Let me ask you a question. What comes into your
mind when you hear the word holy? I mean, what
do you think of when you think God is holy? Is
it candles? Is it incense? Is it unattainable
perfection? Well, here's the deal. How can we
be holy if we can't even define it? Stay with
me. Welcome to this weekend edition of Living
on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of
this daily program is to intentionally disciple
Christians through the insightful Bible teaching
of Chip Ingram. Thanks for being with us as we
highlight another program from our current series,
The Real God, How He Longs for You to See Him.
Today we're revisiting Chip's message on God's
holiness as he offers a perspective on this attribute
that you may not have considered before. So if
you're ready, go to Hebrews chapter 12 in your
Bible as we join Chip for his message, The Holiness
of God. I'd like to take you back to Exodus 19.
And imagine if you literally were filming and
watching and think, I'm always, I guess something
about me is always drawn to when God does something
the first time. Seems to me that it's very instructive.
After 400 years, people don't have a clue of
who God is. How does he introduce himself? What
does he want them to know about him first? Exodus
19 opens up and it says after two months. So
they've been in the wilderness for 60 days. And
God says to Moses, I want to introduce myself
to my people that I have redeemed. These will
be my people. And it's that picture. And if you
can just imagine, you know, panning with your
camera. And seeing 2 million people, maybe you're
up high so you have a great view. And 2 million
people on this boundary. And then seeing this
smoke billow. And then fire. And then, you know,
it's hard to keep a good picture because the
ground is shaking. Because there's an earthquake.
And you watch people fall on their face before
God. And this thundering voice. I guess I would
ask you if you were doing a documentary and someone
said, This God has just introduced himself to
his people. What's he like? I'm guessing it would
not be something like, oh, he's the man upstairs.
He's my homeboy. We have embraced an evangelical
Christianity in our desire to move away from
dead ritual, in our desire to know that Jesus
is our friend. And God, though being transcendent,
is eminent. We have lost much in our tradition,
and I would say even in our music, a sense of
the holiness of God, the purity of God, the righteousness
of God. And when you see that he's holy, here's
what you get. You're not. You're not at all.
Your righteousness is like filthy rags, and so
is mine. Your motives, your thoughts, your best
days. The word holy, set apart, distinct, different,
separate. The word literally means a cut above.
He's in a category. The word holy is he is other.
There's not a category for him. And when you
come into the presence of a holy God, you are
undone. And I don't see many Christians or many
churches very often undone in the presence of
God. I think some of the older traditions. actually
helped us grasp God's holiness. Unfortunately,
he became a distant, cold God who we would reach
him through significant rituals, which was never
the intent. But what you find out in church history
is the pendulum swings this way, then it swings
this way. Here's what I want to tell you. It
needs to swing back this way. We need to know
that... Jesus is my friend and that he loves
me and he accepts me just as I am. And he's tenderhearted
and quick of sympathy. But the morality of the
average Christian in the evangelical church would
scream, I don't believe he's holy. You'll notice
on the front of your notes, Tozer would write,
we know nothing like the divine holiness. It
stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible,
and unattainable. I mean, there's a lot of uns
in there. The natural man is blind to it. He
may fear God's power and admire his wisdom, but
his holiness, he cannot even imagine. The first
time we see this concept of holiness is right
after the Red Sea is parted, and there's a song
that Moses sings, and this song, we'll learn
later, is sung currently in heaven, and notice
the song is, who among the gods is like you,
O Yahweh? Who is like you? Answer, no one. Majestic
in, what's the first word? Holiness. The word
majestic is the idea of exponential multiplying
in holiness. Awesome in glory, working wonders.
My best personal definition of holiness is it's
both his majesty and moral purity. It's the absolute
absence of evil. It encompasses what's pure,
holy, righteous. The English root word for holiness
has the idea of wholeness or soundness. It encompasses
the idea of health. And so to be holy isn't just
candles and a black robe and singing special
songs with a very low voice with low lights.
It's about the wholeness or the purity of the
universe that brings life and brings health because
as God is, he wants us to become. And so not
obviously in his essence, but in our character
that we would be holy like he's holy. How has
God revealed his holiness? In English, when we
want to talk about degrees, we say someone is
good. And then we say, oh, someone else is better.
