Can God Show Up?

Isaiah sixty three and sixty four is where will be

this morning? Isaiah sixty three and sixty four. If you

don't have a Bible with you, just raise your hand. Well,

we're passing those out right now. It's going to be

really helpful and handy for you as we walk through

these two chapters, for you to be able to look

down and your copy of God's Word and see where

we are, see how the Biblical writer is handling these things.

So just make sure to get a Bible in your lap,

we need a bulletin or a pen. Just they'll help

you with whatever you need. Also a good time for

me to remind you to fill out a connection card.

We ask for everybody to just use that QR code

to fill out a connection card. Whether you're a member

here or this is your first time, or everything in between.

We just asked that we would be helped so much

as a pastoral team if you would let us know

that you're here by name. That's really helpful. If you

have a prayer request, please share it. We have a

whole team of men and women who will be praying

with you and for you for those prayer requests. If

you are new, if you're a guest here or even

just somewhat new. Right after this service, go to the

Step one table. That's where we connect with people to

help them become a part of this local church. If

you've got questions, we want to connect with you and

help you become a part of this community of faith.

And you may be here as a non Christian. This morning,

you say, I'm not sure that I'm trusting in Christ

the way that you guys are talking about it. I'm

not sure that I understand the gospel, this Christian faith. Well,

love to talk with you about that. In fact, tonight,

most Sunday nights, we just gather around the dinner table

at my house from six to eight and talk about

the gospel, help people understand what it means to trust

Jesus and follow him. So if you want to know

more about that, come over to my house for dinner tonight.

I'll see at the Step one table. I'll give you

my address and we'll get together for dinner. That would

be awesome. So what am I forgetting? Oh, baptisms. Yeah,

so at the end of at the end of this

worship service, we are going to have three baptism candidates

come on up here. Are they going to share their

testimony of faith with you. It is going to be

so encouraging and so exciting. Just just in our last service,

we had two young men baptized, and right after the service,

I walked down in the lobby and ran into a

friend of mine. We played some sports together, and he

told me I became a Christian this weekend. I gave

my I placed my faith in Jesus and that test,

those testimonies, those guys were talking about, Yeah, that that's me.

I did that. If you're here and that's you, let's talk.

There's there's a there's a whole walk of faith for

you to enjoy with the Lord. Isaiah sixty three Isaiah

sixty three and sixty four. We're gonna read this whole,

these whole two chapters throughout our message this morning. So

I'm not gonna have you stand and read the whole

two chapters at once. We're gonna take it in bits

and pieces. But I've titled this morning's message, could God

Show Up? Because the presence of God. God showing up

is the is the theme that Isaiah deals with here

in these two chapters. The presence of God is actually

a theme throughout all the scripture. We start in the

garden of Eden, God has shown up. He is with mankind,

walking with them in the cool of the day, God

and Man, Man and God. And at the end of

redemptive History, and at the end of our scriptures, there

is God in the new heavens, the New Earth with

dwelling with Man, Man with God, God with Man. And

throughout all of the scriptures, God shows up to bless

God shows up to judge, God shows up to rescue.

And what Isaiah wants to know right here is, Okay,

what can we expect about you showing up? Because we

could really really use some God showing up right now.

You may be here with the same question as a

non Christian, may be curious what would be like for

God to show up? Maybe as a skeptic, maybe you're

here and you're like, I'm I really very skeptical of

this idea of God showing up at all because I

don't think there is a God at all, or even

as a believer. You may be here saying I need

God to show up in a big way. And Isaiah

actually interacts with the idea of God showing up in

three different ways. He's got these three different interactions. The

first interaction is really about God showing up with fierce justice,

the second about God showing up with helpful mercy, and

the third God showing up with a change of heart,

not his change of heart, people's change of heart. So

let's look at it three interactions. Here's the first. It's

about God showing up with fierce justice. It's just one standza.

Let's read it together and I'll walk us through it.

Who is this from edom in crimson garments from Bosra?

Eatam and Bosra would be neighboring people's enemies, really, And

it's a bit of a play on words because the

word eat them. Although it's the name of peoples, it's

also it also means read. I'm gonna see a lot

of red in this poem. And not only does it

mean read, but that it uses the same letters in

the same order as the word Adam mankind man, and

so Eatam is often used as a stand in not

just for those peoples, but for the peoples. And this

is what he asks, who is splendid and in spa

in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength,

think swaggering. It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.

Why is your apparel red and your garments like his

who treads in the wine press. I have trodded the

wine press alone from the people's No one was with me.

I trod them in my anger and trampled them in

my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained

all my apparel. This is a bloody scene, for the

day of vengeance was in my heart. My year of

redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one

to help. I was appalled, but there was no one

to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation, and

my wrath upheld me. Was emphasizing the fact that he alone,

God alone is the ultimate and final bringer of fierce justice.

He's used instruments in the past, and he uses instruments

of justice now. But ultimately and finally, he is the

one who shows up with fierce justice. I trampled down

the peoples in my anger. I made them drunken my wrath.

I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. This is

God showing up in a vision for Isaiah, showing up

with fierce justice. Fears justice. You see the terms wrath

and anger treading out is justice on the earth, a

justice that is both fierce and what he calls redemption.

Redemption that is to say, this isn't this isn't random,

This isn't gratuitous violence on behalf of God. This is

making what is wrong right. As he says about himself,

God gives this self pronouncement, the pivotal self pronouncement from

executive from Exodus thirty four. He's saying, I am the Lord.

I am abounding insteadfast love and compassion. I'm merciful and gracious.

Yet I will by no means clear the guilty. God

shows up with fierce justice throughout all of redemptive history.

This is a people that is in the midst of

discipline and fierce justice themselves as they're exiled, and in

the end of our scriptures. In Revelation, Jesus himself is

standing there a recasting of this picture. He's read from

shoulder to toe bloodied. He says, I have tread out

my fierce justice, and the blood is as high as

the bridle of a horse. This is Christ. We have

kind of an uncomfortable relationship with fierce justice these days.

I don't think it was always so. Consider perhaps the

time in which in our country was composed the song

the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which begins with this imagery.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of

the Lord. He's trampling out the vintage where the grapes

of Wrath are stored. And that song was composed specifically

to express the hope and the desire and the aspiration

that the work that was being laid out in lethal

warfare was in fact just that they, as servicemen, were

moving forward to trample out God's fierce justice where it

was right. It's a great hope. It's also the same

imagery that John Steinbeck uses in his book Grapes of Wrath.

They make you read that in English class anymore. And

in the book The Grapes of Wrath, the idea is

is exactly this, it's wronging rights Steinbeck. Steinbeck tells the

story of how farmers were going hungry, children were starving

to death, and it wasn't by accident, it was by fraud.

It was by greed. There were those who were pushing

them off their land and purposefully deceiving them so that

they could line their pockets with their destitution and as

these farming communities came to realize, in their poverty and

in their hunger that this had been done to them.

It wasn't an accident, It wasn't just chance. There were

people who were bloody in the way they had wronged

innocent people, Steinbeck writes, And so the graves of wrath

grew heavy. Steinbeck leaves the question whether or not justice

will arrive. He leaves that question open, and we have

to keep asking it. What can we expect when it

comes to God showing up with fierce justice. The Bible

says God knows how to show up with fierce justice.

He is patient, he is forbearing. If there is any

dominating characteristic of his fierce justice that is portrayed throughout

all of scriptures is that he is patient, he is forbearing.

He wants no one to perish, but that all would

come to repentance, but that in the final analysis, he

will show up with fierce justice. And we know that

he knows how. God knows how to show up with

fierce justice. And if there's any other demonstration besides these

kinds of visions from Isaiah or these events that happen

through under God's hand, it's the Cross itself, Christ bloodied

in God's fierce justice. He knows how to show up.

We live out our trust in what God says about

showing up with fierce justice in several ways. Actually one

of them is insisting on what is right, where we

can speaking up and speaking against wrongdoing. It's actually loving

to speak against those who do wrong because fierce justice

is coming. It's actually loving to speak against those who

are defrauding others. Fierce justice is coming. It's actually loving

to speak up against those who are trafficking in humans,

and speak up against pornographers and users of pornography that

just expand the market for flesh. Because fierce justice is coming.

