Holy Living

The first command — “set your hope…on the grace…at the revelation of Jesus.”

Final salvation, completed at the return of Christ, culmination of His kingdom, His reign.

My hope must be centered on the certainty of eternity with Christ, not the world which is in a state of constant decay.

How? Two clauses:

“Minds ready for action” = it’s always game time.

“Sober-minded” = thinking clearly.

Ready to act based on reality, not clouded by emotional thinking, ignorance, comfort, or ease.

The second command — “do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance.”

We are now obedient children, adopted by God — new name, so represent it well!

Second, it is assumed we WILL BE obedient children.

We once walked in ignorance, “we didn’t know any better.”

I was once disciplined because I didn’t know that shooting a goat with a bb gun wasn’t the best way to get it back in the pen!

How will you know better? Be transformed through a renewed mind!

Actually, we are called to holiness — to be set apart.

We’ll work it in reverse — first, God is holy, so we are called to be holy. A unique God calls out for Himself a unique people.

Holiness calls us to be different and to belong to God, not necessarily to be perfect.

The phrasing actually indicates that God does this work in us, makes us holy (i.e., HE sets us apart for HIS purposes).

We are holy people when we walk, as obedient children, in God’s will and purpose for us — it’s a bout Him, not me.

Verse 17 — there’s a lot to unpack here…appealing to the Father, who is also a judge, how we then should live, what reverence means, and this idea of strangers. So…let’s work through it, and we begin to get into the crux of salvation and Easter as a whole!

Appeal to the Father — the idea is to “invoke the divine name for protection.” If you run to God as your only hope in life…Peter’s saying if you come to God to be saved, here’s what you need to know.

He judges impartially according to your work. But, Peter’s already noted:

“Be holy in all your conduct.”

And, he says here, “conduct yourselves in reverence.”

Our behavior should match our new name. Maybe you grew up in a family where your father set a certain family, and you “best not bring shame upon the family name.”

He judges impartially — we don’t get away with behavior that would be condemned in others. This leads us to...

Conducting ourselves in reverence.

It’s not that we are gripped with paralyzing fear, but we should live with a sober-minded understanding of both God’s grace and hatred for sin.

As children, we don’t fear removal from the family, but how many of you were guarded as a child by the righteous hand of the wrath of your dad?

We are strangers…sojourners…away from our home.

Brings together a few ideas…obedient children who are appealing to our Father, and we’ll get more into in a moment — being born again.

We’ve been born new and adopted, and we have a tendency to think of these things as individual affairs and past possessions instead of present realities.

You have a new Father — so honor Him.

You have a new family — so love/embrace them.

You have a new future — so embrace your forever home, not this temporary one.

Our former life was empty, inherited from our forefathers.

Sin is the human predicament inherited from Adam.

Sin promises a full life, but it only empties us.

We’ve been redeemed — bought with a price.

The price has been paid to liberate us, for God to have us as His own again.

The price was the precious blood of Jesus.

Contrasting the actually lasting and valuable elements of gold and silver.

The blood of Christ was even more valuable.

Notice how Jesus is portrayed as the priceless and premiere Passover Lamb.

The Passover lamb was normally chosen on the tenth of Nisan, but Jesus was chosen before the world’s foundation.

The Passover lamb was sacrificed (revealed) on the 14th of Nisan, but Jesus was revealed as the Lamb through His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection!

Salvation through Christ, who enables us to believe in God, so that hope and faith are in God, implying He gets the glory. Thinking through 1 Peter so far:

I have an eternal salvation/inheritance secured by Christ.

I am called to live holy, which is evidenced in obedient living.

Obedient living ultimate comes to fruition in loving others.

All of this stems from the fact that we’ve been born again through the living/enduring word.

How does this word come? Through the preaching of the Word.

Similar to Rom.10:9-15 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”

So, what can we take away from this passage?

I need to attach my hope to eternity. This seems simple enough, but I can’t do it if I’m not dealing with things honestly and thinking about them truthfully (sober-minded).

Am I in God’s word?

Am I stopping long enough to think about what is true vs. simply how I feel about something?

My disposition must be set to the ready. Not only must my thinking be clear, but I’ve got to be motivated and moved to action by the truth. My hope is fixed on eternity, and my trust isn’t in my circumstances, and my “Yes!” is given to God even before He presents me with an opportunity to obey.

If I’m ignorant, I’ll be disobedient. I need to strive for competence and knowledge, of God’s will as revealed in His word, as His obedient child.

Am I cultivating a sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Am I diligent to ingest Scripture?

Man, I need to strive for more than compliance…I need to aim for willing obedience. A compliant child will do what is asked, but an obedient child seeks out his father’s will!

I need to adopt God’s standards and reject the world’s. Obviously we must adopt God's standards of righteousness and His way of "doing" things -- how the home should function, how the church should be governed, how to parent, how to disciple, etc. However, it will also require using Spirit-led wisdom to determine what things can/should be embraced/avoided in an ever-changing world. We don't need to reject just because, but we should probably be more discerning than what we are. Is every new thing worth embracing/rejecting just because it's new?

I am a sojourner here, and I’ve got to live for my forever home. My guard should constantly be up against being fixated on this world and life.

I can’t keep buying the lie that sin will fulfill me. It doesn’t. It only empties. There is a huge temptation that there is something outside of God’s will that brings lasting satisfaction. But, if it were so satisfying, why do we have to keep running back to those same ol’ things, trying to get the tank filled again?

Finally, have you repented and trusted in the work of the better Passover Lamb who was chosen before the world’s foundation, crucified publicly, and whom God raised from the dead, a final exclamation point on the birth, life, death, and superiority of Jesus the Messiah?