Experiencing God // Isaiah 6:1-8 // Lakeview Bible Church

Um, Philpot.

Well, let me say happy new year. It's

funny. When Eric asked me to preach a

while back, um, I was thinking like

pre-L Lake View numbers, I'm thinking

like ah, maybe 300 people on a Sunday.

Not this room. This is this is exciting.

This is a blessing. Hey, happy new year.

What experience are you hoping for in

2026?

Have you thought about it? I mean, maybe

you're hoping uh maybe you're in sales,

you know, you're like hoping to close

some deals, right? That would be good.

Um maybe you did what I did at the end

of last year and you thought about

everything that you did, all the work

that you put in last year and you wrote

some accomplishments down on a end of

year review and sent it off to your

boss. And maybe you're hoping this year

the boss says, "Huh, promotion or if not

a promotion, at least a raise, right? A

little more money at the end of the

month. That would be a good outcome of

2026.

Maybe your goals are more

fitnessoriented and you're like, I'll

take a new waistline, please, and a

smaller one if you got it. And depending

on how well that goes, maybe a new

wardrobe that comes along with it. That

would be awesome. Uh, in my house, I've

got a senior and I know what she is

looking forward to is graduation and

going off to college and the

independence that comes with it and

stepping out into a new chapter. Or

maybe you're on the other end of the

spectrum and you're at the point where

you're ready to tell your boss, I don't

need to do this anymore and you can move

off into retirement, look at a next

chapter. That would be exciting.

Maybe your hope is relationally that I

don't know, maybe you'll meet someone or

maybe the person that you're with, you

guys will decide that, hey, this is the

year that we want to make it official

and, you know, spend the rest of our

lives together.

You might be on the other side of that

and you're just in a relationship or

relationships that you're just like,

they're they're not great. I need some

healing, right? I hope you find that in

2026.

If you were to ask me, Tom, what do you

want? What are you hoping to experience

in 2026?

I kind of want things to just settle

down. I don't know if you know this, but

we launched a church at the end of last

year, and it's been crazy. It's been

busy. Uh, man, we had Christmas

services, five services. That was

awesome. Um, I just want things to, you

know, kind of settle into a rhythm.

Maybe just be able to keep up with the

pace. I don't know if you can relate to

that. That's what I would love to have

in 2026.

Now, I don't know if what you're hoping

for is on this list or not. Maybe you've

got something else. But what I do know

is that even if we get everything on

this list,

we may not be satisfied. You know how I

know? I've done this before. Not

preaching, although I have done that. I

did that last hour. So, um,

just kidding. Somebody asked me, they're

like, "Do you preach here often?" Like,

"No, first time." Um,

if we get everything on this list,

we're still going to be wanting. Why?

Because we know how New Year's works. We

come into the new year with a list,

right?

And we could get all these things and

we'll be back in 2027 with a new list

and in 2028 and so on.

So, what do we really want beneath and

behind all these things? More than

anything else in 2026, what we need is

to experience God.

Great. Sounds simple, right? How do we

do that? If you have your Bibles, open

them to Isaiah chapter 6. That's where

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

we're going to be today. And we're going

to look at Isaiah's experience. And I

will say um that in my 40 years of

walking with Jesus, I've never met

anyone who has had an experience like

Isaiah has in Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

But I've also never met anyone who's had

the same experience with God that I've

had. And you have probably never met

anyone who's had the same experience

that you had. All our experiences with

God are different.

That doesn't mean we can't learn

something from Isaiah's experience. So,

we're going to take a look at that. So,

how do we experience God?

The first thing that I want to look at

today is the fact that we're going to

say that we experience God through

worship. We're going to see that in the

first four verses.

Isaiah starts like this in chapter 6

verse one.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw

the Lord sitting on a throne.

Now, what you may not realize is that

when chapter 6 opens, Isaiah is not in a

great spot.

How do I know that? Because it said King

Uzziah died. Now, if you're not

thoroughly up Israel and Judah, like

most of us, I'll just remind you what

Chronicles 26 says about King Isaiah,

King Uzziah.

