Morning, church. It's good to see all of you. We are in the last one of the God is series. I gotta admit, the, like, eighties part of me is gonna miss that intro. I'm just saying, eight weeks of that's been getting me fired up.

But we're gonna be in psalm 99 together today. And this final piece of the series about God is his attributes, his nature, what it is about him that we're trying to understand. And you may have already picked up on the theme, if you have it by the end of it, you definitely will. And that is that God is holy. That he is holy.

And this is an interesting word. This is a word that we're really going to dig in and unpack today. But I want to remind you of something, that the reason in which we're doing this series and the reason that you ought to, in your time, study the word and be with the Lord and follow him and try to pursue him and who he is and his attributes, the reason you should do that is because the Bible says that is, in fact, where true life is. That your eternal purpose, in fact, more than anything, is to know God and to walk with him. You were created for that primary purpose, to be his son or daughter and to walk with him.

And so knowing him, there's no better pursuit. In fact, the word of God in John 17 says, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you've sent. So knowing him, not just knowing about him, really knowing God, and that's a lifelong pursuit. It's a well that never runs dry. It is a deep and deep cavern that there's really no bottom to because our God is so, so great.

And we've talked over the last few weeks if you missed any of these, they're all posted online about his mercy and his love and the fact that he's a father and that he's unchanging, he's faithful. All these wonderful things we've talked about, it seemed appropriate to end with this thing that really sets him apart. In fact, the word holy truly means set apart, consecrated for specific use. So why is it important today to consider God's holiness? You may even be thinking, perhaps some of you, that sometimes this word holy can be kind of used negatively.

In fact, if somebody tells you that you are holier than thou, that is not a compliment. I don't know if you've ever gotten that before. Generally, what they mean when they say that to you is that you are judgmental, that you think you're self righteous. You know that you're better than others. That's not a good thing to hear.

They may even think that you're a hypocrite when you say certain things. And so you may have some trouble with this word holy. I think our culture has certainly a lot of trouble with this word holy. But the thing is, there's old Testament evidence as well as New Testament evidence. As for the fact that we should be holy, in fact, Leviticus says what?

First Peter then reiterates, and it says, this, be holy, church Christian. Be holy. Why? For I, God, am holy. Be holy, for I am holy.

This is a repeated phrase. It's not just like you can't look at it and go, eh. He meant that for those following the ten Commandments. No, no, no. Holiness is about being set apart for use, for being set apart for ceremonial use by the father, by the Lord, and that's for all of us.

So what does it mean then, that God is holy? I want to give you a couple of commentators on this. There was a puritan preacher named Thomas Watson. I had not read much of his stuff till this week. He wrote this.

He said, holiness is the most sparkling jewel of his crown. It is, in fact, the name by which God is known, holy. Rl Dabney wrote, holiness is to be regarded not as a distinct attribute, but as the result of all of God's moral perfection together. In other words, it describes how great, how supreme, how high, how altogether other separate that he is. In fact, when I was in seminary, when describing holy, often the seminary professor would say, this means that he is holy.

Other that is w h o l l y, other that is God is distinct and separate, and yet at the same time has called us into this kind of holiness. So as we talked over the last few weeks, this is both a communicable attribute, something that God passes on through the spirit to us. But at the same time, we only get it in a bite size. We are the little bite sized versions of what God's doing in his holiness. And so consider this.

When the Bible really wants to emphasize something, it'll repeat it. It'll repeat it again and again. Certainly the Bible has repeated this, be holy, for I am holy. But it's done some other repetition around holiness that is unique. It's just unique to holy.

There are some passages I want to remind you of a few weeks ago. I think it might have been when we were in Habakkuk, or maybe recently when we were in the Old Testament. But there's some places where the Hebrew says that something will surely die, like Genesis, chapter two, it says, when you eat of this, you will surely die. The way the Hebrew breaks that down is it's literally the same word twice. To take it literally, the Hebrew says, you will die, die.

And that is to emphasize the fact that you will experience this. This is a definite thing. And Jesus kind of picks this way of speaking up. You'll notice all through the gospels, jesus saying, truly, truly, truly, truly. I say to you, that means what I'm about to tell you is of utmost importance.

This is a true, true statement. Many times throughout the scriptures you'll see these duplicated phrase. But there's only one phrase that's tripled. I learned a cool word this week. Some of you are into words.

Some of you are like, you're boring me with this every week. Jonathan, please stop. But for those of you who are weird like me, here's a new word. He's the trihagion. All right, cool word, huh?

Not hag. Like, oh, she's a hag. No, hagios means holy in Greek. So the trihagion is the three. Holy.

This is the only word in the Bible that when it describes God, it says he is holy, holy, holy. Which means there's something unique about this thing. Oh, truly, truly and surely die. And these duplicated phrases. But this is the only one.

Never does it ever say that God is love, love, love. That God is mercy, mercy, mercy. No, it says he is holy, holy, holy. That's interesting. Something worthy of our study, don't you think?

So we're gonna be in psalm 99 today. We're gonna read that whole psalm. Good news. It's only nine verses and it's a powerful psalm. I'm very excited to be digging in.

This one really spoke to me this week. We see here the psalmist. Many writers think this is King David, one of his psalms, but there's no autograph for certainty. But the psalmist here called worshippers to praise. The response to God's holiness here is to praise him.

He's called them to praise that when we look at who he is, it should cause us to praise him and worship him. And we can do this as well as we look into this. So how do we praise him for his holiness? What is it about him that causes us to praise? I think we're going to see three clear ways we can praise God for his holiness.

So here we are, psalm 99. Let's go. It says in verse one, the Lord reigns. Let the people tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim.

Let the earth quake. The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Listen to this phrase.

It's going to be repeated. Holy is he. The king in his might loves justice. You, O Lord, have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.

Exalt the Lord our God. Worship at his footstool. Holy is he. Moses and Aaron were among the priests. Samuel also was among those who called upon his name.

Hey, they called to the Lord, and he answered them in the pillar of the cloud. He spoke to them. They kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. O Lord our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.

Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain. For the Lord our God is holy. God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Holy is he.

We can praise God for his holiness first by recognizing his great majesty. By recognizing his great majesty. Now this is a beautiful song. Is broken up purposely in three parts, which makes it great for preaching, just so you know. Makes it easy on me, because he does three things.

He does three conclusions of holy is he, holy is he. And then the Lord our God is holy. These concluding verses tell us these are little stanzas that are meant to be Sungdez. The psalms again are songs to be sung coming up to the temple in various places. This one, I think, had three verses, three choruses, if you will, that ended in holy is he.

And the first little grouping are the first three verses about his majesty, the greatness of his kingship, of his reigning. This is what's going on here in these first three. Now, I want to remind you, if you've got an ESV like me, a bible, maybe, some of the other translations. Don't do this. I like one thing the ESV does is every time the word Lord appears and it's the word Yahweh, it'll be in all caps.

And that's purposeful to tell you that this is God's covenantal name, his big boy name. Like, there's a lot of names of God, but this is the one that they didn't even want to say out loud. They would often say Adonai or something else in its place, because this name was considered to be so holy and set apart. So here it says, yahweh, the Lord reigns. That is, he is king.

Simply put, he's in charge. He's reigning over all things. I don't know what you are observing, what you think is going on, but he has never stepped off his throne. He has reigned all through, and it will never not reign. So the response to that, then, are some interesting things.

Let the people tremble. I don't know if you ever think that of God. I don't. I've had a few experiences in my life where I kind of tried to approach God, feeling a sense of maybe I was being wronged. You ever approached God and felt like, you know, I've been slighted.

I've been done wrong, Lord, and kind of approached him like, what are you doing up there? Almost like, job. If you ever read the story of job, and I've gotten a similar response, says job, and that is almost feeling like there's somebody big in the room kind of mushing me a little bit, like, with just, like one little thumb just pressing on my head. And I think that's what job kind of felt here is. He's.

He's saying, God, why is all this stuff happening? You sent me some miserable friends, by the way, Lord. I mean, this is terrible. And here's God's response is, where. Where were you when I put the.

The Leviathan and the. Where were you, old job, when I did all this stuff, like, big presence in the room all of a sudden? If you've ever experienced that, that's kind of the idea I felt when I read this is let the peoples tremble. When you know that God's in charge and he is almighty and he is majestic and he is all powerful, you feel this sense of weight, it may cause you to tremble. That is, this word simply means to quake, to be agitated.

Maybe the Quakers were right all that time, if you ever studied them, huh? They weren't right about everything. Study the Quakers sometime, y'all. But side note, let the peoples tremble. And then it goes on and says that he is enthroned upon the cherubim.

That is perhaps better translated, that he is enthroned between the cherubim. Pop up this image really quick for me. This is the ark of the covenant. I think this is what the psalmist has in mind here. That place there is called the mercy seat.

That is on top of this is the mercy seat where who sits? God, the Holy Spirit of God, resides on this. In this place. Now, something unique has happened in us because of Christ Jesus. And that is the Holy Spirit now resides and abides in us.

But until the Lord came, his spirit was in one location. He had made this tabernacle where the holy of holy was. Holy of holies was. Was the place in which he resided on earth. Now he resides in us.

This is a fascinating, amazing thing he has done in Christ Jesus. But the psalmist here is saying, look, he is enthroned upon or between the cherubim. His spirit resides in this place. So let all of the earthquake. Now, I could tell you a whole bunch of stories about what happens when this thing gets moved around in the world and what it causes the earth to do.

I'll give you a couple of hints. There's this one story where some of the neighboring tribes stole the ark from the Israelites, and we're trying to hang on to it for a bit. It caused some of their gods to literally fall over in the temple. One of them was named Dagon. I like to say old Dagon Dagon.

But it literally made their gods fall and bow before it. And then it started causing disease and boils and weird things to be happening. And so they said, we got to get this thing out of here. And so they just put it on a cart and sent it on, and then they said, hey, if it starts moving back towards Jerusalem, then clearly Yahweh needs this thing back. And sure enough, that's exactly what it did.

And then it gets into Israel, and they had forgotten what to do with this thing, and they just start unpacking, and everybody there died, everybody that touched it. It's crazy stories. It's wild. He says, let the earth quake. In fact, if this is King David, he knows full well one story, and that is he was trying to bring it back to Jerusalem, but they weren't quite carrying it right.

They're supposed to carry it by these handles, and they put it up on an ox cart, and a wheel hit something, and one of his servants touched it. Bye. This is an amazing thing. He says, no, let the earth quake. The holy spirit of God resides on earth.

He is reigning. He is majestic. It says, he is great in Zion. In this holy place. Zion is often called Jerusalem.

But this is meant to be more than that. Zion being the eternal home. He is exalted over all those peoples. Let them praise his great name. So here you get the response that the people would tremble.

Sure, that's the obvious response to a great king. That the earth would quake is an obvious response to this amazing spirit of God in this place. But our response, believers in the room, when you see this, when you notice God and his holiness, praise, give thanks, confess, profess the name of God. What? That he's great, that he's awesome, that he's holy.

If you have a king James this morning, a King James version, you'll notice it says, let them praise your great and terrible name. Now terrible has come to mean different things. Now it really doesn't mean a positive thing anymore. But that's really the closest definition to this word, is that this thing is so impressive that it's almost terrifying. The Greek uses this phrase phobos, where we get phobia, and that's often negative.

But this is the idea that I've got a certain awe and reverence of God that I know he can do as he pleases. And I would like to be on his team. I don't want to be against him. I want to be for him. Praise his great and awesome name.

Holy is he. So several times here we have the word holy. Now, when you think of holy, when we started this whole idea that God is holy, I would imagine the kinds of stuff that come to your mind are about moral perfection, that God is pure, that God does not do evil, that God is, his motivations are pure. His holiness, for a lot of us, when we think of it, is about this sinlessness and purity and righteousness. And that's true.

That stuff's true about God. But the word holy really isn't talking about that. I want to give you one commentator, because he put this better than really I could. He says, God's holiness is what separates him from all other beings. It's what makes him separate and distinct from everything else.

God's holiness is more than just his perfection or sinless purity. It is the essence of his otherness, his transcendence, that God's holiness embodies the mystery of his awesomeness and causes us to gaze in wonderland at him as we begin to comprehend just a little of his majesty. So, friends, holiness is about distinction, transcendence. So when you're called to holiness and you think that it simply means moral ethics and sinlessness, I want you to understand something. You can't do that.

That type of holiness only comes by the spirit of God in your life. When you follow him closely, his righteousness is imputed on you. You get to walk in the spirit and live that sense of moral holiness. But this word holy really has to do with the fact that I'm going to look at the world and the culture and I'm going to decide I am not part of it. That's what holiness is really about.

When he says, be holy, for I am holy, he is asking. He is inviting you to say, I will be different, too. God is outside of his creation. Jesus. When he comes.

In fact, he tells the Pharisees, he says, you guys are from below. I'm from above. You are of this world. I'm not of this world. That's what he tells them.

And now he's calling us to make that decision. Be holy, for I am holy means I'm going to be okay with the fact that I'm not going to look like my neighbor. My neighbor is chasing all kinds of dreams. And maybe my coworker, my family members, they're trying to hunt for wealth and power, and maybe it's all wrapped around. They just.

It's a hunt. There's this american hunt for happiness. I just want to be happy. That's not holiness. Holiness is I just want to be like you, Lord.

Which means I'm going to separate myself from everything else. And guess what? That will do. That will indeed make you pure. That will make you righteous, because you're walking with him and separating yourself from everything of this fallen world.

Be holy, for I am holy. He says, now, you can take that way too far. And that's not the goal of this sermon today, because Paul says, in another place, you know, that I am all things to all men, so that I might reach some. So it's not the sense that I'm literally. We used to call this rabbit hole Christianity, that we would stay down in our little burrows, pop up on Sundays, and go, hey, guys, we're at church together.

And then throughout the week, we better homeschool. We better do upwards, everything. We better be very careful. And I'm not saying any of that's bad. That's good.

Don't hear me say, hey, you are the worst. I'm saying there's this tendency, as christians, to say anything of this world. It's dangerous. If I peek out there and go, whoa, it's still bad up there. That's rabbit hole Christianity.

All right, so that's not the idea here. This is rather that you would walk in this world, but know that you are separate. That you would walk amongst your coworkers and among your. Your lost family members. But you would know that I am walking in the spirit of God, which separates me.

It makes me holy and separate. I hope you see the difference. After God brought Moses and the Israelites safely across the Red Sea, they sang this kind of song. They said, who is like you, O Lord among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome and glorious deeds, doing wonders we want to be like you.

Saying that God is holy is saying that God is in a category, all of himself. This is what Samuel writes in one Samuel, there is none holy like the Lord. There's none beside you. There is no rock like our God. Now, we just sang basically that line.

Consider the prophet Isaiah's response. In fact, this was almost my home text, everybody. I liked it so good. But Isaiah six is this wonderful passage that I kind of feel like Isaiah in at times. It says, in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted up in the train of his robe.

It filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings, and two he covered his face, two he covered his feet, and the other two he flew. And one called to another and said, this holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called. And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, as I think any of us would, woe is me, for I am lost. 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.

When you have an encounter with the living God, when you have an encounter with him, this is probably your response. But his response to you is, I think, just the same as it was to Isaiah. He gets a tong of, like a hot coal out, puts it on his tongue. Sorry. You're good.

Now you're a man of unclean lips. We'll fix that. Oh, you're from a people of unclean lips. I'm sending you to them to prophesy in my name.

I love this. I love this story because it tells us a couple of things about the fact that God is disturbingly powerful. He causes us to tremble. When we look at his holiness. We go, whoa, this is out of this world.

But at the same time, he's deeply involved in this little life we're living. That's an amazing thing, that he is completely separate and totally powerful in something other than anything we've ever experienced. And yet, at the same time, he's involved in my life, in little old rocky mount, little old me. That makes no sense. And yet it's true.

Isaiah beheld God's great majestic holiness. He recognized the Lord and cried out, woe is me. I'm lost. And God brings him in. I pray you can see this first thing that he's reigning, that he's this great majesty.

So praise his name. And then the second is this. Praise him because by understanding his moral perfection, I love this little centerpiece. This is the middle verse, the second verse in the line, the king is in his might, loves justice. God has established equity.

I don't know that our founding fathers were looking at this verse at all. I kind of doubt that. But it's interesting that, like, the whole three branches of government are on display in these two verses. I know, weirdo. This is the weirdo, you know, that looks at everything, every word, and goes, huh?

I see the judicial branch and the executive branch and. Yeah, that's not you. And you're normal. The king, in his might, loves justice. Judicial.

He has established equity. He makes laws and he executes them. So at least for us, we can fully understand that God, he is king, he is in charge. He makes the laws, he executes the laws. And he does all this justly.

Now, I don't know if you've been walking around our current world lately or saw the news yesterday. Some wild stuff is going on in our nation. I don't think it could be argued that so many of our, you know, people in charge love justice. I don't think that's a valid argument, personally. You do what you will with it.

I just think there's some people up there that really like their own pockets and like to fill them. And this is, when we look at this God, we look at something that's other. When we look at the holiness of God, we have to understand something. He is totally separate from any human government that's ever been or ever will be. He's perfect.

His might loves justice. He's established this equity of things. This is an amazing thought. That is the sense that everything is level. That it is even so that when he looks at me.

Oh, yeah, he's called me to be up here preaching. And you might think, oh, well, you know, Jonathan's gonna get a bigger whatever. No, no. It says he has established equity. He looks at all of us with the same love.

He is personal and involved in every one of our lives in the same way. It's more about our response to him than it is his to us. He is equal. He loves justice. So what do you do with that?

You exalt the Lord, it says in verse five, and you worship at his footstool. This law of God is a revelation, really, of his holiness and of his moral perfection. That is the word of God itself. Romans seven says, the law itself is holy. The commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Jesus goes a whole lot further with this, says that the law of God speaks to our motives and our attitudes. Using the word perfect in place of holy, he says in Matthew five, he says, therefore, you must be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. In fact, you could easily argue Jesus is again reciting this famous phrase, be holy, for I am holy.

Now, this is a terrifying part. This is probably the most unfun part of the sermon today, is that when we look to the king and we look to him and see his righteousness and his justice, it's kind of like a mirror. In fact, James, in his work, in James chapter one, it says that the word of God is just, that. It's like a mirror, that when we look here, we can't help but look inward and go, I'm not. I'm nothing.

I'm not where I should be. Where God is. If he's calling me to be holy and set apart as he is holy and set apart, that is quite a distance. That is a chasm that I don't know how to cross.

It causes us to look at this kind of verse and understand all the well, I think, while the psalmist writes in verse five, exalt him and then worship where? At his feet. Because when I look at his holiness, I don't think, oh, boy, I'm on the same level. Me and him, we're walking high and mighty. Me and Jesus, me and God, boy, we're walking tall.

Now, I look at him and I look at the word of God, and I go, there's a brokenness right there in me that I would like to overcome. And it's a challenge. Causes me to worship at his feet, say, thank you for your mercy. Thank you. That you love me, that you love justice and equity, that you would allow me to worship in your midst and come to you freely and openly.

And even though I. Even though I know at this point the holy spirit of God is convicting me, and certainly that's part of his work, is to make me see my sin, to see the brokenness and go, that ain't what I've got that's best for you, my son. But even in that moment, knowing that he still loves me, cares for me, and is actually calling me to something greater, when he says, be holy, for I am holy, he's not saying, hey, you better get this right on the first try.

Otherwise we'd all be. We'd all be. We'd be done. I don't know. You could talk to me afterwards.

If you're like, hey, as soon as I heard, be holy, for I'm holy. I've been holy ever since. Well, praise God for you. You ought to be up here and we need to figure out what you're doing right. But I've noticed something.

Maybe I can get my actions in check, but sometimes my mind wanders like, well, man, and Jesus says, the stuff that's going on in there is just as bad. He didn't have to do that to us. He didn't have to drop that load on us. On the sermon on the mount, you know, everybody listening in was thinking, okay, I haven't committed adultery. I haven't murdered anybody.

I'm a pretty good dude. He's calling me to be holy. I'm kind of holy. And he says, oh, yeah, but you ever, you know, you ever thought some stuff, maybe your brain ain't holy, your body might be kinda, oh, that mirror is heavy. Holy is he.

So exalt him. Worship at his feet. Which leads us to this third and final place. And I'm glad the psalms ends here. If it had ended there at verse five, I'd have been left in this place of going.

He's on another level, and I don't know how to walk there. The third reason for our praise is that he's revealed. He's this revealed forgiveness. Calling on that, in fact, that we have an opportunity to enter into the holy of holies. Yeah, he's enthroned between the cherubim.

But now something has changed in Christ Jesus. Now something is new to where we can call out and be in that place that the book of Hebrews talks about. This. There's many places where, in fact, Christ Jesus has escorted us into this place where we're in the holy of holies. We have that kind of access every single moment of every single day, that the spirit of God has now allowed us to walk behind that curtain where the mercy seat is and receive, as he says here, what Moses and Aaron and Samuel and the prophets of old received.

You now have that this is an amazing, amazing couple of sentences. It says in verse six that Moses and Aaron and Samuel were among these prophets that called out, and what did God do? He answered them. This final stanza begins first by singling out these three. These are three intercessors, if you will.

That is, people that stand in between the broken people and God. They intercede on their behalf. They mediate, if you will. And it brings these three out. And this term, priest, is used a little bit more loosely because these are, you know, Aaron's the only true priest of the mix, but Samuel is both prophet, and Moses is almost like.

Almost like a king to them. Here. It's these three men entreating before the lord. God gave the law through Moses. He gave the word to anoint David the king that would now institute a line of kings forever.

Through Samuel, he does this.

I was fascinated recently thinking about this idea that Moses, in fact, is this kind of intercessor that calls out before God, and God tests him at times. There's this moment and church, you know, give me some grace here. There's moments as a pastor here where I go, you know, lord, can you just make these people not sin? Can you help these people to stop, you know, sinning? And when I tell them, you know, how to stop sin, and could you help them do that?

Help me? Sure. I'm not saying I'm separate from this equation. I'm one of the sinners in the midst. But Moses, he comes before the Lord in this one part and says, you know, these people are getting on my everlasting nerves, and I'm tired of them.

And God really tests him in this moment and says, okay, I tell you what. I'll just get rid of them. I'll wipe them out. We'll start over with you and your family. And Moses is like, I was just trying to complain, you know, lord, I just.

I was just talking. I was talking smack. I didn't mean that. And some people look at that passage and say, well, here's where God's mind changes. No, here's where God says, okay, you want to complain?

What if I just go ahead and just let you have what you say you want? And Moses realizes, I won't complain about that anymore to you, Lord, I got to admit, at times, like, I really understand Moses on that level, and he's interceding on the people's behalf. And this is what Aaron is doing. And Samuel, he's this last of the great priest, prophet king types before King Saul and then King David. And this amazing thing that God is holy and separate, this is the point of how this thing ends, is that, yes, he's king, he's altogether majestic.

Yes, he's all powerful. He is so different from us and far from us that it can be hard to imagine. And yet he is incarnate, and yet he becomes a mandehead. And yet this God has been interceding, has been helping his people since the beginning. Oh, he's holy and he's separate, but he's not distant.

That's the problem with terms like holier than thou. That's where people start pushing away and say, I don't want what you got. Whatever you get, this holiness you got, I don't want it. That's nothing. The kind of God that we serve, that's not the kind of holy he is.

Oh, if he was that kind of holy, he would just look at us and go, well, y'all can go on. I want nothing to do with y'all. And he'd have had every right to do that. It's not the kind of God we serve. It says here clearly, and we know we could go to many places that they called to the Lord and he answered them.

Tells us a little bit more that in the pillar of the cloud he spoke to them. These miraculous things he did in the desert, these other miraculous things that he did. We could go all throughout scripture. This is how he's speaking to them. And then verse eight tells us how he answered with forgiveness.

With forgiveness he lifts off, he takes away. This hebrew word Nasser, means to literally carry off and take away, never to put back that this stuff has been taken from as far as the east is from the west. Another passage says he has removed it. And then it goes on to say something that I'm still chewing on this morning, and that is, he's an avenger of their wrongdoings. Now that has something to do with his might loving justice and the fact that he's the one that's going to take care of the brokenness.

Now when the people are reading this and they're chewing on this, they're like, what does God mean? That he avenges our wrongdoings. So God's forgiveness, but at the same time he's going to like wipe us out. What is he saying? Oh, God is going to avenge wrongdoings.

How's he going to do it?

That's how God does this, that the sins of man, past, present and future, have been avenged here on the cross. Although they couldn't have quite seen this, although there's some other psalms we could go to, like psalm 22, to get a glimpse of something that's being foreshadowed, that Christ, that God himself, how is he himself going to avenge it? He's going to do that himself by paying the ultimate price for our wrongdoings. Which brings us to a new type of worship. In verse nine, the Lord our God now calls us to worship at his holy mountain.

Now this isn't accidental. When we look at his justice and his and just how mighty and just how morally excellent and perfect he is. It causes us to worship at his feet. But when we call out and he answers and he forgives and he lifts us back up, where do we worship? At his holy mountain.

That's not accidental at all, you know. God has no intent to leave us on our face, but to lift us up, to forgive, to redeem. I don't know if you've come in this place today and you're thinking, man, I don't know what brought me today, but I don't feel like I can walk with God. I just feel like I need to be on my face forever because of the stuff I've done. I get totally the worship at his footstool, but I don't get worship on the holy mountain.

I want you to understand that God's holiness doesn't leave you there. It lifts you up and causes you to. All right, I can't wait. I can't wait to walk with you and be in your presence. And now move into the mission and the purpose that you've called me to.

Sure, there's definitely a place where I come with my guilt and my shame and I'm on my face before you. There is a place for that. And it's going to happen again to each and every one of us, probably. But that's not where we stay.

The Lord our God is holy. He avenged the wrongdoings. He has done this. Jesus, our great high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, now exalted. He has done it.

Hebrews seven says this. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and those for the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. You have a Moses, an Aaron, a Samuel, to the nth degree is what this is saying. Those priests died, to put it plainly, they couldn't continue forever. They had needs.

In fact, they had to come into the holy of holies first with their own on sin, and say, look, I'm a mess, God, if you want to listen, you go right on ahead. But Jesus doesn't come that way. He who is without sin can come plainly before the Lord and intercede on our behalf. Do you see this today? Yes.

God is holy and set apart. But because of Christ Jesus, so are you. So the question is, are you going to live that way? It may be true spiritually, but is it true for you physically in this life? Holy and set apart?

You have a holy high priest who has done for you once and for all. Forgiveness. Only faith in Jesus now will cleanse you. And this goes on for the believer. First corinthians six says, don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, worship idols, commit adultery, or our male prostitutes practice homosexuality. Our thieves are greedy. Our drunkards are abusive, they cheat people. None of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

Some of you were once like that, but you were cleansed. You were made holy. Do you see that? You were made holy. You were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit God, you have been changed.

In Christ Jesus. You are new. You are set apart. Will you now live that? I want to end with this kind of illustration so you can picture what's happened to you in a real way.

If you've come to Christ Jesus, the way that holiness was transferred, if you will, in the Old Testament is very, very odd. I'll give you an example. In the Book of Haggai, which I know is in the top of your reading, always. You're always in the book of Haggai. I know y'all.

But in the Book of Haggai, chapter two, it says in verse eleven that the Lord of hosts says this. He says, ask the priests about the law. Ask them this. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of their garment, so they carry, they're carrying sacrificial meat in the fold of their garment, and it touches the bread, the wine, the oil, any other kind of food. Do those things now become holy?

If there's bread and other things sitting in there with the sacrificial holy bread or a meat? Sorry. The priests answered and said, no, that's not how this works. The haggai said, if someone who is unclean, by contact with a dead body, touches any of these, these ceremonial meats, does it become unclean? And the priest answered, yes, it does.

So here's the thing. Something unclean can make something holy unclean, but something holy can't touch something unholy and make it holy. It's not how these things worked in the Old Testament. All right, follow this logic for a second. This is why Christ is so unique.

I want to share this story with you. That happens in Matthew nine, this Matthew 920. It says, behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment. And she said to herself, if only I touch his garment, I will be made well. Jesus turned, seeing her said, take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.

And instantly the woman was made well. Now this is a problem. This is a problematic story for anyone who understands Old Testament holiness. Jesus is a rabbi. He's a holy man, if you will.

And by her touching him, she has made him unclean to. Which means he's got to go outside the camp for like, seven days and stay away from everybody. Now, God instituted all these laws for their benefit, for their health. There's a lot of reasons why God did these things, but that's not the way his economy now works in the person of Jesus Christ. In another passage, it says that Jesus felt something flow out of him.

He felt spirit go into this woman. And so this is what's happened now in Christ Jesus, the very thing that haggai was asked to tell the priests, hey, when something holy touches something unholy, does it make it holy? They all agreed no. And when something dirty touches something holy, does it make it dirty? Oh, yeah.

And yet the holy one, when he touches your life, you don't make him unclean. This is what it means, that he who knew no sin became sin so that you might become righteousness. When you have an encounter with Christ, when you have a daily encounter walking with Christ, I can promise you this, he makes you holy, not vice versa. You ever prayed some of your deep, dark thoughts, you ever laid those before the Lord? You ever noticed that his response to those things isn't to, hey, keep on screwing up?

You ever come before the Lord and say, hey, lord, I'm really struggling with this temptation and I'd really like to keep doing that. You okay with that? That good with you? Hey, how can I be even more sinful? You ever come to the Lord like that?

That would be an insane thing to do. But I can assure you this, that won't be his response. You can't make him unholy. He can make you holy, though. There's another story, Matthew, chapter eight, where Jesus touches a leper, which is an absolute no no.

It's a no no for you. And I just so you know, don't go around touching lepers. You'll get it. We were real familiar with that back in 2020. We were treating everybody like lepers.

It was wild here. In Matthew, chapter eight, large crowds followed jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. Lord, the man said, if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean. And Jesus reached out and touched him.

I am willing, he said, be healed.

I just can't even imagine the gasps around him. Stay away from Jesus. He's got the thing. He's got the ick.

You can't make Jesus unholy, but he can make you holy. So I say all those stories to bring you to this when Christ calls you to be holy, for I am all holy. When God calls you to that, he's not calling you to do better. He's not calling you to, hey, pick yourself up by your boots, and you need to try harder. It's not, he's saying, walk with me.

I am holy. My holiness is contagious. Walk where I'm going. Follow me. When Jesus says, be perfect, as the father is perfect says, get in line.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. You see the difference? We can't be holy, but he is, and he can make us holy. Follow him all the more closely.

Recognize his great, great majesty, John six. It says, simon Peter answered the Lord, saying, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed them and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. Where should we go with this? Charles Spurgeon writes, if you think that you can walk in holiness without keeping up perpetual fellowship with Christ, you have made a great mistake.

If you would be holy, you must live close to Jesus. He's got it. That's it. Why should we study God's holiness? Well, first of all, because he's called us to ithood, we need to know all the more what that means.

And if we would be holy, we must live close to Jesus.

Will you exalt him this morning? We're going to sing some more songs of praise together here in just a moment. I wonder, when you look at his holiness, does it cause you to step away like some do with people in this world? Say, oh, he's too holy, he's holier than thou, and I don't want any part of it because I don't know if I can change. Maybe you feel some guilt or some shame about something you've done or currently in the middle of.

And I just don't know about God's holiness. I want you to hear something. He's not calling you to fix yourself. He's simply saying, hey, walk with me. Live close to me.

I am holy and my holiness is contagious. I hope you can hear that today. Be holy, for God is holy. Let's pray together now. Jesus, we thank you so much that you bring, you bring light to this passage that I recognize as a true mercy and a true grace to myself and to your church.

Here there are generations of people who read psalm 99 and went, wow, that's beautiful. But I don't know what that means. That last piece, it's beautiful. He's going to forgive and he's going to avenge the wrongdoings. But I don't know what that means.

I'm thankful, Lord, of where I was born in history, that I can see so clearly what you were working on and what you were doing, that this grand narrative of redemption sees its pinnacle, its climax right there at the person on the cross. Jesus, thankful for that today. And God, when I look at your holiness, even difficult to preach it really to think about it because it means that you are something other than you are separate, you are different, you are transcendent. And for so many of us, we look at that and go, well, I guess God is distant. We mistake transcendence for distance, God, and yet you are intimate and you are incarnational and you are involved and you are active in our lives, which means you're both transcendent and close.

It's amazing. I'm praying for myself and for your people today, Lord, that this great call that is both of old and new to be holy, for you are holy, is beyond challenging to us, Lord. I don't know how to attain that. I don't know how to be separate and set apart and consecrated for special use. I don't know how to do that.

God. Sometimes my thoughts, I don't take them all captive. Some of them run off and get me in trouble. Some of the things I say and do I would like to take back. And that's so many of us in the room, Lord, it's difficult for us to be holy.

In fact, impossible. I'm prayerful today, Lord, that you would, you would show up in a really powerful way in our lives, that we would see what it means to follow you closely, that as we intend to be holy, as you've commanded us, that we would seek your face, that we would rightly understand the only way that we're going to be set apart to be holy is by leaning into you. That I recognize. There's some people in the room right now. They have no real habit time spent with you.

They may come here and sing a little bit and read a little bit about you on Sunday and that's about it. Oh, for that. That holiness is going to be such a challenge. Like eating one meal a week is probably not going to cut it. I'm going to be pretty starving by Saturday.

My holiness is going to be just an impossible endeavor. God, I pray you would train us, encourage us to seek your face often, that we would start our day looking up saying, Lord, I can't be holy without you. Would you walk in front of me, guide me, that we would get in your word and you would speak in that place, that we would understand what it means to be holy, for you are holy. I pray you would remove guilt and shame. Today that person that has showed up and said, oh, I know what it means to worship at his feet, but I can't get how he worships.

You could worship at the holy Mountain. I've not felt that. I pray you would lift up these humble eyes, that you would bring people into a redemptive state with you, that you would let them see that they're loved and that mercy has been poured out in grace. God, make us holy. Encourage us to walk closely with you and make us holy.

We pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.