(Isaiah 6:1-8)
Friendship Baptist Church
Are We Seeing the Lord?
It’s a blessing when things go right in our lives. It’s a blessing when everything is running on all cylinders and everything you touch seems to turn into gold. When the husband’s faithful and the wife is grateful; when the children all mind and everything is fine, that’s truly a blessing.
And not only that, but when people who are around you, people you associate with, the people you work and go to church with, when they can say the same thing you can say, “Blessed be the name of our God,” that’s truly a blessing. It seems as if no one has a care in the world. Everyone’s happy, healthy, and wise.
And when people are happy, usually this becomes contagious and the whole country seems to be happy. Everybody wants to join in the party and no one wants to be left behind. So people have confidence in the economy and the Dow breaks records. Unemployment is at an all time low. Former poor cities and counties in America are now feeling the economic boom and are lifting themselves out of poverty. More millionaires are being made, job benefits are getting better, vacations are becoming plusher, and even a little negative like the rising gas prices, won’t dampen our spirits because we got money in our pockets and time on our hands.
And what we say is that we are truly blessed. Everybody’s just doing their own thing, going their own way, singing their own song, and minding their own business. Everybody’s in the routine now, don’t fix what’s not broken. Just let the good times roll, because we are all blessed.
However, the problem with being blessed (and we are), is that we are supposed to be a blessing to someone else. Once we are born again, we are now called to serve; in fact we are saved to serve. And for many of us this becomes hard because we start to take being blessed for granted.
For you see, in order to keep our blessing, we turn a blinded eye towards serving others. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in holding on to our blessing, that we become trapped by the trappings we so desire.
When the times are good and sweet sometimes we don’t see what we should see because contrary to popular belief, a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats. We don’t see that some of the people are left out of the prosperity party. When we are drunk off the wine of the “best economic times since WWII”, we don’t see that many people who work hard everyday don’t have a livable wage.
We don’t see the blighted neighborhoods, the drug infested corners, the inadequate schools, the skills lacking labor force, the uninsured worker, the homeless man, the abused woman, or the starving children. And we are so busy living it up and having a good time, that we don’t even recognize that everybody at the party looks like us, acts like us, and thinks like us. We’re so busy going through the routine, so busy being busy, that we don’t recognize that in the process we miss God; and dare I even say it, we don’t even see God.
But not only is it the rest of the community not seeing God, but we preachers can be guilty of that too. We too can get into a routine of service that doesn’t lead to a true encounter with the Lord. We too can become monotone and mundane in our preaching and teaching. We too can become blind to the visions and dreams that God wants us to see to move God’s people. We too can get just as comfortable as the next person in our positions and conditions.
So comfortable in fact that our leadership abilities can get lost in a haze of haughty pride and arrogance. (When security guards are called to a church on a Sunday morning and that same church winds up in court where a secular judge has to tell them who can speak and who’s a member of their church, I have to ask, “are we seeing the Lord?”)
When a group of male church leaders get together and take biblical texts, out of context, for a pretext, of what they want to do next, who denies the Holy Spirit’s working for certain church roles to more than half of the population, I have to ask, “are we seeing the Lord?” We too can get wrapped up in the good times shared by all and completely miss and not see the Lord.
When church leaders lose their prophetic voices in the community, to stand up for issues affecting their communities and congregations because they are afraid of losing promise, praise, and prestige, I have to ask, “are we seeing the Lord?” When we are limited and stifled by our own myopic vision, when we can see other folks problems, but not our own, I have to ask, “are we seeing the Lord?”
This is true today and it was also true in the day of Isaiah as well. Uzziah sat on the throne of Judah and things were going pretty well. His administration was loyal and things ran smoothly. No other king up until that point, with the exception of King David, had as much success as Uzziah. Uzziah was so successful that no other country wanted to war with Judah. He rebuilt towns and cities and improved the public works systems of his day. Unemployment was at an all time low as he provided jobs for the people needing work. He was so successful that his fame spread far and wide and Judah was comfortable.
So comfortable in fact that people were just minding their own business and nobody inquired of the Lord. Nobody sought out the Lord. So comfortable in fact that Isaiah got caught up. Oh Isaiah was a good man, loveable husband, great father, and a church going man. Isaiah desired the best for his family. Well spoken of around town but he too got caught up in the “good times for all” bandwagon. He and his fellow people were lost and truly blind.
