Pursuing Holiness

I'll film again. There's audio to the bottom screen, but it's not working. It worked this morning. There we go. Um, at least uh the mics are working and the worship team uh music is working. Hooray. Praise God. Um, yeah, that would really be tough if everything went out. Um, well, we'll figure that one out. But I am Pastor DJ, the campus pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. Um, if I haven't met you before, welcome. Uh, please come find me afterward. I'd love to chat with you and get to know you more. Um, and I want to echo what Brian uh had said about pizza with the pastor. That is today. We do it once a month. Uh, we took the summer off and now we're back into it. But that is our our membership class. I share our mission and vision and then our statement of faith, what we believe as Cross Church. Um, and then we talk about ways that you can become a member first of all and the ways that you can serve or maybe take your next step. So, if you're interested in that, you haven't signed up yet, like what is Pizza with a Pastor, you are welcome to hang out with us afterwards in the Kids Wing area uh is where we'll have that. I want to invite you now to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 7. will be in the entire chapter. And if you don't have a Bible, please please use the one in the seat back in front of you and you can take that home and mark it up and highlight it and read it and make it your own Bible. We will gladly replace them. Uh, in fact, there was like four missing last week and I was super excited and uh my father-in-law Kim replaced them and said, "We're out. You need to get more." So, I will do that. Um, but I love it. And as you turn there, um, I'm going to open us up in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you, God, for your word. And, uh, we just thank you for who you are. You are holy. And you are holy, holy, holy. Three times, thrice holy. And God, I pray that you would give us understanding this morning. I pray that your spirit would move, that your spirit would convict us of our sin and draw us and lead us into righteousness and pursuing holiness. God, we thank you for what you've given us and what you've done in us. And I pray God that we would obey what this says and pursue our own holiness to pursue righteousness to pursue those things that you've told us to do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Uh Jerry Bridges was a gentleman. and he was a Korean war veteran and he was a a Christian author who had wrote many books on holiness and on the Christian life. Uh he went to be with the Lord in 2016 but not before he had made a a great impact on many people many people's lives. One of his books are called The Pursuit of Holiness. And in it, he Jerry shares a story of an interaction that he has with a man needing help with a sin issue. And so he writes this quote,"I once discussed a particular sin problem with a person who said,"I've been praying that God would motivate me to stop." And so Jerry Bridges goes on to write, "Motivate him to stop." Little question mark. What this person was saying in effect was that God had not done enough. And then he wrote this so powerful. He says this, "It is so easy to ask God to do something more because that postpones facing up to your own responsibility." End quote. Maybe you can relate relate to that. using prayer to justify procrastination. Well, I'm praying about that and it's good to do those things, but there are commands in scripture that we have. Will we do them? Pursuing holiness is active. It is not passive. The scriptures demand action from believers. The New Testament itself is full of commands to Christians. Do this, don't do that. There is a tension in scripture between what God has done for you, what God has done for you. There's a tension between that and what God expects you to do in response to what he has done for you. Let me give you examples. One, as Christians, God has made us holy. We could say he's made us righteous. He's given us life. He's made He's made us holy. You didn't make yourself holy. God made you holy. This is an indication, right? Indicating that you were made holy by God. For example, in 1 Peter 2:9, Peter writes, "But you," he's talking to believers, "are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. You are that. You've been made that, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You're made a royal priesthood, a holy nation, so that you can go out and tell people about him, about God. But then Peter in the same letter says this, "But as he who called you is holy, as God called you, he's holy." He says, "You also be holy in all your conduct." And that is an imperative. It's not indicating something. The other one was, "You've been made holy." This is an imperative, which means a command. Be holy. This is Peter's knife hand, so to speak. Be holy. He's telling you to do something. We could say the same thing about righteousness. We have been made righteous. Romans 5:19 says, "For by for as by the one man's disobedience, Adams, the many were made sinners. So by the one man's obedience, Jesus Christ, the many, us who are Christians will be made righteous." So that is something happening to you. It is an indicative. It's indicating this has happened. you in Christ, if you believe in Jesus Christ, have been made righteous. But then Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:1, he says, "But as for you, oh man of God," so he's saved. Timothy is, he says, "Flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness." And again, that word pursue is an imperative. It's a command. Pursue righteousness is what he's saying. It's not indicating it. That verse 1 Timothy 6:11 is not indicating Timothy's been made righteous, though that's true. But that specific verse, Paul is telling Timothy