Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1681

April 13, 2025

1 Peter 1.13-21                      Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“Holy Conduct”

 

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, 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 you 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 the sake of you 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.

 

 

• Holy, Holy, Holy

 

Last Sunday we reflected on the things that Isaiah saw and heard as revealed in Isaiah chapter six. Central to that vision was the triple use of “holy” in the praise from the seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” We heard the traditional definition of holiness to be that of moral perfection or purity. But the holiness of God is more broad because it includes the character of God in His righteousness, goodness, trustworthiness, and wisdom. “Holy” embraces all these things and more. The holiness of God is His divinity, deity, fullness. All of His character and personality is defined through holiness. His love is holy, His compassion – holy; He shows mercy and grace in holiness. It is why the angels sing as they do in Isaiah and why all before the throne in Revelation sing a similar song. The term “holy” deserves more repetition because of God’s immeasurable holiness. The Bible can only give us glimpses into the fullness of God’s glory and holiness.

“Holy” comes from a root word meaning “separate” or “to cut apart”. It is in this sense that we know the holy as that which is set apart, separate from the mundane. The holiness of God points to His transcendence, that is, He is above and beyond all limitations. It describes His majesty and His being that is above all. God is holy (H-O-L-Y), holy Other and wholly (W-H-O-L-L-Y), wholly Other, with a capital “O”.

When we come into the presence of the holy, we enter with reverence, fear and trembling. When we encounter the holy we are like Isaiah, “Woe is me.” The sanctuary of a church is often considered a holy place not unlike the holy ground when Moses stood in the presence of God (Exodus 3.5). It was holy ground only because the presence of the Holy One was there.

Today we take up a command that may seem way to deep and unattainable, but it is what God calls His people to be and to practice. Peter writes to the believers in Jesus Christ, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” It is not a new command but quoted from Leviticus 11.44, “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” So let’s take a closer look at how we are to be holy because God is holy.

 

 

• Obedient Children

 

In 1 Peter, Peter assumes his readers are obedient children. Verse 14 - “As obedient children…” Prior to our reading for today, Peter writes about being born again into a living hope. That hope is Jesus Christ and those who believe have been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit into this hope and faith and love. This is what is revealed to us in being the children of God. We live in a new kingdom, a spiritual kingdom, and so Peter begins with that understanding coming into verse 13.

Since we have been born again, therefore… “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…” Obedience requires prepared minds, a sober-mindedness, a hope set right, and an expectation of revelation of and from Jesus. We prepare our minds in many ways but primarily in God’s Word, knowing the revelation set before us in the Bible. Jesus calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We cannot know everything, but we are called to gain wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God so that our minds might be prepared for whatever may come before us. We have to train ourselves to be sober-minded, of sound mind, biblical thinkers, and to have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2.16).

Our hope shall be set on God’s grace, not on earthly hopes that will one day fade away. It is one of the hallmarks of the Reformed Faith, grace alone. Sola Gratia, grace alone is God’s unmerited favor toward us. Such favor is expressed throughout the Bible. Ephesians 2:8 says it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” Grace is a gift from God. In the reformed faith, we understand that grace as the support behind our ability to choose rightly by faith. We understand that all we do is by God’s grace. Even the ability to choose God, to choose to receive Christ is empowered by God’s grace. Of course, that theology is often debated by other denominations and even some Presbyterians believe differently for this particular case, because many believe that free will is free will and we choose Christ or we do not, by our own choice. But grace alone teaches grace alone! It is not our own doing, but the gift of God. Peter tells us to set our hope in God’s grace. So be it!

As we consider holiness in ourselves, we must see that we can only be regarded as holy by what the Holy God has done for us and in us. By His grace we are saved and by His grace we are called a holy nation, a holy people...because we belong to the Holy God.

 

 

• Do Not Be Conformed

 

There are two particular things that Peter teaches us about holiness. One is a negative, something to avoid, and the other a positive, something to nurture. The negative is on conformity, “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1.14). Most of the people to whom Peter was writing were probably pagan Gentiles, those the Jews would have considered having a “former ignorance”, that is, ignorant of the Law of God to direct one’s conduct. Peter emphasizes that they were no longer to be conformed to those old ways, old passions, sinful desires. Now they know Jesus Christ and have a new life, born again into a new existence and a way of life that has nothing to do with worldly and fleshly passions or desires. Those sins are often listed in the epistles: sexual immorality, murder, theft, greed, adultery, and things like these. The point is to not go back to the ways of the world that lead to death, but to live anew in the ways of God that lead to life.

The apostle Paul has a very similar exhortation in Romans 12.2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Non-conformity to our passions or to the world are keys to holiness on the negative side. But notice too that Paul speaks of the mind just as Peter does. Renew the mind so that we can discern God’s will, what is good and acceptable and perfect. That also means we should be able to discern what is bad and unacceptable and imperfect and avoid it!

The world seeks conformity – 1 John 2.15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” It is wonderfully powerful to set our hope in God’s grace so that we can discern between God’s way and the way of the world. John’s description encompasses the path to sin, “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life.” If we really take time to discern all that we see in the world and all that we hear from the world, it is simple to see these three categories of the flesh, the eyes, and arrogance. Nearly everything in the world is predicated on sexuality, or what we can see and touch, and on building our material wealth or social status or becoming the next American Idol. Desire, passions, pride, it’s all of the world and not of God, and important to John’s observation, it will all pass away and all those desires with it.

Holiness avoids and eliminates conformity to our former passions or to the worldly things. That is the negative side, what not to do.

 

• Holy Conduct

 

On the positive side is to be holy as God is holy. This quote that comes from Leviticus 11.41-45 is worth our time, so let’s take a look at it because it is interesting to see that holiness in this case is tied to what was eaten, or not to be eaten: “Every swarming thing that swarms on the ground is detestable; it shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, any swarming thing that swarms on the ground, you shall not eat, for they are detestable. You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. 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. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

If I had to paraphrase this section I think I would say, “don’t eat that, it’s yucky and it will make you yucky! You are what you eat and if you eat things that are detestable, you cannot not be holy like the Holy God who calls you to be holy.” It is fascinating to me that food laws were designed to help Israel live in purity, in holiness. We do not have the time to go into all that this might have meant for Israel then or what kosher laws were developed from Leviticus and other Old Testament writings, but suffice it to say that holiness leaned heavily on keeping themselves pure in soul and body.

Peter handles the statement of being holy like God is Holy in a slightly different way. Peter speaks more to our general conduct and mentions nothing at all about what we shall eat. Maybe that is because Peter has that vision of all the animals we could eat that God made clean (Acts 10.9-16). It is not about what we eat, but about conduct: 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.”

Peter teaches us to conduct ourselves with fear – reverence – awe, in the full knowledge (awareness) of our salvation in Christ. In 1 Peter our holiness is tied to our conduct, not in what we shall eat. Holiness is known through our behavior and therefore reflects the holiness of God and His character and attributes. That is also a part of what the Old Testament teaches in places like Micah 6.8, He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? To be holy as God is holy is to share in His righteousness, justice, kindness, humility, love, peace, compassion, grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness, goodness, provision, and in all the other multitude of attributes of which we read and know through His Word. We are to share in the character of Christ, His mindset and disposition. Philippians 2.5-8, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

 

It is not that we have to become monks or nuns, wearing a particular garb and focusing every waking moment to some spiritual discipline (nothing wrong with those who do), but we conduct ourselves in all our endeavors through the lens of Scripture, through being Christlike, through walking the path God has for us. We take on the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, in order to be holy as God is holy, to be pure in conduct and behavior. I believe it is a part of what it means to keep the commandment about God’s name, not just thinking about taking the name in vain in the sense of saying the name flippantly or crudely, but in carrying the name of God as our identity. When we claim to be Christian we are carrying with us all the time the name of Jesus Christ and with that name is the responsibility to conduct our lives in the name of Jesus, in the holiness of Christ, and to conduct our lives in any other way is to profane the name, to take it or carry it in vain. “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Carry the Name in holy conduct that God may be glorified.

I came across a prayer this week from one of my seminary professors who taught Old Testament. I want to end our time in the sermon with this prayer that I think is reflective of living a holy life with the Holy God. Listen -- hear this prayer...

 

We know how You are, enthroned at Sinai: steadfast, merciful, gracious, compassionate, long-suffering, forgiving.

We know how You are, embodied at Nazareth, so that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.

 

In Your presence, we know how we are: strange mixes of faithfulness and fickleness, strange contradictions of good intentions and feeble follow-through, strange misgivings about self-love and neighbor love, strange unsettlements about loving You and our many idols.

 

Given who you are and given who we are, we put ourselves down in this moment, in Your good promise. That we will be like You: like you in steadfastness, like You in compassion, like You in transformative power, like You in forgiving capacity, like You and so unlike the way we are now.

 

We submit ourselves to Your promise, confident that you have not quit on us, that we are under way, by Your goodness, to new selves, to our true selves, to us in Your good image.

 

We thank You for Your faithful power that outruns our timidity, for Your long-term commitment to us while we are distracted from our true selves. We fall back on You in an assurance of whom we may yet become by Your mercy. In the name of Your bodied, transformative Son, we thank You. Amen. (Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for the Journey, pg. 69-70)