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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
Alright, we are continuing in a series right now
that we've been calling Family of Families.
This week we were specifically going
to be talking about the roles of men
and women in the context of family
and the family of families.
And as I started digging into this thing,
I started looking at, man, what's going
on in our culture right now?
And you've got this, uh, call
and this that saying, Hey, masculinity is toxic.
Uh, but you've also got people saying,
but no, no, no, men need to step up and lead.
So what does that look like? How do those balance out?
And then with women, you've gotta know, we need women
to be strong and, and they need to be women of dignity
and they need to be caretakers of their home.
But then we've got women in our homes
and in our church community, they're just
honestly just asking, am I enough?
Can I get all this done?
And then how does that play in the life of if I'm a,
a man who's single or if I'm a woman who's single?
And what I realized was, um, we're gonna have a two
to three hour message this weekend,
or we're actually gonna step back
and say, no, no, we need to peel that back.
Let's shelf that. That's probably a sermon
series in and of itself.
We got one week, we got 30 minutes.
And so what's the most important thing
that we can talk about as it relates
to our identity as men and women?
And what we landed on was our own relationship
with Jesus Christ in a call to a life of personal holiness,
whether we're men, women, married, single.
And so as we leaned into that as a pastoral team,
we thought, man, maybe it would be better for you
to hear from somebody that's got a little bit more gray in
their hair than I do in my beard.
And so, uh, who we've got lined up is our pastor
and director of spiritual formation here
at Hope Community Church.
Would you give a warm hope? Welcome to Pastor Clay Burgess.
Alright, thanks Jason.
I really, really appreciate that introduction.
And also, uh, as he mentioned,
we're continuing this series, family of Families.
I hope that you have found it helpful.
Uh, my wife, Stephanie
and I, we have found some good, helpful reminders even
for us as people with at least one of us with gray hair.
But here we are.
Uh, I, I just, let me add, or can we all agree?
Can we all come to the agreement that families, well,
they're, it's just not perfect.
They're not perfect. And in the middle of all of that,
there are often lots of spiritual opportunities,
lots of spiritual opportunities.
And my guess is that these opportunities continue
to bubble up and they pop out due to proximity.
We are so close to each other day in
and day out that we see each other's, uh, flaws.
We see each other at our worst times.
So in the middle of that, we need constant reminders.
We need constant training.
We need constant help so that we can keep growing
and moving in a positive direction.
But let me ask you, this is a question that my wife
and I would ask each other regularly when we were dating
and then early on in our marriage.
But we had asked each other, tell me, what are your hopes,
dreams, goals and desires?
What are your hopes, dreams, goals and desires?
And what we were getting at is
what would you like your life to look like?
And so let me ask you, if it were up to you, if it were up
to you and it was in your power,
what would you want your life to look like?
Maybe ask it this way.
What would you want your family to look like?
Could you imagine, could you imagine if there was a fantasy
family draft?
Like you could look up and say, here are the options.
And you know, with my first pick I'm taking, you know,
I mean, I get it, it could be a little bit awkward,
a little tricky this morning if you are sitting next
to someone that's part of your people.
But think about it. Think about your desires.
See, culture starts early on this with us.
They're pressuring us even when we're young.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
I mean, think about the pressure that puts on a 4-year-old.
I mean, I don't know what that should be,
but I'm told that my answers were typical for a boy of my,
you know, as I was coming along during my time, you want
to be a fireman, a policeman,
an army man or a baseball player.
And then we get older
but desires, the desires and aspirations.
They don't go away. But what I want us to point out
and notice is that they're still our desires.
They're still our desires. They're the things that we want.
And somewhere in our head, we have this thought,
we have this thought
that perhaps if these desires would become a reality,
that some way, somehow they would give us some level
of satisfaction.
In other words, if I get this, then I'll be happy.
If I get this, then I'll be happy.
So think about some of those things that if you were
to put on your list that you think would bring you
satisfaction, and this would
be something that you would want.
