Christian Holiness part 3 Thou Shalt

You would go ahead and take your Bible this morning, turn to a familiar verse, 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1. I say familiar because we have been here for two weeks so far, but 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1. Verse 1 will be our launching pad for our message this morning. If this is a race, this is the starting gate. Now this is a topical message, so therefore I will reference a whole lot of scriptures. And I do not want you to have to turn there. You would never follow me in the message. I encourage you to jot those passages down. If you need help with those, we can help you. Of course this is part of our series, Messages from the Pastors Heart.

Now so far we have enjoyed two messages on Christian Holiness. All of them have come out of 2 Corinthians 6 and chapter 7 verse 1. Remember our part 1 was Christian Holiness and I call that Christian Holiness Examine. Then last week we had part 2, Christian Holiness is Expected. Now if you take 2 or 3 steps back and you look at all of what Paul did in chapter 6 and in chapter 7 verse 1. Paul does a really good job. In Paul's efforts to help return the Corinthians and their church back to Holiness. He has a logical and spiritual approach. Real quickly, let's take a couple of steps back. First he starts off with conversion.

Isn't that what we see in chapter 6 verse 1? He called them to examine if they were truly converted. Then second, he uses himself as an example of Christian Holiness. Then third, he calls them to a life of separation based on their relationship to God and the Word of God. Then fourth, he calls them to the responsibility that they have of cleansing themselves from all defilements in their life. And we see that in chapter 7 verse 1. Now I want you to notice what Paul emphasized. He emphasized that this is relational. He emphasized the fact that they must know God. That's why he started with conversion in verse 1 of chapter 6.

Because if they did not know God, they could never strive to be holy. And he is emphasizing that they must express a desire to walk with God. Paul emphasized that their motivation should be love. And if accepted, the entirety of this work would lead them and their church back to personal Holiness. Now something that came as I was studying this week that needs to be seen is this. I want us to see that we are all in this race of striving to be holy together. We are running the race to obtain personal Holiness individually, yes. But this is done in the arena of the local church. We are all bound together in this race.

So we are running the race for corporate Holiness just as we are for individual Holiness. I thought about two little illustrations that will help seat this in your mind. Many of you understand what a relay race is. In a relay race, you have a team and they all run and they pass the baton. So really, a Christian Holiness in the life of the church is a lot like a relay race. Because how I live my life and how holy I am, really it will impact you. And how you strive to be holy can impact others. And as we are older in the faith and some of us who have been around the block a little longer, we are able to pull those younger Christians along.

See, this is much like a relay race. Our race impacts others and the way you run the race can affect others. I thought about another illustration. This is a lot like a three-legged race. You remember back in those elementary school days? Take two of you and he would tie one of your legs together and you had to run that three-legged race. And you had to work together. You had to strive and work hard in and of yourself. But it was a team event. And you know, if you didn't run your share of the race, what happened? It didn't work out too well. As brothers and sisters, we are bound together in this thing.

And if you don't run your Christian life as you should, striving for holiness and to rid your life of defilements, you're bound to other brothers and sisters in the life of the church. And you impede their life and they're striving for holiness in their life. So this is all done individually, but in the context of the local church. Now as we live the Christian life along the way, we inevitably develop a list of rules for the Christian life. I've mentioned this all along. These are the do's and don'ts that we expect to live by. We may even expect others to live by our rules.

There are times when we are forced to question our own rules, our do's and don'ts. We may question our rules when we begin to see how others live their Christian life. We may question our rules or the rules of others when we have crisis or when we see crisis in the lives of our other brothers and sisters. We may question our rules when we have messages like we've had. I know that some of you have had good discussions. I know some of you have asked questions in your homes and this is good. This is really, really good. This is healthy for us as Christians and as a church.

Well this morning we are continuing in our study of the pursuit of Christian holiness and we will explore two areas of the Christian life as we strive for Christian holiness. Now this is a part three. This is Christian holiness part three, "Thou Shout." Now that's a strange title I know. I will help you see what that means as we progress. Christian holiness part three, "Thou Shout." And you see two subjects, two areas that we're going to explore and it might look redundant on the screens but notice number one, "Thou Shout." Period.

And then, "Thou Shout" question mark might not seem like there's a lot of difference in the two but we will see there is a lot of difference. So I encourage you to write these things down and as we go through the message, again, if you have trouble keeping up, I don't want you to lose me. I want you to follow me and we can get you the sermon notes if you need them. So let's look at chapter seven, verse one. We should know this verse by now.

"Therefore, having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Now I love how the Amplified, it's a paraphrase, reads, "The Amplified calls these promises great and wonderful," we know that. But the Amplified says, "Completing holiness," and in brackets, "Living a consecrated life, a life set apart for God's purpose in the fear or reverence of God." Now that second portion is really what we will focus on. Perfecting holiness, completing striving for holiness as we desire a consecrated life set apart for God's purposes in reverence to our God.

So let's dive into the message. Number one, I want us to see thou shalt. Now when you're taking notes, make sure you write, "Thou shalt," period, because there is a difference and you will see as we proceed. Now we need to see that the Christian life consists of thou shalts. These are black and white commandments. Some are very easy to see, while others may not be that easy for us to see. Now some are positive, thou shalt do this, and then some are negative, thou shalt not do this. Not only do we see these in the Christian life, but we see some of them have trickled into our culture as well.

Now I will give us some examples both from the Old Testament and the New Testament so that you can see where I'm going here. First I will mention two categories from the Old Testament. So the first category is this, commandments that relate to other people. Now these come out of the Ten Commandments from Exodus. Specifically they come out of the second portion of the Ten Commandments. First we are commanded not to murder. Exodus 20 verse 13. Now I do not have to tell you this commandment. It is foundational. It is a foundational part of our value system, and it is a foundational part of our rules of Christian behavior.

This is even woven into the value system of our culture. Non-Christians in our culture see murder is wrong. There are laws in our culture against murder. It's part of our legal system. Then we see that we are commanded not to commit adultery. Exodus 20 verse 14. I do not have to tell you this commandment either. This commandment against adultery is on our list of rules for Christian behavior as well. Even many non-Christians would see adultery as wrong and as a sin. Then we have, we are commanded not to steal. Exodus 20 verse 15. I do not have to tell you this commandment. It also is part of our value system.

It is on our list of Christian behavior, those dos and don'ts. Now this commandment is also woven into the value system of our culture as well. Even non-Christians in our culture see stealing as wrong. And this commandment again is part of our legal system as well. So that's our first category, commandments that relate to other people. Our second category, commandments that relate to God. Now these come from the 10 commandments as well. And these are from the first portion of the 10 commandments. We are commanded to have no other gods. Exodus 20 verse 3. I do not have to tell you this commandment as well.

This is at the very basics of our Christian faith. This commandment against any other gods. This would easily be on all of our lists of dos and don'ts. We are also commanded not to take the Lord's name in vain. Exodus 20 verse 7. This is one that probably is overlooked by many. This is more than using God's name as a curse word. This includes using God's name in a common manner. And this too is negative, but it is black and white. Now this is in no way a complete list from the Old Testament, but I wanted to name a few. The Old Testament is filled with commandments that apply to New Testament believers.

Now those are two Old Testament categories. Now the New Testament, it is filled with commandments for Christians as well. Now these are black and white. Now some are positive, thou shalt, and then some are negative, thou shalt not. In some of my study this week, one resource that I came across noted that there were well over a thousand commandments in the New Testament alone. Now I will mention four categories quickly out of the New Testament. The first category, there are three commandments we as Christians have where we are commanded to believe. We are commanded to believe the Gospel. Mark chapter 1 verse 15.

