I don’t know about you, but I have a particular way I like the dishes to be done. I have a mistrust of any dishwashing machine, and so I make sure that every dish that goes into a dishwasher is completely rinsed. See I didn’t grow up with a machine that washed dishes, so I had to wash them by hand. And up to about a four years ago, in my marriage, I was the primary dishwasher, because I wanted to make sure they got done right. Then as our kids got older and it became time for them to start learning how to wash dishes, we instructed them how to do it too.
Except they tend leave food on the dishes and don’t put them in the dishwasher correctly. My process is, on the lower rack, big plates go the furthest away from me from the sink, going down to small plates in the center, and then back up to big plates. This is because of the spinner in the middle that gets the top rack. But because food doesn’t always get rinsed at the sink, my wife has instructed the kids to start using the scrubber to get the food off. And we’re almost at the point of doing two cleaning cycles now, one by hand and one by machine, just to make sure they get cleaned. Because, I don’t know how you feel about it, but one of my pet peeves is grabbing a cup, plate, or utensil and there being food on it. If it’s not completely clean, there have been times when I’ve actually lost my appetite because of it.
And it’s this idea of cleaning that brings us back to our Fourfold Gospel series where we’re looking at the four pillars of what drives the Alliance to do what it does. These four pillars are not unique to the Alliance, and we’re not looking at the history behind why the Alliance chose to emphasis these four, but rather how these four are overarching themes contained within the Scriptures.
And so last week we looked at the first of these four pillars, Jesus the Savior. We walked through the Bible showing how it clearly shows that humanity is in a corrupted state and in need of a Savior. Scripture also shows that the God of the Bible is the only Savior and because of that, he has to come down to earth and died on behalf of humanity. Jesus is raised back to new life by the Father as a result of of his perfect sacrifice. Now anyone who would put their trust in him and who would follow him, are moved from the path of eternal death, to the path of eternal life. This is what it means that Jesus is Savior.
This first pillar has to be understood, because everything that follows relies on this first one to be firmly in focus. We can’t have the next three without comprehending the first. Without Jesus as Savior, the next neither make sense, nor can they occur.
The second pillar in our Fourfold Gospel series is that Jesus is Sanctifier. Once a person puts their trust in Jesus, they are justified. This means that as far as God is concerned, our corruption and sin has been dealt with. Psalm 103:12 states it like this, “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” That’s poetic language for, God’s dealt with you sin, it’s gone. And because your in this justified state, God has plans for you. Last week we touched on this when we read Ephesians 2:10, “10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
The greatest work we talked about was sharing of the Gospel. God created us, we sinned, Jesus provided the way out, and when you trust in him, your sins are forgiven and you will experience eternal life.
But there’s more to it than that. God’s work in us is just beginning. See, if you were to accept Jesus as your Savior right now, there may or may not be a noticeable change. There’s an eternal change, but a temporal change right at that moment, may or may not occur. There are people that say they have quit smoking the moment they accepted God. Or quit drinking, or finally forgave someone at the moment they were justified. In my experience, those are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. Most people feel the same. They might experience a rush of joy, I felt that, but the vices are still there. And if we do not seek discipleship from a local church body, that joy can be squashed, and those vices can take hold. That was my story. I couldn’t find a local youth group, and my early passion for God was hampered, and my habits of sin reared their head again.
That’s what we’re talking about today. See the day you accept Jesus, eternity awaits, but until that day that God calls you home, he has work in you. The rest if our lives are transforming us into the people God always intended us to be.
Let’s take the story of Israel to get a better idea of what this is. See God saved Israel from Egypt and brought them out to a mountain in the wilderness. There he told them this in Exodus 19:5-6, “5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation…”
God created humanity to be holy. That word holy [qadosh (kaw-doshe)] means to be set a part. It carries with it the idea of being removed from sin and placed into righteousness. Or we could say that it removes us from rebellion to obedience. From chaos to peace. It also carries with it the removal of infirmities and impurities, but we’ll get into that part next week.
And the reason why God intended us to be holy is because he is holy. In Leviticus 11:45, God says of himself, “45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
In the first five book so the Bible, when we and Israel are getting to know who God is, holiness is brought up roughly one-hundred and seventy-two (172) times. Love, on the other hand is brought up only fifty-two times (52).
In our society, we tend to think of God as being love. Which he is, but God never says directly, I am love, rather it is stated about him that he is love by those who are being loved on by him. When he does speak of his love, it’s in an action way. But he does say of himself that he is holy. Holiness is the foundation of everything God is. It’s what drives his creation to be perfect, it’s what drives his opposition to sin, it’s what drives his love and sacrifice on the cross. The love of God cannot be downplayed, but that love is based on the holiness that he is. And it’s because he is holy, that we are to be too.
