1/28/24 Isaiah 6:1-8 “Start Your New Day”

25 Jan 1/28/24 Isaiah 6:1-8 “Start Your New Day”

1/28/24    Isaiah 6:1-8        “Start Your New Day”

I think that this has been quite a week in God’s creation.  Billions of people throughout the world have lived this week as if they didn’t know that they were interconnected.  We don’t think much about how we are connected to the people of China or Russia or even California but we are.  Somehow, we are all connected through God.  We are even connected with people of the past.  I can’t remember what I was reading that talked about our air, but some scientist said that we have used or breathed at least one molecule of air that Jesus did in His 33 years of life.  I think that is kind of a neat thought.  I would guess that we are connected to people in many other ways also.  There is one connection that we have that we don’t like to talk about or think about and this is where we are connected to everyone past and present through our sin.  Today, we are going to look at the great prophet Isaiah and see how God used a man who was just as flawed with sin as we are today.  Let’s see if we can use this great prophet of doom to fire up our lives a little in a positive way.

There is a story told about Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, who was asked to do a television interview along with husband, Billy.  It was to be in their home in North Carolina.  Well, Ruth proceeded to do what anyone would do in this situation.  She set out to clean her house very thoroughly because this was going to be on national TV.  She even washed the windows.  Everything was ready and the camera crews began their set up.  Finally, they threw on those bright TV lights.  All Ruth Graham could see were the streaks on the glass that those bright lights picked up but that couldn’t be seen without the big lights.  I bring this up because this is the way of the world today.  How many times do we hear that such and such was a good person?  How many people here today think you are a pretty good person?  If we take our lives to the throne of God, you will find that you are marred with huge black streaks of sin.  Even the best people we know are like this.  Billy Graham was like this.  John Wesley was like this.  Even the great prophet, Isaiah, was like this.

Before we begin, I usually like to tell you a little about the author or the characters in our readings.  The truth of the matter is that we don’t know a lot about Isaiah.  What we have is a lot of speculation.  After all, it has been 2700 years since Isaiah lived.  When they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, they found two complete books of Isaiah.  These were dated about 1000 BC.  This was a tremendous find because the most recent ancient copies of the Bible prior to this were dated about 1000 AD.  However, even with this find, they didn’t learn a lot more about the man Isaiah.  He was a prophet and a man of God.  He had a family and lived in the southern kingdom of Judah.  It was the kings of Judah that he served.  The experts assume that Isaiah didn’t write the entire book because there are different writing styles present.  Anyway, I don’t really care about all this speculation because it tries to be a distraction to the beauty of the book.

We begin this reading with King Uzziah dying.  King Uzziah was considered to be a good king and he reigned for 52 years.  As we read about him, we find, like we find with many of the good kings, that in his early reign he was really faithful but as the years went by, his faith and loyalty seemed to fade a little.  But overall, he was a good king and the people loved him.  Isaiah mourned because his friend the king had died.  Not only that, but the whole nation mourned.

I would guess that the next king would have a tough time following him because he was so popular.  It is the same way when we get new pastors.  It is always much harder to follow a very popular pastor, (like you are having with Pastor Mark,) than one who isn’t that popular.  Many times, the people expect the new pastor to be just like the old one and that just doesn’t happen.  I remember that we followed a very popular pastor and the congregations were very supportive of us even if we were different from the old pastor.

Anyway, the first thing Isaiah sees in this vision is the Lord seated high on the throne with the train of His robe filling the Temple.  Please try to remember that the Temple is a huge, huge place and we have the train of the Lord filling the Temple.  So, we have the massiveness of the Lord.  Also notice the seraphs that are flying around the Lord.  I think that this authenticates this vision because we have other descriptions of seraphs in books like Ezekiel, Matthew, James and Revelation.  Anyway, these seraphs are calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

I would guess that part of the purpose of this vision is to remind Isaiah that King Uzziah is dead but the King of the World is alive and very well.  God is there and He is still on the throne, ruling the world.

These types of things happen all the time in our world because we are not immortal at this point.  We die.  We have seen former presidents die.  When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the whole country mourned for a week.  Everything stopped.  He was very popular.  We can go throughout history and find this.  The country stopped and mourned when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.  It stopped and mourned when we were attacked on 9-11.  We are always shocked by the mass killings we have in this country.

These types of things shock us, as a nation, and then we flock to churches to find the answers.  I remember when 26 school children were murdered and I watched in total astonishment during a prayer service for all those children who were killed as only three pastors out of many who spoke, even mentioned Jesus Christ.  Two of them read passages about Jesus and one spoke of the comfort of Jesus in these times.  All the rest of these so-called pastors, who spoke, spoke of the touchy, feely things of this world.  There is no comfort there.  The only comfort we have is in Jesus Christ.  Anyway, we flock to churches for answers.  Hopefully, we still have some pastors who will give us the right answers and show us the way to God.  But I don’t think we have nearly enough of these pastors because it has been over 20 years since 9-11 and we have flocked away from God again and we are in worse shape than ever.

Then we sometimes ask ourselves “how could the ancient Jewish people keep wandering away from God to the point of total disobedience?”  How could they keep doing this over and over?  However, we don’t want to see that we are exactly, exactly the same.  As a nation, we keep falling farther and farther away from God.  I think the only way out is for total revival.  Anyway, God is showing Isaiah that He is still there and He is still King.  Please try to hang onto this and remember this no matter what happens in our world.

