from among the nations to be a nation thank you that you've called us from darkness and death and you've given us life a life which which we've tasted in this life and which we know to be good and thank you that this taste which we've had in this life is only a taste of an unspeakably great glory that awaits us thank you that you are with us that you have given your spirit to your church to indwell your church that your people might be encouraged and comforted that they might be transformed bit by bit through the course of their lives that we might be enabled to be the witnesses you call us to be and I pray for a time that the spirit who dwells within us would stir up our hearts and prepare our hearts and I pray that you'd use all of these passages that we're looking at in the scriptures to shape how we think about ourselves and I do pray for an abundant expression of your presence in our midst that we might glorify you and that we might be used of you that men and women and children here in this area and at the ends of the earth might be brought to know and love Jesus Lord be with us to these events those that are current and immediate and right now and those that are long term for the sake of your own name in Jesus name we pray amen okay over the course of the last months the Sunday school kids have been taking up an offering which we do every year they bring their quarters and they put their quarters in these little these little quarter holders that's what this is this is a quarter holder and the kids in the Sunday school classes have collected over two hundred dollars and that money is going to be used to send me to Nassau for three days no no no no no no but now that I have your attention these money we did this last year and we're doing it again this year these monies are used to support a ministry called the Palmer Children's Home which is an orphanage it's over a hundred years old in Georgia I think it's in Georgia and we've developed a relationship with the Palmer home and we thought that it might be kind of nice since the kids were involved in this thing maybe to involve the whole Sunday school program visitors and guests of course excluded you don't have to feel any obligation you can't get out of here alive if you don't participate but so we thought it might be a good idea if we just sort of passed the basket and invited all of us in the Sunday school program to participate in the support of the Palmer Children's Home so that's what I'm and I'm under instruction to do this okay that's what I'm going to do I'm going to pass this basket if you want to toss in a couple of quarters or a couple of bucks or something like that these monies will be used to support this ministry which is a a Christian ministry it's a ministry in which kids are given a home number one and are given the gospel and are taught the gospel instructed in the gospel and the whole environment is a gospel environment so it's a it's a great thing and I'm going to pass this thing around and if you want to don't don't feel any great burden about this but if you want to toss in a couple bucks or something like that that would be wonderful and all that adult classes are doing this right now so thanks see if I've done anything I'm supposed to do
that's in Mississippi I knew that $218.74 was collected okay in quarters and there were some nickels and pennies and dimes and various other things okay all right we're talking about the church and we last week spent quite a lot of time talking about the church as an assembled community and I hope that wasn't frustrating to you because we really sort of departed from the published agenda there was a lot of interaction a lot of questions which I really I really like I don't at all want to discourage that it doesn't it doesn't really bother me too much that that we have these little these little meanderings off into some into some forests of beauty kind of thing so please feel free to continue to ask questions and interact about this for those a few of you who are are here for the first time let me let me just provide a little bit of review and background so that so that you're up to speed with the rest of us we're talking about the church because I think it's important for us to talk about the church number one and it's important for us to talk about the church according to biblical categories the kinds of the kinds of word pictures and themes and ideas that are present in the scriptures are there to shape our thinking about ourselves and what I said at the very beginning is that we don't want to think about the church in some theoretical sense this is not this is not to be abstracted it's to be personalized and when we talk about the church we want to be thinking about this particular church we want we want for our thinking to be shaped by the scriptures so that we think about ourselves here at St. Paul's in the right way so that we have the right kinds of conceptions and assumptions and all of that regarding the nature of the church what the church is and I began several weeks ago by having us look at Jeremiah 29 and that particular chapter includes a letter from God it is dictated to Jeremiah but it is a letter from God in which God reminds Israel of who she is that she is where she is because God wants her to be there she is in Babylon it's the time of the exile and she's in Babylon and she's where she is because God wants her to be there and the second thing that God tells Israel is that she's going to be there for a while you're going to be there okay don't think that the return home is anytime soon because it isn't you're going to be there for a while and among the other things that he says uh... assuring them both explicitly and implicitly of his presence in the midst of all of this the third thing that that he says to to Israel is