The Daily Fight of Faith 1 Peter 1:13-21

as we're talking about babies being born on December 3rd, 1986.

That was the day of my birth. What my mother has told me is that four days later on December 7th,

I was in church at Mound Evangelical Free Church in Mound, Minnesota. For the next 30 years,

I would be involved in this church in different ways. As a child, I went through the children's programs.

As a teenager, I was involved in the youth group. I went to Crown College, which was about a 10 -minute drive away.

So while I was in school, I continued to attend. Then in my mid -20s,

I sensed the Lord calling me to ministry, and the church confirmed that calling. During this time,

I went to seminary. And while I was in seminary, I became the associate pastor. It was through this church that I came to know the

Lord. During my 30 years there, I did hear good teaching.

Some pastors were more biblical than others, to be honest. But as I reflect, what

I discovered is that two important truths of Scripture were not emphasized very often.

It is not that they were never talked about, but they were not a focus.

These two teachings were joy in the Christian life and obedience in the

Christian life. The main theme I heard was that you need to pray to receive

Christ, and if you do this, you won't go to hell, but you will go to heaven. Now, this is true, of course, that when one receives

Christ, you become a heaven -bound person. But what else does the Christian need to know?

You still have a whole life in front of you. To believe in Jesus is not fire insurance, and that is what

I often came away thinking. He is your ticket into heaven, and once you believe, you go live your life.

But Jesus is not the ticket into heaven. He is heaven. A heaven without Jesus is no heaven at all.

He is the one you were created to know and enjoy forever. A big part of this joy is obedience to the

Lord's will. As you enjoy Him, you follow His ways and experience the blessing that comes from that.

So there was a long period during my upbringing where I did not understand this big portion of the

Christian life. Thus far as we have begun to go through 1 Peter, we have seen

Peter describe the glory that awaits believers at the finish line of the life of faith, and today he focuses on the daily battle in the life of faith.

So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to 1 Peter 1. We will be looking at verses 13 -21, and if you do not have a

Bible with you, we do have the red Bibles in the pews. This sermon is titled,

The Daily Fight of Faith, and I am going to begin by reading the text, 1

Peter 1, verses 13 -21. 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.

Since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. 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, 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.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Here's our big idea. What this text and this sermon is calling you to do. Focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ.

Focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ. And we're going to see three practices how as we go through this text.

But before we jump in and take a closer look, let me give you a little recap of where we were two Sundays ago.

In fact, it was three Sundays ago. Two Sundays ago, Trevor Rubenstein preached on Jewish salvation.

Last week, I preached on how Christians should view present day Jews and present day Israel. And today, we are back in to 1

Peter. Three Sundays ago, we looked at verses 10 through 12 of 1 Peter 1.

What we saw is Peter write concerning how the Old Testament prophets focused on the future work of the

Messiah. We saw four ways how these former prophets focused their attention. They did this by writing about God's future grace in Jesus.

Secondly, by wondering the specifics concerning his arrival. Thirdly, by realizing that his work would happen beyond their time.

And fourthly, by standing amazed that humanity's redemption fascinates angels.

Remarkably, what the prophets wrote and spoke about long ago came to pass precisely how they said it would as their writings were guided by the

Holy Spirit. Now this leads us to our text this morning. We're going to begin by looking at verse 13.

And we've already read this, but now we're going to zero in on it. So let me read this verse. 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.

Peter starts off by telling his readers to prepare your minds for action.

In the Greek and in the King James Version, the King James Version bears this out.

The translation is literally to gird up the loins of your mind. Nobody talks like that, right?

Gird up the loins of your mind. In ancient times, the people often had to move from place to place quickly.

And as they did this, they gathered up their robes, the clothing that would cover themselves, that would cover every area of their body.

Peter is using this figuratively to say that you are to gather your thoughts on a singular focus.

And that focus is on glorifying God in our thought lives. What goes through our minds?

When you think about it, we need to hear this. All sin starts in our minds.

And sometimes the sins of our minds are carried out into action. In the

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addressed the sin of lust in Matthew 5, verses 27 -28, where he proclaimed,

You have heard that it was said, You should not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Whether it's looking or whether it's even thinking, it is sin. So all sin starts in our minds.

And even if it does not turn into action, if we obsess in our minds on the wrong things, the

Lord considers this sin. What Peter says in the beginning of verse 13 is described in another way in the middle of verse 13.

