FBC Adult Bible Study

We began a few weeks ago a study on holiness or sanctification, and where we've been so far is, and most recently, we've talked about the different aspects or tenses, if you will, of sanctification or holiness, and the fact that we have been sanctified when we come to faith in Christ, when

He saves us. We shall be sanctified, or we'll also call it glorified, when we see

Christ and when we will be like Him. But in the meantime, we are being sanctified.

It's the present tense aspect of sanctification, and that's really the focus of this study, the holiness of everyday life, the growth in holiness that needs to take place in the

Christian life. I thought about this the other day, and it struck me that if you think about it, the study of holiness is really simply a study in Christian living, living

Christianly, living the Christian life. I think the term holiness gets a little bit of a bad connotation to it, has a little bit of a bad connotation to it, because some of us are familiar with maybe the holiness groups of Christianity, where there has been maybe an overemphasis on external things, things like you can't cut your hair if you're a woman, you can't wear jewelry if you're a woman, that kind of thing, and that kind of leaves a bad taste in our mouth regarding the subject or the term holiness, but it really should, we should embrace it.

We should embrace not only the term, but the work of holiness in our lives.

What I want to focus on today is the stark reality of Christian living, and that is that we are in a battle for holiness.

Holiness is not something that comes upon us, you know, very passively, like all we have to do is drink this magic formula, and all of a sudden we become holy, and there's no conflict, there's no difficulty, there's no struggle for it, that would be a misconception of holiness altogether.

Rather, we are in a battle for holiness, and that battle for holiness is on two fronts.

There's an external front of the battle, and there's an internal front. And when we talk about the external front of the battle for holiness, we face two external enemies, two external enemies.

One of them is the world. Now, in James chapter 4, verse 4,

James addresses the church, the believers, and he calls them adulterers and adulteresses.

By the way, hang on to that terminology into the morning message, the morning service, when we focus in Judges chapters 2 and 3, because the

Lord accuses His people of playing the harlot, all right? So there's this imagery here.

Adulterers and adulteresses, he says in verse James 4, 4, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

So one external enemy that we face on the external front of this battle for holiness is the world.

And the battle line is drawn here. You're either a friend of God or a friend of the world.

You can't be a friend of God without being an enemy of the world. You can't be a friend of the world without being an enemy of God.

There are really only two sides. There are only two sides.

There's no middle ground. We cannot try to play both sides.

It'd be kind of like you've heard the story of the guy in the Civil War who was afraid to face either side, the

North or the South. So he put on the navy blue shirt for the

Union's forces and he put on the gray trousers for the Confederate forces and he thought that might keep him safe and he might placate both sides.

That's not what happened. What happened? He got shot at from both sides, yeah.

Which side is he on? He's an enemy of both, right. Well, the Christian trying to play both sides here, it just doesn't work.

You end up being an enemy of both. You try to play the Christian life when you're in the world, then the world hates you.

You try to be like the world in the church and you're an enemy of God.

You can't play both against each other. The battle line is drawn. Now, another verse where the world comes up and the conflict that we have with it is in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, familiar verse to you,

I'm sure, where Paul says, do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

This brings out our responsibility, our responsibility.

Our responsibility in relationship to this enemy, the world, is non -conformity.

We are not to be conformed to the world, instead, we are to be transformed.

Because here's the thing. If the world is our enemy, then being conformed to it is to side with, it's to unite with the forces that would destroy us.

It's illogical. It's incongruous for that to occur. Think of it in a very practical military context.

Back in the late 1700s, early 1800s, during the

French Revolution, you had this revolution in France. In the course of that French Revolution, they fought the

French Revolutionary Wars. One aspect of that war was the

French and the English, Britain, fighting against each other. We had just, as United States, we had just won our independence from Britain, from England.

This battle, this war starts between France and England, and both sides are wanting us to get involved in that war.

England wants us to fight on their side against the French. The French want us to fight on their side against the

British. Our position was neutrality. I just watched recently the series on John Adams, the second president of the

United States. He had to grapple with that conflict during his presidency.

He was getting encouragement from within our country, our fledgling young country, on both sides of the issue.

Those who favored our fighting against the French had sympathies more toward Britain, where we had come from, if you will.

