For all the worship we do, I don’t think that Christians take worship seriously enough. We go to church out of habit, out of duty, even because we want to go. But often we take it for granted that what we do is worship. We think that all the external acts, whatever we choose to do, is worship.

Worship is the act of recognizing who God is and acknowledging all of his value and worth. We enjoy spirited, joyful and exciting worship. In order to do so, we need to remember who God is. We get pleasure in worshiping God and there is nothing wrong with that. But I believe that we fail to worship if we have failed to grasp something about the nature and holiness of God. So, worship has a dignified and serious side as well as a joyful and exciting side. But until we understand the serious, holiness of God, our worship will always be false. We can make ourselves feel good, and yet, really never have worshiped. Or, we can complain that worship is dull and not exciting as if it was someone else’s fault. It is not the church’s fault. It is not my fault or Emily’s fault. The experience of worship begins with the worshiper. If you did not take some time to prepare for worship today, I doubt you will get much out of it. How can you recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit if you did not prepare your heart? And how can you worship if you have not fully understood your position before God? If we are to worship then we need know something about God and we need know something about ourselves.

We must understand our sinfulness if we are to approach a holy and righteous God. And we must be personally transformed if we are to stand in the presence of God to worship. That transformation begins when we come to Christ. But, it continues largely because we enter the presence of God in corporate worship.

Worship transforms us. We grow in maturity, in Christlikeness, in knowledge and in love for God and for each other in worship. Corporate worship in the presence of the Living God is essential to our personal sanctification and our maturity as Gods’s Church.

Isaiah discovered just how transforming worship can be. It was a time of transition for Isaiah and the whole nation. The king had died. The future seemed questionable to Isaiah. But, he did what he was supposed to do, he entered the temple to worship.

Isaiah had a vision. He saw the real king setting upon His throne. The Seraphim were singing to the thrice Holy God. These were great, flaming, holy beings who served God. Yet even holy beings, whose job it was to be in the presence of the Sovereign God, would not look directly at his holiness. They had three sets of wings and with the first they covered their face in the presence of God. With two they covered their feet as an expression of their modesty. With the third they flew. And they cried out Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is filled with His glory.

Isaiah suddenly realized that he was looking at the Sovereign God of Israel whom no man could see face to face and live. So he cries out woe is me for I am ruined. Isaiah's reaction is our reaction when we enter the presence of God; "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" The Hebrew is literally I am Lost. It was a sense of being completely cut off from his sinful reality, of being destroyed and finding himself in a place where he was totally unfit.

Isaiah knew that he was not fit to be in the presence of the Holy God. He further confesses, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." Isaiah was acknowledging that the confessions of his mouth were not the actions of his life. If he confessed holiness, it was a lie. Isaiah was, by human standards, a holy man. But by God's standards he fell far short.

We never know the depth of our sins or the extent of our depravity until we come into the presence of the Thrice Holy God. It is easy to compare ourselves to others and say I'm not too bad, look at what they do. But when we enter the presence of God, we get a true measure of ourselves. We simply do not measure up.

But this is not just an individual experience, it is also a corporate experience. As God's chosen people we stand before him as a people of unclean lips. We have corporate sins. We fail to serve God as the church, we fail to keep harmony, we fail to lift each other up. In some form we always fail because we are frail, fallen human beings.

As Isaiah stood there, undone and in the shame of his sin, notice what happened. His sin was removed. The Seraphim took a burning coal and touched his lips. It was a symbol that he was purged of his sin by the holiness of God. His iniquity was taken away and his sin was forgiven. A moment before, Isaiah had felt destroyed, unable to stand before the Lord because of his sin. Now Isaiah felt separated from his sin because God alone forgave him and made him holy. His sin alone perishes and he is redeemed.

When God has laid us open, when we go before him, there are no secrets, He knows who we really are. It is in that precise moment when we confess our sinfulness that He removes our sins and separates them from us as far as east is from the west. God does not torture us with an eternal knowledge of our separation and sin. He separates us from our sin and makes us pure and He remembers them no more.

How can we live the Christian life without being free from the burden of our sin? We can't and that is why we must worship, because in God's presence we find forgiveness. Then and only then can we break out in praise and honor him. We must come to terms with the holy before we can offer God our joy and praise.

Isaiah stood in the presence of God clean and he heard a voice, a question. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Isaiah answered the request with two simple Hebrew words that translate into "here am I send me." It was only after worship and confession and cleansing that Isaiah was able to answer God's Call. The job he was called to was a lonely job. A prophet was a lonely man. He was a rugged individual singled out for a painful task. He would tell the people about their sins and God's judgment. He was chosen by God. But he could never do the job until he was made fit by God.

We need to see that we can never truly be available to God until we enter his presence and confess our sin and are cleansed. Then we can answer God's calling. Each of us has a calling. Each church has a mission. It is an impossible task if we remain unholy and unclean. That is why we must enter the presence of the Holy God and have our sins singed from us. It is only then that we can go out into the world and serve him. It is only then that as a church can we be truly effective for him.

During worship, God confronts us. Sometimes He burns away our sin. Sometimes he heals our iniquities. Sometimes he comforts us. But, every time, God calls us out for His work.

We are fortunate that man doesn't often have such a graphic experience of God as did Isaiah. But the reality is just the same. Until we have been in the presence of God, until we have become aware of our true nature and until we have been cleansed by God, we can never truly serve God nor truly worship him. The pursuit of holiness is the heart and soul of the Christian life.

The majesty of worship comes from the fact that we worship a thrice holy God. The whole earth is full of his glory. We have an awesome privilege. Let us seek to worship God with all of our hearts.