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I
spent last week of District Youth Camp. Actually, it was only 94
hours with 150 high school students, and at least four of those were
spent sleeping. What a wonderful way to follow up a wild Vacation
Bible School week! There is nothing that exhausts the body and
exhilarates my soul more than the way I have spent the last two
weeks. One of the highlights of last week was when our small group of
twelve students went to the High Ropes Course. Walking on logs and
wires thirty feet above the ground has a way of increasing one’s
faith. I watched them, coached them, and cheered them as one by one
they went through the four phases of the course - climbed a telephone
pole, balanced on a pine tree laid on its side, fearfully edged onto a
high wire, and finally leaned off a tower into a ride on a zip line
that took them back to earth. They were so funny. The guides would
strap them into these harnesses, attach them to a belay rope with a
carabineer, check their helmet, and ask one question. The guide would
always ask, “Are you scared?” If the answer was ‘yes’ the guide would
say, “Good. It’s always those who are scared who have the most
exciting time.”
It’s true the most interesting ones were the frightened
ones. They would hug the pole, fiddle with the carabineer, shake, and
hesitate frequently. I encouraged them with such advice as, “The
quicker you do it, the quicker you will be on the ground. Hang in
there, you’re doing fine. Now step out on that line. Don’t worry she
has you down here. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Someone came up to me and asked me, “Are you going to do
it?”
I said, “There probably won’t be any time. I want the
kids to enjoy this,” as I looked at my watch with relief.
As the last one went up the pole the guide looked at me
and said, “You have been a great coach, encouraging the youth all the
way through the course. Are you ready to do it?”
“Sure,” I said with more fear than she would have ever
guessed - or so I hope.
When I got to the top of the pole my legs were shaking
and my hands were sweating profusely. I weakly said, “It’s a lot
different being a participant than cheering for the others.”
I sometimes wonder if we haven’t made worship like the
High Ropes Course. A few people up on the course and the rest of us
cheering or looking elsewhere. That’s not how it was ever meant to
be. Isaiah learned the lessons of worship when he became a
participant. Things on earth were tough for this young man of God.
King Uzziah, the greatest king since Solomon, had died. Uzziah had
been administratively astute and militarily advanced. When he died,
the Assyrians, a huge empire and Israel’s chief enemy at the time,
looked even bigger. Listen to the Lord’s response to Isaiah’s
predicament. Hear now the word of the Lord found on Isaiah 6:1-8:
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; each had six wings: with two
they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and
with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who
called, and the house 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 with it and 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 am I; send me!”
In this passage, Isaiah recalled for his readers Isaiah’s
life changing experience of God. John Oswalt wrote in his commentary
on Isaiah that the hope was that sinful Israel becomes servant Israel
when the experience of Isaiah became the experience of a nation. In
other words, the plan was for every believer to participate in
worship. Participation feels a lot more risky than being a spectator,
but it is also a lot more meaningful. So this morning harness up, put
your helmet on, and attach yourself to the belay rope. Are you
scared? Good. It’s always those who are scared who have the most
exciting time.
Just as the High Ropes Course had four principal stages,
so in this passage we discover the four stages of active worship:
Awe, Awareness, Atonement,
and Action.
Awe is the First Stage of Active Worship.
Isaiah saw a glory, a majesty, a holiness, a
righteousness that would become the ruling concepts of his ministry.
How it happened does not matter as much as that it happened and
changed the shape of the rest of his life. He saw God as the
Sovereign one seated on a throne, so immense that the hem of God’s
robe filled the temple. This should calm the anxiety of one concerned
with “What are we going to do without King Uzziah?”
Seraphs surrounded the Sovereign One crying out, “Holy,
Holy, Holy.” This was a Hebrew way of elevating to superlatives.
“Holy, Holier, Holiest” may be another way to say this. No one was or
is holier than the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. Trees, flowers, rivers, mountains, oceans, sunrises, sunsets,
waterfalls, meadows, mist – all of it is just a reflection of the
glory of God. The whole place shook when those seraphs sang. Isaiah
caught a glimpse of God’s glory and he stood or knelt or laid flat on
the ground in Awe.
I believe in the intimate nature of God, that God cares
deeply for us. I believe that the more troubled we are, the more
intimate God becomes. However, I think it is important for believers
to get this sense of “The Man Upstairs” and “The Big Guy in the Sky”
out of our heads. To get a glimpse of God is a big deal and a moment
filled with awe.
I found that just being thirty feet above ground gave me
a sense of awe, even though I was safely tethered. Part of that was
the height and part of that was my smallness. My guide looked right
at me and said, “Are you scared? Good. It’s always those who
are scared who have the most exciting time.”
Awareness is the Next Stage of Active Worship.
Isaiah was all too aware of his humanity and it looked pretty
paltry next to the glory of God. He had that feeling that each of us
has had at one time or another, “I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong
here.”
“Woe!” he said, “I’m done for. I never say the right thing.
