About this sermon
In the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, with the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” Confronted with God’s holiness, Isaiah cried out that he was a man of unclean lips, and a coal from the altar took away his guilt before the Lord asked, “Whom shall I send?” In times of crisis and transition, God’s people look to his sovereignty, his mercy, and his calling, and they find their blessing in him.
Sermon transcript
Book of Isaiah, familiar passage, chapter 6. We’re going to be looking at verses 1 to 8. We should be at 1 to 8 this morning. Hear God’s Word. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings with With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost. For I’m a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am I. Send me. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, as the author of this word, we pray now that you might give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to truly listen and obey and wills to be inclined towards your will that we might do that which is pleasing in your sight. Speak your word to us. Encourage us on the way with a vision of yourself. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
Let me ask you, my friend, have you ever experienced a time of crisis in your life? A time of unrest, uncertainty, fear that literally the bottom would drop out? Ever wondered in such time, where is God? in all of this? Why does he allow this to happen? Or why is he so seemingly silent?
Isaiah and the people of God had such an unsettling experience, a time of great uncertainty and genuine soul-searching as found here in the very first words of Isaiah chapter 6, in the year that King Uzziah died. King Uzziah was a good king. Also known as Azariah, he became the king at age 16, and he reigned in Jerusalem for 52 years. Though not perfect, he sought to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord blessed him and Judah as a result tremendously. Under his leadership, the people of God prospered militarily, politically, and economically.
But now this great leader was gone. Who would follow? Who would possibly be able to do all that he had done? Who could possibly lead God’s people in the way that he had? It was clearly the end of a generation. What did the future hold? What change was inevitable? How would the changing of the guard affect the spiritual health and prosperity of God’s people?
And no doubt these things were of concern to the prophet Isaiah as he sought the face of God through prayer. What was God’s answer to Isaiah’s troubled heart? It was a vision of himself. So as we look at that vision this morning, I encourage you to keep your Bibles open there, Isaiah chapter 6, for the first thing that we see is the sovereignty of God. By the Spirit, Isaiah is ushered in to the throne room of heaven, and there he sees what words cannot even begin to describe.
He sees the King, the King of glory, dressed and adorned. The words you say, that the train of His robe, the splendor of His majesty, it fills the entire temple. He crowds everything else out, seemingly. Alex Boyer comments on this passage, God’s sovereignty is real. He sits on a throne in the seat of authority and power, high and exalted. The Lord is high in His own nature, exalted or lifted up by the acknowledgement of His sovereignty. The phrase, fill the temple, expresses the general truth. that God is present in all his majesty at the center of his people’s lives. The temple is no mere symbol of his indwelling presence. It is the reality of it.
Isaiah Zasherdini sees this. And the Lord Almighty there on the throne is surrounded by the seraphim, literally the burning ones, reflecting the glory of God. in their very image, angels with their faces and their feet covered, lest they look upon God, and crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is filled with His glory. As the text tells us, at the sound of their voices, it was like thunder echoing the chambers of heaven.
And the temple is filled with this smoke. Smoke just from the denseness of the glory of God. The only thing I can compare it to by an illustration would be that of, if you’ve ever seen a storm, where it’s just absolutely pouring down rain, and then the sun comes out, and the heat causes all of this thing to rise. to vaporize. You can’t really see through it. It’s just a denseness. And here is the glory of God as that’s being portrayed and reflected by the angels and pronounced in all the earth. It’s just coming back to him in this great cloud. Who is in control over all that happens in heaven on earth? It is none other than the Lord God Almighty, our Savior and our King. Now, my friend, let me ask you this question. In light of this passage, what is your view of God? Our culture has many views of God.
