A couple weeks ago I attended a coaches meeting for our local youth soccer association. After several minutes the meeting commenced in a most surprising fashion. The volunteer president stood behind the podium and said, “Let’s open with a word of prayer. Would you bow your heads with me?” If you know my background, I’ve probably been to hundreds of soccer meetings and have never heard one begin with prayer. I thus immediately thought two things: 1) I love that that just happened, and 2) people still do that? In fact, someone not too far from where I sat was plainly saying to his neighbor, “That stuff doesn’t belong here anymore.”
Reflecting on that moment this week I couldn’t help but wonder if countless Christians and churches don’t feel something similar when confronted with the truth regarding the reverence due to a holy God and the duty of holiness he requires of his people. Are not many in our time tempted to think, “That stuff doesn’t belong here anymore. Sure it was all fine and dandy back in the day, but it’s unnecessary today.” Might you even think earnest calls to holiness to be a relic of a bygone era? Something only radical conservative Christians believe? O, how our text shouts out to us tonight just the opposite. Our God is the Lord of holiness. As such he is deeply concerned to see His people marked off, cut out, and distinct in the world—which is what holiness means.
So what I want to do is encourage us, as the covenant family of God, to persevere in the glorious pursuit of holiness. I simply want to bring out two things our text emphasizes regarding holiness and the family of God.
Holiness & The Family of God
Worldliness threatens God’s people. Worldliness is a favorite weapon of the Worm. Like tasty bait hides the hook and beckons the fish, so does Satan use the world to seduce God’s people away from their first love. The Bible, more than many of us realize or may even like, relentlessly calls God’s people not to feasting upon a sinful world, but fasting from a sinful world. Jesus says, “What good is it to gain the whole world and forfeit the soul?” John says, “If anyone love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” James says, “Do you not know friendship with the world is enmity with God?” The Old Testament shows us how God selected His people out of the world and called them to be separate from the world. Not isolated in the world, but a compellingly odd witness to the glory of a holy God. Ever since the book of Genesis worldliness has been a great seducer of God’s people. Jacob compromises obedience for worldly comfort and comes oh so close to putting the promise in grave peril through united the covenant family with those outside the covenant.
Do you believe worldliness is a threat? Let us say, “Yes,” not in fear, but because we read our Bibles well and know our own hearts. Are you eager like Dinah to see the delights and pleasures of the world? Are you like Jacob careless in how you shepherd your family in the midst of the world? Or might you even be like Shechem, seeing and taking whatever you want in the world?
Holiness thrives on God’s promises. What is it that summons Jacob out of the slow, snakelike coiling power of worldliness? God’s word; particularly, God’s word of promise. Look back at the word of promise Jacob hears in chapter 35. God has just reaffirmed a name change from Jacob (“the deceiver”) to Israel (“God’s warrior) and notice the amazing promise of 35:12, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.” It’s still incredible to hear these promises made to this man. This is Jacob, the great schemer who takes what doesn’t belong to him, who flees in fear before mighty men. His only daughter has just been raped; his sons have become murderers and could have started all out war in the land of Canaan. His house is full of idols. Yet, he is nonetheless the man of promise, the man through whom God has now promised to bring kings. Such is the amazing grace of God. He delights to turn schemers into saints, rejects into royalty, lovers of worldliness into lovers of holiness.
Maybe you’re reading this and are scheming in some way to earn God’s blessing of acceptance, of eternal life. Maybe you feel rejected in the world, so much so that you are certain God would reject you as well. The Bible says we all have rejected God in our sin, we all subsequently scheme to earn salvation, but there is nothing we can do to earn it. So God sent His son, the King of Kings from the family of Jacob to die in the place of sinners like you and me. He lived the life you should have lived, died the death you should die, rose again and ascended into heaven. He calls now for you to turn from you sin and trust in Him, to bow you knees before the King. This promised King who saves. This is the promised Holy One of Israel who takes it upon Himself to make His bride, the church, holy as He is holy. What a promise! What a word! Our God is the Lord of holiness.
This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “Dinah,” on Genesis 34-36.