Holiness Sermon

Illustration 1:

So, my son, the other day—we’re out in my new, cherished, 2023 Race red Bronco Wildtrack. It’s not an idol in my life that I love more than any particular member of my immediate family. Just, you know, my childhood dream truck, the first vehicle I’ve purchased for myself in over 10 years after inheriting my wife’s ‘girl car,’ and driving it to work every day and hiding it in the back of the parking lot.

So, we’re at Costco, we’ve got sodas in those flimsy carry-out wax-paper cups, and after a lecture about how he needs to be careful, about 120 ounces of the 16-ounce soda spills in the back seat before we’ve loaded the groceries into the bed. Am I frustrated? No! I’m cool, calm, and collected, and I even offer to get him a refill!

And then, back in real life, you can tell it’s real life now because this is where I’m cynically picture Jack Nicholson in The Shining, reciting to him the story of Abraham and Isaac as they trudge up towards the top of the mountain where they plan on offering a sacrifice with nothing in their possession but some wood, rope, and the knife firmly in Abraham’s grasp—“trust me,” he says. Then, before I pop a blood vessel in my forehead, my wife, who looks surprisingly like the nurse on the cover of Blink-182’s 1999 Enema of the State album, offers to buy me a new Bronco.

OK, so that didn’t happen either. But would I have been wrong to?

Intro:

Today, we’re taking a look at holiness, and to do that, we’re going to dive into some great divides. My only real hope is that we can do so with humility; it is of great importance, accuracy in this area, that is. But one thing most armchair theologians forget is the great humility with which our forefathers of faith argued their theological plights, ironing out the theology that we have inherited. There is something quite different in inheriting something and deliberating it, kind of like the difference between old-money and new-money families, as observed by Kathy Bates’ character in the movie Titanic.

Transition:

Orthodoxy, or accuracy to right belief—is guarded, so much so that even the first smiting we see in the new church developing in the New Testament is an act of mercy to the fledgling church, a warning to help us avoid the very real danger present in taking God’s grace for granted.

But to do so, to engage in apologetics, the systematic defense of religious doctrines, one should not think so much of themselves or their argument to think that God is therefore constrained to their arithmetic. There is a lot we don’t know, and that is OK. Yet, Jesus says that our job is to proclaim, in Luke 19:40, that “if [they] were to keep silent, the stones would cry out!”

For our forefathers and the fledgling church for that matter, the penalty of err—heresy, that is, was death. Today, we are heirs of their labor, but risk taking for granted their risk, holding it in the same regard as new money.

Holiness and living holy is about Sacramentalism and living sacramentally.

Background:

Sacraments are those visible rites seen as signs and channels of God’s grace. While that may sound awfully Catholic, let me pause to clarify that early reformers did not deny the sacraments of the church; in fact, they argued that there were far more than 7! John Calvin was a big proponent of viewing the laying on of hands, still alive and well in our tradition, as a sacrament. His stance being that there is more at work than simply the hands of some gathered faithful when the act is done. My point here is that when we define ourselves simply by what is juxtaposed to Roman Catholicism, we throw the baby out with the bath water. Catholicism is the first 1500 years of heritage of our faith. We are careful, however, in a similar regard to when we seek the understandings held within our Jewish roots, and thankful we do not rely solely on their theology and understanding, particularly as it applies to the deity of Christ!

Thesis:

Living holy requires that we have claimed the forgiveness that God freely offers. It requires acknowledging our debt of gratitude but also that we are lovable. Because loving others requires first loving ourselves. Any action we do grows from that love of God we receive, but only if we have received it. If you do not believe that you are truly loved by God, you are living a lie. Not only that but nothing you do is born of it;it is simply an act. It is an attempt to merit love, a thing you cannot do.Because it isn’t something earned. It is a gift. The good news is that you cannot earn a gift, but also that you cannot un-earn a gift!

Explanation:

The principal difference we’re dealing with here is precisely what Christ came to fulfill: the law. The new covenant that it was fulfilled in Him, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The old covenant was a bilateral agreement that God made with the Israelites to make them His people. A series of conditional statements, a conditional clause being those ‘if-then’ statements we see scattered throughout the Old Testament:

Exodus 15:26: “If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 19:5: “If you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples.”

