Holiness 02

Holiness – Every Christian’s Calling Pt 2

1 Peter 1:22-2:12  

Last week we looked at Peter & he was talking about Holiness. He is still talking about what it means to live as a Christian. In fact generall the rest of the book of 1 Peter is about living a holy life. Living a life worthy of this calling as a Christian. Remember verse 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. So what Peter goes on to do is he tells his readers how to live this holy life.  

1 Peter is quite a practical letter. He doesn’t just say ‘live this holy life’ and then leave his readers in the lurch. There are a number of practical issues he goes on to deal wity. In chapter 2 you’ve got submission to rulers and masters. How to respond as a citizen under a government, that you may or may not agree with. If you’re a slave and you’ve got a master who is making you suffer, there’s a certain way that you need to respond as a Christian, a godly way that you need to respond as a Christian. He’s telling them how to be holy in that situation. Wives and husbands. He gives some advice there.

This next section starting in 1 Peter chapter 1 vs 22, Peter shows how holiness comes through the word. He’s showing us the role that the word of God / the gospel / the Bible plays in our holiness.

We need to be very careful of having this 1 dimensional view of what holiness is. Doing all the right things. Obeying the 10 commandments. That’s what the pharisees and the teachers of the law were like. Other people looking up to you because you live a holy life. That’s a shallow view of holiness. That’s a view of holiness that doesn’t have a basis. That’s a form of holiness that relies on your own efforts. Holiness is something deeper than that.

Vs 22: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart.   What does a Holy church look like?” or “What does a church full of Holy people look like?” I think we would have all sorts of different answers if we had to go around the room this morning. I suspect that some of you may talk about a holy church in negative terms “they’re so holy” meaning “holier than thou” and judgemental. I suspect some of us wouldn’t want to go to a church that is too holy, because we feel that we may not fit in.

In verse 22 Peter is describing what a holy church should look like. He is describing what a Holy Christian community should look like. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. Peter is saying, now that you have been purified. And it’s happened by obeying the truth ie.you’ve responded to the gospel. You’ve responded to the truth. You’ve heard the truth, you’ve obeyed the truth. You’ve heard the message about a God who has saved his people by sending his son to die on a cross for their sins. And you’ve submitted to that. You’ve asked for God’s forgiveness.

So when you look into a church. You should be looking into a redeemed community. You should be looking in to a group of people who have been saved. In fact you should be looking in to a bunch of people who are sinners, and have been saved through accepting the truth. By submitting to the truth. And that truth is, that God has saved them. Not through their own works, but through Jesus. They’ve been made pure. They’re holy. And it’s through obeying the truth. Submitting to the truth.

Mike told me about a book he was reading called “No Perfect People Allowed”. And that book was about a mindset that a pastor had regarding the people who came to his church. If you think you’re perfect, you’ve got a problem. You’ve got a false view of yourself. You’re lying to yourself. You’re being deceived by Satan if you think you’re perfect. We need to realize that we’re all sinners who need salvation.

We’re still accountable to one another, we still help each other out. If a brother or sister is in sin, you owe it to them to point out their sin. You owe it to them to point them to repentance. But you don’t do it with a holier than thou attitude. You don’t do it with an attitude of “I’ve got it all together, and therefore I’m better than you.” You do it with the grace and understanding that we are all sinners who need a saviour. As someone once put it (some say it was Martin Luther), We’re all just beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. But the church is a community of redeemed sinners who have been purified through submitting to the truth.

Have you submitted to the truth? Are you purified through hearing the gospel message, and responding to it?

It’s the 2^nd half of verse 22 that shows us what it should look like. Look again at verse 22: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. Do you see that? You’ve been saved, purified, so that . . . you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart. This is holiness expressed. Our holiness should be expressed in the way that we love one another. Someone coming in from the outside, who looks into St Matthews or any church, should observe people loving each other with a sincere love for one another. That is holiness expressed.

When we think about living out our Christianity, we often think of the fruit of the Spirit. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, kindess, goodness, self control etc etc. Holiness, or living by the spirit is producing the fruit of the spirit. Where do these things like Love, joy, peace and patience and self control, where do all these things play out? They play out in relationships. It’s when it comes to getting along with other people, when I get impatient / when I struggle to love. The things that get me down the most that kill my joy, my peace, it’s when I’m struggling with other people. It’s in relationships where I struggle sometimes to be gentle and self controlled.

And Peter here isn’t just saying ‘be nice to one another’, he is saying, ‘love one another deeply from the heart.’ Brothers and sisters, we are brothers and sisters. And we must love each other as such. Remember that Peter is writing this letter to Christians scattered throughout various regions. Many of the Christians who used to be Jewish, would now be scattered throughout the Gentile world. And as many of you know, the Jews and the Samaritans and other Gentiles would have had a history of hate towards one another. Now many of them would have been serving together in churches. Meeting together as part of Christian communities. Breaking bread together. And knowing the human condition, I’m sure that many of them would have struggled to get over their past hurts and prejudices. Many of us have learnt in our own country with it’s past that the past baggage isn’t so easy to let go of.

It’s been encouraging to see this being done at St Matthews. I’m also very aware that we don’t always get this right. So let’s think about how we can do this better. And do this more. And let’s be driven by the gospel. Let’s be driven by the fact that we are all sinners in need of saving. We’re all beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.

And it’s possible for us to do this because Vs 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. Never underestimate the power of the word of God. It is through God’s word that the world was created. 2 Timothy 3:16 says: All Scripture is God breathed. That word for breathed and the word for breath is interchangeable with the word for Spirit. And throughout Scripture there’s this working together of the word of God and the Spirit of God. When the word of God is active, the Spirit of God is active. In fact you see that from the first chapter of Scripture as God creates the world.

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. Through God’s imperishable word, you have been given eternal life. Through God’s living and enduring word you have been given eternal life. Not just life, but eternal life. Life on earth is fleeting. Look at verse 24 and 25: Vs 24 For, “Alll men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, (25) but the word of the Lord stands forever.” But through God’s imperishable word, through God’s enduring word, through God’s living word, through God’s eternal word, you have been given eternal life. And this is the word that was preached to you. It’s the word that gives eternal life.

So Peter is saying: This is who you are. You are a Christians. And in the context of 1 Peter, some of them scattered throughout the regions. You’ve been purified through the word, through submitting to the word. You’re a community that should be loving one another deeply. The seed of your eternal destiny which is the word of God, is imperishable, it is living and enduring. If that’s who you are, whatever it is that you’re going through. Whatever struggles, whatever suffering. (because remember many of the readers were persecuted for their faith) but regardless of your situation, if your identity is that of a Christian, there should be a holiness that is reflected. And as a community, do you love one another deeply.

And so this leads into what he says in (2:1) Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander of every kind. There’s an opportunity here to examine your heart. It’s an opportunity here to do some soul searching. It’s an opportunity for you to be honest and open before God. Maybe there’s someone here in St Matthews that you have an issue with. Or even someone outside of St Matthews that no matter how you try, you can never love.  And on the surface you can easily blame them. You can easily point the finger at what they did wrong. But the main reason for the tension, the main reason for the hatred, the main reason for the issue is in your heart. Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind. Those kinds of things have no place in the church. Those things have no place in relationships where Christians are involved.

A passage like this exposes my heart. It shows me areas where I need to repent. It exposes the weeds that I have left to grow. It reminds me that I have a sinful heart. I want to challenge you to look at this. And look at verse 1 in particular, and don’t do what a lot of people are tempted to do. And that is think of that person that you think this applies to. Remember we’re all just beggars. Think of yourself. Think of your own heart where there is Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander of every kind. Ask God to help you to get rid of it.

In verse 2 and 3, Peter goes from what we shouldn’t be doing, to what we should be doing. (2) Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, (3) now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. A lot of the readers, who would have been reading this letter would have been young Christians. They would have been infants. So there is a sense in which as a baby you need milk, before you progress on to other foods.  But he’s saying we must crave pure spiritual milk.

Peter is recommending here that they crave the real thing. He is recommending that they crave the pure product. Not the product that has preservatives. I think there’s a veiled warning here. If he needs to encourage the people to crave pure spiritual milk, there was something impure out there. There was false teaching around at the time. Although he doesn’t talk about it in 1 Peter, his 2^nd letter certainly addresses this issue of the false teachers. Crave pure spiritual milk. Crave the gospel in it’s purest form. Crave the word of God in it’s purest form. So that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Now there’s a sense in which this applies to new Christians, but I don’t think it ever stops applying to any Christian. Peter is telling us all to crave this milk.  In this context he doesn’t talk about moving on to solid foods. Because what is the ‘pure spiritual milk that he is talking about?’ It’s the gospel. It’s the word of God. It’s the pure unadulterated word, without preservatives.

That’s holiness. In the context of Christian community. In the context of church. It’s being purified through submitting to the truth, therefore being born again of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God, loving one another deeply, emptying yourself of Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander of every kind. Craving that pure spiritual milk.

 

 

 

Home Group Material:

Read 1 Peter 1:22-2:3

1. Peter describes what a holy church looks like, discuss the following elements of a holy church and what it should look like?
   1. Purified through obeying the truth
   2. Having a sincere love for one another / loving one another deeply from the heart
2. What does it mean that we have been born again by imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God? (vs 23 see also verse 24-25)
3. Can you identify any of the things mentioned in 2:1 in your own heart?
4. What does it mean to crave pure spiritual milk? (2:2)
5. What contribution can you make in St Matthews being a holy church?