BONUS: Evolve YA

Hi, this is John O'Zanting, lead pastor of Evolve Church, and this is the Evolve Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

A little bit of myself.

Like I said, like I said, my name is Gabe.

I've attended Evolve now for just over three, three and a half years.

Um I get to serve most Sundays.

You'll find me at the front smiling at you if you come Sunday morning because I just can't stop smiling.

And so they put me at the front and they said say hi to people.

They put me to work.

Outside of that, I've been married now for almost five years.

It's just past five years.

I'm so excited.

Also, my wife, just to brag a little bit here, my wife is also expecting our first child in September, and I'm stoked.

I'm also incredibly nervous.

I'm so nervous.

Um, to know a little more about me, I have two siblings.

I have a brother and a sister.

I'm the youngest of all three.

My sister is adopted, so I didn't really grow up with a sister.

That's a story for another day.

What that means is that I grew up with an older brother.

And my older brother is about three years older than me.

And to be honest with you, we are nothing alike.

Okay?

We don't look alike, he looks a lot like my dad, I look a lot more like my mom.

We also don't act alike at all.

But yet, growing up, I'd always get confused for him.

Not confused, but people would say, Hey, you're Tristan's younger brother, right?

Honestly, it kind of annoyed me.

It kind of frustrated me.

Because, like I said, we are not alike at all.

My brother, one of the best words to describe him is stoic.

If you know me at all, that is like the opposite of what it is.

I am chatty and friendly, and there's usually a smile on my face.

My brother is quiet and introverted and incredibly book smart and also very tall.

Okay, so we are not alike.

And yet people would always say, You're you're Tristan's brother, right?

You're the younger Pisca.

And it kind of frustrated me because we're not the same.

I'm not like him, I'm I'm separate from him, I'm distinct from him, yet I kept just getting lumped in with him.

And eventually people would notice this.

But there was a little while where people assumed I was like him.

And this was great for the start of every school year, because my brother was an incredible student, and so for the first two months of the year, teachers loved me.

Then they'd slowly realize that I'm not my brother and they didn't love me as much because I'd talk all in class and I wouldn't pay attention all that much, and I'd you know get my assignments done eventually.

But for those first two months, teachers loved me.

It was the best.

Now, you might be sitting here and going, why the heck are you telling me about your brother?

I really don't care.

It's because tonight I want to talk a little bit about being holy.

Now, if that has no connection to you whatsoever, that's fine.

I'm gonna help you figure it out.

But to start with, we're gonna look at 1 Peter verses 1, chapter 14 to 16.

Now, 1 Peter is a really cool book.

It's in the second half of the Bible, it's in the New Testament, okay?

It's also named incredibly well.

It's named by this guy, it was written by this guy named Peter, as you might assume.

And Peter wrote two books.

The first Peter, and then the second Peter, the second one that he wrote.

Very incredible naming scheme.

We're very original with this, but it works.

First Peter, as with a lot of the New Testament, is letters written to groups of people.

It's a letter, but this letter is a little different.

It's written not to a specific group, it's written to a pretty big group of people.

It's just kind of written to Christians.

1 Peter has one big theme in it.

Be a Christian even when it sucks.

Even when life is hard, even when people are going to not like you for it, still be a Christian.

So, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 14 to 16.

1 Peter 1:14–16

So you must live as God's obedient children.

Don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.

You didn't know any better then, but now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.

For the scriptures say, you must be holy because I am holy.

There's two things I want to look at here.

The first one, what does it even mean to be holy?

This verse uses the word a few times, so what does it mean?

As you're sitting here, you probably have some thoughts in your head, but when I say holy, kind of what you think it means or what you replace it with in your head.

It might be righteous.

To be holy is to be righteous, to be holy is to be pure, to be holy is to be perfect, to be holy is to never mess up.

I want to correct you.

Those four things are not what it means to be holy.

The definition of being holy is to be set apart for God's purpose.

If you look outside of the church, when people define holiness, it means to be set apart for religious purposes.

Tonight, I'm gonna say to be set apart for God's purpose.

This is what it means to be holy.

So when I read this to you again, it says, don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.

You didn't know any better then, but now you must be holy.

You must be set apart for God's purpose in everything you do.

You must be holy in everything that you do.

You must be set apart for God's purpose in everything that we do.

The second thing that sticks out to me in this section here is that it says, for the scriptures say, you must be holy, for I am holy.

I don't know about you, but whenever someone comes to me and says, This is what the Bible says, ah, this scripture says this.

My first question is always, where?

Where does it say it?

Because I can just tell you scripture says anything.

Where does it say it?

Here, they're referencing Leviticus, which is one of the first five books of the Bible.

It's one of the most boring books.

I will be straight with you.

It is boring as heck.

It's a whole bunch of laws and genealogies, and it's just it's kind of boring, guys.

But that's what he's referencing.

And the reason Peter references it is because at the time everyone would have had it memorized.

They'd all know it.

So he's not referencing something they'd have to go look up.

He says, You all know this, right?

You know this is what the Bible says.

What it does for me is it makes me ask the question: what in the Old Testament is described as holy?

As I said, 1 Peter is in the second half of the Bible, in the New Testament.

So what's in the first half?

There's two things I want to point out.

They're described as holy.

The first one is the temple, the church, the building.

It's described as holy.

The temple is described as holy not because it is righteous, not because it is pure, not because it is perfect, not because it never screws up.

The temple is described as holy because it has been set apart for God's purpose.

It's been pulled out, it has been separated.

We can describe this building as holy because it has been set apart for God's purpose, because there's a reason for it.

The second thing that's described as holy throughout most of the Old Testament is the entire nation of Israel.

It's described as God's holy people.

It's like saying the entire all Canadians are holy.

It is a huge group of people.

When we look at the Old Testament, most of it reads as a history book of this group of people.

They are not righteous, they are not pure, they are not perfect, they do not never mess up.

But they've been set apart for God's purpose.

And to be honest, I could sit up here for a long time and tell you about Israel's purpose and tell you about cool stories from them.

But at the end of the day, Israel has one purpose.

Their purpose is to fail over and over and over again.

It's the whole history.

It's just them screwing up again and again and again.

They come to faith and they say, God, you are so good.

We love you so much, you're the best.

We're gonna live for you.

We're gonna tithe, we're gonna sabbath, we're gonna do all these great things.

Then they get distracted and then they get bored, and then the girl over there is really cute, and then eventually they walk away from faith.

Then God sends a prophet, or they have a miracle, or something crazy happens.

They go, God, you're so good.

You're fantastic, you're the best.

We love you, we're gonna live our life for you again.

Then time goes by.

Another cute girl, and then Israel walks away.

Israel is not pure, they are not perfect, but they are holy, because they have been set apart for God's purpose.

He has a reason for them, he has a purpose for them, and they live in that purpose.

You and I are not described as holy because we are pure, because we are perfect, because we are never going to mess up.

We are described as holy because God has a purpose for us.

Because we have been set apart, we've been pulled to the side, and he says, I have a purpose for you.

This section in 1 Peter almost reads more as a challenge than anything.

Are you going to be holy in everything that you do?

Is your whole life in everything that you do?

Are you going to be holy?

So, what does it mean to even live a holy life?

What does it mean?

In the fall, I got to hear this guy named Cody Matchett talk.

If you know him, he's an incredible speaker.

He lives down in Calgary and he's so smart.

Dude, I just wish I was as smart as like a tiny bit as smart as that guy one day.

He had this phrase that stuck with me ever since.

He was talking about being holy, and he said that the opposite of being holy, it's not being sinful.

It's not holiness on one side and sinful on the other.

The opposite of being holy is to be common.

It is to be average.

It is to fit in.

It is to be the same as everything else.

Being holy is being set apart, so if we are not holy, it means that we are the same.

It means that we fit.

I didn't want to be called Tristan's younger brother.

I didn't want to be called the younger Pisca because I didn't want to be him.

My brother and I are very different people.

I'm not him.

I'm not gonna live as him.

I'm not gonna try and be a stoic, tall person because I can't do that.

We're not asked to fit in.

We're challenged of are you going to be set apart?

Now, you might be sitting here and thinking to yourself, Gabe, I didn't sign up for this.

I haven't signed on to living this holy life.

I haven't signed on to living different.

I only came tonight because my friends had a free seat in their car and I had nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

I only came tonight because there's a boy here that I thought was really cute and I just really wanted to hang out with him.

It's the only reason I'm here.

I want to ask you.

What is your purpose?

What gets you out of bed?

What keeps you going?

When life sucks, when life is hard, when you're in the midst of exams and it feels like you're drowning, why are you here?

What keeps you going?

I'm talking to you about living a holy life.

And that holy life has a purpose because God says, I have a purpose for you today.

But I want to be really blunt.

I want to be really honest with you.

Living a holy life, things have to change.

It's not a maybe.

Things have to change.

Because in order to live different, in order to be set apart, you have to be different.

If I acted the exact same as my brother, all I would be is just a second copy of my brother.

I would not be separate.

I'd just be him.

That's not me.

Things will have to change.

Before I do what I'm doing now, I used to run an afterschool drop-in program in Millwoods.

If you know Edmonton at all, Mill Woods is kind of fun.

Very fun area.

It was an after-school free drop-in program in Millwoods Rec Center.

It was fun.

I worked with a lot of kids.

They were a lot of punks, but I loved them, but man, they were punks.

Their biggest questions is how do I not get jumped on the way home?

Where am I gonna sleep tonight?

What am I gonna eat next?

And how do I get high next?

These are the most common questions that these youth asked.

I loved them.

One day I was sitting there at a drop-in and I was talking to this girl, she was about 16 at the time, and she was telling me about her drug addiction, how she'd been addicted to coke since she was 12.

And she was talking to me about how she wanted to get clean, and I was kind of honest with her.

I said, Okay, what's stopping you?

Gabe, who would I hang out with?

Who would my friends be?

Her biggest worry about stopping her drug usage was who her friends would be.

Why?

Because she tried to stop before, but she lived the exact same life, and she fell back in.

She knew that in order for her to truly get clean, she'd have to change her friends, she'd have to change where she hung out after school, she'd have to change what she did with her free time, she'd have to probably get a hobby or something.

Things would have to change, and she didn't want that yet.

Living a holy life requires things to change.

Because if we try and live the exact same life that we did before, we're gonna just be common.

We're gonna be nothing else but common.

I don't want to be common.

So we have to choose every day to live this life.

We wake up and we go, this is what I'm doing, in everything that you do, be holy.

Because God is holy.

It isn't everything, it is not just you deciding to come to church on a Sunday, you coming to YA on a Sunday night.

It is every decision of your life.

It is how we live, it is where I go, it is where I spend my free time, it is the friends that I hang out with.

This is being holy.

There's this Bible theologian named Ronald Rollheiser, and when talking about Christians today and one of the biggest struggles, he says that we are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.

We're not actively choosing to walk away.

We're not choosing all of these terrible things, we're not choosing all of these sinful things, but we are distracting ourselves.

Because it's a lot easier to be distracted, and it's a lot more comfortable to be distracted than it is to be holy.

Are you distracted?

Are we comfortable?

There was this group of Christians that went to Oxford University in 1729, way long ago, way longer than any of us have been alive.

And they hung out a couple times a week.

And they talked to each other about faith, they talked to each other what was going on in their life, about school, and they'd encourage each other.

They quickly got this nickname of the holy club.

This nickname was kind of used to make fun of them, to be honest with you.

Because they said, haha, look at those guys.

They think they're so holy.

They think they're better than us, they think they're different than us.

They're just gonna sit over there and be separate.

And they quickly became known as the holy club.

This holy club slowly developed some questions.

These questions, there's 22 of them.

In a second here, we'll put them up on the screen.

But first, this holy club, as they developed these questions about how they lived, they lived life together.

Like I said, they asked what they were doing, how school was going, they also lived it out.

They were well known, this holy club, for feeding the homeless, for visiting people in prison, and for teaching kids how to read.

They lived out their faith.

They lived different.

As the group grew and they had more people, they went, hey, we gotta figure out how to evaluate our life.

So I had this list of 22 questions, we're gonna put up some of them right now.

I want to focus on a few of them.

I want to emphasize a few of them to you guys, okay?

Can I be trusted?

Am I enjoying prayer?

Do I pray about the money that I spend?

Do I go to bed on time and get up on time?

Don't forget, this is a group of Christians that are well known for how they live their life, and they are asking themselves every day, do I go to bed on time and do I get up on time?

Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?

Am I touchy?

Do people walk on eggshells when they're around me because they're worried that they're gonna tick me off?

How do I spend my spare time?

Do I thank God that I am not like other people?

God, I just thank you, I'm nothing like that guy.

That guy's got some stuff going on in his life, and I'm just I'm just so glad I'm not like him.

Is Christ real to me?

What I want to emphasize here is that these aren't just questions about how often they go to church.

These aren't questions about how often did you read your Bible.

Did I read my Bible today?

That's never on this list.

Do I go to bed on time and get up on time?

Do I pray about how I spend my money?

How do I spend my free time?

Am I distracted?

Are we distracted in what we do?

Now I'm not here to tell you that if you answer these questions every day, you're going to live a holy life.

Out of this holy club came some of the people that are known as the founding fathers of modern Christianity.

One of the most well-known is this guy named John Wesley, who John Wesley is known for asking the question of how do we live out our faith?

One of the guys who asked this question every day, asked all of these questions every day of his life, is known for changing Christianity into what it is today.

Do I go to bed on time?

Do I get up on time?

I'm not here to tell you that if you answer these, you're going to change your life.

The question is, do you ever examine your life?

Do you ever ask about the life that you are living?

Because we are distracting ourselves into a spiritual oblivion.

The second question I have for tonight is, are you living in God's purpose?

To be set apart for God's purpose.

That is what it means to be holy.

To be set apart, are you choosing every day to live different for God's purpose?

Not for me, not for what I want to do.

Am I living it for God's purpose?

This isn't a future purpose.

This is a purpose today.

This is a purpose now.

This is a purpose in what you do.

This is a purpose in how you're here tonight.

This is the purpose.

God's purpose is now.

The temple was not described as holy because God.

Had a purpose for it later.

The temple was not described as holy because God had a purpose for it 30 years from now, when it was married, when it had kids, when it was out of school, when it wasn't broken, when it had free time again.

That's not when the temple was holy.

It was holy now.

Because God has a purpose for it now.

Are you going to be holy in everything that you do?

Are you going to be set apart for God's purpose in everything that you do today?

Not later.

Now.

I know that God's purpose for my life is different than it was a couple of years ago.

But I don't question that God had a purpose for me then.

I know that God has a purpose for you now, and I know that he'll have a purpose for you 30 years from now.

If you're married, if you have kids, if you're not broke anymore, if you're not in school anymore, I know he has a purpose for you then, but I also know without a shadow of a doubt that God has a reason that you are here.

That you are here tonight, that you are here now, that you are living this life.

Because you are holy.

We have a purpose in what we do.

You have a purpose in what you do, in everything that we do.

We are called to be holy.

We are called to be set apart.

You might be sitting here and asking yourself, what does it feel like to live a holy life?

Gabe, you're telling me all these things to do.

You're telling me to go to bed on time and get up on time.

You're telling me that I need to pray about the money that I spend.

You're telling me that I need to think about everything that I do.

What does it feel like?

Why would I do this?

Why would I sign up for this?

Why would I want to live this life?

I can't tell you what it feels like for you.

I can only tell you what it feels like for me.

What it feels like for me is that I have a purpose every day.

I have a reason that I can get out of bed every day.

I don't know about you, I had a season where I didn't know what that reason was.

I didn't know what the point of getting out of bed was.

God has a purpose for you.

In this moment, in this season of life, not later.

He's not waiting for you to figure out what you're doing with your life.

He's not waiting for you to figure it out later.

He has a purpose for you now.

Are you going to be holy?

Are you going to live a holy life?

Because a holy life is one where I know that I have a reason.

I know that I have been set apart.

I know that I am who I am because of God has made me this way.

I know that I am nothing like my brother.

I'm never going to try to be.

I know that I've not been called to be common.

And neither have you.

You have not been created to fit.

You have not been created to stand in with everybody else.

You have been called to be set apart, to be pulled to the side because God has a purpose for you today, not later, not when you're old.

Now.

What it feels like to be holy is that my life is different.

Feels like things had to change.

Even now, things are having to change.

This is one of the biggest convictions God has had on my own life over the last year, is He's been asking me, Am I distracted?

Because it's really easy to come home and sit and watch Netflix for too long.

It's really easy to come home and play video games for all night.

It's really easy to live common.

To live average.

Are you going to be different?

Are you going to live in the purpose that God has for you today?

Or are we going to wait for tomorrow?

We're going to wait till we get old.

It's now we're here.

When we look at the story of Israel, I said that their whole purpose is they failed over and over again.

Why?

It's because they were trying to do it on their own.

The Old Testament is a huge story about people trying to do it on their own and just hoping they can live up to the standard of God.

Then Christ shows up.

He says, Hey, don't worry about it.

I got this.

I'm going to do this with you.

That's what makes us different.

So it means that I don't have to live the roller coaster life of Israel.

The up and the down of God, you are so good.

I love you.

I'm committing my life to you, but this girl's really cute, so I'm going to do this instead.

But then we have this really good worship service, and I want to come back.

That's exhausting.

I don't want to do that.

I don't have to.

And you don't have to.

God wants to live this life with you.

He wants to do this with you.

If you're sitting here and saying, I didn't sign up for this, maybe you should.

Because living a holy life feels like a life with purpose and with reason.

Feels like living a life where I know why I get out of bed in the morning, why I know who I am created to be.

So if you haven't signed up for this, maybe you should.

So you must live as God's obedient children.

Don't slip back into your old ways of living.

It is so easy to slip back into my old ways of living.

Because if I don't change my friends, if I don't change where I hang out, if I don't change what I do, how am I going to do anything else other than exactly what I did before?

Don't slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.

You didn't know any better then.

But now, now you must be holy in everything that you do.

You must be set apart for God's purpose in everything that you do.

Just as God who chose you is holy.

For the scriptures say you must be holy because I am holy.

I want to ask one last time.

Are you living a holy life?

Or are you living a life that is common?

One that is the same as everything else.

One that can't be pulled out of a crowd.

I wanted to be more than just Tristan's younger brother.

I wanted to be more than just someone that went to the high school that I did.

I wanted to be more than just someone like me.

And God has a purpose for me.

That is where I get to live.

Are you living a holy life?

One that is set apart in everything that you do?

Or are we common?

Are we average?

Are we the same as everything else?

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit EvolvedJurkey.com.