The Holiness of God

We'll read the first seven verses of Isaiah 6. Please stand together with me for this reading from God's Holy Word.! Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.

The whole earth is full of His glory. The sound of their voices, the doorposts, and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Woe to me, I cried, I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hands, which he had taken with tongs 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 atoned for. Deep in the heart of the jungle of Central Africa, there lives a tribe of pygmies.

The average height of their adult men is four foot eleven. That's about to my shoulder, and I'm a man of short stature.

But imagine these people living in total isolation from the outside world. None of these men have any idea whatsoever that they are short.

In fact, they feel rather tall when they look at their wives, who are six inches shorter, and the children, who are even shorter still.

And some of the five foot guys really think they're soaring, because they're an inch or two taller than their fellows. And then one day an airplane drops a man with a parachute down into their tribe.

It's Shaquille O'Neal. And he's seven foot one. And they're all huddled around him, and the tallest is looking at his belly button.

And suddenly their world changes. And for the first time, they realize that they are short. After all. And they're very conscious of it in his presence.

Just how short they are. But until Shaq made his appearance, they all thought they were pretty tall guys. Now our world is full of people who think that they are pretty good guys.

And when they look around at others and compare themselves to them, they say, Yes, I'm as good as the next guy. And when they look down at someone who's worse, they really feel better.

And we can always find someone worse than ourselves. And it all makes us feel pretty good about ourselves. And then one day God comes into the picture.

He's been there all along, but we have not noticed him. And suddenly he becomes clear to us for who he is.

And we suddenly feel very dirty and sinful ourselves. And we take up the confession of Romans 3.

There is no one righteous, not even one. All have turned aside. They have together become worthless. There is not one who seeks after God.

There is not one who does what is good. You see, the pygmies didn't know how short they were until they saw Shaq. And sinners don't know how sinful we are until we see God in his holiness.

And our world and this generation, with its inflated self-esteem, its high opinion of man's goodness, and its vaulted self-righteousness, only shows how ignorant we are of God's holiness.

The wise man said in Proverbs 9, 10, knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Which means you don't understand anything until you see it in the light of the Holy One.

Calvin says you can never know yourself until you come to know this God. And sadly, the church is only a half step ahead of the world in this business of knowing God.

And where God's holiness is lost sight of or is minimized, then pride and self-righteousness is maximized. And confession of sin remains a rare thing.

And there's no fear of God before their eyes. And his laws are not obeyed. And his holiness is not pursued. And people are conformed to this world instead of to Christ.

And the Savior of sinners is not prized. Worship degenerates into man-centered entertainment. God's love is taken for granted.

His grace is no longer amazing. Why? All because men do not have a clue as to the holiness of the Holy One. And are all these elements not all too common in the world today, in the church today?

And if we look at our own hearts, do we not wrestle with the same in our own hearts today? It's hard to think of an attribute of God that is more needed today than a knowledge of the holiness of God.

God, we need to pay attention to the seraphim's cry of Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. We need to hear the voice from the bush again speaking, Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

We need to live our lives in the grip of God's soul-shaking holiness. So we come today in our study of the attributes of God to the attribute of His holiness.

When we look at our Bibles and we weigh it against the ignorance in the world on this topic, we immediately see that the ignorance of man on God's holiness has nothing to do with the lack of information about it in Scripture.

My concordance found some 600 texts on holy and holiness this week. It's something that God Himself places great emphasis upon.

In other words, God wants us to know that He is holy. So we begin then with the emphasis on God's holiness. You won't have time to turn up these passages, but listen to them.

The witness of Scripture. Psalm 99.9 The Lord our God is holy. Now that's just straightforward. The Lord our God is holy.

Joshua 24.19 He is a holy God. How does Jesus refer to the first person in the Trinity? Holy Father.

John 17.11 Jesus Himself, the second person of the Trinity, is referred to as holy, blameless, and pure.

Hebrews 7.26 The demons know who He is, even. We know who you are, the Holy One of God. Peter calls Him the Holy and Righteous One.

And then the third person of the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit. We sang of Him, Come Spirit of Holiness. And then this holy God lives in a high and holy place.

Isaiah 57.15 Heaven is His holy dwelling place. 2 Chronicles 30.27 His earthly dwelling place was in the temple and in the tabernacle.

