1 Peter 1.13-16 (Confident & Committed)

Introduction

During the 1740s, 60s, and 80s, there were surges of spiritual revival in the New World. The American nation was being formed, and many of those colonists/citizens were turning away from what they believed was a rigid and lifeless Christianity (generally practiced by societal elites) and turning toward a more energetic and sensational form of Christianity (this was the American expression and origin of what is called pietism).

Those decades (the 1740s, 60s, and 80s) later became famous in history as the First Great Awakening in America, and a Second Great Awakening seemed to follow (with its own strengths and weaknesses) during the early half of the 1800s.

In May of 1780 all of New England experienced an inexplicable darkness. The sky above seemed like night at midday. One New Englander wrote in his journal, “The 19th of May, 1780, was a remarkably dark day. Candles were lighted in many houses; the birds were silent and disappeared; and the [chickens] retired to roost… A very general opinion prevailed that the Day of Judgment was at hand.”

Back then, the overwhelming majority of Americans interpreted all of life’s events through the lens of a basically Christian worldview. I’m not saying they were all Christians, but I am saying that they generally believed that the God of the Bible (or the God of “providence”) was in charge of the sky above and men’s souls below.

On that dark day in New England, the Connecticut House of Representatives adjourned in mid-session because there was not light enough to continue. A proposal to do the same came up in the Senate too, but Colonel Abraham Davenport objected.

Colonel Davenport was brother of the famed revivalist James Davenport, who is most remembered for his bizarre antics and his exile from New England churches and society. I don’t know how close the Davenport brothers were, but Abraham seems to have been far more reasonable and level-headed than his brother – he was a statesman, a churchman, and a man known for his dedication to duty.

When it was proposed that the Senate adjourn (because of the surreal darkness), Colonel Davenport said, “I am against an adjournment. The Day of Judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

Friends, today we are going to consider a passage of Scripture that speaks to the duty or responsibility or calling that Christians ought to be doing or bearing or living out as the day of Christ’s judgment approaches.

Last year, we studied through the book of Revelation, and now we are making our way through the book of 1 Peter. And both of these books of the Bible have an emphasis on the reality that the time between Christ’s first coming and His second are (to one degree or another) dark days.

Christians live as exiles in a world that is not their home.

Suffering and affliction (of various kinds) seem to be what Christians ought to expect from the unbelieving world around them.

The way of the cross is the path we must travel, and only later should we expect to enjoy what is promised as the glorious reward.

But this does not mean that Christians have to be discouraged or beat-down or inactive or disengaged from the world as it is.

As a matter of fact, our passage today calls for Christians to bring forth candles to light the darkness… the illumination of the mind and also a brightness of behavior… so that we may be found doing our duty – glorifying God – on that day when Christ returns to destroy sinners and to reward saints.

Brothers and sisters, however dark it may seem, God has given us confident hope, and He has called us to committed holiness.

Let’s consider this passage together, and may God grant us to believe and to obey what we read today.

Scripture Reading

1 Peter 1:13–16 (ESV)

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Main Idea:

Because we now possess and eagerly await God's salvation, we must be confident to think… and commit ourselves to act… like children of God.

Sermon

1. Saved and Waiting

Our passage begins with “Therefore” (v13). And when we see a “therefore” in Scripture, we would do well to ask, “What is the ‘therefore’ there for?”

This is a connecting word, and it connects the words that came before with the words that come after. The words before it are the source or the rationale, and the words after are the command or the conclusion (think of it like a syllogism).

In this case, the “Therefore” connects all that Peter has been saying about “salvation” with the two commands or imperatives of our passage today.

Peter said that “salvation” is an “inheritance” that is guaranteed to those who have been “born again” of God’s Spirit (1 Pet. 1:3-4).

He said that “salvation” will be “revealed in the last time” to those God Himself is “guarding” by His own “power” (1 Pet. 1:5).

He said that “salvation” is for those whose faith proves to be “genuine” after it has been “tested” by “various trials” (1 Pet. 1:6-7).

Peter said that “salvation” is the “outcome” of the faith of those who persevere to the end (1 Pet. 1:9).

And Peter said that “this salvation” was “prophesied” long ago by those who spoke the word of God for the benefit of sinners far into the future – sinners who would be able to look back to the cross of Jesus Christ and see the “grace” of God for them (personally and intentionally) on marvelous display (1 Pet. 1:10-12).

In other words, salvation is both the present possession and the assured attainment of all those who turn from their sin and trust or believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. These are the ones who have been saved; they are being saved; and they will be saved on the last day. These are the ones who have heard and believed the gospel about Christ; they are walking in obedience to Christ; and they are eagerly awaiting the return of Christ.

