There are many things that men do not understand about women, but one of the most confusing is why women insist on having things around the house that aren’t meant to be used. Let me take you on a mental tour of a house and I’ll explain what I mean. We can start in the kitchen or the dining room, where we will often find plates that are not meant to be used, and glasses and silverware that are not meant to be used, and sometimes these things will be housed in a cabinet that is never to be opened. Some of these things you received from your mother or your grandmother, who also did not use them, so these items have been NOT serving the family very well for three generations.
Then we can move into the living room, where we might find candles that are not meant to be burned, or a coffee table that is not meant to hold your coffee. It is just there to hold the candles that are not meant to be burned.
Then we’re off into the bedroom, where we find pillows that are not meant to be used. A man wonders what they are doing on the bed, then, but apparently they are there so that guests don’t have to see our real pillows.
Then we come to the bathroom. Heaven help a man when he enters the bathroom! If you’ve ever wondered why a man takes so long in the bathroom when he visits your house, its because he has no idea what he is and is not supposed to use. A man will start to wash his hands, and he will encounter bars of soap that are not meant to be used. These will often have a bow of twine around them, and they will be in a basket with washcloths that are not meant to be used. And then a man will turn toward the towel rack, where he will encounter a collection of decorative towels that are not meant to be used, and so in despair he will simply leave the bathroom with wet pants after he has dried his hands on them.
Now ladies, I’m going to let you in on a little secret—we actually like the fact that you decorate the house. Those things make us feel at home. So even though we may not decorate ourselves, we’re glad that you do!
Now believe it or not, all of those decorative items around the house can actually help us understand the concept of holiness. Those items are special and unique; different from other items that are meant for ordinary use. Keep that in the back of your mind, because it will shine some light on our subject today.
Today we are going to take a look at the word holiness, or we could just say the word “holy” since those two words express the same concept. This word is found in a very significant passage of 1 Peter 1, so we’re going to wrap things up by applying the word “holy” in that context. In fact, let’s read that passage now so we can get an idea of where we’re going [READ 1 Peter 1:13–16]. You can see how significant the idea of holiness is in this passage, so let’s take some time to find out what it means.
I. What does the word “holiness” mean?
The concept of holiness receives its fullest development in the Old Testament, so that’s where we will be looking to get an idea of what it means. If you were to look up the words “holy” or “holiness” in a concordance, you might be surprised to discover that one of the first things you would find is that…
A. Non-living things can be called “holy”
Holiness is not a concept that belongs to living things alone. In fact, if we look at the first time that the word “holy” is used, we discover that a piece of ground can be holy. In Exodus 3:5, Moses has just approached a bush that he saw from a distance that was on fire, but was not being consumed by the flames. All of sudden the voice of the Lord calls to him and says, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
So we find here that a non-living thing can be called “holy.” We also find numerous example of this elsewhere:
an assembly Ex. 12:16
a day of the week Ex. 16:23, 20:8–11, Ex. 35:2
a nation of people Ex. 19:6
clothing for the priests Ex. 28:2, Ex. 29:6
the flesh of sacrifices Ex. 29:33–34
water Num. 5:17
As we look at examples like this, we find one that gives us a great clue as to what it means to be holy. Turn with me to Exodus 30:31–32. In this passage, the Lord is giving Moses guidelines for making an anointing oil that would be used to anoint the objects in the tabernacle, and in vv. 31–32 he says [READ vv. 31–32]. Notice in v. 32 how God emphasizes that this oil had a special purpose and a special formula. The people were not to use this oil for just any old purpose, nor were they to make any other oil just like it. It was to be special—the only oil of its kind. So here we have a clue about what it means for something to be holy—a holy object is something is different, special, the only one of its kind.
B. God is referred to as “holy”
With that idea in mind, it should be no surprise to discover that God is referred to as “holy” in the Old Testament. If you’ll flip back just a few pages to Exodus 15, we’ll see Moses describing God’s holiness in 15:11 [READ Ex. 15:11] And the expected answer to these questions is—no one! There is no one like the God of the Bible! All of the other gods are just powerless, impotent idols, but God is different—he is the only one of His kind!
We see this same idea again in 1 Samuel 2:2 when Samuel’s mother Hannah says, “There is none holy like the Lord; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.”
So we’re starting to get an idea of what the word “holiness” means—it refers to things that are different, special, one of a kind. Non-living things can be called holy, God is referred to as holy, and finally we need to note that…
C. God’s people are commanded to be “holy”
We’ll look at just one Old Testament example of this. In Deut. 7, as the people of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, God told them that they were not to be like the people who were living there at the time. He said they were not to intermarry with those nations, nor were they to serve their gods, and he gave the reason why in Deut. 7:6—“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
So here we have this same idea again—they were a holy nation because they were different, they were special, they were one of a kind. There was no other nation like them on earth because they had been chosen by God, and he commanded them to be holy. And as we read in 1 Peter 1 earlier, we too are commanded to be holy.