This is part of your hopes, dreams, goals, and desires list.
And for many of us, we would say, I want a loving spouse.
I mean, you would, nobody would put,
you know, I'm hoping for a jerk.
I'm on the lookout for that. No, we want a loving spouse.
We would like obedient kids or maybe healthy kids.
We would like a good job.
That's comes with meaningful work.
We don't want it just to be a job
where we feel like we're grinding it through.
We want to know that it matters for something.
And maybe it's, we get on down the list, we're thinking,
you know, I'd love to have a house at the beach.
I'd love to have a house at the mountains.
I'd love to have a car that's reliable,
that has less than four trouble lights on at any given time.
Or maybe for you it's the car, maybe it's red and it's fast.
Hopes, dreams and goals and desires.
And I'm not saying none of this is bad.
I'm not saying any of this is bad,
but what I want us to look at is
what if there's a bigger question?
What if there is a deeper question
that we could be wrestling with?
What if the question we looked at was this?
What does God want for me?
I think that is a terribly interesting question,
especially if God is all knowing.
If he's all powerful and he's all present.
It would be interesting to know, well,
what would someone like that want for me?
And maybe you walked in today, maybe you walked in today
and you're not fully convinced of God
and you're really, I don't know about church
stuff or church people.
And maybe, maybe just, maybe the only reason you're here is
because someone invited you
and they drug you here under the promise, under the promise
that they would get some food for you afterwards.
So however you got here today, I think
that at least knowing the answer to the question,
what would God want for me would be fascinating to know.
And I'm not that we would even do anything about it.
Not that we would do anything about it,
but at least maybe you're thinking,
I am interested in knowing.
I'm interested in knowing what he would want from me.
If it were possible to know
what he would want from me, I would just like to know.
I would like to know. So if you have your Bible
or your electronic device, go ahead and grab that
and meet me in First Thessalonians chapter four.
We'll get some of the verses on the screen for you.
And while you're getting there, just
to let you know a little bit about this,
this is a letter written by Paul to a church
that has been recently planted about
the middle of the first century.
So he's writing to them.
And as we pick up the letter,
Paul has moved from reminding them to exhorting them.
And you know this to be clear,
a friend asks me, what is exhorting?
Is that something that I want?
Do you want, are you, are you exhorting me?
So the idea of exhorting just to be, it is to advise, it's
to advise or to caution earnestly,
but there's some level of, of, of urgency
that bubbles under this.
So notice that all of that, that's what's going on.
So he's reminded them of
how Jesus has been at work in their life
and now he's turning to encourage them how
to live out in response to who Christ is
and what he's done for them.
That's what's next. So let me read the passage for us today.
We're in First Thessalonians chapter four,
beginning with verse one.
Finally then brothers, we ask
and urge you in the Lord Jesus that you, that
as you receive from us how you ought to walk
and to please God.
Just as you are doing that, you doing so more
and more for you know what instructions we gave you
through the Lord Jesus.
This is the will of God, your sanctification,
that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each
of you know how to control his own body and holiness
and honor not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles
who do not know God, that no one transgress
and wrong his brother in this matter
because the Lord is an avenger.
And in all these things, and we told you beforehand
and solemnly warned you, for the, for God has not called us
to impurity, but in holiness.
Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards, not man,
but God who gives his holy
Spirit to you.
So as Paul opens this
and he comes in, uh, in verse one,
we see these words finally then, and don't be deceived.
This is a pastor thing when they say,
and in conclusion you just
understand that doesn't mean anything.
He's just finished three chapters. He's got two more to go.
So he is not coming to the end yet.
But the idea here is that finally
or beyond that,
beyond everything I've said in the first three chapters,
this is where we're going.
In the first three chapters,
he's been looking back into the visit he made
and the events that followed
and the issues that he had with some of his critics.
And now he's looking to the present
and even peeking ahead to the future and offers some help.
He gives some practical instruction to help them complete
what is lacking in their faith.
