1 Peter: Why Obey? (1 Peter 1:13-21, Jeff Kliewer)

God, I love Mountain Dew. Yeah, thank you, brother.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. So Father, we come now to your word, to open your word, and to receive that living bread, remembering that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Father.

We thank you, God, for this opportunity. We ask that you would make us hungry now. Lord, if any of us are sleepy, if any of us are distracted, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name that you would awaken us now and make us focused upon your word.

We thank you for your word to us. It's everything to us. So in the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen. Amen.

The Call to Obedience in 1 Peter

Our series in 1 Peter is called Solid as a Rock. And that imagery refers to Peter being Petras, the rock, Cephas, rock, but also his effort to write to us in order that we would be mature, built up, strong, stable in the faith.

The book of 1 Peter is about becoming solid and strong in our Christian life. And if in a word I describe that, I would say that word is maturity, maturity. The book of 1 Peter teaches us how to be mature Christians.

I heard a story of a little boy. Now, when you think of maturity or immaturity, you think of age, right? We grow from immaturity to maturity. And along with that, from disobedience, we learn to obey. Children don't need to be taught how to disobey, do they?

They need to be taught how to obey. Well, there was a boy who his mother said, listen, call him little Johnny. On your way home from school, little Johnny, I want you to make sure you come straight home.

Do not stop at the baseball field. Come straight home. He looked her in the eye and said, yes, mom. Then he ate his breakfast and got dressed. And as he was walking out the door, she noticed him grab his baseball glove.

And she said, Johnny, what are you doing?

Why are you grabbing your glove?

And he said to her, well, just in case I feel tempted, I needed to bring my glove, just in case I feel tempted.

Think about that.

That is what's called making provision for the flesh. Just in case he felt tempted, he was going to bring his baseball glove. Now, when I was young, when I was a child, I had some epic moments of disobedience, things that I'm not proud of today.

But as a child, my mom told me at Adventure Island, you are not to go on that really high slide called the Tampa Typhoon. You can go on the speed slide, which had the same stairs going up, but the Tampa Typhoon was just.

Too steep.

It was almost a straight drop. And I said, yes, mom. I will not go on the Tampa Typhoon. However, as I climbed the speed slide and looked up, it just looked so much more exciting. And so on up I went.

And when I got to the top, I was all excited. My bright yellow shorts were glowing in the sun. Because for some reason, back then, they had those really bright fluorescent shorts. I got on the slide and slid down.

At the bottom of the slide, my mom was standing there with the hands on the hips. You guys, anybody have a mom who put the hands on the hips to show she was upset? Well, I was busted, because my bright yellow shorts were a giveaway.

She saw from across the park I was about to go down that slide, and she caught me. Another time she caught me was when I was not allowed to ride my bike down the hill in the street, because the car could be coming around the corner.

But see, I had learned this technique, where riding a bike, I could stand up on my seat. Well, the seat itself, I would lock between my ankles, and I would hold the handlebars like that. And then I could balance it and go like this, spread eagle, straight down the hill.

I don't know how I did that.

That was like a really cool trick. One day, I was just flying down the hill in the street, spread out, wind in my face, big smile, and down at the bottom of the hill, hands on hips, I was busted. Another disobedience, I'll share two quick other ones.

Another time, my cousins caught a shark in the ocean. I lived in Tampa back in the day. And they brought it back in a big cooler.

And threw it in our pool.

And it lived for a period of time. And the game, which was highly disobedient, was to dive in the pool, swim across, and get out.

Before it got to you. Very disobedient.

And finally, my worst act of disobedience as a child was when we decided to go in the attic, even though we weren't allowed in the attic. And we decided to build a fort in the attic, which kept getting bigger and bigger and more elaborate until we ran out of space, because the A-frame beams of our roof were getting in the way.

And so my older brother came up with this idea. Blame it on Jason. But I was in on it. We cut down the beams in the attic and restructured it to make a giant fort in the attic, which my parents did not know about until they.

Tried to sell the house.

And we were already grown adults by then. And the home inspector found that there was a fort in the attic, and the structure of the house needed to be rebuilt. So I'm sure as we talk about obedience, you didn't know this about your pastor, did you?

Yeah.

Think back to your childhood.

Obedience.

Can you think of epic moments of disobedience as a child? Can you remember things that you've done wrong? Well, we were over at the Voorhees Community Group, and one of the elders, Mark, mentioned, listen, when we think about obedience, we usually think about children, right?

But the scriptures speak to adults about obedience just as much children. We tend to think that disobedience is about children, when in actuality, the scriptures are just as concerned about adult obedience.

