When God’s Glory Exposes Your Sin

0:10 Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I just want to thank you for subscribing on YouTube if you're watching this on that platform. Also want to say hi to those of you listening on Apple or Spotify. A little fun fact on Spotify, we now at For the Gospel feature the video version.

0:28 So you can enjoy For the Gospel in all formats on the go. If you're on Spotify, be sure to click that video option if you'd like. We have the notes on the screen, the bullet points, anything that I'm reading from scripture as well, just could be helpful and enjoyable for your study. Today we continue our series on the attributes of God with the holiness of God.

0:48 And I gotta be honest with you, I feel uh shallow, I feel uh uh infantile, I feel minuscule. I've tried to think of any other words I could use, to ever just put this into a podcast episode. I know we need to, it's good truth, but it's not the only truth. I should, I think, preach for you know an hour, an hour and a half on this.

1:11 And R.C. Sproul has, so many others have, but I would encourage you to just nerd out, maybe is a great phrase, on the holiness of God. Go down the rabbit hole, watch a full sermon on it, read a book about it, read R. C. Sproul's book, The Holiness of God. Don't just take what I give you today and think, okay, cool.

1:29 There's the holiness of God, Isaiah 6, some application, Nito. This is the Mount Everest of God's attributes, if you will. And it's like an iceberg where, you know, 80% of its mass is under the surface. You just want to dig and you want to really enjoy. But we still would say there's a place for uh 15 to 20 minutes of reflection.

1:52 And I pray that this is just a glorious devotional for you this morning, this afternoon, or evening, whenever you're watching or listening. I've got my Bible open to Isaiah chapter six. This is the quintessential passage on the holiness of God. There are many passages on the holiness of God, many statements about God's holiness in the Bible, but perhaps none are more vivid and give you a glimpse of God, like Isaiah chapter six.

2:15 And I'm thinking in particular of verses one through eight. We're shown something very powerful and applicable in Isaiah's response to God. We're given a glimpse of God, a revelation, if you will, of who he is and what it's like around his throne room. And this is the premise that I want to have in your mind throughout this episode.

2:34 Key truth here. Seeing God's holiness humbles us, it drives us to Christ, and it changes how we live. Seeing God's holiness, so in the Bible, it humbles us, it drives us to Christ, and then it should change how we live. I want to start by getting a picture in your mind as well. Think about a room in your house, and it looks pretty clean, everything seems fine, it's orderly and proper, and then you open the blinds and sunlight just pours through the windows.

3:06 What do you see right away? You see dust floating through the air, you see dust on surfaces. In a way, when the light shines in, suddenly you see all the dirt. You notice the fingerprints on the furniture. You notice things that you wouldn't have otherwise seen if light hadn't poured in. What changed?

3:26 Well, the room didn't suddenly become dirty. You didn't suddenly have dust show up out of nowhere. No, it was there all along. The light exposed what was already there. That is a picture of what happens in Isaiah chapter 6, except, of course, this is infinitely more serious than dust in a room or dirt on a floor or fingerprints on windows or furniture.

3:45 This is Isaiah getting a vision of God in his holiness, and suddenly Isaiah sees his sin and what he is, what he truly is, I think is a better phrase to use. That is exactly what the holiness of God does. It changes the way we worship, it changes the way we see our sin. It changes the way we understand grace, of course.

4:05 And my friend, it's got to change the way you live and the way I live. And so I want to frame this up as we walk through Isaiah 6, 1 through 8 with four key truths that you should, and now we will together, meditate on in light of the holiness of God. Number one, God's holiness calls us to reverence.

4:23 God's holiness calls us to reverence. I think that that is such a great place to start because it's exactly the picture that we're seeing in this text. It's reverent. Isaiah begins, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted. That's a holy and high position.

4:44 With the train of his robe filling the temple. There's this regal picture, this kingly nature. It's glorious. God's robe, just the train of it filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet. So evidently, to because the glory of God and the uh powerful emanating light coming from God's throne, and with two he flew.

5:11 Right off the bat. Few things that I notice. In the year of King Uzziah's death. So a king has died. Context, it's historical, but then I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. So an earthly king is dead, but the real king is still on the throne. Uzziah's reign is over. God's reign continues. An earthly throne now empty, and a grave filled with the body of a king.

5:39 Heaven's throne, still steady, certain, unchanging, forever, eternal. God on his throne. I think about the uncertainty on earth, and I think about the certainty in heaven. There is uncertainty and the uncertainty on the earth, but there is no uncertainty in heaven. Isaiah sees the Lord seated on his throne.

