Go Big AND Go Home (Part 2)

That's why we do not put our faith in tech. And that's no reflection on our sound, guys. Sometimes the bugs just happen, right?! Thank you, Ben, for leading us, brother.

You know, I love hearing you sing. And so doing it Acapulco is fine with me. It's a beautiful, beautiful way to hear you honor the Lord.

So thank you for doing that with us. So you can see here on the screen, this is part two of Go Big and Go Home is the way that I've titled this section of 1 Peter.

We're going to be in 1 Peter chapter 1. And what I mean by this, for those of you who weren't here last time to hear part of the part one, which I'll do a little summary of in a moment.

What I'm talking about here in my title is the idea of what you've heard before, Go Big or Go Home. And so here I'm saying go big and go home. And what I'm trying to convey is simply this.

God has designed us in a new nature of holiness so that we can go big for Jesus Christ while we're here. And, in addition, has promised us a heavenly home so that we can have the best of both worlds.

We can have the best of serving Jesus now, being people of holiness and living out in our behavior because He says in your behavior, be holy. Live like what I've made you to be.

In addition to that, set your hope on what's to come in terms of your heavenly home where you'll spend eternity in that condition. No sin. No tears.

No fears. No tears. No fears. You'll just be with me all the time. And I'll take care of everything. This is a beautiful, beautiful way for us to think about who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is what Ephesians 2 spoke of.

Now, before I jump into the text with you, I'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Now, we have some visitors that don't know this about me. We have some people fairly new to our church that might not know this about my background.

And so I'll just give it to you real quickly. I wish Mark and Jen were here because Mark and Jennifer, who usually sit right up here, have been involved in farm work. So they know what I'm talking about when I start to talk about this.

Some of you may know that my extended family, particularly my mom and dad, we owned together. My dad and I were in this joint venture. We owned and operated a working farm for many, many years.

And I grew up on a farm. I don't know if some of y'all knew that. I'm a Georgia boy. We have a farm that's been in our family for generations. And I would go in between my dad's assignments in the military because we moved all over the place, Europe and everywhere.

We would come home and spend all of our summers working on the farm. And then I did all my high school on the farm. And so we were row croppers. We had a lot of agriculture stuff going on.

We had animals and we did cows and all that. And I spent many, many, many hours on tractors plowing our crops from the time I was about 12 years old.

That's just all I knew. And I loved it. I loved the smell of it. I loved the smell of the land. I loved the feel of the land. It gets in your blood. And that's just who you become. I still love it.

I still love when I drive and see it going on. It just reminds me of some wonderful things. Well, one of the things that we did, my dad and I, as we worked our farms, we had all kinds of animals.

We had buffalo. We had donkeys, sheep. We had goats. We had pigs. We had lots and lots of rabbits.

We had goats. And we had hundreds of emu. That was our primary stock and trade. We were in the emu business for a long time. We had some huge ostriches.

Very mean. We didn't go in the ostrich pen very much. And we always went in in pairs. We had chickens. We had ducks. We had geese. We had peacocks.

We had turkeys. We had rias. You can look that up if you don't know what a ria is. We had lots and lots of dogs. And we had millions and trillions of worms. Because we raised worms and sold fish bait as well.

We were proper rednecks. This is what we did in our farm. Now, one of the reasons that we had this menagerie of farm animals was we brought busloads of children from the cities around us out to the country, the farm.

And we did working farm tours for these kids. And we had all these crafts they could do. And it was a day event, man. It was really fun. Most of those kids, at least many of them, had never seen these kind of animals or a working farm before.

Now, here I am raised in it. And all I think about is what animals do when you feed them. And then I got to go take care of that, right? And I got to make sure they've got this and they've got that.

And so that's my life. And so animals for me were like, yeah, yeah, pet the goat. That's fine. Now get away. You stink. Whereas we had a pet farm. And so they'd come in and they would go in the enclosure.

And like you see, you know, we had all that going on, man. That was us right and left. And my dad and I built all the fences. And it's just the whole thing behind it. Now, think about this with me.

What if we were out there on one of these farm tours showing the children all of these wonderful animals and the donkeys that we had started clucking like chickens?

