SPEAKER_00: It's great to be with you guys.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Duncan.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here.
SPEAKER_00: And today we have been working through Colossians, but today we are going to be considering growing in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we'll continue our time in Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: We'll head back there.
SPEAKER_00: But for today, we're looking at this idea of growing in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Loving Father, thank you for your grace and your mercy towards us.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that you have called us to yourself through your son's work on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray, as we come and we consider holiness, would you speak to us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you do what we cannot by your Spirit's work?
SPEAKER_00: Move us towards yourself, move us to live lives that are worthy of you for your name and your glory and our good.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder as you consider sin, I wonder as you consider the brokenness in your life, the brokenness around you, what you think.
SPEAKER_00: In my life I have seen the reality of sin being worked out.
SPEAKER_00: I have felt the temptations towards sin, sins of different kinds.
SPEAKER_00: I have known the impact of sin personally in my life, the taste of death that is left through sin.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, not physical death, but spiritual death.
SPEAKER_00: The feeling of guilt, the feeling of shame that can come and sometimes feel almost overwhelming.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of sin promising so much and yet delivering so little.
SPEAKER_00: I have never seen sin live up to the expectation.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen sin in those around me as well.
SPEAKER_00: People who are close to me, friends and family members.
SPEAKER_00: And sin, no matter what the sin, is never confined to an individual.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has a ripple effect.
SPEAKER_00: It affects those around the people.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen marriages ripped apart because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen people I love just walk away from the faith because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that their hearts were so captured by their sin that sin became their God.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what happens when sin is unchecked.
SPEAKER_00: When we do not consider the reality of sin in our lives, when we don't take it seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Christian here today, even if you're not a Christian, I would say actually, if you understood what sin is, if you understood the destructive nature of sin, you would see it as something to hate.
SPEAKER_00: You would see it as something desperately that you want to just escape from, escape from its clause.
SPEAKER_00: Because your sin is not something to be messed with.
SPEAKER_00: It is not something to be treated lightly.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin, my sin, if left unchecked, will lead straight to the grave with no hope of life.
SPEAKER_00: As we come to consider growing in holiness, we need to feel the weight and the reality of what is at stake.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't something to just mess around with.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian in this room, my desire for all of us is that we would see the seriousness of this.
SPEAKER_00: That we wouldn't just give in.
SPEAKER_00: None of us would believe the lies of sin we see all around us.
SPEAKER_00: None of us would be overcome by sin.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is not just about the life here and now, it is about your eternal destiny.
SPEAKER_00: As we seek to consider this passage, don't allow it to just go by, but hear what God has to say.
SPEAKER_00: Growing in holiness is the only way to live the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other way.
SPEAKER_00: You are either gonna grow in holiness by his grace or head toward eternity without him.
SPEAKER_00: Eternity without God, without life, suffering forever.
SPEAKER_00: Three realities I want to expose in our passage.
SPEAKER_00: The call to holiness, the motive for holiness, and the result of holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And those can be on the screen if you click next.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: That can just orientate you.
SPEAKER_00: So the call to holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: But as he who called you is holy, so you so you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy.
SPEAKER_00: And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout your time of your exile.
SPEAKER_00: This is the call that rings out.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to realize the call toward holiness is a complete call.
SPEAKER_00: And what I might mean by that is it is not just calling you brother and sister in Christ, to give some of yourself towards holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Peter is clear as he writes to these believers: holiness requires all of you, both mind and body, your complete self.
SPEAKER_00: It is not just when you feel like putting on your holy.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'll be holy.
SPEAKER_00: It is a complete life oriented around this.
SPEAKER_00: Every moment of your life, you are called to be holy.
SPEAKER_00: And as we consider this call, the most important thing is to actually consider and be clear on who is calling.
SPEAKER_00: Because verse 16 says, You shall be holy, for I am holy, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand holiness is not just something we take lightly, because actually holiness itself is understanding our God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you grasp the reality of that?
SPEAKER_00: That you're not just moving towards moralism, to be feeling like you are a good person.
