Sermon Tone Analysis

Overall tone of the sermon

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*Introduction  *
          Being a gadget junky, I love to see the attempts that people make at shortcutting the difficult parts of life.
/Do you remember back about 10 years ago when a line of products hit the infomercials and stores with names like The Ab Zapper?/
You hooked up low-current electrodes to your stomach and the claim was that wearing it for only three minutes was like doing 500-800 setups!
Sadly, they didn’t work.
Maybe you went for that handy little household helping robot that still sells well today called the Roomba.
These little miracles are a little larger than a dinner plate and roam your house sucking up dirt.
Though they are a terror in the dust-bunny world, they are useless for actually cleaning your home.
Yesterday I checked my favorite impulse-buy website /woot.com/
and they were selling a new robot to help make your life easier – the Irobot Luuj.
This modern work of robotics is placed into your gutters and uses an auger and some plastic fins to clean out your gutters.
But a little common sense and reading the reviews of others who had purchased one of these wonder-bots revealed that when they did work they threw all of that slime in your gutters everywhere from back onto your roof to your car and even onto the sides of your neighbor’s house!
We are surrounded daily by things which try to get us out of doing the hard work that is a part of this life.
Really, it’s no different as a Christian.
You can buy One-Minute Bibles to get your 60 second fill of God with.
Our Daily Bread is a favorite for getting a cute story and a semi-related verse to give you your spiritual pick-me-up.
But just like the Ab Zapper or the Roomba or the Irobot Luuj, these things are merely marginally beneficial attempts at becoming holy unto the Lord.
*Purpose Statement*:  This evening I want us to see that though it’s not easy, the hard work involved in becoming a man or a woman who is known for their holiness is absolutely worth the price we will have to pay.
*Transition*:  Tonight we are going to examine three essential questions as to how to grow in our personal holiness.
The first question we want to ask is, “/Why must we be holy?/”
Turn with me to Heb 12:14 [read].
*Why Must We be Holy?*
There is no shortcut to God.
You can’t go on Amazon and buy a pass to God.
There are no coupons to make it cheaper.
There’s not even a back-door to heaven by which we might sneak in.
The only way we will see God is by being holy.
/Why must we be holy?/
Because it’s the only way we will ever enter heaven.
/Does this concern you?  Are you the least worried to hear that holiness, godliness, distinction from the world is what is required for you to come before the Father?
Can you say with boldness and certainty that at this very moment you are holy?
Can you say without hesitation that your soul is in a good standing with its Creator?/
You see my friends, we must be holy.
We must be holy not only because that is the only way to the Father, but we must be holy because God has clearly commanded that we be holy.
Jesus said in Mt 5:48, “/Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect./”
Lev 11:44 says, “/consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy./”
At least a dozen times the Bible clearly commands us to “/be holy./”
Not only are we commanded to be holy, but that’s the very reason Christ came to earth – to make us holy.
Christ came to earth to save the lost, and as Eph 5:26-27 says, “/so that He might sanctify her (that is, the church), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless./”
Christ came that we might be holy.
We are to be holy because it is one of the clearest evidences of our salvation and our love for Christ.
A disobedient, defiled and unholy individual could hardly be identified as a follower of Christ.
/How can we say we love and follow God when our lives look to be the opposite?/
When we live holy lives, lives that are set-apart and dedicated to obeying God, we show ourselves to be true followers of Christ.
*Transition*:  Of course there are other reasons.
Holiness causes us to treat others with love and concern.
It prepares us to live in heaven where all will be holy and without fault (Rev 21:27).
But we must not only ask, “/Why must I be holy?/”
But we must also ask the question, “/What is true holiness?/”
*What is True Holiness?
*
          Some things are more easily understood when we look at what they are not.
This is true for holiness.
Holiness is not merely great knowledge – Balaam had that but was not holy.
Holiness is not being moral – the rich young ruler was moral, but he was not holy.
Holiness is not even going to church and being baptized – Simon the Magician did both of these things but was certainly not holy.
/So what is true holiness?
/True holiness is the combination of knowing what to do and then actually living out what you know is right.
True holiness is the combination of Biblical knowledge with obedient actions.
To be holy, we have to know the truth.
John 17:17 says, “/Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth./”
We grow only when we know the Word of God and choose to obey it.
But it’s not just about knowledge.
The NIV translates 1 Cor 8:1, “/Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up./”
If all we have is knowledge we will become arrogant and puffed up.
But Jesus says in Jn 14:15, “/If you love Me, you will keep My commandments./”
True holiness is knowing the truth and in love living it out.
When it comes to other people, this means that we live out the truth before them in love.
We don’t beat unbelievers with the gospel until they cry uncle, neither do we withhold the words of life from those who do not know the blessing of salvation.
When it comes to our relationship with God, our knowledge is to lead us to greater obedience.
The more we know, the more we are going to see that we need to be realigned in our thinking and in our actions towards Christ.
True holiness means that we are aligning our mind with the mind of God.
It means that we are shunning sin and keeping God’s commandments.
It means that we are striving to be like our Lord Jesus.
It means that we are following meekness and temperance and self-denial and charity and brotherly love.
A holy individual wants to have a purified heart and fears the Lord and demonstrates humility and faithfulness in all duties and all relations.
All of these things and so much more help us to understand what it is to be holy.
*Transition*:  But we are still left with the question, “/What must I do to be holy?/”
*What Must I do to be Holy?
*
          No doubt each of us has some image in our mind, whether vague or well-defined, about what it would look like to be holy.
Maybe you think it would mean that you no longer struggle with your sins.
Perhaps you think holiness means being nice to those around you.
Others might think of holiness as being faithfully consistent in our walks with the Lord.
In truth, all of this and far more is part of being holy.
But if you’re looking at your life right now and thinking, “/Yeah right!
I’m never going to get there,/” please, don’t give up.
Don’t fall into the temptation of being discouraged that you are not now where you would like to be.
Remember, sanctification is a process.
For some it’s faster and for others, slower, but for all of us it is a process to become like Christ.
None of us just wakes up one morning with a great love for God, a vast knowledge of the Bible, and only kind words to say to others.
Those are disciplines that must be learned.
Just as the Colts practice and practice their different plays before they ever take to the field against another team, so too must we practice our obedience again and again before we get it right.
We will fail far more often than we succeed in our struggle to become holy.
But God is delighted in our obedience (Heb 13:16), so let us not fail to strive after holiness; no matter how unholy we might feel right now!
          To help you in your quest to become a holy man or woman for God, I want to give you five very practical ways in which you can increase your holiness.
The first is to be diligent in your private devotional life.
The first step to growing in holiness is to grow in our devotion to the Holy One.
If you want to become a more godly man or woman, you must spend time in the presence of the one who is perfectly holy.
I know it sounds trite, but if you want to grow in holiness you are going to have to read more and pray more.
You are going to have to learn to love your Bible and read it regularly.
Not just on Sunday mornings to critique my sermons, not just when you have a problem that you’re looking for an answer for, but you are going to have to become a person of the book.
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