>> Hi, everybody. If you guys could take your seats, we're gonna get started. I'm just gonna go over the schedule really quick before we start. It's a little bit different than the ones you guys got through Facebook and email. So the first session is obviously starting right now. That's the same.

We're gonna take a group photo after this. I think we're gonna be doing it in here. So we're gonna have Sam Ho come up here and she'll kind of explain how we're doing that. After that, we're supposed to have a time of personal retreat time. So that's just gonna be like personal prayer.

So I think the best way to do it, we have small groups. They've been sent out through Facebook. And if you look along the back wall, there's men's and women's small groups. So you can look at that to find your group. I think the best thing to do is find your group and then discuss where you're gonna meet, like at a certain time for your small group session.

So you guys can do that. And then at 12 o'clock, we're gonna have lunch outside. You don't have to sit with your small group. You can sit with anybody. We're gonna have in and out. So that'll be here by 12. At 2, Pastor Mark's gonna have a mini talk and a Q&A.

And then around 4 o'clock, we're gonna have a game or an activity. And then at 5.30, we're gonna split up into groups to go get dinner. So those groups will get sent out at some point too. And then with that group, you guys will go out somewhere, buy food, eat.

And then you guys will be back by 7 o'clock. At 7, there'll be another session. And then another small group discussion time at 9. And then around 10, we're gonna be closing everything up again. So if you guys have any questions or if you guys found that you're not in a group for any of the things that you guys wanted to be in, you guys can come and talk to me.

And then we'll try to get you into a group. Okay? So let me pray and then we'll get started. Father God, we thank you, Lord, for this time and this day and this opportunity to come worship you together. God, we just pray for our fellowship today. We pray that it will be intentional and fruitful.

Lord, we pray for our hearts. We pray that you would help us to be attentive and humble to receive your word through Pastor Mark. And so, Father, we pray that you'd be with us today and tonight. So Lord, we lift up all things to you. In Jesus' name, I pray.

Morning, everyone. So we're gonna begin our time, our session, with a time of praise. So why don't we all stand together? Who's next? We bow down and worship you now. How great, how awesome is he. Together we sing. Everyone sing. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory.

Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. The earth is filled with his glory. Who stands? We stand and lift up our hands. For the joy of the Lord is our strength. We bow down and worship you now. How great, how awesome is he.

Together we sing. Everyone sing. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. The earth is filled with his glory. And it's rising up all around. It's the anthem of the Lord's command.

And it's rising up all around. It's the anthem of the Lord's command. Together we sing. Everyone sing. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory.

Holy is the Lord God almighty. The earth is filled with his glory. The earth is filled with his glory. ♪ >> Let's sing this together. Teach me your way. ♪ Teach me your way, oh Lord. And I will walk in your truth. ♪ Show me your path, oh Lord.

Show me your way, oh Lord. Show me your way, oh Lord. Show me your way, oh Lord. Show me your way, oh Lord. Show me your way, oh Lord. ♪ Show me your path, oh Lord. For I am devoted to you. You'll refine my heart's desire. I long to be your servant.

Give me an undivided heart. I will fear your name. Give me an undivided heart. No other God. No other name. No other God speak for you. Teach me your way. Teach me your way, oh Lord. And I will walk in your truth. ♪ Show me your path, oh Lord.

For I am devoted to you. You'll refine my heart's desire. I long to be your servant. Give me an undivided heart. I will fear your name. Give me an undivided heart. No other God. No other name. No other God speak for you. No other God. No other God speak for you.

No other God. No other God speak for you. No other God. No other name. No other God speak for you. ♪ >> You may be seated. >> All right. Good morning, everybody. What a privilege. You know, it feels just great to be able to meet with you guys together.

To have an opportunity to study the word of God and then to have extended fellowship. As you guys know, I love retreats. I know some people, they're like, oh, retreats, so tired, right? And for some of you guys who know how sometimes introverted I can get, the thought of being together for an extended period of time with a large group of people, to some degree, yeah, it's a little bit like daunting.

But at the same time, to have quantity of quality time together, it's sometimes a rare thing and it's sweet when we get to have it. Okay? Now, because we sometimes don't get to do this and I see a lot of new faces, too, let's just take like a minute to look around, say hi to the people around you, especially if you don't know who they are, make sure to actually get up, reach over, give them a fist bump and be like, hi, my name is.

Okay? Let's look at each other. Okay. Good. All right. By way of introduction to the theme of our time together today, I just want to ask, because I did see a lot of new faces, you don't -- I'm not going to -- don't worry. Sometimes I highlight new people to our congregation, et cetera.

But just by way of quick raise of hands, how many of you guys are new here, meaning you've only been here for about a month at Berean? It's real fast. Okay, great, great. Welcome, welcome to all of you, okay? So for those of you guys who are new to church, one of the things I want to highlight to you is our church practices church membership.

