Living on the edge....

Pt.4   Living on the Edge

Proverbs 4:10-19

My son, listen. Accept what I say. Then you will live for many years. I instruct you in the way of wisdom. I lead you along straight paths. When you walk, nothing will slow you down. When you run, you won’t trip and fall. Hold on to my teaching and don’t let it go. Guard it well, because it is your life. Don’t take the path of evil people. Don’t live the way sinners do. Stay away from their path and don’t travel on it. Turn away from it and go on your way. Sinners can’t rest until they do what is evil. They can’t sleep until they make someone sin. They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as easily as they drink wine. The path of those who do right is like the sun in the morning.  It shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day.  But the way of those who do what is wrong is like deep darkness. They don’t know what makes them trip and fall.                                                                                                                                                                                      Proverbs 4:10-19

Opening:  Today is the closing message in the teaching series HOW TO EAT AN ELEPHANT.  We missed one message due to the ice and frigid weather, creating a safety risk for last week.  I really want to close this series with a practical message about holiness. Holiness is perhaps one of the most misunderstood terms of our time. A study by The Barna Group reveals that though the Bible talks a lot about holiness, most people are confused and even apprehensive about what it means.

Pastor Ray Stedman observed, “Most of us associate [holiness] with some kind of grimness or solemnity. We think holy people are those who look as if they have been steeped in vinegar or soaked in embalming fluid.”

 No wonder few Christians aspire to be holy. We have been talking about holiness as a pursuit of God in an area of your life. The Proverb we read talks about applying wisdom to our life to pursue holiness.

God is Holy and calls us to be Holy. As we have discussed since the first of this year – our lives are often filled with guilt, shame, regrets and failures in trying to pursue holiness.  We are discovering that through repentance and redemption we can pursue God in discovering Holiness.

Try your best to live in peace with everyone. Try hard to be holy. Without holiness no one will see the Lord.                                                                                                      Hebrews 12:14

In his book: Why Holiness Matters – author Tyler Baum states that   Holiness is not new behaviors. Holiness is new affections. He goes on: “We cannot view Holiness simply as a piety, worked out in private and never shared in the day to day of our lives.”

I believe that true Holiness is a work of God, though His Holy Spirit – enhancing God’s Word and wisdom in us – influencing how we live each moment of every day.

ILL: Larry was excited about serving Jesus. He was saved at the revival in his church a few months prior. Larry’s attitude was changed. Now Larry was a completely new person. Everyone knew that something had happened to Larry (examples)… If anyone had ever been saved, you knew Larry had. But Larry began to sense that something was missing. He knew with certainty that he wanted to follow Jesus, but there was often a struggle inside Larry. He struggled to do what was right while also being pulled away to do what was wrong. Often, Larry failed to do the right thing and would have to repent. Also, something about his faith began to turn mechanical. Larry still wanted to serve God, but he was often distracted by his friends and relatives who couldn’t understand his new outlook on life. Sometimes that would build up and build pressure to where he wasn’t sure that he wanted people to know about the difference God made in his life. Why was this happening to Larry?

We become discontented when we lose spiritual focus; when we live on the moral edge of life. Living on the edge is living with a personal instance of doing what I want. 

Here are 2 questions to help you determine if you’re living too close to the edge:

1. Is there any tension inside of me about how I am living?

2. Are you satisfied with the level of sin in your life right now?

If we emphasize living on the moral edge, we are really describing distance from God.         A sign of this is when we find ourselves trying to rationalize our decisions and behavior.

Oswald Chambers: “God has one destined end for mankind – holiness!    His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men. He did not come to save men out of pity. He came to   save men because He had created them to be holy.”

Living too close to the moral edge is rules without relationship, emphasizing standards more than the Savior and laws more than love. It produces futility instead of freedom. God has created us to be holy!

 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.                                                                                                                   Proverbs 14:12 NKJV

Would you agree that people are dangerous decision makers?

A Test:  Words on the screens – shout out the color of each word:

A caution I give is when we reach a place in our spiritual life that we think we have mastered Biblical principles – I know enough to be good.  When we stop pursuing holiness – we grow stagnate in our spiritual life and we step further and further away from God. 

To start being wise you must first get wisdom. No matter what it costs, get understanding.                                                                                                                              Proverbs 4:7

I want you to know that wisdom is like honey for you. If you find it, there is hope for you tomorrow.                                 So your hope will not be cut off.                                            Proverbs 24:14

As Ralph Cudworth (1617 – 26 June 1688) explained many years ago, “I do not mean by holiness the mere performance of outward duties of religion, coldly acted over, as a task; not our habitual prayings, hearings, fastings, multiplied one upon another, even though these are all good, they are subservient to a higher end. I mean cultivating the principle of intimacy with Jesus, the principle of being renewed to His image and character, hating what He hates and loving what He loves.”

Closing:

My son, listen. Accept what I say. Then you will live for many years. I instruct you in the way of wisdom. I lead you along straight paths. When you walk, nothing will slow you down. When you run, you won’t trip and fall. Hold on to my teaching and don’t let it go. Guard it well, because    it is your life. Don’t take the path of evil people. Don’t live the way sinners do. Stay away from their path and don’t travel on it. Turn away from it and go on your way. Sinners can’t rest until they do what is evil. They can’t sleep until they make someone sin. They do evil just as easily as they eat food. They hurt others as easily as they drink wine. The path of those who do right is like the sun in the morning.  It shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day.  But the way of those who do what is wrong is like deep darkness. They don’t know what makes them trip and fall.                                                                                                                    Proverbs 4:10-19

Make a Plan to Stay in God’s Wisdom.

- Our Daily Bread      - A chapter of Proverbs a day

Following our worship together today we have a membership vote taking place.  Here is a sample ballot for those in attendance to vote today:

Election of the Membership

North Raleigh Church of the Nazarene

January 31, 2016

1. We agree to allow the church board of the North Raleigh Church of the Nazarene to negotiate the sale of the church property, in conjunction with and with the approval from the District Advisory Board. 

q YES              q NO

2. We agree to authorize the church board of the North Raleigh Church of the Nazarene to refinance the church mortgage in conjunction with and   with the approval of the District Advisory Board. 

q YES              q NO