Holiness in a Changing World

Welcome to Sunrise Community Church. We are so glad that you're here with us today to spend some time worshiping together. And if you're with us for the first time, or you've never filled one out, please go on our website to sunrise dot church slash welcome and fill out the welcome communication card.

Yeah, we have continued our online presence with the back shed Bible study. Pastors live in Luke Miller podcast, so make sure you join their but happening in person. We also have youth group on Wednesdays now as well to join.

We've been having a lot of fun and we hope you come and connect with us. I am so excited that youth has started up again on Wednesday night, and we are so looking forward to kids classes being able to start up again on Sundays.

Also, we're shooting for a date in July. And parents, you will be getting some emails home about that in the next couple weeks. We're just really looking forward to being with your kids again. And, you know, speaking of how things were moving forward, we do want to thank you, everybody, for the way you've continued to generously give to the ministry here at Sunrise Community Church.

And this morning you're going to see a slide come up that's going to show you some different ways that you can give. And we just thank you for that. Yeah. And right now we just want to pray for our tithes and offerings as we receive them this morning.

So let's bow our heads and pray. God, we thank you for the gift of generosity and how you use that, Teoh. Just impact people. And so we say, have your way with today. And thank you for another Sunday where we get to connect together, whether it be online or in person.

God, would you do what only you can do on this Sunday in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Now we just like to invite you to enjoy this music, to worship together. Have a great morning. I raised Holly in the presence of my enemies.

Mhm. I'm Lisa. That would be unbelief, Please. My weapon is a melody. I raise a holly e. I reason e watch darkness, please. Mr. Crazy. Yeah, Yeah. Single little little love. A little single single in the front.

I'm not gonna be a little louder. Love it E e raised always right Lord bless you. Hang keep you make his face shine upon and be gracious Thio Lord done is face told you give you peace e o give you 1000 generations Your family, your Children Yes, Way Way Yeah.

Hello and welcome to sunrise. I am so glad that you are able to join us on this very special day. Can you guess what day it ISS Have I given you? A big enough hint A very special happy candidate data All our all of our Canadians that are out there in our congregation on Hopefully you're gonna have ah, great barbecue and spend time with friends today and reminisce about all the great hockey games that you've watched over the years.

At least that's what I'm going to be doing. And don't worry. Next week, Uh, next week is Independence Day, and we get to celebrate this and let me tell you, for you as a congregation, you really need to embrace this.

Because if you embrace candidate and get the barbecue that day, and then barbecues and everything that goes along with Independence Day, you're getting the full meal deal all in one week. And so that's just my promo.

I guess for this on how I've decided to come where this attire today. But I'm glad you're able to join us. And it's a great day, not just because of that of what we're celebrating. It's a great day because we're celebrating.

Being together on that means whether we're in person, whether it means we're online, whatever it is were that larger community, that larger body of Christ. And I'm so glad that you're able to be a part of it.

Last week you gotta break or an intermission and you took, uh, took a break from Hey, guy and Pastor Cliff was preaching, and we're jumping right back into Hey, guy head guy this week and we're gonna be talking to Boot Holiness and as you as you take your Bibles, you could turn to, uh, Chapter two we're gonna be reading from versus 10 to 14.

We've been going through this bit by bit and seeing what it means for God's people to follow God in the midst of restart or the term that we've been using a lot at sunrise, which is relaunching on for the people of Israel.

They waited a lot longer than we've waited to get back together. Yet they're asking, Ah, lot of the questions that we're asking right now. And last time we talked about what it means for us to give God the glory in wherever he leads us, something that is often difficult because often we find ourselves being put in a place where, uh, being put in a place where we want something and we want, in this case church toe, look like something.

Or we want our own lives to look like something. But if God leads us in a different direction, do we realize that if we go where God is leading us, then it's gonna be better than anything that we could have ever thought of and and giving God the glory in.

That is something that is so important. And it's something that the people of Israel forgot to do. Now, today we're talking about keeping it holy and what that means for us and and being wholly in in a world that often it is somewhat tough toe be holy in and and be a Christ follower in and and So I want to talk about that today on If you've got your Bibles, you can follow along.

And it's some interesting questions that get asked your two key questions that get asked you and we're going to take it apart bit by bit and see what this means for us. So hey guy. Chapter two versus 10 through 14 On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the Prophet Haggai.

This is what the Lord Almighty says. Ask the priests what the law says. If someone carries consecrated, meet in the fold of their garment and that full touches some bread or stew or some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated? The priests answered.

