Beacon Sunday Service October 22nd 2023

Each and every one of you here today. Um before we start our time of worship this morning together, would I uh could I just invite everyone just to to rise and to greet your neighbor this morning with um peace be with you a strange and lovely sound I hear it in the thumb is ringing strike like the music of the universe our call to worship today comes from mix of Psalms sixty four as well as Isaiah sixty one let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him, let all the upright in heart exalt and together, let us greatly rejoice in the Lord, for he has clothed us with garments of salvation, he has covered us with the robe of righteousness, everlasting God the years go by by your unchanging in this fragile world, you are the only firm foundation, always loving, always true, always perciff, so good, yesterday and forever you are the same, you never change yesterday toever, for you are faithful, and we will trust in you together, uncreated one, uncreated one, you have no end and no beacon earthly powers fame, but there is no end to your kingdom, always love me always merciful so good and forever that you are the same, you never change Yes today to day and forever, that you are faithful, and we will trust in you sing together, Yahweh, Yesterday toever you are faithful and we will trust it ain't to forever you are the same you never change the students forever you are faithful and we will trust in you'll trust in you let's just continue to worship our Lord.

This next song comes from Psalm One O three, and it just really just reminds us that love the chorus, as far as the East is from the West, so far have you taken our sins from us. And so brothers and sisters, as we just approach the Lord this morning, may we just be reminded that it's the Lord who just casts our own sin and our own iniquity so far away from us and invites us to come and worship him. So let's sing the song together, Psalm one o three blessing the Lord O my soul that's within me, bless the Lord Oh my soul and forget all he forgives all your inquiry from the pit you with me as far as east from the west, so far have you taken us from us and our road so great is your stead bless the Lord O my soul and that's with praise the Lord O my soul and forget as a father shows compassion to be love the Lord shows comparation to us to feel as from the West from us and grace your save and again as far as east far as is from the west in our sins from us and another South is your sin.

Amen. Let's just continue our time of worship now as we just corporally confess our faith. And this morning we're going to be using the Heidelberg Catechism. And in this question and answer, we're going to confess our only comfort in life and in death. And so, church, what is your only comfort in life and in death? And together that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without a heavenly father, not an hair from can fall from my head. Indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.

Therefore, by his holy spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. Amen. What an amazing truth and a reminder for us that again it's all through Jesus Christ, and again it's not by our own will or our own might, but it's through the leading of the Holy Spirit that just allows us to be willing and ready to live for Jesus Christ.

Your house forever and bless your holiday you prepare a table right in the presence of my heavy though the air roll flies that trust you all dwell in your house forever and bless your hope we need even though I walk through the valley of the shadow death I will fear no evil even though I walk through the valley of the shadow death You are wrong even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no we're even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death You are wrong I said beside me all dwelling your house forever and bless your holy name let's sing that together one more time your house Good morning church at this time we're gonna take uh our confession of sin.

I think sometimes it's easier when we are lost or unable to say to God what we want to say from our hearts that just reciting words written for us. Um it's easier to be able to express how we feel. So let's do our confession of sin together corporately, and then have an end individual time of prayer. So together Almighty and Merciful God, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much to the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. O Lord, have mercy upon us, spare those to confess their faults.

Restore those who are penitent according to your promise, declared to the world in Christ Jesus our Lord, and grant, O merciful God, for his sake, that we may live a holy, just and humble life to the glory of your holy name. Please be seated. Let's take a personal time of confession of sin.

For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, and his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are his also. Today, uh, as we prayed last week, um, we're gonna pray over the Israeli Hamas conflict in the Middle East. Um, it's only gotten worse. Um, regardless of who you think is um can put a claim on the land, what's happening is a travesty. Um a lot of innocent people caught in between women and children have died. And as Pastor Troy said in a sermon last week, it doesn't matter what side you belong to, it's evident that both sides need Jesus Christ. They both need Christ in their lives. Um and the only thing that we can do for something like this is pray over them and pray for peace and understanding and for the fighting to end, that there would be a resolution, even though it seems far fetched.

