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God's Most Unpopular Attribute
Isaiah 6
Skip Heitzig

Isaiah 6 (NKJV™)
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one cried to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!"
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because 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."
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar.
7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged."
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."
9 And He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'
10 "Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed."
11 Then I said, "Lord, how long?" And He answered: "Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate,
12 The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 But yet a tenth will be in it, And will return and be for consuming, As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump."

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Biography of God, The

Ask most people to tell you the first word that comes to mind when they think of God and it will be "love" or "grace" or "forgiveness." All of these are wonderfully comforting attributes of God, but another key attribute that is seldom considered is His holiness. Today we observe one man's encounter with God, and we learn some lessons about what it means to have a personal relationship with a holy God.

Thomas Jefferson. Martin Luther King Jr. Winston Churchill. C.S. Lewis. All outstanding men with amazing life stories, but in all of history, one biography stands out above the rest. The Biography of God gives an in depth look at His character and nature, and delves into the theological and personal profile of our Heavenly Father. As this series searches the scriptures to lead the believer to a discovery of who God is and how He is sensitive to the human condition, it will both lift up and humble at the same time.

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Detailed Notes

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I. Holiness Describes Separation (Vss 1-4)


 


II. Holiness Deepens Conviction (Vs 5)


 


III. Holiness Demands Purification (Vss 6-7)


 


IV. Holiness Develops Commission (Vs 8)


 


This Could Become More Than Another Sermon:



  1. In the past how have you viewed holiness? As something outdated, irrelevant, or harsh? Or is it something relegated only to God? How important is it for this attribute to be emulated by His followers?


  2. Why is an understanding of the holiness of God essential to grasp the need for the cross of Christ and the inevitability of divine judgment? 


