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Beautiful music again today.
So appropriate for a lot of reasons. Every song I just was rejoicing
in. Bud, you can put that one in
my funeral too. I'm going to have a long funeral with a lot
of music. Really, really enjoyed singing
and listening to the choir. I love singing, there is a higher
throne. And part of that is because I
look at the world and it's such a mess. Aren't you glad that
there's a throne higher than human rulers that we see on Earth
that make such a mess of things all over the world? The second verse says there when
we get to heaven, there we will find our home, our lives around
the throne. We'll honor him with perfect
song where we belong. I love that phrase. It's where
we belong. We're not home yet. And then,
bless the Lord, the last song talked about when my time has
come, I'll just keep singing for 10,000 years and then forever
more. We don't think often enough about
when that time comes for us. Last night, some of you may have
heard, some of you I think were an acquaintance of a man named
Tim Steeden. I believe Johnny was a youth
pastor in a church where Tim grew up. Tim Steeden was a classmate
of mine, a society brother of mine at Bob Jones, and just a
faithful servant of God. He's older than me. He just celebrated
his 50th birthday. And a church planter in San Diego,
just a man I admire, a man full of joy, passion for the lost.
And last night, out of the blue, he had a massive heart attack
and they were unable to revive him. And this morning, Tim is
with the Lord and he's where he belongs. And I'm happy for
him. But he leaves behind him a widow. His wife grew up in Taiwan, I
believe, and they do not have children. And she's kind of alone
in the world right now. And we want to be praying for
Eileen and pray for that young church plant in San Diego. Pray
for God's grace as they will meet later today just because
of the time difference. Praise the Lord for the hope
that we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the Lord ministered
to me, and of course we had no idea what circumstances would
hold, but the music and the truth of the music was a great joy
to my heart today. Why don't you bow in prayer and
worship the Lord, give Him glory, and you can pray quietly, thank
Him, confess your sin if necessary, kind of clear the clutter from
your busy week, ask for the Lord's help to focus as we open the
Word. And after you pray quietly, I
will pray on our behalf. Lord, our souls and all that
is within us blesses your holy name. There is no one like you. You are without rival. You are
holy. And yet you're compassionate.
Your holiness would allow you to disregard us or even just
to to damn us. But you are also a God who is
loving and merciful. You're condescending. You sent
your son to die on the cross and be our savior. You've sent
your spirit to live in us, to comfort us, to change us. You're
so kind to us. We're grateful. We approach you
today as the God of all comfort, the God who is able to give peace
that passes understanding. That means peace that doesn't
make sense. You're able to give joy in the midst of heartache.
And I pray for a young widow today. who from a human standpoint
is alone in the world. But she has you as her father.
She has your people as her family. I pray that you administer special
grace to Eileen today and give her the joy that Tim is with
you. He loved talking about you and
singing about you while on Earth, and now he's doing it face to
face. We rejoice with him. But I do pray that you would
minister to her, use her church family as young as that church
plant is and use the truth of scripture and mostly just minister
to yourself by your spirit in her heart. And I pray for grace
for her. And of course, Lord, this is
one example of a world that is suffering. People come in today,
and they didn't lose a spouse last night, but they still have
hidden griefs. They have burdens about their
family, maybe their children. Or they have health issues, or
they have financial strains. All of us have spiritual issues
and temptations. We come to You, Lord, and we
need help. We're not playing church. We're not going through
the motions. Our need for you is desperate. And I pray, Lord,
that you would minister to us. You already have. You've ministered
to us through music, and we're very grateful. Now, Lord, minister
to us through the scriptures as we study together. I pray
that we will be encouraged. I pray that we will be transformed
by the power of the word. Spirit of God, this is your book.
You inspired us. It's true. It's without error.
Now, I pray that you would open our eyes, be the illuminator,
help us understand and apply the word in a way that brings
profit to us. And we pray this with expectancy
and faith and joy. We thank you in advance for your
answers in Jesus name. Amen. We'll mention two other things
you can be turning in your Bibles to, Isaiah chapter 6, and I'm
sure that Bud will mention, or that Bill will mention this when
he makes announcements today, but college and career, I've
been looking forward to having lunch with you today. My family
is going to kind of crash your party and spend some time with
you. That could be those of you who just finished high school,
if you're a graduate, come. Some of you have just moved to
the area, come. And some of you are about to go back to college,
but I hope all of you will come. And again, I said we can take
as many as show up because it's not my house. So, thank you to
the Simpsons for hosting us today. We appreciate that. I also should
make an announcement. Today we have a reminder that
we are growing. We're pretty packed in here today. We've said in the past certain
Sundays that if you're able to help us by moving forward or
moving in, try not to leave gaps in the pew if you can help it.
That's been necessary for a while, and it's getting more necessary,
and I kind of figured it was coming. Churches tend to get
a lot of momentum in the fall. During the summer, we have a
lot of people traveling. They're doing vacations and different things
on their way, but school's about to start, and still not everybody's
back. We still have some people that
are out of town. It's a great problem to have. I love that.
But we are going to be fighting for seats. So if you can help
us, there's two really good rows right here. Go all the way across. There's not a single person on
the front row. I got Braves tickets a while back. And I had never
sat in the front row of a sporting event in my life. I was sitting
behind the dugout. I actually put my feet on the
dugout while I was watching the game. And then an usher told
me that's not allowed. How come that's a great seat
at a baseball game and at church you guys just don't want to be
up here? I don't understand it. I think sometime we'll need to
get a pew and we'll just put the front of it right against
the platform so then people can start sitting behind that. Anyway,
in the weeks ahead, be helping us out because I don't anticipate
that this problem will go away and praise God for that. So let's
tighten up and make more room to accommodate whoever the Lord
brings to our church. Amen. That's what we've been
praying for. He's answering. Isaiah chapter
six is where we're starting today. We're studying two of my favorite
passages. We're in a series called Taking
Aim at Godliness. The idea of taking aim is that
this is something that we need to be intentional about. Godliness
is not going to happen by accident. OK, it's something that we are
participating in. And we say the picture of the arrows, you
know, some of them are closer to the middle. There's a bunch
of misses, but we're striving, we're aiming, we're trying to
get better. Well, this is the fourth message in the series,
just saying, how can we be endeavoring to grow spiritually? We're aiming
at godliness. We might say we're striving to
be holy. Certainly, we could say perfectly that we want to
be more like Christ. I'll pray sometimes, Lord, I'm
sick of being like Chris. I would like to be like Jesus.
Change me. While we're endeavoring to grow
and we've had several messages that talk about training yourself
to be godly and this is just by way of review. From 1 Timothy
4, verses 7 and 8, spiritual growth requires intentional effort
and personal responsibility. Paul says to Timothy, train yourself
to be godly. God is the one that's enabling
it, but you need to take responsibility to take advantage of the means
that he's given you to grow in godliness. Godliness, we define
as a God-centered attitude, that is fear in God. But that results
in God pleasing actions, obeying God. And it's been very helpful
for me to be reminded that although my standing is secure because
I'm in Christ, God looks at me and he's not mad at me in the
sense that I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ and I'm
accepted by him. I'm justified. But in my daily
conduct, I can please or displease God. OK, there is a sense in
which in which I can obey and disobey. And when I disobey,
I do grieve the Holy Spirit. I want to be godly, I want to
have a God centered attitude that results in God pleasing
actions. Last week, we were in Titus two, another great passage. We learned that grace, the grace
that brings salvation. Also teaches us to deny ungodliness. And to pursue godliness. Titus
2, 11 through 14. Grace teaches us to flee from
one thing and to pursue another. And I love how it ends in verses
13 and 14, it says that we are living between Christ to Advent.
We saw the word the appearing. Grace has appeared. Grace incarnate
came at Jesus birth. And now we're waiting and we're
looking for Jesus' return, the glorious appearing of the great
God and our Savior Jesus Christ. So Jesus came once in grace. He'll come again in glory. And
we are living our life in this pilgrimage. If Bunyan were to
picture it, we're traveling in this pilgrimage and we have a
light that shines on us from the back. The Lord Jesus first
coming. We have a light we're walking
toward that shines on us. Jesus second coming and all of
life is lived between those two grand events. The Lord Jesus
himself is our goal. And he is our motive. I've hit
this every single week, but I remind you again, what we're saying
in theological terms is that justification, when you were
declared righteous because of the work of Christ in spite of
yourself, that was instantaneous and monergistic. That is that
God did it by himself. You contributed nothing but the
sin. You didn't help him. You didn't participate. God accomplished
it when you repented and trusted Christ. But your sanctification
and we might say your Christian growth, your Christian experience,
your Christian life, you're becoming more and more holy. Literally,
the word to be sanctified means that you're becoming holy. You
are you are being separated from sin and consecrated unto God.
Well, that is a process that is progressive. It doesn't happen
all at once. Despite books or sermons that
give that idea, it doesn't happen all at once. And it's synergistic. And what we mean is there's forces
working together. You cooperate with God in your
growth as he enables you by his spirit. So God is the one that's
changing you, growing you, sanctifying you. But he's doing so by his
spirit as you learn and apply the gospel, as you study Bible
commands, as you spend time in the word of God. OK, you're a
participant, you're not just passively waiting. Jesus make
me godly. And and then you go to bed and
hope he slips it under your pillow. OK, you need to be disciplining
yourself, laboring for that. OK, now, now, back to this, excuse
me, back to this previous slide, I said. That we look forward
to Christ and we look backward to Christ. Well, that's going
to be our focal point this morning. How we're looking unto Jesus,
to use the words of Hebrews. We grow as Christians. Through
what we call the means of grace. OK, now, when we talk about means
of grace, we mean that that God is doing a work of grace in your
life, but he does so through some means. All right. He uses
tools, the means of grace principally We're talking about prayer and
the Scriptures and the sacraments. Don't let that word make you
nervous. That just means the Lord's table and baptism. God
is using these things to work in your life, to remind you of
Christ, to point out your sin, to point you to God's amazing
work on your behalf. He's using these to grow you.
We call them means of grace. In other words, if you look at
all four of those things, In other words, worship has a sanctifying
effect. There are people that say, you
know, I. I love Jesus, I just don't like the church, I certainly
don't like coming to church and, you know, I don't need to be
I don't need to be with God's people, you know, I'll read a
book, I read the Bible on my own and and there's an arrogance
that says, you know, I don't need this. Let me tell you something.
We worship God. First, primarily because he deserves
it. And we give unto the Lord the
glory due unto his name. So it's about him. However. That doesn't mean we don't benefit
from it. OK, there are some benefits that
come along when we give God glory and worship. And I'm talking
about when we sing together or study preaching together, when
we stay for Sunday school and and we're learning more scripture.
I mean, when you're at home and you're praying in your closet,
maybe not literally, but in private at home, when you're reading
your Bible every day, when you're worshiping, you're giving God
the glory he deserves. But it's really good for your
soul. Worship is what grows you, has
a sanctifying effect. I think of it in three kind of
progressive steps. Gazing on Jesus is what justified
us. OK, for you to be saved, justified
is a big word, what does that mean? Your sins are forgiven.
You're counted righteous because of Jesus. You're going to heaven.
You're justified. The way you got saved in our
modern parlance, the way we describe it, the way you got saved was
you looked to Jesus. In Isaiah, God calls out, look
to Me, all the ends of the earth. And He invites people to look
to Him and be saved. In John 1.29, you know John 1.29,
John the Baptist is speaking, and he says of Jesus, what does
he say? Behold, which means look, behold
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. You look
to Jesus Christ. Believingly. And you're justified. You keep on looking to Jesus
Christ as you study the scriptures, as you grow, as you hear preaching,
as we encourage one another, we keep looking to Jesus and
that process of looking to Jesus sanctifies us, makes us more
godly. And then the day is coming When? Whether by his return or by our
death, we will be face to face with Jesus and that face to face
look will be what glorifies us when when our entire struggle
with sin is over. OK, it's looking to Jesus. I'm not saying that you're passively
contemplating him. You know, just just sit around
and just think about Jesus, envision it, you know, imagine miracles,
imagine the cross. I mean, you get your nose into
the Bible with the desire to interact with God, to see Christ. And seeing Christ is what will
grow you. I want to see that now from the
scriptures. So Isaiah chapter six, we're
going to read here the first seven verses and then we're going
to move to what I think is kind of a parallel passage in Second
Corinthians three. So a lot of ground to cover in
the next half hour. Isaiah six, beautiful, stirring
passage. You know it well. We sing about
it all the time. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord. That's that's a big statement
in this chapter. I saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne high and lifted up the train of his robe, filled the
temple above him, stood the seraphim, each had six wings. So whatever
these creatures look like, they're they're mighty. They're impressive
servants. Each had six wings. With two,
he covered his face. With two, he covered his feet.
