Text to Talk Part 5 | Is Holiness Even Possible? with Rhet, Sam, and Karl

Hey guys, this is Tracy. If at any time you'd

like to connect with HCV, go to hcv .church forward

slash connect. If you feel called to give, go

to hcv .church forward slash give. And if at

any time you feel called to make a change in

your life, text change me to 970 -00. Enjoy the

message. As you can see, the message today is

going to be a little bit different. Pastor Chris

is off graduating one of his daughters, so he

asked me if I would handle the message this week.

He asked me a couple weeks ago, and I knew that

I had a really heavy lift. So we had the community

choir, which was amazing. We had full band worship,

a brand new song to debut. We live recorded that

song this morning. And so I knew that I would

probably maybe need just a little bit of help.

So I called on my two best friends in the entire

world. And I just wanted to just kind of take

a minute before we get into the message just

to honor these two and also use it as a teaching

moment for you guys as well. These two, Carl

and Sam, are without a doubt my best friends

in the whole world. We talk every single day

probably. I don't think there's really a day

that goes by without us texting or talking. I

got to thinking a lot about... how Jesus came

into the world and the way that he started his

ministry. And something kind of like a light

bulb came on to me a couple years ago, and I

realized that when Jesus came into this world,

he didn't disciple the world. He came for the

world. His message was for the world. The gospel

was for the world. He died on the cross for the

world. But when he came physically, he didn't

wrap his arms around every person that was living

on earth at that time. No, he chose 12. And within

those 12, he had three that in his moments of

deepest despair, the night before he was crucified

in the garden, he brought these three with him.

When he went and raised the young girl back to

life, he brought these three. He took them down

to a river, and he just invested a little bit

more time into these three disciples. And I got

to thinking about how in our life, I think we

like think it's like a status thing. Like the

more people we call our friends, the more followers

we have on social media, the more likes we get

on the post. We try, we emphasize quality instead

of quantity. And over the past couple of years,

I've really started to just shrink my circle.

And I've seen a lot of fruit from that. I just

want to thank you two for being. Those two guys

in my life who, outside of my beautiful wife

who knows, you know, my deepest, darkest secrets

and is, you know, she's obviously my best friend.

You two are there for me in a friendship realm.

And it's good to have you two in my life, and

I'm thankful for you. We call ourselves the Iron

Boys. Not because we think we're, like, super

rugged. Sam's pretty rugged and tough. But we

like the verse in the Bible. as iron sharpens

iron, so one friend sharpens another friend.

We exist in this friendship to sharpen each other.

We have a text group that we call the Iron Boys.

I just want to encourage you that if you do not

have people like this in your life, start searching

because it can really make a huge difference

when you're going through some tough times. Even

when you're going through the good times, you

want someone there to celebrate with you. You

want someone there to help pick you up when you

fall down. We do a lot of spiritual and biblical

stuff. Like we're constantly asking each other,

hey, what do you think about this? What do you

think about that? How do you interpret this scripture?

Hey, I'm dealing with this situation. How would

you approach it? So just wanted to emphasize

before we get started today, the importance of

having a close circle that you can invest in.

So that's your first homework assignment. Get

people in your circle that you trust. All right,

before we get going, Chris wanted me to mention

this. We have 27 people signed up for the bed

builds and our goal is 50. Okay, so anyone under

12, can sign up with a parent, and anyone 12

and over can serve alone, and they do count towards

your SSL hours for school, okay? So please partner

with us. It's an amazing ministry, and we'd really

love to bless those that are on the receiving

end of this. So as we continue in our text -to

-talk series today, we are going with a more

conversational style. I want to preface this

message by saying we did not spend a lot of time

together. We did not spend hours scripting out.

Okay, Carl, you start with this, and I'll say

this, and then we'll kick it to Sam. We're feeling

a little bit vulnerable up here today. We had

a great time first service. We all left. We were

like, man, that was really cool. We hope it's

well received again. But we wanted this message

today to be very organic, to be very authentic,

and just for you guys to kind of see how we live

our lives every single day. And so I just want

to let you know that this wasn't anything prescriptive.

When I say, hey, Carl, what do you think about

that? Or Sam, we didn't plan this. And so we

hope that it's well received by you guys. But

as we continue in our Text to Talk series, we're

going to be talking about a word that when I

say it, sometimes it can feel a little heavy.

So everyone take a deep breath. Here we go. Today,

we're going to be talking about the word holiness.

Holiness, okay? When we hear the word holiness,

I think oftentimes our minds can go to thinking

about something that's ultra -religious or very

rule -based. We immediately correlate the word

holiness, what I believe, into a person that's

this ultra -Christian that's perfect in every

way. But in reality, holiness is not that, and

it's so much more beautiful than that. So before

I give what I think it... is. I'll start with

you, Carl. What do you think of the word holiness

and what it means to you? Is it cool if we do

a deep dive into scripture? I want to ask that

question first. Is that cool with you guys? Okay.

All right. So when we think about holiness, some

of the first things that maybe come into your

mind might be principles like perfection or purity.

