We will be getting back to the Gospel of John next Sunday, Lord willing. I began that this week and then with some other work, just trying to get the little book finally ready for being published and get that off my back, as it were. I decided to look back for a message from First Peter. And in the end, it's been a rich blessing to me to have reflected on 1 Peter 1, verses 13 to 16. And so I'm looking forward to our time in that text this morning. And in order to go to, because we're not preaching through the book of 1 Peter, we're jumping in, in the middle. And I'm gonna read to us 1 Peter 1 verses 3 to 12. If you want, you can open your Bibles and read it. I won't be reading any of the translations you have. It'll be kind of something that I worked through as we preached through this a while back. Or you can just listen. As it were, hearing Peter himself just speak these words to us as an inspired apostle, certainly not me, but the word of God, he said, opening this letter, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abounding mercies, has begotten us anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And let me interrupt. Listen for the past, present, and the future here. So we've heard the past, but listen for how all of these are constantly woven together throughout. Your salvation is past, present, future. To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And this you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ, who, though not having seen him, you love him. And though not now seeing him, you believe in him. You rejoice greatly with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that would come to you searched and inquired carefully. Inquiring which time or what sort of time the spirit of Christ in them was making known when he witnessed beforehand to the sufferings that would come to Christ and the glories which would follow after these sufferings. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that have now been announced to you. Through those who first preached the good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. So what we just have unpacked for us is the riches of our, and the word in your handout, and I just was reveled in this word this week, salvation. We've heard it in the prayers this morning, as Greg prayed, as Ed read and prayed. But the Lord has blessed us with a salvation so rich, and we partly, we see its riches in understanding that it's past, and it's present, and it's future. So let's look at that. I'm just gonna kinda unpack that just for a minute. We have been begotten anew, past, to a present living hope. We have a living hope to a future inheritance kept in heaven for us even now in the present. We are being guarded at this moment by God's power through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. So the present and the future converge and meet once again. We rejoice. in sufferings, though Peter is not naive about grief. He says, though you do grieve in trials, yet we also rejoice present so that our faith may be found future to result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We love Jesus now and we believe in him now. knowing all the while that the outcome of this love and this faith is the salvation of our souls then. And always, the present and the future aspects of our salvation are rooted in the past, in what God has done in beginning us anew as his children to this living hope that we have. concerning this salvation, past, present, future, Peter says, the prophets of old searched and inquired carefully. And the Lord said to them, it's for later. You want to know more about this salvation, I know you do. But the only way to know more, to know fully about this salvation, is for the salvation to come. And it is not yet come yet, so you cannot know fully. That was just the way it was. God wasn't being mean. He wasn't holding out on them. It's just the way it was. Only for us who have experienced this salvation can we know it. The prophets had to wait. This is what we have. And it's into the glories and the wonders of this salvation that not only the prophets searched and inquired, but the angels themselves longed to look. If angels who stand, some of them, in the presence of God continuously, if they themselves are longing to look into the glories of the salvation that you and I have been given, is it possible we have not yet comprehended and grasped the extent of the salvation that we have? So now, in light of all of that, we come to our text this morning. It's like, maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe we should have just camped out more on those things. But now we come to where Peter comes after all that, verse 13. Therefore, having prepared 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. And so the point is this, that the power and the glory of this salvation into which angels long to look, that the prophets inquired about and searched carefully, past, present, future, that salvation is constantly, unceasingly calling you and calling me and calling us to respond. It's calling us to to do, it's calling us to action. It's the first imperative in Peter. Imperatives are not always commands. They're not always commands, but I think essentially this is a command here. Anytime God says to do something, we can say that's a command, right? At the very least, we see that this is something for Peter that is necessary. It is non-negotiable. It's not like, good, great, I've got all that, this wonderful salvation, and then, well, if I do get around to it, or if I feel like it's necessary enough, I will set my hope fully on the grace to be revealed. No, it is an imperative. It's, for Peter, a non-negotiable. It's something we must do. And so this second section of Peter through chapter two and verse three is built around five imperatives. And I just wanna look at those five imperatives really, really briefly. First Peter one, we've just read it, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The second one we'll come to this morning in the message, be holy. in all your conduct. And then later on, verse 17, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Verse 22, love one another earnestly. And then in chapter two, verse two, long for the pure spiritual milk. Now what's interesting