God Wants You to be Holy

Introduction
I haven't always been a Methodist.  I grew up going to Baptist churches.  So when I started attending a Methodist church, I was curious what were the differences.  Someone told me a joke I have always enjoyed.  They said, "You know what’s the difference between Methodists and Baptists?  Methodist say hello when they see each other in the liquor store!" 

And it is true that Methodists are much more open about the fact that we may enjoy an acholic beverage (while Baptist who do might not want to admit it).  There may be other difference we notice--we like to light candles and recite the Apostles Creed and other responsive liturgical readings.  However, the real difference are much deeper than these surface level issues   It's theological.

Methodists have a distinct emphasis on God’s grace. Grace is the undeserved gift of God’s divine help.  All Christians believe God's grace is what saves us--rather than our good works--because we can't earn salvation; it's a free gift from God for those who believe.  However, Methodists really emphasize God's grace and we even spell out the three main ways we experience God's grace.  There is the prevenient grace of God that helps us before we even think about God.  Then there is the justifying grace of God that saves us when we realize who Christ is and we repent of sin and turn to follow Jesus.  And today I want to talk about the third grace--sanctifying grace--that works to actually heal us and make us holy.

In the UMH, we have 22 songs under the theme of Prevenient Grace and 20 songs about Justifying Grace.  However, we have 154 songs about Sanctifying Grace!  What does the number of hymns for each category tell you about how the Methodist church's emphasis on sanctification?  It is very important to us! 

Sanctification is the life-long process of God healing us of sin and perfecting us in love. True Healing comes as we surrender ourselves to God and let His grace transform us.  Healing comes as we obey and do those things God asks of us.  

A man who is seriously ill, physically, will never get better unless he goes to a good doctor and follows the doctor’s treatment plan.  However, it doesn’t matter if the doctor is the best doctor in the world; the sick man will not get better on his own if he doesn't follow the doctor's treatment plan.

Well Jesus is known as the "Great Physician".  He is the greatest spiritual healer of all.  And we need healing.  We can't heal our own sin-sickness.  Jesus can heal us, but unless we follow The Great Physicians treatment plan for us, we will not get better.

Romans 6:12-18
¹² Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. ¹³ Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. ¹⁴ Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

¹⁵ Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! ¹⁶ Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. ¹⁷ Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. ¹⁸ Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

Key Verses
Let me point out a few key phrases from this reading that shows what God expects from Christians after Jesus saves them.  Romans 6:14 says, "Sin is no longer your master… You are free by God’s grace…"
Romans 6:15 says, "Since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!"  So we see, God expects Christians to put away sin because we've been set free by His grace.

Here are some other scriptures that show that God wants us to be holy.  1 Thessalonians 4:3, "It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality"  And Jude 1:24 says, "All glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great joy."

There are even more challenging verses from God’s Word about what God expects with regard to holiness, such as Hebrews 12:14, which says, "…seek to live a clean and holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord."  And 1 John 3:9, "Those who have been born into God’s family do not sin, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they have been born of God."

God’s Prevenient Grace draw us to Him. His Justifying Grace forgives us and sets aside our sin.  However, God doesn’t want us to remain in sin, so His Sanctifying Grace heals our sins and leads us to become holy. 

Now all Christian denominations know this and preach about sanctification.  However, sanctification has always been the hallmark of the Methodist movement.  John Wesley and the early Methodist were specifically motivated to urge Christians everywhere to "Spread Scriptural holiness across the land" (in other words, to truly be reformed and to help reform people everywhere to live holy lives).

Perfection In Love
Methodists believe God’s sanctifying grace through the Holy Spirit can perfect us in love in this lifetime.  We will still be tempted.  (Even Jesus was tempted.)  We will still make mistakes. We will never have perfect knowledge in this life, but we can have perfect love.  John Wesley taught perfect love is when everything you do is motivated by sincere love.  Thus, in this state, even the mistakes you make flow from love.  That is what we are aiming for! 

Strive for perfect love!  Let God change you!  Don’t be lazy and don’t you dare sell out!  God wants more for you than mediocrity!  He wants you to be holy!  And you can be holy, because God’s Sanctifying Grace can heal you and make you Holy.  Eventually, Lord willing, everything you do may be motivated by love!  But you can’t sit back and make the excuse, “Oh, no body’s perfect…”  That won’t get you anywhere.  But God’s healing grace can take you all the way to perfection in love—if you will let Him! 

Personal and Social Holiness
True Methodist doctrine shouts holy sanctification loud and clear!  It motivates us to be changed and to help change the world. 

Some Christians live their lives as if they’re just waiting to die.  They say, “I’ve been saved. 
I know I’m going to heaven.  What more is there?” 
There’s a lot more!  We are not just waiting to die.  

We pray in the Lord’s prayer:  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  These are not empty words.  They should be the yearning of every Christian’s heart.   I believe God answers prayers, don’t you?  So why would He not answer the Lord’s Prayer? 

