Call To Holiness

Call to Holiness Call to holiness from before Christ, during Christ and after Christ, thus the following scriptures. Lev 11:44; Mat 5: 48; 1Peter1:14-16 Introduction The Old Testament prophets along with John the Baptist and then Jesus called for a radical change for those who would trust and obey the God. “Repent” was an indispensable call to those who proclaimed the word of God in truth. To repent means to change not only in our thinking but our actions. When we are saved , we are saved from our heathen desires and practices and called to live a life of Holiness. To be holy is the opposite of being “common”/profane. God is Holy in that He is utterly different and distinct from His creation. His people must also be distinct separate from heathen attitudes and actions which characterizes them as unbelievers. 1) Holiness and the Exodus: When God took the Israelites out of Egypt, His quest was not only to free them from the bondage of the Egyptians, but He also wanted to show Himself as Holy than the other Egyptian gods (Exo 7:2-5) that is to distinguish Himself from the gods of Egypt . In addition to distinguishing Himself above Pharaoh and all the “gods” of the Egyptians, God also distinguished the Israelites, His people from the Egyptians by means of plagues.(Exo 8:20-23,Exo 9:1-4,25-26). 2) Holiness and the Law of Moses Once the Israelites were brought out Egypt, God gave them Laws which governed the conduct of every Israelite and of everyone who dwelt among them as aliens. What Laws? No, not the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5, these are “moral” laws which every civilized society seeks to follow, but it is the “ceremonial laws” in the book of Leviticus, in these laws you find the command” Be ye holy, for I am Holy” by God to the people. Why? 10 commandments don’t set Christians apart because virtually every civilized person/nation accepts many of the values and commands as a valid standard of conduct. Therefore that which sets the true child of God apart from all others is their Faith and Trust in God, evidenced by Obedience to His commands even when they don’t seem to make sense----GOD REQUIRES OBEDIENCE. So obedience to the distinctions God made between the clean and the unclean set Isreal apart from all the others. In Christianity, God makes rules and they are not according to our preference and desires, but the spirit of God enables us to obey them (Rom 7:7-8:4).

With this in mind, a brief review of the concept of holiness in Chapters 11-20 of the book Leviticus might help: Leviticus 11: distinguishes between clean and unclean foods, unclean foods defiled the Israelites and made them unclean before God. Lev 11: 43-45 Lev 12: Other forms of ceremonial uncleanness were defined, e.g. a woman was declared unclean after child birth. Lev 12:1-5 Lev 16: We find a very special event in the annual Day of Atonement, by the sacrifice of one goat and the release of another, a great cleansing was anticipated, the cleansing from sin. Lev 16:29-30 The annual day of atonement was a temporary cleansing of the sins of the people of God, until when our Lord Himself would be sacrificed as an acceptable offering for sins, once for all:Heb 9:11-14. Lev 18: God reveals through Moses that the Laws He is giving His people are given to set them apart from the Egyptians( among whom they formerly lived) and from the Canaanites(with whom they are about to make contact in the promised land).Lev 18: 1-5. 3) Holiness According to Jesus Jesus definition of Holiness was one of the bones of contention between Jesus and Jewish religious leaders. With the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5-7), He threw a cat among the pigeons, He shocked the self righteous Jews by calling “blessed” those whom they regarded as cursed.(5:3-12) He told the people that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees would never get them to heaven. (Mat 5:20). He distinguished their teaching of the law from His own, showing that they had a very legalistic view of the law, rather than an appreciation for its underlying principles (5:2148) He warned of external religion which is big on appearances but lacking in heart (6:1-34) Mark’s gospel describes an incident which laid the foundation for a radical change. (Mark7: 1-15, 17-23).The scribes and Pharisees were annoyed because Jesus’ disciples did not ceremonially cleanse their hands before eating. From this incident He made these points: o He told them that cleanness was not a matter of externalism but a matter of heart; a man is not defiled from without but from within. o Why were some meats “clean” and others “unclean”, why was a woman unclean after child birth? Because God said so.

o Why are sinners deemed to be righteous, forgiven, and destined for heaven? Because God declares them to be justified. The basis for this cleansing is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. His shed blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness. The basis of all cleansing is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the fact of that cleansing is the declaration of God that it is so. Read: Psalm 51:2, Proverbs 20:9, Jeremiah 33:8 and Ezekiel 37:23 The cleansing described in these scriptures, is the cleansing which our Lord Jesus Christ accomplished by His death, burial and resurrection. Call to Holiness In 1 Peter1:14-16, Peter calls us into a life of holiness. He tells us why we should be holy, and also how to be holy. Let us begin with the “why” which can be summed up in two statements: 1) We are to be holy so that we are obedient to the word of God which commands it. To be holy is the command God made to the nation of Israel “You shall be holy, for I am holly”. We should be holy because God commands it. To do otherwise is to be disobedient. 2) We are to be holy to be like God, our Father, who called us to be holy. Those commanded to be holy are His children, only His children are able to do so , by His grace and through His spirit. The people of God are to be a manifestation of the presence of God to the rest of the world, thus we are commanded to be like our heavenly Father.(Mat 5:43-48). Also this means we must first come to know God, and then by His grace, seek to conduct ourselves in a manner that imitates Him. We must love what He loves and hate what He hates. We like Him, are to be merciful, just and kind. We become holy as we are conformed to His image. This is what sanctification is all about. How then are we to be holy? 1) We are to be holy in all our conduct. We are to be holy in every aspect of our conduct, holiness in not to be compartmentalized into certain “religious” areas of our life. Holiness is a way of life that affects everything we do. Holiness is a lifestyle, rather than mere conformity to a list of rules. 2) We are to be holy by not being conformed to our former lusts. Holiness is a lifestyle which differs dramatically from our manner of life before we were saved.Holines is a choice to march to a different beat. Rather than to live as our culture encourages us to, we must live as God requires. Though the Christian has died to sin and raised to newness of life in Him, he or she must also choose to serve Him and turn from their former lusts (Rom6:1-14).

We have to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God(Rom 12:1-2) and the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness(Rom 6:12-13).Our minds are to be renewed by the word of God(Rom12:2) We are to recognize that sin bring dullness of heart and mind and that our former lusts are exceedingly deceitful, causing our thinking to become cloudy when we surrender to sin. Paul talks about our former desires as those which characterize the fallen world we live in, these worldly desires are to rejected and replaced by new ones. This is what holiness is about –not just doing what God wants, but desiring those things in which He delights. Conclusion God has called us to be holy in an ungodly world. It is holiness which sets us apart from the world and to God. Holiness is accomplished in our lives as the Spirit of God enables us to know God and to obey His commands, through His Word “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and will be their God and they shall be my people, therefore come out from their midst and be separate. (2Cor6:14-18)

NB: BEING HOLY DOES NOT MEAN, WE GOING TO WALK AROUND, CONDEMING THOSE THAT ARE NOT BORN AGAIN, INSTEAD WE SHOULD REACH OUT TO THEM WITH LOVE AND CARE JUST LIKE JESUS DID. Jesus reached out to a Samaritan woman that resulted in the whole village being changed.