  3. We become like the One we worship (See Psalm 115:8). How are you becoming godly?

Transcript

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Good evening. I know you brought a Bible, so it would be a good thing to take it and turn to Isaiah chapter 6 because that is where we will be camping out tonight. Isaiah chapter 6, continuing this great series on The Biography of God, taking like a jewel, turning it and looking at every facet that we have available to us in the time available to us, every facet of God's personality is revealed in scripture because that is essential.
So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do come and we beg your mercies, we would have ears to hear because some of things that we hear tonight may be for some hard things, and so necessary to our own personal growth. Maybe for some it's been a while since they were spoken to by anyone and you especially about their walk. So Father we pray that as we look at this all-important essential and central characteristic trait of who you are and we pray Lord that we would understand how we relate to you, what it means to have a personal relationship with this kind of God. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Well there are some characteristics of God that are just very appealing. I think of God's love, I mean who doesn't want to sing or speak or preach on the love of God? That's an appealing characteristic. Along with that would be his grace. Or God's mercy, or God's power, those are appealing characteristics. But there are some characteristics of God that aren't so appealing to people. They're real, they're truth, but they're not attractive to some. 
Years ago there was a famous photographer by the name of Usef Karf. He was from Turkey originally and he was world famous for his large format film photography. And he took pictures of very famous people. A book was put out called Portraits of Greatness. I've seen the book, ninety famous people, renowned people are featured in this book. He is probably credited with the most famous photograph of Sir Winston Churchill. But it's been noticed in this Portraits of Greatness book, of those ninety faces, that seventy of them, seventy of the people in the book are physically unattractive, thirty-five have moles, thirteen show liver spots, twenty reveal acne when the photograph was taken and two are sporting visible scars. So thanks to the high detail and resolution of large format camera and that lens, people in the photograph are seen for who they really are. That's who they are.
Tonight we want to look at probably the least-discussed attribute of God and perhaps, certainly not a flaw but to some an unattractive attribute; and that is God's holiness. And that's because it's this attribute that accounts for some of God's unappealing actions. It's because of God's holiness that God is a God of justice. It's because of God's holiness that he's a God of judgment. It's because of his holiness that he's a God of wrath and even vengeance at times. It's because of God's holiness that he even created a place called hell. But holiness is the most noted characteristic of God in the scripture. I don't know if you know this or not but God is called holy in the Bible more than he is called anything else. More than he is called loving, more than he is called mighty, more than he is called merciful, more than he is called gracious; he is called holy. Just this prophet Isaiah alone calls God "the holy One" thirty times and that's just in this book alone.
Could it be perhaps that we have been so conditioned by a hyper grace kind of environment that we overestimate God's love and kindness and grace and underestimate other characteristics like justice, vengeance or holiness. And yet, it seems that holiness based upon frequency of description in the Bible and based upon what we're going to read, is the core of His being. I know that God is love. God is loving, God is gracious and merciful but that is not the core of his being if you had to describe him in one word. If love were the core of God's being, I suppose God would let everybody into heaven, it doesn't matter who they are, Hitler, everybody. And just like, "Come on in and we'll sort it out later." Because God is not only loving but centrally holy that doesn't happen. Now I know that some people think of I John chapter 4 immediately and say, "Yeah but the Bible says God is love." Please don't misunderstand that or misinterpret it. It doesn't mean that love defines God, it means that God defines love. It doesn't mean that wherever there is a demonstration of love by anyone that that is God, that God himself because of who he is defines love. 
Let me take you into my study this week, to a book that I read, probably first of all, with this study. And that is a book by William Evans called Great Doctrines of the Bible. He was a theology professor and he writes, "If there is any difference in importance in the attributes of God, that of his holiness seems to occupy the first place. It is to say the least, the one attribute which God would have his people remember more than any other." Now lest some of you think, "Well I've heard this stuff before but it is an Old Testament, concept, this idea of God's holiness." Let me remind you that when Jesus taught us to pray in the New Testament, he said, "You pray this way: ‘Our Father in heaven, holy (or hallowed) be your name." Let me further remind you that the word holy is that one repeated adjective of the third person of the Trinity. He is not referred to the loving spirit, the merciful spirit, the gracious spirit, or the mighty spirit. He is called the Holy Spirit, that is his designation. Here's the point: We cannot pick and chose which characteristics of God that we like and toss out the rest. We can either accept or rject the true God as he reveals himself but we can't say, "I don't like that part of God, I won't worship God like that. My God isn't a god of holiness, my god is a god of love. There's an interesting temple over in Japan in Kyoto. I went by it when I was there years ago called the Temple of the Thousand Buddhas. There's 1001 different carvings, depictions of Buddha each one slightly different than the other and the idea is the worshipper goes in and finds the one that suits him or her most and begins to worship. That is the modern approach to God: We create God in our image and then we worship the image that we create. We cannot do that, we cannot change his nature and this is a key element to his nature. 
So, as we work our way through the passage of Isiah chapter 6, we're going to look at four ways that God's holiness affects us. Four ways God's holiness, or I should say, should affect us. You could call this message "How to have a personal relationship with a holy God." Number one is that holiness describes separation. Look with me at chapter 6 of Isaiah, the first four verses. "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a chtrone, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim (these are angelic beings) each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew. And one cried to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.' And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out. And the house was filled with smoke." The first thing that is noticed is that God is seated, on a throne; meaning he's in charge, he's the ruler, he's running the universe, he's not standing up wringing his hands like we often do, he's seated in a comfortable position. Someone once said, "God rules the universe with his feet up." Why? Because he can. You could have a billion other universes like this one and they wouldn't tax God in the least. He's in charge, he's ruling.
Notice it's the year King Uzziah died, that was 739 BC. And here's the deal, here's the long and short of it very quickly. King Uzziah started out very young but ruled Israel for fifty-two relatively great years. He was a great politician, he brought in much refore, he's the kind of guy who brought in a relative godliness to the nation. Now he dies and everyone including probably Isaiah the prophet is wondering, "Oh no, what are we going to do now?" That was when he saw this vision of God seated on a throne in charage, in control of everything. That's important for us. It's important because we live in a world that if we read the newspapers and watch television, there's enough there to distress us, to depress us. We could say, "It's so bad, it's so evil that if we don't remember God is still on the throne in charge, we'll lose it. That' s why we're coming together corporately for worship like this, it's so vital. It changes our perspective so we remember as the songs are sung and as the word preached, we go, "Oh yes, that's right. God is seated on the throne. I must never forget that. It's a time that rightly adjusts the way we view life. Now this is a vision that Isaiah has. He doesn't really physically see God. Hw do we know that? Because it says in the gospel of John, "No one has seen God at any time." Sop this is a vision. If this were not a vision, if this were reality, Isaiah would not have lived to write about it. It would be like a bug getting close to a bug zappe, Pzzssh." It would happen to Isaiah. He saw God. It would be over because he's a vision of God and he sees a throne that is lifted up, that is it's higher than everything else around it. It's spectaculr. And the one on the throne has a long train, a flowing aftergown that filled the temple. Now some of you remember back to 1981 when Princess Diana was married. I remember the wedding, I should remembwer the wedding, it was a monumental wedding. The train of her wedding dress was twenty-five feet long and it flowed on the floor of St. Patrick's cathedral in London. But go back a few years, in 1953 before I was born and Queen Elizabeth was coronated as the Queen of England. The purple velvet train of her robe was sixty feet in length. And the idea of such a long train was to speak of splendor, majesty, and (to use the term correctly) holiness. No one else in England could wear that cape but here. It's the splendor, majesty, it's a symbol of that. So God's splendor filled the temple. Let me just say probably in passing that if you hate loud music, you might want to bring earplugs with you to heaven because the noise was so all-consuming that the doorpost itself shook because of the volume that's here during this episode of worship. What I want you to notice is this threefold repitition called the tri haggaion, three-fold repetition of the word holy: holy, holy, holy. Now whenver you see a repitition in the Bible, especially in Hebrew language, it's to emphasize some kind trait or to emphasize whatever is being talked about. So let's put it in modern terms. If we were to say over in Gaza tonight is a war, over in Iraq tonight is a war. If we wanted to talk about World War II we would say, "Oh that's a war war." Or if we wanted to talk about Armageddon we would say, "Oh that's going to be a war war war." When we speak about a storm, "Wasn't that an unbelievable storm we had last week." Well you want to speak about Katrina, then it's a storm storm. So here's this characteristic of God. He is not holy, he is not holy holy, he is holy holy holy. It is the only attribute of God that is mentioned like this three times. Holy, holy, holy. Just notice that. Of all the attributes, those seraphim, those angels could have been singing. They didn't say, "Faithful, faithful, faithful." He is certainly faithful. They didn't sing, "Loving, loving, loving." Or, "Merciful, merciful, merciful." Or, "Mighty, mighty, mighty." Holy, holy, holy.