I’m just like these people I live with who are always doing the wrong
thing.” This is an important revelation to all of us content with
relative righteousness. Those of us who take comfort in the reality
that we’re not as bad as the guy across the street, who comes home
drunk and kicks the dog, need to look at this carefully. When
compared to the awesome nature of God, we are just a baby step
different than the most morally destitute soul. Isaiah got that. He
was all too aware of his imperfections and cried out, “I don’t belong
here.”
This is where Simon Peter was a couple of weeks ago when
we read about him being at the lakeshore with Jesus. The miraculous
catch of fish opened his eyes to the greatness of Christ and also to
the broken condition of his own soul. I’m sure Jesus could have
looked at Simon Peter and the seraph could have looked at Isaiah and
said the same thing, “Are you scared? Good. It’s always those
who are scared who have the most exciting time.”
Atonement is the Third Stage of Active
Worship.
The seraph flew to the altar, grabbed a coal with a pair
of tongs, touched it to the trembling prophet’s lips, and then said
words we long to hear, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned
for.” Imagine that! Imagine that one touch to your lips could take
away guilt that you have felt for years, that one touch to your lips
could atone for all your mistakes, all your shortcomings, all your
neglect of God and God’s desires for your life. Imagine that one
touch to your lips could clean the slate of your soul.
Monday afternoon at our camp we welcomed a master potter
from Jacksonville, Texas who demonstrated how to make beautiful dishes
and vases from nearly worthless clay. I’ve seen potters at work
before, but this potter kept talking about his mistakes. Even as he
was talking about it he made a mistake. Too much pressure at one
point gave the vase a crooked look. He simply said, “If you mess up
it’s never too late to start all over.” He showed a platter that he
had cracked in the first firing and said that he could grind that up
into a fine powder and gradually mix it back into his clay. “It’s
never too late to start over,” he kept saying, “just like us with
God.”
So much guilt, so many mistakes carried in a bag marked
“My humanity.” Imagine if one touch to my lips could free me from
this burden of guilt and weight of sin. Perhaps in a few moments when
something from this altar touches my lips, I will sense God’s
atonement. My guide looked right at me and said, “Are you
scared? Good. It’s always those who are scared who have the most
exciting time.”
Action is the Fourth Stage of Active
Worship.
Don’t miss this. I know that most of my sermons have
only three points, but this one has four and I don’t want to miss the
fourth point. Active worship must include action. Isaiah heard God’s
council meeting and the question arose “Whom shall I send? Who will
go for us?” What else could Isaiah do? He’d witnessed God’s awe,
he’d become aware of his humanity, he’d received atonement
for his mistakes. He had experienced God in his majesty and his
mercy. What else would he rather do than hurl himself into God’s
service? After all, what could be more important now that he had
experienced active worship?
“Would I do?” The cleansed soul asks. “Here am I. Send
me.”
John Oswalt wrote, unless our experience of God “issues
in some form of lived out praise to God (action), it will turn upon
itself and putrefy.”
Spiritual experiences are life changing, but if they
don’t change your life: how you live it and how you give it: then
those experiences have been all but nullified.
Wednesday our District Superintendent came to camp with a
guest. Reverend James Labala is a District Superintendent in
Liberia. Our District supports his entire salary of $100 a month.
Dr. Bledsoe and Reverend Labala went to every age-level camp where
James told of what life was like in Liberia. At Senior High camp he
was recruiting missionaries to come to Liberia and assist with
education, orphanages, food distribution, malaria prevention, or other
ministries. At the sixth and seventh grade camp he realized they may
be too young at the present time for active ministry in Africa. So he
challenged them to consider helping children their age to receive an
education. He told them for $50 a year a child could be educated.
The Camp Director had four children stand up as James Labala sat
down. He said, “We have 200 campers here today. If each one of you
gave one dollar we could provide an education for four children.”
All of a sudden children started walking up to the altar
and putting dollars down. One camper said he was saving ten dollars
for the gift shop, but he would rather educate a Liberian child than
buy a souvenir. Worship had taken an active turn and I guarantee you
that it will be the most memorable ten dollars that boy will ever
spend. Before all was done over $300 had been raised to educate at
least six children in Liberia.
For all too many people worship is about the first three
phases that I described this morning. They are in awe, aware of their
shortcomings, receive God’s grace, are relieved, and then leave.
Active worship is not active until we do something.
Bill Hybels closed his Leadership Summit last year with
an address entitled, “Whatever You Do, Inspire Me.” He reminded us
that there are so many opportunities for the church to express God’s
love to others. We need to pray about what God is calling us to do
and do it. I was inspired by the response to God’s call from these
sixth and seventh graders.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen once I started up
that High Ropes Course, but I did know that I was more scared than I
expected. It seemed so easy as a spectator. My guide looked right at
me and said, “Are you scared? Good. It’s always those who are
scared who have the most exciting time.” She was right.
Awe, awareness,
atonement, action. These four stages of worship can be
scary, but what an exciting experience to be actively worshiping the
creator of the universe and caregiver for our souls. Amen. |
