13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action,1 and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
[1] 1:13
(ESV)
1 Peter 1:13-21
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action,1 and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
1st Peter chapter 1. Begin reading in verse 13. We're gonna be here for, this text, we're gonna be here for a couple of weeks. Verse 13. 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.
Joel Brooks: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. And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.
Joel Brooks:Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake. Who through him are believers in God. Who raised him from the dead and gave him glory.
Joel Brooks:So that your faith and hope are in God. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Our father, we ask that in this moment through the power of your spirit, you would begin pressing these words in us. Lord, that it's easy for us coming in with so many distractions, bringing in the worries of this life, that we can read these words and quickly forget them.
Joel Brooks:So we ask that now you would write them on our hearts. Lord, there's those in this room that need to be convicted of sin and delivered. There's those who are hopeless and they need hope. There's those here who don't know you at all and need to know you for the first time. We pray that all these things would happen.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we want to hear from you. So now, Lord, let my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We sing a whole lot of songs on the holiness of God.
Joel Brooks:Matter of fact, it seems like almost every Christian song we sing has somewhere in it the word, holy. We saw sung some of those songs just a while ago. We we sang holy, holy, holy. But let me ask you a question that maybe you haven't thought about as you have sung this. What use is God's holiness to you?
Joel Brooks:What use is God's holiness to you? How does the fact that God is holy, how does that benefit you personally in any way? I mean, really, if you look at all the other attributes of God, you can somehow find a benefit to God having one of those attribute attributes. You could actually selfishly pursue God for many of his other attributes. For instance, God's mighty power, well, you might need God's mighty power at some time.
Joel Brooks:You you might need him to make it rain. You might need to to be healed. You, you might need him to guide you in a dark time of your life. You might need His power to get you out of a jam. So God's power can come in pretty handy.
Joel Brooks:God's wisdom is of great use to us. Because how many times do we look at the future, we just don't know what's gonna happen, we don't know what to do, we don't know what choice to make, and so we can lean on God's wisdom who knows those things. God's mercy. I mean, we we can never tire of declaring God's mercy, because that's how we are forgiven of our sins. His his kindness is wonderful, because that means he's gonna shower us with his affection, shower us with love, His omnipresence.
Joel Brooks:That can be a comfort to us because it it means that no matter where we go, no matter how far far we have fallen, God is with us. He is near to us. When we declare that God is faithful, well His faithfulness is of great advantage to us because this means no matter how many times we're unfaithful, no matter how many times we sin, God doesn't leave us. He remains faithful to us. God's gonna keep his promises no matter what.
Joel Brooks:A and you can do this with all of God's attributes. I can look at all of His attributes and I could easily understand why it is we love to ascribe those things to God, but then we get to His holiness. And you think, what what possible benefit to me is it if God is holy? It doesn't seem to be of any use, and yet we sing about it and we declare it in almost every song we sing in church. Why?
Joel Brooks:Holiness, God's holiness, is actually the most descriptive adjective we have of God. You remember Isaiah's famous vision he had in Isaiah 6, and what you hear is the Seraphim. They're they're calling back and forward to one another before the throne of God. And they're saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.
Joel Brooks:And the apostle John in the in the book of Revelation, he wrote about visions of 4 creatures surrounding the Lord on his throne, and they were crying out day night for all of eternity. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. And they never cease to cry that out. Now, in the Hebrew language, when a word is doubled, that means that you're emphasizing it. When you would double it.
Joel Brooks:For instance, when you and your in your Bible, and you're reading through something that says, you know, pure gold. In Hebrew, it's really gold gold. It's just the word repeated twice, but that means it's it's really gold. It's pure gold. My favorite is is in the old testament.
Joel Brooks:It talks about deep pits, and it's just pit pits. You know, it's just it's just a really big nasty pit. It's a pit pit. But here in Isaiah, here in Revelation, God has said to be holy, holy, holy. Which means He is the superlative.
Joel Brooks:There there's nothing that can go higher than this. So more than anything else, God is holy. Now you might have wanted to put in a different adjective in there. You might've wanted to say, you know, here the angels crawling back and forth to one another. Kind, kind, kind, gracious, gracious, gracious, or maybe loving, loving, loving is the Lord God Almighty who was in his and his who come.