Our God is capable of doing things that we can't put our minds around. So let's lift them up in prayer. And for those things that I've expressed and just um shared, uh let's just pray for this war to end.

Um I think I I see our faces in our ministry, and I know that there's a lot of change or trials and tribulations that have come. So in the presence of a community together before our God, we confess our sin. Let's also confess our needs to the Lord. I know that a lot of you have are transitioning or are going through specific issues in your life right now. Let's just take some time to pray over those things.

Lord, we know that you are a God, a just God, who hears our prayers, the cries of your people. Lord, we pray for the conflict in the Middle East. We pray for peace and resolution. And ultimately, we pray that your work will be done. That those who are fighting both sides need you, need your son. The gospel message needs to prevail. And ultimately, Lord, we just pray that one side does not succeed in destroying and obliterating the other. Nothing good will come from that. So, Lord, we pray for blessing upon that situation. We pray also for the needs of your people. We know that there's been a lot of personal struggle, a lot of trials and tribulations happening recently to our members, and we just ask, Father, for grace.

We pray for blessing. We pray for answered prayer. And we just pray, Father, for um just peace and joy in our lives, Lord, to be able to move forward. So, Lord, we know that you're a great God. And we pray that all glory goes to you in all situations, good or bad, Lord. We know that you must be glorified. So we thank you, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Uh, children, you're dismissed for Sunday school. Please have a good time with teacher Tiffany and teacher Abraham. Before I introduce our next speaker, we're gonna have a few announcements. Uh the first announcement is that in a couple weeks, Lighthouse Community Church is hosting a kids' mini conference on the 11th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Uh, if you haven't done so, please let Tiffany or myself know if you're interested in going. Uh, we would love to coordinate if you want to go and and kind of spend the day together. I think we have to register. So if you haven't done so, please do so on the website. Um, our town hall meeting, we are having a town hall meeting next Sunday. Thank uh obviously, it one is way overdue. We need an update on just um happenings of our church and also uh what is happening with our pastoral search. Uh so um if you are a member, please come. Um, we actually are requesting and requiring requiring you to come so that we can give you uh an update in person. Um there is a children's ministry sign-up sheet in the back.

Uh, I know that most of you have already uh signed up for um help, but uh I think it's prudent for us to have a backup as well. So if you can sign up uh to back up in case we have a lot more children on a Sunday, or if someone is not unable to um be the assistant for that day, we can use your help and signing up. So please look at the list and sign up. Uh last but not least, our offering options are Zell, Venmo, Cash and Check. Uh, as members, we ask that you give as the Lord has blessed you in your life. Um and if you're visiting, please do not feel obligated to give today. Uh so our next speaker's name is Layton Okada. He's a pastoral intern for the high school ministry at Lighthouse Community Church.

He's born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and he moved to Southern California for undergrad at USC. He's currently an MDF student at the Master's Seminary. And if the Lord wills, he aspires to move to Japan after graduation to serve the Lord through church planting. So let's give him a warm round of applause.

Again, my name is Leighton. I have the privilege of aiding the pastoral oversight of the high school ministry at Lighthouse Community Church. And so it's been a real real privilege to hear from our the other people who have been coming to preach on Sundays for you all. It was so encouraging just even this morning to get to confess sin together and make a historic confession of faith together too, and to hear you all sing. And even though it's my first time meeting most of you, like I it's such a blessing to know that I am united in Christ with you all.

So it is it is such a gift to be here. So if you're able, um, out of respect for God's holy and inerrant word, would you please stand for its reading? Today I'll be preaching from Isaiah 51, verses 9 through 16. This is Isaiah 51, verses 9 through 16. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over. And the ransom to the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

I am he who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the Son of Man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth. And you continually all the day, because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy. And where is the wrath of the oppressor? He who is bowed down shall speedily be released. He shall not die and go down to the pit, neither shall his bread be lacking. I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of your of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, you are my people.

This is the word of the Lord. He may be seated.

