After teaching the Bible studies for the past month I've been asked to preach in church here for the first time.  I'll be teaching at the service for the youth (16-25) tonight.  "What did you do your first ever sermon on", you may ask.  For the curious, here are my notes:

[Edit: I've edited these from my original notes to closer to what I ended up saying]The Holiness of God

Tonight I want to talk to you about the holiness of God.  I think a lot of times in church we talk about what God says to us and what it means for our lives; which is good!  It is good that we talk about what it means to live a Christian life.  It is good that we talk about HOW to be single or married and Christian.  It is good to talk about HOW we should handle our money.  It is good that we talk about HOW Christians should handle anger, suffering, or sex.

But a lot of times we are only asking certain questions: HOW, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN instead of asking the two most important questions.

We talk about those good things and we ask those good questions but we forget to ask WHO.  WHO is God?  And because we don’t look at the question of WHO, we don’t understand WHY.  If we don’t understand WHO God is, all of the things that make Him God, then we won’t truly understand WHY we should love God, worship God, and obey God.

For example, I know what my wife likes me to do.  I know she likes it when I wash the dishes.  I know she likes it when I cook for her.  I know she likes it when we make decisions together.  And all of that is good, but I do those things based on what I know of WHO she is.  WHY I do those things, WHY I love her, is because of WHO she is.

It is similar with God.  We have to see WHO God is - - and the beginning of understanding WHO God is, is understanding His holiness.

What is holiness?

On one hand, God’s holiness is His supremacy and authority. Genesis 1-2 and John 1 tell us that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them.  He is the one who created all things, because He created everything, He is greater than the things He created. 

On the other hand, God’s holiness is His moral perfection.  God is absolutely perfect in every way.  There is no sin or evil in God.  1 John 1:5 tells us that “God is light.  In Him there is no darkness at all.”  Everything He does is perfect and good.

These two characteristics tell us that God is unique every way, because He was not created, He is CREATOR.  He is wholly separate from us and everything else He made because it all came FROM Him.  He is wholly separate and unique from us and everything else He made because sin has corrupted us and He alone is perfect.

I want to look at two passages that talk about God’s holiness.  The first is Isaiah 6:1-8.

Read Isaiah 6:1-8.

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seatedon a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered theirfaces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 Andthey were calling to one another:

 "Holy, holy, holy is theLORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of hisglory."

 

 4 At the soundof their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filledwith smoke.  5 "Woe tome!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and Ilive among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORDAlmighty."

6 Then one ofthe seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken withtongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, thishas touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

 

 8 Then I heardthe voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go forus?"

 And I said, "Here am I. Sendme!"

This passage is the story of how God called Isaiah to be a prophet.  Let’s look at what it says.

Verse 1.
First Isaiah tells us WHEN his calling happened.  This calling happened to a real man, Isaiah, and it happened in a real place, Israel, at a real time, the year that king Uzziah died.

What did Isaiah see?  He saw the Lord seated high on a throne.  Who sits on thrones?  Kings.  This King, our God, was so big that Isaiah couldn’t even look up to see His face, he could only see that the bottom Lord’s robe filled the temple. 

Verse 2.
Isaiah saw that flying around The Lord were angels; angels with six sings.  What were they doing with their wings?  With two wings they flew, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two wings they covered their faces.  Why would they cover their faces?  They were covering their faces because of what verse 3 tells us.

Verse 3.
What were the angels yelling out to each other?  “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty”.  Why were they covering their faces?  Because God’s holiness is so radiant, so perfect, so terrifying for His creation that they can’t even look upon it.

Verse 4.
Not only were these angels calling out but the sound of their voices made the doorposts of the temple, this massive building, shake and filled the temple with smoke. 

Verse 5.
Isaiah saw the temple shaking and filled with smoke, he saw angels with six wings flying around declaring how holy God is, and he saw the Lord seated on a throne that was so big that Isaiah only saw the bottom of His robe.

What did this cause Isaiah to do?  Cry out for help.  Isaiah BEGGED for mercy at these sights. 

Why did Isaiah beg for mercy?  Because in seeing God’s holiness, Isaiah was immediately and terrifyingly aware of the horror of his own sin and of Israel’s sin.  He recognizes that because of his sin, he cannot stand before God.

Verses 6 & 7.
Then what happened?  One of the angels flew to the altar and grabbed a coal.  What was the altar and what was the fire?  The altar was where sacrifices were offered to God for sins.  The angel takes a coal from the fire of a sacrifice and touches it to Isaiah’s mouth. 

