“The Place of Holiness”
Pastor David Moore
New Testament reading: 1 Peter 1:13‐23 (NRSV)
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 yourselves in all your conduct, for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
If you invoke as Father the one who judges impartially according to each person’s work, live in fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile conduct inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through Him you have come to trust in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your trust and hope are in God.
Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual affection, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.
God is holy, that is who He is. What He does is holy. His characteristic is holiness. And holy is what we are not. ~D. Moore
There are several ways to approach God.
‐To recognize that God is holy and worthy to be worshiped.
‐God is love and He loves us and wants to know us, and He wants us to delight in Him. ~D. Moore
Today’s theme we will see two men, one on the run but seeking after God, and the other is good with the world power in Israel, but not seeking God. ~D. Moore
Old Testament reading: 1 Samuel 21:1‐9 (NIV)
David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
David answered Ahimelech the priest, “The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here ‐ provided the men have kept themselves from women.” David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away. Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; he was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s head shepherd.
David asked Ahimelech, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s business was urgent.”
The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.” David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
David is not always to be copied in terms of his behavior, but rather we are looking to learn from him about God. David’s life is not a perfect life, not an ideal life, but an actual life. ~D. Moore
So, when we come to God we come in reverence, we come in obedience, we come to God aware that He is holy, and we are not. We come in fear and trembling. ~D. Moore
James 4:6‐8: Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
One of the many things that can go wrong in our spiritual lives is a loss of connection to God. We become inauthentic before God. ~D. Moore
When we accept Jesus as our Lord, He gives us the Spirit, who begins the transformation of us into more and more who we were made to be. ~D. Moore
Everything God tells us to do is designed to shape us, is designed to mold us, is designed to bring us closer to Him for our benefit. We are never better than when we are close to God, and it is impossible to be worse than when we are estranged from God. ~D. Moore
David was after the holiness of God. Holiness is about our heart before God and how we honor Him with our lives. Our holiness comes from God, which is a gift from God if we ask for it. ~D. Moore
Matthew 12:1‐8: At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the House of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
David breaking the rules does not affect God’s holiness at all. God doesn’t seem offended or affected. God wants people who are confident of His love and care for them, rather than people who are religiously checking off boxes, but their hearts are far from God. ~D. Moore
Protestant Christianity for a long time, has been content to know about God. Rather God wants us to know Him. We are content to study the Bible rather than pray. We are content to have a long list of what defines us, rather than being free with what we will do to honor God, like feed the homeless or take in a foster child, etcetera. ~D. Moore
David did many things wrong but his attitude, his heart was in the right place. He wanted to know God. ~D. Moore
I find God’s mercy and grace simply amazing. That a holy God would want to know me, it blows my mind every time I think about it. I can’t imagine the amount of patience God has had for me all these years. I have learned from David that God is gracious, He calls me to know Him more. That’s what I want from you too, a commitment to know God to seek to enjoy His presence, a commitment to honor Him with your life.
God bless. Examine your heart, make a commitment.