Holiness - Part III

[I have been recently reading Kevin DeYoung's book, The Hole in our Holiness, and letting his words guide me in a series of sermons on holiness (my first such series).  After experiencing a tough week of ministry, I decided to lay out a clearly defined view of God's requirement that His people be a holy people.  I set up the sermon using his stream of thought and the scriptural foundation behind it, then laid out my heart at the clear direction of my Heavenly Father. This sermon is the result:]

Holiness – Part III

In 1981, a Minnesota radio station reported a story about a stolen car in California.  Police were staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of placing announcements on local radio stations to contact the thief.  You see, on the front seat of the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced with poison.  The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait.  Now the police and the owner of the VW Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than to recover the car.  So often, when we run from God, we feel it is to escape His punishment.  But what we are actually doing is eluding His rescue.

Isn’t a joy that God’s desire is for your rescue?

Because given the fact that according to

Ephesians 2:1 – you were dead in your trespasses;

Romans 5:10 – you were an enemy of God;

Romans 5:12-21 – that as a descendent of the first Adam you share in the guilt and corruption of the first sin;

Psalms 51:5 – you were a sinner brought forth in iniquity;

Ephesians 2:3 – you were deserving of wrath;

Romans 6:23 – you were a sinner who deserved to die –

I have a question for you:

Why did God save you?

I mean, according to:

Romans 5:8 – at just the right time, Jesus died for you;

John 10:15 – the Good Shepherd laid down His life for His sheep;

Mark 10:45 – Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath for you instead of you having to drink it;

Romans 3:25 and 8:31-39 – Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, God is now for you instead of against you

          By faith, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, you are a reconciled, justified, adopted child of God

So, why did God save you?

Two of the possible answers are: Because He loves you and for the praise of His own name.

But listen to Ephesians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

Paul is talking about a personal holiness – you were chosen by God before the world’s foundation was laid –

          WHY

          – in order that you would be holy.       

Simply put – The goal of your redemption is holiness.  You have been justified that you might be sanctified.

Exodus 19:4-6 says:

'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself.  ~'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'"

And in case you need proof of the same from the New Testament:

I Peter 2:9 –

But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

II Timothy 1:8-9

I Thessalonians 4:7

Ephesians 2:10

Ephesians 5:25-27

          The Bible could not be clearer. 

          The entire reason for your salvation;

          The design behind your deliverance;

          The purpose for which God chose you in the first place – is holiness.

But I want to tell you tonight that not only is holiness the goal of your redemption, I want to suggest

          it is necessary for your redemption.

According to Jesus, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”  Matthew 7:21

          This tells us that it is possible to confess the right things and still not be saved.  Only those who do the will of the Father – that means we not only hear His words, but we also do what He commands – will enter heaven.

1 Corinthians 6:9 – Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived;

          This passage tells us what the world does not want to hear – that there is a righteous path and an unrighteous path – and there is a hell to shun and an eternity to gain.

Galatians 5:19-21  Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

          This passage tells us those whose lives are marked by habitual ungodliness will not go to heaven.

And I could go on and on with passages just like these that tie our behavior - creating a direct link between how we act, what we do and what we think – with our eternal destiny.  In fact a scholar once did a study and said the Word contains:

          *6 passages that speak of the necessity of doing good in order to have eternal life

          *13 passages on the necessity of obedience

          *2 on the necessity of holiness

          *2 on the need to forgive others

          *4 on the necessity of not living according to the flesh

          *2 on the necessity of being free from the love of money

          *14 on the need to love Christ and God

          *6 on the necessity of loving others

          *dozens on the need to love the truth, be childlike, bridle the tongue,                    persevere, walk in the light, repent, and fight the good fight.       

Many today will say our righteousness comes strictly by grace from God.

But Hebrews 12:14 tells us:

  Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

          How do we pursue sanctification if the only way we are sanctified is by an act of God?  The word pursue indicates a working or striving toward a goal. 

                   It is not stationary, idle or ambivalent. 

                             It is active, moving and alert.

It has been said:  Most spend their whole lives pretending to be something they're not.  But when a person becomes a Christian, the situation is reversed.  Suddenly they are faced with the challenge of living up to what God has already declared them to be—holy!  (Mitchell Dillon)

If we are declared by God to be holy – it says to me one thing more than any other – that God is asking us to shine for Him to the best of the ability He provides.  Not to gain His favor – but to show that our obedience and commitment to Him are genuine.

CLARIFICATION:

I want to clarify what might be misconceptions by some of you about what I have just stated.

          The emphasis I am placing on personal holiness and the need for making it a primary goal for the believer in no way undermines our confidence that we are justified by faith alone. 

In II Corinthians 5:21 we are told:  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

God declares us righteous solely on account of the righteousness of our Savior.

          Our innocence or purity in God’s sight is not grounded in our works of righteousness.

          Faith and Works are necessary – one is the root and the other is the fruit.

If you asked some works-based religion “What must I do to be saved?”  the answer will be “Repent, believe and live a good life.” 

          The apostle Paul would say, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and your house.” (Acts 16:31)

But know this:

          The faith that joins you to Christ and makes you right with God is a faith that works itself out in love.  On the last day, God will not acquit us because our good works were good enough, but He will look for evidence that our good confession was not phony.

I want to repeat – God is the One working in us, giving us the ability and the desire to obey.  We earn nothing.  But we are promised everything.

