In this episode, Dale and I talk about the missing element of modern Christianity, and why it is that the modern church is so dull and flat. We also talk about personal holiness and how it is so critical in evangelism and discipleship.
00:00:00.000Welcome to Real Christianity. Today, we are talking about the missing element of modern Christianity.0.80
00:00:07.020Yeah, guys, I used to think that the missing element of modern Christianity was community.
00:00:13.440I think that if we just, you know, had community, that we would finally see Jesus in a way that we had before.
00:00:21.520And then before that, I thought, hey, it was missions. That was the missing element.
00:00:25.500If we just did more outreach to the broken and to the lost, then, yeah, man, you know, then more people would see Jesus.
00:00:35.300And, you know, there's something that I found in my study that's deeper than these two elements that is preventing the world from not seeing Jesus.
00:00:47.020And I believe it's a missing element to modern Christianity.
00:00:51.220And I think it's what makes Christianity feel dull and oftentimes flat.0.80
00:00:57.360That's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode.1.00
00:01:00.220Yeah, but before we jump into that, I know you guys have probably heard on the last few episodes,
00:01:05.220Dale and I just relaunched Ultimate Marriage, the program.
00:01:08.520And it's a six-week course for you and your spouse to go through,
00:01:12.020or you can even go through it in a small group type setting.
00:01:14.840And then there's six downloadable marriage challenge checklist PDFs.
00:01:20.660Um, and really great questions just to go through with one another to help bring more unity, um,
00:01:27.300into a marriage. And so if you're interested in that, you can go ahead and sign up at
00:01:30.100ultimate marriage.com. Yeah. It's a really great program. If you just need to strengthen your
00:01:34.860marriage, want to invest in your marriage, guys, we are so excited. At least go to the
00:01:40.000ultimate marriage.com and check it out, uh, or consider doing it with your small group.
00:01:45.140Uh, another thing, guys, I launched the pre-order of my new book. I'm going to give
00:01:49.580you the same url so even if you listen to this episode long after it's been published you can
00:01:55.080still find it there you just go to relearnchurch.org forward slash rc for real christianity so the name
00:02:03.640of the book is real christianity uh the subtitle is how to be bold for christ in a culture of
00:02:09.620darkness and it is a short read it's it's five by seven so it's a small kind of pocket book it's
00:02:16.420hardcover, and it's 150 pages. It takes about an hour and 10 minutes to read through it.
00:02:24.480Trust me, I've done it several times when I was editing it. But guys, it's a great way to support
00:02:29.300our ministry, as well as getting a great, I think, tool to understand what biblical Christianity
00:02:37.140really is and how to represent Christ. So again, if you want to pre-order the book,
00:02:41.660um you can go to relearnchurch.org forward slash rc okay dale so hopping back into the topic of
00:02:51.800this week's episode um what is the missing element that you're talking about what is the um the cause
00:02:57.600of what you have called flat christianity all right guys brace yourself because i'm about to
00:03:02.220give you a pretty anticlimactic answer okay um and i know that was the opposite of what you were
00:03:07.920thinking but it's personal holiness okay personal holiness is i think what's missing in the modern
00:03:16.080church especially the western church and i want to explain because i really do believe that i put
00:03:21.620together a pretty strong biblical argument for why holiness is so critical in evangelism in the
00:03:28.120gospel, in discipleship, in maturity, and I think it's a really important discipline
00:03:36.300and element of Christianity that we're kind of unfamiliar with. And so, personal holiness,
00:03:43.620I'm going to kind of break this down for a second, and then we're going to dive into some scriptures
00:03:46.560later in this episode. Personal holiness is the evidence of God on a person, okay? I want you to
00:03:53.720hear that, please pay attention. Personal holiness is the evidence of God upon a person. And it's the
00:04:01.120walking and talking and breathing transformative, supernatural power of the cross pouring out in
00:04:08.520somebody's life. That's what personal holiness is. If someone claims to be a Christian and they,
00:04:15.640you know they're not exhibiting or presenting the a peculiar life or a holy life or a different1.00
00:04:24.680life yeah they look just like the rest of the world if they look just like the rest of the
00:04:28.420world why would anybody be interested in coming to christ for any other reason right i mean it's
00:04:35.580just not compelling and if christ has not changed you if you're still behaving the exact same way
00:04:43.860you did before you encountered Christ,
00:04:46.360then why should somebody believe that it would change them?
00:04:50.600And, you know, I'm going to break this down a little bit more.
00:04:53.280When an addict stops doing drugs, that's holiness.
00:04:59.780When they're no longer a slave to drugs, that's holiness.
00:05:03.740When a man no longer looks at pornography,
00:05:08.780when 98% of men, secular men, look at pornography on a regular basis,
00:05:13.860When a man stops looking at pornography, that's holiness.