So what does it mean to be holy? To sum it all up I would say it this way: the basic idea of holiness is the idea of something that is in a class by itself. The oil in the temple was holy because it was in a class by itself—it was dedicated for use in worshipping God. God is holy because he is in a class by himself—he is utterly and completely different from all of the other so-called gods. He is also different from sinful mankind, which means that God is separated from sin.
And this is where the idea of holiness really hits home for us, because as we read in 1 Peter, since God is holy, we are commanded to be holy as well. We are called to be different in our behavior—different from those who don’t know God or worship him. So how are we to do this? Peter gives us two insights in 1 Peter 1:13–16 to help us get a handle on holy living.
II. How are we to live holy lives? (1 Peter 1:13–16)
A. By embracing a different hope (v. 13)
Peter mentions several things for us to do in v. 13, but grammatically the real command is found at the end of the verse when Peter writes, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” If we are going to live differently from the world around us, we must have a hope that is different from the world around us. The idea of “hope” here speaks of our sense of anticipation—our longings and desires for what is to come down the road. Peter is telling us to place our deepest longings for the future upon the completion of our salvation that we will receive when Christ returns.
Too often we stop short of such a hope, don’t we? We allow our deepest longings for the future to revolve around getting married or having children or retiring, but when we do we become spiritually short-sighted. We lose sight of Christ’s return because we’ve focused our deepest longing upon something else.
I’ll never forget the time that I heard a Christian girl say, “You know, I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I can get married first.” That might sound a little funny to us when we hear it like that, but deep down in our hearts, are we saying the same thing? “I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I can have kids first.” “I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I get to enjoy a few years of retirement first.” If these lesser things are the object of our deepest longings for the future, we won’t live holy lives because we’ll be embracing the same hope as the world around us, and this hope will mold our priorities until we look just like the world.
We must embrace a different hope, and according to Peter, it all starts with a change of mind. At the beginning of v. 13 he says we must “prepare our minds for action.” The Greek literally says we must gird up the loins of our minds. This refers to the ancient practice of gathering up the bottom of your robe and tucking it into your belt when you were getting ready for work or some other sort of activity. You would pull it all in tight so there wouldn’t be any loose ends to trip you up.
If you can picture the analogy, that’s what we need to do with our thinking. We need to grab hold of our thoughts about the future and pull them in; we need to grab hold of our thoughts about our purpose in life and pull them in; we need to grab hold of our thoughts about life and love and sex and money and family and everything else and pull them all in so that we have a singleness in our thinking where everything—everything—is seen in light of Christ’s return. And by doing this we can stay “sober” or “self-controlled” as Peter says in the next part of this verse.
If we want to be holy, we must embrace a different hope than the world around us, and that hope must be a deep and fervent longing for the return of Christ, because that is a hope that the world will never embrace. But if we will embrace that hope, we can live lives that are different—lives that are in a class by themselves—lives that are godly and pure.
And according to the rest of this passage, we are to live holy lives…
B. By following a different pattern (v. 14–16)
Notice what Peter writes in vv. 14–16. He gives a pattern to avoid and a pattern to follow [READ vv. 14–16]. He tells us first to avoid the pattern of life that we were compelled to live before we knew Christ. He is writing to people who were converted as adults and he’s telling them not to go back to their old way of life. Some of us today know what that’s like, and even for those of us who believed as children, we still feel and understand those desires. But we are not to let sinful desires set the pattern for our lives.
Remember—holiness is about being different, being set apart from sin and devoted to God. If we are going to be holy we must follow a different pattern than the world—the pattern that has been set for us by our Father. Peter calls us obedient children, and as children of God we are now called to bear the family resemblance. Just as a child learns to imitate the way his parents walk and talk, we are to imitate the way that our Father acts. We are to imitate his character that we see revealed in the Bible. We are to imitate the life that Jesus lived when he walked on the earth.
And the end result is that we will lead lives that are different from the world around us, lives that are special, unique, one of a kind, oriented away from sin and toward the glory of God. We have to be commanded to live like this today because it is no longer natural for us. Ever since the human race was plunged into sin, we have been tainted by rebellion through and through. But as we seek, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live lives that are different from the sinful norm, we will find the life that God always intended for us to live.
So what is holiness all about? It’s not about living off on a mountain top somewhere all by ourselves. It’s not about living in a monastery. It’s about having a character that’s in a class by itself—a character that is patterned after the character of God. And if we will embrace a hope that is different from the world around us, and follow a different pattern for life, we can fulfill God’s command to be holy as he is holy.
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