Romans 14:13-19    The Joy of Holiness              April 1^st, 2007

    Today is our last message on a life of holiness.  To live a Holy Life is to live a great life, a higher life, a more complete life.  John Wesley called it a perfected life.  However, in our scripture passage today, Saint Paul deals with a common misunderstanding whenever people begin to seek a Holy life.  People always want to make up a bunch of little rules for themselves and rules to push off on everyone else.  In Paul’s day, religious people wanted to enforce little rules about food, drink, days of the week, special events, hair and dress styles.  The list of what to do can grow endless.  Paul says that they should certainly do nothing that would injure or hinder their brothers and sisters.  But holy living is not a long list of little rules.  Paul writes in vs. 17 that the Kingdom of God is not really about all these little things.  A holy life is about higher things about right living, peace, and joy.  Did you hear that?  A Holy Life is about joy.

   So many people imagine a holy life to be a sour life, a dour life, a life of looking sad.  I understand this fear because there are Christians who can give you this impression. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was among the greatest members of the U.S. Supreme Court and served for 30 years.  At one point in his life, Justice Holmes explained his choice of a career by saying: "I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like depressed undertakers."    However, nothing could be farther from the truth.  We have already seen how a Holy Life is magnetic and attractive to those who see it.  We have seen how a Holy Life is one that accomplishes great things.  But ultimately, a Holy Life is a life of joy.  To live in the ways of Jesus Christ is to have a joyous life.  Jesus said to his disciples in John 15, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love….I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”   Do you have a longing for more complete joy?  Then the Holy life is for you.  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote widely and frequently about “holiness and happiness.”  It was among his favorite themes.  Today I want ask how a holy life produces a life of joy.

     First, a holy life brings us deeper into friendship with God who is the source for our greatest joy.  David wrote in Psalm 16, “In thy presence is fullness of joy, in thy right hand there are pleasures forever.”  You know people chase happiness in so many places, in all the things promised by the advertisers of material goods.   I know I have been guilty of that so many times in my own life.  Six weeks before he died, a reporter asked Elvis Presley, "Elvis, when you first started playing music, you said you wanted to be rich, famous and happy. Are you happy?"   Elvis replied, "I'm lonely as can be.”   It is in the presence of God that we find the fullness of joy.  Deeper and deeper in that friendship with the divine we come to a peace and satisfaction that those who only chase this world will never know.

     Secondly, a holy life brings joy because it gives us a purpose for living.   We live to love God and to love our neighbor.  We live to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.  Professor Bernard Rimland, director of the Institute for Child Behavior Research, found that "The happiest people are those who help others." Each person involved in the study was asked to list ten people he knew best and to label them as happy or not happy. Then they were to go through the list again to label who they thought were selfish people, meaning a tendency to devote time and resources always to their own interests and an unwillingness to inconvenience themselves for others."   Rimland found that all of the people labeled happy were also labeled unselfish. He wrote that those "whose activities are devoted to making themselves happy...are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy” He called it the Altruism Paradox.  Jesus just called it doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  A Holy Life is a life of giving, serving, doing for others to make the earth a happier place.  And that type of Holy Life brings us deep joy.

     Finally, a Holy Life brings us joy because we know that God has a great and joyous reward awaiting us.  People who live in holiness are those who can undergo great difficulties and even sufferings because they see beyond the present moment.  Listen.  I am not talking about mere optimism that wants to deny how bad things can be.  Holy people look hardship dead in the eye and face the bitter truths of their own sickness, bad relations, hard jobs, painful events.  Holiness is not a smiling denial that says everything is okay.  Holiness looks at the sufferings of life, faces them squarely, but…but…but, will never give up.  Churchill never denied that the Nazis were doing tremendous damage, leaving thousands dead in London by the nightly air bombings.  But Churchill saw beyond the horror and would never, never give up.  Hebrews 12 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus who endured the cross, scorning its shame, for the joy that was set before him to sit down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Did you catch that?  Jesus endured the cross because He knew the joy that awaited him at the right hand of God.  Holy people know that joy awaits them.  They can undergo anything, suffer hardships, and take the pain, because they know that a great reward awaits them from God.

      God calls all His people to a life of Holiness and joy.  To experience this kind of life, we must make some right choices about our lives.  God has provided us with all we need to succeed.  In Christ, God has washed away our lower nature.  In the Holy Spirit, God provides a way for us to live in new life.  We have God’s Word to teach us the way.  In daily prayer, God gives us strength. We have Christian brothers and sisters to help support us.  All this we have.  Now the choice is ours.  How then shall we live?  Will we live a low life, just doing the minimal, grabbing whatever looks good at the moment close at hand?  Or will we set our eyes on a higher life that lives unselfishly, lives to make all the world a better place?  That is the life that will bring us joy.  Will we still have hard times?  Yes.  We will go through marriage difficulties.  We will loose jobs.  We will have friends who betray us.  We will have cancer and heart problems and diabetes.  And we will have the courage to face it all because God is with us.  And there is a joyous reward beyond our troubles.  There is joy for those who live a Holy Life.   May you seek that joy.  Amen.