And with two, he flew. So you have power. But in the
presence of God, you also have humility, covering of feet and
even covering of their eyes. One called to another and said,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of his glory. OK, we're in the throne room
of heaven. So it's kind of like the temple is a model of what
is is the reality in heaven. We're in the throne room. But
when these angels sing about the glory of Jehovah, they say
his glory doesn't just fill this place. The whole world is full
of his glory and the foundations of the threshold shook at the
voice of him who called. The house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me. For I am lost. For I am a man
of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean
lips. And here we have him gazing at
God again, he says, for my eyes have seen the king, the lord
of hosts. Isaiah is looking at the Lord
and all of His power and glory and majesty. And it terrifies
him. It reminds him how sinful he
is. He says, I shouldn't be here.
This is going to be fatal for me. How can a sinner be face
to face with God? He confesses his sin. And then
this holy God is also so merciful. Verse six. I heard the voice
of the Lord saying, excuse me, verse six, then one of the seraphim
flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken
with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth and said,
behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away
and your sin is atoned for. And then verse eight, which I
started to read, he's going to say, who am I going to send?
And Isaiah says. Here am I send me. You don't
get much, but you have me. And he has this commissioning
here. Move on to second Corinthians
in a few moments, I want to focus our attention on Isaiah six,
we can't begin to do it justice. I think it will be good for our
souls to contemplate it a little bit together. Isaiah was face
to face with God. And it cleansed him. OK, you want to grow. Then you need to get your eyes
off of King Uzziah, whoever it may be in your life. He says
King Uzziah died. He kind of got out of the way,
but there is one who never dies. There is a king who is eternal. I saw the Lord high and lifted
up and he starts talking about his glory and his power. The
power of his attendance is amazing. His servants, the angels. I say worship. confronts us with
Jesus majesty. Why is why is worship sanctifying? Why does worship grow you? Because
it confronts us with Jesus majesty. In other words, when you gaze
through scripture at the Lord. You're going to be overwhelmed
at how great he is. And how great you're not. OK,
Isaiah sees God and he says, God is awesome and I am puny
and I'm in trouble and I'm ashamed of myself and I need cleansing. And God uses the experience to
actually bring the cleansing that Isaiah needs. Now, worship
confronts us with Jesus majesty. And I reference Isaiah. Well,
we're not talking about Jesus back here, Pastor, we're talking
about Jehovah. Well, Jesus is Jehovah. In John
12, turn turn there, keep your finger here, but turn to John
12 quickly. John 12 is going to. Refer back to Isaiah six. We'll start halfway through verse
36. Or on page eight hundred ninety
nine, if you're using a pew Bible, I forgot to mention that before. John, twelve, halfway through
verse thirty six, it says when Jesus said these things, he departed
and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs
before them, they still did not believe him, so the word spoken
by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. We didn't get this
far in Isaiah six, but it's Isaiah six. Isaiah says, Lord, who has
believed what he heard from us and to whom has the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe.
For again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened
their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with
their heart and turn. And I would heal them. Notice
verse 41. Isaiah said these things because
he saw his glory and spoke of him. He says Isaiah's words were
fulfilled in the coming and the miracles and then utterly the
rejection of Jesus. And in John 12, 41, Isaiah says
that I excuse me, John says that Isaiah was speaking of Jesus. So he says Isaiah was speaking
of Jehovah. And it's right for us to apply
this to Jesus because Isaiah saw Jesus high and lifted up
Isaiah some seven to eight hundred years before the birth of Christ,
saw the pre incarnate Christ. in all of his glory and then
then applies these verses to him. Isaiah saw Jesus. And I say that when we see Jesus
through the scriptures, we're confronted with his majesty.
Should amaze you, you read the Bible, it should amaze you. How many times we read scripture
and, you know, we read these astounding things, maybe a miracle,
maybe some display of God's grace, maybe maybe some passage about
our salvation. And it doesn't amaze us. You
know, we just say, oh, yeah, I know that. That's a nice passage.
We're not amazed. You know, what really gets your
heart pumping about the scriptures? Are you ever amazed by the Bible?
