Inland Empire: Riverside
Our Most Holy God - Audio
(congregation applauding) Hello church. Good morning. How are you this morning? Amen, still having a great new year? - Yes. - Amen, so far. Read my Bible every day this year, amen. Right, how 'bout you? Yep. Studied my Bible every day this year, amen? Pray it every day, been pure every day, how 'bout you? Amen, give 'em my weekly offering to God every week so far this year, amen? - Yes. - How 'bout you? (congregation laughing) Everybody's like, I don't know, and I think the Lord's probably watching, everybody be careful how I answer here. Amen, well hopefully your year has started off in a great fashion, and that you're doing super great with God, you feel like you're connecting with God, you're getting closer to the Lord, you feel like you're more and more grateful for your salvation, more and more grateful for the family of God, for your marriage, for your children, for your parents, amen? That's how everyone's feeling, right? Amen, and if that doesn't describe you, well, thank God that the year has just begun, and you do not have to have a year otherwise, you can still turn it around, amen? - Amen. - Amen church? Amen, because this year we want to go deeper with God, do we not? We want to go deeper in our relationship with God, deeper in our relationship with one another, deeper in our understanding of Scripture, deeper in our unining and prayer, deeper in our zeal and our goal to save the lost, amen? And we're all about that, amen? I'm just being asumptive here, right? I'm not wrong, am I? Amen, it's just weird how there's volume in this little quiet, there's volume, there's, this spins out what the question is. Well, I am certainly grateful for all the time we were able to spend yesterday, serving different people during our hope day of service, and our day of hope serving, whatever we call it, and to all the volunteers, all the brothers that work so hard on it, to Mary Dee who works so hard on it, and just ask that it's a great heart to serve other people, and it's great to be able today to receive some plaques, in a sense, but certainly we weren't expecting that, and I know next year we won't work any harder because we think you might get a bigger one, but we're still very, very grateful to receive those, and we feel blessed to be able to even be in an organization where other people help us to serve in ways that deep down we all want to anyway, but sometimes we get too busy, we can't find the time, or we don't make the time, or whatever the case is, and so it's great to be able to have a day, or a couple of days where it's set aside, and we say okay, we know for sure, hopefully I'll do it more days than just today, but we know for sure on this day, I'm gonna serve those that have less than we have, and do what I can to give back to God a little bit, and so to all the congregation who was able to serve yesterday, and to those of you who weren't able, but we're praying for those that were able, we're super, super grateful, thank you so much for that. The title of my lesson this morning is gonna be given to you right after we read, Isaiah, turn your Bibles to Isaiah, chapter six. You know, wow, he's taking this deeper thing serious, he's going to Old Testament. Amen, and Tom, great job, that was almost exactly how I said to say it, but it was really, really close, I appreciated what you shared during the communion. Let's read in the book of Isaiah here in chapter six, in verse starting in verse one. In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, seated on the throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings, with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying, and they were calling to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorpost and the threshold shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Whoa, to me I cried, I am ruined, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord almighty. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and with a loud cold, a hot cold in his hand, which he had taken with tongues from the altar, with it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for." And all the church said, "Awesome, and a man, right?" Let's have a word of prayer. Almighty Father, we bow before you this morning yet again, because we know that truly God, it would not be improper in many ways for us to constantly be bowing our heads and honor and homage to and of you. And God, we're just so grateful that you allow us to be Christian, so grateful. You give us your word of God, so grateful. You help us to understand things on a deeper level, that you've opened our eyes that we might perhaps see just a little glimpse of who you are and who you long for us to be, and what you created us for. And God, we just, we feel just amazed. God, we feel unworthy, just as Isaiah did. And God, we're just grateful to be together this morning. Thank you for your word, thank you for the fellowship, for the believers, all the saints, God, that you blessed us so richly. And you blessed each and every one of us with to be with each other, but mostly for Jesus, God. We know that Jesus really is who you are and has showed us clearly who you are, and we're forgiven because of him and what he sacrificed and what you allowed him sacrificed. And it's precious name, we pray, amen. Well, this morning, I wanna talk about our most holy God. And I think that it's really easy to do this and hard not to do this, which is, no matter what we're talking