The Cleanliness that is Godliness.

Leviticus 11:44–45 ESV

For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

Introduction: Mowing my Lawn on Sunday - All of these rules and unspoken rules. Are they about holiness?

The Text says we are to be Holy....

4 - Because God is Holy...

Summary of last week’s message.

The Holiness of God is God's uniqueness and otherness

The fact that God is creator, everything else is created.

The creator and giver of life - Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the one who was and is and is to come (His name here I am what I am, I am what I will be.) ...because you have created all things and because of your will they existed and were created.

So outside of time, space, matter

God lives in his own realm

His Character being incorruptable.

His Name, I AM....

Encountering a Holy God is Transformational.

Mega Theme of the book of Leviticus - Be Holy, because I am Holy, also found in 19:2

Because God is Holy...

5 - Be Holy

Must talk about the purpose of Holiness - to be consecrated for the purposes of God.

1. We receive Holiness in order to enter into God's Holy/Life giving presence.

2. We live as Holy to fulfill God's purpose to be a showcase to the World the Distinct Blessings of being in God's presence. To be a priesthood and connect people with God.

The Amish - They are distinct, Most of us don't want to stand out.

6 - The message of the Book of Leviticus

The distinct food laws of Israel were to be a mark or symbol of their distinctiveness as a nation (cf. Dt. 14:2, 21). Just as God had limited his choice among the nations of the earth to Israel alone, so they must limit their choice among the animals. - Chris Wight

Acts 15:29 ESV

that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

How then to we Receive Holiness.

8 - Receiving Holiness

- Are the food laws still binding on Christians? The simple answer is No, but it is important to understand why. Jesus explicitly abrogated the validity of the distinction between clean and unclean food by declaring that it was the moral distinction, which the law signified, that really counted. Thus, ‘cleanness’ and ‘uncleanness’ are no longer a matter of what goes into the stomach, but of what comes out of the heart (Mk. 7:14–23). - Chris Wright

This points to the major reason for the removal of the distinction between clean and unclean food, namely the removal of the distinction between Jew and Gentile, which Jesus’ action (an exception to his normal practice in his lifetime) prefigured.

Matthew 5:17 ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

- In opposition to the RCA’s paper Affirmed and Celebrated, that states Jesus came to correct the O.T. - Fulfill and Fill Full

Romans 8:1–4 LEB

Consequently, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law would be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

1. We receive Holiness in order to enter into God's Holy/Life giving presence.

- The Ritual Purity Laws have been fulfilled in Jesus, we do not need to do those anymore to enter into God’s presence. What sets us apart is not what we eat or what we wear, or what rituals we do to be “Clean,” but what Christ has done. His blood cleanses us...

But the Text tells us to become Holy - ongoing...

14 - Becoming Holy

Chapter V.—The manners of the Christians.

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking281 method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed.283 They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.284 They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.285 They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life.286 They are poor, yet make many rich;287 they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless;288 they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

- The standard of holiness is a person, not a law. The command to be holy as God is holy or to perfect as God is perfect (Matthew 5:48) is not measurable by data. It is affirmed by God. Keener says, “We can appeal to no law to tell us that we are righteous enough—that would be legalism. Instead, we must desire God’s will so much that we seek to please him in every area of our lives—that is holiness. Jesus says that God’s law was never about mere rules; instead, God desires a complete righteousness of the heart, a total devotion to God’s purposes in this world” (Craig S. Keener, Matthew, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series 1 [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997], Matthew 5:48, Logos).

- We live as Holy to fulfill God's purpose to be a showcase to the World the Distinct Blessings of being in God's presence. To be a priesthood and connect people with Christ.

- And so while Jesus paid for our sins according to the Moral law, We are called to continually grow to live by it through the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t murder, we don’t steal, we don’t commit adultery, we don’t go after idols, we don’t, we serve people in need in our community, we stand up for the underdog. Why? to gain access to God. No, to the service of God. To be a people who connect others to God through Jesus. To Give God the Glory, by Building Others Up.

When we attempt to live as God called us to live, holiness becomes a major point of reference. We are attempting to live in such a way that God will be acknowledged by our lives. People will look at us and see that holiness has as much to do with being separate from things that are not holy as it is about being willing to get right in the middle of a broken world that needs to see the great joy that holiness brings. Being perfect as God is perfect means that our lives are being spent trying to do just as God would do in any given circumstance.

Conclusion: