Every single time we talk
about God and a throne, He's always seated. In fact, the book of Psalms
says He's seated with His feet up on a footstool. So I don't want
you to ever think about God as stressed, God as
wringing His hands, God as-- He never says O-M-Me. He never gets surprised. He never has anything
ever occurred like, that just occurred to me, right? God is seated. There's a sense in which He
literally and metaphorically rules the universe
with His feet up. He rules it with the
word of His power. He doesn't need to
raise his voice. He doesn't need to run. He is exalted. He's sitting on a throne,
and the train of His robe is filling the temple
with His glory. This week, we have
the first three stops of our recapturing the
wonder of advent tour. We're going to be in
Georgia and in Tennessee as well as in North Carolina
this week, Fresh Life Worship leading, Lisa Harper
and myself preaching. And we're praying
together that God's going to touch a lot of people. Amen? Would you commit to
praying for these nights, just holding up the team? Of course everybody's
getting sick everywhere, but believing in for life
change and for transformation. Then I'll be flying back
from the first three nights, and we'll have our Firebrand
year end offering next Sunday, December 3. It's going to be amazing. I'll be preaching. We'll be seeing God do a
great thing in our church. Amen? Amen? Amen? [CHEERING] And then we have
the other six nights we'll be in Alabama and in
Texas as well as in Florida. So we're just believing
for God to do a lot. And I will be missing
the second Sunday. So I'll be preaching
next weekend, but the following weekend
I needed a pinch hitter. So what we did, we
sat down and we said, who is like a living firebrand? And the first name that came
to mind was Carlos Whitaker. So we were like, Carlos
Whitaker is a living firebrand. That's a passionate
person, by the way. And so he's going to come
in and preach that week. He's amazing. If you've not heard him,
he is just a bundle of joy and has such a
great perspective, loves the Lord so much. So he'll be preaching
two Sundays from now. Then of course, we're right
up into the Christmas orbit at that point. One thing I did want to say
before we jumped into our time in Scripture was as
we prepare our hearts, and some have
already-- some of you have already-- we've been having
people already give their year end offering, and
that will continue towards the end of the year. But we like to have a moment
where we come around to in person. So for those who want to
be able to come and do that in person, December 3,
next Sunday is that opportunity. And what I would
say is, of course we're watching these
videos, seeing about some of the outreach grants that
we're going to hopefully be able to get behind. And we all clap,
and it's exciting, but I hope you understand if we
don't give, these don't happen. So it's like all a
great idea, but us to be able to give these
grants is an expression of our faith as a community. And so if you haven't yet,
take some time, like I have, sit down with your Bible
and your devotional time, and your checkbook and/or
log into your online banking as you peruse these things. Here's the question
for all of us to pray. God, what part would you
have me play in this? I'm not asking you
to give anything to this, though,
of course, they are noble causes, worthy causes. As we've seen, these
are incredible things. But what I'm asking you to
do is to pray about what God would have you to give. And if He tells you to give
nothing, please, by all means, give nothing. If you say, God, hungry
people being fed, people receiving
clothing, the Gospel being preached to the
poor, if God says, nope don't want
you to get behind that, then please don't do
anything in this offering. But if God tells you how you're
to participate with what He's entrusted to you,
then all I ask is for you to be faithful to that. And if all of us as a church
community, everyone joining in Fresh Life online podcast
fam, Musketeer kind of fam coming in together,
if we all say, God, out of what
you've entrusted to us, we all are going to be faithful
with that, I'm telling you, miracles can happen. Amen? That's what we're believing to
see in this year end offering. I do also want to say what
personally has energized me, because you'll see, of course
the outreach grants, which we will give first, and
before we do anything for our ministry, what
really gets me full of faith as I look at it, and I'm just
really honestly motivated and energized as Jennie and
I bring a sacrificial gift, and we had a couple meetings
this week already just had that discussion and just
really laying it out there, what is God, how has He blessed
us, how has He been good to us, and how can we engage,
what gets me excited is the talk we have
in here about debt reduction as a ministry. That's not sexy. That's not like, oh, man, that
pulls on the heartstrings, but I would love to
leave the next generation with a debt-free church. I would love to be
able to hand them that and to take care of the
cost of those things and to see all that money
freed up to ministry and just think about
how much less interest we'll be paying if
we can ahead of time pay down some of these things. And so that's
filling me with faith as we take a swing as a
family and do our part. I can't do everything, but
we can all do something, and I just love the thought of
linking in my faith with yours. And believe me, we
already try and lead as with as good
stewardship as we can. For example, the Whitefish
Building which is currently going up, we were able to save
up 80% and only finance 20%. So that's, generally
speaking, not how you go about a building
project like that, but I would love to see that
completely just knocked out. Amen? Somebody, anybody
with me on that? Just excitement and the
thought of opening up resources for ministry
and not going to interest to banks and all that. So Firebrand, we're full of
faith, excited, not the least of which because of what we
know God will do in our lives as we prioritize his kingdom. Amen? All right, that's December
3, and that's that. I'm not preaching around
that offering this weekend, but God has given me a message
within our Firebrand series. Isaiah chapter 6 is
where we're going to be. I want to talk around
the idea, as we begin, of being pulled in
1,000 directions. You ever feel like that? I'm just being pulled
in 1,000 directions. There's a great line in
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, where at the end of just
this old age, time on Earth, a fatigued Bilbo Baggins
is talking to Gandalf, and he's just trying to
explain to him how exhausted and how depleted he is, and
the line is "I feel thin. I feel like sort of
stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread." Anybody feel like
that, like you got more bread left at
the end of your butter when it comes to your time? Just so much to do. When it comes to your
finances, there's just so many things, so
many things, so many things. There's a fatigue we feel when
it comes to our attention. So much to watch,
so much content, so many different platforms,
streaming things, things to stay up on, things
to be in the know about. When it comes to
enthusiasm, so many things we should care about, but
it just feels like, my gosh, I'm just depleted. And even compassion,
how unique is it at this particular
moment in world history that we know everything going
on everywhere all the time? Go back 500 years,
you're never hearing about a serial killer that's
on the other side of the world. You wouldn't and
didn't know about it. Now, the cool thing
is the Holy Spirit could still help you participate
in prayer through groanings that can't be uttered,
but you didn't know all the messy particulars
of every awful thing that happened everywhere. And to some degree,
ignorance is bliss! I'll pray in the spirit for the
earthquake on the other side of the world, and
I'll give generously so that the ministries
that are doing the relief and preaching the gospel in
those areas are doing it, but my gosh, I can't
handle all that. I can't handle knowing. What am I to do
with all of that? We read in the
newspaper the other day, interior designer's
been embezzling from high end clients. I'm like, that's terrible. I'm just not going to trust
any interior designers that I see anywhere. Man keeps girlfriend locked
up in basement with a belt and beats her every
once in a while. I'm like, do I really need
to know that every time that happens? Some of you are
like, now I know, and I didn't want to know. See? And these information bites,
these breaking news summaries, what are we to do with? They're like 1,000
paper cuts at a time. We can end up with
even our compassion-- there's only so much butter, and
there's more bread than ever. And then you just think
about all the things culturally pulling at us. It used to be that
Black Friday was a day. Now it's a whole season. Does anybody feel that? When did the Black Friday
emails begin, like Halloween? We're in Black Friday season. Just everything,
everything, everything, It's just escalating
and more and more. Go back to 1950. In 1950, the average new
home purchase in America was 983 square feet, and was
two bedrooms, one bathroom. It's like I'm all
excited to buy a house. I'm going to get
together a down payment and buy two bedrooms,
one bathroom, got a roof over my house-- over my head. And it cost $11,000,
unbelievably. But you flash forward to
2023, the average home cost $431,000, median
home price in America, is 2,014 square feet, and three
bedrooms, 2 and 1/2 bathrooms, just bigger everything. And even with that, we
still need a storage unit, because you can't fit
all that in there. When McDonald's first opened,
the largest drink on the menu was five ounces. That was the biggest. I want to get a large
Coke, it's going to be 5 ounces of soft drink. Today, the biggest
one tops out at 30oz. Everything just pulling at us,
pulling at us, pulling at us. There's more bread than ever. There's only so much butter. And that's why as
Howard Hendricks put it, the secret to concentration
is elimination. The secret to concentration
is elimination. The sun can only start a
fire if it gets focused. Any other cruel, sick
people ever killed some ants with a magnifying glass? Burn some wood? Maybe that's a
better way to put it. Just burn some wood. You can start a fire with
the sun, but only if it gets focused. You're capable of incredible
things, but only focused. Spread everywhere, pulled
in 1,000 directions, everything clamoring
for some of you gets just the tiniest
little piece of you. It's what they
call an opportunity cost, which is why we have to
learn the art of saying no. No, you can't have my attention. You can't have my enthusiasm. You can't have my affection. You can't have my time. But we feel like it's unloving,
and we have to just please, and the people
pleaser inside of us, we got to say yes
to every invitation, got to do everything that
someone else wants us to do, but you got to learn
to grow your no, or God will not be
able to bless your yes. And we have to get
better at that. We have to learn how to
manage, and steward, and give an account for what
we have been given. Someone asked me the other day. They said, why don't you golf? And I said, what do you mean? And they said, well,
every pastor I know golfs. Everybody golfs. And they said is it, because
you don't think you'd like it? And I said no, it's
because I know I would. It's because I know I would. And something
would have to give. Five hours a pop, right? Something would have
to give in my budget. Something would have to give. So I know for a fact,
I would like it. I know I would like
pickleball too. And I don't do it not
because I don't do it, but because I know
I would, and I have an addictive personality. I'm growing my nos so
I can bless my yes. I don't want the
story of my life to be the title of my sermon,
"Too Many Irons in the Fire." That's the title
of this message, "Too Many Irons in the Fire." It's a blacksmithing
term, turns out, where you're trying to
do too much, and so all the irons you're putting
in smother the fire, but you're thinking
you're going to get to them in just a moment. Or while you're
preoccupied with one, the other metal is
melted and destroyed and isn't able-- you
don't get to it in time to do the thing with
it you're trying to do. And that, unfortunately, can
become, if we're not careful, the story of our lives in
a world where there are so many different people wanting
to put the iron in your fire, wanting to have a
little bit of your time, wanting to have some
of your affection, wanting to have some of you. And the worst would
be to come to a place where the name
above every name is just one of many
irons in our fire, one of just many things that
gets some of our attention. To where Jesus put it, in
the parable of the Sower and the Seed, where
we end up choked out by thorns, which are, he
said, the cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches, and
desires for other things. Not all of that's bad. The devil doesn't just
want to get you bad. He's willing to settle for busy. We just have so many
irons in the fire. We're going to see
this cured in Scripture through the story of a man
whose attention, as we begin, was divided. But he's going to have an
encounter with God that will mark him for
life, and he will go from having too many
irons in the fire to seeing that only one thing is
needed, and he'll never be the same as a result
