Thanks very much for leading us up to this point. Let me add my welcome and a good evening from me as well, Steve earlier. And if you have got a Bible with you, do please open it back up to 1 Peter chapter one. We're picking up from verse 13 tonight and it'll be great to get back into the book together. So before we do that though, let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we have this glorious hope that Christ will come again. And we will see him on that day face to face. Lord, please would you plant that hope deep into our hearts this evening. And please Lord, would you do your work through your word. Thank you that it is living and active. Please speak to us, shape us, and change us through it this evening. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, let me begin with a quote that I read this week from Jen Wilkin. Here is what she said. We are a people of divided allegiances, divided hopes. We hedge our bets. We are those people that Jesus warned about storing up treasures both here on earth and in heaven. What do you make of that? Doesn't that just ring so true so often in our lives? Our minds and our hearts are so fickle, aren't they? We know we have this glorious hope, and yet our hearts are so easily swayed towards other things. It's true that we often are a divided people. And I think it's that reality of our ever-shifting, unstable, divided hearts and our divided hopes that Peter is pointing to and he wants to tackle face on in our passage tonight. Peter wants to say to us, just like he was saying to these people that he wrote to about 2,000 years ago, stop letting the things of this earth rock you. sway you, allure you. Instead, set all of your hope in one place, in one rock-solid, dependable future event that is so much more glorious and so much more significant than any other. Look at how Peter puts it in verse 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. Peter has just spent the previous 10 verses or so unpacking and praising God because of our hope, hasn't he? We saw that last week if you were with us. He reminds us of the glories of it, the glories of our salvation that the angels would just long to look into. And now Peter turns the screw. He says, look, if that is what is ahead of you, that glorious hope with Christ forever, Set your hope fully on that thing, on that day. See, this isn't just some side news for us. This is the news of our lives. And so Peter says, live accordingly. Don't drift through your days as if there's something else that might come up that's even better. No looking to the left or to the right to see what else the world has to offer. No, set your hope fully on this day, this day of grace and salvation, when we will know and feel the forgiveness fully that we find in Christ. Peter says to us tonight, pursue that day as your undivided hope. For Peter, this is fundamental to the Christian's life. And that's why I think he includes here the word fully. He could have just said, couldn't he, set your hope on that day, on the grace to come. But he says, set your hope fully on that grace. And I think he says that first. He uses that word fully because he wants to make it clear to us that that day is a day that we can fully set our hope on. It is a day that can be completely relied on. It will come. But then also, second, and this is what Jen Wilkin, I think, was pointing to in her quote that we read at the beginning. Setting our hope fully on this grace means don't just tack that hope onto all those other hopes that are around us in the world. Aren't we just so quick to do that? As we've said, this is the hope of our lives. And Peter calls us to pursue it as an undivided hope, as our only hope, that when Jesus returns, we will find grace and our salvation will be fully worked out. Now, this command is a pretty big challenge, isn't it? As we've already said, the reality is that there are so many competing hopes around us in the world, aren't there? Korea. family, happiness, comfort, good health. And the truth is that in fact, many of those things are good, aren't they? They are good hopes to have. Just think of that, there is something praiseworthy, isn't there? About living healthy lives, about using our body and keeping them in shape the way God has made them to be. In wanting to use our talents in the best job possible that God has given us. in hoping to one day have children, perhaps, or in looking forward to periods of rest that we feel we so desperately need. But these hopes have a tendency to find themselves beginning to shape our lives more than they should. Instead of becoming sub-hopes, hopes that aren't ultimate, they become the ultimate hope in our lives. These hopes become what our day, our week, or our year is all about. And the achievement of these hopes begins to be the thing that shapes us, the thing that we base our emotions on, our affections. However, if we take up Peter's call here to set our hope fully on the grace to come to us, the certain unshakable hope We can begin, can't we, to hold those other hopes rightly where they should be. We hold those hopes a bit more lightly, don't we? We stop grasping onto those hopes as the thing that drive us, and instead we place them into the Lord's hands. And then when we do end up disappointed, as we inevitably will in this world, we can know that we just will not be disappointed in our ultimate hope. We will not be disappointed on that final day when Christ comes and welcomes us to himself. And we won't be any time after that as we enjoy eternity with our Savior forever. See, our grace, our hope is a grounding. It is a reassurance to us that no matter what we are going through, remember, these people are going through such suffering and hardships. Well, no matter what you're going through, like we saw last week, we have a gracious God who has given us a glorious hope. And as we saw last