Jesus Came to Make Us Holy

Cody Hale

Advent 2016 • Sermon • Submitted 6 months ago • Presented 6 months ago

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Jesus was sent by God so we might be made holy to vindicate his name.

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Introduction

Among the church today, I find that there are many passions. There is a passion to have more families and more children and more teenagers there. There is a passion to increase the size of the church’s footprint and to meet the many material needs of our society. There is a passion to dig wells in Africa and to provide food to Asia and to get Bibles into the Middle East. And, to all of these and many more, I say, “Amen.” But, out of the many passions I find in the church today, I don’t find much passion for holiness. I don’t find very many men and women of God who are mortified by their sins, and who hunger and thirst for righteousness. There seems to be among Christians today far more sins that are acceptable and reasonable and justifiable than there is a an outright and aggressive hatred of it. And, I want you to understand that I’m not talking about the sins that are on the news or on your Facebook feed or over there somewhere. I’m talking about your sins, our sins. Christians have grown horribly comfortable with acceptable sins.

But, what if I told you this morning that at the very center of Jesus’ advent was your personal holiness? That is, Jesus didn’t come for you to be merely forgiven and justified, but that Jesus came so that you also might be holy and sanctified. Turn with me to a book that was written almost 600 years before Christ, and I think we will see just that. Turn with me to Ezekiel 36.

God's Word

Read Ezekiel 36:22-32

God's Name Has Been Profaned

"for my...holy name, which you have profaned among the nations" After generations of judgement pronouncements by the great prophets of God, God’s people now actually find themselves in exile. Israel had long been drawn to the allure of the pagan nations, and so now God has scattered them among the pagan nations. But there’s a problem: God had said that He would make is glory known to all nations through Israel. Their dissolution as a nation profanes God’s name. Make sure you understand this here. Not only is God’s name profaned by Israel’s total lack of holiness, but God’s name is profaned because Israel no longer exists as a sovereign nation. As Israel is defeated, so it looks as though their God has been defeated. God fulfilled one promise by bringing judgement upon Israel for her unfaithfulness, but it appears that He will be unable to fulfill another, which is that He will make his glory known by dwelling among and prospering this nation. And so, Israel’s exile brings reproach upon the Name of their God as though He is just some other fly-by-night witch doctor.

God Will Vindicate His Great Name

"And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name" So, God declares that He will vindicate his own name for his own sake. And, this is a bit jarring for us, isn't it? God says I'm going to vindicate my name for my sake. In verse 32, He even makes a point to say that 'I'm not doing this for your sake.' This isn't how we like to think of God. We like to that God is all about us all of the time. But, here what do we see? At the center of God's focus is himself. God's chief concern is not your salvation or mine; God's chief concern is his own glory and holiness and renown. For God to have as his chief concern any other desire would be idolatry. It is his holiness that holds the universe together, not ours. It is Him that never sleeps nor slumbers, not us. It is him who knows the purpose and plan of every organism and every circumstance, not us. It is at his throne before whom all creatures bow. If you consider him narcissistic, before whom should He bow? To whom should he defer? If arrogance is believing in some way that you are strong like God or smart like God or good like God, then how can God be accused? He is the standard for comparison.

At the center of his existence is himself, for He is the only good, the only holiness, the only constant. He is supreme in beauty and glory and majesty. He cannot defile himself with a lesser glory. God is not narcissistic; we are. And, there is nothing that shows more clearly the narcissism of the modern church more than our immediate and natural discomfort with passages like this. APPLICATION: A.W. Tozer famously said, “Whatever comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you?” How do you think about God? Do you think of God as being the ultimate humanitarian? Do you think of God as guy with a long, white beard hoping his little grandchildren will call today? Or, do you think of him as the utter center of the universe worthy of all praise, devotion, and obedience? Do you worship him as being awesome and fearsome? Worship God as He is, not as you would think him to be. Worship God, not some figment of your imagination. Human designed, human shaped gods have no ability way of delivering your soul.

God Works Through the Church in Spite of the Church

“I will” In just 10 verses God says that “I will” 12 times. God will take the initiative, and God will see to the accomplishment of his will. And, this is where we begin to catch a glimpse at how good God is. God’s central aim here is not grace or mercy; it is the vindication of his name. But, He’s so good that in the vindication of his name his grace and mercy shine through. Is this not a picture of sovereign grace? By his on initiative and for his own glory, God will deliver his people and restore them to a state even greater than before. This is not because his people deserve it. They don’t. It’s because his will and plan to make his name known as supremely glorious and holy graciously involves them. Notice where He tells Israel that “through you I vindicate my holiness.” So, they are the reason his holiness is in question, but God still chooses, by his own sovereign grace, to work through them to prove his glory. The most remarkable words in this whole passage may just be the words "through you!" APPLICATION: God works through his church in spite of his church to make his name glorious among the nations. APPLICATION: You are an unworthy ambassador for the glory of God. You’re exactly the kind of person God uses.

God is Promising

God is making a promise here. God is promising that his promises to Israel will not fail. God is promising that He is not in default on the covenant He made with his people. They may have broken the covenant, but He has no intentions of backing down on his end. He's promising that He will be vindicated as the Lord God, and He will be vindicated by restoring His people and keeping every last promise that He had made to them, and He is going to fulfill them in spectacular, divine, indescribable fashion. Israel will be a blessing to all nations. The throne of David will be endure forever. His holiness will be seen in the lives of his people. Every tribe, tongue, and nation will declare that He is the Lord! God is again promising that He will keep every promise without exception.

