1 Peter 1:13-25 - A Holy Life

So let's start again. Good morning. Ah, isn't it more Labor Day weekend? Okay, good. What are you guys doing here? Just kidding. Glad you're here today. Yeah, okay, good answer. Glad you're here.

Um, if you would turn in your Bibles with me to First Peter chapter one. Last week we begun, we began an exciting series through this book. We call First Peter. Today we're going to be in First Peter chapter 1, verses 13 to 25. If you need a Bible, if you, uh, we can lend you one. Raise your hand. Okay, we've got to take her up here. If our ushers wouldn't mind, they'll bring you a Bible. If you need a Bible, just hold your hand up. If you need a pen, need a paper to write with, write on, whatever. Just hold your hand up for a minute. They'll bring it to you. Okay.

First Peter chapter 1. You know, we got a great church family here, and it's a big church family. And as a part of a large church family, and as one of the pastors that gets to serve you all, I get an opportunity to talk with and interact with and share life with a lot of different people. And people come and share their joys and what God's doing in their lives. And a lot of times, people come and share their trials, their struggles, the difficulties that they're going through, the problems they're experiencing. And whenever I sit down with folks and talk about those, in particular, I always try to kind of find out where they are spiritually. You know, try and find out, do you know the Lord? Have you surrendered your life to him? Do you consider yourself a Christian, a follower of Christ? Because I think that makes all the difference in the world.

Most of the people that I talk to say yes. Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I believe this is God's Word and the Bible is true. And that's great. I think that's a big step towards dealing with problems. The difficulty I see is that as I continue to talking folks, a lot of the times things come up and I discover that they're making some life choices, some decisions that don't line up with what God says about how we should live our lives. In fact, a lot of times that's why they're experiencing the difficulties that they're experiencing. Things like having sex outside of marriage, looking at pornography, dealing with drugs and alcohol, having an affair, putting a person or a relationship before God in their lives, putting their job or mining your career before God. And the list goes on.

I see these things and sometimes when I talk to folks, most of their life is lined up really well with, with the Word of God, but they've got like this one area that's, that's not right. And they know it's not right. But it's almost like how we can compartmentalize our lives and they have it there. And I know it's not right, but the rest of my life is doing really good, you know? And this brings up an issue that I believe we all deal with to one degree or another. And is this: Does God really care how I live my life? Put another way, does it really matter how I live my life? I mean, if I say I believe in Jesus, we're saved by faith in Christ, right? So does it really matter how I live, or I live most of my life God's way? So is it really a problem that I have this, this one area that I know is not quite right yet? And, and why should I live my life any differently anyway? I mean, it is my life, right? And I have free will.

And these questions are really relevant in the world that we live in today because more and more there are people proclaiming that you can believe in Jesus Christ and still live your life any way that you want to. And so our subject this morning is holy living. And our challenge / objective / what I believe God wants us to learn is to live to please God. And as we start, I'd like to invite you stand with me. I'm gonna read through these verses out loud. Maybe you could follow along with me silently in your Bibles. Again, we're looking at First Peter chapter 1, verses 13 to 25. This is God who inspired Peter to write this letter, speaking through Peter to us.

"Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.' And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like gold or silver, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away. But the Word of the Lord endures forever."

Now, this is the Word which by the gospel was preached to you. Would you pray with me?

So God, we come here this morning. Thank you for a new day. Thank for an opportunity to worship you and to come and to hear from you through your Word. Would you please this morning speak to us? More than that, would you please help us to hear you and to listen and to apply through your Spirit, through your Word? Would you please work in us from the inside out? Reveal more of yourself to us. Make us more into the people you want us to be. And teach us today, Lord, how to live our lives more to please you. So we just ask this to your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you. You can be seated. Just a quick review before we get into these verses. Last week, Pastor Bruce did a great job teaching the first twelve verses. And just in summary, again, the pastor, Peter, in the beginning of this letter, kind of reminds us, us those of us who have put our faith in Christ. He reminds believers of some wonderful things of the incredible hope that we have in Christ, of the wonderful inheritance that is promised to us because of Him, the tremendous joy that we can have and that we can know even in the midst of trials and pain and suffering. There's still a joy to be had because of Jesus in our lives. And just this amazing salvation that God has provided and offers to anybody who would accept it, forgiveness of our sins, reconciliation with God, eternal life forever with Him.

