Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Last week we talked about “Our Great Salvation” from 1 Peter 1:10-12

Today we are talking about our response to this great salvation as we look at verses 13-16

Please take God’s Word and turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1

We have been learning up to this point that Peter has been giving special reminders to his readers to help them while they are persecuted for their faith

Last week it was about their salvation

Today it is about their sanctification

Sanctification is another way of saying being set apart

As believers, we are set apart to God, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and to God’s Word

In other words, we are called to be holy

Salvation and sanctification go hand in hand

You cannot have one without the other

Our salvation is not without sanctification

As Peter helps his readers who are suffering persecution, he commands them to “fix [their] hope completely on the grace to be brought to [them] at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (v.13)

The phrase “Fix your hope” is the only imperative in verse 13 and it is the proper response to our salvation

Everything Peter says at this point is in relation to hope

They are commanded to live expectantly, anticipating with “a living hope” their “inheritance … reserved in heaven … to be revealed in the last time” (1:3, 4, 5).

(John MacArthur, 1 Peter).

Notice what Peter says in 1 Peter 1:13-16:

1 Peter 1:13–16 (NASB95)

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Peter begins verse 13 with the word “therefore”

“Therefore” takes us back to what he has already said in verses 10-12

It could be translated “since”

Since the prophets prophesied about the Messiah and made careful searches and inquiries about who He was and when He would appear in His sufferings glories, and since they were serving you in these things, and it was preached by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit,

You are to respond in 5 ways:

First you are to...

I. Prepare Your Mind for Action (v.13a)

The Authorized has: “Wherefore, [gird up] the loins of your mind”

In Peter’s time the common attire was a garment that reached the ankle or knees and had to be tucked into the belt at the waist when engaged in physical labor.

We get this idea when the Israelites were eating the passover and preparing to leave Egypt

Exodus 12:11 (NASB95) — 11 ‘Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover.

When Peter speaks of “girding up the lions,” he is speaking metaphorically to refer to the “mind”

This is why the NASB translates this as “prepare your minds for action”

Girding the mind means to get serious about getting down to work for Jesus

1 Corinthians 15:58 (NASB95) — 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

It is to pull in all the loose ends of one’s thinking, by rejecting the hindrances of the world and focusing on the future grace of God (John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible)

Ephesians 6:14 (NASB95) — 14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Colossians 3:2 (NASB95) — 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

“Girding your minds” is “a decisive action” (Hiebert)

How you “prepare your minds for action,” is to...

II.

Keep Sober in Spirit (v.13b)

“Keep sober” is one word in Greek

It is the Greek word nepho

It is used in the present tense and should be translated “Keeping”

This is an ongoing action

We should always “keep sober”

The word itself means “to be free from the influence of intoxicants” (W.

E. Vine)

It is used here metaphorically to refer to “self-discipline”

D. Edmond Hiebert says, “It denotes a condition free from every form of mental and spiritual loss of self-control; it is an attitude of self-discipline that avoids the extremes of the “reckless irresponsibility of self-indulgence on the one hand, and of religious ecstasy on the other.”

(D.Edmond Hiebert, 1 Peter, (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1997), 91.)

Lenski adds, “This is the opposite of infatuation with the things of this world, [it is] a calm, steady state of mind which weighs and estimates things aright and thus enables us to make the right decision.”

(R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. Jude, (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1966), 52.

The philosopher Diogenes Laertius, who lived in the 3rd century wrote, “It is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.”

(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed.

R. D. Hicks, (Kansas City Missouri: Harvard University Press, November 1, 2005), 657.)

One of the Apostolic Fathers, Clement, who led the church in Rome during the first century, wrote, “Therefore, brethren, let us repent forthwith.

Let us be sober unto that which is good: for we are full of much folly and wickedness.

Let us wipe away from us our former sins, and let us repent with our whole soul and be saved.

And let us not be found men-pleasers.

Neither let us desire to please one another only, but also those men that are without, by our righteousness, that the Name be not blasphemed by reason of us.” (Joseph Barber Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891), 91.)

Peter uses this word again in 4:7 and 5:8 to encourage spiritual alertness in prayer and in resisting the attacks of the Devil

Paul used this word in 1 Thessalonians 5:6 (NASB95) — 6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.

He also used it in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 (NASB95) — 8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

He used it in his second letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:5 (NASB95) — 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Preparing your mind and being sober in spirit are just two aspects of sanctification.

A third, and the point of the entire text is...

III.

Fix Your Hope on Future Grace (v.13c)

As stated earlier, fixing your hope is the only imperative in verse 13

Girding up your mind and keeping sober in spirit is how you fix your hope on future grace

The word for hope is elpis (ἐλπίς, 1680), and in the NT it means, “favorable and confident expectation” (W.E.

Vine)

Paul speaks of “hope” in Romans 8:24–25 (NASB95) — 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?

25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

So hope is “confident expectation”

The Scriptures give us hope

Romans 15:4 (NASB95) — 4 For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Faith and hope are similar in meaning

Both involve trusting God

The only major difference between the two is one involves the present and the other involves the future

Faith appropriates what God has already said and done in His revealed Word, and hope anticipates what He will yet do, as promised in Scripture.”

(John MacArthur 1 Peter).

Peter says to “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”

That is trusting the promise of God as revealed in Scripture concerning the return of Jesus

When you suffer that is what you are to “fix your hope” on, Jesus’ return

William MacDonald says, “The assurance of Christ’s Return is held out as a compelling motive for endurance through the storms and tribulations of life.”

(Believer’s Bible Commentary)

This is not partial hope or hope which doubts if it is true or hope with reservations

It is hoping “wholly— to a complete degree or to the full or entire extent.”

(Rick Brannan, Ed., Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 2020.)

It is hoping “fully” with no reservations or doubts

“the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” is referring to the object to which hope is directed

Kistemaker states, it “is the equivalent of the two terms salvation (vv.

9–10) and inheritance (v.4).

The believers, then, focus their attention on their salvation.”

Jesus is the object of their salvation and ours