Sermon
Holiness
Ted
led us in the Nicene Creed this morning. I think each of the elements of our
worship service are important, from the announcements, to the singing, to the
sermon… each element has a place… they are all important. The Creed is
important as it reminds us, and proclaims to anyone listening, just what is it
that we believe. The Apostles’ Creed is our standard, others we have taken from
the doctrinal statements of our denomination (the Assemblies of God) and still
others we’ve written ourselves. We, of course, did not right the Nicene Creed…
it has been with the Church since 381.
Creeds, concrete statements of belief,
have been around forever and are, really, all around us.
Our approach these last several
weeks has really been sort of creedal. We’ve taken these broad theological
themes of the Old Testament and applied them to ourselves.
Many
scholars agree that the most important creedal statement in the Old Testament
is the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4,5
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.a 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.[1]
Truth is… we don’t need to rely
on scholars to validate this creedal statement. Jesus himself pointed us
squarely to this creed. We find in Mark 12:
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important
one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
one.a
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’b
[2]
This verse has been called the Shema, from the Hebrew word translated Hear. The statement in this verse is the basic confession of faith in Judaism. The verse means that the Lord (Yahweh) is totally unique. He alone is God. The Israelites could therefore have a sense of security that was totally impossible for their polytheistic neighbors. The “gods” of the ancient Near East rarely were thought of as acting in harmony. Each god was unpredictable and morally capricious. So a pagan worshiper could never be sure that his loyalty to one god would serve to protect him from the capricious wrath of another. The monotheistic doctrine of the Israelites lifted them out of this insecurity since they had to deal with only one God, who dealt with them by a revealed consistent righteous standard. This confession of monotheism does not preclude the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. “God” is plural (’ělōhîm), possibly implying the Trinity, and one (’eḥāḏ) may suggest a unity of the Persons in the Godhead (cf. Gen. 2:24, where the same word for "one" is used of Adam and Eve).
To love the Lord means to choose Him for an intimate relationship and to obey His commands. This command, to love Him, is given often in Deuteronomy (v. 5; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20). Loving Him was to be wholehearted (with all your heart) and was to pervade every aspect of an Israelite’s being and life (soul and strength).[3]
Although we haven’t pounded this point home in every case,
these theological themes have further explicated this simple, overarching,
creedal statement from the Old Testament.
The
first sermon was Order and Chaos.
“The Lord our God is one.”
The Lord (Yahweh) is totally unique. He
alone is God. The Israelites could therefore have a sense of security
that was totally impossible for their polytheistic neighbors. The “gods” of the
ancient Near East rarely were thought of as acting in harmony. Each god was
unpredictable and morally capricious [chaos]. So a pagan worshiper could never
be sure that his loyalty to one god would serve to protect him from the
capricious wrath of another. The monotheistic doctrine of the Israelites lifted
them out of this insecurity since they had to deal with only one God, who dealt
with them by a revealed consistent righteous standard.
The God who created and ordered
everything that we know calls His people to worship Him.
The
second sermon was Image of God.
“The Lord our God.”
The God of the universe marks
His creation with His own image. He made us in His image. We are His and He
calls us to further conform to His image.
The
third sermon was Election.
“Our God calls us to Love
Him.”
God chooses to glorify Himself
through His creation… especially through His creation that bear His image… men
and women like us. He chose us to be marked by Him. He chose us to worship Him.
He chose us to serve Him. And He calls us to choose Him too… He calls us to set
our hearts on Him. He calls us to Love Him.
To love the Lord means to choose Him for an
intimate relationship and to obey His commands.
A choice that is not at all a casual choice. He calls for total, wholehearted
love and devotion.
The
fourth sermon was Listening.
“Hear O
Dr. Charette made this point
with clarity and excellence.
Faith comes by hearing.
Obedience comes by hearing. Worship begins by hearing… listening.
The
fifth sermon was Death and Resurrection.
“With all your soul.”
Remember that we picked up this
theme on Easter. On this day when we celebrated Christ’s conquering of death,
we took a close look at just what that victory meant. God calls us to love Him,
not just wholeheartedly now… not even just to love Him for all our days on this
earth… but He calls us to love and worship Him for eternity. Not merely now
with all our heart… but eternally with all our soul.
The
sixth sermon (last week) was Sojourning.
“With all your strength.”
And
now we come to the final sermon in our series, Holiness.
One of the things we might
notice about this theological theme, this word holiness, that differentiates it
from all the others is that it is an idea that has no meaning outside of God.
All of the other words have meaning outside of a God context.
But holiness is uniquely a God word. It is a God character alone. If you try to take God out of the definition, the
word has no meaning. Holiness and God-likeness are essentially synonyms. To say
that God is Holy is, really, redundant. We say that God is Holy to remind us
that He is Who He is. The I am. God is Holy… He is like no other.
So when we take a look at this
word Holy, or Holiness, and apply it to anything other than God (like things,
actions, or people)… what we are saying is that these things are either:
A.
Belonging to God, or
B.
Taking on God-like qualities
In our English Bibles, we’ll
find the word holy (or related words)
over 400 times. If we were up on our
Hebrew, we would see that root word over 800 times.
To
break it down as simply as possible, we can see this word Holy or Holiness used in
two broad ways:
separateness and purity.
The first time we see this word Holy in the Bible is in Genesis 2:
3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.[4]
God separated the seventh day,
the Sabbath, and made it holy. That is to say… He made it His. God called places
holy too. He first called people holy in Exodus 19 when He
said:
6 youa will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’[5]
In this case He was calling for
a people that would be both separate (His) and pure. We can see this when we
look at the preceding verse.
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 youa will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ [6]
Leviticus is full of regulations
for holy living. In most every case it is clear that the rules were rules for purity.
This “Holiness Code” preserves the purity and well being of the individual, the
community, and the land.
But no matter how the word holy is applied to things, or places, or
people… the Old Testament does not confuse these shadows of holiness with
He who is truly holy. Think back to what Ted read just a few minutes ago from
Isaiah 6:
I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2
Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered
their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3
And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” [7]
When the prophet Isaiah found
himself in the presence of the Holy One… no right living, no ritual, no
sacrifices, no anything of his own doing adequately prepared him to meet God.
When faced with real holiness there was but one reasonable response: “Woe to
me!”
And then what happened was
really quite remarkable. God responded to Isaiah’s proclamation of woe by
dispatching one of His messengers to do for Isaiah what he couldn’t do for
himself. God touched Isaiah with holiness and Isaiah was now prepared to
respond to God’s call for service.
Isaiah wasn’t holy
enough without God’s provision of holiness.
Jump
to Isaiah 35:8
8 And
a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.a
9 No
lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk
there,
10 and the ransomed of the Lord
will return.
They will enter
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.[8]
“For those who walk in that Way”
What is the Way that the Old
Testament evangelist is preaching about? Who will walk in that Way? “The
redeemed will walk there… the ransomed of the Lord.”
The prophet makes it clear.
Holiness, true holiness, is only possible by God’s doing. Only He can call out
(separate) what is His. Only He can provide for true purity.
So…
what do we do with this?
Do I really need to convince us
that we want to belong to God? Do I really need to convince us that we want to
take on God’s characteristics?
Holiness is an attractive proposition.
We want to belong to God…
separated as His treasured possession.
We want to take on His
characteristics… pure, righteous, holly.
When God says “Be holy like I am
holy” we say, “Yes, Lord. This is good. Help us.”
Let’s
remind ourselves:
Holiness isn’t the way
to God… it is God’s Way.
It is not a path that brings us
to God.
Our pursuit of holiness is not
what makes us acceptable to God.
Holiness isn’t the way
to God… it is God’s Way.
The Way God
·
Prescribes: Spells out for us.
Calls us to.
·
Provides: Makes possible.
The Old Testament isn’t the other testament.
Each of these theological themes
of the Old Testament reminds us of the richness of the entire Bible. This
Holiness theme is no exception.
I
think that sometimes it is way too easy for us to draw stark distinctions
between the Old and New Testaments. In this matter of holiness, we can too
easily think that the rules changed
between Malachi and Matthew. I think we sometimes think that God somehow
thought that Holiness was almost attainable in the Old Testament… if we’d only
try real hard and follow the rules.
But we saw it today. The message
is the same. God is Holy and He deserves holiness from His people… but the only
way true holiness is going to come about is if He provides it.
We are His, holy and called out
for Him, because He chose it.
Any purity we attain is a
worthwhile offering of worship and love to Him… but even that is only
attainable with His help.
Praise be to God that we are His
and He is helping us by the power of His Spirit!