Grace Sustained Holiness

Peter has just led us through a beautiful passage proclaiming to us the grace that is ours in Christ as a motivation for holy living in times of great trial and hardship. He says to us that we have a living hope in a living saviour. This hope is not found here on this earth but is kept in heaven for us.

In this we can rejoice. Though we suffer many trials in this life, whether its physical trials, spiritual trials, or trials with our bodies of sin day to day, we know that this is temporary, and we will one day be called home.

Because of these things. Because of whom we are and been proclaimed to be through the blood of Christ, Peter now transitions to an imperative or a command. Telling us that we therefore must act and live in a certain way, a way that is patterned after God Himself as our holy Father.

Peter does this in three ways:

1. Focusing on Grace

2. Claiming our Childhood

3. Our holiness is from holiness.

What I want us to get from this passage this evening is that our call to holiness is rooted in what God has done for us and promises to do in us. It is grace-motivated holiness.

Focus on Grace

Imagine with me that you are living in the first century. You’re about to go out do some work in the yard or go for a run. Before doing so, you need to tuck your tunic up and out of the way. Up, between the legs and into the belt. This is called girding your loins. Now, you have complete freedom of movement without the risk of getting tripped by your long tunic.

Head

This is the image that Peter gives us here. To tuck up and out of the way anything that would hinder or trip us. It has been translated “prepare your minds for action” but it is literally “gird up the loins of your minds.”

Like the Israelites who were told to gird up their loins in preparing for the Exodus from slavery on their way to the Promised Land, we who have been delivered from slavery to sin and death, are to gird up the loins of our minds. We are to tuck up and away all those things that would hinder us, that would trip us, and prevent us from travelling to our Promised Land, the New Heavens and Earth.

Peter adds to this, “being perfectly sober-minded.” By this Peter means to remind us of the clarity of mind, the steely resolve, needed to stay focused. Peter has already reminded us of our status in this world, we are exiles.

This is not our home. As exiles we are just sojourning in this land. We are staying here for a time, but this is not permanent for any of us. Our true home is where our saviour is, where our inheritance is, in heaven.

One commentator describes Christian sober mindedness as realism. We are to be realistic about what it means to be sojourners in this world. The things of this world, the passions of the flesh and the lust of the eyes are hostile to the new life we have received.

To be realistic is to be completely aware of the power of sin against us. We often kid ourselves into thinking that we are stronger and more resilient than we are. As our Lord says, the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We must be resilient. But have a resilience rooted in a joyful hope.

Peter does not leave us hanging, telling us to just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be ready. It is tempting to stop here when talking about sanctification. But sanctification, the progressive being made holy to more reflect our saviour, Christ, is not a self-sustained slog, but a joyful journey towards the fulfillment of the promise that one day we will be glorified. Peter says, in our sober mindedness, girding up our loins,

“set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Here he reminds us of our ultimate standing and an important point. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. There is not one thing that can change this.

Yet, it is not a faith that is alone. It is a faith that understands the reality of sin and the way we must fight it as Christians. But the hope that we have is not in our success in this process of sanctification, our hope is in the coming of Christ again.

Heart

Just as Christ died and was buried (sin atoned for), just as Christ rose from the grave (death defeated and the power of death no longer has hold over us), and just as Christ was glorified (He is the first born of new creation whom we walk after). We can know that Christ is coming again (we too will be made new, bodies of death will give way to life.)

All these are wrapped up in the phrase, “set your hope firmly on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Because He is coming again, you can trust in the fulfillment of God’s promises to you.

Just as you have been justified and washed clean by Christ’s death burial and resurrection. Just as you have been given a perfect righteousness so you can come before God. Just as God is faithful in these things to you. He will also complete in you the work that He has started.

Hands

We always seem to mess up. We get angry at our spouses and kids. We find ourselves in a constant circle of gossip. We are arrogant, lustful, and full of pride. Children, you may seem to feel like you constantly disobey your parents, like you can’t do anything right. We fall into the same sin time and time again.

It is tempting to throw in the towel at times. To think that we will never get out of the funk we are in. To let sin, take its toll. Sometimes it’s easier to just think, “I can’t help it, I’m just angry, it’s who I am.” Or “I can’t seem to obey my parents, I guess I’m just a naughty child.”

This is the very thing that Peter says we should gird up our minds against. You have been born again in Christ. We are in constant battle with our flesh. It has not been glorified yet, we still live in bodies of sin, and we will continue to sin this side of the second coming of Christ. But we can know that one day, when Christ returns, He will make all things new including your bodies.

This hope is your motivation for present resolve against the sin that wages war on your bodies now. “It is not so much an attitude to be cultivated as a reality to be recognized. To set our hope is to believe the gospel.” (Clowney)

Therefore, when sin feels as though it gets too much. When the call to be holy seems too big of a burden, don’t give up and don’t try relying on your own ability to keep going. Our flesh is weak, instead look up to the grace that will be yours when Christ returns to call you home.

This is where you will find the help you need. It does not come from within, but as your salvation and redemption comes from outside of you, so too does the ability to live a holy life. It is grace-sustained holy living.

Christian, there will one day be a joyful freeing of our sinful bodies as they are renewed completely after the image of Christ. This grace is your hope.

Claiming Our Childhood

Secondly, Peter moves on to give another reason to pursue holiness. We are children of God. As such, we are to follow after our Father. As those bought by Christ, we are His brothers and sisters, co-heirs with him. Young and old, male, and female, we are all “Children of Obedience.”

