Yahweh M'Kaddesh (The Lord Who Makes You Holy)
God Has a Name • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 2 views"I am the Lord who makes you holy" is the name God uses to remind that he works in us to make us like him. We are set apart for special purpose and God is at work in us to make that happen while at that same time we ourselves work towards holiness because we desire to please God.
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Wrapping up this series.
The reason for this series came when as a result of preaching thru John. Specifically John 8. when Jesus said, “before Abraham was born, I AM!”
Jesus invoked the the covenant name of God and said that’s me.
This sparked the idea of talking about God’s names revealed in Scripture because we learn about who he is based on his name.
Elohim—he is the creator
Yahweh—covenant name, name by which is to be known
El Shaddai—God Almight
Yahweh Tseva’oth—Lord of Hosts
El Elyon—God Most High
Jireh-Provider
Rophe-Healer
Rohi-Shepherd
Tsidkenu-Our Righteousness
And today Yahweh M’Kakess—The Lord Who Makes You Holy
Read Leviticus 20:7-8
“ ‘Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
Key Points
Key Points
1. The Biblical understanding of sanctification is “to be set apart for God’s purpose.”
1. The Biblical understanding of sanctification is “to be set apart for God’s purpose.”
-We see this ideas of setting apart in Genesis 2:3
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
-Sanctification is also a applied to the people of God...
-Sanctification is the process in which God’s people are progressively growing in holiness until the new creation.
-Our text today has context...
The book before Leviticus is Exodus. Exodus—taking the people out of slavery
The book after Leviticus is Numbers. Numbers—the people entering into Canaan, the Promised Land
Leviticus is the book that prepares them for their new life in the new land. It instructs them on how to live and how to worship.
-Consider these 3 words that may help us understand this idea of sanctification a little better: COMMON, PROFANE & SACRED
COMMON—Regular, ordinary, that which God has given for the general good of everyone
PROFANE—That which is defiled, contaminated or polluted
SACRED—That which is special to God, unique to His purpose.
Anything that is COMMON can become PROFANE or SACRED
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
-Go back to our days of creation, God made 6 days and called them good but e the 7th day he set apart, sanctified.
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
So when we examine our text for today we see that God is interested in the idea of setting us apart for special use
Scan through Lev. 20:1-21
2. Fortunately God has taken the responsibility for making us holy, as He is, and we are not left to our own devices.
2. Fortunately God has taken the responsibility for making us holy, as He is, and we are not left to our own devices.
-The idea of being holy is often thought of as being morally perfect. That’s not wrong.
-Holy is also connected to the fact that God is the creator of all that is and is therefore utterly unique.
The Bible Project uses this illustration.
The sun is unique in or solar system. It is “holy” and the area around it is holy. The closer you get to it the more intense it is. Once you reach a certain point nothing can withstand the intense heat and radiation.
So it is with God. His holiness makes it impossible for fallen man to stand in presence. In fact the area around him has become holy. Remember at the burning bush… he told Moses to remove his sandals because even the ground was holy.
-This is a long way from the garden of Eden when Adam and God walked together in the cool of the day.
-What we see in the OT is that God establishing a code of conduct by which man could become morally and ritually clean.
-That’s the purpose of the Levitical code. To shine a light on the PROFANE & the SACRED.
-The most holy place could only be occupied by the high priest but only once a year and only after completing a series of rituals that would make him clean.
SOMETHING NEW IS REVEALED IN ISAIAH 6.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
-For example if someone were to touch a dead body they would be contaminated by it, made unclean.
-But if something holy touches you, now you are cleansed.
-Fast forward to the NT and when Jesus touches the leper, he is not defiled, rather the the leper is made whole.
-We are seeing the fulfillment of the Yahweh M’Kaddesh.
-When Jesus touches you are made whole, your sins are forgiven.
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Again in the OT
In Ezekiel 47 the prophet sees a trickle of water coming from the temple. It becomes a might river as it makes it’s way to the the Dead sea and where ever it goes it brings life.
What it is may seem like a mystery until you finally get to Revelation 22.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
I might add one more thing here because we have to contend with passages like “without holiness no one can see God.”
-Holiness is not us keeping a list of do’s and don’ts rather it is something that God does in us.
-One commentator said, “Holiness is a characteristic God imposes on followers of Jesus.
-Last week we talked about how God imputes his righteousness to us. He does something similar with his holiness.
In this sense, he puts, we are passive recipients God’s holiness.
But it is also a way of living out their lives in that sense it what we actively pursue.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Illustration:
Sympathetic Vibration
3. You have the opportunity to resonate with the world or the Kingdom of God.
3. You have the opportunity to resonate with the world or the Kingdom of God.
-When God was sending Israel into the Promised land he told them there were going to nations and cultures that did not resonate with his values. Drive them out he said. Don’t behave like they do, he said.
-There was a consequence for rejecting God’s holy standard. There is a reason that he wanted them to resonate with them.
“ ‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.
Tony Evans said, “You can get to your destiny and your destiny can spit you out.”
Keep reading
Leviticus 20:23–26 (NIV)
You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations. “ ‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those that I have set apart as unclean for you. You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
-When you become a member of the Kingdom of God it should become clearer and clearer that the world has a different value system, different standards.
-Can you see the problem when the people of God start resonating with world.
-God says, “I have have redeemed I have called you by name” but what happens when allow the world to co-opt our mind and our actions?
-God calls us to be separate, holy. But the only thing we can be sure of is…they will spit you out.
-God has promised that if we maintain our uniqueness, if we resonate with his holiness he will drive them out. He will fight for you.
-The church becomes inept and powerless when it becomes worldly. As do it’s members.
-More times than I care to admit I see the church and Christians reflect the world rather than Christ. Tony Evans again said, “we don’t buy God’s standards, we try to make God’s standards adapt to the society in which we live”.
“Did God really say…?”
-This may be why we are seeing the church in the West lose power, lose authority, shrink and shrivel.
God is separate and holy and he expects that form his people too. The truth is when we reject God he rejects us.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Lean in hard to this name Yahweh M’Kaddesh, The Lord Who Makes You Holy.