10 Aug Tuhan sebagai konsep dan kenyataan

YESAYA 6:1-13:

1. Dalam tahun matinya raja Uzia aku melihat Tuhan duduk di atas takhta yang tinggi dan menjulang, dan ujung jubah-Nya memenuhi Bait Suci.
2. Para Serafim berdiri di sebelah atas-Nya, masing-masing mempunyai enam sayap; dua sayap dipakai untuk menutupi muka mereka, dua sayap dipakai untuk menutupi kaki mereka dan dua sayap dipakai untuk melayang-layang.
3. Dan mereka berseru seorang kepada seorang, katanya: “Kudus, kudus, kuduslah TUHAN semesta alam, seluruh bumi penuh kemuliaan-Nya!”
4. Maka bergoyanglah alas ambang pintu disebabkan suara orang yang berseru itu dan rumah itupun penuhlah dengan asap.
5. Lalu kataku: “Celakalah aku! aku binasa! Sebab aku ini seorang yang najis bibir, dan aku tinggal di tengah-tengah bangsa yang najis bibir, namun mataku telah melihat Sang Raja, yakni TUHAN semesta alam.”
6. Tetapi seorang dari pada Serafim itu terbang mendapatkan aku; di tangannya ada bara, yang diambilnya dengan sepit dari atas mezbah.
7. Ia menyentuhkannya kepada mulutku serta berkata: “Lihat, ini telah menyentuh bibirmu, maka kesalahanmu telah dihapus dan dosamu telah diampuni.”
8. Lalu aku mendengar suara Tuhan berkata: “Siapakah yang akan Kuutus, dan siapakah yang mau pergi untuk Aku?” Maka sahutku: “Ini aku, utuslah aku!”
9. Kemudian firman-Nya: “Pergilah, dan katakanlah kepada bangsa ini: Dengarlah sungguh-sungguh, tetapi mengerti: jangan! Lihatlah sungguh-sungguh, tetapi menanggap: jangan!
10. Buatlah hati bangsa ini keras dan buatlah telinganya berat mendengar dan buatlah matanya melekat tertutup, supaya jangan mereka melihat dengan matanya dan mendengar dengan telinganya dan mengerti dengan hatinya, lalu berbalik dan menjadi sembuh.”
11. Kemudian aku bertanya: “Sampai berapa lama, ya Tuhan?” Lalu jawab-Nya: “Sampai kota-kota telah lengang sunyi sepi, tidak ada lagi yang mendiami, dan di rumah-rumah tidak ada lagi manusia dan tanah menjadi sunyi dan sepi.
12. TUHAN akan menyingkirkan manusia jauh-jauh, sehingga hampir seluruh negeri menjadi kosong.
13. Dan jika di situ masih tinggal sepersepuluh dari mereka, mereka harus sekali lagi ditimpa kebinasaan, namun keadaannya akan seperti pohon beringin dan pohon jawi-jawi yang tunggulnya tinggal berdiri pada waktu ditebang. Dan dari tunggul itulah akan keluar tunas yang kudus!”

Yesaya masuk ke bait Allah dan dia melihat Tuhan duduk diatas tahtanya yang menjulang tinggi dan ujung jubahnya memenuhi seluruh bait suci. 

Yang Yesaya lihat adalah KEMULIAAN ALLAH yang menyebabkan terjadinya goncangan bait Allah dan dipenuhi dengan asap.

Ayat bacaan kita diatas sangat bagus untuk kita belajar dan mengerti dan mengalami perjumpaan pribadi dengan Tuhan.

Waktu Tuhan datang melawat kehidupan kita secara pribadi, maka kita akan mengalami beberapa hal yang akan membuat hidup kita berubah secara drastis dan secara permanen. 

When Isaiah walked into the temple and saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filling the temple, Isaiah did not say, “Oh! There really is a God.” He already believed. Of course he believed. But God was just a concept until this moment. Then God became a reality.

