Ephesians 5:25 "... Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it, that he might make it holy with His own blood, and present it to Himself pure and radiant, without any spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless."
In the Bible account of Gideon you may recall that Israel was being menaced by enemies (Midian) and the nation was in terror. Gideon, the hero of the story was himself hiding as he threshed out his harvest when an angel appeared to him and said, "Hail, mighty man of valor! The LORD is with thee!"
Gideon didn't know if the angel was making fun of him, or was just very near-sighted! He did not know either hiw own potential or God's design for his life!
By the same terms, if a letter came to your house addressed to "the saints" at your residence, how would you respond? Or, when you read or hear read the challenge anywhere in the Bible: "Be ye holy for I the Lord your God Am Holy!" how do you receive it?
The very idea of "holy" or "holiness" invokes strong reactions. In general there are two:
One response to holiness says, "Who me?" Then with a great show of humility the heavy responsibility of sainthood or holiness is ever so lightly pushed aside.
The other response says, "I will be holy!" But then it proceeds to define the beginning and ending of the call to holiness strictly in the individual, in the "me."
THERE IS A PERSONAL CALL TO HOLINESS
...which cannot be ignored. YES, GOD CALLS US PERSONALLY: (re: Romans 12:1,2)
God calls EACH of us, deals with us, convicts and convinces us, so that we might be enabled to fellowship with Him. God calls EACH OF US TO HIMSELF. To be "holy" means we are in a special relationship to God.
Our "holiness" is not a "LOAD OF GOODNESS" that makes US "holy" in all we do or say. ONLY GOD IS HOLY in any underived way. All holiness comes from HIM.
But God cannot fellowship with the unholy. He wants us to fellowship with Him. So we have this dilemma: you have to be holy to come near to God, and you can't come near to God unless you are holy. It is sort of like you can't get a job without experience, and you can't get experience without a job.
So— what can be done? The thing to realize is what HOLY is, what it means. "Holy" means "set apart." My parking space is "set apart" to me; this church building is "holy" in a sense in that it is "set apart" for theworship of God. TO BE GOD'S IS TO BE HOLY:
But things don't have any say in whom they shall belong to; people do. Still, what is God's IS holy! So, the struggle is not to make ourselves holy so that we can approach God; WE CANNOT DO THAT OURSELVES!
Somehow the struggle is not to be HOLY— but to give ourselves wholly away to God, and to know that He has accepted our gift. What is HIS— He makes holy!
And strange as it may seem, part of the "giving away," the consecration, involves identifying with God's holy church!
TO BE HOLY INVOLVES BEING PART OF GOD'S HOLY CHURCH
Our passion for personal holiness must flow into a holy love for Christ's church if it reflects Christ's own kind of love.
"Holy" has been preached almost exclusively from a personal, experiential approach. We have measured our holiness by the inner, emotional response ("I feel sweet, or peace, or feel love"), by what we sense personally, enabling: ("I am not ashamed to testify" "I find that I can forgive.") And while this personal side is absolutely valid and necessary, yet it can be extremely centered in self!
The corrective for self-centered holiness, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is remembering that we are to be sanctified in relationship to Christ's church, which is to be HOLY!
GOD'S CALL "BE HOLY!" IS ALWAYS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CHURCH
THE CHURCH IS THE FOCUS OF CHRIST'S LOVE. Look again at the scripture which declares: "... Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it, that he might make it holy with His own blood, and present it to Himself pure and radiant, without any spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5:25)
THE CHURCH CAME TO LIFE ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST
Peter preached: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel!" THE CHURCH'S CALL TO HOLINESS INCORPORATES THE INDIVIDUAL 'PERSONAL CALL TO HOLINESS' AND MORE:
The CHURCH is to be united with God by the sanctifying grace: Jesus prayed (John 17:17) Sanctify them: "That they may be one with us." The CHURCH is promised the empowering Spirit: Acts 1:8 - The CHURCH received admonition and challenge from the glorified Savior in Revelation 2,3
HOLINESS IN THIS CORPORATE SENSE BECOMES A SUBMITTING AND SURRENDERING TO MAKE THE CHURCH MUCH MORE THAN OUR INDIVIDUAL TESTIMONY CAN BE. This is a risky, scary thing: to submit one's individual rights into a sense of community.
