Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon, June 13, 2010
I am going to begin my sermon by telling you a story about William Wilberforce who lived from 1759-1833 in England. I want to tell you little bit about him to show you what a commissioned life looks like, what it looks like when a person takes up God’s cause and go for it wholeheartedly.
This was said about Wilberforce, “No Englishman has ever done more to evoke the conscience of the British people and to elevate and ennoble British life.” When people of his time accepted and justified slavery as indispensible necessity for the economical wellbeing, he stood with few others for abolition of the slave trade. He wrote, “So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequence be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.” In his early years in the Parliament, he was optimistic for a quick success to end the slave trade, but his legislative effort to pass the bill to end the slave trade was repeatedly defeated. From 1787 till twenty years later in 1807, he campaigned tirelessly to end the British slave trade. And, then for the next 26 years until July 26, 1833, he worked to outlaw slavery itself only three days before his death.
He didn’t give up throughout the years of failure to end the slave trade and slavery itself. Twenty years later the slave trade was outlawed, another twenty six years later, slavery itself was outlawed in England.
Do you wonder what motivates a person like Wilberforce to spend one’s whole life singularly to promote the great cause? Do you wonder how a person like Wilberforce perseveres against the tide of defeats without losing the courage to believe in the great cause? Do you wonder how you can too live a commissioned life to go after God’s cause?
As Wilberforce was commissioned to spend his whole life to end the slavery, Isaiah was commissioned for God’s cause. Isaiah 6:8-9 tells us Isaiah was commissioned to go and to tell people God’s message. As we will see from Isaiah 6:9-13, Isaiah would encounter long years of people rejecting God’s message to their destruction before seeing some turning to God.
- God is looking for men and women who will give their lives for the cause of the gospel.
- God is looking for men and women who will advance the gospel faithfully in spite of drawn out defeats and failures and rejections.
- God is looking for men and women who will advance the gospel without losing heart.
- God is looking for men and women to take the gospel to their neighbors, to their friends, to their coworkers, to the colleagues, to the families.
- God is asking, “Whom shall I send?” God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is asking, “who will go for us?” Isaiah 6:8.
I believe that it is you and me that God wants to commission to go and tell the gospel. But, before you can share the gospel to anyone, you must be exposed to the gospel and experience its power to transform your relationship with God. That’s how it happened with Isaiah and that’s how it happened with Wilberforce and that’s how it must happen with you and me. First is the experience of the gospel transformation daily in your own life, and then the daily faithfulness to the commissioned life to share the gospel with the world. Commissioned life begins with the gospel transformation of your life.
The gospel transformation in seeing God
Isaiah 6:1-8 tells the vision of this gospel transformation that took place in Isaiah before he was commissioned to go and tell the gospel.
Isaiah 6:1 tells a little piece of information that it was when the king Uzziah died he had his vision of God. Before I walk through with you of the vision of God, I want to stay and explore the significance of this information about the death of a king.
2 Chronicles 26:16-21 tells the story of Uzziah, the king of Judah. He was the tenth king. He became the king at the age of 16 and reigned next 52 years. It says in 2 Chronicles 26:5, “He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. And as long as he sought the LORD, God gave him success.” And, the passage goes on describing the success God gave him over the Philistines, building up the nation’s defense system of fortified cities, and a well-trained, supplied and equipped army. And, 26:15 tells us, “His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.” Then, there was the turning point to worse, “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall.
He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.” When you read further you see Azariah the priest and other 80 courageous priests confronting the king for doing what was wrong. It says in verse 19, Uzziah became angry at the priests trying to stop him from assuming their priestly role. And, immediately God struck Uzziah with leprosy, visible on his forehead. And, there is the sad commentary about his reign in verse 21, “King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a spate house- leprous, and excluded from the temple of the LORD.”
Let me explain to you why this act of a king assuming a priestly duty amounted to unfaithfulness to God. When God instituted kings to rule Israel, he wanted make sure that the people and the kings knew very well that it was their God who was their true King. Another word, the kings of Israel were commissioned to serve the true King, their God under the ministry of the priests. So, Uzziah trying to assume the role of the priests was equivalent to him rejecting God as his true King. His action undermined God’s reign over him through the ministry of the priests. The king Uzziah who was commissioned to serve God his true King, instead became proud. He attributed the success to his own skill and ability and he saw no need to submit to the true King.
