21 Days of Prayer: Day 7 

Motivated by Grace

“You shall be holy, for I am holy”


READ EXODUS 20:1-2 & 1 PETER 1:14-19.


Yesterday, we saw the beauty of the Gospel displayed – the holy Son of God DIED for unholy sinners. For those who are in Christ, there is no condemnation (see Rom 8:1). God the Father looks on the blood of His Son shed for sinners… and declares them innocent even though they are not innocent in themselves! Praise God for His Grace!

We also saw that the proper response to the grace of God in the gospel is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God. Every aspect of our lives now becomes an act of worship to our Lord and Savior… But if we are not careful, we will miss something very important here and end in up in a bad situation… What do we need to recognize here?

That brings to our texts for today. Our first text from Exodus describes the giving of the Law to Moses at Mount Sinai in the wilderness. God had rescued His covenant people of Israel from slavery in the land of Egypt. The LORD had delivered His people with many plagues and mighty acts of power – eventually drowning Pharaoh with his army in the Red Sea. Now, God calls Moses and Aaron to go up Mount Sinai to receive His Law. And the first words that God speaks to Moses are quite insightful… if we do not miss it: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

The LORD God gives the people a command to worship Him alone – they are to have no other gods before Him… But God states a couple of facts before expresses the command. First, God says: “I am the LORD your God.” A simple, but powerful statement… This is God – the one who dwells in eternity stooping down to speak to His lowly creatures. There is a word for the LORD’s condescension to reveal His name to His people – GRACE… But that is not the only fact the LORD calls attention to.

The second fact the LORD emphasizes is that He is the one “who brought you [Israel] out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” God is the one who rescued His people BEFORE He commanded His people to worship Him… And this is the pattern – grace always precedes law. God is holy yet gracious. Because God is a gracious God, He saves His people before He demands their worship… This is always the pattern in the Old Testament – God acts according to His nature for His people and then commands their obedience… This pattern also holds true for the New Testament.

The apostle Peter writes to the persecuted first-century church scattered across the Mediterranean. Peter writes a command from God: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Peter is actually quoting from the Old Testament Law (see Lev 11:44). There is the pattern again – God is who He is; therefore, the people are to honor Him. God acts in His grace toward His people – to make Himself known and to save them – so that they will worship Him… With the Old Testament people of Israel, God showed them grace in revealing Himself and saving them from Egypt. In the New Testament, God… wait, what did God do?

Peter writes: “You were ransomed… with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without spot or blemish.” God revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught the truth of God, in perfect obedience to His Father, for around thirty years and then died to pay for the sin of unholy people. God showed His grace through His Son so that the people would reverence Him: “… conduct yourselves with fear.” 

So both in Exodus and in 1 Peter (and throughout the Bible) this is the pattern – God demonstrates His character and the people worship… But why is this the pattern? Why does God not just command His people without demonstrating grace to them?

Before answering that question, let’s consider what would happen without the character-worship (grace-law) pattern. Let’s just take the command, “Be holy for I am holy.” God is holy… but we are not… So, we start to work our fingers to the bone and break our backs in efforts to be holy – and we appear holy. After some time has gone by, other people notice our efforts to be holy and praise us. And after some more time, we begin to believe that we are holy in ourselves. We begin to think that we are holy without God and pride creeps in… Indeed this is one result of attempting to honor God without His grace preceding it – we arrogantly think we can be holy without God.

Another possibility that could occur without the character-worship pattern goes something like this… We see the command of God to be holy, but we know that we are not holy in ourselves. No matter how hard we try to be holy, we fail every single time.  After some time, we begin to be saddened because we know that we will never perfectly honor God. And this sadness finally leads to hopelessness… Without God’s grace preceding our efforts we are hopeless in our efforts to honor Him.

So why the character-worship pattern? God wants His people to be motivated by His grace to worship Him. The logic goes – because God graciously displays His character through Jesus, we worship Him. God has infinitely saved us from ourselves; therefore, we worship Him with every aspect of our lives. We love God because He first loved us (see 1 Jn. 4:19) … If our worship is not motivated by grace, we will lapse into pride or hopelessness. But God, according to His wisdom, displays His gracious character to us first so that we will worship Him with JOY.



Personal Questions:

  1. What pattern is displayed throughout Scripture of God toward His people?

  2. Are you motivated by God’s grace to worship Him? If not, do you tend toward pride or hopelessness?

  3. What is the result of worshiping God by being motivated by grace?

Prayer Points:

  • Pray that you and our church would recognize the character-worship pattern found in Scripture.

  • Pray that you and our church would be rid of any pride or hopelessness in our attempts to worship God.

  • Pray that you and our church would be motivated by grace to worship Him – with joy!