March 29, 2015 Whatever Happens Be Holy Dr. Steve Walker It is good to be back with you in church. I was just out of town last week on a little getaway, and missed our first Sunday back in this room. We're making progress! It looks awesome. This week, they're telling us they're going to make even more progress. We're going to be carpeting this room this week. We're going to be painting all the spaces or parts that are kind of dinged up. They're telling us that whole back wall behind you is coming down. That's a temporary wall, and the expanded space walls will be there. The space won't be complete, but there will be room back there. That's where we're going to be adding extra chairs and seats, especially for Easter, so we're getting there. Little by little, we're getting there. It has been a fun journey. They're telling us we're right on schedule to finish up sometime in July, so hang in there. It'll be fun to see how it just keeps progressing each week. Before we jump into God's Word, there are a couple of things I want to encourage you about. The first one is Easter weekend. Church, I just want to encourage you to be praying about who God might bring across your path this week to invite to Easter weekend to worship with you or your family. There are a couple of these in your bulletin. Keep them with you and just say, "God, if you are preparing the heart of someone, if you're softening the heart of anyone who is in my path, please use me to invite them." You will be surprised that people are a little bit more open to spiritual things this time of year, so we don't want to miss that opportunity. Let's let God use us to potentially bring someone all the way back to himself. Take those with you. Keep them with you in your car, in your wallet, or in your purse, however you can do that. Let's watch God do miracles next weekend. Finally, ladies, I want to just talk to you for a minute. A huge annual event in the church is coming up a few weeks after Easter. It's all over your bulletin. It's all over the building, but I want to really draw your attention to Connie Cavanaugh. She is an incredibly inspiring speaker, just using real-life stories. Canyon Hills Community Church 1
She has an amazing sense of humor. You will laugh. You're going to cry. You'll cry anyway, but you'll really cry. It will just be a glorious time to get together. It's a Friday night, and then Saturday morning, right here in the building. We're expecting hundreds and hundreds of women, and so I don't want that to get past you. You can sign up online anytime, day or night, so don't miss out on that event. I hope all of you will go to that. Let me ask you now, as you open your Bibles to 1 Peter, chapter 1 I'm wondering how many of you have ever been on the receiving end of advice from a friend, and although it was potentially well-meaning, it came across as insensitive or even poorly timed. I'm wondering if you've ever had advice like that given to you. Maybe just after a really painful breakup, a well-meaning friend just pops off and says, "You know what? It's okay. There are plenty of fish in the sea." Yeah, you've given that advice. You knew exactly what I was going to say. Although it may be true, it's not necessarily helpful at the moment. Possibly even after a tragic loss of a loved one, you're in deep grief and you're missing that person, and a well-meaning Christian friend says, "You know, at least they're in a better place now." Although that is true, and eventually that will become comforting, at this point, the thought of the loss and not having that person with you or around you for the rest of your life is deeply grieving. That kind of advice isn't always necessarily helpful. Possibly, you're in a confusing place and everything just feels upside-down in your life. You're starting to fill up with worry and fear, and you get that glorious email of advice from that wellmeaning friend that says, "Hey, it's cool. Just let go and let God." Yeah, you've said that too, haven't you? Again, not the most helpful advice in the world. Maybe the worst one of all Maybe you've gotten this advice before. It happens right after the coach of your favorite football team calls the stupidest play in the history of pro sports on the one-yard line, and someone says, "Oh, there's always next season." No, there isn't always next season! We will never be there again. It's over. I'm not bitter. I'm not. I'm over it. I promise you I'm over it. All right. We're back to 1 Peter, chapter 1. Now let's get context. Peter is writing to some followers of Jesus, church, who are really hurting. Their trials and their tribulations are very real and they're very relentless. In fact, in chapter 1, verse 6, we saw a couple of weeks ago that these people are grieving because of all kinds of trials due to persecution and hatred because they're following Jesus. Peter wants to comfort them and he wants to encourage them to not lose hope in God, because that's what happens if you're grieving long enough and life is hard or long enough. At first glance, Peter's advice is going to sound a little like the stuff we were just talking about. It's a little bit of a head-scratcher at first, but given the circumstances, it might just well be the best advice in the whole letter of 1 Peter. Canyon Hills Community Church 2