of this encounter. Let's read it starting
in verse 1 of Isaiah 6. "In the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a
throne high and lifted up, and the train of his
robe filled the temple. Above it stood Seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. And with two he flew. And one cried to
another and said, holy, holy, holy is
the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is
full of His glory. And the posts of
the door were shaken by the voice of
him who cried out, and the house was
filled with smoke. So I said, woe is
me, for I am undone. Because I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of
a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the
King, the LORD of hosts. Then one of the Seraphim flew
to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken
with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth
with it, and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken
away, and your sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, here
am I. Send me." And He said-- And He tells him what
he's going to do, and He gives him a whole
description of the preaching ministry that he's going to
preach where-- basically, let me just sum it up for
you-- no one's going to listen. They're going to have such
hard hearts, such dull spirits that they're going to stay
distracted and stay oblivious, and for 30 years Isaiah
is going to preach and not have a single convert. And then look at verse 11. He says, well, how long
am I going to do that for? And he goes, until the
cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, until
the houses are without a man, until the land is
utterly desolate. So you keep preaching,
and the church will just get smaller
and smaller and smaller. People will die off, and then
no one's going to respond, and they'll eventually kill you. So that'll be your whole story. You're welcome. Hope you're glad
you came to church. And, Father, we pray
that we would see you. God, your word says that
we get a heart of wisdom when we remember
our end, and then we live out of that revelation. So, Father, I pray that
even now in our mind's eye, as we would fly through
high school and college, and fly through the season
of being engaged and married and having young kids
and having older kids, and then having empty
nests, and then having, Lord, sort of that golden period
and retirement, and, OK, great, and now we keep going, and
eventually inevitable decline if there's not something
catastrophic that happens. And finally,
ultimately, we succumb to the reality of living
on a broken planet, and we shuffle off
this mortal coil, and life ends, and now
we stand before you. For unless you come for us or
we leave this world sooner, all of us, God, this is
the moment coming for us where we will get to
see with our own eyes what Isaiah was given a
glimpse of here in this day. And I pray, God, that by fast
forwarding through our lives to look at that inevitable,
inevitable termination point, we then could come
back, kind of Ebenezer Scrooges to the present, and
in light of that future make wise choices, we pray,
seeing you clearly for who you are, and
thus seeing ourselves in the right way as a result. Thank you, Jesus. We love you, and we
pray this in your name. Amen. There are some
connections that we need to make to
understand this passage, and there are five of them. And the first
one-- jot it down-- is the connection between grief
and glory, grief and glory. It's glorious, and
I would, like you, want to rush into the details. OK, what are the
angels, and what's the deal with the throne,
and why the altar? And hold on. We got to start with the grief. Because that's where
the text starts. In verse 1, we're
given what we might skip past in between bites of
our bagel and sips of our latte during our devos. Oh, how nice, right? And he saw the Lord, and that's
so fantastic and glorious. But hold on. When did this all happen? Text says, in the year
that King Uzziah died. And so you go,
well, who's Uzziah? And what's the deal with him? And that will take
you as you look at it in a concordance
which will show you different words in the
Bible and where they occur, you look for the word
Uzziah in the scriptures, and it takes you
to 2 Chronicles 26. And you read this
chapter about a teenager. Anybody here in the church
today have a location church at 16 years old? Do I have any 16-year-olds? OK, so 16, a lot
going on in life-- driver's ed, and starting
to think about what's after high school, all
those different things that are starting to shift in life. This dude's 16, your
exact age, his dad dies. And his dad was
the king of Israel. And so with his father now
gone, the entire nation looks to Uzziah and
says, well, you're our king because
Amaziah is dead. And with all of that,
you know what he felt? Well, can you give
me a wide shot? Do you see that? That's what Uzziah felt. His knees would have
been knocking like crazy. And so you know what he did? He knelt on him. He did the same
thing that you and I ought to do every time we
feel that response of fear. When your knees are shaking,
get down on top of them, and don't try and run
from your weakness, and give that weakness to God. And that's exactly
what King Uzziah did. And he sought the Lord. He sought God. He said, God, I don't
know how to do this. How could I lead your people? I'm just a kid. And so God said, all right. You finally know, and so
now I can give you my power. And the scripture says
he was marvelously helped as long as he
remembered that he was weak. Because a little
pro tip about God, he humbles the proud but
gives grace to the humble. So in your life,
the best thing to do is to not pretend you
don't have weaknesses. Embrace your weaknesses,
and bring them to the one who can make you
strong in your weakness. And that's what
happened to King Uzziah. So he sought the Lord. The Lord prospered him,
and everything he touched, it would seem, began
to turn to gold. I mean, I'm telling,
you he had these ideas for where we could
put vineyards, and how we could bring
water in to water the crops, and new kinds of vineyards. He was like a Renaissance man-- good at science, good at
technology, good at inventions. He was like Napoleon when it
came to military strategy. I mean, this guy, unbelievable. He invented machines that
could hurl giant rocks off the walls at the enemy. This is like Lord of the
Rings style stuff, y'all. I mean, honestly he
was just phenomenal. You read 2 Chronicles
26, and you're like, wow, was this guy alive? Could he run for
president today? Because this is amazing. And how would it feel
to be in a nation under that kind of leadership? Really good. How long was Uzziah king for? Because he became king at 16. That means he could
