The Word Of The Lord Endures Forever

1 Peter 1:13-25

Once again I come to Sunday morning, with a sermon inspired by Wed. night’s Bible study. We read from Isaiah 7, in which God told the king of Judah, Ahaz, that king of Syria and the king of Israel was to attack him, but they would not stand.

God told Ahaz to ask for a sign as proof, but he refused.....God gave him a future sign of the coming Messiah, Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, And shall call his name Immanuel.”

This verse clearly is the prophecy of Jesus Christ....Matthew 1:23 “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

Ahaz, as well as some of us, might of asked; “How is that going to help me?”..........

The answer is simple, but requires faith..........God was telling Ahaz that He will always be in control, there is a promise greater than our hopes and expectations.

God’s promise goes far beyond this life here, but He was showing Ahaz that He would always be with His people.

Yet, Ahaz refused to accept this and made an alliance with an outside source......Judah was not taken just as God promised but not without cost and essentially the alliance Ahaz made with Assyria, God would allow Assyria to be their captives and lead them into a long period of captivity.

David Pawson wrote about this....... “The lesson we can draw from chapters 7 & 8 is just this: to go into the future dominated by fear, dread, or terror is entirely the wrong attitude for the people of God.”

Dominated by fear......would mean a possible decision made in haste and not by faith.

An alliance with someone or something that is not of God.

Yoke ourselves with the worldly, rather than our hope and faith in the hope we have in Jesus Christ!

This brings us to our text.....Living for our future hope in Christ Jesus......1 Peter 1:13-25........

I could literally just work off of verse 13........It is a powerful resource for us to hold us to the truth of the Gospel.......If the actions of Peter did not convey his own words then I would say this just him trying to sound sharp, but I know these words are filled with the Holy Spirit and was lived out completely by Christ’s faithful servant, Peter.

The first part of this verse means to “prepare your minds for action” or “gird up the loins of your mind”........

Gird your loins.......this would be the ancient practice of gathering up one’s robes when needing to move in a hurry, here it is applied to one’s thought process.

To pull all of the loose ends of one’s thinking by rejecting the hindrances of the world and focusing on future Grace.

The idea of this is that we are living a life of faith that supersedes this world, it goes far and above anything down here. That is what amazes me about these apostles. They continued in the Gospel, amongst severe trouble, persecution, weariness........

They never got burned out, they just continued, willing to die for this hope that they have in Christ!

Their outward was dictated by their faith, they did not compromise, sell-out, they just kept on living by their faith and hope in Jesus Christ.

Keep sober and hope to the end............self-control.....the sober Christian is not intoxicated with the various allurements of the world.

This simply means, to not be dictated by what we see and feel, but by our faith and hope in Christ Jesus.

By faith is how we respond not by emotion or earthly circumstance.

Let me read the NASB95’s translation of this verse: “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Fix your hope completely (to the end) on the Grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:7 “That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

This a powerful truth, our lives should be dictated by the grace of Jesus Christ that brings us to this living hope that we have in Jesus Christ being raised from the dead that we might be raised from the dead as Christ was and made to be in His Glory!

Verse 14-16 is just what Peter has been talking about, not to be carried away the attractions, the former lusts of the world, because a Christian believes in the ways of God which is Holy and that should be the desire and path on of the believer.

Be ye holy as God is holy........If we say we are children of God then this should be our direction.

Now, the greatest understanding of this is to know with all assurance that the way of God is contrary or opposing to the world’s way.

Just as Ahaz thought an alliance with Assyria would be a good thing, it was not.....it essentially led to something even worse than a war.

We can become so overwhelmed with things happening in our lives that we tend to give into worldly ways, because they are tangible. We can touch them, see them, and maybe have a moment of gratification in them, but they are as poisonous as the fruit that Adam and Eve ate.

Look back at verses 7-9........in the trial of your faith, you do not see Jesus with your fleshly eyes, you believe in His Person and Work and rejoice at His day with joy unspeakable and full of His Glory......receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your soul!

That is the idea, we walk in faith not by sight, but we believe in the promise and hope that we have in Jesus Christ and will not compromise with the world to get through our trials.

Fear, anger, fun, depression, sorrow, will not dictate my life.....My faith in Jesus Christ will!

We are not redeemed with corruptible, so how can the corruptible help in time of need?

Can silver and gold fix the problem?

Think of how many times we have prayed for the corruptible! Instead of whatever our trial, we ask for strength to stay true to His Word, true to His Holiness!

That is very thought provoking and convicting!

We are just pilgrims here, none of this is our own........ “If you address as Father, the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth;”

If you are a Christian............conduct yourselves in the fear of the Lord!

We are redeemed only by the precious blood of Jesus Christ......Our faith stands in our future hope which is in Christ Jesus! Silver and gold only have temporary value, which I would argue is vain and empty.

The precious Blood of Jesus Christ is of eternal value............and it is through Him that we believe in God the Father, Who it was that raised Jesus from the dead, that our faith and hope might be in God the Father......

The purified your souls in obeying the truth........We trust God’s way not man’s way........we follow after Christ.

That obedience is shown by our love for the brethren, which is through the Spirit. That is the purpose of obedience that it be through the Spirit and not the flesh.......through the flesh the love will be superficial!

The spirit-filled life is imperishable.......The spiritual life implanted by the Holy Spirit to produce the new birth is unfailing and permanent!

The seed is imperishable it is the Word of God, Jesus is the Word of God, He perfectly represented God on earth and is the example for us to follow!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth to follow and it abides for ever.......Our faith is in Christ Jesus alone, nothing else!

Everything we see fades away, but the only thing that will be forever is the Word of God! It is the true way and that Word is fulfilled in a Person, Jesus Christ!

He lived the Law out perfectly, He died to fulfill the Law, He was raised from the dead for us to seal our eternal lives with Him in Heaven in the presence of Father God!

One writer wrote: “If our hopes and dreams of filled with the worldly and fleshly things then we are in a mess!”

God has given us the Truth, that His Word endures forever, nothing else does!

Finally, in the last part of this passage the explanation of why so much power and emphasis is put on a future hope, rather than immediate gratification....

Immediate gratification would be detrimental to our eternal lives, it always has been and always will.....

Fixing our hope on the revelation of Jesus Christ secures our eternal lives, not our physical......you can see the grass withering, that is our flesh......the flower falls away, that is the glory of man......none of these things can stand the test of time, nothing of the flesh!

The only thing that will remain is the Word of the Lord.......The Word is Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God! His Gospel, He is the Good News!

The Person and Complete Work of Jesus Christ........Is that enough for you......when our politicians and other world leaders threaten nuclear war, speak of Armageddon, what then is our hope?

No amount of money you make can change that, our votes doesn’t seem to work, the only hope we have is in Jesus Christ

Because no matter that talk, The Truth of Jesus Christ will endure forever and will be victorious forever!

I heard a preacher say one time that it seems to him that we look to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as “good advice” or “help”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ saves us, we are dying without Jesus and He saves us!