God Is Morality's Standard Various Texts

The Perfections of God and the Meaning of Worship

Do you ever think about, you have about a half an hour left of your life, and what songs you would want to be singing? That would be right at the top of my list. What a wonderful song.

Holy, holy, holy.

Because life is about God, right? That's why we are here. We are here to worship God. And there's something really special about singing that song in this devil-ruled world that we live in, you know, just exclaiming His praise and His honor and His glory.

One thing that you often hear people say in our world is that no one is perfect. And this is true. We don't know what perfection is because none of us are perfect. And it's worse than that. All of humanity are sinners.

Romans 3 .23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now you might think, well, that's humanity. Can we not see perfection in creation? While the creative world is stunning and beautiful, perfection is not found there either.

The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 8 that everything in creation has been stained by sin, and it's waiting to be freed in that day when sin is banished and Christ reigns forever with His people. So as you think about it, the most beautiful sunset, the most beautiful mountain range, the most beautiful lake seen, the most beautiful starry night has all in some sense been stained by sin.

This is the reality of the world that we live in. We don't know what perfection is. But in this world, in this universe, there is one who is perfect. And there are also beings that He created that have perfection, angels.

But even their perfection pales in comparison to His perfection. When we describe one who is perfect in every way, there is only one who fits this metric, and that, of course, is God Almighty. In the summer of 2017, that was the first summer as the pastor of Eureka Baptist Church, I did a sermon series on the perfections of God.

And the reason I did that sermon series is because I wanted people in this church, and most of you weren't there at that time, but I wanted the people in this church to understand who God is. Because there are so many false understandings of who God is, we need to go to the book to find out who God is.

When we think about the being of God, God can be described in different ways. He is self-existent. He is eternal. He is all-powerful. He is all-knowing. He is present everywhere at all times. He is majestic and beautiful.

He is joyful. He's the happiest being there is. Fully content. He is loving. He is gracious. He is merciful. He is just. God is a perfect being. In every one of these areas, He has no deficiencies. When we talk about God's power, for example, there are no limitations to His power.

Everything that we see in creation, He spoke into existence. When we talk about God's knowledge, He knows literally everything. If we were to ask God how many molecules are in the St. Croix River, He would know right away.

He even knows the things that didn't happen in life, but could have happened if circumstances were different. It's amazing to think about this. God is perfect in every way. He's not bound by time as we are.

And as we think about God's perfections, this of course applies to His character. God is righteous in every way. As we think about the standard for righteousness in this world, He is that standard. This is what morality is.

Do certain actions in life reflect or deny God's perfect character? There isn't some arbitrary standard out there that people are to follow.

No.

The standard of what is good, what is righteous, is found only in Him. This morning, we are starting a three-month sermon series, as I mentioned, on the Ten Commandments. And we are going to kick off this morning with an introductory sermon.

We'll actually have an introductory sermon two Sundays from now as well when I preach again. And then we'll actually jump in to the Ten Commandments. But what we're going to focus on this morning is the Lord's character.

Now this sermon, we will not be turning to a particular place in the Bible as we normally do, but I do encourage you to write down the verses that I mention. This sermon is titled, Intro to the Ten Commandments, God is Morality's Standard.

And we have a big idea here, as we always do. And here's our big idea. Understanding God's character changes the way you live. This is the big takeaway. Understanding God's character changes the way you live.

And we're going to see three ways how in this sermon. And there's going to be a number of passages that we look at. Three ways how. The first way how is this. By making sure you understand who God really is.

Making sure you understand who God really is. It's easy for us to have a wrong view of God. We can make Him smaller and diminish His glory in the process. We can make Him like a man, often times. I know a lot of Christians like the movie The Shack.

The Shack, I'll be honest with you, makes God look small. Okay, that might be controversial to say that. We need to go to the Bible. The Bible makes God look big, because He is.

He's infinite.

He's perfect in every way. Understanding God's holiness will correct the way we think about God. There are two ways of understanding God's holiness. One has to do with God's being, and one has to do with His character.

The word holy means to be set apart. God is the creator, and we are His creatures. In this sense, He is entirely different from us. God is not dependent on anyone for His existence. Well, we are entirely dependent on Him for ours.

The other way, when we talk about holiness, is His character. And this is our focus here. For God to be holy means that He is completely set apart from sin. We're just saying about this. In the Old Testament, there were places on earth that God set up as His dwelling place for the Israelites, this nation that He called.

They were designated as holy places. The first of these was the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a tent that traveled along with the people of Israel. The reason God's dwelling place was a tent was because they were not yet in the land where a permanent dwelling place would be set up.

This place was set up as a place separate from sin in this world. Exodus 26 .33 says,. So the tabernacle had two rooms, the most holy and the holy place. The holy place was the place where the priests could go in and out.

The most holy place was the place where only one person could go one time a year, and that was the high priest. God not only set apart these places, but He also set apart the priests. As I mentioned, the high priest.

Exodus 29 .44. Now that would be quite an archaeological find, wouldn't it? To find those? And I can't imagine the price for that on eBay, but quite expensive. But Psalm 24 .3 says,. Now I mentioned that the tabernacle was temporary.

What came after the tabernacle was the temple. And this temple was built in Jerusalem. So once Israel was in the land, they were able to build this temple. And this temple was, of course, built under King Solomon.

About 3 ,000 years ago. These two places were meant to symbolize the Lord's dwelling place. And they were meant to show the world, they were meant to show the people of Israel, God is holy and you are not.

The Lord is called the Holy One several places in Scripture. And one of the clearest pictures of this is in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 6, verses 1 -7. I'm going to read this here. The whole earth is full of His glory.

And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of Him who called. And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. This experience that Isaiah had is unlike anything that we have ever experienced. He beheld the glory of the Lord and he experienced it firsthand. He experienced the Lord's holiness as the Lord was sitting on the throne.

And as he experienced the Lord's holiness, he was reminded of his unholiness, his filthiness. The thing is, when you're a filthy person surrounded by other filthy people, you might actually think you look pretty good.

I'm better than this guy, I'm better than her. We shouldn't think in those ways, but it's easy to do that, right? But when God is the standard, and there's no one else around but you, and you're being compared to God, that's an uncomfortable place to be.

And not only was Isaiah being compared to God, he's also being compared to these angels, by the way. These angels aren't sinful, so he's the only sinful one there. Could you imagine what that must have been like?

And as you continue reading this passage, an angel brings a burning coal that touches Isaiah's lips, and the angels tell him that his sins are atoned for. We see the gospel in this passage. His sins need to be atoned for, and of course, those sins are atoned for in Jesus Christ, when he went to the cross and he paid the full penalty for our sins.

Now, this experience that Isaiah had, do you think this impacted him the rest of his life? You have those moments in life that impact you forever. This moment impacted Isaiah. Do you know how we know that?

In the book of Isaiah, 66 chapters, when he talks about the Lord, do you know what he calls him? The Holy One. Over and over again. The Holy One. The Holy One. The Holy One. Why is he saying that? Because he saw his holiness.

He saw the throne. And Isaiah is not the only one who gave him this title. The psalmist also did in Psalm 71, 22. There the psalmist wrote, I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God.

I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. The psalmist also praised him for his holiness in Psalm 99, 9, where he proclaims, Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.

So we see clearly that God is holy. This once again means that he is entirely separate from us. He is the creator and we are the creature. He is, without sin, we have sin. As I mentioned in the introduction, we have never seen anyone like God.

Who is pure. Because we are surrounded by sin. People are sinners and everything in this world is stained by sin. When I was younger, we took two trips to Canada. I took two trips, that is, on a fishing trip.

And this was with the ministry called Teens for Christ. And we went to this island in the middle of a lake up in Canada. And it took two hours to get to this lake from the highway. You turn off the highway, you turn onto this dirt road.

And this remote road, this dirt road with a bunch of craters, I'll call them. The van would get stuck over and over again. And the youth would be told to get out of the car. We have to get out, we have to push the van out.

It took two hours to get from the highway to this lake. So you might think, well, nobody must have lived there. Exactly. Nobody lived on this lake. It's a lake with just wilderness, which is something we don't see, really.

Every lake we see in Wisconsin, in Minnesota, has houses around it. This lake was wilderness. And there was this island in the middle of the lake. We took the boats out there, we set up our tents. This is where we stayed all week.

And what's interesting is that I did this for two years. The first year, the weather was perfect. I mentioned there's no perfection, but you know what I mean. It was incredible. Sun the whole time, good temperature.

