Holiness in the Hour

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Well, again, congrats to all these graduates.

Thank you, friends and family, for being here today.

I know that there's a little bit more of that probably in store for you, some this week, if you hadn't finished parties and all, but it is an exciting time.

And what a beautiful picture, right?

The opportunity God has given us as a church family to invest all across this stage.

We appreciate being any part that we've had in your child's life.

And if you are here and you're visiting, and I want to say you don't have a church family that you call home, we would love for you to come back and see us.

First Thessalonians this morning, chapter three.

We're gonna hit chapter three, four a little bit and actually dig into a little of chapter five as we do.

As you're turning there, I want to give you one date.

The kids will make fun of me if I say it the way it comes on the calendar, but it's June the 7th.

That's all I'm gonna say.

You that get that, you'll get that.

You must have junior high kids if you do.

June the 7th.

Uh, we have a couple of big things happening.

I want you to put on your calendar.

We're gonna be licensing Kyle Edwards, one of our uh church deacons to the gospel ministry, feels called into the ministry of chaplaincy.

And so want you to be here for that.

The Smith family will be here, our new worship minister and his family, and we're gonna celebrate both of those things that day by having lunch.

And to top it all off, we have a quarterly business meeting.

So if you weren't pumped about anything else, that is on June the 7th.

Hope for the hour, holiness in the hour.

George Whitfield was a close friend with John Wesley, but they differed greatly in some things doctrinally.

And one person asked George Whitfield, George, do you reckon one day when you're in heaven that you will ever see the sight of John Wesley in heaven with you?

To which he responded, I don't believe that I will catch a glimpse of John Wesley, because John Wesley will be so close to the throne of God, and I will be so far away from it, he said of his friend.

He said that John Wesley was such a man full of holiness.

Holiness sounds like a church word that is something that seems almost unattainable.

Let me give you a definition of holiness, and then I want to share what I hope is a humorous story.

Holiness is the intentional pursuit of consecration to God.

An intentional pursuit of closeness to God in your daily life working its way out.

Does it feel unattainable to you?

I had that idea of holiness as I was growing up.

Even though I know there's a verse, we'll hit it later.

It says, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

In the 2000s, early 2000s, there was myself and a group of college singles at a singles weekend, and as things went, then we had the bonfire, and there was some Chad, I don't really know his name, out there with sandals, jeans, and a sweatshirt, and he was playing worship music, and we were all trying to look spiritual and mysterious at the same time with all the other singles.

And they started playing this song Holiness, holiness is what I long for.

And he played through holiness, and then he sang righteousness, righteousness.

And then he sang brokenness, brokenness is what I long for, is what I need.

And then he went ad-living, Chad did.

And I'm there with the pastor who's leading the thing, and I'm trying to keep myself together, which by the way, I have a hard time as it is anyway.

And he went into things I'd we'd never heard sang.

He said, faithfulness, faithfulness, and then he said, loveliness.

And John looks over at me, and before the next verse could come out, we're just right there.

You know, and in church, you're not allowed to laugh, right?

When it's serious.

And he goes, Mercifulness.

And I'm like, no, he sure isn't gonna say mercifulness.

Anyway, we're doing the church laugh suppression.

I'm looking down at the ground.

I fake a cough, right?

I'm just giving y'all some wisdom here, teens.

You gotta fake a cough.

I might have faked a sneeze, right?

And I'm trying to hold this in because it's either going to be revival or it's gonna be like a comedy special.

And all of that is going on finally, I think ten words deep, like he's gonna sing every attribute we should ask a Christian.

He finally breaks.

But all these years later, when I think back on that, my heart is drawn to this holiness.

It's not just a song lyric, it's still what God asks of his people.

And students who graduate today, what more perfect a thing?

Holiness is all about continual growth, not being satisfied, but continuing to grow to get closer to the Lord.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

And we're so thankful, God, for this day, for what it means in the lives of our students, their families.

We thank you today that we can meet together and celebrate this in your house.

And God, as um, we ask that your word would do its bidding to our hearts.

Help us not to just have had a tradition today, had showed up and had another graduation.

But today, God, we need to meet with you and we need to understand our part in seeking you differently and how each and every individual can be more holy.

Lord, we love you and we thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Holiness is a matter of the heart.

Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

That is the first point.

It's a matter of the heart.

Chapter 3, verse 11 through 13.

Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct direct our way to you.

Paul is praying, a prayer over the Thessalonians, and may the Lord make you, I highlight these words, increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you.

So that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

This is a matter of the heart.

Holiness is the inner armor of a person.

It's the heart of a person.

If you were to drive your car today down to one of these car washes, and car washes, they've gone wild, right?

You can go now in the$30 per month, you know, every day you're gonna get that when you come in and everything.

But when somebody goes to a car wash, they go because their car has gotten nasty, and they want everybody around to see that my car is not nasty, so I go to the car wash, and most of the time you go and you get your exterior cleaned.

It's pretty rare that you go to the car wash and get the interior clean.

Isn't it interesting that when you get the interior of your car clean, it's called detailing.

It's an important detail when you get the inside clean.

Isn't it interesting that we want to go often because we don't want people to think our car is nasty and we get the outside cleaned?

But how often do you have your car detailed?

Jesus said this in Matthew 23.

He said, Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites.

He said, You cleanse the outside of the cup, but the inside of the cup is full of extortion and self.

First, clean the inside of the cup.

1 Samuel 16, 7 says, Man, we look on the outward appearance.

God looks on the inward part, the heart.

Man looks at the paint job, God looks under the hood.

Psalms 51.

It doesn't say that David said, Create in me a clean exterior, O God.

It doesn't say, create in me a clean, handsome outside, O God, a good body.

It says, David came to God and said, Create in me a clean heart.

Holiness is the word hagiasmos, and it means set apartness of the inner man.

God has set every Christian apart.

If you're saved today, you're saved, and your venture students is now a step each day towards holiness.

Well, what did he say there in chapter 3, verse 11 through 13?

A couple of things I told you a highlight.

Letter A, he said, love that expands for one another.

It says there, look at verse 12, and may the Lord increase to abound in love to one another and to all.

The word increase is play a nozzle, and it means, ready for this?

More.

Increase means more.

Because of love, when I married Heather, I was 155 pounds upon marriage.

And I quickly, because of love, began to increase.

Amen.

30 pounds in six months.

Love increased me.

I remember coming home to the apartment the first time.

And I grew up, had one sister, and by the time I was 14, she was out of the house.

Heather grew up, she had four brothers and a sister, and she was second mom, and so she cooked like that.

And I believe she thought when we got married, they were all still there.

And so one day I went to grab the butter, and me growing up, the butter was just this little tiny thing.

And I went in the fridge and it was a two-pound trough.

I was like, okay, all right.

And so I remember that love helped me create an expansion.

Paul says, the holy heart expands in love for others.

As God refines and purifies me.

Hear this.

I find more wrong with me and more grace for others.

Others that fall.

Why do I have more grace?

Because they fall like I do.

Holy love expands.

That's what it says.

Increase.

Then it says, abounds.

Increases about what happens to you, what happens in your heart.

The word abound is peris-o, and it means to exceed.

Right?

We live in a world often, you guys that if you're business owners or anything like that, we live in a world often where minimums are what people hit.

They do the bare minimum.

The minimum is ordinary kindness.

When you walked in today, the minimum is someone responds to you.

That's a minimum when you speak.

Are you given spiritual minimums?

Say, well, this is as far as I'm going to go spiritually here, this is my, okay, I'm doing what the Bible says, but you've been served at a restaurant and you've been given minimum service before, right?

And you kind of know what that was like.

But then you've also, we got a guy here, I don't know if he's in here this morning, but somebody said to us while we were eating at his table, said, he is like if AI could generate a perfect server, he compliments you.

He's bringing extra things.

I don't know if he takes from his own paycheck, but he, this guy, I've had every appetizer at this restaurant and only ever ordered one.

Right?

Like, and he's nice, he says to me, you feel complimented.

Before you left that place, you felt nothing minimal.

You know what I'm saying?

Compliments.

That is what abound is like.

Because I've got so much love that's increased in me because I've been with God, I have increased, then I abound.

The abound is about an overflow.

Increases me, it touches me, and then my abound touches Jeff because it can't help it.

The cup is full, increased in me, and it overflows.

It has to touch others.

Hear me.

If you get to know more and more and more of the Bible, but nobody around you is changed, there's a problem.

If you get to know more and more, you're deeper, and you're you're just diving in and you're getting so much, and you can tell everything of everybody about everything that you know, but nobody near you is feeling more loved.

God doesn't just want your heart to increase, He wants it to abound out of you.

In country terms, a river that increases but never abounds becomes a swamp.

Y'all understand that?

Abounding, overflowing.

A couple of verses about it.

John 13, 35 says, By your love the world will know that you are my disciples.

The world can see.

1 John 4.20 says, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.

For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

If holiness is the goal and we're trying to move towards it, then increase is happening in our heart, and an abound happens outside of us and touches others.

That is the natural ebb and flow.

Letter B.

A longing that expects.

The hope for the hour that we're talking about this whole series in light of the world and the nation, the wars, and all that's going on, is that there is an hour coming, an expectancy one day that this life has an end, and that Jesus will be coming.

Well, in verse 13, it says, so that he may establish your hearts, that he may find you holy in holiness before our God at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This heart be so clean and so pure, because one day, my God is sending his son for me again.

People prepare differently for company.

Right?

If Tuesday, the ATT guy is coming to mess with the internet at my house, we're probably not gonna clean a whole lot.

But if you got family coming from out of town, right?

Y'all that are dealing with what you've been dealing with, the parties and all this, right?

Husbands, you've had task lists, have you not?

I mean, I seen immaculate yards yesterday.

I'm like, wow, does it always look like this?

I mean, you got to check every box because company is coming.

The expectancy that somebody is coming should change behavior, the presence of God.

He says, one day, church, he's coming.

Chapter by chapter, that's been the hope for the hour.

And he says, set your affection on things above.

Verse 11 there, he's praying with longing again.

Paul says, We long to be with you.

But the point to be with you is to establish your hearts as holy hearts because God is coming, establishing.

Why does he point out the heart?

Because the heart is naturally the spring and seed of unholiness.

The Bible says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

Who can know it?

And so Paul says, he sent Timothy to establish hearts, and he says, We want to see you work towards holiness.

Colossians 3 14 says that the love, love is the bond of perfectness.

And God, who is without spot or flaw, wants to see and be readied for.

A flawless God, how do we do that?

We walk towards holiness.

Love shows him when we love one another.

We show him to the world.

Love fights evil.

Love shows our longing of the company that we want to see.

So when you love, it says to God, I'm longing for you.

Can't you see the way that I'm loving people?

What's happening in me, the overflow that's coming out?

I'm longing for you.

When I don't want to do it, I'm longing for you.

When they aggravate me, I'm longing for you.

When it's really hard and I love, I'm longing.

I do it not because of me, because in my flesh I'm really no good.

But because I want him to know I want to be holy.

Second, holiness is a matter of health.

What flows from the heart eventually flows into the habits and makes our health.

Look at chapter 4.

Finally, then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound, there's this word again, more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.

For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

Letter A is abounding in sanctification.

Sounds like the first point we had.

It says, We need to be growing in growth.

Growing in growth.

Repetition over and over through this chapter, end of chapter three into four.

He says, increase and abound.

Then he says, more and more, increase and abound.

And you say, okay.

I got it, Pastor.

I need to grow.

What way specifically?

I am so glad that you asked.

Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

We're going to come back to 4.

Because he hits it throughout 4.

But 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 through 18.

My Bible is labeled various exhortations.

And we're going to hit some of them.

And we're going to fly by.

Because it feels like Paul is sending his student off to college, right?

For the very first time.

And he's saying, Oh, wait, I need to tell you this.

Oh, wait, there's this for holiness.

Oh, oh, and don't for you don't want to forget this.

And then then it feels like that.

And so it even, you know, the label in my Bible, various exhortations.

But the point is, if you're growing and increasing in these ways, it will be establishing your heart in holiness.

Okay?

So let's look at what it says.

Verse 12.

And we urge your brethren to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you.

And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake.

Be at peace among yourselves.

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly.

Comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.

See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone.

But always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all.

Rejoice always.

Are you exhausted yet?

Pastor, pray without ceasing.

Hear that in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.

And it goes on.

So we're just going to hit a few of these for today.

We'll come back in a couple of weeks on some.

But it says, first, esteem and honor those who teach you.

Honor the work of those who have taught you.

Students, make sure that you don't forget today and days to come.

Those people that have loved you and fought for you.

Those people that made sure that you've lived through this life, they care about you.

Then deeper, those people who have taught you spiritually.

I thought about this, the pastors that have been in my life.

I grew up in a church, the very first church, Pastor Persinger, and I can still remember.

We left that church when I was about seven or eight, but I can remember his love and joy.

Pastor E.

L.

Britton, this man died at a hundred and something years old and planted the church we were at in Delaware, Fairwinds Baptist Church.

And he was so loving and so kind and made an impact on my heart.

Pastor Lasco Heather was with me at Middletown Baptist Church.

And Pastor Lasco, I never seen anybody who, in their eyes, the love of Jesus came out of their face.

I mean, he just cared for whoever was in front of him.

And Pastor John at our previous church is still one of my closest friends.

Danny Lovett, I feel like, gave me the best years of his life mentoring me.

He says, Esteem and honor those who teach, especially the word.

Of God.

Then it says, warn the unruly.

Okay, I will say this and add to it: warn the unruly with tact.

Okay.

Learn to warn people of bad behavior with tact.

Don't just go out here and say, Well, the pastor said I can just correct everything.

Right?

We used to have a joke in our house.

People that like to correct, they were called the correctosaurus.

Okay.

He says, warn the unruly.

It's important that you tell people.

But Galatians 6:1 is a good guy.

Galatians 6:1

Brethren, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

Tell people because you love them and you don't want it to continue.

But he says, to be holy means that we warn the unruly.

Growth is not letting it go, right?

People will do that.

Growth is lovingly saying something.

Growth is not watching it happen and just being okay when spiritually you know it affects them, it affects you, it affects people.

He says, warn.

Then it says, comfort the faint-hearted and uphold the weak.

Growing means being the burden bearer of your church.

Are you the burden bearer of your church?

Are you the burden bearer in your family?

Holiness is how you treat those who are weaker in the faith in you.

Those who need help.

That's walking towards holiness.

Alright, here's a tough one.

We'll lump them together.

Rejoice evermore and be thankful all the time.

And everything give thanks.

Even when you wake up, even when you're tired, even when you've been through a broken this and a broken that, and you don't feel good, and you've got this.

He says, rejoice always.

As in, that should be the spiritual nature of a growing child of God.

You should be more and more positive.

Right?

People want to say, well, you know, they're just getting older.

That's just how it is.

You should be getting older and be so sweet.

And there are people like that.

There are some people in this church.

Years and life mature has made you so sweet.

I look forward to seeing you every week.

You make my day when you are.

But there are some people that they have said, Life has done this to me, and I've earned the right to be angry.

Right?

It says, Rejoice always.

What does it mean to rejoice?

Spurgeon said, we ought to rejoice that there is a command to rejoice.

He said, Who can be sad or silent when the voice of the beloved said, Rejoice?

Holy living is infectious gratitude.

If you struggle to rejoice, then you lack joy.

And if you lack joy, I believe your understanding of the joy giver is skewed.

Get closer to him.

It'll make you more joyful.

Alright.

He said, rejoice always.

Then he said, pray always.

Do you find yourself often in prayer?

If you ask a lot of spiritual people, people that maybe you look up to, many people will say the hardest thing for me is to find time to seek God in prayer.

Prayer.

How can we pray always?

It's an attitude, a mentality.

Okay?

You don't, listen, graduates, you don't have to just go find a closet.

You don't have to just come to this, oh, those are good things.

But as you think, talk to God.

As you're riding down the road, talk to God.

He says, pray always.

Do you find yourself, Christian, do you find yourself often being asked to pray over people?

Or are you rarely praying over somebody?

Rarely a brother or sister ever asks you to pray.

Do you feel that burden in your heart?

Or is it an area that needs growth?

Holiness here says it's a mentality of prayer.

We're prayerful.

It's a conversation that's going on.

You can measure spiritual health by consistent obedience to the word of God.

The Bible says, Jesus said, If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

And so we can measure spiritual health by how we keep his commandments.

He says, My sheep know my voice and they follow me.

Are you consistently?

That's holiness again, a pursuit.

I'm not saying that you're perfect.

I'm not saying you don't mess up and you don't fall, but you get up and you start back and you continue.

It's just like if you've been working out and you injured something and you want to get back on track.

You get back to it and you keep on pursuit.

That is what holiness is like.

It reminded me of a teacher I had growing up, um, Jerry Factor.

40 over 40 years, he's been a youth or assistant pastor.

This was my youth pastor.

He was my history teacher, he was a Bible teacher, he was a soccer coach.

So consistent.

There's not some one big like emotional moment that I can tie to Jerry Factor being godly, but what stands out to me is it's just the same.

I mean, even to this day, if you look at him now, he looks the same.

I'm like, consistency really has done good for you.

40 years, he looks the same as he looked when he was teaching me, and he's just doing the same things.

That's what spiritual maturity is like: growth.

It's like brushing your teeth, okay?

Y'all come back.

Here we go.

Brushing your teeth.

Nobody has ever posted on Facebook, day 4,263 in a row.

Look at these.

But if they are not doing it consistently, you sure can tell.

Am I right?

If you skip long enough, everybody notices.

Just because you got teeth does not mean you have arrived.

Right?

You've got to clean them consistently.

I think some people say, Well, I got saved.

I'm here.

What else?

What next?

Holiness is not perfection as consistency.

Letter B.

Go back to chapter four.

Look down at verse three through seven.

Letter B is abstaining of sexual immorality.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality.

That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know of God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

Therefore, he who rejects us does not reject man, but God who has also given us his holy spirit.

So if you go back in chronological order of Paul's exhortations to this body, this church, he says, foremost, abstention from sexual immorality.

Foremost in your walk of holiness, the first order of business.

And the deal is the church at Thessalonica had a problem.

Now, some people today will say some things like this sexuality is worse than it's ever been in our nation.

It's worse than it's ever been.

It's rampant everywhere.

And I'm not sure that as you study history, that that is accurate.

I think it's very bad.

But if you look back on history, it's been bad and it's been bad for a long time.

The deviant nature of sex is charged, and we have access to a lot of things today.

And it's, I'll say this, we live in an unhinged society when it comes to this.

What's Paul highlighting?

What's he mean?

He says to abstain, that means complete abstinence from sexual activity outside of a monogamous marriage.

Hebrews 13, 4 says, marriage is held in honor and the marriage bed undefiled.

Every other bed, then, is defiled.

Okay?

And he goes on there, and he says, in Hebrews, there fornicators and adulterers are to be judged.

Pastor Rick, why are you on this again, y'all?

I know that's what some of you are thinking.

We were just talking about it with Joseph and Potiphar.

And we were talking about it last year when we talked about the fruit of the Spirit and self-control.

And we were talking about it in the contender series, contend for the right biblical sex.

Because it's happening over and over in this book.

I'm not just looking for a reason to bring this up again.

I know for some of you go, this is awkward.

It's graduation Sunday.

This is how God intended through Paul to let people know this is needed for holiness.

And if you think it's not needed for your life in here, you're wrong.

Over and over.

1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 10, he tells us to abstain from perversions of sexuality.

Matthew 5, Jesus says to look at somebody.

So he includes the thought life.

He plainly says here, when he's talking to this church, not like the Gentiles do.

In other words, in our context, in church, if you're a Christian, you're not to behave like non-Christians do, students and say, well, everybody else.

This is just the world around me.

And listen, it is.

It is difficult.

And it is in the media, and it is in your phone, and it is everywhere.

But Paul says, and we echo, not so for a Christian.

Be different.

The Bible says every sin that you do is outside of your body, but this sin that you do is against your own body.

And so he says, flee.

Flee from it.

Be pure.

Paul says, if you want to be holy, be pure.

Now, I'm just going to be honest.

For somebody your age going into school, I think it's maybe one of the hardest things that you'll go through.

I think it's difficult.

And when we were in youth ministry, I felt like 90% of the kids came to us at some time or another.

It was heartbreaking.

Went pornography or messed up physics.

It's very difficult.

And parents, you need to be on your guard with it.

It's very difficult.

But how do we work through that?

I was thinking about my son.

Wyatt is not on a diet.

It has been bulking season for four years.

The other day, he had a massive grilled cheese with sourdough bread that took up the pan.

And he chased his sourdough grilled cheese with a pound of milk.

You say a pound of what?

16 ounces.

It was a soup cup and it was filled to the top.

I'm like, he's about to drink that with that grilled cheese.

Hear me.

You can't simultaneously be subtracting and add to you.

You can't subtract from God's word and be adding to your holiness.

You can't subtract from these exhortations that Paul has said and be adding to your holiness.

That does not work.

You have to be actively pursuing growth.

You will not balk as a Christian.

You'll be lean as a Christian.

Last thing, aspiration of serenity.

Look at verse 9 through 11.

He says, but consider concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

And indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia.

But we urge you, brethren, that you increase, here it is again, more and more, for what?

That you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you walk properly to those who are outside, and that you might not lack nothing.

He says, We need to have an aspiration for holiness to be complete.

We have to have an aspiration of peace in our life.

You see, remember that Ignatio, the church at Thessalonica, where we find them, this place was a place of status.

It was a place of noise.

It had marketplace influence, political stirring, pagan festivals.

There was gods to be sold on the street.

There was social accolades that were climbing.

People wanted visibility.

People wanted followers.

People wanted likes.

Sound familiar?

And Paul, in that culture, makes a shocking statement.

He says, in the middle of that, if you want to be holy, shh.

He says, if you want to be holy, you gotta learn to live in the quiet.

That pushes against today's obsession with constant noise.

I know, listen, there's some moms in here, you are so, you got so much.

There's some dads in here from front to back.

It's so busy.

And you got school and you've got agendas, and you say, You're gonna say this to me in May, Pastor?

God says, Shh.

We got a world of entertainment and hype, always chasing the next thing.

It's like that has become its own religion.

Chasing the next thing, the next trend.

We want to go viral, we want to be seen, we want to be followed.

People say, I gotta get mine.

And God says, No.

You want to be holy?

You got to be quiet enough.

You gotta get yourself to a point in place at some point in your day, in your week, so that you can hear me.

Can you get quiet enough to hear me?

Now hear me, Paul.

Paul preached publicly.

Paul evangelized nation.

This is not me not, you know, having a voice.

It's not about passivity, it's about peace.

Tell me if any of these things tick a box for you.

Can't go to sleep unless the TV's on.

Can't go on a drive without a podcast on.

You doom scroll daily.

Hear me, my toes too.

Quietness forces you to hear things.

Forces you to hear maybe your fears that you don't face.

It forces you to hear maybe guilt for some of these things that need to be tended to.

It faces you to maybe hear loneliness, perhaps, and do something.

And potentially quiet will lead you to hear the voice of God who is calling you to something.

In chapter 5, he reiterates the reason for these exhortations.

He says, Now may the God of peace sanctify there, as that were grow you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserve for the God who is coming.

I want you to look, turn over to 1 Peter.

I said I would share this earlier, and it's this beautiful call.

And I said when I was growing up, it felt impossible.

Holiness has to be unattainable.

Because to me that meant some level of perfection.

First Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Look at verse 14.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lust, as in your ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.

Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by the tradition from your fathers.

Hear this.

Peter says, Holiness is worthy of pursuit.

It's not a task list, it's about being close enough to God that my ears will be open to God and I'll do things differently than I used to, is what that scripture says.

Not the old man.

And he says, Don't fall back like you used to be.

He says, be holy because it's a worthy pursuit.

Because God sent his son Jesus to redeem us.

Not of some corruptible thing.

He didn't give gold or silver for you to be holy.

He says, because he gave spotless blood so that you could live this life, precious blood of the Lamb.

God thought you were worth it.

Do you think you are?

But if you're not quiet enough, you're never gonna give yourself the chance.

I gotta, Pastor.

You don't understand, and I hear me.

Being a man in this day and age, I got to.

I gotta do more.

We all have to do more.

And we're all in the pursuit of this.

Jones's American culture.

Listen, guys, and you just graduated, it's all gonna grip you.

What are you gonna do?

What is next?

How are you gonna get there?

How much money is it gonna make?

When are you gonna be quiet?

When are you gonna listen?

When are you gonna kneel?

When are you gonna hear from him?

Earlier I talked of John Wesley.

His mother, Susanna Wesley, had 19 children.

Can you imagine?

She had buried several of them, and they often lived in poverty.

Her husband was gone for long stretches of time to make ends meet.

Susanna's house was loud as you can imagine, exhausting as you can imagine, chaotic.

And her children said there was one thing about mother.

Hear this.

When mother pulled her apron over her head at the kitchen table, everybody knew not to interrupt her.

When the apron went up, it was Susanna's prayer time.

No platform, no microphone, just a woman getting close to the throne of God, daily, quietly, humbly, looking for hiddenness.

And out of that quiet life came sons that God used to shake nations spiritually.

It was her son, John Wesley, whom George Whitfield said he may never see in heaven for the holy life that he lived, he would be so close to the throne of God.

I want to give you one more campfire song lyric from that same age.

We'd sing this song often.

In the secret, in the secret, in the quiet place, in the stillness, you are there.

In the secret, in the quiet hour, I wait only for you, because I want to know you more.

I want to know you.

I want to hear your voice.

I want to know you.

I want to touch you.

I want to see your face.

I want to know you more.

Is that your heart this morning, church?

You see, holiness is not God calling you to something unreachable.

It's God asking you to be, I'm gonna spell it for regrets, W H O L L Y.

Holy His.

Holy.

All in, all his.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes this morning?

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