BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY
Note: I have a presentation in PowerPoint 10 to go with the following sermon. If you are interested in the PowerPoint file I will send it directly, along with the sermon text in a Word 10 docx file with cues for slide changes and animations. Email me at sam@srmccormick.net with the subject Be Holy for I am Holy Powerpoint.
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” - So called the seraphim standing above the throne of God when Isaiah was called to duty as a prophet.
"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" – so declared the four living creatures around the throne of God, as John visited the scene of God’s throne in heaven.
The escarpment on the screen is called the Rock of Ages.
It is so named because of an event said to have occurred at that place in 1763, just over 250 years ago.
A young preacher, Augustus Toplady, was walking in Burrington Combe, a gorge in Somerset County, England, to a nearby town for an engagement.
Caught in a sudden, severe storm, he took shelter in a fissure in this escarpment.
Waiting there for the storm to subside, he reflected on the soul’s refuge from the devastation of sin in Jesus’ wounded side.
He noticed a playing card on the ground. Though it was considered an instrument of evil, he picked it up, took out a pencil and began to write his thoughts:
Rock of ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee.
Four years would pass before the finished poem was published, and almost 70 years before it was put to the melody we use, but the hymn became one of the best known and loved hymns in the English language, and has remained so for 2 ½ centuries.
Toplady was 23 when he wrote these lines. In poor health all his life, he died at 38.
The expression “Rock of ages” is not found in the Bible, but in the intervening years, many songs have picked up the visualization of the cleft rock as a refuge for the soul.
I. Be Holy
If asked to choose one word that describes yourself, I doubt if anyone would choose the word “holy.”
Lev 11:45 – “I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy."
1 Pet 1:14-16 – “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’"
“Be holy, for I am holy” says the command.
For us to be holy is to be God-like (and that’s a heady thing).
One may say, “I could never be holy.”
“That’s just not the way I’m made”
May I remind us in whose image we are made?
We are made in the very image of God himself.
We are built specifically for holiness. That is our design.
To be less than holy, as God is holy, is to fall short of what you and I are built for.
If we are not holy, we’re like a well with no water, a song without music.
II. So what does God expect of us?
Is it even possible for you and me to be holy at all – in any way, to any degree?
If so, how? By careful attention, clear understanding, of what he wants, and unfailing obedience to it?
Is that what holiness consists of, and what God meant in saying “Be holy?”
And what does holy mean?
Intuitively or reflexively we tend to think of one who is holy as being thoroughly “good,” undiluted by anything short of uncontaminated, ultimate goodness.
That definition would be a standard that could be met by no other than God himself.
His righteousness is never compromised, or filtered.
That definition may be an easy fit for God himself, but is troublesome when applied to ourselves.
For by that standard, how can we be holy at all?
We are like Belshazzar, king of the Babylonian empire who saw handwriting on the wall.
Mene Mene Tekel U Pharsin
God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end;
you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting;
your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."
Dan 5:26-28
III. But “utterly perfect in goodness and righteousness”--while that would indeed be true of God, and is now in common thought and even some modern dictionaries--is not the Biblical meaning of “holy.”
For us to be holy as God commands, we must understand the word biblically.
There is holiness that does not rise to God’s holiness, and yet is holy in the Biblical usage.
If there is not, then we will never be holy at all, and God’s command is simply noble-sounding but impossible words.
Vines NT: The word hagios and its forms are the root for “holy,” “sanctified,” “set apart” or “separated;” “consecrated,” and (are you surprised?) “saints.”
These words all come from the same original root, and the Bible’s meaning of all of them is “set apart,” or “separated.”
Sanctification and holiness are used in the New Testament denoting the separation of believer from past sins and from evil things and false ways.
1 Thes 4:3-7 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
The Bible allows for such a concept as holy, holier, and holiest. Let me explain.
The congregation of Israel was holy. Exo 19:5-6
Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel."
The “Most Holy Place” was so designated, being more holy than other holy places, including the larger room in the tabernacle and the court around the tabernacle.
The priests who served in proximity to God’s presence were holy Lev 21:6-8,
They [the priests] shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the LORD's food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy.
Yet an offering had to be made for their sins on atonement day, including even the high priest and his family.
