WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.440 You know, whenever we want to do something in life that is worthwhile, okay, we set a goal for 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:13.220 ourselves, for example, those goals, those things that are worthwhile in life require on our part 00:00:13.220 --> 00:00:21.359 a certain amount of self-discipline. For example, if you want to go to college, it would be who you 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:29.199 to do well in high school, to study for your SAT, your ACT, all of those great things, those great 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:37.479 tests that we all loved taking at one point in time. If you desire to get in shape, your goal is to 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:43.920 lose weight, put on muscle, that's going to require self-discipline. It's going to require us to eat 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:49.840 right. It's going to require us to go to the gym regularly. It's going to be a lifestyle, 00:00:50.620 --> 00:00:56.700 self-discipline. If we desire to buy a new vehicle, that's going to require self-discipline. It's going 00:00:56.700 --> 00:01:02.100 to require us to take money each month and put it aside, so that way when it comes time to buying 00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:11.400 that new vehicle, we've got the money to pay for it, and that requires self-discipline. Let's take 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:18.480 as an example, an example of self-discipline, the swimmer that probably everyone in this room is aware 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:27.140 of. His name is Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps is an American swimmer who holds the record for the 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:37.480 most Olympic medals won by any athlete at the age of 28 years old, including 23 gold medals and 13 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:46.219 individual golds. Phelps competed in his first Olympics at just the age of 15 as a part of the 00:01:46.219 --> 00:01:54.219 U.S. men's swim team. He was the first American male swimmer to earn a spot on five Olympic teams 00:01:54.219 --> 00:02:02.719 and also made history as the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history at the age of 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:10.180 28. I don't really consider that old, but that is what it is. Michael Phelps, his swimming workout, 00:02:10.180 --> 00:02:22.319 and get this, his 12,000 a day calorie diet is one of the most intense and demanding around. 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:30.000 His training routine and his meal plan are astonishing for someone who was only six foot four, 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:40.060 yes that's tall, but he weighed only 165 pounds. In his peak training phases, Phelps would swim 00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:49.460 a minimum of 50 miles every week. He would practice twice a day, sometimes more if he was training 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:59.000 at altitude. Phelps would train for around five to six hours a day, six days a week, and in addition to 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:07.719 all of this, he would weight train three days a week. Now, all of that's great, but the one thing that stood out 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:14.819 to me was his diet, because anyone who knows me well, you know that I love to eat and I look forward 00:03:14.819 --> 00:03:20.079 to Fridays, which my family has called junk food Friday, where we sit around and we eat nothing but 00:03:20.079 --> 00:03:30.240 junk food. Michael Phelps eats or ate in his training phase 12,000 calories every single day. Let that sink 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:39.580 in for just a second. 4,000 calories a meal. I eat about 3,000 calories a day. So just for breakfast, 00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:48.340 Michael Phelps eats more than the average man in a single meal. Let's look at some of his, some of the 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:55.700 food that he ate every single day during his training phase. For breakfast, 4,000 calories. Phelps would eat 00:03:55.699 --> 00:04:04.659 three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions, and mayo. He would then 00:04:04.659 --> 00:04:13.699 drink two cups of coffee. He would consume a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:21.379 toast with powdered sugar, and three chocolate chip pancakes with all of the syrup and goodies on top. 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:30.079 That's just breakfast. For lunch, he would then eat a pound of pasta, a pound, and then go swimming. 