Behold: In the Presence | Part 2

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We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

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Well, good morning, Awakening Church.

Great to be with you.

Merry Christmas almost.

I got it more almost there.

In one Merry Christmas.

Thank you guys.

Yeah.

We're in the season, and we're in a series called Behold How to Worship the King.

It's a worship series.

And to begin, I just want to remind us that there are actually moments, moments in our lives that actually change our lives forever, encounters.

For some, it's the birth of a child, perhaps the loss of a loved one.

It might have been an encouraging word or even that spark of love.

Who we become is profoundly shaped by the encounters that we have.

And internally, every single one of us has a longing to encounter God.

I think for many, this is the reason you came today, is you long to have an encounter with God hardwired into us as we were designed in the image of God to know and to be known by Him.

And so there's this longing, there's this craving, this soul yearning, a moment of transcendence to encounter, to behold the King.

And if we're honest, if we're honest, we would really say, I we don't really know how to do that.

We want that, we long for that.

But what does that really look like?

How are we to enter the presence of the King?

And better yet, how do you encounter God his way?

You know, so often when we talk about wanting to encounter God, this moment of transcendence, it's our perspective of what that looks like.

But but what if we ask God, how do you want me to encounter you?

How do you want me to step into your presence?

Because when we answer that question well, friends, I gotta tell you, you encounter Jesus.

You encounter God at a new and fresh level.

Today I want to take you to one of my all-time favorite passages.

In fact, if you've been around, you'll uh be familiar with it.

I think I preach it every two, three years or so.

In fact, just by the way, this is the very first sermon I ever gave.

I think I was 17 years old and wrote this little outline out, had some help from my dad.

My dad's a pastor, and so uh that's the area he could help me out with.

Not fixing cars, writing sermons.

Today we're gonna look at a passage, if you got your Bibles, Isaiah chapter 6.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

It's the prophet Isaiah.

He's in Israel.

There's been a regime change, the king has died, and he has an encounter with God, and in it we're gonna discover how do we encounter God his way.

And here's the beautiful part is it doesn't just have to happen on a Sunday.

It's amazing when it does, and that's the reason we gather.

But this can actually happen in our daily lives.

Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1, we pick it up.

Isaiah 6:1

The text goes this way In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him were Seraphim, each with six wings, with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

Seraphim are angels that uh literally means burning ones.

These are angels that are dedicated in the presence of God to declare and guard his holiness.

They're calling one to another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

At the sound of their voices, the doorpost and the threshold shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.

Woe to me, I cried.

I'm ruined.

For I'm a man of unclean lips, and I've lived among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send?

Who will go for us?

And I replied, Here am I.

Send me.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we invite you here to speak, to have your way.

We long to meet with you, to encounter you.

And so, would you get anything that's in the way out of the way?

We give you our attention, our focus, our hearts.

Would you meet with us?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

How do we encounter God his ways?

The first thing, this is just a big idea I want to draw to your attention, and I have three thoughts from the text, but first thing we must understand is in the presence of God, reverence is our only proper response.

This idea of reverence, reverence is an overwhelming sense of awe, respect, wonder, honor originating from the interior of a person, expressed through a person's posture in the presence of one who's majestic in holiness.

Like when we think about the presence of God, we first have to understand reverence is our posture that we enter in with.

Look up and refocus our heart on who God is.

In the year that King Uzziah died, he had a lot going on.

There's a regime change, this uh stuff's happening, not really sure what's gonna happen with the nation of Israel.

In that year, I saw the Lord.

I looked up.

Instead of worrying and wondering and striving, I stopped and I looked up.

We live in one of the most distracted times in human history.

No, never mind.

We live in the most distracted time of human history.

Before we get to like refocusing our heart on who God is, let me just talk a little bit about the challenge of looking up.

It's almost impossible to look up while we're constantly looking down.

Oh, that one hurt.

Isn't that what happens?

We live scrolled lives.

That we'd stop and look at Jesus long enough to behold him, to understand, to take it in.

One of my practices, and I do this pretty consistently, this is not daily, but it's pretty consistent.

I get up in the morning, my phone is on the charger, and I take off my watch because I want to, you know, figure out how I slept that night.

I put it on the charger and I leave it there.

I go into the kitchen, I make a cup of coffee, and I spend time with God.

I have a journal and I have my Bible.

When I bring my phone with me, I cannot look up.

It just doesn't work for me.

Because I look down.

I I don't know about you, but all of a sudden I'm like, oh, well, there's an email, or I wonder what the weather's gonna be like today.

And then somehow I find myself on Instagram or on TikTok and scrolling, like, oh, that was interesting.

Oh, what about that?

I have this question.

Oh, maybe I should look this up.

It just my mind goes there and my hand gravitates, and automatically my hand works without my, you know, it just does it on its own.

Friends, before we can move forward, we have this will change your December.

If you would just begin to make a decision, daily I'm gonna look up.

Daily, I'm gonna refocus.

Daily, I'm gonna set aside the things and the distractions and the devices.

And maybe you're like, but I do my time with Jesus on my phone.

That's fantastic.

If it works for you, great, it just doesn't for me.

And where you look up and focus on God.

Well, what do we do when we look up?

Let me ask you this what comes into your mind when you think about God?

What comes into your mind?

Often we make God in our own image, and our picture is uh of what we think about God in our design rather than who God truly is.

Notice what Isaiah saw when he looked up.

The first thing it says that he was high and exalted.

This is his position in the universe.

That he is the center of the universe, that he is high and exalted.

There is no one like him.

He is preeminent in every way.

He says he's high and exalted, and then it says that he's seated on a throne.

The king may have died in Israel, but the true king is still seated on his throne.

God is the king of kings, lord of lords.

He's seen the majestic one that he is sovereign and he is in control.

He is unshaken by the events in the world today.

That picture of a king seated is pretty incredible.

A king sits when all is well and when he feels confident.

God is not shaken, God is not surprised, God is not wringing his hands over the events of our world and the where things are going.

He is seated on his throne because he is sovereign, he is in control, and he will guide all of history to bring about redemption and restoration.

This is the one we worship.

You know, the only place we see God standing, by the way, in scriptures is to welcome one of his martyred ones home.

Other than that, he is seated and in control.

He's high and exalted, he's preeminent, he's the center of the universe.

He's seated.

Then it says, What?

The train of his robe filled the temple.

In the ancient day, the length of a train for a king represented the dominion and rule, the extent to which they uh ruled and reigned.

Isaiah's picture as he's stepping into the temple and seeing his train fill the entire temple is that he has all power, all dominion, all authority over everything.

This is who Isaiah is seeing as he comes in, and then he's got these burning ones, these seraphim that are declaring one to another holy, holy, holy is the Lord our God Almighty.

The whole earth is filled with his glory.

Holiness.

It's the only attribute of God that's repeated three times.

In the Hebrew language, we don't have good, better, or best.

You repeat it for emphasis.

Holy means to be set apart, pure, other.

See, when we think about God, we often tend to think that God is simply a better version of us.

He is not, he is completely other than us.

He is holy in every way set apart.

Holiness has to do with his moral purity.

All that is holy is healthy and good.

And the angels 24-7, right now in the throne room, are declaring it: holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

What comes into your mind when you think about God?

If you want to enter the presence of the King, look up and refocus your heart on who God is, who He's revealed Himself to be.

I love this, by the way.

Um when the gospel writer John, after he just quoted the prophet Isaiah, he makes this note.

He says this Isaiah saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him.

Because some of you are listening to me going, Ryan, this is pretty good, but this doesn't feel Christmassy.

That baby born in a manger.

Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Christ.

Your Christmas will change, friends.

Come on, come on.

Will you come with me?

Because this is so incredible.

That the high and exalted one stooped low in vulnerability and humility and became one of us.

I mean, just think about that the king of all kings allowed himself to be crucified by his own people.

See, we have this problem.

I just think today that we've become too casual with Jesus.

I call it um, you know, what is it?

Buddy theology.

Jesus is my buddy.

Uh there used to be a t-shirt back in the day.

I don't know if it's still around anymore, but it'd say Jesus is my homeboy.

Right?

And there's something incredibly, amazingly true that Jesus is our sacred friend.

Jesus said, I call you friend.

And we should be in all of that.

But we just relegate him to, he's my buddy, he's my homeboy, he's here to assist me, he's here to make my life better.

And you know, I just kind of do whatever I want, and it's nice that he's around and whatever.

No, the one high and exalted, seated on the throne, came and died for you and me, and rose again and exist in glory, and he's seated at the right hand of the throne of the Father, and he welcomes you into his presence, and he says, approach the throne of grace with confidence because of what I did for you.

Look up.

How do we enter the presence of the King?

How do we encounter God his way?

Look up, refocus your heart on him, and the holiness of God does something, friends.

Then we look in.

Release anything that's keeping you from God.

Look in.

Notice Isaiah's response.

Woe is me, I cried, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King Almighty.

Here's the problem.

We keep asking God to adjust to us.

When you enter the presence of God, you adjust to him.

God, you are holy and you are mighty, and it actually exposes and reveals our unhealth, our brokenness.

Um, many years ago, uh my youngest Miles, he was about eight.

It was the first day of summer.

You ever have one of those magical days?

This was magical.

Me and the kids were riding bikes, we're in the park, there's a hill, we're bombing the hill together.

It's everything.

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, there's joy in our hearts.

It's wonderful.

And as we're just finishing, Miles asks, Dad, can I go one more time?

I'm like, absolutely.

And as he goes, there's some teenagers that were starting to bomb the hill on the other side, but they're in the tree line, we couldn't see them.

And they one goes at the same time, and Miles is already flying down.

And I like watching a train wreck about to happen.

I'm not sure.

Do I just yell?

Like, Miles, I'm afraid he's gonna, like, whoa, you know, I'm praying he sees some brakes, just miss.

He just barely clips the back tire, he flips twice in the air, and then he lands, boom, and he's just motionless.

Sprint down to him, then he goes, comes up, and he's just crying, and he's like, we okay, we get him.

You can tell, like, I think he broke his collarbone.

Take him to the ER.

We're standing in line, and um, there's this guy in front of us, and um we're talking as we're waiting, he's like, Yeah, I think he broke his collarbone.

He's like, Oh, I was a coach, let me talk.

Well, he does a couple things, he's like, Oh, he's fine.

Were you there?

Did you see what happened?

Where are you a doctor?

He's fine.

We go and take an x-ray.

This is what his clavicle looked like.

Yeah, snapped in two.

Snapped in two.

He's fine.

He's fine.

See, the problem we have, come on, come on, come on.

The problem we have is we're listening to people who don't really know what they're talking about, saying we're fine, and we're taking their word for it, taking their understanding of it, instead of going to the great physician, allowing his holiness to x-rate our lives, our souls, not because he wants to put you down, not because he wants to make you feel bad, to bring healing to your life.

He wants to bring healing.

He doesn't want you to live broken, he wants to heal that which is broken, and until you bring your brokenness into the holiness of God and allow him to mend it, you will walk in pain and destruction.

And we do it all the time, and we just listen to people.

Oh, you're fine, it's no big deal.

God loves you too much to say you're fine.

Look in.

Release anything keeping you from Him.

Confession.

Confession is the pathway upon which we experience the grace of God in our lives.

A.W.

Tozer has this quote.

He says, This.

He says, until we see ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over the conditions around us, as long as they don't get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life.

We've lived to learn with unholiness and have come to look upon it as a natural and expected thing.

Confession means to own up to a condition of the soul.

Literally simply means to agree with.

I agree with.

God, I agree with what the x-ray shows.

Means to own your junk.

It means to own I had a bad attitude.

Own your jealousy, your bitterness, resentment to come clean, that the lust has consumed your thoughts and action.

1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.

His faithfulness, his justice that does the work, we simply go, God, this is where I'm at.

This last week, there were two people that came to mind that I realized I have unforgiveness in my heart.

And I had forgiven them prior, but I took it back.

You know, and here's the reason I know I took it back.

Because when they came up into my mind, I had ill will towards them.

Forgiveness means letting go or releasing my right for revenge.

I know I've fully forgiven when I can wish them well.

Well, I couldn't wish them well.

And for unforgiveness is the first step in bitterness.

And so I had to go back and me and my morning journal and just confess.

What about you?

Look up, see God for who he is, look in, and begin to get a picture for who we really are.

And friends, I just gotta tell you, so many of us carry stuff that Jesus died for, and he says, just leave it at the cross.

Confess it.

It's for your healing and wholeness.

And here's the beautiful part of the gospel and what we miss in encountering God.

Look up, look in, and then look out.

