May God Sanctify You Through And Through

Pataskala Church of the Nazarene

May 2, 2010

May God Make You Holy Through and Through

Scripture Reading: I Peter 1:13-25

I Thessalonians 5:16-24

"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." Hebrews 12:14

Introduction:

(Credit for the main points of this sermon are given to Steve Shepherd of the Christian Church in Jonesboro, TN.)

Why is Holiness so important?

Why pay so much attention to this doctrinal stance on living the Holy life?

Simply because God's Word has so much to say about it.

When I was a student at Wesley Biblical Seminary, in Jackson, Mississippi, I was the Senior Pastor at the Yazoo City Independent Methodist Church for two years.

We had some of the greatest people in that little congregation.

I recall preaching a sermon on the Spirit-filled life in which I referred to it as being sanctified holy.

The chairman of the board at that time, his first name was Durwood, a wonderful friend, came to me and said, "Dan, the church board would like to meet with you about the subject of Holiness you have been preaching. Could you present to us Scripture on this?"

And I said, "Certainly, so I went to work and prepared a thesis on Sanctification and the life of Holiness.

As I remember I presented a paper to the church board of around 14 pages where the Word of God presented this and why the Methodist church had it in their articles of faith.

After the presentation of the paper, I gave time for questions.

The Church board had never had this doctrine preached and there response to me was very positive all except one board member.

The chairman of the board said, "Well, board it's in the Word and we can't argue with that! Therefore I move we accept the Pastor's preaching on Holiness." And the board voted with only one dissenting vote.

I have experienced quite a number of Christian leaders who have questioned our stance on Holiness as a denomination.

They feel we are preaching sinless perfection.

I want to make it clear, we are not preaching sinless perfection. Only Jesus Christ the Son of God ever lived a life free of sin.

Many have been confused by wrong understandings of John Wesley because they have come to the conclusion that Wesley came up with this teaching on holiness.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

And sadly there are some pastors who have completely stopped preaching on this Biblical truth because they didn't want to lose any one from their church.

You see biblical holiness holds us to a higher spiritual standard.

And there are others who look at it as an option in their spiritual life, but I'm going to show you this morning that this is not an option, because God's word says clearly, "...without holiness(the same Greek word for Sanctify) no one will see the Lord."

To be honest about it, there are quite a few things in life that we think we just have-to-have and find out later that they are not as important or needed as we thought.

All of us would probably be better off if we’d simplify our lives and focus more on what is really important in life.

AND WHAT’S THAT?

Our relationship to God and holiness, I might add.

Peter said in his Epistle,

I Peter 1:13 "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed (future event). As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance (Sin nature) 15. But just as He who called you is holy, so you be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

In the original Greek this is a command. "So you be holy in all you do."

God desires that we be like Him, holy like Him.

It says, "BE HOLY , BECAUSE I AM HOLY."

Actually our spiritual goal should be to be like Jesus. Amen!

In this series of sermons: The Believers Walk with God, I preached to you on the importance of coming to this service on Sunday morning prepared to Worship (Are you doing that - Are you coming with a heart ready to worship?) and worshipping God through the rest of the week individually.

Last week we dwelt on the extreme importance of prayer and came to this conclusion that prayer is the power we need to move our personal relationship with God to higher levels and to move PCN forward and upward as a church body.

Today I come to you on the Third sermon that deals with the Believers Walk with God, Living the Life of Holiness.