Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Let’s talk about holiness.
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to Turning On the Lights! for Tuesday February 18, 2025.
Today we dive into both the Old and New Testaments to examine the biblical concept of holiness, what it means to be holy, and how we intentionally seek to follows the ways of our Holy God.
The Bible, as you know, is one unified story, and the teachings about God’s Holiness and ours are an inextricable part of that story.
May God bless you and keep you and, as we always say
KEEP LOOKING UP!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Good morning. Good morning. My brothers and my sisters. Welcome to the Church Town Church of God where as you can see the lights are not on yet. It is a crisp. Cold morning and the sun is shining and I always like to show you what it looks like when the eastern on the eastern side of the church when the sun is coming in is so beautiful. You should come here sometime. Maybe not Tuesdays or Thursdays, but come here at and watch the sun come up over the fields and then in through the church. Anyway, good morning. It is Tuesday somewhere in the middle end of February. I think these winter weeks. It’s just like Sunday grind grind grind Sunday grind. I mean they just click off stuck inside in the cold weather that it’s been rainy and snowy and icy and icky and windy. It’s like the end times man. Yeah, if you’ve got a smartphone every 15 seconds, there’s a new weather warning coming on it. But today’s sunny and it’s clear and it’s beautiful and I hope you get outside somehow and enjoy it. Let’s go turn on the lights. Shall we and we will talk a little bit about one of the ideas that we’re going to talk a little bit about on Sunday and that is holiness. Sunday is going to be a standalone day. Here’s the choir loft where the magic happens. Yeah, there’s the guitar. I don’t know how much magic is played by my guitar, but we’re going to play playing guitar this week. Oh, you’re a tripod is broken. Let me fix your tripod there, Rosie. Kim, so you don’t look at there you go. Oh, all right. There’s the sanctuary and here is me. How about that? But yeah, last Sunday we finished up first Peter and folks are like, I mean, let’s go to second Peter. And because it’s kind of the same but different and he is writing back into the same churches a little while later. He’s like, hey, come on, man. Didn’t you hear my first letter? Let’s get it going. And I think maybe we will. But this week is the last week of February. February. Wednesday, February. And so I want to do a little something something different. And one of the things that we’re doing different is I have a guitarist here that I am going to be playing guitar with for the first time. His name is Blaine. We’re going to be playing above all and his girlfriend picked out days of Elijah. Now, I’m not anti days of Elijah per se. It’s just not great theology. It’s a super fun song to play and sing. And I know I cut out that part about Jehovah because I don’t believe that Jehovah is a really valid name for God, etc. So we’re going to have fun with it and we’re going to have fun with Blaine. So good morning, everybody. Welcome to turning on the lights. Rosie said something here. Good morning, past Brian. Eighteen inches of snow in two days. I don’t want that, Rosie. I do not want that. I do not want that. And thank you for the compliment. This is my happy place. Can you see it? Oh, wait. There it is. That’s the pope. Oh, you don’t want to look behind the pulpit. It’s messy because I’m a clutter bug. Total clutter bug. You don’t want to look behind the pulpit, but the pulpit is my happy place. That’s where I want to be. I love the word of God. I love all week long. Like the the highlight of my week is digging in for that sermon on Sunday. I mean, I enjoy the other elements of the service, etc. I enjoy our prayer service, all of those things. But my happy place is focused in on what’s going to come out of my mouth on Sunday. And that is why that is part of my gifting, probably the strongest giftings that I have preaching and teaching truth telling. Right. Proclaiming that sort of thing. So I’m very glad God had honed those skills as a teacher. He honed those skills as a coach. And I’m very grateful to him every day for where he how he trained me and of course, where he led me. So I love this place and being a part of it, being a part of something that is so much bigger than me and helping helping people along in their walks. So good morning, everybody. Let’s pray that the word of God will go out today. Dear Jesus, thank you. And we pray by the power of your Holy Spirit that your word will go out today. Your teaching will change hearts and minds and your kingdom of God will grow as people repent. Oh, repent. Turn from their sin and turn to you in Jesus name. Amen. Right. Repent. This is the part of the room I talked a little bit in the sermon last week about how the church Christendom, the Christian church, the big umbrella is so factionalized and fractured underneath that umbrella. And one of the big parts that used to be like all pedo baptism versus believer baptism. But one, but perhaps today the biggest fissure. Good morning, Sandy, is repentance. You talk about repentance and you say, you know, the lie of the devil, the lie of the world is that homosexuals, drug addicts, adulterers are not allowed in church. We can’t have that in church. You will not be accepted. And you know that that is a lie straight from hell because the exact opposite is true. We taught that last week as well. This isn’t a little lie where 99 percent of it is true. It’s just trying to guide you off course. That’s a lie straight from hell. Come on in. When you hear the word of God, when you hear the gospel message, the good news is as you lay your life at the feet of Jesus. Proclaim him as the Lord and savior of your life. Know that God resurrected him from the dead. You repent of your sin, your lifestyle, your sin, whatever you want to call it. And you are filled with God’s Holy Spirit. And now the power to transform you is within you. Do you need to be intentional? Yes. Are there such things as radical conversions where a person is a drug addict one day gives his or her life to Jesus and it’s not a drug addict. Another the next day. Yes, but for the most part it the the filling of God’s Holy Spirit is this invitation, if you will, this adoption into his family. You’re going to live among the family. You’re going to speak with the family. Their family is going to be around you helping you loving you and when all else seems lost, you just go inside of yourself. You and God alone. Have you ever said that the greatest distance in the universe is the distance from the head to the heart. Can you get that out of your head and go in your heart with Jesus and speak and pray for his power. It’s not inclusive. The Christian church views only two types of people, not the kind of little marginalization, not the little groupings that you hear today as Satan tries to divide all of humanity into these little groups and then set them at war with each other and the church is taking the bait. In law, a under the umbrella of Christendom has taken that bait and is chiming in on this group that group this group that group back. Instead of proclaiming the Gospel of repentance. Because the gospel the church God’s kingdom sees only two types of people. Those who are saved and dwelling in the kingdom of God, and those who are not there are no, there are no other lines of distinction, racial, sexual or otherwise. So there’s your encouragement for the day Christian be a Christian. Don’t don’t be afraid to be a Christian, and part of being a Christian. How about this for a segue and is holiness, the way that we behave as Christians. So I want to say hello again to my friends at round knob. I hope that you find this interesting. Today we’re going to talk about holiness today, and probably justification on Thursday. Why, what’s justification, the theological term for being saved. Salvation. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we want like I said this Sunday we’re going to take a look at holiness and we’re going to take a look at salvation and we’re going to take a look at the second coming of Christ, and in between we’re going to sing songs and have a Jubilee. It’s I’m praying for a very much upbeat. We’re going to be up and down for coming to church town this week make sure you warm up with your squats, because we’re going to be up and down and we up singing down listening to the word up singing down listening to the word it’s gonna be like Methodist. Full blown. Here we go concept of holiness. This is something that are you a while. Good morning, Dale. A while ago I said, you know, and I said it again this weekend. If somebody said to you, okay, what is this gospel message? What is the gospel? What is the good news? What would you say? I purposely haven’t answered that question for you. Right because it’s I want you to think right it hopefully is hopefully it’s more than just a thought experiment for you. Maybe as you’re sitting around the table, you can express what that means the gospel what if someone asked you what is the good news? How am I saved? What would you tell them who is Jesus? What would you tell them? Right these questions that we have and a lot of the things that we understand are the way that we are filled with God’s Holy Spirit gifted by him spiritually and seek his will. That’s New Testament Pro post resurrection living, but let’s go back to Leviticus 19. Because the concept of holiness is not just something that pops onto the scene. The concept of holiness is from the very beginning in Genesis when Adam and Eve are made in the perfect perfect image and likeness of Christ. They are holy truly as he is holy. Right you are whole they are holy as he is holy. So the Lord also said to Moses give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I the Lord God am holy now. Now this isn’t meaning perfection anymore because we know about Genesis 3 but what it is meaning in large measure what the book of Leviticus is all about is how to be set apart from the profane world. Right from the rest of the world so that they can reflect the image and likeness of God. These Israelites are going to be different God wants them different God wants people looking at them differently. They are going to do all kinds of things differently than the Gentile world. What do you want to call it the Canaanites right the the profane world the rest of the world. They are going to do everything from the big things like hey, no child sacrifice and no more incest to little things like here is going to be your diet so that people you can eat this way and people will see you you’re going to be different in every sort of way. And when he talks about the laws the laws that are laid down and Leviticus Leviticus Exodus and the laws that are laid down in Deuteronomy. When we talk about the Mosaic law we talk about it is designed for a couple of reasons in the days of old. It is designed to make the people who follow the law holy set apart from the rest of the world around them and it’s also then designed as people grow in their knowledge and understanding of holy God truly holy God and what we have here how big the Gulf is how much we fail. In living up to the law how much we need a Savior. And so he talks about the Levitical law here each of you must grow show great respect for your mother and father and you must always observe my Sabbath days of rest. I am the Lord your God those are 10 Commandment type stuff and what you’ll see here in the Mosaic law are moral laws which always reflect the 10 Commandments and then you’re going to see the sort of behavioral law, which is going to help the Hebrews behave differently and appeared differently to the rest of the world might be set apart from the rest of the world. Do not put your trust in idols or make mental images of gods for yourselves. I am the Lord your God again a reflection of the 10 Commandments. When you sacrifice a peace offering to the Lord offer it properly so you will be accepted by God. The sacrifice must be eaten on the same day you offer it or the next day, whatever is left over until the third day must be completely burned up. If any of the sacrifices eaten on the third day, it will be contaminated and I will not accept it. Anyone who eats it on the third day will be punished for defiling what is holy to the Lord and will be cut off from the community. What makes it holy God says it is God says do it this way. If you don’t do it that way. I am not going to accept it. There has to be some parameters around what he’s saying. It would be like a parent saying. Oh, these are the rules, but I don’t really care if you follow them. And that doesn’t make any sense, right? These are the rules. This is how you will be seen as holy to the rest of the world. And these are the consequences if you do not follow them. Now we see that all the way through Scripture when Jesus is preaching salvation. He’s preaching right that that that those who will believe in him will be saved and those who do not will be cast into the lake of fire. He preaches the full gospel every time that he opens his mouth to preach it. He knows that there is right and wrong and good and evil. And he understands the clash of good and evil because evil is seeking to destroy the Christ from the very beginning. Okay, so we move on with the idea of holiness. What do we have next here? What do we have next? I want to go to Mark the Gospel according to Mark. Now. There’s a lot of stuff. If you look in Isaiah, if you look in Ezekiel, if you look in Daniel, if you look in Joel. And all these are this idea of the Hebrew people being set apart is just it’s all over the place. And that is their mark. That is the mark of the Lord that they have. It is the following of the law. We know all of the ups and downs and trials and tribulations that they have in following the law. We know that there are times when they are drawn close to God by following the law. And then, of course, they turn around and abandon following God by following the law. Then God will rebuke them sometimes more gently than others. And there are times when he sends an entire empire in to wipe out their whole place of living, put them in exile and basically in exile, in prison, if you will, punishment for 70 years. And we see the story of human failure. We see the story of God’s steadfast love, steadfast law, immutable and human failure. And one of the reasons why we have all of that recorded in what we call our Old Testament is to demonstrate the failure of humankind. And there are many of us watching this or listening to this who can’t raise their hand and say, “Yeah, I have never ever turned away from my God. I have never felt far from him. I have never disobeyed. I have never…” Come on, man. You may be very well practiced as you get older and deeper. We talked about elders last week, right? From 1 Peter. You may become more richly steeped in Scripture. You may grow very intentionally in your relationship with Christ and those times become less and less and less. I mean, that is, of course, the goal of sanctification. But human failure is still why we need our Savior. So oddly enough, when it comes to holiness, Jesus preaches very little about holiness, not much at all. And then when you see the letters of Paul and Peter and John. My phone’s blowing up here with text messages. That’s why we really do want to switch over to YouTube eventually. I got to get my phones all messed up anyway. Everything’s cracked on it and blah, blah, blah. So I got to get a set up here somehow where I can just hit a few buttons and do turning on the lights. But anyway. And then when you get into the letters of Paul and Peter and John, you read all about this holiness. You read all about the gifts of the Spirit and how different Christians who live in resurrection power are. So why doesn’t Jesus preach about holiness? Why does? Because he is holy. He’s not telling people about it. He’s not the law telling people how they should behave. He is the fulfillment of the law. He is holy. We learn holiness by watching him through Scripture and hearing him through Scripture. He is the Holy One, the only since Adam and Eve before the fall human being to walk the face of the planet who is truly holy. And then the New Testament writers reflect upon that and really flesh out and talk about the life of Jesus Christ, the ministry of Jesus Christ and his holiness. And they take the heart, the commandments in the Old Testament and the New of be holy for I am holy. Right? You are saved and your eyes are now upon Jesus and your behavior will now reflect Jesus. And none of that is possible without God’s Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Why is it called Holy Spirit? Well, because there are demonic spirits. Right? There are those fallen angels. There are those demons. There is the great opposer of God’s will. We’re not giving them the same distinction as we’re giving God’s Holy Spirit. So it’s important. But this passage here from right out of the mouth of Jesus really does reflect the idea of following him and following him in his holiness. It’s from the Gospel according to Mark, chapter eight. And let’s begin at verse 31 so we can have a little bit of context. Mark eight, verse 31. He would be killed, but three days later, he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples. Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. Get away from me, Satan, the poser of God’s will. He said, you are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s. There are there’s a huge, powerful takeaway from this and that it is God’s will that he incarnate will suffer and die. And Peter, speaking from a human perspective, says, no, we’re going to hide you. We’re going to run. We’re going to fight. We’re going to do whatever. Don’t say this about yourself. Right? Opposer of God’s will. And then Jesus says this to all of us, to Peter, to his disciples right there, to all of us for posterity. Then calling the crowd to join his disciples. Get everybody around here because you need to understand something. If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways. Take up your cross and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the good news, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the son of man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his father with the holy angels. That’s as close as Jesus comes to saying, be holy as I am holy. Follow my ways. Lay down your selfish and sinful ways. Right? Submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. Pick up your cross every day because you live in the resurrection of Christ. You live in that power. And now, like I said, the letter writers, Paul and Peter and John, are going to go on and talk about that at great length. What does that mean to carry your cross every day and follow Jesus? You’re not just following him like you’re following somebody on a street. You’re following his way. And that’s a big difference. Now we need to learn his way, and that’s what’s fleshed out in the rest of the New Testament, really. His way, the way. Are you following me? And that is the holiness of the New Testament Christian, the follower of Christ. Lay down your old self. Paul says, die to self and be spiritually resurrected in Christ. That makes you different. Right? All of the moral laws that reflect the Ten Commandments are all still in full play, but all of the other laws that were designed to set you apart by what you ate or what you wore, etc. are no longer. Because you are now following the fulfillment of the law. You are following the Christ. You are following the way. Does that make sense? So an easy way to say, well, how do I know what a moral law is? How do I know? Easy. Believe it or not, it is easy. And this is why I just I just and you’ve heard me say this if you’ve been with me for any length of time. This is why I just gasp when people say we need to get rid of the Old Testament or detach the Old Testament or get rid of the Ten Commandments. What do the Ten Commandments have to do with anything? The Ten Commandments are the very foundation of moral law. The very foundation of moral law. Now, the fifth one is sort of 50/50, but I always say the first four are about God. They reflect our devotion and our relationship with God. And the last six are about his creation. So the foundation of all moral law is this is what you’re about to do or say or even think. Does it serve God? Does it serve his creation? Does it honor God? Does it honor his creation? Now, you can talk to everything about that from your cussing and swearing and selfish behavior to your sexual immorality. And every aspect of your life is what I am doing, saying or even thinking. Does it honor God and honor his creation? That was way back in the day, yo. That came from the mountain. The Ten Commandments, the O.G. of moral laws. Still in effect today. When we see the fulfillment of that law, we see utter fulfillment in Jesus Christ and then Jesus Christ says, hey. If you want life and life to the full, follow me. See how it works. And this is what I’m talking about here. Just a couple of more. Now we’re going to go to the letter we went from Old Testament. And there are many more examples in the Old Testament, New Testament. And there’s a few examples in the New Testament, but not nearly as many because Jesus is. Holy, he’s not he’s not by word teaching people to be holy. He is by example, showing people that he is holy. And then the New Testament writers comment on that. That’s the it’s just a commentary. On the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Romans 12. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because all of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you. Into a new person by changing the way you think, then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. You see the difference there. Be transformed, do not conform to the ways of this world. That’s straight out of the Old Testament. That’s what the law was for. Do not conform to the ways of the rest of the world. But now, instead of seeking to follow the law in order to grow closer to Holy God, we submit spiritually, we sacrifice ourselves. The old Brian is dead in the new Brian lives in Christ by the power of his Holy Spirit. Now, by the power of his Holy Spirit, by that eye opening light, I can seek and follow his will. And this will set me apart from the rest of the world. On a roll here, I’m on a roll. Second Corinthians seven, because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God. Now, the word work, let us work toward complete holiness. This has nothing to do with your salvation. Let us work really hard for our salvation. Nope, nope. Submit. His grace is sufficient. Sorry, but we are going to be very intentional. You know, I love that word. We are going to be very intentional as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, as it says. We’re going to be very intentional. It’s, you know, he’s called fire insurance is not fire insurance. You raise your head down, raise your hands. Yes, I’d like to be safe. Say the sinner’s prayer, Lord, I’m a sinner, etc. And then go about your merry way. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You’re called to live a life that is worthy. Of what God has done for you. A holy life. Please open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone nor let anyone astray, nor taken advantage of anyone. I’m not saying this to condemn you. I said before that you are in our hearts and we live and die together with you. We have the highest confidence in you. And I take great pride in you. You have greatly encouraged me and made me happy despite all of our troubles. He goes on to talk about this entire body of Christ repenting. A body of Christ. In Macedonia, the body of Christ repenting. These are followers of Jesus Christ. Repentance, submission. And once that is, you are saved. It is intentionality. Walking with Christ. We call it. Pick up your cross and follow me. All right. We got to finish up here. But just in first Peter, which we just did six weeks on first Peter one, verse 13. So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you. And Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Obedience. I say structure, order and obedience. This is post salvation. Your salvation is completely dependent upon God’s grace, not your obedience to law. Or works. This is post our order structure obedience. What does it look like to live as a disciple of Christ? What does it look like to have a Christian family unit? What does it look like to have a truly Christian church and congregation? Order, structure, obedience to the word of God. 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 you go. And there’s only one way you can’t do it. Right. The Old Testament Hebrews, they couldn’t do it because they were working in their own strength. And God was utilizing this law to demonstrate to them how much they needed him. And he could, he could find the real hearts of men and women as they did. They truly seek to follow the law. Are they truly seeking God? He can determine all of that. Post resurrection we have the very power that raised Christ from the dead within us. Now when we talk about reflecting back on the life of Christ, we are actually given his power, God’s power to live as he did. And that’s what makes us holy. Oh, there is no doubt about that, Rick. And praise God for it. He was training me and teaching me. I had no idea, no idea. And even afterwards, you know, you know, I’m no different than anybody else. There are times when I just would sit over the 13 years and sit in the corner and go, this is so totally not worth it. I’m going back to teaching. I’d rather go back to short order cooking than do this anymore. And I’m like, and then of course you come around and I’m frail and I’m a human and I’m frail and I am emotional and I am prideful and all those things. And that’s why we must be intentional. Father God, we pray for that intentionality of your church and your people to be holy as you are holy, to live by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ and live a life that is worthy of our salvation. That we may pick up our cross, we may follow Christ, we may follow Christ, and that will set us apart as individuals, set us apart as family units, set us apart as congregation. In Jesus mighty name, we pray. Amen. Questions, comments, concerns. Keep on talking in the comments section. Like and share the video. It’s going to come out on YouTube, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the whole deal is going to come out in the podcast. Get over to the podcast and check that out. God bless you guys. And good Lord willing in the river don’t rise, which it doesn’t look like it’s going to this week. Mometty sunny and cold. I’ll see you Thursday for turning on the lights.
0 Comments