Please turn in your Bibles to Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Our messages this morning and this evening are about God's call to us to be holy. This morning we're going to look at why holiness is important, and we're going to look at the reality that God has called each and every person who is a Christian to be holy, to pursue holiness as their number one priority. If at the end of the day you do not feel like you have pursued holiness, then that's been a wasted day. God's called each of us to be holy because He is holy. This evening we're going to look at what means has God given us, what does He provide to help us to pursue holiness? Is He just like the coach who sends you into the game and pats you on the backside as you run out in the field and says, go get them, Tiger, but leaves you purely to your own resources? Or does God give resources in order for us to pursue holiness? And that's what we'll look at this evening. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Probably the first 15 years of my Christian life, if I would have thought of Thessalonians, I would have thought about perhaps the rapture or something like that, and some of the theology I had been taught had to do with the return of Christ, and that was the big deal of the book of Thessalonians. It wasn't until years later that I came to see that much of really the focus of the book of Thessalonians is practical holiness in every area of your life. And chapter 4, and we'll be looking at the first 10 verses or so, or 8 verses, that God wants each of us to be holy. In fact, if you ever wanted to read a book, how to know the will of God, it says in one of the verses here, this is the will of God for you, that you be holy. Let's read God's word. I'm throwing a little bit of a curve ball. I'm reading out of the ESV. I was told years ago by Brandon, I could preach out of the ESV or the new American standard. I like the ESV handling of the text a little bit better. So I'm reading from that today. If you have a new American standard, that's fine. That's pretty close. And so follow along if you will. Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk, that means live your life, and to please God just as you are doing, that you do more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. Sanctification is just another word for holiness. They're synonyms. Case in point, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in the matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. Let me stop there. There's an illusion here you might not pick up, but in the Old Testament, before Israel was settled as a nation, they were scattered out, small farms scattered out throughout the land of Palestine, and they were having only a few places that were settled towns, and God instituted places that were called cities of refuge. If someone committed a crime, If I got in a fight with one of you men and I broke your nose and knocked your teeth out, then you could have somebody in your family called the Avenger, and he would pursue me and avenge what was done wrong to you. If this man wanted to have things dealt with legally, he would go to one of the cities of refuge, where the local town council, the elders would sit in judgment, they'd listen to the case, and they would decide who was wrong, who was right, and what punishment should be meted out. But the avenger could not touch a person while he's in the city of refuge, because that was where justice was to be adjudicated. Paul says here, but what if God is the avenger? What if God is the one who will pay you back if you defraud your brother or sister in Christ? Obviously, there's no safe place. God will avenge His people. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Again, what's He called us to? To be holy people. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. This isn't just my commandment because Paul is an apostle. This is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If you ignore this, if you blow this off, it's not that you're saying no to me, you're saying no to God. Now, this morning I'm going to begin by saying that holiness is sadly a forgotten subject among Christians today and even especially among evangelical Christians. For example, how many conferences or special times of Bible teaching have you attended on the subject of holiness? Can you think of how many conferences you've gone to or how many special times of Bible teaching you've gone to that it was advertised it's going to be on holiness? You go, wow, I want to go hear this. How many books have you read on holiness? in your lifetime. In 1992, Christian author J.I. Packer wrote a book called Rediscovering Holiness, and he was concerned in 1992 that what once was once the earmark of an evangelical, you could tell an evangelical or reformed Christian because they were people who pursued holiness. They were people who lived as if they were real Christians, as opposed to others who merely named the name of Christ but didn't walk the walk. This is what Packer said in 92, the shift away from the pursuit of holiness to focus on fun and personal fulfillment, ego massage and techniques for present success, along with emphasizing public issues that carry no challenge to my personal morals, is a reality. To my mind, it is a sad and scandalous fact and one that needs to be reversed. In other words, he said, you can go to hear all kinds of sermons on how to have fun as a Christian, how to be fulfilled, under the idea of ego massage, how to like yourself, self-esteem, techniques for present success, how to be a successful Christian businessman, how to be a successful Christian parent, all kinds of things, but he said the idea that Christians are to be holy as their number one priority has gone by the by. The two largest churches in