Temple Talk

Our scripture reading this morning comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter six, verses 1 to 8. Hear these words.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him, and each had six wings. With two they covered their face with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. and one called to another said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. The pivots on the threshold shook at the voices of those who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. Yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth, and with it said, now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed, and your sin is blotted out. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, here I am. Send me.

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

So today is Trinity Sunday. That means I have the honor of talking to you about one of the most complicated theological beliefs we hold as Christians, and what this foundational belief means for our lives. No pressure. The doctrine of the Trinity often gets pushed aside because it’s hard to talk about. Any analogy we use to talk about the Trinity is going to end up in some kind of heresy. You’ve probably used one of these. I know I’ve used one, probably all of them, at some point in my life. But when we talk about God being Trinitarian, being three in one, we are not saying that God is like an actor wearing a Jesus mask when he needs to be the son and wearing a Holy Spirit mask when he needs to be the spirit, nor do we mean that God is like water which can exist in three states solid, liquid gas. Nor can we say that God is like a three leafed clover, three different parts making up one whole. We are also not saying that there are three different gods. We have one God who is three distinct persons, yet these persons are equally one and the same. Now I may have just ruined Children’s Sunday School this morning, so if you’re teaching Children’s Sunday School, you get a pass. Don’t worry about it. In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, go forth and teach thy heresy. They’re good examples, but, you know, it’s really hard to nail down, this essence of God.

It’s a difficult idea to comprehend not only because of the truth that the father, son, and the Holy Spirit are three in one, but also because this this truth, we don’t have the vocabulary robust enough to capture the magnitude of God’s being. Some of you might be familiar with the saying, If God were small enough to fully be understood, then he wouldn’t be big enough to be worshiped. And part of our problem in understanding the Trinity is that we think about it too much. What I mean is, we try to use logic and reasoning to explain something that is beyond our finite comprehension. Part of the way we do that is a Western way of thinking versus an eastern way of thinking. The Hebrews didn’t understand God simply in the ethereal and the theoretical, but their understanding of God spilled over into the practical and the ethical. It’s the difference between knowing stuff about God and having a relationship with God. I like the way James White, what he has to say about the Trinity, why it says the Trinity is a doctrine not revealed merely in words, but instead in the very actions of the Triune God. In redemption itself, we know who God is by what he has done in bringing Himself. The Father, loving his people, and sending His son, the son loving us and giving himself in our place, and the spirit entering into our lives and conforming us into the image of Christ. Here is the revelation of the Trinity in the work of Christ and the spirit. So how we describe God is important. How we talk about God is important. But when we get stuck inside of ourselves trying to explain something about the nature of who God is, we might need to pause, step back, and look at what God does. This isn’t a new idea, a new concept for you. You’ve had many experiences like this in your lives. What you do tells me far more about who you are than the way you describe yourself, right?

Some people are a bit full of themselves, or to use the language of Romans 12 three, they think more highly of themselves than they ought, and it doesn’t take long for everyone to see that you aren’t as proficient in this area or skill that you think you are. Other people are a bit more humble. They have a hard time accepting the compliments because they can’t see the full extent of their gifts, right? They’re a bit shy to volunteer. All they can see is the flaws and inconsistencies, even if they’ve just put on a wonderful program or a wonderful event. How about this one? You ever get a reference for somebody, perhaps for a job or an internship? You move forward with the recommendation only to find out that this person is not at all what had been described. They had a wonderful reference, only to turn out to be a lackluster employee. Or maybe you passed on them because they didn’t have any good references, couldn’t get any references together. Anybody to say give them any recommendations so you don’t hire them, and then you find out they went to work for the competitor and they’re absolutely crushing it.

We know the old adage, right, actions speak louder than words, but even when the description is accurate, God is holy. We understand God’s holiness best by looking at God’s actions. So pay attention to how the action unfolds. In this interaction between Isaiah in Isaiah six, as a sinful man comes into the presence of a holy God. It was in the year that King Uzziah died. Now King Uzziah of Judah was one of the good ones. He brought reform and restoration to the people, and he was blessed by God to be a great military and administrative leader. But it also says in second Chronicles 26. But when he had become strong, he grew proud to his destruction, for he was false to the Lord his God. And he entered the temple of the Lord to make offering on the altar of incense. See, no matter how great of a king you were, this was a duty assigned to the priest, not the king. The king has just overstepped the bounds of his authority. Psalm 33 reminds us that a king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great multitude in might, it cannot save.

