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Pastor Scott L. Harris
Grace Bible Church, NY
March 13, 2022
Trusting God, Part 4: The Holy God
elected Scripture
Introduction
We will continue this morning in our series on trusting God. The major reason people do not trust God is that they do not know Him according to what He has revealed about Himself. What the vast majority of people believe about God is what they have picked up from various religious teachers and philosophers combined with their own experience and desires of what they would like God to be like. That fact was backed up by an interesting but disturbing article I read this week by Bob Unruh commenting on the 2022 American Worldview Inventory done by George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona State University.
The survey revealed that 94% of today’s parents of pre-teens in America possess a worldview properly described as Syncretism. Even though 67% of these parents self identified as Christian, only 2% of them actually had a Biblical worldview. It is bad enough that these parents do not actually understand life from a Biblical perspective, but what will such parents teach their children even if they recognize it is their responsibility to teach their children about God and the world and train them to understand and respond to life in a God honoring way? If more than 90% of current parents of pre-teens have what Barna described as “a muddled worldview,” then that is the model of life that they will instill into their children.
While the survey reveals the weakness and decline of Biblical Christianity in America, it also revealed that other religions have also been severely compromised by syncretism for of the other six alternative worldviews included in the survey, none of them were embraced by even 1% of parents. That included Secular Humanism, Marxism/Critical Theory, Postmodernism and Eastern Mysticism / New Age. What dominates is a blend between various religious and philosophical beliefs that varies with the individual. While there are many factors that contribute to this syncretistic blending of worldviews, a major factor is that nearly 60% of pre-teen parents dismiss the Bible as a reliable source of God’s truth. Of the four in ten parents that do believe the Bible can be trusted as God’s accurate words for humanity, only 45% of that subgroup read the Bible at least once a week. The simple fact is that ignorance of truth enables lies to mix with what is believed and prevail. An example of that is how common it is for professing Christians to believe in reincarnation despite the fact that Jesus’ resurrection proves it to be false.
As would be expected, independent protestant churches that focus on teaching the Bible do best at developing Biblical theism in parents while those that emphasize experience and traditions do the worst. But even in churches such as this one, if the parents are not actively teaching their children about the God who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures and in His creation, then what the children are taught in school, what they pick up from media, and the influence of friends will prevail to create a syncrestistic mixture of beliefs that are inconsistent and even contradictory, but which enables them to do whatever is right in their own eyes. As Proverbs 12:15 warns, that is the way of a fool, but foolishness is naturally bound up in the heart of a child (Proverbs 22:15), and unless the heart is corrected and trained, it just becomes more foolish. Young fools become old fools.
All of that being said, it is not surprising then to find that most people do not really trust God because most people do not know Him according to what He has revealed about Himself. Most people are syncrestistic with their beliefs about God arising from various sources of lies and slander against Him by humanistic philosophers, false religions, and cults as well the bent of their own individual sinful hearts in efforts of self-justification as they yield to temptations by the devil, from the world and their own selfish desires.
We must understand God according to what He has revealed about Himself even when and perhaps even more so when we do not understand because He possesses attributes that are far beyond anything in human experience. We cannot even fully comprehend what it means to be infinite for we are bound by what is finite, yet God is infinite with respect to everything that limits man – time, space, power, knowledge, wisdom, ability. A God you can fully comprehend is not God. We have already looked at God’s attributes of being the creator, self-existent, self-sufficient, immutable, infinite, eternal. (See: God, The Creator & The Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, & Immutable God & God is Infinite & Eternal) This morning we will examine God’s holiness. God is not like us, and His holiness is part of that, yet He also wants us to be holy.
God is Holy – He is other
The starting point for understanding God’s holiness is coming to grips with the fact that God is something completely other from us. While God made man in His image (Gen. 1:26), humans reflected that image to only a very limited way from the beginning, and since man’s fall into sin, even that limited image is seriously marred. God is something other than what we are.
We reflect God’s image in having the ability to think (reason), feel (emotion) and make decisions (volition). Those are all qualities of personhood, but even these are limited in comparison with God.
