WHAT HAVE I
DONE?
Once in a while, you see a child who is
the spitting image of his or her parent.
We have a friend whose little boy walks just like his dad, imitates what
he does, how he speaks, his mannerisms and so on. Whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, we are role
models for those who watch us. On this
Father’s Day, what dad here today would not want to be a better role model than
we have been so far?
We have not
asked anyone to imitate us, but they do anyway. The Bible offers a challenge, actually a command, for us to
imitate Jesus Christ in His holiness:
“You shall be holy because I am holy.”
In essence, He has said to His followers, “If you are going to follow
Me, that path leads to holiness…you are called to holy living and to model holy
living before others.”
That calling and
command is so distinctive that we have a hard time accepting first that it is
possible, and second that it could possibly apply to us personally. In a world so full of ungodliness and sin,
it is hard for us to imagine that God really believes that we will actually
live holy lives!
The distinctive nature
of holy living cannot help but set you apart from those who have been saturated
with the unholy elements of ungodly ways of life. We are drenched by His rivers
of delight in a dry, dusty world. We are the salty ones in a tasteless society.
We are the lights in the midst of great darkness.
Instead of loving our place of
distinction and rejoicing in the honor of being compared favorably with the
character of our Father, we have to keep fighting the temptation to go along
with the ways of a fallen world and a sinful human nature. Growing comfortable
in a world which is inundated with the devastating impact of sin keeps us from
that holy discomfort stirring in our hearts. Instead, this discomfort should
push us back toward the purity, righteousness and holiness Christ is looking to
find in those who are called by His name.
"Holy,
consecrated, saint"--these words that should excite our aspirations often
get placed in the "not applicable" column of our lives. But God has
called us out of the world to set us apart to live for Him. Our lives must be
pure, free from the contaminating elements which stain our character and our
actions.
THESIS: The work of making His people holy depends
entirely upon the power of God to expose us to the truth about ourselves and
our sin and to change our very nature until we are just like Jesus.
I.
PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS ABOUT HOLINESS
--Since holiness is such a foreign concept, even
those who have any thoughts about it at all there are woefully underdeveloped
ideas and preconceived notions about it.
A.
UNREGENERATED
--In the person who has never experienced new life in
Christ, the initial work of God to draw them to Christ has not yet awakened
their hearts to what it means that He is holy or to what it means that they are
unholy.
B.
UNCONVINCED
--Only a few folks would maintain that they are already as
holy as they will ever need to be, but they remain unconvinced that their
condition is serious enough to cause them to do anything about it.
--That is because an unregenerate heart will always be an
unconvinced heart, one with no convictions about the importance of holiness, no
concerns about the lack of devotion to Christ, and no commitment to do anything
about their spiritual condition…those things only come when God goes to work on
those lives by sending His Spirit.
John 16:8 8“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning
sin and righteousness and judgment;
1. They May Be Familiar with Their Sin but Have
No Convictions about Them
--Only when their eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit will
they ever see their sin for what it is—sufficiently wicked and evil enough that
the only remedy included the sacrifice of God’s own Son.
John 16:9
9concerning
sin, because they do not believe in Me;
--The sin to which Jesus refers here seldom appears on our
short lists of awful sins but He recognized that unbelief was THE major issue
about which we must be convicted of our need to be turned around.
2. They May Be Acquainted with God’s
Righteousness but Have No Convictions about It.
John 16:10 10and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father,
and you no longer behold Me;
--Jesus’ disciples had seen His righteousness but after He
departed for heaven, they would need some other way to be reminded of the
perfect holiness and righteousness of the Lord…and a stimulus to compare their
own unrighteousness to His perfect standard.
--Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to them and
bring conviction about the severity of their short-comings in this area of
life.
3. They May Be Wary of Final Judgment but Have
No Convictions about Preparing for It.
John 16:11 11and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world
has been judged.
Awareness that there may be a problem does not guarantee that we will
come under conviction to do anything about it.
