Knowing God - God is Holy

1 Peter 1:14-16 God is Holy (set apart and devoted to His honor), and calls us to be holy, which is impossible without Christ.

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Thanks, Alex. Good time of worship this morning. Thank you again. How's everybody doing? We good? You guys dry enough? Okay. Was that the lights flickering or is that power going off and on? That'll be fun if a room got dark and quiet all of a sudden. Well, hey, my name's Harley. Excited to be here with you guys this morning. What I'm gonna actually ask you guys to do this morning is something a little bit out of routine for us. We as a church really want to be a church that cares for the people who are a part of this church family and anybody who happens to just come through our door to visit or whatever else. And one of the things that we've noticed is that it's been hard for us to just even like be good at following up with people. Just be good at knowing what people's needs are here, knowing who's here and how we can love them and support them. And so to that end, we have uh we're gonna try something new. We've got a booklet underneath your seat. If you're on the left, ah, sorry, your right end of the row. There's a booklet underneath you, not the one in front of you, underneath you. And we're gonna ask you, it's only the people on the end, the left. Oh, sorry, my left, your right. I'll get this right. Underneath you. And if you wouldn't mind just filling that out, one per like individual or family unit would be helpful. Um, and just kind of pass it down, and when it gets to the end of the row, just slip it under there. And uh our hope with that, like I said, would be for us to grow in loving and caring for our church family. Um, and so just if you wouldn't mind grabbing that again. Sorry if you're not right at the end of your row, you might have to kind of scoot along to get that. But just if you wouldn't mind just taking a moment to fill that out, passing it down until it gets to the end and then slipping it under the end of the row. While you're doing that, um, and it's the first time, so we're gonna have you all filling out your information, which I know is a little bit difficult, but when you come here and you've been here like a number of times, we'll have that information. All we'll need is your name to be put down there. Um but yeah, as we're talking about that, one of the other things that we're changing to kind of coincide with this is starting point is gonna be a little bit different. So, starting point is our thing for people who are new to Point Community Church. And so we're inviting anybody who is new or wanting to find out more about who we are as a church to come along next Sunday. We're gonna do a three-week class, and it's like 9.30 in the morning, so it's just kind of like an hour or so before the service, and it's gonna be over here in the temporary building number one. But if you're new or newish to point, we'd love you to come along, and what we'll do is we'll break those three weeks into talking about what we say when we talk about our mission and our identity is that we are a family of disciples on mission. What do we mean by that? Like, who is this family of believers? Where you know, what's a bit of our history? Who do we believe that God's called us to? We'll talk about discipleship. You know, what does that mean when we say that? Well, how does that inform our identity as a church? And then mission, what does it mean to live a life ministering and serving as God's called us to? So, anyway, just I know it's a few things that are different, but if you can kind of be informed and then participate in whatever way is appropriate, that would be great. So we'd really encourage you guys, if you are new or if you have somebody that's in your sphere of friends that it's new, that you'd invite them to come along next week at 9.30 in building one over here. Cool? Okay, great. And the pads, they're good too. Everybody figured that out? I'll assume by the heads down and people concentrating that that's happening. That's good. Alright, well, I am really grateful, like I said, for our time of worship together this morning. Um, just reflecting on those truths. All those truths we were just singing about, it's exactly what we're preaching about this morning. We're talking about like God's goodness and grace to us. So I'm excited for us to explore these attributes. And I just want to stop and pray one more time. I know we've already prayed a couple of times, but I just really want to ask God to lead us through this time. I don't want to assume that we're just, you know, coast through this and then check that box and move on to the next thing. So let's pray together. As you guys bow your heads and close your eyes, would you mind just praying wherever you're sitting and just to your, you know, pray to God quietly to yourself there that He would speak to you this morning. God, thank you that you heard these prayers. Thank you that you are alive. Thank you that you do speak. God I pray that you would speak through your word this morning, that you would use me as your mouth. God I pray that our hearts would be receptive to what you need us to hear. Help us to hear, to listen, to obey God, and to honor you with our lives. God, may we grow in our sense of awe and wonder of you as we unpack more of who you are in this series. Thank you for this opportunity. Amen. For those of us who believe in God, we often think of him as being impressive. We picture in our heads like this impressive being, like maybe a throne room or a dazzling light, right? We picture these impressive images of God in our minds. And not only