The Bible is clear that Christ will return. When He does He will judge the world. This judgment will lead to condemnation and punishment for those not reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Those in Christ will have yet more grace given as they are granted to live eternally with God in heaven. This grace - eternal life with God – is where we are to “set our hope” (1 Peter 1:13). If our hope is in anything else than eternal life with God through Jesus Christ it is in the wrong place. The Christian is to, by God’s grace, take their affections off the world and its lies and place those affections on the promises of God in Jesus Christ. In doing so they will be well situated to obey God’s command to not be conformed to the world, but to be holy. To listen to this sermon, please click the following link: 1 Peter 1:13-16.
God is described in the Bible as holy. He is perfect in every way. In every way He is against sin: He does not sin, cannot tolerate it, must punish it, cannot approve of it, in short: God hates sin. The reason God is so against sin is made clear when we consider what sin is. All sin is against God and is a failure to honor and worship Him as God and submit to Him as ruler over all creation (Romans 1). For God to approve of sin He would need to approve of rebellion against His lordship. To put it another way, God would have to approve of those that say He is not worthy to be God. Yet, He is worthy – infinitely worthy. For God to deny that He is worthy would be for God to lie, in as much as He really is worthy. In Habakkuk 1:13 the prophet describes God as One whose eyes are too pure to see evil and cannot look at wrong. Yes, God cannot tolerate evil, He must punish it, and He cannot approve of evil, He must never condone it. To listen to this sermon, please click the following link: Habakkuk 1:13.
Most would agree that the Bible teaches that all men are sinful “and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yet, we tend to acknowledge it with our lips while we inwardly consider ourselves to be not so bad. The result is professing believers who are slow to pursue obedience to God’s command to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). Isaiah was helped in seeing his own sinfulness when he was granted a vision of God in His holiness. When compared to a perfectly holy God, our own sinfulness is obvious to us. May God grant us a greater understanding of His holiness, that our wickedness would lead us to despair.  In doing so, by God’s grace, we will be led to be holy because we have begun to apprehend His glory, whereby He is worthy. To listen to this sermon, please click the following link: Isaiah 6:1-7.
The Bible is clear that believers are to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:16), yet we will not be without sin this side of heaven. For many of us this brings discouragement and we become complacent in our battle against sin. We are helped in battling sin by our new birth – when we were granted sight of the “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” This sight of a glorious God leads us to our knees in repentance and to raise our voices in praise of His glory because God is worthy (see Revelation 4:11; 5:12). This view of the glory of God is used by the Spirit to conform us into His image, which God predestined from the beginning (Romans 8:29). As believers we are transformed from rebels to worshippers – God is seeking more worshippers to this day (John 4:23-24). To listen to this sermon, please click the following link: 2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6.