Children of Obedience (1 Peter 1:14-16)

Good morning Let's pray together father we are we are so grateful for your word and For all that it teaches us and Lord, it's been a struggle for me with this passage.

I pray that I Pray that the same struggle would would happen in earnest for all of those who are here today who know you that all of your your children of obedience would choose to be holy to not conform to the lusts that were theirs and their ignorance

And pray that they would be changed and Lord. I pray that as I am as I preach

I Pray that my words would be right there would be accurate that there would be what you intended

But that if they're not that you would superintend that your word would be heard appropriately

Lord. I pray that we'd be Attentive to your word Lord in Jesus name So turning your

Bibles to first Peter chapter 1 where we'll read together beginning in verse 14 verses 14 through 16

Before I get started if you hear anything today that sounds familiar It's because once again

Jim has completely stolen my thunder on purpose He looks ahead he knows

I'm teaching in first Peter So he looks ahead to the passage that I will be teaching in and the week before he shoehorns into his passage in Hebrews the same emphasis so first Peter 1 14 through 16 as Obedient children not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours and your ignorance

But like the Holy One who called you be holy yourselves in all your conduct because it is written you shall be holy

For I am holy So this passage begins in most

English translations, and I think very likely in every English translation that's here in the room today with three

English words as obedient children and And if you just were to read the words in the original language it would be as children obedience

The word translated obedient is actually a genitive noun So it's a it's a noun a noun that's used to modify the other noun children the word for children, so a more consistent translation would be as children of obedience as children of obedience using the noun obedience as written and And I think that makes the intended meaning of just a little bit more clear

The phrase is intended to address and describe a group of people with a central characteristic in common

It's a structure. It's used that way both in the Old and New Testaments. You see it in your Bible Sons of worthlessness sons of Belial sons of thunder or sons of thunder

Children of Jerusalem just there's all sorts of uses of that sort of structure. It's a phrase of identification

So Peter isn't giving a command here not yet He does that in verse 15.

He isn't just calling his readers obedient children some sort of term of endearment He's putting them in a camp

Identifying them as a distinct nation in a particular family so we and I'm speaking to Christians only

We are children of obedience Note the similarity of Ephesians 5 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the

Lord walk as children of light similar Christians are referred to as children of obedience children of light children of the day children of the promise beloved children dear children

Most of all children of God Now note the contrast of the term

The term that we're looking at children of obedience with its opposite. This is in Ephesians 2 1 through 3

And you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world according to the ruler of the power of the air the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience

Among whom we also formerly conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh doing the desires of the flesh of the mind were by nature children of wrath even as the rest

So the unregenerate referred to in Scripture as children of disobedience children of wrath children of the night children of darkness

Children of hell accursed children children of the devil. So I see scripture knows only two families

There's the family of God and there's the family of Satan and as I do this motion here I'm gonna mix them up.

So don't pay any attention to which side which corner is which? This is a quote from John Stott John Stott wrote a commentary on 1st

John which of course has some of these same themes He says the contrast is stark and absolute. We're said to be either in the light or in the darkness and there is no twilight

No twilight. There's no dusk Right that there's just light and darkness No gray areas in Scripture.

The scripture doesn't know gradations in terms of identity heaven has various rewards for obedience hell has various punishments for sin, but there's a broad chasm in between those

All right. This is the scripture knows only two two kingdoms to two families So there's only on one hand the dominion of darkness the children of disobedience the family of satan the kingdom of this world

That's dead in sin Resolute and it's rebellion to the God who still loves them still provides for them provides all the blessings of creation

That is who they are that is who you would still be were it not for the overwhelming intervention of the

Holy Spirit That's that's one The other realm is is it's opposite.

It's the dominion of light the children of God the kingdom of heaven It's a particular and peculiar people that are no longer bound to their sin

No longer blinded in our minds by the God of this age you you christian child of obedience

You have been made alive in Christ God has caused you to be born again

That's further up in chapter one You now can see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

That's the difference. You're you're now called children of God You call the the sovereign of the universe father and lord and savior and king and god

You are his child his obedient child a child of obedience.

This is who you are It's who you are It's not just an address this is an emphatic statement of identity we don't want to miss it

You're a child of obedience. We are children of obedience Peter's not asking us to be obedient.

He's not telling us someday. We will be obedient or we should be obedient He's identifying us with obedience.

This is who you and I are All right, this is us It's a contrast with the unregenerate sinner or the pre -regenerate sinner

What makes you and I different what moved us from one family to another? It's not anything we have done. But again that fact that god has caused us to be born again

We are regenerated. We are made new We are made alive spiritually

We are given the Our essential character is the same as the life That our resurrected savior lives the life that was always with the father and was manifested in the son

Right. That's the life we live if you have repented of your sins and put your faith in christ That is who you are

All of it a gift of the grace of god. So obedience or disobedience to the revealed will of god.

That's the essential Outward difference, isn't it between the christian and the unbeliever? So the scripture refers to the one as children of obedience the other as sons of disobedience

That is after all what sin is Right sin is lawlessness sin is disobedience disobedience to whatever will of god a person understands

It comes down to this and I borrowed this from aw tozer He has a whole message on just these these

This little phrase i'm not doing that to you today, but Close it's close, but it's not all the way

It comes down to this. Who's the boss? Who's the boss Who's in charge?

Being a christian and I know somebody said alissa milano or tony danza, that's not what i'm talking about Who's in charge like who's in charge of your life?

Being a christian being a child of obedience That means that you've come to the point at some point where you have joyfully

And completely acquiesced to the will of another All right, you've submitted your will to his you admit that god is the boss and you are not

All right God is sovereign. God is good. God is wise. He's powerful. He's king He's master and he is god and as god he deserves your fealty your love and your worship and your obedience

That's a good definition of what it means to be a christian a child of obedience

Well, what's the alternative there's really only one other boss if you don't submit to god there's really only one other possibility

There's only one other sovereign in your life and it may not be who you think it is Most people who aren't christians will declare they follow no one but themselves right

There's a famous poem it's called invictus By a british poet w .e henley. You may not be familiar with his name or You may have heard of the poem.

I don't know. How would I know there's a lot of people in here But this is the poem.

I know you've heard part of it. So Listen to this carefully Out of the night that covers me black is the pit from pole to pole.

I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody but unbowed Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade

And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid It matters not how straight the gate how charged with punishments the scroll

I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul right rebellious nonsense

Very popular and I think even though this was written long ago. I think he captures the the spirit of the age still today um

You see in this he he speaks of the straight gate the punishments in the scroll

He he's declaring his total disdain for submission to the will of god He's in charge

He's the master of his fate the captain of his soul and henley died in in 1903. He sadly learned otherwise

But this is still the spirit of the age pretty much unchanging you see this in modern music All right, you can you can see its theme in modern media.

You can see it in tattoos And if you look at those in bumper stickers I follow no one but myself

I'm, not a sheeple like like you guys I'm, not a follower. I'm a leader

I make my own way follow no one but myself. I obey no one but myself No one can judge me.

I'm the captain of my soul. I am my own god That's the spirit of the age most some believers would say they only they obey only themselves they serve

They serve no god no higher authority only themselves. They decide what's right and wrong. There is after all no objective standard outside of myself

I obey my own self -taught conscience. That's my highest authority now some

Some might tell you they're spiritual they they might have they might tell you about their god my god does this or that?

Upon careful consideration you'll find that their idiosyncratic god sounds remarkably similar to themselves right

The their the supposed god of the individual unbeliever and i'm speaking of myself before I was saved. This is me

That god never seemed to disagree with them never ask anything of them that they're not willing to give Their god may have a moral code

One they'll usually find easy to follow coincidentally Gives them some relief from those last remaining embers of their god -given conscience

That was me They recycle they protest

They give they may give or serve in a in a charity Might wear a slogan on their t -shirt

Signal their virtue in ways that cost them nothing just enough to convince them that they're generally good -hearted truly worthy of their own loyalty their own approval

That that the god of their imagination ought to approve them Now it's it's obvious that the god of one's own imagination is no god at all

It's just an image made in your own image. So whether a person claims to have no authority other than themselves or they they claim to have

That be loyal to some god that they've made up really collapses to the same thing. It's self -worship auto -idolatry worship of the self

But in reality a person who worships a false god or an imaginary god or simply exalts themselves as serving satan

That's the truth of it They're dwelling in his kingdom in his realm of darkness can only suffer loss from service to that evil malevolent master

So we all conform to something we all conform to something We all serve someone

We all obey somebody disobey somebody else Whether we think we're serving ourselves or a fake deity of some organized religion or some mystical notion of our own imagination

We're conforming to the will of satan we're just living an easy agreement to the dictates of our sinful nature easy

That's what I want to do And there's no bravery in that there's nothing there in which to take a moment's pride

Let alone a month's worth yeah, that was a good line if you catch that one um it's

It really if you think it is the easiest It's the most cowardly. It's the the least thoughtful mode of living

I just live according to the dictates of the flesh just mindless dead conformity to the flesh, right?

Now that sort of disobedience to the revealable of god whether that's in the conscience or in the creation or in the written word

That kind of disobedience doesn't shouldn't surprise us Shouldn't surprise us pay we expect pagans to Peg we expect pagans is going to peg right we expect that You expect sons of disobedience to disobey

That's there's nothing surprising there Tragically though this disdain for obedience to the will of god.

It's found its way into the church Into the children of obedience Now i'm not speaking of this particular local body of believers

I'm i'm referring to the visible church the evangelical church as a whole In most pulpits and pews this morning sit a lot of people many of them believers many of them unfortunately false converts

Who made a separation between salvation and obedience You've heard it before It's the idea that's sometimes called free grace theology

If you have christian friends, you've heard it before John mccarthur has written several books in opposition to it as have wayne grudem and others

Free grace theology is the idea. You can you can and you must separate faith from repentance

You can come to jesus. That is savior only And perhaps later if you're so inclined you could come back to The other jesus or the other part of jesus or and you can make him your master

Something he wasn't before and he will be only so long as you find it tolerable. That's a divided gospel.

It's a divided jesus You may come to him as one goes to a doctor or a dentist and get the cure for what ails you in this case

You know the judgment for your sin, but then you just leave with no further obligation If you choose later you might come back you might agree to listen to what that physician has to say you might

Perhaps choose to obey to one degree or another. That's the idea You come to christ you get what you need freely from him and off you go

Makes no demands. He can make no demands. He's just always ready to forgive and forget now

Free grace theology. It's an overextension of something true and good. It's falling into a ditch off the side of a good road

Let me try to explain it This is the argument since grace is free Since the offer of the gospel is a free offer the gift of grace salvation

Is based solely on the work of christ on our behalf. We have atonement in the cross We have justification perfect righteousness in the perfect life of christ

Salvation is all of christ has nothing to do with us. Certainly nothing to do with any human works We're saved by grace alone through faith alone in christ alone

Do you have any objection to that I hope not You can't have any objection to that.

That's biblical Soteriology, that's all true Grace, the grace of salvation is is free.

It's it's free to the recipient. It's not free It wasn't free to christ. It's free to the recipient of grace.

We we bring nothing But here's the ditch The free grace theologian asserts now that repentance

That turning from sin being obedient to christ changing our our thoughts and our behavior that has to have no connection to conversion whatsoever

If you assert that we must be obedient to christ as peter's doing here That we must seek to obey him then

If you say that there are ethical requirements in the new covenant, then you are adding to the gospel And you render it a false gospel

You've added works that's the that's the thinking so there has to be a separation between faith and obedience or repentance

You can come to christ in faith without any change in behavior without any striving against your sin.

You just accept him as savior It's good to obey christ. That's something you might want to consider later on but it's separate from salvation

It's separate from the free offer of the gift of grace and that's utterly unbiblical that part

The scripture uses the terms faith and repentance interchangeably i'm just to read a couple to you Acts 26.

This is paul's defense before agrippa He says paul says that he kept declaring to everyone that they should repent and turn to god

Performing deeds appropriate to repentance That's how he characterized his evangelism repent and turn to god performing deeds appropriate to repentance

In acts 11 peter recounts his vision how he took the gospel to the gentiles And in response to that that testimony those that were gathered in the church of jerusalem

They quieted down and glorified god saying well then God has granted to the gentiles also the repentance that leads to life

The repentance that leads to life Right This is clear in scripture repentance, which includes performing deeds appropriate to repentance.

That's an inevitable result of conversion Now you got to hear that it's not a condition of our justification

It is always its result. That's the point And we should be clear about that You can't come to genuine saving faith in christ without repenting of your sins

Faith and repentance are two sides of the same conversion coin to turn to christ as a turn from sin

Think about it for a second how ridiculous It is to think you come to christ with no intention of turning away from the sin that put him on the cross imagine coming to the foot of the cross to your savior to admitting that You need a savior

Your sins have put him on the cross coming to him Asking for forgiveness of those sins with no intention whatsoever putting away that which put him on the cross.

It's Can't be done. You will not find a carnal christian in scripture What will you find

Sons of disobedience and children of obedience That's what you'll find, okay

When we come to christ for salvation we come to a christ who simply is both savior and lord he is

Romans 10 8 9 says this But what does it say the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart? that is the word of faith, which we are preaching that if you confess with your mouth jesus as Savior Jesus as friend

Jesus as lamb. Jesus has sacrificed. No jesus as lord And believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead.

You will be saved Salvation comes from confessing jesus as lord. Why because he is

He is he always is there's only one jesus and he is always both savior and lord

He doesn't become one because of what you do People say I made him lord

He didn't make him lord We come him when we come to him we come repentant

We come hat in hand We come trembling But also hopeful joyful, right?

We see in him the rescue We understand now

Who he is? He is our savior and our master and our king he is our sacrifice our the lamb, but he's also our god

That's who he is Jesus christ is all there is to those of us in new

We would sacrifice everything else all we ever wish to do is that which pleases him

Now all I can ever do to please him is obey him That's what pleases him obedience

How do I know that? John 14 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments John 15 10.

If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love Just as i've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love First john 2 3 and 4 and by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments

The one who says i've come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him If you're a christian, you're a child of obedience

That's how peter addresses his readers its identification Of them and us as believers in christ that we are those whose intent and desire whose characteristic way of life is obedience to christ

And then peter spells it out in the rest of the passage So let's continue next peter says not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance

Again, there's no command here yet This is a present participle it's translated that way in the in the new uh, the legacy standard but most other translations

Translated as an imperative or a command. They said says do not be conformed It probably says do not be conformed in your bible unless you're using the lsp

But really it's it's not a commandment. He's just building onto your identity This is what you do and have been doing as children of obedience

One thing you have not been doing is allowing yourself to be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance

You've been fighting that pressure to conform. That's what he says You're instead conforming yourself to the revealed will of god as children of obedience

So again, it's not a command. It is just what believers do We actively do not conform to our former lusts

The the desires that let our thoughts and actions prior to our conversion Peter calls them former And he says that they are in our ignorance

There those are the things that we're disobeying All right, we're mortifying those things.

We're we're putting those to death as children of obedience We continue to strive towards sanctification

We are repenting against those deeds of the flesh. We're fighting those those lusts those sinful desires

They once had dominion over us and now they don't they're former. They're former. They're no longer our lusts

Now they may still have some power over us to may still entice us towards sin, but they've lost their dominion their sovereignty

They belong to a prior or former way of life first peter 4 3 Says this for the time already past is sufficient for you to have worked out the desire of the gentiles having pursued a course

Of sensuality lust drunkenness carousing drinking parties and abominable Idolatries said that word on the first try did not think that was going to happen

The time already passed is sufficient. It's more than sufficient Right It's over that belongs to who we were apart from christ or who we would be apart from christ

It it has no part in who we are in christ Those were our lusts and our ignorance points to a time when we didn't know something we were ignorant.

What didn't we know? We didn't know christ. We didn't know the gospel of jesus christ We were ignorant and in our ignorance.

We had those those lusts. We were spiritually dead As obedient children not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours and your ignorance, but like the holy one who called you

It's another phrase there But like the holy one who called you and another rationale for the command that's still to come still no command yet Like the holy one who called you the holy one has called you now

I thought about what to do here. There's not enough time to do a thorough Exposition explanation the holiness of the one who called you so i'm hereby reserve the right to preach an entire sermon on the holiness of god before I die or Or after I don't care but I really would love to do that So i'm just gonna i'm just gonna do a little bit

I'm first going to remind you of a sermon a few weeks ago in hebrews. Jim explained the term the living god.

You remember that? The fact that god alone has no source of life outside of himself he's he's the only independent being

Everything else depends on something else God alone is independent in that sense. He is the source of all life and Needs no nothing outside of him

So holiness is in general the attribute of separation god being otherly god.

God is different Now some of his attributes can be understood by us um And we as his image bearers we're we're to reflect some of those attributes to the degree that we can but god remains

Other he's he's like nothing else He's holy in that sense God is omniscient.

His knowledge is complete. There's nothing he doesn't know. There's there's nothing he cannot know God is omnipresent think about that.

He's everywhere without dimension He has no no size He's not big

Okay, I said it Kids sing the song our god is so big Well, that's soft blasphemy in my mind and i'm not saying you shouldn't sing it

Because god is not big He's not he's not big. He's not small.

He is without dimension He's without size now. He can express himself in time and space

Even in a human body in in the second person of the trinity, but yet he is omnipresent.

He's timeless He he's eternal both in eternity past and eternity future never having begun

Never ending without without time in his nature. He alone Is not trapped in a succession of moments

You're trapped in a succession of moments right now. You're really trapped in a succession Right, but we always are he is not he can see all time anytime equally vividly

He can exist outside of time. It's not something we can conceive of He's three divine persons in one being god is three divine persons in one divine being

We can't begin to fathom such one Or we can only begin to fathom such one.

Okay, so, you know, there's a lot more to this To say that god is holy is to declare that that his otherliness his general perfection his incomprehensibility his transcendence

To say that god is holy though Sometimes in scripture has a more restricted meaning and I believe that is the way it's being used here

God is holy and that he has no sin grudem's definition of god's holiness is this god is perfectly distinct from everything outside himself

That's the more general and is absolutely morally separate from sin. He's absolutely morally separate from sin

And I think that's the reference here in verse 15 god god as holy one emphasizing his moral perfection

Absolutely morally separate from sin. It's a contrast to mankind, especially unregenerate mankind

So as the holy one who called you is holy be holy yourself.

Now we have the command Be holy yourself since the one who called you is holy be holy

It's the holy one who called you out of darkness and endures marvelous light from a destiny of eternal torment that was well deserved

To a heavenly inheritance as he says protected by the power of god completely undeserved Since the one who did that for you is holy be holy yourselves

It is just a reasonable response to the calling of the gospel. It is the necessary response to an encounter with this holy one

He is your savior and lord So just continue continuing your obedience to the revealable of god being just be true to the precepts of the new covenant

Those ethical requirements that we live under as christians. That's obedience. That's holiness It's the same as not being conformed to the former lusts, which are yours and your ignorance

It's just now that we have a command be holy You're god's children you're god's called out ones you're his ecclesiastes church his people his priesthood his image bearers

His name bearers you're closely identified with him You've identified with him publicly before his church before his holy angels

Before him in baptism and confession in commitment. You're here now with his people

You're part of his bride. You're in his kingdom bought by his blood. You are his And you have to be like him more and more be holy

Be holy in all your conduct all your behavior You see that Word there translated conduct behavior.

It's it's not a common word. It's used more by peter than anybody else He's very concerned with our conduct our way of living the manner in which we deal with other people.

It's about outward conduct How it reflects our inward condition we're to be holy like god in our conduct peter's emphasis

In particular is our conduct toward unbelievers. You'll see that as we go through he remember he's encouraging us to live in conformity to the will of god in a difficult situation

And not in our former less not the will of the sinful world were to live humbly and submissively in the world

But uncompromisingly as children of obedience Note also all of our conduct

Not just sunday morning. It's not just here. Not just among god's people all Demands consistency obedience holiness in all of our conduct at home

At work at school In your employment in your leisure in all of your conduct you entertain everything all of your conduct

The ultimate rationale for that is in verse 15 because it is written you shall be holy for I am holy

That's the rationale. Why must we be holy? Because he's holy

So you may have been wondering why the scripture reading was in leviticus And what does any of this have to do with eating the wrong things in it?