that she is to seek the peace and the prosperity of the city to which the Lord has called her which means that she is to live with her distinctive she is not to compromise who she is as the people of God called from out of the nations to live as a distinctive people in the midst of a nation okay Israel's different so so her sons are not to marry Babylonian daughters her daughters are not to marry Babylonian sons okay there is not to be this confusion this compromise of the integrity of the nation she's to live as this distinct people but she's to live in the midst of Babylon not not in a ghetto not withdrawing from society but in fact going out into the society and seeking the peace and prosperity of the city to which the Lord is called her that is Israel is to go into Babylon and be eleven in the midst of Babylon and the promise is that as peace comes to Babylon that that peace will return to Israel and her life as a light in the midst of the nations Israel the light the place where the presence of God dwells she will be she will be more light in the midst of Babylon her her purpose for being will be reinforced and I've suggested that we need to use that picture as we think about ourselves that we are a nation we are a people set apart and we've looked at at first Peter and have talked about the fact given that picture that we have of a nation in the midst of the nations we understand that the church is a people gathered for God or gathered for God and as a people gathered for God we are his treasured possession where where his bride where his beloved we are his children and he is our father and and we stand in this extraordinary relationship to the God of heaven and earth we are a people gathered to God that is gathered into his presence we are not a possession prized and treasured just in it in a sort of an objective or detached sense but there is this sense in which we've been gathered to him and we're gathered to him to reflect and declare his glory and sing his praises among the nations and the thing that is to be characteristic of the church the life of the church together is a song everything is doxological we sing his praises we sing the praises of him who has called us from darkness into his marvelous light and we sing his praises in the midst of the nations and then we are a people gathered by God there is one explanation for why we are a people at all and that is the grace of God that is the only explanation for why we are a people at all gathered into God's presence to to delight in him to sing his praises to declare his glory to be his treasured possession and so God because we are gathered by his grace is glorified he is praised he is acknowledged to be the Lord and he has no equal he has no competitor salvation is of the Lord that's that's the theme that's the note that's the song it is on the lips of God's people the glad-hearted song of thanksgiving that salvation is of the Lord the implications again of this there are many but among them are that as the people of God we are safe we're safe nothing to fear nothing to fear in the midst of all of the uncertainties of life the good times the bad times the fulfilled dreams the broken hopes and and dashed aspirations and all that we have nothing to fear for the Lord is with us we are his people and he is our God and the God of heaven and earth you're going to hear this again in the sermon this morning the God of heaven and earth ordains everything whatsoever comes to pass for his glory and for the good of his people everything history is a stage upon which the great and glorious purpose of redemption is played out and you are at the center of that purpose and the outcome the ultimate issue of all of that is that you might be delivered into the loving arms of your loving Savior to enjoy him forever so because of all these things among many many others there is this implication that we that we are safe because we belong to God now last week we talked about the idea that we are an assembled community spent quite a lot of time talking about worship worship being this highest activity in which we can be engaged it's not the only activity in which we're engaged but it's the highest activity in which we're engaged and we suggested that the assembled community is best best described best depicted when it is assembled for worship and that worship as such worship as such is a snapshot of heaven it is a picture the best picture that any of us will ever see of what of what the church is and what is at the heart of what it means to be the church what is at the heart of what it means to be the church is worship the church will be assembled at the feet of Jesus and the church and I just this you got to you got to pick these things up I'm going to mention this to you and encourage you to think about it the next time we have communion but but the church when it gathers for worship is an earthly expression of heavenly worship an earthly expression of heavenly worship yeah this isn't this just this horizontal you know fraternal order of police or basket ball game kind of an assembly there is something markedly different about what goes on in worship and the next time we have communion note this phrase it's it's in some of the sentences that are spoken as a part of the communion liturgy right before we sing the songtus in the communion liturgy notice that very often we say therefore with angels and arc angels we whatever you know acknowledge your name singing or praising you you know and then we sing holy holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts heaven and earth is full of his glory with angels and arc angels now why does why is that there well it's there because our forefathers our forebears in the faith really believe that little phrase that we say so often in the apostles creed where we say