Wait on the Lord – 1 Peter 1:13
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By Dave Rich, Pastor | March 28, 2021 | Exposition of 1 Peter | Worship Service
Description: In order for this life to accomplish its intended purpose of sanctification for the good of the believer and the glory of God, we must obey the command to set our hope completely on the grace that is promised to be ours at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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- 00:01
- Good morning Let's pray together Father my my desire is to speak as one who speaks the utterances of God Because that's that's what
- 00:17
- I have in front of me And so Lord, I pray that you would make certain that I don't go to the left or to the right
- 00:23
- I am simply not up to the task and So I pray for your power
- 00:29
- I Pray for the the power of the word to make its changes in the lives of these who were
- 00:34
- Bought with such a high price the precious blood of Christ Prince in Jesus name
- 00:41
- So turn in your Bibles to first Peter chapter 1 will be continuing on in first Peter chapter 1 for those of you that Haven't been to or been here when
- 00:54
- I'm preaching we've been working through first Peter 1 Very slowly, I heard Cornell last week talked about how slow he's going through Thessalonians and I think
- 01:04
- I may have him beat. I'm still on verse 13 today Of chapter 1 so we're gonna read the first 13 verses together first Peter 1 verses 1 through 13
- 01:16
- Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who reside as strangers scattered throughout
- 01:22
- Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia Who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the
- 01:28
- Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood May grace and peace be multiplied to you
- 01:37
- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a
- 01:42
- Living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance Which is imperishable undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith
- 01:54
- For salvation ready to be revealed in the last time In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while if necessary You've been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire
- 02:08
- May be found to result in praise glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ Though you've not seen him you love him and though you do not see him now, but believe in him
- 02:18
- You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory Obtaining as the outcome of your faith at the salvation of your souls
- 02:26
- As to this salvation the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries seeking to know what?
- 02:32
- Person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow
- 02:38
- It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves But you and these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the
- 02:45
- Holy Spirit sent from heaven things into which angels long to look Therefore prepare your minds for action
- 02:53
- Keep sober in spirit set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ And our focus today is on that verse 13 verse 13 marks a transition in this epistle
- 03:06
- Starts with the word therefore or wherefore in pretty much every English Translation and the use of that adverb therefore it's a common feature in English translations of the biblical epistles
- 03:17
- You'll see it often It's it's common to have a therefore something similar to mark a movement from statement of facts in an epistle to application of those facts
- 03:27
- Usually those facts are important theological truths related to the gospel of your salvation and the implication is usually in the form of commands ethical requirements under the
- 03:37
- New Covenant Usually it's done that way. Here's some high lofty theological set of truths and then there's a therefore
- 03:46
- This is how you ought to act in light of your identity in Christ and what God has done for you That's exactly what
- 03:52
- Peter's using the therefore for in verse 13 He moves from facts to application of those facts
- 04:01
- If you're into English, he goes from verbs that are into an indicative mood To verbs that are an imperative mood.
- 04:08
- So from statements of fact to commands so the first thing we have to understand is
- 04:15
- Is what are the statements of facts what's the basis for the therefore? So if the therefore is a hinge from some truths that he's told us to some application of those truths
- 04:24
- What are the truths that require the commands we have to understand that? So is it just verse 12 just the statement of verse 12, or is it more than that?
- 04:36
- so conveniently I Think it's all of the first 12 verses that we have to have some understanding of the facts of so when you preach very infrequently
- 04:45
- You have to do a review anyway, so if it's perfectly we have to do a little bit of a review of the first 12 verses
- 04:51
- What a coincidence So I broke the facts that are expressed in the first 12 verses into six points.
- 04:59
- It's arbitrary, but here are the six We here on the audience of this letter are chosen by God in eternity past for this great salvation
- 05:09
- You can follow along you see in verse one. You'll see who are chosen or the elect exiles
- 05:15
- God chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him the first word used to describe us there in the
- 05:21
- Greek language is actually that word for chosen or elect Number two we don't belong here.
- 05:28
- You see that in verse one. We're strangers or exiles This world is presently constitute.
- 05:34
- It's not our home We're placed here. We're scattered or dispersed by God for a particular purpose
- 05:42
- Three that purpose is our sanctification you see it there the sanctifying work of the spirit in verse two So that we might obey
- 05:49
- Jesus Christ The sprinkled with his blood that harkens back to the sprinkling of blood as a mark of a covenant relationship
- 05:58
- So the purpose of our being here is to fulfill our commitment in the new covenant to obey Christ to be obedient to Christ That's the purpose of all of this
- 06:05
- It's the purpose of trials for having Christians live and die in the midst of this world that hates
- 06:11
- Christ and hates his children That there's a purpose for that and that purpose is our sanctification We learn we learn through the joys and sufferings of this life to be more like Christ All right life prepares this life short as it is it prepares us for our real life our eternal life
- 06:28
- Number four we're regenerated We're made alive when we were spiritually dead we were totally unable to respond to spiritual stimuli like the gospel
- 06:36
- We couldn't come to God and so he made us alive. We were dead in our sin
- 06:42
- But God being rich in mercy even when we were dead in our sin made us alive together with Christ in the verse three
- 06:47
- You can see that blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy Has caused us to be born again.
- 06:54
- That is something that God did Number five we've been given a promised inheritance Living hope given through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead you see that in verse four
- 07:05
- Which is imperishable this inheritance which is imperishable undefiled will not fade away reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time in number six our salvation is so great
- 07:19
- It is the focus of the Spirit himself as well as of the angels and the best of mankind you see that We talked about that last time which
- 07:27
- I know is a long time ago The prophets puzzled over our salvation in the Old Testament the Apostles proclaimed our salvation in the
- 07:33
- New Testament all under the Inspiration of Holy Spirit and now the angels long to look into salvation to understand the salvation of man
- 07:43
- So Peter has shown us in those twelve verses Here is your salvation. Here is the gospel of your salvation.
- 07:50
- Here is what God has done in all of its beauty presented to us Twelve verses expounding the greatness of our salvation
- 08:00
- Therefore in light of this great salvation therefore now we come to verse 13
- 08:08
- Prepare your minds for action keep sober in spirit Set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ Okay, so you see that because of all that has gone has been said before because of all that God has done for you all that God has made you into all that God is making you into therefore
- 08:27
- There are certain commands that you must follow Right, and we're gonna start looking at those command
- 08:34
- So we're gonna diagram verse 13 a little bit Let if you read first Peter, you'll see basically the rest of it is commands
- 08:42
- It's how to live in a world of suffering and persecution in light of who you are in Christ So we're gonna diagram the sentence verse 13 a little bit, which
- 08:53
- I know that was everyone's favorite thing in school So we have a therefore to start the verse.
- 08:59
- We've talked about that a little bit. It's a part of a logical argument Then there are apparently three commands in the verse in Probably depending on your translation and they're all really collapsible into one
- 09:13
- We're to prepare our minds for action and to keep sober So that we rightly set our hope completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ so the ultimate end of the purpose of the action all the action in that verse is
- 09:29
- The command set our hope completely on this grace, right? So there's a few questions that we have to we have to answer as we go through this
- 09:39
- So we kind of do this a little bit backwards What is the grace first of all?
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- One understand what that is. What is the grace is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ? What does that mean secondly, what does it mean to set our hope completely on it?
- 09:57
- So first we have to understand what the grace is then what does it mean to set our hope completely on it? and then what does it mean to prepare our minds for action and to keep sober and The last how does that how does preparing our minds and keeping sober contribute to our fulfilling the command
- 10:11
- To fix our hope on the grace to be brought to us So did you see where we're headed?
- 10:21
- I'm more of a Sunday school teacher than a preacher because I like to like But I can't know if you are so hopefully you are
- 10:27
- I Guess well, maybe someone will tell me later So we're we have a command here.
- 10:33
- In other words, we are commanded to fix our hope on some future grace So we have to start with understanding what that is and then once we have that Once we understand what that grace is
- 10:42
- We'll look at what it means to set our hope on it and then understand how preparing our minds and being sober Contributes to that fixing our hope
- 10:51
- Okay. So first we got to start with what is that future grace? The grace that is to be ours at the revelation of Jesus Christ So there's a hint there in the timing of when this grace is to come
- 11:05
- The timing is the revelation of Jesus Christ and those are the exact same words that start the book of Revelation the revelation of Jesus Christ so to be explicit
- 11:14
- The revelation of Jesus Christ is the second advent of Christ Okay, the very public revealing of King Jesus to the world
- 11:24
- Revelation 1 7 behold. He is coming with the clouds and Every eye will see him even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him
- 11:32
- So it is to be amen That is the point of time when Peter says grace will be brought to us. There's Some grace that we brought to us on which we ought to fix our hope the moment of Christ's return
- 11:45
- Do you think about that? Think about it the moment that Christ returns
- 11:52
- It's gonna be the highlight of our eternal lives It's gonna be that thing. We look back for in a million years and we'll remember that the return of Christ He's coming again
- 12:05
- John 14 3 says and if I go this is Christ speaking if I go and prepare a place for you I am coming again, and we'll take you to myself.
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- So the where I am there you also will be Jesus told us he's coming again the personal physical visible sudden glorious triumphant return of our
- 12:24
- Lord Jesus is a Cardinal doctrine of Christianity. It's clearly taught in Scripture. What a day that will be
- 12:32
- And verse 13 tells us there'll be some additional grace some some undeserved Happy making blessings that will be ours when
- 12:41
- Christ returns So it's not really that hard to understand what those blessings are at least in broad terms because we've seen reference to this timing before And to some blessings.
- 12:51
- I look back at verse 7 So that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire may be found to result in praise
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- Glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ So this grace that is to come
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- That is being brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ must include at least this praise glory and honor
- 13:17
- That's good. That's part of what Peter's referring to at least And I want you to notice here.
- 13:23
- It's not called merit but grace Even though this is reward This praise glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ, I believe that is praise glory and honor given to us by Christ unfathomable idea
- 13:37
- But it's it's reward, but it's not merit. It's grace And you understand that?
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- And nothing we nothing we do in Christ or for Christ is done apart from Christ It's still all of grace both our ability to serve and our will to service.
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- It's all from God But I think even beyond that notion beyond the notion of individual reward and I think that that individual reward takes the form mainly of that Well done good and faithful servant.
- 14:08
- You've been faithful over little I will set you over much enter the joy of your master And what beautiful words those are but but even beyond that It's just a great privilege of participation in the revelation of the glory of our master
- 14:24
- You think about that day We get to share it we get to share that joyous moment and then we start a new era in our eternal lives much better So there is there is maybe even more than that the idea of a glorified state
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- This would make sense in the context of first Peter freedom from present suffering and persecution all of the contrast between this world and the next involved in this this grace
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- It's a privilege of participation and that revelation think about no more sin curse
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- We know what's that No more sin curse We're talking about windstorms tonight
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- No more sin curse no more suffering no more trials no more distress
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- The trials will have served their purpose of refining and revealing our faith as genuine
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- They'll cease the time for trials will be over No more persecution No more dealing with those who reject the truth and love the darkness.
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- That's all done. No more darkness in myself This may be the best part.
- 15:35
- I don't have to exercise self -control anymore. No no more vigilance
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- Hey, I don't know no more moral effort or failure Our first Peter 510 after you've suffered for a little while the
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- God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ Will himself perfect Confirm strengthen and establish you perfect rule from a perfect King How would that be?
- 16:03
- perfect relationships with my now perfect friends glorification of our bodies the completion of the work of God and salvation of his elect we have in other words a lot of grace to Look forward to much to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ First Peter 413 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ keep on rejoicing
- 16:24
- So that at the revelation of his glory you may also rejoice and be overjoyed
- 16:31
- You may rejoice and be overjoyed like Peter Damien know how to say it how comforting and motivating is that thought right?
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- That's what awaits us the glory of Christ the praise of our master and end to the race
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- Eternity with him and you in a place that's perfectly suited in a body that's perfectly suited to that place
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- Complete happy at peace. We will rejoice and be overjoyed at the revealing of his glory
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- That's the grace that that's the grace is to be brought to us at the revelation of Christ This is the grace to which we are to fix our hope or set our hope
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- More literally we are to hope perfectly or completely hope to the limit For this grace
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- King James has hope to the end That end doesn't mean your death or the end of time
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- It means to the end to the end of what grace can be maximum complete full perfect The hope that we have for this grace should be without any sort of doubt and without any rival in its object
- 17:43
- Just a few weeks ago Jim was in Hebrews 10 23 and He'll probably still be in Hebrews 10 23 when he gets back
- 17:53
- But he talked about hope and How hope is not wishful thinking hope doesn't like confidence
- 18:00
- Hope in the context of the Christian faith is confident expectation He talked about that and then here the adverb that translated fully or to the end or completely or perfectly
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- It means that we're to hope to have that hope with a complete confidence, but that's already in the word
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- But also that hope must be without any rival there must be nothing else in which we place our hope it must be exclusive Exclusive trust in this grace alone
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- So let's think about that for just a second without the content of our hope that for that for which we wish that for which we hope
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- Shouldn't use the word wish in this context that for which we hope that which that's what makes us optimistic about the future
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- Right, that's what it means to hope. It's it's what we want to happen in the future and in a biblical context
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- It's what we expect to happen in the future that we look forward to That we want to happen and here we see it's the grace of Christ and only that Only the promises we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ our our future happiness will flow from the grace
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- That is to come at the revelation of Christ. We have to recognize that Nothing else that holds our affection holds our attention here is of Any ultimate value unless it falls under this heading?
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- The blessings that are to be ours at the revelation of Jesus Christ Right, we're to hope fully completely on that everything else is just fools gold
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- Has to have no rival where we're to place all of our our positive aspirations our confidence of future good
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- Solely in the promises of grace given to us in the Word of God now last time I preached it was on verses 10 through 12
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- And basically the same Application because to the for the prophets and the
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- Apostles the angels and the Holy Spirit himself Salvation is such a great thing and was such a consuming passion that it ought to be ours as well
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- Really to the exclusion of anything else. Okay, so Having understood that that what that grace is and that it is to be the object of her
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- Hope we can back up now to these participles to reveal the prerequisites for the fixed. Hope They tell us in other words how we're to have these hope this hope so the first two verbs in the verse that are translated as commands and most of your translations are are actually
- 20:32
- Participles that modify the main command and we looked at the main command which is to fix your hope completely on grace So these two kind of tell us how to do that so since their prerequisites for obeying a command they have the force of a command if You have to do this in order to obey the command and they have the force of a command, but they're just not
- 20:51
- The verb tense is not actually imperative and you you'll see what I mean easily enough Young's literal translation is one that I consult when
- 20:59
- I'm studying something. You can't read young's literal translation. It's way too Literal like it's completely unreadable
- 21:07
- But it comes in handy for study and here's the YLT version of this verse Wherefore having girded up the loins of your mind
- 21:17
- Being sober hope perfectly upon the grace that is being brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ and that does a careful job of accurately accurately translating the verb tenses having girded up the loins of your mind or if we translate the idiom we'll talk about that idiom in a minute
- 21:32
- Girding up the girding up the loins of your mind what that means if we translate that as preparing your mind
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- So it's that it would say having prepared your minds for action having prepared your minds for action
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- So it's not a command there you see It's something that you are assumed to have
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- Done having done that and once you have done that now being sober Continuing in that state you would be in if you'd prepared your mind
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- You're now capable of obeying the command to hope perfectly Okay So we have really the one command which is to set our hope or to hope perfectly on that grace that's the command and then we have two other things that we have to do to get ready for that prepare our minds for action and or gird up the loins of your mind and then
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- Be sober or keep sober be remain in a sober state of mind So we're going to look at each of those participles
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- Individually briefly and then kind of come back and put them together So first prepare your minds for action
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- I mentioned just a second ago the gird up the loins of your mind You'll see that in King James New King James, and it is the more literal translation.
- 22:40
- That's what the words actually are But modern English readers may not understand what it means to gird up the loins of your mind
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- That's a kind of a strange idiom to us so The more modern translations translate that idiom in to prepare your mind or something like that But as Bible readers, you probably understand how these are equivalent translations
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- To gird up your loins for ancient readers would have been understood as the practice of tucking in the long corners of their robe into their belt
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- So instead of it being long that would kind of shorten it up and it would free them to perform some physical action to run or to fight and So that's what they would have understood gird up the loins to mean
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- So really it's preparation Gird up the loins of your mind here. Well, we'll get to that in a second
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- But one illustration of that is the Passover the first Passover The Israelites were told this
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- Exodus 12 11 now, you shall eat it this way with your garment belted around your waist
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- Your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in a hurry. This is the Lord's Passover All right, so they were told have your staff in your hand for getting out of there have your sandals on your feet
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- Get your loins girded get your robe belted up so you can get out of there you'll be ready to run and That's what this means be prepared
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- All right. Now, what does it mean in first Peter? It's not that it's not having to do with a robe because it says of the mind
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- So it's an activity of the mind. So it's it's using an idiom. It's not Actually referring to girding up anything or anything like that So it means to prepare your minds, right so gird up gird up the loins mean meant to Prepare for some physical activity where the robe would get in the way
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- So gird up the loins of your mind means to prepare for some mental activity where something might get in the way All right.
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- So what is that? It means then to tuck things away to put in proper place in your mind
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- Anything that might entangle or complicate or confuse or detract or distract from What we're told to do here
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- The desired action which is to fix our hope completely on the grace that is to come so focus
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- Focus on what's important focus on your salvation Peter's been telling us that focus on your salvation past present and now especially future
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- So think about that think about all that God has done in history From creation all the events the
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- Old Testament to accomplish the gospel of your salvation
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- Think about your history think what he's done in your life to accomplish your salvation You're calling your election your regeneration your calling your conversion and now think about what he's doing now
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- In your life the trials the tough things The things that you don't want to talk about that the sins that you're committing and the constant repentance that you're going through the relationships
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- Work all of those things that you're going through those remember are for your salvation. They are for your
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- Sanctification which is part of your the whole road of your salvation ultimately Okay, I don't mean your conversion.
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- I don't mean you go from being Unsafe to save because of your site sanctification, but sanctification is an ongoing process to get you ready for your eternity
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- That's what God is doing now But now let's think about the future like what we talked about the grace is to be yours at the return of Christ the praise of Christ the glory of Christ the presence of Christ the freedom from sin and unbelief and death freedom from Not only the power of sin which you
- 26:39
- Christian are already free from but free from its actual presence I Will be amazing grace
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- That's to prepare for your mind think about prepare your mind think of those things and Other things put them away put them in the right place make sure there's nothing distracting you then
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- Peter tells us to keep sober and The NASB adds in spirit if you have
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- NASB you see italics there Means the words aren't really there that they're they're added for clarity
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- And I think it's added here, so you know that it's not just like don't get drunk. It's not just talking about physical sobriety
- 27:21
- Okay, but the word is just sober it means sober in all of your being Here it would include physical sobriety, but also
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- Any influence that doesn't deserve to be an influence? Any intoxicating influence free from any figuratively or spiritually or mentally intoxicating influence and the addiction
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- To anything that is generally sinful or useless or anything that would prevent us from having a proper focus on these things that really matter
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- That's to be sober Alexander Strock an author that I like a lot he defines the word this way sober
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- Self -control balanced judgment and freedom from debilitating excesses or rash behavior Negatively it indicates the absence of any personal disorder that would distort a person's judgment or conduct
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- Positively it describes a person who is stable circumspect self -restrained and clear -headed All right, so this word sober means able to focus and actually focused
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- Focused on the on the right things not just it doesn't mean just not distracted But also alert and clear -eyed and looking at that which is important Okay, so now let's put these together
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- So we understand the command prepare your mind for action put away the distractions you're ready to take action toward that which is important Lay aside that which is not
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- Remain sober remain free from those distractions remain in that state And now that you're able to focus because you have prepared your mind you made yourself sober now fixed your focus on that Grace fix your hope your confident expectation on grace is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ Remember the return of Christ the day when all things are made right
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- That's the thing upon which we place our hope Without doubt without rival this isn't in here, but I was thinking about this
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- I think the events of the last whatever how many months it's been this is a little bit easier for us now, isn't it?
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- We may have been tempted to fix our hope on other things Not anymore. I Think this has helped us
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- That's what suffering and persecution does Right tunes our focus Okay So here's a little bit of a test about how well we've done
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- On we're doing on fixing our hope on the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ So if you haven't been listening yet, just listen for a second think about think about it.
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- Just do a little thought experiment Okay, you find out without any doubt somehow and this is impossible
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- But you know for sure that Christ is coming tomorrow Now I know
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- I'm not talking to eschatology here so Whether it's the rapture or the second coming or whatever your your cosmic eschatology today, it doesn't matter
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- It really doesn't just think about when is your time over in Christ you're about to meet
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- Christ and Now, you know, it's tomorrow Okay, is there is there any?
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- Hesitation any dread or disappointment In your mind, is there anything that you're thinking?
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- Oh, I wish you could wait a week Is there anything like that if you're honest?
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- Because I've heard people say that they they would they would want this or that to happen in their lives before Christ would return
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- There's some things that they'd want to accomplish Depending on why you would desire such a delay in the
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- Lord's return You're either completely lost in sin and still in love with darkness or you are ignorant beyond imagination a believer
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- Wants nothing more than the presence of Christ Every once in a while, I don't do it too often when
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- I'm singing I imagine that Christ is behind that wall and he's listening and You can see why
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- I don't do it all the time because it will it will just bring you to tears to think that he could hear your praise and He can anyway, but we're physical people, you know, we're physical beings.
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- And so for us It's not the same Think about the physical presence of Christ if that isn't your one desire
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- Then something's wrong and you you have some things to repent of you have some thinking to do
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- Okay, so how do we connect this verse to the rest of the book remember first Peter is written to Persecute and suffering believers
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- It's intended to give them confidence and joy and comfort through this life through the various trials that you saw earlier and Then consistent with that message
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- Peter tells us how to live how to live this life how to live this life so that it accomplishes
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- Its objective which is your good the sanctification of your soul and the glory of God Tells us how to do that a set of commands that come
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- That we'll see over the next 20 30 years Or you can just read it tonight.
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- It's a short book So so the way to win the reward of God's glory and and your good your sanctification for a race
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- That is well run a life that is well lived a fight. That's well fought is to live this this life
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- Constantly in view of the next this well
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- This is the this is the prayer of ASAP, this is psalm 73 25 this has to be our prayer
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- I think this says it better than I could Whom have I in heaven, but you
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- In this ASAP's prayer he's talking to God whom have I in heaven But you and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you
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- We have to be able to say that There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you
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- It doesn't mean that we literally have no other passions or or things that we enjoy But in comparison, there's nothing
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- I'll give all that up nothing that I desire besides you
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- Everything else has to be in light of our hope in the grace that is to come everything else that we have any affection for Everything else has to fit underneath our faith in Christ All right,
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- Robert Layton wrote a commentary on first Peter. He had this to say about this verse if you want to enjoy this hopefully
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- Cut off your affections for other things The same eye cannot look up to heaven and down to earth at the same time
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- The more your affections are disentangled from the world the more they can be actively engaged in this
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- The more sober they are The less they'll fill themselves with the coarse delights of earth and the more room they will have to be filled with his hope this
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- That's the end of his quote. This is a call to tying up or cutting off the loose ends
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- Right remove the distractions Anything that gets in the way of you're making the gospel of Jesus Christ his person and his work and his return his promises the thing
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- On which you dwell Listen having a mind on earthly things. That's a sign of an unbeliever.
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- That's in Philippians 319 that's given as a sign of an unbeliever and Having a mind on earthly things is just incompatible with living your life in such a way that you accomplish its goal your sanctification the glory of God 2nd
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- Timothy 2 4 well before I do this This life is just remember it's just practice we really get into it, but it's just practice
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- It's practice now practice is important Right we use practice time to get better How stupid would it be to use practice time to get worse?
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- Right how ashamed would you be at his coming if you're his 2nd
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- Timothy 2 4 no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life So that he may please the one who enlisted him no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life
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- Charles Spurgeon you got to have a Spurgeon quote to get the ratings up so there you go This is really good.
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- This is from his sermon on this verse the rays of the Sun are warm But if you collect them into a focus
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- By a burning glass or we would think of a magnifying glass You produce a fire which else you could not find in them
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- Concentrate your faculties upon faith in Jesus concentrate your emotions upon the love of Jesus concentrate your whole being upon the glory of Jesus you will accomplish marvels if you do this a
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- Man who's all over the place is nowhere But he whose life is one and indivisible is strong and his influence will be felt in the service of his master
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- Cornell read Psalm 130 this morning for scripture reading this is verses 5 and part of 6
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- I wait for the Lord my soul waits And I wait for his word my soul waits in hope for the
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- Lord more than the watchman for the morning So when you wait for something, it's what you want to happen next.
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- That's why you're waiting right Even if it's something unpleasant you're you're waiting for it that that's the thing that you expect to happen next wait on the
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- Lord Wait with the confidence and desire of a shepherd this this watchman would be a night shepherd a
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- Shepherd taking the night watch what's he concerned about? It's the night is cold. It's dark. It's long
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- It's dangerous It's the night when the wolves would come. It's the night when the bandits would come
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- So he waits waits for the Sun to rise. He waits with perfect confidence that the
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- Sun will rise and With it will come the common graces of warmth and safety and for him rest
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- Wait with full conviction of the return of your Savior. It is more certain than the rising of the
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- Sun Fix your hope on the graces to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ So much better than the common graces of the
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- Sun so much greater than for what the watchman was waiting for Wait on the Lord Let's pray together
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- Father again, just a very grateful for for your word grateful that you would condescend to Give us words that we could learn from you and Lord.
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- I pray today that as we go our way That your word will remain that nothing that I've said that went to the left or to the right would ever be remembered or recalled
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- I guess it's going to be recorded, but hopefully no one would listen to it I pray only