Or what if the sheep started sounding like the donkeys and braying instead of buying? And you kind of get the picture. What if the animals just started doing things that you thought, that's not what a donkey sounds like.

That's not what a goose is supposed to do. You'd probably think this is a crazy farm. Get me back on the bus and get me out of here. And that'd be fine. That'd probably be the proper response.

Animals act the way they do because of how God made them. So I like to think, because of what the Bible teaches, that donkeys have always acted like donkeys.

They didn't develop over millions of years to be the donkey that they are now. The donkey that they were 4,000 years ago, that's the donkey that they are now. On the whole. Chickens have always been chickens.

Ducks have always been ducks. Et cetera. They act like what they are. They live and do what they do out of their nature.

Their nature defines everything that happens. And everything that lives does what it does because of its nature. Now, I realize that humans and animals are very different.

We are not a different species of animal. We're not animals. We're human beings. We're made in the image of our creator. We're nothing like animals. We didn't come from apes.

You guys have known all this because we went through Genesis together, at least the first half. And you got a lot of that from this pulpit. Humans are very different, except in this way.

We also have a nature. God gave us that nature. And we live out of that nature. We act like humans because we were made human. We do not act like animals for the whole, for the most part, because we're not animals.

If we start to act like an animal, we're acting contrary to our nature. We act in depravity, not animals. We do what we do because of sin when we do it wrong and we do it badly.

All right? This is another way of saying this. What we are on the inside is working its way to the outside. Now, that is a biblical reality, truth, and concept.

It's an axiom from Scripture. It's an accepted truth that what we are on the inside, we are working out in the outside.

So what we speak, we speak out of our heart. What we do, we do out of our heart. You're learning that in reinforcement way on Wednesday nights.

Now, I'd like to draw your attention to 1 Peter 1, verse 3. Before we get into the text for this morning, I'll read that in just a moment. Peter jumps in here in chapter 1, verse 3 and says, Blessed be who?

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His great mercy, so based on His great mercies, His salvation mercies, God has done this.

He has caused us to be born again. There's your new nature. There's the reconstruction, the rebirth, from one person to a new person, from an old entity or old self to a new self.

And He has caused us in this great mercy to be born again to what? We are born again to a living hope. Not a dead hope, not an uncertain hope, but a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The resurrection of Jesus is the proof that our hope is not in vain and that it is a certain hope. So when we talk about hope in the Christian life, we're not talking about, I hope it doesn't rain or I hope I get to go on vacation.

We're talking about a hope that is grounded in the promises of the Bible that say thus and such, particularly as it pertains to our salvation. The resurrection of Jesus is the first fruit proof that what He says about resurrecting you in holiness is true.

God will bring you to a resurrection body, life, existence, forever in eternity. And Jesus is your proof having gone first before you, before me.

Alright? Now as He comes to verse 13, where I'll be starting in our text for this morning, as He comes to verse 13, He begins to tell His Christian readers that what God has caused inside of them, that the born again work, the renewing work of Jesus that He's done spiritually inside of them, unseen by your eyes, that being born to a living hope, needs to work its way outside of them in the way they live each day.

And to our great benefit, Peter's going to give us a few details teaching us how to be these children of obedience to a holy God by being holy ourselves in all of our behavior.

So let's look at the text now and see what he's talking about beginning in verse 13. Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace, the favor of God to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus.

There's your resurrection, folks. At the revelation of Jesus Christ and resurrection glory, as you fix your hope, fix it completely on the favor that God has brought to you.

For when Jesus is raised, you will be raised with Him in glory. Flip over real quickly to Colossians, if you would. Let's just trace this a little bit before I get...

This is all for free. We'll get into the other in just a minute. Look over at Colossians 3, beloved. You're going to see in verse 1, it's going to sound a lot like what Peter is saying in verse 13 of chapter 1.

And therefore, he says, Colossians 3, verse 1, Therefore, since you have been raised up with Christ, there's your resurrection, keep seeking the things above where Christ is.

Seated at the right hand of God. Set your heart, your mind, on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Why? Because you are a raised up being in your nature.

You've been given a new nature. It doesn't correspond to the world anymore. You're a foreigner here. Verse 3, For you have died. Your new life in Christ, your new identity, is hidden.

Hidden where? Oh, not where? In whom? It is hidden in Christ, in God. Now, notice verse 4. When Christ, who is our life, our new identity, is revealed, resurrection, the resurrection glory of the second coming, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

That's how closely unioned you and I are spiritually to Jesus. It's impossible to separate us. When Jesus is revealed in His second coming glory, you also will be revealed with Him in that glory.

You can't help it. Where Jesus will be seen, you will be seen because you are so unioned with Him. Now, let me ask you, as you hear me saying those things, do they sound just too nebulous to be applicable?

Do we have any idea how what I'm talking about right now should bear on the way that we think about how we live each day, how we relate to people each day? Are you tracking with me?

This is not stuff that we just talk about in seminary classes. This is your truth. It should make every bit of difference in the way that you think about who you are and based on who you are, how you then live your life, how you raise your children, how you go about being married, how you do your job, what you do with your mind and your heart in the moments, quote unquote, that are private to you.

Where do those thoughts go? Do they savor the Lord? Maybe not. But all of what we're talking about right now has to do with the way that God has reborn you, remade you into the image of His Holy Son that you might stand before a holy God in the holiness and perfection of His Son.

If you're not union to Jesus, you'll never be able to stand before a holy God. God has to see you in His Son because His Son is the only one that makes it possible for you and I as sinners to stand before God in that righteousness that we need.

It is His righteousness in us. Him living in us puts us before a holy God, God seeing Jesus, His Son, in us, loving us as He loves His Son, bringing us to Himself as He has brought His Son to Himself when Jesus was resurrected.

That will one day be our reality. Now what I'm asking you as your pastor and your friend is, do those truths make any difference at all in how you're going to get up on Monday morning and face the world?

Is it going to make any difference in how you relate to your children, your wife, your husband, your friends, your family? Is it going to make any difference in the way you go about your job being the person that you are?

Verse 13, Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, and fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you with the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now notice, as obedient children, because all that's true now, and you're learning to live your life out of this new nature, it brings about obedience.

As obedient children, do not be then conformed to the former desires or lusts, sinful lusts, which were yours in ignorance.

Now that doesn't refer to just sexual lusts, that's usually what we apply that word to. These are any desires that want to trump the will of God in your life. These are just selfish desires.

Those used to be the desires that you lived by in your spiritual ignorance, that is, in your rebellion against the Lord. But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your what?

Behavior. Show on the outside what God is doing to reconstruct you on the inside. Why? Verse 16, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

You shall. Not you might. You shall be holy for I am holy. Now look, this is the work of your Father to make you progressively more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now look, folks, God gave you everything He has to give you in the riches of His Son when He saved you. He didn't hold back. You don't need to get more of the Spirit in progressive stages.

You don't need to get more of Jesus in progressive stages. He gave you everything that He has in the riches of His Son when He saved you. What we need to do now is begin to learn to live in those riches and to live them out.

We do that progressively. We grow. We grow. We don't, okay, Lord, You gave me about 26% of Jesus when You saved me and now I know I need to get up to where I'm at 30%.

And then from there I'll go to 34% maybe or maybe 31%. That's not the way it works. You got it all. Now you need to start learning how to live out of the treasure that Jesus is.

He is the treasure. Not just the things that He does for you but the treasure of who He is in you. And out of who He is in you, your face, your words, your behavior begin to express who He is.

This is how we grow in the character of Jesus Christ. Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is the way that Peter's going to end his second book, 2 Peter 3.18.

Grow in the grace and knowledge, the favor and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what helps us fight sin. It keeps us focused on who we are.

Now one of the things, let's see if this will work. We had a little trouble with the slides this morning. We can capture Peter's instruction in three ways for you to activate and apply God's salvation blessings to how you live your life each day.

Now that's what we're looking at and we're starting in verse 13 here. I'm just doing a quick review. Last Sunday I explained that as a follower of Jesus, you live and move and have your being in what I'm calling a salvation-soaked, hear me now, a salvation-soaked relationship with the Creator of the world.

We tend to lose a little bit of focus as we live the Christian life that we were saved the moment we were transformed, the moment that we were born again, where the light of the Lord Jesus Christ began to shine out of our heart.