we believe in the communion of the saints right where we we believe that there is some connection in Jesus Christ between us the visible church and the invisible church of all from all the ages and the angels who surround the throne of God the great company of heaven who sing his praises night and day they understood that our worship was an earthly expression of a heavenly reality and that when we sing the praise of God by singing that verse holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts heaven and earth are full of his glory when we sing that we are mimicking myriads upon myriads of angels who surround the throne and who sing his praises and we are not only mimicking them but there is a real connection between our worship and the heavenly worship the worship expressed here on earth and the worship that goes on that does exist right now around the throne where the saints are assembled in the angel sing the praises of God okay they really believe in the idea of the communion of saints that's why we say the the community of Christ assembled for worship is the best picture the best snapshot the clearest picture of what of what heaven really is it is the people of God assembled at the feet of Jesus with glad hearts singing his praises adoring him and worshiping him and giving thanks for the grace that they have come to know so we talked about that quite a bit and we could talk about it a lot more today but we're going to move on unless there's something that somebody wants to ask about that or about anything else that we've talked about so far all right now let's let's move on then in the outline and just talk again for a minute about the fact that the church as a nation is a new nation gathered from among the nations a new nation gathered from among the nations look at Matthew 21 if you would we've looked at a couple of Old Testament passages in this connection we looked at Isaiah 19 that passage which talks about the Syria and Egypt and Israel and they're being a highway from a Syria in the north to Egypt and the south and the Assyrians will pass by Jerusalem on their way to Egypt that they might worship the one true God in the midst of Egypt and the Egyptians will pass by Jerusalem and go up into a Syria there to worship the one true God it's a remarkable picture because for the Jew the play the only place the worship was in Jerusalem in the midst of this piece of real estate that God had given to that nation okay but the thrust of that particular passage is that the Assyrians will they'll they'll traverse that piece of real estate they'll go down into Egypt and worship the one true God there and the Egyptians will traverse like they'll wave to each other you know on either side of the highway go in north up into a Syria there to worship the one true God and they'll pass by Jerusalem and the idea is that the gospel is for the nations and the nations will worship the Lord okay now Matt Weiler who's not here this morning but mention to me after we talked about that a couple of weeks ago that that historically that was a staggering thing for the Israelites to think about and by historically I mean this the Assyrians had just decimated Israel they had just decimated Israel they just raped and pillaged and burnt and done all kinds of mean and nasty things and here is Isaiah saying that the Assyrians will be one with Israel and with Egypt the startling startling thing for an Israelite and and I suggested that that passage in Ephesians was a fulfillment of that prophecy where Paul says that God has broken down the wall of partition the separating wall between Jews and Gentiles and has made one new man from the two created one new man from the two that one people that one nation from the midst of the nations so the people of God the church is a new community gathered from among the communities of the world look at verse 42 of chapter 21 now this comes right on the heels of the parable in which Jesus teaches about the nature of the kingdom it is the parable of the the son of the owner of the vineyard who comes and like everybody who has preceded him he too is killed okay the son of the owner of the vineyard is killed and Jesus says then what will the owner of the vineyard do to those vine dressers and those who were listening said well he'll destroy those wicked men right he'll destroy those wicked men it's one of those you know one of those rather pregnant moments in Jesus ministry where you have to figure that some of the folks in the crowd realize that he was talking about them right it's like the words are out of their mouths and it's like the hanging curve ball that they wish they could get back you know because Jesus just yanked it out of the park and it's a home run and they're the losers but then Jesus says this in verse 42 Jesus is said to them have you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone this was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes therefore I say to you the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits thereof and whoever falls on this stone will be broken but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder there's the hanging curve ball they got beamed now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables they perceived that he was speaking of them but when they sought to lay hands on him they feared the multitudes because they took him for a profit so there you have you have kind of the dynamic of the unfolding of history and the dynamic of the unfolding of history is basically this that Israel and let me have you look back at Isaiah chapter 43 keep your finger in Matthew 21 but look at Isaiah 43 the dynamic of history is this the unfolding purpose of God his purpose of redemption is that Israel is a nation was set apart to be a people in the midst of the nations who would