In this lesson, students learn of God's holiness.
Devotion
1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.
Who remembers writing this essay in high school English Lit: 800-1200 words answering the question, “Who am I?” It’s one of those existential questions which every person must face sooner or later. Thankfully, God’s Word addresses all three of life’s most important questions: Who am I? Why am I here? And where am I going? Today we start with the first one: Who am I?
In Greek, the word sanctified and the word saint share the same root: hagios, which means holy. In our verse, Paul addresses believers as those made holy in Christ Jesus, called to be holy ones. Paul says, “So you want to answer the question, who am I? Here’s the Christian’s answer: I am a holy one. I am a saint!”
Can you believe that? I’ll excuse you if you have a bit of hesitation. After all, we don’t feel holy! On the outside, my body seems to be continually falling apart the older I get. On the inside, my corrupt heart continues to sin against God and neighbor by the unholy things I think, say, and do. Holy? A saint? Me? It can’t be.
This much is true: in and of myself, I can’t be holy. I can’t be a saint. I’m too sinful. But in and of Christ Jesus, and according to His gospel of redemption and forgiveness, it really is true! I really am a saint! Declared holy by the gift of faith in Christ Jesus!
Say it with me: “I AM A SAINT.” In Christ Jesus we are held in the highest regard. In Christ Jesus we are holy. It doesn’t matter what our sinful, failing bodies tell us or what our sin-stained consciences tell us, in Christ Jesus we are holy too. No need to wait till we go to heaven. No need to wait for Judgment Day. In Christ Jesus our sins are gone. In Christ Jesus we have been raised up and seated in heaven. It’s already been done. Who am I? In Christ Jesus I am a saint.
Christ is our cornerstone,
On Him alone we build;
With His true saints alone
The courts of heav’n are filled.
On His great love
Our hopes we place
Of present grace
And joys above.
(Lutheran Service Book, 912:1)
Devotion
Luke 11:9, 10 So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Prayer is a precious blessing that our Savior obtained for us when He offered Himself for us as sacrifice to God. By taking away our sin and removing our guilt before God He opened the way for us to come to God and call upon Him for help in every need with the confidence that He will surely hear and answer us.
Here we have one of the promises that Jesus has given to assure us that this is so. Knowing that we are weak and fearful because of our sinful nature, He encourages us to come to God with our petitions. He assures us that we will be heard, and He does so in such a way as to remove all doubt and fear.
These familiar words of Jesus follow a request from His disciples for instruction in prayer. Jesus responded by giving them the Lord’s Prayer. Then, having taught them what things are God-pleasing to ask for, Jesus gave the illustration of the man who went to his friend at midnight, after he had gone to bed, and asked for bread to feed a traveler who had unexpectedly stopped at his house for the night. By this story Jesus teaches boldness and persistence in prayer.
To this powerful illustration Jesus adds His own “I say to you,” assuring us that this encouragement to pray comes to us from the Son of God, from Him to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given. Three times He invites and urges us to pray. Three times He assures us that we will be heard. With three different words He encourages us to pray: ask, seek, and knock.
And after such a mighty encouragement, Jesus still isn’t finished. Lest any of us be inclined to exclude ourselves from what Jesus is saying here, He adds that His promise includes “everyone” who asks, seeks, and knocks as one of His disciples.
By these words of Jesus we can be sure that no true prayer is spoken in vain. God the Father hears us and will answer in the best way and at just the right time.
The lesson
3 Now Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, a priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in blazing fire from within a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but the bush was not burning up. 3 So he said, “I will go over and look at this amazing sight—to find out why the bush is not burning up.”
4 When the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to take a look, God called to him from the middle of the bush and said, “Moses! Moses!”
Moses said, “I am here.”
5 The Lord said, “Do not come any closer. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He then said, “I am the God of your fathers,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
7 The Lord said, “I have certainly seen the misery of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry for help because of their slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. 8 So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 Now indeed, the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me. Yes, I have seen how the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12 So he said, “I will certainly be with you. This will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain.”
13 But Moses said to God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I say to them?”
14 So God replied to Moses, “I am who I am.”[b] He also said, “You will say this to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you.”
15 God also told Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.’
16 “Go, gather the elders of Israel together and tell them: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying: I have certainly been paying attention to you and to what they have done to you in Egypt. 17 So I have said that I will bring you up from the misery in Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’
18 “They will listen to your voice. Then you and the elders of Israel will go to the king of Egypt, and you will say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now let us go on a three-day journey into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord, our God.’
19 “But I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless he is forced to do so by a powerful hand. 20 So I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in their midst. Afterward he will let you go.
21 “I will give this people favor with the Egyptians so that when you go, you will not go out empty-handed. 22 Each woman is to ask her neighbor, as well as any woman staying in her house, for articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. You are to put them on your sons and daughters. In this way you will plunder the Egyptians.”
Exodus 3:6 The Samaritan Pentateuch and Acts 7:32 read fathers. The main Hebrew text has the singular.
Exodus 3:14 This translation follows the Jewish and Christian tradition of not reading God’s Old Testament name Yahweh but pronouncing it as Lord and writing it as Lord (Adonai). This name, known as the Tetragrammaton (the four letter name), means “he is.” It was probably originally pronounced Yahweh, but in poetry it sometimes occurs as the short form Yah. When the Lord speaks of himself, he can call himself I am.
18 Next some Sadducees (who say that there will be no resurrection) came to him. They asked him a question: 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife but no child, then his brother should take his wife and raise up children for his brother.’[c]
20 “Now there were seven brothers. The first one took a wife and died without leaving children. 21 The second one married her and died, leaving no children. The third one did the same. 22 The seven left no children. Last of all, the woman also died. 23 So when they rise in the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since all seven had her as a wife?”
24 Jesus said to them, “Isn’t this the reason you are mistaken: that you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 In fact, when people rise from the dead, they do not marry, and they are not given in marriage, but they are like angels in heaven. 26 But about the dead—that they are raised—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?[d] 27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken.”
qō-ḏeš consecrated thing, dedicated thing, hallowed thing, holiness, most holy day, portion, thing, saint,
Hagion The fundamental (core) meaning of 40 (hágios) is "different" – thus a temple in the 1st century was hagios ("holy") because different from other buildings (Wm. Barclay). In the NT, 40 /hágios ("holy") has the "technical" meaning "different from the world" because "like the Lord."
[40 (hágios) implies something "set apart" and therefore "different (distinguished/distinct)" – i.e. "other," because special to the Lord.]
Hagiasthētō hagiázō (from 40 /hágios, "holy") – to regard as special (sacred), i.e. holy ("set apart"), sanctify. See 40 (hagios).
[37 (hagiázō) means "to make holy, consecrate, sanctify; to dedicate, separate" (Abbott-Smith).]