do so for a long time. Because it's not like us
where new person in the office four, eight, or FDR,
three terms, 12 years, but the extenuating
circumstances of the depression and Second World War. That's how that all happened. And so you think
like the longest we would ever in this country
really see someone be president is 12 years. This guy was king for 52
years, because you were king till you died. So that means that there
were so many people living in Israel who
never knew anything but how Israel was
while Uzziah was king. They were born into
him being king. They lived for a long time. So it would just
sort of eventually start to be a thing where
any of the hard times, any of the bad days were so far
in the rear view mirror, we're always going to prosper. We're always going
to be flush in cash. The economy's always
going to be doing good. We don't have to
worry about anyone attacking us because he's
got these walls covered with devices that can throw
rocks and arrows at them. We're going to be fine. In the year King uzziah
died, I saw the Lord. It was when one throne,
the throne on Earth that many people had begun to
put irons in the fire connected to him, not connected
to God, many people began to be complacent, smug,
materialistic during this time. Listen, we all get worried about
hard things coming our way. Hard things almost
always bless our lives. It's the good times that
cause us to get complacent. It's the good times that
cause us to get a little bit spiritually rotund. It's the good times
that cause us oftentimes to take our eyes off of God
and look to and become defined by the blessings from God. Trials? Trials wake us up. Trials splash cold
water on our faces. If we're of a pure heart
as we go into them, they can cause us to
experience greater glory. Example, this text, the
Uzziah being lost thing, that everyone would have
said would be a bad thing, ended up leading
to Isaiah having an incredible sense of
revelation in the midst of it. The same is true for you. Peter talks about trials
that we face in this life, and how it's common
for us to look at those as some terrible thing. But he actually said
those things purify us. Those things cleanse us. Those things, like
gold, can cause us to be refined
by the fire, which is why he says you should
greatly rejoice in trials. James says the same things. He says, you should
tell yourself how lucky I am when
life gets difficult, because that says
that God is seeking to bring about blessing,
and strength, and increase, and perseverance. All these things are what God
is seeking to do in our lives when we face grief. He's seeking to
unleash glory, and that was what God was seeking
to do in this time of loss. Where it would have felt
a lot like 60 years ago this week in America when
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November
22, 1963, the 60 year anniversary this past week. They described that period
in American history-- I don't remember it
personally, but some of you, maybe you were
alive at that point. They described it as sort
of this national grief, this sort of ending of
a period of idealized-- Wasn't really all it
was presented to be, but they called it
kind of this Camelot and this golden, happy,
beautiful young couple in the White House with their
cute little kids playing under the Resolute desk. And then all of a sudden,
we have this little boy on his birthday saluting
his dad's casket being paraded on its way to the
Arlington National Cemetery. Everybody was
around the country-- I mean, kids were
let out of school. It was just apparently
just this incredible time of national mourning. That's what this
would have felt like. And Isaiah is kind of stumbling. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And just as Uzziah dies, by
the way, the Assyrian Empire by the way the
year 740 BC is just starting to show up as
this massive threat. So you got this escalation,
this idea of war. All of a sudden the economy is
completely thrown upside down. What's going to happen? How are we going to get
through all of this? In the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. In the midst of our grief, God
is seeking to call us to His glory, to call us to His
presence to call us to His strength, to cause us to look
to Him for what cannot be taken away, and to root and build
our lives based not on what can happen on this earth but on His
kingdom of which there shall be no end. His glory, His power,
His reign forever, there's a connection, friends,
between grief and glory that can tell us something
about what to do with our irons in the fire of this life. Secondly, there's a
connection between worship and wonder, worship and wonder. Now let's talk about
this scene, the scene where a throne is
presented to him. And there is someone
seated on the throne, and every single time we
talk about God and a throne, he's always seated. In fact, the book of Psalms
says He's seated with His feet up on a footstool. So I don't want
you to ever think about God as stressed,
God as wringing His hands, God is He never says O M Me. He never gets surprised. He never has anything
ever occur to Him like that just occurred to me. God is seated. There's a sense in which He
literally and metaphorically rules the universe
with His feet up. He rules it with the
word of His power. He doesn't need to
raise His voice. He doesn't need to run. He is exalted. He's sitting on a throne,
and the train of His robe is filling the temple
with His glory. You think about
the video footage, I mean, of course when
Queen Elizabeth died, we were watching all
the footage as it was being shown around
the world of her funeral. But did you know that one of
the first really galvanizing global events that
was ever televised nationally was her coronation? How crazy is that? First time really
around the world there was coverage
dominating of any event, that was 70 years before her death. She was queen for
70 years, which is why there was such a
collective outpouring of loss when Queen Elizabeth died. But if you look into it, the
footage of her coronation ceremony, literally she had a
train that went down the aisle, and attendants on both
sides were holding this. And there was a great sense
of pomp, a great sense of-- and that's impressive,
don't get me wrong. Having a massive train filling
a building up on earth, the Bible talks
about God's train, the train of his robe filling
up the entire temple with glory. And then there's this
worship taking place. Moses was told to
build sort of a Xerox copy of God's throne on earth
as a representation of what we had lost when we
were kicked out of Eden and banished from
God's presence. And all that we
could do was look at this LEGO version of it. It was called the Tabernacle. And inside of it was this box
