Peter has just finished his hymn of praise to God for our amazing salvation. In it he praised God that we were saved by his mercy and kept by his power. When God saved us by his mercy and grace he gave us new life, new hope, and new treasure. God then promises that we are kept by his power, even in the midst of all kinds of trials. What an amazing salvation! I hope you can never get over the salvation that God has given you through the death of his Son. Peter never got over it. This amazing salvation becomes the very foundation for everything Peter tells us to do. As we shall see, Peter gives us some strong commands that will take great effort to keep. And he knows that we will be tempted to say, “why should I do this?” So he gives us the answer – because God saved you by his mercy.
1. Set Your Hope in Future Grace (v.13)13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;The first thing that Peter tells us to do is to set our hope in future grace. You have been saved by God’s past grace, now live by God’s future grace. The Christian life is to be a life of hope.
One day Christ will return to rescue his church. He will rescue us from our own sin, and from this world. You have to keep that future rescue in mind.
How do we do this? Peter describes how we are to set our hope on future grace:
A. By “girding up the loins of our mind” – This means to prepare our minds for vigorous activity. “Roll up the shirt sleeves of your mind” fixing your hope on a promised future rescue can be a difficult thing in the midst of trying circumstances. It takes mental toughness to keep your hope fixed on God.
B. By “being sober” – This means that we are to be self disciplined in our thinking. We are to let nothing hinder or weaken or cloud our thinking.
Get tough! God saved you by his grace! You are his child now. You have a new home in heaven. Someday God will come and take you out of this world. So don’t live for this world, don’t fear those in this world, don’t act like those in this world. Fix your hope on God and his gracious promises! That is what you are to be living for!
2. Be Holy in All You Do (vv. 14–16)
14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
The next thing Peter commands us to do is to live holy lives. God saved you by his grace. You are his child now. Now God calls you to be an obedient child, a holy child. God calls you to be holy.
A. The foundation for the call – We are to be holy because God himself is holy. One of the ways that the Bible describes salvation is in the picture of birth. We are born again. We saw that earlier in this chapter. Now we are commanded to show some family resemblance – “Like Father, like child” If we say that we are part of God’s family, yet have little or no resemblance to our father, then something is seriously wrong!
B. The explanation of the call – What does it mean to be holy? Peter tells us, it is not living like we used to – according to our former ignorant desires. Before people are saved the bible describes them as being slaves to sin. Being enslaved by their sinful desires. They are trapped. Their sinful heart tells them to do something and they helplessly have to obey. But when God saves us he rescues us from those sinful desires. They are still present, but they are like an overthrown dictator trying to tell us what to do, we might listen, but we don’t have to. Sin’s power and dominion is broken.
C. The extent of the call – “be holy in all manner of conversation” in the whole of your life. There are not any areas in your life that are off limits to God’s demand for holiness. God commands you to be holy, like he is, in every area of your life. It is not enough to be holy at church, you must be holy at home, and at school. Be holy as you read your bible daily, and be holy in the locker room. Every area of your life should be holy!
3. Live in Fear of God (vv. 17–21)
17 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: 18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
Peter again reminds us that we are exiles. We are living a life of sojourning – lit. a time of stay among strangers. You are strangers on this earth. How then should you live? You should live in fear of God. Not so much a cowering before God, but a reverential awe of our Almighty Heavenly Father.
The foundation of our reverential fear:
(1) God is still judge.
(2) God redeemed you.
Redemption: Here we have one of the most majestic passages in the bible on the subject of our redemption. The Bible uses many powerful pictures to describe all that took place when God saved us. One of we were adopted, we were born again, we were ransomed, we were set free, we were reconciled, we were justified, we were redeemed. We were bought back. Here Peter says that we were redeemed from the empty life of our forefathers. Everyone around us in America today is living an empty life if they are not saved by God’s grace, and that is the life from which we were redeemed! And this redemption came at the cost of God’s very Son. This redemption was God’s plan from the very beginning, and it is accomplished by the power that raised Christ from the dead. That is the hope you have! God poured out all of his wrath upon his sinless son to rescue you from sin and death and hell, and then he raised his Son from the dead so that you would know that your hope is in a powerful and living God!
Now tell me that doesn’t affect how you live. God did all of that for you and you are going to go on listening to your godless music and watching your godless and wicked TV and movies and telling dirty jokes and gossiping, and living apathetic lives and so on? God saved you by his grace and made you his child at the cost of his Son. He gave you a new home to look forward to, he gave your life meaning and hope, he gave you treasure that this world can’t ever imagine or take away. So don’t live for this world! It is not your home. Fix your hope on God’s future grace! Live holy lives! Fear your God!
If you really were living your life so that you were focused on God’s future grace, If you really were living a holy life, if you really did fear God, what would your life look like?
