Fear Over Faith - [Isaiah 6]

I wanted to start this morning with a simple question. What do you want your life to be for? For example, what do you want the top line of your obituary to say? What do you want to be the thing that you are most known for in this life? I got to thinking about this because I heard an amazing story last week about the guy who invented dynamite. He had this rare moment where he actually read his own obituary in the paper. He was a Swedish chemist back in the 1800’s named Alfred, and he created a new high explosive which he named “dynamite” - and he believed that his invention would make war so horrible that it would never happen again because it would become so awful, so terrible that no one in their right mind would be willing to inflict that kind of terror on somebody. But he was wrong, of course. And it’s interesting that Oppenheimer, Father of the atomic bomb, had the same thought a hundred years later. Somebody asked him one time, asking about the nuclear bomb, “is it big enough to end all wars?”  They hoped it would. But back in 1867 poor Alfred was a little naive on just how horrible humans are willing to be to one another - and instead of ending wars, dynamite made them more devastating and wide-ranging than they had ever been before. He was horrified by his invention, but had no idea what to do about it. At the same time he made a fortune from the sale of dynamite. 

Then one day, around the turn of the century, something interesting happened. Alred woke up, opened the morning newspaper and read his own obituary. It said, “Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in war than ever before. He died a very rich man” - which obviously is a very upsetting thing to read while you’re having your morning coffee. What had actually happened is that the newspaper got it mixed up, it was Alfred’s older brother who had passed away. But as you can imagine reading that obituary, reading that one sentence description of his life, it messed with his head. He realized he didn’t want to be known primarily as the person who developed the most effective killing machine of his generation and amassed a huge fortune doing it. That sounds like the story of a villain, and not a hero - right? Now you may have already caught it when I said his last name. But Alfred the swedish chemist who invented dynamite dedicated the last few years of his life to establishing a prize, an award for scientists and writes who foster peace. Alfred Nobel, creator of dynamite AND the Nobel Peace Prize said, “every man ought to have the chance to correct his epitaph in midstream and write a new one.” Alfred Nobel was given a chance to make a change, he was given the chance to make a big turn, to choose forces of good over evil, and ultimately when he did pass away - he was known not just for creating dynamite but also for creating the most well-known peace prize in the entire world. So let me put it to you again - what do you want your life to be known for? What do you want to be written as the top line in your obituary?

You see today we are starting a brand new series called Fear Over Faith - and we are going to see how the fear of God can actually lead us to a life of faith. There is so much fear in this world. So much anxiety and tension. For some of us it’s politics - if one side wins or the other, it will be literally the end of the world. For some of us it’s economics - my job and my bank account and how I’m going to provide for the family and life that God has given me. For some of us it’s relationships - how to navigate the tricky dynamics with the people who are closest to us, but that also means they can also hurt us the most. We are worried. And we are stressed. And we are afraid. But what if there was a type of fear that didn’t drag us down, but rather fear that helped? Fear that leads us to trust God more freely, to worship him more exclusively and follow him more faithfully. If fear of God can replace all these other fears - I would want to know more.

And so if you want to grab your bible, we are going to be in Isaiah, chapter 6. For this month I am still using the NIV translation. There are lots of good translations, but this is the one we have on the shelf in the back. And I want to encourage you, if you don’t have your own bible, or if you don’t know how to look it up on your phone or just forgot it in your car - please feel free to go grab a bible. That is a resource for all of us, and sometimes it’s just nice to have a physical bible to hold. However you want to get into the word - we are in Isaiah chapter 6 today. Now before we dive in, I want to paint a little bit of a backdrop for you this morning. Isaiah is one of the old testament prophetic books - and the old testament prophets are amazing, there is such rich stuff in here, but they’re also very tricky to read. So there’s two things you need to know in order to really understand this stuff. Number 1 - Prophets were the mouthpiece of God. Their whole job was to receive the word from God and then share it with the people. They weren’t just fortune tellers or con artists, in fact if someone was a false prophet - if they were ever wrong, they were put to death. But the real prophets were the mouthpiece of God. God would give them a message and say, “tell this to the people” or “tell this to the king” or “tell this to the whole city” or something like that. And then the prophet would go and speak the message. In fact, there are some books in the bible that are histories. First and second Kings, first and second chronicles - those are histories, this army defeated this area and this guy was king and he had this many goats, and then the next guy had even more armies and he fought this group from over here. There’s whole books of the bible that are just big historical events. Prophetic books like Isaiah happen at the same time as those history books - but they detail all the warnings that God gave to the people. You can actually take the prophetic books and put them on top of the history books, because they happened at the same time. 

