Hope and Fear in our Pursuit of Holiness

Text: 1 Peter 1:13–21 ESV

This week I was reminded of this story. Well it’s really a question: you are given access to the greatest machines on earth, any of them, no limitations. Someone hands you a beaker and challenges you to invent the best way, the most efficient way to get the air out of the beaker. The idea is you could design this incredible vacuum with modern technology to try and suck the air out. But none of it is better and more efficient than simply filling it with water. 

I mention that because often, when the Bible calls for us to kill sin, it's not normally or principally calling us to try to get a vacuum and suck those things out of our lives. Its main way of talking about getting sin out of our lives is to take our beaker and fill it with living water with God himself. We are to look to the beauties and realities of God. When we do, what happens is we begin to overflow with righteousness and holiness. Then we find that we've left these old things behind. 

Though the Bible does often call us to leave things behind and go forward, what I think its main method for leaving behind and going forward is for us to fill our souls with the reality of God so that we're leaving things behind and going forward. 

Here's where we're going to go as we look at 1 Peter 1:13–21. We're back in the book of First Peter, and we are going to be studying 1 Peter about every other week for most of the summer. 

We’re going to see a call to Pursue holiness using the fuel of hope and fear. So pursue holiness, and what we are pursuing to do that is pouring in hope and fear. Then I’m going to add that I think these are two of many motivations for pursuing holiness. I think here we can see a pattern for us to pursue holiness. We get the fuel for pursuing holiness by getting to know our God. As a final application, principally we get to know God through the word. Pursue holiness by knowing God principally through the word. In this passage, 1 Peter is going to call us to pursue holiness by recalling our hope and fear. 

We are going to break this down into two sections then:

1. Pursue holiness using the fuel of hope (13–16).

2. Pursue holiness using the fuel of fear (17–21). 

Let’s begin first by seeing the call to Pursue holiness out of the fuel of hope — verses 13–16.

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13–16 ESV)

We’ll be looking at this a bit in reverse because I think it will be helpful to first see the clear call to holiness. We are going to first then look at verses 14–16. Notice, right away what the call to holiness is not. This is not God saying, “Hey if you really want to get on my good side, pursue holiness.” No, listen to the language here:

• As obedient children.

• As he who is called you is holy, be holy.

• Or you shall be holy, for I am holy. 

Even look at the next verse: “If you calling him who his Father.”

Here's the picture, the picture is that we are children of God, children who absolutely love our Father. What it's saying, “As you look at him and you see his holiness, what bubbles up as his obedient children is a desire to be like your dad, to be like your father.” 

Notice that God is not trying to get us to be holy to win his favor or affection. We already have that. This is in response to that love and affection. You've seen how he loves you and cares for you, and your impulse is to say, “I want to imitate that. I want to model that.” 

This happens for my sons. It happens even in small ways. Sometimes it's not the best thing. But it can also be good. I don’t know why I started saying this, but when I see Landin, I’d say, “Hello, mate.” Guess what he now says to me, “Hello, mate.” 

He's imitating his dad. And this (at least I hope) is something he is doing not to win my affections but because he's seeing that I'm loving him, and he's just he wants to mirror that. 

Let me give you one more reason why I think this is what is happening. There is this very important word *therefore* back in verse 13—

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded” (1 Peter 1:13 ESV). 

That therefore connects this call to holiness to everything we covered a few weeks ago. Look back with me for example at 1 Peter 1:3

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Peter 1:3 ESV)

Look at those words: blessed be the God and Father who's had such great mercy and caused me to be born again. Well, that is overflowing love towards God because of the love that he first poured out on us. 

Then, the “therefore” connects that to the call to be holy. And the connection is not to be holy to win God’s favor. You already have that. Rather, the call to holiness is that you would see the beauty of God and want to imitate that. Peter is just making it explicit that this is the right response to God’s goodness.

So if we are sitting here hearing the call to be holy and saying, “Yes, that is exactly what I want. I want to be holy like my father is holy.” The next question you should be asking is: how do I do that? 