the county where I live advertise preaching series all the time, and they're always on man-centered subjects and never on holiness. Many of the sermon series actually dishonored God because the sermon subjects are either frivolous or obscene. Recently, one of the biggest churches in our county had a sign out on the four-lane highway of what the preaching series were going to be, and I was ashamed to be a Christian. I was ashamed that they had that out there. What is particularly grievous is that in the Bible, God's Word, holiness is a big deal. It's really important. The Hebrew words which are used for holy or holiness are used over a thousand times in the 39 books of the Old Testament. A thousand times. The Greek words for holy or holiness are used over 300 times in the 27 books of the New Testament. So the whole Bible is full of teaching on holiness, and there's one book of the Bible that's entirely on the subject of holiness. It's one of the least read books by Christians. It's the book of Leviticus, which is on holiness unto the Lord, the Lord's holiness, who may approach him, how to get holiness, things like that. But sadly, most churches today, nobody's paying attention. As I've talked to preachers down through the years, I have come to see that they never preach about the holiness of God and they never preach about the holiness of God's people. And I think they do so because they're either out of fear of offending present church members. Well, you know, if you really talk about holiness, some of the people are going to get offended and they're not going to give or they're not going to stay. Or other people who are visitors, they don't really want to come to hear about holiness. They want to hear about how Christ will make them successful, etc., etc., and they don't really want to hear about holiness. So nickels and noses or building large wealthy churches seem to be more important than pleasing God and doing church His way. I'm not accusing this church of it, far be it. I think this church is doing a fine job what it's called to do. I'm not second-guessing anything about this church. But I am seeking to remind you, because we live in a culture, and certainly a Christian subculture, where holiness is definitely unimportant, largely uncool. And in fact, sometimes when the issue of holiness is raised up, all someone has to do to quell or to quench the whole subject is, well, that's legalistic, or that's legalism. And legalism is the big bugaboo to thwart holiness. What happens then is the church members growing up in our narcissistic culture, narcissistic means me-centered. Narcissus was a man in Greek mythology who looked down a well and saw his own reflection in the bottom and then fell in. In our narcissistic culture, all I ever care about is me, myself, and I, and God exists if he exists to make me happy. That's American Christianity. Contemporary churches preach about God giving them good marriages, God giving them good children, God giving them good jobs, God giving them good health, God giving them good finances, God giving them a good self-image, God giving them a great future. But people almost never hear about the holiness of God. We sang that He is holy, holy, holy. We'll come back to what that means. And they never hear about the holiness that God calls each and every one of His people to, no exceptions. It's not always been this way. Like I said, at one time, Evangelical and Reformed Christians were known for being people who pursued holiness. Well, he's probably Reformed or he's probably an Evangelical because he really takes seriously holiness. I actually had a man, two different men say, one man said, I believe your church takes God too seriously. I had never even envisioned how that could possibly happen. All you had to do was sit in one class that Brandon was teaching on the impassibility of God and have your brain explode and you go, and I'm taking this God too seriously? I don't think so. I can't wrap my brain around this God, let alone take him too seriously. Another man said, I think this church makes holiness too big a deal. Can't happen. But at one time, evangelical and reformed Christians stood out as bright lights in a darkening culture. And so to encourage you, I want to bring the subject up again this morning and then tonight. First of all, for review, what is happiness? What happiness is and what happiness, excuse me, well, happiness, holiness, what holiness is, what holiness does. If someone said holy or holiness, what does that mean? Holiness is everything about God that sets him apart from us and makes him a subject of awe, adoration and dread to us. Everything that sets God apart from us and shows him to be a being worthy of our awe and our affection and our dread, that's God's holiness. Holiness is what makes God, God. He's set apart from everything else that exists. God's holiness is white hot, it's blinding moral purity, coupled with a holy zeal that hates unholiness. When we sang holy, holy, holy, one of the lines was, though the eyes of sinful men thy glory may not see, and then, though the darkness hide thee. It's not that God's hiding in darkness, the darkness of fallen human nature, the darkness of sin. John chapter 1. The light came into the world and the darkness hated the light and the darkness tried to suppress the light. Nothing wrong with the light, but the darkness hates the light and doesn't want the light. God's holiness shows forth God being God in all aspects of His being. Holiness is who God is, so that we can say God's love is holy love. God's justice is holy justice. God's mercy is holy mercy. God's wrath is holy wrath. God's wisdom is holy wisdom, and so on. Holy is who God is. Now, you'll notice that we sang the hymn, and the hymn was quoting from Isaiah 6, which your elder