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Isaiah’s Call
New Life COTR, Wednesday 4/4/07
Isa 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
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."
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.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
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!"
(NIV)
I) Introduction
A) Our text is Isaiah 6, but we will be referring as well to John’s vision of the throne of God, and if you want to look it up it can be found in Revelation 4
1) I would encourage you to read it later
B) I want you to notice what happens in Isaiah’s vision
1) He sees God in all His Glory
2) He observes the Angels worshiping God
3) He becomes aware of his own inadequacies
4) He become purified by God
5) He receives his call
C) This is not my sermon, but it could be. Here we see God’s outline for calling someone to do His work
1) They get a vision of who God is
2) They are purified by God
3) They receive their call
D) Some of you today may be wondering why God hasn’t given you you’re calling…
1) I would encourage you to look here for an example
2) Than seeking a vision of your calling
3) Seek a vision of who God is
4) Then seek purity
5) And the calling will come
II) The worshiping of God
A) But tonight is not about receiving your calling
1) Instead I want to focus on the subject of Holiness
B) The first real action that takes place in Isaiah’s vision is the angels worshiping of God
1) This is really fascinating to me
2) The angels are in the very presence of God
3) This is not the time or the place to discuss the differences in the relationship between God and man versus God and the Angels
4) But they are more keenly aware of who God is than us
5) They are in His very presence
C) And what is the first thing they say to worship who God is
1) Holy, Holy, Holy
2) This is repeated in John’s vision in the book of Revelations
(a)John describes seeing 4 living creatures
(b)And they are worshiping God saying…
Rev 4:8b
8 … "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."
(NIV)
3) So often when we go to worship
(a)We praise God for His loving kindness, or His mercy
(b)This is not to diminish the love of God in anyway
(c) But the first thing on the minds of the Angels, and other spiritual beings was not God’s love, but His holiness
(d)So what is it about God’s holiness that deserves this kind of attention
D) What is holiness
1) Webster’s defines it as the condition of being holy
(a)Not very helpful
(b)Holy is defined as to be set apart for religious use
2) But the Hebrew word used here is qadowsh (kaw-doshe')
(a)Which means sacred, clean and purified
(b)The implication is that God is clean and pure
(c) Clean from what
(d)Clean and pure of all sin
3) Sin is what separates us from God, but understand something here
(a)Sin is not just an action
(b)The 10 commandments tell us not to commit adultery, that adultery is sin
(c) But Jesus taught us that to even look at a woman with impure thoughts is the same as adultery, it’s still sin
(d)likewise in Ezekiel we are given a glimpse of the time before Lucifer was cast out
Ezek 28:15
15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.
(NIV)
(e)The Bible says he was perfect not until he did something wrong, but when wickedness was found in him
(f) Sin is not just a verb it is also a noun
(g)In other words, it’s not just an action, but an attitude of the heart
III) Isaiah’s Cry
Isa 6:5
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."
(NIV)
A) His decree
1) I am a man of unclean lips
2) I dwell among a people of unclean lips
3) My eyes have seen God
4) Now I went to look at this a little out of order, because Isaiah never realized the problem with the first two issues until after he had seen God
B) My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty
1) Holiness is not defined by wearing the right clothes, or saying and doing the right things
2) Holiness begins and ends with a vision of who God is
3) There can in fact be no holiness without God
4) I heard someone say once when I was in Bible school
(a)If there is a God in Heaven, then why do the innocent suffer
(b)To which the reply was
(c) If there is no God, then what makes them innocent, and why should we care if they suffer
5) Our entire sense of morality, what’s right and what’s wrong was taught to us by God.