And then we say someone else is best. Good, better,
best. In Hebrew, the way you talk about things
is you repeat it. So in Hebrew, only one time
God has called something holy, holy. You see
it in Isaiah 6. You see it in Revelation 4. You
see it in Revelation 5. The outstanding character
of God is his otherness, his complete purity,
his unapproachable light. He's holy, holy, holy.
When angelic beings that... have never sinned,
are in his presence, they cover their eyes, they
cover their feet, and they fly, and they perpetually
say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, who is, and who is to come. And so I
just want you to get this majestic picture, and
then I'm going to just highlight how it shows
up in scripture. And I've given you the passages
for your study. First, through supernatural encounters,
Moses meets God, John meets God, Daniel meets
God. Isaiah meets God. And here's all I want
to say. Whenever you see someone meet God in
Scripture, they're undone. Bam, they're on their
face. They're undone. And so the question I have
to ask myself and you is, when is the last time
you were in the presence of God and just you
were undone of the distance between what you
know He's like and how you begin to see yourself?
Second, he reveals his holiness through places.
What you need to know is wherever God is, it
instantly becomes holy. It can be a bush, it's
holy. It can be just a tent, you call it a tabernacle,
and his presence comes, it's holy. It can be
a temple that people build, it's holy. Wherever
God's presence is, it becomes holy. Third, the
way he reveals his holiness is through the law.
The first four commands, are all about the distinctiveness,
the holiness of God. Have no other gods because
there aren't any. And then no graven images.
Don't reduce me. Don't make a picture of me.
Don't have an idol. Don't in any way try and
reduce me in some form. My name is holy because
it's my character. Don't misuse my name. Don't
make vows in my name. This Sabbath, there's this
gift I've given to man that supernaturally when
I got done, I stopped to pause and for 24 hours,
I want you to know I'm giving you a gift so that
you will be separate, you'll be distinct, you'll
be different. You'll accomplish in six days what
takes other people seven and you will rest and
pause so that you'll know the last six days were
my hand upon you and you will pause to remember.
This is God. Remember the Sabbath to keep it
holy. And then the next six commands on the second
tablet are about health and holiness in relationships.
In other words, the path of holiness, Isaiah
would talk about the highway of holiness. There's
a path of holiness that you walk on, but the
result is health and wholeness for you and for
relationships. So if you want healthy, whole
relationships, Honor your mom and dad, don't
lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery, and
don't covet. Those are the parameters around
holy relationships with one another. For the
health of God's universe and his people. The
prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, I just
put a few down. I mean, prophets' job was pretty
simple. Stop worshiping idols. Name your prophet.
Here's the message. Stop worshiping idols. Because
we all do. You're listening to Living on the
Edge. We'll return you to today's message in
just a second. But let me quickly ask you, do
you often find it difficult to read and understand
God's Word? If so, join us after today's program
as Chip talks about our useful resource, Daily
Discipleship with Chip. This tool has helped
tens of thousands of people study the Bible and
develop a deeper connection to God. Stick around
to learn how to sign up. Well, with that, let's
rejoin Chip for the remainder of his message.
But God is holy. He's distinct. And so the prophet's
job was simple, to afflict the comfortable and
to comfort the afflicted. They were always intervening.
You don't understand. God's available. It's your
sin. It's what's happened. It's where you are.
He wants to help. That's what the prophets kept
saying. And to the people who acted like they
didn't need him, they had some pretty harsh stuff.
Through wrath and judgment, this may sound odd,
but the holiness of God demands that just like
a great surgeon would see cancer that needs to
be operated on, I'm telling you, these doctors,
they're heartless. They really are. My wife had
cancer. That guy didn't feel bad. He took a little
sharp knife. He's got a huge scar. Pulled out
that, pulled out a bunch of lymph glands. He
didn't feel bad about it at all. Why? Because
it was killing her. God, when he sees that which
is killing you, killing a nation, destroying
what he has made, He brings his righteous wrath
and judgment. Acts chapter 5. Think about it.
The very first sin in the church was what? Remember?
