Sep 08, 2023 God’s Grace in Isaiah’s Life, and Ours – Words of Grace Blog – September 8, 2023
In Isaiah 6, the prophet recorded his own words twice. First, at the sight of the Lord seated on a throne and the sound of the seraphim calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts”, Isaiah said, “Woe is me! For I am lost.”
Then, after one of the seraphim touched Isaiah’s mouth with a burning coal and declared his sin forgiven, Isaiah said, “Here I am! Send me.”
Isaiah went from “Woe is me” to “Send me” by the grace of God.
If we take Isaiah’s experience as a pattern for God’s gracious work in our lives, then we can see that the grace of God is a power that works both for us and in us.
God worked in Christ to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. In Christ, God provided atonement for our sins.
Isaiah did not have the full revelation of Christ’s work on the cross as the payment for sin, but he was told that his guilt was removed, and his sins were forgiven. We do have the full revelation of Christ. We live on this side of the cross of Christ with the great and precious promise that by his death we are reconciled to God. By grace through faith in Christ, our standing with God has been changed. We are right with him.
What grace! O sinner, receive it. O doubter, believe it.
God works in us by his Spirit so that we will do what we would never do on our own. By his Spirit, God provides all we need to serve him. This, too, is the power of grace.
Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” We can be sure that without the prior vision of the Lord and the cleansing of his own sin that Isaiah would not have stepped up to go. The grace of God was at work in him. The power of conversion made him alive to the call. Isaiah went.
The only explanation for Isaiah’s progression from “Woe is me” to “Send me” is God. When God’s Spirit works in a person, that person does what he or she would never do alone. That person steps forward to serve the purposes of God.
What grace! O Christian, go in the power of the Spirit to speak, act, love, and serve for the glory of God.
This Sunday at Grace Community Church we will consider God’s work of grace for us in Christ and in us by his Spirit. Take a half hour this weekend to read Isaiah 6 and pray for our congregation.
– Scott