-Transcript-
Pastor Clark Covington:
Amen!
Thank you for joining me Pastor Clark here. Good to be here today. We’re talking about something so important. Are you in the pursuit of happiness or holiness? Happiness or Holiness? Oh, it’s fun to be an unpopular preacher in it is fun to be one. That doesn’t get too many likes or subscribes on YouTube then get too many fan mail letters. And I wonder why, and I saw an old-time Bible preacher one time say on the TV that he wondered the same thing and then he said “Oh, I preach on sin, that’s why”, hey that’s the end from the beginning here I’m giving you the end of the message from the beginning you preach on sin people won’t like it you talk about holiness over happiness. They may not love it, but you friend or listening today, and I thank you for that and God bless you, because maybe this principal reigns true. Maybe there’s something you’re something you’re doing in your life that standing up for the Lord for the causes of Christ and it’s not popular. Maybe nobody is thinking you or waiting you to write a book about what you’re doing or teach a class or anything because you are standing for God’s principles. And in a world that is in pursuit of happiness. It can be very hard to be in pursuit of holiness. You know many people today, many Christians today, think life is about them. You know they think they’re blessed when they’re rich. They’re loved by God when they’re comfortable. They are happy when focused on themselves and not their neighbor. This type of quote unquote Christianity is anti- Christ. We are called to be holy and that means set apart, which in turn means we’re more concerned with being set apart than being happy in this dark world. Let me ask you this question. Am I set apart when I partake in the things of this world? Am I set apart when I sin and think nothing of it? And I set up part when I neglect to witness to those the Lord has put in my path. You know holiness has an absolute correlation, with denying ourselves. Amen.
Jesus Christ was Holy that He does not deny Himself over and over again, for God the Father in obedience to God to do the Lord’s will to give this example. How about 1 Peter 1:15- 19, ” But as he would have called you as Holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, be holy for I am Holy and if you call the father, who would that respect of persons judges according to every man’s work past the time of your surgery here in fear, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father’s but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Wow, there’s a lot here in 1 Peter let’s start out with the idea, that but as he which has called you is Holy well, who’s that? That’s Christ, we’re called by Christ we’re saved by Christ. Is Christ’s Holy? Yes! what does it mean to be Christ- like? Did Christ say, “Oh, I’m so blessed because I’m. rich and comfortable?”, Did Christ say, “I’m all about me, don’t worry about these other people?” Did he do those things his actions of course not so Christianity has been watered down and perverted into some kind of self- help or leadership lesson. When in fact it’s all about self- denial and as a Book of John says, “we must decrease I must decrease”, but He must increase the idea of our emptying of ourselves and feeling ourselves with the Holy Spirit, the idea that we cannot do anything good, but God can do good through us through the working of the Holy Spirit once you’ve been saved Amen! but it all starts to this idea of being holy as like The One that we were called by which is Christ that’s how we’re holy. And there’s this word here conversation.
But as he which has called you is Holy so be holy in all manner of conversation. You know that word conversation as I understand. It could also mean behavior and all men you’re in all of behavior. So, how do we behave, Amen. Not how we speak or how we dress or what clubs? We belong to or are where we went to school or what our job title is, but how do we behave as Christians you know that’s really cuts to the right to the heart of the matter. We are to behave in a holy way, and that can be difficult in a broken world. Let me give you an example. Let’s say there’s a theme park and that theme park endorses all kinds of “wickedness”. They produce wicked movies. They promote homosexuality, which is an abomination to God. They promote all kinds of evil agendas of Relativism and all about yourself, and I can do it and I don’t need anyone else, and I created myself and they promote all these. bad values now as a holy Christian again, not a legalistic one. We’re “Saved By Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone”, but as a holy Christian are we to go and buy a ticket to that theme park or we get are we to go and talk about that theme park all the time and get a brochure and put it on our wall and spend money at the things that that business owns are we supposed to do that? Are we supposed to tell our friends about how great it is and make that a dream of ours know that may be a simple example, but that deals with behavior in our actions speak louder than words, and when we live “unholy” or “worldly” the other word that comes to mind to be carnal right and you think of the modern church today. It’s very “carnal”. It’s kind of emulating in a weird way the world whether it’s through modern music or modern the preaching style or the dress or look where it is. The different classes. Even the media ministry stuffs a lot of
it is emulating the world right and so what we want to do is say look we are holy; we’re going to be set apart now. Not so set apart that no one can see our light on the hill, not to set apart that we’re not a witness, but we’re behaving in a way that’s different from the world, we should be. As the Bible says of peculiar people, we should behave. Lovingly abundantly charitable. And, and classy, we shouldn’t be obnoxious. Amen. We should be good representatives of the gospel. Amen. Uh, and at the same time we should not behave like the world behaves.
Be holy from the Old Testament. That’s God speaking to Moses to tell the people His chosen people. That’d be the same to think about it. To tell them to be holy Leviticus 19 1-4 and Lord speak. Unto Moses saying speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel and saying to them “ye shall be holy for, I the Lord your God I’m Holy see God’s making connection. You’re my people. And I’m holy so you be holy pretty simple connection, right? Uh, you got a family, you say to the children. Okay. If this is the family, you see how we act and we expect you to act the same way. Your part of this family, God saying the same thing.
