The Purity of Holiness
Set Apart • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 26 views* Focus: Holiness starts with inner purity—our thoughts, desires, and actions aligning with God’s character. * Big Idea: Purity is not perfection but a wholehearted commitment to God. * Application: Examine your heart and invite God to purify your motives and actions
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Transcript
Good morning and welcome to Living Faith Church. I am so excited to be able to worship Jesus Christ with you on this amazing Sunday. If we have never met before, my name is Aaron. My wife Stella and I are honored to be able to serve on the Pastoral team at LFC. Today we are in week number two of this series called Set Apart, a series on holiness.
And I want to remind you, that in this series, we are not preaching a behavioral gospel, but a relational Gospel. Too often the holiness message focuses on the behavior of a person in stead of the heart of a person. The word holy in the Hebrew language simply means “set apart”, or consecrated.
My wife has a rather specific laundry routine. One, that I have a very hard time keeping up with. It seems simple enough. Yet, every time I do laundry I seem to mess this up. If you are a guy in the room, you may associate with this a little bit - and if you don’t, I’m going to ask a favor of you right now. I’m going to ask that you at least act as if you understand my pain. My wife separates her laundry. We could, just for the sake of this message, say that she has Holy Laundry. Like, I don’t know if that’s a thing or not… But she separates the lights, from the dark, from the towels, from the bed sheets… there is a lot of separating going on here. And that’s not all. When it comes time to dry, we have to separate the shirts, and sweaters from the pants, socks and other things. And, trying to not mess all of this up- for me… I’m just a simple man. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Sometimes I’m in the middle of cooking bacon when she asks me to go put the washing machine items into the dryer, it’s like switching from right brain to left. Sometimes, often, I mess this up… and I feel bad when her nice sweater turns into a halter top.
But, the truth of the mater is, I feel at times as if Holiness, and trying to keep up with all of the Do’s and Don’ts of Scripture are like trying to keep up with my wife’s laundry routine. We wake up in the morning, wipe the sleep out of our eyes, and before we’ve even had our cup of coffee, we are already trying to make holy and unholy decisions.
Over the next few weeks, as we continue this conversation on holiness, we are going to look at topics such as, the Perseverance of Holiness. Because too often we do loose courage in our pursuit to live like Jesus. We will wrap this whole series up by talking about the power of Holiness, a thought we began to introduce last week when we talked about the Purpose of holiness. But today, I want us to dig into a very important thought, and that is the Purity of holiness.
I think that the church has not progressed very far from the times of Christ when it comes to the practice of holiness. In Jesus day, there were two religious systems at war against one another.
There were the Pharisees who formed their system in 135 B.C. after the decedents of Maccabees corrupted the office of the High Priest. Distrust was high among the common people and they sought to live out their religious values without having to go to the hight priest. The pharisees made that possible. The Pharisees had a conservative value base focusing heavily on the ceremonial practices and memorizing the law. Originally they were called Hassidim, meaning “separate”.
But there was also the Sadducees. These were an upper middle class religious system. They were more liberal in their approach, and adopted, to the joy of Antiochus the Greek Philosophy and a Hellenistic culture. They replaced much of the Scripture reading with the reading of Greek Philosophers. They considered much of the ceremonial practices as legalism.
However, we find that Jesus did not favor either of these groups. Both were focused on works and religious practices. One conservative, and one liberal, neither aiming at cultivating a genuine relationship with the Messiah, but rather systems of practices that curated their political ideologies.
And we find today, much of the same arguments within the church. If we preach holiness, we are in the Pharisee camp, of hell, fire and brimstone. If we preach Grace, we are in the Sadducee camp where were anything goes. Yet, the truth of the matter is, there is a third option, and that option is, love God.
37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
Again, Jesus states in John 14
15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
In other words, love makes following Jesus easy. Love makes being set apart for Jesus a joy and not a burden. When I love Jesus, I want to keep His commandments. I want to be set apart for Him. And an aspect of Holiness is purity.
Purity In Holiness
Purity In Holiness
Often in Scripture we find that these two words, or concepts are linked together. When Jesus, who is our only visible essence of holiness, was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, we read that He physically radiated absolute purity.
2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.
Before the nation of Israel met with the Lord, God instructed them in this manner:
7 ‘You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.
David, after his sin with Bathsheba, and Uriah, He prays this prayer
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.
Pure In Heart
Pure In Heart
In Matthew chapter five we come upon one of Jesus most famous sermons. A sermon we affectionately call “the sermon on the mount”. And in this iconic message Jesus begins to share a series of one-liner sermons. Thins like “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God”. Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth”. In verse eight, Jesus shares one very important truth that is relevant to our thought today.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Notice how Jesus introduces this idea of purity. Truthfully, Jesus delineated between behavioral holiness and motivational holiness. In other words, how you act vs how you desire. The pharisees of Jesus time worked incredibly hard to be pure in action. Mark chapter 7 verse 3 emphasizes the Pharisees practice of hand washing. In this ritual the Pharisees would hold their hands in a praying like fashion while another person would pour water over their hands. They had to be very intentional so that no water would flow down their forearm and elbow causing dirty water to contaminate other parts of their body. But Jesus has something to say about this.
