What you believe will determine how you behave and your behavior reveals your true beliefs.
We who have been involved in the church for many years read this Scripture about holiness and we say to ourselves…I know all about that holiness stuff, we say…Holiness is literally God separating us from the world. By his grace, God pronounces us holy and being holy is being obedient to his word.
If you know that – very good. God has blessed you mightily. But our faith is more than intellectual knowing the right theology. In fact right up front in verse 13 here, when Peter says, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action;"
He is not talking about gaining intellectual knowledge. No he is not saying, intellectual preparation but resolve and preparation for difficult events that may come….Let me correct that,resolve and preparation for difficult events that will come our way:
financial collapse
betrayal by a business partner
betrayal by a spouse
abusive behavior against you, or one you love
natural disaster – earthquake, fire, avalanche
an accident vehicle, a fall, sports related
your health, or the health of a loved one draining away…..
I preformed a funeral Friday for a wonderful woman and her delightful family and friends. A woman full of life, with a lot of life left to live; giving, joyful, great to be around. Six weeks ago she was told she had cancer. Six. weeks. It just makes you sick, doesn’t it?
You know, she was just living life, being good to others, helpful to all she knew. She was just a wonderful, loving, kind person.
Now do you think intellectual knowledge got her through those last six weeks of her life? You bet you bottom dollar it didn’t. What got her through was what Peter is speaking of in our Scripture this morning:
Resolve – “I’m am not going to let this cancer define who I am”
Preparation “Jesus is the real thing, in spite of my circumstances, in spite of this cancer, God is God and my hope is in him” Whatever happens. Good or bad. Jesus is my Lord and my God.
Now we can get into a discussion about how could God allow such a thing to happen. How could he let this happen to someone he loved -
and that discussion leads to oblivion my friends. That discussion comes from a cultural understanding that our life, and how we end it
must be “happy” or else something is wrong.
The new American mindset: a fair and happy ending for all.
But I think God who we find in the Bible, is the God of real life, the life that happens to you and me, not the God of our imagined Disneyfied Happy Ending Life. Nasty, bad things happen in life, especially when you are a Christian and if you are imagining otherwise – you are living in a fantasy.
Remember Peter is writing to people facing serious persecution. Many fear for their lives.Peter is speaking here of more than conviction and knowing right and wrong. These people know talk show philosophy might make good TV, but is doesn’t apply to real life
Remember Anita Bryant? She used to do orange juice commercials. That’s not why we remember her, is it? We remember her because Anita Bryant was a self-appointed crusader against gay rights a few years ago.
Then she went through a divorce, and acquired a drug habit, and was hospitalized for an extended time. The Anita Bryant of today is not the same person she was years ago.
This is what Sydney Harris, a syndicated columnist wrote: "Now that her world has come unstuck, and she is beginning to re-glue it, I feel free to point out that she is a better person than when she was so busy being a ’good person.’ Sometimes we have to fall from grace to know what grace really is... She sounds like a person who has lived and loved and suffered now, and not a radiantly smiling face on a candy box encased in velvet and wreathed with roses and totally insulated from the realities of life.
A bad marriage almost wrecked her, but it also saved her, because she grew rather than shrank and expanded her range of sympathies rather than shrivel into self-pity.
The Lord, we are told, works in mysterious ways, and I believe it.
Sometimes being dragged into the depths is the only way we glimpse a vision of the heights, being desperate and not being able to be consoled and defeated is the only way we redeem ourselves from pride and self-satisfaction. In pain, Miss Bryant is starting to be a Christian now, which she only thought she was before."
Anita Bryant had conviction, as solid as a rock. She had a studied intellectual theological understanding of the issues, but that wasn’t what saw hbr through – was it? A lot of people have conviction, powerful conviction, but they are not living holy lives.
What you believe will determine how you behave,but your behavior reveals your true beliefs.
Back to Verse 13. Peter says prepare your minds for action. In the Greek in is literally - gird the hips of your mind. Everyone wore a basic garment, like a sleeveless sleep shirt made of wool or linen and it came down as far as the knees. Over this would be worn something like a poncho.The basic garment was normally worn long – past the knees, until one got to work, then it would be tucked in a belt around the waist. Girding. It is like our phrase – roll up your sleeves and get to work. This is girding one’s loins, in our translation resolve and preparation.
Then Peter says, place your hope totally on the return of Christ and its results, not the hope of the people and this age. Last week we talked about this. Our hope is our inheritance (which is assured) our inheritance is the kingdom of God, which we receive both now and every day – infinity.
Now you’ll see there in 13 he says Christ will be revealed. See there is this hidden rule of Jesus Christ that is happening all around us.
Many are not aware, but Jesus is there – remember last week, but at the appointed time Jesus will become complete and universally manifest - “oh Jesus was there all the time”. We also see in verse 13 that we are to hope fully. One hopes totally by getting your minds ready for work resolve and preperation. Our hope is not in the distant future but in a God who is active in our lives right now.
Peter also says be self controlled – there in verse 13. When used in everyday roman conversation in meant – to not be drunk, being sober as opposed to being intoxicated. Peter is not saying, they way to prepare your minds for action is – don’t be drunk! In Christian circles self controlled came to have a different meaning – a clear mind resulting in good judgment and they weren’t talking about booze.