And these are elements of holiness, but they're

not really the best definition. When we look

at the Old Testament, the Hebrew word that we

use that's defined or that is translated into

the word holiness is the word kodesh. And kodesh

simply means to be set apart. When we look at

the biblical narrative, we see this theme of

God constantly choosing his people and calling

them to live set apart. So in the Old Testament,

we see it in the life of Noah. who was called

to be set apart as an instrument of salvation

for the creation that would survive the flood.

We see it in the life of Abraham, where Abraham

was called out of the land of his fathers so

that God could bless him and make him into a

great nation. And we see it in God's relationship

with the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel

was called to be set apart from the other nations

that were in the promised land. The way in which

God called Israel to be set apart was through

the laws and the commands that he gave to Moses.

And there's this really interesting passage of

scripture that exists in Exodus 29. And in this

set of scripture, God is giving Moses the instructions

on how to carry out worship within the tabernacle.

And he says this. He says, so I will consecrate

Kodesh, the tent of meeting, and the altar, and

will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me

as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites

and be their God. They will know that I am the

Lord their God who brought them out of Egypt

so that I might dwell among them. And so right

away we see that underneath the principle of

holiness, or being set apart is this relational

aspect that God longs to dwell with his people

and to be known by his people. We know from the

redemptive work of Christ that God's spirit doesn't

just dwell in one segment of the temple, but

now it dwells in each of us. First Corinthians

3 .16 says, do you not know that you are God's

temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? And

so to understand how this principle of holiness

translates from the Old Testament to the New

Testament, which we now live in, we need to look

at the Greek word for holiness. And that word

is hagios. And hagios means to be set apart exclusively

for God. Now I'm going to read through just a

couple of verses from... the New Testament that

are going to give us some context into what the

New Testament authors meant when they were talking

about Hagios. 1 Peter chapter 1. As obedient

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

children, do not conform to the evil desires

you had when you lived in ignorance. But just

as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all

you do. For it is written, be Hagios, be holy,

because I am holy. Romans chapter 12. Therefore,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of

God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living

sacrifice. Hagios, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship. In 1 Peter

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. But you are a chosen people, a royal...

priesthood, a hagios nation, God's special possession,

that you may declare the praises of him who called

you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

And so right off the bat, we see here that this

idea of holiness, this idea of being set apart,

it impacts our mind, our body, our spirit, our

identity, our sense of purpose. And as we're

reading through these verses, there are two questions

that begin to formulate in my mind. The first

question is, we're called to be set apart as

followers of Christ. So what are we called to

be set apart from? And the second question is,

what are we called to be set apart for? And I

think we're going to drill down on this some

more as we have this talk. But just to summarize

it, I believe that we're called to be set apart

from the ways of the world that run in contrast

to the ways of God. And we're called to be set

apart for a deep and intimate relationship with

the God of the universe. Yeah, and I want to

expand on that real quick because I think with

the way that the world is trending, It's never

been more important for us to be set apart from

the world. I don't know if life will perpetually

get more and more difficult, but at least my

interpretation of just the way the world is trending

is it has never been more important than it is

right now for us to stand our ground in our faith

and in our beliefs. Because so many things that

the world is promoting, I find... unfortunately,

sometimes Christians accepting that lifestyle.

And just because we are taught by the world to

accept and affirm and say that, okay, because

it's okay here, then we must also be okay with

it. And that's not what Jesus teaches. It's not

what God's Word says. So as the world continues

to spin faster and faster, and it becomes more

of what I'll call blurred lines on what is right

and wrong, it's so important for us to maintain

a standard of holiness and understand what holiness

is. Yeah, I would say that holiness, it's a responsibility

of every follower of Christ to understand what

God's word says about being set apart. And the

responsibility of holiness, it can feel heavy.

It requires both hands for us to carry it. In

order for us to embrace what the world is doing,

we have to first set down holiness. and then

end up compromising. So I guess where I'm going

with this is that in order for us to compromise,

we have to first abandon our pursuit of holiness.

Absolutely. And like I said before, I think a

lot of us correlate the word holiness to a bunch

of rules, a bunch of legalisms. But if we look

at Colossians 2, 21 through 23, Paul's talking

here and he says, don't handle, don't taste,

don't touch. Then he says, such rules are mere

human teachings about things that deteriorate

as we use them. These rules may seem wise because

they require strong devotion, self -denial, and

severe bodily discipline, but they provide no

help in conquering a person's evil desires. In

other words, abstaining from a bunch of rules

doesn't consequently make you holy. Holiness

at its core is not about rules. It's not about...

isolation. It's not about legalism. It's simply

one thing. And I believe that's becoming more

and more like Jesus every single day. That's

what I believe. So in order to get into the teaching

point of today, what we really want to do is

kind of explain to you guys how we view the word

holiness and how we can apply it to our everyday

lives. And the first point today, we played off

of the letter P. So everything will start with

a P today. Holiness is is positional. Holiness

is positional. When we declare that Jesus Christ

is the Lord of our life, when we accept him as

our Savior, when we believe in our heart, the

Bible says we must believe in our heart and confess

with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord of our

life. When we do that, we are immediately given

a new position, right? As Chris would say, true

or false? True, right? We are immediately given

a new position when we say yes to Christ. Ephesians

1, 3 through 5 says, Praise be to the God and

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed

us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual

blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before

the creation of the world to be holy and blameless.

