Heart For Holiness | Pastor Adam Peterson

This is week nine of this series. It's going to go a couple more weeks and so just buckle in and just keep rocking and rolling with us. Before we jump into today's message, we always love just to look into the camera. We don't know who's on the other side of the screens right now watching, but God has allowed us just to expand our reach and man, just really kind of get the message that God has put on our hearts into different people's lives. And so wherever you're joining us from online family, we are so grateful for you. We do consider you our church family. And we pray that God speaks to your heart today. And then we say this every single week. And I hope that it never gets old. And I hope that you know we mean it to the men and women in the correctional facilities. You are our church family. Come on, let them all know. We love you. And I don't want to share this. We just collected our offering here in person online family. Make sure you're giving as well. If we're family, let's go invest in what God is doing. But I want to share this with you. We just had our yearly meeting with our partner organization called God Behind Bars. It's how we're able to take our services and stream them into hundreds of prisons across the nation. And so we are so grateful for this partnership.

It's something we began in 2024. And so a little over two years now, we have partnered with them and they give us updates. Like we have real metrics that can measure like how many people are watching? Where are they watching from? What messages did they enjoy the most? And one of the biggest numbers that we love to celebrate and I want to bring to you, if you give in this church, part of what you're giving allows us to have this partnership with them, 1,185 men and women have said yes to a relationship with Jesus. And so if you're watching today and you are one of those, we celebrate that with you. If you're watching today and you have never said yes to a relationship with Jesus, we're so grateful that you're here with us. And maybe that's you online. Maybe that's you in the room today. Man, God created our church. He put it on our hearts to create a church for people that are far from God. And so we're so grateful you are here wherever you are coming from in your walk with the Lord. Just know this, man, we're a church for everyone. And our message is this, we love God and we love people and God loves people. That means you, that means you're people, he loves you. And this series that we're in is this, that we want to have a heart for God's house.

As the church, as rise church, we are the house of God. We're the people of God. And we want to have a heart for his house, that God has a desire for us as a church. But then twofold, the Bible would say this, that if you're a follower of Jesus, you're the house of God. He lives in you. And so for our lives, we want to have a heart for his house. Our verses that we've been talking about, every single week, we're in week nine. That means we've read these verses nine times. Some of you are like, I am tired of these verses. I'm glad, because that means you're just starting to get it. And so the psalmist says this in Psalm 122, I rejoice with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Meaning at some point somebody came along and said, let's go to church together. I mean, let's go worship God together. And the psalmist was like, that's a great idea. I hope that's how you feel about church. Coming to church on Sunday morning, or anytime really our church gathers, man, I hope that you get excited about it. I hope that not only you come, and I hope that you're coming with people. I hope you're gathering with people. I hope you're getting to know people. Don't be the person that just comes in and then leaves immediately.

Get to know some people. We need each other, amen? 10 o'clock is ready to go this morning. I love it. And then Jesus said this, and I just love this verse because as the lead pastor role that God has allowed me to be in, I'm just reminded by this verse, this is not my church. Jesus is the pastor of this church. He leads everything. He gets all the any good thing that happens in this church. We give God all the glory and all the credit. But Jesus said this in Matthew 16, I will build my church and all the powers of hell. We'll not conquer it. The church is not a building. It's not a place. It is the people of God coming together as the family of God. And the enemies tried to stop us. Satan has tried to stop this thing. But when God is leading the charge, he cannot win. Amen? Yes. And so I want to just go ahead and share with you today that we're going to kind of do church a little bit different this morning. That if you've been around here long enough, the service flow is going to be a little bit different. And I don't tell you that to scare you just to prepare you. And I also want to tell you, especially for those of you that are watching online today at the close of the message,

we're going to be taking communion today. And communion is something that we do to remember Jesus, to remember what he did for us on the cross that he gave his body. It was nailed on the cross for us that he shared. room there should have been a communion cup on your seat for those of you that are watching online if you want to get something that just allows you to think about the body and blood whatever you can do we're going to be heading that way at the close of the service but before we get there I want to talk about this idea today we want to have a heart for holiness a heart for holiness and I don't know what I was expecting in that moment but I got three amen's and so that's not great considering the number of people in here I don't know if I was like maybe five amen's would have been the marker but I got three so like we're like I was here we went there I don't know if I was I don't know what I was expecting but here's what I will say I want you to have a heart for holiness and that's too late that's that now you just that's we call that pity and that goes below the line there not only do I want you to have a heart for holiness we believe God wants you to have a heart for holiness how many of you know we serve a holy God amen and if you didn't know that I hope that that's really encouraging let me give you two verses right here Isaiah Old Testament Revelation New Testament and these two verses pretty much say the same thing the little bit of wordages differently but the first sentence the first part is identical and it says this in Isaiah holy holy holy is the Lord Almighty he's not just holy he's not just holy holy he is holy holy holy and if you're wondering why do they say it three times well here's what you need to understand just like you as a parent any time you say something more than once what are you trying to do emphasize something and the Bible is so clear and there's so much you could go and study about any time a word is repeated in Scripture it is for emphasis and so what we have here is the holiness of God being emphasized significantly he's not just holy he is holy holy holy is the Lord Almighty no amen for that okay the whole earth the whole thing is full of his glory this

is established in the Old Testament when Isaiah gets a look into the throne room of God it gets re-emphasized again in Revelation because the book of Revelation last book in Scripture is written by a guy named John who gets a peek behind the curtain of what heaven is like and John starts writing down everything that he sees and he starts writing down everything that he hears and in Revelation 4 John says I saw these creatures these angels and they were kind of weird-looking and they were flying around the throne of God and day and night they just kept saying the same phrase holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was who is and is to come day and night this is what they were doing giving praise to God and so we read a word like holy and our mind thinks about what that word means but I want to just simplify it for you because this is huge the word holy means set apart none like you I find it interesting that the angels in heaven weren't flying around the throne of God going peace peace peace is the Lord God Almighty because God is peace they're not saying love love love is the Lord God Almighty because God is a God of love the word they choose to worship and magnify Jesus the word they choose to magnify God is that he's holy holy he set apart there's no one like him it's almost as if the angels are crying out there's no one like you there's no one like you there's no one like you it's why we have verses in Scripture that'll say something to the extent of his ways are higher than our ways that we can't even begin to comprehend who he is and how he operates and how he's working because there's no one like him I wonder if we can rejoice this morning I wonder if we can get a little excited this morning that as a church and as a people as followers of Jesus that we serve a God that there is no one like You're not doing it anyway, so don't do it. (congregation laughing) But I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do it in a little bit, I'm gonna count to three. But can we rejoice this morning in the fact that we serve a God, there's no one like Him.

Can we rejoice in the fact that the God we serve is not like us. Thank you God that you're not like us. You're higher and you're better and you're greater. Can we rejoice this morning? Come on on the, I said on the, I said I'm gonna count to three. (congregation laughing) Better hold your, one, two, three. Can we rejoice? (congregation cheering) Come on, there's no one like Him. Don't try to compare God with anybody else. Don't try to compare God with yourself. Well, this is what I think about God. You're wrong, you can't. We can begin to, there is a portion of His holiness that we can comprehend here on earth, but there will be a day where we stand before Him in heaven. Come on somebody, where we will see Him for who He really is, and then we're gonna know, oh, that's what it means for you to be holy. And you know what we're gonna do in that moment? We're gonna join the choir of heaven that's already singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. I don't mean to bum you out, but you're not gonna be fishing. And we'll be at that pond, man. Catch us a big old bass.

