Hope-fueled Obedience - Part 1 (1 Peter 1.13–21)

Peter is writing to believers who are facing persecution and rejection as foreigners in their land. He encourages them to set their hope on God's future grace and to be holy in all they do. Their present hope is fueled by God's future grace and grounded in the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ. Peter challenges them to be spiritually prepared for the difficulties they will face and to live in obedience to God's word. He emphasizes the importance of their personal relationship with God, their relationships with other Christians, and their collective life as a church. Their hope in God's grace results in obedience and transformation into God's likeness. Peter reminds them of the coming of the Lord and urges them to be prepared and to anticipate the superabundant grace that awaits them. We will be reading this morning verses 13 all the way to 21 of chapter 1 of 1 Peter. We begin our study of this epistle a few weeks ago, five weeks ago or six weeks ago if we count Resurrection Sunday, but we are now going into the practical part of this passage and there's a lot to unpack there. So let's read verses 13 all the way to 21. Peter writes, Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. As obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you live in ignorance, but just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. Since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God. For all people are like grass, and all their glory is like flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word that was preached to you. Let us pray. Dear Father, thank you for this morning and this opportunity. Now we have to study your Word, to examine, to be challenged by it. We do pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us. I pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would use me, an imperfect and sinful instrument, that your perfect and sinless Word may challenge us, convict us. We pray, Lord, that we would obey you, that we would desire to be more like you. Amen. Amen. We are still in the year of COVID-19, although it's 21, right? So it was COVID-19, COVID-20, 21. There are different variances, different things like that. But I remember last year before the lockdown. I don't know if you remember. It was around March, April, right before we were celebrating the resurrection of the Lord, actually, remember? And it was around that time. And I remember they began speculating what was going to happen. And then I remember going to the store, Walmart, and not being able to find toilet paper because a guy like that was taking all the toilet paper. I don't know if you face the same thing. I am thankful for my wife because she is a very thoughtful person, and she is always prepared for the most part. You know, I wouldn't have thought about toilet paper. After all, you know, much newspaper today doesn't have much use anymore. So, anyways, but, yeah, you know, but, you know, you see that guy, he's ready to face the lockdown and different things, and they went, got prepared, got ready for the difficult time. So did my wife and many of you too. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was one here, at least one here, or a couple or in other places that, ah, it's okay. You didn't worry about being prepared or anything like that. And then you went to the store and realized that you will have to be satisfied with the newspaper because you couldn't find anything. You see, some people, because they did not take the lockdown seriously, were not prepared to face the difficulties that came with the virus and different things. A lot of people lack many things in difficult situations, challenging situations. It is wise to be prepared. But why do I mention this? You see, the passage we just read in 1 Peter has often been taken as a passage that speaks about general things that Christians ought to pursue. You have to be holy, you have to be obedient to God's Word, you have to do these things. But often we take these passages outside of their context. But we have to look at this passage, and I will attempt to do that in the context of the book we just read. I've told you before that it would be impossible for us and for me to truly do justice to the book of 1 Peter. Why? Because our situation and our context is not similar to those of Peter's readers. We've talked about suffering, it'll come. But, you know, we'll talk about submitting to the authorities. And I keep bringing this example before, when Peter writes to the slaves and he tells them, submit to your masters, we'd like to apply that passage to our work situation. And we say, yeah, you know, what's the principle? You've got to submit to your authorities and all of that. And we do that because that's the best we can do. The reality is that we cannot apply completely the book of Peter to us. We'll do our best, but there are some things that just don't work because of our situation. You see, I've said this repeatedly and I will say it again, to submit to your boss is nothing. It doesn't even compare to a slave submitting to their masters. This slave didn't have any right. The master owned him. We have records of the Romans, masters who took the slaves' wives, raped them, made their own. And the slave couldn't say anything. So it's kind of, in lack of a better word, ironic and ridiculous to think that by submitting to your boss, you are actually following Peter's first command here in the same manner. It is not. You can sue your boss. You can put him to jail. And in America, which is sue-crazy, you can actually get quite wealthy. The comparison is not the same. But that doesn't mean that Peter doesn't have any relevance to us. He has a lot. And we'll do our best with the things that we can do. We looked at a few passages before, but now we have arrived. Peter is writing to believers in a very hostile environment. These people to whom Peter is writing are actually literally aliens in the countries they are. We just read in this passage, in verse 17, "...since you call on a father who judges each person's work impartially, leave out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear." And we like to take that word spiritually. We like to spiritualize it. Foreigners, you know, we do not belong to this land. Our city is a heavenly city. No, he's writing to actual foreigners in their land who are being ostracized and rejected because they are immigrants. They're refugees. I take the Bible quite literally. Yes, he will use this reality to talk about their heavenly city. But Peter is writing to refugees who have escaped the persecution of some Jews. They are dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. They've been ostracized mainly because of their faith in Christ. But they're also being ostracized because they do not belong where they are. They're foreigners. They are aliens. And they're suffering great persecution. We will learn a little more. Their stuff are being pillaged and different things and all of that. And it is after in this context that Peter writes to them. And he says, therefore, that therefore comes after the passage we just read of our salvation, which is imperishable, kept in heaven, and we ourselves are kept after those beautiful truths. He says, therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to evil desires you have when you live in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. That's the command. Yes, it applies to us in every situation. But the situation in which this commandment of Christian character is given is in the context of suffering, persecution, rejection. That's when he tells them to do these things. So what's the connection then? Why did I put COVID and why do I tell you this? What is the connection? Well, the connection is that we need to be spiritually prepared to face the difficulties that this world brings to us. Whatever the difficulties are, we need to be spiritually prepared. Usually we don't make a connection of our spiritual preparation. We think of material preparation and other things. But do I have to be spiritually prepared to face the difficulties, the persecution, all of that that comes because of our faith? And that is the point of this passage. That is the context in which Peter says, Be holy because I am holy. Set your hope on the grace to be brought. 17. Live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. There's three things that he commands the disciples to be prepared. Set your hope on the grace that is to be brought. Be holy in all you do. Live out your time as refugees, foreigners, aliens in reverent fear. These are the spiritual resources that God has given us in the time of difficulty. So we need to be prepared. Peter's readers were likely to face opposition from the hostile society run about them. And in the second part of the letter, Peter will tell them what they are to do when they're actually in the world and facing hostility. But in this first part, which goes all the way to verse 10 of chapter 2 from verse 13 of chapter 1, in this first part he instructs them on how to be prepared and equipped spiritually for what lies ahead of them. This is the heart of Peter's message in this section of this letter. And it's concerned with three areas. Our personal life as Christians in relationship to God. How we are to behave individually in relationship to God, verses 13 to 21. How we are to behave individually in relationships to other Christians, verse 22 of chapter 1 to verse 3 of chapter 2. And how are we to behave and to live collectively as a church, united. Well, that's verses 4 and 10. This morning we'll look at the first part. How are we to behave? How are we to live? How are we to be prepared in the face of difficulties individually in relationship to God? You'll notice there's a change of imperatives. He's been praising God and doing things. Now Peter is going to be giving them commandments. He's going to tell them, do this, do that. And that makes sense. First he talked about the gospel. Now he's going to tell them what they need to do. That makes sense. Why? Because first we need to hear the gospel. First we need to hear of what God has graciously done for us. And only then we can respond in obedience to Him. Obedience is not possible without belief. Not in the manner that honors God in the gospel. So some of God's spiritual resources then that we need to face, that we need in the face of difficulties and opposition are, as we will see, our hope in God's future, God's holiness as it is resembled in our lives, and then, you know, we just looked at the fear of God. Indeed, as we study this passage, it will become clear that our hope in God's grace results. It is what fuels our obedience to God's Word, which in turn transforms us into God's likeness. So, I don't want to take too much of my time speaking about these introductions, but I have planned actually to only talk about my first or my second point of this sermon, because I want to take my time. And the first thing that we learn from this passage that I want to take is, and the first challenge that I want to give you, is that with vigor and alertness, hope in the future grace of God. In verse 13, after having spoken of our salvation that is kept in heaven by God, of our hope in Jesus Christ and our hope of His second coming, Peter writes, therefore, as a consequence of what I have just told you, therefore, with mind, before he gives the commandments, he gives a lot of qualifications, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. The title for my sermon today is not hopeful, but hope-fueled obedience. Our everyday life, it's a life that is fueled the way you do business, the way you work, the way you relate to your family, to your children. All of that is fueled by a hope we have. In this case, the object of that hope is God's future grace. He says, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ comes. It's a life about hope. And our hope is the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The second coming of the Lord is one of the cardinal doctrines of the faith. I'm going to throw here something that might be controversial for some. Not whether it's pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, mid-tribulation. That's not an essential doctrine of the faith. Every Christian who is a believer believes in the second coming of the Lord. That is a doctrinal essential of the faith. That is our hope. But he qualifies that. Before he talks about that hope, before he develops, he says a few things, right? He says, with minds that are alert and fully sober. What does that mean? Well, he's telling us that our present hope grants us vigor and sobriety. It is because of that hope, actually, that we are alert. Although God gives his grace to Christians here and now, the particular experience of grace that Peter has in mind here will be known only at the end of the journey. Christians will not reach the goal without living appropriately. Now, I'm not preaching salvation by works, but sometimes we are so confident of our eternity that we ignore the way we live. It doesn't go that way. In this passage, Peter's readers are summoned to a vigorous activity. As a matter of fact, and it's not so apparent in the NIV translation because it's a little more, they use more like an idiomatic expression, which is a good translation, but actually the text literally says, geared up your minds. When it says, with minds that are alert and fully sober, the text literally says, geared up your minds. It's almost like it's telling you, hey, put a belt or something around your mind. What does that mean? Well, if you understand the picture, in the first century, both among the Romans and the Jewish people, they didn't wear pens. They wore dresses, long ropes, and whenever they were getting ready to work or to do some sort of an activity, to run or to do some important work, they would lift up their ropes and they'd tie it up very hard like a belt, something like that. That was the process of gearing up, getting ready to do something, be prepared. And then they could run, they could do their works, and things like that. So what Peter is saying here is something like our modern equivalent to roll up your sleeves and get down to hard work. Let's roll up our sleeves and let's get down to hard work. That's what he says as he thinks about this hope. In other words, the Christian life requires preparation, diligence. Yes, we have a hope, but it is this hope that fuels the way we live. We're geared up, we get prepared, spiritually. But the other thing that I just said is our present hope is fueled by God's future grace. That's interesting. He says, therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. I want to pause here and think a little bit about that. When we think of the grace of God, we often think of what God has done for us. What is the grace of God? God's unmerited favor to you. You don't deserve it. As a matter of fact, you deserve the opposite. You deserve His judgment. You don't deserve it. He's given us salvation. Paul will write in chapter 2, For by grace you have been saved. Almost like a past event, right? You've been saved, you've been forgiven, you've been redeemed. But now Peter talks of God's grace as something future. He says, set your hope on the future grace of Jesus Christ, or the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. It is important that you don't lose sight of God's future grace. We might run the mistake of focusing so much in God's past grace. When you focus so much in God's past grace, you may have the temptation, God has done all of this to me that I don't deserve, and thinking that you can just do with your life whatever you want afterward. God was gracious. He's done. He's forgiven you all of these things, past, present, and future sins. We might have that temptation, but when you think of God's future grace, what God will do for you, perhaps the motivation is a little different. You are grateful not just for what He has done, but what He will do. It is worth noting, again, that Peter constantly thinks of what will be bestowed by God in the future at the second coming of Jesus. Peter is constantly challenging his readers, encouraging them to live their lives here with the assurance that Jesus is coming back. What ought to motivate a believer is the reality that the Lord is coming back, and it's coming with superabundant grace. More and greater blessings are in store for Christians than we at present enjoy. And one of the incentives for Christians living today should be our sense of anticipation of what God will give to us at the end. This is particularly relevant for Peter's readers, but for us too. You see, here's the thing you need to understand. These Christians, they don't have anything to lose with the coming of our Lord. They have actually so much to gain. They have nothing. They've been ostracized, rejected, persecuted, foreigners, refugees. You've never been a refugee, that's why you don't understand. They have nothing. They're crying out, Come, Lord Jesus. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus. We don't have the same attitude and the same drive or the same expectation because we have too much to lose. We're comfortable. We have it good. I have it good. You see, but that changes our perspective, right? Are we ready for the coming of the Lord? Are we praying that He comes back? Are we joining the church of the 1st and 2nd and 3rd century Maranatha? Yes, Lord Jesus, come back. Do we even realize what the future grace of God is? It is amazing. If you think of what God has forgiven you, what He has done in Christ in the past, imagine what He's going to do in His coming. Peter writes, With minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you. It is a grace for you. When? When Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. And it is only after that that He will tell them, as obedient children, But we will reserve that for next week. What I want to say, and the last thing is that our present hope is grounded in the death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ. At the end of this passage, in verse 21, he says, Through Him, through Jesus Christ, you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him. And so your faith and hope are in God. Our faith and hope is in God because Jesus died and rose again and He lives. That's why I said at the beginning, our hope in God's grace, His future grace, results in obedience now to God's word, which is the fuel that challenges us to be holy, to be transformed into God's likeness. Even though our context is different, we will never understand this passage with the same power that Peter's readers did. We are intruders into this communication between the pastor and his church. But my challenge to you is this. Expect and dream and pray for the coming of the Lord. Don't get too comfortable to hear. Don't get too enamored with this life. I'm not saying don't enjoy your life. I believe God is good. He's so gracious that He's given us gifts. And I think we can enjoy even the wealth He's given us and different things like that. God is a God of beauty, of power, of wealth. Otherwise, why did He make the world so colorful, beautiful, birds, all of that? To enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that. But don't enjoy it too much. That you forget His people. And that you don't crave for His coming. Because it is His coming that is our hope that changes the way we live now. So, as I said before, live today in light of what is to come. And may that change your life and mine as well.