But what I wanted to focus on is Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had spent an awful lot of time in France, and Adams was getting some pressure from Jefferson to support the

French cause. Because after all, we had just fought a revolution, and there's a revolution going on in France against the monarchy in France and all the rest, and so there ought to be some sympathy that we have with the

French. But Adams responded to Jefferson in the sense that, you've become too

French. You've become too much, have too much affinity toward the French.

And what Adams realized was, if he accepted Jefferson's encouragement to side with the

French, that that would ultimately be destructive to the United States. You can't be conformed to the

French. That's going to destroy us, was basically Adams' conclusion. And this is the idea here.

We cannot be conformed to our enemy, or that's going to destroy us.

So we've got this battle line that is drawn, and our responsibility is clear.

Now, when we talk about the world, we need to realize what we're talking about. And when we talk about the world, there are a couple of different realms that we need to understand.

There are two different terms, Greek terms, that are translated world in our

New Testament Bible. The two verses we just looked at, in James 4, when

James says, if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God, the term is kosmos, kosmos.

And that term has to do with, and I'll give you a definition here, I don't think that's on your handout, so I'll give it to you, a definition here.

The kosmos is the organizational orders, viewpoints, systems, and philosophies of the inhabitants of this planet that scheme and conspire against the order of God.

Let me give you that definition again, and I want you to be thinking about some examples. What are some examples that illustrate the world in this definition?

The world is the organizational orders, the kosmos, the organizational orders, the viewpoints, the systems, and the philosophies of the inhabitants of this planet that scheme and conspire against the order of God.

All right, can you think of, you respond here, can you think of some examples of the kosmos?

Okay, Roe v. Wade, all right, the whole matter of abortion, and that's,

I mean, there's several different aspects of that, right? There's a philosophy of life behind the way that court verdict, that ruling came down.

There's a philosophy of life that says it's okay to kill a human being in his mother's womb.

What is that philosophy of life? Is that a godly philosophy of life?

Is that a biblical viewpoint? Absolutely not. Yes? Okay, mm -hmm.

Right, and sympathizing with the victim, yeah, right, right, yeah, and if you want to talk about an organizational order, you talk about communism, but I want you to think about this.

When you compare, say, communism to capitalism, totally radically different viewpoints, right?

There's totally different orders, but is there anything in capitalism as an organizational structure or order?

Is there anything in capitalism that could be used by the wicked one to scheme and conspire against the order of God?

Anything in capitalism that can fuel the sinful nature, greed, love of man and love of money?

Yeah, all kinds of things, all right? Some other examples of organizational orders, viewpoints, systems, and philosophies of the inhabitants of the planet that scheme and conspire against the order of God.

Jim, I think you had, yep, okay, we're seeing a number of people who are wanting to defund the police and get rid of that kind of authority.

I think, Dan, did you have a conclusion, yeah, right.

When we think about the world and where that battle is, and you think about organizational structures, viewpoints, systems, philosophies, think, for example, of what's really a hot topic right now is the whole idea of the critical race theory and intersectionality.

To me, that whole perspective is, you know, it is not only divisive and all the rest, it is unbiblical, it is ungodly.

How about this one? Marriage between a man and a woman is just a social construct.

It's just something that we came up with as human beings to propagate the human race.

Well, we don't need any more propagation of the human race, we've got far too many people on this planet, we're destroying the planet, so let's just do away with that construct and let's reconstruct it to be whatever we want it to be, if we even have to have it at all, you know, that's a philosophy of life.

Or how about this one? There are many truths, you have your truth, I have my truth, you just need to find your truth, and you respect my truth,

I'll respect your truth, and we'll all get along just fine, and so forth. Okay, so here's the thing, when we talk about the cosmos, that's what we're talking about, we're talking about philosophies of life, we're talking about organizational structures, we're talking about systems that are in place on the planet, and the ways people think, the viewpoints of people, that all of which work against, scheme against, conspire against the order of God, all right?

Now, the second term is the term I own, and that's the term you find in Romans 12, 2, where it says, be not conformed to this world.

Now the word I own means something different, whereas cosmos has to do with organizational orders and viewpoints and so forth that conspire against God.

The word I own literally has to do with the transitory, temporary place that is soon passing away.

