Glory of God Part 3: Holiness

Psalm 139 Now yesterday we started speaking a little bit about the glory of God And I was speaking about the some of the what I call the essential glories Not that there are some that are essential and some non-essential but essential in the sense of What relates to the nature or essence of God as deity I? also want to get into what what I would call the moral glories of God this evening as well and Hopefully we'll be able to spend some time on that Now Psalm 139 will just read a few of these verses because we find some of what I already touched on Yesterday and then what we're going to look at tonight in the passage verse 1 O Lord thou hast searched me and known me Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising thou understandest my thought afar off Thou compassest my path and my lying down and Aren't acquainted with all my ways For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo O Lord thou knowest it altogether Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high I Cannot attain unto it Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from my presence if I ascend up into heaven thou art there If I make my bed in hell behold thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand Lead me and thy right hand shall hold me if I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light About me and so on Now I'm not going to make too many comments on this passage But in the first few verses the emphasis is upon God knowing everything And we were looking at this a little bit yesterday from Isaiah chapter 40 of his omniscience the one who knows all things and today What's happening in in our realm is that Information is exploding We can't keep up to the to the accumulation of information If you've been out of school for two years You're already 50% behind Apparently the The total amount of knowledge known to mankind is now doubling in less than two years That's how fast It is exploding the amount of information. It's at the point where Even researchers Can't keep up With the amount of material that is being produced in various places in the earth And it's almost easier to go ahead and do the research yourself than to try to even locate What's already been done? So we are at this point where we're drowning in information And yet we're starving for knowledge We don't know how to put it together We don't know how to make sense of it and to know how to live people seem to have less Knowledge as to how to live today than they did before all the information poured over us Now We're an information overload as the expression is But from Isaiah chapter 40, I would love to go back to it, but I'm going to try to avoid spending too much time in review We learned in that chapter that no one has ever taught God anything No one has ever made him understand Maybe 98% maybe 99% of what we know we have learned from somebody else but God has this unique glory That he understands and possesses complete knowledge about everything everything that exists because he brought it forth and to imagine that He has that capability of designing Creating when there is absolutely nothing beforehand nothing to copy from nothing to get an idea from he is the Wonderful architect engineer designer and So this passage Psalm 139 is a recognition that God understands me totally and He's interested enough in me to search and know everything about me and So that's what we have in the first few verses But I want to look from verse 7 down to another aspect and that is what we call his omnipresence Now omnipresence just means that he is everywhere Omni all or everything presence his presence is in all places He is the creator.

He is greater than the creation He is beyond the creation and there is no part of the universe where God's presence doesn't fill What does that mean well that means you cannot run from God It means that you cannot escape from his presence now if you love God and You want to follow him? That's a tremendous comfort to know that God is here It is a wonderful comfort in every crisis in every trial that we get ever experience God is here in all his wisdom in all his power in all his Understanding and he is there for me. God is for us Is a wonderful reality but you know if we would like to sin This is a tremendous challenge God is here Every sin that we commit we commit in the sight of the eternal God So it's a comfort for every trial It's a challenge to every sin and the Lord says that those who sin and that includes all of us many times In the measure that we are sinning we are despising him We are taking him lightly in all his glory and his greatness now. There's one other Aspect of his essential glory that I want to touch on before we get into the moral glories it's found in first Timothy chapter 1 and verse 17 and This is what we refer to as his sovereignty It says in first Timothy chapter 1 and verse 17 Now unto the king eternal Immortal invisible the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever Amen now, this is another one of those Doxologies as I referred to yesterday a Portion that is a worship an acknowledgment of the greatness of God So this expression that we look at here the king eternal unto the king eternal an Eternal king And do you know any other king that's eternal? There have been some powerful monarchs That have left their imprint upon the earth, but they're gone Their authority is nullified But there is one thing that is eternal and His reign his authority his majesty is Undiminishing unfading and If he is omnipresent and if he is omnipotent There is no escaping From the sovereignty of God he reigns he rules And he does it with absolute authority and right now The teaching of his sovereignty has become one of the most debated aspects of his glory And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it again, but I do want to to say that there has been a lot of confusion and Some who who seek to uphold the the wonder of the glory of God and Uphold the reality of the sovereignty of God the fact that he rules that he is sovereign.