And for us, that church membership is a really important integral part of making sure from the pastoral standpoint, the shepherding standpoint, that we make sure we're investing into your lives and then also that to the vision of the church, we're like having a buy-in together. We hope to worship God in this way and build the community of God in this way.

And one of the things that we do for that end of ministering to you, investing into you, is we give you a free book. It's called The Holiness of God, okay? So this is an incentive for doing membership. But the reason why I bring that up is because there's this question, at a church that emphasizes the holiness of the Lord to the degree that we give you the first book free of charge by R.C.

Sproul, is there a need for us to talk about holiness at Berean? And the answer is, of course, absolutely yes. Okay? There are times when people will wrestle with this question, is it good for us to have a balance and attention of thinking about God's love and thinking about God's grace and mercies versus God's holiness?

And when you pose the question in that fashion, what that reveals is your current concept of holiness potentially is a little bit off. Why? Because as we study about God, we recognize God's holiness does not equate to His wrath. God's holiness does not equate to the absolute purity of His moral character by which He necessitates the judgment of sin.

Holiness is talking about God's incredible beauty and perfection and the nature of who He is that supersedes every single element and character of His being. And so when we say we're going to study God's holiness, we are talking about all the attributes to its pinnacle point. We're essentially saying we're going to meditate and soak and bask in the various character traits of God.

And so I think it has done a disservice if people, when they talk about the holiness of God, they are just simply talking about, "You better not smoke, and you better not drink, and you better not be watching any naughty stuff." I don't know why I did that accent in that way.

Sorry. But you know what I mean. It's a disservice to think about holiness in that kind of fashion. Don't you dare do this, this, this, and this, and this. Because God's holy, and He's going to get you, right? If that is your concept of holiness, that's actually what I want to talk about is when we think about the application then of holiness, we see how now we're on different paths.

In one sense, the application of holiness therefore could be, it's like, "Oh gosh, I did it again. I need to make sure that I not do that anymore in my life." Well, surely in our Christian faith, there's a ton of that in terms of what we're learning not to do because we're regularly trying to kill our sin, kill our flesh.

But what we're trying to say today is there's so much more to the holiness of God than that. And therefore, on the path of our application, there's so much more to us applying holiness into our lives above and beyond, "Thou shall not." Right? "Thou shall not anger God, the holy God." Right?

If that is your concept, then you already feel a sense of the tension. Whenever we're going to talk about grace, understand that that tension comes in a misconception. It was a theologian, A.A. Hodge, who said this, "The holiness of God is not to be conceived as one of the attributes among others.

It is a general term representing the conception of God's consummate perfection, the totality of His glory. It is His infinite moral and just perfections crowning His infinite intelligence and power and more." Right? What he's trying to say is if you're just thinking about God in terms of His holy, as in this is this part, whereas our Father, that's the part where He gets angry.

Right? No, no, no. His holiness encompasses every part of it. And therefore, even His love is holy. Even His grace is holy. His knowledge is holy. His mercies to us is holy. And yes, His justice is holy. We're going to talk some about that today. And I wanted to introduce the theme of this day to you and the fact that what we're going to try and do is really think about the broad scope of what God's holiness is.

And then think about what path of application can we take. Let's take a moment to pray. Ask God to bless us in that endeavor. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for every single brother and sister here. And then those who are participating online. I pray, Father God, that you would grant to us your grace.

And this grace, Lord God, you have shown to us an incredible measure already, which is the fact that you have revealed yourself to us. A holy God who is so transcendent, so above us to a degree that we don't even fully know yet. That you have condescended. You have given to us your revelation.

So, Lord, as we look at your scripture, as we meditate and think, would you bless us with the knowledge of you. Would you also, Lord God, transform us. God, we desire and long to truly be saved from this wicked and perverse generation. To be spared, Father God, from our own bondage.

From our own sin. God, that we would be transformed to the image of your son. And so, God, we pray that each endeavor and days that we have like this, we're able to be exposed and nourished by your truth. I pray, Father God, that you would provide that change.

We thank you, Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay. So, as we think about this, I want to move to our point number one. Okay, point number one. Which is, which is this, okay. God's holiness should not be limited to the following. Okay. Point number one title is kind of silly.

God's holiness should not be limited to the following. So, right now, point number one has a couple sub points. And what I'm going to talk about is just a description really fast of the typical ways that we conceive of holiness. So, A, point 1A. Frequently, when we think about holiness, we are talking simply about purity.

Right. A lot of times when we think about, oh, we need to be holy, right, what we're talking about is a kind of purity where because sexual perversion is so, so common. Because, you know, deviance and immorality and all that kind of stuff is so common. When we think of holiness, a lot of times what we're thinking about is just purity.

