Ruined by the Holiness of God

By Aaron Pierce ​

As I sat in a small cinderblock home housing a widow and her three daughters, all who shared a single bedroom in a very dangerous neighborhood run by drug lords and steeped in poverty, I remember crying out to God, saying, God, how could you create a world that is so messed up? What do you want me to do about it? How is my drop of impact possibly going to make a difference in the ocean of injustice? What am I supposed to do about it?

This experience as a college student on a mission trip in Mexico shook me out of my comfortable Christian life and led me into a season of wrestling with God, honestly seeking to understand how a good God could allow such pain and suffering in our world.

As I wrestled and sought the truth, God gave me a revelation of something I had understood intellectually in the past, but now it went from my head to my heart and it exploded and altered the trajectory of my life. The truth was this: God is far from indifferent to our suffering. In fact, He sent the most precious thing He had, Jesus, to enter into our suffering and to show us a way out. And all evil, all suffering, all pain, all injustice is the result of one thing, and that is sin. And there is only one solution to sin, and that is Jesus and the message of the cross.

As someone who was very justice-oriented and desired to make a difference and address the social brokenness of the world, I recognized that the gospel was the only foundational solution to all the brokenness we experience in our world.

But in order to go into the world with the conviction, courage, and sacrifice required to proclaim it in a relevant way to our lost world, each of us needs that revelation. Isaiah had that kind of encounter in Isaiah 6 when he saw the Lord on His throne and was confronted with pure holiness.

Scripture gives us this incredible imagery of seraphim, these powerful, majestic beings beyond anything in our imagination. Seraphim literally means “burning ones,” and they are depicted with six wings: with two they cover their faces, with two they cover their feet, and with two they fly. Take all the might of the military power of the world, all the guns, bombs, tanks, missiles, submarines, and aircraft carriers, and stack them in one place. These angelic beings are more powerful than all of it. And yet they cannot look at the Creator. They shield their faces and cry out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.” Their voices are so powerful and profound that the doorposts and thresholds shake and the temple fills with smoke.

This contrast reveals the holiness of God, and as Isaiah is confronted with this vision he is ruined by it. When you are exposed to a holy God, you see your own brokenness. Before salvation there is anguish and desperation for a Savior. Then comes atonement, pointing to what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And out of that revelation Isaiah responds to the call, “Here am I, send me.” Without a profound revelation of the holiness of God and the purpose of the cross, we will not go. With it, everything changes.

We are living in a world that feels chaotic, anxious, and disoriented. There is confusion about truth, identity, justice, and purpose. People are searching for answers everywhere except God, and the solutions on offer cannot heal the root. The world does not ultimately need more outrage, activism, or commentary. The world needs followers of Jesus who have encountered the holiness of God and who are willing to offer the only true solution found in the cross.

This is why Steiger exists: to raise up a radical missionary movement among young people who have encountered God deeply enough to actually go into the secular urban scene, proclaiming Jesus to a world that is desperately searching for answers.