--Until our blinded eyes see the consequences of sin-ruined
lives, we will not act with conviction about the certainty of coming
judgment—since Satan has been judged, all who have followed his path of
rebellion against God will be also.
II.
PREJUDICED ATTITUDES ABOUT HOLINESS
--Our attitudes about holiness will be the
by-product of the composition of our character.
--From the time of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, all
mankind has suffered from total depravity—every capacity is now polluted by
sin, every part has been ruined by the fall.
Galatians 5:9 A little leaven leavens the
whole lump of dough.
A.
UNINFORMED MINDS
--When thoughts have been impaired by our depravity, and
when we realize the totality of that depravity, we can better understand how an
uninformed mind can develop faulty and distasteful ideas about what it might
mean to become holy.
1. Awaiting
Regeneration by the Holy Spirit
--The mind remains unconvinced about spiritual truth,
especially something as important as living in true holiness, until acted on by
some force beyond itself.
--Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will come to exert
that kind of convicting power—first by awakening the heart that has been alive
to sin but dead to righteousness.
2. Awaiting
Instruction from God’s Word
--Then the same Spirit will lead us into the truth of God’s
Word which we would not have been able to understand prior to waking up to an
awareness of spiritual realities.
B.
UNBELIEVING HEARTS
--Uninformed minds usually produce unbelieving hearts
(although some may continue in unbelief even after their minds acknowledge what
is true).
1. Lacking
Conviction from the Holy Spirit
2. Lacking
Confidence in God’s Word
--The Holy Spirit must come to generate belief in hearts
otherwise powerless to have faith, to manufacture trust or introduce even the
most rudimentary belief.
III.
PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS OF HOLINESS
--Once our eyes have been opened to the truth and
God’s call to holiness has broken through, we still have a tendency to struggle
with inconsistency in the way we approach personal holiness.
--Christ gave His life for me that I may share His holiness
and have that holiness transform every aspect of my being, all of which have
struggled with sin.
J. I. Packer in his book Rediscovering Holiness speaks of four
aspects of holiness that have personal implications for each of our lives: Our Hearts, Our Temperaments, Our Humanness
and Our Relationships.
A. FOR MY
HEART TO BE HOLY
--True biblical holiness, genuine Christ-centered holiness,
authentic Spirit-filled holiness—all begin with our hearts!
--It is not a matter of going through the motions, but of
purifying the motives—not what you do so much as why you do it.
--A holy heart will produce outwardly holy actions—but outward
actions will not produce a holy heart [you can perform righteous deeds with
evil motives].
Many of us have grown up in a church culture that
measured godliness with outward behaviors—no card playing, wearing jewelry or
make-up, no dancing, and so on.
Holiness sometimes gets confused
with all the outward behavior, but biblically has to do with what is happening
in the heart. Ascetical practices are
of little value for true godliness and holiness…only the heart that has become
saturated with love for God will ever become holy.
B. FOR MY
TEMPERAMENT TO BE HOLY
--What does your temperament have to do with holiness?
--Temperament describes the most natural ways that you react
and behave in most circumstances…which can be either a positive or negative
influence on the shape your character eventually takes.
Four
Temperaments: Even before the time of Christ, Greek
physicians had figured out four basic types of human temperaments:
§
The Sanguine (warm,
jolly, outgoing, relaxed, optimistic)
§
The Phlegmatic (cool,
low-key, detached, unemotional, apathetic)
§
The Choleric (quick,
active, bustling, impatient, short-fused)
§
The Melancholic
(somber, pessimistic, inward-looking, inclined to cynicism and depression)
--There are also many combinations of types, like the
phlegmatic-melancholic, or the sanguine-choleric.
--These basic temperaments tend to shape the way our
character develops—but in Christ as all things are made new, so too can our
temperaments become holy temperaments and avoid all the weaknesses often
associated with each one.
--Holy temperaments can hope to watch the Lord develop the
best of each of the temperaments, combining the strengths of all four in us
just as they were in Christ.
