HERE I AM. SEND ME!

Chris McCurley: Here I am. Who do you think about in the Bible when you think about or hear the words, Here I am? I think about Isaiah, and that might just be because he is my favorite prophet. But as I studied in the Bible, I wanted to understand more about these words, Here I am. And what was behind the words? Here I am. The who, what, and why. I found that Abraham said those words, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, and Isaiah. They all said, here I am. Wow, that's interesting. Is there something there? I wondered. And then I thought, could the word here represent a location? And could the word I represent a relation? vertical relation. And what might follow a location in a relation may be an expectation. The Hebrew words for, here I am, mean literally, behold. I am present! Can I have your attention? Behold, I am present. So what comes next? What comes next when you say, I have your attention, I'm here? Maybe that expectation. I wanted to go through tonight with you and what I had found. Originally, I thought I might stay in Isaiah and really expound upon the few verses in Isaiah 6, but I was captivated by what I found in other places. And we'll certainly get to Isaiah tonight, but I'd like to start, if that's okay with you, I'd like to start with Abraham. Look at Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22 and the first of four verses we go back to Abraham the Hebrew, the patriarch. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Now, I would like to, each time we're reading the words, Here I Am in our Bible, I'd like to find the location. I'd like to find and describe the relation. Then also look for an expectation each time so here we're looking for the location of Abraham if you were to go back to the end of Chapter 21 you'd find that one of the last name places mentioned was beer Sheba and so Abraham location wise Beer Sheba is where he was called and he gave the response here. I am But God called him to the route of Jerusalem. Now the relation here between Abraham and God, this is interesting, Abraham is known as a Hebrew. He's known by the surrounding people as a Hebrew. He is a monotheist. He believes in the one true God and he worships the one true God. He makes sacrifices in the name of the Lord. He called on the name of the Lord in chapter 21 in verse 33 at the very end there. He called on the everlasting God. And so this is the relationship that Abraham has with God. The Expectation. Go to Mount Moriah. And many scholars believe that that would be the future ground of the Temple Mount. Mount Moriah. That is of course in Solomon's time when they built the temple. And it was positioned there as a structure instead of a tent. And not only did he tell him to go to a place, but the expectation was to do a really hard thing. That son that God had promised Abraham that he had waited for for so long, he was going to have to sacrifice him there. And it wasn't as if Abraham lived in Moriah and would walk out the door and sacrifice his son. He had to think about it in travel for three days that he was going to sacrifice his son. Imagine that. That's a hard thing to do. Wow, here I am. ⁓ let's look at the next one. Genesis chapter 46. Genesis chapter 46, first four verses. So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And just so we were clear, Israel, his other name was Jacob, or Jacob's other name was Israel, so we're talking about Jacob. Verse two, and God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, here I am. And then he said, I am God. the God of your Father, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes. God calls Jacob and he responds with, Here I am. Where's the location, Beersheba? What's the relationship between Jacob and God? Well, the Bible says in verse 46 that Jacob was in Beersheba and he was offering sacrifices in chapter 46 verse 1. He was offering sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac. His grandfather, Jacob. I mean his grandfather, Abraham. So Jacob is offering God sacrifices. He's worshipping. the one true God. So we have this relationship, this vertical relationship, this worship. And God calls to the man of God, he calls this man who's worshiping him and he says, go to Egypt, I will be with you. I love that promise. I will go down with you. I love that. It's interesting to me that these first two circumstances are not only Similar and geographical location of the response here. I am but these two these these first two men Abraham and Jacob Absolutely deal with a father-son relationship Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph and a physical journey to get to a different place. Alright, let's look at the next one. Let's look at Exodus chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3, you are familiar with this. We're going to read a few more verses to catch some context and then we'll explore what we find here. Chapter 3 beginning in verse 1, Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush. He looked and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I'll turn aside to see this great sight, why this bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parasites, the Hibites, and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me. and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." Location, where are we? Mount Horeb, as described as God's mountain. I wonder if this is the same Mount Horeb in Deuteronomy 5. where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, otherwise called Mount Sinai, just like Jerusalem and Mount Zion are the same. It's the same geographical location. Relationally, now this is different. This is different, different than the previous two men. Relationally, Moses was a Hebrew by birth, but raised by who? Pharaoh's daughter, Egyptian, saturated in the Egyptian culture for sure. But the Egyptians were beating a Hebrew. He looked upon that one day and he murdered an Egyptian. The Egyptian beating upon a Hebrew. He fled the country. He was in rule isolation for a few decades. I have no verses to go to to show you that Moses was worshipping God. I've got verses to show you Jacob was. I've got verses to show you that Abraham was. I don't have a verse to show you that Moses was worshipping God out in that wilderness when he fled Egypt. All I know is what seems to be is he left a life of royalty and took on a life as a humble shepherd. That's about what I know. Not saying he didn't worship, but I don't have a verse to show you what he was doing there. He was in rule