Sermon Tone Analysis

Mission Introduction: Are You FOR the Mission?

Mission Introduction: Are You FOR the Mission?

Periodically, we like to take a Sunday morning and consider where we are in light of our mission here at Reach Church to live to reach all people with Nothing but Jesus.

We aren’t announcing some big new thing we are doing…we have plenty of ways for you to practically reach out to others and grow in your faith.

Instead we are looking at the mission from a spiritual perspective.

Because the question I want you to answer this morning is simple...

Are you FOR the mission of Reach Church to live to reach all people with Nothing But Jesus?

Are you FOR that mission?

Are you fully on mission with us?

In your heart?

Are you FOR us?

Are you FOR your church and our mission?

Three Groups

Because I believe there are three groups of people here this morning.

The first group are those who are still exploring Jesus.

Or maybe you have embraced Jesus in the past and you are new to Reach Church so you are trying to figure out what this NBJ stuff is all about.

The second group are those who have been here for a while.

Perhaps decades.

You have faith in Jesus.

You know how you are saved, by grace alone.

You are a Christian.

But you still aren’t totally FOR the mission to live to reach all people with NBJ.

You still aren’t there for whatever reason.

And you may be a leader of a small group.

You may have been in the church for decades.

And you may be a good person.

You do good things.

But you are constantly dragged away to Anything but Jesus instead of to Nothing but Jesus.

You use distractions to scoff at NBJ.

You say things like, I don’t need a Christian cliche.

You focus on lots of GOOD things.

Sports, relationships, politics, raising your kids God’s way, keeping on keeping on.

But you aren’t totally in.

You aren’t totally FOR the mission of Reach Church which is to live to reach all people with NBJ.

The third group are those who are all in.

You are FOR our mission.

You are FOR Reach Church.

It’s not that you are holier than the other two groups…in fact, a mark that you may actually “get” the mission is that you know just how unholy you are!

A mark of your spiritual growth is that you see just how far you have fallen.

You aren’t arrogant about your faith, in fact, you are just one beggar showing another beggar where you found bread.

Answer the Question This Morning—Not By Being Told to Do It

So this morning, I just want for all of us to step back and honestly answer that question....are you truly FOR the mission of Reach Church to live to reach all people with NBJ?

And don’t measure it by how involved you are with the church.

Don’t measure it with how much you like the church.

Don’t measure it by the STUFF you do.

In the depths of your heart, are you truly FOR this mission?

Because I can stand up here all day long and tell you you should be FOR the mission to live to reach all people with NBJ.

I can say get involved in Feed the Need, get on a team for NTS, get into a Reach Group, etc, and those are all good things…but you can stay hidden in those first two groups of people while being busy on these types of things—becoming a busybody.

So how do we get to the point of being fully FOR the mission?

It’s something outside of ourselves and we see a picture of it in .

Verse 1

Sermon: Verse 1

: 1-In the year that King Uzziah died…

Heavenly Worship Meets Earthly Worship

In the year that King Uzziah died…

Reigned 52 years…

Isaiah was one of the most important prophets of the OT.

He prophesied during the time of a King named Uzziah who reigned for 52 years.

Imagine having a president who was president for not one or two terms, but 13 four year terms.

To put it in perspective, if a president of the US were to be president as long as Uzziah was the king, 52 years, Lyndon Johnson, who was president in the 60s would still be president today.

Summary of King Uzziah’s reign…GOOD things

King Uzziah began reigning when he was just 16 years old.

He was a good king.

He was one of the few good kings.

He did GOOD things during his reign.

The economy was good.

Their enemies were subdued.

There was peace in the kingdom for the most part.

People felt safe and secure under King Uzziah.

He was good, but he wasn’t perfect.

He was good, but he wasn’t great.

He messed up towards the end of his reign royally.

He went into the Temple and offered sacrifices himself instead of the priests offering sacrifices.

He took the place of the priest.

That was against God’s rules.

So 80 priests condemned King Uzziah and God punished Uzziah by giving him leprosy…leprosy is an awful disease where your body literally wastes away.

So this powerful, good king, Uzziah, went into seclusion with his leprosy and he co-reigned with his son, Jotham…who was destined to become not a good king, but an evil king.

Uzziah was a good king.

Not a great king.

In fact, none of the kings were great…only a few were considered good at all.

So this scene that Isaiah records here, happens in the year that King Uzziah died.

The people were nervous.

The people saw handwriting on the wall and saw that King Uzziah’s son was evil.

They knew the prophecies.

They saw the Assyrians in the north gaining strength.

Trouble was coming.

Things had been good for so long.

So Isaiah, the spiritual leader of Judah, goes to worship God in the Temple.

Notice that in verse 1—Isaiah is worshiping in the earthly temple:

Heavenly Worship Meets Earthly Worship

Isaiah, one of the great OT prophets, is worshiping in the earthly temple, and heavenly worship descends to the earthly temple.

But he was THERE in the temple.

It doesn’t say that his glory filled the TV screen.

It doesn’t say that his glory filled a gossip conversation Isaiah was having.

It doesn’t say that his glory filled the football stadium.

Isaiah goes to worship and there, heaven meets Earth, and Isaiah is about to be wrecked.

Heaven meets earth.

Isaiah sees the Lord.

He is a sinful man who sees the Lord.

He isn’t killed.