A new life of holiness

We are going to look at verses 13 through 16 of chapter 1. So go ahead and turn there. We'll have a few brighter Bibles. We'll use them. I'll go ahead and read some verses. So what I wanted to do first, as you see in your notes, is quickly review the Mosaic Law.

Because, you know, like a lot of epistles, we're at the point in Peter where we're going to start to have some Christian conduct verses. And so, like a lot of Paul's epistles, he spends the first chapters, first portion of the book, talking about position of the believer, and then he talks about Christian conduct. We're going to get into some pretty steep conduct versus this morning in Peter. So for your benefit, for my benefit, I wanted just to review the Mosaic Law and then church age real quickly here.

So you have that in mind as we get into these. So this is pretty good quote by Al McLean and It says, the word of God condemns unsparingly all attempts to put the Christian believer under the law. And then it references the book of Galatians, which specifically addresses this. The last sentence there says, the subject of the book of Galatians is that it addresses the error of saying that the Christian life, having begun by simple faith in Christ, must thereafter continue under the law or some part of it. The law is made up of 613 commandments.

We're not going to study this in detail. Bert has an eye chart. He has all 613. He has a one pound point of sugar. I can't read it. No. We're not going to actually go through all these. I put them in your notes just so you'll have them and you can study them out in detail. But the law is a unit. And you break one of those 613 and you've broken the whole thing.

All right. So that's what it is. That's what the mosaic law. That was the national mosaic law. And there's there's passages you can go and you can you can read it. You can study it. Paul quoted from it in Galatians 3 10. Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And then in James 10, James 2 10 is pretty good. So the nation of Israel was put under this by God.

They agreed to it. They said, no problem. We've got it. We will keep the law. And of course, they didn't. You know that. But the timing of the law, I don't have a chart. It would have been nice. But the timing of the law, the dispensation of law, was from when God gave to Moses, 1500 BC roughly, until the cross. That was the only time in the history of the world, that people have been under the Mosaic law. We're not under that today, right? We're part of the church, we're under grace. And there's quite a few verses here. You have in your notes, you can look at them. This is reviewed for all, if not most of you.

But Galatians 3.19 actually describes the time that the law was in effect. It was added, it was given to Moses. until the seed had come, it was Christ. And there's other verses there.

Christ is the end of the law for everyone that believes. Christ took it out of the way, kneeling to the cross. So now, this is the last thing I have to follow along here. Why did God give the Jewish people the Mosaic Law? Because it's in our Bible. This is God's word that's for us. Well, he gave it to show them and us, the whole world, that mankind is sinful. We need a savior, right? And so that's why he did it, right? To prove to them and to us that humans cannot please God.

We need grace. We need salvation. We need forgiveness. We need life. We need freedom from the said nature. Jews have a said nature just like we do. So that's why you've got to put the Jews under the law. That's why we have it. That's why it's important to study the Old Testament, to understand that. So we're not going to look at these either, but I wanted you to have them. This is a listing of verses then that describe, okay, so if we're not under the law, What are we under? What is our operating principle?

It's grace. So we believe the church is in Christ, and we're under grace, and Christ lives through us, provides freedom by the Holy Spirit from our flesh, as we trust and rest in salvation. So it's a pretty good deal, I think. There's a lot of confusion on this point, and that's why we approach verses 13 16 and come across the verse that says, that references the Old Testament and says here in verse 16 that you shall be holy for I am holy. I want to make sure we remember this, that we're not. These verses aren't going to put us under the law.

Now Peter, here's just a couple places, as I read 1 and 2 Peter, here's where Peter also emphasizes grace and teaches, as Paul does, that that the church is under grace and Christ is our life, living through us. So these are the verses I came up with. So there's just a couple of them. We're not going to look at all these, but 1 Peter 1-2, we've already studied that.

It talks about the sanctifying work of the Spirit. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. So the Holy Spirit sanctifying us progressively. making us like Christ, giving us freedom from the flesh. Most of you are older than me. You probably have already learned this, but if you haven't learned already, the only way we actually experience freedom from the flesh and a positive life of Christ being lived through us is if the Holy Spirit does it. We are not responsible to do that. We don't do that on our own. That's a part of our salvation. God does that. It's part of what it means to live on the grace. So it's a huge, very, very important thing for Christians to learn from God's word as we live on this earth until we're glorified Christ and don't have this in nature anymore.