(a)It began in the Garden of Eden where we first learned not that we shouldn’t always indulge the appetites of the flesh
(b)Later in Genesis we learned through Cain and Abel the importance of controlling our emotions
(c) Still later God gave us the 10 commandments
(i) these were not simple rules to live by
(ii)they were the moral code upon which civilization was to be based upon
6) Now here in the New Testament area we have seen a clearer picture of who God is through His work on the cross
(a)And with that comes a clearer picture of the moral code upon which we live our live
(b)It’s not enough to not commit murder, now we are taught not to hate
(c) It’s not enough to bring sacrifices, now we must obey in our heart
(d)It’s not enough to simply follow the rules and regulations of our religion, now we must do it with a pure heart
(e)And it all starts with seeing God
7) I believe some of us here tonight have over the course of this fast begun to see God more clearly
(a)And with it has come a revelation
(b)About who God is
(c) About who we are
(d)And the gap in between those two revelations
(e)And what is our response to this revelation
C) Isaiah cried out “woe to me” for I am a man of unclean lips
1) What did this mean, did Isaiah cuss a lot
2) Maybe, but there are more ways than that to have unclean lips
3) How often do we speak out of anger
(a)And say the first thing that comes to our mind
(b)Especially to our families
(c) What about at work
4) When we look at our lives
(a)Do we look and say we’ll I’m doing pretty good at living the Christian life
(b)This is prompted by the fact that all to often we are comparing ourselves to other Christians
(c) And not looking at God for our comparison
(d)The fact of the matter is that when we compare ourselves to God, no matter how hard we try to live a pure life we fall far short of true holiness
Rom 7:15
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
(NIV)
(e)That was Paul speaking, surely he got closer to god than any of us, and yet he still struggled
1 Pet 1:15-16
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
(NIV)
(f) God is calling us to holiness
(i) the problem is we get lost in the definition
(ii) because we are using man as our guide for holiness
(iii) when we need to be looking at God
(g)My question to you today is when you look at your life what do you see
(i) This is not meant to be condemning
• And I hope it isn’t coming across that way
(ii) But is your life a pure and undefiled vessel that God can use
(iii) Because when we look at God, and not man for our example of holiness we all fall short of the mark
D) Isaiah said something else fascinating in this passage. He cried out that “I belong to a people of unclean lips”
1) I don’t have the enough time to dwell on this point
(a)And that’s a shame
(b)Because it is an often overlooked facet of our Christian walk
2) But we live in nation that calls itself Christian
(a)But is far from Godly
(b)We belong to a people of unclean lips
(c) And whether we realize it or not, that affects us, and our walk with God
3) I don’t know how it is at your job
(a)But I can’t go 5 minutes at my job without hearing a cuss word
(b)I can’t go an entire day without hearing somebody bragging about the sin in their life
(i) Talking about the person they had sex with
(ii) How they got back at someone who did them wrong
(iii) or how they hate this person or that person
(c) Spiritually these things affect us
(d)They weigh on us
Heb 12:1
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
(NIV)
(e)They so easily entangle us.
(i) This is not saying that we are engaging in that sin
(ii) But that that sin as reached out to grab us and entangle us
4) I liken this to a man who works out on a farm
(a)And he’s out there taking care of the animals
(b)Working out in the hot sun
(c) And at the end of the day he comes home sweaty, and smelling like the animals he’s working with
(d)And what’s the first thing his wife wants him to do?
(i) Take a bath
(e)Why, because the environment that he has to work in has affected his relationship with his wife
(i) This doesn’t mean that the man did anything wrong
(ii) And it doesn’t mean that the wife doesn’t love him
5) Let me give you another example from the Bible
(a)In the old testament there is actually a law that states when you go outside of the camp to take care of “your business” you need to take a shovel with you in order to bury “the business”
(b)There is also a law that states if you touch anything “unclean” then you yourself are now unclean and must go offer sacrifices in order to be made clean again
(c) So let’s say you are just out there walking along minding your own business, and you step in something
(d)you are now unclean, through no fault of you own
(e)Why?
(f) Because God want pure and undefiled vessels for His use.
