The Call of Holiness

Here is my question today, a question which really the Apostle Peter was dealing with two thousand years ago, and a very, very relevant question for each one of us. How are we as followers of Jesus Christ to live in this world? In a world which is hostile to Christ, in a world which is unholy, sleazy, very immoral, we as a society have become addicted to the well of instant gratification.

And it seems as a society we can't get enough of its poisoned waters and have not learned the lesson that unbounded indulgence brings unbounded pain and unintended consequences. God's way, Old Testament and New Testament we see, God's way is to take a clean man, a clean woman, a clean boy, a clean girl, and to drop them, as it were, in a moral cesspool to live for His glory. You say, can we really do that in our society?

Yes, we can. And Peter is going to give us wonderful guidance. In the midst of the sleaze, the dishonesty, the lying, the deceitfulness, in the midst of the moral pollution of our society, God is calling, as we have been singing, God is calling those who are saved by His grace to live holy lives, to shine as bright lights, shining, not retreating, but shining as lights in the darkness. As Jesus said in His teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The writer of Hebrews says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

You're hearing this? Your greatest need, my greatest need, is your personal holiness. You say, well this word holy seems a bit frightening, seems very old-fashioned and remote from me.

Well, we're going to understand what it is. Personal holiness is to be set apart, is to be separated. Followers of Jesus Christ are to be holy. What does that mean? It means to be set apart. Set apart from that which is evil and set apart to God.

There is a negative and a positive. We could put it another way. This means to be devoted to God. Would you say that that's true of you?

Could I say that's true of me, that I am devoted to God? The impression is sometimes given that holiness is optional for followers of Jesus Christ. There are holy people, these super spiritual people. They're always praising the Lord. They're always shouting hallelujah. They seem to know their Bible so well, but they are just the elite.

That's a false view. Holiness in the New Testament is applied to every follower of Jesus Christ. God in His grace, do you know what He calls us? He calls us saints. I'm looking at hundreds and hundreds of saints. No, there's no halos, but really you could turn to the next person and say to them, good morning saint.

Put in their name. A saint is one who has been sanctified. So Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says he's writing to the church of God that is in Corinth. Corinth in the first century was like the United States in the 21st century, very sleazy, very immoral, very decadent. And he writes to those who have come to Christ through the preaching of the apostles, to the church of God that is in Corinth, he says, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. Now when you read Corinthians, you realize that in the church of Corinth there were some people who are far from perfect, but in the grace of God, God has called them out of the unholiness of Corinth to Himself and regards them as He regards you and me as saints. Isn't that wonderful? You say, I thought that only applied to people after death.

No. Biblically, a saint, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, an authentic follower of Jesus Christ, you are a saint set apart from evil, set apart for God. So what do we do? We follow a holy God.

We've been singing about that. We follow a holy Savior. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now let's stand and read our text for today from 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 13 through 16. Will you stand with me and read this together?

And as we read, seek to understand it. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. Amen.

Please be seated. Today, we're going to think of the call of holiness, a challenge. I'm going to challenge you to live a holy life. Next week, we're going to continue in the subject of holiness and think of the pattern of holiness. And then, Lord willing, two weeks from now, think of the goals of holiness. So what is Peter saying here? Here is a very, very important point. Our great salvation and our magnificent Savior make a difference in our daily lives.

Do you get that? Peter in the first 12 verses has been expounding the great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. He's been lifting the Savior, our magnificent Savior, and now he is saying, if that is true, if you believe it, that must make a difference in your life. Doctrine, can I say, makes a difference in how we live.

And Peter doesn't begin his letter by telling the first century readers, these exiles, what to do. What's the first thing he does? He blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He looks up. One of our problems as Christians, we're always looking at ourselves, we're always looking at some action steps as it were, but first, very, very important, we must think of who God is, and we must understand who Christ is, and we must rejoice in our magnificent salvation. And this is what Peter is doing. If you've got your Bible, turn to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1, verse 13, he says, therefore, he's making a logical and necessary application from the doctrinal section in the first 12 verses, where he's expounded the glory and the magnificence of the Christian's great salvation.

What's he said about it? We learned last week, this great salvation, he says, the prophets, the Old Testament, prophets searched and inquired about it. This gospel, it was preached to you by the apostles. This gospel, it's so wonderful that the very angels long to look into it.

