HOLY: Due Reverence

THANKS TO GOD FOR THIS MOMENT Growth, Provision, Blessing Thank you to everyone who’ve served and continue to serve...

Thankful for your sacrifices and generosity, and yes even your obedience to the Lord when sometimes it’s been more challenging. Today, we get to trust together, believe together, worship together, serve together, stand together, walk together, in an even more intentional God-glorifying way.

All honor, praise, and glory to our Holy King Jesus.

ISAIAH 6:1-7 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth. The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

HOLY means GOD cannot sin. And if God cannot sin, that means He cannot sin against you and me. And if He cannot sin against you, doesn’t that make Him the most trustworthy being that exists. God is so pure, the most beautiful that when someone unclean is near Him, it is overly obvious they are not even close in comparison to Him in character or likeness.

God doesn’t have to say it for Himself. The seraphim constantly tell Him and each other. God is pure LIGHT and in Him is NO darkness.

Light illuminates what’s in the dark and makes it PUBLIC.

God’s light forced everything impure in Isaiah to be known and seen.

God’s light must expose sin so it can be known so that it can be atoned for so that we can know the HOLINESS of God and be brought closer to Him.

CONVICTION is a form of LIGHT and that light is an all-consuming fire.

God’s holiness is the all-consuming fire that burns from within and forces all the dirty, nasty, “ratchetness” to the surface to be seen and we are terrified of it!

Because God is holy.

God knows EVERYTHING.

God knew Isaiah and it was revealed to Isaiah - and Isaiah had to adjust as judged “WOE IS ME…I’M LOST (RUINED - DESTROYED)”

God is Holy and His holiness therefore JUST - and must punish sin & sinners - and His wrath acutely and specifically targeting. His Holiness - His perfection demands it, His wrath upon sin is unrelenting and unyielding for all eternity. And that comparison that we have - in realizing that we, like Isaiah, are RUINED, destroyed by our OWN misdeeds and behavior. And that is the dread we feel, the discomfort we feel, and we try to dismiss it by ignoring the truth, or even blatantly running away from a God we once knew.

But yet we want to put God on trial - for all the bad things that happen to good people, or how much evil there is in the world - and we project these issues on to HIM as if he’s the one who failed in the Garden…as if He’s the one who disobeyed and took of the fruit…as if He’s the one who cowered away and hid. The wrath of God is the holy revolting of God’s holiness against sin.

God is the standard - not our own world view or opinion or preference. It is SIN that is the abnormality, the anomaly, the diversion, the splinter, the faction that is in conflict and rebellion.

But the question isn’t for us to ask, why God allows this or that to happen in the world, but this: If God’s holiness is in such wrathful contrast to your sin, why is it that you and I are still alive? Aren’t we a man or woman of unclean lips? Don’t we live in a city of unclean lips? Haven’t we all sinned and done egregious acts that are so contrary to God’s holiness? So why are we still breathing? Why are we still here? How can we come into a place like this and sing His praises and testify to His goodness knowing what we have said out of these same lips this past week?

Am I any different from Adam & Eve where I have eaten from several different fruit that God told me I could not have?

Am I any different from Isaiah and his realization of ineptitude and unholiness?

Am I any different from Moses who killed an Egyptian from a hateful heart?

Am I any different from Rahab who used her body for self-indulgences and profit?

Am I any different from Jonah who thought he was more righteous and holy than a people who desperately needed God’s Hope?

Am I any different from Peter who struck out with a sword so he could make a point?

Am I any different Goliath who came to mock those who fear and serve God?

Am I any different than anyone else who has sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God?

We are all right now, by simply existing, testifying to the MERCIES of GOD…mercies - plural - that are fresh and NEW every morning, the moment you and I awake and have control, mercy. In our first thoughts, MERCY. In our first actions, MERCY. In our first interactions, MERCY. In our work ethic, MERCY. In our daily behavior, MERCY. HIS MERCIES were upon before we ever understood the option of Grace.

Adam and Even hid themselves in the garden.

Job saw Him and abhorred his own self and said he’ll repent all the way to dust and ashes.

The first time Jacob encountered God and realized it after-the-fact; he said “How dreadful is this place?”

Moses met the Lord several times and hid his face in terror. He hit the ground and and worshipped.

Joshua fell dead at His feet.