And where we don't have a chance or an opportunity

or a voice to speak up against wrongdoing, we continue

to trust that God is a perfect judge with perfect

justice and perfect wisdom and perfect timing. He knows how

to show up with fierce justice. And if you're sitting

here this morning and your response to this is recognizing

that you actually are one who, in rawdoing, deserves fierce justice,

I would say let this vision from Isaiah serve as

a warning to you. God knows how to show up

with fierce justice, but not a warning only. I would

also say, let this serve as a way of escape

for you. While you hear this from my voice, there

is still the opportunity to take the way of escape.

That Christ himself, the bloodied Christ, the one who would

say I was the one most fiercely trampled with God's justice,

to provide a way of escape for you. To all

who would place their faith in Him and turn from

wrongdoing and walk in his ways, you can take away

of escape. That's the first interaction. It's about God showing

up with fierce justice. He knows how. But the second

interaction that Isaiah has, now it deepens emotionally and lengthens

in terms of writing. He goes from one stanza to two,

but he completely takes it in a completely different direction.

It goes from being about God showing up with fierce

justice to Isaiah actually remembering God showing up in merciful help.

In merciful help. Let's walk through those two stanzas. Starting

in verse seven of sixty.

Three, Isaiah says, I will recount the dead fast love

of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according.

To all that the Lord has granted us to the

great goodness the House of Israel, that he has granted

them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of

his steadfast love. Again, he's calling back to the self

pronouncement that God has made. Yes, I will by no

means clear the guilty. I will show up in fierce

judge justice. But I am a God of steadfast love

and compassion. For he said, surely they are my people,

children who will not deal falsely. And he became their

savior in all their affliction. He was afflicted, and the

Angel of his presence saved them. In his love and

in his pity, he redeemed them. He lifted them up

and carried them all the days of old. So Isaiah

is recalling back to how God showed up and rescued

them from slavery. God showed up and carried them through

the wilderness. But they rebelled Verse ten and grieved his

Holy spirit. Therefore He turned to be their enemy, and

himself fought against them. He brought discipline. Then he remembered

the days of old of Moses and his people. So

even in his discipline against people who rebelled against them

against him, he showed steadfast love and compassion, and so

then Isaiah's like, okay, steadfast love and compassion. You showing

up with merciful help, What can we expect? Verse eleven.

Where is he who brought them out of the sea

with shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put

them in the midst? Put in the midst of them

his holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go

at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters

before them, to make for himself an everlasting name, who

led them through the depths like a horse in the desert.

They did not stumble like livestock that go down into

the valley. The spirit of the Lord gave them rest.

You led your people to make for yourself a glorious name. God,

you showed up with merciful help. Where's that? What can

we expect? That's what I'm talking about when I want

God to show up. That's what Isaiah wants when he's

talking about God showing up. When I said, God, I

need you to show up. What I'm talking about is

walls falling. I'm talking about armies being defeated by angels.

I'm talking about prison walls coming down. I'm talking about healing.

I want God to show up. That's how I want

him to show up. That's what Isaiah has in mind too,

and he wants to know, just like we want to know.

So what can we expect? And he's already answered the question.

He says, what you can expect is who I am.

You can expect steadfast love and compassion. God says, I

am abounding in steadfast love and mercy. It's the same

self pronouncement from Exodus thirty four. It is who I am.

What you can expect from me is steadfast love and compassion,

which doesn't mean the precise merciful help that I've constructed

in my mind for God to provide. I know the

plan for you that I have. And we may pray

for miracles, and we should, and we may pray for

extraordinary answers to prayer, and we should. When we ask

God to show up, it is fitting that we would

do so, like the like the three friends from Daniel

chapter three, as they are threatened with execution in the

fiery of furnace and then essentially asked, what do you

think God's going to show up? And they say, our God? Can?

We believe our God will? But even if he doesn't,

we will trust in who he is. He is full

of steadfast love and compassion. And they're in Daniel three.

They toss them into the fire, and God's you know what,

I'm showing up for this, and I'm showing up in

that way. I'm showing up to provide a way of escape.

But yet, just like those three friends belong in the

Hall of Faith from Hebrews chapter eleven. If you look

at Hebrews chapter eleven, just not jot it in your notes.