This is so great salvation. It affects our past, our present, and our future. Regarding our past, he's told us in the opening verses, verses 1 and 2, that we are chosen by God and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit. That's our past. As to our present, he's told us in verse 3, as we saw, that we are born again. We've had a supernatural experience with God.

Something supernatural has happened in our life. We have been born again by the Spirit of God. Our past, I'm chosen, I'm sanctified. My present, I'm a born again person. I'm a new creature in Christ.

What about my future? He's told us, hasn't he, about our living hope. We have a future inheritance which is reserved in heaven for us. It's imperishable.

It's undefiled. It will not fade away. This is why as Christians, in spite of difficulties in our lives and in society, we are people of hope. We have a living hope. We have a past. We have a present.

And we have a glorious future. Now Peter is saying, now that you have received such a magnificent salvation and follow this brilliant Savior Jesus Christ, you must live differently. But notice, very importantly, there's order, which the other apostles also do. First, if we can put it in grammatical terms for you grammarians, first he deals with the indicative, then he deals with the imperative. First he tells us what God in Christ has done for you.

Then this is how you live. He doesn't start with a command. He doesn't start by telling us what to do. He first explains what God in Christ has done for you. Now that Christ has done all of this for you, now this is true.

This must make a difference in how we live. The unbeliever approaches it very differently. The unbeliever, if you stop the man in the street and talk about salvation and heaven and so on, they will first think of what they are doing. I must go to church. I must read my Bible. I must be kind. I must be a good wife and so on.

I must be generous. They're starting with themselves as if their works, their deeds will make them righteous before God. That's the opposite of the gospel, isn't it?

That's the opposite of the good news. God doesn't start with what you can do, because the reality is we can't do anything for our salvation. We realize that God in Christ has done it all for us. And now, because of what God has done for me in His magnificent Savior, I am to live a different life. Do you get the point? Is that true of you? As being a Christian, does it make any real difference in your life?

You say, well, I'm here at church. That's wonderful. But is that what it is? Surely not.

No. We are being transformed by the Holy Spirit rather than being conformed to our unholy world. So what's true of you?

Is there a spiritual transformation in your life, or do you find yourself more and more being conformed to the culture around you? Listen to the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians, where he's dealing with the same thing. Some of these Corinthians had lived very, very unholy lives before they came to Christ, and he says this in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous, the unholy, will not inherit the kingdom of God? Not everyone gets into the kingdom of God.

Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Verse 11, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were, here's her word, sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Isn't that magnificent? Here is God at work in a corrupt society of Corinth, where people were committing all of these sins, and now says Paul, that characterizes what you once were. You once were like that, but now you're washed. Isn't that wonderful to be clean? Isn't that wonderful to be forgiven? Isn't it wonderful to know that all of my sins are gone and I'm cleansed and I'm now sanctified? This is the reality of the Gospel.

That when you come to Jesus Christ, if you truly are a believer, there must be a difference in how you live. I've told before when I came to Christ at 12 years old in the camp, the theme song was things are different now. We'd sung it all week.

The camp began, we ran from Saturday to Saturday. On that Thursday night, I committed my life to Jesus Christ. And for the first time as I sang that song, which we learned all week, the real truth of it sunk into me. Things are different now. Something happened to me when I gave my heart to Jesus. Things I loved before have passed away. Things I love far more have come to stay. Things are different now. Something happened to me when I gave my heart to Jesus.

That was a very good truth to teach to 12-year-old boys these many years ago, that things are different. I fear, Calvary Church, that some of us think that as long as we say we're a Christian, we're all right. What I'm saying and Peter is saying, authentic Christianity must make a difference. Now, in particular, what's Peter saying? We're called to live holy lives.

Did you notice it? Verse 15, as He who called you is holy. Is God a holy God?

Of course He is. You also be holy in all your conduct since it is written, he's quoting from Leviticus 19, verse 2, you shall be holy for I am holy. Peter reminds his readers, as we have been reminded in our worship, as we're reminding in the text of Scripture that God is holy. God was holy, that's true in the Mosaic covenant, it's true in the New Covenant. God is a holy God. God is so holy, the Bible tells us, that man cannot look and God's essential being and live.

That God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Tim reminded us from Isaiah 6 that God is so holy that when Isaiah the prophet goes into the temple and gets a vision of the glory and majesty of God, he says, woe is me, I'm undone. When Abraham, the righteous Abraham is standing before God, Abraham says, I am but dust and ashes. Job, the great job, the blameless job, when he came into the presence of God, he says, wherefore I abhor myself. Remember the incident when Peter the apostle saw the power of the Son of God in the great harvest of fish, what did he do?