And no, you're gonna go holy, holy, holy. There is no, oh my gosh, this is how good you really are. He's holy. And so we're establishing that God is holy. We don't really have to establish it. He's already done it. We're just coming into agreement with who He is. But then can we really come into agreement that if this God we serve is holy, then what does He want to make us into? What does He want to do in us? He wants to make us say it with me. - Holy. - Holy. Now anybody wanna raise your hand this morning and proclaim that you are holy. Any holy people in the room? We got a couple? All right, come on, let's go. I love it, I love it. And here's what I would say. If you have called upon Jesus to come into your life, you actually are holy. Don't believe me? That's not my words. We're gonna look at what the Bible says. Sound good? Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10. We have been made holy. What?

You? How are you holy? How did you get? How, what did you do to get holy? You ready? We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (audience applauds) So Jesus Christ gave his life for us. And the moment we call on him, he makes us holy. I love the song we just sang. ♪ Does anybody wanna be holy? ♪ ♪ Righteous, purified and spotless ♪ ♪ Let me tell you, you better be really good ♪ (audience laughs) You don't get holy by being good. The way we get holy, it's only by the blood. All right. So the reason you didn't raise your hand when I said, are you holy? Which some of y'all did and you get a gold star. The reason you didn't raise your hand saying you're holy is 'cause you know you. You're like, I don't know, I don't always live holy though. You might not always live holy, but that doesn't mean that holiness hasn't been given to you. So let me explain it, you're ready, this is such good news, this is such good news. You're a jacked up sinner, okay?

Anybody wanna confess, you're a jacked up sinner. All right, if your hand's not up, you should put two hands up, all right? (audience laughs) You're a sinner, the moment you call upon Jesus to save you and rescue you from your sin, which you can't do on your own, you need Jesus to do it, the moment you do that, you get all of Jesus. So you call on him, he brings all of himself into your life, you are now the house of God, he lives in you and all that he is comes to live inside all of you. So when you call upon him, you get all of his holiness. He makes you holy. It'd be like if you were throwing a party for the Jaguar game today, come on somebody. I got my lucky socks on, all right? Last week that's on me, I didn't wear my lucky socks. This week I got us. It'd be like you throwing a party and you go, So you call your friend and you go, "Hey, you got chips and dip?" And they go, "I got chips and dip." And then you go, "You wanna come to the party?" And they go, "Yeah, I'll come to the party." And then you say, "Can you bring your chips and dip?" And they go, "I got you." You didn't have it. But now they're coming to the party and they're bringing with them something you didn't have.

That's Jesus. You don't have holiness. He's got more than enough. You call on him, he shows up to the party and he goes, "We're gonna cancel the debt of your sin. "We're gonna pay for all of that through my blood "and I'm bringing all of me to all of you, "all his holiness, all his righteousness, "all his grace, all his love, all his kindness, "all his good, gets given to you." We call that an upgrade, baby. That's from the back of the plane to first class, man. So you don't walk around going, "Look at what I did." You go, "Look what he did for me." This is, all I brought to the party was sin. He brought holiness. You with me? All right, let me give you a verse. This is four verses later, same chapter, just four verses later. For by one sacrifice, that's Jesus, Old Testament law, they had to continue making animal sacrifices over and over and over for the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus came in once and for all. We're not sacrificing animals this morning, okay? Praise the Lord for that, right? By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever. That's you, he's perfected you. Why? He forgave your sins and he gave you his perfection, okay?

Perfected forever, those who are being made holy. So he gave you holiness and he's making you holy. You tracking with me on that? All right, let me say it like this. Salvation is you are made holy by Jesus. The moment you call upon Jesus, he comes in and forgives your sins and he brings his holiness. Sanctification is you are being made holy by Jesus. I call upon Jesus, he makes me holy because of salvation, because of his blood. But I've still got some sin that comes back into my life from time to time. And so Jesus is making me holy, getting that sin out of my life. How many of you still have sin in your life? If you didn't raise your hand, that's your sin, okay? You're a liar. Here's the sanctification process, you ready? All of your past is forgiven. Anybody grateful that all of your past is forgiven? Okay. When we call upon Jesus, and if you've never called upon Jesus, like you don't have it yet, but it's available to you today, the moment you call on Jesus, all your past gets forgiven. But now here we are in your present and in our present, we still sin. And so the sanctification process is Jesus changing us, giving us power and victory over our sin.

