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Premise:
Understanding the holiness of God is essential to understanding the gospel.
Opening:
Good-morning again Connection church.
We are now moving into a time of worshipping God through the reading and preaching of His Word.
This is a sacred time where we hear the word of God read aloud and then we hear the preaching of the Word.
I am so glad that you are here for this.
It is a blessed command to gather together.
This morning we will be reading Isaiah 6:1-7.
Introduction of the premise and text:
And this morning we will be focusing on one of three gospel essentials as we prepare our hearts for Easter.
Every December, many churches participate in advent.
This is a specific time of preparation for the study of the incarnation of Christ.
It is a specific time where the church prepares itself for the study of one of the most important doctrines of our faith.
Christ coming to earth is so central that an entire month is dedicated to it’s study.
But it is more than mere study.
There is a preparation of the heart involved.
We sing certain songs.
We read specific passages.
We often pray specific prayers.
All of this is done in an effort to prepare our hearts for the Christmas season.
Similarly around Easter, there is a practice known as lent.
Now, lent can be observed in several different ways, but for the most part there are two main categories.
Both involve fasting.
They both involve the giving up of specific things in order to prepare our hearts for the study of the death and resurrection of Christ.
The first practice is to fast in order to make yourself righteous.
This is the Roman Catholic view.
This is very poor theology.
We cannot make ourselves righteous.
Only God can make us righteous.
And we cannot earn that through works.
The second method is one observed by many protestants.
It is to privately give things up as an act of worship in order to focus on Christ’s death and resurrection.
This is holy and right.
It is not something that is necessarily enforceable.
It is private.
It is to be observed in your own heart as an act of worship.
However, one thing I fear the mainline evangelical protestant church misses is the act of preparation for Resurrection Sunday as a church.
I’ve been in church my entire life and I cannot remember a single event where our church as a whole did something in order to prepare themselves for the beauty of the resurrection of Christ.
I’m not saying it never happens, but it is certainly rare for our liturgy as evangelical protestants to change and be crafted to prepare our hearts for the beauty of the study of the death and resurrection of Christ.
This is something I have been pondering over these past weeks.
And it led me to the question of what are the gospel essentials?
Not what are the essential elements of the believing the gospel unto salvation.
But what are the essential elements of understanding the gospel?
What must you grasp in order to understand the gospel?
There are many things that could fit into this category.
But what are the core ones?
What must you understand in order to really understand the gospel.
Of those many things, what are the central things?
Through much prayer, reading, and contemplation, I believe three of the most central things to understanding the gospel are to understand the holiness of God, the depravity of man, and the grace of salvation.
Without these three, we miss the gospel.
If you do not understand the holiness of God, you miss the gospel.
If you do not understand your sin, you miss the gospel.
If you do not understand the grace of salvation, you miss the gospel.
One must see the holiness of God.
One must stare hard into the resplendent beauty and terror of a holy God in order to understand the first principle of the gospel.
God is holy and just.
God is perfectly righteous and majestic.
God is completely holy.
One must see the depravity of man.
One must come to the honest realization of the depth of one’s own sin in order to understand the second principle of salvation.
Because of our sin against a holy God, we are rightly damned to hell.
We have no righteousness or goodness of our own to bring.
God is right and just to condemn us.
Finally, one must see the grace of salvation.
One must come face to face with the wonder that God would save any in order to understand the fulness of the gospel.
We cannot work to earn any of our righteous standing before God.
We are saved by grace alone.
Why is Easter so wonderful?
Why is the gospel such good news?
Because God is completely holy, we are completely sinful, but salvation is by grace alone.
Again, why is this good news?
Because God is completely holy, we are completely sinful, but salvation is by grace alone.
So we are preparing our hearts for the beauty of the gospel.
We are preparing our hearts for the blessed Lord’s Day where we study the grace of God.
In order to do this, we are studying the holiness of God.
So we will be in Isaiah 6:1-7.
In this passage, Isaiah, the righteous prophet of God encounters the one true God.
I would ask the congregation to stand with me for the reading of God’s Word.
Reading of the text:
Isaiah 6:1-7
In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is Yahweh of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory.”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called out, while the house of God was filling with smoke.
5 Then I said,
“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
7 And he touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.”
Behold, the Word of God.
Let’s Pray.
Prayer:
Our Great God and Father, we come before you humbly.
We are but specs before you.
We confess that we so seldom, if ever, treat you as holy as you are.
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