Ken Lovelace Ministries


F a i t h M a t t e r s with Dr. Ken Lovelace Emphasis: Worship The Wholeness of Worship Isaiah 6:1-8 1 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. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "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." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 8 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!" The best times for worship are sometimes in the middle of crises or disappointments. Here, amid the crisis of King Uzziah's death, Isaiah learns something about the impact of worship and holiness on our hearts. 1. Unholiness Is Revealed by Worship. Isaiah's vision of God's throne gave him a horrible sense of his own unworthiness and sinfulness. It does the same for us. The Lord's presence makes us aware of our sin. We feel "undone" and "unclean" like Isaiah. But the Lord meets us at our point of need by purifying us. God sent an angel with a hot coal to touch Isaiah's perceived point of unworthiness -- his lips. Had he felt his hands were unclean, the Lord would have touched Isaiah's hands. The fire of the coal brought regeneration to the place of impurity Isaiah was most sensitive to. This helps us to understand five important truths about the "fire" of worship. It: A. Refines - It burns out the residue of unworthiness. B. Consumes - It takes the bondage out of our lives and burns it up. C. Melts - Our wills are made pliable. D. Warms - Our cold hearts are thawed. E. Ignites - When we've turned off, He turns us back on. What is the point of your greatest weakness? If we will come to God, in the midst of His holiness, His purifying fire will touch us at that point. 2. Holiness Is Activated by Worship. Philadelphia pastor James Montgomery Boice once spoke to a discipleship group on the attributes of God. He began by asking them to list God's qualities in order of importance. They put love first, followed by wisdom, power, mercy, omniscience, and truth. At the end of the list they put holiness. "That surprised me," Boice later wrote, "because the Bible refers to God's holiness more than any other attribute." The Bible doesn't generally refer to God as Loving, Loving, Loving! or Wise, Wise, Wise! or Omniscient, Omniscient, Omniscient! But over and over we read the cry of the angels, Holy, Holy, Holy! Every time we hear praise going on around the throne of God, we hear, "Holy, holy, holy!" The focus is on God's holiness. We tend to think of holiness as the purity we are trying to achieve, and that God will reject us if we don't. Even among people who genuinely love the Lord, there are those who draw back because they feel unholy and unworthy. There's a natural inclination to avoid worship because of feelings of unworthiness. But the Lord wants us to worship Him because it is there that we will find wholeness. There is a root relationship between the words whole, healthy, wholeness, and holy. When we talk about holiness, we are talking about wholeness. Holiness is God's entirety entering my incompleteness. The only way for that to happen is to come into His presence and to permit His presence to permeate our person. 3. Wholeness Is Restored by Worship. The word "worth" comes from axios, which originally described a coin of full weight. In the ancient world, the coins were made of valuable metals that wore thin rapidly, causing the coin to lose some of its value. That's how Isaiah felt. But God calls us to worship in His presence in order that a transfer of His being into us may take place; then the worth of His nature within us that gets worn-off by the rub of daily life, begins to be restored through worship. Worship is the situation in which wholeness is restored. Because of God's worth poured into us, we become worthy. 4. Mission Is Found in Worship. The mission of our lives is also found in worship. After the angel purified Isaiah's lips, the Lord gave him a mission. Jonathan Goforth became a powerful evangelist throughout Asia, a rarity for a Westerner. Crowds sometimes numbered 25,000. His Chinese home was open to inquirers -- one day alone over 2,000 showed up. Multitudes throughout the Orient came to Christ through Jonathan and his wife, Rosaline. During his missionary career, fifty Chinese converts went out as ministers or evangelists. What led Goforth overseas? Dr. George Mackay, veteran missionary to Formosa, Taiwan, had been traveling across America for two years trying to recruit young men for Asian evangelism. One night as Jonathan, a college student at the time, listened, he said, "I heard the voice of the Lord saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' and I answered: 'Here am I, send me.' From that hour I became a foreign missionary." You, too, can find your direction and intended purpose in the context of worship. Conclusion Just as we inherit certain characteristics from our biological parents, so, as we worship, the image and nature of our heavenly Father begins to manifest itself in our lives. My likeness to my heavenly Father comes from being in His presence. The fact that God is holy relates to our healing and restoration, not our shame and condemnation. His life is already in us, and we will be holy because He is our Father, and He is holy. That's a promise (1 Pet. 1:16). Copyright © 2009. Faith Matters by Dr. Ken Lovelace. All rights reserved. KDT072009

F a i t h M a t t e r s
with Dr. Ken Lovelace
Emphasis: Worship

The Wholeness of Worship

Isaiah 6:1-8

1 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.

