Series: What was I thinking? Week 4: God is more Holy.
What do you think about God? Asa would teach us a final lesson. I’m stuck because nobody’s perfect. And I’m struck because God is more holy.
1) I’m stuck because nobody is perfect. Judah was sucked into a hoax believing that you could worship the true living God and false gods. Blend them. They believed that you could take the truth, blend it with a lie, and that’d be OK. Take holy, blend it with unholy, and that’s no big deal.
Satan: pranking us into believing there is no God or He’s weak, distant, harsh, corrupt. When all the while God is more powerful, present, active and holy than we think.
When you treat God, who is holy as unholy, you’re literally pushing God out of your life. Forfeiting the power, protection, provision, favor, covering of God over your life. When you treat God as unholy, you push Him out of your life, & you find yourself asking, “What was I thinking?” And while we are not perfect, and nobody is, God is. Nobody’s perfect, but God is holy. God is perfect, & we’re stuck in our sin. We have to deal with this because we have a holy God. 2 Chronicles 14:3-4. Asa was saying we cannot take the holy and blend it with the unholy, the true God, and blend with false gods. We have to be holy even though we’re stuck in our own sin.
2 Chronicles 15:16. She’s blending false gods with the real God. Look what Asa did. Why? Because the law of Moses revealed that these things are serious. Deuteronomy 16:21-22. Why? Because you’re bringing a lie alongside the truth that these are not real gods, false gods. We made them gods, we created them. They’re not real. They’re not going to change your life, not going to do anything for you. Judah is stuck in this hoax, in their sin, in their imperfection. And we’re the same: taking the truth and then putting false teachings & lies alongside truth and blending them. Taking the holy & blending it with the unholy in our lives and saying, “that works.” And getting stuck in our sin.
2) I’m struck because God is more holy than I think. Leviticus 20:7-8. God makes you holy, but then you are to live holy. You are to be holy because I, the Lord am holy—I have set you apart from the nations. God is holy, we’re to be holy.
In the New Testament, Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. He delivered what we often call the Lord’s Prayer. MATTHEW 6:9. Jesus was teaching something powerful. God is holy. To be revered. Struck in awe of how holy He is in a world where nobody’s perfect. God is perfect in all of His ways.
Holy, Holy, Holy because it is a dimension of God that consumes His very essence. In Isaiah 6:1-5.
2 Chronicles 15:10-15. They said, “We’re going to live holy and they sought God eagerly. This was done eagerly, joyfully, willingly. And He was followed by them so the Lord gave them rest on every side. They freed God up to grant favor. God provided prosperity & protection & provision & great favor over.
But Verse 13. And God doesn’t make any sense to me because you don’t have perspective. Why did Asia draw such a hard line? Because of what was on the line. We are in the process of purification. Because of our sin, we’re unholy and God is holy, we can’t be in His presence. The consequence of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sin.
Water filter: Judah was being purified by the filter of the sacrifice so that before God, you could be Holy.
Asa: make a covenant to be this kind of people, so that God makes us pure. We want to be holy as He is holy. Why in verse 13? Because he’s teaching this: Every time you put an Asherah pole up, you take the truth of God & you put a false god next to it, you put false teaching, a lie, what you’re really doing is you’re taking the pure life—God has made Holy in you, and you add with every sin, just a little bit of poison into your life. That’s just a little poison. It’s no big deal. Just mix a little bit of sin and take what God has made pure, and poison it. We live in a world where the world treats poison—sin—as sweetener. And God’s perspective is: it’s poison.
Asa: Make a covenant because God makes us pure and holy and cleanses us. You have to figure out the kind of life God’s invited you to. Solomon wrote: Proverbs 3:7-8. Don’t start telling God that you know what poison is and what sweetener is. Don’t play with sin. Why would add a little poison? It doesn’t even make sense. 1 Peter 1:13-16. Be holy because I’m holy. So what do you do? 2 Chronicles 15:8. Asa removed the Unholy things and he repaired His worship.
What do you need to remove? Poisonous thinking? Poisonous morals? What are you putting into the water that your family’s drinking, that you’re drinking?
What do you need to repair? Maybe reverence? Maybe you’ve gotten so casual with God that you’re irreverent toward Him. And it doesn’t occur to you how unholy you’re treating the Most Holy.
What do you need to remove? What do you need to repair? Because God not only wants to make us holy, but help us be holy because He is holy. Because God is more holy than we think.