Holiness | Pr Steven Soon

You're listening to a message to go from axt church.

We hope this message will light up your tea.

My topic for today that God has prompt in my

heart to share is on holiness. Simple, no fancy, nice

sounding that tels that I always try to think to

make it memorable. But God just wanted to teach us

about holiness. I'm just gonna start off with a question,

and I would encourage you guys to shout it out.

All right? What is holiness? Can say louder? Sorry, spiritual alignment,

there's an interesting as a good answer. Anything else? Yeah,

just want to raise your head sat a part of

very good. I can close my message now there is

the definition very good? Anything else? What comes to mind

when you think about holiness? We see I'm asking because

we say holy, Holy, Holy, It's a lot God almighty

all the time. We sing that in our songs. We

always say to each other, you know, we need to

be holy before the Lord. But have you really thought true?

What is holiness? Complete? Awesome? Anymore? I'm big concern? Now?

What do you guys? Don't worry about saying wrong? Answers?

No wrong answers your perception holiness? When we say God

is holy? What does it mean? See less? Very good anymore?

We're getting warmer, getting warmer, very good, very good anymore. Okay,

I'll spare you, guys storry, We'll proceed. Okay, I just

want to let's look at my first point very quickly.

We all recognize that God is Oh yeah, just how

it was that? It's like, okay, I put some fun

things are all right? Why holiness?

To you?

It could be Christian lyrics cusword. You know. Sometimes people

go like, okay, I'm not gonna say it, and then

you know the thing of the idea, you know sends

me it's a horrible song. I'm not gonna say that song.

I don't know that song. Holiness? White color? Right? You

think about holy?

Why? Ala?

Right? Correct? Don't tell me you think about other color?

Maybe gola, maybe gold, but no way, you think about red? Right?

You think about black? Gu I think later O the

call you come up, I pray for you, yoking. Okay.

My first point is God is holy. There is a

fundamental truth. We all know this. We all recognize this

universal understanding. But what does it really mean when we

say God is holy? And we're gonna look into that

the Hebrew word. We're gonna see that the next night.

It's kardosh. Okay, tell your neighbor kardosh all right. Kardash

is the Hebrew word, the very original word of the

word holy, and the definition is the separated from the circular, right,

separated from the ordinary, set apart. It's now lily mentioned

set apart as holy, its sacred. Still, what does that

mean when we say God is set apart as holy?

When we say God is sacred, when we say God

is separated from the ordinary, it seems very hard to

wrap our head around to grasp holiness. If we say

God is mighty, you can grasp right. When we say

God is loving, you can grasp easily. But when we

say God is holy, seems a bit harder to grasp.

Seems very conceptual. But I hope after today's message you'll

be able to have a little bit more of an understanding,

and even more importantly, you'll be able to live out, yeah,

the understanding of God's holiness, and I believe it will

make a difference in your life. God's holiness and this

is something to help you understand God's holiness is pure.

One of the descriptions of holiness is purity. There are

no impurities. What needs to be there is there. They're

not what the cannot be there is not there. I

don't know if you understand that there's in terms of

being pure right, and this form of purity is so pure,

it's intense. What does that mean? Let me give you

a picture. One way to help us visualize, right. God's

holiness is the Sun. Think of the Sun. The Sun

is pure energy, right, if you know a little bit

of signs, the Sun's the Sun is pure energy. And

out of the Sun we have the Solar system, and

in the Solar system we have planets, We've got moons,

and we've got life right here on planet Earth. As

much as the Sun gives gives life. How many of

us have watched enough sign fiction movie to know that

the Sun is dangerous that if you go too close,

you'll be destroyed because the Sun is pure energy. Just

imagine for a women that this intense, pure energy. It's

God's holiness. It's God himself. God is holy. Holy is God.

God is so holy that if anything that is even

a timey bit and holy comes close to God, it

be destroyed. This includes sin, This includes carriers of sin.

We're gonna look at scripture Exodustree, verse one to five.

If you could flip up on your bibles just now

you heard from Passsandra. Let's try if you can. Let's

bring our bibles and flee open the Bible. And for

if your friends a friend around you may not have

access to a Bible, maybe you can share. All right,

let's look out for one another. But let's look at

scripture together. Exodus Tree, verse one to five. I'm gonna

flip open my own bible as well. Exodus Tree, verse

one to five. If you're there, say I'm there. That's

not enthusiastic at all, but it's okay, all right, oops, okay,

I'll get that later, all right. Verse one to five.

