Striving for Holiness
Notes
Transcript
OK - a quick pop quiz - you can phone a friend, or chat to the person next to you, let’s see how much we have remembered from previous weeks:
BLANK is Holy, we are not.
God is Holy, we are not.
BLANK makes Holiness possible.
Christ makes Holiness possible.
Holiness begins with BLANK and BLANK.
Holiness begins with Repentance and Faith.
God’s plan is to make us like BLANK.
God’s plan is to make us like Christ.
Holiness progresses the way BLANK BLANK - with BLANK BLANK.
Holiness progresses the way it began - with Repentance and Faith.
Objective - What God has DONE
Subjective - Our part
So God has done all that is necessary for us to be saved:
29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
And because of this - his ultimate plan to conform us to the likeness of his Son, to justify and glorify his sons and daughters - we also know that:
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
So is it
Let Go and Let God?
or is it
Work harder and keep striving?
Straw poll...
Let go and let God
or
Work harder and keep striving?
Well, in some respects our reading today helps us to answer that - let’s have a look together, if you haven’t got it still open can I encourage you to grab hold of a bible in front of you and turn to page 1210 - let’s take a closer look together.
Can you notice the things that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, under inspiration from the Holy Spirit, calls us - who are in Christ - to do:
They are all in verse 1:
Throw off two things, run a certain way and keep focused:
So throw off:
Everything that hinders
The sin that so easily entangles
Of course, to use the analogy of the text - as individual runners, we all need to look into our own hearts and honestly judge what hinders our faith before we can lay it aside.
But the sin that the writer is essentially referring to is the great leveller and applies to all of us - it is the sin that the letter to the Hebrews is essentially concerned about -
Persistent Unbelief -
Taking the Word of God lightly
Unbelief can be trivialised so easily by us - we hid behind the lie that God gives us the freedom to interpret the bible the way we want and that all interpretation is equal - it is not.
Remember the faithful, strong and obedient Moses was kept from entering the Promised land - he put up with a whinging and ungrateful generation and wandered with the Israelites for 40 years.
But ultimately, he treated God’s word lightly and never entered into the land that God had been prepared for those who Moses led out of Egypt.
Over and over again in the scriptures, the words of Paul to the Galatians ring true:
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
The race of course is the race of life.
Hopefully, we have seen over a series of sermons that God gave us life - He is the one who has started us in the race.
Our scriptures give us concrete and consistent pointers to the fact that we are all here for a purpose - to live our lives in fulfillment of God’s will and purpose for us.
This race, as a Christian, requires not only faith in God’s revelation in Jesus and His written Word, but also perseverance and endurance.
I am sure in our own way we can attest to the truth, that the race we are on is not a 100 metre dash.
And whether we are runners or not, I think what we can all agree is that from our personal experience, this race is more akin to a long and often agonising marathon.
However long and arduous it may be for each individual - the finish line is always the same -
we run our race until our death, or the day Jesus returns and brings to completion God’s plan for his saints still alive on earth.
And God says through the writer to the Hebrews - there is only one factor that can make this perseverance and endurance possible.
And that factor is...
BLANK
JESUS
Fix your eyes on Jesus and consider him - why?
Because friends Jesus is the only one who can impart faith to you by His Spirit and bring that faith to perfection in you at the end.
He will be there when you reach the goal,
He will also strengthen us and guard our steps as we run along the race of life too.
In many translations Hebrews 12 verse 2 uses the world author, which is an accurate rendering of the Greek - but it carries with it more the meaning of
Pioneer or Leader
Jesus didn’t just come up with the race - he led the way, as a pioneer going before those who would follow.
He knows the need of the race, he himself ran the race.
Jesus as fully human, had to lay aside every weight that might otherwise have slowed him down - family, friends, familiar territory and his local community.
He had to set his face against the sins of the day and lived a life of daily patient perseverance, trusting his Father to work out everything for him, as he pursued an obedient life that was faithful to the commission he had been given.
But more than our example - Jesus is our empowerment...
Moment by moment, we can find stength in what he imparts to us as we look to him in faith.
He is not “out there” somewhere.
Read this letter to the Hebrews when you can - it makes clear that Jesus is within us, by faith.
His entering the sanctuary, that is into our inner person by His Spirit, into the very place where we need strength and grace - can help us in our time of need.
Having lived by faith, he now imparts faith, as Paul reflects in prayer when he writes to the Ephesians:
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
Friends, this is not ‘wishful’ thinking - this is a new birth, a new creation and born again reality for those who come to Jesus in faith.
Well Lee, I hear you say, easier said than done.
Exactly - I’m glad you raised it...
You see, not only are we surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses - men and women of faith who have persevered, suffered, died in the faith of Christ, safe in the arms of Jesus and who will be raised on the last day to glory…
we are not meant to do this alone.
God has not only encouraged us in his word to fix our eyes on Jesus, to draw near to him, to meditate and inwardly digest his word so that we might know him and grow in Christlikeness - he has also give us each other.
Friends - as a leadership team here at St Andrew’s - we don’t just prioritise Sunday Gatherings, being part of our LIFE Group model of discipleship and meeting with one or two other Christians through the week to look good on a shiny pamphlet -
we actively work at making it a reality in the lives of every Christian who sees St Andrew’s Kinson as their family home.
Why? Well more on that next week when we will reflect together on what lies behnd our approach to ministry together here in this place.
For now can I encourage you to join in with what we are doing.
I hear people say - I don’t need to worry about this or that. I don’t have time to meet up with my fellow brothers and sisters. I don’t have time to read Gods word and do I really need to be growing day by day - I have said yes to Jesus.
Friends - there may be other ways to do it, but the priorities your leadership team have set before us are not the workings of some radical form of Christianity or some weird approach to being the church. If you are thinking that some of these priorities are not for you - then you haven’t read the New Testament and you don’t understand God’s plans for your life as a follower of Jesus.
We cannot successfully run the race before us without Jesus and without each other.
God could have chosen another way, but he called together the church, under Christ, so that brother and brother, sister and sister, could encourage one another as the day draws near and to sput one another on to faith and good works.
Our approach to life together as a church family are a normal and biblical way of creating pathways in which the people of God here in this place can be open to what God has already purposed to do - to make us all a little bit more like Christ each day we have left.
Our Mission, our biblically inspired vision for what church is called to become has been built over many years to support you in your faithfulness to a rce that God has chosen you to participate in.
You don’t have to participate - but here’s the thing that each of us should pray and ponder on - why don’t we? what stops us from doing so?
Pride, arrogance or ignorance? We don’t think we need to? We are growing in godliness and Christlikeness perfectly well on our own? God’s plan for every Christian doesn’t apply to me?
Please come along next week as we seek to communicate more about the work your PCC have been doing over many years to seek a more biblically faithful approach to being the church so that all God’s people here can encounter Christ and a deeper relationship with their Creator.
Let’s hear a bit from Chappo and then I’ll pray for us.
VIDEO
So - next time I annoy you - see it as an opportunity to practise your Christlikeness.
Let’s pray.