And now we know this is when I trusted Jesus to forgive me. This is when I became a Christian. This is when I was literally born again by the power of God. We tend to forget that the power that saved us in that moment is the salvation-soaked power that we are to marinate in.

We are to live out. And so it's like we're immersed down in this baptismal salvation place and the salvation is just oozing from us.

We can't get away from it. We live in that. We live like that. It's who you are and it's who I am. And that's never supposed to leave us in terms of the way we think about it.

Now here's the reality. Given the uncertainties, and I get this, I'm in it right now, given the hardships, the trials that you and I experience, Jesus living in you is the difference.

He is the difference for how you respond to life. Now you're going to be given a choice. Every single day that you live, you are constantly making choices in your life.

Am I making wise choices? Am I making not so wise choices? Am I choosing selfishly? Or am I choosing in my Savior? But basically, what I want to help you understand is that your responses to life should be couched more, framed more, in an attitude of how am I responding to Jesus?

Not just to the problem, not just to the person, not just to the situation, circumstance, or issue, but how am I responding to Jesus? Did Jesus just get up and fly away while I deal with this?

Did He go to sleep? Is He not living in me? Then does He not make all the difference right now in how I think about the way that I'm going to respond to this person or this context or this situation or this problem, whether it's in my marriage or with my children or my employer or whatever it is, a health issue?

How am I responding to Jesus in this? What is the issue of holiness? The behavioral holiness that I'm called to right now, where does that come in as I face this context in my life?

Peter wants our lives to reflect our salvation-soaked relationship with Christ. And so he begins with our hearts. Why?

Because our hearts are who we are. We live out of our heart. Your heart is the persona center of who you are as a human being. We're studying this on Wednesday night together.

We relate to Jesus and to other people from who we really are in our heart as a born-again human being, as a recreated, regenerated human being.

In other words, and I'll put this up on the screens for you to see, this is the first point that I did last week. We just covered this one last week. Our hearts, that is our real selves, are made up of what we think, what we believe, what we feel, what we choose, that's your will, and what we want.

Those are your desires. What is in our hearts is shown in how we speak. The mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart and behave in relationship to God and others.

So our lives reveal our hearts and our hearts are who we are. This is so critical for how we think about living before the Lord. All right? Just a couple of verses that will help just reinforce this in your mind.

Let's give some scripture, more scripture to this. The good man, the Bible says, out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.

Another concept for us, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in or steal. Now notice, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It's just another way of saying what you value most will be reflected in what you give your life to most at any given moment of your life. So, in other words, folks, we live out of what fills our hearts and that's what defines and drives us in terms of our desires more than any other thing.

So, by God's mercies, God has caused us to be born again. Do you know why He had to cause it? Because you never would have done it yourself. Because you couldn't. You wouldn't want it.

And you wouldn't do it. Neither would I, folks. We're all in that bucket as human beings. Our rebellion against God and our self-deception that we live in in sin is so great, it has overwhelmed and consumed and controlled us to such an extent that we would never on our own seek after God and what is good.

We would never go before someone who would look at us, put his finger on us, and say, you are completely and totally 100% depraved. You deserve a devil's hell and that's where you're going.

Why would we want to go before a being like that? And so, God causes us in His Son to be born again. He brings us to the place we would never go on our own.

He opens the eyes of our heart to help us see our need for Jesus and we run to Him and we fall before Him and we pray, God, save me in Your Son. Help me to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins and help me to trust in Him alone to do that work in my spirit, in my life, in my heart.

Right? That's His cross. And as we do that, God transforms us into a new creature in Christ. This is the way the New Testament speaks of this over and over and over again.

We're just talking about the good news of the Gospel. That Jesus saves. God caused us to be born again. He worked salvation in us and now by His grace we are to work out that salvation in how we live.

I'll continue to remind you of that. That's what Peter's doing. He wants us to live our salvation in a fullness of faithfulness to Jesus. So what does he say next in our text?

Prepare your minds for action. What's next? Keep sober in spirit. Now, these are calls to action. These are like war cries, if you will.

This is you. Wake up. Get to the battlements. Gird yourself. And get ready. I preached that last Sunday. I went into the details of what this means. But he wants this to be a reflection of who we are in the Lord so that we live out our faith.

Keep sober in spirit is about being spiritually alert. alert. You live your life in a spiritual sense of alertness. You never let yourself relax spiritually as it were.

You live in the peace of God, but you're defining your life and defining what's going on in your life continually by spiritual discernment. You see things spiritually.

You see people as spiritual beings. You see situations as a sovereign God acting spiritually in your life. God always has a purpose. He always has a meaning.

So as meaning makers, we are constantly seeking God's meaning, God's mind, God's perspective on whatever's happening in my life, whoever's in front of me in my life.

I want to see all that through the lens of the Lord. This is why Romans 12, 1 and 2 tells you don't be conformed to this world, right?

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, your heart, where you do your thinking, where you do your emoting. It all comes from your heart.

I point to my head sometimes because we think of that as the mind, but we're not talking about your brain. We're talking about the functioning center of your whole personhood that God has made you for.

And that's your heart. You live out of your soul, your heart. All right? We're talking about a heavenly-minded perspective on living. Are you heavenly-minded?

Are you growing in a heavenly-mindedness? Now, folks, you understand the world's not going to reward you for this. You can't read stuff from the world and expect to understand this and grow in it.

The world is anti-God and works against this perspective, yes? So we're guarding ourselves against the philosophies and teachings the world brings to us so that we can ground our minds in the perspective of God and stay faithful to Him.

Okay? So, Peter is saying this. Let me put it in different words. Peter is telling us, ready and steady your heart. Prepare it for action.

Steady it in a spiritual soberness about life. And be alert. Live out your faith. The action you are preparing your heart for is that of responding to God your Father with holy, God-pleasing living.

What am I preparing my heart for, Jeff? To live a holy life before the Lord. You're preparing beforehand so that when you walk into that context and you get slammed, you've prepared.

Now look, I've taught my congregation for years. There is a difference between, as a spiritual being, reacting and responding. reacting. Reacting is, I'm not prepared and I go in and it's, oh!

You know, and I kind of, I just, oh! And I don't, maybe that reaction is going to be godly, maybe not. Let me tell you how that you can help yourself in that. You learn to respond and not react.

What is a response? You can train yourself. Spiritual muscle memory so that when you walk into those contexts, your heart is already prepared for action. Through spiritual muscle memory, you're ready to receive whatever that is in a way that says, I'm going to make this about the Lord Jesus and responding to God because I'm training myself to do that.

Do you see what I'm saying? You're renewing your heart to think more in terms of the issues of life as being opportunities for God to work through you so that people see what's going on and say, you know what?

The only explanation for what's going on in my life right now and the way that I'm responding is Jesus. Jesus. And that's exactly what I want them to see. And it would be great if they would come up and they would say, hey, so how is this?

How is this going on? This has happened a few times. You know what? What? How are you? How are you doing this, man? And I say, hey, there's one word to explain this entire thing going on with me.

J.E.S.U.S. That's what. He's the difference. I'd be falling apart without Him. Wouldn't you? Don't you want to live like that?

Haven't you ever asked how in the world do people in the world do this without Jesus? They face the same things we do. The same stuff hits them. How do they do it?

Well, they cope. Now, once again, folks, you've heard me say, the Bible does not call us to cope. It calls us to hope. There's a huge difference in that lifestyle.

It is a certain hope grounded in the person of Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior. And we are called to serve Him in that way. This is the whole message that we're doing.

So, prepare a godly mind. Keep a spiritually sober outlook on life. And express that in a lifestyle that is responding to God. You're constantly responding to God.

You're so God conscious. Folks, this is not living in a heavenly mindedness that makes you no earthly good. This is a heavenly mindedness that helps you define how to live your life in a way that makes it about the Lord Jesus and not about your problems.

Not about your weaknesses. Not about what you can't do, but about what He can through you. It's a whole different... It's...

What do we call this? In a word, we call it worship. Worship. Worship. Every moment of every day, you're being challenged with who to worship or what to worship.