Peter reminds us of just some of these incredible blessings. And now, in this next section, he goes, "Okay, having considered all these tremendous truths and blessings, how then should we respond to them? How then should we live?" And so the first point this morning is that I should live to please God. I should live to please God. Throughout this passage, we see some really strong admonishments towards this for us. The first thing he says in verse 13, he starts, Alvin says, "Therefore gird up the loins of your mind." Which seems like kind of like a weird expression. It's kind of like, "Roll your sleeves" would be today's expression. You know, back then, in that eastern part of the world, people wore robes, like dresses. And I don't know this firsthand, but I understand it can be difficult sometimes when you're moving quickly in a dress. And so what they would do when they had to get somewhere, when they wanted to be ready, is they pull the pull it up and they tie it with the belt around their waist. They'd gird it up around their waist. And the point is, it's the idea of getting ready for action, of being prepared. And right after that, he says, "Be sober." That doesn't mean don't be drunk. That talks about being calm, being focused, having self-control. And so right off the bat, Peter says, in response to all these great truths and blessings of God, we need to be ready, focused, intentional, as opposed to life, letting life just happen to us and just kind of going with the flow wherever things lead. We need to take the initiative to be the people that we want to be, that God's calling us to be, to live the lives that God wants us to live. That's the first thing we see about living to please God.

But right away, we see another admonishment in verse 14. He says, "As obedient children." We are God's children. He wants us to obey Him. I mean, isn't that what children are supposed to do? Any of you who are parents, I mean, come on. That's, we wanted our kids to obey us, right? Nothing, they're always perfect. That's our job. That's their job. And I know for me personally, my kids are older now, but they're still around. But nothing brings me greater joy than to see my children making good decisions. You know, I'm just, I'm happy. I have a peace and a joy. Conversely, nothing can bring me greater joy or sorrow and angst and concern than when I see my kids making unwise decisions. It's the same in our relationship with God. We're the kids, He's the Dad. We're called to be obedient. And as we obey Him, that's going to be pleasing to Him. In fact, it's impossible to separate faith and obedience. Jesus said several times in John 14, John chapter 14, check it out sometime, three or four times. He says, "If you love me, you'll do what I say." If you really love me, you'll obey my commands. He links these two inseparably. James, in his letter, basically says, "Faith without works, without obedience, is dead." So you can't separate these two things. I love God, that means I'm going to obey Him. And so, just as a point of challenge this morning, take a look at your life for a minute. Are you obeying God in your life? Something for us to wrestle with. And I'm not saying any of us is going to be perfect. There was only one perfect person who ever walked the planet. But there's a difference between having this area of your life that you know is not right and allowing it to stay there and doing nothing about it, versus having areas that we know we all, so we all struggle with. God help me, I'm trying to work through it, and God's teaching us and we're growing. There's a difference between those two scenarios. Our obedience to God is a strong indicator of the status of our relationship with Him. It's important.