He fell at the feet of Jesus and said, depart from me for I'm a sinful man. So holy is God that when John the apostle, when he receives that wonderful revelation in Revelation 1, when he sees the risen Christ, he falls at his feet as a dead man. There is no question, is there, that God is holy? Think of the brilliance and the light of God that we by ourselves could never, ever, ever stand in that magnificent light and that absolute holiness which is the perfection of all of his attributes that God is holy. And now Peter is saying, this holy God has called you. He says, wonderful that God called me.

Yes, it is wonderful. But the implication is that the God who calls us and the Jesus who saves us is a holy God. And Peter quotes from Leviticus where Leviticus mentions many times that God is holy and now we are to be holy. And you say, John, well that's utterly impossible. I'm a very unholy person.

You can imagine my thoughts and my actions over my years. I'm a very unholy person. If I've got to be holy to get into heaven and into the presence of God, you can count me out. Well, I'm glad you feel that because that is absolutely right.

You're absolutely right. It's called sin. And the Bible says that all of us without exception have failed, have come short. But I want you to listen to the Gospel, that into this world of darkness, into the unholy world, this God who is holy sends his holy Son, who comes as the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish. He and He alone is the only sinless one who did no sin, who knew no sin. In Him there is no sin. And what is His mission?

Why does He come? To condemn us? One of the young ladies getting baptized quoted from John 3, 17, know that God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world.

That's it. Not to condemn us, not to judge us, although we deserve that, but that through Him, that is through Jesus, the world might be saved. And how does God deal then with our sin? Our sin is placed on the sinless one. The death that we deserve is borne by our Savior. He who knew no sin becomes sin for us. And in the wonder of the Gospel, when we receive Jesus Christ, when we repent of our sin, our sin is placed on Christ who dies for our sin, pays the price for our sin, demonstrates that by rising from the dead, and not only are our sins forgiven.

That's wonderful in itself. God does something more. He credits to us. The technical word is imputes to us. He puts to our account.

There's debit and credit in accounting. He takes our sin and He puts into the credit column His righteousness, so that I receive the righteousness, the holiness of Christ. Isn't that incredible? That's the Gospel. And now, as one who has been sanctified, cleansed, forgiven, justified, declared righteous, now I can come into the presence of a holy God, not because I'm a holy person by myself, I'm not.

Certainly not because I'm a pastor, no. I come purely on the standing of my Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness has become my righteousness. The Bible pictures it as being clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This individual who was once sinful, unholy, these terrible sins of Corinth, now it's gone. Now you're sanctified.

Now you are a saint. And God's will for you and for me is that that holiness and that righteousness be worked out in our lives, that we are demonstrating this to our world. No, we don't live a holy life to be saved.

You can never do that. It is because we are saved, because we are forgiven that God calls us to live a holy life. Listen to Paul. He agrees with Peter on this. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification.

Greek word is hagiasmos, same word as in 1 Peter 1, verse 2. You say, what's God's will for me? Young man, your life's in front of you. You say, I really want to do God's will. Here it is. This is the will of God for you, sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality. Oh, really? Is that in the Bible?

Yes, it is. Want to do the will of God, young man? Abstain from sexual immorality. That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Verse 7, for God has not called us for impurity but in holiness. This holy God doesn't call you and save you so that you can go back into that immorality and into that unholiness, that your body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Are you really going to take that body, the Holy Spirit, and have sexual intimacy with this person? God calls us for holiness. Holiness then is obeying God's call.

He's called me. I'm to be holy. Peter's first exhortation then is not to evangelism, it's not to social action, it's not to political action, but this holiness which he says, verse 15, you also be holy in all your conduct. Holiness is to characterize the totality of our lives, not just when we come to church, not just when we're serving the Lord in Sunday school or feeding the homeless. No, this holiness is a way of life. It's to affect the totality of my being, my actions, my words, my thoughts, my reading, my music, what I watch on television, what I see on social media, my relationships, my recreation. Nothing is excluded.

Why? Because he's told us in verse 2 that our salvation is in the sanctification of the Spirit, in the holiness of the Spirit. And so Paul now is explaining the practical implications of this, be holy in all your conduct. Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 verse 9, God saved us and called us to a holy calling. Peter's going to tell us in chapter 2 verse 9 that God called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

You see the difference? This salvation is not just making a verbal profession and living as you once lived. No, this affects the totality of our being. This is holiness. You think of holiness in terms of a monastery or a darkened sanctuary or the smell of incense or stained glass windows or some religious rituals and chantings. No, biblical holiness is not something mystical.

