Most of us are not living in active rebellion against God. We’re not worshipping false gods or celebrating gross immorality. We’re doing something quieter, and in some ways more insidious: we’re living common lives while calling ourselves holy people. Common. Not unclean, exactly. Just, ordinary. Undifferentiated from the surrounding culture. Making the same choices, holding the same values, reaching for the same comforts, operating at the same level of reverence we’d give anything else we moderately respect. Keith Hoeck’s question, are you willing to trade common for holy?, is not a gentle one. It does not have a comfortable answer. But it is the question underneath every biblical instruction about what God’s people are supposed to look like in the world.
The Call Goes All the Way Back
The command is not complicated. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15–16, echoing Leviticus 11:44). It is stated in the Law, repeated in the Prophets, confirmed in the New Testament, and it has not been revised. God’s standard for His people — the people He formed, redeemed, and set apart — is holiness that reflects His own character. Not holiness that meets a cultural baseline. Not holiness compared to the neighbors. Holiness calibrated to God Himself.
Keith’s diagnosis of why this is so rarely achieved goes back to the verse that opened his earlier message: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6, Romans 1:28) The problem is not a shortage of Bibles. The problem is a shortage of reverence for what the Bible actually says. Human tradition fills the gap. Human reasoning tips the scale. And gradually, the bar for what counts as holy slides down toward what counts as common.
Leviticus 10:10 — The Commandment Nobody Quotes
Most people know that the Levitical priesthood was set apart — different clothes, different responsibilities, different access to God’s presence. What often gets missed is the specific content of what they were commanded to do. Leviticus 10:10: “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.” Distinguish. That’s the verb. That’s the priesthood’s job, not just to perform rituals, but to maintain a daily, active awareness of the difference between what belongs to God and what doesn’t. Between what reflects His character and what doesn’t. Between what is set apart and what is ordinary.
And Peter, in 1 Peter 2:9, says you are a royal priesthood. A chosen people. A holy nation. Which means the commandment to distinguish doesn’t belong only to the Levites. It belongs to anyone who has been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. You carry the same assignment. You are to distinguish, daily, actively, in your choices, your speech, your conduct, your relationships, between what is holy and what is common.
The Practical Shape of That Distinction
Keith made a pastoral observation that is worth sitting with: the dietary laws, the Sabbath, the biblical feast days, these are not primarily about the specific acts themselves. They are training in distinction. They are daily and annual reminders, built into the rhythm of life, that God’s people live differently. They see things differently. They measure their choices against a different standard. Every time you make a choice about what you eat, you’re being trained to ask: Does this reflect what God has called clean? Every week when the Sabbath comes, you’re being trained to stop, to resist the economy of perpetual productivity and trust that God built rest into creation for a reason. Every feast season, you’re being trained to see God’s plan on a timeline bigger than your own. These things are not burdens. They are a curriculum. They are God teaching His people how to think about the difference between what is His and what is common.
What You’re Not Willing to Give Up
Keith’s challenge landed here: the real test of whether you’re willing to trade common for holy is not in the areas where holiness is easy or socially acceptable. It’s in the areas where holiness is inconvenient. Where it costs something. Where the common option is more comfortable, more popular, or just more familiar. He closed by asking the congregation to sit with some uncomfortable questions:
Am I living in a way that reflects the holiness of God, or am I looking for a way around His instructions so I can live as comfortable and familiar as possible?
Am I approaching scripture with humility, or am I reading it to confirm what I already believe?
Is there something in my life I’ve labeled common when God has been calling it unclean?
Is there something God has labeled holy that I’ve been treating as optional?
These are not rhetorical questions. They have real answers, specific to your specific life. And the willingness to ask them, honestly, without the safety of a predetermined answer, is the beginning of the kind of distinction God has been after all along.
The Invitation Behind the Command
Here is what Keith was careful to keep in frame: the call to holiness is not a threat. It is an invitation. God is not demanding performance from a distance. He is describing what His people look like from the inside out, what happens when you genuinely know Him, genuinely trust Him, and genuinely let His Word function as the guide it was designed to be. “Come out of her, my people,” He says in Revelation 18:4, not as a punishment, but as a rescue. He’s calling His people out of the patterns of the world that are leading somewhere they don’t want to go. Common has a cost. It just doesn’t bill you right away.
Holy has a cost too. But that cost, as everyone who has paid it will tell you, produces something worth having. A life that reflects the character of the God who made you. A garment that is white and clean. A lamp that is full. Are you willing to trade common for holy?
Greater Phoenix Church of God meets every Saturday at 10:30 AM at 4300 N. 82nd Street, Scottsdale, AZ.