Whom Shall I Send?

Read

Isaiah 6:6-8 "Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.' Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'"

Think

Somebody posts in the group chat: who is bringing the speaker tomorrow?

Nine people read it. Nine little read receipts stack up. Nobody answers.

Not because nine people are cruel. Because a question asked to everybody feels like a question asked to nobody. Somebody else has probably got it. Somebody else is more likely to own one. Somebody else will answer in a second and then it will not be your problem.

Most of the time nobody does, and everybody shows up to a silent room.

Now look at the way God asks in verse 8. “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

He does not say Isaiah, go. He asks a question into a room.

That should stop you. God is not short on options and he is certainly not short on authority. He could assign this. He could point. Instead he asks, and he asks in a way that leaves an open space for somebody to step into.

The invitation is open before it is ever assigned.

And that question has not stopped being asked. It is hanging over your campus right now. Over that hallway, that bus route, that team, that lunch table where the same four people have been sitting since sixth grade. “Whom shall I send?”

Which brings up the strangest part of this chapter. The man who answers is the same man who, three verses earlier, said he had unclean lips.

Read that again. The one person in the room who had just announced he was unqualified is the one who says yes. Not the most impressive candidate available. The guy who had just been face down on the floor.

So what changed between verse 5 and verse 8?

Verse 7 changed. The coal. The guilt taken away. Isaiah cannot answer this question out of confidence in himself, because he does not have any left. He answers out of what he just received.

That is the only fuel that lasts. Serving God out of guilt will make you busy, then it will make you tired, then it will make you quit, usually somewhere around October. Grace makes you willing, and willing holds up.

Some of you are reading this assuming God is asking somebody else. The loud one. The one who leads worship. The one whose family has been at this church since before you were born. The one who can find Habakkuk without the search bar.

So take inventory of that room right before Isaiah answers. There is no track record. There is no list of accomplishments. There are two things: a man who had seen God clearly, and a mouth that had been cleaned by grace.

That is the whole qualification. All of it.

Which means the question was never am I good enough to be sent. The question is have you seen him, and have you taken what he offers.

One more thing before you close this. God asks, “Who will go for us?” He is not looking for somebody to go instead of him. He is looking for somebody to go on his behalf, carrying something that was never theirs to begin with.

You are not being asked to save your school. Nobody is handing you that. You are being asked to walk into it as somebody who has been with God.

Tomorrow morning there is a building with your name on a schedule inside it, and the question is already hanging over that place.

The only thing left is whether anybody in the chat answers.

Apply

Answer the question – Write down the actual reason you think God would pick somebody else for your campus. Then read Isaiah 6:5 again and notice who he did pick. Tell God out loud today that you are available, even though you do not feel qualified for it.

Pray

God, I have been reading your invitations like they were addressed to somebody else. I hear you asking and I assume a more qualified person will speak up. Thank you that Isaiah was not qualified either, he was just clean and he was just there. Make me willing before I feel ready, because I am not sure ready is coming. In Jesus' name. Amen.