We are commanded to believe in God's existence in Hebrews 11 and 6. We are commanded to believe on the Lord Jesus in 1 John 3, 23. So you see those verses all deal with the command to believe. The second category, there are three peoples that we are commanded to honor. We are to honor our fathers and mothers, Matthew 19, 19. We are to honor widows, we are commanded in 1 Timothy 5, 3. We are commanded to honor kings and rulers in our land in 1 Peter 2, 17. So those are commands concerning who we should honor in culture. There are three things. The third category, that we are commanded to flee.

We are to flee from sexual immorality, 1 Corinthians 6, 18. We are to flee from idolurgy, 1 Corinthians 10, 14. We are to flee from youthful life, 2 Timothy 2, 22. And then the fourth category, there are two commandments that I'll mention for the church. We are commanded to assemble with other believers in Hebrews 10, 25. We are commanded to engage in world missions, Matthew 28, 19 through 20. Now, I don't know if these are on your list, but they are in the New Testament. They are right there and there are many more. As a matter of fact, well over a thousand. So what am I trying to show us?

The Word of God in both Old Testament and New Testament, it gives us black and white commandments. Thou shalt, period. These are non-negotiable and can be applied to all Christians everywhere at all times. Murder and stealing and adultery, non-negotiable commandments for all Christians everywhere at all times. Believing the gospel, refraining from sexual immorality, and assembling with other believers are non-negotiable commandments for all Christians everywhere at all times and there are many, many more. Now, how might this apply to us? I think application is real simple. I think that it calls us to make sure that we know God's Word.

I think it calls us to be faithful to study God's Word in our own private life and in our home life and be faithful to the preaching and the teaching of God's Word. We desperately need to know the Word of God and ignorance cannot be our plea. We must know the Word and it is so much easier for you today. We have copies of God's Word and many translations. It's easy for you to read. They're copies of God's Word in audio format. You can listen to it going down the road. Our church faithfully preaches and teaches God's Word. Ignorance cannot be our plea. Now I want us to move, number two, to "Thou shalt question mark." Thou shalt question mark.

Now here we find ourselves in the area of the Christian life that is not so black and white. These are areas of our lives where the Bible gives no clear rules, no black and white commandments. Here we find ourselves in places where one Christian may have loose convictions or freedoms while another Christian may have very firm convictions and have no freedom. Now before we continue, before we open up this can of worms, I want to give us three warnings here. I want to give us three warnings and some of you, you may need to heed one or more of these warnings. First, you cannot say there are no gray areas. Don't be so foolish.

There are some people, they might be fairly pious. They might think they know the Word of God and they have it all together. And usually those kinds are the ones who have hard and fast rules and their list might be very long. And they'll say there are no gray areas. Don't be that pious and arrogant. The second warning is this, you cannot turn the grace of God into a license for sin. See, some will go the other direction and they'll say, well, the Christian life is just full of gray areas and all they want to do is abuse the grace of God and turn it into a license for sin. Don't make that mistake either.

And then the third warning is we cannot come into this discussion with a judgmental spirit. Don't have a judgmental spirit. At the root of a judgmental spirit is pride and arrogance and you thinking that you have it all together and your manner of having it all together is for everybody else too. Do not come into the discussion with a judgmental spirit. I've seen some do that. I want to bring before us specific areas of life which really do matter. We are seeking to be holy. Isn't that what we've been looking at the past two weeks? We want to live undefiled lives. 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1.

So how we handle these areas of life and culture really matter. Now, this list is an impartial list. You I can add to it. Now again, these are areas where one Christian may have certain convictions and another Christian could have great freedom. One Christian could have loose convictions here and another person can have great freedom. Now, I want to go through this list and I'm going to contrast different positions. First of all, the area of TV and movies. How do we as Christians approach television today and movies? Movies that, you know, I remember the day you used to rent those things. Now they're just piped into your house.

