God Calls Me to be Aware and Ready for Action in My Christian Life
1 Peter 1:13-21
(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes are throughout sermon)
Turn to 1 Peter 1:13-21. We are continuing our study, starting in 1 Peter 1:13. As you are turning there I want us to be reflecting upon the fact that a very important part of our Christianity is about resting in Christ. If you are not having a comforting assurance of what it means to be resting in Christ, then you are not understanding what being inducted into the New Covenant actually means in its fullness. Our rest is like this:
We rest in Christ as our New Covenant Sabbath, (Hebrews 4:3, Matthew 11:28-29, 5:17)
In Him, we cease from working to gain favor from God. Christ Jesus is the grace place. In Him, we rest because we know that we are safe and secure in the safe and secure one. We rest because He rests. Think about this: He is the One Who is stable. He is the One who Saves. So when it comes to our rescue (salvation), we rest in Christ from doing personal works to try to make God accept us. Why? Because He has already done the work of making His elect acceptable. In Christ, we rest from our despair and anguish from a futile life of lostness in sin. God wants us to settle into our rest in our loving, saving, and empowering, Savior, as we live in the inexpressible joy of our salvation. As we settle in, and settle down, it is important to realize that God does not want us to be idle. Resting and being idle are not always the same thing. For example, Christ has rested from the anguish of the work of the cross, but Christ is not idle and inactive. Christ is still working. In respect to your Christianity, the same kind of thing is true. God does not want you, or me, to be idle while we abide in the everlasting sabbath. This is what our passage is concerned with this morning. Let's read it now,
"13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, 'You shall be holy, because I am holy.' 17 And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you 21 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." 1 Peter 1:13-21
Please prepare your heart to learn, along with me, from this sermon. The theme is:
God Calls Me to be Aware and Ready for Action in My Christian Life
[prayer]
This morning, I want us to be sensitive to the Spirit's leading concerning our high calling in Christ to be continuously prepared to run for Him while we rest in Him. We should be aware, ready, and moving, in this way of thinking every single day. I want us to explore some solid principles for this.
/1/
The first principle for this awareness, and readiness for action, that I am wanting us to glean is that we must be spiritually alert right now while having a proper perspective on what awaits us later on:
"13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13
Notice that Peter says "Therefore." What Peter is indicating is that everything that he just said is the foundational statement that supports, and leads into, what he is now saying. What the Spirit is telling us, then, is based upon all those previous points:
What were Peter's previous points?
We remember that Peter started out saying that he is preaching to people who have been set apart by the work of the Spirit. He says that they have been set apart for what reason?--For obeying Jesus Christ and being sprinkled with His blood. This is part of what Peter is going into when he gets to our passage. But there is more. The work of the Spirit, that He is doing, is a work that has made you to, and is making you to, operate in Him (the Spirit) in the whole aspect of your Christianity where you do your Christianity. This flows right in with what Peter says next. God caused us to be regenerated through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. God is the one who did this to you. It is His work that He does in, and for, all His elect. Peter has been saying that, in this saving experience, God is the One Who has reserved an eternal inheritance for you, and all Christians, in heaven. Peter is conveying that it is God's work that brings us into the relationship where the work of the Spirit comes out of us. We supernaturally rejoice in these things, even if it is necessary that we may be distressed because of trials. In all of this, the proof of authentic faith will be made manifest on up to, and through, the end. As Peter says this, he knows that your faith is a gift from God. It is His work, as Jesus taught Peter early on,
"9 ... This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." John 6:29
@1 The work of God is that you ___________________ in Jesus Christ whom He has sent. John 6:29
Peter is expanding on this important part of the foundation. This miraculous expression of faith is something that you do because of what God is doing in you. Even though Christ has not been seen by you, as Peter says, and you don't see Him now, you love Him in your faith. It is something that you do. The point is that both the love and the faith that you do are from God. Peter goes on; he explains that the outcome of your faith is your eternal existence in glorious life. This is the hope. Peter reminds us that the prophets foretold this grace that would come to us. All the riches of the gospel that have been brought by men who preach by the Holy Spirit are concerning these things.
