Hope Fully, Live Holy

Scripture Reading

Will you open your Bibles with me to 1 Peter 1. This morning we are going to be looking at verses 13-16. We are going to read verses 13-21 together this morning. 1 Peter 1, beginning at verse 13. If you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1076.

You're now God's Word. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober. and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by traditions from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundations of the world, but it was manifest in these last times for you, who through Him believed in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Prayer for Illumination

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we have read Your Word. And we trust that it will not return to us void. But Lord, we confess to You that often we can come to Your Word and take it in our pride. We can come to it in our laziness. We can go in one ear and out the other. Father, we confess to You that so often we come to Your Word It doesn't seep in, but it's like a trampoline just bouncing right off.

Sermon

Lord, we pray that you would please let that not be the case this morning. Lord, we pray that you would sanctify us. And Lord, that you might even save those who have not known and you are called upon you before. Lord, please give us your spirit and apply your word to our minds and to our hearts. For only you can do that, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

When I hear about sanctification or holiness, I'll be honest with you, I often get bogged down. Because I think of weight, right? I think of, there's hard work to do. I think of, this is going to be tough, it's going to be difficult, it's just going to be a never-ending battle. Sometimes I feel like that, but I don't think that's how Peter puts it for us today.

We know we're called to be holy, but it's not meant to be a never-ending battle. One commentary on this passage said, this helpfully said, holiness begins inside the heart and works outwardly. It's not a never-ending battle in a weary way. What's that? continuing Christian to work in you, to turn you, mold you more and more into the image of Christ. It's good news. It's good news because that means holiness isn't about you trying harder, but it's about what God is doing in you and how that work in you then plays out in your life. It's something the Holy Spirit is doing in you and with you. And it's God changing you from the inside out.

And so today, as we dive into 1 Peter 1, verses 13 through 16, we're gonna see that the call to, this is a hard phrase for me to get out, I've been practicing it all morning, to hope fully and live wholly. hope fully, and live wholly, starts with a transformed heart. A heart anchored in the grace of Jesus Christ. And then flows out into how we live our lives. And so as some context before we get into this, because I'm telling you, you can get really, really messed up with the doctrine of holiness or sanctification. We must not, we cannot, it is absolutely imperative that we do not take verses 13 through 16 and rip them out of the rest of what we've already seen.

Who are you, Christian? Who were these Christians that Peter was writing to? They were the ones elect according to the foreknowledge of God. They were the ones who were sanctified for holiness by the Holy Spirit. Redeemed, sprinkled by the blood of Jesus. Born again by the Spirit. With an inheritance that no one can take away.

See, I want to stress this to you that you must understand first that before we get into the topic of holy living, it must be based, rooted on the hope you have in Jesus. Holiness without hope in Jesus is legalism. There are many people who think they're striving after holiness. There's millions of Jews today alive who think that they are striving after holiness, but have no hope in Jesus Christ. and it's a fruitless endeavor. But you're not called to that, Christian. No, we struggle with holiness.

We battle daily against sin because it reflects that we love Jesus in our hearts. What I hope that you'll walk away from here today is that the Christian life is marked by a hopeful anticipation of Christ's return and a commitment to living the way He wants you to today.

First Point

So first, I want to kind of get into some nitty-gritty of verses 13 through 16. Some exegesis or some understanding of these passages. Look with me first at these commands to both hope and holiness. Verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. This is this idea in the ancient world. You know, most people, they didn't wear pants or shirts. They wore long robes. And if you were about to do some work, you would take the bottom of your robes and wrap them up and tuck them into your belt.

Because you couldn't do a lot of hard work if you were tripping over your feet. It's kind of like moms when they're trying to work around the house today. You've got to kind of send the kids to another room to go clean that room because it's hard to clean with little kids underneath your feet unless you employ them to help you with that work. But a similar phrase today would be like, you've got to roll up your sleeves to be able to get some work done. You've got to roll up your sleeves.

But notice, notice it's Not just gird up the loins of your mind. It's going to be hard work, but it's thinking work. It's thinking work. I don't want to sell you that somehow Christianity is easy. Right? We have a hope, and that's our primary comfort. But it is, if you are truly hoping in Jesus, it is going to be hard mental work. Because what does the Bible tell us?

