And so we begin the time of Lent, the time of preparation for Easter, the joyous celebration of Christ’s resurrection – which is the foretaste, the appetizer for the great harvest of souls at the end of time, when all the people who have decided to trust in the power of God will join together in the great banquet and feast of the bridegroom, who is Jesus Christ. It will be a day of great celebration, a day of music and feasting and praise and worship when we arrive alive again to speak with one another, a chance to see those friends and family who have died before us in the Lord, and to see how our descendants have grown up over the years and decades. And we will have the opportunity to meet our Savior face-to-face. What a day of Rejoicing that will be, when we all see Jesus and shout the victory!
But meanwhile, until that time arrives, we must travel through this life, a time of preparation for the banquet to come, a time when we must spiritually prepare ourselves in the same way that we would prepare ourselves for a fancy banquet or dinner with important guests.
Now, I know that most of you have been married for years, and some of you are not married, but I’d like you to go back in time, go back to a time when you were single and dating a special person, a person you have fallen in love with, a person you want to marry very badly.
Now imagine, for instance, that you have been asked by your boyfriend or girlfriend to come to dinner on Valentine’s Day. You will meet his or her parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters for the very first time. And you have an idea that if you measure up, the next step will be an engagement and then marriage, and this is your hope, your dream, your greatest desire. How would you prepare?
I suspect that you would start by asking yourself, “Is all this preparation and nervousness really worth it?” And then you would think about your boyfriend or girlfriend, and their smile and their face and how good it will be when you finally are married and I expect that you would say yes, and then you would take a shower or bath.
Think about how we prepare for someone we love. We want to be clean, we want to look just right, we want to put on our best clothes. After our shower, we’d brush our teeth, we’d brush or comb our hair just right, the ladies would get that makeup perfect – not to heavy, just a bit of highlights there – and the guys would shave exactly, getting the hair to lay just right on their foreheads.
You’d put on your best clothes, whether they were dressy jeans or a fancy outfit would depend upon who and where you were going to meet. You’d make sure your clothes were clean, you’d check your clothes with a lint roller, you make sure you had on deodorant, you’d make sure your breath was fresh, and you’d be ready on time, and you might even practice saying, “Nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Zwickelpinger”, for that was their last name and you wanted to get it just right.
In short, you’d work to become as perfect as possible to make that first impression on your future spouse’s family, that you wanted to make sure that you would have no shame because your shoes were muddy or your clothes were wrinkled, you didn’t want to shrink because your breath smelled like garlic or ramps or your underarms stank, you didn’t want to be embarrassed because you forgot their family name or you kept them waiting because you were late, and you sure didn’t want your black clothes to announce to them that you have a white Persian kitten that loves to climb on your lap. And you surely aren’t the type to just show up at a fancy restaurant in dirty, ripped and stinking clothes, fresh from four-wheeling in the mud with a six-pack, having finished off a salami and onion sandwich with so much mustard that the stains are still on your sleeves where you wiped it off your mouth.
And is it the same way with the banquet of Jesus? Have you begun preparing for that banquet? Or do you plan to come as you are?
“But Pastor, doesn’t Jesus accept me ‘just as I am’?
Yes, indeed, He does. Jesus puts no requirements in front of you to declare loyalty to Him and the Kingdom of God. You can indeed walk right in off your muddy four-wheeler, toss the empty cans at His feet, burp, wipe your nose with His robe, let off a string of four-letter words, light up a joint, introduce Him to your three partners, and ask Him to accept you. As our reading from Romans says,
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Jesus will simply say, "We're cool! Now, are you ready to truly follow me?” and if you agree, you are in, accepted and loved by the Son of God, forgiven of everything you have ever done wrong. He really does love you just the way you are!
But once you have done this, you might want to look at taking a shower. In fact, taking a bath is the first step after you have been saved from God’s wrath. We call it baptism. Your sins are washed away. The spiritual dirt and grime and odors of your sin disappear. You make a new start – a start that puts you on the holiness path, for becoming holy yourself is how you are saved from your own foolishness and desires.
Let me be clear. Believe in your heart that Jesus was resurrected and declare with your voice that you believe that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved from God’s wrath. But you will need to become holy to save yourself from your own foolishness. You will need to clean up your act.
You see, sin is slavery. A slave cannot do whatever the slave wants. If I am a slave, I cannot travel freely, I cannot work for wages, I cannot marry who I wish, I cannot live a life of freedom. It is only when I admit that I cannot get free from this slavery myself that I give Jesus the chance to set me free. And the first step in this is declaring that I will follow Jesus.
All of the twelve step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Smoker’s Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous are in agreement – your first step is when you admit that you cannot break free by yourself. The Second step is to realize that Jesus has the power to set you free – and if you believe that He was resurrected, it only follows that He has the power to set your free, and then you must choose to follow Him. Declaring that Jesus is your Lord to someone else is that vital point where you have finally decided to follow Him.
A guilty plea and a true desire to change is all that is needed for Jesus to forgive you. A holy life is your reward for truly following Jesus.
We baptize infants to put them under Christ’s protection at an early age, to give them the Holy Spirit to guide them. But at some point, they must decide if this is their path, if they will confirm that they are followers of Christ. Have you done this?
But there is still the process of becoming holy. You have been invited to the banquet, but you will be more comfortable and less embarrassed at the banquet if you clean yourself up. Following Jesus means you will need to take action - you don't just stand there, looking at Him.
The path to holiness is the path toward cleaning yourself up for the banquet, for during our lives there are many times when we make a choice to do something stupid and foolish and it harms us. The difference between a believing, baptized Christian and an unbeliever is that the unbeliever does not have a choice, the sin has them enslaved, while you, the believing, baptized Christian are free to be stupid and foolish and hurt yourself – or to be holy.
Have you ever noticed that you hurt yourself by your actions or words? I have. Do you ever say things that you regret, things that cause you to have trouble down the road, things that create problems in your relationships? I have. Perhaps you have an addiction that is causing you problems in your relationships, in your work, with your family?
Have you ever noticed that you have certain bad habits that hurt you and the people around you from time to time? Have you ever noticed that you are short on money because you overspent, or short on time because you aren’t organized or short on temper because you didn’t get to sleep early enough the night before?
These are examples of what I mean when I say you hurt yourself. At first glance, there is little difference between a new Christian and an established sinner. But as a free, believing Christian, you are no longer stuck in the rut of sin. Instead, you are free to ask for help, to draw upon the God power of Christ, to pull in the advice and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to solve these problems.
The biggest problem we have as Christians is – we don’t have the willpower or the interest to become holy. And since it is the time of Lent, the time of preparation for Easter, it is time for us to begin to focus upon our own holiness. This is the time of year when we focus upon our holiness – not the lack of holiness of other people, but our own lack of holiness – and we ask Jesus for help doing something about it.
Our culture doesn’t want us to become holy, either. There’s a lot of money involved in unholiness, so many advertisements work against us becoming holy and instead encourage us to spend money in unholy ways. Holy people are portrayed by the culture as being mean, nasty, troublemakers who are always judging others. But those people aren’t very holy by Christian standards etiher.
So perhaps I ought to explain what holiness is. Holiness is following Jesus Christ in action, word, and deed. Imitate Christ for the right reasons and you will be holy. Follow Christ’s commands and you will be holy.
But you will not become holy by yourself. Becoming holy is not a matter of hard work by yourself, it is not a matter of self-discipline, it is not a matter of moral strength. Becoming holy happens when we recognize that it takes Christ’s strength, the moral character that only Jesus has, the power and wisdom of God’s Son to walk away from our bad habits and our failings. If you just try to “be better”, you will fail. If you ask Jesus to help you avoid eating that 3rd donut or that 2nd beer because you recognize that you can’t stop – He will help you. If you just try to “be better”, you will chew out your co-worker. If you ask Jesus for help, you will keep your mouth shut or say something kind and gentle which will help your co-worker.
Let’s look at some examples of this holiness.
Let’s look at some obvious examples. Much of the world thrives off of conflict and drama. The world wants us to be angry, to fight, to argue, to fight about trivial things. But Christ asks us to turn the other cheek, to be meek and mild, to love our neighbor as ourself. How does this play out in practice?
It is obvious that the world wants us to fight other countries and other people. And it is clear that most of the presidential candidates want us to be angry at groups of people – Trump and Cruz want us to be angry at immigrants, Sanders would have us be angry at the wealthy, Clinton would have us be angry at Trump and Cruz and Sanders and men and gun owners, etc, etc. The rest of Republicans want us to be angry at the Democrats or Trump, the Democrats want us to be angry at the Republicans. In fact, I would argue that you can tell a lot about a candidate by who he or she is angry at... Christ only showed His anger when faced with people who were keeping other people from God.
Furthermore, this desire for conflict goes even further. Our television shows are based upon conflict, for that is what drives the interest in our shows – think about the conflict inherent in Survivor. Even our sports shows look to generate conflict – the Steelers or the Browns, the Broncos or the Panthers, the Pirates or the Reds?
And we are supposed to become holy by loving all people. But it is difficult to love someone who is taunting you because the Mountaineers lost to their favorite team, isn’t it? Saundra and I lost great respect for a woman who was extraordinarily mean and nasty and partisan about her high school team a few years ago.