Let's read this now. Moses was tending the flock of

just Throw his father in law, the priest of Midian,

and he led the flock to the far side of

the desert and came to Harap, the mountain of God.

There the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in

flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that

through the though the bush was on fire, it did

not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over

and see this strange side. Why the bush does not

burn up? First of all, when the Lord saw that

he had gone over to look, God called to him

from within the bush. Moses Moses, Moses, if any of

us hear a bush calling out to us, we probably

ran away. We've already think someone is trying to rob us, right,

But here God called out to Moses through the burning bush.

And then what did Moses say? Moses said, here I

am verse five. God's response, I wanted to pay attention

to this. Do not come any closer. God said, take

off your sandals for the place where you're standing his

holy crown. We all know Moses is loved by the Lord.

Moses eventually freed the people of Israel. So God's intention

is definitely not to destroy most. But yet God is saying, stop,

do not come any closer. This is holy ground. Why

because Moses would have been destroyed. And we're gonna look

a little bit on that later. What How can God

do this to Moses? How could God even have create

a possibility for Moses to be destroyed, this guy who

is supposed to lead Israel out of Egypt. And we're

gonna look into that in a little bit. You know

in the Old Testament, give us a little bit of

understanding about people coming into the presence of God in

the Old Testament. To come into contact with God, one

must not only be morally pure. And when I say

morally pure, I'm saying morally pure by God's standards, not

the world's standard. Okay, that's the wolding. If you are

very big or trying to understand morality, go look it

up subjective morality, objective morality, because there's this whole thought

process of where did the concept or right and wrong

come from? Is it true human culture or is there

a standard that we are setting it upon. And as

believers of Jesus Christ, that standard is God never changing.

You realize what is acceptable fifty years ago or what

is unacceptable fifty years ago? Into this society, some of

it is already acceptable. It follows time. But with God,

because he's unchanging what he says goals, he never goes

against his word. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

His standards remain the same. So when we say being

morally pure, we're talking about God's standard, the standard that

is here, all right. So coming back to come into

contact with God, one must not only be morally pure.

The person has to be ritually pure. Ah, God is

so big on rituals. I'm gonna share a bit answer. Yes,

we're gonna share why because maybe today i'll concept is

that but God is so loving? Why is it so

big on rituals? Sounds like other religions, right, But I'm

gonna share with you why being ritually pure was important

to come into contact with God. What does ritually pure mean?

Ritually pure? If you look at the Old Testament, it

basically means you cannot have anything to do with anything

related to death. If you look at the rules, or

rather the regulations that God said for the priests to

come before God to sacrifice, there are things they need

to do for people to enter the temple that things

they need to do. Do you realize that in scripture?

There are some parts where in Old Testament God says

if you are you touch a dead person, you cannot

come into the temple. If you touch a dead animal,

you cannot come into the presence of God. If you

are discharging certain bodily fluids, you cannot come into contact

with God. Is it because God is like in Mandarin words,

it's like zpr like clean freak. You come, I destroy you, thunder,

come down. I don't think God is like that, but

imagine for a moment. God is so pure, pure energy.

God is so holy, and death has nothing to do

with God. God is life right. Death is a complete

opposite of God. And when we touch something that is dead,

we become unpure. And when we are unpure and we

come into contact with a pure and holy God, it's

a bad chemical reaction. I'm not saying God is a

chemical I'm just using a figure of speech. But basically,

God is so holy. I am going ahead of myself. Okay,

marry me, I'm gonna go there. I want to get

to some points, but basically I want to say that

like touching the date, animals, the bodily, the discharge of

certain bodily fluids, and you know, touching date, things that

itself is not seen. Okay. I just want to say,

God didn't say that you do this. You've seen. God

never mentioned that. God just say you have to deal

with this, No, get yourself clean and pure, then you

can come into my presence. This in itself is not

sin full, all right. I just want us to have

that understanding. But it is simply the problem is simply this.

The problem is going into God's presence in an impure state,

because when you touch something that's impure, we would in

a sense coming to contact with it. Right then we

would be in an impure state. And when we are

in an impure state, God's holiness simply cannot mix with us.

It's as simple as that. We can see that in

how it was like for the temples, right, if you

remember the temple back then the House of God in

the Old Testament, you have the courtyard and then you

slowly move in, and then there's the Holy of holiesa

that only the priests can go in, right And do

you know for the priests to go in, they have

to also clean themselves, if not they the day. And

many times we may think why God sold particular jell

like God, they forgot to wash like also dire. But

you see, God, my personal understanding is this. It's not

because God wants to punish. It's the simple fact that

God cannot mix with impurity. I don't think God's heart

God wants to kill the people. It's just that's why

he told Moses, don't come any closer, because if you

do this is holy ground. You would die. Give you

guys a little illustration. There is this physicist from from

from England. His name was Sir James Jeans, a whol name,

James Jeans, and he says this, The cold temperature of

the sun is fifteen million degrees centi grade. You can't

even imagine or comprehend that, right, fifteen million degrees centigrade.

It is so hard that a pin head imagine a pin,

all right, the head of a pin, or even the

whole pin. If the head of the pin is heated

to the temperature of the center of the sun, it

would admit enough heat to kill anyone who were ventured

within a thousand miles of it, just the pin head. Okay,

we are Malaysia. We follow the British system. So if

a thousand miles you don't understand, I try to slated

that one thousand, six hundred and nine one three four kilometers.

That's a thousand miles just the head of the pin,

if it's heated to the temperature of the center of

the sun, you can't even be a thousand miles within

the Like a thousand miles away, you die, you burn.

That is God's holiness. So I hope this gives us

a little bit of understanding that God is not so

patty that he wants to punish you for not cleaning

your hands before walking into the temple. It's just simply

God cannot mix with impurities. God cannot mix with sin.

In Leveticus eleven forty four, if you could flip open

the scripture Eleveticus eleven forty four, and he says this, Now,

this is God again. The book of Leviticus is basically

telling the Levi's, while things that Levi's are basically the

priest of the temple, the tribe of Erin. As in

the lineage of Erin, they were supposed to follow this

set of laws when dealing with matters of God. Okay,

so eleven verse forty four says this, I am the

Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy because I

am holy. And then you see, you must not defaul

yourself if any creatures that crown the ground, okay, don't

touch corck, croaches, and everyone of us. Yay, all right.

So I want to I want us to pay attention

to this part where God says you must be holy

because I am holy. We don't get this destroyed when

we come to God's presence because God wants to punish us.

God simply can't be with us without us spontaneously combusting.

It's gonna be spontaneous. Yeah, that was what happened in

the Old Testament. If this is the case, how then

are we able to reconcile the holiness of God and

us approaching him. The answer is that in the verse

we just read, there must be a way, right if

God says firstly, God says, you must be holy, for

I am holy. I see this as a message of

love because God is holy and he wants to draw

near to us, and we want to draw near to him.

If we are not holy, we can't make it happen.

This seems like instructions, but when I read between the lines,

I try to understand God's heart. This is a message

of love. Guys. If you want to draw near to me,

and says God, you ought to be holy because I

am holy, Holy and unholiness in mixing, you'll be destroyed.

Then the question is how do we then become holy?

The next point is this, we are made holy by

our own We have no hope at all to ever

come to God as a holy being. No way we

have sin within us, any contact with sin, and the

carrier of sin. We are gods in like if we

come into contact with God. So this is the fundamental

of our faith. I hope that we'll remember and understand this,

that there's nothing we can do by our own strength

of wisdom that can make us holy. We all know this,

we all know this. Right our righteousness are counter as recks,

the de rects in the side of God, not because

He sees us as dirty rects. But it's just a comparison.

It's it's an objective comparison. Isaiah six, verse one to seven.

I hope this part blow your mind. We're gonna look

at this if you can flip upon your scripture to

Isaiah six one to seven. This is a famous scripture

of where Isaiah got a dream from the Lord. Allow

me to read this scripture. In the year that King

Osiah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne

high and exalted, and the train of his role filled

the temple. Above him were seraph's, each with six wings.