We have just heard a brief description of what Peter has just laid out by the Spirit. All those things are the foundation. Now Peter is building on the foundation. Peter says "therefor" as he tells us to do something. If we go the route of the religious but wrong way of thinking, we can believe that we are supposed to do certain things to build the foundation itself. Instead of the love of God coming out by the Spirit, we would be manifesting dead works to try and make God happy so that we can be rewarded. This is not the action that God wants.
{1a}
Grace is the foundation, and so upon God's grace work, and His enablement from it, the first thing the Spirit indicates that we must do is prepare our minds for action. Again, we need to get this part straight before we move on; so pay close attention; We prepare, only because God has already prepared us by enabling us to prepare. Literally, in the Greek, Peter is saying to "gird up the loins of your minds." In that time and culture, "girding up your loins" was an allusion to the practice of taking the lengthy material of the typical garments that people wore, then bringing them up and tucking them in for work. You would do this if you were about to cross a river, or if you were about to go running. You would gird up your loins for effective, unencumbered, activity. The sense is that all of us need to be ready and focused for movement--for action; for actually doing the Christianity that you are because you are in Christ. This is the key for not being taken off guard by the lost world culture each day. We study the word of God as part of this girding that we do in preparing ourselves for action. It gives us preparation in discernment. It give us information for how to proceed, what to believe, and for getting our bearings straight. With our minds girded, we recognize that the lost have completely different motivations, and ambitions, than we do. Peter says that we are no longer there in that futile way of life anymore with its encumbered mind; but Peter also recognizes that we are among the world that exists around us. Whenever you wake up on Monday morning, and you face the day; it could be at work; it could be in the classroom; it could be on the internet; you have just entered into the realm that is populated by those whose minds are consumed with the futile way of life in their lostness. You and I especially know this is true when we leave the fellowship of the saints. We know it as we walk out the door of the bond of peace and unity in the Spirit, into the curse of a world that does not know God. The point is that while we are living on the planet, we are going to face the world; so we need to be ready. We need to gird up the extra material that is draped over our minds that can so easily get in the way and make us stumble. Once it is out of the way, our minds are focused. We are ready to live the intense illuminating Christianity that we are called to express while we await the future hope of glory. When you purposely make yourself ready, then you will move freely in evangelism. When you purposely gird up your mind, then you will be able to avoid the sin that taints your witness in the eyes of others. You will be able to move freely among the world as someone who is separated from the world. This is what we want to do to manifest God's glory out to the lost world culture. We don't want the lost world culture stumbling us with their darkness. But there is more:
{1b}
In this preparation, that is built upon the saving grace of the gospel with its future hope, Peter also says that we are to keep sober in spirit. Peter is not talking about efforts to avoid getting drunk with alcohol, though the Scriptures teach us to avoid chemical drunkenness as part of girding ourselves. This is something different. What the Spirit means is that we must keep from getting drunk with the lost-world right now, while we set our minds on the heavenly things with all the inheritance that awaits us. The principle seems so simple, but too many Christians are stumbling down the path because they do not take it seriously. Getting drunk, with the fascination and participation with the snares of the world, makes you dull, and lethargic, spiritually. You manifest lack of discernment, lack of wisdom, and the silliness of intoxication in a carnal lifestyle that is debilitating to the purity, and stability, that God wants for His people. Our focus becomes fuzzy when we begin operating in such a way as to act as if the futility of the world is more important than it really is. But like I said, it happens all the time to good Christians, and the reason that it does is because they are not girded in their thinking, and sober in spirit. Now think about this: The focus of the world is always fuzzy. God tells us that the "lost" operate in minds of futility, Ephesians 4:17-18. They do things, not realizing that this world, and whatever hope they have in all their false religions, and all their amassed fortunes, and all the pleasures of sin, is really meaningless according to all they want to believe is accomplishment. But the problem is that these same things tempt Christians too. The false religion of humanism can bleed over to stain your hands by tempting you to look at yourself, and the temporal world, as more important than you should. The seduction of lust for fortune tempts Christians to be consumed with getting rich, and having more, and more, in a selfish frenzy. Though we are saved, all the pleasures of sin are seductive temptations that seem like they have so much value when presented to us by the the serpent. When we are ungirded, and drunken, with the things of the world, we can easily forget what is truly meaningful. What is truly meaningful, is your salvation. What is meaningful is the eternal glory that we are part of now and forever as our future hope. The world does not have this, so the world is expected to be this way; but you do have this. This is why Peter goes on to say that we must fix our hope "completely" upon the future while we live the present. The underlying point is that whatever you are going through now, pales in light of eternity. It takes spiritual soberness to see this. Having a guarded, sober, mind is to live in the world, but not of the world, always thoughtful that the time is coming when we will see Christ face to face in our blessed hope that has riches that are beyond our imaginations.
