The Way of Holiness

Introduction: the focus beyond the sending

Sermons on Isaiah 6 often settle on the moment when God asks: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Plenty of people point to Isaiah's answer: Here I am! Send me. And rightly so. This is one of the best-known and most inspiring moments in Scripture, because it speaks of the calling, the commitment, and the readiness to serve the Lord.

But look closely and you notice that before the calling there is something deeper still: the vision of God's holiness and the purification of Isaiah. Notice the order. God's calling does not begin with the work He wants to do through us. Its starting point is the transformation He works on the inside. Isaiah could only be sent after he had been purified.

And maybe this is the point we forget most easily: no one is truly sent before being touched by God's holiness. Before the send me comes the Woe is me!.

The historical context of the calling

Isaiah begins by saying: In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord. There is a lot packed into that sentence. Uzziah was a king who started well and ended badly: pride took hold of him, he tried to seize the role of priest, and he was struck with leprosy. Judah was going through a time of political and spiritual instability. It is right in this setting of loss and crisis that Isaiah receives the vision that would change his life completely.

Very often it is in the middle of a crisis that God reveals His holiness. When everything seems to collapse, that is where He shows us His throne is never empty. Uzziah dies, and Isaiah sees the Lord. The human throne is shaken; the heavenly one holds firm.

The vision of God's holiness

Isaiah has a vision that takes your breath away, the kind no one forgets. He sees the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the train of His robe fills the whole temple. All around Him, seraphim fly, covering their faces and their feet, and they proclaim:

Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.

Notice this: the seraphim, perfect and pure beings, cover their faces before God. Not even they can bear to look on all the glory of the Most High. And the lesson is simple: before the holiness of God, every creature bows.

The threefold holy shows that holiness sits at the heart of the divine character. God is loving, merciful, and just, and above all He is holy in every one of His manifestations. Everything He does is pure, far from evil. That is why holiness is more than one of God's attributes: it is His very nature.

The recognition of sin

Taking in this glory, Isaiah comes to himself and exclaims:

Woe is me! For I am lost, because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

Seeing God's holiness reveals the truth about ourselves. No one grasps the size of his own sin until he sees the size of God's holiness.

Isaiah was a prophet, a man of God, and even so, before that glory, he recognizes his own spiritual misery. This reminds us that the first step of sanctification is to admit your own impurity. The one who justifies himself, God does not purify; the one who confesses, He purifies.

Here the lips are not only about speech; they point to the heart, because, as Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Isaiah realizes that even the instrument he would use to serve, his own voice, was impure. How often do we use our lips to worship and, on the same day, use them to wound, lie, or grumble?

The purification of the prophet

Then one of the seraphim flies to him carrying a live coal, taken from the altar, and touches his lips, saying:

Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

This is one of the most beautiful images of purification in the whole Bible. The fire speaks of judgment, and of cleansing too. And the coal came from the altar, the place of sacrifice. So Isaiah's forgiveness rests on a sacrificial basis, a foretaste of the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Notice that the touch is painful. Purification comes at a cost. God does not deal with our sins on the surface; He lays His hand on the exact area of our impurity. If it is on the lips, that is where He touches. If it is in the heart, there too. The process transforms and, at the same time, heals. Sanctification hurts, but it heals.

After the purification: the calling

Only after all of this does Isaiah hear the voice of the Lord: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And now the prophet answers: Here I am! Send me. The order matters a great deal: vision, confession, purification, and only then the sending. This is the sequence of the Christian life.

Many people want to be used by God without passing through the fire of purification. They want to proclaim, only without any spiritual discipline. They want to be God's voice without letting Him touch them. Isaiah shows us that the ones truly sent are those who let themselves be purified first.

The Christian life is a way of sanctification

The author of Hebrews teaches us: Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14). Sanctification is a process that never stops. It is growing more like Christ each day. In practice, that means fleeing from sin, fighting pride, controlling the tongue, mastering the impulses, and handing the heart over to the Holy Spirit.

It does not happen from one moment to the next. It is a walk you take day by day. That is why Paul writes: Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. (Colossians 3:5), each day, a new renunciation, a new step.

And God does not leave us without the means for this walk: prayer, fasting, and the reading of the Word.

• Prayer keeps us connected to the heart of God.
• Fasting weakens the flesh and strengthens the spirit.
• The Word renews our mind and reveals what needs to be transformed.

The danger of serving without sanctification

You can be doing the work of God and still walk far from the way of holiness. You can sing, preach, lead, and serve with a contaminated heart. And that is dangerous, because holiness is the seal that authenticates the ministry.

Remember one thing: the altar is a holy place. Whoever goes up to the altar must go up purified. In Psalm 24, the psalmist asks: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? and answers himself: He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Without sanctification, all service ends up losing its meaning before God.

The help of the Holy Spirit and of the community

And the good news is that we do not walk alone. The Holy Spirit was given to sanctify us. He is the fire that transforms the human being from within. When we fall, He is the one who convicts us of sin and lifts us up by grace.

Beyond that, God placed us inside a spiritual family. We have brothers, leaders, and pastors nearby to walk with us. If you struggle with sin, do not struggle alone. Confession and communion bring freedom. The church is the place where grace overcomes sin and love restores.

Conclusion: touched to be sent

Isaiah was touched right at the point of his impurity and, only then, was able to hear the calling of God. It may be that God wants to use you, but first He needs to touch you. He purifies before He sends, and transforms the heart before He sorts out the function.

What God is after goes beyond active workers: He wants holy servants. Men and women willing to let the fire of the altar touch them, even when it hurts. It is from this touch that real ministry is born.

May the Holy Spirit rekindle this fire in us today. May we see the Lord in His holiness, confess our sins, be purified, and then answer sincerely: Here I am! Send me!

Ariel Zimbrão