REKINDLE- GETTING FIRED UP FOR A NEW YEAR: VISION

Happy New Year!  We hope your year is off to a great start.  Our new sermon series is “Rekindle-Getting Fired Up for a New Year.” After 2020, we are all a little frazzled and uncertain.  A vaccine is being distributed, but there have been many obstacles getting it to the people who need it the most.  The transition of power in our great nation is mired in accusations and political posturing.  Although 2020 is finished, the frustrations and fears remain!  Our first sermon in this series is “Vision.” How do you see the future?  What will alter the course for 2021 that has been set by the difficulties of 2020?  In order to see the future differently, we have to determine who and what we trust.  Our scripture for Sunday is Isaiah 6:1-7.  The prophet Isaiah has a vision that changed his life and would also alter the course of a nation.  The first verse is critical, because it connects this vision to a sense of fear and uncertainty.  It was the year that King Uzziah died.  He had been king of Judah for 52 years!  Can you imagine the turmoil that was created by this one event?  God speaks to Isaiah through a bold and clear vision of God’s continued power even in the midst of great change.  As you read Isaiah 6:1-7, may it rekindle in your heart the confidence that the Almighty God is with you even in the most turbulent times! Isaiah 6:1-7 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (NIV)