It is like the story of the boy who was shown an Island out in the ocean. He was told that the island is his. It had been purchased for him as a gift. The island was close. To swim to it would only take about 5 minutes--maybe less. All the boy needed to do was casually swim to the island. Once there he would be in need of nothing. This is what he was told. There was a problem though. The boy had heavy weights chained to his body. The man who purchased the island for the boy, loosed the chains of bondage from the boy, and the weight dropped to the ground. Now the boy was freed to swim to his inheritance. As the boy walked toward the edge of the sea shore, he saw two gold bars in the sand. The gold was enough to make him so rich that he could buy practically anything he ever wanted. He picked up the gold bars thinking that he could take them with him to the island. After all, they were not as big as the weight that would not allow him to make it. That weight was gone forever. As he entered the water and began to swim, he notice that he had a great struggle just to keep his head above the water. He swam and swam, but he got very tired very quickly. He was becoming more, and more weary. He was worn out, but he kept telling himself, "I have this gold. It is mine. It is worth the effort." So he kept struggling along with the gold bars in his hands. He began gasping for air as his arms were giving out on him. He knew that his problem was the weight of the bars, but he kept thinking that it is worth it to struggle along like this. But, the bars were too heavy. Finally, just as the boy realized that he was about to drown, and he could not keep his head above the water any longer; he dropped the bars down into the depths of the ocean. Instantly, the boy found that he was easily able to float, and swim, as he effortlessly made his way to the shore of the island that had been promised to him. Once there, the boy related his struggle to the caretaker who had been awaiting the boys arrival. The caretaker smiled and explained to the boy that he had left two brass bars on the shore across the water before boarding his boat. The boy had been clutching what looked like gold, but all along it was only brass. The caretaker then took the boy to see a small piece of his inheritance that awaited him. To the boys amazement, there was a mountain of gold awaiting him that was so huge that he could hardly see around it. As he stood there, he thought about how much time he wasted trying to be satisfied with a few temporal metal bars that looked like gold, but were really brass obstacles that weighed him down, and caused such problems for him in his journey, when all along, the greatest riches imaginable were awaiting him. The bondage of the chained weights of slavery had been released from him and left behind, but the bondage of the seductive, yet worthless weight and cares of the world that he had picked up in his distracting ambitions, had been needlessly inhibiting his journey. Ultimately, they were left behind too; and ironically, their value was practically meaningless in light of what awaited him.
Listen to me: All of us have been set free from the weighty chains of bondage to sin. But, so many lethargic, dull, spiritually inebriated, Christians, are grasping a few brass bars of sinful pursuits that are weighing them down and destroying their victorious living in their journey. They are drunk with the world, and so they thrash and try to swim, but they barely keep their heads above the water. What they think is a blessing is really cursing them. Ultimately, what happens? They are forced to let it all go. But, in the meantime, they are lustfully weighing their selves down with self inflicted problems. The Spirit's point is like a contrast. It is very easy for us to gird our minds toward embracing the wrong things. The contrast is,
What are you girding your mind for?