Isaiah said He was done - completely destroyed and new his life was over.

Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord descend to where he was and hit the floor to bow low and hide his face.

Ezekiel, Daniel, and John the Revelator all had holy encounters with the glory of God and could barely put into words and context of the Wonder of God they observed.

Amos saw the glory of the Lord and proclaimed there was no escape!

Steven saw the glory of the Lord and in the process of being murdered, could not keep his eyes off Him.

Paul was blinded and fell to his face.

All of these men seeing elements like fire and swords, and terror and awe and yet were completely consumed with wonder and desire. They feared Holy God and desired Him more.

But the holiness of God was what

-dropped Ananias and Sapphira dead, when they attempted to lie to the Holy Spirit.

-It’s what swallowed up the rebellious Israelites in the desert when their pride tempted God and the ground opened up beneath their feet.

-curses those who attempt to harm or curse God’s chosen and anointed -but also blesses those who bless His chosen and anointed

CHOSEN & CALLED

GOD CHOSE ISAIAH - Before he ever asked Him.

John 12:41 “Isaiah said these things BECAUSE he saw his glory and spoke about him.”

Isaiah couldn’t shake it, he couldn’t get away from his encounter with this Holy God.

He couldn’t shake the moment that he knew his life had ended, but yet he was still breathing.

He couldn’t shake the fact that he knew he was completely destroyed, yet he was still moving and thinking, and talking.

There is never as much an appreciation for feeling the breath in your lungs as when you know you shouldn’t be.

GRANDPA FELIX:

-Russian Jew, who escaped WWII & Nazi’s -Smuggled himself and his brother across Europe -Took a ship back to the US. -Reunited with his mother in NYC. -Later joined the Army - Korean War --Helmet story in the tent --Bathroom break in a mine field. --Several other occasions - some he won’t put into words, but you see it in his eyes.

“God preserved my life”

My friends who’ve navigated trauma in GWOT -Lost leg Operation Anaconda -Best friend has 3 TBI’s from being blown up by IEDs in Iraq -Two friends whose FOB was overrun in Afghanistan and had to fight for their lives and those around them -A friend that was only survivor when an IED blew up his truck in Afghanistan -Others in this room who’ve experienced trauma in combat

In the same sense - there are those who have survived personal trauma, but the fact that you’re still breathing today... COVID took many friends and suffocated the life out of them...

Still breathing here today - God has called you to such a time and space as this.

THE POTTER’S HANDS

Jeremiah 18:1-4 “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down at once to the potter’s house; there I will reveal my words to you.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, working away at the wheel. But the jar that he was making from the clay became flawed in the potter’s hand, so he made it into another jar, as it seemed right for him to do.”

Jeremiah watched as the potter, the Maker, the Master, the Craftsman, spun his wheel. He took the amount of clay he knew he needed and plopped it onto his wheel. He began to put the clay into motion, and applied his hands to form it. To shape it for what he intended.

But in the process of setting his will into motion, the clay had become misshapen for its purpose; it became warped, and through itself out of alignment with what the potter intended.

At this point - the potter has every Right and complete ownership of the process to take the lump of distorted clay and simply toss it out.

Maybe for an amateur. Maybe for a lackluster craftsman. Maybe for an inexperienced do-gooder. But that’s not our God.

We serve a Holy God - whose Will is everlasting. Whose Word does not falter, and does not fail. Whose Wonder as a Creator are far beyond our human imaginations.

No, God’s purpose just because more official in our broken lives. And he does it for what seems like what we’d want to do? What He thinks might make us happy? What He doesn’t want to make us uncomfortable? NO. He does what seems right for HIM to do.

Isaiah 64:8 “Yet Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we all are the work of your hands.”

Isaiah 45:9-12 ““Woe to the one who argues with his Maker— one clay pot among many. Does clay say to the one forming it, ‘What are you making?’ Or does your work say, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to the one who says to his father, ‘What are you fathering?’ or to his mother, ‘What are you giving birth to?’ ” This is what the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and its Maker, says: “Ask me what is to happen to my sons, and instruct me about the work of my hands. I made the earth, and created humans on it. It was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded everything in them.”