to pursue it as well. So, didn't God make Timothy righteous when he got saved? Yes. God made. Timothy is true. Yes. Yes, he does. It's not an eursuit rightous principle here. Christian, dear friends, let us impion. See three reasons that the first one is pursue holiness because you belong to God. said, "What promises at the end of that dwell? Wait us say forgive us our cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You say which is clean or do I clean myself? Does he cleanse us or do we cleanse ourselves? Both. You see, because here's the thing. Let me ask you. When you came to Christ, did you have to clean yourself up beforehand? No. Of course not. Absolutely not. All of us who have come to Christ came to Christ as filthy, wretched sinners with nothing to offer. You come empty-handed, contributing nothing to your salvation, but the sin that was necessary, that made it necessary. as John Owen would put it, right? You don't clean yourself up when you come to Christ. You come to Christ and he cleanses you from all unrighteousness. God cleanses us. But then we are told to cleanse ourselves. And notice that Paul includes himself. Let us cleanse ourselves. He doesn't say, "Y'all need to clean yourself up over there, Corinth. I'm good, but you all stink. Fix it. He includes himself. You see that? Let us cleanse ourselves. Paul is right there with us. He's right there with him. He needs to be cleansing himself, too. Why? Because we belong to God. And that's why the appropriate response to being cleansed by God is to cleanse yourself from impurities. Other translations will say defilement. What this is talking about is cleaning up the stuff that makes us dirty and contaminated with sin. That's what this is talking about. Our salvation, the cleansing God has given us from all unrighteousness is all the reason we need to be motivated then to cleanse ourselves of the junk in our lives. This is pursuing holiness, you see. Then, so how do we do that? How do we know what we need to clean up in response to God's forgiveness? I'm going to give you two things. number one, the scriptures, and number two, the Holy Spirit. So, first, when we look to the scriptures, for example, when someone says they're praying about what God would have them do about a sexual immorality, sin problem, that's great. Pray about it. But don't ignore the fact that God has already given you the answer. What is the answer? The scripture says, "Flee sexual immorality." It's what it says. Boom. Right? Prayer answered. Done. Right? What would God have me do about my sexual immorality? Run away from it. That's the answer. And you can't say, "Well, I'm going to be praying about this for the next month or two about what God would have me do about it." That's called using prayer as an excuse to what? procrastinate in your sin. So, there are certain things the scriptures explicitly say, and God's not going to reveal or tell you something that's different from this, right? The Holy Spirit's not going to say, "Just hang out in it a little while longer and I'll show you later." That would not be this, right? This says, "Flee sexual immorality." That's a command. That's what you do. God's commands in scriptures are motivation enough. It's like the guy at the beginning, right? Praying that God would motivate him to give up some sin. And the the the writer Jerry Bridges is surprised by this, right? Has not God already done enough for you to motivate you to flee from sin and pursue righteousness? Sometimes we get caught up trying to figure out what to do for so long, we end up doing nothing at all. All the while ignoring the fact that God already tells us what to do in his word. The real question is, are you going to do what he already told you? That's the question. Are you going to, for example, flee sexual immorality or not? Pray about it. Sure. But you already have the answer. Flee. But what about those gray area things like, and I'm going to go there, but smoking? What about smoking? Because the Bible doesn't explicitly say you can or can't smoke. So, should you? Or is that something that you need to be cleansed of, so to speak? Well, alongside his word, what do we have? We have the Holy Spirit. Take it to him and see. If smoking is sin for you, give it up. cleanse yourself from that. But for others, smoking is not sin. I use the example of Spurgeon often because he's a popular preacher. But Spurgeon smoked like a chimney. He smoked cigars like crazy and got a lot of flack for it. And he's like, "It's not a problem for me." Okay. Okay. Because there's not you're going to find chapter and verse. But if it is sin for you, if the Holy Spirit is convicting you because it's become an idol in your life, not only is it a waste of money because you're literally smoking it away, like it's disappearing. You can tell my opinion, but that's my opinion, not scriptures, right? But if it becomes sin for you because it's become an idol in your life, get rid of it. The answer is to throw it away and not buy anymore. That's cleansing yourself from an impurity of the flesh and spirit. Idols are different for different people. So for some smoking is an idol and it needs to go. For others it is not. But let me tell you this. Getting rid of an idol in your life is cleansing yourself from impurities of flesh and spirit. And you will not regret obeying God. I've never had anyone come to me and say, you know, I really regret doing it God's way. all the time. It's I regret doing it my way and I wish I could go back and do it God's way, but I can't. But you can now from this day forward, but certain things I talk with people all the time who wish they could go back and raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They can't now. You will never ever regret doing things God's way. And so we pursue holiness because we belong to God. Let's read verses 2 through 7. Paul says, "Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one, corrupted no one, taken advantage of no one." I don't say this to condemn you since I have already said that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. I am very frank with you. I have great pride in you. I am filled with encouragement. and I am overflowing with joy in all our afflictions. In fact, when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest. Instead, we were troubled in every way, conflicts on the outside, fears within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the arrival of Titus. And not only by his arrival, but also by the comfort he received from you. He told us about your deep longing, your sorrow, and your zeal for me so that I rejoiced even more. And so the second reason we pursue holiness is because it brings unity to the church. Unity to the church. As we've gone through second Corinthians, you'll recall that the relationship between Paul and the church is broken down. It is fractured. And what he had done is he had written them a harsh or severe letter, it's called. He wrote them a letter correcting issues in the church and he writes the letter and he sends it off to Corenth and then he continues in ministry. But all the while he's out preaching the gospel of Christ. In the back of his mind, he's wondering how's Corinth going to respond to that harsh letter that I sent them. And it has bothered him for a while. You remember back in chapter 2, Paul says that they arrived, they came to Trrowaz, and he had no rest in his spirit. He's going, he's preaching the gospel, but he has no rest. He's agonizing on the inside. How will Corinth, the church I love, respond to this? And then we see here in seven, he goes to Macedonia and he still has no rest. He says, "We have conflict in and out." But then Titus came. Titus found us and he came and he brought a report back to Paul. News from Corinth. Paul, they're responding well. They still love you, Paul. They care about you. They're listening to you. And so now Paul's elated, right? You see, he's rejoicing because the Corinthians responded to correction. When the Corinthian church stopped pursuing holiness, it caused a rift between Paul and the church because Paul still was. But when the church got back on track, it's bringing them back into unity together. Now imagine for a moment if every single person at Cross Church Phoenix was pursuing holiness together. Individually and collectively, we are all pursuing holiness. Every single one of us seeking to live a holy life that honors God. What would that be like? Not that everyone is perfect cuz we'll struggle. But pursuing holiness, what would that be like? Because when we mess up, when we sin, or when we give into a temptation and a brother and sister in Christ comes along and gives you counsel and correction or or or redirection, if you know, you know that the person it's coming from is seeking holiness and cares about you and you know that deep down even though you're struggling, you're pursuing holiness and want what's good, when they bring correction to you, it'll be received well. Thank you, brother. Thank you, sister, for that. I needed that. I've been both the giver and the recipient of correction. And let me tell you, it's a lot easier to give it than to receive it. But if that correction is biblically sound, it doesn't really matter who gave it to me, though I would be appreciative and thankful, right? But what matters is what? If it's biblically sound, and if it is, I need it. it is good for me. But often times we shy away from that, right? Why? Because we don't like people telling us we're wrong. We don't want to be told that something we're doing is not right biblically. We don't like it. And we get mad or angry or frustrated with the person, right? And do we ever stop to think, was that correction biblical though? Instead of thinking about was that biblical though, we what get mad at them just because they gave it to us, right? Who are they to tell me what to do? When really all it is is if they're giving you the scriptures, the scriptures, God is telling you what to do, not the person, not me. The question is, do you want to obey God? Not the person giving correction. God is simply using that person. But if we're all seeking holiness together, we'll understand that biblical correction is good because it came from someone who cares about our holiness and growth in Christ. Paul cared about their holiness and their growth. And so he wrote the letter hoping that they'll respond well. Paul is addressing sin. This isn't to say that we go around policing every little thing, especially things that aren't sin, but Paul is addressing sin. And if we have a sin issue, it is good and it is godly to receive correction that leads to further holiness like the Corinthians did with Paul. This is good for Corenth, not bad for them. And notice that Paul's own pursuit of holiness and the holiness of the Corinthians does not depend on their response. He already sent the letter. He already sent a harsh, severe letter to them, hoping they'll respond, but he's not sure how it's going to respond. But he sent it anyway. He gave them the correction they needed, even though he didn't know how they'd receive it. But he did it because it's the right thing to do and it honors God. And so no matter what, we we pursue our own holiness individually. And if we pursue holiness as a church, we build each other up. We love each other and we grow together as a result. Let's look at 8 through 16. Paul says, "For even if I grieved you with my letter," this caused them grief. "I don't regret it. And if I regretted it," meaning he felt bad for it. "Since I saw that the letter grieved you, yet only for a while, I now rejoice not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn't experience any loss from us. Get this. 4:10. Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. But worldly grief produces death. For consider how much diligence this very thing, this grieving, as God wills, has produced in you what a desire to clear yourselves. What indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice. In every way, you showed yourselves to be pure in this matter. He's rejoicing at their response. Verse 12. So even though I wrote to you, it was not because of the one who did wrong or because of the one who was wronged, but in order that your devotion to us might be made plain to you in the sight of God. For this reason, we have been comforted. And in addition to our own comfort, we rejoiced even more over the joy Titus had because his spirit was refreshed by all of you. They were a blessing to Titus. Verse 14, for if I have made any boast to him about you, I have not been disappointed. But as I have spoken everything to you in truth, so our boasting to Titus has also turned out to be the truth. And his affection towards you is even greater as he remembers the obedience of all of you. and how you received him with fear and trembling. I rejoice that I have complete confidence in you. So the third reason we pursue holiness is because it brings a pro it produces a proper response to sin. Paul is rejoicing that the church was grieved to repentance, right? Not just that they felt bad, but that they did something about it. He's rejoicing because of their response to their grief. And he says they were they were shown to have godly grief. If you look at verse 10, he's contrasting godly grief with worldly grief. Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation. Worldly grief produces death. How do we tell the difference? How do we know if we have godly grief or worldly grief? I'll give you biblical examples. One disciple named Judas is Scariot sold out Christ for 30 pieces of silver. And they come, he leads the the army, whatever to the garden of Gethsemane and they arrest Christ. And after they arrest Christ, Judas feels awful. He feels terrible. It says in the scriptures, he went out full of with remorse, it says. And he knew he had betrayed innocent blood. And he goes and he throws the money back into the temple. And he feels remorse. He's so sorry. He's depressed now. He's just in it. And then he goes and hangs himself. Worldly grief that produced death. Death. Enter his fellow comrade for a couple years. Peter. They had been disciples together with Jesus for a few years. And on the night Jesus Christ was betrayed by Judas, Peter denied him three times. This was predicted by Christ, but nonetheless very impactful on Peter. And he denies that he knows Jesus Christ so much so that if you read it and you really study it, he pronounces a curse upon himself if he knows Christ. That's how vehemently he denied Christ. And you know on the third time what happened? The rooster crows. He remembers what Jesus said would happen and he goes out and he weeps bitterly. So we have two disciples who do terrible things on the night Christ is betrayed and arrested. They both go out sorrowful, remorseful, whatever words you want to use, depressed, sad, frustrated. They both go out. Judas goes and hangs himself. Peter, if you read the gospels together, he goes fishing, gone fishing. And you know, the resurrected Christ comes and meets him on the beach with breakfast. And Jesus says, "Do you love me, Peter?" And he says, "Yes, you know I do." And then he does it three times, restoring Peter. And if you go into the book of Acts, you know that Peter goes on to be a foundational apostle for the first century church. He's preaching and 3,000 people get saved and wonderful things are happening and he serves God. He serves Christ until he's crucified upside down. That's how he is martyed. godly grief that produced repentance and led to salvation for Peter. That's the difference. That is the difference. Godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation. So then the next question would be right well what is repentance? Repentance is more than just feeling bad. It's more than just feeling sorry. Judas was sorry. Repentance produces change. Change in an attitude towards sin. Change in your mindset towards sin. Change in your actions as we run away from sin. It's not just acknowledging our sin. Judas did. I have betrayed innocent blood. take your money back. They don't want it. It's blood money. He throws it on the floor and he goes and hangs himself. He admitted what he did wrong and then he goes and hangs himself. And Jesus said it would have been better for him if he had never been born because he's going to spend eternity in hell. That's why it's not just acknowledging your sin. It's abhoring your sin. hating your sin because it goes against the holy God we love. Judas did not hate his sin and turn to Christ and ask for forgiveness. He hated himself and he went out and he hung himself. Seeing sin how God sees sin. Do we see sin as God sees sin? I don't think we can fully, but I think we can get a little glimpse. If we saw sin, how God sees sin, we would run from it as fast as we can. And we do see God's view of sin at the cross. You want to know what God how God feels about sin? Look to Christ on the cross. Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God, whom the father loves from all eternity perfectly. Well, before you and I were ever even a thought or born, God loved the son perfectly for all eternity. And then sin comes and there God cannot wink at sin. Do you realize that? Because God is holy. As Brian said, God is holy, holy, holy. That's what the angels are crying out. What does that mean? He is holy. And he cannot help but be holy. It's who he is. You know what else he is? He's just. God cannot help but be just. And sin demands payment. Sin demands death. Sin requires. Sin is costly. There's a reason God can't just wink at sin. All right. Well, um, you're forgiven. Um, but it's not really going to cost anything. I'll just write you a certificate of forgiveness and give it to you. I can't do that. Why can God not do that? Can't God do anything? He cannot wink at sin because sin is against a holy God who is eternal. And so, for there to be forgiveness, there's no other way but the cross. If you there was another way, don't you think that God would have done it? But no, sin is so bad, so abhorrent, so against our holy God that the only way to pay for it was to put the eternal son of God whom he loves on the cross for you. That's the only way. You say, "Well, couldn't there be another way?" No, because sin brings death and he is the God of life. God cannot wink at sin. It costs. And it costs Jesus Christ, the son of God, dying on the cross for you and for me for that sin. That's how God views sin. Do we do we see it that costly? Paul says, "Should we continue in sin that grace might abound?" No. Absolutely not. We do not abuse the grace of God. We do not abuse the grace of God and use it as an excuse to sin. And if you are, watch out. That's not the heart of a true believer. Hands down. Some people will claim that. I say be careful. Only God knows your heart and who's saved and who's not. I'm not going to separate the wheat from the tears. I'm going tell you right now that attitude is scary. Read the book of James. James is all about if you call yourself a Christian, you better live like it. You're not saved by works, but you will do good works if you're saved. That's what he's saying. Christian who doesn't do any good works is a problem. Christian not pursuing righteousness and holiness is a problem. I say that as lovingly as possible. Repentance is no longer wanting anything to do with sin because that sin is against God. And if you're in Christ, anything that's against God is against you. Sin is not for you. Sin is not here to make your life better. Sin doesn't love you. Sin doesn't care about you. Sin is here to torment you and destroy you and take your family with it. That's what sin's here to do. Do you really want to play games with that? Might think, well, things are going just fine right now. No. No. You'll never regret doing things God's way. And if you're living in unrepentant sin, examine yourself. See if you be in the faith. All over the New Testament, evidence of salvation is a God-honoring, holy life, not perfection, but a life lived in honor of God. Read First John. Every single person who comes to me, so you can just, you know, kind of write it down if you want. If you come to me and say, "I'm struggling with knowing if I'm saved or not." My response is going to be, "Read First John." I've already told that to like five people. and they've all read it and come back and be like, "All right, I need to fix this." It's true. And it's not me. It's just a suggest. It's the word of God doing the work. Right? Go read first John and you tell me what God is saying in First John. If we consider ourselves Christians, we will obey his commands. That's first John summarized. Obey his commands. Will we? God knows that. Paul knows that. It's vital that we know too that sin is here to destroy. God is here to offer life. And he offers it in his son Jesus Christ. Our closing thought is pursuing holiness. Simple short. Pursuing holiness is the right response to living for God who made you holy. It's all coming full circle. Yes, God made you holy. And then he tells you to pursue holiness. Let us cleanse ourselves. Be holy. Pursue righteousness. Flee sexual immorality. Run from idolatry. These are all commands. This is not Pastor DJ's opinion. This is God's commands. The question is, will we do it? I'm going to close in prayer and invite the worship team back up as we sing about God leading us to the cross where his love is poured out for us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. I pray that if there's anyone who's listening to my voice right now, who does not know you as their personal Lord and Savior, who is still in sin, who if they were to die today, they would stand before a holy God in their own righteousness, which the Bible already tells us, "You see as filthy rags, and they will hear the words, depart from me, for I never knew you." I pray that that would not be true of anyone here. And if it is that they would come find me afterwards where we talk about being saved from sin or find a brother or sister in Christ or find a friend who brought them or find that family member who can give them the gospel or go to the I said yes corner do something about it. Don't ignore it because the scriptures declare that we if we're going to stand before God and we're going to be invited into eternity with him, we must be robed in Christ's righteousness, not our own. And I pray Lord that you would convict us of our sins and that we wouldn't just acknowledge it in our head but that we would truly repent that we would change our mind and say that sin I don't want that sin anymore saying I hate that sin why because it's against God that's why and I don't want it anymore and putting my faith and trust in Jesus Christ to save me from that sin in and if there is anyone here who needs to do that today this morning I pray that they would do that right now in prayer to you turning their life over to you if they need help find someone me or anyone else to help them with that and Lord for those of us who do know you and would consider ourselves we're Christians and we're believers and we're seeking to honor God I pray that we would pursue holiness chase after it seek it and run away from and flee from sin in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together and sing our last song.