Living a holy life before the Holy God

Introduction

In 1 Peter 1:13–16 Peter writes:

1 Peter 1:13–16 LSB

Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Paul writes it like this in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8(LSB)

Finally then, brothers, we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.

For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;

that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

For God did not call us to impurity, but in sanctification.

Consequently, he who sets this aside is not setting aside man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

In both of these passages the focus for the people of God is living a holy life and doing so in response to God’s provision in our lives. Too often however, we find ourselves going along with the flow of this world versus living the life that God has commanded us to live in light of His Word and in accordance with the change that He has brought about in the life of the believer. We are His new creation, Ephesians 2:10-22

Ephesians 2:10–22 LSB

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Therefore, remember that formerly you—the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might create the two into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having in Himself put to death the enmity. And He came and preached the good news of peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

The question then becomes, as people of God, new creations in Christ Jesus, how do we live a holy life in this present world?

The Law

Over the last several weeks in our journey through Exodus we have been focusing in on the Law of God. When God first introduced this into His Word, He did so with Exodus 20:1-2

Exodus 20:1–2 LSB

Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

reminding us of several amazing truths; that this is the WORD of GOD not man, that He alone is our God, the one who delivered by His own hand, according to His own power, His own pleasure and ultimately for His own glory! However, in our lives, to be specific the lives of most believers, the law of God holds relatively little value. We struggle to find the relevance to our modern way of living and yet, because this is the Word of God, Sacred Scripture, as believers we have the responsibility to rightly apply this “profitable” Word in our daily lives. When we come to our text for today it would seem that God has moved into a random selection of “one-liner” laws but as we study them we find that these are more than just a list of actions to be taken or avoided. That these laws, rightly understood in light of Scripture, show us that as believers we are called to live a holy life before the Holy God. With that being said, let us turn to our text and read Exodus 22:16-31, please stand in honor of the reading of the Word of the Living God:

Exodus 22:16–31 LSB

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. “If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins. “You shall not allow a sorceress to live. “Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. “And he who sacrifices to any god, other than to Yahweh alone, shall be devoted to destruction. “You shall not mistreat a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. “You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. “And if you indeed afflict him, and if he earnestly cries out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; and My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. “If you lend money to My people, to the afflicted among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. “If you ever take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun sets, for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall be that when he cries out to Me, I will hear him, for I am gracious. “You shall not curse God, nor curse a ruler of your people. “You shall not delay the offering from the fullness of your harvest and the juice of your wine vat. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. “And you shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. “You shall be holy men to Me, therefore you shall not eat any flesh torn to pieces in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.

Let us Pray

Father we thank you for your Word. We pray this morning that as we come to the study of Your Word that the Holy Spirit would commend this Word to our hearts and lives. That we would seek to live according to Your Truth and live in a manner that makes our life a sweet aroma in your site. We pray this in the name of Your precious Son, Jesus Christ, Amen

You may be seated.

Holiness Requires Purity

We live in a SHOCKING TIME. At least that is what seems to be the case, however, the truth is that there is nothing shocking about the time in which we live to God. Our right understanding of who God is shapes and molds the way in which we as believers live our lives and approach this world. We are often quick to point out the things that the world is doing that are wrong in the eyes of God, yet most of us do not desire to take stock of our own lives to be sure that we are wholly living a holy life. The world is definitely lost, broken and doomed for destruction but thanks be to God that we are not of the world. In the church today we face an epidemic, one that is not new in the making, but has been increasingly progressing, and that is the issue of sexual impurity. It comes to us in many forms, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the specific situation mentioned here in Exodus 22:16-17 fornication or premarital sex:

Exodus 22:16–17 LSB

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. “If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.

The world today has approached sex with the attitude that it is nothing more than an experience to be enjoyed for the pleasure that it brings and this attitude and approach has invaded the church. We are afraid to stand up and stand firm on God’s word and hold our people accountable to it’s commands.

These verses can be somewhat of a challenge because it would seem, without doing proper study and research that this text is describing a rape. However, in this situation, if it were a situation of rape, the penalty simply does not fit the crime. According to Deuteronomy 22:25–27 ““But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. “But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. “When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.” the act of rape is punishable by death.

