Sermon Transcript
Well, this week I got to thinking about some of the things that used to be a part of my life but are now not a part of my life. I used to watch, for instance, I used to watch television shows when they were broadcast. I don’t do that anymore. I watch them because somebody’s taped them for me and, you know, I can watch them when I feel like watching them instead of when they tell me to watch them, you know, that sort of thing. I used to make phone calls from a telephone booth or a landline.
I don’t do that anymore. Make a phone call wherever I want to make it. Got to love that, don’t you? I used to drive the car to the airport when we were going to take a flight somewhere, and of course, we’d park in the airport parking lot and then take the shuttle over to the terminal, all the rest of that. We don’t do that anymore.
We take an Uber or a Lyft or whatever and have them pick us up and take us, you know, like, wow, we’re popular people or whatever it is, famous, I don’t know, but they take us to the airport and they bring us back home. We love that. I used to memorize phone numbers. I don’t memorize phone numbers anymore. That was a big project, and now we just put them in our contact list and, you know, there they are.
Or we tell Siri to look them up for us if we’re too lazy or whatever it is. I used to call the theater to get the movie time. I don’t do that anymore. I use the phone app or I use a web browser or something to get the movie times. I used to actually use maps.
You know what a map is, right? Some of you students are like, what are you talking about? Well, I used to use a map. In fact, I had a favorite map, and I used to write mileage on it, mileage from, you know, San Francisco to Los Angeles and other places like that, and had this map all marked up. My kids used to see me always using this map.
It was really, you know, old-looking, but it was my map. In fact, my oldest son Brent, when you go to his house in Austin, he’s now got this map framed on the wall, seriously. It’s like for posterity purposes or something so people could come in and see, this is what my dad, my ancient dad used to use, a map. And now we use Waze and, you know, other systems, and it works out great for us. We used to buy books at a bookstore.
We don’t do that hardly ever anymore. We just go online and order, and guess what? They deliver it to our porch, and usually it’s the next day. It’s fantastic. We used to, when we go to Disneyland or Costco, we would arrange a time to meet with each other.
If we split up, you know, we’d arrange a time to meet with each other at a certain location and that sort of thing. You don’t have to do that anymore, right? You just text message each other and say, when do you want to get together? And, yeah, we’re ready to do it, all that. Or you could just, you know, use Find a Friend or something like that if you want.
You don’t have to arrange a time. There are a ton of things, and I’m sure you can think of this, a ton of things in your life, no matter how old you are, there are probably a ton of things in your life too that have been replaced by something better, something newer, something faster, you don’t do the same things that you used to do. Now, there are also some areas in our life right now that it would probably be good for us to replace with other things, you know, like the flip phone. If you’re still using a flip phone, you might really want to consider getting into a smartphone or something of that nature. If you’re working 60 hours-plus a week, oh, it’d be good to cut those hours back so that you get maybe a little bit more balance in your life.
If you’re not getting enough sleep, it would be good to replace not enough sleep with more sleep. If you’re eating snacks after supper— I know this is going to get close to home here— but if you’re eating snacks after supper, it would be good— this is what they tell us, you know, the nutritionist kind of people— it would be good to just not eat snacks after dinner. In fact, it would be good not to eat any sweets after dinner, especially that. To eat sweets earlier in the day. Well, anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about that.
And recently we hosted a missional community at our home. We have several of these. If you’ve never heard about him, you ought to check it out. It’s a good thing. But we had a great night together.
We were having dinner and laughing and catching up and encouraging each other and praying together. And so all of that was already a part of the evening. But before the evening ended— so it’s getting later now— dessert came out. Dessert was actually served while I was away from the table. The dessert was tiramisu— I love that— and a lemon tart.
And so anyway, these desserts came out while I was away from the table. When I came back to the table, there was this plate. This is the actual plate with the desserts on it. That was sitting there waiting for me. And everything in me was saying, dig in!
You know? But the evening began with me saying to myself, no dessert tonight. Do you see the dilemma here at this point? I know some of you are saying, why would you say no dessert tonight? I mean, that was your problem right there.
