An old woman complained to her husband that he is no longer passionate. She said, “When we were much younger, you used to embrace me a lot.” The old man sat beside his wife and put his arms around her. Not satisfied, she sighed. “Many years ago, you used to kiss me on the cheeks.” So, the husband gave his wife a kiss on both cheeks and even on her forehead. But, still she is not satisfied. She looked at her husband with such longing. Then she said, “Remember the time when you used to nibble at my ear lobes? I really miss that!” The man immediately stood up and shuffled towards the kitchen. The puzzled wife asked, “Why? You didn’t like what I said?” The husband said, “No! I just need to get my false teeth.”
Rekindling our passion really takes work. Someone wrote, “One of the illusions of our time is that love is self-sustaining. It is not. Love must be fed and nurtured, constantly renewed.” Passion is like love. It is not self-sustaining. It must be constantly reignited. And to do just that, we have to go back to what ignited our passion in the first place. We shall see that in the calling of the prophet Isaiah. Open your Bibles in Isaiah 6:1-8.[1] Here we shall see Isaiah look upward, inward and outward. Let us pray…
Verse 1 gave us the setting for our text: “In the year that King Uzziah died”. Uzziah ruled Judah for fifty-two prosperous years. Even if God disciplined him for disobedience near the end of his reign, Uzziah was still considered as one of great kings of Judah. So, just imagine the big void he left. Imagine the great fear that the kingdom felt when he died. They must be so discouraged. But look at what Isaiah saw in his vision: “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… my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”[2] Note the words “King Uzziah died” in verse 1 and “my eyes have seen the King” in verse 5. Though the earthly throne was empty, the glorious, heavenly throne was, is and will never be empty. “A great king may have left his throne on earth, but the greatest King was still seated on the throne of heaven.”[3]
According to John 12:41 Isaiah “saw [Christ’s] glory and spoke of him.” It was the Lord Jesus Christ Whom the prophet saw on that day. This is a clear indication that Jesus is God, equal with the Father.
Isaiah went on to describe what he saw: “Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: 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 full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.”[4] This is the only time that the Bible described the seraphim, which in Hebrew means “to burn.” It stands for their “burning zeal [or] dazzling brightness”.[5] They have three pairs of wings. “Covering their faces with two wings indicates their humility before God. Their covering their feet with two other wings may denote service to God, and their flying may speak of their ongoing activity in proclaiming God’s holiness and glory… The threefold repetition of the word ‘holy’ suggests supreme or complete holiness.”[6] It was such an awesome display of God’s glory and power!
Here we see that to rekindle our passion, we start with a COMMITMENT to a high view of God. Our problem nowadays is that our God is too small in our eyes. We tend to make God in our image. We tend to think that He made us to be happy and not holy. We assume that He is more concerned with our comfort rather than our character. But that is just a God of our making. He is merely a glorified genie to us. That is not the God of the Bible! In his book, “God: As He Longs for You to see Him,” Chip Ingram posts this question, “What if the most important thing about your life, your future, your relationships, and all that you are is whether you have a clear, accurate picture of God? …Who we are and what we become cannot be separated from our understanding of God.” In short, as the Purpose-Driven Life put it, “It’s not about you. It’s all about God.”
How do we know if have a high or a low view of God? When we have a low view of God, we tend to treat prayer as a burden. We find it boring. When we have a high view of God, we look at prayer as a blessing. We find it exciting. When we have a low view of God, we pray out of duty. We pray because we must pray. When we have a high view of God, we pray out of devotion. We pray because we want to pray. It’s like the difference between being with a person we don’t like and being with a person we really like. When we are with a person we don’t like, the minutes drag as if they were hours. When we are with a person we really like, the hours fly as if they were minutes. When we have a low view of God, we pray only when we need to ask something from Him. When we have a high view of God, we pray because we want to spend intimate time with Him.
It’s the same with the Word of God. In his “Built to Last” seminar, Pastor Edmund Chan said, “The Bible is not a book of messages. It is a book of meetings.” When we have a low view of God, we don’t even open the Bible. Why bother reading about a Person we are not even interested to know? When we have a high view of God, we can’t seem to get enough of the Word. But we don’t stop with knowing. We go to applying. There are people who are so excited to know a lot about the Bible. But they are not as excited in applying the lessons in their lives. So, do we have a high or a low view of God?
When we have a high view of God, it leads to CONFESSION of our sins. Verse 5 shows Isaiah’s response: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” After looking upward, Isaiah looked inward. “When seen next to the purity of God’s holiness, the impurity of human sin is all the more evident. The prophet’s unclean lips probably symbolized his attitudes and actions as well as his words, for a person’s words reflect his thinking and relate to his actions.”[7] The word “Woe” means judgment. In view of the holiness of God, he felt so convicted of his own sinfulness. People take sin lightly when they have a low view of God. But when we have a high view of God, we will take our sins seriously.
Note that Isaiah admitted that he is part of the problem. Before we can be part of the solution, we have to see first that we are part of the problem. How do we know a person is really repentant? When a person stops blaming others and lays the responsibility squarely on his shoulders, he is really repentant. When a person stops giving excuses and starts admitting his guilt, he has truly confessed his sins. Isaiah did just that. His confession led to the cleansing of his sins. Verses 6 and 7 tell us what happened next: “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.’” The burning one touched Isaiah with a burning coal. The man with unclean lips is now a man with clean lips. God took away his guilt and He cleansed his sin because of the sacrifice on the altar from which the burning coal came from. This actually points to the death of Christ on the cross. So, have we really confessed our sins before God?
So, we rekindle our passion when we start with a commitment to a high view of God. Then that commitment leads to a confession of sin. It now results to a COMPLIANCE with God’s calling. After looking upward and inward, now Isaiah looked outward. Verse 8 goes on like this, “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.’” Isaiah did not say, “Here am I! Send them!” Also, note the shift from “I” to “us”. This implies the Trinity. It is the same with Genesis 1:26 when God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
He confessed that he is “a man of unclean lips”. So, God cleansed his lips. Isaiah also said, “I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”. So, now God is sending him to those people so that they too would experience the same cleansing through the message that he will deliver. “The question ‘Who will go?’ does not mean God did not know or that He only hoped someone would respond. He asked the question to give Isaiah, now cleansed, an opportunity for service. The prophet knew that the entire nation needed the same kind of awareness of God and cleansing of sin he had received. So he responded that he would willingly serve the Lord.”[8] So, now we ask, are we compliant? What are we doing with the great need of people around us for the Lord? We have experienced His cleansing. Are we willing to proclaim God’s message to them?
Brothers and sisters, we rekindle our passion by a commitment to a high view of God… by the confession of our sins… and by compliance with God’s calling. I pray that our hearts would once again burn with passion for God.
Let us pray…
[1]All Bible verses are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ©2001 Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.
[2]Isaiah 6:1, 5.
[3]Wiersbe, Warren W.: “Be Comforted.” Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1992 (An Old Testament Study), S. Is 6:1
[4]Isaiah 6:2-4
[5]Jamieson, Robert; Fausset, A. R.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David ; Brown, David: “A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments.” Oak Harbor, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. Is 6:2
[6]Walvoord, John F.; Zuck, Roy B.; Dallas Theological Seminary: “The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures.” Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-c1985, S. 1:1045
[7]Ibid.
[8]Ibid.