He came to the throne at age 16 and he

reigned for 52 years, which is awesome

because it means he didn't get

assassinated, right? If you get to reign

for 52 years, things are good. And he

actually was a good king. Verse four

says that he followed God faithfully for

most of his life. Like most of us, you

know, 80 90% of the way there, he's

good. Um, most of the chapter talks

about how he made Judah really

prosperous economically. They um they

had a trade surplus. People were

bringing tribute to them. People they

had conquered. They had taken some land

back from the Philistines. They built up

places. They built, you know, had fields

and sistns. Everything was good. The

military was really strong. In fact,

Uzziah had made these like I don't know

archery battlement things and put them

on the towers like they like nobody

messed with Judah during this time. It

was good. We do see later in life that

pride led to his downfall and that he

entered the temple um and burned incense

which he was not supposed to do. He was

opposed by the priest and God made him a

leper which meant that he could no

longer rule from the palace. He had to

rule outside the city. But in general,

he was a good king and and Judah was

really prosperous.

Now, why is worried? We see in Isaiah 1

vers1 that Isaiah was a prophet under

the reign of four kings, which means

Uzziah being the first of these kings.

Maybe he's 20 years old at this time.

And if you imagine Isaiah growing up in

Judah under King Uzziah, and things are

great, like all he's ever known, his

whole life, thing has been up and to the

right. peace in the land, prosperity.

He's following God. So, as a prophet,

he's got job security.

Now, the king's dead. What's the next

king gonna be like? Is he going to

follow God?

Are they going to have peace in the

land?

Is the king not going to follow God? And

is he going to decide that he's going to

kill all the prophets of Yahweh?

He doesn't know. There's a lot of

uncertainty heading into this time.

Do you have any uncertainty heading into

2026?

You might be able to relate to Isaiah.

Look what Isaiah says. He says, "In the

year that King Uzziah died, verse one, I

saw the Lord sitting on a throne."

First thing he says, "I saw the Lord."

There's two words in the Old Testament

for Lord. One is Yahweh. It's the

personal name of God. And when you see

that in your Bible, it'll be written in

all caps. The other way is the way you

see it here printed in verse one, Lcase

Od. So, you can look at the R and the D,

and you can tell which one it is if your

Bible does that. Uh but in the ESV, this

is lowercase. This is Adonai. This is

the word for master or sovereign. What

Isaiah is saying is in the year that the

king died, I saw the king seated on a

throne.

The fact that he's sitting is

significant because you know when kings

sit on their throne, when they're in

control.

When there's peace in the land. When

there's not a challenger in the throne

room saying, "You shouldn't be king. I

should be king." when they're not

hunched over a table with their military

advisers planning how to defend the

kingdom from outside attackers or

planning to take some ground. He's

sitting on the throne.

And I would tell you family that um if

he's on the throne and he's in control,

you don't always have to be.

Like we're going to talk about with the

life of Isaiah, there's a lot of things

that we don't control in our lives, far

less than we like to admit. And because

he's seated on the throne, we don't have

to be in charge all the time. The second

thing that he says is that his throne is

high and lifted up. He's not just on a

throne. He's on the highest throne.

I don't know if you've ever had the

wonderful experience of buying a car at

a dealership. You go to the car lot, you

pick out the shiny car that you want.

You get the making the model, and

eventually you get sent by your salesman

back to a little room with the finance

guy. and you're going to sit back there

with finance guy and you're going to

argue about how much you want to pay for

this car. And at some point during that

process, that guy is going to look at

your numbers and he's going to go,

"Well, I don't know. I got to go talk to

my manager." And then he's going to

leave the room and I don't know if he's

actually talking with his boss or if

he's just sitting there to let you

sweat.

But the point stands, he's not the guy

that can fix your problem. He can't do

what you want him to do.

Or maybe you've gotten a bill and you're

like, "Hey, there's a mistake on this

bill." You call customer service and

hopefully you get a representative.

Otherwise, you get a computer. And

you're either going hitting zero or

going representative, you know, hoping

that's the magic word to get you through

to a live person. And you talk to them

and say, "I have a problem that you need

to rectify. I need somebody to fix

this." And you know what? If they can't

do it, you know what you say? I need to

talk to your manager. I need to talk to

somebody with authority.

Well, family, there is no higher

authority than God. He doesn't appeal to

anyone. He doesn't have to ask anyone's

permission. He doesn't have to check if

it's okay. He's not just seated on a

throne. He's on the highest throne.

But Isaiah goes on, he says, "And the

train of his robe filled the temple."

