Pastor Malachi Maillot | The Holiness of God | March 15th, 2026

Well, I'm gonna get right into it.

Uh, you guys can turn to Isaiah chapter six.

Should have it on the screen for you as well.

But if you got your Bible, why don't you shake your Bible at me if you get your Bible?

I always do this at youth, and there's always that one kid, and I'm like, you're the best.

Um I'm gonna jump right in into Isaiah 6.

It says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him the seraphim, each had six wings, which two he covered with his face, two he covered his feet, thank God, and two he flew.

And one called to another, saying, This holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, and the whole earth is filled with his glory.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

And it says that the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And in verse five, um, this is Isaiah's response to what he was seeing.

And this was a vision of heaven.

This was the prophet Isaiah getting a glimpse of the throne room of God, and this is his response.

Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, and for my eyes have seen the king and the Lord of hosts.

And in verse 6, uh it says, One of the seraphim flew to me, having his hand, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with the tongues from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.

I'm gonna pray before we get into this this morning.

I'm talking about the holiness of God.

What a lofty topic this morning, but I'm gonna do my very best, and uh and I just want to pray before we begin.

Father God, I just thank you.

We thank you for this time of worship that we had, just to enter into your presence and to focus in on you, God, whatever we were thinking about, whatever we're dealing with, God, let it be, let it be something that just fades away, that fades to the background, and that you would be the center.

You would be the center of our life, you would be the center of our attention this morning.

And God, we just ask that your Holy Spirit be here and speak to us, God.

We don't want to do anything without your spirit.

We don't want to do anything without being led by your spirit this morning.

So, Father, we just ask that you guide us today.

God, speak to us as we soften our hearts in Jesus' mighty name.

If you agree, someone say, Amen.

Amen.

Give your neighbor a nudge and say, Hey, I'm glad you came to church today.

All right, thank you, Bernice.

You're amazing.

I'm gonna I'm gonna do my best to continue to have a voice today.

I've been uh fighting off, I think it was like laryngitis or something this last week.

Uh, and I had to preach, I had to preach last Friday at a youth conference, and my voice just disappeared.

Uh no one Daisy were actually there, they they can attest.

I sounded like I was smoking for 30 years, so I apologize today if my voice slowly disappears.

But hey, thank you, Natalie.

She gave me some honey and and some uh hot water that helps so much.

But I was thinking about this this morning.

Have you ever been friend zoned?

The I I'm assuming by the laugh, yes, you've been friend zoned before.

Um, and I I was I just speaking from a guy's perspective, this is one of the worst things to happen to us as males, okay?

It is honestly the worst thing, and it doesn't happen often to you girls because you're the ones often doing the friend zoning, right?

Uh I was thinking about this, and all the way back in high school, there was this girl, obviously, I liked, and she was one year older than me, which if you've ever been in remember high school, one year is like an eternity, right?

Like, you don't do that.

You don't you don't date anybody below you, and you don't date anyone but uh uh ahead of you because it's like this weird thing, and then you get out of high school and then the veil comes off and you realize how stupid you were, right?

But there was this girl, she was ahead of me in grade, and I liked her, and obviously, like we were friends, and I remember getting brave enough one day, and I was like, I'm just gonna do it.

I gotta, I'm gonna shoot my shot.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?

Wayne Gretzky.

Um and Michael Scott, right?

Um, but I'm gonna shoot my shot at this this girl, and I and I I remember going up to her and just like blurting it out like I like you.

I wouldn't advise doing that, it's not a very smooth thing to do.

Um, but I was like, I liked you.

And like, I don't know if you've ever been in that situation where there's just silence after, and it feels like years have passed, right?

Like it's been 84 years, and you're just sitting there in silence, and then you hear the worst thing that you could possibly hear back, and it's like, I like you, but like a friend.

Or worse, worse, is like, I see you like a brother.

Right?

And I was just I was thinking about this idea, and it obviously traumatic for me.

Um, but I was thinking about the idea of the friend zone, and I want to get a little bit serious here, and I'm gonna get really serious really quickly because I don't have a ton of time to speak this morning.

But uh I was thinking about this idea of the friend zone, and I think far too often we actually place God in the friend zone.

Thank you.

Keep that up, you're gonna get the best out of me, okay?

But often I think we place Jesus in the friend zone, right?

