Sermon Central
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The Lord's Glory Fills All Things
Contributed by Gregg Bitter on Jun 13, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: Although the world does not rightly honor the Lord God, his glory fills all things so that like Isaiah we stand trembling before his holiness because of our sins but receive his forgiveness because of the sacrifice of Jesus.
The Lord’s Glory Fills All Things
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds today is recorded in Isaiah 6:1-8:
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. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two wings they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“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.”
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.”
“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:1-8 NIV) – This is the word of the Lord.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
A movie currently in theaters tries to cast God. Yet it does not honor God with the glory and majesty due to him. From what I’ve read and seen in advertisements, the basic story line is this: The character, Bruce Nolan, complains that god is not doing a good job. So god leaves his phone number on Bruce’s pager, when they finally get together, god makes a deal with him. He will gives Bruce his divine power and Bruce is challenged to do a better job in running the world. The name of the movie is Bruce Almighty. Even the title dishonors and blasphemes God. Only the true God is the Almighty, and he does not give his power or glory to another.
But the problem is not just this movie. Our entire culture fails to honor and glorify God. More often than not he is simply ignored. When his name is mentioned, it’s usually misused. He becomes the butt of jokes that refer to the “big guy upstairs.” Our modern American society, which is filled with disrespect for anyone in authority, shows the greatest disrespect toward the One who is the greatest authority.
Our thinking as well is corrupted by all these influences. Often we ourselves invite these negative influences into our minds and lives by our choices of movies, music, and entertainment. We find ourselves being made insensitive so that it becomes easy to dismiss dishonoring God as no big deal and to label those who object as “too religious.” Our sinful flesh loves to bring God down to our own level so we can deal with him on our own terms. We fail to stand in holy fear and trembling awe before his throne. We need the Holy Spirit to be constantly correcting us through God’s Word, so that more and more we grow to honor and glorify our God in everything.
Through the words recorded in Isaiah 6, may the Holy Spirit lead us to stand in awe that God is glorious, despite what the world around us says, and to be completely amazed that the his glory fills all things. That’s the theme to day: The Lord’s Glory Fills All Things. First of all we see that 1) his glory is holiness, and then we see that 2) his glory is forgiveness.
1) His glory is holiness
The Lord God is holy. He is completely set apart from sin. He is completely separate from evil. He transcends all creation. He is light inaccessible.
What Isaiah saw and heard clearly teaches this truth. He saw the Lord, not as an ordinary human being, but seated on a throne, high and exalted, removed from the lowly, the mundane, the sinful. This happened not in just any building, but in the temple, the one place on earth that the true God had placed his name until the promised Savior came.
Angels called seraphs surrounded the throne. Yet event these holy angels, covered their faces and their feet in reverence before the holy God. They were filled with reverent awe, and holy fear, for God’s holiness far surpasses any creature’s holiness. They praised the Lord calling to each other: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3 NIV).
