Exploring the Profound Holiness of God

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical

words that have great significance to our faith.

The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where

once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are

familiar with in scripture.

So come along with me, let's study the Word of the week.

Pastor Josh here with another word of the week.

The word of the Week this week is holiness.

What does it mean when we say that God is holy?

The holiness of God refers to his perfection, his sinlessness,

his blamelessness, the fact that he is completely and utterly

pure in every way.

There is no sin found in Him.

We see a few different occasions in Scripture, one in the

Old Testament and one in the New Testament where it says holy,

holy, holy three times.

You see that word holy describing our Savior.

We're going to look at the one here in Isaiah, because I want us

to study here this week what holiness is in the context of who

God is.

And then also what does that mean for us?

What does God's holiness mean for us as believers?

And so, uh, here this week, I'd like us to start here in the

Book of Isaiah.

You can follow along with me here.

And this is a description of Isaiah and his experience with the

Lord and his recognition of the holiness of God.

And so we see In Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 1, it says, in the

Isaiah 6:1

year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a

throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims.

Each one had six wings, and with twain he covered his face, and

with twain he covered his feet, and, and between he did fly.

And one cried unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord

of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried.

And the house was filled with smoke.

And so here we see the proclamation of God's holiness, His.

His all powerful nature, his all knowing nature, his omnipresence,

all of his attributes that we believe according to scripture, all

of his attributes are tied to his holiness.

We know that God is loving, but we know that he is completely

loving and perfect in his loving nature.

That's his holiness there.

He's forgiving, but he's completely forgiving in his nature.

And so one would say that holiness is the defining element

of who God is and, and, and what his character is all about.

There's so many Other things that we could talk about.

When it comes to God's character, He is infinite, right?

He's beyond us.

His thoughts are above our thoughts.

His ways are beyond our ways.

But I think it's important for us to understand the holiness of

God in contrast to the.

The sin that we are characterized by as human beings.

And so I want us to see Isaiah's reaction here in Isaiah

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 to the recognition of the holiness of God.

And it says in verse number five, then said I, woe is me, for

I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the

midst of people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the

King, the Lord of hosts.

And.

And then so we go a little bit further here.

So, so he recognizes his moral failure in the sight of God's holiness.

And I think that's one of the things that we have to understand

because in our life, sometimes we are tempted to think that we are

good people, that.

That we are people that are inherently good.

And what the Bible says, that in and of ourselves and our flesh,

we are sinful, we are flawed.

And even later on in the book of Isaiah, it says that our, our

sin, our, excuse me, our good works are like filthy rags.

And therefore, even if we think that we are good people and

we are earning our.

Our worth and our goodness and our morality, we still fall short.

And so it says in verse six of Isaiah, chapter six, then flew one

of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which

he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.

And he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this hath touched thy

lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin is purged.

And so what we can ultimately see here in this passage is that

we all are in desperate need of the Holy One to offer forgiveness

to us, offer cleansing to us.

And so the fact that God is holy refers to the fact that he is

different, that he is distinct.

And so literally, holiness refers to something or someone that

has been separated from the common you so set aside for a specific

purpose.

And so in this case, we know that God is set apart from us in

his holiness and his perfection.

Now we're going to look later on in the study about how we as Christians

are called to be holy.

Later on the New Testament, it says, be holy, for I am holy.

And so we're going to talk about how we as believers can walk

in the path of righteousness, how we can understand the holiness

of God.

But before we do that, we must understand God's character and his

holiness.

And so God is different in every way.

God is eternal.

He's all powerful.

That's omnipotence.

He's omniscient.

He knows everything.

He's omnipresent.

He's everywhere.

That that is what makes God different than the creation that

we deal with today, with our humanity.

And He.

He is distinct in that.

And so God's holiness is in his difference, in the fact that

he is different in all those ways, but also different in the fact

that he is not flawed by sin, that he's not marred by sin like

we are as well.

And so in.

In this passage, in Isaiah and in other passages of Scripture, we're

just reminded about how much we are falling short of the glory

of God.

That doesn't mean that we can just throw our hands up in the air

and quit and just say, you know what?

I'll never be like God, so I can live the way that I want to live.

No, the Bible shows there the need for our salvation, the need

for our reliance on the Holy One to extend holiness to us.