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:38.759 A pound of pasta, two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread with mayo, and then he would consume 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:46.579 1,000 calories in energy drinks. Now, I'm just going to say this to our young people because they love 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:53.459 energy drinks. My brother-in-law is a doctor. His name is Ian, and he has actually told me one of the 00:04:53.459 --> 00:04:59.819 worst things that you can put in your body is an energy drink, and he would drink 1,000 calories of 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:05.240 it. So just because Michael Phelps did it doesn't make it right, but he drinks more energy drinks. 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:10.659 For example, at dinner, he would drink another 1,000 calories of energy drinks. He would eat another 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:20.560 pound of pasta and a full pizza, equating to about 12,000 calories a day, and then he would repeat 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:25.920 that the following day. Now, for most of us in this room, we would think, hey, that's a little bit of 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:33.680 overeating. I'm going to tell you, if I ate that much food, I wouldn't be 165 pounds. I'd be 265 pounds 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:40.040 in no time at all. Most of us in this room would agree that if someone was eating 12,000 calories a day, 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:47.620 that might be borderline gluttony, right? But Michael Phelps, he was a calorie-burning machine. 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:55.220 He worked out constantly, okay? He did this, and it was a lifestyle, and just to consume the food alone 00:05:55.220 --> 00:06:03.400 required a certain amount of self-discipline. Michael Phelps didn't become the world's greatest 00:06:03.400 --> 00:06:09.259 swimmer because he went to the gym every day for an hour and ate 3,000 calories. Michael Phelps became 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:15.980 the world's greatest swimmer because he had self-discipline. The same can be true for holiness. 00:06:16.939 --> 00:06:26.800 In our walk with Christ, we are called to be holy, and in order to be holy, in order to walk in a manner 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:35.719 that is worthy unto the Lord, well, that requires two things. It requires the filling of the Holy Spirit 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:43.400 in our lives, and it requires, on our part, self-discipline. This morning, we're going to talk 00:06:43.400 --> 00:06:49.800 about the latter. We are going to talk about the disciplines that are needed for holiness, and I 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:58.580 believe that this text right here, 1 Peter 1, 13 through 21, gives us four ways that we can discipline 00:06:58.579 --> 00:07:06.699 our lives for holiness. Number one, if we're going to discipline our lives for holiness, we must have 00:07:06.699 --> 00:07:13.240 the right mindset. We have to have the right mindset. Look at verse 13. He says, 00:07:13.719 --> 00:07:21.500 therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace 00:07:21.500 --> 00:07:28.399 that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, that phrase there, preparing 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:37.439 your minds, it's one word in the original language of the New Testament, which is koionea Greek. It's one 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:46.500 word, and if you're familiar with the King James Version, it is sometimes translated as gird up your loins. 00:07:46.500 --> 00:07:52.279 When I was a young boy, and we would go to church service after Sunday school, the whole youth group 00:07:52.279 --> 00:07:57.500 would kind of sit together. We would sit there, and our home church preacher would preach from the King 00:07:57.500 --> 00:08:03.560 James Version, and every time he said, gird up your loins, we would just kind of sit there and chuckle. 00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:09.560 We thought it was kind of silly. Gird up your loins, but it is translated as preparing your minds. 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:19.800 The idea here in this word is taking a garment and pulling that garment up, so that way it's easier 00:08:19.800 --> 00:08:27.459 for you to walk. It might be like a lady wearing a dress, and it's raining outside, and there are puddles 00:08:27.459 --> 00:08:34.279 everywhere. She might pull that dress just up a little bit so she can walk a little easier and not splash water 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:40.759 all over her dress. And that's kind of what's going on here in this phrase, preparing your minds. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:50.839 It means get yourself ready. Prepare. And he says to be sober-minded. And what's neat about the word 00:08:50.839 --> 00:08:59.019 mind here, yes, it is the faculty of reasoning. It is the place that we think, but it can also be translated 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:08.259 as being self-controlled. Being self-controlled. And I think all of us in here can agree that being 00:09:08.259 --> 00:09:15.939 a person that is self-controlled takes a certain amount of discipline on our part. I mean, how many 00:09:15.939 --> 00:09:24.240 times has someone made you upset, and you just wanted to explode, but you didn't because you knew it might 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:29.960 get you fired. It might upset the person. It might put you in a weird predicament. Who knows? But it 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:37.879 required a certain amount of self-control, self-discipline on your part. And so this is all 00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:46.600 something that we do by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it requires on our part self-discipline. 00:09:46.659 --> 00:09:54.180 And thus, obedience is a conscious act of the will. It's a conscious act of the will. And he 00:09:54.179 --> 00:10:01.519 says that we prepare our minds, and we set our hope here on something in this verse. And that word 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:06.579 hope is very interesting as well. In the English language, when we think of hope, we think of 00:10:06.579 --> 00:10:16.279 something as, I don't know, I hope mom makes fried chicken for lunch today. Okay? Mom might make fried 00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:23.279 chicken for lunch. She might not. She might make you a pound of pasta and a thousand calories of energy 00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:29.740 drinks. You don't know. You're hoping that she's going to make you what you want for lunch. You 00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:35.659 might say, well, I hope next weekend it doesn't rain, because we're going to the lake. Well, you don't know 00:10:35.659 --> 00:10:41.159 if it's going to rain or not. It might rain. It might not. And so the hope that we have sometimes, as 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:47.139 translated in the English language, is, you know what, we really desire for something to happen. It may or may 00:10:47.139 --> 00:10:53.879 not happen. But that's not how the New Testament uses hope here. The word hope means, yes, we're 00:10:53.879 --> 00:11:02.580 desiring this to happen, but it will happen. It is set in stone, and nothing can change it. And the hope 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:10.639 here is referring to the return of Jesus Christ. The return of Jesus Christ was so important to Peter 00:11:10.639 --> 00:11:18.620 hear here in this text that he has already mentioned it four times in this one chapter. Verse 5, 7, 9, 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:26.679 and 13. One of my favorite commentators of all time, his name is Dr. John MacArthur. Many of you 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:33.980 know who he is. You probably have a study Bible by him. He says this about hope. He says, if a Christian 00:11:33.980 --> 00:11:42.519 finds anything more attractive than fellowship with Jesus, if he yearns more to enjoy this world 00:11:42.519 --> 00:11:54.340 than to receive the joys of heaven, then he does not love Jesus' appearing. And so we, 00:11:55.220 --> 00:12:01.539 as followers of Jesus Christ, if we're going to walk in a way that is pleasing unto the Lord, 00:12:01.539 --> 00:12:08.719 we've got to discipline ourselves. And we do that, number one, by having the right mindset. Number two, 00:12:09.500 --> 00:12:14.579 if we're going to discipline our lives for holiness, we have to forsake the ungodly life 00:12:14.579 --> 00:12:22.860 that we had before we came to Christ. Look at verses 14 through 16. He says, as obedient children, 00:12:23.219 --> 00:12:29.860 do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:36.919 you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy, 00:12:37.820 --> 00:12:44.440 for I am holy. I hope there is one word in those verses that jump off the page for you, 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:52.919 because that one word happens four times. That one word is holy. Peter tells the church, 00:12:52.919 --> 00:13:02.779 be holy, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, to the ways of this world. 