But have you ever told yourself, you know, no dessert, and then somebody, some loving, caring person put a dessert in front of you, what did you do? Did you, quote, get thee behind me, Satan?
Did you say, I will set no worthless thing before my eyes? Did you say, along with the Apostle Paul, what I don’t want to do, I do, and what I want to do, I don’t do? What did you do at that point? Because what you did at that point is going to show whether or not you’re ready to make dessert a thing of the past. I mean, like, really put it in the past if that’s the commitment that you’re making and move into this new commitment.
So when I came back to the table and they were all sitting there eating these 2 delicious desserts and some of them were licking their plates and thinking about sneaking back into the kitchen and getting a couple more desserts, you know, I had a choice to make. Now, the reason I even bring this up this morning is because we’re in a passage that talks about getting past our past. Getting past our past. We’ve been doing a study in the book of 1 Peter, and today we’re in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verses 14 to 16. If you brought your Bible, you might want to turn there.
If you didn’t bring a Bible along, you just use the message notes, and I think you’ll see a couple of the Scriptures we’re going to be looking at this morning found there. But this life we’ve called between 2 worlds can be a challenge to move into our new life because the old life is just— just wants to hang on. And so Peter writes this to these Christ followers who are scattered all over the place in Asia Minor. He says, as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance, but just as he who called you is holy, be holy in all you do. For it’s written, be holy because I am holy.
Now, I don’t know how this is going to connect with you this morning. I got a feeling for some of us this could be an affirmation of the life that you’re living right now, and if it can be that, this is going to be helpful. For some that are sitting here today, when you think about your life and you think about holiness, you say, man, there’s a big gap between my life and holiness. And so I hope that what we look at this morning can be helpful to you. For others of us, we have the opportunity to mentor people and to help them, especially Christ followers.
Or maybe we’re just trying to help somebody know what it means to be a Christ follower and what’s the Christ-following life look like. And so, we might want to look at this passage through the idea of mentoring. But what you can see Peter saying here right at the outset is that there’s something that needs to be a thing of the past and something that needs to replace this thing of the past. And what is the thing that needs to be replaced? Well, it’s verse 14, what?
You see it there? It’s evil desires. And what’s the new thing that needs to replace these evil desires? Do you see it there in verses 15 and 16? It’s holiness.
So you got evil desires over here, you got holiness over here, and holiness must replace, he’s saying, evil desires. Now, the fact that Peter has to even talk about this, having just talked about salvation, which Steve helped us understand last week— it was very helpful— but just the fact that Peter’s talking about this after saying, you know, if the gospel has been received and you’re now one of God’s children and you’re in his family, and you look to God for your salvation, you need to know that your salvation is not going to eliminate evil desires. It’s not going to eliminate your evil desires, and it’s not going to all of a sudden just fill you automatically with holiness, any more than, you know, me or somebody else deciding, I’m not going to do dessert tonight. Or maybe that was like a New Year’s resolution. I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution to not do dessert after dinner especially, maybe if I’m gonna have it earlier in the day, but quite frankly, what I really want to do is I just want to eat apples from now on.
Okay? I’m sure none of you have made this decision, but anyway, you get the idea. It’s all of a sudden not just gonna happen that you’re just gonna eat apples from now on. But there’s something that has to happen, and that is, as he says in verse 14, if we are God’s obedient children, We have to say no. We have to not conform to the evil desires that we had when we lived in ignorance.
So he’s first of all calling out the important action of a Christ follower of continually saying no to unholy desires. We have to be willing to make that kind of a decision. That can be and should be an intentional decision that my old life I’m going to get away from it. I’m not going to continue to live the life that I lived before I became one of God’s children. It’s going to be something in the past.
Now, what’s he talking about when he says evil desires or unholy desires? Well, if you go to chapter 2 and verse 11, Peter says this, dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from Sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. So an unholy desire, an evil desire, he says, is a sinful desire. And if we give in to these sinful desires, ultimately it’s going to do damage to our souls. I mean, there are a lot of things that, you know, could do damage to us, but to do damage to the soul is not something that we want.