Now, I think the majority of us would use this language. I'm not where I wanna be, but I'm not where I used to be. Let me sing the blood song one more time. I love one of the first ones. I don't walk like I used to, and I don't talk like I used to. I have been changed. And if you're like, no, I kind of keep back in the same way. I would ask you, did you really get changed? Did you really meet the Jesus that you claim you met? Because your life should start to look different. So there's this present sanctification process that's happening right now as we live. But then there's a future sanctification process that will happen in heaven, where we will be perfected forever. There will be no sin in our lives. We will be perfect in the sight of God because of what he has done for us in heaven for all eternity. That's good news, right? So what we wanna do is we wanna say God, while I live here on earth, you've made me holy because of Jesus, but keep making me holy. What's the language we've been using in our church? More of you, Jesus, and less of me. And here's the reality, 'cause the Bible is very clear on this, that when you live a life of holiness, and you surrender your life, and you walk in obedience to God,

and you turn from sin, and you turn to God, that when you live a life of holiness, God can actually use you in a greater way. Now, cover to cover in the Bible? who are becoming more like Jesus, you're going to have more to offer not because of who you are again but because of what Jesus is doing in and through you. So that's the goal. Now Robert, I didn't warn you for this but I need you to bring that table up here. We're going to do an illustration and I hope that I'm a visual learner and so I hope that this visual illustration, you put it right there, thank you, Robert. I hope that this helps you. How many of you love cooking? Anybody love cooking? Yeah. How many of you love takeout? Yeah, perfect. Let's go. I like both, you know what I'm saying? I like takeout when I don't want to cook. So I enjoy cooking my daughters, my middle daughter and my younger daughter. They love helping in the kitchen when I'm cooking and one of the things they enjoy doing is cutting anything that needs to be cut and so you know you teach them a healthy respect of knives and everything. So I brought the hatchet today and so the idea is this, that if you have a recipe and it calls for carrots but it doesn't call for a whole carrot, it calls for you to dice up a carrot or dice up celery or dice up an onion or whatever, you got to get it out and you got to start, you got to start cutting, I had a dream this week that I cut my finger off doing this illustration and so I was like, I'm going to be very careful, I told the first service I was going to mess with you guys and be like, but that would be weird and so,

so what you do is you cut and then you set it to the side because you don't need this, you need this, what are you doing? You're setting it apart for a separate purpose. This is holiness, God is saying there are some things I want to cut off of you because they are not holy, they are not my best for you and until you allow me to cut those things off of you, I cannot set you apart for a holy and righteous purpose that I am calling you to and I hope that you understand this, you do not have to be a pastor, you do not have to be a church staff member, God wants to use your life in a mighty awesome, amazing way. How do I know that? Because I already see him doing it through so many of you, why? Because you have allowed him to cut some things off of you, you have surrendered some things to God and said, God, I don't need this in my life anymore, what I need is you and there is a holiness that God is calling us to today and so that's the direction that we're going but before we can go there, we have to have what I would call, really not what I would call what the Bible would call, we have to have repentance in our heart. For the things in our lives that are not holy, 2 Corinthians says it like this, Godly sorrow and Godly sorrow isn't you just feeling bad about something, Godly sorrow knows and I have done something that breaks the heart of God. Anybody can feel bad about a mistake they've made. Anybody can feel like, oh man, I feel bad about that. Raise your hand if you've ever done something that you know has actually affected somebody else, a bad decision you made. How many of you have had somebody else's bad decisions affect you? And in those moments you could be like, oh man, I feel really bad about this. I'm sorry that affected you. We're looking for something a little bit greater, God's looking for something greater. He says Godly sorrow and actually brings repentance and that repentance, and it leads to salvation and it leaves no regret, meaning whatever it is that you allow the Lord to cut off of you, whatever it is that you truly repent of and you say God, I have broken your heart and I am so sorry, I don't ever want to do that again, I want my life to go in

