In Jesus day, the group of people who were all about impressing people were a religious sect called the Pharisees.

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1 Title: IMPRESSIVE Text: Isaiah 66:1-2 Open with video. We love to be impressed and if we got really honest, we really like to impress other people that s why we dress the way we do at times and brush our teeth and use deodorant In Jesus day, the group of people who were all about impressing people were a religious sect called the Pharisees. They were the religious leaders of the day that looked the part, spoke the lingo always pointed out when people fell short they were all about impressing people who weren t as holy as they were. The would wear phylactery, a box containing scripture verses on their forehead or their arm so they would always be seen having the scripture near them so it would be the first thing you would see on them, in addition to their flowing robes while it certainly got the attention of the people it also got the attention of God but not in the way they were hoping Interestingly, Jesus harshest criticism was reserved for the religious leaders of his day listen to him Luke 11:42 44 (ESV) 42 But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it. Matthew 23:1 7 (ESV) 23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. Matthew 23:15 (ESV) 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Matthew 23:27 28 (ESV) 27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people s bones and 1 of 5

2 all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. The pharisees were all about impressing other people and they even thought they were impressing God as if the garments they wore, the words they said and their twisted enactment of God s law was actually going to impress God I ll say this for the Pharisees while their means of impressing God were less than impressive at least they recognized the importance of trying to get God s attention of trying to impress God We ve done that, haven t we? Let s be honest for a moment together and consider the many times that we ve done things and thought to ourselves that was quite a good deed nobody extends themselves like that, nobody gives like that.nobody forgives like that surely NOW God is loves surely, He s IMPRESSED Man, in his sinful nature will always regress to trying to impress God by his good works and in the end of the day, it is an exercise in futility, because even our best works are tainted with sin and cannot stand on their own before a Holy God! Listen, Jesus is not in love with a future version of you, He s not in love with a better disciplined version of you, a more biblically aware version of you, a more prayerful version of you he s not in love with a version of you that you haven t arrived at yet and one you think he s looking think he looking for Jesus loves you! So there s two things I m hilitiing here the first is that Jesus loves you just the way you are the second thing I want to hilite is that there is a way to impress God we can get his attention it s not an impossibility or an exercise in futility It s not a pharisaical attempt by offering a work, or a look or an offering there is a way, for each and every one of us to impress God to be. IMPRESSIVE! C mon, don t you want to? Don t you want God to look at you and say.wow, that s impressive! Job There s nobody like him David a man after my own heart John the Baptist nobody greater than John the baptist There is a way and it is there that I want us to spend our remaining time unpacking together Isaiah 66:1 2 (ESV) 66 Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. 2 of 5

3 How s that for an opening! Talk about setting the bar pretty high!! Let s try and compare our works with God s work our impressive position with God s who s throne is in heaven and who s created all things, including the earth which is his footstool! All these things my hand has made all these came to be through my creative power where is the house that you will build for me what is the place of my rest in other words what are you going to do to impress me? But God doesn t leave the question unanswered it s not a rhetorical question that leaves us hanging and concluding there is nothing we can do that gets the attention of God There is, indeed a way to get the look, the attention of the Almighty. Isaiah 66:2 (ESV) 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. But this is the one upon whom I will look this is what get s my attention, THIS is what is IM- PRESSIVE to God The one who is humble, The one who is contrite and the one trembles at my word! One who is humble One who is contrite One who trembles at my word there are not words that we would deem as impressive in our culture today!! If I were to offer to you one of these words as your permanent identity in the world around you, how many of you would love nothing more than to be identified as the humble one or the contrite one. or the one who trembles at God s Word. of course we ALL want that, while we re here at church. but none of these things in our culture would be deemed synonymous with the word IMPRESSIVE! but it is to God! It gets God attention! BUT THIS IS THE ONE TO WHOM I WILL LOOK. Let s take a look at each of these. 1. To be humble C.S Lewis to be humble doesn t mean that you think less of your self it mean you think of yourself less Philippians 2:1 8 (ESV) 2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, 3 of 5

4 having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. A couple of things we see from this text: 1. Humility is a mindset. it s a decision! 2. Don t motivated by selfish ambition of conceit 3. Count others more significant than yourselves (DEACONS / SERVERS ILLUSTRATION) 4. Considers the interests of others not just their own 5. Not exercising your RIGHTS just like Jesus didn t exercise his! My favorite humility quote os from C.S Lewis: to be humble doesn t mean that you think less of your self it means you think of yourself less 2. To be contrite a better English word that communicates the original Hebrew word is the word broken but not broken in the sense of being shattered broken in the sense of total surrender to God! A perfect example of this is when we consider what a rancher must to to a horse: like a horse that is broken. take a look at this video Did you what he said the proud ones are the hardest to break! They don t want to surrender, they don t want to be led, they don t want to be accountable but you see, the only thing the rancher was ultimately looking to do was make the horse a more useful tool in his hands that s exactly what God does as well! **** Humility Impresses God Brokenness Impresses God And lastly 3. Trembles at My Word To tremble at God s Word doesn t mean we re afraid of God it mean s we re afraid of disobeying God! To tremble at his word requires us to recognize the source of what we re reading If you were handwritten a letter from and responding in such a way that demands our obedience, that rejects compromise that refuses to negotiate with God s Word but hears, applies it and obeys it! Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism was this Catholic Monk, who upon reading the scriptures discovered inconsistencies in the Roman Catholicism and scribed a list, 95 ques- 4 of 5

5 tions and propositions for debate that he had against the teachings of Rome and then he nailed them on the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church on October 31, 1517 the start of the Protestant Reformation. Prior to that event, when he was first completing seminary and holy orders within the catholic church, a necessary step in becoming a priest there is a story about the first time that he was to perform the mass. In Catholic Church they teach transubstantiation When he came to that point in the mass, his first service history tells us he froze for an awkward amount of time Some thought, it being his first mass, he was nervous and forgot the lines that the priest was to say Later when asked about that awkward moment, he said he didn t forget the lines he had memorized them and one over them in mind many times previous to this event he said that when he realized that he was about to put in his sinful hands the sinless body and blood of Jesus he just froze for what was a very long and awkward pause. he trembled at the thought that he was about to hold in his hands the body of Christ What a great picture that paints in our minds of how we ought to consider the sacred Word of God! When recognize that God has preserved this sacred book to communicate everything we need to know on this side of eternity about salvation, about God, about humanity and about ourselves it ought to create in us 3 responses (and with this I ll close) 1. A hunger to hear and read it give us this day our daily bread. 2. A heart to believe it this is where brokenness / surrender is so important 3. A resolve to obey it But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. 5 of 5