The Wholeness of Worship Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Wholeness of Worship Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 6:1-8.

So we know in a physical, temporal sense the need for cleansing. How much more do we need that spiritually, Church? That’s why I’m teaching you this morning that holiness is activated by your worship of God. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church.

Welcome to Hope Worth Having radio program. Thank you for being with us today. We’re jumping back into Isaiah chapter 6. We’re learning about the wholeness of worship because we understand that there is a big picture as we are worshiping the Lord and it’s never about us but it’s always about Him.

So let’s grab our Bibles and continue to dig into the Scriptures. And your heart builds walls and defenses because of the offenses of relationships and circumstances. It’s God who brings you back and melts your heart to be tender and soft towards Him again.

It is not only in the fire of worship that He is refining me, consuming me, and melting me. He is warming me. He is warming us as believers as we come and gather this morning and we encounter God and we see Him high and lifted up as we sing praises to God, as we pray and worship the Lord in our prayers, and as we read the Scriptures and worship the Lord, as we fellowship together and worship to God.

It is God who in this fire of worship is warming our hearts. He is warming those cold hearts that are in so desperate need to be thawed. You thought that just inviting someone to the church was about reaching some kind of a number, but it’s about bringing people into the fire of worship that warms their heart towards Jesus Christ.

The fire of worship also ignites us when we are turned off of God, life, problems. He turns us back on for Christ. This is the refining work of God.

This is what Isaiah is trying to communicate to his people. Do not be overwhelmed by all the woes. Do not be overwhelmed, because as we come into the presence of God and we have a great reverential awe for God, that there is a God who either sends a messenger or sends an angel or sends Himself to fly to you.

I want you to underscore that in verse 6, that He flew to me, Isaiah says. God did not abandon me in my uncleanliness. He did not abandon me in my becoming undone and coming apart at the seams.

He did not abandon me as I heard the woes of His righteousness and His holiness and His glory, but He sent down one of those angels who touched the very lips of my heart, and He cleansed me, refined me, and He warmed me to the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is the point of your greatest weakness? What is that sin that is so easily setting you back? If you will come to God in the midst of His holiness this morning, His purifying fire will touch you at that point, at that moment. So we’ve learned this morning that our ungodliness is exposed by our worship to God, but I also want you to see that holiness is activated by our worship to God.

I want you to, if you will again, go back to Isaiah chapter 1 because there is a theme that keeps resonating through the book of Isaiah. It is this title that’s been given to God, the Holy One of Israel. We come to verse 4 of chapter 1, and again, we see that the prophet says, a last sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backwards.

We jump over to chapter 5, where we just were a week ago. In chapter 5 in verse 19, and again, we are taught that, that say, let him make speed, meaning they were wanting God to speed up His timetable and hasten His work that we may see it work on our timetable, God, not yours. It was mocking to God.

The Bible says, let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come that we may know it. We come to chapter 6, verse 3, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. I know you’re probably tired of me saying it, but somehow it needs to be embedded in your mind and your heart because of the confusing times that we live in.

But the greatest attribute of God is His holiness. And out of all of His other attributes and very nature, they emanate from the holiness of God. And at the very foundation of who God is, He is holy.

Now, not to in any way try to minimize or to be disrespectful to God Almighty, but the Hebrew word has the idea of being a cut above. We might look at it like this, which Isaiah will say later in the book of Isaiah, where he declares that God would say, who is like me? God is certainly a cut above humanity, man. He is a cut above.

He is beyond us. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

Here, the prophet says that his encounter with God led the angels for him to witness the angels saying, holy, holy, holy. We know in the Jewish culture to use a word twice was to describe it as being most, meaning if we were to say, holy, holy, we were saying that God is most holy, that He is above all the holiness of any man or any person on this planet. But yet, what we see here is that He says, holy, three times, which intensifies the highest level of expression.

And in a real sense, what Isaiah is saying is the holiness of God is so indescribable that even our language cannot even fully express how great and transcendent our God is. In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. If you haven’t read The Knowledge of the Holy, get it on Amazon this afternoon, not while I’m preaching, but order that book.

It’ll probably be very inexpensive. You could probably get it in PDF free. But the bottom line is, if you want to just revel in the greatness and the holiness and the magnificence of that little book, if you’re like me, limited in your capabilities of comprehension, you’ll have to read it several times.

You’ll be so overwhelmed with how Tozer describes the glory and the greatness of God that you will read it and stop and just worship God. That’s how moving it is. What I’m trying to say to you, when Tozer tells us what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us, I’m telling you, we live in a culture that disagrees with us.

And that’s why theology is so important in your life, learning about who God is, because theology is a combination of two words, which means the study of God. And as you study God, studying his attributes, his character, his nature, his essence, you can’t help but just want to worship him. Isaiah 8 verse 13 says that the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy.

Let him be your fear and let him be your dread. Here’s what I want you to know, church, that there is a healthy fear. There is a holy fear.

