Be Holy

Just want to again welcome everyone and uh just remind you here at the district. One of the things that we do I'm stepping on your stuff here is we treasure Jesus in order to help others follow him. That's the mission of our church and the vision kind of behind how we end up doing that is by opening God's word to learn, opening our lives to love others. Um, and as we do that, as we treasure Jesus more, and as we help others uh, follow him as well, that begins to multiply, that begins to grow, that begins to help us um, see the gospel spread and see the glory of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And so, we we want to kind of throw a phrase out there all the time that one of our goals each year is to multiply everyone every year. And by God's good grace, as we are doing that, as we are trusting what Jesus has entrusted to us, uh we will see more people come to know Jesus and begin treasuring him and then again help others follow him as well.

And so the where I want to transition you today as we head into first Peter and continue in our series in this is I want to see how we treasure Jesus and and it's going to continue kind of talking about that what we've been talking about so far in this first first chapter. But I want to be able to help you see how treasuring Jesus and helping follow him are two realities that that are essentially kind of different things. But one is an indicative. It's it's what God has done for us that then leads into an imperative what we do for God or what he's commanded of us. And so the title that I have for this message um is essentially be holy, which is a big title and it's a big command that God is going to give us in this passage. But the main idea that I want you to see from this is that clear minds fuel holy lives.

Clear minds fuel holy lives. or if you've ever watched the Friday night uh light TV show um clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. And so uh it's kind of that same idea that we're going to see here. And so first Peter, we're going to be looking at verses 13 through 16. And so I want to read it for us and then we will dive into it. So starting in verse 13, 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.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. What I want to actually start off with giving you the first point, but giving you a preface. We need to have a bit of a framework for understanding how the New Testament writers oftentimes structure their writing. They're they're they're inspired by the Holy Spirit writing for the people to understand how to live out what God has ultimately accomplished for them.

And so, in other words, what what many biblical scholars refer to this as is gospel grammar. Gospel grammar. And that's what I want to show you is is what this looks like. And and and another way that we talk about it in biblical theology or primarily Pauline theology is what I've learned as the indicatives and the imperatives. The indicative is a reality or a truth that is accomplished or given to you. And because of that truth, you then receive the imperative.

What you are commanded to do, how you are to respond to this truth. And what often times we do the mistake of is we start with an imperative and hope that it eventually gets to an indicative. So we start with do this and God will do this. Well, that's not what called us to do. It's God Therefore, we are to do this. We are to respond in this way.

And so, it distinguishes the difference between what God has already done, which is a grace for us, and what believers are called to do, which is response to the grace. And so, New Testament writers inspired by the Holy Spirit oftentimes adopt this style of writing where they preede any imperative command. do this with an indicative reality, what's already been done. And so, here's a simple illustration for you. Take a child's birthday. The indicative reality is that their parents have already purchased and wrapped a gift for the child to receive.

The imperative or the command is for the child to receive it and unwrap it. And so, that's what we're seeing often times in the scriptures is that God has already worked out what the gift is. He's already purchased it. He's already wrapped it. He's already given it to us and accomplished that. He's set up the whole party in celebration.

We then on our side, we receive the gift that he's provided to us and then unwrap it and enjoy it. And so just about everything Peter has been explaining to us up in these first 12 verses that we've already looked at is all in that indicative reality. All he's been explaining so far is everything that God has done and accomplished for us. That's what he's been doing. And now he's starting to shift and move into imperatives, commands because of this. Do this.

And I even want to just show you by rereading the verses and even pointing out specifically here's the indicative, here's the imperative so that you can kind of understand how this writing flows. Look at verse 13 again. Therefore, now I'm not going to go back into the indicative of what he meant by the therefore, but the therefore is attaching everything that I've just said, which is we'll see it here in a minute, but it's all of the first 12 verses. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope. That's a command. Set your hope.

That's an imperative. That's the response. Set your hope on the grace. So because of everything God has done, set your grace or set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 14. As obedient children, that's the indicative.

Because God has caused you to be born again. You are now a child of his and an obedient child of his. Because of that, here's the imperative. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. So it's not do not be conformed to the passions of your ignorance that lead you to be an obedient child. It's because you are an obedient child.

Therefore now do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Look at verse 15. But as he who called you is holy. That's the indicative because he is holy. Here's you also be holy in all your conduct. Look at verse 16.

