Hey, he took his first flight at age six and he was cap captured by it.
He was just enraptured by the idea of being up in the air, up in the sky,
so much so that he got his pilot's license by the time he turned 16 before
he even got his driver's license.
At 19, he was flying combat missions in the United States Navy.
After his military career, he didn't retire.
He instead went on to become a test pilot for the United States.
He was flying some of the most advanced machinery in the
air that we had at the time.
After he finished that, he still wasn't satisfied with where he had
gotten to and what he had achieved.
And so when NASA came calling, he was more than ready to answer that
call to become one of the astronauts.
And see, NASA came calling because they wanted this man to get inside of a,
a spaceship, one of the most powerful airborne vehicles known to mankind.
All in order to be able to take one small step for man
and one giant leap for mankind.
You've probably guessed at this point, but we're talking about Neil
Armstrong, and when you think about Neil Armstrong, I want you to think
about the words means, method, and motivation means method and motivation.
See, for young Neil Armstrong, if he had been in his backyard after that
first flight, thinking about how can I get higher than I got in that airplane?
Looking up in the night sky and seeing the moon and thinking to himself, what would
it be like to drive a car on the moon?
What would it be like to hit a golf ball on the moon?
You can imagine if Neil Armstrong had shared those thoughts with his family
members, with his mom, with his dad, with his cousins, with his friends
down the street, that they would've laughed hysterically at the thought.
That's impossible.
No one can drive a car on the moon.
No one can hit a golf ball on the moon.
So what changed that led to Neil Armstrong being among the first
people and still the only people that have ever stepped foot on the moon?
The answer comes down to means method and motivation.
The North American Space Agency, nasa, they came to him and they
said, Hey, we, we've got the means.
We have a spaceship.
We have the technology and, and we believe in you and these others, buzz
Aldrin and some of the others, that we have the men with the right stuff.
So we have the means to make this happen.
And beyond that, we have the, the method we can get you to space.
We can get you to the moon, and we can get you from your spaceship down to the
surface of the moon and from the surface of the moon back to your spaceship,
and then back home again safely.
And we have a motivation.
We wanna be the first ones to do it.
See, this was the great space race at the time.
They wanted to beat anyone else, and specifically they wanted to beat
Russia to be the first on the moon.
And so the means, the method and the motivation were in place, and that's
what changed between Neil Armstrong at six years old, looking up in the sky
at the moon, going, I wonder what it'd be like to drive a car on the moon to
him actually getting able to do that.
When we read in our text this morning what Peter's gonna call us to at surface
reading at at at face value, it may seem like an impossible task when Peter says,
as he who called you is holy, be holy.
In all your conduct, you may read that.
You may think to yourself, I might as well think about hitting a golf ball on the
moon instead of being holy as God is holy.
How can I attain to that?
How can I get there?
How can I make that a reality?
Well, just like Neil Armstrong needed the means, the method and the motivation.
We need the means, the method, and the motivation as well.
And what we find in our text this morning is just that the means, the
method and the motivation not to get to the moon, but to get to a life
of holiness that is both possible and life giving, a life of holiness.
That does lead to us being able to say, we can pursue a life of holiness that is.
Us being holy as God is holy.
To get there, we have to start with the means.
And so look with me at verse 14.
Peter says this, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the
passions of your former ignorance.
Let's stop right there.
Again, to set the context Peter has been talking about in the first 12 verses,
the reality of who we are in Christ, that according to the foreknowledge
of God and the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to Jesus Christ
and for sprinkling with his blood, God has caused us to be born again to a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to an inheritance
that's imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for us who are.
Being guarded by God's power for that salvation and ready to
be revealed in the last time.
He's called us to rejoice with a joy that's inexpressible.
He's called us to have this confidence, this hope like we talked about last
week, and to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And now he's pivoting to saying, and in the meantime, this is the life that
we live while we wait for that day.
And he says this as obedient children, obedient children.
That word children is the one that I want us to zoom in on initially here.
That word children is key to our understanding of the means to our being
able to pursue a life of holiness, a life of godliness here on this earth.
The word children, it, it recalls all of the, the things that I just mentioned
from verses one through 12, maybe specifically you think of verse three.
Blessed to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has caused
us to be born again to a living hope.
He's caused us to be born again.
To be born again.
It, it, it's, it's the idea that we are going from being children of wrath,
Ephesians two to now children of God.
And so that's why he can address us as obedient children.
John said in his introduction of Jesus, in, in John chapter one, verses 12
and 13, he said to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave
the right to become children of God.
Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God.
Thinking about yourself as a, a child of God may be a simple
concept, maybe one that you've thought about many times before.
It's one that you've entertained before, but it's profundity is,
is massive for us this morning.
Massive and essential for us to, to understand what it means
that we are children of God.
That is, if you are in Christ this morning, if you are a
Christian this morning, you are a son or a daughter of God.
This is key to the means of our ability to pursue a life of holiness.
If you were growing up like me, you at some point probably did
the weird flex of saying, oh yeah, well, my dad could beat up your dad.
Why do we do that?
As a dad, I've never once gotten in a fight with another dad yet.
Maybe someday.
But not yet.
But we did that, didn't we?
Growing up?
Well, my dad can beat up your dad.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
How's this one for a flex?
Your dad, if you are in Christ, your father is the God of all creation.
If you wanna boast about a relationship with a father, how about we start there?
Point number one this morning is that boast in your adoption?
Boast in your adoption.
That the God of the universe has adopted you, has taken you from being a child of
wrath, which is what we are by nature.
Ephesians chapter two, and he is now through Christ and through the gospel
and through the the death of Jesus on the cross for your sins and the resurrection
of Jesus for your eternal life.
He has now taken you and he has made you a son or a daughter in his household.
Adoption's, not always something that is looked upon favorably in our culture.
You can think of the movie scene or the TV show where somebody
finds out that they're adopted.
Some of you told your siblings that they were adopted when you were growing up,
but y'all, all that reveals is a misunderstanding of how amazing
the concept of adoption is.
We don't understand that God has adopted us based on earthly adoption.
We understand earthly adoption through the understanding of what God has
done for us, and it's amazing 'cause Think about the process of adoption.
Adoption is a one-sided transaction.
You don't cause someone to adopt you.
You don't pay for your own adoption.
You don't earn your own adoption.
And when you are adopted, at least ideally, you come into the family as one
who is not a second class citizen, but as one who has every right, as a full-fledged
member of the family of God, or as the family that is on earth adopted you.
Perhaps growing up you thought about, man, it would be really
cool to have been adopted by this.
Family over here, this family over here.
There's no indictment on your own family, but you probably just thought,
man, it would really be cool if my best friend's family adopted me.
Then we could be brothers or sisters or whatever it is.
Or maybe you thought, man, it'd be super cool if this celebrity adopted me.
Wow, that would be awesome to be their son or their daughter.
What a, the president of the United States, they've got a bowling
alley in the basement that would be super cool to be adopted by the
president of the United States.
Right?
You have maybe some of those thoughts, but try this one on for size this morning.
You've been adopted.
If you're in Christ by the God of the universe, the God of all creation.
There is no higher adoption that we have.
There's no one that we might be able to say, man, imagine the privilege of being
adopted by this person, by this one.
The Bible says that you are children of God if you are in Christ this morning.
That's why it's as obedient children, as obedient children.
What does our adoption do for us?
Here's just a few things that I came up with this week.
Galatians four five says that our adoption is a sign that Christ's
redemptive work was accomplished for us.
Galatians four six says that our adoption signifies for us that God
has sent his spirit to dwell in us.
Galatians four seven marks.
It says that adoption marks a status change for us in that we go from
being slaves to being children of God.
Ephesians one five says that our adoption was always a part
of God's sovereign plan for us.
He predestined us for adoption, Romans eight 15, which we heard earlier this
morning during scripture reading says that our adoption means that we now
get to approach God as Abba Father.
That word Abba in the Greek was only reserved for somebody
that was in the family.
Romans eight 17 reveals that our adoption secures for us a
future inheritance with Jesus.
Y'all.
The significance of our identity as those who have been adopted by
God cannot be overstated, and it is essential to our pursuit of holiness.
And here's why.
It's essential to our pursuit of holiness.
We talk about with our salvation justification quite a lot, don't we?
And rightly so.
Justification is an essential component to the gospel.
Justification is the legal declaration that you are not only
not guilty, but you are righteous.
You are innocent with the innocence and righteousness of Jesus.
That's justification.
But here's the thing, y'all justification is forensic in nature.
Justification is about a judicial statement that has been made
from God as judge over you.
You are no longer guilty in your sin, condemned in your sin, but
Romans eight, one, there's no condemnation for you anymore.
You have been judicious.
Judiciously declared not guilty, innocent with the righteousness
of Jesus, but that is forensic.
That is not relational.
So that is why we have to understand both our justification and our adoption
because our adoption when it comes to the gospel is the relational component
that we have with God the Father, and that relationship is 100% crucial and
essential to our pursuit of holiness.
If you are pursuing holiness without the relational component of God,
then you are pursuing holiness for all of the wrong reasons.