2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered
their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the
temple was filled with smoke.

5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "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."

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

8 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!"

The best times for worship are sometimes in the middle of crises or disappointments. Here, amid the crisis of King Uzziah's death, Isaiah learns something about the impact of worship and holiness on our hearts.

1. Unholiness Is Revealed by Worship. Isaiah's vision of God's throne gave him a horrible sense of his own unworthiness and sinfulness. It does the same for us. The Lord's presence makes us aware of our sin. We feel "undone" and "unclean" like Isaiah. But the Lord meets us at our point of need by purifying us. God sent an angel with a hot coal to touch Isaiah's perceived point of unworthiness -- his lips.

Had he felt his hands were unclean, the Lord would have touched Isaiah's hands. The fire of the coal brought regeneration to the place of impurity Isaiah was most sensitive to. This helps us to understand five important truths about the "fire" of worship. It:

A. Refines - It burns out the residue of unworthiness.
B. Consumes - It takes the bondage out of our lives and burns it up.
C. Melts - Our wills are made pliable.
D. Warms - Our cold hearts are thawed.
E. Ignites - When we've turned off, He turns us back on.

What is the point of your greatest weakness? If we will come to God, in the midst of His holiness, His purifying fire will touch us at that point.

2. Holiness Is Activated by Worship. Philadelphia pastor James Montgomery Boice once spoke to a discipleship group on the attributes of God. He began by asking them to list God's qualities in order of importance. They put love first, followed by wisdom, power, mercy, omniscience, and truth. At the end of the list they put holiness.

"That surprised me," Boice later wrote, "because the Bible refers to God's holiness more than any other attribute." The Bible doesn't generally refer to God as Loving, Loving, Loving! or Wise, Wise, Wise! or Omniscient, Omniscient, Omniscient! But over and over we read the cry of the angels, Holy, Holy, Holy! Every time we hear praise going on around the throne of God, we hear, "Holy, holy, holy!" The focus is on God's holiness.

We tend to think of holiness as the purity we are trying to achieve, and that God will reject us if we don't. Even among people who genuinely love the Lord, there are those who draw back because they feel unholy and unworthy. There's a natural inclination to avoid worship because of feelings of unworthiness. But the Lord wants us to worship Him because it is there that we will find wholeness.

There is a root relationship between the words whole, healthy, wholeness, and holy. When we talk about holiness, we are talking about wholeness. Holiness is God's entirety entering my incompleteness. The only way for that to happen is to come into His presence and to permit His presence to permeate our person.

3. Wholeness Is Restored by Worship. The word "worth" comes from axios, which originally described a coin of full weight. In the ancient world, the coins were made of valuable metals that wore thin rapidly, causing the coin to lose some of its value. That's how Isaiah felt. But God calls us to worship in His presence in order that a transfer of His being into us may take place; then the worth of His nature within us that gets worn-off by the rub of daily life, begins to be restored through worship. Worship is the situation in which wholeness is restored. Because of God's worth poured into us, we become worthy.

4. Mission Is Found in Worship. The mission of our lives is also found in worship. After the angel purified Isaiah's lips, the Lord gave him a mission. Jonathan Goforth became a powerful evangelist throughout Asia, a rarity for a Westerner. Crowds sometimes numbered 25,000. His Chinese home was open to inquirers -- one day alone over 2,000 showed up. Multitudes throughout the Orient came to Christ through Jonathan and his wife, Rosaline. During his missionary career, fifty Chinese converts went out as ministers or evangelists.

What led Goforth overseas? Dr. George Mackay, veteran missionary to Formosa, Taiwan, had been traveling across America for two years trying to recruit young men for Asian evangelism. One night as Jonathan, a college student at the time, listened, he said, "I heard the voice of the Lord saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' and I answered: 'Here am I, send me.' From that hour I became a foreign missionary."

You, too, can find your direction and intended purpose in the context of worship.

Conclusion

Just as we inherit certain characteristics from our biological parents, so, as we worship, the image and nature of our heavenly Father begins to manifest itself in our lives. My likeness to my heavenly Father comes from being in His presence. The fact that God is holy relates to our healing and restoration, not our shame and condemnation. His life is already in us, and we will be holy because He is our Father, and He is holy. That's a promise (1 Pet. 1:16).

Copyright © 2009. Faith Matters by Dr. Ken Lovelace. All rights reserved.

KDT072009