It is easy to get all caught up in the lost world culture to such an extent, that we get consumed with being girded, ready, and eager, for chunks of the sinful world that we were delivered out of by the Spirit. It is the horrible temptation to think that you need to gird up your Christianity itself because it is getting in your way and keeping you from the compromise that you really want to accomplish. The point is that whenever we keep putting ourselves back in the bondage that we were delivered out of, then the snares of the devil have hooked us. What I mean is that we weigh ourselves down even though we have been freed in Christ. What are some of those snares? John gives us a brief but packed description:
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." 1 John 2:16
This reminds me of something that has recently stung the Christian community around us here in a profound way. It has to do with a Christian family in our area which has been known by multitudes of people as a family oriented, Christ oriented family. The husband and wife have always been admired, and respected, by many Christians. Anyone who knows them, quickly, and assuredly says that they manifest fruits of the Spirit in an exemplary manner. They have wonderful children--seemingly the model Christian family. At least they were. The husband let down the girding. He became drunken with unspeakable sin. Layered upon this, he and his family had quit fellowshipping with the saints in a biblically defined church that preaches the word of God. Ungirded, and drunken, the disease of compromise begins to grow, and you don't even notice the pain until one day it slaps you so hard, you think you are going to die. There are consequences. This family I am talking about tasted those consequences like the choking salt water that is swallowed by weighed down panicked swimmers who are thrashing to keep their heads above water. As a result, these children of God are ending their union that God has joined together in His holy matrimony. It is a tragic divorce. It not only effects them, their children, and the rest of their families, it also effects various churches here and around the world. It effects all those who know them, know of them, and know that they claim the name of Christ. It effects everyone who knows that they claimed to live according to the Bible. It effects everyone who knows that they had claimed to hold a high view of God's design for the family. The point that we can learn from this in a stark way is that this divorce is not the result of the life freeing grace of God that breaks the weighted chains. It is the result of the snares of the devil. It is a result of sinfully seeking the Spirit stifling distractions of all that we were delivered from which is all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. I bring up this example because it touches all of us in a painful manner; but more importantly, I am wanting us to aware that these kinds of things can happen to you too. This is why you must be girded, and sober, while among the world. In the contrast that is made clear in the shadow of the cross, Peter is saying that while we are pilgrims passing through this life, we are existing alongside the lost and their sinful world, and so we must recognize that while we do so, we are the spiritually saved ones who are of a different community. This consistent realization keeps us alert to the dangers of the darkness. It keeps us in battle mode against flowing with the former lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life that we were delivered from. This consistent realization also gets us through the persecution that we experience as Christians. It gets us into the mindset that we are witnesses for Christ manifesting him to the people we associate with. It keeps us seeking biblically defined fellowship, and submission, in committed membership with a real local church. It keeps us from getting so wrapped up in the ambitions of the world, that we put the ambitions of Christ that He has for us, on the shelf; and it keeps us in God's word, where we know that we must be prepared, girded, and sober.
/2/
This ties into the second principle that I am wanting us to glean from the text in God's call for us to be aware, and ready, for action in our Christian Life. This means nonconformity in countercultural defiance against the world, and this means separation that reflects our spirituality,
"14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, 'You shall be holy, because I am holy.'" 1 Peter 1:14-16
@2 In salvation, we are to be holy in _________ our behavior because our Father is holy. 1 Peter 1:14-16
As we look at this part of what Peter is urging, we get the strong sense that spiritual preparation, and action, are manifestations of obedience. When you are obedient, what is going on, is that you are manifesting the fruits of the Spirit "in all your behavior." You are doing what God has designed you to do. There is something important here about what the Spirit is indicating. We really must notice this in a pronounced way; The reason for your obedience has to do with "you" in a certain sense, right? There is no question about that; otherwise, Peter would not be telling us to be holy. But, we must realize that, in a very important sense, our obedience is more about God than us. It is more about Himself and what He is as Who He is. This is very important so we can not miss this: It is from that foundation--the foundation of God; and the foundation of God being holy, that it moves to what we are, and what we do. At the same time, it is also important that we understand that our obedience comes "from" God. He is the one who empowers us, convicts us, and molds us, by the indwelling Spirit, to be obedient. But, again, the Spirit is bringing out a specific point here that goes further into the foundation.