Since it is written, you shall be holy. That's the imperative. For here comes the indicative. For I am holy. And now I want to ask the question, why show you this framework? Because what it ultimately does is as we start reading through the imperatives of scripture, here's what you are to do.

It guards your heart and mind against legalism. when we start addressing the commands in scripture. And here's the reality in today's world. I'm actually not as concerned about legalism anymore because people rarely read their Bibles anymore. People rarely pray anymore. Like I am not really concerned about someone who is so reading their Bible that they fall more in love with the word of God than they do the God of the word.

I'm just honest. I I I I don't I mean it's I remember having these types of conversations in the Bible South where people were so proud of how often they read and how often they attend and how much they pray to where I'm saying I think you think you're saved by your activity rather than the object of the activity. And so, but as we do continue to grow and mature and read more and pray more and attend more and participate and engage more, always staying anchored to the indicative and the and the imperative. thing anchored to why we're doing it instead of what we're doing will help guard our hearts against doing it performatively instead of responding to it faithfully. And so in other words, Christianity is not workbased religion, which would be more of a legalism approach. It's gracebased because God has done, therefore we do.

Because looking at what he's already said, God according to his mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope and inheritance. We therefore set our hope fully on the grace that will be earned by you. No, that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so with this in mind, similar to the idea of preparing your minds, with this in mind, I want to unpack this passage to see what it's talking about and how we can actually be holy for God is holy. Because if I'm honest, that's a tall task, is it not? Like when you read a scripture like that that says, "Be holy as God is holy."

Okay. Well, I don't know anything holier than God. And when I'm doing that comparison, I got a long way to go. But it doesn't say be somewhat holy as God is holy. Be halfholy as God is holy. No, it's saying equal.

Be holy as God is holy. That seems tough. Like when I'm reading through the scriptures and I'm seeing things like God loves you, amen. That's a good one. God sends his son Jesus. Yes, that's awesome.

Jesus even died for you on the cross. Amazing grace. How sweet to sound. God is holy and you should be just as holy. Hold up a second. That's a hard one.

I don't think I can keep up with that one. That is an impossible imperative, is it not? Or is it? Let's find out. Remember the imperative here. the command that says, "Set your hope fully on the grace."

Well, we're going to need that in order to be holy. So, let's look at it. What grace are we setting our hope on? What grace are we setting our hope on? Because if you just focus simply on, all right, he's told me to set my hope on grace. So, I need to muster up all the energy in order to create this hope and put it on his grace.

Well, if you're focusing on what you do before you focus on what the grace is, then you'll never actually get to putting the hope on it. Here's what I mean by that. When you focus on the grace that has come to you and that you have received produces the hope that you then set on it and you continue to remind yourself basically here's why we have living hope is because of the grace and not anything that I do. And so what is the grace? Because we need to know that if we're going to put hope on it. Well, it's the grace Peter is referencing in the halfozen reasons he's already told us in chapter 1 verses 3-7.

And I'm just going to kind of run through these. Put hope in God's mercy. How did he kick the whole thing off? According to what? God's mercy. Not according to your awesomeness, but according to God's mercy.

So, put hope in the fact that God is merciful. put hope in God's new birth for you, which meant what you were was not good enough and there needed to be a new you. And he caused that to happen. He gave you a new heart. He gave you new birth and you became a new creation. Put hope in God's living hope.

So he knows that you are going to need an active living hope that is anchored in the grace that he is providing for you. Put hope in God's resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Like if you ever are wondering, man, I feel like my life is just going down the drain. I feel like things are getting more difficult. I feel like things are hard. I feel like life is killing me.

Well, put hope in the fact that God is a resurrecting God. and that that that that death is not going to get the last laugh. He is a resurrection and he is providing a resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And so therefore, regardless of what happens in this life, we can put hope that even if this life does kill us, God is a resurrecting God. Put hope in God's inheritance that is given to you. So if you don't get what you want here, put hope in the fact that you'll get what you need there.

like just remember that. So, it's okay if you don't get the promotion. It's okay if you don't get the 401k. It's okay if whatever it is that you're looking for and hoping in, if it doesn't work out, fine. Whatever. I'll get it then.

I'll get it then. Put hope in God's necessary trials that don't kill you but refine you. They might end up killing you, but most of the time what they're doing is just refining you. They're refining you like fire. And that's where he gives that illustration of fire and gold. And it pulls out the impurities so that it can get to the puress of the gold.