week, that same God has got us right now in his hands, and he is guarding and protecting us and our faith right the way through until that final day. As we look at this hope and we look forward, it's interesting, isn't it, to think that setting our hope fully on this grace doesn't only involve a forward look. Because if this hope is what drives us, what we pursue, what we dwell on, what we rejoice in every single day, that in turn drives us to remember the whole story behind what's brought us that hope in the first place. It drives us to remember the glorious gospel of grace that we have. In fact, as we'll see shortly, this is what Peter goes on to, isn't it? He says here, we were once living futile lives in ignorance. He says that. He says, then we are ransomed from those futile ways with the precious blood of Christ. And we remember, and are reminded that was always the plan of God. It was always the plan of God to send his son into the world for our sake. All of that done so that our faith and hope can be in God. That future look drives home some present realities and some past realities of what God has done for us and drives us to thankfulness. Now, Peter, I think, acknowledges, however, as we look at the start of this verse, that keeping our hope fully set on the future to come will be a battle. Look at those first two phrases from verse 13. He says this, therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded set your hope fully on the grace. See, Peter recognizes that this kind of thinking, this kind of hoping, will not be something that simply happens in our lives by accident. That we wake up one morning and are just overwhelmed by grace and the future hope that we have. Perhaps by God's grace and by the Spirit's prompting, that sometimes can happen. But Peter recognizes here that because of our weakness, because of our sin, because of our suffering, this isn't likely to be a regular, natural experience for us. And so Peter helps us to see what it's going to involve, using these two phrases to set our hope fully on the grace to come. First of all, he says, prepare your minds for action. This is literally gird up the loins of your mind, which is a reference back to God's people in Egypt. Do you remember eating the Passover meal and being told to gird up the loins, their garments, all ready to go as soon as Pharaoh let them leave? Well, now, today, God's people, we are also called to be ready. We're called to be ready to take up this battle for our hopes. We need to be preparing our minds for action so that our sluggish, unhelpful thinking doesn't take over. Peter wants to say to us, we need to be active in our thinking, not passive, not just drifting through our days, allowing whatever the day holds to lead our thoughts. No, instead, we go purposefully into our days. preparing our minds for all that's coming our way, and actively not allowing those other thoughts, those other hopes, to overtake our ultimate hope. And the second phrase there, being sober-minded, points similarly to this idea, to the need to have right and steady thinking. It's not like a drunkard, right? The drunkard stumbling from one place to the next. He doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't have a direction in his life. And he doesn't know if this is really something solid to hold onto or not. Other things come in and cloud our thinking. The devil loves to feed us lies, doesn't he, in the world around us? And Peter says, do not let that happen. Go into your day, your lives, purposefully and actively remembering the precious truths of the gospel and the future hope that awaits you. Okay, so there's been quite a lot to take in here, but I just wanted to stop for a moment and get a bit practical about how we can do this. This is a straight command that Peter gives us, and so we want to take it seriously. So what can we do in our lives right at the moment to best try to set our hope fully on this future hope? Well, here's just four thoughts that I had as I was preparing. Hopefully, some of them will be helpful to you. First of all, be ready every single morning to take up the fight. There is a battle that is out there for our minds and our hearts and our hopes. And it's a battle that the devil would love to win. What could that mean for us? Maybe it means picking up our Bibles first thing in the morning instead of our phones. For me, that would be such a good thing to do. Can someone hold me to that next week? What was the first thing you looked at in the morning? That could mean that first moment that you find yourself, you're awake enough now and you're thinking about the day ahead, you have this mental alarm that goes off and says, wait, first, let's get my hopes straight today. Or it could be being ready every morning to take up this fight. It could mean sticking something where we're going to see it when we wake up. It could even be sticking this verse up on that mirror in the bathroom, or whatever it might be. Stick something up that reminds you of the glorious future hope that you have, and will help you to remember to keep that as the ultimate thing in your life. Practically then, secondly, and this is crucial because we simply can't do this on our own. We need to be on our knees in prayer. Make it a regular prayer to ask for the God Spirit to help in remembering the truths of the gospel and helping them to sink deep into our hearts. The good news of our gospel and the hope that we have will never be allowed to completely transform us as long as it remains in our minds. we need to be on our knees asking the Spirit's help to plant it deeper than that, to allow it to change our affections and our hopes. Third, and this might sound funny at first, but practically, I think a really good way we might do this is to go on a hope hunt, to go on a hope hunt in your life and in the lives of people around you and in the world