Speaker 1: If you're living hope, would you say amen.
Speaker 1: This morning you guys can have a seat.
Speaker 1: We are so thankful that we have a living hope.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that our hope is not in the stock market, amen, I'm so thankful.
Speaker 1: Our hope is not in a political system, our hope is not in a politician, but our hope is in a risen savior.
Speaker 1: Can somebody say amen, come on, come on.
Speaker 1: One more thing Welcome to Serve Sunday 2024.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you are new, you picked a unique and awesome Sunday to be here, a unique and awesome Sunday to be here as a church.
Speaker 1: One of our values here is we want to be a church that serves the community right where we live.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is we're going to be a church that serves the community right where we live.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is we're going to have a condensed service.
Speaker 1: You are actually going to see a miracle, because I'm going to give a little message, a little talk, in about 10 minutes, which is a miracle for us.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, right.
Speaker 1: Then we're going to go to a local park.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to Heritage Park.
Speaker 1: If you take Buena Vista and go straight down, less than a mile, there's a park right there and we're going to have a barbecue and we're going to be having a bounce house and games and stuff.
Speaker 1: But between the service and the barbecue, what we're going to have is we're going to have one-hour serve projects, one-hour simple serve projects that anybody can be a part of, and we'll announce those in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: There's five different projects you can be a part of and just really easy something that we can do.
Speaker 1: Jesus says in Matthew, chapter five Edgar talked about this in our volunteer huddle that Jesus says let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is we're just going to show our good works by beautifying our city so our father can be glorified in heaven.
Speaker 1: But why would we do this?
Speaker 1: Why would we serve, and not just on a Sunday, like Serve Sunday?
Speaker 1: But why would Jesus' followers have a heart to give and to serve?
Speaker 1: I mean, the world that we live in is about me.
Speaker 1: Give me, take care of me, I'm doing me, you do you.
Speaker 1: So why would some of you on a Sunday, some of you, first of all, some of y'all had no idea what you were getting today.
Speaker 1: You're like what's happening?
Speaker 1: Some of you knew it was Serve Sunday.
Speaker 1: Why would we do this?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a guy in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: His name is Isaiah.
Speaker 1: Everybody say Isaiah, ready, isaiah.
Speaker 1: Isaiah had this heart to serve.
Speaker 1: Isaiah had this heart to get out of his comfort zone.
Speaker 1: Isaiah had this heart that said I'm willing to do what other people aren't doing.
Speaker 1: Isaiah had this heart that said I'm willing to obey when a lot of my other homies and my people they're not obeying.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is what he says in Isaiah 6, verse 8.
Speaker 1: We put it up on the screen for you.
Speaker 1: If you have a copy of scripture you can check it out.
Speaker 1: He says this.
Speaker 1: Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking who should I send and who will go for us?
Speaker 1: The voice of the Lord says hey, I'm looking for somebody who will go.
Speaker 1: And I said this is Isaiah.
Speaker 1: I said here I am.
Speaker 1: What's the next two words?
Speaker 1: Here I am, me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what happens is we read places in Scripture and we see people in Scripture and we're like.
Speaker 1: Those people are like superhuman, like.
Speaker 1: Those people aren't normal, they don't have the stress like me, they don't have the issues like me.
Speaker 1: Those people, they don't have a past like me.
Speaker 1: They don't have relational issues like me, they sure as heck don't have crazy kids like they're living in my house.
Speaker 1: But these people were normal and Isaiah was normal.
Speaker 1: And Isaiah had this heart that says here I am, send me.
Speaker 1: But where did this come from?
Speaker 1: Why did he have this heart that said God, I'm available?
Speaker 1: Why, like I'm available with my junk and my issues and my complexities and all the things going on here?
Speaker 1: Why, well, I didn't tell you, guys, this?
Speaker 1: I didn't tell you about the verses before?
Speaker 1: Because the verses before verse 8 show you and show me the reason that Isaiah said here I am, send me.