But what's different? Well, when you're growing up, you're under the authority of your parents. And to disobey their authority is actually not really a laughing matter.

Why?

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. To obey your parents as a child is to obey or disobey God. As an adult, we deal much more directly with God. We don't obey our parents in the same way.

We always respect them. But we've come into a relationship with God, where He, as our Heavenly Father, disciplines us and cares.

For us directly.

And we either obey Him or disobey Him in the decisions that we make. So it's not only for children. It's also for adults that we obey. So the context of 1 Peter. We've been studying the book of 1 Peter.

And we know that this book was written to elect exiles, those who are living in a country that's not their own. They're exiles from their homeland. And in this time, when 1 Peter is written, they are suffering immensely.

They're being persecuted. They're fleeing from their homes. They're losing their jobs. They're persecuted as Christians. They're undergoing many trials. So how does this book relate to obedience? How does it connect with obedience?

Turn with me to 1 Peter 1, verse 6. Notice, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. Key in on that last word, trials. The believers, the Christians, were undergoing trials.

That word in the Greek is pirasmos, pirasmos. And the definition of the word is a trial. But it's also a temptation. The word can be translated trial or temptation. Now catch this connection. When you are undergoing trials, you are in a period of temptation.

Because the presence of a trial usually offers an easier way out than what God has planned for you, than God's command for you. So think about this. When you feel sexual temptation, this is a trial that offers an easier way out than God's planned design for sex, which is always and only between a man and a woman in marriage.

Yet the temptation comes in that trial to look for an easier way out, some other substitute for God's design. And that's true of all kinds of things in life, manipulation. Often people will manipulate to get their way because it's easier to try to cajole things and change the way a person behaves rather than trusting God.

Perhaps using anger as a way to control someone is manipulation. How about stealing or cheating? Stealing, for example, from your taxes, not reporting everything. You have a shortfall in your income. You're not quite able to make your bills.

Cheating on your taxes gives you that little extra income and an easier way out of your financial trial. So there's easier ways out, which are temptations to us. Lying is the same way to get out of trouble.

Again, you think of children. It's a lot easier to tell a lie than to face the consequence of what you've done. How about giving to the church? You've purposed in your heart to give a certain percentage of your income as an act of worship, but then you find that bills are piling up.

What's the easiest place to cut from your spending? It's giving to the church, isn't it?

Hey, you know what?

There's just this extra, say it's 10 of my income.

Boom.

That solves the problem. It's an easy way out to avoid a harder path. But probably the most subtle one of all is pride. God says, humble yourself, and he will exalt you. But isn't it easier for us to begin to exalt ourselves, to look for praise, to look for accolades, to be puffed up in our own hearts?

Pride is an easier path to exaltation. But in each of these cases, they fall short. David Budbill wrote a poem that I love. It's about humility, but it shows his self-awareness, and he uses irony to describe it.

He says, I want to be famous so I can be humble about being famous. What good is my humility when I am stuck in this obscurity?

That's irony.

He says, what good is my humility when I am stuck in this obscurity? He wants to be famous. He recognizes in himself, and he says, but I'm stuck in this obscurity. And that's how it is with pride. We want to be famous.

We want to be liked. When I preach a sermon, I want feedback. I want someone to say, hey, that was a good word, man. That was really powerful. That makes me feel good. And isn't that true of each of us in our work, in our families?

We want to be built up, but pride is a sneaky thing. It comes in on us, and it tricks us up.

It is a symbol.

It is a mark of our immaturity, our pride, our sinfulness, our disobedience to the commands of God. Now, it's different for everybody in this room, isn't it? But think now about your struggle. Where in your walk with Christ do you struggle to be disobedient?

I mean, you don't have to struggle to be disobedient.

Struggle to obey.

Where is your point of weakness? Where are you often disobedient in your walk with God? You know where that is, don't you? Think about that for a moment. And so now, we come to 1 Peter. And the text is giving us this context of trials, and it's calling us now to obedience.

But so often, as Christians, we ask ourselves the question, why should I obey God? A temptation comes, a trial comes, and in the thick of that temptation, in the midst of it, we say, why should I obey?

After all, if I go ahead and do what my flesh wants to do, God will still forgive me. Because I have been born again. I'm a Christian. Grace has paid it all. I will be forgiven. I might as well go ahead and do what I want to do.

God's got it covered.

Why obey?

This is a real struggle that all Christians have dealt with in our lives. We've gone ahead and sinned, thinking, you know what? God's going to cover this. I'll ask for forgiveness later. I'll sin now.

