We Desire a Holy God

I was about 12 when I really started trying to figure it out. I was raised in the church, particularly in the Church of the Nazarene. I’m fourth generation in this movement. I came up in the church with a certain vocabulary. We had a way of talking in the church, certain words we used peculiar to church. Just like I learned a vocabulary for baseball, I also learned one for church.

In baseball I learned terms like “can ‘o corn, gapper, meat hand, and a buck fifty seven.” (That was my batting average!) In church we said things like, “Redeemer, blood of the Lamb, salvation, total consecration, and holiness.”

Holiness. This one always intrigued me. Growing up in the Church of the Nazarene, I knew quite early on that “holiness” was a very important word to us. The saints of the church said it with reverence and awe. Some, like Sister Garrett, sometimes wept when they talked about it. We sang about it at the top of our lungs, “Called unto holiness, Church of our God . . .”

For much of my childhood there was a banner at the front of our sanctuary with those words--“Called unto Holiness.” I remember studying the denominational emblem always prominently displayed on our Sunday bulletin. “Holiness Unto the Lord,” it says.

Our little choir in the church was never better than when they sang
“Let thy blessing fall on me,
let thy blessing fall on me.
A double portion of thy spirit, Lord,
let thy blessing fall on me.”

I remember hearing the words of the scripture we read together this morning. I heard these words quite often, “Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” There’s not really much to misunderstand there. It was pretty clear to me God was calling me, and my church was calling me, certainly my pastors were calling me to be holy. But I knew me. I wasn’t real sure what holiness was but I was pretty sure it didn’t look like me. It looked more like old Charlie Griffith and Opal Mayhew and Mae Garrett, and my grandpa, but not like me.

So, here’s what I figured out. Holiness was something older people who didn’t have anything else to do but sit and pray and read the Bible--they were the ones to which this word “holiness” was referring. Having grown up in the church I pretty much considered holiness to be a souped-up version of Christianity reserved for those who had stopped struggling with the baser temptations of life. The really serious and highly religious folks could talk about holiness.

And what I found out through my teen years and then on into adulthood--I found out I was not alone in this assumption. Holiness seemed so unattainable. So my generation changed the language, we modified the vocabulary. No longer did we want to talk about consecration and sanctification and dying out to the old self and holiness. We wanted to talk about process and growing in your walk with Jesus and becoming more Christ-like--not bad ways to talk. Those are great ways to talk about what it means to be a Christian. But we have come to the place in our 100 year old movement where “holiness” is a word many of our pastors don’t want to use anymore. It has, they say, too much baggage, to many negative connotations. And maybe it does. I have to admit in my own experience it took a while before “holiness” could be a loved and cherished word rather than a dreaded and feared word.

Fortunately, the next generation is helping us. They don’t have a lot of the baggage because we stopped talking about it, so they recognize holiness is a gift, not a burden. They gave us the song we sang we shared earlier,

“Holiness, holiness is what I long for.
Holiness is what I need.”

You know something? It never would have dawned on me as a young person to think of holiness as something I longed for. I only thought of it as something being required of me, something at which most likely I would fail. Holiness was not my heart’s desire it was my dreadful obligation.

Now there is no doubt God is quite serious about this business of our holiness. This word in Leviticus 19 is foundational to everything else the Bible has to say about holiness. The Lord says, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” That is not a suggestion, it’s a command--it’s an imperative. “You be holy.” And it comes in the midst of a rather overwhelming list of “do’s” and “don’t do’s.” The context of this verse in 19:2 is a litany of wicked acts that will cut off the people from relationship with a holy God.

Chapter 18 starts with “You must not do what they do in Egypt or be like the people in who now occupy the land of Canaan.” Then the “do not’s” start, nearly 30 of them in chapter 18 alone. After 19:2 it starts all over again with the “do not’s” and the punishments associated with doing the do not’s until we get down to chapter 20 verse 8 and hear a hopeful word again. This pretty much describes how we have thought about holiness. A good idea surrounded by an overwhelming list of “do nots.”

But loved ones, here’s my essential plea to us today: “Let’s not miss the point of God’s call to holiness.” It’s really not about adherence to a list of “don’t do’s.” It’s about recovering what was lost when sin entered the world.

“In Leviticus, the people of God are called to be holy, not because holiness is an arbitrary religious game God wants played, but because God is holy. And because God is holy, God’s people are to be holy by being like God in the world” (NIB).

When we talk about being “called unto holiness” it’s not about behaving in certain ways. It’s about the very character of God who wants to answer our deepest heart desire--the desire for life to be made right again, the desire to be at peace again, the desire to have hope again.

Holiness is not first about our moral purity, it’s first about the character of God. Holiness is not first about the “do’s” and “do not’s.” It’s first about being restored to the image of God. So we can put aside “all the cartoon pictures of the sanctimonious holy person wearing a halo and a prudish glare. To be holy is not to be narrow-minded and primly pious; it is, rather, to imitate God. To be holy is to roll up our sleeves and join in with whatever God is doing in the world” (NIB).

That’s why I’m trying to say to us during this series holiness is not an add on, it’s basic to what it means to be a Christian. Holiness is the one and only thing that will finally bring a sense of wholeness and well being to your life because it’s not about following a list of rules. It’s all about being filled by the very presence of Christ himself, so that everything I am and everything I do begins to be ordered by the spirit of Jesus living in me.

There is no doubt God’s standard for us is high. “Be holy like I am holy.” That’s about as high as it gets. And Jesus sets the standard just as high when in the Sermon on the Mount He says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Now here’s the good news. Living up to this standard is not a matter of your effort. Dare I say it again? It’s not about you--it’s all about God!

The heart of the good news we celebrate here every Sunday is that what God requires, He provides. God did not say to us, “Be holy” and then leave us to figure out how on our own. God said “be holy” and then gave us His Son who died for our sins and was raised from the dead to destroy once and for all that which defeats us. Making us holy is at the very heart of God’s desire because He wants the very best for us.

Holiness is what our hearts desire because we desire a holy God. We desire a life and ultimately a world that is ordered and sustained by a God who in the very essence of His being is holy and pure and righteous and faithful.

This ache of heart is something every person in this world feels. They might not define as a hunger for God and His holiness, but that’s what it is. We try hard to fill this void, this empty place, this ache of soul with all kinds of things. And we have so many choices these days. But nothing works like having our holiness restored.

Consider these questions:

Do you ever wish you could finally get on top things spiritually, instead of feeling like a constant failure?

Do you ever wish you could be confident and sure about where you stand with God?

Do you ever wish you had the power to make the life choices you’d really like to make and live the life you’ve always dreamed of living?

If those are your desires, then holiness is for you! For the next few weeks I hope we can look very specifically at what it takes to enjoy the holiness God designed for us. For now, let us remember these simple things:

God is holy and commands us to be holy

God provides what He demands (20:8)

Holiness is a gift of His grace that is given in a moment of faith

Holiness is a life-long journey of spiritual maturity.

At age 12 I couldn’t quite get it, but as I grew up here’s what I learned: holiness is not some special brand of spirituality reserved for super saints. Holiness is the regular pattern of God’s people who open their lives fully to the love and grace of a God who wants nothing more than to bring us home and make us whole.

Are you ready to go home?