40 DAYS OF PURPOSE
CELEBRATION (AT PEPSI CENTER)
DR. JIM DIXON
ISAIAH 6:1-8
OCTOBER 23, 2005
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, in the year 1880, two boys were swimming in the ruins of an ancient pool in the Holy City of Jerusalem. Their parents had told them never to go to the ruins and they were not supposed to swim in that pool, but their parents didn’t know and there they were. One of the boys swam under the water holding his breath, going under the stones, and he found an inscription carved on one of the stones, six lines of classical Hebrew. He could not have known that what he was looking at had been etched in stone 2,581 years ago. He had found the Siloam Inscription. The Siloam Inscription describes the building of the Siloam Tunnel, sometimes called Hezekiah’s Tunnel.
Today, the Siloam Inscription can be found in the Turkish Archeological Museum in Istanbul, and it’s considered a treasure, the largest full-script Hebrew inscription in the world. Amazing. Of course, the inscription describes how the Siloam Tunnel was built. The year was 701 BC and Hezekiah, King of Israel, was afraid. He was afraid that the armies of Assyria would come against Jerusalem. He was afraid that the armies of Sennacherib would come against the Holy City. He knew that he had fortified walls. He knew he could defend Jerusalem, but he was afraid that if there was a long siege, they would have no water because they had no water supply in the city. And so, he instructed that his engineers were to build a tunnel from the Kidron Valley, from the Virgin’s Fount, from the Spring of Gihon. And they were to bring the water from outside the city into the city so that the people might live even in a time of siege. And so, the tunnel was built, an engineering marvel. 1,777 feet long, it brought water from the Kidron Valley all the way into the city of Jerusalem and emptied into the Pool of Siloam.
Today some people wonder, “Well, why was it called the Siloam Tunnel? What was the Pool of Siloam? Why the Siloam Inscription?” The word Siloam comes from the Hebrew, “shalah,” and it is the equivalent of the Greek word “apostolos,” from which we get the word, “apostle.” It’s the equivalent of the Latin word “mission,” from which we get the word, “mission.” You might be thinking, “Well, what in the world does a tunnel have to do with apostles and what does a tunnel have to do with missions and what does a pool have to do with apostles and what does a pool have to do with missions?” But we understand when we see that the word Siloam means “sent forth” and the word “apostolos” means “sent forth” and the word “missio” means, “sent forth.” Of course, the water was sent forth for life. From out of the city into the city, the water was sent forth.
God wants us to understand today that we’re sent forth. It doesn’t matter what the language is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or English. We’re sent forth. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Siloam, Apostolos, or missio. God has sent us forth.
For those of you who are members of Cherry Hills Community Church, you know and we’ve said before that God has sent us forth into the city like the water from the Spring of Gihon. God has sent us forth into the city to share our resources with our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter which of the five churches you’re from this morning, we’re all sent forth. We who believe in Jesus Christ, He sends us forth.
Of course, our Lord Jesus Christ, in John 20, the 21st verse, resurrected and alive appeared to His disciples in the Upper Room. He said this: “As the Father has sent Me, even so, I send you.” That’s what He says to us this morning. “As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” We’ve gone through the 40 Days of Purpose and now we’re sent forth. As apostles and missionaries, each of us, we are sent forth.
I love the story of Isaiah from our scripture today. Isaiah described his call to the ministry when he was sent forth. Isaiah describes a vision where he saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. His train filled the Temple, and he was surrounded by Seraphim, six-winged Seraphim, and he saw the glory and the purposes of the Lord and he felt small in the presence of the Lord. He was afraid because he knew he was a man of unclean lips and that to look upon a Holy God was an awesome thing and you could die. He was afraid but the Lord’s messenger, the Seraphim, came to him and touched his lips and said, “Your guilt is taken away, your sin is forgiven.” Then he heard the voice of God saying, “Whom shall I send?” And Isaiah made his famous response, “Here am I. Send me.” God is saying this morning, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Can you say, “Here am I. Send me”? That’s what God longs to hear you say, “Here am I. Send me.”
My brother Greg is not here this morning. He’s in El Salvador doing missions work because he said, “Here am I. Send me.” My brother Gary is here today. He goes every week to work with Project CURE, which distributes medical supplies to third world nations. He does this because he said, “Here am I. Send me.” I’m here this morning because I said, “Here am I. Send me.” All the pastors from our partner churches are here this morning because they said, “Here am I. Send me.”
