I. Introduction
A. After attending church one Sunday morning, a little boy knelt at his bedside that night and prayed, "Dear God, we had a good time at church today--but I wish you had been there!"
B. In what ways do we evaluate our worship? How do we determine if “God showed up”? What does the Bible have to say about the purpose of worship?
II. Sermon: The Purpose of Worship
A. Background & Purpose
1. King Uzziah of Judah ruled for 52 years; He died a leper for rebelling against God’s Word (2 Kings 15:1-7, 2 Chron. 26), even though God had blessed Judah with peace and prosperity–sound familiar?
2. Like all devoted citizens, Isaiah venerated Uzziah, and was despondent when the king died; but like all men of faith, He turned to God for help and comfort–and got more than he bargained for
B. The Upward Look (vv.1-4)
1. Judah’s prosperity and peace were a mask over a nation that was already rotten to the core; Uzziah’s death merely exposed this cancer
2. “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.” (v.1)
a. In the midst of Isaiah’s (and Judah’s) confusion and unrest, God was sitting on His throne, not pacing about in fear and doubt as we do
b. John 14:37-41 informs us that It is Jesus in His glorified form that Isaiah is beholding:
“Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
? ‘Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,?
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been? revealed?”
?Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”?
Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.”
3. “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!’” (vv.2,3)
a. In spite of the turmoil, everything is business-as-usual in heaven: God is on the throne, and is still Holy, Holy, Holy
b. Seraphim (“fiery ones”) had six wings: two to cover their faces from God’s glory; two to cover their feet in humility, and two to fly (so FOUR of the six wings were specifically related to worship)
c. These seraphim were performing an anitphon: the singing back and forth of God’s praise
d. The trisagion (“holy, holy, holy”) is to emphasize the separateness from and independence of God from His fallen creation; it also implies God in three Persons (repeated in Rev. 4:8)
e. While we may see “the whole earth is filled” with violence or sin, the angels (with their heavenly perspective) see God’s eventual glory in all things
4. “And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.” (v.4)
a. This image of Jesus in all His glory isn’t simply one of majestic power, it is also one of righteous anger:
1) He is surrounded by seraphim (“fiery ones”), who are praising God for His holiness (separateness from a sin-cursed creation)
2) This was depicted in Ex. 19:16-20 (God coming down to the mountain in smoke to talk to Moses) and Rev. 15:5-8
C. The Inward Look (vv.5-7)
1. “And I said: “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!” (v.5)
a. In seeing God as He is, Isaiah has a corrected perspective on His own righteousness
b. Like Isaiah, we often think of ourselves as “okay,” but if Isaiah’s encounter caused Him to see the filthiness of His own life, we ought not expect any better results if we were in His position
c. The story of a preacher who took his kids camping; upon leaving, kids looked pretty good, if a little grubby. They slept on the way home; stopping at McD’s, he looked again at them when evaluating whether to take the drive-thru or go in--and the kids were suddenly filthy!
d. If the lips are unclean, so is the heart; Job experienced this
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
? but now my eye sees you;?
therefore I despise myself,?
and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5,6)
“But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8, on the “big catch” Jesus directed them to)
e. An authentic encounter with the Lord does not make us proud, or even necessarily exultant or joyous--it ought to make us humble and break our hearts
2. “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.’” (vv.6,7)
a. God met Isaiah’s need: he sent a seraph to cleans him with a coal from the altar
b. Purification from this altar is what gave Isaiah the right to be in the presence of God--same goes for us: the throne provides conviction, the altar provides cleansing
c. True worship ought to lead to witness and service; too many Christians want a “spiritual experience” rather than be prepared to go out and share Christ with others
D. The Outward Look (vv.8-13)
1. “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am! Send me.’ And he said, “Go, and say to this people:’” (v.8-9a)
a. Now God has prepared Isaiah: he is no longer wrapped up in his own needs, or burdened by sin; he has been cleansed and knows that God is on the throne
b. “Go and tell” is God’s commission to us today (Acts 1:8)
This was not an easy commission for Isaiah: he was being sent to a nation that was in no mood to hear his messages of sin and judgment. Sound familiar?
2. “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;?
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
?Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes;
?lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,?
and understand with their hearts,?
and turn and be healed.”
a. These verse are quoted six times in the NT: Matt. 13:13-15, Mark 4:12, Luke 8:10, John 1:40, Acts 28:25-28, Rom. 11:8)
b. God isn’t deliberately hardening peoples’ hearts; what His is saying is that His Word has a hardening and blinding effect on sinners who will not listen and yield
c. In the passage from John 14, the process worked (and still works) like this: first, they will not believe (v.37), so they cannot believe (v.39), so they should not believe (v.40), because they had sealed their own doom
3. “Then I said, How long, O Lord?”?
And he said: “Until cities lie waste
? without inhabitant,?
and houses without people,
? and the land is a desolate waste,?
and the Lord removes people far away,?
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
?And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again,
?like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains?
when it is felled.”?The holy seed is its stump.” (vv.11-13)
a. God has called us to proclaim His Word regardless of how people respond
b. Isaiah was called to preach repentance until the Lord finishes judgment on the land--sound familiar?
c. Good news: God always saves a remnant (the “stump,” or “holy seed”)
1) For Isaiah, it was the group carried off to Babylon--in retrospect, this was a matter of protection, as the exiles really would have it better than those who were left in the desolation to come
2) It also pictures God’s dealings with Israel in the last days, when a small remnant of Jews will believe during the Tribulation period
3) In our context, we are likely soon to see the great tree of Christianity in America desolated; the question for us is, who will be left standing to be the “stump”?
III. Conclusion
A. When Isaiah left the temple, he was no longer a mourner--he was a missionary. He was not merely a spectator, he was a participant. THAT is the purpose of worship!
B. God equipped Isaiah, as He does each of us, to do a job: to see Him, to see ourselves, and to see the need
C. Realize that God is still on the throne, He is still in the calling and commissioning business, and He expects us ALL to preach the Word, being faithful to the death