I think I've told you in the past about the Amen test. I was
I was at a camp setting. I'm preaching and I'm preaching
the glories of Christ. I'm preaching the suffering he
endured on our behalf, the doctrine of propitiation. He bore the
wrath that we deserve and thus we can be forgiven. And and it
was glorious Bible truth. And I didn't hear a peep. People
were just kind of, you know, OK, gone. And then I made some
passing comment about how young people needed to be confronted
with these truths. And I said, man, it just seems like young
people aren't interested in scripture today. They're so distracted
by movies and things like that. And all of a sudden the place erupted.
Amen. Wait a second, I've been preaching about Jesus, you said
nothing. I take a cheap shot at teenagers and you all are
really excited. What's wrong with us? Are you
amazed by Scripture? I mean, do you ever read it and
just say, God, thank you, thank you for doing that for me. If
we would see God face to face, we would be amazed because God
is stupendously powerful. OK, there's a higher throne in
heaven. King Uzziah was on a throne,
but there's a higher throne. And the one who is there is all
powerful. And the room is filled with his
train. That's how majestic he is. And
the room shakes and there's smoke and there's awe because he's
that majestic. God is stupendously powerful.
We can't we can't even begin to imagine it. God is without
rival. Literally, when when we use the
word holy. We're saying that, God, there
is no one like you. God is completely other. That's
kind of a weird statement. But what I mean is there's nobody
like him when we say God is holy. We don't just mean he's clean.
We mean he's set apart from everything he set apart from sin, but he's
also set apart from creation. He's he has his own category.
There's no one like him. So the angels cry out, holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And what they're saying is there's
nobody like him. There's nobody like him. He's without rival.
He's one of a kind. He's holy. This is for free just
because it's a teaching moment. But when we speak of God's holiness,
sometimes we speak of God's attributes as communicable and incommunicable.
Communicable is a word you usually use with what? What's the next
word you expect to hear? Disease. All right. Communicable
disease means there's a disease that's infectious. Well, when
we use communicable to talk about an attribute, we mean that there
are some attributes that that God can share with us. For example,
God is love. Can I become loving? Yeah, that's
a communicable attribute. The more I spend time with God,
the more I become like Him. His love is infectious, if you
will, and He makes me more loving. On the other hand, God is omnipotent,
all-powerful. Is that communicable or incommunicable? Yeah, I'm not going to become
all-powerful. When I say I want to be like
Jesus, I mean, I want to be like him in his moral virtues. I'm
never going to be omnipresent. OK, well, holiness is kind of
both. It's incommunicable in the sense
that there's nobody like God, there never will be anybody like
God. He's without rival. It's communicable in the sense.
That among other things, he set apart from sin and he commands
me to be holy, for I am holy. Again and again through scripture,
we have this we have this motive to be holy like he is holy. All
right. In one sense, we can be holy
in the sense of set apart from sin. In another sense, of course,
we'll never be holy in the in the other sense of the word. God is completely without rival. Here's what I'm saying. You spend
time in the word of God, not just doing devotions, but looking
at God. And you'll be amazed. The next
step beyond your amazement is you will be humbled. He describes God in this great
majesty. Cries out, he says, woe is me. I'm undone. Many of us are used
to reading there. I'm in trouble. I'm lost. I'm
in a desperate place. Why? Because I am a man of unclean
lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips for
my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. You spend time
looking at God, it amazes you and humbles you because you say
he is so awesome and I am so not. Remember a young man, I
mean, everybody struggles with pride, I am painfully aware of
my pride. Everybody struggles with pride,
but I remember a man that was, you know, just more overt about
it. Years ago, we're talking about sports. I'm speaking with
this young man about basketball, blocking shots or something.
And he said, he said, I have never met anybody that could
do that as well as I do. And I just started laughing because
I thought, you know, he must be being sarcastic. You know,
he's just so overtly proud that it's a joke. I'm laughing and
I looked at him and he goes, I'm not kidding. I've never met
somebody as good as me. Wow. You know, so impressed. Laurie, years ago, was teaching
and she gave her students an essay. And the essay was, you
know, just describe something you're good at. And the very
first sentence, I'll never forget, we still have the very first
sentence, this one voice says, I am so good at so many things. You know, it's just hard to come
up with one. I actually had a conversation
with this same young man and I said, you know, what can I
pray with you about? What what's God doing in your
life? What do you what are you burdened about? What are you
struggling with? He says, you know, I mean, nobody's perfect, but honestly,
I'm really not struggling. I mean, I kind of have this down
as far as my Christian walk. I'm doing well. And, you know,
oh, OK, very good. I'm not joking about this. Apparently, that young man had
not spent much time face to face with the King of Kings, with
Jehovah, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, because if you
spend time with God, you don't congratulate yourself. You abhor
yourself in dust and ashes. Time with God is humbling. You
say, man, I'm concerned about my pride. Then get your nose
in the Bible. Yeah, I know that's what I'm
proud about because I think I'm such a good person. Don't get your nose in
the Bible because you think it makes you good. Get your nose
in the Bible and see how great God is and how great you're not.
