God is Bigger: Look Up

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We exist to awaken this generation to new life in Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

To find out more, go to awakeningchurch.com.

I just want to say welcome to Awakening.

We're so thrilled that you're joining us online today.

And my name's Ryan, and I'm just excited to be together in this online format.

One of the things we've said really almost from the day one of when awakening began is we said that we believe the church should lead the way in unleashing extravagant generosity to a hurting and broken world.

And boy, do we want to lean into that now.

We actually want to say it this way: we're going to err on the side of generosity at Awakening Church in this season.

We're not just going to shrink back and somehow like huddle and figure out how do we just make it through.

But if we're going to err anyway, we're going to err on the side of generosity.

And that's what we've been doing in our partnership with Del Mar.

And how do we helping families that are in deep need in this season and providing food for them and gift cards for groceries there?

It's also how we want to help families in need in our own community.

As a leadership council, we set aside$50,000 to help support and connect people in our own church.

And so if you're here and you need help and you're signing on, would you fill out that connection card?

And we'd love to figure out how we can help you.

Maybe uh you're not really sure how you're going to pay rent or put food on the table.

And we want to be a part of that.

And maybe you know someone that's in that space.

Uh, would you uh kind of let us know about them?

That would be great as well.

And so part of it is as a church, we want to lean in to extravagant generosity.

And for some, this is your first time to do that.

Maybe you've never given at awakening church ever, and you are gonna say, you know what, in this season, I have a job.

In this season, I'm gonna be a first-time giver.

Would you be a first-time giver today?

And for others, for us to be able to continue and plan on extravagant generosity in the future, we actually need you to set up automatic giving.

Would you automate your giving so that we can plan on it and know, yeah, we can lean into this season?

Uh, it would be an incredible way that you get a partner with us and how we're gonna unleash extravagant generosity to a hurting and broken world.

One of the other ways that we're wanting to do this is in the area of celebrating and supporting our first responders.

You know, when all of this went down a few weeks ago, uh, as we're talking as a staff, we began to make a list of everyone we knew in our church who's a doctor or a nurse.

And if you're a doctor or nurse, uh would you let us know?

Would you fill out a um a connection card?

We want to know because we want to send you a care package package and give you some stuff just to let you know, hey, we're behind you.

We're loving you.

We want to provide encouragement in this season.

We're so grateful for what you're doing.

And we also, for our policemen and firefighters and EMTs and paramedics, we want to know as well because we really want to come around you and love on you guys as well.

And just give you some things of encouragement in this season.

All right.

Well, this morning we're kicking off a brand new series.

It's called God is Bigger.

And I think this is such an important series in the life of our church.

And what we're gonna do in our time together is really answer the question all of us are asking.

Uh, the question is simply this What do you do when you find yourself caught in the middle of a pandemic?

I know we never thought we were gonna be asking that question.

You're like, you know, four weeks ago, even we go, like, that's not even a question I was thinking about.

But all of us are wrestling with that question.

What do you do?

When you find yourself caught in the middle of a pandemic.

Now, we all know what we have been doing.

Uh, in fact, I just was checking on Instagram earlier and someone posted, um, I finished Netflix.

It's just like, it's done.

In fact, um, I just saw this as well.

If you don't mind, I'm getting on my phone uh with you here.

Uh, this person wrote, it was a, I don't know if you call these memes or not.

No, it's not a picture.

Anyways, I I don't worry about it.

I'm not as old as I'm sounding right now.

Dear Netflix, can you please turn off the are you still watching feature?

We are in quarantine, so yes, we are still watching.

I don't need this kind of judgment in this time of uncertainty.

If you could please update it with, are you sure you want to eat that?

Notice that would be helpful, uh, be much more helpful at this time.

Sincerely me.

And I love that because isn't it true?

This is what we're doing in quarantine.

In fact, instead of the freshman 15, we have the quarantine 15, and I'm experiencing it myself.

And I think actually, you know, in the middle of this, what do we do?

Well, yeah, we're we're binging Netflix, we're um eating food out of stress, we're constantly obsessively checking the news, we're just trying to find some semblance of normality and figure out with our kids and school and work, and we're in this season of like just feeling like we're just thrown about completely disoriented.

And so, what do you do?

What do we do?

Maybe better yet, what should we do when we're caught in the middle of a pandemic?

