Personal Holiness

Morning, we're going to be reading from Ephesians 4, so you may open up to there. Christmas is upon us, obviously, as you can see. And one of the things that really get nervous about at Christmas time, and you may relate to this, especially the blokes here with us, is gift wrapping. Gift wrapping. Every time I buy a gift and I get the idea ready to present it to a loved one, I start breaking out into cold sweats because I know that my gift, my wrapping of the gift will make the gift look so much worse than it actually is.

I should really just give them the gift in the plastic bag I bought it in. When I give people wrapped gifts, people are genuinely surprised when they open their gifts because from the outside it looks like a dog's breakfast, but when they take off the wrapping, it's not too bad. But sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes I get lucky and one side, usually the top flat side of the gift, looks nice. Have you ever had that?

You fold it and it's got nice edges and it's flat and it's not wrinkled and it's not bits of tissue paper everywhere. One side looks really nice. Crisp edges, folded corners, and that's usually the side that I strategically place very neatly and nicely, stably under the tree so it can sort of look nice under the Christmas tree. It's the other side, however, where all the crumpled folds and the bits of loose wrapping paper or sticky tape and the torn edges are awkwardly taped together.

It's something like this. This is the before. This is the nice side that I might present, and then behind it, it looks something like this. And you don't really realise, you know, it looks like this. You don't really realise it until you pick it up and you see this.

All the raggedy parts. Well, I would like to hazard the guess that our lives can sometimes be like wrapped gifts. There is a good side, there's a nice side, there's a clean side with nice edges and crisp corners. And we like to put it in such a way that people see this presented nicely and neatly. We position ourselves in such a way that people see the nice side, but every now and then someone's going to look a little bit more carefully.

A little too carefully perhaps, and sometimes people are going to come too close and see all the broken raggedy parts of what we were trying to hide away. As Christians, as Christians, we believe that there is a purpose and a plan to our life. Right? But apart from some of the clichés we hear about that, you know, God's got a purpose for you. God's got a plan for you.

Apart from the cliché of some sort of self actualising, self motivating, self help talk where you can achieve all the dreams that you have for your life, the Bible says that God has a plan and a purpose for your life, and this is called holiness. God's got a purpose and a plan for your life, friend, but it is called holiness. And holiness means holiness as part of our lifestyle means something that is set apart, something different to the brokenness and the imperfection that we see around us. The brokenness and the imperfection you may have even experienced at one time before you knew the Lord Jesus Christ.

And holiness is brought about in our life by the Holy Spirit, brought about by something called sanctification, the part of the process of redemption, the part of God's salvation story in our lives. And the way you know that you are on this path of holiness is that you start asking questions like this: How do I take God seriously in aspects of sex, music, TV, alcohol, drugs? You start asking questions like how can I live a life pleasing to God? You know you are on the path of holiness when you start asking these sort of questions.

How do I deal with the sense of guilt in my conscience? And friend, the good news this morning in part is if you find yourself asking these questions, it is a sign that God is already working in your heart. And this morning, if you're new to Christianity or if you, you know, you don't come from that walk at all, if you don't come from a Christian background, and if you haven't asked these questions or these things haven't been bubbling away in you, it's okay. You know, relax. Listen to what I'm going to say to you this morning.

But if you are a Christian and these things do trouble you, and if you're wrestling with them, and if you are afraid of those sticky, bad sticky tape edges of your life, this sermon is for you. So if I was to ask you what are the areas in your life that lie hidden away on the other side of a nicely clean presented Christian, what comes to mind? And secondly, what is your plan to overcome these things? What are the things in your life that you wrestle with, and how will you overcome them? This morning we're going to have a look at the book of Ephesians where Paul encourages a church who was really not very nice looking.

They had some pretty nasty sides to them. We're going to read of a church where there were issues of sexual promiscuity, where there were issues of white hot anger that resulted in people fighting one another and brawling. We're going to look at a church where people stole habitually, where people were swearing, gossiping, bullying, slandering one another. And you thought our church was bad. Let's have a look at Ephesians 4.