(i) Purified not only of the sins we have committed
(ii) But also purified of the sins of those around us
6) We don’t have time to look at it now
(a)But read the book of Nehemiah
(b)Focus on his prayers
(c) And see how he prays and ask God for forgiveness for his sins, but moreover for the sins of the nation
(d)Why, because he is a part of the nation
IV) The Last thing I want to key on tonight is the purification that takes place in Isaiah’s life
A) The Bible says that one of the cherubim flew down and took a coal off of the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips, and with that he was purified
1) Revelation says that on this altar were the prayers of the saints
2) Now I’m not going to try and overanalyze this matter
3) But I will tell you that if you want purity and holiness in your life, there’s going to have to be some prayer involved
B) I’m not talking about the kind of prayer you say over dinner
1) You know where a lot of times we just gloss over the words, to show reverence, but in reality our heart is not on God, but on dinner
2) I’m talking about pouring your heart out before God kind of prayers
3) The nothing held back kind of prayer
4) The kind of prayer where we say Lord, nothing else matters, but having a pure and undefiled heart before God
(a)Not my job
(b)Not my ministry, or position in the church
(c) Not my social standing
C) Because here’s the point
1) God took Isaiah through this in order make him a pure vessel for his service
(a)After he was purified, then God called him to his ministry
2) God wants to use you
(a)But first He wants to purify you
3) God wants to use this church
(a)But first there will come a purification of our hearts
4) Before Israel received the promised land of Canaan God first told Joshua to circumcise the people.
V) Conclusion
A) We are coming to the end of a 21 day fast
1) And we have drawn closer to god in that time
(a)I know, I see it especially playing out in our worship.
(b)I also hear as I talk to people about how there fast is going
2) But God has not brought us to this fast, and indeed through this fast just so we can loose weight, and feel good about ourselves
3) God is preparing us for service, both on an individual level, and as a corporate body.
B) But I believe that through this fast many of us have seen God.
1) And with that has come a fresh revelation of who He is
2) And also a fresh revelation of who we are in the natural
C) And satan has used this revelation,
1) And the holy conviction that accompanies it to condemn some of you here
2) And some of you through the course of this fast have felt guilty
3) And you don’t understand why
D) God’s not mad at you
1) He’s not angry with you
E) God brought Isaiah to the throne room of Heaven to purify him, not to condemn him
1) Tonight he wants to bring you into the throne room as well
Isaiah’s Call
New Life COTR, Wednesday 4/4/07
Isa 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
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."
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.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
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!"
(NIV)
I) Introduction
A) Our text is Isaiah 6, but we will be referring as well to John’s vision of the throne of God, and if you want to look it up it can be found in Revelation 4
1) I would encourage you to read it later
B) I want you to notice what happens in Isaiah’s vision
1) He sees God in all His Glory
2) He observes the Angels worshiping God
3) He becomes aware of his own inadequacies
4) He become purified by God
5) He receives his call
C) This is not my sermon, but it could be. Here we see God’s outline for calling someone to do His work
1) They get a vision of who God is
2) They are purified by God
3) They receive their call
D) Some of you today may be wondering why God hasn’t given you you’re calling…
1) I would encourage you to look here for an example
2) Than seeking a vision of your calling
3) Seek a vision of who God is
4) Then seek purity
5) And the calling will come
II) The worshiping of God
A) But tonight is not about receiving your calling
1) Instead I want to focus on the subject of Holiness
B) The first real action that takes place in Isaiah’s vision is the angels worshiping of God
1) This is really fascinating to me
2) The angels are in the very presence of God
3) This is not the time or the place to discuss the differences in the relationship between God and man versus God and the Angels
4) But they are more keenly aware of who God is than us
5) They are in His very presence
C) And what is the first thing they say to worship who God is
1) Holy, Holy, Holy
2) This is repeated in John’s vision in the book of Revelations
(a)John describes seeing 4 living creatures
(b)And they are worshiping God saying…
Rev 4:8b
8 … "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."