that was to be carried around and set up before they
set up their own tents. And it was paid for by all the
people of a free, willing heart above and beyond their
tithes, giving offerings as much as they would to
see this built, this vision. And Moses, actually
the people gave so generously, he's like,
everything is taken care of. Please stop, please stop giving. And this box represented God's
throne, represented this altar. And the Bible talks
about how they were to put these two golden
angels above the mercy seat, and their wings were
outstretched over. Now, this was just a
physical version of it, a crude version of it. This that Isaiah sees is
not a crude version of it. This is the real thing. And there are not
just statue angels covering it, sitting still. When he sees it, they're
flying about God's throne, crying out praise,
crying out in adoration. Their very anatomy,
anatomy is made up to facilitate the worship. Fish are designed to
swim, so they have fins. And monkeys are built for
trees, so they have tails, and they really have dexterity. These creatures were created for
the purpose in which they are performing this act of worship. They have six wings, people. Two wings that they fly
with, and as they go around God's throne, but two
wings cover their face, almost as though they're saying
He's so glorious I cannot even look at Him. Now, they've never sinned. They don't have any
fear of seeing Him, but it's just an
act of humility, an act of self-abasement
to avert their gaze. And so what they are seeing is
enough to cause them to praise and to cry out. But what they do is
they hide their faces, almost a veil that covers them
from looking upon God's purity. Two feet each angel
covered by wings. Why? It's the same reason you feel
embarrassed if you ever go over to someone's house
and you realize, oh, they take their shoes off. You ever-- I didn't know
this was going to be-- I did not prepare. I didn't bring my good socks. I brought the socks with my
big toe sticking out of them, and that feeling
of like mismatched. You're like, oh, I don't
want to show my feet to you. BECAUSE you don't
want to dishonor them with your stinky feet. Now, these angels
don't have stinky feet, but they cover their
feet out of a sense of I won't show anything
that would dishonor Him. Even in their build, they're
honoring God, crying out as they go around the throne. They're crying out to
each other, by the way, the text says. As they see what they see, as
they glorify and honor God, they cry out to each
other "holy, holy, holy" to one another. The word holy is the
Hebrew word kadosh. Say it. It's a fun word, kadosh. But it's not just kadosh. It's kadosh, kadosh, kadosh. Now, in Scripture,
one of the tools to highlight the importance
of significant details is given through repetition. So in Jesus's
ministry, you see this where he will begin
something important he's about to say by saying amen. But he doesn't just say it once. He says amen, amen. We did a whole
sermon series looking at the amen amens of Jesus. It was how he highlighted, hey,
don't miss this-- amen, amen. Because in that day it was
common if a rabbi or a teacher said something significant,
the congregation would respond amen. Jesus put his amens
at the beginning because he didn't
need nobody's co-sign. He's like, this is true
whether you like it or not. And it's not even just
true, it's true true. Amen, amen! So in the Hebrew and the
Greek, you don't always see it, because in
most translations Jesus's amen amens just get
translated to "most assuredly." Which is the idea, but
you miss something. So something might be
described as gold in the Bible, but if they're really
wanting you to see it's gold, they'll go it's gold gold. What kind of gold? Goldie, goldie, goldie. Or in the book of Genesis,
Abraham and these kings, there's this big battle that
happens where these kings are fighting each other, and
God eventually shows up, and some of the kings fall
into some pits near the area of Sodom and Gomorrah. And the Bible says,
if you actually look at it in the Hebrew,
they fell into pit pits. Not tar pit, deep pits, or
pits full of miry clay even. They are the pittiest
of all the pits. They fell into pit pits. OK, so now take that
verbal tool, literary tool of repetition, and apply
it to the word kadosh, because kadosh, or holy,
as it gets translated, what does it actually mean? It means cut off. OK, so let's say
Thanksgiving Aunt Susie said, I can't be there
till five, but you're saying we're eating at 3:00. Well, you don't want all the
cornbread, all the green bean casserole, all the yams,
all the turkey to get all-- [CHOMPING] You know how it is, right? So before it gets
presented, you might kadosh. You're cutting off some
that's Aunt Susie's. OK, so everybody
comes in, they're not eating it because
it's been cut off. It's separate. It's kadosh. It's in a different category
than just the food that's on the counter. You see, it's reserved
for a specific use. And throughout
Scripture, tons of things are called holy, like the
first day of the week. It's kadosh unto me. It's not like every other day. Every other day you get to
do the things that you do. This day is kadosh. It's cut off. It's not even
included when you look at what's to be used and
budgeted for your career and for your passions
and for your pickleball. There's a kadosh day. If you are saying
yes to that first, you can't say yes
to so many things, and then end up accidentally
having to say no to that because I didn't plan well. So when it comes
to money, the Bible talks about the idea
of the tithe, which is to kadosh that first 10%. If we put God to the end, well,
I got to pay the Verizon bill, and I got to pay the mortgage,
and I got to do this, and I got to do this, and you
get to the end, you're like, oh my gosh, there's
no pie left for God. Why? Because you didn't kadosh. You didn't say holy. So Aunt Susie comes
in hungry, and all there is gross old leftovers
in the bottom of the pan. You can scrape some
of that out, I guess. She's like, you didn't
know I was coming? Why didn't you set
something aside for me? So when we kadosh
something, we're saying this is reserved
for special use. It's in a different
category, and you'll see lift up kadosh
hands to the Lord, lift up holy hands to God. We talk about greeting each
other with a holy kiss, this idea of we're recognizing
that we've each been called to be separate unto God. The Bible talks about us
as this royal priesthood, His holy people, His
own, like He's saying we are to see ourselves as kadosh,
separate unto God's unique use, that we're living sacrifices
living for His glory. So holy is a concept we
get all through the Bible. In fact, the very word saint-- we talk about someone