isolation for decades. What was the expectation? Moses, take off your shoes for where you are standing is holy ground. Now, if I could just step outside one of these doors and find a place here in Dixon and scoop up the dirt in my hand. And as it fell through my fingers and it fell on the ground and If I could somehow, while holding on to this dirt, go back in time to the Mount Horeb area where Moses was shepherding and God called him, if I were to scoop up that dirt or sand or whatever that was, and I were to hold that up in my hand as it fell through my fingers, would I see something that was that was so different from the dirt in Dixon besides maybe if it's more clay or more sand or more dirt. Would I see a noticeable shining presence that's, man, this is obviously different? And the answer is no. Then what makes it holy ground? It's the presence of Jehovah God. The expectation, take off your sandals. You are standing in the midst of Jehovah God's presence. Now that's not where the expectation stops. That's where it starts. Where it leads to is that place that you fled, where you committed murder. That place, you're gonna go back there and you're gonna bring my people out. You're gonna go to Pharaoh and you're gonna bring my people Israel out. That is a hard thing to do. That's a hard ass. Here I am. Let's look at the next one. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 3. I'll begin in verse one. I'm gonna read to verse 14 because I wanna catch the context with you so you can see the development of the call. First Samuel chapter three, verse one. Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel and he said, Here I am. And ran to Eli and said, Here I am for you called me. But he said, I did not call, lie down again. So he went and lied down. And the Lord called again, Samuel. And Samuel rose and he went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call my son. Lie down again. Now, Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time and he rose and he went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore, Eli said to Samuel. Go lie down, and if he calls you, shall say, Speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood, calling at it as other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, Speak for your servant hears. Then the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end, and I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever." Here we have yet again a different circumstance because now we're not talking about men, patriarchs, we're not talking about Moses, we're talking about, as the scripture says, a boy. Samuel. Where's the location? Shiloh. About 18 miles roughly from Jerusalem. Relation. What's Samuel's relation to the Lord? Because the Bible clearly says that he had not yet known the Lord and the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him. I'd like to study that more because he's living in the temple right now so I'd like to understand that better. But here's what I do know. His mother prayed the prayer to God as a barren woman and dedicated her son to the Lord. And after she weaned him, she brought him to the temple and she gave him away to the Lord. You know how some people say, hey, what church do you go to? And you might say, ⁓ I go to the Church of Christ. You we don't go to church, we are the church. But you understand the conversation. ⁓ how long have you been attending the assembly with the Church of the Christ? ⁓ I was raised in the church. Have you heard that? I was raised in the church. Samuel was raised in the temple. You get my point? As a boy, he was raised in the temple, raised by priests. So what's the relation there? What I'm fascinated about this is that the relation is we're seeing God call ⁓ a boy who would become a man of God. In fact, you finish reading just a few verses past where I stopped and you realize that God grew Samuel up in his word, in the word of the Lord he grew Samuel, who then would be a prophet, a priest by lineage, though he was from the territory of Ephraim, he was a born Levite, he became a prophet, a priest, and a judge. That's fascinating to me, but we're seeing it all at the very beginning, unlike Abraham and Jacob, where we're seeing the call and the answer, here I am, toward their aged years. This is the reverse. think it's fair to say that Samuel grew up in the kingdom of God. What's the expectation? This is also different. This is different. Abraham was expected to go. Jacob was expected to go. Moses was expected to go. Samuel, there's no expectation here to go. There's actually no expectation to do anything. He told him, he revealed to Samuel what he was going to do to Eli's house. Now Samuel spoke it because he was asked by his mentor. But I want you to understand the hard thing here. as a boy hearing a message of such that your mentor, your teacher, the person that you're living in the house of God with, ministering to other people with, who's teaching you how to worship, you've just been told by Jehovah God that God is going to punish his house and his sons, that father-son relationship. That's hard. And then you're asked by him to That's hard. That's a hard thing. Here I am. Look at Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter six, we'll be reading. verses 1-10 for the same reasons to understand the broader context Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1-10 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. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, two he covered his feet, with two he flew, and one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth 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. and I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here I am, send me. And he said, 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 ears 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 I am, Isaiah says. Where is his location? Well, the southern kingdom, Judah, likely Jerusalem, but that territory of Judah, Isaiah was a prophet who preached in king's courts. Isaiah was no stranger to luxury and nice things, although also understanding the countryside, he was predominantly prophesying to the Jerusalem area. What's the relation? Isaiah, without a doubt, we know is a prophet of God a man of God and we read in Isaiah chapter 1 that he entitled this work beginning with the words the Vision that God had given him this book is about vision this book is about God imparting upon Isaiah things that he would see and things that he would hear and things that he would preach