With two wings they covered their faces, and two they

covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And

they were calling to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy, Here

you go. It's the Law Almighty. The whole earth is

full of his glory. And the sound of their voices

the door poles and the treashore shook, and the temple

was filled with smoke. Whoa to me, Isaiah cried, I

am ruined. He saw the holiness of God, and suddenly

he saw his unholiness. He says, I'm ruined, for I'm

a man of unclean lips, and I among a people

of unclean lips. Contact you see that now? Why is

important to be rigially clean? He lived among the people

who are who are who had unclean lips, And my

eyes have seen the King, the Law Almighty. This is

a very good picture of understanding of holiness. What Isaiah

just said he had an understanding of holiness. Verse six.

Then what the Sarahs flew to me with a live call,

burning call, red hard in his hand, which he had

taken with thongs from the altar, where with it he

touched Isaiah's mouth and said, see this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away, and you're seeing atoned. Four.

We see here that instead of being destroyed, interestingly, coming

into the holiness of God. Isaiah was preserved. This live

call life call represented God's holiness. He was taken from

the altar, and when the Seraphim touched Isaiah's mouth with it,

his sin was perched. That is, in the NKJV version,

his sin was perched in touching God's holiness. In this

interesting case, Isaiah was not destroyed even though he had

unclean lips and he had contact with unclean people. On

the opposite, Isaiah was transformed. He was made holy. Because

after that you'll see God saying, who will go for us?

And because Isaiah was made holy, he was ready to

go and do what the Lord wanted him to do.

I will continue to try to share this and hopefully

this gives you another understanding. Do you know in the

New Testament there is also a representation of the hot

life care from the altar. It is Jesus. This embodiment

of God's holiness in human form purified everything he touched.

Sicknesses were healed, Uncontrollable discharges of bodily fluid were stopped.

The woman with the issue of blood, Demons were cast

out of bodies. Demons are we know the unclean day

people resurrected the day became alive. If we were in

Old Testament times, we become more. We become impure if

we touch anything related to death. Just now we established

that right. Yet when Jesus is an, when New Testament

touched the people who many were unclean by the way

lepers women with the issue of blood, which are seen

as ritually and ceremonially unclean. Yet Jesus touched the unclean,

and he transferred his purity over to the people. Beyond

that truth is ultimate act of love and sacrifice on

the cross. To anyone that receives Jesus the way, the

truth and the only life into their lives is now

made holy. When you accept Jesus, and most of us

here have, you are already made holy. And when you

come into contact with a holy God, you won't spontaneously combusted.

And it's not because of what you do or what

you did. It's because of what Christ did for us.

And with this I come to my last point. I

probalyse you'll be shot. And this is my last point.

Holiness requires our response. In the Board of Acts, we

saw how the disciples and followers of Jesus became God's temple.

That's why you say our bodies are temples of the

Holy Spirit. Right, we saw how the Disciples in the

Bow of Acts became God's temple, and through them, God's

holy presence went out. They went out, they healed the sea,

and Jesus even said this, you've seen me do all this,

You're going to do even more. And that was what

the disciples did. They went and they did what Jesus

asked them to do. And all they did was being

an embodiment of God's temple, to purify those that are

not pure, to bring holiness unto things that are unholy.

And that's the picture of the temple of God. Right

in the Old Testament, people come to Atone for their sins.

Whatever that is seen that it's impure, was made pure,

words forgiven. The Disciples became the temple of God to

do that for the world. And guess what, it does

not stop. By the Book of Acts, we are the

temple of God. To having understand, you know, having been

able to understand God's holiness and understand that we are

already made holy through Christ, there is a response we

have to make. As God's holy temper. We are to

go to transform the lives of others those around us.

We are to transform lives of others true the power

of the Holy Spirit, not by our own mind, not

by our own power, but by His Spirit, to make

disciples of all nations, so that true, one person at

the time when we transfer period. I know is a

very like up in the air super bower kind of

thing transfer power, But it's just to help us imagine

when we come into contact with one person at the

time bringing forth God's holiness, healing and life. We will

see that from one person your compound, it will spread,

and God's holiness will be able to spread through the

whole earth, so that Hypergo two fourteen shall come to pass,

that the whole earth may be filled by the knowledge

of the glory of God God as the waters cover

the sea. I started sharing on God's holiness, and I

hope that gives us a better understanding of God's holiness.

