Part 4: God's Immanence, Holiness And Perfection Series

ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

PART4: HOLINESS AND PERFECTION

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

What God has revealed about Himself is called His attributes. Last week’s sermon focused on two of God’s attributes: grace and omnipresence. By grace I mean that while God should eternally disapprove and condemn all of humanity, His providing the means to know Him through the atoning death of His Son Jesus is evidence of the incomprehensible, immense and overwhelming goodness of our God! While we cannot comprehend the atonement of Christ, His grace should compel us to not squander our lives but to take every opportunity to serve our Creator. By omnipresence I mean that God is indivisible present everywhere at all times. If one goes to the heavens, hell or the depths of the sea, God is there. When God seems distant from us it is not because He spatially distant but that sin has crept into our lives and made our moral character dissimilar to that of His. Praise be that through confession we become right with God and able to once again communicate with Him. This week we are going to look at the final three of God’s attributes covered in this series: immanence, holiness and perfection.

ATTRIBUTE 8: GOD’S IMMANENCE

While omnipresence means that God is indivisibly present everywhere at all times, immanent means that God penetrates everything. He dwells everywhere in His universe at all times and yet the universe cannot contain Him. Last week we learned that the reason why God seems distant from our hearts is due to sin introducing incompatibility between the moral natures of God and the sinner. Through belief in the atoning death of Christ, we learned that we are justified, declared righteous and regenerated through the washing and rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). It is through the Spirit that one partakes of the divine nature (1 Peter 1:4) and enough of His image is restored so that communication with a Holy God is once again possible because both natures are morally consistent. While most Christians intellectually know these concepts to be true they still suffer from a sense of divine remoteness due to their hearts not being renewed and transformed into Christlikenss on a daily basis (Romans 12:1-2).

Our yearning to draw nearer to God can only be satisfied through following the footsteps of Christ. “By looking at our Lord Jesus we will know what God is like and will know what we have to be like to experience the unbroken and continuous presence of God.” From Jesus we learn that God is holy and commands us to be as well (1 Peter 1:16). It is through our obedience to God that we draw nearer to God. One simply cannot sing and pray the song “Draw me Nearer, Nearer, Nearer, Blessed Lord” and expect God to come knocking on the door of a carnal Christian who has not for months or even decades muttered a single word of repentance! From Jesus, we also learn that the self-centered, self-indulgent love will keep one distant from God who demands us to imitate His Son’s sacrificial love for Himself and one another. To imitate Christ, we as born-again believers must have an overwhelming passion to be kind to both those who love us and to those who choose to be our enemies. While a lukewarm, carefree attitude towards the blood of Christ can drive a wedge between us and God, embracing His grace to transform our hearts into Christlikeness is the key to walking and talking with God from one moment to the next!

ATTRIBUTE 9: GOD’S HOLINESS

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “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.”

Isaiah 6:1-5, NIV

As fallen beings spiritually, morally, mentally and physically; it should not come as a surprise that the concept of God’s holiness remains elusive to us! Holiness means purity but to whom or what could we ever compare God to or what language could one ever use to describe He who is infinitely more purer than our minds can ever possibly conceive? When Ezekiel saw visions of God he repeatedly used the word “like” for he knew the description he was giving of God was far from complete. Our conception of God’s holiness today is even less accurate for God is not a “poor, weak, weeping old man,” a mere reflection of our image in a mirror, but is powerful, mighty and wholly other! Amid His holiness the angels, elders and four beasts stand around the throne of God repeating “blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever, amen (Revelation 7:11-12). God is truly distinct and in a class by Himself for whom would ever claim to match His gloriousness in holiness (Exodus 15:11)?