Send Me

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Pat Damiani

Thornydale Family Church

Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago • Presented 4 years ago • 27:55

Isaiah 6:1–8

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NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Ed Stetzer is the Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center and has been one of the leading voices on how churches need to be responding in light of the current COVID-19 crisis. About a week and a half ago, he was interviewed for a news article and I’d like to read to you a brief portion of that article:

The hope, Stetzer said, is that when the crisis is over and the nation reemerges from it, Christians will be remembered for their love and courage. COVID-19 brings a crucial moment for churches, he said.

"This is the time to show and share the love of Jesus," Stetzer said.

"We don't need to run away; we don't need to hide," Stetzer continued. "We can't."

Now is the time when churches need to be geared up and ready to help, Stetzer said.

The question is not just how to save the church, Stetzer said. The question is, how do churches join Jesus on mission during this crisis?

"The church needs to rise up," Stetzer said. "Right now, the Lord's calling us to ask, 'How will He send us into our community?'

"We have to mobilize the people of God, Stetzer said. "This is our moment."

I believe Stetzer is right. We’ve spent a lot of time over the last several weeks adjusting to how we “do church” in a time when we can no longer meet together. Fortunately for us, we’ve been streaming our services for several years so the learning curve wasn’t quite as steep for us as it has been for some other churches.

But, as Stetezer rightly pointed out a couple weeks ago and as we see more clearly today, the real crisis is still to come. No doubt, it’s been hard for us to adjust to staying at home and avoiding personal contact with others, but unless God chooses to intervene miraculously, which He can certainly do, things are likely to get even worse in the coming weeks.

Tension

So the question I want us to consider this morning is this:

What kind of person is God looking for in a time of crisis?

What kind of person is God looking for when the elderly and the vulnerable are confined to their homes and can’t get out to shop or go to the bank or get their prescription medications?

What kind of person is God looking for when the isolation begins to take its toll and depression and hopelessness begins to set in?

What kind of person is God looking for when our families, friends, co-workers, and fellow church members contract the virus and maybe even die?

Truth

Believe it or not, this is not the first time that God’s people have faced these kinds of questions, and, if Jesus doesn’t return soon, it likely won’t be the last. So this morning I want to take a look at a passage that I hope will help us to answer those questions. It’s found in chapter 6 of the book of Isaiah

Isaiah 6:1–8 ESV

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. 2 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. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 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!” 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. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” 8 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.”

The first verse of this passage helps us understand the conditions in which this passage takes place. It is the year in which King Uzziah died. We can learn more about the times by reading about the reign of King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26. He began his reign when he was only 16 years old and reigned over the southern kingdom of Judah for 52 years. He was a good king who sought God, and as a result the nation prospered.

But near the end of his reign, he became proud and entered the temple to burn incense on the altar, a role that was reserved for the priests. As a result, God afflicted him with leprosy and he was forced to live by himself for the remaining days of his life. With King Uzziah gone, the nation of Judah was thrust into a time of uncertainty, grief and national crisis. It’s not too hard to see the parallels with what we face as a nation right now, is it?

So what are we to do as a church in light of the current crisis? Or to put it another way, I’ll repeat the question that I asked earlier:

What kind of person is God looking for in a time of crisis?

Here is how I think this passage answers those questions:

To do what God wants me to do I must first be who God wants me to be.

Before Isaiah was ready to say “Send me”, he first had to have an encounter with God in which God transformed Isaiah into the person God wanted him to be.

For many of us, the problem is that we often reverse the process. We decide what we’re going to do for God with the hope that our actions will somehow make us into the person God wants us to be. But this passage, and the rest of the Bible, for that matter, reveals that is just not possible.

So let’s use this passage to see what we can learn about...

Application

HOW TO BE ABLE TO SAY “SEND ME”

Know God

It’s not completely clear from the structure of the book of Isaiah but it seems likely that Isaiah had already begun his prophetic ministry. But in the face of the death of the king and the crisis that Judah faced, he wanted to make sure he heard from God before entering the next phase of his ministry. So he goes to the temple to meet with God. Obviously, God’s presence is not limited to any building, but at that point in the history of God’s people that is where He had chosen to manifest His presence among His people.

Today we certainly don’t have to go to a specific place to find God and get to know Him. As we’ve said often during this present crisis, church is not cancelled because the church is all of us, the people, and it doesn’t matter whether we meet in person or online.

