Holiness

Being back “in church” again is already proving to be a real "where the rubber meets the road" experience. I’m trying to remember the things I’ve learned and seen the past 2 ½ years out ‘in the wild’ and apply them as needed, back inside the walls.

I will say, the pastor at this place is one of the most sincere and good-hearted pastors I’ve ever met. I don’t think for a minute that he sits scheming over his sermon notes, wondering how he can make the people a little more afraid. I honestly think even the best of pastors in organized church preach some degree of “hybrid covenant” theology, whether they realize it or not.

This past Sunday’s sermon was on holiness. Early in the message, the pastor quoted the verse that says “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14) I didn’t actually keep a tally sheet, but in my subconscious I was ticking off each time he repeated this phrase, and I think it was up to 8 or 9 times by the time he finished his sermon. Even after nearly 3 years of not going “to church” regularly, each time he said this I winced. He raised his voice passionately, whereas my ears were already stressed by over amplification of the microphone in a small sanctuary. I felt like a hamster in a cage being given a little shock jolt.


(While we’re on the subject, one big problem area I’ve seen over the years is the tendency for a teacher to start with one or two verses and make a whole sermon out of it, a whole doctrine, or even a whole religion. Other than “God is Love,” this rarely seems to produce a totally balanced and truthful picture).

We were reminded that we can’t go our own way and be holy, or follow the desires of our flesh and be holy. We can’t live a life of sin and say “but the Bible says I’m positionally right with God.” Remember, without holiness, no one will see the Lord!

I see a vicious cycle at work in most sermons I’ve heard inside the walls – the pastor tells the flock that God is grace, but implies that they better watch their step or they might slip out of grace. The people are afraid he’s right, so they keep coming back to hear more preaching on making sure to walk the straight and narrow, or else; which feeds their fear that they might screw up, so they come back for more preaching, so their fears can be fed again…

While the pastor talked, I read through chapter 10 in Hebrews. (The whole book of Hebrews describes what was accomplished by Christ). I think it would have been much better to focus on what has already been done. Like it or not, in God’s sight we ARE holy. We can’t erase this or screw it up by having a bad day or even a bad year. The trouble is, most Christians do not understand or believe this. It’s like we’ve all somehow gotten the message that Christ did not really accomplish too much at the cross, except to show just how angry God really is over this sin business and He had to take it out on Someone.

To be fair, the pastor did preach part 2 of his sermon later in the day, on love. He took us to the book of Jude where we are reminded to keep ourselves in the love of God, and he did preach that in its proper context. I think we listeners would have been better off if the pastor had stuck to part 2 and left it at that. If only pastors (and everyone else) would realize that our focus needs to be on our God, and his love - NOT on our sin, or any potential to sin, real or imagined.

The pastor summed up the main thing we need to know in regards to what holiness is: “Christlikeness.” We’ve all been taught in mainstream Christianity that God wants us to become just like Christ, who is God incarnate. But what is Christlikeness? The pastor described it as abstaining from sin and loving our neighbor. I can’t argue with either of these things, but is there more?

As I listened to the latest Into the Wild podcast, I paid special attention to a couple of comments made on holiness. Darin said that he thinks holiness is not just defined as abstaining from sin, because sin is not even a part of who God is. Holiness is so much more than we can altogether define. Darin thinks that our holiness is becoming more “whole” as in “whole-i-ness.” Fully ourselves, who and how we were meant to be as God created us.

I’ll ponder this one. Many earthly fathers seem to most want that their children not screw up, not get into trouble, to not do anything bad. They are also pleased if Junior is a “chip off the old block.” In other words, like Dad. There are numerous stories of dads who didn’t like Junior anymore once he decided not to become a lawyer or a doctor like Dad. This parenting agenda might produce results of clean-looking Dad clones in some kids, but totally alienate others. And I bet all folks who came out of a household of this parenting mindset have a hunch they missed out on a lot of real love. “Don’t screw up, and become like me” seems to be an incomplete picture of love at best.

Even with a book as good as “The Misunderstood God,” I feel like I’m gleaning great but still largely second hand information. The God described in this book sounds wonderful. But much of the time, it still feels like trying to hook up a seatbelt when the latch is busted. It doesn’t fully connect, it doesn’t click and stay put. Even so, I can imagine it might look something like this:



illustration by Pamela Barcita

When a child is safe in her father’s care, she becomes the most beautiful, vibrant, whole and complete person she can be. How much more so with our heavenly Father than with even the best of earthly fathers. I don’t fully know this in my heart yet, but I can imagine.

Meanwhile, I will keep hanging on for dear life to remembering how important it is to focus on being first and foremost, rooted and grounded in love. As the pastor repeated that “without holiness no one will see the Lord” for about the seventh time the other day, I fixed my eyes on 1 John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us.”

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. – 1 John 4:18