Isaiah

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Well, good morning. Thank you for spending your Sunday here at Salt Church. My name is Chris.

I am blessed and privileged to have the honor of bringing the message to you guys today. We are finishing up our series called The Cloud, based on Hebrews 12.1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out. For us.

And so we have gotten to hear over the last few weeks about some of the greatest people from the Bible and those who went before us and have paved the way for us and have showed us what it really means to walk in the anointing and the power and the purpose of God. And today I have the privilege of speaking on a man named Isaiah. Man, I really wanted to do David, because I'm kind of a fan of David, man after God's own heart. But man, Isaiah, a fire and brimstone preaching prophet. I'll take that one.

I'll take him. Very relatable. Very relatable. For those of you who haven't heard me speak, very relatable. Isaiah's name alone means the salvation of what Yahweh or a God of salvation.

From his birth, from his naming, God had purposed Isaiah. He had a plan for Isaiah. And we don't know a whole lot about Isaiah up until his adult life. There's a whole lot of speculation about what part of the social ladder he came from, whether he was an aristocrat, whether he came from a priesthood. But we really don't know.

What we do know about Isaiah is that his life changed after an encounter with the Most High, which led to a ministry of prophecy. We find Isaiah in the first and second kings, prophesied under four different kings, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. And he was most likely put to death by Hezekiah's son, Messina. If you go and read history about that, Isaiah was one of the prophets that condemned the way that Messina came in. And he reversed everything that Hezekiah had done, brought in a whole bunch of really cultish, nasty religions.

And a number of prophets came out and condemned him for that. And in turn, he killed him. The book of Isaiah is actually broken up into two different sections. Books 1, chapters 1 through 39, are judgment and justice. It is Isaiah telling God's people, y'all better repent or God is coming.

You guys better give up all these things that you've been doing. You better stop rebelling and you better turn because the consequences are coming. And chapters 40 through 66 are a consolation and a reconciliation and a promise of the salvation of God. And it's such an awesome thing to see this man who comes and preaches fire and brimstone for the first 39 chapters, then teach and talk about the love of God. The sacrificial love of God.

Another thing to know about Isaiah was he gave us our first real picture, comprehensive prophetic picture of Jesus Christ. He was the first one who painted and told us about the coming of Jesus Christ and gave us a full picture of Jesus Christ. Another cool note is that when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, not too long ago in history, one of the things they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls was an actual full scroll of the prophet's book of Isaiah, which showed that this wasn't something that was made up after the fact of Jesus Christ. He was prophetic in telling who Jesus Christ was. And these scrolls, these legitimate, genuine scrolls were proof that this man had come and prophesied of the coming King and Messiah hundreds of years before it had happened.

This man walked in anointing. He walked with power, and he was fearless. A couple side notes, I can't even pronounce their names, and I can't fully even remember exactly what they mean. He had two sons. He named his sons, only a prophet would do this, he named his sons names that reminded the people of their transgressions.

His second son was like, if you looked at the meaning, was like lust and degradation, and it was like, it had four meanings, and all of them were like horrific. And it was like, so every time someone ran into one of Isaiah's sons, they were reminded of how bad they were. Like, just to show you how rebellious you are, Judah, I'm naming my sons names that no one on this planet would ever name their kids. So they will be a reminder for the next however many years of their life to you of just how bad you are. We name our kids, like my daughter's name is Katie Lynn, Alexandra, which is defender of men, Aaron, because he came from a line of preachers and teachers.

I don't want him to have a strong name, the man who held up the arms of Moses. This guy said, nope, you guys need to be reminded that you're going to hell in a handbasket, and that if you don't repent, it's going to get bad quick, and so I'm going to name my sons reminders of that. Only a prophet. But what we're going to focus on today, the thing that we're going to look at most today, was Isaiah's encounter with a God. Because, see, it changed his life.

We know nothing about Isaiah before this. We don't, this guy, we're not sure if he's a sheep herder. He might have been a prince. We don't know anything about him, except that we know that when he had an encounter with the Most High God, when he met God, it changed him. It gave him purpose.

It gave him a vision. And it made it so that he could not do anything except fulfill those things. I think there's a lot of us who go through life trying to figure everything out. Why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to me?