The situation that is describe here is understood through the word translated into the English language as “seduces”. In the original Hebrew, this word meant to persuade and is translated elsewhere as the English word entice. This verse, then, refers to a consensual encounter. However, we cannot approach this as a license for this type of behavior, God clearly prohibits this and other sexual sin. Sex is a gift of God that is to be enjoyed ONLY within the confines of marriage and marriage is clearly defined by God as a union between one man and one woman where the two join together to become one flesh. Anything else, is sin, it is just that simple.

A word of caution here is necessary. When we look at this text it can become easy to justify a situation of premarital sex with the excuses “well, we are going to get married anyway” or “now we are married in the eyes of God so we can continue in this relationship” but what we find in the text is quite a different response. First of all, there is the requirement of justice. As we have noted in the last several weeks there is no injustice with God and there is none to be found prescribed by Him in His Word. The situation here is no different. An infraction has occured and a penalty must be incurred and the penalty here seems to be one that deals with slavery, but this is not the case at all. In fact, the picture we see here is one of the man taking responsibility for his actions and pay the “bride-price” or dowry. Although this custom is different from culture to culture, there is scriptural evidence that this dowry is actually paid to the bride - Genesis 24:53 “The servant brought out articles of silver and articles of gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother.” and in this situation would be indicative of a demonstration of the ability to support his bride and their future together.

Note however, the responsibility of the father, he has the responsibility to protect his daughter. She is not a piece of property that there is a price negotiation. If he determines that the man is unfit or not right for his daughter he has the right to withhold his blessing and the man still has to pay the price. We can pull two truths for our lives from this:

1. Men have been given the responsibility and entrusted with the care and protection of women. This is a beautiful provision of God that allows the woman to flourish under the care and protection of a truly godly man. As godly men, we should seek to protect our own purity and to protect the purity of women. (As a side note, just because we no longer pay a “bride-price” it is still right in the eyes of God to seek the blessing of the father when a Christian young man seeks to marry a Christian young woman)

2. Most importantly, God is Holy, not only is He holy, but he is holy, holy, holy. God’s holiness is the only one of His attributes that scripture elevates to the supreme level indicating that this is something that we should take very seriously. Every man of God in scripture who is confronted with the Holiness of God has a visceral reaction yet we are to strive to live our lives in just such a holy manner by purity in our sexuality.

So we know that in order to live a holy life before the Holy God, purity is of extreme importance, and while the first two verses dealt with sexual purity, verses 18-20 deal with purity in worship.

Exodus 22:18–20 LSB

“You shall not allow a sorceress to live. “Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. “And he who sacrifices to any god, other than to Yahweh alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

It should be noted that impure worship before God is a recipe for disaster. We see this repeatedly in scripture

Leviticus 10:1–2 LSB

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans and put fire in them. Then they placed incense on it and offered strange fire before Yahweh, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of Yahweh and consumed them, and they died before Yahweh.

and in

2 Samuel 6:3–8 LSB

And they drove the ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart. So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. Now David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before Yahweh with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets, and cymbals. Then they came to the threshing floor of Nacon. And Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, because the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of Yahweh burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. And David became angry because of Yahweh’s breaking out against Uzzah; and that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day.

In both of these situations the people directly disobeyed God when it came to their worship and the right handling of the implements given to them for worship. In our text from today we see three examples of impure worship and we should note that the punishment on each is quite literally death.

In the first example we see that a sorceress was not allowed to live. In our current culture this is a reality that we simply do not address. We have chalked this up to the arena of fantasy and fiction. The reality, however, is that this is a very real situation that exists today. In 2014 there were an estimated 1.5 million self proclaimed Wiccans in the US and according to an article published in the Pluralism Archives in 2011, Wicca is the fastest growing religion in the US. And this issue is compounded by the sheer volume of media, games, books, movies, and television shows that celebrate this way of belief. in 1939 a very well known movie was released based on a book written in 1900 by author Frank L Baum. In this well known book and its subsequent movie we are presented with the polar opposites of “good witch and wicked witch”. It all seems innocent harmless fun until we realize that all of Wiccan and witchcraft seeks to gain power through the use of demonic forces. Many will proclaim that they do not worship satan and are not trying to do harm, but only seeking to commune with nature…the problem is still the same, they have traded the truth of the creator for a lie and worshipped the created instead of the creator…exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. The result, a worship that is not Holy and pleasing to God because it is not pure, true and right.

