Holiness.
It doesn’t begin with rules, or robes,
or trying to look better than the people next to us.
Holiness begins with a call. A voice that says: “Come.”
Come as you are. Come tired. Come uncertain. Come ordinary.
God has always worked like this – not by fixing the world from a distance,
but by choosing a people to live differently inside it.
Once we were not a people. Just individuals.
Just lives running side by side.
But Jesus gathers us.
Not into a club. Not into a crowd. Into a people.
Living stones, built together, into a place where God chooses to live.
Holiness is not standing apart alone.
It’s standing together – shaped by the same mercy,
filled with the same Spirit, learning the same way of life.
And yes, that means we stand out. Not loud. Not proud. But visible.
Because when you belong to another kingdom, your life starts to look different.
You forgive when it would be easier to harden.
You tell the truth when lies would protect you.
You choose kindness when the world chooses contempt.
You hold on to hope when everyone else has given up.
Sometimes we’re tempted to take off what makes us different.
To blend in. To stop standing out.
Peter knew that temptation. It was his fireside story.
And that’s why he sent a letter later in life telling his church
“Remember who you are.
You are a chosen people. A royal priesthood. A holy nation.
Not because you’re better, but because God is faithful.”
History is heading somewhere. We know this.
Jesus will return. Justice will come. Everything broken will be healed.
Everything crooked will be made straight.
God’s holy temple will descend and God’s holy people will be gathered.
Standing out in this age is how we prepare.
Not by escaping the world, but by living well inside it.
Foreigners, yet at home. Different, yet deeply present.
Lives that make people ask, “What kind of hope is this?”
Jesus calls us – not just to believe, but to belong.
Not just to belong, but to be formed.
Not just to be formed, but to stand out – together. For him.
See you Sunday
Richard