So again, most of you know that and understand that, but there's not a lot of, you know, Christian books teach that. A lot of Christian messages teach that. It's in the Bible, but it gets ignored. That's probably because the flesh is too important to pay attention to that.

Alright, so then just other verses. So Peter talks a lot in the epistle, these two letters, about God's grace and God working in us. Talking about growing here. Talking about Christ's precious value. And then lastly, at the end of this book, he says, I've written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. And then the next book opens up and says, Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. seeing that his divine power has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. And at the end there he mentions that by these magnificent promises, the word of God, this church-age truth, you have become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. These will come up in our verses today too. Anyway, this is good stuff. This is the gospel of grace, and I guess that's what Christians get excited about.

Alright, so let's dig into verses 13 through 16. Does anybody have any questions or points? Put that stuff in your notes, not to go over it this morning. It's important that they kind of, and you mentioned already that starting with verse 13, we're kind of changing gears here. It's going to be more about conduct and not so much about what you have in Christ. That's something you may not notice initially, but it's important that the previous 12 verses all talked about our riches and what we have when we go to be with the Lord in glory. But now we're going to start change gears and talk about the first the first phrase there is going to be about, you know, there's something for you to consider here about your mind and so on.

But you made the point. But it's OK. Yeah. And we have a little more time. I blew through that faster than I thought I was going to. But thanks, Roger. Yeah. And what I what I want you to remember is that now we get into these conduct this conduct part that we don't think of it as, it appears just being balanced here.

So throw a little position in there and now throw a little conduct in there, a little grace and now a little words because we don't want Christians are just sitting around meditating all day long. We want to be Christians, right? So I don't want you to think this way. So Peter's not saying this. Peter's not saying, you know.

The conduct verses that we're getting into are part of the gospel. We don't really think that way. I think we have to learn this from God's Word. Because we have the new nature, the life of Christ, this conduct should happen and will happen. We don't have to make this stuff happen.

And I go back to my kids, because they're the worst dad in the world, but we try to remind them and teach them that they're in grace. Same time. Get out of our home. No, no. But yeah, it's kids are under grace to have bad parents sometimes. Just to say, yeah, I just kind of what you already said.

I was going to point I was thinking, you know, Peter. As you said, he talks about grace, position, then he goes into how to condition, and he kind of moves back and forth. And it's interesting to see all the different authors of the epistles, how they work differently. Paul, as you alluded to, he goes through, in our Bible, three or four chapters talking about grace and position, and then he talks about the outcome of that. in his epistles just kind of assumes position and just simply talks about what that looks like. And it doesn't directly deal with position. James is kind of writing before Paul had explicated all that. So he's talking more about, yeah, it does matter how your faith is going to work out. And then Peter here kind of moves back and forth.

And we talk about all the time, but the importance of context and understanding the epistle in the context of all of scripture, and also understanding verses in the context of one epistle. It's easy for a lot of people to go directly to verse 16, you know, you shall be holy for I am holy, and that's all they see. But, you know, Peter's already talked about verse 3, all the things that God has done for us, and the grace, and how much God is working in us. And even as we're going to get into verse 13, it's not about You got to go out and do this.

It's about our mindset and how it arises. So it's just continually amazing to me how all scripture fits together and how God uses these different voices to bring out different aspects of our great salvation. Thanks for describing that. And you know, why I was mentioning my kids is a lot of us grow up not understanding that grace. So we come across verse 13, 14, 15, 16. And like Jeremy said, we don't understand that context of what Peter's already said. You don't see it at all.

I mean, that's how I grew up. And not because my parents were bad teachers. I think maybe we all grow up that way. You've got to go ahead. A lot of times involved in the Lord teaching us things because we're dumb. Speaking for myself, speaking for yourself. So anyway, it takes a long time to learn things, but he's patient. Peter mentions that in his book. The Lord is patient. So very unlike us until we have a lot of that growth.

