We invite you to take your Bible and you can open it to the book of First Peter, Chapter 1. First Peter, Chapter 1. Well, if you looked at your handout today, you see I put on there, Happy New Year. So Happy New Year to you. What do we mean when we say to someone Happy New Year? You ever thought about that? I thought about it this week. And I think what you're trying to say is you're saying that we hope that this year that you have is maybe definitely a good one, maybe better than the one you had before. I guess in a way, you're giving someone a blessing as they turn the page, as this is a logical time to, I guess, make a fresh start. And in the mind of many, the start of a new year brings some sort of hope. I mean, you might have had a great year last year, but my experience has been with a lot of folks that there's a lot of the previous year that they want to put behind them, at least when it comes to the undesirable things. You might have had a year that was full of difficulties and tragedies and problems and failures and sadness. And so this is like an opportunity for a clean slate. And as Tim mentioned in his prayer, if you look at the news at all, I mean, there's no shortage of information that can make you depressed. In fact, one commentator wrote a few years ago in a Massachusetts newspaper, quote, reality seems to crush hope at every turn. the Ebola epidemic, the ruthless terror of the Islamic State, the crushing economic disparities in this country, the pernicious scourge of racism, global warming, homelessness in our own backyard on Cape Cod, and the plague of illicit drugs, rampant gun violence, and et cetera. Boy, that guy sounds like a real happy guy, doesn't he? You've lived for more than 20 years. You know, you've come to see to some degree the measures of the ugly realities of living in a sin-cursed world. And you recognize that there's the potential at any time for your circumstances to change without notice, and they usually change for the negative. There's very little that we're in control of outside of ourselves. Gage was having a great basketball game yesterday, and now he's done for the season. In an instant. An interruption of plans and pursuits can happen at any moment without warning, and that can make life difficult or hard. I remember about 10 years ago when the Martins still were here that he went to a conference in Duluth and the woman gave a presentation. There was a break, then she walked out and stepped off the curb. It wasn't Duluth, I forgot where it was, but stepped on a curb and got flattened by a bus. Boom, just like that. And whether you're ignorant or you're an optimist, we tend to think that somehow, you know, that's not going to happen to you or me, or it's not going to be as bad as it could be, or somehow, some way, we'll get through it and everything's going to be fine. We're going to come on ahead. And yet, you might be of the posture this morning that's more pessimistic, that you look at your little corner of the world and think, well, I don't like this at all. You could be a gloom and doomer. I don't like being a gloom and doomer, but frankly if your focus is not on what we're going to see here today in the Word of God, gloom and doom is going to wiggle its way in. I try to look at life from the outlook that the glass is half full and not half empty, but occasionally emotionally I look at things and I look at difficulties of life, and especially in the lives of those I care about, and I can get down. You know, you hear the news in general. I mean, the Middle East is about to explode. Who knows what that's all going to mean. If I ponder any of these things to any degree, it doesn't take long for, again, gloom and doom to start overwhelming me. And in your own personal life, your life might be unraveling before your eyes. And you might think, oh, man. Sometimes life is just life. It's full of uncertainty. There's a mix of desirable and undesirable. People struggle with financial issues. They deal with family issues. There's health issues. There's economy. I mean, the list is endless about what you can allow to control you and affect your outlook in life. Perhaps you have a friend or a family member that looks at life from a negative perspective. Or maybe it's you. Maybe you look at your particular circumstance and you're losing hope. You're forced to deal with realities of life that you would rather not. And you wish in your heart of hearts that things were different. You know, it's foolish to say that all of us don't have some hope in this life, because you do. We're counting on things to go work out a certain way. We're counting on things to be there. All of you counted on your car starting this morning, and lo and behold, it happened. But you know, none of that's guaranteed. And this is why viewing life from an eternal perspective based on the promise of God is paramount. It's paramount. You know, you might look at your own circumstances and say, well, I wonder what this year holds for me. And you might do so tepidly. You might wonder if dreams will be realized, whether this new year might be even more frustrating than the year before. You might be feeling pain and anxiety. You might be tempted to just hole up somewhere and pull the covers over your head and say, you know, when I pull them down again, maybe things will be different. I don't know. You might find some other means, like the world does, to mitigate the difficulties of life. And when I'm in a gloom and doom mindset, I realize that I'm not looking correctly. I'm looking down the wrong road. I'm looking down an earthly road, a human road, and I'm not looking down the road that the Lord has laid out for me. I mean, if I'm looking down the worldly road, how can I really get excited about anything? I mean, I might for a while. I mean, it's like the Vikings today. Does anyone really think they're gonna win? I mean, come on. But what does your salvation mean to you going forward? How does this affect your perspective in time? How does God want