The Foundations of Holiness

Scripture Reading

You may be seated. Will you please open in your Bibles with me to 1 Peter chapter 1, 1 Peter chapter 1. This morning we'll be looking at verses 17 through 21. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles in front of you, you'll be able to find that on page 1076. 1 Peter 1, beginning at verse 17. And we'll read through verse 21.

Prayer for Illumination

Hear now God's perfect Word. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. It is true, sharper than any two-edged sword, more precious than the most refined gold sweeter than the sweetest honey.

Sermon

Lord, we pray that your spirit would attend to the reading and the preaching of your word. Lord, I pray that you would please work in each one of our hearts, mine included, that we might see who you are, see who we have been called to be, and that your spirit would do the work of sanctifying us. Lord, we pray that you would please help us. Help us, Lord, to pay attention. Help us to have ears to hear. Help us have hearts to receive and to live. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Peter's writing to suffering Christians in Asia Minor. It's this area that we modern day call Turkey.

And there's a mixed church. It's a dispersed church throughout the different regions of Asia, which, you know, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and you have Asia. You have all these different areas. And there's also kind of a mix of people in the church as well. There's a mix of some people who are Jewish by birth, and other people who are Gentiles, who were raised by pagan parents. And they're struggling in the church, I think, because there's suffering. There's hardships, hard providences in their lives, and they're trying to sort it out.

There's persecution and challenges, and Peter is riding into the life of the church, And he has started his letter reminding them that they have been elected by God, that they have been consecrated by the Holy Spirit, they've been sprinkled by the blood of Jesus, they have been reborn, their inheritance is in heaven.

But what do you do now in this life? You have this new identity in Jesus, that's great. But how does that apply to them in their lives? And we still struggle with this in the church today, don't we? There's people who have all sorts of different visions and ideas. Just go browse any Christian bookstore and you'll see a million books that are written, and many of them will tell you this is the key for how God wants you to live, or that's the key for how God wants you to live. And even when we look at our people in the church, or just in Christianity at large, we can kind of see that people take even points of this passage They'll run with it in opposite ways.

I remember rejoicing a few years ago when there was a man named Matt who was saved. It seemed like he was saved. It was this amazing thing that happened. His brother was dying of cancer. And as Matt was dealing with this grief and sorrow of his younger brother about to die from cancer, his brother was being discipled by a Christian pastor in an evangelical church. And his brother said, I'm going to get baptized. And he talks to his brother, Matt, and his father about it. And Matt and his dad decide to get baptized the same day as this dying son.

And I remember thinking, this is wonderful. Praise God. I'm going to keep praying for this man. And as the months and years have worn on, there's no perceptive change in Matt's life. There's no seeming desire for holiness. See, he talked out of his mouth about the redemption of Jesus, and how wonderful this is, and how he wanted to get baptized, and he wanted to be cleansed from his sins, and that was great. And it seemed like that was it. It didn't really change his life. It seemed like this, he actually keep what Jesus commanded? The verdict's still out on that. He's still living. I don't know what's going to be the end of Matt's stories.

But then there's another person, Jordan, who became a Christian, did the same thing, was convicted of his sin, turned from his sin and guilt, was baptized, he even became a pastor in a church. And he took certain passages, even that we have here today, like God judges without partiality according to each one's work. And he established a discernment ministry. A pastor with a discernment ministry. And he would rail against sin in these videos until you would see the bulging veins in his forehead against, we must repent, we must repent, we must repent. We must be holy. And then he gets defrocked from being a pastor because he gets a DUI.

Hard thing is the pendulum can swing either way, can't it? It can swing in such a way that we treat redemption and grace as a get out of hell free card. We can just do whatever we want. But we can also treat our reverence and fear of God in such a way that it just becomes a legalistic standard that we could never bear because we're telling people be holy like I'm telling you to be holy.

Rather than be holy like the God who has loved you even in your sin. So we've got to find this middle ground. We've got to find the biblical narrow road here and recognizing that our hearts are going to be pulled one way or another. But we need to be those who cherish the redemption that God has given us in Jesus Christ and walk in fear before our Father. And so your call today is you who are redeemed, be holy. You who are redeemed live holy lives.

To start with that, we need to look at who God is. God is our Father and an impartial judge. God is our Father and an impartial judge. Look with me at verse 17. And if you call on the Father, who without pity, or without partiality, acknowledges, judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves through the time of your stay here in fear." Notice how all of this is predicated. What is it founded on? What is it rooted in? Everything that's going to come about holy living is rooted in how we relate to God. Do you see it in verse 17? Did you catch the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7th word?

