======================================================================== BE HOLY AS YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS HOLY by Walter Brubacker ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the call to holiness as a reflection of God's character, urging believers to walk humbly before God, seek His will, and strive for righteousness. It highlights the importance of confessing sins, making amends, and striving to be holy like God. The speaker warns against selfishness, which leads to sin, and encourages a genuine pursuit of holiness through obedience to God's truth and love for one another. Topics: "Holiness", "Obedience to God's Will" Scripture References: Leviticus 20:7, Isaiah 43:3, 1 Peter 1:15, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Hebrews 12:14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the call to holiness as a reflection of God's character, urging believers to walk humbly before God, seek His will, and strive for righteousness. It highlights the importance of confessing sins, making amends, and striving to be holy like God. The speaker warns against selfishness, which leads to sin, and encourages a genuine pursuit of holiness through obedience to God's truth and love for one another. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Greetings to y'all. I kind of rejoice to be out here in the air, in the sun, and it's it's a real blessing to me. I hope it's a blessing to y'all and thank y'all for coming. It's not always as pleasant outside as it is in a building where there's fire and there's air conditioners and there's, even though in the wintertime, it's a real blessing. Why don't we stand for prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for allowing us to gather again and to meet this way. We can see and observe your creation and we thank you for the life that you have given us and especially that you have given Jesus and the life that he presented to us. We thank you for it. We ask that you would be with us today and help me have words that make sense and words of encouraging. Help us along in this life's journey and we thank you for for all these things. Bless each one here and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. God many different times said, be holy for I am holy. That's opposite of selfishness. That's opposite of doing our own thing, running our own will. And so quite a few times he talks about being holy and for he is holy. That says, if we want to meet a holy God, we have to be holy. Does that mean we are in pure perfection? I kind of don't think so. I think it means that we walk humbly before God. We serve him. We seek his will. We do everything we can to walk along and and if we do fall, we get back up. This is what is called a righteous person. The problem is when we give up and we no longer strive for the right, for Jesus, or his teachings, or strive to be free from sin. This is when the problem really gets serious. But when we confess our sins, we make right what we have wronged. This is how we become holy and once we once we pass through this death, I somehow believe that sin is going to be removed from everything. I'm not sure what that could be like. But I look forward to that. I want to strive for that. I want to be holy like God is holy. Like in Leviticus, it's used quite a bit. You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy. And again in chapter 20 verse 7, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am the Lord your God. And in 2026, you shall be holy to me for I the Lord am holy. I have separated you from other peoples to be mine. He wanted a holy people. In Isaiah 43, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia, and Sepah in exchange for you. Anyway, he goes different places like that. And Ezekiel, Ezekiel. Now he's talking about a concern he has. But I have concern for my holy name which the house of Israel has profaned among the nations to which they came. The children of Israel were supposed to be holy. He had given them commandments that kept them holy. And Jesus came and gave us commandments that are far superior and far, much more far-reaching. And the opposite of being holy is again our selfishness, our will against God's will. If we, if we make his will our will, we can, we can, we can become holy like him. I was just went through my mind how we can want many things. There's many people in this world that want a good life. They want a good marriage. They want, they don't want a divorce. They'd rather not. But there comes a time when they they become so devoid of goodness or the rightness about a marriage that they actually end up wanting to divorce. Anyways, people observe Christian families often and they say, oh that's so beautiful. There's a reason those things are beautiful. It's because things in God's order are beautiful. They're right, they're just, they're holy. But when we abuse things, we take our will in our own hands and we we start becoming this this thing that is no longer pleasing to God. And we start to get in conflict with our brothers and sisters and we get in conflict with, after that we get in conflict with the world around us and then we get in conflict with other countries. We fight. These things grow. These things do not stay in their place. Sometimes, they don't always grow that far. But and by the grace of God, we can confess our shortcomings and our our weaknesses and those things that bother make a blot in the name of Christ or put a blot on the on Christ. Because we we have anxious thoughts, we have angry thoughts, we have, this is the opposite of being holy. And so I would just, mostly myself and all of us, I unless we all give up to each other to some degree, we're not here. That's, there's the takes of giving up to be able to obtain that holiness of God and just being able to to carry out. So we, so the point about our will, we want these things, we see these things, we can observe the beauty of people that are kind-hearted and helpful and and go the second mile and we see these things but it's a little bit of another thing to actually do that ourselves. We often find ourselves, especially if we're kind of aggravated or upset, we find ourselves getting ourselves in trouble. And we we respond in ways that are no longer right. And this is not holy like God is holy. There's just so many ways that we can be selfish and this selfishness will always lead to some kind of a sin. Maybe maybe selfishness itself would have be sin but I think maybe there has to be an action yet to actually make it. When you're selfish you start looking for ways to do things your way and and cost other people harm or hurt or this is so opposite of of the Holy God that says be you holy as I am holy. That's a big call but I think Jesus has done it best and he's the one that the one that helps us through this if if we can humble ourselves. I thought of reading a few verses here in 1st Peter 1 yet starting at 13. Therefore prepare your minds for action. Discipline yourselves. Set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead as he who called you is holy be holy yourself in all conduct. For it is written you shall be holy for I am holy. If you invoke as if you invoke his father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your ancestors not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ so that of a lamb without defect or blemish he was destined before the foundation of the world that was revealed at the end of ages for your sakes. Though through him you have come to trust in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love love one another deeply from the heart you have been born anew and not of perishable but of imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God. If we have this if God has worked in our hearts and he's able to to reason with us if if I can say it this way and we respond to him this is this is this is seed that is imperishable it's a seed that that cannot be destroyed nobody can take it from us and it's by this if you have been born anew not a perishable but imperishable we can observe the world if we if we want to and they they their seed is to be greedy and I want to take advantage of people I'm not saying that it's just hundred percent across the board but ultimately there is this this greedy greedy spirit selfish spirit and we know I'm sure we all know what that is in ourselves we haven't been we haven't been living in this place where there's no battle or no selfishness involved we know what it what that is but if you think even that we need more we can observe I think most of us serve people and I don't think it's wrong especially if it's to learn and take lessons but that isn't that is a perishable that's all perishable ourself our our desires they're perishable they they're not imperishable but his words are imperishable they they will not perish they will produce fruit and now that you have purified your souls by your eatings to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love love one another deeply from the heart I could go on and on that but I think I'll stop and just encourage us to myself most of all to embrace this and God bless y'all feel free to share amen brother Walter it's a daily battle I guess to pursue holiness which with no one will see the Lord I know the high priest had on his little while they say the high priest is you know on his turban or the miter he had that inscription and you quoted numbers numbers is enough that the word holiness is mentioned in numbers much fifty a hundred times but the little imprint on the high priest this thing is is you know what it is out like right holiness to the Lord and in you could elaborate and so many things by Walter I would just use I guess the practical things holiness to me also means non-conformity we don't dress like the world we don't our speech is not like the world we're not we don't vote we're not government entanglement we don't go to war we love our enemies we think different in the world we don't lay up riches on on this world we don't sink a own will we seek Jesus as well and we're trying to be a living sacrifice as we sang that song the first song on the second song the one that I requested I can't even think of it some a song number 19 the Lord be magnified thank you brother Walter and brother Robert for your father and comments we visited a group of people in New Mexico and I mean they would they would talk about holiness and stuff but their their model for that would be something constructed a set of principles and values shared values not like not saying that what Robert just said was like wrong but rather that maybe if you know there was a certain dress code or there's a certain limitation and standard of applications on your smartphone things like this that are built up that they feel would build holiness I feel that that that is a that is a false hope we need to we need to focus on the instructions of Christ to and to be pure and holy acceptable to the Lord we could we could rely on fail safes or redundancy systems to keep us in check as we walk along and there's a ditch in that and it's imagine that I built up a system you know in my household that my children just could know in no way fall into temptation with the world and then as soon as they leave my household they just they go crazy because they wouldn't it be better just to just to have a system of values of just holiness to just seek the Lord and be holy because he is holy and teach them to be in the world and operating in that manner so that they don't lose it when when they are not under your protection anymore these these thoughts are are really troubling to me there that there are groups that come up with these standards and that it is a false sense of holiness and it and it's fearful to me that that we can operate you know that we are striving for holiness and yet we can see in the Old Testament that even if you did holiness your whole life if you end on a good note that it counts for nothing and but the good news and that is that like so many of us we've come out of the world we've come out of darkness and and we are we are hopefully striving towards that light and that even though that we have worked wickedness in our past that there's there's there's a better future ahead of us I think I think we can all attain higher and better and accept the criticisms of our brothers and sharpen one another thank you for your words there yeah I appreciate what you shared there Walter and the other brothers I guess I'm just kind of impressed this morning verse 19 where it says but with the with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot and just that that is that is the thing that that we are going after we can put our hope in our trust into something that has never failed and we can 100% trust in it and know that the only failure to be had is would be on our part he's always done his part and then just the that he even his nature and his creation kind of expresses that a lamb with us with the black spot on it doesn't look too nice I just experienced that and you can wash them up you can make them look real nice again and and it's just another example of God's God's ways being perfect being holy they're just they're just the right way and then I appreciate your comments there Tyler just in how how men can can mimic mimic that in an unreal way like in a fake way and it makes me fearful and trembling to just to to have to discern you know those those things and from my own life just to know how to stay away from that and stick with the true God I guess was there a verse read here something about vain traditions too okay yeah the verse before that says for as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things a silver and gold but from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers you know something gets handed down I think we've brothers here have said this already like if gets handed down something very valuable it seems to lose its value if it if that's all it is you know if the person receiving it is just receiving a tradition and it's not not receiving it because he really needs it for his own the working out of his own salvation it becomes a vain tradition with a shine of holiness and God help us with that so praise God a quick comment on Tyler's and in at least two I mean yes the do's and don'ts know the do's and don'ts that I think of no second Corinthians yeah are the Macedonians now they first gave themselves to the Lord and then they gave the contribution ah there's Macedonians they first gave themselves to the Lord so it's self- crucifixion and then you can do it and a lot of times like when Darren was baptized or a babe in Christ or something Lydia anyone you know what do you want me to do Lord what do you have me to do you know Saul in Ananias like that and then they'll say things like in Ananias was told go get this pocket this guy Paul and he said don't haven't you heard all these bad things he does he said just go get him so it's against your will we are going to lay down our lives for Jesus's commands to be conformed to his image and not our own a lot be magnified Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh I've no abiding city here this my distress But It's also better I'm going home Did I know more? I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home to die no more, to die no more, to die no more, I'm going home to die no more. I've no abiding city here, then let me live as pilgrims do, let not the world my rest disappear, but let me haste from all below. I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going I've no abiding city here, I seek a city out of sight, Zion is name, the Lord is there, it shines with everlasting light. I'm going home, I'm going home, I'm going home to die no more, to die no more, to die no more, I'm going home to die no more. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/8C6ZIri2kaU.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/walter-brubacker/be-holy-as-your-father-in-heaven-is-holy/ ========================================================================