about as preachers, what our subject is, it's very easily, even when we're trying to do a sermon on God, that somehow it becomes more about people. Right? And throw more of a sip of trick or something like that. Is that right, Tom? What am I asking Todd for, broadest nose? So, okay. (congregation laughs) Right, it's like missing impossible, it's not all gold. So, but the words of God are. So I think that what I wanna try to do is, yes, I'll talk a little bit about us and to us, but I really want us to try to be able to catch a glimpse of who God is, the way that Isaiah was able to hear in chapters six. And in the opening chapters, the opening verses of this incredible chapter, the famous prophet Isaiah finds himself standing at the great temple of Jerusalem. And the temple of Jerusalem was magnificent, incredible. You know, it was probably one of the largest known structures or man-made structures in the earth at that time. Certainly probably the biggest thing by far that Isaiah himself had ever seen. It had massive pillars, you know, that I remember, you know, getting to go through Rome once and seeing, I think it was the palladium where it had these just monstrous pillars. Even the front door, remember, you know, standing against that and taking a picture and the door was, you know, seemed almost as big as this room. I mean, it was just like, you know, how did they do that? You know, were guys back then as strong as, guys like me are today or they could lift that up and you just, you wouldn't think they'd be as big but nutrition and everything being what it was and wasn't. But you know, certainly Isaiah was just in awe of what he saw here, you know, the gold-planted ceiling, you know, just the massive temple of God. And certainly we see that Isaiah just, you know, entering into this temple in the way that he did, weakened his knees. Probably just, you know, his jaw probably dropped as he was staring at it, you know, looking at this massive structure. Probably thought what you and I would think, you know, and even what I thought when I was staring at those pillars in that huge door at the, you know, big. This is really big. And so Isaiah was probably thinking that as well. But he experiences something even that takes him even further. He's shaken a little bit by what he's already seen and then his knees begin to collapse because what he sees next. He looks up, suddenly in the air above Isaiah, he sees these large creatures. You know, incredible creatures. And they have, you know, three pairs of wings, six wings and, you know, with two of the wings, they're covering, you know, their eyes. And with the other two, they're covering their feet, which, you know, so euphemism for their shameful or private parts. And with the other two wings, they're flying around. Flying about him, you know, and above him, you know, with stunning speed and, you know, singing this thunderous song. And at the sound of their voices, it says that the door post, these magnificent, you know, post began to tremble, that they even shook. And then it says the temple was filled with smoke at that point in time as well. And so the idea of the word probably came to Isaiah's mind is like the temple is amazing, but, you know, it's big, but these things are even greater. Perhaps these things are even greater than the temple, something that couldn't be imagined. And then something happens, which sends Isaiah from on his knees to falling on his face. And he suddenly understands why these awesome angelic, you know, beings, angels, if you were, flying around and why they're covering their feet and their eyes. In a sense, it's this desperate act of humility because as great as they are, as amazing and magnificent as they are, there's a presence there that's even greater than they are. Isaiah says, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and just the train of his robe, you know, just the thinnest part of what trailed behind the Lord. It says, just that filled this magnificent temple. And at the glimpse of just that, the angelic warriors who erupted in the song went, holy, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the earth is full of his glory. You know, it's been said that if you're plotting reality on a scale from, oh my goodness, to, oh my glory, then there is big, or there is big, then there is greater and far beyond all human categories. There is God. And that's what Isaiah saw. That's what he saw these, you know, he saw this temple and he was, you know, knocked down, knocked back by this temple. And then beyond that, he saw these creatures that were, you know, magnificent, even beyond this magnificent structure that he saw that he'd never seen anything like it. But they were even more amazing. And yet they were covering their eyes and their feet because they were in a presence. They were in the presence of something far beyond themselves. And I don't know about all of us, but I know sometimes I struggle to see God as being that great. Like I know he is, and if you ask me, I would tell you, he's like nothing we can explain. I mean, heaven's even beyond what we can imagine. But God's greater than heaven, you know, and I don't always, you know, just find myself in awe of God. And maybe you do, maybe you walk around, you know, just in awe all the time and every little thing you see, every, you know, reminds you of God and you're going, he's bigger, you know, but I have to sometimes focus on that. I have to allow myself to really think about it or study the