Father, what a sweet joy and privilege that I have to gather with brothers and sisters who I'm uh whom I have never met before. Um, yet with whom I am united in Jesus Christ. So would you bless this time of fellowship around your word as we look to what you have said to the prophet Isaiah. May it not return void. Ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. So when I was in sixth or seventh grade, I got my first phone. And it was an iPhone. I don't know what my parents were thinking, giving me a smartphone right off the bat. Uh but I remember being so excited when I got my phone. Um, and I was like screaming my head off, and my voice went hoarse. And naturally, spoiled little Leighton, just loved the thing to death.

I played games on it, I took pictures on it, um, I downloaded music on it, I I got every every app that I could, every game that I wanted. For some reason, my parents didn't restrict that. And my favorite app was this um singing app by a company called Smule, and it was uh karaoke app. And this app had all the hit songs of the time, and you could just choose a song and sing along to it, and it would record you and score you, and you could like share your your recordings on the internet, and other people would like listen to them and like them. And I was so into it. I was singing on this app all the time. Uh, it was my life. So over the summer of that year, I went to my cousin's house for VBS, and of course, I brought my phone with me, and um, in the evenings after dinner, as I always did, I would get out my phone and um get on the Smule app, and it was even more fun because I had my cousins there with me, and my cousins are like very subdued personalities in comparison to me, so I'm like really big and loud in voice here, so they're just like and they just kind of do whatever I told them to do.

So it was fun. Um it was so much fun getting to spend that time together with my my cousins. However, everything changed one night. We were just doing our thing, singing our songs on the Smeal app, and as and I was in the middle of belting out the bridge of defiant gravity from wicked and going full at Dina Manzel when my uncle comes barging out of his room, storming down the hallway into the living room where my cousin and I were singing, and he looks me in the eyes, and he says, Layton, it's time to go to sleep. And I knew that that was my uncle's really kind way of saying, your singing is bad, it's loud, and it's annoying. You need to stop.

And as I felt my stomach drop and my cheeks and ears get red hot, I slowly, while choking back tears, just slinked away into my room, embarrassed and ashamed. And after after that night, I deleted that app. My uncle apologized the next day, and things were fine between us, but I had already decided because of that interaction that I didn't ever want to sing again. Every time I opened my mouth to sing, I could see my uncle storming down that hallway again, his teeth clenched and his voice raised. I would ask myself. Would other people think that way too? Would other people judge me for my voice? Would I just embarrass myself if I ever sang again? And thankfully, being the true weirdo at heart that I was and still am, the feeling quickly wore off, and I started singing again.

But after that experience, I never forgot the feeling of embarrassment for loving to sing. And for the longest time, I whenever I sang, I couldn't escape the thought of what will people think of me. I was controlled by the opinions of others. This may be a bit of a silly story, but have you ever felt this way? Have you ever felt controlled by the opinions of others? Have you ever felt the need to conform yourself to the people around you? We call this the fear of man, also known as people pleasing. The fear of man is any time that God thinks of us. The fear of man is replaced by people. It's so much a part of our actions, beliefs, attitudes are ultimately controlled by what other people think of us instead of what God thinks of the time we don't even notice that it's there.

Just yesterday, I considered, I took some time to consider the manifestations, the temptations of fear of my of life of man in my own life, and I wrote down in a short five minutes, 45 different ways that on a daily basis, I experience and struggle with the fear of man. One author compares the fear of man to the perpetual smog that blankets Los Angeles. From miles away, you can see the muddy cloud looming over the city, but step inside and it disappears. When you stand on the streets of downtown and look up, all you see is blue. All the while, every breath in and out, is tainted with pollutants and smoke. And in the same way, the fear of man is in the air that we breathe. So, how is your world filled with the fear of man?