Why is God doing this to me? Why did God allow this to happen to my parents? Why did God allow this to happen to my kids? Why did God allow this and that? And we're looking around, and we're trying to figure out, like, why God is doing it all, and what is the purpose and the plan behind it?

And we go to look through everything to try to figure that out. Education, job, logic. We sit and we rack our brains crying out to God, asking, God bless you. Thank you. Why, why, why?

Well, when you have an encounter with the Most High God, it changes your view of life. See, when you are trying to make sense of everything, an encounter with God changes everything. And that is exactly what happened with Isaiah. So I am going to actually read Isaiah 6 to you guys, as soon as this thing loads, if it loads. I brought papers just to make Miranda feel better, but they are really just for a backup.

I want you guys to listen to this encounter that he had with God and how it changed him. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. He was in the temple when he had this vision. Above him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Can you imagine being in a temple and all of a sudden God is there? And not only is God there, but there are two seraphim who are covering their eyes because of the glory of the Lord.

And they're telling you how holy is this God who is now before you. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. And I heard the voice of the Lord, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Then I said, Here I am. Send me. And he said, Go and say this to the people. Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and their blind and blind their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. And then I said, How long, O Lord? And he said, Until cities lie waste without inhabitants, and houses without people, and the land is desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away. And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a tabernet or an oak, whose stump remains, then it is felled. The holy seed is its stump." Can you imagine that moment where, we'll just pretend for a second that Isaiah was an aristocrat. And he had been educated, and he had a good job, and he probably had an in with the king, probably had a good house, married to a really pretty wife. Life was probably decent for him.

He wasn't one of these people in the streets, begging. He wasn't out in the field, in the middle of the sun. He had a pretty good life. But all of it changed the moment that he laid eyes upon an almighty and holy God. And in that moment, God asked him, Who am I to send to go be my mouthpiece?

Who am I to send to go be my hands and my feet? And he couldn't help but in that moment raise his hands and say, Lord, send me. Now, he wasn't the first prophet. He was actually the first of the latter prophets, the major prophets. There had been prophets before him.

And in case you don't know, prophets were not people that were really liked. Prophets, usually Old Testament prophets, brought really bad news. It was rare that prophets showed up and said, Guess what? You're going to win the lottery next week. Life is going to be grand.

Oh, king, guess what? You're going to have everything you ever wanted. The land as far as you can see. Most prophets brought a grim, if not deadly, notice of God's wrath. Because again and again and again and again throughout time, God's people refused to obey and constantly rebelled.

And so here Isaiah volunteers for the position. Volunteers. Lord says, Who am I supposed to send? And it's almost like he was excited. Send me.

Send me. He was like that brown noser in the front of your elementary school class that every time the teacher asked for something, they were the ones raising their hand and begging to go. I need somebody to go to the principal's office and tell him he needs to come get these four kids. Hey, I got it. I got it.

I got it. He did the job and volunteered for a job that wasn't going to make him famous, that wasn't going to give him a lot of friends. He volunteered for a job because God needed him and God had a plan for him. I'm going to try to make sure that I get you guys to fill out all of your fill in the blanks. I had a conversation with another pastor the other day and I was like, man, I hate these fill in the blank things and I actually have to pay attention to where I'm going.

And he sounded like, sounds like you need fill in the blanks because you probably need to know where you're going. I was like, yeah, then I have to stick to it. What about the flow of the Holy Spirit? He said, the Holy Spirit told you to preach what you're supposed to preach. Stick to it.

All right. Thank you, Lord. Obey. So we're going to have a God encounter. And I believe that each and every one of us has an opportunity to have a God encounter.

I believe some of us close our eyes, stick our head in the sand and we ignore it because we don't like what that encounter tells us to do. We don't like what God has for us. So I would just as soon ignore it and go do what I want to do and hope that maybe he'll come around to my plan. And so each and every one of us is going to have the opportunity for a God encounter. And I'll tell you this right now.

The best way to have an encounter with the most high God is to pray and ask for one. If you get on your knees before God and say, God, I need an encounter with you today. God, I need an encounter. Things are crazy. My life stinks.