Now, last week, I briefly... Make sure I didn't miss a slide. Last week, I briefly introduced you to what these two calls to action are intended to produce in your life. This prepare for action, prepare your hearts, and this sober mindedness.

What about that? Well, look. A godly mind and a sober spirit support the first of two primary commands that are about to come. And these two primary commands have everything to do with faithfully living in response to God the Father.

So you say, okay, I'm starting to get a grip on this preparing my heart thing. I need to make my heart more and more conditioned in the truths of Jesus and the truths of God.

I need to think more carefully about how to think about life biblically. So that means I need to take God's Word into my heart and rest on that Word. Alright? And then I need to be spiritually alert.

I need to have a soberness about my life that isn't flighty. It isn't fearful. It isn't anything like that. It's not full of anxiety and worry and trying to control and manipulate everything.

It's sober. It's grounded. And I'm grounded in who Jesus is. I have a Savior who loves me. Alright, now, those two spiritual actions in your life are going to set you up for what He tells you next.

Two primary commands. Here's the first one. The first primary command is, look at the text, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Fix your hope. Preparing your minds for action and keeping sober in spirit, that's how you faithfully support this first primary command that we have in our text.

Again, here's how it reads. 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.

This is a very, very important reality for us to live by. Now, what does it mean for you to fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus?

The answer concerns Peter's second way for you to activate and apply these salvation-soaked blessings of how to live your life each day.

So here it is. I'm going to put it up. Roman numeral 2 for us. Obediently place your hope. Prepare your heart and place your hope. You are commanded to do this.

Now, folks, listen. Where do you put your hope? Do you hope in your spouse? Okay, well, make sure that hope in your spouse is grounded in the reality of who Jesus is.

It's going to be easy to get disappointed. Do you put your hope in the government? Oh, that's a laughable one. Do you put your hope in other people?

Do you put your hope in yourself? In what you can do? Let me tell you something. For those of you who are a little younger right now, you can do stuff. If you live like...

No, I won't put Greg in it. Because I'm older than him. If you live like you're getting like this, you're going to start feeling it. And that hope's going to be challenged big time. So don't go there.

Because you're just going to get crushed. Right, man? You're just going to get crushed. Under the dust of your own inabilities. They get more, not less. Old age will teach you to trust the Lord more.

So, you know, I've got to be thankful for old age in that way. In every other way, I don't know. Look to the Lord. Obediently place your hope in Him.

Verse 13 might read like this. Listen. Set your hope fully on the grace of the Lord Jesus by preparing your minds for action and keeping spiritually alert.

In other words, put your hope on God's future grace. What future grace? The grace of heaven. You're not in heaven yet. The danger in not doing this is that you're going to find yourself lulled and dulled to God's favor about your future sinlessness.

That's going to matter less and less to you as you put your eyes on this world. What did Colossians tell us? Set your mind on things above, not the things on earth. Because setting your mind on the things of earth lull and dull you in your spiritual awareness of what's coming.

What's going to be your eternity. And that should have more definition on you, more impact on you than anything. It's what God has done for you in Jesus that is still yet to come.

Don't be so fixed on this world that your desires are informed and formed by this world. The grace that we're talking about here is God keeping His promises to come back for you and take you to heaven.

That's the greater reality of your new nature. Remember what I read to you a few minutes ago. Here it is on the screen. When Christ who is our life see is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Dr. MacArthur distinguishes faith and hope in verses like this. Now I'm going to show you this. The reason I'm going to do this is I want you to have an understanding a better grip on so as I apply my faith how does that relate to this hope that I'm being called to?

Because my faith has everything to do with the way I'm thinking about trusting God in the now. That's right. That's good. Well then what about my hope?

How does my hope relate to that faith that I have to put into place now? What does the hope do for that? This is what Dr. MacArthur said.

Listen. The major difference between the two attitudes is that faith involves trusting God in the present whereas hope is future faith.

See? You have present faith and future faith. Trusting God for what is to come as well as what is now. faith appropriates what God has already said and done in His revealed Word and hope anticipates what God will yet do as promised in Scripture.

So both your faith and your hope are part of that prepare your heart and be sober-minded because faith and hope as we talk about them right now are both grounded in the promises of the Bible.

My faith is being exercised according to the promises of the Bible. The character of Jesus. What the Bible is teaching me about God. My faith is being activated in what I know God has taught me and told me about Himself.

Do you see? my hope is also based on all of that and it is a certain hope that everything God has promised He will do for me and bring me to He is going to accomplish because that's the trajectory.

That's where I'm headed. The path of my life is a path on an upward slope. I am on my way to heaven.

This is part of the journey. Thank God when I get to heaven I'll jettison this old tank this old thing and I'll get a brand new one and it'll be able to keep up with heaven's stuff.

Right? I'll never get tired of singing to Jesus in heaven. There won't be any tech to glitch in heaven. There won't be any fear in me.

Lack of trust in me. Disloyalty in me. Pride in me. No sin. There will be nothing to encumber me in my worship and praise of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's where I'm headed. I'm not there yet but I'm headed there. Now how should that reality affect me and influence me and inform me now?

And that's where your faith now in the present comes in. Alright, you with me? Isn't that glorious? Only Christians get to talk like this. Only Christians get to hope like this.

That's the first and primary command of what the Lord would have you do. It's a hope that is grounded in the Holy Spirit. It is fixed in a future faith as you believe God for what He's promised you in the Lord Jesus.

Now, again, it's not a hope of wishful thinking. It's a hope grounded in the Lord and His goodness and His promises. Now this is why, I'm going to put this up on the screen, this is why Peter tells us to fix this kind of hope.

Look, the word is completely. Does your Bible have that word? Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you. The Greek word for completely is teleos.

Teleos. It means, it has the idea of to a complete degree or to the full or entire extent. You may have heard this Greek word used in English settings, if you do reading in certain areas, as teleos or teleological.

Maybe you've heard that word. Those words, especially Mitch probably has in philosophy, those words have the idea of a completeness or a fullness of the end result.

So that the teleological end for you, the teleological goal that is happening in your life is the goal of being with Jesus in heaven forever.

That's your end game. Okay, let me just use that word. The end game for all Christians is I'm going to be with Jesus forever and nothing is going to get in the way of me honoring Him and being with Him and enjoying Him.

I'm going to get the full meal deal of being with Jesus and nothing is going to encumber that. I'm not going to get in my way anymore. Do you get in your way right now?

Do you get in your way? I hope you say, yes, I do. And I hope you're able to say, but Jesus is working in me and on me, right? All right, now let me take you to this, just a couple of more things, and then we'll move on.

Let me give you this one. Fix your confident expectation to the full extent on God's grace brought to you when Jesus is revealed in His second coming. Grace here is the idea of salvation, inheritance.

It's the favor of God to bring you to Himself. Let this future grace overwhelm your soul with hope, certainty, because of the richness of God's goodness to you and His Son, Jesus Christ.

So, it's okay to focus on your salvation. Unbelievers can't do that because they don't have any salvation. Now, we move to this final one and I'll do it quickly. Obediently protect your holiness.

He goes from verse 13 down into the rest. As obedient children, do not be conformed. See, there's that. Do not do that. Do not be conformed to the former desires which were yours in your spiritual ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you.

This is amazing. You're telling me don't be like that, but be like God? But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in your behavior because it's written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

He's already taught you in the verses prior to verse 13 that God has made you a new creature in Jesus Christ. Now He's saying to you, be holy in your behavior because your behavior reflects what He's done to you on the inside.

He's made you holy. We should never get tired of reminding each other of this. Fully and confidently reflect God's amazing grace.

Don't divorce yourself from the realities of the hardships and trials of this life by retreating into yourself. Respond to God in those hardships and trials and let Him do the work that He wants to do in making you more like Jesus.

So prepare your mind for action. Keep yourself alert. Fix your hope entirely on what should motivate and define us. Remember that we don't deserve any of these blessings but God freely makes them ours in Jesus.

So that should well up within us an overwhelming desire to live a holy life for the goodness and glory of God. Now Peter follows this up with a second primary command about activating and applying God's salvation blessings in your life.

Be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. I put this up on the screen what I just said. Be holy also. He says first of all this primary command after we've prepared our hearts as we are ongoing in our sober mindedness He says completely completely fix your hope on the Lord.

