Tonight, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1, as we read together the first 16 verses, considering tonight in connection with holiness, the virtue of holiness, considering verses 14 through 16. 1 Peter 1, hear now the Word of God, beginning at verse 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood, grace and peace be yours in abundance. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, even angels long to look into these things. Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled. Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. but just as he who called you is holy so be holy in all you do for it is written be holy because I am holy may God add his blessing to the reading and consideration of his word tonight beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ these are indeed powerful words that Peter speaks be holy in all you do and most likely his audience like us might have thought yeah right simply because we know ourselves too well nevertheless he says be holy not try to be not think about it not give it your best shot but be holy holiness is to describe us and our lives as believers by the grace of God. And Paul says this with good reason. God Himself said it. It is written. Peter quotes from Leviticus chapter 11, and in Leviticus, no less than nine times, we find these words either be holy or I make holy. It is written was a legal term for documents that were valid and binding continually, And therefore, if they were valid and binding for Peter's audience so many years ago, that means they are still valid and binding for us today. Holiness is a godly virtue. It is an attribute or characteristic of godliness. And as believers, we are called to holiness. And tonight, as we consider this call to holiness, notice, first of all, its pattern. Our pattern for holiness. In Romans 11, verse 2, Paul clearly tells us what this pattern is not. He says, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. Our pattern for holiness is not this world. But our pattern for holiness, beloved, is indeed unmistakable. As Peter says again, for it is written, be holy because I am holy. He's not talking about himself again, but he is talking about the one who said these words. He is talking about God Himself who has called us. God has chosen a people for Himself, as Paul says in Ephesians 1, to be holy and blameless in His sight. He did not choose us because we were or would become holy and blameless all by ourselves. He did not choose us because of our faith, but He chose us in order to bring us to faith. That we might be obedient children. Those who are adopted by God as His children. And obedience then defines, it demonstrates what it means to be a child of God. Children of God prove that they are His children by obedience to Him. Obedience that looks like Him. He Himself who is perfect. That describes His pattern. His pattern for us is perfect. Now remember, in these weeks we've been talking about godliness. And we said some weeks ago that godliness can be described as being god-like. And being god-like is character that is built upon devotion to God. In other words, being God-centered. And we have already considered a number of God-centered virtues or attributes, such as humility, contentment, thankfulness, joy, those flow from being centered on God, and that which flows from that, then, is being God-like. And one of the attributes of God-likeness is holiness, and God teaches of His perfect holiness. In 1 John 1, verse 5, John says, God is light. And John is talking about, he's pointing there, to God's flawless, absolute perfection and purity, to His holiness. There's not even a tiny hint of moral flaw, not even a tiny taint of sin in God. He is not 99.9% holy. To think of Him that way would be a blasphemous thought. But He is 100% holy. And although we cannot comprehend it, That's why even one tiny sin, as we would think of it, cannot be in his presence. If we think about a simple definition of holiness, we could say that it is to be without sin, to be separated from sin. And that is God. God is absolutely distinct and separate, indeed, from all of his creatures, but also from moral evil and sin. He is pure. He is morally excellent. He possesses ethical perfection. And His pattern, beloved, is for us. Whom God has chosen to be His very own. Peter talks about that privileged position in chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, when he says, But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. His perfect pattern is for us whom He has chosen and whose minds have been opened by the regenerating and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit to see the truth of God, to see the truth of His perfect pattern of holiness, and also to see the truth of ourselves in relationship to God, yet, because of that, this call to holiness presents a problem for us, doesn't it? As we think about our God and His perfect pattern of holiness, and as we recognize ourselves, then this call to holiness presents a problem, A serious problem, and that is because we clearly recognize in the second place it's impossibility for us. Indeed, beloved, holiness is not an option. Peter says, be holy. John in 1 John 2 verse 1 says, My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. Now, sadly, we are often content, aren't we, as long as we don't sin very much or as long as we keep it to a minimum. Then we figure we're doing okay. Yet even the most insignificant sin to you and me is significant to God. It offends Him greatly and it earns and deserves eternal hell. Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 17, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord. Notice Paul insists on it in the Lord. What? That you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. Again, holiness is not an option, but it is a must for every Christian. Yet we must confess that our holiness has failed even before it began because we are conceived and born in sin. And even as believers, even as those who have been born again, those who have been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our holiness is flawed. It fails. Again, Paul points to that in Romans 12, verse 2. He says, do not conform any longer. They were conforming. And in Romans chapter 7, he uses himself as an example of the believer's struggles. The good that I want to do, I don't do. but the evil that I don't want to do, that is what I do. Peter reminds his audience of what they used to be. He says, the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. And the idea most likely, beloved, is that due to severe temptation that they were facing to return to that, some indeed had returned to it. And therefore, Peter commands them to stop heeding sinful desires and instead to give themselves to God in obedience and holiness. Our holiness has failed. We can also think about the morality of our society today. Holiness has been cheapened. It's been deformed, again, to relativism. What's right for you is right for you. What's right for me is right for me. It might not be the same thing, but that's okay. It's just fine. For example, honesty and purity are not really considered essential in our culture today. Instead, lying, cheating, and stealing have been given a legitimate, even a commonplace, sometimes in business and education and sports, politics. Sexual immorality is not an issue in our culture anymore. It's not shocking anymore. But it is accepted, it is even expected. There are those who believe, and I've talked to them, maybe you have too, there are those who believe that you cannot marry someone if you haven't first lived with them. I mean, how can you? Because if you haven't first lived with them, you don't know if you're compatible with them. And how can you marry them if you're not compatible? Just live with them. No strings attached. And all kinds of expected sexual immorality in our day. Or divorce rates and lawsuits are a symptom of a lack of peace. And the truth is perfect holiness is an impossibility for you and I in and of ourselves on this side of glory. Answer 114 to the catechism in answer to the question that asks, well, can you keep all this perfectly? It follows up on the catechism's consideration of the Ten Commandments. And the answer is no. Even the holiest among us have only a small beginning of this new obedience. It's an impossibility. Yet, beloved, holiness is to be desired. It will not be reached in this life, yet it is to be desired. It will not be reached. John reminds us of that in 1 John 1, verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Yet, holiness is the believer's goal. It is the desire of the believer's heart. It is the object of the believer's earnest prayers. It ought to be. In 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1, Paul says, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, and he's talking about the promises of God's blessing, God's nearness to those who are not unequally yoked, those who have indeed separated themselves. God's blessing, having these promises, Paul says, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness into the fear of God. Holiness is to be desired because we have been transformed, no longer living in ignorance. That's not who believers are anymore. Believers have been transformed in Christ Jesus. Paul says in verse 13, Therefore, prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled, set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. The grace that He had talked about previously. You see, when it comes to the believer's call to holiness, He, that is Jesus Christ, is its perfection in the third place. Jesus Christ is its perfection. Our hope is only in Him. Our call to holiness makes sense only because of our redemption in Christ Jesus, into a living hope, as Peter says, beginning at verse 3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. And, beloved, that is something that Paul also makes clear in Ephesians 1, beginning at verse 3. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Jesus Christ is its perfection. Our redemption is in Him because of His perfect righteousness. Jesus Christ alone, as we know, was without sin, as the writer of Hebrews says. He alone was able to pay for our sins with His precious blood because He was a lamb without blemish or defect, as Peter says in chapter 2, verse 19. In Him, we, as Paul says in Romans 5, are justified through faith. We are right in the sight of God. That's our status before God for Jesus' sake. And therefore, with our sins forgiven and with His perfect righteousness credited, freely given to us, just handed to us, as it were, as our very own, God sees us and considers us as perfectly righteous and holy in His sight for Jesus' sake. And He adopts us to be His very own children who by faith through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit are saints. Boys and girls, a saint is one who has been set apart from this world, from sin and wickedness, set apart and set apart unto God. Brought to know how great our sin and misery are and how we are delivered from our sin and misery and how we are to be thankful for that deliverance. And the believer's transformation, beloved, includes a desire to heed the call to holiness, striving in the fourth place in its practice. Called to holiness. Called to be holy. To strive to be that which God already sees us to be in Christ Jesus. One commentator rightly says, for the believer, holiness does not end with forgiveness and cleansing of sin. It doesn't end with the forgiveness that is ours. He says, but it begins with an active life of opposing sin. The believer must strive to live obediently before God, thus demonstrating the meaning of the word holy. Holiness and obedience, we might say, are two sides of the same coin. Obedience demonstrates holiness. It defines, as it were, holiness. Holiness shows what it's all about. God has given His holy law, a reflection of Himself to guide His people in holy living. The New Testament writers, especially Paul, describe holy living as putting off and putting on. And therefore, it is to be a practice without sin. Remember, holiness without sin, separated from sin. The believer's desire is to be holy as God is. God with whom we will spend eternity. And therefore, beloved, this life is not to be seen as a time to sow our wild oats. How often haven't you heard that? Or maybe you've said it. someone's child maybe in their teenage years or young adult life is not living according to how they were taught they're going off in a different direction and therefore the explanation is given well they are just sowing their wild oats they need to get it out of their system absolutely not that's not what God's Word says instead for believers whether young or old ours is to be an ongoing fight enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be without sin. An ongoing fight. Peter said, do not conform any longer. Stop it, he says. Paul in Romans 8, verse 13 says, put to death. Pretty drastic, isn't it? Put to death the misdeeds of the body. We are called to fight sin by putting on the full armor of God. Listen again how Paul describes that armor in Ephesians chapter 6. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with a breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Where in there do you and I find that we are to sow our wild oats? It is the very opposite. We are called to fight sin. To fight against sin and in its place to practice holiness with obedience. Paul, we know, gives plenty of examples in Romans, in Ephesians, in Colossians as we read this morning. He gives plenty of examples of what to put on, what is included in holiness, what it looks like. But we can get a bit deeper to the very mindset and the heart of the matter. We can characterize God's call to holiness and obedience. And first of all, say that it is comprehensive. Peter says, in all you do. No exceptions, no excuses. At all times, no vacations from it. In all you do, thoughts, words, and actions, comprehensive. And holiness then flows from being convicted of the truth of the Word of God. Convicted of it, by which the Holy Spirit renews our minds by the Word of God and equips and enables us to understand how God wants us to live. Again, verse 13, Paul says, Therefore prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled, Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Being convicted of the truth. In other words, we might say, get with it. Be with it. Conviction of the truth of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit causes us to grow and mature in our understanding of the Word of God and to conform more and more as we grow, as we go through life, to conform more and more to God's will. He opens our minds more and more to see our lives. And where we are walking with the Lord, where we are not walking with the Lord, and He directs us more focused on walking with the Lord. Holiness is comprehensive. Holiness flows from being convicted of the truth. And holiness includes being committed to obedience. You might say, well, of course. That's a given, being committed to obedience. But we ought to understand that commitment is not just a promise. It is more than a promise. It is a promise with action. commitment is a sincere resolution a determined purpose to live according to the word of God as the Holy Spirit applies it to our lives driven by the conviction that holiness is so important to God for His people and therefore it is the number one priority in our lives the number one priority knowing that all sin is offensive to God. Even the sin that no one sees as Jesus taught about in the Sermon on the Mount, the sin of the heart, adultery and murder or hatred, it is sin. And all sin, whatever degree of seriousness that you and I might put on it, even the whitest of white lies demonstrates contempt for God. Holiness is comprehensive. It flows from being convicted of the truth. It includes being committed to obedience. And it also means making conscious choices for what pleases God. And therefore, consciously saying no to ungodliness, as Paul says to Titus. In a sense, that's what he is saying there. If we could see him, he's probably putting his hand up, saying no to ungodliness and disobedience. And therefore, we might say, saying yes to obedience and godliness. Sincere obedience, beloved, is an all-out effort to turn away from sin and to seek to do the will of God. And this virtue of holiness, then, is also centered on God, not on us. And what we mean by that is this. The believer's motivation for holiness and obedience is not, first of all, that we might feel good about ourselves. Often, our sin, when we find ourselves in terrible sin, especially our sin brings more sorrow for ourselves, disappointment to ourselves, than bringing sorrow that I dishonored or offended God. Our sorrow, first of all, ought to be that we have terribly offended our holy God. And therefore, our call to holiness, beloved, is for God's sake, first of all. It is for His glory. It is to please Him. And His blessing may very well be, beloved, and often is a sense of humble satisfaction given to you and me by the Holy Spirit upon whom we depend. We are totally dependent upon the transforming and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit who alone gives us new desires and gives us new values yet in His power we are responsible as we have said with all of the virtues we have considered so far we are responsible as obedient children to strive to be holy in all that we do be holy as if you can do no other settle for nothing less not in order to make ourselves acceptable to our holy God but because we already are acceptable to Him in Jesus Christ the truth is we will struggle and fail and fall yet our comfort is that we are recipients of the grace as Peter says to be given to us when Jesus Christ is revealed we are saints set apart as holy in Jesus Christ for the sake of his holiness our confidence is that Jesus Christ has washed away all of our unholiness we are forgiven with the assurance that we always will be forgiven what a motive for holiness and therefore our call to holiness beloved is a call to recognize and honor our holy God who demonstrated his love for us by giving his one and only son for us that we might be holy and blameless in his sight forever and ever amen let's pray together Heavenly Father, we bow before you at the close of this service together. We exalt your holiness, your purity, your perfection. We are amazed, Heavenly Father, to know that you see us as perfectly righteous and holy for Jesus' sake. And we thank You for the work of Your Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives to make us to be holy. Father, increase that desire in us. Give us strength to walk with You day by day to demonstrate, indeed, the holiness of God through obedience to Your Word. Father, indeed, we know that we often fail. Yet we are comforted because of your forgiving grace in Christ Jesus. Lord, lead us and guide us even as we go into another week. And may you receive all the praise and the honor and the glory for Jesus' sake. In his name we pray. Amen.