The Command To Be Holy - Part 2

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's Word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information is at our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

I think this is a good way to gauge your spiritual life. Don't base it on what you did five minutes ago.

Don't base it on whether or not you sinned today. Don't base your spiritual growth on whether or not you sinned yesterday.

Take the long view. Compare your life now to where it was five years ago, 25 years ago.

Then you see wow okay now there is a change. Keep moving.

Paul tells the church in verse three, you are in our hearts to die together and to live together.

So we're in this thing together. Amen? That is Christians we are in it together even when times are difficult.

Of course that's when we really need each other. Even if things are difficult, even if there is tribulation, we die together, we live together.

Verse four he says, great is my boldness. That is great is my confidence of speech toward you.

Great is my boasting on your behalf. Paul's bragging about the Corinthians.

Great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.

One Bible commentator says this about verse four, Paul was confident of God's ongoing work in their lives.

So you could read 1st Corinthians especially and say what ongoing work? Look at them. They're a mess.

Look at all the things that were happening. No, Paul says he's confident of their ongoing work. Great is my boldness of speech toward you.

Great is my boasting on your behalf. Reminds me of Philippians chapter 1 verse 6.

What did he write to the church at Philippi? That he who has begun a good work in you, he shall complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

I think that verse summarizes this very well. Paul's appeal for the perfecting of holiness.

What's Paul doing here? He's encouraging them. And we all need to be encouraging one another.

And Paul, Paul is encouraged by them. He's encouraging them in return. So when talking about spiritual growth, let's not forget the importance of encouragement.

We could talk about all sorts of things that are necessary for spiritual growth. Encouragement is such a big one.

We see it here. That's what he's doing to the church. You know, we have a tendency, not just as Christians, just as human beings, we have a tendency to focus on the negative.

How many examples can we provide? Turn on the news. What are you gonna see? Positive story after positive story, positive.

No, if it bleeds, it leads, right? So the more bad news. People focus on the negative.

If somebody says 20 positive things about you and then they say one negative thing, what are you gonna remember?

The negative. So knowing that that is true and that sometimes people feel judged, we should make a conscious effort.

Christians in general would be well served to be working harder to encourage others rather than focusing just on their faults.

It's really easy to focus on people's faults because people have so many of them and you have so many and I have so many.

We could do that all day long. What does that accomplish? Tears people down.

The church, we should be building people up. We should be lifting people up, especially in the, as everyone says,

I hate the term, the troublesome times in which we live. How many times you heard that in the past few months?

Well, it's true though. We, hard times, but we should be lifting each other up.

With all the criticism, it's negativity all around us every day, all the time.

Negativity, criticism, so we would be better off if we just drowned some of that out by focusing on building up rather than tearing down.

Now there are some things that need to be torn down, that's true, but let's focus, let's work hard to build up.

All right, now there's something interesting that happens here starting in verse 5.

I've never really noticed this before, but in studying for this message, something interesting happens here.

We didn't really touch on it back in chapter 2, I suppose we could have, but Paul told the church back in chapter 2 that he had no rest in his spirit because he did not find

Titus, you brother. Paul was worried and he talked about taking leave,

I departed for Macedonia. That's back in chapter 2 and many Bible commentators believe that Paul kind of got sidetracked.

He kind of just kind of got off course a little bit and you know as a preacher himself, that makes sense, preachers tend to to do that kind of a thing.

So he's talking about something, thinking about something in chapter 2 and then he has this thought and he expands on that.

He has another thought and he expands on that and then he doesn't come back around to his original thought until chapter 7.

So from the end of chapter 2 to chapter 7 is like a parentheses of Paul kind of getting off point.

That's the way some people look at it. What's this called? Chasing a rabbit, right?

Yeah, rabbit trails, a pastor who's going down all these rabbit trails and you've probably been in some of these conversations that seem to be leading nowhere, right?

People go on and on and on and then at the end you're like, what was the point?

Well Paul did have a point and he comes back to it, but again you can kind of consider the end of chapter 2 to chapter 7 verse 5 as a parentheses.

So Paul didn't know where his brother in the faith was, Titus. He says he didn't have any rest in his spirit, he was worried.

So he traveled to Macedonia, which is in modern -day Greece or north of Greece. Look at 2nd

Corinthians 7 verse 5. Now he picks that thought back up. He says, for indeed when we came to Macedonia our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side.

Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. Nevertheless God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.

