Title: Living the Uncomplicated Life
Place: Oakdale Wesleyan Church
Date: January 19, 2004
Subject: Holiness, stewardship, simplicity
Series: Living the Uncomplicated Life
Introduction
Come in wearing clothes inside out.
Have several complicated items on the table in the front and see if people can use some of them
- Pamper Chief – no sharp edges can opener
- T.V. remote
Have you ever noticed that life can become quite complicated? It seems like we live in an era of gadgets that are suppose to make our lives less complicated but even the gadgets have a way of making life more complicated.
If the gadgets in life that we have to learn to deal with aren’t enough we have plenty of our own complications that we get ourselves into. We humans just have a way of complicating things don’t we? In my reading this week I ran across this very complicated mess that someone got themselves into. Let me read this short quote…
“Far from home and without any Christian underpinnings, I descended by small steps into a sexual pit. The first time I had sexual intercourse, it was with a girl I knew I would marry. The next time, it was with a girl I thought I would marry. The time after that, it was with a good friend that I might learn to love. Then it was with a female I barely knew who simply wanted to see what sex was like. Eventually, I had sex with anyone at any time.
After five years in California, I found myself with four “steady” girlfriends simultaneously. I was sleeping with three of them and was essentially engaged to marry two of them. None knew of the others.”
It seems like we just really have a way of complicating life. Not only have we complicated just everyday life with various sin issues but then we also complicate church life or the spiritual life. Take a look at this scripture.
READ THE WOES from Matthew 23
This is Jesus own words of how the religious establishment of the day had actually so complicated the ways of God that hardly no one but the richest, smartest, and brightest could ever enter heaven. In Jesus day the religious leaders had taken a handful of laws established in Leviticus starting with the Ten Commandments and turned them into minute little rules micro-managing every little details of life and only the perfect could thus be saved. But what the laws where powerless to do was change the heart and the heart was the most important issue of the man and these religious leaders whom Jesus fought and Paul stood against didn’t get it and thus to remain in control complicated religious things so much that no-one but them would ever be able to be “religious.”
One of the key hatreds that the Pharisees and Sadducees had against Jesus was that he made spirituality too simple and too easy and consequently opened the doors for all to come to God, which was unthinkable.
We are about to embark upon a fascinating journey into Holiness. Over the next two months we are going to delve into this idea of Holiness. What does it mean, how does it look, how does one become holy? The arenas that we are going to approach is that of living the uncomplicated life. This is one of those areas in the church that when we start to discuss it we begin to really complicate matters. I don’t believe holiness is a complicated thing or a complicated issue. BUT – I will admit I didn’t always feel that way about the study of Holiness.
When I was growing up and then heading off to college I almost felt that the doctrines and ideas of Holiness were better left to the pastors, wise leaders of the church, theologians, college professors, district superintendents, and those who went to college and were trained in these sorts of things. Holiness seemed a bit untouchable for the ordinary person. Yes, we talked about holiness in the church and I even studied Holiness through our CYC kids program but it seemed so complicated filled with big ten gallon words that I didn’t understand and honestly it also seemed that many of those who were using the terms may not really understand them, themselves or at least they even fought over what many of the words meant.
Words like Sanctification, initial sanctification, progressive sanctification, the elusive entire sanctification, or how about Glorification, Christian Perfection, human depravity, atonement of Christ, propitiation (wrath of God is absorbed by Christ’s death on a cross), expiation (making amends by removing sin), vicarious (Christ was our substitute), universal sin, atonement, justification, regeneration… and on and on go the ten gallon words.
And every time the words came out, everyone would nod there heads in agreement to this wonderful holiness teaching but as you can imagine, I couldn’t settle for that. So I started to ask the questions, mom, what does…. mean. I would ask the Sunday School teachers, the pastor’s wives, the Bible Bowl leaders, so what does this mean and either they didn’t really know and tried to cover it up or they might actually have known but made it so complicated they really couldn’t explain it.
Now I don’t want to be offensive, but if a kid who grew up in the church, went to Christian college to be trained as a pastor was having a hard time with these concepts, what in the world must the world or those new to the church be thinking when they start to hear about our lofty Holiness doctrines and concepts? Shucks for that matter, what do most the average persons sitting in the pew think about these concepts. Well, I can tell you, it’s too complicated for me and out of reach for my thinking and life.
Wait a minute, didn’t we just read in Matthew 23 that Jesus pronounced a bunch of Woe on people doing this very thing. Religious leaders who had so complicated the messages of God that only the elite could make it in the club?
I am a simplist. I have never heard the term before, Microsoft word doesn’t recognize the word and highlights it as a misspelled word, but that is what I am. I am simplist. In order for my brain to get it, it has to be kept simple. This is not to say that I can’t get my arms around some pretty huge theological concepts, if you want, I can e-mail debate you on theology till we are both blue in the face and I actually enjoy it, but when the rubber meets the road and all the dust clears from the theology, it best be simple or we stand in the judgment of the seven woes pronounced upon the Jewish leaders.
