Here Am I Send Me

Introduction

You may go ahead and be turning in your Bibles to Isaiah the sixth chapter. Isaiah chapter 6. I’d like for us to take our lesson for the evening from this text. We read in Isaiah the 6th chapter and in verse 1 that in the year that King Isaiah died, and that’s how the chapter begins. I’ll give you a little background on King Azia. We read about King Isaiah both in 2 Kings 15 and also 2 Chronicles chapter 26. Sixteen years old when he became king. And he was a righteous king. God favored him because he followed in the ways of his forefather David. And so because of his righteousness, God gave him deliverance from all of his enemies. In fact, it was a time of prosperity for the southern kingdom of Judah.

They had victory against all their enemies. And as the text in 2 Chronicles chapter 26 states, that Isaiah grew strong. And it’s at that time that Isaiah, who had not known defeat, began to think of himself more than he ought.

Problem though. The kings weren’t supposed to offer the incense to the Lord. He is not from the tribe of Levi. And so Azariah, the priest, comes into the temple with 80 strong men, who are also the tribe of Levi, who are priests and they’re men of valor, the text states. And basically they say, What are you doing? Are you mad? Are you crazy? You know you’re not supposed to offer incense to the Lord. But Uzziah has placed confidence in himself, has placed confidence in his own strength, and he is determined that he is going to offer incense to God. So he becomes angry. And the text simply states that as he becomes angry and as he has the pot of incense in his hand, leprosy breaks out on his forehead.

And he will spend the remaining of his years away in a house, still functioning as a co-regent, his son also serving as king, but not being able to be out with the people. Here is a man, though at 16 years of age, began to rule over God’s people, and God had given him victory after victory after victory, and now he cannot even go out of his own house.

And Judah is headed for bad times. In 2 Kings chapter 15, we read of the people during the days of Isaiah that even though Uzziah was a good king, the high places were not torn down. And so the people were continuing to offer sacrifices on the high places. That means they are offering sacrifices not necessarily to Jehovah, but to idols. And so we’re in a time when it does not matter how righteous the king is. When you’re in the time of David, and the king is righteous, the people are also following after the example of the king. Those days have gone by now. The people are not going to follow Jehovah just because the king follows Jehovah. And that will be a common theme throughout the rest of Judah’s history.

Hezekiah is going to be a good king, and yet not all the people are going to follow after Jehovah because Hezekiah does. Josiah, later on, will be a good king and institute many, many reforms, and yet not all the hearts of the people will be turned to God. We’re in black times, dark times. We’re 18 years before Israel will be taken into captivity. Uzziah the king died around 740 BC. 722 BC, Israel, the northern nation, ceases to exist. And Judah almost ceases to exist. In fact, it’s at this time that the Assyrian king can write that I have the king of Judah, Hezekiah, I have him shut up like a bird in the cage. Dark times for the people of God. But it’s at this time that Isaiah has a vision, sees something, as is recorded in verse 1 of chapter 6 of Isaiah.

1. Holy Is the Lord of Hosts

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 threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. Can you imagine seeing that? Here is the Lord, so majestic that not just that the Lord fills the whole temple, just the train of his robe fills the temple. So majestic and so mighty that these seraphim, these angelic beings who are hovering there and are crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord, that they have two wings with the sole purpose of covering their faces, because they’re not worthy to look upon Jehovah God.

Two wings that are devoted solely to covering the feet because they’re on holy ground.

So majestic that the foundations of the thresholds shake when the Lord speaks.

2. Woe Is Me, for I Am Lost

Verse 5. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost. Some translations here will say undone. Others translate other translations will say destroyed. It’s the same word that Hosea the prophet uses in Hosea chapter 4 and verse 6 that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. It is the coming of an end. And so Isaiah the prophet says, Woe is me, for I am lost, I am undone, I am destroyed, 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. Can I say to you that this is not an uncommon reaction for people who are in the presence of God? In Deuteronomy, the fifth chapter, Moses reminds the people of when Jehovah descended upon Mount Sinai as he was giving them the law.

And how as Jehovah had spoken the words of the commandments, and the people said, You go up. We can’t listen anymore. You know, the Ten Commandments were spoken in the hearing of all. All of Israel heard the Ten Commandments uttered by the mouth of God. But after that the people said, We cannot bear anymore. You, Moses, you go up and you hear the word of God. That was the reaction when you’re in the presence of God. Joshua, the leader of the people, as they crossed over into the land of Canaan, we read in Joshua chapter 5 that as the commander of the Lord’s army appears to Joshua. Joshua cannot help but fall down before him. It’s a common reaction. You do not stand in the presence of God.

You cannot stand in the presence of God. For he is holy.

3. Your Guilt Is Taken Away

Verse 6. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal. And 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.

4. Here Am I. Send Me

No. We don’t read any bad things about Isaiah’s character. But God doesn’t say, no, you’re okay, you can stand in my presence. None at all. God cleanses him. And in this vision is by the means of taking one of the stones from the altar and purifying his mouth. So now you’re clean. Whereas you were unclean. Isaiah had every right to say what he said in the presence of God, because it was the case. It was the truth. And God didn’t shy away from letting him know that, yes, that is the case. You are not worthy to be in my presence. But then we read in verse 8. And here’s the main point of our lesson. And 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 I think we can see exactly why. How can you be in the presence of God and be smitten by with who God is? To see him. And to know that you’re not worthy. And then God make you clean. And now the call comes out. Who shall we send? What can you say other than, Lord, here am I? Send me. And no, he doesn’t even know what the task is. He’s not told, here’s what I need, here’s a new, here’s who I need to be sent to. Here’s the mission. No, I just need people to go. I’m here. Send me. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.

And he said, verse 9, 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 eyes 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. Here’s the mission, God says. Here’s what you’re going to do. My people have already turned against me, but you’re going to go anyway. And while the language sounds harsh, and it is harsh, and our Lord will use the same language when speaking of the people of his day as he lived on the earth. The point is this. God’s people had already demonstrated it. They did not care for what God had to say.

They had already turned a deaf ear and a blind eye. Doesn’t mean God wasn’t going to send the message anyway. And they would continue to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye. But God was going to send the message anyway. That’s your mission, Isaiah. You think that’s a pleasant mission? You think that’s a pleasant thing to look forward to to know that you’re going to be sent to your people and they will not listen to you. But you go. And so Isaiah cries out, verse 11 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. The forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

And though a tenth remain in it, it’ll be burned again. Like a terabyth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump. Until it’s done. That’s how long. Until it’s done. Until my judgment comes, and my righteous judgment, my righteous punishment thou will inflict on the wicked comes, and the righteous remnant are preserved. That’s how long.

5. We’re All Being Called

You go from being in the presence of God and being smitten by how sinful you really are to how gracious and kind God is in allowing you to be forgiven. And then what flows from that is just the simple desire that God needs people. He needs someone to go. I’ll go. And God has a message. God has a plan. God has a mission. In this building tonight are Christians. Christians who, at some point, knew that they’re not worthy of God. They came to the same realization that Isaiah did at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 6. They knew that we’re in the presence of God, and we are. And while I don’t see him, and you don’t see him, he’s still there, just as he was in Isaiah.

The robe, the train of the robe still fills the temple. The seraphim are still there, and they’re still not worthy to uncover their faces in the presence of Jehovah. They’re still not worthy to uncover their feet in his presence, and they’re still crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And the voice is still booming and it shakes the foundations of the earth. And you don’t see that. I don’t see that, but he’s still there. And we, Christians, we came to that realization. We came to the realization that God is the one who’s in control of this world, that God is in control of me, and I’m not worthy. I am undone. I am finished. And so we’re the ones who came to God.

And God cleansed us. And the vision, it was by taking a stone from the altar and purifying the mouth of Isaiah. For us, it was through the blood of Christ. It was through baptism. It was through our faith.

We are saved by grace through faith. But not of ourselves is the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. For you are, we are, his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. What that passage in Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 tells me is that we all, all of us, every single one. We’re all being called. God is saying to each and every one of us here, who shall we send? And each and every one of us here should, in the same words of Isaiah, be saying, Here am I, Lord, send me. I’m not talking about my trip to Russia. That’s what I was saying earlier. It’s not about that. That’ll be over in three weeks. It’s not going to be any hardships.

