Our name | Mission | Vision | Leaders Ministries | Schedule | Directions | Contact Home   Gateway Church gathers for worship Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Location: 6425 Jefferson Rd. (Hwy. 129) in Athens, Georgia. For directions, click here. Ministry of the Word: Recent sermons Our quarterly e-magazine Gateway Today For the Gateway family Pastor Jerry's Weekly E-Mail A GATEWAY SERMON SUMMARY AUDIO Holiness: roots or fruits? (Second in a series) Jerry Varnado, pastor Gateway Church, Athens GA November 12, 2006 Main Scripture text: Luke 3:7-18 Sermons in this series: Soap, Fire, and Holiness Everybody has troubles. But if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you can be assured that the difficulties you're facing are not useless or meaningless. Holiness: Roots or Fruits? There is a 'personal' holiness that can also make a difference in the world in the world around us. Holy, Holey, Wholly Just what does God mean when He says we "must be holy"? In talking about holiness, our starting point is that God is holy. He is altogether perfect in character. God will always think and do what is right and just. He is always motivated by love, righteousness, and justice. To speak of anything or anyone else as holy, is to say that it has something of God's mark on it. In the church, Christians have generally fallen into one of two camps regarding personal holiness. I call the two camps, "roots" and "fruits." The "roots" group focuses its attention on internal things -- sometimes called "personal piety": how much a person prays or reads the Bible, goes to church, etc. The "fruits" group is more focused on feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and otherwise doing what we can to alleviate pain and suffering in the world. At first glance, it would seem from our text in Luke 3 that the "fruits" group gets the nod from John the Baptist. But any good gardener knows a good root system is necessary to have a healthy plant. To see the Christian life only from the perspective of "fruit production" reduces it to "cut flower religion." Cut flowers have no roots, so they wilt and die in just a few days. For us to have lasting fruit, we must be rooted in a solid, foundational relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The truth is: Holiness is not either "roots" or "fruits" -- it's both. Jesus makes us holy by an internal work of Grace. But then our external acts will be the natural expression of that internal holiness. One other thing: we seem to have this idea that holiness has to do with "mystical" kinds of things, not the ordinary things of day to day living. When people in the crowd asked John the Baptist, "What must we do?", he didn't tell them to hole up in a room and pray for three weeks. He gave them practical suggestions on how to live a holy life. He said to do what is right, fair and just. Be kind and generous with those less fortunate than you. Or as Jesus would later teach: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Want to be holy? Then allow the character of Jesus to be manifest in how you live. Love your family. Love your neighbor. Be kind, generous, and helpful. Pray for each other. Bear one another's burdens. Feed the hungry, pray for the sick, visit the prisoners Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. That's personal holiness that makes a difference in the world. Supporting texts: Matthew 13:20-21 | Revelation 1:18 | 1 John 4:4 | Luke 10:19 | Luke 6:31 A mp3 audio file of this sermon is here (26 min.). (Download to a PC by right clicking on the link and choosing "Save Target As." Mac users: click, hold, and choose "Download Link to Disk." Depending on your connection speed, the file may take several minutes to download.) An audio tape of the sermon summarized above is available free of charge (U.S. requests only). Request a tape by calling or writing the Gateway Church office. Please specify tape number 061112a: Holiness: Roots or Fruits? © 2006 Gerald R. Varnado To the Gateway Church home page How to contact us