Throughout the New Testament, Christians are referred to as “saints.” [scripture(s)]
The word is from the same as “holy” in the original
To be a saint is to be holy.
New Testament sainthood was not conferred as a ceremonial honor for personal spiritual attainment already made, or some milestone reached.
To be a saint is to be set apart by God as His own—and to be set apart as God’s own is to be holy.
So we see God does not see holiness only as all or nothing, though God himself is absolutely pure.
IV. In light of this, being holy does not mean we never have and never will sin.
Otherwise, Israel would not have been a holy nation, nor would today’s “saints.”
All humanity would be doomed to fail.
Have I now conveniently watered down what holiness is?
No. I have sought to discover what the scriptures say and what their true meaning is, and they urge that we aim for the holiness of God as revealed in Jesus.
And be satisfied with nothing less.
But when we fall short of that high mark, we are no less set apart as Gods holy possession.
Being holy means that we are separated and set apart it at least three ways:
1. Our sins are covered, separating us from those who reject the gospel. We are baptized for the remission of sins, and we are separated from them, as far as east is from west. That is separated—that is holy.
Holiness involves washing – 1 Cor 6:9-11 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified (set apart), but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
As the song says,
Vile I to the fountain fly
Wash me Savior, or I die
2. Godly and holy conduct ought to be the inevitable result,
Therefore God says, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
(I have made you holy. Act in a manner consistent with the holiness that has been conferred on you because you belong to me.)
There is a mode of conduct that is compatible with holiness, sanctification, separation.
1 Pet 1:14-16 "…but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,"
Can we be considered holy if we still struggle with temptation and sin?
Yes, if we truly struggle, rather than surrender. It is that struggle that sets us apart.
The struggle is part and parcel of our holiness.
Though we are not holy by our own merit, we are called to be different from others who are lost and dead in sin.
God calls on us to be more than consumers of his blessings.
He does not cleanse and set us apart—make us holy—to continue on a deadly course.
He sanctifies us to rehabilitate our souls.
3. He makes us subject to discipline. Heb 12:10
For they [earthly fathers] disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
Perhaps an analogy will illustrate how we can be holy even though we can never be equal with God in holiness.
The sun provides abundant light to chase away night, illuminate our days, raise our crops, and meet the physical and emotional needs of the human race and the animal world.
A candle provides light to push back darkness and illuminate the area where we are.
Both the sun and a candle provide light, and the properties of light are the same.
True, the sun is vastly more radiant and powerful, but they dispel darkness in the same way.
How do Augustus Toplady and the song Rock of Ages relate to holiness?
His biographer describes the boy as a “sickly, neurotic, and precociously religious lad.”
Augustus was opinionated, confrontational and difficult to be around. It has been said that his peers and his own family could barely endure his company.
In his diary he wrote, “Aunt Betsy is so fractious … and insolent … she is unfit for human society.”
His antagonistic clashes with John Wesley over predestination make you cringe. He sometimes indulged in the severe and scurrilous language that was tolerated in controversy in those times. Toplady called Wesley a “liar and forger … the most rancorous hater of the gospel system that ever appeared in this island.” Toplady accused Wesley of “Satanic shamelessness” and called him “a lurking…assassin.”
Yet we know that Augustus had a heart for holiness. We can see into his heart in the lines of one of the most cherished hymns in the English language.
Augustus was not a perfect man.
He may have never fully conquered his abrasive, combative manner.
But inside that unhealthy, temperamental man was a wonderful gift, and he gave it to the world.
The song is a true treasure that many consider unsurpassed in loveliness, has touched hearts for many years and more to come.
What threatens to prevent you from being holy?
The idea that it is beyond your capability?
Associations? Friends/relatives? Some commitment? Weakness?
Jesus says pluck out the offending eye, cut off the offending hand.
Today’s message is “If you have obeyed the Lord in baptism, you are made holy by the washing away of your sins, set apart by no less than the great and holy God as his own possession.
You may fall short of his expectations—fall short of the glory of God—but when you fall the one who made you holy will be there. His desire it not to condemn, but to lift you up—you!—and make you to stand. That’s what he wants!
You cannot stand on your own, you must be made to stand.
And you cannot be holy on your own.
You must be made holy, and sustained in holiness by the nurturing and discipline of the great and glorious holy one.