He is the eternal king they come From that truth to a deduction and the deduction is that Everything that happens must be his sovereign will and I have read books that have debated this issue and After reading the books I have felt myself like a Withered up spoon or something It's soul withering soul destroying you see the problem with that kind of thinking is is Assuming that Nothing can happen that God doesn't decide must happen But that isn't what the Bible tells us the Bible tells us that there has been a rebellion against the sovereign But the world is Under judgment because of this rebellion and that there is someone who is a rival to God Who has attempted to raise the whole creation in rebellion against God? And that there are many things that are done that are not according to his will So what's the answer then to the dilemma is God sovereign or isn't he? Well, yes, he is sovereign I would like to express it this way that he has the right and the authority to command all of his creation But he has permitted Rebellion against his authority against his right of sovereignty temporarily In order that he might manifest The beauties of his moral glories Which we want to look at next There is a day coming when God is going to crush every rebellion Do not imagine That there is going to be any realm in God's creation Where people are going to still do whatever they feel like There is a day coming when all evil will be halted and Every knee will bow and acknowledge his sovereignty his supremacy That day is coming. Why hasn't it come yet? Because he's long-suffering Not willing that any should perish and so the Truth of the sovereignty of God is a very important truth but if we can just keep in mind that he has Not surrendered his sovereignty But he has subjected his sovereignty to his nature of Love and goodness that it might be more Manifested and I want to then look at some of the passages And there's I'm just going to refer to a lot of them because there's so many of them Looking at his moral glories Let's look at in Romans chapter 2 for a verse now I Have divided these up in categories Maybe a little bit arbitrarily Just to to be able to Convey them in a in a in a sort of a classification Moral glory in the sense of what pertains to his character Romans chapter 2 Verse 2 says, but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth Against them which commit such things Now it also says in verse 5 after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurist up unto thyself wrath against a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous Judgment of God. So the first thing I want to emphasize is his righteousness God is just He is always just He is always righteous and It might be very surprising.

But when we learn in the book of Romans as we go through the book of Romans Salvation is first of all an issue of righteousness You see God must act righteously or he won't do it Salvation is made available to humanity. It is made available righteously He will not compromise his righteousness his justice in order to show compassion or kindness This is one of the great dilemmas in the whole judicial system Judges wrestle with the issue Do I do I execute justice or do I show mercy And we have a very hard time knowing the balances But with God he doesn't just balance one off against the other he manifests each in perfection So he is just he is a righteous God and Isaiah chapter 45 makes this great declaration a just God and a Savior So he will not Compromise his justice. And so the very first Implication of that as we have in Romans chapter 2 is this is that God will judge sin God will judge all iniquity he will execute judgment upon evil upon transgression He is the Supreme Judge and Nothing will ever pass his throne into eternity Undealt with we must be absolutely sure of this No sin, no injustice No evil will ever be permitted to bypass his throne into his Eternal kingdom his eternal realm.

So that is something that every one of us must reckon with There's another verse that says that justice is the habitation of his throne His throne is established in perfect complete Righteousness now a little further down in the chapter Here it also says in verse 11 there is no respect of persons with God that means there's no partiality There's no favoritism with God. He judges Righteously in all cases. So his justice his fairness his honesty his impartiality are Vital parts aspects of his personal character Now Where does that leave us? Well that would leave us doomed With a destiny of meeting God if that is all that we could say about God's personal character But the next thing that I want to emphasize is his goodness in The sense of his love and his kindness His compassion his mercy his grace.

These are all very important Bible terms. Let's look in Ephesians chapter 1 and Here we learn that There are people Who were once under this wrath of God who now are are praising And here's what it says in verse 6 Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 6 to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he has Made us accepted in the Beloved In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace And of course there's so many other verses that we could be reading we could spend the rest of the night reading about his great love That he's so loved the world and so on And so this is a wonderful manifestation a wonderful Display of the beauty of our God that he is a God of grace a God of mercy and compassion and it is his delight it is What he longs to express is This grace and so here we see that that It's possible To escape from the logical conclusion of his justice That we would be under judgment for our sin forever Now, how does he accomplish this? Well, he does it righteously and The book of Romans is taken up with establishing that truth But here the expression is that he has in in this beloved one that we have found favor and grace is in whom we have Redemption through his blood in other words the divine compassion moving towards me cost him his son That's what it cost So it's a very costly exercise and manifestation of his goodness toward us Now the third one that I wanted to to mention is his purity His holiness and Included in that are words like sincerity integrity impeccability These are all terms that are used to describe the reality that that God is is holy He is pure There is nothing impure or corrupt in him now I don't know if you have much appreciation for that if you Become one of his if you have been saved You will have an appreciation for that holiness of God It has been something that I have progressively Recognized as a Christian how essential this is Holiness is what holds life together Holiness keeps life pure uncorrupted and God is working towards something for eternity You know if God was just interested in and keeping everybody happy for the moment He wouldn't really care about holiness He would just say go and have fun whatever is fun to you just do it now that's the philosophy of holiday a Total disregard for the issue of holiness purity But it's a tragic false idea because holiness is essential To a life that endures a quality of life that endures and in the beautiful psalm 110 that speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who is going to reign forever it speaks of him as in the beauties of holiness and having the dew of youth And I have learned this And I hope I am preserved by it That there is a beauty in holiness and it becomes more beautiful The longer we live Whereas if you disregard holiness your life will become anything but beautiful It will become increasingly morally ugly You know there's a lot of things I think we know that about human life There's a lot of things that we think are cool For a teenager, but they're positively disgusting for a grandfather Why do we know that instinctively We know that is not the true direction of life But God is absolutely pure holy incorruptible in his nature and being Another thing that we need to understand About that is that that holiness is not passive It is a holiness that repels sin It repels wickedness And that is one reason why sin can never never be tolerated in the presence of God it never will be and the Bible says that our God is a Consuming fire and that consuming fire is the fire of his holiness that must consume and destroy What is? evil in his eyes And so that's a very important aspect, but you know It really means that he's absolutely genuine Absolutely sincere in everything that he does and everything that he commits himself to and everything that he says and that leads to the next aspect of his faithfulness and And Again there are many many scriptures which tell us About the greatness of his faithfulness Lamentations chapter 3 in the midst of the Devastating judgments that God brings upon the nation of Israel because of their wickedness the carrying away into captivity lamentations 3 and 23 Jeremiah in his lament over the city and over the nation He says great is by faithfulness Great is thy faithfulness So he is faithful. He's reliable.

He's dependable first Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 in the issue of temptation and sin It says God is faithful He will not permit you to be tempted above what you are able but will with the temptation provide a way to escape God is faithful It also tells us that he is faithful to his calling first Corinthians chapter 1 and verses 8 to 10 speaks of the reality that he has called us to the fellowship of his son and So he's working in the in our lives as Christians to fit us for companionship fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ God is faithful and He will fulfill what is required to fit us for companionship with his son. So he's he's faithful to his promises faithful to his covenant and Incidentally, that's another reason why he absolutely abhors Unfaithfulness Why does marriage matter? Why is marriage not just one alternative to any kind of living arrangement that you may choose to live in? It's because God is a God of faithfulness and he designed marriage to express that commitment and faithfulness of two people together for life Because he's faithful And Malachi chapter 2 warns that if we are unfaithful To that commitment to that relationship. He won't pay any attention to us when we cry to him What a what a salt solemn thing to think about that he looks at our faithfulness and It matters to him And so as we look at these qualities of his character It it brings out to us.

