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One of the foundational principles of the church, as far as identifying what we do as the church, comes from Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” This simple statement indicates that the early church focused its attention on four elements: God’s Word, each other, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer. In that devotion, the early church revealed the new life that Jesus brought and that they had received through the faith in Jesus.

How did they demonstrate their devotion to these elements? The next few verses (Acts 2:43-47) describe the life of the early church in Jerusalem, telling us that they shared their possessions with each other and spent time together, both in the temple courts and in their homes. These verses tell us that their times of worshiping God and serving others were obvious to the people around them and rewarded by God; Acts 2:47 says, “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

From their example we ought to understand better both Jesus’ purpose and our purpose as his followers. Throughout the current sermon series following John’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry, I have consistently called back to Jesus’ identity and purpose found in John 1:4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Jesus brought new life that was intended to draw people to God; so we, the church, Jesus’ followers who have received that new life share it so that others might also find, receive, and live that new life.

Simply, new life is shared life. As individuals accepted the message that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who died on the cross to forgive our sins and who rose again to give us new life with God, both now and into eternity, they received that new life and began living that new life. As they lived their new life, they grew closer to others who put their faith in Jesus, demonstrating God’s love for us in their actions towards their new brothers and sisters in Christ. As they lived their new life together, others on the outside witnessed their love for each other, and as others were drawn to that new life by the “light” of Jesus, the early church told them the message they themselves had heard, believed, and accepted. As God shared new life through Jesus, the church shares new life through Jesus, and God makes the church grow.

So when we consider “church growth,” our focus must be on sharing the new life we have in Jesus. Devotion to the Word of God keeps us grounded in the truth of what that new life is, how that new life was provided, and how that new life is lived. Devotion to the Lord’s Supper reminds us each week of the new life God provided through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, of our purpose to proclaim the Good News about that love and sacrifice, and of our participation in that sacrifice when we received that new life in our own personal death, burial, and resurrection in baptism. Devotion to prayer keeps us going to the One who provides that new life, thanking God for what he has provided and seeking constant refreshing. Devotion to each other demonstrates God’s love for us as we love others, showing that new life is shared life.

With all of that in mind, we must not restrict sharing that new life to the time we spend in our building. Yes, the early church met in the temple courts, but they met in their homes as well. Yes, the early church was devoted to traditional times of worship and prayer, but they also met every day and shared in everyday circumstances.

The new life the early church received from Jesus changed everything about their lives. It couldn’t be restricted to a specific time or place. It couldn’t be couldn’t be contained within them or among them. It had to be shared – it has to be shared.

“In the beginning,” God made people, giving them life, the means for living, and even purpose for living. David tells us that mankind is the crown of creation – “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5, NIV 1984) – echoing through the rest of the psalm what God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28:

“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (NIV 1984)

Solomon tells us more about the purpose of human life in Ecclesiastes 12:13:

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. (NIV 1984)

Ultimately, from the beginning, people were made to worship God – obeying him, honoring him, and serving him, even as we live out daily life as stewards of God’s creation.

Yet, from the beginning, people wanted more. Genesis 3:6 tells us where the trouble began:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (NIV 1984)

From the beginning, people have been looking for the good things of life – things that are pleasing physically, aesthetically, intellectually, and spiritually – but they have been looking for them to the exclusion of God.

Since the beginning, then, people have experienced the consequences of living life without God – fear, lies, death, separation, and all the tragically related troubles of life – in a word, sin. While sin is the cause of the trouble, it continues to exacerbate the problem by prompting people to pursue more sinful “solutions” as they continue to look for new life in everything and everyone – except God, who not only desires to solve this problem but has done so through Jesus.

This is the condition of the world that Jesus describes:

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19, NIV 1984)

Here Jesus explains how sinful people tend to stay in sin, even when a new way of living has been revealed. In the current series of Sunday morning messages through the Gospel of John, we have gone back several times to the foundational thought that Jesus came to bring new life in John 1:4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (NIV 1984). Through John’s account, we have seen over and over again how Jesus lived his life giving us signs of the new life that God offers and how following Jesus both enables and requires us to share the new life we have found in Jesus.

Since the people around us – in our families, in our community, in our world – are looking desperately for new life, we need to show them new life, and we must show them that it comes from God alone through faith in Jesus, who said in John 14:6, 7:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (NIV 1984)

The simple fact is that people are looking for new life, but they purposefully try to avoid God. So we need to show that new life in our own lives, that they might see what we have and – like Eve – see it as something truly beautiful and satisfying and then turn to God who will give them new life. That doesn’t mean we need to put on a good show, whether in our everyday lives or on Sunday mornings; it means we need to fully trust God, regardless of the lousy circumstances of our lives and despite the temptation to try something new. God has given us new life; let’s give the world a taste.

As has been my habit for the last several years, I’m starting the new year with a yearlong theme: new life. Maybe the past two years have prompted me to think in that direction. In 2020, with the COVID pandemic throwing every aspect of our lives into chaos, many of us often found ourselves longing for things to “get back to normal.” However, 2021 threw us for another loop; while there were many areas of our lives where things seemed more like they used to be, life really hasn’t been the same.

That’s the trouble with nostalgia; it often paints the past with a brighter brush than is factual. When we appeal to the past, we most often cherry pick the parts that we liked and perhaps even polish those parts that were less than brilliant. The factual reality that nostalgia often covers up is that life has never really been the way we think it was “back then,” no matter how far back you want to go; life is always changing. So we accept the challenge to make life what we want it to be, at the very least to address the concerns, problems, challenges of everyday life – whether that’s today’s needs, yesterday’s bills, or next week’s uncertainty – and survive.

While we might be satisfied just to survive from one moment to the next, simply because some days that’s not always certain, Jesus offers more. Jesus told his followers: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, NIV 1984). In that passage, Jesus said that there is a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Our enemy Satan has stolen the life that God intended for us to have, and now we live as slaves to sin. Jesus offers a full life, an abundant life, ultimately, a new life. Jesus offers to replace what was stolen with something new, something better.

Paul tells us that this new life with Jesus starts when we die to the old life. He writes in Romans 6:4: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (NIV 1984). Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose again to offer new life, and if we trust him and join with him, by God’s grace we can live that new life. This is the Good News of the Gospel: new life out of death.

Throughout Romans 6, Paul tells us about different aspects of this new life. In verses 1-3, he describes dying to sin, no longer living in it. In verse 5, he says that we will experience Jesus’ resurrection. Verse 6 describes how the old self dies, making way for the new self. Verse 7 goes on to tell us this is about being freed from slavery to sin. The new life we find in Jesus comes with a new mind, a new identity, a new way of living, a new way of using our bodies.

With all this newness, it’s no wonder so many of us continue to struggle even after we put our faith in Jesus. I don’t know what it was like for you, but when I came up out of the water in my baptism, I had at least some expectation that things would be dramatically different – I even thought life might be easier. Maybe that’s just an indicator of a 12-year-old’s mind, but even today, I sometimes find myself struggling to live my life as if it were new.

I mean, what do you do with a brand new life? Forgive me for having Christmas on the brain, but it’s like opening a gift and being dazzled by some shiny gadget that can do everything. It’s a good thing that this new life comes with an instruction manual and a users group: the Bible and the Church. This is why it’s so important for us to get into the Bible, the Word of God, to read it, study it, think on it, to internalize it. This is why it’s so important for us to grow into and within the church, the body of Christ, brothers and sisters who are also struggling to live this new life.

So hang on for 2022! Life is going to happen all around us, whether we’re ready or not, but we’re going to spend some time focusing on this new life that God offers through Jesus. As we grow in our faith and knowledge, we can live it abundantly and confidently so we can share it with others. Happy New Year!

While John’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry does not have a story about the birth of Jesus, John does give us an important insight into who Jesus is. Perhaps the clearest statement is John 1:14:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (NIV 1984)

The word translated “One and Only” here is often translated “only begotten” in several translations, such as in John 3:16 the way many of us memorized it. Even though Luke uses the word in three different stories about parents who were concerned about their only child (the widow whose only son died in Luke 7; Jairus’ daughter in Luke 8; and the man whose son was possessed by a demon in Luke 9), the word also seems to have a special meaning beyond “only child.”