What they meant – and this applies to us today, the cares and pressures of this life can “intoxicate” the Christian and distract their focus -like wine might.
We see it every week don’t we. There is so much stuff coming at us….
The week comes to and end – and we are exhausted, worn out, our minds are dim, our resolve flattened - “just let me relax a while…I don’t care about anything else right now…”
Now he adds to all of this with verse 14
Saying be children of obedience – what does he mean?
First – we belong to family, the family of God.
Second we are to live our lives out in our place in this family.
He is speaking in relational terms.
The obedience he is talking about here is submission to Jesus Christ – and no other. Deeply it means this: any commitment or faith that does not result in concrete (actual actions), shows a misunderstanding of the gospel message and is a faith that is less than a Christian faith.
if I have the intellectual understanding of what holiness is and my life is not holy, clearly I misunderstand. Intellect without actual positive action = nothing.
Hear this: you can have all the right convictions, have all the right theology, know all the issues of Christianity well and your life does not reflect it - You have nothing – that might be why life is empty.
obedient children = genuine believers. In other words our actions, how we live shows how real we are.
Many folks I run into both in the church and in the world have this philosophy: As long as I do not hurt anyone, it is O.K.” If the end is positive then the what I did, or what I said is ok. One big problem with that philosophy is: How do they know if they hurt you? We all know people who emotionally push over people, say nasty things about others “I’m just speaking my mind”; do hurtful things – and move on with life, and they are oblivious to the destruction around them
I’ve heard over and over people say, they you can’t tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, and they turn away from Christ. Why? Because the “Christianity” that they experienced was full of criticism, and anger.
Think. How much of this past week was I angry, and full of criticism toward another? That belongs to our former way of life. Again in verse 14 Peter says in the former way of life we led, we were being conformed to our desires. He means trying to satisfy longings, not meaning enjoying the things of this world, but that enjoyment of this world becomes our goal. The desire is anything that we do to satisfy that goal
That is what you did when you were ignorant…
In verses 15-16 he tell us to be holy. In a sense he is asking us to be perfect.
The Perfect Couple
There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect.One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving along a winding road when they noticed someone at the roadside in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help.
There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys.
Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys.
Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident. Who was the survivor? Answer: The perfect woman. She’s the only one that really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.
So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident.
In these verses the perfect holiness means full obedience to God. Our holiness as Peter sees it is obedience to God. Peter continues and says we face judgment (Verse 17), this for us as Christians is not about salvation, we have already had that happen through the person of Jesus Christ. This is about how we live our life, not our convictions, but our actions that prove our belief.
What you believe will determine how you behave and your behavior reveals your true beliefs.
When he speaks of reverent fear of God, he is not saying we are to fear because we recognize we will be judged (Islam), no our fear is great awe, awe of the deep gratitude and wonder of what God has done for us.
Well at this point we need to stop and say, we do have great difficulty doing what Peter asks of us, perfect holiness….I mean he asks a lot.
Why is it so hard? One reason is revealed in verse 18. Our Hollow Inheritance from our ancestors, "18 redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to us". Bondage, not speaking of literal slavery,in fact some he is writing to may still be slaves, he is speaking of the hollow way of life dominated by sin, inherited from ancestors. All of us, all of us at some point have this in our family. For some of us, like me, our families have recently come to Christianity. Growing up, my family was the first to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. In God gracious mercy and in God’s gracious mercy, other relatives have followed.
Others of us have had Christianity for generations.I think of the fine people of Barrow Alaska the first Presbyterian church here in AK.
Generations have been Christians. Generations. How I would love to have that in my family
Yet even if our families have been with Christ for generations, still at some point we where handed down a pagan way of life and it still lingers with us doesn’t it?
Peter says that inheritance was, empty – worthless hope, no value in light of the gospel. Before the gospel we had cultural value and a faith of some kind, a belief system, perhaps very high culture, but no matter how sincere and beautiful, its end was futile, why go back?
For the people Peter is writing to, passing down of values was highly regarded basis of healthily and stable society to do otherwise, any deviation considered lawlessness.
verse19. The value of Jesus blood in comparison to anything in our past is bleak – be careful you may slip back into a lifestyle that you should have abandoned.
But God takes things and people into his service, separates them and makes them holy, they are set apart for him. Most people live a life that is empty, frivolous, and trifling, and they know it. It is the pagan lifestyle handed down – it pales next to the gospel.
Most of us willingly let the wind determine the direction of our lives.
We may call it fate, or circumstance. We let the values society around us direct our travels through life. We do this simply because is far easier that working against the constant pressure. The desires of personal pleasure are in our face when ever the television is on,
the radio plays, and we pick up the catalogs, we struggle surrounded by people who want you to go along to get along. It’s just easier to keep quiet. That is the Hollow Inheritance handed to us
Let me close with this:
In our time the cultivation of holiness may seem unattainable or even something we want to stay away from. We may think of a holy person as someone with an overdose of religion or a "holier-than-thou" attitude or even someone who has all the answers – and pushes them on you -Who needs that!
No, no, no! A person pursuing a life of holiness remains liberated a life sinful desires, that pulls and pushes them through the day –
But we are not to be that way For you have been born again,
not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