For if they would had open their eyes, they would have seen evil people still lurking in the shadows, calling evil good and good evil. If they would have open their eyes, they would have seen the government in Uzziah’s day still stockpiling weapons of war and mass destruction even though the Lord had granted them peace. If they would have open their eyes, they would have seen people being taken advantage of, justice being replaced by oppression and rulers taking bribes. If they would have open their eyes, they would have realized that their trust wasn’t in the Lord, but in other humans, other groups, other factions, and other organizations.
And I came to remind somebody that we need to open our eyes and see what’s happening around us. If we would open our eyes, we would see that this election year is a most crucial and important one. If we would open our eyes, we would see the utter failure in our jail system. If we would open our eyes, we would see that domestic violence cases are not only up, but are also becoming more deadly. If we would open our eyes, we can see that the devil is trying to attack our homes our jobs and our church. If we would open our eyes, maybe we could finally and truly see the Lord.
It was in the year that king Uzziah died, Isaiah finally saw the Lord. Never mind that Isaiah was a good man. Never mind the fact that he was serving the people. Never mind that he probably was in church daily saying prayers and making petitions for the people. Never mind that he thought he had a close relationship already with the Lord; it took the death of king Uzziah for Isaiah to finally see the Lord. For you see, with the death of Uzziah, came the possibility of unrest and the good times being over. Uzziah’s leadership symbolized eat, drink, and be merry; good times for all, while his death symbolized doom and despair and bad times for all.
And so it is with us. Many times it takes a bad or a hurtful thing in our lives for us to really seek and see the Lord. When our good times are replace by our sad times, we seek the Lord. When our highs become our lows and our ups become our downs, we seek the Lord. When our triumphs become our tragedies and our delights become our defeats, we seek the Lord. When someone or something has carjack our comfort, hijack our hopes, pulled at our peace, and stolen our song, it’s then that we seek the Lord. It’s then that we want to have an encounter.
But I hear someone asking, “How would I know I have had an encounter with the Lord of hosts? How would I know that I have truly seen the Lord? Well I am glad you asked, because the text helps us out.
First, you realize when you see the true and living God, you realize that God’s sitting on a throne, high and lofty. The King James Version reads “high and lifted up. It’s then that you realize that God is above all things. God is above our fanatical foolishness and poignant pettiness. God is higher than, above than, greater than, but every now & then we feel God’s presence as God walks with us and talks with us. I hear God saying ‘My ways aren’t your ways, my thoughts aren’t your thoughts.”
You know sometimes we feel we have a monopoly on God and a patent on the Holy Spirit. But it’s then that we realize that God is mightier than our nations, much larger than all classifications, more brilliant that all interpretations, and bigger than our denominations. The God we serve is high and lifted up.
And God is sitting on the throne in perfect authority. God is Lord and no one else. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
That’s good to know, because when other humans want to rule & reign over us, in tyrannical, unjust or unbiblical ways, it’s good to know that God is Lord and God rules in perfect authority. God isn’t out to prove who God is, because whether we like it or not God is still God. Whether we believe it or not God is still God. Whether we say it or not God is still God and God is big enough to sit on the throne and rule in perfect authority.
But after you realize that God is sitting high and lifted up, you must realize that God’s robe fills the temple (KJ Version says God’s train fills the temple). And when I think about this, the 1st thing that comes to mind is the train on my wife’s wedding gown. I had never seen anything so majestic & beautiful in all my life than the day I saw Lisa standing in the back of the church ready to come down the aisle. And baby, your train was long, but God’s train fills the temple.
And what that means is that you realize that there isn’t a place you can go without God being there. God is everywhere. From suburban living to inner-city dwellings, from mountain tops to valley lows, from beautiful blue oceans to muddy & polluted rivers, and from green grass to concrete jungles, God is there. God’s all over the place. As our fore parents used to sing “God is so high that you can’t go over, God is so low that you can’t go under, God is so wide you can’t go around, you got to come in the front door!” God’s train fills the temple!
