Relating to God

Isaiah 6:1-8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to RUF at KSU Podcast. And if this is your first time with us, we're doing something a little bit different. So normally we work our way through a whole book of the Bible. But this semester, we're doing a series on relationships. And we think that that's a really good idea because the Bible has a lot to say about relationships. Think of the greatest commandment that Jesus says to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's all about relationships. And there's a lot packed in there to loving God and loving neighbor. And the Bible has so much more to say about relationships that we want to study it because, hey, it's an important topic for all of life, but especially in this season of life for y'all in college, when many of your relationships are changing and being renegotiated in new ways. The main kind of theme of this series, which you'll hear me say every week, is that you were made to love and to be, you are made to love and to be in relationship with God and with others. That you are made to love and be in a relationship of love with God and with others. Alright, well, let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. We're looking at Isaiah chapter 6 tonight. Isaiah chapter 6, and we're looking at verses 1 through 8. So hear now the word of the Lord. 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, 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 threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 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. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And then I said, Here I am, send me. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Alright, so we're doing this series on relationships. Our first week we looked at your relationship with RUF, how you can relate to us in this ministry. The second week we kind of did a big picture story of how does the Bible see relationships in general. Last week we focused in on our relationship to sin and shame, which affects all of our relationships. And then today we're focusing in on how we relate to God, our relationship with God. Arguably the most important relationship in all of creation, in all the world, and what the Bible has to communicate about it. And so thinking about that, thinking about this passage where Isaiah sees God in this really shocking way. When's the last time you saw something or experienced something that really took your breath away? When's the last time you saw something or experienced something that really took your breath away? Every year I get to go to Colorado. It's part of my job. We go there for training. And every time I'm always shocked afresh at just how beautiful the Rocky Mountains are. If you've ever seen them, like they're not like Kennesaw Mountain, you know, like it's a real mountain. And it's not just one of them, there's a whole chain of them. And even though I've seen them multiple times now, I still just catch myself like staring at them. Because they're huge and like glorious and massive and beautiful and just kind of overwhelming, and all of them are different, unique in different ways. They're stunning. And, you know, I think in that way, when we come to this passage where Isaiah is seeing a glimpse of the Lord, uh, we can we can get a little bit of sense of that. Just the the beauty, the majesty, the massiveness, the hugeness that's going on here. But, I mean, imagine yourself in his place here. Can you imagine for a moment what it would be like to see God? Probably wouldn't even compare to seeing Mount Everest. The prophet Isaiah has this experience and he records it here in Isaiah 6 and tells us a lot about how we relate to God. And so I've got three points I want us to see from this passage. The first is seeing God's holiness. The second is seeing our sin. And the last is hearing the good news. So let's look first at seeing God's holiness. Alright, so it says there, 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. This is the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament times. He's being shown this massive, powerful, majestic, overwhelming image of God. And like, just to put it in perspective, he's seeing this vision in the temple in Jerusalem. This would have been like the biggest building that Isaiah would have ever been in in his life. You know, it was many, many stories tall. It was humongous. Obviously, we can build bigger buildings today, but for him, that was the biggest one he had ever seen or been in. And he says, I'm in the temple, and like God is on his throne in heaven, and just like the bottom of his robe, the train of his robe, is filling the temple. Like God is so massive that like he doesn't even fit in the temple. It's just like, you know, the very bottom of his outfit is just kind of hanging there in the temple. That's how huge God is. And then not just that, but