To be what? To be holy and blameless in his sight,

in love. He predestined us for adoption to sonship.

We're talking about position there, right? When

you are adopted into sonship, you are given a

new position in your life. In his eyes and what

Carl just said, set apart. Holy is to be set

apart. So just to reiterate, the moment that

you trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

you are given a new position. God is holy. And

when you say yes to God, he therefore declares

that you are holy, that you are meant for a holy

pursuit of what he is. So Sam, I'll throw it

to you. You haven't said anything yet. You need

to pull your weight here this morning. What does

holiness is positional mean to you? When you

hear the word positional, what does that mean

to you? Well, I think understanding that, just

like what you said, when you... Call on Jesus

and make him Lord over your life. You are positioned

under him to be set apart, which is meant to

be holy. And also understanding that we are only

able to walk that because of what he did. So

we have to remember that holiness is not up for

debate. There's no opinion. Yours can't be different

than mine. It's God. Jesus is set apart. The

Holy Spirit is because he is God's Spirit. So

understanding that holiness is positional means

that when you put your faith in Jesus and walk

with him, that you become holy under Jesus, and

that is only through the death and resurrection

of him and the blood that he shed for us. And

you can walk out your life, you're resurrected

with him, walking and striving for holiness and

to be set apart, as we're called to as the bride

of Christ. I'm glad we serve a God that when

we say yes to him, he immediately moves us into

this position. It's not, okay, thank you for

saying yes to me. Now here's this 24 -point checklist

that you have to achieve and check a bunch of

boxes for God to then say, congratulations, now

I will call you mine. The moment we say yes...

Our past is forgotten. Our sins are gone. We

have been forgiven. He gives us grace. He gives

us mercy. He gives us love. He gives us acceptance

right then and there in that moment. And that

is the word. That's what I think of when I think

of position. There's two things that I think

of. Number one, God is in a position of being

holy, right? He sits at the highest of highs.

He's been holy since the beginning of time. He

will be holy until the end of time. He is in

a position of holiness. But I just think how

cool is it that when we accept his son, the gift

of his son as our savior, we are then given a

position of holiness as well. I think that's

just, it's humbling to me that he would love

us that much to not make us jump through a bunch

of hoops, but we become holy in that moment.

When we choose to follow Christ, one of the phrases

that we tend to use as a bit of Christianese

is to say that I'm choosing to make Jesus my

Lord and Savior. And I have found in my own personal

life, maybe you can relate, that it's very easy

for me to identify my need for a savior. I understand

how dark I am, what my flesh struggles with,

with the spirit, and I understand my need for

a savior. I can see that clearly. What I think

is a struggle is making Jesus the Lord of our

life. That's what we tend to wrestle with. It's

not seeing Jesus as savior. We recognize we need

him as savior, but do we want him? as our lord

do we want him to have the final authority and

to show us what it means to be set apart that's

really good and i think we should expand on that

a bit so yes accepting jesus christ as your lord

and savior you're right i think it's all we all

know that we struggle we are in need of a savior

and it's really easy to accept that gift it's

really easy to say i'm a christian he's my savior

but when we say he is lord that means indirectly,

then we are bound by the principles in which

the Bible instructs, right? Having Jesus as our

Savior is something we receive, but having him

as our Lord is something that it costs us something.

Yeah, that's good. Sam, I think you said first

service, something about the devil. Say that

again. Yeah, so like making the, just expanding

on what you said about Lord versus Savior, it's

real easy for us to say that he's Savior and

acknowledge that. And I forgot how I said it.

It was something like knowing Jesus is the Savior,

the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Son of God,

is the same thing that Lucifer does without making

him Lord. So the devil knows that Jesus is who

he is. And think about the demons in the Bible

in the New Testament when Jesus came. When he

came, I believe, and Matthew talks about all

the Gospels, and the demon -possessed men approached

him. So all these people are having a hard time

acknowledging that he is the Messiah. And they're

like, I don't know, you might be Beelzebub, or

you cast a demon out on the Sabbath, and they're

questioning him. But then the actual demons come

up and say, what are you doing here, Son of God,

the Most High? They know exactly who he is. So

the devil knows. who Jesus is. He just does not

make him Lord over his life. And that was a sobering

thought to me because when you said that, again,

this unscripted in the first service, a little

bit more scripted now since it was impactful

to me. When you said that, it was a sobering

thought because I wonder how many of us have

that same mentality, that we know that he's our

Savior, we claim him as our Savior, but when

it comes to making him Lord, we're like, I'm

good. I'm good. I'm going to say... That I'm

his, but I don't want to do the things that I'm

instructed to do because it costs, like you said,

it costs us something. So that's good. Thought

number two today, and this is probably my favorite

point of the day. So number one, holiness is

positional. Number two, holiness is a pursuit,

all right? It is a daily, relentless pursuit.

Holiness is often perceived, as I mentioned before,

as a list of don't dos, right? Thou shall not

do this. Don't do this. But in reality, it's

actually a pursuit of things that we need. to

do. It's a race that we will never finish, right?

There's no finish line. There's no checkered

flag waiting on us, waving, say, congratulations,

Carl, Sam, you have made it to the destination

of holiness. We will never get there because

only God is completely and utterly and perfectly

holy, and we are not that. But it's a race that

we need to run and that we need to run well.

Hebrews 12, 12 through 14 says, therefore, lift

your drooping hands and strengthen your weak

knees and make straight paths for your feet.

Sam, you and I talk about verses in the Bible

that scare us. This is one that scares me. And

for the holiness without which no one will see

the Lord. Therefore, if you want to see the Lord,

you better be striving for holiness. So I'll

open up for a question again. How do you pursue

holiness in your everyday walk? Sam, we'll start

with you. I'll say what I say at first service.

Number one is reading the Bible, waking up, choosing

to read the Bible. Whether you can't physically

take time in the morning, if you have a job that

really stresses time as far as 4 or 5 a .m. commutes,

get the Bible app. Let it read itself to you.

And also, mind you, we're up here talking about

things that we do to encourage, but we're also,

we do this with each other in the text. I want

to specify this service. We are not perfect.

We're not talking like we figured it out. There's

days that I don't do these things. Most days

I struggle. It's a war within myself to take

time, read the Bible. But I think hearing from

God's word, The word is living and starting your

day with that. Carl gave me advice weeks ago

about and challenged me to really pursue it,

make time for it. And I started taking my Bible

to work and trying to make time because in between

breaks, it's really easy just to scroll on your

phone and you can put your phone down and just

open the Bible. And I would say worship, worship

music. I love rock and roll music. I started

playing guitar because I love 70s and 60s rock

and roll and blues, but it's not edifying. Worship

is. So in my tattoo shop, people who have gotten

tattooed by me know that I play worship music

99 % of the time, even if it gets on my nerves

because it's repetitive, the same songs, because

it edifies my soul. Can I say something about

your first book, Read the Bible? No. Well, I'm

going to. This is how he is in normal life, too.

I think that reading the Bible is something that,

I think some Christians do a good job, but I

know I'm not perfect at it. I struggle with it

as well. And what I've learned and what I believe

is the reason why many of us do not read the

Bible enough is because we don't want to give

up our comfortability and our convenience to

do it. And what I mean by that, I know, here's

some oohs, because I'm in that camp, too. What

I mean by that is, Getting up 15 minutes earlier

is not convenient for us. We really like to sleep.

Our head on the pillow, our body underneath the

blankets, it feels really good. And to think

about changing that alarm from 6 .15 to 6 a .m.,

it's painful, right? But that is an example of

putting down convenience and putting down our

comfortability, right? Instead of coming home

after work and feeding the kids and cleaning

up and then wanting to sit down and watch TV

or watch a show or watch a movie. How many times

do we say, nope, I'm going to give God another

15 or 20 minutes? And what that is is it's denying

our flesh. It's denying our comfortability and

our convenience and saying, God, in this moment,

I'm going to put you at the top. And listen,

guys, I say that saying that I'm not perfect

at this either. There's plenty of days where

I don't read as much as I should, but I believe

that the number one thing that keeps us from

reading the Bible is because we just simply don't

make time for it because we give in to our comfortability

and our convenience. For me in my life, I would

say the way that I pursue holiness is, number

one, the same thing. I try to get in the Word

daily. But my buddy Jax, I get up really early.

I work down in Frederick. So I have a decent

drive from where we live in West Virginia. And

he gets up early with me, and we have our little

time in the morning. And then every morning he

wants to call me and he wants to read to me,

whether it's a Lionel Messi book or one of his

Bible stories books. And for the longest time,

he would call me like 10 minutes after I left

the house, and he would read to me for a good

30, 35 minutes. At the beginning of this year,

as you guys know, I really started to draw a

line in the sand for myself and say, no, I want

to be a better husband for my wife, Katie. I

want to be a better father. I want to be a better

worship pastor. I want to be a better pastor

here at the church. I want to really pursue holiness.

And one of the things that I was convicted on

is I'm not in the Word enough. And so I told

Jax, and this hurt me to tell my own son. I said,

hey, buddy. I said, Daddy needs at least 15 to

20 minutes. of me listening to the audio book

of the Bible in the Bible app. And at first he

was like bummed. He's like, oh man, that's like

my time to read to you. I said, well, I'm not

telling you that we can't do it. I'm just saying

for the first 15 or 20 minutes, I'm going to

choose to be in the Bible reading the word because

I have a goal to finish the Bible this year.

And I said, and when I'm done, I'll shoot mommy

a text on her phone and that's when you can call

me. And so it was hard for me to do that because

I felt On one hand, I thought I was taking away

a moment of father and son bonding. But at the

same time, I'm still providing him 15 or 20 minutes

to read to me. But what I am doing in that moment

is not only am I pursuing holiness by being in

the word, but I'm also giving my son an example

that, hey, buddy, I love you with all my heart,

but my daddy, big daddy God, comes before you

in my life. And I know that that feels hard to

say here on earth. It's like, oh, how do you

deny your son? I'm trying to exemplify to him

that as much as I love him, as much as I want

him to read to me, I'm giving God my first and

my best. Carl, I'm going to ask you, you shared

something with me a couple months ago that has

really impacted the way that I handle my ministry,

the way that I handle my wife and my kids. Can

you give me the pyramid of Ps is what I call

it? Yeah, the four Ps of priority. So this is

something that I heard from David Jeremiah years

ago, and it's really... helped give me a proper

perspective in my own life. But oftentimes what

we deal with, what we struggle with in our lives

isn't having the right pieces, it's having them

in the wrong order. And so the four P's of priority

are I'm a person and my relationship with God

must come first. If you're married, I'm a partner

and my relationship with my spouse is the most

important earthly physical relationship I will

have. I'm a partner, I'm sorry, I'm a parent

third, so my relationship with my kids comes

after my relationship with my spouse, and I'm

a professional or a pastor fourth, and that must

come last. And oftentimes, again, the trouble

that we get into with our lives is when we try

to make our jobs more important than our relationships

with our spouses, or we make our kids more important

than our time with God, or we find excuses to

reorganize those. that list we have to have them

in the right order otherwise we're not going

to be effective in each of those arenas yeah

and i think that directly ties into our message

day on holiness it's it's really easy for us

to want to spend the most time with our spouse

or our kids or or our job our jobs are like what

we pride ourselves in how much money do we make

what's my career title and so many times those

three things can actually like take the place

of god's throne and if you're doing that holiness

is going to be really hard to achieve because

you're not giving god your first you're not giving

him your best you're not committed So thank you

for sharing that. That was really good for me

to help realign some things in my life on the

daily. I want to add really quickly to that,

too, about you said about your job. It's really

hard for us to find time to read, to pray and

like spend time with God to pursue that. But

quickly imagine if spending time with God was

not an option, just like not an option not to

pay your mortgage or your rent. the consequence

of that would be you would be homeless. You have

to go to work to pay your rent or mortgage or

your car note or all these things. You have to

eat or you'll die. So if we could put that, speaking

to myself, in the same severity of, if I don't

do this, I'm going to be disconnected from something,

which is God, the most important thing. But how

easy it is for us to put those things in front

of God, but that should be our number one priority.

We live in... a day and age of unprecedented

visibility in how we spend our time. The saying,

I think, used to be, show me a man's wallet and

then I'll show you his heart. Because it used

to be we can kind of track what our priorities

are based on where we spend money. But now I

would say, show me your iPhone and I can show

you your heart. Because when you open the iPhone,

you can look and see how much time you spend

on each individual app. And I'd be willing to

bet that for most of us, the Bible app probably

doesn't even make the top 10. We have things

like social media and texting and calling. And,

of course, we have to be professionals. We have

to do work. But at the same time, the amount

of time that we allocate to the Bible, I fear

it's so anemic compared to what it should be

that it drives us into a position where God just

gets the leftovers. He gets kind of what's left

in our schedule, not the best or the first of

what we have to offer. Yeah, I agree. So for

me, I agree, Sam. I think reading the Bible is

number one. Number two for me is I've learned

to be disgusted with my sin. And I think that

as you pursue holiness, as you pursue God's heart,

as you pursue God's best, you realize that there

is no tolerance for anything that's not of Him.

And I want you guys to take a minute right now

and search your own hearts because this was hard

for me to do when I kind of drew my line in the

sand. And here's what I believe. I believe that

all of us... have an area of sin in our life

that we just let hang out. We just let it be

there because it's not that bad. It's not causing

me to go downhill that fast. But when you decide

to be holy, when you decide to pursue holiness,

you get to a point where there's no margin for

error in your pursuit. You cannot become holy

if you're allowing yourself to be subjected to

this one sin that you keep giving into. And Carl,

you gave the analogy. um a couple a couple uh

months back that i really liked you said being

disgusted with your sin looks like this for those

of us who are parents imagine when your kid you

know uh did their business in their diaper and

you had a dirty diaper what do you do you like

you put that thing in the diaper genie or in

some of those whatever mama things whatever they're

called and that seals it up tight so that you

can't smell it what would it look like if instead

of doing all that what if we just took that diaper

and just threw it on the kitchen island and just

let it sit there Right? Exactly. We laugh, right?

We laugh because it sounds repulsive. We know

that in a couple minutes, not only is the kitchen,

but then the living room, and then the family

room, and then the study, and then the bedroom,

everything is going to start to stink really

bad. And we wouldn't even want to be in the same

house as this one thing. But we look at our sin

as no different. We allow ourselves to have the

dirty diaper of whatever it is in our lives,

and we allow it to sit there. and permeate every

part of our being. And while we can put nose

plugs on or put an air freshener in the electrical

outlet, all you're doing is masking the real

issue. To get rid of that repulsive thing in

your house, you have to take out the trash. And

I believe so many of us allow trash to be stored

and kept in our lives, and we don't want to get

rid of it because it's uncomfortable to do so.

It's hard. It makes us give in. It makes us...

It makes us say no to something that brings us

earthly pleasure. So today I ask you to search

your heart for that thing that you need to take

out. Because in order to pursue holiness, I guarantee

you there's an area of your life that you need

to be better in. Two things that I want to say

real quick that I did not say first service,

don't tell them. Two areas that I've also been

trying to do better in. The Bible constantly

talks about praying and fasting. And I've always

been a prayer, but my prayers often, look like

a prayer that if everything was answered, I would

not need God in my life at all. And I was convicted

of that. And what I mean by that is I ask him

for health. I ask him for prosperity. I ask him

to bless my wife. I ask him to bless my kids.

I ask him to bless this ministry. I ask him to

keep me safe. And those are all great things

to pray. But if I would get everything that I'm

asking for in my prayer life, I wouldn't need

God at all. Because I'm praying for what I want.

I'm praying for the things that I need. But in

reality, I believe we need to pray more like,

God, let you be glorified in this situation.

I'm going through something at work right now.

I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't

want to pray for a new job. I don't want to pray

for a new opportunity. I don't want to pray for

more money. Because maybe I'm supposed to endure

this pain right now for this season. Because

when I come out on the other side, I'm going

to be able to help somebody in a couple months

that's going through the exact same thing. So

my prayer life has changed from, God, give me

all of these things, to Let me just hear what

you have to say. Let me just listen to you. And

I've also been fasting. And I know like in the

spiritual world, not supposed to tell anybody,

but I'm fasting more for like physical health.

And I'm not doing anything crazy like 14 days

or something, but I'm just taking a couple of

days a week to withhold certain things that I

love. And I've really noticed that number one,

not only do I physically feel better, I have

better mental clarity. But in those moments where

I should be eating lunch at work, I decided to

just kind of walk around our campus. And I just

give God those 15 minutes to say, Speak to me,

God. So reading the Word, dealing with my sin,

being disgusted by it, and praying and fasting

have been my four keys to being holy. So Carl,

what about you? Absolutely. Before I get into

kind of the daily disciplines that I follow,

I want to paint a picture for you. So suppose

Katie has been spending the last two weeks on

Pinterest. Accurate. True. And she's been looking

at... backyard garden design. She wants to get

into gardening. Even more accurate. Okay. So

she comes to you, she says, Rhett, I want to

start a small garden. I want, I just need like

eight foot by eight foot square in the backyard.

Can you make it happen for me? And you channel

your inner Wesley and you say, as you wish. So

you go out, you take the tiller out, you go to

this little eight by eight, you mark it off,

you set it apart, this eight by eight square

and you till it up. And then you stop. What's

going to pop up there? Weeds. Yes. Good answer.

Thank you. And her being mad that I didn't finish

the project. Yeah, and her being mad at you.

The goal of pursuing holiness is to understand

that God has done the work to till the soil of

our hearts so that he can create fruit in our

lives. Our job is simply to tend the garden.

The seed has been planted. He's in control of

the weather. He's in control of the sun. He's

in control of the temperature. Our job is just

to tend the garden, to put a gate or a fence

around it so that nothing can get in and damage

it, to make sure we pull out the weeds that are

there. Like you said, getting rid of the dirty

diaper, pulling out the weeds, pulling out the

sin in our life. We just need to tend the garden

so that God can create fruit in our life. And

that's how we end up with a harvest that comes

from being set apart, being holy. For me personally,

what that looks like, it's just a couple of simple

disciplines that I follow on a regular basis.

Not surprising that we kind of all are aligned

in this. I spend time daily in God's Word. I

don't just read God's Word, but I engage with

it. I talk with these guys about my thoughts

about Scripture or about the context. We have

a lot of conversation about God's Word. Something

more recently that I've started to do is set

aside time each day to just sit quietly. in God's

presence. And in doing that, I've started to

recognize how busy my mind and my life is. And

that when I stop to try to just give God these

moments to give them to him in order to speak

to me, that it really takes a lot of effort for

me to just kind of shut down. But I can tell

you that the fruit of that has been so incredibly

edifying. To hear God's voice, to connect with

him on a relational level has been amazing. And

then also, so reading the Bible, giving time

to just quietly sit in God's presence, and then

praying, speaking to God, big prayer requests

or small prayer requests, whether I'm going into

a meeting or I'm, you know, maybe I'm going into

a difficult conversation, praying for God to

bless that time. And when you look at these things,

it might feel a little bit ritualistic, but the

reality is that these are just markers of a healthy

relationship. talking, being present. And I think

it's so important for us to understand what I

said earlier, that there's a relational aspect

to holiness. It's about being close to the heart

of the Father. That's what we're really after,

which that ties in great with our third point.

Holiness values proximity over perfection. As

I was looking through scripture, kind of preparing

for this talk, there was... A person that stood

out in scripture to my mind is somebody that

had a close relationship with God. It's David.

David is known as a man after God's heart. And

later in David's life, he set about to build

God a permanent dwelling place for his presence,

which would be the temple. God showed up and

said essentially to David, I love your vision.

I love your concept. But you have too much blood

on your hands. You're a mighty warrior. You cannot

be the one to build my temple. that role is reserved

for Solomon, your son. And so David gathers all

of Israel, and he has this incredible moment

where he passes on the torch to Solomon, and

he says this in 1 Chronicles 28. So now with

God as our witness, and in the sight of all Israel,

the Lord's assembly, I give you this charge.

Be careful to obey all the commands of the Lord

your God, so that you may continue to possess

this good land, and leave it to your children

as a permanent inheritance. And Solomon, my son,

learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately.

Worship and serve him with your whole heart and

a willing mind. And in this verse, we see this

incredible intersection of obeying God's command

and having this deep and intimate relationship

with him. As I was meditating on the scripture,

it caused me to think about my own relationships

in my life. And I started to think about my relationship

with my wife. So my wife and I met when we were

17 years old. And from the moment that I met

her, I was immediately fascinated by her. I wanted

to know everything about her. I wanted to know

what she liked. I wanted to know what she disliked.

And over the years, I'd like to think that I've

gotten to know her pretty well. For example,

I know that she loves movies. I know that she

is a huge fan of mid -90s chick flicks. She loves

the Gilmore Girls. Not a huge fan of John Wick.

She loves Smash Burgers, but probably wouldn't

order lasagna off the menu. Not a morning person,

but she will stay up late if there's chocolate

cake involved. Even after all the years that

we've been together, I'm still learning new things

about her. For example, On Memorial Day weekend,

we set about to go through our basement and get

rid of some things. And in the process of doing

that, I grabbed a hand of kids' DVDs that probably

haven't seen the light of day in about 15 years.

And I just was getting ready to put them on the

Goodwill pile. I looked up and immediately recognized

that I had done something terribly wrong. She

looked at me with fire in her eyes and she said,

you do not get rid of Thumbelina. Nearly a quarter

of a century I have spent with this incredible

woman and never once did I recognize her deep

emotional connection to the mid -90s animated

version of Thumbelina. Why am I telling you all

this? I didn't get to know these things about

my wife because I was scared of angering her.

I didn't get to know these things because I wanted

to win the perfect husband of the year award.

I got to know these things because I wanted to

have a deep and intimate connection with her,

to go deeper and further with our relationship.

And I think it's important to understand that

as we pursue holiness, we need to understand

that holiness values proximity over perfection.

It's not about memorizing a list of rules and

following them to a T. It's not about, you know,

being scared of God, being angry with us. It's

about pursuing the heart of the father, getting

to know what pleases him and what displeases

him. And you may be wondering, well, how do I

know what pleases God and what displeases him?

I'm going to give you two quick examples of scripture

that tell us what God hates and what God likes.

Proverbs 6 says, there are six things the Lord

hates, no seven things he detests. haughty eyes,

a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent,

a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do

wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, and

a person who sows discord in a family. Compare

that with Psalm 15, which says, who may enter

in your sanctuary, Lord, who may enter your presence

on your holy hill, those who lead blameless lives.

and do what is right, speaking the truth from

sincere hearts. Those who refuse to gossip or

harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends.

Those who despise flagrant sinners honor the

faithful followers of the Lord and keep their

promises even when it hurts. Those who lend money

without charging interest and who cannot be bribed

to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand

firm forever. God values. our relationship with

him more than he values our intention to be perfect.

We know that we will never be perfect. You've

mentioned earlier, the only way we can be viewed

holy is through the blood of Christ. Because

of that, we have the freedom to have an incredibly

deep relationship with God. That is so good.

This good? You guys enjoying this? All right,

good. Because that's our last point, so I just

wanted to make sure. No, that's good. I think

we've heard a lot of, times relationship over

religion. And that's what I, when you said about

proximity over perfection, a lot of times we

look at God as this rule -based God that we need

to do all these things to achieve his love, achieve

his recognition, when in reality, he just wants

our hearts. And that's the biggest thing that

I can take away from holiness is that it's more

about getting in the word, understanding what

God's best looks like in your life, and daily

pursuing that. Yeah, it's a bit of a circle because

John says, if we love God, we will obey his commands.

So the relationship is based on our ability to

know God and to follow him. Yeah, and that's

where the Lord and Savior comes in. To love him

is to call him our Savior, but to obey him is

to call him our Lord. Say that again. To love

him is to call him our Savior, but to obey him

is to call him our Lord. And it's really easy

for us to say, God, we love you. We love you.

We thank you. We are indebted to you. We love

you, Jesus. But then to say obey, he might be

calling us to do something that's really uncomfortable,

like taking out the trash or changing a career,

whatever it may be. And that's when I feel like

we take a step back and we're like, ooh, that

hurts me. That costs me something. I'm just going

to stick here to the love, and maybe we'll get

to the obey later. But don't forsake the need

to obey your Lord, because when you do, there's

so much fruit in that. God's definition of love

is obedience. Yeah. And sometimes we think that

his definition of love is purely affection. And

it's right for us to have affection and feelings

towards God, but really how we practically live

that out is through our obedience. Yeah. That's

good. Yeah, I want to add quickly, too. We've

got to move on. All right, thank you, guys. About

relationship over religion, and I agree with

that 100%. That's like the biggest foundation

of the Protestant church, of what separates from

a lot of different other churches. But me and

Carl talk about this a lot. Let's not forget

that, like, You're not being religious. You're

having discipline. You know what I mean? So,

like, we have to make sure that we value relationship

over religion 100%. But we can't just be, like,

free nilly -willy and just expect to live in

holiness. Because at that point, there's no effort.

Absolutely. Katie and I love our kids too much

to just allow them to always have joy in the

house. If our goal was to just make them eternally

happy. He'd be eating Nerds gummy ropes and chocolate

milk for dinner every night. Whoa, whoa, whoa,

whoa, whoa. What's wrong with that? Wait a second.

Nerds is what makes you smart, right? Okay, okay.

But our job is not to make them happy. Sorry,

that was Smarties. Smarties is what makes you

smart. Whatever. Our job is not to just give

them whatever they want and make them happy all

the time. Our job is to love them enough to correct

them and discipline them and lead them in the

way, and that's the same as what God looks at

us. He loves us too much to allow us to go and

do all the things he wants, and he wants us to

pursue holiness. Katie and I want Kenley and

Jax to pursue a life of discipline, a life of

good choices, because we know that there's fruit

on the end. God doesn't want us to be holy just...

to be holy. He wants us to do that because he

knows that he is holy. He wants us to be like

him, and he knows that he has so much to offer

for us when we submit our lives to that. So that's

good. All right, cool. So we just have one action

step today. I'm going to ask that we all stand

up together as we do this. Donnie, maybe you

could play a little track or something to give

some mood music in the house. So our action step

today is simply this. And it's something that

I believe collectively the three of us have kind

of done, maybe more so this year than in the

past. But the action step is to draw a line in

the sand today. And what I mean by that is I

hope that you've heard something up here today

that one of the three of us has said in which

you will make it your mission to leave here today

wanting to pursue God's best for your life, wanting

to pursue holiness. So I'm just going to take

just a minute, and I'm going to pray. And then

Carl's going to give the salvation prayer. As

I'm praying, I'm going to ask that you search

your heart and that you ask God to reveal an

area of your life that you are not currently

pursuing holiness in and that you can take tangible

homework to go out of these doors today and work

on over the next day, week, month, years. As

I mentioned, guys, holiness is a pursuit. It's

something that you need to crucify your flesh

every day to get there. But we have to start.

We have to realize that the most important place

is to start, and that's what we're doing today.

We're going to draw a line in the sand, and I

want you to identify things in your life that

you know you need to get better at. So God, I

just pray in this moment you would speak to your

children. God, I pray that you would speak to

your sons. Speak to the men of this church. Speak

to your daughters. Speak to the women of this

church. Speak to the mom. Speak to the dad. Speak

to the daughter or the son. Speak to the person,

the parent, the partner, the pastor, the professional.

God, I pray that you would reveal areas of our

lives that we need to pursue you deeper, that

we need to pursue you greater. Speak to us, Lord.

And I'm going to ask Carl to lead us in our salvation

prayer, something that we do every single week.

So if you are not a believer in Jesus and you

want to determine that today is the day, pray

this prayer with us. Yeah, absolutely. Before

I go into that, I just want to share something

that God laid on my heart this morning. As I

was praying before coming to the church this

morning, I got the sense that there would be

some people here this morning that struggle with

the idea of stepping into their identity to become

holy. to become a follower of Christ. And specifically

the words that came to my mind were that there

were people who were struggling with the wall

of addiction and the wall of trauma. That there

are two areas of your life that are maybe just

keeping you from going deeper with Christ. And

God laid these words in my heart. The accuser

is working overtime, but my love is a shield.

So I don't know if that's for you today. If you're

struggling with something that It's fleshly if

you're struggling with an addiction, if you're

struggling with a health issue or trauma from

your past. I just want to encourage you, after

we get done praying, to come up and receive additional

prayer and ministry. As you know, here at Hub

City Vineyard, we say this prayer all together.

If you join me in prayer. Jesus, I'm broken,

full of doubt, shame, fear, regret. Without you,

I'm lost. But today, I'm coming home. I believe

you're God's son. I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose again. Make me new. Set me

free. Fill me with your spirit. Empower me to

live set apart. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. The words of knowledge for today,

if you are struggling with any of these, kidney

issues, left hip pain, numbness in legs worse

than the lower part, left shoulder pain, ankle

pain, or a compressed disc that's causing nerve

issues, we'll have our prayer team up here at

the front of the stage. You're welcome to come

forward and receive prayer. Thank you guys for

indulging us today. We start Summer Jams next

week. God bless you. We love you. Have a wonderful

rest of your Sunday. You were my lifeline. Yeah,

don't cut off my lifetime. I was stuck up in

that grind. Not knowing you gave your life for

mine. You're the one turning water into wine.

Please fix my heart and the things inside.