When you love someone, you change your priorities.
Amos 3:3 (NIV) says, "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"When you love someone, you pay close attention to what pleases her. You share a common goal and purpose. There is a spirit of cooperation. You work "for" the other person and never "against." You ask questions like, "What doyou want? What do you like? What plans doyou have? What makesyou smile?"
Isn’t it interesting though, how we think our relationship with God is somehow different than all other relationships? On the one hand we want to have a close, life-giving relationship with God. But too often that relationship is more about us than it is about God. We want God to do what pleases us. We want God to help us achieve our goals and dreams. We want God to bless our ambitions. We want God to cooperate with the plans we’ve made for own lives. Our prayers are about what we want, what we like, and what will make us happy.
When you love someone it’s much different. We feel distant from God for many of the same reasons that we feel distant from one another. It's because we're self-centered, we love ourselves, and we're focused on our own desires. We are showing very little regard for what God wants in our relationship with him.
Let’s take 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (NIV) as an example."It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality." This verse is telling us something very important about pleasing God. God wants us to be sanctified and to avoid sexual immorality. You can surely see the contradiction of wanting to feel close to God while also wanting to be sexually immoral. It would be like trying to feel close to your spouse while being sexually immoral behind his/her back. It’s impossible.
There has to be agreement for a relationship to work! This is true in marriage, andit is just as true in our relationship with God. You have to truly desire what God desires. Amos 3:3 (NIV) says, "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"
If you want to have a relationship with God, you have to desire holiness.
If you want to have a relationship with God, you have to desire sanctification. You have to desire holiness. Hebrews 12:14 (NIV) tells us, "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 instructs us, "For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit."
It is a contradiction to desire closeness with God while rejecting everything he represents, everything he is in his holy character, and everything he seeks in our relationship. Antagonism destroys relationships. Antagonism pushes us apart. God seeks holiness in our relationship, but our heartsmay beset on something opposite.
In John 17:15-19 (NIV) Jesus says, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."
Sanctification is our common purpose.
Sanctification is our common purpose. If we cannot agree on the priority of becoming holy, there cannot be a relationship with God, nor can we have much of a relationship with one another as a Church. In 1 Corinthians 1:2 (NIV) Paul writes, "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ— their Lord and ours:"
It’s all about our intention, our desire. There are times I offend Lara, but she knows it’s not my desire or intention to do so. I don’t sin against her and say, "Oh, she’ll get over it. She’ll eventually forgive me." We wouldn’t have much of a relationship if I did! Hebrews 10:22 (NIV)says, "let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water."Do we have a sincere heart that desires holiness, that welcomes God’s purpose of sanctification?
When you love someone, the last thing you want to do is to offendhimby something you say or do, or by an attitude you carry. And when you do offendhim,you suffer inside and are filled with remorse. You resolve to change because you value the relationship.
As human beings, we're rather adept at discerning a person’s sincerity. We know when someone is for us and we can tell when they are against us. We can tell when someone is interested, and when they are going through the motions. God sees the heart. Again, Amos 3:3 (NIV) says, "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"How is your walk with God? Are you sincerely walking with God, or in the opposite direction?
The Holy Spirit works in our lives to make us holy.
Throughout this series we have been talking about the Holy Spirit. I want to make a few points. First, we are talking about a relationship here. The Holy Spirit isn’t an "it." He isn’t some impersonal force, or wind, or abstract power. The Holy Spirit is a person with thoughts and feelings, just like your wife, oranyone else. The Holy Spirit can delight in us, but we can also cause him to grieve deeply.
Second, we are talking about a holy relationship. In order to make us holy, the Holy Spirit works in our lives in countless ways. We can either cooperate with the Holy Spirit or resist him.
We can choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit or resist him.
Positively, we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit. When we do, there is no limit to who God’s Spirit can make holy. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NIV) says, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offendersnor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
This verse is good news. It doesn’t matter what road you have traveled. You can be sanctified (made holy) by agreeing to walk with the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t matter if you have been sexually immoral, idolatrous, or havecommitted adultery, prostitution, or homosexual acts.It doesn’t matter if you have a felony for theft, or are driven bygreed, alcoholism, slander, or swindling. You can now be sanctified through a relationship with God’s Holy Spirit.
But suppose you want to hold onto these sins in your heart. Suppose there isn’t a sincere desire, that you are resisting the Holy Spirit, or that you are contentto lookreligious every Sunday while your heart is far from God.
Hebrews 10:26-29 (NIV) says, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?"
God’s Holy Spirit is wonderfully gracious when our sincere desire is to pursue holiness. But should we insult the Spirit of grace, there is only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace, is our last opportunity to draw near to God. We should want to cooperate, instead of turning our backs.
We are talking about a polarizing relationship. God’s holiness, his work of sanctification, puts us at odds with everyone around us. It makes us strangers in our world, and can even alienate us from people we care about. 1 Peter 1:1-2 (NIV) says, "To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:"
Some of us have hardened our hearts to God's Spirit.
Let’s face it. We are surrounded by people who do not have a sincere desire to be holy. Even in our gatherings here at church there are those whose hearts are hardened. As you sit here this morning, you may sense a hardness in your heart to God’s holy purpose.
A friend reminded me of John 3:19-21 (NIV) recently."This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
If you love holiness, it’s going to make a lot of people around you really uncomfortable, and at times, angry. People will tease you, they will try to frustrate you, they will test you to see how serious you are, and they will persecute you. If you love holiness, you’re going to struggle with what to say and how to act around people who are violating their consciences or who love evil.
One of my closest friends recently left his wife, and committed adultery with his high school sweetheart from 40-50 years back. He defiantly walked away from his church, God, his friends, his wife of 60 years, his children, and his grandchildren.
This past week our paths crossed. AndI knew they would sometime. He wanted to drive away when he saw me, but he didn’t want to look foolish. He parked and walked up to the home we were visiting. Out of respect, I nodded and said hello. But there was no conversation. Things are different now. He loves darkness, his deeds are evil, he persists in adultery, he is proud, and he loves his sin.
I cannot tell you how many times my path crosses with people who have walked away from our church because they rejected God’s holy purpose for their life. Holiness polarizes. Holiness causes separation, painful separation. When people reject God’s Holy Spirit, they’ll reject you too because you represent him. Holiness makes you unpopular, an outcast.
At some point we have to decide who we will follow.
But at some point we all have to decide with whom we will walk. Amos 3:3 (NIV) says, "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"Have you agreed this morning to keep in step with the Holy Spirit?
If you have lost your way this morning it certainly isn’t too late. We humans are far less forgiving than God. When we’ve been wronged, we have a funny way of writing people off. We stigmatize people for their sins, condemn them to the trash heap, and disbelieve they can really change. We’re not so good at giving our relationships second chances, certainly notseventy time sevenchances.
This isn’t true with God. God gives his Holy Spirit as a gift to us to bring us back into a holy relationship with himself. If you are resisting the Holy Spirit,God is going to keep working on you. He will convict your conscience. He will pester you. He will call you through the gospel. He will discipline you through pain and hardship. He'll keep working on you until your heart softens. It is conceivable though, that if you continue to resist him, you could fall from grace, or time could run out.
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV) says, "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
Galatians 5:25 (NIV) says, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."
Galatians 6:8 (NIV) says, "The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."
Ephesians 4:30 (NIV) says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."
Matthew 12:31-32 (NIV) says, "And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."