Gaze Upon the Holy One
Part of Reflection
January 26, 2020

What does it mean to be holy?

If you have a hard time defining the term or explaining what it looks like, you’re not alone. According to study by the Barna Group, the most common reply to that question was “I don’t know.”
To be fair, other answers were provided—but the research showed that while Holiness is embraced by the Christian Church, holiness is not an issue “that many Americans adopt as a focal point of their faith development.” As a result, 54% of self-identified born-again believers in the United States do not believe that God expects them to live a holy life.

Barna summarized his findings:

Realize that the results portray a body of Christians who attend church and read the Bible, but do not understand the concept or significance of holiness, do not personally desire to be holy, and therefore do little, if anything to pursue it.…The challenge to the nation’s Christian ministries is to foster a genuine hunger for holiness among the masses who claim they love God but who are ignorant about biblical teachings regarding holiness….To initiate the education of people regarding holiness, we must arrest their attention and teach its importance. To align their hearts with the notion of being holy, we must move them away from a ‘cheap grace’ theology and replace people’s self-absorption with focus on God and His ways. To help them pursue holiness, we must help them comprehend and accept biblical theology regarding God, Satan, the purposes of life on earth, the nature of spiritual transformation and maturity, and the necessity of bearing spiritual fruit. —George Barna

Today we are beginning a new series called Reflection. In the book of Leviticus, God said to the children of Israel whom He had freed from slavery in Egypt to “be holy, for I am holy.”

Some of you might be saying—but Pastor Matt, that was God’s Word to the Israelites. God demanded a certain kind of life—a certain kind of behavior from them. God gave them a bunch of commandments to obey and He told them that if they didn’t obey Him, they would not experience His blessings.

God’s call to Holiness was for the Old Testament people—it’s not for us! We live in the day of Grace and we’ve been set free from the law! Holiness might have been God’s standard before Jesus, but Jesus’ death on the cross has given me liberty—Jesus said, “if the Son sets free, you will be free indeed.”

You’ve got a point—except for when the apostle Peter, writing to a group of believers scattered around Asia Minor wrote,

1 Peter 1:14–16
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

If you claim to be a child of God—if you profess that you have been saved by grace through faith in the crucified, buried, risen, and living Jesus—the one who has purchased your soul has called you to be holy.

Quite simply, you and I are called to reflect the holiness of God in this church, at home, at work, at school, and the places we play. We are to reflect the holiness of God in every attitude we possess, in every word that we speak, in every action that we take.

We are to reflect the holiness of God everywhere we go and in everything we do.

Isaiah 6:1–7
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

If we are going to

the Holy One, first we must upon the Holy One.

What do we see when we gaze upon God? The answer to that question is revealed by two truths.

God is anyone or anything.

In the Jewish language repeating a word three times indicates the superlative nature of that thing. Repetition of a word is a point of great

.

In other words, the angels were saying that God is

, , .

God’s very nature is that He is totally separate from all creation.

“His holiness is his utterly unique divine, transcendent, pure essence, which in his uniqueness has infinite value….His holiness is what he is as God, which no one else is or ever will be.” —John Piper

Holiness is an attribute of God; but more than that, it is the very

of God. God is holy—entirely set apart from all things.

When we gaze upon God, we see that He is unlike anyone or anything—but we also see another truth.

God is in every way.

If the first truth dealt with the nature of his holiness; this truth shows us the character of God’s holiness.

God is unique, totally separate from all creation, but He is also absolutely pure—untouched and unstained by evil of any kind.

We see this best in Isaiah’s reaction to the vision. He cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;”

When Isaiah saw the Lord, he also saw

clearly.

In that single moment, all of his self-esteem was shattered. In a brief second he was exposed, made naked beneath the gaze of the absolute standard of holiness. As long as Isaiah could compare himself to other mortals, he was able to maintain a lofty opinion of his own character. The instant he measured himself by the ultimate standard, he was destroyed—morally and spiritually annihilated. He was undone. He came apart. His sense of integrity collapsed. —R.C. Sproul

—the nagging feeling you have when you know you’ve done wrong, when you know you’ve broken the law, when you know you’ve not met the standard.

—missing the mark, not being perfect.

By the gracious act of God, Isaiah’s guilt was taken away. In that moment all of his failures were erased and everything that caused him to unravel in the presence of God was purged—never to be brought up again. Isaiah’s guilt could never again keep him from God’s presence.

By the gracious act of God, Isaiah’s sin was atoned for.

It is by God’s grace and God’s grace alone that we are no longer separated from God. It is by His will and plan that He who is unlike anyone or anything—He who is perfect in every way, desires to commune with His creation. And one day, the saved will be with Him for ever and ever.
God is

and God is !

Believer—don’t lose sight of the holiness of God. Endeavor to see Him as He is and think about the fact that God has made you holy. God has done for you what you could never do for yourself.
He has taken away your sin and guilt and brought you into His family and He loves you with an everlasting and unbreakable love.