26 “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
In other words, you work so hard to produce holiness in action, but your heart is wicked. I once worked with a man who said he and his wife had an agreement; they could look at other women as long as they didn’t have sex with other women. Can I tell you, the purpose of Holiness, of separateness, of dedication, is a relationship. This is why Jesus says: Blessed are the pure in heart, not the pure in action. Because, if you cleanse the heart, the actions will naturally follow. Look again at what Jesus says in the sermon.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
This is the passion of the set apart Christian, to see God. The Psalmist David prayed:
10 For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
In other words; Lord I would rather experience the pain of cleansing my life from a few impure habits if that means I can spend an afternoon in your presence, than enjoy the easy of an undisciplined life outside your presence. But how can we, in such a progressively perverse world, live in purity? To answer this question, I think we need to look critically at this Matthew 5:8 passage. Because it gives us more clues than many would think. The wording goes: “Blessed are the pure in heart…”. So, we are not going to begin by looking at actions, when Jesus is talking about the heart. But rather look at what Jesus says about the heart.
45 “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
So, what we have uncovered here is the truth that both good and evil behavior begin in the heart. And so the charge to every person who desires to live a Holy life is to keep the heart pure. And Jesus, again has just the right words for us. In John 17 Jesus prays over His disciples, and here is a excerpt from that prayer.
15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
So, here in verse 15 Jesus recognizes that there is evil in the world, and his disciples are in it! But in verse 16, Jesus says, while they are in the evil world, that are not of the evil world. In other words, there is a way for us to be among unholy things but not become unholy. What is it that keeps us from being tainted by this unholy stuff? It is the Word of God. That is why Paul in Ephesians 6 says that the Word of God and the Shield of Faith are part of the armor of God. The Word of God is the sword, and the shield of faith, Romans 10:17 says, is developed by hearing the Word of God. So, the Word of God seems to be at the heart of all of this. Again, Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:3
3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
So, the Word of God is the cleansing agent from Heaven. The Word of God, when pronounced over our life, has the power to cleanse us and make us separate, or Holy. This is why in Nehemiah 8, after the temple has been rebuilt, Ezra gathers the nation of Israel and reads from the writings of Moses, we today call that; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Verse three says Ezra read from early morning to midday. And Nehemiah 8:9 says:
9 Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law.
The Word of God has the power to cleanse your heart and, by relation, set you apart. Ephesians 5:26 says that the Word of God, has the power to cleanse and sanctify, or set apart, or make holy the church.
26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
No wonder the word of God has been persecuted so severely.
Diocletian in 303 AD, ordered the destruction of Christian writings, attempting to erase the influence of the Bible.
Between the 5-15 century the Bible was only available in Latin, a language most common people did not understand. The Scriptures would be chained to a post at the altar. Many commoners would simply touch the writings hoping that this could purify them of their sins, but the commoner had no idea what it said.
John Wycliffe, 14th century was labeled a heretic for translating the Bible into the vernacular. His writings were banned, and his bones were dug up and burned posthumously.
1536 William Tyndale, one of the worlds most famous Bible translators was strangled to death and burned at the stake in for his work.
Under Nazi Germany, Communist China, the Soviet Union, and North Korea, Bibles were banned and people were imprisoned if they were found in possession of any copy or translation of the Bible.\
If the Word of God is powerful enough to survive 2000 years of persecution, and remain without error and fully pure, than I am fully convinced that it is capable of doing the same in my heart. So I am here today, to encourage you in three regular practices.
Read the Word-
Read the Word-
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
This means that you are not reading old stories, but rather, that Gods Word “IS” God talking to you.
Apply the Word
Apply the Word
22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
Share the Word
Share the Word
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Salvation Response
Salvation Response
Maybe you do not have a personal relationship with God; maybe you are still carrying the anxiety, guilt, and pressure that sin induces in your life. Maybe you are stressed out by trying to navigate life all on your own. Can I assure you; today all of that can end, and you can walk out of this room with hope in your heart? The Bible tells us:
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Many people have told me, I don’t want to become a Christian because I can’t keep up that goodie lifestyle. But this verse says nothing about your lifestyle. God is more interested with your heart. If He can get to your heart, He will deal with your actions later.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We know that sin leads to death – you’ve felt the sting, and pain of sin. The good news is this, Paul calls God’s gift of life a “free gift”. I want to pray with you right now to receive this gift. If you would say, I want God’s forgiveness, I want to accept this gift of life, I want Jesus to live in my heart, raise your hand so I know who I am praying for.
KEEP YOUR HANDS RAISED HIGH - I HAVE A PRAYER PARTNER COMING TO PRAY WITH YOU
“Heavenly Father, I trust You to save me through Your Son, Jesus. Forgive me for all of my sins. Make me brand new. Because You died for me, I want to live for You. Fill me with Your Spirit, so I could follow You. Jesus, You’re now my Lord and the Savior of my life. Take my life. It is Yours. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”
