7. Fix Your Hope

1Pe 1:13-16  Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;  (14)  as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance;  (15)  but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,  (16)  because it is written, "BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."

Structure of the verse: The first two phrases of this verse are not stand alone actions that Peter is instructing believers to do. Rather they act like adverbs in that they actually support the first imperative that Peter issues in this letter. It is in these two actions of having gird up the loins of our mind and being sober that make the fulfillment of the command to set our hope completely on the grace to be revealed, possible.

Therefore having girded up the loins of your mind past, presently being sober in spirit, imperative fix your hope completely on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Or for the sake of understanding it better we might read it as: Therefore fix your hope completely on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ by having gird the loins of your mind, being sober in spirit.

Introduction: v.13 Stands as the lynch pin that connects the previous 12 verses with the instructional unit Peter is going to begin in verse 14. Here we see a pattern in scripture where doctrine is given and the believer’s moral response. The first 3 chapters of Ephesians are doctrine the last 3 are Paul’s instruction in practical application. Ex. 20 we have the reminder of the redemptive event of God saving Israel from slavery before the giving of the Law.

Exo 20:1-2  And God spoke all these words, saying:  (2)  "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

It is after this salvific event that the 10 commandments are given.

The point is, whenever we see the grace of God it necessitates action on the part of the hearer.

Eph 2:8-10  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,  (9)  not of works, lest anyone should boast.  (10)  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

‘Therefore’ in this verse, points back to the great doctrines of God. In verse 1,2 we see the Triune work of God in His Election, redemption, and sanctification. In verses 3-12 Peter teaches us God’s great mercy in our salvation, inheritance, His preservation, His conforming us to the image of His beloved Son through His testing in our trials, His revelation, and He privileged us to experience salvation in a way the OT saints would not and the angelic host cannot. God has laid the foundation for our response in His precious and magnificent promises which are always yes in Christ Jesus. The verse literally reads:

Therefore having already girded up the loins of your mind past, presently being sober in spirit, imperative rest your hope completely on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Having Gird your minds for action.

Keep Sober

Fix your Hope.

Having Gird your minds for Action –

Some translations have left out ‘loins’ to make it easier to read. But doing so we miss the richness of the word picture that Peter provides.

What does gird mean? This is the only place in the NT where this verb is used. This verb stresses the action of binding up their long robes for strenuous activity. In the middle-east garments are loose and long for comfort. They would reach down from the front and grab the rear part of their garment, lift up and tuck the back edge into their belt, turning their long garment into a loose pair of shorts. Ex: Dubai – fisherman. Kids playing soccer

What are we to gird? The loins of our mind. What are the loins? It is the hip area and lower back. It is the seat of strength. Baseball players engage their hips in hitting the ball, quarterbacks engage their hips throwing the football, weightlifter engage the hips and lower back in squats and deadlifts. These same employ wide belts for support. It is important because it is the seat of strength. Peter is stressing that it is our mind not our emotions that should rule how we live and how we act. And yet we see that it is just the opposite today. We have the Christian version of ‘If it feels food do it’ which is ‘I felt led to do this or that’ rather than disciplining ourselves for the sake of godliness.

Eph 6:14 Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED (different verb form) YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS,

When are we to gird? The tense of the verb in the Greek indicates that it is a completed action with ongoing consequences. Meaning that we should be in a constant state of readiness day by day for whatever action may be required.

Why are we to gird? There are two results that occur in girding the loins of our mind. 1) It restrains that which otherwise restrict us or cause us to stumble. 2) it frees our mind to be ready to deal vigorously, and unhindered with whatever is needed. So girding up the mind involves removing anything that would hinder the free action of the mind in regards to spiritual growth. In Paul’s description of the armor in Eph. 6 he references the belt of truth. Peter writes 1Pe 5:12  Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!It would not be a stretch to say we are to gird the loins of our mind in the belt of truth.

So it is not a stretch to say we are to gird the loins of our mind with the truth. This answers the question with what are we to gird our minds.

How are we to gird? Our minds are girded up by the word of truth. Peter later mentions that truth in v.22. The word of truth is the guard rails of our faith that prevent us from going over the precipice of error on the right and on the left. Whether it is legalism or antinomianism. The word protects us as long as we adhere to it.

(1) It is by the truth that we are saved:

(Jas 1:18)  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

(2) It is by the truth that we are sanctified, and brought to Christian maturity:

(Eph 4:15,16)  but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

(3) The truth is the means by which our minds are renewed and transformed, from the ignorance and deception of our unsaved condition, to the renewed mind which thinks in accordance with God’s Word and His ways:

I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).

(4) The truth is the basis for Christian unity (see Ephesians 4:5, 13).

(5) It is the truth which edifies and builds up the church (Ephesians 4:15, 25, 29).

(6) The truth is essential for true worship:

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

(7) The church is God’s divinely ordained means of declaring and displaying the truth:

I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth (1 Timothy 3:14-15).

(8) The truth is that knowledge which is essential to us, and yet that which we would never have known on our own, apart from divine initiative and enablement. Given all eternity, men would never come to the knowledge of the truth unless God revealed it to them supernaturally.

(9) Jesus Christ is the truth, and thus turning from the truth is to turn away from Him:

31 Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me (John 14:6).

(10) The truth informs us of Satan’s schemes and deception and exposes error and deception.

11 in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11).

Satan’s Opposition to the Truth

Satan is a liar by nature. We can safely say that Satan is a pathological liar (John 8:44). He would lie even when he didn’t have to. He is both self-deceived and a deceiver (Revelation 12:9). From the beginning of time, Satan has sought to oppose God and His people by opposing the truth.