your perfect hope in Christ to affect your thinking from this day forward? Now, if you've heard me preach for any amount of time, you've heard me say that knowing you're saved by God's grace is a wonderful thing, but that's never designed to be an end in itself. Otherwise, the Lord would have taken you home the moment you got saved. Now, obviously, it's a good thing to be saved. You need that. There's no more important decision anyone could ever make. Because it begins a life of fellowship with God that never ends. In fact, it can only get better, especially when we leave this earth. But you've been left on this planet to fulfill the will of God, to be used of him, to bear fruit for him, and to honor him with your life. God's goal, from his perspective, is Now you're saved and I'm done with you. No, it's to be perceived as a beginning, a beginning. We know that's true at a physical level. When your child got born, the goal was not for your child to remain a baby, it was to grow, to grow to maturity. The principle is identical spiritually. So if you got the perspective this morning, you know I'm saved and that's fine with me, you're living a fruitless and vain life. And if you know the word of God, you know that that's true. There's a lot of, I hate to say it, soil number two believers. If you remember from the parable of soil number two, because of difficulties of life and temptations and persecutions, they fall away instead of seeing God's hand in those things. And some believers are content to be saved, but regardless, this morning, you're either going forward or going backward. There's no stalling or staying in one place. Wow, a page that didn't print. So I got to think of my transition here. Well, let's see what the next slide says. Well, this could be you. See, this was the mindset of some of the believers, some of the individuals who are the Pharisees that trusted Christ as their Savior, but This is their perspective. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, because of the potential persecution, because of the potential cost from a worldly perspective of honoring him, they didn't publicly confess him because, whoa, I'll lose my job. And what was the real reason? They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. And that's a battle that everyone fights to some degree because we all have sin natures that are only concerned about how we look, or how we feel, or what we get, or whatever it might be. But this is the reality prior to salvation right here. You had no hope. At that time you were without Christ, this is Paul speaking to those that, describing people before they're saved, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants with promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you once were far off and been brought near by the blood of Christ. Couldn't it be any more greater contrast? No hope, and then you're near to God. See, outside of Christ, you were separated from God. You were without Christ, this verse says. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. You were strangers to the covenants of promise. And you didn't have a little hope. You had no hope. And the reality is you were without God and the world. You had no confident expectation of the future. All the hopes that the unsaved have are false hopes. They're not real. They cannot work. They can't deliver. In fact, when the dust settles and the smoke clears, if someone dies outside of Christ, they end up for an eternity in hell. That's as hopeless as hope can be. And the average individual, however, thinks he's fine. They think they're fine because they're making this comparison. not with God's holy, righteous standard, but with either themselves or someone else, and they say no reason for concern, that's it. You know, they might even think pretty well of themselves when they're having a conversation, instead of lying 15 times, they only lied four in it, and they think, I did pretty good, and that is the reality. You know, that's why sometimes when I'm seeking to present someone the gospel, I say, well, how many times do you have to lie to be a liar? And the answer is one, so we're all liars. Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel good. Well, the truth isn't always pretty. You know, we live in a day and age where people want to pick a religion that makes them feel good. They don't want to discover the truth to allow the truth to set them free. And so Christianity is rejected because I don't like the fact that that God has a hell. So I'm going to reject you. Well, whether you like it or not doesn't mean it's not true or not. It's not like you can make up your own religion in God and feel good about yourself and think that that makes it real or valid. It doesn't work that way. The reality is that we violated God's holy righteous standard. And though maybe you haven't pulled the trigger, You've hated someone in your heart. God says you're a murderer. And the whole purpose of God giving the Ten Commandments is to have you draw the same conclusion that he already has in his word in Romans 3, 19 to 20. Now we know whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, to what end? that every mouth, yours included and mine, may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in God's eyes." It's not like you can work your way to heaven and take away your sin through your good works. No, the purpose of the Ten Commandments was to to make it painfully obvious you're a sinner. And there's nothing you can do about it because you're born in Adam. In Adam, you were dead to God. Dead from the standpoint you were alive physically, but you had no spiritual relationship with Him. You were separated from Him. There was nothing going on. In fact, as we just saw, you're without God in the world. And because that's the case, and because God is holy and He lives in a holy, perfect place, and you're not qualified to get there, you're actually qualified for the opposite. You deserve God's wrath manifested for all eternity in hell. It's