No. Then hang, I said, If a person defiled by contact with the dead body touches one of thes things, does it become defiled? Yes, the priest replied. It becomes defiled. Then, Haig, I said. So it is with this people and this nation in my sight, declares the Lord, Whatever they do and whatever they offer, there is defiled.

This is Ah, very interesting passage and Often we think about it being about food law, which is something that is is very important to the people of Israel and more so that that God gets Haggai to call the priest together and and ask them some questions.

Now, historically, if God is calling the priest to the carpet, it's not really a good scenario. And he asked two questions. One that is the answer is yes and one that the answer is no. And it's in many ways reflects E.

I guess you could say Jesus is teaching reflects a lot of what's going on here. When he talks to the Pharisees, he often asked them questions about the law, allowing them to answer and allowing the own their own conclusions to bring about the proper teaching and come into alignment with what Jesus is teaching, whether they like it or not.

Now, this is the sixth sermon from Hey guy that we've been looking at. And Verse 10 establishes that this is the third sermon that the remnant of the Israel has heard from Hey guy. So they have heard three sermons you've heard six sermons on Hey guy, I'm sorry.

Hey, guy just preaches a lot shorter. I guess that is. But But we've got our We've got our third sermon and third really speech from Hey guy! And this message was preached two months after the previous sermon.

So two weeks have passed for us since we talked about the last sermon. Two months have passed in the time of the people of Israel in Hey guy, where this is preached and the people have started working again.

And verse indicates that this is the day the foundation of the Lord's Temple was late, and this becomes a teachable moment. And there's something here that's really important for us to realize about how God teaches us and uses teachable moments and moments where we've struggled to help us grow to help us be holy, to help us follow him.

And so when we look at this well, well, God stirred them to get toe work on the physical aspects of the temple. Now he's concerned about what's going on in their spiritual lives, right? He's saying, I worked so hard to get you going on building my temple, but are you even going to know what to do once you get there? How's your heart.

How How is your relationship with me? Are you doing all the things that you're supposed to do that I have commanded you to? Dio and I say this because it's probably easy for us to do the same thing as well, isn't it? It's probably easy for us to be so excited about getting back as a community, and once we're there, we have to be ready to look and continue toe work on on our heart, on a relationship with Jesus and in all the excitement, sometimes that goes by the wayside and the excitement to see people in person to say it another way.

It's easy to focus on the external while ignoring the internal. The people have thought that since they were serving, it must they must be okay spiritually because they were doing what God said physically that spiritually, they must be okay too.

Yet there in lies the problem. They're constructing the temple, but not much has changed in their circumstances, and they're having a problem with that. God, We saw and heard what you wanted us to do, and now we're doing it.

But our circumstances in life are kind of the same, and that's something very important for us. Toe take a look at. Since they were doing what God wanted them to do, they expected all of their problems to go away.

They started wondering if it was worth it to obey God because their problems in life were still there, even though they were doing what God was calling them to do. And actually, as we take a look at this in verse 10, we see again that term.

Thus, says the Lord, and we see that it is in this case, the word of the Lord came toe Haggai the prophet. This is another way. That's what stated in Chapter one, verses 13. It stated again in Chapter two verse one of this Haggai being that direct messenger of the Lord, coming to speak truth into the people's lives, telling them to get right and listening to God, but telling them to get right in their relationship with him as well, and realize that that as God leads them, their problems aren't going to just disappear.

In fact, next week we're going to talk about the blessings that God promises. But even despite blessings that God promises doesn't mean that the problems go away. It's something that we often think should in verse 11.

God reminds them just who he is. Thus, says the Lord of hosts, the name Jehovah or Yahweh as we pronounce it. It's such a powerful name that we don't even mention it when we read Ah, Hebrew Scripture.

Whenever we see the personal name of God, we just simply say adenine. ItT's got such reverence that comes with it. It doesn't matter where Ugo or to study. If you come across the personal name of God and you try and pronounce it, however you wish you'll get reamed out by your teacher because that's the personal name of God.

That needs to be, uh, that that carries such reverence with it. This is the personal name of God being used by hair guy. As God delivers this message to them, it's the way of letting him know he's serious.

He means business about what he's asking them. After reminding them of who he is, he gives them an assignment, asked the priests about the law, see what they're up to. This was one of the purposes of the priesthood, according toa Maliki Chapter two, Verse seven for the Lips of the Priests should guard knowledge and should seek people on and should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of Hosts.

With this in mind, God tells the people to go get the priests, uh, with with two questions and these questions air bit odd for us, and you're probably wondering, how on earth does this have to do with anything that we're dealing with now as it deals with food law or it appears to deal with food law.

But what it is is about actually following God and remaining holy by following him. Let's take a look at the first two questions and see what they have for us. The first question is found in Verse 12.

