Sermon Summary 3 December 2017
Mission Impossible: by Calven Celliers
Please read 1 Peter 1:13-16.
The key verses being verses 15 & 16, but how could we possibly even approach God’s holiness as we live our lives? We believe God is holy, but for us to be holy the way He is holy feels like an impossible standard to attain. Why are we being commanded to do something that seems to be completely impossible?
In order to understand what God meant when He gave that command we need to make sure we understand the meaning of the word “holy”. Most people associate holiness with moral purity so they often define holiness by making a legalistic list of all the things a Christian can’t do.We limit holy to mean that we need to follow a bunch of rules.But what does the Bible say about holiness:
Please read Galatians 3:1-3.
There were believers in the early church who were still trying to be holy, by trying to be good, and trying to be acceptable to God, based on their own human efforts. They believed that they had to continue to live up to all the rules, and the apostle Paul was reminding them that holiness is not based on our own efforts at being good. Holiness is who we are based on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
If you are a believer in Jesus, then the Bible says that you have been given a new heart. You are a new person, the old person is gone. You are now holy because of your position in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:10). In other words, as a believer you have been made holy, not because you followed a bunch of rules, but because of your faith in Jesus. We will never be holy until we first place our faith in Him, and allow Him to set us apart from the world. We cannot earn God’s favour. We cannot earn His love and mercy. We cannot earn holiness through our own efforts. It is a free gift (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Both the Hebrew word qodesh in the Old Testament and the Greek word hagios in the New Testament mean “set apart”. God is holy, not because He is merely more moral than any of us, but because He is completely set apart from His creation. He is unique and distinct in every way. In his book The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer wrote these insightful words about God’s holiness: “God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered… Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard.” While that definition doesn’t answer our doubts about how we can possibly live up to that standard, it does reveal that God’s command for us to be holy involves living a life that is “set apart”, unique and distinct.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you have been set apart, you have been made holy because of who you are as a child of God. But 1 Peter 1:13-16 also touches on the fact that holiness isn’t just who we are, it’s how we live, we must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. There needs to be evidence of our faith played out in the way we live (James 2:14, 17).We’re not holy because of what we do, but because of what God has done for us through Jesus. Our response, however, is to live holy lives (Matthew 5:16).
Peter gives us 3 things to help us live in holiness.
1. PREPARE YOUR MIND (v. 13) – Peter points out that the key to being holy in all your conduct is to discipline your mind.A lazy athlete will never perform well, and neither will a lazy Christian. As disciples of Jesus, we must be disciplined. We discipline our minds and hearts by regular study of God’s word, through spending time with God in prayer, and by spending time in fellowship with other believers. Here at New Harvest we preach, teach and strive towards what we call the disciplines of discipleship. Each and every member should, at some stage along the way, have been exposed to theFood for the Journey booklet. You can download a copy off of the Church website at:
Have you ever seen a rugby fly-half preparing to convert a try? They visualize what they are about to do; they prepare their minds and focus on what needs to be done. As Christians, we are to do the same thing (1 Timothy 4:7-8).
2. IMITATE GOD (v.14). Please read Ephesians 5:1. A teenager who had just driven an almost perfect driving test, made a fatal mistake when he stopped to let the driving examiner out of the car and after breathing a sigh of relief, the boy exclaimed, “I’m sure glad I don’t have to drive like that all the time!” That young man is not all that different from a lot of people who call themselves Christians. For an hour or two on Sunday mornings they look, talk and act like disciples of Jesusbut for the other 166 hours in the week, there is really very little in their lives to distinguish them from the unbelieving world around them. It’s almost like when they walk out the doors of the church on Sunday morning they think, “I’m sure glad I don’t have to behave like that all the time.”
As we turn away from the temptations of the world, we need to live in obedience to our heavenly Father. But we won’t know how to imitate God unless we prepare our minds by studying His Word and growing in our understanding of Jesus. Many books inform us, but it’s only the Bible that has the power to transform us. Obedience becomes possible as the Holy Spirit develops us, making us more mature and sanctifies us, or put another way, changes us to be more like Jesus. This is the path of holiness.
We start living in the light of questions like: “Is this something God would say?”“Is this something that I would be comfortable watching if Jesus was sitting next to me?”“If I do this, will it please my heavenly Father?”
3. LIVE A LIFE OF LOVE. Please read Ephesians 5:2. Jesus Himself said in John 13:34-35, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Living a life of holiness isn’t easy, but it is possible! Not because of you, but because of Jesus.Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.