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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Holiness or Love - What's More Important to God?
Can God's love and holiness coexist harmoniously? Join us as we dispel the myth of a dichotomous "God of the Old Testament" versus "God of the New Testament," emphasizing the unified and consistent nature of God throughout the Bible. We break down how God's attributes—love, holiness, mercy, and judgment—are not only compatible but are perfectly integrated within Him. By understanding this holistic view of God's character, we gain critical insights into sexual morality and how this understanding should shape our approach to sexual integrity and relationships, steering us away from bad theology that breeds confusion and chaos.
Whether you're dealing with feelings for someone outside your marriage or grappling with same-sex attraction, we'll explore how true love and holiness are inseparable and mutually reinforcing. Underscoring the necessity of submitting our desires to Jesus, and embracing compassion and patience both in our journeys and when supporting loved ones.
Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29. Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees. For more information and to register click here.
Wives Betrayal Basics Webinar - For more information and to register.
Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?
We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.
Only 10 spots are available. For more information and to register click here.
Hey friends, I don't know about you, I often hear people kind of wrestling with the tension between God's love versus God's holiness, god's grace versus God's judgment, and a lot of times it will come up in conversations around kind of the quote-unquote God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament, quote God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. I also want to talk about that today because when it comes to sexual morality questions, this is certainly pertinent to us. I think many of us hear this, especially maybe around debates or conversations with LGBT friends and neighbors. Where does God fall? Is he loving or is he holy? Is he merciful or is he judgy? And this is important. So first of all, let me just kind of blow your mind with this truth and I say this a little bit tongue in cheek but there is no difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The Judeo-Christian God revealed in the Old Testament is the same God revealed in the Christian New Testament. We learn more about God in the New Testament. God is manifested to us literally in the person of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, god's plan is more fully revealed to us that which was hidden in ages past was revealed to us through Christ and that's written about in the New Testament. But we are not dealing with two different gods. We are not dealing with a quote unquote God of wrath in the Old Testament and a God of mercy in the New Testament. There is absolute cohesion in God between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Speaker 1:In fact, one of my seminary professors was just so adamant about this. He went so far as to say and I'm still trying to explore this one he knows the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, better than I do, so I'm still digging here. But one of the things he said was he said there's actually that Jesus didn't teach us anything new. In all the precepts Jesus taught us, he was drawing from the Old Testament, some places directly quoting from the Old Testament. But this is so important for us because if we get this kind of theological piece wrong, I'm not going to stay here too long in this podcast. But if we get this theological piece wrong, it leads to all sorts of really bad theology, and bad theology leads to really wonky stuff in our relationship with God which can create all sorts of havoc in our lives, in our churches, in our relationships in ways that God never wants for us.
Speaker 1:But coming back to our question what's more important to God, love or holiness? Even simply looking at the New Testament an honest reading of the New Testament of Matthew, mark, luke and John we run into Jesus's holiness. We run into Jesus's mercy and love and compassion. We run into God's judgment. Jesus talked more about hell and warned more about hell than any other New Testament writer. That's pretty stunning. It's actually. Jesus says some really hard things.
Speaker 1:So how are we to understand Jesus? What's more important in love or holiness? What's more important to God, love or holiness? In our battle against sexual sin, in our struggles of sexual sin, in our pursuit of sexual integrity, what's more important to God? How does he approach us, with love or with holiness? What's more important, our love or our holiness? What's more emphasized in him, his love or his holiness? I want to suggest to you today that this question is actually nonsensical to God. It actually doesn't make sense. We are asking a three-dimensional question on a two-dimensional page.
Speaker 1:If scripture is not clear about anything else, scripture is clear that God is one he. All that he is fits together. All that he is fits together. Our experience may feel that this part of God is in tension with that other part of God, that God's mercy must be in tension with his judgment, or that God's love must be in tension with his holiness. That's our experience, but that's not God's experience of himself. God is a God of peace, of order, not chaos and not confusion. And he said again order, not chaos and not confusion. And he said again God is a God of peace and order. He is perfectly aligned, perfectly at peace with himself. All that he is is in perfect order, perfectly integrated. He is whole, he is one, he is pure. There is no taint this way or that way in God. He is light. In Him there is no darkness at all, which means that His love and His holiness, his judgment and His mercy all fit together perfectly. We might even say it this way that in God there is no difference between judgment and mercy. In God there is no difference between love and holiness. God is God, is God. And these words that scripture uses to describe him to us. We pull them apart so we might understand these different elements of our relationship with him, but they all fit together in a beautiful, perfect mosaic.
Speaker 1:How can this be? I don't know, I don't know. This is not my experience of myself. For sure I read passages like Romans 7. Why do I do the things I don't want to do and the things I do want to do I don't do? There's a war raging in me and I go man, yes, amen. That is so much my experience. I relate with those kinds of things so much. I want to do one thing and I do another thing. I promise myself one thing and I do another thing. I promise my wife one thing and I do another thing. I'm in inner conflict. That is a result of my sin and my brokenness. It's a result of the fall. It is not an expression of God in me. So, even though this is my experience of myself and my experience of other people and my experience of the world with God, not so God's holiness is his love. God's love is his holiness.
Speaker 1:Now I think we can grapple with this a little bit and come to understand a little bit more. So let me kind of dig deeper here, okay. You cannot love without holiness. When you understand truly what love is, you come around to oh, it's impossible. It's impossible to love without being holy. You cannot be holy without love. When we understand what love is and what holiness is, we recognize oh wait, there's no such thing as holiness apart from love. So let me dig deeper, let me unpack each of those for you.