Next we are confronted with the perversion of bestiality. Although there is a sexual component to this, which is vile and shows a “flagrant disregard of the structure and order that God has endowed on creation” (John McKay), the true impetus behind this is an effort of people to unite with their god through the animal that represented them. In the land of Canaan (the promised land to which the Israelites were headed) Baal was often depicted as having sex with a cow.

The third offense in this triplet dealing with impure worship, is idolatry. In the decalogue God made it abundantly clear that the worship of idols was forbidden.

Exodus 20:4–5 LSB

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,

And here He again expresses the seriousness of this sin by showing us that the one who commits this act is to be devoted to destruction but we need to understand the level to which this destruction would have occurred. In truth, the Hebrew word used here means that the destruction was “utter and complete” and involved not only the individual but also his property. Remeber, God is a jealous God and will not share His glory with anyone.

In all, these three sins, all requiring punishment by death, are severe sins dealing with our worship of God. It is important to remember that these laws were given to the Jews to be upheld and punished by civil authorities and that we have no right to claim the punishment for ourselves, rather what we see and understand is that the death we see here as an punishment for these sins is the death that we all died in Adam, namely spiritual death. We apply these laws in our church life today be operating under the regulative principle of worship and ensuring that our worship is not only worthy in the eyes of God but that it is pure and holy so that it will give all the focus and glory to God. When this is not true of our worship and the scandalous sin of idolatry breaks into our ranks, we are called by God, commanded by Jesus Christ to practice church discipline, carried out faithfully and in full accordance with the word of God, even to the point of separating from a member for the sake of the body… this is the meaning behind Christ calling for the removal of one body part for the good of the rest.

Holy living demands showing compassion to those less fortunate

The next set of verses (21-27) demonstrate God’s desire that His people show compassion towards those that are less fortunate. He does so by dealing with foreigners in the land, widows and orphans, and then those that are not blessed with the same level of wealth as others.

First, He reminds us that we are to treat those who are strangers in a strange land and not to oppress them as the Egyptians did the Israelites. In Leviticus 19:34 God says

Leviticus 19:34 LSB

‘The sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.

As believers we are to have compassion on those who are “strangers in a strange land”. If we are not careful this passage could lead us to embrace some sort of woke gospel or social justice gospel when the reality is that this deals with what Jesus would describe as the second of the two great commands “Loving they neighbor as yourself”. Our responsibility as believers is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to make disciples of all the nations, but how can we be obedient to that command when we have contempt and dislike others. It is really easy to excuse our behavior because of history, but God has called us out of history, to go against the normal lives around us, to love, not just our neighbor, but even greater, our very enemy, and what better way to show love than to proclaim the Gospel.

The next group of people that God deals with in this passage are widows and orphans. All throughout scripture God continually provides for those who cannot provide for themselves. In the culture of the day, women who were widows, lost everything, especially in situations where there was no son to take up the mantle and provide. Orphans, in this case literally children without fathers, were also subject to no longer having the person in their life that was given by God to be the primary provider and as such, were also in need of care and protection. God himself became a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless through Christ finished work on Calvary’s cross. The church became His bride and we were adopted into the family of God.

Next we encounter a group of people who are less fortunate because their physical needs have not been met the same as ours and the responsibility that we have to not take advantage of these people. The restriction is against the charging of interest to the poor. The idea of returning the cloak before nightfall demonstrates that God has care and compassion for these people and so should we. In the church, the implication would be that if there is a fellow believer who is in need of assistance we should lend to that person interest free, however, Jesus went a step further and indicated that not only should we lend without interest to a fellow believer, it should also be done in a manner that we did not even expect repayment.

