The Power of Praise

[0:00] We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church. This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication, redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.

[0:15] Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org. Our reading is from the prophet Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1 through 8 as printed in your liturgy.

[0:38] In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings.

[0:53] With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.

[1:05] The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. 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.

[1:28] Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips.

[1:42] Your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. 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.

[1:55] This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, good morning. My name's Andrew. I'm one of the pastors here. And it's good to be with you this morning.

[2:08] It was fun at Boxes of Love yesterday. Man, people can move really fast. I was on the tape. This is the last part of the bottleneck, right? And you've got to tape those boxes shut.

[2:19] And this guy, he said, Hey, you come do the tape with me. I was like, Oh, shoot. And he was a machine. He was like, And I was like, Sorry, sorry. But everyone else, you did such a great job.

[2:31] And I can't wait for it again next year. What are we doing? Okay, we're preaching. So you may have noticed we're in this fall series.

[2:43] We were in this fall series called Explore God. We joined with hundreds of other churches in the Bay Area, exploring God for seven weeks, asking big questions. And there were two weeks, though, in between our Explore God series and Thanksgiving, where Jonathan and I wanted to just preach sermons that spoke particularly to our specific moment in this moment of our history as a church, Christ Church East Bay.

[3:09] So last week, Jonathan announced our capital campaign to raise $600,000 to pay off what we owe on this historic, strategic church property by the end of next year.

[3:21] And another thing that's going on in our churches, as you know, we're looking for a worship director. And I'm the interim worship director right now. So Jonathan, last week, he preached on, you know, he preached a sermon that most pastors never want to preach, right?

[3:34] He preached on giving and generosity, about how the ancient people of God gave gratefully and cheerfully and generously to build a place of worship, to build the tabernacle.

[3:45] And if you think that the main point, though, of that story was generosity, just generosity toward a house of worship, I want to remind you this morning about how that story ended. Because remember, not only did they give generously, not only did they build that tabernacle, but more importantly, when the tabernacle was completed, what happened?

[4:05] The glory of the Lord fell upon and filled that tabernacle in a thick cloud. The point of that story about the building of the tabernacle and all the extravagant giving that went toward that capital campaign project, it wasn't just a story of generosity.

[4:23] The point was that for God's people, there was nothing more valuable to them, nothing more worthy of their investment than the worship of God and his presence among them.

[4:35] Like see, generosity toward the church is one thing, but apart from worship, apart from a passion for the presence of God. If we give and give and give, even with lavishness, but God is not wanted and worshiped here, and thus God is not pleased to dwell here amongst us, then we could raise that 600K, we could raise a trillion, but it will only be toward a four-walled waste of money.

[5:01] If there are no praises here for our God to inhabit. As King David said in Psalm 22, verse 3, you are holy, and literally it says, you inhabit the hallelujahs of your people.

[5:17] You inhabit the hallelujahs of your people. You sit enthroned in their praises. So Christ Church family, yes, we want to be generous, and yes, we do believe God wants us to preach the gospel and minister here in this historic and strategic location in Berkeley, the Bay, and beyond, and hopefully we will call this property, you know, truly our own without debt, but make no mistake, if God is not worshipped here, if his glory is not beheld here, and if his presence doesn't fill this place, and he is not enthroned in our praises, then I hope he sabotages our capital campaign.

[5:55] I hope he sabotages all our plans for this building and for this church if we do not worship him here in his presence. So the question isn't simply, will Christ Church, will we as a church family be generous enough to raise 600K?

[6:11] The question is, will we worship? Will we worship here? This is my question for us today, as your pastor, as your interim worship director, as we look ahead to owning this place debt-free, and as we look for a new worship director, and as we're in this season of re-exploring, right, and rediscovering the heart of worship, apart from all the bells and whistles maybe many of us got used to, will we worship?

[6:35] Will we fill this place with the kind of praise that the holy, holy, holy God desires to inhabit? And in case you're wondering what that might look like, that's why we had Cherubha read that passage this morning from Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah describing his famous vision of the Lord.

[6:54] I saw the Lord, he says, enthroned amidst hundreds of hallelujahs, hundreds of holy hallelujahs. So what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna walk through this passage, kinda like I'm gonna be your tour guide, and I just wanna point out to you what it means to be a worshiping church.

