And as you're turning, let me pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we are weak. I am weak. You are strong. And you love to serve your people. So I pray this morning, That You would get glory from my weakness. That You would be honored as we come to Your Word. And that You would grow us by Your grace. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. 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. And 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. 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. Now this morning as we come together to consider a text that falls outside of our regular series in the Book of Mark, it's important to get some context. This is likely a passage that you are very familiar with, but I think this morning that the context is very, very important. This text And the weight of the glory of Christ and our worship have weighed heavy on me for the past few months. And I have longed to speak with you all and encourage you from God's word. This morning, we come to a text from Isaiah that I'm certain most of you have heard, yet I wonder if you have considered its context. If you flip over to chapter one, we get a little bit of the context. At the beginning of the book, God indicts His people for their worship. He is sick of it. We see this in chapter 1, starting in verse 10. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who is required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They've become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I'll hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. The people are condemned for their worship. Yet on the outside, their worship seems fervent. God speaks of the multitude of their sacrifices. He speaks of the fact that they are bringing fatted calves and well-fed animals, the best of the best. Yet their offerings are still an abomination. He hates when they gather together and feast. The one who has held the universe together since the very beginning of creation without breaking a sweat is weary from bearing the burden of his people's worship. Though they pray often and fervently, he will not listen. We see in the end that their outward devotion and practice of religion does not show up in their lack of personal holiness. God speaks of their iniquity, but it's not the root of the problem. It's a fruit of another issue altogether. And we see this actually in verse 3 of chapter 1. He says, the ox knows its owner. And the donkey, its master's crib. But Israel does not know. My people do not understand. Friends, they were doing all of the things. Perhaps they were even sincerely concerned about accurate doctrine. But they were not coming to him for their daily sustenance. Their culture, their world at large had become the place that they went to in order to find spiritual and emotional sustenance. Coming to worship at the temple had become simply a cultural thing. It's what they did. And I hope that you can see that the same risk is here with us. It's possible to get lulled into thinking that we have genuinely worshiped when we have actually been taking the Lord's name in vain the whole time. Matthew Henry writes of this, he says, the most pompous and costly devotions of wicked people without a thorough reformation of the heart and life are so far from being acceptable to God that really they're an abomination to us. It is here shown in a great variety of expressions that to obey is better than sacrifice. Know that sacrifice without obedience is a jest, an affront, and provocation to God. I'm gonna turn the mic off. Friends, where do you find comfort when you are depressed? When you're tired from a long, hard day of work, where do you turn? When you get up in the morning, what is the first thing on your mind? You see, in these emotionally vulnerable times, we turn toward those things that bring us most comfort. And what is tragic is how often for all of us, myself included, thank you, brother, it is something other than communion with God. As we prepare to consider this text, I want you to consider that the issue here was not how the people acted when they were gathered together in the temple. Rather, the issue was their lack of reverence in the rest of their daily living and the sustenance. And the lack of reverence, dependence and sustenance affected the whole covenant community. They, in the midst of the worship, in the midst of their daily living, had lost sight of who it is that they had gathered to worship. And sadly, this also included the king. We actually see this, if you flip back to Isaiah 6, you see this in verse 1. It says, 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. King Uzziah has died. He was a good king. He fought hard to get rid of idolatry in the land. He brought much reform away from paganism. But he made one mistake. Like Saul, Uzziah decided that he would give an offering to the Lord instead of relying on the priests as God prescribed in his word. We can see this as a desire to get innovative. with worship instead of leaning into the worship that God has commanded. And when he was confronted, Uzziah would not repent and was struck with leprosy. In that year, when a good king died from his unwillingness to rightly worship God, when he was surrounded by a nation of people worshiping in action alone, Isaiah enters the temple and is confronted with a vision of true worship. He sees what worship is like in the divine throne room of heaven, and it nearly kills him. Keep in mind here that Isaiah is recording what he sees, and notice that the focus of what he writes rests on the attributes of God, not Isaiah's troubles, or storms, or valleys, or any of those things, though I'm certain that he was dealing with a lot of hurt. His vision rests on who God is, and it's overwhelming. Notice first that Uzziah is dead, but God Himself is alive. Here Isaiah is reminded not to set his hope on any earthly leader. They come and they go. That is true of political leaders, but it's also true of leaders within the church. Even men who have been used in mighty ways in the church