Lifechanging Power of Worship: Isaiah 6
If you have your bibles, join me in turning to Isaiah 6. This is about a little over halfway into the Bible. Open your bible in the middle, and you come to Psalms. Go a little further and you come to Isaiah. We have been going through the OT together, and looking at various highpoints. The last two weeks we looked at Amos, the man and his message. This is about 800 years before the crucifixion. The nation of Israel has been split into a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah. A little before Amos’ time the king in Judah was named Amaziah. He was a proud king, and had fought some successful battles with the Edomites, who lived to the East. He brought back their idols, and bowed down to them and offered sacrifice to them. As a result, God brought judgment upon Amaziah. Jehoash, king of Israel, invaded from the north, destroyed the wall of Jerusalem, sacked the city, and carried off all the precious silver and gold ornaments. This weak king is killed by his own men, and his son Azariah is placed on the throne. Azariah, also called Uzziah, is a good king who attempts, although somewhat halfheartedly, to follow God. And as a result, he has a long reign. He comes to power about the time that Homer is writing the Illiad & Odyssey in Greece and Romulus, the founder of Rome is being born. He becomes king at 16 and rules for 52 years. That would be the length of the terms of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and into the term of George W. Bush.
Think of the security that this one king has brought to the nation of Judah. Where previously the wall was destroyed, the city was unsafe, now with Uzziah as king, the nation is secure. There was great spiritual prosperity. Uzziah was one of the great kings of Judah that restored the glory and power of David. It tells us "He did right in the sight of the Lord" (II Chron. 26:4). He had great military prosperity. "Warred against the Philistines . . . God helped him against the Philistines" (II Chron. 26:6,7). "Built towers in Jerusalem . . . built towers in the desert" (v.9). Had 307,500 soldiers. There was abundant food. "He dug many wells . . . much cattle . . . he loved husbandry" (v.10). He instituted great technology. "Invented . . . bulwarks to shoot arrows, and great stones" (v.15).
But Uzziah sinned, and in his great power and success became proud. He went into the temple to offer sacrifice, which was only for the priests to do, and 80 priests withstood him. God struck his with leprosy, and he spent his last years ruling as a leper, a constant reminder to all the people of God’s great power.
Uzziah was a man whose very presence inspired confidence. Think in WWII of Winston Churchill. No matter how afraid the British people were, London faces Nazi bombings, but Churchill comes out on the streets, and gives his powerful, stirring speeches that allay all the fears of the people.
Think back to the days following 9/11. Our nation is in a panic, flights are grounded, where will the terrorists strike next. But in the midst of all the confusion and turmoil, one voice speaks with confidence and determination: Rudy Guliani, the mayor of New York. And when he speaks, the people have hope once again. So much so, that he is often called “America’s mayor.” This is the type of inspiring leader that Uzziah is.
But in 739 BC, Uzziah dies. And when he does, the Jews wonder where they will find their security. Where do you turn when your hope is gone; when the rug is pulled out from under you; when all the things you placed your security in are gone; the stockmarket crashes, you job is outsourced, your family leaves you. We realize that we as a people long for stability and security, but this world never offers it. Rather, our stability is found in the one of whom it is said, “There is no-one holy like the LORD; there is no-one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.” or these words from Psalm 18 With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.
In times of great uncertainty, we need to turn our focus to the Lord. That’s what we see in Isaiah 6.
Read Isaiah 6:1-8
This chapter has for years given us much to think about as to how we worship. True worship is not an escape from reality. Worship in here can never be oblivious to what is happening out there. Why do we worship God? It is not to escape life out there but shutting ourselves away from the world, but rather it is to help us to deal with life out there. If you want your worship inside the Sanctuary to be true worship, then you bring in with you all of the baggage of what is happening in your world. David writes in Psalm 86, “Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.” It is a natural part of worship to bring with you the concerns of your life. We gather here and we bring in the fears of life, the worries of our family, the concerns of our job, and the problems of the world and we lift them up in prayer, and we seek God’s comfort and guidance. Why do we worship God? Because our lives are so full of concerns and issues that we have to have someplace to take them.
And as we come to worship, our lives and our world will be changed. That’s why I’ve titled this message the “lifechanging” power of worship. Because truly worshiping will change your life. It changed Isaiah’s life greatly. We are going to look at that this morning. And our prayer is that as we worship, our lives will be changed as well.
When God truly shows up and speaks to us, it will change us dramatically. The problem is that many of us aren’t looking for him to show up. A friend of our in IN, Paul Reynolds, told us of a tradition he had when his kids were growing up. On Christmas Eve the family would always go to church for the Christmas Eve service, and as they were leaving Paul would always make an excuse to go back inside -- to go to the bathroom, to check to make sure the TV was off-- and when he went back inside he would take all the presents out of the closet and scatter them under the tree. When the family came home from church, the kids would find all the presents -- Santa had visited. But they always knew it was Paul. Until the one year when they were leaving for Christmas Eve service, but Paul didn’t go back inside. He was with them all during the service, and when they came home, not sure what to expect, they found the presents were there. They didn’t find out till years later that Paul had given a key to his neighbor who helped to scatter the presents.
