The Choice of Holiness

Intro

Have you ever heard the term “kill them with kindness”. I always thought that was a stupid saying when I was a kid.

If I was mad at my siblings or another kid at school, maybe even my teacher, being kind was the last thing on my mind.

This old adage is essentially saying that you and I can’t change another person’s actions. So the only thing we can do is control our own behavior in the hopes that it might make the situation better.

It’s funny to watch a kid do this when you tell them to apologize to someone for what they did, whether it’s a sibling or a classmate.

When I tell Cooper to apologize to Parker for something he did or said, what I am looking for are more than the words “I’m sorry”. I want to see that the apology is heartfelt.

I don’t want to see an angry “I’m sorry”. As a dad I want to be like, no you’re not, but you will be in about 2 seconds if you don’t figure out how to apologize correctly!

But I get it, its hard to do. It is hard to be kind and respectful when we feel like we aren’t getting that same kindness and respect back in return.

You’ve heard is said that respect must be earned. Yet, I wonder if as followers of Jesus if that is necessarily the truth.

If you haven’t been with us the last couple of weeks, I have been leading us through the book of 1 Peter through a series called Set Apart

Set apart is what the world holy actually means. In Peter’s first letter we see this theme of holiness play out.

We see Peter explain that because of all that God has done for us.

precious blood of Christ

our redemption and ransom from sin

our eternal inheritance

That because of all of this, the person we used to be before we came to Christ, can never be the person we are after after committing our lives to him.

Instead, we must live these holy, or set apart lives where we throw off our old sinful ways out of gratitude.

Where we submit to the authority of God’s Word.

And last week we discovered that Jesus must be the foundation for our holiness.

That unless Jesus is the foundation for everything in our lives, then we will never be able to truly pursue a holy life.

But for the last two weeks we have been mostly focused on how we as Christians must live set apart in our conduct, primarily with each other as fellow followers of Jesus.

Today as we pick up right where we left off last week in 1 Peter chapter 2 we are going to see a shift take place.

Rather than focusing on our relationship with each other, Peter is going to now focus on what it looks like to live a set apart life in our relationships with unbelievers.

Just Passing Through

Let’s take a look at...

1 Peter 2:11-12 NLT 11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. 12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

Here we see Peter use this term of endearment, calling readers of this letter his dear friends, or his beloved.

Remember, the recipients of this letter were persecuted Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey.

Their lives were difficult. They were not liked by the Roman government or its citizens. They were struggling and Peter knew it and he calls them his dear friends.

He then warns them, in the greek, it means a strong urging as temporary residents and foreigners.

These two identifiers meaning someone who is the citizen of another nation and one who is simply passing through.

He tells them to keep away or abstain from their worldly or sinful desires because it is these desires that are actively trying to destroy their souls.

Where he says to keep away, the verb tense is that of continually doing so or keep keeping away.

In other words, this isn’t a once time choice but something we must be vigilantly aware of and doing all the time.

We must continually keep making the choice to avoid these desires.

And the reason for this because this same verb tense is used to describe the way in which they continually wage war against our souls.

As followers of Christ we have to get rid of the notion that our sin is nothing more than a bad habit or not a big deal, or not as bad as someone else.

Sin isn’t something to ignore or make light of. And as we see here, sin isn’t just the actions we take but can also take place in the mind through entertaining even sinful desires.

Jesus himself said in...

Matthew 5:27-28 NLT 27 “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Sin is a big deal because it was sin that put Jesus on the cross, not only so that you and I could be forgiven of it, but so that you and I could be set free from it.

That is why Peter says earlier in this letter, how dare we think we can live like we used to before coming to Jesus.

The heart of what Peter is saying here is...

You and I don’t belong to this world. We are simply passing through and so it is important that we do not allow ourselves to assimilate to the worldliness around us.

Instead as temporary residents we must live like the permanent citizens of heaven Jesus died to make us.

Peter tells us that we must live holy, set apart lives in order to protect our souls from the destructive nature of sin, but there is another reason.

1 Peter 2:12 NLT 12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

Here Peter tells us that it is our set apart way of life that will draw others to Jesus. He says that when we live holy lives, striving to allow the image of Jesus to be reflected in our daily lives, that something is going to happen.

