An Introduction To Holiness…

Morning!

Raises his cup of coffee

It is Monday April 7th of 2025.  It is a drizzly, cool spring day with a high of 53 forecast.  Don’t forget your umbrellas today!

Psalm 119: 113-120

“I hate the double-minded, but I love Your law.  You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your Word.  Depart from me, you evildoers, for I will keep the commandments of my God!  Uphold me according to Your Word, that I may live; and do not let me be ashamed of my hope.  Hold me up, and I shall be safe, and I shall observe Your statutes continually.  You reject all those who stray from Your statutes, for their deceit is falsehood.  You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross; Therefore I love Your testimonies.  My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments.”

It occurred to me this weekend, while I was going over our next set of verses in the Psalm 119 challenge, that David is doing something interesting. He is praying to God through the psalm, but he’s also repeatedly asking to be made holy—and at the same time, making himself holy to the Word. He’s actively separating himself from evildoers so that he can keep the law of God, and he’s doing this in order to set himself apart for service and deeper understanding of God’s Word.

Separating from and separating for.

So it got me thinking.  We haven’t talked about holiness in awhile, yet holiness is one of our goals, isn’t it?

1 Peter: 13-16

“Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 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.’”

Because didn’t it say in Hebrews…

Hebrews 12: 12-17

“Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.  Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.  For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”

We are to be holy for God is Holy.  We are to pursue holiness, for without holiness we will not see the Lord.

So.

What is holiness?

Holy means to be set apart.  Now, we have to be careful. Like I was saying before, there are two parts to this: there is that which we are set apart from, and there is that which we are set apart for.  The basic idea is this: Jesus—through no work of our own, and definitely not through works—by His grace, has saved us. We have been chosen, by Jesus, to be believers in faith, love, and truth. We have been set apart from the world for a purpose.   We are set apart to be stewards of the mysteries of God. We are set apart for the purpose of delivering the Gospel of Jesus Christ—to know Him, to worship Him, and to make Him known.

To help us understand, let’s turn to Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy is the retelling of the Law. It’s where Moses is reminding the Israelites of God’s will and His statutes. It’s a reminder of what it means to be holy as a group of people.  We’re coming in just after Moses has reminded the Israelites of their fear of the presence of God…

Deuteronomy 6: 1-9

“Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.  Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you- a land flowing with milk and honey.  Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates.”

We are to love the Lord with all our hearts. Our hearts are meant to be holy—set apart from the things we used to love—and instead devoted to loving the Lord.  We are to love the Lord with all our soul. Our soul is to be set apart in love for Him.  And finally, with all our strength—our bodies, and all that we do—we are to be set apart to love the Lord with our actions and efforts.  We might recognize this as the very passage Jesus quoted in Matthew 22.

We are not just to set our hearts, souls, and strength apart for the Lord—we are also meant to set our time and families apart for Him, as is implied in our text. When we are not actively learning holiness ourselves, we are to be teaching holiness to our families—raising up the next generation to live in the fear of the Lord.

Abide in the Word.  Abide in His Love.  Keep His Commandments and live.

What are His Commandments?

Let’s start in…

Exodus 20: 1-17

“And God spoke all these Words, saying: ‘I am The LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself a carved image- any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.  For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.  You shall not take the Name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God.  In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.  Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.  Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.  You shall not murder.  You shall not commit adultery.  You shall not steal.  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

So.

The Ten Commandments.

And what did Jesus have to say?

Matthew 5: 17-28

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.  I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.  Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.  You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’  But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ Shall be in danger of the council.  But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ Shall be in danger of hell fire.  Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way.  First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.  Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.  You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

We are to set our minds, our bodies, and our actions apart. We are to set them apart from the filthiness of sin. We are to set them apart from the former pleasures—whatever they may be. We are to cleanse ourselves from all unrighteousness and sexual immorality.  But we are not simply meant to stop there.  We are to set our minds, our bodies, and our actions apart for the purpose of loving God. He is to be what is most important to us in our lives.  He accepts nothing less.  He deserves nothing less.

We are not just saying goodbye to the old—we are replacing it with the new. We are to learn what God loves. And if we don’t already, we are to learn to love what God loves.  We are to let go of whatever it is that we hold higher than God. And that may mean some serious sacrifice.  But let’s not forget: those of us who lose our lives for Christ will find the life in Christ that He has for us.

We are saved by grace, through faith. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done. It doesn’t matter what we do. Salvation does not come through works, but by the grace of God.  How precious a gift—yet it is a gift that comes with purpose.

So we begin to think about holiness.

To be set apart from and to be set apart for.

James 1: 21-27

“Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.  But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a. Mirror; for he observes himself goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.  If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.  Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

We’ll continue to take a look at holiness tomorrow.

I think this is a good place to start for the day.