That's what he's doing with trials in our lives. And he even says that they are necessary trials. Which meant there's God's provision behind it. There's God's sovereignty behind it. There's God's thought and idea behind the trials that we experience. And those trials are refining you, which we'll actually dive into a bit more of that with the idea of holiness today.

How do we get holy? It's probably going to come through trials, likely to come through trials. Put hope in God's salvation that comes through faith and not works. All of those things are indicatives. These are all the things that God is accomplishing for us. And he tells us, "Set your hope fully on that."

The great thing about it is when we focus on those things, it actually produces and it wells up within us hope, right? I mean, when you just fester on those things, I mean, just consume those things, it makes you hopeful. It makes you hopeful life's going to work out. Romans 8:28 is true that he's working out all things for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Now, a rational question, a rational question I've had before and have been even begun having with some of my kids is this. How do we actively set our hope on this grace described in this first chapter?

What does it look like? What does it look like to do this? And here's the first point I want you to see here. And I don't have alliteration for you today. I have sentences for you today. So, you're welcome.

Number one, those who love him, believe in him, and rejoice in him, desire to set their hope on him. So, it first begins with whether or not you're treasuring Jesus. Like, are you treasuring Jesus? those who love him, believe in him, rejoice in him, desire to set their hope on him. This is why Peter follows up his list of a half a dozen plus one or whatever it was. Points of grace is the natural response of those who have already received those things.

So when you look at 8 through9, it says this, "Though you've not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressable and filled with glory. And it's obtaining the salvation or the outcome of your faith. It's obtaining the salvation of your souls. And so if you were to examine this based on the gospel grammar framework, it would read, "For those who have been born again, aka receive the salvation that comes through faith. They are the ones who desire Jesus by loving him, believing in him, and rejoicing in him.

And so it's just it's just equations here. A plus B equals C. When you receive Jesus, it produces in you love for him. It produces in you belief for him. It produces in you rejoicing in him. And so those people are the ones who are going to set their hope on the grace that they have received.

In other words, they're saying because Jesus has done this, I actually take him at his word and believe when he says in John 15 that apart from me, you can do nothing. And so if if I've received the hope and the hope is ultimately Jesus, then I am going to set my hope on that. So what I how I received it is how I'm going to to to to to worship. It's how I'm going to place it back on him. I'm going to make sure that it's always anchored to Jesus and nothing else. And so the first thing that you need to see in this first point is that these are the people in this world who have seen their own sin and rebellion.

The way that we've made a mess of our lives. the way that we've rejected and rebelled against the God who created us, made us, and even gave us a way to live that honors God and follows or allows human flourishing. Like a rebellious child, we ultimately said, "No, we don't want your way. We don't want you. We want your stuff." And we rebelled against God.

These people who love Jesus are the ones who became aware of this reality that we sinned against him. You'll never get to treasuring him unless you first realize that you rejected him. We got to know this. And the reason why I'm pointing this out is because we're going to be talking about ignorance here in a moment. Christians are not ignorant anymore. We are aware of our sinful rebellion against a good God.

And so when God awakens our eyes to the reality of our fallen condition, that is the first sign of grace that we are receiving. It's a good thing for us to realize that we are fallen and broken. One of the worst places that you can be is fallen and broken and unaware. Not realizing that the path you're heading down is heading towards an eternal destruction and death. And so we are aware of our sin which means we are then aware of our need of our savior. And that's the second thing you need to see in this first point is that we've seen and heard what Jesus has done to forgive us of our sin and rebellion.

That Jesus lived the perfect life. That he died the substitutionary death in our place and then came back from the grave defeating death, sin, and Satan. Where where we couldn't abide by God's way. Jesus showed up 2,000 years ago and did it. God's way. Like where we rebelled, Jesus said, "Yes, I will live the perfect life.

I will do exactly what is necessary in order to meet the standard of righteousness." Sin is missing the mark of it. And Jesus doesn't miss the mark. He nails it every single time. And he's doing that on our behalf for God's glory. So that when we come back into relationship and receive this grace, we now get to rightly live our lives in such a way that brings God glory instead of robs him of it.

And so the first thing we need to see is the awareness of your sin. The second is awareness of what Jesus came to do. And third, you and I have no other rightful response but to bend our knee to him, to submit to him as Lord of our lives, to actually believe he did all that the scriptures testified to. So the first thing you need to see is that those who set their hope on the grace of God are those who have believed in Jesus, love Jesus, and rejoice in all that Jesus is doing. But to know what that is is to know that you were a sinner. That he came to live the righteous life that you could not.