We have to take every thought captive unto the obedience of Christ. And so you got to do the hard work. You got to gird up the loins of your mind. You got to roll up your sleeves of your thinking. Because we got to be ready and alert. Notice what it says after this. Be sober. Our minds have to be clear. Sober. alert, ready for the work that God has for us to do.

I want you to imagine real quick, if you're trying to work with somebody at a factory, and they got long robes and they're drunk, how much help are they going to be? Tripping over their own feet, stumbling around, not knowing what they're doing. God says, that's not how you're to act in your Christian life. Walking around like drunken people with long robes, tripping over your own feet.

He says, no, be alert, gird up the loins of your own mind. I gotta tell you, this is really, really hard. I could tell you it, I could command you, because this is a command with a force here in 1 Peter 1.13. That would be great, but I'm telling you, it's hard. It is hard to be always on guard. It is hard to take every thought captive unto the obedience of Christ. Yeah, it's really hard.

There's this thing that I used to do when I was growing up. I would turn on the TV and I would shut off my mind, or I thought I was. Just go get babysat and entertained by the TV. Just go suck it up and just bring in the entertainment. You didn't filter it, you didn't think through it, you just sucked it in like a vacuum. But the Christian life isn't like that. Whether it's you're reading a book, whether you're driving along the road, whether you're talking with friends, whether you're watching television, right?

We have to take every thought captive. We must gird up the loins of our mind with sobriety. We have to be ready for the spiritual battles that we're going to face. And Peter calls us to be vigilant and focused. That's what verse 13, the first part is talking about. The second part here, after the word and, is why this isn't just depressing. Notice the second half of verse 13.

And rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Set your hope fully on the grace that is to be revealed in Jesus Christ. Everything else in this world, in the culture, in what you read, in what the society is trying to sell you, has to be put through your biblical grid, asking yourself, is this really making me hope more in Jesus' grace? Is this new self-help book helping me to actually love Jesus more? Is this television show actually helping me to love and hope in Jesus more?

Or is this food helping me? Is this drink helping me? And you might think, food and drink? What are you talking about? Yeah, whether you eat or whether you drink, whatever you do, do it all unto the glory of God. Is what bringing into you helping you hope in Jesus, or, and I know this is some of you, some of you get depressed, some of you get tired, and what will you do if you're like me? You go eat some more cake instead of going to pray. It's funny, at one sense, until you realize you just get more and more depressed. And you get more and more sad, and you realize, hold on, I have a hope. that's kept secure for me an inheritance in Jesus Christ in heaven, and I'm trying to take comfort in food? Or in a relationship that's never going to be perfect?

Look to Jesus Christ. Set your hope fully on the grace to be revealed. This isn't a passive call, but this is calling us to have Jesus Christ as the anchor of our souls. that we hope completely, fully in Jesus, not in the pleasures that are fleeting the day. And that's exactly what he's talking about in verse 14.

Notice, as obedient children, not conforming yourself to the former lusts in your ignorance. There's a contrast that the Bible uses who we once were, children of the world for destruction, and adopted children of Jesus Christ, filled with His Spirit, that we might cry out unto God, Abba, Father. If someone was to take a snapshot of your life today, or of this past week, would it look like you are a child of the living God, obedient and hoping in Jesus? Or does it look like you're ignorant of who God is, of what Jesus has done, of what the Holy Spirit is calling you to be?

We're not to live according to those passionate desires. Notice that's what verse 14 calls a lust, epithymia, is this idea of something that's kind of naturally in us that's driving us passionately. Sometimes, yeah, it's sexual lust, but I gotta tell you, I know that some of you wrestle with passionate desires towards other things. Whether it's your own pride, or your anger, or materialism, or perfectionism, some of us are always driven by these longing, strong desires. Are you checking those desires at the door and wrestling with, hold on, is this glorifying to my Redeemer? Does this help me hope in Jesus more? Or again, are we acting like children of ignorance? I tell you, this happens in subtle ways.

It happens when you don't have enough money and you're thinking, oh, if I just have some more money, then I won't have these troubles and then I'll finally have some peace. This happens all the time when you might not think that you're betraying who you're called to be, but when you think, if only my spouse will finally do Then I'll finally be happy.

