Who Shall Go For Us

Each down to us Lord, we just want to have grateful hearts that overflow and worship to you Lord, we just praise you for your goodness. We've praised you for your faithfulness We just declare this morning that there is no other God like you You are the one and the true and living God Lord, we exalt your name together and Lord We pray that you would be honored that you would be glorified and all that we say and do this morning May you be exalted through the teaching of your word Lord, may you open our hearts and our minds to be responsive to what you would have to say to us today May it be for the transforming of your people the equipping of the Saints and that you would be Glorified in all things we ask these things in Jesus Christ's name. Amen Well, good morning church I've been blessed to be here with you this morning and enjoy getting to worship together with your church fellowship My sister Sony who's here Sony. Can you wave at everybody my sister Sony and I are here today from Michigan and really? enjoying the kind hospitality of your church I'm going to be preaching today on a text from Isaiah chapter 6 If you have your Bibles with you, you can go ahead and turn to that passage The title of my message is based on a question that God asked in Isaiah 6 where he says Who should I send and who will go for us? This is life lessons on service from the life of Isaiah There is an old adage in the military Where young recruits are often told? Never be the first Never be the last Keep your mouth shut and don't volunteer for anything Now I've heard that in the military that can be really good advice Because sometimes that keeps you from getting stuck with doing jobs that nobody else really wants to do But one thing that I wonder is if that's good advice for us who are working in the kingdom of God I know sometimes that actually is the posture that we take Where we don't want to volunteer for anything We don't want to join up with anything because we think it might get us stuck doing some messy jobs But I want to look at some lessons here from Isaiah chapter 6 and see what the Lord would speak to us today Let's begin in verse 1 of Isaiah 6. I'm reading from the English Standard Version the ESV says this in The year that King Uzziah died. I just want to go ahead and stop there Why do you think the Bible tells us this why does it open it up this way in the year that King Uzziah died What's significant about this? One thing I want to suggest to you is that I find as Christians sometimes we we read the Bible, but we don't often study the Bible and Part of that is because we're a very goal oriented to-do list People group and so sometimes our Bible reading is just an item a check mark on our to-do list And we want to rush through it as quickly as possible So we check it off our list and move on to everything else we have to do that day But I want to suggest to you that as a people of God we need to not merely read our Bibles We need to study our Bibles and a few things that will help you in and aid you in the study of your Bible One is having a Bible timeline Something that shows you the chronology of the Bible and the dates in which things happen and that help correlate and correspond The things that happened in the Bible to the rest of history So you you have an idea of when things happened and what was significant about the dates and times a couple other things I would recommend that you purchase or acquire or use as an app would be a concordance a Bible concordance that helps you to understand the words that are used and be able to do topical studies a Strong's concordance or Young's concordance are both good resources another thing would be a Bible Atlas where you have the maps and you actually look and see the Locations and places that it's talking about in the scripture because when the Bible gives us stories it gives us narratives It's actually giving us real history that has taken place with real people in real time So we need to understand that there's a context to these things that are being told to us in the Bible now when you and I Read this and it says in the year that King Uzziah died Why do you think this is given to us? What's the significance of that year? And what's significant about it? Well, I'd like to suggest to you that if God thought it was important enough to say this in the Holy Scripture to inspire Isaiah through the Holy Spirit to write this down for us and give us a context for it There must be something that God wants us to know about the year that King Uzziah died Now for you and I contextually historically we may have a hard time relating to this We may say I don't know what what happened that year. I'm gonna give you the year you're 740 BC You're like, okay. Thanks, dude Thanks for the history lesson 740 BC. That doesn't really mean a lot to me. I mean what happened then? I'm trying to think back 740 BC I Don't think the Jets from the Super Bowl Yeah, I got nothing. Sorry. So what's significant about that? Well, let me let me ask you this Where were you on September 11 2001? That mean anything to you Heard a couple whispers. I wasn't born and that just made the rest of us feel really old right there but the fact is we have a point of reference for that don't we and That was an event that happened in our country that changed the dynamic of our nation Our country will never be the same since September 11 2001 And so when this statement is made here in the year that King Uzziah died It's giving us a point of reference that is of that kind of significance So I'm going to give you some historical Background that kind of give us a running start up to this passage that we're about to read and to tell you what happened in this year 740 BC so Uzziah who is also called Azariah became king of Judah when he was 16 years old and He reigned in Judah for 52 years. He was a very godly King He oversaw a great period of expansion and development in Judah great building programs and He had a mentor. His mentor was the Prophet Zechariah And when the Prophet Zechariah was alive He followed the Lord and did quote what was right in the eyes of the Lord and quote according to 2nd Kings 15 3 and 2nd Chronicles 26 4 However when Zechariah died and his mentor was no longer involved in his life in his later years he became exalted in himself He became lifted up in pride and he did something extremely presumptuous He did something really rebellious. Actually. He went into the temple of God and And he had the audacity to offer incense on the altar which was forbidden in the law of God Only the priests were allowed to offer incense He's confronted by the priest but rather than Humbling himself and repenting of his sin He becomes Embittered he becomes more proud prideful. And so God struck him with leprosy Now when you were a leper Within the Israelites you could no longer live in the community of the people of God You had to be sent outside the camp You had to be an outsider and literally being an outsider meant you are outside of God's covenant people You were cut off from the covenant of God Because your identity was tied with his people And so he spent the remaining portion of his life Separated from the people of God no access to the temple of God essentially cut off from God and Then to make matters worse when he died he was not buried with his father's That was the great joy. That was the great Anticipation of the Hebrew culture was I will be buried with my father's Especially for the Kings you read this in Kings and Chronicles. He rested and was buried with his father's Well Uzziah Was not able to be buried with his father's he was buried in a field adjacent to the burial place of his father So you have this? incident of national disgrace You have this situation where? This man who had led the nation of Judah in righteousness for all these years suddenly went rogue And he turned his heart away from God and he hardened his heart and he died in complete disgrace There's no there's no redemption to the end of the Uzziah story There's no good ending. This is not a Hallmark movie And so when we think about it in terms of our cultural context I'm not old enough to remember this but I think something similar could be related perhaps to When Richard Nixon was impeached as the president in the United States You know, we just had the Vietnam War and then you have the impeaching of your president and the country is just at a loss Where are we going from here? What's going on? But but far more I think even than that was this situation this scenario for the people of Israel they suddenly have this sense of where is God and all this and has God turned his back on us and has he Rejected us and there's a sense of loss and that's the background. That's the historical backdrop to what we're about to read So again when you see something even as inane in your Bible as in the year that King Uzziah died Don't just read past that There's a reason why God to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has decided It's important for you to know what happened and what the what the background is because it explains something about what's about to happen next so we have this situation of Uzziah being irreverent in the presence of God of coming into the temple of God and Being exalted in himself and the scripture tells us that God himself says no flesh will glory in my presence So let's read what happens here Isaiah 6 1 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 Above him stood the seraphim Now the seraphim was an angelic being 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 Why is it that the seraphim? Cries this in the presence of the Lord that God is holy holy holy I Think in our modern-day Evangelical American church culture if we were to take a survey and we were to ask us To describe or try to define God in one term What word would we use to say God is fill in the blank with one word? I think we would say love We would say God is love And while it is true that God is love the scripture tells us that very definitively that God is love And it also says that God is light and in him is no darkness at all It tells us many other things that God is I truly believe that The most descriptive the most definitive word that would describe who God is is not love It's kind of a postmodern American version of God that we've created and again I'm not taking away from the love of God But what I'm going to suggest to you is that we can never properly understand the love of God until we understand God's primary Characteristic and the way that he has chosen to reveal himself through his word and that is that God is holy You will never understand the love of God until you understand the holiness of God Because the holiness of God Helps us to understand not merely God's love, but it also helps us to understand God's justice God is so holy that no sin can abide in his presence and Because of his holiness He has to avenge sin with his wrath Now that's