Sermons

We Will Pursue Holiness Together

March 28, 2021 Speaker: Reid Strahan Series: The Church: Members of Christ and One Another

Topic: The Church Passage: 1 Peter 1:14–16, 2 Corinthians 7:1, Titus 2:11–14

We are going to talk about holiness today.  It feels a little odd to talk about holiness, because I know it is not at the top of the list of what most people want to hear about.  And yet the very purpose for which God chose us, is that we would be holy and blameless.  And we are told to make every effort to be holy, and without holiness, no one will see the Lord. So holiness should be of great interest and importance to us.  

Our statement for this morning is “We will pursue holiness together as a church.”  We are each one called to be holy!  We are also called to be holy, as the church. The church is called a holy nation. We are a holy priesthood.  And we are called to be holy, as a local church.  That will be our emphasis this morning, but first we will seek to clearly understand what holiness really it. Because there are lots of false ideas about it.

***

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, THAT he might sanctify her (or make her holy), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”  Ephesians 5:25-27  The great purpose of Christ’s love and his death, is to make us holy!  ..to make his church holy!

This WILL happen. We WILL BE presented to God, in perfect splendor, without a spot of sin, or a wrinkle of fault.  What glory awaits us!  But this cleansing work begins now.   

We are BEING made holy by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit. We are called to supernatural holiness! Paul said, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh!”  As we are in contact and communion with the Spirit, we become holy!  Holiness is much different than just keeping rules. Rom. 7:6 “We have been released from the law so that we might serve in the new way of the Spirit.”  The new way of the Spirit will make us holy, not by a written code, but from the inside out!  

JI Packer described people who make progress in holiness.  He said, “They go to Jesus about everything that comes up, in order to become clear on how they should react to it as his disciples”.  Holiness flows out of our fellowship with Jesus!  And obedience to Jesus!

Holiness is being faithful and true to the Lord.  It is not just being nice or being a good person. It is having a heart wholly devoted to Christ.  

Holiness is both our status and our calling. Hebrews 10:10 says, “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  Our status before God, right now, is that we ARE holy ones! Praise God!  That’s how we can come to Him freely and boldly! ….Then knowing, and being confident of this, we are to live out, or practice holiness.  Peter said, “Be holy in all you do”. 

1 Peter 2:24 says, “(Christ) himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.That is holiness!!  - dying to sin and living to righteousness.  It is a work of Christ!  His wounds heal us from our sins! MLJ said, “If sin is the disease, holiness is what follows after the cure of Jesus Christ is applied to our lives”.  Sin is being sick, holiness is being well! 

Holiness is not a bad thing, or a depressing thing.  SIN is depressing.  Holiness leads to happiness!  Holiness leads to beauty in our lives.  

Psalm 29:2 says “Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness”. AW Pink said, “Holiness is the antithesis of sin, and the beauty of holiness is in direct contrast to the ugliness of sin. Sin is a deformity, a monstrosity. Sin is repulsive, repellent to the infinitely pure God: that is why He selected leprosy, the most loathsome and horrible of all diseases, to be the emblem (of sin)”. 

Thomas Watson said, the beauty of holiness is the “only kind of beauty which the Lord cares for (in his people)  It is not greatness which sets us off before God, but goodness”. God is not looking for great ability, and powerful personalities, or hip and cool people.  God looks for goodness and holiness in his church.

*Holiness is for EVERY believer. Paul said, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." And the next verse tells us WHY we do that. 

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. (2 Tim. 2:19-21)

Holiness means “set apart for God”.  We are for the Lord’s special use!  We belong to Him. And we want him to use our lives!  Isn’t that the cry of our hearts?

So we prepare ourselves for God’s special use by “fleeing youthful passions and pursuing righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” 

Peter said, holiness is like children obeying their father! 1 Peter 1:14,15 “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.”  Like children we want to please our father, and be like our father!

Holiness is the spontaneous outcome of fearing the Lord.  Paul said, “Therefore, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”  2 Cor. 7:1 ESV.  We don’t fear him as slaves under a tyrannical master.  But we do fear him as our Holy Father.  And that reverential fear of God drives sin out of our lives!    

*******************

We are to take the matter of holiness seriously, for the sake of our own walk with God.  But we also pursue holiness AS A CHURCH FAMILY.

Rueben Hunter with The Gospel Coalition said he had never seen the topic “Planting Holy Churches” on the schedule at a pastors conference. Yet one of our most important callings as churches, is to be holy churches.”..  He said “As we look to the day when Christ’s bride will be blemish-free, let us (build) churches (now) marked by the beauty of holiness in increasing measure, all the way to glory.”    

Christ’s concern that each church be holy is shown clearly in Revelation 2 and 3. Christ sent messages through John to 7 churches. These churches were local churches, just like ours, in real cites with actual people!  Christ commends each church for things they are doing well, and he rebukes them for what they are doing wrong….AS A CHURCH.  

To the church in Ephesus: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance…. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.”  AS A CHURCH they had lost their first passionate love for Christ and one another!  It was not only an individual failure it was a church failure!

