SPEAKER_00: I'll be reading from 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 13 to chapter 2 verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: This is page 1217 of the Church Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Be holy.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
SPEAKER_00: As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.
SPEAKER_00: For it is written, Be holy because I am holy.
SPEAKER_00: Since you call on a Father who judges each person, work impartially.
SPEAKER_00: Live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.
SPEAKER_00: For you know that it was not with perishable things that such silver or gold that you were redeemed with from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
SPEAKER_00: He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
SPEAKER_00: Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
SPEAKER_00: Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
SPEAKER_00: For all people are like grass, and their glory is like the flowers of the field.
SPEAKER_00: The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the word that was preached to you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
SPEAKER_00: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good to you.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm Dave, I'm one of the two pastors here at Fresh Book Church, and I have the privilege again this morning of leading us in the second part in our series in One Peter.
SPEAKER_01: But before I step into that, I just want to bring a couple of simple announcements.
SPEAKER_01: We have some runners and riders in the building this morning.
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of excitement last Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Uh folks finishing the marathon in under two hours.
SPEAKER_01: But we have a marathon uh rider, shall we say, who was expecting to do it in five and a half if he did it at all, but finished in three hours, 58 minutes and 22 seconds.
SPEAKER_01: And where's it sitting at the back in his purple hoodie with his wheelchair and the medal that's this big?
SPEAKER_01: Mudley would be very happy with it.
SPEAKER_01: Please see him afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, he knows you want to see his medal, that's his excuse for wanting to show it off to you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then yesterday in the sun at Lydia Park.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I've realized you're probably all deaf now.
SPEAKER_01: My volume goes up when I get excited.
SPEAKER_01: Steve would be working hard on the desk.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Steve.
SPEAKER_01: Um, the race for life.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I know of three in the church who ran the race for life.
SPEAKER_01: One, who ran it twice.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, yesterday, Carrie Fisher ran the race for life.
SPEAKER_01: She'd said to me, I'm going to do this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Carrie struggles to walk to church on a Sunday, but she ran The Race for Life.
SPEAKER_01: I have a lovely photograph of Carrie.
SPEAKER_01: Um, part way round where you recognise the what she's wearing, and one that was shared with me at the end where you have, you're not even sure it's Carrie, but she assures me it is.
SPEAKER_01: She'll have that photograph.
SPEAKER_01: See her afterwards, asked to see the photograph of her she finished across the finish line.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, also Katy and Tanya stead.
SPEAKER_01: Tanya ran the 5k route with Katy, who's eight.
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
SPEAKER_01: Six.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I gave her too much credit.
SPEAKER_01: Uh now that's great for Katy.
SPEAKER_01: She ran it, she got muddy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Tanya ran around with her as a parent guardian, uh, but then Tanya had to see all the mud that her daughter went through, knowing that she was going to run it again immediately afterwards and go through it herself.
SPEAKER_01: So Katy and Tanya and Carrie ran the race for life uh raising funds for cancer support.
SPEAKER_01: So, well done, each and every one of you.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if the others have met.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have medals, Tanya, to show off?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a whole load of medals to see afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: Have you brought your medals?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: So the noisy corner over here also ran the 10k or ran and walked.
SPEAKER_01: Well done, Libby.
SPEAKER_01: You read and run.
SPEAKER_01: Good job.
SPEAKER_01: So we come this morning to our text in 1 Peter, uh, verses 13 through to 2 chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: We concluded last week as reflected on the living hope we have in Jesus through his resurrection, and through it, the assurance that brings us uh in this life for the next.
SPEAKER_01: So, whatever hardships or suffering we face, or however many fleas in your life, and if you don't know now what we're talking about, uh then you weren't here last Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Go back and watch last Sunday so you catch up on the story of the fleas.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever we face, hardship or fleas, we can walk through it all with grace and peace in abundance.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Peter writes, in the light of what we have already learned, let us consider how we live in holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Now I happened to say out loud in the church office on Friday that I was preparing my thoughts for the talk on Sunday on the theme of living in holiness.
SPEAKER_01: A friend who shall remain nameless said to me, Keep it simple.
SPEAKER_01: So I will try.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that advice.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray as we begin.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, open our ears that we may hear.
SPEAKER_01: Open our minds that we may understand, our hearts that we may be impacted and changed by what we learn.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: When people hear the word holiness, they often think of one or two things.
SPEAKER_01: Either that sounds like it's for super spiritual people, and so not for me, or that sounds restrictive, like a list of things I can't do.
SPEAKER_01: But Peter doesn't present holiness like that, he presents it as a natural response to a life that has been changed.
SPEAKER_01: So the question for us today is not can I achieve holiness, but am I living out what God has already begun in me?
SPEAKER_01: So, first part of three as we'll work through it, set your hope fully on grace.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll look together at verses 13 to 16.
SPEAKER_01: And as I work through the text, I'll share through the readings too.
SPEAKER_01: If you're able, follow it uh in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible and want to follow it, raise your hands.