Uh, verse 3, “he shall fear. Every man, his mother, his father and keep my sabbath. I am the Lord your God turn ye not unto Idols or make to yourselves, molten gods, I am the Lord, your God“. And so, I know it’s the Old Testament. I know we’re not under the law, and at the same time, I know that my God doesn’t change. I know that he’s not a liar. I know this entire word points to Jesus Christ and our need for Jesus Christ. And I know that the, the personality of God, uh, the characteristic of God, that I’ve learnt throughout my studying of the scriptures is that he is holy and that he cannot accept an unholy nature. In fact, it says it right here, uh, later on in the verse here, our text verse first, Peter 1 15-19. Um, it says, for as much as you know, that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold. How many people think they could be redeemed with silver and gold in this world. If you have silver and gold, you can do almost anything. But in the world to come, you can’t do anything because you can’t buy your way into heaven. from your vein conversation, received by tradition from your father’s verse 19, “but with a precious blood of Christ as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot“. So here we see this. This comparison of, in the world you can win favor with money and all this stuff, but here among God, you must be justified by that blood of Christ and the Bible term would be, um, substitutionary, death, Jesus was perfect, and He came and He said, I’m gonna put on those sinful shoes. I’m aware of those sinful garments. I’m gonna drink of that, sinful cup of all mankind, because we are all sinners. We all fall short, and that’s what the law teaches us, that we all fall short, and Christ died for our sins. And so that when we accept Christ our Saviour, we are made new and the Lord. When he looks at us, doesn’t see our sinful nature anymore. He sees the blood of Christ that sinless spotless lamb. Uh the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there’s no remission of sin. Amen. And so, we are to be holy because God expects to be holy and if that means being less, happy, or less comfortable or less worldly, that’s what it means. Amen. It’s not my opinion. This is the Word of God and it’s doubly. So, it’s in the Old Testament and then here, Peter quotes it in the New Testament. And we see here, um, very interesting point that Peter makes right before mentioning Christ, uh, Peter makes this point here for as much as you knew that you were not redeemed with corruptible things. Um, let’s see here. Oh, here we go, verse 17,” and if you call, if you call on the father who without respective persons judges, according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear, but if you call on the father”. So, as we call the father, as we turn to God as we mention God’s name, let’s make sure we understand that. He doesn’t respect persons; he certainly doesn’t respect silver and gold. He doesn’t respect a modern quote progressive view of things, he respects Christ, His Son, His Beloved Son, that He gave, and He expects us to do the same. He expects us to reverence him with fear, we are to fear God. We understand in the Bible that fearing God is the beginning of all wisdom and knowledge. We understand, uh, that that we are nothing to God, that he doesn’t need us. That it was his great love, uh, that, that saved us by the finished work on the cross. And that, it’s nothing that we can do, and you get into four knowledge, and, uh, the idea that we are predestined and so forth, you understand that God, from before time knew us, Amen. Before the world was formed, he knew us, say many knows now, how many hairs are on our head? He knows everything about us. He is Almighty and all-powerful and all sovereign, and we must fear Him with that reverent fear, but so many people don’t want to do that today, our goal is Christians is to live more, like Jesus, each day, that means Holiness over happiness. And what’s ironic about this is, as we separate ourselves from the world as we become, as James, James 1:4 says, “but let patients have her perfect work that ye may be perfect in the entire wanting nothing. As we learn to want nothing, as we learn to no longer covet”. This is the great. Just wonderful nature of God as we do these things, we get in peace and joy that surpasses understanding we are kept in perfect peace. As our mind has stayed on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God gives us that joy that the world seeks but he does it, when we decide that we are going to live for him with our whole heart. Our whole mind our whole soul, we are going to love him. We’re going to live for him. We’re going to let that manifest itself out in being separate and not using bad language and not going around the sinful thing and not touching the unclean thing in cleansing our hands as dirty sinners and drawing night of him. I can go on and on with Bible verses that God tells us to be separate as we do that, as we seek holiness, we will obtain happiness, but ask yourself today, are you more interested as a Christian in, being holy or happy. Are you more interested in winning souls and making Father God, happy and being wise as the Bible says, or you more interested in winning favor for yourself or growing, uh your name in school or business or whatever it is think about this. Because we are predisposition in our sin nature, to think of ourselves, and God’s saying, get out of yourself, give it to me. You need to decrease. I need to increase, and you will have great joy from that, that’s just a wonderful nugget of wisdom in the Bible, and I just thank you so much for listening to this and I encourage you to continue to hold fast to the faith and the old-time way. Amen. And to live for God as he’s called us in his word, we don’t need to add from his word. We certainly don’t need to take away from His word. We need to strive continually to do as God calls us to do in His word. Not because we’re under the law, but because we are under grace and all the more. So as Christ died for us, and we’re redeemed by Christ. We should mirror who He is and be mirrors of Him in this life. What a great way to start the New Year to live for Christ to be sold out to Christ and to consider and put holiness above happiness. Thank you so much for listening today. Take care. God bless and Amen.