read to you. And in Isaiah 6, you have a priest who is in the temple, and on this particular day, he has a vision of God seated upon his throne. Now, for years, I thought this was a picture of God the Father, but as I read my Bible more, I read in John chapter 12, verse 41, that Isaiah saw Christ's glory. That was Christ in his pre-incarnate condition that Isaiah saw seated on the throne. That was not the Father, that was not the Holy Spirit. It was Jesus Christ, before he set his glory aside, who is seated upon the throne. and there were these angelic creatures, cherubim, seraphim. Angelic creatures were worshiping him. In the Bible, God is called the God of Hosts, or sometimes, if they don't translate it that way, they say, like, Lord God Sabaoth, which is the Lord of Hosts. These incredible number of 10,000 times 10,000, crunch the numbers, that's a whole lot of angelic creatures. And in this case, in Isaiah chapter six, there's a heavenly chorus and there's an antiphonal chorus. One side will sing one line and the other side would sing it back to them, back and forth. And what are they singing? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. What does that mean? It's not really repetition. R.C. Sproul does a great job pointing this out in his book, The Holiness of God. In English, we have our ways of, if you're trying to emphasize something, like if you're sending an email or a letter and you're typing it out and you want to emphasize it, you can underline it, you can make it all bold, you can put it in italics, you can put some color in it or something to emphasize a word. In Hebrew, if you want to emphasize a word, you would double it or triple it. So, for example, back in the book of Genesis, a Hebrew king was being pursued, and it said he fell into a pit pit. And R.C. Sproul said, I wonder what a pit pit is. As pits go, there are pits, and then there are pit pits, and you don't want to fall into a pit pit. Now what, in Hebrew they're saying this was a giant pit, it would happen to be a tar pit. He fell into a giant tar pit and his chariot and the king were arrested by this tar pit. He fell into a giant pit, a pit pit. It's doubled. It's not really a pit, that's the nominative, you name it. It's not really a pit and it's a pit pit. What's that? That's the second level, it's the comparative. It's bigger than any other pit. What do you call the highest degree, the superlative? It's greater than every and every pit. That would be a pit, pit, pit. That's not talked about in the Bible. The only attribute of God that's elevated to the third degree, the superlative degree, is God's holiness. God's not just holy. He's not just holier. He's holiest. He's holy, holy, holy. He's holy to the superlative degree, such that it's almost impossible for us to get our mind about how great God is in His holiness. In Exodus 15-11, when Moses is exposed to this character of God. He says, Who is like you among the gods, O Lord, O covenant God? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders? I can't conceive of how great you are. This is what holiness is. Everything that sets God apart from created humanity and sin and error. What does holiness do? Well, the Bible shows that holiness has two impacts. Two things. First of all, it has a positive and attracting feature, kind of a come hither feature, but it also has a negative and repulsing feature. Sproul points this out in the Holiness of God book. If you have never read that, you owe it to yourself to read it. But in there he talks about how studies have shown that for non-Christians, a little bit of who God is tantalizes them, but His dread holiness is actually scary to them, and they want to stay away from Him. A believer who's had their sins covered by Christ and has seen what God has done for them in Christ has a certain sense of awe or righteous reverence toward God, but they love Him and they're drawn to Him like a moth to the flame. Non-Christians at the end are scared of God because His holiness, they know, condemns their sin. His holiness condemns their sin, and so they don't want to get close to this God. So holiness both can be attracting to the believer, But it's repulsing to the unbeliever, just like the atheist who says, I don't believe in a god, and the mouse who doesn't want to believe in cats, and the thief who doesn't want to believe in policemen. They have a vested interest why the whole psychology of coming close to this being is a non-starter. Why is holiness important to God? Why does it matter? And why should it be important to you? Why should holiness be something that you wake up every day and say, well, I want to look at my job description for today. What's on my job description? What's on my to-do list? To be holy. Why should that be true for all of us? First of all, because holiness is the nature of God, and He commends it of all of His people. Holiness is the very nature of God, and He saves us to be like Him. He's the Father, we're the children. And He says, I save you, I want you to be like Me. Leviticus chapter 11, verse 44. I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves, set yourself apart from everything else and be holy because I am holy. You're to be like the one who saved you, who gave his son for you, who gave the Holy Spirit to live in you. And in 1 Peter chapter 1 in the New Testament, Peter goes back to Leviticus and notes this and says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lust, which were yours in your days of ignorance, in your B.C. days, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all of your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. Both Testaments testify to the fact that God calls us to be holy because we're to be like our Father. And to be like your Father means that you are holy. We just read