Now what’s the difference between a concept and a reality? It’s all a matter of glory. God as a concept is lighter than you

Pada waktu Tuhan hanya sebagai konsep didalam hidup kita, maka kita yang membentuk Tuhan, dan Dia hanya bekerja sebatas yang kita izinkan. Dia tidak melakukan perubahan drastis. Kehadiran Tuhan tidak menata ulang semua hidup kita, tapi hanya jadi alat untuk mencapai tujuan dan keinginan kita. Tuhan hanya jadi konsep dalam pikiran kita. Padahal 

Sesungguhnya kita punya Tuhan yang Maha Kuasa yang sangat mau dan mampu menciptakan manusia baru yang totalitas berbeda dengan manusia lama kita.

Many people are constantly saying to me, “Well, I can’t believe in this or that part of the Bible because that’s regressive. We can’t believe in that anymore.” In other words, our beliefs come from our cultural moment.

You don’t have a real God. You have a god as a concept; you don’t have a God who can actually change some of your deepest-held beliefs, contradict you, and actually make a change. He fits into you.

Plenty of people try to get religious. They go to church. They start to pray. They read the Bible. Why? Because they need help in getting to their goals.

They say, “Oh, I need more inspiration. I need more strength. I’m having trouble reaching my goals.” In other words, you fit God into your agenda. You fit God into your existing belief. God as a concept is lighter than you, but God as a reality is heavier than you. 

Here’s an illustration. 

Imagine you have some family money. Somebody comes along and says, “I’d like to marry you.” So you get married. Imagine that after the marriage at some point, your spouse comes to realize he or she can’t really get his or her hands on that family money, and they leave you. How do you feel? Violated, used, just a means to an end, an object. You feel like you were not loved for who you were in yourself.

Do you realize almost all of us relate to God like that? 

How do you think he feels? 

In other words, “He has this incredible blessing bank account somewhere. I know it’s there, but he never would let me get my hands on it. I was really after blessings, not God. The blessings of God are what I wanted, and when I wasn’t going to get the blessings, I was out of there.” You married God for his money. He was an object.

Kata GLORY = KABOT (Ibrani) = Bobot atau berat 

When it talks about God’s glory, it’s talking about his weightiness, that compared to anything else, God alone is permanent, God alone is real, and God alone matters.

Waktu kita mau mengizinkan Tuhan merubah pikiran kita dari sekedar KONSEP dan mau mengalami TUHAN SECARA REALITAS, maka kita akan mengalami beberapa goncangan:

Pertama kita akan mengalami GUNCANGAN YANG DARI TUHAN,

Lalu kita akan mengalami GUNCANGAN DI DALAM PRIBADI, dan terakhir kita akan melihat GUNCANGAN DUNIA KITA. 

I. GONCANGAN YANG DARI TUHAN

YESAYA 6:1

Dalam tahun matinya raja Uzia aku melihat Tuhan duduk di atas takhta yang tinggi dan menjulang, dan ujung jubah-Nya memenuhi Bait Suci. 

YESAYA 6:4

Maka bergoyanglah alas ambang pintu disebabkan suara orang yang berseru itu dan rumah itupun penuhlah dengan asap. 

If you drop an object that is heavier than water into water, there’s a flood. It’s basically a water quake. Because the object has more glory than the water, the water quakes.

When the reality of God comes down into your life, it changes everything around. 

PERAGAAN MEMASUKAN BATU KEDALAM POT AIR

Every single place in the Bible where God’s presence comes down, there’s an earthquake because of the glory of God. God is more glorious than anything. 

When he comes down on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, the mountain trembled violently. When he came down into the upper room in Acts 2 during Pentecost, the room trembled and shook violently because God’s glory is ultimate. 

SEGALA SESUATU YANG KITA BANDINGKAN DENGAN TUHAN AKAN MENJADI TANPA BOBOT, KARENA TUHAN YANG PALING BERBOBOT. PADA WAKTU TUHAN MENJADI KENYATAAN MAKA SELURUH SENDI KEHIDUPAN KITA AKAN TERGUNCANG DENGAN KERAS!

PERBEDAAN NYATA TUHAN SEBAGAI KONSEP DAN TUHAN SEBAGAI KENYATAAN ADALAH ANTARA KITA PERCAYA KEPADA TUHAN DENGAN KITA MENGALAMI KEHADIRAN TUHAN SECARA PRIBADI.

