A Holy Life

During the weeks just past, we were looking at the Biblical call to holiness. In fact we were seeking to understand holiness as something our hearts truly desire because God made us for it. We heard in Leviticus God’s call to “be holy as I am holy.” Then we heard from Hebrews the good news in Jesus Christ the way has been provided for us to live before God in holiness.

In these next three weeks we will focus on how this call to live holy lives plays out--in our personal lives and in our corporate life as the Church.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when you are serious about being a follower of Jesus, this world just does not “get” you. What’s more, the world is becoming less and less tolerant of you with your strange values and beliefs. Living a holy life in our kind of world is tough. But it’s even about more than the way the world is. The issues are personal and specific. The challenges you and I will face this week will be challenges of personal integrity.

How do I act in my workplace? Am I honest? How do I treat people? How do I spend my leisure time? What do I read, watch, and listen to? Where do I go? How do I talk, what kind of conversations do I participate in? Do I pay my bills on time? How accurately did I fill out my tax return? Do I tell my parents I'm going one place, when I really intend to go somewhere else with my friends? When there’s a choice between having things my way or doing things in a way that prefers another, what do I generally choose?

What does it mean to live as one who has been clearly called by God to “be holy” in the midst of a very unholy world? We may not often ask the question in just that way, but we deal with the question every day.

We deal with this question every time we make decisions about what we are going to do today. We deal with it in every attitude we choose to feel and express. We deal with it as we manage every relationship of our lives from the most comfortable to the most distressing. This is everyday stuff. How do you live “holy” in a context that is so “unholy?”

The people to whom this letter is addressed had to face this question with sobering reality. This was written to a church under persecution. Peter is writing to encourage and to warn these Christians who were truly feeling like strangers and aliens in the land. As Christians now, they were finding the world a very dangerous place.

I think we can relate to that. I don’t know about you, but I regularly sense the danger of living as a Christian in a world like ours. So what is the word of instruction for them and for us? What does God's word say about maintaining holiness in a pagan atmosphere?

Our attention almost immediately moves toward the specifics of attitude and behavior the writer lists in this passage. And there is some wonderful instruction here. He talks about being disciplined and self-controlled. He speaks of finding our ultimate hope in Christ and in His grace rather than any kind of security this world has to offer. He talks about non-conformity to the sinful desires that once controlled our lives. He reminds us our value must be in Christ and not in our annual salary, our important position, or the acquisition of the things.

He goes on in the next part to speak of our love for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ and how that becomes a powerful witness to the world--we live by different values. It's a wonderful list of characteristics that should be carefully considered. But I’d like to remind us today, in order for us to really live differently in this world, the work of

God in our lives has to go much deeper than the discipline of choices we make.
Whenever we begin to talk about “holiness” it so easily gets reduced to the personal choices I make, my private sense of morality and ethics. It’s a whole lot more than that. There must be a transformation of heart. A new birth of spirit changes not just what we do but who we are as people. I think Peter understood that as he writes this heart-felt letter to his people.

Now you may have noticed this passage begins with a "therefore" and you know what that means. You need to go back and see what it’s “there for.” And what he’s been doing in the first part of the chapter is reminding us of our life-changing relationship with God because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

He's talking about a radical transformation of our lives that is now possible because, verse 3, we have a "new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." We are not only saved from the brokenness of this world, we are saved to a life that he says, “will never fade or spoil or be threatened in any way.” Because when we unite ourselves to Christ by faith we are, he says, “Shielded by God's power, until the coming of our Lord.” All of that is prior to the “therefore” of verse 13.

I read it like this: in the first part of the chapter Peter says, “This is who you are” and then in our text he says, “Now act like it, and here’s how!” Let me try and put the two together.

My assumption is most of us here today really want to be authentically Christian. That’s who we are, that’s what we signed on for. But it's hard. The choices and dilemmas seem so easily resolved on a Sunday morning are sometimes so difficult out there where we live. I know that’s true--I experience it too. But I want you to hear this morning what God's word says. You can't be a holy Christian in an unholy world just by trying hard to act like one.

It's more than simply being disciplined and careful. It's so much more than just being a good and moral person. The only way to live in the holy relationship the Bible speaks of here, is through a miraculous change of heart that is a work of God's grace.
Stop asking, "What can I get away with and still be a Christian?" Stop asking, "How far can I go and still make it to heaven?" Start asking, "Lord, who do you want me to be? Look deep inside my heart and change what needs to be changed. Forgive me. Wash me. Fill me with your spirit. Change my priorities. Change my attitudes. Empower me to do the right."

Where do you face the struggle of living a consistent Christian life? Many of you face it in your workplace. The pressures are great to compromise or at least to just be quiet.
Some of you face it at home. Maybe you're the only one in your family really wanting to live like a Christian and it's hard when the people who know you best don't share that desire.

Or maybe it’s just the stress of contemporary American life that takes a toll on your family nobody really likes or wants but you seem helpless to change it.

A lot of you are facing it at school. I well remember the temptations and pressures I faced through school, and they're even greater for our kids today.

Many of you really want to be a Christian but it's sometimes so easy to play the game of being one way at church or at home, and another way at school.

Some of you are struggling with being a true Christian not so much in the public arenas, but in the private arena where nobody else really knows what you’re up to. Wherever you can relate to the real life dilemma of being a holy person in a world like ours, here is the good news of the gospel this morning:

God knows where you live. And God is able and He is willing to help you live a holy life. Both of those words are important. He is able--He has the power to help you do it. But He is also willing--God desires this for you. He isn’t standing back with His arms crossed saying, “Well let’s how you pass this test.” He’s like a caring father teaching his child to ride a bike for the first time. He runs along side you, with his hand gently on the seat to steady your wobbles and he won’t let go until you’re ready to take off. And even then, if you crash and burn he’ll be right there to pick you up and dust you off and say, “Let’s try it again.

God’s call to holiness is not a cranky, finger-pointing, “You probably can’t do this anyway” charge. It’s the best gift a loving Father has to offer to His children. And everything you need to live a holy life has already been provided in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I’ve mentioned to you before something I took away from my childhood was the oft-repeated reminder of my parents: “Remember who you are.” That made a difference to me. And I think the Scriptures are really trying to say that to us as God’s people: Remember who you are. Be holy not out of your own effort, but because it’s the natural way for someone who is cherished by a heavenly Father who wants the very best for you.

If all my parents had ever given to me was a list of expectations or characteristics that I should have, it probably wouldn't have been all that effective when the pressure was on. Instead they gave me an identity, a vision for what a person of integrity was like. They gave me clear instruction by their words and mostly by their model of what it meant to live as one who belongs to Christ.

So they said, “Remember who you are.” I knew what they were talking about. And I wanted to honor those words because they didn't hand me a list, they gave me their heart.

And that is precisely what God wants to do for us. The lists and expectations are helpful. We certainly do need God's instruction and commandments. But the only way we will ever really be able to live out those commands, is out of a heart that has been changed and reformed by his love.

Do you want to be a Christian that could honestly be called “holy?” Do you want to be a person of integrity and purity in the midst of the sin and confusion? Don't concentrate only on trying to do holy things, but be made holy in Christ. How?

Give the Lord complete rule and reign over every part of your life. Don’t keep the Lord safely tucked away for Sundays. Allow Him to enter every part of your life so He can cleanse you and form you and empower you.