like this, what's the real bill here? The bill is death. spiritual death, eternal death, separation from God. This is what the word of God is clear about. The wages of sin is death. What we've earned from God is not a place in heaven, but rather a place in hell. Ezekiel 18, 26, the soul of sins shall die. And so this is what we deserve from God, and yet God loved us in spite of us. And because God is holy and just, he needs to be propitiated. His justice needs to be satisfied. And so we need a substitute willing to pay for our sin, by giving the only payment that can be made, and that is death. This is why Christ came to die in our place so that our sins could be canceled forever. This is why John the Baptist looked at the Lord Jesus Christ and said, behold, the Lamb of God, the one and only Lamb of God, the ultimate Lamb of God. And what does he do? He takes away the sin of the world. This is what Christ was doing on the cross. On the cross of Calvary, the innocent was dying in the place of the guilty. Your sins and mines and the sins of every person that has and ever will live were placed upon him, and the wrath of God was being satisfied. Hebrews 10 puts it this way. But this man, Jesus Christ, after he'd offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by his one offering, he made a finite offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. So on the cross of Calvary, your sins and mine, your past sins, the sins you're going to do today, the sins you're going to do until the day you die, were all poured out on Christ because He did this 2,000 years ago when all your sins were future. God's wrath was poured out on Him instead of you. and God was propitiated. That means His justice was satisfied. And because God's justice was satisfied, because He cried out on the cross, it is finished, which means paid in full, and because He rose from the grave, what all men can now partake of, if they're willing to humble themselves and agree with God's evaluation of themselves and God's evaluation of Jesus, is they can have eternal life or become born again for free. They can escape the horrors of hell they deserve, but there's one condition. It's not turning over a new leaf. It's not getting baptized, going to church, joining a club. of promising to do better, it's accepting the work that someone else did on your behalf, it's trusting Christ alone, he's called the Savior, he saves, and when you put 100% of your trust in him, you're guaranteed everlasting life. That's the good news of the gospel. It's not a hope so salvation, it's a no so, because the one who made the promise can't lie, the one who did the work didn't fail, and you're out of the picture. If you were still in the picture, you could never know, because you, like me, blow it, every day, and that's the end of that. But the moment you get saved, everything changes. Your citizenship changes. You're now a citizen of heaven from God's perspective. Peter says in his epistle here that you're a pilgrim and an alien, you're a stranger, you're just passing through, this is not your home, and you're to be eagerly anticipating your real home, where all will be well once and for all. This is to have a profound effect on your thinking. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things that passed away become all things that became new. This is what God did for you when he placed you in Christ. Prior to salvation, you were dead to God in trespasses and sins, and when you got saved, he elevated you to not only forgiving your all trespasses, but he didn't stop there, he also seated you in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ himself, having given you all things to pertain in life and Godliness. He's given everything you need to walk on this planet in a way that not only benefits you and honors our Savior, but can cause you to rejoice in the face of difficulty. All free, all beautiful. Seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Before salvation, you were no relationship with God. Now you're a beloved child of God. You're special to Jesus. There's no one else like you. You were on your way to hell, now you're on your way to heaven. You were dead in sin, now you're alive in Christ. You were unrighteous and guilty, now you're alive in Christ. Rather, you're justified, which means you're declared righteous before God. You had no peace, you had no access, and you had zero hope. Now you have full peace, access, and a perfect hope. You were an enemy to God, now you're reconciled to God. You were unacceptable to him, and now you're perfectly accepted in Christ. And because these things are true of you, and this is the real reality, it's to change the way you look at your life. And most of you know that. The salvation you have waiting for you in heaven is to have a profound impact on how you look at life down here. You know, as you think of this epistle, Paul, Paul, Peter, has explained in the first 12 verses a number of things relative to your salvation. And the first thing he mentions is you've got a living hope in verse three. It says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance that is undefiled, that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. You have a living hope. Christ is alive, and so the hope he offers is alive, and it's all by grace. In fact, what do you have waiting for you? Verse four. What is, how is your hope described? An inheritance, an inheritance. Remember about 10 years ago, maybe a little more, I lose track of time, I was talking to someone who was waiting for his parents to die to get an inheritance. I was instantly reminded where your treasure is, your heart will also. I mean, licking his chops, waiting for his parents to die. Mercy, that's where, you know why? That's where his hope was. He was thinking in terms of this life. He was thinking the amount of inheritance that was awaiting for him and how that could potentially fulfill his longings. And that's one application of hope, but that's a dead hope. It's ultimately