THE SECRETS OF A HOLY LIFE

1 Peter 1:15-16

Morning Meditation 4/8/2013

"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy."

Peter is talking about practical holiness. There is holiness that is positional. It has to do with the Holy Spirit baptizing us into Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Our entrance into Christ begins with our salvation. Several things take place simultaneously when we are saved. It has nothing to do with what we do. We are the objects of His love and His work. Salvation is a work of God. John 6:29 says, "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." Positional holiness is of the inner man and the reference to this is found in Hebrews 10:10, "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." This sanctification is done through the offering of the body of Christ not by human effort. This is the holiness without which we cannot see the Lord.

The people to whom Peter is writing already has this holiness because all believers have this. They get it at salvation. Let's look first at,

PETER'S APPEAL IS TO EXPERIENTIAL HOLINESS

Peter is talking about their "conversation" and this word means, "manner of life," i.e., how one lives as well as how he talks. The 1828 addition of Noah Webster's Dictionary defines this word as, "The general course of manners; behavior; deportment; especially as it respects morals." Then he uses the Bible itself to illustrate the meaning, "Let your conversation be as becometh the gospel, Philippians 1:27.

The experience of holiness in the way we live is a choice. It is a decision we must make as Christians. This is not a life that comes without effort. One of the strong appeals of the flesh is to be like others. The flesh hates to be different. When one is different, he makes others uncomfortable. First of all, they will verbalize their discomfort to you. This of course does not make you comfortable. Most Christians cave in at this point. The depth of the average Christian in our day, I compare to a water spider. Have you ever seen a water spider? They can run across the top of the water and never get their feet wet!!! That is about as shallow as you can get. The second things the world does is to begin to shut you out of their gatherings, parties, etc. At this point the believer feels rejection. Rejection is NOT a good feeling. We want to be accepted by our peers. To get past this, one must make a decision.

Moses is a good illustration of doing the right thing. Hebrews 11:24-27 says, "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." Moses was not forced to make this decision. He made a choice and it was the right choice. As Dr. Bob Jones Sr. would say that he did not sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.

Experiential holiness means that you make a choice not to go along with the crowd. A Christian who makes this decision you never hear say, "well, everyone else is doing it." One has to give up that lame excuse and say, "If everyone else is doing it, I know it's wrong!" Next,

THE GROUND OF PETER'S APPEAL FOR HOLINESS IS THEIR CALLING

This is brought out in 1 Thessalonians 4:7, "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." I have been called to preach, therefore, I preach. Every Christian has been called to holiness, therefore, every Christian should be holy. Holiness is involved in the call to salvation. While positional holiness is what makes us right before the Throne of God, experiential holiness is what makes us right in the sight of men.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Good work in this verse is the light that the candle sends forth in a dark world.

Do you realize that you as a believer have been called to a life of holiness? If not, you need to read the Scripture and discover this truth for yourself. No one can ever equal the gift of God's only begotten Son to be crucified in our place in order that we can have salvation as a gift. It is totally inconsistent with our ability to reason that we could receive salvation as a gift at so great a cost to Jesus, and then not feel any responsibility to obey His call to holiness. Next,

PETER'S MODEL FOR HOLINESS IS JESUS

Peter puts it like this: "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy . . .." The word "as" means, "just as." This identifies Jesus as the model. God is invisible and cannot be seen with the natural eye. Jesus is the express image of God. This is clearly brought out in Hebrews 1:3, "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;"

The words "the express image" translate "charakter" (the English spelling of the Greek word), and means, "the exact expression (the image) of any person or thing, marked likeness, precise reproduction in every respect." Philip asked Jesus that he might see the Father and Jesus replied to him in John 14:9, "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" Next,

PETER'S AUTHORITY IS THE SCRIPTURE

Peter said, "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy."

Jesus trained the disciples to go to the Scriptures for one's authority. 1 Peter 1:10 says, "Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:"

2 Peter 3:2 says, "That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:" He says, "That ye may be mindful (think about and be controlled by what they said) of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets. The Old Testament Scriptures and its application to New Testament truths were used by the early Church as the authority for what they preached.

Much of the Old Testament are still applicable to us today. The Old Testament must be rightly divided or errors can occur when a wrong application is made. When using any Scripture one must first look at the subject of the verse in it context and then apply it as it was originally given. One can be misled, and mislead people, when a Scripture is taken out of its context, and applied to a subject altogether different than originally given.