Let's go back to verses 13 to 16. Verses 14 to 16 give us the very clear call to pursue holiness. Here's 14: 

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,” (1 Peter 1:14 ESV)

That's the “get the air out of the beaker.” Flee the former passions and instead be holy. That's what you want overflowing—verses 15–16, holiness.  Now, look at verse 13 because I think it is answering one way to pursue holiness, namely, remember or hope in the promise you have coming because of Christ.  

“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.” (1 Peter 1:13 ESV)

Verse 13 transitions right into verses 14–16. I’m slowing here to show you how I’m thinking through a passage like this. Partly because I want you to be able to practice this on your own, or at least something like it on your own. Bear with me as we walk through some of these connections a bit more slowly,  showing a bit more of “my homework.” I chose 1 Peter because I took a class on this book, so I also had help. I had someone doing this alongside me. 

When I look at verse 13, I’m asking how it is connected to the call to holiness in verses 14–16. What's the connection? What does hope have to do with holiness? How are they connected? 

One of these things I do is look back at the previous occurrence of the word hope, in this case the verses we studied last time verses 3–12. Their hope fuels the fight of sin, especially in trials. So I test that theory out here, and sure enough that seems to be what Peter has in mind. 

What Peter is trying to say should have hope. Hope fully on this grace that’s coming to you — the grace which is your promised heavenly home that's yours in Christ. It's sure nothing's going to take it away. When that hope is bubbling out of your heart, you're going to begin to pursue holiness. You're going to begin to live in light of that hope.

The point is that your hope in the future changes the way you live today. What you hope for tomorrow changes the way you live today. 

For example, you show up at the train station. You know every single day the train comes at 9:55 in the morning. And it's 9:50. Okay, your hope, the sure hope that the train comes every day at 9:55 determines how you live at 9:50. You wait, and you're happy waiting. You're not impatient. You're not angry. You're not doubting. You're not scared. You look at your watch and know that in five minutes the train will come. And in five minutes it does. 

What you believe is coming in the future determines how you live today. I think Peter is just saying, when you think of the hope that belongs to you — the hope of heaven — that that is going to bubble forth in pursuing holiness—the call mentioned in vs 14–16. Here is a similar paradigm: 

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV)

You see the logic there? God is able to make future grace come your way. This future reality helps you walk into whatever situation you are in and pursue doing good.

Okay, but I’m not quite done showing my homework. If you’re thinking, “That’s great, but what if I struggle to remember this hope?” We gotta dig further. There’s more here. Look back at 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.” (1 Peter 1:13 ESV)

This question came up in Life Group, but I did not know the answer. I look at verse 13, and see: “therefore prepare your minds for action and being sober minded, set your help fully on the grace.” My question was: what in the world are those? What does that mean? What does that have anything to do with hope? Preparing your minds for action and being sober minded? What is the connection of that to set your hope? What's the logic there? What's Peter trying to say? 

Here’s what I do: I have a discussion at Life Group. I stare at these verses over and over. In this case, I also look back at my notes. I took a class on first Peter and the resources from it that my professor helpfully published online. I look back and study and looking back and try to see connections. I'm looking and reading commentators, and all of a sudden, it just begins to click for me. 

Here's what happens: I see, now preparing your mind for action and being sober minded. Then, I see in verse 14, a former ignorance. Those are mind words. Those are things in my mind. As obedient children, don't be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. 

My former sin in verse 14 is coming from ignorance. When I wasn't a Christian, when I didn't know God, I had no knowledge of him. My passions were informed by an ignorance of God. Now, I'm a Christian, so I need to be filling my mind with other things, God things. 

When I wasn't a Christian, when I was filling it with non Christian things, non Christian passions were coming. If I'm a Christian, and I'm filling it with God things, God passions are coming. When I follow God-passions, holiness comes with it. 