a different direction, you're going to look back and go, I don't regret leaving that stuff behind at all because I know that stuff is sin that leads to death and Jesus, all I want is what leads to you because that is life. And so hear me very clearly, true repentance changes the direction your life is going. And here's what we have in the church today and I'm just going to be real with you because this is how God put it on my heart and someone you need to hear this very clearly, true repentance changes the direction your life is going. And what we have is a lot of people. They're saying God forgive me but their life keeps going in the same direction and God's calling us to more. Yes, God forgive me. Thank you. The blood of Jesus forgives me and now I want to turn from this and I want to turn to you. Bann, you can come and join me on the stage. Here's what that looks like for some of you. You've got some ungodly friendships in your life that keep leading you down a path that is not God's best for you and I'm telling you, God wants to cut them off. I've known them a whole life. Well, that's great. That's awesome. Are they leading you to Jesus? Some of you are watching things, scrolling through things, searching and clicking on things. Some of you have some apps on your phone right now that are not holy and they are causing you to do things that are not holy and you can go God forgive me or you can go delete. Get that off on my phone. Get that out of my life because God is calling us to holiness. It's what He wants for our lives and when we walk in holiness that leads to Him, we'll look back at all that stuff and there'll be no regret. Well, God, I don't miss that at all.

This is what I felt like the Lord told me to tell somebody in this room and so if you don't like it, take it up with God. Some of you are in a relationship right now that you know is not holy. And some men and women, you're living together, you know it's not God's best for you. The Holy Spirit has already been speaking to your heart about it, you've excused it and God wants you to make it right. He's talking to a young couple in our church recently. They started coming to our church, this was a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago. They started coming to our church, God started moving in their hearts and in their lives. They were living together and they said, "We know that God is calling us to get married and until we do, our lives are going to be completely different. We are not going to engage in anything sexual. We are going to live holy lives before God until we enter into marriage with one another and make it holy and right in God's sight." And if that's you in this room today, this is not a message of conviction to make you feel bad. This is me speaking encouragement into you, take the step you already know God's calling you to take. And walk in holy repentance changes the direction you're going. And this is never any decision of obedience you make is never just for you. It'll affect you, it'll bless you, but others will see it as well and it'll bless them. And so when all of this ends today and you exit out, I am going to be standing at the next steps wall and I want you to walk up and I want you to look me in the eye and you go past your Adam, that's us and we are ready to make it holy in the eyes of God. And I will be there to celebrate with you, to hug you, I'm not going to judge you. We already had one couple do that after the first service, but here's what we're going to do right now in this moment. Our band is going to lead us in a song. You have a communion cup on your seat. You don't need to get it out right now, you don't need to do anything with it.

We are going to start right now, this is the different part I was telling you about. We're going to start right now with repentance in our heart. Because every single one of us in here can identify at least one area of our lives. I've already been doing it for myself this week. We can identify at least one area in our lives where we go, that's not holy. And God I want to not only just ask for your forgiveness, I want to repent and change the direction of my life. So we're going to start with repentance and the way we're going to do that is you can do it in your seat. This altar is wide open for you to come and kneel up. And if you're thinking well if I come down there and kneel at the altar then people will know I've got stuff in my life. Listen, you all have stuff in your life. And if you're like I don't have anything yet you've got more stuff than you realize. life you want to meet with the Lord so this altar is open you can stand and sing whatever you want to whatever the Spirit of God is leading you to do just be honest with God and be honest with yourself and then and only then after you have repented what I encourage you to take communion and communion is simply this it's remembering Jesus it's remembering what he has done for you and I will just say it like this some of you you don't even need to take communion today because the Bible is clear you don't take it flippantly you take it reverently because you're honoring God and remembering him some of you just aren't ready in that place to do it today but I would encourage you take it home and find a moment with the Lord today tomorrow where you get really real with God this is a holy moment it's gonna be different we're not rushing it we want you to meet with the Lord presence of God is in this place he responds to repentance may we listen to his voice today