And so one of the responses to God's holiness and understanding,

understanding his sinless nature, because by the way, the Bible

does say that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We know that he does not change.

And so just as he is holy back here in the Book of Isaiah, so he

is holy today.

And we have to understand that.

So one of the results of understanding God's holiness and

believing in God's holiness is that we fall short of that holiness.

And we need a Savior.

And, and we know the message of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ

came.

And the Bible says in Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, he who knew

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

no sin became sin for us.

And so the Holy One gave Himself for us so that we could understand

forgiveness, so that we could understand his holiness.

And so it brings us to a recognition that we need more, we

need a Savior.

We need something else in our life other than our own good works.

And so holiness brings us to a place of a need for a Savior.

But also God's holiness brings us to a place of stirring our heart

to praise and adore our Savior, to.

To understand that he is worthy of our worship.

There's a lot of things in this world that we worship that are

not perfect.

They are flawed.

Whether it be a person or a product or just a lifestyle, we worship

these things that don't deserve worship.

And so what we're really told in Scripture is the only thing that

we are to worship is the Lord.

The only person that we are to worship is the Lord.

And so the holiness of God stirs our heart to worship.

It stirs our heart to praise him for who he is and his perfection

and how he offers that gift of salvation to us.

And so we should not shy away from the fact that the Bible clearly

states that we must rest in the holiness of God.

That's the standard.

Now, none of us can be completely holy in the way that we

act in our daily walk.

The Bible does say that one day we will have the opportunity

to live with the Lord and be freed from that bondage of, of sin

forever.

Now, even in our salvation, we're free from the bondage of sin.

So I want to be clear about that.

We, we no longer have to sin because we are redeemed.

But the Bible does say that we are still wrestling with the flesh.

But the Bible says also that one day we will be with him and we

will no longer have that sin nature, and we will live in eternity

in perfection with Him.

But in the meantime, as we are living on this earth, we are called

to continue to trust in his holiness.

And so we are called to be holy, which we're going to be looking

at more next week.

In First Peter, chapter one, there is that challenge that we should

be holy because God is holy.

But what we're learning here this week is that God is holy.

And that brings us to a place of understanding that we are inadequate,

we are insufficient, and he is the only one that brings that adequate

sufficiency and that salvation and that hope.

And so I hope that that's something that we can all recognize

in our life, that none of us can earn that through our own holiness.

But ultimately it is the holiness of God that we are to rest

in and trust in and know that he has offered His Son as the perfect

sacrifice for us.

And so holy, holy, holy.

We, we know that in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation,

we see the same praise extended to the Lord.

And, and I think it's important to note that.

So we started in Isaiah and we'll end in Revelation, Revelation

chapter four.

We, we go to a place there where it is essentially the folks

there worshiping.

And it's a revelation, four, eight.

And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and

they were full of eyes within.

And they rest not day and night, saying, holy, holy, holy,

Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.

And so there is this worship, this eternal worship, worshiping

God for His holiness, worshiping him for his eternality,

worshiping him for his all powerful nature, Holy, holy, holy

Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.

And I think that as a believer we must rest and understand his holiness

today.

And that drives us to live lives of holiness in our own lives.

And so next week we'll look at what it means to be holy.

It doesn't necessarily mean to be sinlessly perfect in every way,

but it does mean that we are set aside sanctified for a specific

use.

And so we'll talk more about that next week.

When it comes to the topic of holiness, well, remember, God is

holy, God is perfect, God loves you, he's worthy of our worship.

And God has extended that gift of grace to you in, in the, in the

work of the gospel and salvation.

So I pray that this is something that we can think about

and grow in here this week.

And we look forward to talking to you next week when we talk about

the holiness of God imparted unto us.

So thank you so much.

God bless you.

We will come back to you with another Word of the Week next week.

Hey, I really appreciate that you listen to the Word of the Week

podcast.

If you have any questions about the podcast or about our church,

Middletown Baptist Channel Church, you can find more information

about us on Facebook or YouTube or you can find the podcast

on NBCpodcast.org you can contact me directly at Josh Massaro

at middletown baptist church.org Stay tuned for future

Word of the Week episodes where we dive deeper into words that

impact our life according to scripture.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

We'll talk to you soon.