Speaker 1: In fact, it says in verse number three, isaiah gets this glimpse of God.
Speaker 1: It says in one called to another these are the angels.
Speaker 1: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies.
Speaker 1: The angels weren't stuttering here, they weren't like holy, holy.
Speaker 1: This was emphasis.
Speaker 1: Whenever you see and this happened very few times whenever you see a word mentioned three times like this in consecutive order, this is a emphasis.
Speaker 1: Holy is the Lord of armies.
Speaker 1: His glory fills the whole earth.
Speaker 1: The foundations of the doorway shook at the sound of their voices and the temple was filled with smoke.
Speaker 1: Then I said, isaiah, woe is me, for I'm ruined because I'm a man of unclean lips.
Speaker 1: For I am ruined because I'm a man of unclean lips.
Speaker 1: I live among a people of unclean lips and because my this is so good, my eyes, my eyes, have seen the king, the Lord of armies.
Speaker 1: Isaiah got this glimpse of God, of who God really was, of God's greatness, of God's power, of God's glory.
Speaker 1: That God was actually real, that God was actually all-powerful.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than the reasons why he couldn't serve him, than his excuses.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than the reasons why he couldn't serve him and his excuses.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than some of the things that we think are so big in our lives.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than anxiety.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than our mental health challenges.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than our relationship issues.
Speaker 1: That God was bigger than the things that we have experienced.
Speaker 1: That God is bigger than all of those things.
Speaker 1: He sees God accurately, all of those things he sees God accurately.
Speaker 1: That's why he says my eyes have seen the king and when you see God accurately, it will cause you to serve him willingly.
Speaker 1: You see, some of you think, man, the reason why I can't serve is because I can't, I have this or I don't have this.
Speaker 1: No, the reason is you have a vision problem.
Speaker 1: For some of us, that's what we have.
Speaker 1: We got a vision problem.
Speaker 1: We don't have a money problem.
Speaker 1: We don't have a health problem.
Speaker 1: We don't no, no, we don't have a money problem.
Speaker 1: We don't have a health problem.
Speaker 1: We don't no, no, we don't have an anxiety problem, we got a vision problem.
Speaker 1: What we got to see is you got to get a right vision of God, because when Isaiah got a right vision of God, it all changed.
Speaker 1: When Isaiah saw God for who God was and what God can do, and his greatness, his holiness, all these other things that were big in his life, they paled in comparison, not because they weren't big, but because his God was bigger.
Speaker 1: So Isaiah sees God accurately and then he's willing to serve God willingly.
Speaker 1: Could it be that some of us are having a hard time serving and maybe not just in a church context, maybe in a family context or whatever context?
Speaker 1: We're having a hard time serving people Because we've lost our vision or we don't have a vision accurately.
Speaker 1: So it's causing us to not serve people and God willingly.
Speaker 1: But there was something else that was really important this is going to kind of wrap it up that Isaiah saw and it was in verse number six.
Speaker 1: It says one of the seraphim yeah, thanks, guys for getting up there.
Speaker 1: One of the seraphim, one of the angel, flew to me and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with the tongues.
Speaker 1: I wish I had the time to get into the context of this, but I just don't.
Speaker 1: And aren't you guys proud of me that I'm not doing it?
Speaker 1: All right, come on, hey, hey, hey, some of you guys, your prayers are answered, like it's like.
Speaker 1: This isn't going to be a long one.
Speaker 1: He says in verse 7, he touched my mouth with it and said Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.
Speaker 1: Isaiah was completely forgiven.
Speaker 1: And Isaiah saw this and realized this that his sins were forgiven.
Speaker 1: Now, if you're anything like most of us and you're normal, because we all put our pants on the same way and brush our teeth well, most of us do, some of the youth group every now and then, it's optional.
Speaker 1: When it comes to our sin, we fall into one of two ditches.
Speaker 1: One ditch over here is self-justification, the ditch that you know that wasn't really that bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody else is doing it, or maybe I just did it one time, or maybe nobody knows about it, or maybe it didn't hurt anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, it's not a big deal, it's not really sin.
