It's a privilege to be here again. Thankful it's not been too long since I've had the chance to be here. Further, Mike mentioned our oldest daughter, Grace, is graduating this coming May, and SPU is on the very short list, and had a chance to come back and have a visit again yesterday, and thankful for that opportunity, and as my wife and I, have prayed and thought a lot about these next few years. We have four kids. They're all two years apart. So every two years after this, we'll be sending one of our little birds probably off to fly, unless they stay local for college. But one of the things that we've talked about is we've put roughly 18 years into each of them by that point. And it's our heart's desire and our intention for them, if they want our support and help, that they're going to be going someplace where they can go to a strong church. That's just part of the continuation of growth that we pray for for them, and I'd ask especially pray for my three younger ones who have not yet told of being saved. It's been a blessing to be here. As Brother Mike mentioned, I've been in Alaska for almost 19 years, and I had to miss the biggest earthquake we've had since I've been up there. And that's been kind of hard to be away from my family, because it's been a lot of craziness going on in Anchorage. But fortunately, our house was spared. And the church building, amazingly, someone went to go check on it, and they said it didn't look like anything had even moved, which was a miracle. Because all sorts of things, every place else, have moved, and roads have been destroyed. North Star, Missionary Baptist in Eagle River, just a bit north of where we're at. They did sustain some damage to their building, but they had some structural folks look at it yesterday, and so they could go ahead and have service. And so that's a blessing, but they have an older facility, and there's definitely lots of cracks in the drywall and things. So they've been having aftershocks continuing every couple hours after that. And so my wife says it's been hard to sleep, because you don't know if, again, it's going to be a big one or not. And then she called me yesterday and said, you know, we've got this big Chinook wind that's come in, and everything is warming up. And what do I need to tie down outside? Everything is becoming like an ice rink, because everything's melting, and it's in the 40s. And then today, they're supposed to have 48 inches of snow on top of that. And tomorrow, I think it's supposed to be ice locusts. And Tuesday is like a polar bear-nado. So we're just getting hit in Alaska. So please, pray for us. But it was a great, great, great blessing to me to be here with your youth weekend. I was thankful for my wife and daughter who got to come. But just personally, spiritually, it was a very blessed weekend for me. And I'm thankful, thankful to the Lord for that and to get a chance to be with you again. The thought on my heart this morning is really a question that I want to try to to look into the Word today to address how do I become a better servant of God? How do I become a better servant of God? And when you think about that and you think about a lot of the different solutions that might come to your mind, there's a lot of things that Christianity, I'll say, generally has proposed. I remember when I was in college, it was the WWJD bracelets people were supposed to wear around. Remind you all the time, what would Jesus do? I remember in college seeing a lot of WWJD bracelets on wrists and those hands doing a lot of things that Jesus wouldn't do. So that wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. And there's the Ichthys, the fish on the bumpers, right? To remind people that we're Christians and servants of the Lord, but we've probably all been cut off by one of those cars, bearing one of those symbols before. So that doesn't solve it. You know, the means of grace, the Christian disciplines, Bible study and prayer and the fellowship with the saints of God, meditating on scripture, memorizing scripture. Is that the answer? Doing those things to make us a better servant of God? What about even just the motivation itself to care enough to be a servant of God. I mean, that we actually want to go deeper. I mean, how does that happen in us? That we would have that passion that we once had for Jesus and the things of the Lord. I want to take a reading in Isaiah today, but before I get to the text, I want to go to Isaiah chapter one, verse one. and I wanna lay a little bit of context. It says, Isaiah chapter one, verse one, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Isaiah's ministry spanned part of the reign of four different kings in Judah. The first one being Uzziah. And Uzziah reigned for 52 years. And obviously Isaiah wasn't prophesying that whole time. But in the latter part of the days of Uzziah the king, he had been prophesying. And with that length of reign, Uzziah was also, for the most part, he wasn't a perfect man, he had some issues, but he was a pretty godly king, and had been a steady hand in Israel for years and years and years and years. And somewhere toward the end of his reign, Isaiah began to prophesy, and then his ministry spanned four other, or three more kings after that. And in the first five chapters of Isaiah, there is a general message that runs across those chapters, and it's pretty much this. God has been good, but you have not. God has been good, but you have not. There is wickedness. There is hypocrisy in the worship. You're coming and offering these things and doing all this, but I'm so tired of it because you're not sincere, your heart's not in it. Idolatry had crept in among the people. They were worshiping other gods. There was injustice where they were oppressing people who they could easily oppress to get gain from them. And because God had been good, but they had not, Isaiah spent a lot of time prophesying about judgment that would come upon that people. In fact, judgment was already falling upon them, even though they hadn't been given over to Assyrians or Babylonians yet, because God was allowing a lot of weakness to just creep in among the people. They could not find good leaders. They were given over to more and more folly. You know, sometimes we think judgment is just that day God rains down fire and brimstone, but judgment typically begins far before that, when God gives over a people. But in the midst of all this wickedness and this prophecy of judgment, another thing we see throughout these first five chapters is the possibility of redemption. We read even in chapter one, such wonderful passages as come now, and let us reason together. This is verse 18, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And so there is this possibility, even though they've been wicked, even though God's been good, but they have not, even though God has said judgment's coming, there's this possibility of getting turned around. In fact, Isaiah even sees a day, a far off, when there would be latter day service. That God's people would turn back and there would be a service to him. You see in Isaiah 2 verses 2 through 4, that it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, shall be exalted above all the hills, and all nations shall flow into it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he'll teach us of his ways. We'll walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And so those themes run throughout the first five chapters of Isaiah. That they've not been what they should be, that God was going to judge, but there was this possibility of redemption and God would eventually bring glory from his people. He would make them into servants. How would this happen? How would a people who did not want to serve God, but only in lip service, become true servants of God? And to answer that question, we go to Isaiah chapter six. And there we want to read the first eight verses. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne. high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims, each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I. Send me. You want to know how to become a better servant of God? I believe we find the answer to that question in this passage. You see, Isaiah had an encounter with the holy God. And this encounter was precipitated by probably what was a crisis in Isaiah's mind. Uzziah died. A man who had been a steady hand on the kingdom for 52 years had died. And now there was uncertainty. There was going to be new leadership. And even though Jotham had kind of been a co-regent the last few years because of Uzziah's leprosy and all those things, Uzziah wasn't there to keep an eye on things. And so what would the future hold? And so this loss of the king, whom they had grown to trust, no doubt troubled the mind of the man who was a prophet of God to this people. But it was in the midst of that uncertainty regarding who's in charge that God showed Isaiah who's in charge. And Isaiah had this encounter with God. And the things about this, I mean, you could go on about this for so long, and I want to try to be disciplined in sharing this so I can get to the point that the Lord has laid upon my heart. But the things that Isaiah brings out here, first is just the sovereignty of God, that God is a king. He saw him and he called him the Lord. He's called the king. He's the one who has a throne and not just has a throne, but he's sitting on the throne. He's a God who is in charge. And not only was he a God who was in charge, but Isaiah comments on the immensity of this vision of God and the temple of God. It says here in the passage that the train of his robe filled the temple. And rulers at that time didn't typically have a train that we would think of like a bride having the train on her dress. But it's speaking about the hymn of his robe. And Isaiah was saying that inside that temple, the hem of his robe completely filled the place. God filled that place. And not just the ground, but Isaiah would speak even in a few more moments about the smoke that filled that place. There was not a square inch in that temple where the presence of the Lord was not felt, where it wasn't real, where it wasn't full, where it wasn't complete. God filled that place. And then he mentions the seraphims and what they were doing. Exalted angels, in my opinion, these are the highest of angels. These are the highest, greatest created beings that exist. And what we see those angels doing doesn't speak so much about them, but speaks about God. Because with two of their wings, these greatest of created beings were covering their face because they could not bear to look upon the fullness of the God of Gods, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords in His presence. They could not even bear to look. And so they covered their face with two. And two of their wings were covering, the Bible says, their feet. And I think what's meant by that was their wings were covering their body. Meaning, in a sense, that they were not worthy to be exposed. Were not worthy to be seen in the presence of God. This is about God, not about us. And so they were covering their faces because they couldn't bear it. They were covering themselves because this is not about us, it's about Him. And the other two wings, they were flying. They were going about and doing what only they could do in the presence of God, which was to worship. which was to recognize and honor him for who he is. And their cry. Their cry. Was holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Word holy repeated three times speaks to the otherness of God. God's not like us, just bigger. God is other than us. He is of a completely different