is when we get to words like long for the pure spiritual milk, I hear that kind of as an exhortation. for me to, yeah, do with it maybe what I please. But I hear about longings. You're gonna command my longings? Well, that's precisely what Peter's doing. That's precisely what God does. He commands our hearts. He commands our innermost motives and desires. And the question then that we have is, how can Peter do that? We know God has the right to command our hearts, but it's my heart. I mean, At some level, you can compel someone through a command to obey something externally. But you're gonna command my heart? Command me to long for something? Command fear? Well, if I fear, I fear, right? But no, you're commanding fear. Reverence, you're commanding love. How is it possible for our hearts to be responsive, for these commands to strike the cord with us, so that we're responsive to those commands. And the answer is simple. But it's so something we need to grasp and be reminded of again and again and again. It's just this, that all of God's imperatives, and he didn't have to do this. God could command our love, even when we were still in our sins, and hardened, and stubborn, and obstinate, and resistant. And his command would be righteous, and holy, and just. Love me with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, but there will be nothing within me to respond to that. But now, all of God's commands come to me. They come to us in this context of His abounding mercies, undeserved, that He has already worked and is now working and will one day work in our lives. All of God's imperatives, remember, we did not deserve this situation. But the reality is that His imperatives are rooted now in his salvation. And certainly we see that in Peter's therefore. The two other most famous and most wonderful examples of this, it's throughout all of scripture, but we certainly see it in Romans chapter 12. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God. And those mercies are not just past mercies, they're present mercies. their future mercies. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And the same apostle in Ephesians says, I urge you, therefore. And again, it's one of those things that kind of I've grown up hearing, the therefore and its place, especially in those books. But this week, just to love just to love that God's imperatives come to me always graciously with that therefore. I a prisoner for the Lord and urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. So here in 1 Peter 1, we have a similar situation, verses 3-12, tell us how things are. It's wonderful to know how things are. Past, present, future. And now, since God's imperatives come to us in the context of those realities, I can now receive those commands with a glad and a responsive heart. Even while I'm still struggling, against, as Peter will call them, the lusts of my former ignorance. I know that I've been set free from those lusts as my master to obey now my true master. We obey not in order that we might be begotten anew. We obey because we have been begotten anew. The imperatives then versus, the problem is, and this is our tension, this is our tension because of our sin. We begin to think that the imperatives aren't quite as imperative. If it's all already accomplished. And of course, Paul has a lot to say about that in Romans, but the reality is that the indicative, well, here's, I said it here. It doesn't make the imperatives any less imperative. But these first few verses of Peter do mean that when God's commands come to us, they come to a people whose obedience has already been secured. Now, do I hear that and say, oh great, my obedience has already been secured. I can sit around and be lazy. No, no, what's obedience? It's my obedience. I must strain, I must strive. There must be a bit of blood, sweat, and tears to this. But that obedience has already been secured through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and the fullness of God's salvation. And so from that place, we can hear Peter's imperative in this verse for all of its beauty and glory. Our obedience has been secured through the free grace and love of God in Christ, who, if I could borrow from the Apostle Paul, is blessed forever and ever, amen. So therefore, having prepared 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. Now, before the imperative, before the command, we have two modifiers, they're ings. having prepared your minds for action, being sober-minded, and those modifiers are actually part of the imperative. In other words, Peter could have said, prepare your minds for action, be sober-minded, but he didn't put them in an imperative, he joined them to the main imperative, set your hope. Set your hope fully on the grace to be brought to you. But those other modifiers are still part of the imperative. They help us to understand what it looks like to hope. What it looks like to set my hope. And so, in order to get that, we have to get the first part. Peter says, first of all, if you wanna set your hope fully on the grace that's gonna be brought to you, you must, first of all, prepare your minds for action. What he says actually is having girded up the loins of your mind. People in Peter's day wore longer, long, loose fitting garments that easily would get in the way if you're wanting to run somewhere or do a certain kind of labor or work or run into battle, right? You don't wanna do that with stuff getting in the way. And so what they would often then do would be to gird up their loins. They would fold up the loose garments into their belt and give them more freedom for running or moving or whatever they need to do. And so Peter uses this very vivid picture. You have the picture in your mind? This is the Christian life. And let's just look at it in Jeremiah chapter one. He says, but you, Jeremiah, dress yourself for work. He wasn't saying go put on your work clothes. He was saying, he said literally, gird up your loins. Get ready. Arise and say to them everything that I command you. 2 Kings 9, Elisha called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, tie up your garments, gird up your loins, take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth Gilead. Nahum chapter two, the scatterer has come up against