In Hebrews 11:17, the writer refers to Isaac being Abraham’s “one and only son,” but we know that Abraham was also the father of Ishmael. Although Isaac was technically the older brother, he was also unique. This seems to be the special understanding of the word, which comes out in the context of the passage:

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-19, NIV 1984)

Here we find that Isaac was the unique son of Abraham because he was the “son of the promise,” an idea Paul emphasized in Romans 4, 9, telling us that

Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. (Romans 9:6-8, NIV 1984)

Between these two passages about Isaac, we find the key to John’s description of Jesus.

Isaac is the “son of the promise” in two ways. First, he was the son who was promised by God to Abraham when he had no children, when he and Sarah were beyond the age of having children; yet, there he was. Second, he was the son through whom God promised to save his people (Genesis 21:12). In these ways, Isaac was a sign of the coming messiah, Jesus Christ.

Jesus, the One and Only, the Son of the Promise, is unique; he is set apart and holy. As John tells us, Jesus, the One and Only, reveals God’s glory, God’s truth, and God’s grace. By his birth, we see God’s holiness revealed for God’s glory and for our own new birth as God’s children.

In both of the genealogies of Jesus (Matthew 1; Luke 3) we can see how Jesus is “Abraham’s offspring,” and through the rest of the New Testament, we can see how everyone who puts their faith in Jesus become God’s children, as Paul writes in Galatians 4:28, “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise” (NIV 1984). In the birth of Jesus, we find not only the One and Only Son of God but the gift who gives us the ability to become God’s children, as well. As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, let’s remember the holy, unique Son of God who makes us God’s children.

I don’t want to be “that guy,” but the holiday season is just about here. Yes, I’m referring to that stretch of celebrations from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. For a lot of folks, the holiday season begins a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, with all the preparations – shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. – and continues a few weeks into the new year with all the recovery – shopping, dieting, cleaning, etc.

While many people bemoan the blurring of one holiday into the next, our behavior seems to indicate that we are willing to accommodate it, if we haven’t fully embraced it. Even if we bristle at Christmas advertisements and decorations popping up before Halloween, how many of us have already started shopping for gifts? As a last-minute shopper myself, I would hardly criticize anyone for being proactive, especially considering the busyness of the season; however, even my own procrastination seems to indicate that I’ve accepted the blending, allowing these special observances to dissolve into everyday life so that they just “sneak up” on me.

That piques my concern. With all the anticipation we have and preparations we make, how is it possible for special days like Thanksgiving and Christmas to become surprises? I suppose if I’m being honest, I’m just not paying attention, and that undermines the value of holidays.

Forgive me if this is overly simplistic, but holidays are “holy days.” After nearly a year of my preaching, teaching, and writing about holiness, we ought to understand, then, that a day is holy when it is set apart from other days for a specific purpose, usually to remind us about something or to do something. Obviously, Thanksgiving is a day set apart to remind us of what we have received from God and to prompt us to give thanks for what he has given us; Christmas is a day set apart to remind us of Jesus’ birth and to prompt us to imitate God who gave us his Son.

My point is not to call attention to the specific reasons for the seasons but to elevate the holiness of holidays, the setting apart of special days from the everyday. Now, before we make too much of holidays specifically – that is, before we make them to be more important than, perhaps, they really are – we must remember that it is God who makes anything holy. Just because we have designated a day to be set apart does not make it or the observation of that day to be holy or more important from God’s perspective; in fact, Paul warns the early church that this is a personal matter and should not be divisive:

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. (Romans 14:5, 6; NIV 1984)

However, Paul does seem to give some importance to these holy days simply because we set them apart “to the Lord.”

The holiness of holidays isn’t about the day itself but about the way it is set apart to the Lord. While God has not commanded a day for giving thanks, Thanksgiving can be a holy day among us as we set it apart to praise and honor God, to give him thanks for what he has given us. That we have designated a specific day in November as Thanksgiving Day is by our own free will, but because we have made it a holiday, a holy day, we ought to honor it by focusing our attention on giving thanks to God. While God did not establish Christmas Day, since we have, we ought to honor it by remembering the Good News of Jesus’ birth.

It’s interesting how much attention so many people give to each of these annual holidays that God has not set apart for us to remember and yet how little attention so many people give the day that God has set apart for us to honor each week: the Lord’s Day. If there’s any day that we ought to observe with holiness, it’s the first day of the week. While we have established an annual celebration of Jesus’ birth, God established a weekly remembrance and celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which we honor in our weekly Sunday gathering and participation in the Lord’s Supper. May we honor God’s holy day with as much thought and preparation and celebration as we give this coming holiday season – or more!

