Commissioned life begins with the gospel transformation of your life (Isaiah 6)

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?

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[i] http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1492_Peculiar_Doctrines_Public_Morals_and_the_Political_Welfare/

God saves… to be full of God (Isaiah 2)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon

What’s wrong with this picture? The picture shows a boy reaching for an apple and a mother who looks like she adores her son with pure joy.

This picture is not in touch with the reality. As parents, I don’t think we ever seen our girls reaching for that healthy, delicious granny smith and have that pure joy displayed on our face with huge smiles. No, let me break it to you. Here is the reality. Parenting 101, when you take your toddlers to grocery, you avoid the aisle loaded with snacks. Those cute little hands and those little legs, those little hearts are helpless in the sight of candies, you will never get out of the aisle. So, avoid the snack aisle at all cost.

But, then there is the inevitability of having to face the biggest challenge of doing grocery with the little toddlers. Check out line. Here is a typical picture of a checkout line. This is the most dangerous part of doing grocery. You are distracted from having to load the grocery onto the convey belt, having to wait for the clerk to scan them, having to pull out your credit card and sign it, load the grocery to your cart. And, when you are most distracted those little wondering hands can reach for that candy bar and put it in their mouth with the wrapper still on. And, just like that you lost the battle. I lost two battles so far at the grocery lines.

Why do we battle like this as parents? Why don’t we just let them have all the candies they want to eat? Why don’t we just let them have their full? We will have happy children who would love us to death. The simplest answer is because we love them. We know once our children become full from consuming bars of chocolate, they will have no desire to eat the real food at the table, the real food that grows them.

That is the battle we see in Isaiah 2. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” in John 6:35. But, what if you are not drawn to Jesus and don’t want to open the door for Jesus to come in and dine with you because you are already full of stuff from the world?

The vision of the future: full of God.

Isaiah pictures another vision of the future. You know it is the picture of the future because it is “in the last days” (Isaiah 2:2). In his vision, Isaiah saw the mountain of the house of the LORD being established as the highest of the mountains, lifted above all the hills.

There was a story this past week about a 13 year old boy named Jordan Romero. He took out a satellite phone and called his mother and said, “Mom, I’m calling you from the top of the world.” He is the youngest ever to climb the peak of the world’s highest mountain, the Mount Everest at 29,035 feet[1]

The temple ground of Jerusalem is elevated from the surrounding area, but it is no way the tallest mountain. Mount Everest would dwarf it. But, what Isaiah saw of the future was this picture of the nations streaming to God’s house situated on the highest mountain. Many peoples from all the nations of all different backgrounds, skin colors, cultures, languages will be streaming to the summit where God’s house dwell (Isaiah 2:2-3). We see the peoples motivating each other, calling each other out. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD” (2:3), “Come… let us walk in the light of the LORD” (2:5). Not only they yearn for God’s presence, we see them embracing God’s law, we see their intense desire to be taught in God’s ways, to walk in his paths (3:3). In this future scene where God is elevate above all things in the world, where God is the center and supreme, where God is the judge, we see this picture of incredible peace where the nations turning their weapons into the instruments of peace.

The present reality: full of stuff and full of yourself

Having presented us with the future vision full of God from 2:1-5, now the rest of the chapter 2 deals with the present reality where people are full of stuff and themselves.

In Isaiah 2:6-9, we see what the Israelites were full of. They were full of superstitions, divination and dependence on pagans. Superstitions are instead of believing in the evidence of what God is doing in our lives, believing in something like “luck” or “chance.” Divination was various practices like inquiring dead spirits, studying shapes of kidneys from dead animals in order to learn about future. In our time, practicing divination takes a much more sophisticated shape like trying to figure out the next up and coming companies, or the next hot stock items that’s going to give you greatest returns for your investment. In our time, clasping hands with pagans that is alliance with pagans is equivalent to us trying to seek happiness through other people.

They were also full of idols. He calls them “the works of their hands… what their fingers have made” in 2:8. I don’t know about you, but for me whenever I put my time and energy, and even creativity into making something, it is really hard to let go. When the ancient people either made for themselves or pay dear money for others to make idols for them, the idols required great deal of money, energy and creativity and initiation. We may not pay someone to make us piece of statue that looks like weird disproportional looking cow with big horns, but for us, our idols can take shapes of building career, reputation, keeping up with the hottest fashion, the latest and the greatest thing to have and behold, the next bigger house, the bigger wedding… the list can go. Idols can be anything that we invest our energy, our resources, and our time and takes over the center stage with the promise to make us happy and fulfill. We create idols that they may serve us.

Consider the ugly transformation of Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings. When Semagol saw the ring that his cousin found from a lake, he claimed the ring as his birthday present. He took it by strangling his cousin to death. Over time, he became this ugly creature known as Gollum.

What’s behind the tight grip over idols, the practices of believing in lucks and chances, incessant obsession over controlling their own future? It’s called pride. We see the portrait of pride in more detail in Isaiah 2:10-21. The tall and lofty cedars and oaks, the towering mountains and high hills, the lofty tower and fortified walls of defensive system, the trading ships of economic prosperity were the prize possession of the ancient Israelites. Instead of seeing God’s blessings in their lives, they saw themselves as people who could engineer their own happiness with their own hands and little bit of luck. This is what pride does to a person.

The solution: throw away the idols

The solution for Gollums of today is to throw away stuffs engineered in our pride and to make the room to be full of God. That is what we see in Isaiah 2:20, “In that day men will throw away to the rodents and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship.” Why would any of us throw away that which we consider precious because we made it with our own hand, precious because it has cost us money, energy, and creativity?

Isaiah gives us two reasons. Two reasons are repeated captured in these phrases, “the dread of the LORD” and “the splendor of his majesty.” He does it in verse 10, 19, and 21.

• “The dread of the LORD” answers, “Who is in charge?” Isaiah says in verse 12, “The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled),” verse 17, “the arrogance of the man will be brought low, the pride of men humbled.” When you filter through yourself and what the stuff represent through this question, you can identify if you are holding on to idols.
• “The splendor of his majesty” answers, “Who is it for?” Another helpful way to identify idols is to ask this question. If it is sorely for our own pleasure while does nothing to bring glory to God, you know you have something that needs to go.

May God allow us to be courageous people who deal with the idols in life and the areas of pride with decisive action to rid of them!

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/sports/23sportsbriefs-jordan.html