[7:15] You know, this week, this passage, it just really wrecked me. There's just so much that I saw in it, that God spoke to me in it, and I had no idea how to organize all those thoughts.

[7:29] And I trembled to consider being up here preaching this text with my own unclean lips. How do I preach this holy, holy, holy God?

[7:43] But I think we'll find out in Isaiah chapter 6 what kind of a God he is and how he enables even preachers like myself to come before him, to serve him, and to fill his church that we might serve him as well.

[7:59] So, you know, I haven't prayed yet. I wanna do that this morning. And I think it's fitting, actually, to pray on my knees. I don't normally do this here, and I don't mean to make you uncomfortable or to make this a show, but I think we need this.

[8:25] Father, you know, this is gonna be a different kind of sermon. Father, who am I to preach your glory and your holiness and your majesty with my unclean lips?

[8:48] And who are we to come before you to take the body of your son and his blood upon our lips, our unclean lips, as a church?

[9:01] Lord, open our eyes. Would you set before us your immense holiness?

[9:18] Would we be stunned, Lord God, in your presence, arrested by your holiness, would we catch this vision?

[9:32] Would we see you? Would we encounter you as the God that you are? And would you fill us with praise, reverent praise, but also confident praise, for you have provided the way before your throne in Christ Jesus.

[9:52] and would you so fill our hearts with adoration for Christ, who has brought us near to the holy God. And Lord, as we always pray, would this be a sacred place, Christ's church?

[10:13] Would you inhabit our hallelujahs? would our praises go out, would they go forth? Would the nations be glad along with us because of the great salvation you've offered us in Christ?

[10:39] So be honored, Lord God, in the preaching of your word, and give us eyes to see, hearts that are longing, in Jesus' name.

[10:53] Amen. I'm just gonna walk us through this text, and I want us to have worship on our minds.

[11:08] Jonathan sent me something really kind of humorous, but also like so profound this week from a pastor friend of his. He said, you know, if you ask a typical churchgoer you know, just how they experienced Sunday worship or what they expected to experience at Sunday worship, they might say, well, you know, there's gonna be some music.

[11:33] I kinda like the song selection this week compared to last week. The pastor had, you know, two or three points, and this is something funny that he said, and then the donuts were kinda nice.

[11:45] Right. But if you ask Isaiah, right, if you ask Isaiah what he experienced in worship, he would say, I saw God.

[12:02] I saw God for who he was. and then I saw myself for who I am before him and it was terrifying, but I also saw his mercy and I saw my calling from that day forward.

[12:25] I was transformed because I saw God. every Sunday when we come here, we don't come here to mess around.

[12:37] We come here to encounter God. I teach my girls this every Sunday. I say, girls, what day is today?

[12:49] And I've trained them to say, it's the Lord's day. It's the Lord's day. And I say, and what do we do on the Lord's day? And they say, we worship God.

[13:02] We worship God. This is not something to take lightly. We worship the holy, holy, holy God.

[13:14] So let's see what Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter six. Now look with me at verse one. This isn't some fantasy that he's having, some mythical fantasy that he's trying to make up.

[13:32] He is rooting this in a historical moment. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, he says. High and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

[13:46] There's a lot packed into this right here. There's a lot going on in this historical moment. See, because King Uzziah, you could argue, was one of the greatest kings of Israel.

[13:59] He's the king that reigned the second longest of all the kings, and the king that reigned longer than him, Manasseh, he was wicked. He was awful. He was one of the worst. All right? But King Uzziah, he reigned for 52 years, and Israel prospered, and Israel followed, and worshipped, and feared the Lord.

[14:17] Very good years. You could read about it in 2 Chronicles 26. He reigned from the time he was 16. He listened to the priest who taught him. He sought the Lord. He was victorious in battle.

[14:29] The nations paid him tribute. He was famous. The soil was fertile. There were large herds. He built many monuments and structures. He fortified the nation of Israel.

[14:40] And he had a whole huge army, mighty warriors, to defend his people. He was successful in every way until he grew proud. He grew proud of all these accomplishments as we often do.

[14:54] He grew so proud that he thought, apparently I can do anything, so I'm going to walk into the holy place of the temple. I'm going to burn my own incense unto God. I'm going to worship him how I want because I'm this amazing king.

[15:07] And he went in and did what only the priests were allowed to do. And so the priests, 60 of them said, no, you cannot do this. You must not do this.

[15:17] They rebuked him. They withstood him. And he got angry. But in his anger, as soon as he was angry, in response, God struck him, his forehead, it says, with leprosy, which meant that for the rest of his life, he could, one, no longer even live in his own palace, and two, he never stepped foot into the temple ever again.

[15:41] And he lived alone and he died alone. That's what happened. That's the context around this in the year that King Uzziah died.

[15:53] So if you are a part of the nation of Israel, you are nervous. This was the greatest king that you've seen in a long time. 52 years of prosperity. Now he's struck with leprosy. Now he's dead.

[16:06] Also at this time, the Assyrians had started their major conquest and they were coming closer and closer to Israel every year. And according to Jewish tradition, not only was this a time of political, national instability for Israel, Isaiah personally would have felt this because according to the Jewish tradition, Isaiah's dad and Uzziah's dad were brothers.

[16:28] So they were cousins. Isaiah was part of this royal family and this was happening to his cousin. All right? Lots of hard stuff is going on here as we come into Isaiah chapter six, verse one.

[16:43] And yet it's precisely in this moment of instability that God reveals himself to Isaiah. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne.

[16:56] Right. And I love how Jackie Hill Perry puts this. In this moment when Israel's questioning their well-being, Jackie Hill Perry, if you haven't read her book, Holier Than Thou, I highly recommend it.

[17:13] But she says, Uzziah is dead, but the King of God's people is alive, sitting on his throne. Maybe that seems obvious, but don't miss this.

[17:23] A big part of the holiness of God is that God has never not been alive. God is self-existent. He exists because he exists. He needs no one but himself to be. Therefore, he always has and will always be.

[17:37] He was before was, was, she says. So in the year that King Uzziah died, this great King of Israel, God reveals himself as an alternative King, as a better King, a King that will never die.

[17:51] And that's who he sees in this vision, high and lifted up, seated on a throne. Now another thing that's interesting though, right, is Uzziah, what was he punished for?

[18:02] He was punished for trying to be both a king and a priest. That never happened before in all of the nation of Israel's history. Right? And yet somehow, in this temple vision, you have this king sitting on the throne, and it's okay for him to be on the throne.

[18:17] You have a king and a priest there, it's the Lord. There's something utterly unique about this king, and we'll talk about that more later. Look with me now at verse two. What else is going on here?

[18:29] Above him were seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they were flying. So, in case you're wondering what seraphim are, they're probably like these angelic figures.

[18:44] This is the only place in all of scripture that talks about these figures. There's these seraphim, literally the burning ones. All right? So, they're these burning creatures, angels, unfallen creatures, with six wings.

[18:57] Two to fly, two to cover their faces, and two to cover their feet. They're covered from head to toe. Why? Because even though the very thing that they're created for, the only thing scripture ever tells us about them is that they're here to worship God, they can hardly do that.

[19:12] They can hardly be in the presence of God, even though they're created to be in the presence of God, even though they're unfallen creatures. And if anyone of us saw one of these creatures like flying to this place, it'd probably freak us out.

[19:25] All right? And they're just kind of so strange, right? What is this image? I don't know. It's hard to imagine, right? But I think the point is to accent the strangeness, the otherness of God.

[19:40] Our holy, holy, holy God. Even the unfallen creatures, these angels, cannot bear his presence without covering themselves with their wings.

[19:53] Now look with me at verse three. What are they doing? Well, they're worshiping. They're worshiping. And they were calling to one another. I love that. They're worshiping by preaching to one another the truths about God.

[20:10] You know, when I was a young worship leader in high school and I used to pick the songs for my youth group or for my church, I had this understanding of worship that is all praise unto God.

[20:22] And so I would only pick songs that were like in the first person. Like, I want to know you. I love you, Lord. Right? My Jesus, I love thee. Right? And I tried not to pick songs that were like more in the third person about God.

[20:35] Like, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. Because I wanted to direct all my worship toward God. But you know, I was missing something. I didn't realize that the point of worship is not just to approach God to lift our praises up to Him, but it's to encourage one another.