Isn't that right? You know, going down to the movie house, how do Christians deal with TV and movies? See, there are some that would say all TV is evil. All movies are evil. There are some that would say that little gray dish on the side of your house is just pumping in evil into your house. Our friend, brother, Aunt Lacey called the TV "Remember the Idiot Box." There are some that would say that it's all evil, but yet there are some that would have freedom in that area. Maybe they exercise great discretion and they're careful and they have a TV in their home and they use it for family entertainment. You see the opposing views there.

How do we as Christians deal with secular or non-Christian music? We don't have to listen very close to see and hear. Lots of non-Christian music spouts off a non-Christian lifestyle and theme and morals and values. Isn't that right? And I know there are Christians that say, you know, I can listen to non-Christian music and it does not affect my life. I have freedom there. And I know Christians who would say I will not listen to anything that is un-Christian or secular. Not only must we scrutinize non-Christian music, to be honest with you, we need to scrutinize so-called Christian music. There's one radio station.

They'll tell you that Jesus is a Republican and they're trying real hard to make Trump to be a very moral man. There's another Christian radio station, so-called. Boy, if you listen to that station, God's nothing more than a big fuzzy boyfriend. He'll forgive you for anything that you do. That scares me as well. But what do we do with music? Non-Christian and Christian music alike. What do we do as Christians about cultural entertainments? Is it a sin to go to a college football game? Our friend Luke Johnson played college football. I enjoyed going to watch him play. There are some that would say that's a glorious waste of time.

And then there are some say that's a good form of entertainment and I can enjoy myself with my family. What about things like the local theater? In our community we have the little theater in town. What about going maybe to the Capitol to see the symphony? See, there are lots of cultural entertainments. And there are some that would say, you know, this is a waste of time. We shouldn't be involved in things like that. And then there are some that will say, you know, we work hard and we have these things and they're good entertainments and releases. What about hobbies? Our culture is loaded with hobbies. What about hunting and fishing and golf?

There's a whole long list. How do we approach hobbies as a Christian? Is it okay to spend time doing those things? You know, there are some that would say, you know, it's a waste of time to go and spend money doing those things. What about clothing? Clothing style. How we decorate our bodies. Some would say it's a sin to wear pants. Some would say they prefer skirts for females. You know, our Pentecostal friends, they look down on those who wear makeup. And matter of fact, some of the men have to wear long sleeves. You know, these are real issues that many Christians face. But how do we decorate our bodies?

And is it okay for women to dress this way and that way and how we present ourselves in the culture? Some say they have freedoms over here and some say they have very strong convictions over there. What about restaurants? What about a restaurant that serves alcohol? What about even a store that sells alcohol? Maybe a grocery store or a convenience store or even Walmart. You know, there are some Christians, maybe they struggle with alcohol. And see, for them to go sit down in a restaurant and be 10 feet from a bar, oh, that really is a sin for them. But yet there are some, they can go sit down and they don't drink and live like that.

And it's no big deal for them. I've known people who said they refuse to go in stores, maybe that sold alcohol. That limits you pretty well today. What about the issue of tobacco use? What about smoking? What about smokeless tobacco? You know, those are questions that a lot of people in the life of the church ask. And it's inevitable that when you're mentioning this subject, people of sight, sometimes those who know church history, let's say, well, Charles Spurgeon, he smokes cigars. There's a lot of difference then in his today. We know medically what that stuff will do to you. As a matter of fact, he even quit smoking.

He was convicted of God. But that's a valid question. How do we as Christians deal with smoking and the use of tobacco products? That is a big part of our culture. Another issue that we must face and we do face is our choices of education. There's some in the life of the church. They're involved in public school. There's some in the life of the church. They're involved in private school. There's some in the life of the church. They're involved in homeschooling. Now, what do we do? There's some very strong opinions in some of these areas. I've been in churches and I know people who take hard and fast stances in some of these areas.