We enjoyed great fishing. We enjoyed fellowship. And we actually learned how to preach on this trip as well. It was called the Preachers of the Word trip. The next year was the opposite. Rain, rain, rain.

I thought another flood was happening. I mean, it just kept coming. And I'm serious when I say this. I have never seen anything like this. In all these years, I've been indoors and in your safe shelter.

And if it rains, you're kind of bummed, but no big deal. You're inside. You're warm and toasty.

You're dry.

On this island in the middle of the lake, it rained and rained and rained. We didn't see the sun the entire week. And that was the last year I went on this trip. There's a reason I stopped it too. That's what they say when you have a child that's really difficult.

There's only a reason we have two kids. But anyway, the reason I bring up this illustration, this lake was pure. Unlike anything I'd ever seen. It had not been polluted by man. Very few people had actually been to this lake.

You could see to the bottom. It was clear. There was no pollution. It was something to behold. Something we do not experience. And I came from Lake Minnetonka, which is probably the most polluted lake in North America.

I mean, there's boaters throwing their cans out. It's a heavily boated lake. People fish on it. People boat on it. Pollution everywhere. This lake in Canada was pure. And the reason I bring this up is because God is pure.

He is set apart from sin. We have not experienced this in this life. We read about it in the Bible. One day, if you are in Christ, you will experience holiness. You will be holy and you will see his holiness.

But this is something we do not experience. But we have to understand this about God. He is holy. He is entirely set apart from sin. So this is our first point. Understand God's character changes the way you live.

The first way how is by making sure you understand who God really is. He's not like us. We need to understand that. The second way how you are to understand God's character changes the way you live is by reflecting his character as you learn who God really is.

We're supposed to reflect him. God has always been set apart from sin and always will be. But as I have mentioned, when we come into this world, we are not set apart from sin. Our instinct is to be selfish.

Our instinct is to rebel against God. We know this experience. It's our life story. Whenever we tell a testimony, we're telling a story about we came into this world as rebels. And we came to faith in Jesus Christ, recognizing our rebellion.

And he paid for our sins. And we recognize that. That's our story. God's plan for his people is to bring them into a relationship with him first and foremost. And then that his people would be holy. Why did God choose Israel?

He chose Israel to be a nation on the earth that would be set apart. That would be different. That would be holy. That was his plan. The Lord commanded the people of Israel to be holy in Leviticus 19, 2, where he proclaimed, Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.

We saw this in 1 Peter recently. 1 Peter 1, 16 quotes this. It is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. God commands us toward holiness. This isn't optional. This is something that we must do. And this is a concern of mine.

I think in kind of the American evangelical church, there's been so much focus on praying the prayer to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, and there hasn't been enough attention given to, well, what's your life supposed to look like after that?

And that's why Jesus says you must count the cost. If you're going to follow me, it's going to change your life forever. You will never be the same. You are literally signing your life away. And it's for your joy to do it.

But you can't live like the world. He will not take us. He understands we're sinners. He understands we're a work in progress. But he wants us to be committed to him. And did you know that we cannot be in the presence of God without holiness?

Hebrews 12, 14 says, Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Your relationship with God is fractured in this life if you are living in sin. And you experience this in your life.

When you're walking closely with the Lord, it's this sweet fellowship that you have with him. And when you're living a sinful lifestyle, you understand, you feel uncomfortable. You feel uncomfortable reading the Bible.

You feel uncomfortable being around Christian friends. You feel uncomfortable coming to church because you're living in sin. It doesn't mean you're not a heaven-bound person. It just means there is a fracture that takes place when you have sin in your life.

And one day, all who belong to Jesus will be without sin and be able to dwell with God in his presence. And this is something we should long for because we will have unhindered fellowship with God. Unhindered.

Because right now, it is hindered. Because we have sin. When we talk to God, we have to confess our sins. But one day is coming when that will be a thing of the past. The new earth, which is described at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21 and 22, is described as a holy place.

And we just saw this verse in 2 Peter. 2 Peter 3 .13 says,. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. All sin will be gone from this place, and God will be able to dwell with humanity again.

Revelation 21 .3 says,. But only those who are clean will be able to live in this future paradise with God. Only those who have trusted in Christ for their salvation, as he died as the substitute on the cross, for anyone who will believe in him.

