Sermon Tone Analysis

Motivations For Holiness

Why must we be holy?

In and 16, Peter calls the believers that are scattered throughout Asia Minor to be holy as God is holy.

He then in the following verses gives them motivations to be holy.

These motivations would especially be important in the context of suffering for the faith.

Sometimes persecution or hardship can make people throw away their morals; they can often go into survival mode.

In survival mode, people have a tendency to not care about holiness.

A person who is starving sometimes will resort to stealing in order to live.

A person who is about to lose their scholarship because of poor grades sometimes will cheat in order to make it.

I think we often see this in our societies, even without persecution.

There is often so much pressure to succeed and be a success that people will do anything, at any cost to attain it, including lowering their integrity or commitment to God.

No doubt, with this in mind, Peter exhorts these Christians who have lost homes and jobs for their faith, to be holy as God as holy.

How do you respond when there is pressure?

I love seeing how Christ responded on the cross—as he was mocked and pierced, Scripture began to flow out of him.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” is from , and “Into your hands I commit my spirit” is from .

Christ under pressure demonstrated holiness as he maintained communication and focus on his father, even speaking Scripture.

Now in , Peter tells them, “Why they must be holy?”

Listen to what he says: “Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially.”

“Since” refers back to verse 16’s call to be holy like God.

In this lesson, we will answer the question, “Why should I be holy?

Why should I be different?”

Many Christians succumb to the pressures of the world in the areas of drunkenness, sexual immorality, foul language, and the pursuit of the things of the world.

The church is in desperate need of some motivation.

In this text, Peter gives us five reasons to be holy.

Big Question: What motivations for holiness (cf.

16) does Peter give us in ?

Be Holy Because of a Reverent Fear of God’s Impartial Judgment

Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

Peter is telling the Christians in Asia Minor that they must be holy because God is their father and judge.

Now often when we hear the word “father,” we immediately think about a father’s love and how a father will do anything to bless and protect his child.

However, Peter’s focus in this passage is not so much about the Father’s love, but the Father’s discipline, which is also an outworking of his love.

When these Christians were tempted to sin or compromise with the world in order to escape persecution, Peter wanted them to know that their Father was always watching and that he is going to judge each man’s work impartially.

In our society, judgment is often partial.

If a rich man goes to a court, he is more likely to be set free than a poor man.

The rich are more likely to escape the death penalty than someone who is poor or from a minority group.

The judgment in our culture is often partial, but with our God, it is not.

It doesn’t matter if you are rich, poor, black, white, yellow or purple.

Our God does not operate like our justice system; there will be no favor on the basis of your family background or bank account and for that reason we should live our lives in reverent fear of a just God, who will judge all mankind.

Interpretation Question: What are different aspects of the judgment of God that should motivate the believer to fear God, and therefore, become holy?

Now this judgment has two aspects to it.

1.

There is the present judgment of the Father on his children that the believer must also be aware of in order to fear God.

Listen to what Paul says about God’s judgment in .

That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.

But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.

When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.

Here in this context, Paul is telling the believers who were abusing the Lord’s Supper that some of them were sick, depressed, and had died as a judgment of God.

He says: “When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.”

In this life, God brings discipline upon his children in order that they will stop sinning and not be condemned with the world.

He says something similar in : “If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.”

The writer of Hebrews says if God does not bring discipline on your life, specifically for sin, this is proof that you are not a child of God.

What good father does not discipline his child?

Peter is saying Christians should live a holy life because they fear God’s discipline over sin.

Listen to what happened to Ananias and Saphira:

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died.

Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

In this text, God killed Ananias and Saphira because they were lying to the church, and thus to God, about their offering.

God killed them on the spot, but look what it says in verse 11: “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

After this discipline happened, the early church and even unbelievers feared God.

This helped them live a life of holiness.

They understood there was a God who was zealous for holiness.

The early church lived with this reverent fear and we are called to fear God as well.

Look at what says: “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

This can also be translated “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” as in the KJV.

One of the things that kept me holy as a child was a healthy fear of my father.

I knew my father loved me, but because he loved me, sometimes he would spank me.

This same type of motivation is given to us in Scripture about God.

Unfortunately, this is something that has often been lost in our day and age.

Most people have no true fear of God, and for that reason they live a life of sin and compromise.

Solomon said this: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” ().

Fearing God is necessary to live a wise life and to not live a life of sin.

It is very possible that Peter is reminding the people in Asia Minor of this because they were neglecting, or losing the fear of the Lord.

Listen to what commentator Alexander Maclaren said:

I suppose in Peter’s days, as in our days, there were people that so fell in love with one aspect of the Divine nature that they had no eyes for any other; and who so magnified the thought of the Father that they forgot the thought of the Judge.

That error has been committed over and over again in all ages, so that the Church as a whole, one may say, has gone swaying from one extreme to the other, and has rent these two conceptions widely apart, and sometimes has been foolish enough to pit them against each other instead of doing as Peter does here, braiding them together as both conspiring to one result, the production in the Christian heart of a wholesome awe (Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture [Baker], “Father and Judge,” [], p. 69).

Alexander Maclaren surmised that among these believers, there were those who were focusing on one of God’s character traits in exclusion of another.

Maybe they were saying, “God is a God of love, and therefore he will not judge us.

God is our friend, and he will forgive me anyways.”

I have met Christians who have told me they feel that way about God.

He will forgive them, and so they sin and just ask for forgiveness.

Throughout history, we have seen pendulum swings—swings where the church focuses on God being a God of wrath and judgment, and swings where it focuses on God being a loving God.

There are Bible curriculums that don’t give a balanced view and often focus on one over the other.

We must worship God in spirit and in truth.

He is a God of love and forgiveness, but he is also a God of wrath.

And because of this reality, a child of God cannot walk in sin without the discipline of a loving father.

2. There is a future judgment of the father on his children that the believer must also be aware of in order to fear God—the future judgment at the judgment seat of Christ.

Paul said this:

So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

Paul said this prospect of a future judgment pushed him to holiness—to make it his goal to “please” God.

Listen also to what Christ said:

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned (emphasis mine).

Jesus said God will judge us over every careless or idle word.

Now this won’t be a judicial condemnation, for Christ has paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, but it will be a judgment for reward or loss of reward in heaven.

There will be those who will be rewarded at this judgment and those who will suffer loss of reward.

Listen again to Christ’s words:

Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (emphasis mine).

Christ said there will be those who are called least in the kingdom of heaven.

By their lives, they have broken the commands of Scripture and caused others to do the same.