6:01 He's high and exalted. And you caught it there, above him are Seraphim. It's a kind of angel, magnificent angelic beings, and they cover their faces and their feet with their wings in the presence of God. And then verse 3, one called out to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

6:24 Holy, holy, holy. The only attribute of God repeated three times. You'll hear in kind of old English or old preachers will say God is a thrice holy God. Of course, R. C. Sproul, famous for saying, No other attribute do you see spoken of in Scripture like holiness. You don't see love, love, love. Mercy, mercy, mercy.

6:47 No, you see holy, holy, holy. The repetition itself intensifies the declaration about God. God is not just holy, He is supremely holy. Holy, holy, holy. Repetition always, always indicates significance. When Jesus says in the New Testament, truly, truly, I say unto you, it's like, hey, listen up, listen closely.

7:09 This is weighty. This is significant. And so three times, holy, holy, holy, this is serious business. When we talk about God's holiness, we're talking about both his transcendent greatness and his absolute moral purity. He is perfect. He's distinct from everything that he created. He is, we would say, holy and completely other, meaning nothing is like him.

7:35 He's not just the greatest person in the universe, as if you could, you know, put God at the top of the list of all other beings, you know, and human beings are in there, but you know, God is the best. He's he's you know, number one. No, God's in a category entirely on his own. There's no other on the list.

7:54 And morally, there's zero darkness in him. None. He's never sinned, he never will. He has no impurity or imperfection. He is holy, holy, holy. Which means, as we would say this theologically, while God is all of his attributes all of the time, holiness is the umbrella over all of who God is or what God is or how he acts.

8:23 And here's what I mean when I say that. His love is holy love, therefore it's never corrupted. His justice is holy justice, therefore it's never crooked, it's never wrong. His power is holy, therefore, God's power is never misused or abused. His motives are holy, meaning God's reasons for what he does.

8:44 Holy. So there's never a wrong agenda or an impure motive of God. He never needs to apologize. He doesn't need to reconsider his decisions. He doesn't ever repent to mankind. You know, I'm sorry. One day in heaven, he's not going to look back on all that took place and say, you know, everyone, I just want to apologize.

9:02 I'm sorry. Things got a little out of hand there, but you know, it's all okay now. He will never correct himself. He will never be edited. There'll be no red pen on any essay that God writes. Everything God is, everything that he does, he is holy, holy, holy. He's perfect. And my friend, that is supposed to affect the way that you worship him, and me too.

9:26 John MacArthur once said, the absence of a clear understanding of God's holiness is the reason for our shallowness. You want to know, you get frustrated, why are churches so shallow? Why is people's relationship with God so shallow? Why are we so shallow? Why does things just seem so willy-nilly and it's because there's an absence of understanding for the holiness of God.

9:48 And that gets right to the issue. We started with this series, episode one of it, talking about how a low view of God is going to affect everything, a high view of God's gonna affect everything, a low view of God is gonna inevitably produce shallow worship and casual Christianity. And so a lack of understanding God's holiness is where a lot of our problems lie in the church.

10:09 But when you begin to understand who God is, reverence starts making sense. People sometimes get uncomfortable. Why is the church so serious? Or why do I have to sing like this? Why do people stand for the reading of God's word? You know, they do that at Shepherd's House. Why do why do we pray like this?

10:22 Why do we this? Why do that? So, you know, seems so legalistic. You know, what's the big deal? God is, you know, my friend and God is this. And and people have a problem with reverence. It's because usually they lack a full understanding of his holiness. God is not your homeboy. He is not your good luck charm, he's not your buddy, he's not your personal guru, he's not some cosmic genie who exists to just pump out all your wishes whenever you rub the lamp of prayer just right.

10:51 When the Bible says he's your friend, he is a friend of sinners, he is a holy friend. He's holy. This is the God whose glory fills the earth. This is the God before whom angels cover their faces because he's so awesome. And yes, because of Christ, we can come close and we can come, the Bible says boldly to the throne of grace, but boldness is not carelessness.

11:15 I would say it this way. A dear mentor of mine said it this way once. He was teaching on this. He said, you know, we can be confident, but we need to be careful we're not casual. So I want to say confidence in Christ doesn't mean casualness with Christ. So you come confidently through Christ to the throne of God, but never carelessly.

11:36 He is holy. Number two, God's holiness brings us to repentance. I want you to notice Isaiah's response. If you're driving or you're working out or you're on the fly, let me read this to you. And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke.