you, man the ramparts, watch the road, dress for battle, gird up your loins, literally, collect all your strength. Job 38, the Lord answered Job, who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action. Gird your loins for wrestling like a man. I will question you and you make it known to me. Now here in first Peter, what a vivid picture. We learn that if you are to set your hope fully on that grace that's coming, then you must gird up the loins of your mind. So the point is that our minds are to be prepared, we're to be in a mental state. And the biblical writers weren't making this hard and fast distinction between our minds and our hearts. So it's really just our mental approach which involves our minds and our hearts and all of our being. The point is that our minds are to be prepared at all times for a disciplined effort. Now this just flies in the face of all our desires for ease, for relaxation, right? But he's calling us here to gird up our loins. And this is what the Christian life requires. Whether we think of a battle, or a long journey, or a day's labor, we must be a people spiritually focused and resolved. The Christian life isn't something that just comes to us and just happens. It's something that is pursued. It's something that is worked at from this context of God's abounding mercies. Think of professional athletes. And we know that before each game or each event, they're in that zone, their thoughts are focused. They have indeed girded up the loins of their mind. And that's the picture Peter sets before us. So as Christians who would run the race, who would fight the fight, who would engage in the work, we must gird up the loins of our minds, we must set our minds and hearts on the task before us. It's not a neutrality thing, it's a pursuit. The Bible always speaks in terms of putting off and putting on, of fleeing and pursuing It's not a neutrality. Peter will remind us in just a moment of what the task is, but now let's look at this. He says, once we've girded up the loins of our mind, which it's basically what we would call a perfective aspect, so it's a completed action. But it doesn't mean, oh good, I've accomplished that, I've done it. I gird up the loins of my mind, past action done, I can check that off. No, it's just this idea of I need to do it and do it probably every day in a sense that, okay, done. I've done it. I've girded up the loins of my mind. And yet then Peter also wants to emphasize not only the completed action that needs to happen, but then the ongoing action. And so he brings in this imperfective picture of things when he says, and being sober minded. Being sober-minded, always. It's just the word for being sober. It's just the word for being not drunk. Don't get drunk. But we know he's obviously not just saying don't drink too much alcohol. He's talking about not being drunk in your head. Drunk in your heart. What does that look like? What does that mean? We can answer that question better when we look at the four other passages where this word is used. And it was so interesting to me that every time this word is used, there's three key ingredients. So 2 Timothy 4, the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own lusts. and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded. Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. For all those activities, you have to have girded up your loins. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. So now notice the three things. Number one, sober-minded is contrasted with the people who accumulate teachers to suit their own lusts. And so, lust is a word that refers to desires, but certainly in this case, self-seeking, self-gratifying desires of our sinful hearts. And all sin is ultimately a gratifying of our own sinful desires. All sin, of all forms. Lusts in particular, this is really important. Lusts are always, of whatever kind they are, they're always consumed and preoccupied only with the present, with the here and now. That's just the way they work. And so in opposition to those intoxicating lusts, that lead to drunkenness. Paul says that we're to be sober-minded. He says, be sober-minded, endure suffering. Pleasure-seeking people don't want to hear words like endure, right? Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. It's not enough to gird up the loins of our mind once. We must continually keep our heads in the game, as it were. But remember now, all of this comes to us in the context of a salvation past, present and future that angels can't get enough of. This is our foundation. But now there is a finish line to be reached. And we know the finish line has been assured, and so we run with all the more strenuous effort. and longing to reach it. If lusts are preoccupied only with the here and now, then being sober-minded requires a future orientation to the living of our lives. That's the difference. Lusts, drunkenness, sober-minded. All the here and now, a future orientation. Paul emphasizes that future hope when he says, henceforth, there is laid up for me. After I fought the good fight and finished the race and kept the faith to the end, there is the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. So Peter says in 1 Peter 4, now look for those ingredients again. Now you can start looking, watching for them yourself. Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human lusts, but for the will of God. For the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, lust, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. And we're like, oh good, I don't do those things. But again, the Bible speaks in polarities. And it calls us not only to avoid that polarity, but to end up at this polarity. In other words, we're not looking for the middle ground where we can be comfortable. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self-controlled, sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Once again, we see that to be sober-minded is the opposite of living to satisfy our lusts. Our self-promoting, self-satisfying desires that are only concerned completely and totally and exclusively with now. That's what lusts are. Once again, we see that sober-minded is connected with this idea of being self-controlled, watchful, awake, alert, for the sake of our prayers. And once again, we see that being sober-minded assumes a future orientation to the living of our lives. Because we have a salvation that is past, present, and that still awaits the finish line. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore, we come to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. We are not of the night, Paul says, or of the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. Don't get drunk. on this world. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." It's like, why do they keep looking to the future? How does this keep cropping up? Why all of a sudden are they back again to something that's not here yet? Because that's the orientation of a sober-minded person. Drunkenness is a picture of what it looks like whenever we give ourselves over to the here and now. That's a drunk person, spiritually. We become intoxicated. ultimately driven and controlled by those destructive desires. But again, the opposite of that drunken preoccupation with the present is to be sober-minded, awake, watchful, always ready for battle. And as Paul says, remembering that God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then last, before we come back to our passage, 1 Peter 5. Peter will say at the end of this letter, be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And again, I just love, and I'm convicted, because it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, and indeed it was, for the biblical writers to keep on reverting to the future. In the early church, there was an expectation of imminency to the coming kingdom, the consummation of the coming kingdom. The kingdom has come, but it's waiting to be consummated. And there was an expectation of imminency to that, that we, brothers and sisters, have lost. through the passage of years and centuries. And we might at some level seek to justify that or explain logically why that might be. But at the end of the day, it's disobedient to the scriptures. And so I want God to work in me that I will as quickly revert to that future orientation as we see happening over and over in these passages. Because why? Because that's the key to being sober minded in the present. To not being drunk. And Peter, whoever has suffered in the flesh, has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of time in the flesh, no longer for human lusts, but for the will of God." So what Peter says in this passage, is that in order to endure suffering faithfully, we always want the answers. How do we do this? How do we do that as a Christian? Well, here's an answer, right? In order to endure suffering faithfully in the present, we must be sober-minded. And again, sober doesn't mean, we can have a picture, a connotation to that word of looking like you think I look or something. But Peter talks about rejoicing with joy and expressible and full of glory. So if you can't fit that with your idea of sober, then your idea of sober is wrong, right? But if you can't fit resisting and turning away from the drunkenness on the here and now with being sober-minded, then that's not a wrong understanding of being sober-minded. Sober-minded is a resistance, a rejection of that preoccupation, of that obsession, wholly obsessed with the here and now. So, if we would suffer faithfully in the present, we must be sober-minded and watchful for the purpose of resisting the devil, firm in our faith. The living of my life and of yours must be fundamentally oriented toward the future. And that's where Peter says it again, after you have suffered a little while. the God of all grace, all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. So we come back then to our passage in 1 Peter chapter one. Therefore, having girded up the loins of your mind, 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, not being conformed to the lusts 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 we see in your handout what a stark contrast there is between the sober-minded living that is wholly oriented, okay? Obviously, we're not talking about being so future-minded we forget we're even living in the present. No, it is a living in the present that is wholly oriented to the future. Is your life oriented to the future? And what a contrast there is between that And the only other option that the Bible knows of, which is a drunken, lustful living, that is preoccupied with the here and now. It's impossible to fully understand Peter's second imperative. Remember there's five imperatives, we're looking at two of them, and these two come really, they're intimately related. You cannot understand the second imperative, which is be holy in all your conduct. We can't really understand what that means without understanding and embracing the first imperative, which is set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The extent of the holiness in your life is the extent to which your hope is set fully on that promise. One commentator says, Hope is seen here as the fundamental posture of Christian conduct. I don't know that that's often how we think. Hope leads one not to live profanely, but in a holy manner. Another commentator puts it this way, the certainty of our hope has a remarkable effect on our lives. Hoping Christians cannot live carelessly, seeking self-indulgence and pleasure. In other words, hope isn't just something that encourages us and comforts us. You know, even the world loves faith, hope, and love, right? But for the Christian, All of those words have a meaning they cannot have for the world, and particularly hope. Hope isn't just something that encourages us and comforts us as Christians. Hope is a powerfully effective agent for sanctifying us and purifying us. That's why Peter says hope is a non-negotiable. because holiness is a non-negotiable. It's our future hope grasped by faith that enables us to be joyfully sober-minded in this present age. On the other hand, let's turn it around, it is only by girding up the loins of our mind and being always sober-minded that we can truly be setting our hope fully, completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Notice the modifier, the ing again. Peter surrounds his imperatives with and other things that help us understand what the imperative is. And so he says, not being conformed to the lusts of your