being a saint-- that literally means hagios. It's a Greek word. Not Haagen-dazs. That's a delicious frozen treat. Hagios, which literally
means set apart. We're his set apart people. We've been called out of
darkness into marvelous light to proclaim His praises. So holy is a concept that
you'll see all over the Bible. The temple cups and
lamp lighting tool, that's all kadosh. It's got a very
special assignment. But God's not just kadosh. God's kadosh, kadosh, kadosh. Holy, holy, holy. The only attribute of
God repeated in triple, in triplicate, is His holiness. It is His primary essence,
that He is separate. He's in a different category. There's nothing like Him. To whom can we compare God? He has no rival. He has no equal. As these angels
fly around, they're turning to each other going,
there's nothing like Him. I've never seen
anything like this. Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God Almighty. And you go, man,
doesn't that get boring? Honesty in church. That's what I'm afraid
heaven's going to be, that I would just have to sing
from one end of the hymnal to the other end, put my iPhone
music playlist on worship for Spotify, and just put
it on shuffle indefinitely, and that's heaven on a cloud
or something like that? Well, first of all,
to say such things is completely normal, OK? So don't feel bad that your
image and your understanding of heaven is that small, because
we've never been there before. Some theologians
have said if you tried to talk to a baby in the
belly about life on this world, they would be very
confused and frightened. You're like, oh, it's
going to be good. We eat beef jerky. It's delicious. Sometimes when we're
hiking-- oh, hiking. Hiking is where you hike on
trails with these sticks, and skateboarding's cool. You can skateboard around. Oh, and then we go on
chairlift sometimes. And that baby is like,
I'm going to stay in here. Sounds dangerous out there. But Paul, who got
to go to heaven and see it one time,
like Isaiah, he said, for the rest of his life, I just
can't wait to go to paradise. I can't wait to go. And what will make
heaven heaven is not gold streets or a crystal lake. It's going to be able to
see what these angels see. And when you see it,
you will say I've never seen anything like it. Holy, holy, holy. So 700 years goes by, and John
the disciple that Jesus loved got sent to Patmos, a prison
on an island like Alcatraz. And there while banished,
while still recovering from third degree wounds
to his entire body from being dipped into boiling
oil alive, he, in his grief, encounters the glory
of God, and what we know of as the
book of Revelation is the result of that moment. And one small detail
he gives in chapter 4 tells us that what he
saw was someone sitting on a throne like jasper and a
sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow
beaming from around the throne, in appearance like an
emerald, and he too describes the Seraphim,
which in the Hebrew just means "burning ones." Hello. Most people who saw
angels in the Bible were tempted either
to crap their pants or worship the angel. They couldn't decide. And these four living creatures,
each having six wings, were full of eyes
around and within, and they do not
rest day or night saying, "holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, who was, and is, is to come." Oh, by the way,
their optometrist is kept very busy
because they got eyes all over their body
from head to toe. John gives us a detail
Isaiah did not even notice. So even of what's to be
seen in these angels, you can't get it all in
at first, first couple years of it. 700 years later, as John
looks at this scene, apparently these angels have
not gotten sick or tired of the song that they
sing day and night. Now, this is not to suggest
that they don't work. In fact, later on in the text
that we read, one of them is sent to the altar to get a
coal and to come do something, but that is to say that what
drives their being is that they have only one iron in the fire,
the holiness of the one who sits on the throne. They are obsessed with a holy
God and cannot believe they get to see Him and worship Him. And so, yeah, they'll
do assignments. They'll do whatever God
calls them to do in a moment. But before and between and
after and in the midst of it is this-- exalting
and glorifying the one that they see that
is not like anything else. No one's ever been
like this God. The things that He
does, who He is. And each exclamation of
holiness is about something new that they've seen in Him,
and worship can never get old when you keep allowing
God to show you something new. There's continual wonder
because there's ongoing worship. And every time there's
an effect seen and felt as the doorposts shake,
not from just the power of the one on the throne
but from the power of these beings crying
out about God's goodness. There's a physical effect. Things happen when
we praise Him. The temple is filled
with His glory. The smoke rises,
the door shakes. This is what we see
from beginning to end. When we lift up our praise,
God sends His power down. And there's a third. The third is that there's a
connection between repentance and refreshment. Did you notice that in
response to all of this Isaiah is a mess? Isaiah is not like, oh,
let me get my phone. I'm going to get a selfie
with the throne just behind me just right. He's like, I am undone. I'm going to die. I can't. There's no-- woe is me. He falls down before
the one on the throne. I'm undone. And then his first thought is
my lips, my lips are dirty. Now, why is that? Well, there's a connection in
Scripture between what we say and what's in our heart, because
our words reveal our hearts. So you can sin with your lips,
and it reveals what's going on inside your life. But I think there's
something more to it because of what
Isaiah specifically did vocationally, which was
he's a prophet, a preacher, and really good at it. You know his nickname
theologians refer to him as? The Shakespeare of the prophets,
the golden-tongued orator. He's not like Peter,
James, and John who are like bumbling
fishermen called out from fishing to preach. This cat could do it. This guy had skill. He had finesse. In fact, his book, Isaiah 66
chapters, the nickname of it is the Bible in miniature. It's that good. So this was him
and doing something that he was born to do. He's a priest. That's what he's put
on this earth to do. He's a prophet. He's ready to go for
it and all the things. This came naturally to
him, gifted in this way. But when he sees
God, he's undone. Not confessing his sin
here in this moment, he's confessing his strength. He's not confessing
what he had done wrong, but what he had
done right and what a pitiful mistake it
was to stand thinking he could stand on his own two
legs, on the strength of what he could do for God. This reminds me so
much of Luke 10, where Mary and Martha have
Jesus over for dinner. And Mary's like the Seraphim. She just can't. She's obsessed
with who Jesus is. She falls down at
his feet, doing what she does every time she
shows up in Scripture, sitting at his feet to worship him. She's obsessed. She's going kadosh, kadosh. I just got to listen
to what he has to say. Martha, she's got the golden
lips or the golden hospitality, the golden spoon. She's in the kitchen,
working up all the things, and she's frustrated at her
sister, who's just sitting there listening to Jesus. She can't believe she
would do that when she should be helping her out. And so she actually
interrupts Jesus's sermon. You know the story? It's amazing. She's like Jesus, I'm going
to let you finish in a second. Tell my sister to come help me. When you are trying to do things
for God that aren't connected to what God has
done for you, you will start to think you're God. And instead of what Mary
and the Seraphim feel-- I can't believe I get
to bask in His glory-- you'll start to feel
like life's unfair. And that's how
Isaiah perhaps felt. Golden-tongued, now he's undone. And it's not to say that we
shouldn't serve like Martha and only ever sit like Mary. I think the point is,
like the Seraphim exhibit, like Mary exhibits, we
should all the doing, find the energy to do all those
things coming from our sitting at Jesus's feet so
we can rise and serve as he's called us to serve. But when Isaiah
repents and realizes, I have so many irons in the
fire, I was looking to Uzziah, and I've been looking to
what I can do for God, and all of these various
things, and it's just simplified because he realizes there is an
actual firebrand as this coal is brought from the altar. And I will point out to
you in the text something I'd never noticed before. The angel had to use tongs. What does the angel,
Seraphim, mean again? Burning ones. It's a very bad and
scary thing when someone whose name
means "burning ones" is scared to even get
their fingers on the coal. They must use tongs, but
it's coming for your lips. This should kill
him, but it doesn't. Instead, he's told your
sin has been atoned for. Why? Someone else paid the bill. The one on the throne
had humbled himself. Now, I realize it
hadn't happened yet, but God, who is outside
of time, already knew what He was going to do. And so the payment
was good for Isaiah, even though God
hadn't done it yet. Isaiah would get to it
in Isaiah 53, by the way. That's the moment on the altar. He was wounded for our
transgressions, pierced for our iniquity. The chastisement for our
peace was laid upon him. Once Isaiah says, I can't-- my righteous deeds
are like filthy rags. My golden tongues are--
my golden tongue's filthy. I'm not like you. You're holy. I'm not holy. I represent a people not holy. God says, great. You're good. This has touched you. This which killed me has
touched you and cleansed you. And when we repent, guess what? We get refreshed. But we can't be cleansed
of sins we won't confess. And when Isaiah brings
that out and admits that, now everything's fine. Now it's completely on to the
next thing, which is what? The connection between
availability and opportunity. Availability and opportunity. Have you ever felt like,
why do other people get these opportunities? Why does God use some people? This is so important to see. Scripture links the
two by God saying-- and if you've ever
wondered, does the Bible actually speak about the
Trinity, pay attention-- whom shall I send? Whom shall go for us? There's even, in fact, in
the Hebrew word for Lord, two different kinds of Lord
mentioned in the Scripture. The first mention you'll notice
in your Bible it's capital L lowercase o-r-d. The second instance is
capital L capital O, capital R capital D, which
is a way of indicating in the translation the
difference between Adonai, which is the title Lord most
often used in the New Testament to describe Jesus, and
the word for Yahweh, which is just the God of heaven
and earth and that God has, even within His personality,
self-distinction. Whom shall I send? One God. Who shall go for us? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Adonai is Yahweh is what Jesus
came to help us understand, not two gods. There's one God, but He's
revealed himself to us in three persons. Whom shall I send? Whom shall go for us? Why do some people get used? Why will some people receive
blessing in this offering? Why? Why do some people get
to have opportunity? Is it as simple as availability? Maybe it is. Some people give him the room. Some people give him the
kadosh in their life. Some people say,
this is for you, God. Use it. God says who's going to do this? Who will go for us? Isaiah says, I will. God says, to be clear,
this that I'm talking about is preaching for 30 years and
not seeing any fruit of it. Want to talk about hard ground? They're going to kill you. You ever read in Hebrews
11 about by faith getting sawn in two? That's Isaiah, who the people
who he preaches to eventually get so sick of him they put
him in a hollowed out log and cut him alive in half. That's how he gets to go see
the scene one more time and then stay there forever. So God says, just to be clear,
this is what I'm talking about. Who will I send now? Who will go for us? Isaiah says, when do we start? Because after what I've seen in
who you are, I'll do anything you want me to do. It doesn't quite matter. And this is the strength. This is the place we
come to where we have sat like Mary at Jesus's feet. Then we are powered to rise up
like Martha should and could have, had she not been
defined and derived her identity from what she was
doing for God, but instead just to be lost and obsessed
in the majesty, and worth, and excellence of knowing God. That changes everything. And it changes,
finally, the connection between our final
point, which is between perspective and pain. Perspective and pain. You know, this text began with
everybody on earth grieving. And Isaiah included in the
list of people who are like, what the heck? What's going to happen now? Look at the same country
you've looked at forever, but now it's full of fear
because Uzziah is gone. Uzziah is gone. By the time the
text ends, Isaiah, who has lifted his
eyes to heaven, now knows what God sees when
He looks back at the earth. He says the whole earth
is full of His glory. His perspective shifted. When we look up to the throne
instead of just looking at the problems and
looking at the stresses and looking at the difficulties,
the things pulling us in all these directions,
and we get those irons out, we say there's one
iron in my fire, the name above every name. It doesn't mean I'm
