We are going to hear a message this morning on the nature and reality of personal holiness. This is a perilous kind of message, because we constantly want to give the edification found in such messages to somebody else, who desperately needs it. Ambrose Bierce once defined a Christian as one who believes the New Testament to be a divinely inspired book, admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor, one who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as it is not inconsistent with a life of sin.
The more straightforward the biblical standard is when declared, the easier it is for the hearers to fall into hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is an advanced sin, and needs the knowledge that puffs up. In many ways it was the knowledge of the Ephesian church that they used as the candle snuffer, to extinguish the light of their first love.
This is a healthy church, and healthy churches are hypocrisy farms. The more you have to live up to, and the less you are doing it, the easier it is to pretend.
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But the answer is grace, not effort. The answer is not for you to hop of your bicycle of ethical or doctrine purity, and peddle harder. The answer is not for you to sweat more. The answer is to die. How did Jesus save you from all your vices when you were first converted? He made it possible for you to die. How will He deliver you now from your pretended virtues? The same way—die. What happens after that? That’s His business.