It was the most holy place. The holy of holies. Why? Because the holy God was dwelling there. For the same reason, Jerusalem is called the holy city.

Mount Zion is called the holy mountain. The people of God are called the holy people. The Lord's day is called the Lord's holy day.

You see, anything that has relation to this holy God is thereby constituted holy. He's that holy.

Psalm 97.12 speaks of His holy name. Now we've seen before that a name stands for all that the person is. And when God says that His name is holy, that means that everything He is is holy.

So that's one reason why we've saved the holiness of God for last. Or it seems like we're coming to the end of this study. To shine its light back on every attribute that we've seen about our God to this point.

His wisdom is holy wisdom. His love is holy love. His sovereignty is holy sovereignty. His wrath is holy wrath. His grace is holy grace.

His mercy is holy mercy. Holy goodness. And on and on we could go. No wonder John Howe, the Puritan, called holiness the attribute of attributes.

Because it attributes something to every attribute. It casts its beauty on all aspects of God's character. He is holy in all He is.

and He is holy in all He does. Psalm 77, 13 Your ways, O God, are holy. God never acts in any way other than holiness. His words are called holy words.

Jeremiah 23, 9 The writings of this God are called holy scriptures. 2 Timothy 3, 15 The law is holy. The commandment is holy and just and good.

In Psalm 89, 35 God swears by His holiness. As a man swears by that which is most precious to him God swears by His holiness.

He puts forth His holiness as the pledge upon which He will swear. And so we see this attribute of holiness exalted and lifted up above all the other attributes of God.

We see it in the worship of the angelic creatures surrounding the throne both in Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4. Day and night they never stop crying.

Not love, love, love. Not power, power, power. But holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

That's the thing that strikes them. Exalted above all our holy God. So men ignorant of God's holiness is not due to any lack of information but rather to the blindness of fallen man.

The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers that they do not see the light of the glory of the holiness of who this God is that they've sinned against.

There's a propensity in man to think more highly of himself and more lowly of God. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty.

Though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see, only thou art holy. There is none beside thee, perfect in power, in love, and purity.

So we find from this emphasis in the scriptures how important God's holiness is to himself. He's very jealous about the honor of his holiness.

But it's not only something that we see that is important to him, but we see that this must be important to us since after all we are the recipients of this book from heaven that reveals this holy God.

It's to us that we have this message. I am holy, holy, holy. This is an important message for us to get. So we turn from the emphasis on God's holiness to the meaning, secondly, of God's holiness.

The meaning. What does it mean that God is holy? When we think of holy, we immediately think of the idea of purity. Someone being morally pure, sinlessness, uprightness, the absence of evil.

And we'll see that this is indeed a part of holiness. But the basic and more fundamental idea behind this word holy is to be set apart.

It's to be separated. Examples from the scripture that we're familiar with is the Sabbath day. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

There's our word again. What was to be done on this? It was to be set apart from all the other days. And the work of the other six days is to be done on the other six days.

This is a day set apart as different for rest and worship of our God. The priests were called holy in the Old Testament.

They were holy. They were taken from men and the usual occupations of the day and they were set apart to serve in the temple of God. The utensils in the temple were holy.

There's a fork. It's no longer to be used for supper. It's now set apart to be used only for forking the sacrifices, the holy sacrifices.

This is the idea. The people of God were holy. They were set apart from all the nations of the world to be a people for God. They were holy. They were set apart.

And so when the Bible speaks of God being holy, most fundamentally it is telling us that there is none like him. He is set apart from all that there is.

From everybody and anything else that exists, he is set apart. Exodus 15, 11, Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

And the clear answer is there is none. There is none like you. And that's the summary of the basic meaning of the word holy. There is none like him. 1 Samuel 2, 2, There is no one holy like the Lord.

There is no one beside you. There is no rock like our God. Nearly 50 times he takes the title or the name the holy one of Israel or the shortened version the holy one.

Isaiah loves that word. He that title for God. He uses it some 27 times half of the times in the Bible that we read the holy one or the holy one of Israel. Isaiah is using it. And is it any wonder when we read from Isaiah 6 what he saw he saw the holy one.

And so he loves to speak about him as the holy one of Israel. Now think of that name kids.

The holy one. How many can have that name? How many in the whole universe can I mean John is a common name and a lot of people have that name.

