We all know that even the very best of Christians mess up and sin sometimes.
Well, if that's true, how do we obey God's command? Be holy. Because I am holy. How does that work?
Well, Stick around. Thank you for being with us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip serves as our Bible teacher for this global teaching and discipleship ministry, helping Christians develop an authentic faith. In this program, Chip picks up in his series, The Real God, as he continues examining God's most essential characteristics that paint a clearer picture of his nature. Last time, he underscored the importance of God's holiness.
and provided a precise definition from Scripture. Today he'll continue explaining how God chooses to reveal the wonderment of His holiness to His people.
So if you're ready, grab your notes and Bible as we settle in for the remainder of Chip's Talk. But I'd like you to open your Bibles. And I want to walk through a familiar passage. But I want you to see the pattern. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Isaiah chapter 6.
But Isaiah chapter 6 is the pattern of what happens to a man or a woman Who? gets a glimpse of the holiness of God. As I read it, I want you to begin thinking about Three views, one and upward view. Two is an inward view. And three is an outward view.
And in the context, I want to suggest that this is a deep, deep crisis in Israel. And if you're a prophet in Israel and the world is falling apart. And the political situation is unstable. Does this sound familiar? And you're not sure what the future is going to be like.
Does this sound familiar? And everyone's fearful, and you have a moral responsibility as a spokesman for God to know what's going on, you go meet with God in the midst of a crisis, and I'm going to suggest. That your personal crisis or the one that one of your kids have. might be the doorway where God leads you. to get a glimpse of His Holiness.
In the year that King Uzziah died, that's the crisis. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. He goes into the temple and he gets this vision. High and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. And above him stood the seraphim.
Each had six wings, and with two he covered his eyes, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Here's the inward look.
Woe is me He's the most righteous guy on the planet. He's the prophet. For I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphs flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and whom will go for us? And then I said, here am I. Send me. Did you see the pattern? By the way, God always speaks.
I think God really speaks to us in ways often that are unique to our personality and how we hear. And this prophet, you know, he's living in a world of kings, and the train of his robe. If you were a pretty important king, you know, X amount of armies, X amount of wealth, you might have a train that's four or five feet long. If you were like a super, super powerful king and you were like the big kahuna king and you had big armies and you were in really big control, you might have a train that's 20 feet long and there might be seven or eight or nine or ten attendants behind you. The length of your train was the evidence of your status and your power.
So when we read this, we think the train of his robe filled the temple. Yeah. Uh-uh. It's looping, looping, looping, filling, filling. In other words, it's overwhelming.
What it's doing to Isaiah is: of any king. He's ever heard of, in his mind, it's going. And he just realizes. Woe is me. He's undone.
And he's a righteous man. If we would, here's the thing: Isaiah compared to probably everyone else. is here. Compared to God, he's here. And for some of you with a really sensitive conscience, you have to be careful that in your moments with God, you don't just go completely introspective.
Because some of you can just, oh yeah. Min motors are bad. And I'm bad. In fact, I'm really terrible. In fact, I'm a worm.
I'm worse than a worm. I don't even know. Gotcha, right? There was an era of what I call worm theology. And people felt really, really good about feeling really, really bad.
Here's the deal. When the Holy Spirit convicts you, It's for a very specific reason. You are the object of his love and he will tell you very specifically where you don't measure up so that you can say to him, I am so sorry, and the blood of Christ covers it to restore you to fellowship. When the enemy wants to discourage you, he doesn't convict. It's called condemnation.
And condemnation is vague and general. You're allowed, I mean, when I go through this, I mean, everybody does, but when I have my bad condemnation moments, it's like, I'm a terrible dad. I'm a terrible pastor. I'm a terrible husband. I bet, you know, I bet 97.3% of all my motives are wrong, even when I'm teaching.
And, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know what it makes me feel like? I don't want to pray. I don't want to get near God. Condemnation, what's Romans 8 say?
There's no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus.
So that's when you do spiritual warfare. You say, I don't believe any of that. This is who I am in Christ. I'm the Son, I'm the daughter of a living God. I have His righteousness.
I'm robed in righteousness. I'm accepted by the beloved. Get out of here. But when he says, you were rude to your wife, Mm. You uh kind of left the channel on and you started with I don't believe that's on prime-time TV.
This is terrible. I wonder how much they're going to show. I should probably investigate to make sure. And then one of the kids or someone walks in the room, click. And then you realize you were sucked in.
Or 68%. I don't know where they get these statistics. I hope they're all wrong. But all these people who do these things say 68%. of Christian men are on triple X.
porn sites regularly. I don't know if you saw Time Magazine and Esquire. in the epitome of biblical journals, in my opinion. Yeah. has done research recently.
on pornography. Independent research. Basically, said that a man who watches pornography has a four times the probability of divorce. When a woman begins watching pornography, it's six times. And basically, what they're discovering is that it's a complete rewiring of the brain that is absolutely akin to concaine use.
When God wants us to be pure and holy. It it It's not that old thinking of there's probably something really fun, and he's like a cosmic killjoy. It's he is a loving father. Who knows the implications? Every Command of Scripture.
is given by an absolutely holy God. Who in his kindness and tenderheartedness wants to prevent you from being hurt or damaged? Holiness is wholeness. Holiness is for your health. And Isaiah has this picture of upward.
and then inward And then notice when that happens, your priorities change and you say, God, what do you want me to do? It's just the opposite of our day. God, what can you do for me? God, how do you make my life work out? How can I be more fulfilled?
How can I get more of this? How can I do some of that? How will you change? We're always asking God to change everything. Try this one.
God, change me. Just just change me.
Now, the next place where God reveals is 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and Sort of time permitting. All I want to do is read the passage. It's interesting because of what The deep bonds that occur in The realm of sexual activity says flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits Are outside his body, but he who sins sexually. sins against his own body.
We now have the uh the evidence in our day in our world long before this was written about what happens. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Whom you receive from God. You are not your own you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.
Now I just want you to It's hard, but just pause and I want you to go back to that mountain. With the smoke. The lightning. and the earth shaking. And then I want you to sort of semi-visualize this temple.
filled with this train of this robe and these bizarre looking creatures with all these eyes. chanting holy, holy, holy as you're face down on the ground. And then I want you to try and even ponder. that the temple that God has chosen in the new covenant where he wants his presence manifested Is your Body. He owns you.
He bought you. You know, we read of these Old Testament characters and David empowered by the Spirit and the Prophet empowered by the Spirit and Elijah doing this. Even Matthew, Mark. Luke, John, Peter. You know, the transfiguration, we.
New Testament believers. having more intimate relationship and access. to the God of the universe. than any of them did. Because the Spirit of God would come in the Old Testament at times and anoint with power and manifest his presence.
And Jesus that last night said, There's a new covenant. A covenant is an agreement that people make that on the basis we will shed blood to demonstrate that we will give our lives before we will break the covenant. And he said, This is my body given for you. And when he shed his blood, when a person repents of their sin. turns and says, Oh God, I believe Christ died to pay for my sin and is my substitute.
Will you come into my life? The Spirit of God literally pulls you out. of the kingdom of darkness Places you into the kingdom of light. The spirit then enters your mortal body. You're sealed with the spirit.
Spiritual gifts are deposited. You're engrafted into a supernatural family called the church. and the Holy Spirit lives in your body. And now God's game plan to take his message to the world is not to get people to come to a temple in Jerusalem to see the glory and the power of God and a nation that's been transformed, but to take you and I sort of decentralize distribution. And now we go forth, and in your home, you are the ambassador of the living God with his spirit living within you.
And your job is to reveal God to your family. Then you go in your driveway to reveal God to your neighbors. And then you go to work to reveal God. And not only to reveal God, but then because you are part of a new kingdom, you bring the kingdom. And you bring the kingdom love and the kingdom life and the kingdom values.
And so instead of ego and pride, you champion humility. Instead of who are the powerful people to get close to, you care for the marginalized. And you become this living temple. That begins to impact like salt and light or leaven in bread, transforming. That's how the world got changed.
And nothing has changed in terms of God's agenda. Have you ever thought, so ask yourself, so what do you put in this temple? What does this temple view? Where do these hands go? How do you treat?
This temporary temple. You're listening to Living on the Edge, and we'll get back to Chip's message in just a minute. You know, we love to hear how you are deepening your relationship with God as you study His Word with us. But another way we want to support you in that is through our free resource called Daily Discipleship with Chip. Let me encourage you to stick around after this message as Chip will tell you more about it and how to sign up.
But for now, let's get back to the remainder of his talk. If we would ever grasp that, Boy, wouldn't there be a set? of very logical implications. And again, it wouldn't be some legalistic. I can never do this, I can't watch this, this is bad, I don't wear lipstick, I don't go to movies, and I don't play cards.
I don't think that got us very far. But you, like the psalmist, would say, Oh God, I will put no worthless thing in my mind. You would say, I want only holy thoughts. You wouldn't be asking questions like, I wonder how close to sin I can get without falling in. You would be asking, How close can I get to righteousness and holiness to be pleasing to my God?
It's just a completely different paradigm.
Well God's holiness raises a couple questions, and we touched on them earlier, but I think it's important that we at least address them here. If God is so holy that he can't gaze on sin, how can sinful people like us have a relationship with God? Right? This is the greatest news in the world. It's the gospel.