substance. He is creator and everything else is created. But He is other than us. And that is all of these highest created beings, all that they could say in the presence of God is that you are beyond. You are other. You are greater. Not just in size, but you are completely other than us. You are holy, holy, holy. And then they said that the whole earth is full of His glory, not just that temple in which Isaiah was having that vision, that heavenly temple, but the entire earth cannot contain the hem of His garment, nor the smoke of the glory of His presence. The entire earth is full of Him. Isaiah had this encounter. Now I want us to look at his response In verse 5, his response to being in the presence of God was to be abased. In fact, I think it's interesting, as I was studying this, it says here in verse 5, he says, woe is me. If we'd gone through these previous chapters, we would see just back in chapter five, he had pronounced six woes upon the nation, the Judah, because of their sin. Woe upon you because of what you've done. Woe upon you for gathering house to house and doing all these things where they were cultivating injustice. But here this prophet of God who had pronounced judgment upon the people of God for their rebellion comes here in the presence of God and he says, woe is me. Woe is me, because I am a man of undone. He says I'm undone. But I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. When he says he is undone, he's saying I am ruined. I am destroyed. I can't go on. There is nothing left in me. I have no right to stand here in this place. And the reason, he said, is because he was a man of unclean lips. And he lived among a people of unclean lips. And we know from these previous chapters that the people were wicked. That they weren't following God. But here this prophet of God in the presence of God takes an honest look upon himself and he says, I'm no different. I'm no better than them. I've been standing condemning them and it was right because God had told him to say so. But there in the presence of God, he looks upon himself and he says, I'm no different. I'm not any better. I am undone because of who I am. And what was it that caused this reaction in the presence of God? We talked about how he's holy. And God is holy. He is other than us. He is greater in every way we can think of. But the thing about the holiness of God that caused Isaiah such trouble was the moral holiness of God. You see, it wasn't just that he's in the presence of someone who's really, really, really big and infinitely big, and he's just small. That's the way God made him. There was nothing wrong in the way that God made him. It wasn't the fact that God knows everything and Isaiah was finite. Because we, at our best, only can know so much. That wasn't the thing that got Isaiah so torn up. It was that he was in the presence of one who was morally perfect in every way. And what Isaiah brought to the table was sin. Not sin that God gave him. That was not the way God made him. But Isaiah brought his own sin to the table. His fault. What he had done. What he had failed to do. And that was what broke Isaiah in the presence of God. But then, after the encounter and the embasement, it says in verse 6, Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin Purged. In this state where Isaiah was broken before God. And he said, I can't go on, I'm undone. I'm just broken, I am messed up. I'm no better than these people you've had me come to speak to. It was there that the grace of God was again applied to Isaiah. From the only place it could be applied, from the altar of God. And that coal came and touched that part of Isaiah which was unclean and cleansed it again. It was that grace of God. Just that amazing grace of God. And I tell you, I don't care how long you've been saved. You still need the grace of God today, just like you did on the day you were saved. You need the blood of Jesus today, like you needed it back on the day that you were saved. John tells us in 1 John 1.7, he says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. You see, we still need the blood of Jesus Christ. And folks, it is still grace and it is still amazing. It is still amazing. And Isaiah experienced this anew and afresh. He didn't get saved again, but he experienced that grace of God afresh in his life. And from that encounter and that abasement and the grace was a call to service. And the Lord said, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And there was Isaiah saying, send me. I'll go. You see, the same lips that Isaiah had declared judgment upon just moments before, after that renewal of that grace, Isaiah was ready to use those lips to proclaim this God to the whole nation. He was ready to go. His motivation was restored. No one had to prompt him. No one had to push Him. No one had to beg Him. No one had to say, come on, will you please serve God? Will you please serve God? Isaiah was ready to go. And I tell you, when God's people see it fresh, The grace of God. And we see our King as He is. And we see how holy He is. And we see how weak we are and remain. But yet that same God is still willing to renew us and refresh us and show us a glimpse of His glory. No one will have to prod you to serve because you're going to be ready to do what the God of God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords would have you to do. And so if you're not ready to serve, if you're not motivated to serve this God, when's the last time you had an encounter with Him? When's the last time you came into His presence? You see, Isaiah didn't have a self-confidence about himself right now, no. He was the opposite of self-confident. He had a grace gratitude in his heart. He knew, saw the magnitude of God's grace. It was so clear to him. It was so fresh to him. He was ready to go. He was ready to