God is Holy
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The FencePost Project “Restoring the Boundary Line”
The FencePost Project “Restoring the Boundary Line”
Good morning! Today is a great day! We get to spend time in the presence of our savior! His mercies are new everyday. We are so grateful for all that He has done for us! There is a freedom that is found in Him. Have you ever had something surveyed? A piece of property or a dispute between people. When a surveyor sets out to define a boundary, they don’t just look at where the fence currently sits. They go back to the original plat the foundational document created by the one who first divided the land. They hunt for the 'monuments' iron stakes, concrete pins, or corner stones buried deep in the earth, set long ago by the master surveyor.
These markers aren't suggestions; they are the absolute truth of the property. They exist to define what is ours and to prevent us from encroaching on what isn't. When we are tempted to move a boundary line to suit our own convenience, we aren't just moving a marker. We are ignoring the original design.
God established the boundary markers for our lives long ago—principles of truth, morality, and purpose. When we attempt to move those markers to make our lives 'easier' or to fit our own desires, we lose the map of our own design. Just as a property becomes legally 'lost' when its boundaries are moved, we lose our way when we decide that our own version of the line is better than the one the Master Surveyor set in place.
Today we are beginning a series The FencePost Project “Restoring the Boundary Line.” We are going to be looking at 4 different post that the Lord put in place for us to always know where He expects things to be. There are 4 areas that I belive that God set in place that we must truly learn to abide by. I found this scripture extremely interesting and full believe that the wisest man that ever lived had some knowledge that we should pay attention to. This would have been written about 480+years after the boundary line was set
Do not remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.
Solomon was referring to the boundary line set by the patriarchs and the children of Israel as they were given the land possessions but God also set some boundaries in place that we must learn to follow. These FencePost are the markers that we must measure up against. We are going to treck through some passages that seem very redudant and very repetitive but they are creating the boundary line by which the children of the Lord should live. They are the markers by which we measure. Today we are going to begin by looking at the first fencepost and what I believe is the most important one. Without this post the others have no marker they just are. Without this post the purpose of the others fall apart. So today we are going to dive into the first fencepost God is Holy.
So lets begin by looking at the original fence post God put in the ground As I began to study I and was looking at surveying and I found that the first stone or marker must be set properly otherwise the entire property line will be crooked and years down the road could cause major issues because it was off from the beginning. So today as we look at the first fencepost of God is Holy It must be set properly and not done in such a way to make it common. That is the problem with today is we are willing to remove the old fencepost becuase well whats the point that doesn't matter but I fully believe that God is setting us up to know where the boundary line is and to walk according to it.
“Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs of the first year, day by day continually. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. With the one lamb shall be one-tenth of an ephah of flour mixed with one-fourth of a hin of pressed oil, and one-fourth of a hin of wine as a drink offering. And the other lamb you shall offer at twilight; and you shall offer with it the grain offering and the drink offering, as in the morning, for a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord. This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak with you. And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests. I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
Lets break this down for a moment. Everyday not on special holidays not on days where they were not doing anything else but on all days every day no matter where they were the weather the sports season it was to offered 2 lambs both a year old one in the morning with a grain offering and a drink offering and then one in the evening. This was a costly thing. Why would God ask them to sacrifice a lamb 2 lambs a day for generations?
First of all it served as a daily rhythm This was an act of worship. We understand that in the days of the OT The Lord was looked at as so holy that no one but he high priest could enter into the holy place and at that one time year. So bringing the offering twice a day became a clear reminder that God is holy and that we as sinful people do not have access to Him it created a bridge between God and His people note the scripture that I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. It was picture of God is holy. A.W. Tozer in the his book the knowledge of the holy says it like this
“A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well.”-A.W. TOZER
“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him ”-A.W. Tozer
When we look at God as holy we must understand that God is not just holy, he is not just good He is Holy it is His essence
Fire Bible Psalm 139
God is perfect and holy—that means he is pure and complete in character, totally without sin and absolutely right in everything he thinks and does
For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
Fire Bible Psalm 139
His holiness also includes his complete dedication to carrying out his plans and purposes—always for the highest good of humankind.
His holiness is perfect and He can’t change. Therefore It is his holiness that we must fear
Fire Bible Chapter 6
Fearing the Lord means to be in awe of his holiness, to give him complete reverence and to honor him as the God of great glory, majesty, purity and power. For example, when God revealed himself to the Israelites at Mount Sinai through “thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast,” they all “trembled” in fear
Fire Bible Chapter 6
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Fire Bible Chapter 6
Because of his great power. They even begged Moses to deliver God’s message to them so they would not have to encounter God himself (
Fire Bible Chapter 6
Psalm 33:8–9
Fire Bible Chapter 6
When we truly realize God’s holiness the normal response of the human spirit is to fear him.
Fear of the Lord is seeing God for Who He is and his holiness. The sacrifice that the people had to make daily was showing that God is holy and we are sinful and the only way we come to God is recognize His holiness.
The most common mistake we make is thinking that "holiness" means following a set of rules. A.W. Tozer, in The Knowledge of the Holy, shatters that idea:
"Holy is the way God is. To be holy, He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is."-A.W. Tozer
We have nothing in our human experience to compare this to. Everything we know every human, every object, every virtue is "created."
God is "uncreated." When we call Him holy, we are saying He is the only One who exists entirely on His own, needing nothing, and perfectly pure by nature. He doesn't try to be holy; He is the definition of holiness.
Tozer warns in his book that we have "learned to live with unholiness" and "come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing."
When we treat God like a "buddy" rather than a King, we have effectively moved the fence post.
