THE CHURCH IS HOLY

THE CHURCH IS HOLY

Deuteronomy 7:1-11; I Peter 2:4-12

Dr. Wm. J. Maxwell

First Presbyterian Church, Newport, RI

July 16, 2006

This morning, we consider the nature of the holiness of the Church. The Bible and the great creeds of the Church speak of the Church as being “holy.” For example, the Nicene Creed, which we’ve affirmed this morning, states our belief in the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”

But even as we affirm this, we may well be wondering how the Church can be holy when the Church is a fellowship of sinners! In fact, one of the requirements of admission into the Church is that each of its members admit to being a sinner in need of a Savior! What then does it mean to say that we believe the Church to be holy?

OUR PASSAGE FOR THIS MORNING.

In our passage, the apostle Peter addresses this very topic. Referring to the Church in metaphorical terms, he speaks of the Church as living stones being built together, with the cornerstone of this spiritual house being “the living Stone,” our Lord Jesus Christ.

The apostle also speaks of what we call “the priesthood of all believers.” We are “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

In verse 9, Peter describes the nature and witness of the Church again: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

Here, he’s relying on Old Testament phrases, deliberately borrowing from the language of such passages as Exodus 19:6 and Deuteronomy 7:6. The great promises which God had made formerly to His people Israel are now being fulfilled to the Church, which is the new Israel, “the Israel of God.” [i]

Today, the Church is “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” But again we ask, how is the Church “a holy nation”?

WE CAN SAY THE CHURCH IS HOLY

IN THE NATURE OF ITS CALLING FROM GOD.

The whole idea of calling or vocation is found in the biblical word that we translate today as the word “church.” It’s the Greek word ekklesia. It has the prefix ek, meaning “out of.” It also has the word, kaleo, meaning “to call.” So together, the word means “that which is called out of something.” In reference to the Church, it means a company of people who have been called out of the world and who’ve been set apart for God. They are thus a people “belonging to God.”

In the Old Testament, we find that God called a people out of slavery in Egypt to be His people. In amazing ways, God worked mightily to redeem and save them. But having saved and having freed them from slavery, He gave them a unique calling as God’s people. They were to be set apart from the culture they had left, and they were to be different from the culture in which they would soon be living. He made it quite clear to them in saying, “I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” [ii]

The constant pressure upon the nation of Israel was conformity to the ways of the culture around them. The very same is true of the Church today. The Church is called to a different kind of walk, a different kind of lifestyle, than that of the world.

In fact, the word “holy” means “to be set apart,” or “to be different and distinct from others.” It has the sense of belonging to God and living in ways that reflect His character, instead of conforming to the corrupt morals of a society that has turned its back on God.

I am a child of the ‘60’s, when some people touted about the phrase of being “counter-cultural.” Unfortunately, this was often used in a negative sense. But in a most positive sense, in reflecting the nature and character of God in our lives, we are called by God to be “counter-cultural.”

In writing to the Church in Rome, Paul counsels them and us in these words:

Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will. [iii]

Eugene Peterson puts it this way in his paraphrased version, The Message:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. [iv]

This call to holiness, in conforming to God’s will and not to that of the culture, is as relevant today as it was in 1^st century Rome. It’s a call to each and every Christian and to all the Church to be sober, awake and alert.

It is a call to be diligent in following the God of the Word and the Word of God in the context of a culture that doesn’t always make it easy for us.

It’s a call to each Christian and to all the Church not to become like the world in its attempt to reach the world, because in doing so, we may well lose some of the very distinctives that make a Christian a Christian!

It’s a call to each Christian and to all the Church not to lose its unique spiritual, moral and ethical compass in a world that has no such compass, and which is paying dearly for this very fact.

Here, I think so often of Lewis Carroll’s classic work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and a very interesting dialogue that takes place. It occurs between Alice and a very intriguing figure, the Cheshire Cat.

Alice begins by asking directions. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat in reply. “I don’t much care where,” said Alice. “Then, it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. [v]

Dear friends, we must know that for Alice - and for all of us – it makes a huge difference which way we go and whom we follow.

Our text for this morning reminds us that the way of holiness is the way for us to go, as the Church follows Jesus Christ. For we are a “holy nation, a people belonging to God.” In place of conformity to culture, may there then instead be conformity to Christ, who truly is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”