That's fine. But how many people can have this name the holy! One. Well only one can't they? Or else he's not the holy one.

Or else he's not the holy one. Or else he's not the holy set apart from all others none like him one.

Everything about that name sets him apart in a league of his own. In a class of his own. We sometimes say that don't we about a ball player that's maybe batting 100 points higher than the rest of the group.

And we say he's in a league of his own. Well we don't really mean that. But when we say of God he's in a league of his own we mean that. He's the only one in his class.

There's no one else in the same class as him. He's absolutely unique. He's the holy one. And so he says in Isaiah 40 in verse 25 to whom will you compare me or who is my equal says the holy one.

Come on who will you compare me to. It's a challenge. No he's set apart from the rest. He's absolutely other. It's his otherness.

His otherness. Revelation 15 for who will not fear you O Lord and bring glory to your name for you alone are holy.

You alone are holy. Holy intrinsically in who you are in your being. Holy through and through. Holy all the time. Perfectly holy.

Think of those who are crying holy holy holy holy. These are seraphim. Some sort of angelic creature. We don't know a whole lot about them but they were holy unfallen creatures.

Sinless creatures. These angels of heaven were holy and when they appeared to men they scared them to death. They were so brilliant in light and holiness. Just one angel.

And here they are and they're saying to each other constantly day and night without rest. Holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty.

What is it that strikes these holy ones as something that's amazing? It's the greater holiness of him. There's no one like him.

God and so the holy ones ascribe separateness to this holy holy holy God. The archangel Michael is his name we find in scripture.

Perhaps one of the closest angels to God. Again, we don't know much about it. We just know he's called the archangel. You know what his name means? Some of you have the name Michael.

Maybe you know who is like God. Get the scene. Here's the angel closest to God.

The thing that strikes him and that his very name confesses continually is who's like him.

Don't look at me. Who's like him? And who is he? He's the archangel. But who's like him? That's his name. Who's like him? Is it any wonder we find angels whenever men are falling at their feet and bowing down to worship them?

They pull them up and say don't worship me. Worship God. Worship God. He alone is holy. Who is like him? Well, we must be sure that we think about God this way then.

We must think about God this way. He's not just one of the best options out there. He's not just one of the best religions out there. No, he is the only true God.

He is the only holy one. There is none like him. He has an exclusive place in the universe and hear me, he deserves the exclusive place in your heart.

Sanctify the Lord in your heart. Set him apart as holy over everything in your heart and life. He is the holy one.

So the holiness of God means there's none like him. No one or thing like him. But then there's the other aspect of holiness that refers to his absolute moral purity.

There is none like him in purity in cleanness. And in the Bible that is referred to under the image of light whereas sin is referred to under the image of darkness.

And in 1 John chapter 1 and verse 5 we hear this from the apostle. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you. God is light.

He is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Think of the sun.

The sun is light but it's not light like God is light because even the sun has its dark spots doesn't it? As you can see under certain lenses it's so bright you dare not look at it with the naked eye or you'll go blind but even the sun has its dark spots but God is light and in him there is no darkness at all and John heaps up negatives there's a triple negative in the Greek three times he's saying no there is no darkness in him no none at all and I can't help but hear the echo of John to the angelic creatures triple holy holy holy no darkness in him no none at all the holy one absolute moral purity he's totally free from all evil from the least impurity or taint of sin you'll look in vain to find anything amiss with this

God he's holier than we think he's holier than we think the common attitude toward God is that he's tolerant and non judgmental he's a God who is tolerant of sin he kind of shrugs his shoulders where he sees well what's a God to do men will be sinners and he must tolerate it that's the common idea he's indifferent to it just winks at it turns his back on it oh well the prophet Habakkuk says your eyes are too pure to behold or to look on evil you cannot tolerate wrong your eyes are too pure to to look on evil kids it's not saying that God can't see evil all things in all creation are open to God's sight he sees everything everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account you your eyes are too pure to look on evil doesn't mean he doesn't see it it rather means that he cannot look on it with indifference where

God sees sin he is not indifferent he cannot tolerate! it it's impossible because he's holy if he wasn't holy he could look on it and tolerate it but because he's holy he cannot tolerate it holiness is not only a love of purity but it's a hatred of impurity the two are always together you cannot love purity without hating impurity you cannot love the light without hating the darkness and Jesus is said to have loved righteousness and to have hated iniquity this is our God there is none like him in moral purity so what's the meaning of holiness it's his otherness none like him and his absolute moral purity none as holy and pure as God thirdly what we find is that the holiness of

