Be Holy

Christian Holiness

1 Peter 1:13-21.

In order for a runner to run well, he or she cannot have any restrictions that hinder them. Every weight must be removed and anything that may trip you must be out of the way. I can remember seeing people grab their belts or their dresses so that they could run for a short distance. For the garments of this day, robes, and the like… they had to gird them up/pull them up in order to run.

Verse 13 -But here, with this in mind… He says: “Gird up the loins of your mind...” Which means “get ready to move; get ready for action,” in light of what God has done through Christ. In light of what God has done, who you are in Christ and what you have in Christ, with your minds filled with these realities… make progress.

You will not make progress if you do not start here. You will not run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint… unless you first hope in the Lord. Without the Living Hope… you will not move at all, and you will grow bitter where you are.

Do not think it strange when you face trials, and do not be surprised, we will have plenty. This is common and normal to life. 2 Timothy 3:12 states that if we desire to live a godly life, we will be persecuted.

These believers were going through hard times and what do we hear?

“Be sober, be hopeful, be obedient children; be Holy.”

Be sober - Ephesians 5:18- Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit. Do not go to the bottle or the drug to be filled or sustained. Do not allow this to be the source of your life and joy. This is not the medicine that you need to endure. We need Spiritual drink. We need Spiritual life.

How quick do we run to other sources for living and deny the Spirit Himself? How often do we quench and grieve the Spirit by turning to other sources other that the Lord Himself? How often do we grieve the Spirit by trying to numb our pain rather that going to the Healer? How often are we guilty of idolatry? How often do we grow in bitterness and sin against heaven and earth in our pain?

Be sober. How? Go to the One who will not put a band-aid on your but will give you a new heart. Go to the One who heals hearts, changes the man from the inside out. Fix your minds and hearts on Him as you go through the pain. Alcohol will help numb the pain, God can uproot the pain and replace it with joy.

Alcohol will make you sleepy, make you stumble, and keep you from thinking rightly. Being filled with the Spirit, with a mind and heart directed towards Christ will keep you from stumbling and the mind will be renewed unto godliness. Be sober and alert. Have the mind of Christ!

2. Be Hopeful - “All my hope is in Jesus...” It is out of this “Hope”… that we can be “full”… What a terrible emptiness that exists outside of hope. It is called hopelessness. This leads to great bouts with depression and death. Darkness lingers here and the person loses sight, purpose, focus, meaning, and grows sicker and sicker into the pangs of death.

But you dear Christian have not been led or kept in darkness. You have been given a Light, a Light that will never go out, a Light that opens the eye and give color to everything. Out of the Hope your have in Christ, you see. Through faith you see life. Through faith you see good even in the bad. Through faith, you see a Savior coming to you on the raging sees, and in the end, coming on the clouds of heaven.

You have a Living Hope who is inside guiding you in this dark world and during dark times. A Person is your light. A Person is your Hope. He is the Hope that we must rest in if we will ever find rest for our souls.

Delight in the Person of Christ and find greater and greater hope. Hold on to this Hope, give this hope, be ready to give a reason to those who ask about the hope that you have… Because they need the Hope, the Person, that you have.

It is out of this Hope we live. It is out of this hope we persevere.

3. Be Obedient - You are a child of the Father and nothing will change this, even your pain. You are loved and saved and nothing can take away the Love of God from you. Nothing can separate you from His love. In Christ, there is no condemnation and no separation. This is Who God is and this is who you are and Whose you are. Nothing will change this.

Pain will test us. Trials will test us. What we really are will come out through the pain.

Those who are using Christ as a Helper and not a Savior, will walk away. Those who are using God as a genie in the bottle, one who will grant their requests on their terms… They will walk away when times get hard.

God never said He will give you heaven on earth. He never said that life would be easy. He never said that you can come on your own terms. You have to come to Him on His terms and receive Him as He is, not what you want Him to be. He is Lord and Savior. He is God no matter what. He is worthy of your life, commitment, and worship, even if He never gave you a Savior.

But He did send you a Savior. Now, don’t allow the trials or the pain convince you that the promises of God are not true. Do not turn your back on your God and live out rebellion. He is still God; He is still your Heavenly Father; Jesus is still your only begotten Savior. Don’t allow your pain to drive away from God and into sin.

You are a child of God. Act like it.

Be who and what you are, either way...

If you continue on in your sin and disobedience without repentance, you prove that you may have never known Him. You prove that you did not come to Him on His terms but yours. You may prove to yourselves and to others that you never had saving faith to begin with.

Dear Christian: Don’t go back to the old life. Jesus died to make you a new man, a child of God. You are not ignorant of this. You know this. So, then, act like you belong to the Father and that He is your Heavenly Father. Imitate Him, reflect Him; represent Him as a child, bearing His Name. Live a life pleasing to Him as you go through the pain. He is watching. Live to please the Father and the Son.

Not in your strength, but out of the Gospel, out of the Love God has for you. Don’t do to get… Live out of what you have!

4. Be Holy - Our motivation: Our Father is Holy. We are His children. The Father is watching. And our works will be judged at the Judgment seat of Christ.

During your stay here… represent you Father well. Serve Him well. You live and stand before God Almighty, therefore, act like it. This produces a holy fear, a reverence, a life of proper perspective.

I stand and live before Almighty God, who sees my thoughts and my actions, and He will judge me...

This reality changes things. This changes life. It really should!

He sent His only begotten Son to this world to redeem it, and the world abuses and rejects Him, nailing Him to a Roman Cross and kills Him. What should God do to this world?

For those who will reject His Son today and trample His Son’s blood under their feet and treat the grace of God as a license to sin and do whatever they want… What should God do with them?

For we, the redeemed, those who understand the Gospel of Grace, and what God has done through Jesus Christ…how shall we live? For those who understand the mercies of God and the promises given to each of us through faith...

What do we desire? We desire to be Holy.

We are going through life and we are living in a fallen world, with a fallen body, in sinful humanity… with the Gospel of Christ within us and before us...

Therefore,

Be Sober. Be Hopeful. Be Obedient. Be Holy.