be a light to the nations all right Isaiah 43 for Satan following bring out the blind people who have eyes and the deaf who have ears let all the nations be gathered together and let the people be assembled among them can declare this and show us former things let them bring out their witnesses that they may be justified or let them hear and say it is truth and then God speaks of Israel and says you are my witnesses says the Lord you are my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He before me there was no God formed nor shall there be after me I even I am the Lord and besides me there is no Savior I have declared and saved I have proclaimed and there was no foreign God among you therefore you are my witnesses says the Lord that I am God so you see what's being depicted here God summons all of the nations all of the nations are to be assembled all of the peoples are to be assembled and then God in effect quizzes them puts it to them bring out your witnesses bring forth your testimony you speak about what is true and their rhetorical questions because God knows that the nations of the earth who do not know him have no testimony to offer have no witnesses to bring forth it's like a courtroom drama okay and God has put himself on trial but who is his witness his witness is Israel and God says to Israel now you tell the nations which have been assembled around you that I am God that I am a Savior that I have delivered you you see the picture is of Israel in the midst of the nations the nations assembled and God puts it to the nations and says you bring forth your witnesses and that I will bring forth my witness and my witness is Israel in whose midst I dwell now Israel as you read the history of Israel you know for the most part though there is always a faithful remnant in her midst for the most part part is not the light that God has called her to be she is not the light that God has called her to be and because she is not the light that God has called her to be she experiences the judgment of God and that's what Jesus talks about in the gospels the acts is laid at the root of the tree okay you who possessed the kingdom the kingdom will be taken from you and it will be given to another okay but the other thing that's going on in the midst of the history of the Old Testament this is creation and this is the consummation you have the history of Israel and there is a sense in which you know there's the sense in which if you think about it horizontally and you just observe it at the level of sort of human expectation Israel is a colossal failure right she is not the nation in the midst of the nations that she's supposed to be the one who testifies of the goodness and grace of God the one who in her living displays that goodness and grace by speaking it and proclaiming it to the nations and by her conduct in the midst of the nations and you read all of the Levitical requirements that were placed not only upon the priests but upon the whole of the nation to care for the poor and all of those kinds of things I mean in Leviticus and in numbers and the whole of the law the ways in which Israel was to demonstrate her distinctiveness for the most parts she failed in that so if you look at this history from a purely horizontal vantage point you understand that you see that and it is because of that failure that God takes the kingdom from Israel and gives it to another but there is another sense in which Israel does accomplish what it is that God has set her apart for and what is it that God has set Israel apart for in an ultimate sense to bring forth the Savior who is the light in the midst of the nations okay who is the light in the midst of the nations Jesus Christ comes Paul says in Galatians 316 that Christ is the seed of Abram that's promised way back in Genesis chapter 12 he is the seed he is the fulfillment of all of those promises and so while you look at Israel the nation and you understand that Israel has failed on another on another level at the higher level Israel has succeeded Israel has accomplished what it is that God set her apart for she is to bring forth the Messiah she is to you know it's like the whole nation gets narrowed down to this one person who is the fruit of the nation the promised Messiah and that Messiah is the light in the midst of the nations but now the church connected to Christ for the rest of history is to be that light in the midst of the nations okay Israel failed Christ succeeded and now all of those who are united to him by faith who are the recipients of the Holy Spirit the indwelling presence of the light of the world you know we got to we got to be theological about this we understand that God exists try personally father son and Holy Spirit but we don't divide the pie into three equal pieces right Christ has poured out his spirit upon the church but the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and it is the Spirit of Christ who indwells the church it is Christ the light of the world who is in the midst of his church who by his spirit now enables his church to be what Israel couldn't be wasn't was powerless to be now that's you know that's that's the other theme that you have through the Old Testament why is the law given the law is a tutor why is Israel there to show us our failure to instruct us about how powerless and impotent we are apart from the invigorating work of Jesus Christ in our lives okay you know all kinds of things going on it's like Joseph's multi colored coach you know it's one coat but there's all this stuff going on but the point for us is that Christ comes as the light of the world Israel's failure to be the light in the midst of the nations means that the kingdom is taken from them and now the kingdom is given to us you see now we are the nation in the midst of the nations to be the light of the world in the midst of the nations so that the glory of God is put on display in the midst of the church that's what we pray about I mean we pray about this and either in the first service of the second service almost every Sunday you know Lord give us grace to glorify you in our own day give us grace to glorify you in our own day the church now as the nation in the midst of the nations that to whom the kingdom has been given we are the people we are the place this is where the glory of God is to be put on display this is where his existence and his character are to be seen okay those who have tasted God's grace those who have received the spirit this is the play you're not going to find it any place else okay you're not going to find any place else in people we had a press material yesterday and for those of you for whom these things are fairly new one of the things that Presbyteries do when they are gathered together is exam and candidates for the ministry and they do that to ensure that the theological integrity of the churches and the Presbyteries preserved and they're concerned to ensure the theological integrity of the churches because it is for the good of God's people that that integrity be preserved okay this isn't just passing tests and getting right answers to questions you all probably want to sit down do you that's high that's no problem so Presbyteries have this responsibility and yesterday at the Presbyterie I forgot where I was going with this what was I talking about examining candidates the glory of God keep coming you're doing well you're doing well not just answering questions
you can't find the glory of God any place else very good you find it here in the midst of the church it's put on display here this is the place where it's to be seen I have no idea why I was thinking of that Presbyteria well maybe it'll come back to me but here's here's something I was going to say I had a comeback from Presbyteria yesterday because of this you know this accident that we had in the life of our church and I don't know if you all are aware of this but Nancy Forbes was in a very very bad automobile accident she's in the hospital at ORMC and and it was interesting to me when I got down to the hospital and talked with Rick Rick started talking about all of these things that that people have been doing for them out in Ovedo from their softball teams or baseball teams or whatever and I got thinking oh I know what it was this candidate yesterday was asked do non-believers do good works well you say yes of course they do are those works meritorious well of course they're not why are they not meritorious because they're always mixed and mingled with impurity with bad motives with self-justification all that kind the question could be asked do Christians do good works well yes they do are they meritorious no they're not for the same reasons okay so you know when you say that the glory of God is put on display in the midst of the church and that you're not going to find it someplace else we don't mean to say that you're not going to find other works out there that sometimes even out distance the works of the church okay and yesterday at the hospital it was interesting to hear Rick talk about these things that these softball teams are doing for them and I thought dead gummit that's not the work of the softball teams that's the work of the church and I felt some jealousy about this and then you know a sense of frustration how come we weren't the first ones there to help right how come we weren't the first ones there to help well we weren't the first ones to know that's part of the answer but here was the you know and it's not like we win and they lose it's not that kind of thing but it was interesting that the two people who had coordinated this effort for Rick and Nancy are both Christians yeah they're involved in the softball program with them there is realites out in Babylon seeking the peace and prosperity of the of the city to which the Lord has called them but the two people who had coordinated this effort were Christians now that doesn't prove anything necessarily one way or the other because again you you look outside the church and you see people doing good things they're not meritorious they don't earn anybody's salvation don't you ever think as a Christian that your good works are meritorious because your works are probably just as mixed and confused as the pagans are out there you're just probably more aware of how mixed and confused your motives are than the pagan is which causes you unceasing anguish and grief okay but the point still is that there is to be there really is to be because the people of God are a new community gathered from among the nations because the kingdom has been taken from that former community and has been given now to us because Christ is the light of the world who dwells in the midst of his people okay that newness that reality is not just something we talk about it is something which is to be observed it is something which is to be it's to be seen okay the glory of God is to be put on display in the midst of the church now that's a that's a high thing you know that's a tall tall order for us as believers and it involves all kinds of things and I'd you know I'd like to take a minute to just enumerate what some of those things are with you okay this is a this is a picture an image that we need to have about ourselves it's something we need to understand about the nature of the church that this is the place where the glory of God in the person of Christ by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is put on display here in the midst of the nations so that the nations could be assembled in the way that they're assembled in Isaiah 43 the nations could be assembled God could assemble the nations around St. Paul's Presbyterian Church and say to the nations bring forth your witnesses to testify about your gods and then you St. Paul's Presbyterian Church you are my witnesses you testify about the reality of my presence my glory in the midst of you and see what the nations say that's I mean that is staggering stuff to me but that's how we're to think about ourselves now how is the glory of God put on display in the midst of the nations how is the glory of God put on display here at St. Paul's God assembling his people in the midst of the nations well do you have some thoughts about that let's let's enumerate okay truth is revealed okay centered around Christ
