I bet from time to time you have asked, “What is this world coming to?” It’s a natural reaction to the awful things that happen. Sin is running rampant, and, as a result, terrible things happen. It is safe to say that we live in an unholy world. This world is so unholy that anything holy sticks out like a sore thumb. As Christians, most of us have heard the word holy used in church. As a matter of fact, it is a very common word used amongst the people of God. I think sometimes we even throw that word around without fully understanding the gravity of it. Let’s have a quick refresher on that word. From Scripture something holy could be something sacred, such as a holy sanctuary. Concerning God, however, holy is taken to an even higher level. God is holy as separated from sin. God’s holiness is associated with His glory, which commands reverence and worship. To put it plainly, being holy is being set apart, and that is what God is. In His holiness and perfection, He is set apart from people, who are unholy and sinful. People are offended by the holiness of God because God’s holiness exposes sinfulness. Even more so, sin cannot even be in the presence of God. That is the caliber of holiness we are talking about concerning God. However, we can thank God that He has given us a way out of our sinfulness through the Lord Jesus, and we are made right with God. We know we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus, and He is faithful to save us. But there is more to salvation than being made right with God. God doesn’t just leave us as we are after we receive Him as Lord. He has a plan for our lives, which is ultimately for us to look like Jesus. That doesn’t happen overnight. It is a lifelong process of becoming holy, a people set apart. I want to remind you that God doesn’t do things for no reason, so there are reasons for Him to call us to be holy people in such an unholy world.
Why Pursue Holiness?
1. Christ commands us to be holy.
The largest motivating factor to pursue holiness should be because God commands us to be holy. The King has spoken. He has given a charge to His people. As His redeemed servants, we should be eager to actively pursue holiness out of love and obedience to our Savior and Lord. If we take a look into 1 Peter 1:16, God is reminding us to “Be holy, because He is Holy.” Maybe you’re thinking, “ I really want to be holy, but how on earth am I supposed to actually live this out in everyday life?” Brothers and sisters, I have good news for you. God is not setting you up for failure. He doesn’t just throw this command at us without providing us the ability to follow it, which brings me to the second reason we should pursue holiness.
2. Christ equips us to be holy.
Believe it or not, we are actually able to grow in holiness. Remember, we are not able to do this in our own strength. By our own power, we are totally incapable of pursuing and growing in holiness. That would be the same as a soldier without any armor or weapons charging into hundreds of enemy combatants armed to the teeth who nevertheless expects to come out victorious on the other side. That just isn’t going to happen. He is set up for failure. The good news is our God does not set His people up for failure. He has equipped us to be victorious in our pursuit of holiness. Let’s look at how He equips us. In 2 Corinthians 5 we see what I like to call a great exchange happen. For the Christian, God does something absolutely miraculous. In verse 21, “ God made Christ who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Do you get it? Christ, who is altogether lovely, perfect, and holy, did something that only He could do. He knew no sin, but He became sin for us, so that we could have His righteousness. He took and bore every sin of the redeemed on the cross, and in exchange, He gave us His righteousness. As Christians, our sin has been paid in full by the blood of Jesus, and because of that, God doesn’t see us as unholy, sinful creatures. When God looks at us, He now sees the righteousness of His Son. We see in verse 17 that “if we are in Christ, we are new creations; the old has passed away, and the new has come.” We haven’t been made better; we have been made completely new. Now this doesn’t mean we will never sin again, or we won’t ever struggle with sin. The enemy and our old sinful nature still wages war with our new, holy nature, and that battle will never end until we are with the Lord Jesus in Heaven. The good news is that we have been made right with God through Jesus Christ, and when we sin, we can come quickly to God in repentance, and He is quick to forgive. Some more good news is that God not only makes us right with Himself, he equips us with the Holy Spirit. This means that the Spirit of God literally dwells in the heart of a believer, and He sanctifies us, which means makes us holy. By the blood of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are equipped to effectively pursue holiness.
3. It is how we reach the lost.
Not only are we to personally chase after holiness; we are called to pursue holiness collectively as a church. Go back with me to 1 Peter. In chapter 2 verse 9 Peter tells the church, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of the darkness and into His marvelous light.” In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was supposed to be that holy, set apart nation. They were to live for God, love one another, and be distinct from the pagan nations around them. God’s desire was for them to live in such a holy way, the nations surrounding them would notice, and in turn would come to know the God they served. However, we see throughout the entire Old Testament that the Israelites chased after idols and lived such unholy lives that they looked no different from the rest of the world, and consequently were ineffective in reaching the nations around them. Church, imagine the body of Christ being the holy nation we are called to be. Imagine what that would look like: The people of God selflessly loving one another, taking care of the needs of each other, being truly distinct from the rest of the world. I look in the book of Acts and see the church unified. They took care of the needy. They met together regularly and praised God in such a way the rest of the city couldn’t help but notice, and, as a result, people were being saved. I want nothing more than to see that in the church today. The fact is the world is always watching the church. If we are constantly bickering amongst ourselves and setting our desires on the things of the world, we look no different from the world. Why would a lost person want to be a part of that? But if we pursue holiness together, looking more like Jesus every day, we will be distinct from the rest of the world, and the world will notice. They will see a joyful group of people who praise God and look like God, and that will draw them to the one true God. When they hear the gospel message, they will also be able to see the gospel message in the life of believers. Church, we are not isolated individuals. We are in this together, and we are called to pursue God and His holiness together.
My prayer is this pursuit of holiness is not a boulder on your back, but rather a warm blanket in which you can wrap yourself. We can’t pursue holiness in our own strength, but God has equipped us in every way to look more like Him. Trust in the work He has done in us through Christ Jesus, and allow Him to change you every day to look more like Him.
“I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6