It was hiding money, but the heart of it was
hypocrisy. It was their money. They didn't have
to do anything with it. But remember, the goal
was Barnabas had given a generous gift from the
heart, and a lot of people were going, isn't
Barnabas wonderful? And I think Ananias and Sapphira
said, we want our cake and eat it too. We want
people to think this about us, but we don't want
to be that generous. And so what we're going
to do is we're going to make up a story that,
you know, we sold it for X amount and we gave
it all. And the fact of the matter is, you know,
we put the other in a CD over here, relatively
speaking. And I mean, now think of this. It's
the very first sin recorded in the New Testament.
Why did Satan cause you, you know, to lie to
the Holy Spirit? Satan has filled your heart.
What was the consequences? He died. Do you think
that sent a message through the early church?
Or, you know, I'm thinking about becoming a Christian.
You want to become in that group? I don't know.
I'll tell you what, authenticity was a pretty
high value in the early church. You don't have
to have it together, but you better not fake
it. But what you see, it's just God declares
his holiness. See, we're living in a day where
we actually think that the commands of God are
like an optional kind of vending machine or salad
bar. You know, 10 commandments, I'm good with.
One, two, four, seven, and nine. Could I get
that to go? But really, it's like we've got a
whole generation in evangelical churches with
one of those little knives that, well, you know,
this one about sexual purity, that's pretty Victorian.
You know, on this one about greed, I mean, you
know, we're, no, we're not. And so once it happens,
we're enough people, we look at one another.
And since we're all, quote, are sort of fudging,
and people that we respect, well, I really respect
so -and -so, and he or they do this or they do
that. And then pretty soon, it's like a little
cancer and disease. And then the culture of God's
people, we're no longer distinct. And what I
can tell you is part of what God will do is he'll
bring that velvet vice. I mean, 1 Corinthians
11, this isn't new. Some in the early church,
the wealthy would come and they would eat and
they would marginalize the poor and they were
disgracing the Lord's table. And 1 Corinthians
11 says, for this reason, some of you are sick,
judgment, and some of you are asleep. It's a
technical term in the New Testament for a believer
who's died. I'll tell you what, if you were in
a church where some people died because of their
greed and lack of concern for other believers
with the Lord's Supper, I'll tell you what, my
behavior would change. So where's that God today?
I don't think he's changed. I would suggest that
we as Christians often blame the media, education,
some political party. When the salt gets unsalty
and when the light gets dim, the culture just
follows. The shift in the culture is not going
to happen externally. It's going to happen like
it always has, inside out. It'll be normal people
like us that live holy lives. And then we all
have little networks of relationships. And some
of you have really big ones. And you'll just
get bold. And by the way, pretty soon it's not
going to matter. So you might as well be bold
now. They're going to whack you. You're going
to become more and more unpopular. And by the
way, what we know historically is probably good.
When they got rid of all the missionaries in
China and they were persecuted, they went from
a few million to 100, 120 million today. In Greece,
Germany, we have some very important relationships
there. What's happening among the refugees because
of ISIS? I am telling you, tens of thousands
of people are coming to Christ. Christians who
are persecuted, this is historically always true.
God will purify His church, and He's probably
going to do that to some degree, and maybe to
a big degree in America. So we need to get our
chin strap on and realize this is the spiritual
NFL and we want to gain yards. And people who
want to gain yards realize when you come through
and if it's a good little hole, bam, you get
hit by a linebacker. Well, you don't go, oh,
what happened? We've got to quit thinking that
somehow that we are living in a culture that
is positive toward our faith and our belief,
and now we're going to have to learn to love
people and be kind to people and respond to people
because good is more powerful than evil as we
lay out our convictions and live out a life that's
radically different than probably ever before.
Because the America that you live in now is not
the America that was 50, 60 years ago. that was
very sympathetic, that shared the values. You're
now intolerant, narrow bigots because you believe
Jesus is the answer and that there's absolute
truth. And there's absolute truth about life
and about eternity and about morality. Now, the
danger is championing that in a way where you're
hard -headed, legalistic, self -righteous, saying
that we're better than other people. We've done
that before. That didn't work. We need to do
it the way Jesus did. We need to live this amazing
life before our world that's pure and righteous
and take a strong stand and then have people
who think that we're the enemies be absolutely
astounded. Why are we driving them to the doctor?
Why are we loving people that outwardly hate
us? Why do we give good instead of evil? Because
that is what turns the life around. And that's
how holiness brings health. His son, obviously,
the Lord Jesus, a holy birth, his pure sinless
life. We get the sneak preview of his holiness
where the transfiguration, his unholy death.