scriptures or hear a lesson like this and go, wow, wait a minute, God is incredible. You know, would you be pretty amazed if all of a sudden you saw these giant six-wing, you know, creatures flying around in here? And the whole building was shaking because they were thunderously singing out and proclaiming holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is full of his glory. I don't think any of us would be gone. (congregation laughing) I've seen Lord of the Rings, I've seen those, you know, I mean. (congregation laughing) (congregation laughing) Because what if they really were here, right? And this place was shaking and it was filled with smoke. We would begin to realize even on a much deeper level that truly God is a holy, holy, holy. You know, something what the Bible means when it tells us that God is holy. And on one level, you know, the word holy, you know what it means, you know, set apart as indifferent from or other than. And we talk about the attributes of God, you know, whatever they may be. Sometimes if we describe God in terms that we can understand, you know, for instance, we might say that God is sufficient or good or trustworthy or loving. And we can draw on our experiences from people we've seen and we feel like really exemplify those traits or those characteristics and we can kind of go, okay, I can kind of get my arms around God being trustworthy or God being loving or God being sufficient or good, you know, 'cause we've kind of seen that. But when it comes to holy, it's really even by definition, it means something other than what we're used to, something other than what we are, something other than what we have really seen. One guy writes it this way, he says, "I saw an insect crawling across the floor "of my study and I walked right by it. "The bug froze in its tracks. "Was this because the insect really understood "the difference between me and it? "Do you think it could take in anything more than the fact "that the edge of my shoe was colossally larger than it was? "Staring at life from all of three millimeters high, "do you think it could understand what it was "to move through the world at six, four? "Do you suppose that the insect had any capacity "to perceive the gap between the little nerve bundle "in its head and the power of even my very ordinary human mind? "And even if my little brain contains at least the potential "to compose literature, engineer, skyscrapers, "design a space shuttle, or unravel the working of genes, "what you suppose is the capacity of the creator "of the universe. "God is to me, not as I was to that bug, "but as I am to one of the tiniest subatomic particles "that make up that insect. "On a scale from blind and puny to brilliant and powerful, "there is small, big and greater and then far beyond. "Imagineing anything else, there is God." And so when we try to figure out, what does it mean to be holy and what makes our God holy? Or how is it that our God is holy? We're saying that God stands apart from us. You're familiar with my ways or not your ways. My words are not your words. And we wrestle sometimes, yeah, but we're created in your image. And yet he still says, "Even though I created you "and I created you in my image, my ways are not your ways. "My thoughts are not your thoughts. "Why? Because I am so far beyond anything "you will ever be in this life." Does God say it pridefully? No, he just simply says it factually. It's not what Tom was sharing. No, you're slaves, it's just how it is. We may not like it, we may not feel good about it, we may not think it's fair, but it's how it is. Right? It's like the price of gasoline, right? We all know, you know, how unfair that is. We all know how borderline illegal it is for gas to be, yeah, but in Europe, I don't live in, that's why I live here. I want to be in a country that's AAA rated, you know? No, that's the kind of thing I typically will, you know, educate and school you on separately, individually, amen? But suffice to say, we know it's unfair, but it is what it is, you can't go to the gas pump and go, "I'm not paying it." You know, I'm protesting, "Well, then there, "you'll sit there with your car." And then pretty soon or later, you're going to get beat up because somebody's going to be the wrong person who wants you to move that car and decide they waited long enough, right? Don't make it beat me up. Okay, I know you tough guys, it wouldn't happen, but... But that's what we're saying about God is that He stands apart from us, He's different from or other than us. And He is that way, certainly we know an intelligence and in power, we understand that to some extent, but it also, you know, holiness also carries it with the sense of superior character. You know, that God is all totally different from us, even in His character. We may try to emulate some of the attributes of His character, but we are not like God. You know, our English word holy actually derives itself from the Anglo-Saxon word, "helig." And what that word means is well or whole, and so to say that God is holy is to say that He's not just, you know, so much more intelligent or so much more powerful than we are at a level that we can't imagine, but it's also to say that He's healthy in a way in which you and I have never seen. And so in his, in one of his books, A.W. Tozer writes, God is the absolute quintessence of moral excellence, infinitely perfect in His righteousness, purity, and resuscitude. We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by