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[0:00] Before the preaching of God's word, please take the Bibles and turn to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 6. We'll read verses 1 through 8.

[0:16] Let's hear God's word. Isaiah chapter 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings.

[0:33] With two wings they covered their faces, and 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.

[0:48] At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and 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 my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

[1:07] Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, 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.

[1:23] Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I, send me. Amen.

[1:34] Let's hear the preaching of God's word. Well, we have sung of Christ our King, and we've sung to Him. But what is it like to meet this King Jesus, as He really is in all His resplendent glory?

[1:53] You know, the Old and New Testaments each record the testimonies of men that have had that very experience. In the New Testament, we find Saul of Tarsus telling us of his life-transforming meeting of King Jesus, exalted in the heavens, who converted him and then commissioned him to be an apostle to preach the gospel.

[2:21] And here in Isaiah chapter 6, and I invite you to have your Bibles opened there, here we have Isaiah's personal testimony of his meeting with the Lord Jesus and being commissioned to be his prophet.

[2:37] For Isaiah, it all happened in a vision. And that was one of the ways that in former days, God revealed Himself to His prophets.

[2:49] Hebrews 1, 1 and 2. And this encounter with the Lord changed Isaiah forever. He simply was not the same man after it.

[3:01] He never got over what he saw here. He never got over the words that he heard here. And the grace that he received here.

[3:11] And the rest of his entire life in ministry bears the stamp of this experience, even as it did for Saul of Tarsus. Now, why are we coming to Isaiah chapter 6 then?

[3:28] And this testimony of Isaiah. It's not merely out of historical interest or biographical interest. Wonder what happened 2,700 years ago in Judah.

[3:40] No, no, that's not our concern. Our concern is rather with the life and death interest that is ours. Because the Lord Jesus says, unless you are converted, you can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.

[3:58] So this scripture is of great concern to us all. We too must be converted by the Lord Jesus Christ.

[4:10] And so, though some of the particular details of Isaiah 6 are unique to Isaiah, such as the vision that he saw, yet the four main lessons of his testimony are elements that are found in every testimony of saving grace and conversion.

[4:31] Let me name them for you, then we'll dig into them. First of all, we're going to see the Lord revealed his majestic holiness. Secondly, God's holiness makes us painfully aware of our utter sinfulness.

[4:45] Thirdly, the Lord himself graciously provides the atonement for our sins. And fourth, forgiven sinners willingly serve their Lord and Savior.

[4:58] The marks of converting grace. So first of all, the Lord reveals his majestic holiness. Verses 1 through 4.

[5:10] God is far more majestic and holy than we know. In fact, all men are born blind to God's holiness, and few ever wake up to it until one second after their death, and then it is forever too late.

[5:25] For the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. They do not see the glory of his holiness.

[5:37] And this blindness leaves us then with a high view of ourself and a low view of God's holiness. And that can be seen in the way people treat the Lord, treat his word, treat his worship.

[5:53] Indeed, anything that has to do with him. Oh, there is a book that reveals God's majestic holiness. But we had little interest in knowing it because it would have shattered our false peace, a false sense of peace.

[6:10] So we preferred not to know about God's holiness. That's the real truth about us. Jesus declared it in John 3. This is the verdict, that light has come into the world.

[6:24] Indeed, he was the light of the world. He is the light of the world. But men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And everyone who does evil hates the light.

[6:37] There's no neutrality here. They hate the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. So no wonder sinners don't want to step into the blazing light of God's holiness as it's revealed in Scripture now.

[6:58] Because it's like a flashlight that exposes their sin. And so this was an earth-shattering experience for Isaiah as well, as we'll see.

[7:12] And yet, was it not a kind mercy from the Lord? Because it opened his mind, it opened the eyes of his heart to a most important and inescapable reality.

[7:25] God is far more holy than we realize. He tells us that it happened in the year that King Uzziah died.

[7:37] Now that was 740 years before Christ. It was after a long reign of 52 years as king in Judah. And King Uzziah brought great prosperity to the land.

[7:50] So it was a sad day to see him pass from the scene. In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah has this vision in which he saw another king seated upon a throne, high and exalted.

[8:09] And what a king he is. In verse 5, he tells us, my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty.

[8:22] Not just I have seen a king, I have seen the king. This is none other than the king of kings, the Lord of lords, Yahweh Almighty, the great I am, the Lord of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven and earth.