We can translate the word age, like we talk about living in the nuclear age, and so forth.

Well, this is emphasizing, this term is emphasizing the current expression of fallen sinful human nature and Satan's use of it to fight against or to go against the order of God.

It's what's current, it's what's in vogue right now, and that's going to change tomorrow.

So look with me at Ephesians chapter 4, for example, of the nature of the

I own. In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 14,

Paul is talking about the gifts that God has given to the church and the purpose of those gifts and the effect of those gifts.

So he says in verse 11 that God, Jesus Himself, gave some to be apostles and some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.

Here's the purpose for the gifts, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Here's the effect, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of the fullness of Christ, to grow us in Christlikeness.

Here's impact number two, the second effect of those gifts, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.

That's talking about the transitory nature of the age where there's all kinds of stuff coming and going, these different winds of doctrine, where men trick people into thinking these things, the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting and so forth.

So that's the aeon, that's the age, it's the temporary expression of ideas and philosophies and so forth that are in constant flux, constant change.

You buy into it today, it's going to change tomorrow. Those of us who've been around more than two decades can look at our own culture, our own society and see how things have, ideas have changed and doctrines have changed.

You can see this even in what's called the church in our country, and it's dramatic and it's sad, the aeon.

So our writer says that the age is a hostile environment for Christians.

It is no, the age is no friend of grace, it never has been and never will be.

So to side with the world, whether we're talking about the cosmos or the aeon, to side with the world is to stand against God.

Now let's turn to John chapter 17 and let's understand from what

Jesus said in John 17 in this prayer,

I call it Jesus' high priestly prayer, let's understand that the place, our place as followers of Christ is challenging.

It's challenging because look at verse 14, the first part of the verse, we're guided by God's word.

Jesus says, as he prays to the father, he says, I have given them, my followers, I have given them your word.

So we're guided by the word of God as followers of Jesus.

And because of that, Jesus goes on to say, we're hated and we're hated because we are not of this cosmos.

You see it, look at verse 14, the world, the cosmos, remember our definition of the cosmos, the cosmos has hated them because they are not of the cosmos.

But they are of, just as I am not of the cosmos. So the world hates, the cosmos hates believers, hates followers of Christ because of Christ's word, because of what

Christ has to say and our commitment to it. The world hates it.

And the reason that it hates us is because we're not of the cosmos. What we believe, to the extent that we believe it and practice it, and here's where holiness comes in, we'll see this in just a second, here's where holiness comes in.

Holiness is the conformity of our living, our way of thinking, which then affects our way of living.

It is in contrast, it is in contradiction to what the cosmos says is true or the way the cosmos says we ought to live.

We are in conflict with that. We are not of this cosmos, therefore the cosmos hates us.

And the problem we see, here's our challenge in verse, a further nature of our challenge in verse 15, is that we're surrounded by it.

Jesus says, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world. Don't take them out of the world.

Don't take them out of the cosmos. Leave them in it. So here we are. We're followers of Jesus.

We're taught by, we're committed to, we're growing in our conformity to His word.

And that ongoing conformity to His word is in great conflict with the cosmos.

And yet here we are, right in the middle of it. And we need, therefore, protection, as Jesus says.

I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. We'll say more about Him in just a minute.

Now notice in verse 16, He says, they are not of the world just as I am not of the world.

But then in verse 17, look at what He says, sanctify them, set them apart by your truth.

Your word is truth. So our challenge in this world as a follower of Christ is that as we are engaging with the word, as we are learning the word, as we're taught by the word, and as the word of God, the spirit of God takes the word of God and grows us into Christ -likeness, into conformity to the image of Christ, we are diametrically opposed to the cosmos and all that is going on.

What is the instrument that sets us apart? It is the word. So this is a challenging place that we find ourselves in this world.

Now there's an Old Testament illustration of our place in the world, kosmos, aion, whichever, and that's the laws in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy regarding cleanness and uncleanness.

I'm not going to take the time to look those up. If you just kind of remember a little bit, think about some of those laws, they had dietary laws about cleanness and uncleanness, they had laws about touching a corpse, a dead animal or whatever, and if you touch the dead animal, you're unclean, and so on and so forth.

They had several of these laws of cleanness and uncleanness in Leviticus and repeated in Deuteronomy.

The overall lesson of all of those laws about cleanness and uncleanness is that fellowship with God demands purity.

So God gives these laws and He says, if you, let's just take the corpse thing, if you touch a dead animal, you're unclean and you need to go through certain rituals to be cleansed, to be pure again.

And what's the lesson there? What's the overall lesson? The overall lesson is to have fellowship with your

God, you need to be pure. Now, there are some corresponding lessons, and by the way, that overall lesson is timeless.

It's timeless, it didn't end with the new covenant. Now, some corresponding lessons, one of them is that when you look at those laws of cleanness and uncleanness, you realize it would be impossible to live, walk through this world without getting dirty because, you know, the stuff that God says is unclean, it's all around you, it's all around them.

And so, there is not a possibility, there is no possibility whatsoever that an

Old Testament Israelite could go through his life without ever being defiled by that which is unclean.

It was impossible, it was impossible. But what he could do is be vigilant to avoid that which is unclean as much as possible.

So, for example, you know, I need something to eat. Well, you know, here's this pig, yeah?

Here's a pig, here's a lamb, you know? The lamb isn't mine, the pig.

Well, you know, I could take the pig, I could eat the pig. I'm tempted to eat the pig because I'm hungry and I hear bacon's good, you know?

Not so sure about pickled pig's feet or, you know, fried, you know, chitlins, you know?

But I hear it's pretty good, the bacon and ham hocks and all that good stuff.

And you put some of that in some baked beans, I hear that's pretty good stuff. Well, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I think I'm going to eat some. Well, I just, okay, you have that slice of bacon, you've just become unclean.

No, he's going to be vigilant. There's a pig. I don't have anything to do with that pig. I got to stay away from that pig. God says that pig's unclean.

I can't eat that pig. Can't eat that rabbit either, you know? Okay, so you get the point.

You got to be vigilant to stay away from whatever would render them unclean.

Were they able to do so perfectly? Absolutely not. Were there ever times when they ended up becoming unclean by something around them that defiled them?

Absolutely. But there was an antidote to that. God provided the antidote. And what was the antidote?

A blood sacrifice. Okay, get the timelessness of this. You're living in a world that is surrounding you with all kinds of uncleanness.

It is almost impossible. And Jesus illustrated this when he washed Peter's feet too, right?

And Peter said, you're not going to wash my feet. Jesus said, you don't wash my feet, you don't let me wash your feet, you don't have any part in me.

And Peter says, oh, well, okay, then everything. And Jesus said this, he that is bathed does not need to be bathed again.

He just needs to have his feet washed. He's been walking through the dusty world, he needs to have his feet washed.

There's a spiritual truth there that, you know, we're walking through a world that is filled with corruption and mire and all the rest of that stuff.

And it's almost impossible, it is impossible, to avoid, completely avoid being tainted in any way.

What is the antidote? The blood sacrifice. The blood of Christ Jesus cleanses us, 1

John 1, 7, from all our sin. So this is just an illustration of that.

So we're talking about external enemies, and one of them is the world. The other external enemy outside of us is the wicked one.

As Jesus says in John 17, 15, I don't pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one,

Satan. And the evil one, from whom we need to be kept, is working behind the scenes in the cosmos and the aeon, in the world and the age.

So for example, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, talks about how the

God of this world has blinded the eyes of those who don't believe. He is the

God of this age. The God of this age. What has He done? He blinds eyes so that they can't see.

And 1 John 5, 19 says, John says, we know that we are of God and the whole cosmos lies under the sway of the wicked one.

Lies under the sway of the wicked one. So Satan, the evil one, is working behind the scenes in the cosmos and the age.

And what he's doing behind the scenes is he's conspiring, he's working, he's shaping, he's scheming to shape all of this against God.

And to suck in human beings, those who've already gotten captive in their fallenness, and to keep them in that captivity.

He's scheming to keep them in their captivity against God. And he's scheming against you as a follower of Jesus, who's been delivered from his bondage.

He's scheming to snatch you and bring you back into bondage. Therefore, we have to be aware of his tactics.

And Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11. We are not unaware of the devil's schemes, of his tactics.