We are not to become (or remain) victims of our temperaments…
Holiness for a person of sanguine temperament, then will involve learning to look before one
leaps, to think things through responsibly, and to speak wisely rather than
wildly.
Holiness for the person of phlegmatic temperament will involve a willingness to be open with
people, to feel with them and for them, to be forthcoming in relationships, and
to become vulnerable, in the sense of risking being hurt.
Holiness for a choleric
person will involve practicing patience and self-control. It will mean redirecting one’s anger and
hostility toward Satan and sin, rather than toward fellow human beings who are
obstructing what one regards as the way forward.
Finally, holiness for a melancholic
person will involve learning to rejoice in God, to give up self-pity and proud
pessimism, and to believe…that through sovereign divine grace all shall be
well.
have heard
people say many times, “Hey, that’s just the way I am!” Can you see why God is never impressed by
our attempts to excuse ourselves by saying that? In Christ, God wants to say,
“Well, stop being the way you were and be the way Jesus is!”
C. FOR MY
HUMANNESS TO BE HOLY
--To say, “I am only human” in an effort to excuse us from
any serious consideration of the pursuit of holiness is a pitiful effort born
of spiritually incapacitated minds.
--To blame our unholiness on the fact that we are only human
denies the sovereign design for the human race and ignores the redemptive
purpose of God to restore us to His holy intent.
1. Humanness, At Its Worst, Is to Be in Serious
Trouble
--By now we have seen sufficient evidence to know that the
unregenerate, unredeemed human race is destined for destruction—to be condemned
by God in righteous justice, but also to be consumed by our own evil and
self-destructive ways.
--Having a sinful nature from birth, unless we are reborn,
that is born again of the Spirit, we are doomed to a human existence plagued by
the control and consequences of sin.
2.
Humanness, At Its Best, Is a Sacred Trust
--But once we have been given new life in Jesus Christ,
there is a sacred trust granted to us that endows us with holy humanity as we
take on the life of our Savior—“you shall be holy for I am holy.”
--Holiness can best be seen when human beings become the
most like the One who was fully human in every way—loving, approachable,
perhaps with a twinkle in His eye, but holy in all His ways!
D. FOR MY
RELATIONSHIPS TO BE HOLY
--True biblical, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled holiness
does not need isolation to survive, but instead thrives on vibrant, meaningful
relationships with others.
--As a follower of Christ, my calling does not send me away
to withdraw from the world but to engage it one person at a time in
relationships that are thoroughly and completely holy.
·
Taking the low place
of a servant will set us apart as holy
·
Yielding to one
another distinguishes us as holy
·
Loving
unconditionally as Christ does marks us as holy
·
Giving honor and
preference to others says to them that we are holy
·
Offering kindness and
mercy to those who deserve our wrath shows that God has made us holy!
Holiness does not consist of a life of
strict rules and arbitrary regulations of behavior. Instead, a holy life starts when our lives encounter the Holy
Spirit who sets out to make our hearts a fit place to live!
Holy
living does not mean that we “get our act together” and start behaving to
impress others with our good deeds, but instead it does mean that we begin to
love Jesus Christ so deeply that we cannot bear to live any way that does not
bring Him the most glory and honor Him in the best possible way.
The depth of our
sin has infected our lives so completely that apart from the work of the Holy
Spirit, we have no hope of ever living to please God. If we ever sense that God is calling us to be holy as He is holy,
we can know that our interest indicates that an act of God’s grace has set in
motion a plan that He wants to put into action whereby we who have been trapped
in ungodly and unholy living can become holy by the grace of Jesus Christ and
the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit—beginning with His work of convicting
us of our need for Christ, from start to finish in our calling to be His
disciples.
The work of
making His people holy depends entirely upon the power of God to expose us to
the truth about ourselves and our sin and to change our very nature until we
are just like Jesus.
Providence Baptist Church
June 15, 2003
© David Horner 2003
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