And besides obedience, we see another admonishment here in this passage in verse 14 about why we should live to please God. It says, "Don't conform." Don't conform. "As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance." Conforming has to do with following the pattern of something, being like that. And he says that we're not to follow the pattern of err, conform to our former lusts, the way we used to be before we had Christ in our lives, our old self, with the old ways of living, living to please ourselves, living to please others, not even thinking about living to please God, and living in ignorance. But before we knew God, knew who He was, what He wanted, how we could have relationship. He's saying, "Don't live like you used to be. Don't be the old person." You know, I accepted Christ into my life way back in 1979. And when I first got saved, I was excited. In fact, I had a chance to talk with some people this week who are new believers in our church family, and they're excited. They can't help talking about Him. They just look forward to coming to church and to reading the Bible and learning more about who He is and who they are in Him. That was like that. But then I got a job where I worked on the weekends, and I wasn't able to go to church, and I wasn't attending the small group. But the guys that I was hanging out with, and I just started to slip back. I started falling back into the old robe, just like he started getting conformed again to the old self, into the world I was living in. It wasn't good. By God's grace, I was convicted by that. That's one of the differences. When you'd become a Christian, you get the Holy Spirit in you, and then you know now what's right and wrong. And by His grace working in my life, He brought me back through a process because I was falling back into the old ways. You know, that's something for us to pay attention to. Once we're a believer, we need to listen to that little small voice that talks to us and and convicts us when we feel guilty about things. That's God's Holy Spirit saying, "Hey, that's not pleasing to God." And we need to pay attention to that and make adjustments. Don't ignore it.

And what are we supposed to do when we get convicted of our sin? First John 1:9. We confess our sin to God. We got to be real with Him about it. It says, "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and He is just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness." We need to do that. Don't let it stay there. Let's do our business with God and get right with Him again. Because as believers, we have the Holy Spirit in us. And because of that, we are now able to live differently. We don't have to be the same.

Another reason we're admonished to please God is in verses 15 to 16 because He's holy. Listen to what Peter writes: "But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'" God is holy. And in our context, holy means set apart. We are, as believers in Christ, set apart for God to be holy, to live for Him, to please Him. Now, and he says, "in all your conduct." And everything we say, everything we do, all we are, every relationship, every activity, all of it matters because He's holy. All of it matters. And so these, these areas in our lives that we're hiding or we're pretending about, they're not okay. God loves us too much to allow that to stay because that stuff that we're keeping is keeping us from Him, keeping us from becoming the people He wants us to be, keeping us from having the kind of relationship He wants us to have with Him and with each other. We need to be holy because He is holy.

And right along with that, in verse 17, "If you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear." Unless, kind of a weird thing. We're supposed to fear God. But this kind of fear we're talking about has more to do with respect and honor and appreciating who He is. Now, I have to say too, that having a fear of displeasing God is not an unhealthy thing. Just like a child should fear displeasing the parent, because we want to be pleasing Him, because there are consequences. It's a word admonished here to live in fear of God, and that's a part of living a life of pleasing Him.

And then one final one, we see in verse 22. He says, "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart." We're supposed to love each other. In fact, God says in His Word that really loving each other fulfills all of His commandments. Sounds easy, but it's actually a lot harder to really love like we're supposed to love. But God wants us to love each other because that is pleasing to Him. In fact, Paul wrote in Galatians 5:14, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even than this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" That's amazing to think about. If we could really love each other the way that God calls us to, it fulfills all of this. Like I say, it's harder than it seems and it's humanly impossible. We need God to work in us to do that. But if we do, that's what God wants for us. That's what's best for us. That's what's gonna please Him. And if we truly love one another, we're gonna treat them the way that God wants us, we're gonna treat each other the way God wants us to. We're gonna want what's best for each other in Him. For me to love you the most is to want to help you become the person that God wants you to be. All of what God wants you to be. That's really loving somebody. And so, just from those points in these verses, the message is very clear. We shouldn't just live to please ourselves, or even just live to please others. Our primary responsibility should be to live to please God for all of those reasons.

So, as we throw that out, another question comes up. Why? I mean, I understand it says it, but really, why should I live to please God? I mean, it's my life, isn't it? God gave it to me. We all have free will, right? Why should I live to please God? We got some gems of reasons in this passage. Let's look at them.

