Drive Beyond the Crossing of Hope and Holiness

God’s gift of eternal life is worth celebrating. Our freedom from the leash of sin is better than any other freedom. The love and adoration we enjoy from our Heavenly Father is comforting beyond measure. Praise God for His ever-reaching mercy and grace.

But the Christian life is not all fun and games. God didn’t intend for us to stop at celebration. When we start off on the road called Hope, we should quickly merge onto the road called Holiness. Do we Christians and faith communities (and even churches) cruise up and down Hope and steer away from Holiness? Do we celebrate and thank God for His forgiveness, glibly excusing our humanness as that part of life God no longer holds against us?

God expects more.

We’re not only saved because it’s good for us. We’re also saved to sacrifice for God. Timothy wrote that God “saved us and called us to a holy life” (2 Timothy 1:5-10). And, of course, we remember Romans 12:1:

…I urge you…in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God––
this is your true and proper worship.

God expects much from us. He expects a changed heart, a changed mind, obedience… And, even though that’s already a lot, He expects our lives. I’ll be the first to admit, I often take my life back from Him.

Peter wrote a letter to Christians scattered throughout the area generally known today as Turkey (1 Peter 1:1-2). It seems these Christians were happy about their salvation and eternal home, but they needed direction for living as God expected them to live. They might have praised and thanked God for giving them much, but maybe they didn’t follow Jesus further than that. They enjoyed the hope of new life but maybe they didn't pursue holiness.

Even still, life was difficult for them. They were exiles and faced situations that tested their faith. So, Peter began his letter with what seems like a recipe for spiritual maturity – a maturity that is expected of each of us.

Here’s how Peter began his letter:

[They were] chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through the sanctifying work of the Spirit,
to be obedient to Jesus Christ…

1 Peter 1:2a

Then he described the Christian journey (“the sanctifying work of the Spirit”). Our journeys should progress from hope to holiness and look something like this (which is what we find in 1 Peter1:1-2:10). Of course, it begins with celebration.

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1. We celebrate the fact that God blesses us with eternal security 

(1 Peter 1:3-5).

I bet many of us can name the date and circumstances surrounding the moment we accepted Jesus as our Savior. I was at a church youth group meeting when I met Jesus, on February 13, 1981 (Friday, the 13^th). It is a moment worth celebrating.

• Our eternity is secure because God acted on His mercy (1 Peter 1:3, Psalm 89:14, 2 Peter 3:8-9).
• We look forward to Heaven because we acted on our faith (1 Peter 1:5). Of course, our faith is a gift from God, so our eternal security is entirely from God.

2. We enjoy God’s blessing of maturing hope (and we may not even realize it) (1 Peter 1:6-9).

We celebrate but life is hard sometimes. We eventually realize that hardship tests our faith, but hardship can’t take the Heaven out of us. We make it through, and we know we can do it again with God’s help, and we praise Him. We look back and we celebrate.

• Walking through the fire produces an out-loud hope (1 Peter 1:7, Proverbs 17:3, 1 Peter 5:10).
• Eyeing the prize produces a believe-without-seeing hope (1 Peter 1:8-9, John 20:28-29, Philippians 3:14-21, 1 Peter 1:3-7).

3. We gain wisdom and understanding because God blesses us with spiritual clarity (1 Peter 1:10-12).

We have God’s complete revelation. The prophets heard from God and they spoke of the spiritual blessings, especially of our salvation, that we can now fully enjoy. We don’t wonder when Jesus will come. We know He already has.

• We have always been the object of God’s plan (1 Peter 1:12).
• He blessed us with certainty in our salvation (1 Peter 1:10-12).

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While we continue to celebrate, we begin to realize God expects more…

4. We realize God expects us to be holy (1 Peter 1:13-17).

We are so blessed, in more ways than I mentioned above, so we celebrate. But God also wants us to be holy. Peter urged us to clear our minds and become ready for action. We have a new way of life: obedience.

• When we experience God’s blessings, we are moved to action (1 Peter1:13-17).
• God’s children want to be like Him (1 Peter 1:14-16).