And my guess is it feels soul crushing and defeating to you this morning.
It's when we understand.
That we pursue holiness because God has first entered into this relationship
with us, that God has adopted us, that God has made us his sons and daughters.
That's what enables us.
That's the means to us being able to pursue this life of
godliness, this life of holiness.
And maybe you still struggle over the tension of this reality of adoption
because you don't fully feel it.
And that's because there's an already not yet component to this.
Paul writes in Romans 8 23.
He says, not only creation, but we ourselves who have the
first fruits of the spirit.
We groan inwardly and, and notice this as we wait eagerly for adoption
as sons, and then he defines that the redemption of our bodies.
And, and so it's like this, if we can paint this picture, we're currently,
we're, we are still in the orphanage.
The papers have been signed.
Everything, all the boxes have been checked, everything has been paid for.
You are by status adopted, and yet you're still waiting for the full reality.
Somebody is there to tell you about the new family.
They're telling you about the parents.
They're telling you about your new dad.
They're telling you about what the house is gonna be like that you're going to
live in and what the reality will be like.
And you are looking forward to that and it's a sure thing,
but you're not yet there.
That's where we find ourselves right now.
We aren't in our father's house yet.
We're still exiles here and now.
And one of the reasons why we're still here, one of the reasons why he
hasn't come to get us yet is because he wants us to go and tell other
people that they too can be adopted.
In Ephesians two, Paul connects this concept of being adopted, being a child
of God, to the idea of being reconciled, being brought from far off near to God.
And then in second Corinthians five, he takes that same concept of reconciliation.
It says, we have now been given the ministry of reconciliation to go out and
tell other people, to implore people to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.
And so we as those that have been adopted, can go and tell other people the good
news that they can be adopted to see there's been this change in status.
We are no longer slaves.
We're no longer children of wrath.
We are children of God.
But it's more than just a change in status.
It's a change notice also in our passions, in our affections.
He says, as obedient children do not be conformed to the
passions of your former ignorance.
That word passions there is the Greek word epit.
Theia, which means passions, lusts, desires, and usually it has a negative
connotation, and that's what it does here.
Don't be conformed to the things that you once lived for in your former ignorance.
Well, your ignorance of what?
Your ignorance of everything that he's talked about so far in the
first 12 verses, your ignorance of God is your heavenly Father.
Your ignorance of the inheritance that's gonna be yours, your ignorance of the
hope that's gonna be delivered to you.
All of these things that we've talked about, you once lived
not knowing about those things.
And so for you, your hope was put on all of the things that the flesh lusts for.
And Peter is simply saying as obedient children now.
There's been a status change that now affects your passions as well.
Don't live for the same things that you once lived for.
Don't live for the lust and the greed and the covetousness and the idolatry.
Don't live for the, the, the sloth and the laziness and the self-centeredness
and the pride and the contempt.
Don't be conformed to those things any longer.
Romans 12, Paul says something similar.
He says, do not be conformed to the patterns of this world.
Instead, as God's adopted children, you've been made new.
God has caused you to be born again, and that means your passions have
been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Peter's about to call us as we're gonna see here, to a
life of holiness and godliness.
That's only possible if we understand this relationship with
God, this relationship with God.
In, in Psalm 84, 10, the Psalmist says this.
He says, it's better to be a doorkeeper in the house of God than
to dwell in the tents of the wicked.
He says, it's better to hold the door in heaven.
Then to dwell in the the mansions of hell.
In other words, but here's the amazing news.
Psalm 27, 4, king David writes this.
He says, one thing I've asked one thing I've asked of the
Lord and this I will seek.
After that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days in my
life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
To dwell in the house of the Lord.
See Christian when you, when you leave this place and go to be with the Lord,
either when he comes back for his bride or when you die to go to be with him, you're
not going to be with him to hold doors.
You're gonna be with him to live in his house.
Jesus said, I'm gonna prepare a place for you in my father's house.
There are many rooms and I'll come back for you.
So that's our new passion.
That's our new desire is to go and be with him.
But Peter's gonna help us understand what that means for our lives as
he continues on in his argument.
See, the means is the fact that you have been adopted.
The means is you have this relationship.
You can boast in that adoption because now you have the means by which
you can pursue a life of holiness.
Without that first act of God, you can't pursue a life of holiness 'cause
we do not pursue a life of holiness in order to be adopted by him.
We pursue a life of holiness because we have been adopted by him.
So what does that life look like?
Look at verse 15.
Now, he says, but as he who called you is holy, you also
be holy in all your conduct.
And so he said, do not be conformed to the patterns of your former
ignorance, the passions of your former ignorance, but verse 15, contrast
instead as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.
