Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What if we moved beyond our safe and selfish prayers?

What if we began to pray prayers that would scare us if God answered them?

*Do your prayers reflect a desire for God to use you, or do they reflect a desire for you to use God?*

Isaiah will pray, “Here I am, Send me.”

What would it take for us to get to that place that we would pray that prayer?

Is there a way in which that prayer becomes desirable?

How can I make my life count?

(ESV)

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Uzziah - good king -

became king 16 yo - reigned 52 yrs

very prosperous

became proud and disregarded the holiness of God

became leprous - lived in a separate house until he died.

Beyond being a date marker, there is a contrast here between King Uzziah and God.

Uzziah - dead / God - alive

There is no world leader who will still be in authority in 60 years

Earthly powers will fade - God does not:

(ESV)

34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,

for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;

35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,

and he does according to his will among the host of heaven

and among the inhabitants of the earth;

and none can stay his hand

or say to him, “What have you done?”

Uzziah - had a limit to his glory and lost his ‘glory’ due to trying to build his own.

/ God’s glory fills everything and IS

2 Above him stood the seraphim.

Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

Strange creatures

Seraph means ‘fiery one’

These aren’t chubby little babies in diapers

We don’t see them again in Scripture

God is worshipped by them

3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

Only time in Scripture that God is called something three times.

Learn It.

1. God’s glory surrounds His sending.

God’s glory is the vision before and the motivation behind all that we do.

God has always been a sending God.

Missio Dei = ‘mission of God’ or ‘sending of God’

The goal and mission of all that God does is for his glory.

“Missions exists because worship doesn’t.

Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.

When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more.”

— John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad

Given the correlation between God’s glory and the motivation to be used by God, I need to wonder if the reason why more Christians are not jumping at the opportunity to be used and sent by God is because they have lost a vision and picture of God.

2. God’s call often reveals our inadequacies.

Isaiah - ‘Woe is me!’

5 And I said: “Woe is me!

For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

There are times when God wants to use us but we allow our inadequacies to make excuses for why we cant be sent / used by God.

.

Jonah - Nope

(ESV)

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. .

Job’s inadequacy is that

Moses - ‘Send him’

(ESV)

1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. . .

(ESV)

10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

**Excuses**

(ESV)

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” v

Moses - ‘Send him’

Jacob was a cheater.

Peter had a temper.

David had an affair.

Noah got drunk.

Jonah ran from God.

Paul was a murder.

Gideon was insecure.

Miriam was a gossip.

Martha was a worrier.

5 And I said: “Woe is me!

For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Thomas was a doubter.

Sara was impatient.

Elijah was moody.

Moses stuttered.

Zaccheus was short.

Abraham was old.

Lazarus was dead.

Because it reveals our inadequacies, We think God must have made some mistake - that it wasn’t well planned to choose you for this particular task.

Perhaps, though the opposite is true.

What ‘handicap’ do you have?

God will often work through our greatest weaknesses rather than our greatest strengths.

(ESV)

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.