Holiness: Reflecting God's Character in a Broken World

Are you into superheroes? During the pandemic, I binge-watched all the Marvel movies on Disney Plus in chronological order. My brain struggles to wrap around all the timelines and multiverses and such, but I love the characters and particularly their origin stories. We all probably know the story of Peter Parker. He’s this guy, living with his aunt and uncle in New York City after his parents tragically die in a plane crash. He’s a normal, shy kid just trying to make his way in the world. Then he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and is transformed from an ordinary teenager into the superhero known as Spider-Man. But what made Peter's story truly remarkable was that his powers were not of his own making—they were a result of something outside of his control. In some ways, Peter Parker's transformation mirrors God’s holiness in our lives. Stick with me. Just as Peter's powers came from an external source, our ability to live holy lives doesn’t come from us, it comes from God. Another Peter, the disciple of Jesus, writes in his letter, "Be holy, because I am holy." This isn't a command to muster up holiness on our own; it's an invitation to receive holiness as a gift from God. The way a spider bite changed Peter Parker’s life, our empowerment from the holy God of all creation invites us to partner with him to bring hope and healing to our world.

We are set apart as children of God whose lives reflect His character. We’re given a new identity.

Much like Peter Parker recognized in his set apartness that he now had a new purpose—to use his powers for good to serve and protect people—we too can recognize that our separateness isn’t just for ourselves but also for the benefit of others. As we embrace our identity as holy people, we are empowered to live lives of purpose and impact, serving those around us out of the same love and grace that God has gifted us.

We’re currently walking through the books of 1 and 2 Peter in a series called "Fire and Life," where we’re invited to recognize that following Jesus means we will both face the fire and experience a rich and fulfilling life. Being holy as God is holy can include loads of conflict, resistance, and struggles. And, it can be take-your-breath-away amazing. We’re foreigners living in a world that’s not our own, and we’re invited to exist in this world as obedient kids with minds focused on God. We’re going to explore a few more verses in 1 Peter today, and as we do, let's remember that our call to holiness is not about earning anything but about receiving a gift from the One who created us. As we set our focus, live as foreigners, and dwell on God’s holiness, our lives are transformed in a way that costs us everything. And, it’s so stinking good.

Before we deep dive holiness, let’s pray.

How do we begin to make sense of being holy because God is holy? We start with training our brains.

(slide) How to Be Holy: Train Your Brain.

(slide) 1 Peter 1:13–16 “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, (with minds that are alert and fully sober) set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.””

What Peter writes here in verse 13, about alert and sober minds, is from a Greek phrase that’s translated “Gird up your loins”. So what in the world is that all about? Back then, people wore these long, loose fitting tunics with a belt tied around them which was fine for walking around and functioning in their every day lives. This kind of fashion, however, wasn’t great for a HIIT workout. To run, jump, cartwheel, skip, do a burpee, to really be ready for action, you'd have to lift up these robes and tuck them into your belt. The message version of the Bible reads “roll up your sleeves and get your head in the game”. Get to work using that brain of yours. Get your mind ready for action. Focus.

Being a Christian means we use our minds. It’s not blind belief. When we take the time, through reading the Bible, prayer and interacting with Christian friends, we come to make sense of who God is and our part in his story to rescue and restore all of creation. From practice and learning and growing, we can’t help but be focused on the mission God is calling us to.

College students, this whole thing about setting our minds, you probably really get this right now. You’ve set rolled up your sleeves, girded your loins for the last push to make it through finals. You focus on finals by studying the material, taking an exam to prove you understand what you’ve been learning and work towards a degree and a career you’re pursuing because of who God uniquely made you to be.

This kind of laser focus could be all sorts of things: running a marathon, training for a robotics competition, giving a big presentation at work for a new client. We’ve all probably experienced this in some way: we have something we’re so singularly focused on that our minds can’t hardly think about anything else. Trainers will tell you that working out is just as much a mental game as it is a physical one. Our minds usually give up before our bodies do. Our bodies still have way more fuel in the tank than our minds tell us. Our thoughts dictate our actions.

Our lions are girded (Bet you didn’t expect to come to church today and hear gird up your loins over and over again, did you? You’re welcome.), our minds are set, out of who we are, not what we do. Remember the invitation, be holy. Don’t do holy. Identify as holy. (slide) OK, what does that mean? Who are we? 1 Peter 1:14 “As obedient children…” We’re not employees, friends, soldiers. We’re children who are loved, cared for and trained by the most amazing parent ever. We humans are image bearers of God, made in his likeness. And we are invited to live out of that identity, following God as the holy one who holds the sun, the moon and the stars, calls us by name and loves us unconditionally. We’re God’s kids.