It is not God’s will that you continue to be dominated by sin.  God wants you to actually be free!  Does that seem impossible?  Well Jesus reminds us in Mark 10:27:  “With men it is impossible, but not with God.  Nothing is impossible with God!”  And Jude 1:24 says, “All glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling…”

We cannot free ourselves or stop ourselves from sinning own our own.  But God—through the Holy Spirit—helps us & sanctifies us to grow more & more like Jesus.  We ought to pray for and hope for and cooperate with the Holy Spirit, trusting God will heal us.  If you aren’t aiming for perfection, what are you aiming for?  And if you aren’t aiming for perfection, what do you think you will get?  

This is not a burden, because we don’t do it by our own strength. It’s not a matter of will power.  It’s not us buckling down extra hard, gritting our teeth, and making ourselves better people.  Sanctification is a matter of cooperation.  God makes the changes in your life, but, you’ve got to cooperate. 

Jesus is a wonderful physician, but you’ve got to follow His treatment plan.  Are you?  Are you actively praying?  Are you reading your Bible?  Are you celebrating the sacraments regularly?  Are you serving God and others?  Are you supporting God’s mission financially with a cheerful heart?  Are you devoting yourself to the Lord above all else?

The Christian faith is not just a personal thing.  It is also social.  We are called to spread scriptural holiness across the land.  Christians have changed the world for the better over the last 2,000 years.  It’s not God’s will that our world continues to be broken or that Christians throw up their hands in resignation and say, “There’s nothing we can do about it.” 

True Christians have always worked to better the world.  Even Christians who were being brutally tortured and executes for their faith, have followed Christ’s example of sacrificial love and sought the salvation of their persecutors.  Surely Christians today can change our world in 21^st century America for the better, but it won’t happen unless you take seriously God’s call to be Holy People.  It cannot happen just because you, by you sheer will power, resolve to make the world holy.  It can only happen when you cooperate with what the Holy Spirit wants to do in you today. 

The Year of Jubilee - Nothing to Lose

Introduction
Today, I’m excited to start a new series of sermons about the Year of Jubilee in the Bible.  This series grew out of questions that came up in our Thursday morning Bible study as well as some of my own questions from my person study time in God’s Word.

What is the year of Jubilee?  I’m glad you asked!  In ancient Israel in the Bible, you probably know they had a Sabbath Day. Every seventh day, the people were supposed to rest and worship the Lord—no work.  Most people don’t realize, that is where we get our modern idea of the weekend—thank God! 

Most people know about the Sabbath Day.  Not a as many of people know in ancient Israel they also took a Sabbath Year.  Every seventh year, they were suppose to take a year off—no farming.  Even the livestock and wild animals in Israel got a year off.  It was a year of rest! (Wouldn't that be awesome!)

God took care of His people.  He provided enough harvest in the sixth year to feed them all the way through the seventh year and even until the harvest on the eighth year.  Pretty amazing!  You might say, “That’s impossible!”   But remember, the Bible also says, God fed the Israelites with manna for forty years while they wandered in the desert after they left Egypt. So, providing enough food to get the people through one year was no problem for the God of Israel. 

You might think having a whole year off every 7 years was crazy or impossible (or awesome).  But it gets even better.  And that’s what brings us to the Year of Jubilee we read about in Leviticus 25.

Leviticus 25:8-13
⁸ “In addition, you must count off seven Sabbath years, seven sets of seven years, adding up to forty-nine years in all. ⁹ Then on the Day of Atonement in the fiftieth year, blow the ram’s horn loud and long throughout the land. ¹⁰ Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan. ¹¹ This fiftieth year will be a jubilee for you. During that year you must not plant your fields or store away any of the crops that grow on their own, and don’t gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. ¹² It will be a jubilee year for you, and you must keep it holy. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own. ¹³ In the Year of Jubilee each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors.

The Year of Jubilee
The Year of Jubilee happened every 50 years in ancient Israel.  The name “Jubilee” comes from the Hebrew word for “ram’s horn” because the 50^th year was announced by the blowing of a shofar—a ram’s horn trumpet.  Why a ram’s horn?  The Jubilee begins on the Day of Atonement with a call to repentance.  Rams were sacrificial animals in the Old Testament.  Perhaps you remember the story of when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  Abraham obeyed and took Isaac up on Mount Moriah.  Just as he was poised to take his son's life, the Angel of the Lord stopped him and showed him ram with its horns caught in a thicket.  The ram became a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac.  Rams were sacrificial animals to cover the people's sins.

So at the Jubilee, the ram's horn was blows to call people to repent and receive rest, release, and restoration.  The took a year off from work to rest and worship and celebrate the goodness of God with their friends and family.  They were released from all their debts and anyone who was a slave was released from slavery.  Everyone was restored to their original state of fortune.  Slaves were restored to freedom.  Anyone who had sole their family land had it returned to them.  It was as if "control, alt, delete" was performed on the Israelite society and everything was reset to normal again.

Well, what’s this got to do with us today?  I’m glad you asked!  According to the Gospel of Luke,
when Jesus started his ministry, he preached in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and Jesus announced the greatest Jubilee of all times! 