Speaker 1: That's one ditch.
Speaker 1: And I think there's another ditch this is the one that probably, if I had to guess, I probably would say most of us probably fall in this one the ditch of guilt and shame and condemnation.
Speaker 1: Like we know that we sin, you don't need some preacher telling you that you don't need to like read the scripture.
Speaker 1: Like we know that we've sinned, you don't need some preacher telling you that you don't need to like read the scripture.
Speaker 1: Like you know that.
Speaker 1: Like you know you messed up.
Speaker 1: Guess what?
Speaker 1: Hey, we all have.
Speaker 1: That's why we need Jesus, right, and what can happen is we can just live with this shame and this guilt and this condemnation Every day of our lives, something that happened years ago.
Speaker 1: But just carry it with us.
Speaker 1: We're not denying it, we're not self-justifying our actions.
Speaker 1: No, it's like we're impunished to what happened and Isaiah right here in the middle.
Speaker 1: I'm not denying what happened, but I don't have to live in guilt and condemnation because I am forgiven.
Speaker 1: We just sang the song my Living Hope man, I am forgiven.
Speaker 1: That's a powerful declaration, and when Isaiah saw God willingly, and when Isaiah realized that he was, he saw God accurately, he realized he was forgiven completely.
Speaker 1: He said these words here I am, send me and friend this morning.
Speaker 1: It's real simple.
Speaker 1: Let's get a fresh vision of God, of who God is.
Speaker 1: Let's get a fresh vision that we are forgiven completely.
Speaker 1: And then this is what I believe the natural response of that is here I am, send me as a pastor.
Speaker 1: I don't need to manipulate anybody.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me, please?
Speaker 1: There's some other churches that kind of do that.
Speaker 1: I don't need to guilt anybody.
Speaker 1: This is what we need to do.
Speaker 1: Look at Jesus, look what he's done for you.
Speaker 1: And then Hebrews 12 says and this really wraps it up, hebrews 12, can we get up on the screen?
Speaker 1: It says therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, in view of the mercies of God, in view of the fact that we're forgiven, in view of the fact that we're loved, in view of the fact that we're accepted, in view of the fact that we're made whole, in view of the fact that we are made ambassadors, in view of the fact that we are right with God, in view of the fact that everything we have Jesus supplies, in view of the fact that you are not who you once were, but you are made new.
Speaker 1: In view of this fact, brothers and sisters, that's you, that's me.
Speaker 1: If we know Jesus, do the mercies.
Speaker 1: I urge you, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
Speaker 1: It's your true worship, God.
Speaker 1: This is who you are, this is what you've done.
Speaker 1: So here I am.
Speaker 1: Send me.
Speaker 1: This is how we're going to end this today, and then we're going to kind of explain our serve projects a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's a communion cup I want you guys to grab.
Speaker 1: I think you probably got one on your way in.
Speaker 1: If you didn't get one, just raise your hand, one of these guys in the back, they can.
Speaker 1: They can grab one for you.
Speaker 1: I didn't give you one, we got one up here.
Speaker 1: Okay, right there.
Speaker 1: This is what I want us to do.
Speaker 1: I want you to take some time.
Speaker 1: I don't want you, if you're a Jesus follower here, I don't want you to just haphazardly.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got the cup, pop it in.
Speaker 1: Here we go, let's go.
Speaker 1: No, I want you to think about the mercies of God.
Speaker 1: I want you to think about the fact that you're forgiven completely.
Speaker 1: I want you to think about the fact that you are not who you once were.
Speaker 1: I want you to think about the fact that you are accepted and you are unconditionally loved.
Speaker 1: I want you to partake and let the truth of who God is and what God's done for us fuel our service to him.
Speaker 1: Let's bow our heads and let's close our eyes.
Speaker 1: Let's reflect on these things and I'm going to partake in communion as well and we'll have a