Holy Preoccupation (1 Peter 1:15-16)

If someone investigated your life for a week, would they find anything that makes the gospel look true?

We open with a haunting idea from early Christian history: an apologist once told a ruler to examine believers and “observe their purity.” That kind of argument feels almost unthinkable now, and that’s exactly why it matters. From 1 Peter 1:13-16, we map a practical, grounded approach to Christian holiness that doesn’t collapse into either fear of the culture or a fake “church voice” that disappears by Monday morning.

We walk step-by-step through what it means to stay clean in an unclean culture: disciplining our thought life, staying level-headed in our emotions, fixing our hope on the future grace of Jesus Christ, and breaking with old habits that used to define us. Then we tackle a discouraging myth that quietly cripples everyday discipleship: the belief that only pastors or missionaries have a calling. Peter’s language is for all believers. Your vocation, your workplace, your home, and your current season are sacred ground where God has planted you to reflect his character.

We also get the honest truth about holiness. It’s comprehensive, touching all of life without becoming a checklist. It’s not new, because God has been saying “be holy, for I am holy” since Leviticus. And it’s not something we create with man-made rules to win man-made approval; it’s conformity to our Father. A closing story of a hotel maid in India puts skin on the message: quiet excellence and joyful integrity can become a powerful Christian witness.

Subscribe for more Bible teaching on 1 Peter, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What’s one area of your life where you need holiness to be “all behavior” this week?

What does it look like to live a holy life? In In Pursuit of Holiness, Stephen shows you how to think clearly, resist sin, and live differently in a culture that pulls you the other way. Move beyond information to real application. Get your copy today and take your next step with Christ. https://bit.ly/4v5aktw