I don't know what I'm doing. Some of the richest people I know, and I've been blessed to know some really wealthy people in my life, were the most miserable people in the world because they really didn't know what they were supposed to do with their lives. They had all the money in the world. And when they got to that point, they were like, it's not a purpose. It's just stuff.

And so I would beg of you, as we read through this, as we finish this up, if you haven't had an encounter with God yet, find yourself at some point in the coming weeks in your quiet time, in your room, worship God and then get on your knees and ask him for an encounter. Because as you will see with what happened to Isaiah, God wants to encounter you. God desires to encounter you. And God has things for you that unless he has an encounter with you with, he has no way. If he's not communicating with you, if he's not talking to you, if you're not talking to God on a regular basis, you're clueless.

You're walking through life doing a job. Seriously. So the first one, our greatest pain results in our greatest gain. I want to emphasize something here because many of you are thinking, oh, yeah, I remember working out, pumping that iron, and, man, if it wasn't hurting, I wasn't gaining muscle. If I wasn't out running and I didn't run that extra mile, man, I wasn't gaining endurance.

If I didn't work those extra 30 hours and ignore my family and my kids, I wouldn't have made that extra 20 grand last year. The greatest gain that I am talking about here is an eternal one. Because it is truly the only gain that matters. I'm not talking out of my butt, guys. I'm being real with you.

We live in a pretty affluent area. Most of us in this room, I know a lot of you, are doing pretty well. I don't know too many people in this room that I have seen begging on the streets or sleeping homeless at the oceanfront, and I see a lot of them. Not too many of them in this room right now. The gain I am talking about is one that is eternal, one where you are in heaven with God and there are others there with you.

Isaiah 6, 1 through 4. In that year, King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, and they were calling to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is filled with his glory.

At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Guys, it shook, and it was filled with smoke. That smoke wasn't some holy smoke. That smoke was from the foundations of a temple being shaken. If you have ever been on the West Coast, and you have been through a, man, I just totally blanked out.

Thank you. They're called earthquakes. My mind is so stuck on a hurricane right now, I can't even get to the earthquake. Golly, earthquakes. If you've ever been there, I've been there for one.

It was a minor one, but it was enough that when you walked outside after that earthquake, there was a dust in the air because the ground literally shook, and foundations were shaken. Homes were shaken. You saw cracks in their foundations. That's what happened here in the temple. The anointing of God, the holiness of God had come into this temple, and the physical temple couldn't handle it, and it shook.

I would imagine that for Isaiah, there were some painful things that had to happen. You can't be a prophet full-time and do a job full-time. You're going to lose friends. You're going to lose family. This guy wasn't prophesying.

It wasn't like Jonah where he was sent somewhere else to go prophesy to another group of people that didn't know him. He was sent to prophesy to his people, to the people he knew, the people he had grown up with, the people who saw him in this other light, and now he had to step into a different role and tell them, you guys are about to have the wrath of God poured out upon you, and it is going to be so bad that he is literally going to wipe his vineyard. He is going to destroy everything that he has created. His chosen people he is going to take down to but a remnant. Look to your right and to your left.

Those people won't be there because God is going to destroy them, because you are unholy and you are unrighteous and your judgment is coming. You think that wasn't painful? You think stepping out into this new thing was not hard? Do you think being rejected by friends and family, spit on, mocked? Guys, he had to go stand before kings and tell them that if they didn't change, God was going to remove them from the throne.

Do you know what that's like? First of all, it's hard to even get an audience with a king. He stands there, or sits there, on this big gigantic throne with all these soldiers lining this thing with deadly weapons. The moment that king feels threatened, you're dead. And here God sends you in to walk down towards the throne to have audience with a king and tell him, king, you're about to be destroyed.

It would not have been good. And then we go look at Isaiah's message. If you guys listen to his message, it's not a pretty thing. I'm going to read some of the first chapter of Isaiah. The wickedness of Judah.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children, I have reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are utterly estranged. Why will you be struck down? Will you continue to rebel?

The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. This goes on. Like, this is even mild. He goes on to tell them how they're going to be destroyed. One of the analogies, one of the symbols that he uses in this is that God has created a vineyard, and he burns the vineyard to the ground, to the very stump.

He says God planted seeds of this vineyard, and instead of grapes, he got wild grapes. And so God goes in and takes it all. This is his job. But two things come of Isaiah's pain. Two things come of the pain that God pours out upon his people, and that comes in the form of consolation and reconciliation to a Most High God.

See, guys, sometimes in our lives, it takes major things for God to get your attention. In this instance, God had to commission a prophet to go tell them how bad they were, and then God had to follow up with consequences. We run around wondering why things aren't great, wondering what we're supposed to be doing. God has to shake our tree. But the result is that we are in a place where we can be reconciled to a God that loves us far beyond anything we could ever imagine.

But it requires us to go through the shaking of the foundation. It requires us for that to happen. In my marriage, I went through a really painful ordeal, and I sat with a counselor one day who happened to be Christian, and she looked at my wife and she said, I know the pain that you're going through right now, and I know that for you it's immense, and you're struggling, and you're crying out to God. She said, but I want to tell you this. I feel like the Lord has told me to speak you to this.

She said, God had to shake your tree, or your tree was going to be burnt to the ground. And we're just looking at each other. And she said, if this hadn't happened, your marriage was done. It took God shaking my branches, shaking my tree, removing the old fruit, breaking off some branches to allow new fruit, to allow me to step into what I was really called to do, and allow me to see God in a light I had never seen Him before, not to mention seeing my wife in a different light. I had never seen him before, Thank you.

That painful thing has brought more gain in my life than any other thing in it, and God uses those in your life. You wonder why you're going through it. God is going to bring something good out of it. Your greatest pain is going to be your greatest gain. When we see God clearly, we see ourselves more clearly.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a coal in hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it, he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. See, what was happening here is he had to be cleansed. Isaiah's mouth was not holy.

The coals were used for cleansing. And so this was God literally cleansing Isaiah and making him available and ready to use. Because what Isaiah was going to be preaching was not just words, holy words. Isaiah wasn't just reading from a book. He wasn't giving texts and quotes from great men.

Isaiah was coming in saying, Thus says the Lord God Almighty. And in order for that to happen, he had to be cleansed. He had to be in a place where he could do that. And if you read more of Isaiah, you will see he saw himself as low. There's a point where he talks about woe is me.

Woe is me. Because now he has seen the most high God. Guys, if you think about the Old Testament and you see what happened to Moses. He sees the burning bush. He knows the most high God and he hides his face.

He falls flat and prostrate before God because he realizes how small he is compared to how big God is. And in this instance, he has now seen God. He has been in the very presence of God and he knows just how small he is. Guys, I know that there's a lot of us. I've talked to my dad about it.

Legacy. I want to leave a legacy. I want to leave something that people remember. Dude, your legacy will be gone in the blink of an eye. There's only one legacy that lasts forever.

And it is that of God. And we spend our entire lives trying to set up a legacy for our kids. A legacy for our grandchildren. At my grandfather's funeral, the pastor got up and he started talking about my grandfather's legacy and how he had this legacy that he was passing down to the generations, me being one of them. And I looked at my dad and I said, you know what's funny is because if my grandfather was here, he would tell that dude to be quiet.

Because the only thing my grandfather ever wanted me to understand and get was to follow after God. To run passionately after God. To present myself to God as a sacrifice and let God use me in whatever way he saw fit. So guys, when you have this encounter with God. When the day comes where you find yourself like I did on a beach crying out to God and asking why.

Wondering what's going on. I had an encounter with God that reminded me just how big he is. And just how small I am. And see, when we see ourselves in that light. All of a sudden, all of this earthly stuff.

All these things we've set up for ourselves. The money in our bank, the cars that we drive, the houses that we live in. Become dust. And we understand that God has a purpose that is far greater for us than we could have for ourselves. This next part should be encouraging for all of us here.

If this isn't encouraging to you, then repent. God removes our past so he can redeem our future. We're going to go back to the coal. I messed up. I read the wrong verse a second ago.

I'm human. Sorry, guys. If you didn't know that, now you know. If you know me, you knew that a long time ago. God takes these things that we hold on to.

And once we repent, and I'm going to tell you this, it requires repentance. If anyone has ever told you that God will remove your sins as far as the east is from the west, he does. And he forgets them. But guess what that requires? Repentance.