Now He tells us secondly be holy in all your behavior because that's who your Father is and you're imitating Him. Now folks I want to say this to you because I want you to I think I'll just put it up here on the screen because it's very important.

Look at the bottom of the screen holiness is not a concept to consider it is a state of being for living in consecration to God. Mark that.

Holiness is not just something for you to ponder or consider. it's not some nebulous concept it's a critical reality about what God has done to change you in your inner being and He's done that so that you can live devoted to if you would rather have devoted rather than consecrated you live devoted to God from a spirit of holiness and so your life should look like that holiness you follow in the will of God to live a God pleasing life.

Remember that Peter is telling us earlier in the chapter that we were chosen we were sprinkled with Christ's blood and that by His mercy He has caused us to be born again and now we have this wonderful inheritance that is protected by the power of God for our faith and salvation in Him and so one day He's going to raise us into that reality.

that's where we are we are children of obedience think about that as a designation for your life you say Jeff I'm not always obedient I know that's why we pray that's why we gather that's why we encourage that's why we ask God for forgiveness obey God that's your nature your new nature is to obey the God who saved you you can offer this God and Father of your salvation now listen the most wonderful of gifts if you ask me Pastor Jeff I'm moving to a close if you ask me Pastor Jeff what is the highest and greatest gift that I could possibly give to God as a Christian as his child the answer is this you give back to God the greatest gift that he had to give you Jesus you answer back to God you live before God in Christ you give back to God the expressions of his son living in you and those expressions will be the expressions of adoration worship calm peace you look at the life of Jesus in the gospels and see the life that he lived and how he responded to people hating him and spitting on him and ridiculing and manipulating and lying about him you see how Jesus responded to all of his friends who he poured his life into for years left him in his greatest hour of need and how did he respond what did he do as he dropped to his knees in prayer and prayed for them see the greatest gift that we can give to God is the greatest gift that he has given to us in his son to live his son back to him does that make sense to you or does that sound like a nebulous concept as well no that's real now if I if I want to

I could put this in very basic terms you're a duck so don't cluck quack alright be who you are but like the holy one who called you be holy yourselves in all behavior but is a strong contrast word in this text don't give in to the desires that used to rule you in your spiritual ignorance and separation from the Lord but but value God's grace according to the holy one who called you be like your father be holy as you've been made holy with the perfect righteousness of Jesus live out live out what your heavenly father has put in what God has put in live out that's why I say the greatest gift that you can give to God is living out what he's put in and what he's put in is the character of his own son the life of his own son live out that life to him you think about besetting sin you think about something that has eaten your lunch for years as a Christian in the way of sinful actions or thoughts or whatever both how do I get past that how do I get through that how do I overcome that you overcome that by reprogramming yourself as it were in the truth of the word to say

Lord I want to replace all that with living to you I want my responses to be responses that say Lord you're the most important in this moment not me not me getting what I want and then you begin to live like that in the power of the Lord you pray and depend on the Lord let me give you two more God wrote his scripture something about you which is true and which can never be broken now read that carefully again because what comes next is revolutionary you shall be holy for I am holy you shall be holy for I am holy prepare your heart place your hope and protect your holiness that's the word for the week prepare your hearts place your hope and protect your holiness hopefully I've given you some ways to sink your spiritual teeth into that and live to the greater glory of the Lord will you bow with me in prayer almighty God and father we thank you for your word and for the truths that you have brought to us from the scriptures in first Peter chapter one so much more richness and so many more treasures to be mined and understood but we have tapped into the greatest treasure that we have father that is your holy son

Jesus thank you for Jesus thank you for his wonderful gospel that tells the world tells us that you are a God who saves and that you have given your only son as a matter of sacrifice so that we could know the wonders and the treasures of who you are as our God and our king thank you for saving us from us thank you for giving us hope a certainty that we can be brought to heaven to live with you forever let these things make the difference in our lives Lord and help us to honor you this week in the way that we speak to one another in the way that we speak to others help us to go out into our world it's in such desperate need and help us to open our mouths in love and speak that truth in love help us to tell them about Jesus and give them that same hope that we have we pray all of this for your glory in Jesus name Amen