Reflecting God's Holiness In Love Series

Reflecting God’s Holiness in Love!

Every week my son Grant does something that I could probably use in a sermon in some way. I just love watching him and seeing the things he does and I try to remember as many of them as possible because they make such good illustrations. Parents, did you know that your children are a reflection of you. It’s true. If you want to know what’s going on in a particular home, just look at the kids. Children are a reflection of their parents. The pattern that is set for kids in the home is the pattern that they will follow as they grow up and become adults. That pattern may be a good pattern. You may lay the pattern for you child to use good manners, to brush their teeth, to clear the table, to go to bed without complaint and to treat people with respect. You might lay a bad pattern for your children and through that pattern they learn disrespect; they learn how to put up a fight. Parents, whatever pattern you lay for your children that is the pattern they will follow, whether it is good or bad.

Grant just recently began being able to get up to the sink all by himself on a little foot stool. He can reach up to the handles on the sink and can turn the water on himself and wash his hands, or brush his teeth. One day while Grant was brushing his teeth, his mother was in the bathroom with him just helping him get all those back teeth that children so often miss. When he got done he took his toothbrush and tapped it on the sink 5 or 6 times to knock the water off. Misty asked, “What are you doing Grant.” He said, “I’m brushing my teeth like Daddy.” Even in brushing your teeth, your children will find the small detail and they will pattern after it. They will mimic it.

I heard him say this to his mother and I was taken back for a second because I didn’t even realize that I did that when I got done brushing my teeth. We all have those little habits that we don’t even think about. When I got to thinking about that and our relationship with God, something really stuck out to me. We are reflections of God. We are supposed to reflect God in our lives. The Bible talks about this idea in many places let me point a couple of them out to you. Ephesians 4:20-24 says, “But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Did you catch it there? The new self we put on is in the “likeness of God.” What about Philippians 2:5 which states “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” And last Colossians 3:10, “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” The image, the attitude, the likeness of the One, God. We, as God’s children, are supposed to be His reflection.

Why? Because the #1 goal of the Christian life to be as much like God as is humanly possible. We are to strive to be like God. We will never attain. We will never be perfect like God or even close, but we are to strive for it as a Christian. We are to strive for what some have called “Characteristic Godlikeness.” We are to strive to become like God in so many ways, that it actually becomes part of our characteristic. What are your characteristics? What makes you who you are? Is it a defined chin, a prominent nose, funny ears, a Godlike attitude?

I want to share with you today the idea that God wants us to be committed to being like Him. The Bible has a word for this and that word is holy or holiness. Let’s look at a passage in 1 Peter 1:14-16 that talks about this idea. Let’s read, there it says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”

1. So what is this holy that we are talking about?