It's advice that every single one of us this morning needs to hear, right now, today, especially if life for you, in the moment, is challenging or difficult, or if you're grieving with a heart just broken to pieces. Whatever the case, this advice, I believe, is divine, so with your Bibles open and ready, let's stand for the reading of his Word. We're going to pick it up right where Pastor Koby left off last Sunday. He did an amazing job with the verses right before this, talking about the glory of our salvation that Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. Now Peter continues in his thinking in verse 13, and he says, "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.'" That is written in Leviticus, chapter 11, verse 44. Father in heaven, I pray in the name of your Son Jesus Christ. Would you bless the ministry of your Word right now? God, would you open our hearts and teach us what these words mean? Help us, God, to know how to apply them to our lives right now. God, I know there are people here with broken hearts. I pray that in a supernatural way, Peter's advice to these precious saints would be glorious words of comfort today. God, if there are those in this room who are not necessarily suffering today, but they know people who are, I pray that these words would become a ministry through them to their hurting loved ones. God, please have your way today. Change us in miraculous ways. Change us today, I pray. In Christ's holy name, amen. Peter's advice to these precious, persecuted, hurting believers is simply, "Be holy, because God is holy." He's saying, "I know you're confused. I know you're scared. I know you might even be doubting that anything good would ever be happening in your life again, but the very best and most important thing you can do, that you must do, especially when life is hard No matter what happens, be holy, because if there's ever a time when you're going to be tempted to revert back to your old ways, maybe your ways before you became a Christian, it will be under the stress and the sadness of your trials and your tribulations." He's saying to his readers, "Don't let yourself go there. Don't go there." If he were saying this to many of you today, sitting here right now, he might say something like, "You're going to be tempted to just get revenge, to get even, to return evil for evil, or to lie. Whatever you have to do, don't do it. Don't do that. Some of you are going to want to start drinking, smoking, using, or overeating again, anything to deaden the pain of the anger and hurt you're feeling. Don't go there. Under the weight of the sadness you're feeling, you're going to be tempted to compromise things you know are right, just so you can cope with your disappointment, just so you can cope with Canyon Hills Community Church 3
your discouragement. Things like your sexual purity You're going to be tempted to compromise that. You might even be tempted to marry someone you know you shouldn't be marrying, or to take a job you know isn't right for you, or to spend money in stupid, irresponsible, or sinful ways. Those are the things that start to tempt us when life gets a little hard, and you're going to want to isolate from your Christian friends. You're going to want to pull back from church so you don't have to face the sympathy or the pity from people who are looking at your pain and feeling sorry for you." Peter is saying, "Whatever you do, don't go there, because these sinful responses to difficulties in your life will only bring you more pain and more heartache." With all of the compassion in the world, Peter is basically saying, "Child of God, our trials are not a permission slip to sin." Get that today. That might be the main idea of this little passage we've looked at. Don't use the difficult times in your life as an excuse to go back to maybe the way you used to respond to life. Don't use it as an excuse to do things you know are wrong. There's a better way, and that's where this passage begins. 1. Get your head on straight. I read verse 13 like a splash of cold water in the face of somebody who is losing perspective. "Therefore, prepare your minds for action," he's saying. I don't know if you've ever been in that place where you're so low, so discouraged, and so hopeless that right just starts to seem wrong. Up seems down. Good all of a sudden seems bad. If you've never been in a place like this, emotionally or spiritually, you're very fortunate. It feels a lot like getting the wind knocked out of you. You just can't even breathe. Peter says to these saints, "The first thing we have to do, when we're in that place, is get our heads on straight. We have to get our minds ready for action." Some of your Bibles say, in verse 13, "Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind " This is a picture he's using. In that day, they wore long robes, mostly. The men would have to reach down and grab the back hem of the robe and pull it up between their legs, kind of nice and tight, and then tuck it in their belt really tight so they wouldn't be tangled up or tripped up as they went about their work. Peter is saying, "We have to do that same sort of thing in our minds, because when life gets hard, it's easy for our thinking to get tangled up and tripped up by the worldly temptations and affections that are there. We have to be really careful when life seems like it's falling apart, or we're going to get spun around and drawn away from God." So Peter says here, "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded " A. Stay sober. Don't resort to getting drunk. Don't resort to any other mind-altering escapes. He's saying, "Listen, if you turn to drinking, drugs, gambling, eating, shopping, self-harm, or anything else that falsely promises you some relief or comfort, you're not only going to fail to cope with your pain and pressures, but you're going to find your way into other sinful choices, forgetting God and forgetting God's ways." Canyon Hills Community Church 4