in 1 Thessalonians, this is the will of God, your sanctification, your holiness. Holiness is not the special calling of some Christians, like, well, pastors are supposed to be holy, and missionaries probably, they should be holy, but it's not really my job, I'm just a layman. That's bogus. That may be the devil whispering in your ear or maybe remaining sin trying to talk you out of it. But every single Christian is called to be holy. I'm not called to be more holy than you. Brandon's not called to be more holy than you. Elders and deacons are not called to be more holy than you. We're all called to be holy. It's the daily job description of each and every believer. The number one item on our daily to-do list should be to pursue holiness. Number two, holiness is the goal for which God saved you, why He sent His Son for you. If you had asked yourself the big question, why did God save us? Well, it says it pleased Him to do so. That's true. Why else? Well, your pastor has taught you in Ephesians 1.4, He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. I sent my Son, I elected you and I sent my Son to save you that you would be holy. In Ephesians chapter 5, if you want to turn there quickly, we have Paul explaining to the Ephesian Christians the analogy between Christian marriage and Christ and his church, and he explains some aspects of how a loving husband is to be like Christ and how this is like Christ and his church, Ephesians 5, 25 through 27. Husbands, and when I teach on that, and you remember some of you were there when I had the parenting class and we spoke briefly on marriage, the hardest job description in the world is to be a Christian husband. It's the hardest job description. You are to be like Christ. Apart from grace, it's impossible. The second hardest job description is to be a Christian wife and to follow this knucklehead as he follows Christ. Verse 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that's sacrificial love, that he might sanctify her, that he might set her apart, make her holy, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. I have a job of watching my wife in the Word. I have this job of helping my wife to see all of life through the lens of Scripture, to help her in her pursuit of holiness. But he says that's just like what Christ is doing with the church. We're all to be holy. Christ is working with us to make us holy. In Hebrews 10.14, one of my favorite verses, if you're a sinner and you know yourself to be a sinner, you want verses that remind you of the greatness of Christ's forgiveness. Hebrews 10.14, for by one offering he has perfected for all times those who are being made holy or sanctified. For by one offering, he has perfected for all times, when Christ died on the cross, my sins were atoned on him, and his righteousness was impeded to me. Every Christian has the identical righteousness, and only the identical righteousness of Christ. A pastor, a missionary, a lay elder, a deacon has no more righteousness than anybody else, because the only righteousness, the true righteousness a believer has, is the righteousness of Christ. And by Christ's cross work, I've been perfected forever. But my daily experience of living as a Christian isn't like what all that Christ has done for me. I have His perfect righteousness, but I don't live a perfect life yet. He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, those who are being made holy. Over the course of your life, He's making you holy. He's making you more like Christ experientially, what He's purchased for you and credited to you as Christ's righteousness. You know, sometimes families will take pictures and families that maybe either have more money or this kind of background, everybody will be wearing a blazer. And they'll have the family crest here. One of the reasons I never look back at my family genealogy is I'm afraid there will be bushwhackers and scallywags and people I don't really want to brag about. So I don't think I'll see too many people with blazers in my family background. If we did have blazers as Christians, it would have an insignia on it. It would say, holy unto the Lord. That's what the high priest in Israel had on his hat, his turban when he went into the presence of God. Holy unto the Lord. That's it. He was representing Israel. He had a breastplate with 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. He interceded for those 12 tribes. He represented those 12 tribes. And he understood that the motto was holiness unto the Lord, holy unto the Lord. Well, we should be people whose family crest says, holiness unto the Lord. God saved each of us to be holy. Each of us. Number three, holiness is why God gave us the new birth and gave us a new creation. That's why this supernatural thing needs to happen to you, this new birth, this birth from above. If you're not born again, you'll never be a Christian. It's impossible. It's not simply a change of mind. It's a change of nature. It's a change of constitution. God gives a person who's bored and apathetic and rebellious and could care less. and he begins to work in their heart and they have this heart change, and they begin to care, they begin to think, they begin to be bothered by their sin, they begin to see their sin, they begin to feel the guilt of sin and the condemnation due to their sin. This is a supernatural work of God that he does in a person's heart. You can't see it coming. It's not like you're sitting in a meeting and suddenly the person next to you starts thrashing around and falls on the floor and you go, he was born again. It's not like that. Jesus says in John 3, it's like the wind, you can see where it's been going and where it's coming, but you can't see it actually, you can only see the results, and you can't see the new birth while it's