Those, that's language he used back in
chapter three, verse 10.
And it looks like he's asking this in a very humble,
very gentle way.
We ask and urge, urge means to come alongside of,
to encourage, or this is showing
that Paul has a desire to be helpful.
He wants to help them. He doesn't want them
to grow stagnant in their faith.
He doesn't want them to get stale in their faith
or in their spiritual journey.
He wants them to have a vibrant faith, a growing faith,
a faith that makes a difference.
And he calls for this to be in the in, in the Lord Jesus.
This is the source of the authority, the source
of the life that they have.
And he said, you receive this from us how you ought to walk.
And he's talking here. Walk doesn't mean like just
physically walking, but this is
how you live your live it out.
This is your actions, this is your decisions,
this is your conduct that you would please God.
And then he encourages him.
He said, just as you were doing,
keep on doing it more and more.
He's like, just keep it up, keep it up, keep it up.
You're doing good. Stay after it.
Advance in this in what you were doing.
And then in chapter two, he gets a little more firm
and he says, this is a more for forceful word When he says,
you know what instructions you,
we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
And now he's orienting toward this target.
He brings his target, he's zeroes in on it
at the first part of verse three.
And he says, this is the will of God.
Now that's a question that we often wanna know. Why?
You wonder what the will of God is?
Well, we're about to get part of it right here for the will
of God is your sanctification.
This is what God wants. This is what God desires.
This is not just an information dump,
but the His desire for you is
that you would be sanctified your sanctification.
And again, this shouldn't intimidate us.
This is a theological word, this is a theological concept.
And it's the process of being separated
and set apart from sin and set towards God
and God's holiness.
Think about it this way. This is what it,
this is like becoming like Jesus.
Think of how Jesus lived his life.
He was selfless, he was sacrificial,
he was patient and he was kind.
And when we begin to display those qualities, that is us
becoming more and more like Christ.
That is us being sanctified.
And here's why this is a good thing,
because a good question for you to ask,
well is this even a good thing?
What, what I mean what goes wrong if I'm not sanctified,
if I don't go after that?
If we miss going after sanctification,
we end up giving our thing our lives to things
that ultimately will result in shame and regret.
When we feel like we,
we can feel like we're devoting
ourselves to the things of God.
It can feel like that there is a restriction going on,
that we are missing out on something, that we are limited
by God, but the things
of God are not restrictive in reality.
The things of God protect us and actually free us.
Come on. This is what a good parent does.
This is why a parent would say, Hey,
you know, don't eat the dirt.
This is why a parent would say, quit licking doorknobs.
This is why a parent would say, don't touch the hot stove
because they're training them
and showing them this is the way that leads to freedom
and less pain for you.
If God wants that for us, why wouldn't we want
that for ourselves?
If God wants that for us,
why wouldn't we want that for ourselves?
Do we have, do we think we have better information?
Do we think we have better information?
And as we continue into verse three, and,
and then I want you to be aware of this.
'cause as you're studying the Bible for yourself, one
of the key things that you must do is you're reading
and you're looking and you're making observations.
And one way to make observations.
What are things that are similar?
And what we see in the next verses the the second part
of three through verse six, Paul makes three statements
that start with the word that they start with that.
But now remember we're asking the question,
what does God want for me?
And perhaps you're thinking so far,
it doesn't sound super duper promising.
And maybe you're thinking, I thought this series was about
families or family of families or something about families.
I'm not getting any of that. Listen, hang
with me, hang with me.
Paul now moves into his plan
that goes towards sanctification.
Remember the first part of verse three, what does god's will
our sanctification?
And then he starts with that first that
that you abstain from sexual immorality.
Now why is this a big deal?
Why of all the things that Paul could have talked about,
why does he bring this up?
Now he's writing to a church Thessalonica.
This was a port city, it was a significant city,
but it was also a very sexually loose city.
There were no laws to prohibit anything.
Basically anything went. Anything went.
And so when Paul uses the term sexual immorality,
this is a massively broad term.
