Stand Firm Part 2

Announcements:

NS 101

CK Curriculum

Esther: ages 6-12

This week’s lesson is titled: Created for a purpose.

SuperVerse this week: “Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” Esther 4:14

Abraham’s Big Test: ages 2-5 (week 3)

This week’s lesson is titled: Obey the Leader

Bible verse: “ I trust in you, LORD; I say, You are my God ”. Psalm 31:14

The Point: I show faith every day when I trust and obey!

YouVersion

Intro:

Recap from last week and Peter’s life

Peter is an extreme man and right out of the gates we have some extreme commands from him so let’s read this then I’ll pray and we will get going

1 Peter 1:13–16 NIV

13 Therefore, 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. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

pray

Now, this section of Scripture begins with therefore.

And a general rule of studying and reading Scripture is, when you see the word therefore, make sure you know what it’s there for.

So, going back to some of what we read last week here is what verse 9 and 10 tell us

1 Peter 1:9–10 NIV

9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care,

So, these commands are given to us in 13, 14, and 15 but these imperatives to christian living is preceded by the celebration of salvation.

Going off what we talked about last week with “what may seem extreme becomes not enough the more we understand the gospel”

Here, Peter is setting the ground work for us

Before he ever implores the early church to do something for God he reminds them of what God has done for them.

You ever ask your kid to clean their room and they just start crying and complaining? As a parent you want to be like, I pay for this house, your bed, this AC, your clothes. I take care of you do this and do that, the very least you can do is go into YOUR room and clean up the mess that YOU made.

Essentially Peter is saying, hey I’m about to tell you to do some things that may sound a little extreme, but just remember what all your heavenly Father has done for you.

He brought to us a salvation for our souls that was impossible without Him and through that we have experienced an inexpressible and glorious joy and he goes on to say in verse 12 that even the angels long to experience

So, Peter reminds us and then he gives us a few commands for Christian living

He starts by saying: have minds that are alert and sober, and set your hope on the grace brought to you by Jesus Christ revealed at his coming

This phrase “have minds that are alert and sober” means literally “gird up the loins of your mind.”

Explain what “gird up your loins means.”

It’s a kind of hope that calls us to action

perhaps Peter in this moment was remembering what Jesus says in Luke 12 where Jesus talks about always being ready for his return and he likens it to a faithful servant who watches with great expectancy against a servant who is drunk and unaware of what’s going on at that time

The command is this: The hope of Christ’s return for His people is a hope that doesn’t allow us to now just do what we want until He returns but a hope that urges us to live obediently to the Lord and commands us to spread the sweet saving gracious gospel up until the very last second.

It’s a call to remind us that our hope is not America, it’s not in the economy, it’s not in ourselves, it’s nothing else but the grace of Jesus

Extreme call number 1:

Hope in Christ alone

And if you’ve been in church a while that’s something that’s said quite a bit and it’s in songs and it’s familiar but it’s a command to find your hope only in Jesus

And it’s one thing to say it, it’s another to live it

But here’s the cool part about it: it’s the only hope that can’t be taken from you

If all of our hope is in our country, we all know that doesn’t take long to get pretty shattered

If all of our hope is in our job and how much money we make, it only takes a few bad things to happen and all of that’s gone

If it’s in our kids, first off, that’s way too much to put on a child’s shoulders but the reality is kids are going to fail your spouse is going to fail you all relationships if pursued long enough hard enough will fail you

I think far too often most relationships are broken because we’ve put too much weight in them.

No one will save you, no one will give you what your truly need aside from Jesus

Stop looking for other people to do it for you and also quit looking to yourself because if you haven’t found out already, you can’t do it either

So, I know it sounds extreme but it’s the only way

Hope in Christ alone

Then secondly, in obedience don’t conform to your evil desires

Upon your salvation you are made into a new creation.

A new person is born

You are born again

So the things that you chased after the things that you did are to be changed by the things Christ desires for you

We say around here that “we want to intentionally equip each other to be more like Christ.”

