Sanctification by submission, 1 Peter 2:11-20

The last few weeks we have been talking about sanctification as described in Peter’s first epistle. Though Peter doesn’t refer to it as sanctification per se, he does state his thesis as “Be holy, even as I am holy.”  Holiness is sanctification.  Sanctification means to be set apart for a sacred purpose.  The Apostle Paul said in 1Thess. 4:3 “For this is God's will, your sanctification.”  Hebrews says as well in chapter 12:14, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”

So sanctification is the purpose for which we live now that we are saved.  However, just to be clear, it’s not a means of justification.  In other words, it’s not a bunch of things we do in order to be justified before God.  We are justified by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  But sanctification is the response of one who has been saved, who has been given new life, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.   We are to be holy, even as He is holy.  And as holy  people, we serve God as priests to God in His temple, offering our lives as a holy sacrifice unto Him.

Holiness then is the way we are to live.  We live by faith. And holy living requires faith.  Holy living is the works of faith. As James says, you show your faith by your works.  It take a lot of faith to live holy, because it goes against our nature.  It often goes against human reason.   It takes faith, for instance, to do right when the world says it makes more sense to do wrong. It takes faith to let the Lord be the judge and your defense when being ridiculed for your faith.  And so a lot of things that we see in this section are counter intuitive to human reason.  But it’s why we walk by the Spirit and not in the flesh.  It’s walking by faith and not by sight.  It’s acting like God wants us to act, instead of how we are naturally inclined to act.

So the title of my message then is Sanctification through Submission.  Submission is not a very popular concept today in our culture.  Our culture believes in standing up for your rights.  Our culture admires independence.  It’s popular today to be an activist, to rebel, to resist. To claim what you think you deserve.  But as we will see today, sanctification comes by way of submission to Christ as Lord.

I want us to look today at six steps to submission, on the path to sanctification. Sanctification is the process between justification and glorification. In between is the process of becoming holy as God is holy.  And the first step Peter gives us can be categorized by the word  separate.  As I said a minute ago, sanctification means set apart.  Peter said in verse 9 that we are a chosen race, a royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, called out of darkness into His light. 

So in light of our calling, though we are in the world, we are not to be of the world.  Much in the way a ship may be in the water, but it’s not of the water.  The ship may be in the water, but the water is not in the ship.  

Peter likens this separation to us being aliens and strangers in the world.  Vs.11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” Abstain, or separate yourselves from the lusts, or love of the world.  We shouldn’t love the things the world loves.  Consider your calling, as strangers and aliens in the world, and don’t participate in the lusts of it.

John said in 1John 2:15 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  As citizens of another kingdom we don’t participate in the works of darkness as the world does.  Peter says the lusts of this world wage war against the soul. War is destructive.  And the lusts of this world are destructive.  They promise to satisfy, to make you happy, but instead they destroy and deceive and make you enslaved all over again.  

The lusts of the world attack your mind and bring it back under enslavement to sin, and sin destroys.  I’ve said it before, the spiritual battleground is in your mind. The soul; that is the mind, the heart, the seat of our emotions and will is the battleground between the Spirit and the flesh.  We are to walk in the Spirit, and not in the flesh.  So control of the soul is the source of addiction, captivity.  And all sin is addictive.  And all sin destroys.  So the first step is to separate yourself from the world. You’ve been set free from sin by Christ’s death on the cross, so continue in that holiness by abstaining, fleeing, separating from those sins which would seek to enslave you again.

