An Outline of Peter's Epistle

To remain standing, I'll read the text. 1 Peter 1, I'm going to start in verse 15. 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 feudal ways inherited from your 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.

That was the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Last week, Brother Andrew covered the verses preceding, 13 through 16, and one of the main points that we were hearing about last week was the phrase, You shall be holy, for I am holy. And this is a quote from the Old Testament. When you're in the Bible, and you are reading the Bible, when you see this phrase, since it is written, or for it is written, or just it is written, that phrase might not seem significant if you just read it without Bible glasses on.

But that phrase usually is referring to the fact that the New Testament author is actually quoting the Old Testament scriptures. So when Peter is writing this letter, he says, since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy, what that means is that there's a place in the Old Testament where that was written. And Peter is quoting it for his New Testament believers.

So if that's something as you're reading, especially maybe as some of the younger people, it will help to show you how the New Testament and the Old Testament really work together so well the New Testament wasn't just some new book that some apostles wrote because nobody understood the Old One the New Testament was written to comment on what the Old Testament had always concealed but revealed through shadows and types and so the Bible tells us to be holy because God is holy and that phrase is very easy to say. I'll say that there is a sense that it's impossible to actually do. The only reason why any of us could be considered holy is because Jesus Christ lived a holy life on our behalf.

But having said that, it is real that God is commanding us to be holy. It's not just a, hey, be holy for I am holy and oh you failed so Jesus did it for you now don't worry about that anymore it's still a valid thing for God to tell us but what's almost as difficult as doing it maybe not almost because it's impossible but one of the things that's also difficult is defining what that means we could go out on the street we could go on the internet which would be an even broader range and we could ask dozens of people, what does it mean to be holy? And even within Christianity, we're going to get a whole bunch of different answers.

If we go outside Christianity, we're going to get even more different answers. People who are not Christians still use that word. I remember before I was a Christian, there was a movie, I'm not telling you to go watch it, but there was a movie called Holy Man. and I remember it was about a guy he was kind of a Gandhi figure Zeddy Murphy, it was kind of a comedy it probably had a bunch of inappropriate things so I'm not recommending you see it because I saw it before I was a Christian but I was a non-Christian I thought it was a neat movie and I remember being inspired by this guy who was supposed to be holy and what was defined as holy in that movie was he was basically very kind all the time He never got angry.

He didn't eat a lot of food. And he lived a simple life. He wasn't materialistic. So even the non-believers around you have definitions of what holiness is. Something inside every one of us is actually desiring holiness because I think something inside every one of us knows we need salvation from something. The problem is we all have a real backwards way of defining what it means. our barometer for what's actually holy is often wrong.

And that's why within Christianity, you're going to get all sorts of sects, S-E-C-T-S, and maybe even cults, where people have different definitions of what's holy. We could probably find a church within a few miles of here, where if one of you ladies walked in wearing pants, you would be considered unholy. because somebody has made the rule that women should not wear pants. And that's their definition of holiness.

There's probably places where we could go where if some like I'm preaching without a jacket. There's probably places that would reject this. I'm not preaching from the King James. There's people that would call that unholy. So even within Christianity, there's a lot of definitions of holiness. And so what I want to try to do today is two things.

I actually want to try to do seven. But I'm going to try to do two of them. And so if there I probably need a lot of improvement in my preaching but there one area I really want to improve It actually just knowing exactly what I have time to do sometimes Because I get so excited about all the things and then I don have time to do them all But I want to do two things.

One, I want to look at how Peter, I think, somewhat beginning around the phrase, You shall be holy, for I am holy, basically provides... For the rest of the book of Peter, I'm going to tell you, I think it's just an outline. It's just a working out of that phrase. This is why I'm not going to go through every word in each verse like I did for the first few verses.

We kind of spent a lot of time on verse 1, I think. It was almost three weeks. And now this week, I've got this five verses listed that we're going to get through. And one of the reasons is because I'm not going to repeat all the same things we already talked about. because Peter's repeating the same things. But I want to outline the book of Peter a little bit for you and show you how the rest of the book of Peter is really Peter implementing the command, be holy.

It's Peter telling you and you and you and you and me, this is how you fulfill God's command to be holy within the context of, in particular, of being a Christian who's suffering. And we're going to suffer because the master suffered and the servant is not better than the master. And people are far more likely, I think, to sin during suffering than not to.

