Holiness and Hope
Notes
Transcript
Scripture Introduction:
Many of us have May 4th circled on our calendars. It’s the day when our state is supposed to begin opening back up. And we’ve got May 10th circled…in very light pencil…for a tentative date for coming back. And so in a very real sense we are setting our hope on May 4th.
But what happens if that day doesn’t come? What happens if on May 3rd the governor holds a conference and says, “I have bad news. The groundhog saw his shadow and so we’ve got six more weeks of stay-at-home orders.”
I think in such a moment you’re going to have four different types of responses.
Some will respond in absolute despair. They’ll just give up. “My life is over. I can’t handle this. There is no way that I can survive this another day. Fear, panic, and anxiety sets in. Or for some it might be even darker. They just give up entirely.”
Others will respond with a type of cynicism. “I knew it. You can’t trust the government. This is all a big dumb hoax. Our churches are buying into this lie. People are wicked and evil and stupid and only care about themselves. And things like grumbling and anger and outrage will follow.”
Others will respond with a cheery optimism. But an optimism that doesn’t take into account the very real trauma that this will cause. “This doesn’t matter at all. Something so much better is going to happen. It’ll be even better when we do come back. It’s wrong of you to be sad about this! I don’t understand your anger!” This sounds very good but it’s actually a false optimism. It’s not grounded in truth. It’s just grounded in a sunny disposition. If I believe stuff will get better then by golly it will.
Others will respond with an acknowledgment that this is painful, but they are also able to maintain joy. All their hopes aren’t dashed against the rocks. “It’s okay. This is hard. People are hurting. I’m hurting. But there is something a good God is doing through this.” Such a person has their eyes set on eternity.
And that’s really the difference between a biblical hope and what we might call a finite hope. A biblical hope is grounded in truth, it is future-oriented, but it’s hope is not in the stuff that has a limit or bounds. Their hope—to use last weeks terminology—is not from on the sidelines it’s from up in the grandstands. A finite hope is fixed on that which is “under the sun” a biblical hope is fixed upon that which is “over the sun”—it’s treasures are laid up in heaven.
It’s not wrong to have finite hopes. I hope that somehow baseball will be back this year. I’m not sure what it will mean for Alex Gordon playing for the Royals again if it’s canceled. And I really hope I get to see him play in KC one more time. But my ultimate hope is not fixed there. But what if it was? Well, if it doesn’t work out then I’m going to respond with despair, cynicism, or some sort of cheery optimism that doesn’t deal with reality. And so if I get to go to KC and see Alex play another beautiful game in left field then I’m excited. My hope was not disappointed. But if my hope is disappointed—okay, that stinks, but we deal with that because my ultimate hope isn’t in that.
This is always a temptation for us—to place our ultimate hopes in what is finite. That temptation would have been true for Peter’s audience as well. We don’t know all the details of their persecution but we know it wasn’t pleasant. I don’t think they were being physically harmed quite yet—but there was certainly fear of that. Truth be told their “persecution” was probably similar to what we are facing here as we are holed up in our homes under a stay at home order. Don’t hear me wrong. For us this isn’t persecution…at least not yet. But for them it had to do with their faith in Jesus. They were losing jobs, losing status in society, losing relationships. They were being treated as exiles.
So what happens to you when that type of persecution sets in? What are you tempted towards? What happens when life doesn’t work out the way you thought it would? For them, their faith in Jesus isn’t giving them riches and power and prestige and comfort it’s resulting in quite the opposite.
Just like us they would have some given to cynicism, some to despair, others to a cheery optimism, and some would respond in hope. Peter wants them to have that last response—he wants them to have biblical hope in the midst of persecution. And so he says these words to them:
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 the 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.
Sermon Introduction:
In order to really see what Peter is doing in this passage we need to go back to what has happened so far in the first 12 verses. Peter is doing something here that is common with gospel writers. He is grounding his imperatives in the indicative.
What did I just say? An imperative is a “do this”. Take out the trash. There are four of those in this section going up to verse 25. “Set your hope” in verse 13. “Be holy” in verse 15. “Conduct yourselves with fear” in verse 17. And “love one another” in verse 22.
But verses 1-12 are filled with what is called an indicative. Those are statements of fact. So “I’m your father who loves you and provides for you and of whom you are accountable to”.
Now see how these work together. “I’m your father, who loves you and provides for you, and also the one of whom you are accountable to. Therefore…and now the imperative…take out the trash. So listen to what Peter has done so far. The first 12 verses aren’t imperatives. There is no “do this”. We’ve had 12 verses of indicatives. So we could add the word “since” to all of these because they are driving us to these imperatives. That’ll help us see what Peter is doing.
verse 1: since God has chosen you,
verse 3: since God has caused you to be born again to a living hope,
verse 4: since God is keeping an inheritance for you that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
verse 5: since God is protecting you and by his power keeping you through faith so that you won't lose that inheritance,
verses 6–7: since God is refining your faith by fire so that it will receive praise and glory and honor,
verse 8: since you are already experiencing what it means to live in the love of Christ
verses 10–13: since prophets and angels excitedly peer into the gospel that is yours,
Therefore....set your hope fully, be holy, conduct yourselves in fear of the Lord, and love one another. Now that’s important because what it tells us is that our ability to do what is in verses 13-22 is conditioned upon the activity of God in the first 12 verses. You’re able to be holy and you’re called to be holy because of what God has already done and accomplished.