00:13:02.860 --> 00:13:08.919 The word conformed is a neat word in that it's got this picture of an artist. Many of you all have 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:16.779 heard this illustration before, where the artist has a lump of clay, and he begins to mold and shape 00:13:16.779 --> 00:13:25.480 that lump of clay into whatever he or she wants it to look like. And that's what the world wants to do 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:37.919 to us. The world wants to conform us into its own image. The world wants to conform us so we think 00:13:37.919 --> 00:13:42.639 like them, and we act like them, and we act like them, and our priorities are like them, and our worldview 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:50.740 is like them. And when we do not conform, what happens? There's pushback and sometimes hostility. 00:13:51.819 --> 00:13:58.099 And if you don't believe me, all you got to do is turn on the news today, and you see this very example. 00:13:58.100 --> 00:14:10.200 The world wants to conform us after its pattern and our former ignorance. But Peter says, don't do that. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:18.740 He says, be holy. Now, the word holy here is the word agios, and it literally means to be dedicated 00:14:18.740 --> 00:14:30.539 or consecrated to God. Be dedicated or consecrated to God. And God's word has a lot to say about God's 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:38.580 people being holy. For example, there's going to be a few verses up on the screen. Leviticus 11 44, 00:14:39.580 --> 00:14:48.720 for I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:54.759 defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. Leviticus 19 2, speak to all the 00:14:54.759 --> 00:15:02.500 congregation of the people of Israel, and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am 00:15:02.500 --> 00:15:11.620 holy. Romans 12 2, do not be conformed. There's that word again. Do not be conformed to this world, but be 00:15:11.620 --> 00:15:20.360 transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:31.100 and acceptable and perfect. The word holy occurs a lot. We just look at the New Testament alone. 00:15:31.100 --> 00:15:43.320 The word holy occurs 147 times in the New Testament. And what's interesting, 53 of those times 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:53.600 is speaking about our need to be holy, to be pure, to be walking in a way that is pleasing 00:15:53.600 --> 00:16:01.460 unto the Lord. And so while we are here on this earth, while we are living, we have to fight the 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:11.820 desires of sin. We have to be separated from evil, not be conformed to our former passions or to the way 00:16:11.820 --> 00:16:20.460 this world would have us to live. We are called to be holy. We are called to get rid of that old life, 00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:29.160 to take it off, that old life we had before we came to Christ. One of my favorite things as a parent, 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:37.620 and my family will be at the 1030 service, is embarrassing my kids. I live for it. I love 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:43.379 embarrassing my children. My dad liked to embarrass me when I was growing up, and so we kind of pass it 00:16:43.379 --> 00:16:47.740 down. And so what I'm going to do right now, she's not here, so I can't embarrass her directly, 00:16:47.740 --> 00:16:53.039 but I'm going to embarrass my daughter Ava, okay? Now before you get upset at me for doing this, 00:16:53.220 --> 00:16:58.259 I asked for her permission, and she said it was okay to use her in this illustration. 00:16:58.860 --> 00:17:06.579 So here we go. When my daughter was about three years old, her first Halloween came around, 00:17:07.079 --> 00:17:13.799 and she, for Halloween, wanted to be a horsey, a horsey. She didn't want to be a cowgirl. 00:17:13.799 --> 00:17:19.319 She didn't want to have a pet horse that, you know, she could pretend to walk down the road. 00:17:19.500 --> 00:17:25.059 She actually wanted to be the horse itself. And so my wife and I were sitting there thinking, 00:17:25.539 --> 00:17:31.720 where in the world are we going to find a horsey costume? And at that point in time, 00:17:31.819 --> 00:17:37.579 Michael was not born yet. We were finishing up seminary in North Carolina, and one of the things 00:17:37.579 --> 00:17:44.119 to do when you lived in Wake Forest was to go to Target, all right? I mean, that's just what you did. 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:48.019 It's kind of like Walmart and Pickens. There was nowhere to go, but you could go to Target. 