How are you tempted to live to please other people? We are a wash in a sea of fear. A sea that not only consists of wave after wave of attack from the world, but also waves that we have have ourselves made by jumping in. And now we're drowning and we need help. And thankfully, the Bible provides us abundant help. And a quick overview of relevant scriptures would tell us that if your understanding of God is small, then your fear of man will be big. To see people as bigger and more powerful and more significant than God creates a fear in us that causes us to allow others the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do. And in short, you will live for the one you fear. So naturally, though not simply, the solution to the fear of man is to fear the Lord rather than men.

Matthew 10, 28 says, Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. The solution to the fear of man is a greater fear of God. But how can you fear God if you don't know him? The fear of the Lord is to have reverence and awe and trust in his character and his person. But we cannot have these things if we don't have a clear understanding of his person and character. So that's what I want us to do that together this morning. We need to get a clear picture of God to cure our fear of man. And what better place to go for a big view of God than the book of Isaiah? So our key idea for this morning is God frees us from the fear of man by revealing himself as a big God.

God frees us from the fear of man by revealing himself as a big God. So as you look to our passage, the first thing we need to do is take a step back and understand the book of Isaiah as a whole.

And as we take this over overview look at the book, the overarching question of the book of Isaiah that Isaiah the prophet asked the people of Israel is will you trust Yahweh? Yahweh asked his people, will you trust me? Isaiah was a prophet called by God to speak on behalf of God to the people of Israel. And by this time in Israel's history, the nation of Israel had been split into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, and they were fenced in on every side by powerful enemies who threatened their safety. There was Assyria in the north, Babylon from the east, Egypt in the south, and the Mediterranean Sea blocking them in from the east from the west. There was nowhere to go, and the kings of Israel and Judah were very much tempted to put their trust in allegiances and alliances with neighboring powers rather than in God, who rules over the entire earth.

They, just like us, were afraid. They feared men. And on top of this, and even worse, was the fact that both kingdoms, Israel and Judah, had been rebellious against the Lord. They had been unfaithful. The people of Israel from the beginning were supposed to be set apart for Yahweh God. They were his people with whom he had made a unique covenant. And by their prosperity of being the people of God and enjoying fellowship with the one true God, they were supposed to be a light to the nations, but they had done everything wrong. They had broken his commandments, they had ignored his law. Despite moments of faithfulness, they had gone over after other gods, and in doing so, they had called the judgment of God upon themselves.

And instead of the nations being blessed through Israel, the nations came to Israel to conquer and destroy them. So is so Isaiah's ministry as a prophet consists of this question to Israel Will you trust God, or will you trust your powerful neighbors? Will you fear man or will you fear God? And so in the face of these enemies, Israel's root problem was a failure to fear the Lord. Assyria and Babylon were big in their eyes, and God had been made small. And so what we see in our portion of Isaiah today is that God truly is big.

And thus we have no reason to fear. So let's look at the text. This is point number one. The complaint from a fearful people, awake, God, awake. Verses 9 through 11. Awake, awake, put on strength, Israel says, O arm of the Lord, awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces who pierced the dragon? So in chapter 51, we've come almost to the end of the book of Isaiah, and by this point, God has already miraculously protected Judah by striking down Assyria, their first great enemy. But instead of responding in repentance and faith to Yahweh, Judah chooses to persist in its sin. And now the great threat of Babylon looms big. And it seems as if being conquered by the Babylonians is inevitable, and that there will be no escape for the people.

And so Israel lifts up this cry to Yahweh, saying, God, where are you? Wake up. Why aren't you helping us? Why aren't you for us? Awake, awake. Though in one sense this may be the righteous crying out to Yahweh God for deliverance, it also may be a tacit accusation that God has not been active on the people's behalf as he had promised. Wake up and do for us now what you did years ago, they cry. Protect us like you did when you delivered us from Egypt, here referenced as Rahab. Deliver us when you struck down Pharaoh and his armies, referenced as the dragon.

This was unfaithful Israel. Israel that had given itself to idols, Israel that had insisted on trusting man instead of God, Israel that had made allegiances with foreign nations instead of keeping themselves pure, as God had commanded.