What about college? I've known people that would say, you can never send your son or your daughter to college, because that's the world and they're going to go the way of the world. I'd venture to say if they don't go the way of the world in college, they'll go the way of the world in the workplace. You can't tie them up and hold them at home. Another subject is activities on Sunday. You know, there's a big debate in many circles, what you can and can't do on Sunday. Some call it the Sabbath. Some call it the Christian Sabbath. The New Testament never calls Sunday the Sabbath or the Christian Sabbath.

It's the Lord's Day and there are a lot of people. They have firm convictions on what you can and can't do on Sunday. And you know, there are some Christians, they just treat Sunday like another Saturday. Now, here's where many people want the preaching pastor to take a firm stand and tell the congregation what is right and wrong. Some think the pastor should tell everybody just how to live. Now's the time. A lot of people, they think the preacher's going to sweat and he's going to stomp, he's going to just blow the rafters off, telling everybody just how to live. I'm not going to do that.

I want to share with you something that God has helped me in. I believe through the years I have become fairly good at this. Now, I didn't get good at this or fairly good at this overnight. I didn't realize this was in my life. I was listening to Jeff Noblick, one minister I look up to and listened to from time to time. A few weeks back he was preaching on a particular subject and this is what he said, and I like it, talking about issues like this. He said, "This is where you have to shepherd people through. This is where you have to shepherd people through life." God's taught me how to do that.

Now, I'm not saying I'm very good, but I'm fairly good. This is my approach. I come, I teach you the Word, I pray for you, allowing you to succeed, allowing you sometimes to fail. Yes, I watch you walk with God, you have to walk with God, and I come alongside and I walk alongside you as you walk with God. Now, let me give you some contrast here that will help you. If I come, if I rip and I snort and I raise the rafters and I give you a list of rules and I tell you how to live, you'll be a parrot. You'll just parrot what I say. You'll be more than a parrot. You'll be a clone. You'll just be a clone of me. Lord, help us if we have clones of me.

You'll be just a tin soldier. But if I walk alongside you as you walk with God, if I come alongside you as you walk with God and I enable you to walk with God, then you'll become a soldier of the cross and a saint for the Lord Jesus. You have to walk with God in these areas, finding out what God wants you to do. As the preaching pastor and as an elder, I am here to help you along the way, giving you the Word, loving and encouraging you. Yes, discipling you if need be. But get this. It is all of us walking together as the church in all these areas of life and meaning, meaning more. Now, what is our goal?

We'll go all the way back to our passage. 2 Corinthians 7, the second part of the verse. Completing holiness, striving for holiness, yearning for perfection and holiness. The Amplified reads, "Living a consecrated life, set apart for God's purposes." We're yearning for holiness. We're yearning and desiring to have that life set apart for God's purposes in what? In the fear and reverence of God. So my desire is to come alongside you in these areas and it is all of us walking with God together as the church, living in these areas and meaning more. Now, I want to give you some practical instructions here. The goal is holiness.

We want personal holiness. We want to cleanse ourselves from these defilements, the filthiness that can be in our life, and we want to address the gray areas of our lives as God would have us to. Four things. First of all, we must know that we are truly converted. You might say, "Pastor, you have beat that drum all the way down the road." If you do not know God, at best it's religion. Religion will kill you. Religion destroys. Religion will cause others to run from Christ. What did Paul do?

In verse 1 of chapter 6, "And working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain." If you do not know God, you cannot take one step towards personal Christian holiness. You must know God. Number 2, you must seek the biblical pattern. We see this beginning in 2 Corinthians 6, 4. In verse 4, that's when Paul begins to defend himself as an apostle. And it sounds arrogant, but he puts himself as a standard and an example before the church. Many people would read that and say, "Paul is just stuck on himself." No, that's not the case.