that, when we think of God as being impressive, there's something in us that wells up and says, Well, I need to impress this impressive being. If God is so impressive and amazing, I need to show him how impressive and amazing I am. And that's why we have things like Sunday Best. Do you guys know what I'm talking about when I say Sunday Best? That's the best set of clothes that you own that you reserve for wearing to church on Sunday. Now, obviously, we're a pretty casual church. That probably doesn't really fit our description of you guys look great, but uh but what I'm trying to say is there are churches that like that's kind of a normal thing that you you know, suit and tie, you're wearing your Sunday best. And we as a church can kind of be like, well, that's a bit strange or silly, but there are things that we do where we try and impress God, whether it's by our behavior or doing good things. Why is that? Why do we feel this sense and this need to impress this impressive being? Something deep within us knows that God is holy and requires us to be holy like him. I believe it's because there's something in us that understands that there is a God, that he is holy, and that we need to be holy like him. Now, when I say that statement, I've already used the word that's the focus of our whole conversation today, holy. And as we look at this word holy, we're starting to look at one of God's attributes. This is the first sermon in this whole series of attributes where we're talking about God. And holiness is one that really encapsulates a lot of who God is, and that's why we've put it first in this series. And as we look at it, I don't want you to just think of this word holy. I want you to see that yes, this is a word that describes God, but we have a couple of problems. We have a couple of issues with it. And the first problem that we have with this word is that we don't really know what the word holy means. We say it at church, we'll sing it in a song, and yet we don't know what it means. We just sang a song, and it is a beautiful song. Holy, holy, holy. But what does that mean? At Christmas time we sing, oh holy night. What do we mean by that? And then, even worse than that, we actually degrade and misuse the word oftentimes. We say things like holy cow. What's that? Or we say holy duly, or we say holy fill in the blank, right? Like these things, we're degrading a word that's meant to actually be something that describes God. It's meant to be a word that's reserved for good purposes. So what does it mean? Well, rather than me just giving you and spouting off a definition or giving you my interpretation on what it means, I'd rather for us to start to formulate a picture based on God's word. If this is a word that describes God, let's use his word to help us unpack and understand what it means. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna do kind of a review of the use of the word holy, at least in the first part of God's word. And so I'm gonna turn, I've already turned to the very first page of my Bible, to Genesis chapter 2, because that's where we find the first instance of this word. So if you don't mind, if you have a Bible, turn it. We're gonna be turning a lot, but turn with me to Genesis chapter 2, and let's read this first use of this word holy. And we find it here, Genesis 2, before the fall of humanity, when before things got corrupted by sin. Here we have this use. And verse 2 of Genesis 2 says, By the seventh day, God completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy. For on it he rested from his work of creation. There's the first use. It's not describing God, it's actually describing a day that God sets apart as special and unique amongst creation. Now we'll come back and revisit what that means a little bit. But this is the first use of the word, and what you'll actually find is that this word holy isn't used again until many hundreds of years later we come to the story of Moses in Exodus. That's pretty incredible to think about. The word holy isn't used for a long time. I mean, a lot happens between Genesis and before the fall, till then. A lot happens. The fall happens, that's probably the biggest thing, not probably, definitely the biggest thing. And then you have Noah in the flood, and then you have the Tower of Babel, and then you have all the things of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, you know, Jacob, all of these guys that followed after. So if we turn to Exodus 2, what we're gonna see is the next use of this word. Sorry, Exodus chapter 3. And here in Exodus 3, we find Moses, who is this character who is one of the Israelites, but has run away from Egypt where the rest of his people are, and he's out just looking after sheep. And as he's out there looking after some sheep, God comes to him and calls him. And in this experience, we have the second use of the word holy. What's happening is Moses is out there with his sheep. He sees this bush that's on fire, and it's not getting consumed by the fire, and he's like, What on earth is going over here? So he starts moving towards it. Then this voice speaks to him and identifies itself as God, the God of his ancestors. And if you look at verse 5, it says there, the voice says to him, Do not come any closer. He said, Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you were standing is holy ground. Holy ground. This is the second use of the word. And what we picture here is not like Moses being like, oh sure, I'll be polite. You know, it's like I'm coming into somebody's nice clean house. No, like this is an intense moment. Like here, God is speaking to him and he's saying, Hey, Moses, my presence is just near to you right now, and it's so intense that you need to take off your nasty shoes to represent how holy and pure and righteous the ground is becoming just by my presence. If you want to see the intensity of that moment, just skip down to verse 6. At the back end of verse 6, it says, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. This is an incredibly intense moment because God's holiness has set apart this ground, just the sound sand that was ordinary sand a moment ago is now holy because of God's presence. Now, if we journey on from here throughout the scripture, what we're gonna see is this word holy starts to pop up all the time. There are tons of references to it now from here on because as God goes and rescues and uses Moses to help rescue the people out of Egypt, he calls them and he says, I want you to be a holy nation, and I want you to worship me, and we're gonna have this tabernacle that's gonna be set up as a place of worship, and it's gonna be holy, and the priests are gonna have holy garments and they're gonna have holy implements. And so the words used all these times throughout these scriptures until finally, finally, in Leviticus chapter 11, we get the word holy describing God Himself. So go to Leviticus 11 with me and let's read it. Leviticus 11 and it's verse 44. It says here, God's here and he's speaking to his people, and he's giving them a list of things that will defile them, that will keep them from being pure and the way that he wants them to be. And he says in verse 44, I am Yahweh, Yahweh, that is the Lord, your God. So you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves. And he goes on and lists a few things, not an exhaustive list of things that will defile them. And there's verse 45, it says, For I am Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy. So when we make the statement, God is holy, that's an absolutely true straight statement. But what does it mean? We're starting to get a picture by looking at some of these scriptures, or I hope you were starting to get a picture of what holiness means, but I think it's still a little bit elusive. I know this is a bit of a strange analogy, but it's kind of like trying to hold on to a fish. I don't know if you guys have ever tried to do that, but a live fish. It's like slippery. You think you've got it, and then all of a sudden it kind of slides out of your hand, right? And that's a lot like the definition of holiness, because holiness is this word that we're trying to use to encapsulate who God is. And God Himself doesn't fit in the bounds of any definition that we give him. God is beyond the box that we want to put him in. And so when we seek to define God and we have a word that we say, yeah, this really encapsulates a lot of who God is, which is what holy actually does, you've got to understand that and hold it just a little bit loosely and realize that yes, it is going to be hard to define. If I was to pick on one of you guys this morning and say, hey you, stand, I'm not gonna do that, but hey you, stand up and tell us all what holiness means, we'd probably struggle a little bit. And that's because it's this big, broad word that really captures a lot of who God is. So with that in mind, let's try to define it a little bit, and and to help us with that, I'd like to use a definition given by Wayne Grudom. He's a theologian, and his definition goes like this: God's holiness means that he is separated from sin and devoted to seeking his own honor. Now, as you hear that, what I want you to hear is that there are two essential, and he he does a great job. Grudem does a great job of pointing this out. There are two essential elements to any thorough definition of holiness. One is separation, and the other is devotion. Now, I think the separation one is the one that we find easier. The devotion one is the one that we kind of struggle with a little bit more. You mean because let me try and explain that. Separation means that something is set apart, right? And you're like, okay, great. Devotion means that it's about God seeking his honor and his glory. And that's kind of the part that we kind of struggle a little bit with. So to help us understand that a little bit, let's go back to some examples of what we're talking about. So, we talked about how the Sabbath was holy, how it was this day that was made to be holy. What we mean by that is the seventh day, the Sabbath, was to be set apart from all the other days of the week. You have six days which you can do your work, and the seventh day you're not to do your work. It's separated, but it wasn't just separated, it was separated for a purpose. And the purpose was to glorify and to honor God, to bring glory to his name. So the idea was for devotion to God. So the Sabbath was separated and devoted to God. Let's go with another example. The tabernacle. I referenced that earlier. That was the tent which the people of Israel used when they were moving throughout the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land. And it was this tent that they used to meet and interact with God. And that tent had a lot of elements to it that were holy. It was kind of described as holy, and what that meant was that the tent was actually separated out from the rest of the camp. It wasn't like the tent was just there amongst all the other families and tents going on, and people were like strolling through eating their sandwich or taking a nap or, you know, doing all the ordinary things. Like this was a holy place that was separated and devoted to God. And there was actually inside of that tabernacle a place that was called the Holy of Holies. And that was a very special place inside of the special place that was devoted