Help with Being Holy: When My Sanctification Is Stuck

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Psalm 130:1-8
November 13, 2022

Psalm 130:1-8: Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
     O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

Sermon Outline

1. Psalmist's situation: "Out of the depths..."

• Description of depths

• Result of depths

2. Psalmist "cries out"

3. Psalmist waits for the Lord

4. What waiting looks like

• Psalmist waits intensely

• Psalmist reminds himself of what he knows of God

  • Forgiveness

  • Unfailing love

• Psalmist helps others before he gets relief

Closing song: "Tired" by Linda Rich

Benediction

Now to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,... to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. — paraphrased from Revelation 1:5-6

Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Parents

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
October 16, 2022

Deuteronomy 6:4-9: These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Sermon Outline

1. General Principle: Major way God blesses kids spiritually is through parents

• We hear most conversions are by age 12

• Proverbs 22:6: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old(comma) he will not turn from it."

2. Kids thrive spiritually only as parents take their own spiritual lives seriously

• God addresses parents instead of their kids

3. For parents to take spiritual life seriously, they must grow in their understanding of God

• Gained through the Bible

  • Parents grow to understand the Bible as they gather in church

  • Parents grow to understand the Bible as they study it at home

4. For parents to take spiritual life seriously, they must actually love and fear God

• Parents must have a fear of God

• Parents must have a love for God

5. If kids are to thrive spiritually, parents must make their spiritual training at the core of their family life

• Deeply stamp God's Word on the minds of your children

• God gets personal about this

• What "impressing" looks like

Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Other Christians

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Hebrews 10:23-25
October 2, 2022

Hebrews 10:23-25: Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Sermon Outline

1. Great danger in Hebrews: Leaving the Christian faith

• Falling away

• Objection: I could never drift

• Objection: True Christians can't lose salvation

2. Great need: Perseverance in the Christian faith

3. How Christians persevere in the faith

• Encouraging one another

• Spurring one another

• Meeting together

4. Why Christians neglect meeting together

• Persecution

• Attraction to the world

• Dissatisfaction with their church

• Weariness, laziness

• Prefers private study of scripture

• Family and/or friends

5. Meeting together grows more urgent as Jesus' return draws nearer

Benediction

Hebrews 10:35-36: So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he was promised.

Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Financial Giving

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Acts 20:33-35
September 18, 2022

Acts 20:33-35: “I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Sermon Outline

1. The Old Testament background

• The "regular tithe"

• The poor tithe

• Leaving gleanings for the poor

2. Is the tithe for today?

• How important is giving?

• What is necessary in order to be able to give? Work

3. How giving helps with sanctification

• Giving gives joy... and joy helps with holiness

• Giving weans you from this world and gives you focus on the next

4. Two final thoughts

• Earning money is not wrong

• The least likely people should give

Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Prayer

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Isaiah 64:7
September 11, 2022

Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — The Bible

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: John 17:17
September 4, 2022

John 17:17, NIV: "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."

John 17:17, NLT: "Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth."

Sermon Outline

1. The "means of grace"

• The meaning of grace

• The paradox of grace

• An illustration of the paradox

• The means of grace

2. Who, exactly, needs to be sanctified by the Bible?

• The twelve apostles

• Jesus (while he was on earth)

• Your holiness is linked with your familiarity with the Bible

3. What did Jesus mean by "your word"?

4. How the Bible helps you with holiness

• Most basic: information about what really counts

• God breathes life into that information

5. Challenges to reading the Bible

• "I already know what's in the Bible."

• "I don't understand it."

• "I'm a poor reader."

• "The Bible doesn't seem to help."

6. Closing Appeal

Benediction

Acts 20:32: “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

Help with Being Holy: Holiness as Negative and Positive (Part B)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Various Passages
August 21, 2022

Help with Being Holy: Holiness as Negative and Positive (Part A)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Various Passages
August 14, 2022

Help with Being Holy: God's Part, My Part

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Various Passages
August 7, 2022

Help with Being Holy: Bad Slavery, Good Slavery

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Romans 6:15-23
July 24, 2022

Sermon Outline

1. Everyone is a slave to either righteousness or sin

• We tend to think, "I'm my own person"

• Experience confirms we are slaves

• Scripture teaches we are slaves

2. In your pre-Christian life, sin was a terrible slave master

• Slavery to sin led to shame

• Slavery to sin leads to death

• Sin inevitably leads to more sin

3. Righteousness is a wonderful slave master

• Noteworthy contrast between the two slaveries

4. Applications

• If your life basically ignores God, why would you be confident of eternal life?

• If righteousness feels like drudgery, you may not be a Christian

• If you are a slave of God...

Benediction

Revelation 22:3: No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his slaves will serve him. They will see his face.

Revelation 22:21: he grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.

Help with Being Holy: Death to Sin (Part B)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Romans 6:1-14
July 17, 2022

Sermon Outline

1. We died to sin

• The Christian's death to sin relates to his baptism.

• The Christian's death to sin is from being joined to Christ's death in particular

2. The death of Christ Himself was a "death to sin."

• Christ's death was a death to the power of sin and death (hear Steve out on this)

3. We were buried with Christ through our baptism.

4. Your resurrection to new life is certain.

• Since we are united with Christ in his death, we will certainly be united with him in His resurrection

5. Your death to sin affected your whole person, including your body.

• Your death to sin affected your whole person

• Your death to sin included your body

6. Your resurrection to new life is certain.

• Christ cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him

• Neither does spiritual death have mastery over you. You are a new creation

7. What do we do with all of this?

8. All this comes with a promise.

Benediction

1 Thessalonians 5:23: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Help with Being Holy: Death to Sin (Part A)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Romans 6:1-11
July 3, 2022

Romans 6:1-11: What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.  The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he loves to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon Outline

1. Paul's basic position

2. Paul is talking to Christians (i.e., people who have been baptized)

3. Overcoming sin starts with something we are to know

• We must know that "We died"

• We must know that "We died to sin"

• We must know that "Our death to sin has to do with Christ's death"

4. Wrong views of death to sin

• Death to sin as a psychological change

• Death to sin as a death to sin's allure

• Death to sin as a stimulus

Benediction

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,... to him be glory and power for ever and ever!  Amen. — paraphrased from Revelation 1:5

Help with Being Holy: What is Holiness? Do I Need It?

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Leviticus 19:1-2
June 26, 2022

Leviticus 19:1-2: Now the LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy."

Sermon Outline

1. God says, "I am holy."

• The meaning of "holy”

• First: God's holiness means he is separate from us

• Second: God's holiness means separate because he is superior to us

• Third: God's holiness means he is different from us

• Fourth: God's holiness means he has no evil in himself

2. God sometimes declares certain places and objects "holy"

• Moses and the burning bush

• Other objects, places, and times

• These things are not ethically holy

3. God sometimes sets certain people aside to be "holy"

• Levites

• Israelites

4. God not only declares Christian believers "holy" -- he commands us to be holy

• God's demand for holiness seems unattractive

• God's demand for holiness seems scary

• God's demand for holiness seems impossible

5. Three thoughts in response

• Regarding holiness as unattractive

• Regarding holiness as scary

• Regarding holiness as impossible

Benediction

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.