11:53 Verse five. Then I said, This is Isaiah, woe is me, for I am ruined. Woe is me, I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live, I dwell among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. The idea, I'm I'm filthy, I'm dirty, I'm sinful. I live among a sinful people.

12:20 And I'm saying this because, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. I remember R.C. Sproul calling Isaiah's encounter with God and his holiness a traumatic experience. And I think it's because holiness destroys any illusions about ourselves. Sproul explained back then that when people encounter God's holiness, they're forced to see their own sinfulness, and you begin to see who you really are, and you're humbled.

12:43 That's what happens to Isaiah. He sees God clearly and suddenly he sees himself clearly. And I love the honesty of this. I need the honesty of this. You do too, because I think we're really good at hearing truth and immediately thinking about other people. You ever do that? I have to be careful of that as a preacher.

13:01 When I'm studying things, oh, this will be really helpful for the church, or for so-and-so. Oh, this will help. No, this is for the preacher first. The preacher preaches the sermon first to himself before preaching to anybody else. You know, you hear a really good sermon on marriage or a really good sermon on God's holiness or on sin or the gospel.

13:17 You think, man, I really hope he hears this, you know. I really hope my wife gets this. I really hope my husband hears this. I really hope that guy at work hears this. You know, you hear something about gossip or pride or lust or greed, and you're like, yeah, you know, I should send this to them. Isaiah sees a glimpse of God's holiness and he starts confessing what is wrong with who?

13:41 Isaiah. He's not thinking, man, if the other guys could see that they would be, you know, finally and fix that problem. When we understand God's holiness, isn't it true that we become less interested with comparing ourselves to others? And we start becoming very aware of our own heart problems. I was recently thinking of this through a Bible study and digging in with some of the men in our church.

14:09 And we're talking about how comparison just makes an excellent hiding place for sin. I can always find a husband who's harsher than me, a businessman who has less integrity than me, a father who's less engaged than me, a Christian whose habits are worse than me. We can always find somebody worse than us.

14:27 Comparison makes a great hiding place for our sin. I can always find somebody who makes me say, you know, I'm not as bad as that guy. But the standard is not the guy next to you. The standard is a holy God. And when you look at God as who he is, suddenly I don't care about what anyone else does. I see my own heart.

14:48 I'm looking at my own sin in the mirror. J.C. Ryle in his classic work, Holiness, he wrote this: A right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity. Meaning, you want to be saved? You want to walk in the true faith, you got to acknowledge your sin rightly and you got to understand it and know it.

15:11 We can't be worried about what everybody else is doing. We've got enough sin in our own hearts to keep us plenty busy. If we minimize sin, we will minimize our need for a savior and we'll maximize everybody else's need for him. And one of the easiest ways that we minimize sin is we rename it. Someone asks you today, what have you renamed?

15:34 Is anger, you know, just it's my personality, Costi. Is lust just, we call it a struggle. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. No, it's sin. Is greed just ambition? You know, I'm just trying to work hard and provide. Ah, that might be greed because you've moved from, you know, I need this to, you know, I want this, and you're turning those wants into needs, but they're really greeds.

15:56 Is dishonesty just, you know, how business works? You don't understand, Acasti. This ain't ministry. You sit there behind a camera and preach the truth and read your Bible and everything's supposed to be done properly, but in my line of work, you don't understand, I gotta get a little nitty-gritty and a little dirty in the trenches.

16:10 That's just how business works. No, that's called dishonesty lying and a lack of integrity. Is laziness called being tired? I know people get tired. I understand. I did a series on work, and this last year, I know many of you benefited. I love studying that topic. We got to get after it. And I know sometimes people need rest.

16:27 We talked about that as well in the series on rest and work. But a lot of people, they keep saying, I'm tired, I'm tired. And really it's laziness. We're renaming the sin of sloth. Is bitterness now discernment? You meet a lot of people like this. I've come across a lot of people like this. Maybe you do this, maybe I do this.

16:45 We we're bitter and we call it discernment. You know, I've got a lot of discernment. No, you're just bitter, and now you're suspicious of everyone, and you think the worst about people, and it's not even true. But under the guise of discernment, you know, you can read everybody, and there's a problem with everybody.

17:00 No, the problem is you. We are incredibly skilled at finding respectable names for disobedience. I remember Jerry Bridges' book. Maybe you want to read this or pick it up if you never have, respectable sins. Just we have these things. We go, yeah, no, not a big deal. But God's holiness strips away our excuses and helps us see our sin for what it is.

