Grace Produces Holiness
One of God’s purposes in choosing a people by grace, is that they would be “holy and blameless”. What does that mean? What is holiness? Those are the topics discussed in this message.
“...it includes such ideas as “absolute unapproachability” and “absolute overpoweringness” or “aweful majesty”. It awakens in man a sense of absolute nothingness, a “creature-consciousness” or “creature feeling”, leading to absolute self-abasement.”
“If man reacts to God’s majestic-holiness with a feeling of utter insignificance and awe, his reaction to the ethical holiness reveals itself in a sense of impurity, a consciousness of sin. Otto says of the response to Him “it is ‘mere awe, mere need of shelter from the “tremendum”‘, it has here been elevated to the feeling that man in his “profaneness’ is not worthy to stand in the presence of the Holy One, and that his entire personal unworthiness might defile even holiness itself.”
Sermon Discussion Questions:
What are God's 3 goals in choosing a people?
What does it mean that God is "Holy"?
What does holiness "look like"?
How do we do this?
How can people deceive themselves about holiness?