(NIV)
3) So often when we go to worship
(a)We praise God for His loving kindness, or His mercy
(b)This is not to diminish the love of God in anyway
(c) But the first thing on the minds of the Angels, and other spiritual beings was not God’s love, but His holiness
(d)So what is it about God’s holiness that deserves this kind of attention
D) What is holiness
1) Webster’s defines it as the condition of being holy
(a)Not very helpful
(b)Holy is defined as to be set apart for religious use
2) But the Hebrew word used here is qadowsh (kaw-doshe')
(a)Which means sacred, clean and purified
(b)The implication is that God is clean and pure
(c) Clean from what
(d)Clean and pure of all sin
3) Sin is what separates us from God, but understand something here
(a)Sin is not just an action
(b)The 10 commandments tell us not to commit adultery, that adultery is sin
(c) But Jesus taught us that to even look at a woman with impure thoughts is the same as adultery, it’s still sin
(d)likewise in Ezekiel we are given a glimpse of the time before Lucifer was cast out
Ezek 28:15
15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.
(NIV)
(e)The Bible says he was perfect not until he did something wrong, but when wickedness was found in him
(f) Sin is not just a verb it is also a noun
(g)In other words, it’s not just an action, but an attitude of the heart
III) Isaiah’s Cry
Isa 6:5
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."
(NIV)
A) His decree
1) I am a man of unclean lips
2) I dwell among a people of unclean lips
3) My eyes have seen God
4) Now I went to look at this a little out of order, because Isaiah never realized the problem with the first two issues until after he had seen God
B) My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty
1) Holiness is not defined by wearing the right clothes, or saying and doing the right things
2) Holiness begins and ends with a vision of who God is
3) There can in fact be no holiness without God
4) I heard someone say once when I was in Bible school
(a)If there is a God in Heaven, then why do the innocent suffer
(b)To which the reply was
(c) If there is no God, then what makes them innocent, and why should we care if they suffer
5) Our entire sense of morality, what’s right and what’s wrong was taught to us by God.
(a)It began in the Garden of Eden where we first learned not that we shouldn’t always indulge the appetites of the flesh
(b)Later in Genesis we learned through Cain and Abel the importance of controlling our emotions
(c) Still later God gave us the 10 commandments
(i) these were not simple rules to live by
(ii)they were the moral code upon which civilization was to be based upon
6) Now here in the New Testament area we have seen a clearer picture of who God is through His work on the cross
(a)And with that comes a clearer picture of the moral code upon which we live our live
(b)It’s not enough to not commit murder, now we are taught not to hate
(c) It’s not enough to bring sacrifices, now we must obey in our heart
(d)It’s not enough to simply follow the rules and regulations of our religion, now we must do it with a pure heart
(e)And it all starts with seeing God
7) I believe some of us here tonight have over the course of this fast begun to see God more clearly
(a)And with it has come a revelation
(b)About who God is
(c) About who we are
(d)And the gap in between those two revelations
(e)And what is our response to this revelation
C) Isaiah cried out “woe to me” for I am a man of unclean lips
1) What did this mean, did Isaiah cuss a lot
2) Maybe, but there are more ways than that to have unclean lips
3) How often do we speak out of anger
(a)And say the first thing that comes to our mind
(b)Especially to our families
(c) What about at work
4) When we look at our lives
(a)Do we look and say we’ll I’m doing pretty good at living the Christian life
(b)This is prompted by the fact that all to often we are comparing ourselves to other Christians
(c) And not looking at God for our comparison
(d)The fact of the matter is that when we compare ourselves to God, no matter how hard we try to live a pure life we fall far short of true holiness
Rom 7:15
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
(NIV)
(e)That was Paul speaking, surely he got closer to god than any of us, and yet he still struggled
1 Pet 1:15-16
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
(NIV)
(f) God is calling us to holiness
(i) the problem is we get lost in the definition
(ii) because we are using man as our guide for holiness
(iii) when we need to be looking at God
(g)My question to you today is when you look at your life what do you see
(i) This is not meant to be condemning
• And I hope it isn’t coming across that way
(ii) But is your life a pure and undefiled vessel that God can use
(iii) Because when we look at God, and not man for our example of holiness we all fall short of the mark
D) Isaiah said something else fascinating in this passage. He cried out that “I belong to a people of unclean lips”
1) I don’t have the enough time to dwell on this point
(a)And that’s a shame
(b)Because it is an often overlooked facet of our Christian walk
2) But we live in nation that calls itself Christian
(a)But is far from Godly
(b)We belong to a people of unclean lips
(c) And whether we realize it or not, that affects us, and our walk with God
3) I don’t know how it is at your job
(a)But I can’t go 5 minutes at my job without hearing a cuss word
(b)I can’t go an entire day without hearing somebody bragging about the sin in their life
(i) Talking about the person they had sex with
(ii) How they got back at someone who did them wrong
(iii) or how they hate this person or that person
(c) Spiritually these things affect us
(d)They weigh on us
Heb 12:1
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
(NIV)
(e)They so easily entangle us.
(i) This is not saying that we are engaging in that sin
(ii) But that that sin as reached out to grab us and entangle us
4) I liken this to a man who works out on a farm
(a)And he’s out there taking care of the animals
(b)Working out in the hot sun
(c) And at the end of the day he comes home sweaty, and smelling like the animals he’s working with
(d)And what’s the first thing his wife wants him to do?
(i) Take a bath
(e)Why, because the environment that he has to work in has affected his relationship with his wife
(i) This doesn’t mean that the man did anything wrong
(ii) And it doesn’t mean that the wife doesn’t love him
5) Let me give you another example from the Bible
(a)In the old testament there is actually a law that states when you go outside of the camp to take care of “your business” you need to take a shovel with you in order to bury “the business”
(b)There is also a law that states if you touch anything “unclean” then you yourself are now unclean and must go offer sacrifices in order to be made clean again
(c) So let’s say you are just out there walking along minding your own business, and you step in something
(d)you are now unclean, through no fault of you own
(e)Why?
(f) Because God want pure and undefiled vessels for His use.
(i) Purified not only of the sins we have committed
(ii) But also purified of the sins of those around us
6) We don’t have time to look at it now
(a)But read the book of Nehemiah
(b)Focus on his prayers
(c) And see how he prays and ask God for forgiveness for his sins, but moreover for the sins of the nation
(d)Why, because he is a part of the nation
IV) The Last thing I want to key on tonight is the purification that takes place in Isaiah’s life
A) The Bible says that one of the cherubim flew down and took a coal off of the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips, and with that he was purified
1) Revelation says that on this altar were the prayers of the saints
2) Now I’m not going to try and overanalyze this matter
3) But I will tell you that if you want purity and holiness in your life, there’s going to have to be some prayer involved
B) I’m not talking about the kind of prayer you say over dinner
1) You know where a lot of times we just gloss over the words, to show reverence, but in reality our heart is not on God, but on dinner
2) I’m talking about pouring your heart out before God kind of prayers
3) The nothing held back kind of prayer
4) The kind of prayer where we say Lord, nothing else matters, but having a pure and undefiled heart before God
(a)Not my job
(b)Not my ministry, or position in the church
(c) Not my social standing
C) Because here’s the point
1) God took Isaiah through this in order make him a pure vessel for his service
(a)After he was purified, then God called him to his ministry
2) God wants to use you
(a)But first He wants to purify you
3) God wants to use this church
(a)But first there will come a purification of our hearts
4) Before Israel received the promised land of Canaan God first told Joshua to circumcise the people.
V) Conclusion
A) We are coming to the end of a 21 day fast
1) And we have drawn closer to god in that time
(a)I know, I see it especially playing out in our worship.
(b)I also hear as I talk to people about how there fast is going
2) But God has not brought us to this fast, and indeed through this fast just so we can loose weight, and feel good about ourselves
3) God is preparing us for service, both on an individual level, and as a corporate body.
B) But I believe that through this fast many of us have seen God.
1) And with that has come a fresh revelation of who He is
2) And also a fresh revelation of who we are in the natural
C) And satan has used this revelation,
1) And the holy conviction that accompanies it to condemn some of you here
2) And some of you through the course of this fast have felt guilty
3) And you don’t understand why
D) God’s not mad at you
1) He’s not angry with you
E) God brought Isaiah to the throne room of Heaven to purify him, not to condemn him
1) Tonight he wants to bring you into the throne room as well