And so, as Isaiah steps into the throne room of God in the year that King Uzziah died, he is met by the real King of Israel, the only king who can bring everlasting victory to his people, the King of heaven and earth, the Lord of host, whose robe fills the temple. Now, if you ask me if you were going to give me something more powerful than a great army and war horse, and you brought to me a giant robe, I’m going to give you a certain kind of look. This robe is going to defeat war horses. I don’t think so. But that’s how great and wonderful the holiness of God is. As God’s presence enters a space, it consumes it. And because he is King of kings and Lord of Lords, it isn’t even a contest. God has won simply by showing up. God enters the room and the pivots of the threshold begin to shake and the house is filled with smoke. The presence of a supremely holy God compels a response.

And let me, let me let you in on a little secret. Here’s the beauty of it, right? God had already won even before he showed up. God is so holy and his holiness. He doesn’t have to manifest himself in time or space to be king over creation. God doesn’t show up so he can get the victory. He already has it. God shows up so that we might be victorious. Everything that God does is rooted in who he is, and God does everything because of who he has created us to be. And so what about us? We who are created in the image of the Triune God. We constantly ask ourselves what it means to be holy and righteous in our faith. And as Isaiah comes into the presence of God, he says in verse five, woe is me, for I am lost. I’m a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips. And while Isaiah’s lips are cleansed for a less than ear tingling message in verses 9 to 13, Zephaniah three nine says that God will change the speech of the people to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. See, God speaks through Zephaniah to proclaim that there is coming a day when the remnant of his people who will meet him face to face, shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. And a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouths. And so it strikes me with a certain kind of humble pause, to consider the idea that purification begins and ends with the lips. These verses cause me to linger on the fact that our relationship with God and one another is personified by our speech. James three nine and ten reminds us that with the tongue we bless the Lord and father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth comes blessings and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not be so. And so, brothers and sisters, could it be that the way that we talk to and about one another has an impact on the way we understand and value one another? That our speaking habits regarding other people cause us to define each other in ways that are contrary to God’s Word. We know that each of us are created in the image of the Triune God. But judging by the way we talk about some people; it makes me wonder if we really believe that. And it happens even in the churches, among people we know are sons and daughters of God Most High. But let me ask you, if I was nice and polite to you, and then I treated your kid like trash, would that be acceptable?

Some of you would not only say no, but you would say that is far worse. See, it is the height of sinful human arrogance to think that we can curse and defame people created in the image of God, and that God the Father Almighty, won’t be upset by it. And this does not mean that we hold our tongue and let people do whatever they want. Sin is still sin and needs to be called out. We cannot. We should not stay silent when a brother or sister is sliding back into sin. But that’s what your band groups are for, that you’re forming up right? There are a few parameters to how to go about that, even with a brother and sister. Galatians 6:1 teaches us that if anyone is detected in transgressions, you who have received the spirit should restore such a one and a spirit of gentleness. So if you have not received the Holy Spirit, if you are not coming with a spirit of gentleness that is seeking to restore the person to the community, not exclude them from it. You might want to think twice about trying to tell everyone about the transgressions you have detected in their character. Remember that parable Jesus told us about the plank in your eye versus the speck in your brother’s?