How do you call on God? in your prayer life? Is it, oh despot in heaven who doesn't care for me? Oh tyrant master of the universe who has no concern over your creation? Is that how Jesus taught us to pray? No, look at what verse 17 says. And if you call on the Father, I love our catechism here. What does the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us? That God who is our Father is willing and able to help us, right?

He hears us, He knows us, He wants us to come unto Him. He has us call Him Father. There's this intimate relationship that God has called you into. This thrice holy, holy, holy God before whom all the angels bow down in fear invites you to call Him Father. This is what Jesus tells us, how we're to pray to him, our Father, who art in heaven. And then notice what comes after, even in the Lord's Prayer. You know it, don't you? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Right, do you see?

Because Jesus calls us to call on God as our Father, but also to recognize that he is holy. His name is holy. And so we don't approach him just as any father, but as indeed the judge of the universe. And that's what Peter is getting at here in verse 17.

And if you call on the father, this one who has made you reborn and secures your inheritance in heaven, and has loved you with this great love, then we must live as those who understand that our Father in heaven is the one who without partiality judges according to each one's work. God doesn't care how rich or poor you are when the judgment day comes. God doesn't care about whatever you might think you could throw in your favor. God judges with just scales. bend his judgment in one way or another.

And this is the difficult thing, because the Bible tells us here that we're to, in the second part of verse 17, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. In a different translation for Phobos here, it might be the idea of reverence. This idea that God is not like us, it's not a paralyzing terror, but it's when the Lord speaks about something as sin, we turn away from it, and we turn to Him. I was spending some time with Pastor Micah when he was here for Judah's baptism, and we were walking on the dirt road one day, and we were just gabbing it up, and he said, I was watching Lord of the Rings with my kids, and I was talking to one of my sons, and he pointed out, as he was talking about Lord of the Rings, there's this scene in Lord of the Rings in the very beginning, in the first video, where Bilbo Baggins has to go on his journey.

And he's got it planned the whole time that he's supposed to leave his ring to his nephew Frodo. And he's going to leave this ring and he's got it planned, but right as he's about to go on this journey, Bilbo hesitates about the ring, this ring that's supposedly the one ring to rule them all.

It's supposed to have evil powers and things like this. It was forged in the heart of Mordor, right? This ugly ring, it's this thing that's been put into his hands, but he's not supposed to have it. And he says, right as he's about to turn away from the ring, he says, my precious. And Gandalf says, somebody else has called it precious before. And then Bilbo gets really defensive. He says, shouldn't the ring be mine? I mean, I found it. Isn't it mine after all? Why do I have to leave it?

And he gets really defensive about this thing that he shouldn't have in his life. And there's this moment in the scene where Gandalf gets really larger than life, and the room turns black. And he says something along the lines of, don't forsake me for you're some conjurer of cheap magic.

And the room shakes, and Bilbo is scared out of his mind. But then the interesting thing happens. Bilbo doesn't run out of the house. He runs and hugs Gandalf. He recognized who Gandalf was, forgot his love for that ring, and ran towards the one he had reverence for.

That's the type of awe and reverence that we are called to with God. That even though we may find places when we come to places like Ezekiel, and there is a real hellstone and brimfire, when we come to places where Jesus is really talking about destruction of the world, the difference for the Christian is, we don't run away from God in fear and slavish terror, but we run to God. Because we know how awesome He is, and we know how much He has loved us. That's the reverential fear that Peter is talking about here.

Because see, if we're honest, there's this point in each redeemed person's life. When you've come face-to-face with the fact that if you're judged according to God's impartiality, if God has a balance, and the standard on one side is holiness, and you're put on the other side, you're going to be found wanting. And every single person who has taken stock of their sin knows that they have transgressed God's law and thought, word, and deed. We recognize the terror of what it would be if we stood before that holy God who judges without impartiality according to everyone's work, and we realize we're doomed.

But that's not where the passage goes, does it? No, look with me at verse 18. Look at what God has done with redemption through Christ. Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by the tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. God has redeemed us. with the precious blood of Jesus.

But notice, there's two things contrasted here in verse 18 and 19. The first is their aimless or fruitless or void conduct. This is a hard thing. I'm going to let you know, this is a really, really hard thing because it says, you were redeemed. You were redeemed. Not with silver or gold, those corruptible types of things. out of your aimless or from your aimless conduct. And notice, where did that come from?

Receive by tradition from your fathers. Patra paradottu, handed down to you from your daddy. Your dad passed down to you ways of life, your forefathers gave to you a way in which you thought, if I lived this way, that God would be okay with me. If I lived this way, the Romans had this whole system of the patra familias, the head of the family, the father of the family, and he would have shrines at his house to certain gods, and if you behaved certain ways, that God would be okay with you. And if you had just gone to the temple, and you worshipped, and you did the sacrifices that you thought you were supposed to do, and if you brought your animals without blemish, and if you brought even milk, or fruit, or cakes, or some type of other thing, you could make the gods happy with you, and they wouldn't be mad with you.