00:17:48.439 --> 00:17:53.199 And so we went to Target, and we went up and down the costume aisle, and would you believe 00:17:53.199 --> 00:17:59.439 there was a horsey outfit in that aisle? Ava saw it, and she wanted it. It was about a week before 00:17:59.439 --> 00:18:04.879 Halloween. We bought that outfit, and we brought it home. And you know what she wanted to do. As soon as we 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:09.180 got home, she wanted to put it on and, you know, and play with it. And we thought, oh my goodness, 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:13.980 she's not going to, this costume's not going to last until Halloween. But we let her put it on, 00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:20.720 and what amazed me about her putting on this costume was that the moment she put it on, she 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:29.380 was no longer my daughter. She was a horsey. She didn't talk like Ava. No, she neighed, okay? 00:18:29.380 --> 00:18:36.200 She didn't walk like Ava. Nope. She galloped around the house. She became a horsey when she 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:40.360 put that costume on. She'd take that horsey costume outside into the garage. I had a five-gallon 00:18:40.360 --> 00:18:46.200 bucket out there where I would use that bucket to wash the cars and so forth. And she would go out 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:52.280 there, and she would pretend to feed that horsey, and it was really neat to watch. After Halloween got 00:18:52.280 --> 00:18:58.540 done, and she would continue to wear this horsey outfit, she decided one time while she was playing 00:18:58.539 --> 00:19:04.339 with it that the horsey, well, the horsey needed a drink of water. And so instead of taking it to, 00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:09.559 you know, the spigot or to the kitchen, she decided that the horsey needed a drink of water, 00:19:10.099 --> 00:19:17.839 and she went into the bathroom. And she gave the horsey a drink of water from the toilet. 00:19:20.659 --> 00:19:23.539 Fortunately, my son was not born yet, so the toilet was flushed. 00:19:23.539 --> 00:19:31.920 And just between me and you, that horsey disappeared shortly thereafter. 00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:38.759 But what amazed me was, like I said, how she became a horsey when she put it on, 00:19:39.220 --> 00:19:46.539 and how she became my daughter again when she took it off. Ephesians 4, 22 through 24 says this. 00:19:46.539 --> 00:19:48.339 It says, 00:19:48.339 --> 00:19:55.980 put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful 00:19:55.980 --> 00:20:05.619 desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after 00:20:05.619 --> 00:20:13.319 the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Now, I know my illustration breaks down 00:20:13.319 --> 00:20:18.659 a little bit, but I hope you see the point. When we come to Christ, we're to take it off. 00:20:19.439 --> 00:20:27.019 That old self, that ungodly life that we had before we were in Christ, we take it off, 00:20:27.799 --> 00:20:35.259 and we clothe ourselves in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. If we're going to discipline our lives 00:20:35.259 --> 00:20:40.200 for holiness, we've got to have the right mindset, okay? We have to get rid of that ungodly life we had 00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:44.840 before we came to Christ. But number three, if we're going to discipline our lives for holiness, 00:20:45.740 --> 00:20:53.259 it's going to require reverent worship of God. Reverent worship of God. Look at verse 17. 00:20:54.860 --> 00:21:01.640 And if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, 00:21:02.420 --> 00:21:09.880 conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Now, that word conduct or conduct, 00:21:09.880 --> 00:21:19.480 it means to, yes, behave in a certain way, to have certain principles, but it can also mean 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:32.720 to overturn completely. Pretty neat. When we come to Christ, we take our old conduct and we overturn it 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:42.460 completely. And we conduct ourselves with, it says, fear, okay? Fear towards God. Now, yeah, fear, 00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:48.500 when we think of it in English, we think of being scared. You watch a scary movie, and as we like to 00:21:48.500 --> 00:21:54.180 say in the South, we get scurred, right? And fear can be that. It can be intimidating. And I do think 00:21:54.180 --> 00:22:03.080 there is room for a certain amount of that kind of fear towards God, because he is our creator. He is the judge. 