Now we're going to read the first verse and then we're going to skip ahead. So we're going to read Ephesians 4:1, and then we're going to go to Ephesians 4:17. This is what Paul begins with in his chapter four. "As a prisoner for the Lord, Paul says, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."

And then verse 17: "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.

Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one body. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So far our reading. In view of what we read here, Paul begins chapter four with this summary statement. And you might remember in high school, your English teacher teaching you about a topic sentence, what a good topic sentence is. It links back to the previous paragraph or the previous thing you have been saying.

It introduces the new topic that you're going to be talking about. And so what we have here in this first verse in chapter four is Paul summing up or linking what he's been talking about in chapters one, two and three, and then linking it to what he's going to address in chapters four and five. And what Paul has been talking about in the opening chapters of Ephesians is he's been painting a picture of what a Christian life looks like. He says, at one time, you were saved from the greatest threat you will ever experience. You have been rescued from spiritual death, spiritual destitution, and you have been brought into a new existence, spiritual life.

You were once in the kingdom of darkness, he says. You were dead in your transgressions. You were brought from the kingdom of darkness into God's light. And not only have you been made alive with Christ, but you have been exalted with Christ. In other words, you are now part of God's family.

You are an heir with Christ. You are part of God's adopted children. And then in chapter 3, verse 12, he says this amazingly: we are so close with God now that we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Not only have we been rescued from death to life, we have now easy, free, confident access to God. We approach God not just freely, but confidently.

This God of all holiness, this God of all power, this God of all perfection. Now it's really important to realise this: that your journey of salvation, friend, at one time in your eyes, before you were rescued from this sin, you were in a desperate situation. Every Christian sitting here will have realised the anxiety of what that felt like. Knowing your brokenness and imperfection before a holy, just, righteous God. Every Christian, every true Christian sitting here will have had that experience at least one time in their life.

You would have asked yourself the question: how can I ever get close to this God? There's something in me that wants my life to be tied and connected with His, but how can I? How dare I? At one time, we've all been there, but then as Christians, we say, thanks be to God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, there has been a way.

We hear the good news that a Saviour came and dealt with our sin and powerfully mended our relationship with God. As Christians, you would have gladly received this news. You would have gladly accepted this to be true. This is your identity now, Paul says. However, this is your identity now as Christians.

A sinner saved by grace, simply by faith, dependence and trust in Christ. A sinner saved by grace. That is our identity. Now in view of this identity, Paul says, understanding this, he explains it in chapters two and three. We have confidence to come before this God.

In view of this identity, Paul starts in this way: "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Then he says in verse two: "Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."

Immediately, he goes into how we live. Live a life worthy of the calling you have received and then be completely humble. Love others. In view of this identity, holiness and righteousness is how you live as a Christian. God, Paul explains in verses one to 16, God has created a new society, a new humanity, a new community where we are called to live in unity with one another, where we are called to love one another.

This is the church. This is how we are to live. He's given gifts for this church to strengthen one another in this process. But then Paul goes and talks personally and he digs that knife even deeper and he says, personally, now understanding how we live as a church, this is how you as a Christian are meant to live. From verses 17 right through chapter 5 to chapter 6.

So this whole half of Ephesians pretty much, he goes into how we live personally and how we live in the family. And then after telling Christians how they live this life, he begins to explain within the church, he begins to explain how to live Christian life in regards to relationships, how we deal with anger, how we deal with sex, how we talk, our compassion, our willingness to forgive. All of these things, however, I want to stress, comes from this statement: "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." As Christians, we were drawn into a redeemed relationship with God, and our lives were transformed and our desires have started becoming more and more aligned with the heart of Christ.

In other words, we will live holy lives. We will live holy lives because our desires are being won over more and more in order to be like God's desires. That's what Paul's saying. Our hearts and our minds will be drawn to Him more and more. That's why if we wrestle with purity, if we wrestle with guilt, if we wrestle with where is my relationship with God going, it is a sign already that God has started this work in you.

And Paul explains this new identity in chapter 5, verse 8: "For you were once in darkness for you were once in darkness as Christians, but now you are light in the Lord. Therefore, live as children of the light. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth, and find out what pleases the Lord." The motivation of personal holiness lies in remembering what God has already done for you.

