April 26, 2026 | Encountering Holiness and Embracing the Call

I heard a phrase this week that many Christians live in the miserable middle.

On one side, you have the sins of this world, the big sins of the world, and you're thinking to yourself, I'm not going to engage in the sins of the world, those horrendous sins.

And on the other side is desiring, expecting, meeting with God, His Word every day.

You're pumped to be with Him.

And most of us live in this miserable middle where we don't participate in the world's sins, nor, if we're honest, do we have much desire or zeal for the Lord.

And my prayer this morning is that you would so bust out of this miserable middle as you behold the Lord in his holiness, as you experience him in his fullness.

That has been my prayer for you this week.

Because we don't want to live in this miserable middle.

We want to hunger and thirst after the Lord.

So if you don't mind before we get into the word, I'm going to pray for us.

Let's do that.

Lord, I just ask that today you would meet with us.

We would encounter you.

We would experience you in your fullness and your holiness.

We see that you have given us complete and total access through Jesus and that we should take advantage of that every chance we get.

And there's some of us just absolutely miserable because we see that.

We live that.

We have that numbness.

So, Lord, ignite a fresh fire, fresh zeal in us today for you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

In 1980, Mount St.

Helens erupted in Washington State.

Many of you remember that?

I don't.

I was nine.

So I had to read up on it.

Flattened 200 square miles of forest, killing dozens, sending ash across the countries.

Witness described as the roar of a thousand trains, towering plume, darkened the sky.

The blasts released energy comparable to hundreds of Hiroshima bombs.

And I was thinking, okay, like a volcano goes up, lava spills over.

Apparently not.

It blew sideways.

And once it blew, it devastated the landscape.

And when the smoke cleared, the land there was like a moonscape.

It looked like the moon.

Total devastation.

But then something amazing happened because underneath all that ash, all that debris were seeds and roots that survived.

And over the years, they pushed up and started to regrow.

In fact, scientists are blown away that it grew much faster than expected.

I think that's kind of the image I want you to have today of an eruption of terrifying power and yet a surprising renewal.

And Isaiah's throne room encounter.

You have such a God's overwhelming holiness where he's like, woe is me.

And yet that same encounter brought renewal, forgiveness, and sent him out on a mission.

And my prayer, once again, is that you would encounter God in a way that breaks you out of this miserable middle.

And I know some of you would say, Yes, Moonscape.

That describes my life right now.

Moonscape.

I see nothing growing.

I feel nothing.

If you look at me, I'm numb.

Yeah, Moonscape.

But I'm praying that something will push up through that in your life.

A desire will push up and new life and zeal and will start to grow for the Lord and his ways as you encounter the Lord in Isaiah 6.

And Isaiah 6.

If you remember last time we were here, we talked about the unfruitful vine.

And this week we have the prophet encountering God and being commissioned.

So let's look in Isaiah 6, verse 1.

Isaiah 6:1

In the year of King Uzziah's death.

Quick question.

Don't answer out loud.

In your head, King Uzziah, good king, bad king.

He was generally good.

52-year reign, prosperity, fall on the Lord.

He had a little oopsie at the end of his life where he decided to go into the temple and function as a priest, and God's like, boom, gave him leprosy on his forehead.

He's isolated the rest of his life with leprosy before he died.

So sometime there in that year, we don't know if it's before or after his death, but King Husiah is done.

He's off the throne.

His son is reigning in his place.

Isn't it amazing how quick kings can come and go?

If you paid attention last night, it could take out our president in an instant.

Kings will come and go.

Think about Queen Elizabeth, man, she was laying reading reigning a long time.

If you paid attention to her funeral, there was something that was laid on her casket.

Maybe I can show you these images.

They were laid on her casket.

We have a crown, we have an orb, we have a scepter, or on a casket.

Do you know at her funeral, those are taken off of her casket and they're placed on the altar?

Why are they placed on the altar?

Because she is just a woman, she is just a human, and from dust she came, to dust she shall return.

But there is one who reigns forever, and he is on a forever throne.

So if presidents come and go, kings come and go, we have one who does not come and go.

And so Josiah.

He says, In the year, King Uzziah, it's death.

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.

Not just any Lord, not just a passing king or president, but this is a sovereign king who does not have a shaky throne.

And he's lofty and exalted.

And it says, the train of his robe, you know, think of a train of a bride coming down the aisle, they have a long train.

But the robe of this king is filling the temple so much, there's like seems to be no room for anything else.

Remember when uh God filled the temple of during Solomon's time?

They couldn't even go in there because God's presence was so powerful.

So you have the train of his robe filling the temple with glory.

And so I ask yourself this question.

This is this is gonna blow your mind, all right?

Who is the Lord?

Don't answer.

Who is the Lord?

Who does he see?

We know from the book of John who this is.

