Text:\u00a0 Isaiah 6: 1-8<\/p>\n
Pastor’s sometimes try to come up with something catchy as a theme for their sermons.\u00a0 I remember a pastor who came up with this theme for a section from the epistle of James.\u00a0 Tame your two timing tongue<\/em>. I am sure the people went home with that theme in their heads.<\/p>\n So for this Word of God I tried to do the same.\u00a0 Let’s see.\u00a0 How about Holy Smoke<\/strong>!\u00a0 Or\u00a0 thinking about those hot glowing coals brought from the altar. How about:\u00a0 Hot rocks to fire you up.<\/strong><\/p>\n You don’t like those?\u00a0 Neither do I.\u00a0 I thought to myself.\u00a0 How dare I reduce this vision God gave his prophet down to some cute phrases.\u00a0 That was the end of that. So here we go:<\/p>\n HOLY HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY<\/strong> God is awesome.\u00a0 We don’t need a vision to tell us that. The whole earth is full of his glory<\/span>, Go to Yosemite park.\u00a0 Go to the Grand Canyon and look across that vast expanse. Go to Alaska which my daughter Katie describe as the most beautiful place she has ever seen. Then go from that majestic place to a hospital delivery room where a new child is welcomed into this world by admiring, awestruck parents.<\/p>\n How small we can feel at a time like that. Our mouths might gape in wonder at what God can do. And just think, those things are only a glimpse of how big and powerful and awesome God is.<\/p>\n So think of Isaiah this day and what God gave him to see in this vision. The Lord sitting high above him on his throne.\u00a0 Mysterious six winged creatures called Seraphs. They worshipped the Lord and served him.\u00a0 And as they did, they covered their faces and feet. Even these remarkable creatures humbled themselves before the awesome One on his throne. And with these words they praised him.\u00a0 Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory. <\/span>The temple doorposts shook.\u00a0 The air was filled with smoke- the glory of the Lord.<\/p>\n How small Isaiah must have felt before the Lord’s awesome majesty.\u00a0 But not just small.\u00a0 Also fearful.\u00a0 The Lord’s awesome holiness made Isaiah tremble. <\/strong><\/p>\n You see, God is holy, so different from you and me. He is holy, set apart from sinners. We often don’t notice that gaping chasm of difference that stands between us and him. Most of the time it doesn’t really concern us until his holiness reveals what we are.<\/p>\n Think about it. \u00a0Some of us may not notice our car is dirty.\u00a0 But then we go \u00a0out to the parking lot and see that car next to ours.\u00a0 It’s sparkling clean.\u00a0 Next to it we see, my car is sure dirty<\/em>.<\/p>\n Or we may not notice how much we complain.\u00a0 We may not notice that we should be named after one of the seven dwarfs- grumpy.\u00a0 Then we find ourselves with that bright cheerful person. And that person is lying in a hospital bed.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve sure got a bad attitude<\/em>.<\/p>\n Well now Isaiah found himself in the presence of the Lord. You know, the One who says to each of us:\u00a0 Be holy, because I Lord your God am holy<\/span>. \u00a0It was like a blurry picture came into focus – a picture that showed him what we are.\u00a0 5 <\/sup>\u201cWoe to me!\u201d I cried. \u201cI am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.\u201d<\/span> Isaiah trembled.<\/p>\n It makes me think of St Peter.\u00a0 Remember when Jesus gave his disciples that miraculous catch of fish.\u00a0 Peter also trembled.\u00a0 He cried out:\u00a0 Get away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man<\/span>.<\/p>\n God’s awesome holiness makes that unmistakably clear.\u00a0 And we don’t have to stand beneath God’s throne.\u00a0 We don’t have to witness an awesome miracle.\u00a0 We need only to listen to God’s holy Law, his perfect will for our lives. For there I see, I am not the father, the husband the pastor the neighbor that God wants me to be. Far from\u00a0 it!\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 Woe to me. !<\/p>\n But notice.\u00a0 God doesn’t leave Isaiah to tremble in fear and hopelessness.\u00a0 He could have.\u00a0 You and I give the Lord plenty of reason to turn away from us. But look here. What do we see?