[20:50] It's to stir one another. It's to provoke one another unto praise. And it's a beautiful thing when we do that. Like, Christchurch, what if we came into this place every Sunday ready to worship, not lifting up our praises only to God, but what if we saw our ministry as singing to one another and provoking the praise of the holy, holy, holy God?

[21:16] You know, we do this thing now where we have a playlist every Sunday if you'd like to listen ahead to the songs that are gonna be played for the following Sunday. We try to highlight one of the songs that might be lesser known or that we're trying to introduce.

[21:29] And so my family plays that quite often at least on our way to church on Sunday. And one of the things that stirs my heart the most is when I'm standing next to my daughter, Cammie, and she's singing every word.

[21:43] Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. I will sing of the goodness of God, right? Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

[21:55] It's a beautiful thing to hear the praises of God's people, to sing them to one another. And that's what the seraphim are doing in this moment.

[22:05] They are calling to one another, it says in verse 3. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. They are pointing away from themselves, pointing to the throne and saying, holy, holy, holy, there is nothing like this God.

[22:20] And notice the song they sing, holy, holy, holy. We sing it all the time here, but it's so significant. Throughout the scriptures, whenever you see repetition, it means emphasis.

[22:31] Jesus. So, for example, we might see amen, amen, truly, truly, right? David cries, Absalom, Absalom, when he's sad about his son.

[22:42] Jesus cries, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, right? But never in all of scripture do you see a triple repetition. Never. Holy, holy, holy.

[22:55] He's even distinct in his distinctness. He's holy to the uttermost. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty.

[23:08] They cry out. And what does that even mean? What does holy mean? Well, to be holy is to be set apart, right? It's to be distinct. It's to be in a class of his own. That's what God is.

[23:20] God is in a class of his own. This is the godness of God that they're getting at here when they're crying holy, holy, holy. Right? Notice, they don't cry love, love, love, or goodness, goodness, goodness, or, I don't know, mighty, mighty, mighty, no.

[23:39] Say holy, holy, holy. Why is that? Why is this first? Why is this essential to the godness of God? Well, it's because God could not be loving if he were not holy.

[23:55] if God were not holy in and of himself, never tempted to do anything out of selfishness or sinfulness or malice, he could not love us.

[24:09] He is holy, holy, holy, so that he can be holy in his love, holy in his goodness, holy in his might, holy in his grace, holy in his mercy. There is no, it's not like there's this like love that he participates in, no, he is love himself because he's holy love.

[24:31] There's no like goodness that he just participates in, no, he defines goodness because he's holy in his goodness. His holy, holy holiness is his transcendence, he's the source, he's the fountain.

[24:44] Everything else is derived from him. Everything else, and there's nothing like that in all creation, right? Right, your kids might say something like, you know, hey, daddy, mommy, who created like the world?

[25:00] And you would say, well, Genesis 1, God, all right? You think you're a pretty good theologian, right? And then number two, they might say, well, who made me? Well, you say, well, God, he knitted you in his womb, right? What do you do when they ask you, well, who made God?

[25:15] Right? Who made God? God. When God is crying, when they're crying out that God is holy, holy, holy, when they're getting at his supreme holiness, they're getting at the fact that there is nothing in all creation like this God.

[25:28] Again, he's in a class of his own. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, is the Lord of hosts, of all the armies of heaven. The whole earth is full of his glory. It can't contain his glory.

[25:40] The whole earth is filled with the weight of his majesty. That's what they're singing to one another. And they're singing it so loud, right?

[25:52] Verse four says, at the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. Their praises are rocking the place.

[26:07] You know, it's like, maybe a little tiny picture of that is Easter here where Jonathan's like, make some noise, right? And we get the cowbells and people are like stomping their feet, clapping their feet, and their hands. This is like that on steroids, all right?

[26:21] People are just, God's creatures who are made to worship him are just offering up this crazy noise, shaking the whole place. It reminds me of, you know, actually around Thanksgiving time when I used to live in Philadelphia during seminary, I would go to this church.

[26:37] It was called North Shore Baptist Church. And every, I think it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, it was a tiny little church with a low ceiling and they would do testimonies every Wednesday before Thanksgiving and people would give like crazy testimonies.

[26:52] There was this drug lord, like he was a multi-million dollar drug lord and he told a story of how he came to Christ, how he was like in international prison and stuff. It was wild, all right? They always had stories.

[27:05] And hearing those stories and responding to those stories, it was like testimony and worship and they worshipped. man, with those low ceilings, I know this is beautiful, I love this, but man, those low ceilings, they rocked that place with worship.

[27:19] It shook. That's what I think about when I think about this kind of praise that God deserves from his people, a praise that shakes this place, that has an impact.

[27:32] Do you know that people have come into Christ's church just having heard the music from the street? They've come in through our doors. It is a missional thing to sing forth God's praises with all your might, no matter how bad you sing.

[27:50] In fact, that's a greater testimony to the grace of God, to the glory of God. So they're shaking this place, but not only is the place shaking, but here we go, it's filled with smoke.

[28:04] What does that mean? There's fire, something dangerous, right? Something hot, something burning, something being consumed. What's going on here? There's smoke, and he sees it.

[28:16] Verse five, what does he say? Woe to me, Isaiah cried. Woe to me. Now, a question I have for us is, why does he say, why is it woe and not worship?

[28:31] Why doesn't he join the seraphim in worship? Why doesn't he say, holy, holy, holy, yeah, me too, I affirm that, amen, holy, holy, holy? Because God's holiness is not just about his transcendence, it's about his moral purity.

[28:48] And when we come into the presence of God, we're not just struck by his otherness as the I am, the holy, holy, holy God, we are struck by his absolute purity and his righteousness.

[29:01] And like a mirror before us, we see ourselves and we don't measure up. We see ourselves, we not only see God for who he really is, but we see ourselves for who we really are.

[29:16] Right? People of unclean lips. He says, I am ruined. You can say, I am doomed. I am undone. I am lost.

[29:26] For I am a man of unclean lips, he says. It's interesting that he says, I'm a man of unclean lips, isn't it? Because what's his job? He's a prophet. The very instrument that God gave him to most usefully serve him, his own righteousness, he's repenting of.

[29:45] Because before this holy God, the thing that he is best at, he realizes is not enough. It's unclean. It's wrong.

[29:55] I feel that all the time as a pastor. How often I get up here and I want to preach to you because I do want to honor God, but I kind of want to honor myself. I kind of want to glorify myself sometimes with the words that I say.

[30:10] Ask any worship leader. They want to worship God, but they kind of like letting people hear their voice. Same with Isaiah the prophet. We have unclean lips.

[30:23] Out of the overflow of the heart, out of the mouth comes the overflow of the heart, right? Out of the abundance of the heart. I'm a man of unclean lips, he says. And not only that, but I live among a people of unclean lips.

[30:38] I'm surrounded by this. I can't escape it. This is who we are. And with these unclean lips, my eyes have seen something that I'm not sure I can handle.

[30:51] My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. And he says, woe is me. Do we come into worship every Sunday with woe?

[31:07] Do we have a holy reverence to our worship? Is this truly a sacred place? Do we behold who God is and do we behold who we are?

[31:21] See, Isaiah 6 is actually where we get our liturgy. If you look at your liturgies, this is the format. We come before God, we sing his praise, right? We acknowledge who he is, this glorious God.

[31:33] And we also acknowledge our unclean lips, our uncleanness, our sin before him. We confess our sins, right? Every week, we confess our sins to God and to one another.

[31:48] It's coming right out of Isaiah chapter 6. And what do we do next, though? What do we do about that? What do we do when we realize that, yeah, we are unclean?

[32:01] I think a lot of us want to say, well, I just want to put aside the holiness of God. That's one of my less favorite things about him, one of my least favorite doctrines, right?

[32:13] But God says no. And Isaiah says no. Let's lean into this, let's lean into the truth. Woe is me. Woe is me because I truly am unclean.

[32:26] When we come into worship, we face the truth about God and about ourselves. And that can be a hard truth to face up to. Super hard.

[32:38] But get this, the good news of the gospel is that that's not the end of Isaiah's vision, right? Verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

[32:54] With it, he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips. your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

[33:06] It's crazy right now that Isaiah's here, all right? In this temple. So there are a couple details I want to point out to you in this vision, all right? So he's in, he sees the Lord seated on his throne, okay?

[33:19] And if you're familiar with that language, the throne, what is the throne that was in the temple? What is considered as the throne of the temple? It was the Ark of the Covenant. Sometimes known as the footstool of the Lord, but also known as the throne.

