Printer Friendly VersionI was about 12 when I really started trying to figure it out.
I was raised in the church, particularly in the Church of the Nazarene. I’m
fourth generation in this movement. I came up in the church with a certain
vocabulary. We had a way of talking in the church, certain words we used peculiar
to church. Just like I learned a vocabulary for baseball, I also learned one
for church.
In baseball I learned terms like “can ‘o corn, gapper,
meat hand, and a buck fifty seven.” (That was my batting average!) In
church we said things like, “Redeemer, blood of the Lamb, salvation,
total consecration, and holiness.”
Holiness. This one always intrigued me. Growing up in the Church
of the Nazarene, I knew quite early on that “holiness” was a very
important word to us. The saints of the church said it with reverence and
awe. Some, like Sister Garrett, sometimes wept when they talked about it.
We sang about it at the top of our lungs, “Called unto holiness, Church
of our God . . .”
For much of my childhood there was a banner at the front of
our sanctuary with those words--“Called unto Holiness.” I remember
studying the denominational emblem always prominently displayed on our Sunday
bulletin. “Holiness Unto the Lord,” it says.
Our little choir in the church was never better than when they
sang
“Let thy blessing fall on me,
let thy blessing fall on me.
A double portion of thy spirit, Lord,
let thy blessing fall on me.”
I remember hearing the words of the scripture we read together
this morning. I heard these words quite often, “Be holy, because I,
the Lord your God, am holy.” There’s not really much to misunderstand
there. It was pretty clear to me God was calling me, and my church was calling
me, certainly my pastors were calling me to be holy. But I knew me. I wasn’t
real sure what holiness was but I was pretty sure it didn’t look like
me. It looked more like old Charlie Griffith and Opal Mayhew and Mae Garrett,
and my grandpa, but not like me.
So, here’s what I figured out. Holiness was something
older people who didn’t have anything else to do but sit and pray and
read the Bible--they were the ones to which this word “holiness”
was referring. Having grown up in the church I pretty much considered holiness
to be a souped-up version of Christianity reserved for those who had stopped
struggling with the baser temptations of life. The really serious and highly
religious folks could talk about holiness.
And what I found out through my teen years and then on into
adulthood--I found out I was not alone in this assumption. Holiness seemed
so unattainable. So my generation changed the language, we modified the vocabulary.
No longer did we want to talk about consecration and sanctification and dying
out to the old self and holiness. We wanted to talk about process and growing
in your walk with Jesus and becoming more Christ-like--not bad ways to talk.
Those are great ways to talk about what it means to be a Christian. But we
have come to the place in our 100 year old movement where “holiness”
is a word many of our pastors don’t want to use anymore. It has, they
say, too much baggage, to many negative connotations. And maybe it does. I
have to admit in my own experience it took a while before “holiness”
could be a loved and cherished word rather than a dreaded and feared word.
Fortunately, the next generation is helping us. They don’t
have a lot of the baggage because we stopped talking about it, so they recognize
holiness is a gift, not a burden. They gave us the song we sang we shared
earlier,
“Holiness, holiness is what I long for.
Holiness is what I need.”
You know something? It never would have dawned on me as a young
person to think of holiness as something I longed for. I only thought of it
as something being required of me, something at which most likely I would
fail. Holiness was not my heart’s desire it was my dreadful obligation.
Now there is no doubt God is quite serious about this business
of our holiness. This word in Leviticus 19 is foundational to everything else
the Bible has to say about holiness. The Lord says, “Be holy because
I, the Lord your God, am holy.” That is not a suggestion, it’s
a command--it’s an imperative. “You be holy.” And it comes
in the midst of a rather overwhelming list of “do’s” and
“don’t do’s.” The context of this verse in 19:2 is
a litany of wicked acts that will cut off the people from relationship with
a holy God.
Chapter 18 starts with “You must not do what they do in
Egypt or be like the people in who now occupy the land of Canaan.” Then
the “do not’s” start, nearly 30 of them in chapter 18 alone.
After 19:2 it starts all over again with the “do not’s”
and the punishments associated with doing the do not’s until we get
down to chapter 20 verse 8 and hear a hopeful word again. This pretty much
describes how we have thought about holiness. A good idea surrounded by an
overwhelming list of “do nots.”
But loved ones, here’s my essential plea to us today:
“Let’s not miss the point of God’s call to holiness.”
It’s really not about adherence to a list of “don’t do’s.”
It’s about recovering what was lost when sin entered the world.
“In Leviticus, the people of God are called to be holy,
not because holiness is an arbitrary religious game God wants played, but
because God is holy. And because God is holy, God’s people are to be
holy by being like God in the world” (NIB).
When we talk about being “called unto holiness”
it’s not about behaving in certain ways. It’s about the very character
of God who wants to answer our deepest heart desire--the desire for life to
be made right again, the desire to be at peace again, the desire to have hope
again.
Holiness is not first about our moral purity, it’s first
about the character of God. Holiness is not first about the “do’s”
and “do not’s.” It’s first about being restored to
the image of God. So we can put aside “all the cartoon pictures of the
sanctimonious holy person wearing a halo and a prudish glare. To be holy is
not to be narrow-minded and primly pious; it is, rather, to imitate God. To
be holy is to roll up our sleeves and join in with whatever God is doing in
the world” (NIB).
That’s why I’m trying to say to us during this series
holiness is not an add on, it’s basic to what it means to be a Christian.
Holiness is the one and only thing that will finally bring a sense of wholeness
and well being to your life because it’s not about following a list
of rules. It’s all about being filled by the very presence of Christ
himself, so that everything I am and everything I do begins to be ordered
by the spirit of Jesus living in me.
There is no doubt God’s standard for us is high. “Be
holy like I am holy.” That’s about as high as it gets. And Jesus
sets the standard just as high when in the Sermon on the Mount He says, “Be
perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Now here’s
the good news. Living up to this standard is not a matter of your effort.
Dare I say it again? It’s not about you--it’s all about God!
The heart of the good news we celebrate here every Sunday is
that what God requires, He provides. God did not say to us, “Be holy”
and then leave us to figure out how on our own. God said “be holy”
and then gave us His Son who died for our sins and was raised from the dead
to destroy once and for all that which defeats us. Making us holy is at the
very heart of God’s desire because He wants the very best for us.
Holiness is what our hearts desire because we desire a holy
God. We desire a life and ultimately a world that is ordered and sustained
by a God who in the very essence of His being is holy and pure and righteous
and faithful.
This ache of heart is something every person in this world feels.
They might not define as a hunger for God and His holiness, but that’s
what it is. We try hard to fill this void, this empty place, this ache of
soul with all kinds of things. And we have so many choices these days. But
nothing works like having our holiness restored.
Consider these questions:
Do you ever wish you could finally get on top things spiritually,
instead of feeling like a constant failure?
Do you ever wish you could be confident and sure about where
you stand with God?
Do you ever wish you had the power to make the life choices
you’d really like to make and live the life you’ve always dreamed
of living?
If those are your desires, then holiness is for you! For the
next few weeks I hope we can look very specifically at what it takes to enjoy
the holiness God designed for us. For now, let us remember these simple things:
God is holy and commands us to be holy
God provides what He demands (20:8)
Holiness is a gift of His grace that is given in a moment of
faith
Holiness is a life-long journey of spiritual maturity.
At age 12 I couldn’t quite get it, but as I grew up here’s
what I learned: holiness is not some special brand of spirituality reserved
for super saints. Holiness is the regular pattern of God’s people who
open their lives fully to the love and grace of a God who wants nothing more
than to bring us home and make us whole.
Are you ready to go home?
