Seeing God, Knowing Ourselves: Cleansed and Sent

``When he reveals himself, we see ourselves clearly. And then he acts, and he acts not to crush us, but to restore us for his purposes, which means that this moment is not just about forgiveness. It's also about preparation. He doesn't cleanse Isaiah just so so that Isaiah can feel better. He cleanses Isaiah because he is about to send the prophet. And my point here is that grace, the grace of God, always precedes what we are called into. And if we don't see that order, all we're gonna do is try to serve God out of guilt or or try to serve him out of fear. [01:10:19] (48 seconds)  #GracePreparesUs

But then Christ becomes the sacrifice. Christ becomes the altar. Christ becomes the one who bears that which would undo someone. The coal touches his lips. The cross bears our guilt. And the declaration here is even stronger. Your guilt has been taken away. Your sins have been atoned for. Not because you stood in a temple, not because we had an experience, but because Christ stood in our place. [01:13:13] (45 seconds)  #ChristBearsOurGuilt

And then he forms us by speaking a word of forgiveness over us. That's what's happening here. That's what's happening with Isaiah. That's what happens with us too. Friends, every time we come before god's word, we come into his presence, we come to his table, we come giving and praying and singing and and greeting. Every time we confess and hear again that our guilt is forgiven and our sin is dealt with, God is doing the same work that he's doing in Isaiah chapter six. He is forming a people who know him and who know themselves. [01:15:17] (44 seconds)  #ForgivenAndFormed

We begin to see god differently. We begin to see ourselves differently in turn. And we are changed by the grace that he shows us. You see, that's what the that's the shape of these seven verses That god reveals himself first, not because of, Isaiah when searching for it, but because god chose to make himself known. And then he sees himself clearly in the light of god's holiness. And then third, god acts in grace. He cleanses something that Isaiah could never fix on his own. This is what happens when god meets us in worship. [00:46:18] (49 seconds)  #WorshipMeetsUs

And that's what real worship does. It doesn't flatter us. Real worship doesn't leave us untouched and and unaffected. Real worship certainly doesn't it doesn't serve the purpose of making sure that we feel like we're impressive. Real worship tells us the truth about god. And by doing that, it exposes the truth about ourselves. Just as light in a dusty room exposes the amount of dust that has accumulated, so too does holiness expose the reality of a sinful life, sinfulness. [01:03:06] (54 seconds)  #WorshipExposesTruth

The nation felt uncertain, and the future felt a little shaky. And like faithful people do, Isaiah went to worship. He went to the place where God has promised to meet his people. I don't know if he went looking for a vision or expecting something dramatic or or preparing for a turning point in his life anymore than we do when we come to worship. But everything shifted in this text that we look at today because Isaiah says, I saw the lord. God made himself known, and Isaiah walked out a different man than the one who walked in. [00:44:56] (50 seconds)  #WorshipInUncertainty

Why? Because I am a man of unclean lips, the prophet says. Again, he had already been a prophet. This is not his origin story of his of his ministry. Right? God has been using his words, and and his lips have been they've been carrying the message of God to the people. But but now standing here, standing in the presence of the holiness of God, all of that to Isaiah feels totally polluted. Now I don't think he's saying that his ministry was was fake, but I think what's being said here is that even the holiest part of his life, even the the goodest good that he has done cannot stand on its own before the glory of a holy god. [00:59:19] (55 seconds)  #EvenGoodNeedsGrace

He carries the burning coal taken from the altar. The altar is the place that God appoints for sacrifice. There's nothing human being brought into this moment to remedy the situation. There is no religious workaround or creative solution. The thing that touches Isaiah comes from the place that God said cleansing must come from. [01:07:20] (29 seconds)  #CleansingFromTheAltar