God's Holiness Defines Him and Changes Me.
- God's holiness Defines Him. (Is 6:1-4)
- God's holiness Changes me. (Is 6:5-8)
- Encountering His holiness Breaks me. (Is 6:5)
- When I am broken, I am ready to be Cleansed. (Is 6:6-7)
- When I am cleansed, I am ready to Serve Him. (Is 6:8)
5 Signs That Indicate That You're Not Broken:
- "I'm not that bad."
- "I'm not as bad as..."
- "I intend to stop this sin...sometime."
- "God understands why I have to do this."
- "I'll clean up my act, then I'll come to Jesus."
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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We're going to be kicking off a new series starting today, and this will take us actually through Easter.
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Our series is going to be six messages through the book of Isaiah.
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And while you're turning there, many of you know last November I had the opportunity to go to Thailand and do some work over there.
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We held a Bible conference with a missionary friend of mine.
00:29-00:41
The first day that we were there, we were actually heading up to the mountain villages and we had stopped for breakfast at this little roadside diner.
00:43-00:48
And not speaking the language and not knowing what was what, I went safe.
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I had, it was rice and there was like some shredded chicken on top of that and then there was a fried egg on top of that.
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sort of like a circle of life type meal.
01:00-01:03
You've got the egg and the chicken on the same plate.
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And so we're sitting there eating, and my missionary friend has an adult daughter who I knew from when she was over here in the States.
01:12-01:15
She went to school over here, and she speaks very good English.
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But on her plate, she had this pinkish purple stuff that was-- it looked like it was opaque.
01:27-01:31
and a big cylinder of purple-pink stuff.
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And I said, what do you have there?
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She said, oh, this is my favorite breakfast.
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I said, well, what is it?
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And she leaned over to her mom and said something in Thai.
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And her mom said something back.
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And she said, how do you say it?
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It's coagulated chicken blood.
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She said, it was actually supposed to come with your meal.
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I'm like, well, obviously, because we're one beak away from reassembling the chicken here.
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She said, it was actually supposed to come with your meal, but my mom told them not to give you the chicken blood.
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She said, would you like to try it?
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And I said, well, I didn't sit 21 hours on an airplane to not try coagulated chicken blood.
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But before I tried it, you know the question that I asked her.
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What did I ask her?
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I said, what's it taste like?
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And I came back and people asked me, did you eat anything weird over there?
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And I told them about the coagulated chicken blood.
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And the number one question I always get asked is, what was it like?
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Do you want to know what it was like?
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You want to try some?
02:45-02:47
It actually tasted a bit like liver.
02:48-02:54
If you can imagine liver in pudding jello form, It tasted like that, only way nastier.
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But what was it like?
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I get asked that a lot.
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What was it like?
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What was it like?
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And Aaron and I went to Orlando a few years ago for a pastor's conference.
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And we ate alligator.
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And people say, well, what was it like?
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What was it like?
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And alligator is actually like greasy chicken.
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Anybody else ever eat alligator?
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OK, some of you have.
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Not bad.
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But we constantly are asking the question, a lot of it circling around food, "What's it like?
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What's it like?" And I was thinking about that this week.
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You know, when we eat chicken, if somebody never had chicken before and they asked you what it tasted like, what would you tell them?
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But we're constantly making these comparisons.
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What's it like?
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Somebody recommends to me a TV show.
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"Hey, you need to watch this TV show," I ask, "Well, what's it like?" Or, "Hey, you need to check out this new music." "Well, what's it like?" Or, "Hey, did you see this movie? I really enjoyed it." "Well, was it like the first one that came out?" And always asking, "What's it like? What's it like?" Well, the name of this sermon series is "Incomparable God." And this sermon series comes from one verse, and I want us all to memorize this verse over the next six weeks.
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But the whole series comes from one verse.
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Isaiah 46.5 that says - this is the Lord speaking - He said, "To whom will you liken Me and make Me equal and compare Me that we may be alike?" God is saying what would you compare Me to?
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Who would you compare Me to?
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Is there anything that you could compare Me to?
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God is described in a lot of ways.
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The one word that we're really going to be in this series, the one word from Isaiah 46, 5 we're really going after is the word "incomparable." God is incomparable. So if you're in Isaiah chapter 6, we're going to look at the text here in a second, but I want to give you a little background.
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You can read about the ministry of Isaiah in the book of 2 Kings chapter 16 through 20. Isaiah was actually considered Israel's greatest prophet, And Isaiah preached to kings, and Isaiah preached to commoners.