It's not some ethereal experience. It's not some abstract theological dogma as it were. No, this is intensely practical in your thinking, in your conduct, in your attitude.

It gets right to the heart of who we are. Are you a person of integrity? Are you honest? It's sad, isn't it, when Christians tell lies. That's unholy.

Kids, you've been up there singing about God's holiness, saying hallelujah. Any unholyness? Lying?

Cheating? We're to be authentic people, aren't we? People of integrity.

Business people, how do you do your business? Any sleaziness? Any underhandedness?

Any manipulation? Anything that is unholy? What about your thought life? What do you find yourself thinking about? We know that millions and millions of Americans are addicted to pornography.

Billion dollars, billion dollars industry. Why would you allow your mind and your actions to be fed on that which is unholy? God is calling you out of that, out of darkness into light. What about your speech? Is your speech holy? Are you somebody who curses?

You think it's funny? Young man, you're starting to swear? Husbands, the way you speak to your wives, vulgarity, unholiness, has to be no part of the Christian home.

The Christian home is to be a holy home. No, none of us are perfect. And I talked about lying, but it doesn't just apply to children, does it? It seems that lying is epidemic in our society. We wonder when the government says something or a politician says something, is that true? We put on the news and we wonder, is this actually true? People talk about fake news. Well, there's either truth or lies.

People say, well, it's fake news, it's spin. Make sure we're people of truth, people of honesty, people who are dependable. God calls us to holiness, and holiness is doing God's will. And in our hearts, you know this, those of us who are following Jesus Christ, we want to do God's will, don't we?

You do. If you don't want to do God's will, you're not really a follower of Christ. This is a, this is the spiritual desire we have. We want to please God, and it is also obeying God. Notice verse 14, how Peter describes us as obedient children.

Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. We're the children of God. We have God as our Father, and this Father loves us, cares for us, provides for us, and one of the greatest descriptions of God is that He is our Father. That's not so much in the Old Testament, but now in the New Testament, God is our Father, a God who watches over us, a God who guides us, a God who provides for us. All of that is wonderful, and Peter is now saying, listen, as a child of God, obey what God is saying. It's a call.

It's a command. Do you find it difficult to do what you're told? I do, my Father. I can think of it on more than one occasion, saying to me, John, when are you going to learn to do what you're told? I don't like being told.

I like to argue. John, when are you going to learn to do what you're told? Could it be your Heavenly Father is saying to you right now with your name? John, Jim, Jenny, Emma, whatever your name is, when are you going to learn to do what you're told?

I think your Father is grieved, isn't it? You as a parent are grieved when your children deliberately go against what you say. And God is saying, this is My will. You are to be obedient children. Here's the command, verse 14, don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. This again is the change that Christ makes in our life. Be holy.

It's not so much a matter of mystical feeling. This is a matter of obedience. Jesus says, if you love Me, you will keep My commandments. Now you're a follower of Jesus.

You're saying your life is handed over to Christ. When are you going to learn to do what you're told? When are you going to stop that unholy practice?

When are you going to shine in the light? Convicting, isn't it? As I speak, is the Spirit of God convicting you of some unholiness in your life? Some lust of the eye, the heart, some pride, unholy attitudes, some unsavory business practice, some lying gossip, some deceit? Don't be conformed to the passions and lusts of the past. Don't be shaped by the contemporary society. Remember what I said at the beginning, this is God's method to take a clean man and woman, washed in the blood of Christ, and then drop them into a rotten Corinthian society, to drop them into Charlotte, to drop them, students, into that university, that school where you're serving.

That's God's message to you, and that there you can shine with the beauty of Jesus Christ. Here's the question then, am I following my passions or am I following Jesus? Here's my father telling me to do what he tells him. Those of you who know me know I'm argumentative by nature. My dad was not.

He just said it, that's it. I try and argue with him. I try and think of a hundred reasons why I should not do what he says or do what I want. I remember him one time, probably exhausted by me, trying to argue my case, because I didn't want to go against my parents. By the end of the day, I did obey them, but I argued about it. I remember my dad saying to me on one occasion, John, you want to do such and such.