gonna fade. It's ultimately not gonna deliver, but it's what he was thinking about. That's what was on his mind. That was the thing that was driving him. He failed to read the scripture where Jesus said, what's the profit of man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? But what's in it for you and me? An inheritance. How is this inheritance described? It's undefiled, or it's not corruptible. It means it's not perishing. See, that guy's hope and his inheritance he was waiting for is corruptible. It's fading away. Here it says, not only that, it's undefiled, which means it's free from contamination. It's lovely. No one's fighting over it. No one's going to be jealous of it. It's perfect in every way. You're not going to be disappointed in it. I mean, what if this guy had the wrong view of his parents' inheritance and he got nothing? How painful would that be? And thirdly, it says here, it doesn't fade away. It's not changing. It won't depreciate over time. It's not going to wear out. It's not going to rust out like your car. It's gonna hold its value. It's not gonna be different down the road. And notice verse four. It's reserved in heaven for you. We could use the word preserved there. The verb's in the perfect tense in the Greek. It's waiting there. It's gonna be there. It's there now. It's gonna be there when you get there. You don't have to lose sleep over it. Amazing, isn't it? Because where is it kept? It's not kept in a vault in downtown Coleraine. It's kept in heaven, it says here. It's reserved in heaven, and notice, you individually are kept by the power of God through faith into salvation. Salvation that's gonna be revealed, and that's what we're gonna talk about here shortly. So we think of that salvation. How are you to respond to that, verse six? In this, this salvation, this inheritance, this blessing, you are to rejoice And not just rejoice, but greatly rejoice. Is that all you're thinking today? Are you wandering around looking at your circumstances and said, why do I bother? This is why perspective is so crucial. And this you greatly rejoice, uh-oh, here's the negative, though now for a little while, if need be, you're grieved by various trials. Can you rejoice through the grieving? The Bible says you can. The reality is that life is full of sorrow and disappointment. It's full of difficulties. We live in a sin-cursed world. Things go south. Things don't work right. Things break. Things go wrong. People change. The list is endless. But you know what? Here's part of the hope, verse seven. The genuineness of your faith, the word means the approval of your faith, which is much more precious than gold, which perishes, because your approval rewards means something that isn't gonna perish. And though this is tested by fire, it might be found in the praise and honor and glory of the revelation of Jesus Christ. What the verse means here is that Jesus Christ can actually give you praise for your willingness to endure the trial, rise above it, walk by faith, and he's gonna reward you on top of it. Can you believe that? No, no, this is too much. I'm gonna do something else. Oh really, you're gonna do a cheap substitute that's only gonna result in more frustration and anxiety and difficulty. God has established in his word that trials are absolutely necessary. This is why the psalmist said, it's good for me and I've been afflicted, I might learn my statutes. I mean, if you're looking for a life that's free of this stuff, You are just whacked. I'll just give it to you straight. It ain't gonna happen. James says this, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into, count it all joy, what are you, a masochist? When you fall into various trials. Why? Knowing that testing your faith produces patience. Yeah, but I don't want patience. Yeah, well, someone else might want you to have it. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Verse seven through nine say this is worth it. This is worth it. The sufferings of this present time aren't worthy to be compared with the glory that's coming. That was our memory verse last month. God's gonna use these things to form Christ in you. He's gonna bring the dross to the top and wipe it off. He's got something of tremendous value in the process of trial so that when you stand before Christ, you're gonna say, thank you for doing that. Not, wow, did I get shortchanged. See, your salvation means you got a purpose for living that can count for eternity. And this is something to praise God for, something to rejoice in, something you have to count as a privilege. And that's what the first 12 verses are all about in this book. And then we have verse 13. Therefore, out of all these wonderful truths just mentioned, therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and rest your hope fully upon the graces to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now there's only one command here, though it looks like three in the English. And God's command, God commands you to hope in the future grace promised to you. God's command is for you to hope in the future grace promised to you. Now the basis for this or the reason for this command is the preceding blessings mentioned in verses one through 12. He's not just saying it and not giving you a reason or a foundation by which you are to do this on. You know, verses one through 12 are full of indicatives. There's no imperatives there. Just several statements of facts that are designed to encourage you with the reality of your salvation. You have a living hope. You have an inheritance in heaven. You have potential for praise from God himself. And now comes the first imperative, the first command. These truths given in verses one through 12 are to impact your thinking so that you see how you now look at life is to be different than how you looked at life prior to salvation. Because God has given you amazing grace. You know, God's calling is God's enabling and the commands in the New Testament always have an accompanying promise with it that