Let’s take another aspect of holiness. Our body is to be a temple of the Holy Spirit – yet we harm ourselves continually by eating foods and drinking drinks and smoking cigarettes that are bad for our body. And what is the effect after years and years of self-abuse upon our health? And when we run into someone who needs to see Christ and to hear Christ and to be led to Christ – we don’t have the energy because our body is failing us.
Or we can gradually work to get into shape. We can spend a half-hour every couple days in gentle exercise, and we can cut back on our abusive habits by praying and asking for help from Christ and the Holy Spirit and our Christian friends. And then, we can be ready when Jesus sends us someone to lead to Him. Plus, we won’t spend so much time in doctor’s offices as we age.
If you want to understand holiness and how to achieve it, the New Testament is full of passages about Holiness. But perhaps today we should start with Jesus’ example when He was tempted off the path of holiness:
Jesus had just been baptized. The Holy Spirit led Him to go into the wilderness, to be alone, to fast, and after 40 days without eating, Jesus was hungry. And it was at that moment of weakness that Satan came to Jesus and suggested that He turn a stone into a loaf of bread.
Satan recognized the very real power that Jesus had. But Jesus also understood that giving into his physical hunger would be falling for Satan. For you see, part of the beauty of Jesus is when you notice that every miracle that Jesus performs is for someone else, every miracle helps someone else, but none of the miracles are for the benefit of Jesus – part of what makes Jesus so sinless, yet so holy is that He limited himself to only the normal powers of human beings, He did not cheat by using His God power for Himself, and so today we can say that Jesus became just like any man, living life, and yet did not need to sin. And that means that when we look at Him, we know that imitating Him is possible if we have the faith in God that Jesus showed us, with His help.
And so Jesus did not turn the stone into bread, and He quoted scripture, He quoted the Old Testament, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
And then, when tempted a second time with power, Jesus once again fell back on scripture, this time Deuteronomy 6:13 "Fear the Lord your God, serve him only.”
And then Satan attempted to lead Jesus into heresy, a false teaching by taking out of context other scripture,
Have you ever noticed that you hurt yourself by your actions or words? I have. Do you ever say things that you regret, things that cause you to have trouble down the road, things that create problems in your relationships? I have. Perhaps you have an addiction that is causing you problems in your relationships, in your work, with your family?
Have you ever noticed that you have certain bad habits that hurt you and the people around you from time to time? Have you ever noticed that you are short on money because you overspent, or short on time because you aren’t organized or short on temper because you didn’t get to sleep early enough the night before?
These are examples of what I mean when I say you hurt yourself. At first glance, there is little difference between a new Christian and an established sinner. But as a free, believing Christian, you are no longer stuck in the rut of sin. Instead, you are free to ask for help, to draw upon the God power of Christ, to pull in the advice and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to solve these problems.
The biggest problem we have as Christians is – we don’t have the willpower or the interest to become holy. And since it is the time of Lent, the time of preparation for Easter, it is time for us to begin to focus upon our own holiness. This is the time of year when we focus upon our holiness – not the lack of holiness of other people, but our own lack of holiness – and we ask Jesus for help doing something about it.
Our culture doesn’t want us to become holy, either. There’s a lot of money involved in unholiness, so many advertisements work against us becoming holy and instead encourage us to spend money in unholy ways. Holy people are portrayed by the culture as being mean, nasty, troublemakers who are always judging others. But those people aren’t very holy by Christian standards etiher.
So perhaps I ought to explain what holiness is. Holiness is following Jesus Christ in action, word, and deed. Imitate Christ for the right reasons and you will be holy. Follow Christ’s commands and you will be holy.
But you will not become holy by yourself. Becoming holy is not a matter of hard work by yourself, it is not a matter of self-discipline, it is not a matter of moral strength. Becoming holy happens when we recognize that it takes Christ’s strength, the moral character that only Jesus has, the power and wisdom of God’s Son to walk away from our bad habits and our failings. If you just try to “be better”, you will fail. If you ask Jesus to help you avoid eating that 3rd donut or that 2nd beer because you recognize that you can’t stop – He will help you. If you just try to “be better”, you will chew out your co-worker. If you ask Jesus for help, you will keep your mouth shut or say something kind and gentle which will help your co-worker.
Let’s look at some examples of this holiness.
Let’s look at some obvious examples. Much of the world thrives off of conflict and drama. The world wants us to be angry, to fight, to argue, to fight about trivial things. But Christ asks us to turn the other cheek, to be meek and mild, to love our neighbor as ourself. How does this play out in practice?