Go ahead, as long as you can say that the Lord Jesus is guiding you there, as long as you're following Jesus. That's good advice, isn't it? Here I am, 18 years old, I'm going off to university. I'm excited. I'm leaving home. I've got the world in front of me. I can do anything I want.

All right? Do anything you want, as long as you're following Jesus. If Jesus leads you into that Scottish pub so you can get drunk and pick up some college student, you go ahead.

That's the point, isn't it? And of course, if we look at life like that, don't we? Is Jesus Christ leading me into this situation? Am I giving glory to God, or is it my former passions and lusts? We don't become Christians by trying to live a holy life.

I want you to get that. The glorious news of the Gospel, the good news, is that God is in the business of justifying the unholy. Don't think, as you listen to me, well, yes, there are some areas of unholiness in my life, and if I get rid of them, God's going to accept me.

No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that all of us, without exception, are unholy people in and of ourselves. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 4, verse 5, to the one who does not work, he's talking about salvation, the one who doesn't work for his salvation, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. You would think that God would justify the godly.

No. He justifies the ungodly, the wicked, the unholy. His faith is counted as righteousness. That is, that the Gospel is this, that Jesus Christ comes to save the unholy. Jesus Christ comes to save the unrighteous. Jesus Christ comes to save the sinner, and He does that through dying on the cross for our sins, dying and being raised from the dead. He is the just dying for the unjust, the holy dying for the unholy, so that He might bring us to God. And so how can I receive this salvation?

Understand the work is done. Understand that you have to repent of your sin, that you have to confess before Christ that you have failed, that you have sinned, that you've come short, and to cry out to Christ to come and save you and to cleanse you and to wash you. And the Apostle John says that the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses me from all my unrighteousness. Here is total cleansing.

Here is total forgiveness. All of the shame, all of the guilt of your past, all of the horror of it, of things you don't even want to think about because you did them or said them, all of that, totally gone, washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is salvation. And now that you are saved, God says, you shall be holy for I am holy, set apart from evil, set apart for God. God is calling you, is calling me to stop living as you once lived. Authentic Christianity means change. Is the Spirit convicting you this morning? Not only does He convict us, but He gives us the power, the strength to live a holy life.

So today, as we come to the end of this message, can we just pause, ask the Holy Spirit to shine His Word into your heart? In the tabernacle, in the temple, there were certain instruments that were called holy. Why were they called holy? Because they were set apart for a particular purpose in the worship of God. Here is a shovel, removing the ashes from the altar.

You say, just a shovel, yes, but it's set apart. It's declared holy because it is used for holy things. Do you get the point? You come to Jesus Christ, and now God, a holy God, is writing on you and me, reserved for me. You know what it is, you've got a special event at a restaurant, you call ahead and make a reservation, perhaps for a party of eight of you, and the day arrives you come into the restaurant, and it's absolutely packed, and people are waiting, but you say to the hostess, I've made a reservation, and you're shown to the table, and on the table are the words, reserved for your name.

That's you. God not only saves you, He takes you, and He wants you to be devoted to Him, reserved for God. We sang in the song, ready to do His will, devoted to God. I ask you, are you reserved for God?

Does God get all of you? Are you just a Sunday Christian? Or can you say, I'm devoted to God? We stumble, we fall, none of us are perfect, but in your life, this is your desire to be devoted to God. Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. That's it, isn't it?

That's what you want, isn't it? You bow with me and pray with me, Lord, I want to be a holy man, a holy woman, a holy boy, a holy girl, and I now consecrate myself to you, Lord. If you're here and you've never yet come to Christ, and you've never yet been forgiven, will you turn from that sin? Will you call on Jesus?

He says, come to me, and I'll give you rest. He says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses you from all of your sin. Will you come? Will you call out to Christ, the Holy Christ, to come and save you and totally wash you and cleanse you? And for those of us who have done that, may we, this moment, this holy moment, consecrate ourselves to you, that we will be vessels set apart for God, shining as lights in this dark world. And so we pray, our Father and our God, in this holy moment, each of us must make a response in our hearts, you know where we are. I pray that many, even now, will be calling on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.

I pray that there'll be many who are repenting of their unholiness and they're devoting themselves to you. And so we pray, take my life and let it be holy, consecrated to Thee. That's our prayer, Father. Thank You for the Holy Spirit who empowers us. Thank You for Your forgiveness when we fail and when we stumble. But help us every day of our lives to hear these words, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.