Rev. David Holwick ZM
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 1, 1996
Hebrews 12:25-29
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I. Why are you in church?
A. Non-christians know why they are not.
Recently, one church surveyed its community asking why people
DIDN'T go to church.
The answers are illuminating.
1. There is no value in attending. 74%
2. Churches have too many problems. 81%
3. I don't have the time. 48%
4. I'm simply not interested. 42%
5. Churches ask for money too much. 40%
6. Church services are usually boring. 36%
7. Church services are irrelevant to the way I live. 34%
8. I don't believe in God. only 12%
People are looking for an experience with the Holy, and they
don't necessarily think church is the place to find it.
This is a devastating critique - after all, as a commercial
used to say, "It's our only business."
Many churches have fallen into a sterile trap that stimulates
the mind but neglects the heart.
People want to know that we understand the spiritual aspects of
life and are in touch with God.
The best of Baptist worship and preaching stirs both the mind
and the heart, and brings us as a whole person into the
presence of the Living God.
#3333
B. Why are YOU here? Canned answers vs. reality:
1) Your folks forced you.
2) If you weren't, there might be a hell and you would be
the only one in your family condemned there.
3) The best looking girls were in the youth group.
4) You've never given it much thought, you just go with the
flow.
C. What Christian faith provides.
1) Church can provide a sense of belonging, of community.
2) Church can provide a moral foundation to life.
a) (Reason many get back in church after having kids)
3) Is there anything more?
a) God can provide more than underpinnings to a life.
b) He can be known and experienced directly.
4) Many who consider themselves Christians never experience it.
a) It requires a special commitment - consecration.
II. Sacred and secular.
A. God is different.
1) One theologian calls Him the "Wholly Other".
a) Our minds cannot understand him, unless he reveals
himself.
2) Worship focuses on God.
a) We experience The Holy when we allow God to break through.
B. Three possibilities in life. #1854
1) Unclean.
a) Against God, unhealthy.
1> Disobedience makes us unclean.
A> OT - lobster, leprosy, murder.
B> NT - moral sin. Pornography, cheating, hatred.
b) Uncleanness is contagious and incompatible with holiness.
2) Clean.
a) Normal or whole.
b) Clean doesn't mean you are acceptable to God.
1> Holiness is more than lack of dirt.
2> Clean is the halfway point of repentance.
c) Unclean must be made clean, then clean must be
sanctified to be holy.
3) Holy.
a) Set apart for God in a special way.
1> Holiness characterizes God.
2> Anyone or anything given to God becomes holy.
b) Holiness comes from obedience and imitation of God.
1> Same in both OT and NT.
c) Holiness is more contagious than uncleanness.
Jesus is the best example of this principle.
He took the accepted wisdom of the day and turned it
upside down.
Pharisees believed that touching an unclean person
polluted the one who touched.
Yet when Jesus touched a person with leprosy, Jesus did
not become soiled -- the leper became clean.
When an immoral woman washed Jesus' feet, she went away
forgiven and transformed.
One writer has said, "The contagion of holiness overcomes
the contagion of uncleanness."
Instead of the message "No undesirables allowed," Jesus
proclaimed,
"In God's kingdom, no one is any longer an undesirable."
Anyone can become holy when they encounter Jesus.
#3541
III. Holiness in the Christian life.
A. The possibility of holiness.
1) Can we be pure and holy in everything we do?
2) Is it possible to feel God's presence all the time?
B. Become what you are. #1374
1) All Christians are "saints."
a) We are holy because God makes us so. Heb 10:10
b) Paradox: holiness requires effort. Heb 12:14
1> We can train ourselves to be holy. 1 Tim 4:7
2) We progress in being holy in our thinking, actions
and dispositions.
a) Like one of the Rockefellers saying to a rebellious
son, "You are a Rockefeller. That will never
change. Now act like a Rockefeller."
C. Half of the New Testament is encouragement to live holy lives.
1) Example of John Wesley - first evangelistic sermon on God's
wonderful grace, rest on morality.
a) Burden for me - challenge congregation on the specifics
in your lives.
2) The church has an important role in leading people to
holiness.
IV. What makes a church special.
A. The marks of a genuine church.
1) Given much thought by Christians.
B. Different views.
1) Two or three Christians gathered together?
a) In this case, Rockaway Mall would be a huge church.
2) Preaching of Word? Communion?
3) Some Reformers added "discipline." #1511
a) Churches require holiness to be different.
1> My devotions in OT prophets, remnant theme.
b) Can't just go through the motions of religion.
V. Is anything sacred anymore?
A. Sacramentalists. Roman Catholic, Episcopalians...
1) Some things are more sacred than others.
a) Holy water vs. bath water.
b) Priests vs. laypeople.
2) Sacred acts (communion, baptism) impart holiness.
a) They have power in and of themselves.
b) Even to unpenitent?
B. Non-sacramentalists. Baptists...
1) All of life is sacred - no special places, practices.
a) Sometimes when everything is sacred, nothing is.
b) Example of sanctuary.
1> In OT, priest can only visit inner sanctuary
once a year.
2> Ledgewood Baptist - running in church, talking...
2) Ordinances, not sacraments.
a) Jesus commands us to do two things: baptize, communion.
b) These practices do not make us holy if we are not
holy to begin with.
C. Ordinances don't make us holy, but remind us of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brilliant young German pastor and
seminary teacher who opposed Hitler's policies in the 1930s.
On April 5, 1943, the Nazis arrested Bonhoeffer and put him in
prison.
Two years later they executed him, hanging him on the gallows
just days before the Allies swept in to liberate the area.
About ten weeks after his arrest, Bonhoeffer ended a letter
to his parents with these words:
"It is Monday, and I was just sitting down to a dinner of
turnips and potatoes when a parcel you sent me arrived.
Such things give me greater joy than I can say.
Although I am utterly convinced that nothing can break the bonds
between us, I seem to need some outward token or sign to
reassure me.
In this way, material things become the vehicles of spiritual
realities.
I suppose it is rather like the need in our religion for
sacraments."
Bonhoeffer knew his parents loved him.
Yet he still hungered for that love to be reaffirmed.
He needed to be reminded of their love in a tangible way.
His package from home served that purpose, and Bonhoeffer saw
the Lord's Supper doing the same.
The Lord's Supper is a package from our heavenly home, a
tangible expression of God's love for us.
#3966
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