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Transcript

urity As Public Evidence

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Can you imagine some apologist writing to the President of the United States or to the Chancellor of UNC or NC State or whatever and saying, look, what you need to do to validate the truth that I'm writing to you about Christianity is just check out the lives of your citizens, check out the lives of your students, and when you examine their lives, you will come to the conclusion that because they are so uniquely pure, Christianity must be uniquely true. Now, if you were with us in our last discussion, we asked the question: how do you become and stay clean? What are the steps to staying clean in an unclean culture? How do you pursue holiness in an unholy world? And we focused on four steps before we ran out of time. So let me invite your attention back to your copy of the New Testament and at 1 Peter chapter 1, where we've arrived at chapter 1 and verse 13. And since today is a continuation of that discussion, and some of you may not have been there in that discussion, and those of you who were forgot. Let me just kind of briefly go over the four. And I've written them in my notes because I forgot to, okay? Here we go. The first step in staying clean, we talked about was simply this. Get a handle on your thought life. Get a handle on your thought life. Notice how Peter writes in verse 13, therefore, prepare your minds for action. And I referenced the old King James translation. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. And the analogy is to girding up the loose fabric. And in this analogy, girding up the loose fabric of your thought life and tucking it all in so it doesn't get in the way as you attempt to run your race unencumbered for Christ. Get a handle on your thought life. The second step to staying clean is get a grip on your emotions. Peter writes next: keep sober in spirit. That is internally. Stay sober. Don't begin to live as if you're intoxicated. Don't panic. Don't get carried away. You can render it. Stay level-headed. In these days, this was desperately needed as it is in these days. Stay level-headed. The third step to staying clean is get focused on your future, he writes next. Fix your hope, that is, pin your expectation completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, Christians are to live in the future tense. And we used as an illustration an engaged couple who saves up money, who makes different kinds of plans. The bride to be begins to gather things in that hope chest so appropriately named. They are determining every action and every decision in the present tense in light of the future tense and their lives together. So, of course, the application would be that we, as the bride of Christ, we are making decisions. We are making our plans in light of the fact that our bridegroom is going to be revealed at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and we will soon enter into his glory and his father's house. And then step number four is simply this: get rid of old habits. He writes in verse 14, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance. The word for lusts was simply, we said, a summary of the sinful, self-centered, self-seeking, self-praising, corrupt desires that drive the children of disobedience. Paul calls them that in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. But you, on the other hand, are children of obedience. And so these are now your former lusts, which means in a very encouraging way, these patterns can be broken. Now he doesn't mean to say that a believer will never be self-seeking or self-serving, that a believer will never lust again. But what he says, in effect, is that the believer is no longer choosing to pattern their lives after those lusts, those habits. Now, as children of obedience, they are driven by the Spirit, intoxicated, as it were, by the Spirit, pursuing the fruit. Step number five, and how to stay clean. Get serious about your calling. Verse 15, but like the Holy One, who called you? Now pause. Who called you? Don't miss that. This is one of the favorite concepts of the Apostle Peter, and it's important to mention. Most people think that only pastors are called by God. There's no special calling in life for all the other Christians in the Christian community of believers. Just you guys are called. You know, pastors, elders, missionaries. You guys have the calling from God, and you know, the rest of us, I guess we're left with that. Listen, that is exactly what the devil would love for you to think. Why? Well, for one, it discourages you from any sense that your life has a calling of God upon it. You know, that for you, I guess you're you're just confined to the mundane. There isn't anything special about his calling in your life. But worse is the perspective that that lets you off the hook. You guys are called, not me. You're professionals. You know, this is your livelihood. This is what you do. And God hasn't called me to anything special. That's for pastors and missionaries and elders. No, no, Peter, in the context here's writing, remember as he opened the letter to all the believers that are scattered all around Pontius and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia, scattered around, planted his seed, is how you ought to think of it. Planted by the hand of God as he scatters them like seed, covering 750,000 square miles in the region that he just delivered to us. They and you are called by God to serve him wherever he has planted you. In whatever he has called you to do, there is a sacred vocatio. The word vocatio means sacred calling. We lost it in the Middle Ages. The Reformation has attempted to resurrect the idea that there isn't a unique calling, a special calling, a closeness to God in the calling of someone who is vocationally involved, because a vocatio is sacred. Whether you're in an apartment surrounded by dirty diapers and dirty dishes, that is his, at this moment in your life, his sacred calling. Whether you're performing surgery on someone or you're changing the oil in a client's automobile, that is his special calling. Where you get to demonstrate the character of God, by the way, where