Our ability to think is limited by both our knowledge and our understanding which has been darkened (Eph. 4:18). The mind of natural man is blinded by the devil and sin (2 Cor. 4:4). Our ability to feel is also perverted by sin so that we often have emotions based on things that are simply not true. As a result, our ability to make decisions is limited by both of these factors to which is added our innate selfishness. By contrast God is omniscient – all knowing – and His emotions are always based in truth as are His decisions which are also based in His other attributes of righteousness and justice.
We are finite creatures who have both physical and spiritual characteristics. We were created at a point in time and space and will exist only into eternity future. God is spirit who is both omnipresent and eternal. God is unlimited by either space or time.
The great hope of all people is that they will change. We school our children and continue to read and study a wide variety of subjects ourselves seeking to increase our knowledge so that we can change accordingly. We also seek to learn from our experiences. All people are also in desperate need of change from their sinful state, for without that every individual would remain justly condemned by God. Man longs for a change in position before God in order to be forgiven and become righteous before Him. That is possible only by repentance to have faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By contrast, God is immutable. He does not change in His nature, character or attributes and He always keeps His promises. God is already omniscient, so there is nothing for Him to learn that can bring about change, and He is already perfect in all His ways, so there can be no improvement in His nature, character or actions.
There are other attributes of God that we reflect to some limited extent, though greatly marred by sin. We refer to these as communicable or moral attributes. God is righteous, true, just, impartial, and jealous which gives rise to wrath and vengeance against those who sin against Him. He is also gracious, merciful, longsuffering, patient, good, kind, and loving which gives rise to the offer of salvation through Jesus Christ’ becoming the sacrificial substitute for man’s sin. There is one other attribute that attaches itself to all others and to which God has called us to become – holy. God’s love is holy as is His goodness, kindness, grace and mercy. God’s justice is holy as is His jealousy and wrath. Everything about God is holy.
God emphatically declares Himself to be holy (Lev. 19:2; 20:26) and that His very name is holy (Lev. 20:3; 22:2, 32; Ezek. 20:39; 36:20-23; 39:7, 25; 43:7-8; Amos 2:7). A description that He uses for Himself so much it also services as a title is “the Holy One of Israel” (Three times in the Psalms, twenty-five times in Isaiah, and twice in Jeremiah). Isaiah and John both had very similar visions of God sitting on His throne in Heaven, lofty and exalted with six winged Seraphim around Him calling out to each other, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord . . .”. The Lord of hosts who fills the earth with His glory is thrice holy (Isaiah 6: 2-3). The Lord God, the Almighty who is and was and is to come is thrice holy (Rev. 4:6-8). Whether each Holy is used in specific reference to one of the persons of triune Godhead or not, when a word is repeated, it places emphasis upon it, so when it is repeated three times it is extremely important. No other attribute of God is given a threefold repetition in the same sentence. Holiness is an overarching attribute of God and therefore demands our attention.
What then does it mean that God is holy? The root idea in both the Hebrew word (vWd1q2 / qadosh) and the Greek word (aJgioV / hagios) for “holy” is to “be set apart,” “to be separated unto.” God is holy because all His attributes or perfections set Him apart from His created works. His position as the Creator and His infinite attributes related to time, space, power, knowledge and ability set Him apart as something very different from anything that has been created for all created beings and matter have their origin outside themselves and are limited. God is self-existent and unlimited. Even the moral attributes that God possess that man can reflect to some degree also set God apart for He is perfect in each of those attributes and man only dimly reflects them. God’s perfection in knowledge and wisdom separates Him from all angels. His perfection in righteousness sets him apart from all sin and sinners. This idea of being of superior moral quality that separates from the common and profane is also carried in the related Greek word, o{sioV / hosios which is translated as “Holy One” when used in reference to a person in the New Testament. It is used in reference to God in Revelation 15:4 & 16:5 and in reference to Jesus in both Acts 2:27 & 13:35 in quoting Psalm 16:10. God is a being who exists on a higher plane and without flaws of any kind and lacks nothing.
God is holy, and I will repeat again that this a defining attribute that is connected to every other moral attribute of God, yet this attribute is usually misunderstood or attacked resulting in a profane view of God.