I think we often just end up sinning in our hearts through complaining and depression and being faithless rather than the external sins that we usually indulge in when we have things like affluence. So when you have lots of money, there's more different ways to sin externally. But sometimes when you're broke and suffering, you're just as wretched of a sinner in God's eyes in your heart.

The second thing I want to do is I want to try to define what holiness is on a very general level from the words of the Bible. I may come up with an illustration or two to help us understand in our context. But what I want to do is I want to show you what the Bible words are that describe holiness and unholiness. And to some extent, you need to be able to apply those in your own life. if the Bible says that you're to be holy you need to know what that means I'm not going to be next to you every day of the week when you have to make a decision of what's the right behavior or not and even if I was I'd probably screw it up for you it'd probably be bad what you need is you need to have the Holy Spirit working in your heart helping you to understand what His word says that He wrote so that you can implement it in a way so that you can actually understand what is choosing to be holy in any given situation.

And God has promised that that's possible. I'm not telling you anything about perfection or sinless perfection here, but I'm saying that God has promised that His Spirit will be with you. He has promised that there will be victory over sin in our lives, power over sin, and that He always makes a way of escape from every temptation. so 1st Peter if you're taking notes this is the outline I want to give you chapter 1 in verses 15 and 16 Peter says but as he who called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct so he's saying imitate the Father you can find this phrase in 1st Corinthians 11.1 you can find it in Ephesians 5.1 he's basically telling you imitate God You're being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, our elder brother.

And so imitate him. Be holy because he is holy. So first, in verse 17, and this is just the outline. In verse 17 it says, and if you call on him as father. So that verse starts with, and if you call on him as father. Peter is predicating all that we're going to do in this life, all that he is going to tell us that we ought to do as part of the church, as part of the people of God, as Christians, he's predicating it upon the fact that God is your Father.

Are you adopted? Have you been adopted by God? Are you a child of God? In the book of John chapter 1, if you want to turn there, in fact, I think this is the verse that Mary wanted to do. No, you wanted to do John 1.9, which comes a little bit before. Oh, you're going to do 1 John 1.9.

That's a good verse too. But in John chapter 1, John says, in verse 11, He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. He says, But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name. So it's talking about salvation. It's talking about faith. He says, He gave the right to become children of God. and later John says, see what kind of love the Father has given us, right?

God as your Father is an extremely important doctrine. The doctrine of adoption as children teaches us a number of things. One of them is that God loves us. God adopting us and calling us His Father is not meant for you to conjure images of your father. I want you to understand. Some of you in here have really great fathers.

Some of you in here have mediocre fathers. Some of us need that shirt that says, okay as a dad ever. Some of us are just average guys. Some of you had terrible fathers, maybe. Maybe you had absent fathers. No, you do not have an absent father, just to correct that real quick.

But some of you might. But the point of God being your father is not for you to think about your father and then to think well God somehow like that The point is to actually paint the picture that God sees you the way he sees his only son That's the point. The connection that God the Father has with his son that is inseparable, that is perfectly loving, that is forever, is the connection that God has with all those whom he adopts.

That's the point of it. Because one of the greatest travesties of this God is our father doctrine that people have perpetuated is they talk to people who had terrible earthly fathers. They tell them, well, God can be your father. And then the person thinks, well, I don't need another one. They didn't like the one they got. Maybe they had a bad father.

I mean, there's people that have really bad dads. And so it's not meant to conjure that image. It's meant to remind you of the precious relationship that God has towards you because of his love for his son. and if you're found in his son then he has the same relationship with you God sees you as if you did all the righteous deeds that Jesus did and God sees you as if you had never once sinned if you're found in his son it's that simple, he says this is my son in whom I am well pleased the second aspect of God being your father that I want you to think about and this is particularly for some of you boys and girls in here who God has not adopted you yet in time is to remind you and remind believers that you were not always God's child.

Adoption implies that there was a point in time that you were not God's child. You were an illegitimate child in one sense, or as it's put in John chapter 8, you're actually of your father the devil. And it should humble us to remember that there was a time in our lives that we were not yet God's children. And so we should be excited about being adopted by God.

So the first concept in the outline of what I think Peter's laying out for us is that we have to be adopted. We have to call on God as Father in order to heed the command to be holy as he is holy. The second thing that Peter mentions that I want to point out, He says, if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds.