What does the angel say to Isaiah?  He tells him that this sacrifice has done two things; it has taken away both his sin and his guilt before God.  Isaiah is now free to stand before God.

Verse 8.
What happens next?  God asks the angels who could go as a messenger to Israel. 

It’s important to remember that it was the Lord who came to Isaiah.  Isaiah didn’t just stumble in front of the throne of God.  The Lord came to Isaiah, appeared to him, took away his guilt and sin, and is now asking a question that He knows the answer to.  God already knows what Isaiah will say – it is the reason God has chosen Isaiah.

So God asks, “Who will go?  Who can we send?”

How does Isaiah respond?  “Send me”, he says.  “I don’t know what you will ask me to do or where you will send me, but send me.”

This is how Isaiah begins his ministry in Israel.  It is this image of God that enables Isaiah to stand up to the entire nation of Israel, to declare the very unpopular message that God gave him.  Isaiah became one of the most important prophets in the history of Israel and in the Bible.  He was quoted by Jesus many times, especially when Jesus announced the start of His ministry in Luke 4.

The second passage I want to look at is Psalm 99.

Read Psalm 99.

1 The LORD reigns,

       let the nations tremble;

       he sits enthroned between thecherubim,

       let the earth shake.

 

 2 Great is theLORD in Zion;

       he is exalted over all thenations.

 

 3 Let thempraise your great and awesome name—

       he is holy.

 

 4 The King ismighty, he loves justice—

       you have established equity;

       in Jacob you have done

       what is just and right.

 

 5 Exalt theLORD our God

       and worship at his footstool;

       he is holy.

 

 6 Moses andAaron were among his priests,

       Samuel was among those whocalled on his name;

       they called on the LORD

       and he answered them.

 

 7 He spoke tothem from the pillar of cloud;

       they kept his statutes and thedecrees he gave them.

 

 8 O LORD ourGod,

       you answered them;

       you were to Israel [a] aforgiving God,

       though you punished theirmisdeeds. [b]

 

 9 Exalt theLORD our God

       and worship at his holymountain,

       for the LORD our God is holy.

 

What do we see in this Psalm?

Verse 1.
The writer describes something very similar to what Isaiah saw.  The Lord reigns like a king over everything.  In fact He is so powerful and His authority reaches so far that the nations should tremble and the earth shakes.  We also read that He is on a throne surrounded by angels.

Verse 2-3.
The writer describes the Lord as great and awesome and all nations will praise Him.  What I want to point out is why the writer says that the nations will praise and worship God.  Why?  Because He is holy.

Verse 4-5.
The writer says that God loves justice and equality.  All that God has done and will ever do is perfect and right.  What does the writer tell us to do?  Worship Him.  Why?  Because He is holy.

Verse 6-7.
After proclaiming how powerful and wonderful God is, the writer then tells us something great!  He tells us that even though God is Creator and supreme, when men call on Him, He answers.  He isn’t removed from the lives of His creation.  He is living and active among us.

Verse 8-9.
Here we are told that even though men sin and God punishes us for our sin, He ultimately forgives us.  We are not hopeless.  Hebrews 12:7 tells us that God disciplines those He loves, in the same way a father would discipline his son.  Again, we get a picture of a God who is not only holy, but loving as well.

But I want to point out what the writer says in verse 9.  Again he tells us that we are to worship God.  Why?  Because He is holy.

Now, why is it important that we see God’s holiness?  I think there are 3 reasons why understanding God’s holiness is important.

1.  It is totally against our human nature.  Our human nature, our sinful hearts, don’t want to acknowledge that there is an authority greater than us.  WE want to be on the throne.  WE want to do what WE want to do when WE want to do it.  WE want to be in control.  When we see God for who He is, like Isaiah, we very quickly see that WE are not the one in the throne and not the one in control. 

So much of our culture feeds this sinful desire to be in the center.  In America I worked in the music business.  I worked with artists who were on MTV, who's records were sold all over the world, and who toured all over the world.  I know what our culture sells you.  I know what our culture sells you because I used to be part of the machine that sells it.  

Think about much of what the music you listen to or the movies you watch tell you.  They tell you that you are the center of the universe.  Even if they're not outright telling you this, if you look at why you like many of the things in the media that you do, you will see that you like them because of what they say about you.  We all have a sinful desire to be ultimate authority and center of our lives. 

