Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
March 17, 2013
Reflecting God’s Holiness
Leviticus 16:1-2
Into:
We can be admitted/concert hall/any concert hall, only if we have a ticket.
• Ticket/gives/right/hear/symphony concert.
• Let us suppose we possess such a ticket.
• sit down/listen/glorious music/masters
• only to discover that we are bored out of our minds
• the music seems to mean nothing/boring
We are jarred, upset, since the concert strikes us as pointless, seemingly endless, an utter waste of an evening we could have spent at something fruitful
And all of this just because we are tone-deaf.
The ticket of admission gives us the right to be present; but as long as we are tone-deaf we aren't fit to be present.
• Regardless of our right to be/concert
• It is only our musicality that fits us for the concert.
• Without that musicality which fits us for the concert
• The concert is merely a huge frustration.
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I sometimes fear that we have redefined conversion in terms of human decisions
We have so removed any necessity/experience of God's Spirit
Too many people think they are saved when in fact they only have Christian ideas in their head not spiritual power in their heart.
• It is the life-changing experience/Holy Spirit
• Only through faith/Jesus Christ/Lord/universe.
• Justification means/in Christ believers have a new birth
• Sanctification means that a Christian grows in holiness.
I believe God has commissioned me to remind Christians of God's insistence on holiness.
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• Very dramatic way/Lord showed Isaiah how He helps us achieve this holiness.
Isaiah was given/vision/throne room of God, with/seraphim over the throne:
Isa. 6:3 “and they were calling to one another, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."
• Isaiah immediately grasped/meaning/what/angel said.
• He understood/true degree/extent of the holiness of God.
• He saw the glory of God in the whole earth
• then a type of fear gripped his heart and soul
• he also understood how we have corrupted God's glory
• and so he cried out:
Isa. 6:5 "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
In his unholiness/Isaiah saw himself/dead man/midst/God's holiness.
• Isaiah confessed his own sins/sins of the people.
• in all His grace and mercy
• God showed Isaiah, and us, how to become truly holy:
Isa. 6:6-7 “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven."
This is exactly what Jesus did for all who believe in Him and call upon His name in repentance.
• when Isaiah realized he was made holy
• he also realized his responsibility
• he knew/quality/holiness/not something we are/hide away
• It is something/must shine forth from us as strongly as the light of the Lord shines forth from Him:
Isa. 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
• If we are truly touched by the Lord,
• Then we must respond, as did Isaiah.
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There are marks of being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
• One is a heart of praise. Acts 10:46
• the Holy Spirit had fallen
• They heard them extolling (or magnifying) God.
The heart in which the Holy Spirit has been poured out will stop magnifying self and start magnifying God.
Heartfelt praise/worship/mark/real experience of the Holy Spirit.
The other mark I'll mention is obedience.
• Acts 5:29 Peter/apostles say/Sadducees who had arrested them, "We must obey God rather than men."
• Then in verse 32 he says,
• "We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God gave to those who are obeying him."
• "Gave" is past tense; "obey" is present, ongoing tense.
• When the object of your heart's worship changes
• Your obedience changes.
When Jesus baptizes you/Holy Spirit/infuses you with a new sense of the glory of God, you have a new desire and a new power (1:8) to obey.
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Let's approach the matter from a different angle. "God can do something with sin beyond forgiving it." He can.
• What can God do with sin beyond forgiving it?
• He can unlock its grip upon us
• He can get its "hooks" out of us.
• Get beyond the point of forgiveness to deliverance.
When we look out over the church-scene a great many church-people reassure themselves that "of course" their sin was forgiven, even while they hold fast in that sin.
Never say 'Of course'. Don't presume upon forgiveness.
Where there is no deliverance, don't be in any hurry to assume forgiveness."
Look at the Paralytic!
"This should startle complacent people who are presumptuous.
If we think whether consciously or unconsciously, God cannot do anything with sin beyond forgiving it, that would give us a license to sin.
I want to move all believers past two pitfalls: indifference and hopeless despair.
I. First pitfall, Indifference
The command/God/beating/big bass drum over/over in scripture
• "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy"
• We must know/root command in scripture.
• What God commands his people God gives his people.
Therefore "be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" it’s not only the root command in scripture; it is also the crowning promise in scripture.
• The Lord gives us a quality of Himself.
• The quality of holiness.
• He doesn’t give us a different quality of holiness
• He gives us/responsibility/very same holiness He has
We are to have the same qualities
Exactly the same qualities of holiness, love, and perfection within us, as God has within Himself.
• If we say it's impossible, or we can't be like that
• we are calling God a liar
• for He said we have been given these qualities.
Our problem is:
• we don't spend enough time considering our responsibilities as children of God
• Enough time change our lifestyle/be conformed/His image.
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The root meaning of the word "holy" is "different".
• Hebrew/word/KADOSH has to do with difference.
• God is holy, elementally, in that God is different.
• God is different from his creation in general
The New Testament Greek word/translates KADOSH is HAGIOS.
In the New Testament it is everywhere used of Christians.
• Christians are said to be HAGIOI (plural.)
• English translations here read "saints".
• Paul writes letters to congregations in a dozen different cities, always beginning his letter
• "To the saints in...( Corinth , Philippi , wherever.)
To be holy, a saint, is simply to be different.
• Different from what?
• Different for what?
• Different from "this present evil age"
• different from that "darkness" which is "passing away"
• different from "the form of this world" which is "passing away"
If Christians are different from this, what are we different for?
• We are different for the kingdom of God;
• different for that "new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells"
• Different for intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ and conformity to him.
If Jesus Christ does not or cannot make the profoundest difference to us and within us, then the entire Christian enterprise is pointless.
• But it isn't pointless!
• Our Lord can do within us all that he has promised to us.
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Paul wrote/congregation/Corinth, 1 Cor.6:9-11"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."
"Such were some of you."
The congregation in Corinth had among its members men and women who had spent years in notorious sin --undeniable, thoroughly degrading, habitual sin.
• Then they had known release.
• They continued to rejoice/deliverance for which they would thank the deliverer eternally.
• They were "Reflecting God’s holiness."
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It’s two dimensional…
Heart…inner intent, attitude, disposition
Life…behaviour, conduct, visibility.
Matt. 23:25,”Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! Your clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence”
An inner intent (the heart) that doesn’t match the outer manifestation is useless
And vice versa, an attempt at outer manifestation not rooted in inner transformation was crass self-righteousness.
Supposed holiness of heart alone dishonours God/that it is weak.
Supposed holiness of life alone dishonours God/that it/arrogant.
• Holiness of heart and life are one
• Spirit-quickened intention is
• Fulfilled in Spirit-generated conduct.
We could illustrate this endlessly from the triumphs of grace that we see of the saints in our fold.
II: Second pitfall, Hopeless despair
How do we get to the point of "holiness of heart and life"?
• When/Holy Spirit acquaints/initially with our sins we see it
• We view it rightly with horror.
• We see our sins with bluntness
• We finally come to know our Saviour/only hope and help.
Having grasped this depravity, having abandoned ourselves to our Saviour, we still haven’t grasped the enormity of our depravity.
• Whether it’s consciously or unconsciously.
• We still haven’t comprehended the scope/depth of sin in us.
• Its scope is vast, for it leaves no area of life unaffected.
Its depth is unfathomable, for it goes deeper than we can see at present.
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• Grace is needed, and more grace, and more….
• At this point we can only cry out to God
• Plead with him to remedy what he has newly acquainted us with about ourselves.
• Then more grace and more and more…?
You see, this is an on-going exposure to the roots of our sins.
An on-going:
• Awareness of the twists in our twisted heart
• Self-abandonment to God
• Self-forgetfulness, self-denial.
Let our newly-exposed depravity warp us and horrify us one minute longer.
This on-going development is our ever-increasing reflection of God’s holiness.
• The key to it all is single-mindedness.
• Do we want this more than we want anything else?
• Is it our one focus, aspiration, craving, preoccupation?
• Human depravity is ever so varied.
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Three instances we need to rid: pride, anger and self-will.
God wrestles down our pride by working humility in us (even if it is painful for us to become humble;
He dispels our anger (ill-temper, petulance, irrational rage) by working patience in us
He denatures our self-will by having us hunger to do his will.
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As God's Spirit discloses new depths/layers/extensions/sin in us
• He/works a new desire/new capacity for self-forgetfulness.
"Reflecting God’s holiness" is finally going/self-forgetful love of God and neighbour.
• Love of God has to be self-forgetful
• Or what we call "love for God" is nothing more than a tool for using God, exploiting him.
• Love of neighbour has to be self-forgetful
• Or what we call "love of neighbour" is nothing more than a pretext for self-congratulation.
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Needless to say, we cannot will ourselves to be self-forgetful, for the very attempt at willing this fixes us in our self-concern
If we do we can fall into hypocrisy.
We become truly self-forgetful and profoundly self-forgetful only as we unselfconsciously "lose" ourselves in God.
Here we come to what I call the mystical aspect of "reflecting God’s holiness".
When I speak holiness I’m not thinking first of morality;
We must say with conviction of heart:
Let all I am in Thee be lost;
Let all be lost in God.
We will never understand until we understand this all-consuming preoccupation with GOD.
God is the environment of his people as surely as water is the environment of fish.
When your there:
You will be drawn so close/fire of God’s love that the flames simultaneously consume sin
Cauterize sin’s wounds
Consummate love’s longing.
" Can you find... anything more desirable than this?"
There wasn't, there isn't, and there never will be "anything more desirable than this."
How many of you are really willing to do the same; not to just say these words, but to really mean them, and follow through with them?
How many of us are really willing to take time to be holy?
Our answer to this is not our spoken amen, but our changed life in holiness that expresses the amen in unspoken words.
Amen.