Once you were in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. And so that is why Paul can say in chapter 5, verse 1: "Be imitators of God." In chapter 5, verse 2: "Love others as Christ has loved you." Four verse 32: "Forgive as Christ has forgiven you." So Jesus has loved you.

Jesus has forgiven you. Past action. He has done this. He has forgiven. He has loved.

Therefore now, love. Therefore now, forgive. And do you know what? The more we start doing these things, the more we start living in this way, the more joy you will experience. That's the strangest thing.

As Christians, the more we say, I will not indulge in this anymore, there's something in me that doesn't like this, that hates this, that feels ashamed of this. The more we start obeying God's word, the more joy is produced in our life. A few years ago now, I watched a TED talk. Does anyone know what a TED talk is? Sort of the philosophical scholarly debates online.

They're great for all the nerds out there to go and listen. It talks every sort of topic you can imagine. It's pretty much like online university lectures. Right? And in this one TED talk that I stumbled upon, a guy called AJ Jacobs, who is a philosopher, I think he's a lecturer in ethics, and he's also some sort of comedian, so he's this weird mix of a whole bunch of things.

Anyway, he decided to live one year on the basis of the laws of the Old Testament. Every single law in the Old Testament he's going to follow. Now this is an atheist. Right? He makes, even in this TED talk, he made a lot of jokes about the concept of God, about the concept of religion, but he wanted to live out this thing.

And I think he initially started this to show how ridiculous religion is. After a year, he gave this TED talk, and I mean, every so ceremonial law he tried to uphold, every law that we as Christians believe was fulfilled in Christ, everything that, you know, from boiling the kid of a goat in his mother's milk, not being allowed to do that, to not wearing clothes sewn together from two different types of material. Right? So he was wearing tunics and all that sort of stuff. He said the amazing thing in this talk, and there's only one sentence that he brings this up, it was fascinating.

He said, I did all of this and the most interesting thing was it produced happiness in my life. There was joy in my life in doing these things. Now he said, I didn't find God. I didn't get moved towards Him or anything like that, but my life was happy. He sensed some idea, some inkling of joy in this experience.

Author and pastor John Piper writes about how the longing for God to be our heart's desire is the cornerstone for holy living. The longing for God to be our heart's desire is the cornerstone for holy living. Seeking God, which looks like obedience and holiness. Seeking God first and foremost in everything, which looks like in practice, holiness and obedience. Seeking God is the joy that will destroy the cycle of shame and guilt in your life.

Seeking God will destroy the cycle of guilt and shame in your life. How do we achieve that? Well, Piper writes a few very powerful things in his book Desiring God that will empower us to think differently about holiness in our life. It is not the lost battle that we as Christians will fight until eternity. This is what he says.

Firstly, fight like a justified sinner. Fight like a justified sinner. He says there is something called gutsy guilt. The idea that though you have failed in an area, though you may have failed in that area many times, your status in God's sight has not changed. You are loved and accepted unconditionally because of Jesus Christ.

A great passage, a great verse to remember is Micah 7:8-9. It's beautiful. Listen to this. It's something you can, I hope I didn't write it down. Micah 7:8-9.

Something to memorise, something to write down in a journal. This is what Micah 7:8-9 says: "Do not gloat over me my enemy. This is a Christian writing this. Do not gloat over me my enemy, and you can assume that this is Satan. Though I have fallen, I will arise.

Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Listen to the words here, the same words that are used here in Ephesians. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against Him, I will bear the Lord's wrath until He pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light and I will see His righteousness.

Satan, you can't win this battle. Don't gloat over it. Don't be proud over this. I have fallen. Yes, that's true, but I will arise.

My Lord will lead me out into the light. Fighting for holiness as a Christian means that, yes, we are sinners, but we are justified sinners. When we cling to the cross of Christ, our position before God has changed forever. Past action, it has changed forever. The book of Hebrews calls it once and for all.

Once and for all, you have been made holy. Martin Luther called this status simul justus et peccator. We mentioned it last week. Simultaneously saint and sinner. So when you fight sin in your life, you fight not like someone who might win or lose this life or death battle.

