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"The Holiness God Bestows" 1 Peter 2:9-12

Sermon series: Holiness for All the Saints, #1

by Clancy Nixon

January 13, 2008

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

Today we start a sermon series called "Holiness for All the Saints," My title today

is "The Holiness God Bestows." I'd like to begin with your ideas about holiness. When I

ask you to think of a holy person, who comes to mind? Is there an image that springs to

mind? [pause] Anyone like to speak it out?

To be holy means to be set apart, so we may think of holy people as ones who are

very different from us. The writer Bruce Wilkinson asked a group of Christian men to

describe holy people, and one of them said that to be holy was "to live in the Valley of

No say no to everything that has color, joy, spontaneity, humor, or creativity. Like

football, music with a beat, or a thick T-bone steak!" Another man got the image of the

painting American Gothic by Grant Wood the husband and wife standing before a barn,

man with pitchfork, their look stern, dour, and worried. For this couple, joy appears not

even to be a possibility. I'm using material from Wilkinson's book Set Apart for this talk

today. (1999, p.9) Somehow along the way, holiness has got a bad name, even in the

church. While holiness is consistently portrayed in the Scriptures as something we

should strive for, as something beautiful and pleasing to God, somehow many of us have

bought into a lie about holiness. Our God is holy, and the writer to the letter to the

Hebrews tells us that "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14) The

enemy of our souls has attempted to redefine holiness, to turn it into something abnormal

and outdated and unattractive. If you do believe the truth that holiness is beautiful, then

the enemy tells you that you will never be holy, so you might as well not even try. The

truth is that Holiness is for all the saints.

Who was the holiest man who ever lived? Right, it's Jesus, the Christ. He was not

dull, or predictable, or a killjoy! When he was at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee and

the wine ran out, what did he say? Did he say, "Go home, you winebibbers!" No he

said, bring me some water jars, and he turned water into gallons more wine. Not just any

wine, but the best Château Lafitte-Nazareth `07! What a dynamic, magnetic

personality Jesus must have had to attract people to leave their plows and fishing nets and

follow him to poverty and death. That's one of the reasons I like the portrayal of Jesus for

our gospel lesson in The Visual Bible here is a joyous Jesus, not a dour and wan one.

He laughs, he is a strong carpenter, a man's man who is so compelling, so irresistible,

that there fishermen leave everything to go follow him. Here is the truth about holiness: it

is as compelling and magnetic as Jesus.

There is both confusion and disagreement in the body of Christ about holiness.

Whenever Bible-believing, orthodox Christians disagree about something, the reason is

usually because the Scriptural witness is either scanty or mysterious about that

something, or that something has several different layers of meaning. Holiness is one of

those words that have several different layers of meaning. Today, we look at the first

layer of meaning of holiness - that is, the holiness that God bestows on us when we are

saved by grace through faith. In the weeks to come, we will look at two other meanings

of holiness: the holiness that comes from fully consecrating ourselves to God, and the

progressive holiness of character that comes from utilizing the means of grace to become

more like Christ.

The Greek word for holy is hagios. When that word is used as a noun in the New

Testament, it is often translated as the word "saint," which literally means "the called-out

one," or "the separated one." While church tradition centered in Rome has designated

certain heroes of the faith, such as "Saint John" or "Saint Augustine," as official saints,

the Bible does not use or recognize a separate category of Christian heroes to call saints.

Instead, in sixty-two different places, the New Testament uses the word "saints" to

describe every single believer in Jesus! If you have been born again in him, you are

already a saint, one called out of darkness into light. Holiness is for all the saints, and all

the saints are holy!

Think about the church in Corinth with me. Go there with me, to First

Corinthians, chapter 1, page 1128 of your blue pew Bibles. In verse 2, Paul says he is

addressing "the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to

be holy...." The original Greek omits the "to be" in that phrase, saying they are "called

holy." Even though these Corinthian believers are holy and sanctified, just a few

chapters later, Paul points out many of their egregious sins, such as incest, adultery and

divisions in the church. Look at chapter 3, verse 3, on the next page: "You are still

worldly (carnal). For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not

worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?" In verse 1, Paul addressed them as "infants

in Christ." See that? They are infants, yes; but still, they are IN CHRIST. Of all the

churches mentioned in the New Testament, the church in Corinth was probably the most

carnal and worldly of all! Yet Paul does not hesitate to call them holy and sanctified.

Paul nowhere implies that these sinners are not also saints, that is, that they are not saved.

Paul does not invite these believers to become Christians, but rather to change their

behavior. He's not saying that because they sin, they are not saints; Instead, he says that

because they are saints, they should live as saints.