Sometimes we hear him referred to as the man upstairs. You know, kind of this being, a deity, sort of just kind of overlooking everything and just sort of matching it by his presence. Maybe there’s those in our culture who view this, and certainly the deists of old viewed it this way, as God is just a very wise person. Almost like a nice grandfather figure. A benevolent ruler who’s, you know, he’s just been around longer than everybody else and just wants to shower people with blessings and lead them in right directions. There’s some who view God, and perhaps those in the titans of business and industry and politics, as a man in charge. He’s the one who’s calling the shots. He’s the one to whom everyone else reports.
Well, God forbid there are those in our culture who see God merely as a force, an impersonal power that controls our fates. All of these views of God are inadequate. And that, dear ones, is not only unfortunate, it actually is quite dangerous. because we dare not equate God with some image of him that we have created within our own mind and heart. That is idolatry.
The true and the living God has revealed himself, and not just to Isaiah, but to his people throughout all of human history, and he says elsewhere in the book of Isaiah, I am the Lord, that is my name, I will not give my glory to another. were my praise to idols.
This is the God we’ve come to worship this morning. This is the God into whose presence we have entered to hear him speak to us through his word. This is the God who holds every single aspect, every minute detail of our lives in the palm of his hand. This is the God before whom each and every one of us will one day stand.
And so, dear friend, let me ask you this question. God forbid, but if you were to die today and stand before God and He were to say to you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? Some of you are familiar with that most important question. But put yourself for a moment in Isaiah’s shoes. Seeing what he sees and hearing what he hears, knowing what he knows, what do you think he would say? What’s Isaiah’s response?
Woe is me. I’m ruined. I’m utterly lost, as the ESV says it. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Whereas another translation puts it, woe is me, I am undone. There is no hope for me.” Which leads us to the second thing that this passage reveals to us about God. It’s not just God’s sovereignty, but it’s also God’s mercy.
Can you imagine what’s racing through Isaiah’s heart and mind? He’s thinking, there’s nothing I can do to hide who I am for Almighty God. I’m able just to quietly sneak out of this encounter with Him. God has the ability to know instantly and completely everything that’s going on. Every sinful thought, word, deed, and yes, even the motive of my own heart, which I do not always recognize. Do you understand Isaiah’s fear in the presence of a holy God?
Only those who are totally pure, that is sinless. can possibly stand in the presence of the true and living God, unconcerned about their own fate. For God hates sin. Every sin, as we know, the scripture tells us, is an act of treason. Every sin is an act of rebellion against His authority and His perfect rule. And here is a godly man, a prophet, a spokesman for God, readily admitting, What about you? What about me? Do we see ourselves as sinners?
One of the things as we’re preparing to go to Japan is in terms of understanding that language matters. Translation of words matters. The word for sin in the Bible has many of them. The primary word for sin translated in the scriptures is the word that the Japanese use for criminal. And so when you say, oh, or you ask the question, are you a sinner? The Japanese first mind thinking is, is, oh no, I’m not a criminal.
And so I have to say, well, you know, the scripture speaks of transgression. The scripture speaks as missing the mark, not being perfect. Those things very much resonate. with the Japanese, that they realize that in a culture obsessed with perfection, that they’re not perfect, that they’ve missed the mark. Sometimes in our culture, I think as well, when we say sinner, maybe we don’t think criminal, but we think of, oh, well, the big sins. You know, I would have done this, and I haven’t done this, you know, haven’t been in the paper, you know, for murder or all those other sorts of things. And so I must be okay. I’m just like everybody else.
We need to understand that sin is not about other people primarily. Sin is that which is first and foremost an offense against God. And so, even as the pastoral prayer was offered this morning, I had the chance to reflect on that, that sin in our culture is that which is self-assuring, self-satisfying, self-elevating. It’s a focus on ourselves. Try to live life independent from God. That is the nature of sin as it speaks into our culture. So people may not fully see themselves as sinners in the way the Bible uses that word. We need to explain it in a way that they can understand it.
There are things in the human heart that cause us to rely on anything or anyone other than God. And that is the nature of sin. And Isaiah is painfully aware of his sin. You know, as we think about that, and as this mercy that he’s going to receive here, I think he’s not the only person in the scripture that had a vision of God. Do you remember Moses? And what Moses asked of God, and we find this in Exodus chapter 33, then Moses said, now show me your glory.