What is that about? I mean that it's

crazy. Let me just encourage you that if

you come across something in the text

that you go, "Huh, what is that?" Dig

in. What I found in researching this,

this is like a Neareastern power move.

It's like a flex. It's like, "Man, I'm

so rich. I got all these clothes. You

know, it drags on the ground. Doesn't

matter. I'm rich." Um, it's expressing

wealth. I was trying to think of a

contemporary analogy. Some of you are

old enough to remember Princess Diana

when she married who was at the time

Prince Charles, now King Charles in the

UK. Her dress in 1981 cost about £9,000,

which is about $60,000. And it had a 25

foot train on her wedding dress. I mean,

no shade to the British Empire. It's an

amazing wedding dress. It's not quite

temple.

So, I thought, well, what would be a

contemporary example of power? I

thought, what about real estate?

This is a map of the Roman Empire which

arguably was one of the most culturally

significant empires that we would be

familiar with certainly in the west. Um

AD 117 you can see there under Emperor

Trajan. You can see it went all the way

from Portugal there uh all the way up to

the UK

most of sort of southern Europe and some

of the Middle East and Northern Africa.

That's a pretty big empire. It's about 2

million square miles.

That's a lot. But you know what's not on

here? Africa, most of Russia, India,

China, Australia, North and South

America. So, it's a big empire, but you

know, it's not the whole world.

Question,

how much does this king own?

Well, Genesis 1:1 says that he created

Genesis 1:1

the earth. How big is the earth? About

197 million square miles. So, I don't

know, 100 times what Rome had.

But he also owns the sun. And the sun,

you can fit about 1.3 million earths

inside the sun.

The sun is a yellow star, which if you

remember your uh you know, seventh grade

cosmology, um

mediumsiz star. There's about 100 to 400

billion of those in our galaxy.

And the Milky Way is not the only galaxy

that we know of. Scientists estimate 100

to 200 billion galaxies in our universe.

And I think the universe is expanding.

They don't even actually know if it has

an end. It might be infinite.

I'm not going to do the math for you

because some of you are like, I was told

there would be no math problems in

church.

Even if I did the math, this would be a

number followed by an e or you know 10

the whatever and a really big number.

Our brains are not built for

understanding numbers that big.

But the fact of the matter is there's no

empire, no king on earth that's more

powerful than this king. He is

unfathomably rich. And the Bible goes on

to say that he upholds that with the

word of his power. Just with the word,

he holds it all together.

Question family. Do you or I have any

problem that he doesn't have the

resources to solve?

He's in control. He's seated on the

throne. But not just any throne, the

highest throne. And he has all of this

at his disposal.

Isaiah is trying his best to describe

what he's seeing in heaven.

And he goes on in verse two and he says,

"Above him stood the saraphim." And

you're like, "What's the saraphim?"

A better question is, "What are the

seraraphim?" The I am there is a plural

suffix in Hebrew. And what the

translators have done is they kind of

didn't know what to do with this word or

they didn't know what English word to

translate it into. So they just took the

Hebrew letters and put them into

English. So the seraphs were there.

You're like, "Great, what's a seraph?"

Well, the root of that word, sometimes

it's translated um fiery serpents when

talking about snakes because if a

venomous snake bites you, the venom

burns. So there's this idea of fire.

But you know what? Fire also produces

light and brilliance. And I think the

saraphim,

it goes on to describe these angelic

creatures that are around the throne. I

think the reason the saraphim are used

is because they are in the presence of

God and they are radiating his glory. So

the image there is not heat or venom but

brilliance. Why do I say that?

Moses when he was on Mount Si receiving

the tablets from God. He was on the

mountain 40 days and when he came down

the mountain his face was radiating

God's glory

freaked everybody out. They said put a

veil cover that up. So, he had to wear a

veil because honestly, look, if I saw

somebody and their face was glowing, not

just like excitement, but just literally

radiating, that would be terrifying.

But he was in God's presence. So, if

God's presence does that to somebody

like you and I who are mere mortals,

what does it do to creatures who are

constantly in his presence? And Isaiah

is just like, "Oh, the seraraphim. Yeah,

they were there. Look at these

creatures." Each had six wings, and with

two he covered his face, and two he

covered his feet, and with two he flew.

that covering their face and their feet

is just a sign of reverence for God.

They're in God's presence as majestic as

these creatures are. And they're like,

"We're not going to even look at God.

He's too much."

And one called to another and said,

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory."

Now, I don't know if you were going to

write a song about God. I'm not much of

a poet. If I had to pick one attribute

or if you had to pick one attribute of

God to write a song about, what would

you pick? For me, I would probably pick

love. And the Bible does say in John

John 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, that God is

1 John 4 · chapter mention

love. That's good theology. That's not

what the saraphim talk about. They talk

about his holiness.

What is holiness? Well, the root word in

Hebrew means set apart for a special

purpose. Maybe an illustration will

help. Growing up, well, I have two

brothers. I still have them. Uh but

growing up we shared a bathroom in our

house and it also happened to be the

guest bathroom because of the way our

house was was configured and um around

Christmas time as you decorate as you

see here. Um the bathroom got decorated.

The hand towel that was normally by the

sink that was there got replaced with a

little white hand towel said Merry

Christmas and some red embroidery and

had a holly wreath on it and a gold

ribbon at the bottom. A question. Was

that hand towel there for my brothers

and I to wipe our grubby hands on when

we'd come inside from playing?

Now, some of you know what I'm talking

about. That hand towel was set apart. It

was holy. It had a special purpose.

And that's the root word of holiness. It

means set apart for a special purpose.

It's not like everything else.

What would it mean to say that God is

set apart? Is that is that what holiness

means when we apply it to God?

Not really. But the idea, you can kind

of start to see it that God is other.

I might say he's built different, but

he's not built. He's just different.

He's one of one, so to speak. And so

what the saraphim are talking about is

their God is so other. I mean, think

about it. We are finite. He's infinite.

We're conditional beings. We depend on

certain things to live. We need food. We

need water. We need air. We need

shelter. We need clothing.

God doesn't need any of that. He exists

just because he does. In fact, he exists

and gives life to everything.

Knowledge, our knowledge is limited. His

is infinite.

Our life finite.

His is infinite.

Power. We're finite. He's infinite. We

can only be in one place at one time.

God can be everywhere. That would be

really helpful if you've got multiple

kids at sporting events. It'd be nice to

be in more than one place at one time.

God can do that. And so holiness

is this word that just sums up all of

the attributes of God in one word. And

they don't just say he's holy. He's

holy. Holy. Holy. In Hebrew, they didn't

have bold or underlining or all caps.

And so the way that they would express

emphasis is they would repeat a word.

Sometimes you get things repeated twice.

Here it's repeated three times. It's

like he's really really really

other.

He's holy.

Now there's one more thing that they say

is they say the whole earth is full of

his glory.

Question. When you go on vacation, where

do you go? We love to go to the beach.

Nothing better for me than a white sandy

beach and the waves rolling in. Some of

you may like the mountains. I've been to

some majestic mountains. Or maybe you're

a camping person. not a camper.

Mosquitoes like me too much, but hey,

you do you. Um, but going out someplace

where there's no light, you can look up

the sky and see all the scars in the

Milky Way.

Why do we gravitate to those places to

get away from it all? I suggest you it's

because the whole earth is full of his

glory.

That if holiness is the the character

and the nature of God,

his glory is just that holiness just

radiating out. And the angels are saying

that his whole all of creation shows

God's glory in some way. I mean, if the

art is beautiful, what does that say

about the artist?

Again, as I said, Isaiah is just trying

to describe in words what he's

experiencing.

What I'm trying to convey to you is that

sense of awe and majesty. It's what

leads us to worship.

You know, it's funny. We have weekly

worship services here every week. You

guys are in one, you know. Um, we don't

call them preaching services, we call

them worship services. As I was thinking

about this, I was like, you know,

what I want to encourage you to is to

make this a priority. Like, we didn't

put worship at the front end of the

service. I say we, the church in

general, I had I didn't do the service

planning, but worship is not at the

front end of service

because the pastor didn't have enough

content to fill an hour and a half. I'm

like, "Trust me, I just spent a good

amount of time preparing for this

sermon." And the problem was not I

didn't have enough to say. The hard

part's throwing stuff out. What do I not

say? And please do not get excited and

say preach or amen because we'll get

excited and we'll just keep going. It's

totally okay. The audience participation

is encouraged.

Worship is also not at the front end. So

that if you have challenges in parking,

which we're working on by God's grace or

you're coming in late, you're coming in

hot, coming in on two wheels, it's like,

well, as long as I get in there for the

sermon, I won't have missed anything.