Speaker 1:So let me start with the second one. There, you can't be holy without love. I think we'll understand this one. So if your picture of holiness, if your definition of holiness is kind of you know that you just never do anything wrong, which I think is a specious, inadequate definition of love, but let's just go there, let's just say you never do anything wrong, is your definition of holiness Even that, if our call is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love others as we love ourselves, and your definition of holiness is you never do anything wrong. That means that all the time, all the time, you love God with your heart, soul, mind, body and strength, you love others as yourself, and you do it all the time because you're holy, you see. So there is no holiness without love. You cannot be holy unless you are loving, unless you are exhibiting love in your life, actively, interiorly. That's what holiness includes.
Speaker 1:In fact, I would say one of the most beautiful expressions of holiness is Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and Christ on the cross, maybe especially Christ on the cross, but Christ in Gethsemane. When he says, not my will but yours be done, he is giving himself over out of love for the father. Even though he's in inner conflict here, even though he's experiencing that human pull, push-pull that I was describing earlier, he is giving himself over to God's will, god's unity, god's holiness. And the cross is this beautiful picture of holiness where Christ has utterly, completely abandoned himself to the Father's will. What a beautiful picture of holiness and what a beautiful picture of love, of love for the Father and of love for others. He has fully fulfilled the law. Wow, commandment number one and number two. You see it exhibited on Jesus, in Jesus, perfectly on the cross.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to the other one. You cannot love without holiness. I think you're probably already getting there, but let me consider the counter. Let's consider the counterfeit for a moment. The counterfeit of love is lust. So lust is using others, and maybe specifically using others' bodies, for selfish sexual gratification. I'm still talking specifically about sexual lust here. If lust is using others for sexual selfish gratification, love is giving myself for others' good, it is self-giving, it is self-donating for the good of the other. That's impossible without holiness. How can someone possibly do that without being holy?
Speaker 1:Karl Barth describes love and lust. He doesn't use the word lust, at least not in the section I'm thinking of in his dogmatics here, but he basically describes them heading different directions. They're not even like on different courses and need to be kind of pulled together, but they're heading in different directions. Lust is heading one way, love is heading another. They're diametrically opposed. Some of you have heard me say you can't love and lust at the same time, and that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:To love requires holiness, because it requires so much of us. It requires a person who has self-mastery, who controls, has mastery over his or her passions and who knows how to crucify the flesh out of love. This is the intermingling, the unity between holiness and love. Now, coming back to that initial question what's more important to God, love or holiness? And what I'm posing here is that the question is nonsensical to God. I mean not that he doesn't understand it, but it doesn't compute. You know a user error here, but I think what I'm getting after is that the question itself reveals our own inadequate understanding of what love is and what holiness is. If we think of love, just as hey. Do whatever you want, you know I'll accept you. Now, certainly you can do whatever you want and I will love you. I will accept you, I open my arms to you. That's an act of love. Love cannot say do whatever you want, it doesn't matter. Love cannot say do whatever you want and you'll be fine, because it's not true. I'll close with this.
Speaker 1:I heard a priest recently sharing this story. I thought it made so much sense. He said suppose you have an uncle, uncle Tom, and Uncle Tom you love him. He helped. He was there when you were growing up. You spent time together. A really sweet man poured into you If you're a young boy, poured into you and really affirmed your manhood. If you're a young woman, affirmed your young womanhood and just blessed you and blessed who you were. You really felt seen and known and loved by Uncle Tom. So just great affection for Uncle Tom. Later in life Uncle Tom begins to drink and he develops a drinking problem, becomes an alcoholic. You love your Uncle Tom, you yearn for your Uncle Tom, you want what's best for your Uncle Tom, but you do not love. You cannot love Because you love your Uncle Tom. You cannot love his drinking. You cannot love and affirm and accept and say whatever, uncle Tom, just keep on drinking because you want what's best for him.
Speaker 1:And there are obvious parallels for us when it comes to sexual sin. What about our brothers and sisters who are wrestling with sexual sin? What about our brothers and sisters who are saying you know, yeah, I'm married, but, man, I'm really kind of falling for this other woman. I think I might've married the wrong one to begin with and I think maybe I'm supposed to be this other one.
Speaker 1:What does love call for, holiness? What does holiness call for Love? We do the right thing, holiness. What does holiness call for Love? We do the right thing. We follow Jesus, we submit our desires to him, because holiness and love are the same thing. And what about those of us who wrestle with same-sex attraction? We feel in our bodies a romantic sexual desire to be one with someone of the same sex. What does love call for? Or if we're walking alongside a friend or loved one who's dealing with same-sex direction, what does love call for from us? Certainly compassion, patience, those things and holiness. To love that person, to love ourselves in that way.
Speaker 1:If this is our struggle, is to embrace god's holiness to say I walk the way of holiness because this is love. This is the most loving thing for me, this is the most loving thing for you. What's more important to God? Love or holiness? Yes, yes, love and holiness. God is a God who is absolutely 100% loving, absolutely 100% holy. I'd suggest, as I did, that maybe from God's perspective, there's no difference between the two, and oh how visible this is in Christ's body on the cross, in Christ on the cross love and holiness. No difference between the two. And certainly, as we grow in Christlikeness, holiness and love come closer and closer together until they are fueling each other in us, our love for God, fueling holiness, our love for others, fueling holiness, our holiness, fueling our love for God, our holiness fueling our love for others, until, maybe one day, we can't even recognize the difference between the two. Lord, thank you for your love and holiness. Make us loving and holy like you, in Jesus' name amen.
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