Many times we come to church, expecting the ordinary, but when God shows up and speaks to us, we are surprised. And there’s no reason we should be, but we are. We have friends in Penn., Ned & Kim, and I remember very vividly one incident involving them. When Ronda & I got married, my mom made this bridal doll, the type that fits over one of those Renuzit solid air fresheners. Well, we passed it on to Ned & Kim, because Kim had been Ronda’s roommate, and she and Ned were engaged. There came a time of passing this doll back and forth, and the rule was you had to sneak it into the other person’s house unawares. We had passed it on to them, and they were coming over for supper, so I was on the lookout for this doll. They come over, and had brought back a game they borrowed from us. While Ronda was giving them a tour of our new townhouse, I looked inside the game, and sure enough, inside was the doll. I quickly ran outside and put it back in their truck, and came inside again while they were still upstairs on the tour. Later that night, while we were all in the living room having conversation, I nonchalantly opened up the game, as if to check it out, but making sure they could see the doll wasn’t in the box! All night long they wondered what had happened to the doll. It was something that they were totally unprepared to experience.
That’s the way it is with worship. Many times we come, thinking we are coming with a good heart, wanting to hear from God, but when He does speak to us, we are totally floored, unexpecting what He has to say to us.
How do we know when God shows up? There are many who say that there needs to be some type of physical or emotional manifestation: speaking in tongues; barking or laughing; lots of tears or Amens in the service; or an emotional high of warm fuzzies. But the truth is that often we can worship, and God speaks to us, but it is not based on mere emotion.
Notice that here in verse 1, Isaiah sees the Lord in the temple, and says “I saw the Lord”. He doesn’t say “we saw the Lord.” In the book of Acts, in the record of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, later known as Paul, Paul hears the Lord’s voice, but the others with him don’t. Some times you can sit in a service, and you may be moved to tears, while the person beside you - on the same row of chairs - hearing the same message, is unmoved. One repents, whilst another trusts in his own self-righteousness. One responds willingly - with a soft heart - to the claims of Christ, while another is desperately resisting the moving of the Holy Spirit. Which one are you today? Are you sitting here, going through the motions of a cold religion, feeling good about yourself because you’ve come to church today? Or are you meeting with God here? Are you opening up your heart to hear and respond to what God says. It’s interesting that some weeks one person will say I didn’t get anything out of the message last Sunday, while that same week I’ll get a letter from another person about the exact same sermon who says “That sermon was exactly what I needed, it spoke to my heart and encouraged me.”
This morning, invite the Lord to speak to your heart about what it means to worship. Before we go on to look at the text, let’s pray for God to speak to us. PRAY!
When God shows up in our worship, what will we see. From the example of Isaiah we learn that
1. We see God’s character. - reread vs. 1-4.
We have lost something in Christianity today in that we once used to think of God in terms of great AWE and respect. God was a God to be revered. Cathedrals were built with large, tall naves, ornate stained-glass windows, and the worshipers inside felt a sense of awe when they came to worship. Today, much of the focus is God as our friend, our buddy, our pal. And while we serve a God of love, we must never forget that he is a holy, fierce, fearful God. Hebrews 10:31 reminds us It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Isaiah sees the Lord on the throne. The earthly king, Uzziah is dead, but the heavenly monarch, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is still on the throne. Earthly kings would wear long flowing robes as symbols of their power and influence, and here we see God’s robe fills up the temple. One thing I noticed right away in this text, is that the name is not LORD, the representation of the name Yahweh or Jehovah, the self-existent one, but the term Lord, with lowercase letters, the name Adonai. And it’s interesting when we compare Isaiah’s vision with John’s vision of Christ in Revelation 1:13 - “Among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man”, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” or the grave. It seems somewhat similar, but then it should, because John tells us in John 12 - “He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn--and I would heal them.” - a quote from here in chapter 6, then John goes on to say, “Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.”
John tells us that here in chapter 6, Isaiah sees Jesus, in all of the glory of God. And when we truly see God as a holy God it brings a sense of awe and fearfulness to our hearts. Moses is out in the desert, and he sees the burning bush, and God speaks to him in Exodus 3. “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
When we come to worship, and we truly meet with God, we will be struck by the greatness of our God. We will sense his power, his faithfulness, his forgiveness, his care, and all of the other attributes of his person. An encounter with God begins with seeing his character. And when we do that,
2. We see our own sinfulness. Isaiah’s immediate response is seen in verse 5 - “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! 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.” The holiness of God revealed Isaiah’s unholiness. He rightly understood that he should die. He expected his destruction to come at any moment. When God meets with us, we are convicted of sin. People don’t just get their toes stepped on; they feel the full weight of condemnation and the fear of God’s righteous wrath. They tend to confess their sin very soon after. When we truly understand that we serve a holy God, who calls us to be holy as he is holy, we will be aware of how terribly sinful we are. Paul says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst.
