Commissioning: Repentance and Restoration
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth if full of his glory.”(1-3)
God commissioned Isaiah to be God’s mouthpiece by first revealing to Isaiah a vision of God’s holiness. Isaiah’s response was one of personal repentance. As Isaiah was given a glimpse of the majesty and perfection of the Most Holy God, Isaiah increasingly experienced personal inadequacy as well as remorse for his unclean heart and human condition. Even the seraphs surrounding the temple before this Majestic Lord had to cover their faces as well as their feet. God’s holiness was penetrating to the deepest core of every living creature who trembled before him. But still the seraphs were able to rise above their fears and inadequacies as they humbled themselves before the Lord and began to shout out praises to the Most High God. But Isaiah remained both remorseful and overwhelmed with desperation regarding his unclean condition standing naked in his shame before an upright and Holy God.
Woe to me!” Isaiah cried out, “I 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. (5)
But in all God’s power and perfection, God reached out to Isaiah in mercy and forgiveness through the touch of one of God’s angel.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said,
“See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. (6-7)
From the altar in God’s temple, cultivating the coals for the great love and price of mercy and forgiveness, Isaiah received a prelude of all that was to come for every human being through the death and resurrection of the Most High God himself, Jesus-the Christ (the Messiah). The instant the angel placed the simmering coal of the great sacrifice which was to come for all mankind in conquering both evil and death, Isaiah was healed from his inadequate condition to see as well as serve the Living and Most High God.
Then I heard a voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? (8)
As much as we cannot fathom this concept, God desires to work out His redemptive plan through His redeemed people. He is looking for those who have both humbled themselves before His Holiness and continue to worship Him above themselves or anything else on earth. Just as the angels covered their faces and feet and yet sang praises to the Most High God, God is searching the earth for a man, woman, and child who will do the same. The result for those who follow this response of humility and worship before a Most High King is the same for them as the angels-they will be lifted above their shame praising the name of the Lord to one another. God is looking for those who are willing to embrace their shame as well as be lifted up out of their shame. There is no way out of guilt, remorse, and shame but through the holiness, love, and mercy of the Most High God, Jesus Christ. Once a person is touched by God’s sacrifice of Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, they are then set free to both worship and serve the Most High King.
And I said, Here am I. Send Me! He said, Go and tell this people…(8-9)
Where Isaiah once could not even see the Holiness of God without crumbling into a desperate heap of filth and shame, after receiving God’s forgiveness Isaiah now cries out to the Lord to be sent out on God’s behalf. Isaiah went from the clearest awareness of his inadequacies to serve the Most High God, to an eager vessel to be used by the most noble of hands and purpose. One touch of God’s forgiveness for all that was still to come to mankind was even enough to move Isaiah out of His shame before the Most High King and into active service unto the King. Isaiah went from an ashamed human being clearly convicted of his guilt before a most High God, to a redeemed human being crying out before the Most High God to be a vessel of God’s power and mercy to others as well.
How often I cry out to the Lord, “Here am I Lord, send me” before I have spent time in repentance and worship. Restoration comes first through the opening of my eyes toward my broken condition before a Most High God, and then through the receiving of God’s gift of forgiveness and healing. I am not only forgiven by the Most High King of all my trespasses of His holiness, I am also healed of my condition, my bent, to continue to trespass against God. It is in both my choice to acknowledge my broken condition before God, as well as His choice to forgive and heal me that I am then restored into the very image I was created to reflect-His glory! Scripture is consistent that God faithfully chooses to forgive and heal those who will acknowledge their sins before Him and who will then submit their worship to no other. If and when I choose to arrogantly serve the Most High King, even with the most noble of purpose and intent, without acknowledging my need to be cleansed and commissioned, I am a blind fool. Jesus healed the blind while on this earth to show us we must be touched by His power and mercy in order to see and serve the Most High God. His commissioning for ministry comes through His restoration, His cleansing and healing, of my broken self. His restoration comes as a faithful promise to my response of repentance and worship unto Him. I cannot go out in His commissioning unless I am first touched and healed personally.
While this healing is both effective and eternal, my human condition requires of me to continually remain in that humbled and worshipful place before the Most High God. God continues to respect my free will to either humbly acknowledge my sin before Him or to deny my condition. This response is a choice of mine which comes primarily from my response to His holiness. When God reveals his glory to me, will I deny him the worship he is worthy of? When God offers me the opportunity to see myself in the full light of his truth, will I bow down in repentance or will I turn away from the truth of my broken and sinful position before Him? God has mercifully revealed His glory to us for the very purpose that we would understand our desperate condition without His touch of forgiveness and healing. We cannot experience His restoration of cleansing and healing without continually remaining open to see ourselves in the full light of His perfection. Until the day comes where we are finally restored perfectly into his image as we were created to be, we will have to continually kneel before His altar of perfection and sacrifice, and cry out as Isaiah did, “Woe to me..” I am not worthy to see or serve the Most High King. In order for God to continually commission us to partake in His redemptive promises for mankind, we must remain open for both repentance as well as restoration before the altar of the Lord God. Isaiah experienced a taste of what was to come as a free gift of cleansing and healing for all mankind. Being on this side of the cross, although we have received even more of what Isaiah tasted, we are still awaiting the full measure of God’s cleansing and healing that has redeemed mankind back to God’s sovereign hands.
Upon receiving God’s gift of forgiveness, cleansing, and healing through his Son Jesus Christ, we are now free to continually go before the altar in the same manner Isaiah did, with humility and worship. Being invited into the throne room, we are now commissioned by God to invite others in as well, but our commissioning always follows our personal humility and worship before the Most High and yet Merciful King. Just as our repentance and worship must be constant, we can also count on his mercies to be continually available to us. “His mercies are new every morning…” ( ). Commissioning today is given exactly in the same light that Isaiah was commissioned to become God’s mouthpiece to God’s people: humility, repentance, worship, and obedient service. As we bow down to the perfection to and sovereignty of the Most High King as both the angels and Isaiah modeled for us, we too will find ourselves lifted out of our shame, able to see and serve the most High King.
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth if full of his glory.”(1-3)
God commissioned Isaiah to be God’s mouthpiece by first revealing to Isaiah a vision of God’s holiness. Isaiah’s response was one of personal repentance. As Isaiah was given a glimpse of the majesty and perfection of the Most Holy God, Isaiah increasingly experienced personal inadequacy as well as remorse for his unclean heart and human condition. Even the seraphs surrounding the temple before this Majestic Lord had to cover their faces as well as their feet. God’s holiness was penetrating to the deepest core of every living creature who trembled before him. But still the seraphs were able to rise above their fears and inadequacies as they humbled themselves before the Lord and began to shout out praises to the Most High God. But Isaiah remained both remorseful and overwhelmed with desperation regarding his unclean condition standing naked in his shame before an upright and Holy God.
Woe to me!” Isaiah cried out, “I 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. (5)
But in all God’s power and perfection, God reached out to Isaiah in mercy and forgiveness through the touch of one of God’s angel.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said,
“See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. (6-7)
From the altar in God’s temple, cultivating the coals for the great love and price of mercy and forgiveness, Isaiah received a prelude of all that was to come for every human being through the death and resurrection of the Most High God himself, Jesus-the Christ (the Messiah). The instant the angel placed the simmering coal of the great sacrifice which was to come for all mankind in conquering both evil and death, Isaiah was healed from his inadequate condition to see as well as serve the Living and Most High God.
Then I heard a voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? (8)
As much as we cannot fathom this concept, God desires to work out His redemptive plan through His redeemed people. He is looking for those who have both humbled themselves before His Holiness and continue to worship Him above themselves or anything else on earth. Just as the angels covered their faces and feet and yet sang praises to the Most High God, God is searching the earth for a man, woman, and child who will do the same. The result for those who follow this response of humility and worship before a Most High King is the same for them as the angels-they will be lifted above their shame praising the name of the Lord to one another. God is looking for those who are willing to embrace their shame as well as be lifted up out of their shame. There is no way out of guilt, remorse, and shame but through the holiness, love, and mercy of the Most High God, Jesus Christ. Once a person is touched by God’s sacrifice of Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, they are then set free to both worship and serve the Most High King.
