Isaiah 6:1-8

&nb= sp;

God has a plan for your life!<= /i>

A sermon preached by

Rev. William O. (Bud) = Reeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

July 1, 2007

There is no better pla= ce to be on Independence Day than Bo= ston, Massachusetts. Our family was in Boston for July 4^th in 2001.= We walked the Freedom Trail of historical sights and sat with about 500,000 of our fellow Americans to hear the Boston Pops annual extravaganza and saw the fireworks. It was an unforgettable day.

One of the highlights = for me was a choir concert we heard at Faneuil Hall. This historic meeting hall once reverberated with the cries of American patriots longing for freedom. The great abolitionists spoke ther= e in the struggle to end slavery. = They call Faneuil Hall “the Cradle of Liberty.” The walls are covered with the por= traits of great Americans like Sam Adams and Paul Revere. As we sat there and just looked ar= ound, and then as the choir began to sing patriotic songs, I began to sense the g= reat reality of the American vision—the ideals we stand for and the men and women who sacrificed their lives to establish this great experiment in demo= cracy. When the choir ended the concert w= ith “The Star-Spangled Banner,” we all jumped to our feet, and I fe= lt the lump come in my throat and the tears come to my eyes. I was in the presence of greatness= .

Multiply that experien= ce by a thousand, and you might understand what Isaiah experienced in the Temple the day he received his call. Isaiah hea= rd more than the national anthem; he heard the song of the angels and saw God = on his throne. It was an unforge= ttable day for him as well. It’= ;s not clear if this vision of God in the Temple was something that happened to Isaiah in a moment of personal prayer, or if= it was in the middle of a worship service.&nb= sp; But it is clear that it was a spiritual experience that changed his = life forever. It was a turn-around= day in his life. It was the momen= t he heard the call from God to be a prophet.&n= bsp; It was his experience of vocation.&= nbsp; From this moment on, Isaiah knew what God had in mind for him to do. God had a plan for Isaiah’s life.

Did you know that God = has a plan for your life? Every sin= gle person who hears my voice has what it takes to be used by God. You all have gifts and graces that= God has given you. You have the potential and the power from God to be a hero f= or the Kingdom. Our kids in Vacation Bible School this week learned how to be heroes of Biblical proportions. According to the vision of Isaiah = the prophet, just three things need to happen before you can be a spiritual her= o. This is what it takes to realize t= he great possibilities of your life.

First, you need inspiration. You need an experience of being filled from another Source, a moment when you realize that you are part of something that is so much bigger than your own self and your own desires. You need to be inspired.

Isaiah had the inspiri= ng experience of a lifetime when he saw the Lord. God was sitting on a throne, and t= he hem of his robe filled the entire = Temple. The Lord was surrounded by angels,= great flying spiritual beings with three pairs of wings. They called to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”[1] The power of the angels&#= 8217; voices of shook the Temple from top to bottom, and the house filled with smoke. Can you even imagine such an aweso= me experience?

We need to have some k= ind extraordinary spiritual experience to lift us up to a spiritual plane above= the boring routine of daily life. We need to know we are part of the work of an awesome God in the world. Of course, it may not be the same = kind of dramatic vision Isaiah had; that’s OK. It could be very simple—no shaking, no smoke, no angels flapping their wings—but very real nonetheless. We still need the inspiration.

Steve Sjogren is the f= ounding pastor of a Vineyard church in Cinncinnati, Ohio. One day he was feeling particularly discouraged, and he announced to his wife Janie that he was quitting the mi= nistry. She had heard this kind of talk be= fore, so she suggested that Steve go for a drive and think things through. That usually seemed to help. “And while you’re out,” she said, “would you pick me up a burrito?”

Steve drove around for= about an hour, complaining to the Lord the whole time. Finally he drove through the burrito place to pick up Janie’s food. As he waited in the line, he felt = the Lord speaking to him—not an audible voice, and not through the drive-through speaker, but an inner compulsion to do a very simple thing. He felt God was telling him to ope= n the door of the car and receive a special gift. It seemed kind of silly, but Steve= did it, and right there under his car door in the drive-through lane was an old, tarnished penny embedded in the asphalt.&n= bsp; Listen to what he wrote about that experience:

“I reached down = to pry out the coin and held it in my hand feeling less than thankful for this ‘gift.’ The Lord = spoke to me again and said, ‘Many people in this city feel about as valuabl= e as discarded pennies. I’ve= given you the gift of gathering people who seem valueless. Though these are the people the wo= rld casts off, they have great value to me.&nb= sp; If you will open your heart, I will bring you more pennies than you = know what to do with.’”[2]

From that penny’s worth of inspiration, Steve and the Lord built a huge ministry to lost and forgotten people in the city of Cinncinnati.

What is your inspirati= on today? Have you ever had a gl= impse of the might and power and glory of God?&n= bsp; What is it that motivates you to undertake this Christian journey?

The second part of rea= lizing God’s plan for your life is = confession. We have to understand that God is = in charge here; he is in control; and our lives belong to him. We are not self-sufficient. This ministry is not a Brother Bud= thing. It’s not a Hot Springs thing. It’s not a Methodist thing.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It’s a God thing. Without God, we fall flat. We are incomplete without him.

Isaiah realized this w= hen he stood in the presence of God’s awesome holiness. “Woe is me!” he said. “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a peopl= e of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”= = [3] Almost immediately upon h= is confession, one of the angels cleansed Isaiah’s lips with a burning h= ot coal taken from the fire of the altar of God. As painful as that sounds, it was effective: “Your guilt has departed, and your sin is blotted out.”[4] The young prophet found out that w= here he was lacking in anything—like holiness—he could depend on God.

Likewise, the closer w= e get to God, the more we can see the blemishes and imperfections in our lives. But the Good News is, where we are inadequate, God is sufficient. Where we are incomplete, he is complete. When we are awful, he is awesome. When we are weak, he is strong. When we are standing on the point = of despair, he gives us hope to carry on.&nbs= p; And he’ll bring us along, no matter how long it takes.

Lois Secrist promised = God when she was 15 years old that she would go overseas as a missionary to help the needy, maybe in Africa or China. That was in 1927. She never made that journey, becau= se at the age of 23, she married a handsome farmer named Galon Prater. He became a heavy drinker, and it = was all Lois could do to keep the family and the farm together.

Near the end of his li= fe, Galon became a Christian and gave up his drinking. But he was already nearly 80 years= old, and he died on January 9, 1988. Almost immediately, after 53 years of marriage, Lois’ teenage dream of becoming a missionary returned.&n= bsp; But how could she do that? She was 76 years old. = No mission organization would support such an elderly missionary. But Lois still felt the call in her heart. She ended up in the Philippines.

Over the next decade, = Lois Prater built an orphanage entirely supported by individual donations. Thirty-five children, ages eight m= onths to 10 years called the orphanage home.&nbs= p; Lois became “Lola,” which means “grandmother”= ; in the native dialect. In a 1999 interview, the 87-year-old missionary said, “I serve a mighty God. He’s in control. I feel I’m not talented enou= gh to do any of this. But God enabl= es me. My responsibility is to d= o what I can.”[5]

As we read through the Biblical list of great servants of God, we discover that none of them were = perfect people. Every single one of t= hem had problems, deficiencies, and handicaps that could have held them back fr= om serving God. But they didn= 217;t. In every case, God overcame the person’s difficulties and gave him or her the power to serve.

If you want to find ou= t what God’s plan is for your life, experience your inspiration, make your confession, and thirdly, answer your commission. Respond to your calling. If you are walking with God, open = to his Spirit, dependent on him, he will guide your life, and you will feel a nudg= ing, an urging, sometimes a shove to serve God in some way. That is your calling. Answer your commission.=

When Isaiah had experi= enced this vision in the Temple, and he had cried out in confession and been cleansed, then he heard the voi= ce of God saying, “Whom shall I = send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah said, “Here am = I. Send me!”[6] He didn’t know where God was sending him. At that point Go= d had not provided a ministry description. Isaiah had no clue about what he was getting into. He just had to respond. He just had to follow the call.

Karen Watson was a you= ng Baptist missionary who responded to the call to go to the Middle East. Before she= left in 2003, she wrote a letter and left it with her pastors. Along with four other Christian missionaries, Karen Watson was killed on March 15, 2004. The letter was opened and read at = her funeral. In part it read:

You shoul= d only be opening this letter in the event of my death.

When God = calls there are no regrets. I tried= to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations. I wasn't called to a place. I was called to him. To obey was my objective, to suffer= was expected, his glory my reward.

One of th= e most important things to remember right now is to preserve the work. …Keep sending missionaries o= ut. Keep raising up fine young pastors.=

In regard= s to any service, keep it small and simple. Yes, simply, just preach the gospel. …Be bold and pr= each the life-saving, life-changing, forever-eternal gospel. Give glory and honor to our Father.=

The Missi= onary Heart:

Care more= than some think is wise.

Risk more= than some think is safe.

Dream mor= e than some think is practical.

Expect mo= re than some think is possible.

I was cal= led not to comfort or success but to obedience. …There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him.

In his ca= re,

Karen= = [7]

How far will you follow God? You don’t have to = go to Iraq or the Philippines to be in mission = for God. You can be a missionary = across the street, starting in September. You can live out your calling from God in this church and in this community, if that’s what God is calling you to do. Will you offer yourself totally to = the opportunities God gives you to follow him?= Or will your response be diminished by your concern about the cost—it’s not convenient; it takes too much time; it’s expensive; it drains me emotionally; it’s not something I’ve ev= er done before. What will your response be when you hear the call of God?

God has a plan for your life, and blessed are those who realize what that is and experience GodR= 17;s plan in all its fullness. Hap= py are the ones who serve him faithfully. Complete is their journey when it finally ends in the kingdom of hea= ven.

As you come to the Lord’s Table today, I hope you’ll pray as Isaiah did. Pray for the inspiration of the Sp= irit to see the living God. Pray in confession to cleanse your sinful heart and depend on God. Pray to answer the call and be sen= t to do God’s will. Pray like that, and I believe you will discover God’s plan for your life. You will find his power at work in you. You will know his perfect will. That’s like touch= ing heaven. Amen!