Meditating The Holiness of God
You Are Not Alone: God's Benevolence in His Creation • Sermon • Submitted
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1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 So I said:
“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
What is holiness?
Being pure and morally righteous.
In the Bible the Holiness of God is something much bigger and more profound. Holiness describes God being the creative force behind the entire universe.
Sermon series: You are not Alone, God’s Benevolence in All His Creation.
When it comes to the Lord God. It means being separated, set apart from everything that He created.
Vision of Isaiah the prophet.
Points on God’s Holiness:
God’s Holiness transcends creation.
God’s holiness consumes.
3. God’s Holiness makes us holy.
1. God’s Holiness transcends creation.
Definition of transcendence.
Transcendence
Transcendence - God is outside humanity and all of creation.
Isaiah the prophet’s vision.
3 And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”
The expression holy, holy, holy appears twice in the Bible. Here and in Revelation 4.
Trihagion - “Holy, Holy, Holy”
the heavenly beings are affirming in the trihagion the consummate character of God. He is never said to be love, love, love; goodness, goodness, goodness; mercy, mercy, mercy; grace, grace, grace. He is always said to be holy, holy, holy.
Holy repeated three times gives emphasis to God’s holiness. He is exceptional and perfect in all His ways.
He is holy that He is set apart or separate from His creation.
God sits on the throne.
22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Circle of the earth - sphere - centuries before the Greeks proved the world was round --- at a time when many believed the earth is flat — the Bible already knew.
God is not confined by time and space.
LET ME LEVEL WITH YOU TODAY: The sense of awe and reverence has been lost. We no longer live in a world where God is revered as holy and transcendent. We sing beautiful songs of worship but churches have lost the sense of awe:.
We call the Lord God our best friend, but where is the sense of bowing down before him, before THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL.
The Lord Jesus in the prayer he taught us prayed:
“hallowed be thy Name”. Is the Name of the Lord being hallowed here today?
Going to church has become so casual that the reverence of a Holy God has been lost.
CELL PHONES
sense of awe and fear that when we worship the Lord we stand on HOLY GROUND!
2. God’s Holiness consumes.
Isaiah:
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 So I said:
“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.”
Metaphor of the sun.
Picture of sun here.
The power of the Sun - Each hour 430 quintillion Joules of energy from the sun hits the earth. 430 quintillion is the number 430 with 18 zeroes! Or 400 trillion trillion watts. To put this in perspective, about 1 trillion 1 megaton bombs.
The paradox of the Sun, it is good that it makes life possible but at the same time, it is dangerous.
In the same way, Almighty God is a perfectly good God, but people will be in danger of being consumed or destroyed if they come near His holiness.
29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Nothing unclean can enter into the holiness of the Lord. Ritual cleansing… touching dead bodies.. Jewish temple… bell
The defilement of sin and death. Touching sin and death defiles us and makes people unworthy to stand before a Holy God...
How then can we stand before a holy God?
3. God’s Holiness makes us holy.
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”
Picture of Seraphim here.
Sin has defiled us, but the touch of God makes Holy.
Picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The embodiment of the holiness of God.equally holy with God. It is said that the repetition of Holy, holy, holy - the trihagion, is an expression of the Triune God, the three Persons of the Godhead.
The Lord Jesus has made it possible for us to have some grasp of holiness.. No one has seen God.... transcendence vs immanence
Immanence
“The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father,, He has made Him known.”
“Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father...”
Like the coal from the altar that touched Isaiah’s lips, whoever Jesus touched became holy - clean and pure.
15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
We are to be holy, but we have no inherent holiness of our own. We have imputed holiness through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does that mean we do not sin?
We have to be fighting sin. Particularly, patterns of sin.. Habitual sin, begs the question: are you really saved in the first place?
“If you go on living in sin — that is, if sin is your pattern of life, and you do not make war on your sin, but instead you make peace with your sin — you have no warrant to believe that you are in Christ.” (John Piper)
secret sins — addictions, pornography
destroying the temple of God..
The good news is this, God in His benevolence actually helps us in becoming holy through the process of SANCTIFICATION.
SANCTIFICATION - the process of being Holy by the work of the Holy Spirit.
8 who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
God is faithful (repeat it!)
Holy, holy, holy - The Father, Son and Holy Spirit (roles)
Allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of sanctification in your life. Means of grace - the Spiritual disciplines.
For if you live according to the flesh… you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (Romans 8:13-14)
God’s Holiness qualifies you to be used by God.
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”