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Guest (Female): Each year Gospel in Life offers a daily devotional during the season of Lent, the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday. You can sign up to receive these daily devotionals by email at gospelinlife.com/lent. That's gospelinlife.com/lent. Now, here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching.

Tim Keller: We're going through the book of 1 Peter in the evening sermons and the evening teaching this year. The section we're going to be looking at for several weeks is verses 13 to 21 of the first chapter. Tonight, however, we're only going to do an overview. It's a major section, and it has a great deal to do with holiness—the holiness of God and our own holiness, our personal holiness. Tonight, because we're going to be celebrating the Lord's Supper, I'm going to say some things in a preliminary way. I'll lay out some real basics, just very broad-based, and do so in such a way that prepares us to come to the Lord's table tonight.

The section is from verse 13 to 21, and it is of a piece. But tonight, especially because we're going to just talk about preliminaries, I'm only going to read from verse 13 through 16. Let's read. "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'"

This is God's word. Let's not forget that 1 Peter is about how we can live in such a way that troubles and pain and suffering that inevitably come into our lives would not crush us or make us weaker things but make us stronger, refine our character, and turn us into great people. How can you live in such a way? How can you be in such a condition that the troubles and the pains and the sufferings of life actually are tools that hone you and polish you and refine you?

Everybody knows, for example, when a doctor comes in and says, "Now, I'm going to do this incision right here in your forehead. I'm going to get this little tumor out. I'm going to get this little scar out. I'm going to change things. I'm going to get this piece of metal out that was there as a result of an accident." The doctor comes in and is doing this incision, and the one thing you don't do is move. You don't change. You don't move. Unless you're in the right condition, the very same stroke, the very same hand, the very same blade can kill you instead of healing you. It depends not completely on the skill of the hand of the surgeon's hand but on whether you stay put. It depends on your position. It depends on your condition.

That's what the whole book of 1 Peter is about. How can you be the kind of person, how can you live in such a condition, so that the surgical tools of the troubles and trials of life don't kill you but instead actually heal you? Now, we've been looking through the first 12 verses at various things that Peter's been saying about this. In verse 13, there's a new section. The purpose of the new section is to really begin in earnest to tell us what it means to be the kind of people that will experience this refinement and this healing.

The basic point of this passage is you've got to be holy. What does it mean to sit still on the surgical bed of life? What does it mean to sit still under the blade of the troubles of life so that you're actually helped and refined by them instead of destroyed? You have to be holy. In fact, verse 13 tells us, "Therefore," since you want to be the kind of people who can rejoice in your tribulations, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action."

In the old authorized version, it says, "Gird up the loins of your mind." That's literally what it says in Greek. It's what Peter actually wrote. Literally, it says, "Gird up the loins of your mind." You know what that means. It's a very picturesque statement. You know, of course, that the men and women of those days didn't wear what we wear today, but they wore flowing robes. Flowing robes were not conducive to strenuous action. They weren't good for running and for jumping and for climbing and for carrying; they got in the way.

So when you wanted to prepare yourself for action, what you had to do is you had to pull together the flowing robes, all the flowing robes, and you had to put them into that which girded you, which was your belt. There would always be a sash or a belt around you. That was what girded you. Well, you would pull up all of the flowing robes and stick them into the belt so that your bare legs were showing and you were ready to run if you had to, ready to jump, to climb, to carry. You were ready for strenuous action.

What Peter's trying to say is if you want to be the kind of people who can rejoice in tribulations and can grow during the troubles, you better get ready for some strenuous work. You better focus. To gird up the loins of your mind means you're distracted in every direction, are you not? You're thinking about a lot of things. You've got so many goals, you've got so many relationships, and so you give a little corner of your mind to seeking God. You give a little corner of your mind to the pursuit after God. No, Peter says, you've got to gird up the loins of your mind. You've got to get it all together, you've got to focus totally and get ready for action.

Seeking God is not a hobby. Not only that, he says, it's not just seeking God. What you need to be is right here in verse 16: "Be ye holy for I am holy." Now, what I want to do is just look at that phrase because that's the heart of the passage and lay out two principles—just two. "Be ye holy for I am holy." Be holy because I am holy. That teaches us two things, and in a way, it teaches us three. First of all, it teaches us that God's holy. Secondly, it teaches us that we can be—in fact, we must be holy. It doesn't say you can be holy; it says you must be holy. "Be holy." So first God's holy, secondly we must be holy, and thirdly, that we can be holy because God is holy. There is no hope otherwise.

Let me just run through this and lay out some basic principles, all of which I will return to later on in this series. First of all, the thing we see here obviously is God is holy. Let's just spend a few moments thinking about what that is. Peter quotes, "Be ye holy for I am holy," and he quotes out of Leviticus. There's actually four or five places in the book of Leviticus where God says this: "Be ye holy for I am holy." The word holy in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word *kadosh*, which actually is one of those words that almost sounds like what it means. What it actually means is to be separate, to be cut, *kadosh*, to be cut off, to be cut loose.

What the word holiness really means is that God, if you want to revere him as holy, if you want to understand him as holy, if you want to see him as holy, you have to see him as infinitely above and beyond you and me. The Bible tells us that what makes him God is not that he's powerful, not that he's wise, not that he's loving, but that his power is holy power, his love is holy love, his wisdom is holy wisdom. As soon as you put the word holy on God, what that means is God is off the scale.

Whenever God wants to rebuke his people in the Old Testament, he very often says something like this: "You thought I was one like yourself." For a couple moments, I want you to consider that. You might not think that's such a serious thing. Don't we have to think of God as like ourselves? In a sense, we do. God actually encourages it because he uses metaphors so we can understand him. He uses metaphors to describe himself that are similes. He says, "I'm a father," so he's like the earthly father. He says, "I'm a shepherd," like the shepherd.

And yet, what it means to honor him as holy is that we mustn't forget that inside all those metaphors, God is infinitely above and beyond us. So what makes he is not at the top end of the scale of power, he's not at the top end of the scale of love, he's not the top end of the scale of wisdom, but he is infinitely exalted above us, off the scale. Now, what does that mean? A couple of important, very important issues.

What it means here is to honor him as holy, for example, all the places where it talks about him being holy talk about him being transcendently unique. 1 Samuel 2:2, "There is none holy like the Lord." Or we sing it here, Exodus 15:11, "Who is like unto thee?" Now, by the way, that's my middle son's name. If you read it in Hebrew when it says, "Who is like unto thee?" what you're saying is *Mik-ha-el*, Michael. Anybody here named Michael? Do you know what Michael means in Hebrew? *Mi-ka-el*. *Mi*, who; *ka*, is like; unto *Elohim*. Who is like unto God? That's what Michael means. It's a rhetorical question.

The answer is nobody. "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness?" So the word holiness means remember that he's not like you. Remember that he's transcendently unique. Remember that he's infinitely exalted above anything you can dare ask or think. Now, why should we do that? What happens if we think of him as like us? What happens if we fail to sanctify him as holy?

The answers go like this. One of my wife's and my, Kathy and my, favorite examples of this, which we use in a number of ways—you can illustrate a number of things—is the time when we only had one child and that first child was a baby and that first child was always sick. Kathy was feeling tremendously worried, "Why is God doing this to us?" She sat rocking and looked up at a calligraphy that we still have up on the wall from Isaiah 55. There's a place in Isaiah 55 where it says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. For as much as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts."

Now, that's a—you know what he's saying? He's saying, "I'm holy." He is saying, "Here you are worrying, and you know why you're worrying, O man? You know why you're worrying, O woman? Because you're thinking that I'm just at the top of the scale. You're thinking, you're comparing yourself to me. You're saying, God isn't handling this very well. He's not running my life very well. I think I could run it better." But my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts.

The reason you're worried is you are not sanctifying me as holy. My wisdom is holy wisdom. It's infinitely above any wisdom that you know of. You better start relaxing, and you're not relaxing, says God, because you are not seeing that my wisdom is holy wisdom and it's above anything that you can imagine. Don't try to sit there and compare it to yours. Sanctify me as holy. Actually, as threatening as Isaiah 55 was on that day, it was tremendously comforting for Kathy to suddenly realize, "Oh my gosh, his ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts."

Therefore, I can sanctify him as holy. What that means is you stop worrying. The latter part of the passage says, "Therefore, you will be led forth in peace and you will go out in joy, and the mountains will break forth before you into singing and the trees will clap their hands." Just sanctify me as holy and you'll be able to relax.

Let me give you another example, something people are constantly concerned about. They say, "Because I had a bad father, because I've had bad experiences with fathers or with authority figures or with men, I just can't comprehend or be comforted by all this Bible talk about God being a father. I just can't get into that. I never had a father that was good to me, and I can't get into it at all."

Now, I don't want to minimize that. I don't want you to think that anything I say right now is making light of that or saying that's not a problem. Of course, it's a problem. But here's the solution to the problem. He is what Jesus said he was. Watch Jesus when he prays. Go to John 17. John 17 is the one place where we have a page out of Jesus Christ's quiet time notebook, a place where we can see how he prayed. When he approached God, what did he call him? "Holy Father." Holy Father.

What is he saying? He's saying God is a father above any father that you could possibly know. His love is unending. His love is unconditional. His love is pure. His love is perfect. Ultimately, until you and unless you sanctify him as holy, you're never going to understand that. You're never going to be comforted by his love. Now, people who are saying, "Well, I can't believe that God would love me unconditionally because my father didn't love me unconditionally," all right, sanctify God as holy. Take seriously that he's holy. Reflect on the fact that he's holy. Listen to what Jesus says about him being holy.

Are you going to believe him or not? Why wouldn't you? To believe him means that you don't have to be afraid of losing his fatherly love, only wounding his fatherly love. Because he's a holy father, Jesus—do you see what it means to sanctify him as holy? His love is beyond anything we know or dare ask or think. His wisdom is beyond anything we know or dare ask or think. Therefore, there's a lot of talk in the Bible about abasing yourself before the holiness of God. You will never get peace, you will never relax, until you start to realize that if he's really God, if he's really holy, that means that at a certain point I just have to put my hand over my mouth. I've got to stop complaining, I've got to stop comparing him, and I've got to start receiving what he is and who he is and what he's done.

Some years ago, I remember doing a new member interview, and I asked a woman, "When did you first become a Christian?" She said, "Well, I want to let me ask you this. There's two dates in my life. There was a date in which I really came to understand Christianity and I came to understand the teachings and I decided to believe in the teachings. But then later on, there was a date when I realized if God was really who he said he was, it changes everything. If God is really who he said he is, if he's as magnificent as the Bible says, if he's everything that he says he is, I cannot trifle with him anymore. I can't play with him anymore. I can't sort of make him into a sort of a sugar daddy anymore. I can't go to him only when I'm in trouble anymore. It changes everything. Every part of my life has to come in underneath him."

I don't know which date I became a Christian. I said, "Let's try the second one because it was on that day that you experienced the holiness of God." That was the first time that you sanctified him. The word sanctified and the word holy is the same thing. You separated him. You saw him as above everything else. He was no longer another book on the shelf with all the other enrichment programs of your life. You ditched every other priority, and you saw him as separate, unique. He wasn't like even just your first priority, then you had your second, your third, your fourth. He was your first priority and your second priority and your third priority.

Guest (Female): Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us but could actually make us stronger, wiser, and more hopeful? All month long on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of 1 Peter and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering and pain. In his book, "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering," Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real-life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives. This month, "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering" is our thank-you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the message of Christ's love and compassion with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That's gospelinlife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Tim Keller: "Who can stand before the Lord, O men of Beth Shemesh? Who is like unto thee? Sanctify the Lord, for he alone is holy." That's what it means to be holy—means to see him as utterly separate, infinite, and transcendently unique, infinitely exalted above us. You see?

Now, then the second point and the second principle I want to lay down is because he's holy, we must be holy. Well, now what does that mean? Does that mean we have to be transcendently unique? Does that mean that we have to somehow be infinitely exalted above all of creation? No, it can't mean that. So what does the word mean? Now, it means something different, obviously, when applied to the creatures like us as opposed to the Creator. And yet, the word still means separate.

Here's what it means. In the Bible, there's a lot of inanimate objects that are made separate, that are made holy. There's a number of places where it says your tithe is holy. When you give away 10 percent of your income to God in Leviticus 27, it says your tithes are holy. It talks about linen being made holy, oil being made holy, pots being made holy. How could they become holy? The answer is anything that was put into the temple or the tabernacle or anything that was put completely at God's disposal, for the exclusive use of God.

To be holy meant to be wholly devoted, to be totally devoted, to be separated unto God. And you see we're all holy to the degree that we are completely and totally devoted to him. That's what it means. Now, to give you—there's a lot we can say about this. Holiness is such a comprehensive concept, and it's maybe the key ethical concept in understanding what it means to live a godly and a holy life. What does it mean to be holy?

But let me just lay this one down and let me illustrate it. And this is the last thing we're going to do here tonight. I'm just going to illustrate it. To be holy means to be wholly God's. It means no area of your life doesn't belong to him. It means no priority of your life is not judged by him. It means no part of your heart does not belong to him. It means to be totally devoted. That's why the tithe was holy. Why was the tithe holy? Because it was completely used for God's work, completely used for God's use. It was totally at God's disposal.

None of us can be completely holy, none of us can be perfectly holy. However, this is what we're aiming at and this is what we're called to be, and this is what, as we will see in the future, we can be. God would not call us to something that was an impossibility. So what does it mean to be totally devoted? Let me illustrate it from a very, very obscure and brief story from the Old Testament, but which I think tells us shows us perfectly what holiness is as total devotion.

