Pursuing Holiness

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Lord, grow us to be people open to your Spirit and ready to answer your call. Amen.

Introduction

Intro series: Seven Practices that Shape Us...

Today we look at our final practice: Pursuing Holiness. Holiness = to be set apart. Sanctified. Devoted to God. In the Bible both people and things were called holy if they were set apart by God for a specific purpose. As we who have trusted in Jesus for salvation, we become part of a holy people, set apart by God for his purpose and calling.

Does holiness matter? Is this a relic of a bygone age, with angry fire and brimstone preachers calling down judgment on sinners? Is this merely the unhealthy focus of someone who is a Pharisee or Puritan?

For some this is what holiness means. It always astounds me when I hear of Christians who claim the name of Jesus, and yet choose to live in ways that are completely worldly. I don’t say this as a Pharisaical neat-nik, but it seems that the idea of conformity to Christ is an optional aspect of Christianity. Talk about my fear as those who live in a secular age of compromising ourselves completely out of relevance. Not gross immorality, but death by a thousand paper cuts. Is there any distinction between us and the world, except for our beliefs about Jesus?

For some of us, however, holiness means a standard that is impossible to achieve. God has set an standard, and no matter high you jump, you simply can’t reach the top? Some, in their desire for holiness, have been driven almost to despair. John Bunyan, the Puritan preacher and author of A Pilgrim’s Progress, was so despondent over his sin and his inability to be free of it that he wrote, “I looked up to heaven, and it was if I had with the eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus looking down upon me, as being very hotly displeased with me, and as if He did severely threaten me with some grievous punishment for these and other ungodly practices.” Often this idea of holiness leaves us feeling judged and condemned by God, who demands a standard of us we are unable to achieve.

This morning as I talk about this last practice, I want to talk about it in a very specific way. Holiness is ultimately about Christlikeness. Pursuing holiness at the end of the day is to be increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus. As we will see, this is God’s great goal and destiny for you, and rather leaving you in despair of an impossible calling, the gospel speaks loudly that he who has called you to holiness will also bring it to fruition in your life. You definitely have a part to play to pursue holiness, but you do not pursue it in your own strength.

Does holiness matter?

“Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14, NRSV) That sounds pretty serious to me!

Does holiness really matter?

Holiness matters to God. God has called us to holiness, saying numerous times in Scripture “be holy as I am holy”. God’s holiness is his “otherness”, his distinctness from the world. We are called to imitate that distinctness.

Holiness affects our witness. If we look exactly like the world, fitting in completely in how we think, talk, what we watch and wear, what do we have to commend Jesus to others? If we don’t reflect any change from meeting Jesus, why would anyone else want to?

Holiness determines the wellbeing of our soul. God has delivered us from the penalty and power of sin. To forsake holiness as a pursuit, we begin to participate in the very things that God has delivered us from. Jesus said “Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34, NRSV) If we don’t take this seriously, then we risk finding ourselves back in the mess God called us out of and we will miss God’s calling on our lives.

Pursuing holiness

Let’s turn to our passage.

First, Holiness is our identity.

The first thing we see in this passage is that holiness begins with God. He is the one who has made holiness possible through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NRSV) And this holiness he gifts to us as an identity. We are no longer sinners; we are saints who still struggle with sin.

It is essential that we begin here with holiness as a status given to us by God, for if we begin with holiness being merely about behavior then we will fall into the snare of the Pharisees. We will begin to have a salvation that is based upon our works to maintain. We will fall from grace.

Holiness is a status that is declared over us - and this is important - even when it does not match reality. We are holy and are therefore to pursue holiness; we do not pursue holiness in order to become holy. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said that we are salt and light. Not becoming salt and light, but ARE salt and light - even when we are the wrong kind of “salty”!

Holiness is an identity you possess by the fact of your faith in Jesus. You are declared holy and righteous in God’s eye’s, and he WILL strengthen your heart in holiness so that you may be blameless before him at the coming of Jesus.

Next, Holiness is then a journey.

I want to repeat something I said earlier. We are holy and are therefore to pursue holiness; we do not pursue holiness in order to become holy. Again, it is crucial that we keep these in the right order. Those who have been declared holy by God are now to become holy in character and behavior. So holiness is about our behavior, but only after it being about our identity.

Pursuing holiness means there are things that we should intentionally pursue, and things we are to abstain from. Paul begins with abstaining: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness.”

Lustful passions was an issue then just as it is now. Here Paul talks specifically about sexual lust, but lust has a broader application. It is all of our disordered desires. It is everything in us that works against the grain of what God is trying to do in us. And so we are to abstain from these desires. To resist them. To understand that these things don’t only affect us, but they “wrong and exploit our brother and sister”. God has not called us to impurity but to holiness.

But there is also the positive side of pursuing holiness. “Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.”

Holiness is ultimately the call to love. To put the needs of others ahead of your own. To do for them as you would want them to do for you.

All of this, both abstaining and pursuing, is part of the pilgrimage we are on. In Bible language, this is about sanctification - becoming holy. We need to be reminded that the Christian calling is not a 100-yard dash but a marathon, and to therefore walk this journey out in faithfulness and reliance upon God.

Finally, Holiness becomes a destiny.

Holiness has a telos. Telos is a Greek word meaning the end-purpose of something. That which something is made for. Listen to what Peter writes in his second letter: 2 Pet 1:4 “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” Here is the end-goal of holiness, here is the purpose for which you were created: to become a participant in the divine nature.

The church father St. Athanasius said it this way, “The Son of God became man so that we might become God”. He does not mean to say that we become divine. God remains Creator; we remain creature. This is about theosis - becoming one with God. To be restored to perfect union with the Trinity. We were created for this union, and it has been restored through Jesus Christ. This brings us back to God’s purpose for humans at Creation: to bear the divine image. To share in and reflect the glory of who God is.

In Christ, this holiness, this otherness, is your destiny. It is what you were made for, and what God is at work to bring about in your life.

Applications

Holiness is our identity. It is then a journey we are all on. And finally it become our destiny. But you may be asking, “How do I do this? How do I pursue holiness and actually see change and growth in my life, so that I am becoming increasing like Jesus?” Look at 1 Thess 4:8 “Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.” He says that whoever rejects this calling to holiness actually is rejecting God, but then he adds something encouraging. God has given us the Holy Spirit. Holiness is God’s desire for your life, but he has not left you to try and pursue it on your own. He has given you the HOLY Spirit to work within you to bring you step by step closer in conformity with Christ.

Philippians 2:12–13 (NRSV)

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

If you have ever felt that walking with God in purity and holiness is simply beyond your reach, be encouraged, for the one who calls you to holiness also lives inside of you to bring it about.

Ministry time...

Communion

We come to the Table as those who are redeemed. Redeemed from the power of sin. Redeemed from the penalty of sin. But not yet fully released from the presence of sin. And so our journey is difficult. In fact, it is more difficult AFTER you become a Christian. This is when the internal war really begins. But we also have assurance that God has not left us on our own to figure it out. He has come to us by his Spirit, and he strengthens us for the journey by his own body and blood.

Join me in the prayer Jesus taught us...

The Lord’s Prayer

Words of Institution