A people whose eyes were fixed on their immediate situation and not the eternal spiritual realities between them and God. In comparison, we are no better than Israel. We as well fail to follow through with obedience. We fail to worship God and God alone. We are just the same as these unfaithful people. And God's response, however, to their cries is shocking. This is point to the response from a big God. The response from a big God, I am. Look at verse 12. Yahweh says, I, I am he who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies? Of the Son of Man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor when he sets himself to destroy.

Where is the wrath of the oppressor? Yahweh God has no obligation to respond to these people, and judgment and captivity under Babylon is actually what they deserve. And yet, God meets their cries of awake, awake with I, I am He, pushing back on their questioning of his character and cries for help with a thundering assertion of steadfast love, of care, sure and reliable comfort because it is rooted in his very being.

Rather, instead of just providing his works, he provides himself.

God's identity, his person, his character leaves no question as to whether or not he can keep their promises, and he presents himself as a sure comfort for Israel in response to their cry for deliverance.

The fear of man is a manifestation of pride. God asked in verse 12, who are you to be afraid? Who do you think you are? How could you know me, Yahweh, the God of the universe, the God who has delivered you time and time again, and yet still fear man.

Pride.

But who are you? When we fear others more than we fear God, we live in pride. And why does God regard fear of man as a manifestation of pride? It's because it dethrones God. God is he who comforts. But the heart of fear says, God won't comfort me, so I have to comfort myself. God is he who protects, but the heart of fear says, God won't protect me, so I have to protect myself. God is he who delivers, but the heart of fear says, God won't deliver, God won't save, so I have to save myself. And more practically, for example, when you seek the approval and applause of others, your heart of fear says, God's approval of me is not enough in Jesus Christ. So I must gain the approval of others for myself.

When you tell that little white lie or dress up a story, your fear of heart says to be well thought of by other people is more important than honoring God by telling the truth. When you stay silent instead of sharing the gospel with someone because you fear his or her judgment, your heart of fear says, This person has more power over me than God does, so I have to protect myself.

And so in this way, living in the fear of man is practical atheism. It says God isn't real, he's not powerful, he can't follow through on his promises, therefore I have to take my life and matters into my own hands.

The second is that is revealed in verse 13. When he, when Yahweh asks, Have you forgotten the Lord? The second lesson that we learn is the fear of man forgets God. The fear of man forgets God.

The problem was that the people had forgotten their God.

And this left space for fear.

What can man do to me? Or does your mind fill with I statements as the pressure builds? I have to do this, or else they won't like me. I have to follow through, or else I'll be rejected. I have to fit in, or else I'll be alone. Forgetfulness of God allows you to slip right into the fear of others. We must examine ourselves. Oftentimes we fear man not because the oppressor is actually big, but because God is not bigger to us. God in his response to the cry of his people exposes their sin. In the fear of man, Israel has dethroned and forgotten God, and we do this very same when we live in fear of others. However, despite the prideful attitude that Yahweh exposes in his people, God does promise deliverance.

The promise from a loving God, I will deliver you.

Neither shall his bread be lacking.

You will not die in the dungeon, and you will not go hungry.

God is set on following through with his promises to protect and preserve his people, but he's going to go even above and beyond. What's exciting and striking about this verse is that God's promise here to free those in bondage seems to be bigger than the immediate context surrounding Babylon. The language of wrath, destruction, oppressor, shackles, starvation, doesn't accurately describe exile under Babylon. The words don't fit the recipient's context. And so that indicates to us that the scope of God's words here are universal. They speak of principle and not just specifically for the exiles. God is talking about something bigger. By using these images of slavery, Isaiah is expanding God's promise for salvation far beyond Babylonian captivity and into the whole of humanity.

Yahweh is promising total rescue and release from the bondage of sin and self. And thus it's a promise to free you from your fear of man.

And those two reasons are because of who God is and because of what he is doing. Because of who God is and what he is doing. First, who God is.