In other words, the one who has adopted you is holy.
Therefore, being part of his family is naturally gonna make you holy as well.
You're gonna bear the family resemblance.
There's physical traits that you can tell people are part of the same family
because they look like each other.
But then there's also those non-genetic traits of a family.
The same traditions, the the same maybe morals, values, ethics,
interests, rooting, interests, sports.
F you can't live in my house if you're not gonna root for the Texas Rangers.
That's a, we have that as a, it's part of the Constitution of the Burner family.
Right.
You, you, you share things in common with your family that
aren't necessarily genetic.
We may not be genetic children of God in, in our current state, but
there are other family markers of God that we will begin to bear
because we become part of his family.
We're around him.
We're gonna be more like him.
Holiness is one of those things.
What is holiness though?
That's kind of key to this whole conversation, isn't it?
Well, holiness is more than moral perfection.
It, it, it's more than being set apart, which is what the Hebrew word kosh means.
To cut or to set apart.
So in the Old Testament, in the temple, there were instruments.
There were vessels in the temple that were considered holy.
They were consecrated, they were set apart only to be used in worship of God.
If the priest woke up in the middle of the night thirsty, he wasn't gonna
grab a cup that was used in worship of the Lord to go get a cup of water.
That was used for worship.
It wasn't used for common things.
It was holy to the Lord.
It's more than that though.
It, it, it's more than being unstained, more than being unblemished.
The offerings, the sacrifices that were brought in the temple were
to be holy in that they weren't to have any defect in them.
But again, holy means more than all of these things because
holiness by definition is defined by everything that God is.
That is what is holy.
Theologian, Stephen Charna defined it this way in relation
to the holiness of the angels.
Listen to what he says here.
He says, though God has crowned the angels with an unspotted sanctity.
In other words, a holiness, and he's placed them in a habitation of glory.
Yet as illustrious as they are, they have an unworthiness in their own nature to
appear before the throne of so holy a God.
Their holiness grows dim and pale in his presence.
It's but a weak shadow of that divine purity whose light is so glorious that
it makes them cover their faces out of weakness to behold it and cover
their feet out of shame in themselves.
Holiness is a quality separable from them, but it is inseparable from God.
So there Charna is saying even the angels who are holy.
They still recognize that God is to wholly to agree that they will never
be able to, to attain to such that the angels of Isaiah six are covering their
faces with two of their wings, covering their bodies with two of their wings and,
and flying hovering with the other two.
See, the holiness of God involves everything that God is, and so in
a sense, only God is truly holy.
He's holy in his love.
He's holy in his justice.
He's holy in his wrath.
He's holy in his wisdom.
He's holy in his providence.
He's holy in his patience.
He's holy in his discipline.
But the area we often think of so often when, when it comes to
holiness is moral perfection, right?
And I think that's what Peter largely has in view here as well When he says, as he
who called you is holy, you also be holy.
That's why this is in contrast with the passions of our former ignorance, the
sinful things we once live for Peter saying now, as children of God, don't
live for those things, instead as he who called you is holy, so you also be holy.
But how is that even possible?
How can I be holy if we just said that holiness is all,
that God is in fact holiness.
You can think about it this way is is God's complete otherness from us.
So, how in the world can I strive to be that which only God truly is?
The answer's gonna be found in our second point this morning?
Point number two is this relentlessly pursue full life holiness relentlessly,
pursue full life holiness.
Because even if we get to that place where we're like, well, I feel like I
have a little bit of holiness in my life.
I gotta shred a holiness over here.
Then Peter lowers the boom and he says, in all your conduct.
And every facet of your life be holy.
As he's holy.
Isaiah appeared before the throne of God, and the angels are there, and the
angels are crying out Holy, holy, holy.
As the Lord God Almighty.
The earth is full of his glory.
And Isaiah witnesses this and he's there momentarily before the, the realization
sets in on him and he says, wo is me.
I am destroyed.
I'm, that's what he means when he says, I'm undone.
Isaiah is aware of the holiness of God and that if he remains in the
condition that he is in front of the holiness of God, that is in a, a
sinful condition, that he's going to be consumed by the holiness of God.
And so God sends an angel with a coal to touch the lips of Isaiah,
the prophet, to atone for his sin.
And once his sin has been atoned for the wrath of God, satisfied, then
Isaiah can stand in the presence of God and say, here I am Lord.
Send me.
I want to be set apart for you.
I wanna be holy to be useful for you.
Church, we like Isaiah, needed our sin to be atoned for if we were going to be
able to be holy, to be useful to the Lord.
This goes back to our first point about being adopted by him.
