October 6, 2019 - First Peter Series, Understanding Holiness

October 6, 2019 The smaller groups in our church community are inside our homes where we go deeper, build friendships, and walk out the Christian life with each other. HOME CHURCH GUIDE + “Breaking the Ice” question (group facilitator) + CHECK-INS: Introduce, check-in + CARE: Needs in the group + COMPASSION: What is the group planning? Are you inviting your neighbours to join in? + GROUP ANNOUNCEMENTS Church-wide, group-only + DIG IN: Discuss questions as a group + END AND HOMEWORK: Final questions, prayer huddles for personal requests. Consider breaking into small groups (huddles) of 2-4, by gender, if large enough. DISCUSSION questions: 1. What does it mean to “assimilate”? Can this be good or bad? In what ways have you assimilated in various contexts? 2. What images or ideas does the word “holy” bring up for you? 3. How does Peter say your life should change after following Jesus? 4. Peter tells them to “live out their time as foreigners” what do you think that means? How hard do you think it is to keep this mindset? 5. There’s a connection between holiness and being able to deeply love others. Speak about this. 6. Have your realized that you need a spiritual transformation? Who or what helped you come to understand that? 7. In what ways do we tend to downplay Jesus sacrifice? Smaller prayer huddles: What old habits of this world’s way of behaving/thinking have you needed God’s help to give up? Pray for some of those things. PRAY OUTLOUD TOGETHER: “Father, we thank you for the gift of grace that is ours through Jesus Christ. We claim your salvation and ask you to help us respond with humility and obedience. Father, you have commanded us to be holy, just as you are holy. But we can do nothing without you. So we ask you to work through us by your Spirit, and transform us into your likeness.” Prayer Requests: ‘Don’t assimilate!’ is the teaching of Peter to the Christians he writes to in Asia. Staying unique by following Jesus as God and his commands of radical love. Not being bound to the rat race of money, sex, and influence, and cultivating wonder are some of the Biblical commands we will explore. Don’t assimilate back into what you were glad to leave behind. You left for a reason. “Some of 1 Peter’s readers may have literally moved from their homeland, becoming strangers and sojourners in fact, but I suspect that most of them have not; they are still living in the places where they were born, but now as Christians they are acting as if they were foreigners. It is terribly hard to do this, to resist the pull of your family and friends, to risk the displeasure of your neighbours, and to remain steadfastly different when it would be so much easier to live as you did before your conversion. So 1 Peter, having praised them in 1:3-12 for what and who they are, now turns to exhortation. Sure, it is hard to roll up your sleeves and work at it. Being holy is no cakewalk. You, you are different now--a stranger in your own country, you do have kin here, so love them with all you are” (62). Vinson: [One] could divide 22-25 from 13-21, but here instead seen in four main topics drawn from God’s saving actions in 1:3-12. Topics are imperatives 1. V 13 HOPE COMPLETELY... 13 Therefore, get your minds ready for action by being fully sober, and set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 2. V14-16 BE YOURSELVES HOLY IN YOUR MANNER OF LIFE... 4. V 22-25 LOVE EACH OTHER STRENUOUSLY FROM A CLEAN HEART... 14 Like obedient children, do not comply with the evil urges you used to follow in your ignorance, 15 but, like the Holy One who called you, become holy yourselves in all of your conduct, 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, because I am holy.” 22 You have purified your souls by obeying the truth in order to show sincere mutual love. So love one another earnestly from a pure heart. 23 You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass; the grass withers and the flower falls off, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word that was proclaimed to you. The connection between love and holiness “Love, if it is to be real and sincere and wholehearted, must be pure and coming from a pure heart. Conversion leads to holiness, which produces love in the believer, through the converse is also true--loving sanctifies the lover” (BW3, 110). 3. V 17-21 LIVE IN REVERENCE DURING YOUR SOJOURN... 17 And if you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each one’s work, live out the time of your temporary residence here in reverence. 18 You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed—not by perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you now trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 1 Peter Sources: Others, The NIV Application Commentary, By Scot McKnight; Anchor Biblical Commentary, John Elliott; IVP NT Commentary, I. Howard Marshall; Life Lessons, Max Lucado; Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT, Karen H. Jobes; Daily Bibe Study Bible Series, William Barclay; NIV Biblical Commentary, Norman Hillyer; Believers Church Commentary, Erland Waltner; Story of God Bible Commentary, Dennis R. Edwards; Letters and Homilies for Helenized Christians, Ben Witherington III; NICNT, Peter Davids; Life Applications Commentary