Then I'll finally have hope. Then I'll finally have peace. If only my children would at least listen and obey, then I would be happy. Then I could be like Jesus. But that's the ignorance of this world. We live in a fallen world, always following after the desires for more, the desires not even of necessarily sinful things, but even good things that are twisted and lifted up as if this will give you happiness, this is what's beautiful, this is what's good, and if you hold to that, then you'll finally have hope. It's a never-ending goal, it's a rat race. We hope in Jesus Christ and His finished work.

We can form our lives knowing that that is who we're going after, not being conformed to our former lusts. Why, though? Verses 15 and 16, why? But as he who called you is holy, you also must be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. Why would you strive for godliness? Why would you strive to live holy lives? Because God's called you. Because God has looked upon you in his grace, called you his child, given you his spirit. And if you're related to your father, you probably would want to act like your father.

I gotta say, for me, this is somewhat difficult, right? I mean, there's a fun side of this, right? When our latest baby was born, somebody said, oh, that's a Schneider baby. Why? Because he looks like a Schneider, right? But sometimes it's a bad thing when one of my children is behaving in a poor way, and I think they're behaving like a Schneider because their dad's a Schneider, and they learn that behavior somewhere. They're just little magnifying glasses of my sin, right? And so the difficult thing is, Are we image bearers of Christ?

That's what Leviticus 19 was trying to get at. How do we love God and how do we love our neighbor? This is where this originally comes from. This is a direct quote from Leviticus chapter 19. God's call to holiness is rooted in his own character. It's not about legalism. It's not about heaping rule upon rule upon rule upon rule.

It's trying to figure out how do we love God more? How do we love others better? Holiness isn't just avoiding sin, though that is part of it. Put to death, therefore, the sinful desires of your heart, but it is also actively pursuing what is good, right, and pleasing to God in every area of our lives.

So I hope you got your hands around what's going on here, but I want to encourage you now to hopefully, hopefully anchor your life in Jesus Christ's future grace. This is the catalyst. This is the push. This is the fuel and the fire in your heart that will drive you in holiness. You must have hope in Christ. There's some of you in here today that I don't know if you have hope in Christ. I don't know if that is the heart or the whoop of your life. I don't know what's fueling you. I don't know what's sparking you. I don't know what's driving you.

I hope that you might hear Jesus Christ calling you to follow Him and love Him alone. Because if you don't, then everything after this doesn't matter. Everything after this doesn't matter if you do not hope completely in Jesus. If the object of your faith is not Jesus Christ, the rest of the sermon is going to be nothing more to you than just simple instructions that may make your life a little bit easier. Without our hope in Jesus, we have no motivation to pursue holiness. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to live a holy life. if you don't serve a holy God. We sit there and wander and scratch our heads. Why does the culture keep going the way it seems to be going? Well, it's not that hard. They don't love a holy God. They don't want a holy God. They don't want to serve the holy God. They don't want to be in a holy God's presence. They'd rather sing highway to hell while they have party with their friends.

It's a sad thing that happens in our day and age. But we shouldn't be surprised by it. Without hope in Jesus Christ, and I think you've known this in your life yourself sometimes, if you're just trying to be good on your own strength without hope in Jesus, man, it'll wear you down. Without hope in Jesus, it doesn't actually give you any sense of someday there will be rest, but it's just grind, grind, grind. It's like going and trying to be part of the harvest all year, but you never actually get the paycheck. Just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, without actually ever getting to go to sleep. That'll drive you mad. But when we focus on Christ's promises, we can redirect our mindsets and our actions. When we set our hope fully on Jesus, something amazing happens.

I remember talking to, there's four different illustrations here, I remember talking to a family, very sad situation where the wife had a miscarriage. And they were wrestling, I mean, this baby had died. And the only hope that they had was in Jesus Christ. And when David said, he shall not come down to me, but I will go up to him. That when they looked to what was in store for them in heaven, they had some type of hope that maybe that child would be there. They had hope in Christ, and so they could turn their grief around.

I remember talking to a husband. The guy was working hard, he just didn't have enough money. Fully employed. But he was just like this constant ball of fear and anxiety because he didn't know how he was going to provide for his family. He didn't know how he was ever going to be able to care for the people he loved. He knew he had to care for them, but he didn't know how he was going to care for them. And the only thing that got him out of the spiral was when he remembered, hold on, my father in heaven cares for the sparrows in heaven and so he will also care for me. And he who did not spare his own son, will he not also freely with him also give me all things? He hears me when I pray. He knows I need food and clothes." And so he had hope. He set his hope completely on Jesus.