Well, chaotic times and uncertain future is nothing new to the people of God, and so we can actually go to God's word and lean in and find such deep and rich encouragement.

In fact, one of the things I do when I find myself in seasons where I'm completely disoriented or the future's uncertain, is I go back to the basics.

I want to go back to what I know to be true.

I want to reorient my life in a disorienting time to what God says is true.

And that's what we're gonna do in our series, God is Bigger.

In fact, uh, there's this quote, my buddy Andre gave it to me years ago.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

And what I wanna do in this season, in this series, is to remind you of some things that's true about God, and as a result, is true about you.

And this morning we're gonna look at Isaiah and his life.

In fact, he was caught in the middle of a chaotic, uncertain future.

And in his story, we actually learn what do we do when we're caught in the middle of a pandemic together?

How do we or how should we respond?

If you got your Bibles, would you open them up to Isaiah chapter six, Isaiah chapter six, verse one.

It begins this way.

It says, In the year that King Uzziah died.

Now, for us, our tendency can be to re run past that, you know, those seven words, and just be able to go, um, you know what, those are just kind of tell us telling us when this happened.

But those seven words for Isaiah are filled with such deep heartache and pain and uncertainty.

And here's one of the things that you just need to know is Isaiah grew up in what was known as the southern kingdom.

See, Israel had a um civil war.

I let me get the date right, 930 BC.

And so the northern northern kingdom and the southern kingdom were created, and so Isaiah grew up in the southern kingdom.

Uh, he actually grew up in the royal court.

His dad, Amaz, was actually a wealthy aristocrat.

And so he grew up in the court of the king of Uzziah.

And Uzziah was a great and for the most of his life a godly king.

He reigned 50 years, and so Israel had experienced such peace and prosperity over the course of that time.

And so when Uzziah died, his grandson, who was actually very wicked and evil, stepped in and his influence and impact began to take uh shape.

And at the same time, there's political unrest and uncertainty all around uh the southern kingdom of Judah.

Uh the Assyrian, the super uh the Assyrian Empire, the super party, uh, super party, the super, what is it called?

Help me out.

Power.

Thank you very much.

The superpower at the time um was conquering.

So they conquered Galilee, Damascus, Israel.

And so he's, when you read those words, in the year that King Uzziah died, for him, this is in the year of deep heartache and pain as a godly mentor and one who you served under a leader died.

In the year when when economic uncertainty and the future of your entire nation is being held within the balance.

It's just filled with such pain and anguish.

And I wonder how you would feel that line out in the year that Blank died.

Certainly we're in the year of the whole coronavirus, but I think for many of us, we are experiencing in the year of something dying.

In fact, for many relationships, this has created such stress and pain.

And, you know, we were able to distract ourselves or be have a lot of different things going on.

So some of those issues that you ignored or overlooked now have come to the top, and we're actually seeing uh an incredible increase in divorces in this season.

In the year that your marriage or those that key relationship began to crumble.

In the year, maybe it's where your job and uh your future is uncertain, in in the year where depression began to get its grips around you, or anxiety and panic and worry, in that year.

What do you do?

How do you respond?

Notice what Isaiah does next.

It says, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.

It wasn't on the mountaintop when Isaiah saw the Lord.

It was in the valley below, in the midst of the most difficult, painful season of his life.

It was in that year, in that moment.

And for some, you're right there in that moment.

Collectively, as a world, we're traveling in that moment.

And what I want you to know is God is more present and more real and wants to meet you in powerful ways in that year in this place right now.

And so, what do you do?

We do what Isaiah did.

Look up.

Would you look up and see God for who he really is?

See, we're looking at all sorts of things right now, aren't we?

We're looking at our social media feed, we're looking at the news feed, uh, we're looking uh at all, you know, Netflix binging, we're looking at the stock market, we're looking at so many things that have captured our attention and our uh our affection and our concentration.

And he says, No, no, no.

What do you do?

Look up from the Netflix binging, look up from the news feed, look up from your social media and look to Jesus.

Look up and see God for who he is.

Now, let me ask you this question.

What do you think about God?

Uh when you think about what is sorry, I gotta read this better.

When you think about God, what do you think about?

When you think about God, what comes to your mind?

I think a lot of us we don't know what to think about, or we've made God in our own image, and so he's too small to handle the problems.

Notice what Isaiah sees when he sees God, when he looks up and sees God.