You understand that all, I mean, this is a great
theological truth. 2 Corinthians 5 .21 is that.
When Jesus was hanging on the cross and he said,
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Do
you understand what was happening? For the first
time in all eternity, God the Father turned away
from God the Son, and there was a break in the
fellowship in the singular God, but in the person
of the Father and the person of the Son, because
in that... Moment of time, your sin and my sin
and the sin of all people of all time was placed
on Christ and he became our sin offering and
he became sin on our behalf. He carried the weight
of it all. And then the just wrath of God, the
just anger of God for all sin of all people was
placed on Christ and he atoned, he covered it.
There's something so beautiful, so powerful,
and there's something about the holiness of God
that scares you to death. There's such power,
and yet there's beauty. And I think that's what
the men and women of old, when they got a snapshot
of God, and it changed them. This is Living on
the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening
to Part 1 of Chip's message, The Holiness of
God, from our series, The Real God. Chip will
be back shortly to share some helpful application
for us to think about. You know, we've all unintentionally
projected some of humanity's worst qualities
into our Creator. Many view God as moody, weak,
unfair, impatient, and merciless. But those ideas
couldn't be further from the truth. Through this
series, Chip explores key Bible passages to reveal
seven fundamental characteristics of our Heavenly
Father, attributes that reflect the very essence
of His divine nature. Join Chip on this journey
to reshape your perspective toward God, which
will deepen your relationship with Him like never
before. You won't want to miss a single part
of this study. Well, before we go on, Chip's
joined me in studio now to share something with
all of you. Thanks, Dave. I'll be right back
to share a few final thoughts for this message.
But let me pause and ask you a direct question.
How do you see yourself? And more importantly,
how do you think God sees you? So often we believe
lies about ourselves based in shame and guilt
or insecurities. And I want to give you a divine
mirror to see yourself the way God sees you.
Let me encourage you to sign up for our daily
discipleship series, Discover Your True Self,
based in Ephesians chapters 1 through 3. This
is a free video resource where you and I will
study the Word together for 20 minutes a day,
10 minutes with me, and then 10 minutes on your
own. I promise that if you'll join me on this
20 -day adventure through Ephesians, you'll break
through the lies that we all believe about ourselves.
You'll get God's perspective on who you really
are, and you'll build a life -changing habit
of meeting with God. I sure hope you'll check
it out. Thanks, Chip. To learn more about our
daily Discipleship with Chip series, Discover
Your True Self, go to livingontheedge .org. This
free video tool will help you ignore the lies
the enemy tries to tell you and embrace the unique,
cherished person God created. Again, to sign
up for this or any of our other daily discipleship
series, go to livingontheedge .org. App listeners,
tap discipleship. We'll hear again as Chip with
a few final words to wrap up this program. I
don't know about you, but Tozer's words haunt
me. He said, We know nothing like the divine
holiness. Left to myself, I reduce God and I
take this high and holy and majestic God and
I make him small. And instead of comparing myself
to his holiness, I tend to find other Christians
that are a little less holy than me and I compare
myself to them. And yet when I gaze, when I get
those brief moments where I gaze into the absolute
purity and the sinlessness and the power of a
holy God, it crushes me. How about you? What
went through your mind when I described what
the human heart is like? What mid -course corrections
might you need to make in light of the holiness
and the purity of God? You know, maybe you're
like me, and maybe you need to repent of a low,
casual view of God that you don't mean to have,
but you've just slipped into. Maybe you need
to remember that though God is eager to be our
friend, that he is immortal, invisible, the only
wise God, that he dwells in unapproachable light,
and he and he alone is holy. Almighty God, would
you please forgive us today as you listen to
our voice at this moment for reducing you, for
making you like us. Lord, we say that you are
totally other and pure, and we ask today that
you would help us to see you accurately and then
live appropriately. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
Thanks, Chip. Let me take a quick second before
we go and thank the generous people who support
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If you haven't partnered with us, would you prayerfully
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You can set up a monthly donation at livingontheedge
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-333 -6003 or visit livingontheedge .org. App
listeners tap donate. You've been listening to
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The Real God, go to livingontheedge .org or wherever
you listen to podcasts. Until next time, I'm
Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this
weekend edition of Living on the Edge.