-There are two aspects of girding the loins of our mind with truth. There is the objective and the subjective. What does it mean? It means that we are to be girded with the objective realities of the truths of the Word of God. In the narrow context of 1 Peter what have we seen? The Work of God in salvation. The all sufficiency of Christ our Redeemer and the preserving power of the Holy Spirit.

-The subjective reality has to do with the right application of those truths to our everyday lives. It is the combination of those two that constitutes the armor of girding our loins with truth. Quite simply it is the living testimony of our lives as changed by the truth of God.

Girding up the loins of our mind is, in this context, the first means by which we are to completely hope.

Keep Sober in Spirit

The idea is to “make sure you keep all your faculties fully operational”. This trait describes one who is free from every form of mental and spiritual ‘drunkenness’, from excess, passion, rashness, confusion, etc. be well-balanced, self-controlled. Peter gives us an injunction to sane appraisal of the facts, without undue emotion and panic.

Peter says that we are to continually (present tense) make the choice of our will (active voice = volitional choice) to be watchful, calm and collected in spirit, temperate, dispassionate and circumspect in this present evil age. It's the image of not being drunk when it comes to spiritual things and implies alertness and evaluating things correctly, because you see clearly, and your mind isn't numb with intoxicating influences. Such a person is able to see things without the distortion caused by worry, fear, and their related attitudes. He or she is well balanced and does not "get drunk" on the intoxicating "liquor" that the world so tantalizingly offers to the senses of our old flesh nature. Now with all that said, how is this possible? Is this an attitude we can conger up in our own strength, relying on our natural ability? I think not, so once again we see that to stay sober in this seductive world, we need to be not drunk with the world's wine, but "drunk with," filled with, controlled by the indwelling Spirit of God!

Jesus issues a similar command to (Luk 21:34,35)  "But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

The negative of being sober is drunkenness, which dulls the senses and alters reality. It is not physical drunkenness necessarily. It is anything that dulls our minds to spiritual things. So what is it that dulls our minds to spiritual things?

Fix Your Hope Completely

This is the first imperative given by Peter. It is an action in time with continual consequences. It is not a fixing of a partial hope but complete. The basis of this command is the previous 12 verses: our salvation, inheritance, His preservation, His conforming us to the image of His beloved Son through His testing in our trials, His revelation. The NKJV, NASB, ESV add words to the Greek work for hope set, fix, or rest. But in doing this it turns hope a noun when it is a verb. It think this is significant because verbs denote action, therefore our hope is active. It is a set course of action with on going consequences, meaning that we continually looking for this grace to be revealed. It is a focus, it is the motivator in how we live out our lives before the Lord

What is hope? Christian hope is the full assurance of receiving, in complete measure, the promises made by God to His people regarding salvation and the glory to come.

What is the object of hope? The grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Grace is God’s unmerited favor to undeserving sinners which has its origins the love of God. It is the assurance that the promises of God are sure and true. And as the prophetic utterance in the OT of the coming of Christ was fulfilled so too the future promise of the consummation of the ages and the return of Christ as king.

When Jesus comes back he is bringing grace to the people of God. But you might say has not grace already been shown to us? What is different about the grace shown to us now and the grace revealed to us then? This grace to be revealed is shown in two ways. 1.The grace we know now is fully effectual for salvation, don’t misunderstand me, but the grace to be revealed is the consummation of the inheritance promised in the earlier verses. Now, we are waiting on the inheritance, when Christ returns our inheritance we be delivered. What is our inheritance? In John 14 it clearly states that Jesus says that He goes to prepare a place for us, it is also stated that we will be given an imperishable body in 1Co 15:42-44  So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.  (43)  It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.  (44)  It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

But I do not think that is the meat of our inheritance. Our inheritance is the Triune God. The Psalmist said it rightly. Psa 16:5-6  The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; Thou dost support my lot.  (6)  The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. The Psalmist understood it was not the land that God had given to Israel that was the inheritance. It was God Himself. So it is not the place the Jesus is preparing for us even now, or the imperishable body but it is the Triune God. We will see Jesus face to face who we have only known through the eyes of faith. He, Himself, will welcome us into heaven and we will hear Him say well done you good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your rest. And when we see Him in all His glory we will feel the full weight of understanding of our unworthiness, but Rev 21:4 says, He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.

And this leads into the second way grace is to be revealed. We have appropriated salvation by grace through faith but we do not clearly understood. Our complete understanding of it is not a requirement of our receiving it. But we labor, and it is a good, beautiful labor all the days of our life seeking the Lord and a growing understanding of this grace, the sinfulness of sin and the greatness of God’s salvation, coming to the understanding that it is not in man to choose Christ. It is like looking through a glass pane that has been clouded but dust and dirt. Everything we look at through that glass is also clouded and blurred. So we clean the glass and as the dust and dirt is removed we see more clearly through it. So it is with us as we study this grace of God. But you may say, if all is to be revealed why study at all? Because in growing in the understanding of this grace, causes us to grow in our love for God. For he who is forgiven much, loves much and it is in growing in our understanding of these things that reveals that we all have been forgiven much.

So should we disregard totally that we will be transformed? Not at all. Because we will be free from this body of sin and death having been given and imperishable body and that which now hinders us from knowing and worshipping as we should will be done away.

Hope fully in God's grace. The best is yet to come for believers, for we are those who are (to be continually) looking for future glory which is a great motivation for present obedience. There is a freedom a head that should press and spur every true believer to run this race with endurance, to finish well, to hear from our Lord, well done thou good and faithful servant enter into your rest.