BOLD Daily Devotional: God's Holiness Establishes His Worth

As I mentioned, uh we are going over um Isaiah chapter six, and we're talking about how God's holiness establishes his worth.

Um, so it's the second week in a row.

Normally I do like to bounce around from chapter to chapter, but um, with this chapter, we don't need to move around at all.

So it'll just be in um Isaiah 6 this entire time.

I'm just gonna read a bit of it verbatim and then I'll just continue to exhort from there.

So, chapter six, Isaiah's Cleansing and Call.

It was the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord.

He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

So this starting off here may not seem like um much outside of the fact that this uh, you know, the prophet Isaiah is literally telling us he's seen the Lord.

But um I think I've heard Pastor Carrick say this before, and I did a little bit of research um before this morning, um kind of discussing what a train meant in this culture, what it meant for there to be um something a little bit added on to your robe.

So as we um kind of continue on here, the fact that the Lord's train, though, so think of like uh like a wedding dress, you know, and just how far it kind of follows behind the bride, um, this is already just kind of stating the level of royalty that Isaiah is seeing here because it's not, you know, a little bit behind him, it's not a couple feet behind him, it's not a couple yards behind him, but it's literally filling up the entire throne room.

So um, you know, so you know, the Lord is, you know, dealing with Isaiah, he's helping, he's helping him see things.

So he's presenting himself in a way that Isaiah one, you know, eventually um present to us and present to the people that he's supposed to minister, but he's presenting himself in a way to let him know who he is seeing.

So there is no question, there's no, okay, well, I don't know what I'm seeing, etc.

He is seeing royalty, royalty beyond comprehension, a level of royalty that is literally filling up the entire room.

Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings.

With two wings, they covered their faces, with two, they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

They were calling out to each other, holy, holy is holy is the Lord of heaven's army.

The whole earth is filled with his glory.

Uh, so seraphimed, uh, these are these are angels, and their only job is to do what it is we just read they're doing.

And that just says the puts the weight of how holy our Lord is.

And when we we go over this often, but just to kind of break it down to basics, uh, at least for the purpose of this and the purpose of what we typically um what we typically deal with with holiness is set apart.

Set apart.

So when we talk about the Lord and we talk about him being set apart, he's on a different echelon.

He's incorruptible.

There's nothing that you can do to manipulate the Lord.

Um, there's a level of purity that's beyond our understanding.

There's a level of um or a lack of comparison.

You know, if you meet a lot of people, you know, you can say, oh yeah, this person, you can even if it's, you know, it could be a great thing, but yeah, you know, you remind me of such and such.

And you know, sometimes somebody can send me that as a compliment, whether, whether or not, you know, it's true or not.

But there is no one like the Lord.

So when he so the seraphim, which I believe in Hebrew, uh somewhere in the translation, it has to do with just like a fiery fire.

Um, but this is what they do all day is proclaim how holy the Lord is, how separate the Lord is from everything else in creation.

Their voices shook the temple to its foundation, and the entire building was filled with smoke.

And then, and then from here, Isaiah had a similar to reaction to uh, you know, maybe it was a reasonable reaction because, you know, Pastor Reggie always uh tells us, um, you know, when we start thinking about the Old Testament, you know, if you were to see God, you know, it probably meant that it was the end for you.

Um, in this moment, Isaiah, with him seeing all of this, he's expecting judgment, not elevation, not promotion.

He's saying, he's seeing all of this because, hey, this must be the end.

And so, you know, it's not necessarily where we're going today, but just in circumstances where, you know, you're seeing things that may seem intimidating, um, but you know, you can trust your spirit and know that the, hey, this isn't of the enemy, this is an opportunity.

Um, you know, prepare yourself, you know, in a way we'll see if Isaiah's doing, but prepare yourself for that promotion in this way.

Then I said, It is all over.

I am doomed, for I am a sinful man.

I have filthy lips, and I live among people with filthy lips.

Yet I have seen the king, the Lord of heaven's armies.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

He touched my lips with it, and he said, See, this coal has touched your lips.

Now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven.

So in this moment, Isaiah was doubting himself.

Everything that he understood was that, hey, this is it for me.

In this moment that we just read through that of that particular passage, he was purified.

But immediately after he was purified, we'll see what he did, what he did and what he accepted onto himself in that moment.

Because I think there are times where you know the Lord can deliver us and you know put us in a circumstance.

But I think, and we we see this a lot of times with with Jesus and you know, a lot of the uh of the miracles where you know you're cleansed and then now you have a job.

So then I heard the Lord asking, whom should I send as his as a as a messenger to this people?

Who will go for us?

Doesn't seem like there was much hesitation here.

But Isaiah says, I said, here I am, send me.

And he said, Yes, go and say to my people.

I'll pause here because we're um I just want to stay on track with the purpose of you know today's message, which is um just God's holiness, um, you know, just discussing his worth.

Um and I just want to go a little bit um into just more a little bit deeper into what that holiness actually is.

So I'm gonna read a bit of a couple passages that I was able to um kind of identify, just kind of um, you know, kind of just explain uh exemplifying this.

But when we talk about our Lord, and you know, as I said, he's not comparable to anyone else.

So you you could think of, you know, people you know or singers, actors, you know, they people that are, you know, revered.

Um, but you know, you could say, okay, they're really good at this, but they're not necessarily good at that.

That's not the circumstance with our Lord.

His perfection is across all of his attributes.

So um, well, I'll go ahead and read this verbatim.

Holiness is not just one trait among many, it is the quality that infuses everything that the Lord is.

His love is a holy love, his justice is a holy justice, and his mercy is a holy mercy.

So giving each attribute of the Lord uh the same matchless weight.

Um, then we when we talk about the Lord there, that he has an incorruptible level of purity.

Um, there's a worldly phrase like everyone has a cause, everyone has something that they where they can be bought, even if it's something like, you know, hey, like, oh yeah, this person's weakness is their family.

We know actually, the whole basis, the whole point of this call is that we know that the Lord, you know, for us, for uh for how much he loved us, he would sacrifice his own son, his only begotten son.

So there is not a way where um our Lord can be corrupted or manipulated.

Um what he does and the things that happen are all according to his plan.

There's not a way that we or any other entity can trick him into doing something.

So when we talk about his incorruptible purity, he is absolute moral perfection, which means there is zero darkness, shadow, or compromise in his character.

That compromise is really important because as we, you know, deal with ourselves and we're trying to move and elevate, you know, there are parts of ourselves that we understand that we need to leave, but unfortunately, you know, we try to drag them along.

So that is a, you know, that compromise is something that's you know really important when we talk about the character of the Lord, that there is no compromise with the Lord.

He has the unblemished righteousness, and that highlights who he is, that his his his love, his entity is pure and radiant, and there's a deeper level of intrinsic value.

And now, and finally, we was want to I want to talk about just the cross, just Jesus, just that sacrifice as the ultimate display of what that holiness means.

Um, this is the greatest proof that God's infinite worth and holiness, um, it was a convergence at the cross, at that moment, at Christ's sacrifice.

Um, there, the unyielding hatred of sin, which is kind of equates to the holiness, um, and his deep desire to save us, it met at that point.

So, you know, as I mentioned before, there is no way for the Lord to be compromised.

You know, from there's no way that his greed could be used against him, there's no way that his lust could be used against him.

And essentially, if we look at it this way and we kind of center in on the on the cross, there's no way that his love could be manipulated and used against him.

Everything works in and function, everything works to uh to his glory, and all of that kind of puts us right where we are in the perfect place where we are in his hands.

And with that, I will yield.