In 2 Samuel 23:13-17, you can read it sometime. Don't read it now. It's very short. And it's so short that many people have maybe never seen it. This is what we're told. David, when he became King of Israel, his old enemies the Philistines rose up against him. Now, as Jackie Mason used to call them, the uncircumcised Philistines rose up against him. And because David was a new king—some of you didn't get that, but go home and ask your friends what that meant—it was really very funny.

The Philistines moved against David because they didn't want him to get consolidated. They didn't want him to become powerful. So as soon as he was made King over Israel, the Philistines drove into Judah and they tried to bisect Israel. They tried to capture David. And they came in so far that they took over the city of Bethlehem, which was David's home city. And they put a strong garrison of soldiers there. And then David was forced to flee into the wilderness of Judah, out into the desert in a terrible place. And he was forced to set up his camp there and to stay on the run and to do his campaign of defense from that headquarters. And he got around him a number of what the Bible calls his mighty men—a number of strong and valiant and skillful warriors.

One day, under the very, very hot desert sun, David just murmured a deep desire. The Bible tells us he was hot, he was discouraged, he was thinking, "Will I ever be able to resist the Philistines? Will the Lord deliver Israel back into my hands? Will the Lord deliver Bethlehem back into my hands?" And he was remembering his hometown, and he was under the hot sun, and he murmured a deep desire. Maybe nobody, maybe he wasn't even talking to anybody, but we know he said, "Oh, that I could have a drink from the well by the gate of Bethlehem."

That's all he said. "Oh, that I might have a drink from the well by the gate of Bethlehem." Now, it doesn't mean he didn't have a well there. He had to have a well, or you wouldn't have been able to have a camp. However, that well was particularly tasty. The water there had sweet kinds of minerals in it. But most of all, he was yearning for the day in which he would have Bethlehem back. And he was anxious, and he was wrestling with the idea, "Will God really protect me? Will he honor me? Will he help me and aid me?" So he says, "Oh, that I would have the water, a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem."

Now, what happened? He was not giving anybody a command. He was not asking for volunteers. He wasn't even talking to anybody; he was just sighing deeply and expressing a desire. What happened next is amazing. We're told that three of his mighty men, three of his warriors, overheard his wish. They looked at each other and they said nothing. They belted on their swords, they picked up a water pitcher, and they went off toward Bethlehem.

And we're told, incredibly, that they fought their way into Bethlehem. They would have had to fight their way up a hill. There were scores of Philistine soldiers there. They would have had to fight their way into the gate because we know the well by the gate of Bethlehem was inside the city. Two of them would have probably had to be fighting people off while one of them was filling the water jug. Then they would have had to fight their way out.

And worst of all, once they finally got out, which they did, they had to go through the desert carrying the water instead of drinking it. And finally, they came into the presence of their King David and they said, "Here's the water from the gate, the well at the gate of Bethlehem that you desired." And David was absolutely thunderstruck. He looked at the water, and we're told this: "And the Bible says, and he refused to drink it. Instead, he took it and he poured it out on the ground before the Lord, saying, 'Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this. Is it not the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?'" And the story concludes, "And David would not drink of it."

Now, what do we learn about total devotion? What do we learn about holiness from this? We learn three things, and here they are. Number one, first of all, we learn the nature of total devotion. Look here. Look here. To be totally devoted to somebody, to be totally in love with them, to be totally separated unto them means that the difference between a command and a request and just a sigh is nonexistent. No difference. A sigh is enough. If I'm totally devoted to somebody, devoted to my king, a sigh is all it takes. It doesn't matter whether I'm being sent out against an army; your wish is my command.

You see, total devotion means that there's no difference between a command and a request and just a sigh. Now, this morning we talked about it and under another heading, but here it is again. When you know that you're totally devoted to somebody, the pleasure of giving them pleasure becomes greater than the pleasure of taking pleasure. And their very sighs become your glad compulsion. You want to know what delights them, and you see their desires and their delights as commands, glad commands, joyous commands.

Total devotion. You see why holiness—to be holy devoted to God—goes way beyond rules. It goes way beyond keeping codes. It's a whole orientation of heart that goes way beyond God's commands and even way beyond God's requests. But it just yearns and stretches out to see anything that God prefers and wants, and that we consider binding on ourselves. When somebody comes to me and says, "I understand that the Bible says we have to give a certain portion of our income to God. Now, how much is it? How much do I have to give? Is it a tenth? Is it that much? What do I have to do to stay in good with God?" And don't you see that question shows it is not arisen from a holy heart?

You never ask how much do I have to do if you're totally devoted. You ask, how much can I do? What does he want? Not just what he commands, not just what he requests. What are the desires of his heart? You see, it's the delights of the heart of that person you're totally devoted to that you're really after, not "Well, what do I have to do to stay on your good side? What are the commands? Just tell me what's the job description? What are the duties?" A holy person doesn't care about those things. That's just the beginning. To be totally devoted is to say your sighs are my glad compulsions. That's the nature of a holy heart, the nature of total devotion.

But secondly, we're also taught here the object of total devotion. On the one hand, David is absolutely right. Why did David pour out the water? Anybody say, "Those poor guys, they almost got killed. They went all that way. How do you think they felt when he poured out that water?" They felt honored. You know what he was doing? What he was saying is, on the one hand, the men's attitude toward David is wonderful because that's how we should all be loving each other.

The Bible says be devoted to each other. That's a command. And you know what it means to be devoted to each other? To be devoted means you don't negotiate. You don't have to twist arms. You love each other spontaneously. David was surprised. If you have brothers and sisters who love you in the Lord, they're surprising you. You shouldn't have to be twisting their arm. They're looking for what you need. They're listening to your sighs and they're surprising you with their spontaneous devotion.

And if you're upset and you say, "Nobody's doing that to me," well, maybe somebody's thinking that about you. We shouldn't be, in the Christian community, we shouldn't be twisting each other's arms and negotiating. We shouldn't have to be broadcasting our needs. We should be all after each other. We should be watching, we should be listening, overhearing, waiting to hear each other's sigh, and then surprising each other with spontaneous love.

That's the nature thing. So we're supposed to be devoted to each other. But David is right. He poured out this because he said, "I do not have the right to this level of devotion. Far be it from me," he says, "to drink this. Is this not the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?" In other words, he says it is not to any human king, it is not to any human being that we should bring the water of our spontaneous devotion. It's to David's greater son.

When we see David in this story, we see his greater son. We see the real anointed prince, the anointed prince of the world, the anointed prince of the universe. And to him and to him alone should you give the water of your spontaneous love. Don't you dare give it to anybody else. Don't you dare treat anybody else the way these men treated David. David knew he didn't have the right to it. Some of you have got your lives all screwed up because you are bringing the water of your devotion to a human being who doesn't have the theological smarts and doesn't have the godliness to pour it on the ground and say, "I don't have a right to this." They're taking it from you. Give it to nobody but Jesus.

The only object of total devotion, the only object to which we should be wholly separated, the only object of total devotion is Jesus. But lastly, we see the nature of this total devotion. We see the object of this total devotion. Lastly, let me give you the reason for this total devotion. You want to know how we become holy? Here's how we become holy. Just a word of it, and then we're done. Later on in the series, we can develop it more.

When you read this story, you don't just see Jesus Christ in David; you see Jesus Christ in the mighty men. Listen. He is our warrior king. He broke through enemy lines to bring us the water of life. He broke through enemy lines. He's the warrior king. He looks at us and he says in the book of John, chapter 17, "For their sakes I sanctify myself." Do you know what that means? He says, "I am wholly focused, I am wholly devoted to you and to me."

He's the warrior king. He hears our sighs and he goes up the hill and he fights through enemy lines to bring us the water of life. But listen, listen. If David thought that this was so precious that he couldn't drink of it because the water came at the risk of his men's life, how much more precious should the cup that you're about to drink here be precious to you because it didn't come at the risk of Jesus' life; it came at the price of his life.

Jesus—you see, David pours it out and says, "This is the blood of the men who risked their lives." All right, the water of eternal life that Jesus Christ fought through enemy lines for is the cup of the new covenant; it is his blood. And as our warrior savior brings us the water of life, we're not going to feel worthy either. But don't you dare pour it out on the ground. He doesn't want you to because he says, "Think about the price I paid. Think about how I fought up that hill. Think about the fact that I was pierced by many wounds. And if you think enough about my devotion to you, you will become wholly devoted to me. If you think as much about my holiness, my matchless love for you, it will turn you into something wonderful." Don't you see? It's possible. Be holy, for I am holy for you.

Let's pray. Now, Father, help us to see as we pick up the cup that this is the water of life that your son fought through enemy lines for. Help us to understand that because he's holy, infinitely exalted, his love is beyond anything we've ever seen, because he's holy for us, it's possible for us to be holy for him. Make us holy even as you are holy. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Tim Keller here at Gospel in Life. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to email you a daily Lent devotional. You can sign up to receive these daily emails at gospelinlife.com/lent. That's gospelinlife.com/lent.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1993. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.