So as typical in the Scriptures the imperative is grounded in the indicative. Because Christ has done this, you do this.
We could almost say it this way. You have been rescued from a family, a society, a culture that was numbing you and putting you to sleep and yet all the while was very actively engaged in destroying your soul. You once lived for everything that was perishable. You once were so blinded that you loved what you should hate and hated what you should have loved. You once were a part of this society, this fallen world, this kingdom that will not last, and this kingdom that will eventually be destroyed. You once had the last name worldling.
But God did something. He adopted you. You were born again. You were brought into a new family. You were given a new inheritance. A new heart. A new name. You are now a sojourner in the world. Yes, that comes with difficulties. Yes the home from which you came will persecute you and try to draw you back in. They will not understand you. They will not love what you love. They are blinded just as you once were. But God made you alive in Christ. Yes, you have a new name. Elect Exile. Selected Sojourner.
This changes everything. B/c of what God has done in securing our salvation—making us citizens of His kingdom and therefore sojourners in this one—here is how we ought to now live. That is why there is in verse 13 a Therefore. And here in our text we will see three things. The first is this:
I. Since you are now a selected sojourner you must set your hope fully on the grace to come.
We need to do a bit more nerd work here. But I’ll use the bigger words and then explain them. What’s happening here is that you have two participles and a main imperative verb. What’d I just say? It means there is one command here and two descriptive postures that accompany it. It’s kind of like this, “Junior, with your amazing muscles and your trip out to the backyard right next to the dumpster (that’d be your two participles), take out the trash (imperative)! Two descriptive posture surrounding this imperative.
The imperative—the command—the “do this” is “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The manner in which we do that is the “preparing your minds for action” and the “be sober-minded”.
And again all of this goes back to what we’ve seen in verse 12. Peter is saying. Fix your hope there. Fix your hope in what God has done and is doing. Set your hope on what will happen at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I think it’s very much connected to verse 9 where we read “obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls”. Fix your hope there is what Peter is saying.
But what does that mean? What does it mean to fix your hope?
Forgive this illustration but I think it works really well. Think of gambling. Think of a poker game or a guy at the roulette table. He’s got $700 bucks. That’s all he has to his name. He puts every dime that he has—all of his chips—on black. He’s going all in. Or he’s playing poker and he has what he thinks is the best hand at the table. He goes all in. Every dime. He is banking everything on winning this hand. This is a picture of setting your hope completely on something.
Keeping a few chips aside just in case you are wrong isn’t going all in. It’s not setting your hope fully on something. It’s not really having absolute confidence in your hand. To set your hope fully is to throw in all your chips and maybe your watch to boot. You aren’t leaving anything back.
So when Peter tells us here to “set your hope fully on” he is saying don’t leave an ounce of hope to anything else. Go all in. Don’t shore up your bets. Don’t keep a few chips into the stock market, or a few chips into another religion, or a few chips into your good works, or a few chips into having a nice house or a nice family, or a few chips into money, or a few chips into entertainment, or a few chips into relationships. Don’t shore up your bets. Go all in. Set every ounce of your hope into Jesus Christ and what is awaiting you.
Now, as I said earlier I think what Peter is referring to here is our ultimate hope. If you place your ultimate hope in something finite then it’s going to disappoint. And we are to set every bit of our ultimate hope into Christ and His accomplishment.
Why is hope so hard? I think some might have a cheery disposition and what looks like hope might be easier for them. Some might have a more cynical or despairing disposition. But either way true biblical hope is, I believe, a battle. And I say that because of the way the Bible talks about hope. It doesn’t seem like something that we fall into or come into naturally.
I also believe that it’s important for us to notice the two participles in verse 13 that accompany this setting your hope fully on the grace to brought to us. When I think of hope I tend to think about my emotions. Do I feel hopeful? Are my emotions positive? But this isn’t really the way the Bible speaks of hope. You’ll notice here that hope here is very much connected to the mind. We are to “prepare our mind for action” and to “be sober-minded”. What he’s saying is that this is the mindset that will accompany a hope that is set fully on the grace to come.
So let’s briefly look at these.
1) The girded mind
Literally this is “gird up the loins of your minds” but because nobody talks that way anymore and people would just look at you like you are weird the ESV translates it, “preparing your minds for action”. That’s the concept. When you gird up your loins what you are doing is taking your robe and turning it into running shorts. It means that you are prepared to run. You are ready to go.
In other words you do not just naturally drift into setting your hope fully on the grace to be given you. We naturally set our hope on other things. So if we are going to hope correctly then we need to do battle. Can you really trust Jesus? Can you really put all your weight on him? Is he really going to come through? Will the “grace that will be brought to you” really be worth it?
When you stand before Jesus is there anything that you’ll say, “man I really wish I hadn’t given that up for him?” This isn’t worth it? I think theologically we know this…but do our lives testify to this? At times they don’t—because we have to do battle here. It was true of our first parents when that fruit was being held before them…God is holding out on you…and if you aren’t prepared for that…if you don’t have your mind waging this war then you aren’t going to do battle.
This is why it’s absolutely vital to our survival to be immersed in God’s Word and around God’s people and constantly rehearsing to ourselves the truth of the gospel. If we don’t do this then we’ll not set our hope fully on then. We’ll start to settle for finite hopes. We won’t go all-in where we need to.
We like to stand on holy ground with one shoe. Just enough of Jesus so that we can feel secure but not enough of him to really be all his. And so if we are going to be sojourners who set our hope fully on future grace then we need to gird up our mind.
2) Sober mind
The other way to having our hope set fully on future grace is to be sober-minded. Of course this means don’t get drunk. That’s always a good exhortation. But that’s just the bare minimum of what Peter means here.
There is a way of living and thinking and such that numbs the mind and the Spirit. So, what this is saying is know what numbs your mind to hoping in Christ and avoid those things. Is it television? Avoid it. Is it facebook? Avoid it. Is it your imaginary farm? Avoid it.
You aren’t going to drift into going “all in”. There are a million things in the world that are going to be crying out and going to be tempting you to shore up your bets and put a few chips here and a few chips there. We have to be sober-minded. Those things that make us numb and drunk and unfeeling about the truth of the gospel and the truth about the world ought to be avoided.
So because of everything that God has done on our behalf Peter says, set your hope fully on the grace to be given you. Go all-in there.
Guys, I don’t speak of hope as a distant observer. Nor do I speak of despair as something that I haven’t myself experienced. I know first hand the pit of despair and the darkness of depression. I know how intense the battle for hope can be.
If anyone is listening to this and is giving in to despair there is much that could be said but I’ll keep it simple. Look to Jesus. So often what happens in these moments is that we become overcome by our feelings and our perception of reality. We camp out in subjective truth instead of objective truth.
So I want you to camp out on this for just a moment. If you are in Christ these things are true whether you feel them or not:
“as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12)
“in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back” (Isa. 38:17)
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isa. 43:25)
“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18-19)
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1)
“If the Son has set you free you are free indeed”. (Jn. 8:36)
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13)
“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15)
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13-14)
That verse in Colossians can be such a helpful place to camp. Because in our darker moments we can think that hope is for somebody else. The promises of God sound great and wonderful and we may not even have a hard time believing that God is generally good…but we have a hard time saying God is good…to me. But Colossians tells us that if you are in Christ then you are qualified to enter into His kingdom. You do have hope.
I found great help from this by Sam Storms:
Whatever feelings of inadequacy or sense of shame or depths of despair may have crippled you till now, God has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light! If you found yourself saying, "I'm not up to the task. I'm a miserable failure. I'm a hell-deserving wretch. I don't deserve to stand in God's presence. The only thing I should inherit is death," God now says to those who are in Christ: "Qualified! Forgiven! Adequate in Jesus! Righteous in my Son! Come and receive and enjoy your inheritance together with all the saints in the life-giving, soul-cleansing light of my kingdom![1]"
Of course, this begs the question. Are you qualified? Are you in Christ? What does that mean? How can I know if I’m in Christ? Well the first qualification is that you have to be a sinner b/c Christ didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners. So do you qualify there? Have you sinned against God? Has your heart’s disposition been to go your own way? If so, then you’re a rebel. And you acknowledge that. And so that part qualifies you. The next thing—have you cried out to the Lord for mercy? Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus, save me. I want you. I want to be in a relationship with you. So now you trust him that His Word is true and he hears your cry. God is not deaf to your cry for mercy. Ever. And so cry out to him today. I need lasting hope. I need living hope. I need Jesus. And he’ll rescue you. That’s a promise.
If Christ is yours then we have great reason for hope. Ultimate hope. He is making all things new. There is a scene in the passion of Christ that usually leaves me without dry eyes. In it Christ falls to the ground, bloody, and beaten and he looks up at his mother and says, “see mother, I make all things new”. That scene isn’t in the Scriptures but the story of it is—Jesus is making all things new. And that scene always gets me because that includes me. That’s my hope. I’m putting all my chips in there. Christ is making all things new. Someday there will be no more death, no more crying, no more pain or suffering. But sweet freedom and fellowship with the Lord and His sheep for all eternity. Yes, it is there that we place our hope.