SPEAKER_01: One of the stewards from the back will uh deliver one forward to you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, Peter writes, Therefore, with your minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
SPEAKER_01: This is where holiness begins.
SPEAKER_01: With minds that are alert, that is, they are awake, they are aware, and that they are intentional.
SPEAKER_01: And also that we be fully sober, not distracted, and not drifting in our thinking.
SPEAKER_01: And the way to set our hope, to set a hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.
SPEAKER_01: It is actively fixed on that.
SPEAKER_01: So holiness starts with where your life is pointed.
SPEAKER_01: Then Peter writes in verse 14, as obedient to children.
SPEAKER_01: Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, don't slip back into your old patterns.
SPEAKER_01: And then he brings us this command, verse 15: just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do.
SPEAKER_01: Not just in some things, not only when it's convenient, but in all that you do.
SPEAKER_01: And why?
SPEAKER_01: The answer in verse 16 for it is written, be holy because I am holy.
SPEAKER_01: Note this instruction to be holy is not a New Testament instruction that came to us after Jesus or through Jesus and since his time.
SPEAKER_01: But it is an instruction that goes back to the Old Testament, it goes back to Leviticus chapter 11, verses 44 and 45, where God commanded Israel through his uh prophet Moses these words saying, I am the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.
SPEAKER_01: Do not make for yourselves or do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, be holy, because I am holy.
SPEAKER_01: Let me try and illustrate that for you.
SPEAKER_01: Think about a satnav or a GPS.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I appreciate some of you don't like those and don't trust them.
SPEAKER_01: But if you don't set your destination, you can still drive, but you'll drift and you'll take wrong turns.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you might argue the satnav does that to you as well, but you'll ruin my illustration if that's where your mind is.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll end up somewhere you didn't intend.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness is like setting your destination.
SPEAKER_01: Set a destination, you'll get there.
SPEAKER_01: Now think, most people don't drift into holiness, but they do drift away from it.
SPEAKER_01: So if your hope is clearly set on Christ, then your decisions start to align with that direction.
SPEAKER_01: So here's an application for you to consider this morning.
SPEAKER_01: What is shaping your thinking each day?
SPEAKER_01: And where is your hope actually set?
SPEAKER_01: Because if your hope is scattered, your life will be two.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness begins when you intentionally set your life toward Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And then my second point I want us to think about this morning, live in reverent fear because of the cost.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll look at this in verses 17 to 21.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter continues, verse 17, since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.
SPEAKER_01: That's attention we don't always hold well.
SPEAKER_01: God is father, and he is judge.
SPEAKER_01: Fear here doesn't mean terror, it means taking God seriously.
SPEAKER_01: Living with an awareness that your life matters before him.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Peter tells us in verse 18, for you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: You weren't bought back cheaply.
SPEAKER_01: But as he continues in verse 18, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
SPEAKER_01: That's the heart of it.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness is not about earning God's love, it's about responding to the price already paid.
SPEAKER_01: Peter continues in verses 20 and 21, saying he was chosen before the creation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus he's speaking of, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
SPEAKER_01: Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me try to illustrate that for you as well.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine someone pays off a huge debt for you completely.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't earn their kindness or their generosity, and you cannot repay it.
SPEAKER_01: If somebody were to have done that for you, you wouldn't walk away going, Great! I can go on and do all that I did that led me into debt.
SPEAKER_01: No, you'd live differently because of what they sacrificed for you.
SPEAKER_01: Or at least you should.
SPEAKER_01: If only because of the lesson that Jesus taught in Matthew 18 of the unmerciful servant who was given and forgiven an unimaginable debt, but was not changed and suffered the consequence.
SPEAKER_01: So consider this as an application.
SPEAKER_01: Do you treat sin lightly?
SPEAKER_01: How do you become used to grace instead of being shaped by it?
SPEAKER_01: And the last point as we move towards the end of the text comes out of verses 22 through to chapter 2 and verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Live it out, love, remove, crave, Peter tells us.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter brings it down to everyday life.
SPEAKER_01: After all, Peter is just or was just a simple fisherman.
SPEAKER_01: He says to us first of all, love deeply.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22, he writes, Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for one another.
SPEAKER_01: Love one another deeply from the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Now, our English language is weak here.
SPEAKER_01: We just have love.
SPEAKER_01: Love for this, love for that.
SPEAKER_01: And we have love for chocolate, love for husband and wife, love for children.
SPEAKER_01: We just see the word here love and it can be all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_01: The root behind it in the Greek defines it more clearly.
SPEAKER_01: When Peter writes of sincere love, he uses the Greek word philadelphia, which implies a brotherly love, a family love.
SPEAKER_01: But the word used when translated in the love one another deeply is from the Greek word agapeo.
SPEAKER_01: Peter's distinction is intentional.
SPEAKER_01: The first love is a matter of family.
SPEAKER_01: You have to love your family.
SPEAKER_01: You say you don't get to choose them, they're just there and you love them.
SPEAKER_01: But the second love is a choosing to love.
SPEAKER_01: There's no natural obligation to love in that way.
SPEAKER_01: This agapeo is sometimes referred to as a sacrificial love.
SPEAKER_01: That is the word that's used in John 3.16 when it describes the love of God for the world when he gave his son to die for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: So holiness is not just about personal behavior.
SPEAKER_01: It shows up in the way that we treat people.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a surface-level politeness, but real, genuine love, a deep love, a choosing to love.
SPEAKER_01: Thinking about love and understanding it.
SPEAKER_01: You can always tell when someone is just being polite and when somebody genuinely cares for you.
SPEAKER_01: The difference between that casual connection and the deep love and intentional relationship is their attention, their time, and their depth of engagement with you.
SPEAKER_01: Peter is saying to us, go beyond shallow.
SPEAKER_01: Love from the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And having commanded us to love deeply, he instructs us to remove what destroys.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter two and verse one, Peter writes, Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
SPEAKER_01: This is practical, but also maybe uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01: Malice wishing harm on another.
SPEAKER_01: Deceit, bending the truth, hypocrisy, pretending, envy, resenting others, slander, tearing people down.
SPEAKER_01: You don't drift out of these things.
SPEAKER_01: You have to choose to put them away.
SPEAKER_01: Now I have an illustration for this.
SPEAKER_01: An illustration of clearing out a cupboard.
SPEAKER_01: If you keep stuffing new things into a cupboard, but never remove the old, eventually there's no room left in the cupboard.
SPEAKER_01: Don't need a show of hands, but who has a cupboard like that at home?
SPEAKER_01: The cupboard that you think carefully about, you one hand on the handle, the other ready to catch.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know when you open the door, the floodgates are open.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us are trying to grow spiritually without clearing out of our cupboard.
SPEAKER_01: What is holding us back?
SPEAKER_01: Just as you think, I must do something about this cupboard at home.
SPEAKER_01: If the cupboard of your life is so full of who you were, there's little room left to fit in who you should be and will be.
SPEAKER_01: And then the third point crave what helps you grow.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2 and verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: And there are many here who will relate presently or relate historically to this.
SPEAKER_01: Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: The mothers in the room.
SPEAKER_01: Know what it is to have a child who craves their milk.
SPEAKER_01: The fathers in the room may get to a place in the development of the child where the mother can leave a bottle and they have just a vague sense of what the mother went through.
SPEAKER_01: For a baby that has an insatiable appetite, a love for, a craving for milk.
SPEAKER_01: So understand this growth is not automatic, it's driven by desire.
SPEAKER_01: And then this key line now in chapter two and verse three.
SPEAKER_01: Now what you have tasted, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: That's the turning point.
SPEAKER_01: You don't crave something you've never tasted.
SPEAKER_01: Just for a moment, think to yourself, what is the tastiest thing that I ever tried?
SPEAKER_01: Picture it, let your mouth salivate.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine if you were offered the opportunity for that at lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Would you turn it down in favour of a salad?
SPEAKER_01: You know I wouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: When you taste something genuinely good, you want it again and again.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 34, verse 8 tells us taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: We've sung that this morning in a song.
SPEAKER_01: Once you begin to experience his goodness, then we want more of this God.
SPEAKER_01: Know this, holiness grows when you remove what harms and crave what nourishes.
SPEAKER_01: So as I draw to the end of what I want to share with you this morning, a few thoughts for you to reflect on.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness is not about becoming a different kind of human.
SPEAKER_01: It's about becoming the human you were meant to be.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to start on that journey or re-start that journey this morning, set your hope fully on Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the cost of your redemption and live it out in love, repentance, and growth?
SPEAKER_01: Show these questions to you as I finish.
SPEAKER_01: Are you drifting?
SPEAKER_01: Or are you intentionally following Christ?
SPEAKER_01: What in your life needs to be removed to make room in that cupboard?
SPEAKER_01: And what is it that you've tasted but forgotten that you loved, that you need to start craving once again?
SPEAKER_01: Now, to some of you here, I perhaps need to ask you: have you ever truly tasted that the Lord is good?
SPEAKER_01: And perhaps some of you haven't.
SPEAKER_01: If you want just to catch a sense of the goodness of God, but it's not known to you, you wouldn't know Jesus as your savior.
SPEAKER_01: You're not sure that He knows you, as we talked about last week.
SPEAKER_01: Then we are running an alpha course.
SPEAKER_01: There's one on a Friday, there's another on a Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, do ask afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: I know ordinarily they'd say that uh this last week, I think, was the best week to join in, but they're not going to turn you away if you'd like to come along.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've missed the first bit, roll over to the next one, catch up, and do it again.
SPEAKER_01: You can't get too much of the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's only once we've begun to taste that the Lord is good that holiness will arise in us.
SPEAKER_01: It comes through encounter.
SPEAKER_01: I'm inviting you this morning to encounter for the first time the God who loves you, who gave the most for you.
SPEAKER_01: We looked at what he gave to us last week.
SPEAKER_01: This week, we're looking at what we give in return to the God who loved us more than we could possibly imagine.
SPEAKER_01: May God bless his words to us this morning.