around us. Take some time this week in the busyness of it, just to stop for a few minutes, and jot down, maybe on a piece of paper or on your phone, your hopes. What are your hopes for this week? What are your hopes for this year? Perhaps even, what are your hopes for your life? I did that this week, and it was a fascinating thing, as I realized what it is that I'm living for. Those hopes can be small or big, it doesn't matter. And as we said, some of those hopes will be really good ones. Perhaps as we write them down, some of them won't and we can immediately try to drop them and ask God's help in that. But whatever those hopes are, we need to have them before us and remember those things are not our ultimate hope. And we need to filter those hopes through our ultimate hope, our great and glorious future that awaits us. and then maybe looking out into the world. Go on that hope hunt as you watch TV, as you watch the adverts, as you talk to friends or colleagues. Spot what is out there in the world. What is being offered to us? See, it's when we're ready and we can spot the hopes that other people are living for that we are also aware in our own lives of how easily those things take over for us too, aren't they? Don't they? Fourthly, and again, hopefully, I think this could be really beneficial as we think practically about how we set our hopes fully on this future grace. It would be great to ask someone else to help you. We are not living Christian lives on our own. God has blessed us here tonight with church family, with brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are meant to help and encourage each other. That's why we're really hoping to get care groups back up and running, and why we think they're so important. But even beyond this, it would be great, wouldn't it, to have two or three others in this church who you could be meeting up with, encouraging regularly, reading the Bible, praying with them, and pointing each other to this future hope. The truth is that others can be pretty good at spotting what we're living for. So when we do that, we can ask them, what do you see in my life? And remember, as we go and we ask them for help, the truth is we can be a help and a support to them too. Maybe that's something to consider this evening or in the weeks ahead. The second last verse of the Bible, Revelation 22, 20, says this. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen, come Lord Jesus. The truth is that coming will be the most glorious thing for us if we are trusting in Christ. And yet sometimes I even find myself hesitant to pray that prayer. I don't know about you. Other things have come in, they've divided my heart. They've overshadowed and clouded out the glories that await us. So let's purposefully, and in whatever way possible, take up the call from Peter here so that we can, without any holding back, say yes, come Lord Jesus, come soon. That is what I am undividedly hoping for and what drives me in my life. Now, having focused significantly in on verse 13, we've paused for quite a while there, let's see how the rest of this passage all flows out of this verse. Because the truth is that where we set our hopes and our minds and how we live our lives, how we use our bodies, well, those can never be separated out. The way we live is tied to what we are living for, isn't it? And this is the reality that Peter wants us to see from verse 14. That pursuing an undivided hope is also tied up with a pursuit of an undivided life. The way we live our lives will naturally change as a result of having an undivided hope. And it will also point to the fact that we do have this undivided hope. To see this as clearly as possible in Peter's line of thought, notice with me two phrases from the rest of these verses. The first is in verse 14, and it's that command. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. And the second phrase is a reminder, in verse 18 there, that as Christians, we have been ransomed from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers. For Peter, this is the threat for these Christians facing tough times. And I think it's the same threat for us tonight. The threat of divided living. Of living just partly in light of who we are as Christians, of this great hope we have, and partly like we used to live before when we didn't have that great hope. As Christians, Peter says, we are no longer ignorant. We're no longer ignorant of God, of the glorious hope that he gives. And we are no longer slaves to our previously futile ways. Christ has ransomed us from them. However, the truth is that often our lives don't show that to be the case. We lose sight of our hope, or our hopes become divided, and suddenly the futile ways of the past become attractive again. Now it seems to me that Peter has used that word futile here very purposefully in verse 18, so that we can see here the sharp contrast in what's being offered. The futile ways of our past, what do they offer? They are futile, they are empty, they are powerless, they are useless, they are fruitless. And what were we offered in that hope in the gospel? a priceless, glorious grace found with Jesus Christ. So how do we respond? Do we pursue our glorious hope and do that by showing that through pursuing undivided living? Or as we lose sight of that hope, do we sell out just a little bit of our lives to other things, to futile things? Here in these verses, Peter says, don't sell them out to futile things. Pursue your undivided hope and live an undivided life. First, for Peter, we pursue that undivided life by pursuing a life of holiness. This, for Peter, is what undivided living looks like. It's a holy life. Let's look and read verses 14 to 16 and see the command here. "'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.'" So far, Peter has given us and shown us our glorious hope, and he's commanded us to set our hope fully