Notice that there's a chronological progression of the scenes that God has brought up. In verse 12 and 13, he references the work that he accomplished in creation in the past. I am the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundation of the earth. In verse 13 through 15, he moves to the present. I am the Lord your God who stirs the sea so that its waves roar. And now in this last verse of the segment, he moves to the future. I have put my words in your mouth so that you speak them and cover you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, You are my people. God's sovereign power is fully orbed. There is nothing past, present, or future, that does not bow to his command.

And since the beginning of time, he has been preparing Israel and all of creation for this moment, the ministry of the servant. The servant is given three things equipment for his task, God's word. Thus the servant is a prophet. He's given the protection of God through his task. God's hand, his power over the servant. And third, the content of his task, God's mission, which is to plant the heavens, which plant implies a new beginning for the heavens and lay the foundation of the earth, which implies a permanence. There's a laid foundation that will not change. And finally, to say to Zion, You are my people, which is the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made with Israel all the way back in Exodus 6.

The servant's task is to establish a new cosmic reality. A new world in which man will no longer be estranged from God because of his sin, but in which the dwelling place of God, Yahweh, will be with Zion, with Israel, and they will be his people, and he will be their God.

And we know this suffering servant to be Jesus. Jesus is the one who, with the word of God and the power of God's hand establishes permanently the new heavens and the new earth. There will be a day when all suffering and striving cease, when sin and death are finally destroyed, every earthly and demonic power is dethroned, the world is perfectly remade according to his design, and God rules in his new Jerusalem while receiving the worship of his people for all eternity. This is the reality that is coming and that has been inaugurated by Jesus Christ in his life, his death, and his resurrection, the good news of the gospel which we preach. But this reality that is promised to the people of Israel through the suffering servant is not yet.

They are still exiles. Jerusalem still lies in ruins. The temple is destroyed. They are far from their eternal home. So what are they to do? We also are far from our eternal home. What are we to do? And everything comes right back to the question of Isaiah. God asks.

Says verse 17. Get up and live differently in light of all who of who I am. Friends, this roaring call for the Israelites to live faithfully in their time of exile is a call for you and me to do the same. If you are a redeemed sinner who has been washed clean by the blood of Christ, then the new creation by grace is your home. Not here. During this life, you are an exile. You're just passing through. So don't stop to build your kingdom. Be set on eternal glory. Be free from the controlling gaze of man. Set your eyes on Jesus Christ. Center your whole life around this reality that God is big and has come to you in Christ. And when we do so, we will not fear people.

There are so many applications for this sermon. We absolutely need to repent of the pride of the fear of man. We must examine ourselves thoroughly and search out the areas of our lives where we submit to the fear of other people instead of God. And so I ask, are you tempted to fear men at uh other people at work to get on your coworkers or your boss's good side to earn favor from others? Are you tempted to fear people in your in your friend groups in your communities in your relationships? We must repent of our fears and our focus on other people as we have allowed God's power to be usurped, and we must redirect our focus by God's grace to the one true God who deserves all attention, trust, and fear.

And so in those times when you just can't seem to shake that fear, when you just can't seem to stop caring about what other people think of you, when you feel so controlled by the thoughts and opinions of others, remind yourself of your big God in your time of fear, and even remind of yourself of your big God who made himself to be small to save you from your sin, your pride, to redeem you to himself by humbling himself even to the point of death on a cross. For myself, I am often crippled by the gaze of other people as an intern at our church, as someone who has in a sense a measure of pastoral responsibility and authority. I'm expected to act, put together.

I'm expected to be able to divide and explain it effectively. I'm expected to finish my degree that I'm uh uh doing at master's quickly and on time, which has not been the case. I'm four years in already, a few more to go. And I've expected to do my, I've been expecting, I'm expected to do my studies diligently and to steward my resources well, and my heart sees this circumstances immediately before me and what is big in my eyes, and says, Look, people are watching. I I need to live up to these expectations, but to live in prior in prioritizing what is immediate, to obey what I can see, to submit myself to those feelings is to submit to a smaller God while dethroning Yahweh. It's to elevate myself to say, I must be great, I must be liked, I must be well thought of, I must be honored, I must be something.

And when I silence the noise, what is the singular truth that cuts through? Jesus is Lord. He commands and deserves my obedience. And who am I? I I am nothing. I am but his servant, bought by his precious blood, one who was once dead and is now alive. And how do I gain his attention? By being humble and contrite in spirit and trembling at his word. What is my duty to fear God and keep his commandments? I am free. I'm free to live in faithfulness to God and fear of God, not others. The fear of God in my relationships looks past the danger of ostracization and rejection and sees others' greatest need to be Christ and not me, not my approval.

The fear of God in school means that I can work hard and commit to focus and to putting off distractions and saying no to all the things that I all the other good things that I want to do for the sake of loving God and others in my in my schooling. The fear of God in my identity allows me to go to God first to tell me who I am. And not social media, not my inner self, not my inner wants or yearnings or desires of what other people say about me.

But brothers and sisters in Christ, Yahweh is your Lord by the precious work of Jesus Christ, by this ministry of the suffering servant, you are God's people, you are new creations, you are free from the controlling gaze of others, free to live for God, in the fear of God, by the love of God, for the glory of God. So friends, awake, awake, put on strength. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the reality that we can be freed from the controlling fear of man. Not because we work ourselves out of it or because we manage to free ourselves, but because you move toward us and present yourself as a big God.

A sure reality that one day you will come and establish your new heavens and new earth. The sure reality that all those who place their faith in Jesus Christ and submit to your will will be welcomed home. And so we thank you that we have the opportunity to be included in that reality in that truth and be freed from the fear of man. That if we truly belong to you by repenting of our sin and receiving alien righteousness that is not our own, if we are regenerated, brought from death to life, if we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, if we have been truly converted, then we too can enjoy the freedom of the fear of God. I ask that you would enable my brothers and sisters in Christ to examine their hearts, to identify areas of fear in their lives and to uproot them by grace, so that you would be honored as supreme in their lives.

As we uproot sin and fear, as we look to you, and as you reign supreme over our whole lives. God, I ask that you would bless this church, that you would tie them together, knit them together in love in Jesus Christ, that this church would be a testimony of your goodness, would be a beacon of gospel love to the world, and a place where true disciples of Jesus Christ are grown and sent out for your glory.

Amen. Thank you so much, gosh. Lang just for the word today. And I think um personally, I just I love the reminder that we have a small view of God, it really just invites temptations like the fear of man to really determine and judge how we are viewed, how we view ourselves more importantly. So as we just um respond now with that time of worship, could I just invite you guys all just to rise and as we sing the song? I'm I love the fact that we can close this uh our time of corporate worship together, just singing the song the solid rock, because I think it it so well just encapsulates what our command should be just coming out of listening to to the word of God here in Isaiah 51 this morning that you know on Christ a solid rock is who we should stand, and that all other ground is sinking sin.

So as we just sing that together, may we just be encouraged and just reminded again that our identity and our view of God needs to be big. So church must just be reminded of that truth today.

In every storm again, I hold with Christ the S rock us, all of the ground is sinking sin, all of the ground is sinking sin.

So for me and thou around my soul give way open stay on Christ the rock us all the ground is sinking sin is sinking sin. Sing together, come clean. Come cling to the corner stone, our salvation is found in him alone. Come clean to the great I am, our foundation are up the risen.

Come clean to the corner stone, our foundation alone. Come clean to the great I am the risen.

Sound if him be found in his right salon for us to stand for Christ the Solid Rock using the ground is sinking sin. All of the ground is seeking sin. Let's just see together. Come cling to the cornerstone. Come clean to the cornerstone. Our salvation is found in him alone. Come clean to the great I am. Our foundation.

Come clean to the cornerstone. Our salvation is found him alone. Come clean to the great I am. Our foundation of rock the written hand on Christ the soul rock using. Receive now the blessing of the benediction. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep.

By the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight. Through Jesus Christ, to whom it be glory forever and ever. Amen.