Be Holy for I Am Holy - 1 Peter 1:16

Over the weekend we had a brief conference here to look at the way ahead for us. We heard of the new vision statements for the world missions internationally which I liked and find motivating:

·       Proclaim the gospel by word and deed

·       Gathering disciples around Christ

·       Mobilising for mission

I’m attracted to them because they are things that I can do. But God calls us to BE as well. Being with God involves a measure of spiritual growth and personal uprightness. I can easily cover up like lack of being with God is a rush of over-active Christian activity.

What does God call me to be? … to be holy …

Our mission has also had for nearly 100 years a vision statement for its missionaries, sometimes called the ‘Four Pillars’ which for me are hard. Not because I think they are wrong but because they are overwhelming commitments we are expected to make for a lifetime of service …

·       Sacrifice

·       Faith

·       Fellowship

·       Holiness

These nearly stopped me joining in 1987, because I felt I could never live up to them, especially the last one - the call to holiness. Yet, there in the scriptures is the call to holiness for all Christians, not just for people in Christian ministry. So they were not really asking too much of me.

I have been lined up to speak in a series of three sermons at my church on 1 Peter in June. The most important verse in the letter is 1:16, which is the call for Christians to be holy because God is holy. “You shall be holy, for I am holy” - which is a quotation from Leviticus 11:44. When I do my series on 1 Peter, I will have to deal with this call to holiness and work out what it means for a congregation in 21st century.

 The personal holiness of the Christian individual (whatever that is) is clearly important – as Hebrews says equally challengingly:

Heb 12:14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

This verse can make the best of us break out into a sweat asking ourselves whether we are sufficiently holy to see the Lord. Different Christian groups have taken these verses very seriously and ended up physically separating themselves from the world – leading to cults and weird Christian sects. In the ancient Irish Celtic church monks competed with each other in ‘holiness’ imposing harsher and harsher disciplines on their bodies living in absolute poverty. They isolated themselves from the world: living on remote islands; fasting for days on end. One even refused to have a roof over himself so he would always have heaven in sight and would usually be cold and wet and ‘suffering for Jesus’.

These days the Exclusive Brethren have cut themselves off from the world and formed a spiritual ghetto, cloaked in separation and supposed holiness. In 2013 I visited the Amish area of Pennsylvania and I toured a model Amish house by chance with a group of orthodox Jews – who were gripped by their tour and totally understood the dilemmas Amish experience as they try to remain holy in a hostile world. The Amish has split into lots of small sub-groups with holiness arguments about the size of the ribbon around the men’s hats, the way to trim beards, how braces should be worn, whether buttons should be used, whether electricity is allowed to be used or whether it’s ok to have a power socket on the inside or the outside of a house.

These communities are attractive to some with their clear rules and strong communities, but they either create self-righteousness and pride or, conversely, despair, as sensitive souls worry whether they will ever be holy enough or whether they have kept the rules sufficiently.

Whatever it is, our holiness does matter before God. The New Testament repeatedly teaches that all will stand before the judgement seat of Christ at the end of time - real Christians as well as unbelievers. The true Christian will be declared righteous through their faith in Christ and his atoning sacrifice, but our works will still be judged. This judgement is the revelation to the angelic beings in the heavenly places of the faithfulness of Christ’s redeemed people and evidence of the reality of their faith - all to God’s glory.

But for a Christian holiness is not so much about being out of this world (we are exiles living in this world) but it is a separation to God. God is at the centre of our camp. We are no longer ignorant slaves in Egypt. And we are to live as though he were there all the time - which he is of course. There is the obvious requirement for good personal conduct – but there are some very morally upright people who have no time for Christianity or who reject God entirely. Holiness is more than a superior grade of morality, but it is looking to God. We are holy because of God’s presence among us. Sanctification (that is the process of becoming holy) is God’s Spirit revealing to us this great truth and teaching us how to live with it. It took Israel 1,400 years to learn it, and in my opinion Judaism has never understood it. Jesus Christ is our holiness. Only when we grasp this can we begin to apply the exhortations in 1 Peter 1:13-19 …

1 Pet 1:13 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.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.” 17 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, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 

·       Prepare your minds

·       Set your heart on the grace to come – live for eternity and for our final encounter with Christ

·       Do not be conformed to your pre-Christian passions – resist temptations

·       Know that we have been ransomed with the precious blood of Christ – be mindful of the price paid for our sin by Christ