he's surrounded by these seraphim, which are like angelic beings, you know, describes them as having six wings. Uh, and that'd be pretty crazy in and of itself, you know, kind of our own image of like angels. Uh but if you dig into the language of like kind of what seraphim might be related to, the word literally uh has connotations of like fiery serpents. So I'm extrapolating a little, but like it could be that these are more like dragons. So, like, yeah, God's just there surrounded by dragons, you know, like screaming, holy, holy, holy. Like, if I was Isaiah, I'd be pooping my pants right now. Uh it's pretty overwhelming the sight that he's seeing. And they're singing about God's holiness. That's the focus of the passage here. He's getting this vision of God on his throne in his holiness, and he's overwhelmed by it. But there's a little detail here that I want to lock in on just before we go on, is that he's seeing this image at a certain time in his life. It says at the beginning, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne. Now, just to save you the deep dive into the Old Testament, King Uzziah, he was the king of the southern portion of Israel, and he was a good king, and he reigned a long time, and his reign was really prosperous, and God's people had peace and security, and we're doing well. And anytime a king dies or there's a transition in leadership, it's a scary thing. But especially when a really good king dies, and you're like, oh man, is his son gonna be any good at this? Is everything gonna fall apart? It was a time of great instability, insecurity, and anxiety. And it was in that moment when Isaiah is probably afraid and worried that he sees this vision of God on the throne, extremely secure, not shaken in any way, not worried, that his kingdom and his throne is not being thrown off at all by geopolitical events all around us. That what we see is that God is still safely on his throne. And that's a great message for us to take here at the start. Because we all have worries in our life, we all have moments when we feel deeply insecure, when we feel shaken. What are you worried about? What are you feeling insecure about right now? I want you to know that when everything seems unstable, when you're filled with fear, I want you to remember that the Lord God reigns, that that's the message of the Bible. Focus here on God's royalty compared to the royalty that we see in this life. The leaders that we may put our hopes in in the temporary now. That God's reign is eternal compared to earthly kings. While earthly leaders come and go, the Lord God is still very much in control. And look, what's even better is that God's holiness, which is the foundation of his authority here, that's not in doubt either. That God's holiness doesn't change. And so that's what we're going to focus on for the rest of our time here. That while human leaders are often imperfect or even just downright wicked, that God remains holy all the time. That He's the perfect king, the King we want and the King we need. So Isaiah sees this vision, and remember, God's surrounded by these angelic creatures. They're saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, emphasizing God's holiness. It says, like they have six wings, and two of them literally cover their eyes and their feet, kind of emphasizing that even the angels can't look at God directly. He's so holy. And probably about this point you're like, alright, what does the word holy mean? You've been saying that like 18 times now. Please, I need a definition. Holy in the Bible means to be set apart, to be different than the way of the world, to be without sin. I look at I like how one commentator put it, that God in his holiness is the sum of all moral excellency, and it's only found in him. He's absolute purity, he's unsullied even by the shadow of sin. That God cannot sin and he cannot be near sin. That holiness is often compared to like fire. You know, it's like you can, you can't really even, like, you can't touch fire, and if you touch fire, the fire is gonna be fine, but you're definitely gonna get burned, right? Like uh that fire is that, you know, like powerful in and of itself, uh, that pure in and of its essence, right? That you can only interact with it in certain ways. You know, what do we teach kids? Like, don't mess with fire, you're gonna get burned. That's a good life lesson. In the same way, we shouldn't mess around with God's holiness, or we'll find ourselves on the opposite side of that. Why is holiness important? Hebrews 12, 14 says, strive for holiness, without which no one will see God. That just like the angels cover their eyes, so if we don't come into God's presence holy, then we can't see him either. Which creates a problem. Because of sin and because of God's holiness, there's a separation now between God and man. That right here in the Bible, we're seeing the way we relate to God is on