Foundations: God is Holy • Ps Robert Fergusson

the wonderful people at life in new zealand and also in australia it is a huge honor and privilege for me to speak to you today i wish i was with you in person but obviously because of the season i'm unable to be there but uh just really feel blessed to be part of this service so thank you very much paul and marie for the privilege and honor of uh this opportunity when paul rang me a few days ago and invited me to speak to you this morning he said that he's doing a series on foundations and when he said that it really resonated with me because i believe god in this season is calling us back to our foundations back to matters that matter so i don't know exactly how he or where he drew this idea from but he told me that there were four parts to this series god is god and god is good god is eternal god is holy and god is dependent of course technically he isn't dependent on us at all he is self-existing so theologically he has chosen to partner with us so in that sense he is dependent on us to build the church that he himself is building anyway if you look at the lord's prayer from matthew chapter 6 verses 9 onwards it says our father well that's god is good and then it says hallowed be his name that is god is holy and then who dwells in heaven that is god is eternal and then your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven there is god is dependent and i don't know about you but i pray that prayer every day of my life so what we're really saying in this series is let's go back to the first two phrases of the lord's prayer well as i understand it paul has already looked at god is good and luke has already looked at god is eternal and they've given me the more difficult subject of god is holy thanks guys really appreciate it why don't you ring up robert ask him to do the difficult one god is holy what on earth can we say about that well i'm going to do my best in the next few minutes to unpack that idea that god is holy and how you and i can live the holy life that he intended for us and what exactly that means this is going to be a very down-to-earth practical message but i have to talk about some of the theory as well so bear with me we're going to get very practical as this message draws on but first we need to pray so let's pray that god will really speak to you maybe you're on your own maybe you're in a group maybe you're in lockdown i don't know your circumstances at the moment but wherever you are however you're listening to this message i am believing that where you are god is going to speak to you in your situation is going to help you live the kind of life that god wants you to live so let's pray father god thank you for all these wonderful people at life in new zealand and in australia thank you that you love them that you want the best for them that you know their story you know their challenges and this message i believe you've got a phrase or a word or an idea that's going to help everyone in whatever circumstances they find themselves just anoint and help and bless this message right now so that both me as a speaker and everyone as listeners will get the most out of this message in the name of jesus amen well a number of years ago in fact in the 70s i had a friend who was an alcoholic he drank about a bottle of spirits every single day and then one day jesus christ appeared to him in his living room he immediately fell to his knees repented of his sin and the encounter transformed him to the point that as soon as jesus had finished the encounter as it were my friend picked up all his bottles of alcohol and poured them down the sink he didn't need counseling he didn't need a doctor he was instantly set free from alcoholism it's a remarkable miracle but that's not the heart of the story that night even though he knew nothing about god he was woken up three times in the night he heard an audible voice now you need to understand this man had no connection with christianity didn't know the bible didn't know the first thing about jesus he heard an audible voice saying leviticus leviticus three times he woke up he didn't know what leviticus was so he went back to sleep again the following morning he felt compelled to pick up a bible and found the word leviticus in it and he thought well maybe i should read this book now i don't know if you've read leviticus recently but it is the one book i would never ever recommend a brand new christian to read why because it's filled with old laws that have nothing to do with us there it was to do with the people of israel for instance it says don't eat pigs or don't eat camels or don't eat shellfish it's got lots of rules so you would never say to someone read the book of leviticus but god knew what he needed and he told me after he finished the book god spoke to him and it changed his life forever so we need to ask ourselves why did god suggest leviticus what is leviticus about well i'm going to read a couple of verses from leviticus and you'll get an idea of what it's about because even though the rules don't apply the principles do leviticus 11 44 i am the lord your god consecrate yourselves and be holy as i am holy don't make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground i am the lord who brought you out of egypt to be your god therefore be holy as i am holy it says it again and leviticus 19 and verse 1 and leviticus 20 and 26 be holy because i am holy and i have set you apart the thing is god wanted to set the people of israel apart from any other nation he wanted them to live differently now you may think he's just being legalistic or fierce saying be holy because i am holy but that's not the point at all he was holy and he wanted to live with them so he said i want you to be holy so that i can be with you exodus 25 verse 8 makes that clear it says they then have them make a sanctuary for me and i will dwell among them now you may think this has got nothing to do with you and i but actually it's got everything we may not need to follow the levitical rules but god still wants us to