So let's get into it. So this says, therefore, And so what is it referring to? Verses 1 through 12. And if you look at it, when I peek at it, what does verses 1 through 12 talk about? Well, talking about salvation, talking about this inheritance we have, what God's done, what he's going to do. So we've belabored that already. And we've already talked about that.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action. This word, prepare, means literally be prepared, but gird up is what it metaphorically means to be prepared, but literally means to gird up. One place it's used here in the New Testament is here in this verse. And so this is when Oriental people from the ancient Near East, Israel, that area, They would, you know, they wore like youth wear dresses back then. So they wanted to do work. They'd have to tuck those up into their belt so they can move around. So that that's one way that that word is used in Greek writing and in the Septuagint.

So it means be prepared. So because of all that, prepare it now. Your mind, I just refer to your mind, but then Numeric standard translates the next words for action. It's actually, it's actually, it's actually the word for your girdle, your belt. So literally means prepare the loins of your mind. A lot of the commentators think this is focusing on, you know, get ready for action, you know, get ready to work.

I wouldn't have a problem with that if that's what we're saying. But I think based on the context here, what this is saying is that because he's talked about suffering, he's talked about grace and salvation. So therefore, prepare your minds for action. I think what it's saying is while the Lord is focusing our faith on Christ through sufferings or trials, appropriate the great salvation that we have.

I did not mention that that verb prepare is aorist, middle, is an aorist middle participle. So aorist is usually past tense. So, and we often times point to something that happened one time. So, we prepared our minds based on this gospel of grace, we prepare our minds with that, for what's coming. So our minds have been prepared. We're resting in Christ. Our kids hear that a lot. Now it just glosses over there in her stand. To rest in Christ, it means to appropriate our position. We prepare our minds. We learn about grace. Now we're equipped to live here until the Lord takes us home. To not understand salvation and grace. It's a process. It puts us at a disadvantage. A great disadvantage. Because trials come. How does that affect us? Things happen. We sin. What's going on in the rest of the world?

Prepared minds for action. That's Eris. indicates something we've done. We've prepared our minds for action based on truth. But what's interesting now is the next verb here is present active participle. So we've prepared our minds for action. Now, keep sober in spirit. Present tense, so it's now and continuing. And this word, it's actually just one word. And the translators come up with a whole phrase to do some interpretation for us. So I think it's okay. Napho is the verb to be sober. And it just means to be sober, calm, etc. So it shows up.

It's all over the New Testament here. How about somebody read 1 Peter 4, 7 though. Just look at one of the places. You've got that. Go ahead and take off or show me a hand. Now the end of all things is near, therefore be serious and disciplined for prayer. Okay, I think it's that word serious maybe is what they translated that verb into today. And it has sort of the same context. The end of the year, be serious. So, all right. Real quick, I was reading through this this morning, looking at some of the cross-references.

At least in my Bible, almost all the cross-references for that phrase talk about the end times. It's all in context of the coming revelation of Jesus Christ, which I thought was interesting that it's used so often in thinking about the time when Christ is going to reveal. I'm looking forward to the revelation of Christ, I don't know how significant that is. I just thought it's interesting that it's almost always looking forward to, as he says here, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Yeah, I didn't look at all the occurrences. I usually like to, but not enough time. But yeah, I noticed that too. And that's what the one verse just said there in 4-7.

But that's present tense. Be sober in spirit so we understand grace and now day to day we're living with that mindset as the Lord's working in our lives. Here's another interesting verb. This one now is also here. Something that's happened in the past. Active. We're doing it. Imperative. This one's not a participle like the others were. This is imperative.

And it's translated, fix your hope. One word there. Alpizo is the verb. And to have confidence in. We all know here, hope is more than just wish watching. We wish that would happen someday. It's a confident expectation of what the Lord is going to do. And that's how it's translated here. So hopefully, trust in. But again, it's Eris. So we're told to put our hope in this thing.

I was really impressed with, you know, this is sort of the, since this is a verb and not a participle, this seems to be like the center of 13 and 14 are focused on this. If you think about that, that's really, you think, well, here's something that the Lord wants me to do, but what it is, it's faith. I mean, it comes back to the core of what we are in Christ. We began by faith, we're going to continue by faith. And that says we're fixing our hopes completely on what's going to happen at the end times. And so it fits so well.

I mean, you think, well, I'm going to put some law on you, or I'm going to put some conduct on you. And no, he's telling you, no, you continue in your faith. And it's just so, that little phrase there, that verb is so important, I think, in the context of those two verses.