And Peter looks at them and he says, guys, that was hogwash. It didn't do anything for you. It was aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. Indeed, it produced more immorality in you than it did morality. But there's a difficulty here in leaving traditions handed down from one's fathers. That meant all the rituals were fruitless. All the blood sacrifices were useless. All the festivals were empty. All the sacrifices were a waste of time.

That's a really hard thing for a lot of people to wrap their hearts around. No wonder why God speaks of our hearts being like stones, right? We don't want to receive that. We won't want to hear naturally that everything our fathers taught us, how to be good with God and how to be good in this world and how to have the good life is wrong. And yet that's what Peter is saying. That's what God himself is telling us here by his Holy Spirit.

Nothing they had received from their fathers could redeem them. So it's a good thing God had something better in store. Something better than corruptible gold or silver that they might bring to the temples. Something better than their aimless conduct that they had received from their fathers.

How did God redeem the Christians in Bithynia, in Cappadocia, in Asia? He redeemed them, verse 19, with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. As a lamb without spot and blemish. Jesus is that Passover lamb Jim read this morning of how God had saved the people, redeemed them out of Egypt in Exodus chapter 12 and 13. And this lamb was that price of blood for the family to be kept safe. And then in the book of Leviticus chapter four, we see that there's a sin offering that they must bring of this lamb without spot or blemish, but the book of Hebrews tells us there was never a bull, there was never a lamb, that could ever have actually taken away any sin.

But it was all pointing to the blood of Jesus Christ, what Isaiah 53 verse 7 says. He was oppressed, this is speaking of the Messiah. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Jesus is that lamb who willingly shed his blood for your sins. You were sprinkled in the blood of Jesus, Peter says in verse two. Jesus is our ransom. Jesus is that price paid. But the question is, okay, so the Israelites were slave in Egypt. We know who their master was. It was Pharaoh.

What are we redeemed from? Who had reign or dominion over us? Galatians chapter three, 13. says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were obligated to sin and death as a slave. But Jesus redeemed you from that.

Galatians 4 verses 3 through 6 says, even so we, when we were children, were slaves in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth His Spirit into our hearts that cries out, Abba, Father. Do you see your Father in heaven redeemed you, though you were once a slave? He bought you out of that slavery to sin and death by the blood of Jesus to be His child. We were slaves, but not anymore. Romans chapter 6 verse 20-23 says, For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things which You are now ashamed.

For the end of those things is death. But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ Jesus, our Lord, you see, you were enslaved to sin. That's what you were a slave to. But Jesus paid the price for you to be free.

That's what makes you able to live holy lives. I need to tell you right now, you are not a slave to your gluttony. If you are redeemed by Jesus Christ, you are not a slave to your anger. If you are redeemed in Jesus Christ, the chains of your rage, and the chains of your envy, and of your jealousies, are no longer binding on you. You can be free in Jesus Christ. I'm not saying you will be sinless. I'm not giving you perfectionism here. That's what we call glorification. But I'm saying in this life, you are able to battle against your old slave master's sin and death.

You are not a slave anymore, but the one who was in heaven pre-existent from all eternality. Jesus himself humbled himself and became man. He died on that cross that the curse of sin and death might be broken. Don't live as slaves anymore. Your Father is calling you as His children. The King of the Universe has adopted you as His sons and daughters to live as His royal children. So don't keep living like servile slaves of this world. But be holy as He is holy. Because that's what He says to us in verses 20 and 21. We who are called We are those who are to be faith-filled children. Look with me at verses 20 and 21. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and your hope are in God.

You live in a time of sojourning in this life. You are strangers in this world, but God didn't do any of this by accident. God wasn't surprised when Adam and Eve sinned. God didn't go, oh no, I didn't know they would become a Christian. Now I gotta do something about it. No, God had a plan. Notice what he said about his plan in verse 20. He, that's Jesus, indeed was foreordained when? Before the foundation. of the world. This was God's plan. God knew that he was going to save you. He had that foreknowledge.

Again, verse 1 of 1 Peter, chapter 1. The pre-existence of Christ is partly backed up by this verse. The fact that you are a child of God is not because you won the supernatural lottery ticket of heaven, but it's because God chose to love you. Even while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. God knew you. He knew your sins. He knew that you didn't deserve to be saved. But according to His great mercy, which He has shown us in Christ Jesus, if you believe in His Son, it is fruit that He indeed has saved you.

So have faith and hope in God. That's where we look to. Jesus is both the object and the faith of our source of hope. I'm gonna say something controversial. And for the pluralists in our society, they're not going to like this. Jesus is the only hope we have. There's no other. Just this week, the leader of the largest Christian organization in the world, Pope Francis, was in front of a whole bunch of young people in Singapore.

And I went back and made sure I actually went to the Vatican's website themselves, because they have transcripts of everything he says, to make sure that I wasn't just getting clickbaited here, but he truly did say this at an interfaith meeting. All religions are paths to God. This is what the Pope said. I will use an analogy there, like different languages that express the divine. But God is for everyone, and therefore we are all God's children. But my God is more important than yours. Is this true? There's only one God and religions are like languages passed to reach God. Some Sheik, some Muslims, some Hindus, some Christians.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ himself says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. Your hope must only be in the blood of Jesus Christ, for only the blood of Jesus Christ can redeem you from sin and death. Muhammad never could. Allah doesn't care about his people, he's utterly transcendent. I promise you, as I speak to my Indian friends, that none of their plethora or pantheon of gods will ever save them. None of the gods that were handed down by the vain, aimless conduct of these people's fathers could ever redeem them.

It is only through the blood of Jesus Christ that you can be redeemed. It is only through him. So my question is, do you trust in Jesus alone? Because in His blood we can call God our Father. That's how we find redemption. That's how we have hope. And that's how we have holiness. That's how you behave as children of God and by faith in Jesus Christ. If you're a child of God, if He's your Father, The natural logical conclusion and the spiritual progression is you're going to act like his children.

Now I gotta tell you, I got five kids and they don't always act like my children. I don't know who their dad is, but sometimes they don't act like my children. I'm not gonna blame their mother either, because she's more sanctified than me. So I'm not saying you're gonna be perfect in every way.

Please don't walk out of here saying, Brian said we're redeemed and so we can be holy and we're fully saved from sin and we're never going to have to struggle with sin again. No, that old taskmaster, that slave, it's like we're back in the 1800s, even when the slaves would be set free, and there would still be Slave people, or slave hunters who would go out into the North and try to recapture slaves and drag them back down to the South, even though they had freedom papers in their pockets. You're free from sin. It's true, from the wages and the penalty of it, but that old slave master wants to track you down, wants to trick you. Our old master, even Satan himself, prowls around like a lion, seeking whom he can devour.

And so be on guard, Christian. Fight against adultery. Fight against sexual immorality. Fight against uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath. You must fight against the old slave masters who reigned over you with selfish ambition and dissensions and heresies.

You must fight against those sins that would want to so easily ensnare you and entangle you again. You know what they are. Envy, murder, drunkenness, and rivalries. Each one of you know which one of those sins are the ones that could grasp at your heart. Fight against it.

You're not a slave anymore. You're slave of God. Your hope is in Christ. You are redeemed by his blood. So act of children of God. Abide in Jesus Christ and bear the fruits of love, joy. Be at peace with one another. As the Father in heaven has been patient with you, so you be patient with others. As God has loved you, even while you were yet a sinner, be kind toward one another. Be good to one another. Be faithful. Be tender-hearted.

Don't be like the world who wants to have a whole bunch of gotchas, especially boys, I'm gonna tell you right now. There's a whole bunch of people who have this machoism idea of what it means to be a man, what it means to kind of get people. Do you have gentleness and self-control? That's what men of God are marked by. A courage to fight against sin. Is that what you're marked by in your life? It's a guard. Guard against this pendulum swing. Guard against, oh, I'm redeemed, I'm redeemed, I'm redeemed, I can do whatever I want. That's a lie. Guard against the other pendulum swing. We need to fear God because he's going to judge everyone without partiality according to his work. And then you're a slave to your own fear and you become a legalist just like the Pharisees. No, because you've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and you call on God who is your Father, walk as His children, blood-bought, Spirit-filled, heaven-bound.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would please help us. Lord, it's been a long worship service and a long sermon, Could have gone many places, Lord, and I'm sure there are people confused. Father, we plead with you. Lord, we plead with you that we would know who we are in Jesus. That we would know who you are as our Father. Lord, I can't preach this truth into people's hearts. Father, I pray that what we read in Ezekiel this morning before the baptism would be true.

Lord, even if there's someone here today who does not know Jesus Christ, Lord, we pray that you would take out our hard hearts and let us have hearts of flesh. Lord, and for those of us who have had calluses grow upon our hearts, Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit might show us where your word needs to act as a scalpel to cut away the cancer of sin that still remains there, and that we might once again repent of sin, trust in Jesus Christ, and have our hope in you, our God and our Father in heaven. We pray these things in Jesus' name.