Lev 20:7+8, 'You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 'And you shall keep My statutes and practice them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 
    	In this morning’s reading are many specific prohibitions given by God to the people whom He had redeemed unto Himself. The reason for having to so specifically spell out this matter of behavior was because the peoples and nations surrounding the Children of Israel were doing these things. These were the actions and the defilements which resulted in their destruction by God. He was removing those nations from the land and giving it to His own chosen nation. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. If the Israelites wanted to remain in the Promised Land, they would have to honor the holiness of God in the course of their daily walk before Him. 
	This morning, we want to concentrate on what is a key truth, not only for the people of God in the Old Testament, but for us today. It is the elemental facet of our salvation and our relationship with God as it was for the nation of Israel. It is the truth that everything concerning our salvation is based on the reality that it is God Who has sanctified us as He was the One Who sanctified His Chosen People of old. Everything was by the plan and the purpose and the Omnipotence of God and not based in any measure on us or on the worthiness of the Children of Israel. From the very beginning, in the promise made to Abraham, it was always God Who was going to fulfill the pledge. He instituted the covenant and He maintained it and He perfectly completed it in Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son. 
	All has always and will forever be because God chose to do it for the reasons that only He knows. By His eternal Faithfulness and His Sovereignty and His Holiness and His Honor, He brought into being a people, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that would be His Chosen people, His Holy nation, His own family of His working Power and Grace and Mercy!   
	We see this inherent in the Hebrew word translated as sanctified, which we read again in our morning’s passage. 'You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 'And you shall keep My statutes and practice them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 
	According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, the following definition demands our attention to the truth that God causes this or brings it into place in His people. Quote, In the primary stem the verb signifies an act whereby, or a state wherein, people or things are set aside for me in the worship of God: they are consecrated or "made sacred." By this act and in this state the thing or person consecrated is to be withheld from workaday use (or profane use) and to be treated with special care as a possession of God. End quote. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.
	It is God Who set aside this people to whom Moses was detailing the activities that were not to be any part of their behavioral dealings. They were to avoid all those things which would demean them and would cause them to express less than the holiness that God had put before them by His choice of them as His own. They were to act in the manner of who they now were in the eyes of God as an example of His Holiness to all of the nations surrounding them. They were to be that peculiar people who did not practice the abominations of the rest of the world. They were to be seen as different and as holy in their dealings with each other, with their neighbors, and especially in their devotion and commitment to the Lord God Almighty Who had made them His very own.
	God emphasized the fact that He was the One Who set them apart for Himself, over and over again throughout the Old Testament. It was a declaration to bring to their remembrance that, apart from the action of God’s Grace and God’s Mercy and God’s Love, they would be just like the rest of the world. Their peculiarity was because God had sanctified them unto Himself, which He had not done with any other people. This was not due to their worthiness but because He had decided on this course from before the foundations of the world were laid.
	 We find this expressed in Ex 31:13, as God made known the fact that the people were to honor Him in the keeping of the Sabbath as a weekly reverent setting aside of all earthly activity in commemoration and dedication unto Him. Ex 31:13, "But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 
This was not done by any of the other peoples in the region. Those peoples had to work and labor and struggle every day to make a livelihood. It was the people of God who trusted Him and counted on Him to supply each day, including the Sabbath, that which was needed for them to live and to prosper.
	Then, in Lev 21:8, God further made known how His priests would serve Him and the nation in their duties before both. As such, they were to be seen as the representatives of God to the people and the people unto God. They were to be consecrated in the hearts of the nation as those, chosen by God through their birth, to be the agents of God’s sanctification for the nation through their offering of the sacrifices. They played a most important role in the means by which God would continually work to sanctify His nation. Lev 21:8, 'You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he offers the bread of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the Lord, who sanctifies you, am holy. 
     	That chapter and the following Chapter 22 in Leviticus outline the manner in which the priests were to honor their office of service in a way that would be one of reverence and holiness unto God. They presented to the nation the outworking of God’s established plan and purpose. As such, they were held to a higher standard in their behavior and their interactions with the people. This was a standard that was not to be exalted above the rest of the people, but to be an example of how God’s sanctification of His people would be worked out in the daily manner of honoring God through faithful service unto the nation.
	In Lev 22:15+16, God made it known that the gifts which were offered to the Lord were to always be considered as sacred and to be handled and dealt with in care and reverence of the One Who so worked to make this people His very own. It was never to be taken lightly or to be seen as merely tradition or custom. It was the working hand of God that continually brought into His people the truth of His sanctification in the lives that they were to lead. 
Lev 22:15+16, 'And they shall not profane the holy gifts of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, and so cause them to bear punishment for guilt by eating their holy gifts; for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.'" 
      	At the end of Chapter 22, verses 31-33, God reiterated, with utmost emphasis, how He viewed all that He had put into place in His calling and salvation of this people. Lev 22:31-33, So you shall keep My commandments, and do them: I am the Lord. And you shall not profane My holy name, but I will be sanctified among the sons of Israel: I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord." Since He was the One Who brought them out of slavery and into this relationship as His Own Chosen Nation, they needed to exhibit to the rest of humanity the reality that they were holy because He had made them holy. 
They had been a forlorn people enslaved in Egypt, brutally used to construct the buildings of their slave masters, harvesting the crops of their oppressors, tending the flocks and herds of their possessors. They had no land or national identity until God chose them unto Himself, and took them through the wilderness to create in them the knowledge that He would provide for their every need. He would go before them in battle and He would be their Shield and their Protector. Accordingly, they were to simply honor and obey and reap the fruits of His Goodness. Just as God was the One Who was sanctifying them, so also He was the One giving them the land to inhabit and to enjoy as we read in Deut 4:1. 
Deut 4:1, "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, in order that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 
	All of this was in order for them to recognize that what they had and who they were was all the provision of God for them. There was nothing that they had earned and there was nothing about them that made them worthy of God’s divine presence and accommodation. It was all because God so chose them unto Himself. 
Sadly, this was forgotten by the people as they were successful in the habitation of the land. They became set in the idea that they had made a name for themselves. Then they desired to be as the other nations surrounding them with a human king and even began to worship the idols of those nations. They did so in order to be like them rather than separated and consecrated and sanctified unto the Lord.
	 The Prophets continually voiced the Word of the Lord to return unto the Lord with all their hearts and to remember from whence they had come into this land. But the people refused and disobeyed. The prophets pleaded with them, as the voice of God to remember the Lord’s covenant with them and to repent of their evil ways and to once again honor the Lord by forsaking all the filth and the abominations that had caused the removal of the peoples before them in the Promised Land. 
Listen to but one of the prophets as Ezekiel, in Ezek 20:11+12, reminds them of the goodness that the Lord laid before them if they would but abide by His Holiness. Ezek 20:11+12, "And I gave them My statutes and informed them of My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live. "And also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. 
	Then in Ezek 37:23, the promise was made that when God again sanctified His people, there would be a change of heart and mind and behavior. Ezek 37:23, "And they will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their God. 
  	And Ezekiel further emphasized that what God would do was going to be done forever in verses 26-28. To this point, all the sacrifices and the Law and the activities of the priesthood had only showed that even when God did the work for the nation, the hearts of humanity were not able to set themselves upon Him. He had to give them a completely new nature of life and a new heart of commitment from which they would not only recognize His Holiness, but would desire to be Holy themselves in order to honor Him fully. 
Ezek 37:26-28, "And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. "My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. "And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever."'" 
    	This was accomplished through the giving of His Only Begotten Son. Again, the full activity and the source and the means to establish our sanctification is all from God so that we can never make any claim to it as from our worthiness. Everything proceeds by the fulfilled working power of God to establish it. 
The Apostle Paul emphasized the truth of this in 1 Cor 1:27-31. 1 Cor 1:27-31, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." 
    	Then, in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, as in 1 Thess 5, verses 23+24, there is the reminder that God is faithful to do it fully and completely because He is the One Who has accomplished all that is required for our being brought into this living relationship with Himself. This is not by the blood of animals, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. 
1 Thess 5:23+24, 1 Thess 5:23+24, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. 
	Finally, please follow along as we read together the joyous emphasis of who we are now in Jesus Christ as described in 2 Thess 2:13-17. 2 Thess 2:13-17, But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word. 
	It is God Who has chosen us as He did the Nation of Israel. He is the One Who has released us from the bondage of sin and death. He is our sanctification and He is Our Savior, Our Provider, Our God, Our King, Our Everything! It is all His Work and His Love and His Grace and His Mercy in action to bring forth His testimony in His people. So be it!
'You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 'And you shall keep My statutes and practice them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Isa 56:1. Thus says the Lord, "Preserve justice, and do righteousness, For My salvation is about to come And My righteousness to be revealed. Amen.