If someone carries Holy, Meet uh, in the fold of the garment and touch of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? Here's the response.

To repeat, the priest answered simply, no meet that was wholly was consecrated and set apart for offerings. It was common for people to wrap it up in the fabric of their garments and keep it separated from ordinary food.

And that's why this question is asked. And so secondly, the second question is found in Verse 13. If someone who is unclean by contact with the dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priests give their answer.

It does become unclean. And this is because of the passage that they know and would have learned from numbers Chapter 19 in the law, which whoever touches a dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

God is asking these two questions for purpose, not about food law. But food law is so important to them that they have that when God draws their attention to this and they see the true purpose of why God is asking this, they can realize just exactly what's going on.

God is pointing out the sin and pervasiveness that happens because of sin. Really, what is being said here is hanging out with the holy person does not make you holy, but hanging out with an unholy person can make you unholy.

Do you get that? This is what he's saying with food except this is the message that he's saying as faras following him and not following him. If you hang out with the holy person, it's not going to make you unholy.

But if you hang out with an unholy person, thank God is saying you better believe that it's gonna make you unholy Good things don't automatically make other things good, But bad things make other things bad.

That means that being wholly requires being intentional, it requires effort. Where is being unholy? Requires no effort whatsoever. After hearing these two questions, we arrive at verse 14. So it is with this people and this nation before me declares the Lord.

And so, with every work of their hands and what they offer, there is unclean God's pointing toe what it means for them to be unholy, but also ah, call to be united in moving together forward in a way which they are able to become holy.

Its's almost this early version of discipleship as he's calling them together as a community to grow as individuals to allow the community to support each other as they walk forward to become holy. There's strength in numbers, but our relationship with Jesus is that that's individual.

But that doesn't negate what it means for us to act, how we should act as a community. So you've probably noticed that, yes, I'm wearing a hockey jersey. And yes, it is a Canadian hockey jersey, and this is from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

And anybody who is a Canadian knows what happened at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. In fact, they know exactly where they were during the hockey game, where we see and referred to as the Golden Goal.

It was. It was an example of a nation coming together, and you think that TV ratings air high. This was the gold medal game for hockey. And if there's one thing that Canada needs toe win at its hockey, it's a source of pride, whatever it may be.

And, uh, and And we were playing in the gold medal game and on home turf, and at one point during that game, it went. So it went into overtime. And during overtime, they say that 85 to 90% of the entire nation was watching that game.

Think about that in sheer numbers, 85 to 90% of that of the entire nation was watching this one hockey game. And in fact, I challenge you that if you ask a Canadian, if you're sitting with a Canadian, they would probably be able to tell you where they were when the Golden goal was scored.

And if they are an older Canadian, they'll even be able to tell you where the great goal of the 1972 Russia Siris was scored. We're fairly passionate about hockey. You'll get to know it, and there'll be a few references and sermons ahead.

But I think of this sheer number. The sheer number of people focused on one thing, and we put that into the context of church. Shouldn't church be all of us focusing on God? Whether we're just walking in the doors for the first time and asking about who God is and just have questions about who Jesus is, shouldn't church me a place where we're allowed Thio ask questions openly about who Jesus is to wrestle with questions about who Jesus.

But even us wrestling with questions about who God is is still us moving closer to God. It doesn't matter if you're walking in the doors and you've been there for your going there for the first time. Or you're watching online for the first or second time and you're hearing about Jesus.

It's all right to ask those questions versus a church. It's important that we focus all of our attention on moving closer to Jesus, being disciple and disciple, ing others keeping it holy. And it sounds so cliche of just keep holy.

But Holiness is that pursuit of following God and following God where he calls us to go. Sin can lead to a anabel anche of disobedience. Sin leads to ruptured relationships in our lives, and God wants holy hearts more than sacrificial service.

God wants us to follow him passionately more than just simply serve. And that's where hey, guy is delivering a message to the people who don't quite get it. They're going through the motions. You gotta saying I won more of your heart.

I want more of that relationship, not just going through the motions because I told you to build a temple. Now you build a temple. I want you to imagine and be excited about what is gonna happen once it's completed and what worship looks like the Lord of Hosts tells us what he's looking for in uh in Joseon.

Chapter six, Verse six, for I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. God's telling the people in Joseon he's telling the people in Hey, guy, you got to check yourself and see what's going on in your life.

I'm so excited for us to be moving forward, and each week there's something new. There's something new about the relaunch or the restart, and there's always new information about what's happening and a new components of things being live in church.

And it's again exciting for all of this to happen. But as we look at our relaunch team is, we look at the pastoral team is we look at the people have been putting it together. Their purpose is not just simply so that we can see each other their purposes so that we can see each other and go forward together, focused on God and being disciples.