If you continue to wallow in your sin, if you continue to go about your unholy doings, your unholy stuff, guess what? He's not removing it as far as the east is from the west because you're holding on to it. God's telling you, hey, listen, I want to take that from you. I want to remove that from you because I got greater, bigger, better plans for you. And you're over there holding on like a tree hugger.

Oh, God, take it, take it, take it. And he's like, I can't. You won't let go. You have to repent. And the moment that you repent, he wants to redeem those things from your life.

He wants to take that stuff. He wants to remove it. He wants to put it as far as the east is from the west. He wants to bury it in the depths of the ocean. He forgets it.

And then he redeems you. And redemption is not a static thing. It is not something that just happens and then is done. He redeems you with purpose. See, if God didn't have a purpose in your life, he wouldn't need to redeem you.

You would just be a tree. You would just be a rock. You would be a soulless thing. But he has a purpose for your life. And so he requires to redeem you from the sinful past and give you a purpose that is far greater.

And so he wants to remove these things, but it requires your repentance. That's what the coal was. That was a sign of Isaiah repenting and being removed, having those things taken from him. He put them on his lips and he removed all of the impurities. Throughout the Bible, you'll hear fire and heat are things that remove impurities.

If you've ever seen gold on the old. Anybody here watch like National Geographic or the History Channel? I think the History Channel is the one I watch the most. And it's got all those like mining, like north. I can't even remember all of them.

There's a million of them. And when it's time to go take this gold and turn it in for money, they heat it up. I mean, it's like hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit. And what happens is the impurities rise to the top of this liquid gold and they scrape the impurities off the top. And what it leaves is a pure gold.

And God does the same things in our lives. When you go back to the greatest pain brings the greatest gain. That's because pain brings heat. And the impurities come out. You'll hear things, especially on sporting events.

They talk about it all the time. I played football my whole life. And, you know, when you get in the trenches and you go through things, it brings your character out. It builds character. It doesn't build character.

When you go through the heat, you see the crap rise to the surface. Right? That's why everybody thinks that Christians are hypocrites. It's because everything's good and jolly when we're all making money and doing well. Praise Jesus.

Life is good. I just got a new car. My house is great. My kids, they're amazing. And in the moment we lose all that, they're looking at us and we are cursing up a storm.

We're blaming God. We rebel. We forget God. We run from God. And they're looking at us going, where'd that come from?

God put the heat on. He requires, he has to remove the junk. He's got a heat truck. He's got a heat truck. You up and scrape it off the top so that you are usable, so he can remove that and redeem you for a purpose.

Some of you are sitting here and you know exactly what he's trying to remove. You know exactly what it is that God has been trying to remove from your lives, and you have been holding on to it with everything you've got. And God keeps saying, I've got something better. I've got a purpose for you. Let go of it.

Let go of it. And you are sitting over there holding on as tight as you possibly can. And God says, I want to remove that as far as the east is from the west, and I want to redeem you for a purpose that you can't even fathom. Because I have something for you. I have rewards in you in heaven that are far greater than any riches that you could possibly have here on earth.

But you've got to let go. You've got to allow him to remove that so he can redeem you. And God, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to wake up tomorrow dirt poor. My wife has a great job. We live a blessed life.

We live in a great neighborhood. We've got a lot of neighbors in here in Shadow Lawn. If you haven't been to Shadow Lawn, I encourage you to come by a house. Amazing neighborhood. Call it the hood.

Every time I ride around, I'm running into neighbors. I love it. God has blessed us. But he's given me a greater purpose. I could have made a lot more money doing other things.

Instead, I raised my hand and became a realtor and a pastor. Someday my grave will say, and I told this to a person the other day, he used to like people. Because between being a realtor and a pastor, I am not sure that will be at the end. I will probably be the old man somewhere in a cabin shooting at anything that shows up at my door. Just being real.

So God has some desires for your life. And I'm going to hit these hard and fast because I want to get to the ultimate purpose. He wants to reveal himself to you. God wants to have an encounter with you. Isaiah 55 6 says, Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call on him while he is near. If you seek God out, if you pray and ask God for an encounter, guess what? He will show up. He will be there. You will have an encounter with the most high God, Jeremiah 29 13.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. That's the key. You have to be all in. You can't do any of this half step stuff, any of this two step stuff, any of this straddle the line stuff. You've got to be all in seeking God out and he'll show up.

And you'll be on your face and you will look up and there will be God. And it will change your life forever. He wants to change you. Who here wants to be changed? Raise your hand.

And if you raise your hand, you are lying. I won't call Alex a liar. I've been around him enough. He does like to be changed. I do too.

It's painful. But the rest of you, I know. You don't like change. You don't like it. The last thing you want is Isaiah showing up at your door saying you got to change.

If Isaiah showed up in Virginia Beach today, that dude would be strung up from the statue down there on 31st Street. King Neptune would be holding Isaiah. Because we don't like change. When someone says, guess what? All that money you make, you need to be generous with that.

God didn't give it just for you. He gave it for his kingdom. We like put our hands on our, we start walking around like this for the rest of the week. Making sure God's not going to like send an angel to take our money without us knowing about it. Hey, you know that extra job you have?

You need to quit that job. And you need to spend that time investing in God's kingdom. And guess what? That first job you have, you'll start making more money. That's just the side benefit.

But we don't want to hear that. Because man, that's our security. As a surfer, as a person who had a lot of hobbies for a long time. Oh, I'm going to use brother Alex because I know he'll let me. God told him at one point to quit surfing.

He told him to walk away from surfing. He said, it has become an idol in your life. You've got to put that aside for a time and step away and get your focus where it needs to be. You're cool with me sharing that, right brother? No one, there is not a person in this room who wants to have Isaiah show up at their door and tell them they got to quit doing the thing they love doing the most.

You got to quit playing golf. I'm not talking to you, Grady, because I know you love golf. You got to quit surfing. You got to quit working out. You got to quit.

I could go on and on. Give up your bike. Give up your car. Give up your motorcycle. Give up your Jeep.

I'm a Jeep guy. I'm a surfer. I like to work out. God's asked me to give up a lot. And there's a lot of things I still hold on to tight sometimes.

We don't like change and God desires to change us because it requires that for him to use us for what he has for us. Isaiah 1, 18 through 19 says, Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are as red as crimson, they shall be wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land.

He's saying if you let go of all that earthly nasty stuff, I will feed you with the best of the land. I will give you stuff that you can't even aren't even on your radar. They're not even in your dreams at night. I will give those things to you. But you've got to change.

Third, and this is the most important, if you don't get this, you've missed this. I beg of you to hear this and understand this and listen to this and write it down and underline it and put an asterisk by it. God has an assignment. God has a purpose and a plan for you. Let me tell you what that plan does not include, just so you're aware.

That plan is not your job. It's not your career. God's plan for my life is not for me to be a real estate agent. God's plan for my life is not to be a husband or a parent or a son or a brother. That is not God's plan or purpose in my life.

Isaiah 61 through three says arise shine for your light has come in the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Ephesians 2 10 says for we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago.

Guys, we have this tendency as Christians to look for this thing that God wants us to do. I'm a pastor and it's real easy to get caught up in being a pastor. I believe that one day God wants me to go plant a church. And that salt is going to get to send me out to go plant another church. Those of you who are in here from Florida, you can start praying for Tampa or Jacksonville.

this one is right here and someday in the West Hartwell, we here are our leadersenza. It's very powerful when I live here and everyday life walk a day, You've got a cer目 of, so we can help you. It's growing people. We don't particularly can cause these two shifts we take the nation. But that isn't the plan and purpose in my life from God.

I want to read some things to you guys. These are descriptions of hell. Revelations 2-8. It's a fiery lake of burning sulfur. It's the second death.

Matt 25-46. It is eternal punishment. Psalm calls it the realm of the dead. Matthew, again, says it is a blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 25-41 says it is eternal fire.

There's some of you out there right now who are already arguing in your heads. Well, that's just symbolic. Those are just analogies. So I'll tell you what, I can play that game with you. I'm gonna go to 2 Thessalonians 1-9.

It says that hell is everlasting destruction and you are shut out from the presence of the Lord. We'll just use that mild example of hell. And I want to tell you what hell means. You are not in the presence of the Most High God. And when you are not in the presence of the Most High God, there are two things that are gone from your life.

