Sermon 116
Sermon by Jane Scott-Thompson at Wonersh on Sunday 10th Fbruary
2008
Holiness
Readings: ??
This
evening, the first Sunday in Lent, is the start of a mini-series on ‘Holiness’.
Holiness
Ok, who
is the most wonderful person you
know of? Take a moment to think how you would describe that person to a friend.
Suppose
one person had all these
characteristics? How would you describe them in one word? A
saint, perhaps, or a holy person? The word ‘saint’ comes from the Latin
for ‘holy’. Maybe the person you thought of is someone we would call a saint, like Saint Francis, Saint
Patrick, Saint Catherine, even Saint Valentine, or Mother Teresa? If you look
on the internet, you can find a Saint for every
letter of the alphabet!
Right,
so what is a saint, a holy person? Is
it just somebody from history who has a lot of the characteristics we mentioned
earlier?
In the Bible,
a saint is one who is sanctified (cf. 2
Chronicles 6:41). The early Christians were all called saints - in Hebrews
and the beginning of Paul’s letters (Jude, Philemon): he wrote Philippians – ‘to all the saints’, and
at the beginning of Colossians, ‘to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ’.
One
encyclopaedia says “The concept of sainthood is rooted in the Christian belief
that aligning one’s motives and actions with the “will of God” makes one more
perfect and holy, and that it is possible in life to approach perfection. From the
early days of Christianity, Paul the Apostle
and others used the word hagios (“holy”) to refer not
only to all living believers (as in
Philippians 4:21-22 or Revelation 20:9) but, at times, also to those in
heaven (1 Thess
3:13).
So, what
does ‘Holiness’ or ‘sanctification’ mean to us? How can we, today, be like the wonderful, fantastic, special people we
thought about earlier? ‘Sanctification’ is being
made holy – but if we’re all saints
already, what more is there to do?
Well, one answer to that is ‘absolutely nothing’. Jesus has already done it
all. We may try to reach God by our good behaviour,
prayers, charitable works and so on; but God is the Almighty, 100% perfection, Holy,
and we cannot achieve that: nobody can, because none of us are perfect. ‘All
have sinned’, as Paul says in Romans 3.23. However, God has provided the solution, His Son, the
perfect Man, Jesus Christ. He has
died on the Cross for us, He has
taken the punishment for all the wrongs we have done. What we have to do, is accept that solution, ask for and receive
forgiveness for all the mistakes we have made, all the things we have done
wrong. Then, instantly, we become holy,
righteous in God’s sight.
Rules
for Holy Living
That’s
about our status. The second stage is about our behaviour. Holiness needs working at, developing,
practising. Sanctification is about being
made holy, it’s an ongoing
process. I think that’s why this evening’s reading from Colossians is headed
“Rules for Holy Living”. It’s on page 1184, if you want to follow it in the pew
Bibles. We may complain that Rules restrict our freedom, but underneath, most
of us do actually prefer to have some guidelines to follow. A blank sheet of
paper can be quite scary for an artist or writer or preacher until they have a
theme to interpret. Likewise, Paul’s instruction to ‘be imitators of me, as I
am of Christ’ – how, specifically, do we interpret that in the 21st
century?
One
place to start,
is by looking at how Paul told the Colossians to live, and then applying that to our own lives. In verse 1 of our passage he tells them ‘set
your hearts on things above’, then in verse 2, ‘set your minds on things above.
Why? ‘Since, then, you have been
raised with Christ’. That led me to look back a page to chapter 2, to find out
what led up to this. I remember being told that “when Paul writes ‘therefore’ (one
word, as in v5, v12), we should look to see what it’s there for (two words).
In chapter
2, the heading for v6 onwards is “Freedom from Human Regulations through Life
with Christ”. We’re not under law but under grace, as soon as we become
Christians.
Look
at v6-7 of chapter 2: ‘So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord,
continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith
as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.’
On to v10,
‘you have been given fullness in Christ’, and v13, ‘He forgave us all our sins’.
Finally in this chapter, v20, ‘Since you died with
Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged
to it, do you submit to its rules:’
Over
the page in the pew Bibles, the beginning of chapter 3, Bishop Tom Wright
translates like this, ‘So, if you
were raised to life with the king (that is, Christ), search for the things that
are above, …think about the things that are above, not
the things that belong on the earth. Don’t you see: you died, and your life has
been hidden with the king, in God!’
If we
fix our minds on those
things, store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, as
we heard in our Gospel reading, then gradually, naturally, we will become more holy,
almost without noticing it. A friend once said to me about the fruits of the
Spirit growing in our lives, that they’re on the outside, for others to enjoy,
just like fruit on a tree. I didn’t feel very peaceful inside, but she said I
still radiated peace to those around; likewise, we may not feel very patient
with someone, but we should still try to act patiently, to be polite, and
gradually, just like fruit grows, patience will develop too.
Look
again at v3, ‘For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God’, then
v7 and 8, ‘You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now
you must rid yourself of all such things as these.’
Why and how?
Because of verses 9 & 10, in the middle of the paragraph, ‘you have
taken off your old self with its
practices and have put on the new
self, which is being renewed in
knowledge in the image of its
Creator.’
Is being renewed – it’s a continuous,
ongoing process, we
are being renewed in the image of our Creator. It might help to think of it
like this: Imagine an old stitched-leather Rugby Ball with pointed ends, with a
rubber inner bladder. Now
imagine you deflate the ball, take out the oblong bladder, put in a round one
from a football, and start pumping. As you blow it up, what happens?
Gradually, as it inflates, the oblong rugby ball will become more and more
rounded. It begins to look less like a rugby ball, and more like a
football. It'll never be perfectly spherical, it’ll always have knobbly
bits on the ends, but it's being changed from within. It's a bit like
that with us: God changes us from
within, from the heart. And he begins to make us more rounded people,
more like Him.
Clothe
Yourselves
It’s
not just letting God do all the work
though, we have to allow Him to work through us, and that
means taking positive action, doing
the things in v12-14. ‘Clothe yourselves’ is the phrase used
in v12 – you might like to think about ‘compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness and patience’ as you get up each morning. For instance, compassion
as you put on a shirt, the warmth of kindness as a jumper goes on, humility as
you bend down to put on socks & shoes. Remember the people we thought about
at the start, their characteristics, or outstanding qualities – that is what
those saints have clothed themselves with. As we do likewise, and focus on the
positive, there will be less space for the negative to keep a hold on us. It is
God who makes us holy; we are
holy, by definition, if we’re a Christian, but we still have to live it out,
put holiness into practice in our lives.
Conclusion
In
conclusion, let’s look back to verse 1: ‘you have been raised with Christ, set
your hearts on things above’. Let’s learn
to do that, to think about the things that are above, not the things that
belong to the present world of change and decay. In fact, learning to think,
rather than just going with the flow, or blindly obeying rules and regulations,
is part of the key to it all. One aspect
of Christian maturity, one of the road signs on the route to Christian holiness,
is that our minds must grasp the
truth; “you died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God”. Once the mind has grasped that truth, the heart
and will, start to come on board. Once the
heart and will, come on board, the way lies open to joyful Christian
holiness. Don’t settle for short-cuts!