Joel Brooks:But instead, we read, holy, holy, holy. This is the adjective that describes God. This is the superlative, But what does it mean? The Hebrew word for holy is the word kadosh, kadosh, and it's somewhat of a hard word to translate. Its basic meaning is simply other.
Joel Brooks:Other. It can also mean separate or or or cut off. But it's most basic meaning is it's just it's not like us, it's it's other. So when something is so radically different from you, or or anything else that you can even think of, and there's just no words that you can use to describe this object, you would say it is holy. It's altogether different.
Joel Brooks:It is completely other. It doesn't just mean without sin, that's usually the first thing we think of. Well, you know, holy is without sin. It doesn't mean that for even the the perfect angels declare God to be holy are completely different from them. And they're sinless, but God is holy, holy, holy.
Joel Brooks:To declare someone as holy is to say that they are infinitely above and beyond you. I don't know if you can remember back, probably a number of you weren't here when we studied the life of Moses. But when we came to Exodus chapter 3, and God introduces his name to Moses, what he's really unpacking there is this idea that He is holy. If you remember in Exodus 3, Moses is told by God, take off your sandals for the place that you are standing is holy. Come before this burning bush, and then God gives His name.
Joel Brooks:The name Yahweh, which means, I am. That's God's name is, I am. And when you when you first are reading this, if you've never read this before and you come across God saying his name, I am, you're like, it's a cliffhanger. You're kinda like, I I am what? You can't just be, I I I am what?
Joel Brooks:But God simply says, I am. And and God has to say, just I am because he's not like anything. He simply is. If he had used any other adjective, if he had said, I am loving, or I am powerful, or I am kind and gracious, then immediately God would have placed himself in some kind of category. He would have placed Himself as a type or a class of something.
Joel Brooks:But God is saying, right off the bat when He gives His name, I don't belong in any category that you can think of. I am altogether different. I am other. I am holy. I am.
Joel Brooks:And so if God had said something like, I am love, And if He had communicated that to Moses, Moses would have thought, you know, okay. I get it. So so what you're saying is you're like the most loving being there is. Now I understand. And God was said, absolutely not.
Joel Brooks:No. Because my love is completely different than any love you can imagine. What whatever idea you have of love is nothing like my love, and it would actually steer Moses in the wrong direction. If he had said something like, I am powerful, then Moses would have thought, okay, I get it. So you're like the most powerful being, or the most you're you're more powerful than a hurricane.
Joel Brooks:You're you're more powerful than an emperor. You're you're more powerful than anything. God would have said, no. Your idea of power can't come near to my power. So God just can say, I am.
Joel Brooks:He's utterly different than anything in creation. He's holy. And so, he gives the only name he can. I am. Isaiah would later say, to whom will you liken God?
Joel Brooks:Who who who is he like? Whom will you compare him? So when we are crying out, like we just sang the hymn, when we're crying out, holy, holy, holy, we're actually crying out, you are not like us. You are not like us. You are not like us.
Joel Brooks:So let me ask you a question. Is is this the God that you were crying out to as you say those things? You see the God who doesn't look anything like you, or is he a God who looks a lot like you? You know, I did college ministry for 10 years, and they would say the pretty much the same thing that, that adults say now. When we're talking theology, typically, we'll say, well, my God would never do anything like that.
Joel Brooks:Or, you know, I think that I think that God is more like this. You know, my my my God is he's like this, and they everybody had their own little God. It's not the holy God, but it's a God who, when you talk to them, it's a God who thinks just like they think. It's a God who acts just like they act, a God who behaves just like they want him to behave. There's no otherness to this God.
Joel Brooks:He's just like them. And so they're worshiping a God that they have created. God as they want him to be. Not God as he is the I am. But God is saying here every time he cries out holy, he is saying that he is not like us.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't think the way we want him to think. He doesn't act the way we want him to act. He's altogether other, different from us. And let me just say what this is going to mean for all of us here is that from time to time, the true God, the holy God is going to rub us the wrong way. That's what this means.
Joel Brooks:God is going to from time to time, he's going to rub us the wrong way. If you're worshiping the true God, then this will most certainly happen. Because when you're being rubbed the wrong way, that's just another word for conversion. It's another word for transformation. Transformation is when God keeps rubbing us.
Joel Brooks:He keeps breaking off the rough edges that oppose him. And so finally, we begin to look like him, instead of God beginning to look like us. And so He rubs us, and He rubs us. So if your God never rubs you the wrong way, never thinks differently than you would think, or never does things differently than you would do them, You've likely converted God into your image, instead of you being converted into his. In Psalm 50, it's a great Psalm and and throughout it, God is rebuking Israel.
Joel Brooks:And you get to one of the the climactic points, like the main rebuke, and this is it. He says, you, Israel, thought that I was one like yourself. You thought that I was one like yourself, but God is nothing like us. He's holy. Let me just say, I think that the modern church, the modern church is in constant danger of throwing out the holiness of God, Because we we like to think of God like, you know, he's one of our buds.
Joel Brooks:He he's he's really just like us. He loves what we love. He defines sin the very way that we would define sin. So if you want to picture God, you know, most of them say, just picture me, not me, but you know, you're saying this yourself, just a little more powerful and a little more kind and a little more just, and there you have God. How many times have you heard somebody say, my God would not want me to suffer.
Joel Brooks:My God wouldn't want me to stay in an unhappy marriage. My God doesn't judge anybody. Everybody has their own little version of God, and He looks just like us. The tragedy of this, I'll move on, but the tragedy of this is a God who looks just like you is a God who can never save you. We need somebody other to come in and to change us and to make us into his image.
Joel Brooks:Alright. So how do we keep from, from worshiping a God that looks like us? How do we keep from doing this? From building idols in our minds, instead of worshiping the God who simply is? Well we can see an answer to this in verse 13.
Joel Brooks:Peter says, 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. So we're to prepare our minds for action. Now we're gonna look a little bit more at this next week, but but let me give you a few details now. In Greek, the phrase is literally, gird up the loins of your mind. Or a better way is like, it's time to roll up your sleeves of your mind and get to work.
Joel Brooks:You know, in the in the first century, they wore those long flowing robes. And if one wanted to be able to move around, you literally had to pull it up and you had to tie it to give you some freedom of movement, if you really want to get some work done. And that's girding up your loins. It's rolling up your sleeves. So so here when you when you read that, Peter is saying, okay.
Joel Brooks:It's now time to get to work with your mind. In Ephesians 6, Paul uses the same phrase when he says, gird up your loins with truth, and that's the same thought here. And what he's saying is now time, you're gonna have to think hard about truth. It's gonna it's gonna take effort. You have to think about this truth.
Joel Brooks:What does the Bible say about God? What does God say about Himself? He says, we used to be ignorant about God, but we're not anymore. And so you've got to think hard about these things. He says, sober up in your spirit.
Joel Brooks:You don't just do what feels good to you. You don't just believe what you want to believe. Wake up. Sober up. Think hard.
Joel Brooks:Look at scripture. What is God saying about himself? As Christians, the Bible is our guide. That's where we go to. And when we go to scripture and over and over, once again there's gonna be times that God is abrasive to us, but we need to go there.
Joel Brooks:Thinking back to my Christian walk, a lot of the truths that I now most hold dear about God. Some of the truths that I would there's nothing I would rather ascribe to God or proclaim to God. Many of those truths were the most abrasive things that ever came across in scripture. Completely rubbed me the wrong way. I can vividly remember a number of times coming to certain texts and being like, I don't like that at all.
Joel Brooks:But God, it's there and you're this is who you're revealing yourself to be, and so I submit to that, and I ascribe that to you. And first it was begrudgingly, and then those truths begin to captivate my heart. Or I would say transformation happened. It's what Peter's talking about here. Let's move on.
Joel Brooks:Now that we, understand what the root of this word, holy is, I now hope you can, appreciate the absurdity of what is commanded of us here. It's absurd. Look again at verse 15 and 16. 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.
Joel Brooks:So so you can read this if you want. It's not a stretch to read it this way. You shall not be like you, for I am not like you. You are to not be like yourself, because I am nothing like you. And so you're reading this, you're like, well how can you be something by the very definition I'm not?
Joel Brooks:It gets really confusing. It's absurd. How can we become other? How can sinners become pure? I I hope you see the problem here now, when you come to this text.
Joel Brooks:Some of you maybe for the first time ever, have finally seen that this is a problem, but you you have to understand this is a problem if you're gonna move forward. I bet you have even if you have understood this problem, you have probably felt it your entire life. That the command of God to be holy like He is holy is a command that is way beyond you. I mean, we know we're not supposed to behave like we behave. We know we're not supposed to do the things we do.
Joel Brooks:We know we know we're not supposed to have some of the evil or the lustful thoughts that we have, yet we have them anyway. And so deep in our bones, we already have this unsettling truth that this is an impossible command, one that we fail. I can remember years back, my oldest child when she was the youngest I mean, when she was a lot younger, that made no sense. It's a paradox just like this. Caroline, when when she was probably about 5, maybe 4, first born really trying to do well, and she did something wrong, and broke down.
Joel Brooks:I mean, just a massive breakdown. And I was like, Caroline, what's what's wrong? And she goes, I was trying so hard to be perfect today. It's like I I just wanted and she gave it her all and she failed. And so even as a 45 year old, she felt the weight of this, that we can never be perfect.
Joel Brooks:Peter felt this problem. And and you you got to feel this problem if you wanna understand the command to be holy. You've got to feel it. We're asked to be someone completely different than we are by nature. To do things completely different than we instinctively want to do things.
Joel Brooks:That's a problem. Peter first felt this problem, and we see this when when his first encounter with Jesus. If you wanna turn there to Luke 5, you you could have that story before you. But in Luke 5, Jesus is in the boat with Peter, and he tells Peter to cast his nets out into the ocean. If you remember the story.
Joel Brooks:And so Peter says, master, we've been working hard all day, all night. We've caught nothing. And Jesus is like, and? It's awkward for Peter. He goes, oh, okay.
Joel Brooks:We'll cast them out again. And so he cast out these nets again. And Peter catches so many fish that the nets begin to break. And when and when Peter sees that this is happening, it says that he falls down at the feet of Jesus, and he cries out to Him, depart from me for I am a sinful man, oh boy. So so he's confronted with this holiness of God that that that Jesus is so completely different than him.
Joel Brooks:Holy, and he's aware of his simpleness, and he says, you gotta get away from me. Depart from me. Now compare this to one of his last encounters with Jesus found in John 21. We looked at this story a few weeks ago. In John 21, Jesus has already died and has been resurrected.
Joel Brooks:And Peter is once again in a boat fishing. It's nearly an identical scene to what you find in Luke. And this time though, Jesus is on the shore. The only calls out to Peter, cast your nets out one more time. And despite the fact that Peter hasn't caught anything, he cast his nets out, and he he catches more fish than he could throw in.
Joel Brooks:But this time, the story is different. Instead of saying, depart from me, it says that Peter jumped in fully clothed, and swam as fast as he could to his Lord. As fast as he could. Same miracles. 2 completely different reactions by Peter.
Joel Brooks:Why does that Does after the first miracle, Peter say, depart from me. And and here after the second miracle, Peter jumps in, swims as fast as he can to Jesus. Well before Peter before Peter, when he when he first contacted Jesus and he first came in touch with him, he was so aware of his sins. And so we're thinking, okay, well maybe maybe then he has a different reaction because he changed. Maybe he he was no longer sinning.
Joel Brooks:But actually the opposite was true. Jesus I mean, Peter had just failed Jesus big time. He had just he had just denied knowing Jesus three times. He had committed a sin far worse than he ever thought he was capable of doing. So it wasn't that he got rid of his sin, he actually had sinned even worse.
Joel Brooks:So why this reaction? He tells you why in 1st Peter verse 18, Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for your sake. Who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Peter understands that Jesus is the one who was spotless.
Joel Brooks:He was one without blemish, he was the one who was holy, and that Peter is now redeemed by his blood. His righteousness rests in what Jesus has done, not in what he has done. And so now, Peter swims to Jesus. Now now that he understands that through the death and the resurrection of Jesus, he is a child of God. He understands he has been declared holy.
Joel Brooks:He's been declared holy. As God's child, Peter is holy. If you've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, you have been declared holy. So when Peter is telling us now to be holy, he's no longer telling us to be someone we are not. He's actually telling us to now become the people we have been declared to be.
Joel Brooks:He's saying you're holy. You once, you didn't use to be holy, but now you are holy. That's like it. You've been born again. God has you didn't have life, but now you have life.
Joel Brooks:You have been transformed. You are a new creation. So you need to become the person that God has already declared you to be. And so, he's saying you're you're not a drunkard anymore. Okay?
Joel Brooks:You are a child of God, so don't go back to alcohol. He's saying you're not an adulterer anymore because you have been declared a child of God. Therefore, give up adultery. You're no longer a cheat. You're no longer a liar because God has declared you holy.
Joel Brooks:He has made you a new person, so don't go and do those things. He has made you different. Altogether different. It's time to become the people who we've been declared to be by the blood of Jesus. We are to be holy for our father is holy.
Joel Brooks:Now earlier I asked the question, it's taken me a long time to get back to an answer. What benefit then is God's holiness to us? Well, we actually read the answer to this in our opening scripture When we looked at Psalm 969, which says that we are to worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. And that's what we're seeing on display in all of this here, the splendor of his holiness. You could also translate that the beauty of his holiness.
Joel Brooks:We now find the holiness of God beautiful. You know, often things that are rare, things that are very hard to find or or unique, those are the things that we say are beautiful. Like a diamond is is beautiful. Well, there's only one God. He's utterly unique, and He is absolutely beautiful.
Joel Brooks:He's splendid. And you know, when we see something of extraordinary beauty, you simply have to praise it. You know, there's no way that you could see a gorgeous sunset, and you're standing next to somebody, there's no way you can watch that and not say anything to them. You can't. You have to say, look at that.
Joel Brooks:Even though you know they're looking at it. Alright? You're not telling them to do something they're not already doing, but you're still you just gotta say, just will you look at that? Because in expressing the the beauty of that and encouraging others to join you, it actually completes your joy. You verbally expressing that completes your joy.
Joel Brooks:So whether it's a sunset, or looking at the mountains, or looking at the Grand Canyon, when you just say, that is beautiful. You can't help yourself for saying that because it completes your joy. That is what you see going on here when we worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. That's what's happening in Revelation. That's what's happening in Isaiah.
Joel Brooks:So so when you have these people calling back and forth to one another, and you see that in Revelation, they're going, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. And and they're saying this over and over, they're calling back and forth. This is the picture, the the beauty of God is shining forth in the splendor of his holiness, and they're going, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Look at that. And then the other angels are going, I know.
Joel Brooks:The creatures are going, I know. Look at that. Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is to come. They're going, I know. Look at that.
Joel Brooks:Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. And God keeps revealing his beauty, keeps revealing his holiness for all of eternity. That's why it has never stopped saying. We never stop saying it, because we never get over the splendor of his holiness. Forever it is being cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
Joel Brooks:And forever people will respond, I know when you look at him. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. As he reveals himself more and more, we find his beauty to be splendid. His holiness to be splendid and beautiful. That's why we sing.
Joel Brooks:That's why we sing now these things because we get a taste now of what we will experience then. Pray with me. God, we want to be transformed into your image. We want to be holy as you are holy. We want to become the people you've declared us to be.
Joel Brooks:We have been washed. We have been purified. We have been declared holy through the blood of Jesus. You have caused us to be born again. You have made us a new creation.
Joel Brooks:I pray we would walk in that. God, I pray that we would worship you, the real you as you are, and not some puny pathetic little God that we have shaped in our own minds. We want to declare you as holy, and to worship you in your beauty. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.