J.O.Y.
(You Should Be Sanctified)
I Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-12
In the Armenian sermons we
spoke about O: others should be edified.
We move to the third part of
the J.O.Y. Y: you should be sanctified.
In order to be politically correct,
these days we say to each other, “Happy holidays.”
I studied the word “holiday”.
You know, its origin is Holy Day. I mean people are trying to escape from the word
HOLY. It is a religious word. Who wants to be holy on a holiday? I am worried
that advent days will be “hollow days”
instead of holy days. I am worried that our holiday- rush will
bring us some hollow- days.
If we look up the word “hollow” in the dictionary, we find the
following: without substance, worth or character… a cavity, hole or space, a void.
It will be a waste to spend
our life in a way that does not have any substance, worth or character. What a
pity!
I come back to Paul. He is challenging
the
As a young adult, one of the
ways I learned the concept of sanctification
was through my mother and her dishes. We
had a special china set for Sundays
or when we had guest. Same with my
wife Sevan. She has a special set for guest. These sets are set apart for specific use.
You cannot come home, fix a
sandwich and use this china, no way. This china is “sacred”. And I remember from my childhood. If this china is set
on table, it means something important is going to happen. It means someone important is going to enter to our dining
room. It means a special meal will be served.
When we talk about
sanctification, we are talking about
being set apart for a reason. This means it is not an ordinary life anymore.
This means one will be taken out of ordinary use and will be prepared to be
used in an extraordinary way. That is the
reason we can be “part time Christian.” The
world needs extraordinary Christians, “sanctified with Christ” so that the
world can have light and salt.
Paul uses the example of a race (9:24-27). Paul loved athletic arenas and most likely, he
enjoyed watching sports. He visited arenas for giving speeches. In his letters,
he used several examples from runners
and athletes. Now in the sport arena, runners compete one against each
other. Only one will take the crown of victory.
Some people think if that is
the case, we Christians all running against each other, and one of us will win.
That is wrong. We do not compete
against each other; at least we should not do so. We should not “steal”
Christians from churches. “My church is better than your church” philosophy is
not helpful. You see I like what Paul is saying, one wins the race. That is why
when I watch a race; I am on the side of the winner. Man, I don’t want to go
home sad after the game. I support
Here is the Good News. We are not competing against
each other. We are all competing
against sin. We are competing against the world, against our old nature. That
is the reason Y is important: You should be sanctified, set apart for a new life. Therefore, through
the grace of our Lord, whoever accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, is
justified, which means we are in the race, and this is enough for salvation. But just being in the race is not enough.
We need to win. In order to win we need to set apart our life. That is
sanctification. This is a process. We will grow in it daily, and our supreme example
is Jesus Christ himself. “…until we all reach
unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). (to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;) NKJV
How does one win the
race? Of course, we are in the race by the Grace of Jesus.
All the athletes need
discipline and training.
The most important training
that we can practice is developing a life of PRAYER.
We read in I Timothy 2:1-4,
Paul is urges us to be in prayer:
1I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Paul is urging and not just
asking politely, “I urge YOU to PRAY”.
Praying is very important in
the life of sanctification.
I have recently learnt that
in this season some people get depressed.
Psychologist even found a name for this issue called, SAD “Seasonal Affective Disorder.” You know, I look at this
depression in a different way. When we live in a hollow, when we do not have a purpose
in life, when we are not in the race
of sanctification of course we live in
sadness. You may visit as many counselors as you wish, you may go on as many
vacations as you want, nothing can be changed in your life unless you go to
God, who through His Son Jesus Christ can make the real change in your life.
Therefore, enter into the
discipline of prayer, praying for
EVERYONE. Your family, your neighbor, your enemies, your authorities. This
is not easy. It needs time and dedication.
One of the old habits that we
need to stay away from is gossip. When someone starts gossiping about someone
else, one of the best ways to stop the gossip, “to win the race”, is prayer. Ask
the person who is doing the gossiping, “instead of talking let us pray for that
person.”
Do we pray for our enemies?
Do we pray for the ones whom
we don’t like?
Do we have at all a prayerful
life? Have we developed the discipline of prayer?
The discipline of
sanctification requires our time. We
need to spend more time with the Word of
God. We need to spend more time in reading, understanding, and obeying the Word
of God. This can happen when you take the Word of God seriously in your life.
There is no PART TIME CHRISTIANITY.
The discipline of
sanctification requires that your will be controlled by God’s will. This means
Jesus Christ is your Lord. This means He is your King. This means He is the
priority of your life. This means you obey Him.
To conclude, let me remind
you of the three letters:
J: Jesus should be
glorified
O:
Others should be edified
Y: You should be sanctified
A man built a church on top
of a hill. He asked everyone to leave him alone as he did the whole thing
himself. After a while, the church was
ready. He invited the whole village for a worship service. As people came in,
they realized that although the church was beautiful, it was very dark and did
not have any windows. One person in the
congregation asked him, “Why is it so dark in here?”
He went in and brought some
lamps. He gave one lamp to each family and said, “Each family has the duty of
illuminating one dark corner in the church. The absence of each one of you,
will keep that corner in the dark.”
This is an excellent
illustration for JOY. Remember, there is no part-time Christianity. Therefore, in this Advent season, on one hand
we wait for the coming of Jesus and on the other hand, we examine ourselves.
Amen