Here's what I think the logic is in 13–16. I think what he's saying is preparing your minds for action and being sober minded. What's the opposite of being sober minded? Being drunk. Your mind's not clear. You can't think straight. Wobbly. 

Having a clear, sober mind on the things of God, truth — not former ignorances but new realities filling my mind. If I fill my mind with those realities, what's in my head is going to go down into my heart and it's going to bubble up and it's going to produce things like hope, fully in the grace of a promised new home. When that hope bubbles up, what's going to happen? As an obedient child, I won’t follow my former ignorance but I will follow holiness. Here’s how Ephesians puts it: 

“to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV)

To put it another way, when I see the call to be holy, I think, “I really want to do that, but I need help.” First Peter seems to be saying, “great, here is one help—remember the hope of your future inheritance.” 

Then I respond, “Hey, that’s good and all, but what if I’m struggling to remember that hope.” First Peter responds, “I’ve got you, bro.” Just set your mind on these things. Literally, read them over until your mind is thinking clearly about them. When that happens, you will find that hope emerges and then holiness follows. 

Here is how that works with killing sin. I used the analogy of an orphan last time. Here’s another one I thought of: I can usually go for a delicious burger and fries to satisfy my appetite. But if it is noon on the day of Thanksgiving dinner, which I’ve been smelling cook all morning and ready in two hours, I’m not tempted. What’s coming is helping me kill “temptation” at the moment. If someone walks in the room and says, “Hey, anyone want to go to Burger King real quick to grab a bite to eat.” I have zero temptation to say yes. I might in fact be really hungry. And no doubt that burger and fries would fill me up. But I have no interest. Why? Because I have a very real hope of something far greater — Thanksgiving dinner. 

Hope does that to lust, gossip, slander, etc. You can leave those behind when you remember hope that feels far greater. Go back to that summary sentence: Pursue holiness using the fuel of hope (13–16). I really hope you see how practical this can be in helping you stir up that hope. 

Now the one thing that I want to add is that the principal way that we are going to add fuel to our minds is to soak in God’s word. We’ll come back to that. 

Let's go look at verses 17 through 21. In the first verses, we saw that hope fuels holiness. Here we are going to see fear fuel holiness. Look at verses 17–19:

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” (1 Peter 1:17–19 ESV)

Don needs help pursuing holiness. We need help to pursue holiness. Help number two: conduct yourselves in fear. What does it mean to fear? We might be tempted to say that it is simply God's going to judge your deeds, so you better fear that judgment and stay in line to try and avoid it. But let’s dig in because I think it is saying much more. 

Again, these are just insights straight from class. I needed help seeing this, but this was helpful for me, and I hope it will be helpful for you. Surrounding this call for fear are words like Father, which we just saw. He's a loving, gracious, kind, father. And, in verse 18, “knowing that you were ransom from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” And that feels weird.

Let me try to explain why this feels weird. It feels like the Bible says to conduct yourselves in fear, like fear that God is going to be judging your deeds. But what it surrounds that verse with is the fact that you have no reason to be afraid. You don’t need to be afraid because he's a father who loves you. You also have no reason to be afraid because he's ransom you. He's paid your debt. Why then should we fear?

Let me just paint the reality for us. As Christians, here's the truth. God will judge your deeds, and your deeds on their own will fall short. What the Bible is saying to you is it's okay because Christ paid your debt. Listen to how it goes on in verses 20–21:

“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (1 Peter 1:20 ESV)

God knew this far ahead of time: you would need a savior. He looked down, and he said, “This guy right here, this guy, he's a sinner, and he needs help. I’m going to send my Son, for him, and for other sinners.” And then listen to 21:

“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.” (1 Peter 1:21 ESV)

Let me just be very clear to Christians, and I will need to be clear to non-Christians. This call in this passage to pursue holiness, you need to hear loud and clear: you will fall short. 