And the Lord said, I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. Then the Lord said, there’s a place near me where you will stand on a rock. And when my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by. And the scriptures tell us that the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord.
And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, bounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. That was Isaiah’s only hope. As he stood in the presence of this God. It was his character. And that God is a gracious God. the mercy of God. This too is our only hope, particularly as one day we will stand in the presence of a holy and a righteous God, the Lord God Almighty.
And God’s forgiveness of Isaiah’s sin is symbolized in the burning coal taken from the altar, that altar that ever burns before the presence of God, and is placed on his guilty lips. by the angels. See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. God’s mercy is given to us also at our point of need. And God’s forgiveness of our sin, if indeed we have received it, is symbolized in the cross of Jesus Christ. That divine exchange where our filthy rags Because that’s what the scripture says we are, our deeds are in the sense, our filthy rags are exchanged for Christ’s righteousness.
We’re clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. And this righteousness is received by faith. As Isaiah would say elsewhere, you know, all we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned to everyone, the Lord, everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of our God, of us all. Our sin placed on Christ. Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to us by faith. This is the message of the gospel. This is because of the mercy of God.
In the midst of everything else going on in our lives, all the struggles that we face in our families, perhaps, among neighbors or co-workers, even personal health issues, those sorts of things, if we know not that our sins have been forgiven, that our guilt has been removed, that we’ve been reconciled to God, our Creator and Redeemer, then we are without hope. But if these things have occurred, then we have great hope. And if it’s all these things going on, I trust that you have that hope. If not, I urge you to seek God with all your heart that you might experience that which God alone can give. Jesus put it this way. He said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
God gives Isaiah a vision of Himself, to cause Isaiah to reflect upon the sovereignty of God, that God is still on His throne, to remind him of the mercy of God, that God desires a deep relationship with Him, free from sin, and lastly, to reveal to him the calling of God, God’s unique place of service. to which we turn there in the text. Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? We often speak of this conversation between God and Isaiah as a calling of God to kingdom service or vocation. Often we think of it as a special calling and frequently use this passage to commission missionaries and evangelists and pastors and others engaged in church supported vocation.
But is God’s calling to service only limited to those situations? Let me say clearly, based on Ephesians chapter 4, certainly not. God calls every believer to works of service or ministry. God’s design is to have an army of grateful children involved in ministry. is serving where God has uniquely called and gifted them. Serving not out of a sense of obligation, but a privilege. And serving God by serving one another as part of God’s family, the Church.
Oftentimes, and again, our culture does a great disservice here. Theology doesn’t matter. We talk about going to church. You will not find that in the Scripture. We are the Church. We’re called to come and worship as the Church gathered. We’re called to go and serve as the Church scattered.
And so the ministry of the Church is much more than what happens as we gather for worship on the war site, as important as that is, and all the attention given to it. But the real ministry of the Church is the places we spend all the rest of the week, by God’s appointment, as God’s representatives, as His people, in those places that desperately need His presence, His light, His wisdom, His word, lived out before a watching world. That is the greater calling of the ministry of the Church, the worship and work of the Church, At least as one of the membership vows of PCA say, I don’t know if that’s the same as the same vow of the OPC. But the worship and work of the church, far beyond what’s in this building or even in this location, but it’s among God’s people.
And so as you look forward to whomever God would call as the next pastor here, he needs to be one who will equip you to do the work of the church in the places God has called you to be, all across this region. Because a church, a body of people that are faithful in doing that, God will continue to provide opportunities for and continue to use. We live in a culture that has tried to privatize and minimize the impact of the church. Confined it to a building, on one hour a day, and say, well, that’s where you people go. As opposed to what we call the salt and light. Because of what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard, but even more deeply what we’ve experienced by the grace of God.
What was Isaiah’s response to the calling of God to service? We don’t have time this morning to look at the difficult calling that he was going to be given. He was told on the front end, this is not going to go well for you. You’re going to experience great difficulty. What was Isaiah’s response? Here am I. Send me.
What’s your response to the calling of God to be actively involved in serving Him with your life? You and I have been saved from sin and death, but we’ve been saved to serve by the deeds of our life. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what’s done through Christ will last. You know, sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that God uses only leaders to accomplish his purposes. Not so.
You’ve been blessed by God to have Dan Knox as a spiritual leader in this congregation for over 30 years. Dan has faithfully served Christ and you well. Dan has shown his love for Christ by loving you. through all of the circumstances, over all that time, as Paul said to the Thessalonians, Dan and Pam, I hope can honestly say of you, you are our glory and our joy. Their lives have been poured out for you. I’m glad to learn of others who will benefit from his continuing ministry.
So in conclusion, let me ask you again, my friend, have you ever experienced a time of crisis in your life? A time of unrest, uncertainty, fear that literally the bottom will drop out. Ever wondered, where is God in all of this? Why does He allow this to happen? Why is He seemingly so silent?
If so, may God grant you a renewed vision of Himself that will cause you to remember that He is still on His throne. He still desires a deep and abiding relationship with you. and he wants you to fulfill your calling, his calling on your life through faithful service.
And for you as a congregation, as you pray and look to the Lord in 2019, let me encourage you with the following. Number one, wait on the Lord. He will not disappoint us. He is already working to prepare the way For a team of pastor and elders, servant leaders, He is sending and He is going to put together in His appointed time. As hard as it is, we must nonetheless wait on the Lord.
Secondly, be honest with yourselves and honest with each other and honest before God, even in prayer, about the struggles you may be having, particularly during this process of transition. Transitions are hard. Sometimes they bring out the best, and oftentimes, this side of heaven, they can also bring out the worst. So if there’s struggles you’re having, be quick to confess sins to God and to one another as you seek the forgiveness that He so freely offers and the forgiveness that we need as members of the body of Christ. God wants you to draw closer to Him now more than ever before. And this process of transition is actually God’s summoning to draw closer to Him. and then be active in doing what God has called you to do.
The true test of Dan’s leadership will only be seen now that he has stepped aside and others take their places. Dan Knox has completed the assignment that God gave him to do here at Grace School PC. Wise master builders do not build a ministry around themselves. It can be said of true servant leaders that when the great leader’s job is done.
The people will say, we did it ourselves. In the church, obviously, we don’t do it in our own strength, we do it through Christ’s help. But we are the church. No matter where we are, no matter the different seasons and transitions that God puts us through, as the Confession clearly says that God, speaking of the church, that God will always preserve a people for himself. to the praise of His glory.
Moses saw the Promised Land. Joshua and the people entered it. Elijah fought with the prophets of Baal, but it was Elijah and the sons of the prophets who reformed the spiritual life of Israel. The Apostle Paul planted the church in Ephesus, but Timothy and the elders pastored it. Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission. But His disciples, by the empowerment of His Spirit, have carried that out for over 2,000 years.
Do you know the exciting thing in all of this? God isn’t finished with us. And if we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, God will use even this time of transition to prepare us for new opportunities for ministry. As we think about all those things, all of our concerns, not just in the church, but also in our personal lives.
Let’s take this lesson from Isaiah. Let us keep our eyes fixed on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the King of Glory. Let’s pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the one who it reveals. You, our Lord and Savior, Lord, we pray that in the midst of our circumstances, in the midst of our joys and sorrows, in the midst of our thoughts and aspirations, Lord, that you would be the center of them. And that in gazing upon you, and in listening to you, and in seeking you, Lord, we might experience the blessing that your people throughout all the ages have experienced. How blessed are those whose God is the Lord. And so it’s in your name we pray. Amen. I invite you to stand in response. Hymn number 700, Trust and Obey.
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