God's Most Unpopular Attribute - Part B

It bothers me when I hear somebody say this, or when I see God, I have a few things I want to tell them. You have no clue what you just said. In fact, when somebody says that, I want to say, could you move like 10 feet away from me when you say that?

Because I'm expecting like lightning at any moment. Truth is, if you are growing at all in a relationship with a holy God, you can tell you are, because of the deep, profound sense of conviction about yourself and about Him. For some, God's holiness is the thing they like least about Him.

But just because it may be an unpopular attribute, that doesn't mean it isn't good. Today on Connect with Skip Hitek, Skip points out why understanding God's holiness is so important to your faith and your walk with Him. But before we begin, we want to let you know about a resource that will help you get to know God more personally, so you can experience a richer faith.

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Request your copy when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we'll be in Isaiah chapter 6 for today's study, so let's join Skip Heisen. God says of the tabernacle and all of its vessels, they are holy. He said now this oil, this oil is holy oil because it's not to be used for anything else but the tabernacle and with the oil you are to anoint the pots and pans. Those are holy pots and pans because they're only to be used in the tabernacle. You see that altar out there? Put oil on that because that's a holy altar only to be used for sacrifice and Aaron and his sons did the same to them.

They're holy people. Now the intrinsic value didn't change. Aaron didn't glow in the dark. The vessels of the tabernacle had no special look to them.

They were just simply marked off for special use. So when we say God is holy or we speak of the holiness of God, what we're simply saying is there's no one else like Him. He is singular. He is unique. He is unparalleled, unprecedented.

He is exclusive. That's the simple core idea of the word holiness. And I would say this view of God has been lost in the church. Preferring the comfort of His nearness, we have lost the reality of God's transcendent holiness. He is not the man upstairs. Ever have somebody call God that in your presence?

Put in a good word to the big guy for me. Or God is the old codger with the beard. No, he's not. That's not God. God is ineffable glory.

He is one who dwells in unapproachable light. Our God is a consuming fire. That's God. That is God in His holiness. So holiness describes separation. The second way that we relate to a holy God is found in verse 5. And here's the principle, holiness deepens conviction.

What Isaiah does. Verse 5, so I said, whoa! Not like whoa, dude, but whoa is me.

I am undone. I'm 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.

Notice Isaiah didn't go, cool, I saw God. He says whoa is me. Or as one translation puts it, I'm doomed.

I'm ruined. Now why would he say that? Why would a prophet of God, who's a holy guy, by definition, why would he say whoa is me? Why would he say, okay, now I just had an experience very few people, if any, have ever had, so I'm gonna write a book, go on a speaking tour, go on television. It's gonna be called The Day I Saw God.

This is gonna be really awesome. His reaction is self-deprecating. Whoa is me.

Here's the reason why. In seeing a holy God, Isaiah saw his unholy self in comparison to a holy God, and that produced a profound sense of conviction. I don't care how holy you are on an earthly level. When you're in the presence of God, this is the reaction, whoa is me.

Here's a little comparison on an earthly level. Have you ever in church sat next to somebody during the song part of the service, and they sing beautifully, they are like pitch perfect, they sound like an angel. Now you like to sing in the shower, but next to that person, it's like whoa, whoa is me, and whoa is anyone else around me if I start singing right now in comparison to that person. Max Lucado said, you don't impress the officials at NASA with your paper airplane.

You don't boast about your crayon sketches in the presence of Picasso. You don't claim equality with Einstein because you can write H2O, and you don't boast about your goodness in the presence of the perfect. So even this prophet, in the presence of a holy God, must say, whoa is me. Okay, if, if indeed this is the core of God's character, if that's true, then wouldn't you expect to find a similar response by a lot of people in the Bible that got near to God?

Yeah, you would. If God is indeed that, anybody who gets close to that has that reaction, if that's God's core, then you'd expect it, and you do find it. For instance, Job. Now, how good was Job? Okay, he was Mr. Holy, wasn't he? Didn't God say, I have no one on earth like Job. And yet, after he encountered God, Job said, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. That's Mr. Holy talking. Okay, what about Peter in the New Testament? Naturally, aggressive, a boastful kind of a guy, a fisherman, until the day Jesus goes fishing with him, and he understands who Jesus is, and what does Peter say to Jesus? Geez, he didn't say, I'm pretty good, huh, Jesus? He says, depart from me, Lord.

I am a sinful man. And John, when he got the revelation of Jesus Christ in the first chapter, he writes, and I fell at his feet as dead. We find this all throughout, even the picture of our future in heaven. Revelation 4 and 5, there's four living creatures and 24 elders, and they all have crowns on their head. And when the time for the anthem comes to sing to God, they sing, holy, holy, holy, same song. And it says, the elders cast what? Their crowns before him. What's that all about? They're simply saying, in the presence of this one, no honor to me, all honor and glory to him. That's the proper reaction. So, it bothers me when I hear somebody say this, or when I see God, I have a few things I want to tell them. You have no clue what you just said.