And you might be like, Whoa, what do you mean by that?

Like, is God just casual to you?

Has Jesus become a casual person that you you know talk to once in a while?

Has Jesus become the person that you maybe just go to when things are going really bad?

Right?

Has Jesus become just a friend to our life?

And the other question has to be asked is is he a friend or is he lord of your life?

I was talking to uh Nicholas yesterday and we were talking about that, and uh and he was he was saying like Jesus had to become, like Jesus was his savior, and he had to become now his Lord.

Right?

He's first our savior, but he actually eventually needs to become our Lord.

And and the reason why is it actually changes the way that we live our life.

Right?

Jesus has to become Lord of my life because it's it's the question is like, am I am I just casually coming to God or am I actually actively serving him and looking for ways to serve God and looking for ways to change parts of my life to actually become in alignment and obedience with God?

And it becomes from just Jesus being a friend to him being my Lord.

And and the a question I want to ask is has God become casual and have we lost sight of God's holiness?

Wow.

Have we lost sight of God's holiness?

And there's a book, um, The Knowledge of the Holy.

I don't know if you've ever read it before, but I'd encourage you to read it.

It will probably take you a few times to read it because it just like kind of warps your mind a little bit, and you're like trying to get through it.

And it's he he talks about this idea of our view of God is the most important thing about us.

Our view and our thoughts about God are is the most important thing about me because our view of God will directly affect every area of our life.

Right?

It'll it'll directly affect every area of how I live out my faith, it'll shape my theology, it'll shape my epistemology, which is how I get to truth, how I reason with truth.

And if we and I think if we think casually, this is the problem.

If I think casually about God, then my sin becomes casual.

If I think casually about God, then my worship becomes casual.

If I think casually about God, my faith is kind of casual.

It's when it's convenient to me.

Right?

And have we lost the view of God's holiness?

And the problem isn't, is you know, God's not becoming less holy, it's that I'm forgetting about how holy he actually is.

And this has been really the whole series that we've been talking about, to fear God and not man.

And I think to come back to a proper view and a proper fear of God in our life is actually really healthy.

And I know that we've been talking through it, but there's a I'm gonna probably quote a lot of this book, Knowledge of the Holy, but he says this, and it's really, really great.

The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but his goodness encourages us not to be afraid of him.

To fear and not be afraid is the paradox of faith.

I'm gonna read it again because it's so good.

The greatness of God should rouse fear in us.

Like the greatness, the awe, the reverence that we have, looking at a holy God and looking at our small, finite life in comparison, that should rouse like a fear, an awe, a reverence.

But his goodness encourages us not to be afraid of that, or we can come boldly into his throne room and worship him and be with him, as Pastor Brody was talking about this morning, where God wants actually for us to be close to him.

To fear and not be afraid is the paradox of faith.

And so I just want to break down this verse, this chapter in Isaiah, and and we see first right away the holiness of God, the holiness of God.

So I'm just gonna read it again.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, and this is Isaiah, he's he's shown a vision of the throne room, of the Lord sitting upon the throne, high and lifted up, the train of his robe filled the temple, and above him stood the seraphim, which are kind of like angels.

Each of them had six wings, where two covered his face, two covered his feet, and with the other two he flew, and one called to another.

And notice that they are calling to one another.

They weren't saying directly to God, they were calling to one another, almost like they were like reminding each other.

And it's kind of like what we do on Sunday morning.

We gather together and we sing together and we talk about God together and we remind each other about how holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

And the whole earth is filled with his glory.

That Hebrew word for holy, I'm gonna butcher it, is quadosh, okay?

And the Greek word is hagios, which means, so holy means separateness, to be set apart.

Um, one commentary said to be set apart from which is unclean, or to be set apart from creation, meaning the Lord is not created, He is the creator.

And we have to we have to make sure that we know that.

We have to make sure that we understand that what we are the created ones, and everything around us is the creation of the creator.

So, in other words, if creation dissolves and all of what we see dissolves, God remains.

Right?

He is He is outside of space and time and matter.

That He doesn't need anything to exist, He just is.

And so when all those things fall away, He is still remains.

He is completely independent and self-sufficient, independent of time and space, independent of needs.

Um, there's actually a thought that I was thinking about today that God actually doesn't even need your praise.