happening. But it is a supernatural regeneration, a recreation of a new person within you. Well, what's this new person to be like? Ephesians 2.10, for we are Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should live in them, walk in them. Before the creation of the world, before Christ had even come, the Father and the Son had entered into the eternal covenant, and the idea was that He would give me a new nature, a new birth, and that this new birth would want to be holy. This new nature would want to be different. In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul's talking about the new life in Christ. He says, Regarding your former manner of life, lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and put on the new man, which has been created in the likeness of God, in righteousness and holiness of the truth. As an adult being converted, I can remember what it was like in the early months of conversion where my life is changing. I'm going, this is like a really weird movie where this guy has this thing come upon him. I could see my life changing, and I wasn't trying to change it. I wasn't trying to. Very different. My life was changing. How was this happening? Because I was a new person. A new birth had taken place. A new creation had been implanted within me. I started wanting to do things I'd never wanted to do before, like go to church, like sing hymns, these old fuddy-duddy tunes, these old musty books. I mean, come on, that's not with it and cool. But if God changes your heart, it's the most precious music in the whole world. And to worship God and to adore him and to read his word and change your life, According to His Word, none of that had mattered to me. But when He gave me the new birth, what happened? As clueless and knucklehead as I could be, in my own kind of stuttering way, I wanted to be holy. I wanted to be like this God who saved me. God saved me to be holy. God saved you to be holy. If you're a Christian, it's in your new nature to want to be holy. It's how God remade you in the new birth. That's what creates the desires. That's what creates the desire to repent, the desire to believe. Number four, holiness gives credibility to your personal evangelism and witnessing. You know, holiness is important because if we are not pursuing holiness, we might as well be a braying donkey talking to someone about Christ. Oh yeah, that's right. You're the guy who always comes in late, leaves early, doesn't do his job well, and you're telling me, well, I need Christ. I don't need a Christ like that. Well, I've seen you cheat on the test at school. You're like everyone else. I've seen you gossip and backtalk behind someone's back and trash them like everybody else. You're no different from anybody else. Now, you may be a Christian, but there's areas of your life that you and I have to work on, aren't there? Because if my conduct is speaking so loud that people can't hear my words, than I need to change. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 5, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Let your light, the glow of your holiness so to speak, shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Peter had to tell the Christians who were being persecuted He said, even being persecuted, even being treated badly by your schoolmates or people at work or relatives is not an excuse to be unholy. He says, keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them actually glorify God in the day of his visitation. They may be persecuting you now, but they see the kind of person you really are. They will end up saying to God on Judgment Day, well, this person lived up to their calling. My early years of student ministry, I worked with a girl whose name was Faith Easterday. How's that for a Christian name? Easterday was her last name. She was a real sweetheart. And this happened to her my first year on staff. It was her third year. A girl came up to her on campus at this high school. And in California, because it rarely rains, you don't have hallways. You just have classrooms which are like pods or modules and then open spaces where you'd have hallways. And this girl came up to her sitting by a planter and this girl said, I've been watching you for two years. I know why you come on campus. I know what you tell the other girls. And I want what you have. I've watched you for two years. and I want what you have. Wow. Faith's walk matched her talk. She didn't act differently than she professed as she witnessed her girls on campus. Number five, holiness limits Satan's schemes to ruin our lives and testimonies. Holiness limits Satan's schemes to ruin our lives and testimonies. Certain sins open us up to the devil really making ruin of our lives. Go back to Ephesians chapter 4 if you would for a minute. Let's see what Paul has to say about this issue of certain sins opening the door for Satan to have his way with you. Put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor. We are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger and give no opportunity to the devil." Well, what's that all about? Certain sins open you up for the devil to trash your life or your reputation. Well, what do I mean? I'm probably not going to fall into fornication or adultery if I'm really dealing with lust in my life. But if I'm giving into lust all the time, I shouldn't be surprised that I have a problem falling into fornication or adultery. I'm already playing with it in my mind, I just haven't acted it out yet. If I commit the sin of lust in my heart, then it's easier to commit a sin of fornication or adultery outside of my heart. Spiritual attacks from the devil often come as a result of my opening the door to him by certain sins, which I shouldn't be indulging in. Sin is to be dealt with, first of all, in the mind. It's not like, you know, I've been convicted of robbing banks, I need to cut it back to just quick trips and places like that, and then I'll go down to lemonade stands and just kind of gradually wean away from... Well, no. I don't... Why should I rob someone? Why should I take what's not mine and steal it from them? And so in Ephesians 4, the antidote to stealing is not not stealing, you could be simply a thief between jobs. The antidote to stealing, Paul says, working hard with your hands, making some money, and then being a generous giver to others. That's the opposite of being a thief or a stealer. And so sometimes certain sins that I indulge in will open me up to bigger problems that can ruin my testimony and perhaps my life. In 1 Peter 5, verses 8 and 9, Peter says, Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Why? Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him. How do you resist him? Well, you don't play with your sins. Do you know what it means to play with the sin? It's black with white stripes, but I call it fifi. And I've given it a bath. And I've put a pink ribbon around its neck. And I've sprayed it with Chanel. No, it's not a skunk. It's Fifi. And it's my pet. And you go, that's dumb. Nobody has a skunk as a pet. Really? Do you have any sins that you play with that you don't put to death? You might as well be playing with a skunk. The fact that it unloads on you once in a while and makes your life shameful and embarrassing only proves the point. And no, we're not talking about sin management. Well, if I put Fifi in the backyard and not in the front yard so many people don't see it, is it okay if I keep it? No. Putting my sin to death means I put Fifi to death. Number six, holiness is the core of the Christian life. Whereas happiness is just an add-on. Holiness is the core of the Christian life that God calls you to. And even something like happiness is not the center, it's an add-on to holiness. What do I mean? Listen to people in the Bible as they talk about their walk with God. Listen to a psalmist in Psalm 119. I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. I'm not drag kicking and screaming. I run, but I don't run just any place. I run within the paths marked out by your commands. Why do I do this? Because you've set my heart free. I'm not the same person I used to be. You've saved me. You've given me a new nature. You've given me everything I have. I run in the path of your commands. I don't live lawlessly. I don't do my own thing. I run in the path marked out by your commands for you have set my heart free. A few verses later, Psalm 119.47, I delight in your commandments which I love. You know, a holy person doesn't think they're all that holy, but they love holiness. They love the holiness of God. I can even be pursuing holiness when happiness might not be there at the time. What do you think? Paul and Silas are in prison in Philippi and they're singing hymns. Either A, they've had a lobotomy and don't know how painful it is to be beaten and whipped and have your feet in stalks, and so they need psychological help. Or they had some drug given to them where they didn't feel the results of being beaten and have their feet put in stalks. Or C, God the Holy Spirit is giving them experiences of joy and peace that transcend their physical situation. such that they're having joy and they're singing praises to God, which the other prisoners hear and the jailer hears. Subsequently, when the earthquake brings down the jail and breaks their fetters and he finds out, it's a testimony to him of the reality of what they have. They were singing with joy in the midst of being beaten and in prison. When Jesus said in Matthew 6.33, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Food, clothing, and shelter, and stuff like that, he says in the verses preceding. Pagans run around all the time, they're always worried about these things. That's number one in their job description. I want more, I want more, give me this, give me that. I want more clothes, more food, more money, bigger house, bigger car, faster car, more fuel-efficient car. All kinds of things, I want more. But if you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all the things that whirling scramble around all the time looking for will be given to you as an add-on. Happiness is an add-on to holiness. It's not the core of holiness. I can be focused on being holy, I can be enjoying experiencing the Lord, and I can have outward circumstances that would make other people think, well, he's really weird. Finally, holiness is a sign of the health and reality of a professed Christian salvation. Holiness is a sign of the health and reality of a professed Christian salvation. There's different verses in the Bible that says, I can tell pretty closely if you're a Christian by how much you pursue holiness. If you don't want to pursue holiness at all, you're not a Christian. It's just that simple. Real Christians want to pursue holiness for all the reasons I've given you. In Hebrews chapter 12 verse 14, the author of Hebrews says, Pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Because I was in full-time Christian ministry and doing evangelism for the first few years, I thought it meant if you don't pursue holiness, Steve, people aren't going to see Christ in your testimony. But going back and reading it and reading commentaries, that's not what the verse says. If I'm not pursuing holiness, I'm not going to see the Lord. It's the bottom-line evidence that you're a real Christian is that you're pursuing holiness. During the Great Awakening in America, where tens of thousands of people were professing Christ, Jonathan Edwards in the 1740s wrote a book called Religious Affections. How can you tell what's false or spurious? How can you tell which