SPEAKER_00: The call is to come, to move bit by bit toward Him, toward the Creator God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are His people, you'll hear this call, you'll take this call seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality of being in relationship with God is inseparable from the reality of your call toward holiness.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot have one without the other.
SPEAKER_00: As we come to faith, we do not just stop there.
SPEAKER_00: We do not just say, Oh, thank you for my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'll do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: No, we then start living.
SPEAKER_00: Living in light of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: You misunderstand the gospel when you overextend freedom and grace in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: When you misunderstand actually what they are, when you believe the lie that says you just need to know his grace and do nothing about it.
SPEAKER_00: Because this in fact diminishes the grace that he has brought to you.
SPEAKER_00: It misses the purpose of his grace towards you.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just to save us, but it's to bring us into life.
SPEAKER_00: A life to be lived, lived out in the light of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Grace which brings you into relationship to the holy God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: A God who cries to you, you shall be holy.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: For I am holy.
SPEAKER_00: It is misunderstanding the call toward holiness.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't grasp this, that your call toward holiness is firstly and primarily a pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is knowing that as we grow in holiness, we grow toward our holy God.
SPEAKER_00: We grow in his likeness, in his image, we grow in the way in which we've been made and created to live.
SPEAKER_00: The person who dismisses their pursuit toward holiness is the person who reveals themselves to reject God.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: The call God gives is a call to action.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, prepare your minds for action.
SPEAKER_00: And being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is not passive.
SPEAKER_00: Peter has just been reminding them in the previous verses of their salvation, the reality that they are born again, these believers.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't just then say to them, so chill out, relax, it's all good.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, prepare your minds for action.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is revealing the reality that out of your new identity, out of this salvation, comes a call not to be passive, but to act.
SPEAKER_00: Enabled because of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Brother, sister in Christ, where is your mind?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that captures you most in your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: Because here there is a clear reality, how our minds should be shaped as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: A holy mind is a sober mind.
SPEAKER_00: Because what is a sober mind?
SPEAKER_00: It is to be able to think with clarity, clearly knowing what is real from what is and what is true.
SPEAKER_00: Because the opposite of this is for your mind to be impaired.
SPEAKER_00: When people get drunk, for instance, they don't think clearly, they don't perceive truth.
SPEAKER_00: And here Peter is calling them to be sober-minded, which is to know what is true, to have clarity in what is real.
SPEAKER_00: And what is true is what Peter is exclaiming and proclaiming here is that there is an eternal reality.
SPEAKER_00: They have and we have a hope that is to come.
SPEAKER_00: And that hope is secure for us.
SPEAKER_00: That is grace rooted in the person Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And as we live, we should live out of that reality.
SPEAKER_00: Out of that future hope.
SPEAKER_00: When we forget this, we fail to live the life we've been called to.
SPEAKER_00: A life that understands the finite from the eternal.
SPEAKER_00: A life that grasps that the hopes of this world have nothing on the hope of grace that we will one day know and fully experience when Jesus Christ returns.
SPEAKER_00: It is so easy for us, for me, for you to be trapped by the false hopes around us.
SPEAKER_00: We all face this constantly.
SPEAKER_00: We are bombarded by it daily.
SPEAKER_00: False hopes that the world sets before us.
SPEAKER_00: Relationships, sex, money, success, holidays, Facebook likes, material stuff.
SPEAKER_00: The list goes on.
SPEAKER_00: If you get this, things will be better.
SPEAKER_00: Do this, have this, experience this, and you will find happiness.
SPEAKER_00: It is killing us.
SPEAKER_00: Your life will not be a life that has so much joy in it when you are consumed by these things.
SPEAKER_00: You will grow in numbness, and you will also grow in the neediness of needing more and more and more to fill that void.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world where depression and loneliness and anxiety and dissatisfaction are increasing, not decreasing.
SPEAKER_00: And the important thing to ask is why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we are eternal beings.
SPEAKER_00: And we cannot find the longings of our heart met in the momentary things of this world.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot find what you need here.