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
We often talk about God’s holiness like it’s a beautiful, distant light. But Scripture describes it as a consuming fire.
Think about the Israelites at Mount Sinai. They didn't feel 'comfortable' in His presence—they trembled. They begged Moses,
“You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
Why? Because they instinctively understood that their own 'un-holiness' could not survive contact with His absolute, uncreated purity.
If you take a piece of ice and place it into a furnace, the ice doesn't 'negotiate' with the fire. The fire destroys the ice because the ice cannot exist in the presence of that much heat.
When we stand before a Holy God, our sin is like that ice. His holiness is the furnace. He doesn't try to destroy us; it is simply the nature of His purity to consume everything that is not pure.
This is why the Tamid the daily sacrifice was so radical. It was God’s gracious invitation to be near Him without being consumed. By providing the lamb, the grain, and the wine, He was creating a 'buffer zone'—a way for His glory to dwell among the people without His holiness obliterating them.
When we read that the tabernacle was 'sanctified by His glory' (Exodus 29:43 “And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory.” ),
We are reading about the Creator of the Universe lowering Himself so that He could live among His people. The weight of holiness isn't just that He is far away; it is that He is so great that His very presence requires a life of total consecration just to be in the same room."
Lets look at how Isaiah sees it
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”
Isaiah saw God in his holiness and his first response was woe is me.
We have unfortunately made God common. We have relegated God to a common place moment instead of keeping the fence post of His holiness we have made him just something else. There is so much about the Lord we have made common
God gave this command to Israel at MT. Sinai
“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.
Most people see this as saying something like OMG or GD however we must understand that is not just God’s name that is holy but God is holy. One commentary put it like this that everything about God is holy the entire thing his name, his words, his works, all of Him is holy. The Hebrew word for Take literally means to bear His name to take it as your own so when we are taking his name in vain we are an empty vessel pretending to carry a holy God in it.
No wonder the Scriptures say, “The Gentiles blaspheme the name of God because of you.”
People outside the faith aren't just looking at the Bible; they are looking at you. If your life, your speech, and your business practices are no different from the world’s, you are telling the world that God is not holy. You have effectively made His name "common" by making it look like your own common, sinful life. Christians and churches who do not wholly follow after God set a terrible example for those who do not know Christ. This gives those who are lost already more reason to slander Jesus’ name and reject his pursuing love toward them.
When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name—when they said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of His land.’ But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went. “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,” says the Lord God, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.
Israel was in exile and the nations around them didn’t blame Israel but were blaming God because he left them. He was not able to protect them. They had done exactly what God had commanded them not to do. They chased idols and brought sacrifices to the temple. They falsified their hearts cry. They used holy language but lacked holy commitment. The fencepost of God is Holy was no longer active in thier lives they had moved it to gain ground. They had moved it to create a space for “others to come in” I wholeheartedly believe that the church is guilty today of making God common that is what to profane means to make common. We have made God so common that peole will come and not feel convicted. We want all to be accepted all to be loved. We have moved the fencepost or torn it down all together but God is not asking you to move it. He was clear He is holy. Follow Him.
“Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the Lord. You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you,
God links "keeping My commandments" directly to "not profaning My name." He is essentially saying: If you want to keep My name holy, watch how you live. When we act as if God's laws are optional, we aren't just breaking a rule; we are telling the world that God is not holy
God is saying: I will be treated as distinct, set apart, and high above all others. When we "profane" (make common) His name, we are refusing to set Him apart. We are bringing Him down to our level of commonness, and God says, "I will not have that." He insists on being treated as holy.
God doesn't just demand we be holy; He says, I am the one who makes you holy. He provides the ability to honor His name.
The Fencepost that say’s God is Holy is the beginning because it is the most important. Everything depends on it to hold weight. Everything rest upon that principle God is holy. The Israelites had to bring the daily sacrifice as a recognition of God’s holiness. This was not because God needed their year old lambs but this was about allowing them to see how important God was how Holy he was. It was actually kept from hundreds of years from Moses to Ezra this daily sacrifice was upheld. It eventually became a ritual and was common. This is not the purpose to make it a we do this because we have to but there was a deep understanding that God is Holy. When we make him common we remove the cornerstone of the foundation. we remove the thing it sits on.
How do we check to see if we have profaned his name?
"If God is just a 'better version' of us, then why do we bow?
If His holiness isn't absolute, we aren't worshiping a Creator—we’re just debating an opinion."
"We claim to fear God, but we ignore His boundaries.
We claim to serve Him, but we live for ourselves.
If He isn't the 'Consuming Fire' that should make us tremble, then stop calling Him 'Lord.' A Lord gives orders. A Lord sets the lines.
If you aren't listening to His boundaries, you aren't serving Him—you’re just using Him."
"When you prioritize your comfort over His character, you aren't worshiping God; you’re worshiping your own opinion of Him.
If God isn't the holy standard that defines truth, then you’re not a believer you’re just a fan of your own reflection. Why are you wasting your time at the altar?"
So today we are going to check the heart of the matter right here. Lets lay some ground rules out for this.
1.) God is holy we are not
2.) We can not be holy but He makes us holy
3.) When we come to him we must bring ourselves.
4.) If you are not wiling to sacrifice yourself do not come to the altar
5.) Once this is set in your life you are going to see how everything else lines up
6.) This is not a cry for repentance but once you see God as holy you will see the need for repentance.
ALTAR
Salvation
Rededication
Repentance for moving the line
God set yourself as Holy in our lives.
This means we stop making excuses. WE start living as if He is holy God. Your character your words your life your actions must represent that. You must choose to say If God is holy then I will carry it in such a way.
SO today we set this boundary in our lives this fencepost of God is Holy.