The question is what does that mean? It sounds so churchy, it sounds so old, it sounds stained-glass and cleaned fingernails and barren deserts and long flowing robes with sandals and fasting. Holy. It simply means marked off, set aside, marked off, set apart for special use. If you were to go back for example to Exodus chapter 40, it says take oil, it's holy oil, and with that oil you anoint the vessels of the tabernacle, they're holy vessels. And you anoint the altar, it's a holy altar. And the laver, God says it's a holy laver. And then you also anoint Aaron and his sons for they are holy unto the Lord. You see it's not like there's some intrinsic glow that comes out of these things or people, it just means they're special, they're marked off for special use. So when we say, "God is holy," or we speak of God's holiness, what we mean if there's no one at all ever who's like him. He is unique, he is unparalleled, he is unprecedented. He is exclusive. Now I must say that this view of God has been lost in the church I believe. We prefer the comfort of God's nearness and I think we have, in some cases, lost the reality of the transcendent holiness of God. He is not the ‘Man Upstairs.' He is not ‘The Big Guy.' Ever heard people say that? That's like, to me, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. "Yeah I want to get close to The Big Guy, the Man Upstairs, the old codger with the beard." It's not God, God's in effable glory, God dwells in unapproachable light. Our God is a consuming fire. That's God. So holiness describes separation.
Which leads to a second character trait and the way that God's holiness should affect us. Number two, holiness depends conviction. Look at verse 5, "So I said," here's Isaiah, remember he's a prophet) "So I said, ‘Woe is me, I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king, the lord of hosts. Notice Isaiah didn't say, "cool. I saw God and you didn't." No he says, "I'm undone," or I'm ruinied, or one translation is very forceful, "I'm doomed." Now why would he say that? I mean he is a prophet. He just had an experience that very few, probably no one else in his generation, had with God. You would think perhaps that because of this experience he could go on a speaking tour, write a book, "The Day I Saw God," go on television, he could make money with this. But his reaction if of profound conviction, "Woe is me." Why? Why is that? And why must that be? Because in seeing a holy God, I must then see my unholy self, that's why. Myself next to God, because he is so holy and also enlightens my unholiness and so there's a deep conviction. Show me one person filled with pride and I will show you a person who's never encountered God. It's just so different, he's so utterly unique. Well you know what it's like if you stand next to somebody who has a perfect voice, it's beautiful. And you know, you like to sing in the dhower but next to that person, it's like, "I'm not going to even bother, they're just so amazing." The difference is stark.
Even this prophet next to a holy God must confess his own utter bankruptcy. Jesus called it poor in spirit. Max Lucado puts it this way, "You don't impress the officials at NASA with a paper airplane." You don't boast about your crayon sketches if you're in the presence of Picasso. You don't claim equality iwht Einstein because you can write H2O. And you don't boast about your goodness in the presence of the perfect. Now this happens to be because this characteristic of God is so monumental and so central, it would only make sense would it not, that you'd find this kind of reaction like Isaiah had all the way through the scripture. Here's a few notable examples: Job. Now Job you remember was almost perfect. God even said so, "There's nobody like him in the whole earth. He's as good as they come." Toward the end of his experience Job said to God, "I have hard of you by the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees you, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. He encountered God. It happened to Peter as well. Peter, naturally boastful and aggressive, expert fisherman; gets Jesus in the boat and he sees what Jesus us like and he says, "Depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man." Not a cool fisherman, I'm a sinful man. His perspective changed. The apostle Johmn in the book of Revelation, sees the vision of Jesus Christ and he repeatedly says, "And I fell on my face as dead." He fell at at his feet as a dead man. 
Now this same thing happens, it seems like, in eternity. I wish we had time to turn to it but in the book of Revelation chapter 4, there's a huge throneroom setting like this and all the angels and the elders are around the throne of God. Remember what those elders who had crowns on their head do with their crowns? They cast them down, the same anthem, "Holy, holy, holy," and they take their crowns and they throw those crowns down before God's throne. As if to say, "In your presence no honor at all can come to me. All honor must go to you," because no one rightly viewing God wants any honor at all. You know, it does, it bothers me when somebody things like this, have you ever heard this? "When I see God I have a few things I want to tell him." You know, would you just step away like five paces from me when you say that? You like have no idea what you're even saying. He is so utterly holy.
And one of the ways you can tell if you're growing in your relationship with holy God is this sense of conviction. Jesus again called it poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn. It's a natural progression, somebody who is in relationship with a holy God, they grow in conviction. The third thing I want to point out is that holiness demands purification. Holiness demands purification. Look at verse 6, "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal." What would you think if you saw that? Here comes the angel with a coal and what is he going to do with that? Well watch this. "Which he had taken with the tongs from the altar and he touched my mouth and he said, ‘Behold this has touiched your lips and your iniquity is taken away, your sin is purged.'" Ouch! I remember the first time I had green chile, first time I came here years ago and had it, and it's like, "Oh come on, who can do this? This is like insane." Then I got hooked. It's like, "Brind on the fire." Now what's this all about? Well the coal off the altar, the altar was presumably the altar of sacrifice in the outer court, that's part of the vision, and that was the altar where the sacrifices were killed to atone for sin. So that's a place that sin was dealt with. So this is symbolic of cleansing Isaiah of sin. Remember he said, "I'm a man of unclean lips." So the coal touches his lips. And the angel says, "You are clean." You are purged, is the idea. And why does this happen? Well, back to God's holiness. This happens to Isaiah the prophet because holiness cannot coexist with unholiness unless something