Baptist have been known throughout the ages as people who claim that the Scriptures are their only rule of faith and practice. This is a good claim if it is maintained. When we depart from this truth, we go astray and wind up embracing heresy. Next,

PETER'S APPEAL FOR HOLINESS IS TO COVER ALL AREAS OF LIFE

Our text says, "so be ye holy in all manner of conversation."

The word "all" means "each and every." The word "manner" means "in every area of the Christian's life." When we eat we ask the blessing on our meal. If we are offered wine at a dinner to which we have been invited, we meekly say no thanks but you can bring me a diet coke (in my case). If we are invited to be taken to a place of gambling we meekly excuse ourselves. Any thing that would be inconsistent with a life of holiness, we kindly ask to be excused. It is not consistent with a life of holiness to pick a fight with the host over what he offers us. Neither is it consistent with a life of holiness to start a debate with an unsaved host over what is right or what is wrong. It is not wrong for the host to drink necessarily. He's going to hell whether he drinks or not. And he is not going to hell because he drinks. He will go because he has and is refusing to repent and believe the gospel. John 3:18, "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Getting caught doing wrong is not what makes it wrong. It is wrong because God says it is wrong. And you can't go anywhere where God does not see you do wrong. He knows when you are making the plans to do it. Solomon said, "The thought of foolishness is sin." It is foolish to think of sin in a favorable way. The thought should be confessed as sin and be forgiven so that it will never become an act which is certainly worse than the thought. I know there are those who claim that it is just as bad to "think" sin as to "commit" sin. That's about as dumb as it can get. I would rather a man think adultery with my wife or daughter than to commit adultery with one of them. I would never know about the thoughts of the man but I would probably discover the acts. If you are a Christian and you commit the sin of adultery, there are ways that God gets the knowledge of that sin to others so that this sin will be dealt with in Church discipline.

I can tell you all kinds of times I have caught the Christian who commits adultery but denies it. I had a song leader one time that was committing adultery with one of the members the choir. I had an informant. So in order to have the goods before I confronted him, I drove to this married woman's house and parked about a block away. I sat there for a few minutes and up my song leader drove. He got out of his car, walked up to the door and just walked in. Her husband wasn't home. He stayed there for a good while. In a little while, longer than I wanted to be a private eye, out he walks toward his car straightening his hair and clothes. I pulled out and headed for church. It was Wednesday a little while before church. I went to my office and in ten or fifteen minutes he walked in the church and walked by my office door whistling like he had just had the time of his life. He seemed to be a very happy man!!! When the evening service began with a song, he was doing fine until just before the last song, I told him that I needed to see him immediately after the service in my office. This request had the effect of a sledge hammer between the eyes.

He came to my office as requested. When I told him what had happened, he did not try to deny it. He asked if I would remain in the office while he went home and brought his wife back with him. I agreed to do it. He went home, confessed it to his wife, and brought her back with him. He said he had asked God to forgive him, asked his wife to forgive him and she had, and asked me to forgive him and I did. But I told him that I would not allow him to lead our singing anymore. This was something he didn't expect. But I could not afford to allow him to neutralize our position against adultery and the damage it causes to the home and to one's own testimony.

Church discipline is always to be done in obedience to the Lord. See 1 Cor. 5. It should always have restoration in view. I thank the Lord we did not have to remove him from church membership because he did repent. I remain the man's friend though he did leave the church probably because of embarrassment. A man defiles himself when he commits a sin that calls for church discipline. It not only damages his personal testimony and destroys people's confidence in him, but it has the effect of damaging the church's testimony if a person is allowed to remain in a leadership position. Proverbs 6:32-33 says, "But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away." Next,

PETER MAKES A COMMAND FOR HOLINESS

Peter says, "so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." The word "be" translates "ginomai" and means, "to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be."

Positional holiness happens suddenly the moment we are saved. Experiential holiness has to be developed. This is the reason Peter uses this word, "become holy, begin to be holy." It has to be worked on. It probably in most cases will involve ceasing to be friends with those around whom you cannot practice holiness. It will involve changing your language. Paul says in Ephesians 4:29-30, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

It is very easy for Christians to fall in bad practices and the use of corrupt language. Holiness cannot be the practice of the Christian who does these things.

May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ

Bro. White