It's an honor to be here with all of you.
I want to thank Josh for giving me the opportunity to preach one
last Sunday. It's wonderful to be here with
all of you today and worship the King of King and Lord of Lords
with you one final time. We'll get in today's text, but
before we do, please join me in a brief moment of prayer.
Heavenly Father, you are holy. We shout the same words of Moses
from the Exodus. Who among the gods is like you?
Lord, who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome and glory,
working wonders? Oh God, who among the gods is
like you? Let us be reminded of that
today, that there was no one like you in the heavens or on
the earth. May you give us a holy
imagination of who you are, a refreshed reminder of Your grace
towards your people, and a bold faithfulness towards the call
that You have given us, even when it makes no sense.
Lord, you are faithful and true, and there is no one like you.
It is in your Son's holy and precious name that we pray.
Amen. The the 2000's pop band The
Script opens their song Break even with the line.
I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing, just praying to a God
that I don't believe in. And it's a heartbreak song, but
there's something raw and honest in that lyric.
In a moment of deep pain, the singer turns to prayer, even to
a God he claims that he doesn't believe in.
I think that taps into something bigger.
In our culture, when life slips out of our control, we grasp for
something, anything, that might give us control back.
And for a lot of us, prayer can drift into that category.
We put God in our back pocket for when times get tough.
We treat prayer like a tool to soothe our emotions, vent our
frustrations, or, if we're honest, manifest what we want to
happen. I've been doing hot yoga over
the past few months and before each class we set an intention
which often sounds something like you are the main character.
Visualize what you want. Manifest good energy, and the
universe will make it happen. Now I can get on board with
positive thinking, but if I'm not careful, the manifest
mindset can just slip right into my prayer life.
Suddenly prayer turns from what was a place of communion with
God into a place of manifesting what I want.
Running late? God, give me a good parking
spot. Or while I was in the seminary
and failed to to find the time to study.
God help me pass the test that I didn't study for.
Or a throwback to misses Rosa's third period Spanish class.
God make sure Nikki Richter wants to go to prom with me.
Spoiler alert, she did not. And sometimes the answer is not
to pray harder. It's to leave early and get
there on time, to find the parking spot, to create time to
study, or to just work on being less awkward around Nikki.
And don't get me wrong, God does care about the small things.
I think in Mark chapter 10 when Jesus asks the blind man, what
do you want me to do for you? He cares about our desires.
But if we only ever approach him as a divine therapist or cosmic
genie, we've missed something essential.
Because in scripture, prayer isn't safe.
It's not about leveraging God for what we want.
It's about encountering the Holy sovereign, ever creating King of
the universe, and Isaiah learns in his moment of crisis.
Seeing God for who he is doesn't just soothe us, it undoes us, it
remakes us, and it sends us out for the sake of others.
Our chapter begins with a timestamp.
It's like when the movie Gladiator opens with the screen.
In the winter of 180 AD, Emperor Marcus Aurelius 12 year campaign
against the barbarian tribes in Germania was drawing near to an
end. They are setting the context for
which the story of Gladiator will be told.
In the same way when Isaiah starts his chapter with in the
year that King Uzziah died, he's giving context to what is going
on around him. And be frank, is not good.
The Lord is about to send Israel into exile.
He's going to use the great empires of Assyria and Babylon
to judge the people of Israel as they persist in their idolatry
and oppression of the poor. And it was in the very moment of
crisis that the Lord revealed himself to Isaiah.
High and exalted, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.
The whole earth is full of His glory.
The Angel shouting holy, holy, holy is not mere repetition, but
it's rather exponential, each time emphasizing that He is more
holy than the previous breath. He is separated from everything
else in all of creation. God's holiness is not just about
morality, but it's about transcendence, it's about
otherness, and it's about His glory.
Isaiah cannot find the language to describe how magnificent,
wonderful, glorious, majestic and resplendent that God truly
is. And it was seeing God in all of
his splendor in his throne room that I made Isaiah realize how
broken he really is. Woe to me, I am ruined.
I'm a man of unclean lips. And it was see, in a radical
encounter with the living God leads to radical self-awareness.
There's no comparison to those around us.
It's an inward look of seeing how holy God is and how unholy
we are. See, God's holiness is not just
something to admire, it is something to be encountered.
And the good news is, God meets Isaiah in the very place of his
unclean cleanliness. The cold touches Isaiah's lips
not to harm, but to heal. The place of greatest brokenness
becomes a place of greatest calling.
There's a philosophy in Japanese art called I'm going to butcher
the pronunciation, so I apologize, but Kintuji.
And it's the art of repairing broken pottery with gold,
highlighting the cracks and breaks instead of hiding them.
It's this philosophy that embraces imperfection and sees
beauty in the scars of life. See, God does not discard broken
vessels. He heals them and fills them
with his glory to use. The very place where we feel the
most unclean becomes a vessel for beauty and calling.