In fact, when somebody says that, I want to say, could you move like 10 feet away from me when you say that? Because I'm expecting, like, lightning at any moment. The truth is, if you are growing at all in a relationship with a holy God, you can tell you are, because of the deep, profound sense of conviction about yourself and about him. Jesus put it this way, blessed are the poor in spirit. They will see God. Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted. That's the reaction when unholy men or women meet a holy God. Third thing I want you to notice is that holiness demands purification. Look at verse 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 of Isaiah.

I'd be thinking, what's he going to do now? And he touched my mouth with it. Ouch!

And he said, that's not in there by the way, ouch, if you're not following along. And he said, behold, this has touched your lips, your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged. I remember the first time I ate green chili in New Mexico. It was a very similar experience. I mean, I tried this, people say, you've got to try green chili on everything. So I tried it on something and it was like, explosion, and I thought, who thought of this? This is crazy, but then I became an addict.

Hi, I'm Skip Heitzig and I'm a chili addict. Okay, apart from that, what is all this about? What's going on here? The altar is probably the altar of sacrifice. That's where animals were killed. That's where sin was dealt with. That's where atonement took place. And since there was a fire perpetually burning on that altar, this is symbolic of cleansing.

The angel takes a coal from the altar where sin is dealt with, where sacrifices are made, and brought over to Isaiah. And it touches his lips. Why his lips?

Well, what did he say? I'm a man of unclean what? Lips. So the very area that needed cleansing God touches. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

Now, what is all this about? Here's a principle. Holiness cannot coexist with unholiness. Holiness cannot exist with unholiness. Either the holy God must destroy that which is unholy, or or make that which is unholy, holy somehow.

Or at least declare it. Confer holiness upon it. Purge the sin. And is not that the story of the whole Bible? Go way back to the Old Testament, that whole tabernacle thing we're talking about. You couldn't just walk into God's house one day, going, I'm just gonna hang out with God. Priests, move out of the way. I'm gonna go around the altar. I'm gonna walk right into the Holy of Holies, have a few words with God.

You'd be struck dead. Even the high priests couldn't do that. So you had to come very carefully, bringing an animal, going through the ritual, having blood atoned for, and now, since the blood was shed, your sin was covered temporarily in the Old Testament. God could confer upon you a sense of holiness.

He could regard you as his own child. And we get to the New Testament. And now we have Jesus, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. The perfect Lamb.

The one who lived the perfect life, that you and I could never live. The Holy One. And then he dies in our place, and all of his holy merit is conferred to your account, and you become his child. That's the idea of 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 18. You were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a Lamb without blemish and without spot. A perfectly holy Lamb. And the great principle of all this is simply, the only one who is perfectly holy can perfectly cleanse one who is unholy. Either there is an ultimate destruction of the unholy, because God is holy, or God somehow forgives and purges and makes holy.

Isaiah understood this. That's why he said, woe is me. That's why he allowed this and the vision to take place, so that he could be cleansed of his sin. And that's the reason he freely admitted, not righteous is me, cool am I, but woe is me. And let me suggest to you that one of the reasons that people can go to church around the world in our country week after week after week after week and remain unchanged in their marriage, in their business, at home, is because they don't admit or see that great gulf that separates them and God.

They don't see the need for cleansing, the need for adjustment. And so you hear it when somebody prays this, God, if I have sinned, forgive me. If? If?

How about since? Because if you're not sure, why do you bother even praying about it? You see, it says in 1 John chapter 1 verse 9, if we confess our sins, that means agree with holy God about the unholiness of our sinful nature, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There has to be the admission of need before there is ever any kind of cleansing at all. I've always enjoyed the story of Frederick the Great, the Prussian king, who visited a prison in Berlin. And as he walked through the prison, all the different prisoners in the cell blocks were proclaiming his innocence. I shouldn't be here. I was wrongly judged.

You got to get me out of here. He came to the last prisoner who didn't say anything at all. And the king looked at him and said, well, I suppose you're an innocent victim also. To which the man responded, no, I'm not, sire, I'm guilty and I deserve punishment. And the king smiled and said to the warden, release this rascal before he corrupts all these fine innocent people.

You know what? That's exactly what God does with us. The person who says I'm righteous enough, I'm religious enough, I'm good enough, nothing. But the person who says I admit woe is me and I need cleansing, God says now, you'll be released.

You'll be cleansed. And this is simply why many religious people, good people, don't make it to heaven. They see no need for cleansing in their own life. They see no sin, thus they seek no Savior. This is how you relate to a holy God.

Fourth and finally, holiness develops commission. Verse 8. Also, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Something to note here, God is all about looking for volunteers, not forced labor. And I bring this up because I think a lot of Christian organizations and churches have tried to artificially produce what is a natural spiritual process.

They try to guilt people into serving, you ought to be more involved, and just making them do everything. Instead of allowing the Spirit of God through an encounter with the holy God that produces conviction and cleansing to then motivate them towards service. And God's holiness will ultimately do that.

Here's why. There's a process that Isaiah is following here in this chapter. Begins with the revelation of the holy God followed by a conviction of my own sin. Leads me to be cleansed of my sin and eventually I want to be totally committed to the one who cleansed me.

I want to do whatever he wants. That's called being holy in a practical sense. He now is in a practical sense out working what God declared him to be and that is cleansed, righteous, holy. This is always the pattern, always the pattern. Unholy man or woman meets holy God is convicted of their own sin, confesses it, is cleansed, and eventually wants to go to work for him. I see this all the time.

I see it all the time. All the pastors that work on this staff, all of the ministry leaders in this church, who are they? I'll tell you who they are. They're saved sinners who met a holy God transformed by him and now are sold out to him. They want to be used by him. And isn't this the greatest challenge? Isn't the greatest challenge of the Christian life to increasingly match our practice with our position? See, it's one thing for God to declare us as righteous and holy. It's another thing practically to live a righteous holy life. And I find my greatest challenge is to match my practice with my position. An example, Ephesians 1 verse 4, God chose us that we should be holy and without blame before him.

That's a positional statement. That's how God views you today. God right now views you, if you've received Christ, no matter what state you're in, as holy and without blame before him. But the challenge is to, as I live my life, to increasingly match my demonstration with his declaration.

I find that to be the great challenge. The Bible calls that sanctification, being holy, same idea. I love what Leighton Ford once said. He said, God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way.

Isn't that true? When you come to Christ, understand it's a package deal. He's going to take you as you are, but then he's going to go to work on you. He's going to go to work on you, and I'm really glad for that.

I'm glad he loves me too much to leave me the way I am. This last week, I was walking and somebody asked me, what are you going to preach on Sunday? And I said, the holiness of God. And he jokingly said, I don't think I'm gonna come this weekend. In other words, it's probably going to be a convicting message.

And I know he said that jokingly, but there was a little bit of truth in that. All of that to say, we can't Skip this if we're not interested in it. This is not an elective. This is not optional. We must major in this. This is what we're called to.

You say, well, how do you know that skip? You're making a whole lot. I'm making a whole lot of it because of the abundance of times the Bible brings us out. First Thessalonians chapter 4. This is the will of God, even your sanctification.

Couldn't be any clearer than that. This is what God wants for your life to be holy. Or Hebrews chapter 12, pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Or Leviticus 11, God said to his people, you must be holy, for I am holy. You're gonna follow me. I'm gonna be your father. Well, here's the principle, like father, like son. If I'm holy, I want you to be holy. And when we are, we're godly. Godly just means God-like. We're like God. So I want to close with this thought. How can you tell if you're becoming more holy? You look at your life last year, the year before, to this year, today. How do you know you're growing in holiness?

It's pretty simple. Number one, because you love the things God loves. And number two, because you hate the things God hates. You love what holy God loves. What does holy God love? Righteousness, purity.

And you could go on all of those list of great attributes. What does God hate as a holy God? Sin, unrighteousness, impurity. So how do you know you're growing and to be godly? Because you're loving what God loves and you hate what God hates.

C.S. Lewis wrote a lot of great stuff. I have a lot of his books. I have to read them three or four or five or six times to understand half of them.

But here's one thing he said that even I can understand. He writes, how little do people who think that holiness is dull? Or how little do people know who think that holiness is dull? When I meet the real thing, it's irresistible. If even 10 percent of the world's population had it, holiness, would not the whole world be converted before the year's end?

Isn't it true? I'll tell you, it is for me. The most compelling people I have ever met are those who are holy people. There's something about their integrity and lifestyle and relationship with God that draws me in to them and wants me to emulate that. It's very, very compelling and I pray, I really do, sincerely pray that for us, for our congregation, that holiness will not be the most unpopular attribute, but the most popular attribute.

That when we read texts on that, and they're abundant, and we hear and sing about it, it's like, yeah, that's what I want. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from his series, The Biography of God. Now, here's Skip with a listener letter to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to God's truths. Well, it's thanks to listeners like you that we get to hear stories about how God is working in people's lives through this radio broadcast.

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