God's grace is sufficient for their fulfillment. He never asked you to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and crank this baby out, but to rely on him to give you what you stand in need of to see it realized. That's what it's about. And so your Christian life is about taking these blessings that are yours in Christ and allowing the spirit of God to make them real in your thinking. In fact, beginning in verse 13, there's some 35 commands in the rest of the epistle. But he says the word therefore, the word therefore means because of this information I've just given you, or for this reason, which first the facts of our great salvation. He's saying therefore. You have all this going for you in Christ, what are you to do with it? Future glory is coming. Well, the main emphasis here in this verse is to fix your hope. It's an aorist active imperative. It means stating a direct, almost military command to fix your hope on one thing and one thing only. But the verb calls for a decisive action. In other words, stop and think right now, just like this. It says, fix your hope. What are we talking about when we say the word hope? Now, the modern idea of hope is used in our English language as to wish for, to expect, without certainty or fulfillment. There's a question involved. You're hoping it doesn't rain. You're, like I already mentioned, you're hoping the Vikings win. Really sad hope. You know, desire it, but there's no real assertion of getting your desire. That's not the biblical description of hope. Hope in scripture means a strong, confident, and guaranteed expectation. Something that's gonna come to pass for sure, and you're eagerly waiting for it. Now hope might refer to the activity of hoping or the object hoped for, depending on the context, depending on the sentence it sits in. But hope stresses two things, futurity and invisibility. It deals with things we can't see or haven't received or both, but they're nevertheless true. and they should be anticipated, and that's why Romans 8 says this. It really brings it very much into focus. It's communicated beautifully. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. Why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. Does that define your mode of thinking this morning? See, biblically, from the standpoint of the object hope for, hope is synonymous with the salvation that we're gonna receive. In fact, I can differentiate the two this way. Faith believes what God has done. Hope believes what God has yet to do, based on His promise. Faith accepts. Hope expects. This is why your hope needs to be rooted and grounded in the promises of God. Faith appropriates. Hope anticipates. That's what this is all about. So hope is an expectation. There's a certainty here based on a promise made by God and his word that it will come to pass and we're eagerly waiting for it. Eagerly waiting for it. So what are you to fix your hope on? Well, we're told here, verse 13, therefore gird up the lines of your mind, be sober and rest your hope. The word rest there means fix. Fix your hope fully on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's what you're to fix your hope on. God's amazing grace, the undeserved kindness that he displays toward you and toward me only because of what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. Peter is forward looking in this epistle. He's saying don't bog down in the nasty now and now with its troubles and setbacks and difficulties, injustices, unfulfilled dreams, which are endless. No, let's look forward here to what's coming And that's the revelation of Jesus Christ. You know, we all do this to some degree in a temporal level. I'm sure Harley Smith, for example, who's gonna have a baby, or Christina who's gonna have a baby, they're fixing their hope or their attention on that event. Something they're looking forward to with great anticipation. And we're to fix our hope on Christ, on the reward, on glorification. on the grace that's going to be brought to you. You know, God doesn't owe us anything, and yet he's promised to glorify us. He's made us sit in the heavenlies with his son by a position. One day that's gonna be a reality. 1 John 3 says we don't see him, but we're gonna be like him, we're gonna see him as he is. These are the things that are to energize you in life. Not, oh, I got my money on the Vikings today, or whatever it might be. See, the coming grace that's gonna reveal to us, to point us to the grace that we have right now. You know, Christ promises to never leave you or forsake you. You know, most people, most believers in America, that doesn't mean anything to them. You know why? They've got all the comforts they need. You know, the woman that was executed in Saudi Arabia a few years ago, or Iran, or wherever it was, by the Islamic State. She said, Jesus, she wrote down in a letter to her mother. I don't know how exactly she said it, but the essence was, you don't realize who Jesus is until he's all you have, and he's everything. And when your life is in the absolute tank, and you've got nothing else, you say, well, my Savior's right here with me. Then it comes alive. But right now, it's like, hey, that's a great first, man. Happy New Year. Do you believe this? My God shall supply all you need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Oh, I don't believe that, so I worry every night. Okay. Told here we can do all things through Christ to strengthen me. Oh, no, no, no, no, we can't have any of that. Yeah, but he's promised to hear my prayers and answer them. He says, he can perfectly empathize with everything I'm going through, so he says, come boldly to me, and I'll find, I'll give you mercy and grace to help me. I mean, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. What about this? And God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you all having all sufficiency and all things may have abundance for every work. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Well, he's got an inheritance in heaven for you. Does that mean he's gonna fail the grace of God between now and then? No. See, the never-ending grace that is yours in Christ is to be the very thread that runs through everything you do to energize you through the vicissitudes of life. We're to live in light of the grace that's gonna reveal to you. Because again, remember, he's writing to people here that are suffering for their faith. And so you are to fixate on the grace associated with the return of Jesus Christ at the rapture. at the rapture. When is the rapture? Right here. It could happen at any moment. That officially ends the church, the church is raptured, and then there's a period of time and the tribulation begins after that, and then after seven years Christ comes back, and we come with him, he'll set up his kingdom, then there'll be the great white throat judgment, and then we'll have a perfect eternity, forever and ever and ever. You're gonna fix your hope on the rapture. Now, I was gonna go through these, but in the interest of time, I'm not. I was gonna explain just briefly here. During the rapture, Christ comes for his bride, the church. During the second phase, the revelation, he comes with his bride. And there's a number of distinctions here that need to be understood if you're gonna rightly divide the word of truth. But when Christ comes back, the church is taken into the Lord's presence. When Christ comes back in the Revelation, Israel's brought into the kingdom. So there's two different programs here. There's two separate phases of the coming. But this is how Paul told Titus to think. We're to be looking. This is a present tense. Have your neck stretched out, looking at the skies, thinking, is today the day for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ? If you knew Jesus was coming back today, would that have any impact on your decision today? Now, if you're not walking with the Lord, you might not care all that much. If you want your life to count, you can say, you know what, I think I'll make an adjustment here. In fact, how much of your hope is to be fixed on the coming of Christ? Well, we have the word fully. not partially, fully. This could be translated with finalities, Greek word teleos. It means completely, in every way, shape, or form, or without reservation, or perfectly, or without doubt, or once and for all. That's the idea there. With finality, completely. Now, why does Peter add this? Why doesn't he just say, therefore, gird up the loins of your minds, be sober, and rest your hope upon the grace? Why does he have the word fully in there? Well, one, your Savior is alive, and this is the only place of real hope. But obviously, your hope can be divided, can't it? It can be a half-hearted hope. You could have a hope that isn't steadfast and leaves room for doubt and uncertainty. But it could be that your hope is in some kind of dream down here, like, you know, you're longing that your life would turn out like a Hallmark movie or something. Good luck with that. No. The Hebrews were suffering for their faith, and what did the writers say? Thus God determined to show more abundantly the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two impossible things, which is impossible for God to lie, and he made an oath, that we might have strong consolation. Strong consolation, who fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope. This was their only hope. They were hoping that their circumstances would change so they were compromising what they knew to be true. And he says, no, flee to the hope that is set before us, this hope we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast, which enters the presence behind the veil. Do you believe that? You know, when you're trusting God for the future, even though everything looks bleak, you're affirming God is trustworthy. To have a half-hearted hope saying, I'm really not sure God can deliver the goods here, and I think I'll look elsewhere. Because I want to live my life on my terms, and God might mess it up. The last I checked, God says he's got a good, acceptable, and perfect will for your life, so how is it that you've got a better idea than God? And this is important. You know, when you claim to be a believer and you unravel when your life goes in the dumper, you're sending a message, unintentionally, obviously, that God is not able to deliver the goods. And you're sending a message to them like, well, I don't know if I want their Savior anyway. I mean, He doesn't see me doing anything for them, right? Why would anyone want to trust your Christ? He's not getting it done for you. But if you're steadfast, and you rise above the fray, and you count it all joy, and you praise God in the difficulty, people are gonna say, what do you got that I ain't got? It seems to me an either-or proposition, doesn't it? You're either gonna draw people to the Savior, or you're gonna push them away. You know, God has never failed a trusting heart, and you're not gonna be the first. But if I'm not walking by faith, if I don't believe what's written on the Word of God here, again, I'm gonna, by default, put my hope in something else. That's just always how it is, because you have to have a hope in something. I mean, Paul warned these people to put their hope in riches. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and in many foolish and harmful lusts, which work out really well in the long run. Oh, wait a minute, which drown men in destruction and perdition. And so how are you viewing life as you even look forward to this new year? Do you believe the Word of God? Are you hoping in something that's doomed to fail? Or is your hope steadfast on the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you functioning as those who are consumed by and admonished to dead hope? And if I've got a dead hope, I gotta work really hard to try to resurrect that hope. And this is why people go all in on stuff that ultimately doesn't deliver and their life eventually crumbles and unravels. And I recognize it. You know, we got bills to pay and mouths to feed. There's troubles that arise at home and relationships. There's troubles in life. What is it, a few years ago, some guy decided to kill his wife and kill himself because all he did, there was no purpose to life, and all he did was watch TV all day, and they said, why bother? That was over in Britain, if I remember right. Do you believe that God's gonna deliver the goods in your life? I like what's described of Abraham. Notice, contrary to hope. In other words, if I look at this thing, there's no way on God's green earth this is ever gonna happen. But he believed in hope, and he became the father of many nations because God made a promise. What was spoken? So shall your descendants be. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb, but no, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. But he was strengthened in faith, and he gave glory to God. Why? He was fully convinced of what God had promised to his able officer before him. Does that depict your mindset this morning? Oh no, no, no, don't try to ruin my pity party now. You know, most of us love to plan and anticipate something. You know, every engaged girl is thinking, oh, and guy. That energizes them. And what's to energize you and me is the grace that's gonna be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's to put a bounce in your step. It's to get you to focus off the nasty now and now, and focus on what matters, and then make the moment count. You know, some believes they're so tied into this world, the rapture will be a letdown. Oh, I really, I wasn't done here yet. Are you setting your hope completely on the day you see Jesus in glory? Fully, entirely, wholly? That's what's floating your boat, that's what's driving your bus? Well, if you're planning to go to Arizona in March, you're thinking about that already, and I get that. But I mean, that's where it's at. You're aiming pretty low. You're aiming pretty low. But how's that gonna happen? How is that gonna happen? Well, before we get to the main command here, phrases here that modify that to get you to do it. See, the means by which you fix your hope on the grace of Christ's return is by girding up the loins of your mind. That's a figure of speech. Back in the day when this was written, They, a lot of them wore, well, they wear long geese, they're called in Burma. They look like skirts. They're really not skirts. But if you were going to run somewhere, you'd have to gird them up. You'd have to pull them up so you could go. And that's a phrase figuratively used to say, you know, get your mind going here. Think. It puts the priority on the command. clear out the stuff that's clouding your view so you can think like you need to think. It's similar to the phrase we use in our vernacular, roll up your sleeves and get to work kind of thing. But the idea is to be mentally prepared for combat or action in the realm of holiness. In fact, one commentator said, we must begin to act as those who mean business. So after he says this, he explains in more detail what that means, beginning in verse 14. As obedient children, not conform yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance, when you didn't know any better. But as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, be holy for I am holy. Verse 17, if you call on the Father who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from the aimless, aimless conduct received by the tradition of your fathers, but the precious blood of Jesus Christ as the lamb without blemish without spawn. You got something infinitely greater to live for and make a difference in than what you did prior to salvation or what the unsaved do now. And then there's people who'll throw, they'll go all in on something that the unsaved are involved in, which might be very noble and fine, and that's fine unless it's done at the expense of what really matters before the Lord. You know, what he's saying here, and how I might say it, is how my coach used to say it, is get your head in the game. All right, get your head in the game. Remember, coaching baseball, I'd have an outfielder out there, looking around, the ball would get hit to him. There's no where it's coming. He's daydreaming. That was me at nine, too. You know, a lot of us get caught up, like Mark says, it's recorded in Mark, soil number three believer. These are the ones sown among thorns. They're the ones who hear the word of God. It's not like they're negative toward hearing the word of God, but instead of it transforming them, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in, they choke off the word, and you become unfruitful. Because I've been licking my chops, waiting to taste some juicy, morsel down here of who knows what, and it's all gonna go up in smoke. This is why Jesus told his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire. It'll be commensurate and consistent with what God desires because he's filling your heart, and it'll just be done for you. By this, my fathers glorify that you bear much fruit, so you'll be my disciples. You'll prove to be my disciples. We've been left on the earth to bear fruit, right? See, but if you don't think this way, eventually you become like the Hebrew believers, of whom much we have to say and hard to explain since you become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone teach you again the first principles, the oracles of God. You become need of milk, to need milk and not solid food. Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. He's a babe. And we will all be, you know, if a perfectly normal human being was 20 years old, but they chose to act like a baby, we'd think, oh, something ain't right. You see that spiritually? Solid food belongs to those who are of a full age, that is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. This is why he's appealing to your thinking here. He says, girded the loids of your mind. He's not asking you to change your behavior or do any of those things. He's asking you to think because that's where it lives. It's mental engagement. Most people watch TV to escape thinking. It's called amusement. Amuse means think. A means no, no thinking. Paul gave an admonition to the Thessalonians, therefore let us not sleep as the others do, but let us watch and be sober. We're gonna get to the word sober here in a second. For those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk are drunk at night, but let us who are of the day, that's the believer, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to tame salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's get in the game. See, you have to gird up the lines in your mind to think straight and eliminate the very things that will inhibit you from focusing on the one thing that really matters in light of eternity, or to have the mind of Christ. You know, I was thinking of Nick Kerr. Some of you know Nick. Some of you don't. I've been friends with Nick for a long, long time. He's the one who was up at the this summer had a heart attack and blah, blah, blah. I was talking to him last week before he left Arizona. He's the one going into Mexico. I said, you know, the only reason you had a heart attack is because people needed to get saved, and he led two of his cardiac rehab people to the Lord, because that's who Nick is. Nick always has on his mind witnessing. He calls me up, he says, hey, I know someone over in Nashua. Can you go and see him? Yeah, I'll go and see him. He's originally from Nashua. He's always thinking about someone to witness to. So I says, yeah, God gave you a heart attack because two guys were going on their way to hell, and the only way they were gonna hear the gospel is you had to have a heart attack. He laughed. I said, I wonder what he's got for you next. He didn't like that, but. But that's true in all of us. You know, God might allow something awful to happen to you because there's someone, since you've got your brain focused on eternity, that God's gonna put you at the right spot in the right time so this person hears the gospel that they wouldn't hear at any other place. He might have to give you a heart attack to do it. The means by which you fix your hope on the grace of Christ return is by girding up the lines of your mind and being sober. Being sober. Now this doesn't mean being free from alcohol. It's the image of not being drunk when it comes to spiritual things. It applies alertness, evaluating things correctly. You're not allowing your mind to be numb spiritually by the intoxicating distractions all around you that seem to draw you this way and that. The idea is mental control here, mentally engaged. And the thing about being mentally engaged spiritually is it takes effort. You have to think. And that's what makes it difficult. The idea is to make sure you keep all your faculties fully operational. Psalm 47, Psalm 147, 10, 11. God's delight is not in the strength of a horse, nor is his pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, and those who hope in his steadfast love. It's about being occupied with the right object. And so if we could summarize the first 12 verses and then apply verse 13. Verse one says, God has chosen you. Verse three says, God has given you life and born you again, if I can put it that way, to a living hope. He's keeping an inheritance for you, imperishable, it's undefiled, it's unfading. God is protecting you through faith so that you won't lose that inheritance. God is in the business of refining your faith. so that as your faith is refined and you gain approval from God, you'll actually hear praise from the Lord Jesus Christ. Verses 10 through 12 say, since the prophets and angels are up on tiptoe to see all that God's grace is going for you in life, the one command here in verse 13 is to rest your hope, fix your hope fully on the grace that's brought to you, and then allow that to energize you in your decision-making progress and energize you in how you view life so that your life matters in the sense that you redeem the time for the Lord Jesus Christ. So I don't know if you made any resolution this year. I gave it up a long time ago because I've never made it more than a week, I don't think. So what's the point, right? Is being energized to fulfill the will of God because I have my sights set on Jesus Christ, is that one of them? Is that my resolution, Lord? Help me to just realize the futility of life outside of you. I believe that the sufferings in this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that's coming, and I want to set my sights on the rapture. It could come today and redeem the time, because if you spend any time watching the evening news, mercy, why bother? But we can redeem the time. We're a pilgrim and a stranger passing through. And so we can bog down with the rest of them and we can rise above the fray and make some hay. Let me encourage you to allow the sure coming of our Savior to receive us to himself in the clouds to be something that energizes you as you gird at the lawns of your mind and think alertly and soberly for God's glory. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for an opportunity to gather together to look into the Word of God and to see the perspective that you put forth. We thank you, Father, for our Savior who's with us today, who's working all things together for good, who's seeking to use us, to work in us and through us to that end, and who's coming back for us, maybe even today. I pray that we would gird up the lawns of our mind, we'd be sober, and we'd fixate on the reality of the grace that's gonna be brought to us at the rapture of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, for this amazing grace. We know we deserve hell, and yet your dear son bore the equivalent of the wrath of hell in our place so we could be free from that. May we be humble this morning. May we humbly yield ourselves to you as a living sacrifice, allow you to work in us and through us so that your will can be done for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.