John says this concerning Isaiah's vision and his prophecies.

John says this.

Let me read this to you.

Do I have this in John?

Yes.

Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke about him.

The him is Jesus.

And you may say, well, okay, wait.

So you're saying that Isaiah sees Jesus on the throne.

Yes and no.

Yes, it's him, but his name is not Jesus yet.

This is a Christophany, the appearance of a pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament, that this is the eternal Son of God who will later take on flesh and be named Jesus.

He sees the Son of God.

He doesn't see long hair sandals Jesus.

He sees Jesus in his glory.

He saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lofted, radiant presence filling it.

Glory.

He sees the sun.

Look at verse two.

Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings.

With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

So you have these angelic beings, these seraphim.

It means the burning ones, not the fat, chubby cherubs that you see at Hallmark.

And you're not gonna find these cherubs at Hallmark.

Let me give you an artist rendition historically of what many think this would have looked like.

Uh, do I have okay?

So, like the six wings touching Isaiah's lips.

That's probably not accurate.

Um, if you take Isaiah and combine it with Ezekiel, let me show you something a little bit more accurate.

Here's some nightmare stuff for you.

That's not at hallmark.

That's scary stuff.

And we don't know what they look like at all.

But look at the way they're described.

It says they have two wings covering their face.

Why are they covering their face?

Because God is so holy, they can't look at them in their awe.

We have two that covered his feet in humility, and two fly around.

You can take that down now, you know why?

Because the cherubs are like, they're not cherubs, they're seraphim.

They're like, don't look at us.

Look at him.

Look at the one sitting on the throne, and they're flying around.

They are in his presence, and there is absolutely nothing casual about it.

They are on fire.

The temple is shaking, the presence of God is radiating with glory.

Nothing casual at all about this encounter, and yet our churches are full of people who just want to be casual, casual in our worship, casual in our sins, because there's lots of grace to go around.

There's nothing casual about Isaiah 6.

Look at verse 3.

And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

So we have this volcano explosion, thunderclap of them crying out, holy, holy, holy.

When you see that repetition, you've heard it many times before.

It's talking about God's otherness, his complete moral superiority, purity, transcendence.

Do not think that God is like us and yet he is superman.

He's like us in a lot of ways, but he just has some super duper power.

He is fundamentally different.

He is other, he is set apart, he is holy beyond anything we see in our creation.

He's called the Lord of hosts.

He has commands over the heavens, armies, the angelic forces, the stars, and creation itself.

And when it says his glory, the whole earth is full of his glory.

I love the word glory.

It means weightiness, heaviness.

God's presence is not only in the throne room, it fills this earth with glory.

Even right now.

God is here in his weightiness, in his sovereignty.

Now you may think, and I've heard it before, and kids may say it.

Heaven's gonna be boring.

All we're gonna do is just sit around and worship God.

It's gonna be so boring.

Let me tell you something.

These seraphs do not get bored.

And you say, well, of course they don't get bored because they're just doing their duty.

Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh.

As they are making the circle around the throne, around the Lord, each pass is something new.

Because the Lord and his holiness is bottomless.

You never get full.

Each pass.

Holy, holy, holy.

Oh, look again! Holy, holy, holy.

There's no boredom.

The Lord is the greatest ever.

You can't even imagine.

There's no boredom.

He just seeing him fresh.

Second by second.

Holy, holy, bottomless majesty.

No boredom at all.

And verse four says, and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at his voice of him who called out on while the temple was filling with smoke.

Can you imagine, you know, everything shaking?

Like maybe last night you were shaking a little bit, your house and the and the thundering.

It's all shaking, and and it just smoke is filling the temple because you can't see him completely.

It's veiling his holiness.

And Isaiah says, Woe is me, for I am ruined.

In the presence of God's holiness, Isaiah's response is like, Whoa.

He's like this.

I am about to die.

That's Isaiah and the holy service.

I'm ruined.

I'm surely going to be killed.

And you may think, okay, well, let's just kind of understand the fear of the Lord right now.

And here's a good way of heard the fear of the Lord explained.

This may be helpful, okay?

The fear of the Lord is not fear that he will reject you, believers in Christ.

It's the awareness that he has every right to.

He has every right to reject every single one of us.

Do we have that healthy fear in the Lord?

You guys may remember a famous televangelist in the 80s who's ripping people off, stealing money, committing adultery, got thrown into jail.

You know what I'm talking about.

Someone goes to visit him in jail and they say, Hey, hey, hey, hey, when did you when did you lose your love for Jesus?

He said, I never stopped loving Jesus.

I just stopped fearing God.

I just thought there was absolutely no consequence.

I had no fear of God.

I I used to meet with this man.

He was a friend of mine close with me, a leader in a church.

And for about a decade, unbeknownst to anybody, he was sleeping around with prostitutes.

