Sermon

June 22, 2008
Pentecost 6
Isaiah 6:1-8
Pastor Joel Zank

Declare His Praises!

(Isaiah 6:1-8)  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. {2}Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. {3} And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." {4} At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. {5} "Woe to me!" I cried. "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." {6} Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. {7} With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." {8} Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

In Christ Jesus, who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, dear fellow redeemed,

The story is told of a young seminary graduate, who with an air of pride and self-confidence, stepped into the pulpit of his very first church to deliver his very first sermon. But when the time came for him to speak, the words he wanted to say simply would not come out. So there he stood, for what seemed like an eternity until finally he burst into tears and fled from the chancel, quite obviously humbled. Meanwhile there were two older ladies sitting in the front pew of that church. After witnessing these events the one remarked to the other, “You know, if he’d a come in like he just went out, he could a gone out like he came in.”

Today the words and experiences of another young minister, the Prophet Isaiah, teach us a similar truth, the truth that when it comes to serving our Savior, there is no room and no reason for pride and self-confidence. After all, ministry isn’t about declaring our own praises; It’s about praising our Savior-God, isn’t it? It’s about proclaiming his saving truth, a truth that, happily enough, not only offers hope and encouragement to the people with whom we share it, but to us as well. So with this in mind, we’ll take as our theme the simple phrase: “Declare His Praises!” And what shall we declare? How shall we praise Him? We’ll follow the lead of the angels in our text and say of our God: (1) He is holy and (2) He declares us holy!

There can be no doubt that the Prophet Isaiah is out to declare God’s praises rather than his own. In humble fashion he makes no mention of himself until this sixth chapter of his prophecy where he speaks of his call for no other reason than to assure us that he speaks on behalf and with the full authority of God. Isaiah tells us that he was called to serve in year of King Uzziah’s death. The date is significant because it signals the beginning of the end for the nations of Israel and Judah. It will not be long before God’s judgment overtakes them. There is so little time left for Isaiah to declare the praises of God. You and I can relate. Like the Prophet, we too are living in the last days–the world’s last days. The recent news of deadly earthquakes and storms in Asia reminds us the time is so short and our disciple-making mission is so critical. There are so many people to reach with the gospel near and far. How will we do it?

Isaiah must have wondered that same thing. He must have felt like he needed to work around the clock. Yet before the prophet’s work even began, God chose to interrupt his mission with a very important vision, and thanks to Isaiah, today God does the same thing for us. Through the prophet’s words you and I are transported to the heavenly temple of God where we see the Lord, the Creator and Ruler of the whole universe seated on a throne, high and exalted. Incidentally, in John 12:41, Jesus informs us that we’re staring at him in this vision. He is the King of kings. It’s the train of his robe that fills the entire temple. Do you see what that means? Our God is bigger than life. We may spend our days thinking that the mission we’re on is just too big for us. Of course that’s true – it is. But it’s never too big for the one who sends us. And since it’s really is his mission, everything is fine. In fact, it’s more than fine as we learn from God’s angels.

This is the only chapter in all of Scripture where we get a look at seraphs, those six-winged angels whose very title suggests that they are fiery creatures. Can you picture them hovering over the throne of our God in blazing light. And yet in spite of their magnificence, these holy angels use two of their wings to cover their faces and two more to cover their feet. Why? Their words say it all as they call to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3). Martin Luther once wrote: “The truest worship of God is a pure and simple confession” (L.W. Vol. 16). That’s what we have here. The seraphs declare the praises of him who is three times holy. We have a clear reference to the fact that our God is three persons in one divine being, each person being just holy as the other two. But there’s more here. By repeating the word “holy” as they do, the angels are announcing that our God is set apart in a class by himself; he is the “holiest of holies.” That’s why these angels cover their faces – in deepest humility. Although they themselves are holy, they do not presume to stand in God’s presence as his equals. Rather in word and deed they humbly confess that like all the rest of creation they are mere reflections of the glory of God. With eyes and ears Isaiah takes in the truth of the angels’ words, but as if that were not enough, next he feels the foundations of the temple shaking and then smells the smoke of the LORD’s shekinah glory all around him.

