Holiness 101

“Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’” 1 Peter 1:13-16

Peter doesn’t mess around, does he? He says exactly what he means and doesn’t leave any room for misunderstanding – “Be holy.” Isn’t it weird, then, that in this day and age, when somebody says someone is holy, it usually doesn’t sound like a compliment. “Look at him. Doesn’t he think he’s all holy?”

The problem is, as will everything else in this sinful world, the enemy has worked hard to make sure that the qualities that God asks for have been twisted and misused until they don’t resemble their true definition any more.

Thankfully, God prepared for that and made sure we had some examples. One of the best of which is His relationship with the Israelites through His sanctuary.

Every part of the Sanctuary was a symbol for God’s desire to be in the midst of His children and to be involved in their daily lives.

If you had asked the Israelites of Moses’ time, David’s time, or even Jesus’ time, what percentage of their lives was “religious,” they probably would have looked at you like you didn’t have any idea what you were talking about. Religion wasn’t just a percentage of their lives. Being a Jew was their whole existence. It was their national identity, their religious identity, what they ate, where they lived, and who they married. It was even part of how they washed their hands. The problem is, with a few notable exceptions, the Jews became bogged down in their own rules and traditions instead of allowing God to set them free.

One of those exceptions was King David. Over and over again, in the Psalms, we can read David’s desire to meet with God in His Sanctuary. Psalm 27 encapsulates how David feels about the Sanctuary, specifically in verses 4-13:

“One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek:That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’ Do not hide Your face from me; Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the Lord will take care of me. Teach me Your way, O Lord, And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; For false witnesses have risen against me, And such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living.”

David’s desire to experience that closeness with God that the Sanctuary represented consumed his life. Yes, we all know that David made some horrific mistakes, but He never lost his hunger for God. And God recognized and honored David for that – being called a man after God’s own heart should be something for which we all strive.

So, how can we find and maintain that “sanctuary relationship” with God? How can we “be holy?”

Well, we have to decide whether we’re going to admire Jesus or are we going to follow Him. Although those two things may sound similar, in this context, they are quite different.

“If you have any knowledge at all of human nature, you know that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors. The admirer is infatuated with the false security of greatness; but if there is any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back. Admiring the truth, instead of following it, is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of the hand can be changed into exactly the opposite—to hate, jealousy, and revenge. Christ, however, never asked for admirers, worshipers, or adherents. He consistently spoke of ‘followers’ and ‘disciples.’”[1]

Many of the people who came after Jesus turned out to be admirers – they left Him when things weren’t easy anymore. David didn’t turn back from his love of God, even when he spent years hiding from King Saul or when some of his own sons turned against him and his family was torn apart.

Many of us want to experience the feel good times with Jesus but aren’t committed to sticking around when things get rough.

“Jesus has many who love his kingdom in heaven, but few who bear his cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share his feast, but few his fasting. All desire to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for his sake. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of his passion. Many admire his miracles, but few follow him in the humiliation of the cross.”[2]

 Being holy isn’t just being a Christian, going to church on a certain day or however many times a week. It isn’t praying before meals or reading our Bibles for a certain number of minutes every day. We can’t be holy sometimes and then sometimes not. Being holy is not about a particular denomination or how religious you are. Being holy isn’t a part of our lives, it has to be our identity in Jesus Christ. 

Does that mean we are exempt from making, sometimes, horrific mistakes? Afraid not. But we will, like David, center our lives on our God, our Savior and Redeemer, and our Best Friend.

“Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think are innocent as well as the ones you think are wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself: my own will shall become yours.’”[3]

That is my prayer. Is it yours?

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[1] Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and theologian (1813–1855)

[2] Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ; found in: Tony Lane, Timeless Witness (Hendrickson, 2004), p. 188

[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperOne, 2001), p. 196-197 

Familiarity Breeds …

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for  7.30.11

There are a couple of Bible stories we should look at to start with:  Hophni and Phinehas and Nadab and Abihu.   These guys have a couple of interesting things in common.  One:  they had fathers who were very important and well respected in the church – Eli and Aaron.  Second:  they were following in their fathers’ footsteps.  Third:  they got into BIG trouble.

Eli’s sons are described as “scoundrels”:  

“Eli’s sons were scoundrels; they had no regard for the LORD. Now it was the practice of the priests that, whenever any of the people offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand while the meat was being boiled and would plunge the fork into the pan or kettle or caldron or pot. Whatever the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh. But even before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the person who was sacrificing, ‘Give the priest some meat to roast; he won’t accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.’ If the person said to him, ‘Let the fat be burned first, and then take whatever you want,’ the servant would answer, ‘No, hand it over now; if you don’t, I’ll take it by force.’  This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD’s sight, for they were treating the LORD’s offering with contempt.” 1 Samuel 2:12-17

While it’s implied that Aaron’s sons went into the sanctuary after they had been drinking:  

“Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. … Then the LORD said to Aaron, ‘You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and so you can teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.’”  Leviticus 1-2, 8-10

Does it surprise you that these four men who had been so thoroughly trained and groomed to work in the sanctuary became such spectacular failures?  Probably not, we even have a name for it:  PK’s – preachers’ kids.  Right? 

I’ve heard lots of theories about why PK’s seem to fall so spectacularly: that men in the ministry tend to put their families second; that people’s expectations of PK’s is so much higher and that Satan works so much harder on PK’s to discredit the ministry of their fathers.  I guess all of those theories can be true, especially the last one, but I have one more.  I think that sometimes PK’s, especially in the cases of Hophni, Phinehas, Nadab and Abihu, get so used to being around the church building itself and what we might call “sacred” settings and situations, that those places and situations tend to lose their importance and their specialness and so the difference between sacred and common gets blurred.  (Feel free to disagree.  Let me know what you think.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should avoid church because we’ll get too comfortable there and get into trouble.  I’m just saying that we need to guard against our church/worship experiences becoming routine or second nature.

Wayne Oates describes it this way:

“Marketplace thought about the presence of God is one of sentimental familiarity. Country-western songs speak of ‘having a little talk with Jesus’ almost as if the Lord were a chum with whom one has a chitchat. ... In stark contrast, however, is the persistent biblical wisdom that God's presence comes to us when we know it not. At the least, our awareness of the presence is an afterthought”[1]

C.S. Lewis expresses a similar thought about letting our fear and respect of God begins wane and we begin to become too familiar: 

“‘I think the ‘low’ church ‘milieu’ that I grew up in did tend to be too cozily at ease in Zion. My grandfather, I'm told, used to say that he ‘looked forward to having some very interesting conversations with St. Paul when he got to heaven.’ Two clerical gentlemen talking at ease in a club! It never seemed to cross his mind that an encounter with St. Paul might be rather an overwhelming experience even for an Evangelical clergyman of good family. But when Dante saw the great apostles in heaven they affected him like ‘mountains.’ There's lots to be said against devotions to saints; but at least they keep on reminding us that we are very small people compared with them. How much smaller before their master?”[2]

I think what both of  these authors are saying is that, if we’re not careful, our relationship with God and worshipping Him can become too much about what makes us feel good when it should be more about what God wants from us.  More like this:

“I am dismayed by the popular phrase ‘worship experience’ to describe the church's corporate worship. Worship has the capacity to transform us, because it focuses our hearts and minds on God--God seen in one another, in ourselves and in the world around us. However, the phrase ‘worship experience’ suggests that worship is important because it induces feelings. In this context worship is focused more on the worshiper than on the One worshipped. ... We need to ask ourselves what a true worship experience is so that if we had one, we could recognize it.”[3]

The other extreme is that our worship can become completely ritualized and feelingless that our minds can be somewhere else while our bodies are going through the motions.

So that’s the struggle and the battle that our four PK’s lost.  Their worship quit being about God and became about themselves.  It became all about them and very little about Jesus.

Stuart Sacks has an illustration that might help us see what worship should be like.  

“While I was serving in Paraguay, a Maka Indian named Rafael came to sit on my porch. I was eating and went out to see what he wanted. He responded, ‘Ham, henek met.’ Again I asked what I could do for him, but the answer was the same. I understood what he was saying but not its significance: ‘I don't want anything; I have just come near.’
“I later shared the incident with a local veteran missionary. He explained that it was Rafael's way of honoring me. He really didn't want anything; he just wanted to sit on my porch. He found satisfaction and pleasure just being near me.
“‘What brings you here, my child?’ the Lord asks.
“‘Ham, henek met.’”
“Doesn't that reveal the heart of true worship?”[4]

Tell Jesus today, “I don’t want anything; I have just come near.”

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[1] Wayne E. Oates, Leadership, Vol. 9, no. 4.

[2] C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 17.

[3] Mark Horst in The Christian Century (Nov. 11, 1987). Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no. 2.

[4] Stuart Sacks, Villanova, Pennsylvania