Staying away from that filth of the world. Staying away from lust, basically. And that is a case in point. Scripture has so much to say about sexual purity. Scripture, what it describes to us, if there's a category of, hey, what are some of the things that really show for a man to be very, very pure, is a man who has this lust in control.

He has mastery over his impulses. Right. Why? Because when it describes the individual who is very, very ungodly, given over to fornification, we know the fruits of the darkness. We know the fruits of the flesh. You're just given to your fleshly desires. You have no idea how to say no to yourself.

And that kind of constant licentiousness is absolutely unholy. Right. But you recognize that, yes, God is so pure and clean. There is no stain of that kind of sin. But the concept of holiness that we're trying to think about should not be limited to that. What's more, holiness is often described as perfection.

So, more so thinking about the idea of the perfection of knowledge, the perfection of wisdom. And the thing about it is, Scripture has so much to say about that. God is omniscient. There is not a thing where he is surprised by. It's like, "What did you say?" There is not a thing where he is caught off guard.

And when the Scripture talks about God's holiness, it is talking about this perfect element of God's wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, where Scripture says everything, past, present, and future, it's just already yours. Because you are a holy God. Okay. I bring those up because, again, today we're talking about not just the concept of holiness, but the application of it.

And, yes, I could make this conference or retreat about the application of these communicable attributes. In the sense that God has absolute purity and God has knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Those are things that God says, "Because I am holy in that fashion, so should you." Right? Those are things that God says, "I want you to mimic, follow these character traits that I have." But also, Scripture talks about God's holiness in terms of power.

The power and might and strength. Okay. So, first we had purity. Second, we had perfection. Third, we have power. Essentially, He has the power to create, ex nihilo, He speaks, and it comes to being. He has such strength and He constantly asks us, "Why in the world do you keep thinking of me like one of you guys?

Is my arm only as long as yours? There is nothing in this entire world that can stay in my hand." God is so utterly powerful that nobody is going to resist, nobody is going to fight back. When He decides to do, it's going to happen. That's the way the Scripture describes God's absolute power.

And the Scripture describes that element as His holiness as well. And then lastly, we think of God's holiness as His authority and judgment. Okay. Authority and judgment. God, by nature of having all of these attributes, He is essentially in a role where He is judge and Lord over all.

He has the right to conclude your wrong. We don't have a right to point that back at Him and say, "God, what are you doing?" No, no. His holiness is also describing this attribute that He has both the authority, the ability, and His own prerogative to judge the world.

That's His holiness. Okay. Right there in this first point, all I want to do is present to you every single one of those points we can make into an entire seminar. Right? Every single one of those points we can make into a retreat of its own. God's holiness is vast.

That's my point. But it's funny to me that we regularly limit God. It's funny to me that when we conceive and think of the Lord, a lot of times it has to do with our angle. Which is, if I see God's holiness in some light, typically I'm receiving it in terms of, "Then what am I permitted to do?

What am I prohibited to do?" Those are some of the questions we ask when we think about application. But my challenge to you is, try not to think like that. Just from your perspective. Understand that when we're thinking about God's holiness, it has more to do than just simply that element.

Okay? And also, if for you, in your habit of thinking about the holiness, it is the case and actually reality for you, where you always thought of holiness as always a scary term. I want to challenge you today and say, make sure that you are broadening your scope to the biblical scope, which is vast.

Right? Which is much bigger than what is commonly perceived. So that's point number one. Basically, holiness shall not be limited. Okay? Holiness shall not be limited. At the same time, because we only have limited time to talk about this topic, point number two is going to be this. An incredible element of God's holiness means that He Himself is set apart.

So point number two is, God Himself is set apart. A.K.A. another way of saying that God is set apart is to say that He is absolutely unique. And so here, would you please take your Bibles and open up to Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 32 through 39. Okay? I'm going to turn there with you.

It's so funny, I just got a flashback of one of my seminary professors. He would always be like, let's turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Let's see who gets there first. Beat ya. Right? I was like, he was at the time when I was in his class, he was like 68.

And I was like, what an interesting individual. Okay. Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 32. And notice, and I'm going to read from verse 32 to 39. And notice what the scripture has to say here. Okay. This is going to be -- okay. Chapter 4. Okay. Here we go. "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other." He's just calling us to think deeply about this.

"Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you have heard it and survived? Or has a God tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders, and by war and by mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

To you it has been shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God. There is no other besides Him." If you're highlighting and underlining, there is the thrust of this entire retreat. "God has shown this to you, that He is God, and there is none other like Him.

Out of the heavens He lets you hear His voice to discipline you, and on earth He lets you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire, because He loved your fathers before He chose their descendants after them, and He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in to give you their land for an inheritance as it is today.