Lies Against God’s Holiness
The main reason God’s holiness is misunderstood is what I brought up last week. People tend to understand God according to their own experiences and what they have been taught instead of according to what God has revealed about Himself. Both ignorance and false teaching result in wrong beliefs about God. Added to this are the attacks against God’s holiness due primarily to man’s rebellion against God or an effort to reduce the requirement upon man to also be holy. These things usually result in God being understood in terms of being a reflection of human characteristics.
Again, we must come to grips with the fact that God is not like us even in those areas of His moral or communicable attributes in which we are supposed to reflect some aspects of His characteristics. God is not like us, but we are to be reflections of Him however dim and imperfect that may be. You cannot think of God’s holiness in relativistic terms as we tend to do in comparing ourselves with other people. People will magnify their own virtues and diminish their own vices and do the opposite with other people in order to compare themselves favorably with them. God is completely, totally, absolutely, utterly, positively holy and righteous. He has no vices and His virtues are beyond comparison with your own. Any attempt at comparison with Him should leave you on your knees confessing your wretched sinfulness, but it is the rare individual that will do that. Instead, man is quick to believe lies and slander about God and then project human qualities upon Him that make Him seem more like us. That began with Eve believing the slanders against God in the Garden of Eden. It has continued ever since then.
Wrong beliefs about God result in wrong actions toward God. Misunderstanding and believing lies against God’s holiness results in treating Him in profane ways as if He is less than He is. That can have very serious consequences. Consider the following examples.
Nadab & Abihu – Leviticus 10. Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu had completed all the purification rites so that they could begin their service as priests of the Lord. God had given specific directions on how He was to be approached for worship even detailing in Exodus 30:34-37 the specific mix of spices that would make up the incense that was to be burned and that it would be “holy to you for the Lord.” God had already warned in Exodus 30:9 that no strange incense was to be offered on the altar. However, neither of these young men were careful to follow those directions. Their story is told in Leviticus 10:1-3.
“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.’”
Considering the restriction on priests given in verse 9 that they could not drink wine or strong drink when they came to the tent of meeting, it is possible they were drunk to some degree. Whatever the case or specific reason, they were not properly prepared to come before the Holy one of Israel. Their casual approach resulted in direct disobedience to the Lord’s commands which in turn resulted in God divinely killing them. The Lord is patient and longsuffering, but there are times when God’s hand will not be restrained and there is judgment for such insolence. Nadab and Abihu did not treat the Lord as Holy. They did not honor Him as instructed and they paid for their profane action with their lives.
Uzzah – 2 Samuel 6. Back in Exodus 25:28 and Deuteronomy 10:8 the Lord gave specific instructions about how the Ark of the Covenant was to be moved and who specifically was to do it. However, when King David wanted to move the Ark of God to Jerusalem from Kiriath-jearim where it had been since it had been returned by the Philistines, no one was careful to follow those instructions. David was in a hurry and did not make arrangements for the Levites to carry out this task in the proper way. A new cart had been made which would be pulled by oxen, but the consequences of this were tragic as recorded in 2 Samuel 6:4-7. 4 “So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. 5 Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of [instruments made of] fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals. 6 But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset [it.] 7 And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah , and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God.”
There is certainly no indication that Uzzah had wanted to do anything but keep the Ark of the Covenant from being bounced around so much and possibly damaged. The intention appears to be a good one. An action that any of us might have taken if we were in the same situation. Yet, God struck him dead on the spot. Why? It seems cruel and unfair until you read in verse 7 that it was an action of irreverence. The ark had been put in danger because they were not moving it properly. The Ark had been at Kiriath-jearim at the home of Abinadab for 20 years (1 Samuel 7:1-2). There was no need for a sudden rush to move it. In addition, there is no indication that Uzzah was a Levite, and if he was not, then he was not qualified to have anything to do with the moving of the ark, much less to touch it. In doing so, he violated God’s commands regarding the care of the Ark of the Covenant, which was holy.
The tendency is to think that Uzzah’s death was unfair, but the truth is that the Lord showed great mercy in that only Uzzah died. All of them, including David and all those involved in the celebrating that was going on before the Ark, should have died for their irreverence. No wonder David was afraid of the Lord that day (vs. 9) and that when he returned three months later to move the ark to Jerusalem, he was very careful to move it correctly (vs. 13f).
Both of these are dramatic stories, but the point it clear. God is to be treated as holy. He is set apart from man and is to be treated with reverence and all that is done in regards to Him is sacred. The Lord is to be honored and glorified, and close attention is to be paid to the commandments He gives. To do less is to profane Him.
Non-Christians and even some Christians routinely profane God’s name by using it as a cuss word or using it as an exclamation – both of which are taking His name in vain. That cannot be done without believing the lies that either God is not holy or that He cannot or will not do anything about the irreverence. That is projecting upon God human characteristics. But God is holy and He can and will do something about those who blaspheme Him in word or deed, but His judgment will be done in His timing. Do not presume upon God’s patience and longsuffering. He will chasten true Christians (Heb. 12) and non-Christians store up God’s wrath upon themselves (Romans 2:5). And keep in mind that what is true regarding the Third Commandment is true for all the rest as well.
God is Holy, Not Your “Buddy”
Most professing Christians will assent to the theological truth that God is holy, but in practical terms it seems to have little effect on how they approach Him. This has been especially true here in America in the last forty years or more as an increasingly casual view of life has affected people’s view of their relationship with God. True, believers have an intimate relationship with God and can call Him, “Abba, father” – “daddy” (Rom. 8:15), however, there is reverence in this. God is not “the old man upstairs” or the “great whatever in the sky.” It is also true that Christians can count Jesus as their closest friend (John 15:14,15), but having Jesus as your friend does not make Him your “good buddy” so that the proper decorum and respect that is due Him as your Lord and God can be set aside or even tossed away .
Consider the detail God gave in Exodus & Leviticus alone on the manner in which the Israelites were to approach Him to worship. The people made careful preparation before they would come near God. Their celebrations of worship were done in the beauty of holiness (Ps. 29:2; 96:9). When the glory of God filled the Tabernacle in Exodus 40 and later the Temple in 1 Kings 8:10, the people and priests were forced away by that glory of His majesty. This was the glory of His holiness. They could only look on in awe. They had a proper fear of God that even caused them to shy away from God’s presence because it was too much for them to handle (Deut. 5:5).
Consider the true majesty of the holiness of God and the glory that radiates from Him. Consider again Isaiah 6 as the prophet describes his vision of the Lord God in His glory. “In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. 5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah’s response was one of utter humility as someone filled with the knowledge of his own guilt before such an awesome and holy being.
John’s vision in Revelation 4 is similar. We read this passage earlier as our call to worship. The scene is one of majesty and glory. The Lord is sitting on His throne from which proceed flashes of lighting and peals of thunder. There is the crystal sea before the throne and the rainbow around the throne. Before the throne are the 24 elders and these four strange and marvelous creatures that are crying out continually, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.” The 24 elders also fall down before the Lord and casting their crowns before Him in worship cry out, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will thy existed, and were created.”
Both of those are scenes of God’s majestic holiness. He is something completely other than us. He is to be treated with reverence and awe. All that is related to Him is sacred due to His holiness.
The Holy God That Can Make You Holy
The amazing thing is that God, this perfect holy being, desires to have a relationship with us sinful creatures. His very holiness would prevent that unless He did something to take away our sin and make us holy. He did that through Jesus Christ who gave Himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and His purpose for our redemption is so that we would be “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4). The direct command given in 1 Peter 1:15-16 by the Holy One that calls us is to be holy in all our behavior for we are to be holy as He is holy. We become holy, set apart to God, at salvation, and we become increasingly holy, set apart from the world and living for God, as the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ. We call that process sanctification. Our hope for the future is yearning for the day when we will be completely holy when either Christ returns or we are promoted from this life into Christ presence and are glorified. Holiness in reflection of the God who created us and who saves and cleanses us from our sins is to mark the life of every Christian. The reality of being judicially declared holy before God because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us enables us to boldly come directly into the presence of God the Father at His throne of grace (Heb. 4:16).
