God is Holy

Praying House to House
This sermon series is designed to turn our homes into beacons of prayer dotted throughout the greater Charlotte area; but it is not a series about prayer. Instead, we are studying God on Sunday mornings and House to House gatherings, trusting the Holy Spirit to ignite our meditation into passionate prayer.

Unfortunately this sermon didn’t get recorded, so I’ll try to recap it more thoroughly than usual.

Isaiah 6:1-5
In this passage we see a vision of God through Isaiah’s eyes. The God he sees is authoritative (on a throne), sovereign (sitting on the throne (Thanks to John Piper for pointing this out)), and majestic (with the train of his robe filling the temple); but none of these attributes is the most remarkable thing about the experience. The most remarkable thing is God’s holiness.

The seraphim respond to God by saying to each other,

These fiery angelic creatures find God’s holiness eternally remarkable. No other attribute of God is expressed this emphatically in the Bible. Nowhere do we read that God is “Love, love love” or “Strong, strong, strong.” (Thanks to R.C. Sproul for pointing this out.) So we really need to understand what holiness is.

At its root, holiness means separate. To be holy is to be apart from or set apart. So, the most remarkable thing about God is how separate and different he is from all else. Your spouse might be one in a billion, but God is just one. There is no other like him.

This is all so abstract until we see Isaiah’s reaction. Instead of proclaiming how holy God is, he says,

The seraphim find God’s holiness eternally remarkable. Isaiah finds it devastating. Why?

The most remarkable thing about God is his holiness. The most remarkable thing about his holiness is how unclean we are in comparison. This is why we usually think of holiness in terms of moral purity, because that is the category in which we most clearly see how different we are from him.  

Everything you know about yourself is based on comparison. You judge how good looking, smart, strong, successful, and troubled you are based on those around you. The same goes for cleanness. When we stand before God’s holiness, all earthly comparisons disappear and we at once know just how unclean we are.

Our lifelong efforts at being good people will crumble in ruins around our feet as we stare in awe at God’s prefect moral holiness.

Like Isaiah, we need a transformation before we can be in God’s presence (see Isaiah 6:6-7). This is the transformation offered in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).

1. Read Isaiah 6:1-5 and list everything you learn about God. What is most difficult to grasp? Why?

2. Read Isaiah 6:3. List all the ways you can think of in which God is set apart from other beings. (See Exodus 15:11; Psalm 24:1-6 and 1 John 1:5 for ideas.)

3. What does it mean in 1 Peter 1:15-16 to be holy? (See 2 Corinthians 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:7 and 1 John 3:3 for hints.)

4. What would it look like for you to pursue Biblical holiness in real life (at home, at work, at play, etc.)? What would need to change?

5. Where does Jesus fit into the Christian pursuit of holiness? (See 1 Corinthians 11:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 2:21 for hints.)

6. Why do you think Isaiah focused on the uncleanness of his lips? (See Luke 6:45 and 2 Peter 1:21 for hints.)

7. What is your biggest struggle with words? (See Proverbs 10:19; 16:28 and 18:21 to get you thinking.)

8. How should the fact that God is Holy inform our prayers?

9. How can you serve each other as a group in light of this passage?

10. How can your group to pray for you? Pray together as a group.