"There are tension in men drawn to the Judaizers who were taking the grace of God and adding the law." And what is he saying? "My life is the biblical pattern before you, and we must seek the biblical pattern." Now, how does that translate? Where does that go? We must look at the biblical pattern of holiness and not go get the latest book off the shelf. Not run for the best sermon from another preacher. Because look, if you don't know God, and you don't look at the pattern of God's holiness from God's Word, all you'll be doing is parroting somebody else and be a clone. That never works. It won't carry you but so far.

And then third, we must understand that we are God's dwelling place. Isn't that what he begins to say? As he quotes those Old Testament passages starting in verse 16. What is he saying? "You Corinthians have no right to live this way. Don't you see that God dwells in you? And we need to see that we do not belong to ourselves." Look, who told you that you can live like people in your family? Who told you that you can live like people at your work? Who told you that you can make these kind of decisions on your own? You were bought with a price. God dwells within you. And everybody else can, but we cannot.

And then the fourth thing, we must work hard for holiness. Isn't that what we see in verse 1? What is Paul's just saying? We've got to roll up our sleeves. We've got to cleanse our lives of all this filthiness of flesh and the Spirit. And it is a hard job. When we're converted, the job just begins. So look at the application out of what we've learned. We must be converted. We work hard to know the biblical pattern. We understand that we're bought with a price. God dwells within us, and it's a hard job for Christian holiness. Now, in my study, I ran across a list, a list of helps. Again, this was from Jeff Noblett, and I'll be honest with you.

I took it and I changed it up. Some of it I liked, and I just kind of made it my own. This is a list of helps, and this will help you as we're fleshing this out. The first thing to consider, this is a question. Dealing with these gray areas, number one, do these things build you up? We must ask ourselves. These issues that we are debating, these subjects, these things in our life, do they build us up? Do these television shows build us up? Do the music build us up? Do these entertainments build us up? Do these lifestyle choices build us up? What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 10, 23?

"All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful." All things are lawful, but not all things build us up. In our desire for holiness, we must be built up in godliness, in purity, in usefulness, and so we must ask ourselves, do these things that come along in our life build us up for Christian holiness? Now the second question to consider, do these things offend? Are these things a stumbling block? 1 Corinthians 10, verse 22, "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God," verse 33, "just as I try to please everyone and everything I do, not seeking my own advantage." What is Paul saying?

I do not want to be a stumbling block to the Greek or to the Jew or to the church. Do these things offend? Are they a stumbling block? I'll narrow it on down. Would it be a stumbling block if you saw me buying alcohol? Would it be a stumbling block if you saw me watching certain movies? Would it be a stumbling block to you if I were engaging in some of this behavior? How did the lost view some of these activities? If you walk, work around lost people very long, they'll tell you how they view the church, and I'll tell you it's a funny thing.

It's almost like they are a little bird on a limb in many of these churches because they know everything that goes on. I have a second question to consider, helping us consider these things. Could any of these things bring me into bondage? Could any of these activities bring me into bondage? The first thing on my list is alcohol. How many people are enslaved to alcoholism? Ravages homes, destroys lives, breaks marriages, ruins kids? How many people are in bondage, they're addicted to tobacco products, ultimately ruining their life or health? Do any of these hobbies bring us into bondage?

You know, one thing that you see in young people's lives is this addiction to the internet and video games and social media, or any of these things leading you into bondage. Young people, how many hours of the day are consumed by video games and internet and social media? Some of you might say, "Well, pastor, I want to grow in the Lord and know the Word." How many hours do you spend doing this? Are you in bondage to television? You might say, "Pastor, that's crazy." No, there are people in bondage to these things. Another question that helps us here is, could it be detrimental to our health?

We have to ask those questions, and we have modern medicine and science today, and it has its faults, but I'm telling you, it helps us a lot, and I think about the use of alcohol and tobacco. They can be so detrimental to health. I had a grandmother that died of lung cancer before I was converted. I remember watching her suffer, and I thought, "It's just foolish. It's foolish to smoke." We have to ask ourselves, "Are these things detrimental to our health?" And when we get to the later years, and those things start catching up to us, and it's our sons and our daughters that have to deal with those things.