1 John 3:10 “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

Being obedient children doesn’t mean we’re jerks. Obedience is a form of worship, as we align our actions, convictions and attitudes with God’s desires and intentions. And as we choose to exchange and surrender our wills for God’s, he uses us to bring healing and wholeness to a deeply broken world.

Set our minds as obedient children. Sounds simple enough but it really isn’t that simple, is it? Being focused is exhausting, we all need a break sometimes and if it’s about being holy and not doing holiness, why does it matter if we’re focused or if we obey or not?

(slide) Matthew 6:21, Jesus tells us “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Where we focus our time, attention, resources and energy is where we find life… that’s what has our hearts. And when we’re pointed to anything in this world, once we’ve finished the exam, knocked it out of the park for the presentation or crossed the finish line of the race… those things are over. None of those things last. Once they’re done, we may feel a temporary high, but that moment so quickly fades and then we’re desperately scrambling to find something else to focus on and give us purpose. When we focus on our God who is a joyful, kind, peaceful, patient, loving, faithful, gentle, self controlled dad, we find that we are made for something breathtakingly beautiful.

To begin to set our minds means we have to start somewhere. We practice. We study, train, put in the time or the reps.

“Practice makes perfect” is a well intended but terrible statement. My Apple Fitness coaches tell me that practice makes progress. Practice makes progress feels so much more attainable, doesn’t it? Perfection will never happen this side of heaven. Those of us who have spent years training to make sense of God and his ways and his purposes in our lives still miss it, still get it wrong, still have so much to learn. So, we keep practicing by setting our minds, girding up our loins and reading the Bible, praying with friends, and growing more and more as obedient children.

What holds our gaze, what do we worship and adore? Is there something we’re chasing after, a pattern we’re stuck in, are we the center of our own universe? We’re invited to be holy as we gaze into our father’s eyes and experience his unconditional love and acceptance that makes everything else a let down. We roll up our sleeves and get our head in the game.

We also learn about being holy as we understand that this broken world isn’t our home.

(slide) How to Be Holy: Live Like a Foreigner

Being set apart for God’s plans and purposes can seem like rainbows and unicorns. It sounds inspiring, let’s bring the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth! We’ll get to see lives changed, miracles happen and the dark things of this world conquered by the light of the gospel. And yes, those things do happen and when they do, it’s incredible!

But that’s not our experience so much of the time. Why is that? Why does it so often feel like we’re walking, crawling, limping, laying on the floor in the fetal position through the trials and the fire? We can feel so out of place, isolated, maybe even judged or called idealistic, holier than thou, looked at as if we’re trying to settle for simple answers to a world filled with complex problems.

(slide, include both NIV and NLT of this verse) Let’s keep reading in 1 Peter 1, now looking at verse 17 “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” The new living translation of this verse says our time here is as temporary residents.

We’re also meant to live in reverent fear of God. Here’s a picture to explain this: I’m drawn to the ocean in a way I can’t fully explain. It’s this kind of holy experience for me. Its beautiful and brings my soul to this deep place of rest as I watch the waves roll in, hear the sounds, smell the salty air, dip my feet in the warm water. The ocean is also terrifying. It’s loud, it’s uncontrollable, as I look up and down the shoreline, I’m overwhelmed by how gigantic it is. Given enough time, if I swim out far enough, I could be swept under by a rip current or attacked by a shark or killer whale or mosasaurus. I love the ocean and, at the same time, I have respect for its power and majesty. Having a healthy fear of God means we’re drawn towards him while also being in awe of his power, abundance and authority as the creator of all that is good in the cosmos.

Let’s keep reading, starting in verse 17 again. (slide) 1 Peter 1:17–21 “Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”

Jesus as the Christ, the perfect lamb of God, sacrificed his life to pay for all of our sins and mistakes. He is restoring us to what we were created to be: holy image bearers, people made to be in perfect relationship with him, just like Adam and Eve were at the beginning in the garden of Eden. This world is not that perfect garden anymore so it will never fully feel like home this side of heaven. We can feel really out of place. It’s like wearing clothes that are the wrong size. Something just doesn’t sit right.

Maybe we notice it in our dorm or class, with our friends in the lunchroom, with other parents on the soccer field or at coffee with friends. Or as a single person at a church that seems to hold up marriage as some ultimate thing that there must be something wrong with us if we don’t choose to get married. Sometimes people don’t look anything like us and we’re stared at and we feel scared, we feel watched. We feel like we don’t belong. We can feel unsure of how to interact so we don’t unintentionally offend someone who sees and experiences the world differently than we do.

Some of us feel out of place in the one place we should feel at home. A place we all should feel safe and secure and at home in is our church community. But that’s not always the case, is it? Some of us feel like foreigners in this place because of your race, the color of your skin or the way you culturally interact. You are seen as different because of your physical appearance. You may have first-hand experience of being a foreigner in a foreign world. You get it maybe more than those of us who are white do. It’s heartbreaking that the church can be this way. For the ways our church and our community has made this place unsafe, isolating, lonely, or difficult, I’m sorry. If you've been wounded that way, on behalf of our church, I repent from the ways you have not been served well, how you've been hurt, offended, misunderstood or judged.  You are loved and there is a place for you in this church family.  On behalf of our church, I want to ask for your forgiveness, and ask for your patience. Your story matters and is worth being heard.  I want to learn, and the leaders here at the Vineyard want to learn too.  My hope and prayer is that our church can continue taking tangible steps in that direction.

Ok, we’ve talked about things we can learn to be holy. We set our mind, obey a good dad, we recognize that this place isn’t our home and we will never fully feel at home here this side of eternity. In order to really be holy we need to understand God’s holiness. Remember, like the radioactive spider bite, our source of holiness isn’t ourselves. We need to grasp God’s infinite holiness.

(Slide) How to Be Holy: Dwell on God’s infinite Holiness

Going back to verses 1 Peter 1:14–16 “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.””

God being holy is different from humans being holy. God is set apart on a completely different scale. God is separated as the creator of all the things and we are invited to be used, as obedient sons and daughters, by God for his ways and his purposes in our lives and in the world around us.

We live a lot of our lives as if we’re the center of the universe. We consider ourselves, our experiences, our wants, needs, even if we don’t say it’s all about us, we function as if it’s all about us. And occasionally, we can have these beautiful existential moments where we see God as the creative force behind the whole universe who made a world filled with beauty and life. He’s the source of the wonder of the universe. An encounter with God, with holiness, causes us to consider our smallness in light of his extravagance.

Last week, Brian talked about understanding the story of the Bible, of God’s plan to rescue, restore and make all things new. And that gives us context as we try to navigate our world as resident aliens with minds set on hope in Jesus. Let’s take a quick Cliff Notes journey through the Bible to make some sense of God’s holiness. In Genesis 1 and 2, humans are made in the image of God, made to reflect the attributes of God, made to reflect his holiness.

Lots of other things happen in Genesis and Exodus that include a burning bush, the ten commandments and in Exodus 40, God’s presence dwells in a tabernacle, which is this temporary tent temple and then a more established temple structure in 1 Kings. At that time, people understood that to be near God meant they had to be clean and pure, so the book of Leviticus is filled with all these rules and rituals to be preformed when someone was considered impure so they could be cleansed and purified.

Later, a prophet named Ezekiel sees this vision of a river gushing out of the temple in Jerusalem, which gives life to trees that bear incredible fruit and whose leaves bring healing. The river runs into the dead sea and if filled with all kinds of fish as it transforms its salty waters into fresh water. You can read about it in Ezekiel 47. God’s holiness seems to be coming out from the temple like a river, engulfing the world around it with life. It’s kinda like what we see happening now as the dreariness of winter gives way to the vibrant buds of spring. So instead of people coming to God’s presence in the temple, God’s presence seemed to be leaving the temple and bringing the world around it to life.

It was hundreds and hundreds of years before anyone could make sense of this vision.  But in Jesus, it all became clear. Previously, people had to make atonement for their own sins, but Jesus reversed this. Jesus reached out to people who were impure and unclean and healed them. Jesus takes what’s impure and makes it pure. Jesus left the perfection of heaven to bring life to our dreary world.

Jesus said he is the embodiment of God’s holiness, anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. After he died, we humans were now no longer separated from God’s holy presence. As we’re reminded in verses 18 and 19, we were bought at an incredibly high price by the blood of a perfect sacrificial lamb. When Jesus rose from the dead, we were given the gift of Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. The Holy Spirit is part of the triune God, of father, Son and Holy Spirit, and because the Holy Spirit is alive and active in us as followers of Jesus, we can embody holiness.

And we even hear about the embodiment of this vision Ezekiel had, as Jesus describes us humans who believe in him as having streams of living water flowing out of us. It isn’t sourced from us but it is moves through us. Through Jesus, through his holiness, we are the dwelling place of God and we can be holy because we know the one who is holy and he dwells in us and works through us.

And wait there’s more, let’s jump to the end of the Bible, to the book of Revelation. In Revelation, the entire earth is God’s temple. Heaven isn’t this far off place, God brings heaven here and makes all things new on this earth. God’s holiness now inhabits the entire world. The river from Ezekiel’s vision is there and flowing out of God’s presence into the ends of the earth and is removing all sin, death and pain and bringing everything back to life. There is no need for the sun because God’s holiness will be the source of everything we need to sustain life, and everything and everyone will be holy as we dwell with the one who is holy forever and ever, amen. This is incredible. That will be nuts, won’t it?!

God is awesome, majestic, beautiful, the fullness of life, abundance, the center of everything the way the sun is the center of the universe. He’s the source of life and light, the creator of everything good that has ever been and ever will be. We can’t compare our experiences with people to our experiences with God because he’s not at the top of some goodness scale, he’s infinitely beyond it.

God is making all things new. Our part is to set our minds, to train our brains. Our part is to embrace our status as resident aliens who are set apart... living in this world, but not of this world… Be holy as God is holy means we get to be totally devoted to his plans and set apart for his purposes. We get to be expressions of God’s character to the world.

Human holiness is meant to reflect and align with God's holiness. God is holy in His very being, completely separate from sin. God is the source of human holiness and we can only be holy by his grace and power at work in our lives.

God's holiness is absolute and perfect. Human holiness is imperfect and incomplete. Again practice makes progress, not perfection. God's holiness transforms us. Through his presence, sin is exposed. God’s holiness weeds out sin and the broken desires of our hearts.

(slide) Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We’ve given ourselves completely over, died to our old way of being so that we can partner with God to heal the world around us.

This kind of life is costly though. Jesus’s cousin, John, had his head cut off. Paul, who wrote a ton of the New Testament, did too. Jesus’ disciple James was killed. Peter, the guy who wrote 1 Peter, was crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy to die in the same way as Jesus. We’ve heard stories of missionaries and martyrs around the world who gave everything, who lived their lives in cultures and places that weren’t their own and died for their beliefs. Even when our perspectives shift and our lives are radically changed, we still live in a broken world filled with pain, grief, betrayal, misunderstanding and death.

The reality is, living this way, as image bearers of holiness, costs us everything. (slide) Philippians 1:21 “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” Paul is saying no matter life or death, I’ll follow you. Many of us are terrified to follow Jesus in this way because we don’t want it to cost everything. “I have a family, I have friends, there are people who depend on me, I have a future, I have hopes and dreams. God I can’t follow you, I don’t trust that what happened to them won’t happen to me. They’re special. They had a faith, they had some access to you that I do not have.”

Friends, what marked the faith of the early followers of Jesus? They had a powerful encounter with Jesus, saw how he flipped the status quo, spent time with the least and the last, healed people, brought people back to life, talked to women, had women as his disciples in a patriarchal world, used his authority not to defame but to care for, encourage and uplift. Be holy. How? By recognizing the incredible story of the Bible, having a personal encounter with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, by knowing who you are and whose you are and from that faithfully living an obedient life as foreigners who know this place isn’t our home.

Our access is the same. We’ve been bitten by the same metaphorical radioactive spider. Everyday we’re invited to participate with God’s plans and purposes to bring a taste of his kingdom here and now in a world that is hurting and so desperately needs to be restored. As we sit in awe of God’s holiness, we will want what he wants. We’ll experience him working in and through our lives. Our desires will become his desires. We will become holy because he is holy. Through the person of Jesus, God brought heaven to earth and is inviting us to partner with him to bring hope and healing to a broken world.

And wrapping our minds around, girding our lions (I couldn’t help but say it one more time), around all of this changes us. It changes how we think, how we spend our time, who we spend our time with, how we dress, how we act, how we spend our money. It transforms everything.

Why is it worth it when we don’t know if we’ll make it through the fire or not? Because living this way brings a rich and fulfilling life that’s unspeakably better than anything we can make on our own. We’re not promised it’ll be easy. We’re not promised it won’t cost absolutely everything in our lives. But we are promised that it will be rich and fulfilling. And when we’re in the presence of holiness, we recognize that we get to be holy. We get to participate in making all things new. And nothing is better than that.

Ministry time:

if you’ve judged others as different or less than. If you want to listen and learn from others who are different than you.

We haven’t had a powerful encounter with God and his holiness. But we’re curious. We’d like to.

If our fear is misplaced.

I can’t focus on anything other than the pain in my life. I feel like I’m laying on the floor in the fetal position through the trials of life.

Exhausted and overwhelmed with anxiety. Maybe coming into church this morning or tuning in online brought out an unexpected emotional reaction and you’re not sure what’s happening. It could be tears, it could be some kind of overwhelming response.

Communion: We’re invited to take communion together this morning. 1 Peter 1:18–19 “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Jesus left heaven to live a perfect life, be falsely accused, die a criminal’s death, and give us access to God’s holiness. Each Sunday we have an opportunity to take communion together as a family to remind ourselves of what Jesus did for us. During these next few songs, feel free to head to one of the stations in the front or back of the room and if you’re joining us online, grab something you have on hand. Let’s continue to worship together.