It is love and it is hope. I don't know about you guys, but living without love or hope, that sounds pretty bad to me. Guys, there is a world of people who are living their lives right now without knowing the love of the Most High God. They don't know who He is. They have never felt or had an encounter of the love of Jesus Christ that changes their life.

And they are walking around blind and hopeless, wondering why they're rich. They have everything they could ever want, but they're still hopeless. And they're waking up every day wondering what does it mean? Why? What?

What am I supposed to do with my life? Is there anything better than this? And the reason that they are walking around hopeless and loveless is because they've never met Jesus Christ. So I want to tell you what God's purpose and plan is for your life. It is to go out into this world and share God's love.

It is to run into every person that you can possibly find. And when you find out they don't know who Jesus is, it is to tell them, let me tell you about God. Let me tell you about this man named Jesus Christ, and He will give you hope, and you will feel loved in a way that you have never felt loved before. That is the plan and purpose for your life. Maybe you don't know that you're called to be a pastor, a prophet, a preacher, a teacher, an evangelist.

Maybe you don't know that. But right now you work as a teacher. Or maybe you sell real estate, or maybe you're insurance, or maybe you were like my wife and you work in the healthcare industry. God's plan and purpose of your life is to wake up every single day and to find somebody that you can show the love of God to. Because if not, there will come a day of judgment, and they will go into an eternal place where they will never find hope, and they will never feel love again.

And if you can fathom living on eternally without love or hope, that is hell. And so I want to challenge you today as you go out from this place, if you know who Jesus Christ is, if you have given your heart to Him as your Lord and Savior, it is His plan and His purpose for you. It is called to you to run out and share Him with the world. That is God's plan for your life. When Isaiah met God and saw God, he knew his purpose had been escalated.

He knew his purpose and the plan and his life had changed and gone to a higher level. It was to go out and preach. And when you go into the last chapters from 40 to 66, and you see Isaiah talking about reconciliation with God and the goodness that that will be for His people, you understand. He knew that he had to preach repentance in order to show God's love. But he knew the most important thing was that people got it.

That your only hope is through the salvation of Jesus Christ. The only way you will ever feel loved is through the salvation of Jesus Christ. And let me tell you, when I tell you that your life is short and your legacy will be short, there will come a day when you too will stand before God and you will have a choice to live in any place of eternal hope, the fulfillment of the hope of knowing God forever and being in His presence and His glory eternally, where His love shines upon you in a way that you can never fathom on this earth. Or you will go the other direction and you will find yourself in a place that is desolate, that is hot, and that most importantly is destitute and empty of God. That should motivate us.

That should make us want to run out and grab everybody that we can possibly grab and say, if you don't know Jesus, let me introduce you to Him. If you don't know Jesus, let me hug you and tell you about His love. Because every person that we run into is going to one of those two places. And we shouldn't want one to perish and have that kind of everlasting life. Let's bow our heads.

If you're here today and you're hearing this and you're thinking, man, I want to know that guy. I've been running around lacking hope. I've been wondering, how can it get better? I've been wondering, why don't I feel loved? I'm married.

I've got kids. I'm surrounded by people that all tell me they love me, but I don't feel love. I want to introduce you to Jesus Christ. Everybody can repeat this with me. It's always good to remind ourselves.

Lord, first and foremost, I ask that you forgive me of my sins. I repent of my transgressions. I repent of the evil things that I do on a daily basis. Lord, I ask for your forgiveness. Lord, I ask you to come into my heart right now.

To create me as a new person. To indwell me with your Holy Spirit. And to show your love to me. Lord, I dedicate my life to you. I ask that you come as my Lord and my Savior.

And give me purpose. It is in your name, Lord, that we pray this. Lord, I pray for everyone here today. That before they leave this place, their purpose would be renewed in them. Lord, that we would change this city.

We would change our neighborhoods. We would change this state, this country, Lord. Lord, not by our job. Not by our career. But by sharing your love.

And introducing people to who you are. Because, Lord, that is our purpose. That is the plan that you have for us in the most basic of ways is to share your love and to shine your light to a dark and empty world. I pray for courage. I pray for fierceness.

And Lord, I pray for the Holy Spirit to come on them like they have never felt before. Give them an encounter with you. Lord Jesus, we ask these things in your name. Amen. Thank you, guys.