Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord Almighty!

1st Sunday after Pentecost, 6/3/12
Isaiah 6:1-8


Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord Almighty!
I. A holiness that terrified us
II. A holiness that purifies us
III. A holiness that qualifies us


There are two things in my life that I depend on every day but I don’t understand much about how they work. I’m talking about my computer and my cell phone. I use my computer daily to generate documents, to communicate via email and to search various websites for information, but I really don’t understand how my computer enables me to do all that. Likewise with my cell phone. Basically it’s a hand-held telephone and computer. I don’t understand exactly how my cell phone allows me to do what I do with it. In fact, I only know how to perform a limited number of its capabilities. But the fact that I don’t completely understand it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work well for me. Quite the contrary. Both my computer and my cell phone work well for me. I imagine your situation is similar to mine.

You and I also don’t understand some basic truths about our God, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t work well for us. One of those truths is the one we’re celebrating this morning—the truth that our God is three persons but only one God. He is triune. Try as hard as we can and we still can’t understand that. But it’s true. And just because we can’t understand it doesn’t mean that our God is useless to us. Quite the contrary.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah couldn’t understand the truth of the trinity and yet that didn’t hinder the triune God’s work in his heart and life in the event we have before us this morning. In one word what came blasting in Isaiah’s life on this day was holiness—the holiness of the triune God. The seraphs in his vision were absolutely correct when they proclaimed “Holy holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!” The holiness of the true God deeply affected Isaiah. May it do the same with us this morning! Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!

Part I.
Perhaps you’ve read the email that circulates every so often about the little girl who was drawing on a piece of paper. When her teacher asked, “What are you drawing?” she replied, “A picture of God.” Her teacher quickly reminder her, “How can you draw a picture of God? No one knows what God looks like.” The confident girl responded, “They will now.”

The Bible does state that “no one has ever seen God,” but Isaiah did see a representation of him. He wrote, “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.” He doesn’t give us many details, but he gives us enough for us to understand what was happening. Obviously, God doesn’t sit on a throne. That throne represents the fact that God is King over all and he rules and judges all. Isaiah saw that his train of his robe filled the temple, indicating the truth that he is everywhere; he fills heaven and earth.

But the Lord wasn’t the only thing Isaiah saw. He tells us about seraphs. From his description we know these seraphs were angels with wings. But the name “seraphs” is intriguing. The root meaning of this Hebrew word indicates burning, something that is on fire. The fact that Isaiah saw them above the throne indicates they were highly ranked angels who kept watch over the Lord’s throne. But even these seraphs didn’t feel worthy of being the presence of the Lord as indicated by the way they used their wings to cover their faces and feet.

And when their voices praised the Lord, the temple doors shook and the temple itself was filled with smoke. It was an awesome sight, something I’m sure none of us have ever seen or have even come close to seeing.

But rather than being filled with awe, Isaiah was terrified. “Woe to me!” he 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.” Isaiah’s response was the same as so many others in the Bible when confronted with God’s holiness. The sinner is terrified by his sinfulness. He realizes that no sinner can live in the presence of the holy God.

So, fellow sinners, what’s your reaction to holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty? That’s a holiness that terrifies us.

I’m going to assume that your sinfulness is much like mine. For the most part, we commit sins of weakness. We don’t intend to commit them; but we’re tempted in the moment and we commit them—self-centered actions, judgmental words, lustful and discontented thoughts and desires. But then there are the sins that we give prior thought to. We know that what we’re about to say or do is sinful but we want to do it anyway. We know that the holy God says it’s sinful, but we take the stand that we’ll think and feel and do as we please. And that ought to scare us to death. Look at how Isaiah reacted to the holiness of God. It terrified him. Let’s stop making excuses for sin or making light of our sins. Instead, let the holiness of God terrify you.

Part II.
But don’t stop there. That’s not the only reason the Lord revealed his holiness to Isaiah. The Lord also revealed his holiness to do something about Isaiah’s sinfulness.

Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t un-ring a bell?” It’s certainly a true statement. Once you ring a bell, there’s nothing you can do to undo that action.

The same holds true for a sin. Once you’ve committed it, there’s nothing you can do to un-commit it. You and I are powerless to do anything to erase that sin, to forgive it, to remove our guilt. We can do nothing to stop the punishment for sin from coming.

But God can. That’s what Isaiah saw and experienced. He wrote, “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.’” The Lord did not reveal himself to Isaiah in order to destroy him. He wanted Isaiah to be certain of his forgiveness. In a graphic way he did just that and then the seraph announced that his guilt and sin were removed. Isaiah was purified.

The work of forgiving sinners is the most important work of our holy God. The true God deeply desires to share his holiness with us, not kill us with it. And that was the reason that our God sent his one and only Son into the world. As that Son, Jesus, explained to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel, whoever believes in Jesus as their Savior has eternal life. Jesus came to take the punishment for our sins upon himself. He suffered that punishment on Calvary’s cross. Through Christ ours sins have been wiped away. Through faith in Jesus we receive the holiness that God demands.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, a holiness that purifies us.

Have you ever taken something that was pretty good as it is and tried to make it better? Sometimes we succeed. At other times, we end up making it worse. That’s what happens with our forgiveness. We ruin it when we think we can make it better, when we think we can add something to it, when we feel we can make up for our sins, when we assume that we deserve to have God treat us better. Those attitudes only destroy the perfect holiness that our God gives to us by faith—by faith alone in Jesus. Our God graphically demonstrated that forgiveness for Isaiah. Our Savior graphically accomplished that forgiveness for us when he sacrificed himself for our sins. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord almighty—a holiness that purifies us.

Part III.
I haven’t heard much recently about the efforts to restore The Arcade in downtown Dayton, have you? All along I’ve wondered about the viability of such a project, and yet I appreciated the effort. These investors want to clean up and restore that once-magnificent structure so that it can be used and enjoyed again.

In a way, that’s what our God did with Isaiah. He cleaned him up. He restored him. He purified him. But he didn’t do that so that he could lock him behind the glass of a display case. He did it so that he could put Isaiah to use.

The Lord made that perfectly clear with these words, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’” Having experienced the forgiveness that only the holy God can supply, Isaiah was now qualified to share the news of that forgiveness with others. God didn’t send out his holy angels to share that message. They know nothing of what forgiveness is. Isaiah did. Thus God directed his questions at Isaiah because Isaiah had just experienced that forgiveness in a graphic way.

And he immediately responded, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah had experienced both aspects of God’s holiness. It had terrified him but then it immediately purified him. That’s exactly the message every sinner needs to hear. Isaiah would be the holy God’s mouthpiece.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty—a holiness that qualifies us.

You, too, have God’s full and free forgiveness through Christ. You have experienced the terrors of conscience and the daggers of guilt. But you also have experienced again and again the soothing and saving news of your forgiveness in Christ. That qualifies you to be God’s mouthpiece just as Isaiah was. The holy Lord promises to bless the words you speak about him to others. At times that work won’t be easy. Isaiah’s certainly wasn’t. By and large his fellow Jews didn’t listen to him. But Isaiah’s job was simply to speak God’s message, the message of his holiness. That holiness is yours by faith in Jesus. Live in the joy of it! Share the saving news of it! Amen.