So with that struggle, why should we obey in the midst of temptation? That's the question before us today, and that's what we find the answer to in one of the greatest texts. All of the Bible is so rich, isn't it?

But to this question and this deep struggle.

That we have to obey. God, why obey?

1 Peter 1, verses 13 to 21 today. Turn with me there, or find it on your smartphone. Peter now says the word, therefore, and launches in to an exhortation. The first thing we need to see, according to Peter, what is obedience in the first place?

Verses 13, 14, and 15 will tell us what that is. And then he'll answer the question, verses 16 through 21, why we should obey like this? Let's read the beginning of it, 13 through 15. 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.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. The kind of obedience to which we are called in this passage is not a casual obedience, but a radical one.

It's not trending in the direction of obeying, right? But it's a decisive obedience to God. It's not partially obeying, but partially disobeying. It's entirely obeying. It's not a half-hearted kind of obedience.

It's obedience from the heart, all in. When we studied the book of Colossians, one of the themes that kept coming out, based on who Jesus is, the preeminent one, who all things were made through him, and everything is for him and by him, because of who he is, there's only one appropriate response to that.

And that is to go all in for him. That's what we learned from Colossians. And the same thing is shown to us here. Look at this in the text, verse 13. Preparing your minds for action. This participle here, as you set your mind energetically to do something, preparing your mind for action, and being sober-minded.

What's the opposite of being sober-minded? It's for your mind to be drunk, right? A sober mind thinks clearly. A drunk mind is diluted or controlled by something. Whether it's a substance, or a passion, or a desire, something that's coming in and diluting the brain.

But here, we're called to be sober-minded, thinking clearly. And here's the verb, set your hope fully. This is what you are to do. This is what obedience is. It's to set your hope, not partially, but fully.

You hear this message about Jesus, and how do you respond to it? It's not to wade into the water, but testing it a little with your toe to see if it is warm enough. No, this is a plunge. This is all in.

This is a full obedience. It says, set your minds for action. Be sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, speaking here to adults, right?

Adult, he's talking to you, but he's calling you a child. He's calling me a child, a child of the living God.

Obey, how so?

Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Don't let that control you. But, as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Wow, did you catch that? When the scriptures talk to Christians and tell us how to behave and how to conduct ourselves,.

It's radical.

It is a complete break with the way the world operates. There are passions of our former ignorance, the way we used to be, the way the world is, that is utterly and completely different from how Christians are now.

This scripture is telling us that there needs to be a complete break with our old way of living and the temptations we used to happily give into to the way we conform no longer to these things, but to this.

A radical difference between non-Christians who are in the world and Christians who are in Christ. This is what obedience is, according to the scripture, and it's summed up in that last part. Be holy as I am holy.

Let the force of that hit you. The holy God who created all things and in whom there is no sin, no deceit, tells us to be like him, to put away all sin, all deceit, to no longer give in to temptation at all, but to be completely given over to this new walk with Christ.

Be holy as I am holy. And if you're like me hearing those words, that's scary, isn't it? Well, so we say, why?

Why, how?

How can I obey a command like that? Why should I choose obedience in the moment of my temptation when my flesh wants to do something that's not of God? Why should I choose obedience at that point in time?

This is what we need, isn't it? It's not enough to be told what to do because we know ourselves. In ourselves, we will disobey.

So why obey?

Here's the good news. First, it sounds a little harsh. Verse 16, the first answer, why obey? Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. The first reason to obey is the command of God, simply because it is written that the God of the universe has said, be holy.

The God of the universe has said, obey. We are to step out of ourselves for a second and our prideful minds that are easily diluted, right? Easily drunk with pride, look at our circumstances and we say, I can do this.

I can get away with this. I can go forward and do what I want to do. And in that pride, drunk as we are, we go forward into sin. But if we could just step out of our body and look at ourselves, what would we see?

This tiny creature on a planet that's tiny compared to the galaxy, which is tiny compared to the universe. And we need to step out of ourselves for a second and say, who is it that's telling us to obey?

I know my children, when I use my deep dad voice, they perk up and they listen, right? When I call them to obey me and they hear it in my voice that I'm serious, there's a distance there that's called authority.

The distance between a father and a son is called authority, right? As the son is under his authority, he will obey for fear of consequence, for fear of punishment. But how much greater is the distance between this man standing on this planet and that God who formed the stars?

Picture the farthest star. And he spoke it into being in a day. On a day of creation, he said, let it be. And the stars were. This is the distance between God and me and he tells me to obey. Let the force of that command hit you.