The soul is our life. But Peter goes on to say in chapter 4 this about this matter. He says, as a result— chapter 4, verses 2 and 3— as a result, he He, a Christ follower, does not live the rest of his earthly life for human or evil human desires. Here it is again. So here’s a person who has signed on as one of God’s children, stepped across the line of faith, said, yes, to the Lord, I want to be in your family.
And now all of a sudden there’s to be a change of conduct, a change of life so that we no longer live the rest of our earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. And then he says this, for you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do. And what do pagans choose to do? People outside of God’s family. Living in debauchery.
What’s that? Sinful living. Lust, drunkenness, orgies. What’s that? Sexual immorality.
Carousing. What’s that? Partying night after night after night. And detestable idolatry. Now, there’s a lot that you could say about what he’s listed there, but I’m just going to categorize it for you just in 2 general thoughts.
He’s talking about the problem of immorality, the problem of giving in to immoral desires, and the problem of idolatry. The problem of immorality is a problem that is due to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. The problem of idolatrous desires is the problem of substituting myself or other things in the place of God. And so, here are these 2 matters that are pulling against us to pull us into sin. You’ve got evil desires, sinful desires, unholy human desires, and we’re going to have to say no to those desires.
That’s what Peter is saying. Now, let me ask a question, simple question: will it be easy to say no? I mean, like, really, and intentionally Mean it. I mean, we could say, no, yeah, I’m not going to do that anymore. Like, we could say that this morning, make that commitment.
But actually to live that commitment out, as it says in verse 14, to live the rest of our earthly lives without conforming to our old evil desires, that’s huge. And to, as it says, not any longer be ignorant about how we live in verse 14, even though now we are no longer ignorant. If you’re a child of God, we know that God wants us even Right now we’re seeing this, that he wants us to live different than we lived before. We’re not ignorant about that. He doesn’t want us to continue to live like we lived before because that’s going to damage our souls and it’s also going to displease God.
We’re not going to be obedient to him. So that’s what verse 14 is saying. But getting past these evil desires can be as difficult or more difficult than it was for my grandfather to give up smoking. He for years was told, this is going to kill you. You need to stop smoking.
But he couldn’t let it go for year after year after year after year. It wasn’t something that he could just get past. And I think it’s the same with a Christian, that we could say, I’m going to get past these evil, fleshly, immoral, idolatrous desires. But quite frankly, it will be hard to say no to those desires. Why?
Well, one, because of the flesh. And, 2, because of the world that we’re living in. This, if you notice, this is not a world that’s promoting holiness, is it? This is not a world that’s promoting morality. This is not a world that’s promoting purity— anything but.
In fact, the message in the direction of immorality is increasing in our culture. You know, if you just go back, make a simple comparison— let me just give you one simple comparison. In 1965, there was a very popular television show on called I Dream of Jeannie. I know that some of you have never heard of this, but it’s okay. Just go with me for just a minute.
And this show, I Dream of Jeannie, had this genie on it, okay? She was one of the key actresses on the show and actors. And anyway, the TV censors banned Barbara Eden, this woman, They banned Barbara Eden from revealing her belly button. All right? This is 1965.
They said, you can’t show your belly button. And she was wearing this genie outfit, whatever those are. But anyway, she was wearing this genie outfit which showed kind of her midsection, right? But they wouldn’t— they didn’t allow her to show her belly button. So they had her wear her genie trousers, whatever you call those.
They had her wear her genie trousers over her belly button. Because what? Because what? Well, because you say, well, was it ugly? Was it that ugly?
Is that what it was? That why they didn’t want to see it on television? No, no, because it was inappropriate. Now you contrast— that’s 1965, over 50 years ago. Okay, you contrast that today with what we’re watching on television.
You ever see a belly button? Ever? Are you kidding? See it all the time. Do you watch the show Survivor?
You ever watch Survivor? You know what Survivor is? It’s like an hour-long advertisement for wearing your underwear. That’s what it is. It’s like one long underwear ad.
