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Introduction:
The best times for worship are sometimes in the middle of crises or disappointments. Here, amid the crisis of King Uzziah’s death, Isaiah learns something about the impact of worship and holiness on our hearts.
A pastor once spoke to a discipleship group on the attributes of God. He began by asking them to list God’s qualities in order of importance. They put love first, followed by wisdom, power, mercy, omniscience, and truth. At the end of the list they put holiness. That is surprising because the Bible refers to God’s holiness more than any other attribute.’’ The Bible doesn’t generally refer to God as Loving, Loving, Loving! Or Wise, Wise, Wise! Or Omniscient, Omniscient, Omniscient! But over and over we read the cry of the angels, Holy, Holy, Holy!
I. Unholiness is revealed by worship.
Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne gave him a horrible sense of his own unworthiness and sinfulness, and it does the same for us. The Lord’s presence makes us aware of our sin. We feel ‘‘undone’’ and ‘‘unclean’’ like Isaiah. But the Lord meets us at our point of need by purifying us. God sent an angel with a hot coal to touch Isaiah’s perceived point of unworthiness…his lips. Had he felt his hands were unclean, the Lord would have touched Isaiah’s hands. The fire of the coal brought regeneration to the place of impurity Isaiah was most sensitive to. The ‘‘fire’’ of worship:
A. Refines. It burns out the residue of what’s unworthy.
B. Consumes. It takes the bondage out of our lives and burns it up.
C. Melts. Our hearts are made soft.
D. Warms. Our cold hearts are thawed.
E. Ignites. When we’ve turned off, He turns us back on. What is the point of your greatest weakness? If we will come to God, in the midst of His holiness, His purifying fire will touch us at that point.
II. Holiness is activated by worship.
Every time we hear praise going on around the throne of God, we hear, ‘‘Holy, holy, holy!’’ The focus is on God’s holiness. We tend to think of holiness as the purity we are trying to achieve, and that God will reject us if we don’t. Even among people who genuinely love the Lord, there are those who draw back because they feel unholy, unworthy. There’s a natural inclination to avoid worship because of feelings of unworthiness. But the Lord wants us to worship Him because it is there we will find wholeness. There is a root relationship between the words whole, healthy, wholeness, and holy. When we talk about holiness, we are talking about wholeness. Holiness is God’s entirety entering my incompleteness. The only way for that to happen is to come into His presence.
III. Wholeness is restored by worship.
The word ‘‘worth’’ comes from axios, which originally described a coin of full weight. In the ancient world, the coins were made of valuable metals which wore thin rapidly, causing the coin to lose some of its value. That’s how Isaiah felt. But God calls us to worship in His presence in order that a transfer of His being into us may take place. Then the worth that has been worn off the coin of our lives—His nature within us— begins to be restored through worship. Worship is the situation in which wholeness is restored. Because of God’s worth poured into us, we become worthy.
IV. Mission is found in worship.
The mission of our lives is also found in worship. After the angel purified Isaiah’s lips, the Lord gave him a mission. You can only find your direction and intended purpose in the context of worship.
Conclusion:
Just as we inherit certain characteristics from our biological parents, so, as we worship, the image and nature of our heavenly Father begins to manifest in our lives. My likeness to my heavenly Father comes from being in His presence. The fact that God is holy relates to our healing and restoration, not our shame and condemnation. His life is already in us, and we will be holy because He is our Father, and He is holy. That’s a promise (1 Pet. 1:16).
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