So there's a reference to the fact that God's a perfectly righteous judge. I just want to point that out. He says, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. So the second aspect of how you're going to live out being holy as he is holy is that you have to have fear. And now fear is a really interesting word because fear conjures a lot of ideas. if somebody walked in here right now with a weapon, I think that we'd all be afraid.

If you went out to drive home and there was even just really bad weather, you could be afraid. It doesn't have to be that bad. Just some rainy weather and a guy driving a little bit weird next to you can scare you. If one of you gets caught doing something wrong and mom or dad gets a strap, that could cause fear, should cause fear. If it doesn't, you're not being disciplined well.

It's not necessarily your parents' fault either. It might be your fault. Hard heart. There's lots of things we can fear. I could fear a tiger. That tiger would hurt me.

I don't like bugs. Maybe I'm afraid of them. I don't know. We can fear a lot of things. We can fear the suffering and persecution that is ahead in the world. So you might read Peter and think, well, Peter's trying to prepare people for suffering.

And I heard that this book is about suffering. So maybe we're supposed to fear suffering. But I don't think that's what Peter expects us to fear. Peter, remember, was what? What was he, a Jew or a Gentile? What's that?

Peter was a Jew, right? And Peter would have known the Old Testament Scriptures. And Peter, when he says, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile because your father judges impartially, I think he's referring to the fact that you need to fear Yahweh. You need to fear the Lord. and so you're going to have to acknowledge God as your father and that you're adopted in order to be holy you're going to have to fear God and we're going to go back to this because I'm never going to get through what I was going to do which was the summary if I just keep going into detail so the third thing we're going to do is we're going to remember that we're exiles knowing that you were ransomed oh he says conduct yourselves with fear we're still in verse 17 throughout the time of your exile So Peter, as a reminder, you were adopted by God into his family.

You are to fear God, and you're in exile. This is not your home. That is going to help you to be holy. It's going to help you to be holy as God is holy, remembering these things. The Bible basically does two things constantly. It gives you information to feed your mind, so that your mind will then control your actions, and then your actions will be based on the information they receive.

That's how everybody works. You watch a commercial, the commercial tells you you need a Snickers, so you go buy a Snickers. The information came, it came in, it changed your mind, you went and acted. That's pretty much what we all do. It's extremely rare that a person doesn't actually act according to their will. There's lots of philosophical debates about these things, but mostly people just do what they want, and they do what they believe they ought to do.

Some people's wills and some people's understandings are very confused, and it causes some bad actions. But ultimately what the Bible does is it says, here is how you ought to think. This is how your mind is renewed. By understanding what God has said. By just receiving the information. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, understanding information from God.

But a lot of it is just information. You need to believe this. You need to believe you're adopted. If you don't believe you're adopted, you're not going to act like you're adopted. You're not going to talk to other people as if they need to be adopted. So recognize you're adopted. fear the Lord recognize this is not your home And then the next point in the outline knowing verse 18 of 1 Peter 1 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your 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.

The next point in the outline, for you to be able to be holy, you need to be of the understanding that God is your father you need to fear God you need to recognize this is not your home and you need to recognize and understand and take to heart that you were not bought with perishable things but you were bought with the price the very blood of the Son of God that you had to be ransomed that there was a price paid so that your soul could live because the soul that sins shall die people who are of the form of Christianity that exists today and is prevalent all around us right now people who are of this form of Christianity that denies this doctrine called penal substitutionary atonement people who deny that Jesus literally had to suffer in the place of them these aren't Christians but they call themselves Christians People who deny that have no power to live holy lives. They have no motivation to live a holy life. They may actually think that God adopted them.

They may go ahead and think that. They may actually think there's some concept of fearing God because God's powerful or something. They may actually think that they have a home someday in heaven. They may have three of the things I've already mentioned. But if they don't actually believe that their life was bought with the price of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, they have no hope and they have no power.

And then finally, Peter says, well, in verse 18 still, knowing you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. So the final thing is to recognize two things, that Jesus Christ bought you with a price, and that repentance, for you to turn to Jesus Christ in repentance, That's the fancy Bible word we use when people are getting saved. We say that they need to repent.

