God's Holiness & Jealousy (03/24/2002)

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Father, we come before you in awe of your son, in awe of the fact that he will present us joyfully before you.

For we know ourselves. We know from whence we have come. And the good news is you've shared with us where we are going and why.

So may all the praise and glory go to our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, who presented his blood at the throne, who was resurrected and is seated in the heavenlies on our behalf because he loves you and he lives to do your will.

We thank you so much for our Lord Jesus Christ. May you teach us today and cause us to understand even more your holiness.

In Jesus' name, amen. God is a personal God. He has intellect or omniscience.

He has sensibility, higher forms of feelings such as love, hate, goodness, et cetera.

And he has will, that which puts into effect all that God has designed.

We've studied these things. We've studied the omniscience of God and then we moved into the sensibility of God. And under that topic, we have five points, the holiness of God, the justice of God, the love of God, the goodness of God, and the fact that God is truth.

We are studying presently the holiness of God. And some of the things we've covered, in case you were not here with us previously, is first of all, that the holiness of God is such that wherever he is present, that becomes holy ground.

If you remember when Moses saw the bush burning and yet without being consumed, the voice came out of the bush and said,

Moses, take off your shoes, for this is holy ground. And then last

Sunday, we went through the very first mention of holiness in the Bible, and we went all the way through and carried it all the way to the cross.

And we talked about the fact that perhaps the greatest and highest definition of holiness is that when the father looked down upon his own beloved son who had been before him, in joy for all eternity, he turned his back on him when he was on the cross because your sins and mine were in his body on the tree.

And God, because of his holiness, separated himself from his son,

Jesus Christ. That was true spiritual death. It was suffered while still on the cross in between the time or at the time he said, my

God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Sometime between that time and when he said it is finished, our

Lord suffered eternal death. And then as we know, a few moments later, he bowed his head and as it was brought out so beautifully in Sunday school this morning,

I think my brother Jesse, that he gave up the ghost. No man could take it from him.

He couldn't just die like we die. He had to give up the ghost to die physically.

And so that is the greatest presentation of the holiness of God perhaps in the

Bible is that the father is such a holy God that when your sins and mine were in the body of Jesus Christ, he turned his holy face away from the

Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what we studied last time. Today, I wanna talk to you about God's holiness and some of the things in scripture that it's related to.

We're gonna primarily be in 1 Samuel 2 if you'd like to make your way there and we'll be in verse one.

We have some other verses we'll use as well. That'll be the main passage. You can put a marker there because we are gonna have some other verses.

Joshua 24, verse 19 tells us that first of all, God's holiness is related to his jealousy.

God's holiness is related to his jealousy. Now, when we think of jealousy, we think of it through human eyes and human emotions and it carries a bad connotation for humans.

But we have to remember that God is perfect and God is holy and so jealousy on his part is pure.

In Joshua 24, 19, Joshua said unto the people, you cannot serve the Lord for he is an holy

God. Now, what if your pastor stood up before you today and he said, you can't serve God, just forget it because he's holy.

What would I be implying about us? That we're not. Well, that's exactly how

Joshua introduced his message that day. And it went on from there. You cannot serve the

Lord for he is an holy God and he went to say this, he is a jealous God.

And then he went on to say this, he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins if you forsake the

Lord and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do hurt and consume you after that he has done you good.

Now, Joshua preached to God that America doesn't know. We have been taught the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years that God is a

God of love and there's a sign on the little church we go by all the way from Mahea to here in Wortham.

I have to put blinders on when I drive past this church because on his sign is often blasphemy that the pastor puts up there.

But the latest one I think he has on the way going this way on the side that I see coming from Mahea here, he says,

Jesus loves you no matter what. Now on the surface, that sounds real pretty, doesn't it?

And the problem is we don't know who the you is in the verse, I mean, in his little statement. And we don't know what the no matter what means, but listen to what

Joshua says. Joshua said unto the people, you can't serve God because he is holy and if you turn from him, he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

If you forsake the Lord and serve other gods, he will do you hurt and consume you after he had already done you good.

And the people said to Joshua, nay, but we will serve the Lord. And Joshua said unto the people, you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen you, the

Lord, to serve him. And they said, we are witnesses. Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you and incline your heart unto the

Lord God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, the Lord, our God, we will serve.

