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Verse: Isaiah 6:1-8Last week I was invited to share a brief teaching on this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer “Hallowed Be Thy Name.” I had a great time preparing and teaching and since it’s fresh in my mind I thought I may as well adapt some of those thoughts and share it with you all here for this devotion.First it’s important to define the word “Hallowed.” Put simply it means sacred, separate, or holy. To help us understand what it means to worship a holy God we’re going to look at one of my favorite passages Isaiah 6:1-8.
1 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 the 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.”6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8 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!”
In this passage we see essentially four movements that help us understand how to engage with a holy God. First, the vastness of God’s holiness, second; the problem of unholiness, third; the solution to that problem, and fourth; the response.So first, we see a picture of the holiness of God as the seraphim call out to one another. It’s quite a scene, smoke filling the temple, doors and thresholds shaking. And why three holies? Is it not enough to simply say God is holy. Well no, God is three times holy, it means he is all the way holy. The most holy that holy can be, three times holy. Since God is all the way holy, separate, sacred, we ought to offer him worship—but if we’re honest, we don’t always. Many things become more sacred to us than God—money, power, family, reputation… you fill in the blank.In the second movement we see Isaiah’s response. And he realizes he’s in trouble. Because he knows that when an unholy person is in the presence of the three times holy God, death is usually the result. Think of Mount Sinai after the Exodus, God descends on the mountain and tells the people not to touch it, if they do touch it, they’re to be killed. Or the Ark, when David is bringing it back to Israel, this unfortunate guy Uzzah tries to steady it as the oxen stumble, to keep it from falling—boom, struck dead. Or think of Moses, he had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock as God passed by and he only got to see God’s back for fear of death. Isaiah realizes he’s in trouble and confesses he’s sinful, with a dirty mouth, and that he comes from a people with dirty mouths. Notice he doesn’t join the Seraphim’s song. It’s because he knows any praise that comes out of his dirty mouth would be unfit worship for the three-times holy God.We’re Isaiah in this image, we’re not the seraphim. We’re sinful, we can’t even approach God with our worship because any praise we offer him would be unfit, unholy, deserving of death.The third movement provides us a picture of the solution to unholiness meeting holiness. A coal is taken from the altar and put onto Isaiahs lips, the center of his sinfulness. The coal purifies his lips, making them clean, and atonement is pronounced over Isaiah. He’s clean. He doesn’t have to fear death any longer, God has provided a way. God has also provided us a way in Jesus. The holiness of God was manifest amongst us people of unclean lips in the person of Jesus Christ. Death was indeed the result, but it was not our death. It was Christ's. We’ve been made pure by his blood, made right with the Father through the atoning sacrifice of the Son.The fourth movement shows God asking, who will I send? Who will go for us? Isaiah speaks up now, not so afraid any longer, and says “Here am I, send me!” He realizes that in his encounter with the holy God, he has received grace—salvation even. The only right response is a life of “Hallowing” Gods name. “Send me!” he says.Paul encourages us to have the same response in Romans 12:1. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”In view of the saving work of Jesus, we can offer our bodies—our whole selves—as a sacrifice of worship. A living sacrifice at that because we no longer need fear death because Jesus has made us holy. Because of Jesus’ finished work and continuing priestly work our worship is made holy and pleasing to God (He’s the Great High Priest after all.) So worship him with all your life—it is the rational, logical, reasonable thing to do.God’s name is hallowed; if we were left to our own devices, we could not worship him because we are unholy. But God, through Christ, has made a way for us—unholy sinners that we are—to worship him, to have a relationship with him. So, give him the honor he is due with your whole life, and when you fail—take heart, because even our feeble efforts at worship are sanctified by the Son and offered to the Father on our behalf.