Sunday Review: 1/22/12

It was a great morning of worship at Hope Church yesterday.  We are in the second week of our sermon series, Weird.  You can go to our website to listen to the first two weeks of the series in case you missed it.  You can also read the book, Weird, by Craig Groeschel, which has encouraged the series.

This Sunday, we looked at 1 Peter 1:13-16 as our jumping off point for our message.  Peter writes,

"Therefore prepare your minds for action discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formally had in ignorance.  Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

Here are a few thoughts about this passage and the sermon on Sunday:

• Holiness is not a word that we hear too often- but it is something that we are to pursue.  John Wesley called it "Christian Perfection" and it was the idea that we would be "sanctified" (made holy) by pursuing God in our life.  If we are calling ourselves disciples of Jesus- then we need to be pursuing holiness- that we would be more like Jesus each day.
• Like last week when we talked about Romans 12:1-2- Peter reminds us that we are not to conform to the desires we had when we lived as the world did.  Following Jesus means that our thinking, acting, and speaking is transformed and always transforming.  
• We get to do this in community!  We are not Lone Rangers in our life as Christians.  We get to share this journey on the narrow path with each other. Just the other day I heard a couple people from our church talking about how they are reading the same books and discussing them as part of their spiritual growth.  That's exciting!