simply thinking of someone or something very pure, and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire his wisdom, but his holiness in the sense of absolute health, he cannot even imagine. Only the spirit of the holy one can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. And you know, I can remember visiting my dad in the hospital, and my dad was always, you know, a really healthy guy, and, you know, he and my mom adopted my sister and I when I was almost 10 years old and my sister 11, and, you know, my dad was raised on a ranch in Colorado, and just, you know, about my height, you know, pretty tall, and, as I said, but my dad was really, really healthy. You know, like you think of, you know, a farm boy, right? I mean, my dad grew up on a ranch in Colorado, he had big arms, big legs, just, you know, and really one of the greatest guys. I mean, I love my dad, you know, the way Mike loved his dad, just honored him and loved him and appreciated him, respected him, and I always had this, you know, my goal always was, you know, I want my dad to become a Christian, he's one of the best people I know, and so my thought was, you know, someday my dad will retire, and, you know, I'll live in a warm place, like, you know, here, or Arizona or something, and, you know, when I'm a little bit older, Arizona, might not seem as hot to me as it would now. But, and then my dad, my mom and dad will come live there, and I'll, you know, play golf with my dad, and we'll get that time, and I'll convert him. You know, my dad will become a Christian, and I always had this, and there was even part of me, you know, it's like, sometimes when, you know, some of you guys, you buy a lottery ticket, and you really think you're gonna win. You just thought you had some kind of divine thing, and, you know, and, you know, you don't, and you're very disappointed, but, you know, then my dad got sick, and it's like, my dad really, you know, was, in a sense, even though I'm adopted, I hardly ever get sick, and not, you know, even when I do it doesn't last very long, typically I'm very lucky in that way, and my dad was very healthy like that. Like, I never remember him being home, you know, staying home from work because he was sick, or any of those kinds of things, you know, and he got sick, and it was hard to deal with. But, you know, I saw my dad when he was sick, and he already, you know, after he got sick, and he already looked worse. But he still looked, you know, kind of like my dad, and then, you know, we, you know, came back home, of course, that they were in Colorado, and Angela were here, and initially we were in Texas, but then I went back to see my dad after he'd been put in a home, because my mom could no longer, you know, take care of him, and it was like, wow. I mean, he just looked so different, you know, and why, different from what, well, different from the way I'd always known him, you know, and so it's kind of, when you think of that, we typically spend time around people without disease, you know, but what if, you know, just thinking about how different my dad looked from the way he was before, and but what if, you know, I grew up in an oncology ward or something, and I had not a severe of cancers, maybe some of the other people, but that's what I grew up around. You know, and so I only saw that. Well, maybe I only saw stage four people, and I might think that I myself, I'm in pretty good shape, because that was my right, my example. That's all I saw, that's all I knew, was sick people who were even sicker than I, and so I might look around and go okay, I'm actually in pretty good shape here. And in some ways, you know, that's the story that the Bible tells us about us. You know, in the book of Genesis, it says that humanity once lived with a great deal, more intelligence or power and health of character than we do now, you know, they were living in communion with God. Human beings in that sense were holy beings, not on the same level as God, but much more dramatically than they are today. They walked with God, they took care of the garden, they fell worshiped with God, they loved one another, and then of course, sin entered. They turned their backs on God on the source of the true wisdom and power and health, if you will, and the original sin became, what, a spiritual cancer? And now we're all born with it, and we've lived with it, that disease our whole life. And many people today, they think maybe perhaps that they are intelligent enough to live without God. They believe themselves maybe even powerful enough to master the creation, right? Tom and I were talking this morning, you know, about going to the moon, was that really a good thing, or what does that, you know, and how some tell, I can't really tell what he's talking about, but it scared him when he saw it, 'cause he thought now people aren't even afraid of that. Man will think even more highly of himself than he did before, and some people believe that. They regard themselves as healthy enough, maybe even to merit heaven, or certainly healthy enough to escape hell, right? Because they're not near as bad as this guy, and if he's going to hell, and I'm way better than him, then I'm pretty healthy. If this guy has stage four, even though I have cancer, I'm pretty, and that's how we are, because we compare ourselves to what we see around us. You know, even ostensibly religious people talk about, you know, God sort of has the big guy upstairs, right? Or they look at Jesus or God as a