former ignorance. Now he could have said, do not be conformed to the lusts of your former ignorance, command. But it is that, it's just connected to his be holy. Well, if you're gonna be holy, you can't be conformed. The Bible teaches us that at the end of the day, there are only two kinds of desires. Polarities, remember, polarities again. There are the desires that grow out of my former ignorance, when I didn't know God, and when I was without hope in this world. And then there are the other desires, and those desires grow now out of my knowledge of God. and the hope that I have as his obedient child. The hope that you have as his obedient children. It's the first category of desires we call lusts. And again, lust is a word that describes all of those self-seeking desires that characterized my life before Christ. But that was before. Notice Peter emphasizes carefully, these were the lusts of our what? our former ignorance. Peter's not saying that we no longer have those lusts, that all the lusts were former. He's not saying we don't ever have those lusts ever now. He's saying that the ignorance from which those lusts flowed is former. We are no longer ignorant. We don't live in that ignorance anymore. Therefore, we have a set of desires that comes with the new knowledge that we have in Christ. And so what about now? If formerly we were ignorant, what are we now? Peter says that what we are now is obedient children. And I just love that because I thought, Peter, that you were just telling me to be obedient. Yes, he is. And he's telling me to be obedient as the obedient child I am. It's what we are. Because we are those who have already obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you have faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you have been fundamentally obedient. You are an obedient child. It's what we are because God himself has begotten us anew as his obedient children. And so as his obedient children that we are now. We are not to be conformed to the lusts of our 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 once again, Peter brings us back to sovereign grace. Why is it grace? Because he didn't have to do it. Why is it sovereign? Because he did it. He called us. When we were not looking to be called, did not want to be called, not by the true God at any rate. When we were still enemies, hostile, alienated, separated. He called us, and he called us not just with a call that said, hey, I'm here, do you wanna come? No, it was his call was, come. And we came. And that sovereign call has come to us from a holy God. As Paul says, we are now to walk worthy of that calling. as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Peter quotes from Leviticus where these words are repeated five times, you shall be holy for I am holy. And in Leviticus, you've got food laws and purity laws and all these things that God is typologically showing us that he's called us out to be separate. from the nations, from the world. And so the New Testament, while we don't engage in the same typological laws as Israel did, the New Testament calls us now to the fulfillment of this set apart life. To a life that's now already been lived, and this is the beauty of it. Because what is this holy living that God has called us to? this holy living became incarnate. It has been enfleshed for us in Jesus. And so now this life that's already been lived, not only for us, okay, it's been lived for us in our place, but it was lived before us so that we might walk now by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of holiness. even as Jesus walked. And I love that, because brothers and sisters, do you see the Trinity there? Do you see how the fullness of the triune God calls us to holiness? The holy God calls us. The Holy Spirit enables us. And Jesus, our Lord and Savior incarnate in the flesh, not only lived that holy life for us and in our place, but modeled that life for us that we might walk as he walked. Two imperatives, hope and holiness. You cannot have one without the other. It is not possible. Holiness flows from a hope that is set fully on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's where holiness flows from. And this hope, and this is really important, this hope is in turn entered into all the more fully. Do you want to hope more than live holy? Do you want more holiness? Set your hope. Holiness is proportionate to our hope. Hope is proportionate to our holiness. because of the riches of your salvation, past and present and future, having girded up the loins of your mind 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, not being conformed to the lusts 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. I who have called you and begotten you anew to a living hope and who am guarding you through faith for a salvation ready to be reeled in the last time for I who have called you am holy. Dear Heavenly Father, I'm thankful for speaking to me through your word, through your written word, accompanied by your spirit who illumines it and who enables me to receive it. And we are thankful together for these things. Lord, we pray that first of all you forgive us for the way that we have still been conformed to those lusts of our former ignorance. We seek through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the perfect righteous life that he lived in our place, we seek cleansing and forgiveness and restoration to wholeness. And even as we pray these things, we also then joyfully confess that as those who have obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ, as those who have been begotten anew to this living hope, we are obedient children. We are by grace. And so we pray that as the obedient children we are, we would now set our hope fully. on the grace to be brought to us when Jesus appears. May we not be intoxicated with the present, but oriented always to the future. Father, we thank you for the riches of this salvation. Help us to spend the rest of our lives, even as we will eternity, looking into this salvation. and marveling always more and more at what you've done. Let us look into it in the way we live our lives today and tomorrow and this week. We pray these things for your sake, for your honor, for your glory and with thanksgiving in Jesus' name, amen.