going to preach less. Isaiah preached more
after this encounter. It means what we're doing is
going to be an act of worship. How we approach school is
going to be an act of worship. How I approach my wife is
going to be an act of worship. So now it's not one more
thing pulling at me. There's only one thing-- Him, His glory, His
fame, His worth. And how I do everything
I do is going to be me doing all and saying
all in the name of Jesus. This is what Paul
said, Colossians 317. "Let every detail in your
lives-- words, actions, whatever-- be done in the
name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father
every step of the way." And if you do that, you'll
still face hardship, but your perspective
will be different. Didn't Paul say? This is Romans chapter 8. Didn't he say, I consider that
the sufferings of this life are not even worthy
to be compared to the glory, the glory that
shall be revealed in us. I close with a story. I bought an audio
book this last year that was intimidating because
it was a 35-hour commitment. So I said, all right. I'm excited to go
through this book, but I'm only going to listen
to it when I'm working out. And that'll keep me motivated
to progress through it. So I finally finished it. So excited about it, and
it's out of my life now. But it's called Titan. It's the story of
John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller Center in New York
City, that bears his name. He was never there, by the way. His son built it. He wasn't interested in it. He wouldn't go and
support and even see it because his ego was so
wrapped in what he did, he had a hard time caring for
anything he wasn't personally the one with the idea behind. Mess. Anyhow, he was
the richest person on the planet when he
died, first billionaire in American history. If you adjust for
inflation, he would have had, in today's money,
about $26 billion to his name, at a time when people were
not wealthy like that, really, in our country or in
the world for the most part. I realize now there's like
there's a billionaire tree, and new billionaires
are dropping out of it all the time. But back then, it
was relatively rare, and he accounted for 3% of
the gross domestic product of the entire country, just
him personally, his net worth. So wealthy you can't
even fathom it, and he was big on philanthropy,
started the University of Chicago, and would do this
and do this and do this and do this. But I found it puzzling. At the end of his
life, he always thought he was going
to live to be 100. He ended up dying just
shy of his 98th birthday. His son, though, said, and
this was in the final chapter, he had a rule at
the end of his life. Nobody was ever allowed to talk
about death in his presence. No one talked about it. And the exact quote from John
Rockefeller Jr. was this-- death remained an
unmentionable subject for him. You were allowed to speak
about any other thing, what he did in his life, this
accomplishment, this activity, anything on this
earth, but no mention was ever made or allowed to be
made concerning him in regard to dying. How different is that for
Paul, who said in 2 Timothy 4, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for
me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous judge, will give to me on that
day, and not to me only but also to all who have
loved his appearing." You see, the more your focus is
on this earth, the more painful it will be to leave any of
those other irons you've let get crowded into your fire. But the more your
focus is on heaven, the greater your
eternal perspective will be facing any amount
of difficulty on this life. Why? Death either takes
you to your treasure or takes you from your treasure. It will either bring
you to your treasure or rip your treasure
from your hands, depending on whether
your home is on earth or your home is in heaven. William Barclay
said, and I close-- I know it's the second
time I've said that. I promise now. It's easy to pack this life
with such a multiplicity of interests that there is
no time left for Christ. The more complicated life
becomes, the more necessary it is to see that our
priorities are right, or Jesus will get
pushed to the sideline. And so, Father, we ask
that by your spirit we would have a heart
of wisdom, remembering that our life on this
earth is just a breath. It's just a vapor. And heaven forbid we let
your word and your work get so crowded and choked out
by the cares of this world and the desires of other
things and the deceitfulness of riches, and we don't
kadosh our lives, God. We don't say holy for
you, separated for you, and you end up on the sideline. So for those of
us feeling pulled in 1,000 directions, God, I
pray we would feel permission from your spirit to let it
become much more simple. Anything that is not eternal
is eternally out of date. Help us to live with our
hearts and minds on heaven. If you would, as
we're praying, say, I needed to hear this today,
I needed this reminder today, feel pulled in all
these different ways, but I realize I'm putting my
butter over the wrong bread, I just want to focus more, like
Paul said, on the good fight you've called me
to fight, motivated and strengthened by
what I see of your glory and your holiness. If that's you I'm
describing, could I just ask you to raise a hand
up in the air all across our church, church online. God, help us. Help us, God. We believe, but, Lord,
we're unbelievers, too. We need you to touch us,
to change us, to help us. Help us to keep the main
thing, the main thing. Thank you, God, for this
vision of your glory, of your holiness. You can put your hands down. I want to now
invite anybody today listening to this message
who has not yet trusted their life to Jesus to do so. The Bible says, He stands
at the door, and He knocks. And if we open
up, he'll come in. If that's you I'm describing
and you would say, I don't have the
promise of heaven. I don't know where I'm
going to go when I die. I haven't made Jesus
the lord of my life. He said that there's going to
be people on that day who end up separated from God in
hell who are arguing about the church they went
to and the things they did for God. And He's going to
say, I never knew you. It's not about what
you know about God or what you've done for God. It's about your personal
relationship with God. If today you sense the
Spirit drawing you, I tell you that today
is the day of salvation. Respond to that love. Pray with me out loud. After me, say this to God. Mean it in your heart. Church, say this with me. This is a holy moment for
someone today making a decision to follow Jesus. Dear God, I know
that I'm a sinner. I ask you to forgive me. Thank you for Jesus's
death and His Resurrection. I turn to you. I put my faith in you. Put your life in me. In Jesus' name.
