This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back for day three of week eight of our look through
the book of Isaiah, our last week in this book. We're going to look at Isaiah
chapter 64 today. It's a chapter that talks about what it means to be saved.

We talk all the time about this, what it means to be saved, being saved, but we
really don't think a lot about what we're talking about. Saved is one of those
words in the church that we've become so familiar with that we forget how
powerful, how wonderful it is. Isaiah 64 gives a fresh, real, personal
perspective on what it means to be saved.

Let's just walk through three things that it means to be saved. First of all,
when you talk about being saved, salvation is a desperate desire. It starts with
a desperate desire, a desperate desire to be rescued.

Isaiah 64, one to four. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that
the mountains would tremble before you, as when fire sets twigs ablaze and
causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and
cause the nations to quake before you. For when you did awesome things that we
did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you.

Since ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any
God besides you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. So there's this
desire to be rescued, to be saved. Rend the heavens, rip apart the skies, and
come down.

I need you, God, right here, right now, in my life. You are a God who acts on
behalf of those who wait for him. Salvation recognizes that God is a God who
acts.

He is a God who makes a difference. Mountains trembling, fires burning, nations
quaking. Verse three, you did awesome things that we did not expect.

If you're looking for the miracle of God's rescue, you need to recognize that
salvation is an awesome thing that we did not expect. We had no right to expect,
but because of Jesus Christ, he saved us, he rescued us. So no eye has seen any
God but you.

You recognize that God is the only rescuer. As long as you're looking somewhere
else for your rescue, you're not going to look to God as your rescuer. You're going to
try to make it happen yourself.

You're going to try to make it happen with something that seems closer or more
simple or more practical. It's when you come to that point when you realize
there's no God but you, that you turn to God as your only rescuer. So salvation
is this desperate desire.

Salvation is also a hopeless desire. I know, this doesn't sound good at the
beginning, but the truth is we've got this desperate need and we look at it and
we realize it's a hopeless desire. Our desire to be rescued with salvation meets
this despair of being rescued.

We look at who God is, we look at who we are, and we realize we don't deserve to
be rescued. Isaiah 64, five to seven. You come to the help of those who gladly
do right, who remember your ways, but when we continue to sin against them, you
were angry.

So how then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean and
all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. We all shrivel up like a leaf and
like the wind our sins sweep us away.

No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you, for you have hidden
your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. Those of us who've
been rescued need to constantly remember how impossible spiritual rescue seemed.
We were in a situation like being alone in a canoe in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, without radio, food, water, and a shark just took a bite out of your
canoe and it's sinking.

We want to be rescued so badly, but how could we be? There's no rescue in sight,
there's no rescue possible. And so we feel hopeless.

What makes us hopeless in these verses? Honestly looking at our sin. Filthy and
unclean in verse six, shriveled and swept away by our sins.

The last part of verse six, beginning of verse seven, we're separated, we're
wasted by our sin. It looks absolutely hopeless. And so number three, salvation
is an impossible grace.

Isaiah 64, eight, "Yet, O Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, you are the
potter. We are all the work of your hand.

" How could it happen? How can we be rescued when we're in such tremendous
peril? We have a rescuer.

The answer is not in us, it's in God. Verse eight reminds us of two things about
God. First, God is our father.

Now that seems so familiar to us 'cause most of us begin our prayers, our
father, our father, our father God. Jesus taught us to pray that way. But God
being spoken of as father, that's rarely seen in the Old Testament.

It was only when Jesus taught us to pray in this way that we began to pray in
this way. So this is one of the first times we're seeing this clear picture of
God as our father. To be rescued, I need to recognize, begin again, have
restored this relationship with God as my father.

God is the creator of all mankind. God is not the father of all mankind. To be a
father in the picture of God, we have to have a close relationship with him.

I know in our human relationship, sometimes our fathers are not close to us, but
God is not like a human being. In his perfection as a father, he will have a
close relationship with us. And he's opened the door to that.

He's opened the way to that through forgiveness in Jesus Christ, through rescue
in Jesus Christ. He brings us back into that relationship of father and son,
father and daughter. He's the father of all who come into a relationship with
him through Jesus Christ.

So right now, maybe you need to take a moment to recognize God as your father.
Maybe you never have. Maybe you're not sure.

As I'm talking about being rescued, being saved, you're not absolutely sure you
have been. Well, you can be absolutely sure now because it doesn't depend on
what you do. It depends on what he's done for you.

So you just say, Jesus Christ, I recognize that you came to rescue me back into
a relationship with God, to rescue me from the evil in this world to the
eternity that you have planned for me. And so I accept your rescue. I reach out
my hand to you instead of depending on myself.

I reach out my hand to trust in your forgiveness and to trust you begin to lead
and guide my life to all that you called for me to be. Thank you for rescuing
me. Thank you that God is my father.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen. God is our father. So he is our rescuer.

That's the impossible grace of salvation. God is our potter. And then these
verses also say God is our father.

These verses also say God is our potter. The potter is the one who personally,
who painstakingly makes a creation. Make sure that it's all in balance.

Make sure that it's all smoothed out. The potter's hand is on the wheel and is
on the pottery, making sure that it's formed in just the right way. What a
picture of how God is personally fashioning, shaping your life.

God is the potter and his hand is on your life. The miracle of rescue comes when
we recognize this simple truth. God is the potter, I am the clay.

Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way, that old song. You are the potter.
I am the clay.

So to be the clay is to allow God to be at work in my life, to allow him to form
and to fashion, to trust what he's doing. God rescues us from all that had been
destroying, devastating our lives. But he also rescues us to become all that
he's planned for us.

He is the potter, fashioning all of that in your life. That's the miracle of
impossible grace. Let's pray together.

And in prayer, Father, we just want to thank you for your impossible grace
revealed through Jesus Christ. Thank you that we are saved, that we are rescued,
that we're made new in you. Thank you for rescuing us from our sin through the
forgiveness of Christ.

And thank you for rescuing us to become all that you called for us to be in
Christ, beginning even on this world and our imperfection, our struggles, and
completed in heaven. So thank you. Even though we don't always understand it or
see what's happening, thank you for the ways that you're forming, you're
fashioning, you're molding our lives.

And we say in prayer, have thine own way. Your will be done. In Jesus' name we
pray, amen.

Join us tomorrow, we're going to take a look at the awesome promise of our eternal
home in heaven.