And I was meeting with him as a broken man, confessing.

And I said, What made you finally bring it all into the light?

And he said, This I didn't want to go to hell.

And I should say, No, no, no, you're a believer, you're a leader in the church, you're good to go.

No, he was feeling the full impact of the fear of God.

No messing around, fear of God.

The Bible says, those who live this way will not inherit the kingdom of God.

He actually believed that the fear of God was dropping on him.

And that's what's happened with Isaiah, because he's like, Woe is me, for I'm ruined.

And look what he says in verse 5.

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.

Unclean lips, full of lies, full of cursing, full of deceit.

He lives among a people full of lies, full of cursing, full of deceit.

And you go, wow, he just he just can't control his tongue.

Is that the issue?

His lips just keep spouting foolish.

Is that what's going on?

What did Jesus say?

From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

He says, I'm ruined, I'm sinful, I live among people who are sinful.

And I want to tell you that holiness of God will first crush you before it lifts you.

And if in your Christianity you have no room for God's crushing, convicting holiness, then you have the wrong form of Christianity.

It's something you have made up.

Because God's holiness will crush us before it lifts us.

And I was wondering this morning, like what could create such a holy fear in us this morning?

And uh last Sunday in Russia at a little circus, you know, the tiger portion of the circus.

I guess they can still do things like that in Russia.

During the tiger portion of the of this of the circus, you know, one of the screens, like you know, it's surrounded by fences, accidentally dropped and a tiger jumped into the audience.

If that happened right here, how afraid would you be?

If a tiger started roaming around this room.

Now, if I heard that story, I would think that a tiger's gonna start mauling people and tearing them limb from limb.

No, this tiger was more interested in eating popcorn.

It was all good.

But God is here right now, and he knows everything about you.

And he has every right to maul you.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.

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.

So a seraph, the burning one, takes a coal from the altar, maybe the incense or sacrifice altar, and he touches the most sensitive part.

Right, sensitive, oh, a coal on your lips.

And it says, your iniquity is taken away, your sins are forgiven.

It's like atonement has happened.

But the one on the throne, he knows we're true and lasting atonement, right?

He knows there's a future coming that will truly forgive Isaiah and his sin.

Precursor here, he knows he's gonna go to the cross.

But in this instant, right here, this Old Testament imagery of him being forgiven.

And as the coal came to Isaiah, he didn't flinch, he didn't pull back because God's refining fire is more important to him than being unfit for his presence.

When God's refining fire and discipline comes into your life, don't pull back, don't flinch.

You say, okay, this is what I need to go through because it's more important for me to walk with God than to walk in my sin.

I can't be without God.

Verse 8.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Maybe he's talking about the us of the angelic court, or or this could be him talking about the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the and the Holy Spirit.

Who's gonna go for us?

And then Isaiah is like, Here am I, send me.

You're like, uh, excuse me, Isaiah, you don't even know what he's talking about.

Isaiah didn't say, I need a job description, I need to know that everything.

Gonna be fine.

I what what's the retirement plan?

What is the success rate?

When you encounter God and He's calling you to do something, the only answer is here am I.

Send me whatever you want me to do, I'll do it.

I had that moment about 30 something years ago.

And I just want to tell you about it because I feel like it's okay for me to tell you where I had this moment where I was saved for one year.

I was a sophomore in college, and I was at my desk over a summer, and I was getting ready for my immediate uh intermediate uh accounting class.

And I had the accounting book open to me to the first page, and I get I kid you not.

What the first page was explaining is so basic.

It's stuff you would learn in third grade, something you would learn as a little kid.

It was explained to that, and I kid you not.

I'm reading this page and I don't understand what it means.

And I'm getting mad.

I'm like, how can this accounting book be saying that it's not true?

It's like the most basic two plus two equals four math that I didn't understand, and I was getting frustrated.

And it's like God said, shut that book.

You're done with that.

And it was at that moment I shut the book, and God's like, it's time to preach.

It's time to be a pastor.

Went back to school, changed my major, went to the ministry.

I felt like God was calling me in my life.

You go, well, that's kind of that's kind of supernatural.

Maybe, maybe not.

But I feel like every single one of us, you do have some type of call on your life to do something for the Lord, even though you've done stuff in the past, you know, and I know right now God wants you to do stuff.

Here am I?

Send me.

Verse nine.

And he said, Go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive.

Keep on looking, but do not understand.

God warns I say, okay, so this is what your ministry is gonna look like.

It's gonna look like one big fat failure.

People will get harder as you preach, not softer.

He's gonna go out and he's gonna preach to hardened hearts.

He's gonna render their hearts insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they may see and repent.

So Isaiah's ministry is gonna be one big fat failure.

Here am I, send me.