So when we fast forward to the work of Jesus, we see that Jesus too, is holy. In an encounter Jesus had we see this interaction in Mark 1:23-25, “23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, 24 ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.’ 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’” These were demons who recognized Jesus as being God in the flesh and they called him by the title the Holy One of God.
Later on, after Jesus rose from the dead and sent his disciples out to share the Gospel, Peter said this in Acts 3:13-15, when addressing the Jewish people, "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.” Peter is specifically drawing a connection to Jesus’ title of Holy One, adding Righteous as an emphasis to it, and his Godhood by calling him the Author of Life. In other words, like we said last week, Jesus wasn’t just a regular man, but the Holy God who created the universe, come down to his creation as a willing sacrifice to bring us out of sin and back into his holiness.
When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are brought into his holiness. Whereas justification is a one and done moment in the believer’s life, making us holy is a process. It’s bringing us into a position where we recognize what God already sees. He sees us through the lens of Jesus’ work on our behalf, which is our eternal state.
This work is called sanctification, which is the the New Testaments way of saying to make holy. To be sanctified is literally to be made holy. It’s a process. And so Jesus states in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
Paul picks this up when he talks about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:25-27, “25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
And the writer of Hebrews mentions it in chapters 9 and 13 when connecting what Christ did to the sacrifices of the Old Testament, “12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (9:12-14).”
“For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured (13:11-13).”
And so the sanctification process, or the life long work of God in us to be holy as he is holy, is the good works God has prepared for us to do. When we trust in Jesus as our Savior, that’s a one time event that moves forward into a lifetime of moments that transform us into the people God intended us to be. Peter says it like this is in his first letter. “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’ 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you (1:13-25).”
So what does that look like and what’s the end goal?
Well Paul puts it this way in Colossians 3:12-17, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
The sanctification process produces God’s compassion in us. His kindness, humility, and patience. Giving grace instead of hate, forgiving others instead of begrudging them. Seeking peace instead of strife, bringing unity in God’s Church instead of division. Being thankful instead being greedy. And building others up, instead of tearing them down. It’s fulfilling Jesus’ words in Mark 12:30-31, “30 'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
And the end result is what Paul states in Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
We are to act just as Jesus our Savior acted. Walking in the holy righteousness of God and becoming more and more like the person the Father sees us as through Jesus. Each believer is on this road, being drawn closer to the image of Jesus, the image that was marred by sin, but was restored through Jesus’ work on the cross.
But here’s the reality, too often those in the Church have not sought this work of God in their lives. We too often fall into sayings like, “I’m only human,” or “I’m a sinner.” But we don’t realize that the Holy Spirit of God dwells inside every believer, working in us to bring about the holiness God already sees. To say we are only human is to discount God’s perfect creation, where original setting for humanity was to walk in holiness without being indwelled by the Holy Spirit, so how much should we accomplish now that we are indwelled?!
And to say that I am a sinner is to allow sin to continue to reign in our lives. No! Sin’s power has been broken, let us not seek to allow it to shackle us again. We are saints saved by grace. Instead, when we falter in our walk with God, we should be humble, seeking forgiveness from him and from those whom we have sinned against.
The biggest problem with the Church is that the people of God tend to be too lazy to take their calling of holy lives seriously. If we are to be set apart from the world, why do we continue to do as the world does? Instead, let’s take those things the world presents to us and show them to God, asking him, should I do this or not? That’s what it means to have a relationship with the God of the universe. And in doing so, we give room for our brothers and sisters to exercise their relationships too. Because from some of us, we must abstain from certain things, but for others, God has given freedom in them. Instead of looking on in judgment, we are to encourage others to seek God through the Scriptures.
Because it’s in them that we will be sanctified. In fact, what we read from the Scriptures today tells us that through the blood of Jesus and through the Word of the Scriptures, are we sanctified. The process starts on the cross, where Jesus’ blood was shed, and continues daily in the life of the believer who reads and puts into practice the Word of God.
And so I have two challenges for you. First, we need to be heartbroken over sin. Over that sin that lingers habitually in us, which should spur us onto seeking the Holy Spirit’s work ever greater; but also heartbroken over the sin in the world, that keeps others in bondage. As we come closer to Jesus, we are being made holy, and that holiness should drive our love for people that they too would know their Savior.
So on a personal level, I want to challenge you with the passage that, in my opinion is the foundation of the practical sanctification work, Matthew 7:1-5. Jesus states, “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
Here Jesus directs us to seeking God to remove any logs in our eyes, which are sins that are clearly seen by others, but we are blind to. When we seek the Holy Spirit to deal with the sin in our own lives, we can then help others in their walks as well. But if we are not addressing those sins God is pointing out in us, we cannot hope to help another, and we’ll just come off as judgmental and not heartbroken.
We, who have put our trust in Jesus as Savior, are to be holy, and when the Church seeks holiness, God is glorified and the world sees that transformative work of Jesus. Let us be a holy people, because our God is a holy God. Amen.
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