[8:45] And everything that Isaiah saw here of him and heard in these first four verses reveals that this king is so high and exalted that there is none like him.

[8:58] For instance, every king has his flowing robes, at least in that day they did, to show forth their splendor and glory. Ah, but this king's robe was so long that it wound around and filled the whole temple of the Lord's throne.

[9:21] And every king has his courtiers, his attendants that surround him and because of that they enhance something of the king's greatness. But this king has for courtiers flying seraphs, these strange angelic beings, superhuman beings, by which I mean they had powers that humans don't have, with six wings.

[9:49] And they are unceasingly declaring the glory of this king. And the whole temple seems to respond with an amen to their message as its doorposts and thresholds shake as if it were a drum roll for this king.

[10:06] And the smoke of his glorious presence filled the temple just as it did Moses' tabernacle when that was completed and the glory of the Lord came in a cloud of smoke.

[10:21] And just as it did when Solomon completed his temple and the glory of the Lord's presence filled it. But notice here, the glory of this king not only filled the palace of the temple, but as the seraphs declared in verse 3, the whole earth is full of his glory.

[10:45] There's not a place in the whole earth that the glory of this king, his presence, is not there. What a king.

[10:57] This is no ordinary king, but God the king who reigns over all heaven and earth. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus would later tell the Jews that it was his glory that Isaiah saw.

[11:11] Jesus is Yahweh, the great I am. And Isaiah caught a vision of his glory. So as one earthly king passes off the stage of time, Uzziah, Isaiah is given to see the true king, the king who reigns forever and ever.

[11:30] And that surely teaches us that whatever's happening to kings and nations of the earth today, they're rising, they're falling. Our great need is to always have before us this undying, majestic king of kings.

[11:46] To see him by faith reigning right now in power, we need this view of our king. The Lord God omnipotent reigns.

[11:59] And that is to be for our comfort and encouragement. But what's most striking about this king is his holiness. Notice, these are sinless Sarahs.

[12:10] They've never known what it is like you and me to sin. They're ever before him in his presence. And with two wings, they're flying, perhaps hovering like hummingbirds.

[12:25] They're above the throne. And though they're sinless, angelic beings, they instinctively feel their inferior place before this great king such that with two of their wings, they cover their face.

[12:41] As if to say that we can't really look upon this king. He's so great. He's so far above us. Sinless Sarahs. They cannot gaze.

[12:52] The sight is too much for them. And so they cover their faces with two wings and cover their feet with two of their wings. Awesome beings themselves.

[13:04] Sinless beings, but overwhelmed with the one that they serve. You will not find flippant worship here at the throne of this king.

[13:15] He's not a king to be treated lightly. He's a king to stand in awe and reverence before, even as we heard in the Sunday school hour.

[13:26] If we know who he is, we ought to be struck with a sense of delight in his presence because of the awesome God that he is.

[13:37] What was it that above all else impressed these holy Sarahs? Well, they can't get over the king's matchless holiness. So they're continually crying out to one another.

[13:52] Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord God Almighty! Now, in the Hebrew language, one of the ways to emphasize something was to repeat it.

[14:06] So if we said that Bodhi runs fast, that's one way of saying it. But if we wanted to say Bodhi runs real fast, we would say Bodhi runs fast fast.

[14:20] That's the way the Hebrew would put it. It would simply repeat the word. Fast fast. A double. Repeat. This sort of thing occurs often enough in the Old Testament.

[14:36] But a three-fold repetition is found nowhere else except on the lips of these sinless seraphs as they cry, Holy!

[14:48] Holy! Holy! Is the Lord God Almighty! Holy! It's the strongest superlative in the Hebrew language.

[15:00] It's holiness intensified to the utmost and it's reserved in Scripture to declare just how holy this king is. Now, the word holy can mean separate from and has that basic idea.

[15:15] And so, yes, this king is separate from all else. He's unique. The angelic beings don't measure up to him. The sinless beings don't measure up. How much less we who have sinned.

[15:27] But there is also the fact that he is separated from us in terms of his moral and his ethical purity. His holiness means that he's absolutely pure through and through and through.

[15:44] No evil thoughts, no evil motives, no sinful deeds. In the New Testament, the Apostle John in 1 John 1, 5 says, God is light.

[16:00] And in him, there is no darkness, no none at all. John, perhaps echoing the triple repetition of holy, holy, holy in the Old Testament, now in the New Testament, Greek, repeats it three times.

[16:15] God is light and in him, there is no darkness, no, none at all. This is the God of holiness.

[16:26] This is the king that Isaiah sees, the king with whom we have to do. So whatever Isaiah thought of God's holiness before this vision of God, he was stunned.

[16:39] That word is not too strong. He was astonished. He was staggered before God's holiness and it marked his view of God from that point on.

[16:54] Hereafter, one of Isaiah's distinctive titles that he gives in his letter, this whole prophecy of Isaiah, is the Holy One of Israel.

[17:06] He uses it 26 times. In this book, only, that title is only used six other times anywhere in Scripture. This is, this is Isaiah's distinct title.

[17:20] He is the Holy One. So whatever God is, he is preeminently holy. And in the Bible, holy is attached to God's names more than any other adjective to describe him.

[17:36] So, so God's judgments are called holy judgments and his wrath is holy wrath and his jealousy is holy jealousy and so is his faithfulness and mercy and grace and love.

[17:52] Holy grace, holy love. It was the supreme truth about God for Isaiah and his ministry can be summarized by confronting Israel with the Holy One of Israel.

[18:06] Telling Israel how holy their God was and how this note needs to be sounded today. It's not just the Old Testament that teaches it.

[18:17] It's the Bible through and through. People are ignorant of the holiness of God. It's a forgotten and neglected attribute of God in many churches today.

[18:29] So, it's no wonder the world has no clue of how holy God is if the church herself is neglecting this attribute. It's being downplayed.

[18:42] Oh, sure, no one would stand in the pulpit and say God is not holy but if preachers stand in the pulpit and week after week and month after month they do not show and declare how holy God is, it's sending the message that God's not much and this attribute of holiness it's forgotten.

[19:05] It's neglected. And the reason is because it makes people feel uncomfortable perhaps even as you're feeling right now as I feel as I stand before this text this week.

[19:18] But that's nothing new either because Isaiah's hearers said in chapter 30 and verse 11 to Isaiah stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.

[19:34] We don't want to hear about Him. We don't want to hear about this Holy One. Nothing new here. But it was precisely this majestic holiness that God revealed in vision to Isaiah and then sent him to preach to the people that he preached to.

[19:52] So that's the first lesson God reveals His majestic holiness. The second lesson is that God's holiness makes us painfully aware of our utter sinfulness. This revelation of God's holiness not only shook the temple it shook Isaiah to the core.

[20:11] Notice it in verse 5. Woe to me I cried I'm ruined I'm undone for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King the Lord Almighty.

[20:32] There's the reflex action to the holiness of God by sinners who are not holy. Suppose you were invited to a private party at an expensive restaurant and when you entered the reserved room you found everyone dressed to the hilt in their tuxes and ties and elegant party dresses and there you stood in your blue jeans and t-shirt and flip flops.

[20:57] You would have an immediate reflexive response to the situation. You would at once realize that you were underdressed and totally unfit for the occasion.

[21:12] And this side of God's stunning holiness gave Isaiah that sense as well of how unholy he was and how unfit he was to be in the presence of this holy one.

[21:28] And I say of sinless seraphs cover their faces in awe and reverence before him. What of us sinners? Well, look at Isaiah's response.

[21:40] Woe is me. Judgment to me. I'm undone. I'm unraveled. I'm through. There's no hope. I'm a man of unclean lips.

[21:56] So it was what unfit him for the presence of God was his own unholiness, his sinfulness. And it was his sinfulness not in some abstract form, but in the things that he said with his lips, his words, his harsh words, his untrue words, his boastful words, his unkind words, his angry words, his complaining words, things that we might brush aside as a little mistake, a slip of the tongue, stood out as damning sins before the Holy One of Israel.

[22:36] And Jesus told us that even our careless, idle words will be brought into judgment, every one of them. Not a God to trifle with.

[22:47] And you see, what is worse is that these unclean lips reveal an unclean heart, as Jesus said, for out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

[23:00] So, when Scripture and Isaiah here is confessing that he's a man of unclean lips, he's declaring, I am a man of an unclean heart. He's confessing his filthiness before this pure holiness holiness of the king.

[23:19] So, we never come to know ourselves for what we really are until we come to see God as he really is. We don't know how sinful we are until we see how sinful or how holy he is.

[23:34] And his holiness is seen in his holy laws, which are the reflection of his holy nature as they come to impinge upon man's behavior.

