Pastor Leon Seaton

How to Enjoy Being Holy

Two young brothers were caught stealing sheep. The punishment back then was to brand the thief's forehead with the letters ST which stood for “sheep thief.”  Because of his embarrassment, one brother left the village and spent his remaining years wandering from place to place, marked by disgrace. The other brother remained in the village, made restitution for the stolen sheep, and became a caring friend and neighbor to the townspeople. In fact, he lived out his life in the village as an old man that everyone loved.

One day a stranger came to town and inquired about the ST on the old man's forehead. "I'm not sure what it means," someone told him, but "I think the letters must stand for saint." (Source not known.)

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            We have a choice. We can either take up our cross daily, following the Lord, or we can lay it down and join the crowd of immature Christians that never accomplish anything for God. God knows your weakness and failures – we all have them. He wants to transform us and help us to live for something greater than ourselves: The Kingdom of God. The choice is yours. But I challenge you, take up your cross daily and follow the Lord!

What is a Holy Life?

            To properly understand what something is it often helps to look at what it is not:

1.    It is not a life of poverty

2.    It is not a life separated from society in a monastery

3.    It is usually not a life of chastity, although that may be God’s calling

4.    It is not living so far above everyone else that people think you are crazy

What it is: A total commitment to God. It is not seeking absolute perfection, but it is admitting our failures and getting up one more time than you fall.

            1 Peter 1:13-25 talks about being holy. In verse 22 he says, “Now that you have purified yourself by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart.”

   1 Peter 2:13-25. Chapter 2 opens with, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  1 Peter 2:1, 2

            Jesus Christ is our role model. To see what is important to Him we look at His life. What was His first miracle? He turned water into wine at a wedding party! This was not cheap wine – it was the best the man in charge had ever tasted. And Jesus did not tromp on grapes in a wooden barrel to make the stuff, this was supernatural wine!

            Luke 4:18, 19 is the outline for His first sermon. This should tell us what is important to Him. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to:

1.    Preach the good news to the poor. Good news to the poor is that you do not have to be poor anymore!

2.    Freedom to the prisoners. There are a lot of prisons – illness, drugs, real jails, bondage to bad habits, shame from past sins and failures just to mention a few.

3.      Recovery of sight to the blind. This is both spiritual blindness and physical illnesses including blindness. Isaiah 6:9 says “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’”

4.    Release to the Oppressed, the overwhelmed by unjust force, guilt, tyranny, satanic oppression. The KJV states, “Heal the brokenhearted” meaning those that have been offended by others and still carry that garbage with them. (“30 years ago so and so insulted me and I am not going back to that church”. Or, “I will never forgive them for what they did.” )

5.    To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. This references the Year of Jubilee that took place every 50 years when all debts were forgiven. With Jesus all of our sins can be forgiven whenever we ask!

            Marie Curie said, “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”

            Believers have the Holy Spirit residing within them acting as a counselor, guide and teacher. That knowledge, fully understood, will give us the power and strength to accomplish whatever God calls us to do

   Richard Bach states, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours.”

1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

           Jesus submitted to God’s will.  He paid His taxes, He showed respect for all men and He once challenged His enemies to prove that He ever sinned.  Jesus was very outspoken about what He believed; He could never be rightly accused of being part of the silent majority!

   Look at verses 21-25: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.  He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.  When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted himself to Him who judges justly.  He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.   For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

God will never ask of something that He has not already done… Jesus did all of this for our benefit, not His. He had a comfortable home in heaven; He gave it all up…all the power, honor and glory possible, just to make sure that we can walk in close harmony with God and with each other.

Deuteronomy 15:4: “There should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, He will richly bless you.”

You have to admit that our nation is a very blessed nation. If a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and strives to do everything that the Bible teaches, he will not be poor. God made that promise! However, our motives must be pure and we do have to work hard!

The United States is a very wealthy country; South America has a lot of poverty. There is a reason!  When the settlers went to South America they were looking for gold. Money was their god…money and power. The people there are still fighting over money and power.

Our country was settled by men and women seeking God. Their desire was to find the freedom to worship God, and He blessed that endeavor. As a nation we are very generous because of that foundation laid hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, in many ways that base is crumbling, thus we have to be more diligent to do the work of God than ever before!

However, Deuteronomy 15:11 states, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.”

How do you explain that? Well, in the first place, verse 4 said, “There should not be any poor”. God did not say there would not be any poor. Some folk just never catch on!  In many circles poverty is embraced. The church in the past taught that it was good to take a vow of poverty.

Many people teach that Jesus was poor, but I cannot think, “Why?”  Because on one occasion He said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head."  Matthew 8:20

         Actually Jesus had a home of His own… Mark 2:1, 2. Jesus had a treasurer and there were people that followed Him that took care of His financial needs.  When He said that He did not have a place to lay His head, that referred to a particular incident.  I can understand that!  Our family was in San Antonio the weekend Sea World opened.  When we tried to find a motel we struck out!  We finally found a place half way to Corpus Christi – our next destination.

1 John 5:1-5.  v4: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

  This old world has a lot of problems… always has, and always will!  But thank God, “Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world!”  1 John 4:4

  Our text says, “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith!” God has placed us in this world to expand and extend His kingdom on earth. Not only for our personal lives, but for people around the world! God has an exciting plan for your life, and He wants to help you fulfill it – even if you have gotten off-track for a season, God still wants to help you fulfill His will for your life.

          Psalm 37:4, “ Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

  Perhaps you are going through a difficult time right now.  You may have lost a battle or two and are still trying to figure out what happened!  We’ve all lost some battles, but the war is not over yet!  When we keep our eyes on the Lord we will find that He is faithful and true to us.

    St. Paul wrote, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.” Philippians 3:13-16

    The economy is in a mess, unemployment is higher than it has been in several years, and the political name-calling has absolutely gotten out of hand. Something needs to be done!

            This week Campus Crusade for Christ sent out a letter asking for more donations. Thirty-five missionaries have come off the foreign mission field because of lack of funding.

            Something needs to be done. I could go on, but that would only depress us. The good news is simply this. Jesus is alive and well, the church is stronger than ever, and you and I can still fulfill our dreams if we will sell out to the Lord and be diligent in doing the work and will of Almighty God!

            Our text in 1 John describes a faith so powerful that we can literally change the world around us. For a long time we prayed that our church could expand its ministry to our community.  Now, we have a powerful Wednesday evening Kids program.  The kickoff last week was just fantastic!

   If our faith does not change our lives our belief is merely intellectual assent, and that does not work. If we are not transformed by our faith we cannot transform the world.

What does it mean to overcome the world?   Start by checking out the Ten Commandments.   If you break one of them, you are worldly!

The Ten Commandments
Using the King James Version of the Bible

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. (Anything that gets between you and God… your car, your job, your free time, your money)

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. (Do not make an image of God, for God is a spirit being and He wants you to worship Him, not an image. I recently met a man that described God as a force that can do anything he/she wants to do. He described Jesus as a man that got in trouble for chasing and catching chickens…then I realized he had mental problems.)

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain. (Cussing, slang, irreverent references to God…we have to watch our language and be careful not to judge others.)

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (In the Old Testament the Sabbath was on Saturday and was the day of worship. This was changed after the Resurrection to Sunday, the first day of the week.)

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God griveth thee. (This is a powerful truth, the first commandment with a promise attached to it. To honor means to love and treat with respect and to take care of them when they need the care. By the same token, the parents need to honor the children’s attempts to help them!)

6. Thou shalt not kill. (Murder – military action is excluded here, as is capital punishment. Jesus noted that to be angry at our brother without a cause is also to murder them – and we can murder someone’s reputation with our words or lack of defense.)

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Adultery is sexual contact between two people that are not married to each other. Jesus expanded this to include all sexual immorality. Fornication is sexual activity between two single people. Also, reading/watching sexual movies, internet, etc is sin… To look on another person with sexual thoughts is sin.  Finally, adultery is to turn from worshiping the true and living God to serve another god.)

8. Thou shalt not steal. (Don’t be ripping off someone else’s stuff!)

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (Do not tell lies; do not lie in court, stick up for what is right… defending the person that has been lied about.)

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, his wife, nor servants, or any thing else that is thy neighbor’s.  (1 Timothy 6:6: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”)

So… how do we enjoy being holy?   Sell out to God and let Him lead you, and don’t sweat the small things. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths….”   (Proverbs 3:6)

         Matthew 6:33, 34 “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

A Japanese lady asked the headmistress of a mission school, "Do you take only beautiful girls in your school?"

"Why, no, we welcome all girls," was the reply.

"But I've noticed that all your girls are beautiful."

"Well," said the missionary, "we teach them to love our Savior Jesus Christ, and He gives them a look of beauty."

"I am a Buddhist, and I do not desire my daughter to become a Christian, yet I should like her to attend your school to get that look on her face."

Sunday, September 6, 2009