Pursuing Holiness

I love a good joke. I think if you can’t laugh at yourself every once in a while, you take yourself too seriously. So we are going to start off with a little Baptist humor.

How many church people does it take to change a light bulb? Well that depends on the denomination. If Charismatic, just one because their hands are already in the air. Roman catholic? None. They use candles. Pentecostal? Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness. Presbyterian? None. God has predestined when the lights will be on or off. Baptist…Change?

The essence of Christianity is a call to change. What you were is not who God designed you to be. We are called to change a life of ungodliness to a life of righteousness. But the process isn’t easy. This salvation that God has brought is not a salvation from eternal condemnation, but also a salvation from a pattern of behaviors that lead to self-destruction. Change is hard, but change is necessary if we are to experience the life God has for us. To put it simply, God calls us to a life of holiness, a life set apart, unlike the way the rest of the world lives. We are to pursue holiness in our lives, and at the center of it we find God is there.

Today we are going to look at four essentials to pursuing holiness.

Anchor your hope in Christ alone.

This passage begins with the word therefore, which connects it to the preceding passage by saying, “In light of all that has been said, do this.” Because this is true, that follows. This salvation we experience is a living hope as it is anchored in a living Savior. The Christ who conquered the grave has purchased for us a salvation that is mysterious and secure. The security of our salvation enables us to live with joy amidst trials. We know the world is broken. We know we cannot fix it ourselves. Only God can. We live with confidence knowing that no matter what happens, our entrance into and participation in the coming kingdom of Christ is guaranteed.

1 Peter 1:13 NASB95

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

What I want you to see here is the emphasis is on the command to set one’s hope. Preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded are prerequisites for the action. Christianity is not a passive religion. It is an active one. God has created your intellect and he expects you to use the brain he has given you. Sober in spirit means you exercise self control. So we could read it as, “Having prepared yourself for action, and having exercised self control, set your hope on Christ.” So the command we are given is to set our hope fully in Christ alone, but we do so by preparing our minds for action and being sober-minded.

I want to emphasize that Christianity is a thinking religion. It is not about changing behaviors, although that is the result. Changing behaviors begins with changing your mind about the behaviors. This is not easy to do. The older you get, the more difficult it is to do. Habits are harder to break the longer you have them. It is all too easy to get “set in your ways.” But change is part of the Christian experience. If you are not experiencing life transformation, you may not be experiencing Christ the way you should.

We are called to anchor our hope in Christ alone because he is the only hope there is. Most of us know how a boat anchor works. A weight is attached to a chain and lowered into the sea until the anchor hooks onto the seabed and stops the ship from moving. When the boat is anchored, it is not going anywhere. It maintains position.

When we anchor our hope in Christ, it means we are unwavering. It means that we are not looking to any other thing for the hope that Christ brings. Remember that the hope here is the grace that will be brought to us when Christ is revealed. We are all transgressors of God’s law, but we are anchoring our hope in the pardon Christ bought through his death and resurrection. If the boat anchor is not the right weight or size, or the substance it is trying to anchor to is not the right type, the desired result will not occur. We are all hoping to get to heaven, but some of you might be trusting in your own goodness or family heritage rather than making the personal decision to trust Christ for yourself.

Anchor your hope in Christ alone. He is the only hope there is for a future. When we look to him for ultimate deliverance, we endure our current circumstances. If you have not personally made the choice to accept the offer of forgiveness based on the sacrifice Jesus has made on your behalf, I urge you to do that today. If you have made that decision, I want you to remember that there is no other hope. Help is not coming. It has already come. Trust God with your future and have the courage to do what he has called you to today.

Refuse to conform to the world.

The next command we see in this passage is the call to be holy. Look at verses 14-16:

1 Peter 1:14–16 NASB95

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

We are God’s children. As I mentioned Wednesday night in our study on Job, there is a parent and child relationship that exists between us and God. He is the Father, we are his children. Most of you have children who are grown and have children of their own. They have achieved a level of autonomy. You cannot direct their affairs no matter how badly you want to. As children to our parents, there is a certain aspect of that relationship we outgrow, but we never outgrow that aspect of our relationship with God.

God maintains his authority over us no matter our age. Our obedience is expected and it leads to transformation in our lives if we will simply submit to the process. Change is uncomfortable, which is why we don’t do it. But there are two things that motivate us: fear and determination. We are afraid of a perceived outcome, so we run from it. The alternative is that we are determined. We are driven because of a vision we have for something greater than what currently is. When one of these two things are our motivator, it is a powerful agent for change in our lives.

Here we see a quotation from the book of Leviticus: “Be holy, for I am holy.” This is God’s call to his people to be like him. The goal of Christianity is for the church to look more like Christ. This process is complete when sin dies its final death in us either through the death of our bodies or when he returns. But for now, obedience to Christ’s commands refines us and shapes us into who he wants us to be.

The world doesn’t understand it. The world hates it. The more like Christ we are, the more the world begins to see itself for what it really is. When you have an encounter with God, you have a choice to make. You can respond by trying to conceal what God has brought into the light, or embrace the change he is trying to bring to you by revealing it.

Do you remember the question I asked you two weeks ago? What decision would you make today if you knew you would benefit from it five years from now? What if that is the thing God wants to change in you? We can’t always see the value of something until we have done it for a while.

In 2013, I was the heaviest I had ever been. I was a little north of 300 pounds. Over the course of nine years, I slowly worked on trying to lose weight and I made it to a consistent 275. In February of 2022 it got real when I was diagnosed with diabetes. Three months later, I was down to 232 pounds. Let’s do the math real quick. In nine years I went from 300 pounds to about 275. That’s 25 pounds in nine years. From February to May in 2022, I went from 275 to 232 pounds. That’s 43 pounds in three months! What was the difference? I was motivated. I had a vision for who I could become.

We are called to holiness because we tried it the world’s way before and it didn’t work! You can try doing marriage the world’s way. You can try running your business the world’s way. You can try raising your kids the world’s way. You can try managing your finances the world’s way. You can try running your house the world’s way. But you know that it doesn’t work because our culture has embraced it and it is on the brink of disaster!

We are a counter-cultural movement. We are not supposed to look like the rest of the world. You and I have been called out from the world to be different because the world needs different. The kingdom of God needs people brave enough not to conform to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and then sent back into the world to transform it one life at a time.

Cultivate a deep reverence for God.

I think the American church has an unhealthy fear of God. We have developed a sense of God that has made us comfortable. There has been an emphasis on the grace, mercy, and particularly the love of God that I think has shifted our understanding of his character resulting in bringing God down to our level. This is a dangerous place to be in. If we are not careful, we begin telling God who he is rather than letting God tell us who he is. When God is who we think he is rather than who he says he is, we lose reverence for him.

1 Peter 1:17 NASB95

If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth;

We talked about this last Wednesday as well in our study on the book of Job. In this book, Job is described as a righteous man. So much so that there is no one like him anywhere on earth. One day Satan claims Job only worships God because everything goes well for him. God allows Satan to take everything away from Job except his life. Job suffers immensely and he and his friends argue over whether Job has done anything to warrant this suffering. In this exchange, Job makes a mistake. He claims he is completely innocent. Then in chapter 38 God finally speaks and he is displeased with Job.

To understand this, we have to understand that Job’s mistake was that of pride. His righteousness had made him proud and he had elevated himself to see God as an equal rather than as his authority. He lost his fear of God. Job needed to be humbled. Fear in this sense does not mean that you need to be afraid of God, but he is to be revered. We must have tremendous respect for his authority and conduct ourselves accordingly.

It is better for us to humble ourselves before God humbles us. The bible calls us to humble ourselves in numerous places (James 4:10; Romans 12:16; Philippians 2:3-4; 1 Peter 5:6), but let’s take the words of Christ as perhaps most important.

Matthew 23:12 NASB95

“Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

But how do we do that? Let me recommend a few ways.

Be honest with yourself about your sin.

Stop trying to carry the load by yourself.

Look to the humility of Jesus (Phil 2:8-11)

The fourth is also the final point of the sermon.

Remember the costly sacrifice of your salvation.

If we are not careful, we will take for granted the sacrifice Christ made for us. Many of us have been faithful followers for years. We have emphasized the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and we sometimes get desensitized to the message. When that happens, we begin to take the gospel for granted and drift occurs. When drift occurs, church, it’s mission, and its priority begin to fall to other things and I see it every day.

Every day I hear about or see people who claim to cry out to God for help yet they have to blow the dust off the cover of their bibles in order to read them. Every day I encounter good people who are biblically illiterate. The same people can often tell me everything about the news cycle or about everybody else’s business in town. If we poured the same time and energy into knowing and revering our creator as we do worrying about everything else in life, we would change the world.

1 Peter 1:17–21 NASB95

If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

We are not here for community or because we have an obligation to fill. We are here because we want God to be glorified in our lives. We are here because Christianity is a communal religion. We are here because we have been united as brothers and sisters into a royal family. we are here because Christ is king and he has purchased us from slavery to sin, not with precious jewels, gold, or silver, but with his own blood. Therefore, pursue holiness and let him do his transformative work. As he does, we will reach our community with his gospel.

As a Christian, you are called to holy living. It is a calling to live differently than the rest of the world lives. If you live like everyone else, the gospel of Christ is of no real value to you. God wants to mold you and shape you into a difference maker in the world around you. That requires change. Anchor your hope in Christ alone. There is no other hope for real lasting change on earth. Refuse to conform to the world. The world is broken and God is in the business of reconciling the world. You work for him. Cultivate a deep reverence for God. He is the king of the world. Living a holy life requires a healthy fear of God. Remember the costly sacrifice of your salvation. The king of the world purchased your freedom with his own blood. Our obedience ought to come from a deep live and appreciation for what he has done.