Being sober in this context has a wider application than just intoxication. The phrase, being sober-minded, could also mean to be unhurried. He is saying to be calm, especially when you feel like life might be falling apart. In essence, he's saying, "Listen. Don't panic. Don't let worry rule you, because panic and worry are God-forgetting. Don't fall into the trap of thinking your job in this life is to figure out how to control all the people and circumstances so you will end up with what you think you need or want. If that's the way you approach life, your heart is going to be full of dread, because you're going to figure out quickly that you cannot control every circumstance, every situation, every gossip, and everything that's starting to go wrong. You can't do it." Peter is saying, "Don't panic your way into doing or saying something that will destroy your testimony or your character." Now before we go on from this thought of staying sober, I want to say it's likely that there are several of you in this room who have already turned to or are turning to addictive things in order to find some relief or some hope. I want to just give you some heartfelt, loving direction before we move on from this part of the passage. If you are finding yourself, right now, just struggling with temptation to deal with life with addictive-type behaviors or potentially addictive-type behaviors, the first thing I need to encourage you to do right now is to confess that sin to God and receive or accept his forgiveness. You have to start there. You have to call it what it is. You know it's wrong. You know it's not God's source of help or hope for you. He promises, in 1 John 1:8-9, he will cleanse you from unrighteousness and he will forgive you of your sins. You need to let him take that from you and let him purify your heart. Confess it to God as sin. The second thing I would encourage you to do is confess it to several very trusted godly friends. Proverbs 18, verse 1, says, "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment." I want to encourage you to be real with your temptation with others. Be real with your crazy thinking to want to go back and deal with life in ways you know are just more destructive. Ask them to be your loving guards. Give them power of attorney to ask, to pry, to search, to stop, to confront, and even to drag you, kicking and screaming if they have to, to some kind of godly support group or biblical recovery program, anything it takes. Ask them to drug test you, to search your belongings, to smell your breath, to do whatever it takes, but don't go it alone. Confess it to them and say, "I need you. Life is heavy for me right now, and my temptation is going to want to reach out to all the wrong things. Surround me." I'm giving you permission to be real, vulnerable, genuine, and honest. Let people love you and bear your burden with you. The third thing I might say to you, if you are finding yourself wanting to turn to addictive-type stuff, is to commit to wise counsel and prayer. Two books we are very passionate about in helping people start the process of getting wise counseling are Addictions: A Banquet in the Canyon Hills Community Church 5
Grave, by Ed Welch, and The Heart of Addiction, by Mark Shaw. Those two books are excellent in getting our heads focused on God's part in our struggle and in our addictions. If you don't need those books, you ought to write the titles of those down, because eventually, you're going to know someone who does, and it might be good for you to read a couple of chapters in these books so you know, when you come across that person, you're not going to have to avoid them, but you're going to have to say, "I don't know where you are. Maybe you've never been there, but I know people who have, and they tell me this is a great source of encouragement," and give it to them. I also want you to know we have a HOPE for Addictions group that meets every Thursday, from 7:00 8:30, right over in our counseling center, across the driveway. You can just show up. You don't have to let anyone know you're coming. Just show up, from 7:00 8:30. Take advantage of those things. Peter says to stay sober, yet he doesn't stop at just staying sober. He also goes on to say, B. Stay hopeful. " set your hope " he says. He's not saying we need to hypnotize ourselves with positive thinking or light some candles and contemplate our bellybuttons. He's not saying that, but it could sound like that if you just read it on the surface. He's saying one of the ways to prepare your mind for action is to " set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation [the second coming] of Jesus Christ." He's saying, "Listen. I know life feels like it's falling apart right now, but don't forget, Jesus is coming again." On the surface, that's like, "Really? There are more fish in the sea, too?" I mean that's kind of what it sounds like, just in the immediate. Yet in essence, he's calling us to do some spiritual eye exercises. He's saying, "I need you to stop and look up from your struggles right now and focus on the amazing grace that is coming to you." Then we get to ask, "What will that accomplish?" I want to give you what this will accomplish. This is why this is so critical and so good. It's such good advice, when you're struggling, to be reminded of the grace, the hope we have in the grace that is coming. The first thing it reminds us about is that our life is under the careful control of the King of Kings himself. He has a plan, and his plan will not be thwarted. The psalmist, in the midst of the turmoil in his life, in Psalm 121, verses 1 and 2, writes, "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." What does the psalmist do? He says, "Man, my life is a mess. I look up and I'm saying, 'Where does my help come from?'" He notices the mountains and he says, "I know. I remember. It comes from the God who made the heavens and the earth." Peter is saying, "Hey, don't forget to look up." It also reminds us that this stuff won't last forever. For the believer in Jesus, this is critical. Time is on our side. Jesus is either alive and coming back or he isn't. Do we believe that or not? Peter Canyon Hills Community Church 6