I remember hearing about a man, a pastor in North Carolina, who was diagnosed with cancer. It was terminal. He was going to die. He had metastasized throughout his body. He went into this season of depression and despair. He was sad. He wasn't a very old man. He was in his 50s and he was thinking about his wife and his children, his brand new grandchildren. And there was a season where he was tempted to despair. Tempted to even just go drink away his sorrows. And then he remembered where his hope was. that his hope was not on earth, but his hope was in the grace of Jesus Christ to be revealed. His hope was in heaven, secure in his inheritance.

I gotta confess, as I was working through even the sermon this week, I found my own heart messed up with anxiety and overwhelmed, so much so that my chest started hurting. I just told Olivia, I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna get it all done. Pity party, right? Just like, man, how am I gonna do everything? And thinking, if I just get all the tasks done, and all the tasks done, and all the tasks done, and I went on to do this, and I was click, click, click, I'm gonna get everything done, and then finally, I'll get rid of my overwhelm, I'll get rid of my anxiety, I'll have peace, I'll be able to sleep well at night.

And it never came. Until I realized on Friday morning, you dumb fool, you're working on this sermon, and you haven't been praying much this week. You got quick on your work, but slow on your prayer. I'm just telling you this story because I'm confessing a sin to you publicly, but I'm telling you, I said, okay, forget it. I left my to-do list in my office and I went and I sat down on the front porch with my tablet and I just sat there and enjoyed the sunshine and I prayed. The task can wait for an hour. I'm gonna go spend some time with my Lord. I'll tell you what. There's a peace that surpasses all understanding when we go to the Lord's throne of grace. When we recognize that our hope is in Him. Are you living with a future-focused hope? What are you hoping and where do you find your rest? Where do you find comfort? How does your hope affect your daily decisions, attitudes, and behaviors?

Christian hope. must be anchored in Jesus Christ. Holy hope in Jesus. But also live holy. Live holy. Reflect the character of your Father. Your holiness is a response to your hope. Again, holiness is not just qualitative or quantitative, it's not the number of things we heap up, like, oh, we have to pray for every church, we have to pray for every person, we have to pray for every nation, we have to pray for every single thing, and I have to read every book of the Bible, and oh yeah, by the way, did you know there's somebody else who read their Bible three times last year? You have to do it better, you have to read even more Bible. That's not what holiness is about. It's qualitative. It's like refined gold. It's a transformation that starts with our hope and works outward into our conduct.

I was just talking to a man recently, I'm not gonna say his name, he could tell you, he's in the congregation, he could tell you later if he wants to identify himself, but we were talking and he was saying, he was ashamed of who he was earlier in his life. as he thought about how he conducted himself in his ignorance before Jesus Christ.

And his main joys were smoking marijuana and watching Beavis and Butthead on TV. But then as he became a Christian, the things he loved started to change. Because he loved Jesus, the things he enjoyed started to change. The things that he wanted to watch started to change. The way he wanted to interact with people started to change. The way he was living changed. Why? Because his heart changed. Has your heart changed?

I think one of the litmus tests for us is what do we still love? Does it look like the rest of the world? Because often what we love shows in how we live. Holiness is a qualitative change in your life. It'll be evident in the way you speak to people, in the way you spend your money, in the time you're willing to invest in people, in the type of people you're willing to invest in. So I ask you, are your actions today reflecting the holiness of God? Or is there really no perceptive change from your pre-Christian life to your now life? Or from your life and the non-Christian's life?

It's one of those difficult things, right? We got a phrase for something like this, right? If it acts like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Well, if you're talking like a non-Christian, you're acting like a non-Christian, you're living like a non-Christian, you're walking like a non-Christian, maybe you should ask yourself, am I really a Christian? Or is there some major reform that needs to happen in my life?

So I want to give you some practical steps. practical steps here for living out hope and holiness daily. This is not a comprehensive list. This is not an exhaustive list. So I'm just going to pull these off quickly and I hope that you will encourage each other and talk with one another downstairs and at Sunday school and things like that with even more ideas. Number one practical step is you need to be prepared.