The Hall of Faith, the author of Hebrews says, by

faith trusting in God, trusting in this God of steadfast

love and compassion. There were those that were saved from

the sword, those who stopped the mouths of lions, who

were provided a way of escape, and those who were

sawn into and those who went about homeless, who were

provided a way of enduring. See whether God, whether or

not God is going to show up and provide a

way of escape or provide a way of enduring. He

nevertheless is going to provide each and every one of

his children with steadfast love and compassion. Because that's who

he is. What can we expect God knows how to

show up with merciful help to who he is, whether he

provides a way of escape, whether he provides a way

of enduring. We will trust in his steadfast love and compassion.

And there are ways to live that out. One of

the ways that we live out our trust in his

steadfast love and compassion, it's just remembering what he's done.

We've asked for extraordinary answers to prayer, and he has

provided them. I've got a whole basketful of rocks. You're like,

what how does that connect. I've got a whole basketful

of rocks, and on each one of those rocks is

written a time in which my wife and I got

on our knees and asked God for an extraordinary answer

to prayer prayer, and he provided And for every single

one of those I could lift them up and tell

you the story, and he would say, Wow, God showed up.

And that is what Isaiah is doing. He's remembering that

God is the one full of steadfast love and mercy.

God is the one who shows up with merciful help.

We will trust in him. We're gonna remember what he's

done in our lives in the scriptures, and we're gonna

appeal to him. We're gonna appeal to him for merciful,

merciful help. God does not say, Look, I'm either gonna

provide a way of a safe or a way of enduring.

So you just shut up and don't talk to me.

You just sit there, be stoic. Don't appeal to me. No,

just cry out, cry out. In the evening, at the

beginning of the night watches pour out your heart like

water before the presence of the Lord. He says, and

in trust to me, either escape or endurance, because I

am the one who has shown you steadfast love and

compassion from the beginning. If you know that I died

for you, if you know that these hands with holes

in them suffered for you, then you can trust that

they can hold merciful help for you, whether escape or endurance.

God knows how to show up with merciful help. He's

not only perfect injustice, he's perfect in compassion. Then Isaiah

moves into this third interaction. First interaction, it's about God

showing up with fierce justice. Second interaction, it's about God

showing up with merciful help. And he moves into this

third interaction and again it deepens emotionally, and it lengthens

in rioting. He goes down from two stanzas to three stanzas.

But now he's going from mainly remembering to requesting. In fact,

it's a really desperate appeal. And what he's desperately appealing

for is for God to show up and change hearts.

It's about God's showing up with heart change for the people.

I'll read each of the three stanzas just help you

understand it as we go. Isaiah shifts now into this appeal.

He says verse fifteen, look down from heaven and see

from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal

and your might, the stirring of your inner parts and

your compassion, Like, don't your guts hurt for us? They're

held back from for you are our father. Though Abraham

does not know us. In other words, we become unmoored,

untethered to the faith of Abraham. And though Israel does

not acknowledge us, the fear of Israel, the fear of Jacob.

We're not acting like that anymore. But you, oh Lord,

are our father, our redeemer. From of old is your name,

Oh Lord? Why do you make us wander from your

ways and hearden our heart so that we fear you not.

And this isn't Isaiah blaming God. This is Isaiah appealing

to God, like you can change us, Will you change us?

Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of

your heritage, your holy people held possession for a little

while our adversaries of trampled down your sanctuary. We've become

like those over whom you have never ruled, like those

who are not called by your name. So here is Isaiah,

and he's asking God, not just for a change of circumstance.

He's asking for a change of heart for the people.

He's praying. He's praying, in your compassion, fix us act

in power, not just for us, but in us right

Why hard in our hearts, he says in verse seventeen.

And he goes on appealing. And now he appeals to

God to show up and shake them, wake them up

to take hold of God. He says verse one of

sixty four, Oh, that you would rend the heavens and

come down, tear open the heavens, break break the sky,

rend the heavens, and come down here, that the mountains

might quake at your presence, as when fire kindles brushwood,

and the fire causes the water to boil. To make

your name known to your adversaries, that the nations might

tremble at your presence. When you did awesome things that

we didn't look for. You came down the mountains quaked

at your presence. From of old, no one has heard

or perceived by the ear. No eye has seen a

god besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.

You meet him, You meet him who joyfully works righteousness.