That’s what this is. People running around in underwear all the time. I mean, don’t they have clothes? Yeah, they got clothes. But they probably spend more time— I mean, from what we see, at least the editing that’s done on the show, it seems like they spend more time, you know, running around in their underwear.
Now you got this show saying 50 years ago, no belly button. This show like, hey, it’s okay. There’s no problem. Do you think there’s been a little bit of change in culture in terms of concern about immorality? Are you kidding?
There’s less concern about immorality. Is pornography a bigger problem today now than ever before? Absolutely. Is sex outside of marriage a bigger problem today than ever before? Absolutely.
Is it even considered wrong by society? You got to wonder. So anybody who decides to not conform to evil desires and to seek holiness instead is in for an up Do you see that?
So if you and I, if you’re a Christ follower, you say, you know what, I want to get this right. I want to put behind me those former evil desires. You’re in for an uphill battle, but this is a battle that we need to win. You say, why? Well, look at the book of James.
James 1:14-15, okay? It’s just the previous book to 1 Peter. But in James 1, this is what James writes. He says, each one, but each one is tempted when? By his own evil desire.
There’s a connection. Each one is tempted by his own evil desire. He is dragged away and enticed. And after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown or full-grown, gives birth to what?
To death. So you go from desire to death. Desire to death. Is that really where we want to go? Is that really where we want to go in our relationship with God?
Is that really where we want to go in our relationship with other people? Is that really where I want to go in my soul? Is that really where I want to go in my mind? Is that really where I want to go? And James is saying, don’t go there.
This is what Peter’s saying. So you got desire here, you got sin, and then you got death. It’s kind of like a downward path. You know, one of the things that if you’re ever thinking about getting married or if you’re married, one of the things that happens in marriage is that you make a commitment to say no to your former life, and you make a commitment to say yes to your spouse for life. So this is an intentional commitment.
It is an intentional commitment to say no to anybody else that might come along during the time that you’re married, anybody else who’s your type. You know what I’m talking about when I say your type? You ever heard that phrase before? You see, all of us kind of have this type, this certain type of person that we are attracted to. A certain look, they have a certain personality, whatever it is.
And every now and then that person, that type can come into our life. We can meet people who can— listen— trigger desire.
Desire isn’t necessarily sinful. It could be. There’s good desires and bad desires. But when those desires are triggered, at that point in time where a desire is triggered, we’ve got to be willing— what we’re hearing here is to say no to unholy desires. If you’re married, this is simple.
I already made a commitment. You see this ring? This ring is a reminder to me that I’m saying no to everybody else and I’m saying yes to one person, my wife. That’s it. That’s to be the reminder.
And essentially, this is what the Apostle Peter is saying here. When you came to Jesus Christ, you made a commitment to put this old life behind you once and for all, and you’re gonna have to continue to put it behind you over and over again. You’re gonna have to continue to say no to evil desires, but it’s a battle that you’ve got to win. Because if you don’t win that battle and you get enticed and drug into sin, it’s ultimately going to result in death. Is that really what you want?
The other side of this is talked about in verses 15 and 16. He says, but just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it’s written, be holy because I’m holy. Verses 15 and 16. So here’s the no— say no to unholy desires.
Here on the other side, he’s saying, and say yes to what? To say yes to personal holiness, to personal holiness. Now, let me ask you a question. Does that sound appealing? I mean, what comes to your mind when you read or hear the word holy?
Like, being holy. Notice that it actually uses the word be. Do you see it there? Be holy. Be holy.
Like God is holy. So it’s focused on being. It’s not focused on doing. It’s focused on being, to the core of your being. See, being is the engine behind the doing.
And he’s saying we need to be holy in the core of our being so that being holy is woven into the fabric of who we are. It’s there. It’s what we want. So when you think of holiness, is that what you want? When you think of holiness, what do you think of?
Do you think of beards and sandals and long robes and, you know, stone cells and no jokes and frequent cold baths? And fasting and hours of prayer? Is that what you think of? Do you think of stuff that’s connected to monks and missionaries and mystics and martyrs? Is that what you think of?
Or do you think of what Peter’s thinking of here? Do you think of God, the one who is holy, the one who the Scripture says is holy, holy, holy? When we think of holiness, do we think of God? Do we think of being set apart, holy unto God? Do we think of being sanctified?
Do we think of think of purity, do we think of without contamination? Do we think of without sin, without evil? Because that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about holy. Remember, the Jewish nation was called a holy nation. They were called a holy people.
They were set apart. God chose them to be set apart so that they might manifest the excellencies of God to the world. And do you remember how Jerusalem was set apart. It was called the— and it’s still called the Holy City. And how Jerusalem has been set apart in God’s plan to have had in the past this wonderful location where God did amazing things.
And even in the future, it’s unique in God’s plan, the city of Jerusalem. And the Bible, by the way, is set apart. It’s why we call the Bible the Holy The Holy Bible, because the Bible is pure and it’s without error and it’s to be revered and it’s to be respected. So much so that if you take a trip to Russia, like I have, and I’ve been ministering with people over there, they’ve taught me, Dave, you don’t take the Bible and ever put it on the floor, because that would be disrespectful to the Holy Bible. It is unique.
It is set apart. It is to be respected.
And what this is telling us is that God is holy and he’s set apart. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you glad that God is set apart, that he’s not like everyone else, and that he’s not like everything else? That God is separate and he’s different and he’s undefiled and he’s blameless and he’s perfect and he’s free of contamination and he is perfectly pure? John talked about this in 1 John 1:5.
He says, this is the message we’ve heard from him and declare to you: God is light, And in him there is no, no darkness at all, no darkness.
What is true of him is what he wants to be true of his followers. He wants us to become what we already are. And what are we? You’re going to see this in chapter 2 of 1 Peter, chapter 2 and verse 9, where Peter points this out. He says, but you, you, you Christ followers, you are a chosen people.
You are a royal priesthood. You are a— what? A holy nation. He’s not talking about the Jews. He’s talking about you.
He’s talking about me. If we’re a Christ follower, we are a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that we may declare that we are lives, that we may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. I love that word declare, don’t you? That God wants his holiness to be declared through us, that he wants us to be being about being holy.
And he gives us the why. Do you see the why there? You know, oftentimes a mom, a dad, a friend, spouse, they ask you to do something. It’s something you don’t want to do, and so you say, why? Why should I do that?
What’s the last answer you want to hear? Oh, because I said so. That’s the one you don’t want to hear, right? Why should I make my bed? Well, because I said so.
Why should I clean up my room? Well, because I said so. Take the trash out. Why? Because I said so.
Put on the sweater. Why? Because I said so. Whatever. You got the why here.
Do you see the why? Because— do you see the because?
Because God’s holy, and that’s enough.
We don’t need any more motivation than that as children of God. Because God’s holy. And because God’s holy, we need to be holy. That’s all the motivation we need. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, it’s God’s will that you should be sanctified, that you should be holy.
That you should avoid sexual immorality? Do you believe that? The sexual immorality is sex before marriage and after marriage, outside of marriage. What am I saying? With somebody else.
You get what I’m saying. Do not mess that up, Dave. Okay, let’s get that right. But anyway, avoid sexual immorality. In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5:22 says, avoid every kind of evil.
That’s an interesting verse. Avoid even the appearance of evil. Why should I avoid the appearance of evil? Why should I avoid every kind of evil? I had a guy come up to me at a singles conference up in Buffalo, New York.
I was speaking there for them. At one of the breaks, he came up and he said, hey, let me just tell you my story. I’m in a relationship with this wonderful girl. We love each other. We’re not yet to the point where we’re going to commit to get married, but we hope maybe marriage will be in the future.
We live about an hour apart, and so on the weekends I travel to see her, and when I go there, I usually stay in her home for the weekend. He said, do you think that’s okay? I said, well, I think you ought to be thinking about it in light of 1 Thessalonians 5:22 where it says avoid every kind of evil, even the appearance of evil. Because you see, God wants His holiness to be declared through you. This isn’t about, it’s going to cost me more money.
