BC: Send Me
Notes
Transcript
Living Transformed Lives
Living Transformed Lives
Isaiah 6:1-13
MAIN IDEA: Transformed lives are anything but silent.
Transformation is not silent
INTRO:
Good morning church!
It is amazing to be with you all today!
My name is Zach Klundt and I am the director of student ministries here at Bethel.
I have been in this role for just a hair over 5 years and it has been my favorite job I have ever had.
I just wanted to welcome everyone here on Youth Sunday.
I love seeing students using their gifts and talents for the Lord.
It is amazing!
I am thankful to get the opportunity to speak with you today and kick off a new series called Send Me.
This is taken from Isaiah 6- this is where we will be camping out today as well if you want to flip there now.
Isaiah answered this call from God on who will go to the people?
Isaiah responded with Here I am. Send Me.
I want you to know that this series is going to push us out of our comfort zones.
This series is about how we as believers are transformed by the Gospel and given a mission to go and tell others about it Christ.
Now before we all run for the hills, tune me out, or start checking the NFL scores— which there isn’t any this week— the season starts next Sunday.
Just give me moment.
Because I believe that there is something about transformation that keeps us engaged to someone or something.
ME: A little over a year ago my wife and I joined a gym.
But now just any gym, we joined Crossfit.
There is a gym here called Crossfit Wig Wag.
And I am not here to tell you to come and join me, or anything like that.
But what I would like to tell you about is the physical transformation I have seen in my life since I started this.
I would get out of breath walking about stairs.
I was not eating healthy at all.
It would not be uncommon for me to get a value meal from a restaurant and then another sandwich on the side.
I was tired all the time.
I would find myself drinking so much caffeine throughout the day.
I always wanted to be able to be active with my kids and I was quickly releasing that wasn’t going to happen if I continued the way I was living.
So my wife and I found our way to Wig Wag, and man it changed our lives.
We were mad sore all the time.
The first week it hurt to walk, sit, or sleep.
And I know you may be thinking well that is garbage who wants that!
Nobody does— but years and year of neglect to my physical wellbeing was going to take time to undo.
But as we joined this community we were encouraged, held accountable, and challenged.
And when goals or new PRs are hit we slap hands and are pumped for each other!
We began to take our diet seriously.
And the amount of energy and stamina we now have is amazing.
And yeah, I may talk about it often.
I may even encourage people to come with me.
And the biggest reason why is because it worked for me and it worked for us.
And I want others to experience this type of transformation.
So naturally I am going to talk about because I have seen the transformation.
And I want those I care about and love to have this same thing.
While it may not be physically related— we all do this.
WE: We all have things we can’t be quite about
There are tons of things that we do that we tell other about.
We use a phrase it is life changing.
Have you tried the cookies from Cookies and Dreams in the QC they are life changing.
These new classic tees are best.
Listen to Dave Ramsey he got us out of debt.
Everyone should own a pair of crocs— they go into sports mode— Yeah so do snickers.
If you aren’t cooking rice or all of your meals in an instant pot are you really living?
We also have the parents who love to say routines and what form discipline is the best.
The best way to read the Bible is to get up at 5:00am.
The best way to cook salmon, is season it with cooking oil and salt and pepper then throw on the grill for 7 min at 400 degrees skin side down then flip it for an additional 1 min.
Look we all get this— We love to hear stories of transformation and if it seems like it works for someone then maybe it could work for us too.
We get drawn into info-mercals WHY?
We see the before and after shot and we can’t help but want that.
We hear other talk about it?
Why?
Because their transformation is anything but quite.
Transformation from anything people want to talk to you about it.
We love transformation stories.
And this morning I want to look at a man whose life was transformed by God and he was radically changed and he could not and would not be silent about his transformation.
If you have not already turned to Isaiah chapter 6, I would encourage you to do so.
If you are new and maybe don’t have a Bible— there is one in front of you and the page number is: 571
We are going to be looking at the life of Isaiah.
Isaiah would be used by God during the reign of 4 kings of Judah.
Isaiah was a prophet for God.
Meaning that God would give him a message or he would see a vision and he would go to the people God instructed him to go too.
Now these visions could be “Hey, you are doing awesome keep up the good work.”
But more times then not they about coming destruction and how Isreal needed to repent and turn back to God.
You see Isreal like us, had a problem following God.
They would say we are committed to you God and then go and do their own thing.
GOD: In our text today we are going to read and see that Isaiah was transformed and ready to go on mission for God and this is our call as well.
