Live Like You Are Saved

A Glorious Salvation

1 Peter 1:2 KJV 1900

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

1 Peter 1:3 KJV 1900

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

1 Peter 1:4 KJV 1900

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

1 Peter 1:13 KJV 1900

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

Wherefore refers back to that wonderful, glorious salvation and Peter now builds upon this as a foundation and begins instructing the readers in how to live like the salvation that they already possess and that Christ will ultimately fulfill completely in their lives.

It results in the:

Right Hope

Right Conduct

Right Worship

This evening, we want to focus in on the first of these, the

Right Hope

In verse 13, there is only one true verb and it is an imperative - Set your hope on the grace

The other words translated as verbs in verse thirteen are participles that modify and explain this one command. They are the building blocks of how to have the right hope:

1 Peter 1:13 KJV 1900

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

First, Building Block One:

Right Thinking will result in the right hope

Gird up the Loins - Think straightly

First century workers wore long, flowing robes. In order to work, the person would tuck that robe into their belt so that their legs were freed to work.

Here Peter uses the word picture to talk about thinking straightly, making sure that we are thinking like the Bible.

Overall, Peter is urging his readers, with minds made ready for unhindered, clear, sober, self-possessed thought (in other words, in full possession of their faculties), to set their hope firmly, fully, and finally on the goal of possessing the promised inheritance.

Robert E. Picirilli, “Commentary on the Books of 1 and 2 Peter,” in James, 1, 2 Peter, & Jude, ed. Robert E. Picirilli, First Edition., The Randall House Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications, 1992), 123.

It is very easy for us to allow our circumstances and the world around us change ou rthinking. Instead, we need to recall that our hope is in heaven, not here on earth - and as a result, our thinking must be in a long-term eternal perspective.

Colossians 3:2 KJV 1900

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Colossians 3:3 KJV 1900

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

We need to think straightly and Biblically in order to have the right hope:

For example, how do we think about money/riches?

We could exhibit any of the following worldly attitudes: greedy, spendthrift, debt, miser, workaholic

Or a Biblical mindset might be: we are a steward of God’s money, so we need to be diligent, trusing God, giving, investing not in our self - but in advancing the gospel of the Lord. This does not mean that we are spending without thoguht of tomorrow, nor that we are hoarding up and saving - but we need to think straightly - both planning for the future and laying up treasure in heaven.

This is just one example, there are other areas where we need Biblical thinking - children, marriage, work, church, entertainment, politics, social justice, even sports - all of these require that we think straightly - as Peter puts it, gird up the loins of our minds.

Building block number two is:

Right Discipline will result in the right hope

1 Peter 1:13 KJV 1900

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

Be Sober

This phrase also refers to our thoughts, but carries with it the idea of thinking clearly and not in a “mental fuzziness.”

If we are not careful, the world around us with its cares and its problems can overwhelm our thinking and we end up going through life either in a daze where we don’t really recognize what is going on - we feel as if we are in a fog.

Or many times, we go through life thinking we are seeing straight, but a habit or a wrong assumption about God results in a smudged perspective on the world.

I wear both contacts and glasses, but for this illustration - I am talking about glasses.

Have you ever been in a hot, moist area and then stepped into a cool area - and your glasses immediately fog up? Sometimes we are thinking that way and we know it.

But more often, I think the worldly thinking and attitudes around us are like a smudge on our glasses - a thin film that obscures what we are seeing, but we don’t really notice it. — until we take them off and look at them - maybe then clean them off and suddenly the entire world looks differently.

As Christians, we need to remember that our hope is in heaven - we need both right thinking and right discipline to aid us in remembering and trusting in the right hope - as Peter states it, Hope to the end for the grace that is to come

In illustrating this, Charles Spurgeon relates an interesting story about a historical event in New England:

SEE ARTICLE ABOUT DARK DAY

It is dark. But whatever is going to happen, or whatever is not going to happen, let us be found girded, sober, and hopeful. In these dark political times, these dark religious times, I call for candles. For we mean to go on working.

Live in the hope of the grace that is coming - think straightly and soberly in this dark and troubled world.