That's why this is the means.
That's why that's the foundation of our holiness, because we had to have our
syn tone for if we were gonna be set apart, to be able to have any sort of
holiness in our lives at all whatsoever.
And so if you have had your sin atoned for, then the
call on your life is be holy.
As he is holy.
But then we have to ask the question, has God called us to
something that he hasn't enabled us or equipped us to be able to do?
This is where Romans chapter six comes into play.
In Romans chapter six, verses 10, down through verse 14, it says
this, for the death, he died.
He died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Speaking of Jesus.
And then Paul writes this, so you also must consider yourselves dead to
sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Yes, let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,
but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from
death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
And he goes on and says, for sin will have no dominion over you since you
are not under law, but under grace.
What Paul is saying here is you have a choice whether or
not you are going to sin Now.
In Christ because he has set you free from the the dominion of sin, because in
Christ, the cross has paid the penalty and you are no longer a slave to sin.
You have a choice now of saying, am I going to pursue holiness
or am I going to give into sin?
So that means every time we give into sin, we are willingly picking up that
old slave yoke and putting it back on our neck, even though Christ broke it from us.
And so God has called you to something that you are in Christ able to do.
This is what Paul means when he calls us to work out our salvation with
fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who works in us both to will
and to work for his good pleasure.
This is what we refer to as a synergistic relationship.
Your salvation coming to faith in Jesus.
That is what's known as a monistic act.
Mano meaning ones and, and then in nega in the Greek energy or action.
So only God acts there.
He saves you.
He alone.
Your sanctification is synergistic.
Okay.
Your, your growth in Christ's likeness involves God equipping
you and enabling you through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
That's part of the adoption privileges that we talked about earlier.
To now be able to live a life of godliness and holiness, such that
when you face temptation, you have a choice to say no and not sin.
So when the thousand pound gorilla that is temptation is sitting on your
chest in Christ, if you are gonna believe the word of God to be true.
Through the spirit, you can say no to the lust.
You can say no to that angry outburst.
You can say no to the, to the, the greed and the cove covetousness, the
slander, the gossip, the immorality.
See in, in Christ, you've been put into a position where the command to
be holy like God is holy is possible.
Now, we are not perfectionists here, right?
Meaning what we, we don't believe that it's.
Possible to, to live a perfect life here on Earth.
That we won't be free from the presence of sin until we go to be with Jesus.
But that's too often been used as an excuse for why we're
okay with sin in our lives.
It, it may need, may not, not be about perfection, but it is about direction.
It's about what we're doing with our life on an on a daily basis.
Am I living my life to say I want to be holy today as he is?
Holy 'cause that's what he's called me to be.
You think about fighting sin and all the resources that we have against that.
Fleeing is one of them.
As Paul told Timothy, flee from these things, right?
You gotta flee, flee, run.
Get out of there.
Scripture memory.
How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your word?
I've treasured up your word in my heart that I may not sin against you.
Accountability.
And we, we haven't talked about it in a minute, but, but community
groups, that's why we stress community so much in our church right now.
This life is, is not meant to be lived in isolation from your
brothers and sisters in Christ.
You need relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ who know you
and you need to know them so that they can speak truth in your life.
They can call you to holiness.
They can help you pursue holiness.
Accountability, confession is another way we battle sin.
When we bring sin to the light and agree with God that yes, this
is sin and I need to put it off,
cultivation of a hatred for your sin, cultivating a desire for
righteousness, meditating on the cross, and the cost of forgiveness.
These are all ways that we can battle sin, but maybe you're tempted to say,
okay, but how much holiness is enough?
Holiness?
When can I say it's, it's enough?
Well, that's where that last part, and, and Peter answers that question
for us when he says, what, in all your conduct, in all your conduct,
I, I want you to think for a minute.
If you've ever seen an ultrasound of a baby, maybe you've gone to
an anatomy scan of your own child.
I want you to imagine being in the room and the, the doctor is doing
the, the anatomy scan here and he's going every over everything and he, he
shows you all the, the major parts and stuff and, and he sees those things
and he says, these are all good.
And then he looks at you, goes, and the rest of 'em is good enough.
I'm sorry.
Come again.
What?
The rest of 'em is good enough.
He'll be good enough.
There's not a parent in the world that would stand for that, that
would be satisfied by that answer.
What do you mean good enough?
Unpack this for me, doc, because that parent wants to hear your, your
child's good, your child's healthy.
Everything's functional, just like it should be.
Why would we think that our heavenly father would look at us
and settle for us being good enough?
Why would we think that he would look at us and be like, you're, you're,
you're close enough, that pet sin that you have, I'm good with it.
There's no way he would.
Right?
Thomas Watson, the Puritan writer said this, sin is of an encroaching nature.
Sin is of an encroaching nature.
It creeps on the soul by degrees, step by step till it has the
soul to the very height of sin.
That's why we have to be after sin everywhere that we see it in our life.
That's why Peter is saying, be holy in all your conduct.
Sin is a cancer.
And we don't want it mostly managed.
We want it totally eradicated.
And again, that has to be our aim every single day.
We cannot settle for the culture that says, I'm a Christian and I cuss a little.
That is a lie from the pit of hell that that's okay.
Your heavenly father wants your complete devotion, wants your complete holiness.
My wife and I, we, we just watched.
This kind of follow up on, on The Biggest Loser.
I don't know if you guys ever watched The Biggest Loser Back when
it was still on TV and considered.
Okay.
Um, we used to watch the show too, and, and when we were watching the
show, there was always a, a point in time where one of the contestants
would be allowed to go home from the, the ranch as they called it.
And everybody was always there.
There were mixed emotions.
It was bittersweet.
You wanted to go home to see your family, but you knew as soon as you
left the ranch, the safety of the ranch, and you stepped foot back at, at home.
Then you had your pantry at home and, and, and when you were pulling into
your neighborhood, you had to drive by the McDonald's on your street.
By the way, y'all, there's two McDonald's on either side of my house.
They put two mc like the enemies after me so you guys can be praying for me.
You have to drive by on the ranch.
You don't have any of that.
You go home.
The temptation's there.
You.
You know the contestants that showed up back at the ranch and managed
to have still lost weight are the ones that knew the danger that
was represented by those calories.
Even though it might taste good in the moment, even though that that Big Mac
and those large fries and that diet Dr.
Pepper, 'cause you might as well get a diet Dr.
Pepper if you're gonna eat a Big Mac and a large fries, right covers for it.
Even though that tastes good, the ones that survived knew the damage that that
would do when they got back to the ranch.
That has to be how we understand sin.
Y'all in some ways, this is the ranch.
Sunday morning we show up here, we get motivated.
We're like, yeah, I, amen.
I gotta go after my sin in my life.
I gotta be holy.
I agree with you.
We've sing, sing these songs together.
We do this.
I'm around my brothers and sisters in Christ.
I wanna just get outta here and, and let me go after it and let me fight sin.
And then we, we leave and we drive by the McDonald's, so to
speak, spiritually speaking.
And we gotta look at that McDonald's and say, it's not worth it.
In our community group this past week, one of our, our, our guys was, was talking
to us and he told a story that another pastor had told, so this isn't mine.
I, he, it comes second, third, fourth person.
I don't even know.
Anyways, he told the story of a guy that had been caught in an affair and the guy
came forward and they were talking to him and they said, when did it start?
And the guy said, well, um, and they were all expecting him to say,
you know, it started at this, this conference that I went to, or it
started at this restaurant where I was.
He said, well, no, it did start at a restaurant.
It started a restaurant when I asked for a, a cup for water and
instead of getting water, I got soda.
What he meant is that's where compromise first crept in.
And once he started to compromise there, every other compromise in his
life became easier and easier, and easier and easier until he betrayed the
one that he had pledged his life to.
Earthly speaking more than anybody else.
That's how we have to understand sin and threat that it is in our life.
And that's why Peter is saying, in all of your conduct, be holy
JC Riel theologian in 18 hundreds, who, who writes in such a way that
he could have written to us today.
Pastor as well.
He, he writes this, he says, if there's any point.
If there's any point on which God's holiest saints agree it's this, that they
see more and know more, and feel more and do more, and repent more and believe
more as they get on in spiritual life.
This is why there's not an answer to when am I holy enough?
Because as fallen human beings, the closer we get to God and holiness,
the more sin we will see in our lives.
The more of it we'll see in the nooks and crannies of our life.
And the more we're going say, I, I, I want to repent more like Ry is saying
here, I wanna know more of God's holiness.
I wanna understand more of my depravity so I can see less of
it in my life, and repent and get rid of it more and more and more.
Man, I've been thinking about this all week long.
Y'all
start seeking full life holiness, and you'll start realizing
how much sin does exist in the nooks and crannies of your life.
Maybe you're fighting the big ticket items in your life, but then all of
a sudden when someone drives like they're the only person on the face
of the earth, in the new HEB parking lot, you realize, oh man, my pride
just reared its ugly head, didn't it?
Or when the rangers lose another game and your sinful idolatry shows up,
or when I have plans for how I want my Saturday morning to go only to
realize that, man, my kids have soccer games and basketball games,
and there all of a sudden is my sinful selfishness coming out.