00:22:03.779 --> 00:22:13.000 But it's not just that kind of fear. It's a reverent kind of fear. It's a fear of God's discipline 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:23.599 and his fatherly displeasure. When I was growing up and I was young, when I did wrong, 00:22:24.599 --> 00:22:30.380 my dad would spank me, right? Yeah, I got spanking. Sometimes we got whoopings, right? My dad would 00:22:30.380 --> 00:22:37.400 spank me. But as I got older and I messed up, my dad wouldn't spank me anymore. Kind of outgrew that 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:44.500 phase, I guess you would say. And he would say these words to me. I'm disappointed in you. Now, 00:22:44.540 --> 00:22:50.519 I would act like that didn't bother me, but it tore me out the frame. I'm disappointed in you. 00:22:52.460 --> 00:22:58.080 Any child sitting in this room, if you've ever had your parents say those words to you, you know what 00:22:58.080 --> 00:23:05.700 I'm talking about. And whether or not you want to show it, you always desire to make your dad proud. 00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:13.940 It's what a son wants to do. I remember when my dad told me those words. I'm proud of you. Made me 00:23:13.940 --> 00:23:20.780 feel good. But man, when he said, I'm disappointed in you, you know what? I'd rather get a spanking 00:23:20.780 --> 00:23:28.840 than for my dad to tell me he was disappointed in me. That's kind of the fear going on here. 00:23:28.839 --> 00:23:37.679 It's a fear of God's discipline. It's a fear of his fatherly displeasure. And so we're to be 00:23:37.679 --> 00:23:44.519 concerned with the things that our heavenly father is concerned with. And every single aspect of our 00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:53.339 lives should be led by the guiding principle of reverent fear of God. That reverent fear, 00:23:53.339 --> 00:24:00.879 I would argue, is none other than worship. You could say it like this. You could say, 00:24:01.179 --> 00:24:11.199 live a life of worship. Because reverent fear for God is worship. And it's not just something we do 00:24:11.199 --> 00:24:18.919 on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. or 10 30. Reverent fear or worship of God is something that Christians 00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:26.700 should be doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's not something we check off our list 00:24:26.700 --> 00:24:32.800 on Sunday afternoon. And so we have to ask ourselves in every area of our lives, 00:24:33.019 --> 00:24:40.840 are we fearing the Lord? Are we worshiping the Lord? So in my job, you've heard Fred say this a 00:24:40.839 --> 00:24:48.759 number of times. Am I giving my best? I should be known among my co-workers and my boss. I should be 00:24:48.759 --> 00:24:55.939 known as a man or a woman that does their job to the best of their ability all of the time. Why? 00:24:57.099 --> 00:25:05.679 Because I'm worshiping my creator. I've told our youth this a number of times as well. Here's where 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:14.460 the parents kind of do this, right? You go to school, you study as unto the Lord. You worship 00:25:14.460 --> 00:25:22.740 him in your studies. And so that means if you're an A student, you should be making A's, not B's. 00:25:23.560 --> 00:25:28.700 I would argue that if you're making anything less than the type of student you are, you're in sin. 00:25:29.320 --> 00:25:32.920 Because you're not fearing the Lord. It's not reverent worship. 00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:39.019 What about that relationship that you have with that individual that's kind of awkward? 00:25:40.060 --> 00:25:45.220 Okay, they kind of get under your skin a little bit. All right. Is that relationship, can you 00:25:45.220 --> 00:25:53.880 honestly say, is that relationship reverent worship? Are you doing everything as far as it is with you 00:25:53.880 --> 00:26:01.500 to make that relationship the way it should be? My attitude towards all people should be done 00:26:01.500 --> 00:26:05.740 as reverent worship, fear in the Lord. And I fail that. I fail that all the time. 00:26:07.339 --> 00:26:12.880 But that's what we're called to do. Christianity knows nothing of a Sunday morning 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:19.880 only worship service. Okay? Something that we check off our list and then move on with the next thing 00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:27.640 on our agenda. I'm afraid that sometimes the church universal, not just a First Baptist thing, 00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:33.780 an East Pickens thing, this is a church universal, church-wide thing. That the church sometimes 00:26:33.780 --> 00:26:42.580 is more concerned about what they're eating for lunch than they are about living a life of reverent fear 00:26:42.580 --> 00:26:52.300 and worship unto the Lord. Ask yourself, how is my life in this area? Am I living for Him? 