Isaiah 6. This is a passage that I've looked at many times. I've preached on several different occasions. But I've never looked at it simply from the perspective of worship. And the more that I thought about transcendent worship over the last couple of weeks and what text I was going to use to preach on, this just kept coming back up. And so I want to share it with you this morning. As you know, we are between books right now. We finished the series in the Gospel of Luke, preaching through the Gospel of Luke a few weeks back. We are going to be taking up Acts. That will probably be the end of March before we get to the beginning of Acts. And in the in-between time, we are going through pretty much an eight-week series. We've entitled this, Truths on Which We Stand. Truths on Which We Stand. And we have talked about two of them so far. The first one is the supremacy of God from Psalm 29. The second one was the sufficiency of Scripture. We saw that last week from 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. And now third this morning, we want to talk about transcendent worship. Transcendent worship. Because God is supreme, these things have kind of worked together for us. Because God is supreme, that's our first truth on which we stand. And because Scripture is sufficient and it flows from Him, it tells us who He is and it also tells us now how to worship. How to worship. So the natural overflow of understanding who God is, and the fact that Scripture is sufficient, is to understand what Scripture has prescribed for worship for us from His Word. So I'm going to read Isaiah 6, verses 1-8, and we'll pray, and then we'll dive into this tremendous text. Isaiah relating his vision of Christ says this, In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings. With two He covered His face, with two He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one called out to the other, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of Him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, woe is me. For I am ruined. Because I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And I said, here am I. Send me. Father, we come now to a topic that in many ways, like other topics in Scripture, we are not worthy to address. We are in no way sufficient to offer you the worship of which you deserve. But Father, this is the place that you've called us to. And we want to give it. Our hearts are willing. Make your servants worthy. It's in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Worship, at least right worship, must begin with a right view of God, with a proper vision of who He is. No true worship can take place that doesn't fully understand who God is, or at least have a biblical perspective on Him, or at least begin to have a biblical perspective on Him. He is above all. He is over all. He is the transcendent God. And because He is transcendent, worship is the priority of heaven. It is the singular priority of heaven. And because it is the singular priority of heaven, worship is to be our priority as well. Now mark this well. Worship is not about you. It's not about me. It is not about what we want. It's about the desire of God and what He wants in Scripture as He is transcendent. He has called us to worship Him. We don't gather here and then summon Him. He has summoned His people to worship Him. So I want to offer you this morning a definition of worship that I think will play out as you see this text expounded today. And the definition of worship is this. Worship is simply to ascribe glory and worth to God and to behold His beauty. I'll repeat that for those of you who are taking notes. To ascribe glory and worth to God and behold His beauty." Many of you are familiar with the Westminster Catechism. And the first question of the Westminster Catechism is, what is the chief end of man? And the answer is, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This is worship. This is a priority to God. We find this in Scripture. When you look throughout the pages of Scripture, you find out that He devoted one chapter and 31 verses to the creation of the universe. But when you get to the book of Leviticus, and God details His worship, He has given us seven chapters and 243 verses for how He wanted the nation of Israel to worship Him. And then we come to the New Testament and we realize that God has been revealed for us in the person of Christ. And our first act of worship is the one that He has called us to. Our first act of worship is to obey God by repenting of our sin and placing our faith and trust in Christ. Do you realize that that's worship? It's our first act for every believer. Worship then is to be the theme of our lives from the moment of our salvation the instant that we die. It is to dominate who we are. We gather to worship corporately here on the Lord's Day. When we do that, we ascribe glory to our God through the reading of Scripture, through the Word preached and taught to you. We learn how to live a life that's pleasing to our God. And that pleasing life, when we leave this place and then go about the business of day-to-day living, what we would normally consider are mundane things, although for a Christian I would argue nothing is mundane. That is worship. So we come here to worship corporately, and