"St. Peter" c 1501-04, by Michelangelo in the Cathedral at Siena.
This is the 8th post in my series on the Book of 1st Peter. The resources used in this series are sermons from Jamie Rasmussen (Senior Pastor @ Scottsdale Bible Church), Dr. Wayne Grudem's The First Epistle of Peter: An Introduction and Commentary
Text - 1 Peter 1:13-21 - Called to Be Holy
Jamie Rasmussen's Sermon on Video
From Scottsdale Bible Church on this video:
"One of the clarion calls to the Church by Peter is to live lives of absolute and uncompromised holiness. "Be holy" as God "is holy." But how do we do this without becoming legalistic? And how do we do this without having an attitude of being "more holier than thou?" This message will help us clearly understand both God's call to holiness, as well as what holiness is-and isn't. It will also help believers know how to live a life of holiness by realizing God's amazing actions in our lives through Christ as well as trusting and looking to His movement in our lives in the future."
Please join me as we explore our call to holiness from the Book of 1st Peter...
Notes from Jamie Rasmussen's Sermon:
Main Point - We are called to a life of holiness - patterned after God himself.
Holiness is very important to God and Peter calls us to holiness along two specific lines:
- Reason - vs 15 - as He who called you is holy, you also be holy
- Revelation - Lev 11:44 - "...be holy, for I am holy..." (a commandment from God)
Definition of Holiness - the act of becoming increasingly like God relationally and ethically
- Ethically - ...preparing your mind for action (gird up your loins KJV)...sober minded
- How do we do this? - with ethical behavior (becoming holy)
- as obedient children, not conforming to our past lusts (v14)
- in our conduct (v16)
- with fear (v17)
- How do we do this? - with ethical behavior (becoming holy)
- Relationally - this holiness is also done in relational terms
- grace of Jesus Christ - (v 13)
- as children (v14)
- call him Father (v17)
- Combining the ethics of holiness with the relations of holiness:
- Preparing minds/sober minded ---->grace/Jesus Christ
- Obedience/not conforming---->children of God
- Right conduct/fear---->call on Him as Father
Peter's call to holiness: must combine the ethical call with the relational call. It is also outward and inward. If you don't have both, you are lopsided in your holiness.
Applications of Holiness -
- Wrong - Holiness with only moral behavior = lifeless legalism, judgmental
- Wrong - Holiness with relational only = lapsed morality (ignoring the ethical call) God is my buddy, etc.
- Right - Holiness with both ethical and relational = life giving, head turning, righteousness
Wrapping up Holiness - We live a life of holiness by responding to God's actions/commands in the past and then looking forward to His movement in the future.
- we are ransomed by God
- by the blood of Christ
- by God, Jesus Christ the God-Man
- our faith and hope are now in God
Our core motivation to holiness is to respond to God's precious gift of salvation!
Another core motivation to looking forward to what Christ is still yet to do!
Response to the past <-----Living Right (holiness)----->Looking forward to heaven!
If you had asked me a week ago to define holiness, I would have landed around the idea of the ethics of the doctrine. Certainly now I understand the sweetness and life-giving, response driven motivation that Jamie is teaching us here.
To live holy lives, we must live in the center of responding to God's actions (His love - Christ's death) and His commandments and looking forward to the precious promise of our eternal inheritance through Jesus Christ.
To put this another way, in the church some are far to "seeker friendly" and ignore the commandments and sovereignty of God, while on the other hand, some churches are far to legalistic and present no relationship with the Father and our Brother Christ.
Now..may our ears not be simply tickled but we apply and implement this into our lives.
I certainly have a far better understand of holiness.
Do you?