And then Ephesians 4:29 exhorts us to let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. I think John Oswalt what summarizes it well when he explains that the primary element about God’s holiness that distinguishes him from human beings is not his essence, but his character. So among the Hebrews, uncleanliness was merely a negative meaning the absence of God’s presence or the presence of that which was contrary to his will and his character. And he says, Isaiah recognized this with sickening force, I love that, that Isaiah recognizes with sickening force that their lips do not belong to God. Else they would continually pour forth praise like the seraphim. So it’s almost as if to say that if our lips are not being used to continually pour forth praise to God, if they are not being used to build one another up with grace, then what exactly are they for? What exactly will they bring upon us? But condemnation and wrath. And so maybe thumper had it right when he taught us that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. And that’s cute. But the reason it doesn’t work, the reason you’ve ignored it since Bambi is it doesn’t cut deep enough. It doesn’t get us to the heart of the matter. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Lucky for us, God knew our hearts were wicked above all else. Jeremiah 17 nine and that’s why he declared before the foundation of the world that a day was coming, when I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. All of this is God’s gift, free of charge, lest no man should boast. And that’s right. Your salvation not only indwells you with the Holy Spirit, but also its power, and that includes its power to proclaim that Christ is Lord and bring pronouncement over the evil that threatens to enslave you. It frees you to take your thoughts captive and turn them over to Christ. It empowers you to let your yes, yes and your no be no, because nothing else is needed as a guarantee from those who are a child of the Triune God who speaks truth. It equips you to see the goodness of God and a hurting and broken world, and speak the healing power of the gospel in lifeless situations. And so it is on the heels of Pentecost and baptismal renewal.

That said, if you just let me bring this to your attention, if you believe yourself to be counted among those who have been born again as a child of God, destined no longer to be in the pit of wrath, but to see God face to face on that final day and spend eternity worshiping Him in His throne room. Then you better believe, with as much vigor and tenacity that God has equipped you for the journey. As children of the Triune God, we should spend less time concerned if God will cleanse us of all unrighteousness, and we should spend more time consumed with what God has cleansed us for. This is the very experience that unfolds as Isaiah gets sent out on his mission to spread the Word of God. Isaiah finds himself before the King of the universe. He cries out that he is not worthy to be in God’s presence, because he is a man of unclean lips who lives among a people of unclean lips. And then one of those seraphim who is doing nothing but flying around singing, Holy, holy, holy to the Lord God Almighty, flies down, grabs a coal off the altar, presses it to Isaiah’s lips, and declares, your guilt has departed, and your sin is blotted out.

Did you catch it? Isaiah is overcome by being in the presence of a holy God, because the only thing that happens is the obvious exposure of his sin and his unworthiness. And that’s where we want to go in our heads most of the time as well. We think that our sin is so great, our failure is so abundant that we are unworthy to approach God and be in his presence. And so we don’t even try. But before he can even bring himself to ask it, God’s response to Isaiah is to cleanse him of his unrighteousness, even while he is yet a sinner. This is the same grace that God offers us through Jesus Christ. And if it were this powerful from a mere angel who resides in God’s presence, then how much more glorious is it coming from the one who was with him from the beginning of the world? And so now notice Isaiah’s first words after his lips are clean, so does he say, church? Here I am. Send me. It’s the only natural response to the grace of God, removing the stain of sin from our lives. Here I am. Send me. And it’s certainly by no accident that the whole time that all this is going on, God does not speak until after Isaiah’s lips have been cleansed. God meets Isaiah where he is in all of his sin. And it’s only after a burning coal is plucked from the altar to purify him as it is pressed upon his lips, that God now inquires of the heavenly realm, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? What does that mean? It means that God has no interest in cleaning you up and then setting you on the shelf.

You have been cleansed to answer a calling. God did not create you to be empty vessels who merely take up space. God created you to be filled up with the Holy Spirit, poured out and then filled up again. You have been saved for a purpose. You have been equipped for a mission. So, let me ask you, are you disciples of Jesus Christ who trust in his power and his grace? This is. Yes. This is no. Do you understand that the Son of God has commissioned us to spread the good news of the gospel locally and to the ends of the earth? Then, in the name of the Triune God, who offers you all the grace and the mercy to be who you were created to be, let us be a people who take action. Let us no longer bear any other image than the one who cleansed us of our sins, that we might become the righteousness of God.

Let’s pray. Holy spirit. Those you have dwelt in this place and do your work now. Those who are resisting, open them up and pour within your grace, your mercy, your forgiveness of sins. Show each and every one of us, that while we are yet sinners, you meet us to clean us and send us out in a calling. Give us the power, grace and mercy to answer that calling. Now, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.