No, worship's important. You know how I

know?

Because I don't know anywhere in the

Bible where you see a picture of heaven

and somebody's preaching.

You know what they're doing? They're

worshiping.

In the book of Jeremiah, it says, you

know, in that day, in that future state,

no longer will a man teach his neighbor,

saying, "Know the Lord, for they will

all know me from the least to the

greatest."

I'm not sure if there's going to be

preaching, Eric. We're going to have to

find something else to do in heaven,

man. Maybe we'll be able to sing, but

worship will be there. You might almost

say that worship is as close as we get

to heaven on this side of earth.

Worship's really important. Benjamin

William Hastings is a Christian artist.

He wrote a song called That's a Thing

about praise. And he has a line in

there. He says, "It may not fix your

problems, but it'll tell you how small

they are." That's the thing about

praise. It's really important. So, let

me encourage you. Weekly worship, make

that a priority in 2026. And I told

First Hour this. Um I'm also guilty of

this. I was talking with my buddy John

um during Christmas and I was ushering

for five services and he said, "Tom,

when are you going to church?" And I

said, "John, I'm here five services." He

said, "No, not working. when are you

going to be in church? And I said,

'Well, January 4th. I'll be there both

services. I said, I'm preaching. He

said, 'Th that's different. I will pray

for you, but no. When are you going to

be in church?

So, will you work on that with me this

year? Let's just be in church and

worship God together. So, weekly

worship. Let me encourage you to do

that. Secondly, what I call special

occasion worship, things like

conferences or concerts, they're

awesome. Ladies, winter conference,

great opportunity to do that. Students,

winter retreats coming up. Let me

encourage you to do that. Guys, in the

fall, Lord willing, we'll do something

for the guys. But an opportunity to get

together with a group of people to

worship God. It is I cannot even tell

you. My kids went to Passion this week.

Louisie Gigglio um out of Atlanta has

been these college conferences, 18 to 25

year olds. There were 45,000 students up

at Global Life Field in Arlington

primarily to worship God, to hear some

teaching. It's amazing. As close as we

can get to heaven. So, how do we

experience God? We experience God

through worship. I told you Isaiah was

worried coming in. And I think after

this, he's not worried because honestly,

if you see there's a God who's in

control, he's seated on the throne and

he's got all the authority and all the

power and you're worshiping him, you

can't worry about your stuff. You see,

worship and worry can't coexist.

So Isaiah was worried about his job.

He's worried about the nation. He's

worried about the kingdom. He sees God.

He's not worried about any of that

anymore.

Should be feeling pretty good, right?

That leads me to my second point. The

second way we experience God is through

confession. Look at verse 5. Look at

what Isaiah says.

He says, "Woe is me, for I am lost. I'm

a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the

midst of a people of unclean lips. For

my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of

hosts."

There's something about being in the

presence of holiness

that makes us feel like we're not. The

problem with a holy, holy, holy God is

that we are not not not holy. And Isaiah

feels that, right? He says, "I'm lost."

Your translation might say, "I'm

undone." If I were talking to my kids, I

would say, Isaiah said, "I'm cooked."

I think they all work. I'm cooked,

right? I'm standing in the presence of a

holy God. And he says, "I'm a man of

unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of

people of unclean lips." Question

family.

When Isaiah says that, is he saying

something that God doesn't already know?

Now, we've already said God knows

everything. So, when Isaiah says, "I'm a

man of unclean lips and I live among a

people of unclean lips," of course, God

knew that.

Question number two, when Isaiah says,

"I'm a man of unclean lips and I live

among a people of unclean lips," is he

saying something that he didn't already

know?

No. So, what is he doing?

He's confessing. See, confession is

simply being honest with God about where

you fall short. God doesn't expect us to

be perfect, but he doesn't want us to be

honest with him.

This is one of the most freeing things

you can do is just to be honest with God

what's going on. It's like saying the

quiet parts out loud to God. And it's

freeing. But look what happens in verse

six. As soon as he's done speaking, then

one of the seraraphim flew to me, having

in his hand a burning coal that he had

taken with tongs from the altar, and he

touched my mouth and said, "Behold, this

has touched your lips. Your guilt is

taken away, and your sin is atoned for."