God creates a huge problem for us sinners the huge problem the problem of God's holiness now folks this is our greatest problem in life and it will affect us for all eternity if it's not solved and the problem is this how can a holy God this holy God who's revealed himself in scripture how can he live with guilty sinners sinful men how can the holy God live with sinful men he's too pure to tolerate evil psalm 5 4 through 6 David says you're not a God who takes!

pleasure in evil with you the wicked cannot dwell they cannot dwell with you the arrogant cannot stand in your presence you hate all who do wrong you destroy those who tell lies bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors the wicked can't dwell with him it's impossible what fellowship does light have with darkness well they can't have any fellowship because as soon as the light arrives the darkness leaves or as soon as darkness comes the light must leave because there's no fellowship well can darkness dwell with light no can God the holy one dwell with sinful man no it's impossible you might as well expect God and the devil to go arm in arm together as to expect God the holy one to dwell with sinful men

Stephen Sharnock says a dog's vomit is not as nauseous to us as sin is to God with you the wicked cannot stand they cannot live with him that's the problem throughout the Bible Psalm 15 1 Lord who may dwell in your sanctuary who may live on your holy hill only he whose life is blameless who does what is right Psalm 24 3 to 4 who may ascend the hill of the Lord who may stand in his holy place he who has clean hands and a pure heart qualify can you live with this God throughout the Old Testament you see the problem how can sinful men dwell with the holy God God comes down to meet with Moses on Mount Sinai he says tell the people not to touch the mountain because when they do they will surely die why was the mountain off limit because

God was coming down to meet with Moses there and sinners cannot meet with the holy God what happens when the holy one and sinful ones come into contact the sinners die they cannot dwell with him Isaiah 33 14 the sinners in Zion are terrified trembling grips the righteous who of us can dwell with the consuming fire who of us can dwell with everlasting!

That's a title for God the consuming fire our God is a consumer who can live with that and so they're terrified this is a problem you see it's a problem every one of us have because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God when the children of Israel are ready to leave Mount Sinai and go to the promised land the Lord said to Moses you go up to the land flowing with milk and honey but I will not go with you because you are a stiff neck people and I might destroy you on the way because God the holy one and sinners cannot walk together the message is clear it was clear in the tabernacle and temple worship God no no only the priests and only the high priests and only once a year there was this huge thick curtain that kept everyone else out he could only come in when

God said come in and on God's terms and anyone else that ventured in would be struck dead God the holy one and sinful man cannot dwell together remember the ark that was in the most holy place that too was holy because God dwelt there above the ark one day the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines oh they thought they had it they were showing it as a trophy and putting it before their god Dagon and you remember how Dagon fell over during the night before the ark of the covenant and they started to send it around to the different cities because as soon as the ark of the dead now the men the

Israelites of Beth Shemesh say who can stand in the presence of the Lord this holy God where shall we send the ark next who can stand in the presence of the Lord this holy God and folks if you've never wrestled with that problem if you've never sensed there's a problem here God is so holy and I am so sinful then you've not yet come to terms with just how holy he is he is more holy than you think you've not yet come to terms with the level of holiness that he requires if you would live with him so the Bible sets before us this problem and it's all of our problem but the Bible also records men who became aware of God's holiness and its effect upon them and we see this in the next point the reflex response of seeing

God's holiness what happened to those who became aware of God's holiness well they were struck with their own uncleanness and we had it read for us in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up and holy holy holy holy the angels say and immediately what does he say woe is me I'm a man of unclean lips you know what those lips were used for he's a prophet he speaks the holy words of God and he'd use those lips if you look back in chapter five to pronounce woe on the sinners of Israel woe to them woe to them but when he sees Jesus Christ in his holiness in this vision he says woe is me and these lips are unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king I've seen something of his holiness and Isaiah's response is not peculiar it's the instinctive response of all men when the light of God's holiness comes home to them they feel it instinctively their own dirtiness and sin there's