This passage can be broken into three parts all surrounded by a King and Thee King.
The first one here is:
The death of a King:
In Isaiah 6:1 it reads
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
It is important for us to know a bit about King Uzziah.
King Uzziah was a good king— he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.
The high places were used for pagan worship.
Not worship to God.
So Uzziah did a good and right job but he still failed in a couple of areas that would lead to him getting leporacy and living out the rest of his days alone.
The big take away is that Uzziah tried to do what was right in the eyes of God.
And the next king would not.
Meaning that Isaiah’s mission was about to be changed after the death of King Uzziah.
We have to be aware of this because we are five chapters into the book of Isaiah and we have this calling and commissioning of Isaiah.
We know that Isaiah had already been speaking boldly on behalf of God.
We see in chapter one that Isaiah is pretty much saying here are all the visions that God gave me.
and then in chapter two we see that Isaiah get a vision from the Lord concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
Meaning that Isaiah was a prophet already appointed by God and then King Uzziah dies and a new king is going to take over and Isaiah was talking about all the destruction and the woe to Isreal.
Uzziah death sparked a vision to come to Isaiah from God.
There is a change here.
There is going to be a changing of the guard.
In our lives we get this.
Something happens in our live and it changes how we move forward.
A loss of a job, a death of a loved one, a new president, finding a new pastor, there are circumstances that change us.
You have a something in your life right now that is causing you to pause— and that may be the best time for God to get your attention.
God got Isaiah attention with a dream.
And this death of this human king caused The one true King, God, to come to Isaiah and give him a vision.
The second breakdown in this passage is that Isaiah gets:
A visit from The King
Five chapters into the book of Isaiah, we see that Isaiah gets this vision from God.
Let continue to read:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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 burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
I want to paint a picture for you because this can get lost in translation here.
Isaiah is getting this vision from God.
And Isaiah is trying to communicate what is happening here.
What can be gathered is that Isaiah sees God in all of his glory— seated on a throne and above him is these 6 winged creatures.
These Seraphims— and little sidenote this is the only place in scripture that we read about seraphims.
And what he now is that they are human-like and they showed a great sense of humility by covering their head and feet.
And their chief role is to praise God.
In CSB translation is says— Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of armies— His glory fills the whole the earth.
God is so great that just the hem of his robe filled the temple.
And read that the very foundation shook!
Smoke filled the room.
It was a majestic, holy, divine scene.
This scene shows who God is.
And then we get this picture of Isaiah in this incredible temple.
And his response:
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!”
Isaiah notices something right away as he has been given this vision from God.
There is this giant divide between God and Isaiah.
There is a giant gap between God and human.
We can’t miss this.
Because how did Isaiah respond?
He responses with confession.
In this moment there is a feeling of hopelessness for Isaiah.
He shouts woe is me!
I am lost!
I’m unclean.
My eyes have seen the King.
Isaiah saw God in His perfection, In His holiness, In His majesty and realized I am dirt compared to God.
I am lost— I am broken— I am full of sin.
Isaiah was doing the work of the Lord and he stands in his presence and he understands his desperate need to be found and to be made clean.
All of this is all because he has seen the Lord.
In this moment Isaiah needs to confess sin.
Now what is his sin, I don’t know.
He says that he is a man of unclean lips.
It could be his speech— the words he says.
As a prophet this would make sense.
But may a suggest an alternative.
In Mark 7:20-23
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
What comes out of a person from their mouth is evil— is sin.
I don’t think it was just his speech that was sinful.
Rather his whole person was sinful.
Just like you and me.
When we come toe to toe with a perfect God— A sinless God— it should show us our desperate need to be saved.
Gary Smith in his commentary on Isaiah says this:
Isaiah 1–39 (2) The Prophet’s Purification (6:5–7)
The necessary first step before any true confession of sin is having an understanding of the glory and holiness of the Almighty God who rules the heavens and the earth.
We have to understand who God is.
Isaiah did and it drove him to confession of sin.
Confession is a good thing.
Now look at what happens after his confession.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Once confession happens, God reaches out and through the Seraphim brings atonement.
I want to be very clear here.
This is an act of grace on behalf of God.
Isaiah has done nothing to deserve this atonement.
He is a sinner which he admits and God has this seraphim fly down and from the altar— take a burning coal and place it on Isaiah’s lips.
He is forgiven.
Isaiah is a perfect illustration of how transformed lives look like.