First, there will be some who try to attack us for it. Why? Because our way of life will contradict their worldview.

Rather than life being about the individual’s rights and personal fulfillment.

Rather than a person being the master of their own fate and the ultimate authority over what is right and wrong

They will see a people who’s lives show the opposite. That is isn’t about us or our rights. It isn’t about what we think is right or wrong. It is all about him.

That we are under a greater authority who’s rule will never end and who’s word reigns supreme.

And that my friends makes people uncomfortable because it forces them to confront their own sinfulness and many will choose to reject it and instead, attack us.

But something else can also happen.

Sometimes it is our set apartness that draws people to Jesus. Rather than rejecting the uncomfortable reality of their sin and their need for salvation, they embrace it.

They will want the peace, joy, and contentment that they see in our lives because their’s is so desperately void of it.

Being set apart isn’t just about how we live among each other as followers of Christ, but how we live before an unbelieving world.

Practical Application

Peter goes on to give some practical ways in which believers can do this.

1 Peter 2:13-17 NLT 13 For the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority—whether the king as head of state, 14 or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right.

15 It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. 16 For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. 17 Respect everyone, and love the family of believers. Fear God, and respect the king.

We need to remember who Peter is writing to. These aren’t Christians living in 21st century America. People who for the most part can worship fairly freely.

And as many issues as we might think we have with our government and its leaders and the some of the laws we see being written or the erosion of some of our constitutional rights, none of this is comparable to what these early Christians were experiencing.

He was writing to mostly Jewish Christians scattered due to persecution all over the major Roman provinces of Asia Minor.

These people had no rights, no freedom to worship or gather.

Many of them were hunted down and beaten, imprisoned, and often executed in brutal ways, simply for claiming Christ as their Lord and Savior.

And Peter says to them, for the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority.

It doesn’t matter what authority it is. Whether it is the government or the workplace or anywhere else there is authority, submit to it.

Peter says that as imperfect as the government can be, it exists for a reason. Order is better than Chaos.

Paul says it this way...

Romans 13:4 NLT 4 The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong.

Peter is telling these believers and by extension, us, that one of the practical ways in which you and I can live holy, set apart lives in a world hostile toward God is in the way submit to the authority structures around us.

This would have had to have been an extremely difficult thing for these persecuted Christians to hear.

But remember, why was this so important? Why did they need to submit to the authority of Rome rather than rebel against it?

1 Peter 2:15 NLT 15 It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you.

Peter never tells them that they need to assimilate, or to do anything that violates the Word of God.

If that were the case as we see in other places in scripture, they would not have had to submit.

Peter isn’t prescribing blind loyalty and submission if that submission would require them to sin against God.

Rather he is saying the opposite. That we should live such honorable lives that those around us who want to cast foolish accusations will be silenced in their ignorance.

Story about being told to let my character speak for itself in the face of false accusations

How we live will speak volumes. What is that you want people to hear, when they listen to yours?

Peter says 1 Peter 2:16-17 NLT 16 For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. 17 Respect everyone, and love the family of believers. Fear God, and respect the king.

In other words, in our freedom from sin we must not lose sight of the fact that we are also free to serve God in a way we couldn’t before coming to Jesus.

And it is this freedom that allows us to choose to be set apart even when everyone else around us chooses not to be.

If there is one thing you take away from my message this morning, it is this.

Leading a holy life is not dependent on the morality of those around us or in charge of us.

We must choose to honor God with our lives, regardless of our surrounding circumstances.

Peter says to respect everyone, not just those we feel have earned it. If God used that standard with us, we would all still be dead in our sin and lost without any hope of a future with him.

He says to love the Church. We aren’t perfect, but the Church is the closest representation of heaven we have in this life.

He says fear God. Not as one cowering from him afraid he will hurt them.

But as one who understand that God is holy and just and will one day judge this world for its sin against him. That healthy fear should drive us to want to live for him.

And lastly, respect the king. Live holy set apart lives so that no government, boss, or any other person will ever be able to make a legitimate claim against us.