Standing Strong (2)
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Message 2: Set your hope Fully
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
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.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
Big Idea: Believers set their hope fully on grace
Big Idea: Believers set their hope fully on grace
Last week: Born again to a living hope. A reminder of the great salvation we who are in Christ have; believers were born again to a living hope. Believers have an inheritance. Believers are being guarded through faith. Believers rejoice in that living hope, even though they go through trials.
Last week: Born again to a living hope. A reminder of the great salvation we who are in Christ have; believers were born again to a living hope. Believers have an inheritance. Believers are being guarded through faith. Believers rejoice in that living hope, even though they go through trials.
Shackleton (explain who he was) supposedly listed this ad: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.”
In other words, taking on this job meant difficulty. For the believer, we are promised trials. If we are loyal to Christ, the world will hate us. These are the teachings of scripture. Unlike Shackleton’s voyage, however, believers safe return is not doubtful. Believers are guarded through faith. Believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Believers prepare for a hazardous journey in this life. There will be difficulty. But at the conclusion of this voyage is heaven.
Believers make it through those trials because we love him. Believers have faith even though they have not seen Jesus and rejoice with joy inexpressible and filled with glory. The faith of believers is based on things prophesied from of old, things that even angels long to look into.
After all this, and to set up what Peter is challenging the believers to do, he now says: Therefore.
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.
We could do an entire sermon on just one phrase of verse 13. Actually, this verse could alone be a sermon series. There is much said here. But let us consider for a few moments this phrase, “preparing your minds for action”. In different times of church history, and in many churches today, there has been a trend that is dangerous, not only for individual believers, but for the church itself.
It is the idea that being a Christian is not something of a mind exercise, but rather is all about the heart. Or for some, they would want a mystical experience, but not have to think too deeply. But loving God is not only about the heart, or only about having nice feelings towards him, because if our love for not grounded in a the truth of scripture, the Word he has given, we are likely to have a faith that wavers as our feelings change.
Peter talks a lot about the trials, and he also talks about our need to have an answer for those who may want to learn about our faith, and this means believers must prepare our minds in the faith. Certainly believers may experience deep feelings throughout their life of faith, sometimes these feelings are very deep and move us to worship. Sometimes they move us to service. But apart from understanding the word, believers cannot trust feelings alone. Our faith must be grounded in a logical understanding of God’s word, so that we can understand him and his ways.
We see this throughout scripture. Our D6 signs in both building have Deuteronomy 6:4-9 on them. A reminder to teach the word of God to each other. That means teaching his commandments and law. Learning these helps us understand God’s holiness and our depravity. God provided his people knowledge. He said without knowledge the people perish. Hos4.6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
They needed to know the rules to live by (the law), God provided prophets as guides. The people needed to know what these writings said. Living for God meant putting the mind to work. We are not to be lazy minded people.
We need to know God, and he has given us a way to know him through his word. The phrase Peter uses, translated to preparing your minds, means quite literally, “gird up the loins of your minds” (explain robes). You gird up your robes to get ready to work or to run. We are to prepare our minds for action.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
All throughout scripture we are told to know God, and put our minds to work. Yet, may who claim to be Christians have been lazy in their learning. Some refuse to even go deeper in their knowledge of the Savior. And could this be a sign they do not really belong to him?
I heard once that marriage is a lifelong pursuit of knowledge about your spouse. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about them, there are surprises. You learn new things about them. If you love someone, you want to know them better all the time. You want to better understand them, know what pleases them, know what makes them sad. Know what makes them angry.
This knowledge, put to good use, brings harmony to the relationship. People who hardly know each other may survive together, but they will not experience the harmony that knowledge driven by love brings into that relationship. A loveless marriage may be evident in a lack of knowledge spouses have about each other, and a marriage about to fall may be evidenced by a total lack of curiosity about who their spouse is.
I once heard it said that one evidence of a person who truly has saving faith in Jesus is a great desire to know Him better, a great desire to go deeply inot his word. So Peter says, preparing your minds for action. This faith, to be the most exciting and full, requires the full investment of the mind! Preparing our minds for action and being sober-minded. Grudem
1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary 1. Desire the Beauty of Being like a Holy God (1:13–16)
Be sober forbids not only physical drunkenness but also (since the phrases before and after have to do with attitudes of mind) letting the mind wander into any other kind of mental intoxication or addiction which inhibits spiritual alertness, or any laziness of mind which lulls Christians into sin through carelessness (or ‘by default’)
Once again, 1Pet1.13
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.
With our minds set right, and committing to being intellectually invested entirely in our pursuit of knowing God, we set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. This hope is not like we often use the word, as in, “I hope we finish out this hurricane season without any issues”. Or, “I hope gas prices go down”. No, this is a hope that is so sure, not just a wish, but a hope that we take action on.
We only have gotten through one verse, so let us continue:
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
Now, I have already pretty much covered our need to put our minds into this faith, and now Peter contrasts that mind of a faithful person with what they were before believing: Ignorance.
This ignorance is not only intellectual. Someone may have had knowledge of God and still lived against his will in following the passions of the flesh. The ignorance is not mere intellectual ignorance, it was ignorance of the danger of the wrath of God against sin, ignorance of the true weight of sin, ignorance of the means God has provided for salvation through faith alone.