17:19 So suddenly we're gonna stop negotiating with God's verdict. We're gonna call sin what God calls it. We're gonna not defend it, minimize it, or blame anybody else for it. And I'm certainly not gonna compare myself with somebody worse. The holiness of God sends me straight to Christ and sets me straight about my own sin and how I need forgiveness, which leads us then to the third truth.

17:43 God's holiness drives us to Christ. God's holiness drives us to Christ. Isaiah's encounter with God does not end that I'm such a sinner, woe is me. Verse 6, then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs, and he touched my mouth with it and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.

18:09 It's beautiful. I would ask you a simple theological question: Who provided the cleansing? God did. I know you maybe say the angel, but the angel is God's ministering messenger. The forgiveness, the taking away of the iniquity is God's doing. Isaiah is confessing his sin. Woe is me. God is responding that you are forgiven.

18:37 In that, if you can't see the picture of the gospel there, you're not seeing it with the eyes of the Spirit, capital S. In John 12, 41, John actually tells us that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, and that's why he said the things that he said. The king Isaiah saw on the throne is the Savior who went to the cross, Christ.

19:01 The Holy One before whom the angels cover their faces is the one who took on flesh, walked with sinners, but never sinned, was rejected, beaten, crucified, bore the judgment you and I deserved, and then rose in victory. That's why the holiness of God is not only about how sinful we are, but how much we need Christ.

19:25 You cannot be saved from the sin you now see apart from Jesus Christ. You can't do enough works to cleanse your dirty lips and your dirty heart, nor can I. Isaiah doesn't make a list, all right, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I've seen God's holiness. I better get better here. No, he doesn't do that.

19:44 He doesn't do that at all. It's God's forgiveness, God's atonement, God's work. What is Isaiah's part? He confesses his sin, of course. But he's undone by his own sin. And God forgives him. When God's holiness exposes your sin, this is an important truth. I don't ever want you or I to confuse conviction with hopelessness.

20:12 Some people they have the first part of Isaiah's experience. They they understand the holiness of God. Maybe you listen to this episode and you think, oh, he's right, the Bible's right, I'm so dirty, and then you stay there and you're hopeless. No, no, no, no, no. It exposes your sin and you should feel conviction, but not hopelessness, because it all leads to forgiveness.

20:34 Your sin is serious. Oh, yeah, it is. But Christ's sacrifice and the forgiving, atoning work of God for you is sufficient. And so my encouragement to you is don't pretend you're not that bad. Be as bad as you are, admit it. And then when you feel that conviction, because you know who God is, turn to Christ and actually believe that the gospel and his grace is enough for you.

21:00 The gospel, the good news is that your sin was so serious that you deserve and I deserve to die, and that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Why is that good news? Well, the good news is that Christ had to die because sin is so serious. So be very serious about sin, but be overjoyed by his grace and his sacrifice being sufficient for you.

21:25 So everyone who trusts in him can be completely forgiven. And that's it, right? Isaiah, you're just lucky that your lips have been touched and your iniquities taken away. So you go on and you just be thankful, you worm in the dirt. No. You read in verse 8. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

21:50 That's a commission. Who shall I send? Who will go out for us? Then Isaiah, well, I better not say anything. You know, I'm just kind of lucky to be saved. Got a real messed up testimony. Yeah, I don't want to, you know, it probably needs somebody who's a little cleaner, a little better, a little more orderly.

22:07 You know, maybe somebody who no, no, he says, Here I am, send me. You know what I love about the progression in Isaiah 6, verses 1 to 8? Isaiah sees God, then Isaiah sees his sin. Then Isaiah confesses his sin. He receives a cleansing. Then there is a commission, meaning a call, and he walks forward in obedience.

22:32 If that is not the right picture of the Christian life, I just don't know what is. That. That's what you're called to. I don't care how sinful you've been. I don't care what your past looks like. I don't care if you don't fit the bill. I don't care if you didn't go to VBS as a kid and you don't have a dad who is a pastor or whoever else or whatever else, or you didn't grow up in church.

22:51 So many of you feel that way. And you think, well, God won't use me, he'll use someone else. I got news for you. He's in the business of cleansing dirty sinners and then bringing them into his commission and calling them to go and using their life powerfully for his glory. By the way, you're looking at one or listening to one right now.

23:11 It is the grace of God that saves us, and it is the grace of God that motivates our willing obedience. I don't want to serve the Lord because I know what I'm doing. I don't want to serve the Lord and be in ministry or be a proclaimer of the truth. I don't care if I was in business, if I was a plumber, if I was a painter, it wouldn't matter.

23:27 I don't want to do all these things because I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. I'm so eloquent. I'm this, I'm this. I'm none of those things. I remember somebody telling me, you know, it was kind of a more of an insult, but I took it, I was like, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. They're like, you know, you're not really one of us.

23:44 You didn't, you didn't, you're not like, you didn't go to seminary where we did or like we did. You know, we grew up with John MacArthur and his ministry. You know, you're kind of late to the game. Your uncle's a heretic and you're a little off the reservation. And so it's nice that you're saved, but like you don't really, you know, you're you're a little like, you know, it's not very clean.

24:00 This other guy once I remember said, man, your testimony's kind of like all over the place, you know. And I'm like, man, I wish, yeah, I wish for my own kids to grow up in church, get saved at BBS. They got baptized at like eight, and then they went to camp, did all the right things, dated some deacon's daughter in the church, and then went on to grow up and became a wonderful pastor and everything was nice and pretty.

24:22 That's just not how it works all the time. And many of you, you think because you've got a blended family, you don't belong. Or because you used to be a drug addict that now you can't be in the ministry. Or you think because you were addicted to something that you don't fit the bill. You think because you didn't grow up in that kind of church, and there's people who are second and third and fourth generation, and you're you're first generation, you're the corner turner, you're just the rookie on the block.

24:48 Well, it'd probably be better that God uses someone else. No. It's just good and right that he saves sinners because he said that's what he would do, and then he commissions them, and you just go on and walk in his grace and his obedience. And that's what it all comes down to. It doesn't matter what your heritage was.

25:09 You know, that's the main problem with the Pharisees. They all thought they were something because of where they came from and who was in their lineage, and Jesus comes along and says, You bunch of vipers, I don't care about your heritage. Where's your faith? You're looking at me and you say I'm a worker of the devil.

25:28 That says everything about you. I mean, that's what he said to the Pharisees. And then he would go and minister to the leper and the prostitute and the gentile, the tax collector. You don't need to be good enough. God is. You don't need to be holy enough, God is. Which leads then to my final truth I want to put before you God's holiness changes how we live.

25:51 You see him in all his holiness, you see his grace upon you, and then all of a sudden it shapes everyday Christian living. Peter writes in 1 Peter 1, 14 to 16, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts, which were in yours, which were yours rather, in your ignorance, but like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves in all your behavior, because it is written, and then there's this quote, you shall be holy, for I am holy.

26:18 In light of God's holiness, we're called to obey him. We're called to be different in our conduct. Worship then should always lead to obedience. Awareness of sin and the blessing of God's grace should lead to obedience. We don't obey him perfectly, but we we want to obey him more progressively. I want to be more obedient to God.

26:36 I want to be more faithful, and and and I will fail, and you will fail, and we all stumble in various ways, but ultimately we are pursuing life that glorifies him. J.I. Packer put it this way: the life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of odd adoration. Odd, not O D D, A-W-E-D. The life of true holiness is rooted in the soil of just this awe and adoration of God.

27:04 We behold God and then we respond to God. We don't grit our teeth and try to manufacture the holiness that we need to have. You see his glory, you receive his grace, and then you go forward and live your life for him. And all of our behavior means holiness should impact your phone, your finances, your ambitions, your priorities, your conversation, your marriage, your parenting, your business dealings, even the way we joke and the movies you watch, the music you listen to, there's no little compartment of your life or mind that we hang a sign on there that's like, you know, no God here, or this is mine.

27:41 All of it belongs to God. And so the holiness of God brings us into greater reverence for him, a greater desire of obedience in light of what he's done for us through Christ. And all of that is because we see who he is and think, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.

28:02 That glimpse of his glory drives our love and response to him. Well, thanks for listening. Thanks for watching, and thank you for those of you who support for the gospel. We are 100% donor-supported and reaching millions of people around the world every month in multiple languages, all because of faithful friends like you and because of our holy and amazing God who chooses to allow that we get the privilege of doing this.

28:27 We often uh think about the words of Isaiah uh, who shall I send? Who will go? Here we are, Lord, send us. That's how we want to live. And I'm thankful that so many of you have expressed that same desire. We'll go, Lord, we'll send, we'll serve, we'll give, and thank you for responding to the call of God through obedience in sharing the content, in praying, in your giving.

28:51 We are seeing God use the content powerfully, and all of that just makes us give him all the more glory and praise for that. If you're a new listener, I want to remind you all of our resources are free. They're on our website, they're on our YouTube channel, they're on social media pages everywhere. If you want to get started at knowing kind of how everything works, go to forthegospel.org.

29:11 Otherwise, I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.