There Peter says that you are to be sober -minded. Now when we hear the word sober, what comes to mind?

We think about alcohol. You were ready to answer that, weren't you? We're thinking about alcohol.

When someone is driving without alcohol, we say that they are driving sober.

The one who is influenced by alcohol is not in control. The alcohol is influencing the intoxicated person's decisions.

In the same way, when it comes to thinking, the thinking of a Christian, how easy it is to be influenced by the ways of the world, to be intoxicated by the ways of the world.

We must understand this. The world has a pull. When the Bible says in 1

John 2 .15, Do not love the world. The Apostle John knows how strong of a pull the world has.

It pulls people every day to its desires, its callings.

If you do this, you're going to have a great life. Just do it.

That's what the world tells you. Remember Lot's wife in Genesis 19?

She was told by the angel not to look back, but she looked back and God turned her into a pillar of salt.

As she was leaving Sodom, why did she look back? She looked back because she was still tied to the wicked ways of Sodom.

And a hymn comes to mind here. She did not follow the words of the famous hymn, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.

In this hymn, a line says, The cross before me, the world behind me, no turning back, no turning back.

And then it says, Though no one join me, still I will follow. Though no one join me, still

I will follow. I think we live in a day where we have friends in the Christian faith, but we're finding out we don't have as many friends as we thought possibly.

We're losing friends because of the stands we take. And sometimes it feels lonely, but the hymn still holds true because what the hymn says, the scripture says,

Though no one join me, still I will follow. The Lord's call on our lives is to leave the world behind us.

What you must understand is that as you leave the world behind you, you are traveling down the road less traveled.

Most of the world is heading down the wide path. Remember Jesus' words in Matthew 7, verses 13 -14? Enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide, and the way is easy, that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard, that leads to life. And those who find it are few.

I often use the illustration of the St. Croix River. You take a tube down the

St. Croix River, piece of cake, right? You're just going to go with the flow. You go north, you're going to run into difficulty.

It's going to be hard. You're going to be going against the current. But that's what it means to be a

Christian. How important it is for Christians in this world to rid ourselves of worldly influences.

There is a cost to following Jesus. It means leaving the world that is opposed to God behind you.

And frankly, so much of mainstream evangelicalism is so much like the world. I don't understand what they do when they come to passages where Jesus says, count the cost.

Because they're not counting the cost. They're just going along with the ways of the world. This is the world we live in.

This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It means counting the cost.

It means having opposition. Not because you want opposition, but because as you follow Jesus, you will face opposition.

I preached a sermon to a men's group back in April. And the big idea of my message was, expect the world to hate you as you follow

Jesus closely. That's what Scripture teaches. There is a cost.

So the call here is instead of being focused on the temptations of this world, you are to be focused on the things of the

Lord. This means guarding every thought that comes into your mind. Scripture teaches us to do this in several places.

One of them is Philippians 4, 8, where the Apostle Paul wrote, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Think about all the influence we have. I wrote an article recently about how

I love the music of Johnny Horton. Johnny Horton was a famous gospel, he wasn't a gospel singer, but he sang old songs.

He died at the age of 35 in 1960 in a car crash.

But Johnny Horton's music is full of God's common grace. He celebrates the marriage between one man and one woman in his music.

He celebrates the beauty of God's creation. He's patriotic. He loves his country.

And what's interesting is that as he loves his country, he loves a country that is rooted in biblical

Christianity. That's a guy I can listen to without sinning. But so often, secular music, you listen to it, and you're actually sinning listening to it because it's not honoring to God.

And that's the test we need to ask. Is this honoring to God? Is the music I listen to honoring to God? Are the movies

I watch honoring to God? Are the people I hang out with honoring to God?

Now, we want to be evangelistic, right? We want to have relationships with unbelievers. But your best friends, your closest friends, should not be unbelievers.

They should be Christians because we want to be influenced by them. So we need to be very careful what we let into our minds, what we let into our lives.

We need to gird up the loins of our minds, as this verse says.

Now, I've shared this illustration before, and I have to apologize once again to Keith and Julie who were Atlanta Braves fans in 1991 when the twins played the

Braves in the 1991 World Series. The World Series was one of the most entertaining World Series in baseball history.

The series was tied 3 -3. In the deciding Game 7, my dad was at this game, the deciding

Game 7, twins pitcher Jack Morris went up against Braves pitcher John Smoltz.

I remember talking to a guy who went to this game. He's like, after the game, I felt like I was physically exhausted because it was so intense.

There were so many twisted turds. It was a pitcher's duel, and years later, both pitchers recounted what it was like pitching in that game.

With all the ups and downs of the game, and Jack Morris said something very insightful. He said he could not let one negative thought come into his mind.

At one point in the game, he had earners on second and third. Nobody out. I cannot let one negative thought come into my mind.

Just think, I am going to get out of this jam. I am going to throw the right pitch. We are going to win. That was his mentality the whole game.

And his mental strength paid off as he pitched 10 shutout innings, and the twins won the game in the bottom of the 10th, 1 -0.

And when I heard him say this, I thought, this is how Scripture teaches Christians to approach the Christian life.

You are not to let one negative thought enter your minds. We need to be mentally tough as the

Spirit strengthens us. You are to gather the good thoughts and get rid of the bad ones. You are to have a sober mind where you, with the

Spirit's help, are in control. Where thoughts don't just bolt in and there is no defense.

You need to be a defender with the Spirit's help. And what we must understand is that as a

Christian, sin has no power over you. Romans 6, verses 12 -14 tells us that sin will have no dominion over you.

Because once the Spirit enters your life, God is stronger than your fleshly desires.

You can win. You can live a holy life. Galatians 5 -16 says, walk by the

Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So you are not to set your minds on the sinful temptations of the world, but on the things of God.

And in the remainder of verse 13, Peter describes one area where our minds should be focused.

Your mind and mine should be filled with hope as we focus on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The revelation of Jesus Christ is referring to the second coming of Jesus. The second coming is an event that comes in phases.

It starts with the rapture before the final seven -year tribulation. And then after the seven years,

Jesus will take His throne in Jerusalem to reign with His people. When this happens, you will have a resurrected body that will be indestructible.

And at this point, you will always be with Christ, the One you were created to know, love, and cherish. So you and I are to set our minds on the grand future when you dwell with Christ.

This is your future as a Christian. As you do this, the sinful things of this world don't seem as attractive.

As we think about the glory that is to be ours in Christ, there's an old hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.

And that hymn says, Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

And think about how the world just tells you, it's exciting. Join us.

Don't leave that Jesus stuff behind. Leave the Bible behind. You know, that ancient book that sits on your shelf?

That's not where the fun is. Follow us. And this is what

Satan wants you to believe. But do not listen. This is where our minds need to be fixed as Peter describes at the end of v.

13. At the end of v. 13, he describes the culmination of your salvation. At conversion, that day when you believed in Christ, by counting you among the righteous as you believed in what

Christ did when He paid the full penalty for your sins at the cross, at that moment, you experienced grace.

And Peter is describing this salvation reaching its culmination when the Lord showers you with the grace of bringing you into His glorious presence.

So there's the grace of conversion. And then there's also this grace that He showers upon you out of His goodness when

He glorifies you. And you get to share in His glory in the age to come. Focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ.

And the first practice how? Is by setting your mind on the things of God. The second practice how you are to focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ is by living set -apart lives in the fear of God.

And we'll begin by looking at verse 14 where Peter writes, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

When you become a follower of Christ, the Holy Spirit enters your life and then you are adopted into God's family.

So this is the new birth and then it's adoption. You're adopted into His family. God is no longer your judge.

He is your Father. When God brings you into His family, He does not want you to stay where you are at.

The Apostle Paul says this in Romans 6, verses 1 -2. Shall we go on sinning? That grace may abound?

By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? He's saying, why would you want to go back to the old ways?

The Bible describes sin as slavery. Every one of us knows from experience that this is true when it comes to sin.

But it's so deceptive that there's this tendency to still go back into it. It is slavery.

When you get caught into sin, sin becomes the master and you need to obey it. And obedience to sin never ends well for the one who participates in sin.

Sin always leads to pain. Sin is instant gratification that has consequences and pain.

What Peter is saying in verse 14 is do not live like you used to in the passions of your former ignorance.

People who are deep into sin think they are enjoying life and they think that sin will make them happy, but really its end is misery and the one who dies in one's sins will pay for those sins forever in a place of misery known as hell.