I am a control freak.  Ask my wife; she will tell you.  In America I owned my own business; I was the boss.  I led our Bible study back at home.  I have always been the person who would lead a group in school or amongst our friends.  I have always been a take-charge kind of guy.  But that means I foolishly try to take charge of God.  I try to do what I want when I want.  I try to put myself in authority over Him by saying that what I want or need is more important than what He has said.  I have to constantly beat myself over the head with the truth of God’s holiness.  I have to fight my desire for control by making myself face the truth that God is very real and that He exists exactly as Isaiah saw Him.  I have to constantly fight the sin in my heart with the truth that He alone is in control and He alone is God.

Seeing this is difficult for EVERYONE, both Christians and non-Christians.  Humans want to be in control. We put ourselves at the center, bend what God has said, and forget who we’re dealing with.

There are really two ways we try to get around God's holiness and authority.  First, is disbelief.  We can plug our ears and deny that He is real and that He has spoken.  We live our lives the way we want to, completely out of view of Him.

The second is particular to us as Christians. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we can step around God or control Him.  We think that if we’re really, really good then God owes us.  If we are really, really good people then God owes us safety, comfort, or worse, prosperity.  We try to put God in our debt.

A proper view of God’s holiness destroys both of those views.  Instead of living in disbelief or by trying to manipulate God, we live by a third option, the grace in the Gospel.  

2.  Understanding God’s holiness gives us a proper view of sin.  Like light and dark, sometimes we need opposites to truly understand a concept.  When we see God’s beauty, moral perfection, and authority we see that He cannot tolerate sin in His presence.  We often think of sin as hurting other men.  We think that when we steal, lie, get drunk, or have sex outside of marriage we are just hurting other humans.  Seeing God’s holiness shows us that sin is not just a matter of hurting other men, it’s a matter of horribly offending our Creator.  Like Isaiah, our sin needs to be taken away before we can stand in God’s presence.

3.  That is why God’s holiness is the starting point of the Gospel.  What is the Gospel?  The Gospel is that God created man in His own image but man sinned.  That sin separated man from being in God’s presence and brought death and judgment.  Because God is holy He cannot tolerate sin and because He is just it must be punished, but because He is loving Jesus came and lived the perfect life of obedience that God requires (that we can’t live) and died the death our sins deserve (the death we should have to die).  God did this based on nothing that we have done and freely offers it based on nothing that we do.  The only thing we, as humans, bring to the Gospel is the sin from which we need to be saved.

A very smart Christian named Martin Luther who lived about five hundred years ago said that, "The closer a Christian gets to the light, the more aware he is of the utter darkness from which he's been saved."

Our sin separated us from God’s holiness and made the cross necessary.  God’s love and justice shown at the cross is what takes away our sin and allows us to stand before Him again forever.

That is the Gospel and it starts at the holiness of God and it climaxes with Jesus’ death and resurrection.  

But I want to go back into Isaiah and the Psalms again.  What were the two responses to God’s holiness and forgiveness that sprung from these passages?

1. Obedience.  As Isaiah stood there before the throne and the angels, in awe and thankfulness, Isaiah cried out, “Send me”.  Where did God send Isaiah?  Did God send him to a safe, comfortable, prosperous life?  No.  God sent him to tell Israel to repent.  God told Isaiah that his message would be an unpopular.  His message upset so many people and he was so hated that history tells us that Isaiah was sawed in two. 

Where did Jesus’ obedience lead Him?  To die as an innocent man, in place of the guilty, for our sins.  Where did the disciples obedience lead them?  All but one of them died violently.  The church has been watered by the blood of obedient martyrs.  Obedience is not safe, or comfortable, or materially prosperous.  Obedience is costly.

“That sounds scary,’ you might say.  “WHY obey”, you may ask.  The answer is that obedience is costly because our salvation is costly.  When you see God’s holiness, His absolute perfection, and when you see mankind’s absolute sinfulness, and when you see how God brought us to Him by sacrificing His own Son for you and for me, and when you see that we did absolutely nothing to deserve that, you begin to see the full picture of God’s love.  And when you see the full picture of God’s love, you begin to see WHO He is - - and then that becomes your answer to every WHY question.  WHY obey?  Because of WHO God has proven Himself to be. 

2. Worship.  Three times in Psalm 99 the writer tells us to worship God because He is holy. 

God’s holiness in the Gospel humbles us and our human need for authority and control.  It puts us in our place.  God’s holiness shows us how far our sin separates us from Him and shows us why the cross was necessary.  More than that, it shows us how far God went to reconcile us to Himself.  Being humbled and thankful we can do nothing else but obey and worship.