Now, I know there are other things that cause bad health, but these things are at our disposal. The fifth thing, question to help us here, do we use the grace of God to excuse sin? That's what was going on in the little book of Jude, verse 4, "For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality, denying our only Master and Lord." What were they doing? They were using freedom as a license for sin. And do we use grace? Do we abuse grace to excuse sin that we should repent of? And then the sixth might be strange.

Do we obsess over the gray areas? If we obsess over the gray areas, we will wind up in a rules-oriented, legalistic ditch. Look at the Pharisees that Jesus dealt with. It was rule after rule after rule after rule after rule, and he cut straight to the heart of the matter, and it was their hearts. What did he say? He looked at them at the Sermon on the Mount and said, "You say it's a sin to commit adultery, but I say if you've lust in your heart, you've committed adultery already." Those men externally were pure. Those men were externally free from that sin. But when he said, "You lust in your heart, you're guilty," he cut them to the core.

Look at the Judaizers that Paul was dealing with. We see this in Galatians, and Colossians, and Philippians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians. It's going on in the book of Jude in 1 and 2 Peter, and 1 and 2 Timothy. The Judaizers, those who were taking grace and adding the Jewish law, were everywhere, and what did they do? They obsessed over gray areas, and they created rule after rule after rule after rule after rule, and they thought they impressed God when actually they did not. It might have impressed people, but it didn't impress God. Now, what about these Corinthians? Weren't they impressed by the Judaizers?

Didn't they take the affection that Paul should have gotten and direct it towards the Judaizers? They had misplaced affections. Now, to conclude us, I'll tell you a little story, and it'll help us remember how I want us to conclude. Many of you know that in my family we have a piece of property. My grandfather owned some land, and we grew up going deer hunting, squirrel hunting, and all that good stuff, fishing. When I was a kid, he shipped vines. I shot the squirrels. He skinned them. My grandmother fried them, and I ate them.

And that piece of property is still in our family, and our family takes care of the place, and takes care of the old camp house, and just about a month or two ago I was in the camp house, and I was doing some cleaning up, and I found something that I hadn't seen in years, and it's a very insignificant object to many, but it was a rusty old skeleton key. You know what a skeleton key is? And it immediately brought back the image of the old back door that was on the camp, and my grandfather used to have that key hung up on a nail, and he always kept something hanging there to cover up the key, although you always could see it.

And all you would take that key down and put it in that door, and it was a crude object there, that lock, and you had to wiggle it around a certain way to open up that back door. I want to give you the key to the lock, to the whole thing. You need to pray for this key. This key that I'm going to give you is developing you in time. As you pray, as you walk with God, as you study the Word, as you seek out to live for the Lord in all of the areas of your life, as you seek to live out and flesh out and deal with these areas God's way, this will be developed in you. Here's the key, the little word called discernment.

That intuitive perception of right and wrong, it is energized by the Holy Spirit of God, and it is based on the Word of God. See, when you know the Word of God, it doesn't matter what your grandparents taught you. See, that discernment, it is that intuitive to perception of right and wrong, based on the Word of God, energized and empowered by the Holy Spirit for God's will for your life. Simply you can call it moral perception. Philippians 1, verses 9 through 11, "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all," what? Discernment.

See how it grows, "and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment in all areas of life." Yes, the gray areas. Yes, the difficult areas. Yes, the areas that you've never dealt with before. And in verse 10, "So that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ." That's holiness. "Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." That is Christian holiness. Now, what have we looked at this morning?

Christian holiness, "Thou shalt." "Thou shalt period." "Thou shalt question mark." And I believe this leads to more questions, more discussion, but ultimately it should lead to you pursuing a work of God in your life in all of these areas. May our Lord help us in these areas of life so that we may be holy and undefiled people. Let's pray.