Text: Isaiah 57:15

Topic: Where we can find God

Introduction:

• Illustration: Dennis Wyse focused his life and looks on Elvis Presley, yet never was able to get close to him.
• The truth of the gospel is that we can know the everlasting God.
• The prophet Isaiah gives us two locations where God may be found.

We will find God in the lofty place of majesty.

• The elevated, eternal, holy God must not be brought to some middle ground.
• Illustration: A. W. Tozer, in his book The Knowledge of the Holy, describes how a low view of God impacts worship.
• Isaiah 6:1—4
• We need healthy fear of an awesome God, trembling at the thought of his presence.
• Illustration: Al Smith, former governor of New York, chastises an audience for their lack of respect for his office.

We will find God in the lowly place of humility.

God is with those who are crushed by a sense of their own sinfulness.

Isaiah 6:3—5

Illustration: C. R. Sumner, chaplain to King George IV, refused to serve communion to the king until he restored a mistreated servant.

We can avoid crushed people in the middle ground, but then we miss God.

Illustration: The journal of Methodist preacher W. E. Sangster shows he was willing to acknowledge his own and to enter into the high and holy.

Conclusion:

Illustration: MacDonald shares a poem he wrote contrasting the crowd's interest in a Boston Red Sox game with their indifference to a star shining overhead.