Those who are judicially declared holy by God at salvation – they are properly referred to as “saints” throughout the New Testament – will strive to increasingly live according to that position throughout the course of their lives. It changes the focus of worship to actually be about reverently honoring and glorifying God instead of being personally pleased by the music and the message. The focus of prayer becomes talking to God and giving Him praise, adoration and thanksgiving instead of presenting Him with a wish list of all the things you want Him to do for you. The focus of life shifts from self to glorifying God by others seeing Christ living in you.
God is holy and He wants you to be holy as a reflection of Him. You are to be holy because He is Holy. God has already done all that is needed to make the sinner who believes in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ into a saint. The Holy Spirit then teaches, guides and empowers the saint to practically live according to their position.
Personal Holiness
If you do not understand God’s holiness, then His call for you to be holy will also not be understood. You will define holiness in your own life according to your personal definition of God’s holiness. You will be syncretic in picking and choosing what you like with little regard to what is actually true.
Most people think they are good enough to be either be accepted by God just the way they are or they can earn His favor by their own efforts. They catalog sins according to their own list of what is really bad and what can be over looked and then think that God’s list is the same as their own. They end up with a god of human imagination that will fit in with their own thoughts and desires. A god that will accept their excuses and efforts of appeasement. A god that is as holy as they have redefined holiness to be. However, such a false god cannot save from sin and its consequences, for whether it is a false religion, a cult, a humanistic philosophy or a personal syncretic mix, all of them will eventually hit the brick wall of reality. It is God that defines true holiness. It is God that defines sin and its consequences. It is God that defines how that sin can be forgiven and removed so that a sinful human becomes a saint. Do not fall for either Satan’s or man’s redefinitions of God or holiness.
The consequences of having a wrong view of God and holiness are severe. Hebrews 12:14 states, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification (holiness – ajgiasmoV / hagiasmos) without which no one will see the Lord.” Man is innately sinful and therefore not holy and thus separated from the Holy God by that sin. Human effort to be good, no matter how admirable that may be, is not enough to make you righteous before God who is holy. Apart from Jesus Christ there is no means by which a man can be separated from the world and unto God – holy – and be declared righteous before God. Apart from Jesus Christ, there is no hope, and no trust can be put in a false god who is only as holy as the person or people that created him.
Those who come by God’s grace to have faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ become a new creation in Him. They are redeemed, forgiven, saved, born again, justified and sanctified. God will make gospel believers holy and blameless before Him through Christ, and He will continue His work of conforming them to be like Christ until they depart from this world by the rapture or death. Your part as a disciple of Christ is to believe and follow Him, but that can be done because God can be trusted.
Numbers 23:19 rhetorically states it, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” God is not like man. God is holy – something far beyond and separate from man. It is because God is holy that He can be trusted. He has both the ability and the moral character to fulfill every promise He makes. God is not like man, but He can and will make men like Him in reflection of His own character if they will believe and follow Him.
Do you seek and follow the holy God who has revealed Himself in the Bible? Or do you follow a god made up in the image of man?
Sermon Notes -3/13/2022
Trusting God, Part 4: The Holy God – Selected Scriptures
Introduction
94% of American parents of pre-teens have a syncretic worldview – only _______have a Biblical worldview
40% of these parents believe the Bible is a reliable source of truth – but ___________ of them read it weekly
Ignorance of truth enables _________to mix with what is believed and prevail
If parents do not instill _________in their children, they will believe the lies that come from other sources
Most people do not trust God because they do not know Him according to what He has ____________
A god you can ________________is not God for God is infinite and we are finite
God is Holy – He is other
God is something completely ____________from us in character and ability
We __________God’s image in the ability to think / reason, feel / emotion and make decisions / volition
God is ______________in all of these areas while we are limited
Man’s hope is to ___________because we need to become better
God is unchanging because He already knows all things and is ____________in all of His ways
Even in the communicable / moral attributes we share with God, we are _______by sin & reflect Him dimly
God is ______(Lev. 19:2; 20:26) and His name is holy (Lev. 20:3; 22:2, 32; Ezek. 36:20-23; etc, Amos 2:7)
The Lord God, the Almighty is _________holy – characterized by holiness (Isaiah 6:2-3; Revelation 4:6-8)
The Hebrew (vWd1q2 / qadosh) Greek (aJgioV / hagios) words for holy mean “to be _______,” “separated”
The Creator is ______with respect to time, space, power, knowledge & ability. He is set apart from creation
The Holy One ( o{sioV / hosios) has a superior _____quality that separates Him from the common & profane
Lies Against God’s Holiness
Most people understand God according to ___________& what they have been taught, not God’s revelation
God’s is not like us so His holiness cannot be thought of in relativistic terms / ______________
God is completely, totally, absolutely, utterly, positively __________and righteous. He has no vices
Wrong beliefs about God result in wrong ___________toward God
Nadab & Abihu – Leviticus 10
Neither of these young men were __________to follow God’s directions about the incense used in worship
Whether drunk or not (vs. 9), their lack of care in what they were doing resulted in their ________________
Uzzah – 2 Samuel 6
In a rush to move the ark, it was being moved in a manner ______________to God’s specific directions
Uzzah appears to have had good intentions, but his actions were _______________- vs. 7
God’s mercy is that He ________killed Uzzah instead of everyone present for their disobedience
God is holy – set apart from man – and is to be treated with all _____________
Profaning God’s name will bring ________________- do not presume upon God’s patient longsuffering
God is Holy, Not Your “Buddy”
A casual approach to God, whether personally or in worship, lacks _____________for God’s holiness
God gave specific _____in how He was to be worshiped (Exodus, Leviticus) – and His glory drove them out
The _____________of God’s holiness demands reverence – Isaiah 6
Revelation 4 is a scene of majesty and glory that emanates from God’s ______________
The Holy God That Can Make You Holy
God’s holiness prevents a relationship with His creatures unless He makes them _________too
God commands us to be holy in ____________and position as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16)
We are set apart to God at salvation – made holy. We live in greater holiness throughout life – ___________
Judicially ___________holiness allows the Christian to approach God’s throne of grace (Heb. 4:16)
Sinners become __________at salvation & are changed by the Holy Spirit to live according to their position
Personal Holiness
You must understand _________ holiness in order to understand His call for you to be holy
Most people define holiness in terms of their own __________of sins by which they can justify themselves
A false god, a god that is not holy, can neither ________or make you holy
Hebrews 12:14 – without true holiness, no one can _______the Lord
Apart from faith in Jesus there is no hope for a _________god cannot make you holy
True ______________are redeemed, forgiven, saved, born again, justified and sanctified
Num. 23:19 – God is not like man. He is holy, which gives Him the ability & ________to keep His promises
God can & will make men a reflection of His own character if they will __________and follow Him
The God who is holy can be ___________- are you following Him or a god made up in the image of man?
KIDS KORNER – Parents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents at lunch. Older Children – Do one or more of the following: 1) Count how many times the word “holy” is used. 2) Discuss with your parents the holiness of God and how your family can be holy.
THINK ABOUT IT! Questions to consider in discussing the sermon with others. How is God different from you? List out as many things as you can. Why do so many people hold to syncetic worldviews? Are you affected by syncretism? Explain. How do humans reflect being made in God’s image? How is God utterly different from man? Why can’t God change in character or attributes? In what ways does the Bible declare God to be holy? What does it mean to be “holy?” Describe what it means that God is holy. What are the things most people use as the basis for understanding God? What should they use? What did Nadab & Abihu do that was wrong? Why did God them? Why did Uzzah touch the ark? Why did God kill him? How important is it to treat God as holy? Why have most Americans become casual in their approach & worship of God? Why is that dangerous? Describe the majesty of God’s holiness. Why does God want to make you holy? How can God make sinners into saints? Why must you have some basic understanding of God’s holiness in order to live a holy life? Who decides what is sinful and its consequences? What is the consequence of not being holy? Do you seek and follow the holy God who has revealed Himself in the Bible – or do you follow a god made up in the image of man?
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