Jesus said to the church in Sardis: “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up!” People said, “Things are really happening over there at that church!”.  Jesus said “You are dead!” We can be spiritually dead or alive individually; we can be dead or alive, as a church!

The church at Laodicea was lukewarm. Jesus said, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ These were ungodly attitudes they had developed collectively as a church!  Jesus said,  “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” They were rebuked AS A CHURCH! 

**Christ sees us as a church, and he is concerned for OUR holiness AS A CHURCH!!!  It is not just about me and how I am doing spiritually!  It is about keeping the whole church family true, and pure, and loving, and on fire for Christ.  We are devoted to one another for this purpose!  We have this responsibility to be holy together!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said how we live when we are alone affects our life together as a church. He said, “In his solitude (a Christian) can sunder and besmirch the fellowship, or he can strengthen and hallow it. On the other hand there is no sin in thought, word or deed, no matter how personal or secret that does not inflict injury upon the whole fellowship.  An element of sickness gets into the body, perhaps nobody knows where it came from or in what member it is lodged, but the body is infected….We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence”. 

This truth is powerfully demonstrated by the story of Achan in the book of Joshua.  Right after Israel’s great victory at Jericho they came to the much smaller city of Ai.  The Lord had told them to destroy all the property and not take anything as spoil at Jericho.  But a man named Achan secretly took some beautiful clothes, and some silver and gold.  And he hid them in the ground under his tent with his own possessions.  Even though Ai should have been an easy victory, the whole nation suffered a terrible defeat. A lot of people died! They couldn’t figure out what went wrong, but the Lord revealed it was a result of the sin of this one man. 

Pastor Robert Murray McCheyne said, “My people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.”  They don’t need my eloquence most, they need my holiness!  That is what we need from one another.  Parents that is what your kids need from you.  The most loving thing you can do for your kids, or your spouse, or the rest of the church, is to pursue holiness!  

How do we live this out:

*We must wake up to God’s purpose to make us holy!  And align our hearts with that purpose. “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” 1 Thessalonians 4:7 NIV 

Titus 2:11-14 “For the grace of God has appeared...It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age”.  We must understand that this is God’s purpose and give our hearts and lives gladly to that purpose!

*Second: We must keep the gods of this world out of the church. The biggest challenge Israel faced was always keeping the gods of the surrounding nations out of their nation.  As a church, we must stand firm against the philosophy of the world, the wisdom of the world.  We have to be able to discern the difference between God’s word and human psychology, or mere human ideas.  We must remember that holiness means “set apart for God”.  

*Third: We must be prepared to suffer in order to be holy.  Holiness will put us at odds with the world.  Someone said, if we are faithful to the Lord, the world will see us as dumb and dangerous.  Paul said our gospel is foolishness to the world!  God’s truth is scoffed at in the world.  God’s revelation on marriage and sex and the sanctity of life is hated by the world.  

It is SO easy to go along and get along and cave into the immense pressure of the world. It will be increasingly hard to be a holy church. We must be willing to suffer to be holy.  

*We must take seriously our need to give and receive continuous exhortation. Hebrews 3:13 “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”  We are to urge one another daily to hold fast to Christ and not be deceived into sin.  IE to live holy lives!  This is why we meet together, to encourage one another, and we are told to do this all the more as you see the day drawing near!  There is an urgency, an importance to this!  God knows we need this to live holy lives!

We pursue holiness TOGETHER. Paul said, “Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.  You are not the only one seeking to live a holy life!  There are many others who are on this path.  Get with those people and pursue righteousness together!  

*We must take radical steps to be holy.  Jesus said, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away”. Jesus did not mean to literally chop your hand off, but he meant we should be deadly serious, or radical, about putting to death the deeds of the flesh.  

Several years ago I met with a man who was engaged in an immorality that was seriously damaging his marriage. It had been going on for years. He said he had been told to just keep working on it and over time God would help him to stop doing it.  I said, if you were robbing convenience stores, what should I tell you as your pastor?  I should tell you to repent of that sin and NEVER EVER rob another store again.  I told him you will need that kind of repentance with this sin.  Sins do not go passively we have to kick them out, or “put them to death”.The grace of God has appeared teaching us to say NO to sin! 

Paul said, “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do..You must put off falsehood, anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer...Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths...Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you..sexual immorality and all impurity must not even be named among you. Let there be no filthy talk or crude joking..You are light in the Lord, walk as children of light.. in all that is good and right and true.”

****

When we talk about holiness, I know it can stir up awareness of past or present failure. And that is not always a bad thing.  The churches in Revelation had to face where they had fallen, in order to repent and be restored!  If we are never willing to hear anything that makes us feel bad, we will probably not make any progress in holiness!  

But we also need to know that where we have failed, or when we do fail, we can get back on the pathway of holy living, quickly!  1John 1:9! “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The church that had fallen the farthest was the church at Laodicea.  But even to that church Christ said, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Repenting, re-opening the door of our hearts to Christ, that’s how we become holy, as individuals and as a church.

More in The Church: Members of Christ and One Another

June 6, 2021

Jesus Will Build His Church

May 30, 2021

Dealing With Sin In the Church

May 16, 2021

Baptized In the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Join us Sunday at 

9:30am