happens. Holiness cannot coexist with unholiness unless number one, God destroy that which is unholy or God purges the sin and declares something or someone holy by an act. And do not we find this throughout the Bible? Isn't that one of the themes of the Bible? I mean think of the tabernacle in the Old Testament, boy if there was ever a message that God is untouchable and holy and you better not get too close or you could die, that was it, that was a picture of that. God is utterly unapproachable and utterly holy and even a priest himself has to be really right with God. There's a big gulf that is fixed. But the tabernacle also teaches that the gulf can be bridged by sacrifice. You bring an animal, you lay hands on it, you bleed the animal, it loses its life for you and atonement is made in a person's place. And so we get to the New Testament, same theme, the cross of Christ, Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb, lived the perfect life, the perfectly holy life that we could never live. And the upon his death was able to confer to us all of his holy merit. All of his holy merit, so we who were once bankrupt instantly became like gazillionnaires. We're like rich in God's favor because of the act of Jesus on the cross. So listen to this, I Peter chapter 1 verse 19, "You were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a lamb without blemish and without spot. In other words, perfectly holy, perfectly holy. Only one, only one who is perfectly holy can perfectly cleanse someone who is perfectly unholy. That's what the atonement was about. So God's solution to the problem was to make a declaration by an act that that creature, that being, that person, is now holy, cleansed, purged. 
So, Isaiah is understanding this. He sees God. God is so holy and lifted up. And he goes, "Aw, and I'm like so horrible and crummy." He gets cleansed, he gets cleansed. He sees the gulf and it's taken care of. Now here's one of the reasons why many good churchgoing folk come to church week by week and there's no change in their life. Because they don't see the great gulf that exists between unholy people and holy God. Evidenced when somebody prays like this, "God, if I have sinned please forgive me." If? How about since. Because if it's if and if you're not so sure about it, what do you have to confess? Why bother talking to him about it unless you know that you need him? That's why many come to church week after week utterly unchanged. John said, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." You have to admit that and Isaiah, even this great prophet admits that. He was purified.
I've always enjoyed the story about the great Prussian king, Frederick the Great who went to visit a prison in Berlin and cell block after cell block was prisoners who claimed their own goodness. They shouldn't be here, they were falsely accused and falsely judged. They're really innocent and righteous and they need to be out of prison, one after the other. He finally comes to another guy, he doesn't say anything and the king says, "I suppose you're going to tell me you're just like them, perfect and righteous." And he goes, "No, I am punished for what I did. I did wrong. I deserve my punishment." And Frederick the Great smiled and said, "Quickly release this rascal before he corrupts all these fine innocent people here." And listen, that's exactly what God does. Exactly what God does, only those who say, "I need to be cleansed. I admit my unholiness." They're the only ones that God will declare holy. That's why self-righteous people, that's why religious people often do not get saved, because they see no need, they're good enough, they're holy enough. There's no sense of conviction. There's no calling upon God for cleansing. Thus there's no cleansing. 
Let me give you the fourth and final way that God's holiness should affect us. The fourth way to relate to a holy God. Holiness develops commission. Holiness will result in service, a sense of mission. Verse 8, "Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, (I love this) ‘Whom shall I send?' He says out loud, God says, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" I don't think he's speaking to the angels who will go for us because after all they're the ones serving him in heaven, they're doing his bidding, they themselves are on a mission. I think it's the Father speaking to the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's the triune God in conference with each other. It hints to that and makes that open for possibility in the New Testament.
"Whom shall I send?" "Who will go for us?" You know what I love, is that God looks for volunteers. He doesn't, he doesn't force a person, he doesn't push a person, he doesn't guilt a person into service. He simply asks and looks for volunteers. I think there are far too many Christian organizations and churches that try to artificially produce within their congregations something that is a natural process by the Spirit of God and that is service. That is service. You shouldn't do it unless you feel that sense of, "I want to do that." Here am I, says Isaiah, send me. "Then I said, ‘Here am I, send me.'"
So from the revelation of a holy God to the conviction of his own sin to the cleansing of that sin. Now he goes, "Send me God. Use me. I want to go on a mission." Holiness develops commission. This is always the pattern. This is always something that happens. An unholy man or woman is declared holy by a holy God through sacrifice and then at some point that man or woman decides, "I want God to have all of me. I want to do whatever he wants. I want to go on his commission, his mission, his work. I want to serve him." In other words, "I want to be holy because he is holy. My life is now all about serving him." I see this all the time. You know, every pastor that's here on staff, every ministry leader that's a part of this wonderful church, who are they? I'll tell you who they are, they're saved sinners who met holy God who cleansed them and brought that deep sense of conviction. And they came to a place where they said, "I want to serve the Lord." It's a natural process by the Holy Spirit.
Now, wouldn't you agree that the big challenge for every one of us as Christians is to, as we live the Christian life, increasingly match our practice to our position. See it's one thing to be declared holy by an act of atonement where God says, "You're mine, you're holy, you're set apart." But it's quite another thing to live a holy life. So the big challenge that I find as a Christian is the increasing matching of my practice to my position. For example, a famous text is Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4, "God chose us that we should be holy and without blame before him." Now that's a positional statement, that's how God sees you in Christ: holy and without blame. But we, we fall short on a daily basis. And that sanctification that comes after salvation, where we become holier and holier and more like the Lord is paramount. I've always loved what Layton Ford said, I was reminded of it because I was looking a few months back. He said, "God loves you just hew ay you are but he loves you too much to leave you the way you are." Isn't that great? God loves you the way you are. But he's not going to let you stay that way. He loves you too much to leave you that way. And so, he makes you increasingly by his grace like him.
A guy the other day jokingly said when he said, "What are you going to preach on Sunday?" I said, "God's holiness." He laughed and he said, "I don't think I'm going to come this weekend." Now I know he was joking but there's a little bit of truth tucked in that. See this is something we can't skip if we're not interested in it. This whole holiness thing, this is not optional. This is not an elective for the Christian life. We are to major in this. We are to major in this. The Bible is filled with his truth. God said to his people, Leviticus chapter 11, "You shall be holy for I am holy." In other words, "If I'm going to be your heavenly Father, like father like son. If I'm holy, guess what? You're going to be more like me. That's what I'm calling you to do, be holy for I am holy. Hebrews chapter 1, "Pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord." And I Thessalonians 4 verse 3, here it is, "This is the will of God, your sanctification." Fancy word for being holy. 
So if you are one tonight and say, "I want to know God's will." I'm going to tell you what God's will is for your life: Be holy. Wait a minute, "I thought God wants me to be happy." No, he never promised that, he wants you to be holy. And here's what you'll find: The holier you and I become, the happier we will become. Because we live with this satisfaction, this abiding satisfaction, that I'm pleasing him. There's nothing better than that.
So I want to close with this thought: How do you know you're getting holy; or, holier, than you were last year? Twelve months ago, you can mark that on your calendar and take it back down. How do you know you're growing in holiness? It's pretty easy: Because you love the things the holy God loves and you hate the things the holy God hates. It's pretty easy way to gauge that. I can tell that I'm growing in holiness because I have more of a love for what this holy God loves and more of a hatred for what this holy God hates: sin, unrighteousness, impurity. I love all the things that he loves. And in that process we become godly which means God-like. And what is he like? He is holy, holy, holy; that central core of his character.
I want to close with something C.S. Lewis said, I've always loved his writings, a lot of times I have to read it three or four or eight times just to understand it. This one was pretty simple, I could manage this. He says this, "How little do people know who think that holiness is dull? When I meet the real thing, it's irresistible. Even if ten percent of the world's population had it, would not the whole world be converted before the year's end?" Imagine even a small group of people who say, "I will live with the great desire of pleasing God in all areas of my life." Now that's the challenge of my life is that my practice would hopefully increasingly match more and more by God's grace what I read and what I study and what I preach. I've got a long way to go but that's what I want. And it's my prayer, honestly my prayer, for me and for us, for this church, that God's characteristic of holiness would not be his most unpopular but his most popular attribute. When we hear those scriptures, go, "Oh yeah. That's what I want. The fear of the Lord to depart from me. That's what I want." 
I read The New York Times cover title in Starbucks the other day. I didn't make it through the whole newspaper, wouldn't want to. It was an interesting article, you know what happened about the plane crash in the Potomac. The New York Times article title said, "Miracle on the Potomac." It talked about how people felt like they had a second chance. I caught a lot of that on the newscast of people mostly die typically in these kinds of accidents and they all lived. And they're all talking about what this did to them. It's like, "ive got a new chance and I'm going to live with priorities now." Miracle on the Potomac. There could be a miracle in Albuquerque tonight if you would give your life to Jesus Christ. You would discover that he could change you, he could totally change you. But you can't just come and accept him like, "I'm going to do everything I do but then accept him on top of this. I've got all this stuff that I do and Jesus too." The truth his you don't accept him, he accepts you by his grace. This holy God will accept unholy men and women and confer salvation to them if they receive the gift that he offers which is eternal life through Christ.
Let's pray for that. Heavenly Father as we close tonight and we have just again scratched the surface on this all-central core attribute of you, you are unique, holy, different,, unparalleled, exclusive. But you in your perfection have made a way for those who are imperfect, marred by the fall, marred by sin, willful and inherent; to be in heaven. That's what this book is all about, from front to back. You have made a way for unholy men and unholy women to have a relationship with a holy God that comes by being poor in spirit and by mourning. It comes by acknowledging that we need you. Father, I pray that those who have never received you before, have never really honestly considered that they need to come the way of the cross, the narrow way which leads to eternal life, would come tonight. It's not a popular thing to think about or preach, it just is the truth. And you do your work Lord we pray. And those who have fallen or walked away, I pray Father would come back. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Let's all stand. And you guessed it, I'm going to call those of you in either camp whether this is the first time to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, maybe you've grown up religious all your life but you've never really made a personal commitment to Christ, you've never made a step where it's become real for you. Or, you're one of those folks who made some kind of decision in the past but you're not walking with him, you're walking from him, you're walking around him today. I'm going to give you this opportunity to get up out of your seat, find the nearest aisle come right up here to the front and give your life to Christ, come back to him. So as we sing this song you come right now and let me lead you in a word of prayer. You might even feel like, "Well they dragged me to church and I didn't want to come but I lost a bet this week so here I am." Maybe you've discovered that there's a God in heaven who's perfect and just, holy, who will forgive. Not based upon anything you've done or I've done but simply because that's how he's chosen to do something utterly impossible by having all your sin go on his son Jesus so that you could be his child, his son or daughter and be in heaven with him. He'll never force that. Just like he said, "Whom will I send?" He would ask, "Who would be saved?" He won't drag you to heaven. If you chose not to be with him forever in heaven, that's your business. He'd love you to be with him now and then. But you must receive the gift. If God is speaking to your heart, in these last few moments, you get up and come. Do it now, do it quickly. God's speaking to your heart, say yes to him. Those of you who have come forward and I'm so happy you did, I see two guys up there with canes and so I know it wasn't easy. God is going to make you his, make you whole, he's going to forgive you of your sins, give you a reason for life and hope for the future.
I'm going to ask you to pray right now after me. I'm going to pray out loud, I'm going to ask you to repeat this after me, from your heart, to him. Give your life to him. Let's pray together.
Lord I give you my life. I know I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. I turn from my sin. I turn to you. I trust Jesus who died on the cross and rose from the dead for me. Fill me with your Spirit and help me to live for you today and every day. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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10/12/2008
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Can God Be Known?
Hebrews 11:6
Skip Heitzig
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Today we start a brand new series of messages I'm calling, "The Biography of God". The very subject matter of "God" is the loftiest of all subjects and the pinnacle of all pursuits. As we discover who God is and how He is perceptible to the human condition, we will be both lifted up and humbled all at the same time. The great transition that must be made, however, is to not stop with gathering information about God but by believing and acting in the light of that information, thus truly knowing Him.
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10/19/2008
completed
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Is Anyone Up There? Looking For Clues
Romans 1:18-22;Psalms 19:1-6
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We all remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her three friends come to approach the "Great Oz". Out of the corner of their eye, they notice a man pulling levers behind a curtain-working the mechanical, smoke-breathing Oz. The man then reacts by announcing, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" But how can they not? The man is the explanation for everything to them. They discovered that Oz didn't really exist! So how do we know that God exists and isn't a fabrication or projection of our own imaginations?
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10/26/2008
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"Now Hear This!" How Does God Speak?
Psalms 19
Skip Heitzig
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This is the age of communication. Cell phones, email, text-messaging, i-chatting and YouTube broadcasting are as common as coffee. (Some people are even talking the old-fashioned way—face to face with the person.) So how does God communicate? How does His message, His biography get out to the world? And more importantly, perhaps, who’s listening?
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11/9/2008
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I'm God...and You're Not!
Exodus 33-34
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The only way to know someone is for that someone to reveal himself/herself to us. We discover who that person is as he tells us about himself. Moses wanted to know God better and God tells Moses about Himself. This is the only place in scripture where God lists His own characteristics and qualities there are four phases to this touching story:
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11/23/2008
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God: A Short Autobiography
Exodus 34:5-7
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In studying the Biography of God, there's no better source than God Himself. This is one of the primary passages in all of Scripture about who God is; it is His own autobiography. This is God telling us about Himself. As God reveals to Moses who He is, he begins by declaring His name and then listing several of His primary character traits. It's not unlike meeting anyone for the first time. We get their name and then learn some things about them. As we relate to God, then, these experiences are what we can expect to find.

