Your Place in Gods Church

February 12, 1993

INTRODUCTION

"Hail, mighty man of valor! The LORD is with thee!"

YOU ARE HOLY!
YOU ARE CALLED TO BE HOLY!
A HOLY GOD CALLS YOU
A HOLY HEAVEN AWAITS YOU
A HOLY CHURCH

Gideon didn't know if the angel was making fun of him, or was just very near-sighted! But with God's help Gideon became just that, a mighty man of valor!]

If a letter came to your house addressed to "the saints" at your residence, how would you respond?

When you read or hear read the challenge anywhere in the Bible: "Be ye holy for I the Lord your God Am Holy!" how do you receive it?

The very idea of "holy" or "holiness" invokes strong reactions. In general there are two:

  1. One response to holiness says, "Who me?" Then with great humility the heavy responsibility of sainthood or holiness is ever so lightly pushed aside.
  2. The other response says, "I will be holy!" But then it proceeds to define the beginning and ending of the call to holiness strictly in the individual, in the "me."

I. THERE IS A PERSONAL CALL TO HOLINESS which cannot be ignored.

  1. YES, GOD CALLS US PERSONALLY: (re: Romans 12:1,2)
    1. God calls EACH of us, deals with us, convicts and convinces us, so that we might be enabled to fellowship with Him.
    2. God calls EACH OF US TO HIMSELF. To be "holy" means we are in a special relationship to God. Our "holiness" is not a "LOAD OF GOODNESS" that makes US "holy" in all we do or say.
    3. ONLY GOD IS HOLY in any underived way. All holiness comes from HIM. God cannot fellowship with the unholy.

      The dilemma: you have to be holy to come near to God, and you can't come near to God unless you are holy.

  2. TO BE GOD'S IS TO BE HOLY:

    Whatever is God's [possession] IS holy; the struggle is not to make ourselves holy so that we can approach God; WE CANNOT DO THAT OURSELVES!

    How do we get clean hands and a pure heart so that we may ascend the hill of the Lord?

    Somehow the struggle is not to be HOLY— but to give ourselves wholly away to God, and to know that He has accepted our gift. What is HIS— He makes holy!

  3. TO BE HOLY INVOLVES BEING PART OF GOD'S HOLY CHURCH

    Our passion for personal holiness must flow into a holy love for Christ's church if it reflects Christ's own heart, his love:

    "Holy" has been preached almost exclusively from a personal, experiential approach. We have measured our holiness by the inner, emotional response (i.e., "I feel sweet, or peace, or feel love, etc.), what we sense personally, enabling: "I am not ashamed to testify" "I find that I can forgive."

    This personal side is absolutely valid and necessary. And yet it can be extremely centered in self! The corrective for this is remembering that we are sanctified in relationship to Christ's church, which is to be HOLY!

II. GOD'S CALL "BE HOLY!" IS ALWAYS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CHURCH

  1. THE CHURCH IS THE FOCUS OF CHRIST'S LOVE (Text)

    Ephesians 5:25 "... Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it, that he might make it holy with His own blood, and present it to Himself pure and radiant, without any spot or wrinkle, holy and blameless."

  2. THE CHURCH CAME TO LIFE ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST

    Peter preached: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel!"

  3. THE CHURCH'S CALL TO HOLINESS INCORPORATES THE INDIVIDUAL 'PERSONAL CALL TO HOLINESS' AND MORE:
    1. The CHURCH is to be united with God by the sanctifying grace: John 17:17 Sanctify them: "That they may be one with us"
    2. The CHURCH is promised the empowering Spirit: Acts 1:8 - [this was to the ASSEMBLED church-to-be]
    3. The CHURCH received admonition and challenge from the glorified Savior in Revelation 2,3
  4. HOLINESS IN THIS CORPORATE SENSE IS A SUBMITTING AND SURRENDERING TO MAKE THE CHURCH MUCH MORE THAN OUR INDIVIDUAL TESTIMONY CAN BE.

    This is a risky, scary thing: to submit one's individual rights into a sense of community.

    (Hippies did it— and they were disillusioned every single time!)

    (James Jones persuaded many to do it; the results were disastrous.)

    (Still, there it is: the disciples had all things in common; they relinquished their own rights. What principle is this?)

III. THE HOLY CHURCH WILL MANIFEST GOD'S LIFE IN THIS WORLD

  1. The LOVE of God - The COMPASSION OF HOLINESS must be manifested in the context of the corporate faith. The Apostle John said the greatest "selling point" that the church has is: BEHOLD HOW THEY LOVE ONE ANOTHER!
  2. The COMMUNION of God - THE COMMUNITY OF HOLINESS must also be manifested in the corporate faith. The church described in Acts 2 was manifestly unselfish! They gave whatever they had in order to make the kingdom go forward. "THEY HAD ALL THINGS COMMON!"

    We can re-capture some of that "belonging"! The nursery needs to be staffed. Little children need to be cared for. People need to be loved and prayed for. It isn't a matter of communism, or giving, although in my mind tithing is a "floor."

  3. The LIFE of God - THE VIBRANT REALITY OF HOLINESS will also be made manifest in the corporate faith! [I am not speaking of synthetic excitement.] When God meets with His HOLY CHURCH it is always an enormously important occasion!

Some time ago in some church promotional literature one "managerial-type" pastor likened his church to a filling station. HE SAID: "The 'real world' is out 'on the road.' "

I take exception.

The church is like a home. THIS is a dining room. The meal is fuel for the tasks to be done. But it is also a sacrament of love.

Physically — too much of our eating is 'fast food' filling station mentality. HAPPY is the family that several times a week sits down together in love to eat, talk, laugh, think, remember, enjoy each other.

Spiritually — what the church does 'out on the road' IS vital; the only way that Jesus gets "out of the Bible, out of the four walls of the church" is in you and me. In our lives.

But what we do IN the church is much more than a smelly selfish gas station. It is more than "tanking up."

We are family- God's HOLY family! We LOVE each other! When we eat, Paul said, wait for each other!

Conclusion:

SO, HOW IS THE CHURCH 'HOLY?'

  1. You [PERSONALLY] are called to holiness as a child of God.

    You are already sanctified, if you are a Christian at all— for you are dedicated, given, baptized into the Body of Christ. You are being sanctified. God wants to sanctify you through and through, with His cleansing reaching every deliberately surrendered part until you know you have said an everlasting, "YES!" And one day we shall be sanctified completely! In a way we cannot imagine, "When we shall see Him we shall be like Him!"

  2. We [AS GOD'S CHURCH!] are called to holiness as a unit. We can have the baptism of the Holy Spirit that fosters compassion.

    I get tired of seminars, and of super-stars, and of methods and techniques.

    But we must avoid any false humility that says, "I'm no saint! Holiness is for the day of the kerosene lamp and the button-down shoes. We can't have that kind of fellowship!" Can't we?

I'm going to ask you to join with me in the closing prayer today, A JOINT AFFIRMATION (on this Pentecost Sunday) that we belong to God as a church!

Prayer:

We, the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene, affirm that we belong to You, O God. We believe that what belongs to You is truly holy. We ask that You will make us wholly Yours that we might walk with You and fellowship with You and obey You in all that we say and do, that You may have your perfect will in our congregational life. Amen.

HYMN #19 Thanks to God Whose Word Was Spoken Or

#39 Spirit of Faith, Come Down (Wesley)