Beauty

About this sermon

This video was taken from The Village Church's Night of Worship on January 23, an annual event where all campuses gather together to celebrate and worship God for who He is and what He has done in Jesus Christ. Beauty By Isaac Wimberley I have spent a large majority of my life looking at paintings Moments of time and segments of the universe captured on different shapes and sizes of canvas I become mesmerized by the subtle stroke of the brush The way the artist so delicately depicts areas and aspects to scale To the point that my heart feels a sudden rush As if I could reach my hand out and touch every last detail As if this was a dream Caught up in the scene I find my heart slipping further and further into love This is a story of my bent I prefer shadows This is not a conscious decision that I resolved to make To be honest, images are just easier for me to take Easily digested, I could chew all day And eventually be able to wrap my mind around what the picture is trying to say So I stare I stare deeply into the deepest point of the portrait Thinking that the pain of this world around me will somehow let go Hoping that somehow this paradigm will satisfy my soul But I end up empty I end up thirsty Longing for a drink And once again I return, crawling to Your feet Broken, ashamed, desperate for relief I have chased creation to its end and wound up on my knees Begging for forgiveness while hoping You can’t see me Because I know the truth about me I know that You have delivered for my every need But I also know that as soon as You give me manna, I start demanding meat I know that You have been my Protector through pain and suffering But I also know how quickly my heart asks where You are as soon as I can’t see the path beneath my feet So don’t look at me I can’t stand the sight of me So how can You, in Your infinite glory, allow me to be in Your presence? Yet You With a voice that calms the sea of anxiety in my soul Tell me to look up And Your eyes That see right through me Tell me that You knew me And I behold You in all Your beauty And I’m satisfied A heart that has constantly tried to find its purpose in everything else in life finally resides at rest Because Your beauty is much more than infatuation Your beauty provides my soul with satiation Beauty that transcends to give Your children definition For in Your presence I can clearly see that I’m not defined by my sins My life is not marked by my bents Because when I look into Your face the world grows strangely dim And I fall in You’re all that I see All that I know A son returning to his Father and a Father meeting him on the road Welcoming me home And before I can utter the words “I’m sorry” You tell me that You already know You know me The real me The me that I’ve been both chasing and running away from my entire life So scared that if you were to cut me open with a knife That disgust and darkness would be the color I would bleed And that You would be embarrassed that You chose to ransom me Yet that’s the me You know That’s the me You love So I give up I give in And I extend my broken, desperate, calloused skin to touch the edge of Your robe And even just the fringes brings healing to my soul For what seems like the first time in my life I see You as beautiful Wholly, completely enough No longer am I staring at empty promises painted on pointless portraits But instead I’m peering into pure love You are better than the things that I’ve been chasing You are beautiful You are my joy in the trials that I am facing You are beautiful Peace to my storm, stronger than my addiction Help in my time of need, comfort in my affliction You are beautiful And You will forever be So fix my eyes to consistently see Cause my mind to constantly think Give my heart a new song to sing Fill my lungs so that they always breathe You For You are beautiful