Jeremiah 18:5-12 “The word of the Lord came to me: “House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. At one moment I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will uproot, tear down, and destroy it. However, if that nation about which I have made the announcement turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it. At another time I might announce concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it. However, if it does what is evil in my sight by not listening to me, I will relent concerning the good I had said I would do to it. So now, say to the men of Judah and to the residents of Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, I am about to bring harm to you and make plans against you. Turn now, each from your evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds.’ But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless. We will continue to follow our plans, and each of us will continue to act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.”

Isaiah 46:9-10 “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and no one is like me. I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: my plan will take place, and I will do all my will.”

THE MESSAGE OF GRACE

We’ve heard the message of grace.

Most think grace is God looking the other way when we sin, and then gives us sweet rewards for simply being.

Absolutely not! God forbid! As Paul says in Romans 6:1-2 “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Even Paul had to correct the Roman church from the folly of this hyper-grace thinking!

God’s grace is this:

GRACE God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense

It is the riches of God extended to us even though we don’t deserve it.

It is the Truth of God applied to us at the expense of Christ.

Meaning what is true about God - what is the reality God wills to be, what is the creativity and purpose of God’s design for our lives - what that is in His reality and He takes that within Christ Jesus and applies it to our whole lives.

Grace becomes the catalyst by which the Reality of God’s holiness and His purpose and will for our lives is applied to us.

This is why we are a new creation when we come into the faith of Jesus Christ

This is why our identities are changed when we come into the faith of Jesus Christ

This is why our minds are renewed with washing of the Word of God - which is Jesus Christ

This is why the Holy Spirit takes us from walking dead men (and women) to having eternal life.

It is the wonder of God, His mystery made known to us at the moment of Revelation when we’ve encountered a Holy, Holy, Holy, God.

It was God’s MERCY in Isaiah 6 that Isaiah was still standing, breathing, heart ticking, thinking, speaking, in the presence of God’s glory.

It was God’s GRACE, that the coals of the altar were extended to and touched Isaiah’s unclean lips and whose sin was atoned for.

ATONEMENT - Its a word we need to understand. Because Christ was our atonement. He bore our sins - meaning that our sins were upon Him and because we claim Christ as Lord and King, the wrath of God’s Holiness that would otherwise be applied to us for the believer eternally is appeased.

The New Testament word is Propitiation - where the act of appeasement is active through grace in the New Testament believers.

This HOLY HOLY HOLY God, whose holiness transcends and supersedes all aspects of human life, grants the beauty of God to the believer at the moment he or she believes.

We thank God for grace. Grace as the catalyst that moves us from death to life, from victim to victor, from lost to found, from undone to loved, from chaos to contentment, from powerless to overcomer. Because that’s Who God is - God in His holiness exists as -life -victory -known -love -peace -joy

And His reality is applied to us.

Here’s what a catalyst is: “a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.”

Spiritually speaking, it is the Passion and Glory of Christ Jesus that applies the holiness of God to us while Him not being changed in any way by our imperfections and impurities. It is Him working in us, having redeemed us, and making us more like Himself each and every day. He is positioned us in heavenly places and prepared acts of righteousness to do for His Namesake. And He completely renews us, having made all things new.

It’s the difference between God making you feel better, and Him making you whole.

Luke 17:11-17 “While traveling to Jerusalem, he passed between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And while they were going, they were cleansed. But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. He fell facedown at his feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

The difference is in feeling better and being made whole.

The holiness of God is not a temporary experience to make you feel better, or unashamed.

The holiness of God, extended through grace, is applied to you for His benefit. Because He is good. Because He is perfect. Because He is love.

He chose you to be about His Father’s business - which is the saving people business. That’s why He saved you, and gave you grace to be here in Aviano.

The difference is realizing that you didn’t have an encounter with a Holy God for a cool experience. You had an encounter with a Holy God, so you could be made whole - the way He saw you before the foundations of the earth, when He saw you holy and blameless in love before Him.

Fearing Him. Loving Him. Knowing Him. And in Relationship with Him.

Philippians 4:6-9 “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things. Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Do these things because anything less, holy saint, is beneath you.

My closing prayer for you today is this:

Col 1:3-6 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace.”

You can’t earn it!

You can’t earn God’s grace. Just like you can’t earn His love.

However, we are responsible for how pleased God is with our living in His grace and love.

2 Cor 5:9-11 “Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences.”

God is grace-FULL. And God is still HOLY.