on that. And now he says, live holy lives. Lives set apart for God and lived for his glory. Because in that we demonstrate and live out the fact that we aren't living for these other hopes that we used to live for. A holy life with God at the front and center shows that God and God alone is our treasure. and he is the one in whom our hope is found. No longer conformed to the passions of our former ignorance, we now live all out, undividedly, for the God who has revealed himself to us. He's revealed his truth and his hope to us. To help us see why Peter here focuses on holiness in this passage, let's just step back a second and think about what sin is. Sin is showing the opposite, isn't it, of holy living? See, sin is this idea of being conformed to our former ignorance, the passions of our former ignorance. Sin involves turning our backs on God and setting our affections and our hopes elsewhere. And it ultimately involves making life all about me. Look at how opposite this command is in our passage. This command is an upward perspective. It says, look away from me, look away from you, and look towards God and who he is. Holy living means looking to God, what we know of him in the Bible, and seeking to live for him and be like him. To imitate God in his faithfulness, his goodness, his compassion, his mercy, his love, his absolutely everything. because God is perfectly holy. And holy living means doing everything to the glory of God, not like those former passions, right, which are not lived for the glory of God. There is no place in this kind of living, this holy living, for allowing former passions to drive us, to conform us. We've been given something so much greater than fleeting pleasures. So don't look back to them and go back to them. Look ahead from them and pursue a life lived for God's glory in holiness. As Peter points out, we are now God's children living in humble obedience to him because he is the one, you see in verse 15, he is the one who has called you. Like we saw last week, he is the one who has caused you to be born again to this living hope that we've been so focused on. God himself is holy. All that he does is completely undivided. And so as God's children today, just like the Israelites when they first received this command in verse 16 in Leviticus, way back in Leviticus, we also are to imitate God as his children. And just like the Israelites, we also take up this call so that we can bear witness to the world around us about who God is and the hope that we have in him. So I guess the question for us this evening from this part of this passage is if our way of life, our living, shows clearly what we are living for, where our hope is, What is your life pointing to? Are there areas of your life, perhaps unknowingly or knowingly, that you have actually consigned off to passions of your former ignorance? As others now look on at your life, what do they see in it? What do your daily actions point to as your ultimate hope? And is that any different from what the world out there is living for? Sinful thoughts, words, and deeds point back to what used to shape us as Christians, shape us when we weren't Christians. Holy thoughts, words, and deeds show us God, and they show that to the world around us, and they point to the fact that our hope is undividedly in him and not in these other things in the world around us. Now Peter continues his line of thinking on from verses 14 to 16 to verse 17. He uses this word and to show he's continuing his line of thought. But now building on this idea of holy living, he gives us a reason why we should live holy undivided lives. And he points us to an attitude that should encourage holy living. Let's read verses 17 to 19 for now. And if, or perhaps since, 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. The command here, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, is building on this command to be holy. It once again reminds us that we are strangers here. This is not our home, so we don't set up home here as if it is. And at the same time, like in verse 13, it points us ahead to that coming final day, that hope we've been talking about, when our exile will finally be over and that hope will be completely fulfilled. But see in that previous phrase, and if you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds. In that phrase, Peter is pointing us to something else that is gonna happen on that day. See, there will be also judgment on that day, that final day, and not just grace. And so we should live in reverent fear, not just humble obedience of the one who will bring that judgment. See, it could be easy to forget, couldn't it, that the holiness of God, which we've just been looking at, must also lead to his judgment of all things that are not holy. And Peter wants to remind us of that now, and he wants to do that primarily because he wants to help us to press on in pursuing holy living. God, the one whom we now have the privilege of calling Father, is also the impartial and just judge of all things. And we need to remember that, because otherwise there is a risk that we begin to take what we have received for granted, to take what we will receive on that final day for granted. And if that becomes the case, then we run the risk of facing that judgment ourselves, instead of that judgment falling on Christ. This commandment, verse 17, is one that comes laced with warning, I think. Yes, you have a glorious hope, but press on towards it in undivided, holy living, fearfully remembering who your God is, and that persistent, continued, divided, unholy living will ultimately bring judgment on you. But hang on, I think I can hear some of you saying, we've spent so much time already in 1 Peter thinking about this glorious hope and how it's so secure and safe, how we can have confidence in it. So how does this kind of language or warning match up? Well, I