Exodus 3:4-6 “When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ and Moses said, ‘Here I am.’ ‘Do not come any closer, God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’”

Perhaps we are surprised to hear God say, “Moses, keep your distance.” I thought he loved us. Don’t we sing, “What a friend we have in Jesus?” Doesn’t he pick us up in his arms and carry us in that “Footprints in the Sand” story posted on plaques in a million living rooms? What gives?

There is the little matter of human sin. In Psalm 24 David observes: “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart…” But that is just our problem. We have dirty hands and a polluted heart. We do things that make God mad. We want things that defy his will.

This is a problem for a holy God. We can no more ask him to be okay with this than we can ask him to stop being God. A god who ignores sin, who accepts it as merely a different choice, who shrugs his shoulders and says, “Do whatever you want,” is a god that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else should or could respect. If someone else takes your things, should he just say, “That’s okay.” If someone else took your life, should his reaction be, “Who am I to judge?”

A holy God acknowledges, “Sin is a problem. It puts a distance between you and me. If something isn’t done about it, that distance will be as far as heaven is from hell, and it is going to last forever and ever.”

So God demands respect. “Keep your distance, Moses. Take off your shoes.” If you visit my house, you can wear your shoes all over the house if you like. I don’t care. I do it. But you know that many people expect you to drop your shoes at the door. They don’t want what’s on the bottom of your shoes tracked all over the carpet. For some cultures, like the Japanese, taking your shoes off inside is a general matter of respect. The Lord, too, was impressing on Moses, “I don’t want what your sandals have picked up from tramping around with the sheep, and living in your filthy world, tracked into my holy presence. You will respect my holiness and purity.”

Moses got the message. “Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ At this Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” The Lord is not a one dimensional character from a cartoon. There is more to him than this holiness. But we have to reckon with his holiness, too. And Moses did so when he covered his face.

This is the God who sends us to serve him, and there are a couple of things to take away for our own lives of service. We approach serving God with a sense of seriousness and awe. Being a Christian isn’t a hobby. It is a high and holy calling. It demands our highest and our best.

If the Lord takes his holiness so seriously, we have no right to compromise his holy standards. We are called, all of us, to uphold them all. The world won’t like them. We will fail to keep them. That’s not okay. That’s a call to repentance, repentance we all need every day. But if we decide to fudge on God’s holy standards instead, and let things slide, and won’t confront sin in ourselves or others, that serves no one.

Because God’s holiness is accompanied by his love, he not only demands holiness, he gives it through the forgiveness of sins. “Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27). So cleansed, we are qualified to stand in God’s holy presence and serve him with holy lives.