1. We have clear vision of the holiness of God.
2. We Admit our sin
3. He removes sin
What does this mean for us?
When have to have a clear vision of who God is.
This will lead us to confess sin.
And God will forgive because his grace is sufficient.
Some of us have walked into church today without a clear vision of who God is and how he is the perfect picture of holiness.
Some think that God owes us something because deep down we are good people who just mess up once in awhile.
God does not owe you grace.
Church we need a vision of the blazing holiness of God.
Because when you have this vision that will drive us to confession
Man, do we need to understand that we sin.
And until we do sin will just be okay in our lives:
Pride, self-centeredness, arrogance is fine.
We are comfortable totally acceptable
We chase idols money, sports, fame, you name it, we want it.
Our worship is about us and our good feelings.
We are stingy
We don’t sacrificial love our spouse— If we did the consumption of porn in the church would be lower, the divorce rates would be lower.
We play the role of passive parent
Dad’s this where we as men have failed for too long.
IF we don’t understand sin— then we will see the grace of God— his unfailing, underserved love, as a throw away item.
We will say of course God loves me; that’s his job.
No it’s not.
It is an unimaginable, unexpected, and truly an unnecessary wonder of the universe.
If we see God for who He is and we see ourselves for who we are, then like Isaiah, we will be driven to confession of sin.
I have been around Bethel for about over 5 years now.
And I have run around Christian circles for 20 years and something I hear often is “man we want revival in our churches.”
I do too.
And I believe that revival starts when we start confessing our sins.
We can have all the prayer meeting in the world— we can do all the events and we can have the best worship music but until we get serious about confessing sins to not just God but to one another, we will not see revival.
Because you know what confession brings— folks it brings freedom.
If you have weighted down with sin in your life today— God sent His son to give you freedom from that sin.
Isaiah was shouting— Woe is me! I am lost! I am guilty, my lips are unclean!
God save me!
And God did.
God says here I’ll take your guilt away you are clean.
Your sin is atoned for!
What God says to us as people on the other side of the Cross.
Is you have been forgiven by the blood of my Son.
You don’t deserve it but because I love you, and because you can’t out sin my grace, I freely give it to you.
And when people see you living in freedom from the bondage of sin— they are going to notice!
Why are they going to notice because a transformed life is anything but silent.
When I was 5 years into my marriage and still indulging in porn and hiding it from my wife— I finally had enough— and I surrendered it over to Christ— and let me tell you something it was like a weight was lifted off of me.
And I cannot and will not stay quite about.
When God restores marriage we talk about!
When God saves you from your sin we talk about it.
When God delivers you form addictions why wouldn’t we talk about it.
When God take you out of the pits of sin we should never shut up about it.
When God transforms your life man we should never not be talking about it, because it is a gift we don’t deserve.
You want revival?
Show a world a transformed life.
And here is the thing, transformation should lead us to a position to hear and respond to God.
Let’s look at Isaiah as he was now being asked to go.
In the last part of this passage we see:
A sending out for The King
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
We have Isaiah who had this vision from God.
He seeing his life in comparison to a great and holy, perfect God and he realizes that he is sinful and in need of saving.
God takes away his sin.
Isaiah is ready to hear from the Lord.
He is ready to respond to God.
I would say that he is probably a little pumped up.
He may have just had a mountain top experience and he is ready to tackle the world for God.
Then God speaks for the first time in this passage and says.
Who will go for us?
The us here is most likely a hint at the Trinity- Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
God is asking this question.
He doesn’t give the details.
He isn’t layout out the 5 year plan.
It is a simple who will go for us?
And Isaiah is like SEND ME!!
HERE I AM GOD I’LL GO!
Because of Isaiah’s transformation he finds himself willing and able to do the will of God.
Isaiah answers God call is very different from men like Moses who God came to in a bush and Moses keep telling God you got the wrong guy.
and the same with Jeremiah who in Jeremiah 1:6
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”
We saw their reluctance to go for God.
Yet, Isaiah is like I’ll do it.
I have no idea what it is but let your will be done.
Transformation leads to freedom and freedom leads to willingness.
And then God tells him what is going to happen and who he is going too and what he is going to say.
Pretty much.
No one is going to listen to you.
They are not going to understand you.
Their hear are heavy
Eyes weak
But the people are not going to understand.
And their hearts are going to turn from God.
It is not very hopeful.
God tells Isaiah that the words you speak is actually going to harden hearts.
I mean if I was Isaiah, I would be like; “God, stop you are making it sound so enjoyable.”