Revelation 21 .27 says,. Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. So do you believe this? That's the question.

Do you believe this? Have you been washed by Jesus Christ? And I know many of you have. But if you haven't, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. That's what the Bible promises. God desires to dwell with his people, and there was a time when he did.

If you look at the very beginning of the Bible, God had sweet, unhindered fellowship with Adam and Eve. And a day is coming when that will return, when everything is made new. But until that day, God's plan is to make you holy.

Isn't it interesting that the Lord doesn't just take us to heaven the moment that you believe in Christ? Some of you have been walking with the Lord for 50 years.

It's been a long road.

Heaven's coming. But he doesn't often take people there right away. He leaves you here. And he leaves you here to make you holy day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year. And this is where we need to understand why it is that we face difficulties in our life.

We face these difficulties because, as I've heard it said before, God cares more about your character than your comfort. We know this to be true. This isn't easy. Holiness comes through lots of work and difficulty.

He knows where your final destination is. The Bible tells us specifically that our pain is meant for holiness to take place in our lives. Hebrews 12, verses 10 and 11 says, For they disciplined us for a short time.

That's our parents. Our parents disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. John 15, too, describes the pruning process. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

And this is something that Derek Jorgensen can tell us about. He's an expert on this. Why does Derek trim trees? One of the reasons is to bring health to the tree. I remember talking to Derek about that one time.

By trimming it, what actually is taking place is that growth is being fostered for the tree. Acts 14 .22 tells us the common practice that God uses for growth. There, the Apostle Paul said, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

And Psalm 34 .19 says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Facing trials is the normal Christian life. Now, this doesn't mean your life doesn't experience blessing.

You most certainly do. But as you experience blessing, you will also experience hardships along the way. As you pursue Christ in this life, the world, which is the sinful world system, the sinful world system is always calling you to go after it.

It wants you.

It's always calling you to conform to its ways and not God's ways. Every time we meet on Sunday mornings, we are being counter-cultural. Everybody is telling us to go with the flow.

Come with the world. Go with the flow.

I was talking to a gentleman the other day, and he's a teacher, and he was in a meeting where they were talking about using certain pronouns with certain children. They're a biological male, but they want to be called a female name.

Or they're a biological female, but they want to be called a male name. And this teacher courageously stood up and said, What about me and the other faculty and the other students who believe that that's wrong to do so?

And he said it was silent, but he said others came up to him afterwards and said, Thank you for doing that. We need people to be counter-cultural and say this is not right. Morality is found in the character of God.

That's what we need to tell people. It's not some arbitrary thing that people flippantly just hold to. It is the standard that's found in God. And by the way, our culture does have a morality. They might not be religious.

Oh, they very much have a morality. It's just not found in the character of God. It's whatever they feel like it is. And they actually create their own doctrine. And we live in that. We need to tell the world morality is found in the God of the Bible and nowhere else.

We are counter-cultural. We are to be separate from the world. 2 Corinthians 6 verses 14 through 18 tells us this. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

Or fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.

As God said, I will make my dwelling place among them and walk among them. And I will be their God. And they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord.

And touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you. And you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. We cannot link arms with darkness. The scripture is so clear on that.

As a Christian, you cannot have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. The Lord doesn't want some of you. He wants all of you. And the truth is, the sinful world system is passing away.

It's on the fast track to hell. 1 John 2, verses 15 through 17 says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. The will of God found in the character of God. By the way, you can say amen. I know we're Baptists.

So thank you. I don't know who said that. Thank you for saying that. So which camp are you in? My prayer is that everyone in this room belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, that you are forever attached to the one who will live forever.

And because you are united to him, you too will live forever. Once you become a Christian, Jesus calls you to be in the world, but not of the world. Once again, he doesn't take you out of here. He leaves you here so that you would be different from the world.

Jesus says that in John 17. He says, I do not ask, Father, that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth. And this is why worldly Christianity is so maddening. There is no place for Christians who listen to raunchy music, drink excessive alcohol, wear immodest clothing, and compromise by embracing worldly ideas, using the world's language as well.

There is no place for this. And those who live this way are not pleasing the Lord. In John 17, 17, when Jesus prays to the Father that his people would be sanctified in the truth, the truth is the word of God.

