The "Oh Crap" message 6/26/2016

So years ago in my youth ministry we did all sorts of things. We had a Bible study before worship on Sunday mornings that was well attended, we had a lot of youth in worship on Sunday mornings, we had a good attendance on Wednesday nights and we even had a good group of kids coming to a small group study on Sunday evenings. We called that group HAISM and I have to be honest the name came from Hali our children’s leader. The group was based on the last verse we are going to read today. Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, “Here am I send me”. That group served and to this day they are serving God in amazing ways. They were different and it wasn’t because of anything I taught them or any secret thing we did. They had a real relationship with God and they saw themselves in light of God’s glory. It made them prioritize differently, it made them put the important things first and it made doing youth ministry a breeze to be honest with you because they were always there, I mean always. Why isn’t the church of 2016 serving people, saving people and making an impact? How do we truly get people from here I am if it’s convenient to Here am I send me? Isaiah 6:1-8 Many in the church aren’t seeing God. In these verses the prophet sees God. He hears the angels singing Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory. What is his first reaction? I will paraphrase it for you. Oh crap! When I used to work in construction as a young youth pastor I can recall many, many times when someone was talking to us on a jobsite and they later found out I was a pastor and they would say man if I had known you were a pastor I would have talked differently around you. I am sorry. Let me tell you, a face to face with God would lead you to say man if I knew it was like this I would have lived differently. If you were to come face to face with God here on earth right here today, your mind would not start playing your highlight tape. Every thing you have done wrong in your life will start running through your mind like you are Chunk in Goonies. That’s right it’s not AWE and wonder. It’s not a feeling of man that’s God this is cool. I watched a little bit of the parade they threw in Cleveland for the Cavaliers after they won the first championship that town has had in 52 years. People were in the streets for hours and hours just to catch a glimpse of the players. Lebron was like an idol standing on the back of a truck and I saw fan after fan amazed and the look on their faces was oh my God! That’s Lebron I just touched his hand. Let me tell you when you are in God’s presence your reaction won’t be oh wow that’s God, it’s immediately going to be a feeling of unworthiness. It will be the same for your pastor who is a sinner and makes mistakes as it will be for anyone else. It’s oh crap, I am a man of unclean lips. The first thing that happens when we are truly seeking and seeing God is that we see all of our mistakes, all of our sins in light of all of His glory. In today’s world people make comparisons. I had a parent approach Tara during a softball game recently, the parent said “Man Jeff sure does push his daughters.” This happened to be a parent who makes every excuse for her kid, and Tara looked at her and said, “Not really he just doesn’t accept any excuses and they know that.” I don’t compare my kids athletically to others, I compare them to their best and I don’t accept anything but their best. There is the old addage, no matter how great you think you are there is always someone better couldn’t be more truer than when looking at these verses. It applies to sports well and the business world, but it’s application is second to none. Stop looking around and saying I am better than them. I am better than that person or this person, here is a challenge I gave you guys back in January. Take the word atleast out of your vocabulary completely. At least is a comparison that shows complete weakness. It’s a justifying of the weakness of things. Atleast I go to church, atleast I don’t sin in THIS way or THAT way. At least I am trying. Atleast I blah blah blah. At least is setting yourself up to feel better about things and I am not saying you walk around tearing yourself down all the time, but stop saying atleast. Make a real comparision. Many in the church aren’t serving God. We live in more of a here am I give me setting today. How do we get to Here am I send me? The formula is right here in the verses from Isaiah. By coming to a place truly face to face with who we are. By facing God and realizing just how unworthy we are of anything He gives us. God is perfect, he sent his son to earth who lived a perfect sinless life, and then he bled and died on a cross for our sins and we can’t even turn our cellphones off while we are in church. WE can’t even give him the reverence and the worship that He deserves for 30-45 minutes because we see ourselves as the consumers. WE can’t focus on Him during the time that is set aside for Him. We are customers when we walk into church instead of unworthy sinners who deserve nothing, we see ourselves as high and mighty people who are owed everything. When you walk into a restaurant you are a customer. You are owed service, they bring you drinks, they bring you food, they take care of your needs and they do that because you are going to pay them for the food and hopefully give them a tip. You are owed that for your payment at the end. When you walk into church you aren’t owed anything, no matter how much you give in the offering plate, how much work you did around the building or how much you prayed for the church all week you are owed nothing. Many in the church don’t see or care about their uncleanliness. I tell you this, we don’t seem to really care what God thinks. There are so many Christians in today’s world who do so many things that are so wrong. When I first got started in youth ministry I was bi vocational much like I am now. I was surrounded by some good times let me tell you. I do truly miss the opportunities I had on jobsites to share. I actually prayed with a guy one morning because he was really struggling with things, he worked on several job sites the same time as we did. We were outside lathing a house getting it ready for stucco while he was inside doing the final work on the drywall. He just came outside and said , He Jeff I want to talk to you when you get a second. So he stood under me while I was hanging some bands and getting the corner bead on them so they would look good. (I know I lost half of you but this is the image in my head of it and how I remember things). He said, “Jeff you are different” now I can tell you most times the group I worked with an many of you in here know those guys and that wasn’t a compliment most times but it felt different from this guy. He went on to tell me that I was always happy and always had a great attitude on the job. He told me it was encouraging to hear me talking to the guys about my wife and my family and the things God had blessed me with. He said he never had heard me cuss or lose my cool in any inappropriate way and he noticed that when the builder we worked for in one particular development brought everyone beer on Fridays he always brought me an icee. He saw that as an insult and an attack on me, like I was a child or something. Me, I saw it as he was respecting me and saw me as different from the others. Long story short I ended up praying with him and he accepted Christ right there(and the other thing I remember was Lex and Terry was playing in the background and anyone who remembers Lex and Terry on the radiio knows what the content was. When we got done praying he walked inside and turned the radio off. My co worker looked over and said that was awesome man, then he said to me what I will never forget. Now my boss was a Christian but the rest of the crew was far from it. This one co worker looked at me and said, I guess Lex and Terry is too much for him now Jeff, you ruined him. I didn’t respond the way I wanted to, but the truth is a moment of truly being in God’s presence ruined him. He saw things differently in light of God. HE didn’t turn it off because it was bad, he didn’t turn it off because he felt like he had to. He walked inside and turned it off because in the light of God and his glory it was unclean. So, what in your life would quickly disappear in the light of God’s glory? Is it your language, your actions, your attitude, the way you talk to your spouse or your children? Is it a relationship you are in? Is it a habit or an addiction?