the result is that we leave and we live worshiping lives. We are to be worshipers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As I said a moment ago, it is to dominate our lives. We are to live, we are to walk, we are to conduct ourselves with this high, holy, transcendent view of God always before us. And when we do that, there is a worshiping heart within us. Now as I said before, I had to settle on one passage to teach this. We're looking at Isaiah 6 this morning because I want you to see the transcendent worship is beyond our liturgy. And you would argue, well, we don't have a liturgy. Listen, every church has a liturgy. Whatever your order of service is, that's your liturgy. Worship doesn't begin with that. Worship doesn't begin with our order of service. Worship doesn't begin with the songs we sing. And by the way, that's a wrong misnomer. People today equate singing with worship, and then the sermon is something different. The entire service is worship. The entire service. That is a bad mischaracterization. Worship does not begin with those things though. Worship begins with the attitude of our heart. It begins with our reverence of God in our heart. In fact, the central idea this morning that you're going to see from this text is that true worship has the Lord in view and results in the full surrender of yourself to the service of God." That's what it is. True worship has the Lord in view and results in the full surrender of yourself to the service of God. I want to show you this this morning in, don't panic, six headings. You're laughing. Six. The first one is longer, the other ones are brief. Here they are. Number one, the view of worship, that's verse one. These are all the of worship, so you can just put down the first word. The view of worship, verse one. The attitude of worship, verse two. The object of worship, verse three. The perspective of worship, verses 4 and 5. The restoration of worship, verses 6 and 7. And then finally, the result of worship, verse 8. In case you didn't get those, we'll go through them one at a time. Number one, the view of worship. Look at verse 1 again. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord. sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple." This is our view of worship, beloved. This is the view that Isaiah begins with. And he gives us some context here as he begins in v. 1, because we would ask the question, why does he mention King Uzziah's death? Other than perhaps as a time marker. There's a reason. Uzziah was the king in Israel for 52 years. He had obviously a very, very long reign. There was quite a few people who would have been born, who would have lived, and who would have died, and have never known another king besides Uzziah. His reign was, by and large, characterized by a reign of prosperity. But Uzziah had a problem. His heart slowly became proud because of the prosperity that he had. so also the nation became lax with God. As the king went, so went the nation." This is given to us, chronicled for us, and oddly enough, the book of Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 26, verse 5. Speaking of Uzziah, it says, "...he continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered." Him." You drop down 11 verses to v. 16 of 2 Chronicles 26. It says, "...but when he became strong," that's Uzziah, "...when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense." Uzziah usurped the office of the priest as king and he entered the temple in order to burn incense there to God. And when he did so, the priests came and they confronted Uzziah, which would have been very difficult for them to do because he was a very powerful and very popular king. And they walked into the sanctuary of the temple. And they confronted him over what he had done. And they told him, it is not for you, O king, to do this. Why? Because God has determined who will do what and what people's roles are. It is not for you, O king, to do this. Uzziah became enraged. What does a proud man do when he's confronted? He becomes enraged. And on the spot, in the sanctuary, in the temple, God strikes him with leprosy. Leprosy. And Uzziah would now experience a very slow, painful death, separated from the rest of the nation, living in a house by himself, outside of the city of Jerusalem, and his son would rule in his place. And so this kingdom of tremendous peace meets unrest. Also, there were external threats to the kingdom as well. A serious powerful king, Tiglath-Pileser, was trying to make all of Palestine part of his kingdom, place it all under his reign, and he was marching to do so. So there was great unrest. There was great fear. And the nation looked to the king to bring them peace. The nation looked to the king to bring them stability. And Uzziah is laying in his home outside of Israel, separated from the rest of the nation, and he is dying of an aggressive form of leprosy. And as the king breathes his last, Isaiah says, I saw the Lord. Israel's corrupted heart was looking to a fallen, sinful, earthly king. Isaiah says, I saw the real king. My heart was taken up to see what I should be looking at. What I should be looking to. Isaiah says, Israel, when you are looking to this human king who is laying on his deathbed and has died, I am looking to the