to the people as God ordained him to do so Isaiah was a man of God and and and you might wonder What does a man of God, what does he think and how does he act when he gets saturated in the Jerusalem culture? Because when Jesus showed up and he was met with the likes of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the lawyers, all Jews, including the high priest, they were saturated in Jerusalem culture and Phariseeism was at its height. that they couldn't even see their Messiah. So what was Isaiah like? Because the others were pompous. They were arrogant. They didn't think they had sin, but they would heap up all these difficult things for other people that they had to do, but they themselves wouldn't do any of them. So what's this Isaiah guy like now that he's in this Jerusalem culture and he's amidst the upper echelon of the king's courts? Well, I find here that his relation with God is one of transparency and humility. A man standing in what appears to be the most magnificent worship service of God on his throne surrounded by angels praising him so loud that the foundations by which Isaiah stood shook like an earthquake. The most magnificent the most powerful type of worship that you could possibly imagine. He's standing there and his response is, I am a sinful man. God, you know me and I have unclean lips and the people I preach to, I live amongst people with unclean lips. That's his response. It goes to show what kind of a character this guy is and what kind of character he has. And then the relationship there here is beautiful. God doesn't just say you're forgiven, but he gives them important work to do. I would say this, brothers and sisters, is a moment of grace. God extends something to Isaiah he does not deserve. and he fixes the situation immediately. with the vision of the bringing of the hot coal to his mouth, eradicating sin from the memory of Jehovah God. That's done. Now, who's gonna go for us? And Isaiah. Behold! Can I have your attention in the Hebrew? Behold, can I have your attention? Here I am. I'll go. Send me. The Expectation Go and deliver a message Keep on hearing but do not understand. Keep on seeing but do not perceive. That's not a nice message. That's a hard message to deliver. That's a message when you deliver it and you're walking away, you're checking your shoulder like, all right, who's coming after me because I've made somebody mad. I've made people mad. That's the type of message. There's one more person that I want to bring to your attention tonight. And he didn't say the words, here I am. they're close. Look at John chapter 8 and verse 58. John 8 58, Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you before Abraham was, I am. Now I want to tell you that this is not a here I am statement. This is a different statement. But I want to tell you why it should be a different statement and what that might mean for our lesson tonight. Jesus says before Abraham. Now remember, I approached this study and I'm thinking, man, I want to study Isaiah. I love studying Isaiah. Any excuse I can get into Isaiah? And Pamela said, hey Chad, can you send me your slide? And I was greedy for Isaiah and I sent this slide and I started studying. Here I am and it. And I just started getting led to these other places and starting with Abraham, remember the first one to say that? And Jesus says, hey, before him, I am. And the idea, the message behind the words I am is a continual presence. There's not a start time. There's not a stop time. Before Abraham, I am present. When Abraham lived and said, here I am, I was present. When Jacob said, here I am, I was present. When Moses said it, I was present. When Samuel said it, I was present. when Isaiah said it, I was present. I'm present. I'm always present. Jesus is always present. I'm eternal. I'm reminded of the Psalm. Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven you are there and If I make my bed down in Sheol you are there Psalms 139 verses 7 through 8 and maybe maybe I just got it all wrong Maybe the idea of looking at the word here and thinking okay. Where's the location will beer she buzz twice Shiloh's wants Mount Moriah Those are that and know, Beer Sheba was close to Jerusalem. Mount Moriah is in Jerusalem. mean, saying, you know, ⁓ Isaiah is in Jerusalem instead of maybe thinking about, well, where's the location? Maybe it's not location, maybe it's presence. All of these men stood in the presence of Jehovah God. I am. They stood in the same presence. Try to wrap your mind around something that might be inconceivable for us as humans because God is above time. He stood in the presence as a present tense in every single one of these men's lives and He stood there as I am. So it's not about location, brothers and sisters, it's about presence. It's about God's presence and He is holy. And he is everywhere. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent. He's omnipotent. Secondly, these men, besides Moses, again, I don't have scripture for it. These men were in the presence of and the acts of worshipping God. Here I am as an encouragement of a God-fearing person who is worshipping God to continue to do so. Why? Because there is an expectation. And you know what? God's expectations are hard. Do hard things. God calls us for our one and only treasure. God calls us through grief to heal in unfamiliar surroundings. God calls us from desert and desertion and loneliness to leadership. God calls us to move when we're 80 years old. God calls us to move when we're just a young person. God expects us, regardless of our age, to hear I AM, to call on His name. God calls us in the wilderness. He calls us in cities. He calls us in sanctuaries. He calls us in luxury. He calls us in poverty. God calls us to see the un- imaginable and to speak the unpopular. Leave here today with these words in your mind, Here I am. You are in the presence of God. Worship Him and do hard things. The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news. He died for your sins and command you to repent and to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. How about saying, here I am right now and come forward to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. as we stand and as we sing.

Genesis 22 · chapter mention Genesis 22 · chapter mention Genesis 46 · chapter mention Genesis 46 · chapter mention Exodus 3 · chapter mention Exodus 3 · chapter mention 1 Samuel 3 · chapter mention Isaiah 6 · chapter mention Isaiah 6:1–10 Isaiah 1 · chapter mention John 8 · chapter mention Psalms 139:7–8