\u00a0 The Lord’s forgiving grace. The Lord’s forgiving grace made Isaiah a willing servant. <\/strong><\/p>\n What a strange scene Isaiah describes. \u00a06 <\/sup>Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.<\/span> 7 <\/sup>With it he touched my mouth and said, \u201cSee, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n I don’t know about you.\u00a0 But every time I think about that red hot coal touching Isaiah’s mouth, I wince. Ow.\u00a0 I think of a big painful blister on my lip.<\/p>\n But in the Bible fire God does not always use fire to burn and destroy.\u00a0 It also purifies what is impure. And so here in this remarkable way God assured Isaiah that his guilt was taken away as if it never existed.\u00a0 His sin was atoned for. It was covered over, hidden away.<\/p>\n Now look at the man. What do we find?\u00a0 Not paralyzing fear or guilt , not trembling, but a new found courage. Forgiven and restored, we find in Isaiah a sudden willingness to share God’s Word, to serve his Savior. And so when the Lord calls for him to serve, to bring his message to some pretty tough customers, he says:\u00a0 Here I am, send me.<\/p>\n Now I want you to notice something so important about this vision. It’s a key to understanding.\u00a0 Where did the coal come from?\u00a0 Isaiah tells us.\u00a0 The Seraphs brought it from the altar. – the altar, the place of sacrifice for sin.\u00a0 But not the animal sacrifices brought year after year by those Old Testament priests.\u00a0 The Bible makes that clear. No, God’s forgiveness would come would come from one special sacrifice offered once for us all.\u00a0 And you know the altar on which that sacrifice was given. ON an altar made from two beams of wood formed into a cross.\u00a0 there on that altar, God himself would offer that sacrifice. From that altar, God’s forgiving grace would come.<\/p>\n But wait a second?\u00a0 What does all this have to do with Holy Trinity Sunday?\u00a0 What’s the connection.\u00a0 In our epistle and Gospel lessons, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all named. The three persons of the one true God. So what’s this about?\u00a0 Did your pastor just pick some random text.\u00a0 No, listen.\u00a0 HOLY HOLY HOLY IS THE LORD ALMIGHTY. <\/strong>Did you notice?\u00a0 There are three holies but one Lord. Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit, three in one. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Well in a real way this Triune God\u00a0 sends you a coal from his altar. God the Father sent his Son to that altar to suffer and die for you.\u00a0 And there Jesus paid the price to set you free from your guilt and the fear it brings. He paid the price to give you a hope you and I don’t deserve.<\/p>\n And now he sends you something that does the same as that glowing orange coal.\u00a0 He sends you the gospel promise that your sins are forgiven in Jesus, his Son.\u00a0 He brings it to you in this Word.\u00a0 He brings it to you in the freeing words of absolution. He brings it to you in the water of your Baptism.\u00a0 And even more remarkable, he brings his promise in that Supper where the Lord gives you his own body and blood.<\/p>\n And there God the Holy Spirit does his work.\u00a0 With that living coal of the gospel, he brings us to faith in Jesus. He takes away our guilt.\u00a0 He calms our trembling hearts.\u00a0 He keeps us as children of our heavenly Father.\u00a0 And he gives us hope.<\/p>\n And just like Isaiah, the grace of our Triune God is not without effect.\u00a0 It makes us willing servants- people who want to please God, people People who wantsothers to know him as we do. People who reflect his love in our lives.\u00a0 For that is the fruit of our Lord’s forgiving grace. For his love does not just save us.\u00a0 It gives us a new heart that says: \u00a0\u00a0Here I am send me.<\/strong> Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 Isaiah 6: 1-8 Pastor’s sometimes try to come up with something catchy as a theme for their sermons.\u00a0 I remember a pastor who came up with this theme for a section from the epistle of James.\u00a0 Tame your two timing tongue. I am sure the people went home with that theme in their heads. So for this Word of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI.\u00a0 His awesome holiness made Isaiah tremble.
\nII.\u00a0 The Lord’s forgiving grace made him a willing servant.<\/p>\n