Prepare for Action: Be Holy in All Your Conduct

This is week two of our four weeks series with the theme: “Prepare for Action: Readying Ourselves for the Arrival of the King.”  Last week, I said that Advent is a time of preparation for the arrival of our King.  It is not just a time of preparing for an event that happened in the past, the incarnation of the Son via the womb of the Virgin Mary.  It is a time for refocusing on the reality of the second coming of Christ.  Because we live in a culture that has, by and large, lost the urgency of his immanent arrival, I decided that we would place our focus on these Advent Sundays on how Christians ought to prepare themselves for the coming of our Holy King.

Last week, we covered the first of these topics.  We were exhorted by the apostle Peter to prepare our minds for action by setting our hope fully, not partially, on the “grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:13).

This week, we focus on the second of the exhortation of Peter related to the coming of our king, to be holy in all of our conduct.  We get this from the three verses which have been read to you, and which I will read again now:

[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.” (1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV)

Peter addresses his brothers and sisters in the church as “obedient children.”  We are children of God, and this is deliciously good news!  We are not children of the world, or of some satanic or demonic power, we are children of the Most High God, adopted into God’s family by the precious blood of his Son.

And the Father desires that His children be obedient.  What do obedient children do?  They obey their Father.  They desire to please their Father.  God desires to be glorified by us in all of our conduct. Obedient children are not conformed by their worldly passions - things that go by the wayside and aren’t eternal.  Instead, they obediently set their hearts on eternal things, on the things of God, putting out of their minds those things which, in their ignorance of God, they thought were so great.

How do you become a child of God? By believing in his Son, Jesus Christ, who bought and paid for you so that you might become part of the God’s family.  Having put your faith in Jesus, your sins were, once and for all, forever forgiven so that you are considered by God as righteous, and therefore eligible for the inheritance prepared for you in the kingdom of God.

What, then, is the standard of conduct for those who have received God’s grace and have been called from the darkness and death of the world into eternal life with the Father?  What should characterize their personalities, their actions, and even their most secret thoughts?  The answer is given in the text:

“[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.”

What is this holiness, then. What does it mean to be holy in all our conduct?  To get a good answer to this question, we must  know more about what the holiness of God means, especially because of what Peter wrote in verse 16, which is a quote from Leviticus 11:44

[44] For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground.  (Leviticus 11:44 ESV)

What is the standard of holiness by which God’s chilren should live?  God’s perfect holiness is the standard.

How Holy Is God?  Totally Holy.

In our weekly adult bible study, Bible 101, we’ve begun to examine the chapters in Exodus regarding the construction of the tabernacle.  Moses is called up into the holy mountain of God further instructions from the Lord.  He went up, and was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights (see Exodus 25ff).  After receiving some instructions on obtaining contributions from the people for the construction of a sanctuary, we begin reading the instructions for the fabrication of the tabernacle.  The instructions begin with the design of the most holy object in Israel, the Ark of the Covenant. Instructions are then given for the design of the table for the Bread of the Presence and the Lamp made of pure gold. More detailed instructions are given for the construction of the tents for the tabernacle, for the court of the tabernacle, for the garments the priests will wear, rules for consecrating the priests for service, and then more instructions for the third object of the holy place, the Alter of Incense.

I remember reading all of that as a kid and being totally bored.  What is with all of this detailed, laborious instruction for the construction of this thing?  Why couldn’t the writer quote what God saying something like, “Build this thing according to my instructions,” followed by something like, “and it was done as God instructed.”

It wasn’t until years later that I better understood what those seemingly boring, detailed lists of instructions were about.  You see, the construction of the tabernacle, the design of which would later be used in the design and construction of the temple, is about bringing the most perfect, righteous, holy God in communication with His created human beings.  But there is a big problem.  The big problem is that the perfect holiness of God is fundamentally incompatible with the taint of human sin. Therefore, for there to be any communion at all between the totally sovereign and perfectly holy God of Israel, an elaborate interface had to be constructed for God to be manifestly present with His people. What these elaborate instructions show us, then, is the perfect holiness of God.

The perfect holiness of God isn’t much thought of these days.  As a result, we don’t have a healthy fear of the God who is supremely holy.  What are the implications of unholiness before a totally holy and righteous God if holiness and sin are incompatible.  They aren’t good.

Another story from the Old Testament that illustrates this.  Having been anointed king of Israel, David decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  The Ark, as we have just discussed, was the most holy object in the nation.  It resided in the Holy of Holies, the most holy place in the tabernacle. There were specific laws for transporting the Ark.  It was to be carried by the priests using gold-covered poles which were placed through rings, so that no priest or human being would ever touch this most holy object.

What did David do to transport the Ark to its new home?  A new cart was built, so that the Ark might be rolled up to Jerusalem, pulled by oxen.  Right away, we know there is a problem, because the Ark isn’t being carried by the priests, as God commanded.  Here’s what happened, as recorded in 2 Samuel:

[5] And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the LORD, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. [6] And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. [7] And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. [8] And David was angry because the LORD had burst forth against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day. [9] And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?” [10] So David was not willing to take the ark of the LORD into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. [11] And the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household. (2 Samuel 6:5-11 ESV)

What sin had Uzzah committed that he would be summarily executed for touching the Ark?  The great Puritan academic and preacher Jonathan Edwards said Uzzah’s sin was a sin of presumption, of presuming that his sinful hand was less incompatible with God’s holiness than the sinless dirt and mud into which the Ark might have fallen.  He was quite wrong, as we can see.  These are tough things for us to hear, because we desire a God who will related to us on our own terms.  But God demands, and indeed has the total right to demand, as the creator of the universe, that we approach Him only His terms.

The good news of the gospel is that God has himself, in the person of his glorious Son, fulfilled all of the terms for us.  That’s why the curtain was torn in two upon the death of Jesus, exposing the Holy of Holies, the most holy place, containing the most holy object in the nation, to profane eyes.  Jesus took upon his shoulders all of our sins so that we can be free for the holy obedience we could never have apart from Him.

You Were Called to Be Holy

How seriously do you view the holiness of God? We are to be holy in all our conduct, as he is holy. We are created in God’s image, saved from his wrath for sin by the death of his Son, so that we might become his obedient children, holy and righteous in all our conduct, as children of the Most Holy God ought to be.

The way many people live - and I include myself in this analysis - is by doing everything in their power to look good to the world and to those inside the church. But then there’s just that one vice that we reserve a special room for, to duck in when the worldly addiction, lust, or other idol whispers that it needs attention.  Do you have any secret rooms in your life?  Our public conduct is one thing, but God demands purity of heart as well.  What this means is that, while we may successfully hide our sinful secrets from others, they can never be hidden from God.  If you thought WikiLeaks was dangerous, you ought to see the contents of my own heart when it is compared with God’s perfect holiness.

One day I was reading a blog by a guy named Tim Challies, a good Canadian brother who spends a lot of time reading and writing about contemporary Christian fiction and non-fiction literature.  One day he made a comment that really got my attention: If someone else had total access to your computer and to your web browser and all of your online accounts, what would they discover about you?  What would that person discover, say, about your Internet browsing behavior, or how you spend your money?  Would they discover a relationship that is inappropriate or unbiblical?  Building on that thought, suppose someone developed a technology whereby a screen could be mounted on your forehead, facing the world, so that anyone could see what you were thinking.  What would they see?  I have many co-workers who likely would not have been happy with what they saw.  It’s easier to look good than to be holy, isn’t it?  And yet, our calling as those who have been saved by the good news of Jesus Christ is to be holy as God is holy.  This text today exhorts us throw ourselves onto the grace and mercy of God, and to totally eliminate everything impure and unholy from our lives, so that we might become his obedient children.

I think this is why in the reformers viewed the church as a priesthood of all believers.  The priests in the Old Testament had to go through elaborate rituals in order to be pure enough to minister in the tabernacle of God.  By the precious blood of Christ, we have all been once-and-for-all ordained by God for holy service, and to fling away from us anything that detracts from the holiness into which we have been called.  You may be particularly burdened with a sin that has been problematic for a long time.  You’re invited today, by the blood of Christ, to trust in his Grace, repent, and by the power of the Holy Spirit fling that sinful idol into the ash heap of the old ways of life which were lived in ignorance.  The urgency to get our spiritual house increases with each passing second, as our Lord Jesus Christ prepares his glorious return.  Let us join together in keeping each other accountable in prayer, steadfast love, and forgiveness, so that we might be ready for his arrival.  Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
December 5, 2010 
Second Sunday in Advent
Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Donald Drew 
  

Posted via email from The Central Point

Preparing for Action - Set Your Hope Fully on the Grace to Come

Introduction

We are starting a four-week Advent series this Sunday. The overarching theme is: “Prepare for Action: Readying Ourselves for the Arrival of the King.” I’ve chosen for this series four consecutive passages from 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s letter to the dispersed churches of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (v 1), in what is now modern-day Turkey. Why did I choose 1 Peter? I was drawn to this letter because Advent is a time when we remind the church that in its ministry and mission it is actually a time of preparation for the arrival, the coming, the advent of the One who is the King in the Kingdom of God. In churches that use the Lectionary readings for this time of the church year, the first Sunday in Advent places special emphasis on the second coming of Jesus Christ. Substantial portions of Peter’s letter are devoted to the anticipation of the arrival of Jesus. I like what John Calvin has to say about the epistle. He writes:

The main object of this epistle is to raise us above the world, in order that we may be prepared and encouraged to sustain the spiritual contests of our warfare. [Commentaries on the Epistle of 1 Peter, 27]

It is easy for the church, in this time of waiting, to become flaccid, to grow weary of engaging in “the spiritual contests of our warfare” of doing good (see Galatians 6:9). In the midst of Black Friday shopping, the obsession of gift exchanges at Christmas, and the culture’s lack of understanding of grace, it becomes very easy to grow weary. Paul had no room for that in Galatians, and, as we will see, neither will Peter in 1 Peter. As the time draws near for the arrival of Jesus, our excitement should increase, not decrease, each year. Our level of preparation for his arrival should be greater, not less. And our passion for all peoples to know Christ should grow exponentially as his arrival grows near. We are best reminded by Paul’s words to the Romans (13:11):

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

In this series, I will explore four of Peter’s exhortations to the early church which are also, I believe, applicable to us, as we continue our spiritual preparation from the second coming of Jesus. All four of these topics are basically answers to an overarching question: How do we glorify God in our preparations for the arrival of Christ? Here are the four exhortations. We are called upon to:

1. Set our hope fully on the grace to come
2. Be holy in all conduct
3. Have a holy fear throughout the time of waiting
4. Love one another in purity

This morning, we will focus on the first of those four answers – by setting our hope fully on the grace to come. Before we get there, however, we need to look a bit at what comes before in the letter.

The Foundation: Christians Have Been Born Again into a Living Hope

Peter beings his letter with a beautiful section of thanksgiving by reminding his readers, and us, that we are recipients of an inheritance:

[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, [4] to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, [5] who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

There are a four things we should note about this thanksgiving. First, Christians are those who have received mercy. The mercy that they have received is the gracious forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Second, the result of that great mercy is that we now have what Peter calls “a living hope” into which we have been born again. To have a living hope means that the hope is the basis for life. The hope we have transforms the way we live. Third, as those who have been born again into eternal life, Christians have a promised inheritance “that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” That inheritance is shared with Christ, and includes eternal life. And fourth, those who have been born again for this inheritance are, by God’s power, “being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.” This means that if you are in Christ, you are as secure as He is. You have no reason for fear, because you are under God’s protection, right now.

The thing to note from this is that all of this has been done for you. This is the essence of the gospel. You do not chose of your own power to be saved and to receive these gifts. God chooses, according to his steadfast love and mercy, and gives to those whom he has chosen these gifts: Mercy and forgiveness, a living hope, an eternal inheritance that cannot be corrupted, and protection through faith for “the salvation read to be revealed at the last time.” If you have been born again, made regenerate, by the Holy Spirit, all of these things are yours, no matter what happens – pain, affliction, suffering, joy, love, happiness. It matters not what the particular circumstances of your life are at the moment. As a Christian, you have been born again into a living hope which is astonishing, even shocking, in a world that is so often filled with hopelessness. 

This Salvation Was Intended For You from the Beginning

Peter then shows us how this salvation was the intention of God from the beginning:

[10] Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, [11] inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.

This salvation was the subject of the prophets. They spoke about the grace that was to be yours. I like how Peter puts this in very personal terms. The grace that the prophets in their diligence searched for was intended for you, beloved. So, for example, when Isaiah prophesied, as he did in today’s reading, that “[2] It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, [3] and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” That is a statement that refers to the final establishment of a kingdom to which peoples from all nations will come to receive the grace of God’s Word. This is a gift of God’s grace for you and me, a people who come much later in time, but who are just like the people to whom Peter is writing. The prophets did not see clearly when exactly the promised one would come, but they did know that he would suffer and enter into glory. On Thanksgiving at the United Methodist Church, I preached a sermon on just such a text, again from Isaiah, chapter 52:13-53-12, where the promised savior to come would be a man of sorrows, who would take upon himself the sins of the people, us, and impart to the people his righteousness. Can you see now what Peter is talking, then, we he speaks of the “grace that was to be?” That grace is found in Jesus Christ, and him crucified, the one whom we are waiting for.

What Peter says next is really amazing. He writes that the prophets received their revelations in such a way that “they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”

When you heard the words from the prophet Isaiah that Monica just read to you, did you receive them that way? Did you receive them as a promise of grace for you, these thousands of years later? When I read texts like this, I am amazed when someone by the recurring complaint that the bible “doesn’t speak to them.” Or that these dusty old parchments are “irrelevant.” All of it is relevant because, as Peter writes, they were writing about the gospel of grace without even realizing it.

But you realize it, loved ones, because you have heard the announcement of the gospel through preaching. When the Holy Spirit moves on a person who is dead in sin and by the preached word brings that person to eternal life, something has happened which is so glorious and stupendous that the angels themselves long to see it!

We speak so often in this culture about a longing to know the “magic” of Advent and Christmas. Can you see that how this “magic,” this gift, is actually a real thing in the life of those who have been saved? In our lives and in our conduct, do we live like people who have received such astounding blessings in the gospel of Jesus Christ that when people observe us they see the hope and peace that marks those whom have a treasure so amazing that the angels themselves long to fully comprehend?

If you really believe the truth of this salvation in the coming Christ, then this will effect a huge change on the way you live. Even the most commonplace transactions of life are transformed into a manifestation of grace in the life of the Christian. Here we are once again at the first Sunday in Advent. The wait is growing shorter even as I preach this word. If we have received such grace in the mercy and forgiveness of God, and that so glorifies God in such a way that even the angels long to look upon this, how then should we live in the now shortened time we have left until Christ appears? And now we get to the first of the four exhortations of this Advent season.

Gird Your Loins

The ESV has verse 13 as follows:

[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.

I like the way the old King James has the beginning of verse 13. It reads, “Gird up the loins of your mind.” The phrase suggests that we are a people who are easily distracted by the temporary cares of the world and by the idolatrous pursuit of the worldly desires. We are a people who are constantly tempted by these things. Especially now. I am a person who is easily distracted. My wife can attest to this. How many of you, I wonder, are, like me, trying to simultaneously balance the culture’s passion for consumption with the expectations of attending multiple family and social obligations across increasingly huge geographic areas (those of you with kids you have moved from Jackson will know what I’m talking about)? Add to that pressures from work and pressures from the work we know are waiting for us on the other side of the few days we’ve taken off. Add to that the pressures many feel because of medical problems or the griefs suffered by those whose loved ones have died and you get a better understanding of why people long for something else during this season. The reason for the longing is that we’ve utterly forgotten the grace that will be presented and brought to us when Jesus Christ comes again. But here, we are exhorted to set or hope fully on the coming of the King, and to engage discipline over our minds so that we remember that precious hope.

As you have begun your own preparations for the Christmas holiday, have you deliberately set time aside to recall the great promises of the gospel, that you are destined for “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, [5] who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”? When you are in the checkout lane, will the person across the counter from you see someone who has that kind of hope? Will it come out in your interactions with others? Will it be made manifest in your own life because, as one who has such hope, you are filled to overflowing with peace and joy as one whom Christ has purchased at the price of his own blood?

He is coming, and the time grows short. What should we be thinking about? This advent, as we prepare for so much which is worldly and temporary, my prayer is that we will recommit ourselves to the pursuit of joy in the gospel – that in Jesus Christ, all has been forgiven, once and for all, that we’ve been set free from everything that would encroach upon our minds so that we can bask fully in the glow of the glory of the grace to come when Jesus arrives. Amen.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
November 28, 2010
First Sunday in Advent
Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Donald Drew