Living a Holy Life: Called to Be Holy - 1 Peter 1:15-16
Introduction
The call to holiness stands as one of the most compelling yet challenging invitations in all of Scripture. When the apostle Peter wrote to scattered believers facing persecution and cultural pressure, he did not offer them comfortable platitudes or easy compromises. Instead, he directed their attention to the very character of God Himself. The command "be holy, for I am holy" echoes across both Testaments, linking the ancient Israelites who stood at Sinai (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7) to the early church and to every believer today. This sermon examines three dimensions of holy living: our calling to holiness (1 Peter 1:15-16), our walk in the light (1 John 1:7), and our separation from spiritual compromise (2 Corinthians 6:17). Each dimension flows from our relationship with the living God who has claimed us as His own.
Understanding holiness requires us to see it not merely as a list of rules to follow but as a transformation into the likeness of the One who called us. The word "holy" in Scripture carries the fundamental meaning of being set apart, separated for God's exclusive use. When applied to God, holiness describes His absolute purity, His complete separation from anything defiled or unrighteous. When applied to believers, holiness describes both our position before God (1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Peter 1:2) and the practical outworking of that position in daily life. We have been made holy through the work of Christ (Hebrews 10:10), and now we are called to become in our daily conduct what we already are in our standing before God. Paul captured this dual reality when he wrote to the Ephesians that God "chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Ephesians 1:4). Peter reinforces this connection between our calling and our conduct, reminding us that "as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance" (1 Peter 1:14).
The Scriptures present holiness not as an optional pursuit for spiritual elites but as the expected lifestyle for all who belong to Christ. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3), while the writer of Hebrews declares, "Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). These passages establish that God's desire for His people transcends cultural boundaries and historical periods. From the giving of the Law at Sinai through the prophetic messages of Isaiah and Ezekiel, continuing through the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 5:48), and extending through the apostolic letters to the churches, the call to holiness remains consistent and clear.
1. Called to Be Holy - 1 Peter 1:15-16
Peter opens this passage with a significant phrase: "as obedient children" (1 Peter 1:14). This description characterizes the essential nature of true believers. Obedience distinguishes Christians from non-Christians, who are called "sons of disobedience" in Ephesians 2:2. The basic character of a believer centers on obedience to God, while the basic character of an unbeliever centers on disobedience. This does not mean believers never sin, but it does mean that disobedience breaks the normal pattern of their lives rather than defining it. Jesus Himself established this principle when He said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15), and again, "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14). When believers sin, their redeemed spirits remain housed in fleshly bodies where sin still dwells (Romans 7:18-25). Yet even in this reality, Peter calls them to pursue holiness.
The call to holiness contains both negative and positive aspects. Negatively, believers must refuse to conform to the former lusts that characterized their pre-conversion lives. The word "conformed" means to be shaped by or fashioned after something. Paul uses similar language in Romans 12:2, warning believers, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." These former lusts include sinful desires, evil longings, uncontrolled appetites, and all unrighteous motivations that compel the unregenerate. Peter describes these as lusts they had "in ignorance," referring to their pre-salvation state when they did not know better. This ignorance characterized both Gentiles who had never known the true God (Acts 17:30, Ephesians 4:17-18) and Jews who had missed the fulfillment of their own Scriptures (Romans 10:2-3). Regeneration creates new life that possesses both the desire and the power to live righteously (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:10).
Positively, believers are called to be holy in all their behavior, following the pattern of the Holy One who called them. Peter sets the standard at nothing less than the perfection of God Himself. Jesus declared the same standard in the Sermon on the Mount: "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). While believers remain unable to achieve sinlessness in this life (1 John 1:8), God's holiness stands as the goal toward which they must aim, equipped by the Word and the Spirit. The phrase "in all your behavior" emphasizes that holiness must permeate every aspect of life. No area remains exempt from this transformation. Paul writes to the Colossians, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians 3:17). The holiness of Christians must be manifested in a life visible to all, not through withdrawal into isolated religious communities (1 Peter 2:12).
