1 Peter 1:13-21 Renewing Your Mind
Introduction: Good morning, we are continuing our study of 1 Peter. So turn in your bible to 1 Peter 1:13-21.Peter has, for 12 verses, been reminding his readers of their living hope in Christ Jesus. They have been chosen, called, made alive again by the Spirit, and enabled to persevere in the suffering that this new life in Christ brings into their lives. They have the assurance of their faith in the Holy scriptures, teaching them about Jesus’ suffering on their behalf and subsequent glory.
This Morning, Peter is going to remind us of the implications of the gospel. The implication of “how we should then live” if this is what we have in Christ Jesus.
Read 1 Peter 1:13-21
[13] Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [14] As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, [15] but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, [16] since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” [17] And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fearthroughout the time of your exile, [18] knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, [19] but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. [20] He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you [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.
Pray
Illustration: If I told you, I need you to care for my pet. And then just handed you a list of care instructions…without telling you what this pet was, you would be confused…Well it needs straw three times a day…and it needs 3 scoops of special pellets at each meal, and you should avoid chocolate. I can give you instructions. Commands. But you should probably know whether this is a Rabbit or a Horse eating straw and avoiding chocolate. before you get there.
G.K. Beal points out that “Peter first tells his readers who they are before telling them how to behave.” That is what the therefore is there for of verse 13.
Since you have received the Gospel by the Holy Spirit and are now Chosen and Holy Exiles, Sons and Daughters of God How should you then Live?
Three Main Ideas this Morning: #1
#1 The Battle of the Mind: We are either growing in sober Knowledge conformed to Christ or growing in Ignorance conformed to sinful passions. ..vv. 13-14
#2 We are Ransomed from futile former lives to live Holy lives vv. 15-19
#3 Jesus grants us Faith in the Father. v. 20-21
#1 vv. 13-14 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,
First, If you have been born again in Christ Jesus, You have a Renewed Mind, and the gospel brings you from Ignorantly being led and controlled and conformed to Sinful desires. You now have Knowledge and sober-minded self-control in Christ your Hope. Grace creates spiritually sober-people:
V. 13. Says be ready. That is Get Ready. Be battle ready. Be alert. Be on guard. Literally “gird up the loins of your mind if you have the KJV version.
Salvation drives us to be ready for action, to be ready for active sanctification and the renewal of how we think and live..
You were ignorant and unprepared to face sin but now the Holy Spirit give you a “renewed mind” a sober mind. A prepared mind.
And this is not just the guy who likes to talk about what he THINKS about different things, a philosopher…No, for the believer we are always striving for the movement from Head to Heart. Heart. to Hands. The Christian life Should not remain Head alone or Heart alone or Hands alone.
Jesus in Luke 12:35 Stay dressed for action.
In Exodus before the Lord rescues Israel from Egypt. Their physical readiness is described this way, eat the Passover, “with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover.
God is rescuing you from sin and darkness. Be ready in that rescue to march forward with God’s people. TO where God will lead you.
Do not drift aimlessly through life with no thought of where your actions and where your thinking will lead you. (Ill: Swim across river passively).
The image is that passive minds will always be catechized, trained, and conformed to the sinfully ignorant culture around them. (Swept downstream).
Take every thought captive to Christ.
Our culture often advocates for living by your heart, your feelings, emotional appeal, without consideration to God and the truths of his creation, the realities of the fall, or the grace of salvation.
So how can we be catechized…Trained by God more than fallen thinking: How? By Being Sober Minded. / Self-Controlled. How?
The power of a greater love and affection controls us: The imperative. The command is this: Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ
Set your mind FULLY on the grace and mercy of Jesus! How? By staying alert and ready, being self-controlled!
By Having are thoughts Filled with the wonders of the Grace of God. Filled with Wonderful and high thoughts about the God of Grace knowing that we will have these truths fully shown to us when Christ returns and we see him face to face.
Until then we are meditating and Reminding ourselves in our hearts and our minds of the truths of these things.
What we believe and give our full attention to gives us perseverance.
Right belief – Orthodoxy – being reminded of our understanding of God, Jesus, the Bible, and Grace in salvation should always lead to Orthopraxy - holiness of life, love for God, love for neighbor in practical and well-reasoned ways, with habits, disciplines, and as a consistent way of life lived in community.
And get this: it works the other direction as well.
You must be warned. That to embrace secular morality and ways of living, embrace calling sin good and good evil, as post-modernism demands you do, will always and inevitably lead to forgetting the grace of Christ, forgetting who God is, and a rejection of the gospel.
Some false teachers will frame – compromise with sin – as a kindness – that to say, “actually that is an acceptable lifestyle, old-fashioned Christians used to think that was wrong but we know better. It’s the 21st century. I love my neighbor by affirming them in their sin – in their “ignorant passions.” (Come to your neighbor Full of grace & truth. Speak the truth in love.)
Rejection of a Christian morality “orthopraxy” – right living - inevitably leads to a loss of orthodoxy – right thinking - because
Peter continues this line of thinking in V. 14.