Not the fear of man, which is a snare, the Bible says. Not striving to please people or worry about what others might think, but there is a holy fear that requires us as believers that when we are in his presence that we have a great reverence for God. Cultures have expressed that reverence to God in different ways.

There’s no one particular way that supersedes another. We go back into the New Testament and we see that the apostle, through the inspiration of the Spirit of God, would tell the women to make sure that their heads were covered. It was a symbolic expression of not only their submission to their husband, but their reverence to a holy and righteous God.

Do not worry, ladies, I’m not asking you to cover your head. If you want to, that’s fine. But I’m just here to tell you that this was a cultural expression of their reverence to God.

Sometimes people of other generations have taken their hat off when they enter into the house of the Lord. Why? As an expression of reverence. Sometimes out of respect, someone who is sitting, when someone walks in the room of authority or of a particular title, they will stand up in their presence out of respect.

These are just different cultural ways that people express themselves. I’m not saying they’re right or wrong, I’m just saying they’re ways that people show respect. But please don’t misunderstand me.

I’m not pushing any kind of cultural agenda upon you. I’m just saying that somehow, some way in our hearts, you and I need to get to that moment that however we express that reverence, however we express that holy, healthy fear before the presence of a righteous and glorifying God who is transcendent and beyond our words to describe, that this is an expression of our worship to him. Every time we hear praise going on around the throne of God, we should have a sense of his holiness.

The focus of our hearts this morning when we gather should be upon the holiness of God, that there ought to be something that we recognize as beyond us and reverential towards the Lord. I know that for some, it may cause us to feel so unworthy, it may cause us to feel so unrighteous and unholy, but this is not what God’s ultimate goal is. Because in that moment, as we are feeling unworthiness, God wants us to find wholeness.

The wholeness of worship is what I’ve been teaching you. There is a root relationship between the word whole, healthy, wholeness, and holy. And when we talk about holiness, we’re talking about our wholeness, W-H-O-L-E-N-E-S-S, before God.

Holiness is God’s completeness. It is his fulfillment entering into my incompleteness. It is his righteousness filling into my unrighteousness.

It is his holiness filling into my unholiness, sir, my lack of holiness. The only way for this to happen is to be in his presence, whether it is personal or it is corporate. When you come and you say, Lord, I’m unworthy, I’m a sinful man in your presence in the house of the Lord.

It is in that moment that our worship begins to transform us. The worship of the believer is designed to transform the believer. Hear me.

Hear me so well on this. It is not original with me, but it is good for you to consider and ponder that you become like who or what you worship. And so, the question is, if you say, what’s wrong with me? I would say, what or who are you worshiping? Some of you are worshiping self.

Some of you are worshiping sports. Some of you are worshiping your children. Some of you are worshiping everything under the sun, maybe your career, and you are worshiping everything else but the one who is worthy of your worship.

You will become like what or who you worship. So, that’s why we need the fire of worship. We need God to send the coal to transform our lives.

It is the work of Christ on the cross that is purifying believers even now as I speak. As his purifying grace is being poured out into your heart, it is no wonder that John would say in 1 John 1, 7, if we walk in the light, meaning Christ is the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Just the act of worship, just the submission and surrender and reverence to God is having an eternal effect upon you in cleansing and purifying your heart.

Think about it, church. So, we know in a physical, temporal sense, the need for cleansing and the need to be cleaned up. How much more do we need that spiritually, church? That’s why I’m teaching you this morning that holiness is activated by your worship of God.

And yes, you want to stay home, but you’re only becoming more like the world. But when you’re in the presence of God and you are worshiping God, he is cleansing you, he is purifying you, he is washing away that sin that has stained your life, that is beginning to be embedded in your heart. He is making you more like him.

And that’s why I don’t want to miss a Sunday. That’s why I don’t want to miss. And there can be a thousand excuses.

I’ve had migraines too. I’ve come up here and preached with migraines. I’ve come up here with my foot, my ankle, and all these issues I’ve got.

I don’t even want to tell you because you’re going to start sending me letters and telling me how to fix this and that with your home remedies, amen? But I just want you to know, church, I’m pushing through because the cleansing of worship means so much to me. Now, the third thing that I want you to learn this morning from this text is wholeness is restored by our worship to God. Remember that Isaiah said in chapter 6 and verse 5 that not only was he unclaimed but he was undone, falling apart at the seams.

You have walked through life and circumstances and problems and felt the same way. But what is unique about this is that what made him feel so undone was to be in the presence of God. So let’s do a little lesson here.

The word worth originally described the weight of a coin. In the ancient world, the coins were made of valuable metals, which as they were passed, exchanged, and used, they began to thin rapidly, causing the coin to lose its value. And that’s exactly how Isaiah felt.

He could see that little by little he was coming apart. But God is calling each of us to worship him in his presence in order that a transfer of his being, his righteousness, his holiness may take place in our hearts. That as we walk through this life, that the wear and tear of the coin of our lives is being restored by his nature within us, thus we are being restored through worship, and worship is the situation or the circumstance that brings wholeness and restoration to the believer.

