Draw Near (3)
Draw Near • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsGod is holy so we must be holy and because of Jesus' sacrifice for our sins we can now be holy.
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Draw Near (3)
Drawing Near to A Holy God
Drawing Near to A Holy God
Good morning CHURCH!
Are you ready to be equipped today?
Let me see your Bibles.
Let’s go to the book of 1 Corinthians for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.
This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination
1 Corinthians 3:16
1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
Sometimes we act like we don’t know this or that maybe we forget it from time to time.
Since we are the temple of God what are some ways we can honor God with our bodies? (sex, rest & keeping it healthy)
Question, before we move into the lesson.
??Does anyone know where King Solomon’s temple was located??
Week 3 of Draw Near
He Will Meet You – draw near to God and He’ll draw near to you.
He Wants to Fellowship – You were created with fellowship in mind.
Today’s message title is:
Drawing Near to A Holy God
Drawing Near to A Holy God
(A lot of people want to be close to God but feel so unholy at times.)
I’m sure many of you have felt at times that your unholiness keeps you far from God.
And yes it is true that God is Holy.
Point #1
Point #1
God is Holy
God is Holy
When I grew up, I thought the word holy meant something like super spiritual, prophetic or something like that.
Holy = H6918 Kawdoshe Kodesh (Sacred, set apart, distinct)
We can see in scripture that God wanted Israel to be set apart as His holy people.
Exodus 19:5-6 ESV
Exodus 19:5-6 ESV
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
Can you imagine that.
Of all the people’s and nations in existence at that time, God chooses a group of former enslaved people.
Leviticus 20:23-24 ESV
Leviticus 20:23-24 ESV
And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.
Leviticus 20:26 ESV
Leviticus 20:26 ESV
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
It’s clear that God expect those who belong to him to be separate from those that don’t belong to him.
In other words we should be different.
But most of all we understand the LORD himself to be holy.
Psalm 99:1-5 ESV
Psalm 99:1-5 ESV
The Lord reigns; let the people’s tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
2 The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!
4 The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
These other nations have all these things that they call Gods, but the God that chose Israel is the only true and living God.
So, since He is holy, no sin is able to dwell in his presence.
Point #2
Point #2
Sin’s Penalty Must Be Paid For
Sin’s Penalty Must Be Paid For
Let’s take a look at what happened to the first high priest of Israel.
They were Moses’ nephews.
Leviticus 10:1-3 Message
Leviticus 10:1-3 Message
That same day Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, took their censers, put hot coals and incense in them, and offered “strange” fire to God—something God had not commanded.
Fire blazed out from God and consumed them—they died in God’s presence.
Moses said to Aaron, “This is what God meant when he said, To the one who comes near me, I will show myself holy; Before all the people, I will show my glory.” Aaron was silent.
Can you imagine how you would have felt if your two oldest sons were just consumed by fire in the presence of God.
We know that scripture tells us the wages for sin is death.
If God is just, there has to be a payment for sin.
Hebrews 10:1 The Message
Hebrews 10:1 The Message
(I like the way the message translation explains this)
The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan.
Since that old “law plan” wasn’t complete in itself, it couldn’t complete those who followed it. No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution.
If they had, the worshipers would have gone blissfully on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins.
But instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices were repeated over and over, they actually heightened awareness and guilt.
The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can’t get rid of sin. That is what is meant by this prophecy, put in the mouth of Christ:
You don’t want sacrifices and offerings year after year;
you’ve prepared a body for me for a sacrifice.
It’s not fragrance and smoke from the altar
that whet your appetite.
So I said, “I’m here to do it your way, O God,
the way it’s described in your Book.”
Since God is Holy and sin must be paid for:
Point #3
Point #3
How Can God Both Penalize Sin and Draw Near to Us
How Can God Both Penalize Sin and Draw Near to Us
The Judge that had to sentence his friend.
The judge thought about Romans 6.
Romans 6:23 ESV
Romans 6:23 ESV
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So, he sentenced his friend with a hefty fine and then he:
That is what God did for us through Jesus the Christ.
Hebrews 9:11-15 The Message
Hebrews 9:11-15 The Message
But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all.
If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out.
Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.
How can you not love and serve a Father like that?
People have asked, “How can a loving God send people to hell?”
The answer is, He sent his only begotten son to pay the ultimate price so that we wouldn’t have to go to hell.
Then I ask them, “Why would anyone choose to go to hell, when God’s son paid the price that they wouldn’t have to?”
If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.
What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?
What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?