          We are saved by grace through faith and we were also created in Christ Jesus for good works. 

          Any gospel which preaches saving people without the necessity of transforming them is preaching “easy-believism.”

          Anyone who believes that saying a prayer and joining a church is all it takes to be a Christian has confused real grace with a cheap and phony substitution. 

                   Those who are justified will be sanctified. 

If I trust in God I am not led by MY righteousness and holiness.  Instead, I'm trusting a God who is so holy and so righteous that my heart’s desire will be to build my life around Him and His expectations.

Would you believe, all of that was preliminary to the rest of my message tonight?

Because, you see, that was going to be the main thrust of my message and I was simply going to end with all the encouragement I could muster up in hopes of persuading the evening congregation I preach to – that holiness is our goal and holiness is God’s expectation for His disciples.

But this week I came face to face with some terribly frustrating truths.

          1.  On Sunday nights I probably preach to some of the most committed Christians of our congregation.  (So, I sometimes find myself questioning the necessity of my preaching.)

          2.  I’m a sort of “rookie” preacher and so, oftentimes, I say everything I think God has given me to say and I still put some people to sleep with the message.

          3.  No matter how well I live my life and what message I deliver to this church – as my husband put it so well this morning – my ability to affect change is almost nonexistent.

          4.  In this day of consumer-churches, where most people believe themselves to be adequately saved – if this church, our preaching, and the ministry of it isn’t what they want – most people will feel perfectly free to just come or go as they choose and will completely ignore the effect their leaving will have on it.  They will leave and still believe themselves to be in perfectly good standing with God.

So, I cried out to God from my terrible frustration and asked Him to provide wisdom for me to know how to conclude this message on holiness.  And this is what He gave me.  It is a parable of a very minor prophet:

The Word of the Lord came to Becky, daughter of Arthur, saying, “Arise, go to my church and into the world and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”

But Becky rose up and fled from the Presence of the Lord and went down to the Great Sea, found the S.S. Anywhere but Here, paid the high sailing fee and burrowed herself into the deep recesses of the ship – away from the Presence of the Lord.

Now, the people around her believed her to be a woman of good standing with God and full of His Spirit, because she worked hard to make certain everyone thought her full of righteousness and right thinking and right living.  But even though she surrounded herself with the trappings of righteousness, because she had run from the Presence of the Lord, and had not followed His Word to her, she suffered from the “splint of the shin” and the pain of the knee and was plagued by the spasm of the muscles and all the other maladies and complaints of those who run – in the wrong direction.  

And the ship on which she had burrowed herself began to be tossed back and forth by the terrible waves of dissatisfaction and the struggles to reach perfection by her own hard work and striving. Until it was clear that the ship upon which she had taken refuge was about to be broken up by the terrible Reef of the Consequences of Contending with Calling without Capitulation.

Suddenly the innocent people around her who were also suffering as a result of her disobedience became aware that she had been called by God to go to His church and to His world and to be His voice.  And because they knew they would be caught up in the consequences of her disobedience unless they did something . . . . . . .

          – Well, that’s where the story takes a bit of a turn, because it would make a much more exciting story to say they turned their backs on her and tossed her into the Great Sea where she was swallowed up by some kind of surprisingly large catfish or flounder or shark – representing her crisis of disobedience. 

          Alas, the world around her said “Obey.  Don’t obey.  You’re a wonderful person and if you don’t follow a call by God to go into His world and into His church and be His voice it won’t really matter.  Because, after all, you’ve got this family to take care of and you’re a woman, and since the whole “God calling women” thing is up for interpretation, (and let’s face it, you’re submitting to God nearly – almost 100%) – well, you just stay burrowed in your fantasy of wholeness, as long as everyone can still count on you to keep striving and working for the Church and making all the effort you’ve always made – we’re sure everything will be O.K.  But if it means one less fanatic running around crying “Holiness Unto the Lord,” then we are perfectly content with you dwelling in the land of “almost-submission.”

But the reality was that Becky had not really gotten away from the eyes or voice of God.  And everywhere she turned in the church and out of it she was faced with a lack of commitment, and contented disobedience and partial submission – and because she saw some of those conditions in her own life and was deeply troubled by them, she knew they were deeply troubling to God as well.  And the more she was faced with them, the louder the voice of God became, telling her He wanted her to go to His church and to His world and be His voice.  But still she was fearful to break out of the hold of the S.S. Anywhere but Here” for great fear of what it would cost and what people would do when they heard her repeatedly calling out “Holiness Unto the Lord.”

And then, on one very ordinary day, she heard another man who had obeyed the call of God, telling about how he had gone to a land far from his home in obedience to the voice of God and how he had stood in the middle of the crowd and cried out just as God had told him to; and how the crowd had responded and a great church had been built on that spot – far from his home.  And Becky heard the voice of God louder than ever before saying, “How is it that you are still hiding in the hold of that ship?  Hasn’t the sea around you become stormy enough yet?  It is time for you to finally obey My voice.”  And Becky stood up in great humility in the Presence of the Lord and finally said, “Here am I Lord, send me.”

And today I was reminded that the truth of that parable is not found in the response of the people, but in the obedience of the minor prophet.  We all may be running from the Lord in order to elude His punishment, when all He wants is to rescue us from death.

“Holiness Unto the Lord” will not be the “watchword and song” for the rest of the world if it is never mine.  And Holiness in the world may not depend on me.  But my own holiness does depend upon my absolute obedience.