OK, good. Thank you. I didn't diagram these. Actually, if you look at the diagram of this, that's the main that comes off that verb. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to buy those. Finally, I said, yeah, I'm just going to buy the whole. No, it's better. It better be by.

That's my approach. That's that. So that's super important that that is the main, the main verb. And you'll you'll notice. Roger's mootitude, but it's soaked in grace. It's pretty cool what's going to happen here in the next couple of words. So, yeah, let's imperative. Fix your hope in, fix your confidence on something here. Completely. So, not just a little bit, but God wants us to constantly be fixing our hope on His grace and rapture So grace, Kerris, of course, and we says this is referring to inheritance in verses four and five, which is fine.

Actually, I think it's more than that here because of this part of simple verb in noun form. This is present passive and pharaoh is the verb to bring. You guys learn that one pharaoh. Not to be confused with the Old Testament, Pharaoh, Hebrew, Carian, etc. Does that have anything to do with the fact that he concludes in 16, Be ye holy for I am holy, which is my faith. What does that have to do with that? To be ye holy as I am holy. It seems to me that's part of what he's trying to explain here, that it is all by faith. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, yes. Absolutely, yes. See that? And that's what takes so long to understand, is that holiness isn't something that is our job to do because God has saved us. Right? That's what we think. Up to a point. Thank God. God's forgiven me, now I need to be holy. No, holiness is the fruit of the spirit. Like you said, holiness is part of the package. It comes. It's expected, but it's by grace, by faith.

Now, what's interesting also is that this paracetamol is present tense. I've got a second for you. We are to have fixed our hope on something. And it's this grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. But this word, this verb, this participle, to be brought is present. So this grace we experience now. And in the context of the verses we've already covered in Peter, the other things that Peter talks about, which is a lot about God's grace, God's work in our life, and context of New Testament thistle. This is referring to the grace that God's given us now.

But there's an ending view, which is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Does that make sense? It doesn't come out in English, but it's there. That's why it's helpful a lot of the time, not all the time, but a lot of the time, to look at the details a little bit. We get lost in the details, too.

But Peter expects that Christians will fix their hope on the revelation of Jesus Christ and the grace that is already now being brought to us, like Jack said, to produce holiness in our life, but that will also be brought to us at the revelation. Just a thought here that this could be fairly easily translated not as a future revelation, but a present revelation. Because what we're talking about here is that this is being revealed to us by grace, and the preposition in is translated at in our Bibles. focuses you onto the future, but in, or en, in Greek, has to do with the location or the means, normally. And here, if we translate it, the great logistical monarchy used in the revelation of man, or Jesus Christ, would be a perfectly legitimate way of looking at this.

OK. Well, let's get into that. So what is the revelation talking about? So. Royce say referring to where he thinks it's referring to right now. No, I'm just saying that it could be because of the present tense being revealed. OK. Yeah. So this is a Pocalypse. Let's see here. Pocalypsis.

And it's a manifestation or appearance. So one possibility is that this is the Lord revealing Jesus to us, which he is doing. I don't think that's what this is saying, based on some things we'll look at here. But the Lord does reveal Jesus to us. And that's kind of the end game. And it came up in verse 8, chapter 1, which I missed that Sunday. So you guys probably emphasized it. Look at that. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, but believe on him, you greatly rejoice.

There are a couple commentators that would say it's talking about that. I think this revelation is either referring to the rapture or to the second coming. I'll tell you which one in a minute that I came to conclude. So I couldn't put Roy's up there as a third. Three possibilities. Present revelation of Jesus as a person, grace, character, or rapture, or second coming. The Millennial Kingdom, for this earth, it is a goal.

Paul talks about it in Ephesians 1.10. Look at that. So Ephesians, you know how Ephesians starts out. Verses 3 through 14, the longest, I think it's the longest sentence in ancient Greek literature.

And in the middle of all that, all these blessings we have in Christ, verse 10 says, with a view to the administration, that's dispensation, economia, with a view to the administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and on earth.