Turn with me now to First Peter, chapter 2, verse 9, on page 1201 of your blue

pew Bibles. As the Apostle Peter reminds us, we are a chosen people, a holy nation,

having been called out from the world, from our society and culture. Verse 10: You were

not a people, but now you are the people of God, belonging to God, part of a new

community of believers in Christ. You have been called out of darkness and into his

marvelous light. Verse 11: "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world,

to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." If believers didn't sin, there

would be no need for Peter to admonish us not to! This should make the point clear: the

holiness, the sainthood that comes from believing in the finished work of Christ Jesus is

not a holiness that comes from our behavior. This holiness of ours originates in the mind

of God, and in the eyes of God, and we are what God defines us to be, no matter what we

look like or how we feel about ourselves. If Jesus says you are an ambassador, or a

prince, or a ruler over angels, or a holy man or woman, then it's true! Amen?

Here is one point of disagreement in the body of Christ about holiness. Some

teachers and denominations teach that if you don't live a holy life, you cannot be a true

believer. Some Bible passages can be read this way, like the passage from Hebrews that I

quoted before: "Without holiness, no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14) The

interpretation of this and other disputed passages depends on which of the three meanings

of holiness is implied in the context of the passage. As a pastor, I'm concerned with the

unnecessary burden that some believers carry! This was the burden that Martin Luther

struggled with in his youth at the Augustinian monastery how could he be saved if he

kept on sinning? This was the question that launched the Protestant Reformation! In

reaction to Luther, the Roman church clarified at the Council of Trent their teaching that

we are saved by faith and works. I know a man who, because of his pattern of sexual

sins, believed that even though he truly had orthodox belief in God, he was not now

saved, or he would not have sinned as he did. I believe that the very fact that he felt

godly sorrow for his sins was a good indication that he did have saving faith. If he were

callous about his sin, and engaged in that pattern of sexual sin with no remorse, then I

think it would be right to question whether his faith was a real faith or merely a said faith.

As Martin Luther came to learn, we are simultaneously saints and sinners. We are

both holy and worldly. Here at CHS, we teach what the Apostle Paul taught: in Martin

Luther's paraphrase, "Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone."

God saves you by his grace we can't save ourselves. We are saved through faith alone.

You are not saved by your works, or by the absence of your sin, but by Christ's finished

work on the cross. Salvation can't be something you do, because Christ has already done

it all. And only Jesus Christ can save us not any other religion, nor any other prophet,

nor any other God. , "Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone."

Salvation is the first stage of holiness, and this first stage is ALL A GRACE

GIFT! Christ accomplished it all for you 2,000 years ago on the cross when he died for

you, and He put His work, His gift, His merit, into your spiritual account from that day.

In this first stage of holiness, God does it all; you and I do nothing. Listen to these

scriptures: God the Holy Spirit seals you to the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). Can

you do that? No. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in your heart by the Father (Galatians

4:6, Romans 8:11). Can you do that? No. The Holy Spirit gives you spiritual gifts, even

to do supernatural things (1 Cor. 12:13). Can you do that? No. All this is from God; we

can't do any of those things. All these things happen, or begin to happen, in the first stage

of sanctification, that is, salvation.

Wilkinson says that "regarding your salvation, you should feel entirely helpless.

No matter where you turn, there is nothing you can do. You can't do one single thing to

fix the problem of your sin or to earn forgiveness from God. Salvation is a gift from

God." (p. 46) When you are saved, God calls you holy, he sees you as holy; therefore,

you are holy; you are a saint. Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved

through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone

should boast."

Beloved, the truth is that if you are born again, you are holy in Christ. Listen and

believe. Turn to a neighbor and tell someone this: "You are holy in Christ!" Go ahead

and do that. That wasn't so hard was it? You can even call them St. Beth or St. Syd or St.

Cristina. It's easier to call someone else holy that it is to call ourselves holy. We know

our sinfulness, we don't want to presume, we don't want to be seen as arrogant, so we

have been reluctant to see ourselves as holy. Beloved, that is how God sees you. So now

I'm going to ask you do something far more difficult. Repeat this after me: "I am holy in

Christ." Go ahead and say that. If necessary, repeat this a thousand times until the light

of holiness shines in your heart, and you joyously echo back Now I see it! I am holy in

Christ, because God bestowed it on me!

If you'd like to begin your journey of holiness today, you can do it by receiving

God's free gift of salvation. Do you want to be in that number? It may be a start of a

happy life for you, once you know that you are saved, not because of anything that you

do. Like Martin Luther, you can know the comfort and relief and joy that come when you

understand that you don't have to be perfect in order to be saved!

Perhaps you have been trusting in your own good works to save you. Don't fall

for that trap. If that describes you today, I encourage you to come forward. You may

want to kneel at the altar rail, or you may want to come fall into the arms of Jesus. We

will be the arms of Jesus for you today. If you'd like to receive salvation, we'd be glad to

pray for you. If you'd like to give up trying to be holy on your own, or to earn your

salvation, come forward, and we will pray for you to let go and let God. Let's stand and

sing this next song, and if you are so moved, come forward. Amen?