this level of brokenness, on this level of separation. We can't just show up at his doorstep. Even Isaiah, who's a prophet of God, like that's his professional job, to study the Bible, you know, to speak for God, to work in the temple, all these kind of things. Even he shows up here and he says, like, I'm unholy in God's presence. I'm among a people who are unholy, and I deserve to be judged by this holy God. And yet the crazy thing is that God desires for his people to be holy because he desires for them to be in a relationship with him. It's not just God is holy, and so too bad, y'all. Like, you're you're out of luck. Figure it out on your own. No, a holy God cannot abide with an unholy people. And so God's desire is to find a way to make his people holy again. So that brings me to my second point here, which is seeing our sin and reckoning with it. You know, unlike being in the presence of an earthly king, like if uh Isaiah was, you know, before the king that was alive in his day, the presence of the king of kings, the God of the Bible here, is one where like Isaiah's sins can't be hidden. They're revealed instantly to him. That the truth is before God, sin can't hide. And the reality is, as we saw last week with Adam and Eve, when it comes to sin, that's the first thing we want to do with it. We want to hide. What do they do when God comes? They jump behind a bush. You know, they try to cover themselves with fig leaves. They want to, you know, make sure there's some way that God can't see it. But the reality is nothing is hidden from God. And sin takes so many different forms, and we could talk about a lot of different aspects of it, but I kind of want to focus in on one, which might not sound evident immediately, but just hang in there with me, okay? So I was teaching this passage one time uh to a group of middle schoolers at my church, and I was like, all right, guys, like what stands out to you about the passage? What stands out to you about God here? And they were like, Yeah, he seems like God's really powerful. You know, God's really impressive, God's really strong. And I was like, okay, it's a good middle school answer. Uh but like the focus of the passage here is not God's power, it's God's holiness. And I was thinking about that, I was like, why are we so focused on God's power? And I was processing this with my middle schoolers because they're actually much smarter than we give them credit. Um, and they were like, I don't know, like, I think there's a certain aspect of power that uh like we think we can kind of copy. Like holiness is so different from us that we know we can't fake it. But power, power is something where we feel like, well, we can get a little bit of that. You know, we can kind of we can kind of get a version of that, we can mimic that in some way. So, like, you know, God creates light, but we can create electric light bulbs. Uh, God creates rivers, but we can create dams on the rivers to provide electricity and control them. You know, there's Godzilla, we create mecha godzilla. Like, there's ways that we're trying to copy that sense of God's power. And I think the reality is that uh when sin blinds us, when we grow dull to the gospel, that we can actually feel a great attraction towards power in the place of holiness. Because we know that holiness is something that can't be faked. Why do we focus on power? Why do we find power so attractive? Well, I think if we had to choose between power and holiness, like right now, you know, you don't have to admit it, you don't have to raise your hand, but I think maybe all of us would admit this, we would probably rather have power than holiness. That I think most of us would pick that. We crave greater influence over others. We want to prove that we can be successful in the world. We want to control the outcome of situations, and we hate to feel weak. And you might be thinking, look, come on, I'm a college student, I'm a broke college student, I don't feel powerful right now. What in the world are you talking about? Alright, but think about Isaiah here. He's in the presence of God, this holy God, and his unholiness is being revealed. And what's the thing that he confesses is sinful about him? He says, uh, I woe is me, 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. Y'all, his job is a prophet, to use his lips to speak. Like the thing that he's good at is talking. The thing that he would take pride in is talking. The thing that would give him power and influence over anyone is talking, is using his mouth. And yet it's the very thing that he's good at that God has even gifted him with, that he finds the most selfish pride and sin mixed in. What do you tend to think is the thing that, you know, makes you uh, sorry, what's the thing, what's like the talent or gift that you feel like God has given you? What's the one place uh where you feel like you can kind of justify yourself with it? Because