Be Committed to Holy Living
1 Peter 1:13-16
Spring Life Series
April 13, 2008
Morning Service
Introduction
A businessman was in the process of selling an old warehouse. The building had sat vacant for several months and had fallen prey to vandalism. Doors were damaged, windows were smashed, trash was thrown throughout the place and graffiti had been painted on the walls. As the prospective buyer examined the building, the owner explained that he would repair all of the doors, replace the broken windows, remove the trash and repaint all of the walls in the building. The buyer explained that there would be no need for any of those things. In fact, he planned to buy the building as it was because his plan was to tear down the building and replace it with something new. The interest was not in the building but instead it was in the site itself.
The same is true of God. He looks at the condition of the human heart and understands that we carry a great deal of brokenness and garbage. The goal of God is not to come in and remodel our existing life. Instead, God wants to do a complete removal of the old life and construct a new life in its place.
The process of discipleship is nothing more than allowing God to have the space in your life to perform the renovation and reconstruction of your life. As we continue to look at the practices of the early church they devoted themselves to four main things
The Apostle’s teachings – Scripture
The fellowship – the life of the church
The breaking of Bread – Sacraments and holy living
Prayer
John Wesley taught that our pursuit of holiness is seen in sanctification. Sanctification is the divine process that God uses to make us more like Jesus. Peter says that our hope is found in the grace that flows through a relationship with Christ. Sanctification is the work of God’s grace being applied to our daily lives. The pursuit of holiness is not an event that we can point back to and say it was done. Instead holiness is a daily exercise for life. Sanctification begins in a moment and is experienced over a life time.
Holiness is to be empowered to live beyond the ordinary. The power of the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to live an extraordinary life for God. Holy living is simply an appropriate response to God’s love and His gift of salvation through Jesus. We should desire to be different. We should desire to live above the level of our old lives.
How do we live a holy life?
Peter openly and honestly discusses the nature of this pursuit of holiness in 1 Peter 1:13-16
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
We live a holy life through our focus on Christ
The Preparation for Sanctification
Prepare your minds for action
The word prepare implies an incredible word picture, to gird up. The common wardrobe of the Ancient Near East was a long robe. Before a person would travel, they would tie up their robes to make it easier to walk. Thus, they would be ready for action. Before we can truly be ready to serve Christ, we must have our minds ready.
Holiness is the pursuit of becoming more like Christ. We don’t become holy by chance but by choice. The choices that you make each and every day either make you more like Christ or less like Christ.
The holy person is not one who cannot sin. The holy person is one who will not sin. A.W. Tozer
The Purpose of Sanctification
We are to live our lives with self control. God understands that we cannot do this on our own. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, we would be left to live for God on our own and in our own strength and ability. Our strength is honestly never going to be enough.
We can only be as strong as our greatest weakness. It is only when we admit our weakness before God that we can receive His divine strength. We will never be able to be strong until we first admit the fact that we are weak.
I have heard it said many times by godly people that they sin in word thought and deed every day. What defeated way to look at the Christian life. If God has the power to create the universe in six days, can He give you the power to live a holy life? Absolutely! If God had the ability to part the Red Sea, make the walls of Jericho fall and knock down a giant with a stone, can He give you the power to live a holy life? Yes! If God had the strength to raise Jesus from the dead, canHe help you live a holy life? Yes!
The Process of Sanctification
Step One: Leading Grace
The work: Conviction of sin
The Goal: Confession
Step Two: Saving Grace
The work: conversion from sin
The goal: Conversion
Step Three: Sanctifying Grace
The work: cleansing from sin
The goal: Consecration
Step Four: Glorifying Grace
The work: completion of perfection
The goal: Change
God’s work comes to completion through the return of Christ. It is only after the return of Christ that the divine work of God will be brought to its completion. The understanding of holiness is similar. God will not stop working on us and in us until either we die or Christ returns.
We live a holy life through our fortitude in Christ
When we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, we live as children of obedience. This means that obedience becomes a part of our character. Obedience becomes a part of who we are. It melds itself with our identity.
When we are living as children of obedience, we are God’s. When we are God’s children, we belong to Him and with Him. We are His.
Obedience is the completion of our relationship with Christ. When you obey Christ, comes and dwells within your life. The obedience to Jesus allows Him the opportunity to take up residence in your life. The more you obey, the greater place He can have in life. When you disobey it gives Jesus less and less place.
Dr Charles Stanley defined obedience in action. Obedience is doing...
* What He says
* When He says
* How He says
* all He says
Anything less than this is not obedience, but disobedience
If we are not children of obedience, we are children of evil desires. We live out a life of disobedience. We do those things that God makes clear He is against.
Why do so many choose to stay in their disobedience?
1.) Pleasure
We are creatures of pleasure. Our society promotes an attitude: If it feels good do it. Like fools we buy into it. We may not do things that are “sinful” in our own minds. Maybe you eat a little too much of that food you like so well. Maybe you flirt with the co-worker because you like the attention. Maybe you spend money for the thrill that the purchase gives you. Even if you’re not willing to admit it, you do things that make you happy or feel good.
2.) Comfort
We are also creature of comfort and there are times when we would kill rather than leave our comfort zone. We strive to that which we are comfortable with. This is why we often settle for far less than God wants for us. Growing spiritually is seldom comfortable. God stretches us and expands our limits. We like what we are comfortable with. Things that are comfortable give us a sense of security.
3.) Change
The simple fact is that it is incredibly hard for people to change. People only change when they have enough information to make a decision or when they are hurting bad enough that they have to change. Change is hard but often difficult.
We live a holy life through faithfulness to Christ
God is indeed holy. The word holy means to be separate or set apart. God is set apart from the rest of creation through the nature of His morality. There are a number of ways we could express the holiness of God but two come to mind here
Perfection: God is the embodiment of righteousness and flawless character. Everything about God is nearly a direct opposite of this world. He is perfect in every possible way.
Purity: God is the standard for morality. He is without sin and without moral failure. He is in every way morally perfect. God not only is holy, He calls us to be holy. This would seem to be a hard standard to live up to. God gives us the help we need to become holy.
The Old Testament understanding of holiness involved a form of religious and social isolation. Israel was to be different than those around them and so they avoided contact with anyone who was not Jewish. They practiced being a separate nation. Today, there are churches that try to be separate from the world around them by isolating themselves from the rest of the world. This manner of conduct is far from what the Early Church practiced.
The Early Church did not practice an isolation form of holiness. For two main reasons, first they simply could not live separately from the world, in their own communities. Second, they would not be able to change the world being isolated from it. How can we change the world around us, if we avoid contact with the world? Christian holiness is living a separated lifestyle while living among those who do not believe. Christian holiness reveals a living example of God’s power while demonstrating a living witness for the world to see. Be in the world and not of the world.
Conclusion
“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world, and make that man holy and put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.” Leonard Ravenhill
We are meant to live a holy life and God offers the ability to do exactly that but we must be willing to acknowledge it and accept it. This means that we admit that we are weak and need His divine help. It means that the only thing keeping you from the life you were created to have is you.
Today, you have a choice to make, you can either live your days becoming more like Jesus or you can live you life becoming less like Jesus. The choice is yours. God will not force you to make the right one. If God is speaking to you right now, make your way up to the altar. God wants to give you the power to live a holy life starting right now.