You fight it like a sinner who has won the battle, who has been justified once and for all. Secondly, realise that the battle is primarily a fight to see who God is or to see God for who He is. The Bible often talks about sin as the cause for making us blind. The Bible often talks about that. That's why sin is referred to as darkness, and God's holiness is light.

Sin blinds us. We heard it in Ephesians 4 that we read the Gentiles were made insensitive to this. Their hearts are hardened. They are stumbling around in this darkness. And so sin blinds us and it distorts our reality of what truly what is truly good, what is truly valuable in life.

Even as Christians, we can have sin distort our vision, but sin will never blind us again. Sin will never blind you again. We can be misled from time to time, but we will never stumble around not knowing our left from our right because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. And so we can still see everything clearly. Why?

Because we have access to draw close to the God of all objectivity, the God by which all truth is judged. Two Corinthians 4:6 says this: "For God said, when we became Christians, let light shine out of darkness and has made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. He has made His light shine into our dark hearts so that He may give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. How? In the face of Christ, Paul says.

In other words, look to Christ and you'll see the glory of God. Look to the glory of God and you will find joy, which is our third point. This is what happens when we become Christians. We experience joy. Psalm 34:8 says this: "Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. That is the life of a Christian. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." Psalm 16:11, you this is David talking to God.

"You fill me with joy in Your presence." And in God's presence is where God's glory is. So our battle against sin is primarily a fight to see God for who He really is. But when we see God for who He is, we experience joy. We enter into that glory.

And we experience joy that like we've never experienced it before. Any happiness, any inkling of what joy may be in this life apart from God is a fraction of the joy we can experience with God. And sin and Satan are the ones that will seek to rob us of this. Sin and Satan will seek to tell us lies like He is God is a dictator, that God is a joy killer, that God surely has not limited joy to simply being with Him. There's surely other ways to find equivalent joy.

And so as Christians, we have the choice to make whether we desire not holiness or unholiness, righteousness or unrighteousness, but whether we desire joy. Whether we desire joy. And isn't that a pretty easy decision to make? Of course we do. Of course we do.

In the presence of God is joy forevermore. So what happens when we go home now? When we say amen to this and we thank God for His washing of us and justifying us, what happens if we go home and we sin? What happens if we fall into temptation? I want you to think of this and let this convince you of not going down that track again.

Holiness produces joy. Living the life of God, living the way that God has designed us to live, living that purpose and that plan for our lives produces joy. Joy in turn conquers guilt. Joy is a far better motivation for us than guilt will ever be. And then in turn, guilt is finally crushed by Jesus on the cross.

Holiness produces joy. Joy conquers guilt. Guilt is crushed by Jesus. Jesus Christ on the cross is a reality. It is a reality that has been past tense.

It is a reality that has happened. It is a reality that you do not have to fight for. It has happened. The invitation for us is to accept it and then to enjoy what that means for us. And therefore, Paul can say, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have already received.

You are already holy. You are already justified. You are already righteous in the eyes of God. Live a life rejoicing in the calling you have already received. Let's pray.

Lord God, as we enter in this time of the advent, as we remember the coming of Jesus Christ and the incarnation, we realise again and we reflect again that it was the coming of sin washing. It was the coming of justification. It was the coming of righteousness. It was the coming of joy, and that therefore, we can sing of the joy and the peace of that moment. Father, help us to fight to mortify the sin in our lives by reminding ourselves of this truth over and over again that holiness produces joy in us.

Holiness being set apart produces happiness, fulfilment, peace. And that peace and joy is a far better motivator for our lives, for how we live, our ethics, our morality, than guilt. And thank you for the realisation ultimately that guilt and shame and distance and rejection was ultimately crushed by Jesus Christ. Past action once and for all. Father, may our lives, may this church be made holy more and more. May our lives not be the same.

May we reject and hate the sin in our lives. May we love and desire joy and peace in Your glory. Give us the power of the Spirit to do this. Seal us with the knowledge of Your forgiveness and Your love anyway and help us to fight as justified sinners in this life you have given us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.