And there's a reference to the kingdom on earth. is coming. And so Peter, I believe, also has that in mind. In fact, John Darby says, Peter is always occupied with the ways of God respecting this world. He only looks at the share that believers will have in this salvation, this heavenly glory, when it shall be manifested to the world. when God will by his glory establish his authority and blessing on the earth. Christ is glorified personally, has conquered all his enemies, has accomplished redemption. He only waits for one thing, namely that God should make his enemies his footstool. So, I mean, I'm already looking forward to that because I'm really tired of what's going on in this world with all the crap in the Middle East and our country, all this. I'm ready for a Jesus to make things right down here. So that's Conan.

When he comes back, we're going to be with him, right? Because again, not having the timeline up here, we have the rapture happening next. Quickly after that, the tribulation. And at the end of that, Jesus comes back and rocks it. I mean, does awesome, right?

And we're with him. And we'll be revealed to creation. And Romans Romans says that the creation is waiting for that. The revelation of the sons of God. Us with Christ coming back. Because since the fall, creation, the world, has been under a curse. And so during the millennium, that will be lifted for those thousand years. Peter has that in mind as well. This word revelation that we're talking about shows up several times in 1 Peter 1.

Chapter 4, verse 13, chapter 5, verse 1. So anyway, I spent a bit of time looking at this and the other places it shows up in the New Testament. And I'm not trying to be relativistic, but you don't have to agree with my study, which is limited here. But here's a place where it's used in 2 Thessalonians, where the context is clearly talking about the second coming. So here we have verse 7. Suffering is in context here.

God will give relief to you who are afflicted, and to us as well, when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty eagles and flaming fire, fueling out retribution to those who do not know God, to those who do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. That's talking about the second coming. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and his glory and power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints on that day. He marveled Adam, all of whom had believed. So I think that's talking clearly about the second coming and what will happen there when Christ at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

But in this verse 13, I think it is talking about the rapture. Looking forward to that for a couple of reasons. Hope, confidence and expectation. That is our confident expectation. We're waiting on that. We know it's going to happen, and we're looking forward to Jesus coming back, taking us out of here.

It could happen right now. Also, the way grace is used here, and last week, Jeremy looked at chapter 5 of 1 Peter, verse 10. It says, After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself perfect confirm, strengthen, and establish you. When is that going to happen?

The rapture. Finally, the rapture. So, I think this is, we're looking forward to glorification. We're experiencing the grace now. Our hope is fixed on it. Most of the time. More and more. I can't tell you how many hours and days go by before I can think about the Lord. I don't know if you do that. You're not supposed to admit that. But, you know, too much time goes by when I'm thinking about other things. But more and more of fixing our hope on that, judging.

I think it's easy to oversimplify things and say, you know, when we look at the end times, the revelation of Jesus Christ to make it one thing. And I mean, you alluded to, there's the fact of the kingdom, that Christ is going to come back and establish justice. And you talk about, you know, all the injustice that's going on in the world. He's going to come back and judge. and he's going to establish this righteous kingdom. So that's one aspect of it.

It seems to me that what Peter is focusing on here is, for the individual Christian, what is the aspect of that that we can look forward to? And I would agree with you, it's the rapture, it's the fact that we are going to be able to see Jesus. Now there's all these other things that go along with it, but for us, during our present trials, The aspect of that that I think can be most precious to us is that we're going to be able to see Christ face to face. That yes, we'll be glorified and we will be made like Him. That's just one aspect of the rapture, the second coming, all the end times events. But for us right now, I think one of the things that can be most encouraging is that through our trials, It's going to be worth it all.

I forget the song. It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. And that's what Paul talks about in, was it verse 8, that the crowds of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the future glory. So it's good to understand all the events of the end times. But I think you're right. Peter here is focusing on that event of the rapture where he's going to be revealed to the saints.

I looked at all the books I had, Digitally and Hardback, and all the 8th millennial guys from Calvin to whoever that I had, and often times they had really helpful things to say on parts of the Bible, but they of course all were saying this either refers to the end, They don't interpret the Bible literally and see different stages of time.

Some of the dispensationalists, they were sort of all over the map too. This refers to both. Jeremy was kind of saying that. This could refer to both, the end time, I mean the second coming and the rapture, or one or the other. So anyway, that's where the hours I had to spend on it, that's where I landed on it.