[23:46] This is what it means to be holy because this is the holy God that we have to do about. It's by the law that we have the awareness, the knowledge of sin.

[24:00] As we see the purity of God's laws and his nature, we come to be aware of our sinfulness. We don't know white until we see white.

[24:12] I've told you before I've had to learn how to do laundry and I have some white towels in the bathroom closet that may have never been used.

[24:25] I know they haven't been used for four and a half years. And then there's my towel that I use all the time, hanging up on the rod. And I use that all the time. When it gets dirty, I put it in the washer and I wash it.

[24:40] And when I'm done, I put it back on the rod and I go on using it. But once in a while, if it's thrown in the laundry for too long, I have to get another one out and use it.

[24:53] And so by the time I get the old one cleaned up and I then put it in the closet beside those towels that have hardly ever been used, if at all.

[25:06] And I suddenly am brought to see that my white towel has more gray in it than I ever realized. Because I've come to see white. And that's not white.

[25:19] And that's what happens when God reveals his holiness to man. He's always holy. But men are blind to it and men don't see it until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and shows us the one with whom we all have to do.

[25:36] And we suddenly see that we're far more sinful than we ever realized. Because we have now seen holiness, true holiness, the Holy One.

[25:49] That's what happened to Isaiah. You know, as long as we're comparing ourselves to others, we can feel really holy. We can always find others that aren't as holy as us and so we feel holy.

[26:01] Until we meet true holiness and we see the holiness of Jesus and we see our sins. And that's what Isaiah did.

[26:12] That's what happened to him and he never felt so dirty in all of his life. And he now takes his place as a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips.

[26:23] He says, there's not a clean one among us because my eyes have seen the Holy One. He's devastated. He's terrified. I'm ruined.

[26:35] It's over for me. And so he's confessing that for his sin he deserves to die under God's judgment. For God's holy presence is fatal to unholy sinners.

[26:48] From his heavenly court he's announced the one that sins shall die. Habakkuk 1.13 says his eyes are too pure to even look upon evil.

[26:59] He cannot tolerate wrong. He cannot have it in his presence. So Revelation 21 says nothing and pure will enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[27:12] Isaiah sees the holiness and he has nothing good to say for himself. He has no efforts attempts to justify himself. He cries out I'm condemned.

[27:24] I'm damned. I wonder if God's ever revealed that to you that you're a hell deserving sinner. You're unclean in the presence of this holy God. And he's too holy to not judge you for your sins.

[27:42] And since we all have sinned we all by sin have totally disqualified ourselves from God's holy presence forever. We must never think for a moment that we are safe because we're better than others.

[27:56] because God does not grade on the curve. He grades with the holy righteousness of his own being.

[28:07] His righteousness. The righteousness of Jesus. Does your holiness measure up to his? If so you're in. If not you're out.

[28:18] That's the standard. Holiness. It's a holy judgment. So trembling Isaiah is now expecting the hammer of God's holy judgment to crush him because of his sin.

[28:32] And instead he's surprised. He's met with this sweet surprise of the holy grace of God. That's our third lesson. So the Lord himself graciously provides an atonement for our sins.

[28:48] Verses 6 and 7. One of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And with it he touched my mouth and said see this has touched your lips.

[29:00] Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. Notice the initiative and the work is all of God. These seraphs do his bidding and do his work.

[29:11] He sends them. So it's God who reveals his own holiness. It's God who convicts Isaiah of his sinfulness and now it's God who provides the only remedy.

[29:26] There's nothing Isaiah could do to atone for his sin or remove his guilt. You know that guilt is not just a feeling. It's being liable to God's punishment. It means I deserve punishment.

[29:38] You may feel like that or not but it still remains you are guilty whether you have the guilty feelings or not. and he saw that I have sinned and because of that I am liable.

[29:50] I am guilty and deserve the punishment of God. No amount of regret and tears or righteous deeds could ever remove that punishment from him.

[30:05] There was nothing he could do. He wasn't even seeking a remedy. He's cringing woe is me under the blow of God's judgment that he expects at any moment.

[30:16] And it was when he confessed his sinfulness and deservingness of judgment that the remedy came. And Isaiah learns that the king is not only holy. He is full of grace.

[30:29] He is full of undeserved favor. And it is a holy grace. Because God is too holy to just brush aside his sins and say well we just won't punish you Isaiah.