Deuteronomy 7:12-13 “If you listen to and are careful to keep these ordinances, the Lord your God will keep his covenant loyalty with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will bless your offspring, and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and fresh oil—the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks, in the land he swore to your ancestors that he would give you.”

So, many of the conditional clauses were framed positively, but there were also negative, punitive clauses:

Deuteronomy 8:19-20: “If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve them and bow in worship to them, I testify against you today that you will certainly perish. 20Like the nations the Lord is about to destroy before you, you will perish if you do not obey the Lord your God.”

There are 52 occurrences of this clause in the Old Testament.

There are also some in the New Testament:

Matthew 16:24: “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.

John 15:7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you...”

Most notably, in the Sermon on the Mount, all the beatitudes could also be understood in this way. For instance, instead of, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” It could also be understood, “If you are poor in spirit, then the kingdom of heaven is yours.”

Application:

The primary difference between holiness as understood ritualistically versus holiness understood morally, that is—is that ritualistically, or the type of holiness we see in the Old Testament, is the quality of being set apart. This is true also of holiness as understood in a moral sense, but moral holiness has a focus on being pure inwardly, whereas, in the strict ritualistic sense of the Old Testament, purity had more to do with the bilateral agreement, Israel’s corporate complicitness in their relationship with Yahweh. It was also not personal. An individual could assimilate; there was a process for that—that’s what Paul accuses Peter of doing in Galatians chapter 2, but the point is that it was purposed for people to become a part of the salvation offered to the Hebrew people through their chosen nature. That isn’t so in the New Covenant. There is a sort of people sense, but only in confession; we are Christians if we say we are, you’re a part of the people. Some put a process to it, and perhaps there was a time and place for it when there was persecution—don’t hear me saying there isn’t a precedence for education, there certainly is— but we’re not gatekeeping membership, sonship into the family of believers, certainly not with a physical marking reminiscent of the corporate covenant.

Transition:

And look, it’s really easy to get sucked into a rabbit hole right here, asking if circumcision was replaced by baptism, and that’s an excellent topic for another time. It’s undoubtedly worthy of its own sermon—if not series, but it’s not what today’s message on holiness is about. I bring up ritualistic holiness to compare it to what we have today, to show where we’ve come from, and a dangerous, idolatrous even, method of reviving the old covenant that some have, and from time to time we do see resurrect in fancy new forms of old heresy!

Exposition:

Now, our Bible also teaches that moral purity and ritualistic purity have two very different purposes; take, for instance, the ceremonial law outlined in Exodus 19. The ceremonial law marks the Israelites as the people from whom the Messiah would come. In other words, the ceremonial law formed the way that the Israelites worshiped, dressed, ate, worked, and practiced justice. This was God’s way of reminding the Israelites that the savior of the world would come from them. And so, when that savior finally came in the person of Jesus, the purpose of the ceremonial law was fulfilled. So, in the same way, that you don’t need to advertise events once the event is over; after Jesus died and rose again, it was no longer necessary to follow the ceremonial law. This is why, in Acts chapter 10, God tells Peter that all animals are now considered clean and that the Gentiles who didn’t follow the ceremonial law were welcomed into the Christian faith.

The purpose of moral law, we’re told in Romans 5, is to show us our sins so that we can see our need for Christ and his forgiveness. And because all of us are sinners who need to have our sins shown to us in order to see our need for Christ, the moral law still applies to us today, but it’s for a completely different reason than simply staying chosen, such was the case in the Old Testament.

Transition:

This debate gives birth to a lot of tension. Historically, but also, undoubtedly, in this room. This is why I ask for your mercy. The chief of which, even Martin Luther offered his doctor’s cap to anyone who could reconcile James 2:24 and Romans 3:28; that “we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law,” versus “that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

Application:

Perhaps James means by “justified,” what Paul means in using the word justified to mean “declared righteous by God.” But the tension still exists as Paul speaks of God’s legal declaration of us as righteous as Christ’s righteousness is applied to our account, while James uses the word “justified” to mean “being demonstrated and proven.”

There is tension, it’s uncomfortable, and many of those who side one way or another also side correspondingly to insisting that not everyone is a child of God.

The debate is that through creation in His image, the crucifixion being once and for all, versus an insistence on one understanding of John 1:12, that “Only those who have received Christ by believing in His name are given the right to be called children of God!” Again, there is tension between new and old covenants, law and grace, and the fact that we live in the present age, that Christ has already conquered death, and yet we await the age to come. This is what is meant by the already/not yet tension.

Henri Nouwen resolves it in a beautiful way that:

“It is true that we not only are the Beloved, but also have to become the Beloved; that we not only are children of God, but also have to become children of God; that we not only are brothers and sisters, but also have to become brothers and sisters . . . if all that is true, we must grasp this process of becoming. If the spiritual life is not simply a way of being, but also a way of becoming, what then is the nature of this becoming?” (pp. 44-45)

His point, in his book, Life of the Beloved, of which the premise is that by sending the Son to die for us, and in that the Father, at the baptism of Jesus, said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 17:5); how much more so are you, beloved?

Explanation:

He suggests that our ability to share that gift of belovedness with others is only as great as our ability to claim it for ourselves. Nouwen believes “self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life, because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” “Why is it,” he says, “[that it’s] always easier to believe someone else is beloved by God than to believe I am?”

In my opening, I said that living holy requires that we have claimed the forgiveness that God freely offers. It requires acknowledging our debt of gratitude but also that we are lovable. Because loving others requires first loving ourselves, claiming that love from God. Because everything that we do grows from the love of God we receive. If you do not believe that you are truly loved by God, any love you pretend to give is not born of God; it is simply an act. It is an attempt to merit love, and that’s posting flyers for an event that’s already taken place.

Holiness has a lot of manifestations. Who here thought I might talk about sins today, particularly specific sins and what we’re called to not do?

Illustration 2:

I’ll put it like this: I often get asked by Soldiers, “What is it that you actually have to do?” They say this in acknowledging that I, as a chaplain, do not carry a weapon and therefore do not have to qualify semi-annually, and there is a slew of other implications connected to that, weapons cleaning, so on and so forth; the Army is really centered around the Soldier as a weapon system, so, they’ll ask it in all honesty and innocently enough. Not only that but in being an officer as well, there are a lot of differences between them and me. A good chaplain does all that is in their power to mitigate these differences and level any power dynamics that could be a barrier. Some are more effective than others, but I often answer that they’re right. “Not a whole lot,” is the honest answer. This job is as easy or as difficult as you make it. I caveat to them, and in this message, I say the same thing: if you’re honest with yourself, if you’re asking, “What is it that is required of me?” You should probably be asking, “Why am I here?”

Application:

The same is true of anyone who calls themselves a Christian. If you are looking for a rule book or things to do to be holy, you’re putting the cart before the ox. You’re focusing on the wrong thing. Under the new covenant, most of us know Galatians 2:20; it’s a common memory verse, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Verse 21, which far fewer people memorize, is, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

The better question is, what response does the love of Christ, his passion leading him to the cross for me, compel me to?

Cultivating this same attitude would also change how we feel about others. Most of the judgments we have about others, and it’s usually other people’s sins, are really about our dissatisfaction with ourselves if we can be honest. But it comes about in a way that makes us look so legalistic, contradictory, and unloving!

Antithesis:

Jesus even concedes that Moses allowed divorce; it’s not optimal, but sin manifest in our lives is not optimal. Jesus lays out the standard “that whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

That’s another thing, when I hear people say, “in the world, not of the world,” I sometimes question how much in the world they really are. I mean, are we just making ourselves 21st-century Amish—Boycotting certain media platforms or social ideologies?

Explanation:

Holiness isn’t about disassociating with those who sin. It’s providing a witness to them, not changing them, but living in full view. An unconditional positive regard. God changes hearts, not us. But we can be an agent if only we let God’s holiness shine through us sacrificially. And that’s how I assess sincerity in accommodation interviews; if you want a beard, cool. Show me how your faith, your following, your pursuit of holiness costs you. How does it hurt? Where is the sacrifice? Is it all just about you getting what you want, a tool to conform people to your way of thinking? Because we were all created in the likeness of God, with egos, superegos, and ids. We emote, we think, and perceive; it’s beautiful, the diversity of it all, and it’s intentional.

Application:

I’ve spoken about the pastoral principle called rushing the resurrection. There is value in the mourning, the grief, and lamentation of Holy Saturday! If we rush to the resurrection, what change took place? The same is true if we impose rules; what appreciation is there? Probably the opposite, resentment! We don’t sin because of our love for Christ; that’s what we share, not the rules. If someone loves Christ, they will be compelled to willingly give up things that get in the way of their relationship.

“Well, Ephesians 5:7 says that there are people whom “we shouldn’t have anything to do with!”

Look, Paul isn’t boycotting contact or association with people. How would he have succeeded in his calling as “evangelist to the Gentiles” if he truly believed that? Some translations even say it better. I recommend looking at several, but a better translation, one that’s more in agreement with the rest of Scripture, might say something like, “Don’t become partners with them,” especially in matters pertaining to spreading the Gospel! Otherwise, we could not bring them the good news or seek to restrain them from their evil ways. It’s also a warning to us it’s easy for Christians to speed-read a paragraph like this without pausing for reflection on the assumption that it applies only to unbelievers. This is to say, don’t adopt habits from them. If we share in the same practices, as Lot warned in Sodom, we risk sharing in their doom.

Synthesis:

In Luther’s dilemma, Paul talks about justification, i.e., how we are made right with God. James is talking about faith, what it looks like, and how it acts. In Romans, we are taught that being right with God depends entirely on trust in God through the merits of Jesus Christ. However, some would pervert this to say that faith means I am not expected to do good works. James (and Paul in the second half of Romans) clarifies that genuine faith will always produce the fruits of good works. As Luther put it, an apple tree doesn’t ask if it ought to produce fruit. It produces apples because it is an apple tree. In the same way, genuine faith does not ask if it should produce good works. The Christian produces good works because he is a Christian. There is no contradiction here.

Luke 4:16-21 reads, “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Covenant people started with a national identity, a called people. But when Jesus died, he said he would rebuild the temple, and that didn’t happen, not physically—it’s destroyed to this day! And there are still prisoners! Clearly, there was something unseen at hand.

Transition:

Under the new covenant, we are a chosen people—our identity as children of God is hidden in Jesus Christ. The new Israel is not a country, we are not Judaizing people, there is a gatekeeper, you and I are not it; when we do so, we put ourselves in the judgment seat. The ministry of Jesus even makes a shift to focusing on Gentiles, and the entire New Testament continues this movement that was actually begun by God during the second exile. No longer could anyone identify themselves by their ancestral ties to a tribe, just one “Jewish” identity. This is the difference between ceremonial and moral holiness.

Illustration 3:

Finally, I want to leave you with a question, a rhetorical one, really, but it summarizes everything today; you could even call it a parable: your dog makes you mad, he irritates you. You yell at him, and he runs off, tail between his legs… Sometime later, you tell him, it’s OK, you’re a good boy. But what changed between bad boy and good boy? Did the dog start behaving? What moved you to compassion? Did he compel you with behavior, conduct, bringing you presents? No! Nothing changed in the dog! It was you. Your heart changed.

Switch the scenario: you are now the dog. You do something wrong. What changes from your being labeled bad to later when you’re a good boy? Nothing! But what’s the only similarity between this and the last illustration? You! Because we’re man, Ephesians 4:13-14 says:

“Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.

Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”

Point:

Holiness is Christ in us. Living holy requires that we have claimed the forgiveness that God freely offers. It requires acknowledging our debt of gratitude, that we are lovable, and that Christ’s sacrifice covered us.Because loving others requires first accepting that love for ourselves. I’m not talking about making exceptions for sin, I’m not talking about affirming in anyone the vices they fall victim to, I’m talking about believing Romans 5:8 when it says that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

Conclusion:

And that’s often tough to accept because we are our own toughest critics. But Christ isn’t represented in Scriptures as the accuser. If you do not believe that you are truly loved by God, you are living a lie; not only that but nothing you do is born of it. It is simply an act. It is an attempt to merit love, a thing you cannot do. Because it isn’t something earned. It is a gift. That is what Isaiah means: the oppressed by sin are freed, the covenant—that Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many sons.

In this, slaves to sin are set free, and prisoners of the ritualistic law, those ceremonially impure and conceivably incapable of redemption short of a miracle, are released. It’s about the invisible, other-worldly implications. Not this life. And it’s better, much better that it be so. Because Jesus called them “hypocrites” who have received their reward in full in this life, in both the synagogues and on the streets, being honored by others (Matt 6:2). “Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt 5:12).