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He was a prophet actually specifically to Judah, and Isaiah is quoted in the New Testament somewhere around 65 times.
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Way more than any other prophet from the Old Testament.
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And when we look at the text here, Isaiah is immediately going to mention a king, Uzziah.
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And I need to give you a little background on the king, because it's going to help set the stage for our text.
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But Uzziah was the king of Judah and he actually reigned 52 years.
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And he started when he was 16.
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Does anybody here that's 16?
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Close to 16, 15-ish?
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Raise your hand.
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Okay, we have a few of you.
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What are you doing with your life?
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Uzziah was the king of Judah when he was 16.
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What are you doing?
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hopefully staying in school, kids.
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But he reigned for 52 years.
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And during his reign, he brought wealth and peace and security.
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And he brought the best days of Israel since the days of Solomon.
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But as often happens in these types of scenarios, he became very prideful.
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You can imagine what a 52-year run would do to somebody.
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He became very prideful.
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And he died in 739 B.C.
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because he crossed the line.
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He was attempting to do priestly duties and the Lord made it clear, only priests do priestly things.
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You're not a priest.
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And he crossed the line and the Lord struck him with leprosy.
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You can read about that in 2 Chronicles 26.
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Well, his death understandably brought fear.
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You see, at this point in Israel's history, You had the Assyrians and you had the Babylonians on the horizon and you had all these nations - there was this international threat looming.
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And this king that reigned for 52 years brought so much peace and security to your country, suddenly he's dead.
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And the nation was saying, now what's going to happen?
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What was the culture of Isaiah's day?
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Isaiah's day was a time of self-indulgence, and empty religion, and rampant immorality.
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I was studying that this week and I thought, wow, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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A culture that is content with empty religion.
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A culture that has embraced immorality.
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A culture that is so self-centered.
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A culture that has huge question marks concerning the political landscape of the nation.
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Does that sound familiar to anybody else?
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Without making this a political thing, everybody I talk to has huge concerns over the upcoming election.
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Huge question marks concerning what's going to happen with our nation.
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Because if this person gets elected, it looks like the country could go this way.
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But if this person gets elected, it It looks like things could go this way.
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Huge question marks concerning the political landscape of our nation, just like in Isaiah's day.
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And it's easy to fall into fear and despair.
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We don't seemingly have much, if any, control over those things.
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And what's going to happen if so-and-so gets in office and this happens?
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And for some people, they fall into what we would call exasperated indifference.
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Like, oh, it doesn't matter anyways.
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Well, like Isaiah, what we need in this culture of immorality and empty religion and concerns over the political landscape, what we need is a fresh encounter with God.
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That's exactly what happened to the prophet.
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Look at Isaiah 6.
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Here's the main point for the day.
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God's holiness defines Him and changes me.
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If you're taking notes, first of all, as advertised, God's holiness defines Him.
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Look at verse 1.
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Isaiah says, "In the year that King Uzziah died..." See why that's important?
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"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, The train of His robe filled the temple.
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Like the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, Isaiah was transported to the temple in heaven.
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You're like, "Well, I didn't know there was a temple in heaven." There absolutely is.
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If you read the book of Revelation, the Bible says that there is a temple in heaven, and in fact, the earthly temple was to be modeled after the heavenly temple.
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Isaiah says that the train of his robe filled the temple.
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And these days, the length of the king's robe is greatness.
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Isaiah saw the Lord - the train of His robe actually filled the entire temple.
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So you see the point here.
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The king Uzziah died, and Isaiah saw the actual real king on the throne at a time of potential political unrest, the message to Isaiah was crystal clear.
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God is still in control.
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That's what Isaiah needed to see.
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Was that the Lord was still seated on His throne, still high and lifted up.
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Church, that's what we need to be reminded of.
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God is still in control.
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Do you realize in a hundred years the earth is going to be populated by entirely different people?
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Did you ever think about that?
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If Christ tarries in His return, if things are going as they are in the next hundred years, the earth will be populated by all different people, including all different world leaders.
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I read a stat this week - I didn't have time to really check it out - turnover in world leadership is 100%.
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But God remains alive and active and seated on the throne, ruling every molecule of the universe.
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I love this.
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From a seated position.
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Do you see how awesome God is?
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God's not running around frantic and "Oh, can't you see I have died?
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Well, I guess I caused all these problems here." That's not God.
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God is seated, ruling everything simultaneously in the universe in a resting position.
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Verse 2 says, "Above Him stood the seraphim." What are seraphim?
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Those are angels.
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It actually comes from the Hebrew word that means "to burn." One of them stood to serve him.
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Each had six wings.
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With two he covered his face." That's reverence.
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To be in the presence of God, they had to cover their faces.
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To shield themselves from His awesomeness.
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It says with two wings, with two he covered his feet.
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That's humility.
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It reminds you of Exodus 3 when the Lord told Moses to take his shoes off because he was standing on holy ground.
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Joshua 5 - same thing.
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You're standing on holy ground.
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That's humility.
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And it says, "And with two, he flew." That's service.
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these incredible, angelic beings in the presence of the Lord, serving the Lord.
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It says, "And one called to another and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
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The whole earth is full of His glory.'" Holy three times.
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That was a Jewish figure of speech to repeat a word like that.
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Usually it was twice.
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Remember, Jesus, when He would teach, oftentimes He would say, "Truly, truly, I say to you..." It was a figure of speech.
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Or "Amen, amen, I say to you." Or "Verily, verily, I say to you." That was a figure of speech that meant this is very important.
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And here, God's holiness is being emphasized.
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Not once, not even twice, which was the norm, but three times.
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The Bible doesn't say that God is love, love, love.
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God is love.
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But love is never communicated with the triplicate form in this way.
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The Bible doesn't say God is wrath, wrath, wrath.
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God is a God of judgment and wrath, but the Bible doesn't communicate it that way.
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The only word that the Bible uses in this triplicate form to describe God is the word "holy." And it happens again in Revelation 4 in verse 8 when John was in the throne room.
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Same song was being sung.
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"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." Holiness is the defining characteristic of God.
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So what is holiness?
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Holiness is not organ music and stained glass.
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There's nothing wrong with that stuff.
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But that's not holiness.
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The word is actually used over 600 times in the Bible.
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The Old Testament Hebrew word is "kadesh." The New Testament Greek word is "hagios." And there's really no term that's equal with either word.
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That's why this is a tough message to communicate.
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You see, when we talked about marriage, we can conceptualize marriage with man and woman and God's picture.
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We talked about witnessing.
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We can conceptualize taking this Gospel message and telling somebody.
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But when we talk about holiness, There's nothing that I can compare that to.
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There's no other equivalent.
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Because the word literally means set-apartness.
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Set-apartness. That's what it means.
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It means that God is different.
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He's set apart.
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If I asked you, what is like God?
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An angel?
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Me?
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or my dog, which one of these is like God?
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What's the answer?
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That's a trick question.
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The answer is none of the above.
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Right?
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Because there is nothing like God.
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Nothing.
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Isaiah 46.5 - what did we see?
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To whom will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be alike?
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What's the answer to that?
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Nothing.
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It's God's very nature set apart from everything everyone, his sovereignty, his righteousness, his majesty, his his awesomeness and his purity and his perfection.
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And you can take all of those and and encapsulate them in one concept.
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And the word is God is holy.
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That's why when Jesus was teaching us to pray, do you know the Lord's Prayer?
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Our Father in heaven, what's the next line?
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Hallowed be your name.
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What's "hallowed" mean?
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I used to think it meant it was hollowed out like a log.
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That's not what that means.
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The word "hallowed" just means holy.
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Jesus said when you pray, your prayer should start with this.
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Father in Heaven, You are holy.
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You are set apart and different than anything in the universe - seen and unseen.
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Look at v. 4. Here's the reaction.
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and the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke." That's the reaction.
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The very presence of God.
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God is a consuming fire.
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God is not someone that we toy around with or think lightly.
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He's holy and exalted above all things.
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God's holiness defines Him.
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I can only jot this down.
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God's holiness changes me.
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God's holiness changes me.
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Every once in a while, you read about these preachers that say that they see the Lord.
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And my answer to that is, "No, you didn't." Like, well, how do you know that?
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I read this goofy guy was saying Every morning while he's brushing his teeth, Jesus comes into the bathroom and like hangs out with him.
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What are you talking about?
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I call baloney on that.
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I don't think that that happens to anybody.
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You know, Jesus hangs out in the bathroom with him.
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Come on.
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Like, well, how are you so sure?
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Well, here's how I'm sure.
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While Jesus was on the earth doing his ministry, during his three years of ministry, who would you say his best friend on the earth was, his BFF?
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It was probably the apostle John, right?
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John spent as much or more time with Jesus than anybody.
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He was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
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He was the one at the Last Supper who was leaning on Jesus.
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Jesus and John were extremely tight.
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In Revelation 1, Jesus in His glorified form shows up to His best friend John.
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And what's John's reaction?
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He passed out, fainted before the awesomeness of the glorified Jesus Christ.
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What that tells me is if Jesus' best friend that spent three years with Him constantly fell down in awe of the presence, why would I think that some joker in Topeka, Kansas has Jesus in his bathroom while he's brushing his teeth?
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I'm not buying it.
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So, we might not have the vision that Isaiah or John had, but we still experience the presence of the Lord, don't we?
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When we come under the teaching of His Word, when God's Holy Spirit is at work and ministering to us, there is a real sense in which we're coming into God's presence.
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And when we do, God's holiness changes me.
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How does that happen?
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First of all, letter A, encountering His holiness breaks me.
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Look at v. 5.
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And Isaiah says, "And I said, 'Woe is me, for I am lost!
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For I am 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.'" When you read the Old Testament prophets, they had really two favorite words.
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One word was "blessed." That was happy, successful, prosperous.
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You'll be blessed if you do this.
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But they had another favorite word, and the word was "woe." That was a word of judgment.
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That's what Isaiah - immediately upon encountering the holiness of the Lord, he says, "Woe is me!" He's pronouncing a curse on himself.
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Saying I'm standing in judgment right now because I am in the presence of the Almighty.
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He says next, "For I am lost." I am lost.
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That word could also be translated "destroyed." Just picture a drinking glass falling to the floor and on impact, shattering into hundreds of pieces.
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That's the picture.
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Isaiah says, "I am shattered." I am shattered before the holy awesomeness of the Lord.
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All that Isaiah sees and all that you're going to see when we encounter the Lord and His holiness is your defilement.
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In Isaiah we say God is so holy, and I am so lost.
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Imagine the criminal in prison going to court to be sentenced for his crimes, and he knows that that judge in the courtroom is just waiting to throw the book at this guy.
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He knows he's guilty.
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He knows the evidence.
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He knows for a fact that when he gets to court, the judge is going to pronounce the sentence.
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It's that feeling when that man walks into the courtroom a trillion or it's the feeling that your kids get when you tell them not to do something and you walk in the room and they're doing just what you told them not to do. How many parents have seen that look in your kids faces? Okay, how many kids have had that look in their face? I see some of you smiling like yeah, you know that look right? Parents you know that look. You walk in and they give you that look like I am so busted. We had that at our house one when Gordy was a puppy, Kate was trying to stuff him in the garbage can.
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And I came around the corner and I recognized that look.
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It is - I am so busted.
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And it is that times a trillion.
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Standing before the holiness of the Lord.
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He said, "I'm a man of unclean lips." He didn't say, "Now that I stand in the holiness of the Lord, how rotten my spouse is.
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Or my neighbor is such a wicked sinner.
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Notice it starts with this.
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It's about you and your sin.
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When you see God, you see yourself for who you really are.
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And it gives you a true self-assessment.
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And that assessment is this - I'm a wretched person.
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It says I'm a man of unclean lips.
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And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
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What's the talk about the lips?
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Well, your mouth is an indicator of the heart, isn't it?
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Out of the abundance of the heart, what?
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The mouth speaks.
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And Isaiah here standing before the holiness of the Lord says first of all, it's about Him.
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I'm a sinner.
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His very next thought is, you know, that's my whole culture.
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I live among a people who are sinners.
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That's how it works.
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You see it in yourself first, then you see it in the people around you.
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You see it in yourself.
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I'm a person full of lust and hate, and I can have such foul, evil attitudes.
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I can have such a hateful spirit in me.
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I can be crude.
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I can be rebellious.
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And I see that in me.
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And then I look around and I'm like, I see that in all of us.
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a humbling thing that utterly breaks you.
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Let her be.
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When I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
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Have you truly been broken?
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We can't really talk about this next part until we're sure that we've been broken.
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Here's five signs that you're not broken.
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I'm going to go through these very quickly because this is going to apply to some people.
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These are five signs that you're not.
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If you say any of these five things, you're not broken.
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one is this, I'm not that bad.
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Like, I don't know what Jeff was so fired up about today, because I don't really think I'm that bad of a person.
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I don't think I'm that bad.
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Somebody that says that is not broken.
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Secondly, along the same lines, I'm not as bad as blank.
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Like, you know what?
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You're right.
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I make mistakes.
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I am a bad person.
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But I'm not as bad as Tony.
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And you know what?
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When I look at my life, yeah, I have some regrets, but I look at Tony's life and I'm like, you know, I am so much better off than that guy.
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And that's not what somebody that's broken says.
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They're not comparing their wickedness with somebody else's because God doesn't.
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We're the same in His eyes.
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Number three, sign you're not broken, is when you say this, I intend to stop this particular sin, whatever it is, fill in the blank.
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I intend to stop doing that sometime.
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That's a sign of not being broken.
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Like I know I shouldn't have this relationship.
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I shouldn't have it.
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I'm going to break that off sometime.
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We have this really ambiguous plan about repentance that takes place someday in the future where maybe you're going to repent.
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And that is not the sign of brokenness.
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Number four, I've heard people say this, justifying their sin, they say this, "God understands why I have to do this." They're living in flagrant sin and you're trying to talk to them about it.
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"Look, I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, but God understands." Like, oh, God gave you a hall pass on sin.
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Did not know that.
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Three years of Bible college and Harvest Training Center studying this book for the last 20 years, I completely missed that God does that for some people.
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That you get to sin for free card was not aware.
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Okay, sarcasm off.
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That's not a broken person that says that.
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Here's another sign that you're not broken.
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Number five, is when you say this, "I'll clean up my act and then I'll come to Jesus." I realize what you're saying.
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Let me get my act together and I'll come to Jesus.
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you're never going to get there.
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I'm telling you right now.
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If you're waiting to clean your act up before you come to Christ, you are never going to come to Christ because you can't do it.
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It shows a total lack of urgency.
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It shows a total lack of brokenness.
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See, brokenness is no excuses, no trivializing, no comparing myself to someone else.
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Faith begins when you're utterly broken and you can't come to that place of faith until you get to the place where you say, "I am a sinner.
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I am guilty of sin." That's why Jesus in giving the beatitudes in Matthew 5:3 started the beatitudes with this, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus was talking about the progression of spiritual growth in life, but it has to start with being spiritually bankrupt.
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I've got nothing in the tank.
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I've got nothing in the account.
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I am completely broken.
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It's not just adding God to your resume either.
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Several years ago, I had a mom call.
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She had these two teenage sons.
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And the mother called me and said, "Hey, my sons want to get baptized." I'm like, "That's fantastic!" So let's get together and talk about it.
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I'd like to talk to them and I'd like to talk to you.
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and she brought her sons to my office.
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And I'm like, "Okay, so, question, "ask everybody that wants to get baptized." I'm like, "Tell me why you want to get baptized.
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"Is this what you want to hear?
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"Like, my adult sons want to get baptized?" I'm like, "Yeah." So I'm like, "All right, tell me why "you want to get baptized." And the one son goes, "Yeah, you know, "my grandma died a few months ago, "and it was really hard, and I look back, I thought, you know, must have been God that got me through that.
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I'm like, "Okay, what about you young man? Why do you want to get baptized?" And his answer was, "You know, I was at church camp last summer, and all these kids were baptized.
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And I look back on that now, and I think, you know what?
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Maybe I should have gotten baptized too." Like, "Okay, well, why do you think you should have gotten baptized too?" And his answer was, "Well, because the other kids were." I was really like the only kid that didn't.
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And I'm like, maybe, maybe, maybe I should have done it.
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I sat with these kids for an hour, trying to talk to them, looking for any word like sin.
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It got to the point, if they would have said the name Jesus, I would have felt like we're getting somewhere.
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There was no mention of the cross.
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There was no mention of born again, by giving your life to any term that goes with conversion or mentions the name of Jesus - not one mention of any of that.
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It was all about Grandma and church.
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I said, I'm not sure that you're ready to get baptized, but here's what I'll do for you.
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If you want, you guys can come in here every week and I'd like to sit down with the Bible and tell you what it means to be baptized and what it means to come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
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I'll sit down with you every week and talk about that with you." Well, they got up and slammed the door and shouted a few words on their way out.
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And I thought to myself, I live among a people of unclean lips.
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See, the point is you don't just add God to your resume.
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There was no sign of any kind of brokenness or understanding of the Gospel Jesus or the cross.
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You have to be broken.
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And when you are, when you're truly broken, you understand the need for grace and you're ready to receive it.
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Look at verses 6 and 7.
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"When I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
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And one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
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And he touched my mouth and said, 'Behold, this has touched your lips.
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Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
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So you have Isaiah broken, experiencing guilt, taken away and atonement.
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Church, when we are broken over our sin, we experience something so much greater than even what Isaiah experienced in this passage.
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Because we live on this side of the cross.
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We live in the period of history after Jesus finished His work.
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So, Isaiah had his guilt atoned for.
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His guilt taken away.
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Your sin atoned for.
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Isaiah was atoned for.
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We have something much greater.
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Because the Bible tells us because of Jesus Christ completed work on the cross, our sin is taken away, and God gives us His very righteousness.
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2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." Philippians 3:9, Paul says, "Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ." You see, the thing that God offers us He doesn't have to atone our sin.
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He gives us His very righteousness.
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More than cleansing, we get transformation.
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God's righteousness put on my account.
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So when I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
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I'm ready to throw myself at the mercy of this God that I've sinned against to find that He's already done the work to restore me through Jesus Christ.
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And finally for today, when I am cleansed, I am ready to serve Him.
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When I am cleansed, I am ready to serve Him.
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Look at verse 8.
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"And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send?
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And who will go for us?' And I said, "Here am I. Send me." Cleansed and ready for service, Isaiah now really has something to testify.
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He didn't go out as some Bible scholar ready to conjugate Hebrew verbs.
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He went out as someone who experienced God's cleansing and God's forgiveness to the same people that he had just said in the exact same position that he was in.
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He was going out to a people - preaching message people - that would say, well, can God really forgive my sin?
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Can God really restore me?
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See, Isaiah can now say, you know what, He can and He will, and I know this for a fact because I just experienced it personally.
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And that's the motivation for ministry, isn't it?
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Not obligation or I'm going to get involved because I hope I meet a nice church girl there, or guilt.
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None of those are motivation for ministry.
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It's this.
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I want other people to experience what I've experienced, and I will do my part to allow God to use me to reach others.
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When I'm cleansed, I'm ready to serve Him.
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So when I encounter God, I'm broken.
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And when I'm broken, I'm ready to be cleansed.
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I'm cleansed, I'm ready, now I'm eager to serve Him.
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Because holiness defines God.
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And it changes me.
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But we're going to be going to the Lord's table today.
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This is an extremely appropriate way to end studying this particular passage because the Lord's table takes us back to our cleansing moment, doesn't it?
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See, you're not going to be touched by a burning coal.
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You've been touched by the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Jesus has always been in the business of restoring broken sinners.
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In fact, this is the thing that blows my mind about this passage we studied more than anything.
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Jesus Christ in His glorified, pre-incarnate form was literally Isaiah saw in this passage.
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Did you know that?
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I brought this reference down.
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John 12:41 John was commenting on how Jesus fulfilled prophecy in Isaiah.
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And then he writes this in verse 41.
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Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him.
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This was none other than Jesus Christ that John witnessed.
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seated on the throne, high and lifted up.
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So as we come to the Lord's table today, let's once again encounter the holiness of God and see our own unworthiness with the basket and the grace that's been poured out on us, made righteous and ready to serve by the cleansing the transforming power of Jesus Christ.
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Will you pray with me, please?
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Our Father in Heaven, as we come to Your table, we can sort of see ourselves like Isaiah.
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By nature, we are fallen people and we certainly live in a fallen world.
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We are people of unclean lips and we live among people of unclean lips.
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Father, we come to Your table remembering and thanking you.
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Though our mouths were in touch with a burning coal as you did for Isaiah, you've reached out to us with something so much more precious and valuable.
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Something that doesn't just atone sin.
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Something that takes it away and transforms us.
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the blood of Jesus Christ.
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Father, as we examine Your holiness, we don't have a leg to stand on on our own.
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We come to Your table rejoicing that You have given us the very righteousness of Yourself.
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You've given us Your righteousness.
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You see us as perfect as You are because of what Your Son accomplished place. Let us in awe of you once again, Father. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Isaiah 6:1-8
Why was it important for Isaiah to see God seated on the throne (Is 6:1)? Does this encourage you in light of our country’s current political scene?
In your own words, define “holiness”.
How does seeing God’s holiness affect man (see Is 6:5)? Why is that?
Upon encountering God’s holiness, Isaiah noticed first he was a “man of unclean lips” and he lived among a “people of unclean lips”. What does that mean, and how can you apply that to yourself and our culture?
Why did Isaiah need cleansed before he responded to the call to ministry? What does this say about you and I?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for God to grab each of us afresh with His holiness.
