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THE HOLINESS OF GOD #6
ISN’T HOLINESS JUST GOD’S JOB?
God is holy, we are sinners, God forgives us, we go
to heaven, The End. Is the Gospel as simple as that? The Bible says —
and we get nervous noticing it — that WE are supposed to be holy too.
Not to earn salvation, but in heaven’s university, holiness is our major.
Someone once joked: “You know you’re in for a bad day when you come home
and find the crew from 60 Minutes parked in your driveway.” For born-again
Christian Chuck Colson, that turned out to be true in spades.
We’ve shared on this broadcast how, in the very thick of the Watergate
scandal, President Nixon’s Special Counsel gave his heart to Jesus Christ.
Chuck intended it to be a private matter between him and God, but with
his name already on the front pages of America’s newspapers, the news
quickly leaked out. (Colson must have wondered, “Where are the Plumbers
when you need them?”) And the press just had a field day with it. The
Boston Globe wrote up a lead editorial entitled “Amen, Brother!”, proceeded
to outline every real and imagined Colson transgression they could think
of, and then wrote: “If Mr. Colson can repent his sins, there just has
to be hope for everybody.”
The dilemma was this, however. Even as a new Christian, Colson was still
on the hot seat for Watergate. Special prosecutors were circling the wagons;
Jaworski and Judge Sirica wanted answers from him. And as much as he wanted
to serve the Lord and be a faithful witness, he also wanted to stay out
of jail if he could. So when he met before the Senate Watergate Committee
and was sworn in and asked hard questions, he did what his lawyer told
him: he took the Fifth Amendment. Three times in a row, he had to say,
his tongue thick and his throat tight: “I decline to answer.”
It was several months later — now in the summer of 1974 and with the Watergate
teapot really boiling over — that Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes wanted Colson
and fellow Christian Senator Harold Hughes on the hugely popular Sunday
evening news program. The pre-taping meetings were cordial, and Mike Wallace,
with his friendly smile, told both studio guests: “What you men are doing
is great, just great” — referring to their Republican/Democrat Christian
friendship, the Washington prayer breakfasts they were both famous now
for attending.
And then the TV lights came on. A technician counted down and said, “Cameras
are rolling.” And instantly, Wallace became an attacking tiger.
“Have you done more than pray?” he pressed Colson.
“Have you made a palpable witness? Have you tried to make it up to those
you’ve hurt?”
And Colson stammered around. “Uh, in my own heart .
. .”
Wallace: “But have you tried to make it up? Have you apologized? With
whom?” With deadly precision, Wallace ticked off the Colson sins: smearing
public officials, dirty tricks, political subterfuge. And the veteran
newscaster hit the perspiring Colson right between the eyes:
“A new Christian, besides talking to his God, does
he do no penance for deeds like that?”
Later in the broadcast, after scoring, by Colson’s
own admission, many points, and establishing that not a whole lot had
changed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Wallace nailed him but good.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me understand something
about this new Christianity, then. You say that you are a new man in Jesus
Christ. It seems as though your prior faith takes precedence over your
new faith.”
And Colson just plain and simple had no answer. Because
Wallace was right. He was still playing the old game, relying on slippery
answers and the Fifth Amendment. Stonewalling and saying, “I don’t remember.”
We’re just beginning a second week of study on the topic of the holiness
of God. And nobody ever claimed — not Colson, not me, and not any of the
saints in the Bible — that you and I are holy. Every single one of us
is a kind of Watergate conspirator, and we plead the Fifth Amendment on
a regular basis. At the same time, the people of God are called to holiness.
We’re called to a new way of life, where we swear in court to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Not “I decline to answer.”
We’re called to love our neighbors, not smear them, love our enemies,
not bug them. We’re called to earn votes honestly, not steal them or get
them by stuffing the ballot box. The Apostle Paul writes in his second
letter to Timothy:
“Join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has
saved us AND CALLED US TO A HOLY LIFE — not because of anything we have
done but because of His own purpose and grace.”
And Colson, sitting there with the TV makeup on, said
“Ouch!” A bit farther down in the New Testament, Peter says pretty much
the same thing in his first epistle:
“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.’”