is saying, "We absolutely believe that. That's why I want you to remember he's coming." In fact, move your eyes down the passage we just looked at to verses 20 and 21. They relate to next Sunday better than today. Speaking of Jesus, after he just tells them to set their hope fully on the grace that is to come, to be revealed, he says, "He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." He's saying, "One of the purposes for which Jesus came to manifest the glory of God is so he could die for our sins and God could raise him from the dead, and all of your hope and all of your faith can be in him." That's exactly what Peter is saying here in verse 13. "Set your hope fully on the grace that is coming. This stuff, this falling-apart world, isn't going to last forever." There's a third reminder, when we lift our eyes up from our struggle. It reminds us, don't try to make this life into the paradise it will never be. Our marriages, our jobs, our friendships, our children Not even our church will live up to the standard of paradise we desire and crave. Yet if you're a child of God this morning, paradise has been promised and guaranteed for you. It just won't be right here, and it won't be right now. So all the disappointments in this life are really divine reminders that this is not all there is. I said a few weeks ago, earlier in chapter 1, here, that part of the necessity of our trials in life is to cause you and me to long for the paradise that is yet to come. God did not create you and me to stay here forever. He wants to remind us of that. Do you remember right before Jesus went to the cross? In the gospels, Jesus said, "Have hope. Don't lose hope, because I am going to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house, there are many rooms." What was he doing there? He was saying, "I want you to remember after I'm gone that I've gone on to the place where you're going to be with me forever, and I'm preparing it for you." Peter is doing the same thing. He's following in Jesus' footsteps. He says, "Hey, I know it looks like this world is disintegrating into chaos, but listen. I want you to remember something. It isn't going to last forever. There is something better, already waiting for you, and it is guaranteed and sealed by the very presence of his Holy Spirit in you." Paul writes about it like this. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, he says, "These momentary troubles are accomplishing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." Then in verse 18, he says, "Fix your eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." That's what Peter means when he's trying to get us to get our heads on straight. He's saying, "I want to remind you right now to remember the stuff you can't see. Yes, it looks like the chaos, evil, craziness, perversion, and disgusting injustice and corruption in this world is just getting Canyon Hills Community Church 7
deeper and deeper, and it is, but don't forget. Don't forget something powerful. This isn't all there is." Now this advice, again, on its surface, might not be easy to hear in the midst of our trouble, but I think it's the best advice we can hear. If you think that advice might be hard to hear when life gets hard, what he says next might even sound stranger. 2. Be relentlessly obedient to God. What? Look at verse 14. "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance " Now how's that for an email when life is hard? "Hey, I just want to remind you I know life is falling apart for you right now, but whatever you do, don't go back. Don't conform to the passions of your former life before you became a Christian. Don't respond to trials and tribulations as if God doesn't make a difference in your life." Folks, it's in the toughest times in our lives when we really find out whether or not God is real in our hearts or if we just like talking about him when everything is going well. You see, here's something that is so powerfully true. Making us holy is God's unwavering agenda for our lives until we are taken home to be with him. Did you hear that? Making us holy is God's unwavering agenda for your life and my life until we get to heaven. That's exactly what Philippians 1:6 tells us about God. Philippians 1:6 says, "Be confident of this: He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." That good work in you and in me is the process of God making us holy. You see, God doesn't expect any of us to be perfect. We needed a substitute for that, and that's what Koby preached about last week, that Jesus came and lived a perfect life in our place. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, but he does expect us to be changing, to be growing in holiness. So in the very midst of the hardest time of the readers' lives, Peter says, "I know exactly what you need to do right now. Be holy." I think it's because we all, every one of us who loves Jesus in here We all have the tendency to underestimate the presence and the power of sin that's still in all of our hearts. It's hard for us Christians, especially those of us who have been in Jesus for decades, to admit we're still prone to run after God replacements or God substitutes in our lives. It's hard just to admit we're still struggling. Sometimes I just shake my head at myself, just in disgust, and I can't believe I still respond or react this way, after all these years. It's true. There's a spiritual war that rages in our hearts every day. In fact, I would even go as far as to say there's not a day that passes where we don't give evidence that we are still sinners. Amen? Can any of you say amen to the end of that sentence, at least? There's not a single day in your life or my life, as followers of Jesus, where we don't lay down empirical evidence that we are still sinners. Look at how Paul deals with this when he writes it in 2 Corinthians 5. He says, " and he [Jesus] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who Canyon Hills Community Church 8