something again we don't like to talk about in our culture we don't like to talk about it in the church Something we feel very uncomfortable about talking about and discussing the wrath of God Romans 1 talks about that the wrath of God is revealed against mankind Who suppresses the truth and unrighteousness? It's a biblical doctrine of the wrath of God and the wrath of God comes from the holiness of God and The holiness of God is what the angels talk about and it's what they cry out Before the throne day and night when you look in Revelation the angels before the throne of God do not sing love love love That was the Beatles They sing holy holy holy is the Lord Almighty The whole earth is filled with his glory and I want to tell you the significance of this repetition That is called out in the Hebrew language There is no punctuation The Old Testament which is written in Hebrew has no way to be able to give Exclamation to something because there is no punctuation. There's just there's just the words and so When you want to say something with emphasis in Hebrew if you want to put an exclamation point on it, if you will What you do is you say the word twice? So you think of God when he met with Moses at the burning bush and he calls out to him and he says Moses Moses Well, that's like Moses with an exclamation point at the end Jesus even in the New Testament, although the New Testament is predominantly written in Greek Jesus uses some of these Hebrew idioms and he teaches and he says Verily verily if you have an old King James or truly truly I tell you that's like this is really really true Exclamation point at the end Or as one of the brothers mentioned to me when when he called Saul on the road to Damascus Jesus says Saul Saul why do you persecute me one of the questions that Jesus asked in the New Testament? And so when you say a word twice you are saying it with emphasis you're saying that word Essentially with an exclamation point at the end however in Hebrew if you say something three times You are not emphasizing it as a superlative. You are saying that this word That you are emphasizing is In so when holy is spoken three times by the angel They're not merely saying that God is holy They're not merely saying he's holy with an exclamation point at the end These seraphim are affirming that God is Infinitely holy God is more holy than it is possible for us to conceive of any being Being that kind of holy you just think about the most holy Concept or a construct that you can imagine in your mind. God is way more infinitely holy than that In fact the holiness of God is such that on the mountain on Mount Sinai when Moses said to the Lord show me your glory God's response to Moses was You can't handle my glory He says if anyone were to look upon my face they would die That's how different we are the word holy means set apart It means other it means distinct from different from God is not like you and me God is other God is holy It's not merely holy God is infinitely holy Holy to the point that when Moses the man of God whom God says I call my friend and I talk with him face to face as a man talks with his friend when Moses Asked to see the glory of God. God said I can't do that. I'll tell you what I'll do I'll let you see my backside and in the in the mountain the presence of the Lord passed by and Moses caught a glimpse of the backside of the glory of God and In that little bit of revelation when he came down from the mountain his face was so radiant and was shining so brightly that the Israelites said Dude, you got to put a brown paper bag over your head because we can't even stand to look at you You are radiating so brightly. It's blinding us that is the intensity of the holiness of God and It is because of this holiness of God that he has to oppose sin And he has to judge sin because sin is the opposite of his character. It's the opposite of what he is like and So God has appointed judgment eternal punishment for Not just sin but sinners And again, this makes us very uncomfortable in this day and age We have Christian pastors supposedly Christian pastors writing books published by Christian publishing houses Saying that God loves everyone so much that he could never bring himself to judge someone for all of eternity That there is no hell that at the end. Everybody goes to heaven when they die This is a heresy called universalism and it's being promoted in Best-selling books published by so-called Christian publishing houses by big-name teachers in fact a Pastor that comes from my area in Grand Rapids who is now a spiritual advisor to Oprah Winfrey wrote a big book called love wins promoting this concept Bestseller the problem with this is that it does not understand it does not rightly and correctly Reflect the holiness of God Because God is infinitely holy no sin can abide in his presence So if that's the case if that's true, which it is then what hope is there for any of us? Right if we're going to stand in the presence of that kind of infinite holiness What kind of hope do we have well, let's see what happens here with Isaiah So Isaiah Has this encounter with the holiness of God and in verse 5? After the well, let's go back here and look at verse 4 for a minute What was the response of the temple to this revelation of the infinite holiness of God? It says the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called and the house was filled with smoke the very Foundations of the temple of God shook and trembled at the proclamation of the infinite holiness of God Did you know that's actually the only proper response? to coming into the presence of the living God They shook and the temple itself the house of God is shook and trembled at this proclamation of God's infinite holiness And so Isaiah's response then in verse 5 is he says 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 now if you and I were going to try to Create a scenario where somebody had to go represent our nation before this infinitely. Holy God We would try to think of okay. Who's our best candidate to go do this? Well at this point in time We're gonna look around the planet and find somebody that might be a good selection to go stand before God We probably think let's pick somebody from the Israelites because they're God's chosen people So they were descendants of Abraham set apart chosen to represent God to the world And so we would tend to think well Let's let's find someone from the Israelites because they're going to be the most holy people on the planet And then we would think okay within the Israelites. Who are the people that might be the most holy among them and The people that we might tend to think of as a group would be the prophets Because the prophets were the ones who received the revelation from God They were the ones that God spoke through and gave his word to the people And so we would say let's let's consider, you know, one of the prophets they might be able to stand before this holy God And I think it's interesting how modern theologians have taken the prophets and they have Relegated them into two categories. They call them the minor prophets and the major prophets Now in my way of thinking I think you know in the Bible There's only so many people whose names ever got mentioned in the Bible I think man if your name got mentioned in the Bible, that would be kind of a big honor, right? You know like wow my name I mean some people get excited when their names in the newspaper, you know But like if your name is in the Bible, you'd be like, wow, that's pretty amazing I mean, that's only a select group get mentioned there But then there's this group of prophets that they actually have books of the Bible named after them you know Nahum and Micah and Habakkuk and some of those guys, right? Well, these modern theologians have now said these guys are the minor Prophets now, I don't know if just if it were me and I were one of those guys I'd be like, okay now you do know that basically I spent my whole life Speaking on behalf of God. I Experienced the mock and ridicule the people they tried to stone me to death and then finally they sawed me in half And you're gonna call me a minor prophet. Okay. Thanks like appreciate that You know and like, you know, these theologians like well, you know They did a lot. But I mean really they're not they're not made. They're like double-a minor league team, you know And so so you go, okay. Well if we're gonna pick somebody's gonna stand before God Well, we want somebody from the major prophets, right? So so who then are the major prophets in the Old Testament? Can you tell me? Daniel Isaiah Jeremiah and Ezekiel right? These are the major major prophets, right? These are this is the all-star team So then you go, okay, so who is the captain of the all-star team? Well, you know probably Isaiah I mean because he's the guy who really had the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and had all his prophecies about Jesus Isaiah 53 and the crucifixion and all that so you go man of the major prophets Isaiah he's pretty major major, you know, he's like the MVP of the all-star team So let's get him to go stand before God. There's anybody who's holy It's probably gonna be the major major of the major prophets And yet what happened when the most holy guy on the most holy nation in the planet stood before infinite holiness How did that go down? He says well unto me I'm undone I'm gonna die Because I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips He saw himself in Comparison to the infinite holiness of God and he knew there was no hope for him whatsoever. I think about the patriarch Job and How God said of Job have you considered my servant Job he is a righteous and upright Perfect man, there is no one else like him on the earth That's a pretty good commendation. I think Now Job didn't say that about himself Job's publicist didn't write that on his press release Wasn't in his bio on his website God said that about Job So again Job according to God's Word Job was the most holy man on the planet by God's estimation not even by our opinion God said so and What what happened with Job when Job came into the presence of this infinitely holy God? Job said I had heard about you But now my eyes have seen you Therefore I repent myself in dust and ashes That's the response of the most holy person on the planet When they came into the presence of this living Holy God, I just think sometimes in our Christian American subculture We've become too casual with God We've looked at God as though He's our little buddy. You know, he's like Deepak mode song. He's our own personal Jesus Someone who hears our prayers someone who cares Our own little self-help therapeutic deity. I think sometimes we think of him as kind of a mix between Barney the dinosaur You know, I love you. You love me and mr. Rogers He's just begging and pleading us. Won't you please be my neighbor? I don't think God wants to be our buddy. I Think he wants to be God. I think there's a sense and we've lost the awe of God We've lost the reverence of God and we've lost the fear of God the temple shook and trembled the foundation of the temple of the Lord Trembled at the proclamation of the holiness of God. Do we tremble at the holiness of God? I think sometimes even when we talk about the fear of the Lord We just limit it and we reduce it to the concept of respect Certainly, it should be respect. I think there is a sense in which there should be a holy terror that our hearts melt like wax And we say woe is me. I am undone There is no hope for me. So where does that leave us? Does it leave us in a state of perpetual hopelessness? Does it leave us in a state of utter Desolation and separation from God Let's look at what happens next verse 6 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 is atoned for I'll tell you what if you want to understand the love of God you'll never understand it apart from the wrath of God And the justice of God God cannot ignore sin. He can't overlook it. He can't excuse it The wages of sin is death Eternal punishment is what every one of us deserves and yet what did God do? God took his just and holy wrath on Sin, and he poured out his wrath on his innocent sinless son on the cross and He who knew no sin Became sin for us and this expresses the atonement This touching of the lips of Isaiah with the coals expresses the atonement of what Jesus has done for every one of us How Jesus took upon himself? The wrath of God so that we could be declared the righteousness of God so that when God Substituted what we justly deserve put it on Christ and it said it pleased God to crush him His only son you want to talk about love You can never understand love until you realize how much you deserve eternal hell And how much God crushed his son on your behalf? God is not our little buddy. God is infinitely holy and Yet God chose to crush his perfect son so that you could have a relationship With him and not be separated for all of eternity. That's love. That's mercy That's grace, but you'll never understand that apart from understanding the holiness of God It is God's holiness that made him crush his only son How dare we be flippant about that? Grace is free, but it did not come cheap. It cost Christ. It cost God the death of his son How dare we ever be flippant about that There's only one proper response to that kind of mercy to that kind of love That God said I will crush my own son to be able to show you kindness To show you mercy. There's only one proper response to that and that is to say what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 12 therefore in light of God's mercy in Light of what God has done for you How can you not offer your body as a living sacrifice Holy and acceptable unto God. This is your reasonable act of worship So Isaiah has this experience of having his lips touched with the coal His sin being taken away his sin being atoned for this great exchange Where God says the wrath that you so justly deserve I put upon my son and now because of what he has done because of his righteousness because of his holiness I will transfer to your account What he has done for you and I will declare you Righteous, I will declare you forgiven. I will declare you holy Not because of works of righteousness that you have done Lest anyone should boast But as a gift of my grace When we say that God's grace is amazing. We don't know the half of what we sing verse 8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying Whom shall I send and who will go for us? I wrote a book called the questions God asks It's based on 19 questions in the Old Testament that God asked people and this is one of them He asks Isaiah here. And this question is rather unique because of the wording of it. It says here whom shall I send and Who will go for us? Starts out with a singular who shall I send and who will go for us? Well, who is the I and who is the us? I Believe that the one true God is having a conversation within the Godhead That our one God three persons father son and Holy Spirit. They're having a conversation here together and there's a need and the rhetorical question almost that's being posed here is Whom shall I send who will go for us just spoken into the room and almost? instantaneously the Overwhelmed responsive heart of the prophet Isaiah. It's like you see him shoot up his hand and he says here am I? Send me I'll go I'll do it Why because that's what a forgiven heart does That's what a heart that's been redeemed does When you know who God is and you see him in his perfect infinite holiness You see yourself for who you are an unworthy sinner completely without hope in this world But then when you realize what he's done for you what he's made possible for you and that you've been redeemed you've been justified you've Been cleansed you've been made holy Then you begin to see not just yourself for who you are, but you begin to see other people as God sees them Until you've had this experience. It's almost impossible not to do with the Apostle Paul says where we go around comparing ourselves among ourselves And Paul says that's very unwise Because when you compare yourself to somebody else some other person in the church even you're gonna find a way to justify yourself Remember the Pharisee and the publican Lord. I thank you that I'm not like this person over here. I Do good things I tie I actually show up at church on time whatever it is You know what? I mean? We have this sense of exalting ourself and you can make yourself feel good when your comparison is a horizontal standard When your standard is the infinite holiness of God We're undone So when you see God for who he truly is you see yourself for who you are But then you also see others as God sees them people who are made in his image who are deeply loved by the Father and The way that we love and serve God is primarily by loving and serving other people And that is something that does not come natural to our flesh. There's nothing inside of us that wants to do that That is simply the outcome of a redeemed heart He who has been forgiven much What? loves much You know, I don't want to brag on your church I'm just gonna brag on your church for a minute. I But in conversations that I've had here just last night this morning and there's some people here who've been Forgiven much and you know it You're aware of it Because of that man, I see a lot of love. I See a lot of love that's coming from forgiven hearts And that's what happens man when you really know what Christ has done for you and how unworthy you are Then you have this sense of saying God Whatever it is. You want me to do whatever you call me to do. I'm available. I don't have a lot of skills I don't have a lot of abilities But what I have I give Here's a blank check. Whatever you want to do wherever you want to send me wherever you want to go. I'll do it Sometimes like we have this Mentality as Christians, it's like, okay Lord, here am I? Send her the work of the kingdom is going to get done You know the scripture said Jesus says down here in John 4 35 through 36. Do you not say? There are yet four months and then comes the harvest behold I say to you lift up your eyes and look on the fields that they are white for harvest Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life So that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. There are seven and a half billion people on this planet half of whom have not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and God has given the Evangelization of this generation of souls to this generation of Christians That's us if the works going to get done. It's going to get done through us Now I wouldn't do it that way if I were God, I wouldn't I'm just being honest shouldn't admit it But I'm just gonna say I would not look around this room including myself. I would not say. Oh, I need these people That's not what I would think and I'd be like God I'd be like, oh there's got to be a better plan than that You know, I would just get a big megaphone and I'd be like, this is God I'm gonna say this once listen up, you know, that's what I would do if I were God I would just not use this lot at all But God has Paul said has chosen the foolishness of this world to confound the wise He says not many of you were wise not many of you were intellectuals. Not many of you were wealthy when you were called and God chose you So he could glorify himself so it would not be about us. It would be about the glory of God And he called us and he's chosen us to be about the work. What a privilege. What an amazing opportunity So the work of the kingdom will advance it will get done. The question will be Will you be engaged? You're gonna be on the sidelines watching everybody else do it. Are you gonna say coach put me in? Put me in I want in the game And that's what I pray that God will do for our hearts this morning but out of the overflow of The sense of gratitude for who God is and what he's done for us that will cry out to him with all our hearts and say I'm available Whatever it is. You need me to do if it's if it's cleaning the toilets I'll do that if it's sweeping the floor, I'll do that. You know, sometimes we're like I want to serve Jesus I think a international television ministry sounds just just right up my alley You know be faithful in the little things Be faithful in the small Responsibilities that God gives you work diligently as under the Lord and not on demand if you don't get applause for it You don't get recognized They don't announce your name on Sunday morning that you were here cleaning up on Saturday Whatever you rake the leaves and nobody bought you a plaque You're not doing it for that. You're doing it for the glory of God because he's worthy. He's worthy That's why we do it. Let's pray our Father and our God. Once again, we just turn our hearts to you And Lord we declare that you are holy holy holy Holy The whole earth is full of your glory and Lord we tremble and we quake at the holiness of your name The Lord we're thankful that we don't have to stand in dread and fear that because of the atonement of Christ that he took the sin And he took the punishment the death the guilt that we so deserve. He took it upon himself So you have declared us righteous you've declared us holy and we can approach your throne with boldness with confidence Not in the flesh because no flesh will glory in your presence But on the merits of Christ and we say it is on the merits of Christ alone that we come We have no other plea We have nothing else that we can point to to justify ourselves Just the blood of Jesus nothing in my hand I bring only to your cross I claim my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame. I wholly lean on Jesus name. This alone is my righteousness This alone is my holiness what Christ has done on my behalf that I could not do for myself and it is out of the overflow of my Heart that I cry out God here. Am I here am I send me? Amen