14 Sermon Illustrations on Christian Holiness

If the world were controlled by perfectionists, there would be no place for those who can never quite measure up to their standards. On the other hand, if the world were under the domination of people who wake up in a new world every day, we would probably suffocate in the accumulation of our own garbage within a week. Fortunately "practically perfect" people like Mary Poppins manage to get mixed up with the Dick Van Dykes of the world. A husband who is so organized that he can predict with a fair degree of accuracy when his next shoestring is going to break, inevitably gets paired with a wife who hasn't the foggiest notion what she's going to prepare for dinner at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. A wife, with such an obsession for cleanliness that she jumps out of bed at 1 o'clock in the morning because she suddenly remembers that she forgot to mop up a blob of spilled orange juice from the kitchen floor, marries a clod who comes in from a hunting trip and tracks mud all over the floor she just cleaned. So goes the struggle between perfection and the spirit of tolerance. There is a certain amount of tension in every serious thinking Christian's mind concerning the biblical call to perfection. In one compartment of the brain, there's a tug to live up to all the standards of Christ, but then on the other hand, our attempts to measure up to those standards are always flawed. The New Testament clearly articulates the need to "perfect holiness out of reverence for God" (2 Corinthians 7:1). Perfection does not usually mean sinlessness in the Scripture. It usually means something like maturity or completeness. Even that can be illusive. Paul admitted that he had not "been made perfect" (Philippians 3:12). Yet he did not attempt to excuse himself from pursuing the goal of perfection. He said, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." The person who excuses himself from serious effort because nobody's perfect, is just playing a game and he is not even playing according to the rules. While it is self-righteous and hypocritical to claim that one has already conquered the flesh at any point in this life, we play a deadly game of self-vindication when we ignore the pursuit of perfection.

Murray McCheyne, that great preacher, said, "The Christian is just a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God." Is it easy for others to believe in God because of your presence among them? And that great scientist Pascal said. "I saw that everything that came to pass in the life of Christ must be repeated in the lives of His followers." And another author said, "Say not that you have royal blood in your veins, say not that you are born of God, if you cannot prove your pedigree by daring to be holy."

Hearing a young lady highly praised for her beauty, Gotthold asked, "What kind of beauty do you mean? Merely that of the body, or that also of the mind? I see well that you have been looking no further than the sign which Nature displays outside the house, but have never asked for the host who dwells within. Beauty is an excellent gift of God, nor has the pen of the Holy Spirit forgotten to speak its praise; but it is virtuous and godly beauty alone which Scripture honors, expressly declaring, on the other hand, that a fair woman which is without discretion is as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout (Prov. xi. 22). Many a pretty girl is like the flower called the imperial crown, which is admired, no doubt, for its showy appearance, but despised for its unpleasant odor. Were her mind as free from pride, selfishness, luxury, and levity, as her countenance from spots and wrinkles, and could she govern her inward inclinations as she does her external carriage, she would have none to match her. But who loves the caterpillar and such insects, however showy their appearance, and bright and variegated the colors that adorn them, seeing they injure and defile the trees and plants on which they settle? What the better is an apple for its rosy skin, if the maggot have penetrated and devoured its heart? What care I for the beautiful brown of the nut, if it be worm-eaten, and fill the mouth with corruption? Even so external beauty of person deserves no praise, unless matched with the inward beauty of virtue and holiness. It is, therefore, far better to acquire beauty than to be born with it. The best kind is that which does not wither at the touch of fever, like a flower, but lasts and endures on a bed of sickness, in old age, and even unto death."

Christian holiness is no fabrication of man, and differs as much from ritual and conventional sanctity as the temple filled with God differed from the same temple just as it was left by the builder's hand. To be holy is not to be wrapt in entranced and unearthly contemplation, as was Simeon Stylites, and the so-called pillar saint. It is not to retire into solitude, to leave the active duties of life and the trying anxieties of the Church unto others, with a view to gain that grace in seclusion which Christ has chiefly promised to impart to his people in fellowship (Eph. ii. 5, 6), as did Basil. It is not to be clad with a white garment at Easter, and in connection with others, a surpliced hand, to overawe the imagination with the shadow of piety, as did the catechumens of Chrysostom. It is not to take monastic vows, to cross the Creator's design, to forsake domestic life, as devout men were advised to do by Jerome. It is not to interlard our common conversation with religious phrases, and passages of Scripture, and to be continually adverting to the feelings and actings of the soul, as did Oliver Cromwell and the more rigid of the Presbyterian Puritans. It is not to bend and bow before patterns of sacred things, as did Archbishop Laud, and as do the modern tractarians. It is not to invest the family circles to which we belong with the solemnity of a funeral, and to cast upon every person and thing the frown of a rebuking censorship.

— A. Barrett

When the saintly John Chrysostom came to his dying day, he asked the brethren to bring him some clean white robes. Throwing aside his soiled garments, he arrayed himself in white, and so awaited his coming Lord. He closed his remarkably pure life, exclaiming, "Gory be to God for all things that happen!"

In some of the great halls of Europe may be seen pictures not painted with the brush, but mosaics, which are made up of small pieces of stone, glass, or other material. The artist takes these little pieces; and, polishing and arranging them, he forms them into the grand and beautiful picture. Each individual part of the picture may be a little worthless piece of glass or marble or shell; but, with each in its place, the whole constitutes the masterpiece of art. So I think it will be with humanity in the hands of the Great Artist. God is picking up the little worthless pieces of stone and brass, that might be trodden under foot unnoticed, and is making of them his great masterpiece. Lp. Simpson.

The Rev. John Newton relates, that a friend of his once dined with Dr. Butler, then bishop of Durham; and though the guest was a man of fortune, and the interview by appointment, the provision was no more than a joint of meat and a pudding. The bishop apologized for his plain fare, by saying that it was his manner of living, and that being disgusted with the fashionable expense of time and money in entertainments, he was determined it should receive no countenance from his example. Nor was this conduct the result of covetousness; for, large as were his revenues, such was his liberality to the poor, that he left at his death little more than enough to discharge his debts and pay for his funeral.

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years old might go to bed. She returned in about half an hour, and said to a lady near her, "She is gone to sleep; I put on my night-cap, and lay down by her, and she soon dropped off." Mr. Hall, who overheard this, said, "Excuse me, madam: do you wish your child to grow up a liar?" "Oh dear, no, sir; I should be shocked at such a thing." "Then bear with me while I say, you must never act a lie before her: children are very quick observers, and soon learn that that which assumes to be what it is not, is a lie, whether acted or spoken." This was uttered with a kindness which precluded offence, yet with a seriousness that could not be forgotten.