This is the sort of people Peter was writing to, and our Scripture today applies to Christians (of all time and geography) who are believing and doing the same thing.

It seems right, then, that I would pause here for the sake of anyone who is not presently believing and obeying and waiting for Christ.

Friend, there is much to be believed and done in this passage before us, but no part of it applies to you until or unless you first grab hold of this salvation that Peter has already been talking about.

Sir, you cannot think or act… you cannot believe or behave as a Christian…

until you first come to that place where you understand yourself to be a sinner…

until you understand that God is right to judge you where you sit and condemn you to suffer His wrath for all of your rebellion and disobedience…

You must come to know that God has sent His Son to live and to die in the place of guilty sinners like you…

and you must trust that Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord.

If you want to talk more about what this means or about how you can become a partaker of this gracious gift of “salvation” that I’m talking about, then let’s get together after the service.

For those of us who do believe the gospel… for those of us who do set our lives toward obedience to Christ… and for those of us who are eagerly waiting for Christ’s return… If that describes us (syllogism), then what is Peter’s conclusion?

Brothers and sisters, because we are saved according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work (or the setting apart) of the Holy Spirit, and by blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:2)… therefore, we must think and act like children of God while we are here in this world.

Our passage today has two major commands that say this very thing – (1) we ought to be confident (or hopeful) in the grace of God in Christ (v13), and (2) we ought to commit ourselves to holiness in all our conduct (v14-16).

Let’s consider each one of these in turn…

2. Confident Hope (v13)

If we are repenting and believing ones, then we now possess and eagerly await God's salvation, and we must confidently think like children of God while we wait – we ought to be confident that we are under God’s grace now and that we shall receive it in full at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

We see the first command right here in v13. Peter says, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13).

As always, there is so much we might gain from thinking long and hard on what we read here. But let me focus in on three things – (1) What is hope?, (2) Where is hope aimed or directed?, and (3) How do we acquire and cultivate hope?

What is hope?

It would be easy for us to misread the NT word “hope” (v13).

In our day, hope is a kind of wish, a desire, a longing for what may or may not be.

This is not how the Bible uses the word “hope.”

The word here is an expectation, an anticipation, a confidence that what God has promised will most certainly come to pass.

This is why I’m calling it a “confident hope.”

Where is hope aimed or focused?

According to our passage, Christian “hope” is to be “set” or put or aimed “fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13).

This is talking about “the grace” or the “salvation” that will be “revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).

This is what Christians are waiting for, what Christians will receive, what will be “brought to” them when Christ returns for His own (v13).

It is the completion of that work that God has begun in Christ Jesus.

It is the culmination of God’s plan of redemption.

It is the consummation of Christ the King with His Bride (the Church).

And all those who are members of this redeemed and sanctified assembly will rejoice in it.

Brothers and sisters, here is our first command to obey this morning - we must set our hope, we must aim our confidence at that coming day when all that God has promised us in Jesus Christ will be ours in full.

Ok, but how do we acquire and cultivate this confident hope?

Note the activity required to obey this command.

This is no passive thing!

The phrase “preparing your minds for action” is literally “girding up the loins of your mind” (v13).

Think of a soldier about to go into battle, setting his uniform and posture in order so as to engage in vigorous activity.

And note the emphasis here on the “mind.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but the first command to act is not something you normally see on the outside.

The call here is to “prepare your mind” and to be “sober-minded” (v13).

However, this action of the mind may be just as difficult as any physical exploit… maybe even more so.

Friends, how can we mentally prepare ourselves and intellectually focus our confidence on the grace or salvation that will be “brought” to us at the coming of Christ?

We can learn what is true about salvation.

Read the Bible to know what we should believe.

Read the Bible and talk about it with others so that we can correct our errors & inform our ignorance.

Read good Christian books and articles that give us further insight and a better understanding of what is true.

But we must not stop there!

We ought to meditate on these truths… we ought to ponder them… we ought to set our minds upon the truths of Scripture throughout the day.

We ought to avoid (or at least minimize distractions), so that our minds are able to focus for a long while on the truths of Scripture.

I read a blog recently that talked about one of the best selling books in the Christian genre today.

The author pasted excerpts from the book, and they were 1 and 2 sentence paragraphs that were only loosely connected.

He said that many Christians are reading this sort of material because it mimics social media posts – short and disjointed statements without any sustained argument.

Friends, it is a sad state of our own design if we have so conditioned our minds to only think in bite-sized chunks.

This is not thinking… this is being told what to think.

This, then, leads us to some negative implications of this command to “prepare your mind” and to be “sober-minded” in order to “set [our] hope” (v13).

We must make a regular habit of setting our minds on “things above” (Col. 3:2)… AND we must not constantly set our minds on frivolous things.

