God Has Called Us To Live

1 Thessalonians 4:7-8–"For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.  Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you."

This passage comes as the conclusion of a brief exhortation about Christian living.  But, as we reach this verse, there is an interesting point being made.  Paul is exhorting believers to live to Christ, for Christ, and as Christ.  This means, at the very least, that our lifestyles will be pure and undefiled. The point here, though, is that the authority with which Paul makes these commands is not his own.  More than that, if we disregard Paul's teachings it is, in truth, not Paul we are disregarding at all; we are disregarding God Himself.

We should never, not ever forget this.  It is, ultimately, not the church, any man, or institution that compels us to live lives of purity and holiness.  It is God Himself that desires it.  It is He who orders and commands.  This is, it turns out, everything.

Just like Josiah

Imagine finding something earth-shatteringly important.  Like when looking through old paper work, you discover that years ago you inherited a mansion, or that you had a twin brother that was taken away at birth.  What would your reaction be?  Would you seek that thing out with every bit of energy you possess?  How far would you go to make sure that you had the information correct?  To what lengths would you go?

Something like this happened in ancient Israel.  For years, the kings of Israel had been drifting farther away from the Lord and towards syncretism, idolatry, and sin.  The kingdom that David had established had been divided after the death of Solomon and, while the northern kingdom had always been sinful, overtime, even the southern kingdom fell away from what God had desired of them.

In fact, the people had become so idolatrous and sinful that even the Torah, the Book of the Law, which was the foundation for all of their faith had been lost.  Not even the priests, the keepers of the Law, knew where the Book had gone.  Throughout the Book of the Kings (1 & 2 Kings), Israel and Judah become increasingly apathetic and apostasy, eventually being deported at the hands of the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians.  It is at this point in the nation's history when a young, God-fearing king ascends to the throne.  His name is Josiah and his story is told in 2 Kings, chapters 22 and 23.

Eight years old when he begins his thirty-one years reign in Jerusalem, the Word says that Josiah, "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left (2 Kings 22:2)."  He was a good, godly king.  In the eighteenth year of his reign, he decides to spend some money and for some much needed repair of the Temple.  It is at this time that while doing the repairs, the Book of the Law is found.

Although it is both shocking and appalling to think that the Israelites had become so idolatrous that they had actually "lost" the Book of the Law, what is remarkable about the story and about Josiah is his response to the Book's finding.  Josiah does two stunning things in reaction to discovering the Book of the Law that have immediate contemporary applications for us.

The first thing that Josiah did was to have the Book read in its entirety both to himself and to the whole nation.  Josiah understood immediately that the Law was God's Word for Israel and, though their forefathers had abandoned it, he intended to reinstitute it as the Book for Israel's faith.  He didn't do this half-heartedly.  No, he knew that God's Word demands full allegiance with no hint of turning.  Moreover, Josiah was excited and energetic to do this.  We should take a mind like this when we consider instituting God's Word in our lives.  And we should do so with as much fervent intent and energy as Josiah.

The second thing he did was to destroy all the idol worship that had pervaded Israel.  He destroyed altars, killed priests, and purged the nation of the sin of idolatry.  This is huge.  Think of the effect of such a decision.  Not only was his move bad for the economy, as idol worship was big business, but also it challenged all of the Israelite idol worshipers to get their act straight.  We should do this same thing, definitively purge the idolatry and sin both from within ourselves and from within our churches.  While we should do so with grace and gentleness, we are commanded to take seriously God's call to purity and holiness.

Again, the Old Testament should not be neglected for its antiquity but studied for its usefulness and worth.  All of Scripture speaks to the glory of God and Christ Jesus.  Therefore, we need to put on our miner's hats and interpreter's tool-belts to dig into the Scripture for the endless worth thereof, both practical and theological.  Let us then be like Josiah, exalting the Word of God and striving with all passion to live it out!

Perfect Purity

We live in a world in which purity is overlooked by the vast majority of the culture in favor of pleasure seeking and relativism.  God asks for more.  He asks us to be holy as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:16).  Obviously, for us to overcome the gap of holiness set before us, two things are in order: (1) we must understand what holiness is, and (2) we have to come up with a game-plan for holiness.

For starters, holiness has two basic definitions, to be pure and to be set apart.  Although God asks for us to take on holiness in both measures, the former of the two is to be the focus of this discourse. Purity, to be pure, requires acknowledging what purity is as well as understanding that which taints purity, making it impure.

God is pure.  Scripture speaks most aptly about the purity of His Word (Psa. 12:6; 119:140; Pro. 30:5).  Purity thus is a direct reflection of His Word in us.  When we are in His Word, His Word acts to purify us.  Additionally, purity speaks to perfection.  For something to be pure it has no extraneous or unnecessary pieces; it is perfect, complete.  This should convict us to assess: are there parts of us that we could deem extra?

Furthermore, purity is unsoiled, undefiled, and ultimately clean.  To be pure then necessitates a state of perfect cleanliness of soul.  When we speak of holiness, this is what we are discussing: the state of a person's soul.  Purity is to be, then, utterly pure and without sin.  To be sure, that's no small order.

Think of a glass of water with sediment floating inside.  This is akin to the state of a unrepentant  soul.  We are so full of the depravation of sin that we, our very beings, have become tainted and defiled.  Only when we are poured out and sieved to remove the unclean sediment of sin can we become "holy as He is holy."  Confession and belief in Jesus by way of repentance and humility accomplishes this purging.

Peter, John, and Peter all speak about the necessity for humans to pursue holiness (Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 4:7; 1 Pet. 2:11; 1 John 3:3).  For fear of getting too theologically dense, it is sufficient to say that striving for holiness is a big deal for believers.  It can be summed up in a single term: sanctification.

It is true that God guides and administers the sancitification process; however, this does not negate the man's responsibility.  To be holy is not a passive ordeal but an intensely active endeavor.  In order for us to be holy, we need to pursue holiness.  The writer of Hebrews also speaks to this effect, that we have responsibility to put forth effort in holiness (Heb. 12:14).

Because of the vast and singular requirements of holiness, we, believers, should heed the call to holiness and "take every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5)."  To be made new and pure in holiness is what repentance and sanctification is all about.  Let us then press forward to live more like Christ, perfect and blameless, undefiled by the world and pure in His Word by the power of the Holy Spirit urging us to greater holiness in Him!