And his voice will we obey, did they? No. I think we should look at some of the original

Hebrew words lest we see something that might alarm us beyond comfort this morning.

Look at the phrase where he says, for he is a holy God, he is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.

You're probably saying, well, now I don't see how that fits in with the New Testament principle of eternal security and the verses such as 1

John 1, 9. When you look at this Hebrew word for forgive, it helps a lot because it is the word

Nassau, which has been translated this way in other Old Testament verses.

Accept, advance, further, help, or magnify. It is not the

Hebrew word solok, which commonly is translated forgive. So if you read it this way, for he, you cannot serve the

Lord for he is an holy God, he is a jealous God, he will not accept your transgressions nor your sins, he will not advance, in other words, he will not play a part in helping you sin better, he will not further your transgressions, he will not help you sin, he will not magnify your transgressions nor your sins.

This begins to make some sense, doesn't it? God will not do anything or answer any of our prayers that would help us to sin better.

God knows what we need. Sometimes you think you get a no when you pray and I think sometimes we do and I think the reason is

God will not advance, further, help, magnify, nor accept our sins. And when he sees that we're going off into serving other gods, which for us usually has to do with covetousness and things, then he will not be a part of that.

And that's what it means when it says he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. It does not mean the classical

Hebrew word for forgive, it's this nosah, which means he will not advance it.

He will literally bring things to pass in our lives and in our paths through his omnipotence and his omniscience and his sovereignty that will cause us to see that it was not so good to be involved with that sin.

Goes on and he says, he will do you hurt after he had done you good. This word hurt in the

Hebrew is ra -al, which means to spoil or to make good for nothing.

Now this should bring fear into our hearts, it should bring a holy fear when we recognize that it is the very holiness of God that causes him to be this way.

That even if his own children get to the place where they get into idolatry and they begin to worship other gods, he gets to the place where it says

God himself will bring you hurt, a literal translation, God himself will make you good for nothing.

In his service, that is, which means everything. Now that is part of God's work.

The world doesn't know God that way, but Joshua did. And he goes on to say, not only will he do you hurt if you get into idolatry because of God's holiness, because he is totally separate from that, he says he will consume you after he has done you good.

This word consume is a very, very awesome word,

I guess I would say. It literally means to end. He will end you.

It can be translated to complete. It has been translated in other scriptures in the

Old Testament, he will wholly reap you. Who knows about reaping,

Brother Otis? Do you know about reaping? When it is wholly reaped, what does that mean?

It's finished, isn't it? The job is done. If a crop is wholly reaped, it's taken in.

The Bible says you cannot serve the Lord for he is a holy God, he is jealous. He will not play a part in your transgressions nor your sins, and if you forsake the

Lord and serve strange gods, then he will turn. Hear the word turn?

It's not the direction God was walking with you. He will turn and hurt and consume.

He will make you good for nothing and consume, which means to wholly reap you. From a human viewpoint, we would have to say that this deals with the concept of what we would call going home early.

Nothing is early for the Father because it's already been done and he knows everything and has brought everything to be.

But I guarantee you from our viewpoint, we've seen people that we felt went home early, haven't we?

And we think about that in our lives and a very good Bible word for that is this word consume.

He will consume you after that he had done you good. This word done good is interesting too because it is yaltab, which means to make well, to make sound, to make beautiful, to make successful.

Can it be that the scriptures are telling us that after God has made us beautiful and sound and successful, that if we then forget him and go after strange gods in our lives, that he would consume us, that he would do us hurt, he would turn from that sweet walk of fellowship and his holy jealousy would come to play in our lives.

You say, well, this is just an Old Testament concept. The book of Hebrews says very clearly in the New Testament that God is a jealous

God, that he yearns after us as a young husband after a bride.

And that if we go out and we play the harlot with the world, that he becomes consumed with a holy, righteous, perfect jealousy.

We need to always keep that in mind when we're teaching and singing about the love of God because it is a truly, absolutely, perfectly holy

God who loves us. He will not play a part in our sin by allowing things just to go on happy and normal.

It doesn't mean he won't forgive you your transgressions, but he will not play a part in it. And so we see, first of all, that God's holiness is related to his jealousy.

You say, well, can you give me a New Testament example where this came to play in the lives of any

Christians on the other side of the Old Testament? Well, I can remember

Ananias and Sapphora. You know what their love went towards rather than the

Lord? Money. They had the love of money. That is idolatry.

It's a form of idolatry. And God consumed them, did he not? Right in the front of everyone at the feet of the apostles.

So it is a New Testament concept as well. So we see the jealousy of God is related to his holiness.

Secondly, the holiness of God is related to his exclusiveness.

Now we're where you have your marker. First Samuel chapter two, verse one.

And Hannah prayed and said, my heart rejoiceth in the

Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in thy salvation.

Look what she says in verse two. There is none holy as the

Lord. For there is none beside thee. His holiness can perhaps be defined in part by the fact that there is none other holy.

Makes it difficult for us to study the holiness of God because there is no example for us to look at other than the

Lord Jesus Christ. Which was a beautiful example. But we don't know him as we should.

He is the revelator of God. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the

Father. Which would have to include, if you've seen me, you've seen the holiness of the Father. Tempted in all points, even as we, and yet without sin, apart from sin, separated from sin.

That is a wonderful definition of the holiness of God. It's related to his exclusiveness.

There is none other beside thee. There is no other holy God anywhere in existence, nor has there ever been, nor ever shall be.

There is one God. As we go into verse three, and Hannah was speaking about the fact that there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our

God. Talk no more, so exceeding proudly, she says, let not arrogancy come out of your mouth, for the

Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. So we see here that his holiness is not only related to his exclusiveness, but it's related to the fact that he is the only all -knowing one.

It's related to his omniscience. And he is the only true and righteous judge.

It says, by him actions are weighed. They are weighed according to his holiness. What an awesome thing it would be if we visualize the judgment seat of Christ as a place where we stand in opposition to the holiness of Jesus, as he goes over the works that we did, whether good or evil, while in this body.

Don't you pray that the one or two verses that we have that imply that if we would judge our sins while we're here, we would not be judged.

In other words, if we would come before him with 1 John 1, 9 and confess our sins and agree with God our sins are so awful that he would forgive us and to cleanse us from all righteousness, wouldn't it be nice if those would be excluded from the judgment seat of Christ?

Perhaps they will. Perhaps we should go often before the Lord and say, Holy Spirit, please search my heart.

What did I miss this week? What evil thing have I done or thought that I have just acted as if it was fine?

What thing have I done or thought that in comparison or next to you and standing beside of your holiness would be shown as pure filth?

Bring it before my heart and mind that I might agree with you that it's filth. So his holiness is related to the fact that he's all knowing and he is the only true perfect judge of everything.

By him all actions shall be weighed. Verse four says, the bows of the mighty men are broken.

This passage from verse four through verse eight are going to relate God's holiness to the fact that he is sovereign and omnipotent.

If you translate this into the modern day and you put Mr. Bush here and you put

Mr. Arafat here and you put anyone in leadership in the world in this place, what you will see is that God with his omnipotent sovereign hand is moving everything around on the chessboard exactly where it's supposed to be.

And he does it according to his holiness in such a way that when this age is over his holiness will be magnified in contradiction and contradistinction to the unholiness of this realm.

The bows of the mighty men are broken and they that stumble are girded with strength.

You see, when you read through this, God says those who think they are mighty, my hand causes them to stumble.

Those who are already stumbling and weak, many times I gird them up with my hand. The same

God. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread.

And they that were hungry ceased so that the barren hath born seven.

And she that had children has waxed feeble. Back in their day, for a woman not to have children was, perhaps those who had children would brag about it.

We've seen examples of that in the Bible. God says, well, if too much of that bragging thing goes on, then

I will make the one who's barren have seven children. And I will make the one who is bragging over their children to wax feeble.

The Lord killeth and the Lord maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave and he bringeth up.

The Lord maketh poor and the Lord maketh rich. He bringeth low and he lifteth up.

He rises up the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and he hath set the world upon them.

Did Hannah understand the sovereignty of God? She relates that to his holiness.

The next thing she does in verse nine is she relates God's holiness to the fact that God is the only redeemer and preserver of the saints.

He is Jehovah Shalom, which means he brings us into a relationship of peace with God when we were formerly enemies.

He is Jehovah Sidkenu, which means he is God, our righteousness.

We do not rely upon the filthy rags that we may have in our feeble attempts at good works.

We rely upon the fact that when he placed our sins upon his body on the tree, that at the same moment he took his righteousness and placed that and imputed it to us so that as God the

Father looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Jesus and we have God's righteousness.

All of this is related to his holiness. Look at verse nine. He will keep the feet of his saints' eternal security.

Why is it that the saints who are truly born of God cannot lose their salvation?

Because it is not they themselves that keep their feet, it is he. Isn't that wonderful?

It is the Holy One who keeps our feet. He keeps the feet of his saints, and at the same time, the wicked shall be silent in darkness.

He accomplishes both. For by strength shall no man prevail. By the strength of the flesh, no man shall prevail against this one, this

Holy One of Israel. Psalm 119 says, he sent redemption unto his people.

He hath commanded his covenant forever. Holy and reverend is his name. Do you see how his holiness is tied in with redemption of his people?

Because what is redemption other than purchasing us out of a slave market and setting us free?

Other, what is it if it's not taking us out of the world and placing us among God's people?

God is holy and he's creating for himself a holy people. So it is related directly to the fact that he is the redeemer and preserver of his saints.

And Hannah had a grip on good doctrine, didn't she? Man, in Psalm 119, verse 10, it says the adversaries of the

Lord shall be broken to pieces. God's holiness is related to the fact that he is

Jehovah Nisi, which means God, our banner. And the banner has to do with a flag and it's always taken into battle.

So as we go into battle against the world and the flesh and the devil, it's all his system.

As we fight the enemy, God is our flag. The Lord Jesus Christ is our ensign.

We don't look up to a flag like the Christian flag back there. We don't look up to the American flag as beautiful as it is.

We don't even look to a flag. We look at Jehovah Nisi, which means

God, our flag. We look at Jesus, the captain of our salvation.

That is who we follow into battle. Now, that wouldn't even take courage, would it? All you have to do is focus on the banner and just follow.

When you have God leading into the battle, all you need to do is go with him.

Go with the holy God and that holiness will burn off the enemy, burn away the enemy.

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them.

The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth and he shall give strength unto his king,

Jesus, and exalt the horn of his anointed. The next thing that I see that is related to God's holiness is his glory, his strength, his power, his majesty.

Psalm 29, verse one says, a psalm of David, a song of David, given to the

Lord, oh ye mighty, given to the Lord, glory and strength. Think of this as a song.

This is a scripture song. David sang this to the Lord. He said, given to the

Lord the glory due unto his name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

There is a scripture song that I noticed in our list that we might prepare and all of us learn sometime, but there is one phrase of that song we will change because we won't sing it the way it's written in this church because what it says is it says, come worship the

Lord, come as you are and worship the Lord. Doesn't work that way, not biblically.

What the Bible literally says is given to the Lord the glory due his name, worship the

Lord in the beauty of holiness. There must be a preparation of the heart and the soul before we worship

God. We don't just come as we are directly into the throne. Otherwise, the same thing would happen to us is they used to hypothesize what happened to the priest if he went into the

Holy of Holies. That's why they tied a rope around his ankle, which wouldn't have done any good. They would bring back molecules with the rope.

If he went in without the blood and he went in with sin in his life and he weren't prepared and he didn't go in there holy.

Now granted, only God can make us holy, but God gives us a part and that is to come bow before him and to ask him to shine his light upon us.

That that light might bring out any evil thing that's there, that's unconfessed, that has not been dealt with properly by the blood of Jesus and by the washing of the feet.

As Jesus talked about, you don't need to be rebathed, but you need your feet washed because you've been walking around in this world.

Don't try to come before the Lord with dirty feet and worship him. Yes, come, come towards worshiping him, but get the feet clean.

Let Jesus wash your feet before you dare go into that holiest of all places. We have to be careful with our words.

You know, the thing we have to understand, a lot of these songs, a lot of the most powerful songs, even that song and the rest, other parts of it are just extremely powerful, but a lot of these songs were written by brand new baby

Christians. You know why they're so awesome? Because they're the ones that have the zeal. Yes, they lack knowledge.

And we get so self -righteous that we can point out all the things that are wrong with everything they do.

Man, couldn't we use some of that zeal that each of us had the day we were saved, the week we were saved, the month, the first year?

Some of you probably got kicked out of churches because of your zeal and maybe lack of knowledge too, right?