Luke 4:17-19

¹⁷ The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:  ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, ¹⁹ and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

Jesus is the Great Jubilee
Do you hear the Good News words of Jubilee? Rest! Release! Restoration!  Jesus is called the “Lamb of God”.  A male lamb is a ram.  So Jesus is the sacrificial ram.  He is the ram’s horn, the shofar, announcing the greatest year of Jubilee—the year of the Lord—when there will be rest. release, and restoration.

There will be rest.  Remember, Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, "COme to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest..." 

And Jesus came to release all who trust in Him from bondage to sin and to anything else that coptivates us, for no one can serve two masters.  Therefore, all who follow Jesus as Lord must be set free!  If Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed!

And Jesus came to restore us to a right relationship with God and our neighbors.  Those who follo Christ learn to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love their neighbor as themselves.  Our sins are washed away and we are made right with God and nothing stand in the way of our at-one-ment with God.

If you’ve not already done so, I beg you to repent of your sins and turn to Jesus today!  For then you will begin to experience the greatest Jubilee of all time where there is rest, release, and restoration.

Christians Have: Nothing to Lose
To become a Christian, you surrender to Jesus and die to your own selfish desires.  You proclaim:  “I am no longer my own, but yours, Jesus!”  And so, the Christian embodies Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

If you’ve already died, what do you have left to lose?   What’s the worst that can happen?  If your life on earth ends, you go to be with Jesus in Heaven where there is no more sin or sickness or suffering or death!  We will gather around the throne of God and worship and experience the eternal harmony He promises the faithful who trust Christ as Lord.  

To live on earth is better for the Lord’s Kingdom because you can keep learning the lessons God wants you to learn as you glorify His name and serve Him here on earth.  To die is even better for you, because you go home to the eternal reward that awaits all His faithful.

What a freeing reality—if you think about it.  What have you got to lose?  Nothing! You’ve already won!  Jesus won the victory!  And we are set free!  Hallelujah!

Christians experience so much worry and anxiety in this life when we forget that we've already won.  There's nothing to worry about.  Jesus has already won the victory.  We are on HIs side, so we've won too!  It is only our worldly ways of thinking that make us feel we've something left to worry about.

My Freedom as a Pastor
I’ve served as pastor of Pleasant Grove Methodist in Dalton, GA for 12 years!  That’s amazing!  It's been a great 12 years.  The longer I serve, the more I realize I won’t be at my church forever.  I don't know how long I have left at Pleasant Grove.  I would like to stay on until my daughter graduates high school in 2025, but only if my church feels like I’m the right guy for the job.  

I believe I am the right guy for the job.  We have some important things to do over the next few years.  We are working through disaffiliation for the United Methodist denomination, which will take a year. Then, we will be working through either joining a new affiliation or getting setup as an independent congregation.  Either way, there will be a lot of work to do.  I believe my experience at Pleasant Grove gives me a unique ability to lead the congregation through these important years. 

In whatever time I have left at Pleasant Grove, I feel more and more like I have nothing to lose.  I'm not concerned with making everyone like me.  My number one commitment at Pleasant Grove always has been and always will be the Kingdom of God. Whatever I do, I do it for the Lord.  Why not go for broke?

It's not about me.  It never has been.  It never will be.  Ultimately, it's all about what's best for the Kingdom of God.   So that's always what I'm working for.  Everything else is expendable. Chief among the expendable things is me.  I take the Bible serious when it says in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”

My faith says, even if I lose my very life for the sake of Christ, Jesus will raise me to new life.  Even if I wear myself out trying to lead my church, God can restore and revive me.  So, I have nothing to lose.

My role here at Pleasant Grove is to be a shepherd.  I try to lead my church in the right direction.  If I think there’s danger around the corner—some cliff they might fall off—I do my best to guide them along a safe path.  If wolves come in to attack , I’m not gonna run away.  I’ll do my best to protect.  All along the way, I’ll be my church's biggest cheerleader because I believe Pleasant Grove is the best church in this whole community and I want everyone to come join us.

So my thinking is, let’s go for broke together.  Let’s give it all we’ve got for the Kingdom of God!

What Do You Have To Lose?
It’s amazingly freeing when you feel like you have anything to lose!  The most powerful people in the world are those who know they have nothing to lose.  That's how Christians were able to transform their world against all odds.

What about you?  What do you have to lose?  Are you still trying to cling to your life?  Jesus said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”  (Luke 9:24)  

If you keep clinging to your life and the things in your life because you think they are yours and you’ve got to protect them, you’re gonna lose them.  If you cling to your relationships, to your children, to your possessions, your dreams, or anything else, you will lose them.  You will stress yourself out with worry and anxiety, you will sacrifice things you shouldn’t sacrifice, you will cause heartache and disappointment in yourself and others, and at the end of it all, you will lose them anyway.

The alternative is to give all to God through Christ--to die to yourself and trust in Jesus to raise you to a new kind of living.  It is to live in the Year of the Jubilee, where there is rest, release, and restoration.

Don’t you want that peace and freedom in your life where you don’ have anything to lose?  What's stopping you from turning to Jesus and accept His call to repent and believe and experience the rest, release, and restoration He wants to give you today?  Why don't you turn to him right now?