6. Look Around: Who Shall I Send?

I enjoy the people. They enjoy me, I think. It’ll be good to be with the brethren. There’s nothing spectacular. There’s nothing worthy of glory that I’m going to be doing. That’s three weeks out of a year. Three weeks out of my life. It’s nothing. But what God is asking each and every one of us tonight is who shall I send? Take a minute, look around the auditorium. Seriously. Take a minute. Look around the auditorium. It’s not as full as it was this morning. It’s never is. There’s a reason for that. Some of our brethren are physically hurting. It’s an effort. It’s an effort to be here on Sunday morning. And they’re here because they love to be here. They cannot be here Sunday night. God is saying, Who shall I send?

To those who are ill, who are sick. Who shall I send? And if we’re impressed with the presence of God and how unclean we were and thankful for the purification that God has offered, we all, each and every one of us ought to be saying, Here am I, Lord. Send me. There’s not a soul here. Can I share with you a conversation I had with the Heinleys a couple of weeks ago as I was visiting with them in their home? This is for the young. When we think of our obligations to each other, and we we don’t, we think, we always think in terms of what can the old do for the young. Well, I want to tell you something that the young did for the old.

The Heinleys and I was in there talking with them, and Sister Heinley says, Show Josh the cards. And Brother Heinley brings out these two cards that he had on his table right next to his chair. So I know they’d been there. He hadn’t done anything with them. They have been there. Right close to where he sits. And they were from two of our teenagers from this church. And he beamed. Sister Heinley beamed. Because here were two young Christians who took time to write, hey, we’re thinking about you. That was two Christians that said, Here am I, Lord. Send me. They looked around. They were told, Brother and Sister Heinley, could use some encouragement right now. Well, here am I. Send me. You don’t think of that as much.

I don’t think of it as much. I can sit down tonight and write out ten cards. It doesn’t take that much time. But it means a lot. Look around the room. There’s all kinds of people who are not here because they’re hurting. They’re hurting physically. There are some who are here because they’re hurting spiritually. Seriously hurting spiritually. And they don’t know what to do. They part of them wants to be at worship services with their brethren. And the other part says, I just don’t think I can go. I don’t think I can live up to what others are. Here am I, Lord. Send me. There are some who are not here tonight because it’s not important. I hate saying that.

We’ve worshiped already today. We’ve studied God’s word already today. Don’t we know that there are all kinds of things we need to be doing? Here am I, Lord. Send me. It doesn’t mean that you have to go and you have to talk with that person for two hours and you have to explain in detail from the scriptures, what God’s expecting of them. That’s good if you can. But sometimes that just means that you give a call. Say, we’ve missed you. Sometimes it just means that you invite them into your home for a visit. Let them know you care. Maybe it’s the fact that they just don’t feel that they’ve found a place yet. We struggle with that. Everyone does. New people come in, but we know the old.

We know each other. We don’t know the new. And unless they’re just out there and they’re really interjecting themselves into places, they get lost. And that’s not a black mark on the church here. It’s just common. It happens across the world. It’s hard bringing in others whom you don’t know. But God’s saying, who shall we send? There are brothers and sisters in Christ out there who need encouragement, who need help. And so we say, Here am I, Lord, send me. Let me send a card. Let me call. Let me just say after Sunday morning services, do you have a minute? Would you like to go to Don Pablo’s if you like Mexican food? Or we can go to Cracker Barrel if you don’t. It’s not too hard.

Christianity is not too hard. It’s pretty practical when you come down to it. That’s what God’s asking. Look around. Who do you not see? Group two is going to meet tonight. They’ve got some work to do. But so do the rest of us. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is. It doesn’t matter which week it is. Whose group is supposed to meet this week. I have work to do. I’d like to issue a challenge. Next month.

Invite one person to your home whom you’ve never invited before, whom you’ve never eaten with before. I’ve got a list of about, I can’t tell you how long the list is that I’ve not just haven’t invited them into our homes that I haven’t said, let’s go out and let’s go have a meal together. Let’s let’s get to know each other. I gotta get started on that list. But you know what? You don’t take the whole list at a time, do you? You take one name. Remember what Brother Albert was saying this past week about constantly resetting your goals? Well, have it as your this your goal this month. I’m gonna invite one. And do it. And when next month comes around, you reset the goal. I’m gonna invite another one.

Or maybe I’m gonna invite two. And then you move on. Because God’s saying, who shall we send? And we should be saying, Here am I, Lord. Send me. Tomorrow you’ll be going to your workplaces. Tomorrow, some will be going to school. Here am I, Lord. Send me. I feel. I really do. I really feel for our teams. As I was talking with Brother Klein tonight before services began, I remember when I was in high school, and it was only 10 years ago. I graduated 10 years ago. And yes, there was talk about sex and these kinds of things. But when I was 16, kissing a girl was a big deal. That was.

I didn’t have to deal when I was 12 or 13 or 14. And thinking about what they have to deal with today. And it can be discouraging. I know some of our teens, they get discouraged. And you think of what’s out there. And you’ve got to go back to it tomorrow. Here am I, Lord, send me. Again, it doesn’t mean that when someone says something like that in front of you that you got a lecture for two hours, it doesn’t mean that. But you show them that’s not what you’re about. You turn away, you walk away. They may not care about you, but it may impress somebody else. It may impress one of your classmates who feels the same way you do about the issues of the day.

And they just want to know that there’s someone else they can stand with. You show them you’ll stand with them. You be their friends. Here am I, Lord. Send me. You’ll go to work tomorrow. Or maybe if you don’t work, you’ll see someone tomorrow. And you may have an opportunity just to give them a flyer. Give them an invitation. Not much. But God’s asking you to go. And you say, Here am I, Lord. Send me. And again, that whole idea of resetting your goals. You invite one this week, and then next week you say, I’m going to invite another one. Or next week, I’m just going to show an act of kindness. So that perhaps later on that’ll lead to an opportunity. Don’t know. But that’s what God’s asking.

Conclusion

I once read in regards to church growth, and I don’t pay a lot of attention to books on church growth because really this is the one that tells you how to grow a church. It’s God’s church. It’s Christ’s church. And if it’s going to grow, we’ll do it by his methods. But sometimes I read a little bit, but there was one thing that really impressed me. And this man said, really, the true measure of a church is not by what you have coming in, it’s by who you have going out. That really is the case. We can open the doors and we can have people come in, and that’s what we want. What’s more important is what are we sending out? Who are we sending out?

What kind of a mission are we sending people out with? You’re sending me off tomorrow for three weeks to Russia. That’s just one person, though. There’s a hundred plus others here tonight who are going out tomorrow, and you’ve got a mission too. It’s just that mine’s maybe a little clearly more clearly defined. I know where I’m going. I know what I’m going to do. You may not know what tomorrow brings, but you’re on a mission. And God is asking, who shall we send? And you have to say, Here am I, Lord. Send me. I don’t know if this has been necessarily a sermon or a pet talk. Maybe a little of both. But it truly is an honor. It’s an honor to be associated with Christians.

It’s an honor to be sent by you. And I look forward to telling my brethren in Russia about you more. But you share the same honor every day. You go out. And you come from God. You go with a mission. And you say, Here am I, Lord. Send me. What can I do today? What’s the one thing I can do today? And there will be something. You can trust in God that he will show you something in that day that you can do. It’s a privilege to be a Christian. It’s a privilege to have God as a Father. It’s a privilege I too often overlook. It’s a privilege that God extends to you this evening if you’re not yet a Christian. The privilege to become one.

To have sins forgiven. To be purified, even as Isaiah was purified. Understanding that God is holy. And you’re in the presence of God. You can become holy tonight through the blood of Christ. Through your repentance, through your faith in Christ, that He will forgive, that He is the Son of God. And by being baptized for the admission of those sins, you’re pure. All you have to do now is answer the call. What can I do today, Lord? Maybe you’ve done that. And like me, sometimes you just forget. You just forget about the privilege it is to be of service to God. Or is it one time you could only quake in fear in the presence of God? Now you can humbly say, Here am I, send me.

What can I do? You’re a servant now, a servant of God. Maybe you’ve forgotten that. We all do from time to time. There’s not a one here who doesn’t. Resolve to change that tonight. Look around the room again. Say, that’s my goal this week. Brother or sister so-and-so is my goal this week and meet it. And then next week, say, brother and sister so and so are my goal for this week and meet it. Here am I, Lord. Send me. Would you like the privilege of being a Christian, of being a servant to God? You can have that privilege even tonight if you would only respond to the gospel call as we stand and as we sing.