What does this have to do with the gospel transformation? It shows that the heart of the gospel transformation is about knowing, trusting and serving God as our true King. The gospel transformation is about living under God’s reign.
Although the earthly throne was vacated by the death of the king, God’s throne is never vacated. True King lives forever. So, Isaiah was given the amazing vision of God’s presence in the holy temple. It says that temple was filled with the train that is the hem of God’s robe by his ankles. The vision shows that God is so big that the temple itself cannot contain him. And, there are seraphs heavenly and mysterious creatures with six wings, flying two wings while covering their faces and feet with the rest of their wings. And, the vision shows them calling to one another. And, the sound of their voices shakes the temple and filling it with smoke. Their voice had the explosive thunder like the explosion of hydrogen gas.
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Holiness is God’s otherworldly character that sets him apart from his created order. As the Creator of the world, God’s otherworldly character is not stained by the sin, corruption, evil, lies, hatred in the world. Holiness unstained by the corruption of the world is like a light in darkness. As darkness cannot overcome a light, the darkness of the world cannot overcome God’s holiness.
So, here Isaiah writes for us his vision of God the true King as big beyond our imagination, fully worthy of our worship from the whole creation, and powerfully holy and uninfluenced by the darkness of the world but transforming it with his glory.
The gospel transformation of humility
When Isaiah was exposed to this unveiled vision of God who is big, worthy and holy, he was hurting. It was like the naked eyes staring at the fully glory of sun and feeling the scorching pain over his utter sinfulness. The pain he felt was like the pain felt when the purifying agent of salt liquid is poured over the exposed wound infested with infection.
“Woe to me… I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
I think Isaiah realized how he had tried to reduce God to be a small, unworthy, and compromising deity. And, God would not concede to men’s effort to box him to something he is not.
Contrast Isaiah’s response was to that of Uzziah. When the priests courageously told Uzziah the truth that it was not right for him to undermine God’s reign over him by assuming the priestly role, Uzziah responded not with humility but with the pride of anger. He probably thought, ‘I am the king. And, I can do whatever I want. You priests, who are you to tell me what I can do and what I cannot do. Get out of my way.’
The gospel transformation of forgiveness
Being exposed to the true vision of God, humbling himself to King’s reign, and now we see God doing that which Isaiah could not do, that which none of us can do.
We see the heavenly creature taking a live coal with the tongs from the altar and with it touching Isaiah’s mouth. And, the creature proclaims with the voice of thunder, “See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Cleansing, forgiveness is something God does on the basis of his provision. It was God’s provided sacrifice that took the place of Isaac under Abraham’s knife. It was God’s provided lambs that took the place of Israelites under their sins.
It is God’s provided perfect lamb, Jesus Christ who took our place of guilt, condemned, crucified to die on the cross.
Contrast this to that of Uzziah. Being confronted by the priest of his sin, his rebellion against God, the true King, becoming angry in self-righteousness and the attitude of I can do whatever I want to do, Uzziah was struck down with leprosy. While Isaiah received cleansing through Christ’s sacrifice when he humbled himself, Uzziah received the mark of unclearness fit for his heart that undermined God’s reign over him.
This morning, who do you see in yourself? Do you see Isaiah who was commissioned because he was humbled himself and experience God’s grace in Christ or do you see Uzziah who was shamed from participating in God’s work because of his pride?
William Wilberforce used to pray this way. “Oh Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconsistency, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing.”[i]
As Isaiah was, as Wilberforce was, God wants to use you for his great cause of the gospel. Would you let God to shine his bright light on you to expose the sins? Would you let God shower you his grace to forgive and restore? Would you let God commission you to be faithful to share the gospel regardless of how people respond to you?
[i] http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1492_Peculiar_Doctrines_Public_Morals_and_the_Political_Welfare/
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