real King. I am looking to the Sovereign of Heaven. I am looking to the One who has unmatched, regal majesty, the Son of God Himself. Isaiah here is describing in this vision the Lord Jesus Christ. And you say, well, how do you know that, Pastor? Well, the Scripture tells me in John 12, verse 41, it says, These things Isaiah said because he, Isaiah, saw His Christ's glory, and he spoke of Him. Isaiah spoke of Christ. So this is Jesus Christ. This is God's King, God's Christ, sitting on the throne. Isaiah had gone to the physical temple in Jerusalem to worship. And while he's there, God gives him a vision. We know it's a vision because in v. 1, he says, and I saw. I saw. This is similar to John's vision in the book of Revelation. It's not like the Apostle Paul who we find out in the New Testament was actually taken to the third heaven. This is a vision that God gives him while he's in the temple worshiping. While he's there, Isaiah says this, I saw the Lord and He was sitting on a throne. Beloved, this is the throne of heaven. The throne of heaven. The position of highest honor. The position of all power. No other king has a throne like this or with this importance. And the authority of His throne is over all created things. The Lord is the sovereign Lord. In other words, He is the, as we would say it, the King of kings and the Lord over all other lords. Isaiah goes on to describe this throne of Christ He says he's sitting on a throne. He says it's lofty and it's exalted. These are two different terms that simply mean raised up high, greatly elevated above the floor of the throne room. He is literally stacking words on top of themselves to show the greatness of this king. And in their day, they understood that the higher a throne was above the floor of the throne room was the greatness that the king was trying to portray himself as having. But we know that no earthly king really has greatness. But this king? Oh, this king has all greatness. Isaiah says this king is the highest. This king is the greatest. This king has the most honor and nothing matches him. He goes on in his description to say that the train of His robe was filling the temple. It means that Jesus' robe literally flows down from Him, from His back, onto His throne, and then from the throne down onto the floor of the throne room of the temple of heaven. And the train of that robe literally fills the entire room. He's great. He's regal. He's majestic. And his room fills the entire floor of the throne room. This was another display of greatness. You say, what does this have to do with worship? Well, it has much to do with worship. The people of Israel are looking to a broken, sinful, earthly king. And Isaiah during that time is given this vision of an exalted, majestic, glorious King, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Isaiah says, Israel, you are looking to the wrong King. You are trusting in the wrong one. Your focus is in the wrong place. Your trust, your worship is to be directed to the same person who heaven worships. Because that's the vision he's about to give them, is the worship of heaven. And this is the glorious, majestic Son of God. Listen, beloved, our worship is transcendent. First of all, because of who we worship. Our worship is transcendent, first of all, because of who we worship. Our God is transcendent above all. He is transcendent over all. And when we enter the doors of this room as a congregation gathered together for worship, our gaze doesn't stay on the horizontal. Our gaze goes vertical. And our gaze goes to Him. Our focus is not on our circumstances, not on our self, not on our personal wishes or desires, not on what's going on, not on how frustrated we are with our jobs or our children perhaps, or our neighbors, or whatever kinds of circumstances are going on in our life. Our focus leaves the earthly and goes immediately to the heavenly. And beloved, if I may say this kindly, worship is not for you. It is for the King who is on the throne. This is why our worship does not begin with us. This is why our worship does not focus on us. When we come to worship corporately, it is for our lofty, exalted, majestic, glorified, sovereign Who reigns over all. And the worship service of the church is for the purpose of giving honor and glory to our great Lord. And anything that usurps that purpose is idolatry. And when we come with that perspective, we're starting, notice I say starting, with the right perspective for worship. When we come to worship with that perspective, then the anxiety and the worry that we face in everyday life, all the different things that are going on around us, and the swirling world that we have to deal with, that is taken away because you are now in awe of the One you worship. If your gaze is on Him, you have no fear because your great Sovereign has the entire universe under His control. All of it. All of it. Dear friend, if I may so kindly say this, stop looking at you when you come to worship. Here we see the Sovereign Christ. Here we see the King. He is over all. Beloved, when that is going on, yes, I'll admit your circumstances have not changed. But your perspective is radically different. And that makes all the difference in the world because you understand the God, the King that you worship. And in His greatness you have peace. In His greatness you have rest. Because your God is the glorious Sovereign King. You need to worship Him with the right understanding of who He is. Your soul needs that. That's the vision for worship. Second, I want you to see the attitude for worship. Look at verse 2. Seraphim stood above him. Each having six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. Seraphim, interesting, that word literally means burning ones. Burning ones, as in on fire. Burning ones. They are the holy, glorious angels. The term burning is often used to simply mean shining. These guys have some pretty impressive glory of their own. But hear me, even these beings exist to glorify and serve Christ. The text tells us that they have six wings. Four of them they use for covering, for shielding from the glory of God and to show respect for Him out of humility. They cover themselves. They cover their faces. They cover the lower half of themselves. Out of respect for God. They have two wings to serve. They're the humble, ready servants. They exist to serve and to show Him glory. Beloved, I want to submit to you this morning that we have the same function. And we're to have the same attitude that the seraphs have. See, when you rightly see God, when you know how glorious and holy He is, we are humbled in His presence. and the knowledge of His perfections, of His greatness, of His glory, it drives us to bow in humility. Because then we see how utterly worthy He is of worship and we understand how utterly unworthy we are to even be His worshipers. You see that in the attitude of the tax collector in Luke 18. Right? He comes to the temple to worship and on one hand you've got the Pharisee who is proud and exalting himself and even so proud as to refer to himself as God. And then you have the tax collector. The lowest scum of society. And the text tells us he's not even willing to lift his eyes toward heaven. He's shielding, as it were, his face in the glory of God because he knows he's not worthy. And he pleads with God, be merciful to me, the sinner. He knows his unworthiness. Do we remember ours? Mark chapter 1 verse 7. The greatest man saved the Lord Jesus Christ that was ever born of woman, the Scripture tells us, is John the Baptist. In Mark 1, v. 7, John says this, After me, one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I am not fit to do the job of the most menial slave of the household. Because it was the job of the menial slave of the household when somebody would come into the household, that the slave would come and they would undo the thong of their sandals. They would take the sandal off. They would wash the person's feet. John says, I'm not fit. I'm not fit to undo his sandals. When we come to the New Testament, the New Testament really has essentially two words for worship. One is proskuneo, which means basically in a position of having your face to the ground. It is an act of submission. It is ascribing all worth to whatever you are bowing down to. That's our attitude. Another word in the New Testament that describes worship is latria. It means to serve. to serve. So our attitude of worship, rather, is one of humility. The other word, latria, is our act of worship. One is our attitude. The other is our act. The attitude is humility. The act is service. And the right attitude leads to the right action, doesn't it? Beloved, understand that transcendent worship is to ascribe all worth to God. and to then serve Him on the basis of that ascription. Sunday morning here at FBC Weymouth is the service of this church by ascribing worth and glory and praise to our God. And then we hear His Word proclaimed and read so that we can obey it. Worship is not for us, beloved. Worship is for Him. I'm not saying you don't get blessed when you're here. But the blessing comes because we worship Him rightly, not because we have our personal desires fulfilled. We come to pray. We come to sing praise to God. And we come to hear Him speak to us through His Word. And the end result is like the angels, we're brought into conformity to the will of God. So the question is, are you a ready worshiper? Are you a ready worshiper? Worshiping by your humble, faithful service. The act follows the attitude, right? So the vision of worship is a transcendent Christ. The attitude of worship is humility. Third this morning, I want to show you the object of worship now. Verse 3, the object of worship and one called out to another." This is the seraphs calling out to each other. And they said, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. This is the seraphim's message. It is antithonal. What do I mean by that? You have one seraph on one side of God and one on the other. and they keep calling back and forth, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. You get the picture. And they keep doing this over and over and over again in His presence. And listen to me, beloved, they do not stop, because when we get all the way to the end in another great vision that another servant of God has given, that's the Apostle John, you get to the book of Revelation, Revelation 4, verses 8 and 9, that describes the great worship of heaven, these angels are still doing this. It doesn't stop. And so these great, perfect, wise, glorious angels attend to Christ on His throne. And while they're there and they see Him, this is just what spontaneously comes out. Holy. Holy. Holy. Holy means to be set apart for a special purpose. To be separate. To be distinct. When we're talking about God, it's talking about His otherness. His separateness from everything else. For you and me, when we talk about holiness, we're talking about us being set apart distinctly for God, for service to Him, and for His worship. We are literally owned by God. We are His. We're not part of the world system. We're His. But holiness, as we talk about God, is to be utterly separate from everything. Yes, He's sinless. Yes, He's perfect. And that is all wrapped up in the idea of holiness. But He is utterly distinct from all of creation. Set apart. Set above to an infinite degree. He is not ordinary in any way. There's nothing about Him that is profane. He is unique. He is utter perfection. He is part of a class of one. And He said above all that's created is the uncreated being. What we're talking about is the chasm between our sin and His sinlessness. The chasm between our profanity and His purity. The chasm between our failing and His faultlessness. And these angels are so uniquely impressed with His holiness. They keep echoing this back and forth from their creation throughout the annals of time. It doesn't stop. No matter how much they proclaim it, they're perpetually impressed. And so the proclamation can never be enough. Why is this given to us three times? Why holy, holy, holy? Beloved, when something is stated in the Bible, it's important. When it's repeated, it's very important. When you have something that's given to you three times, it's of utmost importance. And I believe this shows the degree to which He is holy. Each statement of the holiness of God increases the magnitude exponentially of the statement before it. And what you have here is these seraphim, these wise angels who are at the top of God's created order of the angels. And they're straining at the leash of their language to try to transcend its ability to communicate. Because there is no one else that compares to Him. Isaiah 40, verse 25. Isaiah writes, this is God speaking, "'To whom then will you liken Me, that I would be His equal?' says the Holy One." Who? Who? Who you got, God says. Exodus 15, verse 11. This is who is like you among the gods, O Lord. Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders. Ray Ortlund in his commentary on the book of Isaiah has said, His holiness is simply His godness in all His attributes, works, and ways. And He is not just holy, He is holy, holy, holy. Each word boosting the force of the previous one exponentially. Beloved, no other attribute of God is mentioned in succession three times like this. Why? Because while God is sovereign, He is love, He is self-sufficiency, He is holy in every single one of those things that's expressed about Himself. In every one of His perfections, He is perfect and has that perfection, that attribute, to a holy degree, to a degree that is infinitely separate from everything else. So when the angels speak of His holiness, they're speaking about the totality of who He is. In every way. He is not like us, just bigger, better, stronger, and nicer. He's in a different category. Nobody else even plays in His ballpark. And the angels go on then to say the whole earth is full of His glory. What does that mean? Well, it means that our God has created and His creation is the reflection of His attributes. Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2, the heavens are telling of the glory of God. Their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech. Night to night reveals knowledge. Paul said it this way in Romans 1.20, For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen. How, Paul? Being seen through what has been made. And then he adds this, so that they, that's the unsaved, are without excuse. The unsaved person is without excuse. Why? Because they look at creation, they know God exists. And they close their eyes and say, I can't see you. His glory fills all that He made, because what has been made is a display of His glory. Have we forgotten how great our God is? And could somebody please tell me when the glory of God became mundane? And could somebody please tell me why we have so easily forgotten that reverence and awe are what we owe to Him? Hebrews 12, verses 28 and 29, Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service. Remember the words we were talking about earlier for worship. You have proskuneo and lutria, which we may offer an acceptable service. Lutrio. An acceptable worship. And he says this, with reverence and awe. Why? Verse 29, for our God is a consuming fire. Some implications of this. Beloved, every part of our corporate worship is to be done with reverence and awe. Reverence and awe. There's nothing cute or trite that pleases God in worship. There is to be nothing in worship that diminishes our vision of Him. Nothing that plays to personal preferences other than His. There is to be no self-styled worship. We worship Him in reverence and awe. And the angels, you see, when they worship, what are they placing all their attention on? The perfections, the greatness, the glory of our God. None of this is about anybody but Him. For worship to be the focus of anyone else, to draw our attention away from God, is a egregious sin. Every part is to reflect His holiness. Every song is to extol Him and His glory. Every part of the service is an expression of what God has authorized. By the way, does anybody remember Nadab and Abihu? Do you know who they are? Two guys in the Old Testament that were priests. Lived all their life to prepare to become priests. In Leviticus 10, verses 1-3, it says this, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire..." We don't know exactly what the nature of that is, but they were worshiping God in a way that He did not authorize. "...offered strange fire before the Lord which He had not commanded them." How did God respond to this? Oh, it's okay. That's just what they wanted to do. We'll let them do it their own thing. Is that how God responded? And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. You think they thought he was a consuming fire? And they died before the Lord. You bet they died. Then Moses said to Aaron, it is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. And before all the people, I will be honored. So Aaron therefore kept silent. These were his sons that died. You bet he kept silent. They tried to worship God in a way that he hadn't commanded. What's their basic sin? Moses hit the nail on the head. He hit the nail on the head because God said, I will be treated as holy. Isn't that what he said? What's the attitude that he desires when we worship reverence and awe? Because he's holy. Do we remember His holiness, I wonder, not just when we're here, but when we leave this place and are serving Him in our daily life? God is awesome, and we gather to worship Him in reverence and awe, and then we leave this place to live all of our life as an act of worship. Beloved, do not forget that. The object of our worship is God. Therefore, we worship Him in reverence and awe. I want to show you the perspective of worship. Look at verse 4. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled. But the voice of Him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. And I said, what was me? For I am ruined. Because I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. Why does Isaiah know that? For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isn't that what he says? This is the perception of us. This is the perception of self in light of who He is. And in v. 4, everything you find there, those are all the symbols of judgment. Earthquakes shaking. Smoke which comes from fire. These are all the symbols of judgment. But what in this environment, in the environment of heaven, the perfect holiness of heaven, what in that environment could possibly cause this type of reaction from God? What in this perfect heavenly landscape could possibly offend Him? There's a guest in heaven that day, isn't there? Isaiah. It's Isaiah. The seraphim are the burning, glorious, humble servants of God. They exist to serve. Isaiah is a sinner. And I think if I'm Isaiah at this point, I'm looking for a rock to crawl under. some way to get away from the perfection of God. I mean, this is disturbing, beloved. Imagine if I'm Isaiah and this minute my palms are sweating, my heart is beating heavy and quick, and it's pounding in my chest like a drum. You can't catch your breath. Your strength is gone. Your knees are weak. Other places God describes people who stand in front of Him as He is displaying judgment as like men who have their hands on their knees like a woman giving birth. Terror. Beloved, right worship of God always reveals our sin. Always. Because when you rightly see who He is, you know His perfection and you know you're not. It always reveals our sin. It always reveals our need for repentance. And if you quote-unquote worship and you're not convicted, and you quote-unquote worship and you don't see the perfection of God, you're not awed by Him, and you don't see your need for repentance, then you're not as near to God as you think you are. Nearness to God is glorious. It is beautiful. But it is awesome and requires repentance from those who draw near to Him. Response of this worshiper in heaven? Verse 5, what's Isaiah say? Woe is me. What's that mean? Worthy of hell. Condemned, damned is me. This is the prophet proclaiming the sentence of hell upon himself. That's what he's worthy of. These are the first words that Isaiah speaks in the presence of Christ. And it's a prophetic woe upon himself. This is not the prophet who struts into God's presence for the first time Isaiah truly worships God. These are words of a soul that has seen itself in the light of divine holiness. And he rejects the glib, the trite, the attitude of his age. It was all around him everywhere toward God. Everyone in Isaiah's day was full of thoughtlessness, of repetition, of excuses when it came to God. I'm a man of unclean lips, I live among a people of unclean lips, we're all the same. For the first time Isaiah truly sees himself. Because he truly sees God. You do not truly understand who you are until you rightly see God. Isaiah said, I've seen who he is, therefore I know who I am. And the pride of my mouth is silenced. I am ruined, he says. That word ruined literally means silent because I've come