It is only as we understand how completely holy our God is that we see what a serious offense our sin is to him. When you buy a car, if it’s tan, you’re glad, because it doesn’t show the dirt. But a white car shows every little spot. When we compare ourselves to others, we don’t look that bad. But before a holy God, every little sin seems dreadful. Imagine company’s coming for dinner, and mom just shampooed the white carpet in the parlor -- you walk through with dirty shoes and track in just a “little” dirt - is mom going to say, “It’s ok, it’s just a little dirt.” No way, she’s going to yell and scream, then she’ll make you clean it up, and then just wait till dad gets home!
Our sin is an offense, a slap in the face, to a holy God. Isaiah says, I’ve got a problem with my speech, and I live in a society of people who have problems with their speech. Do you know anyone who has a speech problem? Anyone who lives in your house? Anyone you see when you look in the mirror? James says in 3:2, We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. So, what’s your speech problem? Maybe you let a few choice cuss words out when you get angry; maybe it’s gossip, you find it hard not to talk about others behind their back; maybe it’s anger, you blow up and say things that you regret later; maybe it’s pride, you brag and boast about yourself. But whatever you sins, Isaiah also reminds us that when we encounter the Lord,
3. We experience God’s full forgiveness - verse 6 - Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
In Isaiah’s day, sins were covered over, by sacrificing a lamb, looking forward to the day when Jesus would come as the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The lambs were slaughtered on an altar, and the one offering the sacrifice went away with his sins forgiven. Isaiah sees his sinfulness, but God sends one of his angels, a seraph, to take a coal from that altar and to cleanse him of his sinfulness.
Today, we don’t bring lambs to sacrifice on an altar, because Hebrews 10 reminds us it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. They merely covered over them. Rather, 1 Corinthians reminds us For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. He offers us forgiveness. I John 1 tells us If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Isaiah experienced the full forgiveness from God. Your past doesn’t keep you from serving God; but your present does. It doesn’t matter what you have done in your past - God can offer full forgiveness. What matters is whether you are continuing to hold on to your sin, or whether you have confessed it to God and asked for his forgiveness. This morning, is there any sin in your life? Is there anything you know should not be part of your life that you’ve been ashamed of, you’ve been holding on to, you habitually turn to, that you haven’t been able to get the victory over? Christ offers forgiveness and freedom to you this morning.
Like Isaiah, after we experience God’s forgiveness,
4. We sense God’s call to serve - verse 8 - Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” When Isaiah saw God, and met with God, and dealt with his sinfulness, God was ready to use him. God gives a call to service. Isaiah is worshiping God, and God lays upon his heart an area of service. The same thing happens to Paul in Acts 13. In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
And the same thing happens to us today. When we come to worship the Lord, and make ourselves available for God to use, he will lay on our hearts an area of service. When we meet God IN the building, we will want to take him OUT of the building and INTO our world. Far too many times we think we are serving God by coming to church. Actually the real service begins when we go AWAY from church and serve God in our homes, our neighborhoods, on the job, at the store, and all over town. We are going to be doing some teaching in the next couple months about HOW we do that.
Notice Isaiah did NOT say, “Where do you want me to go?” “What’s in it for me?” “What is the salary?” “What are the retirement benefits?” Isaiah signed a blank check on his whole life. He didn’t try to strike a bargain with God; he didn’t attempt to negotiate a compromise. God called - Isaiah answered. God commanded - Isaiah obeyed. Such an unconditional response comes only from the heart of one who has seen the vision, from the one who’s met with God.
True worship will always result in service. We cannot enter the sanctuary to worship, without departing into the world to serve. So, why are we here? Why did we come to worship today? We came in here, in part, to be challenged to do something out there. So the question for us today is not why do we worship? Or why do we come to church today when there are other things we could be doing? The real question is what will we do when we leave this place of worship. For the prophet Isaiah, he was sent out to speak a message to the people.
But what are we sent out to do? What is God calling you to do this week? Who is it in your life that you need to love a little more? Who is it in your community that you need to reach out to a little harder? Who is it that you know of who is not coming to worship who should be invited to come here to Bethel? Instead of asking the question, “Why are we in worship?” we need to answer the question “What do we do after we worship?” What is God calling us to do?
What is God calling you to do this week? What God calls us to do from one week to the next may change, but may our response always be that of Isaiah’s -- “Here I am Lord, send me.” May God help each of us to worship faithfully this week.