Be prepared. This is coming from verse 13. Gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober. Engage daily in thinking about God. And speaking with God. I'm not telling you, you must follow a specific Bible reading plan. I'm not telling you that you must memorize the whole topical memory system. I'm not telling you that you must read your Bible for X number of hours a day. I'm not saying any of that. But what I'm saying is, if you want to gird up the loins of your mind to have the mind of Christ, you need to go read the words of Christ.

Go to the scriptures and go to God in prayer. But also remind yourself regularly of who you are in Jesus. Remind yourself regularly of your election. Remind yourself, this is one of the reasons why we come to the Lord's Supper on a regular basis. So that you remember that you were bought at the blood of Jesus Christ. This is why we celebrate baptism. So you are reminded that you were sprinkled and washed in the blood of Jesus. Remember that he has given you a new heart. Remind yourself that you are not a child of disobedience and destruction, but you can call out Abba, Father, remind yourself of that. But also there's something that we might miss here in this passage. I've been saying a lot of you, you, you, but that's a little bit off for this passage actually. There's A form of you that is lost in modern English. But not if you're from Alabama.

Everywhere in this passage, it's y'all. Y'all gird up your minds. Y'all be sober. Y'all completely hope in Jesus. Y'all be holy, as I am holy. Every single one of them is second person plural. You encourage one another. You weren't meant to live a life trying to wholly rest in Jesus, wholly hope in Jesus, and live wholly lives by yourself. God's given you fellowships and friendships within the church. You need one another. Do this together.

Secondly, reject old patterns. It's going to be fast. I identify specific areas where former habits or sins are trying to regain control in your life and then actively turn away from them. I would invite you, if you're married or you have a family you're living with, ask them. You better be ready and have a humble heart. I don't like when my wife does this, but it's always good for me. Are there areas that you see in my life that need reformed, that I need to turn from sin and turn towards Christ?

And then when you hear it or you recognize it, do something about it. The Spirit's in you. You are able to do it. That's the third practical step. Obey God's word. Embrace and submit obediently that God has called you to be holy. There's no such thing as a cardinal Christian. There's no such thing as a Christian who's okay with their sin. This is not a burden to us. It may grieve us. But for the true Christian, it is our desire to be holy as he is holy. And so obey him. But the last practical step is stay future focused. You're never going to be perfect in this life. Wife, your husband's never going to be perfect. Husband, your wife is never going to be perfect. I can promise almost every one of you, you could always want more money.

I can promise you that in your life there's always going to be some area of sin, it may not be the same area, but a new area of sin that's going to crop up, a new area in your heart that you are going to be struggling with some type of snare that easily entangles you.

But there is coming a day, and some of you are nearer to it than I am, maybe, when there will be no more sin. when what we hope for will be realized. That the grief you have for your sins, someday in glory, you will no longer be able to sin. It's one of the amazing things about glorification. We live in a state right now in our nature that we are able to sin or able not to sin. But I want you to look again at what it said, that our hope is in the grace that will be revealed in Jesus. There's coming a day, brothers and sisters, when we will no longer be able to sin. And we will stand before a holy God, and we will worship Him in holiness.

Don't get discouraged. The trials and afflictions you're going through now have a purpose, they're refining you. They're making you more holy. But someday the fire is going to turn off and all that's going to be left is the pure gold. Hope wholly in Jesus and live holy lives because Jesus has called you to be holy.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Lord, we do pray. We can't muster up the strength to do this ourselves. Lord, this isn't just a macho, eat your spiritual protein type sermon. Lord, we are desperate for your spirit to empower us, to strengthen us, that we indeed will walk after you. Lord, please help us.

Lord, I pray for any who have been convicted even this morning by your spirit wondering, am I truly a Christian? Lord, I pray that they would throw themselves at the mercy of Jesus Christ and be washed in His blood. Lord, I pray that you would take out hard stones. Lord, hearts that are hardened and calloused against you and against your commands and your holiness, Lord, and that you would impart grace, that you would transform lives. Lord, we pray that we would hunger and thirst after righteousness. Lord, we pray that we would be known as your disciples, for we do what you command, and we seek to love one another. Lord, thank you. Thank you for the hope we have in Jesus. And thank you for the holiness that you give us. In Jesus' name we pray.