Peter grounds his exhortation in Old Testament Scripture, introducing the quote with the phrase "because it is written" (1 Peter 1:16). He draws from Leviticus 11:44, 19:2, and 20:7, where God repeatedly commanded Israel: "You shall be holy, for I am holy." This command appears throughout the Mosaic law (Exodus 19:5-6, Deuteronomy 7:6-8), always connected to Israel's relationship with God. The dominant reason for God's people to live in holiness was their identification with the Holy One. They belonged to Him, bore His name, and represented His character to the surrounding nations. God had separated them from all other peoples and called them to reflect His nature in their corporate life. When God gave the holiness code in Leviticus, He explained, "I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy" (Leviticus 11:45).
The command to "become holy" does not mean believers must achieve holiness through moral effort alone. God accomplished their positional holiness when He chose them and sanctified them through the Spirit (1 Peter 1:2). Rather, the command calls believers to conform their behavior to their new status. Having been set apart by God, they must now live separated lives in practice. This transformation must touch every aspect of behavior, involving the whole of life as it continues in the midst of a hostile culture. The readers Peter addressed faced constant pressure to compromise, to blend in with their surroundings, to minimize their distinctiveness. Peter insists they must maintain their difference in any and all circumstances (1 Peter 2:11-12, 3:14-16, 4:3-4).
God provides the pattern for holiness in His own character. The holiness of God in Scripture refers primarily to His absolute separation from evil and His transcendent majesty. He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16), untouched by any defilement. Justice connects most closely with holiness in the New Testament. The holy God is also the just judge (1 Peter 1:17). For believers, imitating God's holiness means pursuing justice, righteousness, and purity in every relationship and transaction (Micah 6:8). It means refusing to participate in anything that contradicts His character or violates His commands. Paul captures this when he writes, "For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness" (1 Thessalonians 4:7).
When people go through difficulty, they often drift toward carnality. They abandon spiritual disciplines, compromise convictions, and return to old patterns of thinking and behaving. Peter warns against this tendency. In the midst of trials and difficulties, believers must gird up the loins of their minds, think soberly, and maintain hope (1 Peter 1:13). They must refuse to return to their old fleshly inclinations. God says they are to be holy, to be whole. They must not tear themselves apart or wear themselves down with sin and laziness. Instead, they must choose in the midst of difficulty to think rightly and act in accordance with their calling.
2. Walking in the Light - 1 John 1:7
The apostle John develops the theme of holiness through the metaphor of light and darkness. He writes that if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). This statement requires careful examination. God exists essentially in the light because He Himself is light (1 John 1:5). His activity remains perfectly consistent with His nature. Believers are called to walk in the light, meaning they must make a conscious and sustained effort to live in conformity with the revelation of God, especially as that revelation has been made finally and completely in Jesus Christ. Jesus declared, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12).
The contrast between walking and being proves significant. People walk in light, but God is in it. Walking in the light constitutes the test of fellowship with God. Christ walked in the light during His earthly ministry (1 John 2:6), and now believers must follow the same path. Walking in the light involves no mere imitation of God but rather an identity in the essential element of daily walk with the essential element of God's eternal being. Without fellowship with God, there exists no true Christian fellowship with one another (1 John 1:6). The two dimensions of fellowship remain inseparable. Paul explains this connection to the Ephesians: "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8).
Walking in the light leads directly to fellowship among believers. This fellowship results from each believer having fellowship with God (1 John 1:3). By living in the light, John did not intend that all Christians should become hermits or mystics, living in solitary contemplation. Instead, their fellowship with Christ should produce the desire to join others in loving devotion. True spirituality manifests itself in community fellowship. People cannot claim to commune with God while refusing to commune with God's people. Some false teachers in John's day claimed special relationships with God but stayed isolated and withdrew from other believers. The natural result of living in the light should be joyful relationships with other Christians.
The blood of Jesus cleanses believers from every sin as they walk in the light (1 John 1:7). John emphasized that the death of Christ saves people, not the false teachers' supposed knowledge. The verb "cleanses" appears in the present tense, indicating continuous action. Sin receives not only forgiveness but complete erasure. In Old Testament times, believers would symbolically transfer their sins to an animal, which they would then sacrifice (Leviticus 4). The animal died in their place to pay for their sin and allow them to continue living in God's favor. Those sacrifices anticipated the day when Christ would completely remove sin. Real cleansing from sin came with Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The writer of Hebrews explains, "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:13-14).