And this is the first point in that checklist. When you're feeling tempted and you want to give in to temptation, the first thing in your mind, you should be reminded this statement, memorize it, write it on your hand, make a note in your phone, make a reminder that pops up.

You shall be holy for I am holy, the command of God. If it stopped there though, we would be doomed because none of us can be holy as he is holy. And so the second point, and this is where the harshness of almost bad news turns into the beauty, the splendor of the best news you will ever hear.

I see a lot of new faces today. I want you to hear something. Maybe for the first time in your life or maybe you've heard it before, but I want you to hear this. There is good news about your sin. The bad news is that you sin and God will punish sin with eternal separation called hell.

But there is good news in this text. And the second reason here is this little word therefore. Look in 1 Peter 1 .13. Before he tells us to obey and so radically obey, in 1 .13 he says therefore. Circle that word.

Mark it somehow. Whenever you see the word therefore, it's indicating that the material that went before this word is now informing what follows. You asked the question, what is that word therefore? That's a key to you.

Therefore, based on what Peter has said to us already,.

Therefore obey like this.

So what has he said to us already? Flip back a page. He's called us to elect exiles. He said that according to God's great mercy, hear that word, mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The command to obey here is not given to unbelievers, it's given to believers. This book is written to believers. If I were to tell an unbeliever obey God and be as holy as he is, that person would find no hope in that command.

I might as well say jump to the moon. Because what's the problem? We are born with a sin nature and we're controlled by our sin nature, we're enslaved to it. So even if I tell you to be holy, to be good, what you know about yourself already is that you can't be.

But according to his great mercy, he has sent his one and only son named Jesus to be born of a virgin, to live among us, to live perfectly and live a holy life. Think about this for a minute. Jesus walked as we do and never sinned.

Every command that God gave, Jesus obeyed. He was perfectly obedient to his father. And then he allowed himself to be led like a lamb to slaughter. He allowed himself to be taken by wicked and evil men and nailed to a cross and lifted up.

And the penalty of sin was laid upon him. His body tortured and killed and laid in a grave. But through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, chapter one, verse three, hope was given to us.

How so?

In Jesus's dying, he took the penalty of my sin and for the sin of all of you who will believe in him. That sin was laid on Jesus and buried and taken away forever. And Jesus rose from the dead so that we can now rise up in this new birth.

To a living hope.

And the promise here is that if this happens to us, if we have this new birth, the inheritance we have in heaven is unfading and it can't be spoiled and it can't fade. It's guarded, it's kept for us in heaven.

It's a sure gift. So hear what I'm saying. The command to be holy is hard and it cannot be done in and of ourselves, but there is a miracle whereby God supernaturally raises a dead sinner to life, gives a new birth, takes all of our sin and casts it away and buries it and throws it in a sea of forgetfulness, remembers it no more, makes us new and alive and forgiven and free.

This is the gospel. It's preached in 1 Peter 1. And so this is what we go back to. We're commanded to be holy and we can't. But we remember that command and it reminds us, this is God talking to me, I need to listen.

But the very next thing that we do, therefore, we remember the gospel. We remember mercy. We remember that we have the love of a father who takes our sin away through Jesus Christ. Since we are recipients of this kind of grace, we can obey.

There's a remedy to our sinful condition. It's not just the law which commands us to be good, it's the spirit that gives life. Believing in Jesus, you're born again to a living hope and you're given his Holy Spirit to live inside you.

Because of this gospel, we can obey. Let's keep going to find out how. So in verse 16, we have the command, you shall be holy for I am holy. That's the first in the checklist. But the second thing to notice is therefore, which grounds all of this in the gospel, in the mercy of God, not in mere human ability to obey command, but in God's new birth.

Third, look at verse 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. When you're feeling tempted, when you don't want to obey, remember that you're commanded to, remember the gospel, but third, have fear.

Now that sounds opposite, doesn't it? Doesn't that sound opposite the gospel? We have a loving father, so why should we be afraid? Romans teaches us, the eighth chapter, first verse, if anyone is in Christ, what does it say?

There is no more condemnation. There is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. We can't be condemned, so why should I be afraid? Condemnation is to cast away and to put out and even to destroy.

For those of you who are in real estate, what is a condemned building worth?

Nothing, right?

It's been marked as condemned. People are no longer allowed in there. It's only fit to be destroyed, but there is a difference, biblically, between discipline and condemnation. God will never condemn us who are in Christ Jesus.

We have a living hope.

