prayed with your wife once this week and you did a good job.

The bar is way too low for us.

Way too low.

Sing to your children.

Worship the Lord with your family.

Read to them.

Pray to them.

You send your sons to Caesar, they will come back as Romans.

Fathers, this is on you.

And you might say, oh, well we homeschool.

Okay, so they're still just raised by their mother?

They're still just raised by their mother.

That's not an excuse.

Just because you took them out of the world doesn't mean you put your life into them.

We are to invest and raise up our children, men.

Making them homeschooled doesn't mean we're doing that.

It just means we're putting it off on the wife.

Or the homeschool group.

Or whatever.

Still failing.

That's still failure.

Again, the bar is too low.

We are called to snatch them from the fires.

To feed the sheep, strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bandage the wounded, and bring

back those who have gone astray.

How many people have you seen get hurt?

Or sick?

They quit coming to church for a little while.

Do you call them?

Do you text them?

Do you reach out to them?

If they were walked back in here, would you greet them with open arms or hold them in content for why they left?

Every man must be both a soldier and a shepherd.

We must wield both a sword and a trowel.

One to cut down and one to build up.

And you build up one brick at a time.

It takes consistency.

It takes determination.

It takes discipline.

We must have urgency in our life.

Israel was called by God to be the prime example to the world of what it meant to live as the

people of God.

Well, they sucked at that and failed.

So now the job is to us, the church.

The standard hasn't changed, but now the buck has passed to us.

We, as the church, are called to be the examples to this world of what it

means to live as a child of God.

And by and large, we have failed at that job.

By and large, we have done no better than Israel themselves.

God has no plan B for reaching this world.

He doesn't have a backup plan.

We're it.

God called the church to be the ones to reach the world.

If we don't do it, no one will.

If you don't talk to that person about Christ, no one else is going to.

If you don't disciple them, no one else is going to.

There's no grand safety net of people who will get the job done if you just take off.

It doesn't work like that.

If you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

That's what I mean when I say we have to have urgency.

You have to know that if you don't do it, it doesn't get done.

You have to be the one to reach out.

You have to be the one to be the hands and feet of Christ.

See, the hands and feet of Christ is the church, not the pastors.

Meaning, you are the literal touchstone of man to God.

You're His hands.

You're His feet.

You are the connecting point to God.

If you don't reach that person, nobody will.

We cannot use our theology and our knowledge

as an excuse to not work.

God is sovereign in all things.

Amen?

But His sovereign hand has decided for you to be the one to do it, and you have an option to say no

because you have said no.

How many times?

How many times have you felt the call to go talk to that person or to go pray with them or to,

again, read and pray with your wife or your husband?

And by the way, wives, it's okay for you to hold your husband accountable to that.

Honey, why haven't we read this week?

That's fine.

It's good.

That's what we're called to do.

You don't use the sovereignty of God as a crutch and as some kind of stool to lean

on so that you don't have to do your job.

Scripture says you snatch them from the fires.

James says that you are the ones to call back a brother from sin.

And if you do that, then you have saved them from eternal fire.

That's our job.

We must do it.

We're about to have our invitation, and I want to ask you, if

you have repenting to do, don't take the proverbial knee.

Come up here and hit your face.

If you're good, then quit pushing off what God's called you to do and reach out to somebody

who needs help.

Not to chat about what you're doing for lunch.

If you're going to do that, keep your mouth shut.

But if you have prayer to give to somebody, go give it.

Go give it.

Go give it.

This is our time to work.

This is our time to prepare ourselves for the week.

Lean on each other.

Hold each other accountable.

And know what I say, lean.

Meaning, if you're the one needing help, go ask for it.

Don't wait for somebody to come to you.

Amen?

Father Lord, may we seek You and search You in all things.

May Your convicting power be upon us.

God, may we honor You with our lips and honor You with our hearts.

May we, Your people, make Your name holy in this place.

And may we show the world what it means to be a people of God.

In Your name I pray.

Amen.