Set Apart From Sin

In his book, "The Good and Beautiful God" James Bryan Smith talks about the controversial Russian Orthodox priest, named John of Kronstadt. Now this particular priest was a bit of ahead of his time. He was in the 1800s. And during that time in Russia there was an epidemic of alcoholism. And it was rampant. It was everywhere. There were people that were sleeping in gutters in the streets that were homeless and drunk. And so, as opposed to some of the other priests who kind of stayed in place and thought, well, if somebody shows up then I'll minister to them. John would actually go out into the streets, and he is testified to as having gone, and picked up some of these people that were homeless and drunk in the gutters of that particular city in Russia, Kronstadt and he would pick them up, and he would put his arm around them and he would tell them, "This is beneath your dignity because you were meant to house the fullness of God." It's a really beautiful sentiment. And it reminds me of the reason that we started the way that we did last week. If you were here and you were with us or if you weren't, I walked through the grand narrative of the Bible beginning at creation. The reminder that God stepped onto nothing and created everything and he did so in his creation calling it good, but at height of that creation we're image bearers, people that were human beings that were created in the image of God, male and female, he created them in his image. Why did he create people in his image? Because he meant something by his creation. It wasn't accidental. He was doing something very particular, very specific. You see these people these human beings, these image bearers were mint to house the fullness of God. This is what God wanted to do. He wanted to walk in relationship with the people that he had designed, the people he had created, and that he had made. But we talked about the second chapter of the story being the story of the fall where sin had interrupted that relationship, and now had caused a chasm and it was a difficult place, right? And we felt the effects of that going through history. But God made a covenant with people and with his people, and he said, I'm going to raise up one who is going to deliver, who's going to say, because I know you're in an untenable position that you can't deal with your own sin that only I can deal with that on your behalf. And I'm going to do that in the person of Jesus Christ. And so Jesus came just like God promised. He was the fulfillment of everything that God had promised all the way back from the garden itself that he had promised to Eve what was going to happen. The promise through Abraham, the promise through David and it's fulfilled in Jesus, and he comes and he lives and he dies on our behalf so that he could take upon himself the sin that we bore so that now through his death being sinless but dying in our place. And his resurrection from the dead conquering sin and hell and the grave and death on our behalf. That by faith in him we can be restored to relationship with God. We can be reconciled to God. And now God can be both just that he's dealing with sin and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus because Jesus sacrifice was worthy. And then just as Jesus came and he died, and he resurrected, never to die again he ascended back to the father, but with that came a promise that he was going to return again. And when he does, he is going to bring with him new creation where broken things are made better and wrong. Things are made right and everything becomes brand new. The old really is gone and everything is brand new. See, we walked through that last week because we talked about the last two chapters of this grand story that we're talking about redemption, what Jesus has done and restoration, what he's promised will occur that we're living in the in-between time or we're living in the overlap of those times. And we talked about what it is that God wants to do in our lives in this time, in the meantime, in this moment right now. And we labeled it with a term the Bible uses called, sanctification. And that word it seems kind of big and heavy but it really means to be set apart. And we talked about last week that this meant to be set apart to God. In fact, I even gave you a definition of what sanctification is. These are my words, but I'm lifting them really kind of out of what the Bible teaches us. We said that sanctification is our cooperation with the spirit to shape us into the image of Jesus so that we're set apart to God for his purposes. I tried to make it both simple, but also Trinitarian in nature because the Bible does. So as I talked to you about last week. Now you may remember that sanctification as an idea, it actually has tenses. In other words, I can say it this way, we have been sanctified, we are being sanctified, and we will be sanctified, right? That's kind of the idea of sanctification. That God has done something remarkable in saving us in salvation, in regeneration, in justification, those words I talked about last week. But he has sanctified us when we put our faith in Jesus, he has taken us and he has set apart our lives to God's own purposes. We have been sanctified. We have been saved, right? That we've been set apart from the guilt of sin. We've been set apart from the judgment of sin that we never have to deal with that any longer, because we have been sanctified. We've been set apart from all of that by God's saving work. Isn't that great news to know? That's a past tense reality that has future tense implications. But in the time that we're in now, we are being sanctified. And then there's going to be a time when Jesus returns that the fullness of our sanctification will be made complete. That will be final, will be made like Jesus, the Bible says. It doesn't mean that we'll be God. It means that we'll be made like Jesus. The fullness of what we're supposed to become, the image of Jesus, right? But in the meantime, what happens? Well, even though we are freed from the guilt and the penalty of sin, we're not in slavery to sin any longer, but we still sin. The penalty doesn't hang over our head. The condemnation doesn't hang over our head, but we still do it. Our flesh still gives way, and we still need not only to be separated to God, but there's a natural opposite of that, isn't it? When we are separated to God it means that we are now being separated from our sin. It just makes perfect sense when we think about it because last week I actually talked about the idea as I just showed you a moment ago, that this definition that I've given you about sanctification that we have to cooperate with spirit, such that the image of Jesus is formed in us, so that we're set apart to God for his purposes. Now when I say that we've got to cooperate with the spirit in our sanctification, what I mean is this is. Is that we have choices that we have to make. Like this is a part of sanctification, we have choices that we have to make, but we're not making them alone. I was reading an article out of Northwestern University in Chicago. And this article caught my attention 'cause it was talking about an area of Chicago that was called the South Lawndale area. I don't think they call it that anymore, I think they call it now the Little Village area or something, but it was it's called South Lawndale or certainly was historically. And it is one of the places that is one of the most populous, maybe the most populous place for Mexican-Americans in all of the Midwest. Now the article was actually focusing on a gentleman named Jorge Roque. Now his friends called him Jorge cause his name is J-O-R-G-E, right, Jorge. But his friends just all called him George, and he would say, "You can call me George." And it talked about how Jorge when he moved from El Paso where he was born to the Chicago area when he was young ended up getting caught up in a cycle of gang activity and gang life. And what Jorge ended up doing is he was a part of this whole life but because of the influence of his mom, and the influence of his uncle who lived in Kansas he got shipped out to his uncle's place for a little while. And then the influence of a Christian minister who had mentored him, not only to Jorge come to faith in Jesus but he came out of that life. And now he's working in the South Lawndale area in a not-for-profit called, Urban Life Skills, and he's helping get other young men predominantly out of the gang life that they were in and helping them to see a new way of living. Not only through the lens of his faith, but also just in particular life skills that he can help them with. Now what was interesting about this article is it talked about some of the young men that he's had an impact on. And they were, one of the guys was quoted. They didn't give his name but one of the guys that Jorge had impacted was quoted in there, and he said, yeah, he said, "Jorge, I was really really mean to Jorge for two solid years." Like he would show up to the whatever to the basketball court. So I'm not sure that he said that, but to the basketball courts for two solid years, and he would try to talk to us and I was just super mean to him for two years. But you know what, he just kept coming. So I finally listened to him. And I listened to him and Jorge had my attention, and he talked to me about a new kind of way of living. And so I ended up going with Jorge. Now I thought about that for some time 'cause I've heard those stories before, and you know don't there's some costs associated with that, right? For that young man who says to Jorge, "Okay I'll go with you", and he does. And you know that probably happens in fits and starts, right? Because you're still lured back into it. You still see these people, right? You still run into them that what you were in the gang life with and all of that stuff. And so it's, you're over here and definitely life is new. Life is different but you still got drawn back in over here. But what's interesting is that every time a young man would make a choice to go with Jorge, Jorge would not only say, "Yes, great choice," but he'd help them in their subsequent choices. He would be there for them, even when they got pulled back. If they said, "Ah, man, I got to go back and there's Jorge and there's Jorge being willing to help me in this process." It's sort of like that when we talk about the idea of sanctification. Because ultimately when we talk about sanctification we have choices to make but we're not making them all by ourselves, but we do have to participate in those choices. And those choices every day are, are we gonna choose God? Are we gonna choose sin? Now I'm not directing that to people that are sitting on this side, that you're all choosing God, and you over here, you got problems. So I'm gonna preach in this direction, right? I'm not doing that. And depending on where you're sitting seated on your couch at home I'm not doing that to you either, right? You choose God or you choose sin. And we're making those choices every single day, but we're not making them all by ourselves. See, to be set apart to one is to actually be set apart from the other. And you have to know that there's a natural consequence to those things that we think about and this is the nature of what sanctification actually looks like. So what I want us to do is last week, we actually talked about what Peter said about sanctification. We talked in first Peter in the very first verses, and then we moved into chapter three where he talked about this idea. But this week I want to look at what Paul is saying about it. Not everything that Paul says about, but I want to look at what Paul is saying in his letter to the Roman Christians, called Romans. Now if you're trying to find Romans in your Bible and I'd encourage you to look at this with me if you have a Bible or a device that gives you a Bible then you can easily find it, it's not far into the New Testament. You've got the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then you've got the book of Acts and then right after that is Romans. So it's one, two, three, four, five, sixth book from the right, in the New Testament, if you're taking a look at where it is. Romans chapter number six. And I want you to listen carefully to what Paul is writing when he's discussing the ideas of unrighteousness and holiness and here's what Paul says. He's talking about the idea of sanctification in Romans six verse 19 through 22. Paul says, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you've been set free from sin, and have becomes slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification, and to its end, eternal life. Now depending on what translation that you're reading, you may have been reading a different translation like the NIV or whatever, and you may have seen the word instead of sanctification you may have seen the word holiness, no problem. It's actually the same Greek word, that we studied last week when we looked at this idea of sanctification. And remember that that word in the Greek language actually means to be set apart, to be made holy or to be consecrated. That's the idea of the word. So sometimes it's translated sanctification. Sometimes it's translated holiness, and those are perfectly acceptable, right? So when we see that what we're reminded of is this, we see his what Paul is saying in this passage of scripture, and it gives us a very simple truth that I've already alluded to. And it's this, jot this down, to be set apart to God, we must be set apart from sin. Paul uses the term lawlessness, and he uses those kinds of terms there but he's talking about sin. To be set apart to God, we must be set apart from sin. This is the two-sided nature of what we talk about when we talk about sanctification. Now in our texts that we're reading in Romans chapter six, Paul said, that what we should do is we should present our members to God as slaves of righteousness, right? Instead of slaves of evil or sin or lawlessness. He says present your members. Now when he says that term, presents your members, what is he talking about? Because the word actually members means limbs like limbs. So as he saying, give God an arm, but that's pretty much it. The rest is up to you. You just say, okay, God do with my right arm what you can do and the rest I'll workout. That's not what he's saying, right? Paul is actually trying to teach us that we're to give everything that we are to God. That's what he's actually referring to. The reason that I know that, is because he said that outright in other places. In fact when he was writing to the Thessalonians he said this in first Thessalonians five, may God himself the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. And then he clarifies it, made your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Now Paul here is not trying to divide who we are into three parts of spirit, soul and body. And he's not trying to make this tripartite thesis of the nature of humanity. Paul's just talking like a Jew which means he's saying everything. So like, when Jesus said, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, right? What he's saying is this love him with everything you are. All that you are. And that's what Paul is saying. Every single piece of who you are should be impacted by sanctification by the setting apart to God and being set apart from sin. That means everything. Listen to this. That means your intellect. That means your emotions. That means your will. That means your body. It means every single thing should be touched by sanctification. Do you know why? Listen this? You know why? Because every single part of you has been touched by sin. Your intellect, your emotions, your will, your bodies. Everything that is touched by sin needs to be touched by the sanctifying work of God to set us apart to him and set us apart from sin. Now I mentioned to you that this is a collaborative effort, right? That we have to cooperate with the spirit. In other words, we don't just sit around and go, do something Lord. The Lord may say, you do something, right? There's a cooperative nature to this. It is God who is working in us but it is us who is also having to cooperate, and do something in this process. In fact, if you actually, if you have a Bible with you, if you're just using a device you can swipe, right. It's not a dating app, it's but you can just swipe right, right? And if you look in Romans eight like if you literally turn the page from Roman six where we're sitting right now, and you look in Romans eight in verse number 13, I can show you, listen to this. I can show you in one verse the collaborative effort of what God is expecting of us. Romans eight verse 13 says this notice how I've highlighted it, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if, here it is, by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Do you see the primacy of the activity of the spirit that Paul is describing, right? But if I were to highlight a different portion of this, notice what it will say. For as you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body you will live. You see right there in the same verse what we see is that Paul is saying it's the activity of the spirit in your sanctification. And it's your cooperation in sanctification. Did you see that? I can show you to you in a different place. In fact, in Philippians chapter two Paul writing this, he says these words, therefore my dear friends as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, but notice then what he says, for it is God who works in you to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Did you catch that? He said, you need to work out your own salvation. It's God who's working in you to accomplish this. It's a cooperation that you have with the spirit of God to be shaped into the image so that we are set apart. When Paul uses the term salvation there in Philippians chapter two, he's using it more like the term sanctification because remember salvation also has a past, a present, and the future. We have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved. That's the idea there too, right? Same thing is true of glorified. We have been glorified. We are being glorified. We will be glorified. Like this beauty of God's transcendent activity that touches on all of time in our lives as we understand it is a beautiful concept for us to remember. Now, the Bible is pretty clear that we are to be separated from sin. We're separated to God and separated from sin. Why is it necessary for us to separate from sin so much? Why is that so necessary for us in our ongoing growth, and sanctification to separate or be separated from sin? Jot this down, I'll tell you why. Because sin makes us less human, and less alive, not more. But holiness which is being sanctified makes us more human and more alive, not less. I know I said a mouthful there, but and I know some of you are jotting it down. Sin makes us less human and less alive. We need to realize that. Because the lure of sin so many times is this, sin is going to make me more alive. I'm going to really be able to do these things, and it's gonna make me more alive, it doesn't, it makes you less alive, and it makes you less human. But what holiness does is it makes you more alive and more human because God has a purpose. And his purpose is this, is that we are formed into the image of perfect humanity which is Jesus. And so if we're in sin, if we're bathing in sin if we're allowing sin to develop scales on our lives, we are looking less human, not more. But isn't it funny because the opposite is mostly true when we talk about sin and humanity, isn't it? You talk about sin and people are like, "Hey man, I'm only human." But you're becoming less human by the sin that you're involved in. Maybe you didn't realize that. You're actually devolving humanity at this point, because that's what sin does. Sin pulls us back into a place of the old life. We're back with the gang. We're back at the basketball court and the gang. We're not experiencing the newness that we have been given. Now underneath all that we've been transformed, if we put our faith in Jesus, there is somebody new underneath all of that, but God is having to peel away the layers so that you can now become who you are destined to be shaped into the image of perfect humanity, Jesus Christ. That's why we cooperate with the spirit to see this separation that occurs in our lives. In fact, when Paul is talking about this in Romans six listen to his words and you can hear him talking about death in life. Listen, again, we've already read it in verse 20 and 22. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. In other words, righteousness didn't have a claim on you because you were a slave to sin. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? Listen to what he says. For the end of those things is death. All this is doing is leading you to be less alive, not more. But now that you've been set free from sin, and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and it's end, eternal life. You see sometimes when we hear the phrase eternal life, all we think about is forever, don't. Forever as a part of it. But the phrase eternal life is a phrase that's more associated with quality than it is with quantity. Eternal life begins when we put our faith in Jesus. Eternal life, listen, we don't get eternal life when we die, we evidence eternal life when we die. We already have I right now because of what Jesus has done in my life, I'm experiencing an eternal kind of life. That's what we've been promised. And yes, we've been promised a life that never ends on the other side of all of this where we will live in this restored new creation with Jesus Christ. This is the heartbeat behind it because what sin does it makes us less alive and less human, but what sanctification does our cooperation with the spirit and God's activity in our midst shaping us into the image of Jesus, it makes us more truly human and more truly alive. I hope this isn't lost on you because we have to understand that ultimately, we've got choices to make. We are cooperating with God in sanctification, and we have to make choices associated with it. Now listen, I'm not suggesting that you live your life always looking at sin. I'm suggesting you live your life always looking at Jesus. But the closer we become, listen to this, the closer we become with God, what happens is this, we begin to see ourselves in light of that, and recognize by God's own graciousness what needs to be shed, what needs to be detached, what needs to be peeled off, what needs to be torn off. But it's done by a good and loving father who is shaping us, listen to this, into the beauty of the fullness of humanity that God designed and the beauty of what life actually looks like, as opposed to lesser humanity and lesser life. This is what God is doing in our lives but we have to make choices. Those choices can be hard. Disassociating ourselves from sin is hard sometimes. Because even though we're not under the penalty of sin any longer, that we're under no condemnation because those who are in Christ Jesus are not under condemnation any longer, thank God for that. We can never rescue ourselves. Therefore there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Thank God for that truth. But sin still creeps in by way of our flesh and build scales in our lives that start to push us back into being less human, and less alive as opposed to more. So what kind of choices do we have to make? Let me give you a couple. The first one is this, we have to make a choice between humility or pride, humility or pride. Now I know it goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Pride gets involved in everything. There's nothing that pride does not get involved in. No thought no desire for a conversation, no activity, pride feels like it can enter in anytime it wants, any place that it wants and just does. That's what pride does. Listen, pride is the sin that is underneath all the sins. Did you hear what I just said? It's the sin underneath all the sins. So some of us can identify different sins. That's a sin, that's a sin, that's a sin. Generally speaking, it's coming from a place of pride that either says I don't need to trust in Jesus as my satisfaction for this, that's where it's coming from. And what pride does is it usually doesn't show up in massive arrogance. I'm awesome. You're worse than me. Everybody's stupid. It usually doesn't show up that way. Sometimes it does, but not all the time, but occasionally. But we know that too easily, right? And pride doesn't wanna be fully detected. So what pride does is it puts mask on, and it tries to be something else. It determines that it wants to come in a different way. And so it'll come in through a variety of pathways and there's probably too many of them for us to be able actually name. For instance, manipulation. You know what manipulation is? Pride with a mask on. Because manipulation is saying that I'm gonna do this to you without you knowing it because I'm serving my own selfish purposes, and I'm not really concerned about yours. Do you know what that is? It's pride underneath all of that. Or maybe not just manipulation, but how about having a messiah complex? I'm the only one that can fix them. I'm the only one that can save them. I'm the only one that can rescue them. First of all, no, you're not. There's not a vacancy in the second person of the Trinity and you shouldn't be looking for a promotion. There's already a Messiah, his name is Jesus. He's the only one that can save. There are other people other than me and you that can actually do the job of helping other people. We should be, but we're not the only ones. Because to suggest that I'm the only one who's sacrificing. I'm the only one who's doing anything. Under that, that's just pride with a different mask on. You might look all spiritual, but it's just pride with a different mask on. Or how about false humility? That's an ugly one, isn't it? Where we've actually, we believe these thoughts that were better than, we believe these thoughts that were more important than, but we hide them behind a veneer so that people don't know that that's what we think. Even though we really do, but God knows. It's a sin underneath all of the sins. Or how about fault finding? Fault finding is a massive one. It's really just pride. For instance, what happens is this, isn't it funny how we have a filter inside of us, pride this filter that's inside of us. That when we look at ourselves through the filter we see how right we are all the time. We see how good we are. But that same filter that we look through does not show us all of our failures or our sins because pride doesn't want us to actually pay attention to all of that stuff. It just wants us to live in that way. But when we take that filter and don't look at ourselves but look at other people, what happens? Here's what happens. We look at others through this filter, and we filter out God's goodness in their lives, and we only are able to see that which is ugly in their lives or how wrong they are. Isn't it amazing how the filter works one way for us, but a different way for others? It's pride. And some of you may be sitting here and thinking to yourself, man, so-and-so needs to hear this message. I would cause you to pause and remind you that behind that thought is the thought that you don't need to hear it, and someone else does, we all need to hear it all, all of us. And I put myself at the front of that line. Pride gets into everything. It gets into defensiveness. Isn't it remarkable that the person on earth who was the only person to ever walk the earth, and was sinless who came from eternity past, who had always existed, who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life in word and thought indeed in every way, perfect in all of his ways when he was accused by Pilate, when he was accused by the religious leaders, didn't even have to answer. He had nothing to prove, pride wasn't involved. Defensiveness is just another reminder that we've got pride underneath it. It is what is underneath all of this stuff. And you know what, when we choose pride instead of humility, just humbling ourselves before Jesus, and knowing that he's the only one that can defend us, he's the only one that does what he needs to do in our lives, and he should get the glory for all of this, do you know what happens? It makes us when we kind of fall prey to pride, it makes us less alive, not more, less human, not more. So we've got choices to make, right? We have to choose between humility or pride. We have to choose between Lordship or idolatry. In other words will we allow Jesus to be Lord of all like we talked about last week, or will we allow other things, even if they're good things, other things or people to sit in a place that only Jesus sits? See when we read about idolatry in the Old Testament, it often is talking about bowing down to wood and hay and gold and silver statues and those kinds of things, and worshiping them like they're gods. Well, they're not, right? And that's ridiculous, but in the new Testament that happens some. But do you know what also happens in the New Testament? What also happens is that people are bowing down to people they're allowing them. Like for instance, Caesars were revered as gods. It was a form of idolatry that was significant that people had to cope with. You see you and I have a tendency at times to put even good things or even good people in places that only the Lord Jesus belongs. So how do we spot that in our lives? How do we even, how can we even tell when that's happening in our world? Well, we kind of tell by this, if the person or thing that you've put your greatest hope, and your greatest trust in fails, does it trigger your greatest fears? If so, that's an idol. That's an idol. Whoever that may be, whatever that may be, and that could be anything from your kid is not turning out the way you'd hope because you've got an image to uphold. And when that didn't happen, all of your greatest fears came out because it was about your image, and you've put image as an idol or maybe your children as an idol instead of the place where the Lord Jesus should be. Or maybe any time over the last 16 years if your candidate didn't win an election, maybe all of your fears were triggered, and you realize that I've put them in a place that only the Lord Jesus should be. See what idolatry does is it makes us less alive, less human, not more. We also have to choose between purity and immorality. There's lots of these choices that we have to make that have to do with our sanctification, our separation from sin, purity or immorality. See Paul talks about the idea of sanctification, and he links it directly with immorality, particularly sexual immorality. Listen to what Paul says in first Thessalonians four. It's God's will that you should be sanctified that you should avoid sexual immorality. Can he say it any clearer than that? It's God's will that you should be sanctified that you should avoid sexual immorality. In other words, he's saying a part of our sanctification of being set apart to God and set apart from sin means that we will not live in immortality. Now it's hard because we've got a culture that is looking at Christians to see God's plan for how God intends for humanity to live. And unfortunately, what they see sometimes in the single culture world of the Christian world is they see a hookup culture just like they see normally with people who don't know God, who don't claim to know God. But they see people who do claim to know God, who are living in abject immorality. Or they see people who are claiming the name of Christ who are dealing with fornication or adultery or porn, right, that all of these things become things that grab, hold and place their hooks in us and it becomes difficult. Listen, it becomes difficult for our prophetic witness to a world that's confused about everything when they want to see differences in the people that claim to know Jesus because he supposed to have set us apart to himself, and setting us apart from sin. Now, I don't want you to feel unduly overwhelmed here. All of us make mistakes, all of us sin. But we don't wanna be in a posture of habitual sin. We wanna be in a posture of repentance, so that we come back from the basketball court, and get back over here in living out the reality of the new life that Jesus has given us. The reason by the way, the reason that God wants us to be pure is because he is. That's why. You see when we're set apart to God, he's making us like him, his nature, his character and he's pure. That's why John said this, he said it in first John chapter three. But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him, purify themselves just as he is pure. This is why we do that, right? Because he's pure. Because the closer that we get to him, we recognize his purity. Because what immorality does is it makes us less human and less alive, not more. So I'm trying to convince you of the nature of why we need to be separated from sin because it makes us less human and less alive. But what holiness does makes us more alive, more human exactly what God is intending to do in our sanctification. Maybe the last choices that we have to make, it's not the last but it is for me today, the truth or lies. I've got some degree of compassion for the world that we live in. We live in the age of technology and the age of information, and it's really hard. Today it's going to happen. There'll be Christians all over the nation that will pass along false information on social media. Maybe not because they knew it was false, but just because they did, and they passed it along or whatever. And it's a narrative of things that aren't true. By the way, there'll be non-Christians doing the exact same thing. That we'll be passing along things that aren't true. See Christians have to embrace truth. This is who we are. And sometimes it's very difficult to know what the truth is, isn't it? Like we look around and we're like, oh my good grief, like I, what? That what happens to us, right? Because we've got everybody spinning narratives on us, and we, it's very difficult to know what is actually true. And when we don't know what is actually true, we have to be careful that we don't pass along information because we want it to be true, whether it is or not. Just because you want something to be true, does not make it so. Truth is truth. You and I have no say in that. What is true is true, period into story. Whether we want it to be true, don't want it to be true, True is true, that's it. And it becomes difficult for us to be able to sort all of that out because the world is already pouring out lies on us, right? It's pouring out lies on young women and women that the only, this is how this is what pretty means. This is what beautiful means. If you don't look like this, if you're not shaped like this, if you don't wear these kinds of things, then you're not beautiful. It's a lie and it needs to be rejected. Young men are told some of the same things. This is what it means to be a man. Usually it has to do with conquest or being really good at a video game which basically is making an entire generation of boys with beards, not men. And if it weren't so sad, it would be funny. But it's sad. Because we have a crisis of maturity. Because the world is selling us lies. Is selling lies to people who are getting older. That what you really need more than anything is to be younger. But I don't need to see you at 70 trying to dress like the kids. It's not a good look. It should be outlawed. We have just declared a Christian law right here in this place, right? But it's a lie, right? And we were pummeled with these lives. To be successful, you have to have these things. You have to show this stuff. You have to, like that's not it. The lies and they need to be rejected. But you know what's more interesting about lies, you've got other lies, right, that God only loves you, if you perform. It's a lie, God loves you, you can put a period at the end of that statement or an exclamation point if you'd like. You don't even have to fill out anything else. God loves you. He doesn't have to qualify that because you will find that your performance in mind even if we think it looks good compared to Joe or Susie or Eric or Bella, even if it looks good compared to them in light of everything, in light of eternity, in light of all, God knows it doesn't look good at all, and he loves us, he does. It's remarkable that he is who he is. That is who you are, God. And I'm so grateful for that. But you know what it is about lies? Lies have families, they breed. And what they do is they end up teaching us things that maybe they can't get in with just a straight untruth, and so now what it does is it says, Hey, pride could you help me with this? I'm not able to get at this thing from just a direct lie, but pride I need your help, could you help me justify the lies in the service of what they think is good? That's also not good. We need to be people who don't lie, who don't tell lies, but embrace the truth, and we don't give quarter to lies. We don't justify them. Wrong is wrong, lie is lie, truth is truth. Whether we like it, whether it feels good, it doesn't matter. This is what we are called to do. We cannot justify that kind of stuff. This is what Paul said. If you flipped backwards from Roman six to Romans three, here's what Paul said. Listen to him, someone might argue if my falsehood or my lies enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Why not say as some slanderously claim that we say, let us do evil that good may result. Paul's like, their condemnation is just... Paul is not having it. He is not having it that you're going to be able to try and somehow justify lies for what you call good. My mind caught an article or my eye caught an article this week that I was reading from Dr. Russell Moore. He's the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. A committed believer, loves God, very bright and really deals with things related to ethics, and religious liberties. You can imagine as a committed believer, he's not one that would be categorized as somebody who is as some would describe it, he's conservative in his understanding of the scripture and those kinds of things, that's kind of his hobby. And a really wonderful man of God. Just a wonderful man of God. And he wrote an article that was related to the events that have happened in our nation here recently. And in it, he actually referenced Romans three when he was talking about this. And that's why it caught my eye because I was referencing Romans three in my message. And I want you to hear what he said. He makes a really good point. He says, along with the slander of lying for God's glory, it's a slanderous thing to do, right, you don't lie for God's glory. Paul quoted those who would say let us do evil that good may come, it's crazy. Later he tells us, Paul does, that vengeance cannot bring about good because of the command do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. So then he makes some really strong statements. Murder is wrong. Insurrection is wrong. Rioting is wrong. Terrorism is wrong. If someone says in response to the brutal attacks of innocent people on September 11th, 2001. "Yes, but try to understand the desperation of people of Afghanistan," they are wrong to do so. You don't justify a wrong by redirecting. If someone says, "Yes abortion takes a human life, but poverty is worse," they are wrong. You don't just justify the murder of innocent children by talking about another very important issue related to poverty which is also very important, but you don't deflect. Truth is truth, lies are lies. And if someone says when confronted with a violent insurrection on the Nation's Capitol, "Yes but what about filling the blank?" They are wrong. You cannot stand for law and order while waving away lawlessness. You cannot champion the pro-life cause while waving away murder. You cannot support police by the murder of police officers. Thank you Dr. Moore, for speaking with prophetic clarity. You see all of us, all of us, need to be able to see clearly when it comes to truth and lies regardless of whether we like it, want it to be that way or not. This is what is consistent with our lives as believers. See the removal sin of can be painful. It can be hard. It's a good kind of thing that's happening to us, I want you to understand that it's a good thing that's happening to us but it can painful. This was illustrated beautifully in a children's book that really adults should read, called "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." In it, the Pevensie children are making their way into Narnia with their cousin, and their cousin's name is Eustace Scrubb, how would you like that name? In fact when it introduces him in the book it says his name was Eustace Scrubb and he almost deserved it. So it tells you a little bit about what he's like, right? He's this complaining, self-absorbed, no at all, just awful kid, right? And there he is with the Pevensie children in Narnia. and they're with Prince Caspian and they're sailing on the ship and they come to an Island and Eustace gets off and all the kids are playing, and doing what they're doing And Eustace comes upon a cave that was a Dragon's layer, and inside is a load of treasure. Dragon's gone, load of treasure. Eustace who's already mad at, he's complaining in his mind, and you hear the narration in his mind about how he's complaining about Prince Caspian and his skills and what are we even doing here? And I know more than they do. I've read books about how to sail ships and my cousins don't know anything. He's doing all of that. And as he does that he falls asleep on this treasure trove that he's found, right? And when he wakes up, he's a dragon. And what he came to recognize is not just that he was changed into a dragon, but that he'd been a dragon all along now he was seeing it. And this dragon that he is now, he thought maybe for a moment, this was gonna be a good thing, I'm big, I'm strong, I'm powerful but he realized really quickly this is an awful thing because I'm now disconnected from people that this is an awful thing. This is not what I want to be. And then he starts to feel despondent and hopeless and helpless and it's a bad scenario for him. But thankfully, the lion, Aslan comes into the picture on the Island, he can just show up places by the way, he's a lion who can just show up places, right? Don't need to take a boat. Don't need to call a cab. He just shows up places. This is picture of Jesus in this story. Aslan shows up and Eustace is like, "I need to be done with this. I gotta do something about this." And he says, "Well, come with me." And he takes him to this big, big bath. He says, "You're gonna have to undress and get in." Eustace says, "Oh, okay." And so he starts to peel the scales off. And as he peels them off he realizes that there are scales under the scales. So he peels those scales off, and there are scales under those scales. And that's when his voice narrating what events were happening picks up, listen to what he says. He says, "Then the lion said," but I don't know if it spoke, "You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. If you've ever pricked the scab off a sore place it hurts like Billy. Oh, but it is such fun to see it coming away. Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off. And then there was I as smooth and soft as appealed switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me. I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath that. Now that I had no skin on and he threw me into the water. And it smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that, it became perfectly delicious, and as soon as I started swimming and splashing, I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why, I'd turned into a boy again."
Hmm, this is such a great picture of sanctification in visual beautiful kind of imaginary ways. Because do you know what sanctification really is? It's Jesus undragooning us. That's what he's doing because you know what, inside, there's a man, there's a woman who's destined to live in full humanity, growing in the likeness of Jesus, more alive, not less alive. More human not less human. So the question that I have for all of us is are we willing to give ourselves to the beautiful tear that the spirit of God wants do in our hearts to separate us from the things that actually make us less human and less alive. Because I promise you this while it hurts sometimes to be separated from sin because it's built up scales in our lives, it's beautiful when it happens. Because we begin to recognize the beauty of the God who loves us and who shapes us and who molds us into the image of Jesus to be set apart for his purposes. Let's bow our heads together. Father your great grace overwhelms us because it is so kind to us. And your kindness leads us to repentance. And I pray that whether it's in these moments or even if we take these moments and move these moments to a later time today or tomorrow where we get into your presence, and we let you begin the process of undragooning us, may we recognize that that's not a shameful posture. It's a wise one. Repentance is wisdom. And may you help us to be people that recognize that bringing some of these dark places into the light is exactly what you desire. And we'll see love in your eyes, even as you peel them away, and as much as it hurts, we'll recognize that we will come out the other side looking more human, not less, being more alive, not less. Would you do that in your people for your glory all of us for your glory in Jesus name, amen.