A Kingdom Vision Sermon Week 2 - Persevering in a Pandemic

Intro/Welcome

Last week we began a New Series:

“A Kingdom Vision”

To See as God sees

To have a Kingdom Vision is to ask: “given everything going on, what is God up to?”

Two major things have been going on: Coronavirus and Racial Division

Today we’ll talk about Covid, next week we’ll talk about Racial Division.

Let’s talk about Coronavirus

“we are so tired of hearing about it” — but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere

“but we need to keep talking about it”

There’s all kinds of opinions on this thing:

Conspiracy? Political? Just the Flu? As bad as they say? Numbers correct?

We may never know all the answer.

But regardless, we can still ask “What is God up to?”

Today we are going to ask that personally

— What is God showing me in all of this?

My goal is that as we are talking to people about this thing, rather than just saying “Yea it’s a crazy time right?” They maybe we would add “And here is what I think God is showing me through all of this?”

That is what having a Kingdom Vision is all about.

What is God doing in me through all of this?

Today we will continue on in Isaiah 6 to gain some insight to this question.

It might not be readily apparent, but with some digging we will get there.

My name is Justin, Pastor

Let’s pray

Pray

Eyes to see, ears to hear

Isaiah 6

Last week we looked at Isaiah’s incredible call to Ministry.

He saw the Glory of the Lord in his Righteousness and Holiness

Then he experienced the Glory of the Lord in the grace extended to him.

We pick it up today with Isaiah’s response:

Isaiah 6:8 CSB Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who will I send? Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.

Isaiah’s response is the only legitimate response to God’s grace.

My life has been saved, therefore my life is yours.

This is done out of not just gratitude, but Worship.

this is where we ended last week: Are you ready to go?

What was God’s assignment for Isaiah?

God’s Assignment for Isaiah

Isaiah 6:9–10 CSB And he replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive. 10 Make the minds of these people dull; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

So what’s Isaiah’s Mission?

Preach the truth of God’s Word to a people who will not respond, but will actually become more hardened.

Just like Jesus

It’s referred to numerous times in the NT as to why people don’t respond to the gospel.

That sounds like a terrible mission.

So Isaiah rightly responds “For how long?”

Isaiah 6:11–13 CSB 11 Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And he replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate, 12 and the Lord drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land. 13 Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.

Basically until there is nothing left of Israel & Judah

That sounds pretty bleak

That’s a pretty depressing assignment.

Israel did fall in 722 (Assyrians), Judah in 586 (Babylonians) and they were carried off and a remnant would return

but they too would be burned

but there is a holy seed.

What is going on here?

Eyes, Ears and Hearts

What we learn from this text is that it is possible

to hear but not understand

to see but not perceive

Furthermore, the preaching of God’s Words can

Make the hearts of people dull (fat, unreceptive)

further deafen the ears

blind the eyes

ILL: Now we should be able to agree with this just in our human experience.

Ever been in an argument where you feel like you both are just talking past each other?

why is that?

b/c you are not really hearing to understand

you are not really seeing so that you can perceive

btw — don’t we see this on a cultural level right now? and in politics?

Furthermore, when there is a truth that is spoken that we don’t like

it can further harden us and even enrage us as we live in denial.

But what Isaiah is talking about here is much deeper: It is a Spiritual Problem.

So what is happening here?

Idolatry

Let’s look at another text that will shed some light on this

ANNOTATION

Psalm 115:4–8 CSB 4 Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.

5 They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.

6 They have ears but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.

7 They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk.

8 Those who make them are just like them, as are all who trust in them.

ANNOTATION

What is this text talking about: Idolatry

What is particularly important is this last line:

Those who trust in them will become just like them

That is just like Idols

they have ears but can’t understand

eyes but can’t perceive

Isaiah is addressing Idol Worship in his culture.

This is evident and explicit throughout the book of Isaiah

AN IDOL IS ANYTHING THAT TAKES THE PLACE OF GOD

An Idol is something you worship as supremely valuable rather than the One True God of the Bible.

Now before you right this off as irrelevant to me, Idolatry is not something that just existed in Isaiah’s day, but it exists in every age.

Ezekiel 14:3 CSB 3 “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and have put their sinful stumbling blocks in front of themselves. Should I actually let them inquire of me?

We have our own idols in our country.

They are not little statues, but they are everywhere.

Virtually anything can be an idol:

Your spouse could be your Idol. Your children

Your Football Team

Approval or Success

Sex or Money

anything we worship as a false, that we bow down to, that we put our trust in or find our identity in that is not God is an idol.

Everyone of us has them, myself included.

Idols eclipse our view of God

We settle for worshiping something less than God of the Bible.

Usually because it’s easier and promises us what we want

Idols offer short term pleasure at the expense of long term pain

Idols never deliver on their promises

Trying to get healthy on junk food

Idols promise you what only God can give you.

EX) Alcohol

All idol make demands, you become ensnared by them

Addiction is just a psychological term for idol worship that has ensnared us.

God loves us too much to give us over to Idols.

This is the point of Isaiah’s mission

To show people their idolatry.

Isaiah 2:8 CSB 8 Their land is full of worthless idols; they worship the work of their hands, what their fingers have made.

Furthermore, all of us are born as Idol Worshippers — We don’t naturally worship the God of the Bible.

Apart from God’s grace intervening in our lives we could never see God as he truly is.

This is exactly what Isaiah experienced last week.

He saw God in all of His Glorious Righteousness and Holiness and it was utterly terrifying.

And then he experienced God’s incomprehensible grace towards him in forgiveness and for perhaps the first time

He had eyes that could see God as he truly is

And ears that could hear God for what he is saying

And a heart that was willingly and joyfully obedient to God’s call on his life.

So this is the question before you:

Have your ears grown deaf to God?

Have your eyes grown dim to God?

has your mind/heart grown dull to God?

The problem may be that you have turned to Idols.

Coronavirus

Now let’s circle back to where we began today.

What is God up to in this Coronavirus?

I’ll tell you one thing God is always up to:

Pursuing his people.

How has coronavirus affected your life?

What were you trusting in that has been taken away?

What were you finding comfort in that was luring you away from God?

What were you finding security in that was rooted in God’s provision and power?

In other words, what Idols have been revealed or removed in light of this challenging time?

This is what it means to have a Kingdom Vision

To ask hard questions like this

Let me immediately say this,

I am not negating any of the difficulty you have experienced.

Or any of the pain you have personally gone through because of sickness, or the loss of loved ones.

I’m not saying that it should have been easy, or we shouldn’t be struggling.

All I’m asking is

Where do we go with our pain? with our difficulty? with our struggles?

Becuase there is only One true source of comfort, provision and security in the entire universe: God himself.

The Bible is very clear that God often uses suffering and difficult circumstances to grow and refine his people and deepen their intimacy with him.

And he often uses difficulty to bring people to himself perhaps for the first time.

Ill: This was my story

I experienced ears that can’t hear

some of you have friends you are praying for, but they don’t need God. Their life is going well.

This isn’t a blessing, it’s a blessing to know your need and to have it met.

The fact that we often need dire circumstances to turn to God only reveals how bad off we really were.

How deeply steeped in idol worship we all naturally are.

What is our Hope?

So then, what is our hope?

The Bad news is that are prone to idol worship

The good news is that we have a God that is far better.

His desire is to removed the idols that obscure your vision so you can see who God truly is.

God is pursuing you.

And he will desolate your life as he desolated Israel until only a stump was left, if that is what it takes for you to turn to him and be healed.

When we see God as he is, we cannot but help worship Him (as Isaiah saw)

God is most clearly and supremely revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

to see Jesus is to see God

Jesus reveals God’s righteousness and grace at the same time.

The life and death of Jesus in our place is meant to shock us into the reality of God’s grace. The scandal of the cross.

WHAT IS THE PROMISE?

Isaiah tells us “That we might turn back and be healed”

Jesus Christ turns our faces back to God that we can be healed, restored, renewed, and recommissioned.

Jesus Christ is the Holy Seed that is in the stump of Israel (v 13)

Jesus gives us eyes to see, and ears to hear and a heart that is alive to God

why he says “he who has ears let him ear”

ONE HOPE CHURCH, What idols do you turn to?

will you recognize the idols that you go to, confess them to God and one another, and return to the One True King, the lover of your soul and be healed?

UNBELIEVER:

If you have never turned to Jesus before, would you recognize your desperate situation and cry how to him for ears to hear him and eyes to see who God truly is and that he loves you more than you could ever imagine.

And give your life to him.

And then, maybe just maybe,

You and I, as we talk about “coronavirus” or whatever the issues in our day might be we can say “yea it’s crazy, i know, but here is what God is showing me in this”

Let’s Pray

Big Idea:

To have a Kingdom Vision is to ask the question, "Given everything that is going on, what is God up to? In this sermon we look at what God may be doing in us through the Coronavirus pandemic.