But I think that's right based on the context of Peter and also the words that come up in the rapture passages. And I listed some of them. I don't think that's a complete list. I just was throwing them down there. And Peter, remember Peter, one of the, maybe the earliest, probably, I guess, the earliest mention of the rapture is Jesus in the upper room to his disciples in John chapter 14.

Peter was there. And he said, John 14, verse one, Jesus just told him he's going to, just told Peter you're going to be betrayed, by the way. I don't think he heard that. He said he was going to be crucified. But he finally got that, that he was actually going to die and leave him for a while.

But then he says, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. So he's going to do something. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. So Peter heard that. Like me, he probably didn't actually, didn't sink in for about 20 years, but he heard that. He didn't get that. So Paul was obviously communicated truth about the rapture, but Peter heard that directly from the Lord on earth before the cross.

Okay, verse 14, as obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in ignorance. So as or like obedient children. And this is a literally, this is an agendative case, so it's like children of obedience. Obedient children. Constable says a better translation might be children whose spirit is obedience.

So obedience, you know, Hupo Kuo, Hupo Kuo, to listen under. And yeah, obviously, the Lord's our life. We're not conforming ourselves to lusts that come from the flesh. Yeah, we're going to be then listening to the Lord, and a process that Bro's talking about, looking at Him, caring about Him, His Word, His person, and all that. It's interesting.

This verb, do not be conformed, is schema. And it means to conform yourself or pattern. And Wiest and Vincent and Henry Alford all make this point, that schema is the outward, changeable fashion, as contrasted with is intrinsic. So the word carries a warning against conforming to something changeful, therefore illusionary.

And so it's Peter saying, it's not just implied, but we're not just bringing this to the text. It's actually saying that the loss which arises in our ignorance, it isn't really who we are in Christ. In Christ, we're a new creation. So we're not to be conforming ourselves to this carnal pattern that's not really who we are in Christ. It's used only here and in Romans 12, verse 2 in the New Testament. This is the one that says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

One of our friends who was our Bible school buddy, one time conversation, Ajman mentioned me, and the Lord was conforming me into Christ's image. And he was like, wait a minute, dude. The Lord's not conforming you into Christ's image. That's not the right word. The Lord's transforming you into Christ's image. He explained this to me, and I kind of forgot it. I didn't know if I believed what he was saying. But it's true. This is what he was saying. That the word conformed, schema, is sort of a superficial conforming. But the word But the Lord is transforming us into the image of Christ. And that's a deeper word. That's the correct word. So Josiah, I have a question.

So as obedient children, that means that is who we are. We are obedient children. We are already being transformed. So because we are that, we really can't be conformed. Because we're being transformed. I mean, we could pass it, right? We're being transformed. And we are obedient children. That is who we are. Of course, our sin nature can certainly overrule that. But that's not who we are. Right. And the Lord teaches us that. Yes, he does. He teaches us that, right?

That brings up something I hadn't noticed before. In our English translation, it would be similes a lot, metaphors, as obedience children. So I think this goes back to the girding up of loans never mind, and how we think of it. And it kind of goes back to what Paul talks about in Romans 6, that we're to reckon ourselves all these different things. Another example is in chapter 3, or chapter 2, where he's talking about submit yourselves to the ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be the king as supreme or the governors as under them that are sent by him as punishment of evil doers. So we submit to them as though they are sent by God. We live as though we are obedient children. He uses these metaphors, I think, to go back to it's we're girding up the lords of our mind.

We're setting our hope. We're setting our minds on these things that he has revealed to be true, on the hope that he's going to reveal physically himself to one day. So I think that that fits in the context or this idea of it's about our mindsets, about what we set our minds to. And on this, Paul and Peter are in complete agreement that it's about what we reckon ourselves to, what we set our affections on, as Paul says in Colossians. So I think it's interesting that, as Margaret pointed out, it's as obedient children. As who we are. And it's how we think of ourselves, too. Yeah, I agree.

The last part of this verse says, do not be conformed to the lusts of your ignorance that were yours in your ignorance. And that's just epiphany. It's a pretty strong lust, craving, desire, which characterized us in our unsaved state. But also, it's what our sin nature does, 24-7, or off time, whenever it's active, that's it. So we're not to conform ourselves to those things. Ignorance is an idiom for any life that does not know the true God. It's us in our unsafe state.

All right, so verse 15, and we'll get through this because 15 and 16 is really short. 15 says, but, and this is Allah, the strong contrast. And so we're not to be conformed to our form of us, which are ours and our ignorance, but the strong contrast but like the Holy One who called you. So here's another simile. This is a preposition in Kata.

1 Peter 2.21 For you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps.

And again, we understand what that's saying, right? He's our example. He's our pattern. He's our life. It's not some official pattern or example. It's us by the Holy Spirit. So not walking in the flesh, but like the Holy One who called us. And this is the adjective, holy. Uses a noun here to just talk about Christ. Call is, you know. This is a very common verb in the New Testament. And it's talking about our salvation. It's used quite a few times in 1 and 2 Peter. But like the Holy One who calls you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.

And here we have another imperative of the verb in command form. And it's aorist. It's passive. That's interesting. It's passive. And the verb is interesting. This is ginomai. And ami is the essence verb to be. And this is another essence verb, but it's ginomai. It means to be calm or to be made. So it's interesting and important that that's what's used here.

Yeah. You come into a new state of being. This is one of Hal's favorite verses. Oh, really? I mean, favorite verbs, actually. Oh, really? Yeah. You come into a new state of being. Yeah. Okay. Pretty important. Well, also, it tells you who's going to do that.

You're not going to do that. It's passive. Yeah, it's passive. I mean, it's Eris passive. That's pretty incredible. You're not going to be doing that. Today, I'm going to be holy today. Yeah. Like a match. Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right. Along with the wages in his death, we have to work at it and be conformed to what we in ignorance live like. We can do that. But we got to work at it. Yeah. Whereas this is we don't work at it. We rest in peace. I mean, isn't that awesome? It's good news. It's the gospel. Do you believe that? Our work is to believe. Right. Peace is that way. Amen. Amen. Amen.

This isn't all your behavior. It's so over the top, you think. I can't do this. If you're honest with yourself, you say, I can't do that. It's impossible to do. So you have to go back and say, Lord, how am I going to do this? It's got to be you. It's not some of your behavior, not some of the time I know, all your behavior. Yeah, that's right. Amen. That's awesome. That's awesome news.

Hard to understand at first. Yeah, it takes a while. The Lord remains patient. First, when you hear about Christian conduct, you think, problem. Yeah, he's a holy guy. He expects to be holy. Got it. No problem. But wait a few years, right? And then you see, oh, there is a problem here.

But praise the Lord for this message. I just wanted to clarify what I said earlier when it's present tense, the revelation of Christ. That's the whole body of truth. I mean he reveals himself through the word. But physically he's going to be seen and known in the future. That's part of this body of truth. And we confidently trust that that's true.

Again, I only had a few hours to spend on this. The immediate context of verse 13 is 11 and 12, which is talking about the written word, right? So we already talked about 16, but I wanted to show you where it shows up in the Old Testament. So because it is written, you shall be holy for I'm holy. This is the Lord's character. And of course, this was part of the law for the Jewish people put on them to produce holiness in the power of their flesh.

And of course, they couldn't. They couldn't do it. And we need to remember that. But this is now part of grace. This is part of the fruit of the spirit. So again, it's passive. It's genome-line. And it's imperative. You shall be holy, prime holy. Those references are here. They're in your notes. I wanted to close here. I thought this was really good.

Christian progress is not a question of attaining to some abstract standard or pressing through to some far-off goal is a wholly and is wholly a question of seeing God's standard and God's Word. You advance spiritually by finding out what you really are in Christ.

That's what Martyr was saying with, as obedient children, this is who you are. Not by trying to become what you hope to be. That goal will never be reached however earnestly you may strive. It is when you see you are dead in sin that you die to it daily.

It is when you see You are risen that you arise. It is when you see you are now a new creation in Him that you progressively grow, all by Him working, of course. Seeing the accomplished fact in the Word determines the pathway to the realizing of that fact. The end is reached by seeing, not by desiring or working. That seeing, that's that mindset.

The only possibility of spiritual progress lies in our discovering the truth as God sees it, the truth concerning Christ, the truth concerning ourselves in Christ, to Roy's point. So let's pray. God, thanks for your word, thanks for this gospel, thanks for your spirit and patience with us and for letting us get together in freedom and talk about this, your word, and study it. In Jesus' name, Amen.