There's no cure for for pride. There's no there's no help to
humility like time spent face to face with God, because you'll
be so grieved at how different you are from him. I mean, think
of it in these terms. When you gaze at God, you're
humbled before him as creatures. Did you notice that Isaiah six,
the angels are humble before God? OK, they're flying, they're
mighty, they're singing his praises, they've been singing his praises
since they were created. But while they fly with two wings,
with two wings, they cover their feet and with two two wings,
they cover their eyes. So that they're not audacious
in the face of God. Let me ask you something. What
do angels have to be humble about? Why do angels need to hide their
eyes? Why do angels need to cover their
feet? Have they ever sinned? I don't mean all angels, some
angels have said, have these seraphim, have they ever sinned? No, I mean, if they had sinned,
they'd be they'd be cast out of heaven, they'd be a demon.
So why are they humble? Because they're face to face
with the creator. Later on, Isaiah is going to
confess his own sin. And when he confesses his sin,
he's going to say that I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in
the midst of people of unclean lips. He says, I'm a sinner. Everybody around me is sinner.
I don't belong here. OK. The angels. aren't bowing their face and
covering their feet because they're aware of their sin. They've never
sinned. What are they aware of? There is an infinite chasm. Between God, the creator. And
even the most beautiful, powerful, majestic of his creatures. They're
humbled because they're not God. I mean, on your best day, on
your best day, even if you could sing like an angel, if you could
fly, I'd be impressed if you could fly. You'd have every reason
in the world to be humble and not proud. Because even angels
in the presence of God are ashamed of themselves. They haven't done
anything wrong, but they know the difference between the creator
and the creature. It's a vast chasm. Now you add
to that, we should be humble as creatures. You add to that the fact that
we're not just creatures, we're fallen creatures. We're not angels
hovering around the throne, we're humans. We just studied Psalm
51 on Wednesday night in our adult Bible study. Psalm 51,
David, who, you know, the Bible says is a pretty good guy. You know, he's a man after God's
own heart. He was the measure by which all other kings are
measured. But when he became mindful again of God's holiness. He had this kind of repentance
spirit says, oh, God, my sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have
I done this great evil, it's in your sight. And I'm not just
sinning because I had a bad day. This is me. My mom conceived
me as a sinner. It's perfectly consistent with
my character to sin. Oh, God, have mercy on me. Wash
me, cleanse me, create a clean heart in me, give me joy and
use me in spite of myself because I'm burdened by my sin. When
we come face to face with God, You should be amazed by him.
You should be humbled by him. God,
I'm a creature and you're a creator. You're awesome. And I'm not. God, I'm a sinner. And you're perfectly holy. In
you, there's no darkness at all. I'm humble. I need your help. The passage goes on. Gazing on
God doesn't just amaze us and humble us, it purifies us. I
love this in verse six. Then one of the seraphim flew
to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs
from the altar. OK, what's that about? OK, you have an altar in heaven,
you have The worship of God, you have one of the coals is
being taken with tongs. That makes sense. It's hot. And
he's bringing it. And he brings that burning coal,
verse seven, and he touched my mouth. Ouch. All right. But the idea isn't that he's
being burned here, it's that he's being purified. He touched
my mouth. And he said, behold, this has
touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and
your sin is atoned for. We just got a whole different
angle about the king on his throne. So powerful. The shock and awe. You know, you're in his presence
and you're on your face. And didn't we see that many times
even in the life of Christ, when he was shown in all of his glory,
like at the Mount of Transfiguration, the three disciples shut their
mouths and cower when he appears to John on the Isle of Patmos.
John the Baptist falls down like he's a dead man. He said, man,
he is scary. He is. But he's merciful. He's gracious. And though he
himself is totally untainted by sin, he provides a way that
sinful creatures like us can be cleansed. Our sin can be atoned
for. Our sin can be purified. We can
be clean again. I'm reading in Psalm 51 and I
see David's abject humility where Once Nathan the prophet said,
thou art the man David got it and he was so burdened. And yet,
as he confesses his sin, he has the audacity to ask and say,
if you will wash me, I will be whiter than snow. God, you can cleanse even this
mess. He has the audacity to ask for
cleansing and a new heart and joyful praise. And then he says,
in God, I'll serve you. I'll preach you. And God answered
that request. God is so holy. He's so merciful. Your creaturely nature. And your
sinful nature and your sinful conduct. should be very disturbing
to you when you're in the presence of God. OK, what do you think,
Pastor, you think I'm going to go home, take a nap and have
this vision? You're going to have this vision
when you get in the Bible, when you read Isaiah six, when you
read Revelation one, and I stop passively waiting for God to
show you something amazing. He has 66 inspired books that
show you amazing things. You've got to get in this book.
You've got to get in this book. I think of what what the Apostle
Peter says when he's affirming the the trustworthiness of scripture,
I believe it's second Peter one. And he says, you know, we haven't
we haven't followed cunningly devised fables. He talks about
how trustworthy the scripture is. And he says, we were there
on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus was glorified and
God spoke audibly. And he said, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. He said, I heard it. With my
ears, I saw the glory, and then he's talking about the scripture
and he says, to quote the King James, he says, we have also
a more sure word of prophecy. You understand what he just said?
I saw Jesus glorified. I heard God the Father speak
with a voice from heaven. And I'm telling you that in the
Bible we have an even more sure word of prophecy than that. That's
how great this book is. You use the means of grace. You
dig into scripture not to check it off your list, not so you
won't get a flat tire. You know, we think that way.
You better do your devotions. God will zap you all day long.
I've had the worst day. I didn't pray for five minutes
and God's been after me. Why? You have a bad view of God,
you have a bad view of prayer, you have a bad view of Bible
reading. This isn't a rabbit's foot to keep bad things away. It's a way for you to come face
to face with God. And when you come face to face
with God, you'll be amazed and you'll be humbled. And you'll
be purified. He has provided a way for our
sins to be atoned for. We see it symbolically in Isaiah,
but you know, when I read Isaiah six and it says that God took
something from the altar and dealt with sin. And I wish I
had an altar like that. I do have an altar like that. The altar that takes away our
sin was made of wood. When the Lord Jesus Christ died
on a cross, He was the perfect Lamb being slain on the perfect
altar. And His sacrifice can atone for
your sin. It can remove your iniquity from
you. When you look to Him, your sin
loses its power. There might be some in a group
this size and you say, man, I need Jesus. I'm a sinner and I need
to be forgiven. I feel like David. I'm such a
mess. I feel like Isaiah. Woe is me. I'm sinful. You are. But if you look to Jesus as he's
revealed in Scripture, if you pray and say, God, I repent of
my sin, I don't want that. I believe in Jesus, save me,
take my sin away, purify me. He'll do it. He'll save you.
If you will look to the Lamb of God in faith, He will take
away your sin. Some of you say, Pastor, I've
done that. I'm just so frustrated by my
ongoing struggle with sin. You keep looking. Looking is
what saved you in the first place and looking is what will sanctify
you ongoingly. I'm not saying passive look.
I'm saying actively you study the scriptures. And as you come
face to face with God, you say, God, you're awesome. I'm not.
Fix me. And he sent his son to an altar
to fix you and deal with your sin. And we will talk about it
some more next week from Second Corinthians, chapter three, Isaiah
six. Beautiful, beautiful passage.
I think we have time today, but if we could end today with holy,
holy, holy, I think it would be very appropriate. There's
no one like you, God. I'm in awe of you, but I long
to be more like you to change me, grow me, make me holy. Lord,
I thank you for your word today. We took more time in this one
passage than I anticipated, but Lord, it's so worthwhile. Thank
you for the beauty of that passage and the power of it. There's
nobody like you. We're humbled because we're just
creatures and we're even more humbled because we're sinners.
I thank you that you provide atonement and cleansing because
of the cross of Jesus Christ. Save anyone who does not yet
know you and oh God, mature your people, grow us, grow us in godliness
as we seek you through the scriptures. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Worship & Godliness
| Sermon ID | 83141358463 |
| Duration | 47:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Isaiah 6:1-7 |
| Language | English |
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