Yeah, well, I'm an expert on that. I followed my wife right out of a church one day.

No, I'm kidding. She followed me, but it was because there wasn't any other saved people or spiritual people but us in that church.

And I wasn't two months old as a Christian, but man, did I have zeal. So anyway, we see from the scriptures in Psalm 29,

David knows how to come before the Lord. David says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. All of this is related to his holiness.

Some of you need to pray and ask God, let me write a song. If you can't sing, I won't, but they'll sing it for you.

Write a song unto the Lord. That's what the Bible means in the Old Testament when it says we're supposed to have new songs.

They're not all supposed to be hymns, folks. Hymns are the old revered music. We need that. It has to be a part of our worship service.

We need some new songs. Some of you young people, some of the rest of us young people, think about that when you go home.

Spend enough time in silence before the Lord that a song might come out of your heart. Write it down on paper, and some of the musicians can put music to it.

It would honor and glorify the Lord. And you know what? David was sort of the apple of God's eye.

Do you think it might have had to do with some of the songs of love that he wrote and sang to God? Well, his holiness is also related to his name.

There is no other God that you can name under heaven. If you want to start naming false gods, that can do what the name of Jehovah, the name of Yeshua, Jesus Christ, can do.

Psalm 3321, for our hearts shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name.

Psalm 991, the Lord reigneth, let the people tremble. Why do we tremble? Because of his holiness.

He sitteth between the cherubims, which protect his holiness. Let the earth be moved.

The Lord is great in Zion, and he is high above all the people. Let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy.

What does holy mean from our first study of this? Separate. Separated from the world.

Psalm 969, oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Fear before him all the earth.

Psalm 105, verse three, glory ye in his holy name. Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the

Lord. God's holiness is related to his very name. His name is holy. His name is separate.

It is set apart. It cannot be placed in the same theology books with the world religions. It's also related to his election.

Would you turn with me to Psalm 65, verse four? God's holiness is related to his election, or you might put it the other way.

Election, as taught in the Bible, is related to God's holiness. The two cannot be separated.

Psalm 65, four, blessed is the man whom thou choosest. So who does the choosing?

That's right. And who does he choose? He doesn't really have to make a choice.

Let me tell you what I mean by that. Now, let's pretend all of you are children this morning, little children, about three and a half, if you were three and three quarters.

And you're all in here, and I'm your Sunday school teacher, and Matthew's sitting right over there in the midst of all of you three -year -old children.

And it comes time to leave, and I've got to make a choice of who I'm gonna put in my car and take home with me.

Now, do I really have to make that choice? Or was the choice already made when he was born? Because he's part of my family.

So Matthew goes in my car, but I didn't really make a choice. Neither did I really make a choice to exclude all of you nice children, because I didn't need to make that choice.

It's just that you weren't my child. He was. Now, we do that as human parents every day, and we think it's evil if God does that.

But if you think that's evil, it's a problem, because the Bible clearly, God reveals himself as the father of his own children.

He's known you before the foundation of the world. He chose you, if you want to use that human expression, but it's because you were his in his heart and mind before anything was made.

He could already see you in Christ before we were even created. And so, he says, blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee.

You know, none of us chose Jesus. We didn't go out looking for him and choose him and say,

I'm gonna approach him. Yes, we might have, but it was only after he pursued us and brought us to himself and caused us to look up and see.

And then perhaps we said, Lord, what would you have me to do? Sometimes we say, Lord, what would you have me to do? We think we caused all that to happen, but the

Bible says, blessed is the man that thou, God, chooses and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.

God's holiness permeates everything that is in his realms. And it is related to election in this sense.

God chose you before the foundation of the world to be made holy so that you could live in his holy temple, in his holy hill, in the place where he is.

By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us. At English, you lose a little bit of that, but I think, well, you know how we've talked about when we get to heaven, will we just know everything because we're there?

No, we will learn terrible things about his righteousness. It means awesome.

Even when we were in his holy temple, once he's brought us into the heavenlies, we will learn awesome things in righteousness.

Wilt he answer us? The answer to questions that you have. Oh God of our salvation, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are afar off upon the sea, which by his strength set as fast the mountains being girded with power and holiness.