You know what is amazing to me about

this passage? Isaiah is a prophet. He

makes his living with his lips. And you

know where he says, "My problem is with

my lips." And you know what the seraphim

touches with the coal?

His lips.

Doesn't matter where your sin is,

God can heal it. God can wipe it away.

How does that work? Well, 1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9

says this. If we confess our sins, he's

faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all

unrighteousness.

So, what does that mean for you and me?

Does that mean if we confess our sins,

we go to sleep at night and hope some

angelic being comes with six wings,

burning glory, and with a coal, and

touches us somewhere? I sure hope not.

No, I said Isaiah's experience is

different from ours. You see, back in

Isaiah's day, it was a saraph with a

coal. For us today, it's a son with a

cross.

This is what Paul says in Romans. He

says, "If you confess with your mouth

that Jesus is Lord and you believe in

your heart that God raised him from the

dead." And by raising him from the dead,

what he's talking about there is the

whole story of Jesus. that he was God in

the flesh who came to earth who lived a

sinless life who died a death on a cross

that you and I should have died and then

God raised him from the dead. He said if

you believe that

you'll be saved for with the heart one

believes and is justified and with the

mouth one confesses and is made

righteous.

Now most of the time we like to put the

main point at the end. Sometimes in

Jewish literature, the main point's in

the middle. And so, because I wanted to

be faithful to the text, I left the main

point in the middle. If you haven't done

that, if you haven't started a

relationship with God through confession

and just saying, "God, you know what? I

know you're holy.

And I know I'm not,

would you save me? Would you forgive me?

I believe that Jesus did that for me." I

was seven years old the first time I

heard this. I was in the back of a

church, Methodist church in Baton Rouge,

Louisiana. I don't remember anything

about that church other than I was there

this day. I don't remember anything

about the sermon, but I remember the

pastor saying,

"The Bible says

that if you trust Christ for your

salvation, you can go to heaven and be

with God forever." Says that if you

don't, the penalty is hell. You'll be

separated with God forever. And in my

seven-year-old brain, I thought, "Hell

sounds like a bad place. I don't want to

go there. Jesus, I trust you."

That's how I came to faith. It can be

that simple. So, if you haven't made

that decision, let me encourage you to

start there.

The next thing though we're going to see

quickly is that we experience God

through the work he has for us. Look at

verse eight.

Verse eight says, "And I heard the voice

of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send

and who will go for us? And then he

said, here I am. Send me."

I don't know if you think about it this

way. I think sometimes I do. when I

think God has work for us to do. It

reminds me of the time that I

volunteered to referee youth soccer.

Blake uh was 5 years old. He's our

oldest. He was just in kindergarten.

This was like our first experience with

youth sports. And you go to that team

meeting with the coach and the other

parents and he says, "Well, you know,

this is when our practice schedule is

going to be." And he introduces himself.

He is when we're getting our uniforms

and this is our team name and all the

standard stuff. And then at the end he

said, 'Well, you know, our league is a

little different than most other

leagues. We don't pay referees. We

expect each team to have a parent

referee the games. And I did kind of

what most people do, which is,

you know, look around, see if anybody

else is going to volunteer.

Nobody volunteers. So, I'm like, fine,

I'll do it.

met with the coach after and he said,

"Well, um, okay, you got to pay $30 for

the registration

and then you got to watch six hours of

videos

to learn the rules

and then you got to pass a test."

And I will say that I passed. I did not

ace it, as is evidently clear later. Um,

I get out there for my first game and

parents are yelling at me. Five-year-old

kindergarteners. You would think it was

FIFA World Cup out there. The last game

of the season, uh, I think it was a

husband and wife coaching. I think they

played collegiate or maybe semi-pro

soccer. It became very clear to them

that they knew more about the game than

I did. And, uh, so at one point they

just started running kids on and off the

field in the middle of the game. And I'm

thinking, it's the middle of the game. I

don't remember what the substitution

rules are, but my parents are yelling at

me that like you are doing it wrong.

Is that what God has for you?

Right? I mean, we think like, man, if I

say yes to God, he's going to send me

somewhere where I don't want to be doing

something I don't want to do, but for

the glory of God. Amen. No. Is that how

Isaiah responds here? Look at what he

says. He's like, "Here am I, send me." I

think more like Will Frell in Elf than,

you know, than my response. He's like,

"Oh my gosh, Santa, I know him. He's

excited.

Send me Lord." Why? Why does he say it

that way? Is it because he's seated on

the throne and he's in control and he's

the authority and you're like, "Yes,

sir. I'll do it." Could be. I mean, he

certainly could say, "I need you to do

this." And you'd say, "Yes, sir." That'd

be the right response.

Does he do it out of obligation? God,

you just forgave me of all my sin. You

could ask me to do that and I it would

only be right for me to say yes.

I think the reason Isaiah says, "Lord,

send me is because Isaiah knows that the

work that he has for him is personal."

Where do you get that, Tom?

Ephesians 2:10 says it this way. For we

Ephesians 2:10

are his workmanship. We, the church, the

family of God who has said yes to Jesus,

are his workmanship. The New Living

Translation says of the masterpiece

created in Christ Jesus for good works

that he prepared beforehand that we

should walk in them. I don't know if God

created the job first and then created

you in mind for that job or if he

created you and then created the job

with you in mind, but it doesn't matter

because it's like a hand in glove. God

has something for you to do that only

you can do. And you know what? You're

built for it. And he wants you to do it.

And he had you in mind from eternity

past that you should do that.

How do you find out what that is?

You have two suggestions. First, you

just pray. God, your word says you have

something you want me to do.

I believe that you would want me to know

what that is that you want me to do for

you. Would you show me

and just keep praying that till he shows

you? The second thing is just jump in

and serve. I'll give you two quick

examples. One, I know of a guy who uh I

saw this on a video at another church

that he was going on a mission trip and

the on this mission trip they were going

to serve with some special needs kids

and he was a little apprehensive about

it because he's like, you know, I I've

never done that and I was nervous going

in and he said, "You know what I found

out? I love serving with special needs

kids." He really enjoyed it. In fact, to

this day, he serves in ministry. So, let

me encourage you to just step out. Maybe

God will give you a passion for

something that you never knew was there.

Or your example might be like this.

There was a lady in our church who

served in our connections team and she

did it for a while and she did great,

but she came to Jenny, my wife, the

connections director, and said, you

know, I'm just not I'm not really

feeling connections. But she heard me

when I did announcements, you know, a

month or so back and I talked about the

hospitality for Christmas and the fact

that we fed our volunteers and she said,

"You know what? I actually have some

professional experience with that. I've

worked with food vendors and I know how

to get food. Would you let me help out

run the food part of hospitality? How

many of you guys by show of hands were

on the connections like got to

volunteer? Okay, a few of you. Y'all, we

were blessed by that food. We had Rudy's

breakfast tacos. We had County Lime

barbecue brisket and pulled pork and

beans and all the fixings. And then we

had fajitas catered by a restaurant. The

lady came up to me after the first

service. She said, "Just tell them I did

not cook the fajitas." It was We ordered

them from a restaurant because somebody

said, "Oh, that's the lady who cooked

the fajitas." No, she just organized it.

That's the point. Point is, God can

point you to where he wants you to

serve. And I promise you, it is so

fulfilling to just get to do what you

love and what God has for you.

So, let me go back to my list.

I don't know if anything that you are

expecting or hoping to experience is on

this list. I hope you get everything on

this list. I hope 2026 is all that and

more.

But more than all of these things we

need to experience God. Let me leave you

with a quote from CS Lewis. You may have

seen part of this quote. Um he says,

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth

thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get

neither." It seems a strange rule, but

something like it can be seen at work in

other matters. Health is a great

blessing. But the moment you make health

your main aim, one of your main direct

objects, you start becoming a crank and

imagining there's something wrong with

you. You're only likely to get health

provided you want other things more.

Food, games, work, fun, open air. We

must learn to want something more.

Family, we must learn to want God. Jesus

said it this way. Seek first his kingdom

and his righteousness and all these

things will be added to you. Let's pray.

God, thank you for your word. Thank you

for the promise of a new year comes with

its challenges and its opportunities

and a lot of opportunity to see you

work.

We don't know what's ahead, but we know

you're in control. We know that nothing

is going to happen this year that

surprises you. And we know that you have

all the resources to equip us to do your

work. Would you help us to step into

worship with you this year? Help us to

step into confession and help us to step

into serving. We love you and we thank

you for this time in your son's name.

Amen.

>> Amen.

Good job, Tom Philpot.