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:59.079 You may be thinking that I'm meddling now. I'm meddling and I sound like one of these religious 00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:05.539 kind of zealots. But the fact of the matter is, is that when we come to Christ, we don't just give 00:27:05.539 --> 00:27:12.559 Him Sunday morning or the occasional Wednesday night. We give Him our lives. We give Him everything. 00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:22.279 Everything we say, everything we do comes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I tell our youth, 00:27:22.299 --> 00:27:31.039 often, when we're not in COVID-19 circumstances, that you cannot have one foot in the world 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:37.659 and one foot in heaven or the church, however you want to word it. It doesn't work. You can't have 00:27:37.659 --> 00:27:46.460 both. It's one or the other. And this very fact right here is one of the reasons that Billy Graham 00:27:46.460 --> 00:27:56.039 himself was quoted a number of times as saying that 80 to 85 percent of the people in the church that have their 00:27:56.039 --> 00:28:07.880 names on the roll are lost. I want you to think about that. 80 to 85 percent of the people in the church today 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:17.480 who have their names on the road don't know Jesus. They may affirm the historical reality that Jesus 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:22.400 came and lived and He died, but they do not have a relationship with Him because they're not living for Him. 00:28:23.020 --> 00:28:29.260 It's evident. And so ask yourself, am I worshiping God in every aspect of my life? 00:28:29.259 --> 00:28:34.779 If we're going to prepare our lives for holiness, it's going to require the right mindset. It's going to require 00:28:34.779 --> 00:28:40.559 forsaking our ungodly life before we came to Christ. It's going to require reverent worship of God. 00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:49.839 And then finally, it's going to require a reminder of your redemption. A constant reminder of your redemption. 00:28:50.279 --> 00:28:57.200 Verses 18 through 21 in closing. Peter says, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways 00:28:57.200 --> 00:29:03.340 inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious 00:29:03.340 --> 00:29:10.080 blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation 00:29:10.080 --> 00:29:16.360 of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through Him are believers 00:29:16.360 --> 00:29:23.620 in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. 00:29:23.619 --> 00:29:32.279 The word ransomed here is a very rich, rich theological word. It can be translated as redeemed or you were 00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:40.739 bought. Okay. It's got the imagery of a slave. Okay. All of us in this room, if we're in Christ, at one 00:29:40.739 --> 00:29:49.059 point in our lives, we were a slave, but we're no longer a slave because we've been bought. Our freedom 00:29:49.059 --> 00:30:00.059 has been bought. And it was purchased through the currency of Jesus's blood. Jesus's blood. We were 00:30:00.059 --> 00:30:10.679 slaves to sin, but we are slaves to sin no more. We are now bondservants of the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:30:11.179 --> 00:30:17.460 We are delivered from a life of futility to one of great significance. And that's why Peter says here in 00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:26.279 verse 18, that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Let me just say 00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:32.380 one thing about that phrase, your forefathers. Because Peter here, yes, as he's alluding to the 00:30:32.380 --> 00:30:39.039 Old Testament, he is speaking to parents. He is speaking to grandparents. He is speaking to the 00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:50.299 generations that came before. Let me just say this. Jesus's sacrifice breaks the inevitability 00:30:50.299 --> 00:31:02.220 and power of generational sin. Jesus's sacrifice breaks the inevitability and the power of generational 00:31:02.220 --> 00:31:14.100 sin. It's the idea that the sins of parents, grandparents are often repeated by later generations. 