It covers everything.
It includes any and every form of sexual practice that lies
outside of God's will marriage out
or sex outside of marriage, adultery, homosexuality,
pedophilia, prostitution, bestiality.
And see, all
of these things are covered with this one phrase.
And the reason this is a big deal to Paul is
because it's all tolerated in Thessalonica.
It's all tolerated. And therefore it's a big deal to him.
And he felt like this is a priority
because of the, the permissiveness
and the pervasiveness of this going on.
This could be a problem for the people. Let me talk to him.
And maybe you're thinking in your head like, well,
I mean at least our culture's not like that.
Actually, it doesn't sound that much different, does it?
We live in a sex craze, sexually confused culture.
The church has been washed over and affected by it.
And at a high level, so much to the point
that if the church even takes a stand,
if it finds some boldness and takes a stand on God's word
and pushes back against the way the ways of culture
and some of their beliefs, we are criticized
and called mean-spirited, narrow-minded and hatem mongers.
Well, if we're gonna be faithful to God's word
and we're gonna ob be obedient to him, how do we respond?
Because the lines have become
so blurred sexually in our culture
that almost anything goes.
And so how do we lean into that?
How can we come across that we're not being hateful
or super critical after all?
I mean when we pause and step back, we think about it.
We have passions as well.
And notice that Paul doesn't use the word avoid
because the word avoid is too weak.
The word he uses as abstained complete abstinence.
Now notice, don't read things into
the text that aren't fair.
He's not saying that sex is bad or to avoid it altogether.
Understand that sex is a gift from God and it,
but it has become twisted
and distorted by the fall like everything else.
And it needs to be redeemed.
It's just tricky. When we get into sin issues,
my sin always, it seems reasonable to me.
I can find a way to justify my sin.
But when I look at you and your sin,
your sin looks inexcusable.
Another way to say this is
is I judge myself by my intentions.
I judge you by your actions. That's tough for us.
How do we live in that space
and respond to culture in a way that's fair,
that in a way that's honest.
One Bible scholar, John Stotz says this way,
when he is talking about this passage, he says, sex
has a God-given contents,
God-given context in the first part of four.
And that's marriage between a man and a woman.
And then he says, and marriage
or sex has a God-given style, holiness and honor.
And we get into the next part
of verse four, that's what we see.
It's this idea of can you control your body?
That there's the second that that each of you know,
and this isn't about knowing facts or knowing information.
It's knowing it in such a way that you can apply it
to reach a certain goal or accomplish a desire.
How to control the idea of gain mastery over.
And so that you, you, you're not responding to your body,
but you're telling your body what to do
because you're living a life of discipline and holiness.
Can you gain mastery, mastery over your own body?
And it's just interesting, it's interesting to me and
and it's, it feels and seems counterintuitive sometimes,
but what honored God satisfies us.
But often we're afraid to honor God or go the way of God
because we're afraid we're gonna miss out on satisfaction.
And then Paul's talking about the other.
And for us, we live in a sex craze culture.
How are we gonna respond and live at that out?
Because temptation abounds.
And if you are prone to that, I mean you don't have
to go far, you don't have to go looking
for it, it'll find you.
And so in that space, are you looking
and trying to live as close to the line as possible?
Or are you looking for how can I protect myself
and make sure I'm further back from the line?
Because the closer you live to the line,
the more opportunity you have
or the more vulnerable you are.
If something happens, you slip, you fall
that you go straight over the edge.
But the further you back, you, you,
you give yourself more margin, more room.
Paul encourages the thesal kins,
he's a in verse five, not in the passion.
How are you supposed to live this out?
Not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles
who do not know God.
He's saying that we should be noticeably different.
We shouldn't look like the rest of the world.
We should not look like unbelievers.
And when he says passion, he means uncontrolled desires.
When he says lust, he's referring to outta control cravings.
But I want us to not get too bogged down
and too drilled in that lust is only something sexual
because it can go beyond that.