For example,

Jeremiah 1 and Isaiah 6 … they’re very different. Isaiah was a proud man. He was a young man. He was one of the elites. Jeremiah was filled with inferiority feelings, always saying, “Oh, I’m just a child. I can’t do anything.”

When God shows up to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1, he says, “Stop trembling.” When he shows up to Isaiah, he says, “Start trembling.” But in both cases he showed up.

God was a concept until this moment, and when he showed up as a reality, he began to rearrange everything in Isaiah’s life. 

Has that happened to you? Is he contradicting you? Is he changing you? Has that happened? 

If you’re out of touch with the reality of God, you’re out of touch with reality.

So here’s God, who was a “quaker.” So here’s the God who comes in with this quake. 

The question is … How do you know you’ve actually had God move from being a concept to being a reality?

II. GONCANGAN SECARAVPRIBADI

KITA AKAN TAHU TUHAN SUDAH SEBAGAI RELITAS DAN BUKAN SEBAGAI KONSEP PADA WAKTU KEHIDUPAN PRIBADI KITA TERGONCANG DARI DALAM DIRI KITA SENDIRI

YESAYA6: 5-8:

1. Lalu kataku: “Celakalah aku! aku binasa! Sebab aku ini seorang yang najis bibir, dan aku tinggal di tengah-tengah bangsa yang najis bibir, namun mataku telah melihat Sang Raja, yakni TUHAN semesta alam.”
2. Tetapi seorang dari pada Serafim itu terbang mendapatkan aku; di tangannya ada bara, yang diambilnya dengan sepit dari atas mezbah.
3. Ia menyentuhkannya kepada mulutku serta berkata: “Lihat, ini telah menyentuh bibirmu, maka kesalahanmu telah dihapus dan dosamu telah diampuni.”
4. Lalu aku mendengar suara Tuhan berkata: “Siapakah yang akan Kuutus, dan siapakah yang mau pergi untuk Aku?” Maka sahutku: “Ini aku, utuslah aku!”

Isaiah had an experience of radical beauty, an experience of radical humility,and an experience of radical purity.

1. MENGALAMI KEINDAHAN TUHAN YANG RADICAL

YESAYA 6:3:

Dan mereka berseru seorang kepada seorang, katanya: “Kudus, kudus, kuduslah TUHAN semesta alam, seluruh bumi penuh kemuliaan-Nya!” 

He heard the seraphim call out, “Holy, holy, holy!” In Hebrew, often, magnitude is conveyed through the doubling and the repetition of a word the most exquisite. So, very often, magnitude is gotten across by doubling. But nowhere but here in Hebrew, in the Bible, is any quality tripled. That’s how important this is. God isn’t just holy, holy. There’s a category beyond categories here. He’s holy, holy, holy.

Now what is holiness? 

The Hebrew word is qadowsh means, on the one hand, infinitely unique superlativeness. 

To say God’s wisdom is holy wisdom is to say it’s infinitely beyond and better than anyone else’s. To say God’s love is holy love is to say it’s infinitely and perfectly beyond anyone else’s.

The word holiness also means brilliance and beauty. The seraphim are not just saying, “Holy, holy, holy.” They’re constantly singing the praises to one another. In other words, they’re fascinated with his holiness. They love his holiness. They can’t get enough of his holiness. They’re constantly adoring his holiness.

PARA SERAFIM MEMUJI DAN MELAYANI TUHAN BUKAN BERDASARKAN PERHITUNGAN UNTUNG DAN RUGI, BUKAN JUGA KARENA TUHAN MEMBERIKAN MEREKA POWER, APPROVAL, COMFORT, CONTROL, SIGNIFICANT DAN SECURITY. MEREKA MELAYANI TUHAN HANYA KARENA JADI DIRI TUHAN, KARENA TUHAN MEMANG LAYAK UNTUK DI SEMBAH DAN DILAYANI. MEREKA MENYEMBAH KEINDAHAN PRIBADI TUHAN, DAN BUKAN KARENA TUHAN BERGUNA BAGI MEREKA!

The power of God is something you could get excited about selfishly because it’s of benefit to you. “Oh, I have a powerful God.” The wisdom of God is something you actually can get excited about selfishly because it could be a benefit to you. “Oh, I have a God who’s wise, and he’s going to give me guidance.” You can even get excited about the mercy of God selfishly because it’s of benefit to you. “Oh, now I’m going to get rid of my ‘guilt-riddenness.’ ”

KEKUDUSAN TUHAN ADALAH PRIBADI TUHAN YANG TIDAK BISA DIMANFAATKANOLEH KITA, BAHKAN KEKUDUSAN TUHAN BISA JADI ANCAMAN BAGI KITA. SETIAP ORANG YANG MEMUJA KEKUDUSAN TUHAN ADALAH ORANG YANG SANGAT MENGASIHI PRIBADI TUHAN, KARENA KEKUDUSAN NYA TIDAK BISA DISALAH GUNAKAN!

His holiness is superlative. His holiness is the fact that you cannot beat God because his power is holy power, omni-power, and you can’t question God because his wisdom is holy wisdom, and you can’t escape God because his presence is holy presence. His holiness is nothing but a threat. How could it be beautiful? 

1. MENGALAMI RENDAH HATI YANG RADICAL

He says in verse 5, “Woe to me!” Woe is a curse. He’s pronouncing a curse on himself. He’s saying, “I don’t deserve to live.” Then he says, “I am ruined. I am undone. I am dismantled. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”

You always find being in the presence of human superlativeness traumatic because it crushes your self-image. 

For example:

You might come to Opera House  … You were the best singer in your little town, and you came to Sydney opera house because you’re going to have a career in singing.

You go to your auditions, and as you’re listening to the other people in the room auditioning, through the door you hear voices that are inaccessibly better than yours. You’re crushed. You were in denial of your mediocrity. You’re dismantled. “Woe is me,” says the male or female singer.

Now what happened to Isaiah?

Jewish tradition says Isaiah was of the royal family. Jewish tradition says his father was the brother to the king. Therefore, he was one of the elites. What we know about Isaiah from his book is he was a man of artistic, intellectual, and communicative genius. If you, by the way, write a book and 3,000 years later people are sitting around studying it, then you’ll know you’re pretty smart.

It was an oral culture. He was a man of lips. He had a golden tongue, you see. He was able to do communication. In an oral culture, what power that was. 

Notice it says, “The year King Uzziah died …” King Uzziah had been in seclusion for years. He had leprosy. Everything was falling apart. The culture was falling apart. Society was falling apart. Things were in bad shape.

Don’t you think a guy like Isaiah, who was probably the most brilliant young man of his generation and of the royal family and one of the elites …? He said, “Boy, I can’t wait. I know what’s wrong with this country, and when I get into power, then I’m really going to be able to make things straight.”

Whenever there are things wrong (and there are always things wrong), you always think “those people over there” are the problem. Young people think, “ oh, it’s those old people who don’t understand how things should be done now.” Managements says it’s union; union says it’s management. Everybody thinks, “They’re the unclean ones. They’re the ones who are the problem.”

But Isaiah have totally different experienced,

He gets into the presence of the holiness of God, and he realizes he’sthe problem. “All of my people are unclean, and I’m just one of them. Even my lips … Even the best part of me is unclean, flawed, wrong, selfish, distorted, twisted.” 

DISELURUH ALKITAB TERCATAT PADA WAKTU KITA BERUBAH DARI TUHAN SEBAGAI SEBUAH KONSEP MENJADI MENGALAMI TUHAN SECARA PRIBADI MAKA KITA MULAI MELIHAT KEBURUKAN DAN KEJELEKAN KITA LEBIH DULU!

Job says, “I heard of you with my ear, but I see you now with my eyes, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Isaiah says, “Woe is me! I am undone.” 

Peter says, “Depart from me, Lord! I’m a sinful man.” 

Let’s just say there is a God who’s nothing but love. No holiness, no justice, no wrath … nothing but love. If in the presence of just human superlativeness your self-image comes crashing down around your ears, then even if you got into the presence of a God who was nothing but pure love, you would hate yourself. 

You would say, “I’m so cruel. I’m so unloving. I thought I loved people, but I never loved anybody.”

Here’s how you know you’ve begun to get into the presence of the real God, that you’ve begun to have God move into reality. You think you’re a sinner. You think you’re lost. You see you’re more capable of cruelty, more capable of evil, more selfish, pettier, more small-minded, and more impatient than you ever thought you were. You know you’re a sinner and you need to be rescued by grace.