You have one answer, and here it is, God's Son — your faith and hope are in God. I want you to know this morning that, if you're a Christian, that's true for you. I want you to know that, if you're not a Christian, I want that to be true for you. There is no other hope that you have. And if you turn to Christ, you can have hope and faith in Him alone. Go back to verse 17: 

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear.” (1 Peter 1:17 ESV) 

The question is what? Peter, you just said, I have nothing to fear because the Son of God has ransomed me. So yes, this God will judge my deeds, but I'm alright. Grace covers me. Shouldn't you conduct yourselves maybe in hope and excitement? But it says fear. So why? What does that mean? 

I found this analogy from class helpful: we should, as believers, fear treating this gift of God’s ransom as trash. We should fear that we would disregard it, and trample on it. We should look at how this ransom has been paid, and say “I want to live in a way that accords with that”, and not in a way that just says, “It doesn’t matter.” And defile that ransom. Here's the image:

Imagine that a dad gets a call, that his daughter has been kidnapped. And the ransom is a million dollars. He needs to bring it into a field, and she's going to come get the money, bring it back, then she'll be free. She can come home. Come back to her dad. The dad gets the call, but he doesn't have a million dollars just sitting around. He goes and sells everything. He sells his house. He takes out any loan possible. He gets rid of any valuable possessions. 

In the case of this Scripture, of course, God sends his Son. But back to our example. The dad, he's broke. He's in debt, but he's got a million dollars now. He takes the million dollars, and he goes to the field. He drops it like he's agreed. The daughter comes out, grabs the money, and takes it back. But rather than running straight back into her dad's arms, thankful for the gift, the ransom, she says, “Sucker.” And walks out with her boyfriend and the money.

That’s the idea. Fear doing that. Fear, Christian, hearing that your ransom is paid and then living however you want. Look at your life. Look at the things you do and cry out for help so that you don’t ever do that. Look at Psalm 139:23–24

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24 ESV)

This says that you cry out because you would fear doing anything that would defile the ransom that God paid. Peter is trying to say, as obedient children, we'd be those who imitate our father. How? Well, hope is going to help us. Fear is going to help us. 

I want to add that I think these are just two examples of fuel for our pursuit of holiness. I think we can learn a general principle here. We pursue holiness by knowing our God. In that case, here's two examples from 1 Peter — hope and fear. He is showing how they fuel our pursuit of holiness. But we can look at any aspect of God and use that as fuel to pursue holiness. 

The idea is that you don't have to stop with just hope and fear. There's thousands of things we can learn about our God. And when we learn about them, about who he is, and see his character, every one of them adds fuel to us being obedient children who follow him. So I'm coming into the summer and saying, God, I want to be like you. Give me every tool possible, to know you, to love you, that I might imitate you. 

We’re going to close with a call to dig into God’s word. Here's John 6:63:

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63 ESV)

After this, a bunch of people leave Jesus. Jesus then turns to Peter, who is writing this letter, and the other 12, and he asks, “Do you guys want to leave?” Peter answers in verse 68:

“Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,”” (John 6:68 ESV)

The main way that we empty the beaker of air (the former things) is to fill it with the living word, God’s word—the Bible. God's strength. The central fountain that we drink from today. 

This summer, as a church, we’ll be reading through the New Testament. I'm not trying to point to a verse and a reference that says, “You’ve got to read the Bible every day, you've got to read the New Testament in the summer of 2021.” Rather, I want you to hear this morning that you have a way that you can soak in this Living Word that will let you know God. And as you know him, his emotions are going to bubble up, like hope and fear. And it's going to produce in you holiness. 

I want you to come say, “I'm hungry.” Because I want to be like my God, and I need help. Here's your lifeline. Here it is in your hands — reading through the New Testament, to know our God. We want to be a church that is soaking in the Word of God. 

I want to remind you, our best efforts at knowing God, and our best efforts of producing holiness will fall short. God has given us an answer. Our faith and hope are in God — in a ransom that pays our debt when our holiness falls short.

Benediction: 

“The LORD bless you and keep you;

 the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

 the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)