As Isaiah entered the temple he had a vision of God sitting on His throne and from that vision, Isaiah learned two things about God that became the foundation for his ministry. And these two attributes of God are still crucial to our ministry.

God revealed to Isaiah that He is:

Sovereign

King Uzziah is no longer on the throne, and there is an absence of earthly leadership, but the first thing that Isaiah sees is that God is still on His throne. The King of Kings is still in control and sovereign. On the surface it might look like things are out of control, but they are not outside of God’s sovereignty.

This is the same thing that Job had learned about God through his suffering. Here is what Job said to God at the end of that time after God had revealed Himself to Job:

Job 42:2 ESV

2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

If we don’t understand or believe that God is sovereign and in control then we will fear and panic and we’ll never be able to move on to the other steps that we’re going to talk about this morning.

During this crisis a lot of people are asking questions like “Where is God?” or “Why is God allowing this to happen?” I don’t know the answer to the second question - the “why” question. But I do know the answer to the first. God is present in the midst of this crisis and it is completely under His control.

Holy

The other place we are given a glimpse into the throne room of God in Revelation 4, we see the heavenly beings singing this same song - “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord”. In Hebrew literature, the repetition of a word or phrase three times is used for emphasis. And it is also likely that the fact that the word “holy” is repeated three times is a reference to the triune nature of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We use the word “holy” a lot to describe God, but I’m not sure we have a good grasp on exactly what that means. The word itself mean to “be set apart” or to be “elevated” or to be “separated from common use”.

In one of my favorite books, The Knowledge of the Holy, author A.W. Tozer writes this about God’s holiness:

God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, and unattainable.

Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard.

In other words, the fact that God is holy means that He is far beyond even what we could think or imagine.

Unfortunately in our culture, our understanding of God is often developed based on who we want Him to be rather than who He really is. We have a tendency to put God in a box of our own making and then expect God to conform to that rather than for us to change our lives to conform to who He is. And then when God doesn’t behave in the way we think He should, we get angry. We certainly see a lot of that all around us today, don’t we?

I’m convinced that the thing we need most in our world right now is to get a vision of who God is and understand His sovereignty, holiness, greatness and glory. Only then can we move on to the next step.

Know myself

The fact that Isaiah was in the temple means that he had already gone through whatever ceremonial cleansing that would have been required for him to be able to enter. Not only that, the people of his day would have considered Isaiah to be a “good person”. He was after all a prophet of God.

But as soon as he got a vision of God, Isaiah immediately recognized his unworthiness in light of God’s holiness. The man who had just finished pronouncing woes against the people of Judah, now cries out “Woe is me!” and he acknowledges that he is a man of unclean lips.

We see here that the closer we get to God, the more aware we will become of our own depravity. Most of you who have been disciples of Jesus for a while have experienced this personally, haven’t you? One would think that the more we get to know God, the less we would sin. And that is hopefully true. But at the same time, the more we get to know God, the more we begin to recognize our own sinfulness to a greater degree than we had done before.

A.W. Tozer provides us with some good insight here:

Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.

But just recognizing our sinfulness is not enough. We must also take the next step.

Repent

This is another of those theological words that we throw around a lot without necessarily understanding it as well as we should. While we don’t see that word used here, Isaiah certainly illustrates the concept.

When we combine the Hebrew and Greek concepts of repentance, we could define it like this:

repentance =

deep sorrow and regret that leads to a change in direction away from self and toward God

Genuine repentance does include sorrow and regret, but it more than that. It requires an unconditional surrender of my entire life to God. As we look at the last couple of step in this process we will see the evidence that Isaiah does that here.

Be cleansed

I mentioned earlier that Isaiah had already done what he was required to do to be considered to be clean enough to enter the temple. But compared to the holiness of God, he is not clean at all and there is nothing that he can do to cleanse himself. So Isaiah does exactly the same thing that we must do. He surrenders his life to God and allows God to cleanse him.

One of the seraphim takes a burning coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s mouth and proclaims that God has taken away his guilt and atoned for his sin. This was a type or a picture of the way that our guilt is take away and our sin atoned for through the blood of Jesus.

You and I are incapable of doing anything to cleanse our lives from the sin that separates us from God. But the good news is that Jesus has already done that for us through His death and resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave, He did everything that was necessary to take away our guilt and pay the penalty for our sin. What He did on the cross makes it possible for us to be clothed with His perfect righteousness so that when God looks at us all He sees is the righteousness of Jesus and not our sin.