is that what you said right right okay true yeah okay that's I'll go with that that's all right
we are Christ focused or centered now that's different from the world around us isn't it okay it's interesting yeah right thanks for playing yeah truth is revealed Christ focused or Christ centered that that is a different sort of a thing that's different from the world yeah what else yeah Alan okay okay the whole council of God the truth is revealed okay truth is proclaimed
yeah yeah Ed okay good works let's let's elaborate this a little bit what does that mean what does that start to look like okay all right so there so there is generally mercy which is to be extended and to be visible to be seen in the life of Christ Church and it is mercy that's to be extended in an indiscriminate way indiscriminately right mercy to be extended without discrimination that's a great word isn't it okay yeah okay yep let's see we'll put that up here because that might be a different category of things just just our our existence okay the fruit of the spirit okay is that what you had kind of in mind Stephen yeah actually I'm pointing at your wife but I'm thinking of you
oh I see okay okay okay just just the fact of our existence is a testimony of the existence of God okay yeah John okay man I'm so glad you mentioned that I am so glad you mentioned that because I really think this is a big deal an acknowledgement of our own sin acknowledgement of our own sin you know this is the this is sort of the paradoxical thing about about the church about community as as God puts his glory on display in the midst of the new community this is the paradoxical thing we are called to something infinitely high I mean we are really called to something something lofty we're gonna talk about this maybe today but probably stretching it in the next week be holy as the Lord your God is holy you know thanks for playing be holy as the Lord your God is holy we are called to something extraordinarily high we are called to live in a way that is consistent with our profession right now what do we profess what do we time we're talking about the fact that Christ by his spirit as the light of the world indwells the church and that light is put on display so it's Matthew 5 you know don't you're a city set on a hill if you see the city set on a hill in the night time the lights you know a blade people can see it and they can get to it don't put it under a bushel basket but put it on display so they can light up the room okay that's a lofty lofty thing to which we're called but you know when we say that we're called to live in ways that are consistent with what we believe we are called to pursue distinctive lives to bear the fruit of the spirit to display mercy without discrimination or distinction okay to love in the way that Christ has loved us but we are also called to acknowledge our failure to be the people God calls us to be and I said this and I will say it until the day I die we don't do ourselves and we don't do the world any favors when we pretend that we are something other than what we are sinners saved by grace and sinners daily desperately in need of the same grace okay I mean I I have to say this to my kids and I'm nobody's hero in this but I would just you know I would commend you know you know how a stopped clock is right twice a day every once in a while I get lucky it's kind of like the stopped clock it's right twice a this is one of those things where I feel like I just by the grace of God have gotten lucky when I do something to my children that wrongs them I not only apologize for it but I remind them that their daddy is the sinner who needs the grace that he tells them that they need when somebody comes to this church who's not a Christian and who says you people are such hypocrites you are so inconsistent you've got this lofty standard you don't live the things you say that the Lord Jesus wants you to live how do you respond guilty is charged guilty is charged I mean maybe at some point you can say you can say come join us I mean I know there's that you know that that that response you know the response is the churches full of hypocrites and the church responds by saying there's room for one more you know
I know you but but we can't we can't ever say anything other than that guilty is charged that is living in a way that is consistent with the gospel that is putting the glory of God on display that is moment by moment day in day out acknowledging in our practice what it is we say we believe that we are sinners desperately in need of the grace of God and as we acknowledge our need as we acknowledge our our corruption and just this whole business about doing works you know sure they do works out there sure we do works in here but we know our hearts we know why we do the things that we do heck half of what I do I do to please you I don't do it to please God are you surprised to hear that don't be because it's true of you too half of what you do you do to please me or more or somebody else some other authority figure or somebody who's got expectations for you you know a mother a father an employer it is not a burdensome thing to acknowledge