That’s quoting from Leviticus 11, so this is a heavenly
principle on both sides of Calvary.
It’s painfully clear, then, that the holiness of God is linked with the
holiness of His people. We’ve been saying that God doesn’t strive for
holiness — He IS holiness. He IS the standard. And because we’re His creation,
made in His image, and because we were created for the specific purpose
of glorifying Him, you and I are called to live holy lives as well.
Jerry Bridges has written a trilogy of Christian books, and the titles
make it clear where he feels the Word of God stands on the issue of a
believer’s obedience. Here they are: The Pursuit of Holiness, The Pursuit
of Godliness, and Transforming Grace. Listen carefully to this very straightforward
paragraph:
“God does not require a perfect sinless life to have
fellowship with Him,” he writes, “But He does require that we be serious
about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying
it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness AS A WAY OF LIFE.”
That’s very intense, isn’t it? Praise God for his ringing
affirmation that perfect holiness is not our entrance ticket to Paradise.
The blood of Jesus Christ shed on the Cross is what unlocks heaven’s door
for the believer. The Bible is crystal clear on that from Genesis to Revelation.
But then we go on to discover that holiness is a serious issue, an important
matter for the follower of Christ. That we are supposed to “grieve over
our sins,” and that we’re supposed to get down on our knees every day
and not only pray for forgiveness, but also tell the Lord that we’re serious
about living holy lives from now on.
We’ve used many, many times the great C. S. Lewis soundbite about the
Christian obeying God “in a new way, a less worried way.” And true, friend,
it is a wonderfully less worried way, but it still IS the way! The goal
is always obedience, never disobedience. We strive for perfection, not
IMperfection. That, by the way, when done in the shadow of the Cross,
is not perfectionISM!
Robert Murray McCheyne is quoted as saying:
“The ambition of my life is to be as holy as a saved sinner can be.”
And I really love this challenge from John White, who
has written a book entitled The Pathway to Holiness:
“Holiness is not optional for the Christian.” Now get
this: “It is not an elective. It is your major.”
Maybe you’ve been away from college for as long as
I have, but friend, I do remember this: the thing that’s your major .
. . you study that harder than just about anything. You want to get all
A’s in your major field. And once we are redeemed sons and daughters of
God, holiness becomes our major. By the way, our major professor, Jesus
Christ, doesn’t just teach holiness: He IS holiness. And we get it from
not only fellowshipping with Him, but in deliberately doing the homework.
Focusing on it. Thinking about it and doing it and turning in the lab
reports.
That’s how it was when Chuck Colson finally had the CBS sound guy unhook
the lapel mike. His makeup was dripping, his shirt was drenched, and spiritually
he was just wiped out. He confesses in his book, Born Again — the first
in a long line of marvelous books, by the way:
“The reality was exploding before me in the blinding-white
camera lights: I could not be a criminal defendant and a disciple for
Christ at the same time.”
He was reading a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called
The Cost of Discipleship, and found a paragraph which continued to haunt
him even after the 60 Minutes mail died down:
“The first step which follows Christ’s call,” Bonhoeffer
writes, “cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. The call to
follow at once produces a new situation. To stay in the old situation
makes discipleship impossible.”
The very next day, just a week and a half after the
Wallace interview, Colson called his friend Harold Hughes. “I’ve made
up my mind,” he said. “I’m going to go ahead and plead guilty. When Daniel
Ellsberg was under indictment by the government, I DID smear him in the
press. It was a criminal act, and I’m going to confess.”
Colson’s lawyer, Dave Shapiro, was livid at the news. “You’re nuts,” he
shouted. “I’m about to get you off scott-free, and you’re going to do
what?!” But fellow Christian Harold Hughes was proud, humble, grateful,
and rejoicing. “Hallelujah, man,” he said to his new brother in the Lord.
“It kills me — thinking about jailtime for you, but I’ve been waiting
for this day.”
Colson did indeed go to Holabird Prison. He served
his time. He got out. And he’s been majoring in holiness ever since. Last
time anyone checked, his GPA was pretty good too.
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