How? God is going to change them. He is going to transform them into something that are not. They have commandments written on tablets of stone, but He is going to write them on the tablets of their hearts. They are filthy with sin, but He is going to wash them clean. They have hearts of stone, but He is going to give them soft hearts of flesh. God is going to fulfill every promise by sending to them a baby, His Divine Son, to inaugurate a brand New Covenant that asks not to whom where you born, but were you born again? Jesus was sent by God as the fulfiller of his promises to his people. The baby in the manger was God himself having come to vindicate his holy name by delivering his people.

Jesus Was Sent to Make You Clean

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean" The work that God was to accomplish through Jesus was two fold. First, they must be washed clean. The imagery here of water being used was from the ceremonial law of Israel. Whenever someone was unclean and unfit for worship, they would wash themselves with pure water to be ceremonially clean before God again. This is why in John 3:5 Jesus says, "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." If we are to stand before God, we must be washed clean. And, Jesus was coming to wash us not with ceremonial water but his own blood. This goes back to the justification that we talked about last week. Jesus was sent so that our sins could be covered and our account could be credited. He was washing us of our sin, and He was giving to us his righteousness.

"you shall be clean from ALL your uncleanness, and from ALL your idols" And, I want you to notice how he says that you will be washed clean. You will washed clean from ALL uncleanness and from ALL your idols. The emphasis there is on the word 'ALL.' And, think about what this means. First of all it means that there are many. The word 'ALL' certainly indicates that this is a pervasive and comprehensive problem. John Calvin once said, "The human heart is an idol factory." That is, there is nothing that comes more naturally to you than worshipping idols. It can be a wooden statue or a pop star or a boyfriend or your wife or your job or your kids. It's anything that is prioritized in your life ahead of God, anything that competes for your affections as your chief love. But, you know what else this means? It means that Jesus was sent to wash them all. God promised that He would wash the away ALL of the sins of his people. None of it would remain. Not the big stuff. Not the stuff you have trouble forgiving yourself for. Not the darkest recesses of your soul. He would wash it all! APPLICATION: I wonder this morning who in here has felt like you have a sin too big or too filthy for God. You've given God your 'normal' sins and your small 'sins', but you've got something in your life that you just haven't believed in your heart that you could offer to God. Do you believe what God is telling you or not? Do you believe that God will wash them all or not? Do you believe that Jesus' blood is sufficient or not?

Jesus Was Sent to Make You Obedient.

"And, I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules" So, in this two-fold action of God's work, first we see that God must wash them clean, for their unholiness had profaned his name. And, then secondly, we see that God must MAKE them obedient. And, I say it that way very purposefully. Because that's exactly what He says here in chapter 36. He says that He will 'cause them to obey' and 'cause them to walk in his statutes.' And, this gets to the fundamental problem of the Old Covenant. God's people were completely incapable of fulfilling the Old Covenant. They broke God's Law because they were sinners, and that's what sinners do. In this context, Ezekiel means for us to understand ‘heart and spirit' as the center of the will and decision. And, he says that the hearts we are born with are hardened to God — they are stony, in fact. We have dead hearts that are that are disinterested in God. They are just rocks. Too hard to be penetrated, too dull to care. So, God sent Jesus. So, the baby came.

One of the reasons Jesus was sent was to send to us the Holy Spirit. Remember again, John 3:5, “unless one is born of water and SPIRIT, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." And, what does the Holy Spirit do? He overcomes our indifference to Christ and boredom with Christ and love of ourselves so that we might be in awe of Christ and love Christ and follow Christ. That is, Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit so that we might be made holy.

Does this mean that God was going to make them obedient against their wills? No! God was going to change their wills with His Spirit and a new heart. This is the beauty and power and majesty of the Holy Spirit that Christ sends to us. He transforms us from the inside out. He changes our desires from worldliness to holiness, from selfishness to godliness. He changes our thirst so that it is only satisfied with righteousness. The Holy Spirit works so that we not only do what is right in the sight of God, but so that we do what is right in the sight of God because we actually want to do it. That’s where the freedom comes in. You may do what you’re supposed to do because you have to, and you feel like a slave. But, if you do what you’re supposed to do because it is your desire and passion to do it, then that is freedom. This is reading your Bible out of delight, not obligation. It’s giving from a cheerful heart, not a guilty one. It’s living a life of sexual fidelity because it brings you joy, not constraint.

Jesus Came So That You Would Be Holy

Jesus did not come so that you would merely be forgiven. Oh, that’s glorious, but it’s shortchanging the glorious promises of God and the all sufficient work of Christ. This is a shocking message to many in our churches today. But, it is the truth. Jesus came so that you would not only be forgiven but so that you would also be holy. As good as it is to be justified, Jesus also came that you might be sanctified. APPLICATION: If there is no passion for holiness in your life, then you have reason to question whether or not you have Jesus and indwelt with the Spirit? APPLICATION: There are far too many sins that the church is comfortable with today.

Landing

Our vision is to make disciples that are maturing and multiplying to the ends of the earth. And, the question so often is: How do you measure maturity? And, you measure maturity in holiness. It's a growing hatred of your sin (as verse 31 calls for) and a growing awe of your God.

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