our sin and to say to the world you are on the mark hypocrite inconsistent not fulfilling that to which Christ is called me absolutely I am a sinner saved by grace and you may not like my sin but I'll tell you something Christ dislikes it even more than you and I'm just like it equally you know what that does is enable you to point back to the gospel point back to the cross point back to the work of Jesus where the glory of God is put on display in a in a in a unique peerless unparalleled sort of way okay I mean we we got to live as sinners I mean I've said in sermons there's a sense in which we need to get comfortable with our sin not tolerant of it not tolerant of it but but but more more willing to acknowledge to one another in before the world that we are what what the Bible tells us we are and what we say we are and that is sinners who are saved by grace who are being saved by grace and who one day will finally be saved by grace okay anything else yeah
and it's based on what God has done what he has declared but I always come back to this question of what does you know he says be holy as unholy I know that he's accomplished that but I don't know what does that look like what does that look like what does that act like and you know as we're talking about this thing today this question comes to me again right and you were mentioned of the knowledgement of sin is there a very real sin in a which that are intent and our awareness of our sin isn't an act of holiness yeah because we typically think of holiness as be good as they cause the renovation and this is really a negation this is a realization of a short time yeah is that in that element would you say yeah sure would and I also think we tend to think of holiness in in pretty largely behavioral terms right but that's that's only part of the story yeah yeah what does it look like well I don't know well I mean I do know but I don't know you know but in the one hand you say well the only holy person I've ever read about or known about is Jesus so if you want to know what a holy person looks like you look at Jesus okay but let me offer an answer multifaceted number one we we cannot say when God when God commands us to be holy as as those expressions of his own existence and character in the world a light in the midst of the nations we can't say well that's impossible so you just toss it aside you know we can't we're not we're not permitted to do that number one so there is this summons to this very very high and lofty thing which we cannot dismiss we just can't do it because the name of God is at stake in this it is a legitimate thing for the world to look at the church and expect something of the church that is not an illegitimate thing and when the when the world looks at the church the church ought to be seen as different and distinctive and where it isn't that's an indictment of us and it should cause us to examine ourselves so we we can't just dismiss it we can't say it doesn't matter it matters it matters because the name of God is at stake the other thing I would say and I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago we ought not think of holiness as something burdensome all right holiness is life life is holiness holiness is happiness happiness is holiness there is no life without holiness and where there is no holiness there is no life okay holiness may be hard but it is not burdensome right in the sense that it is oppressive that it crushes us that it robs us of our humanity holiness is life giving it establishes our humanity it it makes us more human to be holy okay see I'd say those two things then I then I I would say I would say that this call to holiness really ought to be understood sort of in light of the whole of the teaching of scripture we know what God calls us to the question is number one what does it look like well it looks like Jesus so we can say that number two the more important question is how do we get there how do we get there here we have this statement be ye holy for the Lord your God is holy if you take that statement and isolate it and leave it alone by itself detached from the rest of what you know about the gospel it will crush you it will be the law okay it will be the law it it will show you and and really I think that's the first thing that it is supposed to do it will show you your powerlessness your helplessness whether it's a command from the Old Testament or a command from the New Testament those commands have as their first effect it seems to me the display of our own inability in ourselves right the law functions Paul tells us as a tutor to lead us to Christ first that we might be justified but once we're justified we're we don't want to say that the law no longer has a place it continues to have a place it continues to be that to which the Lord calls us and it continues to instruct us about our need okay it exposes who and what we are that we're not law keepers and that we are powerless and so what then is the effect of that if if it has this first effect of exposing our need it has the second and ongoing effect of driving us back to Christ and that's repentance and faith right not faith for justification not repentance that leads to life in that sense but repentance and faith as a way of life where moment by moment when confronted by the law we acknowledge our powerlessness and we're driven back to Christ there to plead with him and call upon him that he give us the grace that we have to have if we're even to begin to approximate what it is that he calls us to okay so the first thing the law really continues to do is expose our need but then it continues to drive us back to Christ so when the Lord says be holy for the Lord your God is holy you say thanks for playing but you're not kicked out of the game you're not destroyed why because the cross