What's 1 Peter 5, 8 tell us to do? Be sober, be vigilant, be on guard, stay awake, be alert.

Why? Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, is walking about looking for somebody to devour.

He's just looking for an opportunity to pounce. Now look at Ephesians chapter 6, you know these verses too,

I'm sure. Ephesians 6, Paul spends a great deal of time as he wraps up this letter to the church at Ephesus, exhorting the believers to put on the whole armor of God.

Why? Because in verses 11 and 12, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles, the schemes of the devil.

He goes on to say, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

We need to be properly armed and equipped to deal with the wiles of the wicked one.

All right, so we have these two external enemies. We have the enemy of the world, and we have the enemy of the evil one,

Satan. But we also face an internal enemy, an internal enemy.

I don't know if I have this quote for you on your handout, but it says, our writer of the book we're using as a basis for this series, he says, the temptations outside would not be such a threat if it weren't for the spiritual traitor inside.

Every Christian has residing within him that which answers to sin and finds it appealing.

So in James 1, James says,

God doesn't tempt any man to sin. But he says in verses 13 to 15, well, let me see here,

James 1, make sure I get this right, 13, he says, let no man say when he's tempted,

I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one, every one of us, is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.

Then when desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin, sin when it is full grown, brings forth death.

You are tempted when you are drawn away by your own desires. There are desires within you.

We call that the flesh. We call that the old man.

So Paul refers to the flesh in Galatians 5, 17 as that which wars against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And Paul says in Romans 7, 18, he says, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing.

Ephesians 5, 22, he says we're to put off the old man, be renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new.

Now I want to take a minute here and I probably don't have enough time to develop this as I would like, but I want to make sure we understand the difference between the flesh or the old man and nature.

There was a popular analogy, it's been used quite a bit in Christian circles, it goes something like this, that we have within us an inner struggle for sanctification that is like a conflict between two dogs, the black dog and the white dog.

And that refers to the two, this is the story, this is the analogy, that refers to the two natures of the

Christian. So you have an old nature and you have a new nature, and both of them are residing within you.

And the old nature is the black dog and the new nature is the white dog. And whichever dog you feed is the one that's going to dominate.

Whichever dog you starve is the one that's going to lose the battle. Here's the problem with that analogy.

And don't hang on to that and say, yeah, that's right, I've got these two natures, a black dog and a white dog.

Here's the problem with that analogy. You only have one nature, you only have one nature, it's a human nature.

But in regeneration, that human nature is made new, it's made new.

You do not have a totally corrupt sin nature plus another perfectly holy and pure nature.

You don't have within you these two natures. With the idea that sometimes you can be governed by your old nature and sometimes you can be governed by your new nature.

Sometimes you're governed by the black dog and sometimes you're governed by the white dog. Because if you think like that, if that's your conclusion, what do you end up doing?

You end up beating yourself up, driving yourself crazy, trying to keep the dogs under control.

A helpful corrective to that is to understand the struggle and not begrudge it.

Again, Barrett and Beakey say, write it like this, they said, don't begrudge the struggle, for the struggle itself is an evidence of grace.

Sin finds a peaceful existence in the old nature, but it never exists peacefully in the new, in the unredeemed, unregenerated human nature.

Sin finds a peaceful existence. When God in His grace regenerated you, made you new, sin is no longer peacefully coexisting within you.

So keep this in mind. In regeneration, God gives you a new nature, not a perfect nature.

So a better analogy than the black dog, white dog, would be this.

In renewing the whole man after his image, God plants within you the seed of holiness.

The seed sprouts, it takes root, it grows, it bears fruit.

It inevitably will. But corruption, like weeds, tends to choke and slow that progress.

But there will be growth. Now our ongoing responsibility and challenge in the

Christian life is to be on guard against and vigilant to pull up those weeds, right?

The Westminster Confession of Faith, talking about this war, puts it like this. It says, in which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying

Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome. And so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Talking about the progressive nature of sanctification.

I want to close this morning with a prayer from the Valley of Vision that brings out,

I think, this battle, this war within. Let's pray. Father of mercies, hear us for Jesus' sake.

We are sinful, even in our closest walk with Thee. It is of Thy mercy that we died not long ago.