If you have been following along with this series, then the concept of holiness is a theme that you have probably heard or read a few times over the past few weeks of sermons and blog post themes. Holiness is a dominant theme in the Bible because it is intrinsic to God's character. Holy means set apart, and God is uniquely set apart because of his holy love. God offers this call to "set apart-ness" to all who would receive it.
(If you have not read the previous posts in this series, you can start with week one here!)
You may be wondering, if you are familiar with the Church of the Nazarene doctrine, when we are going to talk about sanctification. Well, the moment has arrived. For anyone who is not familiar, sanctification is defined as the experience of being made holy. It is not something that we do, but rather something that God does in us and continues to do as we follow Jesus.
Before we dive into the Scriptures, think for a second about your priorities. Specifically, how you prioritize your time and energy. According to something called the Eisenhower matrix, there are four ways of organizing our priorities. There is the Important & Urgent, Important & Not Urgent, Urgent & Not Important, and Not Urgent & Not Important.
It is not always easy to know what is a priority in our lives. Some things are urgent, some things are important, some things are both, but we can struggle to know how to prioritize. Yet we have a perfect example of priorities in the life of Jesus. Let's look at an example from the book of Mark.
Mark 1:35-39 NIV
35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
The simplest definition of sanctification is that “God touches a person, and they are changed.”
You might think that sanctification is something you do with your willpower, but that is incorrect.
It is God who sanctifies you. It is God who makes you holy. It is God who transforms you.
It is God who sets a person apart for a special purpose. That purpose is the restoration, redemption, and renewal of all creation! And God has a unique role for you to accomplish that Divine Purpose.
In this passage we just heard, Jesus has a way of discerning the important and urgent. He knows they aren’t always the same. His disciples found him in verse 37 and they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
If you heard everyone was looking for you, would it be easy for you to say, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages”?
“Go somewhere else? But everyone HERE is looking for you! We told them we’d find you and—” And you can imagine that Jesus just smiled and started walking towards the next village…
Do you think Jesus made the right decision? Let's look at the context of the passage to find out.
Our passage began in verse 35 saying, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
It was Jesus’ custom, His habit, His practice to separate from the people around Him, be with the Father to be filled with strength, wisdom, discernment, courage, and power, so that He could go out and be a blessing to those around Him.
Verse 39 says, “So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” And the next story that Mark shares after this is when Jesus heals a man with leprosy. Jesus was a blessing to those around Him.
But imagine if Jesus had not gotten up early to pray and be with the Father, what if when his disciples came to him and exclaimed “Everyone is looking for you.” What if Jesus would have said, “Okay, well, let’s not keep them waiting any longer.” What if Jesus had confused the urgent with the important? Just because something is urgent doesn’t mean it is important!
Do you ever get overwhelmed by the news cycle? It seems that there is "breaking news" pretty much 24/7 these days. It is difficult to believe that there can be that much news that is truly able to be classified as "breaking news"!
Or think about the notifications that come through your phone throughout the day. They try to make you feel that there is something urgent to see on your apps, like a post from a friend or a streak on Snapchat. But just because something is “urgent” does not mean it is important, and just because something seems urgent doesn’t mean it is actually urgent!
What if it is for your benefit and the benefit of people you might never meet, that Jesus does not say yes to every request you give to Him?
What if it is for your good, and the good of many others, that sometimes God does not say yes to your prayer requests?
It’s been said that “any time God says NO to you it’s because God is saying YES to something better.” Read that again. It is not easy to believe in the moment when you want something, but we have to trust that God knows what is best for us.
Even if that “something better” isn’t what you want right now, God has a way of changing your heart and mind to see things from His perspective. God has the ability to see all of life and reality. God is able to separate the important from the less important, the urgent from the non-urgent.
Do you ever find yourself getting caught up with unimportant things? Do you want to be caught up in the important matters of life? Whether they are urgent or not urgent, do you want to be devoted to the important things?
There is good news for all of us who struggle with priorities: God wants to help us.
When we talk about holiness we are first talking about God. And then from God we move to God’s people. God’s people are set apart for a special purpose, the restoration, redemption, and renewal of all creation.
When we surrender to God, when we separate from the normal minutia of this world in order to be with God, God fills us, and sends us back into this world that God loves, to be a blessing.
It is important to realize that, although we are not the ones that make sanctification happen, we have the opportunity to participate in it by opening ourselves up to the work of the Spirit in us. And when we do that, when we open ourselves up, we are able to find our true purpose, whatever that may be.
Another word that is sometimes substituted for the word holy is perfect. The Greek word for “perfect” is used in Matthew 5:47 where Jesus taught
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is the Greek word telios, meaning "end" or "complete." This refers to fulfilling one’s purpose. Being complete or whole. Our purpose is to love God with everything we are, and to love everyone else as we love ourselves! And when we do this, it continues God’s work of the restoration, redemption, and renewal of all creation!
We need to separate ourselves from our own agenda and be with God so that God can make us fulfill the purpose God has for us. To separate takes effort; it’s easier to just stay with what is comfortable, but we need to periodically separate to be with God.
Sometimes this involves confession. It involves confessing where we held on to things we weren’t supposed to hold onto. Where we have sinned.
Eugene Peterson says the following about sin: “God does not deal with sin by ridding our lives of it as if it were a germ, or mice in the attic. God does not deal with sin by amputation as if it were a gangrenous leg, leaving us crippled, holiness on a crutch. God deals with sin by forgiving us, and when he forgives us there is more of us, not less.”
Confession leaves more of you, not less. The real you gets uncovered as you separate from this world and your own agenda and are WITH God.
Our Holiness is rooted in WITHness. Being WITH GOD.
To be with God we must “separate” on a regular basis. The Separation is for a purpose. We separate to be with God.
And God helps us to fulfill our purpose, which is woven into His purpose, the restoration, redemption, and renewal of all creation.
If you think separating or being with God is ever selfish, you are mistaken. God always sends you out for the sake of others.
There is more of you to give after you are with God, not less. That is what sanctification is all about: fulfilling our God-given purpose and living into the rhythm of holy life.
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