The Spirit is saying that obedience is because of an essential attribute of God the Father. This is what I have been really wanting to bring out in a strong way. He is holy. This is so important. You see, it is because your Father-God is holy that you are a holy child. So, what we are to do is manifest, in a sense, Him. In other words, your Father wants you to manifest the family trait of His holiness. This really changes the perspective of obedience to where it needs to be. In other words, we are not being holy because we are religiously pious devotees to an austere life of rules and regulations that are meant to validate us, or our club. Every false religion has that kind of stuff. People do all kinds of tasks and ethical things to keep a sense of spiritual allegiance going on. They do this, and they are thinking they are moving in spiritual discipline that reflects the special demands placed upon them to be part of the initiated. The problem is that they are not regenerated into the true family of God. Their false god worship has all these ceremonial, and socially moral, kinds of rules, but they are all based upon humanity because they are based upon invented gods. It all begins from a wrong motivation, and it is trying to be perpetuated by the same lostness that motivated the false religion in the first place. This is why everything changes from one false religion to the next. Even secular humanists, and atheists, will differ from one another in their lists. Why? They manifest selfishness which is the false religion of Adam and Eve in their sinful worship experience of themselves when they ate from the alter of the forbidden tree. Selfishness is what makes you your own boss, and so you can dictate your own wishy washy rules in your anarchy. But in respect to the true God and the true purpose of God, God wants us (His people) to be holy because this is what God is. This reason for being holy leads us to ask an important question:
"What does Peter mean for the scattered Christians when He commands them to be holy?"
Holy is the word that literally means "set apart." (hagion). It is the exact same Greek word that is translated as sanctified, or sacred, or consecrated. In respect to God himself, holiness has a grand and stark meaning of transcendence. What I am saying, is that it means that God is in another category that is much more magnificent, and way more majestic, than people are. God is set apart from the creation as the Creator. God's existence is super beyond what we are in perfection, size, intelligence, and glory. He is pure stability. He is pure sinlessness, and He is purely focused upon His glory. It is impossible for Him to not be these. The point is that in all these ways He is set apart. In the incarnation, in resurrected bodily form, Christ Jesus manifests the same trait of being set apart. He reigns as the God-man Messiah King over His spiritual kingdom. When we are saved by Christ, He does with us what is in His nature to do. What is that? He sets us apart from the domain of darkness, and puts us into His kingdom. Of course, the person of the Holy Spirit is set apart from the world too. The spirit that is at work in the son's of disobedience is in stark contrast to the Holy Spirit. The two can not, and will never, blend. When the Holy Spirit meets with the spirit of the world, the Holy Spirit disperses the darkness and fills the void with His blazing glory. The Spirit wants us to recognize the awesome separateness of God, and then consider how much we are connected to it. When we are born again in Christ, we have been recreated to be people who should be setting ourselves apart to manifest our family traits in Christ. God wants us to be tools of the Spirit that bring Him forth to disperse the darkness. He does not want us to hide the light under a bed. God does not want us to try and blend with darkness. So when we ask,
"What does Peter mean for the scattered Christians, or for you, or for me, when He tells us to be holy?"
This is what it means:
We should be setting ourselves apart to manifest our uniqueness of our family traits of our Father, in Christ.
But we need to be ready. We need to be girded. We need to be sober. We need to be discerning, and quit acting like we are ignorant of these things. Paul words it well when he says,
"So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;" Ephesians 4:17-18
Something else I want to focus upon strongly at this point is that it is not that we can actually be as holy in every respect as God is perfectly holy. Peter does not say to be holy in every respect as God is holy. Peter says to be holy like God is holy. In other words: Be holy because this is what God is like. Holiness is as God is. You can not be perfectly holy in all your actions in Christ, yet you are considered perfectly holy in Christ who is your perfection, holiness, and righteousness for you in your position in Him. Remember, God is your Father. Before Jesus established His New Covenant, in Himself, through the cross and resurrection, He made the prophetic statement,
"48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48
This was a prophetic allusion to the appropriated righteousness that His children would be in Christ positionally in the soon coming New Covenant. It is how all the remnant will be in future glory. The problem is that in yourself alone, you can not do it. The Pre-cross Old Covenant Israelites could not do it either. If we try to be perfect, then we would be the imperfect trying to be perfect. The problem is that because imperfection is trying to produce perfection, our efforts would always be imperfect; and so what would happen? We would always fail. Jesus knew that there is no way for us to make ourselves be perfect as God is perfect. Yet, Jesus commanded it in His great calling to Israelites. Jesus was indicating what can only exist in Himself as the perfect God-man. In Christ, we are recreated into the righteousness of God with the perfection that God appropriates to us. What this means is that in salvation, the Father always sees us as being perfect in the perfect One which is as perfect as He is perfect. The point is that the New Covenant came after Jesus preached that prophetic sermon on the mount. In Him, we who are the elect, are all Sons because we are in the perfect Son of God. He has set you apart, making you perfectly Holy in the Spirit. Now, we are called to to be girding ourselves for being Holy in our daily actions as a reflection of the perfection, and holiness, we have in Him.
We also notice that the Spirit is telling us that we do this because "it is written:" The reason is because our holiness, as an inner work of the Spirit that is manifested outwardly, is always in conjunction with the same Spirit's written word. In other words, God always uses His revelation to direct us. This is part of the girding that He has given us to be equipped with. We prepare ourselves by learning what God has to say to us from the Bible. The Revelator, which is the Spirit, then uses His revelation, which is His word, to keep us on track in knowing what He means when He says He wants us to be holy. All of these things: the power of the Spirit, plus the guidance of His word, are so important because of false holiness. False holiness is religious action that exists outside of God's word. Religious but lost people have it; like apostate Pharisees, Mormons, Jehovah Witness Cultists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Animists, New Agers, and all these kinds of spiritually dead people. True holiness, on the other hand, starts with God, comes from God, and is always aligned with God's word. This is why the Word of God is so important. This is why I strongly urge us to abide by what God says for His New Covenant people (Christians) so that we will not make up a lot of personal lists of do's and don'ts in our lives that have nothing to do with the holiness that God wants.
/3/
This leads to the third principle I will touch upon in God's call for us to be aware, and ready, for action in our Christian lives; You and I should be conducting ourselves, toward our Father, with the reverential fear that children have, while knowing the High price that the High Son paid for us to be saved,
"17 And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear [reverential respect] during the time of your stay on earth; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed [in paying a ransom for freedom] with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1:17-19
@3 Those who are saved by grace through faith in Christ, were ___________________ by him through His _______________ like a ransom that was paid for freedom. 1 Peter 1:18-19
Think about these two powerful aspects of our Christianity that walk hand in hand in our obedience:
1) Revering our Father with the reverential respect that is due Him,
and
2) recognizing the intense sacrifice that Has been done for us to enter Christ's rest and be called children of God.
Paul talked about the awe, respect, and reverence when he urged,
"12 ... just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; [awe and reverence] 13 because it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Philippians 2:12-13
@4 God is at _________________ in all who are saved. Philippians 2:13
One of the saddest things I have seen is when a Christian becomes so loose in their lives concerning what it means to be saved, and to be holy, or what true grace really is, that they are absent of the sense of awe and reverence for their holy God that they should have. God wants us to conduct ourselves in everything that we do, in the awesome, reverential, respect, and fear that is due the great and only God Who is our Father. In Peter's point, this not only includes God's holiness, but it means to consider what God has done for you. The great cost that God paid to appease His own demanded price, is not like putting some money aside to save humans. It is a plan that is almost too intense to fully grasp. God planned to come, and did come, as a man, to be rejected, tortured, and hung on an executioners stake (cross) to die. The death was to save people from the life of futility. Peter says that it was "for the sake of you." This is an amazing thing to think about each day as we gird up our minds to honor Christ with our lives. Always remember: Christ had you in mind in His torture when He purchased you specifically with His blood.
/4/
This leads to the final principle in God's call for me to be aware, and ready, for action in my Christian Life: Part of God's amazing plan, that we must constantly be aware of, is that we were predestined, and enabled, to be saved, and do all of these things in our salvation, through the work of Christ in us,
"20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you 21 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." 1 Peter 1:20-21
@5 It is through Christ Jesus that we are believers in ____________. 1 Peter 1:20
Christ appeared in the last times for the sake of all whom He saves. The dispersed Christian audience, to whom Peter is writing, did not believe in God before Christ's enablement. What Peter is saying is that faith is a grace gift that is given by the same Savior who saves. In other words: We are not naturally believers in God without divine enablement. Through Him we are believers in God as part of what Christ has done for our sake, "so that" Peter says, (meaning, "for the purpose of")--"so that your faith and hope are in God." I put this last point at the end of the sermon because this is the way Peter puts it in His flow as what we should be mindful of in our preparation, and holiness, actions. Yet it is really primary, because we would not understand any of this, nor be able to do any of this, without God foreordaining it to come into existence for our sakes in Christ's coming, crucifixion, resurrection, glorification, and miracle work in our hearts. Through Him, now, we are believers in God, and so because He has made sure that we would be believers in God through Himself and His work, He secures the elect forever. We need to be constantly thinking about all these things each day as we are aware, ready, and manifesting our Christianity in the world.
Let's recap what all we have learned: The first principle for this awareness and readiness for action, is that we must be spiritually alert. Moment to moment, we must prepare our minds for action. Remember the Greek: We need to be "girding up the loins of our minds." In this way, you will be ready and focused for action in doing the Christianity that you "are" because you are in Christ. We must also be sober in spirit. The intoxication of the world makes us dull. It effects our whole lives, including our families, jobs, and especially our Christian witness. The big three that we need to be aware of are: 1) the lust of the flesh; 2) the lust of the eyes; and 3) the boastful pride of life. They are the enemy's temptations that we need to be girded and sober to fight against by the power of the Spirit. Let's remember to be sober and ready to apply the second principle: Let's be nonconformist who are in countercultural defiance against the world. We want the separation that reflects our spirituality. Because our Father-God is holy, we are holy children. So, let's manifest Him. Then there is that third thing. We should be conducting ourselves, toward our Father, with the reverential fear and honor that holy children have. We need to be doing so while recognizing the intense sacrifice that He went through for us to enter His rest and be called children of God. All this is tied into the last principle. It is the awareness that you were predestined, and enabled, by God, to do all of these things in your salvation. I urge all of us to be intensely in tune to these things as we fulfill God's calling for us in our generation.
@1 The work of God is that you ___________________ in Jesus Christ whom He has sent. John 6:29
@2 In salvation, we are to be holy in _________ our behavior because our Father is holy. 1 Peter 1:14-16
@3 Those who are saved by grace through faith in Christ, were ___________________ by him. through His _______________ like a ransom that was paid for freedom. 1 Peter 1:18-19
@4 God is at _________________ in all who are saved. Philippians 2:13
@5 It is through Christ Jesus that we are believers in ____________. 1 Peter 1:20
