Workers outside of Milwaukee are building a new vehicle, called a submersible that will allow oceanographers to plum the ocean’s depths.
The submersible is to replace Alvin. Alvin, you may remember, was the Treasure Hunting vehicle that illuminated the rusting hulk of the Titanic. Alvin is able to descend to 2.8 miles under the water and allows two scientists and a pilot to look below the ocean’s surface. This new vehicle is scheduled to hit the water sometime after 2011. It is schedule to cost more than $50 million as it can move faster and stay down longer than Alvin. This new mini-sub will be able to descend up to four miles below the ocean where it will allow scientists to see At four miles below the sea, this mini-sub will be able to withstand intense pressure – files miles per square inch. There is an equally intense pressure for each one of us this morning. You may very well be unaware of this pressure upon you, but it is upon you nonetheless. It’s the pressure to conform to this outside world.
Today’s Scripture
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:13-16)
1. Is Anything like God?
“…since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16)
Holiness has the root idea in the Old Testament (quoted here in 1 Peter 1:16) of being separated from what is defective and evil and separated for God. So the Sabbath is holy to the Lord: separated from the pursuits of other days and dedicated to the Lord (Exodus 31:15). Priests are holy to the Lord, set apart from ordinary pursuits and dedicated in a special way to the Lord (2 Chronicles 23:6). And things could be holy by setting them apart from ordinary use and dedicating them to God. When you apply that definition of holiness to God Himself, something interesting happens. God is holy in that He is set apart from all that is evil and defective and impure.
That’s the first half of the definition. He is absolutely free from any taint of evil or deficiency. But the other half of the definition is that God’s holiness is His set-apartness for Himself. The holiness of God is the most fundamental reality of all. It refers to the reality that God is utterly unique and in a class by himself—that is His set-apartness—none compares with Him. There is no other Creator, no other sustainer, no other final measure of good and evil.
“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:?’I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.?7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen’” (Isaiah 44:6-7).
“There is none holy like the Lord; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2)
“For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth” (Exodus 9:14).
“But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him” (2 Chronicles 2:6)?
“what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him” (Psalm 8:4)?
2. Center Your Life on God.
Living is living permeated by God. God in the morning, God in the midday, God in the evening. God as motive, God as guide, God as moral standard, God as comfort, God as strength, God as truth, God as joy. What emerges from 1 Peter and the whole New Testament is that the Christian life is a life lived in God. Ever aware of God. Ever submitted to God. Ever trusting God. Ever guided by God. Ever hoping in God.
Your biggest failure and your greatest sin is to forget God.
“They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply because they have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding” (Hosea 3:10-11).
“For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces….” (Hosea 8:14)
3. Be Holy
Three out of every four Americans (around 73 percent) believed that it is possible for someone to become holy regardless of their past. Only half of the adult population (50 percent), however, said that they knew someone they considered to be holy.
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct….” (1 Peter 1:14-15)
The word “lusts” (1 Pet. 1:14) refers not only to sexual lust, but “to all kinds of self-seeking, whether directed toward wealth, power, or pleasure” Leonard Ravenhill has written (source unknown), “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.” “For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you….” (1 Peter 4:3-4). “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Ephesians 5:19-21).
“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).
In Time magazine Lev Grossman writes:
“Every year on the first Saturday in December, twenty-five hundred of the most brilliant college students in North America take what may be the hardest math test in the world—the Putnam Competition.” How tough is it? Although there are only twelve questions, the test lasts six hours. And although these are the best and brainiest young minds our country has to offer, the median score on last year’s test was one point. Out of a possible 120.
There’s an even tougher and higher standard: God’s holiness. D. A. Carson, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, used to meet with a young man from French West Africa for the purpose of practicing their German. Carson writes: “Once a week or so, we had had enough, so we went out for a meal together and retreated to French, a language we both knew well. In the course of those meals we got to know each other. I learned that his wife was in London, training to be a medical doctor. He was an engineer who needed fluency in German in order to pursue doctoral studies in engineering in Germany. I soon discovered that once or twice a week he disappeared into the red-light district of town. Obviously he went to pay his money and have his woman. Eventually I got to know him well enough that I asked him what he would do if he discovered that his wife was doing something similar in London.” “Oh,” he replied, “I’d kill her.” “That’s a bit of a double standard, isn’t it?” I asked. “You don’t understand. Where I come from in Africa, the husband has the right to sleep with many women, but if a wife is unfaithful to her husband she must be killed.” “But you told me you were raised in a mission school. You know that the God of the Bible does not have double standards like that.” He gave me a bright smile and replied, “Ah, God is good. He’s bound to forgive us; that's His job.”
We sing of how God’s holiness is to be celebrated with the words from How Deep the Father’s Love for Us
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
Look at the Change in Verses 14-19:
Your Former Life Your New Life
You are Ignorant of God You have Knowledge of Christ
You are Not God’s children You are God’s Children
You are Controlled by Your Desires You are Controlled by God
Your Life is Futile Your Life is Holy
You are Popular You are Misunderstood and Maligned by Others
Source: Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter.