It's not just something we say for fun. God's holiness

is intense, it can destroy, but yet true God's divine

wisdom and amazing love. He gave us a way to

be able to come into contact with Him. He made

us holy, true Jesus, and I'm coming to an end

with this, and these are questions to challenge us. You know,

to be holy is to be set apart. Just now

we mentioned about that, and to be set apart, it's

not a one off things. It's a daily decision. We

have to constantly set ourselves apart for the Lord to

work in and true us. It's a daily decision. Right.

If not, then why do there's God asks us to

obey constantly. If it's just a one off thing, we

are set apart. Every time we obey God. We are

setting ourselves apart for him. It's a daily decision. The

root word just now, do you guys remember that herew

it hadah. It's very good, the root word for kadash.

It's actually kadash all right. It means to be set

apart for a specific purpose. So when we set ourselves apart,

we're setting ourselves apart. When we say we make ourselves

holy in the sight of the Lord, are saying we

are setting ourselves apart for God's purpose? Have we fully

set ourselves apart for God? Today? Now, as we reflect,

are there areas in our lives that we have yet

set apart and made holy for the Lord? Do you

know God can be glorified, glorified through every area of

your life. I'm gonna say, as I finished preparing this message,

I already, you know, you know, prepared to side close

my computer. And then Holy Spirit minister to me and

challenged me in this area. He said, have you said

you know? We say we can set apart different areas

in our lives, and immediately we think about career, family, finances, studies. Right,

We think about all these things, right, And the Holy

Spirit ministered to me and say, you know, Stevens, ask

the congregation this question, have you set your trials and

your challenges apart for His glory? Do you know that

trials and tribulations can also be holy? Because if Holy's

definition is to set apart for God's purpose, then we

ought to see our trials, our challenges, our tribulations as

something that we have also to set apart for the Lord.

We think about trials and challenges, the immediate thought is

like all this is of the devil. But the fact

is God allowed it to happen, right, And if God

allows it to happen, there must be a purpose. And

if you're able to frame our mind and go like

I just went through this Lord, I make it holy.

I set it apart for you, use it for your glory. Ah.

Some of my tell me, my team knows this. I

go into a car accident about eight days ago, very inconvenient,

and it had to happen right before our leader's training,

and of course I was a bit frustrated. I was like, oh, man,

I'm gonna go. I won't have a car for at

least two to three weeks before going around. It's gonna

be tough, you know, traveling or public transport. And you

know past An at the time minister to me Monday,

I was like renting a bit to him in the office.

These things happened? Or haven't I been serving the Lord?

Or we love to use that as Christians, Haven't I

been serving the Lord? Haven't my family been serving the Lord?

How can something like this happened and make ministry harder

work of the devil? You know what past Elvin told me,

He said, Hey, maybe God wants to do something as

you are community communitting on trains. Maybe God wants you

to maybe you meet people when you're walking on the road.

And then refrain my mind because I go like, wait,

I've been so caught up with the frustration and the

inconvenience that I fail to open myself up to the

opportunity that this could be a chance for God to

work through me. And now I go into the l

at thinking, fig, God, what is it that you are

me to do so far? You know? An amazing thing

because I'm not driving and being jam on the road,

I read the Bible. I'm more time instead of being

jam stuck in the gym, you know, after quiet time

in the morning. This is like extend the quiet time

I get to be doing in the trade. And I'm

sure this is just to start, because it's just one

of the first week, you know, I said two weeks ago,

and now in fact I look forward to what kind

of opportunities Gord will show me through this trial and tribulation.

I almost feel like, yes, ma, fa a bit, But

I'm okay because I now understand the concept that I

can set my trial and tribulations apart for God's glory.

And this is something that I just want to end

with this encouragement that as we worship a holy God

and he has made us holy so that we can

be in communion with Him, we also have a response

there is a responsibility that comes with the holiness that

we receive. We are to go and be the salt

and line. We are to spread this whole to those

around us, to bring life and not judgment. And can

I encourage us church or whatever you're going thrue, whatever

trials you're going through, whatever challenges you're going thrue, set

it apart for the Lord and wait and see how

God is going to use it for his god Man

your testimony. If you can think like this, I guarantee

you your testimony is right around the corner. Amen.

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