[30:42] He can't do that. Why not? Because he's holy. And he must punish sin. Every sin. So it's a holy grace. Sin must be punished to be forgiven.

[30:55] It must be paid for in full to be blotted out. Judgment must fall to have the guilt removed. Otherwise you're still liable to punishment. So in this vision the cleansing from his sin comes from a coal taken from the altar.

[31:10] Throughout the Old Testament the altar was the place where God's holy wrath against sin was symbolically satisfied by the bloody sacrifice of the animal laid on that altar.

[31:26] This coal then is taken from the altar saturated with the blood drippings of the atoning sacrifice. And it's applied to the sinner's uncleanness.

[31:37] And by it he's cleansed from both his sin and if cleansed from his sin also cleansed from his guilt. He's no longer liable to punishment. For the wrath has fallen on the substitute.

[31:53] The punishment has been paid. So God's provision here for Isaiah is not another animal sacrifice. No, these are just symbols that we're pointing to spiritual realities which Isaiah will open up later in this very book in chapter 53.

[32:12] Lo and behold we see that it is none other than this thrice holy king who becomes the suffering servant of the Lord and becomes the blood sacrifice himself.

[32:27] Jesus Christ, God's one and only son, Isaiah says he's the one who was wounded for our transgressions. He's the one that was crushed for our iniquities and the punishment that brought us peace, it was on him and by his stripes we have been healed.

[32:43] That's the one, that's the altar, it's the altar of Calvary that can take away sin and guilt forever. It's the only remedy for sin.

[32:55] From the first sin of Eve down to the last sin that will ever be committed, there's only ever been one remedy. What can wash away my sins? That's right, nothing can for sin atone, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

[33:13] And that was true of Adam and Eve, it's true of you and me, it was true of Isaiah, and it was pictured, you see, in this vision. It was his bloodshed, it was his life laid down there on the altar of Calvary.

[33:27] The fires of wrath fell on him and consumed him and his life, satisfying God's justice for sin, satisfying his demand for absolute holiness and making us right with God.

[33:44] And so Isaiah was forgiven in the same way we are. His sins were punished in his substitute, Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus. And the same merits of Christ's blood were applied to Isaiah that are applied to us today.

[34:02] Isaiah was washed in the blood that flowed 700 years after he lived. You and I who have trusted in Christ and repented of our sins are washed in the blood that was shed 2,000 years before us.

[34:16] But it's the same Jesus, it's the same blood, it's the same merit, you see, of his work by which any sinner is made right in God's eyes. For there is no salvation in any other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

[34:36] The name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. And it's the same gospel that Isaiah then went and preached to his countrymen, telling them how their sins, though they be like scarlet, could be made as white as snow.

[34:52] That's what Jesus' blood does. It's all here in the book of Isaiah, and it's all God's work for sinners' behalf.

[35:06] And kids, this is why there's a Christmas celebration. Why Jesus was born, God the Father sent his eternal Son, and he voluntarily came in obedience to his Father, and gave his life on the cross, so that by suffering death under God's wrath, he might forgive our sin and guilt.

[35:28] The sin and guilt of all his people, that's all that he chose before the creation of the world. It's all who turn from their sin in repentance and faith in Jesus alone to save them.

[35:40] That's the ones his blood atones for. But for those who reject the Son, there is no life, there is no salvation. For God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.

[35:53] And then he bore those sins in his body to the tree where Christ died once for all time, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. That's the gospel.

[36:04] What love is this? Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. A sacrifice that would turn away the wrath of God from us by taking it himself.

[36:19] Are you trusting in this Savior? Savior? Is that your only hope for heaven? It's the only way to have your sin and guilt taken away. And that brings us to the fourth and final lesson.

[36:30] Forgiven sinners willingly serve their Lord and Savior. It's verse 8, and it's no longer just seraphs that Isaiah hears in his vision. It's not the Lord himself speaking.

[36:44] And we remember that the Lord is the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so he'll use the us as well as I.

[36:58] And Isaiah says, then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, here am I.

[37:11] Send me. There's no easy assignment as he would learn. But you see, grace produced this grateful response in his heart to serve his Lord and save.

[37:22] That's what always, always happens in the heart of a saved sinner. Always. And I can say that on the basis of God's word, that the same salvation that came in Christ Jesus to save us from our sins teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright lives in this present generation, to offer our lives up to this God who saved us.