Look out.

Respond to God's call on your life.

Notice what God said Who shall I send and who Will go for us.

And then Isaiah says, Here am I, send me.

Now, the picture that comes to mind, and you can judge me, it's fine.

The picture that comes to mind, if you guys ever see Shrek, remember that old movie?

Remember when Shrek's trying to find his, you know, somebody to go with him to Lord Farquah on this whole journey?

And then Donkey's like, oh, ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me.

Like this is my picture.

I know, I'm silly, I get it.

But like this is my picture of what happened.

Isaiah walks in, he encounters God.

He says, Woe is me, I'm as good as death.

He experienced the cleansing and the healing of God.

And all of a sudden, God says, Whom shall I send?

And he's like, Would you use me?

Would you use me?

Like I felt so unworthy, and then you just healed me.

Could you possibly use me?

Here I am.

Here I am.

Here I am.

Send me.

See, our worship can never be disconnected from our calling.

When you get a glimpse of heaven, God will give you a vision for earth.

You begin to see the world the way God sees it.

Our hearts begin to break for what breaks God's heart.

A true encounter with God means responding to the call of God in your life.

A few years ago, we were on vacation, it was in Santa Barbara, walking up State Street.

People went dressed all nice, shopping.

And there's this dude sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk.

His wheelchair is about five feet away.

You look a little bit closer, you realize he's missing a leg.

His pants are pulled down, exposing a very used diaper.

He lays motionless.

You get a little closer, the stench just hits you.

People on their vacation, going about their days, shopping in all these very nice shops.

They're walking around, and some, I kid you not, stepping over him like he's a piece of trash.

Me and one of my kids were just sitting there staring, going like, we can't walk by, we can't just ignore this.

Is an image bearer.

This is one who's made in the very image of God, who has intrinsic value and worth, and lying helpless on the ground.

How could we ever walk by?

And sure, it feels uncomfortable.

And sure it feels messy.

And yeah, it means getting your hands dirty.

My fear was like, I'm afraid that so many people weren't uncomfortable.

Maybe we just don't care.

See, there's a problem with our worship when we can come and we can worship God, and then we pass by people all the time and don't care about them.

That's not worship.

That's incomplete.

Jesus says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself.

If we cut off the second half, we cut it all off.

Look out and respond to the call of God on your life.

Every encounter with God is an invitation into the gritty work of God here on earth.

It is simple.

It could be just loving your neighbor, taking a coworker out for coffee or lunch.

I mean, we have these invitations.

I can't tell you how many stories in this room somebody at work invited me to Christmas Eve or to Easter Sunday.

I showed up, I didn't have anything to do, I was really skeptical, but I came and then I came back again and I kept going and I gave my life to Christ.

Eternity hangs in the balance of a simple invitation, and we pass by afraid of what people would think of us.

Would you respond to the call of God?

Would you love the people God places along your path?

How do we encounter God his way?

Look up.

Refocus our heart on who God is.

We look in, releasing anything that's in us, keeping us from him.

And then we look out, amazed that we're invited in to what God is doing.

I'm going to invite Robbie and Ashley up to lead us.

I just want to give us a moment to do just that.

Would you just take a breath?

Settle your souls.

If you're comfortable, you can even close your eyes.

No pressure, you don't need to.

But would you look up and begin to focus on God that He is high and exalted?

That He is all sovereign.

He's all powerful.

He's all wise.

He's all good.

He's all loving.

With a word, He spoke the universe into existence.

He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and He loves you.

He's come for you.

Would you look up?

And then would you look in?

Release anything that's keeping you from Him.

Last week I gave you a prayer.

Holy Spirit, would you show me anything in me that's not of you?

He'll do it.

Maybe it's a thought.

Maybe it's some words that you said.

Something you've taken into your mind.

Search me.

And he confessed, God, I'm sorry.

Would you cleanse me?

Thank you for your forgiveness.

And then look out.

God has a call on your life.

Would you say, Here am I?

This week, God, I'm here.

Here am I.

It's a prayer we've prayed often as a church.

Heavenly Father, would you give me an opportunity to share with someone in some way about you today?

Would you just give me an opportunity to share with someone in some way?

I don't know what it'll look like about you today.

May I have eyes to see the way you see people?

And would my heart break the way your heart breaks for the people around me.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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