That word implies that you turn away from something and turn to something else. For you to repent, you must turn away from something. A lot of people will tell you that you can have Jesus and you just add Jesus to your life. Your life's okay how it is. You're a pretty good person or you're not that bad. Just add Jesus. and that works with most of the religions of the world that aren't monotheistic you talk to any Hindu you talk to anybody that is part of a polytheistic many gods, polytheism is many gods you talk to anybody that's part of a polytheistic religion and tell them about Jesus, they'll say sounds great I'll add them to my list of gods they have no problem having more gods and so we need to recognize that we were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers.

We were pulled away from something in order to be pulled into Christ. In order to be adopted into one family, you had to leave another family. I adopted somebody. I don't know if you know this. I adopted a little girl. And one of the things that we had to do when I adopted this little girl is we had to actually show documentation to the court that proved that she didn't have another dad.

Because the man who technically was her biological father was still alive. And in theory, he had some parental right. And I had to prove that he had failed in his parental right so that they could legally change her from being his daughter legally, which she was, to my daughter legally. You have to leave one family in order to join another. This is one of the reasons why we leave and cleave with our wives.

You can't have two. And so for you to leave where you were to come to the new place, you have to have changes. You have to understand that there's a difference. And so what we're going to talk about, and this is probably going to take two sermons here, is we're going to talk about some of the things that the world and our former religion offers us. that we have to turn from in order to show that we're trying to be Christian.

And for different people, it might look different. For some people, it means abandoning the golf course. I'll just pick an example. Maybe while you were a non-Christian, you golfed way too much, and you almost worshipped it. It's where you found your satisfaction. It's where you found your worship.

I was trying to pick an example I didn't think anybody in here had. So if this is you, I'm not picking on anyone here. But when you got saved, you had to realize, wow, I worship this. I have to turn from this entirely. Maybe you quit golf entirely. But somebody else might be able to still golf after being a Christian.

In fact, they may do it with a lot of joy for the Lord and evangelize while they do it. So some of us are going to have different feudal ways inherited from our forefathers that we have to turn from. some of us have different things we have to take a stronger stance against there's people who won't there's people who won't drink alcohol because of the way they treated alcohol before they became Christians even though there's other Christians who enjoy alcohol to the glory of God as a good gift from God so we all have some different implementations of holiness that are going to help us and then we also have some objective general things that we all need to understand but I will say this being counter cultural is not the same as being godly But being godly is always going to be counter-cultural. Unless you're in the kingdom of heaven, in which case the culture will be godly.

Which that should be what we look forward to, right? Okay, so looking at 1 Peter. Peter says, The precious blood of Christ is what saves you, not false sacrifices, not your self-discipline, not shedding of your own blood, not your children's blood. Look at Micah 6. Turn to Micah. This is a really neat little passage I want to share with you.

Since I've now decided I'm throwing half of this in the next week, I can just jump around at this point. some of it some of it I don't want to go into the details of that I want to go into details of so I'll do it next week listen to Micah chapter 6 though and actually the people who wrote the ESV right above verse 6 it says what does the Lord require listen it says with what shall I come before Yahweh and bow myself before God on high shall I come before him with burnt offerings with calves a year old? So here the guy's asking, what should I offer to God? Micah 6.6 What should I offer to God so that I can be pleasing to Him?

What can I sacrifice to God so that He can overlook my sin? This is His will. Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams with ten thousands of rivers of oil? So basically if I could just sacrifice everything in the world. I mean, the richest guy on earth. He sacrificed all that he could have.

All the precious silver and gold that he has. Would Yahweh be happy with that? And then listen to what he says in the second part of verse 7. Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions? For my transgressions. The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.

So he's asking this rhetorical question. what if I sacrifice my own kid my firstborn my joy the gift that God has given me what does God say he has told you oh man what is good and what does Yahweh require of you but do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God God is not interested in our petty sacrifices if you could give away all that you have, deliver up your body to be burned, it doesn't add anything to God. It was all His anyway. Every ram on earth, your firstborn child.

And yet we have an entire culture of people in the United States that are giving up their own children. And I don't think in their minds they think they're offering their child to God, but they're offering the child to their God. And in many cases, they're atoning for their sin. Their sin was sexual immorality. The atonement is, let's clean up the product of that.

And so we have an entire nation of people that on a regular basis are just murdering children, giving up their children. That is not what God requires. God sent the sacrifice Himself. He provided the sacrifice. Because you don't have anything worth sacrificing to God. it's as if you're so dirty that anything you touch is made dirty. So even if I gave you a perfect sacrifice, even if I could hand you a perfect sacrifice and say, here, go give this to God, the moment you touched it, you ruined it.

That's how dirty you are. God sent the sacrifice, the precious blood of Christ. And because of His precious blood, You now have hope, though. So now you can offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God. That's what Peter says in chapter 2. So let's look at what Peter thinks is the outworking of our holiness.

So in 1 Peter chapter 2, we're going to just kind of skim through 1 Peter. Hopefully you're reading 1 Peter on a semi-regular basis since we started going through it. you should be understanding what it says on your own you should be checking the things you hear on Sunday in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 I think this is one of the first places where Peter gives us some indication of how to be holy as he is holy he says so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander put them away malice that's hating someone in your heart wanting ill to happen to them deceit, lying hypocrisy basically judging others for things you do wrong envy wanting things that are other people's and not yours good gifts God's given other people and wanting them instead of that person having them slander, speaking ill of someone, lying about them. In verse 3, Peter says to do this, the longing for the milk of the word of God.

He says, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Your assignment for the week, along with all the other things I tell you to do, like memorize Psalm 1 verses and sing songs. An assignment for you would be to read through 1 Peter chapter 3 a few times and read Psalm 34 a few times That prepare you for next week Because Peter draws on Psalm 34 a bunch And if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good, that's Psalm 34, verse 8.

And then Peter's going to quote a bunch more of Psalm 34. 1 Peter 2, verse 13, we have another command. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. And so what I want you to avoid is the fortune cookie reading of the Bible. Where every verse is just some new thing God said that's unrelated to the previous verses, the subsequent verses, the rest of the Scripture.

Here's a joke where we say we have to read Scripture in context, and some of us say, well, that means you need to read the whole Bible all the time. Because the whole Bible is the context of Scripture, though. But I do believe when Peter says, put away all malice, he's telling you how to be holy as God is holy. When Peter says be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution in verse 13 he's telling you how to be holy as God is holy.

In verse 18 when Peter says servants be subject to your masters with all respect Peter is telling us how to be holy as God is holy. And in these little sections where I'm skipping a few verses we're going to see Peter work out the details of some of these commands. We're going to see what it means to be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution.

Lord willing, we're going to see it. We're going to see what it means for servants to be subject to your masters. Verse 3, chapter 1. Peter says, likewise. Likewise is a connecting word. One of the worst things that has happened to us, I think, is the chapter divisions that God graciously put into the Bible so that we could find things quickly.

So instead of me trying to tell you how to find this word, I can just tell you 1 Peter 3.1, and you can go to it. But sometimes the chapter divisions create a break in our mind that wasn't meant to be there when the man wrote the letter and when the Holy Spirit inspired it. There's no break here. It's not like when we read a lot of chapter books where there's a new topic all of a sudden in the next chapter.

That's not how the Bible was written. It's not how it was intended to be understood. It helps us be able to read three chapters a day so we can read the whole Bible in a year and some of those kinds of things. It helps us find it. When I say I've memorized 1 Peter 3, chapter 1, well, somebody else knows what I mean by that, so that's good. But I want you to get out of the mindset that when you get to chapter 3, we've somehow changed gears.

Peter is continuing the same thought process. So when he says, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, that's a continuation of the command to be holy as he is holy. He's just giving you a specific instance of how to be holy. Because telling you to be holy just won't help you. It's not enough. You don't know what holiness is.

You need the revelation of God to even tell you what holiness looks like. That's how unholy we are. We can't even conjure it. our minds can't fathom holiness. We need it revealed to us. 1 Peter 3, chapter 7, Peter continues to do the same thing. He does it in 8 and 9 and 10 through 12, so I'll read them.

Likewise, husbands. So first he tells wives how to be holy. And he says, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, so that your prayers may not be hindered. He tells husbands, this is how you be holy, as I am holy. as God is holy. Peter tells all of you, in verse 8, he says, finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

So he tells everybody, hey, hey everybody, I'm not just talking to wives how you're supposed to act, which is distinct from how servants are supposed to act, which is distinct from how men are supposed to act, which was distinct about how we're acting as citizens. Now all of you, do these things, and if you look at unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind, you'll find that they're almost the exact opposites of 1 Peter 2 verse 1. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander.

Peter's telling us exactly how we can be holy. So I'll say this, I'll say it's simple, but it's not easy. It's simple to know, okay, I shouldn't be envious. It's not always easy. because we still live in our corrupt flesh. Amen. But Peter tells us how to do it so that we'll know what it means.

So we'll recognize unholiness in ourselves and in others when we see it. And then as the church, we can pray for one another and help one another. Verse 8. I did verse 8. Verse 9. Peter says, Do not repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.

There's another command of how to be holy as God is holy. Verse 10 through 12 is a direct quote from Psalm 34. Peter quotes it. He says, For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil. So quit the malice, quit the slander. Keep your lips from speaking deceit.

Quit lying. Let them turn away from evil and do good. Fear Yahweh and turn away from evil. I love when you guys quote Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, but I really wish you'd just go all the way to 8. 5 and 6 is two great verses, and they get pulled out of context by people. I'm not saying you're doing it.

I want you to know 7. Proverbs 3, 7. do not be wise in your own eyes fear Yahweh and turn away from evil that how you trust in the Lord with all your heart and acknowledge Him in all your ways By fearing Him and not being wise in your own sight So there's your challenge, Jude. Get Proverbs 3.7 memorized, okay buddy? Add that to your repertoire. He says, seek peace and pursue it.

The eyes of Yahweh are on the righteous. His ears are open to their prayer. the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So we quote Psalm 34. More commands of how to be holy, but I don't want you to think of it as just a command. I want you to think of it as a grace of God to tell you what it actually means to be holy. So yeah, you're going to fail to do it at times.

We don't go and fail on purpose. But we also know we can strive for these things and that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our failures. That every time you fail to do what's been commanded of you, whether you're a man, a woman, a slave, a free person, or if you're one of the all of you, if you're one of the young people, later we'll see if you're one of the elders, whatever it is, Jesus did it for you.

But that doesn't mean you're not to strive for it. He did it for you so that you now have the chance to actually try to do it. You were ransomed. who do you pay a ransom to? You're a ransom. I mean, kidnappers get a ransom, right? Kidnappers take someone, they get a ransom.

You were saved from slavery to sin. You were saved from slavery to this world system, to the prince of the power of the air. You were saved from that so that you could do these things. You couldn't do these things before. you can be holy for a split second the best thing you ever did was tainted Jesus came and cleansed that so you could try to do it it's a joy for God to give us these commands they're not burdensome to those who love him I'm not saying they're not hard I'm not saying it's not a struggle sometimes but it's a joy it's a joy to know what's expected of you any guy in here that's a husband knows how difficult it is when somebody expects something from you and they don't communicate it sometimes we think being a mind reader is a prerequisite to being a good husband and I say that kind of chuckling but it's a joy to know what someone expects of you because then you actually can try to do it so God tells us, what grace don't look at God's law as burdensome God's law was powerless to save you from your sin it was only powerful to show you your sin and to show you your weakness when it comes to salvation but God's law is phenomenally awesome when it comes to the Christian life being able to edify you and strengthen you to understand things so that by God's grace you can actually fulfill it you can actually try to live a life that you enjoy pleasing God.

Chapter 4, we'll continue the outline. God tells us how to live. He talks a little bit about suffering at the end of 3, and there's some interesting stuff there. But then in 4 verse 3, He says, The time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do. Living in sensuality. A lot of people think of that word as like a sex word. but in the Bible a lot of times sensuality just refers to being totally titillated by your senses so concerned with what you can feel so concerned with just what you perceive instead of the objective truth of what God's word is so we don't want to live in that where every five minutes we might feel different so we believe something different about God and his truth and we believe something different about what holiness is because of how we feel so that's what Gentiles do he's saying non-Christians Non-Christians live in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

This is what you've been saved from. These are the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. These types of things. And so Peter tells us, the time to do those things, that's past. It's a new time. We're in the coming age. verse 7, Peter says, the end of all things is at hand.

We're in chapter 4. Therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded. Well, being self-controlled and sober-minded are a couple of ways that you be holy as God is holy. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. Sober-mindedness is required if you're going to do what I said earlier, which is for your mind to basically control your actions, you have to be sober-minded. and that's not just the same as not being drunk sober mindedness you can be drunk on anger did you know that? anger is intoxicating you're to be sober minded that's how you can be holy as God is holy you have to be able to think straight this is why we prepare ourselves this is why maybe seals and these guys this is why they train themselves in these extreme conditions where they don't eat for all these days and they're freezing and all these things and then people run in and they challenge them to do a million push-ups or whatever these guys...

I can't even talk about the things that they do to train these men, okay? And even women now, too, do some of it. I can't even say the words without sweating how hard they make these guys go through things. It's so that when they get to the actual trial, that the trial they face with the bad guys where they defending the lives of the innocent people and our soil that they ready for it So they sober because they already been through something worse than what they can even go through And some of us live such plushy lives that it's going to be pretty tough when things get challenging.

And it would be good for us to discipline ourselves, to challenge ourselves a little more once in a while. I think one of the reasons God commands us to fast as Christians is it teaches us some things while we fast that I can't explain to you while you're sitting there. You need to learn it yourself. So if the day comes that somebody takes away your food and challenges you, deny Christ.

Deny Christ after six days without food and we'll bring you some crackers so that you don't fall victim to that. Because we're going to succumb to our flesh if we don't challenge it a little bit with some self-control and a sober mind. Verse 8 of chapter 4, he says, Keep loving one another earnestly. That's a command. That's part of how you be holy. Loving the people of God.

Oh wait, it says keep loving the ones that are lovable earnestly. Sorry, missed that part. It doesn't say that, does it? Some kid should have shouted, that's not right, preacher. I would have been okay with that. I don't want to interrupt the service, but if I misquote God, you go ahead and tell me. it doesn't say love the lovable it says love one another earnestly show hospitality to one another use your gifts as good stewards of God's grace verse 10 in verse 12 he tells you don't be surprised at suffering I think that's one of the things that is kind of weird sometimes when people get persecuted for their faith and they act shocked like wait did you really not know that this is what would happen We're warned.

John tells us, do not be surprised. Peter tells us, do not be surprised. It's like a command, like, don't act shocked. Like, you might not like it. You might say, I don't like that I got arrested for preaching the gospel, or whatever bad thing might happen, but don't act shocked. When you act shocked, you actually betray to the world that you don't actually believe what God has warned you about.

You don't believe what God has said. Chapter 5, Peter says to elders, he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. he doesn't say shepherd the flock down the street he doesn't say shepherd the flock over the internet he says shepherd the flock of God that is among you and that's what we want to do and whoever's elders here is going to do that but even each other I think we have a responsibility to each other he tells the young people in 5 be subject to the elders and then he says clothe yourselves all of you with humility toward one another Peter in just a few verses here in a pretty short book only 105 verses just outlined for us in 20 minutes there more ways than we can even talk about for the next 20 weeks of how to be holy. Peter who knew Jesus intimately Peter who understood suffering Peter who is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this book for us who knows that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament writings about the Messiah Peter tells us how to be holy so I wanted to outline that so now when we read 1 Peter we can see how when you're in chapter 2 in chapter 3 in chapter 4 in chapter 5 you're thinking to yourself the context this is part of what I think Brother Andrew was trying to teach us last week.

He said sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. We're remembering the context we're in. We're to be holy as He is holy. And that's a great verse from Leviticus. That's a great verse from 1 Peter. So we'll continue next week with some of the more details throughout the New Testament, not only of really all the outlined things.

So let me all remind you, you want to be holy, remember that you're adopted by God. You call on Him as Father. Fear God. Conduct yourselves with fear. Remember this is not your home. Remember that you were bought with a price and ransomed from the useless way of life that you once lived.

Join me in prayer. Father, we are people who need Your grace. So we bring You our worship and our adoration as we read your word and we are reminded, Lord, of how different you are from us. When I read your word, and it's so easy for me to think of how different I would have done things if I was God. And thank God you are God. And so we ask you to cleanse us.

We ask you to make us sober-minded, self-controlled people who are motivated by your sovereign election and adoption of us as children motivated by your goodness toward us and the sacrifice of Christ we worship you in spirit and truth we ask you to be with us for the remainder of the service as we partake of communion as I know the children start to get a little restless, Lord, we ask you to help us to be worshipers. Help us to be patient and calm in our hearts with the children and help the children to be able to be relaxed and just enjoy being a part of a church that worships you. Be with our singing, with our communion, with our benediction, with our doxology and with our fellowship meal tonight.

Thank you in Christ's name. Amen.