Isaiah senses were on overload. He tells us he could take no more: “Woe to me!” I cried. “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” (Isaiah 6:5). My friend, can you relate to Isaiah here? You’ve come into presence of holy God. He’s called you to his side so that you may serve him by declaring his praises in all you say and do. We are all called to declare his praises. But how can we? If the holy angels of heaven must cover their faces in his presence, what will we do, we who have lost his holy image to  our sin and great shame? I say shame, but you understand the problem here is not mere embarrassment on our part. It’s not that God’s holiness leaves us feeling a little awkward – he’s got so much of it, and here we are with none of our own. No, this is everlasting shame we’re talking about. God’s holiness spells our eternal ruin in hell. Because his holiness goes after us and our sin like an antibiotic must seek out and destroys bacteria. Isaiah knew it. After no more than a few seconds in the Lord’s presence, God’s holiness was already burning away at the prophet’s lips. Why the lips? Jesus explains in Matthew 15:18: “...the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'”

Our unclean lips betray our sinful hearts all the time, and in the process ruin the service and praise God would have from us. Think of all the curses,  all the anger, and all the filth that come from our mouths! How can God be praised by us when we spend so much time complaining about the things we must do for him and about the people we must love for him? Or how is he praised when these lips of ours claim credit for something great God has done in us or through us? Do we imagine God is blind to all such sins, that he can’t see our hatefulness, our bitterness, our laziness and selfishness? Have we fooled ourselves into thinking that we have somehow managed to hide our self-righteous ego from his all-seeing eyes.  God is not fooled. His holiness exposes us for what we really are by nature, lost and damned and nothing we offer him will change that – not our worship of him, not the service we give him in our homes, at work and here at church, not even the checks we write and put in the offering plate. Not any of these things by themselves or all of them together can do one thing to bridge the grand canyon between our sinfulness and God’s holiness, a divide that is as wide and deep as the chasm between heaven and hell.

Isaiah is so right! Left to ourselves, we are ruined. And that’s what sin does – it leaves us to ourselves; it separates us from one other and from God until there is nothing left for us but despair. But just then, when God’s holiness brings us to our knees to confess how hopeless and helpless we are, how impossible it is for us to serve and please the LORD Almighty, just then, he comes to our rescue as he did for Isaiah! God did not bring Isaiah to his throne room to ruin him and drive him to despair; he brought him to heaven’s temple to motivate and empower him for ministry. Dear Christians, today our God does the same for us. So go ahead, Declare His Praises! We can, you know, because he declares us holy.

What an amazing thing for God to do! You realize that his name would be praised with or without our salvation. In fact our eternal destruction would bring praise to him. It would show him to be the God who triumphs over sin and sinners. As St. Paul says in Philippians “...at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth...” (Philippians 2:10).  Even the prisoners in hell will bow before and praise the name of Jesus. Our Holy God doesn’t need us in heaven. But in his grace he wants us there, and not just us; he wants all people there. So grace did the unthinkable. It stepped in and bridged that chasm that we could never cross. We could not go to God, but his grace has come to us, as it did to Isaiah. Listen to him, that sin-ruined man, describe the workings of God’s miraculous love: “Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. {7} With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for’” (Isaiah 6:6-7).

Here today and every time we gather for worship, this miracle of grace is repeated. Instead of an angel, God himself comes to us through his Word; he reaches out to us with his gospel and declares our sins forgiven. Every time we come to the communion rail Jesus touches our lips, not with a live coal, but with his own body and blood from the altar of the cross. Think of it, the very flesh and blood that suffered and endured the flames of hell in our place pass these lips of ours and cleanse us through and through. By God’s own declaration, gone is the sin-guilt we were born with and gone is the sin we commit with each passing second–the bitterness, the laziness, the selfishness and self-righteousness are all gone, taken away by Jesus. In their place is the holiness of Christ. How amazing! The holiness that once threatened to ruin us has saved us and is now ours because God says so.

This holiness covers our lips, our heart, our entire being, making us fit for heaven and not only that, but fit to serve our Lord who rules there. Now when his call goes out: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”, each of us can answer with Isaiah: “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Just like that, we unworthy sinners become willing volunteers, not because of anything in us, but because of the grace of God and the power of his gospel–grace and power that compel us to declare His praises by telling, everyone that he declares us and the whole world holy for the sake of Jesus! Talk about encouragement! Isaiah’s heavenly vision moved him to volunteer for an assignment he knew nothing about, one that proved to be some of the toughest ministry that any of us could imagine. Most of the people he served hated him and rejected his message, and yet he continued to declare God’s praises till his dying day. How? Why? Because our God was with him, as he is with us to renew his promises.

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