The aim of OneDay is the gathering and awakening of a generation passionate for God's renown-that is, his fame and his name. Only this time, three years after OneDay2000, the focus is slightly different. Instead of "renown," the key words are "sacred," "holy," and "his."

It would not be wrong, I think, to say that the aim of OneDay is the gathering and the awakening of a generation passionate for God's holiness. Not to the exclusion of God's renown, but because God's holiness is the reason he is worthy of renown on every campus and among every people in the world.

When this generation wakens to a passion for God's holiness, all the campuses in America (not just southern ones, but campuses in the Northwest, like Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and all the campuses in New England, like Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts) and all the peoples of the world (not just accessible ones, but all the peoples in Iraq, Afghanistan, China, North Korea, Viet Nam, Algeria, Tunisia)-all the campuses and all the peoples will know, "there is none holy like the LORD; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God" (1 Samuel 2:2). And his name is Jesus Christ!

A Sermon on Holiness Without Application
About 20 years ago I decided to do an experiment on Sunday morning. I decided to preach a sermon on the holiness of God with not a word of explicit practical application. I wanted to see what the response would be just from seeing the holiness of God. The text was Isaiah 6.

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

I made no applications. I simply argued that God is royally majestic in holiness beyond all imagination. I pointed to the throne and its authority and size. I pointed to the train of his robe filling, as it were, the entire city of Minneapolis.

I pointed to the seraphim, not little fat cherubs hovering like cupid, but magnificent beings circling in grand array with six wings, two for covering their faces and two for covering their feet and two for flying.

And I pointed to the voice so loud that the threshold of heaven shook-as if all of northern Texas would shake at the whisper of an angel. And I pointed to the words they spoke: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory." The whole scene is meant to stun us and silence us and shatter our complacencies and make us tremble with awe-filled fear and wonder.

The Two Towers Made Me Stand in Awe of Jesus
It is strange what we are moved by, isn't it? I wonder if it as that effect on you. I went to see THE TWO TOWERS last December, the second in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. What an amazing sequence of incredible
scenes. I loved it: marching trees and flying, flattening boulders and Legolas the elf skateboarding down the castle steps shooting his bow as he goes, and Gandalf showing up at the last minute and plunging with his white horse into the hordes of Saruman.

It was my anniversary weekend (34th) and Noël and I went out to eat afterward. I said to her: "You know what I loved most about that movie? It made me admire Jesus and stand in awe of him." She said, "Why is that?" I said, "Because as I felt the trembling and the wonder and the amazement, I realized that these events, even if they were real, happened on something like earth, which is a small planet in our solar system which is about 7 billion miles across, which is a small part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. which has over 200 billion stars and is about 600,000 trillion miles across. And this galaxy of ours is one of perhaps 100 billion other galaxies. All of which Jesus Christ put into existence with the thought of his mind and the flick of his little finger." This helps put Tolkien and THE TWO TOWERS in their place.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:1-3).

The Vision of God's Holiness Sustained Them
I finished my message on the holiness of God with not a word of application to daily life. I simply wanted the people to see the holiness of God. Little did I know that in the audience that morning was a mother and a father who just that week had discovered that their daughters had been sexually molested for years by a trusted relative.

It was the worst thing that ever happened to them. I preached. I made no application to their lives. I had no idea what had happened. I just lifted up the majesty of the holiness of God. The father came to me about three months later and said something I will never forget. He said, "John, these have been the worst months of our lives. One thing has gotten me through it: the vision of the holiness of God from Isaiah 6 that I saw last January."

When your generation wakens to a passion for the holiness of God it will make a massive difference in you and in the world. When you live in the blazing brightness of the light of God's holiness, everything will be different.

When you feel the weight of the rock of God's holiness like ballast in your boat, you will navigate storms of these troubled times and become a refuge for millions who are perishing.

1. Could it be that your struggle with pornography and masturbation or fornication would find here the power of freedom that you ache for-in the massive rock of God's holiness?

2. Could it be that your struggle with food and eating disorders would find here the power of freedom that you ache for-in the massive rock of God's holiness?

3. Could it be that, when you hear in the middle of the night, the horrible sound of your wife bludgeoning your children to death (a real life story in this week's news), what might get you through would be the massive rock of God's holiness?

4. And could it be that what might change the world and give two hundred thousand young people in this generation the passion and the courage to lay down their lives to complete the great commission would be a vision of the massive rock of God's holiness? What stands in the way?