Know therefore today, take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on earth below. There is no other." If you're highlighting and underlining, verse 35 and 39 shows to us the aspect of His holiness. What I'm trying to say is that there is an aspect of His holiness that is not conceived of easily because it's so conceptual.

And the conceptual is also phrased most of the time in a negative form. Negative form meaning, "There is no other. There is nothing like God." Shall I try to creatively think of an example? Scripture says, "To what shall I compare thee?" Impossible task. God is absolutely unique. There is this otherness, and the way that sometimes we try to think about it, falsely, although yes, the intention is good, is to think that God Himself, when He is talked about as unique, talked about as set apart, we try to think of Him as the best of the best.

You know, there's that idiom, "The creme de la creme," right? If you can think about somebody who's quite loving, He is the most loving. If you can think about somebody who's super skilled and talented, He is the most skilled. Scripture says, that's actually a far, far understatement to describe the uniqueness of God.

There is no superlative to actually correctly describe God. So to say, "God, you're the best," right? To give Him the thumbs up would still undermine God. Because Scripture says, "There is none other. There is nothing to compare Him." You know, what's really interesting then is, for us to conceive of God, there is this endeavor for us to appreciate that.

Okay. And I want you to start thinking about this, okay? You know what? I got to apologize here. This is going to be fun. I printed this last night, and then I realized I didn't print the updated version that I worked on. So the reason why I'm flipping back and forth is like, "Where is my note?" Okay.

I want you to think about this then. What Moses is trying to communicate to us is this element of God, where we must then—and then I want you to start using the verbs, because we're talking about holiness applied. If God truly is so unique, there is none other, start rapidly thinking and meditating about the verbs that come after that thought.

There must be a treatment of God that then—He is not then placed in the same categories as the stuff that I see. "Oh, you're like those other gods." Wrong. And that was the common error and common faltering of the people of God in the Old Testament. "Why do you keep placing me with images?

Why do you keep placing me with totem poles? Why do you keep placing me in the palm of your hand?" Wrong. In terms of the value system, think about the incredible weight and value that God has. "You shall not treat Him as though, 'Oh, He happens to be kind of like our treasure, just like we have gold.'" Wrong.

As soon as you start comparing Him with the treasures and values that you have on earth, you're not treating Him as set apart, are you? What I'm talking about is you have to see Him as so unique. There's a quote I want to highlight for you by A.W. Tozer, and he says, "We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something just very pure, then raising that concept to the highest degree that we can think of.

God transcends the capacity of our minds. God's holiness is not simply the best we know, infinitely better. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unattainable. Only the spirit of the Holy One can impart to a limited human spirit this knowledge of the Holy." That just blows our minds.

And that's what I'm trying to tackle is, I think, subtly, sometimes unintentionally, because we are limited, we do have a very limited concept of God. But the Scriptures says that God Himself is holy, holy, holy, then you would then think He is so set apart, so set apart, because the Hebrew term literally means to be set apart, He is like none other.

In the book of Exodus 15, Scripture says, "Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" And so if there is nothing like God, that means that God is absolutely wonderful, and the things that we are wowed by, there is no comparison.

If I am wowed by God just the same way I am wowed by a professional athlete, I am wowed by delicious food, the comparison there. If God is so set apart, He is absolutely beautiful is what I'm saying. If God is so set apart that there is none other like God, then earlier what I mentioned is He is not just simply of greatest prize, He is to the degree so priceless, we cannot quantify it.

We can talk about bazillions of dollars, billions and trillions, right? But no, there is going to be no quantifiable measure of the value of God to us. And if there is no one like our God, He is absolutely worthy. So then, let me move to point three. What I'm trying to say is today we're talking about the holiness of God and thinking about that concept and understanding of God by our faith has to translate to application.

And so, point three is going to be if God is truly set apart, our treatment of God must be sacred. We live in such a generation that has regularly flipped the tables around and said, "No, I'm sacred. My feelings are sacred. My value is sacred. My personhood and identity is sacred." That's our generation and it applies itself in so many different ways.

By the way of Scripture, we're going to make that table right side up and say, "No, no. There are some things so sacred, yes. But for us, our treatment of God must be truly holy." If God is truly unique, then we must truly sanctify Him in our hearts. We must regard Him as holy.

Our treatment of God must be so distinct. And there's already going to be individuals in our generation, as soon as we say something like that, that our treatment of God must be holy and it should be like observably holy. There should be a sacredness in the way that we treat the Lord and in our attitude to Him, there should be honor, reverence, and more to the degree that it actually shows Him to be a cut above the rest.

There's going to be this tension. It's like, "Ooh, but history has told us that that turns into legalism. History has told us that that turns into ritualism." Yes, but that fear needs to be rejected in of itself. What is true, though, is God has painstakingly tried to show His people.