The first one, look at verse 13. Why should I live to please God? Because Jesus is returning. "Rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is a reference to His second coming. He came once and He died on the cross for our sin, but He said, "I'm coming back." And the fact that He's coming back is a huge reason to live to please Him. Because He says in Revelation 22, the last chapter of your Bible, He says, "I'm coming back with my rewards in hand." Pastor Bruce has talked about this a lot recently. We have the ability to live this life in a way to invest in the next. What we do matters because Jesus is gonna have rewards for the things that we've done for Him, to His glory, in His name, for His kingdom, that are pleasing to Him. Rewards. And you know, one of the things I want to hear, and I know you do, when I finally meet Him face to face, I'd like to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done." Would that be cool? And, and the flip side is, we've been studying through the book of Revelation on Wednesday nights, and chapter 6 through 19 of the book talk all about judgment. And when the Lord is going to come back and pour out His wrath on a disbelieving, disobeying, rejecting world, there's going to be consequences. And so, just the fact that Jesus says He's coming back to reward and to punish can be great motivation for us for why we should live lives that are pleasing to God.

But that's not all. In verse 16, we just looked at this a minute ago, but it talks about how God is holy. "He who called you is holy. It is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'" God's holiness means that He can't tolerate sin. It goes against the very nature of who He is. He just can't accept it. It isn't okay. And so, if we want to know Him more, if we want to grow in our relationship with Him, if we want to be blessed by Him, if we want His help in our lives with the problems and the suffering that we're having, we have to live lives that give Him a chance to be involved. Holy lives. I mentioned earlier, when we have sin in our lives, it puts up walls between us and Him. It's not that He stops loving us, but He cannot tolerate sin. He can't be around sin because He's holy. And He's made a way for us to deal with it. Is that confession, repentance, receiving forgiveness? Thing. But when we don't do that, we hold on to the sin, there's a barrier there. And again, we're all in process. That's what this life is. But we need to be in process.

Why should I live to please God? Well, a third reason is verse 17. "My life will be judged." "And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work." Did you know that we're all going to be held accountable for the lives that we've lived on this planet? Believers are going to be judged, not about whether or not we're going to get to go to heaven. That's a done deal when we've put our faith in Christ. But we are going to be judged and rewarded or not, based on how we've used the resources, the opportunities, the relationships that God has given us. Listen to this. Second Corinthians 5:10. The Apostle Paul, he writes, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad." So we have this opportunity in this life to live to please Him. And so when we're judged, we'll be rewarded for that good behavior. And the other side is that we will miss the opportunity for these rewards by only living to please ourselves.

Another reason we should live to please God is in verses 18 to 21. Jesus gave His life for us. I'm gonna read it again. Verse 18, "Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God." Jesus gave His life for us. It's hard to connect with that sometimes beyond an intellectual understanding. I was thinking about it and I thought, you know, if somebody that I knew, even if it's somebody that I didn't like, if that person happened to be the one who swam out and rescued me because I'd been caught in a riptide and I was drowning and about to die, I would feel a great debt of gratitude to that person for the rest of my life. I think my opinion of that person would probably change, you know? And if it just so happened while that person was saving me that he or she died in the process, that would have a huge impact on me for the rest of my life. And that's what God did through Jesus for us. He loved us so much. He loves us so much that even though He was perfectly innocent, that's that whole thing about "without blemish and without spot," He was perfect and innocent. He loves us so much, He chose to come down here to this planet and live as a man and to be tortured and to die on a cross to pay the penalty for my sin and your sin, so that we wouldn't have to. And it says He rose from the dead, just like the scripture said He would. And He freely offers to everybody who would receive it, forgiveness, reconciliation with God, eternal life. He did that out of love for us. That's, and for another reason right there. There's a good reason to live to please God, right?