Mr. Rogers, and Pink put it this way, he said, that people speak of God as if you were very much like an indulgent old man, who himself had no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the indiscretions of youth. And yet God is a consuming fire. You know, God imparts wisdom to the human spirit of the Holy Certainly, and some people, you know, who see that may fall terrified of God, but God doesn't wink at indiscretions. And you know, as one of the ministers of this church, I mean, it's been, you know, heartbreaking. All the sin that you see over the years, but certainly even this young year, different sin in our fellowship that you're probably totally unaware of, but that where you just, and sometimes you wonder, well, who's he talking to? Why is he, you know, and yet there's sin? And I think sometimes it's because we don't understand how holy God is. We don't understand what it is that God is doing. We don't understand how lost we are and how lost we remain unless we stay close to God. But God is a consuming fire, the Bible says, and when we see glimpse of God, they need to have the same response that Isaiah had, woe to me, I am ruined for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty. And that response of Isaiah is the appropriate one, and it's one that most of us, when we really deeply study the Bible, when we begin to see our sin, we typically get to that point where we go, wow, I am unclean, I am unworthy. I know when I was studying the Bible with a group of young men that I told you this before, but that's how I felt. I'm not even worthy to be around these guys. Look at the way they live versus the way I've been living. They're so much better than me, it's how I felt. They're so much pure, they're so much cleaner, they're just naive in a good way, it's how I felt. And then some of them share with me what their life was like before they were the way they became. And I was like, ah, not so different. Maybe not as bad, I know a lot of you are thinking anyway, I know they weren't as bad as me, but not so different. But yet I just felt so unclean, right? So unworthy when I saw that, and especially when I saw what Jesus did for me, when I saw why Jesus had to do what he did for me. The Bible underlines the fact that the response of a holy God is not some indulgent wink, but rather wrath. You know, some of us think that's simply the teaching of perhaps one of the Hellfire, you know, Old Testament prophets, but let's look at some words of Jesus. Michael, can you put the first scripture up there? In Matthew chapter 12. But I tell you that men will have to give a count on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken, for by your words, you will be acquitted and by your words, you will be condemned. Next verse, Matthew 16, verse 27, "For the Son of Man is going to come in his father's glory and with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done." And one more. Luke 21, verse 23, "How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. There will be great distress in the land and wrath against his people." And of course, that's Jesus speaking. There will be great distress in the land and wrath against his people. And of course, Jesus speaking out for all the inhalers, for all those people who have not turned themselves in, if you will, to Jesus Christ. And see, the Bible says, listen to another example. James Bryan Smith writes this, "In the same way that God's love is not a silly, sappy feeling, but rather a consistent desire for the good of his people. So also the wrath of God is not a crazed rage, but rather a consistent opposition to sin and evil. It is a mindful, objective, rational response. God is not indecisive when it comes to evil. God is fiercely and forcefully opposed to the things that destroy his precious people. God is against my sin because he is for me." And he writes it this way, "The biblical doctrine of God's wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise, and loving Creator who hates, yes, hates and hates implacably. Anything that spoils, defaces, distorts, or damages his beautiful creation. And in particular, anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he's neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful, a child of use, he's neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit bomb bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving nor good nor wise." And see, in a sense, we can understand that when we think of big stuff, we think of Hitler or something like that, like that. Of course, we expect God to be mad. And of course, we expect him to do something about it. When we see injustice in our world, we get upset and say, why is God allowing that? And what are we really saying? Why doesn't he stop that? Why doesn't he take those people out who are doing that? That's what we're really saying. But see, then when it comes to our sin, oh, well, all I did was lust a little bit. Well, all I did was divorce my husband or wife. Well, all I did was, you know, be hatefulness. All I did was cheat a little bit on my-- all I did was, you know, get mad at somebody and sweat. You know, whatever we did is little. And everybody-- it's the Mr. Rogers. It's the one that God kind of winks at, like, you know, dude, nobody's perfect. Don't worry about that one. There's a lot of big sin going on. You don't need to wear-- so what? You looked at a couple of pictures on the internet. Are you Satan? No, you're not-- that's what we want to tell ourselves. That's what Satan wants us to tell ourselves. And yet, if God allows those things to go-- then he is neither loving nor wise. And that takes a more mature spiritual perspective to see it that way. But nonetheless, it's true. Someone said, God longs with such holy pathos for the healing of his creatures and his creation that he will allow to go to hell anyone who will not accept the healing that he offers to them. And you think about why is that? Well, think about how long could heaven remain heaven if God just allowed everybody in? Because he's loving, so just it would be just like this. How many-- you know, you may have had a moment here or two. You said, man, this is heaven on earth. You know, in the glory days of the '90s, and the cowboys who were in all of Super Bowls. I mean, I feel you. Heaven on earth. I mean, life is upside down now. You even have the 49ers win an in-play off team. And they win. It's just incredible mind-bloggling to me. But, you know, God also still got this year. The Raiders, again, didn't make it, you know. And no, but I think, you know, you still need to visit our prison ministry and love up on those Raider fans there. I think in some ways, Mike is a Raider fan because he feels like it shows his true rights as just a rise above. You know what I mean? If I can love the Raiders and still be right, just follow me as I follow Christ. But see, one requirement for going to heaven is to recognize, as Isaiah did, that you and I are not even close to healthy. We're an unclean person. We're an unclean people, and without the touch of the great position, we have no hope. But praise be to God, right? We do have hope. Amen? The Bible says that God is a consuming fighter in Hebrews, chapter 12. And we need to make no mistake that his holiness will consume sin in the end. And the end, guys, God's holiness will just simply consume sin. It will just consume it because that's who God is in his holiness, and he cannot be otherwise. But in the meantime, God's holiness is purifying us. It's purifying anyone who turns to him and turns to Jesus. Here are the words again of Isaiah here. "Then one of the serifs flew to me with a live cold in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar." So even angels couldn't touch these colds because they had to get tongs, you know. But it says, with it, he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, and you're sin atoned for. And so brothers and sisters, in a sense, let us live up to what we've already obtained. How dare we go back to the ways of the world, the shameful ways, the things that we repented of, the things that we long to no longer be? We need to be a righteous people. We won't be perfect in this life. This won't be heaven, but we need to strive for it. We need to hate sin as best we can. Try to hate it in the way that God does. And yet we also need to love righteousness. We need to love our brothers and sisters. Even when they're innocent, we need to love them and care for them and nurture them and maybe rebuke them at times. And sometimes even as the Bible says, kick them out for a while. Because God is a holy God, but those of you who have not been touching its way by Jesus, won't you make a decision? Either continue sending the Bible, or get serious about sending the Bible, or start sending the Bible to find out how you can become clean after being unclean. Those of you who need to be restored to the Lord, when will you just be humble and just say, whatever I need to do, you just tell me what to do and what manner and I'll do it no matter how long it, I mean, just having the heart of what God says here. Because our God is the most holy God. And you know, it's like sometimes we see all this sin that goes on, even in our fellowship, we start thinking, are we just playing church? We have so many, you know, and obviously I'm more, you know, affiliated with the marriage ministry than anything else. I'm sure in other ways it's the same way every ministry, but I just marvel. How can you live like this? You don't have to live like this. Your marriage is glorified. God, you can be happy loving people, but we're not humble enough and we're not striving for our own personal righteousness enough. We are seeing everybody else's sins being so much greater than our own. And guys, I hate to, but it destroys our fellowship. We can't live with the kind of glory and the kind of love and the kind of hope and the kind of healing that we need to be. Those are the people we need to be. Not the ones still striving to be healed, every single way to be healing others. With the help we are ourselves have received. God has given us a great calling to live as a holy people. He sent us a part of his holy nation. And some of us, even if I look in the onset, we just look away, we're not even paying, I don't know if we're even paying attention. Do we really get it? But we serve a holy God. The kind when Isaiah saw just the train of his thing, you know, the train of his robe. Yeah, kind of lose a little power when you get there. But when he saw the train of him, he just said, "Woe to me, I'm a man of unclean lips." When the seraphim saw it, they're like, "Holy, holy, holy." And that's almost all they're seeing. And just the train of his robe filled this massive temple because that's how holy and great and grand our God is. That's who we serve. We need to live up to what we've already obtained. Amen? Amen, church. (audience applauding) (audience applauding) (audience clapping)
Sunday lesson by Doug Wens.