11 And such were some of you

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1 Called to be Holy Isaiah 6:1-8 Description of Gods holiness In the Bible there is a word that continuously comes up describing God and describing the life that we are called to live when we put our trust in Jesus. This word is HOLY In the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ, holiness is not optional; it is standard equipment. You see one of Gods virtues is holiness which means He is totally set apart or separated from all evil. He can only do what is holy and right and He has called us to be like him, which means that we are to be conformed to His character, His likeness which is holiness. 1 peter 1:15-16 But as He who called you is Holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy. There are two kinds of holiness mentioned in the New Testament in reference to a disciple of Jesus Christ. First is the positional holiness. On our best day, with our best efforts we cannot make ourselves holy, we can never be right with God because we are sinful by nature. It is the Lord who makes you holy. Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died on our behalf so when we trust in the work of Jesus as our own, God imputes or accredits Christ s righteousness to us. Covered with the righteousness of Jesus, we are set apart made holy as sons and daughters of the living God. Nothing can ever change our position. We use this positional holiness to approach God in prayer. Before Christ we were dead in our sins and we separated from God. We were unable to approach him. This was our position before Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:11 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you

2 were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Hebrews 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. So we have this positional holiness when we receive Christ as Lord and Saviour. The other kind of holiness is the practical holiness we are commanded to pursue on a daily basis. Positional holiness is instantaneous at salvation; practical holiness is progressive and requires a lifetime of effort. Now this doesn t this mean that God requires us to live a life of sinless perfection to have fellowship with him, because we will never be perfect in this life. But God does demand that we be serious about practical holiness, be sorry and confess the sins we commit, and daily try to live a holy life. This is practical holiness. The one thing needed more than anything else among disciples of Jesus Christ is a pursuit of practical holiness. Hypocrites So how can we live out practical holiness? In Romans 12: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Here the apostle Paul gives us the greatest appeal for a life of practical holiness found anywhere in the Bible. In this powerful passage of scripture we find that practical holiness has three essential ingredients- presentation, separation and transformation.

3 1. Presentation ( Romans 12:1a) Paul says I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies That word present is a technical term referring to the presentation of sacrifices offered in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 1:1-9 God gives Moses instruction on how the people should offer up their sacrifices to Him. The person who presented the sacrifice would, of his own free will, bring the animal in. Now this animal was either from his livestock or he paid for it, but it was rightfully his. And he would bring it to the priest and kill it and the priests would offer it up on the altar as a burnt offering. The person who presented the sacrifice to be consumed by fire gave up all claims to the animal, every part of it was to be given over to God. In the same way practical holiness involves a personal, deliberate presentation of our bodies to God. Practical holiness says, Lord I m climbing up on the altar, I am giving up all rights to myself. Have you done this? Have you wrestled within yourself with these thoughts saying God I want to give myself over to you fully, but there are things holding me back. The pull of the world is so strong Lord. There is just too much temptation, and I feel so guilty because of my sin. How can I give myself over to you fully when I have these hidden things in my life. I want to live my life fully for you but its too hard. The first step in practical holiness is a conscious, deliberate presentation of ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, but there must also be. 2. Separation (Romans 12:1b)

4 Paul then goes on to say. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, Holy. In the Bible the word holy means that which has been set apart or separated to God. The Greek word for holy is translated as sanctify or sanctified. The very nature of the word holy implies availability and usability. We are not set apart to sit idly by and do nothing. We are saved to serve, not sit. Presentation means putting ourselves totally on the altar so that we are completely at Gods disposal, ready for His use at anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Separation therefore, means we must be non-conformists. Paul writes in Romans 12:2a. and do not be conformed to this world The world tries to pressure us into conforming to its lifestyles. The world has a certain way in which it wants us to think, be happy, live for yourself, if your not happy in your marriage quit as long as your happy. It has a set of values it tries to get us to accept, it has a way of talking it tries to get us to adopt, filthy language gossip. Instead of conforming to the worlds mould, what must we do to be holy? Collosians 3: Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

5 8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering To live a life of practical holiness that does not conform to this world, we must commit to what has been called sin suicide. We must put to death those things that separate us from God. Practical holiness means that we have separated ourselves from the worlds way of thinking. The third ingredient in our recipe for practical holiness is 3. Transformation (Romans 12:2b) but be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind. The Greek word translated Transformed is the word from which we get our English word metamorphosis which describes the change that takes place from a larva (caterpillar) to a cocoon to a butterfly. It is used here to describe the process by which we become holy in our daily lives. In metamorphosis changes are made on the inside that later show up on the outside. According to this verse, the Christ who is within us begins to show up on the outside. How does this metamorphosis (or transformation) occur? Paul says, by the renewing of your mind. The outward acts of practical holiness are due to and dependent upon a renovation of our mental processes. This transformation is the practical and psychological working out of a spiritual principal found in

6 Proverbs 23:7 a For as he thinks in his heart so he is. Have you ever heard the saying you are what you eat? It is the same with our minds. If I am sitting at home all day thinking bad thoughts about myself, or my wife or my parents 9 times out of 10 my thoughts will come out in my actions. The way I speak to them my body language all that. If I m watching rubbish on t.v. my mind is going to be full of rubbish. What are you putting into your minds, what are you feeding yourself? We must daily feed our minds on the things of God in order for them to be renovated and renewed. There is only one place where we can let our minds be absorbed by the things of God, which will lead to a life of practical holiness. Psalm 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His Law he meditates day and night. It s in Gods Word. Practical holiness is a process, it doesn t happen over night, and we wont be perfect until we are called to be with the Lord. But until then we are to pursue holiness. Someone has said, it took God just one day to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took forty years to get Egypt out of Israel. In the same way, it takes God only a moment to get us positionally out of our sin, but it takes a lifetime to get the sin out of us and get us into a state of practical holiness. In Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Practical holiness is us being conformed/changed into the likeness of the only holy life ever lived- that of Jesus Christ. As we become like Jesus, we become holy.

7 Philippians 4:8 Finally brethren whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.