"Holiness – Part 1 – God is Holy"
1 Peter 1:15-19
Pastor John Bright
1 Peter 1 “… 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
17 And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
Pause right there. Those words I just read; they were “Breathed by God”! God wants you to hear His Word right now! So, what is your response? Do you want to transformed by that Word or do you want to be informed about the words? You must choose.
&&&&&&&&&&&&
What do you tell your kids to do – over and over?
What did your parents tell you to do – over and over? With my Dad it was “TURN OFF THE LIGHTS WHEN YOU LEAVE A ROOM!” It did not matter that you were going right back in there. If he saw a light on and nobody in the room – he was going to say it… again - “TURN OFF THE LIGHTS WHEN YOU LEAVE A ROOM!” My Dad was not some kind of ahead of the curve climate change activist – nope. When he saw a light on, he saw the electric bill going up for no good reason. btw – he felt the same about a door being open during the winter – “HEY – YOU’RE LETTING ALL MY HEAT OUT!”
If you want to make sure you are getting your point across to someone, it is often necessary to say it more than once. In the Old Testament book of the Law, Leviticus, there is a phrase that gets repeated –
Leviticus 20 “7 Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. 8 And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”
1 Peter draws from the book of Leviticus - 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
Let me paraphrase that for you – “You be holy – in the same way I am holy.” That’s a big ask! As Wesleyan Believers, we have lost an understanding of holiness and the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian Perfection. John Wesley called it “being made perfect in love” and looked to Jesus’ words – Mark 12 “30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Wesley urged folks to practice “holiness of heart and life” and they did – it was one of the “Marks of a Methodist.”
That brings us to “Be holy, for I am holy.” There are two parts of that command – God and us. I’m going to start this week with God – easy, huh? 😊
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
If we were in a small group and we were covering this topic, I would ask you to make a couple of lists:
God’s Attributes & God’s Titles. We all have some description or image of God in our brains. Back when I was a candidate for ministry, I remember one interview when they asked me to “describe the God to whom you pray.” Could you do that?
There are many ways to describe God – like Heavenly Father – and there are folks all over the world who think of God in ways that make sense in their culture, but we must have some basics we agree upon. When we look to God’s Word, we find an understanding of the Attributes of God. Here are a few:
Omnipotence of God - God can do all things that are consistent with His character. God is all powerful.
Omnipresence of God - God is present everywhere at all times.
Omniscience of God - God is all knowing.
Sovereignty of God - God created everything and therefore all things are under His sovereign control.
Immutability of God – God does not change. That means He cannot change in His nature, character, or dependability.
Holiness of God - God is set apart from His creation. (“Set apart” is the simple definition of “holy”)
For each one of the attributes of God, we understand that He is perfectly all there is of that attribute. The word we use to represent this is “altogether.” So, we say God is altogether holy.
I need to get a little deeper in the weeds of this topic. Hang with me and I will try not to get us lost. 😊
The attributes of God are divided into two categories – communicable and incommunicable. Big fancy words, but necessary for us. All the attributes I listed above are incommunicable – they belong to God alone. Only He is omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient. So, I guess you know what the other word means – communicable attributes can be shared with humanity.
God is altogether holy – we can’t be holy like that.
Did I leave out some attributes of God? God is loving. God is merciful. These are attributes that God will share with every Believer. The goal of the Christian journey is to become more and more like Jesus, who gave us an image of what humanity with divine power and guidance looks like. That’s where we are headed on this journey. Why aren’t we already there?
BARRIERS TO GROWING IN HOLINESS
First – you need to admit something. Say, “I am not God.” When we start there it’s easier, to let God be God. The 10 Commandments begin with a statement, “I am the Lord (Yahweh) your God.”( Ex. 20:2) We don’t get to tell God what is right or wrong. We don’t get to tell God what He calls holiness of heart and life. These belong to God and He gets to tell us.
God puts it like this in Isaiah 55:8-9
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Second – don’t try to define God’s attributes by your experience. We hear one thing over and over today – GOD IS LOVE. Yes, that’s true. Love is one of the many attributes of God and this one comes straight from God’s Holy Word – 1 John 4 “7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” God’s love for us is perfect, so much so that He could send Jesus to the Cross of Calvary.
What about us? To grasp the concept that “God is love,” we try to define God’s love by our own experience of love. That’s the creature trying to describe the Creator. Hear this truth for each of us - your experience of love is limited and touched by sin.
Third - we try to prioritize the attributes of God into a list that makes one more important than the others. So, we like to say that “grace” as seen in the New Testament is higher on the list than “judgement” as seen in the Old Testament. Our modern-day list places “love” (NT) above “holiness” (OT). Are you noticing a pattern here? A plain reading of God’s Word finds grace, judgement, love and holiness in both Testaments. God does not change – the attribute of immutability. (Psalm 102)
WHO GOD IS – NOT WHAT GOD DOES
The attributes of God – all of them – are who God is, not what God does. His holiness is part of His very nature. That means God can’t not be holy. (Bad grammar but you get the point) God’s holiness is perfect and that moves Him to be absolutely intolerant of sin. Do we get to define what is sin? No way! Yet, God can have perfect love for the sinner and perfect hatred for the sin. That’s why God offers you forgiveness of sin at the moment of salvation and then offers you the gift of repentance as you grow in holiness of heart and life.
We teach the first action of God’s forgiveness all the time, yet we neglect to teach that God has given us the Holy Spirit’s power so that we can walk in freedom. What did I tell you before? Whenever you hear the word “holiness” you need to think “freedom.”
We all believe that God is merciful and offers forgiveness – right? Again, we find this mercy and forgiveness in the Old Testament. Listen to Psalm 103:11-12 –
“For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
God’s mercy is perfect. God is altogether merciful. Jesus died for your transgressions – the atoning sacrifice – Jesus paid the price. If there was bill for your past, it would be marked PAID IN FULL! So why do we keep dwelling on the past?
I heard a great quote this week – “Success and failure are not people – only events.” You will hear that again during Lent – promise. Why do these loom so large in the rearview mirror? Actually, everything in the rearview mirror is distorted. Let me be really blunt – you literally can’t trust your view of the past. We learn this when we try to tell a story that involves other family members and NOBODY remembers it the way we do. 😊
The past is over – done! Amen? You are forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ! Amen? The failures of the past have been removed! Amen? Then stop going back there. Why do we do that? Only answer I have for you is that God does not want you going back over the past – over and over. So, that must be what satan wants. Do we want to keep doing what satan wants? NO WAY! So let me give you an image of your frequent trips to the past in spite of God’s mercy and forgiveness: Proverbs 26:11
“As a dog returns to his own vomit,
So a fool repeats his folly.”
Is that what we look like when we keep trying to drive our lives forward while looking in the rearview mirror? Do we have to keep going back and reliving the painful, regrettable failures of our past?
“As a dog returns to his own vomit,
So a fool repeats his folly.”
God wants to offer you the freedom to live a life that is NOT controlled by the past, but rather a life that is full of tremendous possibilities as we share in God’s attributes. There is freedom when we forgive and when we offer mercy. There is freedom when we love God and neighbor. There is freedom in bringing every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). When you have a past like mine – alcoholism, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies – you COULD live every day with agonizing regrets. YOU COULD DO THAT AND MAKE SATAN HAPPY. I choose to walk in the freedom of receiving all the benefits of God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness. What about you? Amen.
