Not What You’re Meant to Be: Part 1 (Isaiah 2)

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All right, good morning. Go and grab your Bibles and turn to Isaiah chapter two. It’s page 554. If you’re using one of the Pew Bibles there, you don’t have a Bible, you can take that one with you, after the service, but page 554 there. Last week in youth group are watching it, we were watching a video series and heard a teacher give a story. And as I was thinking that I was like, Oh, my goodness, this is exactly what we’re talking about this Sunday, in this message from Isaiah two. So I wanted to tell you the same story, it was a teacher who was talking about going to Colorado and his brother and him deciding to go up to this resort and go on a trip together. And they get to the trip, and all of a sudden, some weird things start happening, like the bottom, bottom of his duffel bag just kind of falls off, and all of his clothes fall out. And then he’s putting on his socks later, and he pulls his socks up, only to find out he just pulls the top of the socks completely off. And so then his jeans start ripping as he’s walking just little holes and rips as he walks, he puts on a jacket and a chunk of the middle of the jacket comes off. And finally asked his brother, can I check your trunk? Sure enough, there was a car battery, an old one that had some acid that was seeping getting soaked and absorbing into all of his luggage, and all of his clothes. So he didn’t know that because it didn’t create these holes right away, it just kind of all soaked up and weakened, the fabric tool was ready to fall apart. If you put any sort of tension on it, it would just fall apart. And so it’s one thing and when it’s close. But the thing is, is we see these things happen all the time in life, when we build our lives on things. And we absorb these things from culture into our lives into our minds and into our hearts. And then all of a sudden, things start to fall apart. And at that point, it’s not quite as funny. And that’s exactly what we see here in Isaiah to the people of God have absorbed the world so much, that they are not who they were meant to be. They’ve taken all these different things from the world as is absorbed and soaked into every fiber of their being where you can’t tell the difference between who they are, and the world is. And just like the Israelites, the church. Same thing can happen. Right? The same thing can happen, what’s going on in the world, we can just start to absorb everything without even thinking about it. And it gets into everything. And pretty soon, we look more like the world and the world looks like us. We look more like the world and US influencing the world to the point where things will eventually fall apart. Now the research shows that this is true in the church, as they do studies and try and think what people hear in the church believing what people outside believe. And we’re not going to go through all that. But let me give you just three areas where we can see that maybe the world is having a little bit more of an influence on us. One of them is the us versus them mentality. For us in the church, that means we believe certain things, and they don’t so therefore they are the enemy. Or people look outside in the church and they see us have that us versus them mentality to our own people, to brothers and sisters in Christ. Why would the world ever listen to us about peace and unity and harmony when they don’t see it? Here? When they don’t see it in the Christian church, they’ll never listen to us. The second one is moral decline. And this has been going on for years. But we see a slowly but surely just starts to soak up and absorb into us that we start to look more and more like the world in our morality, what we accept and what we believe is okay. And the third thing is we want the same things as the world. We go after the same exact things they do. And we don’t even think about it. Because it’s absorbed into us into every fiber of our being this is just what we believe it’s the air that we breathe. And so this morning, and Brandon warned us last week, these five chapters are not friendly chapters. They should convict all of us, they should change us. And we need to be praying you need to pray. Now we sing it this morning, we need to pray for heart abandoned, that God would do something in our hearts. Because these are not the warm and fuzzy chapters chapter two is not either. It’s not that encouraging type of there is hope. There is grace in this passage this morning. But we need to come face to face with the fact that we are not who we were meant to be. And to do that we’re going to walk through the outline that you see in your notes there. We’re going to see that there is a vision for God’s people, that there’s rebellion within God’s people, that there’s judgment coming. And there’s a response for us.
