Mark Nelson | Holiness | 3rd May

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Margate Church podcast. We're a church for the people of Thanet, making Jesus known as the way, truth, and the life. As you listen to this talk, I want to pray that the Holy Spirit will come and meet with you wherever it is you're listening from. Speaker 2 Well, good morning everybody. So good to be with you. Good to be together today. My name is Mark. If I've not had the chance to meet you on the vicar here and would love to connect as we go. And hey, in the last few weeks we've begun to teach into some of a living and breathing theology of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is who God sent who Jesus sent to accompany us. The Greek word is the paracletos. It's like a helper in in kind of the ancient day that it would have been spoken of. It was also a boat that exists in the Mediterranean today, so that when your boat got in trouble, they'd send the paracletos to come alongside you and stay you safe to shore. And we've been having a bit of a conversation about the importance of the Holy Spirit. And today I want to talk about holiness and how holiness and the Holy Spirit interact. And I have a phrase in my journal that says, you can say or declare or teach what you know, but you'll ultimately reproduce who you are. And I find that as yes, challenge, isn't it? It's good to have in your private notebook because God is holy and we are made to be like him. And so I, I want to ask the question like, what does that mean? What does that look like you maybe you're new to church or exploring it. Well, God gives his people a radical vision for how your life and my life can be totally transformed to see such good things pour out of us, to be able to live differently, to live free from things that keep us enslaved and enchained. And in, you know, in worlds of shame, God declares that he can do all of these things to make us holy. It's a gift that he wants to give to us. It's why he went to the cross because ultimately the human condition is that we wrestle with that sense of dis ease that we feel experiencing alienation from God. It's not how we're designed. We're designed to be close to him. We're designed to be in relationship with God. So he came and he died and he made a way for us once again to be reconciled with God who is holy. And then he offers this gift to anyone that would put their trust in him that you can receive that holiness. You can receive your your life can be defined by the holiness of God within you. But here's the problem, at least that I find, is that the pattern and the pressures of life will shape us to resemble what the world celebrates. You know, if if you just live and exist, you are being formed and shaped into something that the world offers. How much you think is reasonable to spend on a cup of coffee? Who you vote for? You know, we are like if you exist, you are a worshipper. And so we don't live in a neutral space. We are, we are living in a formation machine of culture. And from time to time those things will lead us in directions that will lead us away from God and God calls us to live differently to the world. Something about how we speak and act and love people of power and a sound mind. This is what's on offer to us. But if you're anything like me, there's been times through my walk with God where I've tried to fill that void of angst and separation from God with things that might comfort half truths that might medicate some of my desire, perhaps few substance or there's addiction. There's something going on that you think maybe that's if I put my love there, it'll fulfil me. But that void is designed for God. Your life is designed for God. So this is going to be an ongoing lifelong journey for all of us. I remember as a teenager I played a bit of rugby and on one particular occasion I got tackled about a meter from the sideline. A quite a lot of parents and people watching down the side. And just to put it in context, this person wasn't very kind to me when they tackled me and it was a wet day and someone was kneeling on my on my head and sort of quite a lot of surface water. And I found myself getting quite out of character angry. And I'm not particularly proud of what happened next. But I grabbed the guy's shirt and perhaps did some things and said some things I'm not very proud of. And as the referee sort of separated the two teams and pushed them all away, as I began to sort of take my first step to jog back to the game, there was a grab at the back of my shirt collar. And I turned around and it was my dad who, in a very calm but a firming tone, said, we don't use language like that. And then he let me go. And he was right. He's actually here today, still grabbing me by the collar. But he was right. And I think it's a helpful picture for what it looks like to pursue God in a life of holiness. There are times and moments where God might be arresting some of our behaviours, calling to mind some things that just says actually, that's not for you. That's not how you were designed to live and operate. Don't use that. And I hope today I, I, you know, not to put you in a, a place below me. We're on a level playing field here. But I wonder whether God might be wanting to confront some things that you've kept hidden for too long that's actually enslaving you. And it's grieving the Holy Spirit and God. He died for a a holy bride, an imperfect but holy bride. And so this is God's living invitation to each of us is to receive the Holy Spirit and to be made holy. In Colossians it says before you were saved, you once lived as an enemy of yourself. And we want to become integrated whole holy beings. So it's not a do better moment that we're having together. It's a come experience the life giving power of the Holy Spirit to become all that you're made to be. The personal preacher to the Pope is a man named Father Raniero Cantelamesa. He's been doing this particular role since 1980. And I should have got a picture to show you, but there's an amazing story of him on a train travelling through Italy and he was SAT opposite a woman he didn't know and never met before. And she, she didn't believe in God at the time. And as she sat there and observed him, the account recalls that she observed him and observed him and observed him and then later approaches him and told him. Your face compels me to believe there's something about holy living that goes beyond what we say. Ah, such a good story, isn't it? He's not. I looked at some photos of him on Google Image. It's not, you know, but there's something about when the Holy Spirit lives within us that compels the world to live differently. And you and I are made in God's image. I don't know if anyone's told you that, but you are made in God's image. You are made like God. And so you have to ask the question, who is God? Well, God is holy. God is overwhelmingly holy. If you get to the end of the story in the Bible, the parting words will be these all creation, all resound, holy, holy, holy. It's the Lord God Almighty. We serve a holy God and it's into that image that you're made. Do you feel like you're holy? Holiness isn't some add on to the Christian life, it's central to it. So that's why we're talking about it today. And but just a name, that religious spirit, that enemy to this moment will be the voice of shame because the internal voice of shame can wage war on that which God is trying to do. It can be so powerful. And I want to speak that out in the room and say it has no permission here today because you are holy. God has made you to be holy and He has washed you clean. If you put your faith in Him, He has covered your transgressions. It says as far as the East is from the West. That's how far I've removed your mistakes from you. It's good news, but so often we can live under the narrative of shame. It's like walking around with an invisible broken bone. You don't know why you're hurting, but you just can't get well because you need God to heal you and make you well. So that's why it's good news today. Two quick dangers to avoid in this conversation. The first danger is this. Let's not make God in our image. One of the things that happens with kind of wrestling with God towards a view of holiness is that when it becomes uncomfortable, we change God rather than think he might want to do some work in us. So let's not, let's not shrink God down to what feels comfortable or accessible for us. That's one danger when it comes to this conversation. It also right. I'm sure it's fine. Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. One danger, equal and opposite danger. Let's not become legalistic and judge mental. Let's not swing that podium and become religious people. God, Jesus in his ministry, he he yeah, he went against the religious authority of the day. God didn't come to bring a religion. He, he came to bring freedom to those that believe in him. So how do we walk with integrity, this sort of this tightrope that we find of pursuing holiness but avoiding shame? How do we, how do we step into freedom but avoid condemnation? How do you leave this place not feeling like Mark's just spent 20 minutes beating me up verbally? I do not want that for you or for me. Like how do we hold on to this mandate that God gives his people to be holy, set apart people. How do we resensitise ourselves to the mandate that God has for us to bring beauty and hope to the world? How do we go after that today? Well, we're going to read a little passage together, but you're wondering what happened to the Bible reading today in in a one Peter chapter 1. If you have a Bible, want it, grab it out. And we're going to read just 4 verses. We're going to read verse one Peter one verse 3. And then we're going to read verses 13 to 16. And one of the things before we jump in, if you're newer to the scriptures, Please note I'm so pleased or comforted at least that the person giving this particular passage of teaching, which is titled Be holy, the person that writes this is the denier. It's Peter. It's the one who thought he could do it all in his own strength. It's the mega aggressive 1. You know, the guy that got gets out a sword and chops off the guard's ear like the hot headed one. I'm sure he could do with some lessons on being holy. And I'm just grateful for kind of a life well lived, wrestling with God, pursuing the things of the Kingdom, that this is what emerges out of his heart as a as an invocation to the next generation about how to live, what to pursue. So we're going to start with verse 3. It says praise be to the God of our Lord God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And then over to verse 13. So be holy. Therefore prepare your minds for action, be self controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Christ Jesus is revealed as obedient 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 that you do. For it is written, be holy because I am holy. 3 encouragements I want to offer for each of us. Firstly, about how to pursue holiness together. Walking this tightrope. Firstly, is the power of confession be made right. How do we do that? Through confession, You know, in the kind of Anglican liturgies you ever approach Communion, you will say, Lord, we're sorry for where we've got it wrong. Take a moment to recognise that we all fall short of the glory of God. To start with confession. Acknowledge that we need help. If you don't have a regular pattern of confession to your prayers, can I encourage you introduce it because it will bring you closer to God. Because God doesn't just want the compartmentalised parts of you that you think He wants, He wants all of you. What confession does, I find is it breaks up the ground that's become hard in my life and my relationship with Jesus. This is what it says in one John 19. It says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all unrighteousness. What a great promise. But it says if we confess. And so confession is a part of recognising that we are not God and that we need help. It's in our weakness that we are made strong. And know this, that if you're wrestling right now as I speak with some areas of kind of shame or discord in your own heart, that when we come running back to Jesus in confession, we are not returning to a list of rules. We are returning to a living person, a gracious God who embraces us in his arms. Think about the story of the prodigal son. You get a running father that holds you, not a legalistic list of what you've done wrong. Confession says come back into proximity with God again. Because when you get there, my experience and the experience of the church is that in Jesus presence you hear the true voice of how you're made. You're holy, not sinful. You are holy. Do you know that you're holy? You know the Bible describes you as a royal priesthood. That's who you are, but keeping short accounts, it just cultivates love. It's pretty obvious in most relationships. The prophet Hosea and Hosea 10 verse 12 says use confession to sort of break up the fallow ground for it's time to seek the Lord. If you're looking for breakthrough in your life, why not spend some time with God, being honest with him. I have a group of four other friends. There's five of us, so we call ourselves the Pentagon, and we've been tracking together now for 11 years in confession. And we all trained together, all preschoolly churches around the country. And we go away a few times a year. We speak every other week on the phone. We do longer calls and shorter calls, and we have an ongoing text message thread. Whereas we wrestle with our, you know, with our natures butting up against the holiness of God. That's where I go. And I say, guys, I need your help because the inner voice of shame is wreaking havoc today. And jump on a call and they'll pray like, could you start to build some of those things around you? The power of confession to do so much. And so we know that shame will not get us into any form of holiness. To pursue that cause is just to feed off the wrong drivers. It says in verse 13 that it talks about grace. It talks about grace so much through the New Testament. It says that his grace is sufficient. For me. It's only grace. That's why it's a gift. Holiness is a gift because it's it's bestowed and given to those that don't deserve it. That's you and I. So firstly, confess. Secondly, consecrate. If the first area is about being made right, this is about being set apart. Consecrate your life unto God says in verse 13. Prepare your mind for action. Be self controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace given you. So how do we prepare for action? I mean just ask any chef preparing for a busy table service. Ask any athlete preparing for a race. Ask any soldier preparing for combat. What do you do? How do you prepare for action while you train? Don't you? You receive teaching. You build in habits that will get you there. I think the same is true of the spiritual life. There's a proactive invitation for each of us to set our lives apart for God in what we do and what we don't do and what we say and in what we don't say. I'm reminded in the Old Testament of what Joshua says to the people he's been leading now for quite a long time. They're now about to enter into the land that God has promised them for over 40 years. And Joshua says, consecrate yourself, set your life apart, basically make room for God, take off your shoes and know that yes, we sit quite informally in this environment, but we sit in the presence of the divine. So consecrate yourself, set yourself apart for him. Start your day with the Holy Spirit. In the Bible, it's the perhaps the single most effective way that God has to speak to us because it's a living, breathing word. So what sets it apart from any other book? It's why it's the most popular book throughout all human history. It's on no book charts because it would always be #1 forever in a day, every single week. It's because it's living and active. It's not dead and dormant. So are you starting your day? Are you preparing your mind with the Holy Spirit? If not, can I encourage you One simple thing. I've got an app called the Bible App, and I just have an alarm that goes off. It sends me the verse for the day. Why not just start it there, just one verse everyday so that you can just find your life in Christ. Secondly, consider the environments that you're entering into because your environments, like I said at the start, will shape you. I remember the first football match I ever took my wife Jenna to, it was Man United V Fulham. It was in Craven Cottage in West London and we were sitting in the away in the away end with 5000 completely mad United fans. And it was like my Christmas present. It was like 22nd of December, it was 8:00 PM kick off. It was freezing cold and everybody else, not me and my wife, were topless. It was that sort of vibe. OK, so that's where we're at. And for 90 minutes no one sat down. They just went just chanting, chanting. And my wife is working in fashion and she'll wear a lovely camel coat all wrapped up nice and warm. And I can tell you, by the end of that game something had happened to her for the environment that she'd been in. She wasn't unclothed, but she was going for it. She was on her seat chanting, and it was. I never realised she loved Man United so much. Like, our environment shape us, don't they? But not all of them shape us in the way of holiness. And so we need to ask, like what, you know, what are the environments that are actually robbing you and what are the environments where you're making difference in the world? I'm not preaching, oh, like a retractionist theory. You know, I don't want us to be like, I could never go in there because that, you know, that that's not what I'm saying. Jesus went and he was like people who were making mistakes and sinning were captivated by Jesus. It says that Jesus was friends with sinners, but he never sinned. And he chose to build his life, prepare his mind and his heart and his body in the secret place so that when he stepped into those environments, the environment changed. He didn't. So choose your environments and choose how you prepare for them. Henry Nowan, who's a great spiritual Catholic writer, in his book In the Name of Jesus, he said this. I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone. Like, choose your environments. That's why I think church is so important. It's why I'm so glad you're here. Come every week. If you're in the southeast of England, be at church because it shapes us more into His likeness. It encourages us. You get cheered on and encouraged. I was saying some this week. They, they text me a word of encouragement right in the moment when I needed it. I was actually SAT just trying to like meet with the Lord with my journal. And this text came through and in my journal it was like, oh Lord, this is so hard today. And then that voice of encouragement came through. You know, how like how can we be a church that encourages and shapes us? We're going to need one another's help. Thirdly, in this area, it says be self controlled. It's one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And let's just take a moment to talk about pleasure, shall we? Pleasure is God's idea. Like, you know, God. God like, wants us to experience his pleasure. But the lesson that we need to learn with pleasure is that we cannot have everything that we want exactly when we feel like we might want it. There's something about the sort of the maturing nature of faith that needs to defer pleasure and instant gratification in pursuit of something bigger. Because if if you ask me what I want for breakfast, it's Easter egg. I mean, Jim, do you know what I mean? There's certain things that just think, you know, if I ask my kids what should we need for breakfast today, it's never let's have Bran. Do you know what I mean? There is a need for us to parent our spiritual life to say, do you know what? I'm going to defer that. I know it looks attractive, but I'm going to be self controlled. I'm going to allow the fruit of self-control to bubble up within me now. And I'm going to stand against it because there is a greater long lasting eternal gratification that's on offer for you and I. And it's the presence of God, the one who fulfils our sense of desire for pleasure more than anything else ever could. So are there pleasures that are perhaps being misused to fill voids in your life? Is there an addiction? Is there an over attachment to porn or substance of alcohol or drugs? Is it a gambling habit? Is there something going on? You know, I could, I could real often end this list. Is it anger or the things that going on that you just know perhaps need to be arrested today in space for greater hope? So how do we do that? Because that's quite an intense list. We need the Holy Spirit. He's the only one. You cannot earn your way there. It's only the grace of the Holy Spirit that can lead us there graciously. And so Peter's like exhortation to us is like, be alert, be sober minded. He says don't sit idly on the grace that you've been given. I think if the picture is that like resurrection, open the door, the Holy Spirit is the way to enter into that Kingdom or fully like be in touch with the Holy Spirit with the things that you wrestle with. So if confession is to be made right, if consecration is to be set apart, then thirdly, live with calling. Live with calling, like live life on purpose in the week ahead after it says in verse 15. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do. Set your hope on the grace given to you. Like I don't know where you're going, but I find that in this particular area, if I've not got the SAT NAV on, I always go via the beach because it's pretty like. I think the same is true of the spiritual life so many of us just live with kind of the instant gratification, the kind of credit card nature to faith. I want to buy this now, pay for it later, but God says no. Set your course, put the end goal on the map and chase after it with intentionality. It's a great story of an old naval chaplain having a conversation with a sailor in Portsmouth who's about to set off to sea. It's the night before and he's speaking to him. And the sailor says to the chaplain, you know, chaplain, it's OK for you with your collar turned round the wrong way, living in this kind of little secluded zone of yours. But you don't realise what it's really like for us as sailors. You've got to understand that the great drift and the passions and the movements and the appeals, they're so strong and they're so powerful. They just move us. We can't control where they take us. And the chaplain quietly replies, quoting Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem Tis the set of the sails. And he simply said this, well, one boat goes E, one boat goes West. But the self same winds that blow, it's by the self same winds that blow. It's the setting of the sails and not the gales that determines which way they go. I think that's so helpful. It's the setting of our sails that says that's the way I'm going to go. It's not going to be the gales and the things of that will shape me. It's going to be my pursuit of God that's going to lead me. And so are you setting a course that helps you get where you long to go? If not, you're going to be in an eternal wrestle fighting fights you don't know. Why are you setting parameters for your desires? Because I find that misdirected desires will lead to a misdirected life. I'm finally that. If I chase my desires, I'm like, what on earth am I doing over here? That is not what God has in store for me. So am I setting the parameters for my yeses and my nose remember catching up with some of my old school friends a few years ago and the the night progressed to a gradually more CD direction and we're walking down the road and they say, oh, let's go here next. I knew exactly what that meant and I just had to say I will not set foot in there. And this is where I say goodbye for the parameters have to be set. And so have you set up your life in a way that will lead you into holy living? If not, the grace of God is on offer for you today. Even if it is and you need strength, the grace of God is on offer for you today. You're called in all that you do, it says to be holy. Not just on a Sunday where you dress up and bring the best bits of you, but all of you. He wants to work on all of us. And so I'll finish with this as the Holy Spirit leads us, the great thing is that he lives within us. He dwells within us and he does that work that I've just described. He does all of it for us. He renews our thinking. What is it saying Romans 12 verse 1 be transformed by the renewal of your mind. It's a gift from the Holy Spirit. He transforms us. We listed the the fruits of the spirit. If you're here on a regular basis, you hear that sung in our altogether worship the fruits of the spirit, not a coconut, it's love the the Holy Spirit enables us to obey that which we cannot obey in our own strength. The encouragement is to be like a child as an obedient child. Sometimes I think what's one of those? No, but I genuinely like my my kids when they come and they and and they they embrace and they hold you. That's the picture I want to get hold of because when God says be holy like an obedient child, it's if you've ever had the privilege of hugging someone close to you or someone that is in a kind of a role where you're parenting them, what a joy it is to offer them the protection and the encouragement and the sense of direction that you know you long for them. God is more obedient to listen. He is more longing to heal than we, than we are to ask. He's more excited about your life than you are your own future. The Holy Spirit is really, really, really good. And so when he goes to work, he begins to act as our discernment radar. Things come in that they just don't settle quite well with you. He's described as the one who leads us into truth. He frees us from shame, and He releases us into freedom. This is what God has on offer for anyone who wants it today. Holiness is a great gift of life in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift to be received, not an exercise to be fulfilled. And I just want to offer that to you today to say, if you're resting, join the club. But we must guard that grace. We must prepare ourselves and pursue it because this is the bride that the world is looking to, to ask the question, is God really holy? And I long for us to be a community where people can come and find that they're not perfect, but it is holy. So I wonder whether we just might stand and have a chance to respond together. And gosh, perhaps just simply I might just lead us through a moment of confession just for each of us to get right with God. And then after that, I'll invite, we have a prayer team here that that would love to kind of gather around you. They're just people that we've just made sure can pray safely and appropriately and would love to stand with you. And that doesn't kind of negate anyone in the church, but just chance to pray. But I wonder whether we just might take a moment between you and God just to begin to examine the internal world of your life and just ask the question, God, would you highlight those places and parts of me where I struggle, or perhaps confess that which comes to mind? Just lay it at the foot of the cross, knowing that he died for you. And so, Jesus, we humbly come before you this morning thanking you for your grace, and we just confess where we've got it wrong. Let's just take a moment, each of us now to do that. Thank you, Lord, in what we have done and what we have failed to do. Lord, we're sorry in what we've seen and how we've spoken and thought and acted, in the ways that we've grieved the Holy Spirit. Lord, we just admit that we're prone to wonder. And now just as those things come to mind, I just find if you know, if things keep coming to mind, just keep laying them at the foot of the cross. Thank God that He's highlighting them and longing to take them from you. The the cross has once been described as the rubbish bin for our sins. You can place them there and leave them there. And so, Lord, now we just ask for the Holy Spirit to come and to fill us. Living breath of God, rack of God, come and breathe upon this room. Begin to just consecrate us afresh for you. Set us aside, set us apart, Lord, that this would be holy ground, that we would be holy people. And now just receive His love. Receive that gift and grace for you.