This Sunday's Worship Materials can be found in the "Featured Sermon" below. We meet in person at Harper Park Middle School, and the service is also livestreamed on our YouTube channel.

The Trouble of Guilt (Isaiah 6:1-8)

April 29, 2018 Speaker: Rev. Frank Wang Series: The Time of Trouble

Topic: Sermons Passage: Isaiah 6:1–8

We are continuing our series entitled “the Time of Trouble” this week as we move to the topic of guilt.  This trouble is something that we all have to deal with.  Each of us is not perfect, and so we will have to deal with the issue of not measuring up to the standards that have been set, by others or by ourselves.  Those guilty feelings that are produced when we fail to measure up are feelings that deal with every day.  But the big question is, “What is the Biblical response to guilt?”.

Thankfully, God has graciously given us so many passages in the Bible that deal with guilt.  But this Sunday, we’re going to be looking at Isaiah 6:1-8.  It is in the context of the story of Isaiah’s encounter with the Almighty God that we get a good handle on what it looks like to deal with guilt.  We often deal in propositions and theology, and to be sure, Romans 8:1 is a familiar refrain for us, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  But, I think that we will do much better when we hear how that doctrine or proposition is worked out in someone’s experience.  We tend to resonate with stories that mirror our own instead of with abstract ideas, and so God has given us this passage to illustrate how God moves us from ignorance to guilt to redemption and finally to commission.

It struck me that while we saw God’s presence as a comfort to those in depression last week, this week, we’re going to see God’s presence convicting us of our sin.  Yet, that presence still has a robust answer for our guilt because God doesn’t leave us alone in our guilt.  That is one of the great truths of the Gospel, that God did not leave us alone in our guilt.  Meditate on that as we come to the Word this Sunday.  See you there.