And no matter how hard we try, we can’t box God in. We can’t define or confine God. We can’t reinvent or circumvent God. In the beginning was God, before there was a then or there, a here or where, there was God. As one preacher puts it “God came out from nothing, step out on something, hung something on nothing and told it to shine till time be no more!” And everywhere we look, we run into God. God’s train fills the temple! That’s why we can go out and be the church, because no matter where we go, no matter where we are, God goes before us and God’s already there.
But, after you realize that God’s everywhere, after you realize God is above all & Lord of all, you then realize who you really are in relation to all mighty God. In other words, when we have a true encounter with the Living God, when we here the angels (in our spirit) calling. “Holy, Holy, Holy, when the thresholds shake and smoke fills our minds, consciousness and hearts, we realize that we may have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. We’re not perfect yet!
When in the presence of all mighty, God, Isaiah yelled “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and live among an unclean people.” We realize who we really are when we are in the presence of all mighty God. It’s time for soul searching, deep meditation, and prayer. It’s then that we realize that we need a transformation; a renewing of our minds. It’s then that we realize that we are not good enough, our deeds aren’t great enough, our ways aren’t righteous enough, and our thoughts aren’t pure enough. It’s then that we realize that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It’s then that we realize that we too, yes the good people, need a Savior too, to remove the guilt and blot the sin out.
For Isaiah, it was an angel who lifted a hot coal and touched his lips, and for us Jesus was lifted up, so that “whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.”
So, the good news is that if we believe in this, and receive the spirit of adoption that Christ gives, we then become joint heirs, heirs of God. It is then that our guilt is gone and our sins are blotted out and we now can stand ever so boldly in front of the Lord of Hosts, and as far as the east is from the west, so far God removes our transgressions from us.
And when we stand not only can we finally see what we couldn’t see, but also we can hear what we couldn’t hear. We can hear the voice of God asking “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” I know times are good, but whom shall I send? I know everything maybe going right in your life, but whom shall I send? I know you are comfortable right where you are, but whom shall I send? I know people won’t understand, but whom shall I send?
It’s then that we realize children are starving, systems are corrupt, the earth is being destroyed, countries are fighting, housing is inadequate, schools are lacking, people are sick, and the elderly are left out, whom shall I send and who will go for us? When Isaiah heard this call, without hesitation Isaiah yelled out “Here am I send me!
But the question is what are we going to do or say? Live high on the hog or say send me. Do what we have been doing, or say send me? Turn a deaf ear or a blind eye, or say send me. Say we haven’t done this before or say send me. Doubt that God has all power, or say send me. Just sit back and whine & complain about that group or those people or say send me. Complain that it’s not in the budget, or say send me. Wait on someone else to do it or say send me. Complain that we’re too busy to do anything, or say send me. Say that I’m too old or too young, or say send me. Say that I’m not qualified or say send me. Say I don’t have the education or training or say send me.
Because the good news of our gospel is that despite angels at God’s beckoning call, God still calls us and gives us a chance to say “ here am I, send me.” We don’t have to have it all together, we don’t have to be perfect, we don’t have to have degrees or certificates, yet we can all say “send me.” We don’t have to be a certain color, a certain age, a certain gender, a certain nationality, we all can say, “Here am I, send me.” Whether we’re black or white, inner city or suburb, PHD or a GED, from C.E.O.‘s to mopping floors, we can all say, “Here am I, send me!”
And I came to tell somebody here today, that if you are willing to go, if you can just hang on and hold out; the God who sits on the throne, high and lifted up. The God whose train fills the temple. The God who sent the only begotten Son to remove the guilt and wash away our sins, that God, when you stand in the presence of angels, will say “well done.
But it’s then that we realize that God is above all things big and small. It’s then we realize that God is everywhere even before we get there. It’s then that we realize that we too fall short and need to be redeemed. It’s then that we realize that God is our boss, God’s our leader, God’s our CEO, God’s the chair of the board, God’s our leader, We are the servants, we’re on the mission field for our Lord.
And it pleases me to know that, “when we give the best of our service, telling the world that the Savior’s come, be not dismayed when people don’t believe you. God will understand and say well done”.
I don’t know about you, but that’s good enough for me to say, “here am I, send me”. Amen.
