God Is...

Ok I'm going to talk a little Christianity 101 with you this morning if that's okay if I if I were to ask a show of hands is how many of you believe in God i'm sure most if not all of you erase your hands but how often do we ask ourselves who is God what do we believe about God and before you answer that keep in mind what's riding on the answer to that question. If we don't answer that question correctly then nothing else we believe about Carter about spiritual things will be right and even it goes even beyond what we think it's the quote spiritual arena I mean when we look at the news and any hot button issue that faces our country and our world now just about every one of them can be traced back to what people believe about God or about ultimate reality.

So let's do a little audience participation if you

don't mind. I'd like a few of you to complete this sentence God is God it's what? What adjectives do you have?

I want to continue on with that theme by looking at three prominent attributes that the Bible gives to God:

God is holy

God is truth, and

God is love

Ok the first one I'm going to

look at is God is holy and in our world today the common perception of God is he's the sentimental old guy sitting on his cosmic rocking chair blissfully watching the universe go by and my friends nothing could be further from the truth in that the God of the Bible is a God of zeal and passion and he is a god that requires things of us.

Unfortunately that's the point where a lot of people walk away from it but they we all have the heart of the Apostle Peter who said Lord where else would wego you're the one who has the words of life amen?

Even the term God in the sense of our English language is very limited in some ways the Bible uses it to describe false gods as well as the true God in fact it draws that distinction over 130 times that's something to think about. The Hebrew language is much more descriptive it gives and gives us several important names of God and one of the most intriguing names is designated by our English letters yhwh or as the Hebrew would say yud hey vav hey. They call it the tetragrammaton and keep in mind the Hebrew language has no vowels so the name has been

anglicized over the years it became Yahweh and Yahoveh and as we will commonly know Jehovah. Most of us have had

teaching them on the different

variations of that name

Jehovah Rapha the Lord our healer

Jehovah Jireh the Lord our provider

Jehovah Shalom the Lord our peace

There are a lot more but

you get the idea

At the same time though it's noteworthy that the Jews

have had such reverential awe for that name of God that they've refused to uh turn out loud and could it be that some of us and I include myself in that have have lost some of that reverence.

So with that in mind let's go to Isaiah chapter 6 and I'm reading out of the New Living Translation for those of you following

along i'm going to read in verses 1

through 9:

it was in the year King Uzziah

died which would it would have been about 740 bc that I saw the Lord he was sitting on a lofty throne in the train of his robe filled the temple attending him were mighty Seraphim each having six wings with two wings they covered their faces what to they covered their feet and with two they flew they were calling out to each other holy holy holy is the Lord of heavens armies the whole earth is filled with his glory their voices shook the temple to its foundations and the entire building was filled with smoke. Then I said it's all over I'm doomed for I'm a sinful man I filthy

lips and I've lived among a people with filthy lips yet I've seen the king the Lord of heavens armies then one of the Seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs he touched my lips with it and said see this coal has touched your lips now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven then I heard the Lord asking whom should I send as a messenger to this people who will go for us I said Here I am sin me and he said go.

There are several things in this passage that I'd like to point out to you first let's look at verse 3 notice that God is described not just as "holy" but as "holy holy holy" and in the Jewish mode of communication repetition was often used as a sign of emphasis you know often