What kind of God what kind of being it is That we have to do with now Let's go to 2nd Peter chapter 3 for an interesting verse 2nd Peter chapter 3 Now This is in reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus a Coming that's going to involve judgment for the world the setting right of everything But it says in verse 8 After talking about those who scoff and mock and say well, you know, where's this promise of his coming? Verse 8 says but beloved be not Ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day the Lord is not slack or slow concerning his promise as some men count slackness But is long-suffering to us Not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance but then the next verse says but the day of the Lord Will come and that would be a day of wrath and judgment. So what is this? revealing his patience His long-suffering his forbearance God has been patient He's been patient with me You see if God Were to deal with us quickly Hastily in wrath in judgment when we were disobedient When we despised him or ignored him where would we be today and this is multiplied over the world and People do question and they say well, why doesn't God judge? If There is if there's a God How can he allow things to go on as they are? That is a challenge to understand We get upset when we see Injustice when we see wickedness and our minds cry out for justice for judgment But as he says one day is with the Lord like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day His way of measuring is not bound by time as ours is But what is it that makes the delay? It's because he is compassionate and in that compassion. He is long-suffering putting up with what he hates This gets back to what I mentioned earlier about his sovereignty Yes, he will bring judgment upon evil But he is withholding that expression of judgment Why because he is looking for a way to show mercy He is not willing that any should perish But that all should come to repentance and It has impressed me quite a bit to think of the eternal deity Eternal omnipotence waiting patiently For a human being to repent But that's that's our God So these qualities that I have referred to That I call his moral glories This is what fills out and completes the glory of God So that as we think of God and the display of his excellence of his beauty we can Appreciate him we can honor him More than just simply the reality that he is the eternal God and that he is Omnipotent and that he ought to be feared and obeyed because of that glory but we can approach him as the compassionate God as the one who is holy the one who is Caring one who is faithful and so on now.

I want to try in the time that is left to I Touch on another another aspect of the subject and And that is Well, it's a little difficult because there's only 15 minutes left As to which I should aim that first, maybe I should look at at Our response to him first of all I Touched on this somewhat last night in the gospel meeting. I was trying to cheat a little bit and And get a little more in in the time that I had Remember what I told you last night that God has something against us Two basic charges the first one is that we have not glorified him When They knew God Romans chapter 1 says when they knew God they glorified him not as God I would suggest that that relates especially to the essential glories of his deity of his eternal power as the passage tells us and the God who is the eternal sovereign was disregarded and turned away from But then in Romans chapter 3, we also learned that We're a dishonor to him We are a disgrace to him and this really brings out the two Aspects of what it means to glorify God Now there are many verses that I could read with you that emphasize that our Primary Obligation or responsibility before God is that we would glorify him Now What does it mean to glorify him Well, we can glorify him in the first aspect is our response to him as We learn about his About his wisdom as we learn about his Eternal eternal deity His power his omnipresence What does that lead us to do well if it leads us to To reverence him to worship him. That is a proper response to him Now let me give you a few verses one is in Psalm 50 in verse 23 And it says whoso offers praise glorifies me Whoso offers praise Glorifies me so it is it is suited.

It is appropriate for us to offer praise Because he is the only one that is truly Praise worthy now, let's let's read a couple of other verses and unfortunately, this is this is said to Christians In 1st Corinthians chapter 4 There are things that Christians shouldn't have to be told And yet when you come into the epistle to the Corinthians 1st Corinthians over and over again Paul says don't you know? Don't you know? No, you not he's really bringing up things that they should have instinctively understood as Having come into contact with God and his salvation So here is one of the things that was wrong in Corinth Among the many things that were wrong. They were puffed up They were glorying in something of themselves. And so he says in in 1st Corinthians Chapter 4 He says in verse 6 and these things brethren.

I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes That you might learn in us Not to think of men above that which is written that no one of you be puffed up for one against another For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou did not Receive now if I did receive it, why does thou glory as if thou had not received it? Now, what is he getting at here? Well, it would help if you had read the first four chapters and you would know the context But instead of being caught up with the Lord Instead of being absorbed with God and his greatness They were all caught up with themselves and with one another And that's easy to do isn't it It's easy to lose sight of God and to become taken up with one another or with ourselves But here's what he says. He says now who makes you to differ to be different Now we wouldn't have said it that way would we we would have said well what makes you different You know, what distinguishes you from another person and you might be able to rhyme off a few different Character traits or abilities that you know if you've ever had to do a resume for a job application you have to try to look on the bright side of a lot of things and Present yourself in the best possible light. You have to sell yourself.

