Bible Study

The Gift of Eternal Life Berean Bible Study Course

PART III--The Way Of Serving God In Christ Jesus

D. Lesson 16--We Serve By Being Holy

1. READ: 1 PETER 1:13-16

b. What should we be in all we do?

NOTE: The word "holy" here means "separated from evil and devoted to good". God demands that His children be separated from the world and devoted to Him, being holy in our actions, just as He is holy. Thus, God's children become "saints," or "the sanctified ones," or "holy ones."

Answer: Children of God should be HOLY in all that we do, (verse 15).

MORE INFORMATION AND/OR OTHER SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:

• Children of God are to be holy because the One Who called them is holy:

1 Corinthians 1:2: "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ--their Lord and ours..."

• Children of God are to be clothed with Christ, and that is a holy state:

Galatians 3:26-27: "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ."

• As God sees His child through the blood of Christ--pure, innocent, sanctified, holy--so should that child ever strive to be. To fail to do so is to trample underfoot the Son of God, to treat as unholy the blood of Christ that sanctified him, and to insult the Spirit of grace:

Hebrews 10:26-31: "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the Truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him Who said, ‘It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

• Those who refuse Christ, or those who are baptized into Christ and then return to the world cannot walk in The Way--The Way of Holiness:

Isaiah 35:8: "And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it."

• The child of God who does not walk in holiness is impure. To reject God's instruction is not to reject man. To reject God's instruction concerning being sanctified--set apart for holy use by God--is to reject God Himself:

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8: "It is God's Will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, Who gives you His Holy Spirit."

• A child of God should be so different in their life--always striving for holiness--that the world will not know us, just as the world did not know Christ. We purify ourselves, just as He is pure:

1 John 3:1-3: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure."

• The person who contacted the blood of Christ in baptism was made perfect in the eyes of God by that blood. That person became a child of God, and began the process of being made holy:

Hebrews 10:11-14: "Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties [this is speaking of the priests under the Old Testament Law]; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool, because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."

• Learning how to be made holy is a process of obeying the instructions God left for us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

Psalm 32:8: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you."

2 Timothy 2:15: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of Truth."

2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."