Behold Your God Isaiah 48, Part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The mythological Greek gods and goddesses worshiped thousands of years ago were portrayed as better, more powerful versions of humanity. They could still be capricious and full of the same vices found in man. Not so with the God of the Bible. It's easy to see throughout the narrative of scripture that God is unlike us. He's holy, set apart, completely other. God Himself is the very definition of what is good, beautiful, and right. His person invokes awe in those who observe it. In today's message from Isaiah 48, Pastor Rich lays out the holiness, the otherness of God, along with a challenge for us to consider. Do we view God as simply a larger, better version of ourselves?

Are we guilty of treating Him as common? May God enlighten our hearts to the beauty and greatness of Himself today. You're listening to part two of a message that was first preached on May 26, 2013 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. A couple weeks ago, my neighbor invited me to help her unload some bags of pebbles out of the back of her vehicle, because she's going to spread them on the ground in front of her house. It's a stone. It's just a bunch of stones. I'm like, okay, they're nice stones.

You're just going to spread them all on the ground. They're common stones. How would it be different if she was presented with a diamond? Would she just take a bunch of diamonds and spread them all over the ground in front of her house?

No. Diamonds are special. You treat them specially. We treat them so special we wear them. It's a stone. And we wear stones because it's a special stone. It's a holy stone. That's the idea of holiness, okay?

It's not common. The idea, the word holy, the first word for holy in the scriptures appears in Genesis chapter two, verse three, where God is speaking of the Sabbath. He says, He set the Sabbath aside.

That's the idea. He set the Sabbath aside. In other words, it wasn't just another day of the week.

It was a special day, and it was treated specially. That's the word holy. In Exodus chapter three, verse five is the next time. Moses is in the wilderness.

He's standing in front of a bush that is burning but is not being consumed. And God is revealing himself to Moses there. And what does God say to Moses? Okay, God, if you choose, you're on holy ground. Okay? There's something particularly weighty and uncommon about what's going on here, Moses, and you need to be aware of that.

Okay? So the idea of holiness means to remove from common use. It means subject to special treatment. For example, my wife sews a lot, and she has special scissors for cloth. And they're intended only for cloth.

And I see if they're in the room or sewing room there, and I can have access to them. But my wife looks at me in the eyes, and she says, Rich, you don't touch those scissors because they're intended for cloth. Because I, as a man, what am I going to use scissors for?

A thousand and one reasons. Like a screwdriver, maybe. Okay?

Or I might cut wire with it. And my wife looks at me, and she says, Don't you touch those scissors because they're holy. They're set apart. Okay? I'm not saying that cynically. They're special.

They're not for common use. That's the idea of holiness. And the Lord says, God, who is exalted worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness, He says in verse 11, How shall my name, how should my name be profaned? You are treating me as common like I'm just another one of the gods.

For that reason, Judah was going to be taken into captive, and God was going to bring them back and restore them to their land so that Judah and all the people around them would know God is a holy God. He's not just another one of the gods. He's a holy God. Let's get into this definition of holiness here.

I want to present this to you, okay? God Himself is the definition and absolute standard of what is good, beautiful, and right. God Himself, not what He says, not what He does, God Himself is the definition and absolute standard of what is good, beautiful, and right. Consider Psalm 19. Consider Psalm 19. It says, The law of the Lord is what?

Perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold.

Here's the point. All that proceeds from God is good, beautiful, and right, because God Himself is the definition and the absolute standard of all that is good, beautiful, and right. Nothing but what is excellent comes from God. Now, even that word itself, excellent, comes from the word excel.

There's important meaning to that, because to excel means to go beyond. It has a sense of uniqueness, a sense of otherness, a sense of distinction. Unfortunately, excellent is a word that has been royally dumbed down in our culture today, because everything is excellent. Kind of like the word awesome. Everything is awesome. God is awesome.

Chocolate is awesome. See, we do that kind of stuff to words, and it's such an unfortunate thing. But the word excellent, nothing but excellence proceeds from God. The sense of otherness, a distinction. Let me make this point here, in the holiness of God, because the Bible gives us principles and precepts, but we must understand this. Every principle and precept proceeds from His person.

Every principle and precept proceeds from His person. I want to challenge you on this, okay, because some of us struggle with this whole area of obedience, and some of us struggle with, well, you know, we just have to do what a Christian is supposed to do. Well, why does a Christian do this? Why is a Christian supposed to do this? Because that's what the Bible says.

Nuh-uh. The Bible says, he says in the Old Testament and the New Testament, be ye holy. Why? Because the Bible says so. Is that what it says? That's not what it says. Be holy. Why? Because I am holy.

And here's the kicker. You were designed for Him. So God's not just telling you be holy because that's what the Bible says. No, be holy because I am holy. Why should you be truthful? Why should you speak the truth? Because Jesus said, I am the truth.

Why should we be gracious people? Because God is a God of grace. He is a merciful God.

You see that? That rescues us from looking at the Bible as some kind of user's manual. It is a living word, and this living word leads us to a person, a holy God.

I think that ought to be very helpful. So the excellence of God, the holiness of God helps us understand then that the otherness of God implies our perspective in the context of weakness and imperfection. When we speak of the holiness of God, in a sense, we're looking at the otherness of God, that God is above. He is exalted above.

He is other than. Imperfection and weakness limits abuse, darkness, or any polluting element. That is what we mean by the holiness of God. There are no, and can be no, dead flies in God, or dead people. Now think about that.

Think about that. Because in what condition were you and I born? What does David say? In sin my mother conceived me. What is that? That means because of my very nature, I am separated from God.

What is that? That is death. But thank God for his promise, like he says in Ephesians chapter 2, and you he made alive who are dead in trespasses and sins. The foundation of that statement is the holiness of God. So the otherness of God, we're going to look at that in two different senses, two specific senses here this morning. In the holiness and when we understand the holiness of God, first of all, is that God is holy other in essence. By holy other, I mean a distinction. He is beyond something. He is not even within the realm of what? Weakness, imperfection, and all that. God is holy other in essence. What on earth do you mean by that, Rich?

I don't know. I'm just quoting theologians. No, that's not what I mean. I'm going to use John Oswald to help us understand that, because we as created beings with finite limited understanding, we have a daily tendency propensity to think of God in our image. That's what we cannot do. God is holy other than that. We were created in His image. And what mankind has attempted to do repeatedly, repeatedly is to think that God is just simply part of the creation. And John Oswald says this, the world must not be allowed to persist in its darkened understanding that the divine is merely a part of us, only larger.

And that's the mistake that so many people make. They think God is just a part of us, only larger. And so when he says, among the gods, who is like you among the gods, we know that there are no other gods. They are false gods, but they are non-gods, because they're not God.

A God cannot be created. We see that, for example, in some of the movies. The Avengers, one of the favorites, right? What are they? They are gods. But what are they like? They're like us, only gooder or badder, like Loki. Sorry, Ashley.

But they're stronger, aren't they? God is holy in that He is distinct from the creation, which is fallen and cursed. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.