It says this it says, I saw the Lord high and exalted.

The first thing he sees is that he's high and exalted.

This means that that Jesus is the focal point, the center of the universe, that he's above all else, that he's preeminence, that he's high and exalted, that God is actually the center of the universe, not the coronavirus, that God is actually the center of the universe, not our economic reality or the stock market.

God is the center of the universe, not the politics and the governments, and that's all going on.

He says, by the way, the first thing I see is that God, you are high and exalted.

You are above all else.

You're above this.

You're not in the middle of this in the way that you're being caught up in it.

You're actually high and exalted with full authority.

Notice what else it says.

It says, high and exalted, and then it says, seated on a throne.

When everything else is so uncertain, life is so chaotic.

God is in control, He is sovereign, He is the king of the universe.

Nothing is too big for him.

I I love the image of him seated because it means that he's not writhing his hands, worried or anxious about what's gonna happen next.

He's he's actually in control.

He's not surprised by the circumstances, he's he's in control.

In fact, the only place that we ever see God standing is in the scriptures is actually to welcome one of his martyred ones home.

Other than that, he is seated and in control.

Isaiah, when he looks up and sees God, he sees he's high and exalted, that he's seated and he's on the throne.

He's still reigning and ruling right now in this moment.

And then it says that the train of his robe filled the temple.

In the ancient day, the length of a train of the robe was the symbolic of the extent of power that a king had.

I loved when we're doing our if my people um prayer and fasting on Wednesday.

Uh Kirsten in our prayer gathering, in our noonday prayer gathering, talked about this and she mentioned that very reality.

And it is true.

And it's with the picture that Isaiah is getting in this uncertain time, in that year when the king died, is that the king is still on the throne and he still has all the power.

Even though Uzziah's wicked grandson's, you know, uh impact is starting to be felt, it's like the true king is still on the throne and has all the power and all authority.

Like, what would it be if instead of looking at all the stuff around you, instead of worrying, that you began to look up and see God for who he is, that he is high and exalted, that he is seated on the throne and he has full authority and power and dominion.

And then it says this, and it's such a beautiful picture.

It says, Above him were seraphims, these angels, each with six wings.

With two wings, they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying, and they were calling out 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.

What Isaiah saw was a holy God.

Holy, holy, holy.

The holiness of God is that he set apart in brilliant perfection and righteousness, that he's completely other.

In the Hebrew, they don't have the ability to say good, better, best.

That's just not built into their language, and to do it, they use repetition.

Holy, holy, holy is this triplicate to say there is none other like you in any other way.

You are completely holy, and you dwell in inapproachable light.

You're perfect beyond comprehension.

And holiness isn't something he does, it's something he is.

See, there's no other attribute of God that's repeated three times other than holiness.

And so when you think about God, he doesn't love the way we love, his love is a holy love.

When you think about God, his justice is a holy justice, his righteousness is a holy righteousness, his mercy is a holy mercy.

See, would you in this season, when you're being tossed and thrown by all that's getting in the world around us, would you look up and see God for who he is?

I want to give you a picture of what this does for us.

Um, I got this from my dad years ago.

See, when we're in the middle of a crisis or storm, our circumstances that are just unbearable.

I just want you to grab this quarter.

In fact, if you have a quarter at home, go ahead and grab it.

Is what happens is if you pull that quarter all the way up to your eye, um, this is what happens in the middle of storms or crises.

That we, if this quarter represents the crisis or the storm, it be we pull it all the way up right close to our eye, and it's the only thing we can see.

And we obsess over it and we see it, and it's so huge and it's so big when it's pulled all the way up here.

Now I want you to imagine your room being the size of God.

Now we know he's much bigger than that, he's infinite, but let's just imagine this room is the size of God.

And when we look up to see God for who he is, what it does is it's like extending our arm out, and then we get to see the expanse of who God is.

It doesn't diminish the pain or the heartache or that the uncertainty, but what it does is it puts it in perspective in light of who God is.

God, you are big, you're in control, you're sovereign.

I don't understand how it's all gonna work out, but I know that you're still in control and that you have a way of bringing beauty from ashes.

You have a way like Joseph, where when Joseph was talking to his brothers at the end of his life, he said, You intended it for harm, but God intended it for good.

Like God can do that.

And when we extend it out, all of a sudden it puts the circumstances in perspective in light of who God is.