of Christ ensures that you're safe i don't need to be worried about judgment i don't have to live in fear the cross of Christ makes me safe now when i face my own failure my own sin my own corruption i know it's there i know i'm incapable i know i deserve death but i go back to Christ not for justification but i go back to Christ pleading with him that he would work in me those things which are well pleasing in his sight okay and then i i i i have nothing left to do but to get up out of bed and go shave and go to work and and seek by the grace of God to live faithfully before him trusting that because Christ indwells me and lives in the midst of his church there will be some approximation some approximation of the holiness to which i'm called okay i'd say a third thing i'm not supposed to do this alone i'm supposed to do it with you and you're supposed to do it with me we live together as a community of people in this thing i'm i don't have to live i don't have to live by myself in the sense that i'm detached from Christ and i don't have to live by myself in the sense that i live in isolation from those whom God has given me to help me to live this life okay encouraging me bearing my burdens confronting me where i need to be confronted okay that's what that's what friendship is okay and i would say to to even a narrow the idea of community you've got to live this in your marriages in your families those of you who are married um those of you who aren't i said this in the marriage class there are some ways in which you're fortunate and there's some ways in which you're not fortunate okay but those of us who are married need we need to reduce this down from the general idea of community and living in connection with other people to living this out in our marriages understanding that sin kills and holiness gives life okay and for my wife to to remind me patiently that i'm a jerk is not a bad thing for me it is a good thing for me to be reminded that i'm a sinner i needed a Savior then i need a Savior now and i'll need a Savior for the rest of my life so you know i'd say the law functions to expose us and drive us back to Christ and i think we make a huge mistake we make a huge mistake if we change the basic posture of our lives and we do this we do this what we end up doing is we say you know we come to Christ those of us who came to Christ later in life sense this maybe a bit more urgently than those of us who were who were younger when we came to Christ but we have these moments along the way where we recognize our corruption and we realize all of this stuff that we've got in our accounts and it's bad and it condemns us so we come to Christ and Christ forgives us and the guilt of it all has taken away and there's this flush of joy and excitement and enthusiasm and we wake up the next morning and maybe for a few minutes maybe even for a couple of hours things are a little bit different but before the end of the day we're face to face with the same corrupt heart that we came to Christ within the first place and what we tend to do is say i'm supposed to be different so i'm going to be different and i try to put this thing on i try to put on this this air of respectability i'm a Christian now and i put on this this external facade of respectability okay and then i start to convince myself about it and i end up living this this schizophrenic sort of an existence where i am a jackaline hide i am horrible on the one side but then i put this this thing on on the other side and pretend okay and the way you live the Christian life is the way you began the Christian life how did you begin you come to Christ acknowledging that cry acknowledging your own need your helplessness to meet that need and looking to Christ to do something for you with your powerless to do for yourself okay and the Christian life has to be lived that way again not for justification but for sanctification you live the Christian life the way you began it and i think i really think that doing that puts the glory of God on display because when the world comes in contact with humble people it sees something that it isn't going to see in the world and people who acknowledge that they're sinful who acknowledge their need of Christ are by definition humble people and the world doesn't encounter that kind of stuff so we've got to quit i think that's a big a big thing and that would be my response to the question how do we interpret how do we understand this thing it's a call it's there we we can't negotiate it it is good for us we never get there in this life but we don't we don't in any way minimize it we don't we don't qualify it we don't dumb it down we don't reduce it in any way we hold it up there as a standard we live independence upon the grace of God and Jesus Christ to do for us in an ongoing way what it is that we need for him to do and that is make us more like himself and then we get up in the morning and we go about our business and do the best we can and where we where we sin we ask for forgiveness from God and from those whom we hurt and we pray that God will help us never to do it again knowing that we probably will that's my life that's my life and and if you read my letter you know that i think it's your life too so let's pray Father please be with your people please be with us help us to be friends to one another fellow struggling in the midst of in the midst of this life but i do pray that you'd put your glory on display here that you would live in our midst humbling us and breaking us down where we need to be broken down lifting us up and encouraging us where we need to be lifted up but in whatever circumstance or situation and regardless of the need living moment by moment independence upon you Lord would you put your glory on display in our midst in our day in Jesus name amen