Called To Holiness! Know What You Are In Christ! Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: April 25, 2014

Date Preached: April 27, 2014

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Series in 1 Corinthians

Sermon Title: Called to Holiness! Know What You Are!

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 [ESV]

Essence of the Text: Paul wanted the Corinthian church to know what they were in Christ… called out to be separate…to be holy!

Essence of the Sermon: The message of Scripture calls for all believers to know what they are in Christ… we are called out of this world to be separate FROM the world and to live a holy life IN this world.

Objective of the Sermon: We must make the choice as beleivers to know what we are as a Christian! We are called out by God, to live FOR Him and be obedient TO Him

Introduction:

When looking at this passage we can see that Paul is calling these believers to realize not only WHO they were in Christ but also WHAT they are in Christ… WHAT they are called to be… HOW they are called to live!

Paul saw the church as a ‘holy community of faith’… those who are redeemed by the grace of Jesus! Paul also knew that sexual sin corrupts that ‘holy community’… it does NOT only affect the persons involved in the sexual sin, but the community as a whole!

In other words, IF we are professing believers then we have a responsibilty to be WHAT we are called to be and that is HOLY!

Scripture tells us to ‘be holy because I am holy’… the term here for holy is NOT a term that means super spiritual or perfect and without sin… HOLY here means we have been set aside and separated from the rest of the world by Christ because of what He has done on the Cross of Calvary!

Holy here means that God is OTHER than us and we are called to be OTHER than the world! We are to be as ‘other’ to the world as God is ‘other’ to us!

What we are supposed to be in Christ is holy… we can see holy also as pure… We are HOLY in Christ and IN Christ we are PURE before God! Our holiness is because of Christ and our PURITY emanates from what Christ has done!

We need to understand that even though we may NOT think it to be true…purity in today’s society is still a thing that is sought after!

Did you know that in 2007, the Canadian gov’t authorized the production of a very special gold coin. It measured roughly 20 inches in diameter and they were roughly 1¼ inches thick and weighed 220lbs! The gold with which they were made had a purity of 99.999%... thus the term 5 nines gold!

The face value of this coin was $1 million Canadian dollars. Now that’s a coin you wouldn’t be carrying around in your pocket and don’t try to put it in the soda machine...[show picture here]

Why did they do this? The plan was to showcase the technological breakthrough that allowed the Canadian mint, to achieve a never-before level of purity – 99.999% pure. In other words the gold used for this coin had less than 10 parts per million of any impurities.

Like I was saying, I believe that purity is appealing within our world today! There is something appealing to this world about the purity of things we possess or things we take into our bodies…

We constantly seek possessions that are considered ‘pure’ or ‘unblemished’ such as pure gold or an unblemished collectible.

We proclaim the health benefits of NOT polluting our bodies with impurities. . .so we seek to only eat and drink what is pure… pure water, pure or unblemished foods and such…

The irony here is that humanity places a very HIGH importance on "purity" within the physical realm! That is…until it comes to matters of conscience… or to things spiritual…

When we begin to address matters of conscience and things within the spiritual realm then then the idea of ‘purity’ become clouded and vague. Many see spiritual purity as something that is ‘outdated’ or ‘narrow-minded’ and for the most part that is rejected by the world…

The sad news about this is that this attitude is also prevalent within the membership of our churches! Why is it we seek purity for our physical health and purity in what we own or possess BUT we ignore and downplay the importance of purity within our spiritual walk?

The Importance Of Holiness v1-8

Here Paul is addressing a very specific incident of sexual sin, but the overall implication for us today is that this can be seen as a teaching on the very broad subject of holiness or purity as believers!