is real and of the spirit? How can you tell this is kind of in a gray area, we just kind of wait and see? He says, bottom line, if you don't want to be holy, you're not a Christian. If you don't want to be holy and pursue it, you're not a Christian. I'll close with reading Matthew chapter seven, where our Lord, in his famous Sermon on the Mount, talks straight with people. In Matthew chapter seven, verses 15 through 23, he differentiates between true and false, the spurious and the real. Matthew 7, 15 to 23. Beware of false prophets, you know, the guys on the Heresy Channel on TV. who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes? Answer, no. Are figs from thistles? No. So, in the same way, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits." Fruit number one, do you want to pursue holiness? Do you pursue holiness? But he goes on to say, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." In other words, it's not just that you grew up in church, it's not that you knew to use the word Lord when addressing God Almighty or Jesus Christ. He says, no, it's not a matter of what you call me, but how you act. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? I had a TV ministry. I was a televangelist. I traveled all over the world and did these big time things. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. You don't obey me. You don't do what I say. You talk to me in game, but you don't do what I say in my word. At a fundamental heart level, it's still about you. You haven't ever put to death anything in your life because I told you to. You haven't pursued a new course of action because I told you to. You're still a self-willed person. You're only a religiously self-willed person. And he says, I never knew you. I never had my electing love upon you. That's why you never had the supernatural rebirth. You never had a heart that has declared that it wants to follow holiness and does pursue holiness. All the things that are true of Christians are not true of you. You talk to me in game, you know how to talk to me, but you're workers of lawlessness, workers of iniquity. And that's sobering. But you know, God loves to save people who were self-deceived. If you would ask me at 21, are you a Christian? I'd say, sure. I'm not a Buddhist. I don't plan to be an atheist. Not a Muslim. Not a Jew. Sure, I'm a Christian. My name's in some role somewhere. I was baptized as a baby. I was confirmed in sixth grade. Of course I'm a Christian. Did any of this make a hell of beans difference to me? No. Did I want to go to church? No. Did I want to pray? No. Did I want to read my Bible? No. Did I want to pursue holiness? Double no. I would have been one of those that Christ would have had to say, depart from me, I never knew you. But God delights in saving people who are clueless, who are in a sense hypocrites. A hypocrite is a person who professes one thing but lives another way. And he loves to save hypocrites. Most of the leaders of the Reformation were at one time Catholic priests before the Lord saved them. Or they were ministers who were unsaved ministers when God saved them. So the fact that you may have recognized yourself in what I talked about this morning doesn't mean that you're beyond the pale of God's grace, that God can't work in your heart. It only means that you know one way of living that isn't true, that isn't how the Lord would have you to live, and that He wants you to put on another way of living. But first of all, you must begin with, Lord, I need to be saved. I need to have this supernatural rebirth. I need to be saved by the supernatural work of Christ changing my heart, changing my nature, changing my inner disposition. And that'll mean that you will find yourself repenting and believing on Christ, and your life will take a new turn. For those of us who are already Christians, I hope this was a wake-up call to remind us that holiness is our job description. Number one on your to-do list. Some people are to-do list people. Other people kind of have a planner and they look at the planner, here's my week, fine. Our job description, each of us as believers, is to be holy. Tonight we'll look a little bit more about what that means. It doesn't mean all the women are going to wear their hair in a bun and wear black clothes and wear drab clothes and all the men are going to act weird. Holiness is not a matter of how you wear your hair or how you wear your clothes or stuff like that or see who can look the most sober and sad. But holiness is a matter of obeying God, following after Christ. Let's pray. Father, those of us who are believers found ourselves resonating with the hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy. To hear how great you are, to wonder at how great you are, to hear Brandon teach us about the impassibility of God and the immutability of God and the spirituality and simplicity of God were foreign concepts, new concepts for many of us, but our minds, as they began to get used to the ideas and at least grasp some of the idea, marveled at the greatness of our God and we loved it. because you've changed our hearts and you've made us to want to be more like you, to be holy in our lives. Thank you that you've given us the righteousness of Christ and you have pardoned all of our sins in your atoning work. And now you want us to work at living in our lives according to the position you've already secured for us, to pursue holiness, to put to death sinful habits that need to be put to death and to put on habits of righteousness. Lord, help us to do that. Help us to pursue holiness as our new job description. Lord, help us tonight to be clear on the means that you have provided to pursue holiness. Glorify yourself in us as a people. May people see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.