But you don't have to wonder anymore the quotation here's a reference back to the holiness code in leviticus

It's chapters 17 through 26. God lays out the all the laws And he repeatedly gives as the rationale for obedience to those laws

Words like I am the lord your god I am holy You shall be holy because I am holy it is it is the character and holiness of god

That is the reason why we must live that way we must reflect his character

Now what jim read was written to the israelites under moses we always have to be careful not to misapply scripture, but you see that the

Command to be holy is repeated here. So we're We're safe to take that as a command. We're to be holy And the reason we're to be holy is because the one with whom we are in closest relationship is holy

We're as image bearers We're as obedient children We're to be holy holy before the angels who long to look into the gospel of our salvation

And how we live that out we're to be holy before one another to bring encouragement and exhortation to one another and always we

We live out our holiness our lack thereof before god himself the holy one who called us

Okay, so we've seen our identification as children of obedience We've seen an encouragement of our living that out in the negative where he says you're not being conformed to the former less

That were yours in your ignorance. We've seen now the positive command to be holy the ultimate rationale for that is because The holiness of god in our relationship to him

Now there may be some questions in your mind I'm going to go through try to go through some of these questions briefly

What does it mean practically to be holy you can say be holy, but what does that really mean? What do

I do when I go to lunch? How do I be holy I go? What is it? How do I work it out? Um, what are the ethical requirements of the new covenant?

What does that term mean if we're not under the mosaic covenant? What do we do with that? What about god's commands to? To uh, say adam and eve or to noah to you know, predate the mosaic covenant.

How do we deal with that? What about legalism? Is this legalism because I think legalism is bad.

I don't want this to be legalism Um, what about sinless perfectionism? Is that what we're is being taught here?

Is this moralistic? So i'm going to go through that just briefly and of course there's a lot more, you know

Obviously a lot more to be said Uh, so what are the ethical requirements of the new covenant? How do we handle the law of moses the commands of the the old testament?

Of course anything that's given to christians in the new testament is binding on believers. Okay clear enough

There are some transitional elements in the gospel. There's transitional elements in the book of acts that need to be understood Uh, jim did a series on acts some years ago and he

Carefully addressed those so that's online if you want to there's a lot of them, but it's worth it

He talked about like casting lots Was that okay? The jerusalem council eating you shouldn't eat meat with the blood in it, you know

There's some transitional elements there that we have to be careful about how we take those as commands But in general new testament commands are binding on christians

If an old testament command predates the mosaic covenant So if it's given and if it wasn't, you know clearly commanded to a specific person specific time purpose place

Then it does teach ethical principles for all time general commands that were given to adam and eve for example or to or to noah

Those are ethical principles that persist apply to all mankind

As far as the mosaic covenant Well, nine of the ten commandments are repeated actually strengthened in the in the new testament

But the law of moses as a whole is not binding on christians obviously Just look at what you had for breakfast what you're going to have for lunch

We don't we don't consider those to be binding The the you're seeing that in hebrews as jim goes through through hebrews

But some of the precepts that are in the law of moses are are part of the law of christ are part of the new testament commands and principles, so We have to understand that like there's some of those that don't apply and there are others that do because they're repeated in the new testament

The rest of the old testament, you know after the law was given to moses. We have to be careful with it We have to be careful to understand if there's commands there if they're given to israel

Under the mosaic covenant that we're not under or if they are Still binding and there are some principles for understanding that I'm, not going to go through all that but it's just say it's not that hard A lot of times we try to find the ethical conundrum

Like that one that thing that's really hard the nazis at the door Oh, do we lie when the nazis are at the door?

I do know the answer to that I think but How often have the nazis been at your door like you do your taxes every year, right?

You have your review with your boss every year. I mean you talk with your friends and your spouse and The the day -to -day life

It's not really that hard to know what is required of us. It really isn't It's really good to study

I love to study biblical ethics. I think it's really good to do that. You learn a lot But it's not really necessary for your day -to -day living in general

So is this legalism then and if it isn't what is legalism? Well, peter's not teaching legalism legalism is a cry that you hear all the time whenever you say what the bible has to say about biblical ethics

Mortifying your sin actively striving to live in a manner consistent with your calling being holy because god is holy.

That's not legalism Legalism is the idea that obedience to law saves you And nothing that i've said or that the bible says should lead you to believe that Your behavior with regard to the commandments of scripture doesn't have any bearing on your salvation

Okay But to say that the person who's received that gift should and will live in obedience to the holy one who called them

That's just reasonable and biblical Obedience again, not a condition of salvation, but it is an inevitable result of salvation

It's not legalistic Not teaching sinless perfectionism I'm teaching first john with the young adult class

First john chapter one is enough to completely destroy the idea that we can ever be sinlessly perfect in this life

We're never going to be free from the presence of sin or its enticement in this life While in the flesh we'll be tempted to sin and we will sin i'm not teaching you sinless perfection

But we have to be in that roman 7 fight with sin. That's the point Right, that's the point where we ought to live as that we're characterized as children of obedience

We are at war with sin. We're actively fighting it. We're mortifying it. That's why we need the command to be holy

We need that command because we're not holy perfectly holy. We need the command to be more holy

To continue to avoid being conformed to our sin right the fight against sin is over when

When at your last heartbeat or when you hear the trump Not before if you think you hear the bell to end the round Before the fight is over.

You're going to take a beating Right. The fight is not over until you're dead You got to keep fighting be holy

So is this moralism? no I would just leave it there, but I kind of have to define moralism.

So i'll define it one way. There's multiple ways this is one way a kind of personal moralism where you People set up a law for themselves that is not based solely on the on the biblical requirements the ethical requirements for christians

But some other way and again, it's the intent is good. The intent is a good one. We are to be separate

We are to be different but we're to be different in the way that the bible says to be different We don't have to make up a new difference

So this is you know You have to dress a certain way you can't go to certain places

I was in a church once where bowling was frowned upon and theaters were frowned upon That's what i'm talking about.

That is that is actually Going beyond what is written making a law where there is no law that itself is a violation of a command of scripture so in an effort

In an effort to live obediently you are actually living disobediently because you are now making a law unto yourself

Which is a violation of scripture first corinthians 4 6 Yeah, i'm not going to read you you have to look it up yourself if you don't believe me

The westminster confession of faith has this to say the whole counsel of god concerning all things necessary for his own glory man's salvation faith and life is either expressly set down in scripture

Or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture. Did you get that all things necessary for life is in the scripture?

The cambridge declaration of the alliance of confessing evangelicals I was issued in 1996.

It was regard to the five solas This one is regard to the doctrine of sola scriptura

We reaffirm the inerrant scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience.

I love that term scripture alone can bind the conscience the bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by Which all christian behavior must be measured

We deny that any creed council or individual may bind a christian's conscience that the holy spirit speaks independently of Or contrary to what to what is set forth in the bible or that personal spiritual experience can ever be a vehicle of revelation

Amen, and amen to that scripture alone can bind the conscience.

That's the formal principle of the reformation That really is it in a nutshell scripture alone can bind the conscience

Now we can disagree on an ethical point of scripture we can disagree on whether you ought to do this or that thing

All right, but we have no right to apply bindings to a christian based on anything other than scripture

All right, we can argue over scripture But we have no right to place any other any other ethical or theological or ecclesia any other bindings on the believer

Okay Okay So remember the point of first peter peter writes the suffering persecuted believers.

He wants them to glorify god He wants them to live joyfully happily and confidently in the midst of that suffering. That's his purpose

And here's one of the keys Be holy no matter what happens no matter what the implications of living this type of life be holy live in obedience

Live as a child of obedience now, why would he say that sounds like bad advice? That's exactly what's going to get him in trouble, isn't it?

In in their day and maybe in ours one day It's going to get him into trouble.

But but that's the point the trouble's not the point Trials are peter said it trials are distressing

But they're temporary And they serve a purpose God glorifying happy making reward resulting faith proving sanctification of the child of obedience

And so now i'm done now, uh, the ball's in your court You've just had a command of scripture.

You've had a command from god from the holy one who called you be holy What will you do with that?

It's none of my business And the holy spirit knows what to do. He knows how to apply his word to his people

I'll just remind you of this as obedient children Not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours and your ignorance

But like the holy one who called you be holy yourselves Also in all your conduct because it is written you shall be holy because I am holy let's pray

Father indeed. You are the holy one. You are holy. You are transcendent incomprehensible The more we know about you the less we know about you and the more you are glorified

The more we love you the more we worship you and so lord You just ask that we reflect your glory as much as we can and so lord,

I pray for each one that is here each one of your children that you would You would bring this to mind in their lives and they would in fact glorify you as they reflect on the scripture in jesus name.