But this is where most of the world is. The world is full of sinful passions, gratifying ungodly desires and not thinking about the painful consequences that will result.

Later on in this letter in 1 Peter 4, verses 3 -4, Peter writes, the time that is past suffices for doing what the

Gentiles want to do. Living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you.

This is how the world operates. You've been in these environments where you feel like you're the only Christian there.

I remember when I was a sales manager for a running shoe company going to these sales meetings in Seattle and Austin, Texas and they always pick the most secular, godless towns to have these meetings, by the way.

And at these meetings, drinking parties, men and women fooling around, swearing, crude, joking.

If a rapture happened, no one would know it. Right? Because it was so godless. And this is what it was like.

And you've experienced this in these environments. And they think it's strange that you do not join with them.

They don't acknowledge God. They pretend like He's not even there. This is how the world operates.

Ignorantly thinking that their sinful lifestyle is truly living, living it up.

And they think it's strange that you do not live it up with them. Now, not every Christian plunges fully into the sins of this world.

It's interesting hearing testimonies. Sometimes you hear testimonies where they were deep into it. Sometimes you hear testimonies, you know,

I followed Jesus as a child, and I'm still following Him today. But there are

Christians who once pursued a very sinful lifestyle, thinking that was the way of life, that this was the path of joy.

My father was one of those, but he found how empty it was. His story is one where he got burned out by the party scene.

And then he met my mother, the least party person you would ever meet. I think my mom could only have soda one day a week.

I mean, that was the environment she grew up in. And she kept a lot of that too. Through her witness, he became a

Christian, and then they got married. He was attracted. It was different. He saw something different in her that he had not seen before.

He was attracted to holiness, to a clean life, to a godly life.

And by the grace of God, he was freed from the attractiveness to sin. The party scene that once felt so alive now felt so dead, and he realized that following Jesus is where true life is found.

He tells the story of walking into a bar in this place that was once so full of life. It just seemed so depressing and lifeless and dead.

And Jesus says in John 10 .10 about those who follow Him, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.

When you become a Christian, everything changes. Your desires change. You no longer want to live for sin.

You want to live for God. In your heart of hearts, that is your desire, even though you still sin.

What we must understand is that when God saves you, He delivers you from sin's penalty and sin's power.

His goal is to make you like Him, as Peter writes in verses 15 -16. But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written,

You shall be holy, for I am holy. Here, Peter quotes

Leviticus 11 .44. To be holy is to be set apart from sin.

God is completely pure, of course, and He calls His people to walk away from sin to become more like Him in purity, and one day in glory, you will be completely pure.

Nothing unclean will ever enter God's eternal kingdom. When you become a

Christian, He delivers you from the misery of sin, and He sends you down a different path. He sends you down the path of holiness, the path where true joy is found and where pain is absent.

What I mean by pain is not like the suffering that God sends for your good. It's the pain of bad choices.

Because 1 Peter later on talks about do not suffer for sinning, but suffer for doing good.

That's absent. The suffering of sin is absent when you follow

Jesus. Psalm 1611 describes the experience of being in the presence of the Lord, where the psalmist writes,

King David writes, You make known to me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy.

At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. That sin is on the top of the stairs as you walk downstairs.

That verse is such a wonderful verse. But because of the lies of Satan and sin, we don't think of holiness in this way.

We don't think of it as fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Satan wants people to think that the pursuit of God, the pursuit of holiness, is boring and lifeless, that you're missing out on that which is truly life out there in the world.

C .S. Lewis wrote a very interesting book called The Screwtape Letters. The book is about a chief demon named

Screwtape mentoring his nephew named Wormwood about how to go after humans, how to get them to sin, how to tempt them.

In this book, there was an interesting line where Screwtape tells his nephew, God made the pleasure.

All our research thus far has not enabled us to produce one.

All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasure which our enemy,

God, has produced at times or in ways or in degrees which

God has forbidden. That's such an interesting quote. So true.

Who's the maker of pleasure? God. I've heard this said, we look at our world and how the godless secular left has destroyed things.

They don't build things. They hijack what's already been built and then they destroy it.

That's what Satan does. God builds things. And one of the things he builds is pleasure.

He creates joy and pleasure and all of that. But Satan doesn't want you to believe this.