And not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was comforted in you.

When he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced even more.

Now I think we can be glad that this is in the Bible, that Paul records how he feels.

Even a man as holy as the Apostle Paul, he still had fears and he still had concerns that caused him to not have any rest in his spirit.

The Greek term that he uses for fear is phobos, which is where we get the word phobia, right?

A phobia is a fear, but a fear of what? He says on the outside were conflicts, and we know all about the conflicts, he's described that.

Paul was beaten, arrested, people are plotting his death, he was slandered, riots broke out at Ephesus.

So he had to deal with all that on the outside, but on the inside what did he say? There's fears.

I think we talked about this back in chapter 1 or maybe it was chapter 2, how he said that the

God of all comfort comforts us in all our tribulations.

And notice he doesn't say God comforted you, he said God comforts us. Paul's talking about himself.

And speaking of Titus and his concern, not having any rest in his spirit, we could say that another way of translating that is

Paul had some anxiety. We don't really think of it that way, that Paul may have faced those things.

Paul doesn't really say how he's afraid of what his enemies might do to him, being in prison, being killed.

He never says that, but he's a man, I'm sure he had those thoughts, how could he not?

But Paul did experience many of the same things that we experience. You know it's helpful for Christians to be able to relate to the

Bible characters they're reading about, right? And this is common for people to relate to Peter or to David, usually because their failures are so like there in your face, well

I can relate to that. Paul is one of those men that people have a hard time relating to.

But you know what, he is a relatable figure. He had fears. He was a great man, but he was just a man.

He wasn't sinless. Paul wasn't perfect. He hadn't perfected holiness once and for all, but he was on that journey as we are.

The fact is Paul worried about some things, but that does not mean he did not trust

God. Worry can be a lack of trust, it can demonstrate that, that's true.

But just because Paul says he had fears and concerns, doesn't mean he didn't trust

God. So let's try to wind this up, this whole idea of perfecting holiness.

This is what Paul is doing, he's on this journey growing in the faith, encouraging others to grow in the faith.

So before we close, let's talk about a few practical things that can help us in perfecting holiness.

You know I don't think there's any big secret. If somebody comes out with a book, I found the secret to perfecting holiness.

Don't buy it, there's no secret. I'm sure there is a book out there, probably.

But there's no big secret. We began with what? The spiritual disciplines. The spiritual disciplines and they're called disciplines for a reason, because you got to stick with it.

What are the spiritual disciplines? Prayer, reading your Bible, you got to believe what you read, being consistent in those things, being consistent in gathering with the church.

Obviously you need to be engaged. You know it's through the body of Christ that we receive our encouragement.

If we need encouragement to grow, we need to be among the saints to receive encouragement.

You can't do it alone. Paul could not do it alone. Even Jesus relied on the

Holy Spirit and his Heavenly Father in prayer. You can't do it alone. And listen, we need to put something in in order to get something out.

In regards to church, think about how foolish it would be to say, well if I go and sit in this building for an hour or two a week,

I'll grow in holiness. You know that's not the case. So we need to be involved.

We need to internalize what is being taught. Build friendships. Learn. Take what you've learned and put it into practice.

Volunteer to serve in some way. You have to continually be investing yourself.

You know people go to college and they spend four years, some people go to college and spend four years partying, sitting through a lecture, not really paying attention.

They get do the littlest bit just to kind of get, are they really learning anything? Maybe a little bit, but you know in order to learn, you need to put in the time.

You need to put in the effort. You need to put something in to get something out. And with Bible reading, we're almost done, but with Bible reading, we don't just read to get through it.

I know it feels like that sometimes and it's better to read than not to read, but when we read the scripture, we need to be studying it, asking questions.

I think the best advice I can give on that topic is to pray over the

Word. Read the Word of God and pray and talk to God about what you read.

Talk to God about it and ask God questions. And when we go to the Lord in prayer, we don't just go to God and say

Lord, give me this, give me that, give me, give me, give me, give me. We go to the

Lord and we say, Lord, what do you want from me? I promise you, if you're sincere and you pray to God, Lord, and you're in the

Word, Lord, what do you want from me? He'll show you. He'll show you.

And then to really be perfecting holiness, you actually have to do it. You have actually have to follow through.

So have both doctrine and practice. These are just a few basic things that if every

Christian did this, it would revolutionize the life of the church.

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscornickchurch .com.

We'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.