Revelation 4:8 declares that the four living creatures say “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Have you ever thought about what that would be like? What would it be like to just say, all the time and without stopping, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come”? Does it strike you as fun? Does it scratch your back? Does it fulfill your felt needs? I suspect that the answer to those questions is, “No.” So, why do they do it? What compels them to do that? What compels them to say that phrase over and over and to never stop doing it? Good question.
I do not believe that the answer lies just in their purpose for being created. I also don’t believe that they had no choice in the matter. I believe that their joy in repeating this refrain of God’s greatness stems from a clear (much clearer than we have) picture of who God really is. They saw Him without sin messing up their vision. They saw Him without the veil of separation that our fleshly world gives us. Their perspective was clear.
My question today is this: Can we have such a vision? As I shared on Sunday, I truly believe we can. In fact, I believe the reason that we don’t has nothing to do with the distractions that occur in church or the music we have or the sinful people all around us. I believe the reason we do not have such a vision of God’s greatness is that we do not put forth the effort to reach for it. We let sin, human faults, distractions, and the like get in our way. We act as if the only thing that matters to us is us. I am advocating that we push harder to meet with God on Sunday morning. I urge that we would make meeting God the only thing that we consider during Sunday morning worship. I beg us to receive the invitation to approach the throne of grace as something we are desperate for. It is something that we need. It is something that we cannot live without. It is something that we absolutely must have or we will die.
If we came to worship with those attitudes, what would be different? If we were to cultivate a passion for the worship of Almighty God that would not ever let us be lethargic in our time with Him, what would it look like? What would need to change?
Something to think about,
Pastor John