That he died in your place. And then he gives you his righteousness and takes your sin. The great exchange. Those who understand that, who receive that grace, that indicative, then begin to live out the imperative. And here's the great thing is that we become or start to become transformed by this reality, which is where I want to take you to the next thing. Look back at the text.

I want to show you this this reality, this gospel grammar played out both for the sinner and the saint, the unbeliever and the believer, the ignorant and the sober minded. In both realities, for the non-Christian and the Christian, there are indicatives and imperatives that play themselves out. So, I want you to see this back to verse 13. 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 as obedient children. And if you if you underline, I want you to underline this. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

And so, here's the second thing. Those who are ignorant will be passionate about conformity to sinful conduct. You're just reverse engineering this. Those who are ignorant will be passionate about their conformity to sinful conduct. And so I want to start to draw some equations for you here on how indicatives imperatives start to become like um equations for us. A plus B equals C.

When you look at verse 14 will help us see why the world is the way it is. So it's not just chaos. The crazy thing is there's actually some order to the sin that's in the world. There's an order behind it. And it starts off with ignorance. Ignorance.

And so we need to ask the question, what is ignorance? Well, the Greek word for this is anoa, which sounds like anoi, and it is annoying, but it's a different thing. Agnoya simply means without knowledge. Without knowledge, or other definitions even put it as moral blindness. Moral blindness. Agnoya is similar to the position agnostic or agnosticism, which is a term meaning without knowledge or the rejection of spiritual knowledge.

So there's it's okay for there to be some level of physical knowledge. They'll call that science. But they reject any form of ethereal spiritual knowledge. This is where ignorance comes from. The word ignorance comes from. Ignoya.

And so when you hear someone say, "I'm an agnostic," essentially all they're saying is, "I'm without knowledge." And and that's just true. That's just true. It's the position that is held. So when you hear someone um or I I I choose to be without knowledge, but as our culture loves to yell from the rooftops when when they hear someone say I'm an agnostic, our culture is saying it's okay for them to be that way. And they'll even celebrate it's great for them to believe what they want to believe.

Even if what they believe is is a phrase or a statement that is saying, "I'm without knowledge. It's okay to not have truth. It's okay to think and believe what you want." Well, look at the text again. Do not be conformed to the passions or you can also fill in passions lust of your former ignorance. And so the thing we need to see here is that your world view is what fuels ultimately what you're passionate about.

And what I mean by world view is I mean like what's up here. What's in your mind is what fuels what you care about. It's what fuels what you care about. And so if you're ignorant, then you're likely to be fueled and and and passionate about things that aren't anchored in anything that is truthful. We need to see this. Ignorance is never spiritual neutral.

From a biblical perspective, ignorance, especially ignorance about God, creates the soil where sinful passions grow. And so the Bible teaches that human beings were created with deep desires. Like we are not people who do not have deep desires or longings or passions, but we were created with those deep desires, longings, and passions to ultimately point toward God himself. But when the truth about God is suppressed, start thinking ignorance here. When the truth about God is suppressed or ignored, those desires don't disappear. They just become perverted and distorted and misguided.

They get put on other things that are not truthful things because they're no longer anchored in God. They're now anchored in creation. And so instead of leading us toward the creator, they turn inward toward ourselves or outward toward created things. And so scripture describes this condition as a darkening of the mind. It's a darkening of the mind. Paul writes in Ephesians that people are darkened in their understanding.

So he's attacking the mind here. The reason why they are living out passions that are perverted is because their minds are darkened. They're ignorant. They're alienated from the life of God because the ignorance that is in them. And so what follows? They then give themselves over to sensuality and impurity.

In other words, when the light of truth fades, the fires of passion burn and they continue to burn, but for the wrong things. Ignorance fuels sinful conduct. This is exact this is exactly the pattern that the Bible lays out again and again and again. When truth is rejected, passions are misdirected. It's what happens every single time. And this is why.

So if we take the truth, Genesis 1, you get 27 verses into it, you see that God created mankind, male and female, in his image. That is a truth. So when as a world view you start suppressing that truth and rejecting that truth and bearing that truth. Now no longer are we anchored to the fact that God's design is male and female. But instead of asking him what we should be. We now start looking into ourselves.