will eventually pass away. But our God is eternal. The earthly throne in Jerusalem, in a sense, was empty. But God was not moved from His heavenly throne. Here Isaiah sees with the psalmist that from everlasting to everlasting, He is God. Isaiah also sees God's authority. In verse 1, Isaiah sees Yahweh, God. But more importantly, he sees Him seated on the throne. Now, friends, we see that God is on his throne and we know that the earth is merely his footstool, but his authority here is a little different than you might expect. You see where Isaiah was looking into the temple, God's throne would have been over top of the Ark of the Covenant. His throne would have been where the part of the Ark that we call the mercy seat resides. This is not so much merely about his right to rule the nations, though that is coming as we move through the text. Rather, here we see his authority to judge all of mankind for their sin. This God who Isaiah sees is the one who struck down the last ruler for his unwillingness to repent. Yet here he sits in the very part of the throne room where his people come to seek repentance. If we are to approach this throne, if we are to come before Him, it is only through His sacrifice. There is no other way to reach this throne. No act or deed can get us there apart from the sacrifice for sin. But realize this as well. He would have it no other way. He loves to draw near to His people. He loves to forgive them their sin and to extend grace to them. What He requires is that we see rightly who He is and rightly who we are in light of His grandeur, His holiness, and we repent. This is worship. Isaiah further tells us, this God's throne is high and it's lifted up It sits higher than any other earthly authority. He turns to no one for advice or guidance. He does not concern himself with the laws of nations. Rather, He is the one that gives justice its very definition. We are reminded from Psalm 2 that all of the nations, even now, gather together against Him. They array their might against Him to show themselves mighty. The secularism of our day claims success over nature, over any need for beliefs about spiritual realities. One scholar has said something to the effect that in an age where men use electric razors and fly in airplanes, the idea of the miraculous makes no sense. But in such an age, in every age, God sits enthroned in the heavens and he laughs. You see the gathered might of mankind is nothing compared to the one who sits high and lifted up on this throne. John Piper has said it's like shooting BBs into the Pacific Ocean. It is legitimate to fear for the continued flourishing of our country. But we must remember that we are citizens of a kingdom that will not be shaken. We serve a King that does not cower behind walls and weapons, even though the might of the collected world powers. And because of that, neither should we. All of this around us that feels so consequential will be forgotten in the light of eternity. What will remain is His rule and His kingdom. Yet notice also, He is beautiful. I think that this is something that is too often missed. The one who is just and the definition of justice. The one who is loving and is the definition of love. The one whose righteousness and goodness have both of those words, give both of those words meaning. He is also beautiful. and the definition of the Word. We read about the train of His robe filling the temple, and we're told that it's a display of His authority. And it certainly is. But our God is not a miser. He is not a penny pincher. He wears rich robes that display His beauty. I love working with wood. I love the beauty that we find in wood grain. What's amazing is that we have no idea what the grain inside of a tree looks like until we cut it down and we open it up. There are types of maple grain that are a fluke, a genetic expression that we do not fully understand. They're beautiful, but we may have to open up a couple hundred trees to find one. Yet God knows them all, and they hint at his beauty. Consider all the trees that have flourished and died and have the most amazing beauty on the inside that no eye has ever laid on. Consider the myriad of flowers that no man has seen, the wonders of the deeps of the ocean that we still cannot reach, the wonders that lie beneath the earth's crust but we can only guess at. Consider the wonders of the universe with this new telescope that we see little bright spots we didn't know existed until now, but are filled with a labyrinth of beauty that would make us weep. All of these wonders were created to glorify God by echoing his beauty. And he gets glory from them, even without us knowing about them. All of creation testifies to His beauty. And so far, as we are struck with wonder at what we see around us, we're merely catching a glimpse, merely catching a hint of His beauty. His robe, the richness of which the world has never seen, filled the temple as testimony to His beauty. But notice, it's not enough that this beauty exists. The very nature of worship is that it elicits a response from those who see it rightly. We get a picture of this from the Seraphim in verse 2. 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. The word seraphim means burning ones. The Puritans believed that they were called this because of their burning love for God. In Psalm 104, it says that God makes his ministers a flaming fire and these are ministering before his throne. So maybe that's why they're called the burning ones. Some believe that they are called burning ones because, like Moses' face after he met with God on the mountain, their skin burns with the reflected glory of God. Either way, these are some of the most glorious beings in creation. Yet notice, while they are sinless, they cannot bear to look upon the glory of God. They cover their faces. They also cover their feet so as not to insult God with their uncleanness, even though they are without sin. These beings revere Him. All of creation reveres Him, except somehow His people. There's a secret here that we find out in the book of John chapter 12. As Isaiah sees God on the throne, above the mercy seat, John tells us that he's actually seeing Jesus Christ in His glory. And here is a concern I have when we think about worship. I'm afraid that in our worship we can take for granted the grace that we receive from Jesus Christ. I'm afraid that we lean so much into His humanity that we forget the glory of His divinity, or that we might assume that we'll receive grace even before we have actually repented. One Puritan had a good sense of this and wrote a prayer that contains these words, and they're hard to hear. Of all hypocrites, Grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite, who sins more safely because grace abounds, who tells his lusts that Christ's blood will cleanse them, who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for he is saved, who loves evangelical preaching, who loves churches, who loves Christians, but lives an unholy life. And then he turns to consider what this might look like practically. My mind is a bucket without a bottom, with no spiritual understanding, no desire for the Lord's day. Ever learning, but never reaching the truth. Always at the gospel well, but never holding water. My conscience is without conviction or contrition, with nothing to repent of. My will is without power of decision or resolution. My heart is without affection and full of leaks. My memory has no retention, so I forget easily the lessons learned and your truths seep away. Let this last part be our prayer. Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. It is true that the writer of Hebrews tells us that we can approach the throne of grace boldly. But boldly doesn't mean arrogantly or brazenly. What the author is getting at in Hebrews is that we have the freedom to approach the throne of God without the fear of death. that He will turn an ear to those who repent, to those who humble themselves. You see, before that passage in Hebrews, the assumption was we couldn't even get near the throne to repent. We can approach it because we have been, through the sacrifice of Christ, made part of His family and adopted. We were not born into this and there was an incredible sacrifice made so that we could even approach Him. So while we can approach the throne without fear of death, we must do so humbly, recognizing the work that the one seated on the throne did, that we might be able to come to Him. Responding to His glory, And exulting in it are the beginning of worship. Look at how the angels themselves respond in verses three and four. 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. The fact that the whole temple shakes at their proclamation does not let us get away with thinking that these angelic beings are small or weak. These are not chubby baby angels. These are beings whose own glory strikes fear into men. When the apostle John sees one, he falls down like a dead man. Yet in their power, And their glory, they recognize the glory of the Lord is so much greater than their own. And they cannot help but proclaim it. Yet they do something unique here. And you may have heard this before, but in Hebrew, if you want to be extreme about something, you repeat the word. So, when someone says in Hebrew, killing I will kill, he means, I will utterly destroy you. That's the idea. Only in this place, In one place, is there any repeated word three times? The seraphim proclaim that God is holy in such a way that it's beyond the bounds of human reason or language to express. And it's here that we get at the heart of worship. Do you know what the word holy means? We often confuse it with righteousness. But holy means set apart. It means cut off. And here we are told that God is so distinct, so different, so glorious that He is uniquely set apart. There is nothing like Him. In fact, nothing can rightly be compared to Him. To see Him is to be overwhelmed. To serve Him is to be cut off from the rest of the world. As we seek to honor and follow Him. We are made holy in some small way and set apart for His work just like Isaiah will be later. Recognizing His holiness and understanding who we are in light of it is where we begin to worship rightly. But the angels don't just call God holy. They say that the whole earth is full of His glory. If we were left with the proclamation Holy, holy, holy here. Then we'd be left thinking that the only way to see God's glory is to have an experience like Isaiah's. We need to enter a space and see Him for ourselves. But the Seraphim help us to understand that we can see God's holiness everywhere. Because the whole earth is full of His glory. Now what this means though is incredible. If worshiping God is, in some sense, recognizing His holiness, then the angel tells us that we have an opportunity to do this every moment of every day. Wherever we see evidence of God's glory and creation, we're invited to worship Him. We're invited to recognize His grandeur, His beauty, His glory, His sovereignty. We're invited to see how small we are and how amazing it is that someone as glorious as Him would stoop down and serve us. And friends, this is where we see it most clearly. Calvin tells us that in order to get this, God stooped down and he babbled at us like a nursemaid does to a baby so that we might, in some sense, comprehend who he is. He has in some ways made Himself understandable to us so that we can glorify Him. He's told us who He is. He deserves and is worthy of our service. He's right to demand justice from our sinfulness. He's right to destroy all of mankind for our wickedness, for our turning away, for our foolishness. Yet in His kindness, He stoops down and becomes our sacrifice, taking on Himself our punishment so that we might not only be reconciled, but so that we might know Him better and be welcomed into His family. We see this glory in the big things. The sun rises, the sun sets, the flowers, the trees, everything that makes us feel small. But if we pay attention, We see this glory in the small things, in the cups of coffee, the small talk with our loved ones. We can see the glory of God in chocolate and rejoice in Him even as we do the dishes at the end of a very long work week. You see, I believe that recognizing His glory in all of creation is one of the ways we turn to Him for our spiritual sustenance. Few things nourish us like gazing into His glory. And as I said before, there is no place more concentrated with His glory than His Word. What is your relationship with the Word? Do you honestly turn to it for sustenance throughout the week? If you're like me, you feed your body often enough. Sometimes even without thinking about it. But friends, Do you feed your soul? Or have you been drinking at the well of this world, finding rest in things that will not give you rest? Well, so far, we've seen two things. One, we're not naturally holy. It's our tendency to minimize our need for and reliance on God. We have the tendency to make light of the most consequential things of the universe. And two, God Himself is completely different than us. He's the very picture of holiness. And because of this, there's a problem that's entirely insurmountable. And the prophet sees this. Look at verses 5 through 7. 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." Isaiah knows himself. And He knows His people. He has seen Christ in His holiness seated on the throne and recognized the fact that He deserves to die. The angels that have not sinned cover their faces. And here stands a sinful man gazing upon the glory of God. Isaiah expects death. He expects justice. But this glorious God, this One who mocks the power of the collected human race, offers mercy. Isaiah was cleansed and it wasn't painless. His lips are touched with a cold taken from the altar. But because of that work done for him, a work not his own, he is able to stand before the glory of God and speak with Him without judgment and condemnation. Can you take that in? Stop for a moment. Don't make assumptions. Don't merely presume upon God's grace. This sinful man was able to stand before Christ in his glory and talk with him while the angels still covered their faces and feet so they wouldn't offend his holiness. How can we be so flippant, so cavalier in our thinking about worship as to allow other things mere trinkets to distract us from His glory. You see, genuine worship, true worship is rightly seeing who God is and what He has done for His people and rightly seeing who we are in light of those things and being humbled. This is also a picture of prayer. You have The ability, friends, at any moment to approach this throne and commune with your God. Do you take advantage of that? At the beginning of the book of Isaiah, Israel's worship is judged because it wholly ignores His glory. It was a mere emotionless act, even though it was costly. And it was accurate. There was no life in it. There was no recognition that we come to Him for everything. Yet, in the light of such judgments, Isaiah sees Him in His glory and is humbled to the point of expecting death. Yet that offer of atonement does not stop with Isaiah. The holy and glorious God, beautiful in His radiance, deadly in His power, unsurpassed in His authority, calls to His blind and foolish people, and He says this in Isaiah 55, Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live and I will make with you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast love for David. He could bury you under the weight of your sin. You are a pauper. We come to Him with no spiritual riches, nothing of our own, no goodness will satisfy His justice. You have no spiritual money, yet He calls you, and He tells you to come, buy, and eat. How can you purchase spiritual sustenance? You can't. But the point of this text is that he has done so for you. He sustains us with spiritual milk, the spiritual wine, his grace rightly applied, rightly recognized and rejoiced in strengthens our soul and gladdens our heart. Friends, why would you waste your time? The days are evil. The things that we work so hard for will rust away to ash and will only leave that taste in your mouth on the last day. Come to Him and find true bread. Come to the bread of life and never hunger again. As I said before, our God is no miser. He loves to welcome His people. He loves to pour out his grace in unbelievable measures. In fact, Ephesians almost calls it ridiculous. He has never been stingy. If you feel spiritually poor this morning, perhaps it is because you have forgotten where your help comes from. Perhaps it is because you've been dipping into the wells of the world for water and only finding sand. This morning come to the one who offers true health and true sustenance. Come to the one who can truly supply all of your needs and loves to do so. Matthew Henry writes this, we must part with our puddle water. Know with our poison that we may procure this wine and this milk. Friends, May we be a people who move away from flippant and mindless expressions to genuine worship where we are humbled before the glory of our Creator and find ourselves rejoicing with reverence and awe. That's actually what Paul commands our worship services be marked by, actually. Reverence and awe. For now, we must look back at the experiences of others and the promises of God's word for these things. But as we come to take the supper, we are reminded that even as he calls us to buy wine through his grace, Christ has poured it out in his sacrifice. Furthermore, he has promised to drink this cup with us when his kingdom comes in its fullness. and we truly see Him face to face. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that You would draw us to Your throne, that You would remind us of Your glory. Everything around us tells us You are small. Everything this world provides Says that your promises are empty. Lord, they tell us lies. In hopes that we'll bite. That we'll find happiness somewhere else. But we were made for you. And we can only find our rest in you. And so, Lord, help us to bow before your word. Help us to honor You. Let us be a people marked by reverence and awe for You. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.