February 17, 2008

Salvation…Then What? (Hope)
1 Peter 1:13-16

I. Introduction

One day at a cafe, a woman suddenly called out, "My daughter's choking! She swallowed a nickel! Please, anyone,
please help!"

Immediately a man at a nearby table rushed up to her and said he was experienced in these situations. He calmly
stepped over to the girl and, with a look of complete unconcern, wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. Out
popped the nickel.

The man returned to his table as if nothing had happened.

"Thank you!" effused the mother. "Tell me, are you a doctor?"

"No," said the man. "I work for the IRS."

In 1 Peter 1:13-25 there are four exhortations that Peter puts before his readers.

In summary they are: be hopeful, be holy, fear God, and love your fellow Christian.

These exhortations are grounded in his earlier reflection on the nature of our salvation, and they are concerned with how
we should live as followers of Christ in a non-Christian world.

Over the next four weeks that I speak, we are going to look at each of these. I could do more, but I would like to leave
you with one primary idea to meditate on and study each week.

In fact, I would encourage you to go home each week and do your own study and prayerful meditation on the
topic addressed.

“Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ
will bring you when he is revealed. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is
written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:13-16, NRSV)

II. A Call to Action

Set all your hope on grace.

How many here could use a good dose of hope today?

In other words, things may not be looking too good right now. In fact, every time you get a little ahead or you feel like you are about to turn a corner – wham! Something else just slams into your life and you feel like you are lying on the mat just waiting for the eight count.

8-7-6-5… you feel like time is running out on your life.

Peter through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has a word for you today.

“…set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.” (1:13)

Hope… what exactly is it?

The dictionary definition reads: “to desire with an expectation of obtainment; to expect with confidence.”

If there is no hope – then for a huge percentage of the world there is no reason to live. But we do have hope!

We have a hope that when we die, no matter what has happened in this life Jesus Christ will wipe away every tear and
make every wrong thing right (Revelation 21:4).

Because of this we can have grateful hearts today because we view life in the context of eternity.

We understand that “even if now for a little while [we] have had to suffer various trials… [we] are receiving the outcome
of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls.” (1 Peter 1:6-9, NRSV)

Like the joy we celebrated two weeks ago – hope is life-sustaining. In fact, to follow Christ is life-sustaining (love, joy, peace, hope…we have no reason to walk around as living dead people!)

But hope seems hard to hold on to, doesn’t it? It seems so easy to fall back under the weight of our struggles,
temptations and difficulties.

This is why the passage says, “set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you…”

In other words, this is a call to action – we do not have hope because we are apathetic and passive.

We must fix ourselves on Jesus Christ. When we look away, we quickly lose hope.

Peter uses two phrases that lead up to and emphasize the need to set all our hope on Jesus.

First, he says, “prepare your minds for action.” Literally this translates, “gird up the loins of your mind.”

This image is taken from the long robes worn by the Greeks that made it difficult to run. If they needed to run quickly they prepared by lifting up the robe and tucking it into the belt around their waste (loins).

A modern-day equivalent would be “roll your sleeves up and get to work.”

The second phrase is “discipline yourselves” or again more literally “be sober.”
When you are drunk, what happens? You do not think clearly and you lack judgment.

Unfortunately, many people lead their lives not thinking clearly and lacking good sense.

Here Peter is saying just the opposite: discipline your mind.

Be aware of what you are thinking about and what you are focused on.

Finally, Peter says that we are to set all our hope on the grace that will be revealed.

Another way to say this is that we set our hope completely on that grace.

Anticipation is a wonderful gift from God – it adds a lot to life.

As children we anticipate Christmas, as teenagers we anticipate the freedom we will have driving a car, as young adults
we anticipate marriage, as newly married couples we anticipate children, etc.

I go fishing and hope to catch fish. I go backpacking and hope it does not rain. I watch the Seahawks and hope they win.

But there is one thing consistent in all of these hopes. In each of them I can be disappointed. If I set all my hope on any of them, I will most likely set myself up for disastrous disappointment.

And this is what happens to all who do not set all their hope on the grace of Jesus Christ – they will be disappointed.

Even for those who are wildly successful in this life – if they have not put their hope completely in Christ – death will ultimately rob them of everything and they will face an eternity of disappointment.

III. Application

Finally, it is important for me to add that Christian hope is not an excuse to disconnect from the present.

In fact, hope should have the opposite effect – it should deeply impact the present.

In the early 1960s, the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote a book called “Theology of Hope.”

This work takes as its assumption that true Christian faith can only have its transforming effect on the individual, on society and on the world when it is rooted in a vision of hope.

“From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue,” wrote Moltmann, “Christianity is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present.”

In Moltmann's view, to live in hope does not mean that one lives in a state of disconnectedness from the present because
of some expectation of a greater although unrealized future; rather, to live with a vision of hope gives a person—and the church—the inspiration and the motivation to change those things in our society and in our personal life that are not in line with that envisioned hope.

However, if you want this kind of hope you must completely and utterly put your trust in Jesus Christ – this will help you keep your present life in perspective of eternity.

But this is not a one-time commitment. Every day when you get up, you need to roll your sleeves up (prepare your minds for action) and discipline yourself to set all your hope on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through
whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5, NRSV)