Well, should I live to please God? Well, verse 22 goes on, "Because pleasing God purifies me so I can love others." Listen, verse 22, "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart." Here's how it works. As we grow in living our lives to please God, He works in us and He purifies us. He changes us. He changes our hearts. He changes our minds. And He starts to teach us how and enable us to love the way that He loves and the way that He wants us to love. He teaches us how to love Him. He teaches us how to love ourselves. He teaches us how to love others. And it purifies our souls. And this is important because in First John chapter 3, John writes that my love for others is evidence of my salvation. Conversely, my lack of love brings into question whether or not I really know God. Jesus, in His great holy prayer the night before He was crucified, He said, "The world is going to know that you're my disciples by your love for one another." And so I want to live to please God so He can work in me and purify me and teach me out of love and be loved. Because it's important.

And here's a big one. Why should I live to please God? Verse 23, "Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible." Born again. You know, that phrase has been used and abused in our culture, but it's still true and it's still biblical. When we put our faith in Christ, we are born again. That means we are new. We've been spiritually rebirthed. Before we come to Christ, we're spiritually dead. We're separated from God. Our sin has separated us from Him. But when we put our faith in Christ, it's a birth. There's no other word for it. And we're awakened. We're alive. We become alive spiritually. Suddenly, we know God. We have a relationship with Him. Suddenly, He's changing us through His Holy Spirit, making us a whole new person. So because we're this wonderful new person that God has created, why do we want to then go back and live like we used to be, the old person? I mean, think about it. It's easy for me to do it. I hope it is for you. Think about what you were like before you surrendered your life to Christ. I'm like, "Yeah, do you really want to go back and be that person again?" When we put our faith in Christ, God puts the Holy Spirit in us. God, the Spirit in us, and His job is to guide us and teach us and change us and help us to grow as this new person and empower us to push down and kill and put aside that old person with his or her old ways. We're new people. And He says it's not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. Corruptible seed is human, it's temporary, it's flesh, it's the sinful nature, and it leads to death. Incorruptible means pure. It's of the Spirit. It creates a holy nature and that leads to eternal life. That's who we are and that's what we have. You know, "expression not of this world" used to be a brand. It's, it's from the scriptures. We are not of this world anymore. We are now citizens of heaven and we're just passing through this lifetime. And because of all that, this is why we want to live these lives to please God because He's made us new people and given us new life and all that's involved with that.

And one last reason why I should live to please God. It's in verse 24. I want to read it again. I think it's powerful. "Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower fades or fails." Fades? What is it? I gotta get glasses. This far. Falls away. Falls. But the Word of the Lord endures forever. You guys, most of what we do, most of the things that we accomplish in this world, most of the things we accumulate, that we achieve, that we treasure, that we seek, that we desire, most of that in this world is going to burn. It is not going to last. The moment we leave this world, it's done. The stuff that's going to last, it says the Word of the Lord endures forever. Everything that God said is true and is true eternally. And everything that we do to please Him, everything that we do to build and invest in His kingdom, that is what matters. That is the stuff we're going to take with us into eternity. And most of that has to do with the relationship. Has to do with influencing other people in their relationship with God. That's the most important thing. I really, I'm looking forward to heaven because what I, what I think is gonna happen, we're all gonna have a lot of these kind of conversations. "Thank you. You told me about Jesus way back in the day, and I'm here in heaven today because you took the time to push air with me." "Thank you for praying for me for that tough time. That really got me through." "Thank you for what you did for me serving me in the name of Jesus. That drew me to God." We're gonna have a lot of those kind of conversations. So we're still gonna be ourselves in heaven. We're still gonna hope we're gonna look a little better. No offense to you. That was about me. But that's really what's gonna matter. The rest of this stuff here, I mean, it's so easy to get caught up in it. But that stuff ain't gonna last, man. It's like the flower's gonna fall away. So that's a big reason why you want to, why we should live our lives to please God and make an investment in eternity.

