The Call to a Holy Walk – 7/22/07
Date – 7/9/07
Message: A Holy Walk
Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, HCSB – “Finally then, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God—as you are doing—do so even more. For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God. This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. For God has not called us to impurity, but to sanctification. Therefore, the person who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who also gives you His Holy Spirit.”
Theme: This message is about living a sanctified life. As believers we must acknowledge that we are holy because of the imputed righteousness that Jesus’ blood has flooded into our lives. That is not the end though it is only the beginning of a set apart life We also must live a transformed life that finds its existence in knowing Christ as Lord and Savior and turning sovereignty of every portion of this life over to Him.
Introduction: My parents fighting over what to do with the cream. It was always amazing to me how we would bring that fresh milk in, pour it in gallon jars and the cream would rise to the top so that mom could separate it out.
Transition: I wanted to talk to you today about sanctification. I am sure that most of you realize that the word that is normally translated as sanctification is from the word that means holiness. As a matter of fact depending on the translation that you use these terms are used interchangeably at times. At its root this word always signifies a quality or state or act of separation from something and toward something else. Tonight I want to spend some time with you examining some of the passages that deal with our call, as new covenant believers, to a holy walk.
I. A Transferred Holiness
a. Exists in the Father
i. Holiness as part of the character of God –
1. In ! Peter 1:16 we are told to be Holy because God is Holy.
2. The only way that we know what Holiness is, is because we have seen it expressed in God.
a. He is described in the triple exclamation of Holy, Holy, Holy. It is as if there is nothing else that captures His essence other then this adjective, Holy, Holy, Holy.
3. This holiness terrifies people when they are confronted by it.
a. Moses – hid his face
b. Isaiah – woe to me I am ruined…
c. Ezekiel – I fell face down.
d. John – Fell at his feet like a dead man
e. The terror of the disciples when confronted with Jesus’ power – Mark 4 – more terror in seeing Christ’s power then from the storm that would have claimed their lives.
b. Extended by Christ
i. “By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Now every priest stands day after day ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is now waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.”
ii. One of the great doctrinal debates that the church has been involved in for hundreds of years revolves around this idea of sanctification. The Roman Catholic Church views sanctification as something that is ongoing in the believer they believe that it is accomplished through the sacraments. When Luther approached this subject he said the church had this wrong, like just about everything else, and claimed that sanctification really expresses the act of justification that occurs to the believer through the redemptive sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.
iii. I think that it is both.
1. A state expressed by the hagiosune and in this passage in Hebrews in a perfect verb tense, a completed action in the past that has continuing influence in the present and future. But also by the Greek word hagiosmos, a process and represents in this passage by the continuing passive present tense in verse 14.
iv. In 1 Cor. 1:2 Paul, who in the next few pages will blast the lifestyle of the believer’s in Corinth, begins by calling them a sanctified group of Saints.
c. Expressed in the believer’s life by the Spirit
i. But because it is also a process scripture makes it clear that the Person of the Holy Spirit is busy in the believer’s life rebuilding the actions, attitudes and behaviors that make up the believer’s life into a more Holy progression of habits.
ii. The result is the fruit that is discussed in Galatians 5 – love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control.
II. A Transformational Holiness – Romans 12:1-2
a. “Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
b. A new walk
i. καινός is what is new in nature, different from the usual, impressive, better than the old, superior in value or attraction, (TDNT)
ii. A renewed mind. – A mind that dwells on things from above rather then things below, eyes that focus on things of light rather then things of darkness.
iii. The battle for what controls our lives always begins in our minds. That is why the apostle Paul, in Philippians 4:8, gives us a list of God things to put our minds on; things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, morally excellent, commendable and praiseworthy.
iv. What we set our minds on determines the kind of thoughts we have – Study from Dartmouth college. Cites that all kinds of risky behavior is more likely to occur in children who have been allowed to watch R-rated movies as pre-teens.
c. A different walk
i. The word for transformed in this passage from Romans is the Greek word metamorfo, this, of course, is the word from which we get metamorphoses. This is a compound word that links meta – above and beyond with change. Literally a complete change above and beyond what anyone could expect. A Christian walk of holiness has to be represented by a change in a sinful person who realizes that they have been sanctified by Jesus’ blood, and have a responsibility to continue to be sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. A butterfly does not continue moving along on its belly, it flies.
III. A Transparent Holiness –
a. While the work of being holy and becoming holy are the purview of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I do believe that the Christian has an incredibly important task in this process.
b. An Examined Walk
i. We have to do the work of examination. This is what I have called being transparent with God. We have to identify the portions of our live that we have not yet turned over to the sovereignty of God and allow Him to take control of them.
c. An Instructed Walk
i. In our passage from Thessalonians, that we began with Paul was commending the believer’s in Thessalonica for their faithfulness to his commands or instructions and adjuring them to obey even better.
ii. The application to the modern believer who is answering the call to holy living is obvious. We have to be familiar with the instructions that we have been given, God’s word, and open up our lives to the kind of brutal self examination that is necessary in order for God to do His heart work in our lives.