go. You see, Isaiah chapter six explains how the prophecies of Isaiah chapter five would happen. How is God gonna make a servant out of the people who are rebellious? by a person-by-person experience like this. Some of them need to be saved. Some of them need to be renewed. That's how it always happens, person-by-person, one-by-one, coming before God. And this wasn't something in the past, but in the present. This wasn't Isaiah's conversion. I mean, notice where this is at, and I don't believe, I've read some of the stuff that the scrolls were in different places and this is actually Isaiah's salvation or Isaiah's calling to prophetic ministry. I don't think that's what this is. I think it's in the right place. This is not Isaiah getting saved. This is not Isaiah being called to be a prophet. He was already a prophet. This is Isaiah getting renewed by God to be further doing what God had called him to do. It was a calling to deeper fellowship and greater service. And we need those things, not in our past, but in our present. We need those things. We need to encounter God like that and not just talk about when we did back long time ago. But there should be more stories of that grace appearing real and fresh to us in our life, where we're renewed to be what God wants us to be. The Bible says of Moses in Hebrews 11, 27, By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. That Moses had afresh in front of him this reality of God, the presence of God, the grace of God, the goodness of God, as God was revealing that to him, as Moses was seeking God. That is how Moses was able to serve. To really serve, to keep going. Amidst all the difficulty and all the things that pulled him in so many directions, it would have been so easy to quit. But it was the reality of the presence, the freshness of God that kept him going. He endured as seeing him who was invisible. Charles Spurgeon, I think, spoke about this a little bit. He used an illustration of going back over a building that had burned down. Talking about going back to our past and trying to relive some encounter or experience with God. Like you're going to a building that's burned down and you're raking through the ash trying to find a gym or something to make that place shine like it once did. And the point was quit trying to go rake up the ashes of the past. Seek God anew and afresh. This can happen anywhere, anytime. It doesn't have to be a vision like this that Isaiah had. You know, for Peter, it happened in a fishing boat. Jesus had came by and got in his boat and pushed out a little bit, enough to teach the people who were near there. And then he told them to push out. He was going to draw, told them to go out and fish. And they said, look, we've been doing this for a long time. We're not going to catch anything. But because you said so, we will. And so there in that boat, They put the net down and they caught a drought of fish. And Peter had the same type of encounter with God, although it wasn't this vision of a temple, but it was simply there in the boat with Jesus, him and the Lord. When he said to him, depart from me because I'm a sinful man. I mean, Peter was already saved. Peter was already saved. He had been baptized by John the Baptist. But there the Lord was with him in that boat, and God spoke to him. God showed him his power anew and afresh, and Peter realized who he was. And Jesus said to him, look, from now on, you're going to be catching men, not fish. I've got work for you to do. And finally, when we talk about how to draw near to God, how to become that servant that we need to be, we've talked about how we need to catch that vision of the grace of God afresh. And earlier I mentioned, you know, the means of grace, the Christian disciplines, the prayer and the Bible study and the memorization and meditation and the fellowship of the believers and all those things. And they are important and they are essential for a Christian life, but they are not the end. It's not, you know, the Pharisees believe that by doing all sorts of religious duties and ceremonies and traditions that they were closer to God. And so they would count the things that they did versus others and say, this makes me closer. This makes me a better servant. This makes me more spiritual. While missing the point. That the things that God has given us to do, and there are things we must do. But those things are not grace itself. They are the means by which God dispenses grace to us. They are meant to draw us toward this very thing where we encounter God anew and afresh. We draw ourself by His power into that gaze to be in the light as He is in the light. Because that is the point. It's grace. It's the grace of God. It's Jesus Christ. and coming into contact with him and being in his presence and remembering who we are and who he is. The only thing that makes and sustains a servant of God is the grace of God, the presence of God, who this God is. And my prayer for myself and my prayer for you is that we might continue to seek the presence of our God, not go through the motions and not think that we can just make ourselves better, not try to motivate ourselves artificially. But remember that first cause. And if you're not jumping out of your seat ready to serve God when he calls, perhaps you and me, we're not seeing God the way we should. I just want to say amen to the message today. We've heard the word of the Lord. I pray that God would give us an awareness of who he is and who we are, that we would be renewed in our faith and he would extend to us more of his grace and we'd be willing to do what he calls us to do. It's a good message today. Let's stand together and have a hymn. And as we sing, I'd just like for us to reflect upon God's word. At this time, I'm thankful for the message and for the messenger. I'm thankful we serve a holy God.