God is telling us this God wants your heart because if he has your heart, he has every part of your life. Proverbs four versus 23 says. Keep your heart with all the vigilance for for from it from From it flow the springs of life wholly begins in the heart outward rituals are never enough because God is all about that relationship that stems from Revere ing him.

The pursuit of holiness does not occupy a space in our hearts is it probably should. And there's several reasons for that. Uh, it's very easy whether we we have a passion for God or not. Whether whether we don't want to make it a passion in our lives, there's a There's a quote that I love, um, by an author that is probably my favorite author.

And he's he's actually was the youth pastor for our regional minister offensive Saskatchewan, but is a great biblical scholar on now. I've been trying to get convinced our regional minister appear to come, uh, to get him to come to our regional meetings.

And I would be, ah, big fan boy in the front, with all the books stacked up high, getting them ready toe design, all my books on Greek exit, Jesus and all of this stuff. But he's got this great quote that I love, and it's all about Holiness.

And it's all about what this looks like for us, and I hope you're you're challenged by it. It says people do not drift towards Holiness. Apart from grace driven, uh, grace driven effort, people do not gravitate towards godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith and delight in the Lord.

In fact, we drift towards compromise and call it tolerance. We drift towards disobedience and call it freedom. We drift towards superstition and call it faith. We cherish and discipline of lost self control and call it Relax, ation.

We slouch towards prayer listening and delude ourselves into thinking that we've escaped legalism. We slide towards godlessness and conceive ourselves. We have been liberated. What he's saying is, is that Holiness, and moving closer to God requires us to be intentional.

It requires work because it's so easy to drift the other way. And the message of the food law is just that. Hanging out with someone holy is not gonna make you holy. But hanging out with someone unholy is going to cause you to shift that direction.

We don't drift towards Holiness. We've got to be intentional boat intentional about moving that direction, we drift towards compromise we drift towards disobedience we cherish in discipline and self control.

We need to be able to intentionally ggo in that direction a following god in prayer, in godliness, in faith. That's what God is calling us to do to check in with ourselves in a relationship with him and say It's not about the actions, it's about this relationship.

And so as we give glory to God like we talked about last week and we move from Haggai into, uh, into this section here, which tells us to check our hearts next week, it builds into that saying, If you give God the glory, if you check your hearts, then blessings come, we're going to talk.

About what? That ISS. But we're going to stop there. For now. Andi and I just want to say that if you've got questions about this, if you're struggling with this about drifting that wrong direction, I've been, please contact us, Andres several ways in which you can do that.

The number one way right now is is just through our online contact form and right on our website at sunrise dot church. We've got places where you can ask for prayer. It and in places where you could just inquire with questions.

If you feel yourself drifting away from holiness drifting away from faith, drifting away from delight in the Lord, you feel like you've been just going through the monotony of routine. And that's what Your Christ, what it means for you to be a Christ follower right now rather than a relation all thing than reach out.

And we want to help guide you and help partner with you and come alongside you in that role of you becoming a disciple. While our own Christian faith is individual with him, our role is a church is come along, coming along, us coming along Each of us as we are able to help each other grow and be intentional about moving towards holiness following God and seeing the blessings that come from Let's pray.

God, I thank you for today. I thank you that we can come together and and celebrate who you are, but also be challenged about where our hearts are where our relationship is. Are we drift? Are we intentionally moving towards you? Are we drifting unintentionally away from you? God help us to be that community that comes along inside each other, whether it is in person or it's our online community.

Help us grow together. Help us to come alongside those who are struggling. Help us toe. Be willing to wrestle with those questions openly about who you are and deal with those struggles openly about our walk with you.

Let us be a church in the people that could be vulnerable with each other and share where we need help so that we could be intentional in moving forward. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for what we've done or what you've done in our lives.

And we just pray these things all in your amazing name. Amen. I want to thank you for joining us, and I hope you're enjoying this. Siri's. I know I am. Uh, please make sure you catch some of the things that are going on this week from back shed Bible study tomorrow are on Mondays to pastors live where you get all the updates on on what's going on with relaunch to our podcast.

That's happening Thursday as a way to really bring us into the weekend. There's so many things that we're doing even as we get ready and we're already starting to bring things back onto campus, we're keeping our online community going because we realized that this has had such a great impact.

It has been such a blessing to so many people, and we love seeing our community grow even just in the online realm. And so we're so excited for some of the things that are going on. Take care, have a great week, have a happy candidate, a toe are Canadians.

I will see you next week on Independence Day or the day after Independent State.