Secondly, the next step Peter says, we are to be superior. That doesn’t mean to be snobby or conceited.  It means our behavior is held to a higher standard than that of the world. Peter says in vs12 “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

What Peter is getting at here is don’t respond to slander, to accusations, to insults, or to injury from the world with a tit for tat. Don’t stoop to their level.  Don’t answer insult with insult.  But here is the counter intuitive will of God - do good to those who mistreat you. Jesus said in Luke 6:27-30  "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.  Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”

Now that really goes against our nature, doesn’t it?  Somebody steps on our toes, somebody treats us unfairly, what do we do? Our nature tells us to let them have a piece of our mind, doesn’t it?  We aren’t going to let someone get away with treating us like that.  So we take our own revenge.  But Romans says, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Peter says rather than retaliate, our goal should be that by seeing our good works they might turn to the Lord and be saved.  Overcome slander by superior behavior and deeds, so that they might give glory to God when Jesus comes back for His saints.  That means that they will be converted as a result of our actions when they mistreat us.   You know, according to Fox’s Book of Martyrs, one of the amazing things about the martyrdom of early Christians was that many times the people witnessing the way the martyrs went to their death immediately responded by committing their lives to Christ as well, even though they knew that by doing so it ensured their own death.  And they did so because of the incredible testimony of those saints while being persecuted. Our greatest testimony is often how we act, our behavior.  It’s not necessarily because we witnessed verbally to someone at some point, but through the testimony of our behavior and our good deeds, in spite of the attacks from the world.

The third step to submission is simply to submit.  Submit is not something that comes naturally, as I said earlier. In fact, the whole principle of submission is looked upon even by many in the church as something patriarchal, or legalistic, or even masochistic.  But in fact, submission is a key doctrine that the Bible teaches is essential to God’s will. 

Peter says starting in vs13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”

First of all, notice that he says submit for the Lord’s sake.  That’s the key.  Submit as unto the Lord. Our rationalization of whether or not we have to submit is that we compare people to our own personal standards and then if they don’t match up, if we deem they are not worthy, then we believe we are justified in opting out of submission to them.  

But God says submit to them as unto Him.  And first on the list is to submit to the government. When Peter wrote this, Nero was Emperor in Rome.  Nero is one of the most evil dictators the world has ever seen.  He married a castrated teenage boy in a public wedding ceremony.  He burned Jerusalem and blamed it on the Christians.  He tied Christians to poles and lit them on fire in order to light up his garden parties.  He was ultimately responsible for beheading both Peter and Paul.  And yet Peter says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, submit to the king and to the governor.  

Peter’s going to say in the next chapter “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.” That kind of knocks a lot of the objections of women to staying with their husbands right out the window, doesn’t it?  Try comparing your husband to Nero.  

So we submit to the government, we don’t resist.  We submit, we don’t rebel.  We don’t stage a revolution.  My apologies to the founding fathers.  We submit.  God has not given us license to rebel unless to obey means disobedience to God. We submit for the Lord’s sake.  Submit as unto the Lord.  The ruler may be a crack pot.  He may be a jerk. He may even be an atheist.  But we submit to them not because of their merits, but because their authority comes from the Lord.

Notice that we have a Lord that we obey, and He has told us to submit.  Lord in this verse is kyrious in the Greek, which means, he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord; the possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner; one who has control of the person, the master.  That doesn’t leave a lot of room for argument, does it? A lot of Christians have the attitude that the Lord has to obey them, has to give them their desires, the Lord has to serve them. But if Jesus is actually your Lord and Savior, not just your puppet, then you will obey Him because you belong to Him.  Your will is not your own.  Ultimately, we are to submit to the Lord.

The fourth step of submission is silence.  We silence the objections or criticisms of the world by doing right.  Peter says that when we submit, even to foolish men, we silence them by doing what is right.  Vs.15, “For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”  Notice most importantly that Peter says this is the will of God.  Submission is not negotiable.  The opposite of submission is rebellion, and if you are to submit as unto the Lord, then when you rebel you are rebelling against the Lord.  You’re not rebelling agains the human authority, you’re rebelling against the Lord.

“For such is the will of God that by doing right…” Doing right.  I hope that needs little clarification.  Peter’s whole epistle here is really about how to live right.  How to live holy lives.  How to act like Christ.  I went to a Bible college once that had pithy sayings by the founder of the school on the wall in every classroom.  One of the sayings I remember was “do right until the stars fall.”  Just that simple.  Do right. No matter what the world is doing,  what everyone else does, Do Right.  Another saying they had written on the walls related to that was, “it’s never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.”  