I can't. You can't. Get serious about your calling if you want to stay clean. Step number six. Get the honest truth about holiness. Get the honest truth about holiness. You ask a hundred people what holiness is, and you'll get 101 different answers. Peter's going to make it clear. And what I want to do is break down step number six into three sub-points as he describes holiness. First, holiness is comprehensive. Notice again the latter part of verse 15, in all your behavior. You could circle the word all. The Greek meaning of that word all is all. You might write that in the margin. In all your, you could render that conduct, how you act. In other words, in all of the different areas, all of the different aspects, all of the different decisions, all of the different concerns, all of the different genres and venues where you are found. Holiness is comprehensive. Now that doesn't mean you've got to wear a starch shirt and a necktie to the grocery store. That doesn't mean you've got to try to read your Bible while you're changing the tires on a customer's automobile. It certainly doesn't mean you've written out a long list that you're going to tape to the dash of your car of do's and don'ts, and you're going to review them in the morning. Keep in mind that if holiness is only a list of do's and don'ts, then you've actually missed your calling. You've missed the object of your holy preoccupation. In all your pursuit of holiness, how easy it is to run past him, to overlook him. And he just, as it were, stands there while we run through our list. As you genuinely pursue him, Peter makes us aware that everything will belong into him comprehensively, which means you don't talk one way in church today and another way on the golf course. Christ invades your vocabulary out there too. Or in the cubicle, or in the shop, or on a weekend camping trip. And we have the impression that, you know, in here we're gonna, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit more, you know, differently, sacredly. We all, you know, sort of get our tones mellow and everything's a bless you and a brother. And just wait till Monday. When Justin wrote his Apologia in the second century, his defense of Christianity, sometime before he was martyred, hence the name Justin Martyr, he wrote specifically to the Roman Emperor, because that was the way he did it. It was polite and proper, and then it would just sort of spread out from there. But what's interesting in his Apologia is that he gave, although he gave the normal defenses for the validity of Christianity and the truth claims of Christianity, he also challenged the emperor to examine the lives of Christians and observe, quote, their purity. Observe their purity. Can you imagine that argument being used today? And frankly, I'm not so concerned about the political world as I am the spiritual church world. Can you imagine some apologist writing to the president of the United States or to the CEO of the Bank of America or to the Chancellor of UNC or NC State or whatever, and saying, look, what you need to do to validate the truth that I'm writing to you about Christianity is just check out the lives of your employees, check out the lives of your citizens, check out the lives of your students, and when you examine their lives, you will come to the conclusion that because they are so uniquely pure, Christianity must be uniquely true. And here's the tragedy, we're all feeling it right now. Because that ought to be the argument today. It ought to be. The apologia of our faith. So holiness is not compartmentalized, it is comprehensive. Secondly, holiness is not something new. In fact, notice the ending of verse 15 again. Be holy yourselves in all your behavior. Why? Because implied, it is written. This isn't something Peter came up with. He didn't think it up one day and he thought, you know, it'd really be great if Christians were high gas that they pursued the holiness of God. He's actually quoting here from the book of Leviticus, that place in your Bible where the pages stick together, more than likely. The word holy shows up in that book of the Bible more than any other book of the Bible. It's in that book where God is revealing through Moses the difference and all the differences of the Israelite nation. And it's spelling it all out. God is revealing all the dietary distinctions and all the ceremonial distinctions and commands, all the prescribed rituals and customs and regulations and laws that the people of Israel were to follow. And at the core of it all was God's desire that his people, his nation, distinctively reveal their covenant relationship with him that would be different than any other nation around them. And now what Peter does here, rightly so, in this New Testament dispensation, is drop out any mention of ceremonial or dietary or sabbatarian or festival or custom or sacrificial requirements, and he simply repeats the core command. Strips everything away, and he says, look, this is just as relevant for this dispensation of grace as it was to these Old Testament believers in that dispensation of law. Be holy just like God is holy. Hasn't changed. And he prefaces it by saying, listen, this was written down a long time ago and it hasn't changed. So don't argue with me, argue with God. This is still true today. Holiness is not compartmentalized, holiness is not something new. Thirdly, holiness is not something you create. Again, the core command, you shall be holy for or as I am holy. Holiness is not something you create, it's someone to whom you conform. Your calling is to pursue conformity to the character of God. And he works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure because you belong to him. And he's already established in our last study this relationship between father and child. Children should grow up modeling then what they see in the lives of their parents. The last thing you want is for your children to begin modeling their lives after other children. I mentioned those three brothers of mine. You know, I never once heard my mother say to any of them, boys, what you need to do is start behaving like Stephen. Start acting like him. Now that would be life-threatening. But what she often said is that we ought to grow up and act like our dad. Act like our dad. See, this is part of our problem when it comes to holiness, which is why we're so obscured in our thinking. We've forgotten him, and we're just acting like each other. And we're measuring ourselves against other people, and we found that we are actually a little bit holier, a little bit better off, and those other people, you know, maybe they'll catch up to us. You know, we've set our sights way too low. Peter elevates him to a work of God's spirit. Stop creating your own self-made lists. In fact, I share with uh my greenhouse class uh one church father who was writing in the second century. He was asked by a young, zealous believer, a young man, what it meant to live a holy life and how could he do it? What did he need to do? Unfortunately, the church father just kind of rolled out his little particular list and missed the point. We have some of his list extant today. And he wrote to this young man these words Forsake colored clothing. Remove everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Remove everything that isn't white. No longer sleep on a soft pillow or take warm baths. In other words, don't be comfortable in life. And, he continues, unfortunately, if you are sincere about following Christ in holiness, never shave your beard. For to shave is an attempt to improve on the work of him who created it. My favorite Hebrew word comes to mind, pronounced baloney. The spirit is alive and well. I mean, when I grew up as a kid, you know, there were church leaders that thought it was sinful for a man to have a beard. And now this church leader is saying it's sinful if you shave your beard. You know, what do you do? Grow on this side, and this side shave, somehow reach a compromise. Now, the truth is we pander to man-made rules because really what we're after is man-made approval. And our models are man-made. Peter here draws our focus back to the relationship of our Father, and in so doing makes the point implicitly that holiness isn't going to be created by you. It's going to be the fruit of your calling. And God, who has given a calling, a special calling to all of us, he has given us a calling to himself. You belong to him, and he will do in your life and work in your life and in your family's lives distinctives and differences that may be unique to you, so long as none of us violate Scripture. You're going to make a thousand decisions on what it means to pursue this holiness. But this foundational relationship is primary. It's between father and child, Peter's effectively telling us to grow up and act like our father. We model after him. Are there any real Christians out there? Where are they? Where are they? Those who have accepted their calling in their vocation to model the excellence and purity and integrity of God. Those who've been called out of darkness, who love the light, those who have accepted their calling to model the self-control of Christ, Peter writes in the face of suffering. That's our calling. That's our preoccupation. Are there any real Christians out there answering the call? I found one in an unlikely place. Two of our pastors are heading to India today. They've been invited to preach at a pastor's conference, and but I'm reminded that on one preaching and ministry trip I took there, we went to several states, preached a number of rallies, and in churches, and it was a long, it's an exhausting trip just getting there and back. In one city, I remember where we stayed for several nights. One evening I was going to preach to well over a thousand believers, and and um I will insert this too, just for interest, your interest, but that that service was so exuberant. My preaching was preceded by two hours of music. And all of these choirs from all these churches took turns, and they were all decked out in beautiful matching outfits. And after they sang, I preached. And uh the maid came in, a woman in her middle years, and I could sense, you know, you've been there, you've seen this, but you just sort of sense this joy. I didn't say anything, but had a little conversation. She was very polite, very dedicated in the way she cleaned the room, very careful as she spoke to me in her broken English. The next day she was in the hallway again, and I greeted her, and again, just sent the sense of her dedication to her task and her spirit of of joy. The following day, as I was leaving, lugging my uh suitcase down that long corridor, and and she was standing by her cart of uh supplies, and I stopped and I asked her a question that I knew could cause trouble for her if it was overheard, but I wanted to ask her anyway, and I said, ma'am, if I can, I'd like to ask you. The excellent way in which you cleaned my room, every time I I've seen you, there is this spirit of of joy. I have to ask you. In a world surrounded by Hindus that is antagonistic to the gospel of Christianity, do you belong to Jesus Christ? And she immediately just beamed and she said, Oh yes, I am a Christian. I'm a Christian. What did I have to go on? Her dedication to her job. Her countenance, which in that line of work, by the way, and in that world of incredible poverty, is not the most conducive thing to a joyful spirit. It struck me later, you know, she will never deliver the gospel publicly to a thousand people in some rally. She may not even be known by a large body of believers, but she cleans hotel rooms, and you can tell it's a demonstration of her preoccupied mind with the character of her God, her living Lord, who then through her gives this blessing to those around her, this hagias, this distinction, and the fruit of it, which in what I sensed was a joy. Are there any Christians in your part of the world? Let's answer that question tomorrow. But let's answer the call when we show up and take these steps in our desire to stay clean. Like Robert Murray McShane. Let's become awesome weapons in the hands of our holy God. It is the most amazing weapon that is the gospel in and through us because it transforms life from the inside out. And we're gonna do that not because God's gonna give us some massive opportunity or some great display of talent, but because of, by means of a great likeness to Jesus Christ, who is our gracious demon Lord.