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Welcome to Learning and Living the God-centered life

Carmel Baptist Church

www.learningandlivingtheword.com

December 6, 2009

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Review from last Sunday

Go to Isaiah 57:15

For thus says the high and exalted One

Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,

I dwell on a high and holy place,

And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit

In order to revive the spirit of the lowly

And to revive the heart of the contrite.

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Review from last Sunday

Transcendence means that God is far above the

creation in the sense that He is greater than the creationand is independent of it.

God is transcendent in His;

Majesty

Holiness

Greatness

Otherness The immanence of God means His involvement in

creation which means His remaining in and close to

creation.

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Review from last Sunday

Last week we covered Isaiah 6:1-3

Isaiah is writing around 740 BC, when King Uzziah dies andthe concern is will the next king be a good king or a bad king.

This is a time of great uncertainty.

And then we get a three fold description of God:

Sitting on a throne - the royalty and majesty of God

Lofty and exalted - the sovereign rule of God over all

things

Train of His robe fills the temple - the importance of God

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Review from last Sunday

Verse 3

Holy - Holy - Holy This is amazing when you realize in the Hebrew language

when you express a superlative for example like the greatest

king, then you do this with a single repetition So King, King we read as King of Kings and that is the

greatest King Or Lord, Lord we read as Lord of Lords and that is the

greatest Lord

But in this verse we don't have a single repetition instead wehave a double repetition

The English language again is not capable of holding this

infinite truth about this glorious God.

(Photos to illustrate)

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Todays Lesson

Isaiah Chapter 6 verse 4

This is portraying to us the intensity of their worship

toward God

In heaven when we get there and are freed from all our

inhibitions and sin then we are going to worship frompurified souls and our worship will take on an intensity that

we never thought possible.

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The temple is filled with smoke, so where did that come

from?

In verse 6 we get the clue and it is from the altar that has

burning coals on it

This smoke is filling the temple and represents the

absolute purity of God

So the smoke symbolizes purity of God because it is from

this very altar that a coal will be pulled to purify Isaiah.

And now we realize that this God is not only powerful,

glorious, majestic, great and awesome in who He is but He

is also morally perfect and pure and can't have anything

like sin or sinners in His presence.

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Verse 5

Notice that Isaiah doesn't say "I have got some personal

baggage that I need to work through."

We have no idea to the degree of the wickedness of thehuman heart

Now look at the word FOR - which could be read

BECAUSE

Because my eyes have seen the greatness, majesty and

holiness of God. (the transcendence of God)Isaiah here is not recognizing his worth or anything that is

owed him

He sees here to the very depths of his human sinfulness

And he recognizes he has no right to stand before thisrighteous and holy God

Why does Isaiah mention his lips?

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Because as we learn later in the gospels from Jesus, from

the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks

READ Matthew 12:34You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is

good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the

heart.

Read Matthew 15:16-20

When we are free to speak with no restraints or when we

speak the first things that come into our minds when

something happens to us it reveals what is going on in theheart

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Remember the context in which Isaiah is writing these

words

740 BC was a time of great rebellion against God andhere we have Isaiah who is on of the good guys

Many of the people had turned to idol worship and

Isaiah could have determined in his mind that he wasdoing quite well compared to the crowd and said I'm not

that bad

And he could have thought, I am a prophet and I am hot

stuff

But then he sees the LORD and what does he conclude?

"I am a man of unclean lips just like everyone else"

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Isaiah Chapter 6 and verse 6

So we see that there is a coal pressed upon the lips of Isaiah in

order to burn away all of his iniquity before the LORD

Where we should expect judgment instead we see right at this

point God's amazing grace

Notice the One here who initiates the grace Answer - it is God Himself

Isaiah is before God probably laying is a prostrate on the floor

feeling hopeless and helpless

And now notice the means that God uses in His display ofmercy for Isaiah

Purification

Forgiveness

The Seraphim touches the lips of Isaiah

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Here is the Biblical principle God has the exact remedy of forgiveness that is able to

match your sin

There is a coal to burn away the sin and now this leaves Isaiah

as righteous before God

Isn't this the wonder of the doctrine of "justification by faith"

We receive the righteousness of Christ that is credited to our

account via faith (Romans 4:25)

The goal is nothing less than Isaiah's restoration to service in

ministry

Do you think of Christian service in this way?Not only does God initiate saving grace that brings us to

salvation which purifies and restores us

But then He calls us to be in ministry with Him

What a privilege we have to be servants of this great andglorious king

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The ministry that God calls Isaiah to as we can read later

on is anything but warm and fuzzy

But instead God is saying to Isaiah that the vast majoritythat you speak my word to you will face nothing but ridicule

and hardship

And Isaiah you can expect this for a lifetime but know that

there will be a remnant

What could possibly motivate Isaiah to this kind of service?

Answer - he has seen the very face of God!

He has seen and experienced the grace of this God who is

infinitely greatWilling service is an overflow from this knowledge of God

Especially for endurance in the service of God

How does Isaiah hang in there for a lifetime of tribulation?

Isaiah knows God

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Conclusion

Point 1 - we can clearly see in Isaiah a vision of God's

goodness the kindess and the grace of God but we see first

and foremost the transcendence of God's greatness andGod's glory

And we see God's greatness as it compares to our

sinfulness, and wretchedness

If you are wondering if we as the creation have any rights

the answer is yes, we have one right

We have the right to condemnation because we have

offended the infinite holiness and glory of God

The breath that you are taking right now is because of His

grace, the food that you will eat today at lunch is by His

grace, and the recreation and rest you have watching the

Panther game is also by His grace

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And now wrap your mind around this, the very God that is

transcendent and great, glorious and above us has freely

chosen to come to us

Romans 8:32 - He who did not spare His own Son, but

delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him

freely give us all things?

We are going to have to work hard in this culture against thispush to try and convince us or our self importance and self

worth

God brings us to His grace and He did not have to do it

Point 2 - Let us rethink as Christian people what it means toserve God.

This we will talk about in the coming weeks as we talk about

the self sufficiency