That is a free gift that He offers to all. But like any other gift, I must receive the gift in order to benefit from that. And the way I do that is to trust in Jesus Christ alone and not in anything I can do. I put my faith totally and completely in Jesus and not in anything I can do. Paul explained that process like this in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Even the faith to believe in Jesus is a gift from God.

Before we move to the last three steps, let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far. What kind of person is God looking for in a time of crisis? One who is confident in the sovereignty of God, who understands his sinfulness in light of God’s holiness, who is broken and sorrowful over that sinfulness and who has been touched by the cleansing power of God.

That is a prerequisite for these last steps. So if you’ve never made that decision, trying to employ these last three steps is going to be futile. You can try to do them in your own power, but you’ll find you won’t be able to sustain the effort. So we want to invite you to make that decision today. At the end of the message, I let you know how you can contact us so that we can help walk you through that process.

Listen

In verse 8, we see that Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord. He heard it because he was listening for it.

While it is certainly still possible for God to speak to us audibly today, that is not generally how He chooses to work.

Today God speaks through:

His Word

This is God’s primary means of communication in this age. That’s why we constantly talk about the importance of reading the entire Bible in a consistent, systematic way.

That’s exactly what we’re doing right now. God is speaking to all of us this morning through His Word. As we listen to God’s Word, He reveals who He is and He also reveals principles like the ones we’re focusing on in this message. And then he expects us to apply what we’re learning in very practical and concrete ways. Because the Bible doesn’t usually provide us with that level of personal application, God also speaks to us through...

The Holy Spirit

The very moment that we put our faith in Jesus, God promises that the Holy Spirit comes to live permanently in our lives. And one of His functions is to guide us and help us understand and follow God’s specific will for our lives.

As we read the Bible and pray, we give the Holy Sprit access to our minds and our human spirits and He is able to speak to us deep within. And as we listen for that still small voice and obey it, we get better and better at listening to God speak to us that way.

This is why it is so crucial for us to put our faith in Jesus alone. It is only when we surrender our lives completely to Him that the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. And without Him, it is impossible to listen to God.

Go

While there are certainly some instances in the Bible where God commands people to enter into some service for Him, most of the time God does just what He does with Isaiah here. Instead of issuing a command, He merely asks a question: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

And Isaiah immediately responds to the call of God - “Here I am! Send me.” He doesn’t even wait to find out what God is going to ask him to do. He doesn’t tell God what he is going to do for Him and then ask God to bless it. He simply makes himself available to do whatever God is going to ask him to do.

God is still looking for men and women and boys and girls who are willing to just make themselves available to do whatever God wants them to do, those who are willing to say. “Here I am! Send me”.

Trust

In verses 9-13, we get a glimpse of how difficult Isaiah’s calling is going to be. God basically tells Isaiah that his ministry isn’t going to be successful from man’s perspective. The people are not going to listen to him and repent and as a result they will eventually be conquered and taken into captivity.

But even after God reveals that, Isaiah doesn’t try to get out of the assignment, he doesn’t complain, he just does what he is told and leaves the results to God.

One of the reasons that ministry is often so difficult is because we often encounter misunderstanding, resistance, ungratefulness and rejection when we serve others in the name of Jesus. From an earthly perspective the ministry of many of those who were faithful to God didn’t turn out well. Jeremiah never had even one convert. Peter was hanged upside down. John ended his life in exile in Patmos. And, according to tradition, Isaiah died when he was sawn in half. But they all continued to heed God’s call because they trusted God for the results. We need to do that, too.

Inspiration

To do what God wants me to do I must first be who God wants me to be.

In the midst of this crisis God isn’t looking for people who are perfect or talented or rich or powerful or famous. He is merely looking for those who have surrendered their lives to Jesus so that He can develop us into the people that we need to be - those who know God, who recognize their own sinfulness, who have repented and been cleansed by God and who are willing to say, “Here I am. Send me”.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a newscast and there was a story about how Mobile Meals of Southern Arizona had a shortage of drivers to deliver meals to some of the vulnerable people in our community. I’ve seen other stories like that from time to time, but for some reason this time I felt like God was speaking directly to me. So I did a little more research and starting this week, I’m going to be volunteering one day a week to deliver meals. I’m not sharing that to say, “Look at me” or to bring attention to myself, but merely to remind all of us that if we’ll listen, many of us are going to have those kinds of opportunities to serve others in the name of Jesus in the days to come.