At the heart of this matter is the understanding of the relationship between debt and debtor. In fact, if you look at these four situations (foreigners, widows, orphans, and debtors) you are looking at the description of a person before the come to know Christ. Phillip Ryken writes it this way:

Exodus—Saved for God's Glory As We Forgive Our Debtors

We were strangers in the world, alienated from God by our rebellion. We were widows and orphans, outside the family of God. We were debtors, impoverished by the stinginess of our own sinful hearts. But God loved us in Jesus Christ. Jesus became a man—a real human being—to end our estrangement. Everyone who believes in Jesus is welcomed into God’s family. We are no longer widows: The Bible describes the church as a beautiful bride for Christ (e.g., Rev. 21:2). We are no longer orphans, because through faith in Christ we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God the Father. God has even paid the debt that we owe for sin by sending Jesus to die on the cross.

When Jesus instructed His disciples on the manner in which they were to pray He included the statement “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” this is the KJV translation that we all learned by heart but in other translations we see the words debts and debtors replacing trespasses and trespass. If we cannot forgive, then have we truly been forgiven? God calls on us to have compassion on those who are less fortunate, those who are still strangers, still widows, still orphans, who have not been adopted as sons and daughters, who are not part of the bride of Christ. We demonstrate this compassion towards them, not because it is what they deserve, or because of some action on their part, we do so because of what God has done in us, for us and what He is doing through us.

Compassion to others, but Comprehensive Holiness to God

So far we have seen that in order to live a holy life before the Holy God we must be pure in our sexuality and in our worship and we must have compassion on those who are less fortunate but the text gives us one more truth that we must see when it comes to living that holy life and that is that the holiness must be pervasive. It is very tempting and easy to fall into the trap of simply following the rules, checking the boxes and making sure that we are being obedient to the letter of the law, however, this is how God expects that we respond to His word. The last few verses give us an indication of the response He expects.

First, our response is to honor the authorities that He has placed in our lives. Closely related to the 5th commandment, this truth requires that we honor those authorities, not because of something innate in them, but because they are the people that God has placed in those positions according to His sovereign will. This can be very difficult because those who have been placed into these positions are humans who have a fallen and broken nature. This is also not just the authority in the home and church but also in the secular world. One important thing to keep in mind regarding this is that this honoring of authority is because of God, not the individual in the postion. Consider Paul in Acts 23:3-5

Acts 23:3–5 LSB

Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?” But those standing nearby said, “Do you revile the high priest of God?” And Paul said, “I was not aware, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

Notice that Paul’s anger was in was in response to an order given by the high priest for Paul to be struck as verse two says, on the mouth. In fact, many of us would quickly say that this was a righteous anger because of the actions of the high priest, however, this is not Paul’s response. Our honoring depends on God and is in fact more about Honoring God and His sovereign will than it is the individual in the position.

Next we see that we are to give the very best of ourselves. The scripture speaks of first and best of the grain and grapes before God. Rightly we can show that this goes into a place where we are to give of the firstfruits of what God has given to use in the form of offerings, but more so it is about understanding the place of things and the place of God in our lives. God is the giver of all things, He owns all things, He created all things, by Him all things are held together so the return of what he first gave us is simply to keep Him at a aright place in our lives. Pastor and Theologian Voddie Baucham rightly explains it like this “God is not against you having things. He is against things having you.” As we understand the right place of the provisons of God as compared to God himself, we are not in danger of this happening. Notice also how deep this is to go in our lives. It is not just the possessions of life that are a gift from God and that we need to ensure we keep in their proper relation to the God who gives, but ALL that WE HAVE, even to our sons and daughters and all manner of things that we have been given by God!!

Lastly we come to a verse that seems small and insignificant and quite frankly just may not make a whole lot of sense to us. The first part of the verse contains the command we have been working with all morning, that we are to be holy before the Holy God, but then we are given this statement that because we are living holy before the Holy God we are not to eat meat that has been torn apart by animals…or in today’s vernacular, roadkill…why?

Again, this has do do with holiness and purity. In Leviticus 11 God will detail to the people the animals that are clean and unclean and they are forbidden to partake of the unlcean animals so that they will not be defiled. While this may seem small and insignificant to us, I believe that it is just that point that God is bringing to bear in His word…That those things, which may seem small and insignificant to us, things which may not matter to us, matter greatly to God