And I'm thinking when I'm doing that, everything's gonna go great.

I didn't know when I'm this college guy.

Here am I, send me.

And over the years, my first church closed down.

Over the years, I get close to people.

My wife and I get close to people who turn on us.

And over the years I've had two breakdowns.

And here I am standing before you today.

I can barely stand without medication to preach to you.

I didn't know any of that stuff's gonna happen.

God, if I you would have told me that on the front end, maybe I wouldn't have said, Here am I, send me.

Just because God is sending you out doesn't mean it's always gonna go to great.

But you know what's important is that you continue to do his will regardless of outcomes.

Because you cannot control outcomes.

You can only control obedience.

How long I gotta keep doing this?

And he answered, Until cities are devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate.

The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land, but yet there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to burning like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is fell.

The holy seed is its stump.

Oh boy.

Basically, this means it's gonna be a mess.

Israel, the northern kingdom is gonna go away to Assyria, they're gonna assimilate, they're gonna be gone.

The southern kingdom, Judah, is gonna go away to Babylon, they'll return after many years, but there is gonna be utter destruction.

And historically, we know from Isaiah, we know about Isaiah.

Historically, the tradition holds that Isaiah was sawn into.

And yet the Lord says the holy seed is its stump.

What in the world?

It means in the midst of all this devastation, there is going to be a remnant of believers who remains.

And from that remnant will come the Messiah.

And from that messiah, the seed will spread all over the entire earth, and people from every tongue, tribe will be worshiping him.

The holy seed is its stump.

Did you know there is like this global seed vault in Norway?

Did you know this?

There's this global seed vault in Norway that's built to survive the nuclear war or climate collapse so that life can start over again.

They have all these different types of seeds, like, okay, when we are devastated by nuclear war, we can start over again.

And God's like, I am gonna cut my people down so that new life can grow.

If you find yourself in this miserable middle where you're too good to partake in the sins of the world, but you don't have much desire for a holy God who gives you continue access.

If you find yourself in your middle, what are you supposed to do?

I think maybe you should come to the Lord, Bible open Isaiah 6, and I think you should utter something like Moses did.

Ready?

Say this.

Show me your glory.

Show me your glory.

And you may think, well, then you know what?

We cannot manufacture an encounter with God.

We cannot manufacture to the point where he shows up, I'm undone, I repent, I'm sent on service.

We can't make that happen.

Because Isaiah, you're like, well, because Isaiah, he actually saw, he had serifs, he had burning, you know, the coal on the lip thing.

Holy, holy, he got to see it all.

And there's no way I can duplicate that so I can be sent on mission today.

So what Isaiah had was wonderful and not for me.

And this is what's gonna blow your mind.

And I I could just really be off here, but I don't think I am.

You and I have encountered a greater glory.

We have Isaiah just has a part of the picture.

We have the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The glory on the throne took on flesh.

And you think, yeah, well, well, that's not going to convict people, then tell me this.

Remember when Peter was around Jesus and Peter said to Jesus, Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man.

And if you're a believer in Christ, you know those times that God has shown up, showed you your sin so much, so powerfully that you repented and you found forgiveness in Jesus.

And get this we get to experience something that Isaiah didn't get to experience.

We get to experience something that only the apostles got a little taste of.

We have God living in us.

The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who brings to our minds the holiness of God, the conviction of sin, the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ, and get this.

Isaiah's encounter seemed to be a one-off, not ours.

Did you know you have complete access to the throne of God anytime you want through Jesus Christ?

And the Bible says that you can access that throne boldly.

Boldly.

Not because of you, but because of you in Christ who has provided a way to greater glory that you can experience every day.

And when you get that, when you understand that, that miserable middle disappears.

You're like, I have access to the throne every day.

And I know some of you, I know, I know there's some people in our congregation that are close to death and they are soon to be with the Lord, they're going to experience this, I guess you would say, in the fullness without their their flesh until the resurrection.

But us have that access now.

Now.

And when you find yourselves in the presence of God, you can really say, Here am I.

Send me.

I'll do whatever you want.

I think it'd be good for us to maybe close our eyes for a moment now.

We know that we're not trying to manufacture any encounter with the holiness of God.

But we know what we know.

That we have seen the glory of God and the face of Christ.

And as we behold Him, we're being transformed from one degree of glory to another.

Because the Holy One has stepped down from the throne, took on flesh, and died for the very sin that undoes us.

So if we say, Woe is me, we can look to the cross of the Holy One.

We have felt the deeper conviction.

And we have been raised from spiritual death to new life in him.

And best of all, because of Jesus, he went away, and now we have something that Isaiah never had.

We have the Holy Spirit living in us.

And we don't have to duplicate Isaiah's vision.

We have the greater reality, the finished work of the Holy One.

The Holy One is not distant.

He is near every moment of every day.