In the Bible Leviticus 19:2b, God said, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And Revelation 4:8b describes our God “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Now Pastor have a question for you: what does “holy” mean? Bright said that it means without sin. Yes, “Holy” mean entirely sinless, without any blemish, and to completely separate from all the unclean things and sinful manners. This verses told us that our God is super super holy, and He wanted His people to be holy, as well. A lot of time holy is combined with “righteous.” “Righteous” means “all right.” “entirely right,” “super super right,” it never allows any sin, any wrong. Just like the Bible says in Isaiah 5:16, “But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.” The verse tells us that God proves His holiness by His righteousness. So our God is holy and righteous. He never allows any sins, any unrighteousness, any wrong doings. Any cheating, bullying, disobedience, hatred or idolatry.
God delivered Israelites out of Egypt, and chose Israelites as His people and promised them to have a good living in His promised land which is Canaan. But He was afraid that they will be learning bad things from the surrounding people and worship their gods and follow their bad behaviors. Because God is holy and righteous, He gave His people a set of commandments to follow so that they can stay holy and righteous and separate themselves from the other people all the time. God asked Moses to go up to Mount Sinai and He gave Moses two tablets with 10 written rules to the Israelites which was called Ten-commandments. Commander would like to ask Nico to read the Bible Exodus 20:2-17 to us. (Nico read the verse)
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Thank you, Nico, for such a good reading of God’s words to us. Now let’s watch a video about the story of the Ten-commandments. (play video about the ten-commandments)
Waah, ten rules we have to follow in order to be holy and righteous! who can say these ten-commands? Well, we can break these 10 commands into two parts: the first part: commandments 1 to 4 – relate to God’s holiness. They talk about our relationship with God and boil down to the truth that we should love God, put God first and worship Him only. The second part: Commandments 5-10 – relate to God’s righteousness. They are about our right relations with the people. The first of all is honoring our parents, this is a commandment with blessings. So remember, boys and girls, obey your parents always. Following this commandment are don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, and the last one don’t covet.
These 10 commands gave a guideline to help God’s people set apart from the other people and show them that they belong to God. Is it easy to completely fulfill the ten-commandments in terms of God’s standard? No, nobody can do it, as Jesus said when a man hates someone, he commits killing already. No one can be holy and righteous by fulfilling all the commandments, because we are all sinners, inside of our heart, there is a sinful nature prohibiting us to do good. God is perfectly holy, He would not allow any mankind, even a godly man like Moses, to come near Him even they only have just a tiny sin. Well, commander tell you yes, there is a simple way to meet God’s standard of holiness and righteousness and He will allow us to go to Him. That is through Jesus as He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yes, Jesus’ blood washes away all our sins and all our dirty things. God declares us holy and righteous because of Jesus.
We thank God for His grace in Jesus, that we as sinners, are still able to be counted as righteous and holy. God puts the credit of Jesus’ holiness and righteousness unto us as Romans 3:22a says, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” So, boys and girls, this is the reason we have to believe and trust in Jesus in order that God can declare us holy and righteous.
Before closing commander would like to ask everyone memorize the verses Leviticus 19:2b, God said, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And Revelation 4:8b “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”