And I said, Here am I. Send Me! He said, Go and tell this people…(8-9)
Where Isaiah once could not even see the Holiness of God without crumbling into a desperate heap of filth and shame, after receiving God’s forgiveness Isaiah now cries out to the Lord to be sent out on God’s behalf. Isaiah went from the clearest awareness of his inadequacies to serve the Most High God, to an eager vessel to be used by the most noble of hands and purpose. One touch of God’s forgiveness for all that was still to come to mankind was even enough to move Isaiah out of His shame before the Most High King and into active service unto the King. Isaiah went from an ashamed human being clearly convicted of his guilt before a most High God, to a redeemed human being crying out before the Most High God to be a vessel of God’s power and mercy to others as well.
How often I cry out to the Lord, “Here am I Lord, send me” before I have spent time in repentance and worship. Restoration comes first through the opening of my eyes toward my broken condition before a Most High God, and then through the receiving of God’s gift of forgiveness and healing. I am not only forgiven by the Most High King of all my trespasses of His holiness, I am also healed of my condition, my bent, to continue to trespass against God. It is in both my choice to acknowledge my broken condition before God, as well as His choice to forgive and heal me that I am then restored into the very image I was created to reflect-His glory! Scripture is consistent that God faithfully chooses to forgive and heal those who will acknowledge their sins before Him and who will then submit their worship to no other. If and when I choose to arrogantly serve the Most High King, even with the most noble of purpose and intent, without acknowledging my need to be cleansed and commissioned, I am a blind fool. Jesus healed the blind while on this earth to show us we must be touched by His power and mercy in order to see and serve the Most High God. His commissioning for ministry comes through His restoration, His cleansing and healing, of my broken self. His restoration comes as a faithful promise to my response of repentance and worship unto Him. I cannot go out in His commissioning unless I am first touched and healed personally.
While this healing is both effective and eternal, my human condition requires of me to continually remain in that humbled and worshipful place before the Most High God. God continues to respect my free will to either humbly acknowledge my sin before Him or to deny my condition. This response is a choice of mine which comes primarily from my response to His holiness. When God reveals his glory to me, will I deny him the worship he is worthy of? When God offers me the opportunity to see myself in the full light of his truth, will I bow down in repentance or will I turn away from the truth of my broken and sinful position before Him? God has mercifully revealed His glory to us for the very purpose that we would understand our desperate condition without His touch of forgiveness and healing. We cannot experience His restoration of cleansing and healing without continually remaining open to see ourselves in the full light of His perfection. Until the day comes where we are finally restored perfectly into his image as we were created to be, we will have to continually kneel before His altar of perfection and sacrifice, and cry out as Isaiah did, “Woe to me..” I am not worthy to see or serve the Most High King. In order for God to continually commission us to partake in His redemptive promises for mankind, we must remain open for both repentance as well as restoration before the altar of the Lord God. Isaiah experienced a taste of what was to come as a free gift of cleansing and healing for all mankind. Being on this side of the cross, although we have received even more of what Isaiah tasted, we are still awaiting the full measure of God’s cleansing and healing that has redeemed mankind back to God’s sovereign hands.
Upon receiving God’s gift of forgiveness, cleansing, and healing through his Son Jesus Christ, we are now free to continually go before the altar in the same manner Isaiah did, with humility and worship. Being invited into the throne room, we are now commissioned by God to invite others in as well, but our commissioning always follows our personal humility and worship before the Most High and yet Merciful King. Just as our repentance and worship must be constant, we can also count on his mercies to be continually available to us. “His mercies are new every morning…” ( ). Commissioning today is given exactly in the same light that Isaiah was commissioned to become God’s mouthpiece to God’s people: humility, repentance, worship, and obedient service. As we bow down to the perfection to and sovereignty of the Most High King as both the angels and Isaiah modeled for us, we too will find ourselves lifted out of our shame, able to see and serve the most High King.
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