And our passions when they start getting misguided and perverted, we start no longer seeing male and female, but we start seeing 2,000 different genders. And because we are designed to desire our creator who allows us to understand who we are and who he created us to be and the identity he's given us. When we are suppressing that and rejecting that, we're still searching for identity. We're still searching for who we are. We're still passionate about discovering who that person is. But if we don't know male and female and the design of who he's created us to be, we're now going to pervert that and start searching.

Well, I don't think I'm a female anymore. Therefore, I must be a male and so let me start going that route. And it and then it ultimately plays out when you then are passionate about that and care about that. You then start acting in the misconduct and start seeing doctors to determine whether or not you can actually change yourself. You start changing yourself rather than God transforming you. That's not a good thing.

But put this in every single category in all of the world and this is what's playing out. God has a design for everything. And when it is ignorant because suppressing his design, then we're going to try a thousand things and we're going to keep trying a thousand things. And it just keeps getting worse and worse and more misguided and more misdirected and more perverted and worse and ultimately it leads to death. So knowing what we once were ignorant, he's basically telling them now that you know who you are in Christ, do things differently. Repent.

Do things differently. And that's why I want you to see here the third thing. Those who are soberminded will be passionate about conformity to holiness. Notice notice the comparison to the two things. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. So in other words, don't be stupid which fuels misguided passions which leads to sin and conduct.

Instead, be sober minded so that you can set your hope, passion, desires, unholiness, conformity to Christ. That's why he begins with verse 13, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded. What you need to do is suppress the ignorance and you need to start receiving and diving into the truth. You need to prepare your mind. You need to anchor. Don't suppress the truth anymore.

Receive the truth. Get in the truth so that your passions can be rightly guided, which ultimately leads to you having the right conduct. And so I can literally give you give you this into an equation. Pull up that world's way. The world's way, if we can get there. He'll get there.

There it is. So the world's way again is going to be ignorance which is a rejection of the truth. Everyone who's a non-believer is doing this. Some do it very well. Some do it and it still looks like good things but it might be covered up in pride or whatever it might be just personal gain and whatnot. Some do it in debauchery.

some I mean again regardless there is ignorance and it is a rejection of the truth which then leads to perverted passions which then leads to the action of sinful misconduct which is ultimately going to lead to death. So that's the world's way. That's why when Jesus showed up on the scene he didn't say to them actually you know what you guys believe what you want to believe think what you want to think we'll accept you as you are. It's totally It's totally okay. Everyone's welcome here. And so just come on in.

Stay what you are. And let's just create some kind of community that centers around an ethereal Jesus that's not real. That's the world's view. Jesus shows up on the scene and says, "Stop." That's what repentance means. Stop doing it that way.

Let's get back to God's way. stop doing it that way. Let's get back to God's way. So, what is God's way in regards to that? How does he and and I don't think it's necessarily him reacting to the worldview. I think it's he's always had a way.

We reacted to his way and then he's reintroducing his way to us. And his way is again truth. It starts with truth. What is truth? And we need to know it. Truth then leads to forming our hope and passions.

We start getting excited about the right things and not the wrong things which then leads to you do what you're excited about conformity to Christ new conduct which is why again he says in here as obedient children be holy in all your conduct. So preparing your minds and setting your minds on what God has done is what allows us to be obedient children. We're excited about this. We want to do this. And it leads to right conduct, holy conduct. And so how do we set our hope fully on the grace of Jesus?

First and foremost, trust Jesus. Trust Jesus. That's the first thing that we are to do. Bend your knee to the lordship of Christ. Christ is king for the glory of God. He lived for you.

He died for you. He rose for you so that you can be made new and have a right relationship with God. So the first thing we do is the indicative. We trust Jesus. The second thing we do is we trust the way of Jesus. The imperatives.

So, we trust what he has done and then we trust what he calls us to do and we do it. And again, I'm not concerned about you diving into legalism there when you start doing things for the Lord. What I'm actually concerned about is the fact that we say we trust Jesus, but we actually get to the imperatives in doing what he's called us to do. Because unfortunately some of our Christianity over the last couple of decades has so focused on you not having to do anything that we then believe that there's nothing for us to do. Now yes in salvation there is nothing you do in your salvation but receiving it and believing it by faith. But once you receive it and believe it by faith, it then commands of you to start doing some things.

To start doing some things and it's things that lead to joy. When you don't do them, you rob yourself of joy. So it's not a begrudging submission to Lord who's saying do this and it's going to make you miserable. No, it's I've already provided everything for you to ultimate satisfaction in me. And now I want to actually play that out a little bit more where you start living in such a way that is flourishing for all of society and flourishing for you as well. You are going to be so joyful in living out the commands that I give for you.

And so when I command you to read the word, do it for your joy. Don't just sit back and think God's going to automatically just upload in my brain all of his word. That would be amazing. But that's not the way it works. We got to read it. We got to read it.

And I'm telling you, I've never I have never met a Christian, a seasoned saint, who says, "I wasted so much time reading my Bible throughout my life." I've never met that person. I've met the young people who say, "I don't have time to read my Bible." Or, "Man, can we just get together and hang out and talk? You know, why does everything have to be a study in God's word? Why do we have to dive into Bible study?

I have too many things on my plate." Ignorance. and those who have prepared their mind and are sober minded. Let's heir on this side and do what he's called us to do. It's good for us. So, let's wrap this up here.

Trust the way of Jesus. And as you're doing those two things, the indicative of trusting everything Jesus has accomplished for you and then the imperative trusting the way of Jesus for you, what you're going to see, and this is just what God produces in you is that you can trust that God makes you holy through that process. So coming back to the very beginning, how do we be holy as God is holy? Well, first of all, you can't. But God can make you holy as he is holy. And he is making you holy as he is holy.

When we look at 2 Corinthians 5:21, for he who knew no sin became sin so that you and I might become the righteousness of God like that, that is an impossible verse. If you look at it and think how can Jesus become a sinner and how can a sinner become a saint? How can a sinner become the righteousness of Jesus? And that's why again it says he who knew no sin became sin. Jesus accomplished this. Jesus is the only one who can literally have you say of himself, come to me all who are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

In other words, what he's saying is, "Come to me all who are weary and are heavy laden in working for themselves in trying to earn their own way, trying to do things their own way, who are trying and it's just perverted. It's misguided. It's misdirected. You have this longing and desire in your heart to know God. But when you suppress that, you're trying to figure it out by knowing creation. And it's literally killing you, which is why you're weary and heavy laden."

And the way in which I'm going to give you rest is I'm going to take all of that from you and I'm going to place it on myself at the cross and I'm going to bear the wrath of God that's due your sin. And everything that I worked for, everything that I lived for, everything that I did, all the right thoughts, all the right motives, all the right actions, whatever the law says, I'm abiding by it. I'm fulfilling it. Whenever God wants me to go over here and pray, I'm going to do that. Everything Jesus did to earn for you righteousness, he then says, "I'm going to give you righteousness. I'm going to give it to you free of charge."

And when we receive it, it's like receiving rest because we don't have to work for it and we don't have to earn it. And so he makes you holy in that moment. So that just as when Jesus was being baptized and the father stooped down out of heaven and looked at him and said, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." I actually think sometimes pastors say something that's a little, it's not wrong, but it it's not complete. They'll say, "Isn't it amazing that God was um pleased with Jesus before he did any work of ministry?" As if it's kind of a sign of like God's pleased with you if you don't do anything for him kind of idea.

But here's the reality is he's around 30 years old when God says this. He's what's he been doing for 30 years? All of that was pleasing to the Lord, was pleasing to God. And so it's not that before he worked for the father, the father was already pleased with him. The father was pleased with him because he lived a perfect life, a holy life, a righteous life, a life that was perfectly abiding with the father. and he gives that to you so that when we receive it, God's also able to look at you now and say, "I am pleased with you.

I am pleased with you because of the life Jesus lived, because of the death Jesus died in your place, and because Jesus rose from the grave that is allowing us to be risen from our spiritual graves and are now new creations in Christ, he's able to look at us and say, "You're holy. You're holy." And so when you read a scripture that says be holy as as he is holy, don't think in your mind, how many how many good deeds do I need to accomplish this week in order to execute that verse. It's not what he's saying. It's saying, trust what God has already accomplished for you and gave to you, and therefore I am holy as he is holy. And the beauty of that is we now get to spend the rest of our lives being transformed into that holiness that we've already received.

This is that already not yet language. You are holy and being made holy. You are righteous and being made righteous. And it will be complete when Jesus returns. We don't have to earn it. We just trust that God is working it out in our lives and we do get to participate in it.

That's the imperatives. And so yes, you are 100% holy and righteous because of the work of Jesus that has been imputed to your account. But how much of that is transformed between now and glory is also dependent upon the imperatives of you trusting those and responding to those. So, if you don't read the word of God before he returns, one, I'm going to question whether or not you actually understand the indicatives. But if you just kind of take it here and there, well, then you're just stumping your own becoming what you already are. You're stunting that growth.

You're stunting your joy. We have desires that are now rightly moving. And we all I mean, let's just ask ourselves the question right now. Do I desire to study and know the God who saved me? Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

All right. What's the avenue in which I study and know the God who saves me? The word that he's provided us. All right. Well, then I must desire to get into it and consume it. All right.

Well, then let me do that. You're free to get into it and get into it as much as your heart desires. And what you're going to realize is that the more you see the indicatives, your heart's going to desire more of it. That's why again I always say the seasoned saints who have spent their lives desiring this and going after it, they can't get enough of it. And here's the crazy thing. I don't think it's crazy, but is if you ask most of them by the time they get to that point where they are so seasoned and I'm not pointing over here like I'm looking at Mike, but the seasoned saints when they get to that place in a weird way of humility actually probably view themselves more far from arriving than those who are over here who are new believers.

belies who say, you know, I don't have time to study the word of God as if I don't need it. I'm just I've accepted Jesus. He's made me holy. He's made me righteous. Great. I got my ticket to heaven.

I'm mature now. I'm good to go. And the seasoned saint over here is looking back at them and saying, "You're still acting like an ignorant child." And that's why he's saying, "Do not be conformed to the former ignorance that you once had. Instead, make sure that you're preparing your mind and setting it for action and putting your hope fully on the grace that is yours in Jesus Christ so that it produces in you holy conduct. Holy conduct.

But that is going to be the challenge for us who are young in our faith. The challenge is going to be believing that we don't need more to continue growing in our conduct of the Lord. And so, I'm just going to tell you this all the time. You're never going to feel like you've read enough because when you actually read more and more and more and you get to know the God who has ultimately saved you and you start to know more about his character and his holiness and his righteousness and his goodness and his faithfulness. I mean, it breaks you down to where you're like, "How in the world am I now more sinful in the more knowledge that I have about God? And he just gently reminds us, go back to the indicatives.

I've already forgiven you, but continue to get to know me. Continue to get to know me. Receive salvation by faith through Jesus. And then know the God who saved you by filling your mind with the knowledge of God from his word. You'll start loving the things God loves and you'll start going after the things God loves. You'll start stewarding your life around the things that God loves rather than the things that you love.

And there might even come a day where those things so overlap that you don't even know the difference between what God loves and what you love. That's the goal before glory. and you'll start doing the things that God does, treasuring Jesus and helping others follow him. And that's holy. That's holy. I want to finish with a story before we dive into communion.

So, one of my favorite stories comes from the book burning in my bones, which is a kind of a autobiography biography because it was written by Win Collier, but it was also uh in conjunction with Eugene Peterson in the last three years of his life. So, it's a book about the life of Eugene Peterson and and when he was a young pastor, um, and in Eugene's own thoughts, felt as though he wasn't qualified, felt as though he was struggling, felt as though he wasn't leading the church the proper way. I love the story. He's in his home and um his son who's being interviewed by Will um by Win Collier who's now in his 50s, he's asked, "Go back to your childhood. Go back to when you were seven, eight, nine years old. What's a memory that you have about Eugene that we can put in the book?"

And he said, "Here's here's one." He said, "It was in the morning time. his his mother was cooking breakfast and she said, "Why don't you go down and get your father and bring him up? Breakfast is ready." And so, um, his son goes down the stairs into their basement and that's where his office, his study was. And as he goes to crack the door open, he sees that, uh, the sun was kind of beaming through the window and and and shining down as if it's like God's glory coming in to the room.

And um the son sees his father on his knees, hands held with the scriptures in front of him and he's just praying the word of God. And he says, "What I remember back as a child is looking at my father and feeling like I cannot disrupt this moment because I am witnessing something holy." And when you're reading this and you're seeing the thoughts that Eugene had in that moment, but then the witnessing of something else because he's engaging in the abiding of Christ and the scriptures for us, it's going to feel like we are inadequate. But in that moment, it's something holy. It's something holy. And that's the tension we feel our entire lives.

The more we see the holiness of God, we look at that and we just we break. How could we ever possibly God says, "That's right. That's right. How could you ever possibly be in relationship with me?" But that's why I sent my son, Jesus. And you are now holy as I am holy.

And you are now righteous because he has earned everything for you. Receive it and come and follow me, your home. Father, we thank you so