Sermon on Isaiah 1-12

Last Sunday I preached a sermon (actually we do more like guided discussions instead of sermons as part of our Sunday services in our church now .) Here are some of my notes from the sermon…

As you can see the center of the section is the appearance of God on the throne and the recommissioning of Isaiah as a prophet to people who will not listen. The big point is that mission must flow out of worship and an experience of the Presence of God. The flow in Isaiah 6 is…

•Vision > Trust > Mission > Hope

The barriers that stop worship from flowing into mission are dealt with by the examples in chapters 2-5 (complacency or misplaced priorities) and chapters 7-11 (idolatry). First, the people of Judah under the reign of Uzziah were guilty of Complacency in 2-5. Thus, God rejected the worship of Israel because they refused to take it outside the walls of the temple (no justice, no mercy, no love). The people were more concerned with comfort than mission (see  chapter 3 especially)

Secondly the people of Judah under the reign of Ahaz were guilty of Idolatry in 7-12. Ahaz chose to trust Assyria rather than God and God allowed him to be destroyed by Assyria. The point is that whatever you trust in God’s place (your idol) will destroy you.

Then we discussed these questions which I think are worthwhile to meditate on…

1. In what ways have we put comfort, wealth, or status above mission in our lives or in our church?
2. Where do I place the trust that should only belong to God? Where is the first place I tend to turn to in a crisis?
3. How do we remove these barriers to mission?

Then we returned to Isaiah and saw how he handled uncertain situations and moved from worship to mission.

1. Isaiah spends time in the presence of God
2. Isaiah confesses and repents of his own sin
3. Isaiah receives his status and ability from God
4. Isaiah is given a mission
5. Isaiah is given a promise
6. Isaiah then goes out into a difficult situation

Finally we closed with a discussion of these two questions.

1. How do we facilitate experience of God and calling to mission in our church?
2. How do we take this experience outside our walls?