[33:31] That's where God would sit, in the holy of holy place in the temple, the place that the high priest could only enter once a year, but somehow the Lord is sitting there and Isaiah is present there, all right?

[33:48] And notice the smoke that's in there, right? Because once a year, they would burn a sacrifice on that altar at the Ark of the Covenant. So this is a special time, this is Yom Kippur, this is the day of atonement, right?

[34:07] And it's like, first of all, why is a king there and why is Isaiah there? How can that even happen, all right? Why is a king there? Why is Isaiah there? Why is a prophet there?

[34:18] Where's the priest? Well, that's what's spoken to here in verse 6 and 7. When the seraphim is flying toward him with a coal in his hand and taking it and touching his mouth with it and getting rid of his guilt, what he's doing is he's atoning for his sin from the sacrifice that's on the altar.

[34:46] There's a sacrifice as well in this scene. It's not just the Lord on a throne. It's not just Isaiah seeing all this. There's a sacrifice being burnt.

[34:59] And when Isaiah's lips are put in touch with that sacrifice, those burning coals, his guilt's taken away. His sin is covered.

[35:12] And I think, you know, we might be tempted to think this is just a cheap, easy grace. This is just something he does, some kind of ritual from these coals. Boom, he's clean. But if we have eyes to see what's really going on here, this is a foreshadowing of the gospel.

[35:29] This is a picture of Christ. You know, John chapter 12. In John chapter 12, the evangelist John, he says that Isaiah saw Jesus' glory.

[35:41] glory. It's in John chapter 12, verse 41. Isaiah saw Jesus' glory. And I think what he meant by that was he's seeing this, not only this king who's seated on his throne high and lifted up, but he's also seeing this sacrifice that's made for him, that's making him able to be in the presence of God.

[36:08] this purifying work of God, this initiative of God to come near to him. He didn't even ask for forgiveness. He didn't even ask to be clean. All he's thinking is woe is me, I'm dead.

[36:20] But God comes near to him, puts him into union with his sacrifice and his sins are atoned for. And listen, this changes everything.

[36:33] This changes everything about how Isaiah will live from then on. verse 8, this is the last verse. It says, sin's been atoned for.

[36:44] Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And this guy, Isaiah, who goes from fearful and woe is me and I cannot behold the Lord, all of a sudden, because of this mercy that has come near to him, he says, here I am.

[37:08] Or in the Hebrew, behold me, he says. All of a sudden he says, behold me. Is he crazy? This is the holy, holy God. And he was saying, woe is me at first and now he's saying, behold me?

[37:21] How can he say something like that? How could any of us say that to the holy, holy, holy God? God. It's because his sins were atoned for.

[37:32] It's because of the sacrifice that was made for him. And if we look forward to what this was pointing to, it points to Jesus, all right?

[37:42] The Lamb of God. The Lamb who was foreshadowed in that sacrifice at this altar. The only one who is not only a prophet, but also a king and a priest.

[37:58] Who can go into the temple for us. Not just sitting on the throne, but who is our very sacrifice. What kind of a king is that? It's a priestly king. The Lamb of God slain for us.

[38:12] And this transforms everything about Isaiah. He sees God. He sees himself. He sees God's mercy. And he sees his calling. And he says, here am I.

[38:26] Behold me. I'm unafraid of you now, God. Not because you are not a fearful holy God, but because you have made me confident to come near to your throne of grace.

[38:38] And here am I. Send me. Use me, Lord. However you want. In Christ's church, I hope that this church, this place, will be such a place of worship that we also see God, that we also see ourselves, that we see his mercy, and that we go forth.

[38:59] That's what the benediction is every week. Go in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in your union with Jesus, because of his sacrifice, to love and serve this world in response to his sacrifice.

[39:12] And I pray that that's the kind of sacred church we'll be. That's the kind of worshiping church we'll be. So will you pray with me? Amen.

[39:25] Lord God, help us to see. Give us this kind of holy vision. And make us this kind of holy, worshiping church.

[39:36] would you do it unto the glory of Jesus, with him lifted up before our eyes, the author and perfecter of our faith, the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world, who's come near to us.

[39:51] Thank you for this mercy. Give us eyes to see the heights of your holiness and the depths of your grace all at the same time and make us a people of worship because of it.

[40:02] In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.