10 MARKS OF HOLINESS
Written by: Bro Rodney A. Fry ~ Pastor New Hope Baptist Church - Conway
God does many wonderful things in our spiritual walk with Him as we bring His plan to reality in our lives. God works with us as individuals, so no two believers’ experiences with God will be identical. God’s timetable is seeker-sensitive to an individual’s need and openness to Him. Never get discouraged because growth is not as quick as you would like.
I. Holiness Makes Us More Sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading in Our lives
A. We become more aware of God’s direction, more in tune with the gentle Voice guiding our choices.
1. This fulfills the images that God gave His prophets about how things would be when the Holy Spirit filled followers.
a. Isa. 44:3
b. Jer.31: 31-33
c. Ezek. 36:23, 25-27
d. Joel 2:28-29
2. Not only do these passages speak of heart cleansing from the spiritual infection that hinders our progress, but also they speak of an internal awareness of God’s will and plan for us.
B. God only asks that we seek Him and welcome His presence in our lives more than anything. With that open invitation, He willingly gives us new insight for daily living.
II. Holiness Gives Us a New and Deeper love for God and Others
A. Love becomes affection and a principle of life for us.
B. We seek to love God more than anything. When we see something else taking that supreme place in our lives, we quickly lower its position and restore God to first place.
C. We begin to see people as God sees them.
1. We genuinely care about their needs and find ways to meet those needs.
2. The driving force of this love is not a great deal of extra effort on our part but the love of God flowing through us.
a. The reason we call it "perfect love" is not that it responds perfectly in every situation but because it comes from God and reaches to His hurting world.
b. It contains no mixture of selfish ambition.
D. We strive to love others the way the Father loves His Son and the way the Son loves us.
1. We become channels through whom His love flows.
2. We love others with a love God gives us, as described in 1 Cor. 13.
God works with each believer on an individual basis. His timetable and way of working with each of us will be some what different. Doing God’s will brings great fulfillment, satisfaction, and spiritual fruit. That fruit of God’s work is the mark of holiness.
Holiness helps us realize the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives to make us more loving, humble, and spiritually sensitive. He wants us to conform to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.
III. Holiness Gives Us a New level of Humility and Awareness of the Grace of God at Work in Us.
Perhaps the chief enemy to humility is self-centeredness.
1. Self keenly tracks personal accomplishments.
2. When the Holy Spirit takes full control of our lives, He replaces self-centeredness with Christ-centeredness.
IV. Holiness Gives Us a New level of Spiritual Sensitivity
A. This new spiritual sensitivity helps us recognize temptation, faults, and sin for what they really are.
B. Temptation is simply Satan offering suggestions for us to fulfill legitimate needs in ungodly ways.
V. Holiness Encourages Us to Seek Every Opportunity to Serve God
A. The holy life brings a life of service.
B. We offer our service as a thanksgiving offering to God for all He has done for us.
C. We serve because He first served us.
VI. Holiness Strengthens Our Resolve to Resist the World’s Attempt to Squeeze Us into Its Mold
A. It’s not an accident that we’re picking up stray signals from our culture calling us to conform. God knows all about the world’s plan to squeeze us into certain molds.
B. Jesus urged us in John 17 to be in the world but not of it. We do have to live here, but we don’t think and act like the world.
C. The more we’re attracted to Christ; the less we’re attracted to the world.
The Holy Spirit will help us decide what is crucial to our spiritual growth. We cannot spend a lot of time on the trivial choices. The truth is that the more we are attracted to Christ, the less we are attracted to the world.
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matt. 5:6). The filling creates a deeper hunger and thirst for more of God than we presently know. Again consider the marks of the Spirit as we see this truth at work in the believer.
VII. Holiness Brings Our Greatest Fulfillment in Life from Finding and Doing God’s Will
The committed Christian who spends every day immersed in pleasing God finds fulfillment beyond description.
1. As George W. Truett reminds us, "To know the will of God is the greatest knowledge, to find the will of God is the greatest discovery, and to do the will of God is the greatest achievement."
2. In the end, we’re much happier doing God’s will than our own.
VIII. Holiness Gives Us a Hunger for More of God’s Presence and Influence in Our Lives
An amazing paradox emerges when believers’ lives are totally dedicated to God.
1. We are full and yet seeking to be filled at the same time.
2. We are satisfied and yet hungry, because while God totally fulfills and satisfies us, He also urges us to seek a deeper relationship with Him.
3. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matt. 5:6).
4. We find the hunger of our hearts filled with His completeness.
IX. Holiness Produces the Fruit of the Spirit in Us
A. God’s desired fruit in our lives includes ’’rove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23). These qualities are in short supply in society. God counts on us to raise a bumper crop of this fruit in our world.
B. As God’s Holy Spirit fills us, we produce His fruit naturally as a result of living daily in God’s presence.
X. Holiness Makes Christ the Centerpiece of Life.
A. The Father gave us a full-color picture of himself in His Son, Jesus Christ.
B. Everything Jesus said and did in His earthly ministry reflected God’s perfect plan, His original intention for all "humanity. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews had in mind when he said, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (Heb. 12:2).
C. Holiness is about a lot of things, but holiness is more about Christ likeness than anything else.
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2).
That is the challenge of the life of holiness.
We don’t have the strength and ability to do it ourselves. Rather we fix our eyes on Jesus and depend on His Holy Spirit to work in our lives. Each day we seek to "walk as Jesus did" (1 John 2:6).