We want to conform to the image of God, be made more like Jesus every day

And here Peter says that the way you do that is to

“be holy in all you do.”

and in verse 16 he references what we see in LV 11:45, LV 19:2, and Ex 19.

“Be holy, because I am holy.”

That’s God speaking

So, extreme command #2

Be holy

What does that mean? What does it mean to be holy and even in greater depth, holy like Jesus?

In short, the holiness of God refers to the absolute moral purity of God and the absolute moral distance between Him and all other things.

The prophet Isaiah declares in Is 6 that when he sees the throne room of God there are creatures that are encircling His throne and they are declaring “holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty.”

It is the only description of God that is repeated in the 3 fold formula.

It’s a literary device that is used to denote emphasis upon something

So when these creature are declaring this they are declaring that God is not just a little holy

He is really, really, really holy!

And when we speak of God’s holiness we are not just saying that God is really good

We are saying that He is the source and standard of all goodness

This is why the world can say all they want about what’s good and what’s right and what’s wrong and what is acceptable or not but moral goodness does not change because it’s source does not change

As believers no one gets to tell us what is right and wrong aside from God

He is the standard and the source and when we speak of His holiness part of it is speaking to just how good He is

So when Peter here states to be holy because God is holy

It is the ultimate call to be like Christ

And the standard here is perfection

But remember, he is saying this in the context of Christ’s return and hope in that return

The Message of 1 Peter a. The Holiness of Children of the Father (1:14–17)

The apostolic teaching about God’s judgment has been misunderstood. On the one hand, some have considered that God’s justifying grace must remove accountability to God in the day of judgment. They have therefore denied that the Christian will stand before God’s judgment seat. On the other hand, many have affirmed accountability in the day of judgment, but have interpreted God’s final verdict as justification by works added to an initial salvation by grace. No Christian could then be sure of heaven until the last judgment.

The NT writers do not share the confusion of either error.

They affirm that the finality of God’s judgment on that day is real and that Christ will be the judge

But at the same time we are also told that God’s verdict on us has already been pronounced

In Christ we are justified. We have been brought from death to life

And so the Judge in the last day is our Saviour

God’s final judgment will glorify His justice

On that day He will pronounce for all the redeemed the satisfaction of Christ’s atoning death for us.

Yet, the faithfulness of all of the Lord’s people will also be displayed, not as the basis of their acceptance, but to display the reality of their faith.

So then, the other side of that must also be true.

If that is the reality for the redeemed then:

Those who have been unfaithful, the Judge, the Lord, will declare the foolishness of their ways and he will declare: “I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers.”

So the command here to be holy because God is holy is not a call to soul-destroying dread but it is a call to reverent fear.

Our heavenly Father is the one true living God.

He is holy

Set apart

None like him

Creatures and creation declare His holiness

The perfection of His righteousness

And because He is holy, we too must be holy because we are His people

So, coming to God as our holy heavenly Father means for us that we must leave the lifestyle of the world

Leave behind the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eyes, and the pride of life mentioned in 1John 2:16

1 John 2:16 NIV

16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

To be called to holiness means that the pattern of sin is broken. That we, as sinners, are transformed

We are no longer at home in this world.

Our citizenship is in heaven

But our lifestyle as a holy people is a witness to the nations

We are strangers with a mission

Ambassadors of Christ

Holiness not only has an affect on our personal relationship to God but with all of our relationships

Our behavior should be an incentive for other people to believe

Far too often, we ruin the affect of the gospel on people’s lives because of the way that we behave

People should say about us, I don’t know what they believe and I don’t know why they do the things that they do but man they are a great friend.

Or man he/she is a great employee

Or he/she is a great boss

Far too often people don’t follow Jesus, not because they don’t like Jesus and what he has to say but because they don’t like the people that say that they do.

Our lives should be lived in a way that communicates the goodness of the gospel

We are holy as He is holy so that we may reflect His holiness to the world around us

Only made possible because He has redeemed us

Analogy of a back stage pass