God has through instruction, through drama, through example and model. God has through generations, through the nation of Israel, His law, legally, ceremonially, communally, and ritually, God has tried to show His people all the time. "You shall regard me as holy." And therefore, when you think about the Old Testament, think back.

Think about all that He's been trying to teach the nation of Israel. You see this item here? I'm going to just use it as an example. I should actually just hold this. You see this item here? This is consecrated to God. It's holy. You see this tent right here?

When you meet God, it is consecrated to God. It's holy. Let me now put that in another way. The negative way, because I think for us, we have to see both sides to really understand. One of the common errors of the people of God has been, "Stop treating God like commonplace." Think and meditate about that.

God has tried to show them that you have to see God as so significantly holy, meaning that He is so consequential. He is so weighty. In terms of what importance and significance He has, He has such vast space that you treat Him always with an incredible amount of specific holiness and sacredness.

What am I talking about? There are times when people talk about doing things with the Lord, and they have this rationale, you know. People say this, and if you said this, don't feel bad, but I want to actually challenge you to think of it in another way. In terms of prayer, I know I should pray, so what I do is I pray when I walk.

I pray when I drive. Okay, makes sense. Why? Because we have a dynamic relationship with God, and you should be praying when you drive. You should be praying when you walk. But then I've also heard of people, in terms of devotions, I think and meditate about Scripture. You know what happens?

In order for the sake of routine, I do that on the toilet. People who, nowadays, it's very common, they come to church, it feels just like a cafe. They come to church, they have coffee, they watch the TV. It seems so much like your routine walk. It sort of seems so much like a routine habit.

It seems so much like something you normally do in your every single day of life. That's fine in some sense, because should you be walking with God in your normal walk in life? Absolutely yes. But then, there's the question. But where are the moments when you have sacred moments with God?

Where you put aside all the distractions and you say, "Lord, because you're holy and you're sacred, when I come into your presence and I want to commune with you, I'm not treating you like my buddy, like my coffee, or my poop. But I'm treating you as holy." So it's not going to be routine.

It's not going to be a checkbox. But I'm going to set apart this time with you as a sacred time with you. And I'm going to treat you that way, because I believe you are 100% unique. And that means you have such value, you have such worth, you have such respect.

Due to you blows my mind. Let me ask you something. Would it be weird if one of us bammers came into service just completely decked out? Like suit, bow tie, maybe even tuxedo. And then before they walked into the service, they started wiping their feet. And then when they came in, they sat down and they did some kind of ritualistic, like first confession of prayer, and then they first laid down everything.

And then when they came in, they first like bowed, they put their nose to the ground. Would we look at that as funny? Would that be strange to us? I just want us to think about this. Would that not fit into our cultural norms? Or would we look at that and be like, "Maybe I should be doing that." If we conceived of God truly as he is, reminder, long before us, the vast majority of history, they always treated God like that.

They'd wash their hands before they even picked up their Bible. They would be appalled at the fact that modern day Christians take their Bibles into the bathroom. There are Christians and believers long before us, generations and generations before us, before they ever walked into the sanctuary, they were deathly afraid of actually dying.

And so they would always wash themselves before coming in. Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should do that. I'm just challenging our naturally accepted norms, right? And asking the question, "Wait a minute. Have we become so comfortable?" Long time ago in--I say long time ago.

It's not that long ago. But when I was a college freshman, there was this really popular song by John Mayer called "Comfortable." And it would go, "Our love was comfortable and-- Do you guys know that song? So broken in." And I thought it was so cool. I learned it on the guitar.

And I thought it was so cool. I was playing and stuff. But do you know what that song's about? It's about him already being in another relationship that he doesn't like, and him just reminiscing about a nice, comfortable love that he had with another woman. And I was singing that.

I was like, "Wait a minute." But it was so catchy. And I realized part of the catchiness is there is such an affinity to a kind of love that is so comfortable and so broken in, just feel natural. And you don't have to feel like you have to behave.

And in the song itself, he talks about this girl who says she loves the Bible, and then he's not really able to say what he wants to say. But with the comfortable girl, he can mess around at the shops. He can stumble over the aisles, and he can do whatever he wants.

And then his love is so comfortable because they can be free. And I realized that kind of song resonates with us. But actually, it's just so far from the reality, right? It's so far from reality. Now, what I want to say is moving on to point number four. Point number three was our concept of God as unique, singular, means that he is elevated to, right, beyond even the top.

He is just transcendent. And if you see him that way, then your treatment of God must be sacred. And then what I would like to say is this. Point number four is if there is a specific command, stop treating him as though he does not matter. That's point number four.

If we're thinking about God's holiness as uniqueness instead of partness, stop treating him like he does not matter. What am I talking about here is there is then in us the worldview and value system that has to be able to say this. God, if you are of such immense value, then you matter the most to me.

Not only the most, but I want you to think about this. Think about the things that are so significant to your life that if you have it, you have everything, and if you don't have it, you have nothing. And for a lot of us, what that typically translates to is our family members.

If you lost your parents, you would feel like you've lost it all. Who cares if you live in a nice house, you know, four-bedroom, two-bath, three-car garage with two dogs? I don't know. Sometimes I feel like nowadays because the housing market is real nice, everybody is staring like, "That's what I want." If your family member, like your beloved brother or sister, died, you're not going to care about anything else.

If you got the horrendous news that your sibling has now stage 4 lung cancer, you're not going to care what your hair looks like. You're not going to care who's around you at that point because that is so significant. It outweighs whatever complaint, whatever minor issue, whatever circumstantial blessings or curses you experience.

It's just not going to matter. Yes? Okay. So I'm using this term "matter." I was trying to think about like how do I illustrate this point, right? We all have the ability to experience that weight of matter where it's so heavy that if it goes right, it means the world to us.

If it goes wrong, then nothing else matters. And my question to you as I think about our perspective on our mentality towards God is when has been the last time that you expressed your love for God in that way? "Lord, you are so important to me. You matter so much to me.

It would kill me if I'm far from you, and it would make me live if I'm close to you." And it would be the exact same. I have shared a couple times that sometimes I have these really anxious moments where I just wake up in the middle of the night crying because I've dreamt that one of my kids drowned.

So then obviously I took them to swim class. They know both matters. But within my dream, I specifically remember the moment where I see one of my kids drowning in the pool, and I'm about 50 yards out, and I'm screaming, "Get him! Somebody get him!" And so I wake up going, "Yeah!" And then the next time I have the dream, I'm only running, but by the time I get there, he's already upside down, right?

Okay, that feeling, if I lose this, my life is done. I don't know how I would react if I actually lost one of my family members, if I lost my wife, and then because I have these hero dreams all the time, you know, like I have these stupid dreams, and I'm pretty sure some of you guys have them too, where some thug comes over with a knife to threaten my wife.

It's like, "Urgh!" Right? And I come over and I'm like, "Psh, psh, psh, psh!" I save her, you know? But then sometimes in your sadistic way, in your head, it doesn't always end--your fantasy doesn't end with you saving, your fantasy ends with her actually getting killed, and you feel the devastation.

I'm not just sharing these things with you to have like a sob feeling. What I'm trying to say is it's sometimes good for us to recognize that there are some things in our lives so significant that matter so much, it would truly wreck us, and we would be undone, and I wouldn't know what words to say, and all I could probably do is just be like, "Lord, help me!" Right?

My question to you is, in your love relationship with God, if you're appropriately thinking about the holiness of God, have there been times when you've come before the Lord and said, "Lord, I realize I've come to a point where I love you so much that if I'm far from you, I would be undone.

I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to say. And Lord, that's how important you are to me. That's how much you matter." Now compare that to people. I want you to turn to a passage in 1 Peter 3, verse 15. It's a very interesting passage. Compare that mentality with people who have come to the Lord with that kind of devotion and experiential love, and individuals who act and talk like God doesn't matter.

Let me show you this interesting passage in 1 Peter 3. I'm going to start reading from verse 13, and he describes a situation. The people of 1 Peter suffer much, right? Tribulations of all various kinds, persecution, getting chased. Verse 13 says, "Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?

But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed." Wow, that's something to soak on. That if you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you're being blessed. "And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled." But, look at this, highlight this and underline this.

"Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence." Keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.

Follow with me the logic here. Are you being persecuted? Are you suffering? "Sanctify the Lord in your heart. Regard Him as set apart. Regard Him as the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ, who is unique to the degree there is none other like Him. He is the only singular begotten Son of God, of such value, worth, and deserving of all devotion." To the degree that even if you suffer, you feel like being blessed, as opposed to, and I ask you to do a comparative contrast.

The people who are suffering, and you try to encourage them and say, "But remember, Christ loves you, and you're in Christ." They say, "Yeah, but how has He helped me lately?" Don't throw out any Bible verses. Don't give me cliché. As though for you suffering, and then me saying, "Jesus Christ is still with you," is some kind of third tier, like some kind of, you know what they say, like when you--what is that thing you call where you fight for a prize, you don't win, and then so they give you a little, bloop, consolation prize.

Thank you so much. I had a blip of my own, okay? People who act like Jesus, when you say that He still loves you, and that you have His eternal hope, is some kind of consolation prize, and they have this attitude of, "Yes, but what am I still going to do about the other thing that matters?" Those are two very different mentalities.

And so I want to challenge you to think of God as the most consequential and weighty is to us, our holiness. We are most holy and godly when we see Christ as set apart in our hearts, when we see God as unique and set apart in our hearts. There is an interesting passage that we tackled during our Bible study this week, and we talked about laziness.