Every family has rules and guidelines as to what it means to be a part of that family. There is a certain imitation of what is normal that is expected in any family. For example, growing up, it was expected of me that I would only have one cup for the day that I used for water at home. Mum hated it if we just kept getting a new glass every time and so we were told to keep a glass on the bench out of the way. It’s a silly little rule but it worked for our family, I was expected to conform to that a child. I’m sure you had other rules, both big and small, that were expected of you and that you now expect. But these all fail in comparison to the expectation of conformity to God’s law.

Head

By saying that we are obedient children, Peter means that say that our whole lives are characterised by obedience to God. We are children of obedience. I love what John Calvin says on this:

“For though obedience does not make us children, as the gift of adoption is gratuitous, yet it distinguishes children from aliens.”

Our obedience shows that we are children. It does not make us children, but it shows the likeness to God apart from those who are not God’s. For,

“The sum of the whole law, and of all that God requires of us, is this, that his image should shine forth in us, so that we should not be degenerate children.” (Calvin)

Heart

The result of living as obedient children is twofold.

1. We glorify God.

God delights in what is right. As those redeemed by Christ, called children of God in Him, we do good so that in all our living we may show that we are thankful to God for all He has done for us, and so that He may be praised through us. Glorifying God and obeying Him brings joy to us as His children.

2. We enjoy Him.

This starts a cycle. We find that conformity to His law brings us joy and satisfaction in Him and as we increase in joy, we increase in delighting in the means of that joy: grace enabled obedience to God’s law.

Our desire should be that of the Psalmist when He says, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all that day.” The law is part of the revelation of God’s character. It is morally pure as God is pure. It is holy as God is holy.

Hands

This design for us as children is summed up in vs 15. “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” The grace that we have received does not stand alone. It results in good living.

God calls us out of darkness into light, He washes us clean by the blood of Christ, we have been given the Holy Spirit and now have been called to live holy lives.

This can seem confusing to us at first. It can seem like God has started things and we finish them off. Unfortunately, this is often how sanctification seems. But the call here is not apart from grace. The call to be holy is in view of grace. It is a striving for holiness with our eyes firmly set upon Christ.

Why? Because two things are true. We are called to be holy and obey God. And the motivation for this comes from God. He works in us to enable us to obey Him and thus glorify Him in our bodies.

As Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13,

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

It is not just us that work. Nor is it just God working in us. We are not robots, nor are we completely free. God works in us and produces in us the desire and ability to please Him. There is a mystery in Scripture that holds up both man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty.

Yes, we are called to be holy. But also, we are to recognize that it is God who ultimately brings this about in us. We are to strive, to fight to be prepared to lay aside sin within us and conform to God’s law, but this is not apart from God’s grace working in us.

Nowhere is it true that we strive for holiness and sanctification to earn anything. We cannot be more His children than we already are in Christ. We are already children of God.

Freed from the curse of sin, we are free to act in accordance with what God requires of us. We are free to look to His sustaining grace in our efforts to live lives that are pleasing to Him in all things. When we do this, we realise in ourselves what it means to be children of obedience.

We first look to our Father from whom all good things flow, from whom we can good works. We then see His law as a good reflection of His character, and we put to death that which does not conform. When we do this, we become who we are created to be. Children, created in the image of God.

This is for everyone here today who has faith in Christ’s work for them. Young or old, male, or female. We are all children of God, and nothing can change that.

Holiness from Holiness

An apple tree produces apples, it cannot produce apricots or oranges. Like produces like. So too, God’s holiness requires and produces holiness. All these promises held out to us stem from the fact that God Himself is holy. And because He is holy, there is nothing that can come into His presence that is not also holy.

Head

On the face of it, this command seems to be saying that we our holiness earns us the right to stand before God. Because holiness can only be in the presence of holiness. If God is our Father and to have fellowship with Him, we must also be holy. In a sense this is true. We must be holy to stand before God.

But there is absolutely no way that we can achieve this. If we think that we can in some way gain a standing with God by our acts, we fool ourselves. The greatness of our sin and misery are too much for us to ever bridge that gap that divides us from God.

God, in His grace, has come down to us. Rather than requiring us to come up to Him, He has declared us to be holy by the blood of Christ. In saying “You shall be holy for I am holy” God is declaring to us, His people who we are and who we should be.

There is a beautiful simplicity in this. For we are free not to earn but to imitate. We are not holy according to our standards, but God’s.

Heart

What is the law of God? But that which is summed by Christ, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We so often complicate the law of God.

We desire to come up to God rather than setting our eyes upon the grace that is ours in Christ. We make rules up to make it easier or to make it seem as though God is less far away. But in the reality, we make the law difficult and lay up burdens that are too heavy to bear.

The beauty of living in this relationship with God as His children is that we have received all we could ever need to fulfil this task. One commentator put it beautifully like this:

“it does not require encyclopedic grasp of endless directives and prohibitions. It flows from the heart; its key is love. To be holy is to love the Lord our God with heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We imitate the love of grace that saved us, the love of God’s compassion poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” (Clowney)

Hands

So dear Christian, do not despair at the seemingly mountain-like task of living a holy life. It is not a life that hasn’t been outlined for us. Our call to holiness is rooted in the grace that we have received in Christ and will receive when He returns to call us home. God has supplied for your every need; he has given His spirit to you to sustain you and help you.

In this life, we will not attain that perfection. We will be frustrated by our sin. We will feel as though we do not progress. But the promise given to us here in this text is that God has called you to Himself, He has called you into holiness and made you holy and will one day fulfill that when we are with Him in glory.

Though we struggle and are grieved for a short time, it will soon pass away. Our judge is our Father and has declared us holy in Christ. One day He will wipe from our eyes every tear, he will heal us of all that ails us, and will restore our bodies of sin and make them also holy.

So, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober-minded and resolved to live a holy life as He who called His children is also holy, keeping your eyes firmly fixed on Christ in whom you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, and the right to be called Children of the Most High God.