As our congregation looks towards the future, with our 40th anniversary less than a year away, we’re looking to see what God has in store for us. One aspect of looking forward to the next 40 years, is contemplating a name change, to better reflect the work of this particular ministry.
The name that has come out in front of the rest is, Arise Church. The reason for this is, because throughout the Scriptures, the call of God’s people to arise to God’s work, begins in Genesis and makes it’s way all the way to the book of Revelation. And so what we’ve been looking at for the last two weeks, is this call to arise.
Because whether our ministry here changes it’s name to Arise Church or not, the call on us to arise to God’s work will still be upon us.
So in our first week we looked at the Church’s call to arise to focus. Meaning, that the Church can easily loose sight on what really matters, the Gospel. Too often we are tearing each other down because of doctrines that, though important, are not the core to what we believe. We can differ on those secondary things, but it’s the core of the Gospel that we need to focus on, so we can bring as much unity to the Church as possible and do the work we have been commissioned to do. If the congregation decides to make a name change or not, is that more important than the Gospel we are called to share? So whether a name change happens or not, nothing changes in our focus on the Gospel.
In our second week we looked at the Church’s call to arise to repentance. Repentance is the first step into salvation. Without repentance, which is a recognition and turning away from sin, salvation has not occurred. And we can’t expect the world to repent if the people of God are not modeling what repentance is. In our relationship with God, the Church must show the world, that we are a humble people, who will recognize and repent of the sins we engage in. If we change our ministry name or not, the call of repenting of the things we falter on as believers is still on our lives.
And it’s repentance that leads us naturally into our third week, where we look to our call of arising to holiness.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll keep saying it, of all his attributes that God speaks about himself, holiness is by far the one he speaks most directly about.
In Leviticus 20:26, as God is making Israel his people and bringing them into covenant relationship with him, he tells them, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”
Peter in his first letter to the Church echoes this statement when he writes in 1 Peter 1:15-16, “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.”
The word holy is the Hebrew word, qadosh (kaw-doshe’) and means to to be consecrated, or dedicated for work that is godly. When God uses it of himself, it is to describe an eternal attribute. God is holy, it’s who he is. He is righteous, and good. He is merciful and gracious. He is love, and selflessness. He is peace, and kindness. When he says that we are to be holy, that means we are to take on those things that he is. We too are to live in righteousness. We are to be good. We are to be merciful and gracious, loving and selfless, peaceful and kind.
We’re to be moved by the Holy Spirit away from the things of this world that are ungodly and unrighteous, and move towards the things of God.
Listen to Paul’s plea in Romans 6, where we read, “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
As God’s people, the Church must be slaves to righteousness. Every morning our prayer should be, “God make me holier today than I was yesterday.” And when we go to sleep, our prayers should be, “I praise you God for bringing more into your holiness, and I look forward to your work tomorrow.”
Our thoughts must be on growing personally in our walk with Jesus. We must desire the Holy Spirit’s work to bring us ever closer and in line to Paul’s words just two chapters later 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.”
The holiness that God is bringing us into a reflection of Jesus. When we say things like, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?), we are asking to be holy as he is holy. And though we may falter and succumb to sinful thoughts and desires, when coupled with a repentant heart, holiness grows in our lives. This is the inner life, the deeper life, the victorious life, the growing life of the believer. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
So when Jesus said to those first disciples on the Galilean shore, “Follow me…(Matthew 4:19),” he was calling them out of their unrighteous lives that were leading to death, and into his life of holiness that leads to life.
And I think out of the three points of arising that the Church is called to, it’s holy living that is the crux of why the other two are skewed.
Think about this, when the world hears of the Abilene Christian University Professor who was just arrested on charges of sexually abusing his adoptive children, what do they think? God has called his people out of sexual misconduct on every level, yet there it is. The world looks at the Church and says, hypocrites.
Or what about when five people from Apex School of Theology plead guilty to financial aid fraud and because of that the school had to be sold off, what does the work see? God has called his people out of misconduct with stewardship, yet there it is. Then the world looks at the Church and calls it a fraud.
But these are the things that get reported, and we could easily look at them and say, “Well, I’m against that too…that’s not all Christians.” But when we ourselves engage in tearing others down through arguments that deal with secondary issues, or when we don’t live out repentant lives, we add into the bigger narrative that the Church is a joke, and really not the people of God.
If we are to give a witness to the world, the people of God need to seek the holiness of God. The Church is to be washed of all impurities by the cleansing of God’s word. And do you know where it starts? Not with the preacher on TV with the million dollar house, nor with the youth pastor charged with sexual assault, it starts with me, it starts with you. It starts with each of us on an individual level. It starts with body parts of Christ’s Church. And when we realize that the core of the Gospel is what matters and repentance must be a part of our walk with Jesus, then the sanctification that God desires for us happens more easy in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul says this about what Jesus is doing with this Church in Ephesians 5 starting in verses 25, as he speaks to husbands and wives, “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.”
God’s desire of us, both on an individual and a corporate level, is to be washed clean of all unrighteousness through his transformative word, and to be presented to himself as a holy bride, who is unblemished by the wickedness that is in the world.
But here’s the thing, are we ready for that work of God in our lives? Holiness means a movement away from what I want, to what God wants. It’s a move away from being selfish, to being selfless. It’s a move away from harboring anger, to forgiveness without boundaries. It’s praying for those that hurt you, and asking for blessings upon those that would curse you. It’s desiring to be more like Jesus than the world, but what does that get you here?
Jesus spoke this in John 15:18-20, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
Moving into holiness moves us away from what the world wants, and that means you have to desire the accolades of God, more that the accolades of those around you. That means you’ll have to stand on the word of God, which tells us that God created only two sexes, two gender roles (Genesis 1:26-27). And those two sexes are to come together in heterosexual marriage (Genesis 2:24). Anything outside those boundaries is ungodly, and therefore unholy. And that could get you in trouble, with friends who live in unrighteousness, with a society that desires unholiness, and government who seeks to normalize the sexualization of children.
It’s being called a bigot, a fill-in-the-blank phobe, a hypocrite, a prude, a square. It might even mean that you rights are taken away, or maybe your life. And what does a Church living in holiness’ response? It’s our Savior’s, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).”
To live in holiness, to have the cleaning of the Holy Spirit be active in our lives, means that we are not our own, we are slaves to the righteousness of God, and the world will be both angry with us and challenged by us. This world needs the Church to be what it was called to be and has not done a good job of. To arise to the holiness that was bought by it’s Savior on the cross. The world doesn’t need another larger than life preacher, or a flashy movie, or worship service. No, the world needs individual believers daily seeking the holiness of God, being transformed by their Savior, calling others to that same Holy Savior.
Today I want to challenge you to seek holiness. Around the room there are bowls of water, I want to challenge you to go over to the bowl, dip your hands in the water, and say a simple prayer like this, “Lord make me holy as you are holy, that the world may know the Holy Savior. Amen.”
Let us be the people of God, his Church, who arises to the call of holiness on our lives. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment