Jesus Keeps Holy Hearts

We’ve been focusing on the fact God calls us to be holy. And not only does He call us to be holy, He provided for us, in Jesus, the way to become holy. To be followers of Jesus is to live a life of holiness.

Now I don’t know what comes to your mind when you think of “holiness” and “your name” in the same breath, but I think we think holiness is such a high and lofty ideal it must be unattainable in this life. I hope you now understand the Bible doesn’t see it that way. I hope we have seen in these weeks holiness is not an extra add-on for super saints. It is the regular and normal experience of God’s people who live under the lordship of Jesus.

In fact, as the title of this series has tried to suggest, holiness is what our hearts really desire. Holiness is what we were made for. Because holiness just means living as “wholly (completely) God’s.” Set apart for His purpose. Sanctified.

I like the way one man put it when he said, “In our age, as in every age, people are longing for happiness, not realizing that what they are looking for is holiness” (Jerry Walls). I just wish we didn’t so easily assume we can’t live there. We seem to think holiness may be a great idea but in the real world you can’t live there for more than maybe a few minutes at a time.

There’s a pastor’s journal called Leadership that is famous for its cartoons. In one of my favorites, two couples are seated in a living room engaged in Bible study. One of the women is speaking and she says, "Well, I haven't actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once." I’m afraid too often we think that’s the best we can ever do in our battle against the influences of this world.

The message of Hebrews chapter 10, indeed the message of the whole Bible is in Jesus Christ God has made a way for us to fulfill His command, “Be holy, as I am holy.”

We have, the writer says, confidence to enter the most holy place. Back in the days of worshiping God in the Jewish Temple, no one could enter the holy of holies. Only once a year could the high priest alone enter to make atonement for sins, and at peril of his own life. They literally tied a rope around his ankle so if he died in the presence of God they could pull his sorry carcass out of there!

That’s the kind of fear we were living in before Jesus. That’s the despair of ever being able to please God and fulfill His command to be holy. But then Jesus came. And one of my favorite lines of scripture, you’ve probably heard me quote many times in prayer here, is Jesus has now opened up for us a “new and living way” (v. 20). Now we live inside the veil. That which was kept hidden is now open for us.

In our text for today, there is mentioned one of the most wonderful doctrines in the Christian faith. It is the idea of assurance. Because of Jesus we can draw near to God “in full assurance of faith” (v. 22). This is something one of our spiritual forebears, John Wesley, really struggled with earlier in his life. He spent years of his Christian journey struggling to know deep in his heart that he was okay with God.

One of the defining moments of his life came while crossing the Atlantic on a ship. A terrible storm came up and he was terrified he was going to die. But he also noticed a group of Moravian Christians on the ship who were remarkable by their peace in the midst of the storm. So later he asked them about it. And what they wanted to know from Wesley was, did he have a deep and settled assurance that he belonged to God? That’s where their peace came from. But Wesley couldn’t really answer.

He believed in God and Jesus was the Savior of the world, but he really couldn’t say much more. Finally one of the Moravian brothers asked him directly, “But do you know he has saved you?"

Wesley basically said, "Well, I hope so!” The man asked, "But do you know yourself?" And Wesley said, "I do," but later in his journal he wrote, "I fear they were vain words." It was some time later Wesley went to a Bible study on Aldersgate Street. According to his own testimony, someone was reading Luther's preface to Romans. Wesley wrote in his journal,

About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Loved ones, there is no reason for our discipleship to be a life of uncertainty and fear. God wants to give us the gift of the witness of His spirit. He wants us to be assured of our salvation, “to know that we know that we know” that we belong to Him.

The writer of Hebrews is talking about where assurance comes from. It first comes from the Holy Spirit bearing witness, as promised in verse 15. But it also comes from knowing Jesus not only desires holy hearts, and not only does He make holy hearts, Jesus also keeps holy hearts.

A major part of holiness is not just living with a pure heart, but it also living with a confident heart. No fear. First John 4 says, “Perfect love drives out fear.” We have been given the good news that our Christ is absolutely able to keep us safe and full of hope and bring us to heaven with holy hearts.

What I want to know, Christian, is, “Do you have that kind of assurance? Do you know deep in your soul that God welcomes you into the holy of holies?” Holiness is all about knowing that.

We don’t have a static doctrine of perseverance where once I’m saved I’m always saved and I don’t have to think too hard about how I live. We have a dynamic doctrine of perseverance where the Spirit of Christ indwells me, purifies my heart and daily makes me able to stand in God’s presence. Assurance leads to perseverance. The writer says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.” Here is the discipline of the sanctified life.

What does it mean to persevere? It means that by God’s grace we make the choices each moment of each day that reflect a life lived in the unveiled presence of God. There’s nothing to hide and nothing of which to be ashamed.

Please forgive me for reflecting again on the life of my father. But he’s an up close model for me of what I’m talking about. He came to the end of his life with no worries and no fear. He came to the end from a life lived in honesty. His life was not flawless. I know the struggles of faith and relationships my dad experienced. But one thing was clear: because his life was fully surrendered to the Lord, he lived to the very last moment with confident assurance.

It’s a “confidence grounded, finally, not in the strength of our grasp but in the trustworthiness and the faithfulness of the one who keeps promises” (NICNT). As Max Lucado put it in one of his books, “We are in the grip of his grace.”

We are called to be holy. But don’t ever get the idea that it’s your work. Hebrews is clear Jesus makes us holy and Jesus keeps us holy. So, verse 23, we live in hope. Not hope in the sense of, “Boy, I really hope that will happen.” But hope in the sense of confident assurance. This is no whistling in the graveyard. This is about trusting in the completed work of Christ who keeps us secure.

Friends, I want to tell you this morning there is no better place to live than that. And I think I can tell you from close observation there is no better place to die than that. We are talking about the witness of the spirit. Paul speaks of it in Romans chapter 8 when he says,

You have not received a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:15-16).

You know I grew up in a Christian family and in the church. My earliest memory is of trusting Jesus as the forgiver of my sins. But I soon discovered I was headed for a life of Christian uncertainty, fear, and struggle unless God did something more for me. As a young teen my parents explained to me in very simple terms the grace of entire sanctification. They explained God could fill me with His Spirit who would not only purify my heart but empower me to live a Christian life.

One night, kneeling beside their bed, I prayed a simple prayer of accepting that grace. I went to bed with a new sense of peace. The next day when I awoke, I still am unable to describe how everything was different. Oh, I was essentially the same person, of course, but there was a brand new sense of belonging to God and of total assurance that the spirit of Jesus was living in me.

I knew what Paul meant when he said, “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

I’ll ask you again: Do you have that blessed assurance? Do you know Jesus has taken up residence in your heart and is giving you the power to live his life in this world? If you are a Christian, then to testify to anything less is to live beneath your privilege in Christ.
Jesus wants you to be holy. Jesus is able to make you holy. And Jesus is able to keep you holy until he comes again.