V. 14 as obedient children, Do not be conformed [pressed into the mold of] the passions of your former ignorance
This means first that as obedient children “God is your Father”
Before you were saved you had Other Father’s you were obedient to …Satan…Adam…pagan Culture at large. No longer. God is your Father in Christ and as a Son or Daughter of God you are going to be shaped to be like him and are indeed commanded to be like him. You now have a Holy calling as a Child of your heavenly father.
But when we are conformed to our passions…our fallen desires…you are brought back into your former ignorance and all knowledge of God and kn. Of grace in Christ is ultimately lost.
And with it the knowledge and the sober-mindedness to know what Is actually loving, kind, faithful, good and true and beautiful to your neighbors in complex situations.
#1 Application
Therefore – Ask yourself – Am I renewing my mind? Am I sober-minded. Am I setting my hope on the grace of Christ in such a way that I have a disciplined mind and will?
Or Am I out of control, I have addictions, swings of mood, inconsistent thinking, inconsistent hopes so much so that it makes me not fully fixed on the grace and hope I have in Christ.
Are the images, knowledge and beliefs I consume incompatible with the grace of Christ and instead eroding my mind? (Will, conscience).
Trust the Holy Spirit working in Scripture and through wise Christian counsel to help you discern these things.
What is the standard of what you are being conformed to? The Command is to hope fully in the grace of the gospel and not be conformed to your former ignorance. But the standard is in verses 15-19.
#2 vv. 15-19 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, [16] since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” [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, [18] knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, [19] but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
#2 We are Ransomed from futile former lives to live Holy lives as Sons & daughters. 15-19
This is Peter’s second Command Be holy in ALL your conduct
The motivation is a mind set on grace. The standard is a Holy God. How does your mind know how you should live? The law of righteousness, The Character of God. The Law written on our hearts by the spirit revealing the character of a Holy God
We are set apart as Holy. So we will become what we already are.
You are objectively “Holy in Christ” because you have been ransomed by the precious of Christ.
And you will become like who you are united to.
Remember, “The Christian’s standard of and motivation for holiness is the absolute moral perfection of God Himself: We are made in His Image and are to reflect Him.” – Reformation Study Bible.
Therefore, the Christian standard for our thinking, reasoning, reflection, our conscience, is God’s thinking, God’s thoughts, God’s reasoning, and he has declared these things to us in every word of Scripture by his Holy Spirit.
Peter is quoting here from several repeated statements in Leviticus: Since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am Holy. (Lev. 11:44 & 19:2)
So holiness if connected to God’s nature and character.
Leviticus 20:7–8 Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.(Well How? What does this look like?) Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
So holiness is attached to the revealed commandments of God.
Leviticus 20:26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
Holiness is connected to exclusively belonging to God and being separated from the pagan nations.
G.K. Beale explains it this way: The general thrust of the holiness in the Old Testament is the strong conviction that the Israelites must not only be "clean" but progress into a state of utter "holiness," fit for God's presence. "To be holy is to be unblemished or unmarred. It is to experience life in all its fullness as God has originally intended it to be."” (Beale, 412)
The only hope of being a Holy people in Christ Jesus. And it Is not only that we won’t be cast out but that we in Christ will be drawn near and fit for the presence of God.
And as God’s holy people we look to the Holy Spirit to do the work in our hearts and minds to cleanse, to renew us after the image of Christ.
V. 17 – says, we will Call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile
On first read this is terrifying. And in some ways it is we are to conduct ourselves with fearful care in all our deeds….But not because salvation is by works or uncertain.
Are we saved by grace but kept in by works?, By no means. T wo comforts
Isaiah 53:5 Jesus was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (ESV)
God’s just judgement has already landed on Christ…That is our Justification.
And Second, in our Sanctification: in the renewing of our minds, the conforming ourselves to Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit the Christian will bear fruit. And god the Father will judge the fruit of sanctification for what is it. Good works done by the power of the Spirit. And one motivation for holiness is rightly understanding a Sovereign. Holy. Just Judge. Not “hey big fellow in the sky” but Holy God and Judge of the Universe who is my Father in Christ Jesus. So we must strive to understand and live according to the moral character of a Holy. Just. Judge & Father.
Think of the Logic of 2 Peter 1:4–9 …In Christ by the Spirit we…become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. [5] For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, [6] and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, [7] and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. [8] For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (ESV)
I think we can say it this way – we speak of Total Depravity a lot. In Adam we were ignorantly conformed to our passions and dead in our trespasses and sins.
In our salvation in Christ Jesus you have been regenerated and your mind is being renewed with knowledge and self-control.
Christians are no longer totally depraved that was the old man.
Christians can progress in sanctification. In fact you can do it with self-control and steadfast effort as the Holy Spirit works in you. And God the Father not only sees you Justified in Christ Jesus but also sanctified by the Spirit and says, well done good and faithful servant.