The second key to understanding prophets is that they traffic heavily in metaphors. Sometimes they would get dreams or visions from God, and simply put - they were SUPER WEIRD visions. And so the hard part for us in the modern world is trying to figure out what the visions mean. Now, thankfully, most of the time - the prophet will tell us. For example, “I saw a vision of a boiling pot of water tipping over from the north which means that the armies of our enemies are going to flood down on us from the north” or something like that. And we, sitting at home with our popcorn, we’re like, “alright, I’m totally following that. Boiling water is bad guy armies and we know what direction they’re coming - got it Jeremiah.” So that’s prophets, and Isaiah is one of the most famous prophets in the bible. 

Verse 1 he says, [read v.1-2] see what I mean? Weird. [pause] And I hope you know that when I say stuff like that, I’m not trying to be disrespectful in any way. I love the word of God and I take it very seriously. But I’m not going to pretend like a creature with six wings is normal. That’s terrifying. That’s crazy. This is a very strange scene. But it keeps going, [read v.3-4]. Now I don’t know about you - but for me this scene has such a mixture of really cool and also completely terrifying. And the effect on Isaiah? Is complete terror, look at the next verse, verse 5, [read v.5]. Isaiah has this vision of God, he sees the lord exalted and sitting on his throne surrounded by the angels, the seraphim, they’re singing about his holiness. And he is completely undone. He just falls apart. He knows how glorious and perfect and incredible God is, and he knows how broken he is and he can’t handle it. He’s terrified. Now this leads us to the first major thing I want you to grab onto to this morning. With an understanding of who and what God is, comes fear.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but growing up I didn’t worship a holy God. I worshiped an imaginary God that I’d made up in my head. He was this super non-judgmental butler/cheerleader - I would ask him to do stuff and he was always on my team for every social and moral issue. Ahhhh, and he was such a convenient God. And I got a lot farther into my faith walk than I care to admit before I realized who the true God is. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the actual thing that is out there who the Seraphim call holy - as I studied the word of God, as I got to know who he is - I rediscovered awe. It was an amazing moment in my relationship with Jesus to realize that I am not in control of what God is like. I rediscovered awe. I think American Christianity uses up too much awe on the grand canyon and babies and too little on the God of the universe. We need to reclaim a sense of AWE. Because with understanding of who God is, comes fear. When you are confronted with the reality of God - the eternal, all powerful, all knowing, righteous, holy, completely perfect and glorious creator of the entire universe - it’s okay if you need to change your pants afterwards. And when I say “fear” I don’t mean like ‘horror movies” or “eek, a spider!” The kind of fear I’m talking about is more like if you’re digging around in your purse and you find a gun. You know, you just sort of shove your arm in there looking for your keys or your cell phone and instead you pull out a 9mm Glock G17. And you’re just sort of ahhh! I thought I was messing around with harmless knick-knacks, gum wrappers and chapstick but now I have contact with something that is very powerful and needs to be treated with respect and care. One of the greatest lines in the bible and I think it goes well with this series comes out of the book of Proverbs Chapter 1, verse 7. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Isaiah sees the glory of God and he is undone. He cries out, “woe to me!” 