Peter he's out fishing not because he wants to he's fished all night and he hasn't caught anything and he tells his Lord he tells him to go let down the nets Lord I've not been successful I've done it all night nevertheless at your word I will let down the nets and so he puts out into the deep and there's the Lord in the boat with him and such a miraculous catch of fish that both boats the other boat had to come along and they put some of the fish in that have with Jesus just sticks around and helps him he falls down in the boat at Jesus feet and says depart from me Lord I'm a sinful man what happened in the boat that day he saw as he had never seen before that the one in the boat with him was the holy one the one that there is no one like him and he's in the boat with me depart from me

Lord I'm a sinful man John the apostle lived three years of his life with Jesus the holy one but when he was on the island of Patmos he saw Jesus not with his glory veiled but he saw Jesus in his glorified state and bless his heart he couldn't say anything he couldn't even keep himself conscious down he went as a dead man before the holiness the otherness of the Lord Jesus and do you remember Saul of Tarsus he felt pretty good about his own holiness until he met the holy one on the road to Damascus and then the Christ hating the self righteous Pharisee was humbled in the dust and down he went and from that day forth he speaks lowly of himself I'm the chief of sinners

I'm sinner number one I'm unworthy to even be called an apostle well he had met the holy one and what we're seeing in these examples is that when men meet him they're made aware of their uncleanness the holiest of men have felt themselves spiritual pygmies before the glory of his holiness the proudest candle that's lighting up the dark room you take it out into the noonday sun it feels completely inadequate that's it we get so used to comparing ourselves with other candles that we think we're really bright and we're really light and we're really holy but we've not been comparing ourselves to him who is light and in whom there is no darkness at all it all has to do with who you compare yourself to and these men when they compared themselves to the holy one went down with humility and a sense of sin so we've seen our problem these men had a problem we come lastly to the remedy of our problem with

God's holiness and thank God there is a remedy it speaks of grace doesn't it the grace of God that there should be a remedy because the temple worship not only presented the problem it also presented the remedy think back to the temple it was a bloody place where animals were constantly being slain there you'd see hands being laid upon the head of these animal victims and confession of sin over their heads the picture of the transfer of the guilt of the sinner upon the guiltless substitute and then once the sin and guilt had been transferred to that innocent victim the lamb its throat would be slit and its blood would be shed and its life would be lost in the place of the guilty one and that's why the temple was such a bloody place

God was saying over and over and over again the remedy the solution the answer to your problem of how God and sinful men can dwell together is the substitutionary curse bearing of a sacrifice someone else must take the guilt and punishment the due of sin and if it's a perfectly innocent sacrifice then its virtue will be given to the guilty party who trusts in it here was the picture you see the picture of Christ these bloodied animals point to the Savior the perfect Lamb of God whose blood actually takes away sin actually cleanses from sin not just pictures it in a type but actually takes away sin and makes us fit to live together with the

Holy God Hebrews chapter 13 talks a lot about the Old Testament sacrifices and it says just as the animals were taken outside the camp and burned Hebrews 13 verse 12 so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his blood how are people made holy how are people made able to live with this holy holy God Jesus goes outside of the city gate and there upon the middle cross he dies bearing the wrath of God that the sinner deserved and so sin is cleansed from the sinner it's wiped away it's paid in full it no longer exists in the books of heaven and so the sinner is made fit for God 2nd

Peter 1st Peter 318 Christ died for sins once for all the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God that's it to do what to bring you to God so that the holy God and you the redeemed sinner in Jesus can live together forever and ever it's the gospel it's the one message of scripture Hebrews 10 10 we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all holiness is not the way to Christ Christ is the way to holiness we don't get ourselves cleaned up and ready for Jesus rather Jesus is the one who by his blood gets us cleaned up and ready for God to live with him forever and so after John tells us God is light and within there's no darkness at all how is it then we are going to have fellowship with this

God who's light well he says you must and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin how is it that me the dirty sinner can walk in the light with God who is light it says my sins are cleansed and they are cleansed by the blood of Jesus that cleanses from every sin there's not a sin that you've committed that his blood will not cleanse and so David says in Psalm 50 in verse 4 with you the wicked cannot dwell well how does David think he's going to dwell with this God then in his house forever and ever Psalm 23 well he goes on to say in Psalm 5 after he said with you the wicked cannot dwell but I by your great mercy will come into your house it's the mercy of God in Jesus that enables a sinner to dwell in his house forever and ever how is