So God's Word is really clear that we should live to please Him. We see a whole bunch of reasons why. There's one other question that's really pressing then. How? Okay, I get it. I want to. How do we live lives to please God? There's two wonderful hints in this passage that are so critical. One of them is in verse 22. "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit." You see those three words there? "Through the Spirit." I'm just gonna tell you right now, you cannot live your life to please God in your own strength and your own ability. You can't do it. Some of you might do pretty good for a time because some of you are really smart and disciplined and can make a plan and have a lot of self-control. But at the end, you're going to be frustrated and fail. We cannot, in and of ourselves, do this. This is why God has given us His Spirit. It has to be the Holy Spirit working in us, allowing us, teaching us, empowering us, enabling us to live lives that are pleasing to God. I have a good pastor friend who says sometimes he gets caught up with trying to horsepower it, you know? "I just hold on and make it happen, man." A lot of that's the American Way, I think. "Gonna work." So what does this look like? I was telling, what does this really look like? Here's what it looks like. Walking in the Spirit. In fact, Galatians 5:16, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." So how do you walk in the Spirit? Here's how it starts. With when we get up every morning of every day, deciding from moment one, "Today, I'm going to live my life to please God." That's gonna be my number one priority. More than pleasing myself, more than pleasing my spouse, more than pleasing my children and my boss and my friends or my parents or whatever. I'm going to make it my priority this day to live to please God. That's the first step. And then the second step is, I can't do that on my own. God, help me. I'm selfish. I'm self-centered. I'm self-willed. I'm self-indulgent. Yeah, I can't do it. God, realizing that and asking Him for help. God, through Your Spirit, enable me today to live a life pleasing to You. And then it's just a matter of every situation, every conversation, every choice, every decision, every relationship, moment by moment, we turn to Him and include Him and ask Him to work in and through us so we can make the decisions and the choices that will be pleasing to Him. It's an ongoing thing. That's the part about girding up the loins of your mind and being sober. We have to be intentional. And that's how you live life pleasing God. And you know what it boils down to? It boils down to having a relationship with Him. It boils down to living life with God. He's a person, just like we are. He's a person. He has feelings. He has thoughts. He has a will. He has relationships. We want to be in relationship with God. And so we're walking with Him through life. And as we get to know Him and as we communicate with Him, we understand what pleases Him, what doesn't. And we understand how to let Him come in and help us live it out. So it's by and through the Spirit.

And the second part of that is in verse 23 and then a little bit verse 25, "Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God." The Holy Spirit, the Word of God. Aside from Jesus physically walking this planet, which He did, but He ain't now. God has revealed Himself primarily through His Word. This is the inspired Word of God. Fact, it's cool. My Bible, all the words Jesus said are in red, which helps me, encourages me. In this book is where we find out who God really is, what He's done, what He's doing, what He says He will do, what He wants from us, how we can be in relationship with Him, what's good for us, what's bad for us, what's pleasing to Him, what's not pleasing to Him. It's in this book, His Word. So the more that we know this Word, the more we're gonna understand what really pleases God. And so we need to make it a priority to fill our hearts and our minds with this. We need to be reading it on our own. And I say this to people. I say, "I can't understand." And I totally get that. What you need is a good Study Bible. A Study Bible is a Bible that has all this scripture, but then has all kinds of commentary and explanations on the bottom that help you understand what's being said and help you to apply it to your life. Get a good Study Bible. And then keep coming to church. One thing I love about the reason I'm at this church is because we are committed to teaching the Word of God. And so you can come every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday night, Friday, Thursday night if your high school, Wednesday night if your junior high, almost every night of the week. And the other nights of the week, we have community groups. We're teaching the Bible. So come on out. And then you can listen to CDs and watch stuff on YouTube and read books and watch TV, some TV. But there's all kinds of ways for you to fill your minds with the Word of God. Psalm 119:9, "How can a young man cleanse his way?" And I think applies to old men too. "By taking heed according to Your Word." The more we know this, the more we're gonna understand how to live to please our Heavenly Father.

So how do we live? We need the power of the Holy Spirit working in us through the Word of God. This is how God has provided for us tremendously. So God does care how we live our lives. It really does matter. The choices that we make. It does matter. And just saying that we believe something doesn't necessarily make it true or real. It's how we live our lives, the choices that we make, that reveal what we truly believe and who we really are. That makes sense, doesn't it? So if we say we know and we love God, then we should live differently. Differently than the way we used to be. Differently than the world around us. We should be living, living to please Him in every area of our lives. And God has provided guidance on how to do that. Every thought we think, every choice that we have, every decision that we make, every temptation that we face, it's an opportunity to make a choice to please God. And when we make a good choice by His power, that's an act of worship. That's why we talk about living lives of worship. Every time we make a good choice that's pleasing to God, it's an act of worship. Conversely, when we, we make bad choices, it's displeasing to Him, and we're separating ourselves from Him.

We're going to take our last few minutes this morning and celebrate communion, also known as the Lord's Supper. And I want to, as the ushers are coming to serve you, they're gonna serve you. I want to throw a couple questions out for you to chew on. See if we can make the most of this time. All right, here's a question for you to chew on, just between you and God. Does my life right now, the way I'm living it, reflect what I say I believe? Does the life I'm living right now reflect what I say that I believe? Or are there parts of your life, activities, relationships, priorities, thoughts, other parts of your life that you, you're holding on to that you haven't surrendered to the lordship of Jesus yet? Are there parts of your life that you need to more completely give over to Him? And if there are, and I believe all of us have those because we're all in process, but if there are parts of your life that you haven't completely surrendered to Him yet, are you willing this morning to do so? Are you willing to bring that part of your life, for those parts? "Here they are. I'm sorry. I know they're not right. I know they're not what You want. And I confess, I can't change on my own. I can't let that go or do that. I need Your help. Would You please come in and help me?" And it may be a process. Are you willing to do that? To let, let God into those parts of your life so that more of your life that you're living can be pleasing to Him? All you have to do is confess it before Him and repent of it. That means being willing to change directions and ask Him to forgive you and to cleanse you.

In the last minute that they're taking to serve the communion, I just want to give us each an opportunity to just be quiet between you and God, me and God, right now for just a few moments, and talk to Him about this and be willing to listen to Him. Let's, let's do that together for just a minute. You know, I also realize some of us may not really even be aware. Maybe our prayer needs to be, "God, show me. Show me the areas that I'm still holding back from You. Show me my sin so that I can confess it before You and be cleansed and live my life more completely for Your pleasure."

The night before Jesus gave His life for us, He was having dinner with His closest friends, the Apostles, up in the upper room. And there, breaking some bread, and He took a piece of bread and He said, "This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And it wasn't that He was saying this was His literal body. It was symbolic. He's saying, "I'm going to be dying for you. I'm going to be living, giving my life for you so that you can live." So when you do this, do it to remember me, who I am and what I did for you. So let's do this together and do that right now.

And in the same way, at the end of the meal, He took a cup of wine and He said, "This is my blood, poured out, a new covenant, a new agreement, a new relationship with you." And again, it wasn't His literal blood. It was symbolic because He was going to be shedding His blood on the cross for us so that there'd be a new way for us to be reconciled to God through His sacrifice. He said, "When you drink this, drink this in remembrance of me." Let's do it together.

It is a good thing, Lord, to regularly remember what You've done for us. Thank You for dying on that cross for our sin. And today, Lord, thank You for convicting us about Your desire for us, Your command for us to live our lives for Your pleasure, for Your glory, not for our own. And I thank You that as difficult and as uncomfortable as it can be, that You convict us of parts of our lives that we haven't surrendered to You yet. And I just ask for myself and for all of us, please strengthen our faith and help us to to surrender those to You today, Lord. Help us to live our lives to please You. You deserve it. You're our Father. Jesus, You died for us so we could be saved and forgiven and have heaven. And so You deserve for us to live lives of worship to You. And we acknowledge we can't do it in and of ourselves, Lord. Help us through the power of Your Holy Spirit, through the truth of Your Word. We just ask this to Your glory. Amen.