Sermon Tone Analysis

*A High View of God**                  *

* *

*Isaiah 6:1-9*

*Sunday AM Service **12-31-06*

 

*Prelude*

I want to thank Bro. Jim for giving me the opportunity to preach to you today and thank you for allowing me the privilege of sharing God’s word with you this morning.

You know, when you preach in a church that is not your home church, it is really difficult to know what to preach on being unfamiliar with the needs and circumstances of the church.

However, I do know that your church is presently in the process of searching for a new Pastor, so I thought that this morning and this evening, I would offer some advice on two essential and foundational qualities to look for in anyone you might be considering calling as your pastor.

Now the good thing about this advice is that it is free, and yes, I know some of you may be thinking, “Yah! and you get what you pay for”.

But I trust that won’t be true of this advice because I believe it is the advice of Scripture.

The two qualities that I believe are absolutely foundational and essential in any pastor wanting to grow a church God’s way are that he must have: “*A High View of God*” and “*A High View of Scripture*” and an unwavering commitment to build those qualities into the */warp and woof/* of the church he is called to pastor.

Without these two qualities trying to build a church would be like trying to put walls up on a house that had no foundation or frame.

It is these two matters that give structure and form and keep everything in its proper place in every genuine spiritual building.

So I want us to look at these two matters, this morning at the need for “*A High View of God*” and then this evening, the need for “*A High View of Scripture*”.

With that said turn to Isaiah 6 and stand as we read the first 9 verses.

(I am reading from the NASB).

*Text*

*Isaiah 6:1-9* /1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!

Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

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

7 And he touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I.  Send me!” 9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.’/

/  /NASB

/ /

*Introduction*

Whether we are speaking of the local church as a whole or the individuals in it, I believe that the foundational starting place for all true spiritual growth is to have a High and Proper View of God.

 

*Ephesians 2:19-20** states, */19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,20 *having been built* upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, *Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.

*/It is Christ Jesus, *The Lord God*, who is the foundational corner stone of every genuine spiritual building.

*It is a proper and high view of God which is the beginning of, and the basis for, all spiritual growth*, whether corporate or individual.

What I am getting at here is that it is of the utmost importance that we see God for who He is in relation to who we are because that is what puts everything else into its proper perspective.

The starting place for true growth is to see God for who He is—GOD!

I believe this is what verses like Proverbs 15:33 are getting at where Solomon tells us that it is: *Proverbs **15:33** */The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility./

God generated, Holy Spirit empowered growth, starts with a proper “/fear of the Lord/”, with a proper awe, reverence and respect of who He is.

*We live in an irreverent, disrespectful, immoral and self-indulgent age.

*And I am sorry to say that many of these attitudes which are so indicative of our culture, have spilled over into our personal lives and into the church today.

*I believe the prevailing attitude of our day is aptly described by the Apostle Paul in **2 Timothy 3:1-4*/ But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God./

*More and more today we as individuals have become self-centered, and more and more, the church has become man-centered* which I believe is a strong indication that by and large, both individually and corporately, we have lost a genuine “/fear of the Lord/”.

Because of this, the church more and more is becoming an organization dedicated to the building up of self-worth and the entertainment of the saints, rather than being a living organism dedicated to Glorifying, Worshiping, and serving the one true God.

I am very concerned about the *self-help, personal prosperity, number oriented, and felt needs focus* that have become so prevalent in the modern American church.

These doctrines, which focus on man’s desires rather than on God’s majesty, rob God of His glory and detract from our genuine love and admiration of Him.

As believers, our attention should be directed God-ward not man-ward.

We need to follow David’s example as he put it in *Psalm 16:8 */I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

/Everything that came to David, came to him through his focus on God.

(Expound – as long as his focus was on God, he could not be shaken).

To maintain a proper focus, we must have a high and proper view of God.

The problem is that there is a casual, sometimes flippant attitude at work toward God in our culture today.

We can see this in some of the ways God is referred to, such as, “/good buddy/”, or “/the Big Guy upstairs/”, or “/my pal God/”, or “/God understands me/, (i.e., condones my sin)”.

Or, one of my favorites, “/I think God has a sense of humor/”.

Well, God does have a sense of humor, but He doesn’t laugh at the same things we do.

Note, *Psalm 37:12-13 */12 The wicked plots against the righteous, And gnashes at him with his teeth.

13 The Lord laughs at him; For He sees his day is coming.//

/*What God laughs at, we don’t think is funny.*

Even so, /God is joked about and referred to in the most irreverent and disrespectful ways today in both the secular world and in the church.

How often do you hear God’s name used by people in a trivial and flippant way, or just as an exclamation like, “O my God” which, *among other things, is a clear violation of the third commandment — */*/do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain/*/./

And people will excuse themselves by saying they didn’t really mean anything by it and were not intentionally demeaning God.

And I think that is my point, God has become so minimized and trivialized by our culture that we no longer even recognize when we violate His majesty and holiness.

Contrast this commonly expressed, flippant, disrespectful attitude toward God with the way Scripture speaks of our God.

*Hebrews **10:31** /It is a terrifying thing/*/ to fall into the hands of the living God./

 

*Philippians 2:12-13*/ 12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with *fear and trembling*; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure./

*Hebrews 12:28-29* /28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service *with reverence and awe; 29 for our God is a consuming fire.*/

What a contrast to the flippant, disrespectful attitude so often expressed towards God today.

The problem is that by and large, we have lost a proper view of who God is in relation to who we are.

*All too often people see God as their peer or as someone to do their bidding and take care of their woes, rather than seeing Him properly as their Maker and King.*

All too often people forget the about the perfect righteousness and elevated position of the one and only true God.

*And because people believe they deserve mercy, Justice is now often viewed as being unjust.*

People are shocked by the idea of a just God who executes judgment against sinners because they no longer view God with the awe and respect He deserves.

*People, both in and out of the church, have lost a proper and high view of God.*

 

Often people will begin to lower their view of God by trying to make an invalid distinction between the “O.T” God and the “N.T” God.

People will ask the question, “What kind of God is the God of the O.T.?”

 

The typical critics line is — What kind of God sends the Israelites into Canaan and tells them to wipe out all the people?

*"That's not the /spirit/ of Jesus is it?"*

"What kind of God does that?"

*"That's the O.T. God not the N.T. God." **Well, what kind of God does send His people into **Canaan** with the command to wipe out all its inhabitants?

*A God who hates sin.

That's who.

*The Canaanite people were a cancer on society.

They were destroyed as an act of God's judgment, by a God who cannot tolerate sin against a people whose cup of sin was full.*

*And the God who hates sin in the Old Testament is the same God who hates sin in the New Testament.

**I only know, and the Bible only reveals one God.

Not one Old Testament God and one New Testament God.

The God of the Old Testament is the same One we meet in the New Testament and He is a God who hates and judges sin.

*Scripture provides ample examples of the fact that God is a God who hates and judges sin.

We will only have time to mention a few of these briefly.

Note:

 

*In Gen. 38:7, we read about **Judah**’s son Er being executed just for being so wicked*.

*In Gen. 38:8-10 we read about Onan, Er’s brother, being killed for not obeying the command to produce children by his brother’s widow*.

*Gen.

19:26 records that **Lot**’s wife was killed for looking back with regrets to **Sodom*.

*In Lev.

10:1-2 we are told that Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu were killed for offering strange fire to God*, that is for worshiping God in a manner of their own invention which God had not commanded.

(Expound – the American church should pay particular attention to this – God has told us precisely how to worship Him).

*In Num.

16 we are told that Korah and his followers were swallowed up by the earth for rebelling against God’s ordained leader Moses*.

*God’s Justice is no respecter of persons either, in 1 Chron.

10:13-14 we are told that King Saul was killed for his disobedience*.

*In 2 Sam.

6:6-7 we are told that Uzzah was killed for his irreverence when he reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from falling off of a cart*.

*God’s execution of sinners is not just O.T. either*.