Some of you are Sunday school teachers and you are Sunday school teachers because you said, “Here am I. Send me.” Some of you are Small Group leaders because you said, “Here am I. Send me.” Some of you are tutors of inner-city children, with Whiz Kids or Save Our Youth. You’re a tutor because you said, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.” Some of you are working with prisoners through Friends in Transition and you’re doing that because you said, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.” Some of you have become friendship partners with international students through International Student Connection and you’re doing that because you said, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.”
We have our Ministry Expo going up on the main corridor today and you can go and say, “Here am I. Send me.” There are so many different ministries that you can volunteer for. You’ve been through the 40 Days of Purpose. You’ve seen the glory of the Lord and His purposes. You know that you have unclean lips, but God has touched you. Your sins are forgiven. Your guilt is taken away. Can you say now, “Here am I. Send me”? God will bless you if you will say that. Unbelievable blessing.
Yesterday Barb and I (my wife and I) had breakfast with my mother, who is soon to be 93 years of age. We love having breakfast with her. It was my mother many, many years ago who led me to faith in Jesus Christ. My brother Gary and his wife were at breakfast and so were our daughter Heather and her husband Chris and our granddaughter Abigail. My brother Greg’s wife Barb was there and of course Barb’s mother was there. Barb’s mother has had cancer three different times and Barb’s mom has had rheumatoid arthritis for more than 50 years. It’s a privilege just to be with her, too. We told Barb’s mom yesterday morning, “You know the piano you gave us 25 years ago, if it’s okay with you, we want to give that piano to our daughter Heather and her husband Chris. We want to give them the piano.” She said that was great.
We explained that the piano moving company was coming by the house to pick it up. They came by to pick up this piano, these two guys. They were supposed to come between noon and 2:00. Two o’clock arrived and they weren’t there. The phone rang and they said, “We tried to get through the gate but we couldn’t get into your neighborhood.” We said, “Hey, we don’t live in a gated community.” We said, “Where are you?” They described where they were and these two guys were about five minutes away and so I explained how to get to our house. About a half hour later they called again and said, “We’re on this dirt road and we can’t get through this other gate.” We said, “We don’t live off a dirt road and we’re not in a gated community. We’re in a regular neighborhood.” We waited another half hour and finally the piano movers arrived. As Barb and I were waiting, we thought of the movie “Dumb and Dumber,” starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.
These two guys came in and they were pretty nice guys. We kind of helped them move the piano and put it on a dolly. After they got it into the truck, we wrote out a check for the agreed upon cost and they said that they should get a bonus. We said, “Why a bonus?” They said they had to muscle the piano over a section of mulch. They said, “Here, talk to our boss.” They called their boss and he said, “Yes, you need to give them a bonus.” We gave them $25.00 and Barb and I looked at each other and we thought of Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest! We felt like the two of us were the dumbest. Then these two guys took off for our daughter’s house, to Heather and Chris’s house, just 5 or 10 minutes away. A half hour later we get a phone call, and our daughter is saying, “These guys are up somewhere on C-470, miles from our house, heading further away.”
I had asked them if they had directions to our house and they said, “We have your address and we use maps.” It took them quite a bit of additional time but finally they arrived at the house. Our daughter called again and said, “On the side of the truck there’s a piano and it says, ‘Move and tune.’ Shall I have them tune the piano?’ We said that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Anyway, they got the piano into Heather and Chris’s house and I got to thinking, sometime that morning these two guys were sent forth and it was an adventure for them. It was an adventure and a lot of mistakes, and they needed a little bit of grace and a little bit of mercy but they wound up getting a bonus.
I was thinking, God wants you to know that if you’re willing to be sent forth… If you’re willing to say, “Here am I. Send me,” it’s going to work that way for you. You may make a few mistakes. You may need grace and mercy. We all do. But God’s going to give you a bonus. I don’t know what form the bonus is going to take but I promise you that if you’re willing to say, “Here am I. Send me,” you’re going to get the blessing and that blessing is going to be from God.
So, this morning as we look to the future, we know we want to please God. We long to please God and if we can say, “Here am I. Send me,” we will please and pleasure God. We want to serve God’s family. We want to enjoy God’s family and we do that by saying, “Here am I. Send me.” We want to become like Christ. We were created for Christlikeness and that only happens when we say, “Here am I. Send me.” We were shaped to serve. We were made for a mission, and we need to say, “Here am I. Send me.” Let’s take a moment and look to the Lord with a word of prayer.