You can have lust for money, you can have lust
for financial security, lust for, uh, acceptance and control
or accomplishment.
See, the danger of lust is this, that we are using others
for our own pleasure and for our own power.
And this is what he's concerned about.
Don't abuse, don't mess up or mess with your brothers
and sisters in Christ, your fellow believers.
And for me here, we cannot help
but pause when we're going through something like this
and wonder, can God satisfy my desires and my passions?
Because we have 'em, we have desires, we have passions,
but what are we gonna do with them?
Can God satisfy my desires
or can he help me at least align them and control them?
And then as Paul goes to verse six,
we find the third that statement.
But this is around the idea of respecting others,
respecting others that no one transgress
and wrong his brothers in this matter.
And the matter in this context is sexual immorality.
But he's saying don't sin against or defraud.
Don't live selfless selfishly
or don't be greedy towards the other one.
Don't take something from somebody, um,
that hasn't given that to you.
Don't take something for personal gain
or pleasure at someone else's expense.
And I guess you would ask it this way, ask it this way.
Are you using people or are you serving people?
When you show up with a group of people, are you looking
what you can get from them?
Or are you looking at through the lens of
what can I do for them?
What can I do for them? How can I best serve them?
Because Paul says it this way, when he is writing
to the believers in Rome, love one another
with brotherly affection,
outdo one another in showing honor.
What if that became the commitment?
Like what are y'all doing? We trying to outdo one another.
Now I don't know what it looks like at your house,
but at our house we're competitive about everything.
Who, I mean who you're gonna turn the light
off first before we go to bed.
I mean everything's competitive.
But what if that became what we were striving
after to outdo one another and showing honor?
And then we look back at Paul like,
why is he saying this again?
This is why he's saying it.
Because the Lord is an avenger in all these things.
As we told you beforehand,
and we solemnly warned you, this is a big deal
because God is holy.
He can't just wave away sin, it has to be dealt with.
And he comes again to the goal as he turns to verse seven,
for God has, God has not called us to impurity,
but in holiness for God has not called us impurity.
But in holiness, God's purpose in salvation has always been
to produce a holy people, a people that are committed
to him, that are devoted to him, that are de dedicated
to him and to the service of him.
And it's here where I want us to pause and just ask,
because you're in the Family of Family series.
How does my manhood
or how does my womanhood come through my holiness?
How does it come through my holiness?
Do you love and serve or do you sacrifice and honor?
Now this can be challenging.
This can be challenging because some circumstances,
some circumstances make it easier for an unholy version
of ourselves to pop out.
Have you guys heard of the five love languages?
The book, the Five Love Languages? Yeah.
Um, my wife's, my wife's love languages acts of service.
Now what that means is if I'm doing a chore
or something for her, then I get points now to the men,
I'm giving you a bonus because since we're in this family
of families, I'm gonna give you some
bonus insight right here.
How, how to do this if, if your wife is acts of service,
I do not vacuum the floor when she's not in the house.
Nope. She has to be there, uh, preferably on the couch so
that I can get out and do it right in front of her
so she can see me do it, see me speak her language.
And also I get credit. Come on, that's a bonus.
Now my love language is words of affirmation.
And that what that means for you,
and it imp applies to you that
after this, when you see me,
even if this was marginally mediocre, I need you
to tell me you, you did a good job that that speaks to me.
But now for my wife, now we talk about this,
we talk about this, we're both wrestling
through this at times.
Our love languages
for each other can be a spiritual opportunity
or a growth opportunity.
And it's not that she doesn't love me, it's this that words
of affirmation, often as they try to come out of her,
it doesn't feel authentic.
It feels like flattery, like I'm making up stuff.
But for me, from my perspective, this is how I know
that she loves and appreciates me.
This is what I need to hear from her.
And so the problem is she's struggling to say 'em sometimes.
But my, when my expectations aren't met, the temptation is
for me to disconnect, to disengage or to pout.