It is exactly why Paul says to boast in your weakness, because
our own willpower will fall short.
But when we come to God, humbly confessing our sin and letting
Him cleanse us, those very weaknesses become the places
when resurrection power shows up.
That is when hell starts to shake.
Because when the weak rise up in mercy and power, death begins to
lose its grip. It is exactly from this posture
that we get to ask, Oh death, where is your sting?
Oh, death, where is your victory?
And it's that posture that we also get to hear the call from
God that Isaiah heard and say, here I am, send me.
It is from this place of complete and total surrender
where God does not smite Isaiah, nor does he leave him, but he
heals him and he calls him. But it's not a calling that we
might expect. It's a challenging call, and it
is deeply painful for Isaiah. God is going to send the people
of Israel into exile because of their disobedience, idolatry,
and forgetting the covenant with the Lord.
Sounds a little bit something like this.
OK, Isaiah, here's your mission. You're going to go preach my
word. But it's going to have this
strange effect. The more you speak, the less
they'll actually hear you. The clearer you make it, the
more they'll resist it and the eyes will glaze over it and
hearts will harden. It's not going to wake them up.
It's going to expose how far gone they already are.
And this is judgement through the word itself.
It's not God, it's not that God wants people to be blind and
deaf. I think if you look all
throughout Scriptures, quite the opposite, but it's when the
truth confronts stubborn idolatrous hearts.
It's like sunset sunlight on wet clay.
The same light that can soften can also harden depending on the
condition of the heart. And Isaiah understandably asks,
how long is this going to go on in in God's answer in verses 11
and 12 is heavy until the cities are empty, the land is
devastated, and the people are carried away.
In other words, so until the consequences of the rebellion
have run their course. So this is one of those places
where we see the paradox of God's word.
It's life to the humble, but it's a stumbling block to the
proud. Isaiah's role is to speak
faithfully even when it looks like nothing is working.
Because God's Word is not just about changing people, it's
about revealing people. Something what's already in the
heart. I think this can be really hard
for those of us who are swimming in the waters of 21st century
America. I don't just mean out there in
the secular world. I'm talking about in here in the
church. So much of the American church
has quietly swapped, quietly swapped Jesus.
Favorite way of talking about the Kingdom?
A seed in the dirt for a spreadsheet and a quarterly
report. We've basically rebranded the
Kingdom of God as a Fortune 500 company.
The goal? Growth charts up and to the
right, neat blueprints, predictable timelines, and the
highest possible return on investment.
And if you think I'm exaggerating on this mindset,
God is basically the CEO and the consultants down the street at
Bain are telling him you should really cut the dead weight and
move on. It's exactly the logic Judas had
when Mary pours the expensive oil all over Jesus and Judas
asks why this waste and Jesus? Jesus responses.
In my Kingdom, nothing is wasted.
In other words, you're running the wrong mental model because
the Kingdom is not a boardroom, it's a garden.
Gardens are slow and they're messy.
And yes, the farmer makes a plan and yes, seeds are scattered and
growth will happen, But the kind of growth, the form it will
take, the way that it all comes together, it's not something
that we can put on a schedule or a Google Calendar.
It's Genesis 1 all over again. God brings life out of the dirt
in ways that we can't control. It's the mystery of grace at
work in the soil. That's the entire through line
of scripture. Even in the book of Isaiah where
the message that he is going to proclaim is exile, is this very
book that describes God Creator as creator more than anywhere
else in all of scripture. Because that is exactly what God
does. He creates.
Even in the broken, messy world that we live in now, He's still
creating all around us. Around the same time that I
began my residency here at Garden, I also started working
at Greystone, which if you're unfamiliar, it's just a cafe
down the street. And I very much so viewed it as
a way to live out missionally and, and live my faith with live
out my faith and, and extend the love of Jesus to those who are
in our community that we gather every day or every Sunday.
And so over time, I got to know a lot of the regulars and I was
getting more and more comfortable with them.
And I was able to, you know, feel, feel like I could have
more spiritual conversations more, make some more invitations
to these people. And there was one in particular.
It was on Good Friday. It was a girl.
She'd been coming quite often. She just asked me what I was
doing that weekend. It's Easter weekend, so I was
celebrating Easter. I returned the question, what
are you doing this weekend? And she said, well celebrating
Easter, but I'm doing it at Hunter's and celebrating Sunday
Fun day in Southie. And it was this opportunity was
put on a silver platter. It was a pitch grooved right
down the middle. I could have invited her to this
place that I not only worship, but I work for them to come and
experience the radical love of Jesus through the resurrection.
Instead, I handed her iced coffee, said have a great
weekend and I'll see you Monday. My heart, it still breaks
knowing that I had this opportunity to extend the love
of Jesus to a person and I didn't.
I chose self preservation over an awkward moment.
And it probably would have been awkward and it would have been
far more awkward than it would have been amazing.
But it would have been Jesus if I just extended that love.
And it was in this moment that I felt the loving kindness through
rebuke of Jesus because so often I would pray on the train and I
would say, Jesus, give me an opportunity to share your love
today. And there was 1 morning when I
just heard him say, beloved you, you are the opportunity.
And it was in this in, in this moment.
And then I just, I was able to shift my mind.
And honestly, there was such a freedom in that.
I think I noticed the way that I showed up even more open and
engaged, really having a heart for working with excellence and
love. Well, I never saw anyone come to
faith in Jesus and no one ever accepted my invitation to join a
Sunday gathering. I can confidently say that I
lived intentionally trying to love them more than the world
does. There was actually one couple
that came regularly that I got close to when we got dinner a
couple times and they just spoke such kind words and we're so
grateful for my time at Greystone.
And I don't say that to say, hey, look how good I am at
making friends, rather the opposite.
Before I had that encounter about being faithful, I would
have never had that impact. It was simply by surrendering to
Jesus that I was able to enter into these people lives, get to
know them and have some really good conversations.
Actually, I grabbed breakfast with the the gentleman from the
couple yesterday, just doing my round of goodbyes before leaving
and he asked me something which I I would never have thought I
would have been asked this question, but here we are.
And he just said, how are you so hopeful?
It's not a word I would describe myself, but my answer was
simple. Has nothing to do with me.
Simply because of Jesus and His grace.
See, grace is a celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all
the non celebrants in the world. It's floating cosmic bash
shouting its way through the streets of the universe,
flinging the sweetness of his causations to every window,
pounding at every door in hilarity beyond all liking and
happening. Until the prodigal's come out at
last and dance and the elder brothers finally take their
fingers out of their ears. That was Robert for our Capone,
and while they didn't come to faith after our conversations or
enter the throne room like Isaiah did, maybe they will in a
few years. Maybe the Lord was using me as a
seed or as a stump that will blossom into a beautiful flower
of faith. Because along the way, other
faithful people will be able to have a similar relationship with
them and continue to love them more than the world does.
Because at the end of the day, that is what living a life with
Jesus is all about. It is about receiving a love
from Him like no other and then giving that love to those people
around you. The most impactful thing you can
do for the Kingdom of God is to love the person that is closest
to you. And by closest, I mean
geographically, the person that is closest to you on the street
and the office in your neighborhood.
More than the world loves them. Spreading a word that is about
how much more the Lord God Almighty who is holy, holy, holy
loves them. And it may not yield the results
that we want or long for, but God is not asking you and I to
be a people who produces outcomes, but rather a people
that is obedient. You see Jesus actually quotes
this passage from Isaiah in John chapter 12.
So after he enters Jerusalem it through the cries of Hosanna.
Even after Jesus had performed these so many signs, they still
would not believe. And then John will quote Isaiah
6 after he writes and then say Isaiah said this because he saw
Jesus's glory. This means that the throne room
encounter that Isaiah had was Jesus on the throne.
The glory that filled the temple was his, the voice that called
Whom shall I send? It's his.
And when Jesus is lifted up, it's not in the temple, but it's
on a cross. And the throne is wood, the
crown is thorns, and the robe is blood soaked.
And that's where glory lives. There's a there's a theory in
economics, the greater fool theory.
And essentially what it is, it's like hot potato.
There's this product that no one thinks is valuable, but they
think there's someone out there, fuller, more foolish to buy it.
So I'm going to buy it and wait for the fool to come and buy at
a higher price. And I think when thinking about
the Kingdom of God, that is who God is, God is the greatest
fool. There's this this beautiful
thing, the church, like I said, it's messy and it can can it
feel times really painful and really hard.
But God's not passing the buck. It stops with him and he absorbs
the cost, which I think is the most foolish thing in the world.
But as Isaiah will go on to say later in his chapters, his ways
are higher and our ways are foolish.
See, Jesus dealt with the same difficulty that both you, myself
and Isaiah are dealing with. This is going off of the back of
him raising a dead guy back to life.
They still didn't believe, and the message is always going to
be hard. Yet through faith and obedience,
Jesus models that this isn't about yielding results.
It's about being obedient to the very end.
And that is the same thing that you and I are called to.
You and I are being called to something that might seem
foolish. It might seem like it's
wasteful, but in God's economy, there is no waste.
It's from here that we are called to trust God to the seas
we scatter. He will do the growing.
So this week I invite you to pick a place, whether it be your
office, your local coffee shop, or the park where you take your
kids. And imagine what it would be
like if we went with a refreshed vision of God and said, before
going here I am, send me. And went and offered that vision
of God to our neighbors, our friends, and even the people
that we don't particularly like and proclaim and demonstrate
that the God of the universe is relentlessly pursuing them with
his love. And are we willing to do it even
if it falls on deaf ears and hearts remain hardened?
Do we trust Him enough to go even when we don't see the
fruit? Do we trust Him enough to pray
bold prayers even if they feel foolish?
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of
God.