1 Peter 1:14-16

              We covered verse 13 of 1 Peter chapter 1 last time that I spoke and if you recall Peter had switched from indicatives to imperatives. As we continue on to verses 14 through 16 today he continues on with the imperative. Because you have this inheritance, because you have a reason to praise God in all circumstances, because God is worth it…

1Pe 1:13  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.

1Pe 1:14  As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

1Pe 1:15  but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

1Pe 1:16  since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

 

          Peter, in verse 14, is writing to those who should be prepared, those that are sober and those that have hope in the grace given to us through faith in Christ. We covered that verse last time. But, if you are those things, if you believe that according to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, then because of that you should be, and have the ability to be, obedient children that aren’t conformed to passions of the flesh. God calls us to live a holy life. Three times in Leviticus God says be holy for I am holy.

Don’t misunderstand me. We are not His children and holy because we obey. We obey because we are His children and are holy. We did not make ourselves His children and cannot make ourselves holy. He made us His children and made us holy through Christ who is our righteousness. Therefore, we should be obedient children. We now possess the ability and the unction to obey the demand of God’s call for us to live out what we already are…Holy. If you are born again God says “You are holy”. I know, this is a tough one to swallow. Kind of makes you squirm a bit doesn’t it? That is because you are still trying to make holiness as something you can obtain on your own.

If you can just stop that sin that has you enslaved then maybe you will be able to consider yourself holy, but, not until then. You don’t consider yourself worthy enough to be considered holy. So you try and try to overcome your sin and fail over and over again because you are trying to fix yourself before you present yourself to God.

You have the cart before the horse.

You are holy and that is how you can stop that sin that has enslaved you. You should be drawing your strength from that. Because I am holy I am not going to give in to that sin this time I am going to believe what the word of God says about me and I am going to act in faith that if I resist the devil he will flee from me.

The text is saying “you are holy, now act like it!”

The challenge that I see is for Christians to recognize that they are holy. When they look at themselves in the mirror all they see is their sin and depravity, which is who you were before Christ. But you are a new creation who no longer has to conform to the images of this world. Our struggle should only be to cause the outward man to correspond to the inward man that has the righteousness of Christ. This is our only battle. The war has already been won. As JD says the game is rigged.

If you are in Christ you are already victorious. So why are you walking around looking and acting defeated? Recognize who you are in Christ and understand that even if your flesh fails you can repent to a merciful savior and hold your head up so to speak and move on. Pick the ball up and keep running.

So, if our struggle is causing the outward man to correspond to the inward man who is righteous, how do we do that? Let’s look back at the text, in verse 14 it says “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” Remember this is not about your position in Christ, this is about your position in the flesh. Your position in Christ is holy and righteous. Your position in the flesh is still depraved and still sins. This is about causing our position in the flesh to line up closer with our position in Christ.

          I have spent a lot of time considering this phrase “do not be conformed” in the past several days and have some thoughts that I would like to share with you that I believe will help you.

 

          KJV uses the term do not fashion yourself which Strongs defines as conforming to the same pattern. When I read this it reminded me of habits; Patterns of your old lifestyle. We should no longer be slave to the habits and patterns of our old lifestyle before we were saved.

          Again, if this is our part of our salvation, causing the flesh to reflect the spiritual condition inside me, how do we do that?

          First, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as less than we are, as I said earlier. We are children of God made holy by the righteousness of Christ who died for us. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as victims of our sins with no way out. We no longer have to be slaves to sin. We may not have the ability to be sinless but we have the ability to sin less. We are more than conquerors if we are in Christ. He has overcome the world, which includes Satan and your flesh.

          Second, we need to change our pattern, our habits. Studies show that it takes, on average, 66 days to form a new habit or pattern. Habits and patterns are performed automatically because they are performed frequently. Mental and physical repition creates an association between the situation and action which means that when a particular situation happens the action is performed automatically or with little or no thought.

          Let me give you an example. I play steel drums with a band and there is a song that I play what is called a lead pan. It plays the melody of the song and can be very challenging to play. Well, I am not overly, naturally musically gifted but I am learning the skills of playing a few instruments and learning to read some music. I began to play a particular song on the lead pan and played it and played it until I could play it with very few or no noticeable mistakes. That was a couple of years ago and I played it at almost every concert that we did for a little over a year. Then we stopped playing it for at least 6 months and I found out that we would be playing it again that night at a concert. I had no practice or anything prior to refresh my memory of note placement on the pan or anything. Well, the time came to play the song and I walked up to the pan and picked up the mallets and played it perfectly without missing a single note and didn’t even look at the music book. In the past I always had to read the music to play the song. I didn’t even think about the notes. My arms seemed like they had separated themselves from my body and were playing by themselves. I felt like I was watching somebody else playing but they were my hands! I knew how to play the song even though on the inside I was nervous that I couldn’t remember where the notes were. It had become natural for my hands to make specific movements at the cue of the music.

If I had just trusted in the knowledge that I had played the song over and over again and had no reason to be nervous then I would have reacted differently. I almost didn’t play the song because I was so nervous but Cindy encouraged me to step up and play. So I did.

If we could just trust in the knowledge of who we are in Christ then we will react differently to circumstances. But the key is in repetition. If every time the urge comes up to do that sin, you remind yourself who you are in Christ and that He loves you and wants you to act like the holy person that you are then eventually it will be a natural reaction to consider Christ every time you are tempted to sin. It is also important to surround yourself with people who will encourage you, as Cindy did for me that day at the concert, people who will remind you who you are in Christ that will encourage you to do what is right and pleasing to God.  It will be difficult but the reward is worth it. The first few times will be the hardest but it will begin to be easier and easier to withstand the devil.

That reminds me of this week. Cindy and I went zip lining in Orlando. I am not afraid of heights but I am not typically an adrenaline junkie. I don’t care for roller coasters and things like that but Cindy has really wanted to do this zip lining thing and we had an opportunity to do it very inexpensively so I went. The first time I had to step off that platform and start zipping was scary and it was all I could do to take that first step. The next time it was a little easier because I knew what to expect but as we did more and more of them I actually began to look forward to them and then when we were on our last line I was actually disappointed that we were almost done.

If you will take that first step of obedience, ask friends to help if you need accountability and encouragement, then you will find that obedience gets easier and easier and you can actually find a joy in it that you never even knew that you were missing. God rewards those that diligently seek Him. This is all about renewing the mind day by day, situation by situation while remembering that our holiness comes from Christ.

Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

So, my final encouragement is do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but be conformed to the passions of your Savior. For you to be holy as He is holy.