to God and to his glory. So, with these ideas of separation and devotion, as we look at this statement that God is holy, what that means is that God is separated from the rest of creation. God is not like the rest of creation. God is the creator, we are the creation. God is infinite, and we and anything that you perceive with your eyes is finite. God alone is infinite. He is separated and he is devoted to his glory. He is devoted to his honor. And when I say that, some of you think, does that mean God's an egomaniac? That God is all for his own glory. No, just this is not a perfect illustration, but think of it like this. If your father was at one point in your life able to go and to rescue your neighbors when their house was burning to the ground. Their house is on fire, he pulls them out unconscious from the house. If your father did that, he would be honored. He would be like celebrated, he would be a hero, he would be honored by that, right? And your whole family would experience the glory and the honor of what happened in that moment. Much in the same way, when God is honored, when he is glorified, it is for our good as his creation. It's for the good of all of us that God is glorified. I wish that we could just park here and just, you know, pull the sermon over and rest here and talk about God's holiness. Like just stop and reflect on some of what this means. That God is infinite, that he is beautiful, that he is without blemish or fault, that he is magnificent and terrifying, that he is perfect and awesome. And we will get to talk about some of these things throughout our series. As we go through this series and we talk about these different attributes, you're gonna see some of those qualities coming out. And what you're seeing is this thread of holiness woven through all these other attributes. When we talk about the fact that God is all-knowing, what you're gonna get to see is that when we say that, it means that he is separate. None of us are all-knowing, and it's for his glory that he's all-knowing. So again, that when we talk about the fact that God is all-knowing, what we're really talking about is that God is holy. Like there's this thread that kind of connects all of these things together. And this is why the idea of holiness is so foundational to the rest of our conversation throughout this series. But the crazy thing is, and this is the second problem, God's holiness is a shared attribute. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that there are certain attributes that are shared between God and humanity, mankind. And there's other attributes that aren't shared. For example, I said earlier that God is infinite. That obviously, unless you're crazy, that that's not a shared attribute. That's not a communicable, that's the fancy word, communicable attribute. Now, the fact that God is holy is great until we consider the fact that he also calls us to be holy. Because it's actually a shared attribute that he's calling us to share with him. So let me rephrase the problem and be explicitly clear. Because we are made in God's image, God is holy and calls us to be holy. And this is a problem because it's incredibly difficult. It's not easy to be holy. 1 Peter chapter 1, let's go there. 1 Peter chapter 1, it's way up the other end of the Bible. We're gonna spend some time here in 1 Peter, so if you want to turn there, I'd encourage that. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 14. It says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. Now he's speaking to Christians. It says, obedient children, he's talking to Christians. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in your conduct. For it is written, be holy, because I am holy, and that's quoting Leviticus. He's saying, hey guys, we've got to be holy. It's really important because God is holy. So what I want you to see here pretty quickly is Old Testament, New Testament. 2,000 years BC, 2,000 years AD. No matter when or where you live, we all have this same problem that God calls us to holiness. And the only way for us to relate to God is to come up to his level. You see, God's not going to just pretend that everything's okay. It would be against his holiness, it would be against his character to just ignore our lack of holiness. He cannot pretend that everything is okay between broken and sinful humanity and holy God Himself. We see this coming out in other scriptures. I'm going to have you turn, we will come back to 1 Peter. I'm going to have you turn to Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah 6 is an interesting passage because here you have this guy who is a prophet of God. Okay, that means that he loves God. It means he hears from God. It means that he speaks God's word to God's people. So this is an important guy. This is a guy who's familiar with God, but listen to what happens when he has a vision of God's holiness. Verse 1, it says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and his robe filled the temple. Seraphim, that's these special angels. They were standing above him. Each one had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to the other, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. His glory fills the whole earth. The foundations of the doorway shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said, Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and have lived among a people of unclean lips. And because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Are you guys seeing what's going on here? Here is this man who loves God, is seeking to honor God, and yet when he is faced with the holiness of God, he hits the deck and says, Woe is me, I'm undone. I'm toast. And what we see here is just a little snippet of the holiness of God and the utter lack of holiness of man. We too are a people of unclean lips. Because of the fall, because of what happened in Genesis 3, which we didn't read this morning, but where sin came into the world, we are not holy. We have this call to be separated and devoted. Remember, that's what holiness is: separated and devoted to God, and yet we can't do it. God is holy, God is pure, God is righteous, and we are not. And the problem's actually probably worse than you're even picturing it right now. To show you that, I'd love to turn just over a few pages to Isaiah 64. And I want to read for you what I believe is one of the most intense passages in all of Scripture. And it says here in Isaiah chapter 64, verse 6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment. All of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. Now you may read that and be like, oh yeah, that sounds a little bad. I don't know if I'd say it's the most intense passage in Scripture. There are some other intense passages, but I want you to see what it's saying here. It says, all of us have become like something unclean. It doesn't say, hey, people who aren't loving God. You know, non-godly people or people who are mean to God, they're all unclean and sinful. No, it says all of us have become like something unclean, and then it says, all of our righteous acts, as in the very best things that you do on your very best days, your righteous acts are like a polluted garment. Now, if you look at the footnote here for that word polluted garment, what it will tell you, and I'm not trying to be vulgar here, but it what it's saying is a cloth used during a woman's menstruation. And it's saying that your righteous acts are like a polluted garment. So the day that you share the gospel with your coworker or your neighbor, your best of days, that is that righteous act is like a polluted garment compared to God's holiness. It's saying that the day that you love and serve your spouse like you never have before is like a polluted garment. It's saying that the day that somebody does something incredibly wrong to you when you forgive them by the grace of God in your heart, that righteous act is like a polluted garment. Martin Luther, the reformer from around 500 years ago, said this the most damnable and pernicious, that sneaky and sinful heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God. We can rightly say that God is holy and wants us to be holy, but that is impossible. Your righteous acts are not good enough. God demands holiness and you can't get there. It's impossible. The only hope that you have, the only hope that I have is that we can write that statement that God is holy and demands holiness from us, but that is impossible, is to put a little asterisk up next to there. To put a little footnote at the end of that statement, and that footnote looks like this. It tells us that there is a way for us to get around the impossible call for holiness. I want you to picture with me that you stand on the edge of a cliff. And as you look down, there is a bottomless ravine in front of you. And as you look to your right, the cliff extends in an infinite amount in one direction. As you look to your left, the cliff extends also in that direction, in an infinite amount. And as you stand on the edge of this cliff, way, way, way across from you, is another mass of land that is also infinite, but there is no way to cross the chasm. You are in sin. You are in brokenness, and that land across from you is holiness. There is no way. There is no amount of jumping, there's no amount of lassoing, there is nothing that you can do to cross from one side to the other. The only thing that you could do is to cross on one bridge that exists. There is one bridge, and that is Jesus. Jesus offers us the only way to holiness. If you go back to 1 Peter with me. God's calling us to be holy. And then right after that, in verse 18, it explains the gospel. It explains to us the good news of how we experience that holiness. It says there in verse 18 of chapter 1 of 1 Peter, for you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, inherited from your fathers. You were redeemed, you were taken from that broken land. And then it goes on and says, Not with perishable things like silver and gold. There was no way for you to move from one land to the other. But with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. It's not without reason that this text comes right after the call for holiness. Because the only way for us to experience holiness is by the blood of Jesus. So how exactly does Jesus make us holy? Like when we say that, what does that mean? Well, to kind of help with that, I'm a visual person. I have a little visual aid here. What I want you to see this morning is holiness represented just in a towel. This is a pure, clean, white towel. Unused. Perfect. And this represents what we're called to. This is the life that God calls us to. This is the life that we can't live. It's the life that Jesus lived for us. This, on the other hand, represents us. And it's probably not dirty enough, let's be honest, right? But this represents us. This represents even our best of days that we are not good enough to attain to that which God requires, demands. And the beauty of the gospel is this. The beauty of the message, I mean, if you want to know the Christian faith in just a really succinct way, it's this is that Jesus, by his death and resurrection, imputed, and that's a fancy word. My friend Reuben here reminded me the other day that imputed is kind of the opposite of amputed. Like when you amputate something, you cut it off. Impute is to put on, okay? I like that explanation. Okay, so what God has done through Jesus is he has imputed his righteousness unto us, and he has taken, it was the great exchange, he has taken our sin for us. So this is no longer me. When I stand before God, I now have this. If I have cried out and reached out to Jesus. This is taken care of on the cross, and it's only able to be satisfied by somebody who is fully God and fully man, and that is Jesus. The reality of this, the truth of this is so incredibly beautiful. It's a marvelous truth. I I don't want you to like just quickly move on from this, but I do want you to see this morning that this is the gospel. And as you think about that this morning, as you think about God's holiness and his demand on your life, I know that you think about that and you may be sitting here being like, okay, that's good. Great. God's holy, he's given me a way to be holy, which he demands through Jesus. But what does that have to do with the fight that you guys had, you and your spouse, on the way here in the car? Or does that have to do with the fact that you don't know if you can pay your bills at the end of the month? What does that have to do with your child who has been just so disobedient lately and just living in unforgiveness? Or does that have to do with the fact that you're stressed about your work or whatever other thing you may be walking in here with this morning? Because I know that all of you guys walk in here this morning with different things on your hearts and your minds, and here we are having this conversation, this lofty conversation about the holiness of God. But you say maybe this morning, hey, what's this got to do with my daily struggle? And as you consider that, I think it's a fair question. I want you to think about this. The biggest struggle in our lives is our lack of holiness. What we've been talking about this morning, what we've been talking about with this God's holiness and our lack, that is the number one struggle that you will ever face in your life. It's bigger than death, it's bigger than loss, it's bigger than whatever. Whether you realize it and acknowledge it or not. And as we think about that, if God cares enough to deal with this, our biggest struggle, at great expense to himself, how will he not also care for us in any other struggle that we face? So if you're here this morning and you're struggling with one of those things that I listed or something else, like don't feel that God is a God that's walked out on you or is is not real or doesn't care. He cares enough to send his son to impute his holiness onto you. You can take that to the bank this morning and know that God is real and that he cares about you and where you're at. So, with all this in mind, how do we respond? We don't want this series to be like this theological conversation where we're, you know, thinking about these lofty ideas and these thoughts about God. No, our hope is that this series, as we talk about the attributes of God, would actually be an invitation. An invitation for relationship. And so, a couple of quick thoughts for you in response. The first thought is this when we ask how do we respond, the first thought is to receive the gift of holiness. Some of you here this morning, it would be absolutely a miss for me to believe that every person in this room has accepted the imputed holiness of Jesus into their lives. Like that would be a miss for me to believe that. Some of you this morning have an opportunity for the very first time to have this incredible exchange take place. And my invitation, I've been praying this week specifically for this part of my sermon. My prayer this morning is that one of you or some of you would put up your hand and say, Yes, I need that holiness. I understand what you're talking about. I understand that the very best things that I do are not good enough. And I need Jesus. If that's you this morning, don't delay. Cry out to Jesus. He can impute his holiness to you today. And so, my encouragement, if that's you, come and tell one of us today. Like during our prayer time or after the service, come and find me, come and find one of our leaders or the person who brought you. Tell them this is hugely, hugely important. We want to celebrate it with you. There is no greater decision, there is no greater struggle in your life than this struggle for holiness. If you have received the gift of holiness, i.e., if you are Christian, my encouragement for you in response is this is to pursue holiness. To pursue holiness. Remember what it said in 1 Peter? It said there in verse 14, I'm going back to where we kind of started. It said, as obedient children, that is, as Christians, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct. There is a call in God's word for Christians to abide in his holiness, to remain, that word abide, remain and be nourished by his holiness. And so my encouragement to you is to not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance, as it says in 1 Peter. We cannot impress God with our holiness. Some Christians feel like they've received God's gift of holiness, and now they need to kind of earn their holiness back and show God how good they are. That's not the gospel. The gospel is that God's holiness is given to us, and as we rest in that, as it is impressed onto us, our response is to stay there and to grow in resembling his image more and more. J.C. Ryle in his book Holiness says, holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find his mind described in Scripture. It is the habit, there he uses that word again, of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what he hates, loving what he loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of his word. I could stand up here this morning and say, hey Christians, here's a list of things to do to pursue holiness. Here's a list of books that you should read about holiness. And they've got lists of things to do inside of those books. But that's not what you need. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed. I don't want you to feel complicated by this. There's a few simple things that we can and should do. One is to pray. Let's start with prayer. Let's be a people of prayer that pray prayers like this. God, please help me to grow in holiness. Your scripture asks me to be holy, so would you help me to be holy? That's not a complicated prayer. Now, as you pray that, be ready for some answers. As you pray and say, Hey God, would you help me to grow in holiness? I want to be separated and devoted to you. I want to be separated to you. Realize that you may look different from the people around you. Being holy means that you're separated and devoted to God's glory. That means that you don't look like every other person walking down the street. As you pray this prayer and ask for holiness, the second thing that I'd encourage you to do is to listen and expect the Holy Spirit to speak. I believe that as we say, God, would you help us to be holy people? You are holy, and you've called us to be holy, that He will start to speak. God may already be speaking to you about these things. But don't be surprised as you pray that prayer that He may give you some conviction or some counsel. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us and gives us counsel. He may counsel you in something that you've said. You may walk away from a conversation and the Holy Spirit will bring you conviction and say, hey, that what you said in that conversation was vulgar. That was not holiness. That didn't honor me. And if he does that, what are you going to do? How are you going to respond? Or maybe he'll convict you and say, hey, when you talked with that person, you sounded really harsh. That's the Holy Spirit working in us, counseling us, convicting us, and leading us to holiness. Maybe the Holy Spirit will start to talk to you about the things that you're absorbing and taking in via movies or TV or social media or the internet. You may be watching a TV show and all of a sudden a thought comes to you, and it's not random, it's the Holy Spirit, and He says, Hey, this show is not honoring me. What you're watching is portraying women in a way that they shouldn't be portrayed. Or the way that it's talking about marriage, or the way that it's violent, or the way that they're talking to each other, their language. If you sense and feel that, that's the Holy Spirit leading you and guiding you to holiness. Don't ignore that. Maybe the Holy Spirit this week will lead you to specific changes in your life. Maybe he'll lead you to changes in your work and into your schedule, changes in your finances, changes in your schedule as to the time that you spend it spend with him. Connecting with him, reading his word, talking to him, praying with him, listening to him. Maybe the Holy Spirit's already convicting you about those things. And so don't just listen, obey. Pray, listen, and obey. Those are the things that we're talking about this morning. Don't harden your hearts. Hebrews 3 and Psalms 95 say, do not harden your hearts. Let's be a church that grows in holiness. God is holy, as we've talked about, and that alone is reason for us to worship. We could have just stopped at defining God as holy and been like, yep, God is holy. And we should have walked out here of here today worshiping God and thinking about how awesome and praiseworthy He is. That would be enough. But we didn't stop there. We went on and we talked about how God has given us the ability to be holy through Jesus. That too is worthy of our praise and worship. My hope is that you guys don't walk out of here with a sense of condemnation this morning. This message is not a heavy message, it's actually a light message. Because what it's telling us is that there is a way for us to be holy. I'm not standing up here and saying, hey guys, you better behave because God's holy and he demands holiness from you. What I'm standing up here to say is that Jesus has made a way for us to be holy. And we are to pursue and to walk and to rest in that. So whoever you are, wherever you are today, don't feel a weight of condemnation. If you still feel a weight walking out of here, it means that you haven't received this holiness in a full measure. Not only that He is holy, but that He would make a way for us to be holy. Let's pray. God, thank you. That the things that we've talked about this morning are not theoretical. They're much more, God, they're realities, they're truths that we absolutely have to cling to. God, our lives would be hopeless. They would be an absolute wreck if this truth of your holiness and the holiness that you give us through Jesus wasn't real. And so, God, just as a group of friends this morning, we thank you. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you that you have given us a way to be holy. And God, we pray that now as we consider our lives and we consider how we are to respond, that you would help us to live in a way that honors you because of what you've done for us. Not to try and impress you, but simply as a response of love for the love that you've already given us. Thank you again for the gospel. Thank you for salvation from our simpleness and our brokenness. May there be much much joy and freedom as we as we just celebrate your holiness today. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Well as we have time to respond now.