That means it's alive, it can't die. It's kept and guarded secure. We can never be condemned, but we can be disciplined. Did you hear that? There's a difference between condemnation and discipline. You see it here in the verse.

If you call on him as father, our father will not condemn us, but he will discipline us. He judges impartially according to each one's deeds. He sees his children. He sees what we do. He sees our deeds.

Conduct yourselves with fear. What kind of fear is this? Is this a fear that I'm going to lose my salvation and be condemned and cast off? No, this is the fear of a loving father who, because he loves us, will discipline me.

Guys, some fear of God is healthy and good. And we live in a culture, even an American evangelical culture, that has forgotten to fear God. The holiness of God is not something that's preached and talked about because so much emphasis is put on the love of God.

And the love of God is true and it's eternal and it's huge. It's bigger than we can get our minds around. But part of that love is that he will discipline. If he's a loving father, he won't let you continue in this pattern of sin over and over again.

He will let you hit your head against a brick wall until you stop doing that. This is the love of our father. And it should produce some fear in us. When you're in that moment of temptation, remember, you're commanded by the God of the universe to obey.

By the gospel, you are free to obey. And you should be afraid of what will happen if you do not obey. Something bad will happen. Now, sometimes God just covers the sin and you don't see that.

Sometimes.

For some reason, he knows your heart. He knows you're forgiven. Other times, he brings the hammer. Have you guys ever felt that? When you've been persisting in sin and everything starts to crumble until you realize, yes, my father loves me, but I'm not relating rightly to him.

I'm under his discipline. Our text tells us to fear God's discipline because he's father, because he loves us. Fear God. That's a reason to obey. Let's get the next one. Oh, this gets beautiful right here.

Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

So in this exile, we don't belong here. We don't belong in this world. We're exiles here. We obey because we're told to, because of the gospel, because we're afraid of God's discipline. But notice here, it says we know that we were ransomed from the futile ways.

The fourth reason to obey is understanding this about the gospel. The gospel is not only for our penalty, but to break the power of our sin.

Catch this.

He didn't just die that we would go to heaven. When we die, that's part of it. He also died to change our ways. You see that in the text? You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.

I think many times we think, you know what, I'm gonna go ahead and sin because God will forgive me anyway. I know where I'm going. And we fail to recognize that Jesus not only died to take away the penalty of sin, but to break its power over me.

The gospel says that the ways of our forefathers are no more. That we are changed from our old ways, our former ignorance. That the gospel has the power to change us. Do you believe that this morning?

Have you been caught in sin for a long period of time and you think, yes, the gospel will get me to heaven. I know I'm forgiven, but I can't change this. This scripture says he's changed our ways. The gospel has the power to change us.

Gets better, keep going.

How so?

Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. I mentioned that it gets beautiful right here.

Why obey?

Because God has given something of infinitely greater value than the pleasure that tempts you. Temptation is an offer of something that looks good and looks pleasurable. But what our text tells us is that God offers something that's a higher pleasure than the substitute.

You following me?

God has offered the infinitely valuable blood of Jesus on the cross. The blood of his own son, the most valuable thing in the world. Leviticus 17, 11 tells us this is why blood was made as a sacrifice for sin.

Because life is in the blood. And God has given the blood to make atonement for sin. Here we see the blood of Jesus. It speaks to his life given in death. A sacrifice that God made, the infinitely valuable blood of Jesus given on the altar that is the cross to take sin away.

What we are being told is that this gift is so valuable that if you will appreciate this and find satisfaction in this, the substitute will be shown to be the lie that it is. You can overcome your temptation to something by embracing a greater and a higher pleasure.

When Christ becomes your life. When Christ becomes your all in all. When he becomes what wakes you up in the morning and when you fall asleep praying to him. And when his word becomes the hunger of your soul.

When Christ, his life, demonstrated his love given in death,.

The death on the cross,.

When this becomes your obsession, it becomes a passion that satisfies you to the point where the lesser thing is shown as nothing at all. That's why Paul in Philippians 3 says that he counts his life as nothing compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, his Lord.

He's been captured by something greater. And he counts all that he used to consider great and important, his religiosity, his Judaism. He counts it as what?

Rubbish, worthless.

You see, the blood of Jesus, when we hear about the blood of Jesus in the text here, it means his life given for us. When we're captured by that, we see the lie as worthless and unsatisfying. The allure of it goes away.

What used to be so tempting because it just offered something no longer tempts us because we're finding satisfaction somewhere else. And that somewhere else never runs out. The pleasures that are in Christ never run out.

He has an endless store of joy for me. I came to know Christ when I was young.