It is no wonder the prophet Malachi said this, but for you who fear my name, healthy fear, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. It is because God’s worth is poured into your heart that you become whole in Jesus Christ, that the fullness of God is imputed into your heart and into your life as you are standing in the presence of a holy and righteous God.

You are receiving this grace from God into your life. But I know what you say, well Mike I’ll just stay home because I’ll get rested up. I want to say something to you church, that’s like saying to your vehicle, you stay in the garage and I know some way somehow you’ll get gassed up, that somehow that fuel will just emerge into my tank and you’ll jump in that car and it never did emerge and you’ll run that car till it’s empty and you can no longer move forward and so it is in your spiritual life.

Are you listening to me church? The spiritual energy that God provides for you is in the moment of your worship to him and that he is restoring you and making you whole as you are worshiping him personally and as you are worshiping him corporately. Now the final truth that I want you to learn this morning is that missions is ignited in our worship of God. Now think about this, look at verse eight he says, having already experienced the purging of God, the wholeness of God, the forgiveness of God, the grace of God, then in verse eight you’d think there’d be a lot of hugging going on, but there’s a commission.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Whenever you see a question in the Bible, please don’t think that God doesn’t know. I mean he didn’t say to Adam, where are you? Because God had lost Adam, amen? That he had misplaced Adam. Adam was right where God knew he was and the goal was not to ask the question for God’s benefit, but for Adam’s benefit.

And Isaiah is asked a question by God, not for the sake of God, but for the sake of Isaiah. This is a great tool by the way as you’re raising teenagers, I’m just here to say. But I’m telling you what God is trying to do for you and I is to bring a self-awareness in our hearts.

Where are you Adam? Just put your name there. Where are you spiritually? It’s not like God doesn’t know, but the problem is you don’t know. And for Isaiah, he needed to have a self-awareness that worship leads to mission and mission is ignited as we worship God.

So whom shall I send and who will go for us? The mission of our lives is found in our worship to God. The reason we’re not evangelistic and the reason we’re not having spiritual conversations and the reason that we’re not on mission every day when we hop out of that bed is because we’re not worshiping God like we ought to. That the fire of worship hasn’t touched our lips and our hearts just yet.

But after the angel had purified Isaiah’s lips, the Lord had him on mission. And you can only find your true direction and intended purpose in the context of your worship to God. If you’re in a dead church where there is no worship and the fire of worship is not evident, if you’re in a ministry that is not worshiping the Lord, it’s no wonder not only are the pews empty, but no one is being sent out on mission for God.

Now every Christian has a mission and that mission is to make disciples. Jesus said in Matthew 28 verse 19, therefore go and make disciples to all nations. You can’t excuse that.

You can’t say that’s just for the pastor, that’s just for the missionary, that’s just for the elders, that’s just for the deacons, but it certainly ain’t for me. No my friends, it’s for all of us. But what is it that helps your heart align with that command? It is your personal worship with God.

It is your corporate worship with God. If you come and you’re not worshiping God, it’s no wonder you’re not on fire for God and that you can’t wait because you want a desire. When you worship God, you have a desire in your heart that all the nations would worship God.

That all the peoples of every ethnicity and people groups would worship God before throne because at the heart of missions, as Piper teaches us, is all the nations would worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Evangelism has nothing to do about another notch in your belt and it has nothing to do with about the size of your church or how many people you have reached. It is about a passion of worship for God and that you not only desire that you would worship God, but you have a desire that people from all walks of life would worship and that drives you, that motivates you, and as you are worshiping God this morning, as you are in this worship service, you should walk out of here with a desire to do missions, to have spiritual conversations, to be plugged into ministries throughout the week that are advancing the cause of Jesus Christ.

We love you all, but some of you just sit and soak. Something’s not right. You ought to be plugged and say, I want to make a difference for Christ, and if your missions is messed up and your evangelism is messed up, it means your worship is messed up, and you need to rethink that.

Now, we as believers, we are called to be set apart in our behavior, but we are sent out in our relationships, so we strive to be holy as the scripture says, be holy for I am holy, but we walk out of here and march out of here with a desire to be sent out and say, Lord, here am I. The more our eyes are upon Christ, the more we see our need for Christ. That’s why it’s so important that when we are worshiping the Lord, whether it’s corporately or personally, that we are always exalting Christ. Then we find that comfort of the gospel as we mourn over our sinfulness, and we recognize that Christ is the one who meets us at the point of our sinfulness, and he touches us as the angel did and brings cleanliness to each of us.

I pray that’ll be your experience, that you will experience the touch of God in grace and forgiveness in your life, and this will set you on a journey of worshiping the Lord and exalting him for the rest of your life. We want to thank you for being a part of Hope Worth Having ministry, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to minister. You might have a prayer request, and if you do, just send it our way.

We want to do more than just teach the Bible. We want to pray for you, and so you can go to our contact button on our website, hopeworthhaving.com, and you can share with us your requests, and we’ll lift those to the Lord. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.