Satan's desire is to worship himself and have everyone worship him and that's why he abandoned

God's path. But he knows that as one submits to God and goes down his path, the experience for that person will be joy and pleasure.

But he lies to humans, trying to get them to think that the Bible is boring, that church is boring, that being around other

Christians is boring, that living out the Christian life is boring. I mean, there's a reason you came here today.

Now it's possible that maybe a few of you came because you had to come, but I believe that most of the people in this room, if not all, are here because you want to be here.

You understand this. You understand what it means to follow the Lord. You understand what church is all about.

You understand what this book is all about. But Satan doesn't want people to know that.

He wants to think there's life out there and it's not found here. It's somewhere else. And it's an effective lie because most of the world believes it.

But the truth is the path of holiness, being holy as he is holy, is true life and the path of sin will certainly lead one to pain and negative consequences in this life and eternal death in the next.

As you pursue this holiness, we must understand that God is watching, as 1 Peter 1 .17 says.

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.

God the Father sees everything that everyone does on earth, including the thoughts, attitudes, and actions of his people.

He wants you to live a life honoring to him. Not every believer will receive the same reward in heaven.

While we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, God will reward you in heaven based on your faithfulness to him in this life.

So Peter says, with this in mind, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

Once again, Peter uses the word exile. We saw him use this word in verse 1 of this chapter, where he uses this word to describe his readers spread throughout all of Asia Minor.

His readers are believers. And his readers are exiles in this world.

They are passing through. They are aliens and strangers in this world. So that's what Peter means when he talks about the exile.

All of us here are exiles because we're not home until we meet our

Lord and Savior. But while we are here, we are to fear the Lord. What does it mean to fear the

Lord? This is very important to understand. To fear

God means that we are in awe of his greatness. So we give him praise.

We also admire his goodness. In other words, because God is so wonderful and so good, we want to please him and we want to be like him.

Now last week, I mentioned how Martin Luther really dropped the ball on Israel and said super nasty things about them, thinking that the church replaces

Israel and God is done with them. But we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. So now we're going to hear something good from Luther.

Listen to what R .C. Sproul explains about what Luther said concerning the fear of God. Sproul writes,

Servile fear refers to a posture of servitude toward a harsh owner.

Luther distinguished between that and what is called a fallilial fear, drawing from the

Latin concept from which we get the idea of family. It refers to the fear that a child has for his father.

In this regard, Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them.

He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves. Not because he's afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he's afraid of displeasing the one who is in that child's world the source of security and love.

Think about your parents. If you had a good parent, a good dad, a good mom, there's few things in the world that make you happier than when you please your parents, when you admire your parents.

When a parent says to you, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of the way you're living your life. That just makes you feel so good inside when you hear that.

Think about our relationship with God. To know that God is pleased with the way we're living, that's going to give you a bounce on your step as you go through your day, isn't it?

That's what the fear of God is. We admire Him. He's great.

He created all things. He's infinite in His nature. He's perfect. As we sang today, holy, holy, holy.

He's perfect in power, in love, in purity. We admire Him. We admire

His goodness and obedience to Him. That's what morality is.

It's reflecting the character of God, the goodness of God. That's what the fear of the

Lord is. And so the Scripture talks about the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord. When we fear man, we're not fearing the

Lord. When we fear man, we're not remembering how much we admire God. We are not remembering how much comfort we find in His attitude toward us.

Is He pleased with the way we're living? Because if He is pleased with the way we're living, then who cares what they say?

Who cares? The whole world might be against you. But if God is pleased, you can sleep at night.

You can have a clear conscience. So as believers, you will not be punished in eternity, but you want

God to be pleased. And as He is pleased, your reward will be greater in the age to come.

And He will be more glorified in your life. This happens as you live a life of holiness. So focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ.

The second practice how is by living set -apart lives in the fear of God. And the third and final practice how you are to focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ is by realizing that Jesus rescued you from a wasted existence.

And we'll see this in verses 18 -21. We'll start with 18 and 19 where Peter writes, 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.

What Peter is telling his readers and us is that when you came to Christ, you left behind the worthless ways of your forefathers.

Here's an interesting biblical truth. While everyone is guilty of your own sins, children tend to have the same sins as their parents and grandparents.

Earlier I mentioned how my father's life changed when he came to Christ because he was just continuing the sins of his forefathers until he came to Christ.

Your sins are similar in your life if you have an unbelieving history. For generations, families engage in the same sins.

As Peter is writing this to the Christians in Asia Minor, some of them were Jews who had followed the

Jewish tradition that was full of man's teachings and taught that salvation is not by grace alone, but by works.

Others in Peter's audience were Gentiles who were caught up in different forms of paganism and paganism worship of false gods.

And as they worshiped these false gods, they were involved in all kinds of immorality. In Titus 3 .3,

the Apostle Paul wrote, We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

When you become a follower of Jesus, you are transferred from a wasted existence where you waste the gift of life that God has given you.

I mean, think about these babies that have just come into the world. What a gift. Don't throw it away.

God puts you here. Don't waste it away. Don't throw it away.

God wants us to live a life full of meaning where you fulfill the purpose that God has placed for your life.

He's writing your story. And you want it to be a good story. Every life is a biography.

What is your biography? Ask yourself that. As you follow

Christ, of course, you see people who aren't following Jesus who are just wasting their life. The life apart from Christ is a life lived for self.

But Jesus ransomed you. What does it mean to be ransomed as this verse says?

In ancient times, a ransom was a country paying money to receive back a prisoner of war.

When Jesus died on the cross for your sins and was raised from the dead, He ransomed you from bondage to sin and the punishment you deserve for your sins.

So Jesus is the payment and the payment is made to God the Father. His sacrifice on the cross is that payment and He is the only one who could pay the price.

As Peter says in verse 19, the payment is of the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Only the perfect Son of God could stand between God and sinners making sinners right with God.

So God does not purchase us from our bondage and judgment with anything on this earth like the precious metals of silver or gold, but with the man from heaven who paid the ultimate price at the cross.

What Peter writes in verse 20 is that Jesus and the plan of God to give Him up as the sacrifice was planned from before the foundation of the world.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.

It is not as if the plan to sacrifice Jesus was a knee -jerk reaction from God when

Adam and Eve fell into sin. God knew how the story of life was going to play out all along and 2 ,000 years ago,

Jesus entered human history to pay the full penalty for sinners. This wasn't plan

B. This was God's plan. And what you will notice at the end of verse 20 is that Jesus came into the world in the last days.

This is where we need to remember that for centuries, the Jews longed for the Messiah to come, and they did not realize that world history would be as long as it has been.

The Jews did not realize that there would be two comings of the Messiah. But the revelation of the

New Testament shows us that this is so. So with this in mind, the first coming of the

Messiah is the start of the end of world history. He came once, and He will come again.

The Messiah is not only the one who will reign in power, but He is also the

Savior of the world. As the end of verse 20 says, He came for the sake of you. His sacrifice on the cross is for the sake of anyone who would believe in Him, as Peter writes in verse 21, who through Him are believers in God, who raised

Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Jesus is our hope in this life.

He rescued you from a life that is thrown away, that is full of pain, and that ends in eternal punishment.

Think about how amazing that is. He rescued you from that. A depressing existence.

Think of what He did for you and I. And my prayer is that everyone in this room would have faith in Christ for your salvation.

Jesus rescued you from a depressing existence that ends in destruction, and He gives you that which is truly life.

But many, many in the world miss this. Don't be one who follows your own lusts and runs away from God.

Be one who has been set free and truly, truly lives. So let's wrap this all up here.

Focus on the future glory that is yours in Christ. And in this text, we've seen three practices.

How? First, by setting your mind on the things of God. Second, by living set -apart lives in the fear of God.

Third, by realizing that Jesus rescued you from a wasted existence. What is coming in the future to the believer is beyond all comparison of anything we experience in this world.

Our focus must be on living for the Lord, and when you meet Him, He will be so pleased, and everything hard that you did for His sake in this life will have been worth it.

Now, next Sunday, we are going to look at the relationship between the Word of God and the spiritual life, spiritual growth.

And I look forward to looking at that with you. But at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in Heaven, I thank

You for Your Word. It truly is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword.

It digs deep into our soul, exposing the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And so today, Lord, as the people in this room heard this Word, including myself, help us to take this to heart.

Help us to live lives focused on eternity where we prepare our minds for action, where we live holy lives in the fear of You.

And we are so grateful. Thank You, always, that Jesus rescued us from a wasted existence.

Father, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would apply this to everyone here right where they are at.