think it matches up in this way. As we pointed to last week, there will be many who at one point in life profess faith in Christ. But as Matthew 7, 23 says, to whom on that final day, Jesus will say, I never knew you. Given this is the case, in God's grace, he regularly in his word gives warnings. He gives his people reminders, like in today's passage, And if we take those reminders to heart, they serve as one of the ways that guards us, that protects us, that keeps us on the path and keeps our genuine faith until that final day. So Peter is saying to us here, don't take for granted your status as children and the hope that you have. Set your hope fully on it and live in reverent fear of your Father God, whose wrath and judgment, apart from the work of his Son, would be squarely falling on you on that final day. Do you see how Peter goes on in verses 18 to 19 to point us to the incredible price that was paid for our hope and salvation? We're to live in reverent fear, knowing that the precious blood of Christ has redeemed you. Redeemed you from the futile, empty, ultimately hopeless ways of our forefathers. And the warning here is that scorning the precious blood of Christ, which is so much more valuable than any perishable thing, to scorn it by returning to previously futile ways again and again, Well, that's a terrible and a terribly risky thing to do in our lives. And so Peter says, live in reverent fear of our father and our judge, which in turn pushes us back to that life of holiness that we've been thinking about, as we seek not in any way to consign God to some sideshow in our life, that we maybe live for him on a Sunday and maybe a Wednesday night or whenever else we feel like it. but instead we seek holy lives, undivided lives, that please Him in everything that we do, throughout all of our weeks. For Peter, the price paid for our hope and our salvation is beyond comparing. We don't show contempt for that. Look at that, the precious blood of Christ. And you can just see in Peter as he continues on, he just can't help but marvel in the plan and what Christ has done. See how he carries on in verses 20 to 21. This is Christ here. Christ 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. This is an incredible reality for Peter that he wants to remind us of. We have faith and hope in God today, as he says in verse 21, only because and purely because this was part of God's plan right from before the foundation of the world. This was God's plan. It was the purpose of God in eternity past to determine that he would send his son into this world and then actually doing that in the incarnation 2,000 years ago. It was the purpose of God to do all of that so that through Christ today we can believe in God and our faith and hope can be in him. If that isn't pretty mind-blowing, I don't know what is. It was always God's plan to send his son, to raise him from the dead and to give him glory so that we tonight can put our faith and hope in God. As we said at the beginning, we often live divided lives, don't we, as Christians? And the things, the hopes of this world often appear attractive. but we need to remember they are ultimately futile and worthless. We need to set our hope on the priceless, glorious grace that we can look forward to at Christ's return, one for us through his death and resurrection. And then we need to live in light of that, undividedly living our lives in witness to and in line with the glorious grace and hope that we have. Let's close by asking God to help us to do that. Our Heavenly Father, we are so sorry for the ways that our lives are lived for other things and not for you. Lord, thank you that that future coming day is a day of grace. that we find forgiveness in Christ. And yet, Lord, we take this command and this warning here seriously. Please, Lord, help us to fix our eyes, to set our hope fully on that day of grace, and now to live lives that are holy and honoring to you, the one who has given us that grace and whose plan was always to give us and to enable us to have faith and hope in you. Lord, help us to see areas of our lives that are not lived in accord with your purposes and your plan. Please forgive us and change us. And Lord, this week, help all of those other hopes that are around us in the world to fade away. And Lord, with that ultimate glorious hope of the future, when we will be with you forever, overtake all of our lives and our thinking, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're gonna respond now to God's word by singing our final song. It picks up on so much that we've just been thinking about. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Let's stand as a group starts. ♪ My hope is built on nothing less ♪ ♪ Than Jesus' love and righteousness ♪ ♪ I cannot trust the sweetest grace ♪ ♪ But all he trusts in Jesus ♪ ♪ Hope is built on nothing less ♪ Than Jesus' love and righteousness ♪ We dare not trust the sweetest praise ♪ But only trust in Jesus through the Darkness seems to hide his face I rest on his unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale We played strong in the Savior's love, through the storm. He is Lord, Lord of all. ♪ In His righteousness alone ♪ ♪ For let's descend before the throne ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ We've made strong in the Savior's love ♪ Let's pray as we close. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we have this glorious future to look forward to. when we will faultless stand before your throne, dressed in Christ's righteousness alone. Lord, help us to fix our eyes and to set our hope fully on that this week. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all now and evermore. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you for joining us this evening. Just a quick thing to say, the teas and coffees are going to be served from the hatch in a slight change this evening.