His holiness is also related to his righteousness, of course. Psalm 71, 23 says, my lips shall greatly rejoice when

I sing unto thee in my soul, which thou hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long, for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame that seek my hurt.

Holy in all of his ways, Psalm 145, 16, thou openest thy hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all of his works.

Verse 20 there says, the Lord preserves all them that love him. His holiness is tied in with our redemption, our salvation, our eternal security, our preservation, our presentation.

He will present us faultless. What's that mean? Present us holy, separate from the sin of this world.

His holiness is related to the difference between him and us. For time's sake,

I won't have you turn to Isaiah chapter six, but you'll remember the story. Do you remember when Isaiah was transported there or had a vision of the heavenlies and he saw them worshiping holy, holy, holy as the

Lord of hosts? The whole earth is full of his glory. In that place,

Isaiah makes this familiar statement. Then said I, woe is me, for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips.

You see, that's comparing himself with the holiness that he saw in God. He said, woe is me when he saw this holiness of God, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

He not only confessed his sins, he confessed ours too, didn't he? For mine eyes have seen the king.

So therefore, he said, woe is me. What did he see in the king? He saw this holiness that we're trying to study.

He looked and he saw something. He saw the glory of God and he saw such resplendent light and such purity and holiness that he said, woe is me.

I'm a man of unclean lips. Then flew one of the seraphims into me having a live coal in his hand which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar which anything that touches the altar is sanctified and made holy.

And so now this is sanctified and made holy. Who is the altar? Jesus Christ. And he brings it and he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin is purged.

And guess what Isaiah then said? Here am I, Lord, send me. See, we do it the other way around.

Lord, send me out, let me do a bunch of work so you can be pleased with me. God says, I'm not pleased with the filthy rags.

Let me touch you with the coal from this altar. Then go out and serve me.

So it's related to the contrast between his own holiness and our lack thereof.

In 1 John 1, 5, it also is related to the fact that he is separate from darkness. It says, in him there is no darkness at all.

And in Revelation 15, 4, his holiness is shown to be exclusive. Who shall not fear thee,

O Lord, and glorify thy name for thou only art holy for all the nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgments are made manifest.

Our God is an awesome, holy

God. Now, where we will head next Sunday is we will study then, where does that take us?

We're going to look at some passages like Leviticus 11, 44, where he says, sanctify yourselves and you shall be holy for I am holy.

Be ye holy for I am holy. God is holy and his whole work on us, whether it be a service where we sing praises to him, where we confess our sins before him in our hearts, and we try to come before him in the beauty of holiness to worship him.

And then we hear the word taught and we study and we hear his voice speak to us from the scriptures. All of that is to the end of making us more like Jesus.

And what is Jesus other than holy? Be ye holy for he is holy. When the sky was starless in the void of the night, he spoke into the darkness and created the light.

Our God is an awesome God. The judgment and wrath he poured out on Sodom is because of his holiness.

The mercy and grace he gave us at the cross is because of his holiness. I hope that we have not too quickly forgotten that our

God is an awesome God. He descended that he might set the captives free and that we might ascend on high.

He was tempted and yet without sin, and then had all the sins of God's people placed upon his body while he was on the tree, that we might have all the holiness and righteousness of Jesus placed upon us.

He suffered complete separation from his eternal father that we might be made holy and dwell in God's holy hill.

He emptied himself of everything that we might be filled with God, that our bodies might become the temples of the living

God. He was our holiness, but he was also our example of holiness when he walked on this earth.

As we walk on this earth, let us contemplate his walk. Let us think about how

Jesus moved among men. Let us be emptied of self that he would walk in us and accomplish his will.

Let us be holy for he is holy. Let's stand. Dear father, we thank you so much for your word.

We could know you exist by your beautiful and awesome creation, but we could not know you were holy without your revelation.

So we thank you for the word of God that you've preserved for us and given to us. We thank you for your son,

Jesus, the living word, who's the express image of your person. As we look at him, we see the holiness of God.

As we see him on the cross, we see the holiness of God. As we see him present the blood, we see the holiness of God.

As we see him take the coal from touching himself and touching our lips with it, we see that you expect us to be holy for he is holy.

Move us in this direction as you mature us and grow us. And Lord, help us to have more insight into the holiness of you.

Lord, bless our fellowship together. Bless our meal that we're about to have together and our afternoon services as well.