Well, when we submit, when we do right, we silence the critics of the gospel.  We silence the critics of the church.  The biggest complaint of every generation is that the church is full of hypocrites. We say one thing in church and do another outside of church.  Peter says, do right outside of church.  Do right in the world.  Do right when everyone around you is doing wrong.  Your right actions will silence the critics, and convict the world of their sin.  That’s God’s will.

The next step to submission is to be a servant.  A servant, or a slave, is the key word.  Wow, this submission thing is just going from bad to worse, isn’t it?  Well, let’s try to understand God’s perspective on being a servant.  Sanctification is becoming like Jesus, isn’t it?  What did Jesus do?  Paul tells us in Phil. 2:5-8 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,  being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” 

Jesus was equal with God but submitted to the Father.  Then He took the form of a bond servant and became a man like us.  And after that He even humbled himself to submit to death on a cross. And yet we resist the idea of being a servant?  Is a servant greater than His master? Is it ok for Jesus to be a servant, but we are not?

Peter says you are free, you’ve been set free from the captivity of sin and the devil.  He says in verse 16 “As free men,  do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.”  A bond slave  is one who was set free by their master, and yet who choses to stay in that servant relationship because he loved his master.  That’s what Peter is saying we are to be like.  Like freed slaves who willingly choose to serve their master for the rest of their life, because of their love for the Lord.

We love the Lord more than our freedom.  So we choose to serve the Lord.  And Peter gives the negative here; which is don’t use your “freedom” that you received by grace as a covering for continuing in sin.  Jude speaks of such people in the church in vs  4 saying,  “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  He doesn’t mean that they deny that Jesus is the Christ, but they deny Him Lordship over their lives.  They have never truly renounced their sin and made Jesus Lord of their lives, to live for Him, to serve Him, and as such they are still in captivity to sin.

Peter recaps, if you will, who we are to submit to with a servant’s heart; “Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”  To honor is to give preference to. To put them first.  That  is the attitude of servanthood. Honor, love, and fear or reverence are all the attitude of a bondslave of the Lord.

That attitude we are to have then is respect to those in authority over us.  Notice vs 18, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.” Now he might be speaking specifically about our attitude towards our employer here.  But it is the same principle that Peter has been indicating all along.  It’s not a reciprocal relationship that he’s talking about. It’s not when they are deserving of your respect.  It’s irregardless of whether or not they are good, or honorable, or deserve anything.  Notice the word translated unreasonable literally means perverse.  Peter isn’t giving us a way out, is he?  Give honor even to perverse people.  Actually, the original says give fear to perverse people.  Give reverential fear, that’s what honor means there.  A holy fear as unto the Lord.

By definition, grace came to you when you didn’t deserve anything.  And we are to be gracious even as God is gracious. Look at the next verse and I want you to notice the word grace in that verse.  19, “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.”  The word favor there is charis, which means grace.  Notice also the word “finds” is in italics, which means it’s inferred, its not in the original language.  So if we read it again we might read; For this is grace, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.” 

I find hope in that rendering that God is going to be gracious to those who suffer unjustly in this life.  God sees, and God will reward each man according to his deeds, whether good or bad.  So trust your soul to a faithful, gracious Master who will render justice on that day.

And in that context, Peter gives us the last step to submission, which is suffer.  Suffering is the refining fire which produces holiness.  Suffering is a necessary part of sanctification. Peter says suffering finds favor with God.  Again the word means literally grace.  Suffering finds grace with God. What may have been intended to you for evil, what may have caused you to suffer, God will use for good.  Rom. 8:28 says “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.”

Jospeh when he was unjustly mistreated by his brothers and sold into captivity, later found himself in a position as the second in command of the Egyptian empire.  And one day his brothers came to beg for bread during a famine, bowing to this foreign dignitary but not recognizing him.  When Joseph finally revealed himself to them, they expected him to take revenge upon them.  But what did Joseph say?  “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.”  And Joseph’s response was to do good for his brothers, and feed them and exalt them to a status of favor in the kingdom. 