00:05:19.260That's the transformative power of God upon a person.
00:05:24.300You know, when a person returns love for hate, that's holiness.
00:05:30.640When a wife protects her husband's reputation, even when he fails, that's holiness.0.71
00:05:37.500When a man stands for truth that costs him his job, that's holiness.0.83
00:05:43.860When a young man refuses to have sex before he's married, that's holiness.0.97
00:05:49.500When a young woman decides to wear modest clothing for the love of others, that's holiness.0.95
00:05:58.140Okay, holiness, guys, is the real-life testimony of God's miraculous work in your life.0.52
00:06:06.180It's the changing of affections, the changing of inclinations, the changing of behaviors that is impossible without Christ.
00:06:16.900It's a love for godly things instead of a love for sin.
00:06:21.520And everybody that's trapped in sin sees that and goes, how do you do that?
00:06:26.440How do you break free? Why are you so different?
00:06:28.460this is an incredibly powerful proof of god in the church when you can walk in personal holiness
00:06:39.180yeah so um first before we dive in even more um dale and i just want to be clear that we have no
00:06:46.520desire to make holiness an idol um holiness is not christ and we know that um and as dale said
00:06:53.340we believe holiness is the evidence of God's work in the life of a believer.
00:06:58.080And holiness is not about earning our righteousness through what we've done.
00:07:03.560It's about showing our righteousness because of what he's done,
00:07:22.540holiness is not a work motivated by law it's a response motivated by love
00:07:29.680yeah holiness is really just the natural response of somebody that's being redeemed
00:07:36.540if you're not becoming more like christ who is holy uh that's a problem right this is the natural
00:07:46.140response is personal holiness when you encounter jesus christ it's going to happen all throughout
00:07:50.040your lifetime yes with your journey with the lord um so let's back it up a little bit um so
00:07:55.560what is holiness well um according to the dictionary it means to be set apart but the way
00:08:01.600that i have viewed it is to be utterly unique um because god god is holy because there's no one like
00:08:10.720him um he is utterly unique now this also means he is pure and without sin he is perfect um again
00:08:19.980making him unique and of course holy um and as christians we first experience holy when we're
00:08:28.160saved yeah we become holy in this process being set apart right yeah because we're set apart or
00:08:34.180sealed as uh they call it in the book of ephesians um but the bible's call for holiness
00:08:40.100reaches far beyond our justification um the bible calls us to death to be born again and to be
00:08:47.560regenerated to be renewed and to walk in a manner worthy of your calling yeah so there's the idea
00:08:54.720of holiness is you're set apart you're different you're utterly unique and step one is that when
00:09:01.920you come to christ you're you're justified you're saved there's a difference between sanctified
00:09:08.320which we'll talk about in a bit um but but you're justified you're set apart you you are
00:09:13.280initiating the process of becoming holy and then as you said here the bible calls us to to death
00:09:21.660and then to be born again and then to be regenerated and be renewed and then to walk
00:09:27.080in a certain manner right um and i think that the major cause of the church's deficiency in
00:09:33.920personal holiness is that when most christians came to christ they never truly died when they
00:09:40.380came to Christ's altar, they never truly died. And they believe in Christ. They even want a
00:09:48.200partial relationship of some form with Christ, but they're still very much living in their own
00:09:54.220will. And I want you to examine yourself against these words right now. Okay, death, spiritual,
00:10:01.040uh the call to die in terms of dying to the flesh um that death is the door to holiness
00:10:09.700to becoming more like christ it's the initiation of your relationship with christ this is again
00:10:16.100why we are called to be born again and you know many of you have come to faith through what the
00:10:21.480church has called an altar call we've heard that you know there's an altar call at the end of the
00:10:26.120service where people can come forward. And an important part to explain here is that an altar
00:10:32.640is a place of sacrifice. It's a place that you go to die. In the Old Testament,
00:10:38.680an altar was a stack of stones. In the New Testament, the altar was a cross. Okay, Jesus
00:10:45.920was sacrificed as, you know, for the atonement of our sins on that altar, which was a cross.
00:10:55.280And Jesus tells us to pick up that cross daily, to pick up that altar daily and die and let it continue to do its deadly work in our lives.
00:11:09.620And again, this is why Jesus calls us to be born again, because we have to die in the flesh to be made alive in the spirit.
00:11:18.340This is also why Paul wrote Galatians 2.20.
00:11:20.740This is a verse that everybody should consider memorizing.
00:11:24.220It's a great verse. It's Paul, and he writes,
00:11:27.560I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
00:11:33.760And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God,
00:11:37.820who loved me and gave himself up for me.
00:11:41.480If you struggle to understand this, it's probably because you haven't fully died.
00:11:47.440And I'm going to say all of us are on this journey of picking up that cross.
00:11:52.500but really relinquishing the authority of your life