As I have been preaching, teaching, and writing about holiness throughout 2021, I have defined or described holiness as God’s total perfection and purity in all of his attributes and actions. God is holy because God is totally perfect in his power, his authority, his love, his justice, his grace, and in any other characteristic we might use to describe God. More than that, not only is God’s character the definition of those attributes, but it determines his total perfection in demonstrating those attributes. God is not only holy in his character, but he his holy in his actions; everything God does is totally perfect, according to his holy character.

This is why the other aspect of God’s holiness is that God is totally unique. There is nobody like our God because he alone is totally perfect in all of his attributes and actions. Very simply, God’s holiness is defined by his unique perfection.

OK, I can hear you thinking: “No kidding. Tell me something I didn’t know.” However, I’m also pretty sure you might also become rather uncomfortable considering these Bible verses I’ve quoted several times throughout the year. First Peter 1:15, 16 say, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (NIV 1984). Why do these verses make us uncomfortable? Because they make it clear that God’s expectation is for his people to be holy. Since God defines holiness by his unique perfection and since the Bible tells us that we are sinners (Romans 3:23), we know we are not perfect.

Unfortunately, since we know we are not perfect, far too many times, we give up on the notion of being holy. When we hear the command from God to the people of Israel in Leviticus repeated by Peter – “Be holy, because I am holy” – we tend to shy away from God, from his holiness, from his call to holiness. The thing is, it was Jesus’ goal to make us holy. Hebrews 13:12 tells us, “Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood” (NIV 1984). Jesus died on the cross to make us holy; there is a purposeful and causal between Jesus’ death and our holiness. That is, Jesus endured the cross with both the intent and effect of making us holy.

In fact, it’s not just a matter of God viewing us as holy because of Jesus’ death and our faith in him; it’s a matter of transformation. God does not simply declare us to be holy; he makes us holy; he makes us righteous. In fact, he makes us perfect. This was Paul’s prayer for the early church in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24:

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (NIV 1984)

Through the sacrifice of Jesus, Paul says, God makes us holy “through and through.” And if we missed the point, he emphasizes that the change he makes is in our “whole spirit, soul and body”; it’s a complete transformation. This transformation is so complete that we will be “blameless” when Jesus returns.

That’s perfect holiness. It’s holiness as God is holy. It’s more than simple similarity or reflection of God’s holiness; it’s a transformation that makes us like him. Hebrews 2:11 gives us this assurance, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Jesus died to make us holy, to make us perfect like himself.

When we put our faith in Jesus, we trust God that he makes us like Jesus. As Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, God is faithful; he promised it, and he will do it. So let’s not be distracted by the fact of our sinful imperfection; let’s be transformed in faith by God’s holiness and live like Jesus who is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

When I was a kid, we always looked forward to the night our family went back-to-school shopping. It was usually a Friday night, after Dad got home from work. We would pile into the club cab of the pickup truck and go to the mall, which was about 30 miles away. Sometimes we’d all stay together, but by the time I was in junior high, there were five of us kids; so eventually we split up, usually guys and girls. We were looking for school supplies (a new Trapper Keeper!) and school clothes.

Our new school clothes were usually jeans and shirts we weren’t allowed to wear for outdoor work or play. If I had to mow the lawn or split wood, Mom made sure that I didn’t wear my good jeans. It’s not like Mom wanted us to dress up for school; she just wanted us to look presentable when we left the house and she wanted the new clothes to last as long as possible.

New clothes have a way of changing the way we think and act. When you’re trying to keep your new clothes in good shape, you think more carefully about what you do, which might lead you to change clothes. New clothes helped us think about a new school year and hopefully helped us to stay in the right mindset for school and to behave appropriately while in school.

Perhaps this perspective of new clothes can help us to understand the new life we have through our faith in Jesus. Paul even uses the language of putting on new clothes when he tells the early church to put on holiness with their faith in Jesus. He wrote in Ephesians 4:22-25:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. (NIV 1984)

Here Paul shows how the change of life we experience when we put our faith in Jesus leads us to change the way we think and behave. He says that it’s a matter of putting off the “old self” and putting on the “new self,” like putting on new clothes for a new school year. In fact, Paul told the early church in Romans 13:14, “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (NIV 1984). As we put our faith in Jesus, Paul says, we are putting on Christ himself, and in order to do that, we must take off the old self and put on the new self.