Peter says, vs.20 “For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer [for it] you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.”

There it is again, when you do what is right.  Do what is right.  This is God’s will.  This kind of behavior finds grace with God. Suffer in submission, as unto the Lord.  The Lord sees.  The Lord will take vengeance.  The Lord will one day judge justly.  In the meantime, let us be gracious to others, even as God was gracious to us even when we were in rebellion against Him,  in hope that by seeing our good works, they will be converted and bring glory to God in the day of His visitation.

Sanctified for service, 1 Peter 2:1-10

Heb. 12:14 stresses the essentiality of sanctification.  It says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  Sanctification is the purpose, Paul says, for which we are saved. 1Thess. 4:7 “For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

Now Peter never uses the word sanctification, per se.  He does however refer to the sanctifying work of the Spirit in us, back in chapter 1vs2.  But I believe that the general thrust of Peter’s epistle is the subject of our sanctification.  His central thesis is found in the first chapter, vs 16, “Because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.”  Sanctification is simply holiness.  They are synonymous.  To be sanctified is to be holy, set apart, for good works.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  That is the goal of our sanctification, that we should be fit for service to God.

Last week we looked at a list of motivations that Peter gave us for sanctification. Now this week I believe we can find another list, Peter’s 12 step program, if you will, for sanctification.  And as I said, the purpose for our sanctification is that we might be of service to the Lord.  So without further introduction let’s look at Peter’s 12 steps to sanctification as presented in the first 10 verses of chapter 2.

The first step in our sanctification is love with a pure heart.  Peter has already referenced this in the previous chapter in vs 22, saying, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”  And as I said previously, the KJV and other translations include the word “pure” heart.  That indicates that Christian love is not possible without sanctification.  That it has to be unhypocritical love.  It’s really a shame how modern society has redefined the idea of love.  They have exchanged love for lust.  They have debased love to the point of lusting after sexual gratification.  But true Christian love is something you do for others, not for yourselves.  It’s sacrificial, not selfish. 

Paul says in Romans 12:9-13 “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;  not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;  rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,  contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.”  That’s the kind of love, the kind of devotion we should have towards one another.  

So therefore in pursuit of such pure love Peter says, in vs.1, “putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”  All those attitudes are antagonistic towards Christian love.  That reminds me of another beneficial translation in the KJV, when it talks of agape love, or sacrificial love, it often translates it as the word charity.  That’s an old fashioned word perhaps, but it indicates that Christian love is focused on other’s benefit, not towards our own selfish ends. And all these attributes that Peter gives are signs of a selfish, self centered love of self first and foremost. So sanctification involves putting off selfishness and envy and hypocrisy and slander and  learning how to love like Christ loved the church, sacrificially. 

Number two in our 12 steps to sanctification, Peter says, is long for the pure word.  He actually says in vs 2, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word.”  Back in the previous chapter in vs 23, Peter had told us that we were born again by the seed of the word. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”  

Now he says, as new born babies long for the pure milk of the word that you may grow.  Many years ago when I was a kid, there was a trend in society for women to not breastfeed babies and instead to give them formula.  Perhaps it was an attempt to make women more independent and be able to go to work and so forth which was the goal of the women’s liberation movement at that time.  But over the last couple of decades, more and more research has come out which shows the tremendous nutritional benefits of breast milk. Everything a baby needs for optimum health is found in the mother’s milk.

In the same way, there is an inherent benefit in the word of God which cannot be found in psychology, in self help books, or in science.  It has the ability to give life. Jesus said, “the words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life.” On another occasion, Jesus rebuked the devil by quoting from the scripture, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”   The word of God is authored by the Spirit, it is life to the soul, it is bread for the body, and it will keep you from sin.  Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” So a proper diet of the word of God keeps you from sin which is directly counter to  holiness.

Thirdly, Peter says the next step of sanctification is to grow up.  Now our text makes it clear that our maturity is closely related to feeding on the word of God.  “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  Maturity, or growing in your salvation, is essentially the process of sanctification.  Sanctification is the maturing process of becoming conformed to the image of Christ.  The goal is that we do not stay babies, or even children, but we become mature.  We grow up in Christ. 

Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 4:14-16 “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;  but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,  from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

The problem with the church today is that it is full of spiritual infants.  They have a doctrine which is an inch thick and a mile wide.  They get a lot of their teaching from self promoting television evangelists and you tube prophets.  The sound doctrine of the scriptures has too often been reduced to a sentimental ditty sung to a modern rock tune which repeats again and again and again, without any substance. Peter and Paul are saying, you need to grow up.  Stop being deceived by every wind of doctrine. Stop being swayed this way and that way.  The gospel doesn’t change according to the winds of the culture. It is founded upon the rock which is Christ, who is the Word of God made flesh and we have being conformed to His likeness as we meditate on HIs word.  And that is how we grow as we spend time studying Him, copying Him, following Him.

The fourth step in sanctification is we are to partake of His goodness.  Peter says in vs3, “if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”  This is sort of a difficult verse to exegete, but I would say that Peter is talking about partaking of the goodness of the Lord.  The idea follows the previous principle in which we drink of the pure milk of the word.  Now Peter speaks of tasting the goodness or kindness of the Lord. So feeding upon the word is what is being spoken of here.  He is doubling up on the exhortation to eat of the word, to taste of the word, so that you might grow in sanctification.  If you don’t eat, then you will be malnurished, you will be under developed.  So the goal is to grow, and the means of doing that is to eat the good things which the Lord has given us to eat, the bread of life, the pure milk of the word.  Psalm 34:8 “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusts in him.”

 The fifth step in our sanctification is to go out to Him. Peter says in vs4 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God…”  Listen, if we are going to be like Christ, if we’re going to follow Christ, we’re going to have to go out to Him.  Go out to Him who is outside of the camp, outside of the  religious centers, outside of the political centers, outside of the intellectual centers of society. Jesus did most of His ministry outside of the political and religious centers of His day.  He was an outcast.  He was rejected by the mainstream religious leaders and political leaders.  Being a true follower of Jesus wasn’t popular then, and it’s not popular now.

Paul said in Romans 12 “be not conformed to this world.” The opposite of being conformed to this word is to go out to Christ.  Hebrews 13:13 tells us, “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.” Jesus himself said if we were going to be His disciples we must take up our cross and follow Him. I think we go a long way in our process of sanctification if we would just get over the idea that we need to be popular, we want to be accepted by the world, and instead we identify with Christ.

The sixth step in our sanctification Peter says is we are to build up the church.  Vs 4-5 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,  you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

First of all note that a building is not the temple of God, but our bodies are.  Paul says in 1Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

I like how Peter refers to Christ as the chief stone, the foundation stone, a living stone, and we also are living stones built on the rock which is Christ. Peter realized that he was not the rock upon which the church was built, but Jesus was.  Peter was just a living stone, built on Christ the cornerstone. Our identity is in Christ, and He is in turn identified in us by His Spirit which lives in us and through us.  But the idea that God dwells in houses built by men is not a principle taught in the New Testament.  Rather, we are being built into a holy temple; a Spirit filled congregation of saints. 

And so we must recognize the importance and the need for other stones in this temple.  We are designed to be in fellowship with other believers in the church, corporately forming the temple of God.  And so Peter is saying in our sanctification there is a need to build up, or edify the church.  That is the whole purpose of spiritual gifts.  Spiritual gifts are not for self edification, which the charismatics teach, but for the edification of the body of Christ, the church.

Paul says in 1Cor. 14:12 “So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.”  So your gifts are for building up of the church.  He speaks specifically of some of those gifts in Rom. 12: 6-8 “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;  or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”   So exercise your gifts to build up the church.

The next is closely related to that.  The seventh step in our sanctification is to offer spiritual sacrifices.  Peter says, “you also, as living stones,]are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  One of the primary duties of priests in the temple service was to offer up sacrifices and offerings.  And so in the new covenant, in the new temple not made with hands, we as priests to God offer sacrifices as well.  But not the sacrifices of bulls and goats, but our own bodies, our own lives in service to God.  We are to be sanctified for service to God.

Paul says in Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  So holy living is a spiritual sacrifice.  Paul says service is worship.  Worship is not in what we say, but what we do. It’s not just lip service.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”   Be holy as God is holy.  That’s the sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.

The eight step to sanctification in Peter’s 12 step program is to trust in the Lord. To believe in the Lord is not just an intellectual assent, but it’s a commitment of your trust, to do all that He says, and to do all He commanded us to do.  Vs6 “For this is contained in Scripture: "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."  This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone.”

To believe in Christ, to have faith in Christ, is the  basis of our justification. Rom 10:9-11says “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.  For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

But not only are we justified by faith, but we are sanctified by faith.  The scriptures say in four different places that the just shall live by faith.  We trust the Lord as we do what He commands us to do, and find that He will supply our needs and our strength to do His will as we step out in faith.  And God promises that if we trust in Him we will not be disappointed.  By the way, Peter was referencing a quotation from Isaiah 28:16, a prophecy concerning the Messiah which says, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.”  Jesus is the Rock which we can depend upon as we live by faith, doing what He commanded us.

The ninth step in our sanctification is to fulfill your calling. Vs 9, one of my favorite verses in Peter’s epistles says, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

What I like about Peter is he is constantly reminding us of the glories of our salvation.  He doesn’t hold back from giving us the hard or difficult parts, but at the same time he is encouraging us by reminding us of our inheritance.  Look at what God has called us to be.  A chosen race; called and chosen to be sons of God. A royal priesthood.  We are given a dual title. Thats better than the priesthood of Levi.  We are priests and princes of God.  Revelation 1:6 says, “and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.”

Revelation 5:10 reiterates that promise, saying, "You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”  But the interesting thing is that this is something we are to be engaged in now.  Paul said to Timothy in 2Tim. 4:5 “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”  Be about the business of the kingdom.  That is our calling, our duty, our commission.  We all have a calling, we all have a ministry. And fulfilling that calling it is the path to sanctification.  

The tenth step in our sanctification is closely associated with that ministry, and it is to proclaim His gospel. Vs. 10, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  

Our primary ministry is to proclaim the good news of the gospel. Our primary calling is not to be a carpenter, or a banker or a doctor or lawyer, but to be a witness; to testify to the world the truth of the gospel. Jesus said in Mark 16:15 "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”  He is recorded as saying in Matt. 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  It’s easy to think that witnessing is someone else’s job.  The pastor perhaps, or a missionary; it’s their job.  Someone else should go, but not us.  Someone else should witness, but not us.  But Jesus commissioned you to be His ambassadors, to bear witness of what He has said and done. And we cannot be like Him, unless we bear witness of Him to the world, even as He faithfully bore witness of the Father.

Closely related to that is the eleventh step, which is to be a light in the darkness. “So that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  What is the light which we are to shine in the darkness?  It is the light of the world; the truth of Jesus Christ as revealed in the word of God. We are to be lights in the world.  Jesus said in Matt. 5:14-16  "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;  nor does [anyone] light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”  That’s how we let our light shine.  By our good works, and by proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.  Both are necessary if either is to be effective.

Lastly, the 12th step in our sanctification is that you remember who you are.  Peter says in vs10, “for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”  You are a child of God.  Act like it.  Remember who your Father is.  Be careful not to bring shame upon the name of Christ.  Don’t be arrogant in who you are.  Remember Paul said in 1Cor. 1:26-29 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;  but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,  and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,  so that no man may boast before God.”

But on the other hand, remember your calling, remember you were chosen, you were justified, and that you have been given a promise of inheritance.  Remember you are a royal priesthood, created to serve the kingdom of God.  You are a citizen of a chosen nation. A light set on a hill. You are the people of God.  Stand in that promise.  Stand in that reality.  Stand on that Rock which is Jesus, our cornerstone. And be holy, even as He is holy.