 And so we keep reading, [read v.6-8]. So Isaiah starts from this posture of a quivering puddle on the floor. God I am unworthy to be in your presence. Then an angel brings a coal from the altar, touches his lips and says, “your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for.” Now there’s two big things I want you to catch from this. First, notice how he doesn’t say “OH Isaiah, sweety dear, you are perfect just the way you are.” No, in fact, the angel does not disagree with Isaiah’s assessment. You should be undone. You are not worthy to be here. You should be in a puddle on the floor. But I’m not going to leave you that way. He takes the coal, touches his lips and he says, “your guilt is taken away, your sin is atoned for - now you are ready” and that’s is the second thing I want you to catch - Isaiah did not start out ready, but God made him ready. So many of us in our lives, we think “I am not prepared” and we let that mental block hold us back from reaching lost people. There’s an old line - God doesn’t call the prepared, he prepares the called. The only thing you need to bring before the throne of God is a willing spirit. God can do the rest. Isaiah says, “I am undone! I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips” And God’s response is “Yup. I can work with that.” Your brokenness does not disqualify you. No, God’s glory qualifies you. Like Isaiah all we need to do is say, “take the coal, cleanse my lips, here I am.”

Now this might feel like a rabbit trail, like I’m off topic, but actually this is the whole point. God doesn’t NEED to work through Isaiah. On his own Isaiah’s kind of a mess, I’m not sure he can handle this job. God doesn’t need to work through Isaiah, but in his infinite wisdom and glory and power he has chosen to work through Isaiah. And this actually echoes through the generations into our lives for today. I said it last week, but I want to repeat it here: You are God’s favorite method for transforming the world. We don’t get a lot of six winged seraphim showing up in front of the throne of God in the year of our Lord 2024, but you know what we have a lot of in West Michigan? We have a lot of people who claim the name of Jesus and at the same time when they walk out the doors of the church on a Sunday morning they believe that their job is completed, instead of just beginning. If you know the history of Israel, you know that this is mostly God’s action. Isaiah and the other prophets - they’re just along for the ride. They don’t actually DO much. They just talk a lot. So why does God use Isaiah, why does God use US to solve the problems of the world, rather than coming down and doing it himself? 

It’s actually very simple. Our participation in God’s plan changes us. It is for our GROWTH. Let me see if I can explain it like this. My wife is a wonderful cook. One of the greatest obstacles on our journey towards healthy-ness is that she loves to bake. Loves to make delicious treats. She is so good at making them and I am so good at eating them - it’s like a fairytale love story. Now, if she wanted to make some brownies, She knows how to do that. It goes a lot faster when she just does it herself. If my children get involved - it will be messier, it will take twice as long, and it will not look as clean and perfect as it would if Sara just did it herself. It would be faster if she just made them herself, but then my kids don’t know how to make brownies. Our participation is not because God needs help. It’s because we need growth. 

Now there is one more big point I want to make before we finish up. I don’t have time to get into it too much, but the rest of the chapter is a lot of God explaining to Isaiah just how hard the job is going to be. God warns Isaiah, they’re not going to listen, it’s not going to be easy. And in verse 11 Isaiah just responds, “For how long, Lord?” God tells Isaiah about the frustrations he’s going to face when he tries to reach lost people - and his response is “so, how long do I have to do this?” And I think this just punches through the ages right into our lives here and now. Have any of you ever tried to reach people in your life with the truth of Jesus? Or even just tried to help someone - and it’s so frustrating because sometimes it feels like they won’t even help themselves? In our world this is a false narrative that says, “Well hey, if I’m doing God’s will - then the path will be smooth.” But I want to show you this morning that there is absolutely nothing in scripture to back that up. God’s promise is the destination, not the comfort of the journey. God promised that he would be with Isaiah. And the promise is only worth as much as the promiser. The reason that we put our trust and our hope in Jesus is the same reason that makes us quake in our boots when we are in his presence. When we understand the raw, untamable power of the holy God of heaven, and it causes us to be afraid, to shake in his presence, to approach him with fear and trembling, in reverence and in awe - because we know who he is, we know what he is, we know what he can do. That fear is the same thing that gives us the confidence when he promises something to us. The power that makes us cover our face as we approach holy ground is the same power that makes the promise trustworthy. 

Some people don’t want to be afraid of God. There’s a discomfort, we don’t like to talk about the “fear of God” We prefer to think of God as our best friend slash genie in a bottle who makes us feel good. But the feel good Jesus who does not inspire awe is not the guy who is going to get us over the hurdles we face in life. What I hope you realize with this whole series is that the fear of God is actually a gift. It’s not meant to make us scared, it is meant to make us confident in the power of the one who loves us. We need to remember that power, that holiness of the one who sends us in the moments when the obstacles seem like too much. The promise is only worth as much as the promiser. Watch this. Isaiah chapter 6 started with these words, [read v.1]. Now you stay there in Isaiah, and I’m going to jump over to John chapter 12, verse 41, [read it] The Lord who Isaiah saw on the throne in power and glory was Jesus. The calling of Isaiah makes it abundantly clear - if you are going to try and reach lost people with the love of Jesus, it’s going to be so hard, and there will be so many obstacles. But the power of the one who said he would be with us reassures us that he can get it done - no matter what comes our way. 

The good news I have for you this morning is that you are called by God to participate in saving lost people. It’s actually built into the mission of this church. As a lot of you already know, our church is part of something called the Zero Collective. And a part of our mission is to see Zero Lost people. As a church, we know our story is not just about us. Our life is not the drop in the pond, it is the ripples that we create out into the world around us.

Now here’s probably the biggest thing I want you to take away from Isaiah. A posture of fear and trembling is probably the best way to approach people who don’t know Jesus. Our goal as a church is to create zero lost people, but do you have any idea how condescending it sounds to go up to someone and say, “you’re lost, you’re broken - let me save you.” Isaiah reminds us that we are not perfect people out there trying to help those poor unfortunate souls, those not perfect people. Lost people are like magnets - they attract one another. If you pretend you are not lost, that you are perfect and all is well - then you repel lost people. But the truth is we are a puddle on the floor. We are undone by the glory of God, . We are not perfect - no, no. We are starving people trying to show other starving people where to find the bread of life. I’m going to say that again, it’s not my line - I got it from somewhere else but i don’t remember who said it. We are not better than other people. The fear of God reminds us to start from a place of humility. We are merely starving people showing other starving people where to find the bread of life. The thing that saved us. The God who loved us. The one who redeemed us. And we want that for other people. You are called by God to participate in saving lost people.

So I have two challenges for you this week. Number 1 - in all your imperfections, in all your chaos and disorder and broken, stumbling efforts - start with “here I am”. If you’ve ever had a moment like Isaiah, where you see the glory of God and think, “I don’t deserve this. I can’t do this. I’m not good enough. I’m not holy. I’m not good. I’m not enough.” I want you to start with “here I am.” There’s not a single Christian in the history of humanity who came to God “clean.” We are, all of us, broken. But like the angel with Isaiah, God comes to us and says, “I’m not going to leave you like that.” In a couple of weeks, at the end of the month, we are going to celebrate baptism. And I want to challenge you - if you have not made that step yet. Or if you’re considering it, but you’re holding back. God wouldn’t want me. God can’t use me. The stain goes too deep for God to clean - I want you to let God’s truth push through those lies. Start with “here I am.” Take that step of faith, to call on his name. Take the coal, cleanse my lips, here I am.

My second challenge comes after the first. Once you have said, “God, here I am” I want you to ask yourself this question. Let’s put that on the screen. “God, who are you calling me to reach?” I want you to ask that question, and then I want you to wait. Wait with expectation. Who is God calling you to reach? In your life - at work, on the soccer field, with your kids or your grandkids, that one barista you always smile at when you get your morning coffee. There are people in your life that God will introduce to Jesus through you. Ask him, God who are you calling me to reach? And wait for his response. All we can ever bring to this conversation is ourselves. God - Here I am, who is lost like I was lost?

There’s an old story about a man who fell into a pit on the side of the road. A business man walked by, successful and wealth. And the man in the pit cried out, “Please help me!” But the business man kept walking - too important to help. Then a mom walked by, with her gaggle of kiddos. And the man cried out, “please, help me!” But the mom kept walking - too busy to help. Then a random stranger walked by, saw the man in the pit and jumped down next to him. The man in the pit said, “you idiot! Now we’re both stuck down here!” And the stranger responded, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before - and I know the way out.” I think about Alfred Nobel reading his obituary and that question echoes through my mind. What do you want to be known for? Do you want to be know as the inventor of dynamite or for the nobel peace prize? Do you want to be know as a disciple-maker or a sanctuary seat warmer? Let pray.