We take off the old, sinful self and we put on the new self, made to be like Christ, made to be holy as God makes us holy. It’s interesting how Paul describes the “former way of life” in Ephesians 4:22, that it was corrupted or spoiled. Even if our old lives seemed to be good enough as we lived them, they were spoiled, like when we had brand new white sneakers (back when white sneakers were the “in” thing) and we dreaded the day when we would get a scuff or a smudge on them – I had a friend who always wanted to be the first person to scuff someone’s new sneakers. After you got the first scuff on your sneakers or the first stain on your shirt, the pressure was off; you could still wear them, but they were spoiled; they were no longer the “new clothes.” After that you didn’t have to think about keeping them clean. It was a change of attitude.

That’s what Paul tells us we experience when we put on Christ, when we put on holiness with the new self. In Ephesians 4:23, he says we are “made new in the attitude” of our minds when we put on the new self. Just as getting that first smudge on the new sneakers changed our attitude toward them, putting on the new self is meant to change our attitudes toward God, toward sin, toward other people.

The difference between putting on holiness and putting on new school clothes is that God expects the change to last. Paul says in Ephesians 4:24 that this new self in Christ means we are “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” As we have put on Christ, let’s make sure that the change lasts and trust God to make us more like him, not just putting on a new outfit that we can spoil but becoming a whole new self, one that looks like Jesus.

I’ve said several times through the current Sunday morning sermon series that it has been difficult to prepare and preach these messages through Leviticus. It’s difficult to preach from the Old Testament to people who live in a New Testament context. It’s also difficult because the content of Leviticus is so foreign, written for and about people who lived 3000 years ago in a place and culture far removed from us. It’s difficult because the content seems so harsh, offending modern sensibilities with so much blood and death.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of studying and preaching through Leviticus is this idea of everyday holiness itself. By it’s very definition, holiness is a matter of separation; things that are holy are set apart from others. So when I talk about “everyday holiness,” there seems to be a paradox: how can something that is holy – separate, set apart, unique – be “everyday” or common? It’s easy to see holiness in the sacrifices throughout Leviticus; the animals, offerings, and occasions are distinct, set apart from others. It’s easy to see holiness in the priesthood in Leviticus: in the separation of Aaron and his descendants to be priests, in the consecration rituals of the priests, in the special nature of their clothing and lifestyle. It’s not merely easy but painfully obvious to see holiness in God’s commands to Moses, to the priests, and to the people, especially in the context of God’s judgment against Aaron’s sons who died because they did not obey God, when God said to Aaron:

“You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.” (Leviticus 10:10, 11, NIV 1984)

Aaron’s sons died because they did not distinguish between the holy and the common, and while that might seem harsh to us, God’s judgment on them makes it clear how important it is to approach God in holiness.

With that kind of distinction – between life and death – how can we understand and pursue holiness in everyday life? The key, it seems, is the presence of God. Again, it’s easy to understand holiness in the context of going to God to worship, to bring offerings, in prayer – set apart actions done in set apart places and times – but that shows we’ve forgotten that we’re not really going to God but responding to God because he has come to us.

Remember that it was God’s desire to live among his people Israel (Leviticus 26:11, 12). God has always initiated his relationship with people: he created Adam and Eve; he rescued Noah and his family; he called Abraham; he saved Israel; he sent Jesus. At the end of the regulations for cleanliness in Leviticus 11-15, God makes it clear that his expectation for their everyday holiness is because he was already there among them; he said, “You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them” (Leviticus 15:31, NIV 1984).

The problem with understanding and living in everyday holiness is that we try to be holy by maintaining separation when God actually makes us holy by his presence. For example, we try to be holy by going to church, when God lives within and among his people (1 Corinthians 6:19). That doesn’t mean we don’t have to go to church; it means we need to live every day as the church. It means that everything we say and do is in the presence of God, everyday things said and done every day. Paul reminds the church, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God,” (1 Corinthians 10:31, NIV 1984).

As we strive to be holy as God is holy, let’s not focus on how many more “holy” things we can say or do to get closer to God. Instead, let’s focus on God’s presence – within us and among us – and make everyday living more like worship to bring glory to God.