It's the gospel. This is, guess what? You can't. But Jesus made it possible. Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 10.
For while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Notice it's not when we cleaned up our act, it's not when we got it together, it's not when we got religious at the right time when we were helpless, when you bring nothing. And then he says, For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, someone would dare even to die. And then underline this verse, verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us.
And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and put a circle around the little word for. There's two words in Greek for for. This is a word that means on behalf of and in the place of. He's your substitute. Everything that I deserve because of my sin, as the just, righteous wrath of God would come toward me, Jesus steps in front, says, I got it.
And as we'll learn later, he'll say, I'll take. The judgment of God. and I will give you the righteousness of Christ. Much more than, having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were his enemies, we were reconciled, that word just means you become friends.
Think of the juxtaposition of what we're talking about. This holy, awesome God, we're undone. And then over here, we're friends. I mean, if you if you Don't get over that. If you're just thinking, wow, that's amazing, that's far out, I can't grasp it.
Good. That's not casual. For while we were his enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. The second question then is, if trusting God's work on the cross blots out our sin before God, and we're holy in his sight, why do we keep on Sinning. And we touched on this, but just write in these notes because it'll be more clear: the three aspects of holiness.
There's a point in time There's a process and there's an end. The moment you put your faith in Christ as Savior, You are legally declared righteous.
So, sin's penalty, in other words, the penalty for sin. You are forgiven because of Christ's work. And as I said before, I love this picture. I just have this picture in my mind of a of a computer screen and Jesus. And me.
and undermine as all the sins in thought, word, and deed, And under Jesus is the very righteousness of God. And I just love this picture. When I trust in Christ, I'm justified, and it's delete. And then the righteousness of Christ. is put into my account.
That's my positional legal standing. I've been forgiven. Legally, of all my sin, and the power of sin has been broken. But notice then, in sanctification, is progressive holiness. And so the penalty of sin.
is gone, but now I work out. I begin in my practice to become holy and so I now before I couldn't decide whether I wanted to sin or not.
Now I can choose to live righteously, but since the flesh wages war against the soul, and since I live in a world system drawing me away, I can still choose to sin. And when I choose to sin, it breaks fellowship with my Heavenly Father. I don't lose my salvation, but the connection, the line, they're static. And the more I willfully sin, I can over time begin to shut off connection and relationship of his power in my life.
So I confess my sins. He's faithful and just to forgive me my sin and keep on cleansing me. Finally, the day will come when either the Lord returns or I die, and I immediately go into his presence, and when I see Christ, I'll be transformed. Let me give you an illustration. I bought a house in California, which is actually pretty miraculous.
So I put X amount money down. And legally, That house is in my name and my wife's. I own the house. It's mine. The bank doesn't own it.
I own it.
However, each month I'm progressively Owning more. I'm beginning to get in reality what is legally true. And and it just it keeps coming down. as I pay off each month, right? This is where, if you really play this out real carefully, it doesn't quite work, but just stay there with me, okay?
And then, at some point in time, at least some of you have had the experience. You pay it off. It's fully mine. It was mine legally because there was a down payment. And I own it.
Anybody know what the Spirit of God is called in the book of Ephesians? Your down payment. of the Spirit of God coming into your life. the resonance of Christ. Then you live out and you progressively become more holy, and it requires, like a newborn babe, long for the pure milk of God's word so that by it, You might change and be transformed.
I have to go through the process of putting off the old, putting on the new. It's a journey, it's a process. I'm not going to be conformed to this world. I'm going to be transformed by the renewing of my mind so that my lifestyle could progressively demonstrate God's will, the good, acceptable, perfect will of God. Romans 12:2.
But at some point in time when I die, that which is true of me legally, and Lord willing, my life has progressively. And dramatically changed in the last 35 more years. then I will meet Christ and I will be transformed once and for all. and be holy, glorification. That's the best explanation.
And if you, by the way, if you can come up with a better illustration or fine-tune that one, email me. Because the middle part doesn't quite work, right? I mean, because you're making payments and you could read in works and okay. How must we respond to the holiness of God? First, it's a commitment that we make.
Hebrews 12, 14, make every effort to live in peace with all men. and to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. You don't slide into holiness either. I mean, it's a commitment.
Scripture says God hates sin. God hates arrogance. A commitment to holiness is, I want to be holy. Not, I'm doing better than others, or you know, I think, you know, I've had this struggle and I come from this family background, so anger is an issue in our family. And, you know, everyone I've known in our family, well, they've always divorced, and, you know, it's really hard, and I'll try and do good, but you know, we just don't do relationships well, or, you know, I had this problem with my, you know, just stop it.