But really this sort of ignorance is self-inflicted. People are willingly ignorant, scripture teaches us. In our sin nature, we are quite good at suppressing the truth that we have. But in Christ, we are no longer in our ignorance, so we are not to live as we did before the Spirit of God broker through our ignorance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and caused us to be born again to this living hope.
So Peter reminds believers that the call to be holy, which God gave to his people all the way back when he passed down his written law, has never been revoked. You shall be holy, for I am holy. The believer is charged with this. And even though none of us can say we perfectly keep this charge, yet we are to pursue this. Thankfully for the believer, we have a righteousness that is not our own, but the very righteousness of Christ.
So we ought to pursue holiness. The meaning here is clear: Our comparison, when it comes to holiness, is God himself. And we know what a danger we may find ourselves when instead of considering our holiness in light of God’s standards and instead compare ourselves to a human standard, we will be deceived.
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
We call on him as Father. And our heavenly father is perfect in his judgments. Most fathers will admit they have made unfair judgments at times against their children. I certainly have. But the heavenly father is perfect in his judgments.
None of his children will ever be able to say he was unjust. He judges impartially according to each one’s deeds. And so we are to conduct ourselves with fear.
Grudem:
1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary 2. Fear the Displeasure of a Father Who Is an Impartial Judge (1:17–21)
Fear of God is not inconsistent with loving him or knowing that he loves us. If it were, we would have to say that Old Testament believers who feared God could not also have loved him—which is clearly false—or that God did not love them—which is also clearly false. Rather, fear of displeasing our Father is the obverse side of loving him.
The fear here recommended is … a holy self-suspicion and fear of offending God, which may not only consist with assured hope of salvation, and with faith, and love, and spiritual joy, but is their inseparable companion … This fear is not cowardice: it doth not debase, but elevates the mind; for it drowns all lower fears, and begets true fortitude and courage to encounter all dangers, for the sake of a good conscience and the obeying of God.
fear…when? Throughout the time of your exile. Remember from last week’s passage. Christians are exiles in their own countries. Peter again and again likes to remind believers that they are in enemy territory until Christ comes again. We must conduct ourselves in such a way like one behind enemy lines would. With caution, and thinking through our actions with an awareness of danger.
Next we are reminded with a glimpse of the price of our salvation.
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
If you were to ask a lot of people what the most imperishable things are, they may very well say silver and gold. They are highly valued in part because people might say they are imperishable. Gold and silver can be melted and reformed but not really destroyed. They don’t rust or corrode.
However, compared to gold and silver, the blood of Jesus is far more precious. To a lame man looking for a coin, the power of Jesus to heal provde more valuable. Acts3.6
But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”
To the one lost in their sin, gold and silver may give a momentary comfort. They may provide a temporary security, but the blood of Jesus proves to be far more precious. Jesus was like a lamb without blemish or spot. Here is a picture of the sacrifices, particularly the paschal lamb. (explain)
He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
This salvation was provided before the foundation of the world, but to believers, he has made it clear that Jesus is the Savior of mankind, and God raised Jesus so that our hope would be in God
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Over and over again in the New Testament, we see the call to love, especially in the church. This should be the natural result of having our souls purified by our obedience to the truth. If we are obedient to the truth, and we love God, and if, as Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, then love towards others in the church should be the natural outflow of that.
Jesus taught that the great commandments are to love God and love neighbor. He prayed that the church would have unity just as He and the Father had unity. This would be an evidence to the world of the truth of the gospel.
We are born again by something imperishable. Again, we covered Peter’s use of that term last week, but you can see this is a big part of his motivation to believers, that we be reminded that being born again into faith in Jesus Christ is something that will not die. This present life, the present state we are in will die, but we have a living hope.
for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
Once again we are reminded that the Word of God is paramount in the Christian life. Calvin:
Calvin: Commentaries 1. The Word of God
And this is the word declared to you. Peter first warns us that when the Word of God is mentioned, we do wrong to imagine something far away, up in the air or in heaven beyond; for the Lord himself has shown it to us. What then is the Word of God which gives us life; what but the law, the prophets, and the gospel? Anyone who wanders away from this revelation will find, instead of God’s Word, nothing but Satan’s impostures and madness. Therefore, we must keep carefully in mind that godless and devilish men have a crafty way of pretending to honor God’s Word, when they turn us away from the Scriptures; like that dirty dog Agrippa, who praised the eternity of God’s Word to high heaven, and at the same time heaped mockery on the prophets and the apostles; in his deceitful way, he covered the Word of God with derision.
In short, as I have already told you, nothing is said here of a Word shut up in God’s bosom. We have to do with the Word which came forth from God’s mouth and was given to us. So once again, we are to acknowledge that God’s will is to speak to us by the mouths of the apostles and prophets, and that their mouths are to us as the mouth of the only true God.
Therefore, when Peter says, the word which has been declared to you, he means that we must not look for the Word of God anywhere except in the preaching of the gospel; and that we cannot know the power of its eternity except by faith. But we do not believe unless we know that the Word was destined for us.
Big Idea: Believers set their hope fully on grace
Big Idea: Believers set their hope fully on grace