to the end of myself. I can't respond. I have no response. I have no defense. My boasting is done and my conclusion is I deserve hell. He is unclean and at the most holy part of himself he's unclean. He is the prophet who delivers the messages of God and he understands that his mouth is unclean and that it is in fact a highway directly to his heart. In Matthew 12, v. 35, Jesus said, "...for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart." And Isaiah says, I'm ruined. This is terror. In Habakkuk 3, v. 16, it says, I heard and my inward parts trembled. At the sound my lips quivered, decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble." Why does Isaiah know this? Because he's seen the King, right? I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. Why Isaiah? Because I've seen Him. I've seen the King! Not King Uzziah dying on his bed because of his sin, but THE King. God's Christ. He's perfect. Right worship always flows from a right view of who God is. Nearness to God is true worship. But it brings us to an attitude of brokenness over our sins. And if you're near to God, your pride is obliterated. And so we confess our sin and there's sorrow over it. Job 42 verses 5 and 6, Job says, I've heard of you speaking to God. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you, therefore I retract. And I repent in dust and ashes. Isaiah can't flee from the presence of God. So he confesses his sin. This is just what comes out. He can't ignore it. He can't deny it. It's just the truth in the presence of this holiness. That's the perspective of worship. Fifth, I want you to see the restoration of worship. Look at verses 6 and 7. It says, one of the seraphim flew near to me with a burning coal in his hand. from which she had taken from the altar with tongs. And He touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." Oh, Isaiah was crushed. He was broken. God doesn't leave him there, does He? He doesn't leave him that way. He heals him. If you humble yourself and see the holiness of God and repent, He heals. And that's what happens when we come to worship. We're given a view of God by the preaching of the Word and through the songs we sing. And in our heart, we realize who we are in light of the greatness of who He is. And we bow and confess our sin. And what does God do? Leave us there broken? Crushed? Never. He causes us to see our sins so we can confess and reject it. And then we realize we've got to repent in the presence of God and seek His forgiveness. Why? Because He wants a holy people who reflect Him. So the seraphim peels off from his place of worship. He takes tongs and he picks up one of the coals from the altar of offering. And he presses it against the most sensitive part of Isaiah's body. There's more nerve endings in your lips than any other part of your body. And I think that symbolizes, friends, that repentance, the forsaking of sin, is painful. It is hard. It requires death to self. But look what this does. Does it kill Isaiah? No. It purifies him. It purifies him. It makes him ready to serve. And I think what you have going on here is a picture of the redemption that's been provided for us and the forgiveness of sin that we have in the person of Christ. God forgives you because of what Christ has done. And metaphorically speaking, the call of forgiveness is applied to you, but Christ is the one who took the heat, isn't he? True confession, true repentance restores you to God. Christ took the penalty. That's what happens when we truly worship. We see our sin, we confess, repent, we're restored. That's the restoration of worship, and God honors the humble, contrite heart. Sixth, and very quickly, we have the result of worship. Look at verse eight. It says, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? That's an implication of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit. Then I said, Here am I. Send me. The Lord says, who's going to go for Me? Who understands My holiness? Who worshiped Me? Who has seen My great holy glory? Who has humbled Himself in My presence? Who will go represent My holiness to this world? Now what's Isaiah's response? His response is, here am I. Send Me. Now beloved, this morning I want to ask you a question. And I think you know what the question's going to be. You came to the house of God this morning to worship. You have seen the glory of God. You have trembled, I hope, in His presence. You have confessed your sin. And by the grace of God, been restored. And now God asks, whom shall I send? Who will go for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? What's your response? Here am I. Send me. Here am I. Send me. Father God, this morning, we pray as we've been brought near to this incredible throne of yours. And through your Word, seeing you and your holiness. That it has had the same impact upon us that it has had upon the person of Isaiah. And we realize that transcendent worship isn't about the magical mix of music and song and lights or this or that or whatever. Transcendent worship comes because we worship a transcendent God. And it starts in the heart. So Father, we pray this morning that as we have worshiped you here, that we would now go out of these doors to worship you this week. Here we are. Send us. for Christ's glory. Amen.