In your Bible studies, in 2 Thessalonians 3, verses 6-10, we talked about the unruly life, okay? And I want to draw a connection here, because the unruly life is an unholy life, isn't it? The lazy life is an unholy life. But recognize that the unholy life is not just unholy in and of itself.

The unholy life is unholy because it fails to sanctify God as the thing and person that matters most in your life. Let me make this connection for you by way of another passage. Turn your Bibles to Matthew 25. Is it 10.05 already? Where has the time gone? Oh, no.

I have many pages left. This is what happens when you print the wrong version of your sermon. Anyway, turn your Bibles to Matthew 25, and we'll continue to walk down this idea. You guys understand the connection that I'm making is clearly an unruly life, one who is contrarian to the tradition and the teaching of the disciples is an unholy life.

You are unholy when you live that kind of lazy, undisciplined, "I'm not going to do what you say. Don't tell me what to do" kind of life, right? "I'll do it on my own time," right? That's a really unholy person. I want to share with you a parable that's so famous.

It's the parable of the talents, but because it's long, I'm going to start at verse 24. Okay? So let's take a look at that passage. Matthew 25. You guys are all there? Matthew 25, there's verse 24 and following it says, "And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.

And so I was afraid. And so I went away and I hid your talent in the ground.'" See? You have what is yours. Pause right there for a second. Jesus is telling this parable and you're having this scene. You guys know this scene, so I'm not going to rehearse it for you.

But essentially, you've got other guys who actually invested and worked and labored and produced and were productive. You have this guy who just sat on it, right? He didn't lose it, thankfully. He could have taken on a risky endeavor and just lost it all, but he just sat on it.

And clearly the master is coming in, suddenly and calm, being like, "You're a slave. You're my servant. You just sat on it? That means you didn't fulfill your slavery, your duties." And then what ends up happening is this individual, he points the finger back and says, "That's because you're messed up.

You collect where you didn't even work." And once more he points the finger back and says, "You're a bad man. You're scary. I was afraid of you." Which is typically the MO of people who are unruly, undisciplined, and lazy. If you ever try to rebuke an individual who's given to that kind of heart, they'll always point the finger back at you.

"What about you? You're the hypocrite." Ba-da-ba-da-ba, right? And they'll always find some loophole. But the interesting part of the story comes in the next section, verse 26. "But his master answered and said to him, 'You wicked!'" Underline that because the way God sees it is vile wickedness. Not just, "Ah, what are we going to do with you, lazy?" No, it's wicked.

"You lazy slave. So you knew that I would reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank and on my arrival I would have received my money back in interest." What the narrative is doing is the master is calling his bluff.

You point the accused-toward-finger at me like I'm the bad guy? Excuses. That's inconsistent. If you were really afraid of me, actually you would work harder. If you knew I was a hard man, you would do even more. But let me tell you actually what you think. He doesn't explicitly say it.

But essentially, the heart of the lazy person believes that God is inconsequential. Imagine a young child. A young child is told by his parents, "You better clean up your room and you better do your laundry and you better actually put the dishes away. I'm going to go out to the market.

I'm going to come back. By the time it's done, you better do it." What is the psyche and mentality of the kid who's like, "Uh-huh, sure, whatever." He plays, he does whatever he wants, and the parent shows up and the parent asks, "Did you do it?" And the parent thinks so much that the child thought like, "You parents, you stink.

You're so mean. I hate you." Most of the time, the sin of man and the sin of that child is, "I don't care. What are you going to do?" The belief that upon the arrival of the parents, that there's going to be no consequences. The belief that the command of the parents are so inconsequential that it doesn't matter that you can just do whatever the heck you want.

You can play and that your agenda is priority over his. Wickedness. So when I say at the heart of man has to see the weight of God as the person who matters most, this is what I'm talking about. When we say in our hearts that the showing up of the Lord, again, none of us would ever articulate that verbally.

We wouldn't explicitly say like, "I don't care what you say." But what's the definition of a brat? What's the definition of that child who's sitting there? He knows his parents commanded him certain things to do. He knows his parents are going to show up eventually, but just decides, "We'll see when we get there." That is the falsehood that sometimes lies also in our minds.

Okay. So for the sake of time, we're going to start wrapping things up and I'm going to conclude with like a preview of point five that I'm going to say for the next session. The preview of point five then is to regularly see God's holiness applied as the abiding in a relational presence with God.

I'll just repeat that. The holiness applied for you then would be to abide in the regular presence of God. Why? Because what he's going to say then is at this point, the way that we've described God, he's so other he's up here. He's so other he's through the roof.

Okay. Remember, what God has done is not only is he breaking the false limitations of our concept of him, what he's setting up is there is a unique relationship that only can be had by God's immediate presence and work in your life. And what he's going to do is he's going to set you apart for him.

