1 Peter 1:13-21
Intro:
• Secular groups that exegete the fallen human condition well: Evanescence (vocals by Amy Lee) – Song: Bring Me to Life ("How can you see into my eyes like open doors, leading you down into my core, where I’ve become so numb without a soul. My spirit sleeping somewhere cold, until you find it there and lead it back home. Chorus: wake me up inside. Wake me up inside. Call my name and save me from the dark. Bid my blood to run before I come undone. Save me from the nothing I’ve become…breathe into me and make me real. Bring me to life."). What is so powerful to be about this song is that the songwriter recognizes that there is something terribly wrong with her humanity, that her humanity is severely defective and lacking. What we have in this song is really a groaning for holiness (I think you’ll see what I mean by this a little later).
• There’s a scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where Bilbo says to Gandalf: “I feel thin–sort of stretched like butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday, a very long holiday, and I don’t expect I shall return. In fact, I mean not to!” What we see here in Bilbo is also a groaning for redemption, a longing to be set right. He too is longing for personal holiness.
• I want to ask 1 Peter 1:13-21 three questions:
1. What does personal holiness involve?
2. What does its absence look like?
3. How do we cultivate it?
I. What does personal holiness involve?
A. The integration and synchronization of our entire being (i.e. mind, will, and emotions)
1. Mind (v. 13, “preparing your minds…being sober-minded)
a. Two phrases:
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
i. Prepare your minds – prepare yourself for thinking hard and long
ii. Being sober-minded – to be sober-minded is to be in control of your thought processes.
b. Summary: Personal holiness is an intellectual pursuit (Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 10:5). It requires intellectual vigor.
Romans 12:1-2 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. [2] Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
2. Will (v. 14, “as obedient children” or “children of obedience”)
1 Peter 1:14 As obedient children [or “children of obedience”], do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance
a. Peter is referring to people whose lives are characterized by willful obedience.
b. Summary: Personal holiness is a volitional pursuit—every decision must be made with a profound God-consciousness, a profound consciousness of God as our Father.
3. Emotions (vv. 13, 17)
a. Two Phrases:
i. “set your hope fully” (v. 13)
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
ii. “you call on him as Father” (v. 17)
1 Peter 1:17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
4. Did you notice that what Peter is teaching us is that personal holiness is the centering of our entire being upon God, the integration and synchronization of our mind, will, and emotions upon God.
• ILLUS: How do we know if a human being is a good human being? How do we know if a watch is a good watch?
Westminster Catechism: What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and [by] enjoying him forever.
Augustine: “Thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.”
B. The conscious awareness of a new relationship (v. 17)
1 Peter 1:17 And if [since] you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
1. Before we get to “who judges impartially” I want us to unpack “you call on him as Father” a little more.
2. Although God was spoken of as a father in the OT (Psalm 103:13, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.” Hosea 11:1), it comes to occupy a dominant position in the NT.
a. Jesus’ use of Father (prayer and teaching)
b. Paul’s use: “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3).
c. Peter use: 1 Peter 1:3
John 20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father' "
• The beauty of the Gospel is that we are brought to share, as T.F. Torrance puts it in his book Three Persons, One Being, “in the Communion of Love which the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit eternally are” (p. 143). “God is love” makes no sense apart from the doctrine of the Holy Trinity!
3. When Peter says that we as believers call upon God as Father, he is saying that God is eternally for us, even as God is for His eternal Son! Speaking of the Fatherhood of God, Michael Gorman says: “To say that God is our Father…is to say above all that God is for us, as demonstrated in the giving of his only Son so that that Son could become the first of many ‘sons’ (children) of God” (Cruciformity, p. 13). And I add, “to say that God is our Father is to say above all that God is for us even as he is for each person of the Holy Trinity!”
• At the heart of personal holiness is (1) the integration and synchronization of our entire being upon God and (2) the conscious awareness of our new and most profound relationship with God as Father.
• The holy life VALUES this relationship with The Father in such a way that it affects the way that we live.
II. What does the absence of personal holiness look like?
A. “Don’t be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (v. 14).
B. “Don’t be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (v. 14)
1. “passions” is “epithumia” –
2. Connect 1 John 2:15-17 with I John 5:21
1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. [17] And the world is passing away along with its desires.