The next thing that happens is that Isaiah sees himself in the true light of God and it isn’t good.  He is telling God, after seeing this wonderful display of absolute splendor and holiness, that he is of unclean lips and he lives in a nation of unclean lips.  In other words, he is telling God that he is not worthy of even seeing this wonderment because he is such a sinner and he lives in a nation who is sinning all the time.  This is like Ruth Graham seeing all the dirt she failed to clean after the bright lights were turned on.

We are a lot like Ruth Graham right after she finished cleaning.  We cannot see the filthy sin in our own lives.  There are probably many reasons for this.  We become adults thinking that we are pretty good people, no matter what we do.  We can’t be that bad.  The commercials on TV are telling us to commit this sin and that sin and all is ok.  Peer pressure tells us that just a little sin is ok.  We don’t want to know that sin is addictive.  And we definitely don’t want to come to church where we might find out that we are sinners.  However, it doesn’t matter who you are, you are a sinner.  We would much rather have someone talk about the touchy, feely things than talk about the truth.  As a nation, we don’t like the truth!

In the last few years, I have been to a couple of funerals, where the name Jesus was hardly mentioned and God was barely referred to.  They turn out to be a tribute to the persons so called good life.  They didn’t believe in God and neither did their families.  So as far as I can see, these were celebrations for someone going to Hades!  These people refuse to see their own sin and they suffer or will suffer the consequences.

But we don’t have to suffer the consequences.  Even though we are all still sinners, we have a loving God who will help us out of the situation.  Isaiah is standing before God and he is feeling lower than low.  When we stand in the presence of God, we will know that we have been sinners.  When these people who don’t believe in God die and stand before Him; they will know that they have been wrong and they are sinners.  But God loved Isaiah so much that He sent one of his seraphs to him with a live, hot coal that was put on the lips of Isaiah.  Please remember that fire represents one of the purifying agents in the Bible.  The seraph then says, “Your guilt has been taken away and your sin atoned for.”  Wow!

Are you noticing how this whole passage parallels the message of the Gospels?  All of this is available for us also.  We don’t have to be a great prophet like Isaiah.  Or maybe it might be better said that we are all great prophets like Isaiah.  All we have to do is realize that we are sinners.  There is no getting around it.  The world is full of unrepentant sinners who are trying to get us to go along with their world of sin through TV, movies, culture, etc.  When we finally stop and come into the presence of Jesus, then we see our lives for the first time and it is not a pretty picture.  I know this from experience.

But Jesus will take your guilt away as He has atoned for your sin.  Jesus loves every person in the world.  You cannot be a sinner so bad that Jesus will not accept you.  You can be an atheist, a homosexual, a Nazi skinhead or just a pretty nice person from your town (Fairmount and Breckenridge).  Jesus will love you and He will offer to put the purifying coal on your lips.  I don’t care who you are, you are always welcome to come to Jesus and to come to this church.

One of the results of having Jesus in your life is that you are now beginning a new life.  The old you is gone.  The new you is here and it is the best version of you that there ever will be.  You have heard me talk about how I enjoy watching the kids try on new roles.  They do it all the time and it is a good thing.  When you are given the role of Christian, you will not need to try on any more roles.

Now, the first thing that happens after this is that the Lord asks Isaiah, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”  Before all this had taken place, I doubt if Isaiah would have replied like he did when he said, “Here I am.  Send me!”

Last week we talked about spiritual warfare and there are armies of angels sent to protect us and guide us.  Keep this in mind when Jesus asks the question, “Whom shall I send?”  Don’t be afraid to bite off seemingly more than you can handle.  When we are in contact with God, through Jesus, you have this spiritual army who will help you.  Isaiah goes on to become one of the greatest prophets ever.  His life is hard and he had to endure much.  But he does it all in the name of God.  He knows that God is with him in all he does.  He listens and then he obeys.

I know that it is hard for us to do this in our modern world where everything is happening at twice our comfort speed.  It is hard to sit down for 5 minutes each day to pray because we have run ourselves into the ground by being busy.  We are just too busy.  However, you were not meant to be busy.  You were made to serve God in all you do.  I would like to suggest to you that you take 5 minutes every day, 10 minutes would be better, and spend quiet time with Jesus.  Then when your mind wanders, and it will, try to come back to focus on Jesus.  It is hard to do at first but you will eventually be able to stay focused on Him.  Then listen.  Listen for this wonderful calm and loving voice.  If you are able to do this, you will soon find that you are not that busy because Jesus, through your prayer, will be giving you rest and comfort along with divine instructions.  This is a tip to help you have a better life.  Today, this tip was brought to you, courtesy of Isaiah.  Praise the Lord!

Several years ago, there was a book out called, “Life Begins at 40” or something like that.  I’m sure that as the author got older, he or she probably changed the title to 50 and then 60.  Don’t believe a word of this kind of talk.  Life begins when you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.  For Isaiah, life began after he was cleansed by the seraph.  This is the beginning of new life.  However, you aren’t done yet.  Your Christian lives change as you get older.  I began my new life when I was about 40 years old and I came to Christ.  I’m doing things a lot differently now than when I was 40.  Every day brings on new challenges, new dreams and new prayers.  Therefore, I can say this with confidence and with ease to those who already have Jesus in their hearts; your new life begins today.  Every day is the beginning of new life.

Jesus loves you so much that He always has a new job for you.  He loves us so much that He always has a spiritual army ready for you.  He loves you so much that He only wants you to have all that He has.  Go to Him in prayer and start a new day.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.