This is about God’s holiness. It’s about counting the cost as a disciple of Jesus Christ to be a person who says no to evil desires and yes to declaring his holiness. Now, should that be of concern to us? Does the rest of the world need to see the holiness of God? Did you see the news this week about the Starbucks fiasco?
Did you follow that story where 10 days ago a female employee in Philadelphia Starbucks called the police to report 2 African-American men who were refusing to make a purchase or leave after they had been told they could not use the restroom? So this arrest was captured on a cell phone video, then it was posted online, and that resulted in public outcry across the nation. But it also led to the CEO, Kevin Johnson, immediately making a trip from Seattle to Philadelphia so he could meet with the men that were arrested and apologize to them for what he called reprehensible behavior on the part of one of the Starbucks employees. He also then— the CEO also then sent a letter to the Starbucks partners and customers, and in part in this letter said this: I am writing to reassure you that Starbucks stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling.
In fact, in the days that followed, Starbucks now has gone on record and they’ve announced the fact that they’re going to close 8,000 of their stores next month for an afternoon to do training with their 175,000 employees on the matter of racial bias. Now, why is Starbucks doing that? What are they saying by doing that? What they’re saying is, is we want the world to know that what happened in this store in Philadelphia in no way represents the people that we are, that in no way represents the culture that we want to project, that in no way represents the business that we’re trying to have here. That employee did not represent us well.
Now, whether or not Starbucks ever recovers from this incident, I have no idea. We’re going to have to, you know, see how this all plays out. But one thing is for sure, what happened to them did not help their cause and it did not help their business.
Friends, do you see the application here? As followers of Jesus Christ, we’re members of God’s family, and there’s a lot more at stake than just what people think about Starbucks. There really is.
We are representing God himself. As members of his family, we are representing God himself. And God wants to be known to this world as holy. In fact, the world needs to see that he is holy. They need to be absolutely convinced that he is holy.
They need to fall under conviction because they’re not holy, so that we would then turn in desperation to the God who can save us and ask him to come into our lives and change us into the people that he longs for us to be. This is not something to mess around with any more than what Starbucks has gone through is something to just dismiss. Oh, it’ll all work out. Are you kidding me? This represents our business.
This represents our God. A.W. Tozer said it this way: The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him.
We need to get other people’s view up. We need to get out of the dirt and onto our God who is worthy because our God is holy and our world desperately needs to see Christ followers who are seeking to live holy lives. Don’t you agree?
So here’s the deal. Peter is saying we need to say no We need to say no to unholy desires. We need to say no to that former life. We need to say no, that was all of— all of that was in the past. And we need to say yes to personal holiness.
And when we don’t, when we don’t, the wonderful news is, is there’s cleansing, there’s forgiveness, there’s grace. 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, God’s faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. See, the time to act isn’t 5 weeks from now. The time to act is now. When we have walked away from holiness for evil desires, the time to act, the time to admit, to confess, Lord, I am not walking in the light.
Is now. And I love what 2 Timothy says. 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 20 to 22. It says, in a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. And some of these articles are for noble purposes and some for ignoble purposes.
But if a man cleanses himself from the latter, from those dirty dishes or ignoble purposes, if a man cleanses himself from the latter, a woman cleanses herself from the latter, Look at this. He will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master, and prepared to do any good work. Isn’t that good news? God wants to use us. He wants to use us in this world to declare His holiness to a world that so desperately needs Jesus Christ.
He wants us to be instruments that are used. But if we’re dirty dishes, he’s not going to use us any more than we would use a dirty dish.
He’s going to choose to use instruments of righteousness. So he says, so flee the evil desires of youth. There it is again, evil desires. Flee the evil desires of youth. Say no to unholy desires and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord.
Out of a pure heart. Make an intentional shift. And when you don’t get it right, know that if you confess, God will cleanse you of your unrighteousness.
But you need to be a part of this cleansing, that you need to be making a decision to cleanse yourself, he says, from the latter. Billy Graham, after a very successful revival, was once asked this question. He said, do you do any healing? Dr. Graham, is what just happened here revival? Is that revival?
And Dr. Graham said this. He said, no. When revival comes, I expect to see 2 things which we have not yet seen. First, a new sense of the holiness of God on the part of Christians. A new sense of the holiness of God.
And second, a new sense of the sinfulness of sin. On the part of Christians. Hey, we want to see revival in the Silicon Valley. We want to see revival at Bridges Community Church. You want to see revival around the world.
You just want to see great impact for God. It all comes down to what he’s talking about here. It’s a willingness to say no to unholy desires and a willingness to say yes to personal holiness.
This week, did you hear about the Southwest Flight 1380 that was flying from New York to Dallas with 144 souls on board?
And you know, if you followed this report, that there was a mid-flight engine failure that shot debris through a window, broke this window out, resulted in a loss of cabin pressure and also loss of a woman’s life. This flight began like every other flight. It had a pre-safety briefing, a pre-safety briefing that many of us sitting in this room have heard, yet we’ve not heard. Umpteen times. And what’s the point of the briefing?
Well, the point of the briefing is that if there’s an emergency, if there’s a harrowing experience, a harrowing emergency that hits the flight, then you know what to do. And you do it immediately. And you do it properly. Now, look at this photo.
What does this tell you?
Well, it tells you, first of all, the oxygen masks dropped. That’s good. This is from the flight. But it also tells you that evidently these people we could see in the picture, they have the oxygen mask on, they didn’t hear the briefing.
A briefing that they probably heard time and time and time again. Because if they would have heard the briefing, they would know that you got to get your oxygen mask not only over your mouth but over your nose. It’s the proper way to wear the mask.
And what’s amazing is that there were 143 other passengers on this flight that survived. They were fortunate to come out of the ordeal alive because it took 6 minutes for the pilot to get the plane to an altitude where people could breathe.
When I was thinking about this talk this morning, I said, you know, we’ve heard this talk over and over and over and over. And for some of us, it’s just like, oh, yeah, I know that one. I mean, I’ll just close up my Bible right now. I know where we’re going with this thing, right? I got other things to do.
I got a list to work on.
They didn’t get it. And I feel like God wants to say to us, Friends, this is for your safety. This is for the safety of everyone.
Don’t ignore what it is I’m trying to communicate to you here. I’m trying to help you realize that holiness— holiness is something that God longs for, and holiness is absolutely something that we need. And holiness is something that this world desperately needs to see through us.
Let’s pray. God, thanks for giving us the opportunity to talk about this subject today, one that sure connects with where we are, one that many of us have, like, heard before many times— say no to sin and yes to holiness.
But, God, may we get it. Even when we don’t live it, may we get it. May it convict us. May it save us from evil desires. Give us a new life.
May your transforming work of the Holy Spirit change us. We recognize that we can’t do this alone. Help us start there, that if it’s not for a relationship with you, we’re destined to fail in this matter of holiness. But you’ve made it possible through your Son for us to be connected to you now and forever, and we thank you for that, Lord. And our prayer is that everybody here through Christ has found salvation.
And if they haven’t, may this be the day of salvation for them. May they just admit they can’t do it. That may they be at a point where they don’t want to do it anymore. May they no longer live an idolatrous life. Where it’s about everything else but not you, where it’s about themselves but not you.
And Lord, may they turn to you for salvation, for grace, for the gift of life in you. And then Lord, having turned to you, would you help us not continue to turn back to evil desires, to the old life? Would you help us truly believe that this new life is just that, it’s life.
And to say no to unholy desires and yes to personal holiness. Or however that works out in us, or maybe it’s just the reaffirmation, recommitment. Lord, give us the strength to fight this battle with the world that so often is going in the opposite direction. And then may it be to your glory, may it be for our good, and may it be for the good of the world that so desperately needs to see you’re a holy God.
We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