1 John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
3. The reason for coming under the influence of pre-knowing God over-desire is not hard to find.
Gospel Transformation: “When we fall away from God, we experience great lack, need, deficiency, and alienation. In order to fulfill our lives we resort to idolatry [or over-desire]. We serve, love, desire, trust, fear, worship other things apart from God to give us love, joy, peace, freedom, status, identity, control, happiness, security, fulfillment, health, pleasure, significance, acceptance, and respect” (pp. 44-45).
• Examples: (1) High G.P.A.; (2) girl/boy friend, marriage partner;
4. What we must see is that “over-desire” always moves toward disintegration, toward the disjunction between mind, will, and emotion. It always leads to discontent, frustration, and emptiness.
ILLUS: To be under the influence of over-desire is to be like a neurotic dog…always moving from one object of affection to another
Henry Scougal: “The soul of man is of a vigorous and active nature, and hath in it a raging and inextinguishable thirst, an immaterial kind of fire, always catching at some object or other, in conjunction wherewith it thinks to be happy” (p. 109).
Cornelius Plantinga: “All idolatry is not only treacherous but also futile. Human desire, deep and restless and seemingly unfulfillable, keeps stuffing itself with finite goods, but these cannot satisfy. If we try to fill our hearts with anything besides the God of the universe, we find that we are overfed but undernourished, and we find that day by day, week by week, year after year, we are thinning down to a mere outline of a human being” (Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Suposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, pp. 122-123). [To the degree that we lack in personal holiness to that degree are we a mere outline of a human being.]
• ILLUS: There’s a powerful scene in ROTK where Gandalf comes into King Theoden who is under the spell of Saruman (through Wormtongue) (Gandalf: “Breathe the free air again, my friend.” Theoden: “Dark have been my dreams of late.”).
III. How do we cultivate personal holiness?
A. It is not cultivated by:
1. Fear of punishment – If fear is the primary motivation for our personal holiness, we will find: 1) our motivation losing its power after time. 2) that we have a great deal of trouble with repentance.
2. Being driven by duty –
B. But by feeding daily upon the Gospel
1. “set your hope [longing] fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (v. 13).
2. “live at the cross” (v. 17). Where do I find this?
1 Peter 1:17-19 And if [since] you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, [18] knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, [19] but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
a. “Conduct yourselves…” is the only command in verses 17-19. If we isolate this command…
b. What immediately precedes and follows this command to walk in fear of the one who judges impartially to each one’s deeds?
i. What Precedes: “since you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds” (v. 17a).
Hebrews 12:5-6 "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. [6] For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives."
ii. What Follows: “knowing that you were ransomed…” (vv. 18-19)
1 Peter 1:18-19 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, [19] but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
c. Verses 18-19 make sure that we make the connection between Christian fear and the cross. When Peter says, “conduct yourselves in fear,” he is referring to a fear that is deeply paradoxical. It is a fear of God that has two parts in its connection to the cross:
i. I am terribly sinful—
ii. I am unbelievably loved—
3. To fear God as a believer is to see at the same time that I am more sinful than I ever imagined and yet more loved than I ever dared hope. This is what cultivates personal holiness.
• Seeing how sinful we are without at the same time how loved we are empties us of all motivation to pursue holiness. “What’s the use?”
• Seeing the “love of God” without out seeing our sin is to strip ourselves of all motivation as well. “Why do I need to be holy?”
4. It is only at the cross where we are able to truly cultivate personal holiness. So live there, eat there, drink there. It is there that we move away from a “mere outline of a human being” and are “renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ” (Colossians 3:10).
Dan Cruver - Professor at Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, PA
"What is Christianity? Some say it is a philosophy, others say it is an ethical stance, while still others claim it is actually an experience. None of these things really gets to the heart of the matter, however. Each is something a Christian has, but not one of them serves as a definition of what a Christian is. Christianity has at its core a transaction between a person and God. A person who becomes a Christian moves from knowing about God distantly to knowing about him directly and intimately. Christianity is knowing God."
Why do I need to know God?
Our desire for personal knowledge of God is strong, but we usually fail to recognize that desire for what it is. When we first fall in love, when we first marry, when we finally break into our chosen field, when we at last get that weekend house—these
breakthroughs arouse in us antic ipation of something which, as it turns out, never occurs. We eventually discover that our desire for that precious something is a longing no lover or career or achievement, even the best possible ones, can ever satisfy. The satisfaction fades even as we close our fingers around our goal. Nothing delivers the joy it seemed to promise. Many of us avoid the yawning emptiness through busyness or denial, but at best there is just a postponement. “Nothing tastes,” said Marie Antoinette.
There are several ways to respond to this:
By blaming the things themselves – by finding fault in everyone and everything around you. You believe that a better spouse, a better career, a better boss or salary would finally yield the elusive joy. Many of the most successful people of the world are like this – bored, discontented, running from new thing to new thing, often changing counselors, mates, partners, or settings.
By blaming yourself – by trying harder to live up to standards. Many people believe they have made poor choices or have failed to measure up to challenges and to achieve the things that would give them joy and satisfaction. Such people are wracked with selfdoubts and tend to burn themselves out. They think, “If only I could reach my goals, then this emptiness would be gone.” But it is not so.
By blaming the universe itself – by giving up seeking fulfillment at all. This is the person who says, "Yes, when I was young I was idealistic, but at my age I have stopped howling after the moon." This makes you become cynical, you decide to repress that part of yourself that once wanted fulfillment and joy. But you become hard, and you can feel yourself losing your humanity, compassion, and joy.
By blaming and recognizing your separation from God – by seeing that the emptiness comes from your separation from God, and by establishing a personal relationship with him.
In order to form a personal relationship with God, you must know
three things:
1) Who we are:
God’s creation. God created us and built us for a relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, everything. Because humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will always try to worship something – if not God, we will choose some other object of ultimate devotion to give our lives meaning.
Sinners. We have all chosen (and re-affirm daily) to reject God and to make our own joy and happiness our highest priority. We do not want to worship God and surrender ourself as master, yet we are built to worship, so we cling to idols, centering our lives on things that promise to give us meaning: success, relationships, influence, love, comfort, and so on.
In spiritual bondage. To live for anything else but God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the water, which he was built for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a loss of meaning. If we achieve these things, they cannot deliver satisfaction, because they were never meant to be "gods." They were never meant to replace God. Worshiping other things besides God also leads to self- image problems. We end up defining ourselves in terms of our achievement in these things. We must have them or all is lost; so they drive us to work too hard, or they fill us with terror if they are jeopardized.
2) Who God is:
Love and justice. His active concern is for our joy and well-being. Most people love those who love them, yet God loves and seeks the good even of people who are his enemies. But because God is good and loving, he cannot tolerate evil. The opposite of love is not anger, but indifference. “The more you love your son, the more you hate in him the liar, the drunkard, the traitor,” (E. Gifford). To imagine God’s situation, imagine a judge who also is a father, who sits at the trial of his guilty son. A judge knows he cannot let his son go, for without justice no society can survive. How much less can a loving God merely ignore or suspend justice for us—who are loved, yet guilty of rebellion against his loving authority?
Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself come to Earth. He first lived a perfect life, loving God with all his heart, soul, and mind, fulfilling all human obligation to God. He lived the life you owed—a perfect record. Then, instead of receiving his deserved reward (eternal life), Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins, taking the punishment and death each of us owed. When we believe in him: 1) our sins are paid for by his death, and 2) his perfect life record is transferred to our account. So God accepts and regards us as if we have done all Christ has done.
3) What you must do:
Repent. There first must be an admission that you have been living as your own master, worshipping the wrong things, violating God’s loving laws. “Repentance” means you ask forgiveness and turn from that stance with a willingness to live for and center on him.
Believe. Faith is transferring your trust from your own efforts to the efforts of Christ. You were relying on other things to make you acceptable, but now you consciously begin relying on what Jesus did for your acceptance with God. All you need is nothing. If you think, “God owes me something for all my efforts,” you are still on the outside.
Pray after this fashion: "I see I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but that I am even more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I turn from my old life of living for myself. I have nothing in my record to merit your approval, but I now rest in what Jesus did and ask to be accepted into God’s family for his sake."
When you make this transaction, two things happen at once: 1) your accounts are cleared, your sins are wiped out permanently, you are adopted legally into God’s family and 2) the Holy Spirit enters your heart and begins to change you into the character of Jesus.
Follow through. Tell a Christian friend about your commitment. Get yourself training in the basic Christian disciplines of prayer, worship, Bible study, and fellowship with other Christians.
Why should I seek God?
On one hand, you may feel that you "need" him. Even though you may recognize that you have needs only God can meet, you must not try to use him to achieve your own ends. It is not possible to bargain with God. (I’ll do this if you will do that.”) That is not Christianity at all, but a form of magic or paganism in which you “appease” the cranky deity in exchange for a favor. Are you getting into Christianity to serve God, or to get God to serve you? Those are two opposite motives and they result in two different religions. You must come to God because 1) you owe it to him to give him your life (because he is your creator) and 2) you are deeply grateful to him for sacrificing his son (because he is your redeemer.)
On the other hand, you may feel no need or interest to know God at all. This does not mean you should stay uncommitted. If you were created by God, then you owe him your life, whether you feel like it or not. You are obligated to seek him and ask him to soften your heart, open your eyes, and enlighten you. If you say, “I have no faith,” that is no excuse either. You need only doubt your doubts. No one can doubt everything at once—you must believe in something to doubt something else. For example, do you believe you are competent to run your own life? Where is the evidence of that? Why doubt everything but your doubts about God and your faith in yourself? Is that fair? You owe it to God to seek him. Do so.
What if I’m not ready to proceed?
Make a list of the issues that you perceive to be barriers to your crossing the line into faith. Here is a possible set of headings:
Content issues. Do you understand the basics of the Christian message—sin, Jesus as God, sacrifice, faith?
Coherence issues. Are there intellectual problems you have with Christianity? Are there objections to the Christian faith that you cannot resolve in your own mind?
Cost issues. Do you perceive that a move into full Christian faith will cost you dearly? What fears do you have about commitment?
Now talk to a Christian friend until these issues are resolved. Consider reading: Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis (MacMillan) and Basic Christianity, by John Stott (IVP)
© 1991 - Tim Keller
"THIS BOOK OF ISAIAH speaks so much of Christ, gives such a particular account of the birth, life, miracles and passion, and of the gospel state, that it has been called a fifth Gospel. In this chapter is contained a glorious prophecy of the evangelical state:
1. We have a description of the flourishing state of Christ's kingdom in the two first verses, in the conversion and enlightening of the heathen, here compared to a wilderness, and a desert, solitary place:
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.
2. The great privileges and precious advantages of the gospel, in the five following verses wherein the strength, the courage, the reward, the salvation, the light and understanding, comforts and joys, that are conferred thereby, are very aptly described and set forth:
Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not; behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert , And the parched ground Shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
3. The nature of the gospel, and way of salvation therein brought to light. First, the holy nature of it, in the eighth and ninth verses:
1. And an highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way o holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.
2. The joyful nature of it, "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" [v.10]."
Jonathan Edwards
"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."—Romans 10:4.
TO be the end of the law is one of the most glorious achievements of our Lord, and it will be a great blessing to us all to know Him in that character.
The reason why many do not come to Christ is not because they are not earnest, after a fashion, and thoughtful and desirous to be saved, but because they cannot brook God's way of salvation. "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge," We do get them by our exhortation so far on the way that they become desirous to obtain eternal life, but "they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Mark, "submitted themselves," for it needs submission. Proud man wants to save himself, he believes he can do it, and he will not give over the task till he finds out his own helplessness by unhappy failures. Salvation by grace, to be sued for in forma pauperis, to be asked for as an undeserved boon from free, unmerited grace, this it is which the carnal mind will not come to as long as it can help it: I beseech the Lord so to work that some of you may not be able to help it. And oh, I have been praying that, while this morning I am trying to set forth Christ as the end of the law, God may bless it to some hearts, that they may see what Christ did, and may perceive it to be a great deal better than anything they can do; may see what Christ finished, and may become weary of what they themselves have laboured at so long, and have not even well commenced at this day. Perhaps it may please the Lord to enchant them with the perfection of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. As Bunyan would say, "It may, perhaps, set their mouths a watering after it," and when a sacred appetite begins it will not be long before the feast is enjoyed. It may be that when they see the raiment of wrought gold, which Jesus so freely bestows on naked souls, they will throw away their own filthy rags which now they hug so closely."
CH Spurgeon