we tend to, what we tend to do is think about the things we do well, the good qualities we have, justify ourselves with them because it makes us feel powerful. What are the ways you may be trying to justify yourself and feel powerful? I mean, maybe it's simply like, well, you know, like I actually go to class unlike other people, you know. I'm not one of those types. Uh I do school and I work three jobs and I take care of sick puppies like I'm clearly a good person. Uh I'm not socially awkward like other people at the Marietta campus. Uh I know how to talk to people. Uh or maybe even look, I don't like need to go to RUF or church or Bible study because like I already know everything the Bible says. I'm not one of those people who needs that. Like, I'm kind of on a higher level. Maybe that's never something we say out loud, but in our heart of hearts, we have this kind of secret part of us that feels like powerful because of these things. And we think that that's actually the reason that God loves us and accepts us. That even that maybe makes us holy in some level. And what does this do to relationships? Well, instead of walking in holiness in our relationships, we end up grasping for power over one another. Instead of encouraging one another in holiness, we're trying to prove ourselves better than one another. We try to prove how worthy we are of love, that we can even make bad relationships work, or put the least amount of work into friendships and expect them to bear any fruit. I love the way that uh Tim Lane and Paul Tripp put this in their book on relationships. They say, look, the most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength. Self-reliance is almost always a component of a bad relationship. While we would like to avoid the mess and enjoy a deep and intimate community, God says that it is the very process of working through the mess that intimacy is found. God's not afraid of working through a mess. But we would rather hide it and come up with fake ways that we can be powerful in our own eyes, holy even in our own eyes. And in the presence of God, all that gets burned away immediately. Isaiah is deeply shaken by seeing God's holiness. He recognizes that he is undone, that he deserves judgment, that even the thing that he was best at and good at is a source of uncleanness. That Isaiah's power is nothing in the face of God's holiness. Whereas we like to say here in RUF, actually, the only thing that you bring to your salvation is your sin. That there's nothing that you bring that proves that God should save you. And yet that's not how the story of Isaiah ends. For God, who is holy and righteous, is also merciful and gracious. He does for Isaiah the one thing he could not do for himself. He takes away his unholiness and gives him his holiness in his place, so that Isaiah could stand in his presence. And so that brings me to my final point here, which is hearing the good news. Because Isaiah is not destroyed, even though he says I'm undone. Instead, one of these seraphim, these angelic creatures, right, it says, They flew to him, having in his hand a burning coal that had been taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. That just in the moment Isaiah is confessing his sin and just how unworthy he is, God says, Hey, I have a way to make you worthy. And it's not anything you've done or earned or deserved. No, it's all by my grace. It's all by this sacrifice in your place, this atoning work that I've done on your behalf. That God is not only holy, but also extremely merciful. He pays for Isaiah's sin by offering a sacrifice for him. That God takes on the cost of our sin. In Jesus Christ, we have the most perfect example of this summed up, because in Jesus, God himself gave up power, left heaven itself to come to earth and be a holy sacrifice in our place. To redeem and restore his people to a holy relationship with God. That in Jesus Christ, our unholiness is traded for his holiness. That this is the great exchange. That as God's people now redeem through Christ, you now have the Holy Spirit at work in you. Think about that. We talk about that as Christians. The Holy Spirit. What kind of spirit is he? Holy! That's the Spirit that God gives you, his own spirit, a Holy Spirit, so that you can walk in holiness. That your holiness is now no longer up to you to figure out on your own. But it's God's power at work in you. And so what happens? Alright, so Isaiah, his life has been changed, his sin has been taken away and atoned for. And then God says, Alright, look, it's not like that's the end of it. No, now Isaiah, I want you to serve, I want you to work for me, I want you to go. He says, Whom shall I send? And Isaiah says, Here I am, send me. That right there in that little part, we see that God is saying, Hey, I want you to actually go back out into relationships with people.

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Right?

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That your relationship with God, now that it's been redeemed, can translate now into being in relationship with others. So, yeah, the world is often unholy. And sometimes, as we're trying to be holy, we think, oh, I've got to separate myself from it. I can't be near it, it's gonna be a bad influence. But God says, no, no, no. If my Holy Spirit is in you, then you can go forward and be in relationship with this unholy world. Because I'm spreading the good news that God wants to heal and redeem and fix an unholy world. But that's not the end of its story. I like how the ESV Study Bible puts it: God's grace leads Isaiah from woe is me to here I am. Like that, that's his testimony right there. And that's our testimony, too, if you're here tonight and you confess faith in Jesus. That your sin should condemn you in every way, and yet in Jesus Christ it's been taken away and paid for. And now you can go forth sharing that same good news with others. That God calls you back into relationships by his grace, so that the world would know just how holy he is and how merciful and loving he is. And let's think about what this means for our relationships. What if, just what if, what you've been seeking in other relationships and power dynamics could actually find its fulfillment in Jesus Christ? What if a holy God who's willing to lay down his life for you is exactly the kind of lover you've been searching for your whole life? That God who knows your sin still chooses you and commits to you. What other lover would do that? And the good news that God is holy means that he's not going to lie to you, he's not going to cheat you, he's not going to abandon you or abuse you. That God's holiness means that his commitment to you is a good and a holy commitment in which there will be no sin and no brokenness. I like how C.S. Lewis talks about that in his book, The Weight of Glory. He says, look, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the beach. We are far too easily pleased. Have you ever thought about that? That actually your desires for relationship are not too strong, but actually too weak. That you're desiring lesser gods and lesser goods. And God is saying, I want you to have all that, but more in me, in Christ Jesus, that I can offer you a better relationship of love than anything else in this world. Because I'm a God of holiness and you can trust me that I'm not going to change my mind on you. Why does this matter? Well, because knowing how you relate to God is essential to life. If you think God accepts you automatically because you grew up in church or because you're hardworking or have a kind or fun personality, you're wrong. God accepts you not because of anything you've done, but because of his mercy to send his son in your place as an atoning sacrifice for you. Now we don't stand here acting like holy rollers who think we're better than anyone. We stand here knowing actually just how unholy we are, just how lost we are apart from God's grace. And I hope you do experience that in RUF. That this should change how we go about relationships because our relationship with God is one based on a holy atoning for the unholy, of laying down power to save the lost. Alright, to wrap up, uh, as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about one of my daughter's favorite Disney movies, Encanto. Give it up for Encanto. Alright. Encanto's pretty good, y'all. It's pretty good. Um, Lynn Manuel Miranda knows how to write good songs. Alright, but in Encanto, if you haven't seen it, too bad, it's been out for a while. You should have watched it. Uh there's this grandma and Abuela and her family, and Abuela is like obsessed about protecting this miracle that they've received. She's obsessed with keeping what they have. And yet the house of miracles like keeps getting cracks on it, and she keeps blaming other people, saying, like, it's your fault that the house has cracks. It's your fault. You're trying to mess up the miracle. And it ends up causing all the stress and relational uh dysfunction, and finally it takes at the end of the movie, the house itself literally has to crumble around them. And it's finally then when they've lost everything, when Abuela remembers the true point of the miracle. That it wasn't that they've worked hard to earn this miracle. No, it was that when they were fleeing, when they were in danger, when their lives were lost, right? Abuela's husband, he sacrificed himself to save their family, to give them hope in a future. That the husband gave up his life to give his family a new life. That the miracle was not based on just how hard they worked to earn it and preserve it and keep it. It wasn't based on their own holiness, but it was because of a holy sacrifice in their place. And so tonight, what will it take for you to lay down your desires for power and for relationships based in this world? And instead pick up the gracious atonement of Christ, seek his holiness as the source of true strength for you. Brothers and sisters, look again upon the Lord high and lift it up, and experience the renewing grace of Christ's atonement on your behalf. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, I thank you for your word, and I thank you for how you show us you, that we would understand you and know you more. Lord, I pray that as we reckon with your holiness tonight, uh, Lord, that you would reveal things, even hard things for us to accept. So, Lord, that we can see just all the ways that Jesus sacrificed in our place has covered over all of those sins. Lord, we pray that you'd help us to be holy as you were holy. And Lord, we pray all this in your name. Amen. Uh, we're gonna sing a song that is familiar to some of you.