Isaiah going to ever be cleansed with his filthy lips and his sin that he sees in the light of God's holiness well there's the coal from the altar there now your sin is atoned for there's the atonement it's a picture the altar of Calvary where Christ would atone for his sin that's the solution it's how we're made fit to live with the holy one where do you go to find the most brilliant display of the holiness of God well you could say well surely that was a display of God's holiness when for one sin he drove Adam and Eve out of the garden and surely there in Genesis 6 when you look at the world and you notice that the whole globe!

is because of man's sinfulness surely we see something of how holy God is or a little bit later in history where we see fire and brimstone coming out of the sky and just sizzling Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain surely we must stand back and say this God is holy and on and on you could go through all the judgments!

that are seen in the Old Testament maybe you say we could go to hell and see people in hell being punished forever and ever because of their sins and we would come away wow this God is holy and indeed we would but there is no place that shines forth the holiness of God so brilliantly as the cross we could go into heaven and hear the angels singing holy holy holy or we could draw near to Calvary and sense at once that holiness reigns here holiness is seated in the seat controlling the scene of Calvary it's holiness it's the holy God and if any sinner is ever going to live with him forever and ever there must be a sacrifice because sin has put such a mar on the holiness of

God sin is so slighted God's holiness as if it's a little thing every sin slights his holiness the damage done to the holiness of God is so great that the only way a sinner will ever live in his presence!

God sinned against then an infinite substitute must pay and he's willing to pay and he lays down his life to pay and we stand back and we say what is the holiness of God then rather than let his holiness be slighted forever he would rather damn his own son and put him to grief and bring hell to Calvary that day that his holiness might not be impugned might not be tarnished he's holy he's holy he's holy Calvary Calvary holds forth the holiness of God and that ought to make Christ precious to us it's the only way we sinners can ever dwell with God and he did it for us to satisfy the claims of holiness against us he died in our place you see then how all low views of sin stem from underestimating

God's holiness whereas men say well I made a mistake or I made a wrong decision God says you have sinned against me the holy one sin is breaking God's law and you know what God's laws are they're they're reflection of God's character his holiness so if sin is breaking God's law and God's law is a reflection of God's holiness every time we sin we violate the holiness of God we treat it as a nothing we disdain it we slight it and that's why it's such a big deal that's why there's no small sins they're all against an infinitely holy God and so an infinitely holy substitute alone can fix the problem you see why you could never fix the problem and so all high views of self come from miss underestimating

God's holiness when someone sees the problem I'm sinner he's holy and they think well I've got to be more holy and I'm going to work harder at keeping God's commands what is the pride of that where did that come from to think that our good deeds are so valuable that they overcome slighting God's holiness you see only by underestimating the holiness of God could we ever think that our good deeds would put us in a right standing with him rather do you know that trying to win heaven by good deeds only worsens the problem it's only all the more arrogance in his face to think that our goodness is such that he ought to be happy with a few good deeds!

Rather all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags I have little hope of anyone seeing their need of Christ who doesn't understand something of how holy God is but once you've seen how holy God is that you could never fix the problem give it up give it why would you why would you not come and receive the free gift of life through Jesus Christ why wouldn't you just take from him this free gift I'll die in your place I'll take your sin and I'll give you my holiness it's a deal okay will you take my holiness will you give me your sin do you want to be saved from your sin come and let's make this this exchange what a savior what a salvation and in the end his holiness is honored man is humbled Christ is exalted and Christ becomes precious to us our holy holy holy

God we confess that we have lived so much of our life oblivious to the fact of your holiness and oblivious to the greatest problem in the world that we had and many of us can sing praise be to your name that you are holy we can sing this song and rejoice that you are not other than holy because you have opened our eyes and you have shown us what you are and you have opened our eyes then to see ourselves in the light of who you are and you have shown us the problem but you have shown us the Savior and how thankful we are to see him what is his merit what is his worth what is the value of his completely repair all of my injuries to your holiness we thank you for him we ask that he become more precious to us that a sight of your holiness would make

Jesus more precious it would make us hate our sins more it would make it harder for us to sin against you it would make us pursue holiness so come and work within us and just open our eyes to what is real just help us to live with you in sight and give us the grace of Christ then to that end and bring others to flee to this Savior we ask in his name amen