for their sake died and was raised." Now stare at those words for a minute. That tells us, in essence, God's love and God's grace through Christ come into our lives to change who we live for. It's part of the result of the death and resurrection of Jesus, to change who we live for. This divine process of our sanctification, of our changing and becoming more holy, is slowly but surely, by God's delivering grace, rooting out the sin of self-worship that's in our hearts. That's the root of all evil. We want to be worshiped. We want to worship. We want the universe to revolve around us, don't we? Not a lot of amens after that one, so I'll amen for us. Amen. That's what comes naturally to us, and that's what Jesus came to save us from. If we fail to take this seriously I mean the fact that there's still sin that lives inside us, we won't long for and look for the daily forgiving, rescuing, transforming grace of God that has the power to deliver us from the evil that is still in our hearts. I think Peter is helping us to humbly admit something. He's giving us permission to humble ourselves and say, "You know what? Truth be known, the biggest danger to you and me is not the sin of others against me or against you. That's not our danger. It's not the ruthless, unfair boss. Our biggest worry is not the angry, unfaithful spouse, or the over-demanding professor, or the unmerciful landlord, or the rotten boyfriend or girlfriend. It's not even the disease or the financial woes we're facing. Those are not the biggest dangers we face. The biggest danger is the sin that still resides in our hearts. Once we admit this, we begin to get excited about God's grace in Jesus. If you don't realize daily how much sanctification still needs to happen in your heart, you will not have, you can't have an appreciation for God's grace. When you don't have an appreciation for God's grace, it's really a struggle to worship, because you just don't see that great of a need. I mean, the words might come out of your mouth. It's just an action, but there's no treasuring of God and his grace through Christ when you really don't sense that you're still in need of change. So Peter is saying, "Listen. The beauty of God's call to be holy because he is holy is that being relentlessly obedient to God is not a restriction on our lives. Being holy does not restrict us. His call to obey is actually a tool of his rescuing grace, rescuing us from the self-destructive slavery of our own sin. That's why Peter is saying, "Do you want to know the best thing you can do right now? It's to avoid going back to our old slavery and be relentlessly obedient to God. There was one author I read this week who said it so beautifully, I can't improve on it at all, so I'm just going to share it with you. He says "[The obedience to God, our holiness,] is the world's most wonderful, heart-satisfying, life-changing, and hope-producing slavery. The one who is the final definition of love, wisdom, mercy, and power makes us his slaves. He who alone is able to give us life enslaves our hearts to him. His absolute rulership over every area of our lives is not a deadening law but a life-giving grace." Canyon Hills Community Church 9
Here's why. "He is freeing us from our slavery to what is not true and cannot deliver. He is rescuing us from serving what will never give us life. He is protecting us from seeking hope where hope will never [and can never] be found." Is it any wonder, Peter says, "I know it's not going to sound like it, but what you need to hear from me right now is, 'Be holy'"? It's because the road to true and lasting happiness is paved with holiness. It has to be. Why? Because on that road and at the end of that road of holiness is God. On that road of relentlessly trusting and obeying him and being holy because he is holy, we will find ourselves near to him. That's why that is really good news. It doesn't sound like it, but that's exactly why it is. Do you want some more really good news? You do, don't you? I'm going to give it to you. Peter says no matter what happens, no matter our trials and tribulations, they are not a permission slip to sin. We are called to be holy and relentlessly obedient. Yet (and here's the good news) our way of living is not and never will be the basis for our standing with God. Let me explain this to you. It's because we can bow at his feet and confess our sins, knowing we will receive grace and not punishment, because righteous Jesus took the full burden of our penalty and our punishment so we never would have to. So we can run into the light of his holy presence, utterly unafraid, filled with confidence that when we go to him after we blow it, although he is perfectly holy and we are not yet, he will not turn us away. Listen to me. On your worst day and on my worst day, he will not love you any less, and that is what inspires us and motivates us to stay sober, stay hopeful, and be relentlessly obedient to him, because in him is all the grace we need as he completes the mighty work he has going on in our hearts to make us more and more like Jesus. He is committed to finishing that in you and me, so stay sober, stay hopeful, and be holy. I'm going to ask you to stand right now. Just quietly, we're going to meditate here for a minute. Just put your Bibles down. Close your eyes. Bow your heads. Let me pray. O God in heaven, I confess and I suppose I speak for many of us in this room. It is a real temptation to want to respond to life, to want to respond to the hatred, ugliness, evil, disappointment, betrayal, and all the nasty, hurtful, heartbreaking things in this life. It is tempting to want to take all of that into our own hands and do it our way, the world's way. God, I confess that, and I pray, in the name of Jesus, right now, that you would move in our hearts with great courage and great hope. God, that you would give us the faith to trust that if we stay sober, if we stay hopeful, you will meet us in this place and take us down this road together. God, I pray for those in this room who, right now, need to remember that you are everything we need, who need to remember that Jesus is alive, he is risen from the dead, and he is coming soon. God, we fix our hope firmly on the grace that will be revealed in Jesus Christ. Canyon Hills Community Church 10