This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Thank you, Max. Good evening, everyone. It's great to see you. My name is Chris. I'm one of the ministers here.

And we are in a series on one Peter, which is towards the back of the New Testament. I don't know what page one. If you've got a real one, it's definitely not page two. I'm not quite sure where that came from, but you may want to follow along on a phone or in a Bible. All of us will come up on the screen.

But the. We started a series in one piece last week. Steve preached and he talked about how the Christians that Peter was writing to were under intense persecution. And the story behind this was that Edward Nero had decided he kind of wanted to remake a lot of Rome in his own image, and so he decided to burn a lot of it down. But the people of Rome were very displeased about this.

In fact, they were absolutely. There were all sorts of cherished institutions, temples and so forth. People have died in the fires of Rome. And here I realised people are really, really angry. And to get away with this, he needed to blame some other people and he decided to blame the Christians for this.

And that was credible. The reason why it was credible is because the Christians were a visible group who were set apart and living in a very different way to the culture around them. So much so that people thought they knew were sort of associated with the Jews as well. But people thought, I'm not sure whether they're with us or for us. And so when Nero said it was the Christians, the Christians satisfied, you should blame them, had credibility because they were visible as not quite aligned to Roman's values.

And so there was this intense persecution across Rome of christians and they were scattered. But last week we heard that Peter starts by encouraging the Christians to lean on what they believe, particularly to lean on this living hope that they have in Jesus Christ. That even though the Romans around the cultural realm can harm their body, their soul is safe in Jesus Christ for eternity, and one day they will rise with him. Peter said, hold on to this living hope. There is something to go through, but the ending is happy for you and you got to hold on to this.

Reading tonight started in verse 13. If I have a click, that'll be great. Thank you. Brilliant.

Is it live? Are you sure? Okay. If you click for me, that would grant. Thank you.

He says, 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. Now, Paul's meaning about being sober is. He's talking much wider about a lack of alcohol. He's kind of using sobriety and drunkenness as a metaphor for being alert to reality. So what happens when you get drunk?

You become detached from reality. Watching somebody who is drunk is sometimes entertaining because the alcohol tells them they can sing and they can't. The alcohol tells them they can dance and they can't dance. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's terrifying. If they get in the car and start driving, it's very serious.

And so when Peter says, be sober, he's saying, you've got to fix your eyes on what we know to be real, which is all the stuff that we looked at last week, this living hope. He said, you cannot drift. You cannot coast in your christian life. There's persecution that is coming. If you are to stand it and survive through it, you need to keep reminding yourselves, you need to keep preaching to yourselves the gospel story.

And the same is true of us if you want to live as a Christian. We're in a world that is inherently just blowing against the tide. You cannot coast in your thinking and in our living. We need to preach this story to ourselves, this living hope. And so, having established this, Peter goes on to start talking about, well, now, what about the journey?

We've got a difficult journey to go on before we reach the destination. And where is Peter going to go? What's the next thing that you and I might say to these christians? Maybe we would say, well, just hunker down and pray for persecution to stop. Maybe with just some practical tips on how to meet together without being noticed.

Maybe just look after yourself and the candles. Just chill because you're under a lot of pressure right now. Maybe start a campaign next to the wicked regime that is doing it. But Peter doesn't go there. He goes to a really, what I think is quite a surprising place.

He starts talking about holiness, living as holy people, and that's our focus for tonight. I don't know what you think when you sort of hear the word holiness. Maybe you sort of think about a religious piousness, but actually it's not about that. It's about being weird, but being weird in a particular way. Some Christians, some Christians are weird, but it's about being weird in a particular way.

And it's being weird in the sense that if we press into this entire story, if we press into the gospel story that tells us about where we've come from, where we're going, who we are, what we are, what a human being is for, if we press into this alternative story that the world is not preaching and we live into that. We're going to start living and thinking and behaving differently from the people around us. And this is holiness, which of course is what got the christians in trouble in the first place. They were different. They were an easy target.

