Guard Your Hope

1 Peter 1:13 Guard Your Hope Introduction: “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.” Since God has chosen you; Since God has caused you to be born again to a living hope; Since God is keeping an inheritance for you imperishable, undefiled, and unfading; Since God is protecting you through faith so that you won't lose that inheritance; Since God is refining your faith by fire so that it will receive praise and glory and honor; Since prophets and angels are so anxious to see all that God's grace is going to do in your life. Hope fully in the grace that will be brought to you. Peter has put forth hope as the fuel that will ignite our faith and endurance to continue Christ mission in the world. To be a holy people who engage, love, honor and transform the surrounding community. Since this hope is so vital to our Christian life and to that day of Glory it is so important that we protect and guard and cultivate that hope. 1. Guard Your Hope a. "Preparing your minds for action" i. Guard your hope by preparing your mind for action. 1. Hope will not become a reality without disciplined thinking. Thinking in a new way does not happen automatically; it requires effort, concentration, and intentionality. ii. The form of this phrase denotes that a decisive act of personal choice is demanded. This is a Hebrew idiom, literally “gird up the loins of your mind.” In the ancient Near East both men and women wore robes. By reaching through the legs and pulling the back of the robe forward and tucking it into the belt the robe became pants, which allowed strenuous action. 1. Turn the robes of your mind into running shorts. Pull them up between your legs and tuck them into your belt, is what Peter is saying. 2. In our day Peter would be saying something like, roll the sleeves up.. Get ready to work. But physical work is not his focus, but mental work, the work of the mind. b. Being sober-minded i. Believers set their hope completely on the grace to be brought to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ by being sober-minded. ii. Peter is not talking about drunkenness (although it would include that), but he uses a metaphor for mental alertness and level headedness. iii. There is a way of living that becomes dull to the reality of God, that is numbed by the attractions of this world. When people are lured into such drowsiness, they lose sight of Christ's future revelation of himself and concentrate only on fulfilling their earthly desires.- Schreiner 1. Often times after we read about some great atrocity that has been committed or see a gripping documentary, or hear a compelling speech or sermon we use this term. “How was that film?” We answer, “Sobering.” We don’t mean to say that we were drunk before hand, but that the film, article, or sermon has brought us back to the true reality of things. This is what Peter is talking about. 2. It means, if you really want to obey the command to hope fully in God's grace, don't let your mind drink in things that numb the mind (and heart) to the value of God's grace. The great problem with drunkenness is that it distorts reality by making the mind insensitive to what is true and real and valuable. a. Peter is calling Christians to be constantly fixing their minds on the true reality of things. This will cause us to hope fully in that Day of Salvation. 2. Guard Your Mind with Truth a. We Believe the Truth of God to be the ultimate reality. i. Paul in Ephesians 6, practically says the same thing, “Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH.” -(NASB) ii. There is a false reality that Peter warns us against, “do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” 1. How is life before Christ ignorant? a. No understanding of origin, no concept of true purpose, and a false desired end goal. It is total ignorance about the whole purpose of life. b. Because of this we look to created things to give us hope, peace, joy, ultimate satisfaction, meaning, and purpose. Which is essentially idolatry. iii. There is also a true reality. The Bible presents itself as God’s message to us of the true reality of things. iv. And Paul says, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” -Romans 15:4 1. Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.. a. Which means we were created for fellowship/relationship with God; the reason that we and the rest of the world are so screwed up is because we have been separated from God by sin; God loved us so much that he sent his son (Jesus Christ) to pay for our sin, by dying in our place on the cross; through Christ work he will ultimately redeem and restore all things and he invites us to be a part of that. b. Get the truth of God’s word in your mind, see things through the lens of scripture. For God’s word is the testimony of the truth. c. It is so important to get the word of God into our hearts and minds, it works just like a good bath. It washes away the lies and counterfeits that we are bombarded with everyday. i. It cleanses us, it washes our minds, and causes us to think clearly. v. What does this sober thinking look like practically? 1. As an Example: Our Culture presents the sexual experience as an identity, and a way of life. The scripture tells us specifically, “The Body was not made for sexual immorality, but for the Lord.” It also teaches that sex is good, and created by God to be enjoyed within the confines of heterosexual marriage. (Gen 2) a. But Christian men and women fall into this trap over and over again (both married and single). They believe the lie that there is some experience that they are missing out on and only if they were with the right person, doing the right thing then they would be satisfied. b. “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward … promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S Lewis i. The Bible’s claim is that God has so much better for us, than we even have for ourselves.... Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, men have never imagined what God has prepared for those that love him.... ii. The scripture says, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” -Psalm 16:11 1. You can only be satisfied and fulfilled by the one who created you when you do what he created you to do, which is to glorify him. iii. When we are fulfilled in God, all things find their proper place.. So guard your hope. iv. “Sex, of course, is not the only drug that intoxicates and numbs the mind to spiritual reality; the same can be true of money and career and power and romance novels and soap operas and TV advertisements and fishing and coin collecting and computers and rehabbing and gardening. The point is: know what numbs your mind to God and avoid it. Stay sober for the sake of full and passionate hope in God's grace.” - Piper Conclusion: The great concern of God in this passage of his Word is that we not be moderate hopers. That we not be satisfied with half-hoping hearts. But that we engage our minds with the hope-producing truth of Scripture, and that we guard our minds from the hope-diminishing causes in the world. Let’s make it our aim in whatever counsel we give one another that we are holding out Jesus, and the glory that will be revealed as our ultimate hope. There maybe lesser hope’s that will bring joy and relief at times but may they be a taste for us of the ultimate joy and relief and never a substitute. Let's do it together as a church. “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.”