be holy uh 1 peter chapter 1 verse 15 but just as he who called you is holy so be holy in all that you do for it's written be holy because i am holy that's a new testament concept be holy because i am holy why for the same reason because he wants to live with us he wants the best with for us one corinthians 6 sorry 3 16 don't you know that you yourselves are god's temple and that god's spirit dwells in your midst god wants to be with you so if you want a title to this message put on the top of your page or on your phone put be holy because i am holy now that mandate suggests two things firstly what on earth is god's holiness and secondly how on earth are we prepared or expected to be holy like him well the first one is not the subject of this message i i could spend hours talking about the holiness of god and i wouldn't get to the beginning of it but suffice it to say in isaiah chapter 6 and verses one to eight the prophet isaiah has an encounter with god like my friend and he heard angels shouting holy holy holy holy is the lord god almighty the heaven and earth are filled with his glory and it was so extraordinary that he fell to his knees and thought he was going to die he said i'm unclean and god forgave him and as a result of the forgiveness he was able to come into the presence of god so we learned two things there about the holiness of god firstly that the holiness of god is so glorious it is beyond description he lives in unapproachable light as the bible says but at the same time forgiveness enables us to approach him so i'm not going to unpack that scripture i want to talk about your holiness because the second question that the mantra poses be holy as i am holy is about us how are you and i going to be holy how are you going to be holy in auckland how are you going to be holy in melbourne how are you going to be holy in your day-to-day lives well that's the subject of this message and here is another mystery because i'm going to read you two verses that seemingly contradict one another but if we don't get them we'll never work this out one uh sorry hebrews chapter 10 and verse 10 says this by that will in other words by what jesus has done we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of christ jesus once and for all so there it is there in the new testament if you're a believer if you've given your life to the lord jesus christ if you've been born again the bible says you have been made holy you are holy god has forgiven you you are able to approach god you're able to come into his presence and pray that's why we can pray that's why we can live the life that he wants us to live but verse two three verses later hebrews chapter 10 verse 14 it says for by one sacrifice he is made perfect or is made holy forever those who are being made holy now when you get those two verses that seem to contradict one another it's not a contradiction it is a paradox two seemingly unrecognized uh unreconcilable truths in tension just like a violin string intention but producing a beautiful sound so on one end you are holy but on the other end you are being made holy so if we are going to live the kind of life that god wants us to live and be holy because he is holy we've got to understand those two concepts firstly you are made holy secondly how can we be made holy i am holy but i'm on my way to being made holy just like the bible says i am healed but i am being healed or i am righteous but i am being made righteous so this is the tension so let's have a look at the first statement the first statement is we are holy and i'm going to look at all of this message from the book of ephesians now if you haven't read ephesians recently you may not know that it's divided into two parts theory and practice the first three or four chapters basically tells us about who we are in jesus it tells us about our identity we are blessed we are forgiven we are the people that god wants us to be or in this case we are holy but then it goes on in the chapters 4 5 and 6 to say how can we live this out how can we be made holy so what we're going to do in this message is going to have a look at the first three chapters or the first chapter specifically and then look at chapter four and work out how we can live this out so to summarize what i've just said look at this ephesians 1 1 paul an apostle of christ jesus by the will of god listen to this to god's holy people or it may say in your version to the saints in ephesus the faithful in christ jesus you may come from a catholic background where special people are called saints but here is paul the apostle saying to every single person in the ephesian church you are all saints you are all holy so here am i uh talking to everyone in life in new zealand and australia saying you are saints saint mary saint marie saint paul you didn't know did you that your senior pastor was sent paul but the fact is we are all saints we've even got saint luke there as well so we're all saints but look at what it says verse 5 verse 8 but you were once darkness and now you are light in other words you've been made holy now live as children of light for the fruit of light consistent goodness righteousness truth find out what pleases the lord so having told you you're holy it now goes on to say but how to live that so let's have a look at those two big ideas firstly you are holy we're going to have a look at three things that the first few verses in ephesians 1 talks about if you read through and i recommend that you do after this message why don't you read the book of ephesians you will find that it has these three phrases in it the first one is this we are chosen by the father to be holy this is your mantra this is your mandate this is your command verse 4 says in ephesians 1 he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy to be holy so can i just encourage you you are chosen by god to be holy this is what he wants for your life but the second part of this passage is that we are redeemed by the son and made holy just like isaiah realized that god had chosen him to be holy he was forgiven and made to be holy verse 7 of ephesians 1 says in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins so firstly you've been chosen to be holy secondly you've been redeemed in order to be holy and then the third thing that it says in this passage is we are marked by the spirit to make us holy so let's let's uh see if we can unpack that or put that in a different way it talks about the father the son and the spirit it says we are chosen by the father included in jesus and marked by the holy spirit in each case it says for the praise of his glory you need to understand that god has chosen you to be different he's chosen you to be holy you need to understand that he has forgiven you so that you can be different and then he's given you the holy spirit so that you can live differently from anyone else you and i have been set apart not because we deserve it not because we're good enough but because god has chosen us to be different chosen us or redeemed us forgiveness so that we could be holy and then given us the holy spirit many years ago i was preaching on this subject of holiness to a small group of 10 people and i was trying to explain that god has given us the holy spirit to help us live holy lives and he's also given us the holy scriptures to help us live holy lives and i was trying to explain the difference and i just randomly said i i hadn't got any of this in my notes i just randomly said for instance the bible says in isaiah in the holy scriptures don't read horoscopes so don't read them and then i said and the bible says uh if you're going to get married marry a christian marry a believer it says that in the scriptures so don't go out with a non-christian and then i said but the bible's this was remember back in the 80s it says nothing about discos so how do you know whether you should go to a disco or not so i just randomly use this idea of horoscopes going out with a non-christian and discos i said so how do you know you ask the holy spirit he will tell you whether you should watch this or not watch that whether you should do this or not do that so i just randomly said that and as i said it the lady next to me sitting right next to me in this circle of ten burst into floods of tears she was uncontrollably weeping and repenting just like as i when he'd had an encounter with god just like my friend on his living room floor almost on her knees weeping in repentance i didn't know what had happened so i said what's going on i had to stop the meeting and she said last night i went to a horoscope disco with my non-christian boyfriend now why had i chosen those three things because god wanted the best for this woman not to make her feel bad but to make her holy so that he could relate to her so that he could be with her so that he could bless her so that he could forgive her that's why he tells us what we're doing wrong so the first chapter of ephesians is the theory the first three chapters are the theory we've been chosen by the father to be holy redeemed by the son to be made holy and then given the holy spirit so that we can live holy well what does that actually look like in our lives this is where we're going to get really practical so once you've grasped the theory we've been made holy now from that theory you can practice see if you think you are bad you will live back but if you know you are holy you are able to live holy god never ask you to do something that is not going to equip you to do so you start with your identity we are forgiven we are blessed we are holy now that i know i'm holy i'm a saint i'm going to live like a saint a friend of mine used to say dogs bark pigs grunt ducks quack saints shout in other words if you know you're a saint it will affect how you express yourself so let's have a look at the second part of ephesians ephesians chapter 14 uh chapter 4 verse 22 and i'm going to just read you a couple of verses it says you were taught with regard to your formal way of life to put off your old self which has been corrupted by its deceitful desires and to be made new in the attitude of your minds i'm not going to read the whole uh passage but it basically says you've got to put something off and put something on one of the illustrations it uses it says if you're a thief you've got to stop thieving and start giving it's not good enough just to put off thieving you've got to put on giving and you can't just put on giving you have to put off thieving if you just put on giving and don't put off thieving you become a generous thief and that's not what god wants he says no get rid of the negative and then put on the positive put off your old way of doing things and put on the new way of doing things so so the whole passage is about uh what we need to do we've got to put off and put on and it talks about thinking speaking and acting all the way through the scriptures it talks about thinking speaking and acting so i'm going to just use the that idea uh to talk about what holiness looks like in our life i don't know if you were brought up as i was in a traditional church but when i went to church every sunday i would pray the confession and it would say this almighty god our heavenly father we have sinned against you and against our fellow man in thought in word and deed through negligence through weakness through our own deliberate fault it's a confession a repentance but notice what it says we've sinned in thought word and deed so you've got to put off bad thinking put on good thinking put on put off bad speaking put on good speaking put off bad actions put on good actions so that's what this looks like all right what does it look like practically number one think positively think positively we've got to put off old thinking now i don't know about you but i'm not very good at positive thinking in fact i did a strength finders test recently and uh it's got about 25 30 different qualities and i have different qualities which apparently i'm good at but at the bottom of the list the last two on this long list were positivity and vision when i told our senior pastor here at hillsong church that my two weaknesses of vision and positivity he just sort of held his hands because that's what you want in a leader you need us to be positive and leading but the fact is positivity is not my strength it's my weakness but i've got to put off this negative thinking and put on positive thinking put on this new mind look at what it says i've just read it put off your old self and be made new in the attitude of your mind you are holy you're a saint so behave like one think like one think differently it may be a weakness like it is for me but do what philippians 4 8 says whatever is good whatever is noble whatever is true whatever is of good report think on these things so my first instruction is think differently think positively don't think like the world thinks think positively we've lived in a horrendous year and there's so much bad news out there it's very easy to get negative but i will not be negative i'm full of hope full of opportunity why because i'm a saint because i'm holy i'm gonna live differently so think positively number two speak truthfully it says we must put off rotten talk verses 22 ephesians 4 22-24 put off rotten talk put off swearing put off blasphemy put off negativity put off criticism i know the social media is filled with negativity but this is not for saints this is not a time to criticize the government or criticize other people or attack organizations this is the time to pray if you're a saint you've got to think positively and speak speak truthfully speak the truth in love it says in ephesians can i just say that when i became a christian before i became a christian i had filthy language just like it describes i i was a seven stone weakling so i couldn't beat anyone up at school when they bullied me so i bought a dictionary instead and i learned all the filthy words that i could so i could attack them with my words so my mother and others were were frustrated because i had filthy language but as soon as i gave my life to jesus christ he ripped the bad speech out of me and then i chose because i was now different chose to speak differently so speak truthfully and the third thing is act graciously chapter 4 verses 30 to 32 says that we've got to act differently do not grieve the holy spirit of god with whom you are sealed with a for the day of redemption get rid of all bitterness rage anger brawling and slander why it says because you're a saint be kind be compassionate it's a tragedy in this world to see so much domestic violence so much uh anger so much rage so much bitterness so much vile talk on the social medium from the media and the bible says in ephesians you're a saint so behave like a saint you are holy so be holy what does that look like think positively speak truthfully act graciously my leviticus loving friend was transformed i am believing that if you don't know the lord jesus christ you too will be transformed and he's going to make you different and then he wants you to live different not because he's legalistic as i said not because he's fierce but because he wants to live with you remember leviticus 20 26 you are holy to me because i it says you are to be holy because i the lord am holy and i've set you apart god has set you apart life in auckland in melbourne and all the other places you mean god has set you apart so that you can live different be different act different speak different think different so that people can aspire to your life and your lifestyle don't don't beat yourself up understand who you are and then live like it what is romans 12 2 says do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you'll be able to test and approve what god's will is his good pleasing and perfect will i know i know the world is saying all manner of things and every time you turn on the news you hear bad reports and bad news but i want to encourage you that when god is calling us to go back to our foundations he's calling us to understand that god is holy and therefore we need to be holy let's get back to matters that matter let's get back to basics and be saints and live saintly so that our world can be changed i hope that makes sense i'm going to pray for you as individuals because i'm really believing that wherever you are maybe you're on your own in your room hey if you want to have an encounter with jesus christ as my friend did in his living room i'm believing that the same transformation will happen to you in your setting what you need to do is this you need to ask the lord jesus christ to make himself real to you and when he he may not actually come into your living room and he may not actually speak to you in an audible voice as he did with my friend but he he is with you and he is speaking to you if for no other way if in no other way than through me so all you've got to do is to pray a prayer and mean it and believe it and jesus will make himself real jesus will come into your life so wherever you are why don't you just pray this prayer with me o lord jesus christ today i realize i need you in my life please come into my life as the preacher said change me do what i cannot do forgive me of everything i have ever done wrong so that i can approach you with confidence make me right make me holy change me forever from now on with your help i will follow you you are now my king my god my lord in jesus name amen well give yourself a clap that was the best prayer that you could possibly pray and look just to help us help life help you what i want you to do is just to click on the prompt in the chat and even in put in the chat i prayed that prayer but click on the prompt and we'll do everything in our power as a church to talk to you to help you with the next step can i just encourage your church read the book of ephesians and say with the saints in ephesus i'm a saint and i'm gonna live like a saint i hope that's helped let's get back to matters that matter god bless you god bless you god bless you

Channel: LIFE NZ

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Length: 32min 37sec (1957 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021