And what do you do when you find yourself caught in a pandemic?

Would you look up and see God for who he is?

Every day, look up.

The second thing then is to look in.

Look in and come to grips with who I really am.

Now, here's what happens when you look up and see God for who he is, your only response then is to get really low.

Listen to what Isaiah and how he responds after this.

He says, Woe to me.

Like that word woe is like, I'm as good as dead.

I'm ruined.

For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

See, the more we are aware of who God is, the more aware we be.

Become of who we really are.

See, God's holiness, like we're talking about earlier, when we look up and see God, God's holiness acts like an x-ray machine into our soul and it reveals the broken areas of our lives.

And as we look up and see God, we can't help but look in and see ourselves as we really are.

And this is painful, and this is hard, and this is so important in this season.

There have been so I've watched, uh we were talking with um the Christian counseling center, and they said that addiction, anger, and uh depression, and all these different areas have rose triple in what's going on in their life, uh in their practices there.

And what happens is what we do is in our lives, we go, man, it's a pandemic, this is uncertain.

And so then we just begin to explain away some of the things that are destructive in our lives, as this is just how I'm gonna cope to get by.

And scripture invites us to look in and come to grips with who we really are and get real and experience healing and wholeness.

A.W.

Tozer, in his great book, Knowledge of the Holy, in fact, if you got time, which I think some of us do, and you want to look up, that's a great little book to do it.

He writes this until we've seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us, as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life.

We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as a natural and expected thing.

Would you in this season first look up and see God for who he is?

And then as you do that and as you encounter him, you cannot help but then look in and you begin to see yourself the way Isaiah saw himself.

Like, whoa, I'm unclean.

Now, here's what he did, and this is so powerful.

He confessed.

Confession is powerful.

Confession brings healing, confession brings wholeness.

See, confession simply is to agree with God about your sin or the state of your life.

It's to own up to your own junk.

It's to say, you know what?

God, the stuff that I've been streaming on Netflix or the things that I've been taking in on my phone are unholy.

And they're polluting my soul and damaging me and breaking relationships.

That anger issue, the substances that I'm going to numb out on.

God, I need help.

Confess.

Please, God, would you would you help me with my thought life?

Would you, I confess it is not honoring to you.

See, this is something so powerful.

Confession positions you to experience the grace of God in your life.

Like so many of us in this moment need to experience God's grace.

Isaiah confesses, like, woe to me, I'm a man of unclean lips.

My eyes have seen the King Almighty.

I confess that the words that come out of my mouth are not of you.

And then it positions you to experience the grace of God.

Notice what happens next.

In verse 8 or 6, it says, The one, then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

The minute Isaiah confessed, the angel flew over to the altar, grabbed a coal.

And this altar, by the way, was the place where substitute sacrifices were made for the sins of the people.

He takes a coal from there and touches the very part that was broken in Isaiah's life to bring healing and wholeness.

And don't miss this, it was the very part that God would then use to as ministry.

And that's going to be true for many of you as you confess, you begin to experience the grace of God, and he'll touch your life in that area, bring healing and wholeness, and then from that broken place use you for ministry.

Now, this altar, look forward to the sacrificial lamb of God one day being given for every single one of us.

See, the reality is, is for us today, we don't have to go to a temple.

Jesus went to the cross to be the final sacrifice once and for all, that whoever would confess that Jesus is Lord, they would be saved.

That you can find healing and wholeness.

And in this moment, there's some right now you need to respond to Jesus.

You're realizing I'm broken.

I need Jesus.

I want a relationship with God, with the God who loves me.

God, would you come into my life and make me new?

What do we do when we're caught in a pandemic?

We look up and then we look in.

We come to grips with who we really are.

And I think God is doing some really deep work in many of us through this season.

I remember seeing this scrolling marquee.

It was in a time, one of the harder seasons of our life.

We were living in Georgia.

I was at a job where they didn't really want me.

That wasn't going well.

There was some friction with family.

Our son was recently born and he was failing to thrive.

We're in and out of the doctor, and it was just broken and overwhelmed.

And like, God, what are you doing?

And as we're driving in Atlanta, there was this scrolling marquee.

I remember it so clearly, is pouring down the rain in Buckhead area.

And this marquee was at like a like a mall or something.

I don't even know why it was up there, but it says, God doesn't bring a man into deep waters to drown him, but to cleanse him.

And for many in this moment, this season is a season where God's doing some cleansing work in your life, and you haven't had the time, or you've just kind of excused it away, and where you would confess and get clean before Him, and He wants to provide grace and healing and wholeness in your life.

Would you look up?

Would you look in?

And then, and then finally, look out.

Look out and respond to God's call on your life.

See, what do you do when you're caught in the middle of a pandemic?

God doesn't just leave us to cope and hope that something might get better.

He actually says, I have a calling on you.

Would you look out?

Would you begin to ask a different question?

Like, not how can I make it through, but how can I serve?

God, how could you use me?

Notice uh what uh the text goes on to say.

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

And who will go for us?

And I said, Here am I, send me.

Here am I, send me.

You see, when you get a glimpse of heaven, God will give you a vision for earth.

Would you begin to start looking out?

Would you begin to start looking out and go, God, you've placed us here in this time, at this season, uh, in our country, in our world.

God, how can I serve?

Here am I, send me.

How can I love my neighbor?

Here am I, send me.

How can I encourage people in my family?

Here am I, send me.

See, there's something about getting life into its proper perspective in the context of who God is.

And then when you get clean before him, there becomes this holy boldness of like, God, okay, man, I can't believe what you've done in my life.

I can't wait to be used by you.

I love what Mother Teresa said.

She said, I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.

And I love that.

I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God.

Because I think sometimes when we hear that, here am I send me, we think big, grandiose things.

And Mother Teresa's just going, like, I'm just a little pencil.

It's the little things that make a massive difference.

It's being submitted and saying, I'm in the hands of you, God.

However, you want to use me to send a love letter to the world, would you use me?

It's the little things that make a big difference.

I was talking to a friend earlier this week, and she was telling me about just after fasting and praying.

And by the way, for our staff, God did such cool things, a vision of like getting life into perspective.

And then all of a sudden, like our team the day after that was way more encouraged than they had been, you know, since then.

And then thinking about other people and how they could serve and love them.

And she was telling me, like, God put a friend who's going through a really difficult time and has family members who are in a very like struggling with health and on her heart.

And so she went and just dropped off flowers, of course, kept the distance and all those sort of things.

And then God brought some other families that were in her school that weren't um, you know, knew they were going to be struggling and said, How can I serve them and provide some groceries for them?

I I just think, you know, when I think about my buddy uh Justin Buzzard over at Garden City, and he just started doing this.

He started doing a happy hour with his neighbors, and they stayed there six feet apart, and but every day afternoon at five o'clock, they gather the neighbors because this is isolating and alone time.

And it's a very simple thing that he's just like able to begin to lean in and say, I'm gonna love and serve you.

And it's just presence.

By the way, can we just start saying this?

Instead of social distancing, can we say physical distancing?

See, social distancing makes us feel even more isolated and alone.

We don't want to socially distance, but we need to physically distance on that side of it, and where we begin to go, okay, I'm gonna be present and social and love you the way Jesus loved me.

Now, for some, you're wondering, like, Ryan, that sounds great, but I'm just trying to get it, make it through the day.

I'm crippled by fear and anxiety.

And here's what I want to invite you to do exactly what we've been talking about.

Would you look up and see God for who he is?

In that, would you bring those fears and anxieties to him?

And I gotta let you know, there's something so powerful when you begin to ask that question, how can we serve?

And just that little step, not to be a big step, just that little step forward that then begins to just impact that anxiety, impact those fears and those moments.

So when you begin to get out of yourself and serve others, it is just it's incredible how God made us and how that will begin to fill you up.

So, what do you do?

What do we do?

When we find ourselves caught in the middle of a pandemic, well, you know what we've done.

Netflix, social media, news binging this week.

Would you look out to see God for who he is?

Would you look in and allow God to do the work in you?

And then would you look out and say, How can I serve?

How can I love my neighbors?

And in that, we will see a church rise and be what Jesus intended us to be in this season.

Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much.

Thank you that you actually speak into these very pressing and weighty hard times.

That you didn't leave us to just figure it out on our own, but you gave us such wisdom and instruction and direction.

So, God, I pray for each person that is listening to the sound of my voice right now.

Would you just meet them powerfully?

May they encounter you afresh.

May we be a people that look up from our screens and look up to you.

And would you use us to be your hands and your feet in Jesus' name?

Amen.