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12/14/2008
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The God Who Knows-It-All!
Psalms 139:1-6
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A little boy climbed his neighbor's apple tree when he saw their car leave. He didn't realize while he was stuffing his pockets full of apples that another neighbor was watching through a pair of binoculars and saw the whole thing! God isn't spying on people, trying to catch them doing something wrong; but God is aware of everything. Such a truth has a profound effect on us: it can either be very comforting or else extremely unsettling. As we continue with the biography of God, let's consider what God knows.
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1/4/2009
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Godisnowhere
Psalms 139:7-12
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1/11/2009
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My God is Bigger than Your God!
Psalms 139:13-18
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There are so many different belief systems out there! Some people have a god that isn't very big and can't do very much. He smiles a lot but is weak and helpless to act. It's not a whole lot different from ancient times, really. The Syrians once said that Israel's God was "a god of the hills and not of the plains" (1 Kings 20:28). Their view of God was limited and powerless. So what's your view? Does it match the Bible's description of our Awesome God?
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1/25/2009
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I Don't Get It! How Can Three Be One?
Matthew 28:16-20
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1+1+1=1. Is this New Math? No, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. At the very heart of the Judeo-Christian faith is the belief that there is only one God. Yet the Bible clearly teaches the plurality within the Godhead--three persons who are distinct from one another yet perfectly One in essence. What are we to make of all this? And why is it important? Today let's consider two major truth statements.
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2/1/2009
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Two Thirds is Not Enough
John 14-17
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"The mind of man cannot fully understand the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul" (Harold Lindsey and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of Christian Truth). Last week we discovered that Scripture reveals One God in three distinct Persons. Today we consider the personality of all three Persons in the One God and Their role in our lives. Further, how can we relate to the Triune God in practical terms?
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2/15/2009
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The Dark Side of God
John 9:1-7
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"If God is in charge and loves us, then whatever is given is subject to His control and is meant ultimately for our joy" -Elizabeth Elliot. That perspective (which is the biblical one) is far from the typical sentiment about pain. Most ask, "If God really loved me, how could there be evil and suffering in this world--especially for me?!" To study God at all, this issue must be dealt with: Why is God’s world so messy? Where is the evidence of His power and love in such a suffering world?
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2/22/2009
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GPS: God's Positioning System
Acts 21:1-15
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Part of a relationship with anyone is knowing what that person expects. We wonder, "What does that person want from me in this relationship?" Relating to God is no different. So how can we know what God's will is for our lives? What kind of guidance can we expect? A notable example from Paul's life furnishes an excellent template for exploring this question. It was a confusing time, and many people didn’t agree with Paul's decision - but he felt it was God's will for him.
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3/1/2009
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How to Be God's Friend
Genesis 18:1-15
Skip Heitzig
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For the last fourteen weeks we've looked at "The Biography of God." In this loftiest of all subjects and the pinnacle of all pursuits, we've discovered Who He is, what He is like, and how to relate to Him. We must always remember not to stop with just gathering information about God--we need to truly know Him in a personal way. Abraham provided a model for us in how to do that as a friend. Four qualities form the template for being God's friend.
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There are 13 additional messages in this series.
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