We all have that stuff. Be holy even as God is holy. Is it impossible? Of course it's impossible. The Christian life is impossible.
Only Jesus can live it. And once He lives in you, that's why surrendering, being in His Word, doing life in community together. God causes us to be transformed progressively. But it starts with you got to want to be holy. I remember one Profound thought from someone I really respected said, You'll be just about as holy as you want to be.
Think about it. Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. The word is mature. Then the command Is in 1 Peter. It's a command to obey.
I love it because he makes it really clear that And it was hard for those early Christians, it's hard for us, and it's not about willpower. Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled, set your hope fully. on the grace that's to be revealed. It's that eternal perspective, set my hope on the grace, the line, not the dot.
Be sober. Right. Understand what life's really all about and prepare your. I love the King James on this. Did anybody know this in King James?
Gird your loins. If you are a Roman soldier, is you would have a long robe and you would have a belt. But when you were ready to go into battle, you would gird your loins. And so what you do is you would take your robe and you would tuck it in your belt.
So now you're ready for action. And so what he's saying is, you want to live a holy life? You gotta get your game face on, is the way we would say it. You need to get your mind in gear. You need to realize there's all this stuff coming at you, and you're not gonna slide into it.
But here's what's gonna be hard. Been to set your hope on the grace. And then, therefore, as obedient children, don't be conformed any longer to the former lusts, which were yours and your ignorance. But, like the holy one who called you, be holy also in all of your behavior, because it is written. Be holy.
For I am holy. And I love that in all your behavior. Before we go on in the program, I want to stop right now and speak to those of you. that are followers of Christ. And as you've heard this message, you realize there's issues in your life that are preventing you from getting God's best.
He is holy. He cannot bless your sin. We can't compromise. You need to repent. You need to tell him that you're sorry, and he will help you.
He wants to forgive you. But I also want to talk to some of you that just find yourself listening to this, and maybe you were channel surfing, and who knows how you got here, but you realize. If God is that holy, I'm in big trouble. I don't know what to do. I want a relationship with God.
I want love. I want intimacy. But I have sinned. I want you to know that today. May be in fact the most important day of your entire life on this earth.
And God is offering you through the work of His Son forgiveness and peace. Wherever you're at, in your heart of hearts, acknowledge: I have sinned, I have blown it, I've hurt people, I've stolen, I've lied, we've all done these things. You admit that you've sinned and you fall short of God's pure, holy standard. And in your heart of hearts, even if you're driving right now, God knows and hears. Cry out, Oh dear God, forgive me, cleanse me, I admit my sin.
And at this day, at this moment, I put my faith in Jesus, His work on the cross, to cover and pay for my sin. once and for all. Lord Jesus, come into my life, cleanse me from Forgive me. I believe you died on the cross for me. and that you rose from the dead in my place to prove that you're in fact God.
And you may not have all the answers to this, but pray in your heart right now, cry out to God, our heart's desire. It is to see you connected with your Creator who loves you. He's got a great plan for your life. but the next step is yours. Put your faith in him today.
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Well, Chip's still with me in studio, and Chip, for those who just made the decision to follow Jesus, or for the many Christians looking to deepen their faith, we have two words for them, Romans twelve. This chapter is so rich with foundational truth vital for every Christ follower.
So if you would, take a minute and talk about a special study we've developed to help our listeners grasp the power of Romans chapter twelve.
Well, for the last several years, you know, Dave, that we've produced a resource called Daily Discipleship with Chip. It's a free video tool where our listeners and I study the Bible together for 20 minutes. I do 10 minutes by way of video in a one-on-one mentoring environment, and then I ask them to take another 10 minutes on their own to study. And I've done a number of these, and I took just classic core passages that I know are just instrumental in every believer really growing in Christ. As we were preparing these, I couldn't not do one on Romans chapter 12 because it talks about what it looks like to be truly spiritual, to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ.
So what I want to invite our listeners to is to join me. It's a little bit longer. It's actually 17 days. But as you do this study, True Spirituality, How to Become a Romans 12 Christian, I believe it'll help you like never before, be the man or the woman. that God really wants you to be.
Great encouragement, Chip. To sign up for this free video resource, go to livingontheedge.org. We want to see you grow in your faith and be a Christian who really lives like a Christian. And this daily discipleship series from Romans chapter 12 will help you get on the right path. For complete details visit livingonthege.org.
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Well, as we close, do you want to deepen your connection to God amid your busy life? Then take Chip with you by subscribing to our daily podcast. With a few simple taps on your phone, you can access the full-length versions of our latest series. And if you're always on the go, download a handful and listen to them at your own pace. Let us help you grow your faith.
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Well, from all of us here, I'm Dave Druy, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us again next time.