So we’re gonna look at the vision. Look at chapter two, the first five verses. This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains, it will be exalted above the hills and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways that we may want walk in his paths. The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, Nation will take up sword against nation, nor will they trained for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. So here’s the grand vision. In the last days, there will be worldwide worship of God. That’s what’s going to be true. It’s all about him. Right there that should knock knock us down a little bit. When we look at the end, and we say, oh, it’s all about him. Like right off the bat, this is the vision that we have is the vision that Isaiah has. These verses are clear that there’s one God who reigned supreme. So all these other nations, all these other religions, all these other idols, what does it say? On these mountains, in these hills, they will be brought down, and the true God will rise up. He’s always been God, he always will be God. But now everybody will see clearly that he is who he said he is. Because everything else will be brought low. When people look up, they will see God and it will lead to his worship, they’ll say to one another, Let us go to the mountain of the Lord. And that’s what verse three shows. Look at verse three, says, Come, let us go up to the mountain Lord, to the temple of God of Jacob, and what are they seeking they’re, they’re seeking to hear from him his word, they want to hear what he has to say, because they know he knows what is best. And they want to hear from him. They’ll say, Let’s go to the mountain of the Lord. And as you’re reading this, and as you read through the Old Testament, you just know this always pointed back to Genesis 12. And the promise given to Abraham, this is what the Lord tells him. Lord had said to Abram, go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land, I will show you, I will make you a new, great nation, and I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And it says all peoples on earth, all peoples will be blessed. And that’s what we see in Revelation, people from every nation, tribe, and tongue are there. And that’s what Isaiah gives us here. Worldwide worship of God, from everybody, nations, tribes, tongues, people. And so we see that coming, right, coming and beat being fulfilled. In this passage. In similar language in verse three. Or sorry, in verse five, you see that there is a call to the descendants of Jacob, Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. And so here we have God’s people in saying, like, you need to come because you already know who this God is. So let’s walk in light of the Lord. And Romans nine as Paul’s going through talking about the Israelite people, what he says, Is this about the Israelites, they are the ones that are adopted. They have the covenants, they have the law, they have temple worship, and they have the promises of God. So come walk in that light. That’s what they were supposed to be doing. That’s what they’re meant to do. That’s what they’re meant to be. But what do we see instead? And these five verses, right, we see now not instead, what we see in these five verses what they’re supposed to be, they’re supposed to be a magnet in the world. This was the magnet attracting people to God. Right, that’s what they’re supposed to be here. We see this in the passage that they’re supposed to people are supposed to be coming up the mountain of the Lord, right up to the mountain Lord, being pulled up by the people of God who look different than them who stand out from the world. And of course, anytime you have some sort of prophecy, you have these partial fulfillments. And we’re waiting for that complete fulfillment. And so here we also think about Jesus. We think about his birth, His life, His death, His resurrection, because Jesus came to be the light to the Gentiles, to all the nations, through Abraham’s seed, all the nations would be blessed. And God as we see in Genesis 12, is a god on mission. God has not got a mission. That’s what he tells Abraham. He didn’t just leave it. Abraham said, All peoples will be blessed through us. So we see this partial fulfillment coming to the people of God.
They’re supposed to be a magnet. And Jesus came to bring hope to this world by breaking down barriers and now we as the church, we get sent out to follow the Great Commission to go tell people this good news. And then we wait that future fulfillment. How many of you as you as I read that we’re thinking about what’s going on in this world? In verse four, he will judge between the nations will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. And just the prayer that we have in this moment in this time in this world, come Lord Jesus, because we want to see that happen. We want to see the nations coming in, we want to see all of that go away. We want to see the weapons turn into gardening tools, not to be used for evil. So the people of God, the Israelites, and now the church are meant to be this magnet, we’re supposed to walk in the light of the Lord. And this is we’re meant to be. And as we go out, we trust that Jesus will call people to himself, as he says in John 12, you go out and I will draw people to myself. What a vision, what a vision to give us, God on His throne, nations bound before him, and we get to play a part in that work. But the people of God have always had issues, right, we’ve always had problems. So instead of being a magnet to the world, we have started to absorb the world instead, instead of pulling people up, we get pulled down far too often and far too easily. That’s exactly where Isaiah goes. Next. We are not who you’re meant to be recalled a walk in the light, and yet we rebel and we walk in darkness. Let’s look at that verses six through nine. To see this rebellion. You Lord have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. They’re full of superstitions from the east, they practice divination, like the Philistines and embrace pagan customs. Their land is full of silver and gold, there is no end to their treasures, their land is full of horses, there is no end to their chariots. Their land is full of idols, they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made. So people will be brought low and every one humbled, do not forgive them. These are some pretty jarring verses, as you’re reading. When you consider the opening of this and the end of this, what do you have? God has abandoned his people do not forgive them. What does that mean? God has abandoned his people? Well, when you look at scripture, and you see these moments where God has done this, we obviously see when the Israelites are taken into captivity. Alright, but many times the way that it’s described to scripture is God lets people go their own way. Okay, he lets them go the way that they want to go. Romans one says that He gives them over to the desires that they have. And so what God does here in this moment, this abandoning of his people is saying, if you want to live as if there is no God, I will let you do that. And that is a dangerous place to be. Unless it wakes you up. But to hear that, that he has abandoned his people, he says, If you want to live this way, I will let you live this way. So you can see where this ultimately leads. And it starts off innocent enough, right? How many of us get kind of hooked on some sort of idle something that we’re putting over God in a moment or in a day? Not usually, it’s that slow fade of making decision, after decision of giving in doing a little bit of this or a little bit of that, or thinking I’m just putting something away for a rainy day, and then that becomes something a little bit bigger than that, and you’d never quite have enough. And now all of a sudden, it’s running your life. It doesn’t usually happen in a day. It’s that slow fade. And it takes a lot of time for us to wake up. And if we could sum up what Isaias ministry is and the Ministry of every prophet, it is to give people a wake up call, like that’s basically their job description. Go out, tell people God’s word, and wake them up. Wake them up to the truth. And so before we know it, we’ve absorbed all these things into our lives, to the point where they become part of our identity. And now we have a hard time figuring out what’s true, and what’s a lie, what’s biblical, and what is worldly. There’s a word for that. You know, the word syncretism, of taking different religions, different thoughts, and philosophies and all this stuff and trying to live in a system of a bunch of other systems and trying to live consistently within that.
And it’s confusing. And it’s just absorbing everything else. And you look over Israel’s history. This is kind of just what they do. Aaron crafts a golden calf for the people to worship as their God who brought them out of Egypt, when they’re sick of waiting for Moses. The Book of Judges, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. Solomon decides to marry foreign wives and build altars and shrines to their gods and starts to worship their gods along with the one true God. So why has the Lord abandon his people? Because they abandon him. They abandon him, they’ve walked away from him. But we can’t think for a second that his promises are broken. When when we read that he’s abandoned his people, we start to get the sense of maybe he’s not truthful, or good. I thought he said this, I thought his word we could take him at his word. But here’s the thing. When he does this, there’s always a remnant. There’s always people who follow and trust Jesus. They’re always people. Right? They’re always people who are following Him are going after him. But generationally, and the majority of people may be walking away, but God’s promises are still guaranteed. Because the Israelite people weren’t going to be completely wiped out, and the church is going to prevail. Nothing can stop the church, because it’s not our church. It’s Jesus’s church. And this is what he said, is going to happen. So even in those moments, where you feel like the Lord is letting you go down this path, know that he is still good. He’s still got, he still has promises. And so we’ll get to in a little bit what happens for us to kind of turn and get back in the light of the Lord. But one way we know this isn’t this isn’t God just getting angry in a moment? Right, that’s, that’s how people will talk about I’ve heard people say this, it seems like he’s just flying off the handle, you know that he’s just a little bit impatient. It’s like when you’ve existed forever. You’re very patient. Right? We get impatient God does not how do we know that because in this description, I don’t know if you caught the word, but four different times, it says that the land was full of things full of superstitions, the land was full of gold and silver, the land was full of horses, and chariots and the land was full of idols. And if that wasn’t enough, there is no end to these things. It’s full, and there is no end to these things. So if the people are full of these things, they’re not filled with the Lord.
And they look no different than the rest of the world. So we need to step back and we need to say, is our worship pure? Do we do we sing the words heart abandon? And mean them? It’s a question we have to ask is, they’re all in allegiance for Jesus and him only? Or do we mix what we read in Scripture with the things in the world and absorb that all together and try to make it fit. If we do that, it will fall apart. And this is all of us. We’re all adding something to our faith, that again, with a slow kind of effect, it starts to get into our life, we start to make decisions, we start to again, not know what’s worldly and biblical, what’s true. And what’s a lie. So do we trust Jesus? Or do we absorb? So the four things that we see here in this text that they’re doing is kind of religions, different sorts of religions, they’ve got materialism, they’ve got belief in their military or political might, and then pride in themselves. So let’s take those one at a time. Here’s some questions that we need to ask for religion. Do you trust Jesus alone? Or do you trust Jesus in some twisted version of Christianity? Whether it’s cultural Christianity, that I do this? Because I’ve always done it? I’m supposed to do it? Or is it some sort of legalistic view of Christianity that I need to check the right boxes? And God will be pleased with me? Is it some sort of prosperity belief that if something wrong has happened in my life, the Lord must not be happy with me? So I need to do more? I need to give more, or is it something else? Material materialism? Do we ever? Do we trust Jesus alone, or do we trust in bank accounts? And homes and vehicles and investments and new gadgets? Military political Mike, do you trust Jesus alone? Do you put your trust in laws, or agendas? And then pride, looking at our own lives our own selves? Do you trust Jesus alone? Are you impressed by your efforts? You’re impressed by what you do, or doing things your own way? Because this was true of them. This is what they were doing. And it’s so easy for us to be absorbed into this culture, where everything tells us this is what you need to be. This is who you need to be. This is what you’re meant to do. This whole month, we see that in culture, everywhere you go, right? You be you Are you do you I don’t even know anymore. It’s probably both but the point is is like our culture is saying that like I listened to a song I and this was a song from a while ago. So again, it’s just showing Bachman Turner overdrive BTO okay. I was trying to get the boys listen some good old stuff. And then I were listening to songs like, oh my goodness, this is exactly what I’m talking about on Sunday. They have a very famous song called look out for number one. The lyrics of the chorus are look out for number one, and that’s me. Look out for number one. And the old song is just if you want to get ahead, you look out for yourself. And I’m sitting there thinking like, okay, I guess the old stuff isn’t that great. But that’s the truth. That’s just who we are. It’s part of us, and it gets absorbed into us. And we don’t even think about it. Think about it cannot get into the culture around us. Because that’s not what Jesus saved us. He did not save us that we could absorb culture. He saved us that we can impact culture, change culture through the gospel. We are not who we were meant to be. You cannot be a magnet to culture, you cannot be influential if you don’t look any different. We can’t. What are we supposed to be? So if we can go to the New Testament call on us as a church? What does scripture say about us? Matthew 513, through 16, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses saltiness, how can be made salty again, it’s no longer good for anything to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world, a town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp put on a bowl, and so they put on it stand it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. That is who we’re meant to be. That’s what we’re called to be.
And it’s like this stuff that gets Isaiah. Sorry.
We were just talking about this last night and I’m crying and now I feel like
I think Isaiah really loved God’s people.
So when he gets to the end here, and he says, so people will be brought low and everyone humbled, do not forgive them.
I think it was a mixture of anger and sadness. So sorry. But he isn’t in this moment telling God what to do. The meaning of this is that, God, there’s no possible way you can forgive people for this.
It’s almost asking it like a question. It’s unthinkable, the people you love, and you’ve saved to turn their backs on you. We don’t deserve forgiveness, Isaiah knows that. He sees the whole nation he sees generations of people walking away from the Lord. Thankfully, there is forgiveness. Because God is God who goes after rebels. Those who break his law, those who do their own thing. At the right time Jesus came after 400 years of silence. Light broke into the world, after 400 years where people probably thought maybe this is the time that God has actually abandoned us like he’s gone. And light breaks in the world, in a little town with the baby, the true light who is going to save his people and draw people to himself. And he came to demolish superstition. He came in to demolish comfort and security and idols to demonstrate that he is the one true God and to make a way for us to be saved through His death on the cross. That was one day. There is another day coming. It’ll be a different day. He didn’t come to judge the world the first time the second time, he will. So the question we need to ask ourselves is where is our trust? If that day is coming, because God will not stay silent. You ever in reading scripture ever gotten to those points where Pharaoh or some other leader said who is this God? It’s a bad question to ask. Because God will show up. And God will show you who he is. And at the end, he will not be silent, he will not be defeated. He will not be forgotten he will be shown for who he is. And if you live in rebellion and defiance of him, that moment will only bring fear. So look at judgment here. Verses 10 through 21. Go into the rocks hide in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of His Majesty. The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and the human and human pride brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. Lord Almighty has a dance store for all the proud and lofty for all that is exalted and they will be humbled for the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty and the oaks of Bastion for all the towering mountains and all the high hills for every lofty tower and every fortified wall for every training ship and every stately vessel. The arrogance of man will be brought low and human pride humbled. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols will totally disappear. People will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of His Majesty when he rises to shake the earth. In that day, people will throw away to the moles and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold which they made to worship. They will flee to caverns, in the rocks into the overhanging crags from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of His Majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. Everything that we’ve absorbed over time, will fall apart when God comes in judgment, if not before. We seek for truth in this section, because we’re not going to go verse by verse, here’s the four things that we can kind of pull out from this section on judgment. And this will happen in these last days, right, the day of the Lord. Number one, judgment is coming. All right, judgment is coming. Verse 12, the Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty for all that is exalted, and they will be humbled. That was not the first time Jesus came. But it is, the next time he comes. This day is still to come for us. It doesn’t matter if these natural things are things the Lord made that are great, like mountains and trees, or if it’s manmade things like these ships, everything will be revealed for what it is, and it will be brought low. No matter how great it appears to be compared to the glory of God, it will be shown for nothing. Nothing. Even the things that the Lord made, he’s showing everybody. Yeah, I’m the one that created them. So look, pass them to me, everything will be brought low. And it has this fearful presence of the Lord because his judgement is just so in those moments, people will know I’m getting the right judgment.
That’s scary. It’s scary when you lived your life away from God have defined him to know that his judgment is just and it will lead to a fearful It is a fearful presence. Lord, you just think of when the Lord shows up in Scripture. And it’s not for judgment. What do people usually do? This is participation time. They fall on their face, right? They’re terrified. Isaiah in chapter six is going to be brought into the presence of God, and he sees him and he says, Woe is me, I’m unclean. When you meet, and even just angels showing up, people would fall on their face. Why? Because God is bad, nobody because he’s good. And He’s pure. And we cannot as imperfect people stand before Him and not tremble and not fall down. But here, there is a different type of fear. Because we know his judgment is just so what happens when people know there’s just judgment coming. The second thing we see is that people will flee and hide. Many live now. And I’ve talked to some of them heard from others. They believe that if there is a God, okay, and he does come back, he does return or they’re brought before him that they will look him in the eyes. And tell him the reasons why they didn’t believe that they will look the God of the universe in the eyes and say there wasn’t enough evidence for me to believe that the look out in the eyes and say I wanted to do it my way. I looked out for number one, when that finger should have been pointing upward, and not at themselves. That’s how some people live. But when the judgment of God comes, people will not do that. Isaiah shows that people will run and hide from the Lord. My one question there is, have you ever heard of Jonah? Like, Jonah tried to run away from the Lord. You cannot do it. You cannot run from the Lord and His judgment. But for those of us in Christ, we’ve been covered. We have a strong tar we have a refuge that we run to when that judgment comes. Where we don’t need to fear in that way, because that wrath was absorbed on the cross. That’s what Jesus took for us. So that we didn’t have to be fearful in this way. When that time comes. The third thing is that God will be exalted. That’s just evident throughout the passage. He’s already reigning, he’s already King, he’s already supreme. But at this time, everybody will see it clearly. As Philippians two says, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven on earth, and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that who is Lord Jesus Christ is Lord, and He is king. Not everyone will acknowledge that in a repentant way. But everybody will acknowledge that he is truly King at the end. And number four, and this is sobering. You either come in humility to him, or you will be humbled. The greatest assault we have on God is our own pride. We have two choices. We can humble ourselves before Him, knowing who he is, or he will humble us. Verse 11, says the eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and human pride brought low, verse 17, the arrogance of man will be brought low and human pride humbled. Who will be able to stand up on that day? No religion, no religious leader, no false god, no man made idle, no human will be able to stand, the Lord will be exalted. On that day. Everything will be brought low. So do you recognize that truth? Have you repented in your own life of your pride of living your own way of saying, I want to do things my own way? I want to go this way. And not gods. Do you recognize that? Do you repent of that? Or are you content living that path? And usually, we’re condemning that because we don’t actually see the consequences. And Isaiah is saying, wake up. There is a day coming.
There is a day coming. So you need to throw away your idols. Now, throw away now not when it’s too late. When you’re like, Oh, looks like these people have a chance to throw away their idols at the end. Why are they throwing them away? They’re thrown away, because for the very first time, they realize they’re worthless. They can’t do anything. So maybe in a last ditch effort, I could throw my hours away, and I’ll go find a crevasse or a crack or a place to hide from the Lord. It’s too late. It’s too late. They know in that moment, there is nothing I can bring before the God of the universe. In this moment, my little silver idol, before the God of the universe, throw it away, run and hide, but they cannot hide. That’s a sobering thought. And that’s why we’ll read what he did this morning. First Thessalonians, one eight through 10 will be on the screen for you. Because every time I come to a passage like this, and Isaiah, I think of this passage in First Thessalonians one, the Lord’s message ring out from you not only in Macedonia, and acai, your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to say anything about it for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. They threw their idols away, they saw them for what they are. And they saw God for who he is. And now they’re saved from his judgment, from his wrath. And that’s when he calls us to as well. Last section in verse 22. We have a response, says, stop trusting in mere humans who have been a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in a steam? Why hold people in a steam when the breath that they breathe was given to them by the Lord. It’s all meant to show the temporary nature of who we are compared to the eternal God, stop trusting your own righteousness. stop trusting in your super healthy lifestyle or political agendas or possessions or investments or education, entertainment, whatever it might be, all of it is going to be gone. When he returns and brought low, everything in our life wants to compete for number one, just true. Everything wants to compete for that. We need to stop looking for human praise and glory and look at the cross in the empty tomb and see Jesus be exalted. I love what Andrew Davis says, commenting on this passage he says the LORD Jesus will be exalted someday. Therefore why not exalted now? Like it’s going to happen. So tossed out your idols now. Why not live by His word now? Now, because if we absorb the things of the world, we will get to the end and things will fall apart, like clothes soaked in battery acid. And so everybody has a choice. This morning, I’m going to talk to those of us who have been walking with the Lord and those of us who maybe are seeking and trying to figure out because I think what we see here in this passage is that this is something that we’re all tempted with. We’re all tempted with this. And so here’s our response this morning. If you know you’ve been living your life, your own way, I pray that you would have a healthy dose of the fearful presence of the Lord, in this moment in your heart, as we sing, as we pray that he does something to reveal Himself to you, maybe for the first time or maybe in a way that you haven’t thought of in a while you haven’t seen his holiness clearly enough. And here’s the great thing about today, it’s still time to throw your own idols away, to repent, and to turn to him again for the first time. Or maybe you just know you’ve been living your own life, ignoring what God has said. And you need to repent to that turn from them and walk towards him again. Because there will be a day where when you toss your idols, it will be too late, because you’ll only be tossing them out of fear, and that submission and love to the God of the universe. So stop trusting and man and walk in light of the Lord. Next up, I want to talk to you as parents. See parents indicated somebody else can come read this. Of the four C’s of family discipleship we talked about, consider that we need to consider our own walk with Christ, before we ever expect to influence our kids, right. So we need to consider as parents that we’re raising in this culture, we need to consider our walk with the Lord, because the same things we absorb they absorb.
If our home looks more like the world, then we’re not faithful to God’s call our life.
It’s just truth.
If our kids can’t figure out that there’s something different when they walk in their door, than when they walk into a friend’s house or their school, then something’s wrong in our home. We have to have hard conversations, we have to look different and be okay with the rest of the world saying they’re weird. And they’re different. Because Jesus was weird and different to a lot of people. We need to be okay with that we need to have those tough conversations. Our goal and Family Ministries, introduced it at the family ministry event a couple months ago that we want to raise kids the world can’t ignore.
And guess what that means they’re not going to be liked by a lot of people.
And if our goal is the world for them to be happy, then we will absorb all that and make sure they’re happy. Instead of being holy, and set apart for whatever God wants them to do. If they’re in a public school, you know, one of the things that we say is we want them to be salt and light in public school. And that’s great. Are you sure that that’s happening? They’re not being pulled down in the other direction? It’s a question we have to ask. And consider. Because we want our kids we want our kids be on fire for the Lord, we want the devil be terrified of them. The church, our name is city view. We changed it back in 2016. We did so intentionally we want our eyes to be in the city, Elmhurst surrounding communities as our mission field. It’s where the Lord has placed each of us. And he’s placed us here as a church on this corner. To be a city on a hill to be a light in the world. There are other churches in this community and surrounding communities that absorbed culture for far too long and look nothing
like this book.
And I don’t think that’s us. But I want us to be aware of that. Because the more and more we absorb culture without asking tough questions about seeking God’s guidance from his word. In 100 years, I don’t want somebody up here saying this church has absorbed the culture. And we cannot tell the difference between us and people out there. We need to proclaim the name of Jesus here because he is the one who gets exalted so we need to commit to being a light in the world together. individually in our homes and here at a church make sure people know salvation is only found in the name of Jesus and not in anything else that they can find in this world. So church, we need to come and walk in the light of the Lord together. Let’s pray. Lord, it’s your word is hard. It’s honest. It’s meant to change us to provoke a response in us. And so spirit I pray right now and each one of our hearts, you get that area that we are not handing over to you that we are not repenting of. We’re holding on to worthless, idle far too tightly, not giving it up. And so in this moment, Lord, give us a healthy dose of your presence. And that would lead to repentance. And that as we sing these songs in response, that we are praising you, with hearts truly abandoned, ready for whatever you call us to. And Lord, I pray as we sing, that we remember who you are, that you are going to be exalted and we need to exalt you now because you are the one who reigns supreme. And everyone will see that one day and we in this moment as a church, get to sing that truth and stand in that truth together now. Jesus, we love you. We pray this in Your name, amen.  Amen.