SPEAKER_00: You could have everything, everything this world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, and still feel utterly empty.
SPEAKER_00: But God calls there is a better hope, a truer hope, a hope that will not disappoint.
SPEAKER_00: Allow this to be the goal in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Allow this to be the hope that your mind is completely fixated upon.
SPEAKER_00: Let nothing distract you from this reality.
SPEAKER_00: Because we will all have misplaced feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Sadly, some of us will struggle our entire lives with emotions that feel overwhelmingly dark at times.
SPEAKER_00: But brother, sister, know this.
SPEAKER_00: Know what is true when your emotions seek to deceive you.
SPEAKER_00: Because one day you will know the full and unwavering grace found in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Though in part we experience it now, one day we will know it fully and we will not find it to be lacking.
SPEAKER_00: No longer will we feel the strain.
SPEAKER_00: No longer will we feel the bowel for our emotions.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find his grace.
SPEAKER_00: His grace that right now helps us, but we will find his grace is enough.
SPEAKER_00: Set your mind on the true hope.
SPEAKER_00: But this call doesn't just stop with the mind, but it also captures our actions.
SPEAKER_00: Because when our hope is so set on the eternal, when we have a right thinking in that direction, why would we go after the worthless ways of this world?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17, and if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout your time of your exile.
SPEAKER_00: We need to grasp this call roots us in our identity.
SPEAKER_00: Peter uses this language of child and father, and he does it with intention.
SPEAKER_00: As a child of my good heavenly father, why would I not hear his call?
SPEAKER_00: Why would I not know his ways for me are for my flourishing?
SPEAKER_00: His ways are life-giving.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I not surrender my life to that?
SPEAKER_00: I think C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis helps us grasp this.
SPEAKER_00: The blindness we can some have, sometimes have.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
SPEAKER_00: We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us.
SPEAKER_00: Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
SPEAKER_00: We are far too easily pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be fooled by the passions of your former ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: Do not think that is where life is found.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your life be lived chasing things that will never supply the longings of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: The call away from those things is not a call away from life, but to life.
SPEAKER_00: Lift your gaze to something far more glorious.
SPEAKER_00: Because as we set our hope fully on the grace to come, our lives will be transformed.
SPEAKER_00: We will live as obedient children, knowing his goodness, knowing what he has for us is good.
SPEAKER_00: The call Peter sets towards holiness is built into viewing him as Father.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter also wants us to realize who God is.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to diminish the godness of God.
SPEAKER_00: As we consider God, we always need to be careful.
SPEAKER_00: We don't lessen him.
SPEAKER_00: But also we see him as the one who is the righteous judge.
SPEAKER_00: The one who one day will judge.
SPEAKER_00: We will give an account before him.
SPEAKER_00: And though there is security in Christ, that does not leave you license to continue in sin, to continue to reject, seeking to grow in holiness bit by bit.
SPEAKER_00: It is the priority with reverent fear of a holy God that we should fight for our holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is the reaction we should have.
SPEAKER_00: When we see Him, when we truly understand His holiness, His set apartness.
SPEAKER_00: If you woke up this morning and if God spoke directly to you, and if He said Christ is returning to judge everyone tomorrow, now you'll be frightened, you'll be freaked out, put that to the side for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: How would you live today?
SPEAKER_00: How would you spend your moments today?
SPEAKER_00: How would you act?
SPEAKER_00: How would you treat other people?
SPEAKER_00: For all of us, I know our lives would be completely shaped by that reality.
SPEAKER_00: My life would be and yours would be.
SPEAKER_00: If I knew without shadow of doubt, Christ is returning tomorrow, I'm gonna face him tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I have to give an account to how I lived my life tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00: How much would we want to make much of him?
SPEAKER_00: How much would we want to glorify him?
SPEAKER_00: How much would we want to just speak about him and his goodness?
SPEAKER_00: Yet here we so often forget, we so often forget that there is a rightful judge, a holy God, who is lying us to see him and lying for us to live in light of his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Conduct yourselves with fear throughout your time of exile.