That's what you're supposed to try to do That's not the question here The question is who made you different? Who makes you unique? And that links us back not just to our our differences our uniqueness But to the one who created us and designed us and intended us to be different and so he says then What do you have that you didn't receive? Well, what do you have that you didn't receive? well You know, there's a tremendous difference in what people do with what they've been given some people Do really well Do marvelously Developed very well and others let what they have been given fade away to be almost nothing That's not God's fault that's what we have done with what he has given us he has given each one of us a Set of circumstances in which we were born the families we grew up in we all have a unique set of life Circumstances that have had an effect upon us Each of us has his or her own set of opportunities and Abilities and so on because God has a purpose That we can meet be made use of to glorify him in some way so he says Now, what do you have that you didn't receive and if you did receive it? Why do you glory as if you hadn't received it? See the problem is this that and I mentioned this very briefly last night pride distorts reality By Taking something that God has blessed me with and Makes it a reason for me to feel superior to someone else If God has gifted me in some way and he has gifted every one of us in many ways It is not for my glory It is not for my exaltation It is that something of God might be reflected and be a blessing to other people and You see we have to recognize that we are what we are as a stewardship from God We're not here just to kill time We're not here just to survive Nor just to have fun. We are here to represent God So there is what God is in himself that we must react to we must respond to him either worship Service obedience that is one primary way of glorifying him But the secondary aspect that I'm drawing attention to now is this This was right back to creation Genesis chapter 1 the thought of being created in the image and likeness of God God will never Deal with you as just one of the animals if you were to believe the evolutionists were just We just happen to be I don't even know if we should say one of the smartest of the animals We do strange things with the intelligence God has given us, but we're not just one of the animals We have been placed in Administration over the creation that God has made in order that we might Represent the invisible God to the creation So all that is of God the fact that he has Wisdom that he has knowledge that he is understanding that he has power all of those things in some measure are conferred upon us and all of the moral glories of God of a sense of justice of A recognition of a difference between right and wrong of good and bad that's built into us We cannot escape from that The ability to love and to care Those are all abilities that are granted to us as a stewardship as a Responsibility and through which we will glorify God God is invisible But we are his visible representatives in the earth. That's what it means to be created in the image and In the likeness of God now, there's a verse in first Corinthians chapter 11 And you know, there's so many there's so many truths in the Bible that are connected together by these threads of truth And this in first Corinthians 11 relates to what we call headship And there's a lot of people that come into assembly gatherings and they wonder what do all those women have something on their head for and You know, why don't the men have something on their head? Like what what difference does it make? Well, it is this principle this truth that the man Directly as created by God Adam was given Headship over he was put in authority over the creation and It tells us in first Corinthians chapter 11 that he ought not to cover his head in the presence of God Because he is the image and the glory of God So the man carries this double responsibility as Part of humanity the man carries this Primarily of being the visible representation of the authority of God And we can't escape from that responsibility and that's why our failure To rule ourselves is a double failure We are given that responsibility and now There are many other verses that we could link together.

But this is the stewardship given to us from the eternal God and By which we honor him By worshiping him for what he is in himself but then by properly living out That same kind of life and character that is found in him Those are the two fundamental ways in which we were intended to glorify God What has happened? Oh we failed We have failed our stewardship We have fallen and we ourselves have needed to be rescued. So I'm going to leave till tomorrow night what I was hoping to try to get into tonight, but it's too important just to cram into the last few minutes and That is how the Lord Jesus is The image and glory of God and how he has glorified God on the earth Let's close in prayer shall we pray Our gracious God and our father We thank thee that while thou art so awesome so great and we would feel so insignificant and Yet thou hast made us to be the visible expression of thy glory And we thank thee for everything that there is in humanity That does reflect the beauty that is of God We thank thee for every person who shows kindness Who shows sympathy and who seeks to understand the need of those around who has a desire to care for people and Who willingly Sacrifices time and Energy in order to help others we thank thee for every person who restrains the evil within their own heart and Judges it and seeks to live righteously And seeks to honor promises it seeks to be faithful to commitments our father we we know that There are many things that are beautiful about many people but we have been made conscious of the fact that we all have sinned before thee and We cannot erase That sin and its effect upon our own hearts But we bless thee for the Redeemer who has come from my presence Who not only in himself has perfectly? Honored thee and Perfectly represented thee, but he has himself become our Savior and so we bow to thee and Thank thee that thou art now known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ And so we bless thee we thank thee for The glimpses that we have been looking at this evening Some of it is so familiar to us that we have forgotten how beautiful it is but we pray that thou would refresh our minds and make our hearts alive again to the wonder of thy grace We thank thee for salvation and look to thee to bless thy word tonight in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen