The Holiness of God

So we're on lesson 15 tonight. This is our concluding study. Hey Calvin, how are you, brother? We've got handouts here in the red folder if you need one, sir.

This is our last study in the attributes of God, and we always saved the best for last, and I think you'll really enjoy our study tonight on the holiness of God. We're gonna start off with number one here. Bible point number one, God alone is holy. God is separate and set apart from everything that He has made. God alone is holy. God is set apart or separate and set apart from everything that He has made.

Every year at Thanksgiving I'm always reminded of my mom. She's up in heaven now, but my mother had the biggest home of our family. She was a widow and my father died when I was a boy, and at Thanksgiving and Christmastime she would always have a crowd. My mother had seven brothers and a sister and they had children, so it would not be uncommon for us to have 75 people over the house for a Thanksgiving meal, and my mother would start slaving away the night before cooking a couple turkeys and all the stuffing, and everybody else would bring desserts and stuff, but she did the bulk of it. But what was really neat is my mother entertained a lot all throughout the year. A wonderful woman, a gracious example of hospitality, but for Thanksgiving and Christmas she set the table in a very special way, and something we don't see too often these days. It's more of something that the older generation prized and cherished but the younger generation doesn't seem to have that same knack for, and that is she would bring out all of her fine china and her fine crystal. She had these red crystal goblets that she'd gotten from Italy or somewhere like that, and she had the sterling silver — the china was not the kind that you put in the dishwasher; it had silver around it, you had to do it all by hand, and you'd have to polish all the silver — so it was a lot of work that she would do. But she used that fine china because it was a very special occasion for her to celebrate Thanksgiving and to celebrate Christmas, because those two times are a special occasion for her to celebrate her worship, are they not? We give thanks to God for our Savior, right? We give thanks to God for all His benefits.

At the root of holiness it means to be separate, it means to be set apart. My mom didn't use Solo cups and paper plates because those were common, right? Maybe something you use every day, but not for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. She would use her best during that time because she wanted to convey her sense of love to people that she was entertaining, and also just to be able to shower the best as an offering to the Lord, right? So we see that God alone is holy. God is separate and set apart from everything that He has made. What we mean is that God is not common, right? God created man to be upright, and man originally was upright in the garden, right? That's how God and man could walk together in the garden and experience sweet fellowship, right? But Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord and they fell, and their nature had become fallen. At that point it was no longer holy but was profane, it was common, and therefore their fellowship with God was broken. Remember what happened when Adam sinned? He was hiding from God, because now that he was estranged from God he was separate from God's holiness. He no longer had a corresponding holy character because of his sin, and God says, "Where are you?" Now we know that God is omniscient, right? So He knew exactly where Adam was physically, but what He's asking Adam is, "Where are you in relation to Me?" He's asking Adam to think — something's different. You have become profane, you are no longer holy, right?

God alone is holy. He is separate and set apart from everything that He has made. Let's look at 1 Samuel 2:2. Would someone read that for us please? "No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none beside Him, nor is there any rock like our God." Amen. No one is holy like the Lord, there is none like Him. He alone is holy. Look at Exodus 15:11: "Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" Notice "gods" is in lowercase because it's speaking of idols, and the idols are common. They're made out of wood, they're made out of metal, they're crafted by men's hands. There's nothing special about them, there's nothing pure about them, there's nothing separate or set apart — they're just another piece of wood, right?

But God alone is holy. All through the Old Testament when you look at the temple, when you look at the tabernacle in the wilderness, when you look at even the ceremonial laws, they were all meant to teach us that God was set apart, that He was separate and different from us. Think about Mount Sinai. In Exodus 18 you'll find where Moses goes to Mount Sinai. There he's going to meet with God at the top of the mountain, and Aaron can come up with him but no one else can come up with him, right? And what does God say? Erect a barrier around the base of Mount Sinai, because if a person of Israel or an animal were to tread on that mountain when He came down in His presence, what would happen to them? They'd be incinerated, they'd be killed, they would be gone, because God is holy and man is profane, right? And we saw that terrible theophany of the smoke and the thunder and the lightning there on Mount Sinai, and only Moses and Aaron, who were God's mediators, could go up onto the mountain.

Think later on in Israel's history with the temple. Wasn't that all about separation? You had the outer courts, right — the court of the Gentiles — and then beyond that you'd have the court of the women, where Israelite women could go, and beyond that you'd have the court of the men, where the men could go, and beyond that you'd have the court where the priests could go, where you'd have the holy altar there. And you'd have the holy temple itself, then you'd have the holy place where you'd have the showbread and the candelabra in there, and then beyond that you'd have the holy of holies, right? And only the high priest could go in there once a year. It was all a pageantry designed to teach us that God is separate and unlike men, that He is holy and different from all of His creation.

The application is this: give praise and worship to the Holy One. Give praise and worship to the Holy One. Because God is separate, because God is other, because God is apart and different, He is the only one that is the worthy object of our praise. He's the only one that's the worthy object of our worship. So we worship the Holy One and nothing else. The very first commandment God gives is, "Thou shall have no other gods before Me." Because only He is worthy of our praise. Only He is holy. Only He is to be set apart for our veneration, for our worship, and He is the only worthy object for us to conform our lives to.

Look at Psalm 71:22. "Also with the lute I will praise You, and Your faithfulness, O my God. To You I will sing with the harp, O Holy One of Israel." David's saying that he would use instruments and he would use his voice, whatever he had, to worship the Holy One of Israel. The Holy One, because only God is holy, right? And only He is worthy of our praise.

Flip over on the back. Isaiah 43:3, God says, "For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place." Look in the New Testament at the angel's pronouncement to Mary, Luke 1:35. "And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.'" Speaking of Christ. So here we see "holy" ascribed to the Holy Spirit, and "the Holy One," which is ascribed to God in the Old Testament — God the Father — is now being ascribed to Christ here, because Christ was God made flesh. He is the Holy One of Israel that Mary would be carrying in her womb.

In Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, look at Jesus' words. He says, "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You, Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are." Jesus recognized His Father as the Holy Father, right? God alone is the Holy One.

Bible point number two, holiness is God's infinite moral perfection and purity. Holiness is God's infinite moral perfection and purity. He is the source and standard of right. He is free from all stain and wrong. I know it's a lot of blanks, let me read that again. Holiness is God's infinite moral perfection and purity. He is the source and standard of right. He is free from all stain and wrong.

So holiness is God's infinite moral perfection and purity. God has no unrighteousness in Him. He's infinitely pure. He's infinitely right in everything that He does, everything that He says, everything that He is. Positively speaking, He is the source and standard of right.

If you've ever talked with someone who claims to be an atheist, which you may around Thanksgiving when you're with family, ask them, "What's your source and standard of right?"

Because if you do not believe in God, what is the source and standard of right? Why can't I kill somebody? Why can't I serve my own needs? And they may say, "Well, you need to do what's for the greater good of society, and that's the code you should live by." Says who? Right? What about taking care of myself and my family? Forget society. If you have no standard, if you have no source of right, you have no God. That's why God alone is holy. He is the source and standard of all right. And when we sin, we are sinning against the Holy One. We're sinning against His character. We're sinning against His person. Okay?

Negatively speaking, He is free from all stain and wrong. We can look at ourselves in the mirror and we see all sorts of stains and wrong, right? Because we're fallen creatures, even those of us who put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. We are saved, but we're still saved sinners, right? And we still slip and we fall and we stumble all the time. And God's Word reminds us of that, right? And brings conviction upon us. We confess our sins to the Lord and He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But we still, on our best day, are not the source and standard of right. Okay?

Think of a scale, if you will. On your far right-hand side, you'd have God in His infinite perfections, which is shown to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Then on your far left over here, you'd have the most sinful person that you can conceptualize, whoever that may be. Maybe you think it's Hitler or someone who's guilty of murdering thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, right? Ask yourself, where do you fall on that scale? Are you closer to the infinite perfection of Jesus Christ, or are you closer to Hitler? I would tell you that based upon Scripture, there's no daylight between you and Hitler compared to God's righteousness, right? You may think, well, I'm somewhere in between because I'm basically good. The Bible says no — that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there's none righteous, no, not one. Jesus said that if you break even one commandment, you're guilty of breaking the entire law, right? So we may comfort ourselves saying, well, I'm not as bad as XYZ, but compared to the brilliant holiness of Jesus Christ, we're as far away as we can possibly imagine, right?

Let's look at 1 John 1:5. "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." Have you ever looked at the sun before? You can briefly look at the sun, but it burns your eyes, right? If you looked at it too long, you would do permanent damage to your vision. The same if you were to behold God — He's brighter than a zillion suns. His purity is that bright. It's why Moses was told to warn the Israelites that if they were to get up on that mountain at Sinai and look at God, they would be consumed, right? God is infinitely pure, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

The application is this: by grace serve God with reverence and awe. By grace serve God with reverence and awe. Hebrews 12 compares Mount Sinai to Mount Zion, saying that we have a new and better covenant in Jesus Christ. The old covenant involved Moses and the law, but now we've come to a much better mountain, Mount Zion, where Jesus Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, right? And instead of only one man having access to God, every believer has access to God through Jesus Christ, His Son, right?

By grace we can serve God with reverence and awe. He says, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably." We can serve God acceptably through Jesus Christ. We can draw near to God through Jesus Christ because Christ is our perfect mediator. He is the Holy One who died in our place for our sins and rose again, being declared just in God's sight. And His justification is our justification, because Christ was justified before God in the resurrection, and so too are we just before God, and we can have access to God to serve Him. He says, "We may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." The word "fear" there means awe. It doesn't mean a craven, carnal fear that we're afraid that God's going to zap us like a bug. As believers, we can approach God boldly to the throne of grace because of Jesus Christ, but that boldness never excludes our awe of Him, right? Because His awe is awesome. He alone is the pure and holy one. Then this is verse 29: "For our God is a consuming fire."

Fire burns off all impurities, right? And praise God, if it were not for Christ, we would have no chance to enter into the presence of God, but we can enter into His presence boldly because Christ washed away our sins.

Flip over on the back. Reference number two, Exodus 3:4-5: "And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses.' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then He said, 'Do not draw near to this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.'" That's God's holiness, right? It's meant to separate God from everything that's common, from everything that's profane. But praise God, through Jesus Christ, we can stand on holy ground. Amen.

Bible point number three on the front, God is wholly holy. You'll notice it says W-H-O-L-L-Y, meaning entirely. He's entirely holy. He is holy, holy, holy. Holiness is the fundamental attribute of God. God is wholly holy. He is holy, holy, holy. Holiness is the fundamental attribute of God.

In theology, we talk about God's simplicity, which simply means that God doesn't have parts. He's not a little bit loving and a little bit true. He's altogether true and He's altogether loving. But sometimes theologians take that too far and they fail to distinguish between God's attributes. In other words, they will say His wisdom is the same as His omnipotence, or they'll say His love is the same as His holiness. No, the Bible distinguishes between His attributes. And all throughout Scripture, in the Old and the New Testament, you'll find that His chief attribute is His holiness. Even love — we talked about love last week — even love is only love if it has as its object that which is holy, right? You can't love something that's unworthy. You can't love evil, you can't love wickedness, and that's no love at all, right?

As parents, we want to affirm our children and love them, but we can't affirm and love them and encourage them to do wickedness, can we? That wouldn't be loving at all. To be truly loving is to be corrective at times, to say no, because even though I wish you happiness, I can only wish you happiness insofar as it results in holiness, insofar as it aligns with the character of God. We talked last week about love, how included in love is God's goodness and His mercy, right? God can show mercy, but He's not obligated to, right? But God must show holiness. It's fundamental to His character. He cannot cease to be holy or to show holiness at any given time. Holiness is the fundamental attribute of God.

Isaiah 6:1-3 is that beautiful vision of Isaiah when he's called up into heaven and sees Christ Jesus on the throne. He says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple." The train of the king would be the robe that flowed behind him, and if you were a great and powerful king, you had a really long robe. I don't know if you remember — those of you who are older remember Princess Diana when she got married to Prince Charles. This is going back a long, long time ago. I was in school at the time, and it was such a big deal. They actually showed it to us in school, and she had a long, long train behind her wedding dress. It seemed like it took up the whole aisle of Westminster Cathedral. It's huge because she would become Lady Diana, right? It's a mark of regalness.

Here we see that God's train of His robe filled the entire temple. That's how big it is. It says, "High and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim." These are angelic beings. "Each one had six wings: with two he covered his face" — even they cannot look upon the holiness of God, right? — "and with two he covered his feet," the most commonly lowly part of the body; it's an act of humility. "And with two he flew to serve the Lord. And one cried to another, and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.'"

They don't cry out, "Almighty, almighty, almighty," even though that is true of God, right? They don't cry out, "Truth, truth, truth," even though truth is fundamental to His character as well, right? They don't even cry out, "Love, love, love." But what they're crying out is, "Holy, holy, holy. He is set apart. He is infinitely pure. He's different from all other creatures." When something's repeated three times in Scripture, it's repeated that way for emphasis. If you flip over on the back, I'll show you some examples of this.

Jeremiah 22:29 — the prophet is declaring the words of the Lord. And listen to what he says: "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!" Whenever your parents would call you by your full name, you knew you were in trouble, right? "David Lynn Parker" — you know, that's different than just "David," right? I knew that mom or dad had some words for me. They were repeating my name threefold, so to speak. And that's what the prophet is doing here in Jeremiah.

Look at Ezekiel declaring judgment on Israel: "Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown. It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him." We see that even in the book of Revelation — remember, the angel cries out, "Woe, woe, woe." It's a triple woe. Don't even want to imagine what will unfold after that. But God is called holy, holy, holy, because He is wholly holy. He's entirely holy, and that's fundamental to who He is.

Look at 2 Samuel 18:33, speaking of King David: "Then the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept." Remember, Absalom had died here. He says, "And he went up and he said, 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! If only I had died in your place, O Absalom, my son, my son!'" This repetition shows a father's grief for his son, right? And so when we see "holy, holy, holy" repeated, it's not only talking about God and the Trinity, but it's talking about the emphasis of His entire being being holy. Okay?

Flip over on the back — or on the front — under number three, Revelation 4:8. Not only do we see this in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah, but in the book of Revelation: "The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they did not rest day or night, saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'"

The application is this: repent and trust in Christ's atonement. Repent and trust in Christ's atonement. When Isaiah saw this vision of the holiness of the Lord Jesus sitting on the throne, he was obliterated. To see a representation of Christ on the throne in His full holiness had a profound, overwhelming effect on Isaiah. Look what he says here on our front page, Isaiah 6:4-5: "And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: 'Woe is me, for I am undone!'" It means I'm falling apart. I can't hold myself together. I have no integrity before a holy God. "Because I am a man of unclean lips." He's admitting that he's a man who speaks uncleanly, whose words — which are a window to his soul — are showing that his soul is unclean. "And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." It's everywhere in this earth. "For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

When we get a glimpse of God's holiness, it's humbling, and it causes us to repent. It causes us to turn to Christ for atonement. The only way that we can be at-one — atonement — is Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, right? It's only in Him that we can find our righteousness.

Flip over on the back. Look at Isaiah 6:6-7. These are the next two verses: "Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.'" Did Isaiah do anything to earn that purging? Not at all. It took a coal from the altar — the Lord Jesus Christ — to be touched to his lips for his sins to be forgiven, right?

Look up at the top of the page on the back. John 12:41, in the New Testament, it says, "These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him." He's speaking of Christ. It's Christ who is on the throne. Only by Christ can our sins be atoned. All the blood offerings in the Old Testament pointed to Christ. And when we get to the New Testament, you read the book of Hebrews — the blood of bulls can't save us, right? But only the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the substance of those shadows that the Old Testament pointed to, right? It's Christ's righteousness that makes us acceptable before God.

John 1:29: "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" Only Christ can take away our sins.

Let's go back to the front now. Bible point number four, God must uphold His holiness, or else He would not be perfect or pure. God must uphold His holiness, or else He would not be perfect or pure. God is not under the law, nor above the law. He is law. God is not under the law — He is law. The momentum of His being is always maintaining His holiness.

God must maintain His holiness. He must always act consistently with His character, or He would not be holy, right? If He did not maintain His holiness, He wouldn't be God. He would not maintain His Godhead, right? If He did not maintain His holiness, He would have nothing worthy to give. He would not be able to impart goodness to us because He Himself would not be good. So the whole momentum of His being is behind holiness. His fearsome yet benevolent arm is always upholding His rightness, His justice, right?

Off to the side here on number four, you may want to write: holiness is God's self-expression, because it's who He is. Everything that God does is holy. Everything that He says is holy. Every action, every promise that He makes to us is holy, because holiness is His self-expression. It's who He is, and He forever maintains that. Psalm 119:4-6 says, "You have commanded us to keep Your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all Your commandments." You want to know what His holiness looks like? Look to the Scriptures. Look to His commandments, which are perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, right?

The application is to study His Word as it reveals His character. That's why we love God's Word — because it's a revelation of His holy character. Psalm 119:12 says, "Blessed are You, O Lord! Teach me Your statutes." We love His Word because it reveals His holiness, right? If it's the momentum of God's being to maintain His holy character, and we are created in His image, should not the momentum of our being also be to reflect His holy character, right?

Flip over on the back. Bible reference number four, Psalm 48:10: "According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness." Is your right hand full of righteousness? God's right hand — everything He does, that's what we mean by His right hand, His strength, His power — it's all righteous, it's all holiness. What about us?

Psalm 71:19: "Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high. You who have done great things, O God, who is like You?" We may not ever be able to be perfectly holy as He is in this life, but we should strive for it, right?

Psalm 45:6-7: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." This is a Messianic Psalm, and it's talking about Christ. "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." In other words, He rules in righteousness. "You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions." Christ perfectly fulfilled the law of God, and therefore He reigns in righteousness, right? And He hates evil, and He loves good. He expects no less of us to follow in His steps, right?

Bible point number five, God exercises holiness in righteousness and judgment. God exercises His holiness in righteousness and judgment. God's righteousness reveals His love of holiness and demands conformity to His moral perfection.

God exercises holiness in righteousness and justice. God's righteousness reveals His love of holiness and demands conformity to His moral perfection. God's justice reveals His hatred of sin and visits non-conformity with penalty. That's a lot of blanks. I'm going to read that one last time. God exercises His holiness in righteousness and judgment. God's righteousness reveals His love of holiness and demands conformity to His moral perfection. God's justice reveals His hatred of sin and visits non-conformity with penalty.

For God to be God, He must love righteousness and He must hate wickedness. He must hate evil, and that's called the foundation of His throne all throughout Scripture. Look at Psalm 97:1-2: "The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad! Clouds and darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne."

You can write off to the side of number five that holiness is God's self-affirmation. You can also put under there: self-declaration. His self-affirmation is an affirming, a love for what is right, and a hate for all that deviates from what is right. And when we say self-affirmation, we mean that's the exercise of His holiness. We call it His self-declaration because that has a legal connotation, meaning that God must always, always require righteousness and visit non-conformity to righteousness with penalty. He can't wink at sin. We're good at that. We wink at sin in our own lives. We excuse it, right? We come up with all kinds of excuses: "Well, I deserve to blow off a little steam. It's not going to hurt anybody. No one's going to see. No one's going to know. I'm not hurting anybody but myself."

"God will forgive me. Grace, grace, God's grace," right? When we presumptuously sin — God forbid. God can't wink at sin. He must judge it, or He would not have a righteous throne, right?

We sometimes say erroneously, "God loves the sinner but He hates the sin." We read last week, if you remember, talking about God's love, that He can't love unrighteousness. We read through Psalm 7 and Psalm 11 that He hates the workers of iniquity, right?

God must hate the wicked because they are living antagonists to His holy nature. Okay? But on the flip side, He still loves the wicked because they are made in His image, though they have transgressed and fallen. We see both His love and His hate of wickedness perfectly in the cross of Jesus Christ. Because in the cross of Jesus Christ, we see God's full wrath — His penal wrath — poured out upon Jesus Christ. God couldn't wink at sin and say, "Okay, I'm going to forgive you." He must punish sin. And Christ took our punishment on the cross. Not only though is it a revelation of His wrath, but it's a revelation of His love — that Christ would give His life for us, that God would give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. God is altogether righteous and He's altogether just. This is His self-affirmation, His self-declaration.

The application is to only trust in Christ's love. Psalm 89:14 says, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne." Here again we see righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. You can't have one without the other. "Mercy and truth go before Your face." And mercy and truth have kissed in the person of Jesus Christ, have they not? They've come together.

Flip over on the back. Reference number five, Isaiah 5:16 says, "But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness." God is hallowed in righteousness. He is praised. He is set apart in righteousness when He requires conformity to His character. And He's set apart, He's worshiped when He brings judgment, because that exalts His character, that exalts His nature, right?

Look at Acts 3:13-15. Peter in his sermon says, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One." Speaking of Jesus Christ — that term is used exclusively of Yahweh in the Old Testament, and here it's used of Jesus Christ. "You denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses." The Holy One, the Just One, died in the place of sinners, and rose again because He was perfect and did not deserve that death. Death could not hold Him, for He was altogether holy, altogether just. That's the love of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21: "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." It is only through faith in Jesus Christ that His righteousness is imputed to us. Pastor Casey delivered a beautiful sermon this past Sunday — I wasn't here, but I caught it on YouTube — about being in Christ. That's how we receive the blessings, the benefits of Christ: through faith in Jesus Christ, by trusting in Him alone for our righteousness, turning from our sins, and turning to Christ.

Flip over on the front. Bible point number six, it is God's will for us to be holy as He is holy. There is no higher purpose or greater end for us. It is God's will for us to be holy as He is holy. There is no higher purpose or greater end for us. You can write out to the side here on number six that holiness is God's self-willing.

Because God is holy, the best thing that He can do for us is to will us to be made in His image. It's the highest good that He could will for us — to be like Him. For there's nothing higher, there's nothing more sublime, there's no higher aim, no higher purpose that we can shoot for than to be holy as God is holy. 1 Peter 1:15-16 says, "But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'" Not some of your conduct, but all. The ground of our holiness is the character of God. This is a self-willing for us.

The application is: seek satisfaction in God. Nothing else is empty. Because our highest purpose, our chief end, is to be holy as Christ is holy, nothing else in this world will give you satisfaction. The things that try to be a siren to lure you away from God's righteousness and to shipwreck you onto the rocks — those things will fail. They promise you satisfaction, but they're empty. They're cisterns that are cracked and dry and empty and cannot provide satisfaction. Only God's holy character can provide true satisfaction.

Psalm 17:15 says, "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." The only true satisfaction will be when we're made in Christ's righteousness, because that is what we were created for. When the lost image of Christ is restored in us, we will be completely whole and all things will be made new. That's the hope of heaven, right? For the believer.

Flip over on the back. Reference number six, Leviticus 20:26, God says, "And you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine." Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 5:48: "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Would God command you something that you're not able to do?

No, He calls us to perfection. So we are one day going to finally achieve that. It won't be in this life, but it will be in heaven. In heaven, we will be made completely perfect, right? And what a glorious day that will be. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for that here in this life, right? We should labor diligently to be conformed to His image, because He says — He commands us — "Be perfect as My heavenly Father is perfect." Set God the Father before you. Set Christ, His perfect image, in front of you and aim for that. And if you aim for that, it's hard to go wrong, right? If you aim for anything else, you're going to miss by a mile.

Back on the front, Bible point number seven. As holiness is God's self-expression and self-affirmation and self-willing, His love will not fail to secure its end, and all things will surely serve His glory. Let me read that again. As holiness is God's self-expression, self-affirmation, and self-willing, His love will not fail to secure its end, and all things will surely serve His glory.

Because everything about God is geared towards His glory, we have confidence that God's plans will come to pass. The guarantee of that isn't necessarily His might or His wisdom — though those are all true and those actually help fulfill His plan — but the heart of it is His holiness. Because holiness is God's self-expression, it's who He is; it's His self-affirmation, His self-declaration that He must uphold His throne, He must require righteousness, He must visit non-conformity to righteousness with penalty; and because He must will Himself, and His willing of Himself to us is our highest end — then we know that His plans will indeed come to pass.

We all know and love Romans 8:28: "For we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." How do we know that? We know that because God's purpose is based in His character, and all things will serve Him, right? For those of us who make it to heaven because we have trusted in Christ's righteousness, throughout all the ages we'll be praising God for the righteousness of Christ, we'll be exalting Him as the Holy One.

For the rebels who refused to bow their knee, they will be eternally punished forever. And hard as this is to imagine, even their eternal punishment will resound in praise to God, that God is a God who is just and who hates evil and must punish it, and that those who are eternally in opposition to Him must be the object of His wrath — and that brings glory to God too. God is exalted when the righteous sing His praises, and He's even exalted in the punishment of the wicked. All throughout the Scriptures in the Old Testament it talks about God's judgment coming down and that smoke will ascend, singing praises to God forever. So we know that all things will work to God's glory.

Look at Romans 11:36: "For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen." All things are of Him, through Him, and to Him.

The application is this: set apart God's name in all that you do by living a life for His glory and honor. We should live for His glory and honor with confidence, knowing that His plans are certain to come to pass because God maintains His holiness. Matthew 6:9 — when Jesus teaches us to pray, His first petition isn't "Thy kingdom come," nor is it "Thy will be done," but what is His first petition? "Hallowed be Thy name." That's our first priority — to glorify and honor Him, and to do that through how we live. Matthew 6:9 says, "In this manner, therefore, pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.'"

Flip over on the back. I want to close with Revelation 15. This is a picture of what this will look like in eternity. "And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: 'Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments have been manifested.'" They're praising God for His judgment of the beast.

For all eternity, we will be amazed at God's holiness, His righteousness, and His justice, and we will sing His praises forever and ever.