Here’s how Isaiah, who was crashed for a few seconds into the lowest self-esteem you’d ever want … Here’s what God did. 

The minute he confesses his sin, God begins to explode into his life. The angel flies toward him. When Isaiah sees the angel coming toward him, the angel has the fire of God in his hand. 

The minute he confesses that, here comes the fire of God. Look, this is the fire of God, because even the angel can’t pick it up with his hand. He has to use tongs.

When the fire gets to his mouth … Think about this. It goes to his lips, the point at which he confessed. It must have stung, but almost immediately, instead of it consuming him, he realized he had been cleaned. Instead, the word was a word of pardon. “… your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 

The very next verse is, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ ”

One second after Isaiah realized he didn’t deserve to live and he was more wicked and flawed than he ever dared believe, he is now more affirmed and valued and wanted than he ever dared hope. 

Here’s God saying, “I have a little business going. I’m saving the world, and I need a new partner.”

Then he says, “By the way, this job I want you to do is going to be horrible because all of your life you’re going to be unsuccessful. You’re going to preach and preach and preach and nobody is going to listen to you ever. You’re going to be totally frustrated. You’re going to be absolutely ineffective. No one is going to listen to you. They’re going to persecute you the rest of your life.” 

What does Isaiah say? “Here am I. Send me!”

Here’s what happened to Isaiah. 

His self-image had been deconstructed and reconstructed on the spot. At the same moment, he realized he was more wicked than he dared believe and more loved and affirmed than he ever dared hope through the grace of God.

Everybody who hasn’t experienced the grace of God is earning their self-worth through some kind of performance standard. “If I’m like this, then I feel good about myself. If I do this, if I live like this …” 

If you’re living up to your standards, you’re bold and confident but you’re not humble; you’re arrogant. If you’re not living up to your standards, you’re humble and kind of sensitive to other people, but you’re not confident.

In the grace of God, you’re both bold and humble at the same time because you’re more wicked than you ever dared believe and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope. At the same time. 

This gives you a new psychological ballast and stability. Nothing can move you. Nothing, ironically, can shake you. Why? Because when you fail, you remember the affirmation of God, which is there by grace, not performance. When you succeed, you’re not puffed up, because you remember you’re nothing but a sinner saved by grace.

You’re bold and humble at the same time. That’s why you can take on anything. You can handle anything, theoretically, to the degree that God is a reality in your life. You know how that works.

How could the fire of God be an agent for cleansing? 

Do you know that, centuries later, almost the same thing happened? Do you know the temple was shaken? Do you know there was an earthquake because God came down? Do you know the temple was so shaken, the doorposts were so shaken, the threshold was so shaken, that the veil ripped? Do you know when that happened?

MATIUS 27:45-46:

1. Mulai dari jam dua belas kegelapan meliputi seluruh daerah itu sampai jam tiga. 
2. Kira-kira jam tiga berserulah Yesus dengan suara nyaring: “Eli, Eli, lama sabakhtani?” Artinya: Allah-Ku, Allah-Ku, mengapa Engkau meninggalkan Aku?

MATIUS 27:50-51::

1. Yesus berseru pula dengan suara nyaring lalu menyerahkan nyawa-Nya. 
2. Dan lihatlah, tabir Bait Suci terbelah dua dari atas sampai ke bawah dan terjadilah gempa bumi, dan bukit-bukit batu terbelah,

Before Jesus died on the cross … Do you remember in the garden he said, “My soul is sorrowful even unto death”? What was he saying? “Woe is me. I am undone. I am ruined. I feel like I’m coming apart.” But no angel showed up and said, “Thy sin is atoned for,” because Jesus was the sacrifice on the altar.

Jesus Christ was shaken by the judgment of God … 

YESUS KRISTUS ADALAH PENGUASA DUNIA YANG DATANG KALI PERTAMA BUKAN UNTUK MENGAKIMI DUNIA TETAPI UNTUK DIHAKIMI DAN MENERIMA PENGHUKUMAN GANTI KITA. YESUS DIGONCANGKAN DENGAN HEBAT SUPAYA KITA TIDAK TERGONCANGKAN, SEHINGGA SEMUA DOSA KITA BISA DITEBUS, SEHINGGA KITA BISA MENDAPATKAN JADI DIRI YANG BENAR DARI JATI DIRI YESUS YANG SUDAH DIGONCANGAKAN DENGAN HEBAT DAN SUPAYA KEMULIAAN TUHAN TURUN DALAM DIRI KITA.

If it’s really true we’re accepted completely in him not on the basis of our performance, now the holiness of God is beautiful. You don’t serve God to get things; you already have everything. 

Then why serve God? Because of the beauty of what he is and what he has done, because you want to know him, because you want to resemble him, because you want to delight him, because you want to be part of this new business of his in saving the world.

III. GONCANGAN DISEKITAR DUNIA KITA

If God comes into your life and creates a self quake, than you’re sent out to be part of the movement of God that is eventually going to shake heaven and earth because God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. 

To become a cooperative agent, a man or woman in mission, there are at least three things you see here that come as a result of this self quake that make you useful. Instead of using him, you let him use you. 

Here are the three things: availability, dependability, and expectancy.

Pertama availability = KEBERSEDIAAN. 

YESAYA 6:8:

Lalu aku mendengar suara Tuhan berkata: “Siapakah yang akan Kuutus, dan siapakah yang mau pergi untuk Aku?” Maka sahutku: “Ini aku, utuslah aku!” 

Family holiday to Sydney that changed our family’s life forever. 

I remember very clearly I realized that, up to that point, I wanted God to be available to me.

I began during that talk, obviously, to sense God’s reality. I began to experience his glory. 

He stopped being a concept. 

He started being a reality. I realized no matter what he said, no matter what he did, no matter what he let come into my life, because of who he was I needed to be unconditionally available to him. Have I lived up to that? 

Absolutely not. 

PADA WAKTU TUHAN MENJADI SANGAT NYATA, DIA AKAN MENEROBOS HATI KITA DENGAN KUASA YANG SANGAT KUAT, SEHINGGA KITA TIDAK BISA MENGHINDAR, TIDAK BISA MELUPAKANNYA DAN DIA BEKERJA TERUS MENERUS SAMPAI KITA MELAKUKANNYA!

Kedua, dependability = BISA DIANDALKAN 

Here’s what I find interesting. 

He says, “I have a job for you.” Isaiah says, “Here am I. Send me!” 

Then God goes on and says, “I want you to realize these people are going to be so obstinate, you’re going to preach to them for years, and every time, they’re going to say, ‘I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this.’ ”

God says, “It’s going to get so bad that at one point you’re going to have to say to them what Romans 1 says. Poetic justice. ‘God is going to give you what you want.’ ” 

The worst thing God could ever give anybody is what their unregenerate heart really wants. “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this.” “You’re going to have to say, at some point, to everybody in Israel, ‘Okay, then you’re not going to be able to hear it. God is going to give you what you want.’ ” It’s that bad.

This means is Isaiah is dependable. His needs are not as important as God. He doesn’t work his ministry around his needs and whether there’s individual fulfillment. There was no individual fulfillment here at all. Why don’t we all do that? Why not take the jobs around a church that get almost no applause, like sitting with the children during an evening service or passing out bulletins? Nobody is going to applaud you for that. Why not get taken out of yourself and what’s fulfilling to you because the glory of God is in your life?

Ketiga, expectancy = MENIMBULKAN PENGHARAPAN

Do you realize what it says? There’s a seed in the stump. 

God says, “Isaiah, for the very rest of your whole life, it’s going to be just terrible. Spiritually, economically, politically, it’s going to be one disaster after another. You’re never going to see it get any better. In other words, your nation is going to be like a grove of trees cut down. 

But there’s a seed in the stump. I will bring about a new heavens and a new earth.” Dan dari tunggul itulah akan keluar tunas yang kudus yaitu TUHAN YESUS KRISTUS!

If God is your reality, then you always work, no matter how it looks around you, in the hope and knowledge that eventually everything sad is going to become untrue. So with that availability, with that dependability, and with that expectancy, say to God, “Here am I. Send me.” Give yourself, not just your money nor your power, to the vision. Amen