And that's how important, Peter, this is so important. And why is it important for the church? Because it's probably true that noble churches, novel christians believe that it is important. Years ago, I was a youth worker and I went to a youth worker conference, just a local one arrived, had tea and coffee. I started chatting to another youth worker instead and I nearly arrived late because our alarm drop didn't, didn't go off and I had to kick my boyfriend out to bed.

And she suddenly realised what she divulged about her lifestyle. Sorry, I'm one of the naughty ones now. Just heads up if you're new here we hold it all saints. The Bible teaches one man, one woman in a marriage. Now we know that in this culture around us, that is hopefully hopelessly archaic and repressive and increasingly seen as evil.

That's one of the things about being holy. But what's wrong with this girl who was in a job where she was claiming young people what it means to be a Christian was she didn't really think holiness and living as other was really that important. And that's just one example of holiness. You see a whole lot of other examples, chapter one, verse two, which we have read, therefore ridge yourselves and malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. But is it important if we believe that God is gracious and forgiving, if we believe that our sins cannot separate us from his love, is holiness important?

What Peter thinks is, and he encourages us in this passage, as we think about holiness, to consider three things. Firstly, to consider your identity. The sacrifice of God the Son and the power of God the Holy Spirit. There are three things that he encourages to consider as we think about this question. Why does he think holiness is so important?

So firstly, our identity in God the Father. Let's read from verse 14 again. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you have when we live in ignorance. But just as he who called you as holy, so be holy in all you do is written be holy because I am holy. Since he call on the Father to judge person's work impartially, live out your time as followers here in reverence, fear, Peter first reminds the church of their identity as obedient children.

Since you call on a father. There are lots of pictures in the Bible about how God relates to his church. But this one, God is our father. And us as his children, is probably the one that leaps out the most. The theologian, J I.

Cappy. He said, if you want to know whether someone's really a Christian, ask them what it means that God is their father. Ask them what they think about that thought is uniquely christian. The Muslims don't have this concept. To call God your father, to call out your father would be blasphemous.

Not only that, but children of God. This idea that God is our father, we are his children, it is uniquely given in the Bible to those who believe, to those who trust in God. Occasionally, sometimes christian groups talk about the worldwide family of God as if God is everyone's father or God calls himself everyone's father. It's not. It's reserved for christians who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that is where this idea of holiness comes from. And this passage reminds christians of this relationship and then explains two ways in which makes sense of holiness. Firstly, in the reputation of God our father, families have reputation. Families have certain traits. Sometimes there's a couple of.

Couple of folks in this congregation, their families get known for something. And so then when the children leave school, they leave a prize, so that pupils coming up who give it this trait the best, they will win this prize every year because that's their reputation. But of course, when a family has a reputation to uphold, there's a certain responsibility. And so we can ask, what is the reputation of God's family? If you call yourself a child of God, what is the reputation we're called to live out to?

And it is this in verse 15. Be holy because I am holy. Peter says, fulfil the family reputation because you bear that identity. The right response to God having adopted into the family and spoke his name upon us and been known by that is to honour the name in the footsteps that I have been followed and so we care by his church. Be holy as I am holy.

So something of God's reputation, this idea of holiness, the fear God the Father. See verse 17. Since you call on a father who judges these persons, working partially, live out your time as follows.

And the word fear is intriguing in scripture because you have verses like one John four, where John says, perfect love cast out fear. There is a fear that we ought not to fear as christians. And yet in proverbs it tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So there is a legitimate type of fear and a fear that if we believe, we ought not to feel, what is the difference? Well, I wonder whether Peter actually gives us a clue here when he says, since you call my father, who judges each work person's work impartially, an intriguing phrase.

Who judges each person's work impartially. Let's say I'm a parent. Most parents will say there is a huge difference between parenting a five year old and parenting a 15 year old.

One parent put it to me like this. When young people become teenagers, it's the end of the era where mum and dad can do no wrong. What they were getting at is this. A five year old doesn't really have critical faculties when they disobey their parents. It's just because they don't like something.

But in their back of their minds, there's this idea that if mum and dad says something is right or wrong, that it kind of just is right or wrong. Right. They have this almost not like influence, they don't critique it. Whereas sometime between the age of twelve and 18, this curious thought comes into the mind.

I'm not getting a teenager, but actually, that is part of growing up. Right? The idea of growing up is you develop critical faculty so you can go out into the world and make your own decisions. But what I'm trying to get across is there is a fear that is lost. Whereas with the child who believes that their parents judge it partially, their parents standard is just the standard.

There is a fear of breaking it not that's bigger than a fear of punishment. It's just like that is right or wrong, and we shouldn't break it. We feel like we should, and we often do. And I think what Peter is getting here is that for the church, our relationship with God, the father actually sometimes ought to be more like that father who believes that actually, when their parents speak right or wrong, that is right and wrong, it's really into the fabric of the cosmos. Of course the God is true because he made the cosmo.

To become a Christian, by definition, is the end of I know best. To become a Christian is to admit there is one who seems more clear than me. There is a better judge than me. It might not be the end of our arguments with God, it might not be the end of our tantrums with God. It's definitely not the end of our being disciplined by God, but it's all wrapped up in our knowledge of this God who loves us unconditionally, but also who judges impartially.

God's judgement is always a good judgement, because he is God, his word aligns to reality. God allows us to kick against him. But if you go against God's word, you kick against reality and that should the same thing.

It is very dangerous when we start thinking, well, that's just God's opinion. If somebody call themselves a Christian in that time, simply says to themselves, well, that's just an opinion. When they're in comfortable disobedience, maybe two corinthians 13, verse five comes into play where Paul says, you do holiness because of our identity as children of God, the reputation of God and the fear of God.

Peter calls us to holiness, calls his church the holiness because of the sacrifice. God.

When I was a youth worker in Lewis, the local secondary school, they had a very cunning way of dealing with mobile phones in the classroom. The mobile phone went off in a classroom. It was confiscated until after school on Friday, Monday night. But here's the cunning thing. You couldn't collect it yourself.

One of your parents had to come into school and collect it, which meant if both your parents were one of them had to come out of collect the phone and make a time up later on. So not only if your phone went off, not only you in trouble, but your parents, somebody else was getting punished and that made a difference. Think in contrast, maybe the child who has an absence, but very wealthy father who not only does his phone go off, but he's moved to the teachers, he never does his homework and this, and he stepped back to the canteen and he's in for expulsion. And he gets pulled into the headmaster's office and they call the father who's away on business, and dad says, look, maybe I can make this go away. What do you mean?

This is going to be the new astronaut. I think you need a new wing, maybe an art swing. How can we make this go away? And the boy watches, the headmaster goes, okay, let's keep talking. Is that child going to change their behaviour?

No, because they know dad's just going to pay for it and so that's okay. And there are christians who treat God like this, right? What does the Bible tell us? Jesus paid it all, right? Jesus paid it all and said we can just carry on because Jesus is going to keep paying it all, like the very wealthy debt.

Except what does Peter say? How does Jesus pay it? You know, that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed 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. The wages of our sin cannot and could not easily be born of the wages of sin was death. Romans three tells us, and therefore rebellion of selfishness will or the ignorance of God by our blood.

Why do we do holiness as christians? Because God isn't like wealthy dad who just pays off the death at no cost. God comes in Jesus Christ to pay the penalty. He should have died with his blood. And you'll see a lamb without blemish or defect.

Why does it say that? With the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He's talking about the Old Testament's sacrificial system. So before Jesus, those who trusted in God, God gave the sacrificial system, which was kind of a placeholder until Jesus came and said, if you sin and you are forgiveness, take an animal, go to the temple, sacrifice it, and that will atone for your sins and the people how this works. But God has told us to do it and so we're going to do it.

And as they killed the animal, they would understand that sin needs to be paid for with bloodshed. But here's the thing. It had to be an animal without blemish or defect. In other words, God said, I want you to bring the best. I want you to bring the best of what you have.

But in Jesus Christ, it's not us that has to bring our best in order to be saved. It's God who brings his best. The perfect life in Jesus Christ, the perfect death in Jesus. And the reason we do holiness is not to pay for our sin. The reason we do holiness is that God has brought his death in Jesus Christ to save us from our sin.

And he asks for just one thing in return, which is God has given us all of himself, and he asks that we give all of ourselves. That is why we do holiness, identity, and God sacrifice that God not in order to be saved, but because we are saved through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now the passage explicitly mentions the Holy Spirit. I kind of put it there because it makes my title nice. But before I feel as you should be, just notice this little phrase, verse 23, for you have been born again.

It's another picture language of what God does in the lives of christians, following the sort of fatherhood of family, of adoption, and throughout the New Testament. Born again is characteristically a work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John chapter three, you must be born again. Flesh gives birth. Flesh but flesh, but spirit gives birth spirits.

In romans eight, Paul describes the work of the Holy Spirit as causing us to cry, causing those who believe in him to cry at the Father. In other words, it's the Holy Spirit's job to put the work of God the Father through Jesus' son into effect in our lives, to make it real as we walk and to encourage this holiness as our identity seeps more and more into our conscious, into our thinking, into our feeling.

Sometimes those ways are immediate, but more usually to family traits. They grow slowly over time. And as we cooperate with the Spirit's work, it's reflected in two different ways. Firstly, the life of the church, verse 22. Now you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other.

Love one another. From what does holiness look like? It means loving the church. Why is that so important? It's important because our individual faith needs spoken and we're encouraged when we come together.

I hope you're encouraged when we come together, when we sing songs together, when we hear from God's word together, I hope that encourages you to go live your life as a Christian individually. But that's not the primary reason we do church. The primary reason we do church is because it is the goal of our faith. Jesus died so that we might be reconciled to God and reconciled to one another. That's why we're going to be celebrating communion in just a short while.

What is this living hope that we have? What has Jesus Christ saved us into? It is alive together in community. And as we wait for that day, we taste of it by coming together and doing church and loving the church.

Lastly, through God's word you've been born again. Not a perishable seed, but imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. For all people are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. But the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this is the word that was preached. God's word can be trusted if God's word really is impartial, if God's word is woven for fabric of how the world is made, how we are made, how communities are made. And it is God's word that gives us substance and it's God's word that keeps us rooted. You're not a Christian here tonight you might be thinking, and sometimes it is. Why are we doing?

Why do we do it? The image here is of something beautiful that we are planted into, something that feeds us and something that gives us meaning, something that gives us a hope, something that tells us we are something rather than nothing. And it is very difficult to do that with any other story, particularly the story that is being told in our secular world of secular west. Today we live in a world that is experiencing a cris, a cris of substance, where it's hard to grab hold of purpose. C.

S. Lewis said this once. He said, if nature is all that exists, then all stories will end the same way. In a universe in which all life is vanished without possibility of return, it would have been an accidental and there will be no one even trust in this story. Why don't trust in story?

Why didn't you?

It is a better story. It is unmatchable with all the alternative, this living hope in Jesus Christ Church. Therefore, we do not coast in our homes. We need to preach a story to ourselves. And we end with pin to pass instruction like you will babies, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.

Now you have yours.

Lord God, we thank you for your goodness. Lord, we thank you for the goodness of your gospel. God, we thank you that you love us by calling us your children. And you are Father, we thank you that you have loved us by sending Jesus the Son a perfect sacrifice. Sin, we thank you that you send your spirit that we might be born again into this living hope that as we worship, as we gather, as we pray, as we read your word, we become more like you, and we behold you more.

Lord Jesus, increase this in our lives. We pray. Give us the energy to seek, give us the energy to run after your glory. Just rise up with you on eagle's wings, Lord, that we might be affected, distinct and holy. Your beloved ship.