HOLY IS HIS NAME (PART 1)
LUKE 11:1-4
INTRO. – At the beginning Jesus gives a warning against self-seeking prayer. God is to have priority in every aspect of our lives, and certainly in our times of deepest communion with Him. Praying is not to be a casual routine that gives passing homage to God, but should open up dimensions of reverence, awe, appreciation, honor, and adoration.
God’s name signifies more than titles. It represents all that He is—His character, plan, and will. It is not because we simply know God’s titles that we love and trust Him, but because we know His character. Invoking His name reminds us of His character.
On page 51 in our hymnal is a song titled "Holy, Holy, Holy." I have sung that song many times not fully understanding the meaning of the word holy.
For many of us the holiness of God relates to the sinlessness of God. However, it is a much broader subject than that.
The first thing I want you to consider with me:
I. THE MEANING OF THE HOLINESS OF GOD
A. The word that is translated holy in the bible literally means to divide.
1. Holiness is that which divides someone from other things and other persons. To divide in the sense of marking off, setting apart, separating from other persons and other things.
2. To put it another way holiness is that which makes you distinct, different and set apart from others. Holiness can go so far to mean that which is unique about an individual or a person.
B. The exact opposite word for holiness in the bible is the word profane which means common or ordinary.
1. We can draw the conclusion then that holiness is that which is distinct, unique and different from that which is common or ordinary. It is set apart and separated from the common or ordinary.
C. Examples of the holy and the profane.
1. A comparison between the holy and the profane (Ezekiel 22:26).
a. Ezekiel 22:26 says, "Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them."
b. The priest had taken the things that God intended to be different and distinct and had made them common or ordinary.
2. The principal of the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:8-11).
a. Exodus 20:8-11 says, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."
b. The Sabbath day was called the holy Sabbath because God intended that day to be different from the other six days.
3. The example of the Holy Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:15).
a. 2 Timothy 3:15 says, "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."
b. There are many books that have been written. But the writings of the scripture are not common or ordinary but they are distinct, unique and they are that way because they were inspired by God and he moved upon men of God to write the words that were given to them from the Holy Ghost.
D. Holiness is that which is different, distinct, or unique from the common or ordinary.
II. THE HOLINESS OF GOD
A. In the definition of his holiness as found in the bible there is that which declares him to be distinct and unique.
B. Israel had just been delivered from the hand of Pharaoh’s army in a miraculous way. In Exodus 15:11 they broke forth in a glorious anthem of praise to God. They described the fact of God’s difference and uniqueness to the way he had delivered them from certain death. They were saying that there was no one else like him. He was different, distinct and unique.
1. Exodus 15:11 says, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"
C. Hannah had prayed for a child and God had heard and answered her prayer. She offered a song of thanksgiving to the Lord for giving her a son whom she had lent back to the Lord.
1. 1 Samuel 2:2 says, "There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God."
2. She is using the concept of holiness to say that there is no one else like the Lord. He is unique, different, and distinct.
D. This concept of the holiness of God comes out again and again in the Scripture. Just let me give them to you very quickly:
1. Hosea 11:9 says, ".... I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: ...."
a. God says this of himself. He is different than man and he is the holy one in the midst of man.
2. Isaiah 40:25 says, "To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One."
3. Isaiah 55:8 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD."
a. God declared in the early part of this chapter that he is the holy one. He then drives home the point that he is different than man.
E. From these passages then we can conclude that the holiness of God is anything that divides God from everyone and everything else.
F. The scriptures reveal the fact that God’s holiness is foundational to his uniqueness. Every attribute that God has contributes to his holiness. For example:
1. God is all-knowing. No one else in the universe can say that. Therefore in light of his omniscience he is different and unique.
2. God is all-powerful. No one else in the universe is as omnipotent as he is therefore his omnipotence makes him distinct, different and one of a kind.
3. God is all-present. This makes him distinct, unique and different from everyone else in the universe.
G. How does God feel about his holiness? John was privileged to see a scene that we have never seen.
1. Revelation 4:8, "And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."
1. From this passage, we can conclude that God prizes his holiness more than any other attribute that he possesses.
III. THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD’S HOLINESS
A. There is that in the manifestation of his holiness that makes him distinct and unique.
B. I want to give you one example that is so plain in describing his holiness.
1. 2 Kings 19:10-37 - The Assyrian army had besieged Jerusalem. Sennacherib sent a letter by the hand of Rabshekah to King Hezekiah concerning what the Assyrian had done to other kingdoms.
a. VS. 10-13 is the letter to Hezekiah.
b. VS. 14-19 is Hezekiah’s prayer to God.
c. VS. 20-34 is God’s reply to Sennacherib.
d. VS. 35-37 is God’s judgment against Sennarcherib.
e. God taught this heathen king that he was dealing with a God that is different than any other god he had faced before.
CONCLUSION
Many Germans who had immigrated to the United States were sitting in a theater when the movie Psyche was shown. The propaganda movie, produced by Hitler’s Third Reich in 1940, followed the invasion and Blitzkrieg through Poland. Whenever a Polish person appeared on the screen, people in the audience would scream, “Kill him! Kill him!” in a frenzied commitment to the destruction of Germany’s enemies.
W. H. Auden, the Pulitzer prize – winning poet, playwright, and literary critic, was so shocked that he walked out of the theater. He later said one question ran through his mind: “What response can my enlightened, humanistic tradition give to this evil, to those who cry out for the blood of innocent victims?” He began to sense that the only answer to evil was not in humanism, but in God and the revelation of God in the Bible.
He was convicted of God’s holiness and his own sinfulness. In 1940 he became a Christian.
— John Yenchko, “Hell,” Journal of
Biblical Counseling (Fall 2000)