00:31:16.539 --> 00:31:24.839 Parents, we got a huge responsibility to raise our kids up into the Lord. Huge. I mean, for example, 00:31:25.100 --> 00:31:30.579 how many times have, maybe you're a school teacher or you work with children and youth or, you know, 00:31:30.579 --> 00:31:37.319 in your job or in ministry, how many times have you said the words about a child, man, that child is 00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:45.019 off the chain. That child's terrible, right? And then the person you're talking to says, yeah, you ever met 00:31:45.019 --> 00:31:52.159 their father? Yeah, I think all of us have had that conversation at one point in our lives. It's the old 00:31:52.159 --> 00:31:59.980 saying that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. We have a huge responsibility, parents, 00:31:59.980 --> 00:32:11.039 to disciple our children, to set before them a good example, an example of discipline, of making the 00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:19.220 things that are important to God, important to us and our families. They're watching us. They're 00:32:19.220 --> 00:32:27.059 learning from us. And so Jesus's sacrifice here is compared to a lamb without blemish or spot. 00:32:27.059 --> 00:32:32.319 Okay. Once again, he's alluding to the Old Testament and he's alluding to that, those Old 00:32:32.319 --> 00:32:36.399 Testament sacrifices. And when the people would bring their Old Testament sacrifices into the 00:32:36.399 --> 00:32:42.200 temple, that sacrifice had to be perfect. It couldn't be an animal that was blind or an animal 00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.159 with a broken leg or, you know, something that you just kind of want to get rid of. So I'll just take 00:32:46.159 --> 00:32:53.259 it to the temple and sacrifice it. No, there were rules for that. That sacrifice had to be perfect, 00:32:53.259 --> 00:33:02.700 flawless. And of course, as New Testament believers in Christ, our spotless lamb, our perfect lamb 00:33:02.700 --> 00:33:12.259 was the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us. And it says here that God planned this, that Christ was 00:33:12.259 --> 00:33:24.680 foreknown before eternity past, that he would send his son to die for you, for me. And when I started 00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:33.400 thinking about that, it was like, you know, when God created me, he knew that he would have to send 00:33:33.400 --> 00:33:45.200 his son to die in order to redeem me, to redeem you. But even, even, even greater than that, as if it could 00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:54.880 get greater, God knew before he created you, who does, does not believe in Christ, to the unbeliever. 00:33:54.880 --> 00:34:02.840 He knew before he created you, that you would rebel against him, he would send his son to die for you, 00:34:03.620 --> 00:34:12.400 and you would reject him. And he also knew, oh wayward believer, that when he created you, 00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:19.519 that he would have to send his son to die for you, to redeem you, 00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:27.940 only to have you later on in life fall away. Whereas we like to say sometimes, backslide. 00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:33.900 And when I started thinking about that, I just started thinking about the awesome mercy of God 00:34:33.900 --> 00:34:39.440 in my life. I haven't walked with the Lord, I'd love to say I walked with the Lord every single day 00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:46.300 of my life to the best of my ability, but that would not be true. And he knew that, and still, 00:34:46.300 --> 00:34:55.340 before eternity passed, God had already determined, I'm going to send my son to redeem him. 00:34:56.539 --> 00:35:01.180 So what about you? Are you living for him? Are you giving him your all in all? 00:35:03.039 --> 00:35:09.300 Do you know Christ as your Lord and your Savior? The Father sent him to die for you. 00:35:09.300 --> 00:35:16.200 And in my sanctified imagination, I think that if you were the only person living, 00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:22.240 he would still send his son to die for you. Do you know him? 00:35:23.660 --> 00:35:27.539 In just a second, we're going to pray, and we're going to sing a hymn. 00:35:28.180 --> 00:35:30.600 And I'm going to be standing down here at the front. 00:35:30.599 --> 00:35:36.099 And if you're here today, and you don't know Christ as your Savior and your Lord, 00:35:36.779 --> 00:35:40.400 I would love nothing more than to pray with you, to talk with you. 00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:44.940 Our next service doesn't start until 1030, and so I'll take all the time that is needed 00:35:44.940 --> 00:35:49.079 to talk with you. But maybe you're here this morning, and you know Christ as your Savior, 00:35:49.279 --> 00:35:52.179 and you realize, you know what, I'm not living for him like I should. 00:35:52.799 --> 00:35:56.239 Once again, I'll be down here at the front to pray, or you can just pray right there at your pew. 00:35:56.239 --> 00:35:58.539 There's nothing magical about walking down an aisle. 00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:05.279 But however the Lord has led you this morning, let him have his way in your life. 00:36:05.359 --> 00:36:06.139 Would you join me in prayer?