And here's another tip for you that never works,
that has never worked, that has never made
the situation better.
The move towards christlikeness is never smooth.
There are always opportunities
for you to grow and to be tested.
But nonetheless, this is a massive expectation in scripture.
Peter, one of the close followers
of Jesus makes it really clear,
he says in one Peter one 14 through 16, as obedient,
children do not be conformed to the passions
of your former ignorance,
but as he who called you as holy,
you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written,
you shall be holy.
For I am holy. And Paul gives a glimpse, well,
what does this holiness look like?
How does it play out? If we're looking at it,
how do we know it if we see it?
Writing to the believers at Ephesus, he says,
but sexual immorality and all impurity
or covetness must not even be named among you
as his proper among saints.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk talk
nor crude joking, which is, which are all out of place.
But instead, let there be thanksgiving lead
with gratitude not of this other stuff.
And then nobody makes it clearer than Jesus
when we're considering.
Well, what are you asking from me?
What are you asking from me to be committed to you,
to be devoted to you, to be a follower of you?
What are you asking for me?
And it's the same for every single one of us.
And you find it in Luke 9 23, that we are, we are
if anyone would come
after him, Jesus is saying, if anyone would come
after me, let him deny himself,
take up his cross and then follow him.
Self-denial, dying to your old self to engage in the nude,
the following of Christ.
And then as we come to verse eight,
we're back to Thessalonians.
Paul issues a warning.
He says, therefore, whoever disregards to despise
or maybe even to cancel, whoever disregards this, the things
that he said in this previous verses,
disregards not man
but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Let me start with the Holy Spirit part.
So God gives the gift of himself in us to help us
as we navigate this, as we're struggling
and striving for our sanctification.
He gives us this as a gift.
But let me go back to the first part.
This idea of disregarding disregard for God's design
does damage to our manhood and to our womanhood.
It does damage to it.
We have greater inclination than to move from loving
to unloving, from respectful to disrespectful,
from helpful to hurtful.
Whereas the early church Father Augustine said, he said,
the this, the result of this actually flows
from misaligned desires or loves.
When our loves are outta whack,
when our desires are outta whack, the things
that we are chasing after
and striving for when they're misplaced
and out of line, then they take us to a bad place.
Disregarding God affects all our relationships,
but ultimately, ultimately listen.
Ultimately it affects our
relationship with our Heavenly Father.
But if we get the vertical right,
then the horizontal begins to come along.
It's not easy, it's not easy,
but the trajectory certainly improves.
So back to the question, what does God want from me?
Here's the answer to the question.
What does God want from me? It's holiness.
What God wants for you is holiness.
Now this is a great, great question.
I've wrestled with this as we get older,
as we read the Bible more, as we pray more,
as we do more devotions, as we go to more classes,
does it get any easier?
Well, in some ways, yes.
But the struggle never goes away.
And some of you know that earlier this year my mom passed
away, but I wanna share
with you one lesson I learned from her
and watching her down the stretch of her life.
And the lesson is this, ultimately the lesson is this.
That the fight of faith is a fight to the finish.
And she believed like JRA Tolkien,
that there is some good in the world
and it's worth fighting for.
But the last two years of her life, she was confined
to the bed for the most part.
That's where she was. She was in the bed.
And when you're in the bed and you can't go,
and when you're in the bed, you're in your head.
That means you're thinking a lot.
And one day she told me, we were having a conversation.
She says, clay, I've learned some things about myself
while in this bed that I would've rather not have known.
See, she had come face to face with face
to face with what one of her favorite writers said
when he wrote this, that we are more sinful
and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.
Yet at the very same time, we are more loved
and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.
See, besetting sins, sins that own us.
My friend Tim, he calls it,
these are our go-to sins when things get tough and weird
and, and start, you know, outta line,
then these, this is what we go to.
This is what we go to for comfort.
This is what we go to security,
but our besetting sins, they are tough
to get untangled from.
And my mom, she struggled all the way to the end.
Two, two things that we talked about.
