“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.”
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; 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!” —Isaiah 6:5-8
Isaiah 6 opens with an awesome vision of the Lord Almighty seated on his throne with the train of his robe filling the temple and surrounded by angelic beings praising him, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.” Like Isaiah, when we get a clear vision of who God really is, our soul’s are exposed. We know we are unworthy, unreliable, and sinful apart from God’s grace.
There is a meaningful progession of acts in this passage that we can emulate to become vessels that God can use to carry his message to a lost and needy world. This commission is mirrored in the gospels when Jesus gave the great commission to his apostles, who then passed it on to us. Here are steps we can take to regain the joy of being messengers of God’s grace.
1. Recognize and reconsider.
Isaiah’s eyes were opened to the splendor and power of God. The very creator of the universe reveals his majesty to man. God has not left us without witness. With such a great and sometimes difficult task, God wanted Isaiah to understand who this commission was coming from. As disciples, our task is even bigger: to reach our entire world. Like Isaiah, we must understand who gives us our commission. We remember the response of the apostle Thomas after the resurrection. Jesus asked Thomas to examine his hands and side, and to stop doubting and believe. Thomas’ response: “My Lord, and my God!”
Jesus provides us with greater proof of his nature in his resurrection. The apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians, “Since we have the same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus” (2 Corinthians 5:13-14). Because of the resurrection, Jesus shared with his apostles, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Finally, in Revelation 1:12-17, we are given a description of Jesus in all his glory and splendor. Qualities like: eyes like blazing fire, feet like glowing bronze, voice like the sound of rushing waters, his face like the sun shining with all its brilliance! John’s response: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” We must remember the awesomeness of the one giving us our commission.
2. Realize and repent.
Isaiah was commissioned as a prophet years before the events of Isaiah 6. These visions called him back to his task of preaching to the Israelites about their disobedience and rejection of God’s standards and kingship over their lives.
Isaiah first confessed his own shortcomings. He says, “Woe to me...For I am a man of unclean lips” (6:5). And then interestingly, he admitted, “...and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Isaiah confessed his own sins first, and then confessed that his fellow Israelites were also sinning. He felt the need not only to confess his own sin, but to confess as a people, that they were falling far short of what God expected of them.
We need to follow Isaiah’s example and confess. I know that I’ve fallen short of the commission that God has given me. The temptations of a self-centered, comfortable lifestyle have hindered me from giving myself fully to the mission of God. Materialism, being conformed to the image of this world, yes, even being friends of the world has dragged us all away from making disciples of all nations.
Early in our movement and in our church life, our purpose of pleasing God and the mission of making disciples was forefront and the priority of who we were as a people. It reflected the joy we had in being forgiven and wanting other people to experience that same joy. We truly became a multiplying people, making disciples, who would make disciples. We gloried in God as we saw lives changed, marriages rescued, and families reunited. Our faith soared as we saw churches planted in major cities and on every continent of the world. We looked forward to every church service, expecting to hear of some great deed that God had accomplished in a life or in a church. Every lesson seemed to brim with a confidence in the power of God to break through any barrier, overcome any obstacle, and fulfill any vow.
Anytime Satan (the ruler of this world) loses ground to God, he enjoins the battle. He turned our confidence in God, to self-confidence; our exulation of God, to exalting of self; our passion for mission, to pride in our accomplishments; insteading of leading from the front, we pushed from the back; we expected to be served, instead of to serve. Satan is the great deceiver and the roaring lion seeking to devour us, and he almost did (1 Peter 5:8).
Whatever has hindered us as an individual or as a church must be identified, dealt with, and with God’s power, overcome.
3. Respond and renew.
The third step is to respond to God’s call on our lives. Isaiah 6:8 says, “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” After seeing the glory of God, and admitting his own sin, saying he was a ruined man, Isaiah was ready to move ahead. God responded by cleansing him. The Lord says, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah’s response to God was swift and unfettered: “Here am I. Send me!”
Our response to God should be no less urgent than Isaiah’s. Revelation 2 and 3 paints a vivid image of churches where disciples had drifted away from their original calling. The disciples in Ephesus (perhaps the largest church in the first century) were told, “You have forsaken the love you had at first...Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:4-5). The disciples in Pergamum and Thyatira were called to immediately repent of sexual immorality. The disciples in Sardis were told to “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God” (Revelation 3:2). The Christians in Laodicea had become lukewarm. Jesus was sickened by their apathy. God told them, “Be earnest and repent” (Revelation 3:19). In each church, there was a call to repent, an expectation to immediately respond and a return to God’s standard and renewed zeal for his cause.
Like Isaiah, we must hear the voice of God. Freely confess our guilt. Accept God’s healing forgiveness. Lastly, we must renew our mission, both personally and corporately, of being sent by God to make disciples in Houston and all the world!