That's right.

He wants your praise, he wants our worship, he wants relationship, he desires it, but he doesn't need it.

He's got his own praise and worship team in heaven, like and they're doing it 24-7.

And when they speak, they're shaking the foundations of the throne room.

Right?

God is divine, he is not human.

He is not just a merely like a smarter version of us.

When we think about how we're made in the image of God, like he's not just a smarter, better, stronger version of us.

He is unlike anything that is on this earth.

So God was not made in our image, we were made in his likeless and not likeness and not equal.

We were not equal to him.

And it's interesting as we even try to describe God with our own words and our and our language, we tend to fail.

But I think that Moses uh heard it best when God came to Moses in the burning bush and he simply said the words, I am.

That's sometimes like the best way to describe who God is.

I am.

And you think about eternity, I am.

You think about time and space, he is.

He just was, he always was, and he always is and he always will be.

So the angels they say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

And so the importance of this, when we read repetition in the Bible, it's it's the the writer is emphasizing something.

Right?

Whenever you read, like, whenever Jesus like repeats someone's name, like Martha, Martha, he's like emphasizing the name.

And here we see a unique three times being something being repeated.

This is unique to the Bible.

It actually doesn't happen, and it especially doesn't happen with any other attribute of God.

There's no there's nowhere in scripture that says God is love, love, love, right?

That says God is justice, justice, justice, or mercy, mercy, mercy.

The only time we see it is when they're talking about God's holiness.

Right?

That's the only time we see in scripture is holy, holy, holy.

One holy was not enough.

Two holies was not enough.

They needed three.

Right?

And it's just an emphasis to point our eyes to see something.

And what I believe actually scripture is getting at is our view of God, and we go back to the view being the most important thing about us and our thoughts about God and our how we view God, and it actually is showing us and telling us that our view of God needs to start with his holiness.

Our view of God needs to start with his holiness.

The foundation of our small, finite understanding needs to start with God is holy.

I'm not insulting you, like I'm human too, okay?

I understand nothing when it comes to God.

When I look at the scope and the view of all of eternity and all that God is, I understand nothing in comparison of who he is.

A.A.

Hodge said this.

He said, the holiness of God is not to be uh conceived as one attribute among others.

It is rather a general term representing the conception of his consummate perfection and his total glory.

In other words, in really fancy uh ways he says this, his holiness is a door that opens up and it kind of like starts to show us these other attributes.

You could say it's almost as if like we look through this lens and we begin to see his other divine attributes through the lens of holiness.

Right?

We think we think of like love, right?

His love is only perfect because he is holy.

His faithfulness is only perfect because he is holy.

His mercy is only perfect because he is holy.

And we start to view God through the lens of holiness, and we actually get to see these other attributes and perfection, and and they they actually will be held up because we we if we if we look at the other way, I think sometimes we can get so like we lopside ourselves, where we I think the church has even done a poor thing about this, where we we emphasize one attribute over another.

And we we lean into you know, maybe God is love and it's truth, and we're and we but but what we preach is you know Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you, it's all about love, and then we start to have an improper view of God because we're actually limiting an entire part of him.

Right?

We say God is love, and then all of a sudden when we view scripture, we have this lens that God is love, and like, oh well, I guess this doesn't really fit in here, and I guess this doesn't really fit in here, but it's but it's actually coming back to having a lens that says God is holy, and as we read scripture, we won't have a problem with it.

We might wrestle with some of those scriptures in the Bible.

Trust me, read through the Old Testament, you will struggle, you will struggle because it'll frustrate you.

But it doesn't matter because God is holy, and we come to the reconciliation of that in ourselves, and we we read through scripture and it starts to make sense because he is a holy God.

And his justice is perfect because he's a just God, and his mercy is perfect because he is a merciful God.

And we start to see through the lens, and God, God is like the reason I say God is divine, he's not human because, and we we look at our attributes, right?

We look at maybe maybe you're a patient person, right?

And we can grow in patience, but our patience is limited often by our emotion, right?

Same with our love.

Like we can be a loving person, we can have the attributes of a loving, humble person, but it's often limited by our mood that morning, right?

Or or it will wane, it will run out.

But with God, it's not, we can't compare these same things as as we see them, you know, because he doesn't run out of love.

He's not a his mood doesn't affect his love.

Are you guys seeing what I'm saying here?

Like we can't compare what we experience totally to what God is.

And so we have to come back to God is holy.

Holiness is not a characteristic that he shows.

Just as love is not a characteristic that God shows.

If if God is being loving, that's who he is.

And it's the same way that if if God is holy, that's who he is.

He is holy.

He's not showing those characteristics, it's it's actually just him being him.

Another thing I thought about is it's not like percentages.

Parts of him are this way, you know, parts of God are this way.

We think about this and we think about Jesus and how he is fully God and fully human.

He is not percentage-wise God and percentage human, he is fully God and fully human.

And in the same way that we look at God, he is fully love, he is fully justice, he is fully merciful, he is fully faithful.

They're not like parts of him, they are him.

And when we start to see that, we actually we actually can have like a uh a sigh of relief in our heart.

Because we're not gonna get God one way one day, and we're not gonna get God another way another day.

Right?

We do we I talk about this uh truth is like it's like a tent.

If you've ever seen a tent, and it's held up by all these tent poles that have tension, right?

And so we have we how like how can God be fully justice and fully mercy?

How can he do that?

And it's in this tension that truth resides.

Because without tension, the tent will fall over, right?

And all truth has to be in this tension that God is holy, God is love.

Don't limit God with your narrow view.

And I want to just talk about the angels really quickly as I as we walk through this, the Seraphim.

What is the Seraphim?

They were the they were what were called the burning ones.

Isaiah describes them to have six wings two to cover their feet, two to flight, and two to cover their free their face.

And it's actually it's interesting to me that even the angels could not look upon God.

Right?

Isn't that that it blew my mind to think about that when I read it?

They're covering their face because they can't even look upon God.

And we know that man, we know that man, when he looks upon God, he he dies.

Right?

That's what that's what God tells Moses in Exodus 33, but even the angels, Exodus 33 on Mount Sinai, Moses is begging to see the glory of God.

He's let me see your face.

And God's like, you can't, dude.

You're going to literally die.

Like, I'll cover your face with my hand and I'll walk by you.

And that's about as good as you're gonna get.

Right?

And then afterwards, we have Moses coming off the mountain, and his face is literally glowing, like physically glowing, to where Aaron's like, Moses, what's with your face?

Like it's glowing with the glory of God.

And he didn't even get to see God's face.

He got to see his hand and his back.

God is holy.

We were studying, when I was studying this topic of the holiness of God, my mind was melting.

And I remember Jamin would walk by my office, and I would be like, sitting on the couch outside of my office, being like, oh, this is just so much.

But I was I was thinking about this, and I kept going back to this book, The Knowledge of the Holy.

And then and he says in his book, when we try to describe God, we actually do him an injustice.

Because we don't have the words in English to actually describe God properly into what he actually is.

And there's a funny example of this in the book of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel, he's a prophet and he has a similar vision of heaven.

And all throughout, if you read through the, it's Ezekiel 1, if you read through that, all of his descriptions of the throne room and what he's experiencing and what he's seeing, all he can say is it's like this.

Or it's it's the likeness of this, or it's the appearance of this, because he doesn't actually understand what he's seeing.

And so we think about God and we have to be careful when we think about God because we we don't want to put ourselves and our imagination onto it.

We have to go right to scripture, and that's the safest place to come to where we can actually have a proper view of God.

And so we have the holiness of God in this scripture.

We have the throne room, we have we have this vision of heaven, we have the angels walking around and flying around the throne room, and as they're saying, holy, holy, holy, the the temp, the foundation is shaking and moving because of how holy God is, and smoke starts to fill the temple, and then we have the reaction of the prophet.

We have the response of the prophet, and it causes him to see what the sinfulness of man.

We have in light of the holiness of God, we see in comparison our own sin.

And Isaiah cries out in verse 5, he says, Woe is me, I am ruined.

I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amongst a people with unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the king and the Lord of hosts.

And this is the only time in Scripture where we see a prophet saying, Woe is me, like putting judgment on himself.

Oftentimes it was like, Woe is you guys, you guys are screwed.

Like, you guys better change what you're doing.

And that's often what we see the prophets, when they when they would receive revelation from heaven and a voice of heaven would tell them, they would say, Woe is you.

But this is the first time we see Isaiah.

He's he's in the in the presence of God, and he's like, Woe is me.

And he's looking internally.

He encounters the holiness of God and he becomes aware of his own sin.

And this is what should happen.

This is not a weird thing that's happening.

When we get into the presence of God, it should cause us to see our own sin.

It should cause us to be in a place where we first acknowledge that sin, and then secondly, there should be a desire to separate from that sin.

Right?

It's not as if we just sit in it and we're like, we we do exactly what Isaiah does and say, woe is me, oh my gosh, I'm such a sinner, I can never change.

No, it's like I I like woe is me, yes, but I need to get out of this.

Right?

It's a first an acknowledgement of the sin in our life, and then it's a desire to like get out of it and separate from sin because I don't want to be in this place in this holy of holies and have this in my life.

You know, when I when I roll up to church, I when I'm my vehicle's running my 1998 Toyota, right?

When I roll up to church in that and I park next to like a G-Wagon or something, like I realize, I look at my vehicle and I'm like, what am I driving?

That's a poor example, but that's like what it is.

Like you look at the holiness of God and you're like, what am I driving?

There's all this rust, and it's like I don't got a muffler.

And you've probably heard the car before.

That's why it's parked.

But we look at our life and we're like, oh my goodness, what is happening?

What is in my heart?

What is coming out of my mouth?

God, save me.

And we think about sin, we can boil it down to this.

And I think that sin is when we usurp the throne where God should be.

Sin is when we usurp the throne that God should be in.

Now let me like explain.

Um, one of the marks, we talked about how we are created in the image of God.

Like we're created in his likeness.

And one of the marks of being created in the image of God is the ability to exercise moral choice.

And sin is when man exercises independence from God.

Right?

We're we're where man rejects, and we see that in the very beginning in Genesis, where man rejects God.

He he exercises independence.

God says, hey, like there's all this stuff that you have in this garden, and there's one tree that you don't eat from.

And what does man do?

He's like, Well, I'm I know better.

Right?

Eve helped, but it takes two to tango, okay?

But man exercises independence from God, he rejects God's dominion by creating his own sovereignty.

And in doing so, you know, man is always trying to be like God.

If you look at the culture, like they're doing it without saying it, but but when we actually, when we start to try to be like God, we actually end up becoming more like Lucifer.

Right?

Where Lucifer said, I will ascend into heaven and I will become like the Most High.

And mankind, mankind was born a rebel, and we don't know it.

The reason why we don't know it is because we're born into sin.

And I was thinking about this, and my daughter, she's literally like, she's climbing on everything, and she's like, she's getting up on the couch, and I was like in the other room, and I look over and I'm like, oh my goodness, like she's on the couch, ready to just walk off, right?

Like, and there's nothing below her, but she doesn't know what's right and wrong until I begin to show her, right?

And we don't know what's right and wrong until we begin to get shown what is right and wrong.

And as we grow up, we develop what is called a conscience, right?

Romans 2, 15 says, They show that work that the law was written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even accuse or even excuse them.

But there's an interesting verse in 2 Timothy and 1 Timothy 4, 2, and it talks about how you can actually begin to sear that conscience.

Right?

Like God, God has given us a conscience, but a lot of a lot of people are walking around with seared consciences because they're just ignoring it.

And you ignore it long enough that you you get into a place of sin in your life and you don't actually know it's wrong.

Right?

If you look outside and you're like, how can they not see?

Because they have seared consciences.

Right?

And we can we can get into the same place where we, if we continue to deny God's leading in our life, we can actually sear our conscience.

And become in a place where we don't know what we're actually doing.

We don't know what we're doing is wrong.

And so you were created, again, coming back to what sin is, where we usurp the throne where God should be, you were created to worship before the throne of God.

And instead, we we put ourselves on that throne, and we declare that I am.

And we and if we look at like the core belief of humanism, the core belief of humanism, a lot of people believe this.

They believe that there is a throne of authority, but man sits upon it.

The core belief of atheism, they believe that there is no throne, and there is no seat of authority that all of humanity needs to answer to.

But the Bible is in direct opposition to these both beliefs.

Right?

We have humanism where where man thinks that we're in charge, right?

And we have this idea of atheism where it's like no one's in charge, but the Bible is very clear, and we see even in this scripture, there is a throne and there is a God.

Right?

And in that throne room, we read it, the angels declare day and night, night and day, holy, holy, holy, and they're pill, and the pillars shake as the voices like the the inanimate objects are responding to God's holiness.

You see that?

Right?

The pillars are shaking as they're as they're saying, holy, holy, holy.

And when it comes to sin, it's only when we are confronted and convicted by a holy God that we actually see our sin and we realize that I need a savior.

I can't save myself.

Woe is me, of unclean lips.

The apostle Peter he preached one of the greatest sermons to ever be preached, and and it says that 3,000 plus people came to know Christ that day.

And and we look at the response, and this should be our response when we view a holy God, when we see a holy God, as they ask the question, what shall we do?

Like, where where are we to go after something like this?

What am I supposed to do?

And that should be the response of everybody that has realized that they have stolen the throne.

I mean, I think about this too.

I think about Isaiah, and it's not as if he's like this dude who's just doing whatever he wants.

Like he is trying to serve God.

He is a prophet, he's a godly man, and we see his response to perfection is woe is me.

Romans 3, I'm gonna invite the band up.

Romans 3 uh 10 to 18 is a really interesting verse.

It says, There is no one righteous, not one.

There is no one who understands.

I feel that.

There is no one who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable.

There is no one who does good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open tomb.

With their tongues, they have practiced deceit.

The poison of asps is under their lisp lips and my lisp.

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.

And this final piece is there is no fear of God in their eyes.

And when we don't have the proper fear of God, when we don't understand that God is first holy, sin becomes normal.

Right?

Sin just becomes normal.

Well, I was born this way, this is just what I do, and that's the world's excuse for sin is I was just born this way, but it's in light of a holy God where we actually begin to see this is killing us, right?

And I don't want anything to do with it, I want to be holy like Him.

And when we get a grasp of God's holiness, this should be the realization where we come to grace and we come to mercy, right?

Because it's his goodness and it's kindness that leads man to repentance, but only through the view that his mercy is perfect because he is holy, and his repentance is perfect because he is holy, and we can't lose that view, and luckily, luckily, I don't believe in luck, but Isaiah is luckily not left in this state of just like despair and anguish and and that thought process of like, what do I do?

We see the grace of God next in verse 6.

The seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken uh with the tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth.

And behold, he he says, Behold, this has touched your lips, and the your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.

And Isaiah's sin had to literally be burned away, purified by the fire of heaven.

And this was obviously like a spiritual transaction, because I don't think that Isaiah would be in good shape if even an angel couldn't hold on to this hot burning coal.

He had to take tongs.

I don't think, I don't think it was a physical transaction that happened.

It's a spiritual transaction that happens when when we see the altar in heaven, it's kind of like a mirror image of what was built on earth in Exodus, but it's the the altar represents a sacrifice and atonement, a place for us to die and be reconciled unto heaven.

And we see all through the book of John, we see it says that the word became flesh, the word became flesh, and that's Jesus taking on humanity, and he comes to earth and he experiences everything that we experience, he walks through everything that we walk through, he limits himself to an earthly body, and it says uh in scripture, it says he was born under the law, but fulfilled the law.

In the same way, we were born under the law, but we can't, we could not fulfill it.

We don't have the ability, we will fail every single time.

But Jesus, he eventually becomes the sacrificial lamb once and for all, rendering all other sacrifice inadequate.

His blood offering for that ultimate atonement of sin.

We talked about it in communion, where we we remembered the blood of Jesus, we remember the sacrifice where his body was broken.

Literally, if you read through what Jesus went through, it'll it'll cause you to weep.

Because he was broken in ways that should like humanity should never have to go through something like that, and Jesus went through it so that we don't have to go through that.

Where judgment was laid upon him, the wrath of God was literally laid upon Christ for our sake, his judgment and his justice was taken on by Christ so that we, as we accept that free gift, could be now hidden.

Paul talks about how we are hidden in Christ.

When God looks at me, he no longer sees me, he sees his son, he sees his son Jesus, hidden in the blood of Jesus, and we're no longer broken, we're no longer destitute, we're no longer stuck in sin, and we're actually imputed the righteousness of God, where we could not do it on our own, and that is the gospel, and we have to we have to know the bad news before we can actually understand and appreciate and accept the good news, and it's when you get a grasp of his holiness where you begin to realize wow, woe is me.

I've got some stuff that God's got to deal with, but by the grace of God, he's given me away, by the mercy of heaven, he has given me away, and we see the second act of grace.

It's not as if just to be clean is enough.

We see this next moment, it says, I heard a voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send?

And who will go for us?

And after Isaiah is cleansed by fire, he's ready to go.

He says, Here I am, here am I, send me, and I will go.

And see, the the cleansing of Isaiah happens, but then the sending of Isaiah happens next, and that's what God wants for us.

He doesn't want us just to be pretty little church people sitting in chairs.

This is good.

Like, please don't get me wrong.

This is this is what we need to do.

We need to be at church, we need to be in a local body, we need to be encouraged and equipped.

That's what church is for, so that you're equipped to go out there.

Holy Spirit, send me.

Can I just pray for us this morning?

Man, I can we just stand.

I'm not gonna say anything else because I just don't think we need to.

Can we just close our eyes and not let ourselves get distracted in this moment?

This song, I chose it, because it talks about these two things that I think are just so beautiful in this bridge.

It talks about may we never lose the wonder and the awe and the reverence for God's presence and his holiness.

And then the next verse, it talks about the gift of his friendship.

The gift of his friendship, and may we never lose the wonder of the holiness of God.

And thank you, Jesus, for the gift of your friendship.

That's what this song talks about.

And I think that that is something that needs to be in our hearts 24-7.

That needs to be in the place where we approach God with a fear in our heart and an awe and a reverence, but we get to approach God because we're his friend.

He calls me friend.

And it's a beautiful dichotomy.

It's a beautiful tension that we get to live in.

And I think some of us we try to live in one or the other camp because it's comfortable and it's uncomfortable to live in tension, but that's actually where God calls us to live is in the tension of a God, I am terrified because you are so great, but I don't have to be afraid because you called me boldly into your throne room.

By your sacrifice, I am his righteousness.

I get to be the righteousness of God.

No longer does the wrath of God come towards me.

I am forgiven.

And so I just want to I just want to sing this song.

I want you to respond in the way that you feel like you need to respond.

But I do, but I do say this.

I say that um that when we lift our hands, it is a response in the physical that I believe, just as Isaiah experienced uh a spiritual awakening and a spiritual response.

When we respond in the physical, when we say, God, like I want to give it all to you.

And we lift our hands, and that's the reason why we lift our hands in church.

We say, I surrender to you.

And that's why we we clap our hands because we're praising God and while we sing, we're responding physically, but he's actually doing something spiritually.

And so if you're here today, keep your eyes closed, don't look at me, no one get distracted in this moment.

If you're here today and you would say, I have I have treated God casually, I have looked at him casually, just like a friend, and that's not necessarily like again, it's not a bad thing, but it but it comes to the place where if we just casually go about our faith, then sin can casually come into our life.

And our and our day-to-day just becomes this casual thing where we only come to church on a Sunday, and that's the only time we think about God is on a Sunday, and it's casual to us.

And if that's you, and you just need to maybe just break something off your life, maybe you just even need to admit that to God.

God, I'm sorry.

God, I'm sorry for making it casual.

I'm sorry for taking this less serious than it needs to be.

And so, all over the room, would you just begin to raise your hands?

And again, this is not some weird Christian thing.

The Bible tells us lift your hands and worship the King.

And so this morning, let's just lift our hands and begin to worship him.

Let's lift our hands and begin to reflect on his holiness.

Let's lift our hands and get back to a right view of God.

Let us never lose the sense of wonder and awe in our hearts.

Let us never lose that sense of wonder and reverence and fear of God, for lest it make us go down the path of a lukewarm Christian.

God, keep us like the seraphim, the burning ones, God, that you keep the burning ones close to you.

And God, would you set a fire upon every single person that has their hands raised in this room?

God, that they would seek you, they would find you.

God, would you set a heart ablaze for you that we could be the burning ones and be close to your throne room?

Let us be the ones to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Let us never be casual about our Christianity and our faith and our belief in you, Father.

And God, we're grateful that you call us friend, that we get to walk boldly into your throne room, Father, that we get to lift our hands in this place.

We get to look upon you.

Let's just begin to worship Him this morning.