In the 1960s Hippies tried it— and they were disillusioned every single time! James Jones persuaded hundreds to experiment with submission; the results were disastrous.
Still, there it is: the disciples had all things in common; they relinquished their own rights.
What principle is this?
THE HOLY CHURCH WILL MANIFEST GOD'S LIFE IN THIS WORLD
The LOVE of God - The COMPASSION OF HOLINESS must be manifested in the context of the corporate faith. The Apostle John said the greatest "selling point" the church has is: BEHOLD HOW THEY LOVE ONE ANOTHER!
The COMMUNION of God - THE COMMUNITY OF HOLINESS must also be manifested in the corporate faith. The church described in Acts 2 was manifestly unselfish! They gave whatever they had in order to make the kingdom go forward." THEY HAD ALL THINGS COMMON!"
We can re-capture some of that "belonging"! The nursery needs to be staffed. Little children need to be cared for. People need to be loved and prayed for. It isn't a matter of communism, or giving, although in my mind tithing is a "floor."
The LIFE of God - THE VIBRANT REALITY OF HOLINESS will also be made manifest in the corporate faith! [I am not speaking of synthetic excitement.] When God meets with His HOLY CHURCH it is always an enormously important occasion!
Some time ago in some church promotional literature one "managerial-type" pastor likened his church to a filling station. HE SAID: "The 'real world' is out 'on the road.' "
I take exception.
The church is like a home. THIS sanctuary is a dining room. The meal is fuel for the tasks to be done. But it is also a sacrament of love.
Physically, in our individual homes, too much of our eating is 'fast food' filling station mentality. HAPPY is the family that several times a week sits down together in love to eat, talk, laugh, think, remember, enjoy each other.
Spiritually, it IS true that what the church does 'out on the road' IS vital; WE are the only way that Jesus gets "out of the Bible, out of the four walls of the church."
But what we do IN the church is much more than a smelly, selfish gas station. It is more than "tanking up."
We are family- God's HOLY family! We LOVE each other! When we eat, Paul said, wait for each other!
SO, HOW IS THE CHURCH 'HOLY?'
You [PERSONALLY] are called to holiness as a child of God.
The church is holy because YOU are holy! Like Gideon, the angel is saying to you, "HAIL, YOU SAINT! YOU ARE A MIGHTY CHILD OF GOD!" And you are already sanctified, if you are a Christian at all- - for you are dedicated, given, baptized into the Body of Christ. You are being sanctified God wants to sanctify you through and through, with His cleansing reaching every deliberately surrendered part until in a crisis of consecration you will know you have said an everlasting "YES!" to His love. And one day we shall be sanctified completely! In a way we cannot imagine, "When we shall see Him we shall be like Him!"
The church is HOLY if it is God's church! We [AS GOD'S CHURCH!] are called to holiness as a unit. We can have the baptism of the Holy Spirit that fosters compassion.
I get tired of seminars, and of super-stars, and of methods and techniques.
But we must avoid any false humility that says, "I'm no saint! We're no super-church! Holiness? Holiness is for the day of the kerosene lamp and the button-down shoes. We can't have that kind of powerful fellowship!"
Can't we?
I'm going to ask you to join with me in the closing prayer today, A JOINT AFFIRMATION that we belong to God as a church!
Prayer:
WE, THE WOLLASTON CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE, AFFIRM THAT WE BELONG TO YOU, O GOD. WE BELIEVE THAT WHAT BELONGS TO YOU IS TRULY HOLY. WE ASK THAT YOU WILL MAKE US WHOLLY YOURS THAT WE MIGHT WALK WITH YOU AND FELLOWSHIP WITH YOU AND OBEY YOU IN ALL THAT WE SAY AND DO, THAT YOU MAY HAVE YOUR PERFECT WILL IN OUR CONGREGATIONAL LIFE. AMEN.
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Dr. Russell Metcalfe is Pastor Emeritus of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene.