Isaiah was going to be sent to the people of Isreal and at this point Isreal was doing whatever they wanted.
They refuse to follow God.
So now God is punishing His People.
It is a time of judgement.
They have had a chance to repent and they have failed to do so.
Those who only think of God as one who offers grace and mercy may have trouble with this.
I may even seem like it is unfair.
This is not the case.
God is judging the nation for their sin.
He is giving them over to their sin.
This is what Isaiah gets to tell the people.
Judgement is coming, you failed to repent and now God is going to punish you.
And we get to verse 11 and we see Isaiah say:
How long O Lord?
This is not an objection to God’s plan.
But Isaiah is heartbroken.
It is a cry of lamentation, of dismay.
And then God tells Him that until no one is left in the land, and the people will be taken into Babylon after this.
But in the end God still offers hope.
Even when everything is burned down— a tenth remains.
a stump will remain and out of that stump the holy seed.
We know that the Holy Seed is Christ and He came to make all things new!
And it is interesting that God is referring to a stump.
It shows that even in terrible situations that God is still God and He is still on his throne.
Yes people may not listen, people may harden hearts, and not understand, or have their eye blinded.
But out of the stump hope comes.
Did you know that even with a stump a true can grow back.
The roots have to be good, but out a stump a tree does have the ability to grow back.
Life can still come forth even in time of destruction and judgment.
Isaiah had this willingness to go to God’s people.
At the end of Christ life we were giving a task to Go to the people and make disciples and teach them.
One does not become a disciple unless they become transformed first.
This new series we are in is called Send Me.
It is done with this idea that we are to go out and share the Gospel with others.
And we started with Isaiah because Isaiah had this encounter with God that left him radically change.
His life was transformed.
And when you experience God or you have an encounter with God is it impossible to leave unchanged.
That is the business God is in.
He is in the business of changing lives.
And our response to a changed life is to be on mission for God.
And what is God’s mission?
To go tell people about Him.
That is what He told Isaiah to do.
That is what Christ tells us to do to.
God has a heart for people.
To see them— to come to understand His holiness, to see sin as a separator from Him, but to know that we have been given a free gift of freedom from sin through our redeemer Jesus Christ.
This is why we start here.
Transformation is anything but silent.
Transformation changes lives.
And going from death to life is the biggest, greatest most spectacular transformation this world could ever see.
And if you have never experienced transformation man I would love to pray with you after the service.
A year ago today, we kicked off a series called “Get in the game.”
We had a ton of momentum and passion and energy.
We saw that just because a senior pastor was missing doesn’t mean that we stay still.
We got out, we reached others, we prayed boldly, and for many of us went from being on the sidelines to being in the game.
But something, you may not know that when you are in the game, you are all in for Christ and his Gospel.
It is going to wear on you.
It is going to get you tired.
It is going to knock you down.
You are going to need a rest, you are going to need to be refreshed.
And folks the only way to do that is by daily surrendering yourself to the only one that can get you through the day.
Maybe that is where you are at.
Just tired.
Maybe you have lost a passion for Christ.
The things we are passionate about are the things that have made the biggest difference in our lives.
The greatest transformation in your life is your relationship with Christ.
But here is my real question— is your passion Christ?
And look I am not up here saying this to you as a holy then thou person.
I am asking you the question that has kept me awake the last two weeks.
Is my passion Christ?
Or does something else occupy my thoughts, my energy, my desires, my heart?
Because if my passion was Jesus— then I would talk about Jesus.
And if you find yourself here today going I really don’t talk about Jesus outside of church.
Then let me challenge you to ask the question why?
Because the why is important.
The why gets us down to the root of our relationship with Christ.
Do we follow Christ because of the cool perks— for the fire insurance— as in we could give two rips about others hearing the Gospel?
Of do we follow Christ because we have been radically transformed.
That our lives look nothing like they did before Jesus.
That even in our misery, and our brokenness we have a savior who stepped in and said— I want you and I love you.
Come follow me and let me transform you.
If that is what Christ has done for you then I beg you, I challenge you, I implore you to never stop talking about the one who changes lives and transformed your heart.
Isaiah was being sent out to a battle field where nobody was going to repent— it was a fools mission but Isaiah understand the assignment and he went.
He remained faithful and he said here I am send me.
What is your response to God today?
I pray that we respond to God like Isaiah because if we do then lost souls will notice, people notice transformation, and people want to be transformed too.
What will your response be?
Pray me: