Reflecting God’s Holiness in Love!
Every week my son Grant does something that I could probably use in a sermon in some way. I just love watching him and seeing the things he does and I try to remember as many of them as possible because they make such good illustrations. Parents, did you know that your children are a reflection of you. It’s true. If you want to know what’s going on in a particular home, just look at the kids. Children are a reflection of their parents. The pattern that is set for kids in the home is the pattern that they will follow as they grow up and become adults. That pattern may be a good pattern. You may lay the pattern for you child to use good manners, to brush their teeth, to clear the table, to go to bed without complaint and to treat people with respect. You might lay a bad pattern for your children and through that pattern they learn disrespect; they learn how to put up a fight. Parents, whatever pattern you lay for your children that is the pattern they will follow, whether it is good or bad.
Grant just recently began being able to get up to the sink all by himself on a little foot stool. He can reach up to the handles on the sink and can turn the water on himself and wash his hands, or brush his teeth. One day while Grant was brushing his teeth, his mother was in the bathroom with him just helping him get all those back teeth that children so often miss. When he got done he took his toothbrush and tapped it on the sink 5 or 6 times to knock the water off. Misty asked, “What are you doing Grant.” He said, “I’m brushing my teeth like Daddy.” Even in brushing your teeth, your children will find the small detail and they will pattern after it. They will mimic it.
I heard him say this to his mother and I was taken back for a second because I didn’t even realize that I did that when I got done brushing my teeth. We all have those little habits that we don’t even think about. When I got to thinking about that and our relationship with God, something really stuck out to me. We are reflections of God. We are supposed to reflect God in our lives. The Bible talks about this idea in many places let me point a couple of them out to you. Ephesians 4:20-24 says, “But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Did you catch it there? The new self we put on is in the “likeness of God.” What about Philippians 2:5 which states “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” And last Colossians 3:10, “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” The image, the attitude, the likeness of the One, God. We, as God’s children, are supposed to be His reflection.
Why? Because the #1 goal of the Christian life to be as much like God as is humanly possible. We are to strive to be like God. We will never attain. We will never be perfect like God or even close, but we are to strive for it as a Christian. We are to strive for what some have called “Characteristic Godlikeness.” We are to strive to become like God in so many ways, that it actually becomes part of our characteristic. What are your characteristics? What makes you who you are? Is it a defined chin, a prominent nose, funny ears, a Godlike attitude?
I want to share with you today the idea that God wants us to be committed to being like Him. The Bible has a word for this and that word is holy or holiness. Let’s look at a passage in 1 Peter 1:14-16 that talks about this idea. Let’s read, there it says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”
1. So what is this holy that we are talking about?
When I lived in Denver, Colorado, it would snow on occasion during the winter. I remember in our backyard we had a trampoline and a little hill. Each time it would snow, we would want to play in it, build snow men, igloos, just like every other kid in the neighborhood. As I would open the back sliding door, I would almost go blind stepping out into the sun as it glanced off that pure white fluffy snow. Snow that hadn’t been touched by anything but God’s hands was in my backyard and was perfect for eating. You could pick up a scoop of this perfect goodness and just swallow it down. It was pure snow. Then I would move to the front yard, where the street was, and where all the traffic was. Right on the edge of the sidewalk, there was some snow there too. It was a slightly different color though. It was more of a brownish color. When you would touch it or pick it up, it was just slush in your hand. Dozens of cars had driven over it by now, or it had splashed up onto your yard from the people driving by. And just like the snow you would pick up a big handful of this sludgy, soggy, brown goodness and just slurp it down. Did I do that as a kid? Of course not. Nobody puts that nasty brown sludge in their mouth.
You see, God is like the pure white snow in the backyard, and our world is the sludge that has been thrown up onto the sidewalk. And the Bible says to be holy as God is holy. That means we are to strive to be as much like the pure white snow in the backyard as possible, rather than running to the sludge. It’s amazing to me how many Christians would prefer to slurp down the sludge than they would be as close to God as they can. Let me illustrate it this way. Look at this circle. In the middle we have God. That is where holy is. God is holiness, perfect and true and He is in the middle. Then there is this boundary. That is the sludgy goodness. God says, “Be like Me.” And we respond by going as close to the sludgy goodness as we possibly can. For some reason we don’t want to be holy like God, we want what the world has to offer even though it can’t compare in any way to what God is offering us. So we walk toward the boundary of God’s grace and push Him to His limits. Rather than being committed to holiness and being like God, we are committed only to living however we want and that means walking toward the boundary rather than toward God.
If we are striving for holiness like God, what should this look like? It would be the exact opposite. Rather than getting as close to the sludge in the world as we can, we get as close to God as possible. The word for holy in 1 Peter is the word, hagios, which means more than being pure, or sacred, set apart or looking good on the outside, it means more than being worthy, honorable or free from defilement like some of the other words for holy in the New Testament mean. This word means to have characteristic Godlikeness. To put the characteristics of God into practice in our lives and it becomes our lifestyle. It’s not just a month long diet that fades or passes by, but it becomes a part of who we are.
It’s easy to use the words and to say, “Strive for holiness. Be like God.” But step back and look at this situation. Here we are striving to be like the Creator of the universe. Here we are in all of our imperfections striving for to be holy as God is holy. Does anyone else see what a daunting task this is? Based on this situation our next question must be…
2. How do I get there?
How do I get to the holiness of God? What does it look like? Is there something specific that I am to be striving for in my life? What is God like anyway? Well, some of you will begin to rip off different answers: He is Spirit, true. God is all-powerful, true. What else? He is Rock, all-knowing, gracious, sufficient, all-present, King, Savior, Judge, Refuge, and Comforter. If we are striving for holiness to reflect God, what should we be striving for out of all these different Godlike characteristics? Well, we haven’t mentioned one yet. It is found in the book of 1 John 4:15, 16. These verses say, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” Did you catch it? God Is Love! God by His very definition is love, it is His character, it is who He is. You cannot have love without God and you cannot have God without love because God is love.
It was a Tuesday morning in the Temple. Things were not quiet though. The sheep were making a lot of noise, thousands and thousands of people have crowded into the streets of Jerusalem to prepare for the Passover as it is approaching this coming weekend. It hasn’t been a quiet morning for Jesus either. He has been in the Temple and He is debating with the religious leaders for the last time. Jesus knows that He is going to die this weekend on the cross, His time has come. It is time for Him to do what He had come for. One of the religious leaders, a lawyer, asks Jesus a very pointed question with the intent of tripping him up. The religious leaders are still out to get Him and haven’t quite figured out how yet, but they are working on it. The lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And Jesus able to see right through his cover responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” Matthew 22:34-40.
Jesus says do you want to know what the greatest thing you can do in life is? Do you know what life is all about? It’s about, #1, loving God with everything you’ve got. And #2, it’s about loving the people around you. The entire Law of the Old Testament and the New Testament are founded on these 2 commands. Love God, Love People!
2a. Love God
When you love someone, you want to be just like them. My son loves me so much, that he even wants to brush his teeth like me. Romans 12:1 said, sacrifice yourself and you can’t love without sacrifice. If we love God the way we are supposed to, with our bodies, all that we are, our heart, soul and mind, then we will want to be just like Him. If you love God and are putting Him above everything else in your life, then you will strive to be just like Him. Your heart will naturally lead you to strive for holiness because where your treasure is, there is your heart also. If you are putting your whole self into God, that’s where your treasure is and you will want to be just like Him. Before you know it, you might even begin to develop “Characteristic Godlikeness”.
2b. Love People
It’s amazing how many different forms of evangelism are out there. We have different books written, seminars offered, training classes prepared and all the training we need is right in the Bible. Did you know that the Bible tells us how to show the world that you are one of His? John 13:34, 35 tell us exactly what we need to do. It says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” This passage just comes right out and says that the best way to get the people around you to see Christ is to love each other. When Christians stop bickering, complaining, gossiping and stabbing each other in the back and they begin to honestly love each other, guess what? The world notices. Christ Himself said that people will know who we belong to by our love, not by our picket signs, or by the bombs we can set off at abortion clinics or by how many homosexuals we protest against, or by how many rules we can enforce on people. No, Jesus said by our love the world will know.
Remember when your father or older brother would hold a ball above your head and you would jump up and down trying to reach it, but you never could get it? The difference between that and striving for the holiness of God is that you will be rewarded. Heaven has been offered to you as a reward you!
When Christians begin reflecting God’s holiness through love, people will come to know Christ. People always say, “How do you grow a church? I want to grow, but how?” Friends, people will notice something when we begin to love each other. But we can only love each other when we love God first. And when we begin to love God and others the way that God loves, that is when we are becoming holy as God is holy. And the foundation of becoming like God is commitment. So I urge you and challenge you and the Apostle did in 1 Peter; we are God’s obedient children and so we should become like Him, Holy! So I would ask you to accept this as your challenge, to get committed to God and to strive for holiness. To strive to make your life “Characteristic Godlikeness” and that you would allow God to shine through you in every area of your life.
(for a better feel, listen to this sermon at www.godshere.org)