Those who walk in the light will still find themselves sometimes falling into sin. Christians will not achieve complete perfection until Jesus returns and brings them into His kingdom (Philippians 3:20-21, 1 John 3:2). Until then, they desire to walk in the light and refuse to consciously harbor sin. When they do sin, God has already made provision to deal with those sins through the blood of His Son. Christ died not just for past sins but for all sins that will be committed until the day of His return. That provision allows God's people to continue walking in the light. They deal with sin through confession and receive His forgiveness so fellowship with God and with others remains unhindered (1 John 1:9).
Walking in the light requires living in the truth of Scripture. When believers expose their lives to the Word of God, they see things they could not see in darkness (Psalm 119:105). Many people sit comfortably in spiritual darkness, hearing messages that never challenge them or reveal their true condition. They feel comfortable because they remain in darkness. When they come into the light of God's Word, however, they see themselves as sinners who need cleansing. The light reveals what darkness concealed. This revelation may feel uncomfortable, but it leads to cleansing and restoration of fellowship with God. Jesus taught, "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God" (John 3:19-21).
The blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing believers from all sin. This cleansing addresses family truth rather than just positional truth. When believers in God's family have sin in their lives, God does not treat them like sinners outside of Christ. He treats them as disobedient children (Hebrews 12:5-11). He takes them to the woodshed for discipline. God's holiness remains unchanging, and He will not compromise His standards to accommodate human weakness. Yet in His grace, He has provided continuous cleansing through the blood of Christ for those who walk in the light and confess their sins.
3. Being Set Apart - 2 Corinthians 6:17
Paul addresses the practical implications of holiness in his second letter to the Corinthians. He quotes from Isaiah 52:11-12, where God commanded His people to separate themselves from the wicked and especially from pagans. The words "Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate" (2 Corinthians 6:17) constitute an explicit command that flows from the principle that believers are the temple of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). As those personally indwelt by the living God, believers must avoid any joint spiritual effort with unbelievers. As the temple of the living God, they must not be linked for the cause of advancing divine truth with any form of false religion. Paul frames this separation with a series of rhetorical questions: "For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?" (2 Corinthians 6:14-16).
This command hearkens back to Isaiah 52, where God told His people to depart and touch nothing unclean. Christians, like Israel at the time of her salvation, must make a clean break with all false religion to avoid its contaminating influence. Paul repeated this principle in Ephesians, explaining that children of light must not be partakers with sons of disobedience (Ephesians 5:7-11). They must be concerned with pleasing the Lord, not sinful people. To that end, they must not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness but instead expose them. The church's goal is not to make unbelievers feel comfortable and nonthreatened. On the contrary, it involves making them feel uncomfortable with their sins and threatened by God's judgment and the terrors of hell that they face. Jude expresses this balance: "And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh" (Jude 22-23).
God has always intended for His people to be distinct from unbelievers. In Leviticus, God told Israel, "I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine" (Leviticus 20:24-26). Peter later reiterated this principle, exhorting believers not to be conformed to their former lusts but to be holy in all their behavior (1 Peter 1:14-16). The command "do not touch what is unclean" strengthens the point that failing to separate from unbelievers constitutes disobedience. The word "touch" refers to a harmful touch, involvement that brings spiritual contamination. Believers are not to be involved with unclean, false teaching. They should save those trapped in false religions, snatching them out of the fire while hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. The church cannot worship, evangelize, or minister with those who pervert or reject the truth of God's Word.
This separation does not mean believers should avoid all contact with sinners. Jesus was called a Friend of Sinners (Luke 7:34), yet wherever He went, He permanently and radically impacted people. When believers enter places where worldly activity occurs, if people start turning to God and repenting from their sin, they are having the right impact. If the place instead impacts them, causing their own spirits to sag, they must get out. Many believers assume their spiritual maturity protects them from compromise. They enter business ventures with unbelievers, assuming they will maintain their witness. Yet history shows even the greatest men and women of faith have fallen into spiritual decline through ungodly partnerships.