5. We make life choices to honor Jesus because of His sacrifice (1 Peter 1:18-21).

We can never repay the debt of our sinfulness. Jesus paid it entirely and offers a real and forever relationship with Him. For this, He deserves and expects our honor.

• God bore the complete cost of our undeserved freedom (1 Peter 1:18-19).
• The gospel would elude us if Jesus never came (1 Peter 1:20).
• We enjoy a solid relationship with God because of Christ’s death and resurrection (1 Peter 1:21).

6. We value people more and more (1 Peter 1:22-25).

When we obey God – when we truly seek to honor Him – we love people. If we struggle to love others, we should look inward and consider whether we are obedient to God.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth
so that you have sincere love for each other,
love one another deeply, from the heart.

1 Peter 1:22

• Brotherly love is a logical result of obedience (1 Peter 1:22, 1 John4:19-5:4).
• Life is delicate and worth dying for (1 Peter 1:23-25, 1 John3:16-18 and 4:9-11).

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1 Peter 1 describes 3 blessings from God, followed by 3 things God expects of us. In chapter 2, he seems to cut to the chase in verses 1-10 with 2 more expectations. He said to rid ourselves of evil, to desire spiritual food, and make sacrifices. He said to be who he chose us to be: a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people of God.

These two additional expectations put a capstone on our relationship with God.

7. We become serious about our relationship with God and all that pleases Him (1 Peter 2:1-3).

Do we really shun sin and sinful behavior? I admit, I don’t really hate all kinds of evil. Sometimes I gratify my sinful tendencies. I find myself in confession far too often for someone who wants to be remembered as a man of God who gave his all for Christ and led his family to do the same.

This begs the question: How serious am I really about my relationship with God?

Answer: Not enough.

But we are all in process, aren’t we? It’s okay to admit that. It’s not okay to use it as an excuse. We need to get to know God better. We need to study. We need to learn about Him, learn about ourselves in the process, and grow in our appreciation of His compassion and sacrifice for us. We need to reciprocate. We need to think about Him more than ourselves. When we do so, we will hate evil more today than we did yesterday, and more tomorrow than we do today.

• Experiencing God’s blessings produces an aversion to sin (1 Peter 2:1, Psalm 34).
• Experiencing God’s blessings produces a desire to study and grow (1Peter 2:2-3).

8. We make sacrifices because He set us apart for Him (1 Peter 2:4-10).

This is the bottom line of our relationship with God. Are we living up to our calling? Are we fulfilling the purpose and the reason God chose us to be His people? If you ever wondered, “What’s the point of being a Christian?,” chew on this:

You were chosen…that you may declare
the praises of him who called you
out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:9

We were chosen to tell others about how marvelous God is, and how He saved us from eternal condemnation. We do this, not by putting our best foot forward. We do it by making sacrifices – by giving up the right to live our own lives and following God’s lead instead.

• God is setting us apart as spiritually-minded people (1 Peter 2:4-8).
• If we are set apart, we are set apart for a reason (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Consider this quote from blogger friend Karen Friday:

We must trust who God is…the sum total of His attributes. Yet, sometimes we only concentrate on the feel-good parts of God’s character. Such as God is love, merciful, and good.

And all those characteristics are absolutely true about God. But He is also holy, just, the one true judge, in control, on His throne, the only God, and sovereign – reigns over all things. Every one of these aspects are what make God, God.

We deny God’s full Lordship when we only celebrate one aspect of His character.

This is an excerpt from her full blog post on cultivating unstoppable faith.

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So, where are you in your journey as a child of God? What blessing or expectation above speaks to you most today. We might understand and grow in a different order than how it is listed above, and we cycle back through some of the stages at various points in our journeys, so number 1 is not just for young Christians and number 7 doesn’t necessarily describe mature ones. Whichever step we find ourselves in, God is speaking to us about our growth. Feel free to share about it by commenting below.

If you want to know more about God’s love and how to have a relationship with Him, please email me at authordlv@att.net.

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