Putting all that together now, where I want to take us over the next two months is on a journey into Holiness. Every year I like to do a series on the varying aspects of Holiness and being a Holiness church and me being a holiness preacher it ends up in much of my sermons and writings, but I like to set aside some time to specifically deal with one or two of the various aspects of the whole arena at least once per year.
The two aspects of Holiness that I want to graze upon over this desolate winter months are the complimenting aspects of Christian Simplicity and Christian Stewardship which together I believe form the uncomplicated life, thus the series title, “Living the uncomplicated life.” These two aspects of Holiness I believe sometimes get over looked and yet they are so vital, these two aspects, as we will see go hand in hand in moving us to live the uncomplicated life.
Before we jump into our specific study, I want to help uncomplicated first of all Holiness. If at any time in the journey into Holiness I loose you, go over your head, start speaking in unintelligible words and images, wave the flag and let me know. Talk to me after church if you don’t get it, send me an e-mail, give me a call, because frankly as a your pastor, I have a responsibility to do everything I can to simplify these concepts so that everyone can understand them and come to God in Holiness. From the elementary aged children to the senior adults the ideas and concepts of Holiness should be readily available. At the same time, if you want to go deeper into these concepts and ideas, if you want the ten gallon words and theological discussions, e-mail me or talk to me if that is what you really want.
So, what is Holiness? In its most simplistic form, it is becoming Like God. God commanded the Israelites in the book of the Law, Leviticus 11:44 “I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” Leviticus is the foremost book on Holiness in the entire Bible. This books hosts a bunch of rules and regulations that were given to the Israelites to protect them but also to bring them to God. While it is somewhat dry, when you view it from a Holiness perspective it is actually a fairly fascinating book to study, but that is for another day.
Holiness is simply becoming like God. It is the transformation or changing of our minds, our hearts, and our very lives to reflect or become like God. A holy person is simply one who thinks, acts, and loves like God in all they do. This is one of the things that got Jesus in trouble, he boils holiness down in his teaching to its simplest form, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with our your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” As only Jesus can do, he sums up all the rules, all the regulations, all the ideas and concepts of Holiness in this one tidy little package, simply love God, and love others. That is what Holiness is all about.
When we start talking about progressive sanctification, entire sanctification, and Christian perfection they are great topics but they all center around this one simple truth, becoming like God in every aspect of our lives, loving him first, others second, and self last.
Now, to make sure I didn’t loose anyone. Does everyone here now understand what Holiness is all about? It’s not about a bunch of rules to follow, it not about a bunch of ten gallon words, its not about some special Holiness secret club that you gotta know the right words and do the right things to get in. It is simply the goal of being 100% sold out, or committed to God!
Let me ask you a couple of questions. Some people give up on Holiness or believe they can’t do it, or its not for them or it’s too complicated. Do you think it is a worth while pursuit to love God and to love others as God does? Do you think that it is possible to come to a place where you are totally 100% sold out or surrendered to following Him with all your life? This doesn’t mean from time to time you won’t struggle or you won’t battle for control but overall, you have given control of your life to God. Do think that is possible? If you answered yes to these simple questions then you are on the road to pursuing Holiness.
As your pastor, I can’t force you to have a right heart. That part is between you and God. What I can do, is show you ways in which you can come to God and God can change your life. The pursuit of Holiness is simply surrendering my life to God and allowing Him to change me from the inside out. Holiness is not following a bunch of rules or forcing myself to change or adhere to certain lifestyles, Holiness is coming before God, broken, surrendered and asking him to take over your life and make you a new creation. So the discipline of holiness just like the discipline of learning to play piano is then doing things that can bring me into a place where God can do His transformational work or where God can make me a new creation from the inside out.
This is my favorite picture of Holiness. Here is God, he is an eternal spring of living water as Christ called it. His water of Holiness is constantly flowing. And here is me. Outside of Christ, I am totally outside of God’s holiness, but when I became a Christian I now see that God is holy, in fact from time to time I brush against God’s holiness and he cleanses parts of me. What God desires is for me to totally come into the flow of His holiness where he can completely cleanse me. It is not a work I can do, only God can make me holy. But I have a choice or a responsibility in the work. And that is that I must bring my glass into his cleansing flow, otherwise, I will never be able to change. What we are going to look at in the sermon is what can I do to bring myself into that stream of cleansing. There are disciplines or certain things we can do to bring us into a place where God can make us holy. That is our focus, that is why we will study simplicity and stewardship because these are two of the many ways that we can bring ourselves into a place where God can transform us from the inside out.
So our study of Holiness is just learning how to put myself in the place where God can change me. That’s it. That is what Holiness is all about, that is what the pursuit or Discipline of Holiness is all about.
Well, we are done for today and let me ask. Did I loose anyone? Did I get too complicated? Do you think this is something you could do in your life? Is this something you are interested in doing in your life? Simply becoming like God.
