As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” | 1 Peter 1:14–17
On Sunday, Andrew used the analogy of chipped Ikea plates to describe offering our lives to God as justification (which hit home even harder when we lost a handful of plates Monday to a stack falling out of the cupboard). The idea was that if you broke a priceless piece of china, dingy plates would not suffice as a replacement; our sinful lives are not enough to bring to God.
This begs the question: why does God demand perfection? Many want to pretend that He does not, yet His giving of the law and statements like the one above from Peter say otherwise. God’s holiness requires holiness. God’s perfection is like a burning fire; anything that is not perfect will be destroyed in His presence. God demanding perfection is not an issue of preference, but a statement of fact: sin and the sinful cannot exist with Him. Human sin is not just unacceptable, it does not have the ability to be in His presence.
For God to accept us, we must be changed. He cannot just decide to ignore sin; we must be cleansed. This is what we celebrate during Holy Week: the work of Jesus Christ to make us holy so that we can live forever with Him. Holiness is being applied to us in three different ways.
WE ARE HOLY
In Jesus life, death, and resurrection we are justified. In this, Jesus perfect life is applied to us. Paul says it this way in Romans 3.22-24:
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus
The righteousness and redemption of Jesus are applied to the sinner as a gracious gift. This means that when God looks at His people, He sees them as holy because of Jesus.
WE ARE BEING MADE HOLY
Along with this, the Holy Spirit is working in us to sanctify us. Our sin is being revealed, our convictions sharpened and we are being transformed. This transformation is God completing us; bringing our life in line with the holiness that human beings were created in. We work toward holiness, not to be justified (that is fulfilled in Jesus), but in response to the gift of grace.
WE WILL BE MADE HOLY
The promise that we have is that when we enter into God’s presence, we will be glorified; made perfectly holy so that we can be in His presence in peace. Paul describes this fulfillment of our sanctification when he says:
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. | 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24
We rest in the holiness of Jesus, as we work toward holiness, with the assurance that we will be made completely holy in the end. In all of this, we don’t need to be ashamed of our chipped Ikea plate. The mistake a lot of people make in Christianity is believing that their identity is in what they have to offer. Every chip, then, represents a failure. They either fall into despair that they cannot repair themselves, or plead with God to accept them on their terms. Words like love, grace, and acceptance become weapons against a God who holds a standard that they cannot uphold. God always knew they would fall short. He didn’t just know it, He acted to make sure that our sin would not keep us from Him.
We don’t need to make ourselves look better than we are or demand that God lower His standard. Instead, we can admit that we have very little to offer Him and then celebrate the fact that this has not stopped Him from gifting us everything. Jesus gave up His life, as the spotless lamb, so that we could receive His perfection. We take joy in being chipped Ikea plates, knowing that His grace makes up the vast expanse between our best and His perfection. The greatest mistake is not acknowledging who we really are.