Those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry,

and we sinned, And in our sins we've been a

long time, and shall we be saved. We've all become

like one who is unclean, like we can't fix ourselves,

Like how can an unclean thing make anything clean? And

all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment, saying

even the things that we kind of do right, they're

kind of wrong. They're mixed with sin. This whole community

is upside down. We barely do anything that reflects you

at all. I've heard this verse misused to say that

any kind of righteous deed is just a polluted garment.

That's not what Isaiah is saying. That's not what the

Bible says. The Bible says the First Corinthians that the

obedience of faith, the steps of faith, in obedience that

we take in Christ. You're like gold, silver and precious stones.

But Isaiah says, we all fade like a leaf, and

our iniquities like the wind take us away. There's no

one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to

take hold of us, for you have hidden your face

from us. You've made us melt in the hand of

our iniquities. Wake up. He wants the people to wake up,

and he's saying, God, if the only way we're gonna

wake up is if you show up, show up and

shake us up, wake us up, that we would take

hold of you. Please fix us, Please act in power,

not just for us, but in us. And then, finally,

Isaiah continues to appeal for grace, not just forgiving grace,

but transforming grace. He says, But now, oh Lord, you

are our father. We're the clay, you're the potter. We're

all the work of your hand. You can shape us,

you can help us, you can change us, you can

fix us. Be not so terribly angry, Oh Lord, Remember

not our iniquity forever. We need forgiving grace, we also

need transforming grace. Behold, please look, we're all your people.

Their holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become

a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Your holy and beautiful house

where our father's father father's praised you has been burned

by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.

So God, are you going to show up? Will you

restrain yourself at these things? Oh Lord? Will you keep

silent and afflict us so terribly? God? This is our prayer,

fix us, act not just for us, but in us.

And he ends this whole thing by saying, so what

should we expect? Are you going to show up or not?

Isaiah's prayer reminds me of a prayer that I prayed.

I was I was a pretty new Christian. I was

not even a year. This is not even a year

since I had placed my faith in Christ. And it

began to dawn on me as I spent time in

His word and examined my own heart that I didn't

just need God's forgiveness, I need God's transformation. And from

what I could see, this was going to take a

long time. I remember specifically one one time I was

on the phone. I'd been a Christian for like nine months,

and what should have been a happy conversation, what should

have been responded to in my heart with joy and rejoicing,

I recognized, was actually I was full of jealousy and bitterness.

It was as ugly as could be, and there it

was staring back at me. When I looked into my

chest and I realized, I'm a gross center. I may

be a forgiven sinner, but I need God to shape me.

And I hung up the phone. The other person didn't

know anything, but I knew. And I went out onto

the land where we were staying. Plenty of space and trees,

which was good because man, I prayed loud, and I

prayed with a lot of profanity. Not advocating for that,

I'm just saying I wasn't holding back. I was pouring

out my heart like water before the presence of the Lord.

I don't remember all the words. I remember some of

the bad words, but I remember these words. God, you

have got to fix me. I've prayed prayers like that

many times since, and God has continued to do his

work of the potter, to shape and transform, to grant

not only forgiving grace, but transforming grace, just as Isaiah

is asking for here, and he leaves the question open

when it comes to God showing up with heart change,

what should we expect. But what we can tell you

is from the rest of scripture and the authority of

God's word, we can expect him to keep transforming repentant sinners.

Because God did show up, he did rend the heavens

and come down. That's exactly what Mark chapter one says.

When Mark begins his gospel account, this is what he said.

Jesus comes up out of the water of baptism, and

God rent the heavens. He tore open the heavens, he

broke the sky, and there's God the Father, and God

the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says,

let's go. And he goes now preaching repent and believe

the Gospel. I'm here, I've showed up. I've come with

forgiving grace. I've come with transforming grace. All who would

come to me, I will grant a heart of flesh.

I will write my law on their hearts. I will

direct and empower by my spirit. Isaiah said, oh, that

you would rend to heavens and come down. And today

Christ says, I did I know how to show up.

I showed up and I bloodied myself under fierce justice

for you. I showed up in steadfast love, with merciful

help for you. I showed up with heart change for you.

And Lo I am with you always, even to the

end of the age. I know how to show up.

And we can trust what he says about showing up.