The idea of releasing control
because she wanted to be in charge
and she wanted to control the narrative of everything,
including yours if she knew you, the idea
of releasing control,
but then also receiving God's unconditional love
because of the way she was trained and the way she grew up.
She felt like this was something that had to be earned,
she had to be doing.
And when you're on your back and you're confined
to the bed, it's hard to do.
And so she was fighting this all the way to the end.
And what she was realizing as she learned to let go
of control and learned to receive God's unconditional love
and grace, was that God loved her so much
that he sent his son to die as a substitute
to take the place of her sinfulness that she sent,
that God sent his son on this rescue mission
because she couldn't do it.
But God in his love for her did it for her.
It's not from you, but it's for you. This is what God did.
What a thought to think.
This is what God did for, for, for you
writing to the believers in Rome.
This is the way Paul said it.
If God is for us who can be against us,
our satisfaction in him leads to our impact for him.
When we begin to own and understand who he is
and what he's done in us, then it begins to flow through us
and impact others.
How does it? How does that work?
It happens when we begin to love and serve others
because this is not gonna be new news to you,
but we live among broken, abused, confused, hurting people.
Many are deceived and feel worthless.
They feel like they have no count, no value.
And you know what we're related to some
of them, but God.
But God is sovereign, God is faithful and God is in control.
God has a plan and he's working his plan and God is good
and he's full of grace and he shows up.
And then there's this mysterious part of it.
Yes, God is sovereign.
But on the other side of that, alongside that truth is
that we are responsible.
That we have an active role to play.
We have a role to play in our pursuit of holiness
and with our intimacy with Jesus.
And as we near the end of our time,
let me give you three initiatives
that will help you grow in your holiness.
The first one is this, proactively pursue,
proactively pursue holiness.
I mean, set a strategy, determine where you want
to be in five years and then go after it.
Bring your best energy to it.
The second initiative, discipline yourself daily.
Listen, you're never gonna drift towards holiness.
You're never gonna drift into sanctification.
You're never gonna just doze off one
night and wake up more holy.
I mean, that's not how it's gonna work.
You've gotta wake up, you've gotta show up
and you've gotta put into practice the disciplines.
You've gotta put, I mean, whatever you have to do, wake up
and put your Bible right there so
that you trip over it first thing in the morning.
Ah, yes, I have to do that. Make discipline to pray.
The third initiative is seek loving accountability.
I can't tell you how important this is.
You need a friend to come alongside you who is willing
to take responsibility for your holiness.
And what I mean by that is that they know you so well
because you have opened your life to them
that they can see maybe even
before you when things are getting wobbly.
And they will call you into repentance.
They will call you an alarm.
Alarm will sound and they will exhort you to come back so
that you don't train wreck your life.
We need accountability, loving accountability,
loving accountability that will not give us a pass
for our sin, but they won't hold it against
us and walk away.
But what if out beyond the horizon now,
think distant, think future.
Just par, just, just beyond where you can see clearly
further than what seems like it makes sense.
God's asking you to do something. You're like, ah,
it just doesn't feel right.
That doesn't make sense. What if there?
What if in that place is something that God wants for you
that if you received it would totally change the path
of your life and the health of your family?
If you embraced that gift
and stepped into that opportunity,
what would that mean for your family?
What would be different? What would your dedication
and devotion to Jesus and his church look like?
And then my question is, what would that mean
for a family of families?
What would that mean for a particular family of families
known as Hope Community Church?
Now we'll press into that more next week
as we wrap up our series.
But let me leave you with this. Let's go after holiness.
Let's go after holiness with everything we have
and let's see what happens.
Let me pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you
that you're a coming down kind of God
who came on a rescue mission to give us hope in a future.
Thank you that you have a desire for us, what's best for us,
and you desire our sanctification towards holiness.
Lord, help us to understand
and realize that that is ultimately for our good
and we will find the greatest satisfaction and in this life
and the next when we press into you.
And Lord, it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen.