Ambitious Holiness

 “Ambitious Holiness” // Message @ JRCC – Sunday, May 29, 2011

Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 // Series: “Ambition: The Good, the bad, the Holy”

Good Morning.  I want to invite you to grab your beverages and come on back and take your seats as we move into our teaching time together this morning.  Most of you are aware that this is our last weekend as a family here at Jericho Ridge for three months as we prepare for our first sabbatical.  And for the past few weeks, people have been asking me ‘what’s on your heart and what’s going on in your head as you move into your sabbatical this summer?’.  It’s a good question.  Some of you have experiences with pastoral sabbaticals that are less then clear or helpful.  Some pastoral leaders go into sabbatical so fatigued that they can’t see up from down so they use their sabbatical as an exit strategy and you never see or hear from them again.  But a sabbatical is not a holiday; it is simply the gift of time.  Time to learn and time to listen.  And this process is something that began for me earlier this spring.  I was asked to participate in a letter writing project with 4 other pastoral leaders in our provincial family of churches.  We were each invited to listen to God and to write a letter in the style of the letters of Revelation chapter 3, each of which begin with “to the angel at the church of wherever” (Ephesus, or Thyatira or Jericho Ridge).  Each of these letters follows a set format.  There’s encouragement and affirmation for the things that they are doing well and then there is also concern and critique of things that they need to pay attention to.  And so as the 4 of us wrote our letters we were to ask “what do you think that the Spirit of God is saying to you & to your church now?” 

This exercise was no a desire to somehow claim biblical authority or add to the Scriptures, but it was simply inviting a process of listening to God which will continue through the summer months.  As I listened, there was a sense of anticipation that began to wake up in my heart.  A sense of the incredible things that God has for us here at Jericho.  And as I continued to listen and to discern, I began to test some of these things that I wrote down in the letter with some of you here at JRCC.  I tested it with the elders and with some people who pray and intercede regularly.  Their encouragement was humbling and confirming…  There was a growing sense that God has been whispering some of these things not only to me but also to others who care deeply for His church.  And that these are things that God wants us to hear personally and corporately. 

So with that affirmation, I read the letter as a part of our provincial convention in Kelowna last month.  The 4 letters that were read were incredibly diverse – from city churches and rural, new churches and well established ones.  Younger leaders and seasoned veterans.  But through them all there was a sense of unity – that God was using this challenge to build up His body.  His church.  And so one of the things that I go into my sabbatical convinced of more than ever is that this is not about me.  It’s not about Pastor Keith.  It’s not about our fantastic staff team and solid elders…  What happens here week in and week out is about the unique call that God has upon us as a church community to see people coming to saving faith in Him and to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into fully devoted followers of Jesus.  This is our mission, and it’s something which we will be held accountable for.  The other letters spoke of the unique vision and personality that God had given each of those churches and you can find and read them on our conference website at BCMB.org (under events, convention 2011 / letters to churches).  But this letter speaks to how I sense that God has uniquely gifted us for this mission and where He might be calling us to sharpen our focus. 

The goal of sharing this letter is to stir our thinking and to let you into my heart and my head as I go on sabbatical.  I thought about reading it tonight at our Ministry Meeting but I wanted all of you to have the opportunity to head my heart and hopefully to share it.  As you listen, I want you to be asking “is there a part of this which resonates with me?  Challenges me?  Confuses me?  Confirms things that I have been thinking?”  If there is, I’d encourage you to write it down.  Take some time to think and pray and process it and perhaps you can come to our Ministry Meeting tonight with your thoughts and input as we’ll have time around round tables for conversation and prayer tonight.  So with that rather long introduction to help set the context for you, I’d invite you to listen and discern what the Spirit is saying to us together:

To the angel of the church at Jericho Ridge write these words.  The One who Himself became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood has this on His heart to say to you.

I love your love for people… all people.  People who differ from you in ethnicity, history, culture, language, politics, age, creed and almost every possible way.  Your doors are open to the vast diversity of My family and it is wonderfully expressed in your midst.  I love how this empathy stretches you into areas of justice and compassion on a global scale.  This heart for every language, tribe, and tongue and not just your own people or kingdom brings Me great pleasure. 

I love your generosity of spirit…  That you are willing to partner with many parts of My Body to see it strengthened and built up.  To watch you actively pursue peace and unity with brothers and sisters who differ theologically and methodologically fills My heart with joy. 

But as you are engaged in mission, don’t lose sight of the goal.   In your pursuit of many noble ambitions, I have two charges to bring against you:

First, I grow increasingly concerned that you are learning to love distinction instead of dying to self. 

There is a danger that lurks ever-present beneath the surface of apparent external ‘success’.  The danger is that you are growing to love being first and being known.  I want to remind you that distinction comes with a downside – for you and for Me.  When you love novelty more than sacrifice, when you pursue prominence and notoriety more than the way of the cross, I can’t walk with you down that path.  My hopes and dreams and plans for you are much grander and wider than you will ever know if you insist on loving distinction.  But know that if you do, you will grow small trying to be great.

Secondly, I grow increasingly concerned that you are trusting technique instead of the movement and whispers of My Spirit.  I have been clear with you that to whom much has been given, much is required.  And to you and your tribe, I have given much.  You are well resourced with leaders and facilities.  You have fantastic institutions and education, top-drawer technology, sensational strategic plans and much, much more.

But sometimes it saddens Me to see you rush to these things instead of resting in and listening carefully and patiently to Me.  You love Twitter and texting and trends and innovation…  But I rarely show up on Facebook or in the middle of a public gathering that has been so pre-programmed and over-produced that I couldn’t speak to My people even if I wanted to. 

There’s nothing wrong with best practices or innovations or any of this…  Except when you begin to trust technique so completely that My gentle whisper can’t penetrate and even up-end your carefully laid out plans. 

So here’s what I am asking of you.  Before you ever utter the words ‘strategic initiative’ again, I’d like a private, personal and searching meeting with You.  Before the launch of another church plant or before another missionary is sent or dollar given, I need you to forsake a reliance on technique and your love of distinction and find My heart again.  Know that when you do, you will grow deep and wide as you learn to be still and to know that I am God.  Because I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth.  Let that spirit of anticipation and hope drive you forward.     

Part of what I am discerning and calling myself to and us to as a group is the need to press in deeper in our personal adventure with God.  For some of you, your connection with God has grown stale; it’s become technique based as opposed to deeply personal, passionate, and vitalized like it used to be.  Your soul is dry and you may not know why.  I’ve used up the bulk of my teaching time this morning with sharing the letter but if I could add an addendum to it or a PS, it would be and encouragement lifted from the words of that old hymn “take time to be Holy”

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;

Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.

Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,

Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;

Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.

By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;

Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;

And run not before Him, whatever betide.

In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,

And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,

Each thought and each motive beneath His control.

Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,

Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above

The challenge for me is that when I think of the word “holiness” that’s not what comes up.  To me, holiness means a kind of dourness.  I rule following, legalistic kind of orientation towards God and others that usually means a kind of separateness or distancing from the stuff of daily life. 

We’re in the midst of a series on Ambition: The good, the bad and the Holy where we are seeking to answer the question: what does God want from you and from me?  And one of the strongest and clearest injunctions in the New Testament is to “be holy as I am holy” from I Peter 1:16.  But what does it really mean to be holy?

If you were to read through the New Testament looking for the word ambition as we did in preparation for this teaching series, one of the surprising places you would find it is in I Thessalonians 4, which is a discussion of what holiness looks like.  And at the mid-point in the chapter, Paul, the author, says: “make it your ambition to do these things”.  In other words, get Ambitious about Holiness.  We’re going to see three primary misconceptions that people have about what holiness is and three clear things that you and I can be building into our lives to fulfill that call to ambitious holiness.  I’ll be reading from I Thess. 4:1-12.  Most of the text will be up on the sidescreens in the New Living.  [4 Scripture Slides]

We see highlighted for us in this passage What Does Holiness Look Like?  And frankly, it’s a bit surprising because it doesn’t match our usual suspect description.  So in each of these three clusters, we’ll start with what holiness is NOT and then contrast it with what holiness IS. 

• Holiness IS NOT prudish or separatist
• Holiness IS choosing to daily live my life in a way that pleases God (4:1-2)

This is where many Christians have had good intentions but not always great practices in the past.  Think of our Mennonite Brethren forbearers… How many of you read Peace Shall Destroy Many by Rudy Wiebe in High School English?  The key feature of holiness in the past was a sense of separation from the world - spiritually, morally and often geographically.  The favorite verse quoted by many Mennonites in the early 20^th Century was “come out from among them and be ye separate”.  This sense of distance had as its objective a noble thing – that of keeping a person pure and holy.  In fact, some groups still practice this sense of separateness today – think of the old order Mennonites or Amish in Lancaster Pennsylvania or southwestern Ontario. But this separation from the world had an unintended consequence. It made holiness about where I lived my life and not always how I lived my life.  And a sense of prudishness or separateness grew up that defined entire communities by what they did NOT do as opposed to what they did do.  For example, the tribe that I grew up in was very very proud of the phrase “we don’t smoke, drink or chew or go with women who do”.  That was holiness.  It was the discipline of not dancing or not going to movies or not watching certain shows on TV.  But the intriguing thing is that this is not where the Scripture begins its discussion on holy living.  I Thessalonians begins a discussion on holiness with an encouragement towards seeing it as something that is woven into the fabric of my daily choices wherever I find myself.  Holiness is about my day to day life and interactions under the authority of Jesus as opposed to following simply separating from the world.  You can be separate but still not be holy.  Holiness is a discipline of engagement with something, or more precisely, someone, as opposed to a discipline of withdrawal. 

There’s lots more that could be said about that so get in a small group J

The second cluster that defines Ambitious Holiness for us takes this a step further.  The middle section of verses notes that

• Holiness IS NOT carefully following lists of human rules (I Thess. 4:8)

It’s not that there are no rules.  It’s just that their origin and their source of authority should be carefully questioned.  If the Bible outright forbids it, it’s off limits.  But so often in religious history, we’ve taken something that the Bible draws a clear line about – let’s say alcohol.  The Bible simply says “don’t get drunk – when you lose control of your faculties, bad things happen”.  And some groups have turned it up a notch and said “OK, to be even more careful, the Bible says “no drinking”.  The Bible doesn’t say that.  It says don’t get drunk.  So don’t touch alcohol is a human rule and as such, doesn’t have to do with holiness.  Sociologist would say that it’s a “bounded set” as opposed to “centre set” orientation towards life.   

But again, this doesn’t mean that I do anything I want to do.  Holiness has limits and boundaries.  For example, in this passage, there is a clear instruction that 

• Holiness IS keeping myself pure and controlled in the area of sexuality (4:3-7)

If God’s will for me is to be holy, then I will continually invite the help and power of the Holy Spirit to work on my life to keep me pure in the area of sexual sin.  So many of you can identify with being trapped in a cycle of lust and inappropriate expressions of sexuality.  And this again could be a whole message in and of itself, but the thing I want you to hear this morning if that’s you is that you can be free.  You can make different choices.  But the power to make and keep a commitment to purity in your sexual life does not come from a list of rules.  It comes from submitting yourself to God and inviting strong accountability into those hidden places.  There are groups of guys who meet regularly to hold each other accountable in this area and if you want into that process of walking in freedom, I want you to talk to me today before you leave. Though it may not feel like it, there’s HOPE for you to experience victory in this area of your life, friend! 

So, holiness is about what I do, not just what I don’t do.  And it’s about purity in the area of sexuality.  But there’s one cluster in our triad from this passage.  And that is a cautionary note about how I go about pursing holiness.  If you are a reader of the New Testament, you’ll perhaps be familiar with a group from the first century called Pharisees.  These were men renowned for their piety or holiness.  And yet Jesus reserves some of his sharpest critique for them – why?  Because they may have kept all of the rules, but they got tripped up in this last area, which is where we are admonished to be particularly ambitious.  The question of holiness: is it a public or a private matter.  And the answer is it’s kinda BOTH.  

Our third cluster could be 

• Holiness IS NOT showy or highly public
• Holiness IS quietly winsome so that my life wins the respect of others who are not Christians (I Thess. 4:11-12)

This is where the NIV is a bit clearer than that NLT…  Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.  But it can’t be so quiet that nobody notices!  Holiness starts internally in my heart and my head but it evidences itself in the way that I carry myself.  It is not showy in drawing attention to itself (“hey look at me – look at how holy I am!” which is essentially what he Pharisees did and what Jesus critiqued them for) but it does have a quiet and winsome quality about it that leads to people who do not know God having a respect for both your character and your work.  So if you are a business person, you don’t have to name your company “Jesus Saves Joinery”.  You just make good cabinets and conduct yourself with honesty and integrity in such a way that people who are not Christians think “that guy walks the walk.  He or she is not just a Sunday Christian.  They actually have a work ethic and a product and a way of carrying themselves Monday thru Saturday that is influenced by and permeated by their faith in God.”  If you’re an employer, you don’t have to sign off every letter or e-mail “Your’s In Christ,”… But you do have to live in a way that proves to a watching world that you are in Christ and that Christ is in you.  Holiness is attractive in and of itself.  There’s simplicity and a purity of life and speech that flows out a person who has made time to be Holy that is inescapable. 

We’re going to move into a time of communion and worship in song as our response this morning.  And as we do so, I want to ask you a question:

• Is there any area of my life that could use a holiness make-over?

–      Input (Media) 

–      Output (Speech)

–      Anything that controls me (alcohol, debt, sexual addiction, religiosity, etc.)

The Scripture is clear that we are to examine ourselves before coming to the table of the Lord.  This cup represents his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins.  And so before coming, we need to ask “what has control over me?”  If there are areas of sin against God or others, make them right.  Holiness does not mean perfection – otherwise none of us could come, but we come only at the Lord’s invitation.  His sacrifice on the cross makes us Holy.  So if you belong to Him, come.  This bread represents his body, broken for you.  Take time, move to the tables.  Take it at your seats as we sing songs that declare our intent to be people who are holy before God.