Conduct yourselves with Fear with Humble reverence and awe. Understanding true strength, splendour, glory, and holiness. That all we think, do, believe, and trust in should flow from him and to
So do you see Peter building up a whole lot of motivations here? Gratitude to Grace. Fear of a Holy God. Living as a Child of your Heavenly Father. The motivation of rejecting Ignorance and embracing knowledge.
A Further motivation to Holiness, Look in verse 18: You were ransomed from Futile ways inherited from your forefathers
Ransomed yes,
From what futile ways from your forefathers?: note 1:14; 4:3
Peter will list specifics: Greek and roman base cultural sins. So we can ask, What American base cultural sins do we need to be brought from darkness into light? What as an American if you cease from the futile American sins would surprise your neighbors??? That is the thinking.
So the motivation is to reject former futility in our former lives but even further, This ransom’s preciousness is one of our motivations to holiness.
The Imperishable precious blood of Christ like the spotless lamb without blemish.
Just as God redeemed Israel from Egypt and Babylon - We were ransomed. Bought back from slavery.
The costliness of something makes us literally Value it. Prize it. It does what? Makes our minds alert, sober-minded, and more disciplined. It makes what has been purchased set apart as a special possession.
It is Precious: As a Kid when we went to Six Flags Over I distinctly remember knowing that it Cost Money to be there. Therefore…I wanted to ride as many rides as I could. It was precious. It was a gift. Our entire mind soul and body for 8 Hrs was spent thinking about Rollercoasters…
You have been Redeemed by a far greater cost. Then $20 in 1999...
It is the precious blood of Christ has saved purchased you back.
Peter is arguing that If your salvation was so costly shouldn’t you strive with all your mightto Be Holy like God is Holy. To prepare yourself for action.
How should you then live? – Practically, You should meditate on scriptures and take action in Mind, Affections, and Actions to conform your Ethics, Character, and Habits to be Holy, Godly, Christlike. That is a Christian Ethic, Christian Character, and Christian Habits.
Where should you be meditating (OMG: W.P.S.F.)
The 10 Commandments; WLC
Proverbs – for wisdom
The second half of every NT Epistle
Jesus in the gospels.
Being grounded in the gospel you are a new creation now live as your are called to be. Holy. Godly. Upright. Let the word of God be lamp unto your feet. In real specifics not religious sounding principles such that when you read a command it is a command to be obeyed not an idea to feel proud having thought about.
God does not care if we can define religious terms and remember his commands if we do not do them from the heart.
Satan delights in a believer who knows everything he or she should be doing but never lifts a finger to actually form virtue in their Speech, humility, actions, habits, or daily schedule.
For example there are constant commands in the bible about how Christians should speak, with wisdom, life, and not corrupt talk. If God is Holy our Speech ought to be Holy.
You are bound by the God of the universe to his character to know we can use our tongues wisely or foolishly and there is a moral component to be different and talk different from the world.
And this is a battle of your mind, your affections (love), and actions. You will either have an ethical position on blasphemy, vulgarity, and slurs or you won’t (if you don’t the default is being swept downstream); you will either have a character commitment and rule or you won’t, you will have habits and sin always wants more.
You will either love your neighbor with your words or you will defame, slur, curse, and debase their mind with the images your words paint.
This does not mean every Christian will have a black and white answer to when different language is appropriate for all time, cultures, languages and situations. But you will have the same Goal and Pattern be Holy like Christ Jesus indwelt with his spirit and in gratitude to your salvation you won’t just skim past commands to holy living without giving it attention and real action in your life: What do the scriptures sa? be holy in all your conduct
Because it is about the joy of conforming yourself to be like Jesus who saved you and made you alive.
That is just one example. But I encourage you once more. Proverbs. The 10 Commandments. Listen and Honor your Father and Mother when they correct you on a behavior. Not because they want “good” “nice” kids, but because they desire godliness…gratitude to the forgiveness of sins…a life shaped living before the face of a Holy Holy Holy God.
There are numerous places for meditation on Holy Living. Sit down as a family and I would suggest starting at #10 and working backwards through those larger catechism questions. Study the Fruit of the Spirit. Study the Sermon on the Mount. Study all these things as those who have Freedom in Christ but who do not use their freedom as a cover for sin.
Having given us the strongest of commands to Holy Lives. Peter gives us this encouragement once more in verses 20-21.
#3: Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you [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 loved eternally by the Father. In these last days it is through Christ that we know and believe in the Father. Faith in Jesus produces and confirms our Faith in the Father
1 My hope is built on nothing lessthan Jesus' blood and righteousness;I dare not trust the sweetest frame,but wholly lean on Jesus' name.3 His oath, his covenant, his bloodsupport me in the whelming flood;when all around my soul gives way,he then is all my hope and stay.4 When he shall come with trumpet sound,O may I then in him be found;dressed in his righteousness alone,faultless to stand before the throne.
You are Holy. Have Holy Minds. Live Holy Lives. Entrust your sins and doubts to Christ knowing You will be holy in the blood of Christ. Faultless to stand before the throne.
Prayer | Benediction
