You're never going to hear the word holiness within mainstream culture. Just as you'll never hear the word sin. That's because they simply run counter to what our culture elevates / celebrates / embraces day after day after day.
Cultural norms embrace depravity. Sin is normalized. There is no higher standard, i.e. perfection or comprehension on any level of God's love / grace for his people because man is god himself.
What drives these lies is the illusion of authority each of us is exposed to on a daily basis. Our own independent authority. This is authenticated by the single family home, the singular automobile, my pocket computer, my vocation, my retirement account, my children, my hobbies, my church, my sexuality and so forth. All of which reinforces the singular concept of ME and my rights and my independent authority.
Ultimately, it comes down to being convinced that I'm accountable to no one and that none of these aforementioned items are anything other than RIGHTS.
Well, that's just horseshit.
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God brought you into being. It's by his grace that you exist and receive the tangible "rights" that are at your disposal each and every day. He put you on this Earth at this point in time on whatever soil he chose - for one reason - to glorify him.
But, if you were to listen to our culture, that truth would never come through. And without that truth, we're simply never going to comprehend holiness because we do not on any level comprehend God.
Therefore, what can we do to comprehend God?
Look to his Son. It's the easiest, most prolific source of knowledge relative to God and his holiness, and what's so helpful about studying the life of Jesus, as it's presented within the gospels, is you'll in tandem see a man who glorifies God (his Heavenly Father).
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But Jesus didn't have a single family home, an automobile, a pocket computer, a vocation, a retirement account, children, hobbies, church home, or even have sex - all of which separate my mindset from his own! All I can say to that is he was 100% God and 100% man all at once yet still served as the perfect standard for achieving consistent holiness, day after day after day. My advice to you (and to myself) is to put those cultural shelters aside within your mind / soul long enough to empathize with Christ. And I'll say it again, he was 100% God and 100% man all at once. Marinate on that truth.
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In closing, why pursue holiness?
It's the only thing worth living for because God is the only trustworthy, unchanging absolute in man's life / existence, and he's proven that through his son and what his son did on our behalf (atonement).
Be faithful to what God created you to be today by being obedient to him and ever aware of whose you are each and every moment. This is what brings true joy and peace that surpasses understanding, and those two gifts / absolute rights (as adopted sons of God) fuel our pursuit of holiness as our eyes are continually opened to the erroneous "truths" within our culture.
"But as many as received Him, to them He gave THE RIGHT to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
John 1: 12-13
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