How many hours have we sat in front of the TV (or some other screen) and let the concerns and perspectives of this world dominate our thoughts?

How many times have we caught ourselves “doom-scrolling” on social media?

How many nights have we gone to bed with our minds full of anxiety and distraction?

Friends, setting or putting or aiming our “confident hope” in God is not something that happens by accident. Mindless activities and the passive consumption of all kinds of media in our lives does not prepare our minds for action; instead, this prepares our mind for distraction from the very things God has given us to acquire and to cultivate our “confident hope.”

Let’s think of ways we can make positive changes to our daily routine that will help us to obey this command and not neglect it.

How might you change your morning routine to include some time when you are not mentally distracted by tech or by tasks?

How might you change some feature of your workday to include some regular reminder of what God says is true and good?

How might you change something about the way you wind down each night to calm your mind and set your hope on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ?

And, brothers and sisters, we must remember that God’s commands are for our good. He means for us to be encouraged and even to be sustained in our confident hope, and He has given us a command here that will do just that.

How can we think like children of God?

We can intentionally set our conscious and confident hope on the salvation that is ours… and that will be ours… at the revelation of Christ.

3. Committed Holiness (v14-16)

These last three verses of our text this morning drive home the second command. The reasoning goes like this: Because we now possess and eagerly await God's salvation, we must commit ourselves to act like children of God while we wait – we ought to commit ourselves to holiness in all our conduct.

So far, we’ve been talking a lot about the mind, but now we are turning to our behavior or our “conduct” or our deeds.

But notice that the mind is not forgotten or set aside here!

Peter continues to build out a rationale for why Christians ought to act or behave like children of God.

It is because that’s what Christians are – they are “children” of God, and so they ought to be “obedient children” and not unruly or rebellious ones (1 Pet. 1:14).

It is because God Himself is “holy,” and God is the one who “called” Christians into this new life of holiness (1 Pet. 1:15).

And it is because God commands His people to be holy… “since it is written,” Peter says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).

This citation is a very interesting one.

My ESV cross reference suggests that Peter is citing Leviticus 11:44, which says, “I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44).

But that’s just one of a slew of places where God says the same thing.

In Leviticus 19, God told Moses to “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy’” (Lev. 19:2).

This command is repeated nearly verbatim at least six times in Leviticus alone!

And the same command is repeated many times in one fashion or another throughout the OT and again in the NT.

The rationale is clear: “Christian, (1) you are a child of God, (2) you are called to be holy by the God who has adopted you by His grace, and (3) your heavenly Father is the epitome of holiness; therefore, commit yourself to holiness.”

Friends, is this how you understand your responsibility, your duty, your call to action as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you made it your priority to behave in a holy manner? Are you more concerned that others around you might perceive you as “cool” or “relevant” or whatever the kids are saying these days? Or are you concerned that you might be perceived as holy, an obedient child of God?

Brothers and sisters, the fear of man is the beginning and cause of all kinds of foolishness; but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Let’s set our minds on who we are (i.e., children of God), consider what God has called us to be (i.e., holy), and think often about the chief and all-encompassing attribute by which God has made Himself known (i.e., holiness)… and let’s commit ourselves to act.

But what does this look like? How can we “be holy in all [our] conduct”?

With the remainder of our time this morning, let me make some (what I hope to be) helpful applications by pointing to both the positive and the negative aspects of this command to act in our passage.

First, the negative – “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1 Pet. 1:14).

Note that the “passions” or “lusts” or “desires” Peter mentions here are those cravings that sinners naturally have for sin.

Peter lists several examples in ch. 4 of this letter – “sensuality” (or unregulated sexual pleasures), “drunkenness” (or the unbridled consumption of that which fogs the mind and throws off restraint), and “lawless idolatry” (or setting our deepest affections and our greatest hopes on anything other than God).

The commonality among all these (and the other sin-lists in the Bible) might be summarized in our common vocabulary as…

“follow your heart”

or “just be you”

or “be true to yourself”

or “it’s your thang, do what you want to do.”

Friends, sin is natural to us.

Sin is what we naturally want.

Sin is always easy on the front end and devastating afterward.

Sin is any want (or lack) of conformity unto God’s law or any transgression (or overstep) of it.

And notice, this is how those Christians to whom Peter was writing… this is how they “formerly” lived (v14).

These Christians were once lawless ones… they knew well how non-Christians live, because they themselves had been right there with them.

Their days of “ignorance” were not absent of passions and desires… their days as non-Christians were filled with such things!

Friends, don’t you remember the life you lived before you began to follow Christ?

Don’t you feel even now the magnetic draw to give in to your sinful desires and go along with the natural loves of your wicked heart (or is it just me!)?

Don’t you see (in others around you) the unholy living of unbelievers? And don’t you see the consequences of living that way?

And notice also that there is no scenario whereby we are not being “conformed” to something.

The prohibition here is “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (v14).

Isn’t it a wonder that sinners think that they are throwing off the chains of rules and limitations when they sin?

Don’t we sometimes feel this same way?

Aren’t we just like Eve in the garden, who looked at the fruit of the forbidden tree and thought, “I know God said don’t, but I really want it, and God is holding me back!”

But the very sin which promises freedom is the slave master that condemns us, that compels us back to the darkness of wickedness and shame, and that turns us into fools who pretend as the rest, “I am free!” (knowing that we are utterly bound and ensnared).

The adulterer pretends he is free from the wife who is nothing but a drag these days, but he is bound to the shame of his affair, he is bound to the guilt of destroying his marriage, and he is bound to seemingly always carry the suspicion that he will be unfaithful again.

The mother who aborts her unborn baby pretends she is free from the inconvenience of motherhood, but she is bound to the horror of snuffing out the very life God gave her to nurture and enjoy.

The child who rebels against mom and dad pretends he/she is free from the restraint of parents, but he/she is bound to live as a fool, to suffer pain and loss, and to face consequences far worse than a spanking or the loss of a privilege.

The student who cheats, the employee who lies or steals to get ahead, the drunkard, the sexual deviant, and the one who thinks in his mind “there is no God, and even if there is, I’ll probably be just fine”… all of these pretend they are free, but they are bound… bound to fear that someone will find them out… bound to a guilty conscience that relentlessly reminds them of their sin… and bound to suffer the consequences of their sin… both in this life and in the life to come.

Friends, do not be conformed to your former passions or the passions that still find root deep in your wicked heart.

Search them out, and kill them… and let’s set our aim to be conformed to something else.

Let’s be conformed to holiness… be conformed to God’s character… by learning what He’s like, by learning what He commands, and by committing ourselves to obey.

Second, the positive – “be holy in all your conduct” (1 Pet. 1:15).

Let’s first take a moment to define and understand what it means to be holy.

I said a little while ago that holiness is the chief and all-encompassing attribute by which God has made Himself known.

God’s holiness is His otherness, His uniqueness, His set-apartness.

God is holy, and there is none like Him.

And God’s holiness is the defining feature of all else that God is… it refers to moral purity, perfect uprightness, and complete flawlessness.

All of God’s attributes are holy.

God’s goodness is a holy goodness.

God’s love is a holy love.

God’s justice is a holy justice.

And so on…

Therefore, to be holy is to reflect God’s own character.

As I’ve been saying already this morning, if we are to be holy, we must know who God is, we must know what He is like, we must know what He has commanded of us, and we must align ourselves accordingly.

Holiness, then, for you and me, is to conduct ourselves… to live in keeping with the way God has intended and commanded us.

Note the simplicity and the extent of this command.

What are Christians to be?

Holy.

Where are they to be holy?

In all your conduct… all your behavior… in everything.

Friends, there are many grand things we might do for God, but the best way for us to pursue holiness is to obey God in the ordinary activities of life.

We are to live our whole lives as though Christ Himself is standing right beside us and as though our words and actions reflect upon Him.

The mother who cares for her hard-headed children displays holiness when she is both patient and firm… as God Himself is with His children.

A husband demonstrates holiness when he loves his wife and leads her toward her own good… as God does with those He loves.

A young man shows holiness when he sets his ambitions on virtue and building something of value that will benefit himself and others… just as God Himself has done.

A young woman demonstrates holiness when she takes the materials and skills that she’s been given and creates a life of honor and dignity and gladness for her husband and children… just as God Himself does for those in His care.

This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but we all get the point… an ordinary life lived in alignment with the way God has designed and commanded… this is a life of committed holiness.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, because we now possess and eagerly await God's salvation, we must be confident to think… and commit ourselves to act… like children of God… while we wait.

We begin our lives as unholy people with no hope to ever become holy in and of ourselves. When we hear and believe the gospel – that God loves sinners like us, and that He has sent His Son to live and die for unholy ones… in order to make them holy – when we hear and believe this, then we receive the holiness of Christ… He gives us perfect holiness, and we stand before God blameless and righteous.

And when we find ourselves in this wonderful new situation – saved by God, forgiven by Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit – when we find ourselves with a real hope that the grace that God has promised is ours now and will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ… we now set our minds on this very hope… we confidently think like Christians and we aim to grow in our thinking this way… And we commit ourselves to a life of holiness… that we might bring light into this dark world… into the darkness of our own lives and the lives of others… so that when Christ returns or when we die, we might be found as those who are doing what is expected of us… being holy in all our conduct.