[37:53] Every forgiven, saved sinner becomes a willing servant of the Lord's Lord's Lord. For Jesus Christ. You'll never really serve God until you taste his free grace.

[38:05] But when you do, you cannot help but to offer yourself up in service to him. Our whole orientation in life changes from living for me.

[38:16] What's in it for me? What do I want to do to not my will, but yours be done? That's the new orientation of a servant. It's the grace of God in the gospel that transforms servants of sin and self and Satan and makes us servants of the living God.

[38:35] And then do we gladly put our ear to the doorpost as they did in the Old Testament to any servant that wanted to become a servant for life and and bored the hole through his ear to mark him.

[38:46] I'm his forever. His servant forever. What will make a man or woman, boy or girl do that with the Lord Jesus? Jesus, I'm your servant forever. It's to receive the grace of full forgiveness, full and free.

[39:03] So 700 years later, Saul of Tarsus, the chief of sinners, is on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians there. And he met this same King Jesus that Isaiah met in his vision.

[39:18] And he received the same free grace of forgiveness from this Savior. And his instinctive response to such love and grace in Jesus Christ is, Lord, what would you have me to do?

[39:31] I'm your servant. That's how he writes his letters. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. And we see him enduring all kinds of suffering and hardship in the service of King Jesus and doing it with joy.

[39:49] Paul, what keeps you going? Paul, why do you find joy in serving Jesus when it's so hard? What motivates such selfless, sacrificial service? Oh, Christ's love compels us.

[40:03] Christ's love compels us to no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and was raised again to life.

[40:17] Forgiven sinners willingly serve their Savior. And he says to us then, Paul does, this servant of Christ, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.

[40:35] It's only reasonable. Did he die for me? I'll live for him. I'll live for him who died for me. That's just reasonable service of one who's forgiven.

[40:46] We see it in Paul. We see it in Isaiah. And I see it in the lives of every one of you who have been touched by this grace of God. That's why you serve.

[40:59] That's why you're here today to sing his praise, to hear his word, to worship him, to encourage one another and build each other up. You're serving the one who died for you.

[41:12] That's how King Jesus makes willing troops for his service and for his kingdom. He freely forgives them, paying their sin debt for them.

[41:22] So may we learn to personalize what happened to Paul on the Damascus Road, what happened to Isaiah in Isaiah 6.

[41:33] The message is simple. God is holy. We are not. Have you ever seen that as your greatest problem in life? And come to Jesus Christ who is the only remedy, who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree for all who cast their weight on him and die to self and say, I'm yours.

[41:52] I'm here to be your servant for life, not to do my will anymore, but whatever you wish. I can tell you what Satan and your flesh wants you to do about that gospel.

[42:07] What they want you to do about this message of God's holiness and of his holy, they want you to neglect it, to ignore it, to suppress it, to act like it's not true, to try to forget it.

[42:21] But I can also tell you what King Jesus wants you to do with this message. He wants you to flee to him, to run to him, to cast the weight of your soul on him to be saved.

[42:35] He's a gracious savior and king. He's mighty in holiness, majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders, no wonders like converting a sinner, making him a servant.

[42:53] Come to him today. You'll find there's no better master to serve than him. Well, we're going to sing what the seraphs are crying out to each other.

[43:06] It's number 87. It's holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty. And let us remember that it's only the blood of Jesus that provides atonement from our sin and guilt that enables us to sing this with delight.

[43:25] Trust in him if you haven't, even as we sing. Let's stand and sing number 87 in our hymnal. Let's pray.

[43:42] Holy Father, holy Jesus, holy Spirit, we have read of your holiness. and if it were not for your holy grace and love in Jesus Christ, Father, in sending him, Lord Jesus, in coming, Holy Spirit, in opening our eyes to the glory of the gospel, we would still be blind to this most important reality that you are holy and we are not.

[44:12] So thank you for opening the eyes of so many of us. Lord, for those that are still blind, open them this day. and give them to see the wonder of your grace that you, the God they've sinned against and is the God who provides the remedy.

[44:32] Melt them with your mercies and do it in our lives. Lord, day by day, we need to see your holiness, our sin, our Savior, that we might then just offer ourselves up.

[44:46] We would do that even now. Take us body and soul, all that we are as a living sacrifice to live our life, to please you, to do your will.

[44:58] It is only our reasonable service, so stir it up within us. And thank you for the privilege of being your servants. In Jesus' name we pray.

[45:11]  Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.