Or when something at work doesn't go my way and then there's my impatience.
That's life.
As a follower of Jesus, if you've been there, if you see
that, that's a grace of God.
Even as Pastor Rod we, we were singing that song earlier about the mercy of God.
That's there such a good thing to have the mercy of God available to us.
That we can come, we can confess our sins and we can receive that forgiveness from.
In each of those re scenarios I mentioned the right response is repentance, and
that's why Riel says part of growing and holiness is repenting more.
Okay.
So maybe it's not impossible, but it definitely seems hard and it is.
But just because it's hard and just because it reveals more and more sin
in our lives doesn't mean it's not good for us, but it's good for us.
Maybe not for the reasons that you might be assuming.
We've talked about the the means, we've talked about the method.
What's left here is the motivation for us.
Why should I want to pursue this holiness after all, I I.
If I'm in Christ, truly, if I've been adopted, if it's done, if it's signed,
sealed, and delivered, sins are forgiven.
Past, present, future.
What's my motivation to pursue this holiness?
Look at verse 16.
Peter says, since it's written, you shall be holy for I'm holy.
You shall be holy for I'm holy.
This is a quote from Leviticus chapter 11, verses 44 and 45.
It says, 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 outta the land of Egypt to be your
God, you shall therefore be holy.
For I am holy.
Peter is not saying that our motivation is because the Bible says so, but honestly
y'all, I've read it that way for so long.
I've read it like, well, I'm supposed to be holy since it's written.
You shall be holy for I'm holy.
The Bible says, be holy, so go be holy, and that that is such a
soul crushing message to deliver.
Yes, the Bible says, be holy.
Yes, we should be obedient to what the word of God calls us to.
We have to understand why the Bible says be holy in the first place.
What God is saying here, for I am the Lord your God, I am Yahweh.
That's his covenant name, y'all.
That's his name of relationship, that that's the name that
he revealed to Israel.
When, when Moses said, who should I say is sending me to them?
God said, tell them Yahweh I am is sending them.
This is his name.
That said, I want a relationship with you.
And so in the Old Testament when, when God shows up, and this is the first time
in the Old Testament, first time in the Bible, that God says, you shall be holy.
The precedent was established in the garden.
He told Adam and Eve, Eve be holy by not eating these trees.
Even though he didn't say Be holy with Exodus 20, he said, be holy by
keeping all of these commandments, even though he didn't say be holy.
But this is the first time that he said be holy.
And he says it in the context of relationship.
He said, I am the Lord your God.
I brought you out of Egypt to be my people.
I wanna be your God.
And here's the thing, if God was gonna be able to be their God, they had to be holy.
And so the holiness of God and the holiness that God wants from
us is all about the fact that he wants a relationship with us.
And the key to a relationship with God is holiness.
And so our motivation is not do this because the Bible says so.
Our motivation is not do this just to be different from the world.
Our motivation is because God wants a relationship with us, and the bread
and butter of that relationship, the key to that relationship is holiness.
I'll unpack that in more in just a second, but third point is this,
desire holiness because you desire God, desire holiness because you desire God.
What you do with your sin reveals a lot about how much you desire God.
Maybe this is making you uncomfortable.
You say, well, the bread and butter of my relationship with God is, is
holiness, but it's Jesus's holiness.
Yes.
From a a, the point of view of your justification, your righteousness
is Christ's righteousness.
This is not desire holiness because you desire to be saved by God.
Okay.
This is if you've been saved by God, if, if that relationship is
intact, remember that's the means.
And, and, and then you're, you're looking at the method going,
why should I pursue the method?
Because you want to, to be with him.
You desire more of him.
You don't want to be closer to him.
Your holiness when it comes to your standing eternally
is, is Christ's righteousness.
That's settled.
Your holiness when it comes to your daily relationship with God.
That's what can be in flux.
That's what we need to focus on.
You want closer, a, a closer walk with Christ.
You need more holiness in your life and less sin in your life.
In the Old Testament, God gave them the law in order to say,
this is what holiness looks like.
Why?
Because he wanted a closeness with his people.
Well, that didn't last very long, did it before the grumbling and the complaining
and the rebellion and the disobedience.
So what did God also provided?
He provided sacrifices, didn't he?
And those sacrifices were meant to show the people that the penalty
of their sin is death, and that there needed to be a life given in
order to atone for their sins, in order to have their sins forgiven.
Well, the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament picks up on this theme and
says, look, the, the law, he says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse one, the law
was just a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form.
It.
The law can never by the same sacrifices that are continually
offered every year make perfect.
Those who draw near, otherwise they would've ceased to be offered.
But in these sacrifices, he says there's a reminder of sins every year
for it's impossible for the blood of bulls and ghosts to take away sins.
So God was indicating that there was a greater sacrifice to come that
was gonna be necessary for what?
For them to have a relationship with him.
And so that greater sacrifice was gonna be realized through
the death of Jesus Christ.
Verse 11 of Hebrews chapter 10.
He goes on, he says, every priest stands daily at a service offering repeatedly
the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, what we just talked about.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat
down at the right hand of God waiting.
From that time until his enemy should be made a footstool for his
feet, for by a single offering, he is perfected for all time.
Those who are, notice this language being sanctified.
That last sentence is what we're talking about both at the same time.
Christ has at the, the same time, perfected for all time, once for all.
You are made perfect in Jesus.
Okay?
Those who are being sanctified, you are in the process of being
made more like him all the while.
That process of being made more like him.
Y'all, here's all I'm trying to get you to understand and get us to wrap our
minds around, is this, your motivation is not just because the pastor said
so or because the Bible says so.
Your motivation in pursuing holiness tomorrow morning is because
you want to be closer to God.
You want to feel a greater intimacy with him.
You want to know him more deeply than you do right now.
I'm sure if you have a pulse and you are in Christ, that you've
gone through a season where you have felt like God is distant.
You've gone through a season where you feel like, man, my
faith feels sterile, it feels dry.
I feel like I'm just going through the motions right now.
Yeah.
I'm showing up at church, but I, I just, I'm not, I'm not
leaving with the warm fuzzies.
So often those season are, are caused because we've got
sins somewhere in our life.
We've got a pocket of our conduct.
If I can go back to verse 15, that we are not seeking God's holiness in.
We've got something that we're holding back from God saying, God, you can have
me in all of these areas, but you can't have this because I, I love it too much.
And what we'll find is when we bring those things to the light into confession,
when we repent from those things, when we yield those things, when we let
go, when we surrender that area of our life, we will find that that intimacy
that we've been missing with the Lord, that's what comes flooding back to us.
Holiness breeds intimacy with God.
Holiness breeds relationship, fellowship, closeness with him.
And so if you desire that
as he's holy, so you be holy in all your conduct.
That's why that's the motivation.
The motivation is not because the Bible tells me so.
It does.
And yes, we need to believe and we need to obey the word of God.
But if your motivation stops that, because the Bible tells
me so you're gonna crash out,
it has to be connected to that relationship that we started to
talk about in point number one.
It has to be because you want to be closer to your heavenly Father.
You want to feel that closeness.
You want to know that closeness.
You want to experience that closeness.
That's the motivation.
Desire holiness because you desire God.
God desires your holiness because he desires you.
If the father hadn't first adopted us,
none of the rest of this matters this morning.
And, and lemme just tell you bluntly, if you're not a Christian this morning,
this message in many ways wasn't for you
because you can't be holy.
In your current state,
you need first God to adopt you, to make you his son or daughter.
And the good news is this morning, he is willing to do that
if you'll repent from your sins, which means to turn from them to be done with
that and to say, Lord I, I wanna surrender my life in complete faith to you.
You will say, I wanna repent from my sins and I wanna trust that Jesus Christ
died on the cross for my sins so that I can be forgiven and rose against
so that I can live with him forever.
That's the transaction that takes place, that takes you from being a
child of wrath to a child of God.
Now, this message was really for those that are sons and daughters of God here.
'cause that's the means that makes the method possible that's under good.
Or by her motivation to say, I want to be closer to him.
The father made it possible, brought us in, made us sons and daughters
at such an immense cost to himself.
Think about that so much.
Did God want a desire, want a relationship with you that he
sent his son to die in your place?
That's how much.
That's how much he loves you.
That's much.
He cares about you.
It's much he wants you to be holy.
He provided the very foundation of that relationship through sending Jesus to die
on the cross for you and for your sins.
And, and that's what we turn to remember right now.
Together we're about to take communion together as these elements are gonna
be passed here, it, it's good for you to remember this sacrifice, to
reflect on this sacrifice and to think about how much this means in light
of your relationship with the father.
Again, we're not holy because we want to be adopted.
God has adopted us.
He's paid the penalty.
He's made the, the everything done through the cross that
we're about to remember together.
Now it's about how do we respond to that And so hold these elements,
reflect on these elements.
Think about the cost that God paid to make you his son or daughter,
and what that means for our life as we live in response to him and draw
closer to him with our very lives.
The elements will pass.
I'll come back up.
We'll take them together in just a moment.