It is obvious that the world wants us to fight other countries and other people. And it is clear that most of the presidential candidates want us to be angry at groups of people – Trump and Cruz want us to be angry at immigrants, Sanders would have us be angry at the wealthy, Clinton would have us be angry at Trump and Cruz and Sanders and men and gun owners, etc, etc. The rest of Republicans want us to be angry at the Democrats or Trump, the Democrats want us to be angry at the Republicans. In fact, I would argue that you can tell a lot about a candidate by who he or she is angry at... Christ only showed His anger when faced with people who were keeping other people from God.
Furthermore, this desire for conflict goes even further. Our television shows are based upon conflict, for that is what drives the interest in our shows – think about the conflict inherent in Survivor. Even our sports shows look to generate conflict – the Steelers or the Browns, the Broncos or the Panthers, the Pirates or the Reds?
And we are supposed to become holy by loving all people. But it is difficult to love someone who is taunting you because the Mountaineers lost to their favorite team, isn’t it? Saundra and I lost great respect for a woman who was extraordinarily mean and nasty and partisan about her high school team a few years ago.
Let’s take another aspect of holiness. Our body is to be a temple of the Holy Spirit – yet we harm ourselves continually by eating foods and drinking drinks and smoking cigarettes that are bad for our body. And what is the effect after years and years of self-abuse upon our health? And when we run into someone who needs to see Christ and to hear Christ and to be led to Christ – we don’t have the energy because our body is failing us.
Or we can gradually work to get into shape. We can spend a half-hour every couple days in gentle exercise, and we can cut back on our abusive habits by praying and asking for help from Christ and the Holy Spirit and our Christian friends. And then, we can be ready when Jesus sends us someone to lead to Him. Plus, we won’t spend so much time in doctor’s offices as we age.
If you want to understand holiness and how to achieve it, the New Testament is full of passages about Holiness. But perhaps today we should start with Jesus’ example when He was tempted off the path of holiness:
Jesus had just been baptized. The Holy Spirit led Him to go into the wilderness, to be alone, to fast, and after 40 days without eating, Jesus was hungry. And it was at that moment of weakness that Satan came to Jesus and suggested that He turn a stone into a loaf of bread.
Satan recognized the very real power that Jesus had. But Jesus also understood that giving into his physical hunger would be falling for Satan. For you see, part of the beauty of Jesus is when you notice that every miracle that Jesus performs is for someone else, every miracle helps someone else, but none of the miracles are for the benefit of Jesus – part of what makes Jesus so sinless, yet so holy is that He limited himself to only the normal powers of human beings, He did not cheat by using His God power for Himself, and so today we can say that Jesus became just like any man, living life, and yet did not need to sin. And that means that when we look at Him, we know that imitating Him is possible if we have the faith in God that Jesus showed us, with His help.
And so Jesus did not turn the stone into bread, and He quoted scripture, He quoted the Old Testament, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
And then, when tempted a second time with power, Jesus once again fell back on scripture, this time Deuteronomy 6:13 "Fear the Lord your God, serve him only.”
And then Satan attempted to lead Jesus into heresy, a false teaching by taking out of context other scripture,
Satan said, ““If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
But Satan intentionally forgot the important part in that Psalm 91 quotation:
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
And Jesus responded with more scripture: Deuteronomy 6:16 "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."
And so we see Jesus remain holy through these three trials, because in each case Jesus responded with holy scripture. Scripture is a guide to help us become holy. And so reading scripture, learning scripture, stopping and thinking about scripture and discussing it with other people is one key way we can learn to be holy, to follow the path of holiness that leads us out of foolishness and stupid mistakes into a world of wisdom and peace and joy.
Earlier I said that Jesus always performed His miracles for others, never for Himself. You might think, “but what about when Jesus came back to life? Wasn’t that for Himself?” And to a certain extent, you might have a case. Until you realize that it was only because He did this, demonstrating Who He is, God Himself on this earth, it was only because of His resurrection that we have any hope of a resurrection, it was only because of this key miracle that we know that we can live forever, and it was only because of this that we can be saved from both God’s wrath and our foolishness. For you see, the Resurrection was simply the other half of the greatest miracle, that God Himself would come to earth, to live and walk and teach as an ordinary man for over 30 years, would allow Himself to be tortured and killed as a sacrifice to pay the price for the crimes we have committed, the sins against God and each other, and that this All-Powerful Being, when faced with this unjust death, would say on the cross, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
It is only because of that miracle that we have any hope at all. And it is because of that miracle that we are gathered here today, to worship God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son who died and was resurrected.
It is only because of what Jesus did that one day we will be able to stand in front of the final judgment, and know that we have no shame, for Jesus paid all of our debts, all of our penalties, and we can hold our heads high, for we know that God the Son loves us and that is enough, that is more than enough, for that is all we need to walk the path of holiness and be saved from our own foolishness and stupidity with Christ's help.
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