It is through this book which tells us what the character of God is. It tells us what morality is. We are taught what it looks like to please the Lord. Every righteous action we do reflects his holy character.

The very essence of God is love. So when you love, you are reflecting the character of God. When you do anything righteous, you are reflecting the character of God. When you demand justice, you are reflecting the character of God.

This process of growing in holiness in theology is called sanctification. And 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 says, this is his will for your life, your sanctification. You come into this world as a sinner, and once you sincerely believe in Christ, God begins this process of making you holy in a world that loves the darkness rather than the light.

Approving What God Approves

So this is our second point. Understanding God's character changes the way you live, and the second way how is by reflecting his character, learning who God really is. And we get that from the word of God.

And here's our third and final way we are to understand God's character changes the way you live, and that's by approving of what God approves. Approving of what God approves, and all these are related.

Now the word good in our world is used in many different ways. We use this word in lots of different contexts. We ask someone, how are you doing? Good. That's usually the typical answer. Someone might do a good job at something.

We've been playing softball. We have a church softball team. Someone hits well. Someone catches well. Jason's a good hitter. Jason rips one to the outfield. And we say, nice hit. We actually say nice hit.

We say good hit, one of the two. We say he is a good man. We say she is a good woman. The child is a good child. This is how we use the word. The simple definition of the word good, one author has said it this way, whatever God approves, that's the definition of what is good.

Whatever God approves. This means that God is the one who decides what is good. Since God's character is perfect, he cannot be wrong in what he approves. He approves of himself since he is perfect. He approves of others who reflect him.

We see this in the Bible. He approves of people like Noah and Job and Joseph and others. And the Lord approves of his works. In Luke 18, 19, Jesus said, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Psalm 34, 8 says, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. So he approves of himself, of course, since he is perfect. And since he is good, all of his actions are good.

As Psalm 1, 1968 says, You are good and do good. Teach me your statutes. Approving of what God approves is another way of describing holiness. When we do good works, our actions are holy. Our actions are righteous as our works reflect the character of God.

He is also good in that everything that he creates is just as it is supposed to be. We see this in Genesis 1. In Genesis 1, 31, it says, Everything that God created is very good. Another word that you can use in Genesis 1 is beautiful.

Everything is just right. We can also take comfort in knowing that everything the Lord does in our life is good. James 1, 17 says, Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Psalm 84, 11 says, For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. In Romans 8, 28, this is a well-known verse,.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good to those who love him. It's incredible to look at our lives and look back and see his wisdom. I remember being in my 20s and wondering, Who in the world am I going to marry?

The Lord had, or maybe a better question is, Who wants to marry me, right? The Lord had it all planned. And when I was 26, I met Brianna and it all fell into place. And I can see that we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary.

We were meant to be together. I can say that with 100 certainty. We were meant to be together. I see the Lord's wisdom in that. I remember when I was looking for a church to pastor in 2016, I wondered, What church am I going to pastor?

And again, the question is, What church would want me to be their pastor, right? I was deep into conversations with a church in, actually, northern Minnesota. And I thought, This is the church. And then I got the phone call with Brianna sitting next to me.

We're going in another direction. And we were crushed at the time because we were thinking, This is it. But how glad I am that we heard no because there would be no Eureka Baptist in our lives. And I'm just amazed to see the Lord's design in everything.

And you can see. And you know what's interesting, too, by the way? Some of you know this. Sean has told me this story. This church almost had a different pastor. I mean, it was this close. And kind of last minute, it just didn't work out.

But God is involved in all of this. And I'm sure He's a great guy. I'm not saying I'm so much better than this guy. But it wasn't the Lord's plan for this guy to be the pastor here. It was His plan for him to pastor somewhere else.

But it was His plan for me to be the pastor here. And we can see His wisdom. He knows what's best for us. He knows what's best for us. In this way, everything happens according to His will. And everything that happens according to His will is good.

He approves of it. It's exactly how it's supposed to be. And we look on and we approve as we see His will take place, even if it's unpleasant at times. And these are the hardest ones. What if something really difficult happens in our lives?

But we see it years down the road, Lord, what you did there was good. Sometimes they call it His bitter providence. We look down the road and we see His perfect plan taking place. We approve of it, even though sometimes it's very hard to look on and approve of it.