Right? The greatest mentality in the greatest world that we could have is to recognize that the unique ultimate value, ultimate worthy, ultimate powerful God has set you apart for a unique relationship with him. And that changes everything. It changes everything in terms of how we behave, how we function, how we make decisions, and how we feel.

This unique God desires a unique relationship for a set apart, consecrated, sacred people. And that's us. Amen. Let's take a moment to bow and pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are so thankful, God, that you are showing us the reality of things. That we are so accustomed to just operate and live life according to what we are accustomed to, what seems normative and acceptable to us.

But, God, we're now considering what is normative and acceptable to you. And we recognize, Father God, that to treat you as everyday material, to treat you like the way we treat our course books, to treat you like the way we treat simply our acquaintances, Lord, that is so beneath you.

And I pray, Father God, that our faith would then rise to you, that we would conceive you in greater measure as you are. And I pray that by doing so, first and foremost, you would be honored in this place. You would be honored by the faith in our hearts.

And I pray, Father God, that as we do so then, we would all the more experience the joy of communing with you, loving you, being known by you, Lord. Father, we thank you so much. It's in Christ that we pray. Amen. Why don't we all stand for the response song?

Worthy. Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever save. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe.

We live for you. Oh, we live for you. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. Worthy. Worthy of every song we could ever sing.

Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Jesus, the name above every other. Jesus, the only one who could ever save. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Oh, we live for you.

Holy, there is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation.

I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken. I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation. I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none besides you.

Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation. I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken.

I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation. I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, for who you are. We thank you for being a God who is transcendent, a God who is set apart.

We pray, Lord, that as we reflect on our own personal lives, our own personal walks, that we can say that if you are far, then it pains us, that if you are close, then we have life. We pray, Lord, for this time, for this retreat, that we could take time to reflect on our own personal walks of holiness and asking ourselves whether or not we view you in a high regard.

We pray for this time of discussion, that it would be a fruitful time. We thank you, Lord, we love you. We pray all this in your name. Amen. Okay. So at this time, what we're going to do is -- I was just taking a moment to think about it.

And what makes sense is that moment of just reflection. I called it retreat time because it is good for us to actually feel like we're coming away from our normal habits, normal routine, and then to take that time and say, "God, I'm approaching you." So I think what would be good, Kevin, is we're going to do that time of your personal reflection now and then just set your clock at 1045 and come to the sanctuary front and center here, because most likely we'll take our photo around this area.

And that way we can take our photo, and then when we're all together, and then on your way back, take a look at the sign, the sheets for your small group division, and that way when we're together for the pictures, then you can bunch up into your groups and then head over to do your discussion.

Okay? Just as a quick couple announcements then, a couple things for practicality-wise is that building over there, we can use for your small groups. There's chairs over there and tables, so feel fine over there. Over here too, downstairs and upstairs, you can use for meetings, but unfortunately there are no chairs.

So if you're going to do your small groups here, just grab some chairs with you and then bring them back when you're done. Okay? Now I want to give a little bit of instruction for this reflection time. The way I want you to use it is I asked a very specific question.

In your relationship with God, have you recently expressed to Him, "Lord, you're so important to me. You absolutely matter." Right? And in terms of the thing that is so consequential that I would either be in fear or greatest joy, it's you. And if you haven't ever explicitly say that, because let's say you're one of those individuals who just never grew up saying things like, "I love you," and it just feels awkward coming out of your mouth, do it.

And then for some of you I know, maybe your heart's already ripe and ready to say it, and some of you you're thinking, "I don't want to say things that I don't genuinely feel." Right? This is time for you to wrestle with God. "God, search my heart. Why? I believe you and I know you're there.

Why? Am I hesitant to say those things to you?" Right? "What is causing me to feel some kind of hurdle or impending kind of block that's causing me to have this kind of free relationship, this kind of deep relationship?" And wrestle with God. And then second part is, if you are already cognizant of the fact that like, "Oh, goodness, I've been treating you out of convenience, and I've been treating you out of very much like commonplace," I want to turn that around, Lord, and get real specific with the Lord.

Okay? So I'm going to just-- Is there more announcements to-- Is there more announcements? Okay. I'm going to invite Kevin up here to give a couple more announcements, but again, immediately after this we'll go, and you can use different areas. You can stay here too. It's going to be fine.

I'm just going to ask the team to play some background music here. Again, 1045, meet back here for pictures, okay? Thank you. Just two announcements. If you haven't paid yet, you can Venmo BCC BAM Finance, or you can pay cash to Nathan. He's sitting over there by the TV.

So yeah, if you haven't paid, pay. And then there's also a lot of snacks back there. So that's for anybody, anytime. So you guys can grab any of those that you guys want to eat. So yeah, so you guys can go for your personal part-time, and then we'll be back here at 1045.

Thank you.