Sermon Tone Analysis

/Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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.”*[1]*/

Sin is contagious, but holiness is incommunicable.

This is the consistent message of the Word of God.

The sin of Achan—covetousness and disobedience—condemned Israel to experience defeat and caused countless families to mourn [*Joshua 7:1-26*].

This truth is clearly taught in the prophecy of Haggai.

Listen to the startling words of the Prophet Haggai.

The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’  “  The priests answered and said, “No.”

Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?”

The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean” [*Haggai 2:10-13*].

Sanctified meat does not sanctify anything else.

The effect of sanctified meat touching another article is neutral.

In contrast, an unclean person touching that which is sanctified makes the items touched unclean.

In short, God is providing a lesson which is vital to Christian growth—sin is contagious, but holiness is not communicable.

Holiness is a choice.

Holiness requires that an individual work at achieving it; and the requirement for holiness flows from the knowledge that God is holy.

You shall be holy, for I am holy.

This is the Word of God, citing the command of God given in the Law of Moses.

I am the Lord your God.

Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy…  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 [*Leviticus 11:44, 45*].

It is not a recommendation.

Neither is this a plea.

God commands holiness.

Holiness is a subject which is mentioned neither often nor much among the churches of our Lord in this day—churches which exalt personal rights over obedience to Him they call Lord and Saviour.

Nevertheless, the subject of holiness is essential if we will prove pleasing to God who is holy.

It is a tragedy of momentous proportions that we modern Christians confuse what can only be construed as an artificial piety with holiness.

I make no apology for insisting that God’s people are to live holy lives.

In order to live holy lives, we will need to challenge some cherished practises, bringing them into conformity with the mind of God.

In the hope of introducing a series of studies designed to challenge the people of God to grow in holiness even as they are separated from the practises of this fallen world, today I endeavour to provide sound instruction in this neglected subject.

I invite you to join me in a study of God’s call to holiness.

What Does it Mean to Say that God is Holy?

The holiness movement which arose from early Methodism was essentially a spent force in North American Christianity by the middle of the last century.

A few pockets of saints endeavouring to manifest holiness to the Lord remained untouched by concessions to modernism.

However, the majority of modern Christendom ceased to be concerned with holiness.

The term translated *holy* is sometimes translated *sanctified*.

Holiness and sanctification are equivalent terms.

When we speak of a person or object being *holy* or *sanctified*, we mean that it is *set apart*, that is, it is reserved for special use.

When God blessed the people of Israel by filling the Tabernacle with His presence during their wilderness wanderings, that Tabernacle was said to be *holy*—it was reserved for His presence.

The utensils used in the sacrificial system were reserved for that particular act of worship, and thus were declared to be *holy*.

In a more casual sense, it could be said that if you have fine china which is reserved for formal entertaining, you have declared those dishes to be sanctified to that purpose.

Of course, I do not mean to imply that your dishes are holy in the sense that they are blessed by God, but the concepts are related.

Another meaning of the word *holy* is to describe the character of God as *perfect, transcendent, or spiritually pure, evoking adoration and reverence*.[2]

While this definition applies primarily to God, it has secondary application to godly people.

We each admire, are fascinated by, perhaps even hold in awe, that individual who lives a holy life defined by obedience to God, self-discipline and self-sacrifice.

Watts writes of God in relation to holiness:

 

God is holy.

Fire is the symbol of holy power.

Jealousy, wrath, remoteness, cleanliness, glory and majesty are related to it.

He is unsearchable, incomprehensible, incomparable, great, wonderful and exalted.

His Name is Holy.

…Thus holy defines the godness of God.[3]

Though God is declared holy throughout the Old Testament, the holiness of God is assumed throughout most of the New Testament.

Only occasionally do we discover an assertion of God’s holiness in the New Testament.

Jesus addresses God as Holy Father in *John 17:11*.

The cherubs worship God on His throne, saying,

 

Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come!

[*Revelation 4:8*]

 

Persecuted saints saved during the Great Tribulation, cry out to God for relief and for vengeance.

As they cry out, they petition God as holy.

O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth [*Revelation 6:10*].

In the same manner, our Lord identifies Himself as the Holy One in *Revelation 3:7*, just as His Spirit is identified as the Holy One in *1 John 2:20*.

The great difference in the view of the two Testaments is that we who are Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling within and we intuitively know that our God is holy.

If it were somehow insufficient to rely upon the Spirit of God to remind us of this great truth, we are taught in the most elemental aspects of worship to hold God as holy.

I suppose that each of us has at one point of another recited the Model Prayer.

/Our Father in heaven,/

/hallowed be your name./

/Your kingdom come,/

/your will be done,/

/on earth as it is in heaven./

/Give us this day our daily bread,/

/and forgive us our debts,/

/as we also have forgiven our debtors./

/And lead us not into temptation,/

/but deliver us from evil/.

[*Matthew 6:9-13*]

 

Take special note of the opening petition.

The prayer is addressed to God, who is /our Father in heaven/, and we ask first of all that His Name be hallowed [aJgiasqhvtw to; o[nomav sou].

What are we asking?

We are asking that His Name be sanctified, that His Name be held holy in our hearts and assemblies, and we are acknowledging that we will be obedient to His commands.

This issue must be explored in detail later, but for the moment, consider what it means when we recite this prayer.

The petition is a cry from the depths of distress.

From a world enslaved by evil, death and Satan, the disciple lifts his eyes to the Father and cries out for the revelation of God’s glory, knowing that He will grant it.

Praying for God’s holy Person to be revealed is the same as asking for the abolition of everything contradictory to divine holiness.

We are asking that God destroy those aspects of our life which dishonour Him and which exalt our own nature.

Likewise, we are asking that God Himself fit us for divine service.

We are, in effect, asking that the command of our text be implemented in our life.

Can any of us every again pray this Model Prayer in a casual or cavalier fashion?

What is vital to understand, is that because our God is holy, we are called to be holy.

In fact, we are already said to be sanctified.

In the Ephesian letter is one of the most beautiful statements of all that God has provided for us.

Listen to the Apostle in *Ephesians 1:3-10*.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Similarly, in the First Corinthian letter, Paul speaks of the contrast between what we were and what we are.

Listen as I read *1 Corinthians 6:9-11*.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you.