Holiness – The Answer to Hypocrisy
Romans 12:1-2, Various Scriptures
I. Introduction
Over the past 4 weeks we have taken a rather extensive and intensive look at holiness.
The first week we looked at the importance of holiness in our lives. We saw that holiness is not just some nice notion we talk about in Christian circles. And while holiness may seem impossible, it is commanded nonetheless, and God is the One who makes it happen.
We looked at the Battle Ground of holiness – our heart and mind. We laid out a Battle Plan for holiness – time in the Word and prayer, worship in a Christ-centered church, fellowship with like-minded believers, all culminating in bottom-line obedience to Christ and His commands. Stress was put on the point that God not only helps us obey Him, He helps us want to obey Him.
Then we looked at how holiness shows itself in our speech. We spent a good bit of time contrasting harmful speech and holy speech, discussing how gossip, slander, lying, misusing the Lord’s name, foul language, and prejudice have no place in the life of a Christian. Holiness in speech is shown in talk that benefits and uplifts others, and honors God.
Last week we examined the lives of Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as we broached the subject of holiness in our actions – or to put it another way, integrity. We saw that holding onto strong Principles and giving strong Production leads to strong Praise to God.
Today we wrap all this up by focusing on how we possess the holiness God wants to work in us.
The title of the message this morning is Holiness-the Answer to Hypocrisy. I want to warn you that we won’t be discussing hypocrisy much, because that will take care of itself as we work through this issue of holiness.
But let me give you a definition of a hypocrite I borrowed from motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. A hypocrite is just someone who isn’t himself on Sunday. Get it?
I have said many times since you’ve invited me here that God wants to do mighty things IN us and THROUGH us. This morning we will look at the IN part. We are going to dive headfirst into the fountainhead of holiness.
My purpose this morning is to invite you to a point where the Holy Spirit can truly have His way in your life. I’m convinced that God has something special in store for us today, so hang onto your seats, and let go of your heart.
II. “Possessing” Holiness
A. Our Part
We will discuss two main points this morning: our part and God’s part. We will start off with our part.
Please turn in your Bibles to the Book of Romans, chapter 12. This is found on page ____ of the Bibles in the racks in front of you, if you were unable to bring a Bible today. By the way, if you do not own a Bible, I would be happy to arrange for you to get one at no charge. Just let me know after the service, or leave a note with the church office.
Please read with me. I will be reading from the New International Version.
-Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will.-
Our part is to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. What does this mean, really? Well, what is a sacrifice? When the priests laid a sacrifice on the alter, what was to happen to that sacrifice? It was to die.
That is what is required of us. We die to ourselves so we can live for God. This is easier said than done. It is so hard to look beyond ourselves and our needs and wants, and look to follow Christ. This especially hard when we have had what we consider to be a pretty good and enjoyable life up to that point.
Let’s face it, folks, some sin is pleasurable. I’ve heard testimonies of people who led sinful lifestyles involving drugs and sex, and they say something like “I wasn’t really happy .” Folks like that are willing to lie about other things, too, I imagine.
They may not have known JOY, but they were happy. How do I know? I’ve been there. Some of you were here last Sunday night when I shared my testimony as an example of how to share your testimony. If you want to hear it, you’ll need to come to the youth Sunday School class next week. But let me just say that I had fun and I was happy doing what I was doing.
Does that make it right? Absolutely not. My point here is that if someone had come to me during some of those activities or while I was achieving whatever successes in life I had before Christ, I would have had a hard time accepting the fact that I needed Him at all.
Christianity in many circles has become a rather convenient religion. Just go to church and be baptized, go to confession, and it doesn’t matter what you do in between.
But that’s not what Jesus intended at all. I want us to turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 9. This is on page _______ of the Bibles in the racks. We begin at verse 18.
-Once when Jesus was praying in private and His disciples were with Him, He asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
“But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then He said to them all: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of Him when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”-
That doesn’t exactly sound real comfy does it? We are not called to go through our motions of ritual – we are called to die for Christ. Spiritually, and if necessary, physically.
I mentioned some weeks ago, that in other countries such as India, Saudi Arabia, and China, to be a Christian is an all or nothing deal. It can cost you your life. But here in America, we are so accustomed to freedoms that we forget that being a Christian is still an all or nothing deal. It may not cost you your life, but it may. A quick trip to Columbine High School will attest to that.
A popular misconception people carry around is the notion that to “bear your cross” means to put up with some hardship. The plain fact of the matter is that the cross is not an instrument of hardship, it is an instrument of death. Pure and simple. Get past the easy way. Get hold of the fact that to follow Christ means to follow Him to death if necessary.
I’ll be the first to admit that I hope none of my family ever has to do that. But I pray that if it comes to that, my family and I will face it with grace and dignity, holding onto His glorious promise of seeing His face when it’s over.
The issue is that to live for Christ means to die to self. To place ourselves, our families, our possessions, everything in our lives on the altar.
The Bible has another word for this – sanctification. That’s a fancy word that means “to set apart, or make holy.”
We set ourselves apart for Christ and His service. We do that by placing ourselves on the altar.
Our part is to die to ourselves so we can live for Christ. So what is God’s part?
B. God’s Part.
Remember the definition of sanctification? It is to set apart, or make holy. We set ourselves apart, but so does God. He separates us from the world by making us holy.
He set us apart when we came to Christ for salvation. He continues to set us apart as we grow in His holiness while here on earth. One day we will be totally set apart as we spend eternity in Heaven with Him.
But back to the part about being here on earth. While we are separated and made holy in His sight when we are born again into His kingdom through faith in Christ, we still have a long way to go.
We need to grow in holiness. Yet, like salvation, we are powerless to get it on our own. We need help. We need help from the only One who can grant it - God Himself.
When we offer ourselves on the altar as a living sacrifice, guess what He does? He accepts the sacrifice! He does it willfully and joyfully.
And then He does a most wonderful thing. He fills us with His Holy Spirit to perfect us in love for Him and to make us fit for service.
2 Timothy 2:20-21 says – In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.-
How many times have I said that our prayer should not be that God would use us, but that He would make us usable? He will use us if we are usable.
I am convinced that there comes a time in every Christian’s life when they have to make a decision. That decision is whether to follow Christ no matter what, or not to. You are confronted with an opportunity to stop living with one foot in Heaven and one foot in the world. The opportunity to lay it all on the altar.
Some of you are facing that decision right now. Some of you have let the opportunity pass, but have faced it again.
I am begging you to not let that opportunity pass again without surrendering. And He wants it all. Everything. Think of your life as a house. Christ and His Holy Spirit want access to every area – from the basement to the attic, and everywhere in between. They want to clean it up and live there. And not only do they want to live there, they want to own it.
III. Conclusion
Two parts: our part and God’s part.
Your part: to lay yourself and everything you hold dear on the altar as a living sacrifice.
God’s part: to accept your sacrifice, filling you with His Holy Spirit, to sanctify you or set you apart to Him and His service.
Some of you have already done this. Some are ready to offer themselves as a living sacrifice today.
Why is this so important? Because God wants us to reflect Him. He is holy. We need to be holy. It comes FROM God, by giving ourselves TO God.
Remember the title of the message – Holiness – The Answer to Hypocrisy? Why do people call us that? It is because we don’t practice what we preach. We preach that people shouldn’t do this or that. Or that they SHOULD do this or that. And we do the opposite. We claim to love God, yet we turn our backs on Him and the people He died for. No wonder they spit the word hypocrite when they talk about people who call themselves Christians.
Surrendering it all to Christ allows Him to shine in and through us so that people see Jesus when they see us. But they won’t see Christ in the lives of those who are not sold out to Him completely. Not sold out to church, or this denomination, or even to “religion.” Sold out to Christ.
Does this mean you will never stumble or sin? Does this mean we are perfect? No. It means you are allowing God to work His perfecting power in your life.
We are going to give you an opportunity to give yourself completely to Christ this morning. We are going to open the altar in a few moments, and if you are ready to let God have it all, you will have the chance to make a public declaration by coming and kneeling at this earthly altar.
But before you can come to the point of offering your all to Christ, you need to take an even more fundamental step.
If you are here today, and you are not sure that you will spend eternity in heaven when you die, you need to take care of that. Realize you are the sinner that all of us are. Turn from your sin with God’s help. Believe that Christ shed His blood for you and rose from the grave so that you can have eternal life. Ask Him into your heart and life to save you from the penalty we all deserve, and to make you a new creation.
He will do it, and will do it gladly. In fact, Jesus says that there is much rejoicing in heaven when someone asks Christ to save them.
If you want to take care of that this morning, you are welcome to the altar as well.
Coming to this physical altar does not do anything magical for you. It is merely a way of stating that you will not live a life that is ashamed of Christ, but one that is ready to live for Him completely.
We are going to sing the song, “I Surrender All,” which is #_______in the hymnal. And the invitation is this: if you need to accept Christ as your personal Savior, or if you already know Christ as Savior, but now want to make Him absolute Lord of your life by offering yourself as a living sacrifice, you come. Come expecting God to do His part.
We are going to sing the first _______ verses. On the ________ verse, you come. After we sing that ______ verse, we will have a time of prayer and consecration.
After our time of prayer, we will sing the last verse as those at the altar return to their seats, and we will have a closing benediction.
Let’s turn our hearts to God as we sing.
Prayer:
Dear God, we know and acknowledge that we are sinners in your sight. Yet you chose to die for us. What a wonderful God you are. I pray first of all for those who are here who don’t yet know you as their Savior, but want to be sure of going to heaven when they die. I pray that they will pray in their hearts these words: Dear God, I’m a sinner. Thank you for dying for me and rising from the grave so I could go to heaven some day. Please help me turn from my sin. I don’t want to spend eternity in hell – I want to spend it with you. Come into my life and save me from the penalty I deserve. Make me a new person who will live for you.
Now God I pray for these here who are ready to offer themselves as a living sacrifice. Help them to truly consecrate everything for You and Your service. Give them a hunger and thirst for righteousness that only You can quench. You promise that those who do hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.
Forgive our sinfulness. Forgive us for being so full of ourselves we forgot You. Forgive us for not living a life that honors You in everything we think, say, and do.
So now we ask that You would fill us with Your Holy Spirit. Make us holy, fit for use in Your kingdom. Help us love You more than we thought possible. Help us to live for You out of love more than duty.
Fill us to the point that we overflow with Your holiness. And may You may be honored to use us as vessels of noble purpose.
We will give You the honor and the glory and the praise. We ask this in the Name of Your wonderful and glorious Son ,Jesus, who made it all possible. Amen.