SPEAKER_00: Because this time will end, and you have no clue when that will be.
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's when you die or whether that's when Christ returns.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Allow that to shape your life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mess around.
SPEAKER_00: Treat your life with the seriousness God calls you to.
SPEAKER_00: He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last time.
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of you.
SPEAKER_00: To grow in holiness, dwell upon the cost of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Don't neglect considering the reality of what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: Don't allow your heart to become numb towards it.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easily done.
SPEAKER_00: Peter writes, and you can imagine him writing this, longing for these believers to be struck by these words, longing for their hearts to once again be stirred, their affections captured by Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As he considers the world, he wants to show the greatness of the cost Christ paid.
SPEAKER_00: The most valuable thing on earth that Peter can think of is silver or gold.
SPEAKER_00: And he exclaims, Do you see the worth of silver or gold?
SPEAKER_00: The way people value it.
SPEAKER_00: They do not even begin to express the value, the cost Christ paid.
SPEAKER_00: Silver and gold are worthless compared to that.
SPEAKER_00: They are momentary things.
SPEAKER_00: God did not just use money to ransom you.
SPEAKER_00: It was with something not that perishes, but rather with the life of the eternal one come as a man.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, his son, giving his blood so that we might be brought back from the slavery of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The cost was great, with such a clear purpose that your life has not been ransomed, has not been bought, has not been paid for, for you then to go and waste it.
SPEAKER_00: Living how you want, thinking you are free to do so, living, neglecting the precious blood paid for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel how disgusting and vile that is?
SPEAKER_00: When we reject what he gave for us in order to return to what he died to save us from.
SPEAKER_00: Your sin, my sin.
SPEAKER_00: When we're in that point, we need to consider Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Consider him seeing you, going your own way, knowing what he gave for you, crying out, don't you get it?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you see?
SPEAKER_00: I bled so that you would be saved from that sin.
SPEAKER_00: I was beaten so that you would not have to live, returning to that way.
SPEAKER_00: I was mocked and rejected so that you would be freed, freed to true life found in me.
SPEAKER_00: Only me.
SPEAKER_00: We just so easily return to our sin.
SPEAKER_00: We so easily just see that blood shed and think nothing of it.
SPEAKER_00: The cost was priceless.
SPEAKER_00: His blood shed.
SPEAKER_00: The eternal one come in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20 for he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last time 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.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what God actually has done?
SPEAKER_00: God never needed you.
SPEAKER_00: He never needed me.
SPEAKER_00: He will never need you, he will never need me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't view God and his salvation as some sort of self-help for him.
SPEAKER_00: That is evil.
SPEAKER_00: But the holy God, the God who calls us, chose this.
SPEAKER_00: He chose to come.
SPEAKER_00: The eternal one came as a man, a man to be able to suffer, so that he was able to bleed and shed the most precious blood for your sake, for my sake, so that we might have faith and hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: That this restoration we so long for would be complete.
SPEAKER_00: When we forget this, we diminish and downplay the cost of Christ, the purpose of his cost given for us, so that we do not need to go back to sin.
SPEAKER_00: We will fall into rejecting him if we do not see this.
SPEAKER_00: We will live as though we deserved his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The next time you feel yourself being tempted towards sin, dwell upon the cost paid to rescue you from that sin.
SPEAKER_00: Don't allow your mind to blot the reality of Jesus' blood shed for you, the nails driven into his hands and feet.
SPEAKER_00: No, he has won a victory for you.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who cries out and says, I shed it for you, for your sake, so that you might know a better life, a true life in relationship with me.
SPEAKER_00: Why would we neglect that?
SPEAKER_00: Why would you turn away from that?
SPEAKER_00: There is such danger in dampening this reality.
SPEAKER_00: Brother, sister, be captured by it, dwell upon it, run to it, cling to it, because without it we are condemned.
SPEAKER_00: The motive for holiness and finally the result of holiness.
SPEAKER_00: If you are living your life, longing, desiring to be holy, little by little, there will be implications that our holiness will result in certain realities in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And as Peter concludes, he considers the reality of them growing in holiness, and he wants them to see, act, and trust.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to see their position before God.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to act as his people, and he wants them to trust the word.
SPEAKER_00: See their position before God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: He begins by saying, You are pure, brother or sister.
SPEAKER_00: Not that you will be pure, you are pure.
SPEAKER_00: Peter highlights as God's people, as people growing in holiness, you are pure.
SPEAKER_00: That is who you now are.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Christian life is the life that is lived out of our identity.
SPEAKER_00: That right now we are pure, so live as pure people.
SPEAKER_00: We are holy, so be holy.
SPEAKER_00: That's not saying there is no sin in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That is not saying you do not feel the brokenness within, but the fact is, in your obedience through faith, positionally before God, you have been transformed and transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, from death to life, from enemy to child, from filthy wretch to spotless, sinless children.
SPEAKER_00: Peter wants us to see this is the reality of our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: That as we obey God, the declaration of our purity is declared.
SPEAKER_00: As we cling to Christ, that we are his children and he is our Father through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And though we don't know and fully experience our purity, we will.
SPEAKER_00: We will one day know it.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of our purity when we won't feel the temptation's tug anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You won't feel the taste of death and see it around you.
SPEAKER_00: You won't feel the shame and guilt of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The work of your sanctification, your growing in holiness will be complete.
SPEAKER_00: This is the result that we are headed towards that day.
SPEAKER_00: So in our holiness, we act as his people.
SPEAKER_00: Love one another earnestly from pure heart.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, your holiness will be seen in how you love the church.
SPEAKER_00: How you love brothers and sisters in Christ because you've been born again.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of who you are, united to Christ, united to his people.
SPEAKER_00: This will be displayed in how you love those around you.
SPEAKER_00: A love unique to God's people, growing together in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And it has only been possible through the word, through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God, for all flesh is like grass, and all the glory like the flower of grass.
SPEAKER_00: The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever.
SPEAKER_00: And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
SPEAKER_00: The life we have, the life we live as his people, has been purified because of him.
SPEAKER_00: We have been united to him.
SPEAKER_00: This has happened through faith.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in the good news, the gospel, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A gospel that is not perishable but imperishable.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing in this world can destroy it.
SPEAKER_00: The devil himself cannot destroy it.
SPEAKER_00: It is living and active.
SPEAKER_00: It will never perish.
SPEAKER_00: But when we neglect God's word, his gospel, we will not be the people he has called us to be.
SPEAKER_00: We will not be helped and directed in how we might live.
SPEAKER_00: If you are going to base your life on anything, base it on the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Base it on the truth of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: This is not just a book, it is the word of God, the God who speaks today, the God who says, This is how to live.
SPEAKER_00: The word that speaks to us.
SPEAKER_00: Growing in holiness will not happen without it.
SPEAKER_00: As I come to the end, there are just two things I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to practically display ways in which we continue to grow in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, I want to illustrate for us a reality that Peter is pointing us towards.
SPEAKER_00: So practically, there are things in the Christian faith called means of grace.
SPEAKER_00: You may have heard that term.
SPEAKER_00: Two of them I have spoken about just there, the word and the church.
SPEAKER_00: And then the third is prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you neglect any of these three, you will struggle to grow in holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask, how is your time?
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, you don't have to respond.
SPEAKER_00: How is your time in the word going?
SPEAKER_00: How are you daily making this a priority?
SPEAKER_00: How are you desperately coming each morning or the time that you have to the word to seek Him, to seek truth, to seek life, to help you in that day live how you have been made to live.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is only by the Word that we will grow in the likeness of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: As His Spirit works within us, to treat this book lightly is to mess around with your holiness.
SPEAKER_00: If there's a choice between breakfast and reading God's word, read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Miss breakfast.
SPEAKER_00: How engaged are you in church?
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago I preached a sermon on it.
SPEAKER_00: This was largely the topic, so you can listen to that.
SPEAKER_00: But let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: You've not been called to attend church.
SPEAKER_00: You've been called to be a part of the church.
SPEAKER_00: How known are you by brothers and sisters in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: How invested are they in your life?
SPEAKER_00: How are you seeking to use the gifts God has given you to serve, to love, to give towards the church?
SPEAKER_00: Neglecting Christ's bride is neglecting Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are not just about coming together on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: The call is to be brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To invest, to love, to care, to be proactive.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, prayer.
SPEAKER_00: How does praying feel to you?
SPEAKER_00: Is praying natural for you?
SPEAKER_00: Or does it feel forced?
SPEAKER_00: So often in church, corporate prayer times are so neglected that they are the most neglected times.
SPEAKER_00: And surely that probably signifies that individually for us, prayer is neglected.
SPEAKER_00: Your focus in prayer is not about just sounding good, saying the right words.
SPEAKER_00: It's about coming before your God, your holy father, your savior, seeking Him.
SPEAKER_00: In the big and small situations of your life.
SPEAKER_00: I've had many times in my life where I'm just walking somewhere and I'm just talking to my Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: Those are precious times.
SPEAKER_00: Times where I've been with brothers and sisters in Christ praying together.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I don't actually even want that to end.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love it to just keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just keep seeking Him, keep praying to Him.
SPEAKER_00: A prayerless life is an independent life.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't think you need to pray, you don't think you need God.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon said, I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Growing in holiness is a call on us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a call toward life.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that Peter has been doing in throughout his letter, but also in our passage, is lining it up with our eternal position.
SPEAKER_00: And there was an illustration that I have which I think helps us in this.
SPEAKER_00: I stole it, so you can't give me credit for it.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's really helpful to consider.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to consider is this rope is a timeline.
SPEAKER_00: This is a picture of your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is where it starts, and I know the rope ends there, just imagine it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: It keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: It never ends.
SPEAKER_00: And this little black bit is your life here on earth now.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever, 70, 80, 90 years.
SPEAKER_00: That's your life.
SPEAKER_00: And what is so bad, what is so unhelpful for us is we worry so much about this.
SPEAKER_00: We focus so much in this moment on what will make me happy in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, whether it's that experience, whether that's it's a new thing, clothes, whatever it is, this new job you want.
SPEAKER_00: And your focus is so much on the temporary, on the things now, and these things will give you what you long for.
SPEAKER_00: Yet the fact is, this is eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a lot more of this.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, what God is saying, what Peter is saying, is that actually how you live now impacts this.
SPEAKER_00: Impacts the eternal reality for you.
SPEAKER_00: That actually, if you mess around here living for what you want, what you think is good, at the end of your life, you will not be thinking, oh man, I wish I played Fortnite more.
SPEAKER_00: I really wish I invested more hours into that.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I listened to that or went to that place or got that job or had that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, how I wish that.
SPEAKER_00: No, your focus at the end of your life, when you stand before your creator, God will be did I waste it?
SPEAKER_00: Did I invest with what really matters?
SPEAKER_00: Did I actually see that me growing in holiness was the best thing I could invest in for my life?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is serious.
SPEAKER_00: This week I heard about a dear friend of mine who has just walked away from the faith, destroying people's relationships around him.
SPEAKER_00: He has just rejected it entirely for a moment, not considering what is to come.
SPEAKER_00: And for us, as we think and when we consider growing in holiness, you will not waste your life the more and more you give yourself over to this.
SPEAKER_00: The more you seek God and seek to know Him and seek Him in prayer and in the Word and in the community of faith.
SPEAKER_00: You will not feel, oh man, I wasted it.
SPEAKER_00: You will be like, No, I spent my life well for the things that matter, for the eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Loving Father, I thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for the reality that you long for us to know true life more than we long for it.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, would you help us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to see the seriousness of how we live now?
SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to view the reality of eternity and the reality of our holiness?
SPEAKER_00: That we would long to grow in holiness, knowing that is where life, that is where truth is found.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, I pray, by your spirit, equip us for your name, your glory, and our good.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.