Jehoshaphat provides a sobering example (2 Chronicles 20:35-37). He was a uniquely blessed man around whom revival happened and through whom blessings flowed. Yet near the end of his life, he joined with the ungodly king Ahaziah in a shipping business. The venture failed, and Jehoshaphat's legacy suffered. The prophet Jehu confronted him: "Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the Lord" (2 Chronicles 19:2). Believers must not assume their ships will come in eventually when they enter ungodly partnerships. A person might become rich financially by joining with an unbeliever, but what does it profit anyone to gain the whole world and lose their soul (Mark 8:36)? Such partnerships often cause people to become only shells of what they once were spiritually. The tragedy occurs when believers known for kingdom service become known instead as business successes while their spiritual influence wanes.
The command to separate carries both corporate and individual implications. Churches must not join in spiritual activities with religious groups that deny essential Christian truth. Individual believers must guard their closest relationships, their business partnerships, and their regular influences. This separation flows from love, not pride. Believers separate because they love God more than the approval of the world (1 John 2:15-17). They separate because they love truth more than temporary advantage. They separate because they understand their identity as temples of the living God and refuse to compromise that sacred calling (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Conclusion
The call to holy living runs throughout Scripture as a consistent, uncompromising theme. God has called believers to reflect His character in a world that has rejected His authority. This calling includes all believers without exception. Every Christian has been made holy through the work of Christ (Hebrews 10:10, 10:14) and is now commanded to live out that holiness in daily life. The three dimensions examined in this sermon work together to create a comprehensive picture of what God expects. As Peter writes, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).
First, believers must recognize their calling to be holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). They cannot bring God down to their level through rationalization or compromise. His holiness stands as the unchanging standard, and His call to His children remains clear: "Be holy, for I am holy." This calling touches every aspect of life, every relationship, every decision. Holiness cannot be compartmentalized into religious activities while the rest of life proceeds according to worldly wisdom. Paul reminds us, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). The totality of this command leaves no room for selective obedience or partial dedication.
Second, believers must walk in the light (1 John 1:7). This requires exposing their lives to the truth of Scripture and allowing that truth to reveal areas needing cleansing. Walking in the light leads to authentic fellowship with God and with other believers. It also ensures access to the continuous cleansing available through the blood of Jesus. When believers walk in the light, they do not claim sinless perfection, but they do maintain short accounts with God. They confess sin quickly (1 John 1:9), receive forgiveness freely, and continue growing in holiness. The psalmist declares, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105), reminding us that Scripture illuminates the way we should walk and exposes the areas where we have strayed.
Third, believers must be separate from spiritual compromise (2 Corinthians 6:17). This separation does not mean isolation from sinners who need the gospel. Rather, it means refusing to enter into partnerships or agreements that would require compromising biblical truth or violating biblical standards. Believers must be willing to stand out, to be different, to bear reproach for Christ's sake (Hebrews 11:26, 13:13). The pressure to blend in, to minimize distinctives, to accommodate cultural trends remains constant. Yet God's people must resist that pressure and maintain their identity as His temple, His dwelling place, His representatives on earth. Jesus warned, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).
Living a holy life in an unholy world requires supernatural power. Believers cannot achieve holiness through human effort alone. God provides the Holy Spirit to sanctify His people (2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:2), the Word of God to guide them (Psalm 119:9-11, John 17:17), and the blood of Christ to cleanse them (1 John 1:7, 9). He also provides the community of faith to encourage them and hold them accountable (Hebrews 10:24-25). With these resources, believers can pursue holiness with confidence, knowing that the One who called them is faithful and will complete the work He has begun (Philippians 1:6, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
The challenge before every believer remains clear: Will you live according to your calling? Will you pursue holiness in every area of life? Will you walk in the light and separate from spiritual compromise? These questions demand honest answers and committed action. The holy God who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9) deserves nothing less than your wholehearted devotion and obedient response to His call to be holy. Paul's words to the Romans provide fitting encouragement: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:1-2). May we answer this call with the determination to live lives worthy of the One who purchased us with His own blood and set us apart as His treasured possession.
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Blessings,
Pastor JM Raja Lawrence
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
email: lawrencejmr@gmail.com
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